The bride is pale and reluctant, and advances with downcast eyes, which she raises only when she stands opposite Gutrune and Siegfried, and hears the latter’s name.  Dropping Gunther’s hand, she rushes forward impetuously to throw herself in Siegfried’s arms, but, arrested by his cold unrecognising glance, she tremblingly inquires how he came there, and why he stands by Gutrune’s side?  Calmly then Siegfried announces his coming marriage:—­

   ’Gunther’s winsome sister
    She that I wed
    As Gunther thee.’

Brunhilde indignantly denies her marriage to Gunther, and almost swoons, but Siegfried supports her, and, although Brunhilde softly and passionately asks him if he does not know her, the young hero indifferently hands her over to Gunther, bidding him look after his wife.

At a motion of his hand, Brunhilde’s attention is attracted to the ring, and she angrily demands how he dare wear the token which Gunther wrested from her hand.

Bewildered by this question, Siegfried denies ever having received the ring from Gunther, and declares he won it from the dragon in the Neidhole; but Hagen, anxious to stir up strife, interferes, and elicits from Brunhilde an assurance that the hero can have won the ring only by guile.

A misunderstanding now ensues, for while Brunhilde in speaking refers to their first meeting, and swears that Siegfried had wooed and treated her as his wife, he, recollecting only the second encounter, during which he acted only as Gunther’s proxy, denies her assertions.

Both solemnly swear to the truth of their statement upon Hagen’s spear, calling the vengeance of Heaven down upon them in case of perjury.  Then the interrupted wedding festivities are resumed, for Gunther knows only too well by what fraud his bride was obtained, and thinks the transformation has not been complete enough to blind the wise Brunhilde.

As Siegfried gently leads Gutrune away into the hall, whither all but Hagen, Gunther, and Brunhilde follow him, the latter gives way to her extravagant grief.  Hagen approaches her, offering to avenge all her wrongs, and even slay Siegfried if nothing else will satisfy her, and wipe away the foul stain upon her honour.  But Brunhilde tells him it is quite useless to challenge the hero, for she herself had made him invulnerable to every blow by blessing every part of his body except his back.  This she deemed useless to protect, as Siegfried, the bravest of men, never fled from any foe:—­

   ’Hagen.

    So wounds him nowhere a weapon?

    Brunhilde.

    In battle none:—­but still
    Bare to the stroke is his back
    Never—­I felt—­
    In flight he would find
    A foe to be harmful behind him,
    So spared I his back from the blessing.’

Her resentment against Siegfried has reached such a pitch, however, that she finally hails with fierce joy Hagen’s proposal to slay him in the forest on the morrow.  Even Gunther acquiesces in this crime, which will leave his sister a widow, and they soon agree that it shall be explained to Gutrune as a hunting casualty.