der ring des nibelungen - Fantasy Castle Books

MIME.
LOGE.
MIME.
LOGE.
MIME.
But, Mime, to bind thee
what bred him the might?
With evil wit welded Alberich,
of gold he wrung from the Rhine, a ring;
at its stubborn spell we stammer and stumble;
with it bridles he all
of us Nibelungs now to his bent.
Once in our forges freely we welded
gifts for our women, winningest gear;
neatly like Niblungs we toiled,
and laughed for love of the time.
Now hotly he works us
in holes and in hollows;
for him alone we hammer and live.
Through the golden ring
his greed can guess
what ore unhewn is withheld in the earth;
then straight we must strike it, grovel and stir it;
we smelt the booty and smite at the bars,
without room or rest,
to heap our ruler the hoard.
What laggard was latest under his lash?
He looks on me, alas! without mercy;
a helm he wished heedfully welded;
he hinted well the way he would have it.
I marked in mind what boundless might
must be in the work, as I wove the brass;
so, hoped to save the helm for myself,
and in its force from Alberich's fetter be free
perhaps, yes perhaps,
outwit my unwearying header
with fetters to rise and befall him
the ring wrench from his finger
so that, then, such as I find him,
a master in me he might feel!
What let thy wisdom limp by the way?
Ah, though the helm I had welded,
the wonder, that in it hides,
I read not aright how to hit!
Who bespoke the work,
and spoiled it away,
he led me to learn,
when truly too late,
what a trick lurked in the toy;
from my face he faded,
and blows, that from nowhere
known abounded, I bore.
For such, my unthoughtful self I thank!
(With cries, he rubs his back. The gods laugh.)
LOGE (to Wotan).
To seize, not light at least he seems.
WOTAN.
But the foe, ere fail thy wits, must fall.
MIME (struck with the laughter of the gods examines them
more carefully).
Who are you that stir me
so strongly for answers ?
LOGE.
Friends to thy kin; we come to free
the Nibelungs forth from their need.
(Alberich' s scolding and beating approach again.)
MIME.
Heed to yourselves! He is at hand!
WOTAN.
We wait for him here.
(He seats himself quietly on a stone; Loge leans at his side.
Alberich, who has taken the tarn-helm from his head and
hung it in his girdle, with the swing of his whip drives
before him a crowd of Nibelungs upwards from the lower
hollow; they are laden with gold and silver treasure which,
under Alberich' s continued abuse and blame, they store all
in a pile and so heap to a hoard.)
ALBERICH.
To-wards! Away!
Hihi! Hoho! Lazy lot,
here aloft heighten the hoard!
Thou there! On high! Hinder not thus!
Harassing herd, down with it hither!
Am I to help you? All of it here!
(he suddenly sees Wotan and Loge)
Hi! Who beholds? What walks this way?
Mime! To me, rubbishing rogue!
Ply'st thou thy tongue
with the trespassing pair ?
Forth, thou failer!
Hence to thy forge and thy hammer!
(With strokes of his whip he drives Mime in among the
Mime.
Loge.
Mime.
Loge.
Mime.
But, Mime, to bind thee,
what gave him the power?
By evil craft moulded Alberich
from yellow gold of the Rhine a ring:
at its mighty spell we tremble in wonder;
by that now he enthralls us,
the Nibelungs' darksome host. —
Blithely we smiths once worked at our anvils,
forged for our women trinkets so fair.
delicate Nibelung toys:
we lightly laughed at our toil.
The wretch now compels us
to creep into caverns,
for him alone we ever must toil.
Through the ring of gold
his greed still descries
where'er new treasure lies hid in the clefts:
there must we all seek it, trace it and dig it,
to melt the booty, to forge him the gold,
with no peace nor rest
for him to heap up the hoard.
Just now, then, an idler wakened his ire!
Poor, Mime, ah! my fate was the hardest.
A helm of mail had I to forge him;
with care he gave commands for its making.
My wit conceived the mighty power
that lay in the work I had forged of steel;
the helm I fain had held for my own;
to use the spell to free me from Alberich's sway:
perchance — yes, perchance
the tyrant himself to o'ermaster
and place him by guile in my power;
the ring then had I ravished,
that, as a slave now I serve him,
in thrall he should then be to me!
And wherefore, wise one, didst thou not thrive?
Ah! though the work I fashioned,
the magic that lurks therein,
the magic I guessed not aright.
He who planned the work
which then he seized,
he taught me, alas,
— but now all too late —
what a spell lay in the helm.
From my sight he vanished;
but, lurking unseen,
sharp strokes he showered on me.
Such pay for my pains I, fool, did win!
(He rubs his back. WOTAN and LOGE laugh.)
Loge (to WOTAN).
Confess, not light will be our task.
Wotan.
But the foe will fall, if thou but help!
Mime
(observes the gods more attentively).
What mean all your questions?
who are ye then, strangers?
Loge.
Friends to thee; from all their need
the Niblungen folk we shall free!
(MIME, on bearing ALBERICH's approach, shrinks back
frightened.)
Mime.
Wotan.
Look to yourselves; Alberich nears.
We wait for him here.
WOTAN seats himself quietly on a stone. — ALBERICH,
who has removed the Tarnhelm from his head and hung it
on his girdle, drives before him with brandished whip a
host of NIBLUNGS from the caverns below. They are laden
with gold and silver handiwork which, under Alberich's
continuous abuse and scolding, they heap together so as to
form a large pile.
Alberich.
Hither! Thither!
Hehe! Hoho! Lazy herd!
There in a heap pile up the hoard!
Thou there, go up! Wilt thou get on?
Indolent folk, down with the treasure!
Shall I, then, help you? Here with it all!
(He suddenly perceives WOTAN and LOGE.)
Hey! who is there? What guests are these? —
Mime, to me! Pestilent wretch!
Pratest thou here
with the vagabond pair?
Off, thou sluggard!
Back to thy smelting and smithing!
(He drives MIME with blows of his whip into the crowd of
possesses the properties of rendering its wearer invisible, and of
endowing him with twelve men’s strength. The Tarnhelm is a
favourite subject of Aryan myth and legend. In the Iliad it appears as
the helmet of Hades, wherewith Athena hides herself that she may
take part, unseen, in the battle against Troy (Iliad, v., 845). Out of the
dark nether world the “daughters three” of Hesperus procure it for
Perseus, that by its aid he may overcome the dreadful Gorgon. And
lastly, it is the cloud wherewith the Homeric Gods envelope their
favourite heroes, the veil wherein Khriemhild, in the Heldenbuch,
wraps her betrothed Siegfried, to withdraw them from the adverse
fight.
Already, then, we perceive in our poem the presence of three
opposing principles. First, the Gods, representing the higher, or
spiritual, development of human nature (I do not, of course, intend to
suggest that in these Gods is embodied the height of spiritual
wisdom, attainable only through their downfall; but the creeds of even
the rudest people may be regarded as embodying so much of
spiritual knowledge as the minds of men in that state are capable of.];
secondly, the Giants,—the element of mere ignorance; and thirdly,
the Nibelungs, the lowest or sensual element, becoming actively
pernicious under the influence of the Spirit of Evil,—Alberich. Then
we have the Spirit of Deceit,—Loge, the pretended friend and actual
destroyer of each in turn, the giver of evil counsel to the higher
powers, of capacity for active evil to the lower (in the deepest sense,
sin is always a consequence of self-deception). It is the fire of Loge
which heats the Devil’s furnaces, wherein at his bidding our baser
impulses are ever forging the noxious and illusory temptations of the
material world (see Loge’s address to Alberich, Rheingold, sc.3). It is
Loge who enkindles in our higher nature the wasting flames of
ambition and vain-glory, whereby the noblest expressions of human
thought, the religious creeds of all ages—here symbolized in Wotan
and the Gods—become gradually corrupted, until their vitality has
perished, and they are ultimately consumed in the fire of their own
self-deceit, to be replaced by a purer faith—the religion of Infinite
Love. And finally, the Ring, by virtue of which all the evil is wrought,
represents the perversion of the soul’s activity from universal to
separate and selfish aims. It stands thus for selfishness, egoism, the
beginning of all crime in the material world, and corresponds with
Walhall, the emblem of selfish power and sovereignty, and the
consequent seed of downfall in the spiritual world. Alberich’s
tyrannical rule over the Nibelungs denotes the bitterness and
restlessness of her dominion whose wages are Death.
At the stage at which we have now arrived, the Gods already have
obtained, by the aid of man’s ignorance, an undue supremacy,
symbolized in the fortress Walhall. Undue, we will call it, because it is
to be distinctly understood that the Gods are not here intended as
types of the Eternal Verities, but only of those limited ideas of the
motive powers of the universe which proceed from the human
imagination; and therefore when they—when any religious creeds—
commence to enclose themselves within the Walhall walls of
dogmatism, and to impose these limitations upon the minds of their
votaries—as what creeds do not?—the hours of their existence are
already numbered, and the day of their doom is surely, if slowly,
approaching. The loss of their freedom, the bond that binds them to
ignorance, is their actual death-warrant, whatever temporary power
and unreal splendor it may lend them. The “Runes of Bargain” in
Wotan’s spear-shaft mark his present sovereignty at the price of ruin
hereafter. (3)
Mime has been left crouching and whimpering on the rocky floor.
Thus Wotan and Loge find him. Loge is in all the following scene
Wotan's very active vizier, furnishing the invention and carrying out
the stratagems. Wotan, except to the eye, takes the background and
has little to say; but as the blue of his mantle and the fresh chaplet on
his locks strike the eye refreshingly in the fire-reddened cave, so his
voice, with echoes in it of the noble upper world, comes like gusts of
sweet air.
Loge sets the cowering dwarf on his feet and by artful questions gets
the whole story from him of the ring and the Nibelungs' woe. About
the Tarnhelm, too, Mime tells Loge. At the recollection of the stripes
he has suffered, he rubs his back howling. The gods laugh. That
gives Mime the idea that these strangers must be of the great. He is
in his turn questioning them, when he hears Alberich's bullying voice
approaching. He runs hither and thither in terror and calls to the
strangers to look to themselves, Alberich is coming! Wotan quietly
seats himself on a stone to await him. (4)
19. Alberich’s Cry of Triumph
Then Alberich, who has taken off the tarnhelmet and hung it
from his girdle, is seen in the distance, driving a crowd of
Nibelungs before him from the caves below. They are laden
with gold and silver, which he forces them to pile up in one
place and so form a hoard. He suddenly perceives Wotan and
Loge. After abusing Mime for permitting strangers to enter
Nibelheim, he commands the Nibelungs to descend again into
the caverns in search of new treasure for him. They hesitate.
You hear the Ring Motive. Alberich draws the ring from his
finger, stretches it threateningly toward the Nibelungs and
commands them to obey the ring’s master. The Nibelungs
disperse in headlong flight and with Mime rush back into the
cavernous recesses. (1)
Alberich enters, full of his triumph, and now certain of his
mastery over the race of dwarfs, expressed through the motive
of Alberich’s cry of Triumph, developed out of the Motive of
the Menial. The ensuing conversation with Loge and Wotan is
accompanied largely by Loge’s chromatic motive. (2)
Alberich enters driving before him with his scourge a whole army of
little huddling, hurrying Nibelungs, groaning under the weight of great
pieces of gold and silver smithwork, which, while he threatens and
urges them, they heap in a duskily glimmering mound. In the fancy
that they are not obeying fast or humbly enough, he takes the magic
ring from his finger, kisses and lifts it commandingly over them,
whereupon with cries of dismay they scramble away, scattering down
the shafts, in feverish haste to be digging and delving. Heavy groans
are in the music when it refers to the oppression of the Nibelungs;
groans so tragic and seriously presented that they bring up the
thought of other oppressions and killing labours than those of the
Nibelungs. The music which later depicts the amassing of riches,
indicates such horror of strain, such fatigue, such hopeless weariness
of heart and soul, that the hearer must think with sharpened
sympathy of all that part of humanity which represents the shoulder
placed against the wheel.
Alberich turns an angry eye upon the intruders: "What do you
want?" It is then most especially that the calm notes of Wotan fall