der ring des nibelungen - Fantasy Castle Books

DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN
(“The Ring of the Nibelungs”)
by Richard Wagner
Prelude: The Rhinegold
Argument.
(as given by Jameson)
Scene I. The depths of the Rhine. Three Rhine-maidens guard the magical Rhine-gold which lies on the top of a rock. Alberich, a Nibelung,
approaches and, fascinated by their beauty, clumsily and unsuccessfully makes love to each in turn. The sun rises and the Rhine-gold, touched
by its rays, floods the waters with golden light. Alberich, astonished, is told by the maidens of the magic power of the gold and how a ring
made of it confers unmeasured power on its possessor, if he forswears love. Alberich, enraged and disappointed in his wooing curses love and
steals the gold. The scene changes to:
Scene II. An open place from which across the Rhine the newly built castle, Walhall, is visible. Wotan and Fricka lie asleep. On waking, Wotan
greets the castle, but Fricka reproachfully reminds him of the price to be paid to the Giants for building it, viz: the goddess Freia, the apples
from whose garden confer eternal yo9uth on the gods, if eaten daily. Freia enters, pursued by Fasolt and Fafner: the giants, who demand her
as the promised reward of their work. Wotan temporizes with them until the entrance of Loge, the fire god, who has engaged to save the
goddess. Tempted by Loge’s account of the marvels of the Rhine-gold, the giants offer to take it in lieu of Freia, whom, however, they take
away with them as a hostage until Wotan pays the gold. Wotan and Loge depart for Nibelheim. The scene changes to:
Scene III. Nibelheim, the subterranean home of the Nibelungs. Wotan and Loge find Mime, Alberich’s brother, bewailing the fate of the
Niblungs, groaning under the tyranny Alberich exercises through the power of the Ring. Alberich enters presently and is induced by Loge to
exhibit the virtues of the “Tarnhelm”, a wishing cap, just made by Mime. He first transforms himself into a serpent, and then into a toad in
which form he is seized by Wotan and, on returning to his own shape, bound and carried off. The scene changes to:
Scene IV. An open place, as in Scene II. Alberich dragged in by Loge, is forced to deliver up the hoard of gold he has amassed, together with
the Tarnhelm and the Ring. When then released from his bonds, he solemnly curses the Ring and all future possessors of it and departs. Fricka,
Donner and Froh enter, followed soon by the Giants who bring Freia back. They refuse to release her until fully paid and claim the Ring as
well as the hoard and the Tarnhelm. This Wotan refuses, but warned by Erda, the all-wise one, who rises from the earth, he at length gives it
up. The giants quarrel over the possession of the Ring and Fafner kills his brother Fasolt with a stroke of his club and carries off the gold.
Donner then calls the clouds together and, on the clearing away of the storm, a rainbow bridge is seen across the Rhine over which the gods
pass to Walhall, as the plaints of the Rhine-maidens for the loss of the gold arise from the river far below.
Commentaries derived from:
(1) Gustav Kobbé, “How to Understand Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung” (1895)
(2) Richard Aldrich, “A Guide to The Ring of the Nibelung” (1905)
(3) William C. Ward, “A Study of the inner Significance of Richard Wagner’s Music-Drama” (1889; revised for reprint 1904)
(4) Gertrude Hall Brownell, “The Wagnerian Romances” (1907)
(5) Jessie L. Weston, The Legends of the Wagner Drama: Studies in Mythology (1896)
(6) George Theodore Dippold, “Richard Wagner's Poem ... Explained” (1888)
Ward’s Introduction (1904).
The contest between light and darkness forms the subject of innumerable myths, varied according to the circumstances and character of the nations among
which they were developed. But the great myths of antiquity may be rightly interpreted in relation to more than one plane of existence, and by no means solely,
or even chiefly, in relation to the physical plane. The actual origin of mythology is lost to us in the distance of prehistoric time, but as far back as we are ble to
trace it there seems little reason to doubt that it possessed a spiritual significance. Questionless, to our ancestors of the early myth-making ages the wondrous
sights and sounds of the phenomenal world appealed with a force foreign to our own jaded minds. From an intense sensibility to the life and movement of nature
they endowed the objects of their wonder with all the attributes of personal and sentient beings. The earth, the water, and the air were populated with hosts of
living creatures who, to the qualities proper to the objects of which—or rather, of the life in which—they were personifications, added the passions and emotions
of humanity. Yet perhaps at no period to which we can point was the resemblance between the external life of nature and the inner life of the soul of man wholly
unrecognized, and the most ancient myths may be held to symbolize, on their different planes, both the one and the other. Their physical interpretation—as of the
sun dispelling the darkness of night, or awakening the earth from its wintry slumber—remain valid in its own field as a part of the truth, and as itself symbolic of
a higher truth. For the contest of light and darkness on the physical plane is but the counterpart of a similar context on the mental and moral planes. Indeed, as an
ancient philosopher has observed (Sallust, De Diis et Mundo, c: III.), what is the visible world itself but a myth, suggesting by sensible symbols the truths of that
invisible world in which existence is not phenomenal, but real—the world of Mind and Soul?
But, from many causes, it often happens that the mythological traditions of antiquity which have been handed down to us, have reached us in a form
differing doubtless considerably from that in which they were primarily conceived. In the course of ages the original meaning of a myth would become lost; the
names applied to the various personifications, and once expressive of their various attributes, would no longer convey their original sense to a people whose very
language perhaps had changed, but would become regarded as proper names merely. Poets would take up the materials already, it may be, unavoidably altered in
passing down from generation to generation, and would mould them anew according to their own fancy or inspiration. Moreover, names borrowed from the old
myths would, particularly when their meaning was forgotten, be bestowed upon mortal men, and the fame of their deeds, when the lapse of time had drawn
before them a veil of partial oblivion, would be reflected back upon the myths themselves. Thus, for example, in the Nibelungen Lied, the old German version of
the legend which supplied Wagner with the materials for his Nibelung’s Ring, the original tradition has been so bedecked with stories of Mediæval chivalry and
dim reminiscences of history, that, although it can still be partially discriminated, few of the pristine features remain. Wagner, therefore, for the materials of his
poem, had recourse to the older and more primitive form of the story preserved in the Norse Eddas and the Volsunga Saga. It is believed, however, that the
legend existed at a still earlier period in Germany, whence it was carried to the North, there to be adopted and secured when lost to its native land. But even here
the root is not reached. The beginning of the immortal tale was doubtless shaped in that prehistoric age when our Aryan progenitors still dwelt in their Asiatic
homes. When they separated and migrated the myth gradually assumed different forms with each branch of the race; and where the Greeks tell of the victory of
Apollo over the Python, of Hercules over the Dragon of the Hesperides, and many other stories, all symbolizing in various aspects the triumph of Light over
Darkness, the Teutonic races speak of Siegfried’s contest with the Serpent Fafner, or of Beowulf’s slaying of the Fire-Drake.
But the investigation of ancient folk-lore is not our present object. Our task is to inquire into the manner in which Wagner has succeeded in connecting the
old-time legend of his adoption with the life of our own day, its aspirations and beliefs; in re-animating it with a spiritual significance, true, not only for the past,
but for the present and for all time to come—a significance, it may be, dimly adumbrated, it may be, in some of its principal features, clearly comprehended by
the ancient seers who modeled in bygone ages the wondrous tale [note: it should be noticed that although Wagner has, in the main, followed the great outlines of
the Norse legend, he has modified them wherever it seemed desirable, in order to express more clearly his thought; also that the drama is filled with significant
details, often introduced or applied with a purpose entirely his own]. But this, at all events, is beyond our scope. It suffices us to know that by the genius of
Richard Wagner, the inner meaning of the great Teutonic legend was for the first time brought home to the heart and made intelligible to the intellect of the
nineteenth century.
The true subject, then, of the Nibelung’s Ring is the gradual progress of the human soul, its contests, its victories and defeats, and its ultimate redemption by
the power of Divine Love. We find the same idea underlying antecedent works of the author, although in the Ring more than elsewhere it is consistently
developed into a history of Humanity from the earliest dawn of individual consciousness to the final attainment of a purely spiritual existence. In the Nibelung’s
Ring, as I trust I shall be able to show, we have a poem of which the main purport is distinctly allegorical, and which is built upon a deep foundation of spiritual
truth. Few artists have been so consistently faithful as Wagner to the principle which he himself proclaimed (in Religion and Art),—that “Art has fulfilled her
true mission only when she has led to comprehension of the inner sense by ideal presentment of the allegorical form.”