Moved by her entreaties,
Wotan consents. He kisses her fondly to sleep, and lays her gently upon
a mossy couch, covered with her shield. Then he strikes the earth with
his spear, calling on the fire-god Loge. Tongues of fire spring up
around them, and leaving her encircled with a rampart of flame, he
passes from the mountain-top with the words, 'Let him who fears my
spear-point never dare to pass through the fire.'
With 'Die Walkuere' the human interest of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'
begins, and with it Wagner rises to greater heights than he could hope
to reach in 'Das Rheingold.' In picturesque force and variety 'Die
Walkuere' does not yield to its predecessors, while the passion and
beauty of the immortal tale of the Volsungs lifts it dramatically into a
different world. 'Die Walkuere' is the most generally popular of the four
works which make up Wagner's great tetralogy, for the inordinate length
of some of the scenes in the second act is amply atoned for by the
immortal beauties of the first and third. Twenty years ago Wagner's
enemies used to make capital out of the incestuous union of Siegmund
and Sieglinde, but it is difficult to believe in the sincerity of their
virtuous indignation. No sane person would conceivably attempt to judge
the personages of the Edda by a modern code of ethics; nor could any one
with even a smattering of the details of Greek mythology affect to
regard such a union as extraordinary, given the environment in which the
characters of Wagner's drama move.
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