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Perfect Wagnerite, Commentary on the Ring by George Bernard Shaw
page 79 of 139 (56%)
weal.

SIEGFRIED CONCLUDED

In returning now to the adventures of Siegfried there is little
more to be described except the finale of an opera. Siegfried,
having passed unharmed through the fire, wakes Brynhild and goes
through all the fancies and ecstasies of love at first sight in
a duet which ends with an apostrophe to "leuchtende Liebe,
lachender Tod!", which has been romantically translated into
"Love that illumines, laughing at Death," whereas it really
identifies enlightening love and laughing death as involving
each other so closely as to be usually one and the same thing.



NIGHT FALLS ON THE GODS

PROLOGUE

Die Gottrerdammerung begins with an elaborate prologue. The three
Norns sit in the night on Brynhild's mountain top spinning their
thread of destiny, and telling the story of Wotan's sacrifice of
his eye, and of his breaking off a bough from the World Ash to
make a heft for his spear, also how the tree withered after
suffering that violence. They have also some fresher news to
discuss. Wotan, on the breaking of his spear by Siegfried, has
called all his heroes to cut down the withered World Ash and
stack its faggots in a mighty pyre about Valhalla. Then, with his
broken spear in his hand, he has seated himself in state in the
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