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diff --git a/old/sring10.txt b/old/sring10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb27ec6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sring10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4427 @@ +***The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring*** +#5 in our series by [George] Bernard Shaw + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Dianne Bean of Phoenix, AZ; OmniPage Pro software +donated by Caere + + + + + +The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by +by Bernard Shaw + + + + +Preface to the First German Edition + +In reading through this German version of my book in the +Manuscript of my friend Siegfried Trebitsch, I was struck by the +inadequacy of the merely negative explanation given by me of the +irrelevance of Night Falls On The Gods to the general philosophic +scheme of The Ring. That explanation is correct as far as it +goes; but, put as I put it, it now seems to me to suggest that +the operatic character of Night Falls On The Gods was the result +of indifference or forgetfulness produced by the lapse of +twenty-five years between the first projection of the work and +its completion. Now it is clear that in whatever other ways +Wagner may have changed, he never became careless and he never +became indifferent. I have therefore inserted a new section in +which I show how the revolutionary history of Western Europe from +the Liberal explosion of 1848 to the confused attempt at a +socialist, military, and municipal administration in Paris in +1871 (that is to say, from the beginning of The Niblung's Ring by +Wagner to the long-delayed completion of Night Falls On The +Gods), demonstrated practically that the passing away of the +present order was going to be a much more complicated business +than it appears in Wagner's Siegfried. I have therefore +interpolated a new chapter which will perhaps induce some readers +of the original English text to read the book again in German. + +For some time to come, indeed, I shall have to refer English +readers to this German edition as the most complete in +existence. + +My obligation to Herr Trebitsch for making me a living German +author instead of merely a translated English one is so great +that I am bound to point out that he is not responsible for my +views or Wagner's, and that it is as an artist and a man of +letters, and not as a propagandist, that he is conveying to the +German speaking peoples political criticisms which occasionally +reflect on contemporary authorities with a European reputation +for sensitiveness. And as the very sympathy which makes his +translations so excellent may be regarded with suspicion, let me +hasten to declare I am bound to Germany by the ties that hold my +nature most strongly. Not that I like the average German: nobody +does, even in his own country. But then the average man is not +popular anywhere; and as no German considers himself an average +one, each reader will, as an exceptional man, sympathize with my +dislike of the common herd. And if I cannot love the typical +modern German, I can at least pity and understand him. His worst +fault is that he cannot see that it is possible to have too much +of a good thing. Being convinced that duty, industry, education, +loyalty, patriotism and respectability are good things (and I am +magnanimous enough to admit that they are not altogether bad +things when taken in strict moderation at the right time and in +the right place), he indulges in them on all occasions +shamelessly and excessively. He commits hideous crimes when crime +is presented to him as part of his duty; his craze for work is +more ruinous than the craze for drink; when he can afford +secondary education for his sons you find three out of every five +of them with their minds lamed for life by examinations which +only a thoroughly wooden head could go through with impunity; and +if a king is patriotic and respectable (few kings are) he puts up +statues to him and exalts him above Charlemagne and Henry the +Fowler. And when he meets a man of genius, he instinctively +insults him, starves him, and, if possible, imprisons and kills +him. + +Now I do not pretend to be perfect myself. Heaven knows I have to +struggle hard enough every day with what the Germans call my +higher impulses. I know too well the temptation to be moral, to +be self-sacrificing, to be loyal and patriotic, to be respectable +and well-spoken of. But I wrestle with it and--as far as human +fraility will allow--conquer it, whereas the German abandons +himself to it without scruple or reflection, and is actually +proud of his pious intemperance and self-indulgence. Nothing will +cure him of this mania. It may end in starvation, crushing +taxation, suppression of all freedom to try new social +experiments and reform obsolete institutions, in snobbery, +jobbery, idolatry, and an omnipresent tyranny in which his doctor +and his schoolmaster, his lawyer and his priest, coerce him worse +than any official or drill sergeant: no matter: it is +respectable, says the German, therefore it must be good, and +cannot be carried too far; and everybody who rebels against it +must be a rascal. Even the Social-Democrats in Germany differ +from the rest only in carrying academic orthodoxy beyond human +endurance--beyond even German endurance. I am a Socialist and a +Democrat myself, the hero of a hundred platforms, one of the +leaders of the most notable Socialist organizations in England. I +am as conspicuous in English Socialism as Bebel is in German +Socialism; but do you suppose that the German Social-Democrats +tolerate me? Not a bit of it. I have begged again and again to be +taken to the bosom of my German comrades. I have pleaded that the +Super-Proletarians of all lands should unite. I have pointed out +that the German Social-Democratic party has done nothing at its +Congresses for the last ten years except the things I told them +to do ten years before, and that its path is white with the bones +of the Socialist superstitions I and my fellow Fabians have +slain. Useless. They do not care a rap whether I am a Socialist +or not. All they want to know is; Am I orthodox? Am I correct in +my revolutionary views? Am I reverent to the revolutionary +authorities? Because I am a genuine free-thinker they look at me +as a policeman looks at a midnight prowler or as a Berlin +bourgeois looks at a suspicious foreigner. They ask "Do you +believe that Marx was omniscient and infallible; that Engels was +his prophet; that Bebel and Singer are his inspired apostles; and +that Das Kapital is the Bible?" Hastening in my innocence to +clear myself of what I regard as an accusation of credulity and +ignorance, I assure them earnestly that I know ten times as much +of economics and a hundred times as much of practical +administration as Marx did; that I knew Engels personally and +rather liked him as a witty and amiable old 1848 veteran who +despised modern Socialism; that I regard Bebel and Singer as men +of like passions with myself, but considerably less advanced; and +that I read Das Kapital in the year 1882 or thereabouts, and +still consider it one of the most important books of the +nineteenth century because of its power of changing the minds of +those who read it, in spite of its unsound capitalist economics, +its parade of quotations from books which the author had either +not read or not understood, its affectation of algebraic +formulas, and its general attempt to disguise a masterpiece of +propagandist journalism and prophetic invective as a drily +scientific treatise of the sort that used to impose on people in +1860, when any book that pretended to be scientific was accepted +as a Bible. In those days Darwin and Helmholtz were the real +fathers of the Church; and nobody would listen to religion, +poetry or rhetoric; so that even Socialism had to call itself +"scientific," and predict the date of the revolution, as if it +were a comet, by calculations founded on "historic laws." + +To my amazement these reasonable remarks were received as hideous +blasphemies; none of the party papers were allowed to print any +word of mine; the very Revisionists themselves found that the +scandal of my heresy damaged them more than my support aided +them; and I found myself an outcast from German Social-Democracy +at the moment when, thanks to Trebitsch, the German bourgeoisie +and nobility began to smile on me, seduced by the pleasure of +playing with fire, and perhaps by Agnes Sorma's acting as +Candida. + +Thus you may see that when a German, by becoming a +Social-Democrat, throws off all the bonds of convention, and +stands free from all allegiance to established religion, law, +order, patriotism, and learning, he promptly uses his freedom to +put on a headier set of chains; expels anti-militarists with the +blood-thirstiest martial anti-foreign ardor; and gives the Kaiser +reason to thank heaven that he was born in the comparative +freedom and Laodicean tolerance of Kingship, and not in the +Calvinistic bigotry and pedantry of Marxism. + +Why, then, you may ask, do I say that I am bound to Germany by +the ties that hold my nature most strongly? Very simply because I +should have perished of despair in my youth but for the world +created for me by that great German dynasty which began with Bach +and will perhaps not end with Richard Strauss. Do not suppose for +a moment that I learnt my art from English men of letters. True, +they showed me how to handle English words; but if I had known no +more than that, my works would never have crossed the Channel. My +masters were the masters of a universal language: they were, to +go from summit to summit, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven +and Wagner. Had the Germans understood any of these men, they +would have hanged them. Fortunately they did not understand them, +and therefore only neglected them until they were dead, after +which they learnt to dance to their tunes with an easy +conscience. For their sakes Germany stands consecrated as the +Holy Land of the capitalist age, just as Italy, for its painters' +sakes, is the Holy Land of the early unvulgarized Renascence; +France, for its builders' sakes, of the age of Christian chivalry +and faith; and Greece, for its sculptors' sakes, of the Periclean +age. + +These Holy Lands are my fatherlands: in them alone am I truly at +home: all my work is but to bring the whole world under this +sanctification. + +And so, O worthy, respectable, dutiful, patriotic, brave, +industrious German reader, you who used to fear only God and your +own conscience, and now fear nothing at all, here is my book for +you; and--in all sincerity--much good may it do you! + +London, 23rd. October 1907. + + + +PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION + +The preparation of a Second Edition of this booklet is quite the +most unexpected literary task that has ever been set me. When it +first appeared I was ungrateful enough to remonstrate with its +publisher for printing, as I thought, more copies than the most +sanguine Wagnerite could ever hope to sell. But the result proved +that exactly one person buys a copy on every day in the year, +including Sundays; and so, in the process of the suns, a reprint +has become necessary. + +Save a few verbal slips of no importance, I have found nothing to +alter in this edition. As usual, the only protests the book has +elicited are protests, not against the opinions it expresses, but +against the facts it records. There are people who cannot bear to +be told that their hero was associated with a famous Anarchist in +a rebellion; that he was proclaimed as "wanted" by the police; +that he wrote revolutionary pamphlets; and that his picture of +Niblunghome under the reign of Alberic is a poetic vision of +unregulated industrial capitalism as it was made known in Germany +in the middle of the nineteenth century by Engels's Condition of +the Laboring classes in England. They frantically deny these +facts, and then declare that I have connected them with Wagner in +a paroxysm of senseless perversity. I am sorry I have hurt them; +and I appeal to charitable publishers to bring out a new life of +Wagner, which shall describe him as a court musician of +unquestioned fashion and orthodoxy, and a pillar of the most +exclusive Dresden circles. Such a work, would, I believe, have a +large sale, and be read with satisfaction and reassurance by many +lovers of Wagner's music. + +As to my much demurred-to relegation of Night Falls On The Gods +to the category of grand opera, I have nothing to add or +withdraw. Such a classification is to me as much a matter of fact +as the Dresden rising or the police proclamation; but I shall not +pretend that it is a matter of such fact as everybody's judgment +can grapple with. People who prefer grand opera to serious +music-drama naturally resent my placing a very grand opera below +a very serious music-drama. The ordinary lover of Shakespeare +would equally demur to my placing his popular catchpenny plays, +of which As You Like It is an avowed type, below true +Shakespearean plays like Measure for Measure. I cannot help that. +Popular dramas and operas may have overwhelming merits as +enchanting make-believes; but a poet's sincerest vision of the +world must always take precedence of his prettiest fool's +paradise. + +As many English Wagnerites seem to be still under the impression +that Wagner composed Rienzi in his youth, Tannhauser and +Lohengrin in his middle age, and The Ring in his later years, may +I again remind them that The Ring was the result of a political +convulsion which occurred when Wagner was only thirty-six, and +that the poem was completed when he was forty, with thirty more +years of work before him? It is as much a first essay in +political philosophy as Die Feen is a first essay in romantic +opera. The attempt to recover its spirit twenty years later, when +the music of Night Falls On The Gods was added, was an attempt to +revive the barricades of Dresden in the Temple of the Grail. Only +those who have never had any political enthusiasms to survive can +believe that such an attempt could succeed. G. B. S. + + London, 1901 + + + +Preface to the First Edition + +This book is a commentary on The Ring of the Niblungs, Wagner's +chief work. I offer it to those enthusiastic admirers of Wagner +who are unable to follow his ideas, and do not in the least +understand the dilemma of Wotan, though they are filled with +indignation at the irreverence of the Philistines who frankly +avow that they find the remarks of the god too often tedious and +nonsensical. Now to be devoted to Wagner merely as a dog is +devoted to his master, sharing a few elementary ideas, appetites +and emotions with him, and, for the rest, reverencing his +superiority without understanding it, is no true Wagnerism. Yet +nothing better is possible without a stock of ideas common to +master and disciple. Unfortunately, the ideas of the +revolutionary Wagner of 1848 are taught neither by the education +nor the experience of English and American gentlemen-amateurs, +who are almost always political mugwumps, and hardly ever +associate with revolutionists. The earlier attempts to translate +his numerous pamphlets and essays into English, resulted in +ludicrous mixtures of pure nonsense with the absurdest +distorsions of his ideas into the ideas of the translators. We +now have a translation which is a masterpiece of interpretation +and an eminent addition to our literature; but that is not +because its author, Mr. Ashton Ellis, knows the German dictionary +better than his predecessors. He is simply in possession of +Wagner's ideas, which were to them inconceivable. + +All I pretend to do in this book is to impart the ideas which are +most likely to be lacking in the conventional Englishman's +equipment. I came by them myself much as Wagner did, having +learnt more about music than about anything else in my youth, and +sown my political wild oats subsequently in the revolutionary +school. This combination is not common in England; and as I seem, +so far, to be the only publicly articulate result of it, I +venture to add my commentary to what has already been written by +musicians who are no revolutionists, and revolutionists who are +no musicians. G. B. S. + + + +Preliminary Encouragements +The Ring of the Niblungs +The Rhine Gold +Wagner as Revolutionist +The Valkyries +Siegfried +Siegfried as Protestant +Night Falls On The Gods +Why He Changed His Mind +Wagner's Own Explanation +The Music of The Ring +The Old and the New Music +The Nineteenth Century +The Music of the Future +Bayreuth + + + +THE PERFECT WAGNERITE + + + +PRELIMINARY ENCOURAGEMENTS + +A few of these will be welcome to the ordinary citizen visiting +the theatre to satisfy his curiosity, or his desire to be in the +fashion, by witnessing a representation of Richard Wagner's +famous Ring of the Niblungs. + +First, The Ring, with all its gods and giants and dwarfs, its +water-maidens and Valkyries, its wishing-cap, magic ring, +enchanted sword, and miraculous treasure, is a drama of today, +and not of a remote and fabulous antiquity. It could not have +been written before the second half of the nineteenth century, +because it deals with events which were only then consummating +themselves. Unless the spectator recognizes in it an image of the +life he is himself fighting his way through, it must needs appear +to him a monstrous development of the Christmas pantomimes, spun +out here and there into intolerable lengths of dull conversation +by the principal baritone. Fortunately, even from this point of +view, The Ring is full of extraordinarily attractive episodes, +both orchestral and dramatic. The nature music alone--music of +river and rainbow, fire and forest--is enough to bribe people +with any love of the country in them to endure the passages of +political philosophy in the sure hope of a prettier page to come. +Everybody, too, can enjoy the love music, the hammer and anvil +music, the clumping of the giants, the tune of the young +woodsman's horn, the trilling of the bird, the dragon music and +nightmare music and thunder and lightning music, the profusion of +simple melody, the sensuous charm of the orchestration: in short, +the vast extent of common ground between The Ring and the +ordinary music we use for play and pleasure. Hence it is that the +four separate music-plays of which it is built have become +popular throughout Europe as operas. We shall presently see that +one of them, Night Falls On The Gods, actually is an opera. + +It is generally understood, however, that there is an inner ring +of superior persons to whom the whole work has a most urgent and +searching philosophic and social significance. I profess to be +such a superior person; and I write this pamphlet for the +assistance of those who wish to be introduced to the work on +equal terms with that inner circle of adepts. + +My second encouragement is addressed to modest citizens who may +suppose themselves to be disqualified from enjoying The Ring by +their technical ignorance of music. They may dismiss all such +misgivings speedily and confidently. If the sound of music has +any power to move them, they will find that Wagner exacts nothing +further. There is not a single bar of "classical music" in The +Ring--not a note in it that has any other point than the single +direct point of giving musical expression to the drama. In +classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell us, +first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, +recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with +counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are +passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other +ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their +prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune. Wagner is never +driving at anything of this sort any more than Shakespeare in his +plays is driving at such ingenuities of verse-making as sonnets, +triolets, and the like. And this is why he is so easy for the +natural musician who has had no academic teaching. The +professors, when Wagner's music is played to them, exclaim at +once "What is this? Is it aria, or recitative? Is there no +cabaletta to it--not even a full close? Why was that discord not +prepared; and why does he not resolve it correctly? How dare he +indulge in those scandalous and illicit transitions into a key +that has not one note in common with the key he has just left? +Listen to those false relations! What does he want with six drums +and eight horns when Mozart worked miracles with two of each? The +man is no musician." The layman neither knows nor cares about any +of these things. If Wagner were to turn aside from his +straightforward dramatic purpose to propitiate the professors +with correct exercises in sonata form, his music would at once +become unintelligible to the unsophisticated spectator, upon whom +the familiar and dreaded "classical" sensation would descend like +the influenza. Nothing of the kind need be dreaded. The +unskilled, untaught musician may approach Wagner boldly; for +there is no possibility of a misunderstanding between them: The +Ring music is perfectly single and simple. It is the adept +musician of the old school who has everything to unlearn: and him +I leave, unpitied, to his fate. + + + +THE RING OF THE NIBLUNGS + +The Ring consists of four plays, intended to be performed on four +successive evenings, entitled The Rhine Gold (a prologue to the +other three), The Valkyries, Siegfried, and Night Falls On The +Gods; or, in the original German, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, +Siegfried, and Die Gotterdammerung. + + +THE RHINE GOLD + +Let me assume for a moment that you are a young and good-looking +woman. Try to imagine yourself in that character at Klondyke five +years ago. The place is teeming with gold. If you are content to +leave the gold alone, as the wise leave flowers without plucking +them, enjoying with perfect naivete its color and glitter and +preciousness, no human being will ever be the worse for your +knowledge of it; and whilst you remain in that frame of mind the +golden age will endure. + +Now suppose a man comes along: a man who has no sense of the +golden age, nor any power of living in the present: a man with +common desires, cupidities, ambitions, just like most of the men +you know. Suppose you reveal to that man the fact that if he will +only pluck this gold up, and turn it into money, millions of men, +driven by the invisible whip of hunger, will toil underground and +overground night and day to pile up more and more gold for him +until he is master of the world! You will find that the prospect +will not tempt him so much as you might imagine, because it +involves some distasteful trouble to himself to start with, and +because there is something else within his reach involving no +distasteful toil, which he desires more passionately; and that is +yourself. So long as he is preoccupied with love of you, the +gold, and all that it implies, will escape him: the golden age +will endure. Not until he forswears love will he stretch out his +hand to the gold, and found the Plutonic empire for himself. But +the choice between love and gold may not rest altogether with +him. He may be an ugly, ungracious, unamiable person, whose +affections may seem merely ludicrous and despicable to you. In +that case, you may repulse him, and most bitterly humiliate and +disappoint him. What is left to him then but to curse the love he +can never win, and turn remorselessly to the gold? With that, he +will make short work of your golden age, and leave you lamenting +its lost thoughtlessness and sweetness. + +In due time the gold of Klondyke will find its way to the great +cities of the world. But the old dilemma will keep continually +reproducing itself. The man who will turn his back on love, and +upon all the fruitful it, and will set himself single-heartedly +to gather gold in an exultant dream of wielding its Plutonic +powers, will find the treasure yielding quickly to his touch. But +few men will make this sacrifice voluntarily. Not until the +Plutonic power is so strongly set up that the higher human +impulses are suppressed as rebellious, and even the mere +appetites are denied, starved, and insulted when they cannot +purchase their satisfaction with gold, are the energetic spirits +driven to build their lives upon riches. How inevitable that +course has become to us is plain enough to those who have the +power of understanding what they see as they look at the +plutocratic societies of our modern capitals. + +First Scene + +Here, then, is the subject of the first scene of The Rhine Gold. +As you sit waiting for the curtain to rise, you suddenly catch +the booming ground-tone of a mighty river. It becomes plainer, +clearer: you get nearer to the surface, and catch the green light +and the flights of bubbles. Then the curtain goes up and you see +what you heard--the depths of the Rhine, with three strange fairy +fishes, half water-maidens, singing and enjoying themselves +exuberantly. They are not singing barcarolles or ballads about +the Lorely and her fated lovers, but simply trolling any nonsense +that comes into their heads in time to the dancing of the water +and the rhythm of their swimming. It is the golden age; and the +attraction of this spot for the Rhine maidens is a lump of the +Rhine gold, which they value, in an entirely uncommercial way, +for its bodily beauty and splendor. Just at present it is +eclipsed, because the sun is not striking down through the +water. + +Presently there comes a poor devil of a dwarf stealing along the +slippery rocks of the river bed, a creature with energy enough to +make him strong of body and fierce of passion, but with a brutish +narrowness of intelligence and selfishness of imagination: too +stupid to see that his own welfare can only be compassed as part +of the welfare of the world, too full of brute force not to grab +vigorously at his own gain. Such dwarfs are quite common in +London. He comes now with a fruitful impulse in him, in search of +what he lacks in himself, beauty, lightness of heart, +imagination, music. The Rhine maidens, representing all these to +him, fill him with hope and longing; and he never considers that +he has nothing to offer that they could possibly desire, being +by natural limitation incapable of seeing anything from anyone +else's point of view. With perfect simplicity, he offers himself +as a sweetheart to them. But they are thoughtless, elemental, +only half real things, much like modern young ladies. That the +poor dwarf is repulsive to their sense of physical beauty and +their romantic conception of heroism, that he is ugly and +awkward, greedy and ridiculous, disposes for them of his claim to +live and love. They mock him atrociously, pretending to fall in +love with him at first sight, and then slipping away and making +game of him, heaping ridicule and disgust on the poor wretch +until he is beside himself with mortification and rage. They +forget him when the water begins to glitter in the sun, and the +gold to reflect its glory. They break into ecstatic worship of +their treasure; and though they know the parable of Klondyke +quite well, they have no fear that the gold will be wrenched away +by the dwarf, since it will yield to no one who has not forsworn +love for it, and it is in pursuit of love that he has come to +them. They forget that they have poisoned that desire in him by +their mockery and denial of it, and that he now knows that life +will give him nothing that he cannot wrest from it by the +Plutonic power. It is just as if some poor, rough, vulgar, coarse +fellow were to offer to take his part in aristocratic society, +and be snubbed into the knowledge that only as a millionaire +could he ever hope to bring that society to his feet and buy +himself a beautiful and refined wife. His choice is forced on +him. He forswears love as thousands of us forswear it every day; +and in a moment the gold is in his grasp, and he disappears in +the depths, leaving the water-fairies vainly screaming "Stop +thief!" whilst the river seems to plunge into darkness and sink +from us as we rise to the cloud regions above. + +And now, what forces are there in the world to resist Alberic, +our dwarf, in his new character of sworn plutocrat? He is soon at +work wielding the power of the gold. For his gain, hordes of his +fellow-creatures are thenceforth condemned to slave miserably, +overground and underground, lashed to their work by the invisible +whip of starvation. They never see him, any more than the victims +of our "dangerous trades" ever see the shareholders whose power +is nevertheless everywhere, driving them to destruction. The very +wealth they create with their labor becomes an additional force +to impoverish them; for as fast as they make it it slips from +their hands into the hands of their master, and makes him +mightier than ever. You can see the process for yourself in every +civilized country today, where millions of people toil in want +and disease to heap up more wealth for our Alberics, laying up +nothing for themselves, except sometimes horrible and agonizing +disease and the certainty of premature death. All this part of +the story is frightfully real, frightfully present, frightfully +modern; and its effects on our social life are so ghastly and +ruinous that we no longer know enough of happiness to be +discomposed by it. It is only the poet, with his vision of what +life might be, to whom these things are unendurable. If we were a +race of poets we would make an end of them before the end of this +miserable century. Being a race of moral dwarfs instead, we think +them highly respectable, comfortable and proper, and allow them +to breed and multiply their evil in all directions. If there were +no higher power in the world to work against Alberic, the end of +it would be utter destruction. + +Such a force there is, however; and it is called Godhead. The +mysterious thing we call life organizes itself into all living +shapes, bird, beast, beetle and fish, rising to the human marvel +in cunning dwarfs and in laborious muscular giants, capable, +these last, of enduring toil, willing to buy love and life, not +with suicidal curses and renunciations, but with patient manual +drudgery in the service of higher powers. And these higher powers +are called into existence by the same selforganization of life +still more wonderfully into rare persons who may by comparison be +called gods, creatures capable of thought, whose aims extend far +beyond the satisfaction of their bodily appetites and personal +affections, since they perceive that it is only by the +establishment of a social order founded on common bonds of moral +faith that the world can rise from mere savagery. But how is this +order to be set up by Godhead in a world of stupid giants, since +these thoughtless ones pursue only their narrower personal ends +and can by no means understand the aims of a god? Godhead, face +to face with Stupidity, must compromise. Unable to enforce on the +world the pure law of thought, it must resort to a mechanical law +of commandments to be enforced by brute punishments and the +destruction of the disobedient. And however carefully these laws +are framed to represent the highest thoughts of the framers at +the moment of their promulgation, before a day has elapsed that +thought has grown and widened by the ceaseless evolution of life; +and lo! yesterday's law already fallen out with today's thought. +Yet if the high givers of that law themselves set the example of +breaking it before it is a week old, they destroy all its +authority with their subjects, and so break the weapon they have +forged to rule them for their own good. They must therefore +maintain at all costs the sanctity of the law, even when it has +ceased to represent their thought; so that at last they get +entangled in a network of ordinances which they no longer believe +in, and yet have made so sacred by custom and so terrible by +punishment, that they cannot themselves escape from them. Thus +Godhead's resort to law finally costs it half its integrity--as +if a spiritual king, to gain temporal power, had plucked out one +of his eyes--and it finally begins secretly to long for the +advent of some power higher than itself which will destroy its +artificial empire of law, and establish a true republic of free +thought. + +This is by no means the only difficulty in the dominion of Law. +The brute force for its execution must be purchased; and the mass +of its subjects must be persuaded to respect the authority which +employs this force. But how is such respect to be implanted in +them if they are unable to comprehend the thought of the +lawgiver? Clearly, only by associating the legislative power with +such displays of splendor and majesty as will impress their +senses and awe their imaginations. The god turned lawgiver, in +short, must be crowned Pontiff and King. Since he cannot be known +to the common folk as their superior in wisdom, he must be known +to them as their superior in riches, as the dweller in castles, +the wearer of gold and purple, the eater of mighty feasts, the +commander of armies, and the wielder of powers of life and death, +of salvation and damnation after death. Something may be done in +this way without corruption whilst the golden age still endures. +Your gods may not prevail with the dwarfs; but they may go to +these honest giants who will give a day's work for a day's pay, +and induce them to build for Godhead a mighty fortress, complete +with hall and chapel, tower and bell, for the sake of the +homesteads that will grow up in security round that +church-castle. This only, however, whilst the golden age lasts. +The moment the Plutonic power is let loose, and the loveless +Alberic comes into the field with his corrupting millions, the +gods are face to face with destruction; since Alberic, able with +invisible hunger-whip to force the labor of the dwarfs and to buy +the services of the giants, can outshine all the temporal shows +and splendors of the golden age, and make himself master of the +world, unless the gods, with their bigger brains, can capture his +gold. This, the dilemma of the Church today, is the situation +created by the exploit of Alberic in the depths of the Rhine. + +Second Scene + +From the bed of the river we rise into cloudy regions, and +finally come out into the clear in a meadow, where Wotan, the god +of gods, and his consort Fricka lie sleeping. Wotan, you will +observe, has lost one eye; and you will presently learn that he +plucked it out voluntarily as the price to be paid for his +alliance with Fricka, who in return has brought to him as her +dowry all the powers of Law. The meadow is on the brink of a +ravine, beyond which, towering on distant heights, stands +Godhome, a mighty castle, newly built as a house of state for the +one-eyed god and his all-ruling wife. Wotan has not yet seen this +castle except in his dreams: two giants have just built it for +him whilst he slept; and the reality is before him for the first +time when Fricka wakes him. In that majestic burg he is to rule +with her and through her over the humble giants, who have eyes to +gape at the glorious castles their own hands have built from his +design, but no brains to design castles for themselves, or to +comprehend divinity. As a god, he is to be great, secure, and +mighty; but he is also to be passionless, affectionless, wholly +impartial; for Godhead, if it is to live with Law, must have no +weaknesses, no respect for persons. All such sweet littlenesses +must be left to the humble stupid giants to make their toil sweet +to them; and the god must, after all, pay for Olympian power the +same price the dwarf has paid for Plutonic power. + +Wotan has forgotten this in his dreams of greatness. Not so +Fricka. What she is thinking of is this price that Wotan has +consented to pay, in token whereof he has promised this day to +hand over to the giants Fricka's sister, the goddess Freia, with +her golden love-apples. When Fricka reproaches Wotan with having +selfishly forgotten this, she finds that he, like herself, is not +prepared to go through with his bargain, and that he is trusting +to another great worldforce, the Lie (a European Power, as +Lassalle said), to help him to trick the giants out of their +reward. But this force does not dwell in Wotan himself, but in +another, a god over whom he has triumphed, one Loki, the god of +Intellect, Argument, Imagination, Illusion, and Reason. Loki has +promised to deliver him from his contract, and to cheat the +giants for him; but he has not arrived to keep his word: indeed, +as Fricka bitterly points out, why should not the Lie fail Wotan, +since such failure is the very essence of him? + +The giants come soon enough; and Freia flies to Wotan for +protection against them. Their purposes are quite honest; and +they have no doubt of the god's faith. There stands their part of +the contract fulfilled, stone on stone, port and pinnacle all +faithfully finished from Wotan's design by their mighty labor. +They have come undoubtingly for their agreed wage. Then there +happens what is to them an incredible, inconceivable thing. The +god begins to shuffle. There are no moments in life more tragic +than those in which the humble common man, the manual worker, +leaving with implicit trust all high affairs to his betters, and +reverencing them wholly as worthy of that trust, even to the +extent of accepting as his rightful function the saving of them +from all roughening and coarsening drudgeries, first discovers +that they are corrupt, greedy, unjust and treacherous. The shock +drives a ray of prophetic light into one giant's mind, and gives +him a momentary eloquence. In that moment he rises above his +stupid gianthood, and earnestly warns the Son of Light that all +his power and eminence of priesthood, godhood, and kingship must +stand or fall with the unbearable cold greatness of the +incorruptible law-giver. But Wotan, whose assumed character of +law-giver is altogether false to his real passionate nature, +despises the rebuke; and the giant's ray of insight is lost in +the murk of his virtuous indignation. + +In the midst of the wrangle, Loki comes at last, excusing himself +for being late on the ground that he has been detained by a +matter of importance which he has promised to lay before Wotan. +When pressed to give his mind to the business immediately in +hand, and to extricate Wotan from his dilemma, he has nothing to +say except that the giants are evidently altogether in the right. +The castle has been duly built: he has tried every stone of it, +and found the work first-rate: there is nothing to be done but +pay the price agreed upon by handing over Freia to the giants. +The gods are furious; and Wotan passionately declares that he +only consented to the bargain on Loki's promise to find a way for +him out of it. But Loki says no: he has promised to find a way +out if any such way exist, but not to make a way if there is no +way. He has wandered over the whole earth in search of some +treasure great enough to buy Freia back from the giants; but in +all the world he has found nothing for which Man will give up +Woman. And this, by the way, reminds him of the matter he had +promised to lay before Wotan. The Rhine maidens have complained +to him of Alberic's theft of their gold; and he mentions it as a +curious exception to his universal law of the unpurchasable +preciousness of love, that this gold-robber has forsworn love for +the sake of the fabulous riches of the Plutonic empire and the +mastery of the world through its power. + +No sooner is the tale told than the giants stoop lower than the +dwarf. Alberic forswore love only when it was denied to him and +made the instrument for cruelly murdering his self-respect. But +the giants, with love within their reach, with Freia and her +golden apples in their hands, offer to give her up for the +treasure of Alberic. Observe, it is the treasure alone that they +desire. They have no fierce dreams of dominion over their +superiors, or of moulding the world to any conceptions of their +own. They are neither clever nor ambitious: they simply covet +money. Alberic's gold: that is their demand, or else Freia, as +agreed upon, whom they now carry off as hostage, leaving Wotan to +consider their ultimatum. + +Freia gone, the gods begin to wither and age: her golden apples, +which they so lightly bargained away, they now find to be a +matter of life and death to them; for not even the gods can live +on Law and Godhead alone, be their castles ever so splendid. Loki +alone is unaffected: the Lie, with all its cunning wonders, its +glistenings and shiftings and mirages, is a mere appearance: it +has no body and needs no food. What is Wotan to do? Loki sees the +answer clearly enough: he must bluntly rob Alberic. There is +nothing to prevent him except moral scruple; for Alberic, after +all, is a poor, dim, dwarfed, credulous creature whom a god can +outsee and a lie can outwit. Down, then, Wotan and Loki plunge +into the mine where Alberic's slaves are piling up wealth for him +under the invisible whip. + +Third Scene + +This gloomy place need not be a mine: it might just as well be a +match-factory, with yellow phosphorus, phossy jaw, a large +dividend, and plenty of clergymen shareholders. Or it might be a +whitelead factory, or a chemical works, or a pottery, or a +railway shunting yard, or a tailoring shop, or a little +gin-sodden laundry, or a bakehouse, or a big shop, or any other +of the places where human life and welfare are daily sacrificed +in order that some greedy foolish creature may be able to hymn +exultantly to his Platonic idol: + +Thou mak'st me eat whilst others starve, +And sing while others do lament: +Such untome Thy blessings are, +As if I were Thine only care. + +In the mine, which resounds with the clinking anvils of the +dwarfs toiling miserably to heap up treasure for their master, +Alberic has set his brother Mime--more familiarly, Mimmy--to make +him a helmet. Mimmy dimly sees that there is some magic in this +helmet, and tries to keep it; but Alberic wrests it from him, and +shows him, to his cost, that it is the veil of the invisible +whip, and that he who wears it can appear in what shape he will, +or disappear from view altogether. This helmet is a very common +article in our streets, where it generally takes the form of a +tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes +him into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber +to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and +father, a shrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, +when he is really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, +consuming a great deal, and producing nothing, feeling nothing, +knowing nothing, believing nothing, and doing nothing except what +all the rest do, and that only because he is afraid not to do it, +or at least pretend to do it. + +When Wotan and Loki arrive, Loki claims Alberic as an old +acquaintance. But the dwarf has no faith in these civil +strangers: Greed instinctively mistrusts Intellect, even in the +garb of Poetry and the company of Godhead, whilst envying the +brilliancy of the one and the dignity of the other. Alberic +breaks out at them with a terrible boast of the power now within +his grasp. He paints for them the world as it will be when his +dominion over it is complete, when the soft airs and green mosses +of its valleys shall be changed into smoke, slag, and filth; when +slavery, disease, and squalor, soothed by drunkenness and +mastered by the policeman's baton, shall become the foundation of +society; and when nothing shall escape ruin except such pretty +places and pretty women as he may like to buy for the slaking of +his own lusts. In that kingdom of evil he sees that there will be +no power but his own. These gods, with their moralities and +legalities and intellectual subtlety, will go under and be +starved out of existence. He bids Wotan and Loki beware of it; +and his "Hab' Acht!" is hoarse, horrible, and sinister. Wotan +is revolted to the very depths of his being: he cannot stifle the +execration that bursts from him. But Loki is unaffected: he has +no moral passion: indignation is as absurd to him as enthusiasm. +He finds it exquisitely amusing--having a touch of the comic +spirit in him--that the dwarf, in stirring up the moral fervor of +Wotan, has removed his last moral scruple about becoming a thief. +Wotan will now rob the dwarf without remorse; for is it not +positively his highest duty to take this power out of such evil +hands and use it himself in the interests of Godhead? On the +loftiest moral grounds, he lets Loki do his worst. + +A little cunningly disguised flattery makes short work of +Alberic. Loki pretends to be afraid of him; and he swallows that +bait unhesitatingly. But how, enquires Loki, is he to guard +against the hatred of his million slaves? Will they not steal +from him, whilst he sleeps, the magic ring, the symbol of his +power, which he has forged from the gold of the Rhine? "You think +yourself very clever," sneers Alberic, and then begins to boast +of the enchantments of the magic helmet. Loki refuses to believe +in such marvels without witnessing them. Alberic, only too glad +to show off his powers, puts on the helmet and transforms himself +into a monstrous serpent. Loki gratifies him by pretending to be +frightened out of his wits, but ventures to remark that it would +be better still if the helmet could transform its owner into some +tiny creature that could hide and spy in the smallest cranny. +Alberic promptly transforms himself into a toad. In an instant +Wotan's foot is on him; Loki tears away the helmet; they pinion +him, and drag him away a prisoner up through the earth to the +meadow by the castle. + +Fourth Scene + +There, to pay for his freedom, he has to summon his slaves from +the depths to place all the treasure they have heaped up for him +at the feet of Wotan. Then he demands his liberty; but Wotan must +have the ring as well. And here the dwarf, like the giant before +him, feels the very foundations of the world shake beneath him at +the discovery of his own base cupidity in a higher power. That +evil should, in its loveless desperation, create malign powers +which Godhead could not create, seems but natural justice to him. +But that Godhead should steal those malign powers from evil, and +wield them itself, is a monstrous perversion; and his appeal to +Wotan to forego it is almost terrible in its conviction of wrong. +It is of no avail. Wotan falls back again on virtuous +indignation. He reminds Alberic that he stole the gold from the +Rhine maidens, and takes the attitude of the just judge +compelling a restitution of stolen goods. Alberic knowing +perfectly well that the judge is taking the goods to put them m +his own pocket, has the ring torn from his finger, and is once +more as poor as he was when he came slipping and stumbling among +the slimy rocks in the bed of the Rhine. + +This is the way of the world. In older times, when the Christian +laborer was drained dry by the knightly spendthrift, and the +spendthrift was drained by the Jewish usurer, Church and State, +religion and law, seized on the Jew and drained him as a +Christian duty. When the forces of lovelessness and greed had +built up our own sordid capitalist systems, driven by invisible +proprietorship, robbing the poor, defacing the earth, and forcing +themselves as a universal curse even on the generous and humane, +then religion and law and intellect, which would never themselves +have discovered such systems, their natural bent being towards +welfare, economy, and life instead of towards corruption, waste, +and death, nevertheless did not scruple to seize by fraud and +force these powers of evil on presence of using them for good. +And it inevitably happens that when the Church, the Law, and all +the Talents have made common cause to rob the people, the Church +is far more vitally harmed by that unfaithfulness to itself than +its more mechanical confederates; so that finally they turn on +their discredited ally and rob the Church, with the cheerful +co-operation of Loki, as in France and Italy for instance. + +The twin giants come back with their hostage, in whose presence +Godhead blooms again. The gold is ready for them; but now that +the moment has come for parting with Freia the gold +does not seem so tempting; and they are sorely loth to let her +go. Not unless there is gold enough to utterly hide her from +them--not until the heap has grown so that they can see nothing +but gold--until money has come between them and every human +feeling, will they part with her. There is not gold enough to +accomplish this: however cunningly Loki spreads it, the glint of +Freia's hair is still visible to Giant Fafnir, and the magic +helmet must go on the heap to shut it out. Even then Fafnir's +brother, Fasolt, can catch a beam from her eye through a chink, +and is rendered incapable thereby of forswearing her. There is +nothing to stop that chink but the ring; and Wotan is as greedily +bent on keeping that as Alberic himself was; nor can the other +gods persuade him that Freia is worth it, since for the highest +god, love is not the highest good, but only the universal delight +that bribes all living things to travail with renewed life. Life +itself, with its accomplished marvels and its infinite +potentialities, is the only force that Godhead can worship. Wotan +does not yield until he is reached by the voice of the fruitful +earth that before he or the dwarfs or the giants or the Law or +the Lie or any of these things were, had the seed of them all in +her bosom, and the seed perhaps of something higher even than +himself, that shall one day supersede him and cut the tangles and +alliances and compromises that already have cost him one of his +eyes. When Erda, the First Mother of life, rises from her +sleeping-place in the heart of the earth, and warns him to yield +the ring, he obeys her; the ring is added to the heap of gold; +and all sense of Freia is cut off from the giants. + +But now what Law is left to these two poor stupid laborers +whereby one shall yield to the other any of the treasure for +which they have each paid the whole price in surrendering Freia? +They look by mere habit to the god to judge for them; but he, +with his heart stirring towards higher forces than himself, turns +with disgust from these lower forces. They settle it as two +wolves might; and Fafnir batters his brother dead with his staff. +It is a horrible thing to see and hear, to anyone who knows how +much blood has been shed in the world in just that way by its +brutalized toilers, honest fellows enough until their betters +betrayed them. Fafnir goes off with his booty. It is quite +useless to him. He has neither the cunning nor the ambition to +establish the Plutonic empire with it. Merely to prevent others +from getting it is the only purpose it brings him. He piles it in +a cave; transforms himself into a dragon by the helmet; and +devotes his life to guarding it, as much a slave to it as a +jailor is to his prisoner. He had much better have thrown it all +back into the Rhine and transformed himself into the +shortest-lived animal that enjoys at least a brief run in the +sunshine. His case, however, is far too common to be surprising. +The world is overstocked with persons who sacrifice all their +affections, and madly trample and batter down their fellows to +obtain riches of which, when they get them, they are unable to +make the smallest use, and to which they become the most +miserable slaves. + +The gods soon forget Fafnir in their rejoicing over Freia. +Donner, the Thunder god, springs to a rocky summit and calls the +clouds as a shepherd calls his flocks. They come at his summons; +and he and the castle are hidden by their black legions. Froh, +the Rainbow god, hastens to his side. At the stroke of Donner's +hammer the black murk is riven in all directions by darting +ribbons of lightning; and as the air clears, the castle is seen m +its fullest splendor, accessible now by the rainbow bridge which +Froh has cast across the ravine. In the glory of this moment +Wotan has a great thought. With all his aspirations to establish +a reign of noble thought, of righteousness, order, and justice, +he has found that day that there is no race yet in the world that +quite spontaneously, naturally, and unconsciously realizes his +ideal. He himself has found how far short Godhead falls of the +thing it conceives. He, the greatest of gods, has been unable to +control his fate: he has been forced against his will to choose +between evils, to make disgraceful bargains, to break them still +more disgracefully, and even then to see the price of his +disgrace slip through his fingers. His consort has cost him half +his vision; his castle has cost him his affections; and the +attempt to retain both has cost him his honor. On every side he +is shackled and bound, dependent on the laws of Fricka and on the +lies of Loki, forced to traffic with dwarfs for handicraft and +with giants for strength, and to pay them both in false coin. +After all, a god is a pitiful thing. But the fertility of the +First Mother is not yet exhausted. The life that came from her +has ever climbed up to a higher and higher organization. From +toad and serpent to dwarf, from bear and elephant to giant, from +dwarf and giant to a god with thoughts, with comprehension of the +world, with ideals. Why should it stop there? Why should it not +rise from the god to the Hero? to the creature in whom the god's +unavailing thought shall have become effective will and life, who +shall make his way straight to truth and reality over the laws of +Fricka and the lies of Loki with a strength that overcomes giants +and a cunning that outwits dwarfs? Yes: Erda, the First Mother, +must travail again, and breed him a race of heroes to deliver the +world and himself from his limited powers and disgraceful +bargains. This is the vision that flashes on him as he turns to +the rainbow bridge and calls his wife to come and dwell with him +in Valhalla, the home of the gods. + +They are all overcome with Valhalla's glory except Loki. He is +behind the scenes of this joint reign of the Divine and the +Legal. He despises these gods with their ideals and their golden +apples. "I am ashamed," he says, "to have dealings with these +futile creatures." And so he follows them to the rainbow bridge. +But as they set foot on it, from the river below rises the +wailing of the Rhine maidens for their lost gold. "You down there +in the water," cries Loki with brutal irony: "you used to bask in +the glitter of your gold: henceforth you shall bask in the +splendor of the gods." And they reply that the truth is in the +depths and the darkness, and that what blazes on high there is +falsehood. And with that the gods pass into their glorious +stronghold. + + + +WAGNER AS REVOLUTIONIST + +Before leaving this explanation of The Rhine Gold, I must have a +word or two about it with the reader. It is the least popular of +the sections of The Ring. The reason is that its dramatic moments +lie quite outside the consciousness of people whose joys and +sorrows are all domestic and personal, and whose religions and +political ideas are purely conventional and superstitious. To +them it is a struggle between half a dozen fairytale personages +for a ring, involving hours of scolding and cheating, and one +long scene in a dark gruesome mine, with gloomy, ugly music, and +not a glimpse of a handsome young man or pretty woman. Only those +of wider consciousness can follow it breathlessly, seeing in it +the whole tragedy of human history and the whole horror of the +dilemmas from which the world is shrinking today. At Bayreuth I +have seen a party of English tourists, after enduring agonies of +boredom from Alberic, rise in the middle of the third scene, and +almost force their way out of the dark theatre into the sunlit +pine-wood without. And I have seen people who were deeply +affected by the scene driven almost beside themselves by this +disturbance. But it was a very natural thing for the unfortunate +tourists to do, since in this Rhine Gold prologue there is no +interval between the acts for escape. Roughly speaking, people +who have no general ideas, no touch of the concern of the +philosopher and statesman for the race, cannot enjoy The Rhine +Gold as a drama. They may find compensations in some exceedingly +pretty music, at times even grand and glorious, which will enable +them to escape occasionally from the struggle between Alberic and +Wotan; but if their capacity for music should be as limited as +their comprehension of the world, they had better stay away. + +And now, attentive Reader, we have reached the point at which +some foolish person is sure to interrupt us by declaring that The +Rhine Gold is what they call "a work of art" pure and simple, and +that Wagner never dreamt of shareholders, tall hats, whitelead +factories, and industrial and political questions looked at from +the socialistic and humanitarian points of view. We need not +discuss these impertinences: it is easier to silence them with +the facts of Wagner's life. In 1843 he obtained the position of +conductor of the Opera at Dresden at a salary of L225 a year, +with a pension. This was a first-rate permanent appointment in +the service of the Saxon State, carrying an assured professional +position and livelihood with it In 1848, the year of revolutions, +the discontented middle class, unable to rouse the +Churchand-State governments of the day from their bondage to +custom, caste, and law by appeals to morality or constitutional +agitation for Liberal reforms, made common cause with the +starving wage-working class, and resorted to armed rebellion, +which reached Dresden in 1849. Had Wagner been the mere musical +epicure and political mugwump that the term "artist" seems to +suggest to so many critics and amateurs--that is, a creature in +their own lazy likeness--he need have taken no more part in the +political struggles of his day than Bishop took in the English +Reform agitation of 1832, or Sterndale Bennett in the Chartist or +Free Trade movements. What he did do was first to make a +desperate appeal to the King to cast off his bonds and answer the +need of the time by taking true Kingship on himself and leading +his people to the redress of their intolerable wrongs (fancy the +poor monarch's feelings!), and then, when the crash came, to take +his side with the right and the poor against the rich and the +wrong. When the insurrection was defeated, three leaders of it +were especially marked down for vengeance: August Roeckel, an old +friend of Wagner's to whom he wrote a well-known series of +letters; Michael Bakoonin, afterwards a famous apostle of +revolutionary Anarchism; and Wagner himself. Wagner escaped to +Switzerland: Roeckel and Bakoonin suffered long terms of +imprisonment. Wagner was of course utterly ruined, pecuniarily +and socially (to his own intense relief and satisfaction); and +his exile lasted twelve years. His first idea was to get his +Tannhauser produced in Paris. With the notion of explaining +himself to the Parisians he wrote a pamphlet entitled Art and +Revolution, a glance through which will show how thoroughly the +socialistic side of the revolution had his sympathy, and how +completely he had got free from the influence of the established +Churches of his day. For three years he kept pouring forth +pamphlets--some of them elaborate treatises in size and +intellectual rank, but still essentially the pamphlets and +manifestoes of a born agitator--on social evolution, religion, +life, art and the influence of riches. In 1853 the poem of The +Ring was privately printed; and in 1854, five years after the +Dresden insurrection, The Rhine Gold score was completed to the +last drum tap. + +These facts are on official record in Germany, where the +proclamation summing up Wagner as "a politically dangerous +person" may be consulted to this day. The pamphlets are now +accessible to English readers in the translation of Mr. Ashton +Ellis. This being so, any person who, having perhaps heard that I +am a Socialist, attempts to persuade you that my interpretation +of The Rhine Gold is only "my socialism" read into the works of a +dilettantist who borrowed an idle tale from an old saga to make +an opera book with, may safely be dismissed from your +consideration as an ignoramus. + +If you are now satisfied that The Rhine Gold is an allegory, do +not forget that an allegory is never quite consistent except when +it is written by someone without dramatic faculty, in which case +it is unreadable. There is only one way of dramatizing an idea; +and that is by puttmg on the stage a human being possessed +by that idea, yet none the less a human being with all the human +impulses which make him akin and therefore interesting to us. +Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, does not, like his unread +imitators, attempt to personify Christianity and Valour: he +dramatizes for you the life of the Christian and the Valiant Man. +Just so, though I have shown that Wotan is Godhead and Kingship, +and Loki Logic and Imagination without living Will (Brain without +Heart, to put it vulgarly); yet in the drama Wotan is a +religiously moral man, and Loki a witty, ingenious, imaginative +and cynical one. As to Fricka, who stands for State Law, she does +not assume her allegorical character in The Rhine Gold at all, +but is simply Wotan's wife and Freia's sister: nay, she +contradicts her allegorical self by conniving at all Wotan's +rogueries. That, of course, is just what State Law would do; but +we must not save the credit of the allegory by a quip. Not until +she reappears in the next play (The Valkyries) does her function +in the allegorical scheme become plain. + +One preconception will bewilder the spectator hopelessly unless +he has been warned against it or is naturally free from it. In +the old-fashioned orders of creation, the supernatural personages +are invariably conceived as greater than man, for good or evil. +In the modern humanitarian order as adopted by Wagner, Man is the +highest. In The Rhine Gold, it is pretended that there are as yet +no men on the earth. There are dwarfs, giants, and gods. The +danger is that you will jump to the conclusion that the gods, at +least, are a higher order than the human order. On the contrary, +the world is waiting for Man to redeem it from the lame and +cramped government of the gods. Once grasp that; and the allegory +becomes simple enough. Really, of course, the dwarfs, giants, and +gods are dramatizations of the three main orders of men: to wit, +the instinctive, predatory, lustful, greedy people; the patient, +toiling, stupid, respectful, money-worshipping people; and the +intellectual, moral, talented people who devise and administer +States and Churches. History shows us only one order higher than +the highest of these: namely, the order of Heroes. + +Now it is quite clear--though you have perhaps never thought of +it--that if the next generation of Englishmen consisted wholly of +Julius Caesars, all our political, ecclesiastical, and moral +institutions would vanish, and the less perishable of their +appurtenances be classed with Stonehenge and the cromlechs and +round towers as inexplicable relics of a bygone social order. +Julius Caesars would no more trouble themselves about such +contrivances as our codes and churches than a fellow of the Royal +Society will touch his hat to the squire and listen to the +village curate's sermons. This is precisely what must happen some +day if life continues thrusting towards higher and higher +organization as it has hitherto done. As most of our English +professional men are to Australian bushmen, so, we must suppose, +will the average man of some future day be to Julius Caesar. Let +any man of middle age, pondering this prospect consider what has +happened within a single generation to the articles of faith his +father regarded as eternal nay, to the very scepticisms and +blasphemies of his youth (Bishop Colenso's criticism of the +Pentateuch, for example!); and he will begin to realize how much +of our barbarous Theology and Law the man of the future will do +without. Bakoonin, the Dresden revolutionary leader with whom +Wagner went out in 1849, put forward later on a program, often +quoted with foolish horror, for the abolition of all +institutions, religious, political, juridical, financial, legal, +academic, and so on, so as to leave the will of man free to find +its own way. All the loftiest spirits of that time were burning +to raise Man up, to give him self-respect, to shake him out of +his habit of grovelling before the ideals created by his own +imagination, of attributmg the good that sprang from the +ceaseless energy of the life within himself to some superior +power in the clouds, and of making a fetish of self-sacrifice to +justify his own cowardice. + +Farther on in The Ring we shall see the Hero arrive and make an +end of dwarfs, giants, and gods. Meanwhile, let us not forget +that godhood means to Wagner infirmity and compromise, and +manhood strength and integrity. Above all, we must understand-- +for it is the key to much that we are to see--that the god, since +his desire is toward a higher and fuller life, must long in his +inmost soul for the advent of that greater power whose first +work, though this he does not see as yet, must be his own +undoing. + +In the midst of all these far-reaching ideas, it is amusing to +find Wagner still full of his ingrained theatrical +professionalism, and introducing effects which now seem +old-fashioned and stagey with as much energy and earnestness as +if they were his loftiest inspirations. When Wotan wrests the +ring from Alberic, the dwarf delivers a lurid and bloodcurdling +stage curse, calling down on its every future possessor care, +fear, and death. The musical phrase accompanying this outburst +was a veritable harmonic and melodic bogey to mid-century ears, +though time has now robbed it of its terrors. It sounds again +when Fafnir slays Fasolt, and on every subsequent occasion when +the ring brings death to its holder. This episode must justify +itself purely as a piece of stage sensationalism. On deeper +ground it is superfluous and confusing, as the ruin to which the +pursuit of riches leads needs no curse to explain it; nor is +there any sense in investing Alberic with providential powers in +the matter. + + + +THE VALKYRIES + +Before the curtain rises on the Valkyries, let us see what has +happened since it fell on The Rhine Gold. The persons of the +drama will tell us presently; but as we probably do not +understand German, that may not help us. + +Wotan is still ruling the world in glory from his giantbuilt +castle with his wife Fricka. But he has no security for the +continuance of his reign, since Alberic may at any moment +contrive to recover the ring, the full power of which he can +wield because he has forsworn love. Such forswearing is not +possible to Wotan: love, though not his highest need, is a higher +than gold: otherwise he would be no god. Besides, as we have +seen, his power has been established in the world by and as a +system of laws enforced by penalties. These he must consent to be +bound by himself; for a god who broke his own laws would betray +the fact that legality and conformity are not the highest rule of +conduct--a discovery fatal to his supremacy as Pontiff and +Lawgiver. Hence "he may not wrest the ring unlawfully from +Fafnir, even if he could bring himself to forswear love. + +In this insecurity he has hit on the idea of forming a heroic +bodyguard. He has trained his love children as war-maidens +(Valkyries) whose duty it is to sweep through battle-fields and +bear away to Valhalla the souls of the bravest who fall there. +Thus reinforced by a host of warriors, he has thoroughly +indoctrinated them, Loki helping him as dialectician-in-chief, +with the conventional system of law and duty, supernatural +religion and self-sacrificing idealism, which they believe to be +the essence of his godhood, but which is really only the +machinery of the love of necessary power which is his mortal +weakness. This process secures their fanatical devotion to his +system of government, but he knows perfectly well that such +systems, in spite of their moral pretensions, serve selfish and +ambitious tyrants better than benevolent despots, and that, if +once Alberic gets the ring back, he will easily out-Valhalla +Valhalla, if not buy it over as a going concern. The only chance +of permanent security, then, is the appearance in the world of a +hero who, without any illicit prompting from Wotan, will destroy +Alberic and wrest the ring from Fafnir. There will then, he +believes, be no further cause for anxiety, since he does not yet +conceive Heroism as a force hostile to Godhead. In his longing +for a rescuer, it does not occur to him that when the Hero comes, +his first exploit must be to sweep the gods and their ordinances +from the path of the heroic will. + +Indeed, he feels that in his own Godhead is the germ of such +Heroism, and that from himself the Hero must spring. He takes to +wandering, mostly in search of love, from Fricka and Valhalla. He +seeks the First Mother; and through her womb, eternally fertile, +the inner true thought that made him first a god is reborn as his +daughter, uncorrupted by his ambition, unfettered by his +machinery of power and his alliances with Fricka and Loki. This +daughter, the Valkyrie Brynhild, is his true will, his real +self, (as he thinks): to her he may say what he must not say to +anyone, since in speaking to her he but speaks to himself. "Was +Keinem in Worten unausgesprochen," he says to her, "bleib es +ewig: mit mir nur rath' ich, red' ich zu dir." + +But from Brynhild no hero can spring until there is a man of +Wotan's race to breed with her. Wotan wanders further; and a +mortal woman bears him twins: a son and a daughter. He separates +them by letting the girl fall into the hands of a forest tribe +which in due time gives her as a wife to a fierce chief, one +Hunding. With the son he himself leads the life of a wolf, and +teaches him the only power a god can teach, the power of doing +without happiness. When he has given him this terrible training, +he abandons him, and goes to the bridal feast of his daughter +Sieglinda and Hunding. In the blue cloak of the wanderer, wearing +the broad hat that flaps over the socket of his forfeited eye, he +appears in Hunding's house, the middle pillar of which is a +mighty tree. Into that tree, without a word, he strikes a sword +up to the hilt, so that only the might of a hero can withdraw +it. Then he goes out as silently as he came, blind to the truth +that no weapon from the armory of Godhead can serve the turn of +the true Human Hero. Neither Hunding nor any of his guests can +move the sword; and there it stays awaiting the destined hand. +That is the history of the generations between The Rhine Gold and +The Valkyries. + +The First Act + +This time, as we sit looking expectantly at the curtain, we hear, +not the deep booming of the Rhine, but the patter of a forest +downpour, accompanied by the mutter of a storm which soon gathers +into a roar and culminates in crashing thunderbolts. As it +passes off, the curtain rises; and there is no mistaking whose +forest habitation we are in; for the central pillar is a mighty +tree, and the place fit for the dwelling of a fierce chief. The +door opens: and an exhausted man reels in: an adept from the +school of unhappiness. Sieglinda finds him lying on the hearth. +He explains that he has been in a fight; that his weapons not +being as strong as his arms, were broken; and that he had to fly. +He desires some drink and a moment's rest; then he will go; for +he is an unlucky person, and does not want to bring his ill-luck +on the woman who is succoring him. But she, it appears, is also +unhappy; and a strong sympathy springs up between them. When her +husband arrives, he observes not only this sympathy, but a +resemblance between them, a gleam of the snake in their eyes. +They sit down to table; and the stranger tells them his unlucky +story. He is the son of Wotan, who is known to him only as +Wolfing, of the race of the Volsungs. The earliest thing he +remembers is returning from a hunt with his father to find their +home destroyed, his mother murdered, and his twin-sister carried +off. This was the work of a tribe called the Neidings, upon whom +he and Wolfing thenceforth waged implacable war until the day +when his father disappeared, leaving no trace of himself but an +empty wolfskin. The young Volsung was thus cast alone upon the +world, finding most hands against him, and bringing no good luck +even to his friends. His latest exploit has been the slaying of +certain brothers who were forcing their sister to wed against her +will. The result has been the slaughter of the woman by her +brothers' clansmen, and his own narrow escape by flight. + +His luck on this occasion is even worse than he supposes; for +Hunding, by whose hearth he has taken refuge, is clansman to the +slain brothers and is bound to avenge them. He tells the Volsung +that in the morning, weapons or no weapons, he must fight for his +life. Then he orders the woman to bed, and follows her himself, +taking his spear with him. + +The unlucky stranger, left brooding by the hearth, has nothing to +console himself with but an old promise of his father's that he +shall find a weapon to his hand when he most needs one. The last +flicker of the dying fire strikes on the golden hilt of the sword +that sticks in the tree; but he does not see it; and the embers +sink into blackness. Then the woman returns. Hunding is safely +asleep: she has drugged him. She tells the story of the one-eyed +man who appeared at her forced marriage, and of the sword. She +has always felt, she says, that her miseries will end in the arms +of the hero who shall succeed in drawing it forth. The stranger, +diffident as he is about his luck, has no misgivings as to his +strength and destiny. He gives her his affection at once, and +abandons himself to the charm of the night and the season; for it +is the beginning of Spring. They soon learn from their +confidences that she is his stolen twin-sister. He is transported +to find that the heroic race of the Volsungs need neither perish +nor be corrupted by a lower strain. Hailing the sword by the name +of Nothung (or Needed), he plucks it from the tree as her +bride-gift, and then, crying "Both bride and sister be of thy +brother; and blossom the blood of the Volsungs!" clasps her as +the mate the Spring has brought him. + +The Second Act + +So far, Wotan's plan seems prospering. In the mountains he calls +his war-maiden Brynhild, the child borne to him by the First +Mother, and bids her see to it that Hunding shall fall in the +approaching combat. But he is reckoning without his consort, +Fricka. What will she, the Law, say to the lawless pair who have +heaped incest on adultery? A hero may have defied the law, and +put his own will in its place; but can a god hold him guiltless, +when the whole power of the gods can enforce itself only by law? +Fricka, shuddering with horror, outraged in every instinct, comes +clamoring for punishment. Wotan pleads the general necessity of +encouraging heroism in order to keep up the Valhalla bodyguard; +but his remonstrances only bring upon him torrents of reproaches +for his own unfaithfulness to the law in roaming through the +world and begetting war-maidens, "wolf cubs," and the like. He is +hopelessly beaten in the argument. Fricka is absolutely right +when she declares that the ending of the gods began when he +brought this wolf-hero into the world; and now, to save their +very existence, she pitilessly demands his destruction. Wotan has +no power to refuse: it is Fricka's mechanical force, and not his +thought, that really rules the world. He has to recall Brynhild; +take back his former instructions; and ordain that Hunding shall +slay the Volsung. + +But now comes another difficulty. Brynhild is the inner thought +and will of Godhead, the aspiration from the high life to the +higher that is its divine element, and only becomes separated +from it when its resort to kingship and priestcraft for the sake +of temporal power has made it false to itself. Hitherto, +Brynhild, as Valkyrie or hero chooser, has obeyed Wotan +implicitly, taking her work as the holiest and bravest in his +kingdom; and now he tells her what he could not tell Fricka--what +indeed he could not tell to Brynhild, were she not, as she says, +his own will--the whole story of Alberic and of that inspiration +about the raising up of a hero. She thoroughly approves of the +inspiration; but when the story ends in the assumption that she +too must obey Fricka, and help Fricka's vassal, Hunding, to undo +the great work and strike the hero down, she for the first time +hesitates to accept his command. In his fury and despair he +overawes her by the most terrible threats of his anger; and she +submits. + +Then comes the Volsung Siegmund, following his sister bride, who +has fled into the mountains in a revulsion of horror at having +allowed herself to bring her hero to shame. Whilst she is lying +exhausted and senseless in his arms, Brynhild appears to him and +solemnly warns him that he must presently leave the earth with +her. He asks whither he must follow her. To Valhalla, to take his +place there among the heroes. He asks, shall he find his father +there? Yes. Shall he find a wife there? Yes: he will be waited on +by beautiful wishmaidens. Shall he meet his sister there? No. +Then, says Siegmund, I will not come with you. + +She tries to make him understand that he cannot help himself. +Being a hero, he will not be so persuaded: he has his father's +sword, and does not fear Hunding. But when she tells him that she +comes from his father, and that the sword of a god will not avail +in the hands of a hero, he accepts his fate, but will shape it +with his own hand, both for himself and his sister, by slaying +her, and then killing himself with the last stroke of the sword. +And thereafter he will go to Hell, rather than to Valhalla. + +How now can Brynhild, being what she is, choose her side freely +in a conflict between this hero and the vassal of Fricka? By +instinct she at once throws Wotan's command to the winds, and +bids Siegmund nerve himself for the combat with Hunding, in which +she pledges him the protection of her shield. The horn of Hunding +is soon heard; and Siegmund's spirits rise to fighting pitch at +once. The two meet; and the Valkyrie's shield is held before the +hero. But when he delivers his sword-stroke at his foe, the +weapon shivers on the spear of Wotan, who suddenly appears +between them; and the first of the race of heroes falls with the +weapon of the Law's vassal through his breast. Brynhild snatches +the fragments of the broken sword, and flies, carrying off the +woman with her on her war-horse; and Wotan, in terrible wrath, +slays Hunding with a wave of his hand, and starts in pursuit of +his disobedient daughter. + +The Third Act + +On a rocky peak, four of the Valkyries are waiting for the rest. +The absent ones soon arrive, galloping through the air with slain +heroes, gathered from the battle-field, hanging over their +saddles. Only, Brynhild, who comes last, has for her spoil a live +woman. When her eight sisters learn that she has defied Wotan, +they dare not help her; and Brynhild has to rouse Sieglinda to +make an effort to save herself, by reminding her that she bears +in her the seed of a hero, and must face everything, endure +anything, sooner than let that seed miscarry. Sieglinda, in a +transport of exaltation, takes the fragments of the sword and +flies into the forest. Then Wotan comes; the sisters fly in +terror at his command; and he is left alone with Brynhild. + +Here, then, we have the first of the inevitable moments which +Wotan did not foresee. Godhead has now established its dominion +over the world by a mighty Church, compelling obedience through +its ally the Law, with its formidable State organization of force +of arms and cunning of brain. It has submitted to this alliance +to keep the Plutonic power in check--built it up primarily for +the sake of that soul in itself which cares only to make the +highest better and the best higher; and now here is that very +soul separated from it and working for the destruction of its +indispensable ally, the lawgiving State. How is the rebel to be +disarmed? Slain it cannot be by Godhead, since it is still +Godhead's own very dearest soul. But hidden, stifled, silenced it +must be; or it will wreck the State and leave the Church +defenseless. Not until it passes completely away from Godhead, +and is reborn as the soul of the hero, can it work anything but +the confusion and destruction of the existing order. How is the +world to be protected against it in the meantime? Clearly Loki's +help is needed here: it is the Lie that must, on the highest +principles, hide the Truth. Let Loki surround this mountain top +with the appearance of a consuming fire; and who will dare +penetrate to Brynhild? It is true that if any man will walk +boldly into that fire, he will discover it at once to be a lie, +an illusion, a mirage through which he might carry a sack of +gunpowder without being a penny the worse. Therefore let the fire +seem so terrible that only the hero, when in the fulness of time +he appears upon earth, will venture through it; and the problem +is solved. Wotan, with a breaking heart, takes leave of Brynhild; +throws her into a deep sleep; covers her with her long warshield; +summons Loki, who comes in the shape of a wall of fire +surrounding the mountain peak; and turns his back on Brynhild for +ever. + +The allegory here is happily not so glaringly obvious to the +younger generations of our educated classes as it was forty years +ago. In those days, any child who expressed a doubt as to the +absolute truth of the Church's teaching, even to the extent of +asking why Joshua told the sun to stand still instead of telling +the earth to cease turning, or of pointing out that a whale's +throat would hardly have been large enough to swallow Jonah, was +unhesitatingly told that if it harboured such doubts it would +spend all eternity after its death in horrible torments in a lake +of burning brimstone. It is difficult to write or read this +nowadays without laughing; yet no doubt millions of ignorant and +credulous people are still teaching their children that. When +Wagner himself was a little child, the fact that hell was a +fiction devised for the intimidation and subjection of the +masses, was a well-kept secret of the thinking and governing +classes. At that time the fires of Loki were a very real terror +to all except persons of exceptional force of character and +intrepidity of thought. Even thirty years after Wagner had +printed the verses of The Ring for private circulation, we find +him excusing himself from perfectly explicit denial of current +superstitions, by reminding his readers that it would expose him +to prosecution. In England, so many of our respectable voters are +still grovelling in a gloomy devil worship, of which the fires of +Loki are the main bulwark, that no Government has yet had the +conscience or the courage to repeal our monstrous laws against +"blasphemy." + + + +SIEGFRIED + +Sieglinda, when she flies into the forest with the hero's son +unborn in her womb, and the broken pieces of his sword in her +hand, finds shelter in the smithy of a dwarf, where she brings +forth her child and dies. This dwarf is no other than Mimmy, the +brother of Alberic, the same who made for him the magic helmet. +His aim in life is to gain possession of the helmet, the ring, +and the treasure, and through them to obtain that Plutonic +mastery of the world under the beginnings of which he himself +writhed during Alberic's brief reign. Mimmy is a blinking, +shambling, ancient creature, too weak and timid to dream of +taking arms himself to despoil Fafnir, who still, transformed to +a monstrous serpent, broods on the gold in a hole in the rocks. +Mimmy needs the help of a hero for that; and he has craft enough +to know that it is quite possible, and indeed much in the +ordinary way of the world, for senile avarice and craft to set +youth and bravery to work to win empire for it. He knows the +pedigree of the child left on his hands, and nurses it to manhood +with great care. + +His pains are too well rewarded for his comfort. The boy +Siegfried, having no god to instruct him in the art of +unhappiness, inherits none of his father's ill luck, and all his +father's hardihood. The fear against which Siegmund set his face +like flint, and the woe which he wore down, are unknown to the +son. The father was faithful and grateful: the son knows no law +but his own humor; detests the ugly dwarf ho has nursed him; +chafes furiously under his claims some return for his tender +care; and is, in short, a totally unmoral person, a born +anarchist, the ideal of Bakoonin, an anticipation of the +"overman" of Nietzsche. He is enormously strong, full of life and +fun, dangerous and destructive to what he dislikes, and +affectionate to what he likes; so that it is fortunate that his +likes and dislikes are sane and healthy. Altogether an +inspiriting young forester, a son of the morning, in whom the +heroic race has come out into the sunshine from the clouds of his +grandfather's majestic entanglements with law, and the night of +his father's tragic struggle with it. + +The First Act + +Mimmy's smithy is a cave, in which he hides from the light like +the eyeless fish of the American caverns. Before the curtain +rises the music already tells us that we are groping in darkness. +When it does rise Mimmy is in difficulties. He is trying to make +a sword for his nursling, who is now big enough to take the field +against Fafnir. Mimmy can make mischievous swords; but it is not +with dwarf made weapons that heroic man will hew the way of his +own will through religions and governments and plutocracies and +all the other devices of the kingdom of the fears of the +unheroic. As fast as Mimmy makes swords, Siegfried Bakoonin +smashes them, and then takes the poor old swordsmith by the +scruff of the neck and chastises him wrathfully. The particular +day on which the curtain rises begins with one of these trying +domestic incidents. Mimmy has just done his best with a new sword +of surpassing excellence. Siegfried returns home in rare spirits +with a wild bear, to the extreme terror of the wretched dwarf. +When the bear is dismissed, the new sword is produced. It is +promptly smashed, as usual, with, also, the usual effects on the +temper of Siegfried, who is quite boundless in his criticisms of +the smith's boasted skill, and declares that he would smash the +sword's maker too if he were not too disgusting to be handled. + +Mimmy falls back on his stock defence: a string of maudlin +reminders of the care with which he has nursed the little boy +into manhood. Siegfried replies candidly that the strangest thing +about all this care is that instead of making him grateful, it +inspires him with a lively desire to wring the dwarf's neck. +Only, he admits that he always comes back to his Mimmy, though he +loathes him more than any living thing in the forest. On this +admission the dwarf attempts to build a theory of filial +instinct. He explains that he is Siegfried's father, and that +this is why Siegfried cannot do without him. But Siegfried has +learned from his forest companions, the birds and foxes and +wolves, that mothers as well as fathers go to the making of +children. Mimmy, on the desperate ground that man is neither bird +nor fox, declares that he is Siegfried's father and mother both. +He is promptly denounced as a filthy liar, because the birds and +foxes are exactly like their parents, whereas Siegfried, having +often watched his own image in the water, can testify that he is +no more like Mimmy than a toad is like a trout. Then, to place +the conversation on a plane of entire frankness, he throttles +Mimmy until he is speechless. When the dwarf recovers, he is so +daunted that he tells Siegfried the truth about his birth, and +for testimony thereof produces the pieces of the sword that broke +upon Wotan's spear. Siegfried instantly orders him to repair the +sword on pain of an unmerciful thrashing, and rushes off into the +forest, rejoicing in the discovery that he is no kin of Mimmy's, +and need have no more to do with him when the sword is mended. + +Poor Mimmy is now in a worse plight than ever; for he has long +ago found that the sword utterly defies his skill: the steel will +yield neither to his hammer nor to his furnace. Just then there +walks into his cave a Wanderer, in a blue mantle, spear in hand, +with one eye concealed by the brim of his wide hat. Mimmy, not by +nature hospitable, tries to drive him away; but the Wanderer +announces himself as a wise man, who can tell his host, in +emergency, what it most concerns him to know. Mimmy, taking this +offer in high dudgeon, because it implies that his visitor's wits +are better than his own, offers to tell the wise one something +that HE does not know: to wit, the way to the door. The +imperturbable Wanderer's reply is to sit down and challenge the +dwarf to a trial of wit. He wagers his head against Mimmy's that +he will answer any three questions the dwarf can put to him. + +Now here were Mimmy's opportunity, had he only the wit to ask +what he wants to know, instead of pretending to know everything +already. It is above all things needful to him at this moment to +find out how that sword can be mended; and there has just dropped +in upon him in his need the one person who can tell him. In such +circumstances a wise man would hasten to show to his visitor his +three deepest ignorances, and ask him to dispel them. The dwarf, +being a crafty fool, desiring only to detect ignorance in his +guest, asks him for information on the three points on which he +is proudest of being thoroughly well instructed himself. His +three questions are, Who dwell under the earth? Who dwell on the +earth? and Who dwell in the cloudy heights above? The Wanderer, +in reply, tells him of the dwarfs and of Alberic; of the earth, +and the giants Fasolt and Fafnir; of the gods and of Wotan: +himself, as Mimmy now recognizes with awe. + +Next, it is Mimmy's turn to face three questions. What is that +race, dearest to Wotan, against which Wotan has nevertheless done +his worst? Mimmy can answer that: he knows the Volsungs, the race +of heroes born of Wotan's infidelities to Fricka, and can tell +the Wanderer the whole story of the twins and their son +Siegfried. Wotan compliments him on his knowledge, and asks +further with what sword Siegfried will slay Fafnir? Mimmy can +answer that too: he has the whole history of the sword at his +fingers' ends. Wotan hails him as the knowingest of the knowing, +and then hurls at him the question he should himself have asked: +Who will mend the sword? Mimmy, his head forfeited, confesses +with loud lamentations that he cannot answer. The Wanderer reads +him an appropriate little lecture on the folly of being too +clever to ask what he wants to know, and informs him that a smith +to whom fear is unknown will mend Nothung. To this smith he +leaves the forfeited head of his host, and wanders off into the +forest. Then Mimmy's nerves give way completely. He shakes like a +man in delirium tremens, and has a horrible nightmare, in the +supreme convulsion of which Siegfried, returning from the forest, +presently finds him. + +A curious and amusing conversation follows. Siegfried himself +does not know fear, and is impatient to acquire it as an +accomplishment. Mimmy is all fear: the world for him is a +phantasmagoria of terrors. It is not that he is afraid of being +eaten by bears in the forest, or of burning his fingers in the +forge fire. A lively objection to being destroyed or maimed does +not make a man a coward: on the contrary, it is the beginning of +a brave man's wisdom. But in Mimmy, fear is not the effect of +danger: it is natural quality of him which no security can allay. +He is like many a poor newspaper editor, who dares not print the +truth, however simple, even when it is obvious to himself and all +his readers. Not that anything unpleasant would happen to him if +he did--not, indeed that he could fail to become a distinguished +and influential leader of opinion by fearlessly pursuing such a +course, but solely because he lives in a world of imaginary +terrors, rooted in a modest and gentlemanly mistrust of his own +strength and worth, and consequently of the value of his opinion. +Just so is Mimmy afraid of anything that can do him any good, +especially of the light and the fresh air. He is also convinced +that anybody who is not sufficiently steeped in fear to be +constantly on his guard, must perish immediately on his first +sally into the world. To preserve Siegfried for the enterprise to +which he has destined him he makes a grotesque attempt to teach +him fear. He appeals to his experience of the terrors of the +forest, of its dark places, of its threatening noises its +stealthy ambushes, its sinister flickering lights its +heart-tightening ecstasies of dread. + +All this has no other effect than to fill Siegfried with wonder +and curiosity; for the forest is a place of delight for him. He +is as eager to experience Mimmy's terrors as a schoolboy to feel +what an electric shock is like. Then Mimmy has the happy idea of +describing Fafnir to him as a likely person to give him an +exemplary fright. Siegfried jumps at the idea, and, since Mimmy +cannot mend the sword for him, proposes to set to work then and +there to mend it for himself. Mimmy shakes his head, and bids him +see now how his youthful laziness and frowardness have found him +out--how he would not learn the smith's craft from Professor +Mimmy, and therefore does not know how even to begin mending the +sword. Siegfried Bakoonin's retort is simple and crushing. He +points out that the net result of Mimmy's academic skill is that +he can neither make a decent sword himself nor even set one to +rights when it is damaged. Reckless of the remonstrances of the +scandalized professor, he seizes a file, and in a few moments +utterly destroys the fragments of the sword by rasping them into +a heap of steel filings. Then he puts the filings into a +crucible; buries it in the coals; and sets to at the bellows with +the shouting exultation of the anarchist who destroys only to +clear the ground for creation. When the steel is melted he runs +it into a mould; and lo! a sword-blade in the rough. Mimmy, +amazed at the success of this violation of all the rules of his +craft, hails Siegfried as the mightiest of smiths, professing +himself barely worthy to be his cook and scullion; and forthwith +proceeds to poison some soup for him so that he may murder him +safely when Fafnir is slain. Meanwhile Siegfned forges and +tempers and hammers and rivets, uproariously singing the while as +nonsensically as the Rhine maidens themselves. Finally he assails +the anvil on which Mimmy's swords have been shattered, and +cleaves it with a mighty stroke of the newly forged Nothung. + +The Second Act + +In the darkest hour before the dawn of that night, we find +ourselves before the cave of Fafnir, and there we find Alberic, +who can find nothing better to do with himself than to watch the +haunt of the dragon, and eat his heart out in vain longing for +the gold and the ring. The wretched Fafnir, once an honest giant, +can only make himself terrible enough to keep his gold by +remaining a venomous reptile. Why he should not become an honest +giant again and clear out of his cavern, leaving the gold and the +ring and the rest of it for anyone fool enough to take them at +such a price, is the first question that would occur to anyone +except a civilized man, who would be too accustomed to that sort +of mania to be at all surprised at it. + +To Alberic in the night comes the Wanderer, whom the dwarf, +recognizing his despoiler of old, abuses as a shameless thief, +taunting him with the helpless way in which all his boasted power +is tied up with the laws and bargains recorded on the heft of his +spear, which, says Alberic truly, would crumble like chaff in his +hands if he dared use it for his own real ends. Wotan, having +already had to kill his own son with it, knows that very well; +but it troubles him no more; for he is now at last rising to +abhorrence of his own artificial power, and looking to the coming +hero, not for its consolidation but its destruction. When Alberic +breaks out again with his still unquenched hope of one day +destroying the gods and ruling the world through the ring, Wotan +is no longer shocked. He tells Alberic that Brother Mime +approaches with a hero whom Godhead can neither help nor hinder. +Alberic may try his luck against him without disturbance from +Valhalla. Perhaps, he suggests, if Alberic warns Fafnir, and +offers to deal with the hero for him, Fafnir, may give him the +ring. They accordingly wake up the dragon, who condescends to +enter into bellowing conversation, but is proof against their +proposition, strong in the magic of property. "I have and hold," +he says: "leave me to sleep." Wotan, with a wise laugh, turns to +Alberic. "That shot missed," he says: "no use abusing me for it. +And now let me tell you one thing. All things happen according to +their nature; and you can't alter them." And so he leaves him +Alberic, raging with the sense that his old enemy has been +laughing at him, and yet prophetically convinced that the last +word will not be with the god, hides himself as the day breaks, +and his brother approaches with Siegfried. + +Mimmy makes a final attempt to frighten Siegfried by discoursing +of the dragon's terrible jaws, poisonous breath, corrosive +spittle, and deadly, stinging tail. Siegfried is not interested +in the tail: he wants to know whether the dragon has a heart, +being confident of his ability to stick Nothung into it if it +exists. Reassured on this point, he drives Mimmy away, and +stretches himself under the trees, listening to the morning +chatter of the birds. One of them has a great deal to say to him; +but he cannot understand it; and after vainly trying to carry on +the conversation with a reed which he cuts, he takes to +entertaining the bird with tunes on his horn, asking it to send +him a loving mate such as all the other creatures of the forest +have. His tunes wake up the dragon; and Siegfried makes merry +over the grim mate the bird has sent him. Fafnir is highly +scandalized by the irreverence of the young Bakoonin. He loses +his temper; fights; and is forthwith slain, to his own great +astonishment. + +In such conflicts one learns to interpret the messages of Nature +a little. When Siegfried, stung by the dragon's vitriolic blood, +pops his finger into his mouth and tastes it, he understands what +the bird is saying to him, and, instructed by it concerning the +treasures within his reach, goes into the cave to secure the +gold, the ring and the wishing cap. Then Mimmy returns, and is +confronted by Alberic. The two quarrel furiously over the sharing +of the booty they have not yet secured, until Siegfried comes +from the cave with the ring and the helmet, not much impressed by +the heap of gold, and disappointed because he has not yet learned +to fear. + +He has, however, learnt to read the thoughts of such a creature +as poor Mimmy, who, intending to overwhelm him with flattery and +fondness, only succeeds in making such a self-revelation of +murderous envy that Siegfried smites him with Nothung and slays +him, to the keen satisfaction of the hidden Alberic. Caring +nothing for the gold, which he leaves to the care of the slain; +disappointed in his fancy for learning fear; and longing for a +mate, he casts himself wearily down, and again appeals to his +friend the bird, who tells him of a woman sleeping on a mountain +peak within a fortress of fire that only the fearless can +penetrate. Siegfried is up in a moment with all the tumult of +spring in his veins, and follows the flight of the bird as it +pilots him to the fiery mountain. + +The Third Act + +To the root of the mountain comes also the Wanderer, now nearing +his doom. He calls up the First Mother from the depths of the +earth, and begs counsel from her. She bids him confer with the +Norns (the Fates). But they are of no use to him: what he seeks +is some foreknowledge of the way of the Will in its perpetual +strife with these helpless Fates who can only spin the net of +circumstance and environment round the feet of men. Why not, says +Erda then, go to the daughter I bore you, and take counsel with +her? He has to explain how he has cut himself off from her, and +set the fires of Loki between the world and her counsel. In that +case the First Mother cannot help him: such a separation is part +of the bewilderment that is ever the first outcome of her eternal +work of thrusting the life energy of the world to higher and +higher organization. She can show him no way of escape from the +destruction he foresees. Then from the innermost of him breaks +the confession that he rejoices in his doom, and now himself +exults in passing away with all his ordinances and alliances, +with the spear-sceptre which he has only wielded on condition of +slaying his dearest children with it, with the kingdom, the power +and the glory which will never again boast themselves as "world +without end." And so he dismisses Erda to her sleep in the heart +of the earth as the forest bird draws near, piloting the slain +son's son to his goal. + +Now it is an excellent thing to triumph in the victory of the new +order and the passing away of the old; but if you happen to be +part of the old order yourself, you must none the less fight for +your life. It seems hardly possible that the British army at the +battle of Waterloo did not include at least one Englishman +intelligent enough to hope, for the sake of his country and +humanity, that Napoleon might defeat the allied sovereigns; but +such an Englishman would kill a French cuirassier rather than be +killed by him just as energetically as the silliest soldier, ever +encouraged by people who ought to know better, to call his +ignorance, ferocity and folly, patriotism and duty. Outworn life +may have become mere error; but it still claims the right to die +a natural death, and will raise its hand against the millennium +itself in self-defence if it tries to come by the short cut of +murder. Wotan finds this out when he comes face to face with +Siegfried, who is brought to a standstill at the foot of the +mountain by the disappearance of the bird. Meeting the Wanderer +there, he asks him the way to the mountain where a woman sleeps +surrounded by fire. The Wanderer questions him, and extracts his +story from him, breaking into fatherly delight when Siegfried, +describing the mending of the sword remarks, that all he knew +about the business was that the broken bits of Nothung would be +of no use to him unless he made a new sword out of them right +over again from the beginning. But the Wanderer's interest is by +no means reciprocated by Siegfried. His majesty and elderly +dignity are thrown away on the young anarchist, who, unwilling to +waste time talking, bluntly bids him either show him the way to +the mountain, or else "shut his muzzle." Wotan is a little hurt. +"Patience, my lad," he says: "if you were an old man I should +treat you with respect." "That would be a precious notion," says +Siegfried. "All my life long I was bothered and hampered by an +old man until I swept him out of my way. I will sweep you in the +same fashion if you don't let me pass. Why do you wear such a big +hat; and what has happened to one of your eyes? Was it knocked +out by somebody whose way you obstructed?" To which Wotan replies +allegorically that the eye that is gone--the eye that his +marriage with Fricka cost him--is now looking at him out of +Siegfried's head. At this, Siegfried gives up the Wanderer as a +lunatic, and renews his threats of personal violence. Then Wotan +throws off the mask of the Wanderer; uplifts the world-governing +spear; and puts forth all his divine awe and grandeur as the +guardian of the mountain, round the crest of which the fires of +Loki now break into a red background for the majesty of the god. +But all this is lost on Siegfried Bakoonin. "Aha!" he cries, as +the spear is levelled against his breast: "I have found my +father's foe"; and the spear falls in two pieces under the stroke +of Nothung. "Up then," says Wotan: "I cannot withhold you," and +disappears forever from the eye of man. The fires roll down the +mountain; but Siegfried goes at them as exultantly as he went at +the forging of the sword or the heart of the dragon, and +shoulders his way through them, joyously sounding his horn to the +accompaniment of their crackling and seething. And never a hair +of his head is singed. Those frightful flames which have scared +mankind for centuries from the Truth, have not heat enough in +them to make a child shut its eyes. They are mere phantasmagoria, +highly creditable to Loki's imaginative stage-management; but +nothing ever has perished or will perish eternally in them except +the Churches which nave been so poor and faithless as to trade +for their power on the lies of a romancer. + +BACK TO OPERA AGAIN + +And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories +come to an end somewhere; and the hour of your release from these +explanations is at hand. The rest of what you are going to see is +opera, and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played, +Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and +soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to a +magnificent love duet; and end with a precipitous allegro a +capella, driven headlong to its end by the impetuous semiquaver +triplets of the famous finales to the first act of Don +Giovanni or the coda to the Leonore overture, with a specifically +contrapuntal theme, points d'orgue, and a high C for the soprano +all complete. + +What is more, the work which follows, entitled Night Falls On The +Gods, is a thorough grand opera. In it you shall see what you +have so far missed, the opera chorus in full parade on the stage, +not presuming to interfere with the prima donna as she sings her +death song over the footlights. Nay, that chorus will have its +own chance when it first appears, with a good roaring strain in C +major, not, after all, so very different from, or at all less +absurd than the choruses of courtiers in La Favorita or "Per te +immenso giubilo" in Lucia. The harmony is no doubt a little +developed, Wagner augmenting his fifths with a G sharp where +Donizetti would have put his fingers in his ears and screamed for +G natural. But it is an opera chorus all the same; and along with +it we have theatrical grandiosities that recall Meyerbeer and +Verdi: pezzi d'insieme for all the principals in a row, vengeful +conjurations for trios of them, romantic death song for the +tenor: in short, all manner of operatic conventions. + +Now it is probable that some of us will have been so talked by +the more superstitious Bayreuth pilgrims into regarding Die +Gotterdammerung as the mighty climax to a mighty epic, more +Wagnerian than all the other three sections put together, as not +to dare notice this startling atavism, especially if we find the +trio-conjurations more exhilarating than the metaphysical +discourses of Wotan in the three true music dramas of The Ring. +There is, however, no real atavism involved. Die Gotterdammerung, +though the last of The Ring dramas in order of performance, was +the first in order of conception and was indeed the root from +which all the others sprang. + +The history of the matter is as follows. All Wagner's works prior +to The Ring are operas. The last of them, Lohengrin, is perhaps +the best known of modern operas. As performed in its entirety at +Bayreuth, it is even more operatic than it appears at Covent +Garden, because it happens that its most old-fashioned features, +notably some of the big set concerted pieces for principals and +chorus (pezzi d'insieme as I have called them above), are +harder to perform than the more modern and characteristically +Wagnerian sections, and for that reason were cut out in preparing +the abbreviated fashionable version. Thus Lohengrin came upon the +ordinary operatic stage as a more advanced departure from current +operatic models than its composer had made it. Still, it is +unmistakably an opera, with chorus, concerted pieces, grand +finales, and a heroine who, if she does not sing florid +variations with flute obbligato, is none the less a very +perceptible prima donna. In everything but musical technique the +change from Lohengrin to The Rhine Gold is quite revolutionary. + +The explanation is that Night Falls On The Gods came in between +them, although its music was not finished until twenty years +after that of The Rhine Gold, and thus belongs to a later and +more masterful phase of Wagner's harmonic style. It first came +into Wagner's head as an opera to be entitled Siegfied's Death, +founded on the old Niblung Sagas, which offered to Wagner the +same material for an effective theatrical tragedy as they did to +Ibsen. Ibsen's Vikings in Helgeland is, in kind, what Siegfied's +Death was originally intended to be: that is, a heroic piece for +the theatre, without the metaphysical or allegorical +complications of The Ring. Indeed, the ultimate catastrophe of +the Saga cannot by any perversion of ingenuity be adapted to the +perfectly clear allegorical design of The Rhine Gold, The +Valkyries, and Siegfried. + + + +SIEGFRIED AS PROTESTANT + +The philosophically fertile element in the original project of +Siegfried's Death was the conception of Siegfried himself as a +type of the healthy man raised to perfect confidence in his own +impulses by an intense and joyous vitality which is above fear, +sickliness of conscience, malice, and the makeshifts and moral +crutches of law and order which accompany them. Such a character +appears extraordinarily fascinating and exhilarating to our +guilty and conscience-ridden generations, however little they may +understand him. The world has always delighted in the man who is +delivered from conscience. From Punch and Don Juan down to Robert +Macaire, Jeremy Diddler and the pantomime clown, he has always +drawn large audiences; but hitherto he has been decorously given +to the devil at the end. Indeed eternal punishment is sometimes +deemed too high a compliment to his nature. When the late Lord +Lytton, in his Strange Story, introduced a character personifying +the joyousness of intense vitality, he felt bound to deny him the +immortal soul which was at that time conceded even to the +humblest characters in fiction, and to accept mischievousness, +cruelty, and utter incapacity for sympathy as the inevitable +consequence of his magnificent bodily and mental health. + +In short, though men felt all the charm of abounding life and +abandonment to its impulses, they dared not, in their deep +self-mistrust, conceive it otherwise than as a force making for +evil--one which must lead to universal ruin unless checked and +literally mortified by selfrenunciation in obedience to +superhuman guidance, or at least to some reasoned system of +morals. When it became apparent to the cleverest of them that no +such superhuman guidance existed, and that their secularist +systems had all the fictitiousness of "revelation" without its +poetry, there was no escaping the conclusion that all the good +that man had done must be put down to his arbitrary will as well +as all the evil he had done; and it was also obvious that if +progress were a reality, his beneficent impulses must be gaining +on his destructive ones. It was under the influence of these +ideas that we began to hear about the joy of life where we had +formerly heard about the grace of God or the Age of Reason, and +that the boldest spirits began to raise the question whether +churches and laws and the like were not doing a great deal more +harm than good by their action in limiting the freedom of the +human will. Four hundred years ago, when belief in God and in +revelation was general throughout Europe, a similar wave of +thought led the strongest-hearted peoples to affirm that every +man's private judgment was a more trustworthy interpreter of God +and revelation than the Church. This was called Protestantism; +and though the Protestants were not strong enough for their +creed, and soon set up a Church of their own, yet the movement, +on the whole, has justified the direction it took. Nowadays the +supernatural element in Protestantism has perished; and if every +man's private judgment is still to be justified as the most +trustworthy interpreter of the will of Humanity (which is not a +more extreme proposition than the old one about the will of God) +Protestantism must take a fresh step in advance, and become +Anarchism. Which it has accordingly done, Anarchism being one of +the notable new creeds of the eighteenth and nineteenth +centuries. + +The weak place which experience finds out in the Anarchist theory +is its reliance on the progress already achieved by "Man." There +is no such thing as Man in the world: what we have to deal with +is a multitude of men, some of them great rascals, some of them +greet statesmen, others both, with a vast majority capable of +managing their personal affairs, but not of comprehending social +organization, or grappling with the problems created by their +association in enormous numbers. If "Man" means this majority, +then "Man" has made no progress: he has, on the contrary, +resisted it. He will not even pay the cost of existing +institutions: the requisite money has to be filched from him by +"indirect taxation." Such people, like Wagner's giants; must be +governed by laws; and their assent to such government must be +secured by deliberately filling them with prejudices and +practicing on their imaginations by pageantry and artificial +eminences and dignities. The government is of course established +by the few who are capable of government, though its mechanism +once complete, it may be, and generally is, carried on +unintelligently by people who are incapable of it the capable +people repairing it from time to time when it gets too far behind +the continuous advance or decay of civilization. All these +capable people are thus in the position of Wotan, forced to +maintain as sacred, and themselves submit to, laws which they +privately know to be obsolescent makeshifts, and to affect the +deepest veneration for creeds and ideals which they ridicule +among themselves with cynical scepticism. No individual Siegfried +can rescue them from this bondage and hypocrisy; in fact, the +individual Siegfried has come often enough, only to find himself +confronted with the alternative of governing those who are not +Siegfrieds or risking destruction at their hands. And this +dilemma will persist until Wotan's inspiration comes to our +governors, and they see that their business is not the devising +of laws and institutions to prop up the weaknesses of mobs and +secure the survival of the unfittest, but the breeding of men +whose wills and intelligences may be depended on to produce +spontaneously the social wellbeing our clumsy laws now aim at and +miss. The majority of men at present in Europe have no business +to be alive; and no serious progress will be made until we +address ourselves earnestly and scientifically to the task of +producing trustworthy human materialfor society. In short, it is +necessary to breed a race of men in whom the life-giving impulses +predominate, before the New Protestantism becomes politically +practicable.* + +*The necessity for breeding the governing class from a selected +stock has always been recognized by Aristocrats, however +erroneous their methods of selection. We have changed our system +from Aristocracy to Democracy without considering that we were at +the same time changing, as regards our governing class, from +Selection to Promiscuity. Those who have taken a practical part +in modern politics best know how farcical the result is. + + +The most inevitable dramatic conception, then, of the nineteenth +century, is that of a perfectly naive hero upsetting religion, +law and order in all directions, and establishing in their place +the unfettered action of Humanity doing exactly what it likes, +and producing order instead of confusion thereby because it likes +to do what is necessary for the good of the race. This +conception, already incipient in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, +was certain at last to reach some great artist, and be embodied +by him in a masterpiece. It was also certain that if that master +happened to be a German, he should take delight in describing his +hero as the Freewiller of Necessity, thereby beyond measure +exasperating Englishmen with a congenital incapacity for +metaphysics. + +PANACEA QUACKERY, OTHERWISE IDEALISM + +Unfortunately, human enlightenment does not progress by nicer and +nicer adjustments, but by violent corrective reactions which +invariably send us clean over our saddle and would bring us to +the ground on the other side if the next reaction did not send us +back again with equally excessive zeal. Ecclesiasticism and +Constitutionalism send us one way, Protestantism and Anarchism +the other; Order rescues us from confusion and lands us in +Tyranny; Liberty then saves the situation and is presently found +to be as great a nuisance as Despotism. A scientifically balanced +application of these forces, theoretically possible, is +practically incompatible with human passion. Besides, we have the +same weakness in morals as in medicine: we cannot be cured of +running after panaceas, or, as they are called in the sphere of +morals, ideals. One generation sets up duty, renunciation, +self-sacrifice as a panacea. The next generation, especially the +women, wake up at the age of forty or thereabouts to the fact +that their lives have been wasted in the worship of this ideal, +and, what is still more aggravating, that the elders who imposed +it on them did so in a fit of satiety with their own experiments +in the other direction. Then that defrauded generation foams at +the mouth at the very mention of duty, and sets up the +alternative panacea of love, their deprivation of which seems to +them to have been the most cruel and mischievous feature of their +slavery to duty. It is useless to warn them that this reaction, +if prescribed as a panacea, will prove as great a failure as all +the other reactions have done; for they do not recognize its +identity with any reaction that ever occurred before. Take for +instance the hackneyed historic example of the austerity of the +Commonwealth being followed by the licence of the Restoration. +You cannot persuade any moral enthusiast to accept this as a pure +oscillation from action to reaction. If he is a Puritan he looks +upon the Restoration as a national disaster: if he is an artist +he regards it as the salvation of the country from gloom, devil +worship and starvation of the affections. The Puritan is ready to +try the Commonwealth again with a few modern improvements: the +Amateur is equally ready to try the Restoration with modern +enlightenments. And so for the present we must be content to +proceed by reactions, hoping that each will establish some +permanently practical and beneficial reform or moral habit that +will survive the correction of its excesses by the next reaction. + +DRAMATIC ORIGIN OF WOTAN + +We can now see how a single drama in which Wotan does not appear, +and of which Siegfried is the hero, expanded itself into a great +fourfold drama of which Wotan is the hero. You cannot dramatize a +reaction by personifying the reacting force only, any more than +Archimedes could lift the world without a fulcrum for his lever. +You must also personify the established power against which the +new force is reacting; and in the conflict between them you get +your drama, conflict being the essential ingredient in all drama. +Siegfried, as the hero of Die Gotterdammerung, is only the primo +tenore robusto of an opera book, deferring his death, after he +has been stabbed in the last act, to sing rapturous love strains +to the heroine exactly like Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia. In +order to make him intelligible in the wider significance which +his joyous, fearless, conscienceless heroism soon assumed in +Wagner's imagination, it was necessary to provide him with a much +vaster dramatic antagonist than the operatic villain Hagen. Hence +Wagner had to create Wotan as the anvil for Siegfried's hammer; +and since there was no room for Wotan in the original opera book, +Wagner had to work back to a preliminary drama reaching primarily +to the very beginnings of human society. And since, on this +world-embracing scale, it was clear that Siegfried must come into +conflict with many baser and stupider forces than those lofty +ones of supernatural religion and political constitutionalism +typified by Wotan and his wife Fricka, these minor antagonists +had to be dramatized also in the persons of Alberic, Mime, +Fafnir, Loki, and the rest. None of these appear in Night Falls +On The Gods save Alberic, whose weird dream-colloquy with Hagen, +effective as it is, is as purely theatrical as the scene of the +Ghost in Hamlet, or the statue in Don Giovanni. Cut the +conference of the Norns and the visit of Valtrauta to Brynhild +out of Night Falls On The Gods, and the drama remains coherent +and complete without them. Retain them, and the play becomes +connected by conversational references with the three music +dramas; but the connection establishes no philosophic coherence, +no real identity between the operatic Brynhild of the Gibichung +episode (presently to be related) and the daughter of Wotan and +the First Mother. + +THE LOVE PANACEA + +We shall now find that at the point where The Ring changes from +music drama into opera, it also ceases to be philosophic, and +becomes didactic. The philosophic part is a dramatic symbol of +the world as Wagner observed it. In the didactic part the +philosophy degenerates into the prescription of a romantic +nostrum for all human ills. Wagner, only mortal after all, +succumbed to the panacea mania when his philosophy was exhausted, +like any of the rest of us. + +The panacea is by no means an original one. Wagner was +anticipated in the year 1819 by a young country gentleman from +Sussex named Shelley, in a work of extraordinary artistic power +and splendor. Prometheus Unbound is an English attempt at a Ring; +and when it is taken into account that the author was only 27 +whereas Wagner was 40 when he completed the poem of The Ring, our +vulgar patriotism may find an envious satisfaction in insisting +upon the comparison. Both works set forth the same conflict +between humanity and its gods and governments, issuing in the +redemption of man from their tyranny by the growth of his will +into perfect strength and self-confidence; and both finish by a +lapse into panacea-mongering didacticism by the holding up of +Love as the remedy for all evils and the solvent of all social +difficulties. + +The differences between Prometheus Unbound and The Ring are as +interesting as the likenesses. Shelley, caught in the pugnacity +of his youth and the first impetuosity of his prodigious artistic +power by the first fierce attack of the New Reformation, gave no +quarter to the antagonist of his hero. His Wotan, whom he calls +Jupiter, is the almighty fiend into whom the Englishman's God had +degenerated during two centuries of ignorant Bible worship and +shameless commercialism. He is Alberic, Fafnir Loki and the +ambitious side of Wotan all rolled into one melodramatic demon +who is finally torn from his throne and hurled shrieking into the +abyss by a spirit representing that conception of Eternal Law +which has been replaced since by the conception of Evolution. +Wagner, an older, more experienced man than the Shelley of 1819, +understood Wotan and pardoned him, separating him tenderly from +all the compromising alliances to which Shelley fiercely held +him; making the truth and heroism which overthrow him the +children of his inmost heart; and representing him as finally +acquiescing in and working for his own supersession and +annihilation. Shelley, in his later works, is seen progressing +towards the same tolerance, justice, and humility of spirit, as +he advanced towards the middle age he never reached. But there is +no progress from Shelley to Wagner as regards the panacea, except +that in Wagner there is a certain shadow of night and death come +on it: nay, even a clear opinion that the supreme good of love is +that it so completely satisfies the desire for life, that after +it the Will to Live ceases to trouble us, and we are at last +content to achieve the highest happiness of death. + +This reduction of the panacea to absurdity was not forced upon +Shelley, because the love which acts as a universal solvent in +his Prometheus Unbound is a sentiment of affectionate benevolence +which has nothing to do with sexual passion. It might, and in +fact does exist in the absence of any sexual interest whatever. +The words mercy and kindness connote it less ambiguously than the +word love. But Wagner sought always for some point of contact +between his ideas and the physical senses, so that people might +not only think or imagine them in the eighteenth century fashion, +but see them on the stage, hear them from the orchestra, and feel +them through the infection of passionate emotion. Dr. Johnson +kicking the stone to confute Berkeley is not more bent on +common-sense concreteness than Wagner: on all occasions he +insists on the need for sensuous apprehension to give reality to +abstract comprehension, maintaining, in fact, that reality has no +other meaning. Now he could apply this process to poetic love +only by following it back to its alleged origin in sexual +passion, the emotional phenomena of which he has expressed in +music with a frankness and forcible naturalism which would +possibly have scandalized Shelley. The love duet in the first act +of The Valkyries is brought to a point at which the conventions +of our society demand the precipitate fall of the curtain; whilst +the prelude to Tristan and Isolde is such an astonishingly +intense and faithful translation into music of the emotions which +accompany the union of a pair of lovers, that it is questionable +whether the great popularity of this piece at our orchestral +concerts really means that our audiences are entirely catholic in +their respect for life in all itits beneficently creative +functions, or whether they simply enjoy the music without +understanding it. + +But however offensive and inhuman may be the superstition which +brands such exaltations of natural passion as shameful and +indecorous, there is at least as much common sense in disparaging +love as in setting it up as a panacea. Even the mercy and +lovingkindness of Shelley do not hold good as a universal law of +conduct: Shelley himself makes extremely short work of Jupiter, +just as Siegfried does of Fafnir, Mime, and Wotan; and the fact +that Prometheus is saved from doing the destructive part of his +work by the intervention of that very nebulous personification of +Eternity called Demogorgon, does not in the least save the +situation, because, flatly, there is no such person as +Demogorgon, and if Prometheus does not pull down Jupiter himself, +no one else will. It would be exasperating, if it were not so +funny, to see these poets leading their heroes through blood and +destruction to the conclusion that, as Browning's David puts it +(David of all people!), "All's Love; yet all's Law." + +Certainly it is clear enough that such love as that implied by +Siegfried's first taste of fear as he cuts through the mailed +coat of the sleeping figure on the mountain, and discovers that +it is a woman; by her fierce revolt against being touched by him +when his terror gives way to ardor; by his manly transports of +victory; and by the womanly mixture of rapture and horror with +which she abandons herself to the passion which has seized on +them both, is an experience which it is much better, like the +vast majority of us, never to have passed through, than to allow +it to play more than a recreative holiday part in our lives. It +did not play a very large part in Wagner's own laborious life, +and does not occupy more than two scenes of The Ring. Tristan and +Isolde, wholly devoted to it, is a poem of destruction and death. +The Mastersingers, a work full of health, fun and happiness, +contains not a single bar of love music that can be described as +passionate: the hero of it is a widower who cobbles shoes, writes +verses, and contents himself with looking on at the +sweetheartings of his customers. Parsifal makes an end of it +altogether. The truth is that the love panacea in Night Falls On +The Gods and in the last act of Siegfried is a survival of the +first crude operatic conception of the story, modified by an +anticipation of Wagner's later, though not latest, conception of +love as the fulfiller of our Will to Live and consequently our +reconciler to night and death. + +NOT LOVE, BUT LIFE + +The only faith which any reasonable disciple can gain from The +Ring is not in love, but in life itself as a tireless power which +is continually driving onward and upward--not, please observe, +being beckoned or drawn by Das Ewig Weibliche or any other +external sentimentality, but growing-from within, by its own +inexplicable energy, into ever higher and higher forms of +organization, the strengths and the needs of which are +continually superseding the institutions which were made to fit +our former requirements. When your Bakoonins call out for the +demolition of all these venerable institutions, there is no need +to fly into a panic and lock them up in prison whilst your +parliament is bit by bit doing exactly what they advised you to +do. When your Siegfrieds melt down the old weapons into new ones, +and with disrespectful words chop in twain the antiquated +constable's staves in the hands of their elders, the end of the +world is no nearer than it was before. If human nature, which is +the highest organization of life reached on this planet, is +really degenerating, then human society will decay; and no +panic-begotten penal measures can possibly save it: we must, like +Prometheus, set to work to make new men instead of vainly +torturing old ones. On the other hand, if the energy of life is +still carrying human nature to higher and higher levels, then the +more young people shock their elders and deride and discard their +pet institutions the better for the hopes of the world, since the +apparent growth of anarchy is only the measure of the rate of +improvement. History, as far as we are capable of history (which +is not saying much as yet), shows that all changes from crudity +of social organization to complexity, and from mechanical +agencies in government to living ones, seem anarchic at first +sight. No doubt it is natural to a snail to think that any +evolution which threatens to do away with shells will result in +general death from exposure. Nevertheless, the most elaborately +housed beings today are born not only without houses on their +backs but without even fur or feathers to clothe them. + +ANARCHISM NO PANACEA + +One word of warning to those who may find themselves attracted by +Siegfried's Anarchism, or, if they prefer a term with more +respectable associations, his neo-Protestantism. Anarchism, as a +panacea, is just as hopeless as any other panacea, and will still +be so even if we breed a race of perfectly benevolent men. It is +true that in the sphere of thought, Anarchism is an inevitable +condition of progressive evolution. A nation without +Freethinkers--that is, without intellectual Anarchists--will +share the fate of China. It is also true that our criminal law, +based on a conception of crime and punishment which is nothing +but our vindictiveness and cruelty in a virtuous disguise, is an +unmitigated and abominable nuisance, bound to be beaten out of us +finally by the mere weight of our experience of its evil and +uselessness. But it will not be replaced by anarchy. Applied to +the industrial or political machinery of modern society, anarchy +must always reduce itself speedily to absurdity. Even the +modified form of anarchy on which modern civilization is based: +that is, the abandonment of industry, in the name of individual +liberty, to the upshot of competition for personal gain between +private capitalists, is a disastrous failure, and is, by the +mere necessities of the case, giving way to ordered Socialism. +For the economic rationale of this, I must refer disciples of +Siegfried to a tract from my hand published by the Fabian Society +and entitled The Impossibilities of Anarchism, which explains +why, owing to the physical constitution of our globe, society +cannot effectively organize the production of its food, clothes +and housing, nor distribute them fairly and economically on any +anarchic plan: nay, that without concerting our social action to +a much higher degree than we do at present we can never get rid +of the wasteful and iniquitous welter of a little riches and a +deal of poverty which current political humbug calls our +prosperity and civilization. Liberty is an excellent thing; but +it cannot begin until society has paid its daily debt to Nature +by first earning its living. There is no liberty before that +except the liberty to live at somebody else's expense, a liberty +much sought after nowadays, since it is the criterion of +gentility, but not wholesome from the point of view of the common +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 +great hall, with the Gods and Heroes assembled about him as if in +council, solemnly waiting for the end. All this belongs to the +old legendary materials with which Wagner began The Ring. + +The tale is broken by the thread snapping in the hands of the +third Norn; for the hour has arrived when man has taken his +destiny in his own hands to shape it for himself, and no longer +bows to circumstance, environment, necessity (which he now freely +wills), and all the rest of the inevitables. So the Norns +recognize that the world has no further use for them, and sink +into the earth to return to the First Mother. Then the day dawns; +and Siegfried and Brynhild come, and have another duet. He gives +her his ring; and she gives him her horse. Away then he goes in +search of more adventures; and she watches him from her crag +until he disappears. The curtain falls; but we can still hear the +trolling of his horn, and the merry clatter of his horse's shoes +trotting gaily down the valley. The sound is lost in the grander +rhythm of the Rhine as he reaches its banks. We hear again an +echo of the lament of the Rhine maidens for the ravished gold; +and then, finally, a new strain, which does not surge like the +mighty flood of the river, but has an unmistakable tramp of hardy +men and a strong land flavor about it. And on this the opera +curtain at last goes up--for please remember that all that has +gone before is only the overture. + +The First Act + +We now understand the new tramping strain. We are in the +Rhineside hall of the Gibichungs, in the resence of King Gunther, +his sister Gutrune, and unther's grim half brother Hagen, the +villain of the piece. Gunther is a fool, and has for Hagen's +intelligence the respect a fool always has for the brains of a +scoundrel. Feebly fishing for compliments, he appeals to Hagen to +pronounce him a fine fellow and a glory to the race of Gibich. +Hagen declares that it is impossible to contemplate him without +envy, but thinks it a pity that he has not yet found a wife +glorious enough for him. Gunther doubts whether so extraordinary +a person can possibly exist. Hagen then tells him of Brynhild and +her rampart of fire; also of Siegfried. Gunther takes this rather +in bad part, since not only is he afraid of the fire, but +Siegfried, according to Hagen, is not, and will therefore achieve +this desirable match himself. But Hagen points out that since +Siegfried is riding about in quest of adventures, he will +certainly pay an early visit to the renowned chief of the +Gibichungs. They can then give him a philtre which will make him +fall in love with Gutrune and forget every other woman he has yet +seen. + +Gunther is transported with admiration of Hagen's cunning when he +takes in this plan; and he has hardly assented to it when +Siegfried, with operatic opportuneness, drops in just as Hagen +expected, and is duly drugged into the heartiest love for Gutrune +and total oblivion of Brynhild and his own past. When Gunther +declares his longing for the bride who lies inaccessible within a +palisade of flame, Siegfried at once offers to undertake the +adventure for him. Hagen then explains to both of them that +Siegfried can, after braving the fire, appear to Brynhild in the +semblance of Gunther through the magic of the wishing cap (or +Tarnhelm, as it is called throughout The Ring), the use of which +Siegfried now learns for the first time. It is of course part of +the bargain that Gunther shall give his sister to Siegfried in +marriage. On that they swear blood-brotherhood; and at this +opportunity the old operatic leaven breaks out amusingly in +Wagner. With tremendous exordium of brass, the tenor and baritone +go at it with a will, showing off the power of their voices, +following each other in canonic imitation, singing together in +thirds and sixths, and finishing with a lurid unison, quite in +the manner of Ruy Gomez and Ernani, or Othello and Iago. Then +without further ado Siegfried departs on his expedition, taking +Gunther with him to the foot of the mountain, and leaving Hagen +to guard the hall and sing a very fine solo which has often +figured in the programs of the Richter concerts, explaining that +his interest in the affair is that Siegfried will bring back the +Ring, and that he, Hagen, will presently contrive to possess +himself of that Ring and become Plutonic master of the world. + +And now it will be asked how does Hagen know all about the +Plutonic empire; and why was he able to tell Gunther about +Brynhild and Siegfried, and to explain to Siegfried the trick of +the Tarnhelm. The explanation is that though Hagen's mother was +the mother of Gunther, his father was not the illustrious Gibich, +but no less a person than our old friend Alberic, who, like +Wotan, has begotten a son to do for him what he cannot do for +himself. + +In the above incidents, those gentle moralizers who find the +serious philosophy of the music dramas too terrifying for them, +may allegorize pleasingly on the philtre as the maddening chalice +of passion which, once tasted, causes the respectable man to +forget his lawfully wedded wife and plunge into adventures which +eventually lead him headlong to destruction. + +We now come upon a last relic of the tragedy of Wotan. Returning +to Brynhild's mountain, we find her visited by her sister +Valkyrie Valtrauta, who has witnessed Wotan's solemn preparations +with terror. She repeats to Brynhild the account already given by +the Noms. Clinging in anguish to Wotan's knees, she has heard him +mutter that were the ring returned to the daughters of the deep +Rhine, both Gods and world would be redeemed from that stage +curse off Alberic's in The Rhine Gold. On this she has rushed on +her warhorse through the air to beg Brynhild to give the Rhine +back its ring. But this is asking Woman to give up love for the +sake of Church and State. She declares that she will see them +both perish first; and Valtrauta returns to Valhalla in despair. +Whilst Brynhild is watching the course of the black thundercloud +that marks her sister's flight, the fires of Loki again flame +high round the mountain; and the horn of Siegfried is heard as he +makes his way through them. But the man who now appears wears the +Tarnhelm: his voice is a strange voice: his figure is the unknown +one of the king of the Gibichungs. He tears the ring from her +finger, and, claiming her as his wife, drives her into the cave +without pity for her agony of horror, and sets Nothung between +them in token of his loyalty to the friend he is impersonating. +No explanation of this highway robbery of the ring is offered. +Clearly, this Siegfried is not the Siegfried of the previous +drama. + +The Second Act + +In the second act we return to the hall of Gibich, where Hagen, +in the last hours of that night, still sits, his spear in his +hand, and his shield beside him. At his knees crouches a dwarfish +spectre, his father Alberic, still full of his old grievances +against Wotan, and urging his son in his dreams to win back the +ring for him. This Hagen swears to do; and as the apparition of +his father vanishes, the sun rises and Siegfried suddenly comes +from the river bank tucking into his belt the Tarnhelm, which has +transported hi from the mountain like the enchanted carpet of the +Arabian tales. He describes his adventures to Gutrune until +Gunther's boat is seen approaching, when Hagen seizes a cowhorn +and calls the tribesmen to welcome their chief and his bride. It +is most exhilarating, this colloquy with the startled and hastily +armed clan, ending with a thundering chorus, the drums marking +the time with mighty pulses from dominant to tonic, much as +Rossini would have made them do if he had been a pupil of +Beethoven's. + +A terrible scene follows. Gunther leads his captive bride +straight into the presence of Siegfried, whom she claims as her +husband by the ring, which she is astomshed to see on his finger: +Gunther, as she supposes, having torn it from her the night +before. Turning on Gunther, she says "Since you took that ring +from me, and married me with it, tell him of your right to it; +and make him give it back to you." Gunther stammers, "The ring! I +gave him no ring--er--do you know him?" The rejoinder is +obvious. "Then where are you hiding the ring that you had from +me?" Gunther's confusion enlightens her; and she calls Siegfried +trickster and thief to his face. In vain he declares that he got +the ring from no woman, but from a dragon whom he slew; for he is +manifestly puzzled; and she, seizing her opportunity, accuses him +before the clan of having played Gunther false with her. + +Hereupon we have another grandiose operatic oath, Siegfried +attesting his innocence on Hagen's spear, and Brynhild rushing to +the footlights and thrusting him aside to attest his guilt, +whilst the clansmen call upon their gods to send down lightnings +and silence the perjured. The gods do not respond; and Siegfried, +after whispering to Gunther that the Tarnhelm seems to have been +only half effectual after all, laughs his way out of the general +embarrassment and goes off merrily to prepare for his wedding, +with his arm round Gutrune's waist, followed by the clan. +Gunther, Hagen and Brynhild are left together to plot operatic +vengeance. Brynhild, it appears, has enchanted Siegfried in such +a fashion that no weapon can hurt him. She has, however, omitted +to protect his back, since it is impossible that he should ever +turn that to a foe. They agree accordingly that on the morrow a +great hunt shall take place, at which Hagen shall thrust his +spear into the hero's vulnerable back. The blame is to be laid on +the tusk of a wild boar. Gunther, being a fool, is remorseful +about his oath of blood-brotherhood and about his sister's +bereavement, without having the strength of mind to prevent the +murder. The three burst into a herculean trio, similar in +conception to that of the three conspirators in Un Ballo in +Maschera; and the act concludes with a joyous strain heralding +the appearance of SiegEried's wedding procession, with strewing +of flowers, sacrificing to the gods, and carrying bride and +bridegroom in triumph. + +It will be seen that in this act we have lost all connection with +the earlier drama. Brynhild is not only not the Brynhild of The +Valkyries, she is the Hiordis of Ibsen, a majestically savage +woman, in whom jealousy and revenge are intensified to heroic +proportions. That is the inevitable theatrical treatment of the +murderous heroine of the Saga. Ibsen's aim in The Vikings was +purely theatrical, and not, as in his later dramas, also +philosophically symbolic. Wagner's aim in Siegfried's Death was +equally theatrical, and not, as it afterwards became in the +dramas of which Siegfried s antagonist Wotan is the hero, +likewise philosophically symbolic. The two master-dramatists +therefore produce practically the same version of Brynhild. Thus +on the second evening of The Ring we see Brynhild in the +character of the truth-divining instinct in religion, cast into +an enchanted slumber and surrounded by the fires of hell lest she +should overthrow a Church corrupted by its alliance with +government. On the fourth evening, we find her swearing a +malicious lie to gratify her personal jealousy, and then plotting +a treacherous murder with a fool and a scoundrel. In the original +draft of Siegfried's Death, the incongruity is carried still +further by the conclusion, at which the dead Brynhild, restored +to her godhead by Wotan, and again a Valkyrie, carries the slain +Siegfried to Valhalla to live there happily ever after with its +pious heroes. + +As to Siegfried himself, he talks of women, both in this second +act and the next, with the air of a man of the world. "Their +tantrums," he says, "are soon over." Such speeches do not belong +to the novice of the preceding drama, but to the original +Siegfried's Tod, with its leading characters sketched on the +ordinary romantic lines from the old Sagas, and not yet reminted +as the original creations of Wagner's genius whose acquaintance +we have made on the two previous evenings. The very title +"Siegfried's Death" survives as a strong theatrical point in the +following passage. Gunther, in his rage and despair, cries, "Save +me, Hagen: save my honor and thy mother's who bore us both." +"Nothing can save thee," replies Hagen: "neither brain nor hand, +but SIEGFRIED'S DEATH." And Gunther echoes with a shudder, +"SIEGFRIED'S DEATH!" + +A WAGNERIAN NEWSPAPER CONTROVERSY + +The devotion which Wagner's work inspires has been illustrated +lately in a public correspondence on this very point. A writer in +The Daily Telegraph having commented on the falsehood uttered by +Brynhild in accusing Siegfried of having betrayed Gunther with +her, a correspondence in defence of the beloved heroine was +opened in The Daily Chronicle. The imputation of falsehood to +Brynhild was strongly resented and combated, in spite of the +unanswerable evidence of the text. It was contended that +Brynhild's statement must be taken as establishing the fact that +she actually was ravished by somebody whom she believed to be +Siegfried, and that since this somebody cannot have been +Siegfried, he being as incapable of treachery to Gunther as she +of falsehood, it must have been Gunther himself after a second +exchange of personalities not mentioned in the text. The reply to +this--if so obviously desperate a hypothesis needs a reply--is +that the text is perfectly explicit as to Siegfried, disguised as +Gunther, passing the night with Brynhild with Nothung dividing +them, and in the morning bringing her down the mountain THROUGH +THE FIRE (an impassable obstacle to Gunther) and there +transporting himself in a single breath, by the Tarnhelm's magic, +back to the hall of the Gibichungs, leaving the real Gunther to +bring Brynhild down the river after him. One controversialist +actually pleaded for the expedition occupying two nights, on the +second of which the alleged outrage might have taken place. But +the time is accounted for to the last minute: it all takes place +during the single night watch of Hagen. There is no possible way +out of the plain fact that Brynhild's accusation is to her own +knowledge false; and the impossible ways just cited are only +interesting as examples of the fanatical worship which Wagner and +his creations have been able to inspire in minds of exceptional +power and culture. + +More plausible was the line taken by those who admitted the +falsehood. Their contention was that when Wotan deprived Brynhild +of her Godhead, he also deprived her of her former high moral +attributes; so that Siegfried's kiss awakened an ordinary mortal +jealous woman. But a goddess can become mortal and jealous +without plunging at once into perjury and murder. Besides, this +explanation involves the sacrifice of the whole significance of +the allegory, and the reduction of The Ring to the plane of a- +child's conception of The Sleeping Beauty. Whoever does not +understand that, in terms of The Ring philosophy, a change from +godhead to humanity is a step higher and not a degradation, +misses the whole point of The Ring. It is precisely because the +truthfulness of Brynhild is proof against Wotan's spells that he +has to contrive the fire palisade with Loki, to protect the +fictions and conventions of Valhalla against her. + +The only tolerable view is the one supported by the known history +of The Ring, and also, for musicians of sufficiently fine +judgment, by the evidence of the scores; of which more anon. As a +matter of fact Wagner began, as I have said, with Siegfried's +Death. Then, wanting to develop the idea of Siegfried as +neoProtestant, he went on to The Young Siegfried. As a Protestant +cannot be dramatically projected without a pontifical antagonist. +The Young Siegfried led to The Valkyries, and that again to its +preface The Rhine Gold (the preface is always written after the +book is finished). Finally, of course, the whole was revised. The +revision, if carried out strictly, would have involved the cuttmg +out of Siegfried's Death, now become inconsistent and +superfluous; and that would have involved, in turn, the facing of +the fact that The Ring was no longer a Niblung epic, and really +demanded modern costumes, tall hats for Tarnhelms, factories for +Nibelheims, villas for Valhallas, and so on--in short, a complete +confession of the extent to which the old Niblung epic had become +the merest pretext and name directory in the course of Wagner's +travail. But, as Wagner's most eminent English interpreter once +put it to me at Bayreuth between the acts of Night Falls On The +Gods, the master wanted to "Lohengrinize" again after his long +abstention from opera; and Siegfried's Death (first sketched in +1848, the year before the rising in Dresden and the subsequent +events which so deepened Wagner's sense of life and the +seriousness of art) gave him exactly the libretto he required for +that outbreak of the old operatic Adam in him. So he changed it +into Die Gotterdammerung, retaining the traditional plot of +murder and jealousy, and with it, necessarily, his or~gmal second +act, in spite of the incongruity of its Siegfried and Brynhild +with the Siegfried and Brynhild of the allegory. As to the +legendary matter about the world-ash and the destruction of +Valhalla by Loki, it fitted in well enough; for though, +allegorically, the blow by which Siegfried breaks the god's spear +is the end of Wotan and of Valhalla, those who do not see the +allegory, and take the story literally, like children, are sure +to ask what becomes of Wotan after Siegfried gets past him up the +mountain; and to this question the old tale told in Night Falls +On The Gods is as good an answer as another. The very +senselessness of the scenes of the Norns and of Valtrauta in +relation to the three foregoing dramas, gives them a highly +effective air of mystery; and no one ventures to challenge their +consequentiality, because we are all more apt to pretend to +understand great works of art than to confess that the meaning +(if any) has escaped us. Valtrauta, however, betrays her +irrelevance by explaining that the gods can be saved by the +restoration of the ring to the Rhine maidens. This, considered as +part of the previous allegory, is nonsense; so that even this +scene, which has a more plausible air of organic connection with +The Valkyries than any other in Night Falls On The Gods, is as +clearly part of a different and earlier conception as the episode +which concludes it, in which Siegfried actually robs Brynhild of +her ring, though he has no recollection of having given it to +her. Night Falls On The Gods, in fact, was not even revised into +any real coherence with the world-poem which sprang from it; and +that is the authentic solution of all the controversies which +have arisen over it. + +The Third Act + +The hunting party comes off duly. Siegfried strays from it and +meets the Rhine maidens, who almost succeed in coaxing the ring +from him. He pretends to be afraid of his wife; and they chaff +him as to her beating him and so forth; but when they add that +the ring is accursed and will bring death upon him, he discloses +to them, as unconsciously as Julius Caesar disclosed it long ago, +that secret of heroism, never to let your life be shaped by fear +of its end.* So he keeps the ring; and they leave him to his +fate. The hunting party now finds him; and they all sit down +together to make a meal by the river side, Siegfried telling them +meanwhile the story of his adventures. When he approaches the +subject of Brynhild, as to whom his memory is a blank, Hagen +pours an antidote to the love philtre into his drinking horn, +whereupon, his memory returning, he proceeds to narrate the +incident of the fiery mountain, to Gunther's intense +mortification. Hagen then plunges his spear into the back of +Siegfried, who falls dead on his shield, but gets up again, after +the old operatic custom, to sing about thirty bars to his love +before allowing himself to be finally carried off to the strains +of the famous Trauermarsch. + +*"We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest sense of the +word. The fear of the end is the source of all lovelessness; and +this fear is generated only when love begins to wane. How came it +that this loves the highest blessedness to all things living, was +so far lost sight of by the human race that at last it came to +this: all that mankind did, ordered, and established, was +conceived only in fear of the end? My poem sets this forth."-- +Wagner to Roeckel, 25th Jan. 1854. + + +The scene then changes to the hall of the Gibichungs by the +Rhine. It is night; and Gutrune, unable to sleep, and haunted by +all sorts of vague terrors, is waiting for the return of her +husband, and wondering whether a ghostly figure she has seen +gliding down to the river bank is Brynhild, whose room is empty. +Then comes the cry of Hagen, returning with the hunting party to +announce the death of Siegfried by the tusk of a wild boar. But +Gutrune divines the truth; and Hagen does not deny it. +Siegfried's body is brought in; Gunther claims the ring; Hagen +will not suffer him to take it; they fight; and Gunther is slain. +Hagen then attempts to take it; but the dead man's hand closes on +it and raises itself threateningly. Then Brynhild comes; and a +funeral pyre is raised whilst she declaims a prolonged scene, +extremely moving and imposing, but yielding nothing to resolute +intellectual criticism except a very powerful and elevated +exploitation of theatrical pathos, psychologically identical with +the scene of Cleopatra and the dead Antony in Shakespeare's +tragedy. Finally she flings a torch into the pyre, and rides her +war-horse into the flames. The hall of the Gibichungs catches +fire, as most halls would were a cremation attempted in the +middle of the floor (I permit myself this gibe purposely to +emphasize the excessive artificiality of the scene); but the +Rhine overflows its banks to allow the three Rhine maidens to +take the ring from Siegfried's finger, incidentally extinguishing +the conflagration as it does so. Hagen attempts to snatch the +ring from the maidens, who promptly drown him; and in the distant +heavens the Gods and their castle are seen perishing in the fires +of Loki as the curtain falls. + +FORGOTTEN ERE FINISHED + +In all this, it will be observed, there is nothing new. The +musical fabric is enormously elaborate and gorgeous; but you +cannot say, as you must in witnessing The Rhme Gold, The +Valkyries, and the first two acts of Siegfried, that you have +never seen anything like it before, and that the inspiration is +entirely original. Not only the action, but most of the poetry, +might conceivably belong to an Elizabethan drama. The situation +of Cleopatra and Antony is unconsciously reproduced without being +bettered, or even equalled in point of majesty and musical +expression. The loss of al! simplicity and dignity, the +impossibility of any credible scenic presentation of the +incidents, and the extreme staginess of the conventions by which +these impossibilities are got over, are no doubt covered from the +popular eye by the overwhelming prestige of Die Gotterdammerung +as part of so great a work as The Ring, and by the extraordinary +storm of emotion and excitement which the music keeps up. But the +very qualities that intoxicate the novice in music enlighten the +adept. In spite of the fulness of the composer's technical +accomplishment, the finished style and effortless mastery of +harmony and instrumentation displayed, there is not a bar in the +work which moves us as the same themes moved us in The Valkyries, +nor is anything but external splendor added to the life and humor +of Siegfried. + +In the original poem, Brynhild delays her self-immolation on the +pyre of Siegfried to read the assembled choristers a homily on +the efficacy of the Love panacea. "My holiest wisdom's hoard," +she says, "now I make known to the world. I believe not in +property, nor money, nor godliness, nor hearth and high place, +nor pomp and peerage, nor contract and custom, but in Love. Let +that only prevail; and ye shall be blest in weal or woe." Here +the repudiations still smack of Bakoonin; but the saviour is no +longer the volition of the full-grown spirit of Man, the Free +Willer of Necessity, sword in hand, but simply Love, and not even +Shelleyan love, but vehement sexual passion. It is highly +significant of the extent to which this uxorious commonplace lost +its hold of Wagner (after disturbing his conscience, as he +confesses to Roeckel, for years) that it disappears in the full +score of Night Falls On The Gods, which was not completed until +he was on the verge of producing Parsifal, twenty years after the +publication of the poem. He cut the homily out, and composed the +music of the final scene with a flagrant recklessness of the old +intention. The rigorous logic with which representative musical +themes are employed in the earlier dramas is here abandoned +without scruple; and for the main theme at the conclusion he +selects a rapturous passage sung by Sieglinda in the third act of +The Valkyries when Brynhild inspires her with a sense of her high +destiny as the mother of the unborn hero. There is no dramatic +logic whatever in the recurrence of this theme to express the +transport in which Brynhild immolates herself. There is of course +an excuse for it, inasmuch as both women have an impulse of +self-sacrifice for the sake of Siegfried; but this is really +hardly more than an excuse; since the Valhalla theme might be +attached to Alberic on the no worse ground that both he and +Wotan are inspired by ambition, and that the ambition has the +same object, the possession of the ring. The common sense of the +matter is that the only themes which had fully retained their +significance in Wagner's memory at the period of the composition +of Night Falls On The Gods are those which are mere labels of +external features, such as the Dragon, the Fire, the Water and so +on. This particular theme of Sieglinda's is, in truth, of no +great musical merit: it might easily be the pet climax of a +popular sentimental ballad: in fact, the gushing effect which is +its sole valuable quality is so cheaply attained that it is +hardly going too far to call it the most trumpery phrase in the +entire tetralogy. Yet, since it undoubtedly does gush very +emphatically, Wagner chose, for convenience' sake, to work up +this final scene with it rather than with the more distinguished, +elaborate and beautiful themes connected with the love of +Brynhild and Siegfried. + +He would certainly not have thought this a matter of no +consequence had he finished the whole work ten years earlier. It +must always be borne in mind that the poem of The Ring was +complete and printed in 1853, and represents the sociological +ideas which, after germinating in the European atmosphere for +many years, had been brought home to Wagner, who was intensely +susceptible to such ideas, by the crash of 1849 at Dresden. Now +no man whose mind is alive and active, as Wagner's was to the day +of his death, can keep his political and spiritual opinions, much +less his philosophic consciousness, at a standstill for quarter +of a century until he finishes an orchestral score. When Wagner +first sketched Night Falls On The Gods he was 35. When he +finished the score for the first Bayreuth festival in 1876 he had +turned 60. No wonder he had lost his old grip of it and left it +behind him. He even tampered with The Rhine Gold for the sake of +theatrical effect when stage-managing it, making Wotan pick up +and brandish a sword to give visible point to his sudden +inspiration as to the raising up of a hero. The sword had first +to be discovered by Fafnir among the Niblung treasures and thrown +away by him as useless. There is no sense in this device; and its +adoption shows the same recklessness as to the original intention +which we find in the music of the last act of The Dusk of the +Gods.* + +*Die Gotterdammerung means literally Godsgloaming. The English +versions of the opera are usually called The Dusk of the Gods, or +The Twilight of the Gods. I have purposely introduced the +ordinary title in the sentence above for the reader's +information. + + + + +WHY HE CHANGED HIS MIND + +Wagner, however, was not the man to allow his grip of a great +philosophic theme to slacken even in twenty-five years if the +theme still held good as a theory of actual life. If the history +of Germany from 1849 to 1876 had been the history of Siegfried +and Wotan transposed into the key of actual life Night Falls On +The Gods would have been the logical consummation of Das +Rheingold and The Valkyrie instead of the operatic anachronism it +actually is. + +But, as a matter of fact, Siegfried did not succeed and Bismarck +did. Roeckel was a prisoner whose mposonment made no difference; +Bakoonin broke up, not Walhall, but the International, which +ended in an undignified quarrel between him and Karl Marx. The +Siegfrieds of 1848 were hopeless political failures, whereas the +Wotans and Alberics and Lows were conspicuous political +successes. Even the Mimes held their own as against Siegfried. +With the single exception of Ferdinand Lassalle, there was no +revolutionary leader who was not an obvious impossibilist in +practical politics; and Lassalle got himself killed in a romantic +and quite indefensible duel after wrecking his health in a +titanic oratorical campaign which convinced him that the great +majority of the working classes were not ready to join him, and +that the minority who were ready did not understand him. The +International, founded in 1861 by Karl Marx in London, and +mistaken for several years by nervous newspapers for a red +spectre, was really only a turnip ghost. It achieved some +beginnings of International Trade Unionism by inducing English +workmen to send money to support strikes on the continent, and +recalling English workers who had been taken across the North Sea +to defeat such strikes; but on its revolutionary socialistic side +it was a romantic figment. The suppression of the Paris Commune, +one of the most tragic examples in history of the pitilessness +with which capable practical administrators and soldiers are +forced by the pressure of facts to destroy romantic amateurs and +theatrical dreamers, made an end of melodramatic Socialism. It +was as easy for Marx to hold up Thiers as the most execrable of +living scoundrels and to put upon Gallifet the brand that still +makes him impossible in French politics as it was for Victor Hugo +to bombard Napoleon III from his paper battery in Jersey. It was +also easy to hold up Felix Pyat and Delescluze as men of much +loftier ideals than Thiers and Gallifet; but the one fact that +could not be denied was that when it came to actual shooting, it +was Gallifet who got Delescluze shot and not Delescluze who got +Gallifet shot, and that when it came to administering the affairs +of France, Thiers could in one way or another get it done, whilst +Pyat could neither do it nor stop talking and allow somebody else +to do it. True, the penalty of following Thiers was to be +exploited by the landlord and capitalist; but then the penalty of +following Pyat was to get shot like a mad dog, or at best get +sent to New Caledonia, quite unnecessarily and uselessly. + +To put it in terms of Wagner's allegory, Alberic had got the ring +back again and was marrying into the best Walhall families with +it. He had thought better of his old threat to dethrone Wotan and +Loki. He had found that Nibelheim was a very gloomy place and +that if he wanted to live handsomely and safely, he must not only +allow Wotan and Loki to organize society for him, but pay them +very handsomely for doing it. He wanted splendor, military glory, +loyalty, enthusiasm, and patriotism; and his greed and gluttony +were wholly unable to create them, whereas Wotan and Loki carried +them all to a triumphant climax in Germany in I87I, when Wagner +himself celebrated the event with his Kaisermarsch, which sounded +much more convincing than the Marseillaise or the Carmagnole. + +How, after the Kaisermarsch, could Wagner go back to his +idealization of Siegfried in 1853? How could he believe seriously +in Siegfried slaying the dragon and charging through the mountain +fire, when the immediate foreground was occupied by the Hotel de +Ville with Felix Pyat endlessly discussing the principles of +Socialism whilst the shells of Thiers were already battering the +Arc de Triomphe, and ripping up the pavement of the Champs +Elysees? Is it not clear that things had taken an altogether +unexpected turn--that although the Ring may, like the famous +Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, be an inspired guest at +the historic laws and predestined end of our +capitalistic-theocratic epoch, yet Wagner, like Marx, was too +inexperienced in technical government and administration and too +melodramatic in his hero-contra-villain conception of the class +struggle, to foresee the actual process by which his +generalization would work out, or the part to be played in it by +the classes involved? + +Let us go back for a moment to the point at which the Niblung +legend first becomes irreconcilable with Wagner's allegory. +Fafnir in the allegory becomes a capitalist; but Fafnir in the +legend is a mere hoarder. His gold does not bring him in any +revenue. It does not even support him: he has to go out and +forage for food and drink. In fact, he is on the way to his +drinking-pool when Siegfried kills him. And Siegfried himself has +no more use for gold than Fafnir: the only difference between +them in this respect is that Siegfried does not waste his time in +watching a barren treasure that is no use to him, whereas Fafnir +sacrifices his humanity and his life merely to prevent anybody +else getting it. This contrast is true to human nature; but it +shunts The Ring drama off the economic lines of the allegory. In +real life, Fafnir is not a miser: he seeks dividends, comfortable +life, and admission to the circles of Wotan and Loki. His only +means of procuring these is to restore the gold to Alberic in +exchange for scrip in Alberic's enterprises. Thus fortified with +capital, Alberic exploits his fellow dwarfs as before, and also +exploits Fafair's fellow giants who have no capital. What is +more, the toil, forethought and self-control which the +exploitation involves, and the self-respect and social esteem +which its success wins, effect an improvement in Alberic's own +character which neither Marx nor Wagner appear to have foreseen. +He discovers that to be a dull, greedy, narrow-minded +money-grubber is not the way to make money on a large scale; for +though greed may suffice to turn tens into hundreds and even +hundreds into thousands, to turn thousands into hundreds of +thousands requires magnanimity and a will to power rather than to +pelf. And to turn thousands into millions, Alberic must make +himself an earthly providence for masses of workmen: he must +create towns and govern markets. In the meantime, Fafair, +wallowing in dividends which he has done nothing to earn, may +rot, intellectually and morally, from mere disuse of his energies +and lack of incentive to excel; but the more imbecile he becomes, +the more dependent he is upon Alberic, and the more the +responsibility of keeping the world-machine in working order +falls upon Alberic. Consequently, though Alberic in Also may have +been merely the vulgar Manchester Factory-owner portrayed by +Engels, in 1876 he was well on the way towards becoming Krupp of +Essen or Carnegie of Homestead. + +Now, without exaggerating the virtues of these gentlemen, it will +be conceded by everybody except perhaps those veteran German +Social-Democrats who have made a cult of obsolescence under the +name of Marxism, that the modern entrepreneur is not to be +displaced and dismissed so lightly as Alberic is dismissed in The +Ring. They are really the masters of the whole situation. Wotan +is hardly less dependent on them than Fafnir; the War-Lord visits +their work, acclaims them in stirring speeches, and casts down +their enemies; whilst Loki makes commercial treaties for them and +subjects all his diplomacy to their approval. + +The end cannot come until Siegfried learns A1beric's trade and +shoulders Alberic's burden. Not having as yet done so, he is +still completely mastered by Alberic. He does not even rebel +against him except when he is too stupid and ignorant, or too +romantically impracticable, to see that Alberic's work, like +Wotan's work and Loki's work, is necessary work, and that +therefore Alberic can never be superseded by a warrior, but only +by a capable man of business who is prepared to continue his work +without a day's intermission. Even though the proletarians of all +lands were to become "class conscious," and obey the call of Marx +by uniting to carry the Class struggle to a proletarian victory +in which all capital should become common property, and all +Monarchs, Millionaires, Landlords and Capitalists become common +citizens, the triumphant proletarians would have either to starve +in Anarchy the next day or else do the political and industrial +work which is now being done tant bien que mal by our Romanoffs, +our Hohenzollerns, our Krupps, Carnegies, Levers, Pierpont +Morgans, and their political retinues. And in the meantime these +magnates must defend their power and property with all their +might against the revolutionary forces until these forces become +positive, executive, administrative forces, instead of the +conspiracies of protesting, moralizing, virtuously indignant +amateurs who mistook Marx for a man of affairs and Thiers for a +stage villain. But all this represents a development of which one +gathers no forecast from Wagner or Marx. Both of them prophesied +the end of our epoch, and, so far as one can guess, prophesied it +rightly. They also brought its industrial history up to the year +1848 far more penetratingly than the academic historians of their +time. But they broke off there and left a void between 1848 and +the end, in which we, who have to live in that period, get no +guidance from them. The Marxists wandered for years in this void, +striving, with fanatical superstition, to suppress the +Revisionists who, facing the fact that the Social-Democratic +party was lost, were trying to find the path by the light of +contemporary history instead of vainly consulting the oracle in +the pages of Das Kapital. Marx himself was too simpleminded a +recluse and too full of the validity of his remoter +generalizations, and the way in which the rapid integration of +capital in Trusts and Kartels was confirming them, to be +conscious of the void himself. + +Wagner, on the other hand, was comparatively a practical man. It +is possible to learn more of the world by producing a single +opera, or even conductmg a single orchestral rehearsal, than by +ten years reading in the Library of the British Museum. Wagner +must have learnt between Das Rheingold and the Kaisermarsch that +there are yet several dramas to be interpolated in The Ring after +The Valkyries before the allegory can tell the whole story, and +that the first of these interpolated dramas will be much more +like a revised Rienzi than like Siegfried. If anyone doubts the +extent to which Wagner's eyes had been opened to the +administrative-childishness and romantic conceit of the heroes of +the revolutionary generation that served its apprenticeship on +the barricades of 1848-9, and perished on those of 187@ under +Thiers' mitrailleuses, let him read Eine Kapitulation, that +scandalous burlesque in which the poet and composer of Siegfried, +with the levity of a schoolboy, mocked the French republicans who +were doing in 1871 what he himself was exiled for domg in 1849. +He had set the enthusiasm of the Dresden Revolution to his own +greatest music; but he set the enthusiasm of twenty years later +in derision to the music of Rossini. There is no mistaking the +tune he meant to suggest by his doggerel of Republik, Republik, +Republik-lik-lik. The Overture to Wilhelm Tell is there as +plainly as if it were noted down in full score. + +In the case of such a man as Wagner, you cannot explain this +volte-face as mere jingoism produced by Germany's overwhelming +victory in the Franco-Prussian War, nor as personal spite against +the Parisians for the Tannhauser fiasco. Wagner had more cause +for personal spite against his own countrymen than he ever had +against the French. No doubt his outburst gratified the pettier +feelings which great men have in common with small ones; but he +was not a man to indulge in such gratifications, or indeed to +feel them as gratifications, if he had not arrived at a profound +philosophical contempt for the inadequacy of the men who were +trying to wield Nothung, and who had done less work for Wagner's +own art than a single German King and he, too, only a mad one. +Wagner had by that time done too much himself not to know that +the world is ruled by deeds, not by good intentions, and that +one efficient sinner is worth ten futile saints and martyrs. + +I need not elaborate the point further in these pages. Like all +men of genius, Wagner had exceptional sincerity, exceptional +respect for facts, exceptional freedom from the hypnotic +influence of sensational popular movements, exceptional sense of +the realities of political power as distinguished from the +presences and idolatries behind which the real masters of modern +States pull their wires and train their guns. When he scored +Night Falls On The Gods, he had accepted the failure of Siegfried +and the triumph of the Wotan-Loki-Alberic-trinity as a fact. He +had given up dreaming of heroes, heroines, and final solutions, +and had conceived a new protagonist in Parsifal, whom he +announced, not as a hero, but as a fool; who was armed, not with +a sword which cut irresistibly, but with a spear which he held +only on condition that he did not use it; and who instead of +exulting in the slaughter of a dragon was frightfully ashamed of +having shot a swan. The change in the conception of the Deliverer +could hardly be more complete. It reflects the change which took +place in Wagner's mind between the composition of The Rhine Gold +and Night Falls On The Gods; and it explains why he dropped The +Ring allegory and fell back on the status quo ante by +Lohengrinizing. + +If you ask why he did not throw Siegfried into the waste paper +basket and rewrite The Ring from The Valkyries onwards, one must +reply that the time had not come for such a feat. Neither Wagner +nor anyone else then living knew enough to achieve it. Besides, +what he had already done had reached the omit of even his immense +energy and perseverance and so he did the best he could with the +unfinished and for ever unfinishable work, rounding it off with +an opera much as Rossini rounded off some of his religious +compositions with a galop. Only, Rossini on such occasions wrote +in his score "Excusez du pen," but Wagner left us to find out the +change for ourselves, perhaps to test how far we had really +followed his meaning. + + + +WAGNER'S OWN EXPLANATION + +And now, having given my explanation of The Ring, can I give +Wagner's explanation of it? If I could (and I can) I should not +by any means accept it as conclusive. Nearly half a century has +passed smce the tetralogy was written; and in that time the +purposes of many half instinctive acts of genius have become +clearer to the common man than they were to the doers. Some years +ago, in the course of an explanation of Ibsen's plays, I pointed +out that it was by no means certain or even likely that Ibsen was +as definitely conscious of his thesis as I. All the stupid +people, and some critics who, though not stupid, had not +themselves written what the Germans call "tendency" works, saw +nothing in this but a fantastic affectation of the extravagant +self-conceit of knowing more about Ibsen than Ibsen himself. +Fortunately, in taking exactly the same position now with regard +to Wagner, I can claim his own authority to support me. "How," he +wrote to Roeckel on the 23rd. August 1856, "can an artist expect +that what he has felt intuitively should be perfectly realized by +others, seeing that he himself feels in the presence of his work, +if it is true Art, that he is confronted by a riddle, about which +he, too, might have illusions, just as another might?" + +The truth is, we are apt to deify men of genius, exactly as we +deify the creative force of the universe, by attributing to +logical design what is the result of blind instinct. What Wagner +meant by "true Art" is the operation of the artist's instinct, +which is just as blind as any other instinct. Mozart, asked for +an explanation of his works, said frankly "How do I know?" +Wagner, being a philosopher and critic as well as a composer, was +always looking for moral explanations of what he had created) and +he hit on several very striking ones, all different. In the same +way one can conceive Henry the Eighth speculating very +brilliantly about the circulation of his own blood without +getting as near the truth as Harvey did long after his death. + +None the less, Wagner's own explanations are of exceptional +interest. To begin with, there is a considerable portion of The +Ring, especially the portraiture of our capitalistic industrial +system from the socialist's point of new in the slavery of the +Niblungs and the tyranny of Alberic, which is unmistakable, as it +dramatizes that portion of human activity which lies well within +the territory covered by our intellectual consciousness. All this +is concrete Home Office business, so to speak: its meaning was as +clear to Wagner as it is to us. Not so that part of the work +which deals with the destiny of Wotan. And here, as it happened, +Wagner's recollection of what he had been driving at was +completely upset by his discovery, soon after the completion of +The Ring poem, of Schopenhaur's famous treatise "The World as +Will and Representation." So obsessed did he become with this +masterpiece of philosophic art that he declared that it contained +the intellectual demonstration of the conflict of human forces +which he himself had demonstrated artistically in his great poem. +"I must confess," he writes to Roeckel, "to having arrived at a +clear understanding of my own works of art through the help of +another, who has provided me with the reasoned conceptions +corresponding to my intuitive principles." + +Schopenhaur, however, had done nothing of the sort. Wagner's +determination to prove that he had been a Schopenhaurite all +along without knowing it only shows how completely the +fascination of the great treatise on The Will had run away with +his memory. It is easy to see how this happened. Wagner says of +himself that "seldom has there taken place in the soul of one and +the same man so profound a division and estrangement between the +intuitive or impulsive part of his nature and his consciously or +reasonably formed ideas." And since Schopenhaur's great +contribution to modern thought was to educate us into clear +consciousness of this distinction--a distinction familiar, in a +fanciful way, to the Ages of Faith and Art before the Renascence, +but afterwards swamped in the Rationalism of that movement--it +was inevitable that Wagner should jump at Schopenhaur's +metaphysiology (I use a word less likely to be mistaken than +metaphysics) as the very thing for him. But metaphysiology is one +thing, political philosophy another. The political philosophy of +Siegfried is exactly contrary to the political philosphy of +Schopenhaur, although the same clear metaphysiological +distinction between the instinctive part of man (his Will) and +his reasoning faculty (dramatized in The Ring as Loki) is +insisted on in both. The difference is that to Schopenhaur the +Will is the universal tormentor of man, the author of that great +evil, Life; whilst reason is the divine gift that is finally to +overcome this life-creating will and lead, through its +aboegation, to cessation and peace, annihilation and Nirvana. +This is the doctrine of Pessimism. Now Wagner was, when he wrote +The Ring, a most sanguine revolutionary Meliorist, contemptuous +of the reasoning faculty, which he typified in the shifty, +unreal, delusive Loki, and full of faith in the life-giving Will, +which he typified in the glorious Siegfried. Not until he read +Schopenhaur did he become bent on proving that he had always been +a Pessimist at heart, and that Loki was the most sensible and +worthy adviser of Wotan in The Rhine Gold. + +Sometimes he faces the change in his opinions frankly enough. "My +Niblung drama," he writes to Roeckel, "had taken form at a time +when I had built up with my reason an optimistic world on +Hellenic principles, believing that nothing was necessary for the +realization of such a world but that men should wish it. I +ingeniously set aside-the problem why they did not wish it. I +remember that it was with this definite creative purpose that I +conceived the personality of Siegfried, with the intention of +representing an existence free from pain." But he appeals to his +earlier works to show that behind all these artificial optimistic +ideas there was always with him an intuition of "the sublime +tragedy of renunciation, the negation of the will." In trying to +explain this, he s full of ideas philosophically, and full of the +most amusing contradictions personally. Optimism, as an +accidental excursion into the barren paths of reason on his own +part, he calls "Hellenic." In others he denounces it as rank +Judaism, the Jew having at that time become for him the whipping +boy for all modern humamty. In a letter from London he expounds +Schopenhaur to Roeckel with enthusiasm, preaching the +renunciation of the Will to Live as the redemption from all error +and vain pursuits: in the next letter he resumes the subject with +unabated interest, and fin~shes by mentioning that on leaving +London he went to Geneva and underwent "a most beneficial course +of hydropathy." Seven months before this he had written as +follows: "Believe me, I too was once possessed by the idea of a +country life. In order to become a radically healthy human being, +I went two years ago to a Hydropathic Establishment, prepared to +give up Art and everything f I could once more become a child of +Nature. But, my good friend, I was obliged to laugh at my own +naivete when I found myself almost going mad. None of us will +reach the promised land: we shall all die in the wilderness. +Intellect is, as some one has said, a sort of disease: it is +incurable. + +Roeckel knew his man of old, and evidently pressed him for +explanations of the inconsistencies of The Ring with Night Falls +On The Gods. Wagner defended himself with unfailing cleverness +and occasional petulances, ranging from such pleas as "I believe +a true instinct has kept me from a too great definiteness; for it +has been borne in on me that an absolute disclosure of the +intention disturbs true insight," to a volley of explanations and +commentaries on the explanations. He gets excited and annoyed +because Roeckel will not admire the Brynhild of Night Falls On +The Gods; re-invents the Tarnhelm scene; and finally, the case +being desperate, exclaims, "It is wrong of you to challenge me to +explain it in words: you must feel that something is being +enacted that is not to be expressed in mere words." + +THE PESSIMIST AS AMORIST + +Sometimes he gets very far away from Pessimism indeed, and +recommends Roeckel to solace his captivity, not by conquering the +will to live at liberty, but by "the inspiring influences of the +Beautiful." The next moment he throws over even Art for Life. +"Where life ends," he says, very wittily, "Art begins. In youth +we turn to Art, we know not why; and only when we have gone +through with Art and come out on the other side, we learn to our +cost that we have missed Life itself." His only comfort is that +he is beloved. And on the subject of love he lets himself loose +in a manner that would have roused the bitterest scorn in +Schopenhaur, though, as we have seen (Love Panacea), it is highly +characteristic of Wagner. "Love in its most perfect reality," he +says, "is only possible between the sexes: it is only as man and +woman that human beings can truly love. Every other manifestation +of love can be traced back to that one absorbingly real feeling, +of which all other affections are but an emanation, a connection, +or an imitation. It is an error to look on this as only one of +the forms in which love is revealed, as if there were other forms +coequal with it, or even superior to it. He who after the manner +of metaphysicians prefers UNREALITY to REALITY, and derives the +concrete from the abstract--in short, puts the word before the +fact--may be right in esteeming the idea of love as higher than +the expression of love, and may affirm that actual love made +manifest in feeling is nothing but the outward and visible sign +of a pre-existent, non-sensuous, abstract love; and he will do +well to despise that sensuous function in general. In any case it +were safe to bet that such a man had never loved or been loved as +human beings can love, or he would have understood that in +despising this feeling, what he condemned was its sensual +expression, the outcome of man's animal nature, and not true +human love. The highest satisfaction and expression of the +individual is only to be found in his complete absorption, and +that is only possible through love. Now a human being is both MAN +and WOMAN: it is only when these two are united that the real +human being exists; and thus it is only by love that man and +woman attain to the full measure of humanity. But when nowadays +we talk of a human being, such heartless blockheads are we that +quite involuntarily we only think of man. It is only in the umon +of man and woman by love (sensuous and supersensuous) that the +human being exists; and as the human being cannot rise to the +conception of anything higher than his own existence--his own +being--so the transcendent act of his life is this consummation +of his humanity through love." + +It is clear after this utterance from the would-be +Schopenhaurian, that Wagner's explanations of his works for the +most part explain nothing but the mood in which he happened to be +on the day he advanced them, or the train of thought suggested to +his very susceptible imagination and active mind by the points +raised by his questioner. Especially in his private letters, +where his outpourings are modified by his dramatic consciousness +of the personality of his correspondent, do we find him taking +all manner of positions, and putting forward all sorts of cases +which must be taken as clever and suggestive special pleadings, +and not as serious and permanent expositions of his works. These +works must speak for themselves: if The Ring says one thing, and +a letter written afterwards says that it said something else, The +Ring must be taken to confute the letter just as conclusively as +if the two had been written by different hands. However, nobody +fairly well acquainted with Wagner's utterances as a whole will +find any unaccountable contradictions in them. As in all men of +his type, our manifold nature was so marked in him that he was +like several different men rolled into one. When he had exhausted +himself in the character of the most pugnacious, aggressive, and +sanguine of reformers, he rested himself as a Pessimist and +Ninanist. In The Ring the quietism of Brynhild's "Rest, rest, +thou God" is sublime in its deep conviction; but you have only to +turn back the pages to find the irrepressible bustle of Siegfried +and the revelry of the clansmen expressed with equal zest. Wagner +was not a Schopenhaurite every day in the week, nor even a +Wagnerite. His mind changes as often as his mood. On Monday +nothing will ever induce him to return to quilldriving: on +Tuesday he begins a new pamphlet. On Wednesday he is impatient of +the misapprehensions of people who cannot see how impossible it +is for him to preside as a conductor over platform performances +of fragments of his works, which can only be understood when +presented strictly according to his intention on the stage: on +Thursday he gets up a concert of Wagnerian selections, and when +it is over writes to his friends describing how profoundly both +bandsmen and audience were impressed. On Friday he exults in the +self-assertion of Siegfried's will against all moral ordinances, +and is full of a revolutionary sense of "the universal law of +change and renewal": on Saturday he has an attack of holiness, +and asks, "Can you conceive a moral action of which the root idea +is not renunciation?" In short, Wagner can be quoted against +himself almost without limit, much as Beethoven's adagios could +be quoted against his scherzos if a dispute arose between two +fools as to whether he was a melancholy man or a merry one. + + + +THE MUSIC OF THE RING + +THE REPRESENTATIVE THEMES + +To be able to follow the music of The Ring, all that is necessary +is to become familiar enough with the brief musical phrases out +of which it is built to recognize them and attach a certain +definite significance to them, exactly as any ordinary Englishman +recognizes and attaches a definite significance to the opening +bars of God Save the King. There is no difficulty here: every +soldier is expected to learn and distinguish between different +bugle calls and trumpet calls; and anyone who can do this can +learn and distinguish between the representative themes or +"leading motives" (Leitmotifs) of The Ring. They are the easier +to learn because they are repeated agam and agam; and the main +ones are so emphatically impressed on the ear whilst the +spectator is looking for the first time at the objects, or +witnessing the first strong dramatic expression of the ideas they +denote, that the requisite association is formed unconsciously. +The themes are neither long, nor complicated, nor difficult. +Whoever can pick up the flourish of a coach-horn, the note of a +bird, the rhythm of the postman's knock or of a horse's gallop, +will be at no loss in picking up the themes of The Ring. No +doubt, when it comes to forming the necessary mental association +with the theme, it may happen that the spectator may find his ear +conquering the tune more easily than his mind conquers the +thought. But for the most part the themes do not denote thoughts +at all, but either emotions of a quite simple universal kind, or +the sights, sounds and fancies common enough to be familiar to +children. Indeed some of them are as frankly childish as any of +the funny little orchestral interludes which, in Haydn's +Creation, introduce the horse, the deer, or the worm. We have +both the horse and the worm in The Ring, treated exactly in +Haydn's manner, and with an effect not a whit less ridiculous to +superior people who decline to take it good-humoredly. Even the +complaisance of good Wagnerites is occasionally rather +overstrained by the way in which Brynhild's allusions to her +charger Grani elicit from the band a little rum-ti-tum triplet +which by itself is in no way suggestive of a horse, although a +continuous rush of such triplets makes a very exciting musical +gallop. + +Other themes denote objects which cannot be imitatively suggested +by music: for instance, music cannot suggest a ring, and cannot +suggest gold; yet each of these has a representative theme which +pervades the score in all directions. In the case of the gold the +association is established by the very salient way in which the +orchestra breaks into the pretty theme in the first act of The +Rhine Gold at the moment when the sunrays strike down through the +water and light up the glittering treasure, "hitherto invisible. +The reference of the strange little theme of the wishing cap is +equally manifest from the first, since the spectator's attention +is wholly taken up with the Tarnhelm and its magic when the theme +is first pointedly uttered by the orchestra. The sword theme is +introduced at the end of The Rhine Gold to express Wotan's hero +inspiration; and I have already mentioned that Wagner, unable, +when it came to practical stage management, to forego the appeal +to the eye as well as to the thought, here made Wotan pick up a +sword and brandish it, though no such instruction appears in the +printed score. When this sacrifice to Wagner's scepticism as to +the reality of any appeal to an audience that is not made through +their bodily sense is omitted, the association of the theme with +the sword is not formed until that point in the first act of The +Valkyries at which Siegmund is left alone by Hunding's hearth, +weaponless, with the assurance that he will have to fight for his +life at dawn with his host. He recalls then how his father +promised him a sword for his hour of need; and as he does so, a +flicker from the dying fire is caught by the golden hilt of the +sword in the tree, when the theme immediately begins to gleam +through the quiver of sound from the orchestra, and only dies out +as the fire sinks and the sword is once more hidden by the +darkness. Later on, this theme, which is never silent whilst +Sieglinda is dwelling on the story of the sword, leaps out into +the most dazzling splendor the band can give it when Siegmund +triumphantly draws the weapon from the tree. As it consists of +seven notes only, with a very marked measure, and a melody like a +simple flourish on a trumpet or post horn, nobody capable of +catching a tune can easily miss it. + +The Valhalla theme, sounded with solemn grandeur as the home of +the gods first appears to us and to Wotan at the beginning of the +second scene of The Rhine Gold, also cannot be mistaken. It, too, +has a memorable rhythm; and its majestic harmonies, far from +presenting those novel or curious problems in polyphony of which +Wagner still stands suspected by superstitious people, are just +those three simple chords which festive students who vamp +accompaniments to comic songs "by ear" soon find sufficient for +nearly all the popular tunes in the world. + +On the other hand, the ring theme, when it begins to hurtle +through the third scene of The Rhine Gold, cannot possibly be +referred to any special feature in the general gloom and turmoil +of the den of the dwarfs. It is not a melody, but merely the +displaced metric accent which musicians call syncopation, rung on +the notes of the familiar chord formed by piling three minor +thirds on top of one another (technically, the chord of the minor +ninth, ci-devant diminished seventh). One soon picks it up and +identifies it; but it does not get introduced in the +unequivocally clear fashion of the themes described above, or of +that malignant monstrosity, the theme which denotes the curse on +the gold. Consequently it cannot be said that the musical design +of the work is perfectly clear at the first hearing as regards +all the themes; but it is so as regards most of them, the main +lines being laid down as emphatically and intelligibly as the +dramatic motives in a Shakespearean play. As to the coyer +subtleties of the score, their discovery provides fresh interest +for repeated hearings, giving The Ring a Beethovenian +inexhaustibility and toughness of wear. + +The themes associated with the individual characters get stamped +on the memory easily by the simple association of the sound of +the theme with the appearance of the person indicated. Its +appropriateness is generally pretty obvious. Thus, the entry of +the giants Is made to a vigorous stumping, tramping measure. +Mimmy, being a quaint, weird old creature, has a quaint, weird +theme of two thin chords that creep down eerily one to the other. +Gutrune's theme is pretty and caressing: Gunther's bold, rough, +and commonplace. It is a favorite trick of Wagner's, when one of +his characters is killed on the stage, to make the theme attached +to that character weaken, fail, and fade away with a broken echo +into silence. + +THE CHARACTERIZATION + +All this, however, is the mere child's play of theme work. The +more complex characters, instead of having a simple musical label +attached to them, have their characteristic ideas and aspirations +identified with special representative themes as they come into +play in the drama; and the chief merit of the thematic structure +of The Ring is the mastery with which the dramatic play of the +ideas is reflected in the contrapuntal play of the themes. We do +not find Wotan, like the dragon or the horse, or, for the matter +of that, like the stage demon in Weber's Freischutz or +Meyerbeer's Robert the Devil, with one fixed theme attached to +him like a name plate to an umbrella, blaring unaltered from the +orchestra whenever he steps on the stage. Sometimes we have the +Valhalla theme used to express the greatness of the gods as an +idea of Wotan's. Again, we have his spear, the symbol of his +power, identified with another theme, on which Wagner finally +exercises his favorite device by making it break and fail, cut +through, as it were, by the tearing sound of the theme identified +with the sword, when Siegfried shivers the spear with the stroke +of Nothung. Yet another theme connected with Wotan is the +Wanderer music which breaks with such a majestic reassurance on +the nightmare terror of Mimmy when Wotan appears at the mouth of +his cave in the scene of the three riddles. Thus not only are +there several Wotan themes, but each varies in its inflexions and +shades of tone color according to its dramatic circumstances. So, +too, the merry ham tune of the young Siegfried changes its +measure, loads itself with massive harmonies, and becomes an +exordium of the most imposing splendor when it heralds his entry +as full-fledged hero in the prologue to Night Falls On The Gods. +Even Mimmy has his two or three themes: the weird one already +described; the little one in triple measure imitating the tap of +his hammer, and fiercely mocked in the savage laugh of Alberic at +his death; and finally the crooning tune in which he details all +his motherly kindnesses to the little foundling Siegfried. +Besides this there are all manner of little musical blinkings and +shamblings and whinings, the least hint of which from the +orchestra at any moment instantly brings Mimmy to mind, whether +he is on the stage at the time or not. + +In truth, dramatic characterization in music cannot be carried +very far by the use of representative themes. Mozart, the +greatest of all masters of this art, never dreamt of employing +them; and, extensively as they are used in The Ring, they do not +enable Wagner to dispense with the Mozartian method. Apart from +the themes, Siegfried and Mimmy are still as sharply +distinguished from one another by the character of their music as +Don Giovanni from Leporello, Wotan from Gutrune as Sarastro from +Papagena. It is true that the themes attached to the characters +have the same musical appropriateness as the rest of the music: +for example, neither the Valhalla nor the spear themes could, +without the most ludicrous incongruity, be used for the forest +bird or the unstable, delusive Loki; but for all that the musical +characterization must be regarded as independent of the specific +themes, since the entire elimination of the thematic system from +the score would leave the characters as well distinguished +musically as they are at present. + +One more illustration of the way in which the thematic system is +worked. There are two themes connected with Loki. One is a rapid, +sinuous, twisting, shifty semiquaver figure suggested by the +unsubstantial, elusive logic-spinning of the clever one's +braincraft. The other is the fire theme. In the first act of +Siegfried, Mimmy makes his unavailing attempt to explain fear to +Siegfried. With the horror fresh upon him of the sort of +nightmare into which he has fallen after the departure of the +Wanderer, and which has taken the form, at once fanciful and +symbolic, of a delirious dread of light, he asks Siegfried +whether he has never, whilst wandering in the forest, had his +heart set hammering in frantic dread by the mysterious lights of +the gloaming. To this, Siegfried, greatly astonished, replies +that on such occasions his heart is altogether healthy and his +sensations perfectly normal Here Mimmy's question is accompanied +by the tremulous sounding of the fire theme with its harmonies +most oppressively disturbed and troubled; whereas with +Siegfried's reply they become quite clear and straightforward, +making the theme sound bold, brilliant, and serene. This is a +typical instance of the way in which the themes are used. + +The thematic system gives symphonic interest, reasonableness, and +unity to the music, enabling the composer to exhaust every aspect +and quality of his melodic material, and, in Beethoven's manner, +to work miracles of beauty, expression and significance with the +briefest phrases. As a set-off against this, it has led Wagner to +indulge in repetitions that would be intolerable in a purely +dramatic work. Almost the first thing that a dramatist has to +learn in constructing a play is that the persons must not come on +the stage in the second act and tell one another at great length +what the audience has already seen pass before its eyes in the +first act. The extent to which Wagner has been seduced into +violating this rule by his affection for his themes is startling +to a practiced playwright. Siegfried inherits from Wotan a mania +for autobiography which leads him to inflict on every one he +meets the story of Mimmy and the dragon, although the audience +have spent a whole evening witnessing the events he is narrating. +Hagen tells the story to Gunther; and that same night Alberic's +ghost tells it over again to Hagen, who knows it already as well +as the audience. Siegfried tells the Rhine maidens as much of it +as they will listen to, and then keeps telling it to his hunting +companions until they kill him. Wotan's autobiography on the +second evening becomes his biography in the mouths of the Norns +on the fourth. The little that the Norns add to it is repeated an +hour later by Valtrauta. How far all this repetition is tolerable +is a matter of individual taste. A good story will bear +repetition; and if it has woven into it such pretty tunes as the +Rhine maidens' yodel, Mimmy's tinkling anvil beat, the note of +the forest bird, the call of Siegfried's horn, and so on, it will +bear a good deal of rehearing. Those who have but newly learnt +their way through The Ring will not readily admit that there is a +bar too much repetition. + +But how if you find some anti-Wagnerite raising the question +whether the thematic system does not enable the composer to +produce a music drama with much less musical fertility than was +required from his predecessors for the composition of operas +under the old system! + +Such discussions are not within the scope of this little book. +But as the book is now finished (for really nothing more need be +said about The Ring), I am quite willing to add a few pages of +ordinary musical criticism, partly to please the amateurs who +enjoy that sort of reading, and partly for the guidance of those +who wish to obtain some hints to help them through such critical +small talk about Wagner and Bayreuth as may be forced upon them +at the dinner table or between the acts. + + + + THE OLD AND THE NEW MUSIC + +In the old-fashioned opera every separate number involved the +composition of a fresh melody; but it is quite a mistake to +suppose that this creative-effort extended continuously +throughout the number from the first to the last bar. When a +musician composes according to a set metrical pattern, the +selection of the pattern and the composition of the first stave +(a stave in music corresponds to a line in verse) generally +completes the creative effort. All the rest follows more or less +mechanically to fill up the pattern, an air being very like a +wall-paper design in this respect. Thus the second stave is +usually a perfectly obvious consequence of the first; and the +third and fourth an exact or very slightly varied repetition of +the first and second. For example, given the first line of Pop +Goes the Weasel or Yankee Doodle, any musical cobbler could +supply the remaining three. There is very little tune turning of +this kind in The Ring; and it is noteworthy that where it does +occur, as in Siegmund's spring song and Mimmy's croon, "Ein +zullendes Kind," the effect of the symmetrical staves, recurring +as a mere matter of form, is perceptibly poor and platitudinous +compared with the free flow of melody which prevails elsewhere. + +The other and harder way of composing is to take a strain of free +melody, and ring every variety of change of mood upon it as if it +were a thought that sometimes brought hope, sometimes melancholy, +sometimes exultation, sometimes raging despair and so on. To take +several themes of this kind, and weave them together into a rich +musical fabric passing panoramically before the ear with a +continually varying flow of sentiment, is the highest feat of the +musician: it is in this way that we get the fugue of Bach and the +symphony of Beethoven. The admittedly inferior musician is the +one who, like Auber and Offenbach, not to mention our purveyors +of drawing-room ballads, can produce an unlimited quantity of +symmetrical tunes, but cannot weave themes symphonically. + +When this is taken into account, it will be seen that the fact +that there is a great deal of repetition in The Ring does not +distinguish it from the old-fashioned operas. The real difference +is that in them the repetition was used for the mechanical +completion of conventional metric patterns, whereas in The Ring +the recurrence of the theme is an intelligent and interesting +consequence of the recurrence of the dramatic phenomenon which it +denotes. It should be remembered also that the substitution of +symphonically treated themes for tunes with symmetrical eight-bar +staves and the like, has always been the rule in the highest +forms of music. To describe it, or be affected by it, as an +abandonment of melody, is to confess oneself an ignoramus +conversant only with dance tunes and ballads. + +The sort of stuff a purely dramatic musician produces when he +hampers himself with metric patterns in composition is not unlike +what might have resulted in literature if Carlyle (for example) +had been compelled by convention to write his historical stories +in rhymed stanzas. That is to say, it limits his fertility to an +occasional phrase, and three quarters of the time exercises only +his barren ingenuity in fitting rhymes and measures to it. In +literature the great masters of the art have long emancipated +themselves from metric patterns. Nobody claims that the hierarchy +of modern impassioned prose writers, from Bunyan to Ruskin, +should be placed below the writers of pretty lyrics, from Herrick +to Mr. Austin Dobson. Only in dramatic literature do we find the +devastating tradition of blank verse still lingering, giving +factitious prestige to the platitudes of dullards, and robbing +the dramatic style of the genuine poet of its full natural +endowment of variety, force and simplicity. + +This state of things, as we have seen, finds its parallel in +musical art, since music can be written in prose themes or in +versified tunes; only here nobody dreams of disputing the greater +difficulty of the prose forms, and the comparative triviality of +versification. Yet in dramatic music, as in dramatic literature, +the tradition of versification clings with the same pernicious +results; and the opera, like the tragedy, is conventionally made +like a wall paper. The theatre seems doomed to be in all things +the last refuge of the hankering after cheap prettiness in art. + +Unfortunately this confusion of the decorative with the dramatic +element in both literature and music is maintained by the example +of great masters in both arts. Very touching dramatic expression +can be combined with decorative symmetry of versification when +the artist happens to possess both the decorative and dramatic +gifts, and to have cultivated both hand in hand. Shakespeare and +Shelley, for instance, far from being hampered by the +conventional obligation to write their dramas in verse, found it +much the easiest and cheapest way of producing them. But if +Shakespeare had been compelled by custom to write entirely in +prose, all his ordinary dialogue might have been as good as the +first scene of As You Like It; and all his lofty passages as fine +as "What a piece of work is Man!", thus sparing us a great deal +of blank verse in which the thought is commonplace, and the +expression, though catchingly turned, absurdly pompous. The Cent +might either have been a serious drama or might never have been +written at all if Shelley had not been allowed to carry off its +unreality by Elizabethan versification. Still, both poets have +achieved many passages in which the decorative and dramatic +qualities are not only reconciled, but seem to enhance one +another to a pitch otherwise unattainable. + +Just so in music. When we find, as in the case of Mozart, a +prodigiously gifted and arduously trained musician who is also, +by a happy accident, a dramatist comparable to Mohere, the +obligation to compose operas in versified numbers not only does +not embarrass him, but actually saves him trouble and thought. No +matter what his dramatic mood may be, he expresses it in +exquisite musical verses more easily than a dramatist of ordinary +singleness of talent can express it in prose. Accordingly, he +too, like Shakespeare and Shelley,leaves versified airs, like +Dalla sua pace, or Gluck's Che fare senza Euridice, or Weber's +Leise, leise, which are as dramatic from the first note to the +last as the untrammelled themes of The Ring. In consequence, it +used to be professorially demanded that all dramatic music should +present the same double aspect. The demand was unreasonable, +since symmetrical versification is no merit in dramatic music: +one might as well stipulate that a dinner fork should be +constructed so as to serve also as a tablecloth. It was an +ignorant demand too, because it is not true that the composers +of these exceptional examples were always, or even often, able to +combine dramatic expression with symmetrical versification. Side +by side with Dalla sua pace we have Il mio tesoro and Non mi dir, +in which exquisitely expressive opening phrases lead to +decorative passages which are as grotesque from the dramatic +point of view as the music which Alberic sings when he is +slipping and sneezing in the Rhine mud is from the decorative +point of view. Further, there is to be considered the mass of +shapeless "dry recitative" which separates these symmetrical +numbers, and which might have been raised to considerable +dramatic and musical importance had it been incorporated into a +continuous musical fabric by thematic treatment. Finally, +Mozart's most dramatic finales and concerted numbers are more or +less in sonata form, like symphonic movements, and must therefore +be classed as musical prose. And sonata form dictates repetitions +and recapitulations from which the perfectly unconventional form +adopted by Wagner is free. On the whole, there is more scope for +both repetition and convention in the old form than in the new; +and the poorer a composer's musical gift is, the surer he is to +resort to the eighteenth century patterns to eke out his +invention. + + + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY + +When Wagner was born in 1813, music had newly become the most +astonishing, the most fascinating, the most miraculous art in the +world. Mozart's Don Giovanni had made all musical Europe +conscious of the enchantments of the modern orchestra and of the +perfect adaptability of music to the subtlest needs of the +dramatist. Beethoven had shown how those inarticulate mood-poems +which surge through men who have, like himself, no exceptional +command of words, can be written down in music as symphonies. Not +that Mozart and Beethoven invented these applications of their +art; but they were the first whose works made it clear that the +dramatic and subjective powers of sound were enthralling enough +to stand by themselves quite apart from the decorative musical +structures of which they had hitherto been a mere feature. After +the finales in Figaro and Don Giovanni, the possibility of +the modern music drama lay bare. After the symphonies of +Beethoven it was certain that the poetry that lies too deep for +words does not lie too deep for music, and that the vicissitudes +of the soul, from the roughest fun to the loftiest aspiration, +can make symphonies without the aid of dance tunes. As much, +perhaps, will be claimed for the preludes and fugues of Bach; but +Bach's method was unattainable: his compositions were wonderful +webs of exquisitely beautiful Gothic traceries in sound, quite +beyond all ordinary human talent. Beethoven's far blunter craft +was thoroughly popular and practicable: not to save his soul +could he have drawn one long Gothic line in sound as Bach could, +much less have woven several of them together with so apt a +harmony that even when the composer is unmoved its progressions +saturate themselves with the emotion which (as modern critics are +a little apt to forget) springs as warmly from our delicately +touched admiration as from our sympathies, and sometimes makes us +give a composer credit for pathetic intentions which he does not +entertain, just as a boy imagines a treasure of tenderness and +noble wisdom in the beauty of a woman. Besides, Bach set comic +dialogue to music exactly as he set the recitatives of the +Passion, there being for him, apparently, only one recitative +possible, and that the musically best. He reserved the expression +of his merry mood for the regular set numbers in which he could +make one of his wonderful contrapuntal traceries of pure ornament +with the requisite gaiety of line and movement. Beethoven bowed +to no ideal of beauty: he only sought the expression for his +feeling. To him a joke was a joke; and if it sounded funny in +music he was satisfied. Until the old habit of judging all music +by its decorative symmetry had worn out, musicians were shocked +by his symphonies, and, misunderstanding his integrity, openly +questioned his sanity. But to those who were not looking for +pretty new sound patterns, but were longing for the expression of +their moods in music, he achieved revelation, because, being +single in his aim to express his own moods, he anticipated with +revolutionary courage and frankness all the moods of the rising +generations of the nineteenth century. + +The result was inevitable. In the nineteenth century it was no +longer necessary to be a born pattern designer in sound to be a +composer. One had but to be a dramatist or a poet completely +susceptible to the dramatic and descriptive powers of sound. A +race of literary and theatrical musicians appeared; and +Meyerbeer, the first of them, made an extraordinary impression. +The frankly delirious description of his Robert the Devil in +Balzac's short story entitled Gambra, and Goethe's astonishingly +mistaken notion that he could have composed music for Faust, show +how completely the enchantments of the new dramatic music upset +the judgment of artists of eminent discernment. Meyerbeer was, +people said (old gentlemen still say so in Paris), the successor +of Beethoven: he was, if a less perfect musician than Mozart, a +profounder genius. Above all, he was original and daring. Wagner +himself raved about the duet in the fourth act of Les Huguenots +as wildly as anyone. + +Yet all this effect of originality and profundity was produced by +a quite limited talent for turning striking phrases, exploiting +certain curious and rather catching rhythms and modulations, and +devising suggestive or eccentric instrumentation. On its +decorative side, it was the same phenomenon in music as the +Baroque school in architecture: an energetic struggle to enliven +organic decay by mechanical oddities and novelties. Meyerbeer was +no symphonist. He could not apply the thematic system to his +striking phrases, and so had to cobble them into metric patterns +in the old style; and as he was no "absolute musician" either, he +hardly got his metric patterns beyond mere quadrille tunes, which +were either wholly undistinguished, or else made remarkable by +certain brusqueries which, in the true rococo manner, owed their +singularity to their senselessness. He could produce neither a +thorough music drama nor a charming opera. But with all this, and +worse, Meyerbeer had some genuine dramatic energy, and even +passion; and sometimes rose to the occasion in a manner which, +whilst the imagination of his contemporaries remained on fire +with the novelties of dramatic music, led them to overrate him +with an extravagance which provoked Wagner to conduct a long +critical campaign against his leadership. Thirty years ago this +campaign was mentably ascribed to the professional jealousy of a +disappointed rival. Nowadays young people cannot understand how +anyone could ever have taken Meyerbeer's influence seriously. +Those who remember how his reputation stood half a century ago, +and who realize what a nothoroughfare the path he opened proved +to be, even to himself, know how inevitable and how impersonal +Wagner's attack was. + +Wagner was the literary musician par excellence. He could not, +like Mozart and Beethoven, produce decorative tone structures +independently of any dramatic or poetic subject matter, because, +that craft being no longer necessary for his purpose, he did not +cultivate it. As Shakespeare, compared with Tennyson, appears to +have an exclusively dramatic talent, so exactly does Wagner +compared with Mendelssohn. On the other hand, he had not to go to +third rate literary hacks for "librettos" to set to music: he +produced his own dramatic poems, thus giving dramatic integrity +to opera, and making symphony articulate. A Beethoven symphony +(except the articulate part of the ninth) expresses noble +feeling, but not thought: it has moods, but no ideas. Wagner +added thought and produced the music drama. Mozart's loftiest +opera, his Ring, so to speak, The Magic Flute, has a libretto +which, though none the worse for seeming, like The Rhine Gold, +the merest Christmas tomfoolery to shallow spectators, is the +product of a talent immeasurably inferior to Mozart's own. +The libretto of Don Giovanni is coarse and trivial: its +transfiguration by Mozart's music may be a marvel; but nobody +will venture to contend that such transfigurations, however +seductive, can be as satisfactory as tone poetry or drama in +which the musician and the poet are at the same level. Here, +then, we have the simple secret of Wagner's preemminence as a +dramatic musician. He wrote the poems as well as composed the +music of his "stage festival plays," as he called them. + +Up to a certain point in his career Wagner paid the penalty of +undertaking two arts instead of one. Mozart had his trade as a +musician at his fingers' ends when he was twenty, because he had +served an arduous apprenticeship to that trade and no other. +Wagner was very far from having attained equal mastery at +thirty-five: indeed he himself has told us that not until he had +passed the age at which Mozart died did he compose with that +complete spontaneity of musical expression which can only be +attained by winning entire freedom from all preoccupation with +the difficulties of technical processes. But when that time came, +he was not only a consummate musician, like Mozart, but a +dramatic poet and a critical and philosophical essayist, +exercising a considerable influence on his century. The sign of +this consummation was his ability at last to play with his art, +and thus to add to his already famous achievements in sentimental +drama that lighthearted art of comedy of which the greatest +masters, like Moliere and Mozart, are so much rarer than the +tragedians and sentimentalists. It was then that he composed the +first two acts of Siegfried, and later on The Mastersingers, a +professedly comedic work, and a quite Mozartian garden of melody, +hardly credible as the work of the straining artifices of +Tanehauser. Only, as no man ever learns to do one thing by doing +something else, however closely allied the two things may be, +Wagner still produced no music independently of his poems. The +overture to The Mastersingers is delightful when you know what it +is all about; but only those to whom it came as a concert piece +without any such clue, and who judged its reckless counterpoint +by the standard of Bach and of Mozart's Magic Flute overture, can +realize how atrocious it used to sound to musicians of the old +school. When I first heard it, with the clear march of the +polyphony in Bach's B mmor Mass fresh in my memory, I confess I +thought that the parts had got dislocated, and that some of the +band were half a bar behind the others. Perhaps they were; but +now that I am familiar with the work, and with Wagner's harmony, +I can still quite understand certain passages producing that +effect organ admirer of Bach even when performed with perfect +accuracy. + + + +THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE + +The success of Wagner has been so prodigious that to his dazzled +disciples it seems that the age of what he called "absolute music +must be at an end, and the musical future destined to be an +exclusively Wagnerian one inaugurated at Bayreuth. All great +geniuses produce this illusion. Wagner did not begin a movement: +he consummated it. He was the summit of the nineteenth century +school of dramatic music in the same sense as Mozart was the +summit (the word is Gounod's) of the eighteenth century school. +And those who attempt to carry on his Bayreuth tradition will +assuredly share the fate of the forgotten purveyors of +second-hand Mozart a hundred years ago. As to the expected +supersession of absolute music, it is sufficient to point to the +fact that Germany produced two absolute musicians of the first +class during Wagner's lifetime: one, the greatly gifted Goetz, +who died young; the other, Brahms, whose absolute musical +endowment was as extraordinary as his thought was commonplace. +Wagner had for him the contempt of the original thinker for the +man of second-hand ideas, and of the strenuously dramatic +musician for mere brute musical faculty; but though his contempt +was perhaps deserved by the Triumphlieds, and Schicksalslieds, +and Elegies and Requiems in which Brahms took his brains so +seriously, nobody can listen to Brahms' natural utterance of the +richest absolute music, especially in his chamber compositions, +without rejoicing in his amazing gift. A reaction to absolute +music, starting partly from Brahms, and partly from such revivals +of medieval music as those of De Lange in Holland and Mr. Arnold +Dolmetsch in England, is both likely and promising; whereas there +is no more hope in attempts to out-Wagner Wagner in music drama +than there was in the old attempts--or for the matter of that, +the new ones--to make Handel the starting point of a great school +of oratorio. + + + +BAYREUTH + +When the Bayreuth Festival Playhouse was at last completed, and +opened in 1876 with the first performance of The Ring, European +society was compelled to admit that Wagner was "a success." +Royal personages, detesting his music, sat out the performances +in the row of boxes set apart for princes. They all complimented +him on the astonishing "push" with which, in the teeth of all +obstacles, he had turned a fabulous and visionary project into a +concrete commercial reality, patronized by the public at a pound +a head. It is as well to know that these congratulations had no +other effect upon Wagner than to open his eyes to the fact that +the Bayreuth experiment, as an attempt to evade the ordinary +social and commercial conditions of theatrical enterprise, was a +failure. His own account of it contrasts the reality with his +intentions in a vein which would be bitter if it were not so +humorous. The precautions taken to keep the seats out of the +hands of the frivolous public and in the hands of earnest +disciples, banded together in little Wagner Societies throughout +Europe, had ended in their forestalling by ticket speculators and +their sale to just the sort of idle globe-trotting tourists +against whom the temple was to have been strictly closed. The +money, supposed to be contributed by the faithful, was begged by +energetic subscription-hunting ladies from people who must have +had the most grotesque misconceptions of the composer's aims-- +among others, the Khedive of Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey! + +The only change that has occurred since then is that +subscriptions are no longer needed; for the Festival Playhouse +apparently pays its own way now, and is commercially on the same +footing as any other theatre. The only qualification required +from the visitor is money. A Londoner spends twenty pounds on a +visit: a native Bayreuther spends one pound. In either case "the +Folk," on whose behalf Wagner turned out in 1849, are effectually +excluded; and the Festival Playhouse must therefore be classed as +infinitely less Wagnerian in its character than Hampton Court +Palace. Nobody knew this better than Wagner; and nothing can be +further off the mark than to chatter about Bayreuth as if it had +succeeded in escaping from the conditions of our modern +civilization any more than the Grand Opera in Paris or London. + +Within these conditions, however, it effected a new departure in +that excellent German institution, the summer theatre. Unlike our +opera houses, which are constructed so that the audience may +present a splendid pageant to the delighted manager, it is +designed to secure an uninterrupted view of the stage, and an +undisturbed hearing of the music, to the audience. The dramatic +purpose of the performances is taken with entire and elaborate +seriousness as the sole purpose of them; and the management is +jealous for the reputation of Wagner. The commercial success +which has followed this policy shows that the public wants summer +theatresof the highest class. There is no reason why the +experiment should not be tried in England. If our enthusiasm for +Handel can support Handel Festivals, laughably dull, stupid and +anti-Handelian as these choral monstrosities are, as well as +annual provincial festivals on the same model, there is no +likelihood of a Wagner Festival failing. Suppose, for instance, a +Wagner theatre were built at Hampton Court or on Richmond Hill, +not to say Margate pier, so that we could have a delightful +summer evening holiday, Bayreuth fashion, passing the hours +between the acts in the park or ontheriver before sunset, is it +seriously contended that there would be any lack of visitors? If +a little of the money that is wasted on grand stands, Eiffel +towers, and dismal Halls by the Sea, all as much tied to brief +annual seasons as Bayreuth, were applied in this way, the profit +would be far more certain and the social utility prodigiously +greater. Any English enthusiasm for Bayreuth that does not take +the form of clamor for a Festival Playhouse in England may be set +aside as mere pilgrimage mania. + +Those who go to Bayreuth never repent it, although the +performances there are often far from delectable. The singing is +sometimes tolerable, and some times abominable. Some of the +singers are mere animated beer casks, too lazy and conceited to +practise the self-control and physical training that is expected +as a matter of course from an acrobat, a jockey or a pugilist. +The women's dresses are prudish and absurd. It is true that +Kundry no longer wears an early Victorian ball dress with +"ruchings," and that Fresh has been provided with a quaintly +modish copy of the flowered gown of Spring in Botticelli's famous +picture; but the mailclad Brynhild still climbs the mountains +with her legs carefully hidden in a long white skirt, and looks +so exactly like Mrs. Leo Hunter as Minerva that it is quite +impossible to feel a ray of illusion whilst looking at her. The +ideal of womanly beauty aimed at reminds Englishmen of the +barmaids of the seventies, when the craze for golden hair was at +its worst. Further, whilst Wagner's stage directions are +sometimes disregarded as unintelligently as at Covent Garden, an +intolerably old-fashioned tradition of half rhetorical, half +historical-pictorial attitude and gesture prevails. The most +striking moments of the drama are conceived as tableaux vivants +with posed models, instead of as passages of action, motion and +life. + +I need hardly add that the supernatural powers of control +attributed by credulous pilgrims to Madame Wagner do not exist. +Prima donnas and tenors are as unmanageable at Bayreuth as +anywhere else. Casts are capriciously changed; stage business is +insufficiently rehearsed; the public are compelled to listen to a +Brynhild or Siegfried of fifty when they have carefully arranged +to see one of twenty-five, much as in any ordinary opera house. +Even the conductors upset the arrangements occasionally. On the +other hand, if we leave the vagaries of the stars out of account, +we may safely expect always that in thoroughness of preparation +of the chief work of the season, in strenuous artistic +pretentiousness, in pious conviction that the work is of such +enormous importance as to be worth doing well at all costs, the +Bayreuth performances will deserve their reputation. The band is +placed out of sight of the audience, with the more formidable +instruments beneath the stage, so that the singers have not to +sing THROUGH the brass. The effect is quite perfect. + +BAYREUTH IN ENGLAND + +I purposely dwell on the faults of Bayreuth in order to show that +there is no reason in the world why as good and better +performances of The Ring should not be given in England. Wagner's +scores are now before the world; and neither his widow nor his +son can pretend to handle them with greater authority than any +artist who feels the impulse to interpret them. Nobody will ever +know what Wagner himself thought of the artists who established +the Bayreuth tradition: he was obviously not in a position to +criticize them. For instance, had Rubini survived to create +Siegmund, it is quite certain that we should not have had from +Wagner's pen so amusing and vivid a description as we have of his +Ottavio in the old Paris days. Wagner was under great obligations +to the heroes and heroines of 1876; and he naturally said nothing +to disparage their triumphs; but there is no reason to believe +that all or indeed any of them satisfied him as Schnorr of +Carolsfeld satisfied him as Tristan, or Schroder Devrient as +Fidelio. It is just as likely as not that the next Schnorr or +Schroder may arise in England. If that should actually happen, +neither of them will need any further authority than their own +genius and Wagner's scores for their guidance. Certainly the less +their spontaneous impulses are sophisticated by the very stagey +traditions which Bayreuth is handing down from the age of +Crummles, the better. + +WAGNERIAN SINGERS + +No nation need have much difficulty in producing a race of +Wagnerian singers. With the single exception of Handel, no +composer has written music so well calculated to make its singers +vocal athletes as Wagner. Abominably as the Germans sing, it is +astonishing how they thrive physically on his leading parts. His +secret is the Handelian secret. Instead of specializing his vocal +parts after the manner of Verdi and Gounod for high sopranos, +screaming tenors, and high baritones with an effective compass of +about a fifth at the extreme tiptop of their ranges, and for +contraltos with chest registers forced all over their compass in +the manner of music hall singers, he employs the entire range of +the human voice freely, demanding from everybody very nearly two +effective octaves, so that the voice is well exercised all over, +and one part of it relieves the other healthily and continually. +He uses extremely high notes very sparingly, and is especially +considerate in the matter of instrumental accompaniment. Even +when the singer appears to have all the thunders of the full +orchestra raging against him, a glance at the score will show +that he is well heard, not because of any exceptionally +stentorian power in his voice, but because Wagner meant him to be +heard and took the greatest care not to overwhelm him. Such +brutal opacities of accompaniment as we find in Rossini's Stabat +or Verdi's Trovatore, where the strings play a rum-tum +accompaniment whilst the entire wind band blares away, +fortissimo, in unison with the unfortunate singer, are never to +be found in Wagner's work. Even in an ordinary opera house, with +the orchestra ranged directly between the singers and the +audience, his instrumentation is more transparent to the human +voice than that of any other composer since Mozart. At the +Bayreuth Buhnenfestspielhaus, with the brass under the stage, it +is perfectly so. + +On every point, then, a Wagner theatre and Wagner festivals are +much more generally practicable than the older and more +artificial forms of dramatic music. A presentable performance of +The Ring is a big undertaking only in the sense in which the +construction of a railway is a big undertaking: that is, it +requires plenty of work and plenty of professional skill; but it +does not, like the old operas and oratorios, require those +extraordinary vocal gifts which only a few individuals scattered +here and there throughout Europe are born with. Singers who could +never execute the roulades of Semiramis, Assur, and Arsaces in +Rossini's Semiramide, could sing the parts of Brynhild, Wotan and +Erda without missing a note. Any Englishman can understand this +if he considers for a moment the difference between a Cathedral +service and an Italian opera at Covent Garden. The service is a +much more serious matter than the opera. Yet provincial talent is +sufficient for it, if the requisite industry and devotion are +forthcoming. Let us admit that geniuses of European celebrity are +indispensable at the Opera (though I know better, having seen +lusty troopers and porters, without art or manners, accepted by +fashion as principal tenors at that institution during the long +interval between Mario and Jean de Reszke); but let us remember +that Bayreuth has recruited its Parsifals from the peasantry, and +that the artisans of a village in the Bavarian Alps are capable +of a famous and elaborate Passion Play, and then consider whether +England is so poor in talent that its amateurs must journey to +the centre of Europe to witness a Wagner Festival. + +The truth is, there is nothing wrong with England except the +wealth which attracts teachers of singing to her shores in +sufficient numbers to extinguish the voices of all natives who +have any talent as singers. Our salvation must come from the +class that is too poor to have lessons. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Perfect Wagnerite, by Shaw + diff --git a/old/sring10.zip b/old/sring10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c87f5ef --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sring10.zip diff --git a/old/sring11.txt b/old/sring11.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..df12e7c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sring11.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4525 @@ +***The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring*** +#5 in our series by [George] Bernard Shaw + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. 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That explanation is correct as far as it +goes; but, put as I put it, it now seems to me to suggest that +the operatic character of Night Falls On The Gods was the result +of indifference or forgetfulness produced by the lapse of +twenty-five years between the first projection of the work and +its completion. Now it is clear that in whatever other ways +Wagner may have changed, he never became careless and he never +became indifferent. I have therefore inserted a new section in +which I show how the revolutionary history of Western Europe from +the Liberal explosion of 1848 to the confused attempt at a +socialist, military, and municipal administration in Paris in +1871 (that is to say, from the beginning of The Niblung's Ring by +Wagner to the long-delayed completion of Night Falls On The +Gods), demonstrated practically that the passing away of the +present order was going to be a much more complicated business +than it appears in Wagner's Siegfried. I have therefore +interpolated a new chapter which will perhaps induce some readers +of the original English text to read the book again in German. + +For some time to come, indeed, I shall have to refer English +readers to this German edition as the most complete in +existence. + +My obligation to Herr Trebitsch for making me a living German +author instead of merely a translated English one is so great +that I am bound to point out that he is not responsible for my +views or Wagner's, and that it is as an artist and a man of +letters, and not as a propagandist, that he is conveying to the +German speaking peoples political criticisms which occasionally +reflect on contemporary authorities with a European reputation +for sensitiveness. And as the very sympathy which makes his +translations so excellent may be regarded with suspicion, let me +hasten to declare I am bound to Germany by the ties that hold my +nature most strongly. Not that I like the average German: nobody +does, even in his own country. But then the average man is not +popular anywhere; and as no German considers himself an average +one, each reader will, as an exceptional man, sympathize with my +dislike of the common herd. And if I cannot love the typical +modern German, I can at least pity and understand him. His worst +fault is that he cannot see that it is possible to have too much +of a good thing. Being convinced that duty, industry, education, +loyalty, patriotism and respectability are good things (and I am +magnanimous enough to admit that they are not altogether bad +things when taken in strict moderation at the right time and +in the right place), he indulges in them on all occasions +shamelessly and excessively. He commits hideous crimes when crime +is presented to him as part of his duty; his craze for work is +more ruinous than the craze for drink; when he can afford +secondary education for his sons you find three out of every five +of them with their minds lamed for life by examinations which +only a thoroughly wooden head could go through with impunity; and +if a king is patriotic and respectable (few kings are) he puts up +statues to him and exalts him above Charlemagne and Henry the +Fowler. And when he meets a man of genius, he instinctively +insults him, starves him, and, if possible, imprisons and kills +him. + +Now I do not pretend to be perfect myself. Heaven knows I have to +struggle hard enough every day with what the Germans call my higher +impulses. I know too well the temptation to be moral, to be +self-sacrificing, to be loyal and patriotic, to be respectable and +well-spoken of. But I wrestle with it and--as far as human fraility +will allow--conquer it, whereas the German abandons himself to it +without scruple or reflection, and is actually proud of his pious +intemperance and self-indulgence. Nothing will cure him of this +mania. It may end in starvation, crushing taxation, suppression of +all freedom to try new social experiments and reform obsolete +institutions, in snobbery, jobbery, idolatry, and an omnipresent +tyranny in which his doctor and his schoolmaster, his lawyer and +his priest, coerce him worse than any official or drill sergeant: +no matter: it is respectable, says the German, therefore it must +be good, and cannot be carried too far; and everybody who rebels +against it must be a rascal. Even the Social-Democrats in Germany +differ from the rest only in carrying academic orthodoxy beyond +human endurance--beyond even German endurance. I am a Socialist +and a Democrat myself, the hero of a hundred platforms, one of the +leaders of the most notable Socialist organizations in England. I am +as conspicuous in English Socialism as Bebel is in German Socialism; +but do you suppose that the German Social-Democrats tolerate me? Not +a bit of it. I have begged again and again to be taken to the bosom +of my German comrades. I have pleaded that the Super-Proletarians +of all lands should unite. I have pointed out that the German +Social-Democratic party has done nothing at its Congresses for the +last ten years except the things I told them to do ten years before, +and that its path is white with the bones of the Socialist +superstitions I and my fellow Fabians have slain. Useless. They do +not care a rap whether I am a Socialist or not. All they want to +know is; Am I orthodox? Am I correct in my revolutionary views? Am +I reverent to the revolutionary authorities? Because I am a genuine +free-thinker they look at me as a policeman looks at a midnight +prowler or as a Berlin bourgeois looks at a suspicious foreigner. +They ask "Do you believe that Marx was omniscient and infallible; +that Engels was his prophet; that Bebel and Singer are his inspired +apostles; and that Das Kapital is the Bible?" Hastening in my +innocence to clear myself of what I regard as an accusation of +credulity and ignorance, I assure them earnestly that I know ten +times as much of economics and a hundred times as much of practical +administration as Marx did; that I knew Engels personally and rather +liked him as a witty and amiable old 1848 veteran who despised +modern Socialism; that I regard Bebel and Singer as men of like +passions with myself, but considerably less advanced; and that I +read Das Kapital in the year 1882 or thereabouts, and still consider +it one of the most important books of the nineteenth century because +of its power of changing the minds of those who read it, in spite of +its unsound capitalist economics, its parade of quotations from +books which the author had either not read or not understood, its +affectation of algebraic formulas, and its general attempt to +disguise a masterpiece of propagandist journalism and prophetic +invective as a drily scientific treatise of the sort that used to +impose on people in 1860, when any book that pretended to be +scientific was accepted as a Bible. In those days Darwin and +Helmholtz were the real fathers of the Church; and nobody would +listen to religion, poetry or rhetoric; so that even Socialism had +to call itself "scientific," and predict the date of the revolution, +as if it were a comet, by calculations founded on "historic laws." + +To my amazement these reasonable remarks were received as hideous +blasphemies; none of the party papers were allowed to print any +word of mine; the very Revisionists themselves found that the +scandal of my heresy damaged them more than my support aided +them; and I found myself an outcast from German Social-Democracy +at the moment when, thanks to Trebitsch, the German bourgeoisie +and nobility began to smile on me, seduced by the pleasure of +playing with fire, and perhaps by Agnes Sorma's acting as +Candida. + +Thus you may see that when a German, by becoming a +Social-Democrat, throws off all the bonds of convention, and +stands free from all allegiance to established religion, law, +order, patriotism, and learning, he promptly uses his freedom to +put on a headier set of chains; expels anti-militarists with the +blood-thirstiest martial anti-foreign ardor; and gives the Kaiser +reason to thank heaven that he was born in the comparative +freedom and Laodicean tolerance of Kingship, and not in the +Calvinistic bigotry and pedantry of Marxism. + +Why, then, you may ask, do I say that I am bound to Germany by +the ties that hold my nature most strongly? Very simply because +I should have perished of despair in my youth but for the world +created for me by that great German dynasty which began with Bach +and will perhaps not end with Richard Strauss. Do not suppose for +a moment that I learnt my art from English men of letters. True, +they showed me how to handle English words; but if I had known no +more than that, my works would never have crossed the Channel. My +masters were the masters of a universal language: they were, to +go from summit to summit, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven +and Wagner. Had the Germans understood any of these men, they +would have hanged them. Fortunately they did not understand them, +and therefore only neglected them until they were dead, after +which they learnt to dance to their tunes with an easy +conscience. For their sakes Germany stands consecrated as the +Holy Land of the capitalist age, just as Italy, for its painters' +sakes, is the Holy Land of the early unvulgarized Renascence; +France, for its builders' sakes, of the age of Christian chivalry +and faith; and Greece, for its sculptors' sakes, of the Periclean +age. + +These Holy Lands are my fatherlands: in them alone am I truly at +home: all my work is but to bring the whole world under this +sanctification. + +And so, O worthy, respectable, dutiful, patriotic, brave, +industrious German reader, you who used to fear only God and your +own conscience, and now fear nothing at all, here is my book for +you; and--in all sincerity--much good may it do you! + +London, 23rd. October 1907. + + + +PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION + +The preparation of a Second Edition of this booklet is quite the +most unexpected literary task that has ever been set me. When it +first appeared I was ungrateful enough to remonstrate with its +publisher for printing, as I thought, more copies than the most +sanguine Wagnerite could ever hope to sell. But the result proved +that exactly one person buys a copy on every day in the year, +including Sundays; and so, in the process of the suns, a reprint +has become necessary. + +Save a few verbal slips of no importance, I have found nothing to +alter in this edition. As usual, the only protests the book has +elicited are protests, not against the opinions it expresses, but +against the facts it records. There are people who cannot bear to +be told that their hero was associated with a famous Anarchist in +a rebellion; that he was proclaimed as "wanted" by the police; +that he wrote revolutionary pamphlets; and that his picture of +Niblunghome under the reign of Alberic is a poetic vision of +unregulated industrial capitalism as it was made known in Germany +in the middle of the nineteenth century by Engels's Condition of +the Laboring classes in England. They frantically deny these +facts, and then declare that I have connected them with Wagner in +a paroxysm of senseless perversity. I am sorry I have hurt them; +and I appeal to charitable publishers to bring out a new life of +Wagner, which shall describe him as a court musician of +unquestioned fashion and orthodoxy, and a pillar of the most +exclusive Dresden circles. Such a work, would, I believe, have a +large sale, and be read with satisfaction and reassurance by many +lovers of Wagner's music. + +As to my much demurred-to relegation of Night Falls On The Gods +to the category of grand opera, I have nothing to add or +withdraw. Such a classification is to me as much a matter of fact +as the Dresden rising or the police proclamation; but I shall not +pretend that it is a matter of such fact as everybody's judgment +can grapple with. People who prefer grand opera to serious +music-drama naturally resent my placing a very grand opera below +a very serious music-drama. The ordinary lover of Shakespeare +would equally demur to my placing his popular catchpenny plays, +of which As You Like It is an avowed type, below true +Shakespearean plays like Measure for Measure. I cannot help that. +Popular dramas and operas may have overwhelming merits as +enchanting make-believes; but a poet's sincerest vision of the +world must always take precedence of his prettiest fool's +paradise. + +As many English Wagnerites seem to be still under the impression +that Wagner composed Rienzi in his youth, Tannhauser and +Lohengrin in his middle age, and The Ring in his later years, may +I again remind them that The Ring was the result of a political +convulsion which occurred when Wagner was only thirty-six, and +that the poem was completed when he was forty, with thirty more +years of work before him? It is as much a first essay in +political philosophy as Die Feen is a first essay in romantic +opera. The attempt to recover its spirit twenty years later, when +the music of Night Falls On The Gods was added, was an attempt to +revive the barricades of Dresden in the Temple of the Grail. Only +those who have never had any political enthusiasms to survive can +believe that such an attempt could succeed. G. B. S. + + London, 1901 + + + +Preface to the First Edition + +This book is a commentary on The Ring of the Niblungs, Wagner's +chief work. I offer it to those enthusiastic admirers of Wagner +who are unable to follow his ideas, and do not in the least +understand the dilemma of Wotan, though they are filled with +indignation at the irreverence of the Philistines who frankly +avow that they find the remarks of the god too often tedious and +nonsensical. Now to be devoted to Wagner merely as a dog is +devoted to his master, sharing a few elementary ideas, appetites +and emotions with him, and, for the rest, reverencing his +superiority without understanding it, is no true Wagnerism. Yet +nothing better is possible without a stock of ideas common to +master and disciple. Unfortunately, the ideas of the +revolutionary Wagner of 1848 are taught neither by the education +nor the experience of English and American gentlemen-amateurs, +who are almost always political mugwumps, and hardly ever +associate with revolutionists. The earlier attempts to translate +his numerous pamphlets and essays into English, resulted in +ludicrous mixtures of pure nonsense with the absurdest +distorsions of his ideas into the ideas of the translators. We +now have a translation which is a masterpiece of interpretation +and an eminent addition to our literature; but that is not +because its author, Mr. Ashton Ellis, knows the German dictionary +better than his predecessors. He is simply in possession of +Wagner's ideas, which were to them inconceivable. + +All I pretend to do in this book is to impart the ideas which +are most likely to be lacking in the conventional Englishman's +equipment. I came by them myself much as Wagner did, having +learnt more about music than about anything else in my youth, and +sown my political wild oats subsequently in the revolutionary +school. This combination is not common in England; and as I seem, +so far, to be the only publicly articulate result of it, I +venture to add my commentary to what has already been written by +musicians who are no revolutionists, and revolutionists who are +no musicians. G. B. S. + + + +Preliminary Encouragements +The Ring of the Niblungs +The Rhine Gold +Wagner as Revolutionist +The Valkyries +Siegfried +Siegfried as Protestant +Night Falls On The Gods +Why He Changed His Mind +Wagner's Own Explanation +The Music of The Ring +The Old and the New Music +The Nineteenth Century +The Music of the Future +Bayreuth + + + +THE PERFECT WAGNERITE + + + +PRELIMINARY ENCOURAGEMENTS + +A few of these will be welcome to the ordinary citizen visiting +the theatre to satisfy his curiosity, or his desire to be in the +fashion, by witnessing a representation of Richard Wagner's +famous Ring of the Niblungs. + +First, The Ring, with all its gods and giants and dwarfs, its +water-maidens and Valkyries, its wishing-cap, magic ring, +enchanted sword, and miraculous treasure, is a drama of today, +and not of a remote and fabulous antiquity. It could not have +been written before the second half of the nineteenth century, +because it deals with events which were only then consummating +themselves. Unless the spectator recognizes in it an image of the +life he is himself fighting his way through, it must needs appear +to him a monstrous development of the Christmas pantomimes, spun +out here and there into intolerable lengths of dull conversation +by the principal baritone. Fortunately, even from this point of +view, The Ring is full of extraordinarily attractive episodes, +both orchestral and dramatic. The nature music alone--music of +river and rainbow, fire and forest--is enough to bribe people +with any love of the country in them to endure the passages of +political philosophy in the sure hope of a prettier page to come. +Everybody, too, can enjoy the love music, the hammer and anvil +music, the clumping of the giants, the tune of the young +woodsman's horn, the trilling of the bird, the dragon music and +nightmare music and thunder and lightning music, the profusion of +simple melody, the sensuous charm of the orchestration: in short, +the vast extent of common ground between The Ring and the +ordinary music we use for play and pleasure. Hence it is that +the four separate music-plays of which it is built have become +popular throughout Europe as operas. We shall presently see that +one of them, Night Falls On The Gods, actually is an opera. + +It is generally understood, however, that there is an inner ring +of superior persons to whom the whole work has a most urgent +and searching philosophic and social significance. I profess to +be such a superior person; and I write this pamphlet for the +assistance of those who wish to be introduced to the work on +equal terms with that inner circle of adepts. + +My second encouragement is addressed to modest citizens who may +suppose themselves to be disqualified from enjoying The Ring by +their technical ignorance of music. They may dismiss all such +misgivings speedily and confidently. If the sound of music has +any power to move them, they will find that Wagner exacts +nothing further. There is not a single bar of "classical music" +in The Ring--not a note in it that has any other point than the +single direct point of giving musical expression to the drama. +In classical music there are, as the analytical programs tell +us, first subjects and second subjects, free fantasias, +recapitulations, and codas; there are fugues, with +counter-subjects, strettos, and pedal points; there are +passacaglias on ground basses, canons ad hypodiapente, and other +ingenuities, which have, after all, stood or fallen by their +prettiness as much as the simplest folk-tune. Wagner is never +driving at anything of this sort any more than Shakespeare in +his plays is driving at such ingenuities of verse-making as +sonnets, triolets, and the like. And this is why he is so easy +for the natural musician who has had no academic teaching. The +professors, when Wagner's music is played to them, exclaim at +once "What is this? Is it aria, or recitative? Is there no +cabaletta to it--not even a full close? Why was that discord not +prepared; and why does he not resolve it correctly? How dare he +indulge in those scandalous and illicit transitions into a key +that has not one note in common with the key he has just left? +Listen to those false relations! What does he want with six +drums and eight horns when Mozart worked miracles with two of +each? The man is no musician." The layman neither knows nor +cares about any of these things. If Wagner were to turn aside +from his straightforward dramatic purpose to propitiate the +professors with correct exercises in sonata form, his music +would at once become unintelligible to the unsophisticated +spectator, upon whom the familiar and dreaded "classical" +sensation would descend like the influenza. Nothing of the kind +need be dreaded. The unskilled, untaught musician may approach +Wagner boldly; for there is no possibility of a misunderstanding +between them: The Ring music is perfectly single and simple. It +is the adept musician of the old school who has everything to +unlearn: and him I leave, unpitied, to his fate. + + + +THE RING OF THE NIBLUNGS + +The Ring consists of four plays, intended to be performed on four +successive evenings, entitled The Rhine Gold (a prologue to the +other three), The Valkyries, Siegfried, and Night Falls On The +Gods; or, in the original German, Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, +Siegfried, and Die Gotterdammerung. + + +THE RHINE GOLD + +Let me assume for a moment that you are a young and good-looking +woman. Try to imagine yourself in that character at Klondyke five +years ago. The place is teeming with gold. If you are content to +leave the gold alone, as the wise leave flowers without plucking +them, enjoying with perfect naivete its color and glitter and +preciousness, no human being will ever be the worse for your +knowledge of it; and whilst you remain in that frame of mind the +golden age will endure. + +Now suppose a man comes along: a man who has no sense of the +golden age, nor any power of living in the present: a man with +common desires, cupidities, ambitions, just like most of the men +you know. Suppose you reveal to that man the fact that if he will +only pluck this gold up, and turn it into money, millions of men, +driven by the invisible whip of hunger, will toil underground and +overground night and day to pile up more and more gold for him +until he is master of the world! You will find that the prospect +will not tempt him so much as you might imagine, because it +involves some distasteful trouble to himself to start with, and +because there is something else within his reach involving no +distasteful toil, which he desires more passionately; and that +is yourself. So long as he is preoccupied with love of you, the +gold, and all that it implies, will escape him: the golden age +will endure. Not until he forswears love will he stretch out his +hand to the gold, and found the Plutonic empire for himself. But +the choice between love and gold may not rest altogether with +him. He may be an ugly, ungracious, unamiable person, whose +affections may seem merely ludicrous and despicable to you. In +that case, you may repulse him, and most bitterly humiliate and +disappoint him. What is left to him then but to curse the love he +can never win, and turn remorselessly to the gold? With that, he +will make short work of your golden age, and leave you lamenting +its lost thoughtlessness and sweetness. + +In due time the gold of Klondyke will find its way to the great +cities of the world. But the old dilemma will keep continually +reproducing itself. The man who will turn his back on love, and +upon all the fruitful it, and will set himself single-heartedly +to gather gold in an exultant dream of wielding its Plutonic +powers, will find the treasure yielding quickly to his touch. +But few men will make this sacrifice voluntarily. Not until +the Plutonic power is so strongly set up that the higher human +impulses are suppressed as rebellious, and even the mere +appetites are denied, starved, and insulted when they cannot +purchase their satisfaction with gold, are the energetic spirits +driven to build their lives upon riches. How inevitable that +course has become to us is plain enough to those who have the +power of understanding what they see as they look at the +plutocratic societies of our modern capitals. + +First Scene + +Here, then, is the subject of the first scene of The Rhine Gold. +As you sit waiting for the curtain to rise, you suddenly catch +the booming ground-tone of a mighty river. It becomes plainer, +clearer: you get nearer to the surface, and catch the green light +and the flights of bubbles. Then the curtain goes up and you see +what you heard--the depths of the Rhine, with three strange fairy +fishes, half water-maidens, singing and enjoying themselves +exuberantly. They are not singing barcarolles or ballads about +the Lorely and her fated lovers, but simply trolling any nonsense +that comes into their heads in time to the dancing of the water +and the rhythm of their swimming. It is the golden age; and the +attraction of this spot for the Rhine maidens is a lump of the +Rhine gold, which they value, in an entirely uncommercial way, +for its bodily beauty and splendor. Just at present it is +eclipsed, because the sun is not striking down through the +water. + +Presently there comes a poor devil of a dwarf stealing along the +slippery rocks of the river bed, a creature with energy enough to +make him strong of body and fierce of passion, but with a brutish +narrowness of intelligence and selfishness of imagination: too +stupid to see that his own welfare can only be compassed as part +of the welfare of the world, too full of brute force not to grab +vigorously at his own gain. Such dwarfs are quite common in +London. He comes now with a fruitful impulse in him, in search +of what he lacks in himself, beauty, lightness of heart, +imagination, music. The Rhine maidens, representing all these to +him, fill him with hope and longing; and he never considers that +he has nothing to offer that they could possibly desire, being +by natural limitation incapable of seeing anything from anyone +else's point of view. With perfect simplicity, he offers himself +as a sweetheart to them. But they are thoughtless, elemental, +only half real things, much like modern young ladies. That the +poor dwarf is repulsive to their sense of physical beauty and +their romantic conception of heroism, that he is ugly and +awkward, greedy and ridiculous, disposes for them of his claim to +live and love. They mock him atrociously, pretending to fall in +love with him at first sight, and then slipping away and making +game of him, heaping ridicule and disgust on the poor wretch +until he is beside himself with mortification and rage. They +forget him when the water begins to glitter in the sun, and the +gold to reflect its glory. They break into ecstatic worship of +their treasure; and though they know the parable of Klondyke +quite well, they have no fear that the gold will be wrenched away +by the dwarf, since it will yield to no one who has not forsworn +love for it, and it is in pursuit of love that he has come to +them. They forget that they have poisoned that desire in him by +their mockery and denial of it, and that he now knows that life +will give him nothing that he cannot wrest from it by the +Plutonic power. It is just as if some poor, rough, vulgar, coarse +fellow were to offer to take his part in aristocratic society, +and be snubbed into the knowledge that only as a millionaire +could he ever hope to bring that society to his feet and buy +himself a beautiful and refined wife. His choice is forced on +him. He forswears love as thousands of us forswear it every day; +and in a moment the gold is in his grasp, and he disappears in +the depths, leaving the water-fairies vainly screaming "Stop +thief!" whilst the river seems to plunge into darkness and sink +from us as we rise to the cloud regions above. + +And now, what forces are there in the world to resist Alberic, +our dwarf, in his new character of sworn plutocrat? He is soon at +work wielding the power of the gold. For his gain, hordes of his +fellow-creatures are thenceforth condemned to slave miserably, +overground and underground, lashed to their work by the invisible +whip of starvation. They never see him, any more than the victims +of our "dangerous trades" ever see the shareholders whose power +is nevertheless everywhere, driving them to destruction. The very +wealth they create with their labor becomes an additional force +to impoverish them; for as fast as they make it it slips from +their hands into the hands of their master, and makes him +mightier than ever. You can see the process for yourself in every +civilized country today, where millions of people toil in want +and disease to heap up more wealth for our Alberics, laying up +nothing for themselves, except sometimes horrible and agonizing +disease and the certainty of premature death. All this part of +the story is frightfully real, frightfully present, frightfully +modern; and its effects on our social life are so ghastly and +ruinous that we no longer know enough of happiness to be +discomposed by it. It is only the poet, with his vision of what +life might be, to whom these things are unendurable. If we were a +race of poets we would make an end of them before the end of this +miserable century. Being a race of moral dwarfs instead, we think +them highly respectable, comfortable and proper, and allow them +to breed and multiply their evil in all directions. If there were +no higher power in the world to work against Alberic, the end of +it would be utter destruction. + +Such a force there is, however; and it is called Godhead. The +mysterious thing we call life organizes itself into all living +shapes, bird, beast, beetle and fish, rising to the human marvel +in cunning dwarfs and in laborious muscular giants, capable, +these last, of enduring toil, willing to buy love and life, not +with suicidal curses and renunciations, but with patient manual +drudgery in the service of higher powers. And these higher powers +are called into existence by the same self-organization of life +still more wonderfully into rare persons who may by comparison be +called gods, creatures capable of thought, whose aims extend far +beyond the satisfaction of their bodily appetites and personal +affections, since they perceive that it is only by the +establishment of a social order founded on common bonds of moral +faith that the world can rise from mere savagery. But how is this +order to be set up by Godhead in a world of stupid giants, since +these thoughtless ones pursue only their narrower personal ends +and can by no means understand the aims of a god? Godhead, face +to face with Stupidity, must compromise. Unable to enforce on the +world the pure law of thought, it must resort to a mechanical law +of commandments to be enforced by brute punishments and the +destruction of the disobedient. And however carefully these laws +are framed to represent the highest thoughts of the framers at +the moment of their promulgation, before a day has elapsed that +thought has grown and widened by the ceaseless evolution of life; +and lo! yesterday's law already fallen out with today's thought. +Yet if the high givers of that law themselves set the example of +breaking it before it is a week old, they destroy all its +authority with their subjects, and so break the weapon they have +forged to rule them for their own good. They must therefore +maintain at all costs the sanctity of the law, even when it has +ceased to represent their thought; so that at last they get +entangled in a network of ordinances which they no longer believe +in, and yet have made so sacred by custom and so terrible by +punishment, that they cannot themselves escape from them. Thus +Godhead's resort to law finally costs it half its integrity--as +if a spiritual king, to gain temporal power, had plucked out one +of his eyes--and it finally begins secretly to long for the +advent of some power higher than itself which will destroy its +artificial empire of law, and establish a true republic of free +thought. + +This is by no means the only difficulty in the dominion of Law. +The brute force for its execution must be purchased; and the mass +of its subjects must be persuaded to respect the authority which +employs this force. But how is such respect to be implanted in +them if they are unable to comprehend the thought of the +lawgiver? Clearly, only by associating the legislative power with +such displays of splendor and majesty as will impress their +senses and awe their imaginations. The god turned lawgiver, in +short, must be crowned Pontiff and King. Since he cannot be known +to the common folk as their superior in wisdom, he must be known +to them as their superior in riches, as the dweller in castles, +the wearer of gold and purple, the eater of mighty feasts, the +commander of armies, and the wielder of powers of life and death, +of salvation and damnation after death. Something may be done in +this way without corruption whilst the golden age still endures. +Your gods may not prevail with the dwarfs; but they may go to +these honest giants who will give a day's work for a day's pay, +and induce them to build for Godhead a mighty fortress, complete +with hall and chapel, tower and bell, for the sake of the +homesteads that will grow up in security round that +church-castle. This only, however, whilst the golden age lasts. +The moment the Plutonic power is let loose, and the loveless +Alberic comes into the field with his corrupting millions, the +gods are face to face with destruction; since Alberic, able with +invisible hunger-whip to force the labor of the dwarfs and to buy +the services of the giants, can outshine all the temporal shows +and splendors of the golden age, and make himself master of the +world, unless the gods, with their bigger brains, can capture his +gold. This, the dilemma of the Church today, is the situation +created by the exploit of Alberic in the depths of the Rhine. + +Second Scene + +From the bed of the river we rise into cloudy regions, and +finally come out into the clear in a meadow, where Wotan, the +god of gods, and his consort Fricka lie sleeping. Wotan, you +will observe, has lost one eye; and you will presently learn +that he plucked it out voluntarily as the price to be paid for +his alliance with Fricka, who in return has brought to him as +her dowry all the powers of Law. The meadow is on the brink of +a ravine, beyond which, towering on distant heights, stands +Godhome, a mighty castle, newly built as a house of state for the +one-eyed god and his all-ruling wife. Wotan has not yet seen this +castle except in his dreams: two giants have just built it for +him whilst he slept; and the reality is before him for the first +time when Fricka wakes him. In that majestic burg he is to rule +with her and through her over the humble giants, who have eyes to +gape at the glorious castles their own hands have built from his +design, but no brains to design castles for themselves, or to +comprehend divinity. As a god, he is to be great, secure, and +mighty; but he is also to be passionless, affectionless, wholly +impartial; for Godhead, if it is to live with Law, must have no +weaknesses, no respect for persons. All such sweet littlenesses +must be left to the humble stupid giants to make their toil sweet +to them; and the god must, after all, pay for Olympian power the +same price the dwarf has paid for Plutonic power. + +Wotan has forgotten this in his dreams of greatness. Not so +Fricka. What she is thinking of is this price that Wotan has +consented to pay, in token whereof he has promised this day to +hand over to the giants Fricka's sister, the goddess Freia, with +her golden love-apples. When Fricka reproaches Wotan with having +selfishly forgotten this, she finds that he, like herself, is not +prepared to go through with his bargain, and that he is trusting +to another great worldforce, the Lie (a European Power, as +Lassalle said), to help him to trick the giants out of their +reward. But this force does not dwell in Wotan himself, but in +another, a god over whom he has triumphed, one Loki, the god of +Intellect, Argument, Imagination, Illusion, and Reason. Loki has +promised to deliver him from his contract, and to cheat the +giants for him; but he has not arrived to keep his word: indeed, +as Fricka bitterly points out, why should not the Lie fail Wotan, +since such failure is the very essence of him? + +The giants come soon enough; and Freia flies to Wotan for +protection against them. Their purposes are quite honest; and +they have no doubt of the god's faith. There stands their part +of the contract fulfilled, stone on stone, port and pinnacle all +faithfully finished from Wotan's design by their mighty labor. +They have come undoubtingly for their agreed wage. Then there +happens what is to them an incredible, inconceivable thing. The +god begins to shuffle. There are no moments in life more tragic +than those in which the humble common man, the manual worker, +leaving with implicit trust all high affairs to his betters, and +reverencing them wholly as worthy of that trust, even to the +extent of accepting as his rightful function the saving of them +from all roughening and coarsening drudgeries, first discovers +that they are corrupt, greedy, unjust and treacherous. The shock +drives a ray of prophetic light into one giant's mind, and gives +him a momentary eloquence. In that moment he rises above his +stupid gianthood, and earnestly warns the Son of Light that all +his power and eminence of priesthood, godhood, and kingship must +stand or fall with the unbearable cold greatness of the +incorruptible law-giver. But Wotan, whose assumed character of +law-giver is altogether false to his real passionate nature, +despises the rebuke; and the giant's ray of insight is lost in +the murk of his virtuous indignation. + +In the midst of the wrangle, Loki comes at last, excusing himself +for being late on the ground that he has been detained by a +matter of importance which he has promised to lay before Wotan. +When pressed to give his mind to the business immediately in +hand, and to extricate Wotan from his dilemma, he has nothing to +say except that the giants are evidently altogether in the right. +The castle has been duly built: he has tried every stone of it, +and found the work first-rate: there is nothing to be done but +pay the price agreed upon by handing over Freia to the giants. +The gods are furious; and Wotan passionately declares that he +only consented to the bargain on Loki's promise to find a way for +him out of it. But Loki says no: he has promised to find a way +out if any such way exist, but not to make a way if there is no +way. He has wandered over the whole earth in search of some +treasure great enough to buy Freia back from the giants; but in +all the world he has found nothing for which Man will give up +Woman. And this, by the way, reminds him of the matter he had +promised to lay before Wotan. The Rhine maidens have complained +to him of Alberic's theft of their gold; and he mentions it as +a curious exception to his universal law of the unpurchasable +preciousness of love, that this gold-robber has forsworn love for +the sake of the fabulous riches of the Plutonic empire and the +mastery of the world through its power. + +No sooner is the tale told than the giants stoop lower than the +dwarf. Alberic forswore love only when it was denied to him and +made the instrument for cruelly murdering his self-respect. But +the giants, with love within their reach, with Freia and her +golden apples in their hands, offer to give her up for the +treasure of Alberic. Observe, it is the treasure alone that they +desire. They have no fierce dreams of dominion over their +superiors, or of moulding the world to any conceptions of their +own. They are neither clever nor ambitious: they simply covet +money. Alberic's gold: that is their demand, or else Freia, as +agreed upon, whom they now carry off as hostage, leaving Wotan +to consider their ultimatum. + +Freia gone, the gods begin to wither and age: her golden apples, +which they so lightly bargained away, they now find to be a +matter of life and death to them; for not even the gods can live +on Law and Godhead alone, be their castles ever so splendid. Loki +alone is unaffected: the Lie, with all its cunning wonders, its +glistenings and shiftings and mirages, is a mere appearance: it +has no body and needs no food. What is Wotan to do? Loki sees the +answer clearly enough: he must bluntly rob Alberic. There is +nothing to prevent him except moral scruple; for Alberic, after +all, is a poor, dim, dwarfed, credulous creature whom a god can +outsee and a lie can outwit. Down, then, Wotan and Loki plunge +into the mine where Alberic's slaves are piling up wealth for him +under the invisible whip. + +Third Scene + +This gloomy place need not be a mine: it might just as well be +a match-factory, with yellow phosphorus, phossy jaw, a large +dividend, and plenty of clergymen shareholders. Or it might be +a whitelead factory, or a chemical works, or a pottery, or a +railway shunting yard, or a tailoring shop, or a little +gin-sodden laundry, or a bakehouse, or a big shop, or any other +of the places where human life and welfare are daily sacrificed +in order that some greedy foolish creature may be able to hymn +exultantly to his Platonic idol: + +Thou mak'st me eat whilst others starve, +And sing while others do lament: +Such untome Thy blessings are, +As if I were Thine only care. + +In the mine, which resounds with the clinking anvils of the +dwarfs toiling miserably to heap up treasure for their master, +Alberic has set his brother Mime--more familiarly, Mimmy--to make +him a helmet. Mimmy dimly sees that there is some magic in this +helmet, and tries to keep it; but Alberic wrests it from him, and +shows him, to his cost, that it is the veil of the invisible +whip, and that he who wears it can appear in what shape he will, +or disappear from view altogether. This helmet is a very common +article in our streets, where it generally takes the form of a +tall hat. It makes a man invisible as a shareholder, and changes +him into various shapes, such as a pious Christian, a subscriber +to hospitals, a benefactor of the poor, a model husband and +father, a shrewd, practical independent Englishman, and what not, +when he is really a pitiful parasite on the commonwealth, +consuming a great deal, and producing nothing, feeling nothing, +knowing nothing, believing nothing, and doing nothing except what +all the rest do, and that only because he is afraid not to do it, +or at least pretend to do it. + +When Wotan and Loki arrive, Loki claims Alberic as an old +acquaintance. But the dwarf has no faith in these civil +strangers: Greed instinctively mistrusts Intellect, even in the +garb of Poetry and the company of Godhead, whilst envying the +brilliancy of the one and the dignity of the other. Alberic +breaks out at them with a terrible boast of the power now within +his grasp. He paints for them the world as it will be when his +dominion over it is complete, when the soft airs and green mosses +of its valleys shall be changed into smoke, slag, and filth; when +slavery, disease, and squalor, soothed by drunkenness and +mastered by the policeman's baton, shall become the foundation of +society; and when nothing shall escape ruin except such pretty +places and pretty women as he may like to buy for the slaking of +his own lusts. In that kingdom of evil he sees that there will be +no power but his own. These gods, with their moralities and +legalities and intellectual subtlety, will go under and be +starved out of existence. He bids Wotan and Loki beware of it; +and his "Hab' Acht!" is hoarse, horrible, and sinister. Wotan +is revolted to the very depths of his being: he cannot stifle the +execration that bursts from him. But Loki is unaffected: he has +no moral passion: indignation is as absurd to him as enthusiasm. +He finds it exquisitely amusing--having a touch of the comic +spirit in him--that the dwarf, in stirring up the moral fervor of +Wotan, has removed his last moral scruple about becoming a thief. +Wotan will now rob the dwarf without remorse; for is it not +positively his highest duty to take this power out of such evil +hands and use it himself in the interests of Godhead? On the +loftiest moral grounds, he lets Loki do his worst. + +A little cunningly disguised flattery makes short work of +Alberic. Loki pretends to be afraid of him; and he swallows that +bait unhesitatingly. But how, enquires Loki, is he to guard +against the hatred of his million slaves? Will they not steal +from him, whilst he sleeps, the magic ring, the symbol of his +power, which he has forged from the gold of the Rhine? "You think +yourself very clever," sneers Alberic, and then begins to boast +of the enchantments of the magic helmet. Loki refuses to believe +in such marvels without witnessing them. Alberic, only too glad +to show off his powers, puts on the helmet and transforms himself +into a monstrous serpent. Loki gratifies him by pretending to be +frightened out of his wits, but ventures to remark that it would +be better still if the helmet could transform its owner into some +tiny creature that could hide and spy in the smallest cranny. +Alberic promptly transforms himself into a toad. In an instant +Wotan's foot is on him; Loki tears away the helmet; they pinion +him, and drag him away a prisoner up through the earth to the +meadow by the castle. + +Fourth Scene + +There, to pay for his freedom, he has to summon his slaves from +the depths to place all the treasure they have heaped up for him +at the feet of Wotan. Then he demands his liberty; but Wotan must +have the ring as well. And here the dwarf, like the giant before +him, feels the very foundations of the world shake beneath him at +the discovery of his own base cupidity in a higher power. That +evil should, in its loveless desperation, create malign powers +which Godhead could not create, seems but natural justice to him. +But that Godhead should steal those malign powers from evil, and +wield them itself, is a monstrous perversion; and his appeal to +Wotan to forego it is almost terrible in its conviction of wrong. +It is of no avail. Wotan falls back again on virtuous +indignation. He reminds Alberic that he stole the gold from the +Rhine maidens, and takes the attitude of the just judge +compelling a restitution of stolen goods. Alberic knowing +perfectly well that the judge is taking the goods to put them m +his own pocket, has the ring torn from his finger, and is once +more as poor as he was when he came slipping and stumbling among +the slimy rocks in the bed of the Rhine. + +This is the way of the world. In older times, when the Christian +laborer was drained dry by the knightly spendthrift, and the +spendthrift was drained by the Jewish usurer, Church and State, +religion and law, seized on the Jew and drained him as a +Christian duty. When the forces of lovelessness and greed had +built up our own sordid capitalist systems, driven by invisible +proprietorship, robbing the poor, defacing the earth, and forcing +themselves as a universal curse even on the generous and humane, +then religion and law and intellect, which would never themselves +have discovered such systems, their natural bent being towards +welfare, economy, and life instead of towards corruption, waste, +and death, nevertheless did not scruple to seize by fraud and +force these powers of evil on presence of using them for good. +And it inevitably happens that when the Church, the Law, and all +the Talents have made common cause to rob the people, the Church +is far more vitally harmed by that unfaithfulness to itself than +its more mechanical confederates; so that finally they turn on +their discredited ally and rob the Church, with the cheerful +co-operation of Loki, as in France and Italy for instance. + +The twin giants come back with their hostage, in whose presence +Godhead blooms again. The gold is ready for them; but now that +the moment has come for parting with Freia the gold +does not seem so tempting; and they are sorely loth to let her +go. Not unless there is gold enough to utterly hide her from +them--not until the heap has grown so that they can see nothing +but gold--until money has come between them and every human +feeling, will they part with her. There is not gold enough to +accomplish this: however cunningly Loki spreads it, the glint of +Freia's hair is still visible to Giant Fafnir, and the magic +helmet must go on the heap to shut it out. Even then Fafnir's +brother, Fasolt, can catch a beam from her eye through a chink, +and is rendered incapable thereby of forswearing her. There is +nothing to stop that chink but the ring; and Wotan is as greedily +bent on keeping that as Alberic himself was; nor can the other +gods persuade him that Freia is worth it, since for the highest +god, love is not the highest good, but only the universal delight +that bribes all living things to travail with renewed life. Life +itself, with its accomplished marvels and its infinite +potentialities, is the only force that Godhead can worship. Wotan +does not yield until he is reached by the voice of the fruitful +earth that before he or the dwarfs or the giants or the Law or +the Lie or any of these things were, had the seed of them all in +her bosom, and the seed perhaps of something higher even than +himself, that shall one day supersede him and cut the tangles and +alliances and compromises that already have cost him one of his +eyes. When Erda, the First Mother of life, rises from her +sleeping-place in the heart of the earth, and warns him to yield +the ring, he obeys her; the ring is added to the heap of gold; +and all sense of Freia is cut off from the giants. + +But now what Law is left to these two poor stupid laborers +whereby one shall yield to the other any of the treasure for +which they have each paid the whole price in surrendering Freia? +They look by mere habit to the god to judge for them; but he, +with his heart stirring towards higher forces than himself, turns +with disgust from these lower forces. They settle it as two +wolves might; and Fafnir batters his brother dead with his staff. +It is a horrible thing to see and hear, to anyone who knows how +much blood has been shed in the world in just that way by its +brutalized toilers, honest fellows enough until their betters +betrayed them. Fafnir goes off with his booty. It is quite +useless to him. He has neither the cunning nor the ambition to +establish the Plutonic empire with it. Merely to prevent others +from getting it is the only purpose it brings him. He piles it in +a cave; transforms himself into a dragon by the helmet; and +devotes his life to guarding it, as much a slave to it as a +jailor is to his prisoner. He had much better have thrown it all +back into the Rhine and transformed himself into the +shortest-lived animal that enjoys at least a brief run in the +sunshine. His case, however, is far too common to be surprising. +The world is overstocked with persons who sacrifice all their +affections, and madly trample and batter down their fellows to +obtain riches of which, when they get them, they are unable to +make the smallest use, and to which they become the most +miserable slaves. + +The gods soon forget Fafnir in their rejoicing over Freia. +Donner, the Thunder god, springs to a rocky summit and calls the +clouds as a shepherd calls his flocks. They come at his summons; +and he and the castle are hidden by their black legions. Froh, +the Rainbow god, hastens to his side. At the stroke of Donner's +hammer the black murk is riven in all directions by darting +ribbons of lightning; and as the air clears, the castle is seen in +its fullest splendor, accessible now by the rainbow bridge which +Froh has cast across the ravine. In the glory of this moment +Wotan has a great thought. With all his aspirations to establish +a reign of noble thought, of righteousness, order, and justice, +he has found that day that there is no race yet in the world that +quite spontaneously, naturally, and unconsciously realizes his +ideal. He himself has found how far short Godhead falls of the +thing it conceives. He, the greatest of gods, has been unable to +control his fate: he has been forced against his will to choose +between evils, to make disgraceful bargains, to break them still +more disgracefully, and even then to see the price of his +disgrace slip through his fingers. His consort has cost him half +his vision; his castle has cost him his affections; and the +attempt to retain both has cost him his honor. On every side he +is shackled and bound, dependent on the laws of Fricka and on the +lies of Loki, forced to traffic with dwarfs for handicraft and +with giants for strength, and to pay them both in false coin. +After all, a god is a pitiful thing. But the fertility of the +First Mother is not yet exhausted. The life that came from her +has ever climbed up to a higher and higher organization. From +toad and serpent to dwarf, from bear and elephant to giant, from +dwarf and giant to a god with thoughts, with comprehension of the +world, with ideals. Why should it stop there? Why should it not +rise from the god to the Hero? to the creature in whom the god's +unavailing thought shall have become effective will and life, who +shall make his way straight to truth and reality over the laws of +Fricka and the lies of Loki with a strength that overcomes giants +and a cunning that outwits dwarfs? Yes: Erda, the First Mother, +must travail again, and breed him a race of heroes to deliver the +world and himself from his limited powers and disgraceful +bargains. This is the vision that flashes on him as he turns to +the rainbow bridge and calls his wife to come and dwell with him +in Valhalla, the home of the gods. + +They are all overcome with Valhalla's glory except Loki. He is +behind the scenes of this joint reign of the Divine and the +Legal. He despises these gods with their ideals and their golden +apples. "I am ashamed," he says, "to have dealings with these +futile creatures." And so he follows them to the rainbow bridge. +But as they set foot on it, from the river below rises the +wailing of the Rhine maidens for their lost gold. "You down there +in the water," cries Loki with brutal irony: "you used to bask in +the glitter of your gold: henceforth you shall bask in the +splendor of the gods." And they reply that the truth is in the +depths and the darkness, and that what blazes on high there is +falsehood. And with that the gods pass into their glorious +stronghold. + + + +WAGNER AS REVOLUTIONIST + +Before leaving this explanation of The Rhine Gold, I must have a +word or two about it with the reader. It is the least popular of +the sections of The Ring. The reason is that its dramatic moments +lie quite outside the consciousness of people whose joys and +sorrows are all domestic and personal, and whose religions and +political ideas are purely conventional and superstitious. To +them it is a struggle between half a dozen fairytale personages +for a ring, involving hours of scolding and cheating, and one +long scene in a dark gruesome mine, with gloomy, ugly music, and +not a glimpse of a handsome young man or pretty woman. Only those +of wider consciousness can follow it breathlessly, seeing in it +the whole tragedy of human history and the whole horror of the +dilemmas from which the world is shrinking today. At Bayreuth I +have seen a party of English tourists, after enduring agonies of +boredom from Alberic, rise in the middle of the third scene, and +almost force their way out of the dark theatre into the sunlit +pine-wood without. And I have seen people who were deeply +affected by the scene driven almost beside themselves by this +disturbance. But it was a very natural thing for the unfortunate +tourists to do, since in this Rhine Gold prologue there is no +interval between the acts for escape. Roughly speaking, people +who have no general ideas, no touch of the concern of the +philosopher and statesman for the race, cannot enjoy The Rhine +Gold as a drama. They may find compensations in some exceedingly +pretty music, at times even grand and glorious, which will enable +them to escape occasionally from the struggle between Alberic and +Wotan; but if their capacity for music should be as limited as +their comprehension of the world, they had better stay away. + +And now, attentive Reader, we have reached the point at which +some foolish person is sure to interrupt us by declaring that The +Rhine Gold is what they call "a work of art" pure and simple, and +that Wagner never dreamt of shareholders, tall hats, whitelead +factories, and industrial and political questions looked at from +the socialistic and humanitarian points of view. We need not +discuss these impertinences: it is easier to silence them with +the facts of Wagner's life. In 1843 he obtained the position of +conductor of the Opera at Dresden at a salary of L225 a year, +with a pension. This was a first-rate permanent appointment in +the service of the Saxon State, carrying an assured professional +position and livelihood with it In 1848, the year of revolutions, +the discontented middle class, unable to rouse the +Churchand-State governments of the day from their bondage to +custom, caste, and law by appeals to morality or constitutional +agitation for Liberal reforms, made common cause with the +starving wage-working class, and resorted to armed rebellion, +which reached Dresden in 1849. Had Wagner been the mere musical +epicure and political mugwump that the term "artist" seems to +suggest to so many critics and amateurs--that is, a creature in +their own lazy likeness--he need have taken no more part in the +political struggles of his day than Bishop took in the English +Reform agitation of 1832, or Sterndale Bennett in the Chartist or +Free Trade movements. What he did do was first to make a +desperate appeal to the King to cast off his bonds and answer the +need of the time by taking true Kingship on himself and leading +his people to the redress of their intolerable wrongs (fancy the +poor monarch's feelings!), and then, when the crash came, to take +his side with the right and the poor against the rich and the +wrong. When the insurrection was defeated, three leaders of it +were especially marked down for vengeance: August Roeckel, an old +friend of Wagner's to whom he wrote a well-known series of +letters; Michael Bakoonin, afterwards a famous apostle of +revolutionary Anarchism; and Wagner himself. Wagner escaped to +Switzerland: Roeckel and Bakoonin suffered long terms of +imprisonment. Wagner was of course utterly ruined, pecuniarily +and socially (to his own intense relief and satisfaction); and +his exile lasted twelve years. His first idea was to get his +Tannhauser produced in Paris. With the notion of explaining +himself to the Parisians he wrote a pamphlet entitled Art and +Revolution, a glance through which will show how thoroughly the +socialistic side of the revolution had his sympathy, and how +completely he had got free from the influence of the established +Churches of his day. For three years he kept pouring forth +pamphlets--some of them elaborate treatises in size and +intellectual rank, but still essentially the pamphlets and +manifestoes of a born agitator--on social evolution, religion, +life, art and the influence of riches. In 1853 the poem of The +Ring was privately printed; and in 1854, five years after the +Dresden insurrection, The Rhine Gold score was completed to the +last drum tap. + +These facts are on official record in Germany, where the +proclamation summing up Wagner as "a politically dangerous +person" may be consulted to this day. The pamphlets are now +accessible to English readers in the translation of Mr. Ashton +Ellis. This being so, any person who, having perhaps heard that +I am a Socialist, attempts to persuade you that my interpretation +of The Rhine Gold is only "my socialism" read into the works of +a dilettantist who borrowed an idle tale from an old saga to make +an opera book with, may safely be dismissed from your +consideration as an ignoramus. + +If you are now satisfied that The Rhine Gold is an allegory, do +not forget that an allegory is never quite consistent except when +it is written by someone without dramatic faculty, in which case +it is unreadable. There is only one way of dramatizing an idea; +and that is by putting on the stage a human being possessed +by that idea, yet none the less a human being with all the human +impulses which make him akin and therefore interesting to us. +Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, does not, like his unread +imitators, attempt to personify Christianity and Valour: he +dramatizes for you the life of the Christian and the Valiant Man. +Just so, though I have shown that Wotan is Godhead and Kingship, +and Loki Logic and Imagination without living Will (Brain without +Heart, to put it vulgarly); yet in the drama Wotan is a +religiously moral man, and Loki a witty, ingenious, imaginative +and cynical one. As to Fricka, who stands for State Law, she does +not assume her allegorical character in The Rhine Gold at all, +but is simply Wotan's wife and Freia's sister: nay, she +contradicts her allegorical self by conniving at all Wotan's +rogueries. That, of course, is just what State Law would do; but +we must not save the credit of the allegory by a quip. Not until +she reappears in the next play (The Valkyries) does her function +in the allegorical scheme become plain. + +One preconception will bewilder the spectator hopelessly unless +he has been warned against it or is naturally free from it. In +the old-fashioned orders of creation, the supernatural personages +are invariably conceived as greater than man, for good or evil. +In the modern humanitarian order as adopted by Wagner, Man is the +highest. In The Rhine Gold, it is pretended that there are as yet +no men on the earth. There are dwarfs, giants, and gods. The +danger is that you will jump to the conclusion that the gods, at +least, are a higher order than the human order. On the contrary, +the world is waiting for Man to redeem it from the lame and +cramped government of the gods. Once grasp that; and the allegory +becomes simple enough. Really, of course, the dwarfs, giants, and +gods are dramatizations of the three main orders of men: to wit, +the instinctive, predatory, lustful, greedy people; the patient, +toiling, stupid, respectful, money-worshipping people; and the +intellectual, moral, talented people who devise and administer +States and Churches. History shows us only one order higher than +the highest of these: namely, the order of Heroes. + +Now it is quite clear--though you have perhaps never thought of +it--that if the next generation of Englishmen consisted wholly of +Julius Caesars, all our political, ecclesiastical, and moral +institutions would vanish, and the less perishable of their +appurtenances be classed with Stonehenge and the cromlechs and +round towers as inexplicable relics of a bygone social order. +Julius Caesars would no more trouble themselves about such +contrivances as our codes and churches than a fellow of the Royal +Society will touch his hat to the squire and listen to the +village curate's sermons. This is precisely what must happen some +day if life continues thrusting towards higher and higher +organization as it has hitherto done. As most of our English +professional men are to Australian bushmen, so, we must suppose, +will the average man of some future day be to Julius Caesar. Let +any man of middle age, pondering this prospect consider what has +happened within a single generation to the articles of faith his +father regarded as eternal nay, to the very scepticisms and +blasphemies of his youth (Bishop Colenso's criticism of the +Pentateuch, for example!); and he will begin to realize how much +of our barbarous Theology and Law the man of the future will do +without. Bakoonin, the Dresden revolutionary leader with whom +Wagner went out in 1849, put forward later on a program, often +quoted with foolish horror, for the abolition of all +institutions, religious, political, juridical, financial, legal, +academic, and so on, so as to leave the will of man free to find +its own way. All the loftiest spirits of that time were burning +to raise Man up, to give him self-respect, to shake him out of +his habit of grovelling before the ideals created by his own +imagination, of attributing the good that sprang from the +ceaseless energy of the life within himself to some superior +power in the clouds, and of making a fetish of self-sacrifice to +justify his own cowardice. + +Farther on in The Ring we shall see the Hero arrive and make an +end of dwarfs, giants, and gods. Meanwhile, let us not forget +that godhood means to Wagner infirmity and compromise, and +manhood strength and integrity. Above all, we must understand-- +for it is the key to much that we are to see--that the god, +since his desire is toward a higher and fuller life, must long +in his inmost soul for the advent of that greater power whose +first work, though this he does not see as yet, must be his +own undoing. + +In the midst of all these far-reaching ideas, it is amusing +to find Wagner still full of his ingrained theatrical +professionalism, and introducing effects which now seem +old-fashioned and stagey with as much energy and earnestness as +if they were his loftiest inspirations. When Wotan wrests the +ring from Alberic, the dwarf delivers a lurid and bloodcurdling +stage curse, calling down on its every future possessor care, +fear, and death. The musical phrase accompanying this outburst +was a veritable harmonic and melodic bogey to mid-century ears, +though time has now robbed it of its terrors. It sounds again +when Fafnir slays Fasolt, and on every subsequent occasion when +the ring brings death to its holder. This episode must justify +itself purely as a piece of stage sensationalism. On deeper +ground it is superfluous and confusing, as the ruin to which +the pursuit of riches leads needs no curse to explain it; nor +is there any sense in investing Alberic with providential powers +in the matter. + + + +THE VALKYRIES + +Before the curtain rises on the Valkyries, let us see what has +happened since it fell on The Rhine Gold. The persons of the +drama will tell us presently; but as we probably do not +understand German, that may not help us. + +Wotan is still ruling the world in glory from his giant-built +castle with his wife Fricka. But he has no security for the +continuance of his reign, since Alberic may at any moment +contrive to recover the ring, the full power of which he can +wield because he has forsworn love. Such forswearing is not +possible to Wotan: love, though not his highest need, is a higher +than gold: otherwise he would be no god. Besides, as we have +seen, his power has been established in the world by and as a +system of laws enforced by penalties. These he must consent to be +bound by himself; for a god who broke his own laws would betray +the fact that legality and conformity are not the highest rule +of conduct--a discovery fatal to his supremacy as Pontiff and +Lawgiver. Hence he may not wrest the ring unlawfully from +Fafnir, even if he could bring himself to forswear love. + +In this insecurity he has hit on the idea of forming a heroic +bodyguard. He has trained his love children as war-maidens +(Valkyries) whose duty it is to sweep through battle-fields and +bear away to Valhalla the souls of the bravest who fall there. +Thus reinforced by a host of warriors, he has thoroughly +indoctrinated them, Loki helping him as dialectician-in-chief, +with the conventional system of law and duty, supernatural +religion and self-sacrificing idealism, which they believe to +be the essence of his godhood, but which is really only the +machinery of the love of necessary power which is his mortal +weakness. This process secures their fanatical devotion to his +system of government, but he knows perfectly well that such +systems, in spite of their moral pretensions, serve selfish and +ambitious tyrants better than benevolent despots, and that, if +once Alberic gets the ring back, he will easily out-Valhalla +Valhalla, if not buy it over as a going concern. The only chance +of permanent security, then, is the appearance in the world of a +hero who, without any illicit prompting from Wotan, will destroy +Alberic and wrest the ring from Fafnir. There will then, he +believes, be no further cause for anxiety, since he does not yet +conceive Heroism as a force hostile to Godhead. In his longing +for a rescuer, it does not occur to him that when the Hero comes, +his first exploit must be to sweep the gods and their ordinances +from the path of the heroic will. + +Indeed, he feels that in his own Godhead is the germ of such +Heroism, and that from himself the Hero must spring. He takes to +wandering, mostly in search of love, from Fricka and Valhalla. He +seeks the First Mother; and through her womb, eternally fertile, +the inner true thought that made him first a god is reborn as his +daughter, uncorrupted by his ambition, unfettered by his +machinery of power and his alliances with Fricka and Loki. This +daughter, the Valkyrie Brynhild, is his true will, his real +self, (as he thinks): to her he may say what he must not say to +anyone, since in speaking to her he but speaks to himself. "Was +Keinem in Worten unausgesprochen," he says to her, "bleib es +ewig: mit mir nur rath' ich, red' ich zu dir." + +But from Brynhild no hero can spring until there is a man of +Wotan's race to breed with her. Wotan wanders further; and a +mortal woman bears him twins: a son and a daughter. He separates +them by letting the girl fall into the hands of a forest tribe +which in due time gives her as a wife to a fierce chief, one +Hunding. With the son he himself leads the life of a wolf, and +teaches him the only power a god can teach, the power of doing +without happiness. When he has given him this terrible training, +he abandons him, and goes to the bridal feast of his daughter +Sieglinda and Hunding. In the blue cloak of the wanderer, wearing +the broad hat that flaps over the socket of his forfeited eye, he +appears in Hunding's house, the middle pillar of which is a +mighty tree. Into that tree, without a word, he strikes a sword +up to the hilt, so that only the might of a hero can withdraw +it. Then he goes out as silently as he came, blind to the truth +that no weapon from the armory of Godhead can serve the turn of +the true Human Hero. Neither Hunding nor any of his guests can +move the sword; and there it stays awaiting the destined hand. +That is the history of the generations between The Rhine Gold and +The Valkyries. + +The First Act + +This time, as we sit looking expectantly at the curtain, we hear, +not the deep booming of the Rhine, but the patter of a forest +downpour, accompanied by the mutter of a storm which soon gathers +into a roar and culminates in crashing thunderbolts. As it +passes off, the curtain rises; and there is no mistaking whose +forest habitation we are in; for the central pillar is a mighty +tree, and the place fit for the dwelling of a fierce chief. The +door opens: and an exhausted man reels in: an adept from the +school of unhappiness. Sieglinda finds him lying on the hearth. +He explains that he has been in a fight; that his weapons not +being as strong as his arms, were broken; and that he had to fly. +He desires some drink and a moment's rest; then he will go; for +he is an unlucky person, and does not want to bring his ill-luck +on the woman who is succoring him. But she, it appears, is also +unhappy; and a strong sympathy springs up between them. When her +husband arrives, he observes not only this sympathy, but a +resemblance between them, a gleam of the snake in their eyes. +They sit down to table; and the stranger tells them his unlucky +story. He is the son of Wotan, who is known to him only as +Wolfing, of the race of the Volsungs. The earliest thing he +remembers is returning from a hunt with his father to find their +home destroyed, his mother murdered, and his twin-sister carried +off. This was the work of a tribe called the Neidings, upon whom +he and Wolfing thenceforth waged implacable war until the day +when his father disappeared, leaving no trace of himself but an +empty wolfskin. The young Volsung was thus cast alone upon the +world, finding most hands against him, and bringing no good luck +even to his friends. His latest exploit has been the slaying of +certain brothers who were forcing their sister to wed against +her will. The result has been the slaughter of the woman by her +brothers' clansmen, and his own narrow escape by flight. + +His luck on this occasion is even worse than he supposes; for +Hunding, by whose hearth he has taken refuge, is clansman to the +slain brothers and is bound to avenge them. He tells the Volsung +that in the morning, weapons or no weapons, he must fight for his +life. Then he orders the woman to bed, and follows her himself, +taking his spear with him. + +The unlucky stranger, left brooding by the hearth, has nothing to +console himself with but an old promise of his father's that he +shall find a weapon to his hand when he most needs one. The last +flicker of the dying fire strikes on the golden hilt of the sword +that sticks in the tree; but he does not see it; and the embers +sink into blackness. Then the woman returns. Hunding is safely +asleep: she has drugged him. She tells the story of the one-eyed +man who appeared at her forced marriage, and of the sword. She +has always felt, she says, that her miseries will end in the arms +of the hero who shall succeed in drawing it forth. The stranger, +diffident as he is about his luck, has no misgivings as to his +strength and destiny. He gives her his affection at once, and +abandons himself to the charm of the night and the season; +for it is the beginning of Spring. They soon learn from their +confidences that she is his stolen twin-sister. He is transported +to find that the heroic race of the Volsungs need neither perish +nor be corrupted by a lower strain. Hailing the sword by the name +of Nothung (or Needed), he plucks it from the tree as her +bride-gift, and then, crying "Both bride and sister be of thy +brother; and blossom the blood of the Volsungs!" clasps her as +the mate the Spring has brought him. + +The Second Act + +So far, Wotan's plan seems prospering. In the mountains he calls +his war-maiden Brynhild, the child borne to him by the First +Mother, and bids her see to it that Hunding shall fall in the +approaching combat. But he is reckoning without his consort, +Fricka. What will she, the Law, say to the lawless pair who have +heaped incest on adultery? A hero may have defied the law, and +put his own will in its place; but can a god hold him guiltless, +when the whole power of the gods can enforce itself only by law? +Fricka, shuddering with horror, outraged in every instinct, comes +clamoring for punishment. Wotan pleads the general necessity of +encouraging heroism in order to keep up the Valhalla bodyguard; +but his remonstrances only bring upon him torrents of reproaches +for his own unfaithfulness to the law in roaming through the +world and begetting war-maidens, "wolf cubs," and the like. He is +hopelessly beaten in the argument. Fricka is absolutely right +when she declares that the ending of the gods began when he +brought this wolf-hero into the world; and now, to save their +very existence, she pitilessly demands his destruction. Wotan has +no power to refuse: it is Fricka's mechanical force, and not his +thought, that really rules the world. He has to recall Brynhild; +take back his former instructions; and ordain that Hunding shall +slay the Volsung. + +But now comes another difficulty. Brynhild is the inner thought +and will of Godhead, the aspiration from the high life to the +higher that is its divine element, and only becomes separated +from it when its resort to kingship and priestcraft for the sake +of temporal power has made it false to itself. Hitherto, +Brynhild, as Valkyrie or hero chooser, has obeyed Wotan +implicitly, taking her work as the holiest and bravest in his +kingdom; and now he tells her what he could not tell Fricka--what +indeed he could not tell to Brynhild, were she not, as she says, +his own will--the whole story of Alberic and of that inspiration +about the raising up of a hero. She thoroughly approves of the +inspiration; but when the story ends in the assumption that she +too must obey Fricka, and help Fricka's vassal, Hunding, to undo +the great work and strike the hero down, she for the first time +hesitates to accept his command. In his fury and despair he +overawes her by the most terrible threats of his anger; and she +submits. + +Then comes the Volsung Siegmund, following his sister bride, who +has fled into the mountains in a revulsion of horror at having +allowed herself to bring her hero to shame. Whilst she is lying +exhausted and senseless in his arms, Brynhild appears to him and +solemnly warns him that he must presently leave the earth with +her. He asks whither he must follow her. To Valhalla, to take his +place there among the heroes. He asks, shall he find his father +there? Yes. Shall he find a wife there? Yes: he will be waited on +by beautiful wishmaidens. Shall he meet his sister there? No. +Then, says Siegmund, I will not come with you. + +She tries to make him understand that he cannot help himself. +Being a hero, he will not be so persuaded: he has his father's +sword, and does not fear Hunding. But when she tells him that she +comes from his father, and that the sword of a god will not avail +in the hands of a hero, he accepts his fate, but will shape it +with his own hand, both for himself and his sister, by slaying +her, and then killing himself with the last stroke of the sword. +And thereafter he will go to Hell, rather than to Valhalla. + +How now can Brynhild, being what she is, choose her side freely +in a conflict between this hero and the vassal of Fricka? By +instinct she at once throws Wotan's command to the winds, and +bids Siegmund nerve himself for the combat with Hunding, in which +she pledges him the protection of her shield. The horn of Hunding +is soon heard; and Siegmund's spirits rise to fighting pitch at +once. The two meet; and the Valkyrie's shield is held before the +hero. But when he delivers his sword-stroke at his foe, the +weapon shivers on the spear of Wotan, who suddenly appears +between them; and the first of the race of heroes falls with the +weapon of the Law's vassal through his breast. Brynhild snatches +the fragments of the broken sword, and flies, carrying off the +woman with her on her war-horse; and Wotan, in terrible wrath, +slays Hunding with a wave of his hand, and starts in pursuit of +his disobedient daughter. + +The Third Act + +On a rocky peak, four of the Valkyries are waiting for the rest. +The absent ones soon arrive, galloping through the air with slain +heroes, gathered from the battle-field, hanging over their +saddles. Only, Brynhild, who comes last, has for her spoil a live +woman. When her eight sisters learn that she has defied Wotan, +they dare not help her; and Brynhild has to rouse Sieglinda to +make an effort to save herself, by reminding her that she bears +in her the seed of a hero, and must face everything, endure +anything, sooner than let that seed miscarry. Sieglinda, in a +transport of exaltation, takes the fragments of the sword and +flies into the forest. Then Wotan comes; the sisters fly in +terror at his command; and he is left alone with Brynhild. + +Here, then, we have the first of the inevitable moments which +Wotan did not foresee. Godhead has now established its dominion +over the world by a mighty Church, compelling obedience through +its ally the Law, with its formidable State organization of force +of arms and cunning of brain. It has submitted to this alliance +to keep the Plutonic power in check--built it up primarily for +the sake of that soul in itself which cares only to make the +highest better and the best higher; and now here is that very +soul separated from it and working for the destruction of its +indispensable ally, the lawgiving State. How is the rebel to be +disarmed? Slain it cannot be by Godhead, since it is still +Godhead's own very dearest soul. But hidden, stifled, silenced +it must be; or it will wreck the State and leave the Church +defenseless. Not until it passes completely away from Godhead, +and is reborn as the soul of the hero, can it work anything but +the confusion and destruction of the existing order. How is the +world to be protected against it in the meantime? Clearly Loki's +help is needed here: it is the Lie that must, on the highest +principles, hide the Truth. Let Loki surround this mountain top +with the appearance of a consuming fire; and who will dare +penetrate to Brynhild? It is true that if any man will walk +boldly into that fire, he will discover it at once to be a lie, +an illusion, a mirage through which he might carry a sack of +gunpowder without being a penny the worse. Therefore let the fire +seem so terrible that only the hero, when in the fulness of time +he appears upon earth, will venture through it; and the problem +is solved. Wotan, with a breaking heart, takes leave of Brynhild; +throws her into a deep sleep; covers her with her long warshield; +summons Loki, who comes in the shape of a wall of fire +surrounding the mountain peak; and turns his back on Brynhild for +ever. + +The allegory here is happily not so glaringly obvious to the +younger generations of our educated classes as it was forty years +ago. In those days, any child who expressed a doubt as to the +absolute truth of the Church's teaching, even to the extent of +asking why Joshua told the sun to stand still instead of telling +the earth to cease turning, or of pointing out that a whale's +throat would hardly have been large enough to swallow Jonah, was +unhesitatingly told that if it harboured such doubts it would +spend all eternity after its death in horrible torments in a lake +of burning brimstone. It is difficult to write or read this +nowadays without laughing; yet no doubt millions of ignorant and +credulous people are still teaching their children that. When +Wagner himself was a little child, the fact that hell was a +fiction devised for the intimidation and subjection of the +masses, was a well-kept secret of the thinking and governing +classes. At that time the fires of Loki were a very real terror +to all except persons of exceptional force of character and +intrepidity of thought. Even thirty years after Wagner had +printed the verses of The Ring for private circulation, we find +him excusing himself from perfectly explicit denial of current +superstitions, by reminding his readers that it would expose him +to prosecution. In England, so many of our respectable voters are +still grovelling in a gloomy devil worship, of which the fires of +Loki are the main bulwark, that no Government has yet had the +conscience or the courage to repeal our monstrous laws against +"blasphemy." + + + +SIEGFRIED + +Sieglinda, when she flies into the forest with the hero's son +unborn in her womb, and the broken pieces of his sword in her +hand, finds shelter in the smithy of a dwarf, where she brings +forth her child and dies. This dwarf is no other than Mimmy, the +brother of Alberic, the same who made for him the magic helmet. +His aim in life is to gain possession of the helmet, the ring, +and the treasure, and through them to obtain that Plutonic +mastery of the world under the beginnings of which he himself +writhed during Alberic's brief reign. Mimmy is a blinking, +shambling, ancient creature, too weak and timid to dream of +taking arms himself to despoil Fafnir, who still, transformed to +a monstrous serpent, broods on the gold in a hole in the rocks. +Mimmy needs the help of a hero for that; and he has craft enough +to know that it is quite possible, and indeed much in the +ordinary way of the world, for senile avarice and craft to set +youth and bravery to work to win empire for it. He knows the +pedigree of the child left on his hands, and nurses it to manhood +with great care. + +His pains are too well rewarded for his comfort. The boy +Siegfried, having no god to instruct him in the art of +unhappiness, inherits none of his father's ill luck, and all his +father's hardihood. The fear against which Siegmund set his face +like flint, and the woe which he wore down, are unknown to the +son. The father was faithful and grateful: the son knows no law +but his own humor; detests the ugly dwarf who has nursed him; +chafes furiously under his claims for some return for his +tender care; and is, in short, a totally unmoral person, a +born anarchist, the ideal of Bakoonin, an anticipation of the +"overman" of Nietzsche. He is enormously strong, full of life +and fun, dangerous and destructive to what he dislikes, and +affectionate to what he likes; so that it is fortunate that +his likes and dislikes are sane and healthy. Altogether an +inspiriting young forester, a son of the morning, in whom the +heroic race has come out into the sunshine from the clouds of +his grandfather's majestic entanglements with law, and the night +of his father's tragic struggle with it. + +The First Act + +Mimmy's smithy is a cave, in which he hides from the light like +the eyeless fish of the American caverns. Before the curtain +rises the music already tells us that we are groping in darkness. +When it does rise Mimmy is in difficulties. He is trying to make +a sword for his nursling, who is now big enough to take the field +against Fafnir. Mimmy can make mischievous swords; but it is not +with dwarf made weapons that heroic man will hew the way of his +own will through religions and governments and plutocracies and +all the other devices of the kingdom of the fears of the +unheroic. As fast as Mimmy makes swords, Siegfried Bakoonin +smashes them, and then takes the poor old swordsmith by the +scruff of the neck and chastises him wrathfully. The particular +day on which the curtain rises begins with one of these trying +domestic incidents. Mimmy has just done his best with a new sword +of surpassing excellence. Siegfried returns home in rare spirits +with a wild bear, to the extreme terror of the wretched dwarf. +When the bear is dismissed, the new sword is produced. It is +promptly smashed, as usual, with, also, the usual effects on the +temper of Siegfried, who is quite boundless in his criticisms of +the smith's boasted skill, and declares that he would smash the +sword's maker too if he were not too disgusting to be handled. + +Mimmy falls back on his stock defence: a string of maudlin +reminders of the care with which he has nursed the little boy +into manhood. Siegfried replies candidly that the strangest thing +about all this care is that instead of making him grateful, it +inspires him with a lively desire to wring the dwarf's neck. +Only, he admits that he always comes back to his Mimmy, though he +loathes him more than any living thing in the forest. On this +admission the dwarf attempts to build a theory of filial +instinct. He explains that he is Siegfried's father, and that +this is why Siegfried cannot do without him. But Siegfried has +learned from his forest companions, the birds and foxes and +wolves, that mothers as well as fathers go to the making of +children. Mimmy, on the desperate ground that man is neither bird +nor fox, declares that he is Siegfried's father and mother both. +He is promptly denounced as a filthy liar, because the birds and +foxes are exactly like their parents, whereas Siegfried, having +often watched his own image in the water, can testify that he is +no more like Mimmy than a toad is like a trout. Then, to place +the conversation on a plane of entire frankness, he throttles +Mimmy until he is speechless. When the dwarf recovers, he is so +daunted that he tells Siegfried the truth about his birth, and +for testimony thereof produces the pieces of the sword that broke +upon Wotan's spear. Siegfried instantly orders him to repair the +sword on pain of an unmerciful thrashing, and rushes off into the +forest, rejoicing in the discovery that he is no kin of Mimmy's, +and need have no more to do with him when the sword is mended. + +Poor Mimmy is now in a worse plight than ever; for he has long +ago found that the sword utterly defies his skill: the steel will +yield neither to his hammer nor to his furnace. Just then there +walks into his cave a Wanderer, in a blue mantle, spear in hand, +with one eye concealed by the brim of his wide hat. Mimmy, not by +nature hospitable, tries to drive him away; but the Wanderer +announces himself as a wise man, who can tell his host, in +emergency, what it most concerns him to know. Mimmy, taking this +offer in high dudgeon, because it implies that his visitor's wits +are better than his own, offers to tell the wise one something +that HE does not know: to wit, the way to the door. The +imperturbable Wanderer's reply is to sit down and challenge the +dwarf to a trial of wit. He wagers his head against Mimmy's that +he will answer any three questions the dwarf can put to him. + +Now here were Mimmy's opportunity, had he only the wit to ask +what he wants to know, instead of pretending to know everything +already. It is above all things needful to him at this moment to +find out how that sword can be mended; and there has just dropped +in upon him in his need the one person who can tell him. In such +circumstances a wise man would hasten to show to his visitor his +three deepest ignorances, and ask him to dispel them. The dwarf, +being a crafty fool, desiring only to detect ignorance in his +guest, asks him for information on the three points on which he +is proudest of being thoroughly well instructed himself. His +three questions are, Who dwell under the earth? Who dwell on the +earth? and Who dwell in the cloudy heights above? The Wanderer, +in reply, tells him of the dwarfs and of Alberic; of the earth, +and the giants Fasolt and Fafnir; of the gods and of Wotan: +himself, as Mimmy now recognizes with awe. + +Next, it is Mimmy's turn to face three questions. What is that +race, dearest to Wotan, against which Wotan has nevertheless done +his worst? Mimmy can answer that: he knows the Volsungs, the race +of heroes born of Wotan's infidelities to Fricka, and can tell +the Wanderer the whole story of the twins and their son +Siegfried. Wotan compliments him on his knowledge, and asks +further with what sword Siegfried will slay Fafnir? Mimmy can +answer that too: he has the whole history of the sword at his +fingers' ends. Wotan hails him as the knowingest of the knowing, +and then hurls at him the question he should himself have asked: +Who will mend the sword? Mimmy, his head forfeited, confesses +with loud lamentations that he cannot answer. The Wanderer reads +him an appropriate little lecture on the folly of being too +clever to ask what he wants to know, and informs him that a smith +to whom fear is unknown will mend Nothung. To this smith he +leaves the forfeited head of his host, and wanders off into the +forest. Then Mimmy's nerves give way completely. He shakes like a +man in delirium tremens, and has a horrible nightmare, in the +supreme convulsion of which Siegfried, returning from the forest, +presently finds him. + +A curious and amusing conversation follows. Siegfried himself +does not know fear, and is impatient to acquire it as an +accomplishment. Mimmy is all fear: the world for him is a +phantasmagoria of terrors. It is not that he is afraid of being +eaten by bears in the forest, or of burning his fingers in the +forge fire. A lively objection to being destroyed or maimed does +not make a man a coward: on the contrary, it is the beginning of +a brave man's wisdom. But in Mimmy, fear is not the effect of +danger: it is natural quality of him which no security can allay. +He is like many a poor newspaper editor, who dares not print the +truth, however simple, even when it is obvious to himself and all +his readers. Not that anything unpleasant would happen to him if +he did--not, indeed that he could fail to become a distinguished +and influential leader of opinion by fearlessly pursuing such a +course, but solely because he lives in a world of imaginary +terrors, rooted in a modest and gentlemanly mistrust of his own +strength and worth, and consequently of the value of his opinion. +Just so is Mimmy afraid of anything that can do him any good, +especially of the light and the fresh air. He is also convinced +that anybody who is not sufficiently steeped in fear to be +constantly on his guard, must perish immediately on his first +sally into the world. To preserve Siegfried for the enterprise to +which he has destined him he makes a grotesque attempt to teach +him fear. He appeals to his experience of the terrors of the +forest, of its dark places, of its threatening noises its +stealthy ambushes, its sinister flickering lights its +heart-tightening ecstasies of dread. + +All this has no other effect than to fill Siegfried with wonder +and curiosity; for the forest is a place of delight for him. He +is as eager to experience Mimmy's terrors as a schoolboy to feel +what an electric shock is like. Then Mimmy has the happy idea of +describing Fafnir to him as a likely person to give him an +exemplary fright. Siegfried jumps at the idea, and, since Mimmy +cannot mend the sword for him, proposes to set to work then and +there to mend it for himself. Mimmy shakes his head, and bids him +see now how his youthful laziness and frowardness have found him +out--how he would not learn the smith's craft from Professor +Mimmy, and therefore does not know how even to begin mending the +sword. Siegfried Bakoonin's retort is simple and crushing. He +points out that the net result of Mimmy's academic skill is that +he can neither make a decent sword himself nor even set one to +rights when it is damaged. Reckless of the remonstrances of the +scandalized professor, he seizes a file, and in a few moments +utterly destroys the fragments of the sword by rasping them into +a heap of steel filings. Then he puts the filings into a +crucible; buries it in the coals; and sets to at the bellows with +the shouting exultation of the anarchist who destroys only to +clear the ground for creation. When the steel is melted he runs +it into a mould; and lo! a sword-blade in the rough. Mimmy, +amazed at the success of this violation of all the rules of his +craft, hails Siegfried as the mightiest of smiths, professing +himself barely worthy to be his cook and scullion; and forthwith +proceeds to poison some soup for him so that he may murder him +safely when Fafnir is slain. Meanwhile Siegfned forges and +tempers and hammers and rivets, uproariously singing the while as +nonsensically as the Rhine maidens themselves. Finally he assails +the anvil on which Mimmy's swords have been shattered, and +cleaves it with a mighty stroke of the newly forged Nothung. + +The Second Act + +In the darkest hour before the dawn of that night, we find +ourselves before the cave of Fafnir, and there we find Alberic, +who can find nothing better to do with himself than to watch the +haunt of the dragon, and eat his heart out in vain longing for +the gold and the ring. The wretched Fafnir, once an honest giant, +can only make himself terrible enough to keep his gold by +remaining a venomous reptile. Why he should not become an honest +giant again and clear out of his cavern, leaving the gold and the +ring and the rest of it for anyone fool enough to take them at +such a price, is the first question that would occur to anyone +except a civilized man, who would be too accustomed to that sort +of mania to be at all surprised at it. + +To Alberic in the night comes the Wanderer, whom the dwarf, +recognizing his despoiler of old, abuses as a shameless thief, +taunting him with the helpless way in which all his boasted power +is tied up with the laws and bargains recorded on the heft of his +spear, which, says Alberic truly, would crumble like chaff in his +hands if he dared use it for his own real ends. Wotan, having +already had to kill his own son with it, knows that very well; +but it troubles him no more; for he is now at last rising to +abhorrence of his own artificial power, and looking to the coming +hero, not for its consolidation but its destruction. When Alberic +breaks out again with his still unquenched hope of one day +destroying the gods and ruling the world through the ring, Wotan +is no longer shocked. He tells Alberic that Brother Mime +approaches with a hero whom Godhead can neither help nor hinder. +Alberic may try his luck against him without disturbance from +Valhalla. Perhaps, he suggests, if Alberic warns Fafnir, and +offers to deal with the hero for him, Fafnir, may give him the +ring. They accordingly wake up the dragon, who condescends to +enter into bellowing conversation, but is proof against their +proposition, strong in the magic of property. "I have and hold," +he says: "leave me to sleep." Wotan, with a wise laugh, turns to +Alberic. "That shot missed," he says: "no use abusing me for it. +And now let me tell you one thing. All things happen according to +their nature; and you can't alter them." And so he leaves him +Alberic, raging with the sense that his old enemy has been +laughing at him, and yet prophetically convinced that the last +word will not be with the god, hides himself as the day breaks, +and his brother approaches with Siegfried. + +Mimmy makes a final attempt to frighten Siegfried by discoursing +of the dragon's terrible jaws, poisonous breath, corrosive +spittle, and deadly, stinging tail. Siegfried is not interested +in the tail: he wants to know whether the dragon has a heart, +being confident of his ability to stick Nothung into it if it +exists. Reassured on this point, he drives Mimmy away, and +stretches himself under the trees, listening to the morning +chatter of the birds. One of them has a great deal to say to him; +but he cannot understand it; and after vainly trying to carry on +the conversation with a reed which he cuts, he takes to +entertaining the bird with tunes on his horn, asking it to send +him a loving mate such as all the other creatures of the forest +have. His tunes wake up the dragon; and Siegfried makes merry +over the grim mate the bird has sent him. Fafnir is highly +scandalized by the irreverence of the young Bakoonin. He loses +his temper; fights; and is forthwith slain, to his own great +astonishment. + +In such conflicts one learns to interpret the messages of Nature +a little. When Siegfried, stung by the dragon's vitriolic blood, +pops his finger into his mouth and tastes it, he understands what +the bird is saying to him, and, instructed by it concerning the +treasures within his reach, goes into the cave to secure the +gold, the ring and the wishing cap. Then Mimmy returns, and is +confronted by Alberic. The two quarrel furiously over the sharing +of the booty they have not yet secured, until Siegfried comes +from the cave with the ring and the helmet, not much impressed by +the heap of gold, and disappointed because he has not yet learned +to fear. + +He has, however, learnt to read the thoughts of such a creature +as poor Mimmy, who, intending to overwhelm him with flattery and +fondness, only succeeds in making such a self-revelation of +murderous envy that Siegfried smites him with Nothung and slays +him, to the keen satisfaction of the hidden Alberic. Caring +nothing for the gold, which he leaves to the care of the slain; +disappointed in his fancy for learning fear; and longing for a +mate, he casts himself wearily down, and again appeals to his +friend the bird, who tells him of a woman sleeping on a mountain +peak within a fortress of fire that only the fearless can +penetrate. Siegfried is up in a moment with all the tumult of +spring in his veins, and follows the flight of the bird as it +pilots him to the fiery mountain. + +The Third Act + +To the root of the mountain comes also the Wanderer, now nearing +his doom. He calls up the First Mother from the depths of the +earth, and begs counsel from her. She bids him confer with the +Norns (the Fates). But they are of no use to him: what he seeks +is some foreknowledge of the way of the Will in its perpetual +strife with these helpless Fates who can only spin the net of +circumstance and environment round the feet of men. Why not, says +Erda then, go to the daughter I bore you, and take counsel with +her? He has to explain how he has cut himself off from her, and +set the fires of Loki between the world and her counsel. In that +case the First Mother cannot help him: such a separation is part +of the bewilderment that is ever the first outcome of her eternal +work of thrusting the life energy of the world to higher and +higher organization. She can show him no way of escape from the +destruction he foresees. Then from the innermost of him breaks +the confession that he rejoices in his doom, and now himself +exults in passing away with all his ordinances and alliances, +with the spear-sceptre which he has only wielded on condition of +slaying his dearest children with it, with the kingdom, the power +and the glory which will never again boast themselves as "world +without end." And so he dismisses Erda to her sleep in the heart +of the earth as the forest bird draws near, piloting the slain +son's son to his goal. + +Now it is an excellent thing to triumph in the victory of the new +order and the passing away of the old; but if you happen to be +part of the old order yourself, you must none the less fight for +your life. It seems hardly possible that the British army at the +battle of Waterloo did not include at least one Englishman +intelligent enough to hope, for the sake of his country and +humanity, that Napoleon might defeat the allied sovereigns; but +such an Englishman would kill a French cuirassier rather than be +killed by him just as energetically as the silliest soldier, ever +encouraged by people who ought to know better, to call his +ignorance, ferocity and folly, patriotism and duty. Outworn life +may have become mere error; but it still claims the right to die +a natural death, and will raise its hand against the millennium +itself in self-defence if it tries to come by the short cut of +murder. Wotan finds this out when he comes face to face with +Siegfried, who is brought to a standstill at the foot of the +mountain by the disappearance of the bird. Meeting the Wanderer +there, he asks him the way to the mountain where a woman sleeps +surrounded by fire. The Wanderer questions him, and extracts his +story from him, breaking into fatherly delight when Siegfried, +describing the mending of the sword, remarks that all he knew +about the business was that the broken bits of Nothung would be +of no use to him unless he made a new sword out of them right +over again from the beginning. But the Wanderer's interest is by +no means reciprocated by Siegfried. His majesty and elderly +dignity are thrown away on the young anarchist, who, unwilling to +waste time talking, bluntly bids him either show him the way to +the mountain, or else "shut his muzzle." Wotan is a little hurt. +"Patience, my lad," he says: "if you were an old man I should +treat you with respect." "That would be a precious notion," says +Siegfried. "All my life long I was bothered and hampered by an +old man until I swept him out of my way. I will sweep you in the +same fashion if you don't let me pass. Why do you wear such a big +hat; and what has happened to one of your eyes? Was it knocked +out by somebody whose way you obstructed?" To which Wotan replies +allegorically that the eye that is gone--the eye that his +marriage with Fricka cost him--is now looking at him out of +Siegfried's head. At this, Siegfried gives up the Wanderer as a +lunatic, and renews his threats of personal violence. Then Wotan +throws off the mask of the Wanderer; uplifts the world-governing +spear; and puts forth all his divine awe and grandeur as the +guardian of the mountain, round the crest of which the fires of +Loki now break into a red background for the majesty of the god. +But all this is lost on Siegfried Bakoonin. "Aha!" he cries, as +the spear is levelled against his breast: "I have found my +father's foe"; and the spear falls in two pieces under the stroke +of Nothung. "Up then," says Wotan: "I cannot withhold you," and +disappears forever from the eye of man. The fires roll down the +mountain; but Siegfried goes at them as exultantly as he went at +the forging of the sword or the heart of the dragon, and +shoulders his way through them, joyously sounding his horn to the +accompaniment of their crackling and seething. And never a hair +of his head is singed. Those frightful flames which have scared +mankind for centuries from the Truth, have not heat enough in +them to make a child shut its eyes. They are mere phantasmagoria, +highly creditable to Loki's imaginative stage-management; but +nothing ever has perished or will perish eternally in them except +the Churches which have been so poor and faithless as to trade +for their power on the lies of a romancer. + +BACK TO OPERA AGAIN + +And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories +come to an end somewhere; and the hour of your release from these +explanations is at hand. The rest of what you are going to see is +opera, and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played, +Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and +soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to +a magnificent love duet; and end with a precipitous allegro a +capella, driven headlong to its end by the impetuous semiquaver +triplets of the famous finales to the first act of Don +Giovanni or the coda to the Leonore overture, with a specifically +contrapuntal theme, points d'orgue, and a high C for the soprano +all complete. + +What is more, the work which follows, entitled Night Falls On The +Gods, is a thorough grand opera. In it you shall see what you +have so far missed, the opera chorus in full parade on the stage, +not presuming to interfere with the prima donna as she sings her +death song over the footlights. Nay, that chorus will have its +own chance when it first appears, with a good roaring strain in +C major, not, after all, so very different from, or at all less +absurd than the choruses of courtiers in La Favorita or "Per te +immenso giubilo" in Lucia. The harmony is no doubt a little +developed, Wagner augmenting his fifths with a G sharp where +Donizetti would have put his fingers in his ears and screamed for +G natural. But it is an opera chorus all the same; and along with +it we have theatrical grandiosities that recall Meyerbeer and +Verdi: pezzi d'insieme for all the principals in a row, vengeful +conjurations for trios of them, romantic death song for the +tenor: in short, all manner of operatic conventions. + +Now it is probable that some of us will have been so talked by +the more superstitious Bayreuth pilgrims into regarding Die +Gotterdammerung as the mighty climax to a mighty epic, more +Wagnerian than all the other three sections put together, as not +to dare notice this startling atavism, especially if we find the +trio-conjurations more exhilarating than the metaphysical +discourses of Wotan in the three true music dramas of The Ring. +There is, however, no real atavism involved. Die Gotterdammerung, +though the last of The Ring dramas in order of performance, was +the first in order of conception and was indeed the root from +which all the others sprang. + +The history of the matter is as follows. All Wagner's works prior +to The Ring are operas. The last of them, Lohengrin, is perhaps +the best known of modern operas. As performed in its entirety at +Bayreuth, it is even more operatic than it appears at Covent +Garden, because it happens that its most old-fashioned features, +notably some of the big set concerted pieces for principals and +chorus (pezzi d'insieme as I have called them above), are +harder to perform than the more modern and characteristically +Wagnerian sections, and for that reason were cut out in preparing +the abbreviated fashionable version. Thus Lohengrin came upon the +ordinary operatic stage as a more advanced departure from current +operatic models than its composer had made it. Still, it is +unmistakably an opera, with chorus, concerted pieces, grand +finales, and a heroine who, if she does not sing florid +variations with flute obbligato, is none the less a very +perceptible prima donna. In everything but musical technique the +change from Lohengrin to The Rhine Gold is quite revolutionary. + +The explanation is that Night Falls On The Gods came in between +them, although its music was not finished until twenty years +after that of The Rhine Gold, and thus belongs to a later and +more masterful phase of Wagner's harmonic style. It first came +into Wagner's head as an opera to be entitled Siegfied's Death, +founded on the old Niblung Sagas, which offered to Wagner the +same material for an effective theatrical tragedy as they did to +Ibsen. Ibsen's Vikings in Helgeland is, in kind, what Siegfied's +Death was originally intended to be: that is, a heroic piece for +the theatre, without the metaphysical or allegorical +complications of The Ring. Indeed, the ultimate catastrophe of +the Saga cannot by any perversion of ingenuity be adapted to the +perfectly clear allegorical design of The Rhine Gold, The +Valkyries, and Siegfried. + + + +SIEGFRIED AS PROTESTANT + +The philosophically fertile element in the original project of +Siegfried's Death was the conception of Siegfried himself as a +type of the healthy man raised to perfect confidence in his own +impulses by an intense and joyous vitality which is above fear, +sickliness of conscience, malice, and the makeshifts and moral +crutches of law and order which accompany them. Such a character +appears extraordinarily fascinating and exhilarating to our +guilty and conscience-ridden generations, however little they may +understand him. The world has always delighted in the man who is +delivered from conscience. From Punch and Don Juan down to Robert +Macaire, Jeremy Diddler and the pantomime clown, he has always +drawn large audiences; but hitherto he has been decorously given +to the devil at the end. Indeed eternal punishment is sometimes +deemed too high a compliment to his nature. When the late Lord +Lytton, in his Strange Story, introduced a character personifying +the joyousness of intense vitality, he felt bound to deny him the +immortal soul which was at that time conceded even to the +humblest characters in fiction, and to accept mischievousness, +cruelty, and utter incapacity for sympathy as the inevitable +consequence of his magnificent bodily and mental health. + +In short, though men felt all the charm of abounding life and +abandonment to its impulses, they dared not, in their deep +self-mistrust, conceive it otherwise than as a force making for +evil--one which must lead to universal ruin unless checked and +literally mortified by self-renunciation in obedience to +superhuman guidance, or at least to some reasoned system of +morals. When it became apparent to the cleverest of them that +no such superhuman guidance existed, and that their secularist +systems had all the fictitiousness of "revelation" without its +poetry, there was no escaping the conclusion that all the good +that man had done must be put down to his arbitrary will as well +as all the evil he had done; and it was also obvious that if +progress were a reality, his beneficent impulses must be gaining +on his destructive ones. It was under the influence of these +ideas that we began to hear about the joy of life where we had +formerly heard about the grace of God or the Age of Reason, and +that the boldest spirits began to raise the question whether +churches and laws and the like were not doing a great deal more +harm than good by their action in limiting the freedom of the +human will. Four hundred years ago, when belief in God and in +revelation was general throughout Europe, a similar wave of +thought led the strongest-hearted peoples to affirm that every +man's private judgment was a more trustworthy interpreter of God +and revelation than the Church. This was called Protestantism; +and though the Protestants were not strong enough for their +creed, and soon set up a Church of their own, yet the movement, +on the whole, has justified the direction it took. Nowadays the +supernatural element in Protestantism has perished; and if every +man's private judgment is still to be justified as the most +trustworthy interpreter of the will of Humanity (which is not a +more extreme proposition than the old one about the will of God) +Protestantism must take a fresh step in advance, and become +Anarchism. Which it has accordingly done, Anarchism being one +of the notable new creeds of the eighteenth and nineteenth +centuries. + +The weak place which experience finds out in the Anarchist theory +is its reliance on the progress already achieved by "Man." There +is no such thing as Man in the world: what we have to deal with +is a multitude of men, some of them great rascals, some of them +greet statesmen, others both, with a vast majority capable of +managing their personal affairs, but not of comprehending social +organization, or grappling with the problems created by their +association in enormous numbers. If "Man" means this majority, +then "Man" has made no progress: he has, on the contrary, +resisted it. He will not even pay the cost of existing +institutions: the requisite money has to be filched from him by +"indirect taxation." Such people, like Wagner's giants; must be +governed by laws; and their assent to such government must be +secured by deliberately filling them with prejudices and +practicing on their imaginations by pageantry and artificial +eminences and dignities. The government is of course established +by the few who are capable of government, though its mechanism +once complete, it may be, and generally is, carried on +unintelligently by people who are incapable of it the capable +people repairing it from time to time when it gets too far behind +the continuous advance or decay of civilization. All these +capable people are thus in the position of Wotan, forced to +maintain as sacred, and themselves submit to, laws which they +privately know to be obsolescent makeshifts, and to affect the +deepest veneration for creeds and ideals which they ridicule +among themselves with cynical scepticism. No individual Siegfried +can rescue them from this bondage and hypocrisy; in fact, the +individual Siegfried has come often enough, only to find himself +confronted with the alternative of governing those who are not +Siegfrieds or risking destruction at their hands. And this +dilemma will persist until Wotan's inspiration comes to our +governors, and they see that their business is not the devising +of laws and institutions to prop up the weaknesses of mobs and +secure the survival of the unfittest, but the breeding of men +whose wills and intelligences may be depended on to produce +spontaneously the social well-being our clumsy laws now aim at and +miss. The majority of men at present in Europe have no business +to be alive; and no serious progress will be made until we +address ourselves earnestly and scientifically to the task of +producing trustworthy human material for society. In short, it is +necessary to breed a race of men in whom the life-giving impulses +predominate, before the New Protestantism becomes politically +practicable.* + +*The necessity for breeding the governing class from a selected +stock has always been recognized by Aristocrats, however +erroneous their methods of selection. We have changed our system +from Aristocracy to Democracy without considering that we were at +the same time changing, as regards our governing class, from +Selection to Promiscuity. Those who have taken a practical part +in modern politics best know how farcical the result is. + + +The most inevitable dramatic conception, then, of the nineteenth +century, is that of a perfectly naive hero upsetting religion, +law and order in all directions, and establishing in their place +the unfettered action of Humanity doing exactly what it likes, +and producing order instead of confusion thereby because it likes +to do what is necessary for the good of the race. This +conception, already incipient in Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, +was certain at last to reach some great artist, and be embodied +by him in a masterpiece. It was also certain that if that master +happened to be a German, he should take delight in describing his +hero as the Freewiller of Necessity, thereby beyond measure +exasperating Englishmen with a congenital incapacity for +metaphysics. + +PANACEA QUACKERY, OTHERWISE IDEALISM + +Unfortunately, human enlightenment does not progress by nicer +and nicer adjustments, but by violent corrective reactions which +invariably send us clean over our saddle and would bring us to +the ground on the other side if the next reaction did not send +us back again with equally excessive zeal. Ecclesiasticism and +Constitutionalism send us one way, Protestantism and Anarchism +the other; Order rescues us from confusion and lands us in +Tyranny; Liberty then saves the situation and is presently found +to be as great a nuisance as Despotism. A scientifically balanced +application of these forces, theoretically possible, is +practically incompatible with human passion. Besides, we have +the same weakness in morals as in medicine: we cannot be cured +of running after panaceas, or, as they are called in the sphere +of morals, ideals. One generation sets up duty, renunciation, +self-sacrifice as a panacea. The next generation, especially the +women, wake up at the age of forty or thereabouts to the fact +that their lives have been wasted in the worship of this ideal, +and, what is still more aggravating, that the elders who imposed +it on them did so in a fit of satiety with their own experiments +in the other direction. Then that defrauded generation foams at +the mouth at the very mention of duty, and sets up the +alternative panacea of love, their deprivation of which seems to +them to have been the most cruel and mischievous feature of their +slavery to duty. It is useless to warn them that this reaction, +if prescribed as a panacea, will prove as great a failure as all +the other reactions have done; for they do not recognize its +identity with any reaction that ever occurred before. Take for +instance the hackneyed historic example of the austerity of the +Commonwealth being followed by the licence of the Restoration. +You cannot persuade any moral enthusiast to accept this as a pure +oscillation from action to reaction. If he is a Puritan he looks +upon the Restoration as a national disaster: if he is an artist +he regards it as the salvation of the country from gloom, devil +worship and starvation of the affections. The Puritan is ready +to try the Commonwealth again with a few modern improvements: +the Amateur is equally ready to try the Restoration with modern +enlightenments. And so for the present we must be content to +proceed by reactions, hoping that each will establish some +permanently practical and beneficial reform or moral habit that +will survive the correction of its excesses by the next reaction. + +DRAMATIC ORIGIN OF WOTAN + +We can now see how a single drama in which Wotan does not appear, +and of which Siegfried is the hero, expanded itself into a great +fourfold drama of which Wotan is the hero. You cannot dramatize a +reaction by personifying the reacting force only, any more than +Archimedes could lift the world without a fulcrum for his lever. +You must also personify the established power against which the +new force is reacting; and in the conflict between them you get +your drama, conflict being the essential ingredient in all drama. +Siegfried, as the hero of Die Gotterdammerung, is only the primo +tenore robusto of an opera book, deferring his death, after he +has been stabbed in the last act, to sing rapturous love strains +to the heroine exactly like Edgardo in Donizetti's Lucia. In +order to make him intelligible in the wider significance which +his joyous, fearless, conscienceless heroism soon assumed in +Wagner's imagination, it was necessary to provide him with a much +vaster dramatic antagonist than the operatic villain Hagen. Hence +Wagner had to create Wotan as the anvil for Siegfried's hammer; +and since there was no room for Wotan in the original opera book, +Wagner had to work back to a preliminary drama reaching primarily +to the very beginnings of human society. And since, on this +world-embracing scale, it was clear that Siegfried must come into +conflict with many baser and stupider forces than those lofty +ones of supernatural religion and political constitutionalism +typified by Wotan and his wife Fricka, these minor antagonists +had to be dramatized also in the persons of Alberic, Mime, +Fafnir, Loki, and the rest. None of these appear in Night Falls +On The Gods save Alberic, whose weird dream-colloquy with Hagen, +effective as it is, is as purely theatrical as the scene of the +Ghost in Hamlet, or the statue in Don Giovanni. Cut the +conference of the Norns and the visit of Valtrauta to Brynhild +out of Night Falls On The Gods, and the drama remains coherent +and complete without them. Retain them, and the play becomes +connected by conversational references with the three music +dramas; but the connection establishes no philosophic coherence, +no real identity between the operatic Brynhild of the Gibichung +episode (presently to be related) and the daughter of Wotan and +the First Mother. + +THE LOVE PANACEA + +We shall now find that at the point where The Ring changes from +music drama into opera, it also ceases to be philosophic, and +becomes didactic. The philosophic part is a dramatic symbol of +the world as Wagner observed it. In the didactic part the +philosophy degenerates into the prescription of a romantic +nostrum for all human ills. Wagner, only mortal after all, +succumbed to the panacea mania when his philosophy was exhausted, +like any of the rest of us. + +The panacea is by no means an original one. Wagner was +anticipated in the year 1819 by a young country gentleman from +Sussex named Shelley, in a work of extraordinary artistic power +and splendor. Prometheus Unbound is an English attempt at a Ring; +and when it is taken into account that the author was only 27 +whereas Wagner was 40 when he completed the poem of The Ring, our +vulgar patriotism may find an envious satisfaction in insisting +upon the comparison. Both works set forth the same conflict +between humanity and its gods and governments, issuing in the +redemption of man from their tyranny by the growth of his will +into perfect strength and self-confidence; and both finish by a +lapse into panacea-mongering didacticism by the holding up of +Love as the remedy for all evils and the solvent of all social +difficulties. + +The differences between Prometheus Unbound and The Ring are as +interesting as the likenesses. Shelley, caught in the pugnacity +of his youth and the first impetuosity of his prodigious artistic +power by the first fierce attack of the New Reformation, gave no +quarter to the antagonist of his hero. His Wotan, whom he calls +Jupiter, is the almighty fiend into whom the Englishman's God had +degenerated during two centuries of ignorant Bible worship and +shameless commercialism. He is Alberic, Fafnir Loki and the +ambitious side of Wotan all rolled into one melodramatic demon +who is finally torn from his throne and hurled shrieking into the +abyss by a spirit representing that conception of Eternal Law +which has been replaced since by the conception of Evolution. +Wagner, an older, more experienced man than the Shelley of 1819, +understood Wotan and pardoned him, separating him tenderly from +all the compromising alliances to which Shelley fiercely held +him; making the truth and heroism which overthrow him the +children of his inmost heart; and representing him as finally +acquiescing in and working for his own supersession and +annihilation. Shelley, in his later works, is seen progressing +towards the same tolerance, justice, and humility of spirit, as +he advanced towards the middle age he never reached. But there is +no progress from Shelley to Wagner as regards the panacea, except +that in Wagner there is a certain shadow of night and death come +on it: nay, even a clear opinion that the supreme good of love is +that it so completely satisfies the desire for life, that after +it the Will to Live ceases to trouble us, and we are at last +content to achieve the highest happiness of death. + +This reduction of the panacea to absurdity was not forced upon +Shelley, because the love which acts as a universal solvent in +his Prometheus Unbound is a sentiment of affectionate benevolence +which has nothing to do with sexual passion. It might, and in +fact does exist in the absence of any sexual interest whatever. +The words mercy and kindness connote it less ambiguously than the +word love. But Wagner sought always for some point of contact +between his ideas and the physical senses, so that people might +not only think or imagine them in the eighteenth century fashion, +but see them on the stage, hear them from the orchestra, and feel +them through the infection of passionate emotion. Dr. Johnson +kicking the stone to confute Berkeley is not more bent on +common-sense concreteness than Wagner: on all occasions he +insists on the need for sensuous apprehension to give reality to +abstract comprehension, maintaining, in fact, that reality has no +other meaning. Now he could apply this process to poetic love +only by following it back to its alleged origin in sexual +passion, the emotional phenomena of which he has expressed in +music with a frankness and forcible naturalism which would +possibly have scandalized Shelley. The love duet in the first act +of The Valkyries is brought to a point at which the conventions +of our society demand the precipitate fall of the curtain; whilst +the prelude to Tristan and Isolde is such an astonishingly +intense and faithful translation into music of the emotions which +accompany the union of a pair of lovers, that it is questionable +whether the great popularity of this piece at our orchestral +concerts really means that our audiences are entirely catholic +in their respect for life in all its beneficently creative +functions, or whether they simply enjoy the music without +understanding it. + +But however offensive and inhuman may be the superstition which +brands such exaltations of natural passion as shameful and +indecorous, there is at least as much common sense in disparaging +love as in setting it up as a panacea. Even the mercy and +lovingkindness of Shelley do not hold good as a universal law of +conduct: Shelley himself makes extremely short work of Jupiter, +just as Siegfried does of Fafnir, Mime, and Wotan; and the fact +that Prometheus is saved from doing the destructive part of his +work by the intervention of that very nebulous personification of +Eternity called Demogorgon, does not in the least save the +situation, because, flatly, there is no such person as +Demogorgon, and if Prometheus does not pull down Jupiter himself, +no one else will. It would be exasperating, if it were not so +funny, to see these poets leading their heroes through blood and +destruction to the conclusion that, as Browning's David puts it +(David of all people!), "All's Love; yet all's Law." + +Certainly it is clear enough that such love as that implied by +Siegfried's first taste of fear as he cuts through the mailed +coat of the sleeping figure on the mountain, and discovers that +it is a woman; by her fierce revolt against being touched by him +when his terror gives way to ardor; by his manly transports of +victory; and by the womanly mixture of rapture and horror with +which she abandons herself to the passion which has seized on +them both, is an experience which it is much better, like the +vast majority of us, never to have passed through, than to allow +it to play more than a recreative holiday part in our lives. It +did not play a very large part in Wagner's own laborious life, +and does not occupy more than two scenes of The Ring. Tristan and +Isolde, wholly devoted to it, is a poem of destruction and death. +The Mastersingers, a work full of health, fun and happiness, +contains not a single bar of love music that can be described as +passionate: the hero of it is a widower who cobbles shoes, writes +verses, and contents himself with looking on at the +sweetheartings of his customers. Parsifal makes an end of it +altogether. The truth is that the love panacea in Night Falls On +The Gods and in the last act of Siegfried is a survival of the +first crude operatic conception of the story, modified by an +anticipation of Wagner's later, though not latest, conception of +love as the fulfiller of our Will to Live and consequently our +reconciler to night and death. + +NOT LOVE, BUT LIFE + +The only faith which any reasonable disciple can gain from The +Ring is not in love, but in life itself as a tireless power which +is continually driving onward and upward--not, please observe, +being beckoned or drawn by Das Ewig Weibliche or any other +external sentimentality, but growing from within, by its own +inexplicable energy, into ever higher and higher forms of +organization, the strengths and the needs of which are +continually superseding the institutions which were made to fit +our former requirements. When your Bakoonins call out for the +demolition of all these venerable institutions, there is no need +to fly into a panic and lock them up in prison whilst your +parliament is bit by bit doing exactly what they advised you to +do. When your Siegfrieds melt down the old weapons into new ones, +and with disrespectful words chop in twain the antiquated +constable's staves in the hands of their elders, the end of the +world is no nearer than it was before. If human nature, which +is the highest organization of life reached on this planet, +is really degenerating, then human society will decay; and no +panic-begotten penal measures can possibly save it: we must, +like Prometheus, set to work to make new men instead of vainly +torturing old ones. On the other hand, if the energy of life is +still carrying human nature to higher and higher levels, then the +more young people shock their elders and deride and discard their +pet institutions the better for the hopes of the world, since the +apparent growth of anarchy is only the measure of the rate of +improvement. History, as far as we are capable of history (which +is not saying much as yet), shows that all changes from crudity +of social organization to complexity, and from mechanical +agencies in government to living ones, seem anarchic at first +sight. No doubt it is natural to a snail to think that any +evolution which threatens to do away with shells will result in +general death from exposure. Nevertheless, the most elaborately +housed beings today are born not only without houses on their +backs but without even fur or feathers to clothe them. + +ANARCHISM NO PANACEA + +One word of warning to those who may find themselves attracted +by Siegfried's Anarchism, or, if they prefer a term with more +respectable associations, his neo-Protestantism. Anarchism, as a +panacea, is just as hopeless as any other panacea, and will still +be so even if we breed a race of perfectly benevolent men. It is +true that in the sphere of thought, Anarchism is an inevitable +condition of progressive evolution. A nation without +Freethinkers--that is, without intellectual Anarchists--will +share the fate of China. It is also true that our criminal law, +based on a conception of crime and punishment which is nothing +but our vindictiveness and cruelty in a virtuous disguise, is an +unmitigated and abominable nuisance, bound to be beaten out of +us finally by the mere weight of our experience of its evil and +uselessness. But it will not be replaced by anarchy. Applied to +the industrial or political machinery of modern society, anarchy +must always reduce itself speedily to absurdity. Even the +modified form of anarchy on which modern civilization is based: +that is, the abandonment of industry, in the name of individual +liberty, to the upshot of competition for personal gain between +private capitalists, is a disastrous failure, and is, by the +mere necessities of the case, giving way to ordered Socialism. +For the economic rationale of this, I must refer disciples of +Siegfried to a tract from my hand published by the Fabian Society +and entitled The Impossibilities of Anarchism, which explains +why, owing to the physical constitution of our globe, society +cannot effectively organize the production of its food, clothes +and housing, nor distribute them fairly and economically on any +anarchic plan: nay, that without concerting our social action to +a much higher degree than we do at present we can never get rid +of the wasteful and iniquitous welter of a little riches and +a deal of poverty which current political humbug calls our +prosperity and civilization. Liberty is an excellent thing; but +it cannot begin until society has paid its daily debt to Nature +by first earning its living. There is no liberty before that +except the liberty to live at somebody else's expense, a liberty +much sought after nowadays, since it is the criterion of +gentility, but not wholesome from the point of view of the common +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 +great hall, with the Gods and Heroes assembled about him as if in +council, solemnly waiting for the end. All this belongs to the +old legendary materials with which Wagner began The Ring. + +The tale is broken by the thread snapping in the hands of the +third Norn; for the hour has arrived when man has taken his +destiny in his own hands to shape it for himself, and no longer +bows to circumstance, environment, necessity (which he now freely +wills), and all the rest of the inevitables. So the Norns +recognize that the world has no further use for them, and sink +into the earth to return to the First Mother. Then the day dawns; +and Siegfried and Brynhild come, and have another duet. He gives +her his ring; and she gives him her horse. Away then he goes in +search of more adventures; and she watches him from her crag +until he disappears. The curtain falls; but we can still hear the +trolling of his horn, and the merry clatter of his horse's shoes +trotting gaily down the valley. The sound is lost in the grander +rhythm of the Rhine as he reaches its banks. We hear again an +echo of the lament of the Rhine maidens for the ravished gold; +and then, finally, a new strain, which does not surge like the +mighty flood of the river, but has an unmistakable tramp of hardy +men and a strong land flavor about it. And on this the opera +curtain at last goes up--for please remember that all that has +gone before is only the overture. + +The First Act + +We now understand the new tramping strain. We are in the +Rhineside hall of the Gibichungs, in the resence of King Gunther, +his sister Gutrune, and Gunther's grim half brother Hagen, the +villain of the piece. Gunther is a fool, and has for Hagen's +intelligence the respect a fool always has for the brains of a +scoundrel. Feebly fishing for compliments, he appeals to Hagen +to pronounce him a fine fellow and a glory to the race of Gibich. +Hagen declares that it is impossible to contemplate him without +envy, but thinks it a pity that he has not yet found a wife +glorious enough for him. Gunther doubts whether so extraordinary +a person can possibly exist. Hagen then tells him of Brynhild and +her rampart of fire; also of Siegfried. Gunther takes this rather +in bad part, since not only is he afraid of the fire, but +Siegfried, according to Hagen, is not, and will therefore achieve +this desirable match himself. But Hagen points out that since +Siegfried is riding about in quest of adventures, he will +certainly pay an early visit to the renowned chief of the +Gibichungs. They can then give him a philtre which will make him +fall in love with Gutrune and forget every other woman he has yet +seen. + +Gunther is transported with admiration of Hagen's cunning when he +takes in this plan; and he has hardly assented to it when +Siegfried, with operatic opportuneness, drops in just as Hagen +expected, and is duly drugged into the heartiest love for Gutrune +and total oblivion of Brynhild and his own past. When Gunther +declares his longing for the bride who lies inaccessible within +a palisade of flame, Siegfried at once offers to undertake the +adventure for him. Hagen then explains to both of them that +Siegfried can, after braving the fire, appear to Brynhild in the +semblance of Gunther through the magic of the wishing cap (or +Tarnhelm, as it is called throughout The Ring), the use of which +Siegfried now learns for the first time. It is of course part +of the bargain that Gunther shall give his sister to Siegfried +in marriage. On that they swear blood-brotherhood; and at this +opportunity the old operatic leaven breaks out amusingly in +Wagner. With tremendous exordium of brass, the tenor and baritone +go at it with a will, showing off the power of their voices, +following each other in canonic imitation, singing together in +thirds and sixths, and finishing with a lurid unison, quite in +the manner of Ruy Gomez and Ernani, or Othello and Iago. Then +without further ado Siegfried departs on his expedition, taking +Gunther with him to the foot of the mountain, and leaving Hagen +to guard the hall and sing a very fine solo which has often +figured in the programs of the Richter concerts, explaining that +his interest in the affair is that Siegfried will bring back the +Ring, and that he, Hagen, will presently contrive to possess +himself of that Ring and become Plutonic master of the world. + +And now it will be asked how does Hagen know all about the +Plutonic empire; and why was he able to tell Gunther about +Brynhild and Siegfried, and to explain to Siegfried the trick of +the Tarnhelm. The explanation is that though Hagen's mother was +the mother of Gunther, his father was not the illustrious Gibich, +but no less a person than our old friend Alberic, who, like +Wotan, has begotten a son to do for him what he cannot do for +himself. + +In the above incidents, those gentle moralizers who find the +serious philosophy of the music dramas too terrifying for them, +may allegorize pleasingly on the philtre as the maddening chalice +of passion which, once tasted, causes the respectable man to +forget his lawfully wedded wife and plunge into adventures which +eventually lead him headlong to destruction. + +We now come upon a last relic of the tragedy of Wotan. Returning +to Brynhild's mountain, we find her visited by her sister +Valkyrie Valtrauta, who has witnessed Wotan's solemn preparations +with terror. She repeats to Brynhild the account already given by +the Norns. Clinging in anguish to Wotan's knees, she has heard +him mutter that were the ring returned to the daughters of the +deep Rhine, both Gods and world would be redeemed from that stage +curse off Alberic's in The Rhine Gold. On this she has rushed on +her warhorse through the air to beg Brynhild to give the Rhine +back its ring. But this is asking Woman to give up love for the +sake of Church and State. She declares that she will see them +both perish first; and Valtrauta returns to Valhalla in despair. +Whilst Brynhild is watching the course of the black thundercloud +that marks her sister's flight, the fires of Loki again flame +high round the mountain; and the horn of Siegfried is heard as he +makes his way through them. But the man who now appears wears the +Tarnhelm: his voice is a strange voice: his figure is the unknown +one of the king of the Gibichungs. He tears the ring from her +finger, and, claiming her as his wife, drives her into the cave +without pity for her agony of horror, and sets Nothung between +them in token of his loyalty to the friend he is impersonating. +No explanation of this highway robbery of the ring is offered. +Clearly, this Siegfried is not the Siegfried of the previous +drama. + +The Second Act + +In the second act we return to the hall of Gibich, where Hagen, +in the last hours of that night, still sits, his spear in his +hand, and his shield beside him. At his knees crouches a dwarfish +spectre, his father Alberic, still full of his old grievances +against Wotan, and urging his son in his dreams to win back the +ring for him. This Hagen swears to do; and as the apparition of +his father vanishes, the sun rises and Siegfried suddenly comes +from the river bank tucking into his belt the Tarnhelm, which has +transported hi from the mountain like the enchanted carpet of the +Arabian tales. He describes his adventures to Gutrune until +Gunther's boat is seen approaching, when Hagen seizes a cowhorn +and calls the tribesmen to welcome their chief and his bride. +It is most exhilarating, this colloquy with the startled and +hastily armed clan, ending with a thundering chorus, the drums +marking the time with mighty pulses from dominant to tonic, +much as Rossini would have made them do if he had been a pupil +of Beethoven's. + +A terrible scene follows. Gunther leads his captive bride +straight into the presence of Siegfried, whom she claims as her +husband by the ring, which she is astonished to see on his finger: +Gunther, as she supposes, having torn it from her the night +before. Turning on Gunther, she says "Since you took that ring +from me, and married me with it, tell him of your right to it; +and make him give it back to you." Gunther stammers, "The ring! +I gave him no ring--er--do you know him?" The rejoinder is +obvious. "Then where are you hiding the ring that you had from +me?" Gunther's confusion enlightens her; and she calls Siegfried +trickster and thief to his face. In vain he declares that he got +the ring from no woman, but from a dragon whom he slew; for he is +manifestly puzzled; and she, seizing her opportunity, accuses him +before the clan of having played Gunther false with her. + +Hereupon we have another grandiose operatic oath, Siegfried +attesting his innocence on Hagen's spear, and Brynhild rushing +to the footlights and thrusting him aside to attest his guilt, +whilst the clansmen call upon their gods to send down lightnings +and silence the perjured. The gods do not respond; and Siegfried, +after whispering to Gunther that the Tarnhelm seems to have been +only half effectual after all, laughs his way out of the general +embarrassment and goes off merrily to prepare for his wedding, +with his arm round Gutrune's waist, followed by the clan. +Gunther, Hagen and Brynhild are left together to plot operatic +vengeance. Brynhild, it appears, has enchanted Siegfried in such +a fashion that no weapon can hurt him. She has, however, omitted +to protect his back, since it is impossible that he should ever +turn that to a foe. They agree accordingly that on the morrow a +great hunt shall take place, at which Hagen shall thrust his +spear into the hero's vulnerable back. The blame is to be laid +on the tusk of a wild boar. Gunther, being a fool, is remorseful +about his oath of blood-brotherhood and about his sister's +bereavement, without having the strength of mind to prevent +the murder. The three burst into a herculean trio, similar in +conception to that of the three conspirators in Un Ballo in +Maschera; and the act concludes with a joyous strain heralding +the appearance of Siegfried's wedding procession, with strewing +of flowers, sacrificing to the gods, and carrying bride and +bridegroom in triumph. + +It will be seen that in this act we have lost all connection with +the earlier drama. Brynhild is not only not the Brynhild of The +Valkyries, she is the Hiordis of Ibsen, a majestically savage +woman, in whom jealousy and revenge are intensified to heroic +proportions. That is the inevitable theatrical treatment of the +murderous heroine of the Saga. Ibsen's aim in The Vikings was +purely theatrical, and not, as in his later dramas, also +philosophically symbolic. Wagner's aim in Siegfried's Death was +equally theatrical, and not, as it afterwards became in the +dramas of which Siegfried's antagonist Wotan is the hero, +likewise philosophically symbolic. The two master-dramatists +therefore produce practically the same version of Brynhild. +Thus on the second evening of The Ring we see Brynhild in the +character of the truth-divining instinct in religion, cast into +an enchanted slumber and surrounded by the fires of hell lest +she should overthrow a Church corrupted by its alliance with +government. On the fourth evening, we find her swearing a +malicious lie to gratify her personal jealousy, and then plotting +a treacherous murder with a fool and a scoundrel. In the original +draft of Siegfried's Death, the incongruity is carried still +further by the conclusion, at which the dead Brynhild, restored +to her godhead by Wotan, and again a Valkyrie, carries the slain +Siegfried to Valhalla to live there happily ever after with its +pious heroes. + +As to Siegfried himself, he talks of women, both in this second +act and the next, with the air of a man of the world. "Their +tantrums," he says, "are soon over." Such speeches do not belong +to the novice of the preceding drama, but to the original +Siegfried's Tod, with its leading characters sketched on the +ordinary romantic lines from the old Sagas, and not yet reminted +as the original creations of Wagner's genius whose acquaintance +we have made on the two previous evenings. The very title +"Siegfried's Death" survives as a strong theatrical point in +the following passage. Gunther, in his rage and despair, cries, +"Save me, Hagen: save my honor and thy mother's who bore us both." +"Nothing can save thee," replies Hagen: "neither brain nor hand, +but SIEGFRIED'S DEATH." And Gunther echoes with a shudder, +"SIEGFRIED'S DEATH!" + +A WAGNERIAN NEWSPAPER CONTROVERSY + +The devotion which Wagner's work inspires has been illustrated +lately in a public correspondence on this very point. A writer +in The Daily Telegraph having commented on the falsehood uttered +by Brynhild in accusing Siegfried of having betrayed Gunther +with her, a correspondence in defence of the beloved heroine +was opened in The Daily Chronicle. The imputation of falsehood +to Brynhild was strongly resented and combated, in spite of +the unanswerable evidence of the text. It was contended that +Brynhild's statement must be taken as establishing the fact that +she actually was ravished by somebody whom she believed to be +Siegfried, and that since this somebody cannot have been +Siegfried, he being as incapable of treachery to Gunther as she +of falsehood, it must have been Gunther himself after a second +exchange of personalities not mentioned in the text. The reply to +this--if so obviously desperate a hypothesis needs a reply--is +that the text is perfectly explicit as to Siegfried, disguised as +Gunther, passing the night with Brynhild with Nothung dividing +them, and in the morning bringing her down the mountain THROUGH +THE FIRE (an impassable obstacle to Gunther) and there +transporting himself in a single breath, by the Tarnhelm's magic, +back to the hall of the Gibichungs, leaving the real Gunther to +bring Brynhild down the river after him. One controversialist +actually pleaded for the expedition occupying two nights, on the +second of which the alleged outrage might have taken place. But +the time is accounted for to the last minute: it all takes place +during the single night watch of Hagen. There is no possible way +out of the plain fact that Brynhild's accusation is to her own +knowledge false; and the impossible ways just cited are only +interesting as examples of the fanatical worship which Wagner and +his creations have been able to inspire in minds of exceptional +power and culture. + +More plausible was the line taken by those who admitted the +falsehood. Their contention was that when Wotan deprived Brynhild +of her Godhead, he also deprived her of her former high moral +attributes; so that Siegfried's kiss awakened an ordinary mortal +jealous woman. But a goddess can become mortal and jealous +without plunging at once into perjury and murder. Besides, this +explanation involves the sacrifice of the whole significance of +the allegory, and the reduction of The Ring to the plane of a +child's conception of The Sleeping Beauty. Whoever does not +understand that, in terms of The Ring philosophy, a change from +godhead to humanity is a step higher and not a degradation, +misses the whole point of The Ring. It is precisely because the +truthfulness of Brynhild is proof against Wotan's spells that +he has to contrive the fire palisade with Loki, to protect the +fictions and conventions of Valhalla against her. + +The only tolerable view is the one supported by the known history +of The Ring, and also, for musicians of sufficiently fine +judgment, by the evidence of the scores; of which more anon. As +a matter of fact Wagner began, as I have said, with Siegfried's +Death. Then, wanting to develop the idea of Siegfried as +neo-Protestant, he went on to The Young Siegfried. As a Protestant +cannot be dramatically projected without a pontifical antagonist. +The Young Siegfried led to The Valkyries, and that again to its +preface The Rhine Gold (the preface is always written after the +book is finished). Finally, of course, the whole was revised. The +revision, if carried out strictly, would have involved the cutting +out of Siegfried's Death, now become inconsistent and +superfluous; and that would have involved, in turn, the facing of +the fact that The Ring was no longer a Niblung epic, and really +demanded modern costumes, tall hats for Tarnhelms, factories for +Nibelheims, villas for Valhallas, and so on--in short, a complete +confession of the extent to which the old Niblung epic had become +the merest pretext and name directory in the course of Wagner's +travail. But, as Wagner's most eminent English interpreter once +put it to me at Bayreuth between the acts of Night Falls On The +Gods, the master wanted to "Lohengrinize" again after his long +abstention from opera; and Siegfried's Death (first sketched in +1848, the year before the rising in Dresden and the subsequent +events which so deepened Wagner's sense of life and the +seriousness of art) gave him exactly the libretto he required for +that outbreak of the old operatic Adam in him. So he changed it +into Die Gotterdammerung, retaining the traditional plot of +murder and jealousy, and with it, necessarily, his original second +act, in spite of the incongruity of its Siegfried and Brynhild +with the Siegfried and Brynhild of the allegory. As to the +legendary matter about the world-ash and the destruction of +Valhalla by Loki, it fitted in well enough; for though, +allegorically, the blow by which Siegfried breaks the god's spear +is the end of Wotan and of Valhalla, those who do not see the +allegory, and take the story literally, like children, are sure +to ask what becomes of Wotan after Siegfried gets past him up the +mountain; and to this question the old tale told in Night Falls +On The Gods is as good an answer as another. The very +senselessness of the scenes of the Norns and of Valtrauta in +relation to the three foregoing dramas, gives them a highly +effective air of mystery; and no one ventures to challenge their +consequentiality, because we are all more apt to pretend to +understand great works of art than to confess that the meaning +(if any) has escaped us. Valtrauta, however, betrays her +irrelevance by explaining that the gods can be saved by the +restoration of the ring to the Rhine maidens. This, considered as +part of the previous allegory, is nonsense; so that even this +scene, which has a more plausible air of organic connection with +The Valkyries than any other in Night Falls On The Gods, is as +clearly part of a different and earlier conception as the episode +which concludes it, in which Siegfried actually robs Brynhild of +her ring, though he has no recollection of having given it to +her. Night Falls On The Gods, in fact, was not even revised into +any real coherence with the world-poem which sprang from it; and +that is the authentic solution of all the controversies which +have arisen over it. + +The Third Act + +The hunting party comes off duly. Siegfried strays from it and +meets the Rhine maidens, who almost succeed in coaxing the ring +from him. He pretends to be afraid of his wife; and they chaff +him as to her beating him and so forth; but when they add that +the ring is accursed and will bring death upon him, he discloses +to them, as unconsciously as Julius Caesar disclosed it long ago, +that secret of heroism, never to let your life be shaped by fear +of its end.* So he keeps the ring; and they leave him to his +fate. The hunting party now finds him; and they all sit down +together to make a meal by the river side, Siegfried telling them +meanwhile the story of his adventures. When he approaches the +subject of Brynhild, as to whom his memory is a blank, Hagen +pours an antidote to the love philtre into his drinking horn, +whereupon, his memory returning, he proceeds to narrate the +incident of the fiery mountain, to Gunther's intense +mortification. Hagen then plunges his spear into the back of +Siegfried, who falls dead on his shield, but gets up again, after +the old operatic custom, to sing about thirty bars to his love +before allowing himself to be finally carried off to the strains +of the famous Trauermarsch. + +*"We must learn to die, and to die in the fullest sense of the +word. The fear of the end is the source of all lovelessness; +and this fear is generated only when love begins to wane. How +came it that this loves the highest blessedness to all things +living, was so far lost sight of by the human race that at last +it came to this: all that mankind did, ordered, and established, +was conceived only in fear of the end? My poem sets this forth." +--Wagner to Roeckel, 25th Jan. 1854. + + +The scene then changes to the hall of the Gibichungs by the +Rhine. It is night; and Gutrune, unable to sleep, and haunted by +all sorts of vague terrors, is waiting for the return of her +husband, and wondering whether a ghostly figure she has seen +gliding down to the river bank is Brynhild, whose room is empty. +Then comes the cry of Hagen, returning with the hunting party to +announce the death of Siegfried by the tusk of a wild boar. But +Gutrune divines the truth; and Hagen does not deny it. +Siegfried's body is brought in; Gunther claims the ring; Hagen +will not suffer him to take it; they fight; and Gunther is slain. +Hagen then attempts to take it; but the dead man's hand closes on +it and raises itself threateningly. Then Brynhild comes; and a +funeral pyre is raised whilst she declaims a prolonged scene, +extremely moving and imposing, but yielding nothing to resolute +intellectual criticism except a very powerful and elevated +exploitation of theatrical pathos, psychologically identical with +the scene of Cleopatra and the dead Antony in Shakespeare's +tragedy. Finally she flings a torch into the pyre, and rides her +war-horse into the flames. The hall of the Gibichungs catches +fire, as most halls would were a cremation attempted in the +middle of the floor (I permit myself this gibe purposely to +emphasize the excessive artificiality of the scene); but the +Rhine overflows its banks to allow the three Rhine maidens to +take the ring from Siegfried's finger, incidentally extinguishing +the conflagration as it does so. Hagen attempts to snatch the +ring from the maidens, who promptly drown him; and in the distant +heavens the Gods and their castle are seen perishing in the fires +of Loki as the curtain falls. + +FORGOTTEN ERE FINISHED + +In all this, it will be observed, there is nothing new. The +musical fabric is enormously elaborate and gorgeous; but you +cannot say, as you must in witnessing The Rhine Gold, The +Valkyries, and the first two acts of Siegfried, that you have +never seen anything like it before, and that the inspiration is +entirely original. Not only the action, but most of the poetry, +might conceivably belong to an Elizabethan drama. The situation +of Cleopatra and Antony is unconsciously reproduced without being +bettered, or even equalled in point of majesty and musical +expression. The loss of all simplicity and dignity, the +impossibility of any credible scenic presentation of the +incidents, and the extreme staginess of the conventions by which +these impossibilities are got over, are no doubt covered from the +popular eye by the overwhelming prestige of Die Gotterdammerung +as part of so great a work as The Ring, and by the extraordinary +storm of emotion and excitement which the music keeps up. But the +very qualities that intoxicate the novice in music enlighten the +adept. In spite of the fulness of the composer's technical +accomplishment, the finished style and effortless mastery of +harmony and instrumentation displayed, there is not a bar in the +work which moves us as the same themes moved us in The Valkyries, +nor is anything but external splendor added to the life and humor +of Siegfried. + +In the original poem, Brynhild delays her self-immolation on the +pyre of Siegfried to read the assembled choristers a homily on +the efficacy of the Love panacea. "My holiest wisdom's hoard," +she says, "now I make known to the world. I believe not in +property, nor money, nor godliness, nor hearth and high place, +nor pomp and peerage, nor contract and custom, but in Love. Let +that only prevail; and ye shall be blest in weal or woe." Here +the repudiations still smack of Bakoonin; but the saviour is no +longer the volition of the full-grown spirit of Man, the Free +Willer of Necessity, sword in hand, but simply Love, and not even +Shelleyan love, but vehement sexual passion. It is highly +significant of the extent to which this uxorious commonplace lost +its hold of Wagner (after disturbing his conscience, as he +confesses to Roeckel, for years) that it disappears in the full +score of Night Falls On The Gods, which was not completed until +he was on the verge of producing Parsifal, twenty years after the +publication of the poem. He cut the homily out, and composed the +music of the final scene with a flagrant recklessness of the old +intention. The rigorous logic with which representative musical +themes are employed in the earlier dramas is here abandoned +without scruple; and for the main theme at the conclusion he +selects a rapturous passage sung by Sieglinda in the third act of +The Valkyries when Brynhild inspires her with a sense of her high +destiny as the mother of the unborn hero. There is no dramatic +logic whatever in the recurrence of this theme to express the +transport in which Brynhild immolates herself. There is of course +an excuse for it, inasmuch as both women have an impulse of +self-sacrifice for the sake of Siegfried; but this is really +hardly more than an excuse; since the Valhalla theme might be +attached to Alberic on the no worse ground that both he and +Wotan are inspired by ambition, and that the ambition has the +same object, the possession of the ring. The common sense of the +matter is that the only themes which had fully retained their +significance in Wagner's memory at the period of the composition +of Night Falls On The Gods are those which are mere labels of +external features, such as the Dragon, the Fire, the Water and so +on. This particular theme of Sieglinda's is, in truth, of no +great musical merit: it might easily be the pet climax of a +popular sentimental ballad: in fact, the gushing effect which is +its sole valuable quality is so cheaply attained that it is +hardly going too far to call it the most trumpery phrase in the +entire tetralogy. Yet, since it undoubtedly does gush very +emphatically, Wagner chose, for convenience' sake, to work up +this final scene with it rather than with the more distinguished, +elaborate and beautiful themes connected with the love of +Brynhild and Siegfried. + +He would certainly not have thought this a matter of no +consequence had he finished the whole work ten years earlier. +It must always be borne in mind that the poem of The Ring was +complete and printed in 1853, and represents the sociological +ideas which, after germinating in the European atmosphere for +many years, had been brought home to Wagner, who was intensely +susceptible to such ideas, by the crash of 1849 at Dresden. Now +no man whose mind is alive and active, as Wagner's was to the day +of his death, can keep his political and spiritual opinions, much +less his philosophic consciousness, at a standstill for quarter +of a century until he finishes an orchestral score. When Wagner +first sketched Night Falls On The Gods he was 35. When he +finished the score for the first Bayreuth festival in 1876 he had +turned 60. No wonder he had lost his old grip of it and left it +behind him. He even tampered with The Rhine Gold for the sake of +theatrical effect when stage-managing it, making Wotan pick up +and brandish a sword to give visible point to his sudden +inspiration as to the raising up of a hero. The sword had first +to be discovered by Fafnir among the Niblung treasures and thrown +away by him as useless. There is no sense in this device; and its +adoption shows the same recklessness as to the original intention +which we find in the music of the last act of The Dusk of the +Gods.* + +*Die Gotterdammerung means literally Godsgloaming. The English +versions of the opera are usually called The Dusk of the Gods, +or The Twilight of the Gods. I have purposely introduced the +ordinary title in the sentence above for the reader's +information. + + + + +WHY HE CHANGED HIS MIND + +Wagner, however, was not the man to allow his grip of a great +philosophic theme to slacken even in twenty-five years if the +theme still held good as a theory of actual life. If the history +of Germany from 1849 to 1876 had been the history of Siegfried +and Wotan transposed into the key of actual life Night Falls On +The Gods would have been the logical consummation of Das +Rheingold and The Valkyrie instead of the operatic anachronism it +actually is. + +But, as a matter of fact, Siegfried did not succeed and Bismarck +did. Roeckel was a prisoner whose imprisonment made no difference; +Bakoonin broke up, not Walhall, but the International, which +ended in an undignified quarrel between him and Karl Marx. The +Siegfrieds of 1848 were hopeless political failures, whereas the +Wotans and Alberics and Lows were conspicuous political +successes. Even the Mimes held their own as against Siegfried. +With the single exception of Ferdinand Lassalle, there was no +revolutionary leader who was not an obvious impossibilist in +practical politics; and Lassalle got himself killed in a romantic +and quite indefensible duel after wrecking his health in a +titanic oratorical campaign which convinced him that the great +majority of the working classes were not ready to join him, and +that the minority who were ready did not understand him. The +International, founded in 1861 by Karl Marx in London, and +mistaken for several years by nervous newspapers for a red +spectre, was really only a turnip ghost. It achieved some +beginnings of International Trade Unionism by inducing English +workmen to send money to support strikes on the continent, and +recalling English workers who had been taken across the North Sea +to defeat such strikes; but on its revolutionary socialistic side +it was a romantic figment. The suppression of the Paris Commune, +one of the most tragic examples in history of the pitilessness +with which capable practical administrators and soldiers are +forced by the pressure of facts to destroy romantic amateurs and +theatrical dreamers, made an end of melodramatic Socialism. It +was as easy for Marx to hold up Thiers as the most execrable of +living scoundrels and to put upon Gallifet the brand that still +makes him impossible in French politics as it was for Victor Hugo +to bombard Napoleon III from his paper battery in Jersey. It was +also easy to hold up Felix Pyat and Delescluze as men of much +loftier ideals than Thiers and Gallifet; but the one fact that +could not be denied was that when it came to actual shooting, it +was Gallifet who got Delescluze shot and not Delescluze who got +Gallifet shot, and that when it came to administering the affairs +of France, Thiers could in one way or another get it done, whilst +Pyat could neither do it nor stop talking and allow somebody else +to do it. True, the penalty of following Thiers was to be +exploited by the landlord and capitalist; but then the penalty of +following Pyat was to get shot like a mad dog, or at best get +sent to New Caledonia, quite unnecessarily and uselessly. + +To put it in terms of Wagner's allegory, Alberic had got the ring +back again and was marrying into the best Walhall families with +it. He had thought better of his old threat to dethrone Wotan and +Loki. He had found that Nibelheim was a very gloomy place and +that if he wanted to live handsomely and safely, he must not only +allow Wotan and Loki to organize society for him, but pay them +very handsomely for doing it. He wanted splendor, military glory, +loyalty, enthusiasm, and patriotism; and his greed and gluttony +were wholly unable to create them, whereas Wotan and Loki carried +them all to a triumphant climax in Germany in 1871, when Wagner +himself celebrated the event with his Kaisermarsch, which sounded +much more convincing than the Marseillaise or the Carmagnole. + +How, after the Kaisermarsch, could Wagner go back to his +idealization of Siegfried in 1853? How could he believe seriously +in Siegfried slaying the dragon and charging through the mountain +fire, when the immediate foreground was occupied by the Hotel de +Ville with Felix Pyat endlessly discussing the principles of +Socialism whilst the shells of Thiers were already battering the +Arc de Triomphe, and ripping up the pavement of the Champs +Elysees? Is it not clear that things had taken an altogether +unexpected turn--that although the Ring may, like the famous +Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels, be an inspired guest +at the historic laws and predestined end of our +capitalistic-theocratic epoch, yet Wagner, like Marx, was too +inexperienced in technical government and administration and too +melodramatic in his hero-contra-villain conception of the class +struggle, to foresee the actual process by which his +generalization would work out, or the part to be played in it +by the classes involved? + +Let us go back for a moment to the point at which the Niblung +legend first becomes irreconcilable with Wagner's allegory. +Fafnir in the allegory becomes a capitalist; but Fafnir in the +legend is a mere hoarder. His gold does not bring him in any +revenue. It does not even support him: he has to go out and +forage for food and drink. In fact, he is on the way to his +drinking-pool when Siegfried kills him. And Siegfried himself has +no more use for gold than Fafnir: the only difference between +them in this respect is that Siegfried does not waste his time in +watching a barren treasure that is no use to him, whereas Fafnir +sacrifices his humanity and his life merely to prevent anybody +else getting it. This contrast is true to human nature; but it +shunts The Ring drama off the economic lines of the allegory. In +real life, Fafnir is not a miser: he seeks dividends, comfortable +life, and admission to the circles of Wotan and Loki. His only +means of procuring these is to restore the gold to Alberic in +exchange for scrip in Alberic's enterprises. Thus fortified with +capital, Alberic exploits his fellow dwarfs as before, and also +exploits Fafair's fellow giants who have no capital. What is +more, the toil, forethought and self-control which the +exploitation involves, and the self-respect and social esteem +which its success wins, effect an improvement in Alberic's own +character which neither Marx nor Wagner appear to have foreseen. +He discovers that to be a dull, greedy, narrow-minded +money-grubber is not the way to make money on a large scale; for +though greed may suffice to turn tens into hundreds and even +hundreds into thousands, to turn thousands into hundreds of +thousands requires magnanimity and a will to power rather than +to pelf. And to turn thousands into millions, Alberic must make +himself an earthly providence for masses of workmen: he must +create towns and govern markets. In the meantime, Fafair, +wallowing in dividends which he has done nothing to earn, may +rot, intellectually and morally, from mere disuse of his energies +and lack of incentive to excel; but the more imbecile he becomes, +the more dependent he is upon Alberic, and the more the +responsibility of keeping the world-machine in working order +falls upon Alberic. Consequently, though Alberic in Also may have +been merely the vulgar Manchester Factory-owner portrayed by +Engels, in 1876 he was well on the way towards becoming Krupp +of Essen or Carnegie of Homestead. + +Now, without exaggerating the virtues of these gentlemen, it will +be conceded by everybody except perhaps those veteran German +Social-Democrats who have made a cult of obsolescence under the +name of Marxism, that the modern entrepreneur is not to be +displaced and dismissed so lightly as Alberic is dismissed in The +Ring. They are really the masters of the whole situation. Wotan +is hardly less dependent on them than Fafnir; the War-Lord visits +their work, acclaims them in stirring speeches, and casts down +their enemies; whilst Loki makes commercial treaties for them and +subjects all his diplomacy to their approval. + +The end cannot come until Siegfried learns Alberic's trade and +shoulders Alberic's burden. Not having as yet done so, he is +still completely mastered by Alberic. He does not even rebel +against him except when he is too stupid and ignorant, or too +romantically impracticable, to see that Alberic's work, like +Wotan's work and Loki's work, is necessary work, and that +therefore Alberic can never be superseded by a warrior, but only +by a capable man of business who is prepared to continue his work +without a day's intermission. Even though the proletarians of all +lands were to become "class conscious," and obey the call of Marx +by uniting to carry the Class struggle to a proletarian victory +in which all capital should become common property, and all +Monarchs, Millionaires, Landlords and Capitalists become common +citizens, the triumphant proletarians would have either to starve +in Anarchy the next day or else do the political and industrial +work which is now being done tant bien que mal by our Romanoffs, +our Hohenzollerns, our Krupps, Carnegies, Levers, Pierpont +Morgans, and their political retinues. And in the meantime these +magnates must defend their power and property with all their +might against the revolutionary forces until these forces become +positive, executive, administrative forces, instead of the +conspiracies of protesting, moralizing, virtuously indignant +amateurs who mistook Marx for a man of affairs and Thiers for a +stage villain. But all this represents a development of which one +gathers no forecast from Wagner or Marx. Both of them prophesied +the end of our epoch, and, so far as one can guess, prophesied it +rightly. They also brought its industrial history up to the year +1848 far more penetratingly than the academic historians of their +time. But they broke off there and left a void between 1848 and +the end, in which we, who have to live in that period, get no +guidance from them. The Marxists wandered for years in this void, +striving, with fanatical superstition, to suppress the +Revisionists who, facing the fact that the Social-Democratic +party was lost, were trying to find the path by the light of +contemporary history instead of vainly consulting the oracle in +the pages of Das Kapital. Marx himself was too simpleminded a +recluse and too full of the validity of his remoter +generalizations, and the way in which the rapid integration of +capital in Trusts and Kartels was confirming them, to be +conscious of the void himself. + +Wagner, on the other hand, was comparatively a practical man. +It is possible to learn more of the world by producing a single +opera, or even conducting a single orchestral rehearsal, than by +ten years reading in the Library of the British Museum. Wagner +must have learnt between Das Rheingold and the Kaisermarsch that +there are yet several dramas to be interpolated in The Ring after +The Valkyries before the allegory can tell the whole story, and +that the first of these interpolated dramas will be much more +like a revised Rienzi than like Siegfried. If anyone doubts the +extent to which Wagner's eyes had been opened to the +administrative-childishness and romantic conceit of the heroes of +the revolutionary generation that served its apprenticeship on +the barricades of 1848-9, and perished on those of 1870 under +Thiers' mitrailleuses, let him read Eine Kapitulation, that +scandalous burlesque in which the poet and composer of Siegfried, +with the levity of a schoolboy, mocked the French republicans who +were doing in 1871 what he himself was exiled for doing in 1849. +He had set the enthusiasm of the Dresden Revolution to his own +greatest music; but he set the enthusiasm of twenty years later +in derision to the music of Rossini. There is no mistaking the +tune he meant to suggest by his doggerel of Republik, Republik, +Republik-lik-lik. The Overture to William Tell is there as +plainly as if it were noted down in full score. + +In the case of such a man as Wagner, you cannot explain this +volte-face as mere jingoism produced by Germany's overwhelming +victory in the Franco-Prussian War, nor as personal spite against +the Parisians for the Tannhauser fiasco. Wagner had more cause +for personal spite against his own countrymen than he ever had +against the French. No doubt his outburst gratified the pettier +feelings which great men have in common with small ones; but he +was not a man to indulge in such gratifications, or indeed to +feel them as gratifications, if he had not arrived at a profound +philosophical contempt for the inadequacy of the men who were +trying to wield Nothung, and who had done less work for Wagner's +own art than a single German King and he, too, only a mad one. +Wagner had by that time done too much himself not to know that +the world is ruled by deeds, not by good intentions, and that +one efficient sinner is worth ten futile saints and martyrs. + +I need not elaborate the point further in these pages. Like all +men of genius, Wagner had exceptional sincerity, exceptional +respect for facts, exceptional freedom from the hypnotic +influence of sensational popular movements, exceptional sense of +the realities of political power as distinguished from the +presences and idolatries behind which the real masters of modern +States pull their wires and train their guns. When he scored +Night Falls On The Gods, he had accepted the failure of Siegfried +and the triumph of the Wotan-Loki-Alberic-trinity as a fact. He +had given up dreaming of heroes, heroines, and final solutions, +and had conceived a new protagonist in Parsifal, whom he +announced, not as a hero, but as a fool; who was armed, not with +a sword which cut irresistibly, but with a spear which he held +only on condition that he did not use it; and who instead of +exulting in the slaughter of a dragon was frightfully ashamed of +having shot a swan. The change in the conception of the Deliverer +could hardly be more complete. It reflects the change which took +place in Wagner's mind between the composition of The Rhine Gold +and Night Falls On The Gods; and it explains why he dropped The +Ring allegory and fell back on the status quo ante by +Lohengrinizing. + +If you ask why he did not throw Siegfried into the waste paper +basket and rewrite The Ring from The Valkyries onwards, one must +reply that the time had not come for such a feat. Neither Wagner +nor anyone else then living knew enough to achieve it. Besides, +what he had already done had reached the omit of even his immense +energy and perseverance and so he did the best he could with the +unfinished and for ever unfinishable work, rounding it off with +an opera much as Rossini rounded off some of his religious +compositions with a galop. Only, Rossini on such occasions wrote +in his score "Excusez du pen," but Wagner left us to find out the +change for ourselves, perhaps to test how far we had really +followed his meaning. + + + +WAGNER'S OWN EXPLANATION + +And now, having given my explanation of The Ring, can I give +Wagner's explanation of it? If I could (and I can) I should not +by any means accept it as conclusive. Nearly half a century has +passed smce the tetralogy was written; and in that time the +purposes of many half instinctive acts of genius have become +clearer to the common man than they were to the doers. Some years +ago, in the course of an explanation of Ibsen's plays, I pointed +out that it was by no means certain or even likely that Ibsen was +as definitely conscious of his thesis as I. All the stupid +people, and some critics who, though not stupid, had not +themselves written what the Germans call "tendency" works, saw +nothing in this but a fantastic affectation of the extravagant +self-conceit of knowing more about Ibsen than Ibsen himself. +Fortunately, in taking exactly the same position now with regard +to Wagner, I can claim his own authority to support me. "How," he +wrote to Roeckel on the 23rd. August 1856, "can an artist expect +that what he has felt intuitively should be perfectly realized by +others, seeing that he himself feels in the presence of his work, +if it is true Art, that he is confronted by a riddle, about which +he, too, might have illusions, just as another might?" + +The truth is, we are apt to deify men of genius, exactly as we +deify the creative force of the universe, by attributing to +logical design what is the result of blind instinct. What Wagner +meant by "true Art" is the operation of the artist's instinct, +which is just as blind as any other instinct. Mozart, asked for +an explanation of his works, said frankly "How do I know?" +Wagner, being a philosopher and critic as well as a composer, was +always looking for moral explanations of what he had created and +he hit on several very striking ones, all different. In the same +way one can conceive Henry the Eighth speculating very +brilliantly about the circulation of his own blood without +getting as near the truth as Harvey did long after his death. + +None the less, Wagner's own explanations are of exceptional +interest. To begin with, there is a considerable portion of The +Ring, especially the portraiture of our capitalistic industrial +system from the socialist's point of new in the slavery of the +Niblungs and the tyranny of Alberic, which is unmistakable, as it +dramatizes that portion of human activity which lies well within +the territory covered by our intellectual consciousness. All this +is concrete Home Office business, so to speak: its meaning was as +clear to Wagner as it is to us. Not so that part of the work +which deals with the destiny of Wotan. And here, as it happened, +Wagner's recollection of what he had been driving at was +completely upset by his discovery, soon after the completion of +The Ring poem, of Schopenhaur's famous treatise "The World as +Will and Representation." So obsessed did he become with this +masterpiece of philosophic art that he declared that it contained +the intellectual demonstration of the conflict of human forces +which he himself had demonstrated artistically in his great poem. +"I must confess," he writes to Roeckel, "to having arrived at a +clear understanding of my own works of art through the help of +another, who has provided me with the reasoned conceptions +corresponding to my intuitive principles." + +Schopenhaur, however, had done nothing of the sort. Wagner's +determination to prove that he had been a Schopenhaurite all +along without knowing it only shows how completely the +fascination of the great treatise on The Will had run away with +his memory. It is easy to see how this happened. Wagner says of +himself that "seldom has there taken place in the soul of one and +the same man so profound a division and estrangement between the +intuitive or impulsive part of his nature and his consciously or +reasonably formed ideas." And since Schopenhaur's great +contribution to modern thought was to educate us into clear +consciousness of this distinction--a distinction familiar, in a +fanciful way, to the Ages of Faith and Art before the Renascence, +but afterwards swamped in the Rationalism of that movement--it +was inevitable that Wagner should jump at Schopenhaur's +metaphysiology (I use a word less likely to be mistaken than +metaphysics) as the very thing for him. But metaphysiology is one +thing, political philosophy another. The political philosophy of +Siegfried is exactly contrary to the political philosphy of +Schopenhaur, although the same clear metaphysiological +distinction between the instinctive part of man (his Will) and +his reasoning faculty (dramatized in The Ring as Loki) is +insisted on in both. The difference is that to Schopenhaur the +Will is the universal tormentor of man, the author of that great +evil, Life; whilst reason is the divine gift that is finally to +overcome this life-creating will and lead, through its +aboegation, to cessation and peace, annihilation and Nirvana. +This is the doctrine of Pessimism. Now Wagner was, when he wrote +The Ring, a most sanguine revolutionary Meliorist, contemptuous +of the reasoning faculty, which he typified in the shifty, +unreal, delusive Loki, and full of faith in the life-giving Will, +which he typified in the glorious Siegfried. Not until he read +Schopenhaur did he become bent on proving that he had always been +a Pessimist at heart, and that Loki was the most sensible and +worthy adviser of Wotan in The Rhine Gold. + +Sometimes he faces the change in his opinions frankly enough. +"My Niblung drama," he writes to Roeckel, "had taken form at a +time when I had built up with my reason an optimistic world on +Hellenic principles, believing that nothing was necessary for +the realization of such a world but that men should wish it. +I ingeniously set aside-the problem why they did not wish it. +I remember that it was with this definite creative purpose that +I conceived the personality of Siegfried, with the intention of +representing an existence free from pain." But he appeals to his +earlier works to show that behind all these artificial optimistic +ideas there was always with him an intuition of "the sublime +tragedy of renunciation, the negation of the will." In trying to +explain this, he s full of ideas philosophically, and full of the +most amusing contradictions personally. Optimism, as an +accidental excursion into the barren paths of reason on his own +part, he calls "Hellenic." In others he denounces it as rank +Judaism, the Jew having at that time become for him the whipping +boy for all modern humamty. In a letter from London he expounds +Schopenhaur to Roeckel with enthusiasm, preaching the +renunciation of the Will to Live as the redemption from all error +and vain pursuits: in the next letter he resumes the subject with +unabated interest, and finishes by mentioning that on leaving +London he went to Geneva and underwent "a most beneficial course +of hydropathy." Seven months before this he had written as +follows: "Believe me, I too was once possessed by the idea of a +country life. In order to become a radically healthy human being, +I went two years ago to a Hydropathic Establishment, prepared to +give up Art and everything if I could once more become a child +of Nature. But, my good friend, I was obliged to laugh at my own +naivete when I found myself almost going mad. None of us will +reach the promised land: we shall all die in the wilderness. +Intellect is, as some one has said, a sort of disease: it is +incurable." + +Roeckel knew his man of old, and evidently pressed him for +explanations of the inconsistencies of The Ring with Night Falls +On The Gods. Wagner defended himself with unfailing cleverness +and occasional petulances, ranging from such pleas as "I believe +a true instinct has kept me from a too great definiteness; for +it has been borne in on me that an absolute disclosure of the +intention disturbs true insight," to a volley of explanations +and commentaries on the explanations. He gets excited and annoyed +because Roeckel will not admire the Brynhild of Night Falls On +The Gods; re-invents the Tarnhelm scene; and finally, the case +being desperate, exclaims, "It is wrong of you to challenge me +to explain it in words: you must feel that something is being +enacted that is not to be expressed in mere words." + +THE PESSIMIST AS AMORIST + +Sometimes he gets very far away from Pessimism indeed, and +recommends Roeckel to solace his captivity, not by conquering the +will to live at liberty, but by "the inspiring influences of the +Beautiful." The next moment he throws over even Art for Life. +"Where life ends," he says, very wittily, "Art begins. In youth +we turn to Art, we know not why; and only when we have gone +through with Art and come out on the other side, we learn to our +cost that we have missed Life itself." His only comfort is that +he is beloved. And on the subject of love he lets himself loose +in a manner that would have roused the bitterest scorn in +Schopenhaur, though, as we have seen (Love Panacea), it is highly +characteristic of Wagner. "Love in its most perfect reality," he +says, "is only possible between the sexes: it is only as man and +woman that human beings can truly love. Every other manifestation +of love can be traced back to that one absorbingly real feeling, +of which all other affections are but an emanation, a connection, +or an imitation. It is an error to look on this as only one of +the forms in which love is revealed, as if there were other forms +coequal with it, or even superior to it. He who after the manner +of metaphysicians prefers UNREALITY to REALITY, and derives the +concrete from the abstract--in short, puts the word before the +fact--may be right in esteeming the idea of love as higher than +the expression of love, and may affirm that actual love made +manifest in feeling is nothing but the outward and visible sign +of a pre-existent, non-sensuous, abstract love; and he will do +well to despise that sensuous function in general. In any case it +were safe to bet that such a man had never loved or been loved as +human beings can love, or he would have understood that in +despising this feeling, what he condemned was its sensual +expression, the outcome of man's animal nature, and not true +human love. The highest satisfaction and expression of the +individual is only to be found in his complete absorption, and +that is only possible through love. Now a human being is both MAN +and WOMAN: it is only when these two are united that the real +human being exists; and thus it is only by love that man and +woman attain to the full measure of humanity. But when nowadays +we talk of a human being, such heartless blockheads are we that +quite involuntarily we only think of man. It is only in the union +of man and woman by love (sensuous and supersensuous) that the +human being exists; and as the human being cannot rise to the +conception of anything higher than his own existence--his own +being--so the transcendent act of his life is this consummation +of his humanity through love." + +It is clear after this utterance from the would-be +Schopenhaurian, that Wagner's explanations of his works for the +most part explain nothing but the mood in which he happened to be +on the day he advanced them, or the train of thought suggested to +his very susceptible imagination and active mind by the points +raised by his questioner. Especially in his private letters, +where his outpourings are modified by his dramatic consciousness +of the personality of his correspondent, do we find him taking +all manner of positions, and putting forward all sorts of cases +which must be taken as clever and suggestive special pleadings, +and not as serious and permanent expositions of his works. These +works must speak for themselves: if The Ring says one thing, and +a letter written afterwards says that it said something else, The +Ring must be taken to confute the letter just as conclusively as +if the two had been written by different hands. However, nobody +fairly well acquainted with Wagner's utterances as a whole will +find any unaccountable contradictions in them. As in all men of +his type, our manifold nature was so marked in him that he was +like several different men rolled into one. When he had exhausted +himself in the character of the most pugnacious, aggressive, and +sanguine of reformers, he rested himself as a Pessimist and +Ninanist. In The Ring the quietism of Brynhild's "Rest, rest, +thou God" is sublime in its deep conviction; but you have only to +turn back the pages to find the irrepressible bustle of Siegfried +and the revelry of the clansmen expressed with equal zest. Wagner +was not a Schopenhaurite every day in the week, nor even a +Wagnerite. His mind changes as often as his mood. On Monday +nothing will ever induce him to return to quilldriving: on +Tuesday he begins a new pamphlet. On Wednesday he is impatient of +the misapprehensions of people who cannot see how impossible it +is for him to preside as a conductor over platform performances +of fragments of his works, which can only be understood when +presented strictly according to his intention on the stage: on +Thursday he gets up a concert of Wagnerian selections, and when +it is over writes to his friends describing how profoundly both +bandsmen and audience were impressed. On Friday he exults in the +self-assertion of Siegfried's will against all moral ordinances, +and is full of a revolutionary sense of "the universal law of +change and renewal": on Saturday he has an attack of holiness, +and asks, "Can you conceive a moral action of which the root idea +is not renunciation?" In short, Wagner can be quoted against +himself almost without limit, much as Beethoven's adagios could +be quoted against his scherzos if a dispute arose between two +fools as to whether he was a melancholy man or a merry one. + + + +THE MUSIC OF THE RING + +THE REPRESENTATIVE THEMES + +To be able to follow the music of The Ring, all that is necessary +is to become familiar enough with the brief musical phrases out +of which it is built to recognize them and attach a certain +definite significance to them, exactly as any ordinary Englishman +recognizes and attaches a definite significance to the opening +bars of God Save the King. There is no difficulty here: every +soldier is expected to learn and distinguish between different +bugle calls and trumpet calls; and anyone who can do this can +learn and distinguish between the representative themes or +"leading motives" (Leitmotifs) of The Ring. They are the easier +to learn because they are repeated again and again; and the main +ones are so emphatically impressed on the ear whilst the +spectator is looking for the first time at the objects, or +witnessing the first strong dramatic expression of the ideas they +denote, that the requisite association is formed unconsciously. +The themes are neither long, nor complicated, nor difficult. +Whoever can pick up the flourish of a coach-horn, the note of a +bird, the rhythm of the postman's knock or of a horse's gallop, +will be at no loss in picking up the themes of The Ring. No +doubt, when it comes to forming the necessary mental association +with the theme, it may happen that the spectator may find his ear +conquering the tune more easily than his mind conquers the +thought. But for the most part the themes do not denote thoughts +at all, but either emotions of a quite simple universal kind, or +the sights, sounds and fancies common enough to be familiar to +children. Indeed some of them are as frankly childish as any of +the funny little orchestral interludes which, in Haydn's +Creation, introduce the horse, the deer, or the worm. We have +both the horse and the worm in The Ring, treated exactly in +Haydn's manner, and with an effect not a whit less ridiculous +to superior people who decline to take it good-humoredly. Even +the complaisance of good Wagnerites is occasionally rather +overstrained by the way in which Brynhild's allusions to her +charger Grani elicit from the band a little rum-ti-tum triplet +which by itself is in no way suggestive of a horse, although a +continuous rush of such triplets makes a very exciting musical +gallop. + +Other themes denote objects which cannot be imitatively suggested +by music: for instance, music cannot suggest a ring, and cannot +suggest gold; yet each of these has a representative theme which +pervades the score in all directions. In the case of the gold the +association is established by the very salient way in which the +orchestra breaks into the pretty theme in the first act of The +Rhine Gold at the moment when the sunrays strike down through the +water and light up the glittering treasure, hitherto invisible. +The reference of the strange little theme of the wishing cap is +equally manifest from the first, since the spectator's attention +is wholly taken up with the Tarnhelm and its magic when the theme +is first pointedly uttered by the orchestra. The sword theme is +introduced at the end of The Rhine Gold to express Wotan's hero +inspiration; and I have already mentioned that Wagner, unable, +when it came to practical stage management, to forego the appeal +to the eye as well as to the thought, here made Wotan pick up a +sword and brandish it, though no such instruction appears in the +printed score. When this sacrifice to Wagner's scepticism as to +the reality of any appeal to an audience that is not made through +their bodily sense is omitted, the association of the theme with +the sword is not formed until that point in the first act of The +Valkyries at which Siegmund is left alone by Hunding's hearth, +weaponless, with the assurance that he will have to fight for his +life at dawn with his host. He recalls then how his father +promised him a sword for his hour of need; and as he does so, a +flicker from the dying fire is caught by the golden hilt of the +sword in the tree, when the theme immediately begins to gleam +through the quiver of sound from the orchestra, and only dies +out as the fire sinks and the sword is once more hidden by the +darkness. Later on, this theme, which is never silent whilst +Sieglinda is dwelling on the story of the sword, leaps out into +the most dazzling splendor the band can give it when Siegmund +triumphantly draws the weapon from the tree. As it consists of +seven notes only, with a very marked measure, and a melody like +a simple flourish on a trumpet or post horn, nobody capable of +catching a tune can easily miss it. + +The Valhalla theme, sounded with solemn grandeur as the home of +the gods first appears to us and to Wotan at the beginning of the +second scene of The Rhine Gold, also cannot be mistaken. It, too, +has a memorable rhythm; and its majestic harmonies, far from +presenting those novel or curious problems in polyphony of which +Wagner still stands suspected by superstitious people, are just +those three simple chords which festive students who vamp +accompaniments to comic songs "by ear" soon find sufficient for +nearly all the popular tunes in the world. + +On the other hand, the ring theme, when it begins to hurtle +through the third scene of The Rhine Gold, cannot possibly be +referred to any special feature in the general gloom and turmoil +of the den of the dwarfs. It is not a melody, but merely the +displaced metric accent which musicians call syncopation, rung on +the notes of the familiar chord formed by piling three minor +thirds on top of one another (technically, the chord of the minor +ninth, ci-devant diminished seventh). One soon picks it up and +identifies it; but it does not get introduced in the +unequivocally clear fashion of the themes described above, or of +that malignant monstrosity, the theme which denotes the curse on +the gold. Consequently it cannot be said that the musical design +of the work is perfectly clear at the first hearing as regards +all the themes; but it is so as regards most of them, the main +lines being laid down as emphatically and intelligibly as the +dramatic motives in a Shakespearean play. As to the coyer +subtleties of the score, their discovery provides fresh interest +for repeated hearings, giving The Ring a Beethovenian +inexhaustibility and toughness of wear. + +The themes associated with the individual characters get stamped +on the memory easily by the simple association of the sound of +the theme with the appearance of the person indicated. Its +appropriateness is generally pretty obvious. Thus, the entry of +the giants is made to a vigorous stumping, tramping measure. +Mimmy, being a quaint, weird old creature, has a quaint, weird +theme of two thin chords that creep down eerily one to the other. +Gutrune's theme is pretty and caressing: Gunther's bold, rough, +and commonplace. It is a favorite trick of Wagner's, when one of +his characters is killed on the stage, to make the theme attached +to that character weaken, fail, and fade away with a broken echo +into silence. + +THE CHARACTERIZATION + +All this, however, is the mere child's play of theme work. The +more complex characters, instead of having a simple musical label +attached to them, have their characteristic ideas and aspirations +identified with special representative themes as they come into +play in the drama; and the chief merit of the thematic structure +of The Ring is the mastery with which the dramatic play of the +ideas is reflected in the contrapuntal play of the themes. We do +not find Wotan, like the dragon or the horse, or, for the matter +of that, like the stage demon in Weber's Freischutz or +Meyerbeer's Robert the Devil, with one fixed theme attached to +him like a name plate to an umbrella, blaring unaltered from the +orchestra whenever he steps on the stage. Sometimes we have the +Valhalla theme used to express the greatness of the gods as an +idea of Wotan's. Again, we have his spear, the symbol of his +power, identified with another theme, on which Wagner finally +exercises his favorite device by making it break and fail, cut +through, as it were, by the tearing sound of the theme identified +with the sword, when Siegfried shivers the spear with the stroke +of Nothung. Yet another theme connected with Wotan is the +Wanderer music which breaks with such a majestic reassurance on +the nightmare terror of Mimmy when Wotan appears at the mouth of +his cave in the scene of the three riddles. Thus not only are +there several Wotan themes, but each varies in its inflexions and +shades of tone color according to its dramatic circumstances. So, +too, the merry ham tune of the young Siegfried changes its +measure, loads itself with massive harmonies, and becomes an +exordium of the most imposing splendor when it heralds his entry +as full-fledged hero in the prologue to Night Falls On The Gods. +Even Mimmy has his two or three themes: the weird one already +described; the little one in triple measure imitating the tap of +his hammer, and fiercely mocked in the savage laugh of Alberic at +his death; and finally the crooning tune in which he details all +his motherly kindnesses to the little foundling Siegfried. +Besides this there are all manner of little musical blinkings and +shamblings and whinings, the least hint of which from the +orchestra at any moment instantly brings Mimmy to mind, whether +he is on the stage at the time or not. + +In truth, dramatic characterization in music cannot be carried +very far by the use of representative themes. Mozart, the +greatest of all masters of this art, never dreamt of employing +them; and, extensively as they are used in The Ring, they do not +enable Wagner to dispense with the Mozartian method. Apart from +the themes, Siegfried and Mimmy are still as sharply +distinguished from one another by the character of their music as +Don Giovanni from Leporello, Wotan from Gutrune as Sarastro from +Papagena. It is true that the themes attached to the characters +have the same musical appropriateness as the rest of the music: +for example, neither the Valhalla nor the spear themes could, +without the most ludicrous incongruity, be used for the forest +bird or the unstable, delusive Loki; but for all that the musical +characterization must be regarded as independent of the specific +themes, since the entire elimination of the thematic system from +the score would leave the characters as well distinguished +musically as they are at present. + +One more illustration of the way in which the thematic system is +worked. There are two themes connected with Loki. One is a rapid, +sinuous, twisting, shifty semiquaver figure suggested by the +unsubstantial, elusive logic-spinning of the clever one's +braincraft. The other is the fire theme. In the first act of +Siegfried, Mimmy makes his unavailing attempt to explain fear +to Siegfried. With the horror fresh upon him of the sort of +nightmare into which he has fallen after the departure of the +Wanderer, and which has taken the form, at once fanciful and +symbolic, of a delirious dread of light, he asks Siegfried +whether he has never, whilst wandering in the forest, had his +heart set hammering in frantic dread by the mysterious lights of +the gloaming. To this, Siegfried, greatly astonished, replies +that on such occasions his heart is altogether healthy and his +sensations perfectly normal. Here Mimmy's question is accompanied +by the tremulous sounding of the fire theme with its harmonies +most oppressively disturbed and troubled; whereas with +Siegfried's reply they become quite clear and straightforward, +making the theme sound bold, brilliant, and serene. This is a +typical instance of the way in which the themes are used. + +The thematic system gives symphonic interest, reasonableness, and +unity to the music, enabling the composer to exhaust every aspect +and quality of his melodic material, and, in Beethoven's manner, +to work miracles of beauty, expression and significance with the +briefest phrases. As a set-off against this, it has led Wagner to +indulge in repetitions that would be intolerable in a purely +dramatic work. Almost the first thing that a dramatist has to +learn in constructing a play is that the persons must not come on +the stage in the second act and tell one another at great length +what the audience has already seen pass before its eyes in the +first act. The extent to which Wagner has been seduced into +violating this rule by his affection for his themes is startling +to a practiced playwright. Siegfried inherits from Wotan a mania +for autobiography which leads him to inflict on every one he +meets the story of Mimmy and the dragon, although the audience +have spent a whole evening witnessing the events he is narrating. +Hagen tells the story to Gunther; and that same night Alberic's +ghost tells it over again to Hagen, who knows it already as well +as the audience. Siegfried tells the Rhine maidens as much of it +as they will listen to, and then keeps telling it to his hunting +companions until they kill him. Wotan's autobiography on the +second evening becomes his biography in the mouths of the Norns +on the fourth. The little that the Norns add to it is repeated an +hour later by Valtrauta. How far all this repetition is tolerable +is a matter of individual taste. A good story will bear +repetition; and if it has woven into it such pretty tunes as the +Rhine maidens' yodel, Mimmy's tinkling anvil beat, the note of +the forest bird, the call of Siegfried's horn, and so on, it will +bear a good deal of rehearing. Those who have but newly learnt +their way through The Ring will not readily admit that there is +a bar too much repetition. + +But how if you find some anti-Wagnerite raising the question +whether the thematic system does not enable the composer to +produce a music drama with much less musical fertility than was +required from his predecessors for the composition of operas +under the old system! + +Such discussions are not within the scope of this little book. +But as the book is now finished (for really nothing more need be +said about The Ring), I am quite willing to add a few pages of +ordinary musical criticism, partly to please the amateurs who +enjoy that sort of reading, and partly for the guidance of those +who wish to obtain some hints to help them through such critical +small talk about Wagner and Bayreuth as may be forced upon them +at the dinner table or between the acts. + + + +THE OLD AND THE NEW MUSIC + +In the old-fashioned opera every separate number involved the +composition of a fresh melody; but it is quite a mistake to +suppose that this creative-effort extended continuously +throughout the number from the first to the last bar. When a +musician composes according to a set metrical pattern, the +selection of the pattern and the composition of the first stave +(a stave in music corresponds to a line in verse) generally +completes the creative effort. All the rest follows more or less +mechanically to fill up the pattern, an air being very like a +wall-paper design in this respect. Thus the second stave is +usually a perfectly obvious consequence of the first; and the +third and fourth an exact or very slightly varied repetition of +the first and second. For example, given the first line of Pop +Goes the Weasel or Yankee Doodle, any musical cobbler could +supply the remaining three. There is very little tune turning of +this kind in The Ring; and it is noteworthy that where it does +occur, as in Siegmund's spring song and Mimmy's croon, "Ein +zullendes Kind," the effect of the symmetrical staves, recurring +as a mere matter of form, is perceptibly poor and platitudinous +compared with the free flow of melody which prevails elsewhere. + +The other and harder way of composing is to take a strain of free +melody, and ring every variety of change of mood upon it as if it +were a thought that sometimes brought hope, sometimes melancholy, +sometimes exultation, sometimes raging despair and so on. To take +several themes of this kind, and weave them together into a rich +musical fabric passing panoramically before the ear with a +continually varying flow of sentiment, is the highest feat of the +musician: it is in this way that we get the fugue of Bach and the +symphony of Beethoven. The admittedly inferior musician is the +one who, like Auber and Offenbach, not to mention our purveyors +of drawing-room ballads, can produce an unlimited quantity of +symmetrical tunes, but cannot weave themes symphonically. + +When this is taken into account, it will be seen that the fact +that there is a great deal of repetition in The Ring does not +distinguish it from the old-fashioned operas. The real difference +is that in them the repetition was used for the mechanical +completion of conventional metric patterns, whereas in The Ring +the recurrence of the theme is an intelligent and interesting +consequence of the recurrence of the dramatic phenomenon which it +denotes. It should be remembered also that the substitution of +symphonically treated themes for tunes with symmetrical eight-bar +staves and the like, has always been the rule in the highest +forms of music. To describe it, or be affected by it, as an +abandonment of melody, is to confess oneself an ignoramus +conversant only with dance tunes and ballads. + +The sort of stuff a purely dramatic musician produces when he +hampers himself with metric patterns in composition is not unlike +what might have resulted in literature if Carlyle (for example) +had been compelled by convention to write his historical stories +in rhymed stanzas. That is to say, it limits his fertility to an +occasional phrase, and three quarters of the time exercises only +his barren ingenuity in fitting rhymes and measures to it. In +literature the great masters of the art have long emancipated +themselves from metric patterns. Nobody claims that the hierarchy +of modern impassioned prose writers, from Bunyan to Ruskin, +should be placed below the writers of pretty lyrics, from Herrick +to Mr. Austin Dobson. Only in dramatic literature do we find the +devastating tradition of blank verse still lingering, giving +factitious prestige to the platitudes of dullards, and robbing +the dramatic style of the genuine poet of its full natural +endowment of variety, force and simplicity. + +This state of things, as we have seen, finds its parallel in +musical art, since music can be written in prose themes or in +versified tunes; only here nobody dreams of disputing the greater +difficulty of the prose forms, and the comparative triviality of +versification. Yet in dramatic music, as in dramatic literature, +the tradition of versification clings with the same pernicious +results; and the opera, like the tragedy, is conventionally made +like a wall paper. The theatre seems doomed to be in all things +the last refuge of the hankering after cheap prettiness in art. + +Unfortunately this confusion of the decorative with the dramatic +element in both literature and music is maintained by the example +of great masters in both arts. Very touching dramatic expression +can be combined with decorative symmetry of versification when +the artist happens to possess both the decorative and dramatic +gifts, and to have cultivated both hand in hand. Shakespeare and +Shelley, for instance, far from being hampered by the +conventional obligation to write their dramas in verse, found it +much the easiest and cheapest way of producing them. But if +Shakespeare had been compelled by custom to write entirely in +prose, all his ordinary dialogue might have been as good as the +first scene of As You Like It; and all his lofty passages as fine +as "What a piece of work is Man!", thus sparing us a great deal +of blank verse in which the thought is commonplace, and the +expression, though catchingly turned, absurdly pompous. The Cent +might either have been a serious drama or might never have been +written at all if Shelley had not been allowed to carry off its +unreality by Elizabethan versification. Still, both poets have +achieved many passages in which the decorative and dramatic +qualities are not only reconciled, but seem to enhance one +another to a pitch otherwise unattainable. + +Just so in music. When we find, as in the case of Mozart, a +prodigiously gifted and arduously trained musician who is also, +by a happy accident, a dramatist comparable to Moliere, the +obligation to compose operas in versified numbers not only does +not embarrass him, but actually saves him trouble and thought. +No matter what his dramatic mood may be, he expresses it in +exquisite musical verses more easily than a dramatist of ordinary +singleness of talent can express it in prose. Accordingly, he +too, like Shakespeare and Shelley, leaves versified airs, like +Dalla sua pace, or Gluck's Che fare senza Euridice, or Weber's +Leise, leise, which are as dramatic from the first note to the +last as the untrammelled themes of The Ring. In consequence, it +used to be professorially demanded that all dramatic music should +present the same double aspect. The demand was unreasonable, +since symmetrical versification is no merit in dramatic music: +one might as well stipulate that a dinner fork should be +constructed so as to serve also as a tablecloth. It was an +ignorant demand too, because it is not true that the composers +of these exceptional examples were always, or even often, able to +combine dramatic expression with symmetrical versification. Side +by side with Dalla sua pace we have Il mio tesoro and Non mi dir, +in which exquisitely expressive opening phrases lead to +decorative passages which are as grotesque from the dramatic +point of view as the music which Alberic sings when he is +slipping and sneezing in the Rhine mud is from the decorative +point of view. Further, there is to be considered the mass of +shapeless "dry recitative" which separates these symmetrical +numbers, and which might have been raised to considerable +dramatic and musical importance had it been incorporated into a +continuous musical fabric by thematic treatment. Finally, +Mozart's most dramatic finales and concerted numbers are more or +less in sonata form, like symphonic movements, and must therefore +be classed as musical prose. And sonata form dictates repetitions +and recapitulations from which the perfectly unconventional form +adopted by Wagner is free. On the whole, there is more scope for +both repetition and convention in the old form than in the new; +and the poorer a composer's musical gift is, the surer he is to +resort to the eighteenth century patterns to eke out his +invention. + + + +THE NINETEENTH CENTURY + +When Wagner was born in 1813, music had newly become the most +astonishing, the most fascinating, the most miraculous art in +the world. Mozart's Don Giovanni had made all musical Europe +conscious of the enchantments of the modern orchestra and of +the perfect adaptability of music to the subtlest needs of the +dramatist. Beethoven had shown how those inarticulate mood-poems +which surge through men who have, like himself, no exceptional +command of words, can be written down in music as symphonies. +Not that Mozart and Beethoven invented these applications of +their art; but they were the first whose works made it clear that +the dramatic and subjective powers of sound were enthralling +enough to stand by themselves quite apart from the decorative +musical structures of which they had hitherto been a mere feature. +After the finales in Figaro and Don Giovanni, the possibility +of the modern music drama lay bare. After the symphonies of +Beethoven it was certain that the poetry that lies too deep for +words does not lie too deep for music, and that the vicissitudes +of the soul, from the roughest fun to the loftiest aspiration, +can make symphonies without the aid of dance tunes. As much, +perhaps, will be claimed for the preludes and fugues of Bach; but +Bach's method was unattainable: his compositions were wonderful +webs of exquisitely beautiful Gothic traceries in sound, quite +beyond all ordinary human talent. Beethoven's far blunter craft +was thoroughly popular and practicable: not to save his soul +could he have drawn one long Gothic line in sound as Bach could, +much less have woven several of them together with so apt a +harmony that even when the composer is unmoved its progressions +saturate themselves with the emotion which (as modern critics are +a little apt to forget) springs as warmly from our delicately +touched admiration as from our sympathies, and sometimes makes us +give a composer credit for pathetic intentions which he does not +entertain, just as a boy imagines a treasure of tenderness and +noble wisdom in the beauty of a woman. Besides, Bach set comic +dialogue to music exactly as he set the recitatives of the +Passion, there being for him, apparently, only one recitative +possible, and that the musically best. He reserved the expression +of his merry mood for the regular set numbers in which he could +make one of his wonderful contrapuntal traceries of pure ornament +with the requisite gaiety of line and movement. Beethoven bowed +to no ideal of beauty: he only sought the expression for his +feeling. To him a joke was a joke; and if it sounded funny in +music he was satisfied. Until the old habit of judging all music +by its decorative symmetry had worn out, musicians were shocked +by his symphonies, and, misunderstanding his integrity, openly +questioned his sanity. But to those who were not looking for +pretty new sound patterns, but were longing for the expression of +their moods in music, he achieved revelation, because, being +single in his aim to express his own moods, he anticipated with +revolutionary courage and frankness all the moods of the rising +generations of the nineteenth century. + +The result was inevitable. In the nineteenth century it was no +longer necessary to be a born pattern designer in sound to be a +composer. One had but to be a dramatist or a poet completely +susceptible to the dramatic and descriptive powers of sound. +A race of literary and theatrical musicians appeared; and +Meyerbeer, the first of them, made an extraordinary impression. +The frankly delirious description of his Robert the Devil in +Balzac's short story entitled Gambra, and Goethe's astonishingly +mistaken notion that he could have composed music for Faust, show +how completely the enchantments of the new dramatic music upset +the judgment of artists of eminent discernment. Meyerbeer was, +people said (old gentlemen still say so in Paris), the successor +of Beethoven: he was, if a less perfect musician than Mozart, a +profounder genius. Above all, he was original and daring. Wagner +himself raved about the duet in the fourth act of Les Huguenots +as wildly as anyone. + +Yet all this effect of originality and profundity was produced by +a quite limited talent for turning striking phrases, exploiting +certain curious and rather catching rhythms and modulations, and +devising suggestive or eccentric instrumentation. On its +decorative side, it was the same phenomenon in music as the +Baroque school in architecture: an energetic struggle to enliven +organic decay by mechanical oddities and novelties. Meyerbeer was +no symphonist. He could not apply the thematic system to his +striking phrases, and so had to cobble them into metric patterns +in the old style; and as he was no "absolute musician" either, he +hardly got his metric patterns beyond mere quadrille tunes, which +were either wholly undistinguished, or else made remarkable by +certain brusqueries which, in the true rococo manner, owed their +singularity to their senselessness. He could produce neither a +thorough music drama nor a charming opera. But with all this, +and worse, Meyerbeer had some genuine dramatic energy, and even +passion; and sometimes rose to the occasion in a manner which, +whilst the imagination of his contemporaries remained on fire +with the novelties of dramatic music, led them to overrate him +with an extravagance which provoked Wagner to conduct a long +critical campaign against his leadership. Thirty years ago this +campaign was mentably ascribed to the professional jealousy of a +disappointed rival. Nowadays young people cannot understand how +anyone could ever have taken Meyerbeer's influence seriously. +Those who remember how his reputation stood half a century ago, +and who realize what a nothoroughfare the path he opened proved +to be, even to himself, know how inevitable and how impersonal +Wagner's attack was. + +Wagner was the literary musician par excellence. He could not, +like Mozart and Beethoven, produce decorative tone structures +independently of any dramatic or poetic subject matter, because, +that craft being no longer necessary for his purpose, he did not +cultivate it. As Shakespeare, compared with Tennyson, appears to +have an exclusively dramatic talent, so exactly does Wagner +compared with Mendelssohn. On the other hand, he had not to go to +third rate literary hacks for "librettos" to set to music: he +produced his own dramatic poems, thus giving dramatic integrity +to opera, and making symphony articulate. A Beethoven symphony +(except the articulate part of the ninth) expresses noble +feeling, but not thought: it has moods, but no ideas. Wagner +added thought and produced the music drama. Mozart's loftiest +opera, his Ring, so to speak, The Magic Flute, has a libretto +which, though none the worse for seeming, like The Rhine Gold, +the merest Christmas tomfoolery to shallow spectators, is the +product of a talent immeasurably inferior to Mozart's own. +The libretto of Don Giovanni is coarse and trivial: its +transfiguration by Mozart's music may be a marvel; but nobody +will venture to contend that such transfigurations, however +seductive, can be as satisfactory as tone poetry or drama in +which the musician and the poet are at the same level. Here, +then, we have the simple secret of Wagner's preemminence as a +dramatic musician. He wrote the poems as well as composed the +music of his "stage festival plays," as he called them. + +Up to a certain point in his career Wagner paid the penalty of +undertaking two arts instead of one. Mozart had his trade as a +musician at his fingers' ends when he was twenty, because he had +served an arduous apprenticeship to that trade and no other. +Wagner was very far from having attained equal mastery at +thirty-five: indeed he himself has told us that not until he had +passed the age at which Mozart died did he compose with that +complete spontaneity of musical expression which can only be +attained by winning entire freedom from all preoccupation with +the difficulties of technical processes. But when that time came, +he was not only a consummate musician, like Mozart, but a +dramatic poet and a critical and philosophical essayist, +exercising a considerable influence on his century. The sign of +this consummation was his ability at last to play with his art, +and thus to add to his already famous achievements in sentimental +drama that lighthearted art of comedy of which the greatest +masters, like Moliere and Mozart, are so much rarer than the +tragedians and sentimentalists. It was then that he composed the +first two acts of Siegfried, and later on The Mastersingers, a +professedly comedic work, and a quite Mozartian garden of melody, +hardly credible as the work of the straining artifices of +Tanehauser. Only, as no man ever learns to do one thing by doing +something else, however closely allied the two things may be, +Wagner still produced no music independently of his poems. The +overture to The Mastersingers is delightful when you know what it +is all about; but only those to whom it came as a concert piece +without any such clue, and who judged its reckless counterpoint +by the standard of Bach and of Mozart's Magic Flute overture, can +realize how atrocious it used to sound to musicians of the old +school. When I first heard it, with the clear march of the +polyphony in Bach's B minor Mass fresh in my memory, I confess I +thought that the parts had got dislocated, and that some of the +band were half a bar behind the others. Perhaps they were; but +now that I am familiar with the work, and with Wagner's harmony, +I can still quite understand certain passages producing that +effect organ admirer of Bach even when performed with perfect +accuracy. + + + +THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE + +The success of Wagner has been so prodigious that to his dazzled +disciples it seems that the age of what he called "absolute" +music must be at an end, and the musical future destined to be +an exclusively Wagnerian one inaugurated at Bayreuth. All great +geniuses produce this illusion. Wagner did not begin a movement: +he consummated it. He was the summit of the nineteenth century +school of dramatic music in the same sense as Mozart was the +summit (the word is Gounod's) of the eighteenth century school. +And those who attempt to carry on his Bayreuth tradition will +assuredly share the fate of the forgotten purveyors of +second-hand Mozart a hundred years ago. As to the expected +supersession of absolute music, it is sufficient to point to the +fact that Germany produced two absolute musicians of the first +class during Wagner's lifetime: one, the greatly gifted Goetz, +who died young; the other, Brahms, whose absolute musical +endowment was as extraordinary as his thought was commonplace. +Wagner had for him the contempt of the original thinker for the +man of second-hand ideas, and of the strenuously dramatic +musician for mere brute musical faculty; but though his contempt +was perhaps deserved by the Triumphlieds, and Schicksalslieds, +and Elegies and Requiems in which Brahms took his brains so +seriously, nobody can listen to Brahms' natural utterance of the +richest absolute music, especially in his chamber compositions, +without rejoicing in his amazing gift. A reaction to absolute +music, starting partly from Brahms, and partly from such revivals +of medieval music as those of De Lange in Holland and Mr. Arnold +Dolmetsch in England, is both likely and promising; whereas there +is no more hope in attempts to out-Wagner Wagner in music drama +than there was in the old attempts--or for the matter of that, +the new ones--to make Handel the starting point of a great school +of oratorio. + + + +BAYREUTH + +When the Bayreuth Festival Playhouse was at last completed, and +opened in 1876 with the first performance of The Ring, European +society was compelled to admit that Wagner was "a success." +Royal personages, detesting his music, sat out the performances +in the row of boxes set apart for princes. They all complimented +him on the astonishing "push" with which, in the teeth of all +obstacles, he had turned a fabulous and visionary project into a +concrete commercial reality, patronized by the public at a pound +a head. It is as well to know that these congratulations had no +other effect upon Wagner than to open his eyes to the fact that +the Bayreuth experiment, as an attempt to evade the ordinary +social and commercial conditions of theatrical enterprise, was a +failure. His own account of it contrasts the reality with his +intentions in a vein which would be bitter if it were not so +humorous. The precautions taken to keep the seats out of the +hands of the frivolous public and in the hands of earnest +disciples, banded together in little Wagner Societies throughout +Europe, had ended in their forestalling by ticket speculators and +their sale to just the sort of idle globe-trotting tourists +against whom the temple was to have been strictly closed. The +money, supposed to be contributed by the faithful, was begged by +energetic subscription-hunting ladies from people who must have +had the most grotesque misconceptions of the composer's aims-- +among others, the Khedive of Egypt and the Sultan of Turkey! + +The only change that has occurred since then is that +subscriptions are no longer needed; for the Festival Playhouse +apparently pays its own way now, and is commercially on the same +footing as any other theatre. The only qualification required +from the visitor is money. A Londoner spends twenty pounds on a +visit: a native Bayreuther spends one pound. In either case "the +Folk," on whose behalf Wagner turned out in 1849, are effectually +excluded; and the Festival Playhouse must therefore be classed as +infinitely less Wagnerian in its character than Hampton Court +Palace. Nobody knew this better than Wagner; and nothing can be +further off the mark than to chatter about Bayreuth as if it had +succeeded in escaping from the conditions of our modern +civilization any more than the Grand Opera in Paris or London. + +Within these conditions, however, it effected a new departure in +that excellent German institution, the summer theatre. Unlike our +opera houses, which are constructed so that the audience may +present a splendid pageant to the delighted manager, it is +designed to secure an uninterrupted view of the stage, and an +undisturbed hearing of the music, to the audience. The dramatic +purpose of the performances is taken with entire and elaborate +seriousness as the sole purpose of them; and the management is +jealous for the reputation of Wagner. The commercial success +which has followed this policy shows that the public wants summer +theatres of the highest class. There is no reason why the +experiment should not be tried in England. If our enthusiasm for +Handel can support Handel Festivals, laughably dull, stupid and +anti-Handelian as these choral monstrosities are, as well as +annual provincial festivals on the same model, there is no +likelihood of a Wagner Festival failing. Suppose, for instance, +a Wagner theatre were built at Hampton Court or on Richmond Hill, +not to say Margate pier, so that we could have a delightful +summer evening holiday, Bayreuth fashion, passing the hours +between the acts in the park or on the river before sunset, is +it seriously contended that there would be any lack of visitors? +If a little of the money that is wasted on grand stands, Eiffel +towers, and dismal Halls by the Sea, all as much tied to brief +annual seasons as Bayreuth, were applied in this way, the profit +would be far more certain and the social utility prodigiously +greater. Any English enthusiasm for Bayreuth that does not take +the form of clamor for a Festival Playhouse in England may be set +aside as mere pilgrimage mania. + +Those who go to Bayreuth never repent it, although the +performances there are often far from delectable. The singing is +sometimes tolerable, and sometimes abominable. Some of the +singers are mere animated beer casks, too lazy and conceited to +practise the self-control and physical training that is expected +as a matter of course from an acrobat, a jockey or a pugilist. +The women's dresses are prudish and absurd. It is true that +Kundry no longer wears an early Victorian ball dress with +"ruchings," and that Fresh has been provided with a quaintly +modish copy of the flowered gown of Spring in Botticelli's famous +picture; but the mailclad Brynhild still climbs the mountains +with her legs carefully hidden in a long white skirt, and looks +so exactly like Mrs. Leo Hunter as Minerva that it is quite +impossible to feel a ray of illusion whilst looking at her. +The ideal of womanly beauty aimed at reminds Englishmen of the +barmaids of the seventies, when the craze for golden hair was +at its worst. Further, whilst Wagner's stage directions are +sometimes disregarded as unintelligently as at Covent Garden, +an intolerably old-fashioned tradition of half rhetorical, half +historical-pictorial attitude and gesture prevails. The most +striking moments of the drama are conceived as tableaux vivants +with posed models, instead of as passages of action, motion and +life. + +I need hardly add that the supernatural powers of control +attributed by credulous pilgrims to Madame Wagner do not exist. +Prima donnas and tenors are as unmanageable at Bayreuth as +anywhere else. Casts are capriciously changed; stage business is +insufficiently rehearsed; the public are compelled to listen to a +Brynhild or Siegfried of fifty when they have carefully arranged +to see one of twenty-five, much as in any ordinary opera house. +Even the conductors upset the arrangements occasionally. On the +other hand, if we leave the vagaries of the stars out of account, +we may safely expect always that in thoroughness of preparation +of the chief work of the season, in strenuous artistic +pretentiousness, in pious conviction that the work is of such +enormous importance as to be worth doing well at all costs, the +Bayreuth performances will deserve their reputation. The band is +placed out of sight of the audience, with the more formidable +instruments beneath the stage, so that the singers have not to +sing THROUGH the brass. The effect is quite perfect. + +BAYREUTH IN ENGLAND + +I purposely dwell on the faults of Bayreuth in order to show that +there is no reason in the world why as good and better +performances of The Ring should not be given in England. Wagner's +scores are now before the world; and neither his widow nor his +son can pretend to handle them with greater authority than any +artist who feels the impulse to interpret them. Nobody will ever +know what Wagner himself thought of the artists who established +the Bayreuth tradition: he was obviously not in a position to +criticize them. For instance, had Rubini survived to create +Siegmund, it is quite certain that we should not have had from +Wagner's pen so amusing and vivid a description as we have of his +Ottavio in the old Paris days. Wagner was under great obligations +to the heroes and heroines of 1876; and he naturally said nothing +to disparage their triumphs; but there is no reason to believe +that all or indeed any of them satisfied him as Schnorr of +Carolsfeld satisfied him as Tristan, or Schroder Devrient as +Fidelio. It is just as likely as not that the next Schnorr or +Schroder may arise in England. If that should actually happen, +neither of them will need any further authority than their own +genius and Wagner's scores for their guidance. Certainly the less +their spontaneous impulses are sophisticated by the very stagey +traditions which Bayreuth is handing down from the age of +Crummles, the better. + +WAGNERIAN SINGERS + +No nation need have much difficulty in producing a race of +Wagnerian singers. With the single exception of Handel, no +composer has written music so well calculated to make its singers +vocal athletes as Wagner. Abominably as the Germans sing, it is +astonishing how they thrive physically on his leading parts. His +secret is the Handelian secret. Instead of specializing his vocal +parts after the manner of Verdi and Gounod for high sopranos, +screaming tenors, and high baritones with an effective compass of +about a fifth at the extreme tiptop of their ranges, and for +contraltos with chest registers forced all over their compass in +the manner of music hall singers, he employs the entire range of +the human voice freely, demanding from everybody very nearly two +effective octaves, so that the voice is well exercised all over, +and one part of it relieves the other healthily and continually. +He uses extremely high notes very sparingly, and is especially +considerate in the matter of instrumental accompaniment. Even +when the singer appears to have all the thunders of the full +orchestra raging against him, a glance at the score will show +that he is well heard, not because of any exceptionally +stentorian power in his voice, but because Wagner meant him to +be heard and took the greatest care not to overwhelm him. Such +brutal opacities of accompaniment as we find in Rossini's Stabat +or Verdi's Trovatore, where the strings play a rum-tum +accompaniment whilst the entire wind band blares away, +fortissimo, in unison with the unfortunate singer, are never +to be found in Wagner's work. Even in an ordinary opera house, +with the orchestra ranged directly between the singers and the +audience, his instrumentation is more transparent to the human +voice than that of any other composer since Mozart. At the +Bayreuth Buhnenfestspielhaus, with the brass under the stage, +it is perfectly so. + +On every point, then, a Wagner theatre and Wagner festivals +are much more generally practicable than the older and more +artificial forms of dramatic music. A presentable performance +of The Ring is a big undertaking only in the sense in which the +construction of a railway is a big undertaking: that is, it +requires plenty of work and plenty of professional skill; but +it does not, like the old operas and oratorios, require those +extraordinary vocal gifts which only a few individuals scattered +here and there throughout Europe are born with. Singers who could +never execute the roulades of Semiramis, Assur, and Arsaces in +Rossini's Semiramide, could sing the parts of Brynhild, Wotan and +Erda without missing a note. Any Englishman can understand this +if he considers for a moment the difference between a Cathedral +service and an Italian opera at Covent Garden. The service is a +much more serious matter than the opera. Yet provincial talent +is sufficient for it, if the requisite industry and devotion are +forthcoming. Let us admit that geniuses of European celebrity are +indispensable at the Opera (though I know better, having seen +lusty troopers and porters, without art or manners, accepted by +fashion as principal tenors at that institution during the long +interval between Mario and Jean de Reszke); but let us remember +that Bayreuth has recruited its Parsifals from the peasantry, and +that the artisans of a village in the Bavarian Alps are capable +of a famous and elaborate Passion Play, and then consider whether +England is so poor in talent that its amateurs must journey to +the centre of Europe to witness a Wagner Festival. + +The truth is, there is nothing wrong with England except the +wealth which attracts teachers of singing to her shores in +sufficient numbers to extinguish the voices of all natives who +have any talent as singers. Our salvation must come from the +class that is too poor to have lessons. + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Perfect Wagnerite, by Shaw + diff --git a/old/sring11.zip b/old/sring11.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eceb899 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sring11.zip |