ken 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