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