." For the loveless Alberich,
as Wotan knows, has by means of gold won the favour of a woman,
and the "fruit of hatred" is on its way toward the light. "Take
my blessing, son of the Nibelung!" cries Wotan in his dark mood;
"the thing which sickens me with loathing, I bestow it upon you
for an inheritance: the empty splendour of the gods!"

"Oh, tell me, what shall your child do?" entreats the daughter,
shaken by the sight of her father's passion. "Fight straightforwardly
for Fricka," he orders her, in the excess of bitterness; "what
she has chosen I choose likewise; of what good to me is a will
of my own?" "Oh, retract that word!" she beseeches, "you love
Siegmund.... Never shall your discordant dual directions enlist
me against him. For your own sake, I know it, I will protect the
Waelsung!" At this first intimation of rebellion in his child,--this
incipient treachery of his own will,--Wotan becomes stern, lays
down his command irrevocably, with threats of crushing retribution
if this child of his shall dare to palter with his expressed will.
"Keep a watch over yourself! Hold yourself in strong constraint!
Put forth all your valour in the fight!... Have well in mind what
I command: Siegmund is to fall! This be the Valkyrie's task!"

Bruennhilde gazes after him in wonder and fear as he storms up over
the rocky ascent out of sight: "I never saw Sieg-vater like that!"
Sadly she resumes her armour, woe-begone at the thought of the
Waelsung, given over to death. Becoming aware of the approach of
Siegmund and Sieglinde, she hastens from sight.

Sieglinde enters, fleeing in distraction from Siegmund, anxious
in pursuit. The presumption of those seeing her action without
understanding her words, is commonly, I suppose, that remorse has
overtaken her for her breach of the moral law. Remorse, indeed, has
assailed her, but not for having followed the "luminous brother."
It is for having ever belonged to Hunding, whom she neither loved
nor was loved by. The new sentiment of love so completely possessing
her places her former union in the light of unspeakable pollution,
and she adjures the "noble one" to depart from the accursed who
brings him such a dowry of shame. Siegmund with sturdy tenderness
assures her that whatever shame there is shall be washed away in
the blood of him who is responsible for it, whose heart Nothung
shall cleave. An insanity of terror seizes Sieglinde at the thought
of the meeting between the two men, t