uennhilde's fate, indignation possesses the
Wala. In view of such high-handed injustice, she wishes and struggles
to return back into the earth and be merged with her wisdom in
sleep. But Wotan will not release her until she has satisfied him
"You, all-knowing one, once drove the thorn of care into Wotan's
daring heart; with the dread of an adverse ignominious ending you
filled him by your foreknowledge, so that his courage was in bondage
to fear. If you are the wisest woman in the world, tell me now:
how shall the god overcome that care?" But the injured mother is
not to be conciliated. "You are not," she startlingly announces,
"what you call yourself!"--Not a god, Wotan?--"What are you come,
wild and turbulent spirit, to disturb the Wala's sleep? Restless
one, release me! Loose the spell!" "You are not" he retorts, "what
you suppose yourself!"--Not the wisest of women! In that she has
not divined what he has really come to impart, rather than seriously
to ask counsel. For his true errand is to show her the fruits of
time in himself, the mood of patience and reconciliation he has
reached, nay, of hope for a future in which he is to have no part,
that Bruennhilde's mother may sleep the more quietly, and, untroubled,
watch the end overtake him through her dream. "Do you know what it
is Wotan wills? I speak it in your ear, unforeseeing one, that
with easy heart you may return to your eternal sleep. The thought
of the end of the gods no longer grieves me, since it is my desire
and my will! The thing which I once, in pain and conflict, torn by
despair, resolved, I now joyfully and freely carry out: in raging
disgust I once devoted the world to the ill-will of the Nibelung;
to the joyous Waelsung I now appoint my inheritance. He whom I have
chosen, but who has never known me, an intrepid boy, unaided by
counsel of mine, has conquered the Nibelung's Ring. Void of envy,
happy and loving, Alberich's curse falls away crippled when it would
light on the noble one, for fear is unknown to him. She whom you
bore to me, Bruennhilde, shall be tenderly waked by the hero; awake,
your wise child shall perform a world-delivering deed! Wherefore,
sleep! Close your eye: dreaming watch my passing! Whatever works be
theirs, to that Eternally Young One, the god in gladness yields his
place. Down, then, Erda! Ancient Fear! Original Care! To your eternal
sleep! Down! Down!..." Erda sinks into the earth, the glimmering
light fades from the cave.