ou shall sacrifice sheep, that she may bless the
marriage!"

The men are beginning to penetrate through Hagen's sullen aspect
to his joke; with heavy playfulness they help it on. "And when we
have slaughtered the animals, what shall we do?" "From the hands
of fair women take the drinking-horn, pleasantly brimming with
wine and mead." "Horn in hand,--what then?" "Bravely carouse until
drunkenness overwhelm you--all to the honour of the gods, that they
may bless the marriage!" The rough warriors break into laughter,
and in uncouth jollity stamp with their feet and spear-butts. "Great
good fortune is indeed abroad on the Rhine when Hagen the grim
grows jovial!" Not the faintest smile illumines the bleak face. At
sight of Gunther's skiff approaching, he checks the men's laughter.
Moving among them, with careful foresight he drops seed toward
fruits of trouble: "Be loyal to your sovereign mistress, serve
her faithfully; if she should suffer wrong, be swift to avenge
her!" Hagen's plan for bringing about Siegfried's destruction is
not yet at this point settled in outline. We see him grasping at
whatever can be construed into a weapon against him. There are
repeated attempts on his part in the scene following to stir against
Siegfried some fatal demonstration of popular anger.

The skiff draws to land. The vassals greet their lord and his bride
with noisy chorus of welcome, clashing their arms together, beating
their swords against their bucklers.

Bruennhilde stands beside Gunther in the boat, statue-still, her eyes
bent on the ground, like one who neither sees nor hears. Without
resistance she lets Gunther take her hand to help her ashore; but
a suppressed snatch of the motif of Wotan's resentment suggests
the shudder ominous of danger overrunning his Valkyrie daughter
at the contact.

This is Gunther's hour, this for him the supreme occasion in life;
the star of his destiny rides the heavens unclouded; he feels now
magnificent indeed in his seat on the Rhine, as he stands before his
people with the regal creature beside him whom he calls his wife.
As if to express the momentary expansion of his nature, his motif
resounds, as proudly he presents her, quite changed in character; it
has taken on a grandeur approaching pomp: "Bruennhilde, the glory
of her sex, I bring to you here on the Rhine. A nobler wife was
never won! The race of the Gibichungen, by the grace of the gods,
shall now tower to crowning heights of fame!"