he broken his word? Has he smirched Gunther's honour?" Gunther,
Gutrune, the vassals, all a little shaken in their faith in Siegfried
by the assurance of his accuser, press him to refute her charge,
clear himself, take the oath which shall silence the disgraceful
accusation. He unhesitatingly asks for a weapon upon which to swear.
Hagen craftily offers his spear. Siegfried placing his right hand
on the point, solemnly calls upon the sacred weapon to register
his oath, wording it in the following ill-omened fashion: "Where
sharpness may pierce me, do you pierce me; where death shall strike
me, do you strike me, if yonder woman spoke the truth, if I broke
my vow to my brother!" Bruennhilde hearing, flings his hand from the
spear-point, and grasping it in her own, pronounces the counter-oath:
"Your weight I consecrate, spear, that it may overthrow him! Your
sharpness I bless, that it may pierce him! For, having broken every
vow, this man now speaks perjury!" Siegfried and Bruennhilde each
believe that what he swears is true; but the Oath, the blind power
which takes no account of intention, of moral right or wrong, gives
right in sequence to Bruennhilde. The spear pierces the hero who
invokes it so to do "if the woman spoke true."

There is nothing more, the solemn oath taken, that Siegfried can
do, and in his stalwart fashion he turns his back on the whole
troublesome business, with the sensible suggestion that the wild
woman from the mountains be given rest and quiet "until the impudent
rage shall have spent itself which some unholy wizardry has suscitated"
against them all.

"You men, come away!" he subjoins, all his heroic good-humour recovered.
"When the fighting is to be done with tongues, we will willingly
pass for cowards!" For Gunther, whom he sees darkly brooding, he
has a word in the ear: "Believe me, I am more vexed than you that I
should not have more perfectly deceived her; the Tarnhelm, I could
almost believe, only half disguised me. But the anger of women is
soon appeased. The woman will beyond a doubt be grateful hereafter
that I should have won her for you!" The winged exhilaration of
the bridegroom repossessing him, he invites them all in to the
wedding-feast, and casting his arm gaily around Gutrune draws her
along with him into the Hall--whither the people swarm after them.

The three are left outside whom no festivity can allure. In long
silence they remain, sunk in gloomy study, each on his side.