es
to the bier to snatch his prey from Siegfried's finger. The dead
hand is slowly raised... and threateningly warns off the robber.
Hagen drops back.

In the stillness of horror which succeeds the loud outcry of the
women at the portent, a solemn figure parts the crowd and strides
slowly forward--Bruennhilde, to whom the passing hours have restored
calm, and to whom meditation has brought light.

She knows now what she should think, and what there remains to do.

Gutrune, hearing her voice, raises her own to accuse her of all
this woe overtaking them: "You--you incited the men against him--woe
that you should ever have entered this house!" "Hush! pitiable
girl!" Bruennhilde checks her, without anger. "You never were his
wedded wife; as his paramour you ensnared his affections. The mate
of his manhood am I, to whom he vowed eternal vows, before ever
he saw you!" Gutrune upon this, apprehending all, curses Hagen
who had given her the evil drink through which Siegfried had been
made to forget his former love.

A long space Bruennhilde stands in contemplation of Siegfried's
face, gazing with changing emotions, from passionate sorrow to
solemn exultation. She turns at length to the vassals and commands
them to build a great funeral pile. High and bright let the flames
leap which shall devour the noble body. Let them bring Grane, that
he with herself may follow the hero, whose honours her own body
yearns to share. While they are fulfilling her wish, she falls once
more into rapt study of the dead face, her own face becoming gentler
and gentler, as clearer and clearer understanding comes to her of
him and all that had happened. Her features appear softly glorified
at last with the light of forgiveness and reconcilement--and she
speaks his praise and justification: "Clear as the sun his light
shines upon me. He was the truest of all, this one who betrayed
me!" As an instance of his truth she quotes the incident of the
sword, placed, in loyalty to his friend, between himself and his own
beloved, "alone dear to him." "Vows more true than his were never
vowed by any; no one more faithfully than he observed a covenant; no
other ever loved with a love so unalloyed; and yet all vows, all
covenants, all obligations of love, were betrayed by him as never
by man before! Do you know how this came to be?..." The dealing with
her of Wotan she recognises in these extreme calamities falling
upon her; she must suffer all this to be bro