shameless louts?"

Fafner expresses a perfect confidence in Wotan's equipment for obtaining
the gold.

"For you I shall go to this trouble?" rails the irritated god,
"For you I shall circumvent this enemy? Out of all measure impudent
and rapacious my gratitude has made you clowns!..."

Fasolt who has only half-heartedly accepted his brother's decision
in favor of the gold, stays to hear no more, but seizes Freia. With
a warning that she shall be regarded as a hostage till evening,
but that if when they return the Rhinegold is not on the spot as
her ransom, they will keep her forever, the giants hurry her off.

Her cry for help rings back. Her brothers, in the act of rushing
to the rescue, look at Wotan for his sanction. No encouragement
is to be gathered from his face. He stands motionless, steeped
in perplexity, in conflict with himself.

Loge has now a few moments' pure enjoyment in safely tormenting
his superiors. He stands, with his fresh, ingenuous air, on a point
overlooking the valley, and describes the giants' progress, as
does the music, too. "Not happy is Freia, hanging on the back of
the rough ones as they wade through the Rhine...." Her dejected
kindred wince.

The heavy footsteps die away. Loge returning his attention to the
gods, voices his amazement at the sight which meets him: "Am I
deceived by a mist? Am I misled by a dream? How wan and fearful and
faded you do look! The glow is dead in your cheeks, the lightening
quenched in your glances. Froh, it is still early morning! Donner,
you are dropping your hammer! What ails Fricka? Is it chagrin to
see the greyness of age creeping over Wotan?" Sounds of woe burst
from all, save Wotan, who with his eyes on the ground still stands
absorbed in gloomy musing.

The solution of the puzzle suddenly, as he feigns, flashes upon
Loge: This is the result of Freia's leaving them! They had not yet
that morning tasted her apples. Now, of necessity, those golden
apples of youth in her garden, which she alone could cultivate, will
decay and drop. "Myself," he says, "I shall be less inconvenienced
than you, because she was ever grudging to me of the exquisite
fruit, for I am only half of as good lineage as you, Resplendent
Ones. On the other hand, you depended wholly upon the rejuvenating
apples; the giants knew that and are plainly practising against
your lives. Now bethink yourselves how to provide against this.
Without the apples, old and grey, a mock to the w