e
next Act. At the end of the first we have seen that Wotan's
Master-idea is a delusion. He might as well go and kill Fafner himself
and take the Ring as breed a hero to do it for him with the aid of a
magic sword. If he did so it would be by virtue of the power conferred
on him by the runes on the Spear; and by those runes--those
laws--Siegmund must be, and is, promptly judged and punished.

II

Before the rising of the curtain we have the first and one of the
greatest of the ear-pictures of the _Valkyrie_. There is no preamble;
at once the strings begin in repeated quavers to sustain (virtually) a
long D, while the basses start off with a figure many times
repeated--a figure which is simply a bold variant of the bass figure
in Schubert's _Erl-king_. So, for that matter, is the long D. Schubert
drew a fine picture of storm in black wood; but he was limited by the
form he wrote in and the instruments he wrote for. The energy,
superhuman energy, of the thing is amazing: the storm throbs in the
forest: one feels the pulse of the storm-god; the _sforzando_ shocks
and shrieks add to the terrific wildness of the scene. Pitilessly,
ever higher and higher, the wind shrieks, always to that beating bass,
until, amid the clatter and screaming, we hear Donner, exulting in his
mad strength and swinging his mighty hammer as he rides. The lightning
crackles vividly in the orchestra, the thunder rolls, crashes and
growls, and the thunder-god can almost be heard betaking himself off
to continue his riot afar. Then a labouring, panting and struggling
phrase--scarcely a theme--is heard as the storm slightly lulls; the
curtain rises and we see Hunding's dwelling, and Siegmund bursts in.

The music of the earlier portion of the first scene is not of the same
intrinsic quality, nor need it be. We have the setting before our
eyes, and the stupendous power of what has just been heard leaves in
our minds a vivid impression of what is going on out of doors.
Sieglinda comes in, surprised to find a stranger there at all,
especially on so wild a night; Siegmund asks for water; she brings it;
finding he is likely to fetch trouble on her head, he is for going.
But there is sympathy between them, and various Volsung motives and
phrases of the rarest beauty and expressiveness tell us why; and she
tells him to wait. "Hunding I will await here," says Siegmund. It is
in this scene that a passage occurs like one which I have referred to
in the chapt