He knows of Siegfried's "deed," and knows that
Siegfried is coming that way; but he keeps the story to himself, and
tells Guenther and Gutruna of the fearless hero and of Bruennhilda
sleeping on the mountain-top encircled by fire. Guenther desires the
woman, Gutruna the man. But only Siegfried can pass through the fire.
Pat to the moment he arrives, and enters leading Grani. Hagen offers
him drink which contains a powder which destroys his memory; he
forgets all about Bruennhilda, but not, apparently, about the magic
cap; he gazes in rapture at Gutruna, and in a few minutes the pact is
made--Siegfried shall take Guenther's form and win Bruennhilda for him;
in return he will have Gutruna, who is more than willing. The two men
go off together, and the scene changes again to the Valkyries' rock.
Bruennhilda sits alone looking at the Ring; Waltraute, one of the
Valkyries, rushes in and demands that Ring. She relates how for want
of it Wotan, dreading that it may fall into the hands of Alberich,
sits gloomy and silent in Valhalla. But Bruennhilda is now wholly woman
and has no sympathy with the gods; she refuses the Ring, and Waltraute
goes off in despair. The flames begin to flicker and dance;
Siegfried's horn is heard; and presently he enters in Guenther's form,
or at least as nearly in it as can be managed on the stage. He claims
and seizes Bruennhilda, sends her into the sleeping-chamber, and,
swearing truth to his new friend Guenther, follows with his drawn sword
ready to place between him and his bride.

So the act closes. Bruennhilda's horror and shame are unspeakable; she
cannot understand; Wotan had promised her the great hero, and this
promise is broken and a last humiliation inflicted on her. The act is
intolerably long; even were every moment crowded with Wagner's most
glorious music the strain on our attention would be terrific. But the
music is by no means uniformly of Wagner's best; for pages on pages
his sheer craftsmanship fairly gallops away with him. The Norn scene
is as purely theatrical as anything he wrote; the atmosphere is, so to
speak, artificially weird. The scene between Siegfried and Bruennhilda
is more inspired; and the journey to the Rhine is one of Wagner's
finest bits of picture-painting. The change of feeling towards the end
is superb: a sense of foreboding and dread comes into the music and
prepares us for the coming disaster. But when the curtain rises on
the hall of the Gibichungs we at o