and they vanish as his comrades appear. After the midday halt,
Siegfried tells Gunther and his vassals the story of his life. In the
midst of his tale Hagen gives him a potion which restores his faded
memory. He tells the whole story of his discovery of Bruennhilde, and his
marriage with her, to the horror of Gunther. At the close of his tale
two ravens, the birds of Wotan, fly over his head. He turns to look at
them, and Hagen plunges his spear into his back. The vassals, in silent
grief, raise the dead body upon their shields, and carry it back to the
castle through the moonlit forest, to the immortal strains of the
Funeral March.

At the castle Gutrune is anxiously waiting for news of her husband.
Hagen tells her that he has been slain by a boar. The corpse is brought
in and set down in the middle of the hall, amidst the wild lamentations
of the widowed Gutrune. Hagen claims the ring, and stabs Gunther, who
tries to prevent his taking it; but as he grasps at it, Siegfried's hand
is raised threateningly, and Hagen sinks back abashed. Bruennhilde now
comes in, sorrowful but calm. She understands the whole story of
Siegfried's unwitting treachery, and has pardoned him in his death. She
thrusts the weeping Gutrune aside, claiming for herself the sole right
of a wife's tears. The vassals build a funeral pyre, and place the body
of Siegfried upon it. Bruennhilde takes the ring from his finger, and
with her own hand fires the wood. She then leaps upon her horse Grane,
and with one bound rides into the towering flames. The Rhine, which has
overflowed its banks, now invades the hall. Hagen dashes into the flood
in search of the ring, but the Rhine-maidens have been before him.
Flosshilde, who has rescued the ring from the ashes of the pyre, holds
it exultantly aloft, while Wellgunde and Woglinde drag Hagen down to the
depths. Meanwhile a ruddy glow has overspread the heavens behind.
Valhalla is burning, and the gods in calm resignation await their final
annihilation. The old order yields, giving place to the new. The
ancient heaven, sapped by the lust of gold, has crumbled, and a new
world, founded upon self-sacrificing love, rises from its ashes to usher
in the era of freedom.

'Goetterdaemmerung' is prevented by its portentous length from ever
becoming popular to the same extent as Wagner's other works, but it
contains some of the noblest music he ever wrote. The final scene, for
sublimity of conception and grandeur of ex