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Circle before her in the sea of air;

Shadows and gleams glide round her solemn rest.

Her subjects often gaze up to her there:

The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance.

The weak new terrors: all, renewed assurance

And confirmation of the old despair.

RICHARD WAGNER The Nibelungen Ring

Rheingold Scene I

At the bottom of the Rhine, the Rhine maidens, Flosshilde, Woglinde, and Wellgunde are playing. From a dark chasm, Alberic clambers up one of the rocks. Alberic: Ho! ho! the nixies!

Are ye not nimble, nice to behold? From Nibelheim's night now would I fain approach, if ye be kind. , Wog. & Wel. Faugh ! the ugly brute !

Wilhelm Richard Wagner, the greatest of modern musical composers, was born at Leipsic on May 22, 1813. His stepfather, Ludwig Geyer, an actor, wished to make a painter of him, but Wagner's first passion was for poetry, and at the age of thirteen he had translated the first twelve books of the " Odyssey" for his own amusement. This literary aptitude, which time only served to enhance, added a further lustre to his musical genius, and had the most practical results in the fact that he wrote all the poems and libretti for his own operas, namely, " Rienzi" (1842), "The Flying Dutchman" (1843), " Tannhauser " (1845), "Lohengrin" (1848-58), "Tristan und Isolde" (1865), "Die Meistersinger" (1867-68), etc. The ill reception which Wagner's tremendous musical reforms encountered combined with his own passionately aggressive attitude toward his critics and the public to make his career a stormy one, and on account of his share in the political revolution of 1840, he was compelled to abandon his position of Hofkapellmaster at Dresden, and lived for ten years thereafter in strict retirement at Zurich in Switzerland. It was during this period that, besides a series of books on musical criticism which he

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Floss. : Look to the Gold !

Father warned us from such a foe. Alb.: How sweet and soft

in this light ye seem! Gladly I'd seek to encircle one of your waists. Floss. : I laugh at our fears;

the foe is in love. [Alberic attempts to make love to each in turn. They pretend to accept his advances, and then repulse him. He becomes enraged. Through the water above breaks a blinding yellow gleam. Woe : Look, sisters !

The awakener laughs in the deep. All Three (Swimming joyously around the central rock) : Rheingold! Rheingold! Lustrous delight! Thou laughest in radiance rare!

Glistening gleams Outglow from thee wide o'er the waves. Alb. : What is't, ye gliders,

That there doth gleam and glow? All Three: Ugly one, where is your home,

if of Rheingold you never have heard ?

gave to the world, he also found time to compose the entire text and part of the music of his famous " Nibelungen Ring," a tetralogy of four operas founded on the Norse and German myths of the Nibelungenlied (see p. 38). In 1876 Wagner at last realized the dream of his life, by the festival performance of the " Ring" inaugurating his own opera house at Bayreuth, where in 1882 his last work, " Parsifal," was also performed. The unfailing aid and encouragement which he received all through his struggles from his friend, the composer Liszt, whose daughter Cosima he afterwards married, is a detail which can scarcely be omitted from any mention of his life. Wagner died in Venice on February 13, 1882. The " Rheingold" forms the introductory portion to the remaining trilogy of the " Walkiire," " Siegfried," and " Gotterdammerung."

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Wog. : The golden prize

precious you'd deem wist you but all of its wonder. Wel. : The world's kingdom

He can encompass who from the Rheingold shapeth the Ring, which measureless might can secure. Woe: But he who passion's

power forswears and from delights of Love forbears He alone the Magic commandeth The Gold to mould into a Ring. Alb.: The World's kingdom

at once could I compass through this? If Love is denied me a ruder delight may I know.

[He clambers hastily up the central rock. Fear ye not now? Then fondle in darkness! The light's lustre I quench and rend the gold from the rock, Vengeance to wreck with a Ring: Love I forswear for ever! [He tears the Gold from the rock and disappears. Sudden darkness. Curtain.

Scene II

Morning. A mountain top: standing on a cliff is a castle, with glittering pinnacles. Wotan and Fricka asleep. Fricka awakes and shakes Wotan. Arise, now, spouse, and arouse thee!

[Wotan wakes and sees the castle. 'Tis ended, the infinite work! A heavenly mansion on mountain heights: Grand and glorious pile! 307

Fricka: Though fair thy tower,

I tremble for Freia. Mindless one, pause and remember the stated price to be paid! Wotan: I mind well all the demanded,

my men who built me this keep. It prospers, thanks to their prowess: for the price have thou no heed! Fricka: So without shame

Ye shrink not to forfeit Freia, my glorious sister, for this scandalous cause? Wotan : I'll let not our fairest

Freia be taken: My thoughts never turned to such a thing. Freia {enters hastily) :

Help me, Fricka! Fail me not, Father! From mountain fastness Fasolt comes surely to catch me. Wotan : Loki advised this agreement,

and vowed to extricate Freia: On him I firmly rely. [Enter Fasolt and Fafner, two giants. Fas. : High with dome,

donjon, door, we have formed A fortress fair and fast. Now pay our wage! Freia the holy— Holda, the free one Agreed it is She goes with us home. Wotan : Other guerdon ask: Freia I must refuse. Fas.: What sayest thou,—ha?