trusty sword!Hoho! Hahei!
Hoho! Hahei!
How I rejoice
In the merry sparks!
The bold look best
When by anger stirred!
Gay thou laughest to me,
Grimly though thou dost pretend!
Heiaho, haha, haheiaha!
Both heat and hammer
Served me well;
With sturdy strokes
I stretched thee straight;
Now banish thy modest blush,
Be as cold and hard as thou canst.
Heiho! Heiaho!
Heiahohohohoho! Heiah!
[He swings the blade, plunges it into the pail of water, and laughs aloud at the hissing.
MIME
[While Siegfried is fixing the blade in the hilt, moves about in the foreground with the bottle into which he has poured the contents of the pot. Aside.
He forges a sharp-edged sword:
Fafner, the foe
Of the dwarf, is doomed;
I brewed a deadly draught:
Siegfried must perish
When Fafner falls.
By guile the goal must be reached;
Soon shall smile my reward!
For the shining ring
My brother once made,
And which with a potent
Spell he endowed,
The gleaming gold
That gives boundless might—
That ring I have won now,
I am its lord.
[He trots briskly about with increasing satisfaction.
Alberich even,
Whom I served,
Shall be the slave
Of Mime the dwarf.
As Nibelheim's prince
I shall descend there,
And all the host
Shall do my will;
None so honoured as he,
The dwarf once despised!
To the hoard will come thronging
Gods and men;
[With increasing liveliness.
The world shall cower,
Cowed by my nod,
And at my frown
Shall tremble and fall!
No more shall Mime
Labour and toil,
When others win him
Unending wealth.
Mime, the valiant,
Mime is monarch,
Prince and ruler,
Lord of the world!
Hei, Mime! Great luck has been thine!
Had any one dreamed of this!
SIEGFRIED
[During the pauses in Mime's song has been filing and sharpening the sword and hammering it with the small hammer. He flattens the rivets of the hilt with the last strokes, and now grasps the sword.
Nothung! Nothung!
Conquering sword!
Once more art thou firm in thy hilt.
Severed wert thou;
I shaped thee anew,
No second blow thy blade shall shatter.
The strong steel was splintered,
My father fell;
The son who now lives
Shaped it anew.
Bright-gleaming to him it laughs,
And for him its edge shall be keen.
[Swinging the sword before him.
Nothung! Nothung!
Conquering sword!
Once more to life I have waked thee.
Dead wert thou,
In fragments hewn,
Now shining defiant and fair.
Woe to all robbers!
Show them thy sheen!
Strike at the traitor,
Cut down the rogue!
See, Mime, thou smith;
Thus sunders Siegfried's sword!
[He strikes the anvil and splits it in two from top to bottom, so that it falls asunder with a great noise. Mime, who has mounted a stool in great delight, falls in terror to a fitting position on the ground. Siegfried holds the sword exultantly on high. The curtain falls.
THE SECOND ACT
A deep forest
Quite in the background the entrance to a cave. The ground rises towards a flat knoll in the middle of the stage, and slopes down again towards the back, so that only the upper part of the entrance to the cave is visible to the audience. To the left a fissured cliff is seen through the trees. It is night, the darkness being deepest at the back, where at first the eye can distinguish nothing at all.
ALBERICH
[Lying by the cliff, gloomily brooding.
In night-drear woods
By Neidhöhl' I keep watch,
With ear alert,
Keen and anxious eye.
Timid day,
Tremblest thou forth?
Pale art thou dawning
Athwart the dark?
[A storm arises in the wood on the right, and from the same quarter there shines down a bluish light.
What comes yonder, gleaming bright?
Nearer shimmers
A radiant form;
It runs like a horse and it shines;
Breaks through the wood,
Rushing this way.
Is it the dragon's slayer?
Can it mean Fafner's death?
[The wind subsides; the light vanishes.
The glow has gone,
It has faded and died;
All is darkness.
Who comes there, shining in shadow?
WANDERER
[Enters from the wood, and stops opposite Alberich.
To Neidhöhl'
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