is before him.  With a ringing cry of exultation he dashes through them, and before him lies the sleeping maiden in her glistening armor.  Mad with her beauty and his own overpowering passion, he springs to her side and wakes her with a kiss.  The Volsung and the Valkyr gaze at each other a long time in silence.  Bruennhilde strives to comprehend her situation, and to recall the events that led up to her penalty, while love grows within her for the hero who has rescued her, and Siegfried is transfixed by the majesty of the maiden.  As she comes to herself and fully realizes who is the hero before her and foresees the approaching doom, she earnestly appeals to him:—­

  “Leave, ah, leave,
   Leave me unlost,
   Force on me not
   Thy fiery nearness. 
   Shiver me not
   With thy shattering will,
   And lay me not waste in thy love.”

What is preordained cannot be changed.  Siegfried replies with growing passion, and Bruennhilde at last yields, and the two join in an outburst of exultant song:—­

  “Away, Walhalla,
   In dust crumble
   Thy myriad towers. 
   Farewell, greatness,
   And gift of the gods. 
   You, Norns, unravel
   The rope of runes. 
   Darken upwards,
   Dusk of the gods. 
   Night of annulment,
   Draw near with thy cloud. 
   I stand in sight
   Of Siegfried’s star. 
   For me he was,
   And for me he will ever be.”

With this great duet, which is one of the most extraordinary numbers in the trilogy for dramatic power and musical expression of human emotion, this division closes.

DIE GOETTERDAEMMERUNG.

The last division of the tragedy opens under the shade of a huge ash-tree where the three Fates sit spinning and weaving out human destinies.  As they toss their thread from one to the other,—­the thread they have been spinning since time began,—­they foresee the gloom which is coming.  Suddenly it snaps in their fingers, whereupon the dark sisters crowding closely together descend to the depths of the earth to consult with the ancient Erda and seek shelter near her.  Meanwhile as day breaks Siegfried and Bruennhilde emerge from the glen where they have been reposing in mutual happiness.  Bruennhilde has told her lover the story of the gods and the secrets of the mystic runes, but he is still unsatisfied.  His mission is not yet fulfilled.  He must away to perform new deeds.  Before he leaves her he gives her the ring as his pledge of fidelity, and they part, after exchanging mutual vows of love and constancy.