[S.1.1: E]
Siegfried now poses the following question to the “wise” Mime: why is it that if Siegfried prefers the instinctual beasts of the forest to the ulterior, overly calculating Mime, whom he abhors, yet Siegfried always returns to Mime? Mime answers that this is surely because Siegfried feels natural love for his parent, Mime. Clearly, Mime has been hiding from Siegfried Siegfried’s true parentage, in order to pose as his blood-father (and, as it turns out, his mother):
Siegfried: If you’re so wise, (#?: [Nature mood music]) then help me to know what I’ve thought about in vain: - (#104:) though I run off into the forest to leave you, how is it that I come back: (:#? [nature mood music]; :#104)? (#104 varis:; #?: [Nature mood music develops with perhaps a hint of #98?]) All the beasts of the forest are dearer to me than you: (#76?:) every tree and bird, the fish in the brook I can far more abide than you (:#76?) – how is it, then, that I always come back (:#? [Nature mood music])? (#?: [What, if any, motif is in play here, especially in the 2nd part of the German sentence: “so thu’ mir’s kund”?]) If you’re so clever, then tell me why (:#?).
Mime: (Mime tries to approach him, confidingly: [[ #106: ]]; #41 duple vari?:) my child, that makes you understand how dear to your heart I must be (:#106; :#41 duple vari?).
Siegfried: And yet I can’t abide you – do not forget that quite so quickly!
Mime: (recoiling and sitting down again at the side, facing Siegfried: #41 duple vari >>:; #102 vari?:) For that you must blame your wildness, which you ought to curb, you wicked boy. (#106 vari) ([[ #107: ]]; #105?:) Whimpering, young things long (:#105?) for their parents’ nest: love is the name of that longing: (#106; #107 vari) so you, too, pined for me, so you, too, love your Mime – so you have to love him (:#107)! (#107 vari?:) What the bird is to the baby bird [I have corrected Spencer’s English translation here so that this sentence makes sense. however, was this Wagner’s mistake, or actually Wagner’s intention?; Spencer had rendered this passage thus: “What the baby bird is to the bird,” which doesn’t make sense in the context of the entire sentence, since Mime is the ostensible parent, Siegfried the child] (#97 hint or #102 hint?:) when he feeds it in the nest, before the fledgling can fly, such to you, my childish offspring, (#107?) is wisely caring Mime (:#97 hint?, or #102 hint?) – such, to you, he must be.
