order to build a nest in which to breed their young, and asks Mime where his wife might be. Though #107 and #108 evidently are not directly related to any other motifs, #108 is a virtual continuation of #107, in the same sense that the Tarnhelm Motif #43 is a continuation of the Tarnhelm Motif #42.
Siegfried asks how Mime made Siegfried without a mother, and Mime offers the lame argument that Mime is both Siegfried’s father and mother. Siegfried accuses Mime of lying: Siegfried has also noted that in the natural world the young resemble their parents, but Siegfried looks as much like Mime as a glittering fish looks like a toad (and of course we’re reminded instantly of Alberich’s futile efforts to win the love of a Rhinedaughter in R.1). Strikingly, Siegfried describes how he learned this by looking at the reflection of things in a brook, noting that Siegfried’s own image (represented here by his motif #92) stared back at him so he could compare it with Mime’s face (as we hear #71, recalling the heroism of Siegmund’s authentic father, the Waelsung Siegmund), and we return in thought to Sieglinde’s remark to Siegmund in V.1.3 that his face resembled her own face as it looked back at her in the reflection of a brook. This is not a question of genetics or racial type: we are dealing here with the gradual self-discovery of an original artist, in his instinctive quest to connect with his authentic heritage. The Nibelung Labor Motif #41, representing work as duress, or merely for profit, i.e., representing Mime’s nature, is contrasted with Siegfried’s own motif #92, and with #71, representing the heroic, tragic nature of the Waelsung heroes to whom Wotan looks for Valhalla’s (religious feeling’s) redemption from its roots in Alberich’s and Mime’s egoism.
Wagner summarizes this distinction, i.e., that between the authentic genius and the vulgar masses, below, in imagery - including the comparison of man with ape - that recalls his comparison of the interpretive artist with the imitative mime:
“He [Schopenhauer] regards it as an ineptitude of Nature not to have created yet another species, since between gifted and ungifted human beings there is indeed a gap wider than between human beings and animals. One has only to watch a theater audience, in which one person is utterly absorbed and concentrating, the other inattentive, fidgety, vapid. Between these two persons no understanding is possible, and therein lies the mystery of the gifted person [say, Siegfried] in a world in which he must regard as identical with himself a creature who no more resembles him than an ape does [i.e., Mime].” [760W-{9/18/70} CD Vol. I, P. 272]
[S.1.1: G]
It suddenly dawns on Siegfried that he has regularly returned to Mime because it is only from him that Siegfried can discover his true heritage. As we learn in Mime’s following confession, Mime has co-opted Siegfried’s heritage and kept it secret from him, presumably for fear that this discovery would prompt Siegfried to yearn for independence from Mime:
