Wotan’s fear, and that Bruennhilde in this sense represents a temporary surrogate for the ultimate redemption from the Ring curse which the Rhinedaughters will offer. }}
[S.3.1: F]
Returning to our libretto text, we find in the following passage that #134 is heard again twice, once as Wotan informs Erda that her all-wise child Bruennhilde will - upon waking (for Siegfried) - perform that deed which will redeem the world (from Alberich’s curse on the Ring, the curse of consciousness), and is heard a second time as Wotan tells Bruennhilde that the god yields in gladness to the one who is eternally young. And with that, he consigns Erda to eternal sleep:
Wotan: (#40b>>:) Bruennhilde, whom you bore to me, (#64>>:) the hero will lovingly waken(:#40; :#64): (#134:; #?: [something important in the bass?!!!]) waking, your all-wise child (#134 modulation?: [&/or a hint of music which references the vocal line of the last words Bruennhilde sings before she immolates herself and her horse Grane on Siegfried’s funeral pyre in T.3.3, “In bliss your wife bids you welcome!” which is either #92c or #71 vari “Hero”?]) will work the deedthat redeems the world. (somewhat broadly: #87?) and so, sleep on; (#97) close your eyes (#19?:) and, dreaming, behold my end (:#19?)! whatever they do [“Was jene auch wirken”: Spencer’sEnglish translation must be vetted!] – (#134:) to the one who’s eternally young the god now yieldsin gladness (:#134). (#?: [perhaps a hint of the four-note phrase, incorporating the slide from #26a, which was repeated several times just after Siegfried killed fafner, or #137, or #164 hint?]; #133:);descend then, Erda! Primeval mothers’ fear! Primeval care! (:#?; :#133)! (#87 hint?) (#133:) Descend! Descend! (#97:) To ageless sleep!
(Having already closed her eyes and begun to descend, Erda now disappears completely; the cave too has now become very dark again. Moonlight casts its pallor over the stage: the storm has abated.)
This passage provides an astonishing example of the ambiguity Wagner often built into the libretto text of the Ring, allowing multiple interpretations which interact with each other, however, not as contradictory or inconsistent, but rather, as conceptually polyphonic strands which Wagner weaves together into an ultimately coherent whole. The most forthright and obvious meaning of Wotan’s initial remark that upon waking Bruennhilde will redeem the world, is that she will ultimately restore the Ring to the Rhine, for we know that that is her ultimate destiny. But that is not what Wotan means. When Erda initially warned Wotan to flee the curse on the Ring, by yielding it (implicitly, to the Giants), she could easily, and the music could easily, have told him to restore it to
