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Title Page
Dedication Page
General Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations for key references
Guide to abbreviations used in text
Allen Dunning's numbered Guide to the Ring's Musical Motifs
Detailed Table of Contents

The Ring

Introduction


References
Appendix I
Appendix I I

Key Colour Coding

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I would be grateful for donations of any size, small or large, to help defray the cost (1) of maintaining this website, (2) and to finance my past and present research which produced my book posted here, Volume One of "The Wound That Will Never Heal," and my forthcoming revision of Volume One (to be submitted for publication), and completion of Volume Two on Wagner's six other canonic operas and music-dramas. I sacrificed at least seven years of paid employment and incurred debts to complete this project, and am currently unemployed, so I thank you in advance for any financial help you can provide. Your friend, Paul Heise.

to debase me to fathomless depths? [[ #96a ]] plus #89) Was what I did so lacking in honour my lapse must deprive me of honour? (raising herself gradually into a kneeling position: #87) O tell me, father! Look in my eyes and silence your anger; curb your wrath and explain to me clearly what hidden guilt (#81A) forces you now, in stubborn defiance, your dearest child to disown! (#81A)”

 

[[ #96b is first heard a bit later:]]

 

“Bruennhilde: (#96a) Not wise am I, but one thing I knew – (#81 [plus triplet figure influenced by #89]: very slowly) that you loved the Waelsung [Siegmund]: (more animatedly: #88) I knew the discord that made you forget this one thing altogether. (#66>>; #81A) Yet something else you had to see, the sight of which so sorely pained you’re heart (#Octave drop) you withheld your protection from Siegmund.

 

Wotan: You knew it was so and yet you dared to protect him?

 

Bruennhilde: (beginning quietly: #81 plus #89 Strings) Since, for you, I kept sight of that one thing alone on which, painfully torn by the other’s constraint, you helplessly turned your back, (#81 plus #89; #81 Vari) she who, in battle, guards Wotan’s back, she saw only (#87) what you did not see: - (#87) Siegmund I had to see. (#88) (#88) Heralding death, I stepped before him, (#88) (#81-plus-#89 Motif) beheld his eye and heard his word; (#87) I noted the hero’s hallowed need [“Noth”]; the bravest of men’s lament rang forth – the fearful pain of freest love, the mightiest scorn (#40 or #64?) of the saddest of hearts: (#87) it rang in my ear (#87) and my eye beheld what, deep in my breast, caused my heart to tremble in holy awe. (#81-plus-#89 Motif) Shy and startled I stood there in shame: (#81-plus-#89 Motif) all I could think of was how to serve him: (more animatedly: #94?; #47 or #82 Vari?) victory or death to share with Siegmund – (#89 Vari?) this I now knew was the fate I must choose! (#81B?) (slowly: [[ #96b ]]) Inwardly true to the will which inspired this love in my heart and which bound me to the Waelsung, [[ #96b ]] I flouted your command.”

 

[[#97]] Wotan puts Bruennhilde to sleep in a mountaintop after taking her godhead away, ostensibly to punish her by leaving her to be won by any man who wakes and finds her, but actually so that the artist-hero Siegfried  will win her love

Commonly called “Bruennhilde’s Magic Sleep.” Based on #30b, “Godhead Lost” – Wotan prepares to leave the repository of his unspoken secret (the secret hoard of knowledge he obtained from Bruennhilde’s mother Erda – Mother Nature), his unconscious mind Bruennhilde, asleep, so that his heir, the artist-hero Siegfried, can wake and win her. In this way Siegfried can safely draw subliminal inspiration from Wotan’s abhorrent self-knowledge, through loving union with his muse Bruennhilde, to produce an art which will redeem the world from Alberich’s curse of consciousness.