Wanderer: (#53:; #19?: [is this combination of #53 & #19 the Norns’ Spinning Motif, or the World-Ash motif #146?]) In thrall to the world (#19:) those wise women weave (:#53; :#19): (#37) naught can they make or mend; (#19:) but I’d thank the store of your wisdom (#133) to be told how to hold back (#133) a rolling wheel. (#133; #133)
Erda: (#19 varis:) Deeds of men becloud my mind: (#19:) wise though I am, (#37:) a ruler (#19:) once tamed me (:#37; :#19). (#20a:) A wish-maid I bore to Wotan: (#20b>>:) for him he bade her choose slain heroes (:#20ab). (#77) (#98:) She is brave and wise withal (:#98): (#87:) why waken me (#98) and not (#87) seek knowledge (#?: [possibly some music which heralded Wotan’s introduction of his “grand idea for redemption” – represented by #57 & #58ab - in the finale of R.4?]) from Erda’s and Wotan’s child (:#? [“Wotan’s great idea” reference from R.4?])? (#20a)
Wotan: (#96?; #20b) Do you mean the Valkyrie, Bruennhilde, the maid? (#50:; #96:; #21?:) She defied the master of storms when, with utmost effort, he mastered himself (:#50; :#96; :#21?): (#77?:; #83?:) what the lord of the battle longed to do (:#77?:; :#83?) but what he forbade – (#83?:) in spite of himself (:#83?) – (#96?:) his dissident daughter, all too conversantly [“allzu vertraut wagte die trotzige”] (:#96?), dared in the heat of that battle (#77) to do for herself. War-father punished the maid; (#94:; #?: [possible influence of #39, #40, #81/#89, &/or #58b?:) he closed her eyes in sleep; (#21?) on yonder fell she’s sleeping soundly (:#94; :#?): (#21:; #19:) the hallowed maid will awaken only (:#21; #19) (#37:) to love a man as his wife (:#37). (#96?; #21 frag) (#87 frag:; 99?:) what use would it be to question her (:#87; :#99?)? (#99)
Erda notes that while she sleeps (her sleep being dreaming, her dreaming brooding), her daughters the Norns wake and spin her self-knowledge, i.e., knowledge of the real world (of time, space, matter, energy, and causality - i.e., natural law, or fate in its natural meaning). What Erda means is that nature acts according to unconscious natural necessity, but gradually wakens as life evolves to the point of human consciousness, which then grasps the world as bound by time, space, and causality, the bonds of natural law which wake for man, and in man. There is a hint of #59a here, and possibly also a #15 Variant, which will be featured prominently in the next scene when Wotan confronts Siegfried. #59a is of course a portion of the Rhinedaughters’ lament for the lost gold from R.4’s finale, which includes a new variant of their original cry “Rhinegold! Rhinegold!,” sung to #15, which evolves into a variety of harmonic variants in the course of the Ring. The significance of this, I believe, is that the three Rhinedaughters represent nature as undifferentiated feeling, which knows nothing, consciously, of the laws of nature represented by the three Norns.
