Laughing, laughing I love thee;
Laughing welcome my blindness;
Laughing let us go doomwards,
Laughing go down to death!
Farewell Walhall's
Radiant world,
Its stately halls
In the dust laid low!
Farewell, glittering
Pomp divine!
End in bliss,
O immortal race!
Norns, rend in sunder
Your rope of runes!
Dusk steal darkly
Over the Gods!
Night of their downfall
Dimly descend!
Now Siegfried's star
Is rising for me;
He is for ever
And for aye,
My wealth, my world,
My all in all:
Love ever radiant,
Laughing death!
SIEGFRIED
[While Brünnhilde repeats the foregoing, beginning at "Farewell Walhall's Radiant world."
Laughing thou wakest,
Thou my delight!
Brünnhilde lives,
Brünnhilde laughs!
Hail, O day
In glory arisen!
Hail, O Sun
That shines from on high!
Hail, O light
From the darkness sprung!
Hail, O world
Where Brünnhilde dwells!
She wakes! She lives!
She greets me with laughter!
Splendour streams
From Brünnhilde's star!
SIEGFRIED
She is for ever
And for aye
My wealth, my world,
My all in all,
Love ever radiant,
Laughing death!
[Brünnhilde throws herself into Siegfried's arms. The curtain falls.
THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS
CHARACTERS
SIEGFRIED
GUNTHER
HAGEN
ALBERICH
BRÜNNHILDE
GUTRUNE
WALTRAUTE
THE THREE NORNS
THE RHINE-MAIDENS
VASSALS
WOMEN
SCENES OF ACTION
PRELUDE: ON THE VALKYRIES' ROCK
I. THE HALL OF GUNTHER'S DWELLING ON THE RHINE. THE VALKYRIES' ROCK
II. IN FRONT OF GUNTHER'S HALL
III. A WOODED REGION ON THE RHINE. GUNTHER'S HALL
PRELUDE
The curtain rises slowly. The scene is the same as at the close of the second day, on the Valkyries' rock; night. In the background, from below, firelight shines. The three Norns, tall women in long, dark, veil-like drapery. The first (eldest) lies in the foreground, to the right, under the spreading pine-tree; the second (younger) is stretched on a shelving rock in front of the cave; the third (youngest) fits in the centre at the back on a rock near the peak. Motionless, gloomy silence.