She saw alone
What thou sawest not:—
Siegmund I beheld.
Bringing him doom
I approached;
I looked in his eyes,
Gave ear to his words.
I perceived the hero's
Bitter distress;
Loud the lament
Of the brave one resounded;
Uttermost love's
Most terrible pang,
Saddest of hearts
Defying all odds–
With my ear I heard,
My eye beheld
That which stirred the heart in my breast
With trouble holy and strange.
Shamed, astonished,
Shrinking I stood.
Then all my thought
Was how I could serve him;
Triumph and death
To share with Siegmund—
That seemed, that only,
The lot I could choose!
Faithful to him
Who taught my heart this love,
And set me
By the Wälsung's side as friend—
Most faithful to him—
Thy word I disobeyed.
WOTAN
So thou hast done
What I yearned so greatly to do—
What a twofold fate
Withheld from my desire!
So easy seemed to thee
Heart's delight in the winning,
When burning woe
In my heart flamed fierce,
When terrible anguish
Wrung my soul,
When, to save the world
That I loved, love's spring
In my tortured heart I imprisoned?
Against my own self
When I turned, to my torment,
From swooning pain
Arose in a frenzy,
When a wild longing
Burning like fire
The fearful design in me woke
In the ruins of my own world
My unending sorrow to bury,
[Somewhat freely.
Thy heart was lapped
In blissful delight.
Trembling with rapture,
Drunken with joy,
Thy lips drank laughing
The draught of love,
While I drank of divine woe
Mixed with wormwood and gall.
[Dryly and shortly.
By thy lightsome heart
Henceforth be guided:
From me thou hast turned away!
I must renounce thee;
Together no more
Shall we two whisper counsel;
Apart our paths lie,
Sundered for ever,
And so long as life lasts
I, the God, dare nevermore greet thee!
BRÜNNHILDE [Simply.
Unfit was the foolish
Maid for thee,
Who, dazed by thy counsel,
Grasped not thy mind
When, to her, one counsel
Alone appeared plain—
To love what was loved by thee.
If I must forth
Where I shall not find thee,
If the fast-woven bond
Must be loosed,
And half thy being
Far from thee banished—
A half once thine and thine only,
O God, forget not that!—