Scene two
An open space on the mountaintops

Fricka
Wotan, husband, awake!

Wotan
(still dreaming)
Gate and door guard the sacred hall of my joy: man’s honor, eternal might extend to endless fame!

Fricka
Up, leave dreams’ delightful deceit!
Rouse yourself, husband, and reflect!


Wotan
This is completed, the everlasting work: on the mountain peak stands the gods’ stronghold superbly soars the resplendent building!
As in my dreams I desired it, as my will directed, strong and fair it stands on show, sublime, superb structure!

Fricka
Do you but delight in what I dread?
The fortress fills you with joy, but I fear for Freia.

Reckless man, recall the price to be paid.
The fort is finished, and forfeit is the pledge; have you forgotten what you engaged to pay?

Wotan
I well know what were the terms of those that built me yonder fortress;
by a contract I tamed their insolent race into building me this sublime abode,
which now stands---thanks to their strength:
as to the price, pay that no heed.

Fricka
O laughing, outrageous levity!
Loveless light-heartedness!
Had I know of your contract I would have prevented the fraud; but you men firmly kept the women away so that, deaf and silent to us, you could deal alone with the giants.
Thus shamelessly you brazenly bartered Freia, my lovely sister, and rejoiced at the base bargain.
What do you harsh men hold sacred and valuable when you thirst for power?

Wotan
Was Fricka truly free from like thirst when she herself begged me for the building?


Fricka
Concern over my consort’s constancy make me sadly ponder how to keep him by me when he is drawn to roam away: a stately dwelling, splendidly appointed, might tempt you to tarry here and rest.

But you, in building an abode, thought only of defense and battlement:
they would increase your dominion and power;
only to arouse storms of unrest did this towering castle arise.

Wotan
Though you wished, wife, to keep me in the castle, you must grant me, as a god, who, even confined in the fortress, I must win the outside world over to myself.
All who live love roaming and variety: I cannot relinquish this sport.

Fricka
Unloving, most unpleasant man!
For the idle toys of might and dominion would you, in blasphemous scorn, stake love and a woman ‘s worth?

Wotan
So as to win you for my wife I sacrificed one of my eyes to woo you: how stupid is your scolding now!
I prize women even more than pleases you!
And I will not yield our good Freia: in truth, I never had any such intention.

	Fricka Then protect her now; defenseless and frightened, she is hurrying here for help!

Wotan
Let him threaten! Did you not see Loge?

Fricka
You always prefer to trust that trickster!
Much harm he’s already done us, yet ever again he ensnares you.

Wotan
When simple courage suffices, I ask for none to help me.
But to turn to use foes’ jealousy only craft and cunning will serve, such as Loge artfully employs.
When he counseled this contract, he promised to deliver Freia: on him I now rely.

Fricka
And he forsakes you!
With quick strides the giants approach: where loiters your crafty helper?

Freia
Where linger my brothers, who should bring help, since my brother-in-law abandons me in my weakness?
Donner, help! Come hither!
Rescue Freia, my Froh!

Fricka
They who betrayed you in this base pact have now all gone to ground.





Fasolt
Sleep softly sealed your eyes while we two,
unsleeping,
built the fort.
Toiling mightily yet untiring,
we heaped up massive stones;
a lofty tower, door and gate guard and enclose the hall of the fine fortress.

There stands what we raised, brightly shining in the light of day:
now pass in and pay us our fee!

Wotan
Name your fee, my men: what do you think of asking?

Fasolt
We asked what seemed to us fair; is your memory so weak?

Freia the fair, Holda the free, it was agreed we should take home.

Wotan
Has this contract sent you off your heads?
Think of some other fee:
I cannot sell Freia.

Fasolt
What say you?
Ha, are you planning treachery?
Betray our bond?
The marks of solemn compact that your spear shows, are they but sport to you?

Fafner
Most trusty brother!
Simpleton, do you now see the swindle?

Fasolt
Son of light, easily swayed, hearken and beware:
hold my to your bond!
What you are, you are only by contract:
limited and well defined is your power.
You have more wisdom than we wits;
you bound us, who were free, to keep peace:
I will curse all your wisdom and flee from your peace if openly,
honorably and freely you do not know to keep faith in your bond!
A simple giant thus counsels you:
wise one, weigh his words!

Wotan
How cunning to take in earnest what was agreed only in jest!
The lovely goddess, bright and light, of what use is her charm to you louts?

Fasolt
Do you mock us?
Ha, how unjust!

You who rule by beauty, radiant, august race, how foolishly you strive for towers of stone, and place in pledge woman’s beauty for fortress and hall!

We dullards toil away, sweating, with our horny hands, to win a woman who, winsome and gentle, will live with us poor creatures:
and do you now upset our bargain?

Fafner
Cease you idle chatter, we’ll get no gain from this.
Custody of Freia serves little purpose; but to carry her off from the gods is worth much.

Golden apples grow in her garden; only she knows how to tend them!
By eating the fruit, her kindred are endowed with eternal, never ageing youth; sick and wan, their bloom will wane; old and weak, they will waste away if they are forced to forego Freia.


So let her be taken from their midst!

Wotan
Loge delays too long!

Fasolt
Straight give your answer!

Wotan
Think another fee!

Fasolt
No another: only Freia!

Fafner
You there, follow us!

Freia
Help! Help from these ruffians!


Froh
To me Freia! Let her be, rascal!
Froh will protect the fair one.

Donner
Fasolt and Fafner, have you yet felt my hammer’s heavy blow?

Fafner
Why do you threaten?

Fasolt
Why do you rush upon us?
We sought no strife and only want our wages.

Donner
Many a time have I paid giants their due.
Come on, the size of the payment I’ll weigh in full measure!

Wotan
Hold, hothead! Violence avails naught!

My spear shaft protects bonds: spare your hammer’s haft.

Freia Alas! Woe’s me! Wotan forsakes me! Fricka Do I understand you aright, cruel man?

Wotan (seeing Loge come) Loge at last! Is this how you hasten to right the evil bargain that you conclude?

Loge
What?
What bargain did I conclude?

That which you contracted with the giants in council?
My whim takes me to depths and heights: house and hearth delight me not.

Donner and Froh, they are dreaming of food and shelter!
When they want to wed, a house would gladden them.

A stately home, a stronghold, this was Wotan’s wish.

House and court, hall and keep, the glorious fortress now firmly stands;
its proud walls I myself tested;

	I found Fasolt and Fafner reliable: not a stone but was firm in its place. I was not idle, as were many here: he lies who rebukes me as lazy!

Wotan
You slyly evade the point: take good care how you betray me in my trust.
I, your only friend among all the gods, took you up when the rest mistrusted you.
Now speak and counsel well!

When those who built the castle stipulated Freia as payment, you know that I agreed only because you undertook to redeem the noble pledge.

Loge
To consider with the utmost care how to release her---that I promised.
But that I could find what never existed and never could succeed, how could that ever be promised?

Fricka
(to Wotan)
See what a treacherous knave you trusted!

Froh
Your name is Loge, but I call you liar!

Donner
Accursed fire, I’ll quench you!

Loge
To cover their disgrace the fools revile me.

Wotan
Leave my friend in peace!
You know not Loge’s wiles: his counsel is of richer weight when he delays in giving it.

Fafner
No delays!
Pay up quickly!

Fasolt
We’re waiting for our wages.

Wotan
Now listen, shifty one!
Keep your word!
Where have you been roving?

Loge
Ingratitude is always Loge’s lot!

Concerned but for you, I looked about,
feverishly ransacking the end of the earth to find a substitute for Freia,
such as would be fair to the giants.

In vein I searched,
and see now full well that in the whole wide world nothing is so rich
that a man will accept it in lieu of woman’s beauty and delight.


herever there is life and being,
in water,
earth and air,
I asked and sought of all,
where forces stir and seeds sprout: what would a man think mightier than woman’s beauty and delight?
But wherever there was life and being my cunning question was derided: in water, earth and air nothing will give up love and womankind.

Only one I saw who had forsworn love: for shining gold he had renounced woman’s affection.

The Rhine’s innocent children bewailed their plight to me: the Nibelung, night-Alberich, moped in vain for the maidens’ favors; in revenge, the robber then stole from them the Rhinegold; he now esteems it earth’s most precious prize, greater than woman’s grace.

For the glittering toy torn from the deep, the daughters made moan to me: to you, Wotan, they appeal to bring the thief to justice, and to give the gold back to the waters for it to remain their own forever.

I promised the maidens to tell you this: now Loge has kept his word.


Wotan
You are mad, if not downright malicious!
You see me in trouble myself: how can I bring others help?

Fasolt
I grudge the gnome this gold; much harm the Nibelung has already done us, yet the dwarf has always slyly slipped from out our clutches.

Fafner
New mischief will the Nibelung plot against us if the gold gives him power.

You there, loge!
Say without lies: of what great value is the gold then, that it satisfies the Nibelung?

Loge
It is a toy in the depths of the water, to give pleasure to laughing children;
but if it were fashioned into a round ring it would bestow supreme power and win its master the world.

Wotan
I have heard talk of the Rhine’s gold: its glittering glow hides runes of riches; a ring would give unbounded power and wealth.

Fricka
Would the golden trinket’s glittering gems equally serve as fair adornment for woman too?

Loge
A wife could ensure her husband’s fidelity if she decked herself with the bright ornament that dwarfs forge to shine, toiling in the power of the ring.


Fricka
Could my husband win this gold for himself?

Wotan
To control this ring seem wise to me.
But how, Loge, can I learn the art of forging this gem?

Loge A magic spell turns the gold into a ring.

No one knows it; but anyone can easily acquire it that renounces blissful love.

That you will not do; and you are too late also:

Alberich did not hesitate; boldly he gained the power of the spell: the ring became his.

Wotan
Then tell us, how?

Loge
By theft!
What a thief stole, you steal from the thief: could possessions be more easily acquired?
But Alberich guards himself with guile;
you must act shrewdly and subtly to bring the thief to justice

and to return to the rhinemaidens the gold,
for that is what they beg of you.

Wotan
The Rhinemaidens?
What is this counsel to me?


Fricka
I wish to know nothing of that watery brood: many a man?to my sorrow?have they lured their seductive sport.



Fafner
Believe me, that glittering gold is worth more than Freia:
for eternal youth he gains who commands it by gold’s magic.


Hear, Wotan, what we have at last to say!
Freia may stay with you in peace;
an easier fee I’ve found in settlement:
we rough giants would be satisfied with the Nibelung’s shining gold.

Wotan
Have you lost your senses?
Can I give you, shameless ones, what I do not own?

Fafner
The castle there was hard to build: it will be easy for you; with cunning craft whish we in quarrels could never command, to fetter the Nibelung firmly.

Wotan
Shall I exert myself against the dwarf for you?
For you fetter the foe?
You fools, my debt has made you shameless and over-covetous.

Fasolt
Came here, girl! You are in our power!
Follow us now as hostage till we receive your ransom.

Freia
Woe! Woe is me!


Fafner
Let her be carried far from here!
Till evening?pay due heed?we will hold her as hostage: we shall return; but when we came, if as ransom the bright gleaming Rhinegold is not lying ready?

Fasolt
Then the time will be up and Freia forfeit: she will go with us forever!



Freia
Sister! Brothers! Save me! Help!

(She is dragged away by the giants as they hurry off)

Froh
Up, after them!

Donner
Let us break everything!

Freia
Save me! Help!

Loge
Over stock and stone they stride down to the valley;
through the ford across the Rhine wade the giants:
Freia hangs, far from happy, over the ruffians’ shoulders!
Heia! Hei! How the louts lurch along!
Now they tramp through the valley: only at the boundary of Riesenheim will they make a pause.

On what does Wotan brood so darkly?
How goes it with the glorious gods?
Does a mist deceive me?
Does a dream mock me?
How anxious and pale you’ve suddenly become!
The bloom has fled from your cheeks; the light has faded from your eyes!

Courage, froh, it is but early yet!

From your hand, Donner, the hummer falls!

How is it with Fricka?
Is she displeased with Wotan’s gray gloom that suddenly turns him into a graybeard?

Fricka
Alas! Alas! What has happened?

Donner
My hand drops.

Froh
My heart falters.

Loge
I have it: hear what it is you lack!
Of Freia ‘s fruit you have not yet eaten today:
the golden apples in her garden make you hearty and young when you eat them every day.
She who tended the garden is now a hostage; one the branch the fruit fades and withers; soon it will decay and fall.
It irks me less; to me Freia has always been ungenerous, niggardly with the precious fruit: for I am only half as godlike as you glorious ones!

But you staked all on the youth-giving fruit:
this the giants knew well;
your life they laid against it:
now take care to defend it.
Withered,
the scorn of all the world,
the race of gods will die.

Fricka
Wotan, husband, unhappy man!
See how your giddy thoughtlessness has brought disgrace and humiliation on us all!

Wotan
Come, Loge, come down with me!
We will descend to Nibelheim: I will procure the gold.

Loge
The Rhinemaidens appealed to you: can they hope for a hearing?

Wotan
Silence, babbler!
Freia the kind, Freia we must deliver.

Loge
As you command, I will willingly lead you steeply down: shall we journey through the Rhine?

Wotan
Not through the Rhine!

Loge
Then shall we swing down through the sulfurous cleft?
Slip into it with me!

Wotan
You others wait here till evening: our loss of youth I’ll banish with redeeming gold!

Donner
Fare thee well, Wotan!

Froh
Good luck! Good luck!

Fricka
O return soon to your anxious wife!

Orchestral interlude