“Two principal motives of my myth, therefore, remain to be represented, both of which are hinted at in ‘Young Siegfried,’ the first in the long narrative of Brünnhilde after her awakening (Act III.), and the second in the scene between Alberich and the Wanderer in the second act, and between the Wanderer and Mime in the first. That to this I was led not only by artistic reflection, but by the splendid and, for the purpose of representation, extremely rich material of these motives, you will readily understand when you consider the subject more closely. Think then of the wondrously fatal love of Siegmund and Sieglinde, of Wotan, in his deep, mysterious relation to that love, in his dispute with Fricka, in his terrible self-contention when, for the sake of custom, he decrees the death of Siegmund; finally of the glorious Valkyrie Brünnhilde, as, divining the innermost thought of Wotan, she disobeys the god, and is punished by him; consider this wealth of motive indicated in the scene between the Wanderer and the Wala, and at greater length in the above-mentioned tale of Brünnhilde, as the material of a drama which precedes the two ‘Siegfrieds’; and you will understand that it was not reflection, but rather enthusiasm, which inspired my latest plan. That plan extends to three dramas: (1) ‘The Valkyrie’; (2) ‘Young Siegfried’; (3) ‘Siegfried’s Death.’ In order to give everything completely, these three dramas must be preceded by a grand introductory play, ‘The Rape of the Rhinegold.’ The object is the complete representation of everything in regard to this rape; the origin of the Nibelung treasure, the possession of that treasure by Wotan, and the curse of Alberich, which in ‘Young Siegfried’ occur in the form of narration.” [Illustration: RICHARD WAGNER’S STUDIO IN BAYREUTH. From a photograph of a painting by R. Steche. ] Thus we find him impelled by the demands as well as the artistic possibilities of a fruitful story to the construction of his great tetralogy, consisting of the dramas eventually named “Das Rheingold” (“The Rhinegold”), “Die Walküre” (“The Valkyrie”), “Siegfried,” and “Die Götterdämmerung” (“The Dusk of the Gods”). A further incentive to the creation of this four-part work was his belief that the true lyric play should be modelled after the Greek drama, in whose literature he found the trilogy of Æschylus—the “Agamemnon,” “Chœphoræ,” and “Eumenides” and “The Seven against Thebes,” believed to have been the final play of a tetralogy. He began to labor at this gigantic undertaking without any definite hope of its performance; indeed, with doubts as to his living to complete it. So great, however, was his enthusiasm that, in spite of the formidable artistic problems which he had to solve and the novelty and complexity of his own musico-dramatic system, now to be developed for the first time to its logical outcome, he had the poem completed and printed for private circulation early in 1853.[3]