Here the text fully identifies the music as the motive of renunciation, and as such we recognize this melody when Wotan in the last scene of “Die Walküre” parts from his best beloved daughter, Brünnhilde. This first identification of a theme enables the composer to attain some of his finest effects, for he makes some motives have an air of prophecy. For instance, two motives are especially connected with Siegfried, and one of them refers to his being a great hero. This motive is first heard in the last scene of “Die Walküre” before Siegfried is born, and before Brünnhilde knows that he is to be her lover. Yet it is Brünnhilde who voices it in foretelling his birth to Sieglinde:— [Illustration: The highest hero of worlds hid’st thou, O wife, in sheltering shrine. ] Thenceforward we know that melody to be the theme of Siegfried, the hero. Immediately following this is introduced a theme which appears again in the full voicing of the orchestra after Brünnhilde has restored the Rhine gold to its rightful owners and immolated herself on Siegfried’s funeral pyre at the end of the last drama of the series. If we wonder at its meaning there, we refer to its first appearance in “Die Walküre,” and find that Sieglinde utters it as a proclamation of the divine womanhood of Brünnhilde:— [Illustration: Oh, marvelous sayings, Maiden divine. ] Another example will show how a representative theme may be modified, according to the development of the person whom it represents, without losing its identity. The theme which has special reference to Siegfried’s buoyancy of spirit, the producer of youthful enthusiasm, is intoned by the hero on his horn thus:— [Illustration: [Music]] In “Die Götterdämmerung,” when Siegfried has become a fully developed man, this melody is modified so as to signify his mature heroism. It is then proclaimed by the orchestra thus:— [Illustration: [Music]]