There has been some of Wagner's finest and freshest love-music, and one entrancing effect is got when a puff of wind suddenly blows the door open. The storm has ceased, and there we see the forest bathed in a spring moonlight, the raindrops on the young leaves dancing and gleaming. It is at this moment Siegmund sings the wonderful spring song. In the next act Wotan tells Brunnhilda she must protect Siegmund in the coming fight; but Fricka seeks him out in this rocky place amongst the hills, and compels him to promise on oath that Siegmund shall die to atone for his violation of the sacred rite of marriage. Brunnhilda reenters, and then occurs a scene which has caused much debate. At enormous length Wotan recounts to her practically all we have already seen and heard before. It may be, as I have said, that Wagner wanted to make each opera comprehensible in itself, without reference to the others; it may be that his artistic sense forced him to make it clearer and ever clearer that each tragedy as it happens is Wotan's tragedy; but, in any case, I, for one, never regret when the scene is somewhat shorn. Wotan is defeated in this attempt to observe the word of the law, but break the spirit. He cannot wield the sword himself, but he made it and placed it where and so that the hero alone could take it. The hero is of the seed of his loins, and the fact that Wotan has made life bitter for him counts for nothing against that fact; and, finally, though he could not himself aid Siegmund, he ordered his daughter to do so. He wished Siegmund to act of his own free-will, and yet to do what he, Wotan, wanted. Checked by Fricka, he revokes his command to Brunnhilda, and goes off cursing fate. Siegmund and Sieglinda enter, flying before Hunding; Sieglinda faints, and at last sleeps; and then Brunnhilda steps forward from among the rocks in the gloomy half-light--a stern, imposing, indeed an awful, figure, the herald of death, seen only by warriors about to die. The Fate theme sounds from the orchestra, and another melody, out of which nearly the whole scene is woven, is heard, and then, to a simple chord--supernatural, ghostly in its effect--she calls Siegmund. She tells him he is to die and go with her to Valhalla. He pleads in vain; she (simply, be it remembered, a part of her father's will) cannot understand why he should refuse to go where his father and so many famous warriors have already gone. "So young and fair, and yet so cold and stern!" Siegmund exclaims; and at last he asks whether Sieglinda will also be there. "Siegmund will see Sieglinda no more," she replies to a quiet phrase of unspeakable pathos. Then Siegmund refuses to go with her, and he draws his sword to slay first Sieglinda, then himself. Brunnhilda is overwhelmed by the revelation of a love so devoted, and at last promises to help him. It is her own nature as is revealed to her. Night and storm come on; Hunding's horn is heard as he comes nearer and nearer; Siegmund mounts amongst the