Höre mit Sinn (1:49)

Composer: Richard Wagner
Libbretist: Richard Wagner
from DIe Götterdämmerung (1874)
Waltraute's Narrative

From the final opera of Wagner's epic Ring cycle, the warrior maiden Waltraute has come to plead to her banished fellow warrior Brünnhilde to give back the perilous ring to the mermaids of the Rhine, from whom the gold used to make the ring was stolen.

. . . da brach sich sein Blick;
er gedachte, Bünnhilde, dein!
Tief seufzt' er auf,
schloss das auge,
und wie im Traume
raunt' er das Wort:
"des tiefen Rheines Töchtern
gäbe den Ring sie wieder zurück,
von des Fluches Last
erlöst wär' Gott und Welt!"

. . .Then his fixed stare softened;
He was thinking, Brünnhilde, of you!
He sighed deeply
closed his eyes,
and as if in a dream
whispered these words:
"If ever to the Rhine Daughters
she would return the ring
from the weight of the curse
Freed would be the Gods and the world."