Das Rheingold: Erzte Szene

Darkness: not of the eyes, but from
Behind the eyes, as far as they can see,
Wild and wasted, empty, blank
As an unwritten song. It pulses, the nothing
Pulses, is itself: this vane unity has being, and so divides,
Splits in two, and each of these together forms a third,
And from the third, a fifth, and so on flies
The infinite space. Now there is all
And one, and one is all, and all is one. The nothing, noted, swells
Like a movement, like a trickling movement, a slight drip, flash
That drops across the stillness, spreads and grows into a rivulet,
A stream. The stream courses, multiplies its unity, procreates
A roaring river’s rush: the Rhine eddies and pools
Through this immensity of darkness, conjoins with, conforms
To its towering depths; its mist becomes an air, the air,
A mist, rolling, flowing back into the water,
Reeling round the rising rock, crags, darkness down
And up above. The darkness lengthens, folds,
And from its folding shapes come shades, gradations, genesis
Of colored light. This green fog, ample bosom
Of the waves that glide beneath the lichen and the rock,
Now cloaks a barren earth who squirms and claws, pushing up
Sinuous clods that mix with the rising mist, into which
The water breathes and laps, who sit, falling into flourishes
Of scattered pose, lips, ruby-baked in Erda’s
Oven, rise into lumps and breaded breasts, necks,
And throats that join in fleshy song: “Weiala weia,
Weiala weia haha”, floating over and above the waters,
Leaping, diving, kicking in the garden, rocking
Cradle of primeval light. “Woglinde, watching alone?”
The river seems to speak, and to itself reply,
“We would be two, if Wellgunde happened by.”
A splash, and from the rippling depths emerge
Maidens of the mere, Rhine’s daughters,
Laughing in the wending waters.
First the other dashes, then the one, slipping like a fish,
Anticipates her flight in covered coves; now she in turn,
Wellgunde, flies; they play and flip, half seize
Each other’s Rhine-smoothed tails. “Wild sisters, weird,
Who ring the rocks of Moonborne’s early grace—”
“Flosshilde, check her leap!” “Better keep the gold,
The shining, dawn-born sleeper; throng
The lovely boy!” But as she speaks (the ringing conch’s
Rush) she slithers off the rock and plunges
In between the glimmer of the chasing twins. The one, then both
Evade her, laughter twinkling on the air. “Haha! You Nixies,”
Belching from the dark, a dwarfish devil creeps and climbs,
Pinching, clutching with his pincers at the craggy rock, there perches,
Poised above the rousing scene, a hardened, ruddy crab,
Waiting to claw a crusty fish. “What is that?” Woglinde cries, be-stilled,
Then twisting like an insect in a web. Her sisters, for a moment, float
Like glaciers through the mist, then melt, ascend like mist
From the abyss – the fascinated tryst joins at
The water’s highest slope and scans the depths
To catch the thing who interlopes. But Alberich is groping for a voice,
Baritone of grinding rocks or sliding quakes: “My heart
Begins to shake; molten lava never burned so fierce, and never
Would I swim, to sear myself in Niebel’s burning night,
But passion beckons, and I think the immolation of my body
Works the thing I want.” “Dive deeper sisters,
Look who is below,” Wellgunde cries, and arcs the piercing flood,
To quiver like a spear plunged in the banks. Her sisters dive
Along her side, as swordfish jumping high will tumble low,
And gawk upon the dwarf, upon the lusty heights.
“What a schmuck,”
A double moan, as winds do when they plan a storm.
Flosshilde gives high counsel, “Father warned with
Cool, loquacious tongue of men who live below the earth,
Below the gentle folds and floods of his protective arms, a species
Older than the giants Mother belched to smite the hoary sun
For ravishing her burning peaks. Forged in anger, forging
Always twist of lavish steel in fiery loins, the Niebelung
Would eat a home from out the world’s heart. ‘Fear for the gold,’
He said, ‘Since darkness hates our light.’” But, “Vixen of the waves,”
Alberich calls, and “What want you?” Woglinde, youngest, now replies.
“I see you playing in the mere; I see the waters half-caress
Your flying forms, evading even that in silver slips
With light that sparkles through you, surges
On the waves, tossing back the dazzle
Of a golden sun, and long to touch my precious
Premonitions, jewels of my wondering eyes.” “My fright,”
Flosshilde barely can suppress a laugh, and claps
Her hands, “Was vain, misplaced; the dwarf is dazed,
And dozes in the languor of an insane love.”
“I’ll get him up to speed,” Woglinde dives, then flashes
On a rock nearby. “She comes! Will one fall near?”
A throaty gurgle in anticipation of climactic acts;
Alberich extends a hand in salutation
(While his other readjusts suspended slacks). Woglinde
Tosses sea-slicked hair, glimmering with water
Like the moon-drenched sun, and puckers
Coral lips: “Come hither, lover of the night,”
And just as soon, as when a playful ball
Escapes the young girls’ grasp, she falls away,
Floats quickly down the stream,
And leaves her Alberich with only fleeting dreams. “Up here,”
A church-bell peals; the dozing friar
Starts, comes to himself, and then, to come to her,
Struggles up the greasy rock. He leaps,
Then slips, then hangs above the hungry waves
On swaying limbs; gathering momentum forces him
To fly, and so, an inept monkey tumbling through tall trees,
He climbs. “Achem, Achem, the lichen
Loosens my fingers, while the rocks’ sharpening teeth
Gnaw at my feet, and meanwhile swirling mist
Besieges my nose, invading either nostril
Forces out an ill-timed sneeze; I can’t see
Or breathe, I grope on a slippery frieze.” “The far off
Murmurs of a lover’s glee,” Woglinde coos.
“You’ve but a foot to go to reach me; I can see
Your raspy hand, clutching for the surface
Near my toe.” “Oh child of my love,
You’re mine at last.” “If I am yours, then follow me
Here,” Woglinde teases through the water
To a nearby rock. The dwarf, bemused:
“While all my wit can barely scale
Ten feet, a graceful flip will carry you away
Just when we’d meet.” Woglinde arches,
Pitches with a spin and spirals deep, a hundred feet
Below. “Would you prefer an inferior seat?”
“At least it’s safer,” distraught, he mumbles and,
With muscles taut, he stumbles down the dizzy rock,
Arrives, and suffers from another lie.
“Higher, higher, for a better view!” The sisters laugh,
The dwarf makes moan, and flops down on his stomach,
Squeezes irritated eyes, squirms, kicks, and writhes:
“False fish, flowing through my hands
Like spilling streams. Wait! Let, at least,
Just let me catch my breath.” “Why catch your breath
When you can catch me here?”
The second lights up near the rock
Just on the prostrate Nieblung’s other side.
“You call for me?” “I’ll give you a tip:
Come here, ignore Woglinde’s tricks,
For thus Wellgunde’s wish.” Weary, wishful,
Half undeceived, half hoping he is undeceived,
He ruminates and plots a better course:
“Come closer, lusty maiden, for your light
Is joy; you shine brighter than your sister, seem realer,
More substantial than her dream – but let me pinch you,
Just to be sure.” The maiden swims close, slaps her tail,
And showers Alberich with briny gems, then swirls out,
And circles on the tide. “Now am I near?”
The sneezing, dwarf, shaking in the draft and with his need,
“Not near enough for me to comb your golden hair, to pet
Your supple scales, to kiss your little nipples
And give mad embrace.” “Who are you, that would dare
So frivolous a liberty? Let’s see,” and she swims
Round and round, but half her upper half submerged
To give the wicked dwarf a glimpse: “A crusty little imp, flaky,
Pointed, bald on top, but from your beard down to your loins,
Grosser than the slimy rocks, and blacker too; hug coal, or plunge
In muck: find your love in something dark
As thee.” And now she perches on the rock,
And knots her finger in an ivory twist
Of tress. Enraged, the glowering dwarf tries to engage
Her in a grip, which she evades to show him
That she too can, like Woglinde, slip.
Again the sisters laugh; the Nieblung rasps,
“Perfidious strumpet, bony, cold-blooded fish,
If I’m not light, if my feet don’t dance on the rock
Like yours o’er the water, I fresh-shorn, shiny,
Smooth – well if that’s what you like, how you feel,
Go play with a slippery eel!” “Don’t complain
In haste,” and now Flosshilde croons, careens
Into his lap. She leans into his lips,
And strokes his shaggy face. “If twice you fail,”
She whispers in his ear with tickling tongue,
Then bites the shocked dwarf’s lobe,
“At least remember there are three.”
“Oh lucky number, three is thrice
What I could ever hope from one,
And more than none,” He babbles,
Holds Flosshilde ‘til she wheezes,
“Foolish sisters, how could you deny
This lover’s tender squeezes?” They titter,
While she struggles for a breath, then mounts,
With unexpected weight,
The kobold’s straddled chest, who addled, leans
Into her lap. “Sing me a gracious song
With your soothing voice, you beast.”
The creature starts, then sighs subtly,
“I lose myself in your lovely light,
Your limber, lascivious length,
Longing to love you, loving you long
With a fond and lingering heart.”
“Your beauty,” she in canticle replies,
“More lovely than a bog of peat,
Sets fire to my eyes, and over fond
I wail and weep.” “Flosshilde,
Flowering flame of my fluttering
Fantasy, an ecstasy, who rule your crazy,
Craving kobold with a kiss!”
“Of those lips, sprouting from the pimple
In between your ears, for the kiss
Of craven kobold I long,
And for wretched, retching,
Refreshing drink from decanters
Of pure and purest filth.”
“Come to me my darling, let me kiss you
With the kisses of my lips!” Flosshilde squirms
And turns the other cheek, the sisters gasp
And mocking laughter dances
On the peaks. “What?” Alberich, enraged,
Lets loving loose, “They dare
To taunt?” Then he gives his girl
A greedy gaze, “Let them play,
For who would pay an ass to hear them
Speak their mind?” “I would,
If it were you!” Flosshilde
Pushes him away, he grasps at her
Too lightly and she lightly leaps,
Skidding off to join her sisters on the higher rocks.
Alberich howls as if struck, claws
At his hair in a blind rage, beats
A battered heart, “She too, she deserts me too,
She too? Ah, I am assailed, besieged
On every side. Within me my heart
Burns to leap upon the girls out of my chest,
Without they slip and glide about, everywhere,
Give way before my grasp like ghosts,
And still they burn my eyes
And make me blaze.” On a distant peak,
The Rhine-maids laugh and loll, twanging
Voices in the air, pouring blandishments and promising
Their loyalty, if ever they were caught. “I shall
Assault them, won’t turn back,
I give myself to lust and rage!” With a thunderous crack,
Alberich leaps, flapping his arms, screeching like a wild
Crane, then swoops upon the daughters of the Rhine, who laugh
And flee. The water whorls, pools around the chaser
And the chase, the rocks shudder wherever foaming Alb’rich
Throws his weight, re-echo everywhere the maidens’ glee.
He slinks, he boils, flashes, perches at a height,
Then plummets like a hawk; the three explode his dive,
And churn through tempestuous waves. Falling, scrambling into
And then out of water, shivering, bounding and rebounding,
Always touching scale or fin or lock with struggling fingers,
Lurching in the gurgle of a strangled breath – finally,
As when the rumbling earth subsides before a last
And telling effort, Alberich gasps, deflates,
And – only for a moment – rests. As when a storm
Rages through the valleys, rumbles on the crags,
Ripping up clods of land, chasing farmers
And shepherds in their terror alike, frightening
The bleating sheep, and pounding a withering crop
With lash upon lash of cold hale, a heaven-born harvest
Borne upon and by the beaten earth,
Then with a last, fulminating hit, goes hence,
But leaves one parting gift, a fresher smell to seep
From the grass, and a faint light, bridging the gap
Between the frozen peaks and guarding the dome of the sky
Enveloped of novel blue, to, like a crowning jewel in her diadem, set
Bright red, viridian, opal and gold – so while the spent dwarf
Glowers bolts at the ground, a light bursts through the mere,
At first a lucent streak, a boulevard of rippling gleams,
Now in crescendo waxing highways, uninterrupted
Tides of gold on the waters, gold that reflects off the hills.
“Hark, sisters, through the glowering gloom, the sun salutes
The gold.” “The sleeper is roused
By her tender kiss, the coffers of his eyes
Open, they flash and play on the water, envelop us all
In a smile of transfixing song. Rheingold! Rheingold!
Rein of glittering gold, who steady the course of the waters
And clear the gloss of the mists. Rheingold! Rheingold!
Let us turn and twist, entwine you with trembling garlands,
Sing of your lucid genius, play in your furrows and folds.
Rheingold! Rheingold! The sleeper awakes, the dream
Of the sleeper awakes!” Three voices, darting over each other,
Climbing, twisting, knotting, resolved and flowing dulcet
In flowering vines bearing harmonized grapes and fermenting
With sound of the purest wine. Inebriate, the Nieblung
Changes love for greed, and, with groping gaze, grazes
The flickering gold. “What is that whose watery gleams
Pierce my cupid heart and stir my murmuring mind?
There is a whispering promise, a vague rumor, harsh but proud,
In these waters, suggesting a glory, a fate, and a race.”
“Oh imp, hath lived under rock, not to know of the wanderer
Who wakes and sleeps in turn, the rein of the Rhine, his order
Of tremulous gold? This is Rheingold, light of our hearts,
Heart of our souls, glorious star, smooth and shimmering gleam.”
“And is it good for more then pretty words, or good for nothing
Else?” “Foolish dwarf, if only you knew, you would revere it,
Prostrate yourself to the depths, gape in awe, follow the gleam
To the ends of earth and down the abyss if it led you. For he
Who forges the Rhine-gilded ring will inherit the earth,
And all will bow to its lord.” “Fear, fear that freezes the heart
And numbs the limbs, Father’s warning, the breaking
Rapids’ rage at the traitor, benedict who steals the gold, overtakes me,
Traitor to life! Gossips, guard the gold, pledge yourself
To the playful gleam!” “Benedict of life? Flosshilde, benedict
Of love, I will protest, for only he who curses love, forsakes
All pleasure to mull on wealth and fame his remnant days,
Only he can forge the ring; and should he live
A thousand shriveling years, he will never know again
The sweet touch driving the signet heavens
And leading the earthly flocks, for whom
The winds part and horses train through the streams;
Will brood upon darkness, in darkness, with dark
And bitter heart.” “My fears evaporate, Woglinde, you bring me
Into the burning light that none would deny, and not a few
Cherish, caress, and long for, moving all things,
And surely most incredibly this dwarf, this vile imp,
With pants and foams with love like a rabid dog.”
“Foolish fish, prattling prawns,” Alberich mutters,
And mumbling privately, turns up thoughts
Half undiscovered, obscurely rooted, radicals
Of craven seeds. “If I cannot have love, if my lot
Is the foul and the ugly, then I will be ugliest,
Foulest of all, fearsome and fearful, towering wealth
Will buy my lust.” And gathering his strength,
He thrusts his body into the air, jets high, spurts
Like water from a bursting pipe, onto the highest rock,
Where the golden eye surveys the Rhine, green valleys,
And a distant, snowy, cloud-capped peak.
“Look! He takes flight, the penguin has become
A crook-necked vulture, ravenous and mad with love.
The water foams where he’s lurched. Haha!”
Rhine’s daughters tumble, double over, laughing, gasping
For more, merry breath. “The gold,” Alberich wrenches
Red fingers into the rock, the flickering fire slips
From its socket, “Yields to my touch. Laugh and be whimsy,
My nixies, my treacherous maids. I’ll snatch your sun
From under you, I’ll forge that ring in the world’s
Burning heart, and leave you in darkness, black darkness.
Waves, hear, custodians of the wavering sea, I
Profane forever love!” He rips the gold, the glimmering light
Is gone, and cold night falls upon the banks, the maids, whose titters
Turn to sobs. “Capture the robber!” “Rescue the gold!”
“Help us! Help! Help!” Already somewhere deep,
From the re-echoing rocks, the original darkness’ retreat,
Rotten core of the earth, the cackling Nieblung sneers.