The  Sword  Motive  rings  out  like  a  joyous  shout,  and
Sieglindes  voice  mingles  with  the  triumphant  notes  of
the  Walsungs'  Call  to  Victory  as  she  turns  to  Siegmtmd:

Oh,  found  I  in  thee
The  friend  in  need  !

The  Motive  of  the  Walsungs'  heroism,  now  no  longer


44


WAGNER'S  MUSIC-DRAMAS.
full  of  tragic  import,  but  forceful  and  defiant — and  Sieg-
mund  holds  Szeglinde  in  his  embrace.  There  is  a  rush
of  wind.  The  woven  hangings  flap  and  fall.  As  the
lovers  turn,  a  glorious  sight  greets  their  eyes.  The
landscape  is  illumined  by  the  moon.  Its  silver
sheen  flows  down  the  hills  and  quivers  along  the
meadows  whose  grasses  tremble  in  the  breeze.  All
nature  seems  to  be  throbbing  in  unison  with  the  hearts
of  the  lovers.  The  voices  of  spring — the  season  when
love  opens  like  the  buds — are  whispered  to  St'eginund  hy
the  orchestra,  and  as  he  hears  them  he  greets  Szeglinde
with  the  Love  Song  :


35.
The  Love  Motive,  impassioned,  irresistible,  sweeps
through  the  harmonies — and  Love  and  Spring  are
united.  The  Love  Motive  also  pulsates  through  Sieg-
linde's  ecstatic  reply  after  she  has  given  herself  fully  up
to  Siegmund  in  the  Flight  Motive — for  before  his  coming
her  woes  have  fled  as  winter  flies  before  the  coming  of
spring.    With  Siegmund' s  exclamation  :

Oh,  wondrous  vision !
Rapturous  woman !

there  rises  from  the  orchestra  like  a  vision  of  loveliness
the  Motive  of  Freia  (No.  12),  the  Venus  of  German  myth-
ology.   In   its  embrace  it  folds  this   pulsating  theme.
which  throbs  on  like  a  long  love-kiss  until  it  seem-


"  THE    VALKYR."  45

ingly  yields    to  the   blandishments   of    this    caressing
phrase  :

i,^:    U  J.
