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Be happy in the Grisons, you godlike man. When you work at the "Nibelungen," let me be with you, and keep me within you even as you have received me in truth and love. Your WEYMAR, July 17th, 1853. Enclosed I send you a letter from Kohler, which you may on occasion return to me. Have you read his pamphlet "The Melody of Speech"? Perhaps you might write a few words to him.
The possibility suggests itself that the Brynhild part of the story, on the other hand, is of Scandinavian origin, and thence passed to Germany. It is at least curious that the Nibelungen Lied places Prunhilt in Iceland. Wagner and the Volsung Cycle.
There is one point about the Norse mythology which is of the utmost importance to the proper comprehension of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen. The gods of Teutonic legend are not immortal. In the Edda the death of the gods is often mentioned, and distinct reference is made to their inevitable downfall. Behind Valhalla towers the gigantic figure of Fate, whose reign is eternal.
"It was made up of nothing but precious stones and gold; Were all the world bought from it, and down the value told, Not a mark the less would there be left than erst there was, I ween." Nibelungen Lied, XIX. Whoever possessed the Nibelungen hoard were termed Nibelungers. Thus at one time certain people of Norway were so called.
For the men, Yudishtura, Rama, Arjuna, Solomon, most of the Old and New Testament characters; Achilles, Ulysses, Theseus, Prometheus, Hercules, Aeneas, Plutarch's heroes; the Merlin of Celtic bards; the Cid, Arthur and his knights, Siegfried and Hagen in the Nibelungen; Roland and Oliver; Roustam in the Shah-Nemah; and so on to Milton's Satan, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Shakspere's Hamlet, Richard II., Lear, Marc Antony, &c., and the modern Faust.
These were the materials which Kalidasa, the Attic dramatists, and the bards of the Nibelungen found ready, awaiting their artistic treatment. But the mythology of the New World, with all its pretty and agreeable naivete, affords hardly enough, either of variety in situation or of complexity in motive, for a grand epic or a genuine tragedy.
The property of which she spoke consisted of a Breitkopf and Hartel grand-piano that looked better than it sounded, and of the 'title-page' of the Nibelungen by Cornelius in a Gothic frame that used to hang over my desk in Dresden. With this nucleus of household effects we now decided to take small lodgings in the so-called 'hinteren Escherhausern' in the Zeltweg.
This change will the more easily be understood when the deep impression is remembered which the terrible Mongolic war-leader had made on the popular mind in southern Germany, where the Nibelungen epic was cast into its present shape.
Aurora forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though Tithonus is immortal, he is old. Achilles is not quite invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis held him. Siegfried, in the Nibelungen, is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be.
I cordially participate in this essential improvement of your life at Zurich, and am glad that you can give yourself up to your genius, and complete the gigantic mental mountain range of your NIBELUNGEN, without disturbance from neighbouring smiths and pianists. Have the W.'s moved into their villa yet? Convey my humble compliments to the amiable lady, and greet W. most cordially.
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