Having ascertained that she has not ceased to breathe, almost glad perhaps for her of this respite from self-torment, he lets her gently down on to the ground, and seats himself so as to make an easy resting-place for her head.
Thus the Valkyrie finds them. At her approach, three solemn notes are heard which intimate as if something awful and not to be escaped--whose solemn awfulness consists in great part of the fact that it cannot be escaped,--like Fate. "Siegmund!" she calls him, with firm voice, "look upon me! I am that one whom in short space you must follow!" Siegmund lifts his eyes from the sleeping face upon which they have been fondly brooding, and beholds the shining apparition. "Who are you, tell me, appearing to me, so beautiful and grave?" "Only those about to die can see my face. He who beholds me must depart from the light of life. On the field of battle I appear to the noble alone. He who becomes aware of me, has been singled out for my capture!" Siegmund gazes quietly and long and inquiringly into her eyes, and: "The hero who must follow you, whither do you take him?" "To the Father of Battles who has elected you, I shall lead you. To Walhalla you shall follow me." "In the hall of Walhalla shall I find none but the Father of Battles?" "The glorious assemblage of departed heroes shall gather around you companionably, with high and holy salutation." "Shall I in Walhalla find Wälse, my own father?" "The Wälsung shall find his father there." "Shall I in Walhalla be greeted gladsomely by a woman?" "Divine wish-maidens there hold sway; the daughter of Wotan shall trustily proffer you drink." "Unearthly fair are you; I recognise the holy child of Wotan; but one thing tell me, you Immortal! Shall the bride and sister accompany the brother? Shall Siegmund clasp Sieglinde there?" "The air of earth she still must breathe. Siegmund shall not find Sieglinde there!" The hero bends over the unconscious woman, kisses her softly on the brow, and turns quietly again to Brünnhilde: "Then bear my greeting to Walhalla! Greet for me Wotan, greet for me Wälse and all the heroes; greet for me likewise the benign wish-maidens: I will not follow you to them!"
In this strangely impressive and moving dialogue, the Brünnhilde-part is upborne on the stately, high and cold Walhalla theme; the Siegmund-part gives over and over one urgent heartful questioning phrase, filled with human yearning and sorrow: the motif of love and death. "Where Sieglinde lives in joy or sorrow, there will Siegmund likewise abide,..." he pronounces. When he is informed that he has no choice but to follow, that he is to fall through Hunding, that its virtue has been withdrawn from his sword, justly incensed, he declares that if this be true,--if he, shame to him! who forged for him the sword, allotted him ignominy in place of victory, he will not go to Walhalla, Hella shall hold him fast!