Surge – Outflow
Sensitivity sentences one to loneliness,
empathy brings one closer to people.
Subsequent influx and efflux of feelings
teach the physics of existence.
I know,
I will not build the bridge between heaven and earth,
I will not catch up the waning moon,
I will not find the end of the rainbow.
I'm so close, you can almost touch my hand
and yet I’m far distant from your thoughts.
Life disappoints, dreams give hope.
"Das Rheingold" was the first of the four music dramas that constituted Richard Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (The Ring of the Nibelung); however, it was the last to be conceived. His plans for the cycle grew backwards from the tale of the death of Siegfried. In August 1851 he announced his intention to "produce my myth in three complete dramas" but by October decided he also needed a prelude. The prose draft of "Das Rheingold" was completed in March 1852 and its verse draft between September and November; a fair copy of the text was finished by 15 December. It premiered at the National Theatre Munich on 22 September 1869, though Wagner wanted it to premiere as part of the entire cycle, and it was not until 1876 that it was performed as part of the complete cycle. Considerably shorter than its three successors, it consisted of four scenes performed without a break. Wagner chose to use only a handful of the Germanic gods,"light-spirits who inhabit the cloudy heights," and combined some of them into the same character. The story concerned the theft of the gold from the Rhine maidens by Alberich, a Nibelung dwarf, which Wotan, ruler of the gods, hoped to give to the giants Fasolt and Fafner in exchange for Freia, the goddess of youth and beauty and feminine love, whom he has promised to them in exchange for building a castle for the gods to reside in. Donner (god of thunder) and Froh (god of spring) arrived to defend their sister Freia, but Wotan prevented them from acting due to his duty to uphold agreements. After achieving his purpose, Wotan and the gods prepared to enter their new home. Donner summoned a thunderstorm to clear the air, then Froh created a rainbow bridge that stretched to the gate of the castle, which Wotan named Valhalla. According to Norse legend, Bifrost, the sacred rainbow bridge, connected Midgard (the human realm) with Asgard (the realm of the gods), and Asgard with the Urdar well at the foot of the great ash Yggdrasil; it was constructed from fire, water, and air and has retained the original quivering and changing hues, and will collapse and shatter beneath the weight of the Frost Giants fightng against the gods during Ragnarok, the end of the cosmos. Although the other gods appeared in other parts of the cycle, Donner appeared only in "Das Rheingold." He was more generally known as Thor; his brother Froh, the twin brother of Freia, was otherwise known as Freyr. Thor ("Þórr" in Old Norse) had at least 14 names but his oldest recorded appearance by name ("Þonar") was on a 7th-century piece of jewelry, the Nordendorf fibula, found in Bayern; he was known in Old High German as "Donar," stemming from a Common Germanic "*Þunraz" (thunder). Freyr (Frey), perhaps derived from the Proto-Norse "*frawjaz" (lord), was associated with sacral kingship, virility, prosperity, sunshine, and fair weather (and was regarded as an ancestor of the Swedish royal house). The 12th-century Danish "Gesta Danorum" described him (Frø) as a "viceroy of the gods." Adamus Bremensis wrote "Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum" (Deeds of Bishops of the Hamburg Church) ca. 1080, in which he Latinized Freyr's name as Fricco; he described the pagan temple at Uppsala: "In this temple, entirely decked out in gold, the people worship the statues of three gods in such wise that the mightiest of them, Thor, occupies a throne in the middle of the chamber; Woden and Frikko have places on either side. The significance of these gods is as follows: Thor, they say, presides over the air, which governs the thunder and lightning, the winds and rains, fair weather and crops. The other, Woden—that is, the Furious—carries on war and imparts to man strength against his enemies. The third is Frikko, who bestows peace and pleasure on mortals. His likeness, too, they fashion with an immense phallus."
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