that Wagner had to reproduce the tradition as he received it. Nothing
of the kind is true; Wagner has altered the entire story, taking,
leaving, or altering just as he pleased. In the _Voelsunga_ paraphrase of
Eddic lays, upon which the story of the _Ring_ is founded, the child of
the unnatural union is not Sigurd, not the golden hero "whom every child
loved," but the savage outlaw Sinfjoetli, half wolf, half robber, one of
the most terrible creations of mythology. To conceive such a union
as bringing forth a hero whom we are expected to regard as the very
type of human nobility and guilelessness is an artistic blunder which
we can only explain by supposing that Wagner found his material
unmanageable. He was struggling with impossibilities and gave up
the attempt.

From this he turned to _Tristan_, rushing at once to the opposite
extreme. The absence of clear and decisive action in _Tristan_ is
as remarkable as the excess of action in the _Ring_. Persuaded
that the motives and characters of men must be known before their
actions can be understood, and that these can only be revealed in
music, he has given us in _Tristan_ music such as no mortal ear
ever heard before or since; but action there is little or none. He
scarcely deigns to tell even the most vital incidents of the story.
Can any one say that he has understood the events connected with
Morold and Tristan's first visit to Ireland and the splinter of the
sword from the play itself without an independent explanation? Or that
Tristan's reasons for carrying off Isolde are clear to him from
Marke's account? Without these incidents the whole story is
unintelligible, but with Wagner in his then mood they counted for
nothing in the flood of emotional material. It was in _Die
Meistersinger_ that Wagner found the final equation between impulse
and action, and the public has again judged rightly in placing that