Nietzsche's Ring

Im Feuer mich baden!Im Feuer zu finden die Braut!['In the Fire will I bathe/In the fire find my Bride!' - Siegfried after shattering the Wanderer's spear, (Act III sc.2)]

Wagner's image of a wall of fire surrounding Brunnhilde is stunning, as it taps into all the rich symbolic traditions associated with that element, particularly in Aryan culture;"It is only after Siegfried's triumphant shattering of the Wanderer's spear, and with it the last barrier before his assault on Brunnhilde's rock, that the Fire music sweeps away with its triumphant onrush the last traces of doubt and restriction, the last memories of Siegfried's servitude to Mime". [Cooper notes to 'Siegfried']

'Heil dir, Sonne!Heil dir, Licht!Heil dir, leuchtender Tag!Lang war mein Schlaf;Ich bin erwacht.Wer ist der Held, der mich erweckt?'('Hail to thee, sun!/ Hail to thee, light!/ Hail to thee, glorious day!/ Long have I slept;/ I was awakened./ Who is the hero who woke me?' - Brunnhilde after being awoken by Siegfried, Act III sc.3)

The Nietzschean philosopher is an 'awakener'; it may take centuries for others to catch up with him, but he stands like a Beacon-Fire across the ages;"Siegfried was Nietzsche's favourite among the Wagnerian heroes. He found himself again in this young man, who had never known fear. 'We are the knights of the Spirit', he had then written in his notes, 'we understand the song of the birds and follow them' ".[Halevy, 'The Life of Friedrich Nietzsche']

Nietzsche connects the Germanic Siegfried with the Hellenic Dionysian;"In some inaccessible abyss the German Spirit still rests and dreams, undestroyed, in glorious health, profundity and Dionysian strength, like a Knight sunk in slumber: from which abyss the Dionysian song rises to our ears to let us know that this German Knight even now is dreaming his primitive Dionysian myth in blissfully earnest vision.Let no one believe that the German Spirit has forever lost its mythical home when it can still understand so plainly the voices of the birds which tell of that home.Some day it will find itself awake in all the morning freshness following a deep sleep: then, it will slay the dragons, destroy the malignant dwarfs, waken Brunnhilde - and Wotan's spear itself will be unable to obstruct its course! ".[Nietzsche, 'The Birth of Tragedy' 1]

That is a beautiful parable of National renewal, using the Wagnerian and Aryan symbology which so ennobles the Race.To show how au fait Nietzsche was with the overall concept of the Ring of the Nibelung itself, I shall finish with the following;"I would wish for such a degree of rhythmic, visualising endowment as would enable me to survey the Nibelung work in its entirety, as I have, at times, succeeded in doing with the single dramas.But here I anticipate rhythmical delights of a very special kind and degree. For instance: the scene between Alberich and the Rhine Maidens in the first act of the first drama; the love rhapsodies of Siegfried and Brunnhilde; the parting rhapsodies of the lovers in the first act of 'Gotterdammerung': the scene of the Nornes at the beginning of the first act (Vorspiel) of the 'Gotterdammerung' and so on".[Nietzsche, personal correspondence 1876]