Opera Stories from Wagner
By Florence Akin
Siegfried Goes to Fight the Dragon
“Get up, you coward!” cried Siegfried.
“Now tell me what that thing is that I do not know. Fear? What is fear? Why did you not teach it to me?”
The wicked dwarf slipped to Siegfried’s side.
“I will teach you. Come with me. I will show you a horrible serpent, lying at the door of Hate Cavern.
“There you will learn what fear is, if you can learn it any place in this world.
“Have you never seen anything that made you shiver from head to foot and made your heart beat fast?”
“I never have,” calmly answered Siegfried. “Take me quickly, Mimi. I am ready to learn.”
At every step Mimi chuckled to himself:–
“The ring is mine! At last the ring is mine! Now all the world shall kneel at my feet!”
“When he had gone as far as he dared, he pointed out the rest of the way to Siegfried.
“Just through here,” he said. “And I shall go back now. When the dragon sees you it will be a terrible struggle! I shall wait anxiously for you, my Siegfried!”
But as Siegfried vanished from sight, he rubbed his black hands together and laughed:–
“Ah, it will be luck for Mimi if Siegfried and the dragon kill each other!”