New to Wagner - Just purchased this big box set.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It's not clear if Fricka is bothered by the incest but certainly by the adultery.

Mir schaudert das Herz,
es schwindelt mein Hirn:
bräutlich umfing die Schwester der Bruder!
Wann ward es erlebt,
daß leiblich Geschwister sich liebten?

I shudder at heart,
my reason doth faint,
brother embraced as bride his own sister!
When was it e'er known
that brother and sister were lovers?

Clear to me.

There is no hint at all in Wagner that the twin's incest is seen as a problem.

Yes there is, at least in Fricka's mind.

[Karl Henning]

Mir schaudert das Herz,
es schwindelt mein Hirn:
bräutlich umfing die Schwester der Bruder!
Wann ward es erlebt,
daß leiblich Geschwister sich liebten?

I shudder at heart,
my reason doth faint,
brother embraced as bride his own sister!
When was it e'er known
that brother and sister were lovers?

Clear to me.

Thanks. That's how I thought I read the subtitles. Let's pass for the moment on the "sanctity of the wedding vow" when it's a matter of rape (using the word in its broader sense.)

[(poco) Sforzando]

Some people like to delve into the subtleties of the libretto's meaning, and that's perfectly fine. Everyone is entitled to find in it what they are prepared to find. For me, the music outweighs it by a ratio of one to ninety-nine. Yes, I knew that Siegmund and Sieglinde were brother and sister, but what sounds in my memory is the theme of their love, not the thought of incest.

Entirely agreed. Noone would care about the Ring's symbolic meanings were it not for the genius of the music.

I cited those authors not to endorse incest as such, but to shed light on its symbolic meaning, surely that much is clear. To accuse Wagner of promoting incest (as though alleged antisemitism were not indictment enough) seems rather futile. He did not advocate it, but drew on mythic precedents in which sibling unions signify divine or heroic destiny. The motif pervades mythology: Zeus and Hera, Osiris and Isis, Izanagi and Izanami, Cronus and Rhea, Oedipus and Jocasta, Lot and his daughters, Abraham and Sarah, and the catalogue could go on indefinitely.

Each case on its own merits. Oedipus and Jocasta were son and mother, not siblings, and their union (preceded by Oedipus' slaying of his father Laius) was what brought on the plague to Thebes. No divine or heroic destiny here. The sin of murder and incest is only expiated when Jocasta kills herself, and Oedipus blinds himself and accepts exile from Thebes.

[Karl Henning]

To accuse Wagner of promoting incest ....

Oh, has anyone done this? Man, the things i miss....