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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: console himself with but an old promise of his father's that he
shall find a weapon to his hand when he most needs one. The last
flicker of the dying fire strikes on the golden hilt of the sword
that sticks in the tree; but he does not see it; and the embers
sink into blackness. Then the woman returns. Hunding is safely
asleep: she has drugged him. She tells the story of the one-eyed
man who appeared at her forced marriage, and of the sword. She
has always felt, she says, that her miseries will end in the arms
of the hero who shall succeed in drawing it forth. The stranger,
diffident as he is about his luck, has no misgivings as to his
strength and destiny. He gives her his affection at once, and
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