hindfell

Ravish (Oxford tells us) has the following senses:

1 seize and carry off by force.
2 rape.
3 fill with intense delight; enrapture.

The word has not be carried far from the meanings of its root:

O.Fr. raviss-, prp. stem of ravir "to seize, take away hastily"
Reconstructed Vulgar Latin *rapire, from
L. rapere "to seize, hurry away"

Enchantment and a sort of rapture is no later than 1430; rape comes shortly after in 1436.

I hadn't known that Wotan's intended curse on Brünhilde was so brutal. Her magical sleep could have been broken by any common villain. She is to lie unprotected on the rock, a slave in waiting, any man's abject wife to be. Only after she begs on her knees does he relent and raise the flames around her stoney bed. To think that he is her father.

I give in after Die Walküre. My own Act IV comes the next night when a dream bears down on me. I did not see his face.