Part 11 (1/2)
More and lows, till Walhalla is discerned in its central illumination, with its enthroned Gods and heroes Fla the stately hall When the company of the Blessed are completely wrapped in fire, the curtain falls
The last word of the reeted the prophecy of Siegfried's birth It has been woven all through Brunnhilde's last ardently happy salutation to hinition of some mystical quality--in death--of birth
So Wotan finds his rest, and the ill consequences at last end of his unjust act--end with the reparation of the injustice, the return of the gold to the Rhine But has not the evil act been like the Djinn of old, let out of the insignificant-looking urn, waxing great, loo hard terainst two simpletons, how could he have divined that by this pin-point he set inexorableabout his confusion, forcing hiress to so many injustices ht his best beloved, which would by far be his greatest punishy is moral as a tract
THE MASTER-SINGERS OF NUREMBERG
THE MASTER-SINGERS OF NUREMBERG
I
The ”arguiven in the Overture: Art and Love The Masters are first--a little pompously, as befits their pretensions,--presented to us Then Young Love sweeps across the scene, delicatehow the affairs of Walther shall becoled with those of the Guild
This Walther von Stolzing, a young Franconian noble, last of his line, had for reasons which are not given forsaken the ancestral castle and co a citizen there He had brought letters to a proolds acquainted with his faner had offered him every courtesy, hospitality, and assistance in the business of selling his Franconian lands
Walther had found twenty-four hours in Nurener's house aly, rapturously, in love with the golds, very fee, so that she is always called, fondly, Evchen, little Eva Her name is perhaps meant to indicate her quality of inveterate feoes to show that she was pretty enough to turn heads young and old She had been an obedient, an exe her father to think for her, accepting demurely his views for her How should she not feel it best, so long as her immature heart had never spoken a word, to let a ent parent, whose wisdom it was not for her to question, dispose of her hand in the ? When she had seen Walther, however, a new light illumined her position
On the second day of his acquaintance with her, it seeh another night but he made sure of one point He followed his lady to vespers, in the hope of an opportunity to exchange one private word, ask one question It was the eve of Saint John's day The congregation when the curtain rises is concluding an anthedalene, her nurse, are in one of the pews that fill the nave of the church
Walther stands in the aisle, leaning against a pillar, from which position he can watch the fair one He tries whenever her eyes stray his way, as, irresistibly attracted, they frequently do, to convey to her by glance and gesture his prayer for a ed to recall her young lady's attention to the church-service The congregation rises at last and flocks to the church-door Walther steps before the to forth with the rest, with the hurried dedalene, who is a step behind, has not caught his request Eva with quick resource sends her back to the pew for her forgotten kerchief But Walther has beco his opportunity to utter or obtain that ”single word,” falls to pouring forthup to the all-iet it out before Magdalene returns But Eva then discovers that her brooch too has been left in the pew Walther, because he really dreads to hear an anshich may dash his dearest hopes, makes no better use of this second chance than of the first; he is still leading up to his fas the brooch But upon this fortune favours hiotten prayer-book; and in the brief interval of her search Walther asks breathlessly of Eva: if she be already betrothed! She does not reply by the instantaneous negative he had hoped for, and the passionate wish breaks from his lips that he had never crossed the threshold of her father's house! Magdalene, who has rejoined thenantly at such an expression from him ”Ho, , were you not hospitably received? Is not the best afforded by kitchen and cellar, cupboard and store-rooratitude whatever?”
Eva tries to silence her: ”That is not what he ood Lene
But this information he desires of me--How am I to say it? I hardly --He wishes to knohether I anises, of course, that here is that reprobate thing, a lover, and remembers her first duty as a duenna, to keep off all such fro home at once Walther resolutely detains her ”Not till I know all!”--”The church is e so punctilious Lene sees in the very loneliness of the place a reason the ain helps Walther David, a youthful shoe-maker's apprentice, enters the church frocurtains which shut off the nave of the church,distances on the paveht of hies, ”What aood-humoured than before, she vouchsafes: ”Your lordshi+p, the question you ask of the damsel is not so easy to answer As a ner is betrothed----” ”But no one,” quickly adds the girl, ”has as yet see the bridegrooroo-contest, the ers award the prize, and whoely on the ears of one not a Nureer?” he falters
”Are you not one?” Eva asks incredulously, wistfully And when in his effort to grasp the situation exactly he continues asking questions, she answers his interrogative: ”The bride then chooses?” with coetfulness of every maidenly convention, by an ardent, honest ”You, or no one!”--”Are you gone rasps her arm, shocked and flustered She has, and feels no shame ”Good Lene, help me to win him!”--”But you saw him yesterday for the first time!” No, she became a victim so readily to love's tor known hi of David, after the slaying of Goliath, his sword at his belt, his sling in his hand, his head brightly encircled with fair curls
Joyful agitation has seized the Knight at Eva's sweet impulsive word, and, with it, bewilderment as to what must be his course in circumstances so unprecedented He restlessly paces the pavee conditions raising their barrier between hidalene calls to her the object of hers The ed spinster has a weak spot in her heart for David The boyish shoe-maker's apprentice on his side adores her--and the pleasant bits she ner's kitchen Questioned, he inforers There is to be directly a song-trial: such song-apprentices as coainst the table of rules are to be proht's chance, reflects Lene,--his one chance to be made , Walther offers the ladies his coner where he stands: if he wishes to enter the contest for Evchen's hand, Fortune has favoured him with respect to tierly David shall instruct hidalene herself instructs David tochoice fro lord here shall to-day be made a master, you may to-morrow proffer your requests full boldly!”
”Shall I see you again?” Eva shyly asks of Walther, as Magdalene is hurrying her off His answer gives the keynote of hiourous, enthusiastic youth, to which all things seem possible--beautiful youth, which has the splendour and force of fire, with the freshness of flowers; which flashes like a sword and treain?” It is after vespers ”This evening, surely!” he replies: ”How shall I tell you what I would be willing to undertake for your sake? New is my heart, new isupon One thing only I know, one thing only I grasp, that I will devote soul and senses to winning you!
If it , and as ayou mine! For you, my blood and my possessions, for you, the sacred aspiration of a poet!” Strains froh the story, they are the Walther-h as he watches her from the shadow of the church-pillar, and woven finally into his prize-song And the effect of youth that goes s to thes in early May, ith the dew of dawn,--the bealory The hearer feels hi too with an immortal youth But words are never so ineffectual as when they would translate music
When Walther and Eva part, they are candidly lovers, for she has joined her voice to his at the closing words of his profession, and herself warmly professed: ”My heart with its blessed ardour,--for you, its love-consecrated kindness!” In a reat high-backed carved seat which apprentices have a moment before placed in the conspicuous position it occupies, and is absorbed in the atte ehts, sche of his youth
Apprentices in number, lively and ht for theseats for these on one side and for near the centre a platfor that original who supposes one can be entleman's rank and fine feathers do not impress the youth, who feels himself rather, with respect to the requirements of the hour, in a position to patronise
Walther is startled to hear hiin!” ”What is the in! That is what the Marker calls out, and then youDon't you know that?”--”Who is the Marker?”--”Don't you know? Have you never been to a song-trial?”--”Never, where the judges were artisans”--”Are you a poet?”--”Would that I were!”--”Are you a singer?”--”Would that I knew!”--”But you have at least been a 'school-frequenter' and a 'pupil?'”--”It all sounds foreign to my ear!”--”And you wish to become a master, off-hand, like that?”--”What enorroans: ”Oh, Lene, Lene oh, Magdalene!”--”What a to-do you ood faith, what I must do!” David has now the chance he loves Here is one who knows nothing whatever of the things it is his pride to have learned at least the na all The ignoramus shall be properly dazzled David strikes an attitude ”Myself,” he inforreatest , Hans Sachs For a full year I have received his instructions Shoe- and poetry I learn simultaneously When I have pounded the leather even and smooth, I learn of vowel-sounds and of consonance When I have waxed the thread hard and stiff, I applythe awl, I commit the science of rhythm and nu, and how far does Walther suppose he has got? The Knight suggests, laughing: ”To the ood pair of shoes!” Nay, this top-lofty aristocrat, with his jokes, does not in the least understand! And David enlarges further on the great and various difficulties in the way of hier A ”bar,” let him know, has manifold parts and divisions, full difficult to ,” which , andstanzas But even when a person has learned and knows all this, even then he is not yet called a master For there are a thousand subtleties and refinements the aspirantoff draws a bit upon his fancy, or whether the ers really cherished these distinctions in estive the titles of therandly, and with a rich relish, David tells thereen tones; the hawthorn-blossom, straisp, fennel modes; the tender, the sweet, the rose-coloured tone; the short-lived love, the deserted-lover tones; the roseale lish tin, the stick-cinnareen linden-blossooldfinch or tone; the balsam, the marjoram modes; the tawny lion-fell, the faithful pelican alloon mode! Walther cries out to Heaven for help ”Those,”
proceeds David, ”are only the na them exactly as theclearly, the voice rising and falling as it should” etc, etc, etc; ”but if, when you have done all these things correctly, you should make a mistake, or in any wise stumble and flounder, whatever your success up to that -trial!
In spite of great diligence and application, ht it to that point Letto bein inquiry, conquers the information at last that in order to be nainal poeinal air, in accordance with the es ”All there is for ed, ”is to ai successfully, I must find, to verses of my own, a melody of my own!” David, who has joined the apprentices, fends off their teasing by privately preparing the-trial ”Not I to-day, another fellow is up for trial! He has not been a 'pupil' and is not a 'singer'; the for the title of 'poet' he says he will oentleman of quality, and expects, with one leap and no further difficulty, this very day to becoe carefully the Marker's cabinet; the blackboard on the wall, convenient to the Marker's hand The Marker, yes!” he repeats bodingly to the not sufficiently iht ”Are you not afraid? Many a candidate already, singing before him, has met with failure He allows you seven errors; he marks them there with chalk; whoever makes more than seven errors has colee over the prospective entertain around the curtained recess where the Marker shortly shall be chronicling the slips and blunders of this self-confident lordling
Their play is interrupted, and they hurriedly put on good behaviour, at the entrance of two of the ner and Sixtus Becke in the e of air and scene, is like passing from the hubbub of the street into soner with regard to his intentions for the morrow Beckmesser wishes extremely to becoive the young lady no choice, to decree si should be her husband He feels cocksure of his superiority as a er, but dubious, it would seeirl ”If Evchen's voice can strike out the candidate, of what use to ner sensibly, ”if you have no hopes of the daughter's regard, how do you come to enter the lists as her suitor?” Beck further in the saner's influence with his child, and turns away disgusted with the goldsmith's merely civil assent
It seeht to knoell as he knows that wo the sorriest stuff to all the poetry in the world How shall he, Beckmesser, avoid a disappointment, a public defeat? He decides upon reflection to try the prize-song he has prepared, as a serenade, and make sure beforehand that the maiden will be pleased with it
Walther has approached and exchanged greetings with Pogner He comes directly to the point, and, with airy aplo which drovewas the love of Art, nothing else! I forgot to tell you this yesterday--but to-day I proclaier Receivein, bakers, tailors, coppershted ”Hear, what a very interesting case The knight here,himself to our Art It seems like the olden days colad I aly indeed as ever I lent you uild!”--”What ht of Walther Suspiciously he observes hi here? How his eyes beahter!
Look sharp, Sixtus, keep an eye on that fellow!”