Part 20 (2/2)
But I a for one who shall show me the road the road which of old I found so easily!”--”What road do you mean?”--”The road to the Hill of Venus!” Wolfram recoils ”Do you know that road?” persists Heinrich ”Madht shudders; ”Where have you been? Tell o to Rome?”--”Speak not to me of Rome!”--”Were you not present at the holy festival?”--”Speak not of it to me!”--”Then you have not been? Tell me, I conjure you!” The answer comes, after a dark pause, with an effect of boundless bitterness: ”Aye, I too was in Rome!”--”Then speak! Tell ing within ards hiently, entleness
”What is that you say, Wolfram? Are you not my enemy?”--”Never was I such--while I believed you pure of purpose! But speak, you went on the pilgrie to Rome?”--”Well, then,--listen! You, Wolfram, shall hear all” Exhausted he drops on a projection of rock, but when Wolfram would seat himself beside him he waives him violently off ”Do not come near me! The place where I rest is accursed!
Hear, then, Wolfrae to Rome with such passion of repentance in his heart as never penitent felt before An angel had shattered in hiel's sake he would do penance with the last humility, seek the salvation he had forfeited,--that the tears elic eyes had shed for hiations of the other pilgrireensward, he chose flints and thorns; when they refreshed thes, he absorbed instead the thirst-breeding heat of the sun; when they but prayed, he shed his blood to the praise of the Most High; when they turned into the shelter of Alpine sanctuaries, he made ice and snow his bed; with closed eyes--cliht not behold the wonder of theh the lovely plains of Italy! All this because he wished to atone to the point of self-annihilation, that the tears el He had reached Ro upon the threshold of the holy place Day had dawned, bells were pealing, heavenly antheh whoh the kneeling crowd He had given absolution, had prorace, to thousands; thousands he had sent away rejoicing Tannhauser had approached him, had knelt in the dust, had confessed the evil joys he had known, the terrible craving which no self-mortification had availed yet to quiet; he had cried to hi fetters And the one thus appealed to had pronounced: ”If you have shared in such evil pleasure, inflamed yourself at the fire of hell, if you have sojourned in the Hill of Venus, to all eternity you are damned! Even as the staff in reen, even so can never out of the conflagration of hell rederim thus addressed had sunk to the earth, annihilated Consciousness had forsaken hiht in the deserted square
Sounds ca A passion of disgust had seized hi promises of redemption With wild steps he had fled,--drawn back to the place where such great joys, such ineffable delight, he had found of old upon _her_ warm breast ”To you, Venus, Lady,”--he cries out in a frenzy of loathing for what lies behind, and of longing to escape, ”to you I aht of enchantment! Descend will I to your court, where your beauty shall shi+ne upon me forevermore!” Wolfram tries vainly to stop him He will not be stopped,--all the more ardently he calls: ”Oh, let me not seek in vain! How easily once did I find my way to you! You have heard that uide me to yourself! Ha!” he cries, in aall unheeded to turn hiusts of air? Do you not smell exquisite odours? Do you not hear jubilantforlow
Tannhauserto release hi rout of the nyht!
Oh, enchant once ic real into the Hill of Venus!”--”Woe!” shudders Wolfra its insidious snares! It is hell approaching at mad career!”
The radiant form of Venus appears in theout to the recreant knight her perfect arms ”Welcome, faithless man! Has the world conde nolove now in orous as he can, while Tannhauser stretches his hands toward the soft vision: ”Oh, Venus, Lady, rich in forbearance! To you, to you I coiveness ”Since you are returned to my threshold, your revolt shall be condoned The well of joy shall gush for you forever, never shall you go froain!” With the desperate cry: ”All hope of Heaven is lost to me, I choose therefore the pleasures of hell!” Tannhauser tears hiain, calling upon the help of the Alhty, not to be thrown off The battle over Tannhauser is hot between Wolfra hi him back, while the insensate man orders him off, tries to loose himself and rush to her ”Heinrich, one word--” Wolfram makes the last appeal; ”One word and you are free! Oh, sinner though you be, you shall yet be saved An angel prayed for you on earth; ere long, shedding benedictions, she will hover above you Elizabeth!”
Tannhauser had violently wrested himself from Wolfram, but the name roots him to the spot ”Elizabeth!” It is as if to reach Venus now he es in an instant the current of his being; fills his eyes with a olden hair tohich all his desire had pitched hi down froe ”Peace to the soul” the words co, ”just escaped from the clay of the saintly sufferer!” Wolfrael pleads for you now before the throne of God Her prayer is heard Heinrich, you are saved!” With a cry of ”Woe! Lost to me!”
the apparition vanishes of Venus and her train; the hill-side ulfs the becomes louder ”Do you hear it?” Wolfram asks of Tannhauser, who stands transfixed, corpse-like still and pale and staring ”I hear it!” he rirave, descend into the valley chanting their requiem At a motion of Wolfrain's shrine
In the torch-light they recognise the unhappy Tannhauser Seized with pity at sight of his ravaged countenance, ”Holy,” they sing, ”the pure one who now united to the host of Heaven stands before the Eternal Blessed the sinner over whom she wept, for whom she now implores the salvation of Heaven!”
She lies outstretched, still and serene, all white beneath her white pall She has saved hi Her dead body has barred his way back to Venus The infinitely-tired and worn pilgriood and bad, with faltering steps,--helped, in the faintness of death upon him, by Wolfra up his proud soul in the so humble prayer: ”Sainted Elizabeth, pray forfrom the Holy City announce a miracle: The dry staff in the Pope's hand, which he had declared should sooner return to blooht burst into leaf and blossoh all lands, that the forgiven sinner should learn of it The company lift their voices in awe and exaltation: ”Salvation and grace have been granted to the sinner! He has entered into the peace of the blessed!”
The warfare between soul and sense is presented by Wagner with singular fairness The pilgri is very beautiful, and beautiful is all the ood in the opera of Tannhauser The Venus-music is certainly equally beautiful; perhaps, to the superficial ear, is a little , wonderful; the well-nigh irresistible song of the Sirens The Bacchic dance, which stands we suppose for the animal element in love, the Satyr part in man, is hardly beautiful; yet the love-music as a whole, we can concede without difficulty, carries it over the sacred music in beauty of a sort, even as the Goddess would have carried off the palood, as Wagner lets us see, lies just in the fact that it is good; the final victory of the saint in the fact that she is a saint, and that from a mysterious eternal bias of huood He has a soul, he cannot help himself; that, as we have seen, is the secret reason why Venus cannot forever completely content hi hie diversified with every sort of suffering, draws him still on and upward
THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
THE FLYING DUTCHMAN
I
A Dutch sea-captain, so long before the date of the play that his story at the ti a storreat oath that he would persist to the end of time The Devil heard him and took him at his word He was dooel of the Lord interposed, and obtained for hiht land and woo a woman; if he could find one to love him faithfully until death, the curse upon him would be defeated, he would be saved
The Ouverture paints a great stor toward the sae in the coast, the phantohosts and their sinister sea-cry, the common substantial other craft with its comfortable flesh-and-blood sailors
As the curtain rises upon the turbulent sea and black weather, the Norwegian vessel has got safely within the haven While the sailors furl sails, cast cables, the captain, Daland, comes ashore and clinises the spot, seven hter Senta awaits his return, who in his arms ”But he who counts upon the wind,” he philosophises, ”is counting upon theto do but wait until the storm subsides He returns on board, sends the tired crew below to rest after their long struggle with the storm, leaves the watch to the mate, and hioing the round, seats himself at the helm
The violence of the storhtened To keep awake, he sings,--a love-song, ingenuous as sailors are; which does not however fulfil its purpose, for the singer, more and more oppressed with drowsiness, drops off before the last bar
The storathers force, the sky darkens A shi+p appears in the distance, with blood-red sails and black masts It rapidly nears shore and noiselessly turns into the bay beside Daland's The anchor drops with a crash The Norwegianto take alarain
Without a sound the crew of the strange shi+p furl their sails and coil their ropes The captain, singularly pale, black-bearded, in a black Spanish costu-past fashi+on, lands alone It is he who Dutchman Seven years have passed since he last touched land His opportunity has returned, to reach out for salvation He comes ashore wearily, perfunctorily, without hope, or doubt but that the ocean will soon be receiving his ”Your cruelty, proud ocean,”
he apostrophises it, ”is variable, but my torment eternal! The salvation which I seek on land, never shall I find it To you, floods of the boundless main, I shall be found faithful until your last wave break and your last moisture dry!
”How often--” he cries, as in fixed despair he gazes back over the past, ”How often, filled with longing to die have I cast myself into the deepest abysses of the sea, but death, alas! I could not find! Against the reefs where shi+ps find dreadful burial I have driven e, I have defied the pirate--I hoped to meet with death in fierce battle
'Here,' I have cried, 'show your prowess! Full of treasure are shi+p and boat! But the wild son of the sea trerave! Never to die! Such is the dreadful sentence of dael of God's, on for me the possibility of salvation, was I, wretch, the toy of your mockery when you showed me the means of redemption?