Beckmesser

“ In a furious rage of disappointment and wounded vanity, Beckmesser flung the MS. at the feet of Hans Sachs, declaring to the people that the cobbler had schemed thus to disgrace him by foisting his own bad song upon him; but in spite of his defence, as he rushed away in a storm of vexation, he was followed by the jeers of the crowd, with whom he was by no means popular, and who had not desired that one so pompous and elderly should gain so fair a prize. ”

“ Effusively he embraces him: "Marker, Marker, Marker Hans Sachs!"
Hans Sachs looks after the departing figure with a meditative smile. "So entirely ill-natured have I never yet found any one. He cannot fail to come to grief of some sort. Many there be who squander their wits, but they reserve enough to keep house with. The hour of weakness comes for each one of us, when he turns fool and is open to parley." So entirely ill-natured Beckmesser has been found that Sachs feels no compunction at letting him run into the pitfall gaping ahead. ”

“ If art is to run after the favour of the people, it cannot fail to come to grief and contempt."—"His success would be enormous, no doubt, who urges this matter so stiffly," Beckmesser puts in spitefully; "His compositions are nearly all popular street-songs!"
Pogner sets Sachs's suggestion aside with perfect civility and good humour. "The thing I am about to do is novel already. Too much novelty at one time might bring in its wake regret...."—"Sufficient to me," Sachs yields the point, "is the maiden's right of refusal!"—"That cobbler always excites my wrath!" mutters Beckmesser. ”

“ What do they know of the singing master's rules? Bah!"
"Listen!" Sachs said, impressively. "That which the people approve, is good; they know naught of rule, but they know what beauty of song and theme is better that we. Leave it to the people's choice and you shall not rue it. Besides, a maiden's heart is to be disposed of, and those who are judges among us are not without selfish feelings. Let the people decide and leave the maiden free."
"Oh, I suppose you are thinking and speaking for yourself—a widower," Beckmesser cried, trying to belittle the shoemaker. ”

“ Beckmesser for Old School, where it has become fossil, where forms moulded on life have become void and dry, and rules are held sufficient without breath of inspiration. Nay, inspiration, which jostles and disturbs rule, is regarded with suspicion. Inspiration to Beckmesser is as much an intruder as would be Saint Francis coming to visit some Prior of his own order long after the spirit animating the saint had been hardened into forms. Hans Sachs, then, is a sort of Ideal Critic, with affection and allegiance toward the past, but with a fair and open mind toward the new. ”

“ Eva leads the talk up to the morrow's festival, and when Sachs mentions Beckmesser as her chief wooer, roguishly hints, with evident reference to Sachs himself, that she might prefer a hearty widower to a bachelor of such disagreeable characteristics as the marker. There are sufficient indications that the sturdy master is not indifferent to Eva's charms, but, whole-souled, genuine friend that he is, his one idea is to further the love affair between his fair neighbour and Walther. The music of this passage is very suggestive. ”

“ Walther von Stolzing, a young knight, falls in love at first sight with Eva the beautiful daughter of Pogner, the goldsmith of Nüremberg, who has promised her to the winning singer in the coming Festival of the Mastersingers. Beckmesser, the old town clerk, counts on winning as he also loves Eva. As Walther does not belong to the music guild, he has to pass the examination. Beckmesser gives 371him so many bad marks for not keeping the committee’s rules that he is not admitted. ”

“ The plain is covered with tents full of merrymakers. The different guilds are continually arriving. A livelier or more stirring scene can hardly be imagined than Wagner has here pictured, with its accompaniment of choruses by the various handicraftsmen, their pompous marches, and the rural strains of town pipers. At last the contest begins. Beckmesser attempts to get through his song and dismally fails. Walter follows him with the beautiful prize-song, "Morgenlich leuchtend in rosigem Schein." He wins the day and the hand of Eva. ”

“ Sachs abandons him to his fate, and declares the song-contest open. Kothner summons the contestants, "And let the oldest," he calls, "come first. Master Beckmesser, pray begin. We are late!"
Page 256 The little heralds have piled up grassy sods into a sort of pedestal for the singers to stand on. They lead Beckmesser to this. He stumbles in going, and can hardly from nervousness keep his balance on the none too secure elevation. The common people begin to titter. Murmurs fly from one to the other: "What? ”

“ They are about to subscribe unanimously to Beckmesser's verdict that he has lost his case, when Sachs's voice breaks in upon the confusion. He has listened to Walther in complete self-forgetful absorption. The absence of all jealousy in his large nature leaves his mind peculiarly open for genuine first-hand impressions; his wide understanding is not repelled by the new and strange. The close of the young man's song has found him won, enlisted, prepossessed. He calls the masters to halt. "Not every one shares in your opinion! The Knight's song struck me as novel, yet not confused ”

“ Eva and Walther hide, and Beckmesser inquires the reason of Sachs's outbreak. The cobbler protests that he is trying to finish the pair of shoes which Beckmesser had demanded of him that very day. Magdalena, personating Eva, appears at the window, and Beckmesser endeavours to sing his song to her. Sachs's singing and pounding prevent him.
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Then they come to an agreement. Sachs is to act as marker, and correct each error with a blow of his hammer. He vows that the shoes will be finished before the song is. Beckmesser sings and Sachs strikes many blows. The shoes are finished first. ”

“ Sachs interrupts the serenader, who is an ill-natured clown, by lustily shouting a song in which he seeks also to give warning of knowledge of her intentions to Eva, whose departure with the knight had been interrupted by the cobbler when he came out of his shop to work in the cool of the evening; but he finally agrees to listen to Beckmesser on condition that he be permitted to mark each error in the composition by striking his lap-stone. The humorous consequences can be imagined. ”

“ He combines the force of a conservative character with the-259- tolerance of a progressive one, and is thus the incarnation of the idea which Wagner is working out in this drama, in which the union of a proper degree of conservative caution with progressive energy produces a new ideal in art. To Sachs's innuendo that Beckmessers' marking hardly could be considered just, as he is a candidate for Eva's hand, Beckmesser, by way of reply, chides Sachs for having delayed so long in finishing a pair of shoes for him, and as Sachs makes a humorously apologetic answer, the Cobbler Motive is heard. ”

“ Becker voiced the thought that was uppermost in his mind: “My father and mother think I am as successful as any man need be. They do not comprehend that what I am doing now is drudgery, a present makeshift only—that my career is all before me. The only opportunity I have had, and I should scarcely call it that, was five years ago when I went to New York, thinking, for I knew no better, that I might accomplish something there. I tramped the streets for days in my effort to get a hearing. I offered my manuscripts to any one who would print them, as a gift. ”

“ So Becket was made archbishop and primate of the English Church at the age of forty-four, the clergy of the province acquiescing,— perhaps with secret complaints, for he was not even priest; merely deacon, and the minister of an unscrupulous king. He was ordained priest only just before receiving the primacy, and for that purpose.
Nothing in England could exceed the dignity of the See of Canterbury. Even the archbishopric of York was subordinate. Becket as metropolitan of the English Church was second in rank only to the King himself. He could depose any ecclesiastic in the realm. ”

“ He accordingly summoned the Archbishop before a royal council at Northampton to answer to certain charges made against him. Becket answered the summons, but he refused to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the council, and appealed to the Pope. "Traitor!" cried a courtier, as he picked up a bunch of muddy rushes from the floor and flung them at the Archbishop's head. Becket turned and, looking him sternly in the face, said, "Were I not a churchman, I would make you repent that word." Realizing, however, that he was now in serious danger, he soon after left Northampton and fled to France. ”

“ All which to the king would designate Becket as the future Primate could not but excite the apprehensions of the more rigorous churchmen. The monks of Canterbury, with whom rested the formal election, alleged as an insuperable difficulty that Becket had never worn the monastic habit, as almost all his predecessors had done.32 The suffragan bishops would no doubt secretly resist the advancement, over all their heads, of a man who, latterly at least, had been more of a soldier, a courtier, and a lay statesman. ”

“ Herman Beckman turned in his chair and stared at his son. Then he laughed. “Now, that's a fine question to come from the honour man of a law school! I hope, Fritz, that your oration to-night is going to have a little more sense in it than that.”
The calling up of his oration made him reach out another clutching hand to the vanished reporter. “But it's farcical, father, to be always interviewed by a paper nobody reads.”
“Nobody—reads?”
“Why, nobody cares anything about the Leader. It's dead.” ”

“ They sent messengers to complain to Becket, that he came not in peace, but in fire and flame, trampling his brother bishops under his feet, and making their necks his footstool; that he had condemned them uncited, [214] unheard, unjudged. "There is no peace," Becket sternly replied, "but to men of good will."202 It was said that London was disposed to humble himself before Becket; but York,203 trusting in his wealth, boasted that he had in his power the Pope, the King, and all their courts. ”

“ Becket refused, but three days later when he appeared in the royal court, Hilary, speaking on behalf of the other bishops, once more urged Becket to have regard to the dangers of the time, and ‘yield to the royal will, though only for a while.’ Again the archbishop rejected his advice, and then Hilary declared that Becket was guilty of breaking his oath of fidelity to the king, and summoned him to appear before the pope on a fixed day. ”

“ Becket turned, on seeing the monks trying to bolt and bar the church doors. “It is not right,” said he; “to make a fortress of the house of prayer. It can protect its own, even if its doors are open. We shall conquer our enemies by suffering, not by fighting.”
The vespers ceased; the clergy threw themselves on the altars for protection; the Archbishop stood alone with one canon, with Fitzstephen and Edward Grim, a priest who had come to visit him. In rushed the band of armed men, crying out, “Where is the traitor, Thomas Becket?” ”

“ Becker lying in a crumpled-up attitude on the floor between the centre table and the sideboard. A single glance, a mere bending over the body, showed him that life was extinct; he immediately summoned the police, and fetched a doctor from a neighbouring flat.
Now, very fortunately, one of the police first on the scene was a man who had the excellent gift of close observation, and knew to a certain extent the meaning and significance of what he saw; he was, moreover, able to tell the newspaper people what he saw. ”

“ John Beckmann, Professor of Œconomy at Göttingen during a period of forty-five years, was born at Hoye, a small town in the kingdom of Hanover, in 1739. His father held the appointment of postmaster and receiver of taxes in that place, and at the same time cultivated a small farm, which appears to have inspired his son with a taste for agricultural pursuits. The superintendence of his education devolved principally on his mother, a woman of great prudence and strength of mind, who was left a widow when young Beckmann was scarcely seven years old. ”

“ Becket, their name was. I'm not exactly the kind of fellow who goes about falling in love with nursery governesses, and at that time (perhaps you recollect?) I had somebody else in mind. I dare say it was partly the contrast between that shark of a woman and this modest girl; at all events, I wanted to see more of Lilian, and I did. I was in Stockholm, off and on, for a couple of months. I became good friends with the Beckets, and before coming back to England I made an offer to Miss Allen—that was the governess's name. ”

“ The Becket legend which he thus introduces affords him an opportunity of [Pg 348] adapting to the English the words of the Royal prophet, "He smote them in the hinder parts and put them to a perpetual shame"; and of perpetrating, at their expense, some doggerel lines of which he has the good sense not to acknowledge the authorship:—
Of old, some Britons docked the tail Of Becket's nag, they say, And that is why all Englishmen Have short tails to this day. ”

“ To his father's house came likewise two learned civilians from Bologna, no doubt on some mission to the Archbishop of Canterbury. They were so captivated by young Becket, that they strongly recommended him to Archbishop Theobald, whom the father of [18] Becket reminded of their common honorable descent from a knightly family near the town of Thiersy.10 Becket was at once on the high road of advancement. |In the household of the Archbishop.| His extraordinary abilities were cultivated by the wise patronage, and employed in the service of the primate. ”