Hans Sachs

“ For, as all the world knows, Hans Sachs has achieved a second lease of life on men’s lips, through the genius of Richard Wagner, dramatist, poet, satirist, and wonderful musician, who, in this opera, laughs at the conceit of the Incorporated Poets in assigning an extravagant antiquity to their Guilds, and at their pedantic sacrifice of matter to form. No more vivid and humorous picture of mediæval German life and of the people of quaint old Nuremberg has ever been drawn. ”

“ The Mastersingers now eagerly invited Walter to join their guild as one of themselves, an honour which, however, the young knight proudly refused, since his free spirit could not be curbed within so small a range.
On hearing this, Hans Sachs humorously reproved him for speaking disparagingly of an art which had bestowed so rare a prize upon him; and then he launched forth staunchly into a speech in praise of the honest German art he loved so well, a speech which was received with the wildest enthusiasm by all, for Hans Sachs was the darling of the people of Nuremburg. ”

“ At this period Nürnberg was torn by religious faction; and it ultimately became enthusiastically Protestant. There is no doubt that Hans Sachs helped greatly to foster the feeling in its favour, as his “broadsides” told forcibly, [248] and were immensely popular. They were in fact the only books of the poor.
Fig. 253.—Hans Sachs.
The portrait of the old cobbler was painted in 1568 by Hans Hoffman, and is a strikingly characteristic resemblance of a man whose
“age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly.” ”

“ But fearful lest her father should see her leaving the house, she had changed dresses with her maid; and it was as Magdalen that she now hastened out to join her lover.
But Hans Sachs' keen eyes, right across the way, were not to be deceived. He recognised both the young people at once; and as they drew under the shade of a linden tree that grew near his door, he was able to hear most of their words. He heard Walter tell Eva of his ill success that day, and how he would not be able to compete on the morrow because of a lot of musty old rules. ”

“ Hans Sachs. 72. Gringore was certainly at a great distance from the Italian stage, which had successfully adapted the plots of Latin comedies to modern stories. But, among the barbarians, a dramatic writer, somewhat younger than he, was now beginning to earn a respectable celebrity, though limited to a yet uncultivated language, and to the inferior class of society. Hans Sachs, a shoemaker of Nuremberg, born in 1494, is said to have produced his first carnival play (Fast nacht spiel) in 1517. ”

“ Then Kothner took the manuscript that the Mastersingers might follow the singing and know if the knight was honest; and Walther, standing in the singers' place, began the song a little fearfully.
The Masters following him recognized the truth of all that Hans Sachs had spoken, and presently dropped the paper in amazement. They became lost in listening to the music, which swelled higher and higher, growing more and more beautiful with every measure, till all the people of Nuremberg sat spellbound. At last:
"His prize, his prize!" they shouted; and Pogner came to him weeping with joy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every composition had of necessity to belong to a certain class; each class was distinguished by a limited amount of rhymes and syllables, and the candidate had to count each stanza, as he read it, upon his fingers. The redundancy or the deficiency of a single syllable was fatal to his claims, and was visited in addition by a pecuniary fine, which went to the support of the corporation.
Of that branch of this learned body which held its meetings at Nuremberg, Hans Sachs became, in due time, a distinguished member. His origin was obscure—the son of a tailor, and a shoemaker by trade. ”

“ You transport me to quaint old Nuremberg, and I see Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans Folz shaving the burgomaster."
"By the way," interrupted the Baron, "did you ever read Hoffmann's beautiful story of Master Martin, the Cooper of Nuremberg? I will read it to you this very night. It is the most delightful picture of that age, which you can conceive. But look! the sun has already set behindthe Alsatian hills. Let us go up to the castle and look for the ghost in Prince Ruprecht's tower. ”

“ This female is Eva, who has exchanged garments with Magdalena, and has prevailed upon her to pose at her window during the serenade, while she tries to comfort her beloved.
Crouching in the shade, the lovers now plan to elope that very night, but Hans Sachs overhears their conversation, and when they are about to leave their hiding-place and depart, he flings open his shutter so that a broad beam of light streams across the old street. It makes such a brilliant illumination that it is impossible for any one to pass unseen. ”

“ Though the manner of Hans Sachs found a few followers, and is recognizable in the German popular drama even of the beginning of the 17th century, the literature of the Reformation, of which his works may claim to form part, was soon absorbed in labours of a very different kind. The stage, after admitting novelties introduced from Italy or (under Jesuit supervision) from Spain, was subjected to another and enduring influence. Among the foreign actors of various nations who flitted through the innumerable The English comedians. ”

“ Last of all came Herr Pogner, with his daughter leaning upon his arm, and Hans Sachs and Walter. You may be sure there were many curious glances directed toward the white-robed girl whose hand had been promised to the victor of the day, but she bore the ordeal bravely, albeit blushingly. The handsome knight walking along with the shoemaker also came in for his share of attention, and "Who can he be?" was on many lips, especially those of the maidens.
Hans Sachs was Master of Ceremonies for the day. He was one of the most widely beloved men in all Nuremberg town ”

“ EXPLANATION OF AN ANCIENT WOODCUT, REPRESENTING HANS SACHS'S POETICAL MISSION.
[I feel considerable hesitation in venturing to offer this version of a poem which Carlyle describes to be "a beautiful piece (a very Hans Sachs beatified, both in character and style) , which we wish there was any possibility of translating." The reader will be aware that Hans Sachs was the celebrated minstrel-cobbler of Nuremberg, who wrote 208 plays, 1,700 comic tales, and between 4,000 and 5,000 lyric poems. He flourished throughout almost the whole of the sixteenth century.] ”

“ When order was in some measure restored Hans Sachs asked if there was another contestant. (He did not need to ask the verdict on the song.) No one else presented himself; and Herr Pogner walking forward publicly declared Walter von Stolzen a Master Singer and made him a member of the guild of Nuremberg.
"Personally, I am proud and delighted to welcome you among us and proclaim you victor," he said, genially, "and as to my daughter's hand, I leave you to plead your cause with her. If she proves intractable—sing to her. That will win her if anything!" ”

“ The peasants and apprentices are merrily dancing on the green, and cease their mirthful gyrations only when the Master Singers appear. Hans Sachs addresses the crowd, reads the conditions of the test, proclaims what the prize shall be, and concludes by inviting Beckmesser to come forth and begin his song. The young people assembled hail this elderly candidate with veiled scorn, and Beckmesser, painfully clambering to the eminence where the candidates are requested to stand, hesitatingly begins his lay. ”

“ One of the leading societies was composed entirely of tradespeople, such as the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker, and every fellow became so filled with the spirit of the times that he couldn't sharpen a knife or blow a bellows without keeping time with his feet and trying to whistle a brand new tune in the doing of it! In fact, Hans Sachs, the genial old cobbler, was perpetually hammering out new ditties with lusty blows upon his leather, so that many of his verses are known to this day. ”

“ Sachs humorously defends the Master-Singers’ Guild, and closes with the rhyme—
“Though should depart
The pride of Holy Rome,
Still thrives at home
Our sacred German art.”
{222}
The “Marker,” thus pourtrayed in The Meistersingers, is Sigs Beckmesser, who is one of those whom Hans Sachs mentions as having taught him. There is nothing remarkable in Hans Sachs being a shoemaker as well as a Meistersinger, for the Guild was chiefly composed of weavers and shoemakers. What is remarkable is that he was something of a poet as well as a Meistersinger. ”

“ The meister-singers were sufficiently prosaic in their original constitution; they neither produced, nor perhaps would have suffered to exhibit itself, any real excellence in poetry. But they became in the sixteenth century still more rigorous in their requisitions of a mechanical conformity to rule; while at the same time they prescribed a new code of law to the versifier, that of theological orthodoxy. |Hans Sachs.| Yet one man, of more brilliant fancy and powerful feeling than the rest, Hans Sachs, the shoemaker of Nuremberg, stands out from the crowd of these artizans. ”

“ Hans Sachs is buried in St. John’s Churchyard, and what is shown as his grave is numbered 503. But whether that is actually his grave seems to be somewhat uncertain.
On the whole, literature was far behind art in Nuremberg. But we must not pass over the institution of the Spruchsprecher, the poet laureate of the town. He was a speciality of Nuremberg, and had to deal in rhyme with the occasion of all weddings and festivals, when called upon. He rejoiced in a special dress, and was invented, it seems, about the middle of the fifteenth century. ”

“ Why don't you do all your work in the daytime?"
"Oh, I'm just working a little to-night to finish up that pair of shoes you were so anxious to have to-morrow," retorted Hans Sachs; "and I always sing at my work. It makes it go better."
Thereupon he began in a louder voice than ever.
Beckmesser was at his wits' end. He had sent word to Eva that he was coming to serenade her. Now he was afraid, in his conceit, that she would mistake the cobbler's song for his own. Just then Magdalen appeared at an upper window in Eva's dress. Beckmesser waved frantically to her and threw a kiss. ”

“ As a drama it conveys also a perfect picture of the life and customs of Nuremburg of the time in which the story plays. Wagner must have made careful historical researches, but his book lore is not thrust upon us. The work is so spontaneous that the method and manner of its art are lost sight of in admiration of the result. Hans Sachs himself could not have left a more faithful portrait of life in Nuremburg in the middle of the sixteenth century. ”

“ A cobbler—and more than a cobbler, a poet.
Hans Sachs, the son of a master-tailor, was born 5th November 1494, and died January 20, 1576. Apprenticed to a shoemaker he yet always found time, he tells us, to practise the lovely art of poetry. His{216} first teacher was Lienhard Nunnenbeck. But it was during his five years of travel (Wanderjahre) , in which he visited the greater part of Germany, that he formed his determination “to devote himself to German poetry all his life long.” In 1516 he returned from his travels to Nuremberg, made his “Master piece,” and became a “Master Singer.” ”

“ In Nuremberg, one of the earliest instances of the exercise of a city censorship occurred in 1527, in the case of a volume containing woodcuts illustrating the history of the Tower of Babel, for which cuts a rhyming text had been supplied by the cobbler-poet, Hans Sachs. The book had been printed without a licence or permission from the magistracy. The magistrates [244] decided that the book must be suppressed. They further cautioned Sachs that the writing of verses was not his proper business, and that he should keep to his own trade of shoemaking. ”

“ Towards the close of the middle ages, as has been seen, dramatic performances had in Germany, as in England, largely fallen into the hands of the civic gilds, and the composition of plays was more especially cultivated by the master-singers of Nuremberg and other towns. It was thus that, under the influence of the Reformation, and of the impulse given by Luther and others to the use of High German as the popular literary tongue, Hans Sachs, the immortal Hans Sachs. shoemaker of Nuremberg, seemed destined to become the father of the popular German drama. ”

“ At the same time there was a certain healthy aspect in the cultivation of the Meistergesang among the German middle classes of the 15th and 16th centuries; the Meistersinger poetry, if not great or even real poetry, had—especially in the hands of a poet like Hans Sachs—many germs of promise for the future. ”

“ Hans Sachs, the poet shoemaker of Nuremberg, and all the other members of the guild, having now appeared, Beckmesser calls the roll, and Pogner repeats his offer to give his fortune and daughter to the winner of the prize on the morrow, and charges the guild to select their candidates for the contest. Of course the very first thing to be done is to examine the new candidate. Walther, when questioned concerning his teachers and method, boldly declares he has learned his art from nature alone, chooses love as his theme for a trial song, and bursts forth into an impassioned and beautiful strain. ”