Tannhäuser

“ It was taper-time; when the tired earth puts on its cloak of mists and shadows, when the enchanted woods are stirred with light footfalls and slender voices of the fairies, when all the air is full of delicate influences, and even the beaux, seated at their dressing-tables, dream a little.
A delicious moment, thought Tannhäuser, to slip into exile.
The place where he stood waved drowsily with strange flowers, heavy with perfume, dripping with odours. Gloomy and nameless weeds not to be found in Mentzelius. ”

“ A child is easy to degrade! [Pg 71]
Tannhäuser.
Vile thing
I will try otherwise—to raise myself:
But if I fail, I will not drag her down;
I will return.
Venus.
To lose thee for one hour
Is my swift death—so desolate am I!
I have not got one lover in the world,
Save only Tannhäuser. And he will go.
Tannhäuser.
One lover! Who makes up the equal soul
Of all the wickedness beneath the sun?
Lilith! Seek out thy children to devour!
Leave me. I go to my Elizabeth.
Venus.
O no! It kills me! That is naked truth.
I am the soul and symbol of desire,
Yet individual to thy love. Stay! Stay! ”

“ But, strange to say, so far from being made happy by his love, Tannhäuser gradually became very wretched indeed, for he grew discontented and weary of his life. Whether it was that he fancied Elisabeth [407] did not return his love, and that the royal maid would not be permitted to wed a humble knight; or whether an evil spirit tempted him, none can say. But day by day he grew more and more restless and heavy of heart—the joys, duties, and interests of earth no longer satisfying him—and he longed for a life of everlasting pleasure and delight, free from pain and trouble. ”

“ With his seducer’s heart of hell! My voice!
Death! Your cry echoes me?
Voices.
Death! Death!
Tannhäuser.
Leap out,
Sword of my fathers! you have heard my harp!
Its music stings your vile hypocrisy
Into mere hatred. Truth is terrible!
You, cousin, taken in adultery!
You, Wolfram, lover of the kitchen maids!
You, Jerome—yes, I know your secret deeds!
You, ladies! Are your faces painted thus
Not to hide wrinkles of debauchery?
To catch new lovers?
Landgrave.
Stop the lying mouth!
Friends, your sword-service! [Pg 124]
Tannhäuser. ”

“ Tannhäuser’s Troubled Eyes AND upon yet another day Gerald talked with the comely but now aged knight Tannhäuser, as this famous myth passed by, in full armor, upon his journey into Antan.
“There,” said Tannhäuser, “there I may find again, it may be, the fair Dame Venus and all the brave and high-hearted sinners who would not compromise with the narrow and cruel ways of respectable persons.”
“My friend,” said Gerald, mildly, “there is considerable virtue to be found, here and there, among respectable persons. There is even a virtue in compromise.” ”

“ Tannhäuser.
That is a question. I am not so sure
My song was not entirely to that end.
Wolfram.
Yes, poet, true one that you are indeed!
You shew us the dilemma of the soul,
The Gordian knot Love only hews asunder.
Tannhäuser.
Or—shall I say?—soothes only, bandages,
Not heals the sore of Destiny?
Wolfram.
No, certes,
But substitutes for one reality
Another—and a lovely pleasant one.
Tannhäuser.
Existence is illusion after all;
Man, a bad joke; and God, mere epigram!
If we must come to that. And likewise love. [Pg 114]
Landgrave. ”

“ Of course, the Venusberg is only an interlude in Tannhäuser's life, and everyone has interludes in their lives, or else they would not be human. Tannhäuser is a pilgrim, and the pilgrims march about to slow music all the time. Venus, of course, does not go about to slow music—quite the contrary, in fact; and, when you hear the two together, the contrast is very striking. Tannhäuser goes away from Venusberg, you know, before the end, and dies in the odour of sanctity."
Eva stopped for a moment, and Jim Armine laughed again. ”

“ Then the voice of the King came to him, as it were an echo,—
"One path alone can save you from perdition and everlasting woe, abandoned man! That path is now open to your steps. To-day a band of pilgrims are setting forth on their toilsome way to Rome. Depart with them and seek pardon for your sins."
Even as the King spoke, a chant was heard through the open portal. Tannhäuser recognised it as the same sweet strain he had heard that morning by the wayside cross. He kissed the hem of Elizabeth's robe once again and dared to look with mute entreaty into her eyes. ”

“ In that mystic golden rain of harmony and discord the wizard has shown us the bleeding, palpitating hearts of Galahad and Messalina, he has strung them together on his golden thread, and then the artist’s work being over he tosses them to us and says, “Choose.” He has given us all the factors which make up choice, he has shown us the living essence of the two warring principles swiftly and unerringly; and as Tannhäuser chose of old, so “chance” has ordained that each of us shall choose, and “chance” ordained that Reggie should choose that night. ”

“ Tannhäuser finds himself standing in a sunny well-known valley, near to a road-side shrine of the Blessed Mary at whose hem he had caught. The Wartburg is in sight, where he was used in former days to take part in song-tournaments. In dim distance looms the Hörselberg, concerning which a sinister rumour ran: that in the heart of it the pagan goddess Venus still lived and held her court. All the landscape smiles, the trees are in blossom, nature is altogether at her loveliest. Oh, so sweeter to the ears of the resuscitated knight than the song of sirens, comes the homely tinkle of sheepbells. ”

“ She who loves not, she shall cleave unto thee,
Thou the unwilling!”
Peer of Gods is he, equal soul to theirs,
Who lingers in thy passionate embrace:
Whose languor-laden kiss
Cleaves where thy bosom is
A throne of beauty for thy throat and face!
In these dark joys and exquisite despairs,
O Love, let Death lay finger unawares! [Pg 104]
Landgrave.
Passion and music—but no Principle!
How different is Tannhäuser!
(To the unknown minstrel) You, sir, next!
Sing of pure love and noble womanhood.
Our court loves not these wastrel troubadours,
Loose locks, Hushed faces, soul’s unseemliness. ”

“ This is the sole flaw in a very fine opera book. Tannhäuser is the noblest expression in music of the glory and worth of human life. An assertion of the glory and worth of human life is bound to be, as Tannhäuser is, tragic; life and the value of life can only be realized when we see life in conflict with death and overcome by death. All the great tragedies are assertions of the joy of living, in the deepest sense of the phrase—in the sense in which Samson Agonistes or Handel's Samson are such assertions. Tannhäuser suffers defeat and is glorious, like Samson in his overthrow. ”

“ Consequently it is impossible any more to divine whether virtue or vice (as understood of old) will cause the irreparable catastrophe which is the one element of drama which we may still (in the work of a modern dramatist) await with any degree of confidence.
I trust that I may be forgiven for adopting the idea that Tannhäuser was one of those mysterious Germans whose reputed existence so perturbed the Middle Ages ”

“ Full of thankfulness that the prayers of Elisabeth, now an angel in Heaven, had been thus answered, Wolfram joined the pilgrims in their rejoicings for the forgiven sinner, whilst Venus disappeared within her mountain once more; but Tannhäuser, overcome with joy, and filled with a wonderful peace, sank dying beside the bier of his beloved one, and the golden gates of Heaven were opened to him at last. ”

“ The frockless Venus and Tannhäuser, with Priapusa and Claude and Clair, and Farcy, the chief comedian, sat at the same table. Tannhäuser, who had doffed his travelling suit, wore long black silk stockings, a pair of pretty garters, a very elegant ruffled shirt, slippers and a wonderful dressing-gown. Claude and Clair wore nothing at all, delicious privilege of immaturity, and Farcy was in ordinary evening clothes. ”

“ But Tannhauser, who felt himself a man, Though base, yet fallen through passions and rare gifts Of an exuberant nature rankly rich, And knew his weary head was growing gray With a life's terrible experience, Found his old sense of proper worth revive ”

“ I was trudging wearily along in the twilight through the public promenade of Strasburg, to restore my overwrought nerves, when I was suddenly taken aback by seeing on a theatre poster the word TANNHAUSER. Looking at the bill more closely, I saw that it was the Overture to Tannhauser that was to be given as a prelude to a French play. The exact meaning of this I did not quite understand, but of course I took my seat in the theatre, which was very empty. The orchestra, looking all the larger from contrast with the empty house, was assembled in a huge space and was a very strong one. ”

“ Tannhäuser is usually performed on Saturday night, and Venus has to be put away altogether before eleven o’clock service on Sunday morning. You leave her at the church door. She wouldn’t go at all well with the Litany and the Penitential Psalms—in fact one prays to be delivered from her, and, poor dear, how they would bore her! And when you come out of church again, she is gone. She has not gone really, she has only gone elsewhere, and she often turns up again. And now I’m going to talk sense, although I have been talking sense all the time, really. Amn’t I a shocking old woman, Reggie? ”

“ TANNHÄUSER
[Pg 18]
[Pg 19]
ACT I.
[Pg 20]
“Therefore we are carefully to proceed in Magic, lest that Syrens and other monsters deceive us, which likewise do desire the society of the human soul.”
Arbatel of Magic. Aphorism 35.
[Pg 21] A lonely and desolate plain. Tannhäuser riding towards a great mountain.
Tannhäuser.
S IX days. Creation took no longer! Yet
I wander eastward, and no light is found.
The stars their motion shirk, or else forget. ”

“ Tannhäuser (Sir) , called in German the Ritter Tannhäuser, a Teutonic knight, who wins the love of Lisaura, a Mantuan lady. Hilario, the philosopher, often converses with the Ritter on supernatural subjects, and promises that Venus herself shall be his mistress, if he will summon up his courage to enter Venusberg. Tannhäuser starts on the mysterious journey, and Lisaura, hearing thereof, kills herself. At Venusberg, the Ritter gives full swing to his pleasures, but in time returns to Mantua, and makes his confession to Pope Urban. ”

“ So deeply were we involved in this scheme, and so great were the sacrifices it had compelled us to make, that there was nothing else for it but to trust to a special turn of Fortune’s wheel. As it happened, the management of the theatre shared my confidence in the success of Tannhäuser. I had induced Lüttichau to have the scenery for Tannhäuser painted by the best painters of the great opera house in Paris. I had seen their work on the Dresden stage: it belonged to the style of German scenic art which was then fashionable, and really gave the effect of first-class work. ”

“ In mid-August we travelled back to Dresden, where my friends were glad to see me in such good spirits; as for myself, I felt as if I had wings. In September, when all our singers had returned from their summer holidays, I resumed the rehearsals of Tannhäuser with great earnestness. We had now got so far, at least with the musical part of the performance, that the possible date of the production seemed quite close at hand. Schroder-Devrient was one of the first to realise the extraordinary difficulties which the production of Tannhäuser would entail. ”

“ Big Tannhauser had been one of those who were most anxious to sail. He used to grin and say, “France is the only climate that’s healthy for a man with a name like mine.” He had waved his good-bye to the image in the New York harbour with the rest, believed in her like the rest. He only wanted to serve. It seemed hard.
When Tannhauser first came to camp he was confused all the time, and couldn’t remember instructions. Claude had once stepped him out in front of the line and reprimanded him for not knowing his right side from his left. ”

“ This poem has been written in the blood of slain faith and hope; each foolish utterance of Tannhäuser stings me with shame and memory of old agony; each Ignis Fatuus that he so readily pursues, reminds me of my own delusions. But, these follies and delusions being the common property of mankind, I have thought them of sufficient interest, dramatic and philosophical, to form the basis of a poem. Let no man dare to reproach me with posing as the hero of my tale. ”

“ Tannhäuser.
O Lady pure, miracle of true love,
I have a bitter word and harsh to say.
This is my curse—no sooner do I speak,
Or formulate my mind in iron words,
That my mind grows, o’erleaps the limit set,
And I perceive the truth that lies beyond—
One further step into a new-fallen night.
Hear then—I hate to hurt your perfect soul; [Pg 128]
I hate myself because I love you still
In that strange intermediate consciousness,
The reason and the mind! This middle way
Ancients called safe—that damns it instantly!
Without some danger nothing great is done! ”

“ Save that mine eyes have seen a little truth,
My body found a little weariness.
I am very feeble! Hither comes the hunt!
[A horn winds quite close by.
The noble, doomed, swift beauty! Closer yet
Pant the long hounds! What heart he has! One, two!
See the brach dying by his bloody flank!
So could not Tannhäuser awhile ago.
My help lay outside and above myself.
What skills him he is brave? He ends the same.
Poor stag! Here sweep the foremost hunters up.
My very kinsmen! There rides Wolfram too!
The proper minstrel! The ideal lover! [Pg 84]
The pure, unsullied soul. Even so, forsooth! ”