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Beckmesser adjures him; "That was only a joke. Understand now what my true sentiments are. You stand high in honour with the people, and the daughter of Pogner has a great opinion of you. Now, if I intend to offer myself as a suitor for her to-morrow, can you not see how I might be destroyed by her not taking kindly to my song?
So hear, Masters, the gift which I have appointed for prize: To the singer who in the song-contest shall before all the people win the prize on Saint John's day, let him be who he may, I give, devotee of art that I am, Veit Pogner of Nuremberg, with my whole inheritance, even as it stands, Eva, my only child, in marriage!" Loud applause.
He begs for Pogner's influence with his child, and turns away disgusted with the goldsmith's merely civil assent. It seems to him that a man like Pogner ought to know as well as he knows that women have no real taste, that they are capable of preferring the sorriest stuff to all the poetry in the world. How shall he, Beckmesser, avoid a disappointment, a public defeat?
These assemble to the sound of what we will call their unofficial march; then, to their great march, they walk to their places on the stand, Kothner waving the banner of the guild, and the people acclaiming. Pogner escorts Eva to the seat of honour.
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 aplomb, "If truth must be told," he says, "the thing which drove me from home and brought me to Nuremberg was the love of Art, nothing else!
I forgot to tell you this yesterday but to-day I proclaim it aloud. It is my desire to become a master-singer. Receive me, master, in the guild!" The masters are flocking in, bakers, tailors, coppersmiths, grocers, weavers. Pogner turns to them, delighted. "Hear, what a very interesting case. The knight here, my friend, is desirous of dedicating himself to our Art.
When, as they are leaving, Walther offers the ladies his company to Master Pognet's, she bids him wait rather for Pogner where he stands: if he wishes to enter the contest for Evchen's hand, Fortune has favoured him with respect to time and place. "What am I to do?" asks the lover eagerly. David shall instruct him, and Magdalene herself instructs David to make himself useful to the Knight.
Pogner had offered him every courtesy, hospitality, and assistance in the business of selling his Franconian lands. Walther had found twenty-four hours in Nuremberg and Pogner's house ample time to fall deeply, transcendingly, rapturously, in love with the goldsmith's daughter.
His neighbour's picturesque whim, the song-contest in prospect, has no doubt given Sachs sufficient uneasiness, but he finally, as we heard him declare to Pogner, rests satisfied with the maiden's privilege of refusal. Not one of the guild of master-singers seems to him worthy of this blooming young Eve.
How his eyes beam with laughter!... Look sharp, Sixtus, keep an eye on that fellow!" "And may I hope," asks Walther of Pogner, "to have this very day an opportunity to undergo trial and be elected master?" "Oho!" soliloquises Beckmesser, with a shock of surprise at audacity such as this, "on that head stands no skittle!" There is no moss growing on him!
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