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The true meaning is not obvious when it first occurs: Sachs seems simply to be the appreciator of true art and to be standing up for the true artist Walther against the barren pedant Beckmesser. And I beg leave here to make a digression.
Beckmesser, singing at the top of his lungs, does not wake to consciousness of his surroundings until a cudgel falls across his back, wielded by David. He flees but is at every few steps overtaken again and beaten. The two figures, in flight and pursuit, waving lute and brandishing cudgel, disappear and reappear at intervals among the swaying crowd.
Sachs drowns his feeble piping with a lusty carol, hammering away meanwhile at a pair of shoes which he must finish that night for Beckmesser to wear on the morrow. Beckmesser is in despair. Finally they come to an arrangement. Beckmesser shall sing his song, and Sachs shall act as 'marker, noting every technical blunder in the words and tune with a stroke of his hammer.
But Walther has composed another song and Sachs has devised a scheme: if Walther sings his song he is certain to be the victor, and Sachs has determined that by hook or by crook he must sing it. Beckmesser grabs the song, under the impression it is by Sachs; Sachs, without committing himself, tells him to make use of it at the contest if he can.
His song is one piece of nonsense!" while the people giggle louder and make remarks less and less respectful. At the end of the third verse, populace and masters burst into peals of laughter. Beckmesser descends from his pedestal and hurls himself raging at Sachs. "Accursed cobbler! To you I owe this! The song is none of mine," he excitedly informs the rest.
Their play is interrupted, and they hurriedly put on good behaviour, at the entrance of two of the masters, Pogner and Sixtus Beckmesser, the town-clerk. The change in the music is definite as a change of air and scene, is like passing from the hubbub of the street into some calm and pleasant precinct. Beckmesser is importuning Pogner with regard to his intentions for the morrow.
As Walther sings Sachs takes it down in tablature, calling out to him what sections are next required. Sachs then declares that this is indeed a master-song, and will win Walther the prize he so much desires; he and Walther go off to attire themselves for the contest, and Beckmesser limps in.
Sachs, discovering the theft, gives the song to Beckmesser, who secures a promise from Sachs not to betray him, and resolves to sing it at the competition. The festival is celebrated in a meadow on the banks of the Pegnitz River, between Furth and Nuremberg.
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.
"You no doubt mean well, but it would be a mistake.... If the people is to have a voice, I, for one, shall keep my mouth shut.... 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!"
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