trallalei

Updated: May 24, 2025

When Beckmesser, after impatiently preluding to bring to the window the figure he is expecting, clears his throat to begin the serenade, Sachs, vigourously hammering on his last, prevents him by bursting forth on his own account in a lusty ditty with much loud Ohe, Ohe, Trallalei! a playful ditty, sweet at the core, about Eve, the original mother, and the first pair of shoes, ordered for her from an angel by the Lord himself, who was sorry to see the pitiful sinner, when turned out of Paradise, go bruising her little feet, for which He had a tenderness, on the hard stones; and Adam, too, stubbing his toes against the flints, the song tells how he on the same occasion was measured for boots.

Gertrude Hall Brownell - The Wagnerian Romances