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With my book under my arm I hid myself in the neighbouring woods, and pitching my tent by the brook in company with Titurel and Parcival, I lost myself in Wolfram's strange, yet irresistibly charming, poem.
The fellow-minstrels join their voices to Wolfram's, to press the recovered companion to remain among them. "Let discord and quarrel be laid aside! Let our songs form one harmony! As brothers regard us henceforward!"
At a motion of Wolfram's they set down the uncovered bier at the foot of the Virgin's shrine. In the torch-light they recognise the unhappy Tannhäuser. Seized with pity at sight of his ravaged countenance, "Holy," they sing, "the pure one who now united to the host of Heaven stands before the Eternal. Blessed the sinner over whom she wept, for whom she now implores the salvation of Heaven!"
But to those whom he left behind he gave his sword, horn, and ring. There are other mediaeval poems which deal with the story of Lohengrin, more, indeed, than can or need be discussed here. Some, however, deserve consideration because they supply elements which Wagner used in his opera but did not find in Wolfram's poem.
Compare Daland's song in the Dutchman with Wolfram's description of how Elisabeth has pined, or Senta's last passages in the final scene with Elisabeth's salute to the hall of song.
Full of this sentiment, I suddenly remembered that the day was Good Friday, and I called to mind the significance this omen had already once assumed for me when I was reading Wolfram's Parsifal.
The letters would be read in court, would be printed in the newspapers for all the world to see. With youth's easy grasping of eternity, it seemed to him that his disgrace would be for ever. Beddoes' "Death's Jest-book" was lying open on his knee. Wolfram's song
Certain portions of Tannhäuser, for example, can be listened to with pleasure simply as noble or beautiful music: the overture, Tannhäuser's Song to Venus, the Pilgrims' Marching Chorus, Wolfram's "O Star of Eve," Elisabeth's Prayer, and so on.
Now, Wolfram's bid for favour seems to me both too literal and too long. He does what undoubtedly the minstrels of old did freely declaims his verses, occasionally twanging his harp. As soon as Tannhäuser gets up the mighty spirit of Wagner begins to work.
Tannhäuser has lent ear somewhat listlessly. This hall has been called his rightful kingdom; he sits among the other minstrels consciously like a young monarch. At the closing figure of Wolfram's rhapsodical rhetoric, the image of the fount, a shadowy smile of superiority has dawned upon his face. As the applause dies, he grasps his harp and rises to take exception to Wolfram's definition.
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