RiCHARD W A GNER - Chandos

With none to take their measure!
Sing to the mob in the streets and the market,
Here, singers are ruled by the laws of singing
Sachs
Friend Marker, why so hotly burning?
You are upset, I fear
Your judgment might be more discerning
Had you a keener ear!
And so, now hear my final word,
That the singer to the end must be heard
Beckmesser
The Masters’ Guild and all the Schools,
Set against Sachs are nought but fools!
Sachs
Now God forbid that I should claim
To flout our laws or deny their aim!
’Tis written in this fashion:
The Marker shall be chosen so,
‘That, free from hate and passion,
He shall not swerve for friend or foe’
Now if our Marker goes a wooing,
Can he refrain his best from doing
To make his rival seem a fool,
And shame him here before the School?
Nachtigal
You go too far!
Kothner
Our wrath beware!
Pogner
I pray you, Masters, no more strife!
Beckmesser
Ei! What is it to Master Sachs then,
What I may see fit to do?
Let him pay more attention to cobbling,
And make a better shoe!
But since my cobbler has taken to verse,
The shoes he makes, have grown worse and
worse;
Unsound throughout, they flap all about!
This stuff he loves to scrawl
He can just keep it all
His lays and plays, his farcical muse,
If he’ll just bring me my fine new shoes!
Sachs
That’s true I must admit,
But do you think it fit,
That if I write a paltry verse
On the donkey‐driver’s shoe,
Our wise and learned Sir Town Clerk
Should not have his verses too?
But verses worthy of your choice,
Among all the humble poems I voice,
Found I as yet not one!
But now, perhaps ’twill come,
When Sir Walter’s Song I’ve heard,
Let him sing on now undisturbed!
Mastersingers
No further! an end! No more, no more!
Sachs (to Walther)
Sing, just to make the Masters roar!
Beckmesser
What use is all our schooling?
Such singing is but fooling!
Walther
Now from the thorny thicket,
The owl flies through the wood
With hoots and cries,
He wakens the raven’s croaking brood;
Now calls the dusky crowd
To rise and shriek aloud:
With voices hoarse and hollow,
The crows and jackdaws follow!
Up then soars, on golden pinions borne,
A bird to greet the morn,
With wondrous plumage o’er me,
Serene in Heaven high;
It gleams and floats before me,
And lures me on to fly
Now swells my heart, with tender smart,
As wings by need are given;
To mountain height, in dauntless flight,
From city’s tomb, towards its home,
Its wings are surely driven,
To meadows where the song of birds,
The Master first revealed in words;
Where I my song will raise
In fairest woman’s praise:
There on high,
Though ravenmasters croak and cry,
My song of love shall swell!
On earth, ye Masters, farewell!
(The utmost confusion breaks out during Walther’s
song.)
Beckmesser
Every fault, both great and small!
Look you here – do but see the slate
‘Faulty verse’ – ‘unsingable phrases’
‘Word clippings’ – I reprehend
‘Aequivoca!’ – ‘Rhymes in unfit places!’
‘Reversed’, ‘misplaced’ from end to end
A ‘Patchwork Song’ here, filling the pauses!
‘Hazy meaning’, see everywhere
‘Unmeaning words’, ‘Breaking off’, ‘Lame clauses’
There ‘Faulty breathing’, ‘Surprises’ here!
Incomprehensible melody
A mixing up of all tones that be
If you are equal to this strain,
Masters, count all his faults again
Already at the eighth he was cast,
But so long as he, no man did ever last
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