Roedder—“Die Meistersinger von Numb erg .” 
89 
provide for him a better and more honorable livelihood than the 
singing guild? Walter, who now enters, reveals to Sachs his keen 
disappointment in his Nuremberg experiences: he had placed 
high hopes on the mastersingers, from the repugnant present in 
which he lived they were to lead him into a beautiful poetic life; 
here he had expected to find remnants of the ancient Thuringian 
spirit, and now such disillusionment! He informs Sachs of the 
poetry he has written hitherto, under the influence of the Helden- 
buch and the great Wolfram, songs celebrating the great heroes 
and emperors, and he submits to the older man his latest minne- 
song, which makes Sachs exclaim, “You are a poet!” But, he 
adds, “you can no longer thrive as such.” For he himself feels 
keenly the pressure that weighs upon him: he was born to live 
in an unpoetic age. “With a melancholy humor he depicts to Wal¬ 
ter the epoch in which they live, the imminent extinction of the 
last mournful remnant of the old poetry, the mastersong! . . . 
Believe me, for a long, long time poetry will be forgotten. Peo¬ 
ple will fight with other weapons than songs: with reason, with 
philosophy, against stupidity and superstition; aye, with the 
sword they will defend these new weapons: you, who cherish such 
fine, noble sentiments, are to join in such combat, and thus you 
can achieve more than through the use of a gift that no one nowa¬ 
days appreciates. Sometime perhaps, after centuries have elapsed 
and a new world has begun, they will turn back again and look 
upon that which they once had: then they may possibly chance 
upon Hans Sachs, and he will point the way farther back and 
lead them to Walter, Wolfram, and the hero lays.” And when 
the young knight asks him, “Advise me then, what am I to do?” 
Sachs answers cheerfully, “Return to your castle, study what Ul¬ 
rich von Hutten and he of Wittenberg have written, and if it be 
necessary defend what you have learned with the sword!” But 
Walter’s thoughts run in another direction: “Very well, master! 
But now I need a wife!” 
Beckmesser, disconsolate over his failure in the previous night, 
comes to Sachs, whom he holds responsible for his plight, and de¬ 
mands from him a new song for the competition. Sachs hands 
him Walter’s song, pretending not to know where it came from, 
and advising him to pay due attention to a suitable tune to sing 
it to. The conceited marker deems himself invincible on this 
score, and in the presence of the masters and the population of 
Nuremberg who are to pronounce judgment, he sings the poem to 
an utterly unsuited and disfiguring melody, so that he fails again, 
and this time decisively. In his rage he charges Sachs with fraud, 
in foisting on him a disgraceful poem. Sachs, however, asserts 
that the poem is very good indeed, only it must be set to suitable 
music. It is agreed that he who knows the right tune shall be de¬ 
clared victor. Walter naturally steps forward and with his sing¬ 
ing wins the bride, but disdains reception into the masters’ guild, 
