Boedder—“Die Meistersinger von Niirriberg.” 93 
figure of Hans Sachs for the whole nation, just as Goethe’s Hans 
Sacks’s Poetic Mission had aroused the interest of the poets of 
the Storm and Stress period, after the untutored artisan-poet had 
for two centuries been despised as a wretched rhymester. 
The rising curtain reveals to us Hans Sachs, a young man of 
twenty-three years, seated beneath a blooming tree in his garden, 
trying in vain to write a poem, more dreaming than composing. 
One of his fellow mastersingers comes to return to him his poem 
4 'The Goddess’s Nine Gifts;” with very adverse comment, since 
Sachs has in it, as he thinks, grossly offended against the rules of 
poetry and also failed to show the modesty becoming so young 
a writer. A second mastersinger joins them and announces a 
meeting of the guild, at which new privileges granted by Emperor 
Maximilian are to be proclaimed. That these privileges are due 
mostly to Sachs’s writings, which have found favor with the em¬ 
peror, the two mastersingers, stung with jealousy, carefully con¬ 
ceal from their young colleague. Nor is Sachs envied by his 
brothers in Apollo alone: James the baker and Martin the grocer 
likewise find fault with him, unconsciously feeling his superiority: 
Jakob. Er ist fast jeglichem ein Dorn im Aug’, 
der Meister Superklug. 
Zweiter Meisters anger. • Er hat Talent, 
das ist wohl wahr — allein — 
Erster Meistersanger. Talent! — Talent !— 
Wir brauchen kein Talent, Tabulaturam 
soil er befolgen; die Aequivoca, 
die Relativa und die blinden Worte 
soil er vermeiden, keine Milben brauchen, 
glatt singen soli er, das begehren wir , 
nicht aber dabei zucken, wie er’s tut , 
das macht den Dichter und nicht das Talent. 
Talent kann jeder haben, aber nicht 
das rechte Ohr und jene Sorgsamkeit, 
so uns die Fehler klug vermeiden lassen, 
und die sprech ’ ich ihm ab; er ist noch nicht 
gesetzt genug, ihm macht die Phantasei 
zu vielen Schaden noch. 
Jakob (der erstaunt zugehort hat, zu Martin). 
Das ist ein Mann 
von anderm Schrote als der Meister Sachs; 
wenn man den reden hort, da lernt man was. 
I have quoted in full what I regard as the best passage in the 
whole play. 0 si sic omnia! But unfortunately the spectator is 
supposed to believe in the greatness of Deinhardstein’s hero more 
