94 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
on the basis of the judgment of others, especially the rancorous 
aspersions of his jealous associates, than on the basis of any posi¬ 
tive achievements of his own. This is the snag that any frail 
craft sailing on the perilous waters of the Kiinstlerdrama is so 
apt to strike, and which Wagner so skilfully avoided—in the Mei- 
stersinger we are not merely invited but actually forced to believe 
in the greatness of both Hans Sachs and Walter von Stolzing, be¬ 
cause we receive in both cases irrefragable proof of it, instead of 
having to infer it by antithesis from Beckmesser’s malicious sneers. 
The scene changes, and the author takes us to a garden in front 
of the house of Master Steffen, a rich goldsmith, the father of 
Sachs’s lady-love, Kunigunde, who returns her lover’s affection 
but is very anxious that he should give up his lowly calling, since 
her purse-proud father would never consent to the marriage of his 
only child with a cobbler. Sachs however takes a manly stand and 
is not willing to humor her; on the contrary, he makes up his 
mind to sue now openly for the girl’s hand. No sooner has Sachs 
left than Steffen enters and announces to his daughter that he has 
brought her a birthday gift, the Augsburg councillor Eoban Runge, 
to whom he has promised his daughter in marriage. Eoban, to set 
him off against Hans Sachs, is depicted as an intolerable coxcomb 
and coward, and when Sachs shortly afterwards reappears on the 
scene, a quarrel ensues in which Sachs easily shows himself the 
superior of Kunigunde’s unwelcome suitor. 
The second act takes us to the square in front of Hans Sachs’s 
house. We learn that at the meeting of the mastersingers ’ guild 
he has been so mercilessly ridiculed on account of his latest poem 
that he has left the assembly pale and trembling. He complains 
of his humiliation in a monolog. In this mood he meets his rival 
Eoban for the second time. Eoban has torn his shoe on the sharp 
cobble-stones of the Nuremberg pavement, and seeing the shoe¬ 
maker’s sign, demands that the hole be mended forthwith. Learn¬ 
ing that his fellow suitor is a shoemaker, he hurries away to Kuni¬ 
gunde, to convey to her the supposed bit of news. Before he ar¬ 
rives, Kunigunde has almost coaxed her father into consenting to 
her marriage with Sachs, provided that he can approve of her 
lover’s calling, when Eoban rushes in, out of breath, to impart his 
information. In her confusion she promises to wed the Augsburg 
councillor if what he has stated be correct, hoping of course that 
under the pressure of circumstances Sachs will now be willing to 
give up his trade, which, being a wealthy man, he need not pursue 
anyway. But Sachs, who comes to ask openly for Kunigunde’s 
hand, is now more determined than ever to remain true to his 
work, and Kunigunde, exasperated beyond patience, bids him leave 
her for good. 
