sion to return from this hot, steaming cave of vice to
the fair clean earth. Venus in vain plays upon him with all her arts and
wiles; he sings his magnificent song in praise of her and her beauty,
but insists that he must go, and ends with a frenzied appeal to the
Virgin. In a moment the illusion is broken: Venus, her luxurious cavern,
her nymphs and satyrs, all disappear. There is a minute's blackness,
then the light returns, and Tannhaeuser is lying in the roadside before a
cross. The sky is blue and the trees and grass are green, and a
shepherd-boy is carolling a fresh, merry spring song. Tannhaeuser remains
with his face to earth while a band of pilgrims passes on its way to
Rome. Then his old companions come up, recognise him, tell him Elisabeth
has patiently awaited his return, and so induce him to go with them.

The second act opens on the Hall of Song. Elisabeth thinks over her
grief and longing during Tannhaeuser's absence, and sings her delight now
that he has come back to her. He comes in, and there follows a most
beautiful and touching scene, Elisabeth expressing her love and joy and
recounting her past sorrow, while in Tannhaeuser's utterances are
mingled joy, regret, gratitude, and a sense of rapturous repose on
finding himself at peace once again, after being so long tossed on seas
of stormy passion. The tournament of song commences. Various minstrels
sing the pure pleasures of a love in which the flesh has no part;
Tannhaeuser, Elisabeth approving, praises an honest, natural love. The
others oppose him, until, goaded to madness, he loses all self-control.
He hears the voice of Venus and calls upon her; in confusion the women
rush from the hall, the men draw their swords, and in a moment the hero
would be stabbed did not Elisabeth dash between him and the infuriated
knights. She pleads for him, and at last, the voice of pilgrims being
heard in the distance, Tannhaeuser's life is spared on condition that he
joins them and goes to Rome to ask forgiveness. The curtain in the last
act rises on the scene of the first, but where all was young and fresh,
now the leaves are withered and the tints of autumn are everywhere.
Elisabeth watches the pilgrims pass on their return from
Rome--Tannhaeuser is not amongst them. She sings her prayer to the Virgin
and goes home, as it proves, to die. Wolfram, Tannhaeuser's friend, who
also loves Elisabeth, sings his song of resignation; and then Tannhaeuser
enters, to the sini