t, after an outburst, he faints; then awakens and sings the
sublime passage in which he sees Isolda coming over-seas, the ship
covered with sweet-smelling flowers. The accompaniment to this piece of
magic is a figure taken from the fourth theme I have quoted in this
chapter. It is given at first to the horns, and over it sways a lovely
melody, leading to Tristan's cry of "Oh, Isolda!" which occurs again and
again until Isolda does come.

[Illustration: Some bars of music]

There are few tender and beautiful and pathetic things in music to
match it. Presently the horn of the shepherd is heard again; but this
time it plays a lively tune, as a signal that the ship is in sight.
Tristan goes mad for joy, and tears the bandages from his wounds. As
Isolda rushes in he staggers into her arms, and dies there to the
phrases in which they had first spoken after drinking the love-philtre.
Isolda's plaints are as touching and profound as those of Donna Anna in
_Don Giovanni_ after her father has been murdered. There is again
tumult; even at the last the lovers cannot be left alone; another ship
comes in sight, and Melot and Mark's warriors rush in. Kurvenal fights
and kills Melot, and is himself stabbed. He receives the wound, and
feels his way to his master's side, and dies groping for his hand. Mark
and Brangaena come in. She has confessed to the mistake she made in
giving the wrong potion, and he has come to make all well. Isolda pays
no attention, but, after a beautiful phrase from Brangaena, rises and
sings the wonderful Death song. The drama is now ended; the lovers'
passion has led them whither they knew it was leading them from the
beginning. Night has come on, and Isolda falls on Tristan's body and
dies, fulfilling the promise she had made--that where he went she would
follow. And so ends the greatest music-drama ever written, and the
greatest likely to be written for centuries to come.

We must pass on now to _The Mastersingers_, an old idea of Wagner's. The
music was completed at Triebschen. Here is nothing of the tension,
burning passion, and unfathomable depth of _Tristan_, but a pretty
love-story, with some comedy and more than a little of very broad farce.
In it Wagner determined to satirize the musical pedants, and he did so
with considerable acerbity. But it is not to see his enemies roughly
handled that we go to _The Mastersingers_: it is to hear one of Wagner's
two most beautiful operas. There is no need to go t