have pounded the leather even and
smooth, I learn of vowel-sounds and of consonance. When I have
waxed the thread hard and stiff, I apply myself to the rules of
rhyme. While punching holes and driving the awl, I commit the science
of rhythm and number...." And so forth. For a full year he has
been learning, and how far does Walther suppose he has got? The
Knight suggests, laughing: "To the making of a right good pair
of shoes!" Nay, this top-lofty aristocrat, with his jokes, does
not in the least understand! And David enlarges further on the
great and various difficulties in the way of him who aspires to
become a master-singer. A "bar," let him know, has manifold parts
and divisions, full difficult to master the law thereof!... And
then comes the "after-song," which must not be too short, nor yet
too long, and must contain no rhyme already used in the foregoing
stanzas. But even when a person has learned and knows all this,
even then he is not yet called a master. For there are a thousand
subtleties and refinements the aspirant must still make his own.
Whether David in showing off draws a bit upon his fancy, or whether
the master-singers really cherished these distinctions in mode and
tone, one can but wonder. Suggestive the titles of them certainly
are. Glibly, grandly, and with a rich relish, David tells them off:
The fool's-cap, the black-ink mode; the red, blue and green tones;
the hawthorn-blossom, straw-wisp, fennel modes; the tender, the sweet,
the rose-coloured tone; the short-lived love, the deserted-lover
tones; the rosemary, the golden lupine, the rainbow, the nightingale
modes; the English tin, the stick-cinnamon modes; the fresh orange,
green linden-blossom modes; the frogs', the calves', the goldfinch
modes; the mode--save the mark!--of the secret gormandiser; the
lark, the snail tones; the barking tone; the balsam, the marjoram
modes; the tawny lion-fell, the faithful pelican modes; the respendent
gold-galloon mode! Walther cries out to Heaven for help. "Those,"
proceeds David, "are only the names! Now learn to sing them exactly
as the masters have established, every word and tone sounding clearly,
the voice rising and falling as it should...." etc., etc., etc.;
"but if, when you have done all these things correctly, you should
make a mistake, or in any wise stumble and flounder, whatever your
success up to that moment, you would have failed in the song-trial!
In spite of great diligence and application,