erishly studying his bit of music-sheet,
at intervals wiping the desperate sweat from his brow. "Mr. Marker,
how are you getting on?"--"Oh, this song!" groans the Marker, "I
cannot make head or tail of it, and I have worked over it, in all
truth, hard enough!" Sachs shows him, if he but knew it, a way
of escape. "My friend, you are not obliged to use it."--"What is
the good? My own song, through your fault, is done for. Now be a
kind dear fellow, it would be abominable of you to leave me in the
lurch."--"It is my opinion that you had better give it up."--"Give
it up?... Well, hardly! I can easily beat all the others, if only
you will not sing. I am certain that no one will understand the
song, but I am building upon your popularity."

Sachs abandons him to his fate, and declares the song-contest open.
Kothner summons the contestants, "And let the oldest," he calls,
"come first. Master Beckmesser, pray begin. We are late!"

The little heralds have piled up grassy sods into a sort of pedestal
for the singers to stand on. They lead Beckmesser to this. He stumbles
in going, and can hardly from nervousness keep his balance on the
none too secure elevation. The common people begin to titter. Murmurs
fly from one to the other: "What? That one? That is one of the
suitors? Why, he can't even walk!... Keep quiet! He is an eminent
master! He is the town-clerk.... Lord, what a muff! He is toppling
over!... Be still, and stop your jokes; he has a seat and a voice
in the committee!..."--"_Silentium! Silentium!_" calls the chorus
of little heralds. And Kothner: "Begin!" Beckmesser, after bowing
to the queen of the day and to the assembly, gives forth, haltingly,
Walther's song as he remembers it, as it has become with passing
through the medium of his mind. What he utters, with many an anxious
peep at the crumpled manuscript, is nonsense of the most ludicrous.
For every word he substitutes another of distantly the same sound,
but different meaning, betraying how he has not understood a syllable.
The melody, if so were he had mastered it, has completely dropped
from his mind, and what he sings to the eccentric words is his own
serenade, but perverted by the interference of the alien influence.

The masters at the end of the first verse look at one another,
mystified. "What is that? Has he lost his senses? An extraordinary
case! Do our ears deceive us?" The people giggle and make remarks,
not too loud as yet.

At the end of the sec