s sacred fountain, his Muse, some
dazzling remote princess, held to be too fair and good by far for
human nature's daily food. The audience, when Wolfram resumes his
seat, cry: "So it is! So it is!" and loudly praise his song.

Tannhaeuser has lent ear somewhat listlessly. This hall has been
called his rightful kingdom; he sits among the other minstrels
consciously like a young monarch. At the closing figure of Wolfram's
rhapsodical rhetoric, the image of the fount, a shadowy smile of
superiority has dawned upon his face. As the applause dies, he
grasps his harp and rises to take exception to Wolfram's definition.
Such a song-feast was in fact a song-debate. His words come warm
and ready: "I too, Wolfram, may call myself so fortunate as to
behold what you have beheld. Who is there unacquainted with that
fountain? Hear me loudly exalt its virtue! But yet can I not approach
those waters without sense of warm longing. That burning thirst I
must cool. Comforted I set lips to the spring. In full draughts
I drink joy, unmixed with doubt or fear, for inexhaustible is the
fountain, even as inextinguishable is my desire. That my longing
therefore may be prolonged eternally, eternally I drink refreshment
at the well. Know Wolfram, thus do I conceive of love's truest
essence!"

There is deep silence when he has ended. One person only in the
large assemblage has given a sign of approval, made a little gesture
of assent, and that is Elizabeth, at bottom a very simple normal
woman, who does not recognise herself as a star or a sacred well
unapproachable to the one she loves. But as all refrain, she timidly
checks herself, and waits to hear the rest.

Walther has taken his harp, has risen; in growing excitement, touched
with indignation, he sweeps the strings: "The fountain spoken of by
Wolfram, by the light of the soul I too have looked into its depths!
But you, who thirst to drink at it, you, Heinrich, know it verily
not! Permit me to tell you, accept the lesson: That fountain is true
virtue. Devoutly you shall worship it and sacrifice to its limpid
purity. Should you lay lip to it, to cool your unhallowed passion,
nay, should you but sip at the outermost brim, forever gone were
its miraculous power! If you shall gain life from that fountain,
through the heart, not the palate, must you seek refreshment!"
Again there is lively applause. Tannhaeuser springs to his feet,
the old contemptuousness toward these companions,--compends o