r-bearing, over-confident
youth. Biterolf's sword has leaped from its scabbard. The Landgrave
orders it back. "Preserve peace, you singers!"

A hush falls as Wolfram takes the floor again. He had sacrificed
every selfish hope to serve both Elizabeth and Tannhaeuser, had
employed himself to further their union. What now is happening is
plainly terrible to him. His opinion of the friend has undergone
in the last moments a grievous subversion. He has been wounded to
the soul by the bold and profane tone of Tannhaeuser's argument.
His sensibility detects an atmosphere of sin about this novel love's
advocate, and as a good and pious knight he is forced to array
himself against the friend, to uphold Ideal Love in antagonism to
the Carnal Love he has just heard exalted. "Oh, Heaven, hear my
prayer and consecrate my song!" he sings, a pale flame informing his
song, as, imaginably, his cheek and eye; "Let me see evil banished
from this pure and noble circle! To you, Highest Love, let my song
resound, inspired, to you that in angelic beauty have penetrated
deep into my soul. As a messenger from Heaven do you appear to us;
I follow from afar. You guide us toward the regions where immortally
shines your star!"

Tannhaeuser, exasperated, reckless, frenzied with that temperamental
need of his to dominate, that impatience of being lessoned, losing
sight of all but one thing, that it shall be proved to them they
can teach nothing about love to him, the lover of the very Goddess
of Love, seizes his harp, his sword in this duel, and breaks forth
in his impassioned Praise of Venus,--the song we heard in the heart
of her Hill, when he celebrated her at her own bidding, in conclusion
begging so lamely for his dismissal. "To you, Goddess of Love,
shall my song resound! Loud shall your praises now be sung by me!
Your sweet beauty is the source of all that is beautiful, and every
lovely miracle has its origin in you! He who aglow has enfolded
you in his arms, he knows, and he alone, what love is! Oh, you
poor-spirited, who have never tasted love, go,--to the Hill of Venus
repair!"

The last words have the effect of a thunder-clap, in the consternation
they produce. Tannhaeuser in the drunkenness of his pride had forgotten
what this revelation would mean in the ears he trumpeted it to; in
his long sojourn in the pagan underworld, where his moral judgment
had become dulled and perverted, had forgotten, apparently, how
the Christian world re