The King's herald asks if the court of justice shall be held on the spot? The King in answer hangs his shield on the Justice-Tree, declaring that this shield shall not cover him until he shall have spoken judgment, stern yet tempered with mercy. The nobles all bare their swords, declaring that these shall not be restored to their scabbards until they shall have seen justice done. The herald in loud tones summons the accused, Elsa von Brabant, to appear before this bar.

There advances slowly, followed by her women, a very young, very fair girl, whose countenance and every motion are stamped with gentle modesty. Between the dignity which upbears her and the sorrow which crushes her, she is pathetic as a bruised lily. She looks dreamy withal, as Telramund described her; her expression is mournfully abstracted, her eyes are on the ground. The murmur passes from lip to lip at sight of her: "How innocent she looks! The one who dared to bring against her such a heavy accusation must be sure indeed of her guilt."

She answers the King's first question, of her identity, by a motion of the head alone. One divines that she has wept so much she could only with difficulty summon up voice to speak. "Do you acknowledge me as your rightful judge?" the King proceeds. She lifts her eyes for a moment to read his, and slowly nods assent. "Do you know," he asks further, "whereof you are accused?" Her eyes slide for a second toward Telramund and Ortrud, and she answers by an involuntary shudder. "What have you to reply to the accusation?" With infinite dignity she sketches a meek gesture signifying, "Nothing!"—"You acknowledge then your guilt?" A faint cry, hardly more than a sigh, breaks from her lips: "My poor brother!" and she remains staring sorrowfully before her, as if upon a face invisible to the others.

Struck and moved, the good King, whom we heard promise that his sentence should be streng und mild, severe yet merciful, speaks kindly now to this strange girl, standing in such danger, yet engrossed in other things,—invites her confidence. "Tell me, Elsa, what have you to impart to me?" With her eyes fixed upon vacancy, she answers, almost as if she spoke in sleep: "In the darkness of my lonely days, I cried for help to God. I poured forth the deep lament of my heart in prayer. Among my moans there went forth one so plaintive, so piercing, it travelled with mighty vibrations far upon the air. I heard it resound at a vast distance ere it died upon my ear. My eyelids thereupon dropped, I sank into sweet slumber...."

All look at her in amazement. She stands before a tribunal on a matter of life and death, and with that rapt look offers a plea of such irrelevancy! "Is she dreaming?" ask some, under-breath, and others, "Is she mad?"

The King tries to bring her to a sense of reality, a sense of her peril. "Elsa!" he cries urgently, "speak your defence before this court of justice!" But she goes on, with an air of dreamy ecstasy: "All in the radiance of bright armour, a Knight drew near to me, of virtue so luminous as never had I seen before! A golden horn hung at his side, he leaned upon his sword. He came to me out of the air, the effulgent hero. With gentlest words and action he comforted me. I will await his coming, my champion he shall be!"

Her audience is impressed by the look of inspiration with which she tells her tale of vision. "The grace of Heaven be with us," they say, "and assist us to see clearly who here is at fault!"

The King in doubt turns to Telramund: "Friedrich, worthy as you are of all men's honour, consider well who it is you are accusing!" "You have heard her," the haughty lord answers excitedly; "she is raving about a paramour! I am not deceived by her dreamy posturing. That which I charge her with, I have certain ground for. Her crime was authoritatively proved to me. But to satisfy your doubt by producing testimony, that, verily, would ill become my pride. Here I stand! Here is my sword! Who among you will fight with me, casting slur upon my honour?"—"None of us!" comes promptly from the Brabantians, "We only fight for you!" The high-tempered gentleman turns somewhat violently upon the King: "And you, King, do you forget my services, my victories in battle over the wild Dane?" The King answers pacifyingly that it would ill beseem him to need reminding of these, that he renders to Telramund the homage due to highest worth, and could not wish the country in any keeping but his. God alone, in conclusion, shall decide this matter, too difficult obviously for human faculty. "I ask you, therefore, Friedrich, Count von Telramund, will you, in life and death combat, entrust your cause to the judgment of God?" Telramund gives assent. "And you I ask, Elsa von Brabant, will you entrust your cause to a champion who shall fight for you under the judgment of God?" She assents likewise. "Whom do you choose for your champion?" the King asks of her. "Now—" eagerly interjects Telramund, "now you shall hear the name of her lover!"—"Listen!" say the rest, with sharpened curiosity. The girl has fixed her eyes again upon the vacancy which to her apparently is full of things to see. "I will await the Knight. My champion he shall be! Hear what to the messenger of God I offer in guerdon. In my father's dominions let him wear the crown. Happy shall I hold myself if he take all that is mine, and if he please to call me consort I give him all I am!"

Four trumpeters turn to the four points of the compass and blow a summons. The herald calls loud: "He who will do battle here, under judgment of God, as champion for Elsa van Brabant, let him appear,—let him appear!" The vibrations die of horns and herald's voice. There is silence and tension. No one appears, nothing happens. Elsa, at first calm in her security of faith, gives evidence of anxiety. Telramund calls attention to her: "Now witness, witness if I have accused her falsely. Right, by that token, is on my side!" Elsa with childish simplicity appeals to the King: "Oh, my kind sovereign, let me beseech you, one more call for my champion! He is far away, no doubt, and has not heard!" At the King's command, the trumpets sound again, the herald repeats his summons. There is no answer. The surrounding stillness is unbroken by movement or sound. "By gloomy silence," the men murmur, "God signifies his sentence!" Elsa falls upon her knees: "Thou didst bear to him my lament, he came to me by Thy command. Oh, Lord, now tell my Knight that he must help me in my need! Vouchsafe to let me see him as I saw him before, even as I saw him before let him come to me now!" The women kneel beside her, adding their prayers to hers.

Elsa's last word has but died when a cry breaks from certain of the company standing upon an eminence next the river. "Look! Look! What a singular sight!"—"What is it?" ask the others. All eyes turn toward the river. "A swan! A swan, drawing a skiff!... A knight standing erect in it.... How his armour gleams! The eye cannot endure such brightness.... See, he is coming toward us. The swan draws the skiff by a golden chain! A miracle! A miracle!"

Elsa stands transfixed, not daring to look around; but her women look, and hail the approaching figure as that of the prayed-for champion. Amazement at sight of him strikes Telramund dumb. Ortrud upon a glance at the swan wears for one startled moment an expression of unconcealable fear. He stands, the stranger, leaning on his sword, in the swan-drawn boat; adorned with that excess of lovely attribute not looked for save in figures of dream or of legend, knightly in one and archangelic, with his flashing silver mail and flowing locks and unearthly beauty. As the boat draws to land all involuntarily bare their heads. Elsa at last finds hardihood to turn; a cry of rapturous recognition breaks from her lips.

He steps ashore. All in spell-bound attention watch for his first action, his first words. These are for the swan, and contain not much enlightenment for the breathless listeners. "Receive my thanks, beloved swan. Return across the wide flood yonder from whence you brought me. When you come back, let it be to our joy! Faithfully fulfil your service. Farewell, farewell, my beloved swan!" The mysterious bird slowly draws away from shore and breasts the river in the direction from whence it came. The Knight looks after the diminishing form with such effect of regret as would accompany the departure of a cherished friend.

Voices of wonder pass from person to person; wonder at his impressive beauty, and at themselves for the not unpleasant terror it inspires, the spell it casts over them. He turns at last and advancing toward the King salutes him; "Hail, King Henry! God's blessing stand by your sword! Your great and glorious name shall never pass from earth!" The King, who from his throne beneath the oak has been able to watch the stranger from the moment of his entering the story, is not of two minds concerning so luminous an apparition. "If I rightly recognise the power," he speaks, "which has brought you to this land, you come to us sent by God?"—"I am sent," replies the Knight, "to do battle for a maid against whom a dark accusation has been brought. Let me see now if I shall tell her from among the rest." With but a passing glance at the group of women, unhesitatingly he singles out Elsa, undistinguishable from the others by any sign of rank. "Speak, then, Elsa von Brabant! If I am chosen as your champion, will you without doubt or fear entrust yourself to my protection?" Elsa, who from the moment of seeing him has stood in a heavenly trance, answers this with no discreet and grudging acquiescence; she falls upon her knees at the feet of this her deliverer and hero, and with innocent impetuousness offers him, not assurance of confidence in his arm, or gratitude for his succour, but the whole of herself, made up solely of such confidence and gratitude. "Will you," asks the Knight, while a divine warmth of tenderness invests voice and face, "if I am victorious in combat for you, will you that I become your husband?"—"As I lie here at your feet," the girl replies with passionate humility, "I give over unto you body and soul!" Full of responsive love as is his face, bent upon so much beauty and innocence and adoration, he does not at once gather her up from her knees to his arms. Strangely, he stops to make conditions. "Elsa, if I am to be called your husband, if I am to defend your land and people, if nothing is ever to tear me from your side, one thing you must promise me: Never will you ask me, nor be concerned to know, from whence I came to you, nor what my name and race."—"Never, my lord, shall the question rise to my lips!" She has spoken too readily, too easily, as if she scarcely considered. "Elsa, have you perfectly understood?" he asks earnestly, and repeats his injunction more impressively still: "Never shall you ask me, nor be concerned to know, from whence I came to you, nor what my name and race!" But she, how should she in this moment not promise whatever he asked or do whatever be required? There is no question of pondering any demand of this exquisite dream made flesh, this angelic being come in the darkest hour to make all the difference to her between life and death. As he has asked more earnestly, she replies more emphatically. "My defender, my angel, my deliverer, who firmly believes in my innocence! Could any doubt be more culpable than that which should disturb my faith in you? Even as you will protect me in my need, even so will I faithfully obey your command!" He lifts her then to his breast with looks of radiant love, uttering the words which confirm his action and make him her affianced. The people around them gaze in moved wonder, confessing an emotion at sight of the wonnigliche Mann beyond natural, suggesting magic.

The Silver Knight steps into the midst of the circle about the Justice-Oak, and declares: "Hear me! To you nobles and people I proclaim it: Free from all guilt is Elsa von Brabant. That you have falsely accused her, Count von Telramund, shall now through God's judgment be confirmed to you!" Telramund, obviously in grave doubt, gazes searchingly in the face of this extraordinary intruder. He is sure of his own integrity, relies perfectly on his private information against Elsa; what then is an agent of Heaven's doing on the opposite side? How can this be an agent of Heaven's at all? While he hesitates, the Brabantian nobles warn him in undertones: "Keep from the fight! If you undertake it, never shall you come forth victorious! If he be protected by supernal power, of what use to you is your gallant sword?" But Friedrich, true to his stiff necked, proud self, bursts forth: "Rather dead than afraid!" and violently addresses the stranger: "Whatever sorcery have brought you here, stranger, who wear such a bold front, your haughty threats in no wise move me, since never have I intended deceit. I accept your challenge, and look to triumph by the course of justice!"

The lists are set, the ground of the duel is marked off with spears driven into the earth. When all is ready, the herald in solemn proclamation warns all present to refrain from every sort of interference, the penalty for any infringement of this rule to be, in the case of a noble, the loss of his hand, in the case of a churl, the loss of his head. He then addresses himself to the combatants, warning them to loyally observe the rules of battle, not by any evil art or trick of sorcery to disturb the virtue of the judgment. God is to judge them according to custom in such ordeals; in Him let them place their trust and not in their own strength. The two champions with equal readiness declare themselves prepared to obey this behest. The King descends from his throne, removes his regal crown, and, while all beside uncover and unite in his prayer, solemnly he makes over, as it were, his function of judge to God. "My Lord and my God, I call upon Thee, that Thou be present at this combat. Through victory of the sword speak Thy sentence, and let truth and falsehood clearly appear. To the arm of the righteous lend heroic strength, unstring the sinews of the false! Help us Thou, O God, in this hour, for our best wisdom is folly before Thee!"

Each of the persons present feels certain of victory for his own side, even dark Ortrud, with the black secrets of her conscience, who believes in no messengers from God, and pins her faith to the well-tested strength of her husband's arm.

At the thrice-repeated blow of the King's sword upon his shield, the combatants enter the lists. The duel lasts but a moment. Friedrich falls, not from any wound, but from the lightening flash of the adversary's sword, brought down upon him with a great sweep. The mysterious weight of it crushes him to the earth, overthrows him, deprives him of force to rise again. The gleaming enemy stands over him with sword-point at his throat: "By victory through God your life now belongs to me. I give it you. Make use of it to repent!"

In the rejoicings that follow, the acclamations of the victorious champion of innocence, no one takes any thought further of the vanquished. Unnoticed he writhes, appalled at the recognition that very God has beaten him, that honour—honour is lost! The wife struggles with a different emotion. Her eyes, unimpressed by his splendour, unconvinced by his victory, boldly scrutinise the countenance of the Swan-brought, to discover the thing he had forbidden Elsa to inquire, what manner of man he be. Who is this, she asks herself, that has overcome her husband, that has placed a term to her power? Is it one whom verily she need fear? Must she give up her hopes because of him?

II.

The Second Act shows the great court in the citadel of Antwerp, bounded at the back by the Palace, where the knights are lodged; at the left, by the Kemenate, the women's apartments; at the right, by the Minster. It is night. The windows of the Palace are brightly lighted; smothered bursts of music from time to time issue forth from them. Telramund and Ortrud, in the poor garb of plebeians, sit on the church-steps. Excommunication and banishment, following the condemnation of God signified by such defeat as Telramund has suffered, have made of them beggars and fugitives. Telramund is sunk in dark reflection. Ortrud, half-crouched like a dangerous animal lying in wait, stares intently at the lighted windows. With sudden effort of resolve Telramund rouses himself and gets to his feet. "Come, companion of my disgrace!" he speaks to the woman beside him; "Daybreak must not find us here." She does not stir. "I cannot move from here," she answers; "I am spell-bound upon this spot. From the contemplation of this brilliant banqueting of our enemies let me absorb a fearful mortal venom, whereby I shall bring to an end both our ignominy and their rejoicing!" Friedrich shudders, in spite of himself, at such incarnate malignity as seems represented by that crouching form, those hate-darting eyes. The sense seizes him, too, in the dreadful soreness of his lacerated pride, how much this woman is responsible for what he has suffered. "You fearful woman!" he cries, "What is it keeps me still bound to you? Why do I not leave you alone, and flee by myself away, away, where my conscience may find rest? Through you I must lose my honour, the glory I had won. The praise that attaches to fair fame follows me no more. My knighthood is turned to a mock! Outlawed, proscribed am I, shattered is my sword, broken my escutcheon, anathemised my house! Whatever way I turn, all flee from me, accursed! The robber himself shuns the infection of my glance. Oh, that I had chosen death sooner than life so abject and miserable!..." With the agonised cry, "My honour, oh, my honour! I have lost my honour!" he casts himself face downward upon the ground.

Ortrud has not stirred, or taken her eyes from the bright orange-gold windows. As Telramund's harsh voice ceases, music is heard again from the banquet-hall. Ortrud listens till it has died away; then asks, with cold quiet: "What makes you waste yourself in these wild complaints?"—"That the very weapon should have been taken from me with which I might have struck you dead!" he cries, stung to insanity. Scornfully calm and cold as before, "Friedrich, you Count of Telramund, for what reason," she asks, "do you distrust me?" Hotly he pours forth his reasons. "Do you ask? Was it not your testimony, your report, which induced me to accuse that innocent girl? You, living in the dusky woods, did you not mendaciously aver to me that from your wild castle you had seen the dark deed committed? With your own eyes seen how Elsa drowned her brother in the tarn? And did you not ensnare my ambitious heart with the prophecy that the ancient princely dynasty of Radbot soon should flourish anew and reign over Brabant, moving me thereby to withdraw my claim to the hand of Elsa, the immaculate, and take to wife yourself, because you were the last descendant of Radbot?"—"Ha! How mortally offensive is your speech!" she speaks, but suppresses her natural annoyance to continue: "Very true, all you have stated, I did say, and confirmed it with proof."—"And made me, whose name stood so high in honour, whose life had earned the prize due to highest virtue, made me into the shameful accomplice of your lie!"—"Who lied?" she asks coolly. "You!" he unceremoniously flings at her; "Has not God because of it, through his judgment, brought me to shame?"—"God?..." She utters the word with such vigour of derision that he involuntarily starts back. "Horrible!" he shudders after a moment; "How dreadful does that name sound upon your lips!"—"Ha! Do you call your own cowardice God?" He raises against her his maddened hand: "Ortrud!..."—"Do you threaten me? Threaten a woman?" she sneers, unmoved; "Oh, lily-livered! Had you been equally bold in threatening him who now sends us forth to our miserable doom, full easily might you have earned victory in place of shame. Ha! He who should manfully stand up to the encounter with him would find him weaker than a child!"—"The weaker he," Telramund observes, ill-pleased, "the more mightily was exhibited the strength of God!"—"The strength of God!... Ha, ha!" laughs loud Ortrud, with the same unmoderated effect of scorn and defiance, which sends her husband staggering back it step, gasping. "Give me the opportunity," she proceeds, with a return to that uncanny quiet of hers, "and I will show you, infallibly, what a feeble god it is protects him!"

Telramund is impressed. She is telling him after all that which he would like to believe. Still, the impression of the day's events is strong upon him,—his overthrow at God's own hand. After that, how dare he trust her? And yet— But then again— "You wild seeress," he exclaims, torn with doubt, "what are you trying, with your mysterious hints, to entangle my soul afresh?" She points at the Palace, from the windows of which the lights have disappeared. "The revellers have laid them down to their luxurious repose. Sit here beside me! The hour is come when my seer's eye shall read the invisible for you." Telramund draws nearer, fascinated, reconquered to her by this suggestion of some dim hope rearising upon his blighted life. He sits down beside her and holds close his ear for her guarded tones. "Do you know who this hero is whom a swan brought to the shore?"—"No!"—"What would you give to know? If I should tell you that were he forced to reveal his name and kind there would be an end to the power which laboriously he borrows from sorcery?"—"Ha! I understand then his prohibition!"—"Now listen! No one here has power to wring from him his secret, save she alone whom he forbade so stringently ever to put to him the question!"—"The thing to do then would be to prevail upon Elsa not to withhold from asking it!"—"Ha! How quickly and well you apprehend me!"—"But how should we succeed in that?"—"Listen! It is necessary first of all not to forsake the spot. Wherefore, sharpen your wit! To arouse well-justified suspicion in her, step forward, accuse him of sorcery, whereby he perverted the ordeal!"—"Ha! By sorcery it was, and treachery!"—"If you fail, there is still left the expedient of violence."—"Violence?"—"Not for nought am I learned in the most hidden arts. Every being deriving his strength from magic, if but the smallest shred of flesh be torn from his body, must instantly appear in his original weakness."—"Oh, if it might be that you spoke true!" wistfully groans Telramund. "If in the encounter you had struck off one of his fingers," Ortrud continues, "nay, but one joint of a finger, that hero would have been in your power!" Rage and excitement possess Telramund at the retrospect of the combat in which he had been beaten, not, as he had supposed, by God, but by the tricks of a sorcerer, and at the prospect of avenging his disgrace, proving his uprightness, recovering his honour. But—he is checked by a sudden return of suspicion of this dark companion and adviser. "Oh, woman, whom I see standing before me in the night," he addresses the dim figure, "if you are again deceiving me, woe to you, I tell you, woe!" She quiets him with the promise of teaching him the sweet joys of vengeance. A foretaste of these they have, sitting on the minster-steps, gloating upon the walls which enclose the unconscious foes. "Oh, you, sunk in sweet slumber, know that mischief is awake and lying in wait for you!"

A door opens in the upper story of the Kemenate. A white figure steps out on to the balcony and leans against the parapet, head upon hand. The pair in the shade watch with suspended breath, recognising Elsa. She is too happy, obviously, to sleep; her heart is too heavily oppressed with gratitude for all that this wonderful day has brought. The well-born gentle soul that she is must be offering thanks to everything that has contributed to this hour; and so, girlishly, she speaks to the wind: "You breezes, whom I used so often to burden with my sadness and complaints, I must tell you in very gratitude what happy turn my fortunes have taken! By your means he came travelling to me, you smiled upon his voyage, on his way over the wild waves you kept him safe. Full many a time have I troubled you to dry my tears. I ask you now of your kindness to cool my cheek aglow with love!" Ortrud has kept basilisk eyes fixed upon the sweet love-flushed face touched with moonlight. "She shall curse the hour," speaks the bitter enemy in her teeth, "in which my eyes beheld her thus!" She bids Telramund under-breath leave her for a little while. "Wherefore?" he asks. "She falls to my share," comes grimly from the wife; "take her hero for yours!" Telramund slips obediently away into the black shadow.

Ortrud watches Elsa for a time breathing her innocent fancies to the wind; then abruptly cuts short the pastime, calling her name in a loud, deliberately-plaintive tone. Elsa peers anxiously down in the dark court. "Who calls me? How lamentably did my name come shuddering through the night!"—"Elsa, is my voice so strange to you? Is it your mind to disclaim all acquaintance with the wretch whom you have driven forth to exile and misery?"—"Ortrud, is it you? What are you doing here, unhappy woman?"—"Unhappy woman?..." Ortrud repeats after her, giving the turn of scorn to the young girl's pitying intonation; "Ample reason have you indeed to call me so!" With dark artfulness she rouses in Elsa more than proportionate compassion for her plight, by casting upon the tender-conscienced creature the whole blame for it. In no scene does the youthfulness of Telramund's ward appear more pathetically than in this. "In the solitary forest, where I lived quiet and at peace, what had I done to you," Ortrud upbraids, "what had I done to you? Living there joylessly, my days solely spent in mourning over the misfortunes that had long pursued my house, what had I done to you,—what had I done to you?"—"Of what, in God's name, do you accuse me?" asks Elsa, bewildered. Ortrud pursues in her chosen line of incrimination at all cost: "However could you envy me the fortune of being chosen for wife by the man whom you had of your free will disdained?"—"All-merciful God," exclaims Elsa, "What is the meaning of this?"—"And if, blinded by an unhappy delusion, he attributed guilt to you, guiltless, his heart is now torn with remorse; grim indeed has his punishment been. Oh, you are happy! After brief period of suffering, mitigated by conscious innocence, you see all life smiling unclouded before you. You can part from me well-pleased, and send me forth on my way to death, that the dull shadow of my grief may not disturb your feasts."

Ortrud's policy is completely successful; this last imputation is intolerable to the generous girl, made even more tender-hearted than wont by her overflowing happiness. "What mean sense of Thy mercies would I be showing," she cries, "All-powerful, who have so greatly blessed me, should I repulse the wretched bowed before me in the dust! Oh, nevermore! Ortrud, wait for me! I myself will come down and let you in!"

She hurries indoors. Ortrud has gained what she wanted, intimate access to the young Duchess's ear, that she may pour her poison into it. She has a moment's joy of triumph, while the fair dupe is hastening down to her within. We discover at this point that she is no Christian like the rest; that the secret gods of the secret sorceress are the old superseded ones, Wotan and Freia. For that reason it was the Silver Knight did not impress her as he did the others. She could not admit that he came from God, the false god whose name we heard her pronounce with such unconcealable scorn; but, herself a witch, supposed that he performed the feat through wizardry. She had explained the phenomenon to her husband in good faith; she believed what she said, that were he forced to tell his name, or might a shred of flesh be torn from him, he would stand before them undisguised, shorn of his magic power. Wild with evil joy at the success of her acting, she calls upon her desecrated gods to help her further against the apostates. "Wotan, strong god, I appeal to you! Freia, highest goddess, hear me! Vouchsafe your blessing upon my deceit and hypocrisy, that I may happily accomplish my vengeance!"

At the sound of Elsa's voice calling: "Ortrud, where are you?" she assumes the last abjectness. "Here!" she replies, cowering upon the earth. "Here at your feet!" Simple Elsa's heart melts at the sight, really out of all reason soft, out of all reason unsuspecting. Yet she is infinitely sweet, in her exaggeration of goodness, when she not only pardons, but begs pardon of this fiendish enemy for what the latter may have had to suffer through her. She eagerly puts out her hands to lift Ortrud from her knees. "God help me! That I should see you thus, whom I have never seen save proud and magnificent! Oh, my heart will choke me to behold you in so humble attitude. Rise to your feet! Spare me your supplications! The hate you have borne me I forgive you, and I pray you to forgive me too whatever you have had to suffer through me!"—"Receive my thanks for so much goodness!" exclaims feelingly the accomplished actress. "He who to-morrow will be called my husband," continues Elsa, in her young gladness to heap benefits, "I will make appeal to his gentle nature, and obtain grace for Friedrich likewise."—"You bind me to you forever with bonds of gratitude!" With light innocent hand Elsa places the crowning one on top of her magnanimous courtesies. "At early morning let me see you ready prepared. Adorned in magnificent attire, you shall walk with me to the minster. There I am to await my hero, to become his wife before God. His wife!..." The sweet pride with which she says the word, the soft ecstasy that falls upon her at the thought, stir in Ortrud such hatred that she cannot forbear, even though the time can hardly be ripe, taking the first step at once which is to result in the quick ruin of the poor child's dreams. "How shall I reward you for so much kindness, powerless and destitute as I am? Though by your grace I should dwell beside you, I should remain no better than a beggar. One power, however, there is left me; no arbitrary decree could rob me of that. By means of it, peradventure, I shall be able to protect your life and preserve it from regret."—"What do you mean?" asks Elsa lightly. "What I mean is—that I warn you not too blindly to trust in your good fortune; let me for the future have care for you, lest disaster entangle you unaware." Elsa shrinks back a little, murmuring, "Disaster?" Ortrud speaks with impressive mystery close to her ear: "Could you but comprehend what marvellous manner of being is the man—of whom I say but this: May he never forsake you through the very same magic by which he came to you!" Elsa starts away from Ortrud, in horror at such impiety,—disbelief in the highest. But in a moment her displeasure gives way to sadness and pity for the darkness in which this other woman lives. "Poor sister!" she speaks, most gently, "you can hardly conceive how unsuspecting is my heart! You have never known, belike, the happiness that belongs to perfect faith. Come in with me! Let me teach you the sweetness of an untroubled trust. Let me convert you to the faith that there exists a happiness without leaven of regret!" This warm young generous sweetness which makes Elsa open to any appeal, blind to grossest fraud, merely exasperates Ortrud's ill-will. She reads in it plain pride of superiority. As she could not admit in the Knight of the swan a god-sent hero, she cannot see in Elsa an uncommonly good-hearted girl. "Oh, that arrogance!" she is muttering while Elsa is exhorting her; "It shall teach me how I may undo that trustfulness of hers! Against it shall the weapons be turned, her pride shall bring about her fall!"—Elsa by gesture inviting, the other feigning confusion at so great kindness, the two pass into the house together.

The first grey of dawn lightens the sky. Telramund, who has been spying unseen, exults to see mischief in the person of his wife entering the house of the enemy. He is not an evil man, he cares beyond all for honour, and his consciousness of a certain unfairness in the methods his wife will use is implied in his exclamation; but the violent man so rages under a sense of injustice that all weapons to him are good which shall bring about the ruin of those who have ruined him. "Thus does mischief enter that house! Accomplish, woman, what your subtlety has devised. I feel no power to check you at your work. The mischief began with my downfall; now shall you plunge after me, you who brought me to it! One thing alone stands clear before me: The robbers of my honour shall see destruction!"

Daylight brightens. The warders sound the reveille from the turret. Telramund conceals himself behind a buttress of the minster. The business of the day is gradually taken up in the citadel court. The porter unlocks the tower-gate that lets out on to the city-road; servants come and go about their work, drawing water, hanging festive garlands. At a summons from the King's trumpeters, nobles and burghers assemble in great number before the Minster. The King's herald coming out on the Palace-steps makes the following announcements: Firstly: Banished and outlawed is Friedrich von Telramund, for having undertaken the ordeal with a knowledge of his own guilt. Any one sheltering or associating with him shall according to the law of the realm come under the same condemnation. Secondly: The King invests the unknown God-sent man, about to espouse Elsa, with the lands and the crown of Brabant; the hero to be called, according to his preference, not Duke, but Protector of Brabant. Thirdly: The Protector will celebrate with them this day his nuptial feast, but they shall join him tomorrow in battle-trim, to follow, as their duty is, the King's arms. He himself, renouncing the sweetness of repose, will lead them to glory.

These proclamations are followed by general assent and gladness. A small group there is, however, of malcontents, former adherents of Telramund's, who grumble: "Hear that! He is to remove us out of the country, against an enemy who has never so much as threatened us! Such a bold beginning is ill-beseeming. Who will stand up against him when he is in command?"—"I will!" comes from a muffled figure that has crept among them, and Friedrich uncovers his countenance. "How dare you venture here, in danger as you are from the hand of every churl?" they ask him, frightened. "I shall dare and venture more than this ere long, and the scales will drop from your eyes. He who presumptuously calls you forth to war, I will accuse him of treason in the things of God." The Brabantian gentlemen, afraid of his being overheard or recognised, conceal the rash lord among them, and compel him toward the church, out of sight.

Forerunners of the wedding-procession, young pages come from the Kemenate, and clear a way through the crowd to the church-door. A long train of ladies walk before the bride. There are happy cheers when she appears, dazzling in her wedding-pomp; there are blessings and the natural expressions of devotion from loyal subjects. The pages and ladies stand massed at either side of the Minster-door to give their mistress precedence in entering. She is slowly, with bashful lowered eyes, mounting the stairs, when Ortrud, who in magnificent apparel has been following in her train, steps quickly before her, with the startling command, given in a furious voice: "Back, Elsa! I will no longer endure to follow you like a serving-maid! Everywhere shall you yield me precedence, and with proper deference bow before me!" This is, we believe, no part of any deep-laid plan of Ortrud's, though it does in the event help along her scheme; it is an uncontrollable outburst of temper at sight of Elsa in her eminence of bridal and ducal glory. "What does the woman mean?" ask the people of one another, and step between Elsa and her. "What is this?" cries Elsa, painfully startled; "What sudden change has taken place in you?"—"Because for an hour I forgot my proper worth," Radbot's daughter continues violently, "do you think that I am fit only to crawl before you? I will take measures to wipe out my abasement. That which is due to me I am determined to receive!"—"Woe's me!" complains Elsa, "Was I duped by your feigning, when you stole to me last night with your pretended grief? And do you now haughtily demand precedence of me, you, the wife of a man convicted by God?" Ortrud sees here her opportunity again to introduce the wedge of suspicion into her victim's mind. "Though a false sentence banished my husband, his name was honoured throughout the land, he was never spoken of save as the pattern of virtue. His sword was well-tested and was feared—But yours, tell me, who that is present knows him? You cannot even yourself call him by his name!... Nay, but can you?" she taunts the shocked, pale-grown bride, who has found no more than force to gasp,—"What does she say? She blasphemes! Stop her lips!"—"Can you tell us whether his lineage, his nobility, be well attested? From whence the river brought him and whither he will go when he leaves? No, you cannot! The matter, no doubt, would present difficulties, wherefore the astute hero forbade all questioning!" Elsa has found her voice at last, and speaks right hotly: "You slanderer! Abandoned woman! Hear, whether I can answer you! So pure and lofty is his nature, so filled with virtue is that noblest man, that never shall the person obtain forgiveness who presumes to doubt his mission! Did not my hero overcome your husband by the power of God in singular combat? You shall tell me then, all of you, which of the two must lawfully be held true?"—"Ha! That truth of your hero's!" mocks Ortrud, fearfully ready of tongue; "How soon were it cast in doubt, should he be forced to confess the sorcery by which he practises such power! If you fear to question him concerning it, all may believe with good right that you are not free yourself from the suspicion that his truth must not be too closely looked into!" Elsa is near fainting with the anguish of this encounter; her women surround and comfort her.

The doors of the Palace have opened, the King and the Knight of the Swan, with great retinue of nobles, issue forth, bound for the church and wedding-ceremony. They arrive upon the scene before the confusion is allayed occasioned by the quarrel between vulture and dove. Elsa runs to the arms of the Protector. Receiving her and glancing naturally about for explanation, he beholds the dangerous Ortrud, whom his clear eye reads, restored to splendour, part of the wedding-train, and remarks upon it with amazement to the trembling bride. "What do I see? That unhappy woman at your side?"—"My deliverer," weeps Elsa, "shield me from her! Scold me, for having disobeyed you! I found her in tears here before my door; I took her in out of her wretchedness. Now see how dreadfully she rewards my kindness!... She taunts me for my over-great trust in you!" The Knight fixes his eyes sternly upon the offender, who somehow cannot look back bold insult as she would wish, but stands spell-bound under the calm severity of his glance. "Stand off from her, you fearful woman. Here shall you never prevail!—Tell me, Elsa," he bends over her tearful face, "tell me that she tried vainly to drop her venom into your heart?" Elsa hides her face against his breast without answering. But the gesture with its implied confidence satisfies him; the tears increase his protecting tenderness. "Come!" he draws her toward the church; "Let your tears flow in there as tears of joy!"

The wedding-train forms again and moves churchward in wake of King and bride and groom. But the wedding to-day is not to come off without check and interruption—an ill omen, according to the lore of all peoples. As the bridal party is mounting the Minster-steps, there starts up in front of it, before the darkly gaping door, the figure of Telramund. The crowd sways back as if from one who should spread infection, so tainted did a man appear against whom God through his ordeal had spoken judgment. "Oh, King, oh, deluded princes, stand!" he cries, barring their way. He will not be silenced by their indignant threats; he makes himself heard in spite of shocked and angry prohibitions. "Hear me to whom grim injustice has been done! God's judgment was perverted, falsified! By the tricks of a sorcerer you have been beguiled!" The King's followers are for seizing and thrusting him aside; but the soldier, famous no longer ago than yesterday for every sort of superiority, stands his ground and says what he is determined to say. "The man I see yonder in his magnificence, I accuse of sorcery! As dust before God's breath, let the power be dispersed which he owes to a black art! How ill did you attend to the matters of the ordeal which was to strip me of honour, refraining as you did from questioning him, when he came to undertake God's fight! But you shall not prevent the question now, I myself will put it to him. Of his name, his station, his honours, I inquire aloud before the whole world. Who is he, who came to shore guided by a wild swan? One who keeps in his service the like enchanted animals is to my thinking no true man! Let him answer now my accusation. If he can do so, call my condemnation just, but if he refuse, it must be plain to all that his virtue will not bear scrutiny!" All eyes turn with unmistakable interest of expectation toward the man thus accused; wonder concerning what he will reply is expressed in undertones.

He refuses point-blank, with a bearing of such superiority as an attack of the sort can hardly ruffle. "Not to you, so forgetful of your honour, have I need here to reply. I set aside your evil aspersion; truth will hardly suffer from the like!"—"If I am in his eyes not worthy of reply," Friedrich bitterly re-attacks, "I call upon you, King, high in honour indeed. Will he, on the ground of insufficient nobility, refuse likewise to answer you?" Aye, the Knight refuses again, with an assurance partaking in no wise of haughtiness, but speaking a noble consciousness of what he is which places him above men's opinions. "Yes! even the King I must refuse to answer, and the united council of all the princes! They will not permit doubt of me to burden them, they were witnesses of my good deed. There is but one whom I must answer. Elsa!" He turns toward her with bright face of confidence, and stops short at sight of her, so troubled, so visibly torn by inward conflict, her bosom labouring, her face trembling. There is no concealing it, she would have wished him to answer loudly and boldly, to crush those mocking enemies, Ortrud and Telramund, with the mention of a name, a rank, which should have bowed them down before him in the dust, abject. There is silence, while all, entertaining their respective reflections, watch Elsa, and she struggles with herself, staring blindly ahead. His secret no doubt,—thus run her pitiable feminine thoughts,—if revealed publicly like this would involve him in some danger. Ungrateful indeed were it in her, saved by him, to betray him by demanding the information here. If she knew his secret, however, she would surely keep it faithfully.... But—but—she is helpless against it, doubt is upheaving the foundations of her heart!

It is the good King who speaks the right, the pertinent word. "My hero, stand up undaunted against yonder faithless man! You are too indubitably great to consider accusations of his!" The nobles readily accept the King's leadership, in this as in other matters. "We stand by you," they say to the Knight. "Your hand! We believe that noble is your name, even though it be not spoken."—"Never shall you repent your faith!" the Knight assures them. While the nobles crowd about him; offering their hands in sign of allegiance, and Elsa stands apart blindly dealing with her doubt, Telramund steals unperceived to her side and whispers to her: "Rely on me! Let me tell you a method for obtaining certainty!" She recoils, frightened, yet without denouncing him aloud. "Let me take from him the smallest shred of flesh," he continues hurriedly, "the merest tip of a finger, and I swear to you that what he conceals you shall see freely for yourself...." In his eagerness, forgetful really at last of honour, he adds the inducement, "And, true to you forever, he will never leave you!"—"Nevermore!" cries Elsa, not so vigourously, however, but that he finds it possible still to add: "I will be near to you at night. Do but call me, without injury to him it shall be quickly done!" The Knight has caught sight of him and is instantly at Elsa's side, crying astonished, "Elsa, with whom are you conversing?" The poor girl sinks overwhelmed with trouble and confusion at his feet. "Away from her, you accursed!" speaks the Knight in a terrible authoritative voice to the evil pair; "Let my eye never again behold you in her neighbourhood!" Gently he lifts the bride; he scans her face wistfully: "In your hand, in your loyalty, lies the pledge of all happiness! Have you fallen into the unrest of doubt? Do you wish to question me?" He asks it so frankly and fearlessly, albeit sorrowfully; he stands there so convincingly brave-looking and clear-eyed, full of the calm effect of power, that Elsa gazing at him comes back to her true self and answers with all her heart: "Oh, my champion, who came to save me! My hero, in whom I must live and die! High above all power of doubt my love shall stand!" He clasps her in his arms, solemnly saluting her....

And once more the wedding-party sets itself upon the way to church. Organ-music pours forth from the Minster-portals. With her foot on the threshold the bride turns an eager, instinctive, searching, almost frightened look upon the groom. In answer, he folds reassuring arms around her. But, even so held, woman-like she looks back, in spite of herself, over her shoulder, toward Ortrud, who receives the timid glance with a detestable gesture of triumph. Properly frightened, the bride turns quickly away, and the procession enters the church.

III

It is night. The stately bridal apartment awaits its guests. Music is heard, very faint at first, as if approaching through long corridors. Preceded by pages with lights, there enter by different doors a train of women leading Elsa, a train of nobles and the King leading the Knight.

The epithalamium is sung to its end. After grave and charming ceremony, with blessings and good wishes, all withdraw, leaving the bride and groom alone. Elsa's face is altogether clear again of its clouds; all is forgotten save the immeasurable happiness which, as soon as the doors discreetly close, impels her to his arms; clasped together, seated upon the edge of a day-bed, they listen in silence to their wedding-music dying slowly away. When all is still at last, in the dear joy of being "alone, for the first time alone together since first we saw each other," life seems to begin for each upon new and so incredibly sweeter terms. The stranger knight, whom mystery enwraps, shows himself, despite certain sweet loftiness which never leaves him, most convincingly human. In the simplest warm way, a way old-fashioned as love, we hear him rejoice: "Now we are escaped and hidden from the whole world. None can overhear the exchange of greetings between our hearts. Elsa, my wife! You sweet white bride! You shall tell me now whether you are happy!"—"How cold must I be to call myself merely happy," she satisfies him liberally, "when I possess the whole joy of Heaven! In the sweet glowing toward you of my heart, I know such rapture as God can alone bestow!" He meets her gratitude with an equal and just a little over. "If, of your graciousness, you call yourself happy, do you not give to me too the very happiness of Heaven? In the sweet glowing toward you of my heart, I know indeed such rapture as God can alone bestow!" He falls naturally, happy-lover-like, into talking of their first meeting and beginning love: "How wondrous do I see to be the nature of our love! We had never seen, but yet had divined, each other! Choice had been made of me for your champion, but it was love showed me my way to you. I read your innocence in your eyes, by a glance you impressed me into the service of your grace!"—"I too," she eagerly follows, "had seen you already, you had come to me in a beatific dream. Then when wide-awake I saw you standing before me, I knew that you were there by God's behest. I would have wished to dissolve beneath your eyes and flow about your feet like a brook. I would have wished like a flower shedding perfume out in the meadow to bow in gladness at your footfall. Is this love?... Ah, how do my lips frame it, that word so inexpressibly sweet as none other, save alas! your name... which I am never to speak, by which I am never to call the highest that I know!" There is no return indicated in this of any doubt of him. Elsa is in this moment certainly all trust. It is but an expression of love chafing a little at the reticence which seems a barrier one must naturally wish away, if hearts are to flow freely together. Hardly warningly, just lovingly, he interrupts her: "Elsa!"—"How sweetly" she remarks enviously, "my name drops from your lips! Do you grudge me the dear sound of yours? Nay, you shall grant me this boon, that just in the quiet hours of love's seclusion my lips should speak it...." He checks her, as before, unalarmed, without reproach, by an exclamation of love. "My sweet wife!"—"Just when we are alone," she coaxes, "when no one can overhear! Never shall it be spoken in hearing of the outside world." Instead of answering directly, he draws her to him and turns to the open casement overlooking the garden; he gazes thoughtfully out into the summer night and answers by a sort of tender object-lesson. "Come, breathe with me the mild fragrance of the flowers.... Oh, the sweet intoxication it affords! Mysteriously it steals to us through the air, unquestioningly I yield myself to its spell. A like spell it was which bound me to you when I saw you, Sweet, for the first time. I did not need to ask how you might be descended, my eye beheld you, my heart at once understood. Even as this fragrance softly captures the senses, coming to us wafted from the enigmatic night, even so did your purity enthrall me, despite the dark suspicion weighing upon you!"

That she owes him much she is ready and over-ready to own. It is almost embarassing to owe so much, to owe everything, and no means of repaying, because the whole of oneself is after all so little. "Oh, that I might prove myself worthy of you!" she sighs, "that I need not sink into insignificance before you! That some merit might lift me to your level, that I might suffer some torture for your sake! If, even as you found me suffering under a heavy charge, I might know you to be in distress! If bravely I might bear a burden for you, might know of some sorrow threatening you! Can it be that your secret is of such a nature that your lip must keep it from the whole world? Disaster perhaps would overtake you, were it openly published. If this were so, and if you would tell it to me, would place your secret in my power, oh, never by any violence should it be torn from me, for you I would go to death!" The bridegroom cannot but be touched by such devoted gallant words from the fairest lips. Off guard, he murmurs fondly, "Beloved!"—"Oh, make me proud by your confidence, that I may not so deeply feel my unworthiness!" she pleads, eagerly following up the advantage of his not having yet remonstrated; "Let me know your secret, that I may see plainly who you are!" Wilfully deaf to his imploring, "Hush, Elsa!" more and more urgently she presses: "To my faithfulness reveal your whole noble worth! Without fear of regret, tell me whence you came. I will prove to you how strong in silence I can be!"

Her words, all at once, their significance penetrating fully, have brought a change in him. Gravely he moves apart from her, and his voice is for a moment stern as well as sorrowful: "Highest confidence already have I shown you, placing trust as I unhesitatingly did in your oath. If you will never depart from the command you swore to observe, high above all women shall I deem you worthy of honour." But he cannot continue in that tone, the altogether human bridegroom. At sight of the pained look his severity has produced, he goes quickly again to her, he makes instant reparation for his momentary harshness. "Come to my breast, you sweet, you white one!" he profusely caresses and consoles; "Be close to the warmth of my heart! Bend upon me the soft light of your eye in which I saw foreshining my whole happiness!..." And just to satisfy her so far as he can, to prove still further his great love, he proceeds: "Oh, greatly must your love compensate me for that which I relinquished for your sake! No destiny in God's wide world could be esteemed nobler than mine. If the King should offer me his crown, with good right I might reject it. The only thing which can repay me for my sacrifice, I must look for it in your love. Then cast doubt aside forever. Let your love be my proud security! For I came to you from no obscure and miserable lot. From splendour and joy am I come to you!" Oh, the ill-inspired speech! What he dreamed must unite closer, in the momentary mood of the incalculable feminine being he is dealing with, divides further. The thought is instantly back in her mind which she had smothered and then forgotten, the idea suggested by Ortrud, implied by Friedrich, that mysteriously as he came the unknown Knight may presently be going away from her. The hour that should have been so sweet and quiet in the "fragrant chamber adorned for love" of the wedding-song, is turned to strain and dreadfulness. "God help me!" wails her passionate alarm, "What must I hear? What testimony from your own lips! In your wish to beguile me, you have announced my lamentable doom! The condition you forsook, your highest happiness lay bound in that. You came to me from splendour and joy, and are longing to go back. How could I, poor wretch, believe that my faithful devotion would suffice you? The day will come which will rob me of you, your love being turned to rue!"—"Forbear, forbear thus to torture yourself!"—"Nay, it is you, why do you torture me? Must I count the days during which I still may keep you? In haunting fear of your departure, my cheek will fade; then you will hasten away from me, I shall be left forlorn."—"Never" he endeavours to quiet her, "never will your winning charm lessen, if you but keep suspicion from your heart."—"How should I tie you to me?" she pursues undeterred her fatal train of thought; "How might I hope for such power? A creature of weird arts are you, you came here by a miracle of magic. How then should it fare but ill with me? What security for you can I hold?" She shrinks together in sudden terror and listens. "Did you hear nothing? Did you not distinguish footsteps?"—"Elsa!"—"No, it is not that!... But there..." she stares vacantly ahead, pointing,—her face how changed from the sweet, glowing face of so short a time ago!—and describes what her over-excited fancy paints on the empty air before her: "Look there! The swan! The swan! There he comes, over the watery flood.... You call him, he draws the boat to shore...."—"Stop, Elsa! Master these mad imaginings!" the poor lover strives with her, in despair.—"Nay, nothing can give me rest," she declares, wholly unmanageable, wholly unreasonable, "nothing can turn me from these imaginings, but, though I should pay for it with my life, the knowledge who you are!"—"Elsa, what are you daring to do?"—"Uncannily beautiful man, hear what I must demand of you: Tell me your name!"—"Forbear!"—"Whence are you come?"—"Alas!"—"What manner of man are you?"—"Woe, what have you done?" Elsa utters a shriek, catching sight of Telramund with a handful of armed men stealing in by the door behind her husband's back,—the explanation of the sound she had heard. With a cry of warning, she runs for her husband's sword and hands it to him. Quickly turning he rewards Friedrich's ineffectual lunge with a blow that stretches him dead. The appalled accomplices drop their swords and fall to their knees. Elsa, who had cast herself against her husband's breast, slides swooning to the floor. There is a long silence. The Knight stands, deeply shaken, coming to gradual realisation of the whole sorrowful situation. All the light, the bridegroom joy, have faded from his face. With a quiet suggestive of infinite patience and some strange superiority of strength, some unearthly resource, he considers this ruin, his audible comment on it a single sigh, more poignant than if it were less restrained: "Woe! Now is all our happiness over!" Very gently he lifts Elsa, sufficiently revived to realise that she has somehow worked irreparable destruction, and decisively places her away from him. By a sign he orders Telramund's followers to their feet and bids them carry the dead man to the King's judgment-place. He rings a bell; the women who appear in answer, he instructs: "To accompany her before the King, attire Elsa, my sweet wife! There shall she receive my answer, and learn her husband's name and state."

At daybreak the Brabantian lords and their men-at-arms are assembling around the Justice-Oak in readiness to follow the King. The King, with noble expressions of gratitude for their loyalty, takes command of them. "But where loiters," he is inquiring, "the one whom God sent to the glory, the greatness of Brabant?" when a covered bier is borne before him and set down in the midst of the wondering company, by men whom they recognise as former retainers of Telramund's. This is done, explain these last, by order of the Protector of Brabant.

Elsa attended by her ladies appears at the place of gathering. Her pale and sorrow-struck looks are attributed naturally to the impending departure of her husband for the field.

Armed in his flashing silver mail, as he was first seen of them, he now appears on the spot. Cheers greet him from those whom he is to lead to battle and victory. When their shouts die, he makes, standing before the King, the startling announcement that he cannot lead them to battle, the brave heroes he has convoked. "I am not here as your brother-of-arms," he informs their consternation; "You behold me in the character of complainant. And, firstly..." he solemnly draws the pall from the dead face of Telramund, "I make my charge aloud before you all, and ask for judgment according to law and custom: This man having surprised and assailed me by night, tell me, was I justified in slaying him?"—"As your hand smote him upon earth," the horrified spectators cry in a voice, "may God's punishment smite him yonder!"—"Another accusation must you hear," the Knight continues; "I speak my complaint before you all. The woman whom God had given to my keeping has been so far misguided as to forget her loyalty to me!" There is an outcry of sorrowful incredulity. "You all heard," he proceeds, steeled to severity, "how she promised me never to ask who I am? She has broken that sacred oath. To pernicious counsel she yielded her heart. No longer may I spare to answer the mad questioning of her doubt. I could deny the urgency of enemies, but must make known, since she has willed it, my name,—must reveal who I am! Now judge if I have reason to shun the light! Before the whole world, before the King and kingdom, I will in all truth declare my secret. Hear, then, if I be not equal in nobility to any here!" There runs a murmur through all the impressed multitude, not of curiosity, but regret that he should be forced to speak; the uneasy wish is felt that he might not.

His face has cleared wonderfully. As his inward eye fixes itself upon images of the home, the Glanz und Wonne, he is about to describe, memory lights his countenance as if with the reflection of some place of unearthly splendour. "In a far land," his words fall measured and sweet, "unapproachable to footsteps of yours, a fastness there stands called Monsalvat. In the centre of it, a bright temple, more precious than anything known upon earth. Within this is preserved as the most sacred of relics a vessel of blessed and miraculous power. It was brought to earth by a legion of angels, and given into the guardianship of men, to be the object of their purest care. Yearly there descends from Heaven a Dove, to strengthen anew its miraculous power. It is called the Grail, and there is shed from it into the hearts of the knights that guard it serene and perfect faith. One chosen to serve the Grail is armed by it with over-earthly power; against it no evil art can prevail, before the vision of it the shades of death disperse. One sent by it to distant countries to champion the cause of virtue retains the holy power derived from it as long as he remains unknown. Of nature so mysteriously sublime is the blessing of the Grail that if disclosed to the layman's eye it must withdraw. The identity of a Knight of the Grail must therefore not be suspected. If he is recognised—he must depart! Now hear my reply to the forbidden question. By the Holy Grail was I sent to you here. My father Parsifal in Monsalvat wears the crown. A Knight of the Grail am I and my name is Lohengrin!"

The people gaze at him in awe and worshipping wonder. The unhapppy Elsa, feeling the world reel and grow dark, gasps for air and is falling, when Lohengrin catches her in his arms, all his sternness melting away, his grief and love pouring forth in tender reproach. "Oh, Elsa, what have you done to me? From the first moment of beholding you, I felt love for you enkindling my heart, I became aware of an unknown happiness. The high faculty, the miraculous power, the strength involved in my secret, I wished to place them all at the service of your purest heart. Why did you wrest from me my secret? For now, alas, I must be parted from you!" She expends herself in wild prayers to be forgiven, to be punished by whatsoever affliction, only not to lose him. He feels sorrow enough, immeasurable sorrow, heart-break, but not for an instant hesitation. "The Grail already is offended at my lagging! I must—must go! There is but one punishment for your fault, and its hard anguish falls equally upon me. We must be parted,—far removed from each other!" He turns to the King and nobles imploring him to remain and lead them as he had promised against the enemy. "Oh, King, I may not stay! A Knight of the Grail, when you have recognised him, should he disobediently remain to fight with you, would have forfeited the strength of his arm. But hear me prophesy: A great victory awaits you, just and single-hearted King! To the remotest days shall the hordes of the East never march in triumph upon Germany!"

From the river-bank comes a startling voice: "The swan! The swan!" All turn to look. A cry of horror breaks from Elsa. The swan is seen approaching, drawing the empty boat. Less master of himself than theretofore, Lohengrin, realising the last parting so near, gives unmistakable outward sign of his inward anguish. "The Grail already is sending for the dilatory servant!..." Going to the water's edge he addresses to the snowy bird words which no one can quite comprehend. "My beloved swan, how gladly would I have spared you this last sorrowful voyage. In a year, your period of service having expired, delivered by the power of the Grail, in a different shape I had thought to see you.—Oh, Elsa," he returns to her side, "oh, that I might have waited but one year and been witness of your joy when, under protection of the Grail, your brother had returned to you, whom you thought dead!... When in the ripeness of time he comes home, and I am far away from him in life, you shall give him this horn, this sword, this ring...." He places in her hands the great double-edged sword, the golden horn from his side, the ring from his finger. "This horn when he is in danger, shall procure him help. This sword, in the fray, shall assure him victory. But when he looks at the ringlet him think of me who upon a time delivered you from danger and distress. Farewell, farewell! My sweet wife, farewell! The Grail will chide if I delay longer.... Farewell!" He has kissed over and over again the face of the poor woman who, annihilated by grief, has not the power to make motion or sound. He places her, with terrible effort of resolution, in the arms at last of others, and hastens, amid general lamentation, to the shore.

Ortrud, lost in the crowd, has watched all. She has in reality gained nothing by the disaster to Elsa, but she exults in it. Further revenge for what she has suffered from Elsa's mere existence, for the bitterness of her husband's death at the hand of Elsa's husband, she seeks recklessly in a revelation which cannot but hold danger for herself. In the insanity of her mingled despair and gloating hate, her hurry to hurt, she does not wait until the powerful antagonist be well out of the way of retorting—Lohengrin has but one foot as yet in the boat,—before she cries, "Go your way home, go your way, O haughty hero, that gleefully I may impart to this fair fool who it is drawing you in your boat. By the golden chain which I wound about him, I recognised that swan. That swan was the heir of Brabant!—I thank you," she mockingly addresses Elsa, "I thank you for having driven away the Knight. The swan must now betake himself home with him. If he had remained here longer, that hero, he would have delivered your brother too!" The whole dark scheme of Ortrud's ambition now lies bare: She had compassed the disappearance of the heir to the crown of Brabant, changing him by magic art into a swan; had cast the guilt of his disappearance upon Elsa, and married the man who upon Elsa's condemnation would have become Duke. Through no neglect of her own was Ortrud's brow still bare of the crown. At the cry of execration that greets her revelation, she faces them all, drawn up to her proud height, and announces: "Thus do they revenge themselves, the gods from whom you turned your worship!"

But Lohengrin had not been too far, nor too engrossed in going, to hear her words. The Knight of the Grail has sunk on his knees and joined his hands in prayer. All eyes are upon him, his eyes earnestly heavenward. For a long moment all is in motionless suspense. A white dove flies into sight, and hovers over the boat. With the gladness of one whose prayer is heard, Lohengrin rises and unfastens the chain from the swan; this vanishes from sight, leaving in its place a beautiful boy in shining garments, whom Lohengrin lifts to the bank. "Behold the Duke of Brabant! Your leader he shall be!" At sight of him, Ortrud utters a cry of terror, Elsa, drawn for a moment out of her stupor, a cry of joy. She catches the brother in her arms—But looking up, after the first transport of gladness, and seeing the place empty where her husband had stood, his boat gone from sight, forgetting all else, she sends after him a despairing cry, "My husband! My husband!"

In the distance, at a bend of the river, the boat reappears for a moment, drawn now by the dove of the Grail. The Silver Knight is seen standing in it, leaning on his shield, his head mournfully bowed. Sounds of sorrow break from all lips. The sight pierces like a sword through the heart of the forsaken bride. She sinks to the ground entseelt—exanimate.

Such figures as play their part in this story, the Silver Knight, with his swan and faery skiff, the fair falsely-accused damsel, the wicked sorceress, could hardly be painted in flagrant life-colours. The music of Lohengrin brings to mind pictures one seems to remember on vellum margins of old books of legend, where against a golden background shine forth vivid yet delicate shapes, in tints brilliant yet soft as distance, the green of April, the rose of day-break, the blue of remote horizons.

There is an older story on these same lines, the story of Cupid and Psyche, an allegory, we are told, of Love and the Soul. And an allegory is meant to teach somewhat. And what does this teach—but that one must be great? Not enough to be innocent, kind, loving, pure as snow, like Elsa, a being golden and lovely through and through, such as could lure down a sort of angel from his heaven. Beside it all, great one must be. Life, the Sphinx, requires upon occasion that one be great. Just a little greatness, so to speak, and Elsa would first of all have recognised the obligation to keep her word; would further have trusted what must have been her own profound instinct about the man she loved, rather than the suggestions of others troubling her shallow mind-surface. Had she been great, we may almost affirm, she would have known that he was great; she would have trusted truth and greatness though they came to her unlabelled.

But Life, the Sphinx, proposed to her a riddle, and because she was no more than a poor, sweet, limited woman she could not solve it, and Life ground her in its teeth and swallowed her up.

TANNHAeUSER

TANNHAeUSER

I.

We are shown in the Ouverture of Tannhaeuser the power which contended for the young knight and minstrel's soul: the appeal of good is symbolised by the solemn chant of the pilgrims; of evil, by the voice of Venus, the song of the Sirens, the Bacchic dance.

We are not informed how he came into the Hill of Venus, but when we see him at the Landgrave's court, which we are told he forsook of yore in offended pride, we think we divine. He is more greatly gifted than any of his associates. By his sense of superiority he is made—young and hot-blooded as he is,—haughty, quick, impatient. They cannot suffer his overbearing way. We can imagine how upon an occasion he left them, after a round quarrel, in a fury of vexation, sick with disgust at the whole world of such slow, limited creatures, the whole world of petty passions and narrow circumstances, in a mood to sell himself to the Devil for something in life which should seem to him worth while, of satisfactory size, peer to himself. And so his feet had come in the familiar valley suddenly upon a new path, and been led to the interior of the mountain where Venus, driven from the surface of the earth by the usurping Cross, had taken refuge with all her pagan train. There the Queen of Love herself had contented him, and his thirsty youth had thought this no doubt a sufficient crown of life; this had met all his vast desires, appeased all his boundless pride. He had lived in the rosy atmosphere there he knew not how long, existence one feast, at which everything in man was satisfied, heart, imagination, senses—everything but his soul.

We first have sight of him lying at the feet of Venus, his head pillowed on her lap. There are dances and revels for their delight, but he has fallen asleep,—and in his dream he hears, through the song of stupefying sweetness in which the Sirens hold forth enkindling promises, a fragment of anthem, the long-forgotten music of church-bells. He starts awake. The tender queen draws down-his head again with a caress. "Beloved, where are your thoughts?" But his neglected soul has in dream made its claim. The sweetness of all this other is found by sudden revulsion cloying to the point of despair. "Too much!" he cries wildly, "Too much! Oh, that I might awaken!" At just that touch, that sound in sleep of bells, his whole poor humanity has flooded back upon him, and at the goddess's indulgent "Tell me what troubles you?" his weak infinite homesickness breaks bounds. "It seemed to me, in my dream, that I heard—what so long has been foreign to my ear!—the pleasant pealing of bells. Oh, tell me, how long is it that I hear them no more? I cannot measure the length of my sojourn here. There are no longer for me days or months, since I no longer see the sun or the sky's friendly constellations. The grass-blade I see no more, which, clothing itself with fresh green, brings in the new summer. The nightingale I hear no more announcing the return of Spring. Am I never to hear them, never to see them more?"

Venus, mildly amazed at folly so prodigious, reproaches him for this complaining, these regrets. What, is he so soon weary of the marvels with which her love surrounds him? Discontented so soon with being a god? Has he so soon forgotten the old unhappiness? "My minstrel, up! Take your harp! Sing the praise of love, which you celebrate so gloriously that you won the Goddess of Love herself." Tannhaeuser, thus bidden, seizes the harp and warmly entones a hymn of praise to her, which from its climax of ardour, suddenly—as if his lips were tripped by the word "mortal" occurring in the song,—turns into a prayer to her to release him. "But mortal, alas, I have remained, and your love is over-great for me. A god has the capacity to enjoy perpetually, but I am the creature of change. Not joy alone can satisfy my heart, after pleasure I yearn for sorrow. Forth from your kingdom I must fare. Oh, Queen, Goddess, let me depart!"

Reproachful questions succeed on her part: Of what neglect has her love been guilty, of what can he accuse her? In reply, grasping his harp again, he adds fiery praise to praise of her greatness, the wonders of her kingdom,—to drop again into his prayer for release: "But I, amid these rosy perfumes, I yearn for the odour of the forest, yearn for the pure blue of our skies, the fresh green of our sward, the sweet song of our birds, the dear sound of our bells! Forth from your kingdom I must fare. O Queen, Goddess, let me depart!"

The beautiful queen's surprise is turning to anger, without ceasing to be surprise. "You sing the praise of my love, and wish at the same time to flee from it? My beauty, is it possible, has brought surfeit?" He tells her, disarmingly as he may, what must fall incomprehensibly on her pagan ears, that it is that over-great beauty of hers he must shun, that never was his love greater, never sincerer, than in this moment when he must flee from her forever.

She drops chiding then, truly alarmed, and tempts. She paints to him with glowing art the delights awaiting them; to these she bids him with the persuasive voice of love. When the goddess of beauty thus invites a mortal, she feels secure in counting upon his forgetting all else. But this Tannhaeuser, with the dreamy echo in his earth-born ears of the church-bells of home, he catches, instead of her beautiful form to his breast, his harp again. He grants that her beauty is the source of all beauty, that every lovely marvel has its origin in her: against the whole world, he promises, he will thereafter be her champion, but—back to the world of earth go he must, for here he can but become a slave. Freedom, for freedom he thirsts! Battle and struggle he must have, though he should meet through them defeat and death. Forth from her kingdom he must fare! Queen, Goddess, let him depart!

"Go, then, madman, go!" she bids him in lovely wrath. "Traitor, see, I do not hold you back! I leave you free, go your way, go your way! Let your doom be to have that which you yearn for! Go back to cold mankind, before whose gross dismal delusion we Gods of Joy fled deep into the warm bosom of the earth. Go back to them, infatuated! Seek your soul's welfare and find it never! Not long before your proud heart will surrender. I shall see you humbly draw near. Broken, trampled, you will come seeking me, will invoke the wonders of my power!" Unheedful of the remainder, he seizes avidly upon his dismissal. "Ah, lovely goddess, farewell! Never will I return!" What—never return? She threatens with her curse, if he shall not return, him and the whole human race: in vain let them go seeking for her miracles, let the world become a wilderness and have for its hero a slave! But yet—he cannot have meant what he said, he will come back, let him say that he will come back! "Nevermore!" cries the captive of this suffocating prison-house of love, as he pants upon the threshold of freedom, "nevermore let joy of love delight me!"—"Come back" she desperately entreats, "when your heart impels you!"—"Forever your beloved flees!"—"Come back when the whole world rejects you!"—"Through penance I shall be absolved from sin!"—"Never shall you gain forgiveness! Come back if the gates of salvation close to you!"—"Salvation!... My hope of salvation lies in the Blessed Mary!"

At that name, Venus uttering a cry vanishes, and with her the dim-lit subterranean kingdom....

Tannhaeuser finds himself standing in a sunny well-known valley, near to a road-side shrine of the Blessed Mary at whose hem he had caught. The Wartburg is in sight, where he was used in former days to take part in song-tournaments. In dim distance looms the Hoerselberg, concerning which a sinister rumour ran: that in the heart of it the pagan goddess Venus still lived and held her court. All the landscape smiles, the trees are in blossom, nature is altogether at her loveliest. Oh, so sweeter to the ears of the resuscitated knight than the song of sirens, comes the homely tinkle of sheepbells. A little shepherd pipes and sings in joy over the return of May.

Tannhaeuser stands statue-still, as if he feared by the slightest movement to wake himself, to dispel the vision.

A band of penitents, starting on a pilgrimage to far-off Rome, defile past the Virgin's shrine, saluting her and asking her grace upon their pilgrimage. Their pious chant stirs in Tannhaeuser deep, long-untouched chords. At the same moment that the aroused sense of pollution would overwhelm him, the reminder shines forth to him in the pilgrims' words of the possibility of forgiveness and regeneration through repentance and penitential practices. A very miracle of God's grace it seems to him, by which he sees the door of hope open to him anew. The weight of his emotion forces him to his knees; he makes his own the words of the pilgrims wending their way out of sight: "Ah, heavily oppresses me the burden of sin, no longer can I carry it. No more will I therefore of ease and rest, but choose for my portion pain and effort." The pilgrims' voices come drifting more and more dyingly, the breeze wafts sounds of church-bells. With tears Tannhaeuser bows his head and sinks into prayer.

Cheerful hunting-horns breaking upon the air do not rouse him, nor the approach of the hunters. They are the Landgrave and a group of his favorite minstrel-knights. Catching sight of the kneeling figure, they stop to observe it. The minstrel Wolfram recognises their old companion, Heinrich, who had left them, time gone, to disappear utterly. The circumstances of their parting are suggested by the first words uttered when Tannhaeuser starts to his feet and faces them. "Is it truly yourself?" asks the Landgrave; "Have you come back to the community which you forsook in impatient arrogance?"—"Tell us what is implied by your return?" says the minstrel Biterolf; "Reconciliation? Or renewed battle?"—"Do you come as friend or foe?" asks the minstrel Walther. So much the more probable thing does it seem that he comes as foe that there is a challenging note in the address of all—save Wolfram. The latter, the gentlest soul among them, has taken account of the old companion's countenance; his sympathy is quick to interpret it, by a word he changes the mood toward him of all the others. "As a foe? How can you ask? Is that the bearing of arrogance? Oh, welcome back among us, you singer bold, who too long have been absent from our midst!"—"Welcome if you come peaceably-minded!" say the others; "Welcome if you approach as a friend! Welcome among us!"

The Landgrave, after adding his gracious greeting to the greetings of the others asks where he has been this long time. "Far, far from here I wandered," Tannhaeuser replies, with a vagueness mysteriously pregnant, "where I found neither peace nor rest. Inquire not! I have not come to contend with you. Forgive the past and let me go my way!"

Marvellously softened by this novel gentleness in the formerly so testy and proud companion, all now with a single mind desire him to stay, nay, refuse to let him go. He turns from them resolutely: "Detain me not! It would ill profit me to tarry! Never more for me repose! Onward and ever onward lies my way, to look backward were undoing!" He is hastening away, despite their entreaties, when Wolfram pronounces the name which brings him to an instantaneous standstill. "Remain beside Elizabeth!"—"Elizabeth!" Tannhaeuser repeats after him, reverently as if the name were consecrated bread upon his lips; "Oh, power of Heaven, is it you calling that sweet name to me?" At the spectacle of his emotion, Wolfram turns to the Landgrave: "Have I your leave, my lord, to be the herald to him of his good fortune?" The Landgrave consents. "Inform him of the magic spell he has wrought, and may God lend him virtue to loose it worthily!" Wolfram imparts to Henry then that when in the days before his disappearance the minstrels were wont to contend with him in song, whatever the event of the contest, one prize there had been won by him alone, his song alone had had power to enthrall the interest of that most virtuous maid, Elizabeth. And when he had proudly withdrawn from their midst, her heart had closed to the singing of the remaining minstrels; her cheek had lost bloom, she had shunned their song-tourneys. "Return to us, O daring minstrel," Wolfram concludes, "let your song resound alongside of ours, that she may no longer be absent from our festivals, that her star once more may shed brightness upon us!" The fellow-minstrels join their voices to Wolfram's, to press the recovered companion to remain among them. "Let discord and quarrel be laid aside! Let our songs form one harmony! As brothers regard us henceforward!"

Great gladness has fallen upon the knight, crushed to earth a moment past by a sense of sin; a swift rebound lifts up the heart that had asked of this fair and over-fair world just restored to him only opportunity to expiate and be made clean. Can this be true, this which seems like the most madly impossible of beautiful dreams? Elizabeth! the Landgrave's niece, the fair and faultless, the saint!... No doubt in the old days he had worshipped her, not daring to lift his eyes above her footprints, had loved as a moth may a star. That lily had shone in his dreams, cool and pure and unattainable, by the mysterious attraction of opposites compelling homage and desire more than might any being less removed in nature from his hot, pleasure-thirsty, sense-ridden, undisciplined self. An element in his discontent with the earth had been perhaps his sense of life-wide separation from her, of unsurpassable barriers between them, the vanity of aspiration. And now the Landgrave permits her name to be used to keep him from departing! And with his long-dead soul come back to intenser life than ever, that lily more than ever calls forth the worshipping devotion of his reawakened highest self. In total self-abandonment of joy, he breaks forth: "To her! To her! Oh, conduct me to her! Ah, I recognise it now, the lovely world from which I was cut off! The sky it is, looking down upon me, it is the greensward flaunting rich multitude of flowers. Spring with its thousand voices of joy has entered into my soul, and my heart in sweet ungovernable tumult cries out aloud: To her! To her!"

"Praise be to the power," say Landgrave and minstrels, "which has dispelled his arrogance!" What the remembrance is in this circle of Tannhaeuser's arrogance appears from the frequency of reference to it. The remainder of the hunting-retinue has now joined the Landgrave; the scene is brilliant with swarming figures of hunters, hounds, and horses. With bright horn-calls the train starts homeward, on its rejoicing way "to her!"

II

The Hall of Minstrels in the Wartburg, where the famous song-tournaments were held. Such a tournament is directly to take place, and Elizabeth for the first time after many days will preside over it. She enters the hall while it is still empty of guests, and looks around with glad affectionate eyes, like one returning home after long exile. She is sincere as she is innocent, the white princess, "une ame sans detours," and speaks the truth of her heart with wonderfully little circumlocution, as to herself now in her salutation of the hall, so to others later. "Once more I greet you, beloved hall,—oh, joyously greet you, place ever dear! In you reawaken echoes of his singing, and draw me from my melancholy dream. When he departed from you, how desolate did you appear to me! Peace deserted me, joy deserted you! But now that my breast rides high with gladness you appear to me proud again and splendid as of yore. The one who gives new life both to you and to me no longer tarries afar. All hail to you, beloved hall, all hail!"

Wolfram, who loves Elizabeth, but in such unworldly, elevated, self-abjuring wise that he can for the sake of happiness to her set wholly aside hopes, desires, and jealousies of his own, finds for Tannhaeuser this opportunity of seeing the Princess alone. He leads him into her presence and effaces himself, while their interview lasts, among the arches at the back of the hall.

Tannhaeuser, flushed and radiant, magnificent in his festival robes of a noble minstrel-knight, casts himself impetuously at her feet. His sudden appearance startles her painfully. Her manner speaks a confusion almost tremulous: "Father in Heaven!... Do not kneel!... It is not meet that I should see you here!"—"What else so meet? Oh, do not leave," he cries ardently, "and suffer me to remain thus at your feet!" Her timidity wears away like dew in sunshine; we fancy the play of faint gracious smiles upon her next words. "Stand up, then! Not in this place must you kneel, for this hall is your rightful kingdom. Oh, rise to your feet! Take my thanks for having come back to us. Where did you tarry so long?" Tannhaeuser rises slowly. As when the Landgrave asked him the same question, a shadow falls across his countenance, his answer is vague and mysterious. "Far from here, in distant, distant lands. Heavy oblivion has dropped between to-day and yesterday. All memory of the past has quickly faded from me, and one thing only I know: that I had not hoped ever again to bow before you, or ever again to lift my eyes to you."—"What was it then that brought you back?"—"A miracle it was, an inconceivable, highest miracle!"—"Oh, from the depths of my heart I give thanks to God for that miracle!" she exclaims, and confused at her own fervour catches herself back, only to proceed further, with the candour of an angel: "Your pardon, if I hardly know what I am about! I move as if in a dream, and am feather-brained as a child, given over, hand-bound, in thrall to a miraculous power! Hardly do I recognise myself; oh, do you help me to solve the enigma of my heart!" Not only with the candour of an angel, but the simplicity of very high rank, accepting the prerogative of her station to step forward a little way to meet the favoured lover, she lays before him the puzzle over the small difficulty of which her purity and greatness make one unable to smile. "To the wise songs of the minstrels I was wont to listen often and with delight. Their singing and their descanting appeared to me a charming pastime. But what strange new life did your song awake in my breast! Now it pierced me through like pain, now roused me to mad joy. Emotions I had never felt! Desires I had never known! Things that until then had seemed to me lovely lost their charm by comparison with delights I had not even a name for! Then, when you went from among us, peace and happiness were gone too. The minstrels' songs seemed to me an uninspired affair, dim of meaning, languid of execution. My dreams were full of dull pain, my waking hours a dejected dream. All capacity for joy forsook my heart. Heinrich, Heinrich, what had you done to me?" The "singer bold," the "daring minstrel," is of a candour matching her own. "Oh, give praise to the god of Love!" he cries; "He it was who touched my strings! He spoke to you through my songs, and it is he who has brought me back to you!" They unite in joyful praise of the hour which has revealed this miracle-working of Love's.