(The "Abgesang") Thus spake the angel graciously: "The Lord with thee, Thou blessed she; The Lord's voice saith, Which breathes thy breath, That men have earned eternal death. Faith Saves alone from sin's subjection; For while weak Eve God's anger waked, 'Twas, Ave, thine the blest election To give the world peace and protection, Most blessed gift To mortals ever given!"
In Nuremberg the veritable Hans Sachs wrote plays on Tännhauser, Tristan, and Siegfried between three and four hundred years before the poet-composer who put the old cobbler-poet into his comedy. Very naïve and very archaic indeed are Hans Sachs's dramas compared with Wagner's; but it is, perhaps, not an exaggeration to say that Sachs was as influential a factor in the dramatic life of his time as Wagner in ours. He was among the earliest of the German poets who took up the miracle plays and mysteries after they had been abandoned by the church and developed them on the lines which ran out into the classic German drama. His immediate predecessors were the writers of the so-called "Fastnacht" (Mardi-gras) plays, who flourished in Nuremberg in the fifteenth century. Out of these plays German comedy arose, and among those who rocked its cradle was another of the mastersingers who plays a part in Wagner's opera,--Hans Folz. It was doubtless largely due to the influence of Hans Sachs that the guild of mastersingers built the first German theatre in Nuremberg in 1550. Before then plays with religious subjects were performed in St. Catherine's church, as we have seen, the meeting place of the guild. Secular plays were represented in private houses.
Hans Sachs wrote no less than 208 dramas, which he divided into "Carnival Plays," "Plays," "Comedies," and "Tragedies." He dropped the first designation in his later years, but his first dramatic effort was a Fastnachtspiel, and treated the subject of Tannhäuser and Venus. It bears the date February 21, 1517, and was therefore written 296 years before Wagner was born. Of what is now dramatic form and structure, there is not a sign in this play. It is merely a dialogue between Venus and various persons who stand for as many classes of society. The title is: "Das Hoffgesindt Veneris," or, as it might be rendered in English, "The Court of Venus." The characters are a Herald, Faithful Eckhardt, Danheuser (sic), Dame Venus, a Knight, Physician, Citizen, Peasant, Soldier, Gambler, Drunkard, Maid, and Wife. The Knight, Citizen, and the others appear in turn before Venus and express contempt for her powers,--the Knight because of his bravery, the Physician because of his learning, the Maid because of her virtue, the Wife because of her honor. Faithful Eckhardt, a character that figures in many Thuringian legends, especially in tales of the Wild Hunt, warns each person in turn to beware of Venus. The latter listens to each boast and lets loose an arrow. Each boaster succumbs with a short lamentation. When the play opens, Danheuser is already a prisoner of the goddess. After all the rest have fallen victims, he begs for his release, and they join in his petition. Venus rejects the prayer, speaks in praise of her powers, and calls on a piper for music. A general dance follows, whereupon the company go with the enchantress into the Venusberg. The last speech of Venus ends with the line:--