SCENE II.
The Court assembled in the Great Hall. Landgrave enthroned, Elizabeth by his side. Facing them are the competing minstrels. Around, courtiers and fair ladies.
Landgrave.
Welcome all minstrels! Let us celebrate
In the old fashion, dear to Germany,
My child’s betrothal to this noble youth,
Great lord, true knight, and honest gentleman,
So long who journeyed on the holy quest
Forgotten of these younger days, and now
Come back among us to receive reward
For those long sufferings; in days of peace,
In fruitful love, and marriage happiness.
So, to the poet’s tourney.
Wolfram.
Sire, Lord Heinrich
Craves your high pardon.
Landgrave.
Ha! He is not here!
Wolfram.
Our sturdy lover will not be consoled
For losing, as he phrases it, his friend.
Landgrave.
Well, we forgive him the more readily
Because of the occasion. One alone
Of all themes possible may grace this hour;—
Love! Let the lots of precedence be drawn.
Tannhäuser, you will string us once again
Your harp forgotten?
Tannhäuser.
That will I, my lord.
Herald.
On the Lord Wolfram falls it first to sing.
Wolfram (sings).
Tender the smile, and faint the lover’s sigh,
When first love dawns in the blue maiden sky,
Where happy peace is linked with purity.
As sad spring’s sun starts on his daily race,
Reddens the east, as if in sad disgrace;
So love first blushes on a true maiden’s face.
Soft, soft, the gaze of married folk, I think,
Limpid and calm as pools where cattle drink;
And, when they kiss, most discontentments shrink!
Even as the stars together sing (we hear)
So sings the married life, a tuneful sphere.
Husband is he, and she is very dear.
How truly beautiful it is to see
Old age in perfect unanimity,
Affections smooth, and buzzing like a bee.
The sun sets, in conjunction with the moon.
Death comes at last, a pleasure and a boon,
And they arrive in heaven very soon.
[Immense, spontaneous, uncontrollable applause
sweeps like a whirlwind through the court.
An Unknown Minstrel (breaking in unheralded).
Tender the phrase, and faint the melody,
When poets praise a maiden’s purity;
Platitude linked to imbecility.
[Murmurs of surprise.
As ’mongst spring’s sprigs sprouts sunshine’s constant face;
Or as a mill grinds on, with steady pace;
So sprouts, so grinds, the unblushing commonplace.
Soft, soft the brain—
[The murmurs break into an indignant uproar.
Herald.
Silence!
Landgrave.
Sir Minstrel, you are insolent!
We do not know you, yet have borne with you,
Rudely uprising ere your turn was come:—
And you abuse our patience to insult
The noble minstrel whose impassioned song
Touched every heart. Sing in your turn you may.
Love is the theme, not imbecility!
Wolfram.
That is the subject next his heart, no doubt!
[Laughter.
Herald.
Lord Bertram!
Bertram.
I shall sing in other key.
[Sings.
He is the equal of the gods, my queen,
He crowned and chosen out of men,
Who sits beside thee, sees
Love’s laughing ecstasies
Flame in thy face, and alter then
To the low light of passion dimly seen
In shaded woods and dells, Love’s wide demesne.
But me! I burn with love! My lips are wan!
Thy face is turned—I flame! I melt! I fall!
My heart is chilled and dark;
My soul’s ethereal spark
Is dulled for sorrow; my despairs recall
At last Thy name, O gracious Paphian,
Lady of Mercy to the love of man!
Come, come, immortal, of the many thrones!
Sparrows and doves in chariot diamonded
Drawn through the midmost air!
O Lady of despair,
Who bound the golden helmet of Thy head?
Whose voice rings out the pitiful low tones:
“Who, who hath wronged thee? And my power atones.”
“She who now doth flee, shall soon pursue thee;
She who spurns thy gifts, with gifts shall woo thee;
She who loves not, she shall cleave unto thee,
Thou the unwilling!”
Peer of Gods is he, equal soul to theirs,
Who lingers in thy passionate embrace:
Whose languor-laden kiss
Cleaves where thy bosom is
A throne of beauty for thy throat and face!
In these dark joys and exquisite despairs,
O Love, let Death lay finger unawares!
Landgrave.
Passion and music—but no Principle!
How different is Tannhäuser!
(To the unknown minstrel) You, sir, next!
Sing of pure love and noble womanhood.
Our court loves not these wastrel troubadours,
Loose locks, Hushed faces, soul’s unseemliness.
The Unknown Minstrel (sings).
Amid earth’s motley, Gaia’s cap and bells,
This too material, too unreal life,
Sing, sing the crown of tender miracles,
The pure true wife!
Sing not of love, the unutterable one,
The love divine that Mary has to men.
Seek not the winepress and the rising sun
Beyond thy ken!
Tannhäuser (aside).
Who is this man that reads my inmost thought?
The Unknown Minstrel.
I sing of love, most delicate and pure,
Surely the crown of life! How slow and sweet
Its music! Shall the ecstasy endure,
Sunshine on wheat?
Where leads this gentle love? I see you sigh!
The Scythe is laid unto the Golden Grain:
A note of utter unreality
Usurps the strain.
I sing not of that other flame of hell
Wrapping with torture the delighted brow—
But thou! who knowest, and hast known, so well,
Sing thou!
[Tannhäuser, entranced, imagines himself
to be still in Venusberg.
Tannhäuser (aside).
I have been dreaming that I left this place,
Escaped with life, wooed my Elizabeth;
My dreams are always strange in Venusberg.
[Taking his harp.
Sing thee again, dear lady, of our joy?
Listen, then, listen! For some sombre finger,
Other than mine, impulses on the string.
This tune I knew not! See, the strings are moved
Subtly as if by witchcraft—or by God!
[Sings.
In the Beginning God began,
And saw the Night of Time begin!
Chaos, a speck; and space, a span;
Ruinous cycles fallen in,
And Darkness on the Deep of Time.
Murmurous voices call and climb;
Faces, half-formed, arise; and He
Looked from the shadow of His throne,
The curtain of Eternity;
He looked—and saw Himself alone,
And on the sombre sea, the primal one,
Faint faces, that might not abide;
Flicker, and are foredone.
So were they caught within the spacious tide,
The sleepy waters that encased the world.
Monsters rose up, and turned themselves, and curled
Into the deep again.
The darkness brooded, and the bitter pain
Of chaos twisted the vast limbs of time
In horrid rackings: then the spasm came:
The Serpent rose, the servant of the slime,
In one dark miracle of flame
Unluminous and void: the silent claim
Of that which was, to be: the cry to climb,
The bitter birth of Nature: uttermost Night
Dwelt, inaccessible to sound and sight;
Shielded from Voice, impervious to Light.
Lo! on the barren bosom, on the brine,
The spirit of the Mighty One arose,
A flickering light, a formless triple flame,
The self-begotten, the impassive shrine,
The seat of Heaven’s archipelagoes;
Yet lighted not the glory whence it came,
Nor shone upon the surface of the sea.
Time, and the Great One, and the Nameless Name,
Held in their grip the child, Eternity.
Silence and Darkness in their womb withheld
That spiritual fire, and brooded still:
Nature and Time, their soleness undispelled,
Ever awaiting the eternal Will.
And Law was unbegotten: uttermost Night
Dwelt, inaccessible to sound and sight;
Shielded from Voice, impervious to Light.
Then grew within the barren womb of this
The Breath of the Eternal and the Vast,
Softer than dawn, and closer than a kiss—
And lo! the chaos and the darkness passed!
At the creative sigh the Light became.
Chaos rolled back in the abundant flame.
The vast and mystic Soul,
The Firmament, a living coal,
Flamed ’twixt the glory and the sea below.
The whirling force began. The atom whirled
In vortices of flashing matter: wild as snow
On mountain tops by the wind-spirits hurled,
Blinding and blind, the sparks of spirit curled
Each to its proper soul; the wide wheels flow,
Orderly streams, and lose the rushing speed,
Meet, mingle, marry. Fire and air express
Their dews and winds of molten loveliness,
Fine flakes of arrowy light, the dawn’s first deed.
Metallic showers and smoke self-glittering
For many an aeon. Wild the pennons spring
Of streaming flame! Then, surging from the tide,
Grew the desirable, the golden one,
Separate from the sun.
Now fire and air no more exult, exceed,
Are balanced in the sphere. The waters wide
Glow on the bosom of fixed earth; and Need,
The Lady of Beginning, also was.
Thus was the firmament a vital glass,
The waters as the vessel of the soul;
Thus earth, the mystic basis of the whole,
Was smitten through with fire, as chrysopras,
Blending, uniting, and dividing it,
Volcanic, airy, and celestial.
I rose within the elemental ball,
And lo! the Ancient One of Days did sit!
His head and hair were white as wool, His eyes
A flaming fire: and from the splendid mouth
Flashed the Eternal Sword!
Lo! Lying at his feet as dead, I saw
The leaping-forth of Law:
Division of the North wind and the South,
The lightning of the armies of the Lord;
East rolled asunder from the rended West;
Height clove the depth: the Voice begotten said:
“Divided be thy ways and limited!”
Answered the reflux and the indrawn breath:
“Let there be Life, and Death!”
“The Earth, she shall be governed by her parts:
Division be upon her! Let her glory
From crown to valley, source and spring to mouth,
North unto South,
Smooth gulf and sea to rugged promontory,
Always be vexed and drunken, that the hearts
Ruling her course round alway in the sky;
And as an handmaid let her serve and die!
One season, let it still confound another;
No man behold his brother;
No creature in it or upon, the same!
Her members, let them differ; be no soul
Equal! Let thought, let reasonable things,
Bow to thy wings,
Thy manifest control,
Vexation! weeding out of one another.
Their dwelling-places, let them lose their name!
The work of man, and all his pomp and power,
Deface them: shatter the aspiring tower!
Let all his houses be as caves and holes,
Unto the Beast I give them. And their souls—
Lift up the shadowy hand!—
Confound with darkness them that understand!
For why?
Me, the Most High,
It doth repent Me, having made mankind!
Let her be known a little while, and then
A little while a stranger. Dumb and blind,
Deaf to the Light and Breath of Me be men!
She is become an harlot’s bed, the home
And dwelling of the fallen one! Arise!
Ye heavens, ye lower serving skies!
Beneath My dome
Serve ye the lofty ones. The Governors,
Them shall ye govern. Cast the fallen down!
Bring forth with them that are Fertility’s!
Destroy the rotten! Let no shores
Remain in any number! Add and crown,
Diminish and discrown, until the stars
Be numbered! Rise, ye adamantine bars!
Let pass your Masters! Move ye and appear!
Execute judgment and eternal ill,
The law of justice, and the law of fear.
It is My Will!”
So shed the primal curse
Its dreadful stature, its appalling shape.
In giant horror the clouds rolling drape
Earth, like a plumed pall upon an hearse,
Till God looms up, half devil and half ape,
Heaven exulting in the hateful rape;
And still the strong curse rolls
Over accurséd and immortal souls,
Covering the corners of the universe
Without escape.
This is the evil destiny of man:
The desperate plan
Made by the Ancient One, to keep His power.
Limits He set, made space unsearchable
Yet bounded, made time endless to transcend
Man’s thought to comprehend:
Builded the Tower
Of life, and girded it with walls of hell,
The name of Death. This limit in all things
Baffles the spirit wings,
Chains the swift soul; for even Death is bound.
In its apparent amplitude I saw,
I, who have slept through death, have surely found
The old accurséd law,
And death has changed to life. This task alone
Shoots to the starry throne:
That if man lack not purpose, but succeed,
Reaching in very deed
Impersonal existence;—Lo!
Man is made one with God, an equal soul.
For he shall know
The harmony, the oneness of the Whole.
This was my purpose. Vain,
Ah vain! The Star of the Unconquered Will
Centred its vehemence and light, to stain
In one successful strain,
The stainless sphere of the unchangeable,
With its own passionate, desperate breath
Ever confronting the dark gate of Death.
I passed that gate! O pitiful! The same
Mystery holds me, and the flame
Of Life stands up, unbroken citadel,
Beyond my sight, vague, far, intangible.
Broken are will, and witchery, and prayer.
Remains the life of earth, which is but hell,
Destiny’s web, and my immense despair.
Landgrave.
Your words are terrible! We knew them true
Even while you sang. But see! the light of day!
Beauty in all things and—for you—true love!
All the blind horror of the song recedes.
There is a sequel; is there not, my friend?
Of love, your theme, we have not heard a note.
Tannhäuser.
That is a question. I am not so sure
My song was not entirely to that end.
Wolfram.
Yes, poet, true one that you are indeed!
You shew us the dilemma of the soul,
The Gordian knot Love only hews asunder.
Tannhäuser.
Or—shall I say?—soothes only, bandages,
Not heals the sore of Destiny?
Wolfram.
No, certes,
But substitutes for one reality
Another—and a lovely pleasant one.
Tannhäuser.
Existence is illusion after all;
Man, a bad joke; and God, mere epigram!
If we must come to that. And likewise love.
Landgrave.
You have dipped somewhat in philosophy
Of a too cynical and wordy sort.
Tannhäuser.
To logic there is one reality,
Words. But the commonsense of humankind
By logic baffles logic, chains with Deed
The lion Thought. It is a circle, friends!
All life and death and mystery ravel out
Into one argument—the rounded one.
The Unknown Minstrel.
Count me your children their arithmetic!
Zero, the circle, grows to one, the line:
Both limitless in their own way. Proceed.
Two is by shape the Coptic aspirate,
Life breathed, and death indrawn. And so
Rounds you at last the ten, completion’s self,
The circle and the line. Why stick at nought?
Bertram.
Only a donkey fastened to a post
Moves in a circle.
Landgrave.
This is noble talk!
The Unknown Minstrel.
Leave the wide circle—word and argument!
Move to the line—the steady will of man,
That shall attract the Two, the Breath of Life,
The Holy Spirit: land you in the Three,
Where form is perfect—in the triangle.
Tannhäuser.
My friend, the Three is infinitely small,
Mere surface. And I seek the Depth divine!
The Unknown Minstrel.
The solid! But the triangle aspires
To that same unity that you despise,
And lo! the Pyramid! The Sages say:
Unite that to the Sphinx, and all is done,
Completion of the Magnum Opus.
Tannhäuser.
No!
Each new dimension lands me farther yet
In the morass of limit.
The Unknown Minstrel.
Be it so!
But follow me through all the labyrinth,
And ten rewards us. And your Zero’s found
To have an actual value and effect
On unity—your Will.
Tannhäuser.
What’s then to seek?
The Unknown Minstrel.
The fourth dimension, for the early step.
Landgrave.
It seems this talk is merely mystical.
This is no College of the Holy Ghost
For Rosencreutz his mystifying crew!
A Courtier.
A Poet’s tourney, and the theme is Love!
The Unknown Minstrel.
There is a sequel to our poet’s song,
And he will sing it.
Tannhäuser.
No! I know it not!
The Unknown Minstrel.
The winepress and the sun!
Tannhäuser (again in Venusberg).
My spouse and Queen,
Bright Goddess of the amber limbs, the lips
Redder than poppies in the golden corn
That is your mane! Listen, the after-song!
[Taking his harp.
Landgrave.
What are these words?
The Unknown Minstrel.
Let silence now abide:
Disturb not the impassioned utterance!
Tannhäuser.
[Sings.
Can you believe the deadly will’s decree,
The bitter earnestness of this desire,
The deep intention, the solemnity,
Profound as night and penetrant as fire,
The awful grasping at the Infinite,
Even as I grapple at the breasts of thee,
The seeking and the striving to the light
Deep in thine eyes, where Hell flames steadily?
I am not clinging thus
Despairing to the body of thy sin
For mere delight—Ah, deadly is to us
The pleasure wrapping us, and holding in
All love, all hate—the miserable way!
Dawns no devouring day
Still on the infinite slow tune of limbs
Moving in rapture; sleepy echo swims
In the dissolving brain.
Love conquering lassitude at last to win
Pain out of peace, and pleasure from a pang;
Then, scorpion-stung of its own terrible tang,
Burnt of its own fire, soiled of its own stain,
Falls conquered as a bird
Bolt-stricken through the brain,
To the resounding plain:
The double word,
The see-saw of all misery—begin
The alluring mysteries of lust and sin;
Ends their delight!—and are they clear to sight?
Or mixed with death, compact of night?
Begin—the bitter tears of impotence,
The sad permuted sense
Of this despair—what would you? and renew
The long soft warfare—the enchanted arms,
The silken body’s charms,
The lips that murmur and the breasts that sting
The eyes that sink so deep
Beyond the steeps and avenues of sleep,
And of their wonder bring
No ultimation from the halls of night,
The slippery staircase, and the Fatal Throne,
The Evil Mouse, the Fugitive of Light,
The great Unluminous, the Formless One!
Stoop not! Beneath, a precipice is set,
The Seven Steps. Stoop not, forget
Never the splendid Image, and the realm
Where lightnings overwhelm
The evil, and the barren, and the vile,
In God’s undying smile!
Stoop not, O stoop not, to yon splendid world,
Yon darkly-splendid, airless, void, inane,
Blind confines in stupendous horror curled,
The sleepless place of Terror and distress,
Luring damned souls with lying loveliness,
The Habitation and the House of Pain.
For that is their abode, the Wretched Ones,
Of all unhappiness the sons!
And when, invoking often, thou shalt see
That formless Fire; when all the earth is shaken,
The stars abide not, and the moon is gone,
All Time crushed back into Eternity,
The Universe by earthquake overtaken;
Light is not, and the thunders roll,
The World is done:
When in the darkness Chaos rolls again
In the excited brain:
Then, O then call not to thy view that visible
Image of Nature; fatal is her name!
It fitteth not thy body to behold
That living light of Hell,
The unluminous, dead flame,
Until that body from the crucible
Hath passed, pure gold!
For, from the confines of material space,
The twilight-moving place,
The gates of matter, and the dark threshold,
Before the faces of the Things that dwell
In the Abodes of Night,
Spring into sight
Demons dog-faced, that show no mortal sign
Of Truth, but desecrate the Light Divine,
Seducing from the sacred mysteries.
But, after all these Folk of Fear are driven
Before the avenging levin
That rives the opening skies,
Behold that Formless and that Holy Flame
That hath no name;
That Fire that darts and flashes, writhes and creeps
Snake-wise in royal robe,
Wound round that vanished glory of the globe,
Unto that sky beyond the starry deeps,
Beyond the Toils of Time—then formulate
In thine own mind, luminous, concentrate,
The Lion of the Light, a child that stands
On the vast shoulders of the Steed of God:
Or winged, or shooting flying shafts, or shod
With the flame-sandals. Then, lift up thine hands!
Centre thee in thine heart one scarlet thought
Limpid with brilliance of the Light above!
Draw into nought
All life, death, hatred, love:
All self concentred in the sole desire—
Hear thou the Voice of Fire!
This hope was Zoroaster’s—this is mine!
Not one but many splendours hath the Shrine:
Not one but many paths approach the gate
That guards the Adytum, fortifying Fate!
Mine was, by weariness of blood and brain,
Mere bitter fruit of pain
Sought in the darkness of an harlot’s bed,
To make me as one dead:
To loose the girders of the soul, and gain
Breathing and life for the Intelligible;
Find death, yet find it living. Deep as Hell
I plunged the soul; by all blind Heaven unbound
The spirit, freed, pierced through the maze profound,
And knew Itself, an eagle for a dove.
So in one man the height and deep of love
Joined, in two states alternate (even so
Are life and death)—shall one unite the two,
My long impulsive strife?
Did I find life?
The real life—to know
The ways of God. Alas! I never knew.
Then came our Lady of the Sevenfold Light,
Shewed me a distant plan, distinct and clear,
As twilight to the dayspring and the night,
Dividing and uniting even here:
The middle path—life interfused with death—
Pure love; the secret of Elizabeth!
This is my secret—in the man’s delight
To lose that stubborn ecstasy for God!
To this clear knowledge hath my path been trod
In deepest hell—in the profoundest sky!
This knowledge—the true immortality,
I came unto through pain and tears,
Tigerish hopes, and serpent loves, and dragon fears,
Most bitter kisses, salted springs and dry;
In those deep caverns and slow-moving years,
When dwelt I, in the Mount of Venus, even I!
[The spell is broken, and uproar ensues.
Landgrave.
The fiend! The atheist! Devil that you are!
Voices.
Kill him, ay, kill him!
Tannhäuser.
Crucify him, say!
[Tannhäuser extends his arms as on a cross.
Landgrave.
Blaspheme not! Dare not to insult the sign
Of our Redemption! Gentlemen and peers,
What say you? shall he live to boast himself,
The abandoned, perjured, the apostate soul,
Daring to come to our pure court to brag
Of his incredible vileness? To link up
The saintly purity of this my child
With his seducer’s heart of hell! My voice!
Death! Your cry echoes me?
Voices.
Death! Death!
Tannhäuser.
Leap out,
Sword of my fathers! you have heard my harp!
Its music stings your vile hypocrisy
Into mere hatred. Truth is terrible!
You, cousin, taken in adultery!
You, Wolfram, lover of the kitchen maids!
You, Jerome—yes, I know your secret deeds!
You, ladies! Are your faces painted thus
Not to hide wrinkles of debauchery?
To catch new lovers?
Landgrave.
Stop the lying mouth!
Friends, your sword-service!
Tannhäuser.
Will they answer you?
My arm is weary as your souls are not
Of beastliness: I have drawn my father’s sword,
Hard as your virtue is the easy sort,
Heavy to handle as your loves are light,
Smooth as your lies, and sharper than your hates!
I know you! Cowards to the very bone!
[Driving them out.
Who fights me, of this sworded company?
Cannot my words have sting in them enough,
Now, to make one of you turn suddenly
And stab me from behind? Out, out with you!
Fling-to the doors! A murrain on the curs!
So, I am master!
The Unknown Minstrel.
Well and merrily done!
But look you to the lady; she has swooned.
Tannhäuser.
Who are you, sir, stood smiling, nonchalant,
At all the turmoil, ridiculing it?
You knew the secret symbol of my life,
You forced me to that miserable song.
The Unknown Minstrel.
My name, sir, at your service, is Geschicht.
Tannhäuser.
Sent? And the purpose of your coming here?
You must wield power to keep them silent so,
When the first word had culminated else
In twice the tempest echoed to the last!
The Unknown Minstrel.
It was most necessary for yourself
To formulate your thought in word. Enough—
The thought transmuted in the very act.
Tannhäuser.
You know? You know! The new illusion gone!
Bitter, O bitter will it be to say!
The Unknown Minstrel.
Due grace and courage will be found for you.
Farewell, Tannhäuser!
Tannhäuser.
Shall we meet again?
The Unknown Minstrel.
There is one glamour you must wreathe in gloom
Before you come to the dark hill of dreams.
Tannhäuser.
My soul is sick of riddling. Fare you well!
[Exit the Unknown Minstrel.
Wake, wake, poor child, poor child, Elizabeth!
Elizabeth.
What says my dear one? I have been with God.
Tannhäuser (aside).
How shall I speak? A violent good-bye,
As one distraught, ashamed? I had unbared
My bosom to these folk, but the sole pride,
My father’s gift—to be a gentleman—
Forbade the dying, welcome otherwise,
At any despicable hands as theirs.
They, they might boast—we hundred swords or so
Set on the mighty Tannhäuser, and slew him.
We, scarce an hundred! Yes, believe it, sirs
We are not so feeble!—But death anyhow
Cuts and not loosens the entangled life.
Be mine the harder and the better way,
The single chance: not hope; appeal no more;
Hardly the arrowy wisdom of despair;
Hardly the cowardice or courage yet
To drift, nor cursing nor invoking God.
Elizabeth.
I heard, I pure, I virginal, your song;
The shameful story of your intercourse
With—fiend or woman? And your burning will.
Even in that horror, to the Highest; at last
Your choice of me—the middle course of them,
Pure human love? And, if your song be true,
As I, who heard the voice, the earnestness,
Saw the deep eyes, and truth aflame in them,
Know—then the choice be Mary’s and not mine!
I love you better, were that possible;
Will make you a true wife, and lead your hand,
Or be led by you, in the pleasant path.
For me, I enter not—Blesséd be God!—
In those dark problems that disturb your soul.
Mine is the simple nature. Look at me!
Tannhäuser.
O Lady pure, miracle of true love,
I have a bitter word and harsh to say.
This is my curse—no sooner do I speak,
Or formulate my mind in iron words,
That my mind grows, o’erleaps the limit set,
And I perceive the truth that lies beyond—
One further step into a new-fallen night.
Hear then—I hate to hurt your perfect soul;
I hate myself because I love you still
In that strange intermediate consciousness,
The reason and the mind! This middle way
Ancients called safe—that damns it instantly!
Without some danger nothing great is done!
Let me be God! Or, failing of that task,
Were it but by an unit, let me fall!
And, falling, be it from so great a height
That I may reach some uttermost Abyss,
Inhabit it and reign, most evil one
Of all the Horrors there—and in that path
Seem, even deluded, to approach once more
Infinity. For all the limitless
Hath no distinction—evil is no more,
And good no more.
Elizabeth.
But God is absolute Good!
Tannhäuser.
No! He is Not! That negative alone
Shadows His shadow to our mortal mind.
Elizabeth.
That is too deep; I cannot fathom you.
Tannhäuser.
Define, give utterance to this “Good.” You see
God slips you, He the Undefinable!
Not good! Not wise! Not anything at all
That heart can grasp, or reason frame, or soul
Shadow the sense of!
Elizabeth.
He is far too great!
I see!
Tannhäuser.
Not great! The consciousness of man
Their many generations moulded so
To fix in definite ideas, and clothe
Their Maker in the rags. If skies are vast,
So gems are tiny: who shall choose between?
Who reads the riddle of the Universe?
All words! Thus, from his rock-wrought peeking-point
Out speers the hermit. “See, the sun is dead!”
It shines elsewhere. You from your tiny perch,
The corner of the corner of the earth,
Itself a speck in solar life; the sun,
For all I know, a speck among the stars,
Themselves one corporate molecule of space!—
You from your perch judge, label, limit Him!
Not that your corner is not equally
The centre and the whole. Fool’s talk it is!
Consider the futility of mind!
Realize utterly how mean, how dull,
How fruitless is Philosophy!
Elizabeth.
Indeed
My brain is baffled. But I see your point.
Talking of God, even imagining,
Insane! But for aspiring—that I will!
Tannhäuser.
That is true marriage, in my estimate.
Aspire together to one Deity?
Yes! But to love thee otherwise than that?
Elizabeth.
This one thing clearly do I understand:
We shall not marry. It is well, my lord.
Tannhäuser.
Miserable, miserable me! I bring
Hate and disruption and unhappiness
Unto all purity I chance to touch.
I have no hope but I am fallen now;
So journey, in this purpose of despair,
To Lilith and the Venusberg.
Elizabeth.
Oh no!
Grant me one boon—the one that I shall ask
Ever in this world! Promise me!
Tannhäuser.
Alas!
One promise gave I once to woman—that
Drove me to this illusion of your love,
And broke your heart.
Elizabeth.
Oh no, I shall not die.
Have I not Mary and the angels yet?
Tannhäuser.
You are so pure, so pitiful—your word
Cannot bring evil. Yes, I promise you!
Elizabeth.
Go then the bitter pilgrimage to Rome,
Gain absolution for this piteous past
From him that owns the twin all-opening keys
That bar your infinite on either side.
Then! look with freshness, hope, and fortitude
Still to the summit—the ideal God.
Tannhäuser.
I have no hope nor trust in man at all;
But I will go. Fare well, Elizabeth!
[Going, returns and kneels before her.
Dare you once kiss these grey and withered brows?
As ’twere some flower that fell amid my hair,
The lotus of eternal hope and life.
Elizabeth.
Dare I? I kiss you once upon the brow,
Praying that God will make the purpose clear,
And on the eyes—that He may lend them light.
[Tannhäuser rises, and silently departs.
Oh God! Oh God! That I have loved him so!
Be merciful! Be merciful! to him,
The great high soul, bound in the lofty sin;
To me, the little soul, the little sin!