I take it that there have always, or nearly always, been on the earth those whom Councillor von Eckartshäusen, the Svámi Vivekánanda and their like, call “great spiritual giants” (can there be any etymological link between “yogi” and “ogre”?) and that such persons, themselves perceiving Truth, have tried to “diminish the message to the dog” for the benefit of less exalted minds, and hidden that Truth (which, unveiled, would but blind men with its glory) in a mass of symbology often perverted or grotesque, yet to the proper man transparent; a “bait of falsehood to catch the carp of truth.” Now, regarded in this light, all religions, quá religions, are equally contemptible. The Hindu Gnanis say “That which can be thought is not true.” As machineries for the exercise of spiritual and intellectual powers innate or developed, certain sets of symbols may be more or less convenient to a special trend of mind, reason, or imagination; no more: I deny to any one religion the possession of any essential truth which is not also formulated (though in a different language) in every other. To this rule Buddhism appears a solitary exception. Whether it is truly so I have hardly yet decided: the answer depends upon certain recondite mathematical considerations, to discuss which would be foreign to the scope of my present purpose, but which I hope to advance in a subsequent volume.
If you do not accept my conclusion that all religions are the expression of truth under different aspects, facets of the same intolerable gem, you are forced back on the conclusions of those unpleasing persons the Phallicists. But should you travel to the East, and tell a Lingam-worshipping Sivite that his is a phallic worship he will not be pleased with you. Compare on this point Arnold, “India Revisited,” 1886, p. 112.
So much for the symbology of this, I fear, much-mangled drama. Drama indeed is an altogether misleading term; monodrama is perhaps better. It is really a series of introspective studies; not necessarily a series in time, but in psychology, and that rather the morbid psychology of the Adept than the gross mentality of the ordinary man.
It may help some of my readers if I say that my Tannhäuser is nearly identical in scheme with the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Literary and spiritual experts will however readily detect minor differences in the treatment. It will be sufficient if I state that “the Unknown,” whether minstrel, pilgrim, or Egyptian sage, represents Tannhäuser in his true Self,—the “Only Being in an Abyss of Light!” The Tannhäuser who talks is the “Only Being in an Abyss of Darkness,” the natural man ignorant of his identity with the Supreme Being. The various other characters are all little parts of Tannhäuser’s own consciousness and not real persons at all: whether good or bad, all alike hinder and help (and there is not one whose function is not thus double) the realisation of his true unity with all life. This circumstance serves to explain, though perhaps not to excuse, the lack of dramatic action in the story. Love being throughout the symbol of his method, as Beauty of its object, it is through Love, refined into Pity, that he at last attains the Supreme Knowledge, or at least sufficient of it to put the last straw on the back of his corporeal camel, and bring the story to a fitting end.
To pass to more mundane affairs. I may mention for the benefit of those who may not be read in certain classes of literature, and so think me original when I am hardly even paraphrasing, that Tannhäuser’s songs in Act IV. are partly adapted from the so-called “Oracles of Zoroaster,” partly from the mysterious utterances of the great angel Avé, perhaps equally spurious. Of course Bertram’s song is merely a rather free adaptation of the two principal fragments of Sappho, which so many people have failed to translate that one can feel no shame in making yet another attempt. There may be one or two conscious plagiarisms besides, for which I do not apologise. For any unconscious ones which may have crept in owing to my prolonged absence from civilized parts, and the consequent lack of opportunity for reference and comparison, I emphatically do.
One word to the reviewers. It must not be taken as ungracious if I so speak. From nearly all I have received the utmost justice, kindness, and consideration: two or three only seem to take delight in deliberately perverting the sense of my remarks: and to them, for their own sake, I now address these words of elementary instruction. You are perfectly welcome to do with my work in its entirety what Laertes did with his allegiance and his vows: but do not pick out and gloat over a few isolated passages from the Venusberg scenes and call me a sensualist, nor from the Fourth Act and groan “Mysticism!”; do not quote “Two is by shape the Coptic Aspirate” as a sample of my utmost in lyrics; do not take the song of Wolfram as my best work in either sentiment or melody. As a quid pro quo I give you all full permission to conclude your review of this book by quoting from Act III. “Forget this nightmare!”
I must express my great sense of gratitude to Oscar Eckenstein, Gerald Kelly, and Allan MacGregor, who have severally helped me in the work of revision, which has extended over more than a year of time and nearly twenty thousand miles of space. Some few of the very best lines were partially or wholly suggested by themselves, and I have not scrupled to incorporate these: if the book be but a Book, the actual authorship seems to me immaterial.
I have written this preface in lighter vein, but I hope that no one will be led to suppose that my purpose is anything but deadly serious. This poem has been written in the blood of slain faith and hope; each foolish utterance of Tannhäuser stings me with shame and memory of old agony; each Ignis Fatuus that he so readily pursues, reminds me of my own delusions. But, these follies and delusions being the common property of mankind, I have thought them of sufficient interest, dramatic and philosophical, to form the basis of a poem. Let no man dare to reproach me with posing as the hero of my tale. I fall back on the last utterance of Tannhäuser himself “I say, then, ‘I’: and yet it is not ‘I’ Distinct, but ‘I’ incorporate in All.” Above all, pray understand that I do not pose as a teacher. I am but an asker of questions, such as may be found confronting those who have indeed freed their minds from the conventional commonplaces of the platitudinous, but have not yet dared to uproot the mass of their convictions, and to examine the whole question of religion from its most fundamental source in the consciousness of mankind. Such persons may find the reasoning of Tannhäuser useful, if only to brace them to a more courageous attempt to understand the “Great Arcanum,” and to attain at last, no matter at what cost, to “true Wisdom and perfect Happiness.” So may all happen!
Kandy, Ceylon, Sept. 1901.
TANNHÄUSER