"Are you a poet?"
"I wish I were," Walther sighed dejectedly.
"Are you then a 'scholar'?"
"Lord, no, I think not—I don't know. What is a 'scholar?"
"Don't know that, and yet expect to become a Mastersinger!" David cried, in amazement. "Well, now, let me tell you, Sir Knight, no one gets to be a Mastersinger in a minute! For a full year, Hans Sachs, our greatest master, has been teaching me the art, and I am not yet even a 'scholar.'"
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Shoemaker's craft and Poet's art, Daily I learn by the heart. First, all the leather smooth I hammer, Consonants then, and vowels I stammer. Next must the thread be stiff with wax, Then I must learn it rhymes with Sachs. |
David continued to tell of the difficulties of learning from a cobbler how to become a Mastersinger, though the cobbler was one himself. By the time David had finished telling Walther about the process of shoemaking and music making, Walther threw up his hands in despair.
"Defend me from learning—the cobbler's trade," he cried, half humorously, yet troubled.
"You must learn:
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The shortened, long, and over-long tones; The paper mode, the black-ink mode; The scarlet, blue, and verdant tones; The hawthorn bloom, strawhalm, fennel mode: The tender, the dulcet, the rosy tone; The passing passion, the forgotten tone; The rosemary, wallflower mode; The rainbow mode and the nightingale mode The English tin, the cinnamon mode, Fresh pomegranates, green linden-bloom mode; The lonely gormandizer mode, The skylark, the snail, the barking tone; And the honey flower, the marjoram mode; The lion's skin, true pelican mode, The bright glittering thread mode." |