No one agrees with him, of course. "You no doubt mean well, but it would be a mistake.... If the people is to have a voice, I, for one, shall keep my mouth shut.... If art is to run after the favour of the people, it cannot fail to come to grief and contempt."--"His success would be enormous, no doubt, who urges this matter so stiffly," Beckmesser puts in spitefully; "His compositions are nearly all popular street-songs!"
Pogner sets Sachs's suggestion aside with perfect civility and good humour. "The thing I am about to do is novel already. Too much novelty at one time might bring in its wake regret...."--"Sufficient to me," Sachs yields the point, "is the maiden's right of refusal!"--"That cobbler always excites my wrath!" mutters Beckmesser.
They pass to the order of the day. "Who enters the lists as a candidate? A bachelor he must be."--"Or perhaps a widower?" offers Beckmesser; "Ask Sachs!"--"Oh, no, master Beckmesser," Sachs retorts; "Of younger wax than either you or I must the suitor be, if Evchen is to bestow the prize on him!"--"Younger than I, too?... Coarse fellow!"
At the question whether any be on the spot who wish to take the song-trial, Pogner presents Walther von Stolzing, as one desirous of being that same day elected master-singer. The motif of Wather's presentation gives a clear idea of the knight's charming appearance, his grace, his elastic step, his hat and feathers, the delicate haughtiness of his bearing, in keeping with his proud name.
A black suspicion enters Beckmesser's breast at sight of him: he is the card which Pogner has all along had up his sleeve. The town-clerk declares promptly that it is too late now to enter the new-comer. The masters exchange glances: "Anoble?... Is it a case for rejoicing? Or is there danger in it?... The fact that Master Pogner speaks for him has its weight, certainly..."--"If he is to be welcomed among us," says Kothner, somewhat forbiddingly, "he must show proper recommendations."--"Do not mistake me," Pogner hastens to say; "Though I wish him good fortune, I have no thought of waiving any rule. Put to him, gentlemen, the customary questions." At the very first question, however, whether he be free and honourably born, Pogner hurriedly prevents Walther's answer by his own, making himself voucher for him in every respect such as that. The generous Sachs, feeling the something grudging in the attitude of the masters, reminds them that it had long been one of the rules made by themselves that an applicant being a lord or a peasant should have no significance, that inquiry concerning art alone should be made of one desiring to become a master-singer. Kothner passes thereupon to the question: "Of what master are you a disciple?" And then is born into the world a new, a ravishing melody--which has all the delight in it that can be compressed into the space. Airily, confidently, debonairly, Walther delivers himself, in the sweet ingenuousness of his heart, "new," as he had said, ignorant as yet of the jealous world's ways: "Beside my quiet hearth in winter-time, when castle and court were buried in snow, in an ancient book, bequeathed to me by my fathers, I was wont to read recorded the engaging beauties of past Springs, as well as, prophesied, the beauties of the Spring soon to reawaken. The poet, Walther von der Vogelweid, he it is who has been my master!" Sachs has listened with a surprised, charmed sympathy. He nods beamingly: "A good master!"--"But long dead!" snaps Beckmesser; "How could he learn the canons from him?"