'I can't believe that all that David and I are contributing is the picnic basket! That's what comes of not being a Master!' Magdalene grumbles. 'Anyway, here are various types of bread, rolls, ham, sausage, cheese, marmalade, herring and beetroot salad, boiled eggs, fruit, yogurt, cake, tea, milk, honey, tableware, May bells and ribbons,' she lists to Sixtus Beckmesser as he packs the picnic basket himself so that he knows the location of the items. 'Oh, here's a rarity which David obtained in his wandering: nutmeg fruit, its flesh made into wet and dry sweets!'
'Thank you!' Beckmesser responds, awed by Magdalene and David's generosity.
'Have you studied and understood the song well, friend Beckmesser, and ensured there's no trap?' Hans Sachs' voice rings out as he and his second wife Barbara enter his workshop, which looks much grander and neater with a mistress managing the household.
Nearly a year since Beckmesser's debacle at the Johannistag festival, the town clerk now listens to reason and has met a maiden, Sophia, whom he wishes to woo, who does not mind the fiasco—Sophia recently moved to Nuremberg and was apprised of the events of that Johannistag. Eva, Magdalene, Sachs, Walther and David all feel the slightest guilt for the tricks they played on Beckmesser (in David's case, for mistakenly clubbing him black and blue—Beckmesser is, after all, enough of a friend that Sachs taught him the rhyme of 'bloom' and 'wax') and think well of Sophia for her tolerance, and hence volunteered their part to help Master Beckmesser win Sophia. Despite being unsurpassed at biblical songs (it was through those that he became a Meistersinger), Beckmesser would not even attain the rank of Poet were he restricted to composing love songs (' "I don't think of dying"? What content is this?! "Weil ein schönés Fräuléin"? The accent doesn't even line up with the beat!' Sachs reminded a sheepish Beckmesser as gently as he could).
Eva and Barbara enquired after Sophia's status and inclinations, Sachs composed a poem (copied out, as always, by Barbara in her immaculate handwriting—'Master Sachs' works are legible after his remarriage!' commented Fritz Kothner), Walther set it to a melody that Eva notated before the couple set off for Munich (where Sachs had apprenticed to become a Meistersinger—it occasionally seems to Sachs that Walther, 'born a Master', has experiences in backward order from most people), while Magdalene prepared the picnic basket for today's May Day celebrations to which Beckmesser has asked Sophia out. Although proud Walther has learnt to curb his temper somewhat, one could not expect him to also pen a love poem on behalf of his former rival for Eva.
'It's absolutely understandable this time,' Beckmesser laughs. 'I'll even let you hammer thin soles as I practise before you.' He tunes the lute he has brought with him, then begins.
'Come! There's dancing everywhere,
fair maids and men, be gay!
Splendidly the forest gleams,
fully leaved; this news is good to hear.
Stilled no longer is the air
for the radiant May
which the songbirds here and there
warble sweetly. Gone is grief and fear.
From the meadow land
host of blooms have sprung,
life on every hand
now again is young.
I'll be happy if so wishes she to whom my heart has always clung.
Gone is now the hateful snow,
which makes the green heath bright,
for in its place red flowers come,
filling all the earth with gaiety.
Violet and clover show
eyes a lovely sight;
yet my joy is mixed with woe.
None can alter that but only she
who has bid me sing:
her laughter is a treat.
Only she can bring
what makes my joy complete.
A thousand hearts and maybe even more will break because she looks so sweet.
The one who lies within my heart —
I saw her in a dance
as with lovely grace she glided
beside the pretty ladies in a row.
Joy then made my fears depart:
God reward the glance
and the greeting she confided.
If again I saw her dancing so,
mannerly and dear,
joy would fill my breast.
She has not her peer;
may she be ever blessed.
I long to win her but the jealous world must still obstruct the lover's quest.[1]'
Walther could be Marker and hammer soles to Beckmesser's performance—meaning he would not have to—as Sachs discovered when Walther once played with his hammer, the knight cannot hammer properly to save his life! The song is not as lofty as Walther's wooing song, but if Eva and Barbara's probing pays off, its realism, fresh expression and genuine emotion should appeal to Sophia, whom Beckmesser encountered for the first time at a dance.
While writing the poem, Sachs realised that Veit Pogner understood his child better than Sachs and Eva had thought. For all that Eva questioned her father whether her husband had to be a Meistersinger, she had grown up at the singing school; songs were a native tongue to her and only one at the level of a Meistersinger could impress her. Indeed, as Eva and Walther later revealed to Sachs, each had been attracted to the other for singing a song composed extemporaneously. Sophia, loving dance on the other hand, should prefer a song with fewer symbols and abstractions, even if it is simpler.
After Beckmesser has left with the basket for the picnic and Magdalene has taken her leave, Barbara turns towards Sachs and teases, 'You never composed a wooing song for me.'
'Aye, I proposed straight off,' Sachs acknowledges. David, who returned amid his journeyman years to be best man, was astounded that his former Master had just become acquainted with the bride after his previous letter to the former apprentice! 'You made your interest clear, bringing your six children one by one to have shoes made, letting them become playmates with my grandchildren, borrowing the Decameron from my library…' he continues with a twinkle in his eye. 'I could compose a poem in your praise, though.
'Fair bliss is she personified,
In frame angelically formed,
She is of graceful, blissful birth
And strikes one as fine' genuine,
With amiable countenance
Blithe figure and its rosy light.
Her forehead smooth as marble stone
Round, neither too big nor too small
Her li'l mouth like a ruby burns
Ambrosial, also stands therein
Her li'l teeth, set with diligence
Round, smooth, like white pearls, opaline.
Milk-coloured also are her cheeks
With rose-red colour circumscribed
Therein two dimples delicate
Her li'l eyes brown, a lovely sort,
To boot, long flying, flowing hair,
Light yellow, like clear, lucent gold
So daint'ly curly over ears.
Moreover has the wellborn peer
A li'l neck and a cleavage white,
Thereunder two li'l breasts I praise,[2]—'
Barbara hurriedly clamps a palm over Sachs' mouth. 'We're in the workshop! Someone could enter at any time!' she shushes him. After Sachs gestures that he will 'behave', she withdraws her palm and, to express her appreciation, leans into his embrace and remarks, 'I'm glad I was a widow.'
Sachs' eyebrows raise at the enigmatic statement. 'So that you could marry me?' he enquires affectionately.
Barbara laughs tinklingly. 'No and yes. No, not in the sense you intend; yes, because you wouldn't have married me had I not been married before,' she explains, referring to Eva.
Sachs chuckles and hugs Barbara tighter, then says, 'Let's bring the children to visit the grandchildren.' Releasing Barbara from his embrace, he turns towards the door to the inner rooms and calls out, 'Children!'
In the afternoon, when Sachs and Barbara have returned from visiting Sachs' son-in-law, the cutler Hans Pregel, Beckmesser drops by the workshop to update them about his progress with Sophia.
'Thank you, thank you, thank you!' Beckmesser repeats as he hugs Sachs, then Barbara and finally Magdalene, who has also turned up at the workshop, eager to ascertain how the picnic went. 'Sophia loved everything: the conversation, the song—both the poem and the melody, …' He pauses to catch his breath, then finishes triumphantly with a wink at Magdalene, '…but she loved the picnic best!'
[1] This poem is not by the historical Hans Sachs—my German is not good enough to quickly scan the contents of a large number of German poems in the original. I would be delighted to replace the poem with one by the historical Sachs if a German speaker could suggest one suitable. In a twist, this is a Minnelied by the historical Tannhäuser (one of the tamest of his extant poems), translated by J. W. Thomas in Tannhäuser: Poet and Legend, With Texts and Translations of his Works (https (colon) (double slash) cdr. lib. unc. edu/concern/journals/0r9679299).
[2] This is an extract from a poem by the historical Hans Sachs, titled Das künstliche Frauenlob (The Artful Praise of Ladies), translated by the author. The German original and its background can be found in the introduction to Richard Zoozmann's Hans Sachs und die Reformation: In Gedichten und Prosastücken (https (colon) (double slash) w w w .projekt-gutenberg (point) org/zoozmann/hanssach/chap001. html) and Friedrich Furchau's Hans Sachs, Zweite Abtheilung: Der Ehestand (https (colon) (double slash) w w w .google (point) com/books/edition/Hans_Sachs/aSE6AAAAcAAJ?gbpv=1&bsq="Das künstliche Frauenlob"). There is in fact an entire book on Hans Sachs' second wife Barbara Harscher, available at https (colon) (double slash) w w w .google (point) com/books/edition/Barbara_Harscherin_Hans_Sachsens_zweite/RDpAAAAAYAAJ.