I
Across the wide sea, amid the green hop fields of southern Germany, is
the old, old city of Nuremberg. Shut off from the busy world outside by
its great wall of stone, it has stood unchanged through all the passing
centuries. There are the same narrow, crooked streets leading to the
public squares, where quaintly carved stone fountains stand. There are
the same many gabled, lofty houses, with oriole windows that open
outward. There are latticed doorways with plaster figures that beckon
and bless and welcome. And the gray castle, the grass-grown moat, the
dark, pillared church, all tell stories of the days of long ago.
In those days men dreamed dreams and sang songs as they sat on the bench
or in the market place. The cobbler at his last, the baker before the
oven, the silversmith by the fire, even the little apprentice, watching
and learning, looked out upon a fair world and found it good. So while
hands were busy, thoughts roved far and wide, and fancy wove many a song
to sing by the fireside on wintry nights.
But not only by the fireside were those songs sung in the days when
Nuremberg was young. The good people there prized the Art of Song too
highly for that alone.
"Though a man's lot be humble," they said, "his thoughts may be rich in
fancy; he may have a song to sing." So they formed a guild devoted to
the cultivation of poetry and music, and the members of this guild were
called Master Singers. Every man who wished to enter the guild was
obliged to write some verses,--according to the rules of the guild; and
to compose appropriate music for those verses,--according to the rules
of the guild; and, finally, to sing them both together,--according to
the rules of the guild. Then if the masters approved of his performance,
he became one of the Master Singers of Nuremberg. And great was the
honor conferred upon him when he reached this high estate! Many had
tried, but few had been chosen. Indeed, the entire guild was composed of
but twelve members. These were, for the most part, worthy men, devoted
to their trades and to music. And each one had a boy apprenticed to him,
to whom he taught cobbling or soap-making or baking or tailoring by day,
and the Art of Song by night.
Among the Master Singers of Nuremberg none is better remembered than
Hans Sachs. He was a cobbler by trade and a poet by nature, and his
songs and verses have outlived his boots by many a year. It is of his
part in a song festival of the Master Singers hundreds of years ago that
our story has to tell.