SOURCE: Sobel, Eli. Introduction to The Tristan Romance in the Meisterlieder of Hans Sachs. University of California Publications in Modern Philology 40, no. 2 (1963): 223-55.

[In the following essay, Sobel considers Sachs's handling of the popular German romance of Tristan and Isolde, arguing that his version was unique among writers who have dealt with the story.]

The romance of Tristan and Isolde was introduced to the German public by the late twelfth-century poet Eilhart von Oberge. Later, about 1210, Gottfried von Strassburg produced his masterful Middle High German rendering, a version based on the Old French poem by Thomas of Brittany. But Gottfried's work, although over 19,500 lines long, is a fragment and ends before Tristan is wed to Isolde of the White Hands and before the other adventures that precede the death of Tristan.¹ In the hands of Ulrich von Türheim (1240), Heinrich von Freiberg (1290), and an anonymous third poet, the epic achieved its concluding episodes—notably the deaths of the lovers. The continuators of Gottfried obviously depended on the version of Eilhart and not on that of Thomas, which was Gottfried's source. This intertwining of sources and versions seems in no wise to have hindered the dissemination and popularity of both Eilhart's and Gottfried's versions into the fifteenth century.

By the end of the fifteenth century changes were necessary if the romance of Tristan and Isolde was to maintain and continue its popularity in Germany. Old forms of speech had to be replaced. The Middle High German verses became increasingly difficult to understand, and the newly available printing presses were now ready to provide prose versions of popular materials for reading entertainment. From this stream of change in language and form arose the anonymous prose Tristan. The author's final paragraph attests the situation:

Von diser Hystori hat von erst geschriben der meister von Brittania und nachmals sein buch gelihen einem mit namen Filhart von Oberet [sic], der hat es darnach in reymen geschriben. Aber von der leüt wegen, die solicher gereimbter bücher nit genad habent, auch etlich, die die kunst der reimen nit eygentlich versteen künden, hab ich ungenannter dise hystori in die form gepracht. Wo aber ich geirret hab, bit ich zubessern, die das lesen oder abschreiben.²

The love story of Tristan and Isolde, in prose Volksbuch version, was available to all who read the printed book, including Hans Sachs (1494-1576). From the prose Tristan of the Volksbuch and not from the courtly epic of Gottfried or the poems of others, Sachs obtained his knowledge of the story. Several editions of the prose Tristan had appeared in Germany before Sachs wrote his first work on the theme of Tristan and Isolde.

There are three known printings of the Volksbuch in Augsburg between 1484 and 1498, and evidence of editions in Bern (1509) and Strassburg (1510). However, the edition that Sachs undoubtedly read and knew was the one printed in Worms in 1549 or 1550:³

                                                                                Herr Tristrant
                                                                                Ein Wunderbarliche
                                        vnd fast lustige Histori von Herr Tri-
          strant / vnd der schönen Isallden / des Königs von Irland
Tochter / mit was freuden / auch not vnd gefahr / sie jr lieb
          vollbracht / vnd wie trauriglich sie die selben geendet ha-
          ben / so wol einer schönen Tragedi ist zu vergleichen /
                              Aus Frantzösischer Sprach verteutschet /
                                        vnd mit schönen Figuren gezieret
                                                            frembd vnd kurtzweilig
                                                                      zn lesen vnd zu
                                                                                          hören.
                                                                                [woodcut]

The Worms edition can readily be identified as Sachs's source, not only for his six Meisterlieder but also for his seven-act tragedy of Tristan and Isolde.⁴ The very nature of the title cited above would have been stimulant enough for Sachs to use the Tristan materials.

The first of the Tristan Meisterlieder by Hans Sachs is dated December 4, 1551. By December 11, Sachs had completed five poems, but the Tristan story in Meisterlieder was not yet complete. As in Gottfried von Strassburg's epic, the deaths of the lovers remained unsung. These five Meisterlieder were probably written when less than a year had gone by between Sachs's reading of the prose Tristan and his setting his hand to casting portions of the Volksbuch story in verse. His drama, the seven-act tragedy based on the prose text, was completed over a year later; it is dated February 7, 1553. A month afterward the sixth and last Meisterlied appeared, March 13, 1553.

It was common for Sachs to treat the same subject matter in several literary forms. The rules and regulations of the Meistersingerschule forbade the publication of Meisterlieder; the poems were written solely for the membership of the Schule. Usually he treated his topics in both a Spruch, to be published, and a Meisterlied. Or he might treat the same theme in a Meisterlied and a Fastnachtspiel. There are many examples of Sachs using the same material in three or more literary forms. Die ungleichen kinder Eva appeared first as a Meisterlied (1546), then as a Spiel (September 1553), two months later as a Comödie (November 1553), and finally as a Schwank (1558). Alboin und Rosamunde was done in Meisterlied, as a Spruchgedicht, and twice as a tragedy.⁵

Hans Sachs has a lonely position among poets who have sung the romance of Tristan and Isolde. Although he had precursors, he did not know them. His successors did not think of him even though he was the first to write and publish a Tristan and Isolde drama. Six comparatively short Meisterlieder comprise his lyric treatment of the Tristan romance. For almost a century the first five Meisterlieder have been noted by various scholars as existing in manuscript, but it was not until 1959 that the contents of all six poems were made known.⁶ There were sundry misconceptions extant about Sachs's treatment of the Tristan story. Certain important facts concerning this treatment have hitherto been lacking, and publication of all the Tristan Meisterlieder has not been undertaken until now.

Modern scholarship, however, has had, since 1879, a published text of Sachs's drama: Tragedia mit 23 personen, von der strengen lieb herr Tristrant mit der schönen königin Isalden, unnd hat 7 actus. Sachs, who kept complete and thorough records of his prodigious literary output (almost 6,200 known items) dates the Tristan and Isolde tragedy: Anno salutis 1553, am 7 tag Februarii.⁷ The play has frequently been described in whole or in part, portions have been quoted, and the dramatic approach and technique of Sachs and the Tristan material have been discussed by literary scholars.⁸

That Hans Sachs wrote Meisterlieder about Tristan and Isolde, in addition to the seven-act Tristan tragedy, has been noted by practically every scholar concerned with Tristan and Arthurian romance in Germany. The references are uniformly to five Meisterlieder, written in the space of eight days—December 4, 1551 to December 11, 1551—fifteen months before Sachs wrote the drama. But there are six Tristan Meisterlieder by Hans Sachs. A month after the drama was completed, on March 13, 1553, the sixth Tristan Meisterlied was written. It is this sixth Meisterlied that is necessary to complete the story—it relates the deaths of the lovers. The good, solid burgher of sixteenth-century Nürnberg was surely impelled finally to end his Tristan songs with the moral that only pain and sorrow come ultimately from illicit love. Therefore, about sixteen months after Sachs first used the Tristan romance material in a Meisterlied, the last poem (“Das ent Herr tristrancz”) was written. One might say it is as if Sachs, by writing the tragedy, had reminded himself that he had not treated the final and most tragic part of the romance in a Meisterlied and so, soon after, he corrected the omission.

Each of the six poems exists in holograph in the Sachs manuscript volumes of his Meisterlieder. There is no question about the past or present existence and authenticity of all six poems.⁹ The two original manuscript volumes that contain the Tristan poems (five poems in MS. MG 12 and the sixth in MS. MG 13) have survived. They are in the municipal archives in Zwickau, Saxony.¹⁰ All of the first five Tristan Meisterlieder are recorded and known in two holographic copies, and two of these first five in four holographic copies.¹¹ The sixth Meisterlied is known in only one holographic copy. It is in Sachs's thirteenth manuscript volume of Meisterlieder (MG 13), written and dated in his own hand. In addition, there is a copy of the sixth poem, in the hand of Georg Hager (1552-1634), in MS. Dresden M 195. The Dresden manuscript, also known as Hager's Zweites Liederbuch, is an anthology compiled by Sachs's young friend and neighbor.¹² Georg Hager and his father were both members of the Meistersingerschule in Nürnberg; the father's name was also Georg, but he did not rise to Meisterschaft in the Schule. For them both, particularly for the father, Sachs wrote out many of his Meisterlieder. Sachs, we infer, then permitted the younger Georg Hager to make copies of numerous Sachs poems. In Hager's manuscript M 195, all six Tristan Meisterlieder appear. Three of the poems are in Sachs's own hand and three in young Hager's, the authorship of the latter three properly ascribed to Hans Sachs.¹³

The six Meisterlieder, by date of composition and position in Sachs' original manuscript volumes (MG 12 and MG 13), do not correspond in sequence of events to the plot of the Tristan and Isolde romance as Sachs might have encountered the story in any medieval epic source, and certainly not as narrated in any printing of the Volksbuch. However, it is possible, of course, to assign numbers to the poems that will put them in an arranged order that will tell the story—to the extent that Tristan and Isolde episodes are narrated in the six Meisterlieder and with some repetition of material in some of the poems. It is precisely this, the assignment of episode numbers, that young Georg Hager later did. Hager editorially grouped them by giving each Tristan poem in MS. Dresden M 195 a superscription (“Das 1 par,” “Das 2 par,” “Das 3 par,” etc.) and indicating in the margin of folio 261^r (the beginning of “Das 1 par”) where the next episode, not merely the next Tristan poem, was to be found in M 195. The six poems are not consecutive; there are other Meisterlieder interspersed and the last two Tristan songs are far removed (over a hundred folios) in the volume.¹⁴

There is no specific evidence of how the six Tristan meisterlieder in M 195 came into Hager's possession. The Zweites Liederbuch [M 195] was bound in 1580, the last folio of the manuscript (in Hager's autograph) dates from 1623. C. H. Bell, in his Georg Hager, Pt. I, p. 100, suggests that the Sachs holographs appear in M 195 bound “as if still in the sequence in which they had been presented from time to time to the father [Georg Hager, Sr.] by Sachs.” The literary relationships of the Hagers and of the younger Hager to Sachs are clearly stated in the preface to Georg Hager's Dreizehntes Liederbuch (MS. Dresden M 6). In introducing this comparatively well-known manuscript (dated Anno Salutis 1600 / am tag Bartholomeÿ), young Hager says:

vnd Ob ich wol mein singen vnd dise lobliche kunst von meinem vatter seligen gelernet hab, jst sie doch vom Sachsen her kumen, dann [= denn] Mein vatter Hat sein handwerck, das schuhmachen, vom ge melten Hans sachsen gelernet, So wol auch das singen. vnd her nach, da ich als ein knab zu meinem ver stand kam, Hab ich mich beÿ Dem Hans sachsen taglich vnd vil finden lasen, Sam ich sein angenumener knab vnd ziblin [= Sipplein] wer.¹⁵

Sachs composed and wrote his Meisterlieder into his manuscript volumes in a precise, methodical, and regulated system, and in accord with the regular practice of Meistergesang. Each, poem is headed with the name of the composer as well as the name of the Ton (Weise) employed, and then the title of the Meisterlied.¹⁶ At the end of each poem is the date of Sachs's composition. It is well known that in Meistergesang a poet either cast his Lieder in a metrical pattern (Ton, Weise) and music devised by himself or he composed a new text to a Ton (Weise) devised by another Meistersinger or attributed to one of “The Twelve Masters” of medieval German lyric. In order of date of composition, the six Tristan poems by Sachs appeared in the following sequence:¹⁷

I. MG 12, FOLIOS 219^V-220^V

In des poppen langen thon “tristrant der liebHabent” December 4, 1551.

II. MG 12, FOLIOS 220^V-221^V

In dem senften thon Nachtigals “Herr tristrant im wald” December 5, 1551.

III. MG 12, FOLIOS 221^V-222^V

In der kelber weis Hanns Heiden “Her tristrancz kampf mit morholt” December 7, 1551.

IV. MG 12, FOLIOS 222^V-223^V

In dem vergessen thon Frauenlobs “Herr tristrant mit dem trachen” December 7, 1551.¹⁸

V. MG 12, FOLIOS 226^R-227^R

In dem plaben thon Regenpogen “her dristrant in dem narren klaid” December 11, 1551.

VI. MG 13, FOLIOS 116^R-117^R

In dem güelden thon Canzlers “Das ent Herr tristrancz” March 13, 1553.

In order that ready reference may be made to the above Meisterlieder in Georg Hager's anthology, the Zweites Liederbuch (M 195), and the only other place where all six may be found (although only three are in Sachs's autograph), the following compilation is supplied. It is a modification of an analysis offered by Roecker in his edition of the Zweites Liederbuch.¹⁹ The M 195 poem numbers were supplied by Roecker, the folio designations are from the manuscript itself, with Hager having numbered only the recto sides.

Sachs I (“tristrant der liebHabent”) = M 195, No. 189, folios 362^r-363^r, in Hager's autograph, and with the superscription added: “Das 3 par vom Tristrant.”

Sachs II (“Her tristrant im wald”) = M 195, No. 141, folios 265^r-266^r, in Sachs's autograph, and with Hager's superscription added: “Das 4 par.” In the margin of folio 266^r Hager has written: “Das 5 vnd 6 lied im dristrant such jm 7 lieder bucH am 316 plat vnd 314 plat.”

Sachs III (“Her tristrancz kampf mit morholt”) = M 195, No. 139, folios 261^r-262^r, in Sachs's autograph, and with Hager's superscription added: “Das 1 par.” In the margin of folio 261^r Hager has written: “Die gancz historj vom herr Tristdrand such Das 1 lied in dem puch am 261 plat. das 2 am 263 plat. Das 3 am 362 plat. das 4 am 265 plat. Das 5 vnd sechst im sibenden lieder puch am 316 vnd 314 plat.” Hager's Siebentes Liederbuch is lost.

Sachs IV (“Herr tristrant mit dem trachen”) = M 195, No. 140, folios 263^r-264^r, in Sach's autograph, and with Hager's superscription added: “Das 2 par.” At the end of No. 140, after the date, in Hager's hand is added: “sucH das 3 lied jm tristrant am 362 plat.”

Sachs V (“her dristrant in dem narren klaid”) = M 195, No. 190, folios 363^v-364^v, in Hager's autograph, and with superscription added: “Das 5 par in Tristrand.”

Sachs VI (“Das ent Herr tristrancz”) = M 195, No. 191, folios 365^r-366^r, in Hager's autograph, and with the superscription added: “Das 6 vnd letst lied Im tristrant.”

From the Hager superscriptions added to the Tristan poems it is clear that Hager had editorially grouped and numbered the six Meisterlieder into a cycle.²⁰ The Hager editorial grouping results in the following sequence:

Das 1 par = “Her tristrancz kampf mit morholt” = Sachs III

Das 2 par = “Herr tristrant mit dem trachen” = Sachs IV

Das 3 par = “tristrant der liebHabent” = Sachs I

Das 4 par = “Her tristrant im wald” = Sachs II

Das 5 par = “her dristrant in dem narren klaid” = Sachs V

Das 6 par = “Das ent Herr tristrancz” = Sachs VI

Hager made a very important editorial change in copying two of the three poems that are in his own hand. Sachs I, which in MG 12 carries Sachs's superscription “In des poppen langen thon,” is in M 195 with the superscription “Im langen thon mügling.” Sachs V, which in MG 12 carries Sachs's superscription “In dem plaben thon Regenpogen,” is in M 195 with the superscription “In der Ritter weis frawen lob.” With some frequency in Meistergesang, certain Töne are identical in meter and rhyme pattern; the melodies differed. This is the situation with the two poems above, but Hager gives no indication of his reasons for choosing Mügling's Ton to replace Boppe's or Frauenlob's Ritterweise to replace Regenbogen's Ton. Technical discussion of the Töne will be presented below, when the various metrical patterns are analyzed.

The six poems do not really constitute “Die gancz historj vom Herr Tristdrand,” as Hager writes in the margin of his folio 261^r. There is, for instance, nothing of Tristan's family and youth. Nowhere does Hans Sachs indicate that he undertook to write a series of Meisterlieder later to be put into what might be considered proper narrative order. Throughout all of Sachs's work it is evident that to him the chronological order of his works is the basis for arrangement. It is useful to recall that the first five Tristan poems were written within eight days in December 1551, but the sixth poem is dated March 13, 1553—and the seven-act tragedy is dated February 7, 1553. Wolfgang Stammler, who knew of only the first five poems, takes the position that it was Sachs's intention to write the Tristan story and that the poems are a kind of single, long poem broken into a cycle of five separate Meisterlieder.²¹ But the sixth poem, the deaths of the lovers, is necessary for the tragic conclusion of the story, and Stammler (and other scholars) were unaware of the existence of the sixth Meisterlied. Even if the sixth poem be disregarded, there is no evidence to support Stammler's statements:

Da solche Versifizierung in fünfzehn und mehr Strophen auch einem meistersingerischen Ohr schließlich eintönig erschien, führte Hans Sachs eine musikalischmetrische Neuerung ein: er teilte den ganzen Zyklus in Triaden mit verschiedenen Tönen ab, z. B. ‘Tristan und Isolde’ in 15 Strophen zu 5 X 3 Tönen. …²²

The assumption by Stammler that Sachs was avoiding writing an overlong song of fifteen Gesätze and therefore wrote five songs of three Gesätze each is totally without support. Stammler's premise that a fifteen-Gesätz poem would be monotonous even to the most enthusiastic and ardent Meistersinger is an erroneous one here, for his basic assumption is in error. It distorts one of the chief characteristics of Meistergesang during Sachs's most productive period, that of the Tristan poems: the overwhelming use and prevalence of Meisterlieder with only three Gesätze. According to Roecker's count, of the 193 Meisterlieder in Hager's Zweites Liederbuch, which, it should be remembered, is an anthology, only eleven exceed three Gesätze, and of the eleven poems eight have five Gesätze while three have seven. Hager's own total production of Meisterlieder is more than six hundred songs and that number includes one variant from the three-Gesätz poem, being two poems of five Gesätze.²³ In the six published volumes of Hans Sachs's Schwänke, 919 of 933 poems have three Gesätze. It is true that in the older period, before ca. 1520, there was a distinct vogue for Meisterlieder of greater length. However, even in Sachs's own first anthology of Meistergesang, completed 1518, MS. Berlin germ. quart. 414, of 398 poems almost half (195) are of three Gesätze.²⁴

This erroneous assumption of the Tristan story in five Meisterlieder is no doubt due to the fact that Sachs VI (“Das ent Herr tristrancz”) was unknown to Stammler and other modern scholars (except for Bell and Roecker, who knew only of a copy by Hager in M 195).²⁵ However, the unique Sachs autograph copy in MG 13, as has been stated, exists and is available.²⁶ With six poems of three Gesätze each, a total of eighteen Gesätze, it becomes impossible to assume that Sachs planned one long cycle-of-parts poem that he then presented in three-Gesätz segments in order to avoid monotony. No Meisterlied known consists of an even number of Gesätze. Sachs's poems, in conformity with the universal practice of Meistergesang, always consist of an odd number of Gesätze. This last consideration is, of course, separate from the fact that over a year had elapsed between the composition of Sachs V (“her dristrant in dem narren klaid”) and Sachs VI (“Das ent Herr tristrancz”). That the six poems, or even the first five, are written in different Töne would also argue against the assumption by Stammler of Sachs's avoiding an overlong, monotonous song by dividing it into equal parts.

The study of Sachs's relationship to his sources for Meisterlieder and his treatment of them is admirably introduced by a recent work on the Meistergesang of Hans Sachs:

Die Abweichungen von der Quelle haben stets einen Zweck; so wenn er erst die Ruhelage und dann die Störung bringt, die Hauptperson herausstellt, geschickt—oder weniger geschickt—vereinfacht, durch Abrundung für den Fluß der Erzählung sorgt, sowie durch behagliche Einführung, Streichung unnötiger Personen oder sprachlicher Wiederholungen. Der Realismus seiner Erzählung ist charakteristisch: die Bilder werden wahrscheinlicher, drastischer, gegensätzlicher, formvollendeter. Der knappen Form des Meistergesanges wegen muß die Handlung meistens umgegossen werden, und so kann der Dichter durch neue Spannung, Steigerung, sorgfältige Vorbereitung, frühzeitige Einführung der Personen wirken.²⁷

For comparison of the Volksbuch, the six Meisterlieder, the Tristan drama, and Sachs's relationship to his source, it will be convenient for the sake of the narrative element to treat the poems in the editorial grouping provided by Georg Hager. It should be recalled, however, that not even in M 195 do the six poems occur in the sequence Hager assigned them.²⁸ In addition, for comparison, the physical element is important. The Volksbuch contains 202 pages of solid prose lines, Eilhart's epic is approximately 9,500 verse lines, Sachs's seven-act tragedy is 44 printed pages, and all six Meisterlieder together total 327 verse lines.

In narrative sequence, then, the Sachs treatment of the romance begins with Tristan's duel with Morholt, its cause and its results. In “Das 1 par” (Sachs III, “Her tristrancz kampf mit morholt”), a poem of sixty lines, Morholt is sent by the king of Ireland to Curnewal to collect tribute from King Mark (all boys and girls fifteen years old) or, as an alternative, Mark is to let his champion meet Morholt. The king of the victor is to become lord of both realms. Tristan is chosen by Mark and sails to an island chosen for the duel. In the fight Tristan is wounded by a poisoned spear, but Morholt is killed after Tristan has struck off his right hand. Mark rejoices, but Tristan, half-dead of his poisoned wound that none in Curnewal can cure, sails for Ireland where, incognito, he comes to the king's daughter, who can and does cure him. These are the earliest events of the romance that Sachs records. There is nothing of the young Tristan—his parentage, his birth, youth and education, the events and situations that brought him to the court of King Mark, across the sea to Cornwall. These matters, however, are in the opening chapters of the Volksbuch.²⁹ They are not mentioned in Sachs's Tragedia. In Eilhart's verse epic the narration of Tristan's birth and early years encompasses approximately the first 350 lines. Act I of the Tragedia, after the Ehrnholdt (herald) has prepared the audience for the great love tragedy by reciting practically all the plot, contains mainly the action of Sachs III, but only up to the death of Morholt and, as a departure from the Meisterlied, the claiming of Morholt's corpse by Isolde. The early years of Tristan, his noble and knightly lineage, obviously did not inspire Sachs to treat them in literary form.

The Volksbuch offers many examples of its direct influence as a source for Sachs III, particularly words and phrases as found in the Worms edition. The following congruences support the relationship of Volksbuch and poem.

1. Volksbuch, p. 6:

Nun was ein held in Irland mit namen Morholt, der was gar ein starck man und het wol vier mannes sterck.

Sachs III, Gesätz 1, line 1:

Morholt ein helt der vier mannes sterck het

2. Volksbuch, p. 7:

… wolt er haben alle die, die do weren bey XV jaren, knaben und meidlin. …

Sachs III, Gesätz 1, lines 6-7:

Zw fordern den tribut gemein
All sunn vnd dechter fuenfze jerieg alt(30)

3. Volksbuch, p. 15:

… eilten beide … und stach yeder den andern durch den schilt. …

Sachs III, Gesätz 2, lines 9-10:

vnd renten Zam
Ainander paide durch die schilt

4. Volksbuch, p. 15:

… er ward zum anderen mal wund mit eim vergifften sper. …³¹

Sachs III, Gesätz 2, line 15:

Doch wurt er wund mit aim vergiften sper

5. Volksbuch, p. 16:

Künig Marchs holt … mit grossen freüden … und furen mit freüden heim.

Sachs III, Gesätz 3, lines 11-12:

Vnd fueret haim sein Kempfer guet
mit grosen frewden auf den tag

6. Volksbuch, p. 17:

Nun was auch herr Tristrant gar seer wund mit vergifften³² waffen, und was kein artzt in Curnevelischen landen … der ym die wunden heilen möchte.

Sachs III, Gesätz 3, lines 13-14:

idoch herr tristranten vergifte Wünt
im ganczen lant im niemant hailen kunt

The Volksbuch goes into detail about Tristan's journey to Ireland, the healing of his wounds by Isolde, and his return. There are other intervening episodes until the events of “Das 2 par” (Sachs IV, “Herr tristrant mit dem trachen”), a Meisterlied of forty-five lines. Tristan, again in Ireland, is told of a murderous dragon and that the king's daughter in marriage will be the reward for the dragon-killer. Tristan seeks out the dragon, kills it and cuts out its tongue as proof of his conquest; then exhausted by the fight with the fire-breathing dragon he lies down. Isolde finds him and takes him to court where she nurses him back to health. When the king wants Tristan to take Isolde as his bride, Tristan asks that she be given to King Mark, and her father agrees. On the voyage to Mark they drink together in all innocence a love potion and are to be madly in love for all their lives.

At this stage a digression is necessary. The episode of the love potion occurs in two of the Sachs Tristan poems and in important variant forms. In “Das 3 par” (Sachs I, “tristrant der liebHabent”), the earliest dated of the poems (December 4), Sachs describes the potion in its familiar context (involving the queen mother and court maiden) as having been given secretly to the court maiden by the queen so that bride and groom may love each other and be happy in marriage. But in Sachs I the potion is to be effective for only four years. This is a considerable discrepancy from the closing lines of Sachs IV:

Wurden wuedender liebe vol
Durch aus ir ganczes leben.

[italics added]

And the Volksbuch (p. 43) is very explicit about the four-year period. The queen, in half a printed page, uses the four-year measure three times in describing the potion. This four-year period is in both the Augsburg and Worms editions of the Volksbuch. The Tragedia, however, to compound the variants of the efficacy, has both situations. The Ehrnholdt (herald) in his speech that opens the play (p. 142) says in lines 22-24:

So müstens denn durch-auß ir leben [italics added]
Einander haben hertzlich lieb
Von deß bultranckes starcken trieb.

The Ehrnholdt concludes the prologue (p. 143, lines 5-9):

Was nun hernach sie alle beide
In ihrer lieb für hertzen-leide
Und gferligkeit haben erlitten,
Ihr leben lang durch-auß erstritten,
Wert ir alhie hören und sehen.

But in Act III, Queen Hildegart entrusts the love drink to Brangel, the court maiden, with the following description of its potency (p. 156, lines 20-25):

Das hat die kraft: wenn es selbander
Zwo person trincken mit einander,
So müsens einander haben lieb
Vier jar lang so in starcken trieb, [italics added]
Das eins on das ander kein tag
Beleiben oder leben mag.

When Brangel later learns that Tristan and Isolde have drunk the love potion she recalls clearly Queen Hildegart's description of its efficacy, and Brangel laments (p. 158, lines 30-35):

So habens truncken das bultranck.
Weh mir und weh in imerdar!
Nun müssen sie vier gantzer jar [italics added]
Einander liebhaben allein
Und keins kan an das ander sein.

The comparison of Sachs with his source for the Tristan and Isolde poems is now continued, with the action having moved to approximately line 1600 in Eilhart, and page 27 of the Volksbuch.

1. Volksbuch, p. 27:

… der thet dem land grossen schaden an leüten und viehe.³³

Sachs IV, Gesätz 1, line 5:

Der det an fieh vnd lewten grosen schaden

2. Volksbuch, p. 27:

… daß ein grosser vnd grausamer Drach. …

Sachs IV, Gesätz 1, line 13:

Da er den grosen vngehewren trachen fünd

After the slaying of the dragon, the Volksbuch and other old versions introduce the Truchsess, his false assertion of having slain the dragon, and his claiming of the princess as reward. In the Meisterlied there is nothing of the Truchsess and the producing of the tongue of the dragon by Tristan to prove it was he who killed the beast. In a single line in Sachs IV (Gesätz 3, line 1) is the only reference to all this:

Zum war Zaichen schnit er im aus die züngen.

Many pages in the Volksbuch are taken up with Isolde finding Tristan in the forest, restoring him to health, learning that he had slain Morholt; and finally, as at the end of the third Gesätz of Sachs IV, she is to be given as bride and queen to King Mark—and the love potion enters the plot. As was noted above, the duration of the efficacy of the potion is treated in variant forms in the two Meisterlieder and the Tragedia. Briefly, Sachs IV is, in a sense, a complete romance beginning with Tristan's arrival in Ireland, his slaying of the dragon, getting the bride for Mark, and the beginning of lifelong love. Nowhere in this poem is there reference to Tristan's previous visit to Ireland, to the hatred of Isolde for her uncle's slayer, anything of the queen mother's magic and the entrusting of the love brew to the court maiden. The Meisterlied can stand alone as a romantic story.

In “Das 3 par” (Sachs I, “tristrant der liebHabent”), Sachs begins with a line of identification of Tristan, as would be expected of his first Tristan Meisterlied and despite the editorial grouping of Georg Hager:

Eins kunigs sun von jonois genent tristrant

and Sachs then proceeds immediately to send Tristan to Ireland to get Isolde for King Mark. The sixty-line poem describes no duel with Morholt, no poisoned wound to be cured by Isolde, no dragon to slay on his second trip to Ireland—by the sixth line of the poem the old queen mother is handing the love potion to the court maiden. Tristan and Isolde then innocently drink this four-year philter and begin to lie together. To solve the problem of Isolde's loss of her maidenhood, the court maiden is substituted the first night in King Mark's bed. However, a court dwarf later tells Mark of the illicit love of Tristan and Isolde, and Mark tells Tristan to take a vacation from the court. This leads to the famous scene, the tryst beneath the tree, where Tristan is able to give the approaching Isolde a guarded wink and the lovers are successful in completely fooling Mark, who is literally up a tree.³⁴ King Mark recalls Tristan to court, but soon afterward the lovers are caught making love and the poem ends saying that Tristan suffered much because of their love. There is at least one more evidence of Sachs's use of the Worms edition:

Volksbuch, p. 72:

… als sy kam do wincket er ir heimlich. …³⁵

Sachs I, Gesätz 2, lines 15-16:

herr tristrant ir haimlich thet
Aufs paumes schatten wincken.

The narrative encompassed in Sachs I goes all the way to page 89 of the Volksbuch, with many other episodes and embellishments omitted, such as the floating of the marked leaf (chip) to tell Isolde to come to the linden tree and the manner in which Tristan and Isolde are finally caught in bed together. This last episode, complete with folk elements, was too much for the moral, strait-laced Sachs. The prose Tristan has a long story about the trap set for the lovers—flour, to reveal footprints, strewn on the floor between their beds, and so on—and a realistic, intimate scene:

In dem wolt er zu der Frawen beth gehen; listigkeit aber leret jn ein andern syn, wie er solt von eim bet an das ander springen; als er auch tet, und sprang also seer, das sich seiner vor geheileten wunden eine widerumb auffrisse, und ward die künigin mit sambt ym vol bluts.³⁶

The lurking dwarf awakens King Mark and entourage and they catch Tristan attempting to get back to his own bed without stepping in the flour. The lovers are caught! In Sachs I, this is all simply put in a single line in Gesätz 3 (line 17):

Ergrieff man in an warer that.

In Eilhart's epic, the story has gone forward through about 3,900 lines to the events just described. In Sachs's Tragedia, most of the material is in Act IV and the earlier part of Act V. The incident in which the lovers are caught is again treated by Sachs with good Nürnberg modesty. Sachs has none of the details of the bed-jumping. Curnefal, friend of Tristan, enters and relates:

Ach weh, weh! ubel ißts zu-gangen.
Herr Tristrant, mein herr, ist gefangen
Sambt Isalden, der königin.(37)

Perhaps it is in keeping with this seeming prudery that in Act IV, when Isolde is to go to the nuptial bed with Mark, there is nothing of substituting Brangel for the first night although Sachs was quite willing to include such an incident in his Meisterlied—the poem was not for publication, it will be recalled.

In “Das 4 par” (Sachs II, “Her tristrant im wald”), the action follows very closely upon the conclusion of Sachs I. The poem is composed of fifty-seven lines, with the only repetition of material from the previous poem being that of the capture of the lovers in flagranti. They are both to be burned, but Tristan escapes with Isolde and they flee into the forest where they live, in primitive fashion, for two years. There is nothing of Gottfried's Minnegrotte and its symbolism or poetic charm. Mark, on a hunt, chances upon the sleeping but clothed lovers in their hut, stifles an impulse to strangle them when he see a naked sword between them and is reminded they might be innocent. Mark replaces Tristan's sword with his own and also leaves his glove. When Tristan awakens and realizes what has occurred, he is frightened. The lovers flee to live deeper in the forest.

The Volksbuch and Sachs II are both very brief and clear about the forest existence of the fugitives. In the Volksbuch, usually wordy, the forest life is described in three lines:

Also warent sy an den enden gar nahent zwey jare, und liten grosse armut. Sy hetten weder essen noch trincken, dann kreütter, die sy in dem wald funden.³⁸

Sachs II, Gesätz 2, lines 6-10, pictures the same existence:

Darin war wasser ir getranck
Wild fruecht waren ir speis
idoch war in die weil nit lanck.
Also elender weis
wantens im walde auf zwey jar.

and ends with Sachs moralizing about the sad and anxious life of those who are subject to a raging and mad love. The most striking difference in Sachs's treatment of these episodes in the Tragedia is that the exchange of swords by Mark does not occur. Mark only leaves his glove (p. 172) after reflecting that the lovers might be innocent, and his lines are very similar to those of the Meisterlied as he says:

Zwischen in lag ein bloses schwerdt.
Da dacht ichs zu erwürgen beide.
Dacht doch, es möcht mir werden leide,
Sie möchten noch unschuldig sein.
Da zog ich ab den hendtschuch mein,
Warff in auff ir deck, gieng darvon.

The narrated events in Sachs II (“Das 4 par”) are few in comparison with the episodes and events expressed or implied in the first three Pare. The materials that provide the substance of Sachs II are treated in about twenty-five pages in the Volksbuch (pp. 75-101), and they correspond approximately to Eilhart's lines 3600-4700. Then occurs a huge gap in Sachs's Tristan story. Sachs not only omits numerous elements of the prose romance, but he provides no bridge to account for the situations he will introduce in his next Meisterlied, Sachs V (“Das 5 par”), “her dristrant in dem narren klaid.” The omissions by Sachs represent the materials of over eighty pages in the Volksbuch (pp. 101-184) and approximately lines 4700 to 8700 in Eilhart. When the elements of “Das 5 par” are introduced to us, we have no knowledge of where Tristan has been nor do we know the circumstances that brought Isolde back to Mark's court. Here, especially, seems to be further circumstance that Sachs did not plan a cycle-of-parts history of Tristan and Isolde. While we may, of course, assume that he could not get all the Volksbuch episodes into six Meisterlieder, yet there is in the first four plentiful connective material. There is much less in “Das 4 par” (Sachs II).

“Das 5 par” (Sachs V, “her dristrant in dem narren klaid”) is the last of the poems written in the week of December 4 to December 11, 1551. The poet is about to put aside the Tristan materials until he produces his Tragedia and the sixth Meisterlied in February and March, 1553. In Sachs V, a Meisterlied of forty-eight lines, we meet Tristan in exile from Cornwall and separated from Isolde. He is dressed in fool's garb and running along a shore shouting and whistling at some sailing merchants who take him aboard, carry him to Cornwall, and present him as a gift to King Mark. Tristan is not recognized and plays the fool until he has the opportunity to reveal his true identity to Isolde. She provides him a hiding place under the stairs and he is with her almost nightly. A fool by day and a knight by night, for three weeks Tristan enjoys the love of Isolde. But two servants become suspicious and lay a trap for Tristan. Tristan knows he must flee, although not yet publicly denounced, so he bids a sad farewell to Isolde, blesses her, and departs. The lovers are never again to see each other alive.

In the Volksbuch, a youth advises Tristan to try the fool's garb stunt in order to see Isolde again. The Meisterlied gives no indication of previous discussion or consideration; there is Tristan on the shore and ready to try the deception. From this point on the Volksbuch and Sachs V are in general accord. There are again evidences that Sachs knew the Worms edition of the Volksbuch for only in it (p. 184) appears:

Als nu Herr Tristrant das Narren kleid angezogen hette, kame er zu dem see vnd gieng. …

Sachs V, title:

her dristrant in dem narren klaid

and Sachs V, Gesätz 1, lines 5-8:

herr tristrant sich verclaidet pur
in ains narren gewande
vnd loff pey dem mer her vnd hin
mit nerrischer geperd

convey the same idea as the Worms edition of the Volksbuch; the others refer to a narren jugel.

Later in the poem, after Isolde prepares for their rendezvous, the prose version reads:

Volksbuch, p. 188:

… bey dem tag was er ein narr, aber zunachts versane er sich wol. …

Sachs V, Gesätz 2, lines 9-12:

pey dem tag er ain narre war
trieb gancz nerrischen scherze
Zw nacht war er ain riter gar
vnd erquicket sein hercze.

When Tristan knows the idyll is ended, the Volksbuch (p. 189) reads:

… sunder er nam seinen kolben mit ym, und ging zu der frawen.

This event is recorded in the Meisterlied:

Sachs V, Gesätz 3, lines 6-8:

zuckt er sein kolben schwere
in alle Hoch nach heldes muet
ging zu seiner kungin.

The action of Sachs V encompasses only pages 184 to 190 in the Volksbuch, and corresponds to lines 8730-9030 in Eilhart. In the Tragedia, Act VI, Tristan has been living in Carechs and married to another Isolde before he decides to return to Mark's court disguised as a fool. Sachs followed the Volksbuch much more closely for this Meisterlied than for the Tragedia, particularly in the elements concerning the merchants and their ship, the room for Tristan under the stairs, the lines about being a fool by day and a knight by night, as well as the correlation of the discovery by the “zwen kemerling” in the poem and “zwen kamrer” in the Volksbuch. In the Tragedia, it is the three “Klaffer” who are Tristan's undoing—and they are thoroughly thrashed by him for their efforts (p. 180).

The shame and the sorrow that Sachs, respected citizen of Nürnberg, was always impelled to note throughout his Tristan poems now needed the final and most tragic part of the love story. It is not unexpected. Sachs I, “tristrant der liebHabent,” ends:

Darnach er hat
vil gfar er lieden durch ir lieb
thut sein histori sagen.

After a description of the misery and discomforts of the lovers' life in the forest, the closing lines of Sachs II, “Her tristrant im wald,” warn the reader:

Also nempt noch die wuetig lieb
Dem menschen muet vnd sin
Stöst in in sorg angst vnd gefert.

Although Sachs III, “Her tristrancz kampf mit morholt,” contains mainly the account of the duel, it also introduces Isolde for the first time when she cures Tristan's poisoned wound. Here, too, Sachs ends with a somber warning:

… da erscheint
Das pschert glüeck nimant wenden mag.

However, in Sachs IV, “Herr tristrant mit dem trachen,” that ends with Tristan and Isolde drinking the love potion, Sachs does not append moralizing or warning lines. He ends in narrative fashion:

Drunckens paide im schiff vnwissent ein puel dranck
Wurden wuedender liebe vol
Durch aus ir ganczes leben.

The events of Sachs V, “her dristrant in dem narren klaid,” almost naturally lead Sachs to close with a moralization about the madness and foolishness that illicit love can bring:

Also die lieb nach mals
noch manchem pueler straiffet ser
Die narren Kapp an hals.

As previously noted, the final disorder of the lovers is nowhere hinted at in the five Meisterlieder of December 4-11, 1551. The Tragedia does end the lives of the lovers. It is almost as if, by writing the Tragedia, Sachs reminded himself that the final and most tragic part of the story had not been treated in a Meisterlied when he wrote the first five over a year earlier. Soon after completing the seven-act drama, Sachs set about correcting his omission. “Das 6 par” (Sachs VI), the last Tristan poem, is dated March 13, 1553. Sachs could now use a title that left no doubt about the finality of dealing with his hero:

Das ent Herr tristrancz

Unlike both the Volksbuch and the Tragedia, there is no other Isolde, no wife for Tristan, although Sachs had used such a figure (usually called Isolde of the White Hands) in his drama just a month before writing the Meisterlied. The omission of a wife (even if only in name) simplifies and thereby emphasizes the fatal disorder of the lovers in the Meisterlied. In the fifty-seven lines of the poem, Sachs treats all that remains of the Volksbuch, pages 190 to 202, and the remaining verses of Eilhart, lines 9030 to approximately 9550, which include some of the most tender and moving episodes.

When Sachs VI opens, Tristan has been away from his beloved for many years, and he, in Carochs, has been sorely wounded by the poisoned spear of Nampetenis.³⁹ Knowing Isolde's skill in curing such wounds, Tristan sends for her. For love of Tristan and fearing neither harm nor shame, Isolde secretly sets sail for Carochs with her drugs. Tristan had instructed his messenger to use, on the ship's return, a white or black sail code to signal whether Isolde was aboard and coming to cure him. When Tristan asks what color and is told, in an anonymous man construction, that the sail is black, he turns pale and dies. The bells are tolling and all are weeping as Isolde comes ashore and hurries to the court. She learns the news, goes to Tristan's bier and laments greatly over his body, and she too dies of a broken heart. The lovers are laid together in a single grave. Sachs can now, in the closing lines of his last Meisterlied devoted to the romance, sum up all his feelings about the story he has read, and written, of Tristan and Isolde:

so sie paide dot lagen
Dar zw die piter lieb sie Zwang
war duet das sprich wort sagen
lieb sey herz laides ane fang
Es ste kurcz oder lang.

The Volksbuch, Sachs VI, and Act VII of the Tragedia have many episodes in common. However, the most striking difference in the Meisterlied is the way Sachs has the false color (black instead of white sail) reported. Without the presence of the jealous wife to utter the fatal falsehood, Sachs has left unexplained any motive for the false report. The lines in the poem do not make possible any inference or interpretation beyond Sachs's simple statement:

Als das schieff kam da fraget
tristrant was farb der segel wer
On gfer man im da saget
Am schieff so wer der segel schwarez.(40)

Again there is evidence of the direct influence of the Worms Volksbuch edition (p. 194):

… verwundet yn mit eim vergifften sper. …⁴¹

Sachs VI, Gesätz 1, line 7:

mit gifting sper verwundet in

The Meisterlied line, in addition, is almost identical with Tristan's line in the Tragedia (p. 182):

Ich bin wund mit vergiftem sper.

In the closing lines of the Volksbuch, Sachs's Tragedia, and his Meisterlied, the moralizing reaches its climax. The varying degrees of compassion and moralizing can be compared in the pertinent passages that conclude the romance in each of the three accounts. The Volksbuch (p. 202) prosaically states:

Nembt war, wie dise lieb disen zweien so gar ein schnelles vnd unbereits sterben gefügt hat; und auch das nach kleiner vnd kurtzer freüd, sehr langes trauren und scharffe pein folget.

The Ehrnholdt, who introduced the Tragedia in his prologue, reappears to close the drama with a long speech (38 lines, pp. 184-185) in which the sorrows of love are cast in a moral similar to that of the Volksbuch, as when he says:

Ein kurtze freud und langen schmertz,
Darmit gepeinigt wird das hertz,
Vol seuftzen, wain und jamer kleglich.

To Sachs, this greatest of love tragedies could end only as a didactic example to his contemporaries, his contribution to keeping them on the straight and narrow path of virtue. We must accept as his own dramatic idea the closing lines of Act VIII that he surely wrote in all sincerity (p. 185, lines 21-30):

Auß dem so lasz dich treulich warnen,
O mensch, vor solcher liebe garnen
Und spar dien lieb biß in die eh!
Denn hab ein lieb und keine meh!
Dieselb lieb ist mit Gott und ehren,
Die welt darmit fruchtbar zu mehren.
Darzu gibt Gott selb allewegen
Sein gnad, gedeyen und milten segen.
Das stäte lieb und trew aufwachs
Im ehling stand, das wünscht Hans Sachs.

In contrast, the ending of the sixth Meisterlied has only a proverb that follows Sachs's somber lines which put the dead lovers together in a single grave:

war duet das sprich wort sagen
lieb sey herz laides ane fang
Es ste kurcz oder lang.(42)

He gives no comforting alternative, no warm lightening of the burden; only a deep sigh.

The Tristan and Isolde romance is the only German medieval courtly epic that has a sad sorrowful ending. Sachs's sixth Meisterlied leaves his audience of fellow Meistersinger thoroughly convinced of the pitiful end of the lovers. He used the story well, as expected of a Meistersinger of his standing and reputation. The last poem leaves no doubts about the pitiable and certain rewards of illicit love: misery and shame, grief and death.

It is not unexpected that Sachs should have made great changes in the number of episodes and characters used in the Meisterlieder. The wide scope and excessive discursiveness of the Volksbuch, in a sense, forced Sachs into compressing situations and even into introducing new relationships of the events. However, such measures by Sachs frequently lead to events without motive or justification, the best example—already referred to—being in Sachs VI (“Das ent Herr tristrancz”) when someone, anonymous and without identification or justification of any sort, falsely reports that the ship bearing Isolde is rigged with a black sail. In Sachs IV (“Her tristrant mit dem trachen”), Gesätz 3, line 1 reads: “Zum war Zaichen schnit er im aus die züngen.” But all the events of the Volksbuch and Eilhart versions that make this operation important to the winning of Isolde for King Mark are completely omitted.

Most important is the complete omission of any motive or circumstance that leads to the drinking of the love potion by Tristan and Isolde. In Sachs I (“tristrant der liebHabent”) there is one mitigating word about the drinking event; Gesätz 1, lines 11-12:

Auf dem mer aber sich pegab
Das dristrant vnd die prawt vnwissent truncken [italics added]

This situation is recreated almost identically in Sachs IV (“Herr tristrant mit dem trachen”); Gesätz 3, line 13:

Drunckens paide im schiff vnwissent ein puel dranck [italics added]

This entire sequence, the bringing of the bride to King Mark, as described in both poems, lacks any motivation for Mark to desire Isolde as his queen as is found in the Volksbuch and other sources. As a last instance, at the end of Sachs III (“Her tristrancz kampf mit morholt”) wherein Tristan is poisonously wounded, we are given no clue as to how or why Tristan goes to Ireland and seeks out Isolde in particular to cure him.

There can be no doubt that the confines of a three-Gesätz Meisterlied were always apparent to Sachs, but he also had an unrestrained joy in storytelling in verse to make his point—brief, quick, and foreshortened. The realistic manner of his joy in narration is apparent in each of the six Tristan poems, and this is typical of Sachs's Meisterlieder in his mature years. But, for the sake of the metrical form, he had to make changes and variations that some might consider excessive freedom in the use of his source materials. This poetic freedom is immediately noticeable in Sachs's use of both person and place names. The Tragedia is “… mit 23 personen. …”⁴³ but in all six Meisterlieder, only five personal names occur: Tristan, Isald (only one Isolde, not two as in the Tragedia), Morholt, Mark, and Nampetenis. The place names are Carochs, Curnewelisch land, Irlant, and Jonois.⁴⁴ In contrast to the profuse use of names for places and people in the Volksbuch, the technique of Sachs may be described as excessively compressing his source materials. This is true of most situations in which he used long and wordy sources. Eugen Geiger's study of the Sachs Schwänke left him convinced: “Aber meistens unterdrückt er Personen, weil er ohne sie auskommt.”⁴⁵ With the Meisterlieder this can be more easily achieved, of course, than in a drama.

Sachs was truly adept at eliminating names. An example to support what has happened in the Tristan poems is to be found in Sachs's “Die unschuldig herzogin von Britania” (No. 547 in Vol. IV of his Schwänke, edited by Goetz and Drescher). Here Sachs used Georg Wickram's Galmy as his source. The Sachs treatment—written in 1548—totals sixty lines; one name is used, that of Galmy. The reprint edition of Wickram is over 180 pages, with many proper names. In treating both the Galmy and Tristan stories in verse, however, Sachs does make clear the presence and actions of persons and characters. In Sachs III, where Tristan and Isolde meet for the first time, Isolde is identified only as the king's daughter, the girl who can cure him, in Gesätz 3, lines 16-18:

Kam zw des kunigs dochter vnerkant
Die hailt in doch
Die im doch war von herczen feint.

Nowhere in all six Tristan poems is anyone of the Irlant hierarchy called by name, except Isolde. The king of Ireland is always “the king” and his wife (the love-potion producer) is only “the queen.” Even Brangel (Brangaene in Gottfried), who plays such an important role in the romance, is only a “court maiden.” Not one courtier is even named, no companion of Tristan or servant. This is the same technique Sachs used in Galmy; for here are found only: “Herzog,” “fürstin,” “marschalck,” “ein ritter,” and so forth.

The dramatis personae of Sachs's Tristan drama, by way of contrast, introduces two characters who are not in the Volksbuch; two persons from Ireland who appear with Isolde, at the end of Act I, when she finds the slain Morholt (p. 147). On the other hand, Sachs lists an Irishman named Friedrich in his cast of characters, but no such person appears in the play at all. An additional facet of the proper names is Sachs's use of variant spellings, not only within the Meisterlieder but in his drama as well. This is particularly apparent in the name of the hero. In Sachs I he is tristrant, dristrant, and tristant, whereas in Sachs II although he is named seven times he is always tristrant; Sachs III has it as tristrant eight times but twice as dristrant. Through the remaining poems it is consistently tristrant with a single use of dristrant (in the title of Sachs V). King Mark, whose name is comparatively rare within the six poems, nevertheless is honored with two spellings, neither of which is the familiar Mark(e): Marx (Sachs I and Sachs III), but March (Sachs IV). March and Marx are both used in the Tragedia. Morholt, five times, and Morhold, three times, are used in the single poem in which he appears (Sachs III), but Isald appears always as Isalt, never in variant spelling throughout the poems in which there are a total of five occurrences. Since the variants cited above are from the Sachs manuscripts, no copyist's or typographical errors may be inferred. Scribal errors of Sachs's own making are, of course, possible but hardly likely to account for a variant such as March:Marx. The variant Tristrant:Dristrant is a scribal variant; the thrice repeated use of Dristrant indicates Sachs found either initial letter spelling acceptable, in accord with the Nürnberg dialectal use of d for standard t.

The omission of certain names and events also contributes to the interpretation that Sachs did not intend his six Meisterlieder to be Die gancz Historj, as Georg Hager declares and attempts to construct with his editorial grouping. The Meisterlieder leave many situations as narrative only within their own framework. For example, when Isolde cures Tristan of the wound inflicted by Morholt, we are told that she does not know who he is even though she should hate him. The lines leave the reader to infer some sort of intuitive hatred, described in Sachs III (“Her tristrancz kampf mit morholt”), Gesätz 3, lines 16-19:

Kam zw des kunigs dochter vnerkant
Die hailt in doch
Die im doch war von herczen feint
vmb morholcz willen. …

To Hager this is “Das 1 par,” yet the name Isolde does not once appear in it. Nor is there any inkling of the revelation of Tristan's identity by fitting the sword splinter or any other device. However, the same poem contained space for a description of the island on which the duel takes place, the apperance of the two champions in armor, their dialogue, and then a lengthy and even detailed description of how Tristan slays Morholt, after first striking off his right hand.

“Das 2 par” (Sachs IV, “Herr tristrant mit dem trachen”) opens with Tristan traveling to Ireland and being informed of an evil dragon in the land. This, if the poems are to be deemed consecutive, would make no sense in terms of accounting for Tristan's presence in Ireland. It is in this poem, as was mentioned above, that after the dragon is slain, Tristan:

Zum war Zaichen schnit er im aus die züngen

but no name, person, or situation later occurs that gives the removal of the tongue any purpose. The last Gesätz is again one of Sachs's highly compressed narratives; no queen mother to prepare the love potion and, in fact, no court maid (or Brangel) to whom to entrust it. Yet, on the voyage the lovers drink the philter. In all the poem, only Tristan and Isolde are called by name even though Sachs has lines enough to describe in lengthy detail the hero, his horse and armor (even the fact that his helmet was of pure gold), and the battle with the dragon. It is obvious that the fighting, with Morholt and then with the dragon, was more attractive than embellishment of the thread of the narrative. Even in the pleasures of the adventurous action, however, Sachs the solid citizen is not carried away. In the Volksbuch (p. 32) the exhausted Tristan, after the fight with the dragon, is found by Isolde and Brangel and:

Als nun Fraw Isald Herr Tristranten gar ausgezogen het ward jm ein bad bereit. Die fraw bracht salben, die ym zu sein wunden gehörten; sy salbt bald und badet yn, das er gantz zu seinen krefften kame.

It was the medieval custom that a weary and wounded knight be served by ladies at his bath. This was not to Sachs's sixteenth-century taste. In the Tragedia he avoids the problem with a stage direction (p. 153) that follows Isolde's speech:

Wir wöllen dich salben und baden,
Das du kumbst wider zum kreften dein.
On sorg und forchte solt du sein.
Sie setzen Tristrant in ein sessel und
salben in, er lacht und spricht: …

Since the scene is played in the forest, it is almost ridiculous that the armchair is available, but Sachs must avoid the intimacy of the bath scene even though Isolde spoke of it. In Sachs IV (Gesätz 3, lines 6-7), the poet, more modestly and neatly and in keeping with the compressed attitude of the Meisterlied, has Tristan discovered by Isolde and she:

fünd sam Halb dot tristrant den helden kuene
pracht in gen hoff vnd pflag sein wol.

Most of the best known scenes and events of the romance are in “Das 3 par” (Sachs I, “tristrant der liebHabent”). Here Sachs has placed the queen of Ireland (Queen Hildegart in the Tragedia), the court maiden (Brangel in the Tragedia), and the king of Ireland (Wilhelm in the Tragedia). The potion is entrusted to Brangel by Hildegart, Tristan and Isolde drink it, and it happens (Gesätz 1, lines 15-16):

Das her tristrant die prawt peschlieff
E ers dem Kunig prachte

—as if it were less important or less illicit had it occurred after “ers dem Kunig prachte”! Then Brangel is substituted for Isolde and events follow one another quickly: the dwarf's revelation to Mark of the continuing adultery, the king's order of banishment for Tristan, the tryst beneath the tree, and the deception there that leads to Mark's further deception until Tristan is caught in flagranti and must go. In the Volksbuch and Tragedia the lovers are led to drink because of great thirst, and in the Volksbuch, Brangel is motivated to give up her maidenhood in Mark's nuptial bed because she considers herself guilty of carelessness in her custody of the love potion. Sachs, in his drama, places the burden of guilt through carelessness on Brangel but cannot bring himself to intimate her defloration. The lovers, throughout, are considered a kind of innocent sacrifice to a power over which they have no control. This is in keeping with the Volksbuch (pp. 46-48), where Isolde, smitten with Tristan because of the power of the drink, laments, cries, and even raves about her desire that she cannot stifle even though she knows it to be wrong. Her long monologue is replete with evidence of her spiritual innocence:

Herr gott, wie ist mir geschehen, wie ist mir mein gemüte so gehling verwandelt worden! … O Cupido, hab ich arme Isalde ye etwas gethon, das ich solt vermitten haben: das hastu nun wol an mir gerochen. … Darumb bit ich, stell ab dein ungenade und senfftige mir ein teyle der grossen not, … das ich nit als gar erbermtlich und senlich sterbe. … O ach der grossen not.

What in the Tragedia is to appear as one of Sachs's most dramatic accomplishments appears in the Meisterlied (Sachs I) without mitigating word. The lovers drink:

… wurden paide darab
An Zunt mit Haiser lieb flamenden funcken

[Gesätz 1, lines 13-14]

and then are concerned only with presenting Mark a “bride” complete with maidenhead. There is no introspection or feeling of guilt. There is, as part of the tryst beneath the tree, only deceit and subterfuge. But perhaps Isolde is echoing some of the intensity of her Volksbuch monologue when she tells Tristan beneath the tree in which Mark and the dwarf are hiding:

wolt got dw werst an vnsren hof nie Kumen

[Gesätz 3, line 8]

Twenty pages of the Volksbuch are highly compressed, both in Act IV of the drama and that portion of Sachs I which deals with the potion, Brangel, and the consciences of the lovers. The drama offered Sachs greater latitude to portray the lovers as helpless, and not utterly base, in the power of the love drink. In the Abgesang (Gesätz 3, line 17) after the deceived king allows Tristan to return, “Ergrieff man in an warer that.” There is nothing in the poem to elevate the actions of Tristan and Isolde.

By “Das 4 par” (Sachs II, “Her tristrandt im wald”), Tristan and Isolde are completely identified as adulterers and, in the opening lines of Gesätz 1, reduced to a lecherous, low pair:

Entlich er doch ergriffen wart
pey ir gleich wie ein dieb
geleget in den kerker ein
Vnd der gleich isald die Kungin

[lines 3-6]

To arrive at an approximation of this state, the Tragedia needed many characters. Brangel has entreated Tristan, at the desire of Mark who now judges Tristan innocent, to return to court. The dwarf has arranged for the lovers to be caught lying together, and Auctrat has convinced Mark to burn Tristan and Isolde for their crime despite the pleas of Herzog Thinas, Curnefal, and Peronis. The lovers escape and with Curnefal begin their two-year life of forest solitude. All these events are accomplished in Sachs II without any court persons and with only a faithful Knecht to provide the horse for Tristan's escape and to accompany and serve the lovers in their forest life.

In both Tragedia and poem, Sachs has again compressed much of the Volksbuch. In the discovery of the lovers by Mark, Sachs's Meisterlied keeps close to the prose version by having Mark leave his sword in place of Tristan's as well as leaving a glove. The Tragedia uses only the device of leaving the glove, and this leads to another character in the drama. At the urging of Isolde and knowing Mark has found them, they go to Ugrim, a hermit and Mark's father confessor. They confess to him and Ugrim effects a reconciliation between Mark and Isolde, but Tristan must leave the realm.

The situation of the reconciliation is treated differently in the Volksbuch and in Sachs II. In the prose version, it is Tristan who asks Mark that the lovers be permitted to return and is then himself banished while Isolde returns to Mark. The Meisterlied makes no attempt to account for the later return of Isolde to Mark. It does not even have Tristan and Isolde desirous of a return. After they realize, because of the sword and the glove, that Mark has found their forest hut, they ride away together deeper into the forest, and according to the closing lines (Gesätz 3, lines 15-16):

in der ainöd sein zeit vertrieb
mit seiner Kunigin.

Here Sachs has given the story a new turn, and nothing of the adventures of Tristan to follow is hinted at. The ending of the poem might well be the end of the lovers; as written, they might be considered as living on until death finally came.

Although Hager's designation “Das 5 par” and Sachs V (“her dristrant in dem narren klaid”) coincide, there is little in the opening Stollen to make it possible for the events of this poem to follow logically the retreat of the lovers deeper into the forest. In the Tragedia, Act VI has Tristan relate all that has befallen him since his banishment: his residence in Carechs, his marriage to the other Isolde (of the White Hands), and his secret visits to his beloved. The Meisterlied simply tells us Tristan is banished and away from his Isolde—and the remainder of the poem presents only the episodes of Tristan coming to Mark's court disguised as a fool but active as lover until finally identified. For both drama and poem, Sachs omitted great parts of the prose Tristan. He did not use the episodes at the court of the king of Gavoy, Tristan's trip to Britain and stay with King Arthur, or Tristan's friendship with Sir Balbon. Wisely, Sachs eliminated all these episodes, and other minor ones, from his treatments; the Volksbuch narrative is unnecessarily embellished and wearisome in relating this portion.

In the Tragedia it is Cainis, the brother-in-law of Tristan, who advises Tristan to try to be with Isolde through the subterfuge of the fool's garb; in the Volksbuch it is “Der Knab.” The poem merely has Tristan disguised, without reason or suggestion, and acting the fool on the shore until he is picked up by the merchant ship and taken to Curneval. We are not even told from where he is carried (Carochs, Careches), although the place name figures prominently in both the drama and Volksbuch. Nor is there any hint in the poem that Tristan has left a wife behind in Carochs. Both the Meisterlied and Volksbuch episodes of the fool-at-court end with Tristan again discovered and going away after taking a last farewell and bestowing his blessing on Isolde. Sachs added action to the scene in the Tragedia by having Tristan thrash the three gossips (Auctrat, Rudolf, Wolff) with his fool's baton before his departure.

The tragic ending of the lovers is, as has been cited, common to “Das 6 par” (Sachs VI, “Das ent Herr tristrancz”), to the Tragedia, and to the Volksbuch. But again the Meisterlied technique of Sachs demonstrates his method of narrating the events with a minimum of persons and episodes. The events that lead to Tristan's fatal wound by the poisoned spear from the hand of Nampetenis are complex and lengthy in the Tragedia and Volksbuch. In the drama, Tristan agrees to accompany his brother-in-law Cainis who wishes to have a rendezvous with Queen Gardalego during the absence of her husband, Nampeconis.⁴⁶ Isolde of the White Hands is anxious about this journey, and her fears are confirmed when the servant Ulrich returns to report Cainis slain and Tristan the victim of a poisoned wound. It is this same Ulrich who is then sent to bring Isolde from Curnewal in order to use her healing arts on Tristan again, as she did after his battle with Morholt.

In the Volksbuch, the events with Cainis, Gardalego, and Nampetenis are told in great detail, including lengthy dialogues and disputes, and ending with a great battle in which Cainis slays thirty of Nampetenis' men before he himself is slain. Tristan wounds and slays seventy men before he is struck by the poisoned weapon of Nampetenis. All this typical medieval setting and action of knights and their ladies is dispensed with in the poem, and the reader knows only (Gesätz 1, lines 6-8):

Als in Carochs dem reiche
mit gifting sper verwundet in
Nampetenis schwerleiche.

The first five lines of Sachs VI do, in a limited sense, help to tie the ending of Sachs V, the departure of Tristan “im Narrenkleid,” with the events to follow, for we learn in Sachs's opening Stollen of the sixth Meisterlied that Tristan for many years has suffered much and faced great dangers for love of Isolde. However, Sachs VI is as compressed as any of the previous poems. There is no accounting for the new wound and there is nothing to provide motivation for the enmity of Nampetenis. The reader is not informed who he is or why the action takes place in Carochs. Nothing is narrated that would even aid in locating Carochs or why Tristan should be there. This lack of bridging materials would seem to add confirmation to the position that Sachs did not intend to tell a unified, single story in a series of Meisterlieder, broken into five [six!] in order to avoid monotony. No amount of good will by the reader (or listener in the Meistersingerschule) can effect the transfer in the sense that the opening episode of Sachs VI follows the narration of the preceding poem.

Most dramatically tragic in all complete versions of the Tristan romance is the finale, the deceit that leads to the death of Tristan and Isolde's death at his bier. Here again Hans Sachs has so compressed his material in the Meisterlied that there is no motivation for the false report of the black sail on the ship bearing Isolde to cure Tristan. The anonymously given lie kills the hero, and there is no one in all the poem who would gain jealous revenge or profit from the falsehood. The Tragedia, although differing in certain details from the Volksbuch version, does provide proper motivation for a black sail to be reported. It is Isolde, wife of Tristan, who intentionally lies—and then grieves for her foolish and deadly action after Tristan dies. It is she, directly, in the drama who goes to the seashore in order to be the first to sight the ship. In the Volksbuch several other persons are involved, particularly the daughter of the innkeeper, who has been posted as lookout, and it was the innkeeper, not Ulrich (as in the drama), who was sent to bring Isolde from Curnewal to Carochs.

There is one last deviation from his prose Tristan source that Sachs made in both the Tragedia and Sachs VI, “Das ent Herr tristrancz.” In neither of Sachs's works does King Mark appear after the catastrophe to add to the tragedy by lamenting his own actions toward Tristan and Isolde. In the Volksbuch, Mark orders the two bodies taken back to Curnewal to be placed in a marble tomb together, and from the tomb a vine and a rose grow intertwined. Sachs achieved a more dramatic conclusion by ending with the burial of the lovers in Carochs; with their deaths the tragedy is complete.

The analysis of the six Tristan Meisterlieder provides a specific example of how Sachs, the shoemaker poet, treated the romance that he learned from his reading of the Volksbuch. His methods and motivation in these poems are aptly summed up in the exceedingly statistical, succinct, but thorough analysis made by Eugen Geiger who says of the production and activity of the poet:

So hat Hans Sachs auch in den MG [Meistergesang] die Schätze einheimischer und fremder Literatur seinem Volke näher gebracht und mit großem Fleiße daraus gemacht, was seiner Welt entsprach. Seine Motivbehandlung zeigt nicht immer Neues, und nicht immer hat er daraus Neues geholt, aber gerade die Meistergesangsform mit ihrem Zwang zu gedrängter Darstellung und ihrer nahen Beziehung zur Lyrik war sehr geeignet.⁴⁷

Sachs, though rarely to attain great heights of spiritual experience in his poems, nevertheless did not simply imitate his prosaic Tristan source. The mark of his artistically gifted personality is on the Meisterlieder. Although Sachs's Tristan poems have nothing of the poetic grandeur of a Thomas of Brittany or a Gottfried von Strassburg, the Meistersinger of Nürnberg does rightfully belong among the true poets who sing of Tristan and Isolde.

Notes

1. For a brief history of Tristan and Isolde in Germany, see August Closs, Medusa's Mirror (London, 1957), pp. 68-72, and Edwin H. Zeydel, The “Tristan and Isolde” of Gottfried von Strassburg (Princeton, 1948), pp. 8-15.

2. Cited from Worms edition (1549-1550). This concluding paragraph is present in all the early printings, until that of Sigmund Feyerabend (Frankfort, 1587).

3. For the complete text of the anonymous prose Tristan (hereafter cited as Volksbuch) see F. Pfaff, Tristrant und Isalde: Prosaroman des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, CLII (Tübingen, 1881); see especially pp. 203-212 for the history of the various early printings. Cf. Josef Benzing, Buchdruckerlexikon des 16. Jahrhunderts: Deutsches Sprachgebiet (Frankfort am Main, 1952), pp. 187-188, on Gregor Hofmann, printer in Worms.

4. See Eduard Walther, Hans Sachsens Tragödie Tristrant und Isalde in ihrem Verhältnis zur Quelle (München, 1902).

5. Cf. Karl Drescher, Studien zu Hans Sachs I: Hans Sachs und die Heldensage (Berlin, 1890), p. 55.

6. See Eli Sobel, “The Tristan Romance in Hans Sachs' Meisterlieder,” Middle Ages—Reformation—Volkskunde: Festschrift for John G. Kunstmann, University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, no. 26 (Chapel Hill, 1959), pp. 108-117. Cf. Reinhold Bechstein, Tristan und Isolt in deutschen Dichtungen der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1876), pp. 15-34; Wolfgang Golther, Tristan und Isolde in den Dichtungen des Mittelalters und der neuen Zeit (Leipzig, 1907), pp. 254-258; Friedrich Ranke, Tristan und Isold (München, 1925), pp. 254-262; Wolfgang Golther, Tristan und Isolde in der französischen und deutschen Dichtung des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, Stoff=und Motivgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, no. 2 (Berlin, 1929), pp. 48-49; August Closs, Tristan und Isolt: A Poem by Gottfried von Strassburg (Oxford, 1947), p. xxxii.

7. Hans Sachs, vol. 12, ed. A. von Keller, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, CXL (Tübingen, 1879), pp. 142-186; hereafter cited as Tragedia.

8. See Bechstein, Golther, Ranke, and Closs (note 6, above) and Walther (note 4, above).

9. Five poems are in MS. MG 12, fol. 219^v to fol. 223^v and fol. 226^r to fol. 227^r; the sixth poem is in MS. MG 13, fol. 116^r to fol. 117^r.

10. On the present status of all of Hans Sachs's MSS, see Mary Beare, “Hans Sachs MSS.: An Account of their Discovery and Present Locations,” Modern Language Review, LII (1957), 50-64.

11. A listing of the MS copies is in Hans Sachs, Vol. 25, ed. E. Goetze, Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, CCXXV (Tübingen, 1902), p. 384, under nos. 3707, 3708, 3709, 3710, 3714. The sixth poem, no. 3989, for which Goetze indicates no other copy, is listed on p. 412.

12. For an account of Georg Hager's life and works, see Clair H. Bell, Georg Hager: A Meistersinger of Nürnberg, 1552-1634, University of California Publications in Modern Philology (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1947). 4 vols. It should be noted that Sachs composed the first five Tristan Meisterlieder before Georg Hager was born and the sixth while Hager was still an infant.

13. See the unpublished dissertation (Berkeley, California, 1948) by William A. Roecker, “Georg Hager's Zweites Liederbuch: A Sixteenth-Century Anthology of Meistergesang,” xii and pp. 613-614; hereafter cited as Roecker. Hager's Zweites Liederbuch is MS. Dresden M 195.

14. Cf. Roecker, p. 614, and see Bell, Georg Hager, Pt. I, p. 102, for reference to two of the Tristan poems: “Das 5. vnd 6. lied jm dristrant such jm 7. lieder buch am 316. plat vnd 314. plat.” The quotation is part of a Hager marginal note in M 195; Hager's Siebentes Liederbuch is lost. According to Bell, all that is known of the Siebentes Liederbuch is the chance marginal reference in M 195 (fol. 261^r) to the two Sachs poems.

15. Cited from Bell, Georg Hager (Pt. II, p. 9); the words in square brackets have been added.

16. Formal and technical aspects of Meistergesang and special problems relating to the Tristan Meisterlieder will be discussed in conjunction with the texts of the poems, below.

17. The Tristan Meisterlieder will henceforth be referred to as Sachs I, Sachs II, etc.

18. This poem and the preceding one (Sachs III) are both dated December 7, but the sequence of composition order is determined by priority position in the bound MS volume.

19. Roecker, p. 614.

20. In the margin of fol. 261^r, M 195, Hager wrote: “Die gancz historj vom herr Tristdrand such das 1 lied in dem puch am 261 plat; das 2 am 263 plat; Das 3 am 362 plat; das 4 am 265 plat; Das 5 vnd sechst im sibenden lieder puch am 316 vnd 314 plat” (Roecker, p. 614). See also Bell, Georg Hager (Pt. I, p. 102), who uses the same marginal note to establish the existence of Hager's lost Siebentes Liederbuch, but with a variant reading of the marginal note that, therefore, does not correspond to that of Roecker.

21. See Paul Merker and Wolfgang Stammler, Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte (Berlin, 1931), IV, 62.

22. Wolfgang Stammler, Von der Mystik zum Barock, 2d. rev. ed. (Stuttgart, 1950), p. 233.

23. Roecker, p. xxv; see also Bell, Georg Hager (Pt. I, p. 130).

24. See Frances H. Ellis, “Analysis of the Berlin MS Germ. Quart. 414,” PMLA, LXI (1946), 972-973.

25. Golther, Tristan und Isolde in der französischen und deutschen Dichtung des Mittelaters und der Neuzeit, p. 48, speaks of five Meisterlieder and a tragedy. August Closs, Tristan und Isolt, p. xxxii, speaks of five poems and a tragedy. As recently as 1957, Closs, Medusa's Mirror, p. 69, stated: “Hans Sachs knew the Worms edition (1549-50) and composed five master-songs and a tragedy from its material. …”

26. A comparison of the available copies of the six Meisterlieder and their relationship to Sachs's source will be provided below.

27. Eugen Geiger, Der Meistergesang des Hans Sachs: Literarhistorische Untersuchung (Bern, 1956), p. 197.

28. “Das 4 par” begins on fol. 265^r but “Das 3 par” begins on fol. 362^r. “Das 5 par” and “Das 6 par” were originally in the lost Siebentes Liederbuch and, according to Roecker (p. 614): “Because there were some blank folios at the end of M 195, Hager must have realized the value of using some of them to record the remainder of the ‘cycle’ and thus rewrote the last two, beginning on folios 363:v and 365:r (our p. 517 and 520) respectively.”

29. Volksbuch, pp. 1-6. All references to the Volksbuch are to Pfaff's edition (see note 3, above); references to the Tragedia are to the edition by Keller (see note 7, above).

30. There is no mention of the ages of the hostages in Gottfried's Tristan, only that their total number is to be thirty (lines 5967-5968).

31. Augsburg edition reads: mit gelübten waffen.

32. Augsburg edition reads: mit gelübten waffen.

33. The Augsburg edition reads: … der wüstet das zu mal seer an leüten und an viehe, and regularly refers to the beast as Serpant or Wurm. The Worms edition refers, as does Sachs, to a Drach[en].

34. For the traditions of this scene, see Helaine Newstead, “The Tryst Beneath the Tree,” Romance Philology, IX (1956), 269-284.

35. Augsburg edition reads: … und wincket ihr verholen. …

36. Volksbuch, p. 83.

37. Tragedia, p. 169, lines 20-23.

38. Volksbuch, p. 98.

39. The proper nouns, Carochs and Nampetenis, are discussed below in the notes to Sachs VI.

40. Sachs VI, Gesätz 2, lines 6-9.

41. Augsburg edition reads: … schoß yn mit eim gelüpten sper. …

42. Sachs VI, Gesätz 3, lines 17-19.

43. For the complete list, see Tragedia, pp. 185-186. In the list, four of the characters are without proper name and given as: Ehrnholdt, Zwerg, Der artzt, Der henker.

44. Comment on the names and orthographic and other details will be found below in the notes to the Meisterlieder.

45. Geiger, Der Meistergesang des Hans Sachs, p. 134.

46. Spelled Nampetenis both in the Volksbuch, pp. 190-194, passim, and in Sachs VI.

47. Geiger, Der Meistergesang des Hans Sachs, p. 101.