need not be too inquisitive and wonder why Tannhäuser should be expected back with the first band when he had set out with the second, and why Elisabeth could not at least exercise a little patience and wait for the second. The point is that she does not wait, but goes home to die, and, dying, is supposed--as Wolfram explicitly states--to redeem a sinner who is already redeemed. Her sacrifice is an act of suicidal insanity due to her lacking the common sense to reflect that Tannhäuser might arrive with the second contingent; it is foolish and superfluous. This is the sole flaw in a very fine opera book. _Tannhäuser_ is the noblest expression in music of the glory and worth of human life. An assertion of the glory and worth of human life is bound to be, as _Tannhäuser_ is, tragic; life and the value of life can only be realized when we see life in conflict with death and overcome by death. All the great tragedies are assertions of the joy of living, in the deepest sense of the phrase--in the sense in which _Samson Agonistes_ or Handel's _Samson_ are such assertions. Tannhäuser suffers defeat and is glorious, like Samson in his overthrow. Even Elisabeth, a trifle mawkish though she may be, has loved life, and only at the finish, when fate (or, as she would say, heaven) decides against her, does she resign herself and renounce what cannot be hers. This is the first of Wagner's operas the plot of which is virtually all his own; for precisely the combination of the legend of Tannhäuser with the Tournament of Song makes it what it is and was--Wagner's invention. All the stale old devices of explanatory asides are gone, as are the convenient goings-off and comings-on of the _dramatis personæ_ at the sweet will of the composer who wants here a duet and a trio there. The drama is self-explanatory--the librettist does not shove on a character to explain it for him; as it unfolds, the musician is given ample opportunities for all the songs or concerted pieces that the heart of composer could long for--he has not by main force and at all costs (in the way of unreasonableness) to drive opportunities into the drama. III