The lyrical songs of the Minnesingers were divided into three classes: the Lied, or song; the Lerch, or lay; and the Spruch, or proverb. The difference, musically, was mainly a matter of form, rigid laws governing the formation of the strophes. The Lied was the mostly purely lyrical of the three. The Lerch was more general in subject-matter, partaking sometimes of the narrative. The Spruch was essentially one of the German proverbs which so richly fill the language even to this day, but it was usually developed to make a somewhat lengthy stanza. The central idea of the proverb, its simile or its ethical substance, would be repeated and enlarged upon, becoming lyrical in character though retaining the idiomatic directness and simplicity of the original. Thus the Minnesong tended to keep a homely character which the Provençal lay never had. Among the famous Minnesingers (who were also poets in the modern sense) were Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide. Both are familiar to all lovers of Wagner. The former is one of the chief characters in the opera _Tannhäuser_. He appears as the pure lover of Elizabeth, in contrast to Tannhäuser, whose sensual and pagan character is shown by his affair with the unholy goddess Venus. In the second act of the opera is shown one of the tournaments of song which were characteristic of the age. Tannhäuser, Wolfram, and others, sing the praises of love, each revealing his personal character in the attitude he takes toward the great passion. Wolfram is the genuine Minnesinger, idealizing the object of his devotion, insisting upon her divinity (her likeness to the Virgin Mary), and upon the fleshless, unsensual nature of love in its true estate. One gathers, also, from a hearing of the opera, that he was a typical Minnesinger in that his song was something of a bore. Certainly the Minnesongs, in their ambling lengthiness, would bring sleepiness to a modern audience. But Wolfram, we must remember, was not only a courtly minstrel, but a great epic poet, one of the great figures in German literature. Walther von der Vogelweide, perhaps the most inspired lyricist of his time, figures by name in _Die Meistersinger_. Walther, the hero, candidate for the degree of Meistersinger, is asked who taught him his art. He replies that he learned it from Walther von der Vogelweide and from the birds. This causes the Mastersingers to shake their heads, for inspiration has little part in their formal music. The last of the Minnesingers, and one of the most famous, was Heinrich von Meissen, called Frauenlob--‘Praiser of Women.’ His songs were so ardent in their idealization of womanhood that it is related how the women of Mayence, when the singer died, bore him to his grave and poured over it, mingled with their tears, the richest of Rhenish wines.