| Walther | Morning was gleaming in roseate pride, |
|---|---|
| While blossoms rare | |
| Perfumed the air, | |
| Full of all blisses | |
| Past all wishes, | |
| A garden drew me inside, | |
| There 'neath a fruited wonder-tree, | |
| With branches richly laden, | |
| I gazed in love's sweet reverie | |
| Upon my long-sought maiden, | |
| Fulfilment graced mine eyes, | |
| The fairest bride: | |
| Eva in Paradise! | |
| Masters | Ah yes, I see! 'Tis another thing, |
| Whether wrong or right you sing. | |
| People | That is quite other, who would have thought! |
| What difference has delivery brought! | |
| Sachs | Witness, the song: carry on! |
| Walther | Evening descending enclosed me in the night; |
| On a steep grade, | |
| My path I made, | |
| Unto a wellspring, | |
| Pure waves upwelling, | |
| That laughed to me with delight; | |
| There underneath a laurel-tree, | |
| With starlight through its branches streaming, | |
| In poet's waking dream did see | |
| Her holy, gracious beaming, | |
| Who laved me from a crystal glass, | |
| The noblest maid: | |
| The Muse of Mount Parnass! | |
| Masters | 'Tis bold and strange, that much is true; |
| Yet well-rhymed, and singable, too. | |
| People | So dear and close, yet far it soars! |
| As though we ourselves, therein explore! | |
| Sachs | Witness, well it goes; proceed to the close! |
| Walther | Most gracious day, |
| Rousing me from poet's dreams once more! | |
| What I had seen, that Paradise, | |
| In heavenly new-transfigured splendour | |
| Before me lay, | |
| The spring laughingly revealed the path to prize: | |
| To her, there once born, | |
| My heart's truly sworn, | |
| The Earth's most beauteous sight, | |
| As Muse to me ordained, | |
| So holy, gracious, right, | |
| I boldly wooed and gained, | |
| In sunlit glory shining, | |
| Through song my triumph winning | |
| Parnass and Paradise! | |
| People | Cradled as if in the most beauteous dream, |
| I hear it well, yet scarce can grasp its theme! | |
| Masters | Yea, gracious singer, take the wreath; |
| Such honour we bestow thy wondrous piece! | |
| People | Fair maiden, rise! Bestow the prize; |
| Never before was a wooing so wise! | |
| Pogner | Oh, Sachs! Thou bring'st me peace at last! |
| Now all my heart's distress is past! | |
| Eva | No one can woo so true, so graciously, as you. |
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Act 3: Walther's Prize Song
New English translation of Richard Wagner's German libretto, synchronized to the recording
On the festival meadow beside the Pegnitz, the young knight Walther von Stolzing steps before the Masters and the people of Nuremberg. The song came to him in a dream, and with Hans Sachs's help he shaped it that morning into a Master-song. Now he sings it freely, and the crowd and the Masters are won over: he takes the prize, and with it the hand of Eva Pogner.