Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

Act 3: Wahn Monologue

New English translation of Richard Wagner's German libretto, synchronized to the recording

Early on Midsummer morning, Hans Sachs sits reading in his workshop, brooding on the riot that broke out in the Nuremberg streets the night before. He reflects on the madness, the Wahn, that drives people to torment one another, and that seized his peaceful town on the shortest night of the year. He resolves to turn that madness to a noble work on this festival day.

Sachs Mad! Mad!
All the world's mad!
I search and where I look
In world and city book,
The reason to discover,
With blood spilled every age,
Why men do torment and suffer
In pointless, frenzied rage!
No one gets pay,
Nor thanks for they,
Who flee from gunners,
But think they're hunters;
Not hearing screams of pain's distress
When they but dig in their own flesh,
Dream pleasure to them given!
Who gives to name this spasm?
It's just the old phantasm,
Without which nothing happens,
Whether it calm or passioned!
Stands still its flow,
It sleeps to gain strength anew,
Soon wakes its show,
Then see who can pierce it through!
How peaceful, without diddle,
Assured in deed and work,
At home in Deutschland's middle,
My cherished Nuremberg!
And yet one evening late,
To prevent a disaster
In youthful hearts beating faster,
A man could not think straight,
A shoemaker in his meddling,
Pulls on the madness' threading:
How soon in alley and streetway
Begins its raging dismay!
Man, wife, apprentice, child,
Fight as if gone insane and wild;
And with the madness gaining,
Now must the blows start raining,
With strikes and thrusts, so beated
Till fire of rage defeated!
God knows, how that came 'bout!
A goblin helped, no doubt:
A glowworm could not find his mate;
This havoc he did aggravate.
'Twas elder tree: Midsummer Night!
But now has come Midsummer Day!
Now lets see if Hans Sachs just might
Be fit to sway madness today,
To noble ends, I quest:
For it gives us no rest,
E'en here in Nuremberg,
So must be such our work,
Which, seldom from things common drafted,
Is never without madness crafted.