Chapter III: Act IV: are partly adapted from the so-called “Oracles of Zoroaster,”

partly from the mysterious utterances of the great angel Avé, perhaps equally spurious. Of course Bertram’s song is merely a rather free adaptation of the two principal fragments of Sappho, which so many people have failed to translate that one can feel no shame in making yet another attempt. There may be one or two conscious plagiarisms besides, for which I do not apologise. For any unconscious ones which may have crept in owing to my prolonged absence from civilized parts, and the consequent lack of opportunity for reference and comparison, I emphatically do.

One word to the reviewers. It must not be taken as ungracious if I so speak. From nearly all I have received the utmost justice, kindness, and consideration: two or three only seem to take delight in deliberately perverting the sense of my remarks: and to them, for their own sake, I now address these words of elementary instruction. You are perfectly welcome to do with my work in its entirety what Laertes did with his allegiance and his vows: but do not pick out and gloat over a few isolated passages from the Venusberg scenes and call me a sensualist, nor from the Fourth Act and groan “Mysticism!”; do not quote “Two is by shape the Coptic Aspirate” as a sample of my utmost in lyrics; do not take the song of Wolfram as my best work in either sentiment or melody. As a _quid pro quo_ I give you all full permission to conclude your review of this book by quoting from Act III. “Forget this nightmare!”

I must express my great sense of gratitude to Oscar Eckenstein, Gerald Kelly, and Allan MacGregor, who have severally helped me in the work of revision, which has extended over more than a year of time and nearly twenty thousand miles of space. Some few of the very best lines were partially or wholly suggested by themselves, and I have not scrupled to incorporate these: if the book be but a Book, the actual authorship seems to me immaterial.

I have written this preface in lighter vein, but I hope that no one will be led to suppose that my purpose is anything but deadly serious. This poem has been written in the blood of slain faith and hope; each foolish utterance of Tannhäuser stings me with shame and memory of old agony; each Ignis Fatuus that he so readily pursues, reminds me of my own delusions. But, these follies and delusions being the common property of mankind, I have thought them of sufficient interest, dramatic and philosophical, to form the basis of a poem. Let no man dare to reproach me with posing as the hero of my tale. I fall back on the last utterance of Tannhäuser himself “I say, then, ‘I’: and yet it is not ‘I’ Distinct, but ‘I’ incorporate in All.” Above all, pray understand that I do not pose as a teacher. I am but an asker of questions, such as may be found confronting those who have indeed freed their minds from the conventional commonplaces of the platitudinous, but have not yet dared to uproot the mass of their convictions, and to examine the whole question of religion from its most fundamental source in the consciousness of mankind. Such persons may find the reasoning of Tannhäuser useful, if only to brace them to a more courageous attempt to understand the “Great Arcanum,” and to attain at last, no matter at what cost, to “true Wisdom and perfect Happiness.” So may all happen!

KANDY, CEYLON, _Sept._ 1901.

TANNHÄUSER

PERSONS CONCERNED

THE WORLD OF GODS.
ISIS.
HATHOÖR.

THE WORLD OF MEN.
TANNHÄUSER.
ELIZABETH.
AN UNKNOWN MINSTREL.
THE LANDGRAVE.
WOLFRAM, }
BERTRAM, } _At the Court of the Landgrave_.
HEINRICH, }
A SHEPHERD-BOY.
PILGRIMS, FORESTERS, COURTIERS, ETC.

THE WORLD OF DEMONS.
THE EVIL AND AVERSE HATHOÖR, CALLED VENUS.