shepherd-boy is carolling a fresh, merry spring song. Tannhäuser remains
with his face to earth while a band of pilgrims passes on its way to
Rome. Then his old companions come up, recognise him, tell him Elisabeth
has patiently awaited his return, and so induce him to go with them.

The second act opens on the Hall of Song. Elisabeth thinks over her
grief and longing during Tannhäuser's absence, and sings her delight now
that he has come back to her. He comes in, and there follows a most
beautiful and touching scene, Elisabeth expressing her love and joy and
recounting her past sorrow, while in Tannhäuser's utterances are
mingled joy, regret, gratitude, and a sense of rapturous repose on
finding himself at peace once again, after being so long tossed on seas
of stormy passion. The tournament of song commences. Various minstrels
sing the pure pleasures of a love in which the flesh has no part;
Tannhäuser, Elisabeth approving, praises an honest, natural love. The
others oppose him, until, goaded to madness, he loses all self-control.
He hears the voice of Venus and calls upon her; in confusion the women
rush from the hall, the men draw their swords, and in a moment the hero
would be stabbed did not Elisabeth dash between him and the infuriated
knights. She pleads for him, and at last, the voice of pilgrims being
heard in the distance, Tannhäuser's life is spared on condition that he
joins them and goes to Rome to ask forgiveness. The curtain in the last
act rises on the scene of the first, but where all was young and fresh,
now the leaves are withered and the tints of autumn are everywhere.
Elisabeth watches the pilgrims pass on their return from
Rome--Tannhäuser is not amongst them. She sings her prayer to the Virgin
and goes home, as it proves, to die. Wolfram, Tannhäuser's friend, who
also loves Elisabeth, sings his song of resignation; and then Tannhäuser
enters, to the sinister theme of the Pope's curse. He tells Wolfram how
he has been to Rome, how he has suffered, how he asked the Pope's