present, who, having been trained in the school of chivalry,
have an exalted conception of love, hold all women in high
honour, and deeply resent the attempt just made to degrade
them. Tannhäuser, whose once pure and noble nature has been
perverted and degraded by the year spent with Venus, cannot
longer understand the exalted pleasures of true love, even
though he has just won the heart of a peerless and spotless
maiden, and when Wolfram, hoping to allay the strife, again
resumes his former strain, he impatiently interrupts him.

Recklessly now, and entirely wrapped up in the recollection of
the unholy pleasures of the past, Tannhäuser exalts the goddess
of Love, with whom he has revelled in bliss, and boldly reveals
the fact that he has been tarrying with her in her subterranean
grove.

This confession fills the hearts of all present with nameless
terror, for the priests have taught them that the heathen
deities are demons disguised. The minstrels one and all fall
upon Tannhäuser, who is saved from immediate death at their
hands only by the prompt intervention of Elizabeth.

Broken-hearted, for now she knows the utter unworthiness of the
man to whom she has given her heart, yet loving him still and
hoping he may in time win forgiveness for his sin, she pleads
so eloquently for him that all fall back. The Landgrave,
addressing him, then solemnly bids him repent, and join the
pilgrims on their way to Rome, where perchance the Pope may
grant him absolution for his sin:--