I'll wrestle with the love I cherish'd,
Until in death its flame hath perish'd.
If of my sin thou wilt not shrive me,
Yet in this hour, oh grant thy aid!
Till thy eternal peace thou give me,
I vow to live and die thy maid.
And on thy bounty I will call,
That heav'nly grace on him may fall.'

This prayer ended, the broken-hearted Elizabeth slowly totters
away, while Wolfram von Eschenbach, who has seen by her pallid
face and wasted frame that the death she prays for will not
tarry long, sorrowfully realises at last that all his love can
save her no pang.

When the evening shadows have fallen, and the stars illumine the
sky, he is still lingering by the holy shrine where Elizabeth
has breathed her last prayer. The silence of the night is
suddenly broken by the sound of his harp, as he gives vent
to his sorrow by an invocation to the stars, among which his
lady-love is going to dwell ere-long, and as he sings the last
notes a pilgrim slowly draws near. Wolfram does not at first
recognise his old friend and rival Tannhäuser in this dejected,
foot-sore traveller; but when he sees the worn face he anxiously
inquires whether he has been absolved, and warns him against
venturing within the precincts of the Wartburg unless he has
received Papal pardon for his sins.

Tannhäuser, instead of answering this query, merely asks him
to point out the path, which he once found so easily, the path