Hans Sachs wrote no less than 208 dramas, which he divided into “Carnival Plays,” “Plays,” “Comedies,” and “Tragedies.”  He dropped the first designation in his later years, but his first dramatic effort was a Fastnachtspiel, and treated the subject of Tannhauser and Venus.  It bears the date February 21, 1517, and was therefore written 296 years before Wagner was born.  Of what is now dramatic form and structure, there is not a sign in this play.  It is merely a dialogue between Venus and various persons who stand for as many classes of society.  The title is:  “Das Hoffgesindt Veneris,” or, as it might be rendered in English, “The Court of Venus.”  The characters are a Herald, Faithful Eckhardt, Danheuser (sic), Dame Venus, a Knight, Physician, Citizen, Peasant, Soldier, Gambler, Drunkard, Maid, and Wife.  The Knight, Citizen, and the others appear in turn before Venus and express contempt for her powers,—­the Knight because of his bravery, the Physician because of his learning, the Maid because of her virtue, the Wife because of her honor.  Faithful Eckhardt, a character that figures in many Thuringian legends, especially in tales of the Wild Hunt, warns each person in turn to beware of Venus.  The latter listens to each boast and lets loose an arrow.  Each boaster succumbs with a short lamentation.  When the play opens, Danheuser is already a prisoner of the goddess.  After all the rest have fallen victims, he begs for his release, and they join in his petition.  Venus rejects the prayer, speaks in praise of her powers, and calls on a piper for music.  A general dance follows, whereupon the company go with the enchantress into the Venusberg.  The last speech of Venus ends with the line:—­

So says Hans Sachs of Nuremberg.

There is but a single scene in “The Court of Venus.”  In other plays written in after years, no matter how often the action demanded it, there is neither change of scenes nor division into acts; and the personages, whether Biblical or classical, talk in the manner of the simple folk of the sixteenth century.  Sachs’s tragedy, “Von der strengen Lieb’ Herrn Tristrant mit der schonen Konigin Isalden” ("Of the strong love of Lord Tristram and the beautiful Queen Iseult"), contains seven acts, as is specified in the continuation of the title “und hat sieben Akte.”  It was written thirty-six years later than the carnival play and three years after the establishment of a theatre in Nuremberg by the mastersingers.  Each act ends with a triple rhyme.  Though Sachs uses stage directions somewhat freely compared with the other dramatists of the period, the personages all speak in the same manner, and time and space are annihilated in the action most bewilderingly.  Thus, no sooner does Herr Tristrant volunteer to meet Morhold der Held to settle the question of “Curnewelshland’s” tribute to “Irland” than the two are at it hammer and tongs on an island in the ocean.  All the other incidents of the old legends follow