A desire to abstain as much as possible from criticism (that not being the purpose of this book) led me to avoid mention of this circumstance in the exposition of “Tannhauser”; but I find that I must now set it forth, though briefly.  In the original form of the opera there was no funeral procession and no death of the hero beside the bier of the atoning saint.  The scene between Tannhauser and Wolfram was interrupted by the tolling of a bell in the castle to indicate the death of Elizabeth and the appearance of a glow of rose-colored light across the valley to suggest the presence of Venus.  By bringing the corpse of Elizabeth on the stage so that Tannhauser might die by its side, Wagner was guilty of worse than an anachronism.  The time which elapses in the drama between Elizabeth’s departure from the scene and her return as a corpse is just as long as the song which Wolfram sings in which he apostrophizes her as his “holder Abendstern”—­just as long and not a moment longer.  There is no question here of poetical license, for Wolfram sings the apostrophe after her retreating figure, and the last chord of his postlude is interrupted by Tannhauser’s words, “Ich horte Harfenschlag!” Yet we are asked to assume that in the brief interim Elizabeth has ascended the mountain to the Wartburg, died, been prepared for burial, and brought back to the valley as the central object of a stately funeral.

It would have been much wiser to have left the death of Elizabeth to the imagination of the public than to have made the scene ridiculous.  But Wagner was afraid to do that, lest his purpose be overlooked.  He was a master of theatrical craft, and though he could write a tragedy like “Tristan und Isolde,” with little regard for external action, he was quite unwilling to miss so effective a theatrical effect as the death of Tannhauser beside Elizabeth’s bier.  After all, he did not trust the public, whose judgment he affected to place above that of his critics, and for this reason, while he was willing to call up memories of his earlier opera by quoting some of its music in “Parsifal,” he ignored the question which plays so important a role in “Lohengrin,” and made the healing of Amfortas depend upon a touch of the talismanic spear—­a device which came into the Grail story from pagan sources, as I have already pointed out.

Now, why was the questioning of Lohengrin forbidden?  Wolfram von Eschenbach tells us, and his explanation sufficed Wagner when he made his first studies of the Grail legends as a preparation for “Lohengrin.”  It was the Holy Grail itself which pronounced the taboo.  An inscription appeared on the talisman one day commanding that whenever a Knight of the Grail went into foreign lands to assume rule over a people, he was to admonish them not to question him concerning his name and race; should the question be put, he was to leave them at once.  And the reason?

  Weil der gute Amfortas
  So lang in bittern Schmerzen lag,
  Und ihn die Frage lange mied,
  Ist ihnen alles Fragen leid;
  All des Grales Dienstgesellen
  Wollen sich nicht mehr fragen lassen.