Chapter XV

THE PENDULUM OP JOY AND SORROW

IN this drama we deal again with one of the ancient
legends. It was given to humanity by the divine
Hierarchies who guided us along the path of progress
by pictorial terms so that mankind might subcon-
sciously absorb the ideals for which, in later lives,
they were to strive.

In ancient times love was brutal; the bride was
bought or stolen or taken as a prize in war. Possession
of the body was all that was desired, therefore woman
was a chattel, prized by man for the pleasure she af-

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forded him, and for that only. The higher, finer
faculties in her nature were not given a chance of ex-
pression. This condition had to be altered or human
progress would have stopped. The apple always falls
close to the tree. Anyone born from a union under
such brutal conditions must be brutal ; and, if man-
kind were to be elevated, the standard of love had to
be raised. Tannhauser is an attempt in that direc-
tion.

This legend is also called "The Tournament of the
Troubadours," for the minstrels of Europe were the
educators of the Middle Ages. They were wandering
knights, gifted with the power of speech and song,
who journeyed from land to land, welcomed and
honored in court and castle. They had a powerful
influence in forming the ideas and ideals of the day,
and in the Tournament of Song held in Wartburg
Castle, one of the problems of that day — whether
woman had a right to her own body or not, a right to
protection against licentious abuse by her husband,
whether she was to be considered a companion to be
loved as soul to soul or as a slave bound to submit to
the dictates of her master — was the question to be
decided.

Naturally, at each change there are always those
who stand for the old things against the new, and
champions of both sides took part in that battle of
song in Wartburg Castle.

THE PENDULUM OF JOY AND SORROW 129

The question is still rife. It is still unsettled with
the majority of mankind, but the principle enunciated
is true, and only as we conform to this principle by
elevating the standards of love, can a better race be
born. This is particularly essential to one who is
aiming to lead a higher life. Though the principle
seems so self-evident it is not even yet agreed to by
all who make high professions. In time everyone
will learn that only as we regard woman as the equal
of man can mankind truly be elevated, for under the
law of rebirth the soul is reborn alternately in both
sexes, and the oppressors of one age become the op-
pressed of the next.

The fallacy of a double standard of conduct which
favors one sex at the cost of the other should be at
once apparent to anyone who believes in the succes-
sion of lives whereby the soul progresses from im-
potence to omnipotence. It has been amply proved
that, far from inferior to man, woman is at least his
equal and very often his superior in many of the men-
tal occupations; though that does not appear plainly
from the drama.

The legend tells us that Tannhauser, who represents
the soul at a certain stage of development, has been
disappointed in love, because its object, Elizabeth,
was too pure and too young to be even approached
with a request that she yield to him. Yearning with
passionate desire, he attracts something of an identical
nature.

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130 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

Our thoughts are like tuning forks. They awaken
echoes in others who are capable of responding to
them, and the passionate thought of Tannhauser
brings him, therefore, to that which is called "the
Mountain of Venus."

Like A Midsummer Night's Dream of Shakespeare,
this story of how he finds the Mountain of Venus, of
how he is taken in by this lovely goddess, and is kept
in passion's chains by her charms, is not entirely
founded upon fancy. There are spirits in the air, in
the water, and in the fire; and under certain con-
ditions they are contacted by man. Not so much per-
haps in the electric atmosphere of America, but over
all of Europe, particularly in the north, there broods
a mystic atmosphere which has somewhat attuned
the people to the seeing of these elementals. The god-
dess of beauty, or Venus, here spoken of, is really one
of the etheric entities who feed upon the fumes of
low desire, in the gratification of which the creative
force is liberated in copious quantities. Many of the
spirit controls which take possession of a medium and
incite them to laxity of morals and abuses, who act as
their soul lovers and seriously weaken their victims,
belong to this same class which is exceedingly danger-
ous, to say the least. Paracelsus mentions them as
"incubi" and "succubi."

The opening scene of Tanhauser introduces us to
a licentious debauch in the cave of Venus. Tann-

THE PENDULUM OF JOY AND SORROW 131

hauser is kneeling before the goddess who is stretched
on a couch. He wakens as if from a dream, and his
dream has inculcated a longing to visit the earth above
again. This he tells the goddess Venus who answers :

1 ' What foolish plaint ! Art weary of my love ?
By sorrow once thy heart was crushed above.
Up minstrel, seize thy harp and sing of bliss divine,
For love's chief treasure, love's goddess is thine."

Inflamed with new ardor Tannhauser seizes harp
and sings her praise :

' ' All hail to thee ! Undying fame attend thee.

Paeans of praise to thee be ever sung.

Each soft delight thy bounty sweet did lend me,

Shall wake my harp while time and love are young ;

For love's sweet joy, and satisfaction's pleasure,

My sense did thirst, my heart did crave;

And thou, whose love a God alone can measure,

Gave me thyself, and in this bliss I lave.

But mortal am I, and a love divine,

Too changeless is to mate with mine.

A god can love without cessation,

But under laws of alternation,

Our share of pain as well as pleasure,

We mortals need in changing measure.

Too full of joy, again I long for pain,

So, Queen, I cannot here remain."

132 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

When mankind emerged from Atlantis, and came
into the air of Aryana, the rainbow stood for the first
time in the sky as the sign of the new age. At that
time it was said that as long as this bow was in the
clouds the seasons would not cease to change ; day and
night, summer and winter, ebb and flood, and all the
other alternating measures of nature would follow
one another in unbroken succession. In music there
may not always be harmony. Discord once in a while
co •.nes in to give appreciation of the melody which
follows. Thus, it is with the question of pain and
sorrow, of joy and happiness : they are also measures
of alternation. We cannot live in one without crav-
ing the other, any more than we could remain in
heaven and gather experiences that are only to be
found upon earth. And it is this inward urge, this
swing of the pendulum from joy to sorrow and back
again, which drives Tannhauser from the cave of
Venus that he may again know the strife and struggle
of the world; that he may there gain the experience
which sorrow alone can give and forget the pleasures
which bring to him no soul power. But it is char-
acteristic of the lower forces, however, that they al-
ways seek to influence the soul against its will; that
they always use every endeavor to keep it away from
the path of rectitude ; and so Venus who stands as the
representative of these powers in the drama of Tann-
hauser, warningly and dissuasively says:

THE PENDULUM OF JOY AND SORROW 133

"In dust thy soul will soon be humbled,

Adversity thy pride will fell,
Then crushed in spirit, ardor crumbled,

Thou It plead again to feel my spell. "

But Tannhauser is firm in his purpose. The urge
within him is so strong that nothing can keep him
back, and though he still feels the spell, he exclaims
with great fervor :

"While I have life, but thee my harp will praise,

No meaner theme will e'er my song inspire;

Thou spring of beauty and of gentle grace,

With sweetest songs dost quicken love 's desire ;

The fire thou kindlest in my heart,

An alter flame will burn alone for thee,

And though in sorrow now from thee I part,

Thy champion I shall ever be.

But I must forth, the life of earth I crave,

Here I must aye remain a slave ;

I thirst for freedom though my death it be,

Therefore, 0 Queen, from thee I flee!"

Thus when Tannhauser leaves the cave of Venus he
is the pledged champion of the low and sensual side
of love; and this he goes out into the world to teach,
for that is the nature of mankind : whatever the heart
feels, must out.

134 MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT OPERAS

Knowing the country well, he at once turns his
steps toward Wartburg where a number of minstrels
are always staying with the lord and lady of the
manor, who to a very large extent are patrons of min-
strelsy always anxious to be entertained and always
lavish with their gifts.

After awhile he meets a band of minstrels who are
walking in the woods, and these, his former friends,
are surprised that they have not seen him for so long.
They ask him where he has been, but Tannhauser,
knowing that there is a general sentiment against be-
ing with the lower elemental forces in nature, hides
his whereabouts during the period of his absence from
them, by giving an evasive answer. He is then told
by the minstrels that there is to be a tournament of
the troubadours at the castle and is invited to go with
them.

Hearing that the subject of the song contest is to be
love, and furthermore, that the prize will be given to
the winner by the hand of the beautiful daughter of
the lord, namely Elizabeth, (the lady Tannhauser has
loved so ardently and who so inflamed his soul in past
days that it drove him to the cave of Venus) he hopes
by the ardor with which he is inspired, to induce the
beautiful maiden to hear his plaint. As we always
reap a harvest of pain whenever we go contrary to
the laws of progress, Tannhauser, by this act, is sow-
ing the seed that will one day bring him the harvest
of pain he coveted in the cave of Venus.

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