O Star of Eve

Wagner was fond of introducing real personages from history into his Operas, and several of the characters in Tannhauser actually belonged to the ago which the Opera describes. Wolfram von Eschenbach, who appears as one of the Minstrel Knights, was a distinguished poet of those far-off days; some have thought him the most important figure in the literature of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. He counted himself a soldier rather than a poet, and there is no doubt that with spear and sword he did noble service on behalf of the Landgrave Hermann, his Feudal chief in the Opera, as in real life he actually was. Of his own poetry, he wrote with quite needless modesty, though, so far as we can guess, in all sincerity. A considerable volume of it has come down to the present day; best known is the long poem, 'Parsifal,' in which the story of the Grail and its Knights is set forth with profound reverence and much beauty ; reverence was clearly a dominating influence in his life. The sentiments which Wagner gives him to sing as the first competitor in the Song Contest in Tannhauser are very much those which he not only preached, but practised in real life - loyal service and faithful devotion to one lady; here he speaks of her as a star to which his spirit looks with steadfast faith.
His other song, even better known, is taken from the third act of the Opera. Elizabeth has been praying for the errant Tannhauser at a wayside shrine, and has sadly and gently declined Wolfram's offer to escort her home to the Castle. He sings this song, as he watches her climb the heights, with the evening star rising in the sky above the Wartburg.