. At last they arrived at a distant wilderness,
where Chastity was again suddenly attacked by Queen Venus and her allied
princesses: Pride, Frivolity, Intemperance, Idleness, Faithlessness,
etc. The poet then warns maidens of the dangers threatening them on the
part of Venus and her suite. After explaining the twelve virtues which
aid Chastity, he concludes: "Beware of love, be steady, spare your love
until you come to marriage." Sachs himself had at an early age married,
in 1519, Kunigunde Kreuzer, an orphan of good family.

The biographer of Hans Sachs described the marriage of Dr. Christoph
Scheuerl, a famous jurist of Nuernberg, "the oracle of the Republic." The
description of this marriage is interesting as a picture of the life of
the high patrician families and their ceremonies and festivities. All
the families (Geschlechter) of the city were present. The festivities
lasted a whole week, and the ceremonies were elaborate and splendid.
Marriage feasts of the city aristocracy took place either in the house
of the parents of the bridal couple, or in the city hall, or even in the
cloister. This last practice was, however, forbidden in Nuernberg in
1485, "because the carousals and dances had become unbefitting the holy
place." The patrician bridegroom gave the bride a ring with precious
stones, the latter presented the bridegroom with an embroidered silken
kerchief. There was a great display of precious garments and silk
damask. The servants wore the colors of the family to which they
belonged. The headgear of the patrician lady was a high diadem, while
the bridegroom wore a silver wreath adorned with artificial flowers. The
bride's maids and the table maidens wore the same kind of wreath and
their hair was arranged in loose waves. The first marriage day was
followed by an "early morning dance at the city-hall, a night-dance, and
a wedding-assembly only for the ladies."

The artisan marriages are recorded to have been similar in character,
only the jests of the official "speaker" (_Sprucksprecher_) were
probably somewhat rude, and the display was not so elaborate as that
used in patrician weddings.

Hans Sachs's married life was very happy. His manifold jests regarding
quarrelsome women and their qualities, and regarding the hardships of
married life were merely products of his humor. "My wife is my Paradise
dear, and also my daily hellfire sheer;" and the climax:

"She is my virtue, and my vice;
S