The Project Gutenberg EBook of The German Classics of The Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI., by Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
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Title: The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI.
Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. In Twenty
Volumes
Author: Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
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VOLUME VI
HEINRICH HEINE
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
THE GERMAN CLASSICS
Masterpieces of German Literature
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
Patrons' Edition
IN TWENTY VOLUMES
ILLUSTRATED
1914
CONTRIBUTORS AND TRANSLATORS
VOLUME VI
CONTENTS OF VOLUME VI
HEINRICH HEINE
The Life of Heinrich Heine. By William Guild Howard
Poems
Dedication. Translated by Sir Theodore Martin
Songs. Translators: Sir Theodore Martin, Charles Wharton Stork, T.
Brooksbank
A Lyrical Intermezzo. Translators: T. Brooksbank, Sir Theodore
Martin, J.E. Wallis, Richard Garnett, Alma Strettell, Franklin Johnson,
Charles G. Leland, Charles Wharton Stork
Sonnets. Translators: T. Brooksbank, Edgar Alfred Bowring
Poor Peter. Translated by Alma Strettell
The Two Grenadiers. Translated by W.H. Furness
Belshazzar. Translated by John Todhunter
The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar. Translated by Sir Theodore Martin
The Return Home. Translators: Sir Theodore Martin. Kate
Freiligrath-Kroeker, James Thomson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Twilight. Translated by Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker
Hail to the Sea. Translated by Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker
In the Harbor. Translated by Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker
A New Spring. Translators: Kate Freiligrath-Kroeker, Charles Wharton
Stork
Abroad. Translated by Margaret Armour
The Sphinx. Translated by Sir Theodore Martin
Germany. Translated by Margaret Armour
Enfant Perdu. Translated by Lord Houghton
The Battlefield of Hastings. Translated by Margaret Armour
The Asra. Translated by Margaret Armour
The Passion Flower. Translated by Charles Wharton Stork
Prose
The Journey to the Harz. Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland
Boyhood Days. Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland
English Fragments--Dialogue on the Thames; London; Wellington.
Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland
Lafayette. Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland
The Romantic School. Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland
The Rabbi of Bacharach. Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
The Life of Franz Grillparzer. By William Guild Howard
Medea. Translated by Theodore A. Miller
The Jewess of Toledo. Translated by George Henry Danton and Annina
Periam Danton
The Poor Musician. Translated by Alfred Remy
My Journey to Weimar. Translated by Alfred Remy
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Beethoven as a Letter Writer. By Walter R. Spalding
Beethoven's Letters. Translated by J.S. Shedlock
ILLUSTRATIONS--VOLUME VI
Emperor William I at a Court Reception-Frontispiece
Heinrich Heine. By W. Krauskopf
Heinrich Heine. By E. Hader
The Lorelei Fountain in New York. By Herter
Spring's Awakening. By Ludwig von Hofmann
Flower Fantasy. By Ludwig von Hofmann
Poor Peter. By P. Grotjohann
The Two Grenadiers. By P. Grotjohann
Rocky Coast. By Ludwig von Hofmann
Play of the Waves. By Arnold Boecklin
Market Place, Goettingen
Old Imperial Palace, Goslar
The Witches' Dancing Ground
The Brocken Inn About 1830
The Falls of the Ilse
View from St. Andreasberg
Johann Wilhelm Monument, Duesseldorf
The Duke of Wellington. By d'Orsay
Bacharach on the Rhine
House in Bacharach
Franz Grillparzer
Franz Grillparzer and Kaethi Froehlich in 1823
Grillparzer's House in Spiegelgasse
Grillparzer's Room in the House of the Sisters Froehlich
Franz Grillparzer in His Sixtieth Year
The Grillparzer Monument at Vienna
Medea. By Anselm Feuerbach
Medea. From the Grillparzer Monument at Vienna
Beethoven. By Max Klinger
THE LIFE OF HEINRICH HEINE
BY WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M.
Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University
I.
The history of German literature makes mention of few men more
self-centered and at the same time more unreserved than Heinrich
Heine. It may be said that everything which Heine wrote gives us, and
was intended to give us, first of all some new impression of the
writer; so that after a perusal of his works we know him in all his
strength and weakness, as we can know only an amiable and
communicative egotist; moreover, besides losing no opportunity for
self-expression, both in and out of season, Heine published a good
deal of frankly autobiographical matter, and wrote memoirs, only
fragments of which have come down to us, but of which more than has
yet appeared will perhaps ultimately be made accessible. Heine's life,
then, is to us for the most part an open book. Nevertheless, there are
many obscure passages in it, and there remain many questions not to be
answered with certainty, the first of which is as to the date of his
birth. His own statements on this subject are contradictory, and the
original records are lost. But it seems probable that he was born on
the thirteenth of December, 1797, the eldest child of Jewish parents
recently domiciled at Duesseldorf on the Rhine.
The parentage, the place, and the time were almost equally significant
aspects of the constellation under which young Harry Heine--for so he
was first named--began his earthly career. He was born a Jew in a
German city which, with a brief interruption, was for the first
sixteen years of his life administered by the French. The citizens of
Duesseldorf in general had little reason, except for high taxes and the
hardships incident to conscription in the French armies, to complain
of the foreign dominion. Their trade flourished, they were given
better laws, and the machinery of justice was made much less
cumbersome than it had been before. But especially the Jews hailed the
French as deliverers; for now for the first time they were relieved of
political disabilities and were placed upon a footing of equality with
the gentile population. To Jew and gentile alike the military
achievements of the French were a source of satisfaction and
admiration; and when the Emperor of the French himself came to town,
as Heine saw him do in 1810, we can easily understand how the
enthusiasm of the boy surrounded the person of Napoleon, and the idea
that he was supposed to represent, with a glamor that never lost its
fascination for the man. To Heine, Napoleon was the incarnation of the
French Revolution, the glorious new-comer who took by storm the
intrenched strongholds of hereditary privilege, the dauntless leader
in whose army every common soldier carried a field marshal's baton in
his knapsack. If later we find Heine mercilessly assailing the
repressive and reactionary aristocracy of Germany, we shall not
lightly accuse him of lack of patriotism. He could not be expected to
hold dear institutions of which he felt only the burden, without a
share in the sentiment which gives stability even to institutions that
have outlived their usefulness. Nor shall we call him a traitor for
loving the French, a people to whom his people owed so much, and to
whom he was spiritually akin.
French influences, almost as early as Hebrew or German, were among the
formative forces brought to bear upon the quick-witted but not
precocious boy. Heine's parents were orthodox, but by no means bigoted
Jews. We read with amazement that one of the plans of the mother,
ambitious for her firstborn, was to make of him a Roman Catholic
priest. The boy's father, Samson Heine, was a rather unsuccessful
member of a family which in other representatives--particularly
Samson's brother Salomon in Hamburg--attained to wealth and prominence
in the world of finance.
[Illustration: W. KRAUSKOPF HEINRICH HEINE After a Drawing in the
Possession of Mr. Carl Meinert in Dessau]
Samson Heine seems to have been too easy-going, self-indulgent, and
ostentatious, to have made the most of the talents that he
unquestionably had. Among his foibles was a certain fondness for the
pageantry of war, and he was in all his glory as an officer of the
local militia. To his son Gustav he transmitted real military
capacity, which led to a distinguished career and a patent of nobility
in the Austrian service. Harry Heine inherited his father's more
amiable but less strenuous qualities. Inquisitive and alert, he was
rather impulsive than determined, and his practical mother had her
trials in directing him toward preparation for a life work, the
particular field of which neither she nor he could readily choose.
Peira, or Betty, Heine was a stronger character than her husband; and
in her family, several members of which had taken high rank as
physicians, there had prevailed a higher degree of intellectual
culture than the Heines had attained to. She not only managed the
household with prudence and energy, but also took the chief care of
the education of the children. To both parents Harry Heine paid the
homage of true filial affection; and of the happiness of the home
life, _The Book Le Grand_ and a number of poems bear unmistakable
witness. The poem "My child, we were two children" gives a true
account of Harry and his sister Charlotte at play.
In Duesseldorf, Heine's formal education culminated in attendance in
the upper classes of a Lyceum, organized upon the model of a French
Lycee and with a corps of teachers recruited chiefly from the ranks of
the Roman Catholic clergy. The spirit of the institution was
rationalistic and the discipline wholesome. Here Heine made solid
acquisitions in history, literature, and the elements of philosophy.
Outside of school, he was an eager spectator, not merely of stirring
events in the world of politics, but also of many a picturesque
manifestation of popular life--a spectator often rather than a
participant; for as a Jew he stood beyond the pale of both the German
and the Roman Catholic traditions that gave and give to the cities of
the Rhineland their characteristic naive gaiety and harmless
superstition. Such a poem as _The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar_ would be
amazing as coming from an unbeliever, did we not see in it evidence of
the poet's capacity for perfect sympathetic adoption of the spirit of
his early environment. The same is true of many another poetic
expression of simple faith, whether in Christianity or in the
mythology of German folk-lore.
Interest in medieval Catholicism and in folk-lore is one of the most
prominent traits in the Romantic movement, which reached its
culmination during the boyhood of Heine. The history of Heine's
connection with this movement is foreshadowed by the circumstances of
his first contact with it. He tells us that the first book he ever
read was _Don Quixote_ (in the translation by Tieck). At about the
same time he read _Gulliver's Travels_, the tales of noble robbers
written by Goethe's brother-in-law, Vulpius, the wildly fantastic
stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Schiller's _Robbers_; but also Uhland's
ballads, and the songs collected by Arnim and Brentano in _The Boy's
Magic Horn_. That is to say: At the time when in school a critical and
skeptical mind was being developed in him by descendants of the age of
enlightenment, his private reading led him for the most part into the
region of romanticism in its most exaggerated form. At the time,
furthermore, when he took healthy romantic interest in the picturesque
Dusseldorf life, his imagination was morbidly stimulated by furtive
visits to a woman reputed to be a witch, and to her niece, the
daughter of a hangman. His earliest poems, the _Dream Pictures_,
belong in an atmosphere charged with witchery, crime, and the
irresponsibility of nightmare. This coincidence of incompatible
tendencies will later be seen to account for much of the mystery in
Heine's problematic character.
It having been decided, perhaps because the downfall of Napoleon shut
the door of all other opportunity, that Heine should embark upon a
mercantile career, he was given a brief apprenticeship, in 1815 at
Frankfurt, in the following years at Hamburg, under the immediate
patronage of his uncle Salomon who, in 1818, even established the
young poet in a dry goods business of his own. The only result of
these experiments was the demonstration of Heine's total inaptitude
for commercial pursuits. But the uncle was magnanimous and offered his
nephew the means necessary for a university course in law, with a view
to subsequent practice in Hamburg. Accordingly, after some brushing up
of Latin at home, Heine in the fall of 1819 was matriculated as a
student at the University of Bonn.
In spite of failure to accomplish his immediate purpose, Heine had not
sojourned in vain at Hamburg. He had gained the good will of an
opulent uncle whose bounty he continued almost uninterruptedly to
enjoy to the end of his days. But in a purpose that lay much nearer to
his heart he had failed lamentably; for, always sensitive to the
charms of the other sex, Heine had conceived an overpowering passion
for his cousin Amalie, the daughter of Salomon, only to meet with
scornful rebuffs at the hands of the coquettish and worldly-minded
heiress. There is no reason to suppose that Amalie ever took her
cousin's advances seriously. Her father certainly did not so take
them. On the other hand, there is equally little reason to doubt the
sincerity and depth of Heine's feelings, first of unfounded hope, then
of persistent despair that pursued him in the midst of other
occupations and even in the fleeting joys of other loves. The most
touching poems included among the _Youthful Sorrows_ of his first
volume were inspired by Amalie Heine.
At Bonn Heine was a diligent student. Though never a roysterer, he
took part in various extra-academic enterprises, was a member of the
_Burschenschaft_, that democratic-patriotic organization so gravely
suspected by the reactionary governments, and made many friends. He
duly studied history and law; he heard Ernst Moritz Arndt interpret
the _Germania_ of Tacitus; but more especially did he profit by
official and personal relations with A.W. Schlegel, who taught Heine
what he himself knew best, namely, the secret of literary form and the
art of metrical expression.
The fall of 1820 saw Heine at Goettingen, the Hanoverian university to
which, shortly before, the Americans Ticknor and Everett had repaired
and at which in that very year Bancroft had attained his degree of
doctor of philosophy. Here, however, Heine was repelled by the
aristocratic exclusiveness of the Hanoverian squires who gave the tone
to student society, as well as by the mummified dryness of the
professors. In marked contrast to the patriotic and romantic spirit of
Bonn he noted here with amazement that the distinguished Germanist
Benecke lectured on the _Nibelungenlied_ to an auditory of nine. His
own residence was destined this time to be brief; for serious quarrels
coming to the ear of the faculty, he was, on January 23, 1821,
advised to withdraw; and in April he enrolled himself as a student at
the University of Berlin.
The next three years were filled with manifold activities. As a
student Heine was deeply impressed by the absolute philosophy
expounded by Hegel; as a Jew he lent a willing hand to the endeavors
of an association recently founded for the amelioration of the social
and political condition of the Hebrews; in the drawing room of Rahel
Levin, now the wife of Varnhagen von Ense, he came in touch with
gifted men and women who were ardent admirers of Goethe, and some of
whom, a quarter of a century before, had befriended Friedrich
Schlegel; and in the subterranean restaurant of Lutter and Wegener he
joined in the revels of Hoffmann, Grabbe, and other eccentric
geniuses. Heine now began to be known as a man of letters. After
having, from 1817 on, printed occasional poems in newspapers and
magazines, he published in December, 1821 (with the date 1822), his
first volume, entitled simply _Poems_; he wrote newspaper articles on
Berlin and on Poland, which he visited in the summer of 1822; and in
the spring of 1823 he published _Tragedies together with a Lyrical
Intermezzo_--two very romantic and undramatic plays in verse,
separated in the volume by a short series of lyrical poems.
Meanwhile Amalie Heine had been married and Harry's parents had moved
to Lueneburg. Regret for the loss of Amalie soon gave way to a new
passion for a very young girl, whose identity remains uncertain, but
who was probably Amalie's little sister Therese. In any case, Heine
met the new love on the occasion of a visit to Lueneburg and Hamburg in
the spring of 1823, and was haunted by her image during the summer
spent at Cuxhaven. Here Heine first saw the sea. In less exalted moods
he dallied with fisher maidens; he did not forget Amalie; but the
youthful grace and purity of Therese dominate most of the poems of
this summer. The return from the watering place gave Heine the title
_The Return Home_ for this collection of pieces which, when published
in 1826, was dedicated to Frau Varnhagen von Ense.
Uncle Salomon, to whom the _Tragedies_ had been affectionately
inscribed, was not displeased with the growing literary reputation of
his nephew. But he saw no sense in the idea that Heine already
entertained of settling in Paris. He insisted that the young man
should complete his studies; and so, in January, 1824, Heine once more
betook himself to Goettingen, where on the twenty-first of July, 1825,
he was duly promoted _Doctor utriusque Juris_. In the summer of 1824
he made the trip through the Hartz mountains which served as the basis
of _The Journey to the Hartz_; immediately before his promotion he
submitted to baptism in the Lutheran church as Christian Johann
Heinrich Heine.
Submission is the right word for this conversion. It was an act of
expediency such as other ambitious men found unavoidable in those
days; but Heine performed it in a spirit of bitterness caused not so
much by a sense of apostasy as by contempt for the conventional
Christianity that he now embraced. There can be no sharper contrast
than that presented by such a poem as _The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar_ and
sundry satirical pieces not included in this volume.
Two vacations at Norderney, where Heine renewed and deepened
acquaintance with his beloved North Sea, not very resolute attempts to
take up the practice of law in Hamburg, a trip to London, vain hopes
of a professorship in Munich, a sojourn in Italy, vacillations between
Hamburg, Berlin, and the North Sea, complete the narrative of Heine's
movements to the end of the first period of his life. He was now Heine
the writer: poet, journalist, and novelist. _The Journey to the
Hartz_, first published in a magazine, _Der Gesellschafter_, in
January and February, 1826, was issued in May of that year by Campe in
Hamburg, as the first volume of _Pictures of Travel_, beginning with
the poems of _The Return Home_ and concluding with the first group of
hymns to the North Sea, written at Norderney in the previous year.
_Pictures of Travel II_, issued in 1827, consisted of the second cycle
of poems on the _North Sea_, an account in prose of life on the
island, entitled _Norderney, The Book Le Grand_, to which epigrams by
Immermann were appended, and extracts from _Letters from Berlin_
published in 1822. _Pictures of Travel III_ (1830) began with
experiences in Italy, but degenerated into a provoked but ruthless
attack upon Platen. _Pictures of Travel IV_ (1831) included _English
Fragments_, the record of Heine's observations in London, and _The
City of Lucca_, a supplementary chapter on Italy. In October, 1827,
Heine collected under the title _Book of Songs_ nearly all of his
poems written up to that time.
The first period in Heine's life closes with the year 1831. The
Parisian revolution of July, 1830, had turned the eyes of all Europe
toward the land in which political experiments are made for the
benefit of mankind. Many a German was attracted thither, and not
without reason Heine hoped to find there a more promising field for
the employment of his talents than with all his wanderings he had
discovered in Germany. Toward the end of May, 1831, he arrived in
Paris, and Paris was thenceforth his home until his death on the
seventeenth of February, 1856.
II
In the preface to the second edition of the _Book of Songs_, written
at Paris in 1837, Heine confessed that for some time past he had felt
a certain repugnance to versification; that the poems therewith
offered for the second time to the public were the product of a time
when, in contrast to the present, the flame of truth had rather heated
than clarified his mind; and expressed the hope that his recent
political, theological, and philosophical writings--all springing from
the same idea and intention as the poems--might atone for any weakness
in the poems. Heine wrote poetry after 1831, and he wrote prose before
1831; but in a general way what he says of his two periods is correct:
before his emigration he was primarily a poet, and afterwards
primarily a critic, journalist, and popular historian. In his first
period he wrote chiefly about his own experiences; in his second,
chiefly about affairs past and present in which he was interested.
As to the works of the first period, we might hesitate to say whether
the _Pictures of Travel_ or the _Book of Songs_ were the more
characteristic product. In whichever way our judgment finally
inclined, we should declare that the _Pictures of Travel_ were
essentially prosified poems and that the poems were, in their
collected form, versified _Pictures of Travel_; and that both,
moreover, were dominated, as the writings after 1831 were dominated,
by a romantically tinged longing for individual liberty.
The title _Pictures of Travel_, to which Heine gave so definite a
connotation, is not in itself a true index to the multifarious
contents of the series of traveler's notes, any more than the volumes
taken each by itself were units. Pages of verse followed pages of
prose; and in the _Journey to the Hartz_, verse interspersed in prose
emphasizes the lyrical character of the composition. Heine does indeed
give pictures of some of the scenes that he visits; but he also
narrates his passage from point to point; and at every point he sets
forth his recollections, his thoughts, his dreams, his personal
reaction upon any idea that comes into his head; so that the
substance, especially of the _Journey to the Hartz_, is less what was
to be seen in the Hartz than what was suggested to a very lively
imagination; and we admire the agility with which the writer jumps
from place to place quite as much as the suppleness with which he can
at will unconditionally subject himself to the genius of a single
locality. For Heine is capable of writing straightforward descriptive
prose, as well-ordered and as matter-of-fact as a narrative of
Kleist's. But the world of reality, where everything has an assignable
reason for its being and doing, is not the world into which he most
delights to conduct us. This world, on the contrary, is that in which
the water "murmurs and rustles so wonderfully, the birds pour forth
broken love-sick strains, the trees whisper as if with a thousand
maidens' tongues, the odd mountain flowers peep up at us as if with a
thousand maidens' eyes, stretching out to us their curious, broad,
drolly scalloped leaves; the sunrays flash here and there in sport,
the herbs, as though endowed with reason, are telling one another
their green legends, all seems enchanted"--in other words, a
wonderland disturbed by no doubts on the part of a rationalistic
Alice. And a further secret of this fascinating, though in the long
run exasperating style, is the sublime audacity with which Heine
dances now on one foot and now on the other, leaving you at every
moment in amused perplexity, whether you shall next find him standing
firmly on mother earth or bounding upward to recline on the clouds.
"A mixture of description of nature, wit, poetry, and observation a la
Washington Irving" Heine himself called the _Journey to the Hartz_.
The novelty lay in the mixture, and in the fact that though the
ingredients are, so to speak, potentized in the highest degree, they
are brought to nearly perfect congruence and fusion by the
irresistible solvent of the second named. The _Journey to the Hartz_
is a work of wit, in the present sense, and in the older sense of
that word. It is a product of superior intelligence--not a _Sketch
Book_, but a single canvas with an infinitude of details; not a
_Sentimental Journey_--although Heine can outdo Sterne in
sentimentality, he too persistently outdoes him also in satire--the
work, fragmentary and outwardly formless, is in essence thoroughly
informed by a two-fold purpose: to ridicule pedantry and philistinism,
and to extol nature and the life of those uncorrupted by the world.
A similar unity is unmistakable in the _Book of Songs_. It would be
difficult to find another volume of poems so cunningly composed. If we
examine the book in its most obvious aspect, we find it beginning with
_Youthful Sorrows_ and ending with hymns to the North Sea; passing,
that is to say, from the most subjective to the most objective of
Heine's poetic expressions. The first of the _Youthful Sorrows_ are
_Dream Pictures_, crude and grotesque imitations of an inferior
romantic _genre_; the _North Sea Pictures_ are magnificent attempts in
highly original form to catch the elusive moods of a great natural
element which before Heine had played but little part in German
poetry. From the _Dream Pictures_ we proceed to _Songs_ (a very simple
love story told in forms as nearly conventional as Heine ever used),
to _Romances_ which, with the notable exception of _The Two
Grenadiers_ and _Belshazzar_, are relatively feeble attempts at the
objectivation of personal suffering; and thence to _Sonnets_, direct
communications to particular persons. Thereupon follow the _Lyrical
Intermezzo_ and the _Return Home_, each with a prologue and an
epilogue, and with several series of pieces which, like the _Songs_
above mentioned, are printed without titles and are successive
sentences or paragraphs in the poet's own love story. This he tells
over and over again, without monotony, because the story gains in
significance as the lover gains in experience, because each time he
finds for it a new set of symbols, and because the symbols become more
and more objective as the poet's horizon broadens. Then come a few
pieces of religious content (culminating in _The Pilgrimage to
Kevlaar_), the poems in the _Journey to the Hartz_ (the most striking
of which are animated by the poetry of folk-lore)--these poems clearly
transitional to the poetry of the ocean which Heine wrote with such
vigor in the two cycles on the North Sea. The movement is a steady
climax.
The truth of the foregoing observations can be tested only by an
examination of the entire _Book of Songs_. The total effect is one of
arrangement. The order of the sections is chronological; the order of
the poems within the sections is logical; and some poems were altered
to make them fit into the scheme. Each was originally the expression
of a moment; and the peculiarity of Heine as a lyric poet is his
disposition to fix a moment, however fleeting, and to utter a feeling,
of however slight consequence to humanity it might at first blush seem
to be. In the _Journey to the Hartz_ he never lost an opportunity to
make a point; in his lyrical confessions he suppressed no impulse to
self-revelation; and seldom did his mastery of form fail to ennoble
even the meanest substance.
Some of Heine's most perfect products are his smallest. Whether,
however, a slight substance can be fittingly presented only in the
briefest forms, or a larger matter calls for extended treatment, the
method is the same, and the merit lies in the justness and
suggestiveness of details. Single points, or points in juxtaposition
or in succession, not the developed continuity of a line, are the
means to the effect which Heine seeks. Connecting links are left to be
supplied by the imagination of the reader. Even in such a narrative
poem as _Belshazzar_ the movement is _staccato_; we are invited to
contemplate a series of moments; and if the subject is impiety and
swift retribution, we are left to infer the fact from the evidence
presented; there is neither editorial introduction nor moralizing
conclusion. Similarly with _The Two Grenadiers_, a presentation of
character in circumstance, a translation of pictorial details into
terms of action and prophecy; and most strikingly in _The Pilgrimage
to Kevlaar_, a poem of such fundamentally pictorial quality that it
has been called a triptych, three depicted scenes in a little
religious drama.
It is in pieces like these that we find Heine most successfully making
of himself the interpreter of objects in the outside world. The number
of such objects is greater than is everywhere believed--though
naturally his success is surest in the case of objects congenial to
him, and the variety of these is not great. Indeed, the outside world,
even when he appears to treat it most objectively, proves upon closer
examination to be in the vast majority of cases only a treasure-trove
of symbols for the expression of his inner self. Thus, _Poor Peter_ is
the narrative of a humble youth unfortunate in love, but poor Peter's
story is Heine's; otherwise, we may be sure, Heine would not have
thought it worth the telling. Nothing could seem to be less the
property of Heine than _The Lorelei_; nevertheless, he has given to
this borrowed subject so personal a turn that instead of the siren we
see a human maiden, serenely indifferent to the effect of her charms,
which so take the luckless lover that, like the boatman, he, Heine, is
probably doomed ere long to death in the waves.
Toward the outside world, then, Heine's habitual attitude is not that
of an interpreter; it is that of an artist who seeks the means of
expression where they may be found. He does not, like Goethe and
Moerike, read out of the phenomena of nature and of life what these
phenomena in themselves contain; he reads into them what he wishes
them to say. _The Book of Songs_ is a human document, but it is no
document of the life of humanity; it is a collection of kaleidoscopic
views of one life, a life not fortified by wholesome cooeperation with
men nor nourished with the strength of nature, but vivifying nature
with its own emotions. Heine has treated many a situation with
overwhelming pathos, but none from which he was himself so completely
absent as Moerike from the kitchen of The _Forsaken Maiden_. Goethe's
"Hush'd on the hill" is an apostrophe to himself; but peace which the
world cannot give and cannot take away is the atmosphere of that poem;
whereas Heine's "The shades of the summer evening lie" gets its
principal effectiveness from fantastic contributions of the poet's own
imagination.
The length to which Heine goes in attributing human emotions to nature
is hardly to be paralleled before or since. His aim not being the
reproduction of reality, nor yet the objectivation of ideas, his
poetry is essentially a poetry of tropes-that is, the conception and
presentation of things not as they are but as they may be conceived to
be. A simple illustration of this method may be seen in _The
Herd-Boy_. Uhland wrote a poem on a very similar subject, _The Boy's
Mountain Song_. But the contrast between Uhland's hardy, active,
public-spirited youth and Heine's sleepy, amorous individualist is no
more striking than the difference between Uhland's rhetorical and
Heine's tropical method. Heine's poem is an elaboration of the single
metaphor with which it begins: "Kingly is the herd-boy's calling." The
poem _Pine and Palm_, in which Heine expresses his hopeless separation
from the maiden of whom he dreams--incidentally attributing to Amalie
a feeling of sadness and solitude to which she was a stranger--is a
bolder example of romantic self-projection into nature. But not the
boldest that Heine offers us. He transports us to India, and there--
The violets titter, caressing,
Peeping up as the planets appear,
And the roses, their warm love confessing,
Whisper words, soft perfumed, to each ear.
Nor does he allow us to question the occurrence of these marvels; how
do we know what takes place on the banks of the Ganges, whither we are
borne on the wings of song? This, indeed, would be Heine's answer to
any criticism based upon Ruskin's notion as to the "pathetic fallacy."
If the setting is such as to induce in us the proper mood, we readily
enter the non-rational realm, and with credulous delight contemplate
wonders such as we too have seen in our dreams; just as we find the
romantic syntheses of sound and odor, or of sound and color,
legitimate attempts to express the inexpressible. The atmosphere of
prose, to be sure, is less favorable to Heine's habitual indulgence in
romantic tropes.
Somewhat blunted by over-employment is another romantic instrument,
eminently characteristic of Heine, namely, irony. Nothing could be
more trenchant than his bland assumption of the point of view of the
Jew-baiter, the hypocrite, or the slave-trader. It is as perfect as
his adoption of childlike faith in _The Pilgrimage to Kevlaar_. Many a
time he attains an effect of ironical contrast by the juxtaposition of
incongruous poems, as when a deification of his beloved is followed by
a cynical utterance of a different kind of love. But often the
incongruity is within the poem itself, and the poet, destroying the
illusion of his created image, gets a melancholy satisfaction from
derision of his own grief. This procedure perfectly symbolizes a
distracted mind; it undoubtedly suggests a superior point of view,
from which the tribulations of an insignificant individual are seen to
be insignificant; but in a larger sense it symbolizes the very
instability and waywardness of Heine himself. His emotions were
unquestionably deep and recurrent, but they were not constant. His
devotion to ideals did not preclude indulgence in very unideal
pleasures; and his love of Amalie and Therese, hopeless from the
beginning, could not, except in especially fortunate moments, avoid
erring in the direction either of sentimentality or of bitterness. But
Heine was too keenly intellectual to be indulgent of sentimentality,
and too caustic to restrain bitterness. Hence the bitter-sweet of many
of his pieces, so agreeably stimulating and so suggestive of an
elastic temperament.
There is, however, a still more pervasive incongruity between this
temperament and the forms in which it expressed itself. Heine's love
poems--two-thirds of the _Book of Songs_--are written in the very
simplest of verses, mostly quatrains of easy and seemingly inevitable
structure. Heine learned the art of making them from the _Magic Horn_,
from Uhland, and from Eichendorff, and he carried the art to the
highest pitch of virtuosity. They are the forms of the German
Folk-song, a fit vehicle for homely sentiments and those elemental
passions which come and go like the tide in a humble heart, because
the humble heart is single and yields unresistingly to their flow. But
Heine's heart was not single, his passion was complex, and the
greatest of his ironies was his use of the most unsophisticated of
forms for his most sophisticated substances. This, indeed, was what
made his love poetry so novel and so piquant to his contemporaries;
this is one of the qualities that keep it alive today; but it is a
highly individual device which succeeded only with this individual;
and that it was a device adopted from no lack of capacity in other
measures appears from the perfection of Heine's sonnets and the
incomparable free rhythmic verses of the _North Sea_ cycles.
Taken all in all, _The Book of Songs_ was a unique collection, making
much of little, and making it with an amazing economy of means.
III
Heine's first period, to 1831, when he was primarily a literary
artist, nearly coincides with the epoch of the Restoration
(1815-1830). Politically, this time was unproductive in Germany, and
the very considerable activity in science, philosophy, poetry,
painting, and other fine arts stood in no immediate relation to
national exigencies. There was indeed plenty of agitation in the
circles of the _Burschenschaft_, and there were sporadic efforts to
obtain from reluctant princes the constitutions promised as a reward
for the rising against Napoleon; but as a whole the people of the
various states seemed passive, and whatever was accomplished was the
work of individuals, with or without royal patronage, and, in the
main, in continuation of romantic tendencies. But with the Revolution
of July, 1830, the political situation in Germany became somewhat more
acute, demands for emancipation took more tangible form, and the
so-called "Young Germans "--Wienbarg, Gutzkow, Laube, Mundt, Boerne,
and others-endeavored in essays, novels, plays, and pamphlets to stir
up public interest in questions of political, social, and religious
reform.
Many passages in Heine's _Pictures of Travel_ breathe the spirit of
the Young German propaganda--the celebrated confession of faith, for
example, in the _Journey to the Hartz_, in which he declares himself a
knight of the holy spirit of iconoclastic democracy. In Paris he
actively enlisted in the cause, and for about fifteen years continued,
as a journalist, the kind of expository and polemic writing that he
had developed in the later volumes of the _Pictures of Travel_.
Regarding himself, like many an expatriate, as a mediator between the
country of his birth and the country of his adoption, he wrote for
German papers accounts of events in the political and artistic world
of France, and for French periodicals more ambitious essays on the
history of religion, philosophy, and recent literature in Germany.
Most of the works of this time were published in both French and
German, and Heine arranged also for the appearance of the _Pictures of
Travel_ and the _Book of Songs_ in French translations. To all intents
and purposes he became a Frenchman; from 1836 or 1837 until 1848 he
was the recipient of an annual pension of 4,800 francs from the French
government; he has even been suspected of having become a French
citizen. But he in no sense curbed his tongue when speaking of French
affairs, nor was he free from longing to be once more in his native
land.
In Germany, however, he was commonly regarded as a traitor; and at the
same time the Young Germans, with the more influential of whom he soon
quarreled, looked upon him as a renegade; so that there was a peculiar
inappropriateness in the notorious decree of the Bundesrat at
Frankfurt, voted December 10, 1835, and impotently forbidding the
circulation in Germany of the writings of the Young Germans: Heine,
Gutzkow, Laube, Wienbarg, and Mundt--in that order. But the occupants
of insecure thrones have a fine scent for the odor of sedition, and
Heine was an untiring sapper and miner in the modern army moving
against the strongholds of aristocrats and priests. A keen observer in
Hamburg who was resolved, though not in the manner of the Young
Germans, to do his part in furthering social reform, Friedrich Hebbel,
wrote to a friend in March, 1836: "Our time is one in which action
destined to be decisive for a thousand years is being prepared. What
artillery did not accomplish at Leipzig must now be done by pens in
Paris."
During the first years of his sojourn in Paris Heine entered gleefully
into all the enjoyment and stimulation that the gay capital had to
offer. "I feel like a fish in water" is a common expression of
contentment with one's surroundings; but when one fish inquires after
the health of another, he now says, Heine told a friend, "I feel like
Heine in Paris." The well-accredited German poet quickly secured
admission to the circle of artists, journalists, politicians, and
reformers, and became a familiar figure on the boulevards. In October,
1834, be made the acquaintance of a young Frenchwoman, Crescence
Eugenie Mirat, or Mathilde, as he called her, and fell violently in
love with her. She was a woman of great personal attractiveness, but
entirely without education, frivolous, and passionate. They were soon
united; not for long, Heine thought, and he made efforts to escape
from her seductive charms, but ineffectually; and like Tannhaeuser, he
was drawn back to his Frau Venus with an attachment passing all
understanding. From December, 1835, Heine regarded her as his wife,
and in 1841 they were married. But Mathilde was no good housekeeper;
Heine was frequently in financial straits; he quarreled with his
relatives, as well as with literary adversaries in Germany and
France; and only after considerable negotiation was peace declared,
and the continuation of a regular allowance arranged with Uncle
Salomon.
[Illustration: HEINRICH HEINE E. HADER]
Moreover, Heine's health was undermined. In the latter thirties he
suffered often from headaches and afflictions of the eyes; in the
middle of the forties paralysis of the spinal cord began to manifest
itself; and for the last ten years of his life he was a hopelessly
stricken invalid, finally doomed for five years to that "mattress
grave" which his fortitude no less than his woeful humor has
pathetically glorified. His wife cared for him dutifully, he was
visited by many distinguished men of letters, and in 1855 a
ministering angel came to him in the person of Elise von Krinitz
("Camille Selden") whom he called "_Die Mouche_" and for whom he wrote
his last poem, _The Passion Flower_, a kind of apology for his life.
Meantime contentions, tribulations, and a wasting frame seemed only to
sharpen the wits of the indomitable warrior. _New Songs_ (1844)
contains, along with negligible cynical pieces, a number of love songs
no whit inferior to those of the _Book of Songs_, romances, and
scorching political satires. The _Romanzero_ (1851) is not unfairly
represented by such a masterpiece as _The Battlefield of Hastings_.
And from this last period we have two quasi-epic poems: _Atta Troll_
(1847; written in 1842) and _Germany_ (1844), the fruit of the first
of Heine's two trips across the Rhine.
Historically and poetically, _Atta Troll_ is one of the most
remarkable of Heine's works. He calls it _Das letzte freie Waldlied
der Romantik_ ("The last free forest-song of romanticism.") Having for
its principal scene the most romantic spot in Europe, the valley of
Roncesvaux, and for its principal character a dancing bear, the
impersonation of those good characters and talentless men who, in the
early forties, endeavored to translate the prose of Young Germany into
poetry, the poem flies to the merriest, maddest height of romanticism
in order by the aid of magic to kill the bear and therewith the vogue
of poetry degraded to practical purposes. Heine knew whereof he
spoke; for he had himself been a mad romanticist, a Young German, and
a political poet; and he was a true prophet; for, though he did not
himself enter the promised land, he lived to see, in the more refined
romanticism of the Munich School and the poetic realism of Hebbel and
Ludwig, the dawn of a new day in the history of German literature.
Heine did not enter the promised land. Neither can we truthfully say
that he saw it as it was destined to be. His eye was on the present,
and in the present he more clearly discerned what ought not to be than
what gave promise of a better future. In the war for the liberation of
humanity he professed to be, and he was, a brave soldier; but he
lacked the soldier's prime requisite, discipline. He never took a
city, because he could not rule his spirit. Democracy was inscribed
upon his banner, sympathy for the disenfranchised bound him to it, but
not that charity which seeketh not her own, nor the loyalty that
abides the day when imperfection shall become perfection. Sarcasm was
his weapon, ridicule his plan of campaign, and destruction his only
accomplishment.
We shall not say that the things destroyed by Heine deserved a better
fate. We shall not think of him either as a leader or as a follower in
a great national movement. He was not the one man of his generation
through whom the national consciousness, even national discontent,
found expression; he was the man whose self-expressions aroused the
widest interest and touched the tenderest chords. To be called perhaps
an alien, and certainly no monumental German character, Heine
nevertheless made use, with consummate artistry, of the fulness of
German culture at a time when many of the after-born staggered under
the weight of a heritage greater than they could bear.
[Illustration: THE LORELEI FOUNTAIN In NEW YORK BY HERTER]
HEINRICH HEINE
* * * * *
DEDICATION[1] (1822)
I have had dreams of wild love wildly nursed,
Of myrtles, mignonette, and silken tresses,
Of lips, whose blames belie the kiss that blesses,
Of dirge-like songs to dirge-like airs rehearsed.
My dreams have paled and faded long ago,
Faded the very form they most adored,
Nothing is left me but what once I poured
Into pathetic verse with feverish glow.
Thou, orphaned song, art left. Do thou, too, fade!
Go, seek that visioned form long lost in night,
And say from me--if you upon it light--
With airy breath I greet that airy shade!
* * * * *
SONGS (1822)
1 [2]
Oh, fair cradle of my sorrow,
Oh, fair tomb of peace for me,
Oh, fair town, my last good-morrow,
Last farewell I say to thee!
Fare thee well, thou threshold holy,
Where my lady's footsteps stir,
And that spot, still worshipped lowly,
Where mine eyes first looked on her!
Had I but beheld thee never,
Thee, my bosom's beauteous queen,
Wretched now, and wretched ever,
Oh, I should not thus have been!
Touch thy heart?--I would not dare that:
Ne'er did I thy love implore;
Might I only breathe the air that
Thou didst breathe, I asked no more.
Yet I could not brook thy spurning,
Nor thy cruel words of scorn;
Madness in my brain is burning,
And my heart is sick and torn.
So I go, downcast and dreary,
With my pilgrim staff to stray,
Till I lay my head aweary
In some cool grave far away.
2 [3]
Cliff and castle quiver grayly
From the mirror of the Rhine
Where my little boat swims gaily;
Round her prow the ripples shine.
Heart at ease I watch them thronging--
Waves of gold with crisping crest,
Till awakes a half-lulled longing
Cherished deep within my breast.
Temptingly the ripples greet me
Luring toward the gulf beneath,
Yet I know that should they meet me
They would drag me to my death.
Lovely visage, treacherous bosom,
Guile beneath and smile above,
Stream, thy dimpling wavelet's blossom
Laughs as falsely as my love.
3[4]
I despaired at first--believing
I should never bear it. Now
I have borne it--I have borne it.
Only never ask me How.
* * * * *
A LYRICAL INTERMEZZO (1822-23)
1[5]
'Twas in the glorious month of May,
When all the buds were blowing,
I felt--ah me, how sweet it was!--
Love in my heart a-growing.
'Twas in the glorious month of May,
When all the birds were quiring,
In burning words I told her all
My yearning, my aspiring.
2[6]
Where'er my bitter tear-drops fall,
The fairest flowers arise;
And into choirs of nightingales
Are turned my bosom's sighs.
And wilt thou love me, thine shall be
The fairest flowers that spring,
And at thy window evermore
The nightingales shall sing.
3[7]
The rose and the lily, the moon and the dove,
Once loved I them all with a perfect love.
I love them no longer, I love alone
The Lovely, the Graceful, the Pure, the One
Who twines in one wreath all their beauty and love,
And rose is, and lily, and moon and dove.
4[8]
Dear, when I look into thine eyes,
My deepest sorrow straightway flies;
But when I kiss thy mouth, ah, then
No thought remains of bygone pain!
And when I lean upon thy breast,
No dream of heaven could be more blest;
But, when thou say'st thou lovest me,
I fall to weeping bitterly.
5[9]
Thy face, that fair, sweet face I know,
I dreamed of it awhile ago;
It is an angel's face, so mild--
And yet, so sadly pale, poor child!
Only the lips are rosy bright,
But soon cold Death will kiss them white,
And quench the light of Paradise
That shines from out those earnest eyes.
6[10]
Lean close thy cheek against my cheek,
That our tears together may blend, love,
And press thy heart upon my heart,
That from both one flame may ascend, love!
[Illustration: SPRING'S AWAKENING _From the Painting by Ludwig von
Hofmann._]
And while in that flame so doubly bright
Our tears are falling and burning,
And while in my arms I clasp thee tight
I will die with love and yearning.
7[11]
I'll breathe my soul and its secret
In the lily's chalice white;
The lily shall thrill and reecho
A song of my heart's delight.
The song shall quiver and tremble,
Even as did the kiss
That her rosy lips once gave me
In a moment of wondrous bliss.
8[12]
The stars have stood unmoving
Upon the heavenly plains
For ages, gazing each on each,
With all a lover's pains.
They speak a noble language,
Copious and rich and strong;
Yet none of your greatest schoolmen
Can understand that tongue.
But I have learnt it, and never
Can forget it for my part--
For I used as my only grammar
The face of the joy of my heart.
9[13]
On the wings of song far sweeping,
Heart's dearest, with me thou'lt go
Away where the Ganges is creeping;
Its loveliest garden I know--
A garden where roses are burning
In the moonlight all silent there;
Where the lotus-flowers are yearning
For their sister beloved and fair.
The violets titter, caressing,
Peeping up as the planets appear,
And the roses, their warm love confessing,
Whisper words, soft-perfumed, to each ear.
And, gracefully lurking or leaping,
The gentle gazelles come round:
While afar, deep rushing and sweeping,
The waves of the Ganges sound.
We'll lie there in slumber sinking
Neath the palm-trees by the stream,
Rapture and rest deep drinking,
Dreaming the happiest dream.
10[14]
The lotos flower is troubled
By the sun's too garish gleam,
She droops, and with folded petals
Awaiteth the night in a dream.
'Tis the moon has won her favor,
His light her spirit doth wake,
Her virgin bloom she unveileth
All gladly for his dear sake.
Unfolding and glowing and shining
She yearns toward his cloudy height;
She trembles to tears and to perfume
With pain of her love's delight.
[Illustration: FLOWER FANTASY _Train the Painting by Ludwig von
Hofmann._]
11[15]
The Rhine's bright wave serenely
Reflects as it passes by
Cologne that lifts her queenly
Cathedral towers on high.
A picture hangs in the dome there,
On leather with gold bedight,
Whose beauty oft when I roam there
Sheds hope on my troubled night.
For cherubs and flowers are wreathing
Our Lady with tender grace;
Her eyes, cheeks, and lips half-breathing
Resemble my loved one's face.
12[16]
I am not wroth, my own lost love, although
My heart is breaking--wroth I am not, no!
For all thou dost in diamonds blaze, no ray
Of light into thy heart's night finds its way.
I saw thee in a dream. Oh, piteous sight!
I saw thy heart all empty, all in night;
I saw the serpent gnawing at thy heart;
I saw how wretched, O my love, thou art!
13[17]
When thou shalt lie, my darling, low
In the dark grave, where they hide thee,
Then down to thee I will surely go,
And nestle in beside thee.
Wildly I'll kiss and clasp thee there,
Pale, cold, and silent lying;
Shout, shudder, weep in dumb despair,
Beside my dead love dying.
The midnight calls, up rise the dead,
And dance in airy swarms there;
We twain quit not our earthly bed,
I lie wrapt in your arms there.
Up rise the dead; the Judgment-day
To bliss or anguish calls them;
We twain lie on as before we lay,
And heed not what befalls them.
14[18]
A young man loved a maiden,
But she for another has sigh'd;
That other, he loves another,
And makes her at length his bride.
The maiden marries, in anger,
The first adventurous wight
That chance may fling before her;
The youth is in piteous plight.
The story is old as ages,
Yet happens again and again;
The last to whom it happen'd,
His heart is rent in twain.
15[19]
A lonely pine is standing
On the crest of a northern height;
He sleeps, and a snow-wrought mantle
Enshrouds him through the night.
He's dreaming of a palm-tree
Afar in a tropic land,
That grieves alone in silence
'Mid quivering leagues of sand.
16[20]
My love, we were sitting together
In a skiff, thou and I alone;
'Twas night, very still was the weather,
Still the great sea we floated on.
Fair isles in the moonlight were lying,
Like spirits, asleep in a trance;
Their strains of sweet music were sighing,
And the mists heaved in an eery dance.
And ever, more sweet, the strains rose there,
The mists flitted lightly and free;
But we floated on with our woes there,
Forlorn on that wide, wide sea.
17[21]
I see thee nightly in dreams, my sweet,
Thine eyes the old welcome making,
And I fling me down at thy dear feet
With the cry of a heart that is breaking.
Thou lookest at me in woful wise
With a smile so sad and holy,
And pearly tear-drops from thine eyes
Steal silently and slowly.
Whispering a word, thou lay'st on my hair
A wreath with sad cypress shotten;
awake, the wreath is no longer there,
And the word I have forgotten.
* * * * *
SONNETS (1822)
TO MY MOTHER
1[22]
I have been wont to bear my head on high,
Haughty and stern am I of mood and mien;
Yea, though a king should gaze on me, I ween,
I should not at his gaze cast down my eye.
But I will speak, dear Mother, candidly:
When most puffed up my haughty mood hath been,
At thy sweet presence, blissful and serene,
I feel the shudder of humility.
Does thy soul all unknown my soul subdue,
Thy lofty soul that pierces all things through
And speeds on lightning wings to heaven's blue?
Or am I racked by what my memories tell
Of frequent deeds which caused thy heart to swell--
That beauteous heart which loved me, ah! too well.
2[23]
With foolish fancy I deserted thee;
I fain would search the whole world through to learn
If in it I perchance could love discern,
That I might love embrace right lovingly.
I sought for love as far as eye could see,
My hands extending at each door in turn,
Begging them not my prayer for love to spurn--
Cold hate alone they laughing gave to me.
And ever search'd I after love; yes, ever
Search'd after love, but love discover'd never,
And so I homeward went with troubled thought;
But thou wert there to welcome me again,
And, ah, what in thy dear eye floated then
That was the sweet love I so long had sought.
* * * * *
[Illustration: POOR PETER _From the Painting by P. Grotjohann_]
POOR PETER[24] (1822)
1
Grete and Hans come dancing by,
They shout for very glee;
Poor Peter stands all silently,
And white as chalk is he.
Grete and Hans were wed this morn,
And shine in bright array;
But ah, poor Peter stands forlorn,
Dressed for a working-day.
He mutters, as with wistful eyes
He gazes at them still:
"'Twere easy--were I not too wise--
To do myself some ill...."
2
"An aching sorrow fills my breast,
My heart is like to break;
It leaves me neither peace nor rest,
And all for Grete's sake.
"It drives me to her side, as though
She still could comfort me;
But in her eyes there's something now
That makes me turn and flee.
"I climb the highest hilltop where
I am at least alone;
And standing in the stillness there
I weep and make my moan."
3
Poor Peter wanders slowly by;
So pale is he, so dull and shy,
The very neighbors in the street
Turn round to gaze, when him they meet.
The maids speak low: "He looks, I ween,
As though the grave his bed had been."
Ah no, good maids, ye should have said
"The grave will soon become his bed."
He lost his sweetheart--so, may be,
The grave is best for such as he;
There he may sleep the years away,
And rest until the Judgment-day.
* * * * *
THE TWO GRENADIERS[25] (1822)
To France were traveling two grenadiers,
From prison in Russia returning,
And when they came to the German frontiers,
They hung down their heads in mourning.
There came the heart-breaking news to their ears
That France was by fortune forsaken;
Scattered and slain were her brave grenadiers,
And Napoleon, Napoleon was taken.
Then wept together those two grenadiers
O'er their country's departed glory;
"Woe's me," cried one, in the midst of his tears,
"My old wound--how it burns at the story!"
The other said: "The end has come,
What avails any longer living
Yet have I a wife and child at home,
For an absent father grieving.
"Who cares for wife? Who cares for child?
Dearer thoughts in my bosom awaken;
Go beg, wife and child, when with hunger wild,
For Napoleon, Napoleon is taken!
"Oh, grant me, brother, my only prayer,
When death my eyes is closing:
Take me to France, and bury me there;
In France be my ashes reposing.
"This cross of the Legion of Honor bright,
Let it lie near my heart, upon me;
Give me my musket in my hand,
And gird my sabre on me.
"So will I lie, and arise no more,
My watch like a sentinel keeping,
Till I hear the cannon's thundering roar,
And the squadrons above me sweeping.
"Then the Emperor comes! and his banners wave,
With their eagles o'er him bending,
And I will come forth, all in arms, from my grave,
Napoleon, Napoleon attending!"
[Illustration: THE TWO GRENADIERS _From the Painting by P. Grotjohann_]
* * * * *
BELSHAZZAR[26] (1822)
To midnight now the night drew on;
In slumber deep lay Babylon.
The King's house only was all aflare,
For the King's wild crew were at revel there.
Up there in the King's own banquet hall,
Belshazzar held royal festival.
The satraps were marshaled in glittering line
And emptied their beakers of sparkling wine.
The beakers they clinked, and the satraps' hurras
in the ears of the stiff-necked King rang his praise.
The King's hot cheeks were with revel dyed,
The wine made swell his heart with pride.
Blind madness his haughty stomach spurred,
And he slandered the Godhead with sinful word,
And strutting in pride he blasphemed, the crowd
Of servile courtiers applauding loud.
The King commanded with haughty stare;
The slave was gone, and again was there.
Much wealth of gold on his head bare he;
'Twas reft from Jehovah's sanctuary.
And the King took hold of a sacred cup
With his impious hand, and they filled it up;
And he drank to the bottom in one deep draught,
And loud, the foam on his lips, he laughed:
"Jehovah! Thy glories I spit upon;
I am the King of Babylon!"
But scarce had the awful words been said
When the King's heart withered with secret dread.
The boisterous laughter was stifled all,
And corpselike still did wax the hall;
Lo! lo! on the whited wall there came
The likeness of a man's hand in flame,
And wrote, and wrote, in letters of flame,
And wrote and vanished, and no more came.
The King stark-staring sat, a-quail,
With knees a-knocking, and face death-pale,
The satraps' blood ran cold--none stirred;
They sat like statues, without a word.
The Magians came; but none of them all
Could read those letters of flame on the wall.
But in that same night of his vaunting vain
By his satraps' hand was Belshazzar slain.
* * * * *
THE PILGRIMAGE TO KEVLAAR[27] (1823)
1
The mother stood at the window;
Her son lay in bed, alas!
"Will you not get up, dear William,
To see the procession pass?"
"O mother, I am so ailing,
I neither can hear nor see;
I think of my poor dead Gretchen,
And my heart grows faint in me."
"Get up, we will go to Kevlaar;
Your book and your rosary take;
The Mother of God will heal you,
And cure your heart of its ache."
The Church's banners are waving,
They are chanting a hymn divine;
'Tis at Koeln is that procession,
At Koeln upon the Rhine.
With the throng the mother follows;
Her son she leads with her; and now
They both of them sing in the chorus,
"Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!"
2
The Mother of God at Kevlaar
Is drest in her richest array;
She has many a cure on hand there,
Many sick folk come to her today.
And her, for their votive offerings,
The suffering sick folk greet
With limbs that in wax are molded,
Many waxen hands and feet.
And whoso a wax hand offers,
His hand is healed of its sore;
And whoso a wax foot offers,
His foot it will pain him no more.
To Kevlaar went many on crutches
Who now on the tight-rope bound,
And many play now on the fiddle
Had there not one finger sound.
The mother she took a wax taper,
And of it a heart she makes
"Give that to the Mother of Jesus,
She will cure thee of all thy aches."
With a sigh her son took the wax heart,
He went to the shrine with a sigh;
His words from his heart trickle sadly,
As trickle the tears from his eye.
"Thou blest above all that are blest,
Thou virgin unspotted divine,
Thou Queen of the Heavens, before thee
I lay all my anguish and pine.
"I lived with my mother at Koeln,
At Koeln in the town that is there,
The town that has hundreds many
Of chapels and churches fair.
"And Gretchen she lived there near us,
But now she is dead, well-a-day!
O Mary! a wax heart I bring thee,
Heal thou my heart's wound, I pray!
"Heal thou my heart of its anguish,
And early and late, I vow,
With its whole strength to pray and to sing, too,
'Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!'"
3
The suffering son and his mother
In their little bed-chamber slept;
Then the Mother of God came softly,
And close to the sleepers crept.
She bent down over the sick one,
And softly her hand did lay
On his heart, with a smile so tender,
And presently vanished away.
The mother sees all in her dreaming,
And other things too she marked;
Then up from her slumber she wakened,
So loudly the town dogs barked.
There lay her son, to his full length
Stretched out, and he was dead;
And the light on his pale cheek flitted
Of the morning's dawning red.
She folded her hands together,
She felt as she knew not how,
And softly she sang and devoutly,
"Ever honored, O Mary, be thou!"
* * * * *
THE RETURN HOME (1823-24)
1[28]
Once upon my life's dark pathway
Gleamed a phantom of delight;
Now that phantom fair has vanished,
I am wholly wrapt in night.
Children in the dark, they suffer
At their heart a spasm of fear;
And, their inward pain to deaden,
Sing aloud, that all may hear.
I, a madcap child, now childlike
In the dark to sing am fain;
If my song be not delightsome,
It at least has eased my pain.
2[29]
We sat at the fisherman's cottage,
And gazed upon the sea;
Then came the mists of evening,
And rose up silently.
The lights within the lighthouse
Were kindled one by one,
We saw still a ship in the distance
On the dim horizon alone.
We spoke of tempest and shipwreck,
Of sailors and of their life,
And how 'twixt clouds and billows
They're tossed, 'twixt joy and strife.
We spoke of distant countries
From North to South that range,
Of strange fantastic nations,
And their customs quaint and strange.
The Ganges is flooded with splendor,
And perfumes waft through the air,
And gentle people are kneeling
To Lotos flowers fair.
In Lapland the people are dirty,
Flat-headed, large-mouthed, and small;
They squat round the fire and, frying
Their fishes, they shout and they squall.
The girls all gravely listened,
Not a word was spoken at last;
The ship we could see no longer,
Darkness was settling so fast.
3[30]
You lovely fisher-maiden,
Bring now the boat to land;
Come here and sit beside me,
We'll prattle hand in hand.
Your head lay on my bosom,
Nor be afraid of me;
Do you not trust all fearless
Daily the great wild sea?
My heart is like the sea, dear,
Has storm, and ebb, and flow,
And many purest pearl-gems
Within its dim depth glow.
4[31]
My child, we were two children,
Small, merry by childhood's law;
We used to creep to the henhouse,
And hide ourselves in the straw.
We crowed like cocks, and whenever
The passers near us drew--
"Cock-a-doodle!" They thought
'Twas a real cock that crew.
The boxes about our courtyard
We carpeted to our mind,
And lived there both together--
Kept house in a noble kind.
The neighbor's old cat often
Came to pay us a visit;
We made her a bow and courtesy,
Each with a compliment in it.
After her health we asked,
Our care and regard to evince--
(We have made the very same speeches
To many an old cat since).
We also sat and wisely
Discoursed, as old folks do,
Complaining how all went better
In those good old times we knew--
How love, and truth, and believing
Had left the world to itself,
And how so dear was the coffee,
And how so rare was the pelf.
The children's games are over,
The rest is over with youth--
The world, the good games, the good times,
The belief, and the love, and the truth.
5[32]
E'en as a lovely flower,
So fair, so pure thou art;
I gaze on thee, and sadness
Comes stealing o'er my heart.
My hands I fain had folded
Upon thy soft brown hair,
Praying that God may keep thee
So lovely, pure, and fair.
6[33]
I would that my love and its sadness
Might a single word convey,
The joyous breezes should bear it,
And merrily waft it away.
They should waft it to thee, beloved,
This soft and wailful word,
At every hour thou shouldst hear it,
Where'er thou art 'twould be heard.
And when in the night's first slumber
Thine eyes scarce closing seem,
Still should my word pursue thee
Into thy deepest dream.
7[34]
The shades of the summer evening lie
On the forest and meadows green;
The golden moon shines in the azure sky
Through balm-breathing air serene.
The cricket is chirping the brooklet near,
In the water a something stirs,
And the wanderer can in the stillness hear
A plash and a sigh through the furze.
There all by herself the fairy bright
Is bathing down in the stream;
Her arms and throat, bewitching and white,
In the moonshine glance and gleam.
8[35]
I know not what evil is coming,
But my heart feels sad and cold;
A song in my head keeps humming,
A tale from the times of old.
The air is fresh and it darkles,
And smoothly flows the Rhine;
The peak of the mountain sparkles
In the fading sunset-shine.
The loveliest wonderful maiden
On high is sitting there,
With golden jewels braiden,
And she combs her golden hair.
With a golden comb sits combing,
And ever the while sings she
A marvelous song through the gloaming
Of magical melody.
It hath caught the boatman, and bound him
In the spell of a wild, sad love;
He sees not the rocks around him,
He sees only her above.
The waves through the pass keep swinging,
But boatman or boat is none;
And this with her mighty singing
The Lorelei hath done.
[Illustration: ROCKY COAST _From the Painting by Ludwig von Hofmann._]
* * * * *
TWILIGHT[36] (1825-26)
By the dim sea-shore
Lonely I sat, and thought-afflicted.
The sun sank low, and sinking he shed
Rose and vermilion upon the waters,
And the white foaming waves,
Urged on by the tide,
Foamed and murmured yet nearer and nearer--
A curious jumble of whispering and wailing,
A soft rippling laughter and sobbing and sighing,
And in between all a low lullaby singing.
Methought I heard ancient forgotten legends,
The world-old sweet stories,
Which once, as a boy,
I heard from my playmates,
When, of a summer's evening,
We crouched down to tell stories
On the stones of the doorstep,
With small listening hearts,
And bright curious eyes;
While the big grown-up girls
Were sitting opposite
At flowery and fragrant windows,
Their rosy faces
Smiling and moonshine-illumined.
* * * * *
HAIL TO THE SEA[37] (1825-26)
Thalatta! Thalatta!
Hail to thee, thou eternal sea!
Hail to thee, ten thousand times, hail!
With rejoicing heart
I bid thee welcome,
As once, long ago, did welcome thee
Ten thousand Greek hearts--
Hardship-battling, homesick-yearning,
World-renowned Greek hearts.
The billows surged,
They foamed and murmured,
The sun poured down, as in haste,
Flickering ripples of rosy light;
Long strings of frightened sea-gulls
Flutter away shrill screaming;
War-horses trample, and shields clash loudly,
And far resounds the triumphant cry:
Thalatta! Thalatta!
Hail to thee, thou eternal sea!
Like accents of home thy waters are whispering,
And dreams of childhood lustrous I see
Through thy limpid and crystalline wave,
Calling to mind the dear old memories
Of dear and delightful toys,
Of all the glittering Christmas presents,
Of all the red-branched forests of coral,
The pearls, the goldfish and bright-colored shells,
Which thou dost hide mysteriously
Deep down in thy clear house of crystal.
Oh, how have I languished in dreary exile!
Like unto a withered flower
In the botanist's capsule of tin,
My heart lay dead in my breast.
Methought I was prisoned a long sad winter,
A sick man kept in a darkened chamber;
And now I suddenly leave it,
And outside meets me the dazzling Spring,
Tenderly verdant and sun-awakened;
And rustling trees shed snowy petals,
And tender young flowers gaze on me
With their bright fragrant eyes,
And the air is full of laughter and gladness,
And rich with the breath of blossoms,
And in the blue sky the birds are singing--
Thalatta! Thalatta!
Oh, my brave Anabasis-heart!
How often, ah! how sadly often
Wast thou pressed hard by the North's fair Barbarians!
From large and conquering eyes
They shot forth burning arrows;
With crooked words as sharp as a rapier
They threatened to pierce my bosom;
With cuneiform angular missives they battered
My poor stunned brains;
In vain I held out my shield for protection,
The arrows hissed and the blows rained down,
And hard pressed I was pushed to the sea
By the North's fair Barbarians--
And, breathing freely, I greet the sea,
The sea my deliverer, the sea my friend--
Thalatta! Thalatta!
[Illustration: PLAY OF THE WAVES _From the Painting by Arnold Boecklin_]
* * * * *
IN THE HARBOR[38] (1825-26)
Happy is he who hath reached the safe harbor,
Leaving behind him the stormy wild ocean,
And now sits cosy and warm
In the good old Town-Cellar of Bremen.
How sweet and homelike the world is reflected,
In the chalice green of Rhinewine Rummer.
And how the dancing microcosm
Sunnily glides down the thirsty throat!
Everything I behold in the glass--
History, old and new, of the nations,
Both Turks and Greeks, and Hegel and Gans,
Forests of citron and big reviews,
Berlin and Shilda, and Tunis and Hamburg;
But, above all, thy image, Beloved,
And thy dear little head on a gold-ground of Rhenish!
Oh, how fair, how fair art thou, Dearest!
Thou art as fair as the rose!
Not like the Rose of Shiras,
That bride of the nightingale, sung by Hafis,
Not like the Rose of Sharon,
That mystic red rose, exalted by prophets--
Thou art like the "Rose, of the Bremen Town-Cellar,"
Which is the Rose of Roses;
The older it grows the sweeter it blossoms,
And its breath divine it hath all entranced me,
It hath inspired and kindled my soul;
And had not the Town-Cellar Master gripped me
With firm grip and steady,
I should have stumbled!
That excellent man! We sat together
And drank like brothers;
We spoke of wonderful mystic things,
We sighed and sank in each other's arms,
And me to the faith of love he converted;
I drank to the health of my bitterest foes,
And I forgave all bad poets sincerely,
Even as I may one day be forgiven;
I wept with devotion, and at length
The doors of salvation were opened unto me,
Where the sacred Vats, the twelve Apostles,
Silently preach, yet oh, so plainly,
Unto all nations.
These be men forsooth!
Of humble exterior, in jackets of wood,
Yet within they are fairer and more enlightened
Than all the Temple's proud Levites,
Or the courtiers and followers of Herod,
Though decked out in gold and in purple;
Have I not constantly said:
Not with the herd of common low people,
But in the best and politest of circles
The King of Heaven was sure to dwell!
Hallelujah! How lovely the whisper
Of Bethel's palm-trees!
How fragrant the myrtle-trees of Hebron!
How sings the Jordan and reels with joy!
My immortal spirit likewise is reeling,
And I reel in company, and, joyously reeling,
Leads me upstairs and into the daylight
That excellent Town-Cellar Master of Bremen.
Thou excellent Town-Cellar Master of Bremen!
Dost see on the housetops the little angels
Sitting aloft, all tipsy and singing?
The burning sun up yonder
Is but a fiery and drunken nose--
The Universe Spirit's red nose;
And round the Universe Spirit's red nose
Reels the whole drunken world.
* * * * *
A NEW SPRING (1831)
1[39]
Soft and gently through my soul
Sweetest bells are ringing,
Speed you forth, my little song,
Of springtime blithely singing!
Speed you onward to a house
Where sweet flowers are fleeting!
If, perchance, a rose you see,
Say, I send her greeting!
2[40]
Thy deep blue eyes enchant me,
So lovingly they glow;
My gazing soul grows dreamy,
My words come strange and slow.
Thy deep blue eyes enchant me
Wherever I may go:
An ocean of azure fancies
O'erwhelms me with its flow.
3[41]
Was once an ancient monarch,
Heavy his heart, his locks were gray,
This poor and aged monarch
Took a wife so young and gay.
Was once a page-boy handsome,
With lightsome heart and curly hair,
The silken train he carried
Of the queen so young and fair.
Dost know the old, old story?
It sounds so sweet, so sad to tell--
Both were obliged to perish,
They loved each other too well.
* * * * *
ABROAD[42] (1834)
Oh I had once a beauteous Fatherland!
High used to seem
The oak--so high!--the violets nodded kind--
It was a dream.
In German I was kissed, in German told
(You scarce would deem
How sweetly rang the words): "I love thee well!--"
It was a dream.
* * * * *
THE SPHINX[43] (1839)
It is the fairy forest old,
With lime-tree blossoms scented!
The moonshine with its mystic light
My soul and sense enchanted.
On, on I roamed, and, as I went,
Sweet music o'er me rose there;
It is the nightingale--she sings
Of love and lovers' woes there.
She sings of love and lovers' woes,
Hearts blest, and hearts forsaken:
So sad is her mirth, so glad her sob,
Dreams long forgot awaken.
Still on I roamed, and, as I went,
I saw before me lowering
On a great wide lawn a stately pile,
With gables peaked and towering.
Closed were its windows, everywhere
A hush, a gloom, past telling;
It seemed as though silent Death within
These empty halls were dwelling.
A Sphinx lay there before the door,
Half-brutish and half-human,
A lioness in trunk and claws,
In head and breasts a woman.
A lovely woman! The pale cheek
Spoke of desires that wasted;
The hushed lips curved into a smile,
That wooed them to be tasted.
The nightingale so sweetly sang,
I yielded to their wooing;
And as I kissed that winning face,
I sealed my own undoing.
The marble image thrilled with life,
The stone began to quiver;
She drank my kisses' burning flame
With fierce convulsive shiver.
She almost drank my breath away;
And, to her passion bending,
She clasped me close, with her lion claws
My hapless body rending.
Delicious torture, rapturous pang!
The pain, the bliss, unbounded!
Her lips, their kiss was heaven to me,
Her claws, oh, how they wounded.
The nightingale sang: "O beauteous Sphinx!
O love, love! say, why this is,
That with the anguish of death itself
Thou minglest all thy blisses?
"Oh beauteous Sphinx, oh, answer me,
That riddle strange unloosing!
For many, many thousand years
Have I on it been musing!"
GERMANY[44] (1842)
Germany's still a little child,
But he's nursed by the sun, though tender;
He is not suckled on soothing milk,
But on flames of burning splendor.
One grows apace on such a diet;
It fires the blood from languor.
Ye neighbors' children, have a care
This urchin how ye anger!
He is an awkward infant giant;
The oak by the roots uptearing,
He'll beat you till your backs are sore,
And crack your crowns for daring.
He is like Siegfried, the noble child,
That song-and-saga wonder;
Who, when his fabled sword was forged,
His anvil cleft in sunder!
To you, who will our Dragon slay,
Shall Siegfried's strength be given.
Hurrah! how joyfully your nurse
Will laugh on you from heaven!
The Dragon's hoard of royal gems
You'll win, with none to share it.
Hurrah! how bright the golden crown
Will sparkle when you wear it!
* * * * *
ENFANT PERDU[45] (1851)
In Freedom's War, of "Thirty Years" and more,
A lonely outpost have I held--in vain!
With no triumphant hope or prize in store,
Without a thought to see my home again.
I watched both day and night; I could not sleep
Like my well-tented comrades far behind,
Though near enough to let their snoring keep
A friend awake, if e'er to doze inclined.
And thus, when solitude my spirits shook,
Or fear--for all but fools know fear sometimes--
To rouse myself and them, I piped and took
A gay revenge in all my wanton rhymes.
Yes! there I stood, my musket always ready,
And when some sneaking rascal showed his head,
My eye was vigilant, my aim was steady,
And gave his brains an extra dose of lead.
But war and justice have far different laws,
And worthless acts are often done right well;
The rascals' shots were better than their cause,
And I was hit--and hit again, and fell!
That outpost is abandoned; while the one
Lies in the dust, the rest in troops depart;
Unconquered--I have done what could be done,
With sword unbroken, and with broken heart.
* * * * *
THE BATTLEFIELD OF HASTINGS[46] (1855)
Deeply the Abbot of Waltham sighed
When he heard the news of woe:
How King Harold had come to a pitiful end,
And on Hastings field lay low.
Asgod and Ailrik, two of his monks,
On the mission drear he sped
To search for the corse on the battle-plain
Among the bloody dead.
The monks arose and went sadly forth,
And returned as heavy-hearted.
"O Father, the world's a bitter world,
And evil days have started.
"For fallen, alack! is the better man;
The Bastard has won, and knaves
And scutcheoned thieves divide the land,
And make the freemen slaves.
"The veriest rascals from Normandy,
In Britain are lords and sirs.
I saw a tailor from Bayeux ride
With a pair of golden spurs.
"O woe to all who are Saxon born!
Ye Saxon saints, beware!
For high in heaven though ye dwell,
Shame yet may be your share.
"Ah, now we know what the comet meant
That rode, blood-red and dire,
Across the midnight firmament
This year on a broom of fire.
"'Twas an evil star, and Hastings' field
Has fulfilled the omen dread.
We went upon the battle-plain,
And sought among the dead.
"While still there lingered any hope
We sought, but sought in vain;
King Harold's corse we could not find
Among the bloody slain."
Asgod and Ailrik spake and ceased.
The Abbot wrung his hands.
Awhile he pondered, then he sighed,
"Now mark ye my commands.
"By the stone of the bard at Grendelfield,
Just midway through the wood,
One, Edith of the Swan's Neck, dwells
In a hovel poor and rude.
"They named her thus, because her neck
Was once as slim and white
As any swan's--when, long ago,
She was the king's delight.
"He loved and kissed, forsook, forgot,
For such is the way of men.
Time runs his course with a rapid foot;
It is sixteen years since then.
"To this woman, brethren, ye shall go,
And she will follow you fain
To the battle-field; the woman's eye
Will not seek the king in vain.
"Thereafter to Waltham Abbey here
His body ye shall bring,
That Christian burial he may have,
While for his soul we sing."
The messengers reached the hut in the wood
At the hour of midnight drear.
"Wake, Edith of the Swan's Neck, rise
And follow without fear.
"The Duke of Normandy has won
The battle, to our bane.
On the field of Hastings, where he fought,
The king is lying slain.
"Arise and come with us; we seek
His body among the dead.
To Waltham Abbey it shall be borne.
'Twas thus our Abbot said."
The woman arose and girded her gown,
And silently went behind
The hurrying monks. Her grizzly hair
Streamed wildly on the wind.
Barefoot through bog and bush and briar
She followed and did not stay,
Till Hastings and the cliffs of chalk
They saw at dawn of day.
The mist, that like a sheet of white
The field of battle cloaked,
Melted anon; with hideous din
The daws flew up and croaked.
In thousands on the bloody plain
Lay strewn the piteous corses,
Wounded and torn and maimed and stripped,
Among the fallen horses.
The woman stopped not for the blood;
She waded barefoot through,
And from her fixed and staring eyes
The arrowy glances flew.
Long, with the panting monks behind,
And pausing but to scare
The greedy ravens from their food,
She searched with eager care.
She searched and toiled the livelong day,
Until the night was nigh;
Then sudden from her breast there burst
A shrill and awful cry.
For on the battle-field at last
His body she had found.
She kissed, without a tear or word,
The wan face on the ground.
She kissed his brow, she kissed his mouth,
She clasped him close, and pressed
Her poor lips to the bloody wounds
That gaped upon his breast.
His shoulder stark she kisses too,
When, searching, she discovers
Three little scars her teeth had made
When they were happy lovers.
The monks had been and gotten boughs,
And of these boughs they made
A simple bier, whereon the corse
Of the fallen king was laid.
To Waltham Abbey to his tomb
The king was thus removed;
And Edith of the Swan's Neck walked
By the body that she loved.
She chanted litanies for his soul
With a childish, weird lament
That shuddered through the night. The monks
Prayed softly as they went.
* * * * *
THE ASRA[47] (1855)
Every evening in the twilight,
To and fro beside the fountain
Where the waters whitely murmured,
Walked the Sultan's lovely daughter.
And a youth, a slave, was standing
Every evening by the fountain
Where the waters whitely murmured;
And his cheek grew pale and paler.
Till one eve the lovely princess
Paused and asked him on a sudden:
"I would know thy name and country;
I would know thy home and kindred."
And the slave replied, "Mohammed
Is my name; my home is Yemen;
And my people are the Asras;
When they love, they love and die."
* * * * *
THE PASSION FLOWER[48] (1856)
I dreamt that once upon a summer night
Beneath the pallid moonlight's eerie glimmer
I saw where, wrought in marble dimly bright,
A ruin of the Renaissance did shimmer.
Yet here and there, in simple Doric form,
A pillar like some solitary giant
Rose from the mass, and, fearless of the storm,
Reared toward the firmament its head defiant.
O'er all that place a heap of wreckage lay,
Triglyphs and pediments and carven portals,
With centaur, sphinx, chimera, satyrs gay--
Figures of fabled monsters and of mortals.
A marble-wrought sarcophagus reposed
Unharmed 'mid fragments of these fabled creatures;
Its lidless depth a dead man's form inclosed,
The pain-wrung face now calm with softened features.
A group of straining caryatides
With steadfast neck the casket's weight supported,
Along both sides whereof there ran a frieze
Of chiseled figures, wondrous ill-assorted.
First one might see where, decked in bright array,
A train of lewd Olympians proudly glided,
Then Adam and Dame Eve, not far away,
With fig-leaf aprons modestly provided.
Next came the people of the Trojan war--
Paris, Achilles, Helen, aged Nestor;
Moses and Aaron, too, with many more--
As Judith, Holofernes, Haman, Esther.
Such forms as Cupid's one could likewise see,
Phoebus Apollo, Vulcan, Lady Venus,
Pluto and Proserpine and Mercury,
God Bacchus and Priapus and Silenus.
Among the rest of these stood Balaam's ass--
A speaking likeness (if you will, a braying)--
And Abraham's sacrifice, and there, alas!
Lot's daughters, too, their drunken sire betraying.
Near by them danced the wanton Salome,
To whom John's head was carried in a charger;
Then followed Satan, writhing horribly,
And Peter with his keys--none e'er seemed larger
Changing once more, the sculptor's cunning skill
Showed lustful Jove misusing his high power,
When as a swan he won fair Leda's will,
And conquered Danae in a golden shower.
Here was Diana, leading to the chase
Her kilted nymphs, her hounds with eyeballs burning;
And here was Hercules in woman's dress,
His warlike hand the peaceful distaff turning.
Not far from them frowned Sinai, bleak and wild,
Along whose slope lay Israel's nomad nation;
Next, one might see our Savior as a child
Amid the elders holding disputation.
Thus were these opposites absurdly blent--
The Grecian joy of living with the godly
Judean cast of thought!--while round them bent
The ivy's tendrils, intertwining oddly.
But--wonderful to say!--while dreamily
I gazed thereon with glance returning often,
Sudden methought that I myself was he,
The dead man in the splendid marble coffin.
Above the coffin by my head there grew
A flower for a symbol sweet and tragic,
Violet and sulphur-yellow was its hue,
It seemed to throb with love's mysterious magic.
Tradition says, when Christ was crucified
On Calvary, that in that very hour
These petals with the Savior's blood were dyed,
And therefore is it named the passion-flower.
The hue of blood, they say, its blossom wears,
And all the instruments of human malice
Used at the crucifixion still it bears
In miniature within its tiny chalice.
Whatever to the Passion's rite belongs,
Each tool of torture here is represented
The crown of thorns, cup, nails and hammer, thongs,
The cross on which our Master was tormented.
'Twas such a flower at my tomb did stand,
Above my lifeless form in sorrow bending,
And, like a mourning woman, kissed my hand,
My brow and eyes, with silent grief contending.
And then--O witchery of dreams most strange!--
By some occult and sudden transformation
This flower to a woman's shape did change--
'Twas she I loved with soul-deep adoration!
'Twas thou in truth, my dearest, only thou;
I knew thee by thy kisses warm and tender.
No flower-lips thus softly touched my brow,
Such burning tears no flower's cup might render!
Mine eyes were shut, and yet my soul could see
Thy steadfast countenance divinely beaming,
As, calm with rapture, thou didst gaze on me,
Thy features in the spectral moonlight gleaming.
We did not speak, and yet my heart could tell
The hidden thoughts that thrilled within thy bosom.
No chaste reserve in spoken words may dwell--
With silence Love puts forth its purest blossom.
A voiceless dialogue! one scarce might deem,
While mute we thus communed in tender fashion,
How time slipped by like some seraphic dream
Of night, all woven of joy and fear-sweet passion.
Ah, never ask of us what then we said;
Ask what the glow-worm glimmers to the grasses,
Or what the wavelet murmurs in its bed,
Or what the west wind whispers as it passes.
Ask what rich lights from carbuncles outstream,
What perfumed thoughts o'er rose and violet hover--
But never ask what, in the moonlight's beam,
The sacred flower breathed to her dead lover.
I cannot tell how long a time I lay,
Dreaming the ecstasy of joys Elysian,
Within my marble shrine. It fled away--
The rapture of that calm untroubled vision.
Death, with thy grave-deep stillness, thou art best,
Delight's full cup thy hand alone can proffer;
The war of passions, pleasure without rest--
Such boons are all that vulgar life can offer.
Alas! a sudden clamor put to flight
My bliss, and all my comfort rudely banished;
'Twas such a screaming, ramping, raging fight
That mid the uproar straight my flower vanished.
Then on all sides began a savage war
Of argument, with scolding and with jangling.
Some voices surely I had heard before--
Why, 'twas my bas-reliefs had fall'n a-wrangling!
Do old delusions haunt these marbles here,
And urge them on to frantic disputations?
The terror-striking shout of Pan rings clear,
While Moses hurls his stern denunciations.
Alack! the wordy strife will have no end,
Beauty and Truth will ever be at variance,
A schism still the ranks of man will rend
Into two camps, the Hellenes and Barbarians.
Both parties thus reviled and cursed away,
And none who heard could tell the why or whether,
Till Balaam's ass at last began to bray
And soon outbawled both gods and saints together.
With strident-sobbing hee-haw, hee-haw there--
His unremitting discords without number--
That beast so nearly brought me to despair
That I cried out--and wakened from my slumber.
* * * * *
THE JOURNEY TO THE HARZ[49] (1824)
BY HEINRICH HEINE
TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
"Nothing is permanent but change, nothing constant but death. Every
pulsation of the heart inflicts a wound, and life would be an endless
bleeding were it not for Poetry. She secures to us what Nature would
deny--a golden age without rust, a spring which never fades, cloudless
prosperity and eternal youth."--BOeRNE.
Black dress coats and silken stockings,
Snowy ruffles frilled with art,
Gentle speeches and embraces--
Oh, if they but held a heart!
Held a heart within their bosom,
Warmed by love which truly glows;
Ah! I'm wearied with their chanting
Of imagined lovers' woes!
I will climb upon the mountains,
Where the quiet cabin stands,
Where the wind blows freely o'er us,
Where the heart at ease expands.
I will climb upon the mountains,
Where the sombre fir-trees grow;
Brooks are rustling, birds are singing,
And the wild clouds headlong go.
Then farewell, ye polished ladies,
Polished men and polished hall!
I will climb upon the mountains,
Smiling down upon you all.
The town of Goettingen, celebrated for its sausages and its University,
belongs to the King of Hanover, and contains nine hundred and
ninety-nine dwellings, divers churches, a lying-in hospital, an
observatory, a prison for students, a library, and a "Ratskeller," where
the beer is excellent. The stream which flows by the town is called the
Leine, and is used in summer for bathing, its waters being very cold,
and in more than one place it is so broad that Lueder was obliged to take
quite a run ere he could leap across. The town itself is beautiful, and
pleases most when one's back is turned to it. It must be very ancient,
for I well remember that five years ago, when I matriculated there (and
shortly after received notice to quit), it had already the same gray,
prim look, and was fully furnished with catch-polls, beadles,
dissertations, _thes dansants_, washerwomen, compendiums, roasted
pigeons, Guelphic orders, graduation coaches, pipe-heads,
court-councilors, law-councilors, expelling councilors, professors
ordinary and extraordinary. Many even assert that, at the time of the
Great Migrations, every German tribe left behind in the town a loosely
bound copy of itself in the person of one of its members, and that from
these descended all the Vandals, Frisians, Suabians, Teutons, Saxons,
Thuringians,[50] and others, who at the present day still abound in
Goettingen, where, separately distinguished by the color of their caps
and pipe-tassels, they may be seen straying singly or in hordes along
the Weender Street. They still fight their battles on the bloody arena
of the _Rasenmill, Ritschenkrug_, and _Bovden_, still preserve the mode
of life peculiar to their savage ancestors, and still, as at the time of
the migrations, are governed partly by their _Duces_, whom they call
"chief cocks," and partly by their primevally ancient law-book, known as
the _Comment_, which fully deserves a place among the _leges
barbarorum_.
The inhabitants of Goettingen are generally divided into Students,
Professors, Philistines, and Cattle, the points of difference between
these castes being by no means strictly defined. The "Cattle" class is
the most important. I might be accused of prolixity should I here
enumerate the names of all the students and of all the regular and
irregular professors; besides, I do not just at present distinctly
remember the appellations of all the former gentlemen; while among the
professors are many who as yet have no name at all. The number of the
Goettingen "Philistines" must be as numerous as the sands (or, more
correctly speaking, as the mud) of the seashore; indeed, when I beheld
them of a morning, with their dirty faces and clean bills, planted
before the gate of the collegiate court of justice, I wondered greatly
that such an innumerable pack of rascals should ever have been created
by the Almighty.
[Illustration: MARKET PLACE GOeTTINGEN]
* * * * *
It was as yet very early in the morning when I left Goettingen, and the
learned ----, beyond doubt, still lay in bed, dreaming as usual that he
wandered in a fair garden, amid the beds of which grew innumerable white
papers written over with citations. On these the sun shone cheerily, and
he plucked up several here and there and laboriously planted them in new
beds, while the sweetest songs of the nightingales rejoiced his old
heart.
Before the Weender Gate I met two small native schoolboys, one of whom
was saying to the other, "I don't intend to keep company any more with
Theodore; he is a low blackguard, for yesterday he didn't even know the
genitive of _Mensa_." Insignificant as these words may appear, I still
regard them as entitled to be recorded--nay, I would even write them as
town-motto on the gate of Goettingen, for the young birds pipe as the old
ones sing, and the expression accurately indicates the narrow, petty
academic pride so characteristic of the "highly learned" Georgia
Augusta.[51] The fresh morning air blew over the highroad, the birds
sang cheerily, and, little by little, with the breeze and the birds, my
mind also became fresh and cheerful. Such refreshment was sorely needed
by one who had long been confined in the Pandect stable. Roman casuists
had covered my soul with gray cobwebs; my heart was as though jammed
between the iron paragraphs of selfish systems of jurisprudence; there
was an endless ringing in my ears of such sounds as "Tribonian,
Justinian, Hermogenian, and Blockheadian," and a sentimental brace of
lovers seated under a tree appeared to me like an edition of the _Corpus
Juris_ with closed clasps. The road began to take on a more lively
appearance. Milkmaids occasionally passed, as did also donkey-drivers
with their gray pupils. Beyond Weende I met the "Shepherd" and "Doris."
This is not the idyllic pair sung by Gessner, but the duly and
comfortably appointed university beadles, whose duty it is to keep watch
and ward so that no students fight duels in Bovden, and, above all, that
no new ideas (such as are generally obliged to remain in quarantine for
several decades outside of Goettingen) are smuggled in by speculative
private lecturers. Shepherd greeted me as one does a colleague, for he,
too, is an author, who has frequently mentioned my name in his
semi-annual writings. In addition to this, I may mention that when, as
was frequently the case, he came to cite me before the university court
and found me "not at home," he was always kind enough to write the
citation with chalk upon my chamber door. Occasionally a one-horse
vehicle rolled along, well packed with students, who were leaving for
the vacation or forever.
In such a university town there is an endless coming and going. Every
three years beholds a new student-generation, forming an incessant human
tide, where one semester-wave succeeds another, and only the old
professors stand fast in the midst of this perpetual-motion flood,
immovable as the pyramids of Egypt. Only in these university pyramids no
treasures of wisdom are buried.
From out the myrtle bushes, by Rauschenwasser, I saw two hopeful youths
appear ... singing charmingly the Rossinian lay of "Drink beer, pretty,
pretty 'Liza!" These sounds I continued to hear when far in the
distance, and after I had long lost sight of the amiable vocalists, as
their horses, which appeared to be gifted with characters of extreme
German deliberation, were spurred and lashed in a most excruciating
style. In no place is the skinning alive of horses carried to such an
extent as in Goettingen; and often, when I beheld some lame and sweating
hack, which, to earn the scraps of fodder which maintained his wretched
life, was obliged to endure the torment of some roaring blade, or draw a
whole wagon-load of students, I reflected: "Unfortunate beast! Most
certainly thy first ancestors, in some horse-paradise, did eat of
forbidden oats."
* * * * *
Beyond Noerten the sun flashed high in heaven. His intentions toward me
were evidently good, and he warmed my brain until all the unripe
thoughts which it contained came to full growth. The pleasant Sun Tavern
in Noerten is not to be despised, either; I stopped there and found
dinner ready. All the dishes were excellent and suited me far better
than the wearisome, academical courses of saltless, leathery dried fish
and cabbage _rechauffe_, which were served to me in Goettingen. After I
had somewhat appeased my appetite, I remarked in the same room of the
tavern a gentle man and two ladies, who were about to depart. The
cavalier was clad entirely in green; he even had on a pair of green
spectacles which cast a verdigris tinge upon his copper-red nose. The
gentleman's general appearance was like what we may presume King
Nebuchadnezzar's to have been in his later years, when, according to
tradition, he ate nothing but salad, like a beast of the forest. The
Green One requested me to recommend him to a hotel in Goettingen, and I
advised him, when there, to inquire of the first convenient student for
the Hotel de Bruebach. One lady was evidently his wife--an altogether
extensively constructed dame, gifted with a rubicund square mile of
countenance, with dimples in her cheeks which looked like spittoons for
cupids. A copious double chin appeared below, like an imperfect
continuation of the face, while her high-piled bosom, which was defended
by stiff points of lace and a many-cornered collar, as if by turrets and
bastions, reminded one of a fortress. Still, it is by no means certain
that this fortress would have resisted an ass laden with gold, any more
than did that of which Philip of Macedon spoke. The other lady, her
sister, seemed her extreme antitype. If the one were descended from
Pharaoh's fat kine, the other was as certainly derived from the lean.
Her face was but a mouth between two ears; her breast was as
inconsolably comfortless and dreary as the Lueneburger heath; while her
absolutely dried-up figure reminded one of a charity table for poor
theological students. Both ladies asked me, in a breath, if respectable
people lodged in the Hotel de Bruebach. I assented to this question with
a clear conscience, and as the charming trio drove away I waved my hand
to them many times from the window. The landlord of The Sun laughed,
however, in his sleeve, being probably aware that the Hotel de Bruebach
was a name bestowed by the students of Goettingen upon their university
prison.
Beyond Nordheim mountain ridges begin to appear, and the traveler
occasionally meets with a picturesque eminence. The wayfarers whom I
encountered were principally peddlers, traveling to the Brunswick fair,
and among them there was a group of women, every one of whom bore on her
back an incredibly large cage nearly as high as a house, covered over
with white linen. In this cage were every variety of singing birds,
which continually chirped and sung, while their bearers merrily hopped
along and chattered together. It seemed droll thus to behold one bird
carrying others to market.
The night was as dark as pitch when I entered Osterode. I had no
appetite for supper, and at once went to bed. I was as tired as a dog
and slept like a god. In my dreams I returned to Goettingen and found
myself in the library. I stood in a corner of the Hall of Jurisprudence,
turning over old dissertations, lost myself in reading, and, when I
finally looked up, remarked to my astonishment that it was night and
that the hall was illuminated by innumerable over-hanging crystal
chandeliers. The bell of the neighboring church struck twelve, the hall
doors slowly opened, and there entered a superb colossal female form,
reverentially accompanied by the members and hangers-on of the legal
faculty. The giantess, though advanced in years, retained in her
countenance traces of severe beauty, and her every glance indicated the
sublime Titaness, the mighty Themis. The sword and balance were
carelessly grasped in her right hand, while with the left she held a
roll of parchment. Two young _Doctores Juris_ bore the train of her
faded gray robe; by her right side the lean Court Councilor Rusticus,
the Lycurgus of Hanover, fluttered here and there like a zephyr,
declaiming extracts from his last hand-book of law, while on her left
her _cavalier servente_, the privy-councilor of Justice Cujacius,
hobbled gaily and gallantly along, constantly cracking legal jokes,
himself laughing so heartily at his own wit that even the serious
goddess often smiled and bent over him, exclaiming, as she tapped him on
the shoulder with the great parchment roll, "You little scamp, who begin
to trim the trees from the top!" All of the gentlemen who formed her
escort now drew nigh in turn, each having something to remark or jest
over, either a freshly worked-up miniature system, or a miserable little
hypothesis, or some similar abortion of their own insignificant brains.
Through the open door of the hall many strange gentlemen now entered,
who announced themselves as the remaining magnates of the illustrious
Order--mostly angular suspicious-looking fellows, who with extreme
complacency blazed away with their definitions and hair-splittings,
disputing over every scrap of a title to the title of a pandect. And
other forms continually flocked in, the forms of those who were learned
in law in the olden time--men in antiquated costume, with long
councilors' wigs and forgotten faces, who expressed themselves greatly
astonished that they, the widely famed of the previous century, should
not meet with special consideration; and these, after their manner,
joined in the general chattering and screaming, which, like ocean
breakers, became louder and madder around the mighty goddess, until she,
bursting with impatience, suddenly cried, in a tone of the most agonized
Titanic pain, "Silence! Silence! I hear the voice of the beloved
Prometheus. Mocking cunning and brute force are chaining the Innocent
One to the rock of martyrdom, and all your prattling and quarreling will
not allay his wounds or break his fetters!" So cried the goddess, and
rivulets of tears sprang from her eyes; the entire assembly howled as if
in the agonies of death, the ceiling of the hall burst asunder, the
books tumbled madly from their shelves. In vain did Muenchhausen step out
of his frame to call them to order; it only crashed and raged all the
more wildly. I sought refuge from this Bedlam broken loose in the Hall
of History, near that gracious spot where the holy images of the Apollo
Belvedere and the Venus de Medici stand near each other, and I knelt at
the feet of the Goddess of Beauty. In her glance I forgot all the wild
excitement from which I had escaped, my eyes drank in with intoxication
the symmetry and immortal loveliness of her infinitely blessed form;
Hellenic calm swept through my soul, while above my head Phoebus Apollo
poured forth, like heavenly blessings, the sweetest tones of his lyre.
Awaking, I continued to hear a pleasant, musical sound. The flocks were
on their way to pasture, and their bells were tinkling. The blessed
golden sunlight shone through the window, illuminating the pictures on
the walls of my room. They were sketches from the War of Independence,
which faithfully portrayed what heroes we all were; further, there were
scenes representing executions on the guillotine, from the time of the
revolution under Louis XIV., and other similar decapitations which no
one could behold without thanking God that he lay quietly in bed
drinking excellent coffee, and with his head comfortably adjusted upon
neck and shoulders.
After I had drunk my coffee, dressed myself, read the inscriptions upon
the window-panes, and settled my bill at the inn, I left Osterode.
This town contains a certain quantity of houses and a given number of
inhabitants, among whom are divers and sundry souls, as may be
ascertained in detail from Gottschalk's "Pocket Guide-Book for Harz
Travelers." Ere I struck into the highway, I ascended the ruins of the
very ancient Osteroder Burg. They consisted merely of the half of a
great, thick-walled tower, which appeared to be fairly honeycombed by
time. The road to Clausthal led me again uphill, and from one of the
first eminences I looked back once more into the dale where Osterode
with its red roofs peeps out from among the green fir-woods, like a
moss-rose from amid its leaves. The sun cast a pleasant, tender light
over the whole scene. From this spot the imposing rear of the remaining
portion of the tower may be seen to advantage.
There are many other ruined castles in this vicinity. That of
Hardenberg, near Noerten, is the most beautiful. Even when one has, as he
should, his heart on the left--that is, the liberal side--he cannot
banish all melancholy feeling on beholding the rocky nests of those
privileged birds of prey, who left to their effete descendants only
their fierce appetites. So it happened to me this morning. My heart
thawed gradually as I departed from Goettingen; I again became romantic,
and as I went on I made up this poem:
Rise again, ye dreams forgotten;
Heart-gate, open to the sun!
Joys of song and tears of sorrow
Sweetly strange from thee shall run.
I will rove the fir-tree forest,
Where the merry fountain springs,
Where the free, proud stags are wandering,
Where the thrush, my darling, sings.
I will climb upon the mountains,
On the steep and rocky height,
Where the gray old castle ruins
Stand in rosy morning light.
I will sit awhile reflecting
On the times long passed away,
Races which of old were famous,
Glories sunk in deep decay.
Grows the grass upon the tilt-yard,
Where the all-victorious knight
Overcame the strongest champions,
Won the guerdon of the fight.
O'er the balcony twines ivy,
Where the fairest gave the prize,
Him who all the rest had vanquished
Overcoming with her eyes.
Both the victors, knight and lady,
Fell long since by Death's cold hand;
So the gray and withered scytheman
Lays the mightiest in the sand.
After proceeding a little distance, I met with a traveling journeyman
who came from Brunswick, and who related to me that it was generally
believed in that city that their young Duke had been taken prisoner by
the Turks during his tour in the Holy Land, and could be ransomed only
by an enormous sum. The extensive travels of the Duke probably
originated this tale. The people at large still preserve that
traditional fable-loving train of ideas which is so pleasantly shown in
their "Duke Ernest." The narrator of this news was a tailor, a neat
little youth, but so thin that the stars might have shone through him as
through Ossian's misty ghosts. Altogether, he was made up of that
eccentric mixture of humor and melancholy peculiar to the German people.
This was especially expressed in the droll and affecting manner in which
he sang that extraordinary popular ballad, "A beetle sat upon the hedge,
_summ, summ!_" There is one fine thing about us Germans--no one is so
crazy but that he may find a crazier comrade who will understand him.
Only a German _can_ appreciate that song, and in the same breath laugh
and cry himself to death over it. On this occasion I also remarked the
depth to which the words of Goethe have penetrated the national life. My
lean comrade trilled occasionally as he went along--"Joyful and
sorrowful, thoughts are free!" Such a corruption of text is usual among
the multitude. He also sang a song in which "Lottie by the grave of
Werther" wept. The tailor ran over with sentimentalism in the words--
"Sadly by the rose-beds now I weep,
Where the late moon found us oft alone!
Moaning where the silver fountains sleep,
Once which whispered joy in every tone."
* * * * *
The hills here became steeper, the fir-woods below were like a green
sea, and white clouds above sailed along over the blue sky. The wildness
of the region was, as it were, tamed by its uniformity and the
simplicity of its elements. Nature, like a true poet, abhors abrupt
transitions. Clouds, however fantastically formed they may at times
appear, still have a white, or at least a subdued hue, harmoniously
corresponding with the blue heaven and the green earth; so that all the
colors of a landscape blend into one another like soft music, and every
glance at such a natural picture tranquilizes and reassures the soul.
The late Hofmann would have painted the clouds spotted and chequered.
And, like a great poet, Nature knows how to produce the greatest
effects with the most limited means. She has, after all, only a sun,
trees, flowers, water, and love to work with. Of course, if the latter
be lacking in the heart of the observer, the whole will, in all
probability, present but a poor appearance; the sun is then only so many
miles in diameter, the trees are good for firewood, the flowers are
classified according to their stamens, and the water is wet.
A little boy who was gathering brushwood in the forest for his sick
uncle pointed out to me the village of Lerrbach, whose little huts with
gray roofs lie scattered along for over a mile through the valley.
"There," said he, "live idiots with goitres, and white negroes." By
white negroes the people mean "albinos." The little fellow lived on
terms of peculiar understanding with the trees, addressing them like old
acquaintances, while they in turn seemed by their waving and rustling to
return his salutations. He chirped like a thistle-finch; many birds
around answered his call, and, ere I was aware, he had disappeared amid
the thickets with his little bare feet and his bundle of brush.
"Children," thought I, "are younger than we; they can remember when they
were once trees or birds, and are consequently still able to understand
them. We of larger growth are, alas, too old for that, and carry about
in our heads too many sorrows and bad verses and too much legal lore."
But the time when it was otherwise recurred vividly to me as I entered
Clausthal. In this pretty little mountain town, which the traveler does
not behold until he stands directly before it, I arrived just as the
clock was striking twelve and the children came tumbling merrily out of
school. The little rogues, nearly all red-cheeked, blue-eyed,
flaxen-haired, sprang and shouted and awoke in me melancholy and
cheerful memories--how I once myself, as a little boy, sat all the
forenoon long in a gloomy Catholic cloister school in Duesseldorf,
without so much as daring to stand up, enduring meanwhile a terrible
amount of Latin, whipping, and geography, and how I too hurrahed and
rejoiced, beyond all measure when the old Franciscan clock at last
struck twelve. The children saw by my knapsack that I was a stranger,
and greeted me in the most hospitable manner. One of the boys told me
that they had just had a lesson in religion, and showed me the Royal
Hanoverian Catechism, from which they were questioned on Christianity.
This little book was very badly printed, so that I greatly feared that
the doctrines of faith made thereby but an unpleasant blotting-paper
sort of impression upon the children's minds. I was also shocked at
observing that the multiplication table--which surely seriously
contradicts the Holy Trinity--was printed on the last page of the
catechism, as it at once occurred to me that by this means the minds of
the children might, even in their earliest years, be led to the most
sinful skepticism. We Prussians are more intelligent, and, in our zeal
for converting those heathen who are familiar with arithmetic, take good
care not to print the multiplication table in the back of the catechism.
I dined at The Crown, at Clausthal. My repast consisted of spring-green
parsley-soup, violet-blue cabbage, a pile of roast veal, which resembled
Chimborazo in miniature, and a sort of smoked herring, called
"Bueckings," from the inventor, William Buecking, who died in 1447, and
who, on account of the invention, was so greatly honored by Charles V.
that the great monarch in 1556 made a journey from Middleburg to
Bievlied in Zealand for the express purpose of visiting the grave of the
great man. How exquisitely such dishes taste when we are familiar with
their historical associations!
* * * * *
In the silver refinery, as has so frequently happened in life, I could
get no glimpse of the precious metal. In the mint I succeeded better,
and saw how money was made. Beyond this I have never been able to
advance. On such occasions mine has invariably been the spectator's
part, and I verily believe that, if it should rain dollars from heaven,
the coins would only knock holes in my head, while the children of
Israel would merrily gather up the silver manna. With feelings in which
comic reverence was blended with emotion, I beheld the new-born shining
dollars, took one in my hand as it came fresh from the stamp, and said
to it, "Young Dollar, what a destiny awaits thee! What a cause wilt thou
be of good and of evil! How thou wilt protect vice and patch up virtue!
How thou wilt be beloved and accursed! How thou wilt aid in debauchery,
pandering, lying, and murdering! How thou wilt restlessly roll along
through clean and dirty hands for centuries, until finally, laden with
tresspasses and weary with sin, thou wilt be gathered again unto thine
own, in the bosom of an Abraham, who will melt thee down, purify thee,
and form thee into a new and better being, perhaps an innocent little
tea-spoon, with which my own great-great-grandson will mash his
porridge."
I will narrate in detail my visit to "Dorothea" and "Caroline," the two
principal Clausthaler mines, having found them very interesting.
Half an hour away from the town are situated two large dingy buildings.
Here the traveler is transferred to the care of the miners. These men
wear dark and generally steel-blue colored jackets, of ample girth,
descending to the hips, with pantaloons of a similar hue, a leather
apron tied on behind, and a rimless green felt hat which resembles a
decapitated nine-pin. In such a garb, with the exception of the
"back-leather," the visitor is also clad, and a miner, his "leader,"
after lighting his mine-lamp, conducts him to a gloomy entrance
resembling a chimney-hole, descends as far as the breast, gives him a
few directions relative to grasping the ladder, and requests him to
follow fearlessly. The affair is entirely devoid of danger, though it at
first appears quite otherwise to those unacquainted with the mysteries
of mining. Even the putting on of the dark convict-dress awakens very
peculiar sensations. Then one must clamber down on all fours, the dark
hole is so _very_ dark, and Lord only knows how long the ladder may be!
But we soon remark that this is not the only ladder descending into the
black eternity, for there are many, of from fifteen to twenty rounds
apiece, each standing upon a board capable of supporting a man, and from
which a new hole leads in turn to a new ladder. I first entered the
"Caroline," the dirtiest and most disagreeable Caroline with whom I ever
had the pleasure of becoming acquainted. The rounds of the ladders were
covered with wet mud. And from one ladder we descend to another with the
guide ever in advance, continually assuring us that there was no danger
so long as we held firmly to the rounds and did not look at our feet,
and that we must not for our lives tread on the side plank, where the
buzzing barrel-rope runs, and where two weeks ago a careless man was
knocked down, unfortunately breaking his neck by the fall. Far below is
a confused rustling and humming, and we continually bump against beams
and ropes which are in motion, winding up and raising barrels of broken
ore or of water. Occasionally we pass galleries hewn in the rock, called
"stulms," where the ore may be seen growing, and where some solitary
miner sits the livelong day, wearily hammering pieces from the walls. I
did not descend to those deepest depths where it is reported that the
people on the other side of the world, in America, may be heard crying,
"Hurrah for Lafayette!" Between ourselves, where I did go seemed to me
deep enough in all conscience; there was an endless roaring and
rattling, uncanny sounds of machinery, the rush of subterranean streams,
sickening clouds of ore-dust continually rising, water dripping on all
sides, and the miner's lamp gradually growing dimmer and dimmer. The
effect was really benumbing, I breathed with difficulty, and had trouble
in holding to the slippery rounds. It was not _fright_ which overpowered
me, but, oddly enough, down there in the depths, I remembered that a
year before, about the same time, I had been in a storm on the North
Sea, and I now felt that it would be an agreeable change could I feel
the rocking of the ship, hear the wind with its thunder-trumpet tones,
while amid its lulls sounded the hearty cry of the sailors, and all
above was freshly swept by God's own free air--yes, sir! Panting for
air, I rapidly climbed several dozens of ladders, and my guide led me
through a narrow and very long gallery toward the "Dorothea" mine. Here
it was airier and fresher, and the ladders were cleaner, though at the
same time longer and steeper, than in the "Caroline." I felt revived and
more cheerful, particularly as I again observed traces of human beings.
Far below I saw wandering, wavering lights; miners with their lamps came
upwards one by one with the greeting, "Good luck to you!" and, receiving
the same salutation from us, went onwards and upwards. Something like a
friendly and quiet, yet, at the same time, painful and enigmatical
recollection flitted across my mind as I met the deep glances and
earnest pale faces of these young and old men, mysteriously illuminated
by their lanterns, and thought how they had worked all day in lonely and
secret places in the mines, and how they now longed for the blessed
light of day and for the glances of wives and children.
My guide himself was an absolutely honest, thoroughly loyal German
specimen. With inward joy he pointed out to me the "place" where the
Duke of Cambridge, when he visited the mines, dined with all his train,
and where the long wooden table yet stands; with the accompanying great
chair, made of ore, in which the Duke sat. "This is to remain as an
eternal memorial," said the good miner, and he related with enthusiasm
how many festivities had then taken place, how the entire "stulm" had
been adorned with lamps, flowers, and decorations of leaves; how a miner
boy had played on the cithern and sung; how the dear, delighted, fat
Duke had drained many healths, and what a number of miners (himself
especially) would cheerfully die for the dear, fat Duke, and for the
whole house of Hanover. I am moved to my very heart when I see loyalty
thus manifested in all its natural simplicity. It is such a beautiful
sentiment, and such a purely _German_ sentiment! Other people may be
wittier, more intelligent, and more agreeable, but none is so faithful
as the real German race. Did I not know that fidelity is as old as the
world, I would believe that a German heart had invented it. German
fidelity is no modern "Yours very truly," or "I remain your humble
servant." In your courts, ye German princes, ye should cause to be sung,
and sung again, the old ballad of _The Trusty Eckhart and the Base
Burgund_ who slew Eckhart's seven children, and still found him
faithful. Ye have the truest people in the world, and ye err when ye
deem that the old, intelligent, trusty hound has suddenly gone mad, and
snaps at your sacred calves!
And, like German fidelity, the little mine-lamp has guided us
quietly and securely, without much flickering or flaring, through
the labyrinth of shafts and stulms. We ascend out of the gloomy
mountain-night--sunlight flashes around--"Good luck to you!"
Most of the miners dwell in Clausthal, and in the adjoining small town
of Zellerfeld. I visited several of these brave fellows, observed their
little households, heard many of their songs, which they skilfully
accompany with their favorite instrument, the cithern, and listened to
old mining legends, and to their prayers which they are accustomed to
offer daily in company ere they descend the gloomy shaft; and many a
good prayer did I offer up with them! One old climber even thought that
I ought to remain among them, and become a man of the mines; but as I
took my leave notwithstanding, he gave me a message to his brother, who
dwelt near Goslar, and many kisses for his darling niece.
Tranquil even to stagnation as the life of these people may appear, it
is, nevertheless, a real and vivid life. That ancient trembling crone
who sits behind the stove opposite the great clothes-press may have been
there for a quarter of a century, and all her thinking and feeling is,
beyond a doubt, intimately blended with every corner of the stove and
the carvings of the press. And clothes-press and stove _live_--for a
human being hath breathed into them a portion of her soul.
It was only in such deeply contemplative life as this, in such "direct
relationship" between man and the things of the outer world, that the
German fairy tale could originate, the peculiarity of which consists in
the fact that in it not only animals and plants, but also objects
apparently inanimate, speak and act. To thoughtful harmless people in
the quiet homeliness of their lowly mountain cabins or forest huts, the
inner life of these objects was gradually revealed; they acquired a
necessary and consistent character, a sweet blending of fantastic humor
and purely human sentiment, and thus we find in the fairy tale--as
something marvelous and yet at the same time quite natural--the pin and
the needle wandering forth from the tailor's home and losing their way
in the dark; the straw and the coal seeking to cross the brook and
coming to grief; the dust-pan and broom quarreling and fighting on the
stairs. Thus the mirror, when interrogated, shows the image of the
fairest lady, and even drops of blood begin to utter obscure and fearful
words of the deepest compassion. And this is the reason why our life in
childhood is so infinitely significant, for then all things are of the
same importance, nothing escapes our attention, there is equality in
every impression; while, when more advanced in years, we must act with
design, busy ourselves more exclusively with particulars, carefully
exchange the pure gold of observation for the paper currency of book
definitions, and win in _breadth_ of life what we lost in depth.
_Now,_ we are grown-up, respectable people, we often inhabit new
dwellings; the housemaid daily cleans them and changes at her will the
position of the furniture, which interests us but little, as it is
either new or may belong today to Jack, tomorrow to Isaac. Even our very
clothes are strange to us; we hardly know how many buttons there are on
the coat we wear--for we change our garments as often as possible, and
none of them remains deeply identified with our external or inner
history. We can hardly remember how that brown vest once looked, which
attracted so much laughter, and yet on the broad stripes of which the
dear hand of the loved one so gently rested!
The old dame who sat behind the stove opposite the clothes-press wore a
flowered dress of some old-fashioned material, which had been the bridal
robe of her departed mother. Her great-grandson, a fair-haired boy, with
flashing eyes, clad in a miner's dress, sat at her feet and counted the
flowers on her dress. It may be that she has narrated to him many a
story connected with that dress--many serious and pretty stories, which
the boy will not readily forget, which will often recur to him when he,
a grown-up man, works alone in the midnight galleries of the "Caroline,"
and which he in turn will narrate when the dear grandmother has long
been dead, and he himself, a silver-haired, tranquil old man, sits amid
the circle of _his_ grand-children behind the stove, opposite the great
clothes-press.
I lodged that night too in The Crown, where the Court Councilor B----,
of Goettingen, had arrived meanwhile, and I had the pleasure of paying my
respects to the old gentleman. After writing my name in the book of
arrivals, I turned over the leaves of the month of July and found
therein, among others, the much loved name of Adalbert von Chamisso, the
biographer of the immortal _Schlemihl_. The landlord remarked of
Chamisso that the gentleman had arrived during one terrible storm and
departed in another.
The next morning I had again to lighten my knapsack, and threw overboard
an extra pair of boots; then I arose and went on to Goslar, where I
arrived without knowing how. This much alone do I remember, that I
sauntered up hill and down dale, gazing upon many a lovely meadow vale;
silver waters rippled and murmured, sweet woodbirds sang, the bells of
the flocks tinkled, the many shaded green trees were gilded by the sun,
and, over all, the blue silk canopy of heaven was so transparent that
one could look through the depths even to the Holy of Holies, where
angels sit at the feet of God, studying thorough-bass in the features of
the eternal countenance. But I was all the time lost in a dream of the
previous night, which I could not banish from my thoughts. It was an
echo of the old legend--how a knight descended into a deep fountain
beneath which the fairest princess of the world lay buried in a
deathlike magic slumber. I myself was the knight, and the dark mine of
Clausthal was the fountain. Suddenly innumerable lights gleamed around
me, watchful dwarfs leapt from every cranny in the rocks, grimacing
angrily, cutting at me with their short swords, blowing shrilly on
horns, which summoned more and ever more of their comrades, and
frantically nodding their great heads. But as I hewed them down with my
sword the blood flowed, and I for the first time remarked that they were
not really dwarfs, but the red-blooming, long-bearded thistle-tops,
which I had the day before hewed down on the highway with my stick. At
last they all vanished, and I came to a splendid lighted hall, in the
midst of which stood my heart's loved one, veiled in white, and
immovable as a statue. I kissed her mouth, and then--O Heavens!--I felt
the blessed breath of her soul and the sweet tremor of her lovely lips.
It seemed that I heard the divine command, "Let there be light!" and a
dazzling flash of eternal light shot down, but at the same instant it
was again night, and all ran chaotically together into a wild turbulent
sea! A wild turbulent sea, indeed, over whose foaming waves the ghosts
of the departed madly chased one another, their white shrouds floating
in the wind, while behind all, goading them on with cracking whip, ran a
many-colored harlequin--and I was the harlequin! Suddenly from the black
waves the sea monsters raised their misshapen heads, snatched at me with
extended claws, and I awoke in terror.
Alas, how the finest fairy tales may be spoiled! The knight, in fact,
when he has found the sleeping princess, ought to cut a piece from her
priceless veil, and when, by his bravery, she has been awakened from her
magic sleep and is again seated on her golden throne in her palace, the
knight should approach her and say, "My fairest princess, dost thou not
know me?" Then she will answer, "My bravest knight, I know thee not!"
And then he shows her the piece cut from her veil, exactly fitting the
deficiency, and she knows that he is her deliverer, and both tenderly
embrace, and the trumpets sound, and the marriage is celebrated. It is
really a very peculiar misfortune that _my_ love-dreams so seldom have
so fine a conclusion.
[Illustration: OLD IMPERIAL PALACE, GOSLAR]
The name of Goslar rings so pleasantly, and there are so many very
ancient and imperial associations connected therewith, that I had hoped
to find an imposing and stately town. But it is always the same old
story when we examine celebrities too closely. I found a nest of houses,
drilled in every direction with narrow streets of labyrinthine
crookedness, and amid which a miserable stream, probably the Gose, winds
its sad and muddy way. The pavement of the town is as ragged as Berlin
hexameters. Only the antiquities which are imbedded in the frame or
mounting of the city--that is to say, its remnants of walls, towers, and
battlements--give the place a piquant look. One of these towers, known as
the "Zwinger," or donjonkeep, has walls of such extraordinary thickness
that entire rooms are excavated therein. The open place before the town,
where the world-renowned shooting matches are held, is a beautiful large
plain surrounded by high mountains. The market is small, and in its
midst is a spring fountain, the waters from which pours into a great
metallic basin. When an alarm of fire is raised, they strike several
times on this cup-formed basin, which gives out a very loud vibration.
Nothing is known of the origin of this work. Some say that the devil
placed it once during the night on the spot where it stands. In those
days people were as yet fools, nor was the devil any wiser, and they
mutually exchanged gifts.
The town hall of Goslar is a whitewashed guard-room. The Guildhall, hard
by, has a somewhat better appearance. In this building, equidistant from
roof and ceiling, stands the statues of German emperors. Blackened with
smoke and partly gilded, in one hand the sceptre, and in the other the
globe, they look like roasted college beadles. One of the emperors holds
a sword instead of a sceptre. I cannot imagine the reason of this
variation from the established order, though it has doubtless some
occult signification, as Germans have the remarkable peculiarity of
meaning something in whatever they do.
In Gottschalk's _Handbook_ I had read much of the very ancient
cathedral, and of the far-famed imperial throne at Goslar. But when I
wished to see these curiosities, I was informed that the church had been
torn down, and that the throne had been carried to Berlin. We live in
deeply significant times, when millennial churches are destroyed and
imperial thrones are tumbled into the lumber-room.
A few memorials of the late cathedral of happy memory are still
preserved in the church of St. Stephen. These consist of stained glass
pictures of great beauty, a few indifferent paintings, including a Lucas
Cranach, a wooden Christ crucified, and a heathen altar of some unknown
metal. The latter resembles a long square coffer, and is upheld by
caryatides, which in a bowed position hold their hands above their heads
in support, and are making the most hideous grimaces. But far more
hideous is the adjacent large wooden crucifix of which I have just
spoken. This head of Christ, with its real hair and thorns and
blood-stained countenance, represents, in the most masterly manner, the
death of a _man_--but not of a divinely-born Savior. Nothing but physical
suffering is portrayed in this image--not the sublime poetry of pain.
Such a work would be more appropriately placed in a hall of anatomy than
in a house of the Lord.
The sacristan's wife--an artistic expert--who led me about, showed me a
special rarity. This was a many-cornered, well-planed blackboard covered
with white numerals, which hung like a lamp in the middle of the
building. Oh, how brilliantly does the spirit of invention manifest
itself in the Protestant Church! For who would think it! The numbers on
this board are those of the Psalms for the day, which are generally
chalked on a common black tablet, and have a very sobering effect on an
esthetic mind, but which, in the form above described, even ornament the
church and fully make up for the want of pictures by Raphael. Such
progress delights me infinitely, since I, as a Protestant and a
Lutheran, am ever deeply chagrined when Catholic opponents ridicule the
empty, God-forsaken appearance of Protestant churches.
* * * * *
The churchyard at Goslar did not appeal to me very strongly, but a
certain very pretty blonde-ringleted head which peeped smilingly from a
parterre window _did_. After dinner I again sought out this fascinating
window, but, instead of a maiden, I beheld a glass containing white
bellflowers. I clambered up, stole the flowers, put them quietly in my
cap, and descended, unheeding the gaping mouths, petrified noses, and
goggle eyes, with which the people in the street, and especially the old
women, regarded this qualified theft. As I, an hour later, passed by the
same house, the beauty stood by the window, and, as she saw the flowers
in my cap, she blushed like a ruby and started back. This time I had
seen the beautiful face to better advantage; it was a sweet, transparent
incarnation of summer-evening breeze, moonshine, nightingale notes, and
rose perfume. Later, in the twilight hour, she was standing at the door.
I came--I drew near--she slowly retreated into the dark entry. I
followed, and, seizing her hand, said, "I am a lover of beautiful
flowers and of kisses, and when they are not given to me I steal them."
Here I quickly snatched a kiss, and, as she was about to flee, whispered
soothingly, "Tomorrow I leave this town, probably never to return." Then
I perceived a faint pressure of the lovely lips and of the little hand
and I--hurried smilingly away. Yes, I must smile when I reflect that
unconsciously I uttered the magic formula by which our red-and
blue-coated cavaliers more frequently win female hearts than by their
mustachioed attractiveness--"Tomorrow I leave, probably never to
return."
* * * * *
During the night which I passed at Goslar, a remarkably curious
occurrence befell me. Even now I cannot think of it without terror. I am
not cowardly by nature and Heaven knows that I have never experienced
any special anguish when, for example, a naked blade has sought to make
acquaintance with my nose or when I have lost my way at night in a wood
of ill repute, or when, at a concert, a yawning lieutenant has
threatened to swallow me--but _ghosts_ I fear almost as much as the
_Austrian Observer_[52]. What is fear? Does it originate in the brain or
in the emotions? This was a point which I frequently disputed with Dr.
Saul Ascher, when we accidentally met in the Cafe Royal in Berlin, where
for a long time I used to take dinner. The Doctor invariably maintained
that we feared anything, because we recognized it as fearful, by a
certain process of reasoning, for reason alone is an active power--the
emotions are not. While I ate and drank my fill, the Doctor continued to
demonstrate to me the advantages of reason. Toward the end of his
demonstration, he was accustomed to look at his watch and remark
conclusively, "Reason is the highest principle!" Reason! Never do I hear
this word without recalling Dr. Saul Ascher, with his abstract legs, his
tight-fitting transcendental-grey long coat, his forbidding icy face,
which could have served as frontispiece for a textbook of geometry. This
man, deep in the fifties, was a personified straight line. In his
striving for the positive, the poor man had, by dint of philosophizing,
eliminated all the splendid things from life, such as sunshine,
religion, and flowers, so that there remained nothing for him but the
cold positive grave. The Apollo Belvedere and Christianity were the two
special objects of his malice, and he had even published a pamphlet
against the latter, in which he had demonstrated its unreasonableness
and untenableness. In addition to this, he has written a great number of
books, in all of which _Reason_ shines forth in all its peculiar
excellence, and as the poor Doctor meant what he said in all
seriousness, he was, so far, deserving of respect. But the great joke
consisted precisely in this, that the Doctor invariably cut such a
seriously absurd figure when he could not comprehend what every child
comprehends, simply because it is a child. I visited the Doctor of
Reason several times in his own house, where I found him in company with
very pretty girls; for Reason, it seems, does not prohibit the enjoyment
of the things of this world. Once, however, when I called, his servant
told me the "Herr Doctor" had just died. I experienced as much emotion
on this occasion as if I had been told that the "Herr Doctor" had just
moved.
To return to Goslar. "The highest principle is Reason," said I
soothingly to myself, as I slid into bed. But it availed me nothing. I
had just been reading in Varnhagen von Ense's _German Tales,_ which I
had brought with me from Clausthal, that terrible story of the son who
went about to murder his father and was warned in the night by the ghost
of his mother. The wonderful truthfulness with which this story is
depicted, caused, while reading it, a shudder of horror in all my veins.
Ghost-stories invariably thrill us with additional horror when read
during a journey, and by night in a town, in a house, and in a room
where we have never been before. We involuntarily reflect, "How many
horrors may have been perpetrated on this very spot where I now lie!"
Meanwhile, the moon shone into my room in a doubtful, suspicious manner;
all kinds of uncalled-for shapes quivered on the walls, and as I raised
myself in bed and glanced fearfully toward them, I beheld--
There is nothing so uncanny as when a man accidentally sees his own face
by moonlight in a mirror. At the same instant there struck a
deep-booming, yawning bell, and that so slowly and wearily that after
the twelfth stroke I firmly believed that twelve full hours must have
passed and that it would begin to strike twelve all over again. Between
the last and next to the last tones, there struck in very abruptly, as
if irritated and scolding, another bell, which was apparently out of
patience with the slowness of its colleague. As the two iron tongues
were silenced, and the stillness of death sank over the whole house, I
suddenly seemed to hear, in the corridor before my chamber, something
halting and shuffling along, like the unsteady steps of an old man. At
last my door opened, and there entered slowly the late departed Dr. Saul
Ascher. A cold fever ran through me. I trembled like an ivy leaf and
scarcely dared to gaze upon the ghost. He appeared as usual, with the
same transcendental-grey long coat, the same abstract legs, and the same
mathematical face; only this latter was a little yellower than usual,
the mouth, which formerly described two angles of 22-1/2 degrees, was
pinched together, and the circles around the eyes had a somewhat greater
radius. Tottering, and supporting himself as usual upon his Malacca
cane, he approached me, and said in his usual drawling accent but in a
friendly manner, "Do not be afraid, nor believe that I am a ghost. It is
a deception of your imagination, if you believe that you see me as a
ghost. What is a ghost? Define one. Deduce for me the conditions of the
possibility of a ghost. What reasonable connection is there between such
an apparition and reason? Reason, I say, _Reason!"_ Here the ghost
proceeded to analyze reason, cited from Kant's _Critique of Pure
Reason_, part II, section I, book 2, chap. 3, the distinction between
phenomena and noumena, then went on to construct a hypothetical system
of ghosts, piled one syllogism on another, and concluded with the
logical proof that there are absolutely no ghosts. Meanwhile the cold
sweat ran down my back, my teeth clattered like castanets, and from very
agony of soul I nodded an unconditional assent to every assertion which
the phantom doctor alleged against the absurdity of being afraid of
ghosts, and which he demonstrated with such zeal that once, in a moment
of distraction, instead of his gold watch he drew a handful of
grave-worms from his vest-pocket, and remarking his error, replaced them
with a ridiculous but terrified haste. "Reason is the highest--!" Here
the clock struck _one_, but the ghost vanished.
The next morning I left Goslar and wandered along, partly at random, and
partly with the intention of visiting the brother of the Clausthal
miner. Again we had beautiful Sunday weather. I climbed hill and
mountain, saw how the sun strove to drive away the mists, and wandered
merrily through the quivering woods, while around my dreaming head rang
the bell-flowers of Goslar. The mountains stood in their white
night-robes, the fir-trees were shaking sleep out of their branching
limbs, the fresh morning wind curled their drooping green locks, the
birds were at morning prayers, the meadow-vale flashed like a golden
surface sprinkled with diamonds, and the shepherd passed over it with
his bleating flock.
* * * * *
After much circuitous wandering I came to the dwelling of the brother of
my Clausthal friend. Here I stayed all night and experienced the
following beautiful poem--
Stands the but upon the mountain
Where the ancient woodman dwells
There the dark-green fir-trees rustle,
Casts the moon its golden spells.
In the but there stands an arm-chair,
Richly carved and cleverly;
He who sits therein is happy,
And that happy man am I.
On the footstool sits a maiden,
On my lap her arms repose,
With her eyes like blue stars beaming,
And her mouth a new-born rose.
And the dear blue stars shine on me,
Wide like heaven's great arch their gaze;
And her little lily finger
Archly on the rose she lays.
Nay, the mother cannot see us,
For she spins the whole day long;
And the father plays the cithern
As he sings a good old song.
And the maiden softly whispers,
Softly, that none may hear;
Many a solemn little secret
Hath she murmured in my ear.
"Since I lost my aunt who loved me,
Now we never more repair
To the shooting-lodge at Goslar,
And it is so pleasant there!
"Here above it is so lonely,
On the rocks where cold winds blow;
And in winter we are always
Deeply buried in the snow.
"And I'm such a timid creature,
And I'm frightened like a child
At the evil mountain spirits,
Who by night are raging wild"
Silent falls the winsome maiden,
Frightened by her own surmise,
Little hands, so white and dimpled,
Pressing on her sweet blue eyes.
Louder now the fir-trees rustle,
Spinning-wheel more harshly drones;
In their pauses sounds the cithern,
And the old song's simple tones:
"Do not fear, my tender nursling,
Aught of evil spirits' might;
For good angels still are watching
Round thy pathway day and night."
Now the fir-tree's dark-green fingers
Tap upon the window low,
And the moon, a yellow listener,
Casts within her sweetest glow.
Father, mother, both are sleeping,
Near at hand their rest they take;
But we two, in pleasant gossip,
Keep each other long awake.
"That thou prayest much too often,
Seems unlikely, I declare;
On thy lips there is a quiver
Which was never born of prayer.
"Ah! that heartless, cold expression
All my being terrifies--
Though my darkling fear is lessened
By thy frank and honest eyes.
"Yet I doubt if thou believest
What is held for truth by most;
Hast thou faith in God the Father,
In the Son and Holy Ghost?"
"Ah, my darling! when an infant
By my mother's knee I stood,
I believed in God the Father,
In the Ruler great and good.
"He who made the world so lovely,
Gave man beauty, gave him force,
And to sun and moon and planets
Pre-appointed each its course.
"As I older grew, my darling,
And my way in wisdom won,
I in reason comprehended,
And believe now in the Son--
"In the well-loved Son, who, loving,
Oped the gates of Love so wide;
And for thanks--as is the custom--
By the world was crucified.
"Now, that I in full-grown manhood
Reading, travel, wisdom boast;
Still my heart expands, and, truly
I believe the Holy Ghost,
"Who bath worked the greatest wonders--
Greater still he'll work again;
He bath broken tyrants' strongholds,
Broken every vassal's chain.
"Ancient deadly wounds he healeth,
He renews man's ancient right;
All to him, born free and equal,
Are as nobles in his sight.
"Clouds of evil flee before him,
And those cobwebs of the brain
Which forbade us love and pleasure,
Scowling grimly on our pain.
"And a thousand knights in armor
Hath he chosen and required
To fulfil his holy bidding--
All with noblest zeal inspired.
"Lo! I their precious swords are gleaming,
And their banners wave in fight!
What! Thou fain would'st see, my darling,
Such a proud and noble knight?
"Well, then, gaze on me, my dearest;
I am of that lordly host,
Kiss me! and you kiss a chosen
Champion of the Holy Ghost!"
Silently the moon conceals her
Down behind the sombre trees,
And the lamp which lights our chamber
Flickers in the evening breeze.
But the starry eyes are beaming
Softly o'er the dimpled cheeks,
And the purple rose is glowing,
While the gentle maiden speaks.
"Little people--fairy goblins--
Steal away our meat and bread;
In the chest it lies at evening,
In the morning it has fled.
"From our milk the little people
Steal the cream and all the best;
Then they leave the dish uncovered,
And our cat drinks up the rest.
"And the cat's a witch, I'm certain,
For by night, when storms arise,
Oft she seeks the haunted hill-top
Where the fallen tower lies.
"There was once a splendid castle.
Home of joy and weapons bright,
Where there swept in stately pageant
Lady, page, and armed knight.
"But a sorceress charmed the castle,
With its lords and ladies fair;
Now it is a lonely ruin,
And the owls are nesting there.
"But my aunt hath often told me,
Could I speak the proper word,
In the proper place up yonder,
When the proper hour occurred,
"I should see the ruins changing
Swiftly to a castle bright,
And again in stately dances
Dame and page and gallant knight.
"He who speaks the word of power
Wins the castle for his own,
And the knight with drum and trumpet
Loud will hail him lord alone."
So the simple fairy pictures
From the little rose-mouth bloom,
And the gentle eyes are shedding
Star-blue lustre through the gloom.
Round my hand the little maiden
Winds her gold locks as she will,
Gives a name to every finger,
Kisses, smiles, and then is still.
All things in the silent chamber,
Seem at once familiar grown,
As if e'en the chairs and clothes-press,
Well of old to me were known.
Now the clock talks kindly, gravely,
And the cithern, as 'twould seem,
Of itself is faintly chiming,
And I sit as in a dream.
Now the proper hour is striking,
Here the charm should now be heard;
Child, how would'st thou be astonished,
Should I speak the magic word!
If I spoke that word, then fading
Night would thrill in fearful strife;
Trees and streams would roar together
As the mountains woke to life.
Ringing lutes and goblin ditties
From the clefted rock would sound,
Like a mad and merry spring-tide
Flowers grow forest-high around.
Thousand startling, wondrous flowers,
Leaves of vast and fabled form,
Strangely perfumed, wildly quivering,
As if thrilled with passion's storm.
In a crimson conflagration
Roses o'er the tumult rise;
Giant lilies, white as crystal,
Shoot like columns to the skies.
Great as suns, the stars above us
Gaze adown with burning glow;
Fill the lilies' cups gigantic
With their lights' abundant flow.
We ourselves, my little maiden,
Would be changed more than all;
Torchlight gleams o'er gold and satin
Round us merrily would fall.
Thou thyself would'st be the princess,
And this hut thy castle high;
Ladies, lords, and graceful pages
Would be dancing, singing by.
I, however, I have conquered
Thee, and all things, with the word!
Serfs and castle--lo! with trumpet
Loud they hail me as their Lord!
The sun rose. The mists flitted away like phantoms at the third crow of
the cock. Again I wandered up hill and down dale, while above me soared
the fair sun, ever lighting up new scenes of beauty. The Spirit of the
Mountain evidently favored me, well knowing that a "poetical character"
has it in his power to say many a fine thing of him, and on this morning
he let me see his Harz as it is not, most assuredly, seen by every one.
But the Harz also saw me as I am seen by few, and there were as costly
pearls on my eyelashes as on the grass of the valley. The morning dew of
love wet my cheeks; the rustling pines understood me; their twigs parted
and waved up and down, as if, like mute mortals, they would express
their joy with gestures of their hands, and from afar I heard beautiful
and mysterious chimes, like the sound of bells belonging to some hidden
forest church. People say that these sounds are caused by the
cattle-bells, which, in the Harz ring with remarkable clearness and
purity.
It was noon, according to the position of the sun, as I chanced upon
such a flock, and its shepherd, a friendly, light-haired young fellow,
told me that the great hill at whose base I stood was the old,
world-renowned Brocken. For many leagues around there is no house, and I
was glad enough when the young man invited me to share his meal. We sat
down to a _dejeuner dinatoire_, consisting of bread and cheese. The
sheep snatched up our crumbs, while pretty glossy heifers jumped around,
ringing their bells roguishly, and laughing at us with great merry eyes.
We made a royal meal, my host appearing to me every inch a king; and as
he is the only monarch who has ever given me bread, I will sing his
praises right royally:
Kingly is the herd-boy's calling,
On the knoll his throne is set,
O'er his hair the sunlight falling
Gilds a living coronet.
Red-marked sheep that bleat so loudly
Are his courtiers cross-bedight,
Calves that strut before him proudly
Seem each one a stalwart knight.
Goats are actors nimbly springing,
And the cows and warblers gay
With their bell and flute-notes ringing
Form the royal orchestra.
And whene'er the music hushes,
Soft the pine-tree murmurs creep;
Far away a cataract rushes--
Look, our noble king's asleep!
Meanwhile through the kingdom bounding
Rules the dog as minister,
Till his bark from cliffs rebounding
Echoes to the sleeper's ear.
Yawning syllables he utters--
"Ruling is too hard a task.
Were I but at home," he mutters,
"With my queen 'tis all I'd ask.
"On her arm my head reposes
Free from care, how happily!
And her loving glance discloses
Kingdom wide enough for me."[53]
We took leave of each other in a friendly manner, and with a light heart
I began to ascend the mountain. I was soon welcomed by a grove of
stately firs, for which I entertain great respect in every regard, for
these trees have not found growing to be such an easy business, and
during the days of their youth it fared hard with them. The mountain is
here sprinkled with a great number of blocks of granite, and most of the
trees were obliged either to twine their roots over the stones, or to
split them in two, and thus laboriously to search for the soil from
which to draw their nourishment. Here and there stones lie on top of one
another, forming, as it were, a gate, and over all rise the trees,
twining their naked roots down over the stone portals, and only laying
hold of the soil when they reach its base, so that they appear to be
growing in the air; and yet, as they have forced their way up to that
startling height and grown into one with the rocks, they stand more
securely than their comfortable comrades, who are rooted in the tame
forest soil of the level country. So it is in life with those great men
who have strengthened and established themselves by resolutely
overcoming the obstacles and hindrances of their early years. Squirrels
climbed amid the fir-twigs, while, beneath, yellow deer were quietly
grazing. I cannot comprehend, when I see such a noble, lovable animal,
how educated and refined people can take pleasure in hunting and killing
it. Such a creature was once more merciful than man, and suckled the
pining Schmerzenreich of the holy Genofeva. Most beautiful were the
golden sun-rays shooting through the dark-green of the firs. The roots
of the trees formed a natural stairway, and everywhere my feet
encountered swelling beds of moss, for the stones are here covered
foot-deep, as if with light-green velvet cushions. Everywhere a pleasant
freshness and the dreamy murmur of streams. Here and there we see water
rippling silver-clear amid the rocks, washing the bare roots and fibres
of trees. Bend down toward all this ceaseless activity and listen, and
you will hear, as it were, the mysterious history of the growth of the
plants, and the quiet pulsations of the heart of the mountain. In many
places the water jets strongly up amid rocks and roots, forming little
cascades. It is pleasant to sit in such places. There is such a
wonderful murmuring and rustling, the birds pour forth broken lovesick
strains, the trees whisper as if with a thousand maidens' tongues, the
odd mountain flowers peep up at us as if with a thousand maidens' eyes,
stretching out to us their curious, broad, drolly-scalloped leaves; the
sun-rays flash here and there in sport; the herbs, as though endowed
with reason, are telling one another their green legends; all seems
enchanted and it becomes more and more mysterious; an old, old dream is
realized--the loved one appears! Alas, that she so quickly vanishes!
The higher we ascend, so much the shorter and more dwarflike do the
fir-trees become, shrinking up, as it were, within themselves, until
finally only whortleberries, bilberries, and mountain herbs remain. It
is also sensibly colder. Here, for the first time, the granite boulders,
which are frequently of enormous size, become fully visible. These may
well have been the balls which evil spirits cast at one another on the
Walpurgis night, when the witches come riding hither on brooms and
pitchforks, when the mad, unhallowed revelry begins, as our credulous
nurses have told us, and as we may see it represented in the beautiful
Faust pictures of Master Retsch. Yes, a young poet, who, while
journeying from Berlin to Gottingen passed the Brocken on the first
evening in May, even noticed how certain ladies who cultivated
_belles-lettres_, were holding their esthetic tea-circle in a rocky
corner, how they comfortably read aloud the _Evening Journal_, how they
praised as universal geniuses their poetic billy-goats which hopped
bleating around their table, and how they passed a final judgment on all
the productions of German literature. But when they at last fell upon
_Ratcliff_ and _Almansor_, utterly denying to the author aught like
piety or Christianity, the hair of the youth rose on end, terror seized
him--I spurred my steed and rode onwards!
In fact, when we ascend the upper half of the Brocken, no one can well
help thinking of the amusing legends of the Blocksberg, and especially
of the great mystical German national tragedy of Doctor Faust. It ever
seemed to me that I could hear the cloven foot scrambling along behind,
and some one breathing humorously. And I verily believe that "Mephisto"
himself must breathe with difficulty when he climbs his favorite
mountain, for it is a road which is to the last degree exhausting, and I
was glad enough when I at last beheld the long-desired Brocken house.
[Illustration: "THE WITCHES DANCING GROUND"]
This house, as every one knows from numerous pictures, is situated on
the summit of the mountain, consists of a single story, and was erected
in the year 1800 by Count Stolberg-Wernigerode, in behalf of whom it is
managed as a tavern. On account of the wind and cold in winter its walls
are incredibly thick. The roof is low. From its midst rises a towerlike
observatory, and near the house lie two little out-buildings, one of
which in earlier times served as shelter to the Brocken visitors.
On entering the Brocken house, I experienced a somewhat unusual and
unreal sensation. After a long solitary journey amid rocks and pines,
the traveler suddenly finds himself in a house amid the clouds. Far
below lie cities, hills, and forests, while above he encounters a
curiously blended circle of strangers, by whom he is received, as is
usual in such assemblies, almost like an expected companion--half
inquisitively and half indifferently. I found the house full of guests,
and, as becomes a wise man, I first thought of the night, and of the
discomfort of sleeping on straw. With the voice of one dying I called
for tea, and the Brocken landlord was reasonable enough to perceive that
the sick gentleman must be provided with a decent bed. This he gave me
in a narrow room, where a young merchant--a long emetic in a brown
overcoat--had already established himself.
In the public room I found a full tide of bustle and animation. There
were students from different universities. Some of the newly arrived
were taking refreshments. Others, preparing for departure, buckled on
their knapsacks, wrote their names in the album, and received Brocken
bouquets from the housemaids. There was pinching of cheeks, singing,
springing, trilling; questions asked, answers given, fragments of
conversation such as--fine weather--footpath--_prosit_--luck be with
you!--Adieu! Some of those leaving were also partly drunk, and these
derived a twofold pleasure from the beautiful scenery, for a tipsy man
sees double.
After recruiting my strength I ascended the observatory, and there found
a little gentleman with two ladies, one of whom was young and the other
elderly. The young lady was very beautiful--a superb figure, flowing
locks, surmounted by a helm-like black satin _chapeau_, amid whose white
plumes the wind played; fine limbs, so closely enwrapped by a black silk
mantle that their exquisite form was made manifest, and great free eyes,
calmly looking down into the great free world.
When a boy I thought of naught save tales of magic and wonder, and every
fair lady who had ostrich feathers on her head I regarded as an elfin
queen. If I observed that the train of her dress was wet I believed at
once that she must be a water-fairy. Now I know better, having learned
from natural history that those symbolical feathers are found on the
most stupid of birds, and that the train of a lady's dress may become
wet in a very natural way. But if I had, with those boyish eyes, seen
the aforesaid young lady in the aforesaid position on the Brocken, I
would most assuredly have thought--"that is the fairy of the mountain,
and she has just uttered the charm which has caused every thing down
there to appear so wonderful." Yes, at the first glance from the Brocken
everything appears in a high degree marvelous. New impressions throng in
on every side, and these, varied and often contradictory, unite in our
soul in an as yet undefined uncomprehended sensation. If we succeed in
grasping the sensation in its conception we shall comprehend the
character of the mountain. This character is entirely German as regards
not only its advantages but also its defects. The Brocken is a German.
With German thoroughness he points out to us--sharply and accurately
defined as in a panorama--the hundreds of cities, towns, and villages
which are principally situated to the north, and all the mountains,
forests, rivers, and plains which extend endlessly in all directions.
But for this very reason everything appears like a sharply designed and
perfectly colored map, and nowhere is the eye gratified by really
beautiful landscapes--just as we German compilers, owing to the
honorable exactness with which we attempt to give all and everything,
never appear to think of giving the details in a beautiful manner.
[Illustration: THE BROCKEN INN ABOUT 1830]
The mountain, in consequence, has a certain calm, German, intelligent,
tolerant character, simply because he can see things so distant yet so
distinctly. And when such a mountain opens his giant eyes, it may be
that he sees somewhat more than we dwarfs, who with our weak eyes climb
over him. Many indeed assert that the Blocksberg is very Philistian, and
Claudius once sang "The Blocksberg is the lengthy Sir Philistine;" but
that was an error. On account of his bald head, which he occasionally
covers with a cloud-cap, the Blocksberg has indeed a somewhat Philistian
aspect, but this with him, as with many other great Germans, is the
result of pure irony; for it is notorious that he has his wild student
and fantastic periods, as, for instance, on the first night of May. Then
he casts his cloud-cap uproariously and merrily into the air, and
becomes, like the rest of us, romantic mad, in real German fashion.
I soon sought to entrap the beauty into a conversation, for we begin to
fully enjoy the beauties of nature only when we talk about them on the
spot.
* * * * *
While we conversed twilight stole, the air grew colder, the sun sank
lower and lower, and the tower platform was filled with students,
traveling mechanics, and a few honest citizens with their spouses and
daughters, all of whom were desirous of witnessing the sunset. It is
truly a sublime spectacle, which tunes the soul to prayer. For a full
quarter of an hour all stood in solemn silence, gazing on the beautiful
fire-ball as it gradually sank in the west; our faces were bathed in the
rosy light; our hands were involuntarily folded; it seemed as if we, a
silent congregation, stood in the nave of a giant cathedral, that the
priest raised the body of the Lord, and the Palestrina's immortal hymns
poured forth from the organ.
As I stood thus, lost in devotion, I heard some one near me exclaim,
"Ah, how beautiful Nature is, as a general thing!" These words came from
the sentimental heart of my room-mate, the young merchant. They brought
me back to my week-day frame of mind, and I was now able to say a few
neat things to the ladies about the sunset and to accompany them, as
calmly as if nothing had happened, to their room. They permitted me to
talk an hour longer with them. Our conversation, like the earth's
course, was about the sun. The mother declared that the sun, as it sank
in the snowy clouds, seemed like a red glowing rose, which the gallant
heaven had thrown upon the white outspreading bridal-veil of his loved
earth. The daughter smiled, and thought that a frequent observation of
such phenomena weakened their impression. The mother corrected this
error by a quotation from Goethe's _Letters of Travel_, and asked me if
I had read _Werther_. I believe that we also spoke of Angora cats,
Etruscan vases, Turkish shawls, maccaroni, and Lord Byron, from whose
poems the elder lady, daintly lisping and sighing, recited several
passages about the sunset. To the younger lady, who did not understand
English, and who wished to become familiar with those poems, I
recommended the translation of my fair and gifted countrywoman, the
Baroness Elise von Hohenhausen. On this occasion, as is my custom when
talking with young ladies, I did not fail to declaim against Byron's
godlessness, heartlessness, cheerlessness, and heaven knows what
besides.
After this business I took a walk on the Brocken, for there it is never
quite dark. The mist was not heavy, and I could see the outlines of the
two hills known as the Witch's Altar and the Devil's Pulpit. I fired my
pistol, but there was no echo. Suddenly, however, I heard familiar
voices and found myself embraced and kissed. The newcomers were
fellow-students from my own part of Germany, and had left Goettingen four
days later than I. Great was their astonishment at finding me again,
alone on the Blocksberg. Then came a flood tide of narrative, of
astonishment, and of appointment-making, of laughing, and of
recollecting, and in the spirit we found ourselves again in our learned
Siberia, where refinement is carried to such an extent that the bears
are tied up in the taverns, and the sables wish the hunter good
evening.[54]
In the great room we had supper. There was a long table, with two rows
of hungry students. At first we indulged in the usual topic of
university conversation--duels, duels, and once again duels. The company
consisted principally of Halle students, and Halle formed, in
consequence, the nucleus of their discourse. The window-panes of
Court-Councilor Schuetz were exegetically illuminated. Then it was
mentioned that the King of Cyprus' last levee had been very brilliant;
that the monarch had chosen a natural son; that he had married with the
left hand a princess of the house of Lichtenstein; that the
State-mistress had been forced to resign, and that the entire ministry,
greatly moved, had wept according to rule. I need hardly explain that
this all referred to certain beer dignitaries in Halle. Then the two
Chinese, who two years before had been exhibited in Berlin, and who were
now appointed lecturers on Chinese esthetics in Halle, were discussed.
Then jokes were made. Some one supposed a case in which a live German
might be exhibited for money in China, and to this end a placard was
fabricated, in which the mandarins Tsching-Tschang-Tschung and Hi-Ha-Ho
certified that the man was a genuine Teuton, including a list of his
accomplishments, which consisted principally of philosophizing, smoking,
and endless patience. It concluded with the notice that visitors were
prohibited from bringing any dogs with them at twelve o'clock (the hour
for feeding the captive), as these animals would be sure to snap from
the poor German all his titbits.
A young _Burschenschafter_, who had recently passed his period of
purification in Berlin, spoke much, but very partially, of this city. He
had frequented both Wisotzki and the theatre, but judged falsely of
both. "For youth is ever ready with a word," etc. He spoke of the
sumptuousness of the costumes, of scandals among actors and actresses,
and similar matters. The youth knew not that in Berlin, where outside
show exerts the greatest influence (as is abundantly evidenced by the
commonness of the phrase "so people do"), this ostentation must flourish
on the stage preeminently, and consequently that the special care of the
management must be for "the color of the beard with which a part is
played" and for the truthfulness of the costumes which are designed by
sworn historians and sewed by scientifically instructed tailors. And
this is indispensable. For if Maria Stuart wore an apron belonging to
the time of Queen Anne, the banker, Christian Gumpel, would with justice
complain that thereby all illusion was destroyed; and if Lord Burleigh
in a moment of forgetfulness should don the hose of Henry the Fourth,
then the War-Councilor Von Steinzopf's wife, _nee_ Lilienthau, would not
get the anachronism out of her head for the whole evening.... But little
as this young man had comprehended the conditions of the Berlin drama,
still less was he aware that the Spontini Janissary opera, with its
kettledrums, elephants, trumpets, and gongs, is a heroic means of
inspiring our enervated people with warlike enthusiasm--a means once
shrewdly recommended by Plato and Cicero. Least of all did the youth
comprehend the diplomatic significance of the ballet. It was with great
trouble that I finally made him understand that there was really more
political science in Hoguet's feet than in Buchholz's head, that all his
_tours de danse_ signified diplomatic negotiations, and that his every
movement hinted at state matters; as, for instance, when he bent forward
anxiously, stretching his hands out wide and grasping at the air, he
meant our Cabinet; that a hundred pirouettes on one toe without quitting
the spot alluded to the German Diet; that he was thinking of the lesser
princes when he tripped around with his legs tied; that he described the
European balance of power when he tottered hither and thither like a
drunken man; that he hinted at a Congress when he twisted his bended
arms together like a skein; and finally, that he sets forth our
altogether too great friend in the East, when, very gradually unfolding
himself, he rises on high, stands for a long time in this elevated
position, and then all at once breaks out into the most terrifying
leaps. The scales fell from the eyes of the young man, and he now saw
how it was that dancers are better paid than great poets, and why the
ballet forms in diplomatic circles an inexhaustible subject of
conversation. By Apis! how great is the number of the esoteric, and how
small the array of the esoteric frequenters of the theatre! There sit
the stupid audience, gaping and admiring leaps and attitudes, studying
anatomy in the positions of Lemiere, and applauding the _entrechats_ of
Roehnisch, prattling of "grace," "harmony," and "limbs"--no one remarking
meanwhile that he has before him in chronological ciphers the destiny of
the German Fatherland.
* * * * *
The company around the table gradually became better acquainted and much
noisier. Wine banished beer, punch-bowls steamed, songs were sung, and
brotherhood was drunk in true student fashion. The old "Landsfather
toast" and the beautiful songs of W. Mueller, Rueckert, Uhland, and others
rang out with the exquisite airs of Methfessel. Best of all sounded our
own Arndt's German words, "The Lord, who bade iron grow, wished for no
slaves." And out of doors it roared as if the old mountain sang with us,
and a few reeling friends even asserted that he merrily shook his bald
head, which caused the great unsteadiness of the floor of our room.
* * * * *
During this crazy scene, in which plates learned to dance and glasses to
fly, there sat opposite me two youths, beautiful and pale as statues,
one resembling Adonis, the other Apollo. The faint rosy hue which the
wine spread over their cheeks was scarcely noticeable. They gazed on
each other with infinite affection, as if the one could read in the eyes
of the other, and in those eyes there was a light as though drops of
light had fallen therein from the cup of burning love, which an angel on
high bears from one star to the other. They conversed softly with
earnest trembling voices, and narrated sad stories, through all of which
ran a tone of strange sorrow. "Lora is dead now too!" said one, and,
sighing, proceeded to tell of a maiden of Halle who had loved a student,
and who, when the latter left Halle, spoke no more to any one, ate but
little, wept day and night, gazing over on the canary-bird which her
lover had given her. "The bird died, and Lora did not long survive it,"
was the conclusion, and both the youths sighed as though their hearts
would break. Finally the other said, "My soul is sorrowful; come forth
with me into the dark night! Let me inhale the breath of the clouds and
the moon-rays. Companion of my sorrow! I love thee; thy words are
musical, like the rustling of reeds and the flow of rivulets; they
reecho in my breast, but my soul is sad!"
Both of the young men arose. One threw his arm around the neck of the
other, and thus they left the noisy room. I followed, and saw them enter
a dark chamber, where the one by mistake, instead of the window, threw
open the door of a large wardrobe, and both, standing before it with
outstretched arms, expressing poetic rapture, spoke alternately. "Ye
breezes of darkening night," cried the first, "how ye cool and revive my
cheeks! How sweetly ye play amid my fluttering locks! I stand on the
cloudy peak of the mountain; far below me lie the sleeping cities of
men, and blue waters gleam. List! far below in the valley rustle the
fir-trees! Far above yonder hills sweep in misty forms the spirits of
our fathers. Oh, that I could hunt with ye on your cloud-steeds through
the stormy night, over the rolling sea, upwards to the stars! Alas! I am
laden with grief, and my soul is sad!" Meanwhile, the other had also
stretched out _his_ arms toward the wardrobe, while tears fell from his
eyes as he cried to a pair of yellow leather pantaloons which he mistook
for the moon, "Fair art thou, daughter of heaven! Lovely and blessed is
the calm of thy countenance. Thou walkest in loveliness! The stars
follow thy blue path in the east! At thy glance the clouds rejoice, and
their dark forms gleam with light. Who is like unto thee in heaven, thou
the night-born? The stars are ashamed before thee, and turn away their
sparkling eyes. Whither, ah, whither, when morning pales thy face, dost
thou flee from thy path? Hast thou, like me, thy Halle? Dwellest thou
amid shadows of sorrow? Have thy sisters fallen from heaven? Are they
who joyfully rolled with thee through the night now no more? Yea, they
have fallen down, oh! lovely light, and thou hidest thyself often to
bewail them! Yet the night must come at last when thou too will have
passed away, and left thy blue path above in heaven. Then the stars,
that were once ashamed in thy presence, will raise their green heads and
rejoice. But now art clothed in thy beaming splendor and gazest down
from the gate of heaven. Tear aside the clouds, oh! ye winds, that the
night-born may shine forth and the bushy hills gleam, and that the
foaming waves of the sea may roll in light!"
* * * * *
I can bear a tolerable quantity--modesty forbids me to say how many
bottles--and I consequently retired to my chamber in tolerably good
condition. The young merchant already lay in bed, enveloped in his
chalk-white night-cap and saffron yellow night-shirt of sanitary
flannel. He was not asleep, and sought to enter into conversation with
me. He was from Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and consequently spoke at once of
the Jews, declared that they had lost all feeling for the beautiful and
noble, and that they sold English goods twenty-five per cent. under
manufacturers' prices. A fancy to humbug him came over me, and I told
him that I was a somnambulist, and must beforehand beg his pardon should
I unwittingly disturb his slumbers. This intelligence, as he confessed
the following day, prevented him from sleeping a wink through the whole
night, especially since the idea had entered his head that I, while in a
somnambulistic state, might shoot him with the pistol which lay near my
bed. But in truth I fared no better myself, for I slept very little.
Dreary and terrifying fancies swept through my brain....
From this confusion I was rescued by the landlord of the Brocken, when
he awoke me to see the sun rise. On the tower I found several people
already waiting, and rubbing their freezing hands; others, with sleep
still in their eyes, stumbled up to us, until finally the whole silent
congregation of the previous evening was reassembled, and we saw how,
above the horizon, there rose a little carmine-red ball, spreading a
dim, wintry light. Far around, amid the mists, rose the mountains, as if
swimming in a white rolling sea, only their summits being visible, so
that we could imagine ourselves standing on a little hill in the midst
of an inundated plain, in which here and there rose dry clods of earth.
To retain what I saw and felt, I sketched the following poem:
In the east 'tis ever brighter,
Though the sun gleams fitfully;
Far and wide the mountain summits
Swim above the misty sea.
Had I seven-league boots for travel,
Like the fleeting winds I'd rove
Over valley, rock, and river,
To the home of her I love.
From the bed where now she's sleeping
Soft the curtain I would slip;
Softly kiss her childlike forehead,
Kiss the ruby of her lip.
Yet more softly would I whisper
In the little lily ear,
"Think in dreams we still are loving,
Think I never lost thee, dear."
Meanwhile my longing for breakfast was also great, and, after paying a
few compliments to my ladies, I hastened down to drink coffee in the
warm public room. It was full time, for all within me was as sober and
as sombre as in the St. Stephen's Church at Goslar. But with the Arabian
beverage, the warm Orient thrilled through my limbs, Eastern roses
breathed forth their perfumes, sweet bulbul songs resounded, the
students were changed to camels, the Brocken housemaids, with their
Congreverocket-glances, became _houris_, the Philistine noses, minarets,
etc.
But the book which lay near me, though full of nonsense, was not the
Koran. It was the so-called "Brocken-book," in which all travelers who
ascend the mountain write their names--most inscribing their thoughts,
or, in default thereof, their "feelings." Many even express themselves
in verse. In this book one may observe the horrors which result when the
great Philistine host on opportune occasions, such as this on the
Brocken, becomes poetic. The palace of the Prince of Pallagonia never
contained such absurdities as are to be found in this book. Those who
shine in it with especial splendor are Messrs. the excise collectors,
with their moldy "high inspirations;" counter-jumpers, with their
pathetic outgushings of the soul; old German revolution dilettanti with
their Turner-Union phrases, and Berlin school-masters with their
unsuccessful efforts at enthusiasm. Mr. Snobbs will also for once show
himself as author. In one page the majestic splendor of the sunrise is
described, in another complaints occur of bad weather, of disappointed
hopes, and of the mists which obstruct the view. A "Caroline" writes
that in climbing the mountain her feet got wet, to which a naive
"Nanny," who was impressed by this, adds, "I too, got wet while doing
this thing." "Went up wet without and came down wet within," is a
standing joke, repeated in the book hundreds of times. The whole volume
smells of beer, tobacco and cheese; we might fancy it one of Clauren's
novels.
* * * * *
And now the students prepared to depart. Knapsacks were buckled, the
bills, which were moderate beyond all expectation, were settled, the
susceptible housemaids, upon whose countenances the traces of successful
amours were plainly visible, brought, as is their custom, their
Brocken-bouquets, and helped some to adjust their caps; for all of which
they were duly rewarded with either kisses or coppers. Thus we all went
down the mountain, albeit one party, among whom were the Swiss and
Greifswalder, took the road toward Schierke, and the others, about
twenty men, among whom were my fellow "countrymen" and myself, led by a
guide, went through the so-called "Snow Holes" down to Ilsenburg.
Such a head-over-heels, break-neck piece of business! Halle students
travel quicker than the Austrian militia. Ere I knew where I was, the
bald summit of the mountain, with groups of stones strewed over it, was
behind us, and we went through the fir-wood which I had seen the day
before. The sun poured down a cheerful light on the merry Burschen, in
gaily colored garb, as they merrily pressed onward through the wood,
disappearing here, coming to light again there, running across marshy
places on trunks of trees, climbing over shelving steeps by grasping the
projecting tree-roots; while they thrilled all the time in the merriest
manner and received as joyous an answer from the twittering wood-birds,
the invisibly plashing rivulets, and the resounding echo. When cheerful
youth and beautiful nature meet, they mutually rejoice.
[Illustration: THE FALLS OF THE ILSE]
The lower we descend the more delightfully did subterranean waters
ripple around us; only here and there they peeped out amid rocks and
bushes, appearing to be reconnoitring if they might yet come to light,
until at last one little spring jumped forth boldly. Then followed the
usual show--the bravest one makes a beginning, and then to their own
astonishment the great multitude of hesitators, suddenly inspired with
courage, rush forth to join the first. Myriads of springs now leaped in
haste from their ambush, united with the leader, and finally formed
quite an important brook, which, with its innumerable waterfalls and
beautiful windings, ripples down the valley. This is now the Ilse--the
sweet, pleasant Ilse. She flows through the blest Ilse vale, on whose
sides the mountains gradually rise higher and higher, being clad even to
their base with beech-trees, oaks, and the usual shrubs, the firs and
other needle-covered evergreens having disappeared; for that variety of
trees grows preferably upon the "Lower Harz," as the east side of the
Brocken is called in contradistinction to the west side or Upper Harz.
Being in reality much higher, it is therefore better adapted to the
growth of evergreens.
It is impossible to describe the merriment, simplicity, and charm with
which the Ilse leaps down over the fantastically shaped rocks which rise
in her path, so that the water strangely whizzes or foams in one place.
amid rifted rocks, and in another pours forth in perfect arches through
a thousand crannies, as if from a giant watering-pot, and then, lower
down, trips away again over the pebbles like a merry maiden. Yes, the
old legend is true; the Ilse is a princess, who, in the full bloom of
youth, runs laughing down the mountain side. How her white foam garment
gleams in the sunshine! How her silvered scarf flutters in the breeze!
How her diamonds flash! The high beech-trees gaze down on her like grave
fathers secretly smiling at the capricious self-will of a darling child;
the white birch-trees nod their heads like delighted aunts, who are,
however, anxious at such bold leaps; the proud oak looks on like a not
over-pleased uncle, who must pay for all the fine weather; the birds
joyfully sing their applause; the flowers on the bank whisper, "Oh, take
us with thee, take us with thee, dear sister!" But the merry maiden may
not be withheld, and she leaps onward and suddenly seizes the dreaming
poet, and there streams over me a flower-rain of ringing gleams and
flashing tones, and my senses are lost in all the beauty and splendor,
and I hear only the voice, sweet pealing as a flute--
I am the Princess Ilse,
And dwell in Ilsenstein;
Come with me to my castle,
Thou shalt be blest--and mine!
With ever-flowing fountains
I'll cool thy weary brow;
Thou'lt lose amid their rippling
The cares which grieve thee now.
In my white arms reposing,
And on my snow-white breast,
Thou'lt dream of old, old legends,
And sing in joy to rest.
I'll kiss thee and caress thee,
As in the ancient day
I kissed the Emperor Henry,
Who long has passed away.
The dead are dead and silent,
Only the living love;
And I am fair and blooming--
Dost feel my wild heart move!
And as my heart is beating,
My crystal castle rings,
Where many a knight and lady
In merry measure springs.
Silk trains are softly rustling,
Spurs ring from night to morn,
And dwarfs are gaily drumming,
And blow the golden horn.
As round the Emperor Henry,
My arms round thee shall fall;
I held his ears--he heard not
The trumpet's warning call.
We feel infinite happiness when the outer world blends with the world of
our own soul, and green trees, thoughts, the songs of birds, gentle
melancholy, the blue of heaven, memory, and the perfume of herbs, run
together in sweet arabesques. Women best understand this feeling, and
this may be the cause that such a sweet incredulous smile plays around
their lips when we, with scholastic pride, boast of our logical
deeds--how we have classified everything so nicely into subjective and
objective; how our heads are provided, apothecary-like, with a thousand
drawers, one of which contains reason, another understanding, the third
wit, the fourth bad wit, and the fifth nothing at all--that is to say,
the _Idea_.
As if wandering in dreams, I scarcely observed that we had left the
depths of the Ilsethal and were now again climbing uphill. This was
steep and difficult work, and many of us lost our breath; but, like our
late lamented cousin, who now lies buried at Moelln, we thought in
advance of the descent, and were all the merrier in consequence. Finally
we reached the Ilsenstein.
This is an enormous granite rock, which rises boldly on high from out a
glen. On three sides it is surrounded by high woody hills, but on the
fourth, the north side, there is an open view, and we gazed past the
Ilsenburg and the Ilse lying below us, far away into the low lands. On
the towerlike summit of the rock stands a great iron cross, and in case
of need there is also room here for four human feet. And as Nature,
through picturesque position and form, has adorned the Ilsenstein with
fantastic charms, so legend likewise has shed upon it a rosy shimmer.
According to Gottschalk, "People say that there once stood here an
enchanted castle, in which dwelt the rich and fair Princess Ilse, who
still bathes every morning in the Ilse. He who is fortunate enough to
hit upon the exact time and place will be led by her into the rock where
her castle lies and receive a royal reward." Others narrate a pleasant
legend of the lovers of the Lady Ilse and of the Knight of Westenberg,
which has been romantically sung by one of our most noted poets in the
_Evening Journal_. Others again say that it was the Old Saxon Emperor
Henry who had a royal good time with the water-nymph Ilse in her
enchanted castle.
A later author, one Niemann, Esq., who has written a _Guide to the Harz_
in which the height of the hills, variations of the compass, town
finances, and similar matters are described with praiseworthy accuracy,
asserts, however, that "what is narrated of the Princess Ilse belongs
entirely to the realm of fable." Thus do all men speak to whom a
beautiful princess has never appeared; but we who have been especially
favored by fair ladies know better. And the Emperor Henry knew it too!
It was not without cause that the Old Saxon emperors were so attached to
their native Harz. Let any one only turn over the leaves of the fair
_Lueneburg Chronicle,_ where the good old gentlemen are represented in
wondrously true-hearted woodcuts sitting in full armor on their mailed
war-steeds, the holy imperial crown on their beloved heads, sceptre and
sword in firm hands; and then in their dear mustachiod faces he can
plainly read how they often longed for the sweet hearts of their Harz
princesses, and for the familiar rustling of the Harz forests, when they
sojourned in distant lands--yes, even when in Italy, so rich in oranges
and poisons, whither they, with their followers, were often enticed by
the desire of being called Roman emperors, a genuine German lust for
title, which finally destroyed emperor and empire.
I, however, advise every one who may hereafter stand on the summit of
the Ilsenstein to think neither of emperor nor empire nor of the fair
Ilse, but simply of his own feet. For as I stood there, lost in thought,
I suddenly heard the subterranean music of the enchanted castle, and saw
the mountains around begin to stand on their heads, while the red-tiled
roofs of Ilsenburg were dancing, and green trees flew through the air,
until all was green and blue before my eyes, and I, overcome by
giddiness, would assuredly have fallen into the abyss, had I not, in the
dire need of my soul, clung fast to the iron cross. No one who reflects
on the critically ticklish situation in which I was then placed can
possibly find fault with me for having done this.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM ST. ANDREASBERG]
* * * * *
BOYHOOD DAYS[55]
By Heinrich Heine
Translated by Charles Godfrey Leland
The town of Duesseldorf is very beautiful, and if you think of it when
far away, and happen at the same time to have been born there, strange
feelings come over your soul. I was born there, and feel as if I must go
straight home. And when I say _home_ I mean the _Bolkerstrasse_ and the
house in which I was born. This house will some day be a great
curiosity, and I have sent word to the old lady who owns it that she
must not for her life sell it. For the whole house she would now hardly
get as much as the tips which the distinguished green-veiled English
ladies will one day give the servant girl when she shows them the room
where I was born, and the hen-house wherein my father generally
imprisoned me for stealing grapes, and also the brown door on which my
mother taught me to write with chalk--O Lord! Madame, should I ever
become a famous author, it has cost my poor mother trouble enough.
(1823-1826)
But my fame as yet slumbers in the marble quarries of Carrara; the
waste-paper laurel with which they have bedecked my brow has not yet
spread its perfume through the wide world, and the green-veiled English
ladies, when they come to Duesseldorf as yet leave the celebrated house
unvisited, and go directly to the market-place and there gaze on the
colossal black equestrian statue which stands in its midst. This is
supposed to represent the Prince Elector, Jan Wilhelm. He wears black
armor and a long wig hanging down his back. When a boy, I heard the
legend that the artist who made this statue became aware, to his
horror, while it was being cast, that he had not metal enough to fill
the mold, and then all the citizens of the town came running with all
their silver spoons, and threw them in to make up the deficiency; and I
often stood for hours before the statue wondering how many spoons were
concealed in it, and how many apple-tarts the silver would buy.
Apple-tarts were then my passion--now it is love, truth, liberty, and
crab-soup--and not far from the statue of the Prince Elector, at the
theatre corner, generally stood a curiously constructed bow-legged
fellow with a white apron, and a basket girt around him full of
delightfully steaming apple-tarts, whose praises he well knew how to
call out in an irresistible high treble voice, "Here you are! hot
apple-tarts! just from the oven--smelling deliciously!" Truly, whenever
in my later years the Evil One sought to get the better of me, he always
spoke in just such an enticing high treble voice, and I should certainly
have never remained twelve full hours with the Signora Giulietta, if she
had not thrilled me with her sweet perfumed apple-tart tones. And, in
fact, the apple-tarts would never have so sorely tempted me if the
crooked Hermann had not covered them up so mysteriously with his white
apron; and it is aprons, you know, which--but I wander from the subject.
I was speaking of the equestrian statue which has so many silver spoons
in it, and no soup, and which represents the Prince Elector, Jan
Wilhelm.
He was a brave gentleman, 'tis reported, a lover of art and handy
therein himself. He founded the picture-gallery in Duesseldorf; and in
the observatory there, they still show us an extremely artistic piece of
work, consisting of one wooden cup within another which he himself had
carved in his leisure hours, of which latter he had every day
four-and-twenty.
[Illustration: JOHANN WILHELM MONUMENT, DUeSSELDORF]
In those days princes were not the harassed creatures they now are.
Their crowns grew firmly on their heads, and at night they drew
nightcaps over them besides and slept in peace, and their people
slumbered calmly at their feet; and when they awoke in the morning they
said, "Good morning, father!" and the princes replied, "Good morning,
dear children!"
But there came a sudden change over all this, for one morning when we
awoke in Duesseldorf and wanted to say, "Good morning, father!" the
father had traveled away, and in the whole town there was nothing but
dumb sorrow. Everywhere there was a sort of funereal atmosphere, and
people crept silently through the market and read the long placard
placed on the door of the City Hall. The weather was dark and lowering,
yet the lean tailor Kilian stood in the nankeen jacket, which he
generally wore only at home, and in his blue woolen stockings, so that
his little bare legs peeped out dismally, and his thin lips quivered as
he murmured the words of the placard to himself. An old invalid soldier
from the Palatine read it in a somewhat louder tone, and at certain
phrases a transparent tear ran down his white, honorable old mustache. I
stood near him, and wept with him, and then asked why we wept; and he
replied, "The Prince Elector has abdicated." Then he read further, and
at the words "for the long-manifested fidelity of my subjects," "and
hereby release you from your allegiance," he wept still more. It is a
strange sight to see, when so old a man, in faded uniform, with a
scarred veteran's face, suddenly bursts into tears. While we read, the
Princely Electoral coat-of-arms was being taken down from the City Hall,
and everything began to appear as oppressively desolate as though we
were waiting for an eclipse of the sun. The city councilors went about
at an abdicating, slow gait; even the omnipotent beadle looked as though
he had had no more commands to give, and stood calmly indifferent,
although the crazy Aloysius again stood upon one leg and chattered the
names of French generals, with foolish grimaces, while the tipsy,
crooked Gumpertz rolled around the gutter, singing, "Ca ira! Ca ira!"
But I went home, weeping and lamenting because "the Prince Elector had
abdicated!" My mother tried hard to comfort me, but I would hear
nothing. I knew what I knew, and went weeping to bed, and in the night
dreamed that the world had come to an end--that all the fair flower
gardens and green meadows were taken up from the ground and rolled away,
like carpets; that a beadle climbed up on a high ladder and took down
the sun, and that the tailor Kilian stood by and said to himself, "I
must go home and dress myself neatly, for I am dead and am to be buried
this afternoon." And it grew darker and darker--a few stars glimmered
meagrely on high, and these too, at length, fell down like yellow leaves
in autumn; one by one all men vanished, and I, poor child, wandered
around in anguish, and finally found myself before the willow fence of a
deserted farmhouse, where I saw a man digging up the earth with a spade,
and near him an ugly, spiteful-looking woman, who held something in her
apron like a human head--but it was the moon, and she laid it carefully
in the open grave--and behind me stood the Palatine invalid, sighing,
and spelling out "The Prince Elector has abdicated."
When I awoke the sun shone as usual through the window, there was a
sound of drums in the street, and as I entered the sitting-room and said
"good morning" to my father, who was sitting in his white dressing-gown,
I heard the little light-footed barber, as he dressed his hair, narrate
very minutely that allegiance would be sworn to the Grande Duke Joachim
that morning at the City Hall. I heard, too, that the new ruler was of
excellent family, that he had married the sister of the Emperor
Napoleon, and was really a very respectable man; that he wore his
beautiful black hair in flowing locks, that he would shortly make his
entrance into the town, and, in fine, that he was sure to please all the
ladies. Meanwhile the drumming in the streets continued, and I went out
before the house-door and looked at the French troops marching in that
joyous people of glory, who, singing and playing, swept over the world,
the serious and yet merry-faced grenadiers, the bear-skin shakoes, the
tri-colored cockades, the glittering bayonets, the _voltigeurs_, full of
vivacity and _point d'honneur_, and the omnipotent giant-like
silver-laced tambour major, who could cast his _baton_ with a gilded
head as high as the first story, and his eyes even to the second, where
also there were pretty girls sitting at the windows. I was so glad that
soldiers were to be quartered in our house--in which my mother differed
from me--and I hastened to the market-place. There everything looked
changed, somewhat as though the world had been newly whitewashed. A new
coat-of-arms was placed on the City Hall, its iron balconies were hung
with embroidered velvet drapery. French grenadiers stood as sentinels;
the old city councilors had put on new faces, and donned their Sunday
coats, and looked at each other Frenchily, and said, "_Bonjour!_" Ladies
gazed from every window, curious citizens and glittering soldiers filled
the square, and I, with other boys, climbed on the great bronze horse of
the Prince Elector, and thence stared down on the motley crowd.
Our neighbors, Pitter and the tall Kunz, nearly broke their necks in
accomplishing this feat, and it would have been better if they had been
killed outright, for the one afterwards ran away from his parents,
enlisted as a soldier, deserted, and was finally shot at Mayence; while
the other, having made geographical researches in strange pockets, was
on this account elected active member of a public treadmill institute.
But having broken the iron bands which bound him to the latter and to
his fatherland, he safely crossed the channel, and eventually died in
London through wearing an all too tight neck-tie which automatically
drew together, when a royal official removed a plank from beneath his
feet.
Tall Kunz told us that there was no school today on account of the
ceremonies connected with taking the oath of allegiance. We had to wait
a long time ere these commenced. Finally, the balcony of the City Hall
was filled with gaily dressed gentlemen, with flags and trumpets, and
our burgomaster, in his celebrated red coat, delivered an oration, which
stretched out like Indian rubber, or like a knitted nightcap into which
one has thrown a stone--only that it was not the philosopher's
stone--and I could distinctly understand many of his phrases--for
instance, that "we are now to be made happy;" and at the last words the
trumpets sounded out, the flags were waved, the drums were beaten, the
people cried, Hurrah! and while I myself cried hurrah, I held fast to
the old Prince Elector. And it was really necessary that I should, for I
began to grow giddy. It seemed to me as if the people were standing on
their heads, because the world whizzed around, while the old Prince
Elector, with his long wig, nodded and whispered, "Hold fast to me!" and
not till the cannon reechoed along the wall did I become sobered, and
climbed slowly down from the great bronze horse.
As I went home, I saw the crazy Aloysius again dancing on one leg, while
he chattered the names of French generals, and I also beheld crooked
Gumpertz rolling in the gutter and growling, "Ca ira, ca ira," and I
said to my mother, "We are all to be made happy; on that account there
is no school today."
II
The next day the world was again all in order, and we had school as
before, and things were learned by heart as before--the Roman kings,
dates, the _nomina_ in _im_, the _verba irregularia_, Greek, Hebrew,
geography, German, mental arithmetic--Lord! my head is still giddy with
it!--all had to be learned by heart. And much of it was eventually to my
advantage; for had I not learned the Roman kings by heart, it would
subsequently have been a matter of perfect indifference to me whether
Niebuhr had or had not proved that they never really existed. And had I
not learned those dates, how could I ever, in later years, have found
out any one in big Berlin, where one house is as like another as drops
of water or as grenadiers, and where it is impossible to find a friend
unless you have the number of his house in your head! At that time I
associated with every acquaintance some historical event, which had
happened in a year corresponding to the number of his house, so that the
one recalled the other, and some curious point in history always
occurred to me whenever I met any one whom I visited. For instance, when
I met my tailor, I at once thought of the battle of Marathon; when I saw
the well-groomed banker, Christian Gumpel, I immediately remembered the
destruction of Jerusalem; when I caught sight of a Portuguese friend,
deeply in debt, I thought at once of the flight of Mahomet; when I met
the university judge, a man whose probity is well known, I thought of
the death of Haman; and as soon as I laid eyes on Wadzeck, I was at once
reminded of Cleopatra. Ah, heaven! the poor creature is dead now; our
tears are dry, and we may say of her with Hamlet, "Taken all in all, she
was an old woman; we oft shall look upon her like again!" But, as I
said, dates are necessary. I know men who had nothing in their heads but
a few dates, and with their aid knew where to find the right houses in
Berlin, and are now already regular professors. But oh, the trouble I
had at school with the multitude of numbers; and as to actual
arithmetic, that was even worse! I understood best of all subtraction,
and for this there is a very practical rule: "Four can't be taken from
three, therefore I must borrow one"; but I advise all in such a case to
borrow a few extra groschen, for no one can tell what may happen.
But oh, the Latin! Madame, you can really have no idea of how
complicated it is. The Romans would never have found time to conquer the
world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin. Lucky dogs! they
already knew in their cradles which nouns have their accusative in _im_.
I, on the contrary, had to learn them by heart, in the sweat of my brow,
but still it is well that I know them. For if I, for example, when I
publicly disputed in Latin in the College Hall of Goettingen, on the 20th
of July, 1825--Madame, it was well worth while to hear it--if I on that
occasion had said _sinapem_ instead of _sinapim_, the blunder would have
been evident to the Freshmen, and an endless shame for me. _Vis, buris,
sitis, tussis, cucumis, amussis, cannabis, sinapis_--these words, which
have attracted so much attention in the world, effected this, inasmuch
as they belonged to a distinct class, and yet withal remained an
exception; therefore I highly respect them, and the fact that I have
them ready at my fingers' ends when I perhaps need them in a hurry,
often affords me in life's darkened hours much internal tranquillity and
consolation. But, Madame, the _verba irregularia_--they are
distinguished from the _verbis regularibus_ by the fact that the boys in
learning them got more whippings--are terribly difficult. In the musty
archways of the Franciscan cloister near our schoolroom there hung a
large Christ--crucified of grey wood, a dismal image, that even yet at
times rises in my dreams and gazes sorrowfully on me with fixed bleeding
eyes. Before this image I often stood and prayed, "Oh, Thou poor and
also tormented God, I pray Thee, if it be possible, that I may get by
heart the irregular verbs!"
I will say nothing of Greek, otherwise I should vex myself too much. The
monks of the Middle Ages were not so very much in the wrong when they
asserted that Greek was an invention of the devil. Lord knows what I
suffered through it! It went better with Hebrew, for I always had a
great predilection for the Jews, although they crucify my good name up
to the present hour, and yet I never could get as far in Hebrew as my
watch did, which had much intimate intercourse with pawnbrokers and in
consequence acquired many Jewish habits--for instance, it would not go
on Saturday, and it also learned the sacred language, subsequently even
studying it grammatically; for often when sleepless in the night I have,
to my amazement, heard it industriously ticking away to itself: _katal,
katalta, katalti, kittel, kittalta, katalti-pokat, pokadeti-pikat, pik,
pik_.
Meanwhile I learned more of German than of any other tongue, though
German itself is not such child's play, after all. For we poor Germans,
who have already been sufficiently vexed with having soldiers quartered
on us, military duties, poll-taxes, and a thousand other exactions, must
needs, over and above all this, bag Mr. Adelung and torment one another
with accusatives and datives. I learned much German from the old Rector
Schallmeyer, a brave, clerical gentleman, whose protege I was from
childhood. But I also learned something of the kind from Professor
Schramm, a man who had written a book on eternal peace, and in whose
class my school-fellows quarreled and fought more than in any other.
And while I have thus been writing away without a pause and thinking
about all sorts of things, I have unexpectedly chattered myself back
among old school stories, and I avail myself of this opportunity to
mention, Madame, that it was not my fault if I learned so little of
geography that later in life I could not make my way in the world. For
in those days the French displaced all boundaries; every day the
countries were recolored on the world's map; those which were once blue
suddenly became green, many indeed were even dyed blood-red; the old
stereotyped souls of the school-books became so confused and confounded
that the devil himself would never have recognized them. The products of
the country were also changed; chickory and beets now grew where only
hares and country gentlemen pursuing them were once to be seen; even the
character of the nations changed; the Germans became pliant, the French
paid compliments no longer; the English ceased making ducks and drakes
of their money, and the Venetians were not subtle enough; there was
promotion among princes, old kings received new uniforms, new kingdoms
were cooked up and sold like hot cakes; many potentates were chased, on
the other hand, from house and home, and had to find some new way of
earning their bread, and some therefore went at once into trade, and
manufactured, for instance, sealing wax, or--Madame, this paragraph
must be brought to an end, or I shall be out of breath--in fine, in such
times it is impossible to advance far in geography.
I succeeded better in natural history, for there we find fewer changes,
and we always have standard engravings of apes, kangaroos, zebras,
rhinoceroses, etc., etc. And having many such pictures in my memory, it
often happens that at first sight many mortals appeared to me like old
acquaintances.
I also did well in mythology, and took a real delight in the mob of gods
and goddesses who, so jolly and naked, governed the world. I do not
believe that there was a schoolboy in ancient Rome who knew the
principal points of his catechism--that is, the loves of Venus--better
than I. To tell the plain truth, it seems to me that if we must learn
all the heathen gods by heart, we might as well have kept them from the
first; and we have not, perhaps, gained so much with our New-Roman
Trinity or still less with our Jewish unity. Perhaps the old mythology
was not in reality so immoral as we imagine, and it was, for example, a
very decent idea of Homer to give to much-loved Venus a husband.
But I succeeded best in the French class of the Abbe d'Aulnoi, a French
_emigre_, who had written a number of grammars, and wore a red wig, and
jumped about very nervously when he lectured on his _Art poetique_ and
his _Histoire Allemande_. He was the only one in the whole gymnasium who
taught German history. Still, French has its difficulties, and to learn
it there must be much quartering of troops, much drumming, much
_apprendre par coeur_, and, above all, no one must be a _bete
allemande_. There was here, too, many a hard nut to crack; and I can
remember as plainly as though it happened but yesterday that I once got
into a bad scrape through _la religion_. I was asked at least six times
in succession, "Henry, what is French for 'the faith?'" And six times,
with an ever increasing inclination to weep, I replied, "It is called
_le credit_." And after the seventh question the furious examinator,
purple in the face, cried, "It is called _la religion_"--and there was a
rain of blows and a thunder of laughter from all my schoolmates. Madame,
since that day I never hear the word _religion_ without having my back
turn pale with terror, and my cheeks turn red with shame. And to tell
the honest truth, _le credit_ has during my life stood me in the better
stead than _la religion_. It occurs to me just at this instant that I
still owe the landlord of The Lion in Bologna five dollars. And I pledge
you my sacred word of honor that I would willingly owe him five dollars
more if I could only be certain that I should never again hear that
unlucky word, _la religion_, as long as I live.
_Parbleu_, Madame! I have succeeded tolerably well in French; for I
understand not only _patois_, but even patrician, governess French. Not
long ago, when in an aristocratic circle, I understood nearly one-half
of the conversation of two German countesses, each of whom could count
at least sixty-four years, and as many ancestors. Yes, in the _Cafe
Royal_ in Berlin, I once heard Monsieur Hans Michel Martens talking
French, and could understand every word he spoke, though there was no
understanding in anything he said. We must know the _spirit_ of a
language, and this is best learned by drumming. _Parbleu_! how much do I
not owe to the French drummer who was so long quartered in our house,
who looked like a devil, and yet had the good heart of an angel, and
withal drummed so divinely!
He was a little, nervous figure, with a terrible black mustache, beneath
which red lips sprang forth defiantly, while his wild eyes shot fiery
glances all round.
I, a young shaver, stuck to him like a burr, and helped him to clean his
military buttons till they shone like mirrors, and to pipe-clay his
vest--for Monsieur Le Grand liked to look well--and I followed him to
the guard house, to the roll-call, to the parade-ground--in those times
there was nothing but the gleam of weapons and merriment--_les jours de
fete sont passes_! Monsieur Le Grand knew but a little broken German,
only the three principal words, "Bread," "Kiss," "Honor"--but he could
make himself very intelligible with his drum. For instance, if I knew
not what the word _liberte_ meant, he drummed the _Marseillaise_--and I
understood him. If I did not understand the word _egalite_, he drummed
the march--
"Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira,
Les aristocrats a la lanterne!"
and I understood him. If I did not know what Betise meant, he drummed
the Dessauer March, which we Germans, as Goethe also declares, drummed
in Champagne--and I understood him. He once wanted to explain to me the
word _l'Allemagne_ (or Germany), and he drummed the all too _simple_
melody which on market-days is played to dancing-dogs, namely,
_dum-dum-dum_! I was vexed, but I understood him for all that!
In like manner he taught me modern history. I did not understand, it is
true, the words which he spoke, but as he constantly drummed while
speaking, I knew what he meant. This is, fundamentally, the best method.
The history of the storming of the Bastile, of the Tuileries, and the
like, cannot be correctly understood until we know how _the drumming_
was done on such occasions. In our school compendiums of history we
merely read: "Their Excellencies the Barons and Counts and their noble
spouses, their Highnesses the Dukes and Princes and their most noble
spouses were beheaded. His Majesty the King, and his most illustrious
spouse, the Queen, were beheaded."--But when you hear the red march of
the guillotine drummed, you understand it correctly for the first time,
and with it the how and the why. Madame, that is really a wonderful
march! It thrilled through marrow and bone when I first heard it, and I
was glad that I forgot it. People are apt to forget things of this kind
as they grow older, and a young man has nowadays so much and such a
variety of knowledge to keep in his head--whist, Boston, genealogical
registers, decrees of the Federal Council, dramaturgy, the liturgy,
carving--and yet, I assure you that really, despite all the jogging up
of my brain, I could not for a long time recall that tremendous time!
And only to think, Madame! Not long ago I sat one day at table with a
whole menagerie of counts, princes, princesses, chamberlains,
court-marshalesses, seneschals, upper court mistresses, court keepers of
the royal plate, court hunters' wives, and whatever else these
aristocratic domestics are termed, and _their_ under-domestics ran about
behind their chairs and shoved full plates before their mouths; but I,
who was passed by and neglected, sat idle without the least occupation
for my jaws, and kneaded little bread-balls, and drummed with my
fingers, from boredom, and, to my astonishment, I found myself suddenly
drumming the red, long-forgotten guillotine march.
"And what happened?" Madame, the good people were not in the least
disturbed, nor did they know that _other_ people, when they can get
nothing to eat, suddenly begin to drum, and that, too, very queer
marches, which people have long forgotten.
Is drumming now an inborn talent, or was it early developed in me?
Enough, it lies in my limbs, in my hands, in my feet, and often
involuntarily manifests itself. At Berlin, I once sat in the
lecture-room of the Privy Councilor Schmaltz, a man who had saved the
state by his book on the _Red and Black Coat Danger_. You remember,
perhaps, Madame, that in Pausanias we are told that by the braying of an
ass an equally dangerous plot was once discovered, and you also know
from Livy, or from Becker's _History of the World_, that geese once
saved the Capitol, and you must certainly know from Sallust that by the
chattering of a loquacious _putaine_, the Lady Fulvia, the terrible
conspiracy of Catiline came to light. But to return to the mutton
aforesaid. I was listening to the law and rights of nations, in the
lecture-room of the Herr Privy Councilor Schmaltz, and it was a lazy
sleepy summer afternoon, and I sat on the bench, and little by little I
listened less and less--my head had gone to sleep--when all at once I
was awakened by the noise of my own feet, which had _not_ gone to sleep
and had probably heard that just the contrary of the law and rights of
nations was being taught and constitutional principles were being
reviled, and which with the little eyes of their corns had seen better
how things go in the world than the Privy Councilor with his great Juno
eyes--these poor dumb feet, incapable of expressing their immeasurable
meaning by words, strove to make themselves intelligible by drumming,
and they drummed so loudly that I thereby came near getting into a
terrible scrape.
Cursed, unreflecting feet! They once played me a little trick, when I,
on a time in Goettingen, was temporarily attending the lectures of
Professor Saalfeld, and as this learned gentleman, with his angular
agility, jumped about here and there in his desk, and wound himself up
to curse the Emperor Napoleon in regular set style--no, my poor feet, I
cannot blame you for drumming _then_--indeed, I would not have blamed
you if in your dumb _naivete_ you had expressed yourselves by still more
energetic movements. How dare I, the scholar of Le Grand, hear the
Emperor cursed? The Emperor! the Emperor! the great Emperor!
When I think of the great Emperor, all in my memory again becomes
summer-green and golden. A long avenue of lindens in bloom arises before
me, and on the leafy twigs sit nightingales, singing; the waterfall
murmurs, in full round beds flowers are growing, and dreamily nodding
their fair heads. I was on a footing of wondrous intimacy with them; the
rouged tulips, proud as beggars, condescendingly greeted me; the nervous
sick lilies nodded to me with tender melancholy, the wine-red roses
laughed at me from afar; the night-violets sighed; with the myrtle and
laurel I was not then acquainted, for they did not entice with a shining
bloom, but the mignonette, with whom I am now on such bad terms, was my
very particular friend.--I am speaking of the Court garden of
Duesseldorf, where I often lay upon the grass and piously listened there
when Monsieur Le Grand told of the martial feats of the great Emperor,
beating meanwhile the marches which were drummed while the deeds were
performed, so that I saw and heard it all vividly. I saw the passage
over the Simplon--the Emperor in advance and his brave grenadiers
climbing on behind him, while the scream of frightened birds of prey
sounded around, and the glaciers thundered in the distance; I saw the
Emperor with glove in hand on the bridge of Lodi; I saw the Emperor in
his grey cloak at Marengo; I saw the Emperor on horseback in the battle
of the Pyramids, naught around save powder, smoke, and Mamelukes; I saw
the Emperor in the battle of Austerlitz--ha! how the bullets whistled
over the smooth, icy road! I saw, I heard the battle of Jena-dum, dum,
dune; I saw, I heard the battle of Eylau, of Wagram--no, I could hardly
stand it! Monsieur Le Grand drummed so that my own eardrum nearly burst.
III
But what were my feelings when my very own eyes were first blessed with
the sight of him, _him_--Hosannah! the Emperor.
It was precisely in the avenue of the Court garden at Duesseldorf. As I
pressed through the gaping crowd, thinking of the doughty deeds and
battles which Monsieur Le Grand had drummed to me, my heart beat the
"general march"--yet at the same time I thought of the police regulation
that no one should dare ride through the middle of the avenue under
penalty of five dollars fine. And the Emperor with his _cortege_ rode
directly through the middle of the avenue. The trembling trees bowed
toward him as he advanced, the sun-rays quivered, frightened, yet
curious, through the green leaves, and in the blue heaven above there
swam visibly a golden star. The Emperor wore his unpretentious-green
uniform and the little world-renowned hat. He rode a white palfrey,
which stepped with such calm pride, so confidently, so nobly--had I then
been Crown Prince of Prussia I would have envied that horse. The
Emperor sat carelessly, almost laxly, holding his rein with one hand,
and with the other good-naturedly patting the neck of the horse. It was
a sunny marble hand, a mighty hand--one of the pair which subdued the
many headed monster of anarchy, and regulated the conflict of
nations--and it good-naturedly patted the neck of the horse. Even the
face had that hue which we find in the marble Greek and Roman busts, the
traits were as nobly proportioned as those of the ancients, and on that
countenance was plainly written "Thou shalt have no gods before me!" A
smile, which warmed and tranquilized every heart, flitted over the
lips--and yet all knew that those lips needed but to whistle _et la
Prusse n'existait plus_--those lips needed but to whistle and the entire
clergy would have stopped their ringing and singing--those lips needed
but to whistle, and the entire Holy Roman Empire would have danced. And
these lips smiled, and the eye too smiled. It was an eye clear as
heaven; it could read the hearts of men; it saw at a glance all things
in the world at once, while we ordinary mortals see them only one by
one, and then only their colored shadows. The brow was not so clear, the
phantoms of future battles were nestling there, and from time to time
there was a quiver which swept over this brow, and those were the
creative thoughts, the great seven-league-boots thoughts, wherewith the
spirit of the Emperor strode invisibly over the world; and I believe
that every one of those thoughts would have furnished a German author
plentiful material to write about all the days of his life.
The Emperor rode calmly, straight through the middle of the avenue; no
policeman stopped him; behind him proudly rode his cortege on snorting
steeds and loaded with gold and ornaments. The drums rolled, the
trumpets pealed; near me crazy Aloysius spun round, and snarled the
names of his generals; not far off bellowed the tipsy Gumpert, and the
multitude cried with a thousand voices, "Es lebe der Kaiser!"--Long live
the Emperor!
IV
The Emperor is dead. On a waste island in the Indian Sea lies his
lonely grave, and he for whom the world was too narrow lies silently
under a little hillock, where five weeping willows shake out their green
hair, and a gentle little brook, murmuring sorrowfully, ripples by.
There is no inscription on his tomb; but Clio, with unerring style, has
written thereon invisible words, which will resound, like ghostly tones,
through the centuries.
Britannia, the sea is thine! But the sea hath not water enough to wash
away the shame which that mighty one hath bequeathed to thee in dying.
Not thy wind bag, Sir Hudson--no; thou thyself wert the Sicilian bravo
whom perjured kings lured that they might secretly revenge on the man of
the people that which the people had once openly inflicted on one of
themselves. And he was thy guest, and had seated himself by thy hearth.
Until the latest times the boys of France will sing and tell of the
terrible hospitality of the _Bellerophon_, and when those songs of
mockery and tears resound across the strait, there will be a blush on
the cheek of every honorable Briton. But a day will come when this song
will ring thither, and there will be no Britannia in existence--when the
people of pride will be humbled to the earth, when Westminster's
monuments will be broken, and when the royal dust which they inclosed
will be forgotten. And St. Helena is the holy grave whither the races of
the east and of the west will make their pilgrimage in ships, with
pennons of many a hue, and their hearts will grow strong with great
memories of the deeds of the worldly savior, who suffered and died under
Sir Hudson Lowe, as it is written in the evangelists, Las Cases,
O'Meara, and Autommarchi.
Strange! A terrible destiny has already overtaken the three greatest
enemies of the Emperor: Londonderry has cut his throat, Louis XVIII has
rotted away on his throne, and Professor Saalfeld is still, as before,
professor in Goettingen.
* * * * *
ENGLISH FRAGMENTS[56]
BY HEINRICH HEINE
TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
DIALOGUE ON THE THAMES
The sallow man stood near me on the deck, as I gazed on the green shores
of the Thames, while in every corner of my soul the nightingales awoke
to life. "Land of Freedom!" I cried, "I greet thee! Hail to thee,
Freedom, young sun of the renewed world! Those older suns, Love and
Faith, are withered and cold, and can no longer light or warm us. The
ancient myrtle woods, which were once all too full, are now deserted,
and only timid turtle-doves nestle amid the soft thickets. The old
cathedrals, once piled in towering height by an arrogantly pious race,
which fain would force its faith into heaven, are crumbling, and their
gods have ceased to believe in themselves. Those divinities are worn
out, and our age lacks the imagination to shape others. Every power of
the human breast now tends to a love of Liberty, and Liberty is,
perhaps, the religion of the modern age. It is a religion not preached
to the rich, but to the poor, and has in like manner its evangelists,
its martyrs, and its Iscariots!"
"Young enthusiast," said the sallow man, "you will not find what you
seek. You may be in the right in believing that Liberty is a new
religion which will spread over all the world. But as every race of old,
when it received Christianity, did so according to its requirements and
its peculiar character, so, at present, every country adopts from the
new religion of liberty only that which is in accordance with its local
needs and national character.
The English are a domestic race, living a sequestered, peaceable, family
life, and the Englishman seeks in the circle of those connected with and
pertaining to him that easy state of mind which is denied to him through
his innate social incapacity. The Englishman is, therefore, contented
with that liberty which secures his most personal rights and guards his
body, his property, and his conjugal relations, his religion, and even
his whims, in the most unconditional manner. No one is freer in his home
than an Englishman, and, to use a celebrated expression, he is king and
bishop between his four walls; and there is much truth in the common
saying, 'My house is my castle.'
"If the Englishman has the greatest need of personal freedom, the
Frenchman, in case of necessity, can dispense with it, if we only grant
him that portion of universal liberty known as equality. The French are
not a domestic, but a social, race; they are no friends to a silent
_tete-a-tete_, which they call _une conversation anglaise;_ they run
gossiping about from the _cafe_ to the casino, and from the casino to
the _salons_; their light champagne-blood and inborn talent for company
drive them to social life, whose first and last principle, yes, whose
very soul, is equality. The development of the social principle in
France necessarily involved that of equality, and if the ground of the
Revolution should be sought in the Budget, it is none the less true that
its language and tone were drawn from those wits of low degree who lived
in the _salons_ of Paris, apparently on a footing of equality with the
high _noblesse_, and who were now and then reminded, it may have been by
a hardly perceptible, yet not on that account less exasperating, feudal
smile, of the great and ignominious inequality which lay between them.
And when the _canaille roturiere_ took the liberty of beheading that
high _noblesse_, it was done less to inherit their property than their
ancestry, and to introduce a noble equality in place of a vulgar
inequality. And we are the better authorized to believe that this
striving for equality was the main principle of the Revolution, since
the French speedily found themselves so happy and contented under the
dominion of their great Emperor, who, fully appreciating that they were
not yet of age, kept all their _freedom_ within the limits of his
powerful guardianship, permitting them only the pleasure of a perfect
and admirable equality.
"Far more patient than the Frenchman, the Englishman easily bears the
glances of a privileged aristocracy, consoling himself with the
reflection that he has a right which renders it impossible for others to
disturb his personal comfort or his daily requirements. Nor does the
aristocracy here make a show of its privileges, as on the Continent. In
the streets and in places of public resort in London, colored ribbons
are seen only on women's bonnets, and gold and silver signs of
distinction on the dresses of lackeys. Even that beautiful, colored
livery which indicates with us military rank is, in England, anything
but a sign of honor, and, as an actor after a play hastens to wash off
the rouge, so an English officer hastens, when the hours of active duty
are over, to strip off his red coat and again appear like a gentleman,
in the plain garb of a gentleman. Only at the theatre of St. James are
those decorations and costumes, which were raked from the off-scourings
of the Middle Ages, of any avail. There we may see the ribbons of orders
of nobility; there the stars glitter, silk knee-breeches and satin
trains rustle, golden spurs and old-fashioned French styles of
expression clatter; there the knight struts and the lady spreads
herself. But what does a free Englishman care for the Court comedy of
St. James, so long as it does not trouble him, and so long as no one
interferes when he plays comedy in like manner in his own house, making
his lackeys kneel before him, or plays with the garter of a pretty
cook-maid? _'Honi soit qui mal y pense!'_
"As for the Germans, they need neither freedom nor equality. They are a
speculative race, ideologists, prophets, and sages, dreamers who live
only in the past and in the future, and who have no present. Englishmen
and Frenchmen have a _present_; with them every day has its field of
action, its struggle against enemies, its history. The German has
nothing for which to battle, and when he began to realize that there
might be things worth striving for, his philosophizing wiseacres taught
him to doubt the existence of such things. It cannot be denied that the
Germans love liberty, but it is in a different manner from other people.
The Englishman loves liberty as his lawful wife, and, even if he does
not treat her with remarkable tenderness, he is still ready in case of
need to defend her like a man, and woe to the red-coated rascal who
forces his way to her bedroom--let him do so as a gallant or as a
catchpoll. The Frenchman loves liberty as his bride. He burns for her;
he is a flame; he casts himself at her feet with the most extravagant
protestations; he will fight for her to the death; he commits for her
sake a thousand follies. The German loves liberty as though she were his
old grandmother."
Men are strange beings! We grumble in our Fatherland; every stupid
thing, every contrary trifle, vexes us there; like boys, we are always
longing to rush forth into the wide world, and, when we finally find
ourselves there, we find it too wide, and often yearn in secret for the
narrow stupidities and contrarieties of home. Yes, we would fain be
again in the old chamber, sitting behind the familiar stove, making for
ourselves, as it were, a "cubby-house" near it, and, nestling there,
read the _German General Advertiser_. So it was with me in my journey to
England. Scarcely had I lost sight of the German shore ere there awoke
in me a curious after-love for the German nightcaps and forest-like wigs
which I had just left in discontent; and when the Fatherland faded from
my eyes I found it again in my heart. And, therefore, it may be that
my voice quivered in a somewhat lower key as I replied to the sallow
man--"Dear sir, do not scold the Germans! If they are dreamers, still
many of them have conceived such beautiful dreams that I would hardly
incline to change them for the waking realities of our neighbors. Since
we all sleep and dream, we can perhaps dispense with freedom; for our
tyrants also sleep, and only dream their tyranny. We awoke only
once--when the Catholic Romans robbed us of our dream-freedom; then we
acted and conquered, and laid us down again and dreamed. O sir! do not
mock our dreamers, for now and then they speak, like somnambulists,
wondrous things in sleep, and their words become the seeds of freedom.
No one can foresee the turn which things may take. The splenetic Briton,
weary of his wife, may put a halter round her neck and sell her in
Smithfield. The flattering Frenchman may perhaps be untrue to his
beloved bride and abandon her, and, singing, dance after the Court dames
(_courtisanes_) of his royal palace (_palais royal_). But the German
will never turn his old grandmother quite out of doors; he will always
find a place for her by his fireside, where she can tell his listening
children her legends. Should Freedom ever vanish from the entire
world--which God forbid!--a German dreamer would discover her again in
his dreams."
While the steamboat, and with it our conversation, swam thus along the
stream, the sun had set, and his last rays lit up the hospital at
Greenwich, an imposing palace-like building which in reality consists of
two wings, the space between which is empty, and a green hill crowned
with a pretty little tower from which one can behold the passers-by. On
the water the throng of vessels became denser and denser, and I wondered
at the adroitness with which they avoided collision. While passing, many
a sober and friendly face nodded greetings--faces whom we had never seen
before, and were never to see again. We sometimes came so near that it
was possible to shake hands in joint welcome and adieu. One's heart
swells at the sight of so many bellying sails, and we feel strangely
moved when the confused hum and far-off dance-music, and the deep voices
of sailors, resound from the shore. But the outlines of all things
vanished little by little behind the white veil of the evening mist, and
there remained visible only a forest of masts, rising long and bare
above it.
The sallow man still stood near me and gazed reflectively on high, as
though he sought for the pale stars in the cloudy heaven. And, still
gazing aloft, he laid his hand on my shoulder, and said in a tone as
though secret thoughts involuntarily became words--"Freedom and
equality! they are not to be found on earth below nor in heaven above.
The stars on high are not alike, for one is greater and brighter than
another; none of them wanders free, all obey a prescribed and iron-like
law--there is slavery in heaven as on earth!"
"There is the Tower!" suddenly cried one of our traveling companions, as
he pointed to a high building which rose like a spectral, gloomy dream
above the cloud-covered London.
* * * * *
LONDON
I have seen the greatest wonder which the world can show to the
astonished spirit; I have seen it, and am still astonished; and still
there remains fixed in my memory the stone forest of houses, and amid
them the rushing stream of faces of living men with all their motley
passions, all their terrible impulses of love, of hunger, and of
hatred--I mean London.
Send a _philosopher_ to London, but, for your life, no poet! Send a
philosopher there, and station him at a corner of Cheapside, where he
will learn more than from all the books of the last Leipzig fair; and as
the billows of human life roar around him, so will a sea of new thoughts
rise before him, and the Eternal Spirit which moves upon the face of the
waters will breathe upon him; the most hidden secrets of social harmony
will be suddenly revealed to him; he will hear the pulse of the world
beat audibly, and see it visibly; for if London is the right hand of the
world--its active, mighty right hand--then we may regard that route
which leads from the Exchange to Downing Street as the world's pyloric
artery.
But never send a poet to London! This downright earnestness of all
things, this colossal uniformity, this machine-like movement, this
troubled spirit in pleasure itself, this exaggerated London, smothers
the imagination and rends the heart. And should you ever send a German
poet thither--a dreamer, who stares at everything, even a ragged
beggar-woman, or the shining wares of a goldsmith's shop--why, then, at
least he will find things going right badly with him, and he will be
hustled about on every side, or perhaps be knocked over with a mild "God
damn!" _God damn!_--damn the knocking about and pushing! I see at a
glance that these people have enough to do. They live on a grand scale,
and though food and clothes are dearer with them than with us, they must
still be better fed and clothed than we are--as gentility requires.
Moreover, they have enormous debts, yet occasionally, in a vainglorious
mood, they make ducks and drakes of their guineas, pay other nations to
box about for their pleasure, give their kings a handsome _douceur_ into
the bargain; and, therefore, John Bull must work to get the money for
such expenditure. By day and by night he must tax his brain to discover
new machines, and he sits and reckons in the sweat of his brow, and runs
and rushes, without much looking around, from the Docks to the Exchange,
and from the Exchange to the Strand; and therefore it is quite
pardonable if he, when a poor German poet, gazing into a print-shop
window, stands bolt in his way on the corner of Cheapside, should knock
the latter sideways with a rather rough "God damn!"
But the picture at which I was gazing as I stood at Cheapside corner was
that of the French crossing the Beresina.
And when I, jolted out of my gazing, looked again on the raging street,
where a parti-colored coil of men, women, and children, horses,
stagecoaches, and with them a funeral, whirled groaning and creaking
along, it seemed to me as though all London were such a Beresina Bridge,
where every one presses on in mad haste to save his scrap of life; where
the daring rider stamps down the poor pedestrian; where every one who
falls is lost forever; where the best friends rush, without feeling,
over one another's corpses; and where thousands in the weakness of
death, and bleeding, grasp in vain at the planks of the bridge, and are
shot down into the icy grave of death.
How much more pleasant and homelike it is in our dear Germany! With what
dreaming comfort, in what Sabbath-like repose, all glides along here!
Calmly the sentinels are changed, uniforms and houses shine in the quiet
sunshine, swallows flit over the flagstones, fat Court-counciloresses
smile from the windows; while along the echoing streets there is room
enough for the dogs to sniff at each other, and for men to stand at ease
and chat about the theatre, and bow deeply--oh, how deeply!--when some
small aristocratic scamp or vice-scamp, with colored ribbons on his
shabby coat, or some Court-marshal-low-brow struts along as if in
judgment, graciously returning salutations.
I had made up my mind in advance not to be astonished at that immensity
of London of which I had heard so much. But I had as little success as
the poor schoolboy who determined beforehand not to feel the whipping
which he was to receive. The facts of the case were that he expected to
get the usual blows with the usual stick in the usual way on the back,
whereas he received a most unusually severe licking on an unusual place
with a cutting switch. I anticipated great palaces, and saw nothing but
mere small houses. But their very uniformity and their limitless extent
impress the soul wonderfully.
These houses of brick, owing to the damp atmosphere and coal smoke, are
all of an uniform color, that is to say, of a brown olive-green, and are
all of the same style of building, generally two or three windows wide,
three stories high, and finished above with small red tiles, which
remind one of newly extracted bleeding teeth; while the broad and
accurately squared streets which these houses form seem to be bordered
by endlessly long barracks. This has its reason in the fact that every
English family, though it consist of only two persons, must still have a
house to itself for its own castle, and rich speculators, to meet the
demand, build, wholesale, entire streets of these dwellings, which they
retail singly. In the principal streets of the city, where the business
of London is most at home, where old-fashioned buildings are mingled
with the new, and where the fronts of the houses are covered with signs,
yards in length, generally gilt, and in relief, this characteristic
uniformity is less striking--the less so, indeed, because the eye of the
stranger is incessantly caught by the new and brilliant wares exposed
for sale in the windows. And these articles do not merely produce an
effect, because the Englishman completes so perfectly everything which
he manufactures, and because every article of luxury, every astral lamp
and every boot, every teakettle and every woman's dress, shines out so
invitingly and so _finished_. There is also a peculiar charm in the art
of arrangement, in the contrast of colors, and in the variety of the
English shops; even the most commonplace necessities of life appear in a
startling magic light through this artistic power of setting forth
everything to advantage. Ordinary articles of food attract us by the new
light in which they are placed; even uncooked fish lie so delightfully
dressed that the rainbow gleam of their scales attracts us; raw meat
lies, as if painted, on neat and many-colored porcelain plates,
garlanded about with parsley--yes, everything seems painted, reminding
us of the highly polished yet modest pictures of Franz Mieris. But the
human beings whom we see are not so cheerful as in the Dutch paintings,
for they sell the jolliest wares with the most serious faces, and the
cut and color of their clothes is as uniform as that of their houses.
On the opposite side of the town, which they call the West End--"_the
west end of the town_"--and where the more aristocratic and less
occupied world lives, the uniformity spoken of is still more dominant;
yet here there are very long and very broad streets, where all the
houses are large as palaces, though anything but remarkable as regards
their exterior, unless we except the fact that in these, as in all the
better class of houses in London, the windows of the first _etage_ (or
second story) are adorned with iron-barred balconies, and also on the
_rez de chaussee_ there is a black railing protecting the entrance to
certain subterranean apartments. In this part of the city there are also
great "squares," where rows of houses like those already described form
a quadrangle, in whose centre there is a garden, inclosed by an iron
railing and containing some statue or other. In all of these places and
streets the eye is never shocked by the dilapidated huts of misery.
Everywhere we are stared down on by wealth and respectability, while,
crammed away in retired lanes and dark, damp alleys, Poverty dwells with
her rags and her tears.
The stranger who wanders through the great streets of London, and does
not chance right into the regular quarters of the multitude, sees little
or nothing of the fearful misery existing there. Only here and there at
the mouth of some dark alley stands a ragged woman with a suckling babe
at her weak breast, and begs with her eyes. Perhaps, if those eyes are
still beautiful, we glance into them, and are shocked at the world of
wretchedness visible within. The common beggars are old people,
generally blacks, who stand at the corners of the streets cleaning
pathways--a very necessary thing in muddy London--and ask for "coppers"
in reward. It is in the dusky twilight that Poverty and her mates, Vice
and Crime, glide forth from their lairs. They shun daylight the more
anxiously since their wretchedness there contrasts more cruelly with the
pride of wealth which glitters everywhere; only Hunger sometimes drives
them at noonday from their dens, and then they stand with silent,
speaking eyes, staring beseechingly at the rich merchant who hurries
along, busy, and jingling gold, or at the lazy lord who, like a
surfeited god, rides by on his high horse, casting now and then an
aristocratically indifferent glance at the mob below, as though they
were swarming ants, or rather a mass of baser beings, whose joys and
sorrows have nothing in common with his feelings. Yes--for over the
vulgar multitude which sticks fast to the soil there soars, like beings
of a higher nature, England's nobility, to whom their little island is
only a temporary resting-place, Italy their summer garden, Paris their
social salon, and the whole world their inheritance. They sweep along,
knowing nothing of sorrow or suffering, and their gold is a talisman
which conjures into fulfilment their wildest wish.
Poor Poverty! how agonizing must thy hunger be, where others swell in
scornful superfluity! And when some one casts with indifferent hand a
crust into thy lap, how bitter must the tears be wherewith thou
moistenest it! Thou poisonest thyself with thine own tears. Well art
thou in the right when thou alliest thyself to Vice and Crime! Outlawed
criminals often bear more humanity in their hearts than those cool,
reproachless town burghers of virtue, in whose white hearts the power of
evil, it is true, is quenched--but with it, too, the power of good. And
even vice is not always vice. I have seen women on whose cheeks red vice
was painted, and in whose hearts dwelt heavenly purity. I have seen
women--I would that I saw them again!--
WELLINGTON
The man has the bad fortune to meet with good fortune everywhere, and
wherever the greatest men in the world were unfortunate; and that
excites us, and makes him hateful. We see in him only the victory of
stupidity over genius--Arthur Wellington triumphant where Napoleon
Bonaparte is overwhelmed! Never was a man more ironically gifted by
Fortune, and it seems as though she would exhibit his empty littleness
by raising him high on the shield of victory. Fortune is a woman, and
perhaps in womanly wise she cherishes a secret grudge against the man
who overthrew her former darling, though the very overthrow came from
her own will. Now she lets him conquer again on the Catholic
Emancipation question--yes, in the very fight in which George Canning
was destroyed. It is possible that he might have been loved had the
wretched Londonderry been his predecessor in the Ministry; but it
happens that he is the successor of the noble Canning--of the much-wept,
adored, great Canning--and he conquers where Canning was overwhelmed.
Without such an adversity of prosperity, Wellington would perhaps pass
for a great man; people would not hate him, would not measure him too
accurately, at least not with the heroic measure with which a Napoleon
and a Canning are measured, and consequently it would never have been
discovered how small he is as man.
He is a small man, and smaller than small at that. The French could say
nothing more sarcastic of Polignac than that he was a Wellington without
celebrity. In fact, what remains when we strip from a Wellington the
field-marshal's uniform of celebrity?
I have here given the best apology for Lord Wellington--in the English
sense of the word. My readers will be astonished when I honorably
confess that I once praised this hero--and clapped on all sail in so
doing. It is a good story, and I will tell it here:
My barber in London was a Radical, named Mr. White--poor little man in
a shabby black dress, worn until it almost shone white again; he was
so lean that even his full face looked like a profile, and the sighs in
his bosom were visible ere they rose. These sighs were caused by the
misfortunes of Old England--by the impossibility of paying the National
Debt.
"Ah!" I generally heard him sigh, "why need the English people trouble
themselves as to who reigns in France, and what the French are a-doing
at home? But the high nobility, sir, and the High Church were afraid of
the principles of liberty of the French Revolution; and to keep down
these principles John Bull must give his gold and his blood, and make
debts into the bargain. We've got all we wanted out of the war--the
Revolution has been put down, the French eagles of liberty have had
their wings cut, and the High Church may be cock-sure that none of these
eagles will come a-flying over the Channel; and now the high nobility
and the High Church between 'em ought to pay, anyway, for the debts
which were made for their own good, and not for any good of the poor
people. Ah! the poor people!"
Whenever Mr. White came to the "poor people" he always sighed more
deeply than ever, and the refrain then was that bread and porter were so
dear that the poor people must starve to feed fat lords, stag-hounds,
and priests, and that there was only one remedy. At these words he was
wont to whet his razor, and as he drew it murderously up and down the
strop, he murmured grimly to himself, "Lords, priests, hounds!"
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON]
But his Radical rage boiled most fiercely against the Duke of
Wellington; he spat gall and poison whenever he alluded to him, and as
he lathered me he himself foamed with rage. Once I was fairly frightened
when he, while barbering away at my neck, burst out in wonted wise
against Wellington, murmuring all the while, "If I only had him _this_
way under my razor, _I'd_ save him the trouble of cutting his own
throat, as his brother in office and fellow-countryman, Londonderry,
did, who killed himself that-a-way at North Cray in Kent--God damn
him!"
I felt that the man's hand trembled and, fearing lest he might imagine,
in his excitement, that I really was the Duke of Wellington, I
endeavored to allay his violence, and, in an underhand manner to soothe
him, I called up his national pride; I represented to him that the Duke
of Wellington had advanced the glory of the English, that he had always
been an innocent tool in the hands of others, that he was fond of
beefsteak, and that he finally--but the Lord only knows what fine things
I said of Wellington as I felt that razor tickling around my throat!
What vexes me most is the reflection that Wellington will be as immortal
as Napoleon Bonaparte. It is true that, in like manner, the name of
Pontius Pilate will be as little likely to be forgotten as that of
Christ. Wellington and Napoleon! It is a wonderful phenomenon that the
human mind can at the same time think of both these names. There can be
no greater contrast than the two, even in their external appearance.
Wellington, the dumb ghost, with an ashy-gray soul in a buckram body, a
wooden smile on his freezing face--and, by the side of _that_, think of
the figure of Napoleon, every inch a god!
That figure never disappears from my memory. I still see him, high on
his steed, with eternal eyes in his marble-like, imperial face, glancing
calm as destiny on the Guards defiling past--he was then sending them to
Russia, and the old Grenadiers glanced up at him so terribly devoted, so
all-consciously serious, so proud in death--
"Te, Caesar, morituri, salutant."
There often steals over me a secret doubt whether I ever really saw him,
if we were ever contemporaries, and then it seems to me as if his
portrait, torn from the little frame of the present, vanished away more
proudly and imperiously in the twilight of the past. His name even now
sounds to us like a word of the early world, and as antique and as
heroic as those of Alexander and Caesar. It has already become a
rallying word among races, and when the East and the West meet they
fraternize on that single name.
I once felt, in the deepest manner, how significantly and magically that
name can sound. It was in the harbor of London, at the India Docks, and
on board an East India-man just arrived from Bengal. It was a giant-like
ship, fully manned with Hindoos. The grotesque forms and groups, the
singularly variegated dresses, the enigmatical expressions of
countenance, the strange gestures, the wild and foreign ring of their
language, their shouts of joy and their laughter, with the seriousness
ever rising and falling on certain soft yellow faces, their eyes like
black flowers which looked at me as with wondrous woe--all of this awoke
in me a feeling like that of enchantment; I was suddenly as if
transported into Scherezade's story, and I thought that broad-leaved
palms, and long-necked camels, and gold-covered elephants, and other
fabulous trees and animals must forthwith appear. The supercargo who was
on the vessel, and who understood as little of the language as I myself,
could not, in his truly English narrow-mindedness, narrate to me enough
of what a ridiculous race they were, nearly all pure Mohammedans
collected from every land of Asia, from the limits of China to the
Arabian Sea, there being even some jet-black, woolly-haired Africans
among them.
To one whose whole soul was weary of the spiritless West, and who was as
sick of Europe as I then was, this fragment of the East which moved
cheerfully and changingly before my eyes was a refreshing solace; my
heart enjoyed at least a few drops of that draught which I had so often
tasted in gloomy Hanoverian or Royal Prussian winter nights, and it is
very possible that the foreigners saw in me how agreeable the sight of
them was to me, and how gladly I would have spoken a kind word to them.
It was also plain from the very depths of their eyes how much I pleased
them, and they would also have willingly said something pleasant to me,
and it was a vexation that neither understood the other's language. At
length a means occurred to me of expressing to them with a single word
my friendly feelings, and, stretching forth my hands reverentially as if
in loving greeting, I cried the name, "Mohammed!"
Joy suddenly flashed over the dark faces of the foreigners, and, folding
their arms as reverentially in turn, as a cheerful greeting they
exclaimed, "Bonaparte!"
* * * * *
LAFAYETTE[57] (1833)
By HEINRICH HEINE
TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
PARIS, January 19, 1832.
The _Temps_ remarks today that the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ now publishes
articles which are hostile to the royal family, and that the German
censorship, which does not permit the least remark to be leveled at
absolute kings, does not show the least mercy toward a citizen-king. The
_Temps_ is really the shrewdest and cleverest journal in the world! It
attains its object with a few mild words much more readily than others
with the most blustering polemics. Its crafty hint is well understood,
and I know of at least one liberal writer who no longer considers it
honorable to use, under the permission of the censorship, such inimical
language of a citizen-king as would not be allowed when applied to an
absolute monarch. But in return for that, let Louis Philippe do us one
single favor--which is to remain a citizen-king; for it is because he is
becoming every day more and more like an absolute king that we must
complain of him. He is certainly perfectly honorable as a man, an
estimable father of a family, a tender spouse and a good economist, but
it is vexatious to see how he allows all the trees of liberty to be
felled and stripped of their beautiful foliage that they may be sawed
into beams to support the tottering house of Orleans. For that, and that
only, the Liberal press blames him, and the spirits of truth, in order
to make war on him, even condescend to lie. It is melancholy and
lamentable that through such tactics even the family of the King must
suffer, although its members are as innocent as they are amiable. As
regards this, the German Liberal press, less witty but much kinder than
its French elder sister, is guilty of no cruelties. "You should at least
have pity on the King," lately cried the good-tempered _Journal des
Debats_. "Pity on Louis Philippe!" replied the _Tribune_. "This man asks
for fifteen millions and our pity! Did he have pity on Italy, on
Poland?"--_et cetera_.
I saw a few days ago the young orphan of Menotti, who was hanged in
Modena. Nor is it long since I saw Senora Luisa de Torrijos, a poor
deathly-pale lady, who quickly returned to Paris when she learned on the
Spanish frontier the news of the execution of her husband and of his
fifty-two companions in misfortune. Ah! I really pity Louis Philippe.
_La Tribune_, the organ of the openly declared Republican party, is
pitiless as regards its royal enemy, and every day preaches the
Republic. The _National_, the most reckless and independent journal in
France, has recently chimed in to the same air in a most surprising
manner. And terrible as an echo from the bloodiest days of the
Convention sounded the speeches of those chiefs of the _Societe des Amis
du Peuple_ who were placed last week before the court of assizes,
"accused of having conspired against the existing Government in order to
overthrow it and establish a republic." They were acquitted by the jury,
because they proved that they had in no way conspired, but had simply
uttered their convictions publicly. "Yes, we desire the overthrow of
this feeble Government, we wish for a republic." Such was the refrain of
all their speeches before the tribunal.
While on one side the serious Republicans draw the sword and growl with
words of thunder, the _Figaro_ flashes lightning, and laughs and swings
its light lash most effectually. It is inexhaustible in clever sayings
as to "the best republic," a phrase with which poor Lafayette is mocked,
because he, as is well known, once embraced Louis Philippe before the
Hotel de Ville and cried, "Vous etes la meilleure republique!" The _Figaro_
recently remarked that we of course now require no republic, since we
have seen the best. And it also said as cruelly, in reference to the
debates on the civil list, that "_la meilleure republique coute quinze
millions_." The Republican party will never forgive Lafayette his blunder
in advocating a king. They reproach him with this, that he had known
Louis Philippe long enough to be aware beforehand what was to be expected
of him. Lafayette is now ill--_malade de chagrin_--heart-sick. All! the
greatest heart of two worlds must feel bitterly the royal deception. It
was all in vain that he in the very beginning continually insisted on the
_Programme de l'Hotel de Ville_, on the republican institutions with
which the monarchy should be surrounded, and on similar promises. But he
was out-cried by the _doctrinaire_ gossips and chatterers, who proved
from the English history of 1688 that people in Paris in July, 1830, had
fought simply to maintain the Charter, and that all their sacrifices and
struggles had no other object than to replace the elder line of the
Bourbons by the younger, just as all was finished in England by putting
the House of Orange in place of the Stuarts. Thiers, who does not think
with this party, though he now acts as their spokesman, has of late
given them a good push forward. This indifferentist of the deepest dye,
who knows so admirably how to preserve moderation in the clearness,
intelligence, and illustration of his style, this Goethe of politics, is
certainly at present the most powerful defender of the system of Perier,
and, in fact, with his pamphlet against Chateaubriand he well-nigh
annihilated that Don Quixote of Legitimacy, who sat so pathetically on
his winged Rosinante, whose sword was more shining than sharp, and who
shot only with costly pearls instead of good, piercing, leaden bullets.
In their irritation at the lamentable turn which events have taken, many
of the enthusiasts for freedom go so far as to slander Lafayette. How
far a man can go astray in this direction is shown by the book of
Belmontet, which is also an attack on the well-known pamphlet by
Chateaubriand, and in which the Republic is advocated with commendable
freedom. I would here cite the bitter passages against Lafayette
contained in this work, were they not on one side too spiteful, and on
the other connected with a defense of the Republic which is not suitable
to this journal. I therefore refer the reader to the work itself, and
especially to a chapter in it entitled "The Republic." One may there see
how evil fortune may make even the noblest men unjust.
I will not here find fault with the brilliant delusion of the
possibility of a republic in France. A royalist by inborn inclination, I
have now, in France, become one from conviction. For I am convinced that
the French could never tolerate any republic, neither according to the
constitution of Athens or of Sparta, nor, least of all, to that of the
United States. The Athenians were the student-youths of mankind; their
constitution was a species of academic freedom, and it would be mere
folly to seek to introduce it in this our matured age, to revive it in
our senile Europe. And how could we put up with that of Sparta, that
great and tiresome manufactory of patriotism, that soldiers' barrack of
republican virtue, that sublimely bad kitchen of equality, in which
black broth was so vilely cooked that Attic wits declared it made men
despise life and defy death in battle? How could such a constitution
flourish in the very _foyer_ of gourmands, in the fatherland of Very, of
Vefour, and of Careme? This latter would certainly have thrown himself,
like Vatel, on his sword, as a Brutus of cookery and as the last
gastronome. Indeed, had Robespierre only introduced Spartan cookery, the
guillotine would have been quite superfluous, for then the last
aristocrats would have died of terror, or emigrated as soon as possible.
Poor Robespierre! you would introduce stern republicanism to Paris--to a
city in which one hundred and fifty thousand milliners and dressmakers,
and as many barbers and perfumers, exercise their smiling, curling, and
sweet-smelling industries!
The monotony, the want of color, and the petty domestic citizens' life
of America would be even more intolerable in the home of the "love of
the spectacular," of vanity, fashion, and novelties. Indeed, the passion
for decorations flourishes nowhere so much as in France. Perhaps, with
the exception of August Wilhelm Schlegel, there is not a woman in
Germany so fond of gay ribbons as the French; even the heroes of July,
who fought for freedom and equality, afterward wore blue ribbons to
distinguish themselves from the rest of the people. Yet, if I on this
account doubt the success of a republic in Europe, it still cannot be
denied that everything is leading to one; that the republican respect
for law in place of veneration of royal personages is showing itself
among the better classes, and that the Opposition, just as it played at
comedy for fifteen years with a king, is now continuing the same game
with royalty itself, and that consequently a republic may be for a short
time, at least, the end of the song. The Carlists are aiding this
movement, since they regard it as a necessary phase which will enable
them to reestablish the absolute monarchy of the elder branch; therefore
they now bear themselves like the most zealous republicans. Even
Chateaubriand praises the Republic, calls himself a Republican from
inclination, fraternizes with Marrast, and receives the accolade from
Beranger. The _Gazette_--the hypocritical _Gazette de France_--now
yearns for republican state forms, universal franchise, primary
meetings, _et cetera_. It is amusing to see how these disguised
priestlings now play the bully-braggart in the language of
Sans-culottism, how fiercely they coquet with the red Jacobin cap, yet
are ever and anon afflicted with the thought that they might forgetfully
have put on in its place the red cap of a prelate; they take for an
instant from their heads their borrowed covering and show the tonsure
unto all the world. Such men as these now believe that they may insult
Lafayette, and it serves as an agreeable relaxation from the sour
republicanism, the compulsory liberty, which they must assume.
But let deluded friends and hypocritical enemies say what they will,
Lafayette is, after Robespierre, the purest character of the French
Revolution, and, next to Napoleon, its most popular hero. Napoleon and
Lafayette are the two names which now bloom most beautifully in France.
Truly their fame is each of a different kind. The latter fought for
peace, not victory; the former rather for the laurel wreath than for
that of oak leaves. It would indeed be ridiculous to measure the
greatness of the two heroes with the same metre, and put one on the
pedestal of the other, even as it would be absurd to set the statue of
Lafayette on the Vendome column--that monument made of the cannon
conquered on so many fields of battle, the sight of which, as Barbier
sings, no French mother can endure. On this bronze column place
Napoleon, the man of iron, here, as in life, standing on his fame,
earned by cannon, rising in terrible isolation to the clouds, so that
every ambitious soldier, when he beholds him, the unattainable one,
there on high, may have his heart humbled and healed of the vain love of
celebrity, and thus this colossal column of metal, as a lightning
conductor of conquering heroism, will do much for the cause of peace in
Europe.
Lafayette has raised for himself a better column than that of the Place
Vendome, and a better monumental image than one of metal or marble.
Where is there marble as pure as the heart of old Lafayette, or metal as
firm as his fidelity? It is true that he was always one-sided, but
one-sided like the magnetic needle, which always points to the north,
and never once veers to south or west. So he has for forty years said
the same thing, and pointed constantly to North America. He is the one
who opened the Revolution with the declaration of the rights of man; to
this hour he perseveres in this belief, without which there is no
salvation and no health to be hoped for--the one-sided man with his
one-sided heavenly region of freedom. He is indeed no genius, as was
Napoleon, in whose head the eagles of inspiration built their nests,
while the serpents of calculation entwined in his heart; but then he was
never intimidated by eagles nor seduced by serpents. As a young man he
was wise as a graybeard, as a graybeard fiery as a youth, a protector of
the people against the wiles of the great, a protector of the great
against the rage of the people, compassionating yet combating, never
arrogant and never discouraged, equally firm and mild--the unchangeable
Lafayette! and so, in his one-sidedness and equanimity, he has remained
on the same spot from the days of Marie Antoinette to the present hour.
And, as a trusty Eckart of liberty, he still stands leaning on his sword
before the entrance to the Tuileries, warning the world against that
seductive Venusberg, whose magic tones sing so enticingly, and from
whose sweet snares the poor wretches who are once entangled in them can
never escape.
It is certainly true that the dead Napoleon is more beloved by the
French than is the living Lafayette. This is perhaps because he is dead,
which is to me the most delightful thing connected with him; for, were
he alive, I should be obliged to fight against him. The world outside of
France has no idea of the boundless devotion of the French people to
Napoleon. Therefore the discontented, when they determine on a decided
and daring course, will begin by proclaiming the young Napoleon, in
order to secure the sympathy of the masses. Napoleon is, for the French,
a magic word which electrifies and benumbs them. There sleep a thousand
cannon in this name, even as in the column of the Place Vendome, and the
Tuileries will tremble should these cannon once awake. As the Jews never
idly uttered the name of their God, so Napoleon is here very seldom
called by his, and people speak of him as _l'homme_, "the man." But his
picture is seen everywhere, in engravings and plaster casts, in metal
and wood. On all boulevards and carrefours are orators who praise and
popular minstrels who sing him--the Man--and his deeds. Yesterday
evening, while returning home, I came into a dark and lonely lane, in
which there stood a child some three years old, who, by a candle stuck
into the earth, lisped a song praising the Emperor. As I threw him a sou
on the handkerchief spread out, something slid up to me, begging for
another. It was an old soldier, who could also sing a song of the glory
of the great Emperor, for this glory had cost him both legs. The poor
man did not beg in the name of God, but implored with most believing
fervor, "_Au nom de Napoleon, donnez-moi un sou._" So this name is the
best word to conjure with among the people. Napoleon is its god, its
cult, its religion, and this religion will, by and by, become tiresome,
like every other.
Lafayette, on the contrary, is venerated more as a man or as a guardian
angel. He, too, lives in picture and in song, but less heroically;
and--honorably confessed!--it had a comic effect on me when, last year,
on the 28th July, I heard in the song of _La Parisienne_ the words--
"Lafayette aux cheveux blancs,"
while I saw him in person standing near me in his brown wig. It was the
Place de la Bastille; the man was in his right place, but still I needs
must laugh to myself. It may be that such a comic combination brings him
humanly somewhat nearer to our hearts. His good-nature, his _bonhomie_,
acts even on children, and they perhaps understand his greatness better
than do the grown people. And here I will tell a little story about a
beggar which will show the characteristic contrast between the glory of
Lafayette and that of Napoleon. I was lately standing at a street corner
before the Pantheon, and as usual lost in thought in contemplating that
beautiful building, when a little Auvergnat came begging for a sou, and
I gave him half-a-franc to be rid of him. But he approached me all the
more familiarly with the words, "_Est-ce que vous connaissez le general
Lafayette?_" and as I assented to this strange question, the proudest
satisfaction appeared on the naive and dirty face of the pretty boy, and
with serio-comic expression he said, _"Il est de mon pays,"_ for he
naturally believed that any man who was generous enough to give him ten
sous must be, of course, an admirer of Lafayette, and judged me worthy
that he should present himself as a compatriot of that great man. The
country folk also have for Lafayette the most affectionate respect, and
all the more because he chiefly busies himself with agriculture. From
this, result the freshness and simplicity which might be lost in
constant city life. In this he is like one of those great Republicans of
earlier days who planted their own cabbages, but who in time of need
hastened from the plough to the battle or the tribune, and after combat
and victory returned to their rural work. On the estate where Lafayette
passes the pleasant portion of the year, he is generally surrounded by
aspiring young men and pretty girls. There hospitality, be it of heart
or of table, rules supreme; there are much laughing and dancing; there
is the court of the sovereign people; there any one may be presented who
is the son of his own works and has never made mesalliance with
falsehood--and Lafayette is the master of ceremonies. The name of this
country place is Lagrange, and it is very charming when the hero of two
worlds relates to the young people his adventures; then he appears like
an epos surrounded by the garlands of an idyll.
But it is in the real middle-class more than any other, that is, among
tradespeople and small shop-keepers, that there is the most veneration
for Lafayette. They simply worship him. Lafayette, the establisher of
order, is their idol. They adore him as a kind of Providence on
horseback, an armed tutelary patron of public peace and security, as a
genius of freedom, who also takes care in the battle for freedom that
nothing is stolen and that everybody keeps his little property. The
great army of public order, as Casimir Perier called the National Guard,
the well-fed heroes in great bearskin caps into which small shopmen's
heads are stuck, are drunk with delight when they speak of Lafayette,
their old general, their Napoleon of peace. Truly he is the Napoleon of
the small citizen, of those brave folks who always pay their
bills--those uncle tailors and cousin glove-makers who are indeed too
busy by day to think of Lafayette, but who praise him afterward in the
evening with double enthusiasm, so that one may say that it is about
eleven o'clock at night, when the shops are shut, that his fame is in
full bloom.
I have just before used the expression "master of ceremonies." I now
recall that Wolfgang Menzel has in his witty trifling called Lafayette a
master of ceremonies of Liberty. This was when the former spoke in the
_Literaturblatt_ of the triumphal march of Lafayette across the United
States, and of the deputations, addresses, and solemn discourses which
attended such occasions. Other much less witty folk wrongly imagine that
Lafayette is only an old man who is kept for show or used as a machine.
But they need hear him speak only once in public to learn that he is not
a mere flag which is followed or sworn by, but that he is in person the
_gonfaloniere_ in whose hands is the good banner, the oriflamme of the
nations. Lafayette is perhaps the most prominent and influential speaker
in the Chamber of Deputies. When he speaks, he always hits the nail, and
his nailed-up enemies, on the head.
When it is needed, when one of the great questions of humanity is
discussed, then Lafayette ever rises, eager for strife as a youth. Only
the body is weak and tottering, broken by age and the battles of his
time, like a hacked and dented old iron armor, and it is touching when
he totters under it to the tribune and has reached his old post, to see
how he draws a deep breath and smiles. This smile, his delivery, and the
whole being of the man while speaking on the tribune, are indescribable.
There is in it all so much that is winsome and yet so much delicate
irony, that one is enchained as by a marvelous curiosity, a sweet,
strange enigma. We know not if these are the refined manners of a French
marquis or the straightforward simplicity of an American citizen. All
that is best in the _ancien regime_, the chivalresque courtesy and tact,
are here wondrously fused with what is best in the modern _bourgeoisie_,
love of equality, simplicity, and honesty. Nothing is more interesting
than when mention is made, in the Chamber, of the first days of the
Revolution, and some one in _doctrinaire_ fashion tears some historical
fact from its true connection and turns it to his own account in speech.
Then Lafayette destroys with a few words the erroneous deduction by
illustrating or correcting the true sense of such an event by citing the
circumstances relating to it. Even Thiers must in such a case strike
sail, and the great historiographer of the Revolution bows before the
outburst of its great and living monument, General Lafayette.
There sits in the Chamber, just before the tribune a very old man, with
long silvery hair falling over his black clothing. His body is girted
with a very broad tricolored scarf; he is the old messenger who has
always filled that office in the Chamber since the beginning of the
Revolution, and who in this post has witnessed the momentous events of
the world's history from the days of the first National Assembly till
the _juste milieu_. I am told that he often speaks of Robespierre, whom
he calls _le bon Monsieur Robespierre_. During the Restoration the old
man suffered from colic, but since he has wound the tricolored scarf
round his waist he finds himself well again. His only trouble now, in
the dull and lazy times of the _juste milieu_, is drowsiness. I once
even saw him fall asleep while Mauguin was speaking. Indeed, the man
has, doubtless, in his time heard better than Mauguin, who is, however,
one of the best orators of the Opposition, though he is not found to be
very startling or effective by one _qui a beaucoup connu ce bon Monsieur
de Robespierre_. But when Lafayette speaks, then the old messenger
awakes from his twilight drowsiness, he seems to be aroused like an old
war-horse of hussars when he hears the sound of a trumpet--there rise
within him sweet memories of youth, and he nods delightedly with his
silver-white head.
* * * * *
THE ROMANTIC SCHOOL[58] (1833-35)
BY HEINRICH HEINE
TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
But what was the Romantic School in Germany? It was nothing else but the
reawakening of the poetry of the Middle Ages, as it had shown itself in
its songs, images, and architecture, in art and in life. But this poetry
had risen from Christianity; it was a passion-flower which had sprung
from the blood of Christ. I do not know whether the melancholy
passion-flower of Germany is known by that name in France, or whether
popular legend attributes to it the same mystical origin. It is a
strange, unpleasantly colored blossom, in whose calyx we see set forth
the implements which were used in the crucifixion of Christ, such as the
hammer, pincers, and nails--a flower which is not so much ugly as
ghostly, and even whose sight awakens in our soul a shuddering pleasure,
like the convulsively agreeable sensations which come from pain itself.
From this view the flower was indeed the fittest symbol for Christianity
itself, whose most thrilling chain was the luxury of pain.
Though in France only Roman Catholicism is understood by the word
Christianity, I must specially preface that I speak only of the latter.
I speak of that religion in whose first dogmas there is a damnation of
all flesh, and which not only allows to the spirit power over the flesh,
but will also kill this to glorify the spirit. I speak of that religion
by whose unnatural requisitions sin and hypocrisy really came into the
world, in that by the condemnation of the flesh the most innocent
sensuous pleasures became sins, and because the impossibility of a man's
becoming altogether spiritual naturally created hypocrisy. I speak of
that religion which, by teaching the doctrine of the casting away of all
earthly goods and of cultivating a dog-like, abject humility and angelic
patience, became the most approved support of despotism. Men have found
out the real life and meaning (_Wesen_) of this religion, and do not
now content themselves with promises of supping in Paradise; they know
that matter has also its merits, and is not all the devil's, and they
now defend the delights of this world, this beautiful garden of God, our
inalienable inheritance. And therefore, because we have grasped so
entirely all the consequences of that absolute spiritualism, we may
believe that the Christian Catholic view of the world has reached its
end. Every age is a sphinx, which casts itself into the abyss when man
has guessed its riddle.
Yet we do in no wise deny the good results which this Christian Catholic
view of the world established in Europe. It was necessary as a wholesome
reaction against the cruelly colossal materialism which had developed
itself in the Roman realm and threatened to destroy all spiritual human
power. As the lascivious memoirs of the last century form the _pieces
justificatives_ of the French Revolution, as the terrorism of a _comite
du salut public_ seems to be necessary physic when we read the
confessions of the aristocratic world of France, so we recognize the
wholesomeness of ascetic spiritualism when we read Petronius or
Apuleius, which are to be regarded as the _pieces justificatives_ of
Christianity. The flesh had become so arrogant in this Roman world that
it required Christian discipline to chasten it. After the banquet of a
Trimalchion, such a hunger-cure as Christianity was a necessity.
Or was it that as lascivious old men seek by being whipped to excite new
power of enjoyment, so old Rome endured monkish chastisement to find
more exquisite delight in torture and voluptuous rapture in pain? Evil
excess of stimulant! it took from the body of the state of Rome its last
strength. It was not by division into two realms that Rome perished. On
the Bosphorus, as by the Tiber, Rome was devoured by the same Jewish
spiritualism, and here, as there, Roman history was that of a long dying
agony which lasted for centuries. Did murdered Judea, in leaving to
Rome its spiritualism, wish to revenge itself on the victorious foe, as
did the dying centaur who craftily left to the son of Hercules the
deadly garment steeped in his own blood? Truly Rome, the Hercules among
races, was so thoroughly devoured by Jewish poison that helm and harness
fell from its withered limbs, and its imperial war-voice died away into
the wailing cadences of monkish prayer and the soft trilling of
castrated boys.
But what weakens old age strengthens youth. That spiritualism had a
healthy action on the too sound and strong races of the North; the too
full-blooded barbarous bodies were spiritualized by Christianity, and
European civilization began. The Catholic Church has in this respect the
strongest claims on our regard and admiration, for it succeeded by
subduing with its great genial institutions the bestiality of Northern
barbarians and by mastering brutal matter.
The Art-work of the Middle Ages manifests this mastery of mere material
by mind, and it is very often its only mission. The epic poems of this
period may be easily classed according to the degree of this subjection
or influence. There can be no discussion here of lyrical and dramatic
poems, for the latter did not exist, and the former are as like in every
age as are the songs of nightingales in spring.
Although the epic poetry of the Middle Ages was divided into sacred and
profane, both were altogether Christian according to their kind; for if
sacred poesy sang of the Jewish race and its history, the only race
which was regarded as holy, or of the heroes and legends of the Old and
New Testaments, and, in brief, the Church--still all the life of the
time was reflected in profane poetry with its Christian views and
action. The flower of the religious poetic art in the German Middle Ages
is perhaps _Barlaam and Josaphat_, in which the doctrine of abnegation,
of abstinence, and the denial and contempt of all worldly glory, is set
forth most consistently. Next to this I would class the _The Eulogium of
St. Hanno (Lobgesang auf den heiligen Anno)_ as the best of the
religious kind; but this is of a far more secular character, differing
from the first as the portrait of a Byzantine saint differs from an old
German one. As in those Byzantine pictures, so we see in _Barlaam and
Josaphat_ the utmost simplicity; there is no perspective side-work, and
the long, lean, statue-like forms and the idealistic serious faces come
out strongly drawn, as if from a mellow gold ground. On the other hand,
in the song of praise of St. Hanno, the side-work or accessories are
almost the subject, and, notwithstanding the grandeur of the plan, the
details are treated in the minutest manner, so that we know not whether
to admire in it the conception of a giant or the patience of a dwarf.
But the evangel-poem of Ottfried, which is generally praised as the
masterpiece of sacred poetry, is far less admirable than the two which I
have mentioned.
In profane poetry we find, as I have already signified, first the cycle
of sagas of the _Nibelungen_ and the _Heldenbuch_, or _Book of Heroes_.
In them prevails all the pre-Christian manner of thought and of feeling;
in them rude strength has not as yet been softened by chivalry. There
the stern Kempe-warriors of the North stand like stone images, and the
gentle gleam and the more refined breath of Christianity have not as yet
penetrated their iron armor. But little by little a light dawns in the
old Teutonic forest; the ancient idolatrous oak-trees are felled, and we
see a brighter field of battle where Christ wars with the heathen. This
appears in the saga-cycle of Charlemagne, in which what we really see is
the Crusades reflecting themselves with their religious influences. And
now from the spiritualizing power of Christianity, chivalry, the most
characteristic feature of the Middle Ages, unfolds itself, and is at
last sublimed into a spiritual knighthood. This secular knighthood
appears most attractively glorified in the sagacycle of King Arthur, in
which the sweetest gallantry, the most refined courtesy, and the most
adventurous passion for combat prevail. Among the charmingly eccentric
arabesques and fantastic flower-pictures of this poem we are greeted by
the admirable Iwain, the all-surpassing Lancelot du Lac, and the bold,
gallant, and true, but somewhat tiresome, Wigalois. Nearly allied and
interwoven with this cyclus of sagas is that of the Holy Grail, in which
the spiritual knighthood is glorified; and in this epoch we meet three
of the grandest poems of the Middle Ages, the _Titurel_, the _Parsifal_,
and the _Lohengrin_. Here indeed we find ourselves face to face with
Romantic Poetry. We look deeply into her great sorrowing eyes; she
twines around us, unsuspectingly, her fine scholastic nets, and draws us
down into the bewildering, deluding depths of medieval mysticism.
At last, however, we come to poems of that age which are not
unconditionally devoted to Christian spiritualism; nay, it is often
indirectly reflected on, where the poet disentangles himself from the
bonds of abstract Christian virtues and plunges delighted into the world
of pleasure and of glorified sensuousness; and it is not the worst poet,
by any means, who has left us the principal work thus inspired. This is
_Tristan and Isolde_; and I must declare that Gottfried von Strassburg,
the composer of this most beautiful poem of the Middle Ages, is perhaps
also its greatest poet, towering far above all the splendor of Wolfram
von Eschenbach, whom we so admire in _Parsifal_ and the fragments of
_Titurel_. We are at last permitted to praise Gottfried unconditionally,
though in his own time his book was certainly regarded as godless, and
similar works, among them the _Lancelot_, were considered as dangerous.
And some very serious results did indeed ensue. The fair Francesca da
Polenta and her handsome friend had to pay dearly for the pleasure of
reading on a summer day in such a book; but the trouble came not from
the reading, but from their suddenly ceasing to read.
There is in all these poems of the Middle Ages a marked character which
distinguishes them from those of Greece and Rome. We characterize this
difference by calling the first Romantic and the other Classic. Yet
these appellations are only uncertain rubrics, and have led hitherto to
the most discouraging, wearisome entanglements, which become worse since
we give to antique poetry the designation of "Plastic," instead of
"Classic." From this arose much misunderstanding; for, justly, all poets
should work their material plastically, be it Christian or heathen; they
should set it forth in clear outlines; in short, plastic form should be
the main desideratum in modern Romantic art, quite as much as in the
ancient. And are not the figures in the _Divina Commedia_ of Dante or in
the pictures of Raphael as plastic as those in Virgil? The difference
lies in this, that the plastic forms in ancient art are absolutely
identical with the subject or the idea which the artist would set forth,
as, for example, that the wanderings of Ulysses mean nothing else than
the journeyings of a man named Odysseus, who was son of Laertes and
husband of Penelope; and further, that the Bacchus which we see in the
Louvre is nothing else than the graceful, winsome son of Semele, with
audacious melancholy in his eyes and sacred voluptuousness on his soft
and arching lips. It is quite otherwise in Romantic art, in which the
wild wanderings of a knight have ever an esoteric meaning, symbolizing
perhaps the erring course of life. The dragon whom he overcomes is sin;
the almond which from afar casts comforting perfume to the traveler is
the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, which
are three in one, as shell, fibre, and kernel make one nut. When Homer
describes the armor of a hero, it is a good piece of work, worth such
and such a number of oxen; but when a monk of the Middle Ages describes
in his poems the garments of the Mother of God, one may be sure that by
this garb he means as many virtues, and a peculiar significance lies
hidden under this holy covering of the immaculate virginity of Maria,
who, as her son is the almond-kernel, is naturally sung as the
almond-flower. That is the character of the medieval poetry which we
call Romantic.
Classic art had only to represent the finite or determined, and its
forms could be one and the same with the idea of the artist. Romantic
art had to set forth, or rather signify, the infinite and purely
spiritual, and it took refuge in a system of traditional, or rather of
parabolistic symbols, as Christ himself had sought to render clear his
spiritualistic ideas by all kinds of beautiful parables. Hence the
mystical, problematic, marvelous, and transcendental in the artwork of
the Middle Ages, in which fantasy makes her most desperate efforts to
depict the purely spiritual by means of sensible images, and invents
colossal follies, piling Pelion on Ossa and _Parsifal_ on _Titurel_ to
attain to heaven.
Among other races where poetry attempted to display the infinite, and
where monstrous fancies appeared, as, for instance, among the
Scandinavians and Indians, we find poems which, being romantic, are
given that classification.
We cannot say much as to the music of the Middle Ages, for original
documents, which might have served for our guidance, are wanting. It was
not till late in the sixteenth century that the masterpieces of Catholic
church music, which cannot be too highly praised, appeared. These
express in the most exquisite manner pure Christian spirituality. The
recitative arts, which are spiritual from their very nature, could
indeed flourish fairly in Christianity, yet it was less favorable to
those of design, for as these had to represent the victory of mind over
matter, and yet must use matter as the means wherewith to work, they had
to solve a problem against Nature. Hence we find in sculpture and
painting those revolting subjects--martyrdoms, crucifixions, dying
saints, and the flesh crushed in every form. Such themes were martyrdom
for sculpture; and when I contemplate those distorted images in which
Christian asceticism and renunciation of the senses are expressed by
distorted, pious heads, long thin arms, starveling legs, and awkwardly
fitting garments, I feel an indescribable compassion for the artists of
that time. The painters were indeed more favored, for the material for
their work, because of its susceptivity to varied play of color, did not
antagonize spirituality so obstinately as the material of the sculptors,
and yet they were obliged to load the sighing canvas with the most
repulsive forms of suffering. In truth, when we regard many galleries
which contain nothing but scenes of bloodshed, scourging, and beheading,
one might suppose that the old masters had painted for the collection of
an executioner.
But human genius can transform and glorify even the unnatural; many
painters solved this problem of making what was revolting beautiful and
elevating--the Italians, especially, succeeding in paying tribute to
beauty at the expense of spirituality, and in rising to that ideality
which attained perfection in so many pictures of the Madonna. As regards
this subject the Catholic clergy always made some concession to the
physical. This image of immaculate beauty which is glorified by maternal
love and suffering had the privilege of being made famous by poets and
painters, and adorned with all charms of the sense, for it was a magnet
which could attract the multitude to the lap of Christianity. Madonna
Maria was the beautiful _dame du comptoir_ of the Catholic Church, who,
with her beautiful eyes, attracted and held fast its customers,
especially the barbarians of the North.
Architecture had in the Middle Ages the same character as the other
arts, as indeed all the manifestations of life then harmonized so
marvelously with one another. The tendency to parable shows itself here,
as in poetry. When we now enter a Gothic cathedral, we hardly suspect
the esoteric sense of its stone symbolism; only a general impression
pierces our soul; we realize an elevation of feeling and mortification
of the flesh. The interior is a hollow cross, and we wander among the
instruments of martyrdom itself; the variegated windows cast on us red
and green light, like blood and corruption; funeral songs wail about
us; under our feet are mortuary tablets and decay; and the soul soars
with the colossal columns to a giddy height, tearing itself with pain
from the body, which falls like a weary, worn-out garment to the ground.
But when we behold the exteriors of these Gothic cathedrals, these
enormous buildings which are wrought so aerially, so finely, delicately,
transparently, cut as it were into such open work that one might take
them for Brabant lace in marble, then we feel truly the power of that
age which could so master stone itself that it seems spectrally
transfused with spiritual life, and thus even the hardest material
declares Christian spirituality.
But arts are only the mirror of life, and, as Catholicism died away, so
its sounds grew fainter and its lights dimmer in art. During the
Reformation Catholic song gradually disappeared in Europe, and in its
place we see the long-slumbering poetry of Greece re-awakening to life.
But it was only an artificial spring, a work of the gardener, not of the
sun, and the trees and flowers were in close pots, and a glass canopy
protected them from cold and northern winds.
In the world's history no event is the direct result of another; all
events rather exert a mutual influence. It was by no means due only to
the Greek scholars who emigrated to Europe after the fall of Byzantium
that a love for Grecian culture and the desire to imitate it became so
general among us; a similar Protestantism prevailed then in art as well
as in life. Leo X., that splendid Medici, was as zealous a Protestant as
Luther, and as there was a Latin prose protest in Wittenberg, so they
protested poetically in Rome in stone, color, and _ottaverime_. And do
not the mighty marble images of Michelangelo, the laughing nymphs of
Giulio Romano, and the joyous intoxication of life in the verses of
Ludovico Ariosto form a protesting opposition to the old, gloomy,
worn-out Catholicism? The painters of Italy waged a polemic against
priestdom which was perhaps more effective than that of the Saxon
theologian. The blooming rosy flesh in the pictures of Titian is all
Protestantism. The limbs of his Venus are more thorough _theses_ than
those which the German monk pasted on the church door of Wittenberg.
Then it was that men felt as if suddenly freed from the force and
pressure of a thousand years; the artists, most of all, again breathed
freely as the nightmare of Christianity seemed to spin whirling from
their breasts, and they threw themselves with enthusiasm into the sea of
Greek joyousness from whose foam rose to them goddesses of beauty.
Painters once more limned the ambrosial joys of Olympus; sculptors
carved, with the joy of yore, old heroes from the marble; poets again
sang the house of Atreus and Laius; and so the age of new classic poetry
began.
As modern life was most perfectly developed in France under Louis XIV.,
so the new classic poetry received there its most finished perfection,
and, in a measure, an independent originality. Through the political
influence of that great king this poetry spread over Europe; in Italy,
its home, it assumed a French color, and thence the heroes of French
tragedy went with the Anjous to Spain; it passed with Henrietta Maria to
England, and we Germans, as a matter of course, built our clumsy temples
to the powdered Olympus of Versailles. The most famous high-priest of
this religion was Gottsched, that wonderful long wig whom our dear
Goethe has so admirably described in his memoirs.
Lessing was the literary Arminius who delivered our theatre from this
foreign rule. He showed us the nothingness, the laughableness, the flat
and faded folly of those imitations of the French theatre, which were in
turn imitated from the Greek. But he became the founder of modern German
literature, not only by his criticism, but by his own works of art. This
man pursued with enthusiasm and sincerity art, theology, antiquity, and
archaeology, the art of poetry, history--all with the same zeal and to
the same purpose. There lives and breathes in all his works the same
great social idea, the same progressive humanity, the same religion of
reason, whose John he was, and whose Messiah we await. This religion he
always preached, but, alas! too often alone and in the desert. And there
was one art only of which he knew nothing--that of changing stones into
bread, for he consumed the greatest part of his life in poverty and
under hard pressure--a curse which clings to nearly all great German
geniuses, and will last, it may be, till ended by political freedom.
Lessing was more inspired by political feelings than men supposed, a
peculiarity which we do not find among his contemporaries, and we can
now see for the first time what he meant in sketching the duo-despotism
in _Emilia Galotti_. He was regarded then as a champion of freedom of
thought and against clerical intolerance; for his theological writings
were better understood. The fragments _On the Education of the Human
Race_, which Eugene Rodrigue has translated into French, may give an
idea of the vast comprehensiveness of Lessing's mind. The two critical
works which exercised the most influence on art are his _Hamburg
Dramatic Art (Hamburgische Dramaturgie)_, and his _Laokoon, or the
Limits of Painting and Poetry_. His most remarkable theatrical pieces
are _Emilia Galotti, Minna von Barnhelm,_ and _Nathan the Wise_.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born at Camenz in Lausitz, January 22,
1729, and died in Brunswick, February 15, 1781. He was a thorough-going
man who, when he destroyed something old in a battle, at the same time
always created something new and better. "He was," says a German author,
"like those pious Jews, who, during the second building of the Temple,
were often troubled by attacks of the enemy, and so fought with one hand
while with the other they worked at the house of God." This is not the
place where I can say more of Lessing, but I cannot refrain from
remarking that he is, of all who are recorded in the whole history of
literature, the writer whom I love best.
I will here mention another author who worked in the same spirit, with
the same object, as Lessing, and who may be regarded as his successor.
It is true that his eulogy is here also out of place, since he occupies
an altogether peculiar position in literature, and a unique relation to
his time and to his contemporaries. It is Johann Gottfried Herder, born
in 1744 at Mohrungen, in East Prussia, and who died at Weimar in the
year 1803.
Literary history is the great "Morgue" where every one seeks his dead,
those whom he loves or to whom he is related. When I see there, among so
many dead who were of little interest, a Lessing or a Herder, with their
noble, manly countenances, my heart throbs; I cannot pass them by
without hastily kissing their dead lips.
Yet if Lessing did so much to destroy the habit of imitating French
second-hand Greekdom, he still, by calling attention to the true works
of art of Greek antiquity, gave an impulse to a new kind of ridiculous
imitations. By his battling with religious superstition he advanced the
sober search for clearer views which spread widely in Berlin, which had
in the late blessed Nicolai its chief organ, and in the General German
Library its arsenal. The most deplorable mediocrity began to show itself
more repulsively than ever, and flatness and insipidity blew themselves
up like the frog in the fable.
It is a great mistake to suppose that Goethe, who had already come
before the world, was at once universally recognized as a writer of
commanding genius. His _Goetz von Berlichingen_ and his _Werther_ were
received with a degree of enthusiasm, to be sure; but so, too, were the
works of common bunglers, and Goethe had but a small niche in the temple
of literature. As I have said, _Goetz_ and _Werther_ had a spirited
reception, but more on account of the subject-matter than their artistic
merits, which very few appreciated in these masterworks. _Goetz_ was a
dramatized romance of chivalry, and such writings were then the rage. In
_Werther_ the world saw the reproduction of a true story, that of young
Jerusalem, who shot himself dead for love, and thereby, in those
dead-calm days, made a great noise. People read with tears his touching
letters; some shrewdly observed that the manner in which Werther had
been banished from aristocratic society had increased his weariness of
life. The discussion of suicide caused the book to be still more
discussed; it occurred to several fools on this occasion to make away
with themselves, and the book, owing to its subject, went off like a
shot. The novels of August Lafontaine were just as much read, and, as
this author wrote incessantly, he was more famous than Wolfgang von
Goethe. Wieland was the great poet then, with whom perhaps might be
classed the ode-maker, Rambler of Berlin. Wieland was honored
idolatrously, far more at that time than Goethe. Iffland ruled the
theatre with his dreary _bourgeois_ dramas, and Kotzebue with his flat
and frivolously witty jests.
It was in opposition to this literature that there sprang up in Germany,
at the end of the last century, a school which we call the Romantic, and
of which August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel have presented themselves
as managing agents. Jena, where these and many other souls in like
accord found themselves "off and on," was the centre from which the new
esthetic doctrine spread. I say doctrine, for this school began with
judgments of the art-works of the past and recipes for art-works of the
future, and in both directions the Schlegel school rendered great
service to esthetic criticism. By judging of such works of art as
already existed, either their faults and failures were indicated, or
their merits and beauties brought to light. In controversy and in
indicating artistic shortcomings, the Schlegels were entirely imitators
of old Lessing; they obtained possession of his great battle-blade, but
the arm of August William Schlegel was too tenderly weak and the eyes of
his brother Friedrich too mystically clouded for the former to strike so
strongly and the latter so keenly and accurately as Lessing. True, in
descriptive criticism, where the beauties of a work of art are to be set
forth--where it came to a delicate detection of its characteristics
and bringing them home to our intelligence--then, compared to the
Schlegels, old Lessing was nowhere. But what shall I say as to their
recipes for preparing works of art? There we find in the Schlegels a
weakness which we think may also be detected in Lessing; for the latter
is as weak in affirming as he is strong in denying. He rarely succeeds
in laying down a fundamental principle, still more seldom a correct one.
He wants the firm basis of a philosophy or of a philosophical system.
And this is still more sadly the case with the brothers Schlegel.
Much is fabled as to the influence of Fichtean Idealism and Schelling's
Philosophy of Nature on the Romantic school, which is even declared to
have sprung from it. But I see here, at the most, only the influence of
certain fragments of thoughts from Fichte and Schelling, and not at all
that of a philosophy. This may be explained on the simple ground that
Fichte's philosophy had lost its hold, and Fichte himself had made it
lose its interest by a mingling of tenets and ideas from Schelling; and
because, on the other hand, Schelling had never set forth a philosophy,
but only a vague philosophizing, an unsteady, vacillating improvisation
of poetical philosophemes. It may be that it was from the Fichtean
Idealism--that deeply ironical system, where the I is opposed to the
not--I and annihilates it--that the Romantic school took the doctrine of
irony which the late Solger especially developed, and which the
Schlegels at first regarded as the soul of art, but which they
subsequently found to be fruitless and exchanged for the more positive
axioms of the Theory of Identity of Schelling. Schelling, who then
taught in Jena, had indeed a great personal influence on the Romantic
school; he is, what is not generally known in France, also a bit of a
poet; and it is said that he was in doubt whether he should not deliver
all his philosophical doctrines in a poetic or even metrical form. This
doubt characterizes the man.
THE RABBI OF BACHARACH[59] (1840)
With kindly greeting, the Legend of the Rabbi of Bacharach is dedicated
to his friend HENRY LAUBE by the AUTHOR
A FRAGMENT
TRANSLATED BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
TRANSLATION REVISED BY PAUL BERNARD THOMAS
CHAPTER I
On the Lower Rhine, where its banks begin to lose their smiling aspect,
where the hills and cliffs with their romantic ruined castles rise more
defiantly, and a wilder, sterner majesty prevails, there lies, like a
strange and fearful tale of olden times, the gloomy and ancient town of
Bacharach. But these walls, with their toothless battlements and blind
turrets, in whose nooks and niches the winds whistle and the sparrows
build their nests, were not always so decayed and fallen, and in these
poverty-stricken, repulsive muddy lanes which one sees through the
ruined gate, there did not always reign that dreary silence which only
now and then is broken by the crying of children, the scolding of women,
and the lowing of cows. These walls were once proud and strong, and
these lanes were alive with fresh, free life, power and pomp, joy and
sorrow, much love and much hate. For Bacharach once belonged to those
municipalities which were founded by the Romans during their rule on the
Rhine; and its inhabitants, though the times which came after were very
stormy, and though they had to submit first to the Hohenstaufen, and
then to the Wittelsbach authority, managed, following the example of the
other cities on the Rhine, to maintain a tolerably free commonwealth.
This consisted of an alliance of separate social elements, in which the
patrician elders and those of the guilds, who were subdivided according
to their different trades, both strove for power; so that while they
were bound in union to resist and guard against outside robber-nobles,
they were, nevertheless, constantly having domestic dissensions over
disputed interests. Consequently there was but little social
intercourse, much mistrust, and not infrequently actual outbursts of
passion. The ruling governor sat in his lofty castle of Sareck, and
swooped down like his falcon, whenever he was called, and often when not
called. The clergy ruled in darkness by darkening the souls of others.
One of the most forsaken and helpless of the social elements, which had
been gradually bound down by local laws, was the little Jewish
community. This had first settled in Bacharach in the days of the
Romans, and during the later persecution of the Jews it had taken in
many a flock of fugitive co-religionists.
The great oppression of the Jews began with the crusades, and raged most
furiously about the middle of the fourteenth century, at the end of the
great pestilence, which, like all other great public disasters, was
attributed to the Jews, because people declared they had drawn down the
wrath of God, and, with the help of the lepers, had poisoned the wells.
The enraged populace, especially the hordes of Flagellants, or
half-naked men and women, who, lashing themselves for penance and
singing a mad hymn to the Virgin, swept over South Germany and the
Rhenish provinces, murdered in those days many thousand Jews, tortured
others, or baptized them by force. There was another accusation which in
earlier times and all through the Middle Ages, even to the beginning of
the last century, cost much blood and suffering. This was the ridiculous
story, recurring with disgusting frequency in chronicle and legend, that
the Jews stole the consecrated wafer, and pierced it with knives till
blood ran from it; and to this it was added that at the feast of the
Passover the Jews slew Christian children to use their blood in the
night sacrifice.
[Illustration: BACHARACH ON THE RHINE]
Consequently on the day of this festival the Jews, hated for their
wealth, their religion, and the debts due to them, were entirely in the
hands of their enemies, who could easily bring about their destruction
by spreading the report of such a child-murder, and perhaps even
secretly putting a bloody infant's corpse in the house of a Jew thus
accused. Then at night they would attack the Jews at their prayers, and
murder, plunder, and baptize them; and great miracles would be wrought
by the dead child aforesaid, whom the Church would eventually canonize.
Saint Werner is one of these holy beings, and in his honor the
magnificent abbey of Oberwesel was founded. The latter is now one of the
most beautiful ruins on the Rhine, and with the Gothic grandeur of its
long ogival windows, proud and lofty pillars, and marvelous
stone-carving, it strangely enchants us when we wander by it on some
bright, green summer's day, and do not know the story of its origin. In
honor of this saint there were also three great churches built on the
Rhine, and innumerable Jews murdered and maltreated. All this happened
in the year 1287; and in Bacharach, where one of these Saint Werner's
churches stood, the Jews suffered much misery and persecution. However,
they remained there for two centuries after, protected from such
outbreaks of popular rage, though they were continually subject to spite
and threats.
Yet the more they were oppressed by hate from without, the more
earnestly and tenderly did the Jews of Bacharach cherish their domestic
life within, and the deeper was the growth among them of piety and the
fear of God. An ideal example of a life given to God was seen in their
Rabbi Abraham, who, though still a young man, was famed far and wide for
his learning. He was born in Bacharach, and his father, who had been the
rabbi there before him, had charged him in his last will to devote his
life to that office and never to leave the place unless for fear of
life. This command, except for a cabinet full of rare books, was all
that his parent, who had lived in poverty and learning, left him.
Rabbi Abraham, however, was a very rich man, for he had married the only
daughter of his father's brother, who had been a prosperous dealer in
jewelry, and whose possessions he had inherited. A few gossips in the
community hinted now and then that the Rabbi had married for money. But
the women all denied this, declaring that the Rabbi, long ere he went to
Spain, had been in love with "Beautiful Sara," and recalling how she had
awaited his return for seven years, while, as a matter of fact, he had
already wedded her against the will of her father, and even without her
own consent, by the betrothal-ring. For every Jew can make a Jewish girl
his lawful wife, if he can succeed in putting a ring on her finger, and
say at the same time: "I take thee for my wife, according to the law of
Moses and Israel." And when Spain was mentioned, the same gossips were
wont to smile in the same significant manner, all because of a vague
rumor that Rabbi Abraham, though he had studied the holy law
industriously enough at the theological school in Toledo, had
nevertheless followed Christian customs and become imbued with habits of
free thinking, like many of the Spanish Jews who at that time had
attained a very remarkable degree of culture.
And yet in the bottom of their hearts these gossips put no faith in such
reports; for ever since his return from Spain the daily life of the
Rabbi had been pure, pious, and earnest in every way. He performed every
detail of all religious customs and ceremonies with painstaking
conscientiousness; he fasted every Monday and Thursday--only on
Sabbaths and feast days did he indulge in meat or wine; his time was
passed in prayer and study; by day he taught the Law to students, whom
his fame had drawn to Bacharach; and by night he gazed on the stars in
heaven, or into the eyes of Beautiful Sara. His married life was
childless, yet there was no lack of life or gaiety in his home. The
great hall in his house, which stood near the synagogue, was open to the
whole community, so that people went in and out without ceremony, some
to offer short prayers, others to gather news, or to hold a consultation
when in trouble. Here the children played on Sabbath mornings while the
weekly "section" was being read; here people met for wedding and funeral
processions, and quarreled or were reconciled; here, too, those who were
cold found a warm stove, and those who were hungry, a well-spread table.
And, moreover, the Rabbi, as well as his wife, had a multitude of
relatives, brothers and sisters, with their wives and children, and an
endless array of uncles and cousins, all of whom looked up to the Rabbi
as the head of the family, and so made themselves at home in his house,
never failing to dine with him on all great festivals.
Special among these grand gatherings in the Rabbi's house was the annual
celebration of the Passover, a very ancient and remarkable feast which
the Jews all over the world still hold every year in the month Nissen,
in eternal remembrance of their deliverance from Egyptian servitude.
This takes place as follows:
As soon as it is dark the matron of the family lights the lamps, spreads
the table-cloth, places in its midst three flat loaves of unleavened
bread, covers them with a napkin, and places on them six little dishes
containing symbolical food, that is, an egg, lettuce, horse-radish, the
bone of a lamb, and a brown mixture of raisins, cinnamon, and nuts. At
this table the father of the family sits with all his relatives and
friends, and reads to them from a very curious book called the _Agade_,
whose contents are a strange mixture of legends of their forefathers,
wondrous tales of Egypt, disputed questions of theology, prayers, and
festival songs. During this feast there is a grand supper, and even
during the reading there is at specified times tasting of the symbolical
food and nibbling of Passover bread, while four cups of red wine are
drunk. Mournfully merry, seriously gay, and mysteriously secret as some
old dark legend, is the character of this nocturnal festival, and the
traditional singing intonation with which the _Agade_ is read by the
father, and now and then reechoed in chorus by the hearers, first
thrills the inmost soul as with a shudder, then calms it as mother's
lullaby, and again startles it so suddenly into waking that even those
Jews who have long fallen away from the faith of their fathers and run
after strange joys and honors, are moved to their very hearts, when by
chance the old, well-known tones of the Passover songs ring in their
ears.
And so Rabbi Abraham once sat in his great hall surrounded by relatives,
disciples, and many other guests, to celebrate the great feast of the
Passover. Everything was unusually brilliant; over the table hung the
gaily embroidered silk canopy, whose gold fringes touched the floor; the
plates of symbolic food shone invitingly, as did the tall wine goblets,
adorned with embossed pictures of scenes in holy legends. The men sat in
their black cloaks and black low hats, and white collars, the women, in
wonderful glittering garments of Lombard stuffs, wore on their heads and
necks ornaments of gold and pearls, while the silver Sabbath lamp cast
its festive light on the cheerful, devout faces of parents and children.
On the purple velvet cushions of a chair, higher than the others,
reclined, as custom requires, Rabbi Abraham, who read and sang the
_Agade_, while the gay assembly joined in, or answered in the appointed
places. The Rabbi also wore the prescribed black festival garment, his
nobly-formed, but somewhat severe features had a milder expression than
usual, his lips smiled through his dark-brown beard as if they would
fain say something kind, while in his eyes one could see happy
remembrances combined with some strange foreboding. Beautiful Sara, who
sat on the high velvet cushion with her husband, as hostess, had on none
of her jewelry--nothing but white linen enveloped her slender form and
innocent face. This face was touchingly beautiful, even as all Jewish
beauty is of a peculiarly moving kind; for the consciousness of the deep
wretchedness, the bitter ignominy, and the evil dangers amid which their
kindred and friends dwell, imparts to their lovely features an
expression of soulful sadness and watchful, loving anxiety, which
particularly charms our hearts. So on this evening Beautiful Sara sat
looking into the eyes of her husband, yet glancing ever and anon at the
beautiful parchment book of the _Agade_ which lay before her, bound in
gold and velvet.
[Illustration: HOUSE IN BACHARACH]
It was an old heirloom, with ancient wine stains on it, and had come
down from the days of her grandfather; and in it there were many boldly
and brightly-colored pictures, which as a little girl she had often
looked at so eagerly on Passover evenings. They represented all kinds of
Bible incidents--Abraham breaking with a hammer the idols of his father
and the angels appearing to him; Moses slaying Mizri; Pharaoh sitting in
state on his throne, and the frogs giving him no peace even at the
table; his death by drowning--the Lord be praised!--the children of
Israel cautiously crossing the Red Sea, and then standing open-mouthed,
with their sheep, cows, and oxen, before Mount Sinai; pious King David
playing the harp; and, finally, Jerusalem, with its towers and
battlements, shining in the splendor of the setting sun.
The second wine-cup had been served, the faces and voices of the guests
were growing merrier, and the Rabbi, as he took a loaf of unleavened
bread and raised it with a cheerful smile, read these words from the
_Agade_: "Behold! This is the food which our fathers ate in Egypt! Let
every one who is hungry come and enjoy it! Let every one who is
sorrowful come and share the joy of our Passover! This year we celebrate
it here, but in years to come in the land of Israel. This year we
celebrate it as servants, but in the years to come as sons of freedom!"
Then the hall door opened, and two tall, pale men, wrapped in very loose
cloaks, entered and said:
"Peace be with you. We are men of your faith on a journey, and wish to
share the Passover-feast with you!" And the Rabbi replied promptly and
kindly:
"Peace be with you! Sit ye down near me!" The two strangers immediately
sat down at the table, and the Rabbi read on. Several times while the
others were repeating a sentence after him, he said an endearing word to
his wife; once, alluding to the old humorous saying that on this evening
a Hebrew father of a family regards himself as a king, he said to her,
"Rejoice, oh my Queen!" But she replied with a sad smile, "The Prince is
wanting," meaning by that a son, who, as a passage in the _Agade_
requires, has to ask his father, with a certain formula of words, what
the meaning of the festival is? The Rabbi said nothing, but pointed with
his finger to an opened page of the _Agade_, on which was a pretty
picture, showing how the three angels came to Abraham, announcing that
he would have a son by his wife Sara, who, meanwhile, urged by feminine
curiosity, is slyly listening to it all behind the tent-door. This
little sign caused a threefold blush to color the cheeks of Beautiful
Sara, who first looked down, and then glanced pleasantly at her husband,
who went on chanting the wonderful story how Rabbi Jesua, Rabbi Eliezer,
Rabbi Asaria, Rabbi Akiba, and Rabbi Tarphen sat reclining in Bona-Brak,
and conversed all night long of the Exodus from Egypt, till their
disciples came to tell them that it was daylight, and that the great
morning prayer was being read in the synagogue.
While Beautiful Sara sat devoutly listening to and looking at her
husband, she saw his face suddenly assume an expression of agony or
horror, his cheeks and lips become deathly pale, and his eyes harden
like two balls of ice; but almost immediately he regained his previous
composure and cheerfulness, his cheeks and lips grew ruddy, and he
looked about him gaily--nay, it seemed as if a strange, wild humor, such
as was foreign to his nature, had seized him. Beautiful Sara was
frightened as she had never been before in all her life, and a cold
shudder went through her--due less to the momentary manifestation of
dumb horror which she had seen in her husband's face, than to the
cheerfulness which followed it, and which was now gradually developing
into jubilant hilarity. The Rabbi cocked his cap comically, first on one
ear, then on the other, pulled and twisted his beard ludicrously, and
sang the _Agade_ texts as if they were tavern-songs; and in the
enumeration of the Egyptian plagues, where it is usual to dip the
forefinger in the full wine-cup and flip off the drops that adhere, he
sprinkled the young girls near him with the red wine, so that there was
great wailing over spoiled collars, combined with loud laughter. Every
moment Beautiful Sara was becoming more amazed by this convulsive
merriment of her husband, and she was oppressed with nameless fears as
she gazed on the buzzing swarm of gaily glittering guests who were
comfortably enjoying themselves here and there, nibbling the thin
Passover cakes, drinking wine, gossiping, or joyfully singing aloud.
Then came the time for supper. All rose to wash, and Beautiful Sara
brought the large silver basin, richly adorned with embossed gold
figures, which was held before all the guests in turn, while water was
poured over their hands. As she was doing this for the Rabbi, he gave
her a significant glance, and quietly slipped out of the door. When
Beautiful Sara walked out after him, he grasped her hand, and in the
greatest haste hurried her through the dark lanes of Bacharach, out of
the city gate to the highway which leads along the Rhine to Bingen.
It was one of those spring nights which, to be sure, are mild and starry
enough, yet which inspire the soul with strange, uncanny feelings. There
was something funereal in the odor of the flowers, the birds chirped
spitefully and at the same time apprehensively, the moon cast malicious
yellow stripes of light over the dark murmuring stream, the lofty banks
of the Rhine looked like vague, threatening giants' heads. The watchman
on the tower of Castle Strahleck blew a melancholy blast, and with it
rang in jarring discord the funeral bell of Saint Werner's.
Beautiful Sara still had the silver basin in her right hand, while the
Rabbi held her left, and she felt that his fingers were ice-cold, and
that his arm was trembling; but still she went on with him in silence,
perhaps because she had become accustomed to obey her husband blindly
and unquestioningly--perhaps, too, because her lips were mute with
fear and anxiety.
Below Castle Sonneck, opposite Lorch, about the place where the hamlet
of Nieder Rheinbach now lies, there rises a cliff which arches out over
the Rhine bank. The Rabbi ascended this with his wife, looked around on
every side, and gazed on the stars. Trembling and shivering, as with the
pain of death, Beautiful Sara looked at his pale face, which seemed
ghastly in the moonlight, and seemed to express by turns pain, terror,
piety, and rage. But when the Rabbi suddenly snatched from her hands the
silver basin and threw it far out into the Rhine, she could no longer
endure the agony of uncertainty, and crying out "_Schadai_, be
merciful!" threw herself at his feet and conjured him to explain the
dark mystery.
At first unable to speak, the Rabbi moved his lips without uttering a
sound; but finally he cried, "Dost thou see the Angel of Death? There
below he sweeps over Bacharach. But we have escaped his sword. God be
praised!" Then, in a voice still trembling with excitement, he told her
that, while he was happily and comfortably singing the _Agade_, he
happened to glance under the table, and saw at his feet the bloody
corpse of a little child. "Then I knew," continued the Rabbi, "that our
two guests were not of the community of Israel, but of the army of the
godless, who had plotted to bring that corpse into the house by stealth
so as to accuse us of child-murder, and stir up the people to plunder
and murder us. Had I given a sign that I saw through that work of
darkness I should have brought destruction on the instant down upon me
and mine, and only by craft did I save our lives. Praised be God! Grieve
not, Beautiful Sara. Our relatives and friends shall also be saved; it
was only my blood which the wretches wanted. I have escaped them, and
they will be satisfied with my silver and gold. Come with me, Beautiful
Sara, to another land. We will leave misfortune behind us, and so that
it may not follow us I have thrown to it the silver ewer, the last of my
possessions, as an offering. The God of our fathers will not forsake us.
Come down, thou art weary. There is Dumb William standing by his boat;
he will row us up the Rhine."
Speechless, and as if every limb were broken, Beautiful Sara sank into
the arms of the Rabbi, who slowly bore her to the bank. There stood
William, a deaf and dumb but very handsome youth, who, to support his
old foster-mother, a neighbor of the Rabbi, caught and sold fish, and
kept his boat in this place. It seemed as if he had divined the
intention of Abraham, and was waiting for him, for on his silent lips
there was an expression of tender sympathy, and his large blue eyes
rested as with deep meaning on Beautiful Sara, as he lifted her
carefully into the boat.
The glance of the silent youth roused Beautiful Sara from her lethargy,
and she realized at once that all which her husband had told her was not
a mere dream. A stream of bitter tears poured over her cheeks, which
were as white as her garment. Thus she sat in the boat, a weeping image
of white marble, and beside her sat her husband and Dumb William, who
was busily rowing.
Whether it is due to the measured beat of the oars, or to the rocking of
the boat, or to the fresh perfume from those steep banks whereon joy
grows, it ever happens that even the most sorrowful heart is marvelously
relieved when on a night in spring it is lightly borne along in a small
boat on the dear, limpid waters of the Rhine. For, in truth,
kind-hearted, old Father Rhine cannot bear to see his children weep, and
so, drying their tears, he rocks them on his trusty arm, and tells them
his most beautiful stories, and promises them his most golden treasures,
perhaps even the old, old, long-sunk Nibelungen hoard. Gradually the
tears of Beautiful Sara ceased to flow; her extreme sorrow seemed to be
washed away by the whispering waves, while the hills about her home bade
her the tenderest farewell. But especially cordial seemed the farewell
greeting of Kedrich, her favorite mountain; and far up on its summit, in
the strange moonlight, she imagined she saw a lady with outstretched.
arms, while active little dwarfs swarmed out of their caverns in the
rocks, and a rider came rushing down the side in full gallop. Beautiful
Sara felt as if she were a child again, and were sitting once more in
the lap of her aunt from Lorch, who was telling her brave tales of the
bold knight who freed the stolen damsel from the dwarfs, and many other
true stories of the wonderful Wisperthal over there, where the birds
talk as sensibly as men, and of Gingerbread Land, where good, obedient
children go, and of enchanted princesses, singing trees, crystal
castles, golden bridges, laughing water-fairies.... But suddenly in the
midst of these pleasant tales, which began to send forth notes of music
and to gleam with lovely light, Beautiful Sara heard the voice of her
father, scolding the poor aunt for putting such nonsense into the
child's head. Then it seemed to her as if they set her on the little
stool before her father's velvet-covered chair, and that he with a soft
hand smoothed her long hair, smiling as if well pleased, while he rocked
himself comfortably in his loose, Sabbath dressing-gown of blue silk.
Yes, it must be the Sabbath, for the flowered cover was spread on the
table, all the utensils in the room were polished like looking-glasses,
the white-bearded usher sat beside her father, eating raisins and
talking in Hebrew; even little Abraham came in with a very large book,
and modestly begged leave of his uncle to expound a portion of the Holy
Scripture, that he might prove that he had learned much during the past
week, and therefore deserved much praise--and a corresponding quantity of
cakes.... Then the lad laid the book on the broad arm of the chair, and
set forth the history of Jacob and Rachel--how Jacob raised his voice
and wept when he first saw his cousin Rachel, how he talked so
confidingly with her by the well, how he had to serve seven years for
her, and how quickly the time passed, and how he at last married and
loved her for ever and ever.... Then all at once Beautiful Sara
remembered how her father cried with merry voice, "Wilt thou not also
marry thy cousin Sara like that?" To which little Abraham gravely
replied, "That I will, and she shall wait seven years too." These
memories stole like twilight shadows through the soul of the young
wife, and she recalled how she and her little cousin--now so great a man
and her husband--played together as children in the leafy tabernacle; how
delighted they were with the gay carpets, flowers, mirrors, and gilded
apples; how little Abraham caressed her more and more tenderly, till
little by little he began to grow larger and more self-interested, and
at last became a man and scarcely noticed her at all.... And now she
sits in her room alone on a Saturday evening; the moon shines in
brightly. Suddenly the door flies open, and cousin Abraham, in traveling
garb, and as pale as death, enters, grasps her hand, puts a gold ring on
her finger, and says, solemnly, "I hereby take thee to be my wife,
according to the laws of God and of Israel." "But now," he adds, with a
trembling voice, "now I must go to Spain. Farewell! For seven years thou
must wait for me." With that he hurried away, and Sara, weeping, told
the tale to her father, who roared and raged, "Cut off thy hair, for
thou art now a married woman." Then he wanted to ride after Abraham to
compel him to write a letter of divorce; but Abraham was over the hills
and far away, and the father silently returned to his house. And when
Beautiful Sara was helping him to draw off his boots, and trying to
soothe him, saying that Abraham would return in seven years, he cursed,
and cried, "Seven years shalt thou be a beggar," and shortly after he
died.
And so old memories swept through her soul like a hurried play of
shadows, the images intermixing and blending strangely, while between
them came and went half-familiar, half-strange bearded faces, and large
flowers with marvelously spreading foliage. Then the Rhine seemed to
murmur the melodies of the _Agade_, and from its waters the pictures, as
large as life, but wild and distorted, came forth one by one. There was
Father Abraham anxiously breaking the idols into pieces which
immediately flew together again; Mizri defending himself fiercely
against the maddened Moses; Mount Sinai flashing and flaming; King
Pharaoh swimming in the Red Sea, holding his pointed gold crown tightly
in his teeth, while frogs with human faces swam along behind, in the
foaming, roaring waves, and a dark giant-hand rose up threatening from
below.
Yonder was the Mouse Tower of Bishop Hatto, and the boat was just
shooting through the Bingen Eddy. By this time Beautiful Sara had
somewhat awakened from her dreams, and she gazed at the hills on the
shore, on the summits of which lights of castles were gleaming, and at
the foot of which the mist, shimmering in the moonlight, was beginning
to rise. Suddenly she seemed to see her friends and relatives, as they,
with corpse-like faces and flowing shrouds, passed in awful procession
along the Rhine.... The world grew dark before her eyes, an icy current
ran through her soul, and, as if in sleep, she only heard the Rabbi
repeating the night-prayer slowly and painfully, as if at a deathbed.
Dreamily she stammered the words, "Ten thousand to the right, ten
thousand to the left, to protect the king from the terrors of the
night."
Then all at once the oppressive gloom and terror passed away, the dark
curtain was torn from heaven, and far above there appeared the holy city
Jerusalem, with its towers and gates; the Temple gleamed in golden
splendor, and in its fore-court Sara saw her father in his yellow
Sabbath dressing-gown, smiling as if well pleased. All her friends and
relatives were looking out from the round windows of the Temple,
cordially greeting her; in the Holy of Holies knelt pious King David,
with his purple mantle and golden crown; sweetly rang his song and the
tones of his harp, and smiling happily, Beautiful Sara awoke.
CHAPTER II
As Beautiful Sara opened her eyes they were almost dazzled by the rays
of the sun. The high towers of a great city rose before her, and Dumb
William, with his oar upright, was standing in the boat, pushing and
guiding it through the lively confusion of many vessels, gay with their
pennons and streamers, whose crews were either gazing idly at
passers-by, or else were busily loading with chests, bales, and casks
the lighters which were to bear them to the shore. And with it all was a
deafening noise, the constant halloh cry of steersmen, the calling of
traders from the shore, and the scolding of the custom-house officials
who, in their red coats and with their white maces and white faces,
jumped from boat to boat.
"Yes, Beautiful Sara," said the Rabbi, cheerfully smiling to his wife,
"this is the famous, free, imperial, and commercial city of
Frankfort-on-the-Main, and we are now passing along the river Main. Do
you see those pleasant-looking houses up there, surrounded by green
hills? That is Sachsenhausen, from which our lame Gumpert brings us the
fine myrrh for the Feast of the Tabernacles. Here you see the strong
Main Bridge with its thirteen arches, over which many men, wagons, and
horses can safely pass. In the middle of it stands the little house
where Aunty Taeubchen says there lives a baptized Jew, who pays six
farthings, on account of the Jewish community, to every man who brings
him a dead rat; for the Jews are obliged to deliver annually to the
State council five thousand rats' tails for tribute."
At the thought of this war, which the Frankfort Jews were obliged to
wage with the rats, Beautiful Sara burst out laughing. The bright
sunlight, and the new gay world now before her, had driven all the
terrors and horrors of the past night from her soul, and as she was
helped ashore from the boat by Dumb William and her husband, she felt
inspired as with a sense of joyful safety. Dumb William for a long time
fixed his beautiful, deep-blue eyes on hers, half sadly, half
cheerfully, and then, casting a significant glance at the Rabbi, sprang
back into his boat and was soon out of sight.
"Dumb William much resembles my brother who died," said Beautiful Sara.
"All the angels are alike," answered the Rabbi; and, taking his wife by
the hand, led her through the dense crowd on the shore, where, as it was
the time of the Easter Fair, a great number of wooden booths had been
erected by traders. Then passing through the gloomy Main Gate, they
found themselves in quite as noisy a crowd. Here, in a narrow street,
the shops stood close beside one another, every house, as was usual in
Frankfort, being specially adapted to trade. There were no windows on
the ground floor, but broad, open arches, so that the passer-by, looking
in, could see at a glance all there was for sale. And how astonished
Beautiful Sara was at the mass of magnificent wares, and at the
splendor, such as she had never seen before! Here stood Venetians, who
offered cheaply all the luxuries of the Orient and Italy, and Beautiful
Sara was enchanted by the sight of the ornaments and jewels, the gay
caps and bodices, the gold bangles and necklaces, and the whole display
of finery which women so admire and love to wear. The richly embroidered
stuffs of velvet and silk seemed fairly to speak to Beautiful Sara, and
to flash and sparkle strange wonders back into her memory, and she
really felt as if she were a little girl again, and as if Aunty Taeubchen
had kept her promise and taken her to the Frankfort Fair, and as if she
were now at last standing before the beautiful garments of which she had
heard so much. With a secret joy she reflected what she should take back
with her to Bacharach, and which of her two little cousins, Posy and
Birdy, would prefer that blue silk girdle, and whether the green
stockings would suit little Gottschalk. But all at once it flashed on
her, "Ah, Lord! they are all grown up now, and yesterday they were
slain!" She shuddered, and the pictures of the previous night filled her
soul with all their horror again. But the gold-embroidered cloths
glittered once more with a thousand roguish eyes, and drove the gloomy
thoughts from her mind, and when she looked into her husband's face she
saw that it was free from clouds, and bore its habitual, serious
gentleness. "Shut your eyes, Sara!" said the Rabbi, and he led his wife
on through the crowd.
What a gay, active throng! Most prominent were the tradesmen, who were
loudly vying one another in offering bargains, or talking together and
summing on their fingers, or, following heavily loaded porters, who at a
dog-trot were leading the way to their lodgings. By the faces of others
one could see that they came from curiosity. The stout councilman was
recognizable by his scarlet cloak and golden chain; a black,
expensive-looking, swelling waistcoat betrayed the honorable and proud
citizen. An iron spike-helmet, a yellow leather jerkin, and rattling
spurs, weighing a pound, indicated the heavy cavalry-man. Under little
black velvet caps, which came together in a point over the brow, there
was many a rosy girl-face, and the young fellows who ran along after
them, like hunting-dogs on the scent, showed that they were finished
dandies by their saucily feathered caps, their squeaking peaked shoes,
and their colored silk garments, some of which were green on one side
and red on the other, or else striped like a rainbow on the right and
checkered with harlequin squares of many colors on the left, so that the
mad youths looked as if they were divided in the middle.
Carried along by the crowd, the Rabbi and his wife arrived at the Roemer.
This is the great market-place of the city, surrounded by houses with
high gables, and takes its name from an immense building, "the Roemer,"
which was bought by the magistracy and dedicated as the town-hall. In it
the German Emperor was elected, and before it tournaments were often
held. King Maximilian, who was passionately fond of this sport, was then
in Frankfort, and in his honor the day before there had been great
tilting in the Roemer. Many idle men still stood on or about the
scaffolding, which was being removed by carpenters, telling how the Duke
of Brunswick and the Margrave of Brandenburg had charged one another
amid the sound of drums and of trumpets, and how Lord Walter the
Vagabond had knocked the Knight of the Bear out of his saddle so
violently that the splinters of the lances flew high into the air, while
the tall, fair-haired King Max, standing among his courtiers upon the
balcony, rubbed his hands for joy. The golden banners were still to be
seen on the balconies and in the Gothic windows of the town-hall. The
other houses of the market-place were still likewise festively bedecked
and adorned with shields, especially the Limburg house, on whose banner
was painted a maiden with a sparrow-hawk in her hand, and a monkey
holding out to her a mirror. Many knights and ladies standing on the
balcony were engaged in animated conversation, or looking at the crowd
below, which, in wild groups and processions, surged back and forth.
What a multitude of idlers of all ages and ranks were crowded together
here to gratify their curiosity! There was laughing, grumbling,
stealing, rib-poking, hurrahing, while every now and then blared the
trumpet of the mountebank, who, in a red cloak and with his clown and
monkey, stood on a high stand loudly boasting of his own skill, and
sounding the praises of his marvelous tinctures and salves, ere he
solemnly examined the glass of urine brought by some old woman, or
applied himself to pull a poor peasant's tooth. Two fencing-masters,
dancing about in gay ribbons and brandishing their rapiers, met as if by
accident and began to cut and pass with great apparent anger; but after
a long bout each declared that the other was invincible, and took up a
collection. Then the newly-organized guild of archers marched by with
drummers and pipers, and these were followed by the constable, who was
carrying a red flag at the head of a flock of traveling strumpets,
hailing from the brothel known as "The Ass," in Wuerzburg, and bound for
Rosendale, where the highly honorable authorities had assigned them
quarters during the fair. "Shut your eyes, Sara," said the Rabbi. For
indeed these fantastic, and altogether too scantily clad women, among
whom were a few really beautiful girls, behaved in a most immodest
manner, baring their bold, white breasts, chaffing those who went by
with shameless words, and swinging their long walking sticks; and using
the latter as hobby-horses, they rode down toward the gate of St.
Katherine, singing in shrill tones the witch-song--
"Where is the goat? the hellish beast;
Where is the goat? Oh bring him quick!
And if there is no goat, at least
We'll ride upon the stick."
This wild sing-song, which rang afar, was finally drowned
out by the long-drawn, sacred tones of a church procession.
It was a solemn train of bare-headed and bare-footed monks,
who carried burning wax tapers, banners with pictures of
the saints, and large silver crucifixes. Before it ran boys
clad in red and white gowns, bearing censers of smoking
frankincense. In the middle of the procession, under a
beautiful canopy, marched priests in white robes adorned
with costly lace, or in bright-colored, silk stoles; one of
them held in his hand a sun-like, golden vessel, which, on
arriving at a shrine by the market-corner, he raised on high,
while he half-sang, half-spoke in Latin--when all at once
a little bell rang, and all the people around, becoming silent,
fell to their knees and made the sign of the cross. "Shut
your eyes, Sara!" cried the Rabbi again, and he hastily
drew her away through a labyrinth of narrow, crooked
streets, and at last over the desolate, empty place which
separated the new Jewish quarter from the rest of the city.
Before that time the Jews dwelt between the Cathedral and the bank of
the Main, that is, from the bridge down as far as the Lumpenbrunnen, and
from the Mehlwage as far as Saint Bartholomew's. But the Catholic
priests obtained a Papal bull forbidding the Jews to live so near the
high church, for which reason the magistrates assigned them a place on
the Wollgraben, where they built their present quarter. This was
surrounded by high walls, the gate of which was held by iron chains to
keep out the rabble. For here, too, the Jews lived in misery and
anxiety, and with far more vivid memories of previous suffering than
they have at present. In 1240 the unrestrained populace had caused awful
bloodshed among them, which people called the first Jewish massacre. In
1349, when the Flagellants, in passing through the town, set fire to it,
and accused the Jews of the deed, the latter were nearly all murdered or
burned alive in their own houses; this was called the second Jewish
massacre. After this the Jews were often threatened with similar
slaughter, and during the internal dissensions of Frankfort, especially
during a dispute between the council and the guilds, the mob was often
on the point of breaking into the Jewish quarter, which, as has been
said, was surrounded by a wall. The latter had two gates in it, which on
Catholic holidays were closed from without and on Jewish holidays from
within, and before each gate was a watch-house with city soldiers.
When the Rabbi with his wife came to the entrance to the Jewish quarter,
the soldiers, as one could see through the open windows, lay on the
wooden bench inside the watch-house, while out before the door in the
sunshine sat the drummer beating capriciously on his large drum. He was
a heavy, fat fellow, wearing a jerkin and hose of fiery yellow, greatly
puffed out at his arms and thighs, and profusely dotted with small red
tufts, sewed on, which looked as if innumerable tongues were protruding
from him. His breast and back were padded with cushions of black cloth,
against which hung his drum. He had on his head a flat, round black cap,
which in roundness and flatness was equaled by his face, and the latter
was also in keeping with his dress, being an orange-yellow, spotted with
red pimples, and distorted into a gaping grin. So the fellow sat and
drummed to the melody of a song which the Flagellants had sung at the
Jewish massacre, while he gurgled, in a coarse, beery voice--
"Our dear Lady true
Walked in the morning dew,
Kyrie eleison!"
"Hans, that is a terrible tune," cried a voice from behind the closed
gate of the Jewish quarter. "Yes, Hans, and a bad song too-doesn't suit
the drum; doesn't suit it at all--by my soul--not the day of the fair
and on Easter morning--bad song--dangerous song--Jack, Jacky, little
drum--Jacky boy--I'm a lone man--and if thou lovest me, the Star, the
tall Star, the tall Nose Star--then stop it!"
These words were uttered by the unseen speaker, now in hasty anxiety,
now in a sighing drawl, with a tone which alternated between mild
softness and harsh hoarseness, such as one hears in consumptive people.
The drummer was not moved, and went on drumming and singing--
"There came a little youth,
His beard had run away, in truth,
Halleluja!"
"Jack," again cried the voice of the invisible speaker, "Jack, I'm a
lone man, and that is a dangerous song, and I don't like it; I have my
reasons for it, and if you love me, sing something else, and tomorrow we
will drink together."
At the word "drink" Jack ceased his drumming and singing, and said in
friendly tone, "The devil take the Jews! But thou, dear Nose Star, art
my friend, I protect thee; and if we drink together often enough I shall
have thee converted. Yea, I shall be thy godfather, and when thou art
baptized thou shalt be eternally happy; and if thou hast genius and wilt
study industriously under me, thou mayest even become a drummer. Yes,
Nose Star, thou mayest yet become something great. I will drum the whole
catechism into thee when we drink together tomorrow. But now open the
gate, for here are two strangers who wish to enter."
"Open the gate?" cried Nose Star, and his voice almost deserted him.
"That can't be done in such a hurry, my dear Jack; one can't tell--one
can never tell, you know--and I'm a lone man. Veitel Oxhead has the
key, and he is now standing in the corner mumbling his eighteen-prayer,
and he must not be interrupted. And Jaekel the Fool is here too, but he
is making water; I'm a lone man."
"The devil take the Jews!" cried the drummer, and, laughing loudly at
this, his one and only joke, he trudged off to the guard-room and lay
down on the bench.
While the Rabbi stood with his wife before the locked gate, there rose
from behind it a snarling, nasal, somewhat mocking voice. "Starry--don't
groan so much. Take the keys from Oxheady's coat pockets, or else go
stick your nose in the keyhole, and so unlock the gate. The people have
been standing and waiting a long time." "People!" cried the anxious
voice of the man called Nose Star, "I thought there was only one! I beg
you, Fool--dear Jaekel Fool--look out and see who is there."
A small, well-grated window in the gate opened, and there appeared in
it a yellow cap with two horns, and the funny, wrinkled, and twisted
jest-maker's face of Jaekel the Fool. The window was immediately shut
again, and he cried angrily, "Open the gate--it is only a man and a
woman."
"A man and a woman!" groaned Nose Star. "Yes, but when the gate's opened
the woman will take her skirt off, and become a man; and then there'll
be two men, and there are only three of us!"
"Don't be a hare," replied Jaekel the Fool. "Be a man and show courage!"
"Courage!" cried Nose Star, laughing with bitter vexation. "Hare! Hare
is a bad comparison. The hare is an unclean animal. Courage! I was not
put here to be courageous, but cautious. When too many come I am to give
the alarm. But I alone cannot keep them back. My arm is weak, I have a
seton, and I'm a lone man. If one were to shoot at me, I should be a
dead man. Then that rich man, Mendel Reiss, would sit on the Sabbath at
his table, and wipe the raisin-sauce from his mouth, and rub his belly,
and perhaps say, 'Tall Nose Star was a brave fellow after all; if it had
not been for him, perhaps they would have burst open the gate. He let
himself be shot for us. He was a brave fellow; too bad that he's dead!'"
Here the voice became tender and tearful, but all at once it rose to a
hasty and almost angry tone. "Courage! and so that the rich Mendel Reiss
may wipe away the raisin-sauce from his mouth, and rub his belly, and
call me a brave fellow, I'm to let myself be shot! Courage! Be a man!
Little Strauss was a man, and yesterday went to the Roemer to see the
tilting, thinking they would not know him because he wore a frock of
violet velvet--three florins a yard-covered with fox-tails and
embroidered with gold--quite magnificent; and they dusted his violet
frock for him till it lost its color, and his own back became violet and
did not look human. Courage, indeed! The crippled Leser was courageous,
and called our scoundrel of a magistrate a blackguard, and they hung him
up by the feet between two dogs, while Jack drummed. Courage! Don't be
a hare! Among many dogs the hare is helpless. I'm a lone man, and I am
really afraid."
"That I'll swear to," cried Jaekel.
"Yes; I _have_ fear," replied Nose Star, sighing. "I know that it runs
in my blood, and I got it from my dear mother"--
"Yes, yes," interrupted Jaekel, "and your mother got it from her father,
and he from his, and so all thy ancestors one from the other, back to
the forefather who marched under King Saul against the Philistines, and
was the first to take to his heels. But look! Oxheady is all ready--he
has bowed his head for the fourth time; now he is jumping like a flea at
the Holy, Holy, Holy, and feeling cautiously in his pocket."
In fact the keys rattled, the gate grated and creaked and opened, and
the Rabbi led his wife into the empty Jews' Street. The man who opened
it was a little fellow with a good-naturedly sour face, who nodded
dreamily, like one who did not like to be disturbed in his thoughts, and
after he had carefully closed the gate again, without saying a word he
sank into a corner, constantly mumbling his prayers. Less taciturn was
Jaekel the Fool, a short, somewhat bow-legged fellow, with a large, red,
laughing face, and an enormous leg-of-mutton hand, which he now
stretched out of the wide sleeve of his gaily-chequered jacket in
welcome. Behind him a tall, lean figure showed, or rather, hid
itself--the slender neck feathered with a fine white cambric ruff, and
the thin, pale face strangely adorned with an incredibly long nose,
which peered with anxious curiosity in every direction.
"God's welcome to a pleasant feast-day!" cried Jaekel the Fool. "Do not
be astonished that our street is so empty and quiet just now. All our
people are in the synagogue, and you have come just in time to hear the
history of the sacrifice of Isaac read. I know it--'tis an interesting
story, and if I had not already heard it thirty-three times, I would
willingly listen to it again this year. And it is an important history,
too, for if Abraham had really killed Isaac and not the goat, then there
would be more goats in the world now--and fewer Jews." And then with
mad, merry grimaces, Jaekel began to sing the following song from the
_Agade_:[60]
"A kid, a kid, which my father bought for two pieces of money. A kid!
A kid!
There came a cat which ate the kid, which my father
bought for two pieces of money. A kid!
There came a dog, who bit the cat, who ate the kid, which my father
bought for two pieces of money. A kid!
There came a stick, which beat the dog, who bit the cat, who ate the
kid, which my father bought for two pieces of money. A kid! A kid!
There came a fire, which burnt the stick, which beat the dog, who bit
the cat, who ate the kid, which my father bought for two pieces of money.
A kid! A kid!
There came the water, which quenched the fire, which burnt the stick,
which beat the dog, who bit the cat, who ate the kid, which my father
bought for two pieces of money. A kid! A kid!
There came an ox, who drank the water, which quenched the fire, which
burnt the stick, which beat the dog, who bit the cat, who ate the kid,
which my father bought for two pieces of money. A kid! A kid!
There came the butcher, who slew the ox, who drank the water, which
quenched the fire, which burnt the stick, which beat the dog, who bit the
cat, that ate the kid, which my father bought for two pieces of money.
A kid! A kid!
"Then came the Angel of Death, who slew the butcher, who killed the
ox, who drank the water, which quenched the fire, which burnt the stick,
which beat the dog, who bit the cat, who ate the kid, which my father
bought for two pieces of money. A kid! A kid!"[61]
"Yes, beautiful lady," added the singer, "and the day will come when
the Angel of Death will slay the slayer, and all our blood come over
Edom, for God is a God of vengeance."
But all at once, casting aside with a violent effort the seriousness
into which he had involuntarily fallen, Jaekel plunged again into his mad
buffoonery, and went on in his harsh jester tones, "Don't be afraid,
beautiful lady, Nose Star will not harm you. He is only dangerous to old
Schnapper-Elle. She has fallen in love with his nose--which, faith!
deserves it. Yea, for it is as beautiful as the tower which looketh
forth toward Damascus, and as lofty as a cedar of Lebanon. Outwardly it
gleameth like gold loaf and syrup, and inwardly it is all music and
loveliness. It bloometh in summer and in winter it is frozen up--but in
summer and winter it is petted and pulled by the white hands of
Schnapper-Elle. Yes, she is madly in love with him. She nurses him, and
feeds him, and for her age she is young enough. When he is fat enough,
she means to marry him; and whoever comes to Frankfort, three hundred
years hence, will not be able to see the heavens for Nose Stars."
"Ah, you are Jaekel the Fool," exclaimed the Rabbi, laughing. "I mark it
by your words. I have often heard of you."
"Yes--yes," replied Jaekel, with comical modesty. "Yes, that is what
reputation does. A man is often known far and wide as a bigger fool than
he himself has any idea of. However, I take great pains to be a fool,
and jump and shake myself to make the bells ring; others have an easier
time. But tell me, Rabbi, why do you journey on a holiday?"
"My justification," replied the Rabbi, "is in the Talmud, where it says,
'Danger drives away the Sabbath.'"
"Danger!" screamed the tall Nose Star, in mortal terror. "Danger!
danger! Drummer Jack!--drum, drum. Danger! danger! Drummer Jack!" From
without resounded the deep, beery voice of Drummer Jack, "Death and
destruction! The devil take the Jews. That's the third time today that
you've roused me out of a sound sleep, Nose Star! Don't make me mad! For
when I am mad I'm the very devil himself; and then as sure as I'm a
Christian, I'll up with my gun and shoot through the grated window in
your gate--and then fellow, let everybody look out for his nose!"
"Don't shoot! don't shoot! I'm a lonely man," wailed Nose Star
piteously, pressing his face against the wall, and trembling and
murmuring prayers in this position.
"But say, what has happened?" cried Jaekel the Fool, with all the
impatient curiosity which was even then characteristic of the Frankfort
Jews.
But the Rabbi impatiently broke loose from them, and went his way along
the Jews' Street. "See, Sara!" he exclaimed, "how badly guarded is our
Israel. False friends guard its gates without, and within its watchers
are Folly and Fear."
They wandered slowly through the long empty street, where only here and
there the head of some young girl showed itself in a window, against the
polished panes of which the sun was brilliantly reflected. At that time
the houses in the Jewish quarter were still neat and new, and much lower
than they now are, since it was only later on that the Jews, as their
number greatly increased, while they could not enlarge their quarter,
built one story over another, squeezed themselves together like
sardines, and were thus stunted both in body and soul. That part of the
Jewish quarter which remained standing after the great fire, and which
is called the Old Lane, those high blackened houses, where a grinning,
sweaty race of people bargains and chaffers, is a horrible relic of the
Middle Ages. The older synagogue exists no more; it was less capacious
than the present one, which was built later, after the Nuremberg exiles
were taken into the community, and lay more to the north.
The Rabbi had no need to ask where it was. He recognized it from afar by
the buzz of many loud voices. In the court of the House of God he parted
from his wife, and after washing his hands at the fountain there, he
entered the lower part of the synagogue where the men pray, while Sara
ascended a flight of stairs and entered the place reserved for women.
The latter was a kind of gallery with three rows of seats painted a
reddish brown, whose backs were fitted with a hanging board, which held
the prayer-books, and which could be raised and lowered. Here the women
either sat gossiping or stood up in deep prayer. They often went and
peered with curiosity through the large grating on the eastern side,
through the thin, green lattice of which one could look down on the
lower floor of the synagogue. There, behind high praying-desks, stood
the men in their black cloaks, their pointed beards shooting out over
white ruffs, and their skull-capped heads more or less concealed by a
four-cornered scarf of white wool or silk, furnished with the prescribed
tassels, and in some instances also adorned with gold lace. The walls of
the synagogue were uniformly white-washed, and no ornament was to be
seen other than the gilded iron grating around the square stage, where
extracts from the Law were read, and the holy ark, a costly embossed
chest, apparently supported by marble columns with gorgeous capitals,
whose flower-and leaf-work shot up in beautiful profusion, and covered
with a curtain of purple velvet, on which a pious inscription was worked
in gold spangles, pearls, and many colored gems. Here hung the silver
memorial-lamp, and there also rose a trellised dais, on whose crossed
iron bars were all kinds of sacred utensils, among them the
seven-branched candlestick. Before the latter, his countenance toward
the ark, stood the choir-leader, whose song was accompanied, as if
instrumentally, by the voices of his two assistants, the bass and the
treble. The Jews have banished all instrumental music from their church,
maintaining that hymns in praise of God are more edifying when they
rise from the warm breast of man, than from the cold pipes of an organ.
Beautiful Sara felt a childish delight when the choir-leader, an
admirable tenor, raised his voice and sounded forth the ancient, solemn
melodies, which she knew so well, in a fresher loveliness than she had
ever dreamed of, while the bass sang in harmony the deep, dark notes,
and, in the pauses, the treble's voice trilled sweetly and daintily.
Such singing Beautiful Sara had never heard in the synagogue of
Bacharach, where the presiding elder, David Levi, was the leader; for
when this elderly, trembling man, with his broken, bleating voice, tried
to trill like a young girl, and in his forced effort to do so, shook his
limp and drooping arm feverishly, it inspired laughter rather than
devotion.
A sense of pious satisfaction, not unmingled with feminine curiosity,
drew Beautiful Sara to the grating, where she could look down on the
lower floor, or the so-called men's division. She had never before seen
so many of her faith together, and it cheered her heart to be in such a
multitude of those so closely allied by race, thought, and sufferings.
And her soul was still more deeply moved when three old men
reverentially approached the sacred ark, drew aside the glittering
curtain, raised the lid, and very carefully brought forth the Book which
God wrote with His own hand, and for the maintenance of which Jews have
suffered so much--so much misery and hate, disgrace and death--a
thousand years' martyrdom. This Book--a great roll of parchment--was
wrapped like a princely child in a gaily embroidered scarlet cloak of
velvet; above, on both wooden rollers, were two little silver shrines,
in which many pomegranates and small bells jingled and rang prettily,
while before, on a silver chain, hung gold shields with many colored
gems. The choir-leader took the Book, and, as if it really were a
child--a child for whom one has greatly suffered, and whom one loves all
the more on that account--he rocked it in his arms, skipped about with
it here and there, pressed it to his breast, and, thrilled by its holy
touch, broke forth into such a devout hymn of praise and thanksgiving,
that it seemed to Beautiful Sara as if the pillars under the holy ark
began to bloom; and the strange and lovely flowers and leaves on the
capitals shot ever higher, the tones of the treble were converted into
the notes of the nightingale, the vaulted ceiling of the synagogue
resounded with the tremendous tones of the bass singer, while the glory
of God shone down from the blue heavens. Yes, it was a beautiful psalm.
The congregation sang in chorus the concluding verse, and then the
choir-leader walked slowly to the raised platform in the middle of the
synagogue bearing the holy Book, while men and boys crowded about him,
eager to kiss its velvet covering, or even to touch it. On the platform,
the velvet cover, as well as the wrappings covered with illuminated
letters, were removed, and the choir-leader, in the peculiar intonation
which in the Passover service is still more peculiarly modulated, read
the edifying narrative of the temptation of Abraham.
Beautiful Sara had modestly withdrawn from the grating, and a stout,
much ornamented woman of middle age, with a forward, but benevolent
manner, had with a nod invited her to share her prayer-book. This lady
was evidently no great scholar, for as she mumbled to herself the
prayers as the women do, not being allowed to take part in the singing,
Sara observed that she made the best she could of many words, and
skipped several good lines altogether. But after a while the watery blue
eyes of the good woman were languidly raised, an insipid smile spread
over her red and white porcelain face, and in a voice which she strove
to make as genteel as possible, she said to Beautiful Sara, "He sings
very well. But I have heard far better singing in Holland. You are a
stranger, and perhaps do not know that the choir-leader is from Worms,
and that they will keep him here if he will be content with four hundred
florins a year. He is a charming man, and his hands are as white as
alabaster. I admire beautiful hands; they make one altogether
beautiful." Having said this, the good lady laid her own hand, which
was really a fine one, on the shelf before her, and with a polite nod
which intimated that she did not like to be interrupted while speaking,
she added, "The little singer is a mere child, and looks very much worn
out. The basso is too ugly for anything; our Star once made the witty
remark: 'The bass singer is a bigger fool than even a basso is expected
to be!' All three eat in my restaurant--perhaps you don't know that I'm
Elle Schnapper?"
Beautiful Sara expressed thanks for this information, whereupon
Schnapper-Elle proceeded to narrate in detail how she had once been in
Amsterdam, how she had been subjected to the advances of men on account
of her beauty, how she had come to Frankfort three days before
Whit-suntide and married Schnapper, how he had died, and what touching
things he had finally said on his deathbed, and how hard it was to carry
on the restaurant business and keep one's hands nice. Several times she
glanced aside with a contemptuous air, apparently at some giggling
girls, who seemed to be eyeing her clothes. And the latter were indeed
remarkable enough--a very loose skirt of white satin, on which all the
animals of Noah's Ark were embroidered in gaudy colors; a jacket of gold
cloth, like a cuirass, with sleeves of red velvet, yellow slashed; a
very high cap on her head, with a mighty ruff of stiff white linen
around her neck, which also had around it a silver chain hung with all
kinds of coins, cameos, and curiosities, among them a large picture of
the city of Amsterdam, which rested on her bosom.
But the dresses of the other women were no less remarkable. They
consisted of a variety of fashions of different ages, and many a woman
there was so covered with gold and diamonds as to look like a wandering
jeweler's shop. It is true that there was at that time a fashion of
dress prescribed by law to the Frankfort Jews, and to distinguish them
from Christians the men had to wear yellow rings on their cloaks, and
the women very stiff, blue-striped veils on their caps. However, in the
Jewish quarter the law was little observed, and there, in the synagogue,
especially on festival days, the women put on as much magnificent
apparel as they could--partly to arouse envy of others, and partly to
advertise the wealth and credit of their husbands.
While passages from the Books of Moses are being read on the lower floor
of the synagogue, the devotion is usually somewhat lulled. Many make
themselves comfortable and sit down, whispering perhaps business affairs
with a friend, or go out into the court to get a little fresh air. Small
boys take the liberty of visiting their mothers in the women's balcony;
and here worship is still more loosely observed, as there is gossiping,
chattering, and laughing, while, as always happens, the young quizz the
old, and the latter censure the light-headedness of the girls and the
general degeneracy of the age.
And just as there was a choir-leader on the floor below, so was there a
gossip-leader in the balcony above. This was Puppy Reiss, a vulgar,
greenish woman, who found out about everybody's troubles, and always had
a scandal on her tongue. The usual butt of her pointed sayings was poor
Schnapper-Elle, and she could mock right well the affected genteel airs
and languishing manner with which the latter accepted the insincere
compliments of young men.
"Do you know," cried Puppy Reiss, "Schnapper-Elle said yesterday, 'If I
were not beautiful and clever, and beloved, I had rather not be alive.'"
Then there was loud tittering, and Schnapper-Elle, who was not far
distant, noting that this was all at her expense, lifted her nose in
scorn, and sailed away, like a proud galley, to some remote corner. Then
Birdie Ochs, a plump and somewhat awkward lady, remarked compassionately
that Schnapper-Elle might be a little vain and small of mind, but that
she was an honest, generous soul, and did much good to many folk in
need.
"Particularly to Nose Star," snapped Puppy Reiss. And all who knew of
this tender relation laughed all the louder.
"Don't you know," added Puppy spitefully, "that Nose Star now sleeps in
Schnapper-Elle's house! But just look at Susy Floersheim down there,
wearing the necklace which Daniel Flaesch pawned to her husband! Flaesch's
wife is vexed about it--_that_ is plain. And now she is talking to Mrs.
Floersheim. _How_ amiably they shake hands!--and hate each other like
Midian and Moab! How sweetly they smile on each other! Oh, you dear
souls, _don't_ eat each other up out of pure love! I'll just steal up
and listen to them!"
And so, like a sneaking wildcat, Puppy Reiss crept up and listened to
the two women bewailing to each other how they had worked all the past
week to clean up the house and scour the kitchen things, and complaining
about all they had to do before Passover, so that not a crumb of
leavened bread should stick to anything. And such troubles as they had
baking the unleavened bread! Mrs. Flaesch had special cause for
complaint--for she had had no end of trouble over it in the public
bakery, where, according to the ticket she drew, she could not bake till
the afternoon of the very last day, just before Passover Eve; and then
old Hannah had kneaded the dough badly, and the maids had rolled it too
thin, and half of it was scorched in baking, and worst of all, rain came
pouring through the bake-house roof; and so, wet and weary, they had had
to work till late in the night.
"And, my dear Mrs. Floersheim," said Mrs. Flaesch, with gracious
friendliness most insincere, "you were a little to blame for that,
because you did not send your people to help me in baking."
"Ah! pardon," replied the other. "My servants were so busy--the goods
for the fair had to be packed--my husband"--
"Yes, I know," interrupted Mrs. Flaesch, with cutting irony in her
speech. "I know that you have much to do--many pledges and a good
business, and necklaces"--
And a bitter word was just about to slip from the lips of the speaker,
and Dame Floersheim had turned as red as a lobster, when Puppy Reiss
cried out loudly, "For God's sake!--the strange lady lies dying--water!
water!"
Beautiful Sara lay in a faint, as pale as death, while a swarm of
excited women crowded around her, one holding her head, another her arm,
while some old women sprinkled her with the glasses of water which hung
behind their prayer desks for washing the hands in case they should by
accident touch their own bodies. Others held under her nose an old lemon
full of spices, which was left over from the last feast-day, when it had
served for smelling and strengthening the nerves. Exhausted and sighing
deeply, Beautiful Sara at last opened her eyes, and with mute glances
thanked them for their kind care. But now the eighteen-prayer, which no
one dared neglect, was being solemnly chanted below, and the busy women
hurried back to their places and offered the prayer as the rite ordains,
that is, standing up with their faces turned toward the east, which is
that part of the heavens where Jerusalem lies. Birdie Ochs,
Schnapper-Elle, and Puppy Reiss stayed to the last with Beautiful
Sara--the first two to aid her as much as possible, the other two to
find out why she had fainted so suddenly.
Beautiful Sara had swooned from a singular cause. It is a custom in the
synagogue that any one who has escaped a great danger shall, after the
reading of the extracts from the Law, appear in public and return thanks
for his divine deliverance. As Rabbi Abraham rose to his feet to make
his prayer, and Beautiful Sara recognized her husband's voice, she
noticed that his voice gradually subsided into the mournful murmur of a
prayer for the dead. She heard the names of her dear kinsfolk,
accompanied by the words which convey the blessing on the departed; and
the last hope vanished from her soul, for it was torn by the certainty
that those dear ones had really been slain, that her little niece was
dead, that her little cousins Posy and Birdy were dead, that little
Gottschalk too was dead--all murdered and dead! And she, too, would have
succumbed to the agony of this realization, had not a kind swoon poured
forgetfulness over her senses.
CHAPTER III
When Beautiful Sara, after divine service was ended, went down into the
courtyard of the synagogue, the Rabbi stood there waiting for her. He
nodded to her with a cheerful expression, and accompanied her out into
the street, where there was no longer silence but a noisy multitude. It
was like a swarm of ants--bearded men in black coats, women gleaming and
fluttering like gold-chafers, boys in new clothes carrying prayer-books
after their parents, young girls who, because they could not enter the
synagogue, now came bounding to their parents, bowing their curly heads
to receive their blessing--all gay and merry, and walking up and down
the street in the happy anticipation of a good dinner, the savory odor
of which--causing their mouths to water--rose from many black pots,
marked with chalk, and carried by smiling girls from the large community
kitchens.
In this multitude particularly conspicuous was the form of a Spanish
cavalier, whose youthful features bore that fascinating pallor which
ladies generally attribute to an unfortunate--and men, on the contrary,
to a very fortunate--love affair. His gait, although naturally carefree,
had in it, however, a somewhat affected daintiness. The feathers in his
cap were agitated more by the aristocratic motion of his head than by
the wind; and his golden spurs, and the jeweled hilt of his sword, which
he bore on his arm, rattled rather more than was necessary. A white
cavalier's cloak enveloped his slender limbs in an apparently careless
manner, but, in reality, betrayed the most careful arrangement of the
folds. Passing and repassing, partly with curiosity, partly with an air
of a connoisseur, he approached the women walking by, looked calmly at
them, paused when he thought a face was worth the trouble, gave to many
a pretty girl a passing compliment, and went his way heedless as to its
effect. He had met Beautiful Sara more than once, but every time had
seemed to be repelled by her commanding look, or else by the enigmatical
smile of her husband. Finally, however, proudly conquering all
diffidence, he boldly faced both, and with foppish confidence made, in a
tenderly gallant tone, the following speech: "Senora!--list to me!--I
swear--by the roses of both the kingdoms of Castile, by the Aragonese
hyacinths and the pomegranate blossoms of Andalusia! by the sun which
illumines all Spain, with its flowers, onions, pea-soups, forests,
mountains, mules, he-goats, and Old Christians! by the canopy of heaven,
on which this sun is merely a golden tassel! and by the God who abides
in heaven and meditates day and night over the creation of new forms of
lovely women!--I swear that you, Senora, are the fairest dame whom I
have seen in all the German realm, and if you please to accept my
service, then I pray of you the favor, grace, and leave to call myself
your knight and bear your colors henceforth in jest or earnest!"
A flush of pain rose in the face of Beautiful Sara, and with one of
those glances which cut the deeper when they come from gentle eyes, and
with a tone such as is bitterest coming from a beautiful voice, the lady
answered, as one deeply hurt:
"My noble lord, if you will be my knight you must fight whole races, and
in the battle there will be little thanks to win and less honor; and if
you will wear my colors, then you must sew yellow rings on your cloak,
or bind yourself with a blue-striped scarf, for such are my colors--the
colors of my house, the House of Israel, which is wretched indeed, one
mocked in the streets by the sons of fortune."
A sudden purple red shot into the cheeks of the Spaniard; an
inexpressible confusion seemed to have seized him as he stammered--
"Senora, you misunderstood me--an innocent jest--but, by God, no
mockery, no scorn of Israel. I myself am sprung from that house; my
grandfather was a Jew, perhaps even my father."
"And it is very certain, Senor, that your uncle is one," suddenly
exclaimed the Rabbi, who had calmly witnessed this scene; and with a
merry, quizzical glance, he added, "And I myself will vouch that Don
Isaac Abarbanel, nephew of the great Rabbi, is sprung from the best
blood of Israel, if not from the royal race of David!"
The chain of the sword rattled under the Spaniard's cloak, his cheeks
became deadly white, his upper lip twitched as with scorn in which there
was pain, and angry death grinned in his eyes, as in an utterly changed,
ice-cold, keen voice he said:
"Senor Rabbi, you know me. Well, then, you know also who I am. And if
the fox knows that I belong to the blood of the lion, let him beware and
not bring his fox-beard into danger of death, nor provoke my anger. Only
he who feels like the lion can understand his weakness."
"Oh, I understand it well," answered the Rabbi, and a melancholy
seriousness came over his brow. "I understand it well, how the proud
lion, out of pride, casts aside his princely coat and goes about
disguised in the scaly armor of the crocodile, because it is the fashion
to be a grinning, cunning, greedy crocodile! What can you expect the
lesser beasts to be when the lion denies his nature? But beware, Don
Isaac, _thou_ wert not made for the element of the crocodile. For
water--thou knowest well what I mean--is thy evil fortune, and thou
shalt drown. Water is not thy element; the weakest trout can live in it
better than the king of the forest. Hast thou forgotten how the current
of the Tagus was about to draw thee under--?"
Bursting into loud laughter, Don Isaac suddenly threw his arms round the
Rabbi's neck, covered his mouth with kisses, leapt with jingling spurs
high into the air, so that the passing Jews shrank back in alarm, and in
his own natural hearty and joyous voice cried--
"Truly thou art Abraham of Bacharach! And it was a good joke, and more
than that, a friendly act, when thou, in Toledo, didst leap from the
Alcantara bridge into the water, and grasp by the hair thy friend, who
could drink better than he could swim, and drew him to dry land. I came
very near making a really deep investigation as to whether there is
actually gold in the bed of the Tagus, and whether the Romans were right
in calling it the golden river. I assure you that I shiver even now at
the mere thought of that water-party."
Saying this the Spaniard made a gesture as if he were shaking water
from his garments. The countenance of the Rabbi expressed great joy as
he again and again pressed his friend's hand, saying every time--
"I am indeed glad."
"And so, indeed, am I," answered the other. "It is seven years now since
we met, and when we parted I was as yet a mere greenhorn, and thou--thou
wert already a staid and serious man. But whatever became of the
beautiful Dona who in those days cost thee so many sighs, which thou
didst accompany with the lute?"
"Hush, hush! the Dona hears us--she is my wife, and thou thyself hast
given her today proof of thy taste and poetic skill."
It was not without some trace of his former embarrassment that the
Spaniard greeted the beautiful lady, who amiably regretted that she, by
expressing herself so plainly, had pained a friend of her husband.
"Ah, Senora," replied Don Isaac, "he who grasps too clumsily at a rose
must not complain if the thorns scratch. When the star of evening
reflects its golden light in the azure flood"--
"I beg of you!" interrupted the Rabbi, "to cease! If we wait till the
star of evening reflects its golden light in the azure flood, my wife
will starve, for she has eaten nothing since yesterday, and suffered
much in the mean-while."
"Well, then, I will take you to the best restaurant of Israel," said Don
Isaac, "to the house of my friend Schnapper-Elle, which is not far away.
I already smell the savory odors from the kitchen! Oh, didst thou but
know, O Abraham, how this odor appeals to me. This it is which, since I
have dwelt in this city, has so often lured me to the tents of Jacob.
Intercourse with God's people is not a hobby of mine, and truly it is
not to pray, but to eat, that I visit the Jews' Street."
"Thou hast never loved us, Don Isaac."
"Well," continued the Spaniard, "I like your food much better than your
creed--which wants the right sauce. I never could rightly digest you.
Even in your best days, under the rule of my ancestor David, who was
king over Judah and Israel, I never could have held out, and certainly I
should some fine morning have run away from Mount Zion and emigrated to
Phoenicia or Babylon, where the joys of life foamed in the temple of
the gods."
"Thou blasphemest, Isaac, blasphemest the one God," murmured the Rabbi
grimly. "Thou art much worse than a Christian--thou art a heathen, a
servant of idols."
"Yes, I am a heathen, and the melancholy, self-tormenting Nazarenes are
quite as little to my taste as the dry and joyless Hebrews. May our dear
Lady of Sidon, holy Astarte, forgive me, that I kneel before the many
sorrowed Mother of the Crucified and pray. Only my knee and my tongue
worship death--my heart remains true to life. But do not look so
sourly," continued the Spaniard, as he saw what little gratification his
words seemed to give the Rabbi. "Do not look at me with disdain. My nose
is not a renegade. When once by chance I came into this street at dinner
time, and the well-known savory odors of the Jewish kitchen rose to my
nose, I was seized with the same yearning which our fathers felt for the
fleshpots of Egypt--pleasant tasting memories of youth came back to me.
In imagination I saw again the carp with brown raisin sauce which my
aunt prepared so sustainingly for Friday eve; I saw once more the
steamed mutton with garlic and horseradish, which might have raised
the dead, and the soup with dreamily swimming dumplings in it--and my
soul melted like the notes of an enamored nightingale--and since then I
have been eating in the restaurant of my friend Dona Schnapper-Elle."
Meanwhile they had arrived at this highly lauded place, where
Schnapper-Elle stood at the door cordially greeting the strangers who
had come to the fair, and who, led by hunger, were now streaming in.
Behind her, sticking his head out over her shoulder, was the tall Nose
Star, anxiously and inquisitively observing them. Don Isaac with an
exaggerated air of dignity approached the landlady, who returned his
satirical reverence with endless curtsies. Thereupon he drew the glove
from his right hand, wrapped it, the hand, in the fold of his cloak, and
grasping Schnapper-Elle's hand, slowly drew it over his moustache,
saying:
"Senora! your eyes rival the brilliancy of the sun! But as eggs, the
longer they are boiled the harder they become, so _vice versa_ my heart
grows softer the longer it is cooked in the flaming flashes of your
eyes. From the yolk of my heart flies up the winged god Amor and seeks a
confiding nest in your bosom. And oh, Senora, wherewith shall I compare
that bosom? For in all the world there is no flower, no fruit, which is
like to it! It is the one thing of its kind! Though the wind tears away
the leaves from the tenderest rose, your bosom is still a winter rose
which defies all storms. Though the sour lemon, the older it grows the
yellower and more wrinkled it becomes, your bosom rivals in color and
softness the sweetest pineapple. Oh, Senora, if the city of Amsterdam be
as beautiful as you told me yesterday, and the day before, and every
day, the ground on which it rests is far lovelier still."
The cavalier spoke these last words with affected earnestness, and
squinted longingly at the large medallion which hung from
Schnapper-Elle's neck. Nose Star looked down with inquisitive eyes, and
the much-bepraised bosom heaved so that the whole city of Amsterdam
rocked from side to side.
"Ah!" sighed Schnapper-Elle, "virtue is worth more than beauty. What use
is my beauty to me? My youth is passing away, and since Schnapper is
gone--anyhow, he had handsome hands--what avails beauty?"
With that she sighed again, and like an echo, all but inaudible, Nose
Star sighed behind her. "Of what avail is your beauty?" cried Don Isaac.
"Oh, Dona Schnapper-Elle, do not sin against the goodness of creative
Nature! Do not scorn her most charming gifts, or she will reap most
terrible revenge. Those blessed, blessing eyes will become glassy balls,
those winsome lips grow flat and unattractive, that chaste and charming
form be changed into an unwieldy barrel of tallow, and the city of
Amsterdam at last rest on a spongy bog." Thus he sketched piece by
piece the appearance of Schnapper-Elle, so that the poor woman was
bewildered, and sought to escape the uncanny compliments of the
cavalier. She was delighted to see Beautiful Sara appear at this
instant, as it gave her an opportunity to inquire whether she had quite
recovered from her swoon. Thereupon she plunged into lively chatter, in
which she fully developed her sham gentility, mingled with real kindness
of heart, and related with more prolixity than discretion the awful
story of how she herself had almost fainted with horror when she, as
innocent and inexperienced as could be, arrived in a canal boat at
Amsterdam, and the rascally porter, who carried her trunk, led her--not
to a respectable hotel, but oh, horrors!--to an infamous brothel! She
could tell what it was the moment she entered, by the brandy-drinking,
and by the immoral sights! And she would, as she said, really have
swooned, if it had not been that during the six weeks she stayed in the
disorderly house she only once ventured to close her eyes.
"I dared not," she added, "on account of my virtue. And all that was
owing to my beauty! But virtue will stay--when good looks pass away."
Don Isaac was on the point of throwing some critical light on the
details of this story when, fortunately, Squinting Aaron Hirschkuh from
Homburg-on-the-Lahn came with a white napkin on his arm, and bitterly
bewailed that the soup was already served, and that the boarders were
seated at table, but that the landlady was missing.
(The conclusion and the chapters which follow are lost, not from any
fault of the author.)
THE LIFE OF FRANZ GRILLPARZER
BY WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD, A.M.
Assistant Professor of German, Harvard University
Franz Grillparzer is the greatest poet and dramatist among the
Austrians. Corresponding to the Goethe Society at Weimar, the
Grillparzer Society at Vienna holds its meetings and issues its annual;
and the edition of Goethe's works instituted by the Grand Duchess Sophie
of Weimar is paralleled by an edition of Grillparzer's works now in
process of publication by the city of Vienna. Not without a sense of
local pride and jealousy do the Viennese extol their fellow-countryman
and hold him up to their kinsmen of the north as worthy to stand beside
Goethe and Schiller. They would be ungrateful if they did not cherish
the memory of a man who during his life-time was wont to prefer them,
with all their imperfections upon their heads, to the keener and more
enterprising North Germans, and who on many occasions sang the praises
of their sociability, their wholesome naturalness, and their sound
instinct. But even from the point of view of the critical North German
or of the non-German foreigner, Grillparzer abundantly deserves his
local fame--and more than local fame; for a dozen dramas of the first
class, two eminently characteristic short stories, numerous lyrical
poems, and innumerable studies and autobiographical papers are a man's
work entitling their author to a high place in European, not merely
German, literature.
It is, however, as an Austrian that Grillparzer is primarily to be
judged. Again and again he insisted upon his national quality as a man
and as a poet, upon the Viennese atmosphere of his plays and his poems.
He was never happy when away from his native city, and though his pieces
are now acceptably performed wherever German is spoken, they are most
successful in Vienna, and some of them are to be seen only on the
Viennese stage.
What are, then, the distinguishing features of the Austrians, and of
Grillparzer as one of them? Grillparzer said these features are an open
heart and a single mind, good sense and reliable intuition, frankness,
naivete, generosity, modest contentment with being while others are up
and doing. The Austrians are of mixed blood, and partake of South
European characteristics less prominent among the purer blooded Teutons
of the north. They have life on easier terms, are less intellectual, are
more sensuous, emotional, more fanciful, fonder of artistic enjoyment,
more sensitive to color and to those effects called "color," by contrast
to form, in other arts than that of painting. The art of music is most
germane to the Austrian spirit; and we have a ready key to the
peculiarities of the Austrian disposition in the difference between
Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Johann Strauss, on the one hand, and
Haendel, Beethoven, Schumann, and Wagner on the other. Moreover, the
Austrians are in all respects conservative, in literary taste no less
than in politics and religion. The pseudo-classicism of Gottsched
maintained its authority in Austria not merely after the time of
Lessing, but also after the time of Schiller. Wieland was a favorite
long before Goethe began to be appreciated; and as to the romantic
movement, only the gentle tendencies of such a congenial spirit as
Eichendorff found a sympathetic echo on the shores of the Danube.
Romance influences, however, more particularly Spanish, were manifest
there even before the time when they became strong upon Grillparzer.
Franz Grillparzer was born in Vienna on the fifteenth of January, 1791.
His father, Wenzel Grillparzer, a self-made man, was a lawyer of the
strictest probity, who occupied a respectable position in his
profession; but, too scrupulous to seize the opportunities for profit
that lawyers easily come upon, he lived a comparatively poor man and in
1809 died in straitened circumstances. At home he was stern and
repressive.
[Illustration: FRANZ GRILLPARZER]
Both his legal habit of mind and also his true discipleship of the age
of enlightenment in which he grew up disposed him to intellectual
tyranny over everything that looked like sentimentality or foolish
fantasy in wife or children. His own hobbies, however, such as long
walks in the country and the cultivation of flowers or--strangely
enough--the reading of highly romantic novels, he indulged in as matters
of course. It is with some surprise that we find him married to a woman
of abnormal nervousness, who was given to mysticism and was feverishly
devoted to music. Marianne Grillparzer, born Sonnleithner, belonged to a
substantial middle-class family. Her father was a friend of Haydn and
Mozart and was himself a composer of music; her brothers became men of
note in the history of the Viennese operatic stage; and she herself
shared in the artistic temperament of the family, but with ominously
pathological over-development in one direction. She took her own life in
1819 and transmitted to her sons a tendency to moodiness and melancholy
which led to the suicide of one and the haunting fear of insanity in
that other who is the subject of this sketch.
That Franz Grillparzer was destined to no happy childhood is obvious,
and it is equally clear that he needed a strong will to overcome not
merely material obstacles to progress but also inherited dispositions of
such antithetical sort. The father and the mother were at war in his
breast. Like the mother in sensitiveness and imaginativeness, he was the
son of his father in a stern censoriousness that was quick to ridicule
what appeared to be nonsense in others and in himself; but he was the
son of his father also in clearness of understanding and devotion to
duty as he saw it.
Grillparzer once said that his works were detached fragments of his
life; and though many of their themes seem remote from him in time and
place, character and incident in them are unmistakably enriched by being
often conceived in the light of personal experience. Outwardly,
however, his life was comparatively uneventful. After irregular studies
with private tutors and at school, Grillparzer studied law from 1807 to
1811 at the University of Vienna, gave instruction from 1810 to 1813 to
the sons of various noblemen, and in 1813 began in the Austrian civil
service the humdrum career which, full of disappointments and undeserved
setbacks, culminated in his appointment in 1832 to the directorship of
the _Hofkammerarchiv,_ and lasted until his honorable retirement in
1856. He was a conscientious official; but throughout this time he was
regarded, and regarded himself, primarily as Grillparzer the poet; and
in spite of loyalty to the monarchy, he was entirely out of sympathy
with the antediluvian administration of Metternich and his successors.
Little things, magnified by pusillanimous apprehension, stood in his
way. In 1819 he expressed in a poem _The Ruins of Campo Vaccino_
esthetic abhorrence of the cross most inappropriately placed over the
portal of the Coliseum in Rome, and was thereafter never free of the
suspicion of heresy. In 1825 membership in a social club raided by the
police subjected him to the absurd suspicion of plotting treason. Only
once do we find him, during the first half of the century, _persona
gratissima_ with the powers that be. Grillparzer firmly disapproved the
disintegrating tendencies of the revolution of 1848, and uttered his
sense of the duty of loyal cooeperation under the Habsburgs in a spirited
poem, _To Field-Marshal Count Radetzky_. For the moment he became a
national hero, especially in the army. His latter years were indeed
years of honor; but the honor came too late. He was given the cross of
the order of Leopold in 1849, was made _Hofrat_ and a member of the
House of Lords in 1856, and received the grand cross of the order of
Franz Josef upon the celebration of his eightieth birthday in 1871. He
died on the twenty-first of January, 1872.
Grillparzer led for the most part a solitary life--for the last third of
his life he was almost a hermit--and he was rather an observer than an
actor in the affairs of men; but nevertheless he saw more of the world
than a mere dreamer would have cared to see, and the circle of his
friends was not inconsiderable. Besides making the trip to Italy,
already alluded to, in 1819, he journeyed in 1826 to North Germany,
seeing Goethe in Weimar, in 1836 to Paris, in 1837 to London, in 1843
down the Danube to Athens, and in 1847 again to Berlin and to Hamburg.
No one of these trips gave him any particular poetic impetus, except
perhaps the first, on which he found in the classical atmosphere of Rome
a refreshing antidote to the romantic miasma which he hated. Nor did he
derive much profit from the men of letters whom he visited in various
places, such as Fouque, Chamisso, and Heine. He dined with Goethe, but
was too bashful to accept an indirect invitation to spend an evening
with Goethe alone. He paid his respects to Uhland, whom he esteemed as
the greatest German poet of that time (1837); but Uhland was then no
longer productive and was never a magnetic personality. Indeed, there
was hardly more than one man, even in Vienna, who exerted a strong
personal influence upon Grillparzer, and this was Josef Schreyvogel,
journalist, critic, playwright, from 1814 to 1831 secretary of the
_Burgtheater_. A happy chance gained for Grillparzer in 1816 the
friendship of this practical theatre manager, and under Schreyvogel's
auspices he prepared his first drama for the stage.
On another side, Grillparzer's character is illumined for us by the
strange story of his relations with four Viennese women. He was not a
handsome man, but tall, with an abundance of blond hair, and bewitching
blue eyes that made him very attractive to the other sex. He, too, was
exceedingly sensitive to sexual attraction and in early youth suffered
torments from the pangs of unsatisfied longing. From the days when he
knew that he was in love, but did not yet know with whom, to the time of
final renunciation we find him irresolute, ardent, but apparently
selfish in the inability to hazard the discovery that the real might
prove inferior to his ideal. Thus his critical disposition invaded
even the realm of his affections and embroiled him not merely with the
object of them, but also with himself. Charlotte von Paumgarten, the
wife of a cousin of Grillparzer's, Marie Daeffinger, the wife of a
painter, loved him not wisely, but too well; and a young Prussian girl,
Marie Piquot, confessed in her last will and testament to such a
devotion to him as she was sure no other woman could ever attain,
wherefore she commended "her Tasso" to the fostering care of her mother.
Grillparzer had experienced only a fleeting interest in Marie Piquot; so
much the more lasting was the attachment which bound him to her
successful rival, Katharina Froehlich. Katharina, one of four daughters
of a Viennese manufacturer who had seen better days, and, like her
sisters, endowed with great artistic talent and practical energy, might
have proved the salvation of Grillparzer's existence as a man if he had
been more capable of manly resolution, and she had been less like him in
impetuosity and stubbornness. They became engaged, they made
preparations for a marriage which was never consummated and for years
was never definitely abandoned; mutual devotion is ever and anon
interrupted by serious or trivial quarrels, and the imperfect relation
drags on to the vexation of both, until Grillparzer as an old man of
sixty takes lodgings with the Froehlich sisters and, finally, makes
Katharina his sole heir.
Grillparzer's development as a poet and dramatist follows the bent of
his Austrian genius. One of the first books that he ever read was the
text to Mozart's _Magic Flute_. Music, opera, operetta, and fairy drama
gave the earliest impulse to his juvenile imagination. Even as a boy he
began the voluminous reading which, continued throughout his life, made
him one of the best informed men of his time in European literature.
History, natural history, and books of travel are followed by the plays
of Shakespeare, Lessing, Goethe, and Schiller, while Gesner's idyls
charm him, and he absorbs the stories and romances of Wieland. In 1808
he reads the early works of Schiller and admires the ideal enthusiasm of
_Don Carlos_.
[Illustration: FRANZ GRILLPARZER AND KAETHI FROeHLICH IN 1823]
In 1810 he revolts from Schiller and swears allegiance to Goethe. In
the ensuing years he learns English, Greek, and Spanish; Shakespeare
supplants Goethe in his esteem, and he is attracted first to Calderon
and then to Lope de Vega in whom, ere long, he discovers the dramatic
spirit most closely akin to his.
We read of Grillparzer, as of Goethe, that as a child he was fond of
improvising dramatic performances with his playmates. Occasionally he
was privileged to attend an operetta or a spectacular play at one of the
minor theatres. When he reached adolescence he experimented with a large
number of historical and fantastic subjects, and he left plans and
fragments that, unoriginal as most of them are, give earnest of a talent
for scenic manipulation and for the representation of character. These
juvenile pieces are full of reminiscences of Schiller and Shakespeare.
Grillparzer's first completed drama of any magnitude, _Blanca of
Castile_ (1807-09), is almost to be called Schiller's _Don Carlos_ over
again, both as to the plot and as to the literary style--though of
course the young man's imitation seems like a caricature. The fragments
_Spartacus_ (1810) and _Alfred the Great_ (1812), inspired by patriotic
grief for Austria humiliated by Napoleon, are Shakespearean in many
scenes, but are in their general disposition strongly influenced by
Schiller's _Robbers and Maid of Orleans_. In all three of these pieces,
the constant reference to inscrutable fate proves that Grillparzer is a
disciple of Schiller and a son of his time.
There is, therefore, a double significance in the earliest play of
Grillparzer's to be performed on the stage, _The Ancestress_
(1816)--first, in that, continuing in the direction foreshadowed by its
predecessors, it takes its place beside the popular dramas of fate
written by Werner and Muellner; and secondly, because at the same time
the poet, now yielding more to the congenial impulse of Spanish
influences, establishes his independence even in the treatment of a more
or less conventional theme. Furthermore, _The Ancestress_ marks the
beginning of Grillparzer's friendship with Schreyvogel. Grillparzer had
translated some scenes of Calderon's _Life is a Dream_ which, published
in 1816 by an enemy of Schreyvogel's who wished to discredit the
adaptation which Schreyvogel had made for the _Burgtheater,_ served only
to bring the two men together; for Schreyvogel was generous and
Grillparzer innocent of any hostile intention. As early as 1813
Grillparzer had thought of _The Ancestress_. Schreyvogel encouraged him
to complete the play, and his interest once again aroused and soon
mounting to enthusiasm, he wrote in less than a month the torrent of
Spanish short trochaic verses which sweeps through the four acts of this
romantic drama. Schreyvogel was delighted; but he criticized the
dramatic structure; and in a revised version in five acts Grillparzer so
far adopted his suggestions as to knit up the plot more closely and thus
to give greater prominence to the idea of fate and retribution. The play
was performed on the thirty-first of January, 1817, and scored a
tremendous success.
Critics, to be sure, were not slow to point out that the effectiveness
of _The Ancestress_ was due less to poetical qualities than to
theatrical--unjustly; for even though we regard the play as but the
scenic representation of the incidents of a night, the representation is
of absorbing interest and is entirely free from the crudities which make
Muellner's dramas more gruesome than dramatic. But Grillparzer
nevertheless resolved that his next play should dispense with all
adventitious aids and should take as simple a form and style as he could
give it. A friend chanced to suggest to him that the story of Sappho
would furnish a text for an opera. Grillparzer replied that the subject
would perhaps yield a tragedy. The idea took hold of him; without delay
or pause for investigation he made his plan; and in three weeks his
second play was ready for the stage. Written in July, 1817, _Sappho_ was
produced at the _Hofburgtheater_ on April 21, 1818. Grillparzer said
that in creating _Sappho_ he had plowed pretty much with Goethe's steer.
In form his play resembles _Iphigenia_ and in substance it is not unlike
_Tasso;_ but upon closer examination _Sappho_ appears to be neither a
classical play of the serene, typical quality of _Iphigenia_ nor a
_Kuenstlerdrama_ in the sense in which _Tasso_ is one. Grillparzer was
not inspired by the meagre tradition of the Lesbian poetess, nor yet by
anything more than the example of Goethe; he took only the outline of
the story of Sappho and Phaon; his play is almost to be called a
romantic love story, and the influence strongest upon him in the writing
of it was that of Wieland. The situation out of which the tragedy of
Sappho develops is that of a young man who deceives himself into
believing that admiration for a superior woman is love, and who is
undeceived when a _naive_ maiden awakens in him sentiments that really
are those of love. This situation occurs again and again in the
voluminous works of Wieland--most obviously perhaps in the novelette
_Menander and Glycerion_ (1803), but also in the novel _Agathon_
(1766-1767), and in the epistolary novel _Aristippus_ (1800-1802).
Moreover, it is the essential situation in Mme. de Stael's _Corinne_
(1807). In the third place, this situation was Grillparzer's own, and it
is so constantly found in his dramas that it may be called the
characteristic situation for the dramatist as well as for the man. In
this drama, finally, we have a demonstration of Grillparzer's profound
conviction that the artistic temperament is ill suited to the demands of
practical life, and in the solitary sphere to which it is doomed must
fail to find that contentment which only life can afford. Sappho is not
assailed by life on all sides as Tasso is; but she makes an egregious
mistake in her search for the satisfactions of womanhood, thereby
unfitting herself for the priesthood of poetry as well as forfeiting her
life.
_Sappho_ was as successful on the stage as _The Ancestress_ had been,
and the dramatist became the lion of the hour. He was received in
audience by Prince Metternich, was lauded in high social circles in
Vienna, and was granted an annual pension of 1000 florins for five
years, on condition that the _Hofburgtheater_ should have the right
to first production of his forthcoming plays. It was, therefore, with
great enthusiasm and confidence that he set to work upon his next
subject, _The Golden Fleece._ The story of Jason and Medea had long been
familiar to him, not only in the tragedies of Euripides and Seneca, but
also in German dramas and operas of the eighteenth century which during
his youth were frequently produced in Vienna. The immediate impulse to
treat this story came to him when, in the summer of 1818, he chanced
upon the article _Medea_ in a mythological lexicon. His plan was soon
formed and was made to embrace the whole history of the relations of
Jason and Medea. For so comprehensive a matter Grillparzer, like
Schiller in _Wallenstein,_ found the limits of a single drama too
narrow; and as Schiller said of _Wallenstein--_
"His camp alone explains his fault and crime,"
so Grillparzer rightly perceived that the explanation to modern minds of
so incredible a crime as Medea's must be sought and presented in the
untoward circumstances under which her relations with Jason began.
Accordingly, he showed in _The Guest Friend_ how Phryxus, obedient to
what he believed to be the will of the gods, bore the Golden Fleece to
Colchis, only to meet death at the hands of AEetes, the king of that
land, who coveted the precious token. Medea, the king's daughter, vainly
tries to prevent the crime, but sees herself included in the dying man's
curse; for she shares her father's desire for the treasure and is
appalled only by the sense of outraged hospitality, even to a haughty
intruder. When, in _The Argonauts,_ Jason comes to recover the Fleece,
Medea, still an Amazon and an enchantress, is determined with all her
arts to aid her father in repulsing the invaders. But the sight of the
handsome stranger soon touches her with an unwonted feeling. Against her
will she saves the life and furthers the enterprise of Jason; they
become partners in the theft of the Fleece; whereupon Jason, fascinated
by the dark-eyed barbarian and gratified with the sense of subjugating
an Amazon, assures her of his love and takes her and the Fleece in
triumph away from Colchis.
[Illustration: GRILLPARZER'S HOUSE IN THE SPIEGELGASSE]
Four years elapse before the action of _Medea_ commences. Medea has
borne two sons to Jason; as a husband and father he returns to Greece
with the object of his quest. But he is now received rather as the
husband of a sorceress than as the winner of the Fleece. Ostracism and
banishment accentuate the humiliation of marriage to a barbarian. Medea
has sacrificed all to serve him; without her aid his expedition would
have been fruitless, but with her he cannot live in the civilized
community where she has no place. She frantically endeavors to become a
Greek, but to no purpose. Jason strives to overcome a growing repugnance
and loyally makes common cause with her; but he cannot follow her in
banishment from Corinth, nor appreciate the feelings of the wife who
sees him about to marry Creusa, and of the mother who sees her children
prefer Creusa to herself. Then the barbarian in Medea reasserts herself
and the passion of a just revenge, stifling all other feeling, moves her
to the destruction of all her enemies and a final divorce from her
heartless husband. To Jason she can give no other words of comfort than
that he may be stronger in suffering than he has been in acting.
Such an eminently personal tragedy Grillparzer constructed on the basis
of a mythological story. The Fleece, like the hoard of the Nibelungen,
is the occasion, but the curse attached to it is not the cause, of
crimes; this cause is the cupidity of human nature and the helplessness
of the individual who allows the forces of evil to gain sway over him.
Jason, in overweening self-indulgence, attaches himself to a woman to
whom he cannot be true. Medea, in too confident self-sufficiency, is not
proof against the blandishments of an unscrupulous adventurer and
progresses from crime to crime, doing from beginning to end what it is
not her will to do. An unnatural and unholy bond cannot be severed even
to make way for a natural and holy one. And the paths of glory lead not
to the grave but to a living death in the consciousness of guilt and the
remorse for misdeeds.
Grillparzer never again wrote with such tumultuous passion as swayed him
at the time of his work on the first half of _The Golden Fleece._ His
illicit love of Charlotte Paumgarten gave him many a tone which thrills
in the narrative of Jason and Medea; the death of his mother brought
home to him the tragedy of violence and interrupted his work in the
midst of _The Argonauts;_ his visit to Rome enabled him to regain
composure and increase his sense of the local color of ancient
civilization; so that when he completed _Medea,_ in the fall and early
winter of 1819-20, he wrote with the mastery of one who had ventured,
suffered, observed, and recovered. In his own person he had experienced
the dangers of the _vita activa_ against which _The Golden Fleece_ is a
warning.
Mention has already been made of Grillparzer's pride in the history of
Austria. In 1809 he wrote in his diary, "I am going to write an
historical drama on Frederick the Warlike, Duke of Austria." A few
stanzas of a ballad on this hero were written, probably at this time;
dramatic fragments have survived from 1818 and 1821. In the first two
decades of the nineteenth century vigorous efforts were made, especially
by Baron von Hormayr and his collaborators, to stir up Austrian poets to
emulate their North-German colleagues in the treatment of Austrian
subjects. With these efforts Grillparzer was in hearty sympathy. The
Hanoverian A.W. Schlegel declared in a lecture delivered at Vienna in
1808 that the worthiest form of the romantic drama was the historical;
and made special mention of the house of Habsburg. In 1817 Matthaeus von
Collin's play _Frederick the Warlike_ was published, as one of three
(_Leopold the Glorious, Frederick the Warlike_, and _Ottocar_) planned
as a cycle on the house of Babenberg. Collin's _Frederick_ interested
Grillparzer; Ottocar, who married Frederick's sister and whose fate
closely resembled Frederick's, appealed to him as a promising character
for dramatic treatment; a performance of Kleist's _Prince Frederick of
Homburg,_ which Grillparzer witnessed in 1821, may well have stimulated
him to do for the first of the Habsburgs, Ottocar's successful rival,
what Kleist had done for the greatest of the early Hohenzollerns; and
particularly the likeness of Ottocar's career to that of Napoleon gave
him the point of view for _King Ottocar's Fortune and Fall,_ composed in
1823.
_Ottocar_ is remarkable for the amount of matter included in the space
of a single drama, and it gives an impressive picture of the dawn of the
Habsburg monarchy; but only in the first two acts can it be said to be
dramatic. The middle and end, though spectacular, are rather epic than
dramatic, and our interest centres more in Rudolf the triumphant than in
Ottocar the defeated and penitent. The play is essentially the tragedy
of a personality. Ottocar is a _parvenu,_ a strong man whom success
makes too sure of the adequacy of his individual strength, ruthless when
he should be politic, indulgent when stern measures are requisite, an
egotist even when he acts for the public weal. Grillparzer treated his
case with great fulness of sensuous detail, but without superabundance
of antiquarian minutiae, in spite of careful study of historical sources
of information. "Pride goeth before destruction," is the theme, but
Grillparzer was far from wishing either to demonstrate or illustrate
that truth. _Ottocar_ is the tragedy of an individual unequal to
superhuman tasks; it does not represent an idea, but a man.
After having been retained by the censors for two years, lest Bohemian
sensibilities should be offended, _Ottocar_ was finally freed by order
of the emperor himself, and was performed amid great enthusiasm on
February nineteenth, 1825. In September of that year the empress was to
be crowned as queen of Hungary, and the imperial court suggested to
Grillparzer that he write a play on a Hungarian subject in celebration
of this event. He did not immediately find a suitable subject; but his
attention was attracted to the story of the palatin Bancbanus, a
national hero who had found his way to the dramatic workshop of Hans
Sachs in Nuremberg, had been recommended to Schiller, and had recently
been treated in Hungarian by Joseph Katona. Grillparzer knew neither of
the plays of his predecessors. In connection with this subject he
thought rather of Shakespeare's _King Lear_ and _Othello_, of Byron's
_Marino Faliero_--he had early experimented with this hero himself--and
this was the time of his first thorough study of Lope de Vega. In
November and December, 1826, he wrote _A Faithful Servant of His
Master._ This is a drama of character triumphant in the severest test to
which the sense of duty can be put. Bancbanus, appointed regent while
his sovereign goes to war, promises to preserve peace in the kingdom,
and keeps his promise even when his own relatives rise in arms against
the queen's brother who has insulted Bancbanus' wife and, they think,
has killed her. We have to do, however, not merely with a brilliant
example of unselfish loyalty; we have a highly special case of
individualized persons. Bancbanus is a little, pedantic old man, almost
ridiculous in his personal appearance and in his over-conscientiousness.
Erny, his wife, is a childlike creature, not displeased by flattery, too
innocent to be circumspect, but faithful unto death. And Otto von Meran,
the princely profligate, is one of Grillparzer's boldest creations--not
bad by nature, but utterly irresponsible; crafty, resourceful, proud as
a peacock and, like a monkey in the forest, wishing always to be
noticed. He cannot bear disregard; contempt makes him furious; and a
sense of disgrace which would drive a moral being to insanity reduces
him to a state of stupidity in which, doing good deeds for the first
time and unconsciously, he gradually acquires consciousness of right and
wrong. It is Bancbanus who brings about this transformation in the
character of Otto, who holds rebellious nobles and populace in check,
who teaches his master how to be a servant of the State, and who, by
saving the heir to the throne and praying that he may deserve the
loyalty shown his father, points forward to the better day when
feudalism shall give way to unselfish enlightened monarchy.
[Illustration: GRILLPARZER'S ROOM IN THE HOUSE OF THE SISTERS FROeHLICH]
This play, a glorification of patriotic devotion and, in spite of the
self-repressive character of the hero, as full of stirring action as any
German historical play whatever, was presented on the twenty-eighth of
February, 1828, and was received with applause by high and low. The
emperor caused a special word of appreciation to be conveyed to the
poet. How great was Grillparzer's astonishment, therefore, when, on the
following day, the president of police summoned him and informed him
that the emperor was so well pleased with the play that he wished to
have it all to himself; wherefore the dramatist would please hand over
the manuscript, at his own price! Dynastic considerations probably moved
the emperor to this preposterous demand. The very futility of it--since
a number of copies of the manuscript had already been made, and one or
the other was sure to escape seizure--is a good example of the trials to
which the patience of Austrian poets was subjected during the old
regime. Grillparzer was at this time depressed enough on his own
account, as his poems _Tristia ex Ponto_ bear witness. This new attempt
at interference almost made him despair of his fatherland. "An Austrian
poet," he said, "ought to be esteemed above all others. The man who does
not lose heart under such circumstances is really a kind of hero."
Grillparzer was not a real hero. But in the midst of public frictions,
personal tribulations, apprehension that his powers of imagination were
declining, and petulant surrenders to discouragement, he kept pottering
along with compositions long since started, and by 1831 he had completed
two more plays, _A Dream is Life_ and _Waves of the Sea and of Love_.
Like _The Ancestress_, _A Dream is Life_ is written in short trochaic
verses of irregular length and with occasional rhyme. The idea was
conceived early, the first act was written at the time of _The
Ancestress,_ and the title, though chosen late, being a reversal of
Calderon's _Life is a Dream_, suggests the connection with that Spanish
drama. Grillparzer's principal source for the plot, was, however,
Voltaire's narrative entitled _White and Black_. In the psychology of
dreams he had long been interested, and life in the dream state formed a
large part of the opera text _Melusina_ which, in 1821-23, he wrote for
Beethoven. A particular flavor was doubtless given to the plot by the
death of Napoleon on May fifth, 1821, and the beginning of Grillparzer's
friendship with Katharina Froehlich shortly before; for _A Dream is Life_
represents in the dream of a harmless but ambitious young man such a
career of conquest as Napoleon was thought to have exemplified, and the
hero, waking after a nightmare of deceits and crimes that were the
stepping stones to success, is warned of the dangers that beset
enterprise and taught to prefer the simple life in union with a rustic
maiden. There are two actions, corresponding to the waking and sleeping
states, the actors in the latter being those of real life fantastically
transformed; but there is no magic or anything else super-natural, and
the most fascinating quality in the drama is the skill with which the
transformation is made in accordance with the irrational logic of
dreams. Accompanied by the weird music of Gyrowetz and exquisitely
staged, this is the most popular of Grillparzer's plays in Vienna. But
it is by no means merely theatrical. There is profound truth in the
theory upon which it is constructed: a dream is the awakening of the
soul; dreams do not create wishes, they reveal them, and the actions of
a dreamer are the potentialities of his character. Moreover, the
quietistic note of renunciation for the sake of peace to the soul and
integrity of personality is the final note of _The Golden Fleece_ no
less than of this fantasmagoria. _Waves of the Sea and of Love_ is a
far-fetched and sentimental title for a dramatization of the story of
Hero and Leander. Grillparzer chose the title, he said, because he
wished to suggest a romantic treatment that should humanize the matter.
The play really centres in the character of Hero and might much better
be called by her name. In it Grillparzer's experiences with Charlotte
von Paumgarten and Marie Daeffinger are poetically fructified, and his
capacity for tracing the incalculable course of feminine instincts
attains to the utmost of refinement and delicacy. The theme is the
conflict between duty to a solemn vow of sacerdotal chastity and the
disposition to satisfy the natural desire for love. But Grillparzer has
represented no such conflict in the breast of Hero. Her antagonist is
not her own conscience but the representative of divine law in the
temple of which she is priestess. The action of the play therefore takes
the form of an intrigue on the part of this representative to thwart the
intrigue of Hero and Leander. This external collision is, however, far
from supplying the chief interest in a drama unquestionably dramatic,
although its main action is internal. Hero is at the beginning a Greek
counterpart to the barbarian Medea. She has the same pride of station
and self-assurance. Foreordained to asceticism, she is ready to embrace
it because she thinks it superior to the worldliness of which she has no
knowledge. When worldliness presents itself to her in the attractive
form of Leander, she is first curious, then offended, apprehensive of
danger to herself and to him, only soon to apprehend nothing but
interruption of the new rapture to which she yields in oblivion of
everything else in the world. Only a poet of the unprecedented _naivete_
of Grillparzer could so completely obliterate the insurgency of moral
scruples against this establishment of the absolute monarchy of love.
In spite of admirable dramatic qualities and the most exquisite poetry
even in the less dramatic passages, this play on Hero and Leander
disappointed both audience and playwright when it was put upon the stage
in April, 1831. Other disappointments were rife for Grillparzer at
this time. But he put away his desires for the unattainable, and with
the publication of _Tristia ex Ponto_ in 1835, took, as it were, formal
leave of the past and its sorrow. Indeed, he seemed on the point of
beginning a new epoch of ready production; for he now succeeded, for the
first time since 1818, in the quick conception and uninterrupted
composition of an eminently characteristic play, the most artistic of
German comedies, _Woe to the Liar_. It was the more lamentable that when
the play was enacted, on the sixth of March, 1838, the brutal behavior
of an unappreciative audience so wounded the sensitive poet that he
resolved never again to subject himself to such ignominy--and kept his
word. In 1840 he published _Waves of the Sea and of Love, A Dream is
Life_, and _Woe to the Liar_; but the plays which he wrote after that
time he kept in his desk.
The year 1838, accordingly, sharply divides the life of Grillparzer into
two parts--the first, productive and more or less in the public eye; the
second, contemplative and in complete retirement from the stage. To be
sure, the poet became conspicuous once more with his poem to Radetzky in
1848; in 1851 Heinrich Laube, recently appointed director of the
_Hofburgtheater_, instituted a kind of Grillparzer revival; and belated
honors brought some solace to his old age. But he had become an
historical figure long before he ceased to be seen on the streets of his
beloved Vienna, and the three completed manuscripts of plays that in
1872 he bequeathed to posterity had lain untouched for nearly twenty
years.
Two of these posthumous pieces, _Brothers' Quarrels in the House of
Habsburg_ and _Libussa_, undoubtedly reveal the advancing years of their
author, in a good and in a bad sense. They lack the theatrical
self-evidence of the earlier dramas. But on the other hand, they are
rich in the ripest wisdom of their creator, and in significance of
characterization as well as in profundity of idea they amply atone for
absence of the more superficial qualities. Kaiser Rudolf II. in
_Brothers' Quarrels_ is one of the most human of the men who in the face
of inevitable calamity have pursued a Fabian policy. Even to personal
predilections, like fondness for the dramas of Lope, he is a replica of
the mature Grillparzer himself. _Libussa_ presents in Primislaus a
somewhat colorless but nevertheless thoroughly masculine representative
of practical cooeperation and progress, and in Libussa, the heroine, a
typical feminine martyr to duty.
[Illustration: FRANZ GRILLPARZER In his Sixtieth Year]
The third of the posthumous pieces, however, _The Jewess of Toledo_, may
perhaps be said to mark the climax of Grillparzer's productive activity.
It is an eminently modern drama of passion in classical dignity of form.
Grillparzer noted the subject as early as 1813. In 1824 he read Lope de
Vega's play on it, and wrote in trochees two scenes of his own; in
1848-49--perhaps with Lola Montez and the king of Bavaria in mind--he
worked further on it, and about 1855 brought the work to an end. The
play is properly called _The Jewess of Toledo_; for Rachel, the Jewess,
is at the centre of the action, and is a marvelous creation--"a mere
woman, nothing but her sex"; but the king, though relatively passive, is
the most important character. He is attracted to Rachel by a charm that
he has never known in his coldly virtuous English consort, and, after an
error forgivable because made comprehensible, is taught the duty of
personal sacrifice to morality and to the state. In doctrine and in
inner form this drama is comparable to Hebbel's _Agnes Bernauer_; it is
a companion piece to _A Faithful Servant of his Master_, and the
sensuality of Rachel contrasts instructively with the spirituality of
Hero. The genuine dramatic collision of antithetical forces produces,
furthermore, a new synthesis, the effect of which is to make us wish
morality less austere and the sense of obligation stronger than they at
first are in two persons good by nature but caused to err by
circumstances. In the series of dramas thus passed in review there is
a great variety of setting and incident, and an abundance of dramatic
_motifs_ that show Grillparzer to have been one of the most opulent of
playwrights. The range of characters, too, each presented with due
regard for _milieu_, is seen to be considerable, and upon closer
examination would be seen to be more considerable still. The greatest
richness is found in the characters of women. Grillparzer himself lacked
the specifically masculine qualities of courageous enterprise and
tenacity of purpose. His men are rather affected by the world than
active creators of new conditions, and their contact with conditions as
they are leaves them with the scars of battle instead of the joy of
victory. No one, however, could attribute a feministic spirit to
Grillparzer; or, if so, it must be said that the study of reaction is no
less instructive than the study of action and that being is at least as
high an ideal as doing. Being, existence in a definite place amid the
tangible surroundings of personal life, Grillparzer gives us with
extraordinary abundance of sensuous details. The drama was for him what
Goethe said it should always be, a present reality; and for the greater
impressiveness of this reality he is fond of the use of visible
objects--whether they be symbols, like the Golden Fleece in _Medea_, the
lyre in _Sappho_, the medallion in _The Jewess of Toledo_, or
characteristic weapons, accoutrement, and apparel. Everything expressive
is welcome to him, gesture or inarticulate sound reinforces the spoken
word or replaces it. Unusually sensuous language and comparative fulness
of sententious passages go hand in hand with a laconic habit which
indulges in many ellipses and is content to leave to the actor the task
of making a single word convey the meaning of a sentence.
Grillparzer's plays were written for the stage. He abhorred what the
Germans call a book drama, and had, on the other hand, the highest
respect for the judgment of a popular audience as to the fact whether a
play were fit for the stage or not. The popular audience was a jury
from which there was no appeal on this question of fact. A passage in
_The Poor Musician_ gives eloquent expression to Grillparzer's regard
for the sure esthetic instinct of the masses and, indirectly, to his own
poetic _naivete._ But his plays are also poems; they are all in verse;
and like the plays of his French prototype, Racine, they reveal their
full merit only to connoisseurs. They are the work of a man who was
better able than most men of his generation to prove all things, and who
held fast to that which he found good. His art is not forward-looking,
like that of Kleist, nor backward-looking, like that, say, of Theodor
Koerner. It is in the strictest sense complementary and co-ordinate to
that of Goethe and Schiller, a classicism modified by romantic
tendencies toward individuation and localization. He did not aim at the
typical. He felt, and rightly, that a work of art, being something
individual, should be created with concentrated attention upon the
attainment of its perfection as an individual; this perfection attained,
the artist would attain to typical, symbolical connotation into the
bargain. From anything like the grotesqueness of exaggerated
characterization Grillparzer was saved by his sense of form. He had as
fertile an imagination and as penetrating an intellect as Kleist, and he
excelled Kleist in the reliability of his common sense. It was no play
upon words, but the expression of conviction when he wrote, in 1836:
"Poetry is incorporation of the spirit, spiritualization of the body,
feeling of the understanding, and thought of the feeling." In its
comprehensive appeal to all of these faculties a work of art commends
itself and carries its meaning through its existence as an objective
reality, like the phenomena of nature herself. A comprehensive
sensitiveness to such an appeal, whether of art or of nature, was
Grillparzer's ideal of individual nature and culture. He thought the
North Germans had cultivated their understanding at the expense of their
feeling, and had thereby impaired their esthetic sense. He thought the
active life in general inevitably destroyed the harmony of the faculties
and substituted an extrinsic for an intrinsic good. In the mad rush of
our own time after material wealth and power we may profitably
contemplate the picture which Grillparzer drew of himself in the
following characteristic verses:
THE ANGLER
Below lies the lake hushed and tranquil,
And I sit here with idle hands,
And gaze at the frolicking fishes
Which glide to and fro o'er the sands.
They come, and they go, and they tarry;
But if I now venture a cast,
Of a sudden the playground is empty,
As my basket remains to the last.
Mayhap if I stirred up the water,
My angling might lure the shy prey.
But then I must also give over
The sight of the fishes at play.
[Illustration: THE GRILLPARZER MONUMENT AT VIENNA.]
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
* * * * *
MEDEA
A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
CREON, _King of Corinth
CREUSA, _his daughter
JASON
MEDEA
GORA, _Medea's aged nurse_
_A herald of the Amphictyons_
_A peasant_
_Medea's children_
_Slaves and slave-women, attendants of
the King, etc._
MEDEA (1822)
TRANSLATED BY THEODORE A. MILLER, PH.D.
ACT I
_Before the walls of Corinth. At the left, halfway up stage, a tent is
pitched; in the background lies the sea, with a point of land jutting
out into it, on which is built a part of the city. The time is early
morning, before daybreak; it is still dark.
At the right in the foreground a slave is seen standing in a pit digging
and throwing up shovelfuls of earth; on the opposite side of the pit
stands MEDEA, before a black chest which is strangely decorated with
gold; in this chest she keeps laying various utensils during the
following dialogue.
MEDEA. Is it, then, done?
SLAVE. A moment yet, my mistress.
[GORA _comes out of the tent and stands at a distance_.]
MEDEA. Come! First the veil, and then the goddess' staff.
I shall not need them more; here let them rest.
Dark night, the time for magic, is gone by,
And what is yet to come, or good or ill,
Must happen in the beamy light of day.--
This casket next; dire, secret flames it hides
That will consume the wretch who, knowing not,
Shall dare unlock it. And this other here,
Full-filled with sudden death, with many an herb,
And many a stone of magic power obscure,
Unto that earth they sprang from I commit.
[_She rises_.]
So! Rest ye here in peace for evermore.
Now for the last and mightiest thing of all!
[Illustration: MEDEA _From the Painting by Anselm Feuerbach_]
[_The slave, who has meanwhile climbed out of the pit and taken his
stand behind the princess awaiting the conclusion of her enterprise,
now turns to help her, and grasps at an object covered with a veil and
hanging from a lance that has been resting against a tree behind MEDEA;
the veil falls, revealing the banner, with the Golden Fleece glowing
radiantly through the darkness._]
SLAVE (_grasping the Fleece_). 'Tis this?
MEDEA. Nay, hold thy hand! Unveil it not.
(_Addressing the Fleece_.)
Once more let me behold thee, fatal gift
Of trusting guest-friend! Shine for one last time,
Thou witness of the downfall of my house,
Bespattered with my father's, brother's blood,
Sign of Medea's shame and hateful crime!
[_She stamps upon the lance-haft and breaks it in two_.]
So do I rend thee now, so sink thee deep
In earth's dark bosom, whence, a bane to men,
Thou sprang'st.
[_She lays the broken standard in the chest with the other objects and
shuts down the cover_.]
GORA (_comes down_).
What does my mistress here?
MEDEA. Thou seest.
GORA. Wilt thou, then, bury in the earth that Fleece,
The symbol of thy service to the gods,
That saved thee, and shall save thee yet again?
MEDEA (_scornfully_).
That saved me? 'Tis because it saved me not,
That here I lay it. I am safe enough.
GORA (_ironically_).
Thanks to thy husband's love?
MEDEA (_to the slave, ignoring Gora's taunt_).
Is all prepared?
SLAVE. Yea, mistress.
MEDEA. Come!
[_She grasps one handle of the chest, the slave the other, and together
they carry it to the pit._]
GORA (_observing them from a distance_).
Oh, what a task is this
For a proud princess, daughter of a king!
MEDEA. Nay, if it seem so hard, why dost not help?
GORA. Lord Jason's handmaid am I--and not thine!
Nor is it meet one slave another serve.
MEDEA (_to the slave_).
Now lay it in, and heap the earth upon it.
[_The slave lets the chest down into the pit and shovels in the earth
upon it. MEDEA kneels at one side of the pit as he works._]
GORA (_standing in the foreground_).
Oh, let me die, ye gods of Colchis, now,
That I may look no more on such a sight!
Yet, first hurl down your lightning-stroke of wrath
Upon this traitor who hath wrought us woe.
Let me but see him die; then slay me too!
MEDEA (_to the slave_).
'Tis finished. Stamp the earth about it close,
And go.--I charge thee, guard my secret well.
Thou art a Colchian, and I know thee true.
[_The slave departs._]
GORA (_calling after him with grim scorn_).
If thou shalt tell thy master, woe to you both!
(_To MEDEA._)
Hast finished?
MEDEA. Ay. At last I am at peace!
GORA. The Fleece, too, didst thou bury?
MEDEA. Even the Fleece.
GORA. Thou didst not leave it in Iolcos, with
Thine husband's uncle?
MEDEA. Nay, thou saw'st it here.
GORA. Thou hadst it still--and now hast buried it!
Gone, gone! And naught is left; all thy past life
Vanished, like wreaths of vapor in the breeze!
And naught's to come, and naught has been, and all
Thou seest is but this present fleeting hour!
There _was_ no Colchis! All the gods are dead!
Thou hadst no father, never slew thy brother I
Thou think'st not of it; lo, it never happened!--
Think, then, thou art not wretched. Cheat thyself
To dream Lord Jason loves thee yet. Perchance
It may come true!
MEDEA (angrily).
Be silent, woman!
GORA.
Nay!
Let her who knows her guilty lock her lips,
But I _will_ speak. Forth from my peaceful home
There in far Colchis, thou hast lured me here,
To be thine haughty paramour's meek slave.
Freeborn am I, yet see! mine arms are chained!--
Through the long, troubled nights, upon my couch
I lie and weep; each morn, as the bright sun
Returns, I curse my gray hairs and my weight
Of years. All scorn me, flout me. All I had
Is gone, save heavy heart and scalding tears.--
Nay, I will speak, and thou shalt listen, too!
MEDEA. Say on.
GORA. All I foretold has come to pass.
'Tis scarce one moon since the revolted sea
Cast you ashore, seducer and seduced;
And yet e 'en now these folk flee from thy face,
And horror follows wheresoe'er thou goest.
The people shudder at the Colchian witch
With fearful whispers of her magic dark.
Where thou dost show thyself, there all shrink back
And curse thee. May the same curse smite them all!--
As for thy lord, the Colchian princess' spouse,
Him, too, they hate, for his sake, and for thine.
Did not his uncle drive him from his palace?
Was he not banished from his fatherland
What time that uncle perished, none knows how?
Home hath he none, nor resting-place, nor where
To lay his head. What canst thou hope from him?
MEDEA. I am his wife!
GORA. And hop'st--?
MEDEA. To follow him
In need and unto death.
GORA. Ay, need and death!
AEtes' daughter in a beggar's hut!
MEDEA. Let us pray Heaven for a simple heart;
So shall our humble lot be easier borne.
GORA. Ha!--And thy husband--?
MEDEA. Day breaks. Let us go.
GORA. Nay, thou shalt not escape my questioning!--One
comfort still is left me in my grief,
And only one: our wretched plight shows clear
That gods still rule in Heaven, and mete out
To guilty men requital, late or soon.
Weep for thy bitter lot; I'll comfort thee.
Only presume not rashly to deny
The gods are just, because thou dost deny
This punishment they send, and all this woe.--
To cure an evil, we must see it clear.
Thy husband--tell me--is he still the same?
MEDEA. What should he be?
GORA. O, toy not so with words!
Is he the same impetuous lover still
Who wooed thee once; who braved a hundred swords
To win thee; who, upon that weary voyage,
Laughed at thy fears and kissed away thy grief,
Poor maid, when thou wouldst neither eat nor drink,
But only pray to die? Ay, all too soon
He won thee with his passionate, stormy love.
Is he thy lover still?--I see thee tremble.
Ay, thou hast need; thou knowest he loves thee not,
But shudders at thee, dreads thee, flees thee, _hates_ thee!
And as thou didst betray thy fatherland,
So shalt thou be betrayed--and by thy lover.
Deep in the earth the symbols of thy crime
Lie buried;--but the crime thou canst not hide.
MEDEA. Be silent!
GORA. Never!
MEDEA (_grasping her fiercely by the arm _).
Silence, dame, I say!
What is this madness? Cease these frantic cries!
'Tis our part to await whate'er may come,
Not bid it hasten.--Thou didst say but now
There is no past, no future; when a deed
Is done, 'tis done for all time; we can know
Only this one brief present instant, Now.
Say, if this Now may cradle a dim future,
Why may it not entomb the misty past?
My past! Would God that I could change it--now!
And bitter tears I weep for it, bitterer far
Than thou dost dream of.--Yet, that is no cause
To seek destruction. Rather is there need
Clearly to know myself, face honestly
The thing I am. Here to these foreign shores
And stranger folk a god hath driven us;
And what seemed right in Colchis, here is named
Evil and wickedness; our wonted ways
Win hatred here in Corinth, and distrust.
So, it is meet we change our ways and speech;
If we may be no longer what we would,
Let us at least, then, be e'en what we can.--
The ties that bound me to my fatherland
Here in earth's bosom I have buried deep;
The magic rites my mother taught me, all
Back to the Night that bare them I have given.
Now, but a woman, weak, alone, defenseless,
I throw me in my husband's open arms!
He shuddered at the Colchian witch! But now
I am his true, dear wife; and surely he
Will take me to his loving, shelt'ring arms.--
Lo, the day breaks, fair sign of our new life
Together! The dark past has ceased to be,
The happy future beckons!--Thou, O Earth,
The kind and gentle mother of us all,
Guard well my trust, that in thy bosom lies.
[_As she and_ GORA _approach the tent, it opens, and _JASON _appears,
talking with a Corinthian rustic, and followed by a slave._]
JASON. Thou saw'st the king himself?
RUSTIC. I did, my lord.
JASON. How went thy tale?
RUSTIC. I Said, "One waits without,
A guest-friend of thy house, well-known to thee,
Yet so hedged round is he with traitorous foes,
He dares not enter, ere thou promise him
Peace and protection."
JASON. And his answer?--Speak!
RUSTIC. He comes, my lord, to meet thee. All this folk
Make pious offering to Poseidon here
Upon the seashore. Soon in festal train
They come with garlands and fair gifts, the king
Leading his daughter by the hand. 'Tis then,
As they pass by, that he will speak with thee.
JASON. Thou hast done well. I thank thee.
MEDEA (_coming up to him_).
Jason, hail!
JASON. Hail to thee, too!
(_To the slave._)
Go, thou, and all the others,
And pluck green branches from the budding trees
To mark you suppliants. 'Tis the custom here.
And keep a quiet, peaceful mien. Dost hear?
Now go.
[_They depart._]
MEDEA. Thou'rt full of thought?
JASON. Ay, full.
MEDEA. Thou givest
Thyself no rest.
JASON. A fugitive--and rest?
There is no rest for such, but only flight.
MEDEA. Last night thou didst not close thine eyes in sleep,
But wand'redst forth in the murky night, alone.
JASON. I love the night; the sunlight hurts my eyes.
MEDEA. And thou hast sent a message to the king.
Will he receive us kindly?
JASON. That I wait
To hear.
MEDEA. He is thy friend?
JASON. He was.
MEDEA. Then sure
His heart will soften.
JASON. Even the kindest men
Shun friendship with the accurst. And thou dost know
How all the world doth flee us, since the death
Of my false uncle, Pelias, whom some god
In devilish sport caused to be strangled. Thus
The people whisper that I slew him, I,
Thy husband, from that land of magic come.
Dost thou not know this?
MEDEA. Yea.
JASON. Here's cause enough
To wake and wander all the dark night through.--
But what hath brought thee forth, before the sun
Is up? What seek'st thou in this darkling hour?
Calling old friends from Colchis?
MEDEA. Nay.
JASON. Speak truth!
MEDEA. I say, I am not.
JASON. And I say to thee,
Better for thee if thou forget all such.
Pluck no more herbs, brew no more poison-drinks,
Nor commune with the moon, let dead men's bones
Rot in their graves at peace! Such magic arts
This folk here love not,--and I hate them, too!
This is not Colchis dark,--but sunny Greece;
Not hideous monsters, but our fellow-men
Dwell round about us. Come, henceforth, I know,
Thou wilt give o'er these rites and magic spells;
I have thy promise, and I know thee true.--
That crimson wimple bound about thy hair
Calls long-forgotten scenes to memory.
Why wilt not wear our country's wonted dress?
I was a Colchian on thy Colchian soil;
Be thou a Greek, now I have brought thee home.
The past is dead. Why call it back to life?
Alas! It haunts us yet, do what we will!
[MEDEA _silently removes the veil and gives it to_ GORA.]
GORA (_whispering_).
Scorn'st thou thy homeland thus--and all for him?
JASON (_catching sight of _GORA).
What! Art thou here, thou ancient beldame? Ha!
I hate thee most of all this Colchian crew.
One glance at thy dim eyes and wrinkled brow,
And lo! before my troubled sight there swims
The dusky shore of Colchis! Why must thou
Be ever hovering close beside my wife?
Begone!
GORA (_grumblingly_).
Why should I?
JASON. Go!
MEDEA. Begone, I pray.
GORA (_sullenly to _JASON).
Am I thy purchased slave, that thou shouldst speak
So lordly?
JASON. Go! My hand, of its own will,
Is on my sword! Go, while there yet is time!
Often ere this I have thought to make essay
If that stern brow be softer than it seems!
[MEDEA _leads the reluctant_ GORA _away, whispering words of comfort as
they go._ JASON _throws himself on a grass-bank, and strikes his
breast._]
JASON. O, heart of mine, burst from thy prison-house,
And drink the air!--
Ay, there they lie, fair Corinth's lofty towers,
Marshalled so richly on the ocean-strand,
The cradle of my happy, golden youth!
Unchanging, gilded by the selfsame sun
As then. 'Tis I am altered, and not they.
Ye gods! The morning of my life was bright
And sunny; wherefore is my eventide
So dark and gloomy? Would that it were night!
[MEDEA _has brought the two children out of the tent, and now leads them
by the hand to_ JASON.]
MEDEA. See, Jason, thy two babes, who come to greet thee.
Come, children, give your sire your little hands.
[_The children draw back, and stand shyly at one side._]
JASON (_stretching out his hands yearningly toward the little group._)
Is this the end, then? Do I find myself
Husband and father of a savage brood?
MEDEA. Go, children.
ONE CHILD. Father, is it true thou art
A Greek?
JASON. And why?
CHILD. Old Gora says thou art,
And calls the Greeks bad names.
JASON. What names, my boy?
CHILD. Traitors she says they are, and cowards, too.
JASON (_to_ MEDEA).
Dost hear?
MEDEA. 'Tis Gora's foolish tales that they
Have heard, and treasured, child-like. Mark them not.
[_She kneels beside the two children, whispering in the ear now of one,
now of the other._]
JASON. I will not.
[_He rises from the grass._]
There she kneels--unhappy fate!--
Bearing two burdens, hers, and mine as well.
[_He paces up and down, then addresses_ MEDEA.]
There, leave the babes awhile, and come to me.
MEDEA (_to the children_).
Now go, and be good children. Go, I say.
[_The children go._]
JASON. Think not, Medea, I am cold and hard.
I feel thy grief as deeply as mine own.
Thou'rt a brave comrade, and dost toil as truly
As I to roll away this heavy stone
That, ever falling backwards, blocks all paths,
All roads to hope. And whether thou'rt to blame,
Or I, it matters not. What's done is done.
[_He clasps her hands in one of his, and with the other lovingly strokes
her brow._]
Thou lov'st me still, I know it well, Medea.
In thine own way, 'tis true; but yet thou lov'st me.
And not this fond glance only--all thy deeds
Tell the same tale of thine unending love.
[MEDEA _hides her face on his shoulder._]
I know how many griefs bow this dear head,
How love and pity in thy bosom sit
Enthroned.--Come, let us counsel now together
How we may 'scape this onward-pressing fate
That threatens us so near. Here Corinth lies;
Hither, long years agone, a lonely youth,
I wandered, fleeing my uncle's wrath and hate;
And Creon, king of Corinth, took me in,--
A guest-friend was he of my father's house--
And cherished me ev'n as a well-loved son.
Full many a year I dwelt here, safe and happy.
And now--
MEDEA. Thou'rt silent!
JASON. Now, when all the world
Flouts me, avoids me, now, when each man's hand
In blind, unreasoning rage is raised to strike,
I hope to find a refuge with this king.--
One fear I have, though, and no idle one.
MEDEA. And what is that?
JASON. Me he will shelter safe--
That I hold certain--and my children, too,
For they are mine. But thee--
MEDEA. Nay, have no fear.
If he take them, as being thine, then me,
Who am thine as well, he will not cast away.
JASON. Hast thou forgotten all that lately chanced
There in my home-land, in my uncle's house,
When first I brought thee from dark Colchis' shores?
Hast thou forgot the scorn, the black distrust
In each Greek visage when it looked on thee,
A dark barbarian from a stranger-land?
They cannot know thee as I do,--true wife
And mother of my babes;--homekeepers they,
Nor e'er set foot on Colchis' magic strand
As I.
MEDEA. A bitter speech. What is the end?
JASON. The worst misfortune of mankind is this:
Calm and serene and unconcerned to court
Fate's heaviest blows, and then, when these have fallen,
To whine and cringe, bewailing one's sad lot.--
Such folly we will none of, thou and I.
For now I seek King Creon, to proclaim
My right as guest-friend, and to clear away
These clouds of dark distrust that threaten storm.--
Meanwhile, take thou the babes and get thee hence
Without the city walls. There wait, until--
MEDEA. Till when?
JASON. Until--Why hidest thou thy face?
MEDEA. Ah, say no more! This is that bitter fate
Whereof my father warned me! Said he not
We should torment each other, thou and I?
But no!--My spirit is not broken yet!
All that I was, all that I had, is gone,
Save this: I am thy wife! To that I'll cling
Even to death.
JASON. Why twist my kindly words
To a false meaning that I never dreamed of?
MEDEA. Prove that I twist thy words! I'll thank thee for it.
Quick, quick! The king draws nigh.--Let thy heart speak!
JASON. So, wait we here the breaking of the storm.
[GORA _comes out of the tent with the two children_; MEDEA _places
herself between the children, and at first waits in the distance,
watching anxiously all that passes. The_ KING _enters with his daughter
and attended by youths and maidens who carry the vessels for the
sacrifice._]
KING. Where is this stranger?--Who he is, my heart,
By its wild beating, warns me; wanderer,
And banished from his homeland, nay, mayhap
E'en guilty of those crimes men charge him with.--
Where is the stranger?
JASON. Here, my lord, bowed low
Before thee, not a stranger, though estranged.
A suppliant I, and come to pray thine aid.
Thrust forth from house and home, by all men shunned,
I fly to thee, my guest-friend, and beseech
In confidence the shelter of thy roof.
CREUSA. Ay, it is he! Look, father, 'tis Prince Jason!
[_She takes a step toward him._]
JASON. Yea, it is I. And is this thou, Creusa,
Crowned with a yet more gentle, radiant grace,
But still the same? O, take me by the hand
And lead me to thy father, where he stands
With thoughtful brow, fixing his steady gaze
Upon my face, and dallies with his doubt
Whether to greet me kindly. Is he wroth
At me, or at my guilt, which all men cry?
CREUSA (_taking_ JASON's _hand and leading him to her father_).
See, father, 'tis Prince Jason!
KING. He is welcome.
JASON. Thy distant greeting shows me clear what place
Now best beseems me. Here at thy feet I fall
And clasp thy knees, and stretch a timid hand
To touch thy chin. Grant me my prayer, O King!
Receive and shelter a poor suppliant wretch!
KING. Rise, Jason.
JASON. Never, till thou--
KING. Rise, I say.
[_Jason rises to his feet._]
KING. So, from thine Argo-quest thou art returned?
JASON. 'Tis scarce one moon since I set foot on land.
KING. What of the golden prize ye sought? Is't won?
JASON. The king who set the task--he hath it now.
KING. Why art thou banished from thy fatherland?
JASON. They drove me forth--homeless I wander now.
KING. Ay, but why banished? I must see this clear.
JASON. They charged me with a foul, accursed crime.
KING. Truly or falsely? Answer me this first.
JASON. A false charge! By the gods I swear, 'tis false!
KING (_swiftly grasping_ JASON's _hand and leading him forward_).
Thine uncle perished?
JASON. Yea, he died.
KING. But how?
JASON. Not at my hands! As I do live and breathe,
I swear that bloody deed was none of mine!
KING. Yet Rumor names thee Murderer, and the word
Through all the land is blown.
JASON. Then Rumor lies,
And all that vile land with it!
KING. Dream'st thou then
I can believe thy single tale, when all
The world cries, "Liar!"
JASON. 'Tis the word of one
Thou knowest well, against the word of strangers.
KING. Say, then, how fell the king?
JASON. 'Twas his own blood,
The children of his flesh, that did the deed.
KING. Horror of horrors! Surely 'tis not true?
It cannot be!
JASON. The gods know it is truth.
Give ear, and I will tell thee how it chanced.
KING. Nay, hold. Creusa comes. This is no tale
For gentle ears. I fain would shield the maid
From knowledge of such horror. (_Aloud._) For the moment
I know enough. We'll hear the rest anon.
I will believe thee worthy while I can.
CREUSA (_coming up to _KING CREON).
Hast heard his tale? He's innocent, I know.
KING. Go, take his hand. Thou canst without disgrace.
CREUSA. Didst doubt him, father? Nay, I never did!
My heart told me these tales were never true,
These hideous stories that men tell of him.
Gentle he was, and kind; how could he, then,
Show him so base and cruel? Couldst thou know
How they have slandered thee, heaped curse on curse!
I've wept, to think our fellow-men could be
So bitter, false. For thou hadst scarce set sail,
When, sudden, all men's talk throughout the land
Was of wild deeds and hideous midnight crimes--
The fruit of witchcraft on far Colchis' shores--
Which thou hadst done.--And, last, a woman, dark
And dreadful, so they said, thou took'st to wife,
Brewer of poisons, slayer of her sire.
What was her name? It had a barbarous sound--
MEDEA (_stepping forward with the children_).
Medea! Here am I.
KING. Is 't she?
JASON (_dully_).
It is.
CREUSA (_pressing close to her father_).
O, horror!
MEDEA (_to_ CREUSA).
Thou'rt wrong. I never slew my sire.
My brother died, 'tis true; but ask my lord
If 'twas my doing.
[_She points to _JASON.]
True it is, fair maid,
That I am skilled to mix such magic potions
As shall bring death or healing, as I will.
And many a secret else I know. Yet, see!
I am no monster, no, nor murderess.
CREUSA. Oh, dreadful, horrible.
KING. And is she thy--wife?
JASON. My wife.
KING. Those children there?
JASON. They are mine own.
KING. Unhappy man!
JASON. Yea, sooth!--Come, children, bring
Those green boughs in your hands, and reach them out
To our lord the King, and pray him for his help,
[_He leads them up by the hand._]
Behold, my lord, these babes. Thou canst not spurn them!
ONE CHILD (_holding out a bough timidly to the _KING).
See, here it is.
KING (_laying his hands gently on the children's heads_).
Poor tiny birdlings, snatched from out your nest!
CREUSA (_kneeling compassionately beside the children_).
Come here to me, poor, homeless, little orphans!
So young, and yet misfortune bows you down
So soon! So young, and oh! so innocent!--
And look, how this one has his father's mien!
[_She kisses the smaller boy._]
Stay here with me. I'll be your mother, sister.
MEDEA (_with sudden fierceness_).
They are not orphans, do not need thy tears
Of pity! For Prince Jason is their father;
And while Medea lives, they have no need
To seek a mother!
(_To the children._)
Come to me-come here.
CREUSA (_glancing at her father_).
Shall I let them go?
KING. She is their mother.
CREUSA. Run
To mother, children.
MEDEA (to children).
Come! Why stand ye there
And wait?
CREUSA (_to the children, who are clasping her about the neck_).
Your mother calls, my little ones.
Run to her quick!
[_The children go to_ MEDEA.]
JASON (_to the_ KING).
My lord, what is thy will?
KING. Thou hast my promise.
JASON. Thou wilt keep me safe?
KING. I have said it.
JASON. Me and mine thou wilt receive?
KING. Nay, _thee_ I said, not _thine_.--Now follow on,
First to the altar, to our palace then.
JASON (_as he follows the king, to _CREUSA).
Give me thy hand, Creusa, as of yore!
CREUSA. Thou canst not take it as of old thou didst.
MEDEA. They go,--and I am left, forgot! Oh, children,
Run here and clasp me close. Nay, closer, tighter!
CREUSA (_to herself, turning as they go_).
Where is Medea? Why does she not follow?
[_She comes back, but stands at a distance from_ MEDEA.]
Com'st thou not to the sacrifice, then home
With us?
MEDEA. Unbidden guests must wait without.
CREUSA. Nay, but my father promised shelter, help.
MEDEA. Thy words and his betokened no such aid!
CREUSA (_approaching nearer_).
I've grieved thee, wounded thee! Forgive, I pray.
MEDEA. Ah, gracious sound! Who spake that gentle word?
Ay, many a time they've stabbed me to the quick,
But none e'er paused, and, pitying, asked himself
If the wound smarted! Thanks to thee, sweet maid!
Oh, when thou art thyself in sore distress,
Then may'st thou find some tender, pitying soul
To whisper soft and gracious words to thee,
To give one gentle glance--as thou to me!
[MEDEA _tries to grasp _CREUSA's _hand, but the princess draws back
timidly._]
Nay, shudder not! 'Tis no plague-spotted hand.--
Oh, I was born a princess, even as thou.
For me the path of life stretched smooth and straight
As now for thee; blindly thereon I fared,
Content, where all seemed right.--Ah, happy days!
For I was born a princess, even as thou.
And as thou stand'st before me, fair and bright
And happy, so I stood beside my father,
The idol of his heart, and of his folk.
O Colchis! O my homeland! Dark and dread
They name thee here, but to my loving eyes
Thine is a shining shore!
CREUSA _(taking her hand)_.
Poor, lonely soul!
MEDEA. Gentle art thou, and mild, and gracious too;
I read it in thy face. But oh, beware!
The way _seems_ smooth.--One step may mean thy fall!
Light is the skiff that bears thee down the stream,
Advance upon the silvery, shining waves,
Past gaily-flowered banks, where thou would'st pause.--
Ah, gentle pilot, is thy skill so sure?
Beyond thee roars the sea! Oh, venture not
To quit these flowery banks' secure embrace,
Else will the current seize thy slender craft
And sweep thee out upon the great gray sea.--
Why that fixed gaze? Dost shudder at me still?
There was a time when I had shuddered, too,
At thought of such a thing as I'm become!
_[She hides her face on CREUSA's neck.]_
CREUSA. She is no wild thing! Father, see, she weeps!
MEDEA. I am a stranger, from a far land come,
Naught knowing of this country's ancient ways;
And so they flout me, look at me askance
As at some savage, untamed animal.
I am the lowest, meanest of mankind,
I, the proud child of Colchis' mighty king!--
Teach me what I must do. Oh, I will learn
Gladly from thee, for thou art gentle, mild.
'Tis patient teaching, and not angry scorn,
Will tame me.--
Is't thy wont to be so calm
And so serene? To me that happy gift
The gods denied. But I will learn of _thee_!
Thou hast the skill to know what pleases him,
What makes him glad. Oh, teach me how I may
Once more find favor in my husband's sight,
And I will thank thee, thank thee!
CREUSA. Look, my father!
KING. Ay, bring her with thee.
CREUSA. Wilt thou come, Medea?
MEDEA. I'll follow gladly, whereso'er thou goest.
Have pity on me, lone, unfriended, sad,
And hide me from the king's stern, pitiless eyes!
(_To the_ KING.)
Now may'st thou gaze thy fill. My fears are fled,
E'en while I know thy musings bode me ill.
Thy child is tenderer than her father.
CREUSA. Come!
He would not harm thee. Come, ye children, too.
[CREUSA _leads_ MEDEA _and the children away_.]
KING. Hast heard?
JASON. I have.
KING. And so, that is thy wife!
That thou wert wedded, Rumor long since cried,
But I believed not. Now, when I have seen,
Belief is still less easy. She--thy wife?
JASON. 'Tis but the mountain's peak thou seest, and not
The toilsome climb to reach it, nor those steps
By which alone the climber guides his feet.--
I sailed away, a hot, impetuous youth,
O'er distant seas, upon the boldest quest
That e'er within the memory of man
Was ventured. To this life I said farewell,
And, the world well forgot, I fixed my gaze
Solely upon that radiant Golden Fleece
That, through the night, a star in the storm, shone out.
And none thought on return, but one and all,
As though the hour that saw the trophy won
Should be their last, strained every nerve to win.
And so, a valorous band, we sailed away,
Boastful and thirsting deep for daring deeds,
O'er sea and land, through storm and night and rocks,
Death at our heels, Death beckoning us before.
And what at other times we had thought full
Of terror, now seemed gentle, mild, and good;
For Nature was more awful than the worst
That man could do. And, as we strove with her,
And with barbarian hordes that blocked our path,
The hearts of e'en the mildest turned to flint.
Lost were those standards whereby men at home
Judge all things calmly; each became a law
Unto himself amid these savage sights.--
But that which all men deemed could never be
Came finally to pass, and we set foot
On Colchis' distant and mysterious strand.
Oh, hadst thou seen it, wrapped in murky clouds!
There day is night, and night a horror black,
Its folk more dreadful even than the night.
And there I found--_her_, who so hateful seems
To thee. In sooth, O king, she shone on me
Like the stray sunbeam that some prisoner sees
Pierce through the crannies of his lonely cell!
Dark though she seem to thee, in that black land
Like some lone, radiant star she gleamed on me.
KING. Yet wrong is never right, nor evil good.
JASON. It was some god that turned her heart to me.
Fast friend was she in many a dangerous pass.
I saw how in her bosom love was born,
Which yet her royal pride bade firm restrain;
No word she spake betrayed her--'twas her looks,
Her deeds that told the secret. Then on me
A madness came, like to a rushing wind.
Her silence but inflamed me; for a new
And warlike venture then I girded me,
For love I struggled with her--and I won!
Mine she became.--Her father cursed his child;
But mine she was, whether I would or no.
'Twas she that won me that mysterious Fleece;
She was my guide to that dank horror-cave
Where dwelt the dragon, guardian of the prize,
The which I slew, and bore the Fleece away.
Since then I see, each time I search her eyes,
That hideous serpent blinking back at me,
And shudder when I call her wife!--
At last
We sailed away. Her brother fell.
KING (_quickly_).
She slew him?
JASON. The gods' hand smote him down. Her aged father,
With curses on his lips for her, for me,
For all our days to come, with bleeding nails
Dug his own grave, and laid him down to die,
So goes the tale--grim victim of his own
Rash passion.
KING. Dread beginning of your life
Together!
JASON. Ay, and, as the days wore on,
More dreadful still.
KING. Thine uncle--what of him?
JASON. For four long years some god made sport of us
And kept us wandering far from hearth and home
O'er land and sea. Meanwhile, pent up with her
Within the narrow confines of our bark,
Seeing her face each moment of the day,
The edge of my first shuddering fear grew blunt.
The past was past.--So she became my wife.
KING. When home thou camest, what befell thee there?
JASON. Time passed; the memory of those ghastly days
In Colchis dimmer grew and mistier.
I, the proud Greek, now half barbarian grown,
Companioned by my wife, barbarian too,
Sought once again my home-land. Joyfully
The people cried Godspeed! as forth I fared
Long years agone. Of joyfuller greetings now,
When I returned a victor, I had dreamed.
But lo, the busy streets grew still as death
When I approached, and whoso met me, shrank
Back in dismay! The tale, grown big with horrors,
Of all that chanced in Colchis had bred fear
And hatred in this foolish people's hearts.
They fled my face, heaped insults on my wife--
_Mine_ she was, too; who flouted her, struck me!
This evil talk my uncle slily fed;
And when I made demand that he yield up
The kingdom of my fathers, stolen by him
And kept from me by craft, he made reply
That I must put away this foreign wife,
For she was hateful in his eyes, he feared
Her dark and dreadful deeds! If I refused,
My fatherland, his kingdom, I must flee.
KING. And thou--?
JASON. What could I? Was she not my wife,
That trusted to my arm to keep her safe?
Who challenged her, was he not then my foe?
Why, had he named some easier behest,
By Heaven, I had obeyed not even that!
Then how grant this? I laughed at his command.
KING. And he--?
JASON. Spake doom of banishment for both.
Forth from Iolcos on that selfsame day
We must depart, he said. But I would not,
And stayed.
Forthwith a grievous illness seized
The king, and through the town a murmur ran
Whisp'ring strange tidings: How the aged king,
Seated before his household shrine, whereon
They had hung the Fleece in honor of the god,
Gazed without ceasing on that golden prize,
And oft would cry that thence his brother's face
Looked down on him,--my father's, whom he slew
By guile, disputing of the Argo-quest.
Ay, that dead face peered down upon him now
From every glittering lock of that bright Fleece,
In search of which, false man! he sent me forth
To distant lands, in hope that I should perish!
At last, when all the king's house saw their need,
To me for succor his proud daughters came,
Begging my wife to heal him by her skill.
But I cried, "No! Am I to save the man
Who plotted certain death for me and mine?"
And those proud maidens turned again in tears.
I shut me up within my house, unheeding
Aught else that passed. Weeping, they came again,
And yet again; each time I said them nay.
And then one night, as I lay sleeping, came
A dreadful cry before my door! I waked
To find Acastus, my false uncle's son,
Storming my portal with loud, frenzied blows,
Calling me murderer, slayer of his sire!
That night the aged king had passed from life.
Up from my couch I sprang, and sought to speak,
But vainly, for the people's howls of rage
Drowned my weak cries. Then one among them cast
A stone, then others. But I drew my blade
And through the mob to safety cut my way.
Since then I've wandered all fair Hellas o'er,
Reviled of men, a torment to myself.
And, if thou, too, refuse to succor me,
Then am I lost indeed!
KING. Nay, I have sworn
And I will keep my oath. But this thy wife--
JASON. Hear me, O king, before thou end that speech!
Needs must thou take us both, or none at all!
I were a happy man,--ay, born anew--
Were she but gone forever. But no, no!
I must protect her--for she trusted me.
KING. These magic arts she knows--'tis them I fear.
The power to injure, spells the will to do it.
Besides, these strange, suspicious deeds of hers--
These are not all her guilt.
JASON. Give her one chance.
Then, if she stay not quiet, hound her forth,
Hunt her, and slay her, me, and these my babes.
Yet, till that time, I pray thee let her try
If she can live at peace with this thy folk.
This boon I crave of thee by mightiest Zeus,
The god of strangers--ay, and call upon
The ancient bond of friendship that, long since,
Our fathers formed, mine in Iolcos, thine
In Corinth here. On that long-vanished day
They dreamed there might fall need of such a tie.
And, now that need is here, do thou thy part
And succor me, lest in like evil pass
Thou make the same request, and meet denial.
KING. 'Tis the gods' will; I yield, against my judgment,
And she shall stay. But, look you, if she show
One sign that those wild ways are not forgot,
I drive her forth from out this city straight
And yield her up to those who seek her life!
Here in this meadow, where I found thee first,
A sacred altar shall be raised, to Zeus,
The god of strangers, consecrate and to
Thy murdered uncle Pelias' bloody shades.
Here will we kneel together and pray the gods
To send their blessing on thy coming here,
And turn to mercy that which bodes us ill.--
Now to my royal city follow swift.
[_He turns to his attendants, who approach._]
See my behests are faithfully obeyed.
[_As they turn to depart, the curtain falls._]
ACT II
_A chamber in_ CREON'S _royal palace at Corinth_. CREUSA _is discovered
seated, while_ MEDEA _occupies a low stool before her, and holds a lyre
in her arm. She is clad in the Greek fashion._
CREUSA. Now pluck this string--the second--this one here.
MEDEA. So, this way?
CREUSA. Nay, thy fingers more relaxed.
MEDEA. I cannot.
CREUSA. 'Tis not hard, if thou'lt but try.
MEDEA. I have tried, patiently; but 'tis no use!
[_She lays the lyre aside and rises._]
Were it a spear-haft, or the weapons fierce
Of the bloody hunt, these hands were quick enough.
[_She raises her right hand and gazes at it reproachfully._]
Rebellious fingers! I would punish them!
CREUSA. Perverse one! When my heart was filled with joy
At thinking how 'twould gladden Jason's heart
To hear this song from thee!
MEDEA. Ay, thou art right.
I had forgot that. Let me try once more.
The song will please him, think'st thou, truly
please him?
CREUSA. Nay, never doubt it. 'Tis the song he sang
When he dwelt here with us in boyhood days.
Each time I heard it, joyfully I sprang
To greet him, for it meant he was come home.
MEDEA (_eagerly_).
Teach me the song again!
CREUSA. Come, listen, then.
'Tis but a short one, nor so passing sweet;
But then--he knew to sing it with such grace,
Such joy, such lordly pride--ay, almost scorn!
[_She sings._]
"Ye gods above, ye mighty gods,
Anoint my head, I pray;
Make strong my heart to bear my part
Right kingly in the fray,
To smite all foes, and steal the heart
Of all fair maids away!"
MEDEA. Yea, yea, all these the gods bestowed on him!
CREUSA. All what?
MEDEA. These gifts, of which the song doth tell.
CREUSA. What gifts?
MEDEA. "To smite all foes, and steal the heart
Of all fair maids away!"
CREUSA. Is't so? I never thought on that before;
I did but sing the words I heard him sing.
MEDEA. 'Twas so he stood on Colchis' hostile strand;
Before his burning glance our warriors cringed,
And that same glance kindled a fatal fire
In the soft breast of one unhappy maid;
She struggled, fled--until at last those flames,
So long hid deep within her heart, burst forth,
And rest and joy and peace to ashes burned
In one fierce holocaust of smoky flame.
'Twas so he stood, all shining strength and grace,
A hero, nay, a god--and drew his victim
And drew and drew, until the victim came
To its own doom; and then he flung it down
Careless, and there was none would take it up.
CREUSA. Art thou his wife, and speak'st such things of him?
MEDEA. Thou know'st him not; I know his inmost soul.--
In all the wide world there is none but he,
And all things else are naught to him but tools
To shape his deeds. He harbors no mean thoughts
Of paltry gain, not he; yet all his thoughts
Are of himself alone. He plays a game
with Fortune--now his own, and now another's.
If bright Fame beckon, he will slay a man
And do it gaily. Will he have a wife?
He goes and takes one. And though hearts should break
And lives be wasted--so he have his will,
What matters it to him? Oh, he does naught
That is not right--but right is what he wants!
Thou knowest him not; I've probed his inmost soul.
And when I think on all that he has wrought,
Oh, I could see him die, and laugh the while!
CREUSA. Farewell!
MEDEA. Thou goest?
CREUSA. Can I longer stay
To list such words?--Ye gods! to hear a wife
Revile her husband thus!
MEDEA. She should speak truth,
And mine is such an one as I have said.
CREUSA. By Heaven, if I were wedded to a man,
E'en one so base and vile as thou hast named--
'Though Jason is _not_ so--and had I babes,
His gift, each bearing in his little face
His father's likeness, oh, I would love them dear,
Though they should slay me!
MEDEA. Ay, an easy task
To set, but hard to do.
CREUSA. And yet, methinks,
If easier, 'twere less sweet.--Have thou thy way
And say whate'er thou wilt; but I must go.
First thou dost charm my heart with noble words
And seek'st my aid to win his love again;
But now thou breakest forth in hate and scorn.
I have seen many evils among men,
But worst of all these do I count a heart
That knows not to forgive. So, fare thee well!
Learn to be better, truer!
MEDEA. Art thou angry
CREUSA. Almost.
MEDEA. Alas, thou wilt not give me up,
Thou, too? Thou wilt not leave me? Be my help,
My friend, my kind protector!
CREUSA. Now thou'rt gentle,
Yet, but a moment since, so full of hate!
MEDEA. Hate for myself, but only love for him!
CREUSA. Dost thou love Jason?
MEDEA. Should I else be here?
CREUSA. I've pondered that, but cannot understand.--
Yet, if thou truly lov'st him, I will take thee
Back to my heart again, and show thee means
Whereby thou mayst regain his love.--I know
Those bitter moods of his, and have a charm
To scatter the dark clouds. Come, to our task!
I marked this morning how his face was sad
And gloomy. Sing that song to him; thou'lt see
How swift his brow will clear. Here is the lyre;
I will not lay it down till thou canst sing
The song all through. [_She seats herself._]
Nay, come! Why tarriest there
MEDEA. I gaze on thee, and gaze on thee again,
And cannot have my fill of thy sweet face.
Thou gentle, virtuous maid, as fair in soul
As body, with a heart as white and pure
As are thy snowy draperies! Like a dove,
A pure, white dove with shining, outspread wings,
Thou hoverest o'er this life, nor yet so much
As dipp'st thy wing in this vile, noisome slough
Wherein we wallow, struggling to get free,
Each from himself. Send down one kindly beam
From out thy shining heaven, to fall in pity
Upon my bleeding breast, distraught with pain;
And all those ugly scars that grief and hate
And evil fortune e'er have written there,
Oh, cleanse thou these away with thy soft hands,
And leave thine own dear picture in their place!
That strength, that ever was my proudest boast
From youth, once tested, proved but craven weakness.
Oh, teach me how to make my weakness strong!
[_She seats herself on the low stool at CREUSA's feet._]
Here to thy feet for refuge will I fly,
And pour my tale of suffering in thine ear;
And thou shalt teach me all that I must do.
Like some meek handmaid will I follow thee,
Will pace before the loom from early morn,
Nay, set my hand to all those lowly tasks
Which maids of noble blood would scorn to touch
In Colchis, as but fit for toiling serfs,
Yet here they grace a queen. Oh, I'll forget
My sire was Colchis' king, and I'll forget
My ancestors were gods, and I'll forget
The past, and all that threatens still!
[_She springs up and leaves _CREUSA's _side._]
But no!
That can I not forget!
CREUSA (_following her_).
Why so distressed?
Men have forgotten many an evil deed
That chanced long since, ay, even the gods themselves
Remember not past sorrows.
MEDEA (_embracing her_).
Say'st thou so?
Oh, that I could believe it, could believe it!
JASON _enters._
CREUSA (_turning to him_).
Here is thy wife. See, Jason, we are friends!
JASON. 'Tis well.
MEDEA. Greetings, my lord.--She is so good,
Medea's friend and teacher she would be.
JASON. Heaven speed her task!
CREUSA. But why these sober looks?
We shall enjoy here many happy days!
I, sharing 'twixt my sire and you my love
And tender care, while thou and she, Medea,--
JASON. Medea!
MEDEA. What are thy commands, my lord?
JASON. Hast seen the children late?
MEDEA. A moment since;
They are well and happy.
JASON. Look to them again!
MEDEA. I am just come from them.
JASON. Go, go, I say!
MEDEA. If 'tis thy wish--
JASON. It is.
MEDEA. Then I obey.
[_She departs._]
CREUSA. Why dost thou bid her go? The babes are safe.
JASON. Ah..! ho, a mighty weight is rolled away
From off my soul, and I can breathe again!
Her glance doth shrivel up my very heart,
And all that bitter hate, hid deep within
My bosom, well nigh strangles me to death!
CREUSA. What words are these? Oh, ye all-righteous gods!
He speaks now even as she a moment since.
Who was it told me, wife and husband ever
Do love each other?
JASON. Ay, and so they do,
When some fair, stalwart youth hath cast his glance
Upon a maid, whom straightway he doth make
The goddess of his worship. Timidly
He seeks her eyes, to learn if haply she
Seek his as well; and when their glances meet,
His soul is glad. Then to her father straight
And to her mother goes he, as is meet,
And begs their treasure, and they give consent.
Comes then the bridal day; from far and near
Their kinsmen gather; all the town has part
In their rejoicing. Richly decked with wreaths
And dainty blossoms, to the altar then
He leads his bride; and there a rosy flush,
Of maiden shyness born, plays on her cheek
The while she trembles with a holy fear
At what is none the less her dearest wish.
Upon her head her father lays his hands
And blesses her and all her seed to come.
Such happy wooing breeds undying love
'Twixt wife and husband.--'Twas of such I dreamed.
Alas, it came not! What have I done, ye gods!
To be denied what ye are wont to give
Even to the poorest? Why have I alone
No refuge from the buffets of the world
At mine own hearth, no dear companion there,
My own, in truth, my own in plighted troth?
CREUSA. Thou didst not woo thy wife as others, then?
Her father did not raise his hand to bless?
JASON. He raised it, ay, but armed with a sword;
And 'twas no blessing, but a curse he spake.
But I--I had a swift and sweet revenge!
His only son is dead, and he himself
Lies dumb in the grave. His curse alone lives still--
Or so it seems.
CREUSA. Alas, how strange to think
Of all the change a few brief years have wrought!
Thou wert so soft and gentle, and art now
So stern. But I am still the selfsame maid
As then, have still the selfsame hopes and fears,
And what I then thought right, I think right still,
What then I blamed, cannot think blameless now.--
But thou art changed.
JASON. Ay, thou hast hit the truth!
The real misfortune in a hapless lot
Is this: that man is to himself untrue.
Here one must show him master, there must cringe
And bow the knee; here Justice moves a hair,
And there a grain; and, at his journey's end,
He stands another man than he who late
Set out upon that journey. And his loss
Is twofold--for the world has passed him by
In scorn, and his own self-respect is dead.
Naught have I done that in itself was bad,
Yet have had evil hopes, bad wishes, ay,
Unholy aspirations; and have stood
And looked in silence, while another sinned;
Or here have willed no evil, yet joined hands
With sin, forgetful how one wicked deed
Begets another.--Now at last I stand,
A sea of evils breaking all about,
And cannot say, "My hand hath done no wrong!"--
O happy Youth, couldst thou forever stay!
O joyous Fancy, blest Forgetfulness,
Time when each moment cradles some great deed
And buries it! How, in a swelling tide
Of high adventure, I disported me,
Cleaving the mighty waves with stalwart breast!
But manhood comes, with slow and sober steps;
And Fancy flees away, while naked Truth
Creeps soft to fill its place and brood upon
Full many a care. No more the present seems
A fair tree, laden down with luscious fruits,
'Neath whose cool shadows rest and joy are found,
But is become a tiny seedling which,
When buried in the earth, will sprout and bud
And bloom, and bear a future of its own.
What shall thy task in life be? Where thy home?
What of thy wife and babes? What thine own fate,
And theirs?--Such constant musings tantalize
the soul. [_He seats himself._]
CREUSA. What should'st thou care for such? 'Tis all decreed,
All ordered for thee.
JASON. Ordered? Ay, as when
Over the threshold one thrusts forth a bowl
Of broken meats, to feed some begging wretch!
I am Prince Jason. Spells not that enough
Of sorrow? Must I ever henceforth sit
Meek at some stranger's board, or beg my way,
My little babes about me, praying pity
From each I meet? My sire was once a king,
And so am I; yet who would care to boast
He is like Jason? Still--[_He rises._]
I passed but now
Down through the busy market-place and through
Yon wide-wayed city. Dost remember how
I strode in my young pride through those same streets
What time I came to take farewell of thee
Long since, ere sailed the Argo? How the folk
Came thronging, surging, how each street was choked
With horses, chariots, men--a dazzling blaze
Of color? How the eager gazers climbed
Up on the house-tops, swarmed on every tower,
And fought for places as they would for gold?
The air rang with the cymbals' brazen crash
And with the shouts of all that mighty throng
Crying, "Hail, Jason!" Thick they crowded round
That gallant band attired in rich array,
Their shining armor gleaming in the sun,
The least of them a hero and a king,
And in their midst the leader they adored.
I was the man that captained them, that brought
Them safe to Greece again; and it was I
That all this folk did greet with loud acclaim.--
I trod these selfsame streets an hour ago,
But no eye sought me, greeting heard I none;
Only, the while I stood and gazed about,
I heard one rudely grumbling that I had
No right to block the way, and stand and stare.
CREUSA. Thou wilt regain thy proud place once again,
If thou but choose.
JASON. Nay, all my hopes are dead;
My fight is fought, and I am down, to rise
No more.
CREUSA. I have a charm will save thee yet.
JASON. Ay, all that thou would'st say, I know before:
Undo the past, as though it ne'er had been.
I never left my fatherland, but stayed
With thee and thine in Corinth, never saw
The Golden Fleece, nor stepped on Colchis' strand,
Ne'er saw that woman that I now call wife!
Send thou her home to her accursed land,
Cause her to take with her all memory
That she was ever here.--Do thou but this,
And I will be a man again, and dwell
With men.
CREUSA. Is that thy charm? I know a better;
A simple heart, I mean, a mind at peace.
JASON. Ah, thou art good! Would I could learn this peace
Of thee!
CREUSA. To all that choose, the gods will give it.
Thou hadst it once, and canst have yet again.
JASON. Dost thou think often on our happy youth?
CREUSA. Ay, many a time, and gladly.
JASON. How we were
One heart, one soul?
CREUSA. I made thee gentler, thou
Didst give me courage.--Dost remember how
I set thy helm upon my head?
JASON. And how
Because it was too large, thy tiny hands
Did hold it up, the while it rested soft
Upon thy golden curls? Creusa, those
Were happy days!
CREUSA. Dost mind thee how my father
Was filled with joy to see it, and, in jest,
Did name us bride and bridegroom?
JASON. Ay--but that
Was not to be.
CREUSA. Like many another hope
That disappoints us.--Still, what matters it?
We mean to be no less good friends, I trust!
[MEDEA _reenters._]
MEDEA. I've seen the children. They are safe.
JASON (_absently_).
'Tis well.
(_Continuing his revery._)
All those fair spots our happy youth once knew,
Linked to my memory with slender threads,
All these I sought once more, when first I came
Again to Corinth, and I cooled my breast
And dipped my burning lips in that bright spring
Of my lost childhood. Once again, methought,
I drove my chariot through the market-place,
Guiding my fiery steeds where'er I would,
Or, wrestling with some fellow of the crowd,
Gave blow for blow, while thou didst stand to watch,
Struck dumb with terror, filled with angry fears,
Hating, for my sake, all who raised a hand
Against me. Or again I seemed to be
Within the solemn temple, where we knelt
Together, there, and there alone, forgetful
Each of the other, our soft-moving lips
Up-sending to the gods from our two breasts
A single heart, made one by bonds of love.
CREUSA. Dost thou remember all these things so well?
JASON. They are the cup from which, in greedy draughts,
I drink the only comfort left me now.
MEDEA (_who has gone silently up-stage and taken up again the discarded
lyre_).
Jason, I know a song!
JASON (_not noticing her_).
And then the tower!
Know'st thou that tower upon the sea-strand there,
Where by thy father thou didst stand and weep,
What time I climbed the Argo's side, to sail
On that far journey? For thy falling tears
I had no eyes, my heart but thirsted deep
For deeds of prowess. Lo, there came a breeze
That loosed the wimple bound about thy locks
And dropped it on the waves. Straightway I sprang
Into the sea, and caught it up, to keep
In memory of thee when far away.
CREUSA. Hast thou it still?
JASON. Nay, think how many years
Are gone since then, and with them this, thy token,
Blown far by some stray breeze.
MEDEA. I know a song!
JASON (_ignoring her_).
Then didst thou cry to me, "Farewell, my brother!"
CREUSA. And now my cry is, "Brother, welcome home!"
MEDEA (_plaintively_).
Jason, I know a song.
CREUSA. She knows a song
That thou wert wont to sing. I pray thee, listen,
And she will sing it thee.
JASON. A song? Well, well!
Where was I, then?--From childhood I was wont
To dream and dream, and babble foolishly
Of things that were not and could never be.
That habit clung to me, and mocks me now.
For, as the youth lives ever in the future,
So the grown man looks alway to the past,
And, young or old, we know not how to live
Within the present. In my dreams I was
A mighty hero, girded for great deeds,
And had a loving wife, and gold, and much
Goodly possessions, and a peaceful home
Wherein slept babes of mine.
(_To_ MEDEA.)
What is it thou
Wouldst have with me?
CREUSA. She asks to sing a song
That thou in youth wert wont to sing to us.
JASON (_to_ MEDEA).
And _thou_ hast learned it?
MEDEA. I have done my best.
JASON. Go to! Dost think to give me back my youth,
Or happiness to win again for me,
By singing me some paltry, childish tune?
Give o'er! We will not part, but live together;
That is our fate, it seems, as things have chanced;
But let me bear no word of foolish songs
Or suchlike nonsense!
CREUSA. Let her sing, I pray.
She hath conned it o'er and o'er, to know it well,
Indeed she hath!
JASON. Well, sing it, sing it then!
CREUSA (_to _MEDEA).
So, pluck the second string. Thou know'st it still?
MEDEA (_drawing her hand across her brow as if in pain_).
I have forgotten!
JASON. Ay, said I not so?
She cannot sing it.--Other songs are hers,
Like that which, with her magic arts, she sang
Unto the dragon, that he fell asleep.
That was no pure, sweet strain, like this of thine!
CREUSA (_whispering in _MEDEA's _ear_).
"Ye gods above, ye mighty gods--."
MEDEA (_repeating it after her_).
"Ye gods above--"
O gods in heaven, O righteous, mighty gods!
[_She lets the lyre fall to the ground, and clasps both hands before her
eyes._]
CREUSA. She weeps! Canst be so stern and hard?
JASON (_holding_ CREUSA _back from_ MEDEA).
Thou art
A child, and canst not know us, what we are!
The hand she feels upon her is the gods',
That reacheth her e'en here, with bloody gripe!
Then strive not thou to balk the gods' just doom.
O, hadst thou seen her in the dragon's cave,
Seen how she leaped to meet that serpent grim,
Shot forth the poisonous arrows of her tongue,
And darted hate and death from blazing eyes,
Then were thy bosom steeled against her tears!--
Take thou the lyre, sing thou to me that song,
And exorcise the hateful demon here
That strangles, chokes me! Thou canst sing the song,
Mayhap, though she cannot.
CREUSA. Ay, that I will.
[_She stoops to take up the lyre._]
MEDEA (_gripping_ CREUSA's _arm with one hand and holding her back,
while with the other she herself picks up the lyre_).
Let be!
CREUSA. Right gladly, if thou'lt play.
MEDEA. Not I!
JASON. Thou wilt not give it her?
MEDEA. No!
JASON. Nor to me?
MEDEA. No!
JASON (_striding up to her and grasping at the lyre_).
I will take it, then!
MEDEA (_without moving from her place, but drawing the lyre away from
him_).
No!
JASON. Give it me!
MEDEA (_crushing the lyre, so that it breaks with a loud, cracking
sound_).
Here, take it! Broken! Thy fair lyre is broken!
[_She flings the pieces down in front of_ CREUSA.]
CREUSA (_starting back in horror_).
Dead!
MEDEA (_looking swiftly about her as in a daze_).
Dead? Who speaks of death? I am alive!
[_She stands there violently agitated and staring dazedly before her. A
trumpet-blast sounds without._]
JASON. Ha, what is that?
(_To_ MEDEA.)
Why standest silent there?
Thou'lt rue this moment, that I know full well!
[_Another trumpet-blast without. The _KING_ appears suddenly at the
door._]
JASON (_hurrying to meet him_).
What means that warlike trumpet-blast without?
KING. Unhappy man, canst ask?
JASON. I do, my lord!
KING. The stroke that I so feared is fall'n at last.--
Before my palace gates a herald stands,
Sent hither from the Amphictyons' holy seat,
Seeking for news of thee and of thy wife,
Crying to Heaven the doom of banishment
On both!
JASON. This, too?
KING. So is it--. Peace, he comes.
[_The palace doors swing open and a_ HERALD _enters, followed by two
trumpeters and, at a little distance, by a numerous suite._]
HERALD. The blessing of the gods upon this house!
KING (_solemnly_).
Who art thou? On what errand art thou come?
HERALD. A herald of the gods am I, sent forth
From the ancient council of the Amphictyons
That speaks its judgments in that holy town
Of freedom, Delphi. And I follow close,
With cries of vengeance, on the guilty tracks
Of those false kinsmen of King Pelias,
Who ruled Iolcos, ere he fell in death.
KING. Thou seek'st the guilty? Seek in his own house,
'Mongst his own children seek them--but not here!
HERALD. Here have I found them. Here I'll speak my charge:
Thou art accursed, Jason, thou, and she,
Thy wife! With evil magic are ye charged,
Wherewith thine uncle darkly ye did slay.
JASON. A lie! Naught know I of mine uncle's death!
HERALD. Then ask thy wife, there; she will know, perchance.
JASON. Was 't she that slew him?
HERALD. Not with her own hand,
But by those magic arts ye know so well,
Which ye have brought here from that foreign land.
For, when the king fell sick--perchance e'en then
A victim, for the signs of his disease
Were strange and dreadful--to Medea then
His daughters came, and begged for healing balms
From her who knew so well to heal. And she
Gave swift consent, and followed them.
JASON. Nay, hold!
She went not! I forbade it, and she stayed.
HERALD. The first time, yes. But when, unknown to thee,
They came again, she companied them back,
Only demanding, if she healed the king,
The Golden Fleece in payment for her aid;
It was a hateful thing to her, she said;
And boded evil. And those foolish maids,
All joyful, promised. So she came with them
To the king's chamber, where he lay asleep.
Straightway she muttered strange and secret words
Above him, and his sleep grew ever deep
And deeper. Next, to let the bad blood out,
She bade them ope his veins. And even this
They did, whereat his panting breath grew still
And tranquil; then the gaping wounds were bound,
And those sad maids were glad to think him healed.
Forth went Medea then, as she hath said;
His daughters, too, departed, for he slept.
But, on a sudden, came a fearful cry
From out his chamber! Swift his daughters sped
To aid him, and--oh, ghastly, horrible!--
There on the pavement lay the aged king,
His body twisted in a hideous knot,
The cloths that bound his veins all torn away
From off his gaping wounds, whence, in a black
And sluggish stream, his blood came welling forth.
He lay beside the altar, where the Fleece
For long was wont to hang--and that was gone!
But, in that selfsame hour, thy wife was seen,
The golden gaud upon her shoulder flung,
Swift hasting through the night.
MEDEA (_dully, staring straight before her_).
'Twas my reward!--
I shudder still, when'er I think upon
The old man's furious rage!
HERALD. Now, that no longer
Such horrors bide here, poisoning this land
With their destructive breath, I here proclaim
The solemn doom of utter banishment
On Jason, the Thessalian, Aeson's son,
Spouse of a wicked witch-wife, and himself
An arrant villain; and I drive him forth
From out this land of Greece, wherein the gods
Are wont to walk with men; to exile hence,
To flight and wandering I drive him forth,
And with him, this, his wife, ay, and his babes,
The offspring of his marriage-bed. Henceforth
No rood of this, his fatherland, be his,
No share in her protection or her rights!
[_He raises his hand and three times makes solemn proclamation, turning
to different quarters._]
Banished are Jason and Medea!
Medea and Jason are banished!
Banished are Jason and Medea!
And whoso harbors him, or gives him aid,
After three days and nights are come and gone,
Upon that man I here declare the doom
Of death, if he be burgher; if a king,
Or city-state, then war shall be proclaimed.
So runs the Amphictyons' reverend decree,
The which I here proclaim, as is most meet,
That each may know its terms, and so beware.--
The blessing of the gods upon this house!
[_He turns to depart._]
JASON. Why stand ye there, ye walls, and crash not down
To save this king the pains of slaying me?
KING. A moment yet, sir Herald. Hear this, too.
[_He turns to_ JASON.]
Think'st thou I rue the promise I have made?
If I could think thee guilty, ay, wert thou
My very son, I'd give thee up to these
That seek thee. But thou art not! Wherefore, I
Will give thee shelter. Stay thou here.--Who dares
To question Creon's friend, whose innocence
Stands pledged by mine own words? Who dares, I say,
To lay a hand upon my son to be?
Yea, Herald, on my son to be, the spouse
Of this my daughter! 'Twas my dearest wish
In happy days long past, when Fortune smiled;
Now, when he's compassed round by stormy waves
Of evil fortune, it shall come to pass.
Ay, she shall be thy wife, and thou shalt stay
Here, with thy father. And I will myself
Make answer for it to the Amphictyons.
Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. in Twenty Volumes / Fiske, John, 1842-1901