The poem also expresses Goethe's own yearning for Italy, so early implanted in his heart, and which grew to an irrepressible passion. Heine says of this song: „Ganz Italien ist darin geschildert, aber mit den seufzenden Farben der Sehnsucht.“ (Reisebilder, iii, 1, ch. 26.) The first lines of Byron's Bride of Abydos were suggested by this poem. It has been translated into many languages, and set to music by Reichardt, Romberg, Beethoven, Liszt, and Thomas. In Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Book iii, ch. 1) Goethe gives an account of the way in which the song was rendered: She began each verse in a stately and dignified way, as though she would call attention to something unusual, as though she wished to express something important. At each third line her voice became more veiled and melancholy. The words "Kennst du es wohl?" she expressed mysteriously and doubtfully. In Dahin! Dahin!" there was an irresistible yearning, and her „Laß uns ziehn!" was repeated with such variety that it was at one time beseeching and urgent, at another time impelling and alluring. " 1. 4. still, because too low to be swayed by the breeze. 1. 5. Kennst du es wohl ? Thou knowest it, perchance? 11. 9-10. Macaulay said, "I know no two lines in the world which I would sooner have written than those" (Trevelyan, Life of Macaulay, ii, 26). 1. 16. es stürzt der Fels, i.e., the rock has a precipitous descent (Absturz). 109. In der Sistina The Sistine chapel in the Vatican (Cappella Sistina), erected under Pope Sixtus IV., was decorated with grandiose Biblical frescoes by Michael Angelo, beginning in 1508. They have been called "the culminating effort of all modern art." The rugged, heroic personality of Michael Angelo was very sympathetic to Meyer. 1. 1. Sistine, German form for Sistina. 1. 8. schier, almost; cf. No. 86, 1. 67, n. 1. 9. Sein, Being. 1. 10. Five frescoes of the creation contain the figure of God. 110. ✪ du, vor dem die Stürme schweigen In Neue Gedichte, 1856. 1. 3. zu eigen, for thine own. 1. 6. entfacht, enkindled; a favorite word with modern poets since Platen, who probably invented it as a two-syllabled substitute for the usual angefacht. 1. II. Minne, the medieval poetic word for romantic love. 111. Wandrers Nachtlied Written 1776. The sigh of a weary soul for peace, in preference to all the keener joys and sorrows of restless life. Of the many translations, perhaps none is better than Longfellow's; he also translated Ein Gleiches, which follows. 1. 1. Der du = O du, der du. Du refers to Friede, 1. 7. Ein Gleiches Written 1780 in pencil upon the wall of a lonely summer house in a hemlock forest at the top of a hill near Ilmenau. A poetical voicing of the peace which settles down upon mountain and forest at nightfall. Less than a year before his death Goethe revisited the summer house, re-read the lines which he had written there more than half a century before, and said with tears: „Ja, warte nur, balde ruhest du auch!" Schubert and Schumann have written notable settings to this perfect poem. 1. 1. Gipfeln, hill-tops. 1. 3. Wipfeln, tree-tops. 1. 7. balde, arch. for bald. 112. Harfenspieler Published 1795. The song of the aged harper in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre, a complaint coming from a heart in the depths of bitterest human wretchedness. Von Klenze calls attention to a remarkable similarity between this poem and the following passage in Racine's Thébaide: «Voilà de ces grands dieux la suprême justice. Jusques au bord du crime ils conduisent nos pas. Ils nous le font commettre et ne l'excusent pas.» Goethe was gratified to learn that Queen Luise of Prussia had gained melancholy consolation from these sad and significant lines at the time of Prussia's deepest humiliation, when she was com pelled to flee to Königsberg. 113. Siehst du das Meer ? Written 1836 or 1837. Set to music by Oscar Meyer. 114. Poesie Not in the Poems of 1834; probably written later. 1. 4. ein tiefes Leid, subject. 115. Ungesprochne Worte First published, in less complete form, in Blätter für die Kunst, Berlin, January, 1894. 1. 5. eine Wetternacht, i.e., a summer night, aglow with heatlightning. 1. 8. Frühe, early morning. 1. 16. dort, i.e., in the heart. 116. Zarathustras Rundgefang Published 1891, in the fourth part of Thus Spake Zarathustra, a work full of deep thoughts, veiled under fantastic symbolism, and expressed in rhapsodic prose, interspersed with lyrical passages. The discourse is placed in the mouth of the hermit-philosopher Zarathustra (Zoroaster). In the deep hush of midnight, under the light of the full moon, which has looked down upon the woes and struggles of so many generations of mortals, the hermit ruminates upon the problems of human life. The theme of the poem is the inexorable thirst of the soul for a full expression of its powers (Luft, 1. 8). This desire far outweighs the demand of the suffering to be released from their sorrows (1. 9). 1. 5. tief, unfathomable, mysterious. 1. 6. gedacht, sc. hat. 117. Wie rafft' ich mich auf Written 1820. Longfellow's translation, under the title Re morse, hardly does full justice to the pensive music of the original. The poem doubtless furnished suggestions for The Bridge by Longfellow. 1. 6. das Thor, the gate of the city. 1. 9. nahm . . . in acht, noticed. 1. 13. entfacht, cf. No. 110, l. 6, n. 1. 14. An allusion to the ancient belief in the "music of the spheres." 1. 18. täuschend entlegene, deceptively remote. 1. 21. verbracht, misused, squandered. 118. Mut Written 1842 or 1843. 119. Über ein Stündlein This poem exists in several variant forms; the present text represents the author's final revision. 1. 1. fein, suitably, full well. 1. 2. Über ein Stündlein, after one little hour. 1. 16. thörigen, usually thörichten. 120. Sendung From Gedichte, 1888. The defiantly courageous note in this poem is not unfamiliar in modern poetry: cf. Louise Imogene Guiney's The Kings, and W. E. Henley's To R. T. H. B. Heine's Fortuna, and the tone of Horace, Odes, iii, 3, 1–8. 1. 4. Sendung, one's "mission," or especial vocation in life. 1. 22. An allusion to Matthew, xxvi, 39. Also 1. 9. begeistert. Contemporary editions read begeistert; for the proposed sumptuous edition of his poems Schiller indicated his preference for locket, which reading has been adopted by some modern editors. Cf. the introductory note to No. 43. |