Und Holl' ist nur, kein Himmel in Gedichte! - .......... Und jenen Wiederschein von Qual und Gluten, Hat ihn die Brust des Glucklichen geboren? War's ein beseligt Herz, in dessen Grunde So lebentotende Gebilde gohren? Wann gab, getrankt von milder Sehnsucht Fluten, Es je von Lieb' und Vaterfreuden Kunde, Von segenvollem Bunde Begluckter Hauslichkeit, von Gott und Frieden? Wann sang es Trost, wann sang es edle Schmerzen? Zermalmt hat es - wann hob es and're Herzen? - Beneid' es, wenn du kannst! - und doch beschieden War jenem Mann der Kranz! Wohlan, bekenne, Ob man in Wahrheit wohl ihn glucklich nenne? - *** As the wild sounds of the cruel songs of demons drove men crazy, so we feel shaken to the marrow of our bones when we hear the horrible chants. And as those who hover in rarified regions of the highest space often run out of breath and die, with their blood draining from compressed lungs, so the soul strives, full of fear, to get away in a daze from the magic song, until the magician who cast the magic circle laughing with derision, raises his wand. .......... When we look at such a picture our pain will find release in justified complaints. We do not see you carried through the clear air as a swan full of song that hovers above the meadows and green, laughing fields. You can be seen in the horror of the bleak desert like a lonely eagle soaring from the rock on which he has his nest and rising higher and higher until his wings spread out wide, carry him out of our sight, away, where he can no long be reached by the eye that follows him. Yet he is not trying to reach the sun. His keen eye searches around - for corpses! .......... Unhappy soul whose clouded mirror so horribly distorts the pictures it reflects that were painted by life and nature, with love, in bright colours and beautiful symbols. Although upon your forehead may glitter the seal of the master granted the power in the kingdom of the spirits, yet it gives you pleasure to confuse the soul in the pale, uncertain gloom. I can no longer recognise you yourself. The picture of Prometheus seems to be glowing in my eyes, yet I see it changing strangely and becoming confused. Are you the Prometheus who feels the wounds, or are you the vulture burrowing in his heart? .......... He went from Newstead Abbey, the old, quiet house of his ancestors where he left dear pledges, like the seagull that, unsteady in the roaring storm, skims the foam from the crests of the waves. He was driven away like Ahasuerus from the home of those he loved. Like Ahasuerus, he was not to rest! He is straying aimlessly all over the globe, looking for good fortune and danger in a battle. The dark spell weighs upon his soul, even if he climbs the rock closely to the abyss or swims across the cold waters of the Hellespont. .......... And one can see him rove and, so it seems, run away from himself. How he is on the banks of the Tagus, rinsed with gold, now on the tip of the shore surrounded by rocks, where the Atlantic as a border between continents joins the Mediterranean as a narrow ribbon dividing Europe from the land of the Moors, whence then the neighbouring waters mingle and dash away proudly and full of joy, now in the Pyrenees lit up by the sun, the peaks of which are reached from the valley of the Basques by an impassable, narrow, winding, rocky path, where the Adour springs from. .......... And now we see him wandering with the dead who fell on that battlefield in Flanders for golden ideals and for honour and loyalty. I feel the breath of spirits moving towards me. Oh precious soil, the place of doom! My foot treads upon you with devotion and awe; upon you that was mixed with the noble dust of those thousands upon thousands of hearts who bled to death here in searing pain and, intoxicated by noble enthusiasm, fell happy in their beliefs, victims of the sword and the bullet. .......... Now he is standing immersed in thought upon the crest of the glaciers, where turbulent waterfalls dash down into the abyss, reached only by the eye, while the ear can only hear the distant roaring of the stream escaping from the narrow valley. Thus we can see him escaping from country to country until he reaches the pale sign of the crescent glittering on top of the minarets. Now he throws himself into the treacherous waters of the Bosphorous, swims across the Dardanelles over to the coast of Asia - looks for the old places of vanished glory and sees Athens, Acrocorinth and Mycenae glimmering from noble ruins. .......... Then he reaches the castle surrounded by walls, far away on the doorstep of the land of the Hellenes, rising from a sea of islands. Oh, the noble city, attacked a hundred times, is now destroyed by murder and fire. It is now reduced to rubble and it lowers its noble head to the ground. Pale crowds of spirits of falled heroes with grief on their faces hover earnestly and silently in the gloomy twilight around the hallowed ruins, with the eternal laurel in their hair, covered with blood. Here the life of the noble poet found its destiny. Fate could not give him a more worthy grave. .......... And everywhere the gloomy feelings pour themselves out in wild poetry. The magic wand endows the shapes with life, and yet only the demons descend, full of horror, defiant and wild. With their cold derision they wickedly torment and break hearts. The blessed powers that lead to salvation through suffering are alien to the man whose magic words reveal the inside of the terrible place where the curse and the sin live. And nowhere is there a glimmer of the light of peace, and the poetry is full of hell and not of heaven. .......... And was that reflection of torment and passion born from the breast of a happy man? Was it a blissful heart at the bottom of which such deadly images were seething? When did it, steeped in the waters of mild longing, sing of love and the joys of fatherhood? Of the blissful union of happy family life? Of God and peace? When did it sing of comfort, when of noble pain? It has destroyed other hearts, but when did it give them an uplift? Envy it if you can. And yet it was the fate of this man to wear a poet's garland. Well, admit it: can he truthfully be called happy? Joseph Zedlitz was an Austrian who wrote Die Nachtliche Heerschau/The Nocturnal Review, a poem dealing with the Napoleonic legend (adapted by Zhukovsky in 1836: nochnoi smotr). His Totenkranze is a cycle of 134 poems in canzone form (the canzone being songs or airs of a madrigal type, as well as, more generally, stanzas of poetry) reviewing some of the famous dead of history. He published Poems in 1832 and translated Byron's Childe Harold (Ritter Harolds Pilgerfahrt). Tyutchev translated Cantos 80-93 of Garlands for the Dead. Ahasuerus: an Old Testament king of Persia (historically Xerxes, 488-465 BC). Newstead Abbey: the estate on which Byron was born. In 1816 Byron left England for good. 45. NL first half of 1829. Tyutchev could be seen as the traveller in the air balloon, most certainly taking advantage of situations as they occurred. His tragedy, or perhaps that of both his wives and his mistress, was precisely that he did tend to "float", not always with any clear sense of direction. 46. Early October, 1829. TR King Ludwig I of Bavaria: Nicolaus, das ist der Volksbesieger/Nicholas is the Defeater of Peoples. Ludwig was unable to work with the new liberal powers gaining more influence in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century and was eventually forced to abdicate in favour of his son. He was in his own mind a liberal enough monarch and one of the first to establish an arts policy, amounting in real terms to subsidies to arts ventures in Bavaria. Tyutchev would have been acting in character by translating such verses in order to bring to himself the attention of the Russian authorities as employers. The world "Nicholas" is written in italics by both Tyutchev and Ludwig. I have yet to read Ludwig's poem. 47. NL 1829. This is one of Tyutchev's most disturbing visions of nocturnal and universal loneliness. His best poems give an impression of having being effortlessly composed. There is nothing contrived, nothing overtly "poetic". It is a profoundly aching, very personal vision to which he returned in a poem of the same title [391] on his death bed in 1873. Already, still in his twenties, the comforting warmth and security of the existence he had known is showing cracks. In later years, he frequently complains of sleeplessness for a different reason. Rheumatism and gout plagued him. 48. NL 1829. Such a light, magically vernal poem indicates Tyutchev's ability to treat the diurnal side of existence at the same time and just as skilfully as its blacker side with no apparent inconsistency. From a bird's-eye view in stanza 1, the poet returns us to the ground whence we observe mountain peaks swathed in mist as if they were magic castles. The images themselves are not unusual for the time, but the sense of motion, of floating above the scene then looking up at a different part of it is very Tyutchevian. 49. NL 1829. Oppressive heat and the feel of perspiration opposite coolness and light make of this lyric a playful and sensual wonder. One is reminded of Baudelaire's La Geante/The Giantess, if not thematically, then in the languishing feeling of succumbing to heat. (B:3/97) Gregg's point that in this period Nature is before it starts to mean may simply be looking at the same nature from two different angles. In vecher/Evening [53], Tyutchev effectively scraps the "meaning" aspect of Solitude [11] to produce a simple, very much condensed version, a scene which says nothing, which does not need man to try to interpret it. In [53], Nature most certainly is. However, the poem par excellence which seems to present a Tyutchevian philosophy of Nature. Ne to, chto mnite vy, priroda/Nature is not what you think it is [121], actually states the opposite of Gregg's point: Nature cannot be the object of empirical investigation and, therefore, cannot be said to mean anything. In this and the many nature poems of later periods, Nature remains a thing which is. While Tyutchev, like any poet, will exploit a given scene in order to make a poetic point, fundamentally he does not use Nature as an entity or a concept on which to build any philosophical, or even personal, ordered system of "meaning". 50. NL 1829. These philosophical lines reverse the biblical creation myth, the universe collapsing after waters have once more covered it and the original divine breath/image has appeared. "In equating the Divine Will with the dissolution of the ladder (Schelling's evolutionary steps towards perfection - FJ) and a regression toward unconsciousness, the poet has (if we insist on looking at things from Schelling's viewpoint) "perverted" the philosopher's thought; which is a roundabout way of saying that he has preserved his own". (A:14) I have to agree that Schelling, together with so many thinkers and writers, was a sounding board for Tyutchev. Once assimilated, he became more or less irrelevant. 51. NL 1829. Tyutchev revels in the idea of adulterous sex, his final vine image leaving little to the imagination. The poem is imbued with an utterly amoral sense of delight in the forbidden. It is one of several such images, although few of the others are quite so suggestive. 52. The first two drafts, entitled Probuzhdenie/The Awakening, can probably be dated NL 1829. The final version is from the late forties to the first half of 1851. As in Son na more/A Dream at Sea [92], the lyric-hero is seen asleep or, at least, supine and in a state of half-sleep, while a mixture of real and hallucinatory "events" takes place around him. 53. NL late 1820s. Tyutchev's short lyric is reminiscent of his translation of Lamartine [11], taking the essence of a simple theme and dealing with it in simple language. Having read the longer Lamartine adaptation, the reader is struck by Tyutchev's decision to repeat the experience and the inspiration of the French post while omitting anything no longer necessary to him, as well as retaining what the French poet writes and condensing and altering it to suit his own poetic needs. (See A:32/165.) 54. NL late 1820s. One is tempted to see here a youthful, light-hearted precursor of Kak ni dyshit polden' znoinyi/Midday breathes its hottest [173]. 55. Late 1820s. The symbolism of the confrontational roles of the eagle and the swan (the latter also part of the Bavarian emblem) "was much favoured in European poetry, for in this symbolic contest, the eagle is victor". (C:4ii/363-364) In Tyutchev's poem, the swan is victorious. In verse by Lamartine, Hugo, Schlegel and Zedlitz, the eagle represents battle and revolution, while the swan is a symbol of peace and contemplation. 56. December, 1829-early 1830. TR Heine: from Reisebilder/Travel Scenes (chap. 31, pt.3). "Ich bin gut russich" - sagte ich auf dem Schlachtfelde von Marengo, und stieg fur einige Minuten aus dem Wagen, um meine Morgenandacht zu halten. Wie unter einem Triumphbogen von kolossalen Wolkenmassen zog die Sonne herauf, siegreich, heiter, sicher, einen schonen Tag verhei?end. Mir aber war zumute wie dem armen Monde, der verbleichend noch am Himmel stand. Er hatte seine einsame Laufbahn durchwandelt, in oder Nachtzeit, wo das Gluck schlief und nur Gespenster, Eulen und Sunder ihr Wesen trieben; und jetzt, wo der junge Tag hervorstieg, mit jubelnden Strahlen und flatterndem Morgenrot, jetzt mu?te er von dannen - noch ein wehmuhtiger Blick nach dem gro?en Weltlicht, und er verschwand wie duftiger Neble. "Es wird ein schoner Tag werden!" reif mein Reisegefahrte aus dem Wagen mir zu. Ja, es wird ein schoner Tag werden, wiederholte leise mein betendes Herz, und zitterte vor Wehmut und Freude. Ja, es wird ein schoner Tag werden, die Freiheitssonne wird die Erde glucklicher warmen, als die Aristokratie sammtlicher Sterne; emporbluhen wird ein neues Geschlecht, das erzeugt worden in freier Wahlumarmung, nicht in Zwangsbette und unter der Kontrolle geistlicher Zollner; mit der freien Geburt werden auch in den Menschen freie Gedanken und Gefuhle zur Welt kommen, wovon wir geborenen Knechte keine Ahnung haben - O! sie werden ebensowenig ahnen, wie entsetzlich die Nacht war, in deren Dunkel wir leben mu?ten, und wie grauenhaft wir zu kampfen hatten, mit ha?lichen Gespenstern, dumpfen Eulen und scheinheiligen Sundern! O wir armen Kampfer! die wir unsre Lebenszeit in solchem Kampfer vergeuden mu?ten, und mude und bleich sind, wenn der Siegestag hervorstrahlt! Die Glut des Sonnenaufgangs wird unsre Wangen nicht mehr roten und unsre Herzen nicht mehr warmen konnen, wir sterben dahin wie der scheidende Mond - allzu kurz gemessen ist des Menschen Wanderbahn, an deren Ende das unerbittliche Grab. Ich wei? wirklich nicht, ob ich es verdiene, da? man mir einst mit einem Lorbeerkranze den Sarg verziere. Die Poesie, wie sehr ich sie auch liebte, war immer nur heiliges Spielzeug, oder geweihtes Mittel fur himmlische Zwecke. Ich habe nie gro?en Wert gelegt auf Dichterruhm, und ob man meiner Lieder preiset oder tadelt, es kummert mich wenig. Aber ein Schwert sollt ihr mir auf den Sarg legen; denn ich war ein braver Soldat in Befreiungskriege der Menscheit. *** "I am a good Russian", I said on the battlefield of Marengo, and stepped out of my carriage for a few minutes to say my morning prayers. As through a triumphal arch of colossal cloud- masses, the sun rose, victoriously, cheerfully, in certainty, promising a fine day. But I felt sad, as does the poor moon which, faded, still hangs in the sky. It has travelled its lonely journey in the dreary night time where happiness sleeps and only spectres, owls and sinners revel; and now, where the young day is about to rise, with jubilant rays and flapping morning red, now it has to leave - sending a wistful glance at the great world-light, and it has disappeared like a gossamer cloud. "It's going to be a nice day", my travelling companion called to me from the carriage. Yes, it will be a nice day, my praying heart repeated softly, and trembled with melancholy and joy. Yes, it will be a nice day, on which the suns of freedom will happily warm the earth, more gladly than the aristocracy of all the stars; A new race will rise, born in a free embrace and not constrained to marriage, not watched by clerical tax-collectors. Together with free birth, freer thoughts and feelings will come into the world - of which we, who were born in servitude, have no conception. Ah, they will not understand how horrible was the night in whose darkness we were compelled to live, how bitterly we had to fight with frightful ghosts, stupid owls and sanctimonious sinners! Alas, we poor warriors who have had to squander our lives in such combat, and are weary and spent, now that the victory is at hand! The sunrise glow can no longer flush our checks and warm our hearts. We perish like the waning moon. All too brief is man's allotted course, and his end is the implacable grave! Truly, I do not know whether I deserve that a laurel wreath be placed on my bier: Poetry, much as I loved it, has always been to me only a sacred plaything, or, at best, a consecrated means to a heavenly end. I have never laid great store by poetic glory, and whether my songs are praised or blamed matters little to me. But lay a sword on my bier, for I have been a good soldier in the wars of human liberation. Tyutchev chooses blank verse for his relatively faithful translation, although he does change the order of the sections, beginning with Heine's third paragraph ("It's going to be a nice day"), continuing with his first, though omitting "I am a good Russian" and simply beginning, "Thus I thought ....", and retaining the final third in its right place" ("Truly I do not know...."). Heine wrote his Travel Sketches over the years 1824-1830. In late 1824, he set off on a walking tour of the north German mountains and climbed in the Harz. The sketches are a colourful depiction of bodily and spiritual freedom after the stuffy academicism of Gottingen. Erebus: the dark cavern between Earth and Hades. 57. Late 1829-early 1830. Addressee unknown. The Romantic image of the poet in the first few lines is widespread and appears more than once in Pushkin. Here, as in [58], it is likely to be autobiographical. 58. Late 1829-early 1850. Addressee unknown. Tyutchev uses the noun dusha ambiguously. On one level he could be addressing a woman. On the other, it could be an early indication of dusha used in the more spiritual sense of "soul". 59. Probably late 1820s. TR Goethe, from Faust (pt.1). This section immediately follows the Zueignung/Dedication and the Vorspiel auf dem Theater/Prologue in the Theatre. The Lord, the heavenly hosts, then Mephistopheles are present. The opening lines are spoken by the three archangels as they step forward. 1. (Prolog im Himmel) Raphael Die Sonne tont, nach alter Weise, In Bruderspharen Wettgesang, Und ihre vorgeschriebne Reise Vollendet sie mit Donnergang. Ihr Anblick gibt den Engeln Starke, Wenn keiner sie ergrunden mag. Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag. Gabriel Und schnell und unbegreiflich schnelle Dreht sich umher der Erde Pracht; Es wechselt Paradieses-Helle Mit tiefer, schauervoller Nacht; Es schaumt das Meer im breiten Flussen Am tiefen Grund der Felsen auf, Und Fels und Meer wird fortgerissen In ewig schnellem Spharenlauf. Michael Und Sturme brausen um die Wette Vom Meer aufs Land, vom Land aufs Meer, Und bilden wutend eine Kette Der tiefsten Wirkung rings umher. Da flammt ein blitzendes Verheeren Dem Pfade vor des Donnerschlags. Doch deine Boten, Herr, verehren Das sanfte Wandeln deines Tags. Zu Drei Der Anblick gibt den Engein Starke Da keiner dich ergrunden mag, Und alle deine hohen Werke Sind herrlich wie am ersten Tag. 2. In his study, Faust has been perusing a book written by Nostradamus. As he pronounces the symbol of the earth spirit, the spirit appears in a reddish flame. (Nacht) Geist Wer ruft mir? Faust (abgewendet) Schreckliches Gesicht! Geist Du hast mich machtig angezogen, An meiner Sphare lang' gesogen, Und nun - Faust Weh! ich ertrag' dich nicht! Geist Du flehst eratmend, mich zu schauen, Meine Stimme zu horen, mein Antlitz zu sehn; Mich neigt dein machtig Seelenflehn, Da bin ich! - Welch erbarmlich Grauen Fa?t Ubermenschen dich! Wo ist der Seele Ruf? Wo ist die Brust? die eine Welt in sich erschuf, Und trug und hegte; die mit Freudebeben Erschwoll, sich uns, den Geistern, gleich zu heben? Wo bist du, Faust, des Stimme mir erklang, Der sich an mich mit allen Kraften drang? Bist du es, der, von meinem Hauch umwittert, In allen Lebenstiefen zittert, Ein furchtsam weggekrummter Wurm? Faust Soll ich dir, Flammenbildung, weichen? Ich bin's, bin Faust, bin deines gleichen! Geist In Lebensfluten, im Tatensturm Wall' ich auf und ab, Webe hin und her! Geburt und Grab, Ein ewiges Meer, Ein wechselnd Weben, Ein gluhend Leben, So schaff' ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit, Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid. Faust Der du die weite Welt umschweifst, Geschaftiger Geist, wie nah fuhl' ich mich dir! Geist Du gleichst dem Geist, den du begreifst, Nicht mir! (verschwindet) 3. At the close of this scene, Faust hears heavenly choirs. (Nacht) Faust. Was sucht ihr, machtig und gelind, Ihr Himmelstone mich am Staube? Klingt dort umher, wo weiche Menschen sind. Die Botschaft hor' ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube; Das Wunder ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind. Zu jenen Spharen wag' ich nicht zu streben, Woher die holde Nachricht tont; Und doch, an diesen Klang von Jugend auf gewohnt, Ruft er auf jetzt zuruck mich in das Leben. Sonst sturzte sich der Himmelsliebe Ku? Auf mich herab, in ernster Sabatstille; Da klang so ahnungsvoll des Glockentones Fulle, Und ein Gebet war brunstiger Genu?; Ein unbegreiflich holdes Sehnen Trieb mich, durch Wald und Wiesen hinzugehn, Und, unter tausend hei?en Tranen, Fuhlt' ich mir eine Welt entstehn. Dies Lied verkundete der Jugend muntre Spiele, Der Fruhlingsfeier freies Gluck; Erinnrung halt mich nun, mit kindlichem Gefuhle, Vom letzten, ernsten Schritt zuruck. O tonet fort, ihr su?en Himmelslieder! Die Trane quillt, die Erde hat mich wieder! 4. Citizens are walking out of the city gates. Faust is with Wagner. (Vor dem Tor) (Faust) Doch la? uns dieser Stunde schones Gut, Durch solchen Trubsinn, nicht verkummern! Betrachte, wie in Abendsonneglut Die grunumgebnen Hutten schimmern. Sie ruckt und weicht, der Tag ist uberlebt, Dort eilt die hin und fordert neues Leben. O! da? kein Flugel mich vom Boden hebt, Ihr nach und immer nach zu streben! Ich sah' im ewigen Abendstrahl Die stille Welt zu meinen Fu?en, Entzundet alle Hohn, beruhigt jedes Tal, Den Silberbach in goldne Strome flie?en. Nicht hemmte dann den gottergleichen Lauf Der wilde Berg mit allen seinen Schluchten; Schon tut das Meer sich mit erwarmten Buchten Vor den erstaunten Augen auf. Doch scheint die Gottin endlich wegzusinken; Allein der neue Trieb erwacht, Ich eile fort, ihr ew'ges Licht zu trinken, Vor mir den Tag, und hinter nir Nacht, Den Himmel uber mir und unter mir die Wellen. Ein schoner Traum, indessen sie entweicht. Ach! zu des Geistes Flugeln wird so leicht Kein korperlicher Flugel sich gesellen. Doch ist es jedem eingeboren, Da? sein Gefuhl hinauf und vorwarts dringt, Wenn uber uns, im blauen Raum verloren, Ihr schmetternd Lied die Lerche singt; Wenn uber schroffen Fichtenhohen Der Adler ausgebreitet schwebt, Und uber Flachen, uber Seen, Der Kranich nach der Heimat strebt. 5. With Mephisto, Faust visits Margrethe's room unseen by her. Her song was also published separately in Balladen/Ballads. (Abend) Es war ein Konig in Thule Gar treu bis und das grab, Dem sterbend seine Buhle Einen goldnen Becher gab. ....... Es ging ihm nachts daruber, Er leert' ihn jeden Schmaus; Die Augen gingen ihm uber, So oft er trank daraus. .......... Und als er kam zu sterben, Zahlt' er seine Stadt' im Reich, Gonnt' alles seinem Erben, Den Becher nicht zugleich. .......... Er sa? beim Konigsmahle, Die Ritter um ihn her, Auf hohem Vatersale, Dort auf dem Schlo? am Meer. .......... Dort stand der alte Zecher, Trank letzte Lebensglut, Und warf den heiligen Becher Hinunter in die Flut. .......... Er sah ihn sturzen, trinken Und sinken tief ins Meer, Die Augen taten ihm sinken, Trank nie einen Tropfen mehr. 6. Faust has fled in order not to ruin Margrethe's life. He is alone as he begins this monologue. (Wald and Hohle) Faust (allein). Erhabner Geist, du gabst mir, gabst mir alles, Warum ich bat. Du hast mir nicht umsonst Dein Angesicht im Feuer zugewendet. Gabst mir die herrliche Natur zum Konigreich, Kraft, sie zu fuhlen, zu genie?en. Nicht Kalt staunenden Besuch erlaubst du nur, Vergonnest mir in ihre tiefe Brust, Wie in den Busen eines Freunds, zu schauen. Du fuhrst die Reihe der Lebendigen Vor mir vorbei, und lehrst mich meine Bruder Im stillen Busch, in Luft und Wasser kennen. Und wenn der Sturm im Walde braust und knarrt, Die Riesenfichte, sturzend, Nachbaraste Und Nachbarstamme, quetschend, niederstreift, Und ihrem Fall dumpf hohl der Hugel donnert, Dann fuhrst du mich zur sichern Hohle, zeigst Mich dann mir selbst, und meiner eignen Brust Geheime tiefe Wunder offnen sich. Und steigt vor meinem Blick der reine Mond Besanftigend heruber, schweben mir Von Felsenwanden, aus dem feuchten Busch, Der Vorwelt silberne Gestalten auf, Und lindern der Betrachtung strenge Lust. *** 1. Raphael The sun rings out in the ancient way, competing in song with its brother's spheres, thunderously completing its predestined journey. The sight of it gives strength to the angels, though none can fathom it; the inexplicably lofty works are as magnificent as on the first day. Gabriel Swiftly, incomprehensibly swiftly earth revolves in its magnificence. Paradise which had embraced the sky is replaced by deep, horror-filled night. The sea's broad waters foam against the cliff's deep base, the sea and cliffs are carried off by the eternally swift race of the spheres. Michael And storms roar in competition from sea to land, from land to sea, and in rage they chain everything over which they had any influence. Flaming, devastating lightning seers the path of the thunder claps; yet thy heralds still worship, o Lord, the gentle progress of thy day. All Three The sight of it gives strength to the angels, sine none can fathom you, and all your lofty works are as magnificent as on the first day. 2. Spirit. Who calls me? Faust. (turning away) Hideous apparition! Spirit. You conjured me up so mightily, having sucked at my sphere so long, and now - Faust. I cannot bear the sight of you! Spirit. Breathless, you implore me to appear before you, to speak to you, to show my face. I'm here! What pitiful terror, drains you, superman! Where is your soul's cry? Where is the breast which created a whole world within it and bore and cared for it, which in joyful trembling rose to be the equal of us spirits? Where are you, Faust, whose voice summoned me with such mad power? Are you the one who, wafted by my breath, tremble at the edge of life's abyss like a worm writhing in life's abyss like a worm writhing in frightful torments? Faust. Should I retreat before you, fiery vision? I am that one, I'm Faust. I am like you. Spirit. In life's floods, in storms of energy I ebb and flow, weaving away and back, an eternal sea, a changing pattern, a glowing life, thus I create at time's humming loom, weaving the divinity's living garment. Faust. Busy Spirit, present throughout the world, how near I feel myself to thee! Spirit. You resemble what you comprehend, Not me! (disappears) 3. Faust. Why do you seek me, powerful, gentle sounds of heaven, in the dust? Ring there, where men are milder. I hear your message, all that lacks in me is belief Miracles are the fondest child of faith. I dare not strive towards those spheres where such sacred news rings out. Used to hearing this call since my youth, I'm now called back to life. Once loving Heaven would kiss me in the grave stillness of the Sabbath. The bells, full of premonition, rang out and a prayer was a sensual pleasure. A sacred longing I could not comprehend impelled me through wood and meadow and beneath a thousand hot tears I sensed a world come into being. This song announced to lively youth the free joy of the festival of spring. That memory fills me with a child's sensation and pulls me back from that final, grave step. Ring out strong, you songs of heaven! Tears pour, I belong to Earth once more. 4. Faust Yet let us not destroy the beauty of this hour with such gloom. Look closer, see in the heat of the evening sun the huts, all-shimmering in green. The sun retreats and fades, the day is over, it hurries on to produce new life elsewhere. Oh, if wings could lift me from the ground to strive and ever follow it! I would see in the eternal rays of evening the silent world at my feet, blazing summits, peaceful valleys, the silver stream pouring along in golden currents. My god-like flight would not be held up by wild mountains with their gorges; already the glistening bays of the ocean spread out before my astonished eyes. The goddess's final shining sinks away; only my own urge is awake. I hurry on to drink your eternal light, before me day, behind me night, Heaven above me, the sea below. A beautiful dream in which it escapes. Ah, no mortal wing can easily join onto those incorporeal wings. Yet it comes naturally to us all to press onwards and everywhere, when above us, lost in the blue expanse ithe lark trills its song, when above the spruce's sharp tops the eagle soars wide-winged, the cranes point homewards. 5. There was a king in Thule, true till the day he died. His dying mistress gave him a golden goblet. .......... He kept it in safe keeping to use when he wanted a drink. He was close to tears whenever he drank from it. .......... And when he was on his deathbed, he counted up the towns in his kingdom, left everything to his heir but kept the cup. .......... He sat at the royal feast, his knights all around him in the high hall of his fathers, in the castle by the sea. .......... The old drinker stood there, he drank life's last heat, he threw the sacred goblet down into the waves. .......... He watched it fall and sink deep into the sea. His eyes lost their energy, He never drank again. 6. Faust. (alone) Powerful spirit, you have given me everything I asked for. Not in vain you turned your face to me in fire. You gave me splendid Nature as my kingdom, and the strength to feel and enjoy her. Nor did you allow me only a cold, wondering visit. You granted me to see into her deepest breast as in the bosom of a dear friend. You paraded rows of living things before me, teaching me to recognise my brothers in the quiet bush, the air, the water. And when the storm roared through the creaking forest, hurling down the giant spruce's neighbouring boughs, bruising the trunks standing close together until their fall thundered dully around the hills, you led me to the safety of a cave, when I was alone, showed me myself, my own soul and let the pure moon rise before my eyes, sailing soothingly, and there appeared to me from cliff walls, from the damp bush the silver forms of a prehistoric time to ease the severe desire of contemplation. Goethe began Faust as a young man and completed it in 1831, just one year before he died. 60. Late 1820s. TR Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873): Il cinque maggio. Ode/The Fifth of May. An Ode from Odi e Frammento di Canzone/Odes and Song Fragments. La procellosa e trepida Gioia d'un gran disegno, L'ansia d'un cor che indocile Serve, pensando al regno; E il giunge, e tiene un premio Ch'era follia sperar; .......... Tutto ei provo: la gloria Maggior dopo il periglio, La fuga e la vittoria, La reggia e il tristo esiglio: Due volte nella polvere, Due volte sull'altar. .......... Ei si nomo: due secoli, L'un contro l'altro armato, Sommessi a lui si volsero, Come aspettando il fato; Ei fe' silenzio, ed arbitro S'assise in mezzo a lor. .......... E sparve, e i di nell'ozio Chiuse in si breve sponda, Segno d'immensa invidia E di pieta profonda, D'inestiguibil odio E d'indomato amor. .......... Come sul capo al naufrago L'onda s'avvolve e pesa, L'onda su cui del misero, Alta pur dianzi e tesa, Scorrea la vista a scernere Prode remote invan; .......... Tal su quell'alma il cumulo Delle memorie scese! Oh quante volte ai posteri Narrar se stesso imprese, E sull'eterne pagine Cadde la stanca man! .......... Oh quante volte, al tacito Morir d'un giorno inerte, Chianti i rai fulminei, Le braccia al sen conserte, Stette, e dei di che furono L'assalse il sovvenir! .......... E ripenso le mobili Tende, e i percossi valli, E il lampo de' manipoli, E l'onda dei cavalli, E il concitato imperio, E il celere ubbidir. .......... Ahi! forse a tanto strazio Cadde lo spirto anelo, E dispero; ma valida Venne una man dal cielo E in piu spirabil aere Pietosa il trasporto; .......... E l'avvio, pei floridi Sentier della speranza, Ai campi eterni, al premio Che i desideri avanza, Dov'e silenzio e tenebre La gloria che passo. .......... Bella Immortal! benefica Fede ai trionfi avvezza! Scrivi ancor questo, allegrati; Che piu superba altezza Al disonor de Golgota Giammai non si chino. .......... Tu dalle stanche ceneri Sperdi ogni ria parola; Il Dio che atterra e suscita, Che affanna e che consola, Sulla deserta coltrice Accanto a lui poso. *** The impetuous and fearful joy of a great design, the anxiety of a heart that unsubserviently serves, aspiring to the crown, and attains the design and receives a prize that it was madness to hope for. .......... Everything he experienced; the greatest glory, after the peril. Retreat and victory, government and sad exile, twice in the dust, twice at the altar. .......... He proclaimed himself; two centuries, both at war with each other, wished to submit to him, as before the hand of Fate. He bade them be silent, and sat down amidst them as a judge. .......... He disappeared, - and his days in idleness closed on such a small shore, a symbol of great envy and of deep pity, of inextinguishable hate and indomitable love. .......... As over the head of the shipwrecked man a wave arches over and hangs, the wave from which a moment before the wretch's sight, as he was borne high on it, in vain sought the remote shore, .......... it was upon that soul the heap of accumulated memories fall! Oh, how often to posterity he tried to tell his tale, and upon the eternal pages, tired, this weary hand fell. .......... How often at the silent fall of a dreary day, lowering the flashing rays of his eyes, with his arms folded on his breast, he stood, and the memories of days gone by besieged him. .......... And he recalled the mobile tents, the resounding valley, the flashes of the infantry, the waves of horses, the excited command, and the quick obedience. .......... Oh, perhaps after such toil his breathless spirit fell and despaired; but steadfast came a hand from heaven and full of pity bore him to more breathable air. .......... And bore him away along the flowery paths of hope to the eternal field, to the prize that excels all desire, when the glory that was is but silence and darkness. The ode was dedicated to Napoleon. As far as we know, Tyutchev translated only stanzas 7-18. On the appearance of this poem in 1821, Goethe immediately published a German translation in his review Uber Kunst und Altertum/On Art and Antiquity. Manzoni was a Christian for whom Providence had much to do with history, whose great protagonists are guided by it. A theme of his poetry is the ephemeralness of human activity. He was fascinated by Napoleon and certain images in the above work are reminiscent of Tyutchev's poem Napoleon [162]. The idea of a colossus such as Napoleon straddling two centuries, "like a symbol of a superior Will, though self-appointed, to settle chaotic turmoils" (B:25i/52) was the intellectual commonplace of the day and is not unknown in Tyutchev. In a letter written in 1865 to E. De Amicis, Manzoni wrote: "Religion and Fatherland are two great truths, in fact, in varying degrees, two holy truths". (ibid.). Such words smack of Tyutchev the political poet. 61. Late 1820s. TR Racine (1639-99): Theramene's monologue from Phedre (V,6). Possibly late 1820s. A peine nous sortions des portes de Trezene, Il etait sur