FAUST (Illustrated & Translated into English in the Original Meters). Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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in mistaking Lied for Leid.
9 I take but one out of numerous instances, for the sake of illustration. The close of the Soldier’s Song (Part I. Scene II.) is:—
“Kühn is das Mühen,
Herrlich der Lohn!
Und die Soldaten
Ziehen davon.”
Literally:
Bold is the endeavor,
Splendid the pay!
And the soldiers
March away.
This Mr. Hayward translates:—
Bold the adventure,
Noble the reward —
And the soldiers
Are off.
10 I cannot resist the temptation of quoting the following passage from Jacob Grimm: “No one of all the modern languages has acquired a greater force and strength than the English, through the derangement and relinquishment of its ancient laws of sound. The unteachable (nevertheless learnable) profusion of its middle-tones has conferred upon it an intrinsic power of expression, such as no other human tongue ever possessed. Its entire, thoroughly intellectual and wonderfully successful foundation and perfected development issued from a marvelous union of the two noblest tongues of Europe, the Germanic and the Romanic. Their mutual relation in the English language is well known, since the former furnished chiefly the material basis, while the latter added the intellectual conceptions. The English language, by and through which the greatest and most eminent poet of modern times — as contrasted with ancient classical poetry —(of course I can refer only to Shakespeare) was begotten and nourished, has a just claim to be called a language of the world; and it appears to be destined, like the English race, to a higher and broader sway in all quarters of the earth. For in richness, in compact adjustment of parts, and in pure intelligence, none of the living languages can be compared with it — not even our German, which is divided even as we are divided, and which must cast off many imperfections before it can boldly enter on its career."— Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache.
11 “At present, everything runs in technical grooves, and the critical gentlemen begin to wrangle whether in a rhyme an s should correspond with an s and not with sz. If I were young and reckless enough, I would purposely offend all such technical caprices: I would use alliteration, assonance, false rhyme, just according to my own will or convenience — but, at the same time, I would attend to the main thing, and endeavor to say so many good things that every one would be attracted to read and remember them."— Goethe, in 1831.
B.T.
AN GOETHE
I
Erhabener Geist, im Geisterreich verloren!
Wo immer Deine lichte Wohnung sey,
Zum höh’ren Schaffen bist Du neugeboren,
Und singest dort die voll’re Litanei.
Von jenem Streben das Du auserkoren,
Vom reinsten Aether, drin Du athmest frei,
O neige Dich zu gnädigem Erwiedern
Des letzten Wiederhalls von Deinen Liedern!
II
Den alten Musen die bestäubten Kronen
Nahmst Du, zu neuem Glanz, mit kühner Hand:
Du löst die Räthsel ältester Aeonen
Durch jüngeren Glauben, helleren Verstand,
Und machst, wo rege Menschengeister wohnen,
Die ganze Erde Dir zum Vaterland;
Und Deine Jünger sehn in Dir, verwundert,
Verkörpert schon das werdende Jahrhundert.
III
Was Du gesungen, Aller Lust und Klagen,
Des Lebens Wiedersprüche, neu vermählt —
Die Harfe tausendstimmig frisch geschlagen,
Die Shakspeare einst, die einst Homer gewählt —
Darf ich in fremde Klänge übertragen
Das Alles, wo so Mancher schon gefehlt?
Lass Deinen Geist in meiner Stimme klingen,
Und was Du sangst, lass mich es Dir nachsingen!
B.T.
DEDICATION
Again ye come, ye hovering Forms! I find ye,
As early to my clouded sight ye shone!
Shall I attempt, this once, to seize and bind ye?
Still o’er my heart is that illusion thrown?
Ye crowd more near! Then, be the reign assigned ye,
And sway me from your misty, shadowy zone!
My bosom thrills, with youthful passion shaken,
From magic airs that round your march awaken.
Of joyous days ye bring the blissful vision;
The dear, familiar phantoms rise again,
And, like an old and half-extinct tradition,
First Love returns, with Friendship in his train.
Renewed is Pain: with mournful repetition
Life tracks his devious, labyrinthine chain,
And names the Good, whose cheating fortune tore them
From happy hours, and left me to deplore them.
They hear no longer these succeeding measures,
The souls, to whom my earliest songs I sang:
Dispersed the friendly troop, with all its pleasures,
And still, alas! the echoes first that rang!
I bring the unknown multitude my treasures;
Their very plaudits give my heart a pang,
And those beside, whose joy my Song so flattered,
If still they live, wide through the world are scattered.
And grasps me now a long-unwonted yearning
For that serene and solemn Spirit-Land:
My song, to faint Aeolian murmurs turning,
Sways like a harp-string by the breezes fanned.
I thrill and tremble; tear on tear is burning,
And the stern heart is tenderly unmanned.
What I possess, I see far distant lying,
And