CASSANDRA (1802)
[There is peace between the Greeks and TrojansAchilles is to wed Polyxena, Priam's daughter. On entering the Temple, he is shot through his only vulnerable part by Paris.The time of the following Poem is during the joyous preparations for the marriage.]
And mirth was in the halls of Troy,
Before her towers and temples fell;
High peal'd the choral hymns of joy,
Melodious to the golden shell.
The weary had reposed from slaughter
The eye forgot the tear it shed;
This day King Priam's lovely daughter
Shall great Pelides wed!
Adorn'd with laurel boughs, they come,
Crowd after crowdthe way divine,
Where fanes are deck'dfor gods the home
And to the Thymbrian's[17] solemn shrine.
The wild Bacchantic joy is madd'ning
The thoughtless host, the fearless guest;
And there, the unheeded heart is sadd'ning
One solitary breast!
Unjoyous in the joyful throng,
Alone, and linking life with none,
Apollo's laurel groves among
The still Cassandra wander'd on!
Into the forest's deep recesses
The solemn Prophet-Maiden pass'd,
And, scornful, from her loosen'd tresses,
The sacred fillet cast!
"To all its arms doth Mirth unfold,
And every heart foregoes its cares;
And Hope is busy in the old;
The bridal-robe my sister wears.
But I alone, alone am weeping;
The sweet delusion mocks not me
Around these walls destruction sweeping
More near and near I see!
"A torch before my vision glows,
But not in Hymen's hand it shines;
A flame that to the welkin goes,
But not from holy offering-shrines;
Glad hands the banquet are preparing,
And near, and near the halls of state
I hear the God that comes unsparing;
I hear the steps of Fate.
"And men my prophet-wail deride!
The solemn sorrow dies in scorn;
And lonely in the waste, I hide
The tortured heart that would forewarn.
Amidst the happy, unregarded,
Mock'd by their fearful joy, I trod;
Oh, dark to me the lot awarded,
Thou evil Pythian god!
"Thine oracle, in vain to be,
Oh, wherefore am I thus consign'd
With eyes that every truth must see,
Lone in the City of the Blind?
Cursed with the anguish of a power
To view the fates I may not thrall,
The hovering tempest still must lower
The horror must befall!
"Boots it the veil to lift, and give
To sight the frowning fates beneath?
For error is the life we live,
And, oh, our knowledge is but death!
Take back the clear and awful mirror,
Shut from mine eyes the blood-red glare
Thy truth is but a gift of terror
When mortal lips declare.
"My blindness give to me once more[18]
The gay dim senses that rejoice;
The Past's delighted songs are o'er
For lips that speak a Prophet's voice.
To me the future thou hast granted;
I miss the moment from the chain
The happy Present-Hour enchanted!
Take back thy gift again!
"Never for me the nuptial wreath
The odor-breathing hair shall twine;
My heavy heart is bow'd beneath
The service of thy dreary shrine.
My youth was but by tears corroded,
My sole familiar is my pain,
Each coming ill my heart foreboded,
And felt it firstin vain!
"How cheer'ly sports the careless mirth
The life that loves, around I see;
Fair youth to pleasant thoughts give birth
The heart is only sad to me.
Not for mine eyes the young spring gloweth,
When earth her happy feast-day keeps;
The charm of life who ever knoweth
That looks into the deeps?
"Wrapt in thy bliss, my sister, thine
The heart's inebriate rapture-springs;
Longing with bridal arms to twine
The bravest of the Grecian kings.
High swells the joyous bosom, seeming
Too narrow for its world of love,
Nor envies, in its heaven of dreaming,
The heaven of gods above!
"I too might know the soft control
Of one the longing heart could choose,
With look which love illumes with soul
The look that supplicates and woos.
And sweet with him, where love presiding
Prepares our hearth, to gobut, dim,
A Stygian shadow, nightly gliding,
Stalks between me and him!
"Forth from the grim funereal shore,
The Hell-Queen sends her ghastly bands;
Where'er I turnbehindbefore
Dumb in my patha Spectre stands!
Wherever gayliest, youth assembles
I see the shades in horror clad,
Amidst Hell's ghastly People trembles
One soul for ever sad!
"I see the steel of Murder gleam
I see the Murderer's glowing eyes
To rightto left, one gory stream
One circling fatemy flight defies!
I may not turn my gazeall seeing,
Foreknowing all, I dumbly stand
To close in blood my ghastly being
In the far strangers' land!"
Hark! while the sad sounds murmur round,
Hark, from the Temple-porch, the cries!
A wild, confused, tumultuous sound!
Dead the divine Pelides lies!
Grim Discord rears her snakes devouring
The last departing god hath gone!
And, womb'd in cloud, the thunder, lowering,
Hangs black on Ilion.
RUDOLPH OF HAPSBURG (1803)
A BALLAD
[Hinrichs properly classes this striking ballad (together with the yet grander one of the "Fight with the Dragon") amongst those designed to depict and exalt the virtue of Humility. The source of the story is in Ægidius Tschudi, a Swiss chronicler; and Schiller appears to have adhered, with much fidelity, to the original narrative.]
At Aachen, in imperial state,
In that time-hallow'd hall renown'd,
At solemn feast King Rudolf sate,
The day that saw the hero crown'd!
Bohemia and thy Palgrave, Rhine,
Give this the feast, and that the wine;[19]
The Arch Electoral Seven,
Like choral stars around the sun,
Gird him whose hand a world has won,
The anointed choice of Heaven.
In galleries raised above the pomp,
Press'd crowd on crowd their panting way,
And with the joy-resounding tromp,
Rang out the millions' loud hurra!
For, closed at last the age of slaughter,
When human blood was pour'd as water
LAW dawns upon the world![20]
Sharp force no more shall right the wrong,
And grind the weak to crown the strong
War's carnage-flag is furl'd!
In Rudolf's hand the goblet shines
And gaily round the board look'd he;
"And proud the feast, and bright the wines
My kingly heart feels glad to me!
Yet where the Gladness-Bringerblest
In the sweet art which moves the breast
With lyre and verse divine?
Dear from my youth the craft of song,
And what as knight I loved so long,
As Kaiser, still be mine."
Lo, from the circle bending there,
With sweeping robe the Bard appears,
As silver white his gleaming hair,
Bleach'd by the many winds of years;
"And music sleeps in golden strings
Love's rich reward the minstrel sings,
Well known to him the ALL
High thoughts and ardent souls desire!
What would the Kaiser from the lyre
Amidst the banquet-hall?"
The Great One smiled"Not mine the sway
The minstrel owns a loftier power
A mightier king inspires the lay
Its hestTHE IMPULSE OF THE HOUR!"
As through wide air the tempests sweep,
As gush the springs from mystic deep,
Or lone untrodden glen;
So from dark hidden fount within
Comes SONG, its own wild world to win
Amidst the souls of men!
Swift with the fire the minstrel glow'd,
And loud the music swept the ear:
"Forth to the chase a Hero rode,
To hunt the bounding chamois-deer;
With shaft and horn the squire behind;
Through greensward meads the riders wind
A small sweet bell they hear.
Lo, with the HOST, a holy man
Before him strides the sacristan,
And the bell sounds near and near.
"The noble hunter down-inclined
His reverent head and soften'd eye,
And honor'd with a Christian's mind
The Christ who loves humility!
Loud through the pasture, brawls and raves
A brookthe rains had fed the waves,
And torrents from the bill.
His sandal-shoon the priest unbound,
And laid the Host upon the ground,
And near'd the swollen rill!
"What wouldst thou, priest?" the Count began,
As, marveling much, he halted there,
"Sir Count, I seek a dying man,
Sore-hungering for the heavenly fare.
The bridge that once its safety gave,
Rent by the anger of the wave,
Drifts down the tide below.
Yet barefoot now, I will not fear
(The soul that seeks its God, to cheer)
Through the wild wave to go!"
"He gave that priest the knightly steed,
He reach'd that priest the lordly reins,
That he might serve the sick man's need,
Nor slight the task that heaven ordains.
He took the horse the squire bestrode;
On to the sick, the priest!
And when the morrow's sun was red,
The servant of the Savior led
Back to its lord the beast.
"'Now Heaven forfend!' the Hero cried,
'That e'er to chase or battle more
These limbs the sacred steed bestride
That once my Maker's image bore;
If not a boon allow'd to thee,
Thy Lord and mine its Master be,
My tribute to the King,
From whom I hold, as fiefs, since birth,
Honor, renown, the goods of earth,
Life and each living thing!"
"'So may the God, who faileth never
To hear the weak and guide the dim,
To thee give honor here and ever,
As thou hast duly honor'd Him!'
Far-famed ev'n now through Swisserland
Thy generous heart and dauntless hand;
And fair from thine embrace
Six daughters bloom,[21] six crowns to bring,
Blest as the daughters of a KING,
The mothers of a RACE!"
The mighty Kaiser heard amazed!
His heart was in the days of old;
Into the minstrel's heart he gazed,
That tale the Kaiser's own had told.
Yes, in the bard the priest he knew,
And in the purple veil'd from view
The gush of holy tears!
A thrill through that vast audience ran,
And every heart the godlike man
Revering Godreveres!
Wagner]
Wagner]
* * * * *FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: Though the Ideal images of youth forsake us, the Ideal itself still remains to the Poet. It is his task and his companion, for, unlike the Phantasies of Fortune, Fame, and Love, the Phantasies of the Ideal are imperishable. While, as the occupation of life, it pays off the debt of Time, as the exalter of life it contributes to the Building of Eternity.TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 4: "Die Gesalt"Form. the Platonic Archetype.]
[Footnote 5: This idea is often repeated, somewhat more clearly in the haughty philosophy of Schiller. He himself says, elsewhere"In a fair soul each single action is not properly moral, but the whole character is moral. The fair soul has no other service than the instincts of its own beauty."Translator]
[Footnote 6: "Und es wallet, and siedet, und brauset, and zischt," etc. Goethe was particularly struck with the truthfulness of these lines, of which his personal observation at the Falls of the Rhine enabled him to judge. Schiller modestly owns his obligations to Homer's descriptions of Charybdis, Odyss. I., 12. The property of the higher order of imagination to reflect truth, though not familiar to experience, is singularly illustrated in this description. Schiller had never seen even a Waterfall.TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 7: The same rhyme as the preceding line in the original.]
[Footnote 8: "da kroch's heran," etc. The It in the original has been greatly admired. The poet thus vaguely represents the fabulous misshapen monster, the Polypus of the ancients.]
[Footnote 9: The theatre.]
[Footnote 10: This simile is nobly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antæus, the Son of Earth,so long as the Earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,so the soul contends in vain with evilthe natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antæus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy (the desire, the passion, the evil, the earth's offspring), when bearing it from earth itself and stifling it in the higher air.Translator.]
[Footnote 11: Translated by Edward, Lord Lytton (Permission George
Routledge & Sons.)]
[Footnote 12: "I call the LivingI mourn the DeadI break the Lightning." These words are inscribed on the Great Bell of the Minster of Schaffhausenalso on that of the Church of Art near Lucerne. There was an old belief in Switzerland that the undulation of air, caused by the sound of a Bell, broke the electric fluid of a thunder-cloud.]
[Footnote 13: A piece of clay pipe, which becomes vitrified if the metal is sufficiently heated.]
[Footnote 14: The translator adheres to the original, in forsaking the rhyme in these lines and some others.]
[Footnote 15: Written in the time of the French war.]
[Footnote 16: That isthe settled political questionthe balance of power.]
[Footnote 17: Apollo.]
[Footnote 18: "Everywhere," says Hoffmeister truly, "Schiller exalts Ideal Belief over real wisdom;everywhere this modern Apostle of Christianity advocates that Ideal, which exists in Faith and emotion, against the wisdom of worldly intellect, the barren experience of life," etc.TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 19: The office, at the coronation feast, of the Count Palatine of the Rhine (Grand Sewer of the Empire and one of the Seven Electors) was to bear the Imperial Globe and set the dishes on the board; that of the King of Bohemia was cup-bearer. The latter was not, however, present, as Schiller himself observed in a note (omitted in the editions of his collected works), at the coronation of Rudolf.]
[Footnote 20: Literally, "A. judge (ein Richter) was again upon the earth." The word substituted in the translation is introduced in order to recall to the reader the sublime name given, not without justice, to Rudolf of Hapsburg, viz., "THE LIVING LAW."TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 21: At the coronation of Rudolf was celebrated the marriage-feast of three of his daughtersto Ludwig of Bavaria, Otto of Brandenburg, and Albrecht of Saxony. His other three daughters married afterward Otto, nephew of Ludwig of Bavaria, Charles Martell, son of Charles of Anjou, and Wenceslaus, son of Ottocar of Bohemia. The royal house of England numbers Rudolf of Hapsburg amongst its ancestors.TRANSLATOR.]
* * * * *DRAMAS
INTRODUCTION TO WALLENSTEIN'S DEATH
By WILLIAM H. CARRUTH, PH.D.
Professor of Comparative Literature, Leland Stanford University
Schiller wrote in rapid succession, during his Storm and Stress period, The Robbers, Fiesco, Cabal and Love, and the beginning of Don Carlos (finished in 1787). Between this time and his last period, which opens with Wallenstein, he devoted himself assiduously to the study of philosophy, history, and esthetic theory. Even in writing Don Carlos he had felt that he needed to give more care to artistic form and to the deeper questions of dramatic unity. His own dissatisfaction with the results achieved was one of several reasons why for nearly ten years he dropped dramatic composition. He felt, too, that he needed more experience of life. He himself said of the greatest of his Storm and Stress dramas that he had attempted to portray humanity before he really knew humanity.
In 1788 he published the first part of his History of the Rebellion of the Netherlands, which brought him the appointment to the chair of history in the University of Jena. The occupation with his next historical work, the History of the Thirty Years' War, suggested to him the thought of dramatizing the career of Wallenstein. But he was not yet clear with himself on questions of artistic method. He was studying Homer and dramatizing Euripides, lecturing and writing on dramatic theory. Further delays were due to marriage and to serious illness. It was not until 1796 that Schiller felt ready to begin work on the long planned drama of Wallenstein.
The first scenes were written in prose, but soon the poet realized that only the dignified heroic verse was suited to his theme. Then "all went better." Constant discussions with Goethe and Christian Gottfried Koerner helped him to clear up his doubts and overcome the difficulties of his subject. He found that history left too little room for sympathy with Wallenstein, for he conceived him as really guilty of treason. He decided early to lighten the gloom of his theme by introducing the love episode of Max and Thekla. He modified also his view of the nature of Wallenstein's guilt. Gradually the material grew upon him. What he had planned as a Prologue became the one-act play, Wallenstein's Camp, which, when it was produced in October, 1798, at the reopening of the Weimar Theatre, was preceded by 138 lines of Dedication, since printed as the Prologue. Already Schiller had foreseen the development into more than five acts, and accordingly The Piccolomini appeared separately, January 30, 1799, and the whole series in order about the middle of April, upon the completion of Wallenstein's Death.
Wallenstein is a trilogy, but in name rather than in real connection and relation of parts. Wallenstein's Camp is a picture of masses, introducing only common soldiers and none of the chief personages of the other parts of the composition. Its purpose is to present something of the tremendous background of the action proper and to give a realizing sense of the influence upon Wallenstein's career of the soldiery with which he operatedas Schiller expressed it in a line of his Prologue: "His camp alone explains to us his crime." By this he meant that, on the one hand, the blind confidence of the troops in the luck and the destiny of their leader made him arrogant and reckless, and, on the other hand, perhaps, that the mercenary character of these soldiers of fortune forced Wallenstein to steps which his calm judgment would have condemned.