Category Archives: Schiller
Friedrich Schiller: “The Might of Poesy”
Excerpt, “German Ballads, Songs, etc., comprising translations from Schiller, Uhland, Burger, Goethe, Korner, Becker, Fouque, Chamisso, etc., etc.” London: Edward Lumley. 1845.
Schiller: “Trooper’s Song”
“The Book of German Songs from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century.” Translated and Edited by H. W. Dulcken. 1856.
Schiller: “The Translator’s Apology to the Reader”
“The Poems of Schiller.” Translated by Edgar A. Bowring, C.B.M.F. Second Edition. 1872.
Schiller: “Homage Of The Arts”
Excerpt: “Schiller’s Homage of the Arts, with it Miscellaneous Pieces from Rückert, Freiligrath, and Other German Poets.” Translated by Charles T. Brooks. 1846.
Schiller: “The Commencement of the Nineteenth Century”
Excerpt, “German Poetry with The English Versions of The Best Translations.” Edited by H.E. Goldschmidt. 1869. Translated by C. Hermann Merivale.
Schiller: “The Glove”
THE GLOVE (1797)
A Tale
,
Before his lion-court,
To see the gruesome sport,
Sate the king;
Beside him group’d his princely peers;
And dames aloft, in circling tiers,
Wreath’d round their blooming ring.
.
King Francis, where he sate,
Raised a finger–yawn’d the gate,
And, slow from his repose,
A LION goes!
.
Dumbly he gazed around
The foe-encircled ground;
And, with a lazy gape,
He stretch’d his lordly shape,
And shook his careless mane,
And–laid him down again!
.
A finger raised the king–
And nimbly have the guard
A second gate unbarr’d;
Forth, with a rushing spring,
A TIGER sprung!
.
Wildly the wild one yell’d
When the lion he beheld;
And, bristling at the look,
With his tail his sides he strook,
And roll’d his rabid tongue;
,
In many a wary ring
He swept round the forest king,
With a fell and rattling sound;–
And laid him on the ground,
Grommelling!
.
The king raised his finger; then
Leap’d two LEOPARDS from the den
With a bound;
And boldly bounded they
Where the crouching tiger lay
Terrible!
.
And he gripped the beasts in his deadly hold;
In the grim embrace they grappled and roll’d;
Rose the lion with a roar!
And stood the strife before;
And the wild-cats on the spot,
From the blood-thirst, wroth and hot,
Halted still!
.
Now from the balcony above,
A snowy hand let fall a glove:–
Midway between the beasts of prey,
Lion and tiger; there it lay,
The winsome lady’s glove!
.
Fair Cunigonde said, with a lip of scorn,
To the knight DELORGES–“If the love you have sworn
Were as gallant and leal as you boast it to be,
I might ask you to bring back that glove to me!”
,
The knight left the place where the lady sate;
The knight he has pass’d thro’ the fearful gate;
The lion and tiger he stoop’d above,
And his fingers have closed on the lady’s glove!
. .
All shuddering and stunn’d, they beheld him there–
The noble knights and the ladies fair;
But loud was the joy and the praise, the while
He bore back the glove with his tranquil smile!
.
With a tender look in her softening eyes,
That promised reward to his warmest sighs,
Fair Cunigonde rose her knight to grace;
He toss’d the glove in the lady’s face!
.
“Nay, spare me the guerdon, at least,” quoth he;
And he left forever that fair ladye!
The Knight scorns Cunigonde
Friedrich von Schiller: “Count Eberhard: The Weeper of Württemberg”
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} Eberhard II Graf von Württemberg } Friedrich von Schiller: “Count Eberhard: The Weeper of Württemberg”
Excerpt, “The Book of German Songs from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century.” Translated and Edited by H. W. Dulcken. 1856.
Eberhard II, called “der Greiner” Count of Württemberg 1344 –1392.
.
Count Eberhard
The Weeper of Württemberg
.
Ye !—ye, there, in the world without.
Lift not your heads so grand !
Men hath it borne, and heroes stout.
Alike for peace or battle-rout,—
Our gallant Swabian land !
.
Boast of your Edward, Fred’ric, Charles,
And Ludwig as ye might,
Charles, Fred’ric, Ludwig, Edward too,
Was Eberhard, our count so true,—
A tempest in the fight.
.
The county’s boy, young Ulrich, too,
Loved well the iron clang ;
The county’s boy, young Ulrich, too,
No footfall backward ever drew,
Where men to saddle sprang.
.
The Reutlingers brew’d vengeance-pain
To see our names so bright;
And strove the victor’s wreath to gain,
And many a sword-dance dared maintain.
And drew their girdles tight.
.
He gave them war,—beshrew the fight
Whence beaten home he came !
The father’s brow was black as night,—
The youthful warrior fled the light,
And wept for very shame.
.
That gall’d him : ” Ah, ye knaves, beware !”
(And kept it in his soul)—
” Now by my father’s beard I swear
To grind the notch my sword doth bear
On many a townsman’s poll !”
.
Nor long the time ere rose a feud:
Forth sallied horse and man ;
Toward Döffingen the army stood,
And brighter grew the younker’s mood,
And hot the fight began.
.
The watchword to our men that day
Was given—”the ill-starr’d fight”—
That drove us like the storm away,
And lodged us deep in bloody fray,
And in the lances’ night.
.
Our youthful Count, with lion’s wrath,
Swung high his hero-glaive ;
Wild battle-roar before his path.
Wailing and groans his feet beneath,
And all around—the grave.
.
But woe ! ah, woe ! a ghastly sword
Fell heavy on his head;
The hero-band surround their lord
In vain ; young Ulrich on the sward
With glassy eyes lay dead.
.
Then horror stayed the battle’s plan.
Tears from all eyes ‘gan flow;
But ho !—the count to charge began—
“My son is as another man ;
March, children, on the foe !”
.
And fiercer rageth now the fight.
For vengeance spurs them well ;
Forth o’er the corpses went their might,
And townsmen flying left and right
O’er forest, hill, and dell.
.
And blythely all our clarions rang
When to our camp hied we ;
And wives and children gaily sang,
‘Mid dances’ whirl and beaker-klang,
To praise our victory.
.
But Eberhard, what doth he here ?
Before him lies his son ;
Within his tent, no mortal near.
The Count hath dropt one sparkling tear
That silent form upon.
Therefore, with love so true and warm.
Around the Count we stand;
Alone, he is a hero-swarm—
The thunder rageth in his arm,—
The star of Swabian land.
.
Then, ye there in the world without.
Lift not your heads so grand !
Men hath it borne, and heroes stout.
Alike in peace and battle-rout.
Our gallant Swabian land.
Schiller: “Wallenstein”
Excerpt, “The Death of Wallenstein,” by Friedrich Schiller.
WALLENSTEIN IN SOLILOQUY
.
Is it possible?
Is't so? I can no longer what I would?
No longer draw back at my liking? I
Must do the deed, because I thought of it?
And fed this heart here with a dream?
.
Because I did not scowl temptation from my presence,
Dallied with thoughts of possible fulfillment,
Commenced no movement, left all time uncertain,
And only kept the road, the access open?
By the great God of Heaven! It was not
My serious meaning, it was ne'er resolved.
.
I but amused myself with thinking of it.
The free-will tempted me, the power to do
Or not to do.
.
Was it criminal
To make the fancy minister to hope,
To fill the air with pretty toys of air,
And clutch fantastic sceptres moving toward me?
Was not the will kept free? Beheld I not
The road of duty close beside me—but
One little step, and once more I was in it!
.
Where am I? Whither have I been transported?
No road, no track behind me, but a wall,
Impenetrable, insurmountable,
Rises obedient to the spells I muttered
And meant not—my own doings tower behind me.
.
Pauses and remains in deep thought.
.
A punishable man I seem, the guilt,
Try what I will, I cannot roll off from me;
The equivocal demeanor of my life
Bears witness on my prosecutor's party.
And even my purest acts from purest motives
Suspicion poisons with malicious gloss.
.
Were I that thing for which I pass, that traitor,
A goodly outside I had sure reserved,
Had drawn the coverings thick and double round me,
Been calm and chary of my utterance;
But being conscious of the innocence
Of my intent, my uncorrupted will,
I gave way to my humors, to my passion:
.
Bold were my words, because my deeds were not.
Now every planless measure, chance event,
The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triumph,
And all the May-games of a heart o’erflowing,
Will they connect, and weave them all together
Into one web of treason; all will be plan,
My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark,
Step tracing step, each step a politic progress;
.
And out of all they'll fabricate a charge
So specious, that I must myself stand dumb.
I am caught in my own net, and only force,
Naught but a sudden rent can liberate me.
.
Pauses again.
.
How else! Since that the heart's unbiased instinct
Impelled me to the daring deed, which now
Necessity, self-preservation, orders.
Stern is the on-look of necessity,
Not without shudder may a human hand
Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny.
.
My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom;
Once suffered to escape from its safe corner
Within the heart, its nursery and birthplace,
Sent forth into the foreign, it belongs
Forever to those sly malicious powers
Whom never art of man conciliated.
.
Paces in agitation through the chamber, then
pauses, and, after the pause, breaks out again
into audible soliloquy.
.
What is thy enterprise? Thy aim? Thy object?
Hast honestly confessed it to thyself?
Power seated on a quiet throne thou'dst shake,
Power on an ancient, consecrated throne,
Strong in possession, founded in all custom;
Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots
Fixed to the people's pious nursery faith.
.
This, this will be no strife of strength with strength.
That feared I not. I brave each combatant,
Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye,
Who, full himself of courage, kindles courage
In me too. 'Tis a foe invisible
The which I fear—a fearful enemy,
Which in the human heart opposes me,
By its coward fear alone made fearful to me.
.
Not that, which full of life, instinct with power,
Makes known its present being; that is not
The true, the perilously formidable.
O no! it is the common, the quite common,
The thing of an eternal yesterday.
Whatever was, and evermore returns,
Sterling to-morrow, for to-day 'twas sterling!
.
For of the wholly common is man made,
And custom is his nurse! Woe then to them
Who lay irreverent hands upon his old
House furniture, the dear inheritance
From his forefathers! For time consecrates;
And what is gray with age becomes religion.
Be in possession, and thou hast the right,
And sacred will the many guard it for thee!
.
.
.
,
Friedrich Schiller: “The Battle”
Austrian and Prussian cuirassiers at the
Battle of Lobositz
Seven Years War, 1st October, 1756
The Battle
Heavy and solemn,
A cloudy column,
Through the green plain they marching came!
Measure less spread, like a table dread,
For the wild grim dice of the iron game.
The looks are bent on the shaking ground,
And the heart beats loud with a knelling sound;
Swift by the breasts that must bear the brunt,
Gallops the major along the front–
“Halt!”
And fettered they stand at the stark command,
And the warriors, silent, halt!
.
Proud in the blush of morning glowing,
What on the hill-top shines in flowing,
“See you the foeman’s banners waving?”
“We see the foeman’s banners waving!”
“God be with ye–children and wife!”
Hark to the music–the trump and the fife,
How they ring through the ranks which they rouse to the strife!
Thrilling they sound with their glorious tone,
Thrilling they go through the marrow and bone!
Brothers, God grant when this life is o’er,
In the life to come that we meet once more!
.
See the smoke how the lightning is cleaving asunder!
Hark the guns, peal on peal, how they boom in their thunder!
From host to host, with kindling sound,
The shouting signal circles round,
Ay, shout it forth to life or death–
Freer already breathes the breath!
The war is waging, slaughter raging,
And heavy through the reeking pall,
The iron death-dice fall!
Nearer they close–foes upon foes
“Ready!”–From square to square it goes,
Down on the knee they sank,
And fire comes sharp from the foremost rank.
Many a man to the earth it sent,
Many a gap by the balls is rent–
.
O’er the corpse before springs the hinder man,
That the line may not fail to the fearless van,
To the right, to the left, and around and around,
Death whirls in its dance on the bloody ground.
God’s sunlight is quenched in the fiery fight,
Over the hosts falls a brooding night!
Brothers, God grant when this life is o’er
In the life to come that we meet once more!
.
The dead men lie bathed in the weltering blood
And the living are blent in the slippery flood,
And the feet, as they reeling and sliding go,
Stumble still on the corpses that sleep below.
“What, Francis!” “Give Charlotte my last farewell.”
As the dying man murmurs, the thunders swell–
“I’ll give–Oh God! are their guns so near?
Ho! comrades!–yon volley!–look sharp to the rear!–
I’ll give thy Charlotte thy last farewell,
Sleep soft! where death thickest descendeth in rain,
The friend thou forsakest thy side shall regain!”
Hitherward–thitherward reels the fight,
Dark and more darkly day glooms into night–
Brothers, God grant when this life is o’er
In the life to come that we meet once more!
.
Hark to the hoofs that galloping go!
The adjutant flying,–
The horsemen press hard on the panting foe,
Their thunder booms in dying–
Victory!
The terror has seized on the dastards all,
And their colors fall!
Victory!
Closed is the brunt of the glorious fight
And the day, like a conqueror, bursts on the night,
Trumpet and fife swelling choral along,
The triumph already sweeps marching in song.
Farewell, fallen brothers, though this life be o’er,
There’s another, in which we shall meet you once more!
Schiller: “Arouse ye, my comrades, to horse! to horse!”
Excerpt, “The Camp of Wallenstein,” by Friedrich Schiller. From Scene XI. Translated by James Churchill.
.SECOND CUIRASSIER (sings).
.
Arouse ye, my comrades, to horse! to horse!
To the field and to freedom we guide!
For there a man feels the pride of his force
And there is the heart of him tried.
No help to him there by another is shown,
He stands for himself and himself alone.
.
[The soldiers from the background have come forward during the singing
of this verse and form the chorus.]
.
CHORUS.
.
No help to him by another is shown,
He stands for himself and himself alone.
.
DRAGOON.
.
Now freedom hath fled from the world, we find
But lords and their bondsmen vile
And nothing holds sway in the breast of mankind
Save falsehood and cowardly guile.
Who looks in death’s face with a fearless brow,
The soldier, alone, is the freeman now.
.
CHORUS.
.
Who looks in death’s face with a fearless brow,
The soldier, alone, is the freeman now.
.
FIRST YAGER.
.
With the troubles of life he ne’er bothers his pate,
And feels neither fear nor sorrow;
But boldly rides onward to meet with his fate—
He may meet it to-day, or to-morrow!
And, if to-morrow ’twill come, then, I say,
Drain we the cup of life’s joy to-day!
.
CHORUS.
.
And, if to-morrow ’twill come, then, I say,
Drain we the cup of life’s joy to-day!
.
[The glasses are here refilled, and all drink.]
.
SERGEANT.
.
‘Tis from heaven his jovial lot has birth;
Nor needs he to strive or toil.
The peasant may grope in the bowels of earth,
And for treasure may greedily moil
He digs and he delves through life for the pelf,
And digs till he grubs out a grave for himself.
.
CHORUS.
.
He digs and he delves through life for the pelf,
And digs till he grubs out a grave for himself.
.
FIRST YAGER.
.
The rider and lightning steed—a pair
Of terrible guests, I ween!
From the bridal-hall, as the torches glare,
.
[Unbidden they join the Scene]
.
Nor gold, nor wooing, his passion prove;
By storm he carries the prize of love!
.
CHORUS.
.
Nor gold, nor wooing, his passion prove;
By storm he carries the prize of love!
.
SECOND CUIRASSIER.
.
Why mourns the wench with so sorrowful face?
Away, girl, the soldier must go!
No spot on the earth is his resting-place;
And your true love he never can know.
Still onward driven by fate’s rude wind,
He nowhere may leave his peace behind.
.
CHORUS.
Still onward driven by fate’s rude wind,
He nowhere may leave his peace behind.
.
FIRST YAGER.
.
[He takes the two next to him by the hand—the others do the same—and
form a large semi-circle.]
Then rouse ye, my comrades—to horse! to horse!
In battle the breast doth swell!
Youth boils—the life-cup foams in its force—
Up! ere time can dew dispel!
And deep be the stake, as the prize is high—
Who life would win, he must dare to die!
.
CHORUS.
.
And deep be the stake, as the prize is high—
Who life would win, he must dare to die!
Schiller: “The Invincible Armada”
.
.
THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA
.
She comes, she comes—the burden of the deeps!
Beneath her wails the universal sea!
With clanking chains and a new god, she sweeps,
And with a thousand thunders, unto thee!
The ocean-castles and the floating hosts—
Ne’er on their like looked the wild water!—Well
May man the monster name “Invincible.”
O’er shuddering waves she gathers to thy coasts!
The horror that she spreads can claim
Just title to her haughty name.
The trembling Neptune quails
Under the silent and majestic forms;
The doom of worlds in those dark sails;—
Near and more near they sweep! and slumber all the storms!
.
Before thee, the array,
Blest island, empress of the sea!
The sea-born squadrons threaten thee,
And thy great heart, Britannia!
Woe to thy people, of their freedom proud—
She rests, a thunder heavy in its cloud!
Who, to thy hand the orb and sceptre gave,
That thou should’st be the sovereign of the nations?
To tyrant kings thou wert thyself the slave,
Till freedom dug from law its deep foundations;
The mighty Chart the citizens made kings,
And kings to citizens sublimely bowed!
And thou thyself, upon thy realm of water,
Hast thou not rendered millions up to slaughter,
When thy ships brought upon their sailing wings
The sceptre—and the shroud?
What should’st thou thank?—Blush, earth, to hear and feel
What should’st thou thank?—Thy genius and thy steel!
Behold the hidden and the giant fires!
Behold thy glory trembling to its fall!
Thy coming doom the round earth shall appal,
And all the hearts of freemen beat for thee,
And all free souls their fate in thine foresee—
Theirs is thy glory’s fall!
.
One look below the Almighty gave,
Where streamed the lion-flags of thy proud foe;
And near and wider yawned the horrent grave.
“And who,” saith He, “shall lay mine England low—
The stem that blooms with hero-deeds—
The rock when man from wrong a refuge needs—
The stronghold where the tyrant comes in vain?
Who shall bid England vanish from the main?
Ne’er be this only Eden freedom knew,
Man’s stout defence from power, to fate consigned.”
God the Almighty blew,
And the Armada went to every wind!
.
.
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Friedrich von Schiller
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E. T. A. Hoffmann
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Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff
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Wilhelm Hauff
Ludwig Tieck
Friedrich Karl de la Motte, Baron Fouqué
Caroline de la Motte, Baroness Fouqué
Jean Paul Friedrich Richter
August Graf von Platen-Hallermünde
Christoph Martin Wieland
Johann Heinrich Voss
Johann Gabriel Seidl
Friedrich Hölderlin
Carl Theodor Körner
Lord Byron
Thomas Carlyle
Sir Walter Scott
Madame de Staël
Johann Nepomuk Vogl
Théophile Gautier
Gottfried August Bürger
Johann Karl August Musäus
Frederikke Brun
Friedrich Rückert
J. Ludwig Uhland
Emanuel von Geibel
Annette von Droste-Hülshoff
Eduard Mörike
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel
August Wilhelm von Schlegel
Nikolaus Lenau
Anton Alexander Graf von Auersperg “Anastasius Grün”
Franz Freiherr von Dinglestedt
Ferdinand Freiligrath
Justinus Kerner
Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim
Hermann Marggraff
Clemens Brentano
Ludwig Achim von Arnim
Adelbert von Chamisso
Heinrich von Kleist
Elisabeth Kulmann
Robert Reinick
Georg Herwegh
Friedrich von Bodenstedt
Johannes Brahms
Robert Schumann
Clara Wieck Schumann
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
Hugo Wolf
