Youth's fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right,-yea, and a joy it is
## p.
The absolute right,-yea, and a joy it is
## p.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v22 - Sac to Sha
richer than he, though his soul reigneth o'er
The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore,
And the infinite Circle of Song.
Strong and proud and self-depending,
Man's cold bosom beats alone:
Heart with heart divinely blending
In the love that Gods have known,
## p. 12891 (#317) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12891
Soul's sweet interchange of feeling,
Melting tears, - he never knows;
Each hard sense the hard one steeling,
Arms against a world of foes.
Alive as the wind-harp, how lightly soever
If wooed by the Zephyr, to music will quiver,
Is Woman to Hope and to Fear;
Ah, tender one! still at the shadow of grieving,
How quiver the chords - how thy bosom is heaving-
How trembles thy glance through the tear!
Man's dominion, war and labor,
Might to right the Statute gave;
Laws are in the Scythian's sabre;
Where the Mede reigned, see the Slave!
Peace and Meekness grimly routing,
Prowls the War lust, rude and wild;
Eris rages, hoarsely shouting,
Where the vanished Graces smiled.
But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth;
Of the mild realm of manners the sceptre she swayeth;
She lulls, as she looks from above,
The Discord whose hell for its victims is gaping,
And blending awhile the forever-escaping,
Whispers Hate to the Image of Love.
RIDDLES
I
THE RAINBOW
Bulwer's Translation.
F
ROM pearls her lofty bridge she weaves,
A gray sea arching proudly over;
A moment's toil the work achieves,
And on the height behold her hover!
Beneath that arch securely go
The tallest barks that ride the seas;
No burthen e'er the bridge may know,
And as thou seek'st to near-it flees!
N
·
## p. 12892 (#318) ##########################################
12892
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
First with the floods it came, to fade
As rolled the waters from the land;
Say where that wondrous arch is made,
And whose the artist's plastic hand?
II
THE MOON AND STARS
Bulwer's Translation.
O'ER a spacious pasture go
Sheep in thousands, silver-white;
As to-day we see them, so
In the oldest grandsire's sight.
They drink, never waxing old,
Life from an unfailing brook;
There's a shepherd to their fold,
With a silver-hornèd crook.
From a gate of gold let out,
Night by night he counts them over;
Wide the field they rove about,
Never hath he lost a rover.
True the Dog that helps to lead them,
One gay Ram in front we see:
What the flock, and who doth heed them,
Sheep and shepherd,- tell to me?
Bulwer's Translation.
THE POWER OF SONG
A
RAIN-FLOOD from the mountain riven,
It leaps in thunder forth to-day;
Before its rush the crags are driven,
The oaks uprooted whirled away!
Awed yet in awe all wildly gladdening-
The startled wanderer halts below;
He hears the rock-born waters maddening,
Nor wits the source from whence they go:
So, from their high, mysterious founts, along,
Stream on the silenced world the waves of song!
## p. 12893 (#319) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12893
Knit with th threads of life forever,
By those dread powers that weave the woof,-
Whose art the singer's spell can sever?
Whose breast has mail to music proof?
Lo, to the bard a wand of wonder
The herald of the gods has given;
He sinks the soul the death-realm under,
Or lifts it breathless up to heaven,-
Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion
Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.
As when in hours the least unclouded,
Portentous, strides upon the scene
Some fate before from wisdom shrouded,
And awes the startled souls of men,-
Before that stranger from another,
Behold how this world's great ones bow;
Mean joys their idle clamor smother,
The mask is vanished from the brow:
And from truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurled
Fly all the craven falsehoods of the world!
―
So Song-like Fate itself—is given
To scare the idler thoughts away,
To lift the earthly up to heaven,
To wake the spirit from the clay!
One with the gods the bard: before him
All things unclean and earthly fly;
Hushed are all meaner powers, and o'er him
The dark fate swoops unharming by:
And while the soother's magic measures flow,
Smoothed every wrinkle on the brows of woe!
Even as a child, that after pining
For the sweet absent mother, hears
Her voice, and round her neck entwining
Young arms, vents all its soul in tears:
So by harsh custom far estranged,
Along the glad and guileless track,
To childhood's happy home unchanged
The swift song wafts the wanderer back,—
Snatched from the cold and formal world, and prest
By the great mother to her glowing breast!
Bulwer's Translation.
I
## p. 12894 (#320) ##########################################
12894
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
HYMN TO JOY
SPAR
PARK from the fire that gods have fed —
Joy-thou elysian child divine,
Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,
O Holy One! thy holy shrine.
Strong custom rends us from each other,
Thy magic all together brings;
And man in man but hails a brother,
Wherever rest thy gentle wings.
Chorus - Embrace, ye millions-let this kiss,
Brothers, embrace the earth below!
Yon starry worlds that shine on this,
One common Father know!
He who this lot from fate can grasp,—
Of one true friend the friend to be,
He who one faithful maid can clasp,-
Shall hold with us his jubilee;
Yes, each who but one single heart
In all the earth can claim his own!
Let him who cannot, stand apart,
And weep beyond the pale, alone!
Chorus Homage to holy Sympathy,
―――
Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;
Up to yon star pavilions - she
Leads to the Unknown King!
All being drinks the mother dew
Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;
And Vice and Worth alike pursue
Her steps that strew the blossom.
Joy in each link: to us the treasure
Of Wine and Love; beneath the sod,
The worm has instincts fraught with pleasure;
In heaven the Cherub looks on God!
Chorus - Why bow ye down-why down-ye millions?
O World, thy Maker's throne to see,
Look upward - search the star pavilions:
There must his mansion be!
## p. 12895 (#321) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12895
Joy is the mainspring in the whole.
Of endless Nature's calm rotation;
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
In the great Timepiece of Creation;
Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
Joy beckons suns come forth from heaven;
Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,—
Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!
Chorus - Joyous as suns careering gay
Along their paths on high,
Joy from Truth's pure and lambent fires,
Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;
Joy leads to virtue man's desires,
And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.
High from the sunny slopes of Faith,
The gales her waving banners buoy;
And through the shattered vaults of Death,
Lo, 'mid the choral Angels - Joy!
Chorus
March, brothers, march your dauntless way,
As chiefs to victory!
-
- Bear this life, millions, bravely bear
Bear this life for the better one!
See the stars! a life is there,
Where the reward is won.
Men like the Gods themselves may be,
Though men may not the Gods requite;
Go soothe the pangs of Misery,
Go share the gladness with delight.
Revenge and hatred both forgot,
Have naught but pardon for thy foe;
May sharp repentance grieve him not,
No curse one tear of ours bestow!
Chorus - Let all the world be peace and love,
Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;
For God shall judge of us above,
As we shall judge each other!
Joy sparkles to us from the bowl:
Behold the juice whose golden color
To meekness melts the savage soul,
And gives Despair a hero's valor.
## p. 12896 (#322) ##########################################
12896
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Up, brothers! Lo, we crown the cup!
Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!
Let the bright fount spring heavenward! Up!
To the Good Spirit this glass! To him!
Chorus Praised by the ever-whirling ring
Of stars, and tuneful Seraphim,—
To the Good Spirit, the Father-King
In heaven! This glass to him!
Firm mind to bear what fate bestows;
Comfort to tears in sinless eyes;
Faith kept alike with friends and foes;
Man's oath eternal as the skies;
Manhood, the thrones of Kings to girth,
Though bought by life or limb the prize;
Success to merit's honest worth;
Perdition to the brood of lies!
---
Chorus-Draw closer in the holy ring;
YⓇ
Swear by the wine-cup's golden river,
Swear by the stars, and by their King,
To keep this vow forever.
THE GODS OF GREECE
Bulwer's Translation.
E IN the age gone by,
Who ruled the world a world how lovely then!
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!
Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful beauty glowed,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul-where'er they flowed.
Man gifted Nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of love;
All things betrayed to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!
## p. 12897 (#323) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12897
Where lifeless- fixed afar-
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phoebus Apollo in his golden car
In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
On yonder hill the Oread was adored;
―
In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
And from her urn the gentle Naiad poured
The wavelet's silver foam.
Yon bay chaste Daphne wreathed;
Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell;
Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel,
The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill—
Shed for Proserpina to Hades borne;
And for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
Heard Cytherea mourn!
Heaven's shapes were charmed unto
The mortal race of old Deucalion:
Pyrrha's fair daughter humanly to woo,
Came down, in shepherd's guise, Latona's son;
Between men, heroes, gods, harmonious then,
Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine,
Blest Amathusia,-heroes, gods, and men,
Equals before thy shrine!
Not to that culture gay,
Stern self-denial or sharp penance wan!
Well might each heart be happy in that day,
For gods, the happy ones, were kin to man!
The beautiful alone the holy there!
No pleasure shamed the gods of that young race;
So that the chaste Camenæ favoring were,
And the subduing Grace!
A palace every shrine;
Your very sports heroic;-yours the crown
Of contests hallowed to a power divine,
As rushed the chariots thundering to renown.
Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
Sweet leaves round odorous hair!
XXII-807
## p. 12898 (#324) ##########################################
12898
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
And the wild car the exulting panthers bore,
Announced the presence of the rapture-bringer;
Bounded the satyr and blithe faun before;
And Mænads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
Hymned in their madding dance the glorious wine,
As ever beckoned to the lusty bowl
The ruddy host divine!
Before the bed of death
No ghastly spectre stood; but from the porch
Of life-the lip-one kiss inhaled the breath,
And the mute graceful genius lowered a torch.
The judgment balance of the realms below,
A judge himself of mortal lineage held;
The very Furies, at the Thracian's woe,
Were moved and music-spelled.
In the Elysian grove
The shades renewed the pleasures life held dear:
The faithful spouse rejoined remembered love,
And rushed along the meads the charioteer;
There Linus poured the old accustomed strain;
Admetus there Alcestis still could greet; won
Orestes hath his faithful friend again,
His arrows Poeas's son.
More glorious then the meeds
That in their strife with labor nerved the brave,
To the great doer of renowned deeds,
The Hebe and the heaven the Thunderer gave.
Before the rescued rescuer of the dead,
Bowed down the silent and immortal host;
And the twin stars their guiding lustre shed
On the bark tempest-tost!
Art thou, fair world, no more?
Return, thou virgin bloom on nature's face;-
Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore,
Can we the footstep of sweet fable trace!
The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft;
Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
Shadows alone are left!
## p. 12899 (#325) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12899
Cold from the north has gone
Over the flowers the blast that killed their May;
And to enrich the worship of the One,
A universe of gods must pass away!
Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
And-Echo answers me!
Deaf to the joys she gives,
Blind to the pomp of which she is possessed,
Unconscious of the spiritual power that lives
Around and rules her, by our bliss unblessed,
Dull to the art that colors or creates,-
Like the dead timepiece, godless nature creeps
Her plodding round, and by the leaden weights
The slavish motion keeps.
To-morrow to receive
New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
And icy moons with weary sameness weave
From their own light their fullness and decay.
Home to the poets' land the gods are flown;
Light use in them that later world discerns,
Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
On its own axle turns.
Home! and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard;
Life's beauty and life's melody; - alone
Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless word:
Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng
Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish:
Ah, that which gains immortal life in song,
To mortal life must perish!
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12900 (#326) ##########################################
12900
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE ARTISTS
[Only the concluding lines of this long and beautiful poem are given, in
which Schiller embodies his conceptions of the mission of art (in its broadest
sense, including poetry and all creations of the imagination), and of its rela-
tions to philosophy and science. ]
IT
F ON the course of Thought, now barrier-free,
Sweeps the glad search of bold Philosophy;
And with self-pæans and a vain renown
Would claim the praise and arrogate the crown,
Holding but as a soldier in her band
The nobler Art that did in truth command;
And grants, beneath her visionary throne,
To Art, her queen, the slave's first rank alone,—
Pardon the vaunt! For you Perfection all
Her star-gems weaves in one bright coronal!
With you, the first blooms of the spring, began
Awakening Nature in the soul of man!
With you fulfilled, when Nature seeks repose,
Autumn's exulting harvests ripely close.
If Art rose plastic from the stone and clay,
To mind from matter ever sweeps its sway;
Silent, but conquering in its silence, lo,
How o'er the spiritual world its triumphs go!
What in the land of knowledge, wide and far,
Keen science teaches, for you discovered are:
First in your arms the wise their wisdom learn,—
They dig the mine you teach them to discern;
And when that wisdom ripens to the flower
And crowning time of Beauty,-to the power
From whence it rose new stores it must impart,
The toils of science swell the wealth of art.
When to one height the sage ascends with you,
And spreads the vale of matter round his view
In the mild twilight of serene repose,-
The more the artist charms, the more the thinker knows.
The more the shapes in intellectual joy
Linked by the genii which your spells employ,
The more the thought with the emotion blends,-
The more upbuoyed by both the soul ascends
To loftier harmonies and heavenlier things,
And tracks the stream of beauty to its springs.
## p. 12901 (#327) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12901
The lovely members of the mighty whole,
Till then confused and shapeless to his soul,
Distinct and glorious grow upon his sight;
The fair enigmas brighten from the night;
More rich the universe his thoughts inclose,
More wide the ocean with whose wave he flows;
The wrath of fate grows feebler to his fears,
As from God's scheme Chance wanes and disappears;
And as each straining impulse soars above,
How his pride lessens, how augments love!
So, scattering blooms, the still guide Poetry
Leads him through paths, though hid, that mount on high,
Through forms and tones more pure and more sublime,—
Alp upon Alp of beauty,- till the time
When what we long as poetry have nurst,
Shall às God's own swift inspiration burst,
And flash in glory, on that youngest day,—
One with the truth to which it wings the way!
O sons of Art! into your hands consigned,
O heed the trust, O heed it and revere!
The liberal dignity of human-kind!
With you to sink, with you to reappear.
The hallowed melody of Magian song
Does to creation as a link belong,
Blending its music with God's harmony,
As rivers melt into the mighty sea.
Truth, when the age she would reform expels,
Flies for safe refuge to the Muses' cells.
More fearful for the veil of charms she takes,
From song the fullness of her splendor breaks;
And o'er the foe that persecutes and quails
Her vengeance thunders, as the bard prevails.
Rise, ye free sons of the free Mother, rise:
Still on the light of Beauty sun your eyes;
Still to the heights that shine afar aspire,
Nor meaner meads than those she gives, desire.
If here the sister Art forsake awhile,
Elude the clasp, and vanish from the toil:
Go seek and find her at the mother's heart;
Go search for Nature - and arrive at Art!
Ever the Perfect dwells in whatsoe'er
Fair souls conceive and recognize as fair!
Borne on your daring pinions, soar sublime
Above the shoal and eddy of the time.
## p. 12902 (#328) ##########################################
12902
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Far-glimmering on your wizard mirror, see
The silent shadow of the age to be.
Through all life's thousandfold entangled maze,
One godlike bourne your gifted sight surveys;
Through countless means one solemn end foreshown,
The labyrinth closes at a single Throne.
As in seven tints of variegated light
Breaks the lone shimmer of the lucid white,
As the seven tints that paint the Iris bow
Into the lucid white dissolving flow,-
-
So truth in many-colored splendor plays:
Now on the eye enchanted with the rays;
Now in one lustre gathers every beam,
And floods the world with light—a single stream!
Bulwer's Translation.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SONG OF THE BELL'
SEE
EE the mold of clay, well heated,
In the earth walled firmly, stand.
Be the bell to-day created!
Come, my comrades, be at hand!
From the glowing brow
Sweat must freely flow,
So the work the master showeth;
Yet the blessing Heaven bestoweth.
The work we earnestly are doing
Befitteth well an earnest word;
Then toil goes on, more briskly flowing,
When good discourse is also heard.
So let us then with care now ponder
What through weak strength originates:
To him no reverence can we render,
Who never heeds what he creates.
'Tis this indeed that man most graceth,
For this 'tis his to understand,-
That in his inner heart he traceth
What he produces with his hand.
See how brown the pipes are getting!
This little rod I dip it in;
If it show a glazèd coating,
Then the casting may begin.
## p. 12903 (#329) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12903
Now my lads, enough!
Prove me now the stuff,
The brittle with the tough combining,
See if they be rightly joining.
For when the strong and mild are pairing,
The manly with the tender sharing,
Then is the concord good and strong.
See ye, who join in endless union,
If heart with heart be in communion!
For fancy's brief, repentance long.
Be the casting now beginning;
Finely jagged is the grain.
But before we set it running,
Let us breathe a pious strain.
Let the metal go!
God protect us now!
Through the bending handle hollow
Smoking shoots the fire-brown billow.
Benignant is the might of flame,
When man keeps watch and makes it tame;
In what he fashions, what he makes,
Help from this heaven's force he takes:
But fearful is this heaven's force
When all unfettered in its course;
It steps forth on its own fierce way,
Thy daughter, Nature, wild and free.
Woe! when once emancipated,
With naught her power to withstand,
Through the streets thick populated,
Waves she high her monstrous brand!
By the elements is hated
What is formed by mortal hand.
From the tower,
Heavy and slow,
Tolls the funeral
Note of woe,
Sad and solemn, with its knell attending
Some new wanderer on the last way wending.
•
Ah! the wife it is, the dear one,
Ah! it is the faithful mother,
Whom the angel dark is tearing
From the husband's arms endearing,
## p. 12904 (#330) ##########################################
12904
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
From the group of children, far,
Whom she, blooming, to him bare,
Whom she on her faithful breast
Saw with joy maternal rest;
Ah! the household ties so tender
Broken are for evermore,
For the shadow-land now holds her,
Who the household rulèd o'er!
For her faithful guidance ceases;
No more keepeth watch her care;
In the void and orphaned places
Rules the stranger, loveless there.
•
Woe! if, heaped up, the fire-tinder
Should the still heart of cities fill,
Their fetters rending all asunder,
The people work then their own will!
Then at the bell-ropes tuggeth riot;
The bell gives forth a wailing sound,-
Sacred to peace alone and quiet,
For blood it rings the signal round.
"Equality and Freedom" howling,
Rushes to arms the citizen,
And bloody-minded bands are prowling,
And streets and halls are filled with men;
Then women, to hyenas changing,
On bloody horrors feast and laugh,
And with the thirst of panthers ranging.
The blood of hearts yet quivering quaff.
Naught sacred is there more, for breaking
Are all the bands of pious awe;
The good man's place the bad are taking,
And vice acknowledges no law.
'Tis dangerous to rouse the lion,
Deadly to cross the tiger's path,
But the most terrible of terrors
Is man himself in his wild wrath.
Alas! when to the ever blinded
The heavenly torch of light is lent!
It guides him not,-it can but kindle
Whole States in flames and ruin blent.
Translation of William H. Furness.
## p. 12905 (#331) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12905
TRONGLY it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
Coleridge's Translation.
WHAT
THE EPIC HEXAMETER
MA
IN
IN THE hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
THE DISTICH
MY CREED
T's the religion I confess? Well, none of all those
Which you mention. Why none? From sense of religion.
Translation Anonymous.
-
Coleridge's Translation.
KANT AND HIS INTERPRETERS
H
ow one man of wealth gives a living to whole hosts of beggars!
If kings only build, the carters have plenty to do.
Translation Anonymous.
AX PICCOLOMINI [advancing to Wallenstein] —
My general!
Wallenstein -
FROM WALLENSTEIN'S DEATH ›
That I am no longer, if
Thou styl'st thyself the Emperor's officer.
Then thou wilt leave the army, general?
Max-
Wallenstein I have renounced the service of the Emperor.
Max-
And thou wilt leave the army?
Wallenstein.
Rather I hope
To bind it nearer still and faster to me.
[He seats himself.
Yes, Max, I have delayed to open it to thee,
Even till the hour of acting 'gins to strike.
Youth's fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right,-yea, and a joy it is
## p. 12906 (#332) ##########################################
12906
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Max
To exercise the single apprehension
Where the sums square in proof;
But where it happens that of two sure evils
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties,
There 'tis a blessing to have no election,
And blank necessity is grace and favor.
This is now present. Do not look behind thee!
It can no more avail thee. Look thou forwards!
Think not! Judge not! Prepare thyself to act!
The Court-it hath determined on my ruin,
Therefore I will to be beforehand with them.
We'll join the Swedes-right gallant fellows are they,
And our good friends.
[He rises and retires to the back of the stage. Max remains for a long
time motionless, in a trance of excessive anguish. At his first motion
Wallenstein returns, and places himself before him. ]
Max
[He stops himself, expecting Piccolomini's answer.
I have ta'en thee by surprise. Answer me not.
I grant thee time to recollect thyself.
My general, this day thou makest me
Of age to speak in my own right and person;
For till this day I have been spared the trouble
To find out my own road. Thee have I followed
With most implicit, unconditional faith,
Sure of the right path if I followed thee.
To-day, for the first time, dost thou refer
Me to myself, and forcest me to make
Election between thee and my own heart.
Wallenstein-Soft cradled thee thy fortune till to-day:
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport,
Indulge all lovely instincts, act for ever
With undivided heart. It can remain
No longer thus. Like enemies, the roads
Start from each other, duties strive with duties:
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war
Which is now kindling 'twixt thy friend and him
Who is thy Emperor.
War! is that the name?
War is as frightful as Heaven's pestilence;
Yet it is good, is it Heaven's will, as that is.
Is that a good war, which against the Emperor
Thou wagest with the Emperor's own army?
## p. 12907 (#333) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12907
Wallenstein —
Max
Wallenstein
Max
――
O God of heaven! What a change is this!
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion
To thee, who, like the fixed star of the Pole,
Wert all I gazed at on life's trackless ocean?
Oh, what a rent thou makest in my heart!
The ingrained instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obediency —
Must I pluck life asunder from thy name?
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me:
It always was a god looking at me!
-
Duke Wallenstein, its power is not departed:
The senses still are in thy bonds; although,
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.
Max, hear me.
Oh! do it not, I pray thee, do it not!
There is a pure and noble soul within thee
Knows not of this unblest, unlucky doing.
Thy will is chaste; it is thy fancy only
Which hath polluted thee - and innocence.
It will not let itself be driven away
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not,
Thou canst not, end in this. It would reduce
All human creatures to disloyalty
Against the nobleness of their own nature.
'Twill justify the vulgar misbelief
Which holdeth nothing noble in free-will,
And trusts itself to impotence alone,
Made powerful only in an unknown power.
The world will judge me sternly: I expect it.
Already have I said to my own self
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids
Th' extreme, can he by going round avoid it?
But here there is no choice. Yes, I must use
Or suffer violence,- so stands the case;
There remains nothing possible but that.
So be it then! Maintain thee in thy post
By violence. Resist the Emperor,
And if it must be, force with force repel.
I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it.
But do not be a traitor - yes! the word
Is spoken out-be not a traitor.
That is no mere excess! that is no error
Of human nature; that is wholly different;
Oh, that is black, black as the pit of hell! .
## p. 12908 (#334) ##########################################
12908
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Oh, turn back to thy duty. That thou canst
I hold it certain. Send me to Vienna.
I'll make thy peace for thee with the Emperor.
He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He
Shall see thee, duke, with my unclouded eye,
And I bring back his confidence to thee.
Wallenstein It is too late. Thou know'st not what has happened.
Max-
Were it too late, and were it gone so far,
That a crime only could prevent thy fall,
Then-fall! fall honorably, even as thou stood'st.
Lose the command. Go from the stage of war.
Thou canst with splendor do it—do it too
With innocence. Thou hast lived much for others:
At length live thou for thy own self. I follow thee.
My destiny I never part from thine.
Wallenstein-It is too late. Even now, while thou art losing
-
Thy words, one after the other are the mile-stones
Left fast behind by my post couriers,
Who bear the order on to Prague and Egra.
[Max stands as convulsed, with a gesture and countenance expressing the
most intense anguish. ]
Yield thyself to it. We act as we are forced.
I cannot give assent to my own shame
And ruin. Thou- no-thou canst not forsake me!
So let us do what must be done, with dignity,
With a firm step. What am I doing worse
Than did famed Cæsar at the Rubicon,
When he the legions led against his country,
The which his country had delivered to him?
Had he thrown down the sword he had been lost,
As I were if I but disarmed myself.
I trace out something in me of his spirit.
Give me his luck, that other thing I'll bear.
Coleridge's Translation.
## p. 12909 (#335) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12909
THE ICONOCLASTS
From the History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands': date 1556
THE
HE commencement of the attack on images took place in West
Flanders and Artois, in the district between Lys and the
sea. A frantic band of artisans, boatmen, and peasants,
mixed with public prostitutes, beggars, and thievish vagabonds,
about three hundred in number, provided with clubs, axes, ham-
mers, ladders, and cords, only few among them furnished with
firearms and daggers, cast themselves, inspired with fanatical
fury, into the villages and hamlets near St. Omer; burst the gates
of such churches and cloisters as they find locked, overthrow the
altars, dash to pieces the images of the saints and trample them
under foot. Still more inflamed by this execrable deed, and re-
inforced by fresh accessions, they press forward straightway to
Ypres, where they can count on a strong following of Calvinists.
Unopposed they break into the cathedral; the walls are mounted
with ladders, the pictures are beaten into fragments with ham-
mers, the pulpits and pews hewn to pieces with axes, the altars
stripped of their ornaments, and the sacred vessels stolen. This
example is immediately followed in Menin, Comines, Verrich,
Lille, and Oudenarde; the same fury in a few days seizes the
whole of Flanders. At the very time when the first tidings of
these events arrived, Antwerp was swarming with a crowd of
homeless people, which the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin
had brought together in that city. The presence of the Prince
of Orange can scarcely keep within bounds the licentious band,
who burn to imitate their brothers in St. Omer; but an order
of the court which summons him in haste to Brussels, where the
regentess is just convening her council of State in order to lay
before them the royal letters, obliges him to abandon Antwerp
to the wantonness of this band. His departure is the signal for
tumult. From fear of the lawless violence of the mob, which
manifested itself in derisive allusions in the very first days of the
festival, the image of the Virgin, after having been carried about
for a short time, was brought for safety to the choir, without
being set up as formerly in the middle of the church. This
incited some impudent boys of the common people to pay it a
visit there, and scoffingly to inquire why it had recently absented
itself in such haste? Others mounted the pulpit, where they
mimicked the preacher and challenged the papists to contest.
## p. 12910 (#336) ##########################################
12910
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
A Catholic boatman, who was indignant at this jest, wished to
pull them down from thence; and it came to blows in the
preacher's seat. Similar scenes occurred the following evening.
The numbers increased, and many came provided with suspi-
cious implements and secret weapons. Finally it occurred to one
of them to cry "Long live the Geuses! " Immediately the whole
rabble took up the cry, and the Virgin was called upon to do the
same. The few Catholics who were there, and who had given
up the hope of effecting anything against these desperadoes, left
the church after they had locked all the doors except one.
As
soon as they found themselves alone, it was proposed to sing
one of the psalms according to the new melody, which was forbid-
den by the government. While they were yet singing, they all
cast themselves with fury upon the image of the Virgin, piercing
it through with swords and daggers, and striking off its head;
prostitutes and thieves snatched the great wax-lights from the
altars and lighted them to the work. The beautiful organ of the
church a masterpiece of the art of that period- was broken in
fragments; the paintings were defaced and the statues dashed to
pieces. A crucified Christ of life size, which was set up between
the two thieves opposite the high altar,—an old and highly prized
work, was pulled to the ground with cords and cut to pieces.
with axes, while the two murderers at its side were respectfully
spared. The holy wafers were strewed on the ground and tram-
pled under foot; in the wine for the celebration of the Lord's
Supper, which was accidentally found there, the health of the
Geuses was drunk; with the holy oil they greased their shoes.
Graves even were rummaged, and the half-decayed corpses taken
out and trampled under foot. All this was done with as won-
derful regularity as if the parts had been assigned to each one
beforehand; every one worked into his neighbor's hands. Danger-
ous as this business was, no one met with any injury, notwith-
standing the dense darkness, notwithstanding the heavy objects
which fell around and near them, while many were scuffling
on the highest steps of the ladders. Notwithstanding the many
tapers which lighted them in their villainous doings, not a sin-
gle individual was recognized. With incredible rapidity the deed
was accomplished; in a few hours a hundred men, at most, de-
spoiled a temple of seventy altars, and next to St. Peter's in
Rome perhaps the largest and most magnificent in Christendom.
Translation of E. P. Evans.
-
## p. 12911 (#337) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12911
Τ"
THE LAST INTERVIEW OF ORANGE WITH EGMONT
From the History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands': date 1567
HE warning of Orange came from a sad and dispirited heart;
and for Egmont the world still smiled. To quit the lap
of abundance, of affluence and splendor, in which he had
grown up to youth and manhood, to part from all the thousand
comforts of life which alone made it of value to him, and all this
in order to escape an evil which his buoyant courage regarded
as still far off,- no, that was not a sacrifice which could be asked
from Egmont. But even had he been less self-indulgent than he
was, with what heart could he have made a princess pampered
by long prosperity-a loving wife and children, on whom his
soul hung-acquainted with privations at which his own courage.
sank, which a sublime philosophy alone can exact from sensuality?
"Thou wilt never persuade me, Orange," said Egmont, "to see
things in this gloomy light in which they appear to thy mourn-
ful prudence. When I have succeeded in abolishing the public
preachings, in chastising the iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels
and restoring their former quiet to the provinces, what can the
King have against me? The King is kind and just, and I have
earned claims upon his gratitude; and I must not forget what I
owe to myself. " "Well then," exclaimed Orange with indignation
and inner anguish, "risk the trust in this royal gratitude! But
a mournful presentiment tells me- and may Heaven grant that I
may be deceived! -thou wilt be the bridge, Egmont, over which
the Spaniards will pass into the country, and which they will
destroy when they have passed over it. " He drew him, after he
had said this, with ardor to himself, and clasped him fervently
and firmly in his arms. Long, as though for the rest of his life,
he kept his eyes fixed upon him and shed tears.
never saw each other again.
They
Translation of E. P. Evans.
ON THE ESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN
Extract from Letter No. 9
THE
HE artist, it is true, is the son of his age; but woe be to him
if he is also its pupil, or even its favorite. Let a benefi-
cent divinity snatch him betimes as a suckling from his
mother's breast, nurse him with the milk of a better time, and
## p. 12912 (#338) ##########################################
12912
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
let him ripen to manhood beneath a distant Grecian sky. Then
when he has attained his full growth, let him return, a foreign
shape, into his century; not however to delight it by his pres-
ence, but terrible, like Agamemnon's son, to purify it. The
subject-matter he will of course take from the present; but the
form he will derive from a nobler time, or rather from beyond
all time,- from the absolute, unchangeable unity of his own
being. Here, from the pure ether of his spiritual nature, flows
down the fountain of beauty, uncontaminated by the corruption
of generations and ages, which welter in turbid whirlpools far
beneath it. The matter caprice can dishonor, as she has en-
nobled it; but the chaste form is withdrawn from her mutations.
The Roman of the first century had long bent the knee before
his emperors when the statues were still standing erect; the tem-
ples remained holy to the eye when the gods had long served as
a laughing-stock, and the infamies of a Nero and a Commodus
were put to shame by the noble style of the edifice which gave
them its concealment. Man has lost his dignity, but art has
saved it and preserved it in significant stones; truth lives on in
fiction, and from the copy the original will be restored. As noble
art survived noble nature, so too it goes before it in the inspi-
ration that awakens and creates it. Before truth sends its con-
quering light into the depths of the heart, the poetic imagination
catches its rays, and the summits of humanity begin to glow,
while the damp night is still lying in the valleys.
But how is the artist to guard himself against the corrup-
tions of his time, which encircle him on every side? By con-
tempt for its judgments. Let him look upward to his dignity
and the law of his nature, and not downward to his happiness
and his wants. Free alike from the vain activity that would fain
make its impress on the fleeting moment, and from the impa-
tient spirit of enthusiasm that measures the meagre product of
the time by the standard of absolute perfection, let him leave to
common-sense, which is here at home, the sphere of the actual;
but let him strive from the union of the possible with the neces-
sary to bring forth the ideal. Let him imprint this in fiction
and truth; let him imprint it in the play of his imagination and
in the earnestness of his deeds; imprint it in all sensible and
spiritual forms, and cast it silently into endless time.
Translation of E. P. Evans.
## p. 12913 (#339) ##########################################
12913
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
(1772-1829)
HE older Romantic school of Germany, which had its origin
in the movement inaugurated by Herder and Goethe, found
in Friedrich von Schlegel its first philosophical expounder
It is in this sense that historians refer to him as the founder of the
new school. In the pages of the Athenæum, which from 1798 to
1800 was the official organ of the Romanticists, Schlegel published
his Fragments. In these he sought to
establish upon philosophic foundations a
critical theory of romantic poetry.
In the later development of his critical
genius he was obliged to retract much that
he had promulgated in the 'Fragments'; but
these writings formed a rallying-point for
the young enthusiasts whose works ushered
in the nineteenth century. Lacking creative
power himself, Schlegel nevertheless exerted
a fine and broadening influence upon his
time. With comprehensive knowledge, phil-
osophical insight, and deep intuitional judg-
ment, he was able to put forth a body of
literary criticism which has been aptly called
"productive. " His broad synthesis, based upon careful analysis, has
given to his work a permanent inspirational value.
Friedrich von Schlegel was born in Hanover on March 10th, 1772.
He came of a family of poets and distinguished men. His father,
Johann Elias Schlegel, was the author of several tragedies in Alex-
andrines; and although he belonged to the periwig-pated age of Gott-
sched, he had called public attention to the beauties of Shakespeare.
It was his son Wilhelm, the famous critic and poet, that furnished
the classic and incomparable German versions of seventeen Shake-
spearean plays. Friedrich's two uncles, Johann Adolf and Johann
Heinrich Schlegel, were, the former a well-known poet and pulpit
orator, the latter royal historiographer of Denmark. Although Fried-
rich was reared among family traditions so entirely intellectual, he
was, strangely enough, destined for a mercantile career; but the
inherited tendencies proved too strong, and he joined his brother
Wilhelm at Göttingen. There and at Leipzig he pursued the study
XXII-808
F. VON SCHLEGEL
## p. 12914 (#340) ##########################################
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
12914
of law; in 1793; however, he abandoned this also, and the remainder
of his life was devoted to scholarly and literary labors. His mind
turned first to the Greeks, and for the literature of Greece he aspired
to do what Winckelmann had done for her art; but beyond a few
thoughtful essays his attainments in this field never grew, and in
1796 he turned all his energies to the study of modern literature and
philosophy. Fichte was the largest influence in his intellectual life;
Goethe was his idolized master in the realms of poetry. The offens-
ive tone of his reviews, however, led to a bitter unpleasantness with
Schiller. In 1797 Schlegel went to Berlin, where he began a cam-
paign against the rationalistic philistinism that dominated the intel-
lectual life of the Prussian capital. There too he entered the circle
of Tieck and Schleiermacher, and published the "Fragments. '
During this sojourn in Berlin, Schlegel met the daughter of Moses
Mendelssohn, the wife of a Jewish merchant named Veit. This was
the famous Dorothea, who played so prominent a part in the annals
of the Romantic circle. One year later she separated from her hus-
band, to live thenceforth with Friedrich von Schlegel. Their relations
have been set forth in the guise of fiction with shameless frankness,
and without poetic charm. Schlegel's 'Lucinde,' the most notorious
and unsavory product of the Romantic school, is a dire exemplification
of the author's dogma that the poet's caprice is the supreme æsthetic
law. This book became the centre of a literary strife in which
Schleiermacher undertook its defense. It has been omitted from the
later editions of Schlegel's collected works. In April 1804 Friedrich
and Dorothea were married. Four years later, following the Roman-
tic tendency, both became Catholics. Dorothea outlived her husband
by ten years. Her few writings all appeared under her husband's
name. The standard German version of Madame de Staël's 'Corinne'
was her work.
Schlegel's career was a brilliant one. For a brief space he was
tutor at Jena; but his most effective work was as a lecturer. In Paris
he made a thorough study of Persian and Hindu; and with a most
unusual scholarly equipment, including a knowledge of ancient, mod-
ern, and remote literatures, he entered the lecture field. Nor should
mention be omitted of his art studies, pursued both at Paris and in
company with the Boisserées at Cologne.
The mighty dominion of Genius and Lore,
And the infinite Circle of Song.
Strong and proud and self-depending,
Man's cold bosom beats alone:
Heart with heart divinely blending
In the love that Gods have known,
## p. 12891 (#317) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12891
Soul's sweet interchange of feeling,
Melting tears, - he never knows;
Each hard sense the hard one steeling,
Arms against a world of foes.
Alive as the wind-harp, how lightly soever
If wooed by the Zephyr, to music will quiver,
Is Woman to Hope and to Fear;
Ah, tender one! still at the shadow of grieving,
How quiver the chords - how thy bosom is heaving-
How trembles thy glance through the tear!
Man's dominion, war and labor,
Might to right the Statute gave;
Laws are in the Scythian's sabre;
Where the Mede reigned, see the Slave!
Peace and Meekness grimly routing,
Prowls the War lust, rude and wild;
Eris rages, hoarsely shouting,
Where the vanished Graces smiled.
But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth;
Of the mild realm of manners the sceptre she swayeth;
She lulls, as she looks from above,
The Discord whose hell for its victims is gaping,
And blending awhile the forever-escaping,
Whispers Hate to the Image of Love.
RIDDLES
I
THE RAINBOW
Bulwer's Translation.
F
ROM pearls her lofty bridge she weaves,
A gray sea arching proudly over;
A moment's toil the work achieves,
And on the height behold her hover!
Beneath that arch securely go
The tallest barks that ride the seas;
No burthen e'er the bridge may know,
And as thou seek'st to near-it flees!
N
·
## p. 12892 (#318) ##########################################
12892
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
First with the floods it came, to fade
As rolled the waters from the land;
Say where that wondrous arch is made,
And whose the artist's plastic hand?
II
THE MOON AND STARS
Bulwer's Translation.
O'ER a spacious pasture go
Sheep in thousands, silver-white;
As to-day we see them, so
In the oldest grandsire's sight.
They drink, never waxing old,
Life from an unfailing brook;
There's a shepherd to their fold,
With a silver-hornèd crook.
From a gate of gold let out,
Night by night he counts them over;
Wide the field they rove about,
Never hath he lost a rover.
True the Dog that helps to lead them,
One gay Ram in front we see:
What the flock, and who doth heed them,
Sheep and shepherd,- tell to me?
Bulwer's Translation.
THE POWER OF SONG
A
RAIN-FLOOD from the mountain riven,
It leaps in thunder forth to-day;
Before its rush the crags are driven,
The oaks uprooted whirled away!
Awed yet in awe all wildly gladdening-
The startled wanderer halts below;
He hears the rock-born waters maddening,
Nor wits the source from whence they go:
So, from their high, mysterious founts, along,
Stream on the silenced world the waves of song!
## p. 12893 (#319) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12893
Knit with th threads of life forever,
By those dread powers that weave the woof,-
Whose art the singer's spell can sever?
Whose breast has mail to music proof?
Lo, to the bard a wand of wonder
The herald of the gods has given;
He sinks the soul the death-realm under,
Or lifts it breathless up to heaven,-
Half sport, half earnest, rocking its devotion
Upon the tremulous ladder of emotion.
As when in hours the least unclouded,
Portentous, strides upon the scene
Some fate before from wisdom shrouded,
And awes the startled souls of men,-
Before that stranger from another,
Behold how this world's great ones bow;
Mean joys their idle clamor smother,
The mask is vanished from the brow:
And from truth's sudden, solemn flag unfurled
Fly all the craven falsehoods of the world!
―
So Song-like Fate itself—is given
To scare the idler thoughts away,
To lift the earthly up to heaven,
To wake the spirit from the clay!
One with the gods the bard: before him
All things unclean and earthly fly;
Hushed are all meaner powers, and o'er him
The dark fate swoops unharming by:
And while the soother's magic measures flow,
Smoothed every wrinkle on the brows of woe!
Even as a child, that after pining
For the sweet absent mother, hears
Her voice, and round her neck entwining
Young arms, vents all its soul in tears:
So by harsh custom far estranged,
Along the glad and guileless track,
To childhood's happy home unchanged
The swift song wafts the wanderer back,—
Snatched from the cold and formal world, and prest
By the great mother to her glowing breast!
Bulwer's Translation.
I
## p. 12894 (#320) ##########################################
12894
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
HYMN TO JOY
SPAR
PARK from the fire that gods have fed —
Joy-thou elysian child divine,
Fire-drunk, our airy footsteps tread,
O Holy One! thy holy shrine.
Strong custom rends us from each other,
Thy magic all together brings;
And man in man but hails a brother,
Wherever rest thy gentle wings.
Chorus - Embrace, ye millions-let this kiss,
Brothers, embrace the earth below!
Yon starry worlds that shine on this,
One common Father know!
He who this lot from fate can grasp,—
Of one true friend the friend to be,
He who one faithful maid can clasp,-
Shall hold with us his jubilee;
Yes, each who but one single heart
In all the earth can claim his own!
Let him who cannot, stand apart,
And weep beyond the pale, alone!
Chorus Homage to holy Sympathy,
―――
Ye dwellers in our mighty ring;
Up to yon star pavilions - she
Leads to the Unknown King!
All being drinks the mother dew
Of joy from Nature's holy bosom;
And Vice and Worth alike pursue
Her steps that strew the blossom.
Joy in each link: to us the treasure
Of Wine and Love; beneath the sod,
The worm has instincts fraught with pleasure;
In heaven the Cherub looks on God!
Chorus - Why bow ye down-why down-ye millions?
O World, thy Maker's throne to see,
Look upward - search the star pavilions:
There must his mansion be!
## p. 12895 (#321) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12895
Joy is the mainspring in the whole.
Of endless Nature's calm rotation;
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll
In the great Timepiece of Creation;
Joy breathes on buds, and flowers they are;
Joy beckons suns come forth from heaven;
Joy rolls the spheres in realms afar,—
Ne'er to thy glass, dim Wisdom, given!
Chorus - Joyous as suns careering gay
Along their paths on high,
Joy from Truth's pure and lambent fires,
Smiles out upon the ardent seeker;
Joy leads to virtue man's desires,
And cheers as Suffering's step grows weaker.
High from the sunny slopes of Faith,
The gales her waving banners buoy;
And through the shattered vaults of Death,
Lo, 'mid the choral Angels - Joy!
Chorus
March, brothers, march your dauntless way,
As chiefs to victory!
-
- Bear this life, millions, bravely bear
Bear this life for the better one!
See the stars! a life is there,
Where the reward is won.
Men like the Gods themselves may be,
Though men may not the Gods requite;
Go soothe the pangs of Misery,
Go share the gladness with delight.
Revenge and hatred both forgot,
Have naught but pardon for thy foe;
May sharp repentance grieve him not,
No curse one tear of ours bestow!
Chorus - Let all the world be peace and love,
Cancel thy debt-book with thy brother;
For God shall judge of us above,
As we shall judge each other!
Joy sparkles to us from the bowl:
Behold the juice whose golden color
To meekness melts the savage soul,
And gives Despair a hero's valor.
## p. 12896 (#322) ##########################################
12896
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Up, brothers! Lo, we crown the cup!
Lo, the wine flashes to the brim!
Let the bright fount spring heavenward! Up!
To the Good Spirit this glass! To him!
Chorus Praised by the ever-whirling ring
Of stars, and tuneful Seraphim,—
To the Good Spirit, the Father-King
In heaven! This glass to him!
Firm mind to bear what fate bestows;
Comfort to tears in sinless eyes;
Faith kept alike with friends and foes;
Man's oath eternal as the skies;
Manhood, the thrones of Kings to girth,
Though bought by life or limb the prize;
Success to merit's honest worth;
Perdition to the brood of lies!
---
Chorus-Draw closer in the holy ring;
YⓇ
Swear by the wine-cup's golden river,
Swear by the stars, and by their King,
To keep this vow forever.
THE GODS OF GREECE
Bulwer's Translation.
E IN the age gone by,
Who ruled the world a world how lovely then!
And guided still the steps of happy men
In the light leading-strings of careless joy!
Ah, flourished then your service of delight!
How different, oh how different, in the day
When thy sweet fanes with many a wreath were bright,
O Venus Amathusia!
Then, through a veil of dreams
Woven by song, truth's youthful beauty glowed,
And life's redundant and rejoicing streams
Gave to the soulless, soul-where'er they flowed.
Man gifted Nature with divinity
To lift and link her to the breast of love;
All things betrayed to the initiate eye
The track of gods above!
## p. 12897 (#323) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12897
Where lifeless- fixed afar-
A flaming ball to our dull sense is given,
Phoebus Apollo in his golden car
In silent glory swept the fields of heaven!
On yonder hill the Oread was adored;
―
In yonder tree the Dryad held her home;
And from her urn the gentle Naiad poured
The wavelet's silver foam.
Yon bay chaste Daphne wreathed;
Yon stone was mournful Niobe's mute cell;
Low through yon sedges pastoral Syrinx breathed,
And through those groves wailed the sweet Philomel,
The tears of Ceres swelled in yonder rill—
Shed for Proserpina to Hades borne;
And for her lost Adonis, yonder hill
Heard Cytherea mourn!
Heaven's shapes were charmed unto
The mortal race of old Deucalion:
Pyrrha's fair daughter humanly to woo,
Came down, in shepherd's guise, Latona's son;
Between men, heroes, gods, harmonious then,
Love wove sweet links and sympathies divine,
Blest Amathusia,-heroes, gods, and men,
Equals before thy shrine!
Not to that culture gay,
Stern self-denial or sharp penance wan!
Well might each heart be happy in that day,
For gods, the happy ones, were kin to man!
The beautiful alone the holy there!
No pleasure shamed the gods of that young race;
So that the chaste Camenæ favoring were,
And the subduing Grace!
A palace every shrine;
Your very sports heroic;-yours the crown
Of contests hallowed to a power divine,
As rushed the chariots thundering to renown.
Fair round the altar where the incense breathed,
Moved your melodious dance inspired; and fair
Above victorious brows, the garland wreathed
Sweet leaves round odorous hair!
XXII-807
## p. 12898 (#324) ##########################################
12898
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
The lively Thyrsus-swinger,
And the wild car the exulting panthers bore,
Announced the presence of the rapture-bringer;
Bounded the satyr and blithe faun before;
And Mænads, as the frenzy stung the soul,
Hymned in their madding dance the glorious wine,
As ever beckoned to the lusty bowl
The ruddy host divine!
Before the bed of death
No ghastly spectre stood; but from the porch
Of life-the lip-one kiss inhaled the breath,
And the mute graceful genius lowered a torch.
The judgment balance of the realms below,
A judge himself of mortal lineage held;
The very Furies, at the Thracian's woe,
Were moved and music-spelled.
In the Elysian grove
The shades renewed the pleasures life held dear:
The faithful spouse rejoined remembered love,
And rushed along the meads the charioteer;
There Linus poured the old accustomed strain;
Admetus there Alcestis still could greet; won
Orestes hath his faithful friend again,
His arrows Poeas's son.
More glorious then the meeds
That in their strife with labor nerved the brave,
To the great doer of renowned deeds,
The Hebe and the heaven the Thunderer gave.
Before the rescued rescuer of the dead,
Bowed down the silent and immortal host;
And the twin stars their guiding lustre shed
On the bark tempest-tost!
Art thou, fair world, no more?
Return, thou virgin bloom on nature's face;-
Ah, only on the minstrel's magic shore,
Can we the footstep of sweet fable trace!
The meadows mourn for the old hallowing life;
Vainly we search the earth, of gods bereft;
Where once the warm and living shapes were rife,
Shadows alone are left!
## p. 12899 (#325) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12899
Cold from the north has gone
Over the flowers the blast that killed their May;
And to enrich the worship of the One,
A universe of gods must pass away!
Mourning, I search on yonder starry steeps,
But thee no more, Selene, there I see!
And through the woods I call, and o'er the deeps,
And-Echo answers me!
Deaf to the joys she gives,
Blind to the pomp of which she is possessed,
Unconscious of the spiritual power that lives
Around and rules her, by our bliss unblessed,
Dull to the art that colors or creates,-
Like the dead timepiece, godless nature creeps
Her plodding round, and by the leaden weights
The slavish motion keeps.
To-morrow to receive
New life, she digs her proper grave to-day;
And icy moons with weary sameness weave
From their own light their fullness and decay.
Home to the poets' land the gods are flown;
Light use in them that later world discerns,
Which, the diviner leading-strings outgrown,
On its own axle turns.
Home! and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard;
Life's beauty and life's melody; - alone
Broods o'er the desolate void the lifeless word:
Yet rescued from Time's deluge, still they throng
Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish:
Ah, that which gains immortal life in song,
To mortal life must perish!
Bulwer's Translation.
## p. 12900 (#326) ##########################################
12900
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
THE ARTISTS
[Only the concluding lines of this long and beautiful poem are given, in
which Schiller embodies his conceptions of the mission of art (in its broadest
sense, including poetry and all creations of the imagination), and of its rela-
tions to philosophy and science. ]
IT
F ON the course of Thought, now barrier-free,
Sweeps the glad search of bold Philosophy;
And with self-pæans and a vain renown
Would claim the praise and arrogate the crown,
Holding but as a soldier in her band
The nobler Art that did in truth command;
And grants, beneath her visionary throne,
To Art, her queen, the slave's first rank alone,—
Pardon the vaunt! For you Perfection all
Her star-gems weaves in one bright coronal!
With you, the first blooms of the spring, began
Awakening Nature in the soul of man!
With you fulfilled, when Nature seeks repose,
Autumn's exulting harvests ripely close.
If Art rose plastic from the stone and clay,
To mind from matter ever sweeps its sway;
Silent, but conquering in its silence, lo,
How o'er the spiritual world its triumphs go!
What in the land of knowledge, wide and far,
Keen science teaches, for you discovered are:
First in your arms the wise their wisdom learn,—
They dig the mine you teach them to discern;
And when that wisdom ripens to the flower
And crowning time of Beauty,-to the power
From whence it rose new stores it must impart,
The toils of science swell the wealth of art.
When to one height the sage ascends with you,
And spreads the vale of matter round his view
In the mild twilight of serene repose,-
The more the artist charms, the more the thinker knows.
The more the shapes in intellectual joy
Linked by the genii which your spells employ,
The more the thought with the emotion blends,-
The more upbuoyed by both the soul ascends
To loftier harmonies and heavenlier things,
And tracks the stream of beauty to its springs.
## p. 12901 (#327) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12901
The lovely members of the mighty whole,
Till then confused and shapeless to his soul,
Distinct and glorious grow upon his sight;
The fair enigmas brighten from the night;
More rich the universe his thoughts inclose,
More wide the ocean with whose wave he flows;
The wrath of fate grows feebler to his fears,
As from God's scheme Chance wanes and disappears;
And as each straining impulse soars above,
How his pride lessens, how augments love!
So, scattering blooms, the still guide Poetry
Leads him through paths, though hid, that mount on high,
Through forms and tones more pure and more sublime,—
Alp upon Alp of beauty,- till the time
When what we long as poetry have nurst,
Shall às God's own swift inspiration burst,
And flash in glory, on that youngest day,—
One with the truth to which it wings the way!
O sons of Art! into your hands consigned,
O heed the trust, O heed it and revere!
The liberal dignity of human-kind!
With you to sink, with you to reappear.
The hallowed melody of Magian song
Does to creation as a link belong,
Blending its music with God's harmony,
As rivers melt into the mighty sea.
Truth, when the age she would reform expels,
Flies for safe refuge to the Muses' cells.
More fearful for the veil of charms she takes,
From song the fullness of her splendor breaks;
And o'er the foe that persecutes and quails
Her vengeance thunders, as the bard prevails.
Rise, ye free sons of the free Mother, rise:
Still on the light of Beauty sun your eyes;
Still to the heights that shine afar aspire,
Nor meaner meads than those she gives, desire.
If here the sister Art forsake awhile,
Elude the clasp, and vanish from the toil:
Go seek and find her at the mother's heart;
Go search for Nature - and arrive at Art!
Ever the Perfect dwells in whatsoe'er
Fair souls conceive and recognize as fair!
Borne on your daring pinions, soar sublime
Above the shoal and eddy of the time.
## p. 12902 (#328) ##########################################
12902
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Far-glimmering on your wizard mirror, see
The silent shadow of the age to be.
Through all life's thousandfold entangled maze,
One godlike bourne your gifted sight surveys;
Through countless means one solemn end foreshown,
The labyrinth closes at a single Throne.
As in seven tints of variegated light
Breaks the lone shimmer of the lucid white,
As the seven tints that paint the Iris bow
Into the lucid white dissolving flow,-
-
So truth in many-colored splendor plays:
Now on the eye enchanted with the rays;
Now in one lustre gathers every beam,
And floods the world with light—a single stream!
Bulwer's Translation.
EXTRACTS FROM THE SONG OF THE BELL'
SEE
EE the mold of clay, well heated,
In the earth walled firmly, stand.
Be the bell to-day created!
Come, my comrades, be at hand!
From the glowing brow
Sweat must freely flow,
So the work the master showeth;
Yet the blessing Heaven bestoweth.
The work we earnestly are doing
Befitteth well an earnest word;
Then toil goes on, more briskly flowing,
When good discourse is also heard.
So let us then with care now ponder
What through weak strength originates:
To him no reverence can we render,
Who never heeds what he creates.
'Tis this indeed that man most graceth,
For this 'tis his to understand,-
That in his inner heart he traceth
What he produces with his hand.
See how brown the pipes are getting!
This little rod I dip it in;
If it show a glazèd coating,
Then the casting may begin.
## p. 12903 (#329) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12903
Now my lads, enough!
Prove me now the stuff,
The brittle with the tough combining,
See if they be rightly joining.
For when the strong and mild are pairing,
The manly with the tender sharing,
Then is the concord good and strong.
See ye, who join in endless union,
If heart with heart be in communion!
For fancy's brief, repentance long.
Be the casting now beginning;
Finely jagged is the grain.
But before we set it running,
Let us breathe a pious strain.
Let the metal go!
God protect us now!
Through the bending handle hollow
Smoking shoots the fire-brown billow.
Benignant is the might of flame,
When man keeps watch and makes it tame;
In what he fashions, what he makes,
Help from this heaven's force he takes:
But fearful is this heaven's force
When all unfettered in its course;
It steps forth on its own fierce way,
Thy daughter, Nature, wild and free.
Woe! when once emancipated,
With naught her power to withstand,
Through the streets thick populated,
Waves she high her monstrous brand!
By the elements is hated
What is formed by mortal hand.
From the tower,
Heavy and slow,
Tolls the funeral
Note of woe,
Sad and solemn, with its knell attending
Some new wanderer on the last way wending.
•
Ah! the wife it is, the dear one,
Ah! it is the faithful mother,
Whom the angel dark is tearing
From the husband's arms endearing,
## p. 12904 (#330) ##########################################
12904
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
From the group of children, far,
Whom she, blooming, to him bare,
Whom she on her faithful breast
Saw with joy maternal rest;
Ah! the household ties so tender
Broken are for evermore,
For the shadow-land now holds her,
Who the household rulèd o'er!
For her faithful guidance ceases;
No more keepeth watch her care;
In the void and orphaned places
Rules the stranger, loveless there.
•
Woe! if, heaped up, the fire-tinder
Should the still heart of cities fill,
Their fetters rending all asunder,
The people work then their own will!
Then at the bell-ropes tuggeth riot;
The bell gives forth a wailing sound,-
Sacred to peace alone and quiet,
For blood it rings the signal round.
"Equality and Freedom" howling,
Rushes to arms the citizen,
And bloody-minded bands are prowling,
And streets and halls are filled with men;
Then women, to hyenas changing,
On bloody horrors feast and laugh,
And with the thirst of panthers ranging.
The blood of hearts yet quivering quaff.
Naught sacred is there more, for breaking
Are all the bands of pious awe;
The good man's place the bad are taking,
And vice acknowledges no law.
'Tis dangerous to rouse the lion,
Deadly to cross the tiger's path,
But the most terrible of terrors
Is man himself in his wild wrath.
Alas! when to the ever blinded
The heavenly torch of light is lent!
It guides him not,-it can but kindle
Whole States in flames and ruin blent.
Translation of William H. Furness.
## p. 12905 (#331) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12905
TRONGLY it bears us along in swelling and limitless billows,
Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean.
Coleridge's Translation.
WHAT
THE EPIC HEXAMETER
MA
IN
IN THE hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.
THE DISTICH
MY CREED
T's the religion I confess? Well, none of all those
Which you mention. Why none? From sense of religion.
Translation Anonymous.
-
Coleridge's Translation.
KANT AND HIS INTERPRETERS
H
ow one man of wealth gives a living to whole hosts of beggars!
If kings only build, the carters have plenty to do.
Translation Anonymous.
AX PICCOLOMINI [advancing to Wallenstein] —
My general!
Wallenstein -
FROM WALLENSTEIN'S DEATH ›
That I am no longer, if
Thou styl'st thyself the Emperor's officer.
Then thou wilt leave the army, general?
Max-
Wallenstein I have renounced the service of the Emperor.
Max-
And thou wilt leave the army?
Wallenstein.
Rather I hope
To bind it nearer still and faster to me.
[He seats himself.
Yes, Max, I have delayed to open it to thee,
Even till the hour of acting 'gins to strike.
Youth's fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right,-yea, and a joy it is
## p. 12906 (#332) ##########################################
12906
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Max
To exercise the single apprehension
Where the sums square in proof;
But where it happens that of two sure evils
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties,
There 'tis a blessing to have no election,
And blank necessity is grace and favor.
This is now present. Do not look behind thee!
It can no more avail thee. Look thou forwards!
Think not! Judge not! Prepare thyself to act!
The Court-it hath determined on my ruin,
Therefore I will to be beforehand with them.
We'll join the Swedes-right gallant fellows are they,
And our good friends.
[He rises and retires to the back of the stage. Max remains for a long
time motionless, in a trance of excessive anguish. At his first motion
Wallenstein returns, and places himself before him. ]
Max
[He stops himself, expecting Piccolomini's answer.
I have ta'en thee by surprise. Answer me not.
I grant thee time to recollect thyself.
My general, this day thou makest me
Of age to speak in my own right and person;
For till this day I have been spared the trouble
To find out my own road. Thee have I followed
With most implicit, unconditional faith,
Sure of the right path if I followed thee.
To-day, for the first time, dost thou refer
Me to myself, and forcest me to make
Election between thee and my own heart.
Wallenstein-Soft cradled thee thy fortune till to-day:
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport,
Indulge all lovely instincts, act for ever
With undivided heart. It can remain
No longer thus. Like enemies, the roads
Start from each other, duties strive with duties:
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war
Which is now kindling 'twixt thy friend and him
Who is thy Emperor.
War! is that the name?
War is as frightful as Heaven's pestilence;
Yet it is good, is it Heaven's will, as that is.
Is that a good war, which against the Emperor
Thou wagest with the Emperor's own army?
## p. 12907 (#333) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12907
Wallenstein —
Max
Wallenstein
Max
――
O God of heaven! What a change is this!
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion
To thee, who, like the fixed star of the Pole,
Wert all I gazed at on life's trackless ocean?
Oh, what a rent thou makest in my heart!
The ingrained instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obediency —
Must I pluck life asunder from thy name?
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me:
It always was a god looking at me!
-
Duke Wallenstein, its power is not departed:
The senses still are in thy bonds; although,
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.
Max, hear me.
Oh! do it not, I pray thee, do it not!
There is a pure and noble soul within thee
Knows not of this unblest, unlucky doing.
Thy will is chaste; it is thy fancy only
Which hath polluted thee - and innocence.
It will not let itself be driven away
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not,
Thou canst not, end in this. It would reduce
All human creatures to disloyalty
Against the nobleness of their own nature.
'Twill justify the vulgar misbelief
Which holdeth nothing noble in free-will,
And trusts itself to impotence alone,
Made powerful only in an unknown power.
The world will judge me sternly: I expect it.
Already have I said to my own self
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids
Th' extreme, can he by going round avoid it?
But here there is no choice. Yes, I must use
Or suffer violence,- so stands the case;
There remains nothing possible but that.
So be it then! Maintain thee in thy post
By violence. Resist the Emperor,
And if it must be, force with force repel.
I will not praise it, yet I can forgive it.
But do not be a traitor - yes! the word
Is spoken out-be not a traitor.
That is no mere excess! that is no error
Of human nature; that is wholly different;
Oh, that is black, black as the pit of hell! .
## p. 12908 (#334) ##########################################
12908
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
Oh, turn back to thy duty. That thou canst
I hold it certain. Send me to Vienna.
I'll make thy peace for thee with the Emperor.
He knows thee not. But I do know thee. He
Shall see thee, duke, with my unclouded eye,
And I bring back his confidence to thee.
Wallenstein It is too late. Thou know'st not what has happened.
Max-
Were it too late, and were it gone so far,
That a crime only could prevent thy fall,
Then-fall! fall honorably, even as thou stood'st.
Lose the command. Go from the stage of war.
Thou canst with splendor do it—do it too
With innocence. Thou hast lived much for others:
At length live thou for thy own self. I follow thee.
My destiny I never part from thine.
Wallenstein-It is too late. Even now, while thou art losing
-
Thy words, one after the other are the mile-stones
Left fast behind by my post couriers,
Who bear the order on to Prague and Egra.
[Max stands as convulsed, with a gesture and countenance expressing the
most intense anguish. ]
Yield thyself to it. We act as we are forced.
I cannot give assent to my own shame
And ruin. Thou- no-thou canst not forsake me!
So let us do what must be done, with dignity,
With a firm step. What am I doing worse
Than did famed Cæsar at the Rubicon,
When he the legions led against his country,
The which his country had delivered to him?
Had he thrown down the sword he had been lost,
As I were if I but disarmed myself.
I trace out something in me of his spirit.
Give me his luck, that other thing I'll bear.
Coleridge's Translation.
## p. 12909 (#335) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12909
THE ICONOCLASTS
From the History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands': date 1556
THE
HE commencement of the attack on images took place in West
Flanders and Artois, in the district between Lys and the
sea. A frantic band of artisans, boatmen, and peasants,
mixed with public prostitutes, beggars, and thievish vagabonds,
about three hundred in number, provided with clubs, axes, ham-
mers, ladders, and cords, only few among them furnished with
firearms and daggers, cast themselves, inspired with fanatical
fury, into the villages and hamlets near St. Omer; burst the gates
of such churches and cloisters as they find locked, overthrow the
altars, dash to pieces the images of the saints and trample them
under foot. Still more inflamed by this execrable deed, and re-
inforced by fresh accessions, they press forward straightway to
Ypres, where they can count on a strong following of Calvinists.
Unopposed they break into the cathedral; the walls are mounted
with ladders, the pictures are beaten into fragments with ham-
mers, the pulpits and pews hewn to pieces with axes, the altars
stripped of their ornaments, and the sacred vessels stolen. This
example is immediately followed in Menin, Comines, Verrich,
Lille, and Oudenarde; the same fury in a few days seizes the
whole of Flanders. At the very time when the first tidings of
these events arrived, Antwerp was swarming with a crowd of
homeless people, which the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin
had brought together in that city. The presence of the Prince
of Orange can scarcely keep within bounds the licentious band,
who burn to imitate their brothers in St. Omer; but an order
of the court which summons him in haste to Brussels, where the
regentess is just convening her council of State in order to lay
before them the royal letters, obliges him to abandon Antwerp
to the wantonness of this band. His departure is the signal for
tumult. From fear of the lawless violence of the mob, which
manifested itself in derisive allusions in the very first days of the
festival, the image of the Virgin, after having been carried about
for a short time, was brought for safety to the choir, without
being set up as formerly in the middle of the church. This
incited some impudent boys of the common people to pay it a
visit there, and scoffingly to inquire why it had recently absented
itself in such haste? Others mounted the pulpit, where they
mimicked the preacher and challenged the papists to contest.
## p. 12910 (#336) ##########################################
12910
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
A Catholic boatman, who was indignant at this jest, wished to
pull them down from thence; and it came to blows in the
preacher's seat. Similar scenes occurred the following evening.
The numbers increased, and many came provided with suspi-
cious implements and secret weapons. Finally it occurred to one
of them to cry "Long live the Geuses! " Immediately the whole
rabble took up the cry, and the Virgin was called upon to do the
same. The few Catholics who were there, and who had given
up the hope of effecting anything against these desperadoes, left
the church after they had locked all the doors except one.
As
soon as they found themselves alone, it was proposed to sing
one of the psalms according to the new melody, which was forbid-
den by the government. While they were yet singing, they all
cast themselves with fury upon the image of the Virgin, piercing
it through with swords and daggers, and striking off its head;
prostitutes and thieves snatched the great wax-lights from the
altars and lighted them to the work. The beautiful organ of the
church a masterpiece of the art of that period- was broken in
fragments; the paintings were defaced and the statues dashed to
pieces. A crucified Christ of life size, which was set up between
the two thieves opposite the high altar,—an old and highly prized
work, was pulled to the ground with cords and cut to pieces.
with axes, while the two murderers at its side were respectfully
spared. The holy wafers were strewed on the ground and tram-
pled under foot; in the wine for the celebration of the Lord's
Supper, which was accidentally found there, the health of the
Geuses was drunk; with the holy oil they greased their shoes.
Graves even were rummaged, and the half-decayed corpses taken
out and trampled under foot. All this was done with as won-
derful regularity as if the parts had been assigned to each one
beforehand; every one worked into his neighbor's hands. Danger-
ous as this business was, no one met with any injury, notwith-
standing the dense darkness, notwithstanding the heavy objects
which fell around and near them, while many were scuffling
on the highest steps of the ladders. Notwithstanding the many
tapers which lighted them in their villainous doings, not a sin-
gle individual was recognized. With incredible rapidity the deed
was accomplished; in a few hours a hundred men, at most, de-
spoiled a temple of seventy altars, and next to St. Peter's in
Rome perhaps the largest and most magnificent in Christendom.
Translation of E. P. Evans.
-
## p. 12911 (#337) ##########################################
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
12911
Τ"
THE LAST INTERVIEW OF ORANGE WITH EGMONT
From the History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands': date 1567
HE warning of Orange came from a sad and dispirited heart;
and for Egmont the world still smiled. To quit the lap
of abundance, of affluence and splendor, in which he had
grown up to youth and manhood, to part from all the thousand
comforts of life which alone made it of value to him, and all this
in order to escape an evil which his buoyant courage regarded
as still far off,- no, that was not a sacrifice which could be asked
from Egmont. But even had he been less self-indulgent than he
was, with what heart could he have made a princess pampered
by long prosperity-a loving wife and children, on whom his
soul hung-acquainted with privations at which his own courage.
sank, which a sublime philosophy alone can exact from sensuality?
"Thou wilt never persuade me, Orange," said Egmont, "to see
things in this gloomy light in which they appear to thy mourn-
ful prudence. When I have succeeded in abolishing the public
preachings, in chastising the iconoclasts, in crushing the rebels
and restoring their former quiet to the provinces, what can the
King have against me? The King is kind and just, and I have
earned claims upon his gratitude; and I must not forget what I
owe to myself. " "Well then," exclaimed Orange with indignation
and inner anguish, "risk the trust in this royal gratitude! But
a mournful presentiment tells me- and may Heaven grant that I
may be deceived! -thou wilt be the bridge, Egmont, over which
the Spaniards will pass into the country, and which they will
destroy when they have passed over it. " He drew him, after he
had said this, with ardor to himself, and clasped him fervently
and firmly in his arms. Long, as though for the rest of his life,
he kept his eyes fixed upon him and shed tears.
never saw each other again.
They
Translation of E. P. Evans.
ON THE ESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN
Extract from Letter No. 9
THE
HE artist, it is true, is the son of his age; but woe be to him
if he is also its pupil, or even its favorite. Let a benefi-
cent divinity snatch him betimes as a suckling from his
mother's breast, nurse him with the milk of a better time, and
## p. 12912 (#338) ##########################################
12912
JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH SCHILLER
let him ripen to manhood beneath a distant Grecian sky. Then
when he has attained his full growth, let him return, a foreign
shape, into his century; not however to delight it by his pres-
ence, but terrible, like Agamemnon's son, to purify it. The
subject-matter he will of course take from the present; but the
form he will derive from a nobler time, or rather from beyond
all time,- from the absolute, unchangeable unity of his own
being. Here, from the pure ether of his spiritual nature, flows
down the fountain of beauty, uncontaminated by the corruption
of generations and ages, which welter in turbid whirlpools far
beneath it. The matter caprice can dishonor, as she has en-
nobled it; but the chaste form is withdrawn from her mutations.
The Roman of the first century had long bent the knee before
his emperors when the statues were still standing erect; the tem-
ples remained holy to the eye when the gods had long served as
a laughing-stock, and the infamies of a Nero and a Commodus
were put to shame by the noble style of the edifice which gave
them its concealment. Man has lost his dignity, but art has
saved it and preserved it in significant stones; truth lives on in
fiction, and from the copy the original will be restored. As noble
art survived noble nature, so too it goes before it in the inspi-
ration that awakens and creates it. Before truth sends its con-
quering light into the depths of the heart, the poetic imagination
catches its rays, and the summits of humanity begin to glow,
while the damp night is still lying in the valleys.
But how is the artist to guard himself against the corrup-
tions of his time, which encircle him on every side? By con-
tempt for its judgments. Let him look upward to his dignity
and the law of his nature, and not downward to his happiness
and his wants. Free alike from the vain activity that would fain
make its impress on the fleeting moment, and from the impa-
tient spirit of enthusiasm that measures the meagre product of
the time by the standard of absolute perfection, let him leave to
common-sense, which is here at home, the sphere of the actual;
but let him strive from the union of the possible with the neces-
sary to bring forth the ideal. Let him imprint this in fiction
and truth; let him imprint it in the play of his imagination and
in the earnestness of his deeds; imprint it in all sensible and
spiritual forms, and cast it silently into endless time.
Translation of E. P. Evans.
## p. 12913 (#339) ##########################################
12913
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
(1772-1829)
HE older Romantic school of Germany, which had its origin
in the movement inaugurated by Herder and Goethe, found
in Friedrich von Schlegel its first philosophical expounder
It is in this sense that historians refer to him as the founder of the
new school. In the pages of the Athenæum, which from 1798 to
1800 was the official organ of the Romanticists, Schlegel published
his Fragments. In these he sought to
establish upon philosophic foundations a
critical theory of romantic poetry.
In the later development of his critical
genius he was obliged to retract much that
he had promulgated in the 'Fragments'; but
these writings formed a rallying-point for
the young enthusiasts whose works ushered
in the nineteenth century. Lacking creative
power himself, Schlegel nevertheless exerted
a fine and broadening influence upon his
time. With comprehensive knowledge, phil-
osophical insight, and deep intuitional judg-
ment, he was able to put forth a body of
literary criticism which has been aptly called
"productive. " His broad synthesis, based upon careful analysis, has
given to his work a permanent inspirational value.
Friedrich von Schlegel was born in Hanover on March 10th, 1772.
He came of a family of poets and distinguished men. His father,
Johann Elias Schlegel, was the author of several tragedies in Alex-
andrines; and although he belonged to the periwig-pated age of Gott-
sched, he had called public attention to the beauties of Shakespeare.
It was his son Wilhelm, the famous critic and poet, that furnished
the classic and incomparable German versions of seventeen Shake-
spearean plays. Friedrich's two uncles, Johann Adolf and Johann
Heinrich Schlegel, were, the former a well-known poet and pulpit
orator, the latter royal historiographer of Denmark. Although Fried-
rich was reared among family traditions so entirely intellectual, he
was, strangely enough, destined for a mercantile career; but the
inherited tendencies proved too strong, and he joined his brother
Wilhelm at Göttingen. There and at Leipzig he pursued the study
XXII-808
F. VON SCHLEGEL
## p. 12914 (#340) ##########################################
FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL
12914
of law; in 1793; however, he abandoned this also, and the remainder
of his life was devoted to scholarly and literary labors. His mind
turned first to the Greeks, and for the literature of Greece he aspired
to do what Winckelmann had done for her art; but beyond a few
thoughtful essays his attainments in this field never grew, and in
1796 he turned all his energies to the study of modern literature and
philosophy. Fichte was the largest influence in his intellectual life;
Goethe was his idolized master in the realms of poetry. The offens-
ive tone of his reviews, however, led to a bitter unpleasantness with
Schiller. In 1797 Schlegel went to Berlin, where he began a cam-
paign against the rationalistic philistinism that dominated the intel-
lectual life of the Prussian capital. There too he entered the circle
of Tieck and Schleiermacher, and published the "Fragments. '
During this sojourn in Berlin, Schlegel met the daughter of Moses
Mendelssohn, the wife of a Jewish merchant named Veit. This was
the famous Dorothea, who played so prominent a part in the annals
of the Romantic circle. One year later she separated from her hus-
band, to live thenceforth with Friedrich von Schlegel. Their relations
have been set forth in the guise of fiction with shameless frankness,
and without poetic charm. Schlegel's 'Lucinde,' the most notorious
and unsavory product of the Romantic school, is a dire exemplification
of the author's dogma that the poet's caprice is the supreme æsthetic
law. This book became the centre of a literary strife in which
Schleiermacher undertook its defense. It has been omitted from the
later editions of Schlegel's collected works. In April 1804 Friedrich
and Dorothea were married. Four years later, following the Roman-
tic tendency, both became Catholics. Dorothea outlived her husband
by ten years. Her few writings all appeared under her husband's
name. The standard German version of Madame de Staël's 'Corinne'
was her work.
Schlegel's career was a brilliant one. For a brief space he was
tutor at Jena; but his most effective work was as a lecturer. In Paris
he made a thorough study of Persian and Hindu; and with a most
unusual scholarly equipment, including a knowledge of ancient, mod-
ern, and remote literatures, he entered the lecture field. Nor should
mention be omitted of his art studies, pursued both at Paris and in
company with the Boisserées at Cologne.
