No More Learning



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BUS
SIR ISAAC NEWTON.
B Crasch


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LAL ST
(
STON


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NEWTON


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10619
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
(1642-1727)
T HAS been said that the history of Sir Isaac Newton is also
the history of science; yet the character of his life and work
does not entirely exclude him from the category of men of
letters. While his great book the 'Principia' is written in Latin and
treats of mathematics, its tremendous scope and magnificent revela-
tions entitle it to be placed without incongruity among those works
which, like 'Paradise Lost' or the 'Divine Comedy,' have widened
men's outlook into the universe. Milton and Dante dealt with the
spiritual order of creation, Sir Isaac Newton with the material; yet
to those who perceive an almost mystical significance in numbers,—
to whom mathematics are, in a sense, gateways to the unseen,- the
author of the 'Principia' and of the Treatise on Optics' will seem
scarcely less a teacher than the poets.
The life of Sir Isaac Newton, in its harmony, in the smoothness
of its course, in the perfection of its development, seems singularly
expressive of the science to which it was dedicated. From the time
when as a village boy he made water-wheels and kite-lanterns for
his companions, to the hour when full of years and honors he passed
away, the life of Newton was a series of orderly progresses towards a
fixed goal.
He was born in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, on December 25th, 1642.
His father, who had died before his birth, had been lord and farmer
of the little manor of Woolsthorpe. Newton's mother designed that
he should perform the same office, removing him from Grantham
School for this purpose when he was about fifteen years old. New-
ton soon showed that the yeoman's life was not congenial to him.
He would read a book under a hedge, or construct a water-wheel
for the meadow brook, while the sheep strayed and the cattle were
treading down the corn. He was therefore sent back to the school,
where he had already earned a reputation for industry. If the legend
be true, his first stimulus to study was a well-directed kick in the
stomach delivered by the boy next above him in class. It was char-
acteristic of his gentle nature that the only path of revenge open
to him was through his superior intellect. From Grantham School,
Newton went to Trinity College, Cambridge, in the year 1660. His
mathematical genius soon manifested itself. About the year 1663 he


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10620
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
invented the formula known as the Binomial Theorem, by which he
afterwards established his method of fluxions. He had been admitted
to Cambridge as a subsizar. He became a scholar in 1664, and in
1665 he took his degree as Bachelor of Arts. In 1667 he was made
Junior Fellow, and in 1668 he took his Master of Arts degree, and
was appointed to a Senior Fellowship. In 1669 he became Lucasian
professor of mathematics. In the eight years between Newton's ad-
mission to the University and his promotion to this chair, the germs
of his great discoveries had come into existence. During his long
after life they were but brought to a perfect development. The
keystone of the 'Principia,' the principle of Universal Gravitation,-
that every particle of matter is attracted by or gravitates to every
other particle of matter with a force inversely proportional to the
squares of their distances, this principle had suggested itself to New-
ton as early as 1666; but the great work in which it was embodied
was not presented to the Royal Society until 1687. The Treatise
on Optics' was based on Newton's Cambridge experiments with the
prism and with the telescope, which had led to his being made a
member of the Royal Society in 1672. He was obliged to contend
with the most noted scientists of his time for the principle of this
book, that light is not homogeneous but consists of rays, some of
which are more refrangible than others. His triumph was as much
a matter of course as the workings of natural law. His contempo-
raries accepted his conclusions when they realized that he was more
deeply in the secret of the universe than any man had ever been.
The honors accorded to him were numerous. In 1688 he was
elected by his university to the Convention Parliament. In 1696 he
was made Warden, and in 1699 Master of the Mint. In 1701 he was
again returned to Parliament. He was made president of the Royal
Society in 1703. In 1705 he was knighted by Queen Anne. Upon
his death in 1727, he was buried in Westminster Abbey in the state
befitting his princely endowments.
The words of Newton shortly before his death, that he seemed to
himself "like a boy playing on the sea-shore, diverting himself in
now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordi-
nary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him,"
are significant of his habitual humility and reverence. His soul was
childlike in the presence of mysteries to which he held one key.
His bequests to posterity are not only his stupendous discoveries, but
the example of the scientific temper of mind which is positive rather
than negative, and which seeks a spiritual order behind the veil of
matter.


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SIR ISAAC NEWTON
10621
LETTER TO FRANCIS ASTOR IN 1669
INCE in your letter you give me so much liberty of spending
S my judgment about what may be to your advantage in
traveling, I shall do it more freely than perhaps otherwise.
would have been decent. First, then, I will lay down some gen-
eral rules, most of which, I believe, you have considered already:
but if any of them be new to you, they may excuse the rest; if
none at all, yet is my punishment more in writing than yours in
reading.
When you come into any fresh company:-
:-1. Observe their
humors. 2. Suit your own carriage thereto, by which insinuation
you will make their converse more free and open. 3. Let your
discourse be more in queries and doubtings than peremptory as-
sertions or disputings; it being the design of travelers to learn,
not to teach. Besides it will persuade your acquaintance that
you have the greater esteem of them, and so make them more
ready to communicate what they know to you; whereas nothing
sooner occasions disrespect and quarrels than peremptoriness.
You will find little or no advantage in seeming wiser or much
more ignorant than your company. 4. Seldom discommend any-
thing though never so bad, or do it but moderately, lest you be
unexpectedly forced to an unhandsome retraction. It is safer to
commend anything more than it deserves, than to discommend a
thing so much as it deserves; for commendations meet not so
often with oppositions, or at least are not usually so ill resented
by men that think otherwise, as discommendations: and you will
insinuate into men's favor by nothing sooner than seeming to
approve and commend what they like; but beware of doing it by
comparison. 5. If you be affronted, it is better, in a foreign
country, to pass it by in silence and with a jest, though with
some dishonor, than to endeavor revenge: for in the first case,
your credit's ne'er the worse when you return into England, or
come into other company that have not heard of the quarrel;
but in the second case, you may bear the marks of the quarrel
while you live, if you outlive it at all. But if you find yourself
unavoidably engaged, 'tis best I think, if you can command your
passion and language, to keep them pretty evenly at some cer-
tain moderate pitch; not much heightening them to exasperate
your adversary, or provoke his friends, nor letting them grow
overmuch dejected to make him insult. In a word, if you can


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10622
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
keep reason above passion, that and watchfulness will be your
best defendants. To which purpose you may consider, that
though such excuses as this-He provoked me so much I could
not forbear-may pass among friends, yet amongst strangers
they are insignificant, and only argue a traveler's weakness.
To these I may add some general heads for inquiries or
observations, such as at present I can think on. As,-1. To
observe the policies, wealth, and State affairs of nations, so far
as a solitary traveler may conveniently do. 2. Their impositions
upon all sorts of people, trades, or commodities, that are remark-
able. 3. Their laws and customs, how far they differ from ours
4. Their trades and arts, wherein they excel or come short of us
in England. 5. Such fortifications as you shall meet with, their
fashion, strength, and advantages for defense, and other such
military affairs as are considerable. 6. The power and respect
belonging to their degrees of nobility or magistracy.
7. It
will not be time misspent to make a catalogue of the names
and excellencies of those men that are most wise, learned, or
esteemed in any nation. 8. Observe the mechanism and manner
of guiding ships. 9. Observe the products of nature in several
places, especially in mines, with the circumstances of mining and
of extracting metals or minerals out of their ore, and of refining,
them; and if you meet with any transmutations out of their own
species into another (as out of iron into copper, out of any
metal into quicksilver, out of one salt into another, or into an
insipid body, etc. ), those above all will be worth your noting,
being the most luciferous, and many times lucriferous experi-
ments too, in philosophy. 10. The prices of diet and other
things. 11. And the staple commodities of places.
These generals (such as at present I could think of), if they
will serve for nothing else, yet they may assist you in drawing
up a model to regulate your travels by. As for particulars, these
that follow are all that I can now think of; —viz. , I. Whether
at Schemnitium in Hungary (where there are mines of gold,
copper, iron, vitriol, antimony, etc. ) they change iron into copper
by dissolving it in a vitriolate water, which they find in cavities.
of rocks in the mines, and then melting the slimy solution in a
strong fire, which in the cooling proves copper. The like is said
to be done in other places which I cannot now remember; per-
haps too it may be done in Italy. For about twenty or thirty
years agone there was a certain vitriol came from thence (called


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SIR ISAAC NEWTON
10623
Roman vitriol), but of a nobler virtue than that which is now
called by that name; which vitriol is not now to be gotten,
because perhaps they make a greater gain by some such trick
as turning iron into copper with it than by selling it. 2. Whether
in Hungary, Sclavonia, Bohemia, near the town Eila, or at the
mountains of Bohemia near Silesia, there be rivers whose waters
are impregnated with gold; perhaps, the gold being dissolved by
some corrosive water like aqua regis, and the solution carried
along with the stream that runs through the mines. And whether
the practice of laying mercury in the rivers, till it be tinged
with gold, and then straining the mercury through leather, that
the gold may stay behind, be a secret yet, or openly practiced.
3. There is newly contrived, in Holland, a mill to grind glasses
plane withal, and I think polishing them too; perhaps it will be
worth the while to see it. 4. There is in Holland one Borry,
who some years since was imprisoned by the Pope, to have
extorted from him secrets (as I am told) of great worth, both
as to medicine and profit; but he escaped into Holland, where
they have granted him a guard. I think he usually goes clothed
in green.
Pray inquire what you can of him, and whether his
ingenuity be any profit to the Dutch. You may inform yourself
whether the Dutch have any tricks to keep their ships from be-
ing all worm-eaten in their voyages to the Indies; whether pen-
dulum clocks do any service in finding out the longitude, etc.
I am very weary, and shall not stay to part with a long com-
pliment; only I wish you a good journey, and God be with you.
FROM MATHEMATICAL PRINCIPLES'
Book iii. of the 'Principia'
TH
HIS most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could
only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelli-
gent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the
centres of other like systems, these, being formed by the like
wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One;
especially since the light of the fixed stars is of the same nature
with the light of the sun, and from every system light passes
into all the other systems: and lest the systems of the fixed stars
should, by their gravity, fall on each other mutually, he hath
placed those systems at immense distances one from another.


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10624
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world,
but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont
to be called Lord God, autozpáτwp, or Universal Ruler: for God
is a relative word, and has a respect to servants; and Deity is
the dominion of God not over his own body, as those imagine
who fancy God to be the soul of the world, but over servants.
The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect:
but a being, however perfect, without dominion, cannot be said
to be Lord God; for we say, my God, your God, the God of
Israel, the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords: but we do not say,
my Eternal, your Eternal, the Eternal of Israel, the Eternal of
Gods; we do not say, my Infinite, or my Perfect: these are titles
which have no respect to servants. The word God usually signi-
fies Lord; but every lord is not a God. It is the dominion of
a spiritual being which constitutes a God: a true, supreme, or
imaginary dominion makes a true, supreme, or imaginary God.
And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a
living, intelligent, and powerful Being; and from his other per-
fections, that he is supreme, or most perfect. He is eternal and
infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, his duration reaches
from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity;
he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be
done. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite;
he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present.
He endures for ever, and is everywhere present; and by exist-
ing always and everywhere, he constitutes duration and space.
Since every particle of space is always, and every indivisible
moment of duration is everywhere, certainly the Maker and Lord
of all things cannot be never and nowhere. Every soul that has
perception is, though in different times and in different organs
of sense and motion, still the same indivisible person. There
are given successive parts in duration, coexistent parts in space,
but neither the one nor the other in the person of a man, or
his thinking principle; and much less can they be found in the
thinking substance of God. Every man, so far as he is a thing
that has perception, is one and the same man during his whole
life, in all and each of his organs of sense. God is the same
God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually
only, but also substantially; for virtue cannot subsist without sub-
stance. In him are all things contained and moved; yet neither
affects the other: God suffers nothing from the motion of bodies;
•


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SIR ISAAC NEWTON
10625
bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God. It is
allowed by all that the Supreme God exists necessarily; and by
the same necessity he exists always and everywhere. Whence
also he is all similar,-all eye, all ear, all brain, all arm, all
power to perceive, to understand, and to act; but in a manner not
at all human, in a manner not at all corporeal, in a manner
utterly unknown to us. As a blind man has no idea of colors, so
have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God per-
ceives and understands all things. He is utterly void of all body
and bodily figure, and can therefore neither be seen, nor heard,
nor touched; nor ought he to be worshiped under the representa-
tion of any corporeal thing. We have ideas of his attributes, but
what the real substance of anything is we know not. In bodies,
we see only their figures and colors, we hear only the sounds,
we touch only their outward surfaces, we smell only the smells,
and taste the savors; but their inward substances are not to be
known either by our senses, or by any reflex act of our minds:
much less, then, have we any idea of the substance of God.
We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances
of things, and final causes: we admire him for his perfections;
but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion:
for we adore him as his servants; and a God without dominion,
providence, and final causes, is nothing else but Fate and Nature.
Blind metaphysical necessity, which is certainly the same always
and everywhere, could produce no variety of things. All that
diversity of natural things which we find suited to different.
times and places could arise from nothing but the ideas and will
of a Being necessarily existing. But by way of allegory, God is
said to see, to speak, to laugh, to love, to hate, to desire, to give,
to receive, to rejoice, to be angry, to fight, to frame, to work,
to build; for all our notions of God are taken from the ways of
mankind by a certain similitude, which, though not perfect, has
some likeness however. And thus much concerning God: to dis-
course of whom from the appearances of things does certainly
belong to Natural Philosophy.
Hitherto we have explained the phenomena of the heavens
and of our sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned
the cause of this power. This is certain, that it must proceed
from a cause that penetrates to the very centres of the sun
and planets, without suffering the least diminution of its force;
that operates not according to the quantity of the surfaces of the
XVIII-665


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10626
SIR ISAAC NEWTON
particles upon which it acts (as mechanical causes use to do),
but according to the quantity of the solid matter which they cou-
tain, and propagates its virtue on all sides to immense distances,
decreasing always in the duplicate proportion of the distances.
Gravitation towards the sun is made up out of the gravitations
towards the several particles of which the body of the sun is
composed: and in receding from the sun decreases accurately in
the duplicate proportion of the distances as far as the orb of
Saturn, as evidently appears from the quiescence of the aphelions
of the planets; nay, and even to the remotest aphelions of the
comets, if those aphelions are also quiescent. But hitherto I
have not been able to discover the cause of those properties
of gravity from phænomena, and I frame no hypotheses: for
whatever is not deduced from the phænomena is to be called
an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical,
whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in
experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular proposi-
tions are inferred from the phænomena, and afterwards rendered
general by induction. Thus it was that the impenetrability, the
mobility, and the impulsive force of bodies, and the laws of mo-
tion and of gravitation, were discovered. And to us it is enough
that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws
which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for
all the motions of the celestial bodies, and of our sea.
And now we might add something concerning a certain most
subtle Spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies: by
the force and action of which Spirit the particles of bodies mutu-
ally attract one another at near distances, and cohere, if contig-
uous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well
repelling as attracting the neighboring corpuscles; and light is
emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies; and all
sensation is excited, and the members of animal bodies move at
the command of the will,-namely, by the vibrations of this
Spirit, mutually propagated along the solid filaments of the nerves,
from the outward organs of sense to the brain, and from the
brain into the muscles. But these are things that cannot be
explained in few words, nor are we furnished with that suffi-
ciency of experiments which is required to an accurate determi-
nation and demonstration of the laws by which this electric and
elastic Spirit operates.


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10627
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
(TWELFTH CENTURY)
BY CHARLES HARVEY GENUNG
HE ancient epic poetry of the German race was the outcome
of the vast migration of the peoples that wrecked the Ro-
man Empire and laid the foundations of modern European
civilization. That tremendous cataclysm out of which a new world
slowly rose was accompanied by impressive events, profound emo-
tions, and deeds of lofty heroism, which deeply stirred the imagina-
tion of a poetic people. It is by an inborn impulse that man seeks to
give to his emotions, and to the events that call them forth, poetic
expression and permanence. And thus the excited fancy began at
once to play about the prominent figures and striking moments of
that magnificent drama, and a rich hoard of legendary lore was
stored up for future generations. With the material actually fur-
nished by history, the gods and myths of a remoter age were naïvely
blended. As the traditions grew old and were seen through the haze
of years, successive generations shaped anew their ancestral heritage.
All that is best in the epic traditions of the migration, winnowed by
the centuries and refined by the ideals of a more polished age, is to
be found in the Nibelungenlied. It is the voice of a vigorous and
high-hearted people, speaking in the proud consciousness of its own
substantial worth. Here beside the cruelties of a rude and martial
time are also the rugged virtues which Tacitus praised. Faithfulness,
loyalty, integrity, are the ornaments of the primitive Teutonic char-
acter. Its adaptability and receptivity are also manifest. In contact
with the higher civilization of Rome and the teachings of Christianity,
the Germans assimilated the benefits of both with their own national
traits. The Nibelungenlied marks the culmination of the great pro-
cess which had made Rome a German empire, and had transformed
the invading hordes into a highly civilized people. Not only by rea-
son of its splendid poetic and dramatic power, but also as a monu-
ment in the history of the human race, the Nibelungenlied takes
rank among the great national epics of the world's literature.
If a comparison between the Iliad and the Nibelungenlied as
poems would be a futile piece of literary conjuring,- Goethe called
it a "pernicious endeavor, "-in a large historical sense they present


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10628
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
some interesting points of resemblance. The invulnerability of Sieg-
fried except where the linden leaf had fallen upon his shoulder, and
the invulnerability of Achilles except in the heel, have a curious
similarity, from which, however, no sure inference can be drawn.
The real points of resemblance lie only in the sources and circum-
stances out of which the poems arose. The creative power of Homer
is incomparably superior to that of the Nibelungen poet; but the
obscure events in the dim dawn of history, of which the legendary
materials used by the poets were the imaginative product, were in
both cases connected with a great migration, in which a young and
powerful people overcame an older and finer one, to receive in turn
the benefits of contact with the civilization it had overthrown. Both
poets had inherited a vast treasury of legends whose historical origin
was already faded, and with these they blended the myths of an age
still more remote; but the manners and customs and geography are
those of their own time, without pretense of antiquarian accuracy.
In the Nibelungenlied the conflict between two civilizations is not the
theme; there are no fine contrasts such as Homer has drawn between
the rude camp life of the Greek warriors and the polished social
organization of the citizens of Troy: but the whole poem is in itself
a witness of the ancient contact and now almost complete amalgama-
tion between the virtues, customs, and beliefs of an old heathen race,
and the softer manners of a cultured, Christianized people. Each
poem stands at the beginning of its literature, and each bears evi-
dence that it is the culmination of a long series of efforts in which
the poetic genius of the people had been working upon its legendary
material, until in the hands of a great artist this material finally took
its monumental and lasting form. Each poem, moreover, marks the
highest point reached by the folk-poetry of the respective races;
with these works art had entered into literature, and thenceforth the
simple songs that flowed from the lips of untaught singers lost their
former dignity. After Homer, though at a long interval, came the
classic age of Greek letters; after the Nibelungenlied, the Minne-
singers and the glories of the Hohenstaufen time. It is furthermore
interesting to observe how in more recent literary history the two
currents of influence represented by the Iliad and by the Nibe-
lungenlied have been brought into contrast. The classicism of French
literature in the age of Louis XIV. was a harking back to the form
and style of the ancient Greeks, and these French models dominated
German literature in the eighteenth century. The revolt of Roman-
ticism against this domination was a harking back to the mediæval
and purely Germanic form and style exemplified in the Nibelungen-
lied. Thirteen centuries after Attila had carried terror to the gates
of Rome, the poetry which had its rise in those great invasions was


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THE NIBELUNGENLIED
10629
made the basis of a patriotic national revival, and upon it the
Romanticists proceeded to create the literature of a new time. Thus
it became the mission of the Nibelungenlied, after lying for more
than two centuries utterly forgotten, to strengthen anew the hearts
of a late generation, which lay prostrate before Napoleon, and to
remind the German people of their ancient greatness. It acted as a
national liberator. Not only was this epic monument their own, but
the heroes whom it celebrates were their ancestors, and in their veins
still flowed the blood of the warriors who had vanquished the legions
of Rome.
For two centuries and a half the Nibelungenlied lay totally neg-
lected and forgotten. This fact is a witness to the demoralizing
nature of the struggles through which Germany was forced to pass
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1500 she stood in
the vanguard of the nations; in 1650 she was but the shadow of a once
mighty people, now completely exhausted physically and intellectu-
ally. Incessant wars, with famine in their wake, had in thirty years
reduced a population of sixteen millions to four, and had cowed and
brutalized the survivors. All continuity with the fine traditions of the
past was broken. In the olden time the legends of the Nibelungen
were widely known. Echoes of them are heard even in the Anglo-
Saxon 'Beowulf. ' In the centuries after the Lied had taken the form
in which we know it, its popularity was universal. But the rise of
the highly elaborated court poetry had already begun to undermine the
taste for the elder epic. The gradual petrifaction of the Minnesang
into the Meistersang contributed to the same end, and the revival of
learning in the brilliant Humanistic movement hastened the process.
The intellectual upheaval known as the Reformation, although out of
line with the Humanistic Renascence, also helped to subvert the old
Germanic traditions, in which so many healthy heathen elements held
a still persistent place. The last person who seems to have taken
any interest in the Nibelungenlied was the Emperor Maximilian, who
had a manuscript of it made. In the sixteenth century there is no
mention of the poem, except by a few obscure historians who used
it superficially and unintelligently as a historical document. Lazius,
the Austrian scholar, quotes several strophes in his 'History of the
Migrations. In the seventeenth century, amid the devastations of the
Thirty Years' War, it had passed so entirely from human ken that
Opitz, the literary dictator of his threadbare time, had no other
knowledge of it than what he had derived from Lazius; and as late
as 1752 Gottsched, the literary leader of an equally threadbare period,
seems not to have known that such a poem had ever existed. Just
four years later the Nibelungenlied was "discovered.
" Inspired by
Bodmer's Old German studies, a Swiss physician found at the castle


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10630
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
of Hohenems a manuscript of the poem which is now regarded as
the oldest form in which the work has come down to us.
It con-
tains the famous 'Klage' or lamentation for the fallen heroes; and
in 1757 Bodmer published the second part under the title of 'Kriem-
hild's Revenge. ' But the work aroused no interest even among those
most interested in the folk-lore and poetry of their native land.
Neither Herder nor Lessing nor Klopstock recognized the national
epic; Wieland too remained untouched, although when the work
came out he was in daily intercourse with Bodmer. Indeed, Bodmer
himself was not aware that he was dealing with a great poem, but
regarded it rather as an antiquarian curiosity. The first complete
edition of the Nibelungenlied appeared in 1782. Professor Myller of
Berlin included it in his collection of 'Poems of the Twelfth, Thir-
teenth, and Fourteenth Centuries. ' The fact that such a collection
had found subscribers at all is evidence that some languid interest
in these early ages had begun to manifest itself; but it was still
an interest of curiosity rather than one of appreciation. A letter
addressed to Myller by Frederick the Great will best illustrate the
attitude of many cultivated readers of that time. Myller had sent a
copy of his work to the King, who, writing from Potsdam in 1784,
said:"Most learned and faithful subject, dear sir: You think a
great deal too much of those poems of the twelfth, thirteenth, and
fourteenth centuries which you have had printed, and which you
consider of so much value for the enrichment of the German lan-
guage. In my opinion they are not worth a gunshot, and did not
deserve to be dragged out of the dust of oblivion. In my own library
I should not tolerate such wretched stuff, but throw it away at once.
The copy that has been sent to me may therefore await its fate
in the great library there [Berlin]. Much demand for it cannot be
promised by your otherwise gracious king, Frederick. " Goethe also
received a copy of Myller's work, but it was unbound, and he did not
read it; only the warning of the mermaidens to Hagen, which hap-
pened to lie on top of one of the loose signatures, attracted his atten-
tion for a moment. In after years, however, when in conversation
with Eckermann he defined the classic as health and the romantic as
disease, he added: "For that reason the Nibelungenlied is classic like
Homer, for both are healthy and strong. " In another place he wrote:
"The acquaintance with this poem marks a new stage in the history
of the nation's culture. " To this larger appreciation of the import-
ance of the Nibelungenlied in the history of civilization it was still a
far cry when Myller issued his first edition; and only after the humil-
iation of the defeat at Jena in 1806 did the eyes of Germany turn
once more to the glories of her heroic age, and to their embodiment
in the national epic.


## p. 10631 (#507) ##########################################

THE NIBELUNGENLIED
10631
The stimulus to the true appreciation and scientific study of the
Nibelungenlied came from the circle of the Romanticists. In 1802
and 1803 A. W. von Schlegel delivered a course of lectures in Berlin
in which he treated of the poem in detail. These lectures were not
published; but among the hearers was Von der Hagen, who caught
the enthusiasm of the lecturer, and began a translation of the Lied
which was published in 1807. In 1810 he issued the first critical
edition of the original text. He was followed by Lachmann, whose
labors in this field were epoch-making. The Nibelungen craze had
broken forth in earnest, and with it came the whole unrefreshing
controversy over the origins of the poem and the relative antiquity
of the manuscripts. It is not to the purpose to review this strife
of scholars in detail. Lachmann approached the question from a
preconceived view-point which had been furnished him by Wolf's
'Prolegomena to Homer. ' He differentiated in the Nibelungenlied
twenty independent Lieder, all of which had been more or less modi-
fied by subsequent transcribers and interpolators. These songs, he
maintained, had then been put together by one reviser or arranger,
and thus was produced the composite poem which we have. Of the
twenty-eight or more manuscripts of which we have knowledge, only
three come into consideration; the others are transcriptions. The St.
Gallen manuscript, known to scholars as B, and the Hohenems manu-
script (C), which Bodmer had used, Lachmann declared to be later
revisions; while the oldest form of the poem was to be found in a
third manuscript, also discovered at Hohenems, which he denominated
A. It was this one that Myller had used for the first part of his
edition, though following Bodmer's C in the second part. All these
tenets were held sacred for thirty years by the adherents of Lach-
mann. In 1854, however, arose one Holtzmann, who ably defended
the essential unity of the poem and confuted Lachmann's reasoning
concerning the manuscripts. He declared that C was the oldest; but
assumed that the original form was no longer extant, and even went
so far as to name its author, Konrad, the secretary of the Bishop
Pilgrim of Passau, who is mentioned in the poem. Germany now
had not only her Homeric question but her Nibelungen question also.
The controversy reached a fierce stage, and the learned uproar tended
to discredit the entire matter in the eyes of the lay observer. In
1862 Pfeiffer added new fuel. It is a well-known fact that down to
the middle of the thirteenth century it was an unwritten but well-
observed law among German singers that the inventor of a new
strophe became its exclusive owner. The Nibelungen strophe is that
used by the oldest of the Minnesingers, Kürenberg, who flourished
in the thirteenth century; him, accordingly, Pfeiffer designated as the
author of the original poem. To-day it is the prevailing view that


## p. 10632 (#508) ##########################################

10632
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
the Nibelungenlied is the work of one poet who in the present stage
of our knowledge cannot be named, and that the Hohenems manu-
script (C) is probably the oldest form in which it has been preserved.
This is the view which the poet Uhland, seeing with clearer vision
than his brother philologists, long ago maintained; and we may now
be permitted to regard the poem as the product of a single genius.
shaping the legends of his land.
The Nibelungenlied was called a song because it was intended to
be sung; it is an epic because it is a descriptive narrative of mo-
mentous events; it is also dramatic because there is a logical devel-
opment in Kriemhild's character, an inevitable interaction of motives,
and an irresistible and gradually accelerated movement towards the
catastrophe. No outline of a work so "gigantic," to use Goethe's
phrase, can give an adequate idea of its impressiveness. The poem,
which is written in Middle High German, consists of two parts:
the first contains nineteen Adventures, the second twenty. The first
part is joyous with wooings and weddings, with festal preparations
and brilliant expeditions, until the quarrel of the queens begins the
tragedy which ends in the death of Siegfried. The second part is
devoted to Kriemhild's revenge, which results in the annihilation of
all her people. It is sombre, ominous, tragic. But from the begin-
ning, and often in the midst of the festivities, the poet sounds the
warning note that forebodes this tragic conclusion. The poem opens
with a description of fair Kriemhild and the situation at the Burgun-
dian court. Kriemhild is telling her mother of a dream she has had:
a falcon which she had trained was torn to death by two fierce
eagles. Siegfried's death is thus foreshadowed. In the second adven-
ture Siegfried is introduced. He has heard of Kriemhild's beauty,
and is determined to win her. Reluctantly his parents prepare an
elaborate wardrobe,— a necessary preliminary to every journey, which
is several times described in the poem with affectionate detail. Sieg-
fried is cordially received by the Burgundians, whom he assists in a
war against the Saxons. He grows popular, and all seek to do him
honor. Kriemhild's shy growing interest in the handsome stranger
is delicately indicated. For a whole year he does not reveal his
purpose; not until Gunther is seized with a desire to win and wed
Brunhild, the strong maiden of the north. This is a perilous enter-
prise, for every wooer must meet her in various trials of strength,
and if unsuccessful lose his life. Siegfried promises to aid Gunther
if in return he shall receive Kriemhild for his wife. They undertake
the journey to Issland; and Siegfried, rendered invisible by his cloud-
cloak, enables Gunther to overcome Brunhild. He then procures
thirty thousand of his own Nibelungers as a royal retinue, and at
Worms there are soon two bridal couples. Siegfried and Kriemhild


## p. 10633 (#509) ##########################################

THE NIBELUNGENLIED
10633
are radiantly happy, but Gunther's difficulties are not yet ended.
Siegfried's supernatural power is again required to subdue the fierce
northern maiden to her husband's will. The symbolic ring and gir-
dle which Siegfried wrests from Brunhild he gives to Kriemhild. The
tragedy is now in train. At the portals of the cathedral of Worms
arises an unfortunate quarrel between the two high-hearted queens.
Each asserts the superiority of her own husband, and claims prece-
dence. In an unguarded moment of wrath Kriemhild reveals to her
rival who it was that subdued her, and she displays the girdle and
ring. The clouds begin to gather over the scene. The days of inno-
cent merry-making are past, and Siegfried, the impersonation of
sunny serenity and human happiness, is doomed. Hagen, the sombre
figure who moves grim-visaged through the poem, faithful to no one
but to his king, learns from Kriemhild the secret of Siegfried's vul-
nerable spot. At Brunhild's instigation, but with his own covetous
purposes, he treacherously murders Siegfried. At the solemn funeral
Siegfried's wounds, opening in Hagen's presence, reveal the mur-
derer to Kriemhild. The Nibelungen hoard is brought to Worms
and buried in the Rhine. Only Gunther and Hagen know the spot.
Henceforth the Burgundians are called also the Nibelungers. So fol-
lows for Kriemhild, after her brief happiness, thirteen years of sor-
row and mourning. The first part ends in the midst of gloom. In
the second part Attila sends his knight Rudiger to sue for Kriem-
hild's hand. She with her purposes concealed becomes his wife, and
the scene is transferred to the Hungarian court. Thirteen years more
pass, and Kriemhild lives in honor at Attila's side; but "her home-
bred wrongs again she brooded o'er. " She invites her brothers on
the Rhine to attend a great festival at her husband's court.
In spite
of Hagen's gloomy forebodings, the Burgundians go to Hungary, and
in their progress thither ominous signs announce the coming woe.
Hagen is warned by the wise mermaidens, but resolutely he proceeds.
The entire army is ferried over the Danube, which none but the
king's chaplain is destined to recross. The events now move with
tragic rapidity. Hagen knows his fate and defies it, sitting in Kriem-
hild's presence with Siegfried's sword across his knee. Death follows
death, and in the general slaughter the bodies are thrown out of the
windows, the hall is set on fire, and the Nibelungers are destroyed to
the last man. Kriemhild herself cuts off Hagen's head with Sieg-
fried's sword Balmung, and with him is lost forever the secret of the
fatal hoard. Incensed at this cruel act, the famous Hildebrand. Die-
trich's man, slays Kriemhild, and so perish utterly the Burgundians
of the Rhine.
Such is the briefly outlined story of the Nibelungers' fall. It is a
song of the wrath of Kriemhild. She is the centre of interest, and
upon her character the poet has bestowed his most loving care. She


## p. 10634 (#510) ##########################################

10634
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
appeared as the gentle, carefully guarded maid, timidly telling her
mother of a dream. Siegfried gave her life new value, and love
exalted her powers; proudly she walked by his side a stately queen.
With his death joy departed from her life; her tenderness was hard-
ened into a passion for revenge, and to this end she dedicated the
whole strength of her character. Thenceforth she moves a threaten-
ing figure towards the great catastrophe. Siegfried's character is less
complex; he is radiant, joyous, triumphant. Next to these two, Hagen,
Dietrich, and Rudiger are the figures to which the most interest
attaches. Hagen is the embodiment of grim fatalistic fidelity; Die-
trich, large-souled and noble, preserves all the fine characteristics with
which he was invested by the epic cycle of which he is the centre;
Rudiger is a knight of the chivalric age, and is probably a creation
of the Nibelungen poet. He is the most lovable and modern of all
the group. The conflict between his duty to the Nibelungers, imposed
upon him by the sacred rights of hospitality which he has given and
received, and his duty to his king and Kriemhild, is a touch wholly
modern. Over all the tragedy hovers mysteriously the power of the
hoard, but these reminiscences of the mythical happenings of long
ago serve only to create an ominous atmosphere: the course of events
could not have been otherwise, for the motives are all human.
The origins of the Nibelungenlied are purely Germanic. The
mythical and historical elements are clearly distinguishable. The for-
mer have faded into the background and given place to human inter-
ests; ethical motives have superseded the mythological. The curse
of the hoard, Siegfried's sword and cloud-cloak, and all the marvels
of that elder time, come to us in faint echoes, like the surge of a far-
off ocean heard in the shells of the sea. These echoes are of the
'Elder Edda'; but they are of Germanic origin, for the Eddic myths
were not indigenous to the North. The strange old heathen tradi-
tions had not altogether lost their vitality, however; for although the
fundamental ideas of the Nibelungenlied are on a plane of exalted
morality, it is essentially a heathen code that obtains. Nowhere is
there a trace of any supreme power controlling the destinies of men.
The Christian Church is purely external, and belongs to the scenery
and ceremonial. Siegfried and Brunhild have brought with them from
the 'Eddas' some part of their inheritance from a wonder-working
age, but they are human beings; Brunhild has lost her impressiveness
and grandeur, Siegfried has gained in sympathetic qualities. In the
older sources the Burgundian kings come to their death not through
their sister, there named Gudrun, but through Attila, who covets their
treasure, and upon whom in turn, according to ancient German usage,
Gudrun wreaks blood-vengeance. From historical sources we have
Etzel (Attila), Dietrich of Bern (Theodoric of Verona), and Gunther
(Gundicar), who with all his Burgundian people was killed in battle


## p. 10635 (#511) ##########################################

THE NIBELUNGENLIED
10635
with the Huns in the year 437. The Nibelungen poet has of course
dealt freely with his materials, for he was a poet and not a chronicler.
The fatal encounter with the Huns doubtless took place on the left
bank of the Rhine and not on the shores of the Danube. It was
probably not Attila who led the Huns, but his brother Bleda, who
appears in the Lied as Bloedel. Dietrich is taken from another cycle
of epics, of which Theodoric the Great, King of the Visigoths and of
Italy, was the centre, and he belonged to a later generation than
Attila. Gunther's brother Giselher also has some dim historical exist-
ence, and the already mentioned Bishop Pilgrim of Passau can be
traced to a real personage. All other attempts to establish a his-
torical basis for the characters and events of the poem have little
plausibility. But the skill with which all these elements are united
in an organic whole shows that epic narrative had passed out of the
realm of folk poetry into the hands of the conscious plastic artist.
It is a noble monument erected by a sturdy people upon the thresh-
old of modern history, and was worthy to become a rallying-point for
their patriotic posterity.
Chart Guing
FROM THE NIBELUNGENLIED (FALL OF THE NIBELUNGERS)
Translation of William Nanson Lettsom
KRIEMHILD
IN
N STORIES of our fathers, high marvels we are told
Of champions well approved in perils manifold.
Of feasts and merry meetings, of weeping and of wail,
And deeds of gallant daring I'll tell you in my tale.
In Burgundy there flourished a maid so fair to see,
That in all the world together a fairer could not be. [strife
This maiden's name was Kriemhild; through her in dismal
Full many a prowest warrior thereafter lost his life.
Many a fearless champion, as such well became,
Wooed the lovely lady; she from none had blame.
Matchless was her person, matchless was her mind:
This one maiden's virtue graced all womankind.


## p. 10636 (#512) ##########################################

10636
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
Three puissant Kings her guarded with all the care they might:
Gunther and eke Gernot, each a redoubted knight,
And Giselher the youthful, a chosen champion he;
This lady was their sister, well loved of all the three.
They were high of lineage, thereto mild of mood,
But in field and foray champions fierce and rude.
They ruled a mighty kingdom, Burgundy by name;
They wrought in Etzel's country deeds of deathless fame.
At Worms was their proud dwelling, the fair Rhine flowing by;
There had they suit and service from haughtiest chivalry
For broad lands and lordships, and glorious was their state,
Till wretchedly they perished by two noble ladies' hate.
A dream was dreamt by Kriemhild, the virtuous and the gay,
How a wild young falcon she trained for many a day,
Till two fierce eagles tore it; to her there could not be
In all the world such sorrow as this perforce to see.
To her mother Uta at once the dream she told,
But she the threatening future could only thus unfold:
"The falcon that thou trainedst is sure a noble mate;
God shield him in his mercy, or thou must lose him straight. "
"A mate for me? what sayest thou, dearest mother mine?
Ne'er to love, assure thee, my heart will I resign.
I'll live and die a maiden, and end as I began,
Nor (let what else befall me) will suffer woe for man. "
"Nay," said her anxious mother, "renounce not marriage so;
Would'st thou true heartfelt pleasure taste ever here below,
Man's love alone can give it. Thou'rt fair as eye can see:
A fitting mate God send thee, and naught will wanting be. "
"No more," the maiden answered, "no more, dear mother, say:
From many a woman's fortune this truth is clear as day,
That falsely smiling Pleasure with Pain requites us ever.
I from both will keep me, and thus will sorrow never. "
So in her lofty virtues, fancy-free and gay,
Lived the noble maiden many a happy day,
Nor one more than another found favor in her sight;
Still at the last she wedded a far-renowned knight.
He was the selfsame falcon she in her dream had seen,
Foretold by her wise mother. What vengeance took the queen
On her nearest kinsmen who him to death had done!
That single death atoning died many a mother's son.


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THE NIBELUNGENLIED
10637
SIEGFRIED
IN NETHERLAND then flourished a prince of lofty kind
(Whose father was called Siegmund, his mother Siegelind),
In a sumptuous castle down by the Rhine's fair side;
Men did call it Xanten: 'twas famous far and wide.
I tell you of this warrior, how fair he was to see;
From shame and from dishonor lived he ever free.
Forthwith fierce and famous waxed the mighty man.
Ah! what height of worship in this world he wan!
Siegfried men did call him, that same champion good;
Many a kingdom sought he in his manly mood,
And through strength of body in many a land rode he.
Ah! what men of valor he found in Burgundy!
Before this noble champion grew up to man's estate,
His hand had mighty wonders achieved in war's debate,
Whereof the voice of rumor will ever sing and say,
Though much must pass in silence in this our later day.
In his freshest season, in his youthful days,
One might full many a marvel tell in Siegfried's praise:
What lofty honors graced him, and how fair his fame;
How he charmed to love him many a noble dame.
As did well befit him, he was bred with care,
And his own lofty nature gave him virtues rare;
From him his father's country grace and honor drew,
To see him proved in all things so noble and so true.
He now, grown up to youthhood, at court his duty paid:
The people saw him gladly; many a wife and many a maid
Wished he would often thither, and bide for ever there;
They viewed him all with favor, whereof he well was ware.
The child by his fond parents was decked with weeds of pride,
And but with guards about him they seldom let him ride.
Uptrained was he by sages, who what was honor knew,
So might he win full lightly broad lands and liegemen too.
Now had he strength and stature that weapons well he bore;
Whatever thereto needed, he had of it full store.
He began fair ladies to his love to woo,
And they inclined to Siegfried with faith and honor true.


## p. 10638 (#514) ##########################################

10638
THE NIBELUNGENLIED
(HAGAN'S ACCOUNT OF SIEGFRIED)
AS ALL alone and aidless he was riding once at will,
As I have heard reported, he found beside a hill
With Niblung's hoarded treasure full many a man of might;
Strange seemed they to the champion, till he came to know them
right.
They had brought the treasure, as just then befell,
Forth from a yawning cavern: now hear a wonder tell,
How those fierce Nibelungers the treasure would divide;
The noble Siegfried eyed them, and wondered as he eyed.
He nearer came and nearer, close watching still the clan
Till they got sight of him too, when one of them began,
"Here comes the stalwart Siegfried, the chief of Netherland. "
A strange adventure met he with that Nibelungers' band.
Him well received the brethren Shilbung and Nibelung.
With one accord they begged him, those noble princes young,
To part the hoard betwixt them; and ever pressing bent
The hero's wavering purpose till he yielded full consent.
He saw of gems such plenty, drawn from that dark abode,
That not a hundred wagons could bear the costly load,
Still more of gold so ruddy from the Nibelungers' land:
All this was to be parted by noble Siegfried's hand.
So Niblung's sword they gave him to recompense his pain;
But ill was done the service, which they had sought so fain,
And he so hard had granted: Siegfried, the hero good,
Failed the long task to finish; this stirred their angry mood.
The treasure undivided he needs must let remain,
When the two kings indignant set on him with their train;
But Siegfried gripped sharp Balmung (so hight their father's
sword),
And took from them their country and the beaming precious
hoard.
For friends had they twelve champions, each, as avers my tale,
A strong and sturdy giant; but what could all avail?
All twelve to death successive smote Siegfried's mastering hand,
And vanquished chiefs seven hundred of the Nibelungers' land
With that good weapon Balmung; by sudden fear dismayed
Both of the forceful swordsman and of the sword he swayed,


## p. 10639 (#515) ##########################################

THE NIBELUNGENLIED
10639
Unnumbered youthful heroes to Siegfried bent that hour,-
Themselves, their lands, their castles submitting to his power.
Those two fierce kings together he there deprived of life;
Then waged with puissant Albric a stern and dubious strife,—
Who thought to take full vengeance for both his masters slain,
But found his might and manhood with Siegfried's matched in
vain.
The mighty dwarf successless strove with the mightier man;
Like to wild mountain lions to th' hollow hill they ran;
He ravished there the cloud-cloak from struggling Albric's hold,
And then became the master of th' hoarded gems and gold.
Whoever dared resist him, all by his sword lay slain.
Then bade he bring the treasure back to the cave again,
Whence the men of Niblung the same before had stirred;
On Albric last the office of keeper he conferred.
He took an oath to serve him, as his liegeman true,
In all that to a master from his man is due.
Such deeds (said he of Trony) has conquering Siegfried done;
Be sure such mighty puissance, knight has never won.
Yet more I know of Siegfried, that well your ear may hold:
A poison-spitting dragon he slew with courage bold,
And in the blood then bathed him; this turned to horn his skin.
And now no weapons harm him, as often proved has been.
HOW SIEGFRIED FIRST SAW KRIEMHILD
Now went she forth, the loveliest, as forth the morning goes
From misty clouds outbeaming; then all his weary woes
Left him, in heart who bore her, and so long time had done.
He saw there stately standing the fair, the peerless one.
Many a stone full precious flashed from her vesture bright;
Her rosy blushes darted a softer, milder light.
Whate'er might be his wishes, each could not but confess
He ne'er on earth had witnessed such perfect loveliness.