Athens surpassed
Florence
as far as the Greeks surpassed the
Romans.
Romans.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v12 - Gre to Hen
Like as a cloud
Obscures the brightness of a summer sky,
The laurel wreath had vanished from thy brow;
Upon thy lips, from which immortal sounds
Had scarcely died away, sat naught but smiles;
And in the profile of proud Pallas's face
I traced the features of a lovely child.
It was thyself and yet 'twas not-it was-
Sappho [almost shrieking]—
Melitta!
Phaon [starting] — Thou hadst well-nigh frightened me.
Who said that it was she? I knew it not!
O Sappho! I have grieved thee!
[Sappho motions him to leave.
Ah! what now?
Thou wish'st me to be gone? Let me first say -
[She again motions him to leave.
Must I indeed then go? Then fare thee well.
[Exit Phaon.
## p. 6720 (#96) ############################################
6720
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
Sappho [after a pause] –
[Pressing her hands to her breast. ] The arrow rankles here.
'Twere vain to doubt! It is, it must be so:
'Tis she that dwells within his perjured heart;
Her image ever floats before his eyes;
His very dreams enshrine that one loved form.
The bow hath sprung.
Sappho enters, richly dressed, the Tyrian mantle on her shoulders, the laurel
crown upon her head, and the golden lyre in her hand. Surrounded
by her people, she slowly and solemnly descends the steps. A long pause.
THE DEATH OF SAPPHO
From 'Sappho’
ELITTA — O Sappho! O my mistress!
-
-
M
Sappho [calmly and gravely) —
Melitta - Now is the darkness fallen from mine eyes.
Oh, let me be to thee again a slave,
Again what once I was, and oh, forgive!
Sappho in the same tone]—
Think'st thou that Sappho hath become so poor
As to have need of gifts from one like thee?
That which is mine I shall ere long possess.
Phaon Hear me but once, O Sappho!
Sappho
-
What wouldst thou?
Touch me not!
I am henceforth devoted to the gods.
Phaon
If e'er with loving eyes thou didst behold —
Sappho - Thou speak'st of things forever past and gone.
I sought for thee, and I have found-myself.
Thou couldst not understand my heart. Farewell.
On firmer ground than thee my hopes must rest.
Phaon And dost thou hate me now?
Sappho —
To love - to hate!
Is there no other feeling? Thou wert dear,
And art so still-and so shalt ever be.
Like to some pleasant fellow traveler,
Whom accident hath brought a little way
In the same bark, until the goal be reached,
When, parting, each pursues a different road;
Yet often in some strange and distant land,
Remembrance will recall that traveler still.
## p. 6721 (#97) ############################################
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
6721
Phaon [moved] -
Sappho!
Sappho-
Ye who have seen your Sappho weak, forgive:
For Sappho's weakness well will I atone.
Alone when bent, the bow's full power is shown.
Sappho [advancing]-
[Her voice falters.
[Pointing to the altar in the background.
Kindle the flames at Aphrodite's shrine,
Till up to heaven they mount like morning beams!
[They obey her.
-
Be still, and let us part in peace.
[To her people.
And now retire and leave me here alone:
I would seek counsel only from the gods.
Rhamnes [to the people]-It is her wish. Let us obey. Come all.
[They retire.
Gracious, immortal gods! list to my prayer.
Ye have adorned my life with blessings rich:
Within my hand ye placed the bow of song;
The quiver of the poet gave to me;
A heart to feel, a mind to quickly think;
A power to reveal my inmost thoughts.
Yes! ye have crowned my life with blessings rich.
For this, all thanks.
XII-421
Upon this lowly head
Ye placed a wreath, and sowed in distant lands
The poet's peaceful fame,-immortal seed;
My songs are sung in strange and foreign climes;
My name shall perish only with the earth.
For this, all thanks.
Yet it hath been your will
That I should drink not deep of life's sweet cup,
But only taste the overflowing draught.
Behold! obedient to your high behest,
I set it down untouched. For this, all thanks.
All that ye have decreed I have obeyed,
Therefore deny me not a last reward:
They who belong to Heaven no weakness show;
The coils of sickness cannot round them twine;
In their full strength, in all their being's bloom,
## p. 6722 (#98) ############################################
6722
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
Rhamnes
Ye take them to yourselves: such be my lot.
Forbid that e'er your priestess should become
The scorn of those who dare despise your power,
The sport of fools, in their own folly wise.
Ye broke the blossom; now then, break the bough.
Let my life close e'en as it once began.
From this soul struggle quickly set me free.
I am too weak to bear a further strife:
Give me the triumph, but the conflict spare.
The flames are kindled, and the sun ascends!
I feel that I am heard! I thank ye, gods!
Phaon! Melitta! hither come to me!
[As if inspired.
[She kisses the brow of Phaon.
A friend from other worlds doth greet thee thus.
[She embraces Melitta.
'Tis thy dead mother sends this kiss to thee.
Upon yon altar consecrate to love,
Be love's mysterious destiny fulfilled.
[She hurries to the altar.
What is her purpose? Glorified her form!
The radiance of the gods doth round her shine!
Sappho [ascending a high rock, and stretching her hands over Phaon and
Melitta]-
-
Give love to mortals reverence to the gods;
Enjoy what blooms for ye, and - think of me.
Thus do I pay the last great debt of life.
Bless them, ye gods! and bear me hence to heaven!
[Throws herself from the rock into the sea.
---
1
"
## p. 6723 (#99) ############################################
6723
HERMAN GRIMM
(1828-)
N THE sense in which the English-speaking people use the
phrase, Herman Grimm is the leading man of letters in Ger-
many, the chief living representative of German culture.
His style is the perfection of simplicity, purity, and beauty; his inter-
ests and sympathies are wide as humanity; his treatment of a subject
is never pedantic, and his scholarship is always human. He is spir-
itually the descendant of Goethe, from whom he inherits his serenity
of judgment and his sympathetic insight into the new, strange, and
steadily changing life of his contemporaries.
His essays and briefer articles form a run-
ning commentary upon the great currents
of thought that influence our time; and
without dwelling upon the surface except
for purposes of illustration, they present the
structure of our intellectual life and exhibit
its essential features.
Herman Grimm was born at Cassel on
January 6th, 1828. His father was Wilhelm
Grimm; he was accustomed to call his uncle
Jacob "Apapa" (with the Greek alpha priv-
ative: "not papa"). It was in the stimulat-
ing circle that gathered about the brothers
Grimm that he grew up: the Arnims, Bren-
tanos, and the group of eminent scholars that gave lustre to the
universities of Göttingen and Berlin. In the social intercourse of the
Prussian capital, it was to the house of Bettina von Arnim that
Grimm was chiefly drawn. He subsequently married Giesela, Bet-
tina's youngest daughter.
HERMAN GRIMM
Grimm's earliest literary efforts were in dramatic form. His
'Novellen,' a series of short stories distinguished by great beauty of
form and tenderness of feeling, were published in 1856, and have
proved their vitality after forty years by a new edition in 1896. He
was about thirty years of age when the first volume of his essays
appeared. Up to this point, his life had been the irresponsible one
of a highly gifted man of artistic temperament who has not yet
found his special aptitude nor set himself a definite goal. The late
Professor Brunn has told how, when he and Grimm were young men
## p. 6724 (#100) ###########################################
6724
HERMAN GRIMM
together in Rome, the latter finally came to see the necessity of win-
ning a firm foothold in some special field and of accomplishing some
well-defined task. It was in pursuance of this thought, and under the
stimulating influence of his young wife's genius, that Grimm wrote
the famous 'Life of Michael Angelo,' and placed himself at one
stroke in the front rank of German letters. This work is now uni-
versally recognized as one of the finest specimens of biographical
writing that modern literature has produced. It also marked an
epoch in the study of the Italian Renaissance.
In 1867 his ambitious novel Unüberwindliche Mächte' (Insuper-
able Powers) appeared, and was received with an enthusiasm which
it has not been able to maintain. In 1873 he was made professor of
art history, a chair which was created for him at the University
of Berlin. The freshness of his ideas and the free grace of his deliv-
ery have attracted thousands to his auditorium, and many Americans
are always among his enthusiastic hearers.
Grimm is bound to America by many ties; first among these was
his love for Emerson. He found a volume of Emerson's essays upon
the table at Bancroft's house. He thought that his command of
English was good, but this book presented difficulties; he took it
home, and soon discovered that these difficulties grew out of the fact
that the writer had original ideas and his own way of expressing
them. He translated the essays on Goethe and Shakespeare into
German; his own two essays on Emerson are finely appreciative both
of the character of American life, and of Emerson as its interpreter
and exponent. He was thus, with Julian Schmidt, the first to make
the American philosopher known to the German public.
His 'Life of Raphael,' which first appeared in 1872, has been the
cause of much unrefreshing strife, in which however the author has
never deigned to take part. Bitter opposition to his views generally
took the form of contemptuous silence on the part of specialists and
the press. Meanwhile the 'Raphael' has reached its fifth edition,
and has been translated into English.
Most popular among his works, after the Michael Angelo,' is
the volume of lectures on Goethe. This fascinating work was the
outgrowth of a series of public lectures delivered in 1876 at the Uni-
versity of Berlin. They do not attempt a systematic life of Goethe,
but in them is presented the poet as he lived and wrought; and as in
'Michael Angelo' the splendid life in Rome and Florence is restored,
so the golden age of German letters lives again in these lectures.
The English translation, by Miss Sarah H. Adams, is dedicated to
Emerson.
In 1889 he lost his wife. It was characteristic of the man that
in these days of overwhelming bereavement he should seek con-
## p. 6725 (#101) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6725
solation in the poetry of Homer. The result of these loving studies
is now before the world in two stately volumes entitled 'Homer's
Iliad. ' The Iliad is treated as if it had never before been read, and
regard is paid only to its poetic contents, its marvelous composition,
its delineation of character, its essential modernness. This book was
a labor of love, and is an inspiring introduction to an unprejudiced
and appreciative study of Homer.
Grimm continues to exert a wide and fine influence upon the intel-
lectual life of his countrymen.
In the forefront of every important
movement, he was among the first to advocate the admission of
women into the university; himself a thorough classical scholar, he
nevertheless held liberal views on the great question of educational
reform; and although rooted in the romanticism of the early part of
the century, he displays the keenest understanding of the tumultuous
life of the modern empire. In his five volumes of essays may be
found a precipitate of all that is best in German culture during the
last forty years.
To the ties which already bound him to this country there was
added in 1896 another. He was elected to membership in the Amer-
ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, to succeed the late Sir John R.
Seeley.
FLORENCE
From the Life of Michael Angelo.
Translation of Fanny Elizabeth Bunnett:
Little, Brown & Co. , publishers, Boston
TH
HERE are names which carry with them something of a charm.
We utter them, and like the prince in the 'Arabian Nights'
who mounted the marvelous horse and spoke the magic
words, we feel ourselves lifted from the earth into the clouds.
We have but to say "Athens! " and all the great deeds of an-
tiquity break upon our hearts like a sudden gleam of sunshine.
We perceive nothing definite; we see no separate figures: but a
cloudy train of glorious men passes over the heavens, and a
breath touches us, which like the first warm wind in the year
seems to give promise of the spring in the midst of snow and
rain. "Florence! " and the magnificence and passionate agitation
of Italy's prime sends forth its fragrance toward us like blossom-
laden boughs, from whose dusky shadow we catch whispers of
the beautiful tongue.
We will now however step nearer, and examine more clearly
the things which, taken collectively at a glance, we call the
## p. 6726 (#102) ###########################################
6726
HERMAN GRIMM
history of Athens and Florence. The glowing images now grow
cold, and become dull and empty. Here as everywhere we see
the strife of common passions, the martyrdom and ruin of the
best citizens, the demon-like opposition of the multitude to all
that is pure and elevated, and the disinterestedness of the noblest
patriots suspiciously misunderstood and arrogantly rejected. Vex-
ation, sadness, and sorrow steal over us, instead of the admira-
tion which at first moved us. And yet, what is it all? Turning
away, we cast back one glance from afar; and the old glory lies
again on the picture, and a light in the distance seems to reveal
to us the Paradise which attracts us afresh, as if we set foot on
it for the first time.
Athens was the first city of Greece. Rich, powerful, with a
policy which extended almost over the entire world of that age,
we can conceive that from her emanated all the great things that
were done. Florence, however, in her fairest days was never
the first city of Italy, and in no respect possessed extraordinary
advantages. She lies not on the sea, not even on a river at any
time navigable; for the Arno, on both sides of which the city
rises, often affords in summer scarcely water sufficient to cover
the soil of its broad bed, at that point of its course where it
emerges from narrow valleys into the plain situated between the
diverging arms of the mountain range. The situation of Naples.
is more beautiful, that of Genoa more royal, than Florence;
Rome is richer in treasures of art; Venice possessed a political
power in comparison with which the influence of the Florentines
appears small.
Lastly, these cities and others, such as Pisa and
Milan, have gone through an external history compared with
which that of Florence contains nothing extraordinary; and yet,
notwithstanding, all else that happened in Italy between 1250
and 1530 is colorless when placed side by side with the history
of this one city. Her internal life surpasses in splendor the
efforts of the others at home and abroad. The events through
the intricacies of which she worked her way with vigorous deter-
mination, and the men whom she produced, raised her fame.
above that of the whole of Italy besides, and place Florence as
a younger sister by the side of Athens.
The earlier history of the city before the days of her highest
splendor, stands in the same relation to the subsequent events as
the contests of the Homeric heroes to that which happened in
the historic ages in Greece. The incessant strife between the
## p. 6727 (#103) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6727
hostile nobles, which lasted for centuries and ended with the
annihilation of all, presents to us, on the whole as well as in
detail, the course of an epic poem. These contests, in which the
whole body of the citizens became involved, began with the strife
of two families, brought about by a woman, with murder and
revenge in its train; and it is ever the passion of the leaders
which fans the dying flames into new life. From their ashes at
length arose the true Florence. She had now no longer a war-
like aristocracy like Venice; no popes nor nobles like Rome; no
fleet, no soldiers,-scarcely a territory. Within her walls was a
fickle, avaricious, ungrateful people of parvenus, artisans, and
merchants; who had been subdued, now here and now there, by
the energy or the intrigues of foreign and native tyranny, until
at length, exhausted, they had actually given up their liberty.
And it is the history of these very times which is surrounded
with such glory, and the remembrance of which awakens such
enthusiasm among her own people at the present day, at the
remembrance of their past.
Whatever attracts us in nature and in art,- that higher nature
which man has created,- may be felt also of the deeds of individ-
uals and of nations. A melody, incomprehensible and enticing,
is breathed forth from the events, filling them with importance
and animation. Thus we should like to live and to act,- to have
joined in obtaining this, to have assisted in the contest there. It
becomes evident to us that this is true existence. Events follow
each other like a work of art; a marvelous thread unites them;
there are no disjointed convulsive shocks which startle us as at
the fall of a rock, making the ground tremble which for centu-
ries had lain tranquil, and again, perhaps for centuries, sinks
back into its old repose. For it is not repose, order, and a law-
ful progress on the smooth path of peace which we desire, nor
the fearful breaking-up of long-established habits, and the chaos
that succeeds; but we are struck by deeds and characters whose
outset promises results, and allows us to augur an end where the
powers of men and nations strive after perfection, and our feel-
ings aspire toward a harmonious aim which we hope for or
dread, and which we see reached at length.
Our pleasure in these events in no degree resembles the sat-
isfaction with which, perchance, a modern officer of police would
express himself respecting the excellent condition of a country.
There are so-called quiet times, within which, nevertheless, the
## p. 6728 (#104) ###########################################
6728
HERMAN GRIMM
best actions appear hollow and inspire a secret mistrust; when
peace, order, and impartial administration of justice are words.
with no real meaning, and piety sounds even like blasphemy;
while in other epochs open depravity, errors, injustice, crime, and
vice form only the shadows of a great and elevating picture, to
which they impart the just truth. The blacker the dark places,
the brighter the light ones. An indestructible power seems to
necessitate both. We are at once convinced that we are not
deceived: it is all so clear, so plain, so intelligible. We are struck
with the strife of inevitable dark necessity-with the will, whose
freedom nothing can conquer. On both sides we see great
powers rising, shaping events, and perishing in their course, or
maintaining themselves above them. We see blood flowing; the
rage of parties flashes before us like the sheet lightning of storms
that have long ceased; we stand here and there, and fight once
more in the old battles. But we want truth: no concealing of
aims, or the means with which they desired to obtain them.
Thus we see the people in a state of agitation, just as the lava
in the crater of a volcanic mountain rises in itself; and from the
fermenting mass there sounds forth the magic melody which we
call to mind when the names "Athens" or "Florence" are pro-
nounced.
Yet how poor seem the treasures of the Italian city, compared
with the riches of the Greek! A succession of great Athenians
appear where only single Florentines could be pointed out.
Athens surpassed Florence as far as the Greeks surpassed the
Romans. But Florence touches us the more closely. We tread
less certain ground in the history of Athens; and the city herself
has been swept away from her old rocky soil, leaving only insig-
nificant ruins behind. Florence still lives. If at the present day
we look down from the height of old Fiesole on the mountain-
side north of the city, the cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria
del Fiore, or Santa Liparata, as it is called,-with its cupola
and slender bell tower, and the churches, palaces, and houses, and
the walls that inclose them, still lie in the depth below as they
did in years gone by. All is standing, upright and undecayed.
The city is like a flower, which when fully blown, instead of
withering on its stalk, turned as it were into stone. Thus she
stands at the present day; and to him who forgets the former
ages, life and fragrance seem not to be lacking. Many a time.
we could fancy it is still as once it was; just as when traversing
## p. 6729 (#105) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6729
the canals of Venice under the soft beams of the moon, we are
delusively carried back to the times of her ancient splendor. But
freedom has vanished; and that succession of great men has long
ceased which year by year, of old, sprung up afresh.
Yet the remembrance of these men and of the old freedom
still lives. Their remains are preserved with religious care. To
live with consciousness in Florence is, to a cultivated man,
nothing else than the study of the beauty of a free people, in its
very purest instincts. The city possesses something that pene-
trates and sways the mind. We lose ourselves in her riches.
While we feel that everything drew its life from that one free-
dom, the past obtains an influence, even in its most insignificant
relations, which almost blinds us to the rest of Italy. We become
fanatical Florentines, in the old sense. The most beautiful pict-
ures of Titian begin to be indifferent to us, as we follow the
progress of Florentine art in its almost hourly advance from the
most clumsy beginnings up to perfection. The historians carry
us into the intricacies of their age, as if we were initiated into
the secrets of living persons. We walk along the streets where
they walked; we step over the thresholds which they trod; we
look down from the windows at which they have stood. Florence
has never been taken by assault, nor destroyed, nor changed by
some all-devastating fire. The buildings of which they tell us
stand there almost as if they had grown up, stone by stone, to
charm and gratify our eyes. If I, a stranger, am attracted with
such magnetic power, how strong must have been the feeling
with which the free old citizens clung to their native city, which
was the world to them! It seemed to them impossible to live
and die elsewhere. Hence the tragic and often frantic attempts
of the exiled to return to their home. Unhappy was he who at
eventide might not meet his friends in her squares,- who was
not baptized in the church of San Giovanni, and could not have
his children baptized there. It is the oldest church in the town,
and bears in its interior the proud inscription that it will not be
thrown down until the Day of Judgment,- a belief as strong as
that of the Romans, to whom eternity was to be the duration of
their Capitol. Horace sang that his songs would last as long as
the priestess ascended the steps there.
Athens and Florence owed their greatness to their freedom.
We are free when our longing to do all that we do for the good
of our country is satisfied; but it must be independently and
## p. 6730 (#106) ###########################################
6730
HERMAN GRIMM
voluntarily. We must perceive ourselves to be a part of a whole,
and that while we advance, we promote the advance of the whole
at the same time. This feeling must be paramount to any other.
With the Florentines, it rose above the bloodiest hostility of
parties and families. Passions stooped before it. The city and
her freedom lay nearest to every heart, and formed the end and
aim of every dispute. No power without was to oppress them;
none within the city herself was to have greater authority than
another; every citizen desired to co-operate for the general good;
no third party was to come between to help forward their inter-
So long as this jealousy of a personal right in the State
ruled in the minds of the citizens, Florence was a free city.
With the extinguishing of this passion freedom perished; and in
vain was every energy exerted to maintain it.
ests.
That which, however, exhibits Athens and Florence as raised
above other States which likewise flourished through their free-
dom, is a second gift of nature, by which freedom was either cir-
cumscribed or extended,- for both may be said of it; namely,
the capability in their citizens for an equal development of all
human power.
One-sided energy may do much, whether men or
nations possess it. Egyptians, Romans, Englishmen, are grand
examples of this; the one-sidedness of their character, however,
discovers itself again in their undertakings, and sometimes robs
that which they achieve of the praise of beauty. In Athens and
Florence, no passion for any time gained such ascendency over
the individuality of the people as to preponderate over others. If
it happened at times for a short period, a speedy subversion of
things brought back the equilibrium. The Florentine Constitu-
tion depended on the resolutions of the moment, made by an
assembly of citizens entitled to vote. Any power could be legally
annulled, and with equal legality another could be raised up in
its stead. Nothing was wanting but a decree of the great par-
liament of citizens. A counter-vote was all that was necessary.
So long as the great bell sounded which called all the citizens
together to the square in front of the palace of the government,
any revenge borne by one towards another might be decided by
open force in the public street. Parliament was the lawfully
appointed scene of revolution, in case the will of the people no
longer accorded with that of the government. The citizens in
that case invested a committee with dictatorial authority; the
offices were newly filled; all offices were accessible to all citizens;
## p. 6731 (#107) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6731
any man was qualified and called upon for any position. What
sort of men must these citizens have been who formed a stable
and flourishing State with institutions so variable? Sordid mer-
chants and manufacturers? -yet how they fought for their free-
dom! Selfish policy and commerce their sole interest? —yet were
they the poets and historians of their country! Avaricious shop-
keepers and money-changers? -but dwelling in princely palaces,
and these palaces built by their own masters and adorned with
paintings and sculptures which had been likewise produced within
the city! Everything put forth blossom, every blossom bore
fruit. The fate of the country is like a ball, which in its eternal
motion still rests ever on the right point. Every Florentine work
of art carries the whole of Florence within it. Dante's poems are
the result of the wars, the negotiations, the religion, the philoso-
phy, the gossip, the faults, the vice, the hatred, the love, and the
revenge of the Florentines: all unconsciously assisted; nothing
might be lacking. From such a soil alone could such a work
spring forth; from the Athenian mind alone could the tragedies
of Sophocles and Eschylus proceed. The history of the city has
as much share in them as the genius of the men in whose minds
imagination and passion sought expression in words.
It makes a difference whether an artist is the self-conscious
citizen of a free land, or the richly rewarded subject of a ruler
in whose ears liberty sounds like sedition and treason.
A people
is free, not because it obeys no prince, but because of its own
accord it loves and supports the highest authority, whether this
be a prince, or an aristocracy who hold the government in their
hands. A prince there always is; in the freest republics, one
man gives, after all, the casting vote. But he must be there
because he is the first, and because all need him. It is only
where each single man feels himself a part of the common basis
upon which the commonwealth rests, that we can speak of free-
dom and art. What have the statues in the villa of Hadrian
to do with Rome and the desires of Rome? what the mighty
columns of the Baths of Caracalla with the ideal of the people
in whose capital they arose? In Athens and Florence, however,
we could say that no stone was laid on another,—no picture, no
poem, came forth,- but the entire population was its sponsor.
Whether Santa Maria del Fiore was rebuilt; whether the church
of San Giovanni gained a couple of golden gates; whether Pisa
was besieged, peace concluded, or a mad carnival procession
## p. 6732 (#108) ###########################################
6732
HERMAN GRIMM
celebrated, every one was concerned in it, the same general
interest was evinced in it. The beautiful Simoneta, the most beau-
tiful young maiden in the city, is buried: the whole of Florence
follow her with tears in their eyes, and Lorenzo Medici, the
first man in the State, writes an elegiac sonnet on her loss, which
is on the lips of all. A newly painted chapel is opened; no one
may be missing. A foot-race through the streets is arranged;
carpets hang out from every window. Contemplated from afar,
the two cities stand before us like beautiful human figures,— like
women with dark sad glances, and yet laughing lips; we step
nearer, it seems one great united family; we pass into the midst
of them, it is like a beehive of human beings. Athens and her
destiny is a symbol of the whole life of Greece; Florence is a
symbol of the prime of Roman Italy. Both, so long as their lib-
erty lasted, are a reflection of the Golden Age of their land and
people; after liberty was lost, they are an image of the decline
of both until their final ruin.
-
## p. 6733 (#109) ###########################################
6733
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
(1785-1863) (1786-1859)
BY BENJAMIN W. WELLS
RIMM, JACOB LUDWIG CARL (1785-1863), and WILHELM CARL
(1786-1859), whose names are inseparably connected in the
history of German antiquities, philology, and literature, were
the oldest sons of a petty official then stationed at Hanau in Hesse-
Cassel. Their father died in 1796; but though poor, they were able
to study for the law at the University of Marburg, where Professor
Savigny gave them their first inspiration and directed their minds
to early German literature and institutions. After their graduation,
JACOB GRIMM
WILHELM GRIMM
Jacob occupied for a time subordinate civil and diplomatic positions,
and after 1816 both were connected with the Library at Cassel; which
they exchanged in 1828 for the University Library at Göttingen,
where Jacob also lectured, though without popular success, until they
were ejected from office for a manly protest (1837) against the broken.
pledges of the King of Hanover. "With no desire of applause, or
fear of blame when he had acted as he must," - words that show his
whole character, Jacob withdrew with his brother to Cassel, and
thence in 1840 to Berlin, where they had been appointed professors
and members of the Academy. Here they passed a life of tireless
investigation, interrupted only by Jacob's brief and not very happy
share in the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848.
Here they
## p. 6734 (#110) ###########################################
6734
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
died, and here they were buried, as they had lived, together. The
brothers had passed their whole lives in common labor, of which the
elder thus spoke in a memorial oration:—
"In the slow-gliding school years, one bed and one study held us. There
we sat working at the same table, and afterward in our student years two
beds and two tables stood in the same room; in later life, still two tables in
the same room; and at last, to the very end, two rooms beside one another,
always under one roof, in undisturbed and untroubled community of our
money, and books except for a few that each must have immediately at hand,
and which were therefore bought in duplicate; and so also our last beds will
be laid, it seems, close by one another. Let one consider, then, whether in
speaking of him I can avoid speaking of myself. » ((Minor Writings,' i. 166. )
The work may be treated as a unit, though Jacob's was the
most dominant spirit. He had an “iron industry," a clear vision, an
unfailing cheerfulness in labor. His style has a peculiar rugged ear-
nestness. It is not unpolished, but picturesque and full of a woodland
savor; while Wilhelm had a frailer constitution and a gentler nature,
that showed itself in the graceful naïveté of those legends and tales
to which he gave literary form.
The genius of their common studies was a noble patriotism. One
could say of both what Jacob said of himself, that nearly all their
labors were "directed to the investigation of early German language,
laws, and poetry"; labors which might seem useless to some, but
were to them "inseparably connected with the Fatherland, and cal-
culated to foster the love of it. " Again, he says, "I strove to pene-
trate into the wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their noble
language, watching their pure customs," recognizing their “ancient
freedom and their rational and hearty faith. "
These labors took the form of studies in early law (Rechtsalter-
thümer or Legal Antiquities: 1828), mythology (Deutsche Mytholo-
gie': 1835), legends (Sagen' or Legends: 1816; revised 1868), essays
on old German poetry (Altdeutscher Meistergesang': 1811), and
numerous editions of old German, Danish, Norse, and English texts.
Most important to the scientific world, however, were the 'Deutsche
Grammatik (1819, 1822-1840) and the still unfinished Dictionary,
perhaps the most vast undertaking of modern philologists. But mon-
umental as these works are, they belong only indirectly to literature.
nor is there much of general interest in the eight volumes of Jacob
Grimm's 'Minor Writings' (1864-1890). On the other hand, all the
world knows the brothers for their Household Tales' (1812-1815),
and often for these alone. They were meant for a contribution to
folk-lore, as may be seen from the volume of notes that accompany
them, of which the extracts that follow contain two specimens. But
in a single generation they became one of the most popular books of
## p. 6735 (#111) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6735
the world; they were translated into every civilized tongue, and may
be found to-day tattered and in a million nurseries, but never
outworn in the hearts of Nature's children. Artists like Walter Crane
have illustrated them, critics like Andrew Lang have introduced
them to English readers, noteworthy German scholars and critics-
Scherer, Curtius, Berndt-have bestowed on them the tribute of
learning. But perhaps no one has spoken better of them than Wil-
helm Grimm in his preface, a part of which is translated below; and
none has paid a nobler tribute to the fraternal love of their authors
than Jacob Grimm in the first volume of his 'Minor Writings. '
Banj 2. Walle
A WORD TO THE READER
From the Preface to the Household Tales'
WⓇ
E SOMETIMES find, when a whole cornfield has been beaten
down by a storm, that a little place has sheltered itself
by the low hedges or bushes, and a few ears remain
upright. Then, if the sun shines kindly again, they grow alone
and unnoticed. No early sickle cuts them for the great grana-
ries; but late in summer, when they are ripe and full, come poor
hands that glean them and carry them home, laid ear to ear,
bound carefully, and more highly treasured than whole sheaves;
and they are food all winter long, — perhaps also the only seed
for the future.
-
So it seemed to us, when we saw how nothing was left of so
much that had bloomed in old times; how even the memory of
it was almost lost, except among the people in songs, a few
books, legends, and these innocent Household Tales. The fire-
side, the hearth, the attic stairs, ancient holidays, mountain paths
and forests in their silence, but above all an untroubled fantasy,
have been the hedges that have guarded them and transmitted
them from one age to another.
It was high time to seize these tales, for their guardians grow
ever rarer. To be sure, those who know them usually know
## p. 6736 (#112) ###########################################
6736
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
many; for it is men who are dead to them, not they to men.
That which has given such manifold and repeated joy and
emotion and instruction bears in it its own excuse for being,
and has surely come from that eternal spring that bedews all
life; and though it were only a single drop that has caught on
a little crumpled leaf, yet it sparkles in the first blush of dawn.
Hence it is, that all these fancies are pervaded with that
purity by which children seem to us so wonderful and blessed.
They have the same blue-white, immaculate, bright eyes.
And so by our collection we thought to serve not only the study
of poetry and mythology, but also to let the poetry itself that
palpitates in it touch and delight whomsoever it can delight, so
that it may serve also as a book of education. For this we
seek not such purity as is obtained by an anxious exclusion of
all that bears on certain conditions and relations, such as occur
daily and cannot possibly be hidden, which also produces the
deception that what is possible in a book can be practiced in real
life. We seek purity in the truth of a straightforward narra-
tion.
Nothing defends us better than Nature herself,
who has let these plants grow in just this color and form. He
whose special needs they may not suit has no right to ask that
they should be differently cut and colored. Or again: rain and
dew fall to benefit all that grows; if any one does not dare to
put his plants under the rain and dew because they are too
delicate and might be hurt, if he prefers to give them lukewarm
water in the house, yet he must not demand tha there shall be
no rain and dew. All that is natural may be helpful, and it is at
this that we ought to aim.
We have been collecting these stories from oral tradition for
about thirteen years. If one is accustomed to heed such things,
one has more chances than one would suppose.
. But it
was a piece of special good fortune that we made the acquaint-
ance of a peasant woman of Niederzwehrn, a village near Cassel,
who told us most of the tales in the second volume, and the most
beautiful of these. Frau Viehmännin was still active, and not
much over fifty years old. Her features were firm, sensible, and
agreeable, and she cast clear keen glances from her great eyes.
She remembered the old stories exactly, and said herself that
this gift was not granted to all, and that many a one could keep
nothing in its proper connection. She told her stories deliber-
ately, confidently, with much life and self-satisfaction: first, quite
## p. 6737 (#113) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6737
naturally; then, if you wished, slowly, so that with a little prac-
tice you could take them down. A good deal has been preserved.
verbally in this way, and will be unmistakable in its truth to
nature. One who believes in the easy alteration of tradition, in
negligence in guarding it, and hence as a rule in the impossi-
bility of its long continuance, should have heard how exact she
always was in her story, and how eager for its accuracy. In
repeating she never changed anything in the substance, and cor-
rected an oversight as soon as she observed it, while she was
speaking.
As for the way in which we have collected, our first care
was for faithfulness and truth. So we have added nothing of
our own, have embellished no circumstance or trait in the story,
but have rendered its contents just as we received it. That the
style and development of detail are largely ours is a matter of
course; but we have tried to preserve every peculiarity that we
noticed, so as to leave in our collection, in this regard also, the
endless variety of nature.
In this sense there is, so far as we know, no collection of
legends in Germany. Either a few, preserved by chance, have
been printed, or they are looked at as raw material from which
to form longer stories. Against such treatment we declare our-
selves absolutely. The practiced hand in such reconstructions is
like that unhappily gifted hand that turned all it touched, even
meat and drink, to gold, and cannot for all its wealth still our
hunger or quench our thirst. For when mythology with all its
pictures is to be conjured out of mere imagination, how bare,
how empty, how formless does all seem, in spite of the best and
strongest words! However, this is said only of such so-called
reconstructions as pretend to beautify and poetize the legends,
not toward a free appropriation of them for modern and individ-
ual purposes; for who would seek to set limits to poetry?
We commit these tales to gracious hands, and think the
while of the kindly power that lies in them, and wish that our
book may be forever hidden from those who grudge these crumbs
of poetry to the poor and simple.
CASSEL, July 3d, 1819.
XII-422
## p. 6738 (#114) ###########################################
6738
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
LITTLE BRIAR-ROSE
From Household Tales >
L
ONG ago there was a king and a queen. They said every day,
<< Oh, if we only had a child! " and still they never got one.
Then it happened when once the queen was bathing, that a
frog crept ashore out of the water, and said to her, "Your wish
shall be fulfilled. Before a year passes you shall bring a daugh-
ter into the world. "
What the frog said, happened, and the queen had a little girl
that was so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for
joy, and made a great feast. He invited not only his relatives,
friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, that they
might be gracious and kind to the child. Now, there were thir-
teen of them in his kingdom; but because he had only twelve
gold plates for them to eat from, one of them had to stay at
home. The feast was splendidly celebrated, and when it was over
the wise women gave the child their wonderful gifts.
One gave
her virtue, another beauty, another wealth, and so with everything
that people want in the world. But when eleven had spoken,
suddenly the thirteenth came in. She wished to avenge herself,
because she had not been asked; and without greeting or looking
at any one, she cried out, "In her fifteenth year the king's
daughter shall wound herself on a spindle, and fall down dead. "
And without saying another word, she turned around and left
the hall. All were frightened. When the twelfth came up, who
had her wish still to give, since she could not remove the sen-
tence but only soften it, she said: "Yet it shall not be a real
death, but only a hundred years' deep sleep, into which the king's
daughter shall fall. ”
The king, who wanted to save his dear child from harm, sent
out an order that all the spindles in the kingdom should be
burned. But in the girl the gifts of the wise women were all
fulfilled; for she was so beautiful, good, kind, and sensible, that
nobody who saw her could help loving her. It happened that just
on the day when she was fifteen years old the king and queen
were not at home, and the little girl was left quite alone in the
castle. Then she went wherever she pleased, looked in the
rooms and chambers, and at last she got to an old tower. She
went up the narrow winding stairs, and came to a little door.
## p. 6739 (#115) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6739
In the keyhole was a rusty key, and when she turned it the
door sprang open, and there in a little room sat an old woman
with a spindle, and spun busily her flax. "Good-day, Aunty,"
said the king's daughter: "what are you doing there? "
"I am
spinning," said the old woman, and nodded. "What sort of a
thing is that that jumps about so gayly? " said the girl. She took
the spindle and wanted to spin too. But she had hardly touched
the spindle before the spell was fulfilled, and she pricked her
finger with it.
At the instant she felt the prick she fell down on the bed
that stood there, and lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep spread
over all the castle. The king and queen, who had just come
home and entered the hall, began to go to sleep, and all the
courtiers with them. The horses went to sleep in the stalls, the
dogs in the yard, the doves on the roof, the flies on the wall,
yes, the fire that was flickering on the hearth grew still and went
to sleep. And the roast meat stopped sputtering, and the cook,
who was going to take the cook-boy by the hair because he had
forgotten something, let him go and slept. And the wind was
still, and no leaf stirred in the trees by the castle.
But all around the castle a hedge of briars grew, that got
higher every year and at last surrounded the whole castle and
grew up over it, so that nothing more could be seen of it, not
even the flag on the roof. But the story went about in the
country of the beautiful sleeping Briar-Rose (for so the king's
daughter was called); so that from time to time kings' sons came
and tried to get through the hedge into the castle.
But they
could not; for the briars, as though they had hands, clung fast
together, and the young men, stuck fast in them, could not get
out again, and died a wretched death. After long, long years,
there came again a king's son to that country, and heard how
an old man told about the briar hedge; that there was a castle
behind it, in which a wonderfully beautiful king's daughter called
Briar-Rose had been sleeping for a hundred years, and that the
king and the queen and all the court were sleeping with her.
He knew too from his grandfather that many kings' sons had
already come and tried to get through the briar hedge, but had all
been caught in it and died a sad death. Then the young man
said, "I am not afraid. I will go and see the beautiful Briar-
Rose. " The good old man might warn him as much as he
pleased: he did not listen to his words.
Obscures the brightness of a summer sky,
The laurel wreath had vanished from thy brow;
Upon thy lips, from which immortal sounds
Had scarcely died away, sat naught but smiles;
And in the profile of proud Pallas's face
I traced the features of a lovely child.
It was thyself and yet 'twas not-it was-
Sappho [almost shrieking]—
Melitta!
Phaon [starting] — Thou hadst well-nigh frightened me.
Who said that it was she? I knew it not!
O Sappho! I have grieved thee!
[Sappho motions him to leave.
Ah! what now?
Thou wish'st me to be gone? Let me first say -
[She again motions him to leave.
Must I indeed then go? Then fare thee well.
[Exit Phaon.
## p. 6720 (#96) ############################################
6720
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
Sappho [after a pause] –
[Pressing her hands to her breast. ] The arrow rankles here.
'Twere vain to doubt! It is, it must be so:
'Tis she that dwells within his perjured heart;
Her image ever floats before his eyes;
His very dreams enshrine that one loved form.
The bow hath sprung.
Sappho enters, richly dressed, the Tyrian mantle on her shoulders, the laurel
crown upon her head, and the golden lyre in her hand. Surrounded
by her people, she slowly and solemnly descends the steps. A long pause.
THE DEATH OF SAPPHO
From 'Sappho’
ELITTA — O Sappho! O my mistress!
-
-
M
Sappho [calmly and gravely) —
Melitta - Now is the darkness fallen from mine eyes.
Oh, let me be to thee again a slave,
Again what once I was, and oh, forgive!
Sappho in the same tone]—
Think'st thou that Sappho hath become so poor
As to have need of gifts from one like thee?
That which is mine I shall ere long possess.
Phaon Hear me but once, O Sappho!
Sappho
-
What wouldst thou?
Touch me not!
I am henceforth devoted to the gods.
Phaon
If e'er with loving eyes thou didst behold —
Sappho - Thou speak'st of things forever past and gone.
I sought for thee, and I have found-myself.
Thou couldst not understand my heart. Farewell.
On firmer ground than thee my hopes must rest.
Phaon And dost thou hate me now?
Sappho —
To love - to hate!
Is there no other feeling? Thou wert dear,
And art so still-and so shalt ever be.
Like to some pleasant fellow traveler,
Whom accident hath brought a little way
In the same bark, until the goal be reached,
When, parting, each pursues a different road;
Yet often in some strange and distant land,
Remembrance will recall that traveler still.
## p. 6721 (#97) ############################################
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
6721
Phaon [moved] -
Sappho!
Sappho-
Ye who have seen your Sappho weak, forgive:
For Sappho's weakness well will I atone.
Alone when bent, the bow's full power is shown.
Sappho [advancing]-
[Her voice falters.
[Pointing to the altar in the background.
Kindle the flames at Aphrodite's shrine,
Till up to heaven they mount like morning beams!
[They obey her.
-
Be still, and let us part in peace.
[To her people.
And now retire and leave me here alone:
I would seek counsel only from the gods.
Rhamnes [to the people]-It is her wish. Let us obey. Come all.
[They retire.
Gracious, immortal gods! list to my prayer.
Ye have adorned my life with blessings rich:
Within my hand ye placed the bow of song;
The quiver of the poet gave to me;
A heart to feel, a mind to quickly think;
A power to reveal my inmost thoughts.
Yes! ye have crowned my life with blessings rich.
For this, all thanks.
XII-421
Upon this lowly head
Ye placed a wreath, and sowed in distant lands
The poet's peaceful fame,-immortal seed;
My songs are sung in strange and foreign climes;
My name shall perish only with the earth.
For this, all thanks.
Yet it hath been your will
That I should drink not deep of life's sweet cup,
But only taste the overflowing draught.
Behold! obedient to your high behest,
I set it down untouched. For this, all thanks.
All that ye have decreed I have obeyed,
Therefore deny me not a last reward:
They who belong to Heaven no weakness show;
The coils of sickness cannot round them twine;
In their full strength, in all their being's bloom,
## p. 6722 (#98) ############################################
6722
FRANZ GRILLPARZER
Rhamnes
Ye take them to yourselves: such be my lot.
Forbid that e'er your priestess should become
The scorn of those who dare despise your power,
The sport of fools, in their own folly wise.
Ye broke the blossom; now then, break the bough.
Let my life close e'en as it once began.
From this soul struggle quickly set me free.
I am too weak to bear a further strife:
Give me the triumph, but the conflict spare.
The flames are kindled, and the sun ascends!
I feel that I am heard! I thank ye, gods!
Phaon! Melitta! hither come to me!
[As if inspired.
[She kisses the brow of Phaon.
A friend from other worlds doth greet thee thus.
[She embraces Melitta.
'Tis thy dead mother sends this kiss to thee.
Upon yon altar consecrate to love,
Be love's mysterious destiny fulfilled.
[She hurries to the altar.
What is her purpose? Glorified her form!
The radiance of the gods doth round her shine!
Sappho [ascending a high rock, and stretching her hands over Phaon and
Melitta]-
-
Give love to mortals reverence to the gods;
Enjoy what blooms for ye, and - think of me.
Thus do I pay the last great debt of life.
Bless them, ye gods! and bear me hence to heaven!
[Throws herself from the rock into the sea.
---
1
"
## p. 6723 (#99) ############################################
6723
HERMAN GRIMM
(1828-)
N THE sense in which the English-speaking people use the
phrase, Herman Grimm is the leading man of letters in Ger-
many, the chief living representative of German culture.
His style is the perfection of simplicity, purity, and beauty; his inter-
ests and sympathies are wide as humanity; his treatment of a subject
is never pedantic, and his scholarship is always human. He is spir-
itually the descendant of Goethe, from whom he inherits his serenity
of judgment and his sympathetic insight into the new, strange, and
steadily changing life of his contemporaries.
His essays and briefer articles form a run-
ning commentary upon the great currents
of thought that influence our time; and
without dwelling upon the surface except
for purposes of illustration, they present the
structure of our intellectual life and exhibit
its essential features.
Herman Grimm was born at Cassel on
January 6th, 1828. His father was Wilhelm
Grimm; he was accustomed to call his uncle
Jacob "Apapa" (with the Greek alpha priv-
ative: "not papa"). It was in the stimulat-
ing circle that gathered about the brothers
Grimm that he grew up: the Arnims, Bren-
tanos, and the group of eminent scholars that gave lustre to the
universities of Göttingen and Berlin. In the social intercourse of the
Prussian capital, it was to the house of Bettina von Arnim that
Grimm was chiefly drawn. He subsequently married Giesela, Bet-
tina's youngest daughter.
HERMAN GRIMM
Grimm's earliest literary efforts were in dramatic form. His
'Novellen,' a series of short stories distinguished by great beauty of
form and tenderness of feeling, were published in 1856, and have
proved their vitality after forty years by a new edition in 1896. He
was about thirty years of age when the first volume of his essays
appeared. Up to this point, his life had been the irresponsible one
of a highly gifted man of artistic temperament who has not yet
found his special aptitude nor set himself a definite goal. The late
Professor Brunn has told how, when he and Grimm were young men
## p. 6724 (#100) ###########################################
6724
HERMAN GRIMM
together in Rome, the latter finally came to see the necessity of win-
ning a firm foothold in some special field and of accomplishing some
well-defined task. It was in pursuance of this thought, and under the
stimulating influence of his young wife's genius, that Grimm wrote
the famous 'Life of Michael Angelo,' and placed himself at one
stroke in the front rank of German letters. This work is now uni-
versally recognized as one of the finest specimens of biographical
writing that modern literature has produced. It also marked an
epoch in the study of the Italian Renaissance.
In 1867 his ambitious novel Unüberwindliche Mächte' (Insuper-
able Powers) appeared, and was received with an enthusiasm which
it has not been able to maintain. In 1873 he was made professor of
art history, a chair which was created for him at the University
of Berlin. The freshness of his ideas and the free grace of his deliv-
ery have attracted thousands to his auditorium, and many Americans
are always among his enthusiastic hearers.
Grimm is bound to America by many ties; first among these was
his love for Emerson. He found a volume of Emerson's essays upon
the table at Bancroft's house. He thought that his command of
English was good, but this book presented difficulties; he took it
home, and soon discovered that these difficulties grew out of the fact
that the writer had original ideas and his own way of expressing
them. He translated the essays on Goethe and Shakespeare into
German; his own two essays on Emerson are finely appreciative both
of the character of American life, and of Emerson as its interpreter
and exponent. He was thus, with Julian Schmidt, the first to make
the American philosopher known to the German public.
His 'Life of Raphael,' which first appeared in 1872, has been the
cause of much unrefreshing strife, in which however the author has
never deigned to take part. Bitter opposition to his views generally
took the form of contemptuous silence on the part of specialists and
the press. Meanwhile the 'Raphael' has reached its fifth edition,
and has been translated into English.
Most popular among his works, after the Michael Angelo,' is
the volume of lectures on Goethe. This fascinating work was the
outgrowth of a series of public lectures delivered in 1876 at the Uni-
versity of Berlin. They do not attempt a systematic life of Goethe,
but in them is presented the poet as he lived and wrought; and as in
'Michael Angelo' the splendid life in Rome and Florence is restored,
so the golden age of German letters lives again in these lectures.
The English translation, by Miss Sarah H. Adams, is dedicated to
Emerson.
In 1889 he lost his wife. It was characteristic of the man that
in these days of overwhelming bereavement he should seek con-
## p. 6725 (#101) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6725
solation in the poetry of Homer. The result of these loving studies
is now before the world in two stately volumes entitled 'Homer's
Iliad. ' The Iliad is treated as if it had never before been read, and
regard is paid only to its poetic contents, its marvelous composition,
its delineation of character, its essential modernness. This book was
a labor of love, and is an inspiring introduction to an unprejudiced
and appreciative study of Homer.
Grimm continues to exert a wide and fine influence upon the intel-
lectual life of his countrymen.
In the forefront of every important
movement, he was among the first to advocate the admission of
women into the university; himself a thorough classical scholar, he
nevertheless held liberal views on the great question of educational
reform; and although rooted in the romanticism of the early part of
the century, he displays the keenest understanding of the tumultuous
life of the modern empire. In his five volumes of essays may be
found a precipitate of all that is best in German culture during the
last forty years.
To the ties which already bound him to this country there was
added in 1896 another. He was elected to membership in the Amer-
ican Academy of Arts and Sciences, to succeed the late Sir John R.
Seeley.
FLORENCE
From the Life of Michael Angelo.
Translation of Fanny Elizabeth Bunnett:
Little, Brown & Co. , publishers, Boston
TH
HERE are names which carry with them something of a charm.
We utter them, and like the prince in the 'Arabian Nights'
who mounted the marvelous horse and spoke the magic
words, we feel ourselves lifted from the earth into the clouds.
We have but to say "Athens! " and all the great deeds of an-
tiquity break upon our hearts like a sudden gleam of sunshine.
We perceive nothing definite; we see no separate figures: but a
cloudy train of glorious men passes over the heavens, and a
breath touches us, which like the first warm wind in the year
seems to give promise of the spring in the midst of snow and
rain. "Florence! " and the magnificence and passionate agitation
of Italy's prime sends forth its fragrance toward us like blossom-
laden boughs, from whose dusky shadow we catch whispers of
the beautiful tongue.
We will now however step nearer, and examine more clearly
the things which, taken collectively at a glance, we call the
## p. 6726 (#102) ###########################################
6726
HERMAN GRIMM
history of Athens and Florence. The glowing images now grow
cold, and become dull and empty. Here as everywhere we see
the strife of common passions, the martyrdom and ruin of the
best citizens, the demon-like opposition of the multitude to all
that is pure and elevated, and the disinterestedness of the noblest
patriots suspiciously misunderstood and arrogantly rejected. Vex-
ation, sadness, and sorrow steal over us, instead of the admira-
tion which at first moved us. And yet, what is it all? Turning
away, we cast back one glance from afar; and the old glory lies
again on the picture, and a light in the distance seems to reveal
to us the Paradise which attracts us afresh, as if we set foot on
it for the first time.
Athens was the first city of Greece. Rich, powerful, with a
policy which extended almost over the entire world of that age,
we can conceive that from her emanated all the great things that
were done. Florence, however, in her fairest days was never
the first city of Italy, and in no respect possessed extraordinary
advantages. She lies not on the sea, not even on a river at any
time navigable; for the Arno, on both sides of which the city
rises, often affords in summer scarcely water sufficient to cover
the soil of its broad bed, at that point of its course where it
emerges from narrow valleys into the plain situated between the
diverging arms of the mountain range. The situation of Naples.
is more beautiful, that of Genoa more royal, than Florence;
Rome is richer in treasures of art; Venice possessed a political
power in comparison with which the influence of the Florentines
appears small.
Lastly, these cities and others, such as Pisa and
Milan, have gone through an external history compared with
which that of Florence contains nothing extraordinary; and yet,
notwithstanding, all else that happened in Italy between 1250
and 1530 is colorless when placed side by side with the history
of this one city. Her internal life surpasses in splendor the
efforts of the others at home and abroad. The events through
the intricacies of which she worked her way with vigorous deter-
mination, and the men whom she produced, raised her fame.
above that of the whole of Italy besides, and place Florence as
a younger sister by the side of Athens.
The earlier history of the city before the days of her highest
splendor, stands in the same relation to the subsequent events as
the contests of the Homeric heroes to that which happened in
the historic ages in Greece. The incessant strife between the
## p. 6727 (#103) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6727
hostile nobles, which lasted for centuries and ended with the
annihilation of all, presents to us, on the whole as well as in
detail, the course of an epic poem. These contests, in which the
whole body of the citizens became involved, began with the strife
of two families, brought about by a woman, with murder and
revenge in its train; and it is ever the passion of the leaders
which fans the dying flames into new life. From their ashes at
length arose the true Florence. She had now no longer a war-
like aristocracy like Venice; no popes nor nobles like Rome; no
fleet, no soldiers,-scarcely a territory. Within her walls was a
fickle, avaricious, ungrateful people of parvenus, artisans, and
merchants; who had been subdued, now here and now there, by
the energy or the intrigues of foreign and native tyranny, until
at length, exhausted, they had actually given up their liberty.
And it is the history of these very times which is surrounded
with such glory, and the remembrance of which awakens such
enthusiasm among her own people at the present day, at the
remembrance of their past.
Whatever attracts us in nature and in art,- that higher nature
which man has created,- may be felt also of the deeds of individ-
uals and of nations. A melody, incomprehensible and enticing,
is breathed forth from the events, filling them with importance
and animation. Thus we should like to live and to act,- to have
joined in obtaining this, to have assisted in the contest there. It
becomes evident to us that this is true existence. Events follow
each other like a work of art; a marvelous thread unites them;
there are no disjointed convulsive shocks which startle us as at
the fall of a rock, making the ground tremble which for centu-
ries had lain tranquil, and again, perhaps for centuries, sinks
back into its old repose. For it is not repose, order, and a law-
ful progress on the smooth path of peace which we desire, nor
the fearful breaking-up of long-established habits, and the chaos
that succeeds; but we are struck by deeds and characters whose
outset promises results, and allows us to augur an end where the
powers of men and nations strive after perfection, and our feel-
ings aspire toward a harmonious aim which we hope for or
dread, and which we see reached at length.
Our pleasure in these events in no degree resembles the sat-
isfaction with which, perchance, a modern officer of police would
express himself respecting the excellent condition of a country.
There are so-called quiet times, within which, nevertheless, the
## p. 6728 (#104) ###########################################
6728
HERMAN GRIMM
best actions appear hollow and inspire a secret mistrust; when
peace, order, and impartial administration of justice are words.
with no real meaning, and piety sounds even like blasphemy;
while in other epochs open depravity, errors, injustice, crime, and
vice form only the shadows of a great and elevating picture, to
which they impart the just truth. The blacker the dark places,
the brighter the light ones. An indestructible power seems to
necessitate both. We are at once convinced that we are not
deceived: it is all so clear, so plain, so intelligible. We are struck
with the strife of inevitable dark necessity-with the will, whose
freedom nothing can conquer. On both sides we see great
powers rising, shaping events, and perishing in their course, or
maintaining themselves above them. We see blood flowing; the
rage of parties flashes before us like the sheet lightning of storms
that have long ceased; we stand here and there, and fight once
more in the old battles. But we want truth: no concealing of
aims, or the means with which they desired to obtain them.
Thus we see the people in a state of agitation, just as the lava
in the crater of a volcanic mountain rises in itself; and from the
fermenting mass there sounds forth the magic melody which we
call to mind when the names "Athens" or "Florence" are pro-
nounced.
Yet how poor seem the treasures of the Italian city, compared
with the riches of the Greek! A succession of great Athenians
appear where only single Florentines could be pointed out.
Athens surpassed Florence as far as the Greeks surpassed the
Romans. But Florence touches us the more closely. We tread
less certain ground in the history of Athens; and the city herself
has been swept away from her old rocky soil, leaving only insig-
nificant ruins behind. Florence still lives. If at the present day
we look down from the height of old Fiesole on the mountain-
side north of the city, the cathedral of Florence, Santa Maria
del Fiore, or Santa Liparata, as it is called,-with its cupola
and slender bell tower, and the churches, palaces, and houses, and
the walls that inclose them, still lie in the depth below as they
did in years gone by. All is standing, upright and undecayed.
The city is like a flower, which when fully blown, instead of
withering on its stalk, turned as it were into stone. Thus she
stands at the present day; and to him who forgets the former
ages, life and fragrance seem not to be lacking. Many a time.
we could fancy it is still as once it was; just as when traversing
## p. 6729 (#105) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6729
the canals of Venice under the soft beams of the moon, we are
delusively carried back to the times of her ancient splendor. But
freedom has vanished; and that succession of great men has long
ceased which year by year, of old, sprung up afresh.
Yet the remembrance of these men and of the old freedom
still lives. Their remains are preserved with religious care. To
live with consciousness in Florence is, to a cultivated man,
nothing else than the study of the beauty of a free people, in its
very purest instincts. The city possesses something that pene-
trates and sways the mind. We lose ourselves in her riches.
While we feel that everything drew its life from that one free-
dom, the past obtains an influence, even in its most insignificant
relations, which almost blinds us to the rest of Italy. We become
fanatical Florentines, in the old sense. The most beautiful pict-
ures of Titian begin to be indifferent to us, as we follow the
progress of Florentine art in its almost hourly advance from the
most clumsy beginnings up to perfection. The historians carry
us into the intricacies of their age, as if we were initiated into
the secrets of living persons. We walk along the streets where
they walked; we step over the thresholds which they trod; we
look down from the windows at which they have stood. Florence
has never been taken by assault, nor destroyed, nor changed by
some all-devastating fire. The buildings of which they tell us
stand there almost as if they had grown up, stone by stone, to
charm and gratify our eyes. If I, a stranger, am attracted with
such magnetic power, how strong must have been the feeling
with which the free old citizens clung to their native city, which
was the world to them! It seemed to them impossible to live
and die elsewhere. Hence the tragic and often frantic attempts
of the exiled to return to their home. Unhappy was he who at
eventide might not meet his friends in her squares,- who was
not baptized in the church of San Giovanni, and could not have
his children baptized there. It is the oldest church in the town,
and bears in its interior the proud inscription that it will not be
thrown down until the Day of Judgment,- a belief as strong as
that of the Romans, to whom eternity was to be the duration of
their Capitol. Horace sang that his songs would last as long as
the priestess ascended the steps there.
Athens and Florence owed their greatness to their freedom.
We are free when our longing to do all that we do for the good
of our country is satisfied; but it must be independently and
## p. 6730 (#106) ###########################################
6730
HERMAN GRIMM
voluntarily. We must perceive ourselves to be a part of a whole,
and that while we advance, we promote the advance of the whole
at the same time. This feeling must be paramount to any other.
With the Florentines, it rose above the bloodiest hostility of
parties and families. Passions stooped before it. The city and
her freedom lay nearest to every heart, and formed the end and
aim of every dispute. No power without was to oppress them;
none within the city herself was to have greater authority than
another; every citizen desired to co-operate for the general good;
no third party was to come between to help forward their inter-
So long as this jealousy of a personal right in the State
ruled in the minds of the citizens, Florence was a free city.
With the extinguishing of this passion freedom perished; and in
vain was every energy exerted to maintain it.
ests.
That which, however, exhibits Athens and Florence as raised
above other States which likewise flourished through their free-
dom, is a second gift of nature, by which freedom was either cir-
cumscribed or extended,- for both may be said of it; namely,
the capability in their citizens for an equal development of all
human power.
One-sided energy may do much, whether men or
nations possess it. Egyptians, Romans, Englishmen, are grand
examples of this; the one-sidedness of their character, however,
discovers itself again in their undertakings, and sometimes robs
that which they achieve of the praise of beauty. In Athens and
Florence, no passion for any time gained such ascendency over
the individuality of the people as to preponderate over others. If
it happened at times for a short period, a speedy subversion of
things brought back the equilibrium. The Florentine Constitu-
tion depended on the resolutions of the moment, made by an
assembly of citizens entitled to vote. Any power could be legally
annulled, and with equal legality another could be raised up in
its stead. Nothing was wanting but a decree of the great par-
liament of citizens. A counter-vote was all that was necessary.
So long as the great bell sounded which called all the citizens
together to the square in front of the palace of the government,
any revenge borne by one towards another might be decided by
open force in the public street. Parliament was the lawfully
appointed scene of revolution, in case the will of the people no
longer accorded with that of the government. The citizens in
that case invested a committee with dictatorial authority; the
offices were newly filled; all offices were accessible to all citizens;
## p. 6731 (#107) ###########################################
HERMAN GRIMM
6731
any man was qualified and called upon for any position. What
sort of men must these citizens have been who formed a stable
and flourishing State with institutions so variable? Sordid mer-
chants and manufacturers? -yet how they fought for their free-
dom! Selfish policy and commerce their sole interest? —yet were
they the poets and historians of their country! Avaricious shop-
keepers and money-changers? -but dwelling in princely palaces,
and these palaces built by their own masters and adorned with
paintings and sculptures which had been likewise produced within
the city! Everything put forth blossom, every blossom bore
fruit. The fate of the country is like a ball, which in its eternal
motion still rests ever on the right point. Every Florentine work
of art carries the whole of Florence within it. Dante's poems are
the result of the wars, the negotiations, the religion, the philoso-
phy, the gossip, the faults, the vice, the hatred, the love, and the
revenge of the Florentines: all unconsciously assisted; nothing
might be lacking. From such a soil alone could such a work
spring forth; from the Athenian mind alone could the tragedies
of Sophocles and Eschylus proceed. The history of the city has
as much share in them as the genius of the men in whose minds
imagination and passion sought expression in words.
It makes a difference whether an artist is the self-conscious
citizen of a free land, or the richly rewarded subject of a ruler
in whose ears liberty sounds like sedition and treason.
A people
is free, not because it obeys no prince, but because of its own
accord it loves and supports the highest authority, whether this
be a prince, or an aristocracy who hold the government in their
hands. A prince there always is; in the freest republics, one
man gives, after all, the casting vote. But he must be there
because he is the first, and because all need him. It is only
where each single man feels himself a part of the common basis
upon which the commonwealth rests, that we can speak of free-
dom and art. What have the statues in the villa of Hadrian
to do with Rome and the desires of Rome? what the mighty
columns of the Baths of Caracalla with the ideal of the people
in whose capital they arose? In Athens and Florence, however,
we could say that no stone was laid on another,—no picture, no
poem, came forth,- but the entire population was its sponsor.
Whether Santa Maria del Fiore was rebuilt; whether the church
of San Giovanni gained a couple of golden gates; whether Pisa
was besieged, peace concluded, or a mad carnival procession
## p. 6732 (#108) ###########################################
6732
HERMAN GRIMM
celebrated, every one was concerned in it, the same general
interest was evinced in it. The beautiful Simoneta, the most beau-
tiful young maiden in the city, is buried: the whole of Florence
follow her with tears in their eyes, and Lorenzo Medici, the
first man in the State, writes an elegiac sonnet on her loss, which
is on the lips of all. A newly painted chapel is opened; no one
may be missing. A foot-race through the streets is arranged;
carpets hang out from every window. Contemplated from afar,
the two cities stand before us like beautiful human figures,— like
women with dark sad glances, and yet laughing lips; we step
nearer, it seems one great united family; we pass into the midst
of them, it is like a beehive of human beings. Athens and her
destiny is a symbol of the whole life of Greece; Florence is a
symbol of the prime of Roman Italy. Both, so long as their lib-
erty lasted, are a reflection of the Golden Age of their land and
people; after liberty was lost, they are an image of the decline
of both until their final ruin.
-
## p. 6733 (#109) ###########################################
6733
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
(1785-1863) (1786-1859)
BY BENJAMIN W. WELLS
RIMM, JACOB LUDWIG CARL (1785-1863), and WILHELM CARL
(1786-1859), whose names are inseparably connected in the
history of German antiquities, philology, and literature, were
the oldest sons of a petty official then stationed at Hanau in Hesse-
Cassel. Their father died in 1796; but though poor, they were able
to study for the law at the University of Marburg, where Professor
Savigny gave them their first inspiration and directed their minds
to early German literature and institutions. After their graduation,
JACOB GRIMM
WILHELM GRIMM
Jacob occupied for a time subordinate civil and diplomatic positions,
and after 1816 both were connected with the Library at Cassel; which
they exchanged in 1828 for the University Library at Göttingen,
where Jacob also lectured, though without popular success, until they
were ejected from office for a manly protest (1837) against the broken.
pledges of the King of Hanover. "With no desire of applause, or
fear of blame when he had acted as he must," - words that show his
whole character, Jacob withdrew with his brother to Cassel, and
thence in 1840 to Berlin, where they had been appointed professors
and members of the Academy. Here they passed a life of tireless
investigation, interrupted only by Jacob's brief and not very happy
share in the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848.
Here they
## p. 6734 (#110) ###########################################
6734
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
died, and here they were buried, as they had lived, together. The
brothers had passed their whole lives in common labor, of which the
elder thus spoke in a memorial oration:—
"In the slow-gliding school years, one bed and one study held us. There
we sat working at the same table, and afterward in our student years two
beds and two tables stood in the same room; in later life, still two tables in
the same room; and at last, to the very end, two rooms beside one another,
always under one roof, in undisturbed and untroubled community of our
money, and books except for a few that each must have immediately at hand,
and which were therefore bought in duplicate; and so also our last beds will
be laid, it seems, close by one another. Let one consider, then, whether in
speaking of him I can avoid speaking of myself. » ((Minor Writings,' i. 166. )
The work may be treated as a unit, though Jacob's was the
most dominant spirit. He had an “iron industry," a clear vision, an
unfailing cheerfulness in labor. His style has a peculiar rugged ear-
nestness. It is not unpolished, but picturesque and full of a woodland
savor; while Wilhelm had a frailer constitution and a gentler nature,
that showed itself in the graceful naïveté of those legends and tales
to which he gave literary form.
The genius of their common studies was a noble patriotism. One
could say of both what Jacob said of himself, that nearly all their
labors were "directed to the investigation of early German language,
laws, and poetry"; labors which might seem useless to some, but
were to them "inseparably connected with the Fatherland, and cal-
culated to foster the love of it. " Again, he says, "I strove to pene-
trate into the wild forests of our ancestors, listening to their noble
language, watching their pure customs," recognizing their “ancient
freedom and their rational and hearty faith. "
These labors took the form of studies in early law (Rechtsalter-
thümer or Legal Antiquities: 1828), mythology (Deutsche Mytholo-
gie': 1835), legends (Sagen' or Legends: 1816; revised 1868), essays
on old German poetry (Altdeutscher Meistergesang': 1811), and
numerous editions of old German, Danish, Norse, and English texts.
Most important to the scientific world, however, were the 'Deutsche
Grammatik (1819, 1822-1840) and the still unfinished Dictionary,
perhaps the most vast undertaking of modern philologists. But mon-
umental as these works are, they belong only indirectly to literature.
nor is there much of general interest in the eight volumes of Jacob
Grimm's 'Minor Writings' (1864-1890). On the other hand, all the
world knows the brothers for their Household Tales' (1812-1815),
and often for these alone. They were meant for a contribution to
folk-lore, as may be seen from the volume of notes that accompany
them, of which the extracts that follow contain two specimens. But
in a single generation they became one of the most popular books of
## p. 6735 (#111) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6735
the world; they were translated into every civilized tongue, and may
be found to-day tattered and in a million nurseries, but never
outworn in the hearts of Nature's children. Artists like Walter Crane
have illustrated them, critics like Andrew Lang have introduced
them to English readers, noteworthy German scholars and critics-
Scherer, Curtius, Berndt-have bestowed on them the tribute of
learning. But perhaps no one has spoken better of them than Wil-
helm Grimm in his preface, a part of which is translated below; and
none has paid a nobler tribute to the fraternal love of their authors
than Jacob Grimm in the first volume of his 'Minor Writings. '
Banj 2. Walle
A WORD TO THE READER
From the Preface to the Household Tales'
WⓇ
E SOMETIMES find, when a whole cornfield has been beaten
down by a storm, that a little place has sheltered itself
by the low hedges or bushes, and a few ears remain
upright. Then, if the sun shines kindly again, they grow alone
and unnoticed. No early sickle cuts them for the great grana-
ries; but late in summer, when they are ripe and full, come poor
hands that glean them and carry them home, laid ear to ear,
bound carefully, and more highly treasured than whole sheaves;
and they are food all winter long, — perhaps also the only seed
for the future.
-
So it seemed to us, when we saw how nothing was left of so
much that had bloomed in old times; how even the memory of
it was almost lost, except among the people in songs, a few
books, legends, and these innocent Household Tales. The fire-
side, the hearth, the attic stairs, ancient holidays, mountain paths
and forests in their silence, but above all an untroubled fantasy,
have been the hedges that have guarded them and transmitted
them from one age to another.
It was high time to seize these tales, for their guardians grow
ever rarer. To be sure, those who know them usually know
## p. 6736 (#112) ###########################################
6736
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
many; for it is men who are dead to them, not they to men.
That which has given such manifold and repeated joy and
emotion and instruction bears in it its own excuse for being,
and has surely come from that eternal spring that bedews all
life; and though it were only a single drop that has caught on
a little crumpled leaf, yet it sparkles in the first blush of dawn.
Hence it is, that all these fancies are pervaded with that
purity by which children seem to us so wonderful and blessed.
They have the same blue-white, immaculate, bright eyes.
And so by our collection we thought to serve not only the study
of poetry and mythology, but also to let the poetry itself that
palpitates in it touch and delight whomsoever it can delight, so
that it may serve also as a book of education. For this we
seek not such purity as is obtained by an anxious exclusion of
all that bears on certain conditions and relations, such as occur
daily and cannot possibly be hidden, which also produces the
deception that what is possible in a book can be practiced in real
life. We seek purity in the truth of a straightforward narra-
tion.
Nothing defends us better than Nature herself,
who has let these plants grow in just this color and form. He
whose special needs they may not suit has no right to ask that
they should be differently cut and colored. Or again: rain and
dew fall to benefit all that grows; if any one does not dare to
put his plants under the rain and dew because they are too
delicate and might be hurt, if he prefers to give them lukewarm
water in the house, yet he must not demand tha there shall be
no rain and dew. All that is natural may be helpful, and it is at
this that we ought to aim.
We have been collecting these stories from oral tradition for
about thirteen years. If one is accustomed to heed such things,
one has more chances than one would suppose.
. But it
was a piece of special good fortune that we made the acquaint-
ance of a peasant woman of Niederzwehrn, a village near Cassel,
who told us most of the tales in the second volume, and the most
beautiful of these. Frau Viehmännin was still active, and not
much over fifty years old. Her features were firm, sensible, and
agreeable, and she cast clear keen glances from her great eyes.
She remembered the old stories exactly, and said herself that
this gift was not granted to all, and that many a one could keep
nothing in its proper connection. She told her stories deliber-
ately, confidently, with much life and self-satisfaction: first, quite
## p. 6737 (#113) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6737
naturally; then, if you wished, slowly, so that with a little prac-
tice you could take them down. A good deal has been preserved.
verbally in this way, and will be unmistakable in its truth to
nature. One who believes in the easy alteration of tradition, in
negligence in guarding it, and hence as a rule in the impossi-
bility of its long continuance, should have heard how exact she
always was in her story, and how eager for its accuracy. In
repeating she never changed anything in the substance, and cor-
rected an oversight as soon as she observed it, while she was
speaking.
As for the way in which we have collected, our first care
was for faithfulness and truth. So we have added nothing of
our own, have embellished no circumstance or trait in the story,
but have rendered its contents just as we received it. That the
style and development of detail are largely ours is a matter of
course; but we have tried to preserve every peculiarity that we
noticed, so as to leave in our collection, in this regard also, the
endless variety of nature.
In this sense there is, so far as we know, no collection of
legends in Germany. Either a few, preserved by chance, have
been printed, or they are looked at as raw material from which
to form longer stories. Against such treatment we declare our-
selves absolutely. The practiced hand in such reconstructions is
like that unhappily gifted hand that turned all it touched, even
meat and drink, to gold, and cannot for all its wealth still our
hunger or quench our thirst. For when mythology with all its
pictures is to be conjured out of mere imagination, how bare,
how empty, how formless does all seem, in spite of the best and
strongest words! However, this is said only of such so-called
reconstructions as pretend to beautify and poetize the legends,
not toward a free appropriation of them for modern and individ-
ual purposes; for who would seek to set limits to poetry?
We commit these tales to gracious hands, and think the
while of the kindly power that lies in them, and wish that our
book may be forever hidden from those who grudge these crumbs
of poetry to the poor and simple.
CASSEL, July 3d, 1819.
XII-422
## p. 6738 (#114) ###########################################
6738
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
LITTLE BRIAR-ROSE
From Household Tales >
L
ONG ago there was a king and a queen. They said every day,
<< Oh, if we only had a child! " and still they never got one.
Then it happened when once the queen was bathing, that a
frog crept ashore out of the water, and said to her, "Your wish
shall be fulfilled. Before a year passes you shall bring a daugh-
ter into the world. "
What the frog said, happened, and the queen had a little girl
that was so beautiful that the king could not contain himself for
joy, and made a great feast. He invited not only his relatives,
friends, and acquaintances, but also the wise women, that they
might be gracious and kind to the child. Now, there were thir-
teen of them in his kingdom; but because he had only twelve
gold plates for them to eat from, one of them had to stay at
home. The feast was splendidly celebrated, and when it was over
the wise women gave the child their wonderful gifts.
One gave
her virtue, another beauty, another wealth, and so with everything
that people want in the world. But when eleven had spoken,
suddenly the thirteenth came in. She wished to avenge herself,
because she had not been asked; and without greeting or looking
at any one, she cried out, "In her fifteenth year the king's
daughter shall wound herself on a spindle, and fall down dead. "
And without saying another word, she turned around and left
the hall. All were frightened. When the twelfth came up, who
had her wish still to give, since she could not remove the sen-
tence but only soften it, she said: "Yet it shall not be a real
death, but only a hundred years' deep sleep, into which the king's
daughter shall fall. ”
The king, who wanted to save his dear child from harm, sent
out an order that all the spindles in the kingdom should be
burned. But in the girl the gifts of the wise women were all
fulfilled; for she was so beautiful, good, kind, and sensible, that
nobody who saw her could help loving her. It happened that just
on the day when she was fifteen years old the king and queen
were not at home, and the little girl was left quite alone in the
castle. Then she went wherever she pleased, looked in the
rooms and chambers, and at last she got to an old tower. She
went up the narrow winding stairs, and came to a little door.
## p. 6739 (#115) ###########################################
THE GRIMM BROTHERS
6739
In the keyhole was a rusty key, and when she turned it the
door sprang open, and there in a little room sat an old woman
with a spindle, and spun busily her flax. "Good-day, Aunty,"
said the king's daughter: "what are you doing there? "
"I am
spinning," said the old woman, and nodded. "What sort of a
thing is that that jumps about so gayly? " said the girl. She took
the spindle and wanted to spin too. But she had hardly touched
the spindle before the spell was fulfilled, and she pricked her
finger with it.
At the instant she felt the prick she fell down on the bed
that stood there, and lay in a deep sleep. And this sleep spread
over all the castle. The king and queen, who had just come
home and entered the hall, began to go to sleep, and all the
courtiers with them. The horses went to sleep in the stalls, the
dogs in the yard, the doves on the roof, the flies on the wall,
yes, the fire that was flickering on the hearth grew still and went
to sleep. And the roast meat stopped sputtering, and the cook,
who was going to take the cook-boy by the hair because he had
forgotten something, let him go and slept. And the wind was
still, and no leaf stirred in the trees by the castle.
But all around the castle a hedge of briars grew, that got
higher every year and at last surrounded the whole castle and
grew up over it, so that nothing more could be seen of it, not
even the flag on the roof. But the story went about in the
country of the beautiful sleeping Briar-Rose (for so the king's
daughter was called); so that from time to time kings' sons came
and tried to get through the hedge into the castle.
But they
could not; for the briars, as though they had hands, clung fast
together, and the young men, stuck fast in them, could not get
out again, and died a wretched death. After long, long years,
there came again a king's son to that country, and heard how
an old man told about the briar hedge; that there was a castle
behind it, in which a wonderfully beautiful king's daughter called
Briar-Rose had been sleeping for a hundred years, and that the
king and the queen and all the court were sleeping with her.
He knew too from his grandfather that many kings' sons had
already come and tried to get through the briar hedge, but had all
been caught in it and died a sad death. Then the young man
said, "I am not afraid. I will go and see the beautiful Briar-
Rose. " The good old man might warn him as much as he
pleased: he did not listen to his words.
