The Works of Frederick Schiller
Chapter 475
The god at once, then, said farewell, At small politeness striving; When sudden through the crowds of hell A flying courier rushed pell-mell, From Tellus' bounds arriving. "Monarch! a doctor follows me! Behold this wondrous prodigy!"
"Place for the doctor!" each one said-- He comes with spurs and whip, To every one he nods his head, As if he had been born and bred In Tartarus--the rip! As jaunty, fearless, full of nous As Britons in the Lower House.
"Good morrow, worthy sirs!--Ahem! I'm glad to see that here (Where all they of Prometheus' stem Must come, whene'er the Fates condemn) One meets with such good cheer! Why for Elysium care a rush? I'd rather see hell's fountains gush!"
"Stop! stop! his impudence, I vow, Its due reward shall meet; By Charles's wain, I swear it now! He must--no questions I'll allow,-- Prescribe me a receipt. All hell is mine, I'm Pluto hight! Make haste to bring your wares to light!"
The doctor, with a knowing look, The swarthy king surveyed; He neither felt his pulse, nor took The usual steps,--(see Galen's book),-- No difference 'twould have made As piercing as electric fire He eyed him to his heart's desire.
"Monarch! I'll tell thee in a trice The thing that's needed here; Though desperate may seem the advice-- The case itself is very nice-- And children dragons fear. Devil must devil eat!--no more!-- Either a wife,--or hellebore!
"Whether she scold, or sportive play, ('Tween these, no medium's known), She'll drive the incubus away That has assailed thee many a day Upon thine iron throne. She'll make the nimble spirits fleet Up towards the head, down towards the feet."
Long may the doctor honored be Who let this saying fall! He ought to have his effigy By Phidias sculptured, so that he May be discerned by all; A monument forever thriving, Boerhaave, Hippocrates, surviving!
REPROACH--TO LAURA.
Maiden, stay!--oh, whither wouldst thou go? Do I still or pride or grandeur show? Maiden, was it right? Thou the giant mad'st a dwarf once more, Scattered'st far the mountains that of yore Climbed to glory's sunny height.
Thou hast doomed my flowerets to decay, All the phantoms bright hast blown away, Whose sweet follies formed the hero's trust; All my plans that proudly raised their head Thou dost, with gentle zephyr-tread, Prostrate, laughing, in the dust.
To the godhead, eagle-like, I flew,-- Smiling, fortune's juggling wheel to view, Careless wheresoe'er her ball might fly; Hovering far beyond Cocytus' wave, Death and life receiving like a slave-- Life and death from out one beaming eye!
Like the victors, who, with thunder-lance, On the iron plain of glory dance, Starting from their mistress' breast,-- From Aurora's rosy bed upsprings God's bright sun, to roam o'er towns of kings, And to make the young world blest!
Toward the hero doth this heart still strain? Drink I, eagle, still the fiery rain Of thine eye, that burneth to destroy? In the glances that destructive gleam, Laura's love I see with sweetness beam,-- Weep to see it--like a boy!
My repose, like yonder image bright, Dancing in the waters--cloudless, light, Maiden, hath been slain by thee! On the dizzy height now totter I-- Laura--if from me--my Laura fly! Oh, the thought to madness hurries me!
Gladly shout the revellers as they quaff, Raptures in the leaf-crowned goblet laugh, Jests within the golden wine have birth, Since the maiden hath enslaved my mind, I have left each youthful sport behind, Friendless roam I o'er the earth.
Hear I still bright glory's thunder-tone? Doth the laurel still allure me on? Doth thy lyre, Apollo Cynthius? In my breast no echoes now arise, Every shamefaced muse in sorrow flies,-- And thou, too, Apollo Cynthius?
Shall I still be, as a woman, tame? Do my pulses, at my country's name, Proudly burst their prison-thralls? Would I boast the eagle's soaring wing? Do I long with Roman blood to spring, When my Hermann calls?
Oh, how sweet the eye's wild gaze divine Sweet to quaff the incense at that shrine! Prouder, bolder, swells the breast. That which once set every sense on fire, That which once could every nerve inspire, Scarce a half-smile now hath power to wrest!
That Orion might receive my fame, On the time-flood's heaving waves my name Rocked in glory in the mighty tide; So that Kronos' dreaded scythe was shivered, When against my monument is quivered, Towering toward the firmament in pride.
Smil'st thou?--No? to me naught's perished now! Star and laurel I'll to fools allow, To the dead their marble cell;-- Love hath granted all as my reward, High o'er man 'twere easy to have soared, So I love him well!
THE SIMPLE PEASANT. [62]
MATTHEW. Gossip, you'll like to hear, no doubt! A learned work has just come out-- Messias is the name 'twill bear; The man has travelled through the air, And on the sun-beplastered roads Has lost shoe-leather by whole loads,-- Has seen the heavens lie open wide, And hell has traversed with whole hide. The thought has just occurred to me That one so skilled as he must be May tell us how our flax and wheat arise. What say you?--Shall I try to ascertain?
LUKE. You fool, to think that any one so wise About mere flax and corn would rack his brain.
ACTAEON.
Thy wife is destined to deceive thee! She'll seek another's arms and leave thee, And horns upon thy head will shortly sprout! How dreadful that when bathing thou shouldst see me (No ether-bath can wash the stigma out), And then, in perfect innocence, shouldst flee me!
MAN'S DIGNITY.
I am a man!--Let every one Who is a man, too, spring With joy beneath God's shining sun, And leap on high, and sing!
To God's own image fair on earth Its stamp I've power to show; Down to the front, where heaven has birth With boldness I dare go.
'Tis well that I both dare and can! When I a maiden see, A voice exclaims: thou art a man! I kiss her tenderly.
And redder then the maiden grows, Her bodice seems too tight-- That I'm a man the maiden knows, Her bodice therefore's tight.
Will she, perchance, for pity cry, If unawares she's caught? She finds that I'm a man--then, why By her is pity sought?
I am a man; and if alone She sees me drawing near, I make the emperor's daughter run, Though ragged I appear.
This golden watchword wins the smile Of many a princess fair; They call--ye'd best look out the while, Ye gold-laced fellows there!
That I'm a man is fully shown Whene'er my lyre I sweep; It thunders out a glorious tone-- It otherwise would creep.
The spirit that my veins now hold, My manhood calls its brother! And both command, like lions bold, And fondly greet each other.
From out this same creative flood From which we men have birth, Both godlike strength and genius bud, And everything of worth.
My talisman all tyrants hates, And strikes them to the ground; Or guides us gladly through life's gates To where the dead are found.
E'en Pompey, at Pharsalia's fight, My talisman o'erthrew; On German sand it hurled with might Rome's sensual children, too.
Didst see the Roman, proud and stern, Sitting on Afric's shore? His eyes like Hecla seem to burn, And fiery flames outpour.
Then comes a frank and merry knave, And spreads it through the land: "Tell them that thou on Carthage's grave Hast seen great Marius stand!"
Thus speaks the son of Rome with pride, Still mighty in his fall; He is a man, and naught beside,-- Before him tremble all.
His grandsons afterwards began Their portions to o'erthrow, And thought it well that every man Should learn with grace to crow.
For shame, for shame,--once more for shame! The wretched ones?--they've even Squandered the tokens of their fame, The choicest gifts of heaven.
God's counterfeit has sinfully Disgraced his form divine, And in his vile humanity Has wallowed like the swine.
The face of earth each vainly treads, Like gourds, that boys in sport Have hollowed out to human heads, With skulls, whose brains are--naught.
Like wine that by a chemist's art Is through retorts refined, Their spirits to the deuce depart, The phlegma's left behind.
From every woman's face they fly, Its very aspect dread,-- And if they dared--and could not--why, 'Twere better they were dead.
They shun all worthies when they can, Grief at their joy they prove-- The man who cannot make a man, A man can never love!
The world I proudly wander o'er, And plume myself and sing I am a man!--Whoe'er is more? Then leap on high, and spring!
THE MESSIAD.
Religion 'twas produced this poem's fire; Perverted also?--prithee, don't inquire!
THOUGHTS ON THE 1ST OCTOBER, 1781.
What mean the joyous sounds from yonder vine-clad height? What the exulting Evoe? [63] Why glows the cheek? Whom is't that I, with pinions light, Swinging the lofty Thyrsus see?
Is it the genius whom the gladsome throng obeys? Do I his numerous train descry? In plenty's teeming horn the gifts of heaven he sways, And reels from very ecstacy!--
See how the golden grape in glorious beauty shines, Kissed by the earliest morning-beams! The shadow of yon bower, how lovingly it signs, As it with countless blessings teams!
Ha! glad October, thou art welcome unto me!-- October's first-born, welcome thou! Thanks of a purer kind, than all who worship thee, More heartfelt thanks I'm bringing now!
For thou to me the one whom I have loved so well, And love with fondness to the grave, Who merits in my heart forevermore to dwell,-- The best of friends in Rieger [64] gave.
'Tis true thy breath doth rock the leaves upon the trees, And sadly make their charms decay; Gently they fall:--and swift, as morning phantasies With those who waken, fly away.
'Tis true that on thy track the fleecy spoiler hastes, Who makes all Nature's chords resound With discord dull, and turns the plains and groves to wastes, So that they sadly mourn around.
See how the gloomy forms of years, as on they roll, Each joyous banquet overthrows, When, in uplifted hand, from out the foaming bowl, Joy's noble purple brightly flows!
See how they disappear, when friends sweet converse hold, And loving wander arm-in-arm; And, to revenge themselves on winter's north wind cold, Upon each other's breasts grow warm!
And when spring's children smile upon us once again, When all the youthful splendor bright, When each melodious note of each sweet rapturous strain Awakens with it each delight:
How joyous then the stream that our whole soul pervades! What life from out our glances pours! Sweet Philomela's song, resounding through the glades, Ourselves, our youthful strength restores!
Oh, may this whisper breathe--(let Rieger bear in mind The storm by which in age we're bent!)-- His guardian angel, when the evening's star so kind Gleams softly from the firmament!
In silence be he led to yonder thundering height, And guided be his eye, that he, In valley and on plain, may see his friends aright. And that, with growing ecstacy,
On yonder holy spot, when he their number tells, He may experience friendship's bliss, Now first unveiled, until with pride his bosom swells, Conscious that all their love is his.
Then will the distant voice be loudly heard to say: "And G--, too, is a friend of thine! When silvery locks no more around his temples play, G-- still will be a friend of thine!"
"E'en yonder"--and now in his eye the crystal tear Will gleam--"e'en yonder he will love! Love thee too, when his heart, in yonder spring-like sphere, Linked on to thine, can rapture prove!"
EPITAPH.
Here lies a man cut off by fate Too soon for all good men; For sextons he died late--too late For those who wield the pen.
QUIRL.
You tell me that you feel surprise Because Quirl's paper's grown in size; And yet they're crying through the street That there's a rise in bread and meat.
THE PLAGUE.
A PHANTASY.
Plague's contagious murderous breath God's strong might with terror reveals, As through the dreary valley of death With its brotherhood fell it steals!
Fearfully throbs the anguish-struck heart, Horribly quivers each nerve in the frame; Frenzy's wild laughs the torment proclaim, Howling convulsions disclose the fierce smart.
Fierce delirium writhes upon the bed-- Poisonous mists hang o'er the cities dead; Men all haggard, pale, and wan, To the shadow-realm press on. Death lies brooding in the humid air, Plague, in dark graves, piles up treasures fair, And its voice exultingly raises. Funeral silence--churchyard calm, Rapture change to dread alarm.-- Thus the plague God wildly praises!
MONUMENT OF MOOR THE ROBBER. [65]
'Tis ended! Welcome! 'tis ended Oh thou sinner majestic, All thy terrible part is now played!
Noble abased one! Thou, of thy race beginner and ender! Wondrous son of her fearfulest humor, Mother Nature's blunder sublime!
Through cloud-covered night a radiant gleam! Hark how behind him the portals are closing! Night's gloomy jaws veil him darkly in shade! Nations are trembling, At his destructive splendor afraid! Thou art welcome! 'Tis ended! Oh thou sinner majestic, All thy terrible part is now played!
Crumble,--decay In the cradle of wide-open heaven! Terrible sight to each sinner that breathes, When the hot thirst for glory Raises its barriers over against the dread throne! See! to eternity shame has consigned thee! To the bright stars of fame Thou hast clambered aloft, on the shoulders of shame! Yet time will come when shame will crumble beneath thee, When admiration at length will be thine!
With moist eye, by thy sepulchre dreaded, Man has passed onward-- Rejoice in the tears that man sheddeth, Oh thou soul of the judged! With moist eye, by the sepulchre dreaded, Lately a maiden passed onward, Hearing the fearful announcement Told of thy deeds by the herald of marble; And the maiden--rejoice thee! rejoice thee! Sought not to dry up her tears. Far away I stood as the pearls were falling, And I shouted: Amalia!
Oh, ye youths! Oh, ye youths!-- With the dangerous lightning of genius Learn to play with more caution! Wildly his bit champs the charger of Phoebus; Though, 'neath the reins of his master, More gently he rocks earth and heaven, Reined by a child's hand, he kindles Earth and heaven in blazing destruction! Obstinate Phaeton perished, Buried beneath the sad wreck.
Child of the heavenly genius! Glowing bosom all panting for action! Art thou charmed by the tale of my robber? Glowing like time was his bosom, and panting for action! He, like thee, was the child of the heavenly genius. But thou smilest and goest-- Thy gaze flies through the realms of the world's long story, Moor, the robber, it finds not there-- Stay, thou youth, and smile not! Still survive all his sins and his shame-- Robber Moor liveth--in all but name.
THE BAD MONARCHS. [66]
Earthly gods--my lyre shall win your praise, Though but wont its gentle sounds to raise When the joyous feast the people throng; Softly at your pompous-sounding names, Shyly round your greatness purple flames, Trembles now my song.
Answer! shall I strike the golden string, When, borne on by exultation's wing, O'er the battle-field your chariots trail? When ye, from the iron grasp set free, For your mistress' soft arms, joyously Change your pond'rous mail?--
Shall my daring hymn, ye gods, resound, While the golden splendor gleams around, Where, by mystic darkness overcome, With the thunderbolt your spleen may play, Or in crime humanity array, Till--the grave is dumb?
Say! shall peace 'neath crowns be now my theme? Shall I boast, ye princes, that ye dream?-- While the worm the monarch's heart may tear, Golden sleep twines round the Moor by stealth, As he, at the palace, guards the wealth, Guards--but covets ne'er.
Show how kings and galley-slaves, my Muse, Lovingly one single pillow use,-- How their lightnings flatter, when surpressed, When their humors have no power to harm, When their mimic minotaurs are calm, And--the lions rest!
Up, thou Hecate! with thy magic seal Make the barred-up grave its wealth reveal,-- Hark! its doors like thunder open spring; When death's dismal blast is heard to sigh, And the hair on end stands fearfully, Princes' bliss I sing!
Do I hear the strand, the coast, detect Where your wishes' haughty fleet was wrecked, Where was stayed your greatness' proud career That they ne'er with glory may grow warm, Night, with black and terror-spreading arm, Forges monarchs here.
On the death-chest sadly gleams the crown, With its heavy load of pearls weighed down, And the sceptre, needed now no more. In what splendor is the mould arrayed! Yet but worms are with the body paid, That--the world watched o'er.
Haughty plants within that humble bed See how death their pomp decayed and fled With unblushing ribaldry besets! They who ruled o'er north and east and west Suffer now his ev'ry nauseous jest, And--no sultan threats?
Leap for joy, ye stubborn dumb, to-day, And your heavy slumber shake away! From the battle, victory upsprings! Hearken to the trump's exulting song! Ye are worshipped by the shouting throng!-- Rouse ye, then, ye kings!
Seven sleepers!--to the clarion hark! How it rings, and how the fierce dogs bark! Shouts from out a thousand barrels whizz; Eager steeds are neighing for the wood,-- Soon the bristly boar rolls in his blood,-- Yours the triumph is!
But what now?--Are even princes dumb? Tow'rd me scornful echoes ninefold come, Stealing through the vault's terrific gloom-- Sleep assails the page by slow degrees, And Madonna gives to you the keys Of--her sleeping-room.
Not an answer--hushed and still is all-- Does the veil, then, e'en on monarchs fall, Which enshrouds their humble flatt'rers glance? And ye ask for worship in the dust, Since the blind jade, Fate, a world has thrust In your purse, perchance?
And ye clatter, giant puppet troops, Marshalled in your proudly childish groups, Like the juggler on the opera scene?-- Though the sound may please the vulgar ear, Yet the skilful, filled with sadness, jeer Powers so great, but mean.
Let your towering shame be hid from sight In the garment of a sovereign's right, From the ambush of the throne outspring! Tremble, though, before the voice of song Through the purple, vengeance will, ere long, Strike down e'en a king!
THE SATYR AND MY MUSE.
An aged satyr sought Around my Muse to pass, Attempting to pay court, And eyed her fondly through his glass.
By Phoebus' golden torch, By Luna's pallid light, Around her temple's porch Crept the unhappy sharp-eared wight;
And warbled many a lay, Her beauty's praise to sing, And fiercely scraped away On his discordant fiddle-string.
With tears, too, swelled his eyes, As large as nuts, or larger; He gasped forth heavy sighs, Like music from Silenus' charger.
The Muse sat still, and played Within her grotto fair, And peevishly surveyed Signor Adonis Goatsfoot there.
"Who ever would kiss thee, Thou ugly, dirty dunce? Wouldst thou a gallant be, As Midas was Apollo once?
"Speak out, old horned boor What charms canst thou display? Thou'rt swarthy as a Moor, And shaggy as a beast of prey.
"I'm by a bard adored In far Teutonia's land; To him, who strikes the chord, I'm linked in firm and loving band."
She spoke, and straightway fled The spoiler,--he pursued her, And, by his passion led, Soon caught her, shouted, and thus wooed her:
"Thou prudish one, stay, stay! And hearken unto me! Thy poet, I dare say, Repents the pledge he gave thee.
"Behold this pretty thing,-- No merit would I claim,-- Its weight I often fling On many a clown's back, to his shame.
"His sharpness it increases, And spices his discourse, Instilling learned theses, When mounted on his hobby-horse
"The best of songs are known, Thanks to this heavy whip Yet fool's blood 'tis alone We see beneath its lashes drip.
"This lash, then, shall be his, If thou'lt give me a smack; Then thou mayest hasten, miss, Upon thy German sweetheart's track."
The Muse, with purpose sly, Ere long agreed to yield-- The satyr said good-by, And now the lash I wield!
And I won't drop it here, Believe in what I say! The kisses of one's dear One does not lightly throw away.
They kindle raptures sweet, But fools ne'er know their flame! The gentle Muse will kneel at honor's feet, But cudgels those who mar her fame.
THE PEASANTS. [67]
Look outside, good friend, I pray! Two whole mortal hours Dogs and I've out here to-day Waited, by the powers!
Rain comes down as from a spout, Doomsday-storms rage round about,
Dripping are my hose; Drenched are coat and mantle too, Coat and mantle, both just new, Wretched plight, heaven knows! Pretty stir's abroad to-day; Look outside, good friend, I pray!
Ay, the devil! look outside! Out is blown my lamp,-- Gloom and night the heavens now hide, Moon and stars decamp. Stumbling over stock and stone, Jerkin, coat, I've torn, ochone!
Let me pity beg Hedges, bushes, all around, Here a ditch, and there a mound, Breaking arm and leg. Gloom and night the heavens now hide Ay, the devil! look outside!
Ay, the deuce, then look outside! Listen to my prayer! Praying, singing, I have tried, Wouldst thou have me swear? I shall be a steaming mass, Freeze to rock and stone, alas! If I don't remove. All this, love, I owe to thee, Winter-bumps thou'lt make for me, Thou confounded love! Cold and gloom spread far and wide! Ay, the deuce! then look outside!
Thousand thunders! what's this now From the window shoots? Oh, thou witch! 'Tis dirt, I vow, That my head salutes! Rain, frost, hunger, tempests wild, Bear I for the devil's child, Now I'm vexed full sore. Worse and worse 'tis! I'll begone. Pray be quick, thou Evil One! I'll remain no more. Pretty tumult there's outside! Fare thee well--I'll homeward stride.
THE WINTER NIGHT.
Farewell! the beauteous sun is sinking fast, The moon lifts up her head; Farewell! mute night o'er earth's wide round at last Her darksome raven-wing has spread.
Across the wintry plain no echoes float, Save, from the rock's deep womb, The murmuring streamlet, and the screech-owl's note, Arising from the forest's gloom.
The fish repose within the watery deeps, The snail draws in his head; The dog beneath the table calmly sleeps, My wife is slumbering in her bed.
A hearty welcome to ye, brethren mine! Friends of my life's young spring! Perchance around a flask of Rhenish wine Ye're gathered now, in joyous ring.
The brimming goblet's bright and purple beams Mirror the world with joy, And pleasure from the golden grape-juice gleams-- Pleasure untainted by alloy.
Concealed behind departed years, your eyes Find roses now alone; And, as the summer tempest quickly flies, Your heavy sorrows, too, are flown.
From childish sports, to e'en the doctor's hood, The book of life ye thumb, And reckon o'er, in light and joyous mood, Your toils in the gymnasium;
Ye count the oaths that Terence--may he ne'er, Though buried, calmly slumber!-- Caused you, despite Minelli's notes, to swear,-- Count your wry faces without number.
How, when the dread examinations came, The boy with terror shook! How, when the rector had pronounced his name, The sweat streamed down upon his book!
All this is now involved in mist forever, The boy is now a man, And Frederick, wiser grown, discloses never What little Fritz once loved to plan.
At length--a doctor one's declared to be,-- A regimental one! And then,--and not too soon,--discover we That plans soap-bubbles are alone. [68]
Blow on! blow on! and let the bubbles rise, If but this heart remain! And if a German laurel as the prize Of song, 'tis given me to gain!
THE WIRTEMBERGER.
The name of Wirtemberg they hold To come from Wirth am berg [69], I'm told. A Wirtemberger who ne'er drinks No Wirtemberger is, methinks!
THE MOLE.
HUSBAND. The boy's my very image! See! Even the scars my small-pox left me!
WIFE. I can believe it easily They once of all my senses reft me.
HYMN TO THE ETERNAL.
'Twixt the heavens and earth, high in the airy ocean, In the tempest's cradle I'm borne with a rocking motion; Clouds are towering, Storms beneath me are lowering, Giddily all the wonders I see, And, O Eternal, I think of Thee!
All Thy terrible pomp, lend to the Finite now, Mighty Nature! Oh, of Infinity, thou Giant daughter! Mirror God, as in water! Tempest, oh, let thine organ-peal God to the reasoning worm reveal!
Hark! it peals--how the rocks quiver beneath its growls Zeboath's glorious name, wildly the hurricane howls! Graving the while With the lightning's style "Creatures, do ye acknowledge me?"-- Spare us, Lord! We acknowledge Thee!
DIALOGUE.
A. Hark, neighbor, for one moment stay! Herr Doctor Scalpel, so they say, Has got off safe and sound; At Paris I your uncle found Fast to a horse's crupper bound,-- Yet Scalpel made a king his prey.
B. Oh, dear me, no! A real misnomer! The fact is, he has his diploma; The other one has not.
A. Eh? What? Has a diploma? In Suabia may such things be got?
EPITAPH
ON A CERTAIN PHYSIOGNOMIST.
On every nose he rightly read What intellects were in the head And yet--that he was not the one By whom God meant it to be done, This on his own he never read.
TRUST IN IMMORTALITY.
The dead has risen here, to live through endless ages; This I with firmness trust and know. I was first led to guess it by the sages, The knaves convince me that 'tis really so.
APPENDIX OF POEMS ETC. IN SCHILLER'S DRAMATIC WORKS.
APPENDIX.
The following variations appear in the first two verses of Hector's Farewell, as given in The Robbers, act ii. scene 2.
ANDROMACHE. Wilt thou, Hector, leave me?--leave me weeping, Where Achilles' murderous blade is heaping Bloody offerings on Patroclus' grave? Who, alas, will teach thine infant truly Spears to hurl, the gods to honor duly, When thou'rt buried 'neath dark Xanthus' wave?
HECTOR. Dearest wife, go,--fetch my death-spear glancing, Let me join the battle-dance entrancing, For my shoulders bear the weight of Troy! Heaven will be our Astyanax' protector! Falling as his country's savior, Hector Soon will greet thee in the realms of joy.
The following additional verse is found in Amalia's Song, as sung in The Robbers, act iii. scene 1. It is introduced between the first and second verses, as they appear in poems.
His embrace--what maddening rapture bound us! Bosom throbbed 'gainst bosom with wild might; Mouth and ear were chained--night reigned around us-- And the spirit winged toward heaven its flight.
From The Robbers, act iv. scene 5.
CHORUS OF ROBBERS. What so good for banishing sorrow As women, theft, and bloody affray? We must dance in the air to-morrow, Therefore let's be right merry to-day!
A free and jovial life we've led, Ever since we began it. Beneath the tree we make our bed, We ply our task when the storm's o'erhead And deem the moon our planet. The fellow we swear by is Mercury, A capital hand at our trade is he.
To-day we become the guests of a priest, A rich farmer to-morrow must feed us; And as for the future, we care not the least, But leave it to heaven to heed us.
And when our throats with a vintage rare We've long enough been supplying, Fresh courage and strength we drink in there, And with the evil one friendship swear, Who down in hell is frying.
The groans o'er fathers reft of breath, The sorrowing mothers' cry of death, Deserted brides' sad sobs and tears. Are sweetest music to our ears.
Ha! when under the axe each one quivering lies, When they bellow like calves, and fall round us like flies, Naught gives such pleasure to our sight, It fills our ears with wild delight. And when arrives the fatal day The devil straight may fetch us! Our fee we get without delay-- They instantly Jack-Ketch us. One draught upon the road of liquor bright and clear, And hip! hip! hip; hurrah! we're seen no longer here!
From The Robbers, act iv. scene 5.
MOOR'S SONG.
BRUTUS. Ye are welcome, peaceful realms of light! Oh, receive Rome's last-surviving son! From Philippi, from the murderous fight, Come I now, my race of sorrow run.-- Cassius, where art thou?--Rome overthrown! All my brethren's loving band destroyed! Safety find I at death's door alone, And the world to Brutus is a void!
CAESAR. Who now, with the ne'er-subdued-one's tread, Hither from yon rocks makes haste to come?-- Ha! if by no vision I'm misled, 'Tis the footstep of a child of Rome.-- Son of Tiber--whence dost thou appear? Stands the seven-hilled city as of yore Oft her orphaned lot awakes my tear, For alas, her Caesar is no more?
BRUTUS. Ha! thou with the three-and-twenty wounds! Who hath, dead one, summoned thee to light? Back to gaping Orcus' fearful bonds, Haughty mourner! triumph not to-night! On Philippi's iron altar, lo! Reeks now freedom's final victim's blood; Rome o'er Brutus' bier feels her death-throe,-- He seeks Minos.--Back to thy dark flood!
CAESAR. Oh, the death-stroke Brutus' sword then hurled! Thou, too--Brutus--thou? Could this thing be? Son! It was thy father!--Son! the world Would have fallen heritage to thee! Go--'mongst Romans thou art deemed immortal, For thy steel hath pierced thy father's breast. Go--and shout it even to yon portal: "Brutus is 'mongst Romans deemed immortal, For his steel hath pierced his father's breast." Go--thou knowest now what on Lethe's strand Made me a prisoner stand.-- Now, grim steersman, push thy bark from land!
BRUTUS. Father, stay!--In all earth's realms so fair, It hath been my lot to know but one, Who with mighty Caesar could compare; And of yore thou called'st him thy son. None but Caesar could a Rome o'erthrow, Brutus only made great Caesar fear; Where lives Brutus, Caesar's blood must flow; If thy path lies yonder, mine is here.
From Wallenstein's Camp, scene 1.
RECRUIT'S SONG.
How sweet the wild sound Of drum and of fife! To roam o'er earth's round, Lead a wandering life, With steed trained aright, And bold for the fight, With a sword by the side, To rove far and wide,-- Quick, nimble, and free As the finch that we see On bushes and trees, Or braving the breeze,-- Huzza, then! the Friedlander's banner for me!
From Wallenstein's Camp, scene the last.
SECOND CUIRASSIER sings. Up, up, my brave comrades! to horse! to horse! Let us haste to the field and to freedom! To the field, for 'tis there that is proved our hearts' force, 'Tis there that in earnest we need 'em! None other can there our places supply, Each must stand alone,--on himself must rely.
CHORUS. None other can there our places supply, Each must stand alone,--on himself must rely.
DRAGOON. Now freedom appears from the world to have flown, None but lords and their vassals one traces; While falsehood and cunning are ruling alone O'er the living cowardly races. The man who can look upon death without fear-- The soldier,--is now the sole freeman left here.
CHORUS. The man who can look upon death without fear-- The soldier,--is now the sole freeman left here.
FIRST YAGER. The cares of this life, he casts them away, Untroubled by fear or by sorrow; He rides to his fate with a countenance gay, And finds it to-day or to-morrow; And if 'tis to-morrow, to-day we'll employ To drink full deep of the goblet of joy,
CHORUS. And if 'tis to-morrow, to-day we'll employ To drink full deep of the goblet of joy. [They refill their glasses and drink.
CAVALRY SERGEANT. The skies o'er him shower his lot filled with mirth, He gains, without toil, its full measure; The peasant, who grubs in the womb of the earth, Believes that he'll find there the treasure, Through lifetime he shovels and digs like a slave, And digs--till at length he has dug his own grave.
CHORUS. Through lifetime he shovels and digs like a slave, And digs--till at length he has dug his own grave.
FIRST YAGER. The horseman, as well as his swift-footed beast, Are guests by whom all are affrighted, When glimmer the lamps at the wedding feast, In the banquet he joins uninvited; He woos not long, and with gold he ne'er buys, But carries by storm love's blissful prize.
CHORUS. He woos not long, and with gold he ne'er buys, But carries by storm love's blissful prize.
SECOND CUIRASSIER. Why weeps the maiden? Why sorrows she so? Let me hence, let me hence, girl, I pray thee? The soldier on earth no sure quarters can know, With true love he ne'er can repay thee. Fate hurries him onward with fury blind, His peace he never can leave behind.
CHORUS. Fate hurries him onward with fury blind, His peace he can never leave behind,
FIRST YAGER. (Taking his two neighbors by the hand. The rest do the same, forming a large semi-circle.) Away, then, my comrades, our chargers let's mount! In the battle the bosom bounds lightly! Youth boils, and life's goblet still foams at the fount, Away! while the spirit glows brightly! Unless ye have courage your life to stake, That life ye never your own can make!
CHORUS. Unless ye have courage your life to stake, That life ye never your own can make!
From William Tell, act i. scene 1.
SCENE--The high rocky shore of the Lake of Lucerne, opposite Schwytz.
The lake forms an inlet in the land; a cottage is near the shore; a fisher-boy is rowing in a boat. Beyond the lake are seen the green pastures, the villages and farms of Schwytz glowing in the sunshine. On the left of the spectator are the peaks of the Hacken, enveloped in clouds; on his right, in the distance, are seen the glaciers. Before the curtain rises the RANZ DES VACHES, and the musical sound of the cattle-bells are heard, and continue also for some time after the scene opens.
FISHER-BOY (sings in his boat). AIR--Ranz des Vaches.
Bright smiles the lake, as it woos to its deep,-- A boy on its margin of green lies asleep; Then hears he a strain, Like the flute's gentle note, Sweet as voices of angels In Eden that float. And when he awakens, with ecstasy blest, The waters are playing all over his breast, From the depths calls a voice "Dearest child, with me go! I lure down the sleeper, I draw him below."
HERDSMAN (on the mountain). AIR--Variation of the Ranz des Vaches.
Ye meadows, farewell! Ye pastures so glowing! The herdsman is going, For summer has fled! We depart to the mountain; we'll come back again, When the cuckoo is calling,--when wakens the strain,-- When the earth is tricked out with her flowers so gay, When the stream sparkles bright in the sweet month of May. Ye meadows, farewell! Ye pastures so glowing! The herdsman is going, For summer has fled!
CHAMOIS-HUNTER (appearing on the top of a rock). AIR--Second Variation of the Ranz des Vaches.
O'er the heights growls the thunder, while quivers the bridge, Yet no fear feels the hunter, though dizzy the ridge; He strides on undaunted, O'er plains icy-bound, Where spring never blossoms, Nor verdure is found; And, a broad sea of mist lying under his feet, Man's dwellings his vision no longer can greet; The world he but views When the clouds broken are-- With its pastures so green, Through the vapor afar.
From William Tell, act iii. scene 1.
WALTER sings.
Bow and arrow bearing, Over hills and streams Moves the hunter daring, Soon as daylight gleams.
As all flying creatures Own the eagle's sway, So the hunter, Nature's Mounts and crags obey.
Over space he reigneth, And he makes his prize All his bolt attaineth, All that creeps or flies.
From William Tell, act iv. scene 3.
CHORUS OF BROTHERS OF MERCY.
Death comes to man with hasty stride, No respite is to him e'er given; He's stricken down in manhood's pride, E'en in mid race from earth he's driven. Prepared, or not, to go from here, Before his Judge he must appear!
From Turandot, act ii. scene 4.
RIDDLE.
The tree whereon decay All those from mortals sprung,-- Full old, and yet whose spray Is ever green and young; To catch the light, it rolls Each leaf upon one side; The other, black as coals, The sun has ne'er descried.
It places on new rings As often as it blows; The age, too, of all things To mortal gaze it shows. Upon its bark so green A name oft meets the eye, Yet 'tis no longer seen, When it grows old and dry. This tree--what can it mean? I wait for thy reply. [70]
From Mary Stuart, act iii, scene 1.
SCENE--A Park. MARY advances hastily from behind some trees. HANNAH KENNEDY follows her slowly.
MARY.
Let me my newly-won liberty taste! Let me rejoice as a child once again! And, as on pinions, with airy foot hast Over the tapestried green of the plain! Have I escaped from my prison so drear? Shall I no more in my sad dungeon pine? Let me in long and in thirsty draughts here Drink in the breezes, so free, so divine
Thanks, thanks, ye trees, in smiling verdure dressed, In that ye veil my prison-walls from sight! I'll dream that I am free and blest Why should I waken from a dream so bright? Do not the spacious heavens encompass me? Behold! my gaze, unshackled, free, Pierces with joy the trackless realms of light! There, where the gray-tinged hills of mist project, My kingdom's boundaries begin; Yon clouds, that tow'rd the south their course direct, France's far-distant ocean seek to win.
Swiftly-flying clouds, hardy sailors through air! Mortal hath roamed with ye, sailed with ye, ne'er! Greetings of love to my youthful home bear! I am a prisoner, I am in chains, Ah, not a herald, save ye, now remains, Free through the air hath your path ever been, Ye are not subject to England's proud queen!
Yonder's a fisherman trimming his boat. E'en that frail skiff from all danger might tear me, And to the dwellings of friends it might bear me. Scarcely his earnings can keep life afloat. Richly with treasures his lap I'd heap over,-- Oh! what a draught should reward him to-day! Fortune held fast in his nets he'd discover, If in his bark he would take me away!
Hear'st thou the horn of the hunter resound, Wakening the echo through forest and plain? Ah, on my spirited courser to bound! Once more to join in the mirth-stirring train! Hark! how the dearly-loved tones come again! Blissful, yet sad, the remembrance they wake; Oft have they fallen with joy on mine ear, When in the highlands the bugle rang clear, Rousing the chase over mountain and brake.
From The Maid of Orleans, Prologue, scene 4.
JOAN OF ARC (soliloquizing).
Farewell, ye mountains, and ye pastures dear, Ye still and happy valleys, fare ye well! No longer may Joan's footsteps linger here, Joan bids ye now a long, a last farewell!
Ye meadows that I watered, and each bush Set by my hands, ne'er may your verdure fail! Farewell, ye grots, ye springs that cooling gush Thou echo, blissful voice of this sweet vale, So wont to give me back an answering strain,-- Joan must depart, and ne'er return again!
Ye haunts of all my silent joys of old, I leave ye now behind forevermore! Disperse, ye lambs, far o'er the trackless wold! She now hath gone who tended you of yore! I must away to guard another fold, On yonder field of danger, stained with gore. Thus am I bidden by a spirit's tone 'Tis no vain earthly longing drives me on.
For He who erst to Moses on the height Of Horeb, in the fiery bush came down, And bade him stand in haughty Pharaoh's sight, He who made choice of Jesse's pious son, The shepherd, as his champion in the fight,-- He who to shepherds grace hath ever shown, He thus addressed me from this lofty tree: "Go hence! On earth my witness thou shalt be!
"In rugged brass, then, clothe thy members now, In steel thy gentle bosom must be dressed! No mortal love thy heart must e'er allow, With earthly passion's sinful flame possessed. Ne'er will the bridal wreath adorn thy brow, No darling infant blossom on thy breast; Yet thou with warlike honors shalt be laden, Raising thee high above each earthly maiden.
"For when the bravest in the fight despair, When France appears to wait her final blow, Then thou my holy oriflamme must bear; And, as the ripened corn the reapers mow, Hew down the conqueror as he triumphs there; His fortune's wheel thou thus wilt overthrow, To France's hero-sons salvation bring, Deliver Rheims once more, and crown thy king!"
The Lord hath promised to send down a sign A helmet he hath sent, it comes from Him,-- His sword endows mine arm with strength divine, I feel the courage of the cherubim; To join the battle-turmoil how I pine! A raging tempest thrills through every limb; The summons to the field bursts on mine ear, My charger paws the ground, the trump rings clear.
From The Maid of Orleans, act iv. scene 1.
SCENE--A hall prepared for a festival. The pillars are covered with festoons of flowers; flutes and hautboys are heard behind the scene.
JOAN OF ARC (soliloquizing).
Each weapon rests, war's tumults cease to sound, While dance and song succeed the bloody fray; Through every street the merry footsteps bound, Altar and church are clad in bright array, And gates of branches green arise around, Over the columns twine the garlands gay; Rheims cannot hold the ever-swelling train That seeks the nation-festival to gain.
All with one joyous feeling are elate, One single thought is thrilling every breast; What, until now, was severed by fierce hate, Is by the general rapture truly blessed. By each who called this land his parent-state, The name of Frenchman proudly is confessed; The glory is revived of olden days, And to her regal son France homage pays.
Yet I who have achieved this work of pride, I cannot share the rapture felt by all: My heart is changed, my heart is turned aside, It shuns the splendor of this festival; 'Tis in the British camp it seeks to hide,-- 'Tis on the foe my yearning glances fall; And from the joyous circle I must steal, My bosom's crime o'erpowering to conceal.
Who? I? What! in my bosom chaste Can mortal's image have a seat? This heart, by heavenly glory graced,-- Dares it with earthly love to beat? The saviour of my country, I,-- The champion of the Lord Most High, Own for my country's foe a flame-- To the chaste sun my guilt proclaim, And not be crushed beneath my shame?
(The music behind the scene changes into a soft, melting melody.)
Woe! oh woe! what strains enthralling! How bewildering to mine ear Each his voice beloved recalling, Charming up his image dear!
Would that battle-tempests bound me! Would that spears were whizzing round me In the hotly-raging strife! Could my courage find fresh life!
How those tones, those voices blest Coil around my bosom burning All the strength within my breast Melting into tender yearning, Into tears of sadness turning!
(The flutes are again heard--she falls into a silent melancholy.)
Gentle crook! oh that I never For the sword had bartered thee! Sacred oak! why didst thou ever From thy branches speak to me? Would that thou to me in splendor, Queen of heaven, hadst ne'er come down! Take--all claim I must surrender,-- Take, oh take away thy crown!
Ah, I open saw yon heaven, Saw the features of the blest! Yet to earth my hopes are riven, In the skies they ne'er can rest! Wherefore make me ply with ardor This vocation, terror-fraught? Would this heart were rendered harder. That by heaven to feel was taught!
To proclaim Thy might sublime Those select, who, free from crime, In Thy lasting mansions stand; Send Thou forth Thy spirit-band, The immortal, and the pure, Feelingless, from tears secure Never choose a maiden fair, Shepherdess' weak spirit ne'er!
Kings' dissensions wherefore dread I, Why the fortune of the fight? Guilelessly my lambs once fed I On the silent mountain-height. Yet Thou into life didst bear me, To the halls where monarchs throne. In the toils of guilt to snare me-- Ah, the choice was not mine own!
FOOTNOTES.
[1] The allusion in the original is to the seemingly magical power possessed by a Jew conjuror, named Philadelphia, which would not be understood in English.
[2] This most exquisite love poem is founded on the platonic notion, that souls were united in a pre-existent state, that love is the yearning of the spirit to reunite with the spirit with which it formerly made one--and which it discovers on earth. The idea has often been made subservient to poetry, but never with so earnest and elaborate a beauty.
[3] "Und Empfindung soll mein Richtschwert seyn." A line of great vigor in the original, but which, if literally translated, would seem extravagant in English.
[4] Joseph, in the original.
[5] The youth's name was John Christian Weckherlin.
[6] Venus.
[7] Originally Laura, this having been one of the "Laura-Poems," as the Germans call them of which so many appeared in the Anthology (see Preface). English readers will probably not think that the change is for the better.
[8] Tityus.
[9] This concluding and fine strophe is omitted in the later editions of Schiller's "Poems."
[10] Hercules who recovered from the Shades Alcestis, after she had given her own life to save her husband, Admetus. Alcestis, in the hands of Euripides (that woman-hater as he is called!) becomes the loveliest female creation in the Greek drama.
[11] i. e. Castor and Pollux are transferred to the stars, Hercules to Olympus, for their deeds on earth.
[12] Carlyle's Miscellanies, vol. iii, p. 47.
[13] Literally "Nierensteiner,"--a wine not much known in England, and scarcely--according to our experience--worth the regrets of its respectable owner.
[14] In Schiller the eight long lines that conclude each stanza of this charming love-poem, instead of rhyming alternately as in the translation, chime somewhat to the tune of Byron's Don Juan--six lines rhyming with each other, and the two last forming a separate couplet. In other respects the translation, it is hoped, is sufficiently close and literal.
[15] The peach.
[16] Sung in "The Parasite," a comedy which Schiller translated from Picard--much the best comedy, by the way, that Picard ever wrote.
[17] The idea diffused by the translator through this and the preceding stanza is more forcibly condensed by Schiller in four lines.
[18] "And ere a man hath power to say, "behold," The jaws of Darkness do devour it up, So quick bright things come to confusion."-- SHAKESPEARE.
[19] The three following ballads, in which Switzerland is the scene, betray their origin in Schiller's studies for the drama of William Tell.
[20] The avalanche--the equivoque of the original, turning on the Swiss word Lawine, it is impossible to render intelligible to the English reader. The giants in the preceding line are the rocks that overhang the pass which winds now to the right, now to the left, of a roaring stream.
[21] The Devil's Bridge. The Land of Delight (called in Tell "a serene valley of joy") to which the dreary portal (in Tell the black rock gate) leads, is the Urse Vale. The four rivers, in the next stanza, are the Reus, the Rhine, the Tessin, and the Rhone.
[22] The everlasting glacier. See William Tell, act v, scene 2.
[23] This has been paraphrased by Coleridge.
[24] Ajax the Less.
[25] Ulysses.
[26] Achilles.
[27] Diomed.
[28] Cassandra.
[29] It may be scarcely necessary to treat, however briefly, of the mythological legend on which this exquisite elegy is founded; yet we venture to do so rather than that the forgetfulness of the reader should militate against his enjoyment of the poem. Proserpine, according to the Homeride (for the story is not without variations), when gathering flowers with the Ocean-Nymphs, is carried off by Aidoneus, or Pluto. Her mother, Ceres, wanders over the earth for her in vain, and refuses to return to heaven till her daughter is restored to her. Finally, Jupiter commissions Hermes to persuade Pluto to render up his bride, who rejoins Ceres at Eleusis. Unfortunately she has swallowed a pomegranate seed in the Shades below, and is thus mysteriously doomed to spend one-third of the year with her husband in Hades, though for the remainder of the year she is permitted to dwell with Ceres and the gods. This is one of the very few mythological fables of Greece which can be safely interpreted into an allegory. Proserpine denotes the seed-corn one-third of the year below the earth; two-thirds (that is, dating from the appearance of the ear) above it. Schiller has treated this story with admirable and artistic beauty; and, by an alteration in its symbolical character has preserved the pathos of the external narrative, and heightened the beauty of the interior meaning--associating the productive principle of the earth with the immortality of the soul. Proserpine here is not the symbol of the buried seed, but the buried seed is the symbol of her--that is, of the dead. The exquisite feeling of this poem consoled Schiller's friend, Sophia La Roche, in her grief for her son's death. [30] What a beautiful vindication of the shortness of human life!
[31] The corn-flower.
[32] For this story, see Herodotus, book iii, sections 40-43.
[33] President of Council of Five Hundred.
[34] We have already seen in "The Ring of Polycrates," Schiller's mode of dealing with classical subjects. In the poems that follow, derived from similar sources, the same spirit is maintained. In spite of Humboldt, we venture to think that Schiller certainly does not narrate Greek legends in the spirit of an ancient Greek. The Gothic sentiment, in its ethical depth and mournful tenderness, more or less pervades all that he translates from classic fable into modern pathos. The grief of Hero in the ballad subjoined, touches closely on the lamentations of Thekla, in "Wallenstein." The Complaint of Ceres, embodies Christian grief and Christian hope. The Trojan Cassandra expresses the moral of the Northern Faust. Even the "Victory Feast" changes the whole spirit of Homer, on whom it is founded, by the introduction of the ethical sentiment at the close, borrowed, as a modern would apply what he so borrows from the moralizing Horace. Nothing can be more foreign to the Hellenic genius, (if we except the very disputable intention of the "Prometheus"), than the interior and typical design which usually exalts every conception in Schiller. But it is perfectly open to the modern poet to treat of ancient legends in the modern spirit. Though he selects a Greek story, he is still a modern who narrates--he can never make himself a Greek any more than Aeschylus in the "Persae" could make himself a Persian. But this is still more the privilege of the poet in narrative, or lyrical composition, than in the drama, for in the former he does not abandon his identity, as in the latter he must--yet even this must has its limits. Shakspeare's wonderful power of self-transfusion has no doubt enabled him, in his plays from Roman history, to animate his characters with much of Roman life. But no one can maintain that a Roman would ever have written plays in the least resembling "Julius Caesar," or "Coriolanus," or "Antony and Cleopatra." The portraits may be Roman, but they are painted in the manner of the Gothic school. The spirit of antiquity is only in them, inasmuch as the representation of human nature, under certain circumstances, is accurately, though loosely outlined. When the poet raises the dead, it is not to restore, but to remodel.
[35] This notes the time of year--not the time of day--viz., about the 23d of September.--HOFFMEISTER.
[36] Hecate as the mysterious goddess of Nature.--HOFFMEISTER.
[37] This story, the heroes of which are more properly known to us under the names of Damon and Pythias (or Phintias), Schiller took from Hyginus in whom the friends are called Moerus and Selinuntius. Schiller has somewhat amplified the incidents in the original, in which the delay of Moerus is occasioned only by the swollen stream--the other hindrances are of Schiller's invention. The subject, like "The Ring of Polycrates," does not admit of that rich poetry of description with which our author usually adorns some single passage in his narratives. The poetic spirit is rather shown in the terse brevity with which picture after picture is not only sketched but finished--and in the great thought at the close. Still it is not one of Schiller's best ballads. His additions to the original story are not happy. The incident of the robbers is commonplace and poor. The delay occasioned by the thirst of Moerus is clearly open to Goethe's objection (an objection showing very nice perception of nature)--that extreme thirst was not likely to happen to a man who had lately passed through a stream on a rainy day, and whose clothes must have been saturated with moisture--nor in the traveller's preoccupied state of mind, is it probable that he would have so much felt the mere physical want. With less reason has it been urged by other critics, that the sudden relenting of the tyrant is contrary to his character. The tyrant here has no individual character at all. He is the mere personation of disbelief in truth and love--which the spectacle of sublime self-abnegation at once converts. In this idea lies the deep philosophical truth, which redeems all the defects of the piece--for poetry, in its highest form, is merely this--"Truth made beautiful."
[38] The somewhat irregular metre of the original has been preserved in this ballad, as in other poems; although the perfect anapaestic metre is perhaps more familiar to the English ear.
[39] "Die Gestalt"--Form, the Platonic Archetype.
[40] More literally translated thus by the author of the article on Schiller in the Foreign and Colonial Review, July, 1843--
"Thence all witnesses forever banished Of poor human nakedness."
[41] The law, i. e., the Kantian ideal of truth and virtue. This stanza and the next embody, perhaps with some exaggeration, the Kantian doctrine of morality.
[42] "But in God's sight submission is command." "Jonah," by the Rev. F. Hodgson. Quoted in Foreign and Colonial Review, July, 1843: Art. Schiller, p. 21.
[43] It seems generally agreed that poetry is allegorized in these stanzas; though, with this interpretation, it is difficult to reconcile the sense of some of the lines--for instance, the last in the first stanza. How can poetry be said to leave no trace when she takes farewell?
[44] "I call the living--I mourn the dead--I break the lightning." These words are inscribed on the great bell of the Minster of Schaffhausen--also on that of the Church of Art near Lucerne. There was an old belief in Switzerland that the undulation of air caused by the sound of a bell, broke the electric fluid of a thunder-cloud.
[45] A piece of clay pipe, which becomes vitrified if the metal is sufficiently heated.
[46] The translator adheres to the original, in forsaking the rhyme in these lines and some others.
[47] Written in the time of the French war.
[48] Literally, "the manners." The French word moeurs corresponds best with the German.
[49] The epithet in the first edition is ruhmlose.
[50] For this interesting story, see Cox's "House of Austria," vol i, pp. 87-98 (Bohn's Standard Library).
[51] See "Piccolomini," act ii., scene 6; and "The Death of Wallenstein," act v., scene 3.
[52] This poem is very characteristic of the noble ease with which Schiller often loves to surprise the reader, by the sudden introduction of matter for the loftiest reflection in the midst of the most familiar subjects. What can be more accurate and happy than the poet's description of the national dance, as if such description were his only object--the outpouring, as it were, of a young gallant intoxicated by the music, and dizzy with the waltz? Suddenly and imperceptibly the reader finds himself elevated from a trivial scene. He is borne upward to the harmony of the sphere. He bows before the great law of the universe--the young gallant is transformed into the mighty teacher; and this without one hard conceit --without one touch of pedantry. It is but a flash of light; and where glowed the playful picture shines the solemn moral.
[53] The first five verses in the original of this poem are placed as a motto on Goethe's statue in the Library at Weimar. The poet does not here mean to extol what is vulgarly meant by the gifts of fortune; he but develops a favorite idea of his, that, whatever is really sublime and beautiful, comes freely down from heaven; and vindicates the seeming partiality of the gods, by implying that the beauty and the genius given, without labor, to some, but serve to the delight of those to whom they are denied.
[54] Achilles.
[55] "Nur ein Wunder kann dich tragen In das schoene Wunderland."--SCHILLER, Sehnsucht.
[56] This simile is nobly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antaeus, the Son of Earth--so long as the earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,--so the soul contends in vain with evil--the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antaeus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth, and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy (the desire, the passion, the evil, the earth's offspring), when bearing it from earth itself, and stifling it in the higher air.
[57] By this Schiller informs us elsewhere that he does not mean death alone; but that the thought applies equally to every period of life when we can divest ourselves of the body and perceive or act as pure spirits; we are truly then under the influence of the sublime.
[58] Duke Bernard of Weimar, one of the heroes of the Thirty Years' war.
[59] These verses were sent by Schiller to the then Electoral High Chancellor, with a copy of his "William Tell."
[60] Addressed in the original to Mdlle. Slevoigt, on her marriage to Dr. Sturm.
[61] This was the title of the publication in which many of the finest of Schiller's "Poems of the Third Period" originally appeared.
[62] A pointless satire upon Klopstock and his Messias.
[63] Schiller, who is not very particular about the quantities of classical names, gives this word with the o long--which is, of course, the correct quantity--in The Gods of Greece.
[64] A well-known general, who died in 1783.
[65] See the play of The Robbers.
[66] Written in consequence of the ill-treatment Schiller experienced at the hands of the Grand Duke Charles of Wirtemberg.
[67] Written in the Suabian dialect.
[68] An allusion to the appointment of regimental surgeon, conferred upon Schiller by the Grand Duke Charles in 1780, when he was twenty-one years of age.
[69] The Landlord on the Mountain.
[70] The year.
AESTHETICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS
by Frederick Schiller
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
VOCABULARY OF TERMINOLOGY
LETTERS ON THE AESTHETICAL EDUCATION OF MAN
AESTHETICAL ESSAYS:--
THE MORAL UTILITY OF AESTHETIC MANNERS ON THE SUBLIME THE PATHETIC ON GRACE AND DIGNITY ON DIGNITY ON THE NECESSARY LIMITATIONS IN THE USE OF BEAUTY AND FORM REFLECTIONS ON THE USE OF THE VULGAR AND LOW ELEMENTS IN WORKS OF ART DETACHED REFLECTIONS ON DIFFERENT QUESTIONS OF AESTHETICS ON SIMPLE AND SENTIMENTAL POETRY THE STAGE AS A MORAL INSTITUTION ON THE TRAGIC ART OF THE CAUSE OF THE PLEASURE WE DERIVE FROM TRAGIC OBJECTS
SCHILLER'S PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS:--
PREFATORY REMARKS THEOSOPHY OF JULIUS ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ANIMAL AND THE SPIRITUAL NATURE IN MAN PHYSICAL CONNECTION PHILOSOPHICAL CONNECTION
INTRODUCTION.
The special subject of the greater part of the letters and essays of Schiller contained in this volume is Aesthetics; and before passing to any remarks on his treatment of the subject it will be useful to offer a few observations on the nature of this topic, and on its treatment by the philosophical spirit of different ages.
First, then, aesthetics has for its object the vast realm of the beautiful, and it may be most adequately defined as the philosophy of art or of the fine arts. To some the definition may seem arbitrary, as excluding the beautiful in nature; but it will cease to appear so if it is remarked that the beauty which is the work of art is higher than natural beauty, because it is the offspring of the mind. Moreover, if, in conformity with a certain school of modern philosophy, the mind be viewed as the true being, including all in itself, it must be admitted that beauty is only truly beautiful when it shares in the nature of mind, and is mind's offspring.
Viewed in this light, the beauty of nature is only a reflection of the beauty of the mind, only an imperfect beauty, which as to its essence is included in that of the mind. Nor has it ever entered into the mind of any thinker to develop the beautiful in natural objects, so as to convert it into a science and a system. The field of natural beauty is too uncertain and too fluctuating for this purpose. Moreover, the relation of beauty in nature and beauty in art forms a part of the science of aesthetics, and finds again its proper place.
But it may be urged that art is not worthy of a scientific treatment. Art is no doubt an ornament of our life and a charm to the fancy; but has it a more serious side? When compared with the absorbing necessities of human existence, it might seem a luxury, a superfluity, calculated to enfeeble the heart by the assiduous worship of beauty, and thus to be actually prejudicial to the true interest of practical life. This view seems to be largely countenanced by a dominant party in modern times, and practical men, as they are styled, are only too ready to take this superficial view of the office of art.
Many have indeed undertaken to defend art on this score, and to show that, far from being a mere luxury, it has serious and solid advantages. It has been even apparently exaggerated in this respect, and represented as a kind of mediator between reason and sense, between inclination and duty, having as its mission the work of reconciling the conflicting elements in the human heart. A strong trace of this view will be found in Schiller, especially in all that he says about the play-instinct in his "Aesthetical Letters."
Nevertheless, art is worthy of science; aesthetics is a true science, and the office of art is as high as that assigned to it in the pages of Schiller. We admit that art viewed only as an ornament and a charm is no longer free, but a slave. But this is a perversion of its proper end. Science has to be considered as free in its aim and in its means, and it is only free when liberated from all other considerations; it rises up to truth, which is its only real object, and can alone fully satisfy it. Art in like manner is alone truly art when it is free and independent, when it solves the problem of its high destination--that problem whether it has to be placed beside religion and philosophy as being nothing else than a particular mode or a special form of revealing God to consciousness, and of expressing the deepest interests of human nature and the widest truths of the human mind.
For it is in their works of art that the nations have imprinted their favorite thoughts and their richest intuitions, and not unfrequently the fine arts are the only means by which we can penetrate into the secrets of their wisdom and the mysteries of their religion.
It is made a reproach to art that it produces its effects by appearance and illusion; but can it be established that appearance is objectionable? The phenomena of nature and the acts of human life are nothing more than appearances, and are yet looked upon as constituting a true reality; for this reality must be sought for beyond the objects perceived immediately by the sense, the substance and speech and principle underlying all things manifesting itself in time and space through these real existences, but preserving its absolute existence in itself. Now, the very special object and aim of art is to represent the action and development of this universal force. In nature this force or principle appears confounded with particular interests and transitory circumstances, mixed up with what is arbitrary in the passions and in individual wills. Art sets the truth free from the illusory and mendacious forms of this coarse, imperfect world, and clothes it in a nobler, purer form created by the mind itself. Thus the forms of art, far from being mere appearances, perfectly illusory, contain more reality and truth than the phenomenal existences of the real world. The world of art is truer than that of history or nature.
Nor is this all: the representations of art are more expressive and transparent than the phenomena of the real world or the events of history. The mind finds it harder to pierce through the hard envelop of nature and common life than to penetrate into works of art.
Two more reflections appear completely to meet the objection that art or aesthetics is not entitled to the name of science.
It will be generally admitted that the mind of man has the power of considering itself, of making itself its own object and all that issues from its activity; for thought constitutes the essence of the mind. Now art and its work, as creations of the mind, are themselves of a spiritual nature. In this respect art is much nearer to the mind than nature. In studying the works of art the mind has to do with itself, with what proceeds from itself, and is itself.
Thus art finds its highest confirmation in science.
Nor does art refuse a philosophical treatment because it is dependent on caprice, and subject to no law. If its highest aim be to reveal to the human consciousness the highest interest of the mind, it is evident that the substance or contents of the representations are not given up to the control of a wild and irregular imagination. It is strictly determined by the ideas that concern our intelligence and by the laws of their development, whatever may be the inexhaustible variety of forms in which they are produced. Nor are these forms arbitrary, for every form is not fitted to express every idea. The form is determined by the substance which it has to suit.
A further consideration of the true nature of beauty, and therefore of the vocation of the artist, will aid us still more in our endeavor to show the high dignity of art and of aesthetics. The history of philosophy presents us with many theories on the nature of the beautiful; but as it would lead us too far to examine them all, we shall only consider the most important among them. The coarsest of these theories defines the beautiful as that which pleases the senses. This theory, issuing from the philosophy of sensation of the school of Locke and Condillac, only explains the idea and the feeling of the beautiful by disfiguring it. It is entirely contradicted by facts. For it converts it into desire, but desire is egotistical and insatiable, while admiration is respectful, and is its own satisfaction without seeking possession.
Others have thought the beautiful consists in proportion, and no doubt this is one of the conditions of beauty, but only one. An ill-proportioned object cannot be beautiful, but the exact correspondence of parts, as in geometrical figures, does not constitute beauty.
A noted ancient theory makes beauty consist in the perfect suitableness of means to their end. In this case the beautiful is not the useful, it is the suitable; and the latter idea is more akin to that of beauty. But it has not the true character of the beautiful. Again, order is a less mathematical idea than proportion, but it does not explain what is free and flowing in certain beauties.
The most plausible theory of beauty is that which makes it consist in two contrary and equally necessary elements--unity and variety. A beautiful flower has all the elements we have named; it has unity, symmetry, and variety of shades of color. There is no beauty without life, and life is movement, diversity. These elements are found in beautiful and also in sublime objects. A beautiful object is complete, finished, limited with symmetrical parts. A sublime object whose forms, though not out of proportion, are less determined, ever awakens in us the feeling of the infinite. In objects of sense all qualities that can produce the feeling of the beautiful come under one class called physical beauty. But above and beyond this in the region of mind we have first intellectual beauty, including the laws that govern intelligence and the creative genius of the artist, the poet, and the philosopher. Again, the moral world has beauty in its ideas of liberty, of virtue, of devotion, the justice of Aristides, the heroism of Leonidas.
We have now ascertained that there is beauty and sublimity in nature, in ideas, in feelings, and in actions. After all this it might be supposed that a unity could be found amidst these different kinds of beauty. The sight of a statue, as the Apollo of Belvedere, of a man, of Socrates expiring, are adduced as producing impressions of the beautiful; but the form cannot be a form by itself, it must be the form of something. Physical beauty is the sign of an interior beauty, a spiritual and moral beauty which is the basis, the principle, and the unity of the beautiful.
Physical beauty is an envelop to intellectual and to moral beauty.
Intellectual beauty, the splendor of the true, can only have for principle that of all truth.
Moral beauty comprehends two distinct elements, equally beautiful, justice and charity. Thus God is the principle of the three orders of beauty, physical, intellectual, and moral. He also construes the two great powers distributed over the three orders, the beautiful and the sublime. God is beauty par excellence; He is therefore perfectly beautiful; He is equally sublime. He is to us the type and sense of the two great forms of beauty. In short, the Absolute Being as absolute unity and absolute variety is necessarily the ultimate principle, the extreme basis, the finished ideal of all beauty. This was the marvellous beauty which Diotimus had seen, and which is described in the Banquet of Socrates.
It is our purpose after the previous discussion to attempt to elucidate still further the idea of art by following its historic development.
Many questions bearing on art and relating to the beautiful had been propounded before, even as far back as Plotinus, Plato, and Socrates, but recent times have been the real cradle of aesthetics as a science. Modern philosophy was the first to recognize that beauty in art is one of the means by which the contradictions can be removed between mind considered in its abstract and absolute existence and nature constituting the world of sense, bringing back these two factors to unity.
Kant was the first who felt the want of this union and expressed it, but without determining its conditions or expressing it scientifically. He was impeded in his efforts to effect this union by the opposition between the subjective and the objective, by his placing practical reason above theoretical reason, and he set up the opposition found in the moral sphere as the highest principle of morality. Reduced to this difficulty, all that Kant could do was to express the union under the form of the subjective ideas of reason, or as postulates to be deduced from the practical reason, without their essential character being known, and representing their realization as nothing more than a simple you ought, or imperative "Du sollst."
In his teleological judgment applied to living beings, Kant comes, on the contrary, to consider the living organism in such wise that, the general including the particular, and determining it as an end, consequently the idea also determines the external, the compound of the organs, not by an act springing from without but issuing from within. In this way the end and the means, the interior and exterior, the general and particular, are confounded in unity. But this judgment only expresses a subjective act of reflection, and does not throw any light on the object in itself. Kant has the same view of the aesthetic judgment. According to him the judgment does not proceed either from reason, as the faculty of general ideas, or from sensuous perception, but from the free play of the reason and of the imagination. In this analysis of the cognitive faculty, the object only exists relatively to the subject and to the feeling of pleasure or the enjoyment that it experiences.
The characteristics of the beautiful are, according to Kant:--
1. The pleasure it procures is free from interest.
2. Beauty appears to us as an object of general enjoyment, without awakening in us the consciousness of an abstract idea and of a category of reason to which we might refer our judgment.
3. Beauty ought to embrace in itself the relation of conformity to its end, but in such a way that this conformity may be grasped without the idea of the end being offered to our mind.
4. Though it be not accompanied by an abstract idea, beauty ought to be acknowledged as the object of a necessary enjoyment.
A special feature of all this system is the indissoluble unity of what is supposed to be separated in consciousness. This distinction disappears in the beautiful, because in it the general and the particular, the end and the means, the idea and the object, mentally penetrate each other completely. The particular in itself, whether it be opposed to itself or to what is general, is something accidental. But here what may be considered as an accidental form is so intimately connected with the general that it is confounded and identified with it. By this means the beautiful in art presents thought to us as incarnate. On the other hand, matter, nature, the sensuous as themselves possessing measure, end, and harmony, are raised to the dignity of spirit and share in its general character. Thought not only abandons its hostility against nature, but smiles in her. Sensation and enjoyment are justified and sanctified, so that nature and liberty, sense and ideas, find their justification and their sanctification in this union. Nevertheless this reconciliation, though seemingly perfect, is stricken with the character of subjectiveness. It cannot constitute the absolutely true and real.
Such is an outline of the principal results of Kant's criticism, and Hegel passes high praise on the profoundly philosophic mind of Schiller, who demanded the union and reconciliation of the two principles, and who tried to give a scientific explanation of it before the problem had been solved by philosophy. In his "Letters on Aesthetic Education," Schiller admits that man carries in himself the germ of the ideal man which is realized and represented by the state. There are two ways for the individual man to approach the ideal man; first, when the state, considered as morality, justice, and general reason, absorbs the individualities in its unity; secondly, when the individual rises to the ideal of his species by the perfecting of himself. Reason demands unity, conformity to the species; nature, on the other hand, demands plurality and individuality; and man is at once solicited by two contrary laws. In this conflict, aesthetic education must come in to effect the reconciliation of the two principles; for, according to Schiller, it has as its end to fashion and polish the inclinations and passions so that they may become reasonable, and that, on the other hand, reason and freedom may issue from their abstract character, may unite with nature, may spiritualize it, become incarnate, and take a body in it. Beauty is thus given as the simultaneous development of the rational and of the sensuous, fused together, and interpenetrated one by the other, an union that constitutes in fact true reality.
This unity of the general and of the particular, of liberty and necessity of the spiritual and material, which Schiller understood scientifically as the spirit of art, and which he tried to make appear in real life by aesthetic art and education, was afterwards put forward under the name of idea as the principle of all knowledge and existence. In this way, through the agency of Schelling, science raised itself to an absolute point of view. It was thus that art began to claim its proper nature and dignity. From that time its proper place was finally marked out for it in science, though the mode of viewing it still labored under certain defects. Its high and true distinction were at length understood.
In viewing the higher position to which recent philosophical systems have raised the theory of art in Germany, we must not overlook the advantages contributed by the study of the ideal of the ancients by such men as Winckelmann, who, by a kind of inspiration, raised art criticism from a carping about petty details to seek the true spirit of great works of art, and their true ideas, by a study of the spirit of the originals.
It has appeared expedient to conclude this introduction with a summary of the latest and highest theory of art and aesthetics issuing from Kant and Schiller, and developed in the later philosophy of Hegel.
Our space only allows us to give a glance, first, at the metaphysics of the beautiful as developed by Hegel in the first part of his 'Aesthetik,' and then at the later development of the same system in recent writers issuing from his school.
Hegel considers, first, the abstract idea of the beautiful; secondly, beauty in nature; thirdly, beauty in art or the ideal; and he winds up with an examination of the qualities of the artist.
His preliminary remarks are directed to show the relations of art to religion and philosophy, and he shows that man's destination is an infinite development. In real life he only satisfies his longing partially and imperfectly by limited enjoyments. In science he finds a nobler pleasure, and civil life opens a career for his activity; but he only finds an imperfect pleasure in these pursuits. He cannot then find the ideal after which he sighs. Then he rises to a higher sphere, where all contradictions are effaced and the ideas of good and happiness are realized in perfect accord and in constant harmony. This deep want of the soul is satisfied in three ways: in art, in religion, and in philosophy.
Art is intended to make us contemplate the true and the infinite in forms of sense. Yet even art does not fully satisfy the deepest need of the soul. The soul wants to contemplate truth in its inmost consciousness. Religion is placed above the dominion of art.
First, as to idea of the beautiful, Hegel begins by giving its characteristics. It is infinite, and it is free; the contemplation of the beautiful suffices to itself, it awakens no desire. The soul experiences something like a godlike felicity and is transported into a sphere remote from the miseries of life. This theory of the beautiful comes very near that of Plato.
Secondly, as to beauty in nature. Physical beauty, considered externally, presents itself successively under the aspects of regularity and of symmetry, of conformity with a law, and of harmony, also of purity and simplicity of matter.
Thirdly, beauty in art or the ideal is beauty in a higher degree of perfection than real beauty. The ideal in art is not contrary to the real, but the real idealized, purified, and perfectly expressed. The ideal is also the soul arrived at the consciousness of itself, free and fully enjoying its faculties; it is life, but spiritual life and spirit. Nor is the ideal a cold abstraction, it is the spiritual principle under the form of a living individuality freed from the laws of the finite. The ideal in its highest form is the divine, as expressed in the Greek divinities; the Christian ideal, as expressed in all its highest purity in God the Father, the Christ, the Virgin. Its essential features are calm, majesty, serenity.
At a lower degree the ideal is in man the victory of the eternal principles that fill the human heart, the triumph of the nobler part of the soul, the moral and divine principle.
But the ideal manifested in the world becomes action, and action implies a form of society, a determinate situation with collision, and an action properly so called. The heroic age is the best society for the ideal in action; in its determinate situation the ideal in action must appear as the manifestation of moral power, and in action, properly so called, it must contain three points in the ideal: first, general principles; secondly, personages; thirdly, their character and their passions. Hegel winds up by considering the qualities necessary in an artist: imagination, genius, inspiration, originality, etc.
A recent exponent of Hegel's aesthetical ideas further developed expresses himself thus on the nature of beauty:--
"After the bitterness of the world, the sweetness of art soothes and refreshes us. This is the high value of the beautiful--that it solves the contradiction of mind and matter, of the moral and sensuous world, in harmony. Thus the beautiful and its representation in art procures for intuition what philosophy gives to the cognitive insight and religion to the believing frame of mind. Hence the delight with which Schiller's wonderful poem on the Bell celebrates the accord of the inner and outer life, the fulfilment of the longing and demands of the soul by the events in nature. The externality of phenomena is removed in the beautiful; it is raised into the circle of ideal existence; for it is recognized as the revelation of the ideal, and thus transfigured it gives to the latter additional splendor."
"Thus the beautiful is active, living unity, full existence without defect, as Plato and Schelling have said, or as recent writers describe it; the idea that is quite present in the appearance, the appearance which is quite formed and penetrated by the idea."
"Beauty is the world secret that invites us in image and word," is the poetical expression of Plato; and we may add, because it is revealed in both. We feel in it the harmony of the world; it breaks forth in a beauty, in a lovely accord, in a radiant point, and starting thence we penetrate further and yet further, and find as the ground of all existence the same charm which had refreshed us in individual forms. Thus Christ pointed to the lilies of the field to knit His followers' reliance on Providence with the phenomena of nature: and could they jet forth in royal beauty, exceeding that of Solomon, if the inner ground of nature were not beauty?
We may also name beauty in a certain sense a mystery, as it mediates to us in a sensuous sign a heavenly gift of grace, that it opens to us a view into the eternal Being, teaching us to know nature in God and God in nature, that it brings the divine even to the perception of sense, and establishes the energy of love and freedom as the ground, the bond, and the end of the world.
In the midst of the temporal the eternal is made palpable and present to us in the beautiful, and offers itself to our enjoyment. The separation is suppressed, and the original unity, as it is in God, appears as the first, as what holds together even the past in the universe, and what constitutes the aim of the development in a finite accord.
The beautiful not only presents itself to us as mediator of a foreign excellence or of a remote divinity, but the ideal and the godlike are present in it. Hence aesthetics requires as its basis the system in which God is known as indwelling in the world, that He is not far distant from any one of us, but that He animates us, and that we live in Him. Aesthetics requires the knowledge that mind is the creative force and unity of all that is extended and developed in time and space.
The beautiful is thus, according to these later thinkers, the revelation of God to the mind through the senses; it is the appearance of the idea. In the beautiful spirit reveals itself to spirit through matter and the senses; thus the entire man feels himself raised and satisfied by it. By the unity of the beautiful with us we experience with delight that thought and the material world are present for our individuality, that they utter tones and shine forth in it, that both penetrate each other and blend in it and thus become one with it. We feel one with them and one in them.
This later view was to a great extent expressed by Schiller in his "Aesthetical Letters."
But art and aesthetics, in the sense in which these terms are used and understood by German philosophical writers, such as Schiller, embrace a wider field than the fine arts. Lessing, in his "Laocoon," had already shown the point of contrast between painting and poetry; and aesthetics, being defined as the science of the beautiful, must of necessity embrace poetry. Accordingly Schiller's essays on tragic art, pathos, and sentimental poetry, contained in this volume, are justly classed under his aesthetical writings.
This being so, it is important to estimate briefly the transitions of German poetry before Schiller, and the position that he occupied in its historic development.
The first classical period of German poetry and literature was contained between A. D. 1190 and 1300. It exhibits the intimate blending of the German and Christian elements, and their full development in splendid productions, for this was the period of the German national epos, the "Nibelungenlied," and of the "Minnegesang."
This was a period which has nothing to compare with it in point of art and poetry, save perhaps, and that imperfectly, the heroic and post-Homeric age of early Greece.
The poetical efforts of that early age may be grouped under--(1) national epos: the "Nibelungenlied;" (2) art epos: the "Rolandslied," "Percival," etc.; (3) the introduction of antique legends: Veldeck's "Aeneide," and Konrad's "War of Troy;" (4) Christian legends "Barlaam," "Sylvester," "Pilatus," etc.; (5) poetical narratives: "Crescentia," "Graf Rudolf," etc.; (6) animal legends; "Reinecke Vos;" (7) didactic poems: "Der Renner;" (8) the Minne-poetry, and prose.
The fourth group, though introduced from a foreign source, gives the special character and much of the charm of the period we consider. This is the sphere of legends derived from ecclesiastical ground. One of the best German writers on the history of German literature remarks: "If the aim and nature of all poetry is to let yourself be filled by a subject and to become penetrated with it; if the simple representation of unartificial, true, and glowing feelings belongs to its most beautiful adornments; if the faithful direction of the heart to the invisible and eternal is the ground on which at all times the most lovely flowers of poetry have sprouted forth, these legendary poems of early Germany, in their lovely heartiness, in their unambitious limitation, and their pious sense, deserve a friendly acknowledgment. What man has considered the pious images in the prayer-books of the Middle Ages, the unadorned innocence, the piety and purity, the patience of the martyrs, the calm, heavenly transparency of the figures of the holy angels, without being attracted by the simple innocence and humility of these forms, the creation of pious artists' hands? Who has beheld them without tranquil joy at the soft splendor poured, over them, without deep sympathy, nay, without a certain emotion and tenderness? And the same spirit that created these images also produced those poetical effusions, the same spirit of pious belief, of deep devotion, of heavenly longing. If we make a present reality of the heroic songs of the early German popular poetry, and the chivalrous epics of the art poetry, the military expeditions and dress of the Crusades, this legendary poetry appears as the invention of humble pilgrims, who wander slowly on the weary way to Jerusalem, with scollop and pilgrim's staff, engaged in quiet prayer, till they are all to kneel at the Saviour's sepulchre; and thus contented, after touching the holy earth with their lips, they return, poor as they were, but full of holy comfort, to their distant home.
"While the knightly poetry is the poetry of the splendid secular life, full of cheerful joy, full of harp-tones and song, full of tournaments and joyous festivals, the poetry of the earthly love for the earthly bride, the poetry of the legends is that of the spontaneous life of poverty, the poetry of the solitary cloister cell, of the quiet, well-walled convent garden, the poetry of heavenly brides, who without lamenting the joys of the world, which they need not, have their joy in their Saviour in tranquil piety and devout resignation--who attend at the espousals of Anna and Joachim, sing the Magnificat with the Holy Mother of God, stand weeping beneath the cross, to be pierced also by the sword, who hear the angel harp with St. Cecilia, and walk with St. Theresa in the glades of Paradise. While the Minne-poetry was the tender homage offered to the beauty, the gentleness, the grace, and charm of noble women of this world, legendary poetry was the homage given to the Virgin Mother, the Queen of Heaven, transfiguring earthly love into a heavenly and eternal love."
"For the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the time of woman cultus, such as has never been before or since seen; it is also the time of the deepest and simplest and truest, most enthusiastic and faithful veneration of the Virgin Mary. If we, by a certain effort, manage to place ourselves back on the standpoint of childlike poetic faith of that time, and set aside in thought the materializing and exaggeration of the hagiology and Mariolatry produced by later centuries, rendering the reaction of the Reformation unavoidable--if now in our age, turned exclusively to logical ideas and a negative dialectic, we live again by thought in those ages of feeling and poetry--if we acknowledge all these things to be something more than harmless play of words and fancy, and as the true lifelike contents of the period, then we can properly appreciate this legendary poetry as a necessary link in the crown of pearls of our ancient poetry."
In short, the first classical period of German literature was a time of youthful freshness, of pure harmony, plunged in verse and song, full of the richest tones and the noblest rhythm, so that rhyme and song alone must be looked for as the form of poetic creations. Accordingly it had no proper prose. Like our own youth, it was a happy, free, and true youth, it knew no prose; like us it dreamed to speechless songs; and as we expressed our youthful language and hopes, woes and joys, in rhyme and song, thus a whole people and age had its beautiful youth full of song and verse tones. The life was poetry and poetry was the life.
Then came degeneracy and artifice; after that the great shock of the Reformation; subsequently a servile and pedantic study of classical forms without imbibing their spirit, but preparing the way for a truer art spirit, extracted from their study by the masterly criticism of Winckelmann and Lessing, till the second classical period of German literature and poetry bloomed forth in full beauty, blending the national and legendary elements so well expressed by Herder with the highest effusions of dramatic poetry, partly creative and partly imitative of the Greek models, in Schiller and Goethe.
Modern German literature presents a very remarkable spectacle, though far from unique in history, for there we see criticism begetting genius.
Lessing, the founder of the modern German drama, sought to banish all pomp from the theatre, and in doing so some critics have thought that he banished the ideal and fell into affectation. At any rate, his "Dramaturgy" is full of original ideas, and when he drew out the sphere of poetry contrasted with that of painting in his "Laocoon," all Germany resounded with his praise. "With that delight," says Goethe, "we saluted this luminous ray which a thinker of the first order caused to break forth from its clouds. It is necessary to have all the fire of youth to conceive the effect produced on us by the 'Laocoon' of Lessing." Another great contemporary, whose name is imperishable as that of art, struck a mortal blow at a false taste in the study of the antique. Winckelmann questioned the works of the Greek chisel with an intelligence full of love, and initiated his countrymen into poetry by a feeling for sculpture! What an enthusiasm he displayed for classical beauty! what a worship of the form! what a fervor of paganism is found in its eloquent pages when he also comments on the admirable group of the Laocoon, or the still purer masterpiece of the Apollo of Belvedere.
These men were the vanguard of the great Germanic army; Schiller and Goethe alone formed its main column. In them German poetry shows itself in its perfection, and completely realizes the ideal designed for it by the critic. Every factitious precept and conventional law was now overthrown; these poetical Protestants broke away entirely from the yoke of tradition. Yet their genius was not without a rule. Every work bears in itself the organic laws of its development. Thus, although they laugh at the famous precept of the three unities, it is because they dig still deeper down to the root of things, to grasp the true principle from which the precept issued. "Men have not understood," said Goethe, "the basis of this law. The law of the comprehensive--'das Fassliche'--is the principle; and the three unities have only value as far as they attain it. When they become an obstacle to the comprehension it is madness to wish to observe them. The Greeks themselves, from whom the rule is derived, did not always follow it. In the 'Phaeton' of Euripides, and in other pieces, there was change, place; accordingly they prefer to give a perfect exposition of their subject, rather than blindly respect a law never very essential in itself. The pieces of Shakspeare violate in the highest degree the unity of time and of place; but they are full of comprehensiveness; nothing is easier to grasp, and for that reason they would have found favor with the Greeks. The French poets tried to obey exactly the law of the three unities; but they violate the law of comprehensiveness, as they do not expound dramatic subjects by dramas but by recitals."
Poetical creation was therefore viewed as free, but at the same time responsible. Immediately, as if fecundity were the reward of correctness, the German theatre became filled with true and living characters. The stage widens under their steps that they may have room to move. History with its great proportions and its terrible lessons, is now able to take place on the stage. The whole Thirty Years' War passes before us in "Wallenstein." We hear the tumult of camps, the disorder of a fanatical and undisciplined army, peasants, recruits, sutlers, soldiers. The illusion is complete, and enthusiasm breaks out among the spectators. Similar merits attach to many other of Schiller's plays.
This new drama, which seemed to give all to the natural sphere, concedes still more to the ideal. An able critic has said the details which are the truth of history are also its poetry. Here the German school professes a principle of the highest learning, and one that seems to be borrowed from its profoundest philosophers; it is that of the universal beauty of life, of the identity of beauty and existence. "Our aesthetics," says Goethe, "speak a great deal of poetical or antipoetical subjects; fundamentally there is no subject that has not its poetry; it is for the poet to find it there."
Schiller and Goethe divide the empire over modern German poetry, and represent its two principal powers; the one, Schiller, impassioned and lyrical, pours his soul over all the subjects he touches; in him every composition, ode, or drama is always one of his noble ideas, borrowing its dress and ornament from the external world. He is a poet especially through the heart, by the force with which he rushes in and carries you with him. Goethe is especially an epic; no doubt he paints the passions with admirable truth, but he commands them; like the god of the seas in Virgil, he raises above the angry waves his calm and sublime forehead.
After this glance at the position and chief characteristics of Schiller, it may be useful to offer a few remarks on those of the principal works in this volume, his Aesthetical Letters and Essays. Schiller, in his Aesthetical Essays, did not choose the pure abstract method of deduction and conception like Kant, nor the historical like Herder, who strove thus to account for the genesis of our ideas of beauty and art. He struck out a middle path, which presents certain deficiencies to the advocates of either of these two systems. He leans upon Kantian ideas, but without scholastic constraint. Pure speculation, which seeks to set free the form from all contents and matter, was remote from his creative genius, to which the world of matter and sense was no hinderance, but a necessary envelop for his forms.
His removal to Jena in 1791, and acquaintance with Reinhold, familiarized him with the Kantian philosophy, but he only appreciated it by halves. The bare and bald dealing with fundamental principles was at this time equally repulsive to Goethe and Schiller, the man of the world and the man of life. But Schiller did not find anywhere at that time justice done to the dignity of art, or honor to the substantial value of beauty.
The Aesthetical Essays in this volume appeared for the most part since 1792, in the "Thalia" and the "Hours" periodicals. The first "On the Ground of our Pleasure in Tragic Subjects" (1792), applies Kantian principles of the sublime to tragedy, and shows Schiller's lofty estimate of this class of poetry. With Kant he shows that the source of all pleasure is suitableness; the touching and sublime elicit this feeling, implying the existence of unsuitableness. In this article he makes the aim and source of art to consist in giving enjoyment, in pleasing. To nature pleasure is a mediate object, to art its main object. The same proposition appears in Schiller's paper on Tragic Art (1792), closely connected with the former. This article contains views of the affection of pity that seem to approximate the Aristotelian propositions about tragedy.
His views on the sublime are expressed in two papers, "The Sublime" and "The Pathetic," in which we trace considerable influence of Lessing and Winckelmann. He is led especially to strong antagonism against the French tragedy, and he indulges in a lengthy consideration of the passage of Virgil on Laocoon, showing the necessity of suffering and the pathetic in connection with moral adaptations to interest us deeply.
All these essays bespeak the poet who has tried his hand at tragedy, but in his next paper, "On Grace and Dignity," we trace more of the moralist. Those passages where he takes up a medium position between sense and reason, between Goethe and Kant, are specially attractive. The theme of this paper is the conception of grace, or the expression of a beautiful soul and dignity, or that of a lofty mind. The idea of grace has been developed more deeply and truly by Schiller than by Wieland or Winckelmann, but the special value of the paper is its constantly pointing to the ideal of a higher humanity. In it he does full justice to the sensuous and to the moral, and commencing with the beautiful nature of the Greeks, to whom sense was never mere sense, nor reason mere reason, he concludes with an image of perfected humanity in which grace and dignity are united, the former by architectonic beauty (structure), the last supported by power.
The following year, 1795, appeared his most important contribution to aesthetics, in his Aesthetical Letters.
In these letters he remarks that beauty is the work of free contemplation, and we enter with it into the world of ideas, but without leaving the world of sense. Beauty is to us an object, and yet at the same time a state of our subjectivity, because the feeling of the conditional is under that which we have of it. Beauty is a form because we consider it, and life because we feel it; in a word, it is at once our state and our art. And exactly because it is both it serves us as a triumphant proof that suffering does not exclude activity, nor matter form, nor limitation the infinite, for in the enjoyment of beauty both natures are united, and by this is proved the capacity of the infinite to be developed in the finite, and accordingly the possibility of the sublimest humanity.
The free play of the faculty of cognition which had been determined by Kant is also developed by Schiller. His representation of this matter is this: Man, as a spirit, is reason and will, self-active, determining, form-giving; this is described by Schiller as the form-instinct; man, as a sensuous being, is determinable, receptive, termed to matter; Schiller describes this as the material instinct, "Stofftrieb." In the midst between these two is situated the beautiful, in which reason and the sensuous penetrate each other, and their enjoyable product is designated by Schiller the play instinct. This expression is not happily chosen. Schiller means to describe by it the free play of the forces, activity according to nature, which is at once a joy and a happiness; he reminds us of the life of Olympus, and adds: "Man is only quite a man when he plays." Personality is that which lasts, the state of feeling is the changeable in man; he is the fixed unity remaining eternally himself in the floods of change. Man in contact with the world is to take it up in himself, but to unite with it the highest freedom and independence, and, instead of being lost in the world, to subject it to his reason. It is only by his being independent that there is reality out of him; only by being susceptible of feeling that there is reality in him. The object of sensuous instinct is life; that of the purer instinct figure; living figure or beauty is the object of the play instinct.
Only inasmuch as life is formed in the understanding and form in feeling does life win a form and form win life, and only thus does beauty arise. By beauty the sensuous man is led up to reason, the one-sided tension of special force is strung to harmony, and man made a complete whole.
Schiller adds that beauty knits together thought and feeling; the fullest unity of spirit and matter. Its freedom is not lack, but harmony, of laws; its conditions are not exclusions, inclusion of all infinity determined in itself. A true work of art generates lofty serenity and freedom of mind. Thus the aesthetic disposition bestows on us the highest of all gifts, that of a disposition to humanity, and we may call beauty our second creator.
In these letters Schiller spoke out the mildest and highest sentiments on art, and in his paper on Simple and Sentimental Poetry (1795) he constructs the ideal of the perfect poet. This is by far the most fruitful of Schiller's essays in its results. It has much that is practically applicable, and contains a very able estimate of German poetry. The writing is also very pointed and telling, because it is based upon actual perceptions, and it is interesting because the contrast drawn out throughout it between the simple and the sentimental has been referred to his own contrast with Goethe. He also wished to vindicate modern poetry, which Goethe seemed to wish to sacrifice to the antique.
The sentimental poetry is the fruit of quiet and retirement; simple poetry the child of life. One is a favor of nature; the sentimental depends on itself, the simple on the world of experience. The sentimental is in danger of extending the limits of human nature too far, of being too ideal, too mystical. Neither character exhausts the ideal of humanity, but the intimate union of both. Both are founded in human nature; the contradictions lying at their basis, when cleared in thought from the poetical faculty, are realism and idealism. These also are sides of human nature, which, when unconnected, bring forth disastrous results. Their opposition is as old as the beginning of culture, and till its end can hardly be set aside, save in the individual. The idealist is a nobler but a far less perfect being; the realist appears far less noble, but is more perfect, for the noble lies in the proof of a great capacity, but the perfect in the general attitude of the whole and in the real facts.
On the whole it may be said, taking a survey of these labors, that if Schiller had developed his ideas systematically and the unity of his intuition of the world, which were present in his feelings, and if he had based them scientifically, a new epoch in philosophy might have been anticipated. For he had obtained a view of such a future field of thought with the deep clairvoyance of his genius.
A few words may be desirable on Schiller's religious standpoint, especially in connection with his philosophical letters.
Schiller came up ten years later than Goethe, and concluded the cyclus of genius that Goethe had inaugurated. But as he was the last arrival of that productive period of tempestuous agitation, he retained more of its elements in his later life and poetry than any others who had passed through earlier agitations, such as Goethe. For Goethe cast himself free in a great measure from the early intoxication of his youthful imagination, devoting himself partly to nobler matter and partly to purer forms.
Schiller derived from the stormy times of his youth his direction to the ideal, to the hostility against the narrow spirit of civil relations, and to all given conditions of society in general. He derived from it his disposition, not to let himself be moulded by matter, but to place his own creative and determining impress on matter, not so much to grasp reality poetically and represent it poetically as to cast ideas into reality, a disposition for lively representation and strong oratorical coloring. All this he derived from the genial period, though later on somewhat modified, and carried it over into his whole life and poetry; and for this very reason he is not only together with Goethe, but before Goethe, the favorite poet of the nation, and especially with that part of the nation which sympathizes with him in the choice of poetic material and in his mode of feeling.
Gervinus remarks that Schiller had at Weimar long fallen off from Christianity, and occupied his mind tranquilly for a time with the views of Spinoza (realistic pantheism). Like Herder and Goethe, he viewed life in its great entirety and sacrificed the individual to the species. Accordingly, through the gods of Greece, he fell out with strict, orthodox Christians.
But Schiller had deeply religious and even Christian elements, as became a German and a Kantian. He receives the Godhead in His will, and He descends from His throne, He dwells in his soul; the poet sees divine revelations, and as a seer announces them to man. He is a moral educator of his people, who utters the tones of life in his poetry from youth upwards. Philosophy was not disclosed to Plato in the highest and purest thought, nor is poetry to Schiller merely an artificial edifice in the harmony of speech; philosophy and poetry are to both a vibration of love in the soul upwards to God, a liberation from the bonds of sense, a purification of man, a moral art. On this reposes the religious consecration of the Platonic spirit and of that of Schiller.
Issuing from the philosophical school of Kant, and imbued with the antagonism of the age against constituted authorities, it is natural that Schiller should be a rationalist in his religious views. It has been justly said of him that while Goethe's system was an apotheosis of nature Schiller's was an apotheosis of man.
Historically he was not prepared enough to test and search the question of evidence as applied to divine things handed down by testimony, and his Kantian coloring naturally disposed him to include all religions within the limits of pure reason, and to seek it rather in the subject than in anything objective.
In conclusion, we may attempt to classify and give Schiller his place in the progress of the world's literary history. Progress is no doubt a law of the individual, of nations, and of the whole race. To grow in perfection, to exist in some sort at a higher degree, is the task imposed by God on man, the continuation of the very work of God, the complement of creation. But this moral growth, this need of increase, may, like all the forces of nature, yield to a greater force; it is an impulsion rather than a necessity; it solicits and does not constrain. A thousand obstacles stay its development in individuals and in societies; moral liberty may retard or accelerate its effects. Progress is therefore a law which cannot be abrogated, but which is not invariably obeyed.
Nevertheless, in proportion to the increase of the mass of individuals, the caprices of chance and of liberty neutralize each other to allow the providential action that presides over our destinies to prevail. Looking at the same total of the life of the world, humanity undoubtedly advances: there are in our time fewer moral miseries, fewer physical miseries, than were known in the past.
Consequently art and literature, which express the different states of society, must share in some degree in this progressive march. But there are two things in literary work: on the one hand the ideas and social manners which it expresses, on the other the intelligence, the feeling, the imagination of the writer who becomes its interpreter. While the former of these elements tends incessantly to a greater perfection, the latter is subject to all the hazards of individual genius. Accordingly the progressive literature is only in the inspiration, and so to speak in the matter; it may and must therefore not be continuous in form.
But more than this: in very advanced societies the very grandeur of ideas, the abundance of models, the satiety of the public render the task of the artist more and more difficult. The artist himself has no longer the enthusiasm of the first ages, the youth of imagination and of the heart; he is an old man whose riches have increased, but who enjoys his wealth less.
If all the epochs of literature are considered as a whole it will be seen that they succeed each other in a constant order. After the period when the idea and the form combined in a harmonious manner comes another where the social idea is superabundant, and destroys the literary form of the preceding epoch.
The middle ages introduced spiritualism in art; before this new idea the smiling untruths of Greek poetry fled away frightened. The classical form so beautiful, so pure, cannot contain high Catholic thought. A new art is formed; on this side the Alps it does not reach the maturity that produces masterpieces. But at that time all Europe was one fatherland; Italy completes what is lacking in France and elsewhere.
The renaissance introduces new ideas into civilization; it resuscitates the traditions of antique science and seeks to unite them to the truths of Christianity. The art of the middle ages, as a vessel of too limited capacity, is broken by the new flood poured into it. These different ideas are stirred up and in conflict in the sixteenth century; they became co-ordinate and attain to an admirable expression in the following age.
In the eighteenth century there is a new invasion of ideas; all is examined and questioned; religion, government, society, all becomes a matter of discussion for the school called philosophical. Poetry appeared dying out, history drying up, till a truer spirit was breathed into the literary atmosphere by the criticism of Lessing, the philosophy of Kant, and the poetry of Klopstock. It was at this transition period that Schiller appeared, retaining throughout his literary career much of the revolutionary and convulsive spirit of his early days, and faithfully reflecting much of the dominant German philosophy of his time.
Part of the nineteenth century seems to take in hand the task of reconstructing the moral edifice and of giving back to thought a larger form. The literary result of its effects is the renaissance of lyrical poetry with an admirable development in history.
Schiller's most brilliant works were in the former walk, his histories have inferior merit, and his philosophical writings bespeak a deep thinking nature with great originality of conception, such as naturally results from a combination of high poetic inspiration with much intellectual power.
Schiller, like all great men of genius, was a representative man of his country and of his age. A German, a Protestant free-thinker, a worshipper of the classical, he was the expression of these aspects of national and general thought.
The religious reformation was the work of the North. The instinct of races came in it to complicate the questions of dogmas. The awakening of individual nationalities was one of the characters of the epoch.
The nations compressed in the severe unity of the Middle Ages escaped in the Reformation from the uniform mould that had long enveloped them, and tended to that other unity, still very distant, which must spring from the spontaneous view of the same truth by all men, result from the free and original development of each nation, and, as in a vast concert, unite harmonious dissonances. Europe, without being conscious of its aim, seized greedily at the means--insurrection; the only thought was to overthrow, without yet thinking of a reconstruction. The sixteenth century was the vanguard of the eighteenth. At all times the North had fretted under the antipathetic yoke of the South. Under the Romans, Germany, though frequently conquered, had never been subdued. She had invaded the Empire and determined its fall. In the Middle Ages the struggle had continued; not only instincts, but ideas, were in conflict; force and spirit, violence and polity, feudalism and the Catholic hierarchy, hereditary and elective forms, represented the opposition of two races. In the sixteenth century the schism long anticipated took place. The Catholic dogma had hitherto triumphed over all outbreaks-- over Arnaldo of Brescia, the Waldenses, and Wickliffe. But Luther appeared, and the work was accomplished: Catholic unity was broken.
And this breaking with authority went on fermenting in the nations till its last great outburst at the French Revolution; and Schiller was born at this convulsive period, and bears strong traces of his parentage in his anti-dogmatic spirit.
Yet there is another side to Germanism which is prone to the ideal and the mystical, and bears still the trace of those lovely legends of mediaeval growth to which we have adverted. For Christianity was not a foreign and antagonistic importation in Germany; rather, the German character obtained its completeness through Christianity. The German found himself again in the Church of Christ, only raised, transfigured, and sanctified. The apostolic representation of the Church as the bride of Christ has found its fullest and truest correspondence in that of Germany. Hence when the German spirit was thoroughly espoused to the Christian spirit, we find that character of love, tenderness, and depth so characteristic of the early classics of German poetry, and reappearing in glorious afterglow in the second classics, in Klopstock, Herder, and, above all, Schiller.
It is this special instinct for the ideal and mystical in German nature that has enabled spirits born of negation and revolution, like Schiller, to unite with those elements the most genial and creative inspirations of poetry.
VOCABULARY OF TERMINOLOGY.
Absolute, The. A conception, or, more strictly, in Kantian language, an idea of the pure reason, embracing the fundamental and necessary yet free ground of all things.
Antinomy. The conflict of the laws of pure reason; as in the question of free will and necessity.
Autonomy (autonomous). Governing itself by the spontaneous action of free will.
Aesthetics. The science of beauty; as ethics of duty.
Cognition (knowledge; Germanice, "Erkenntniss") is either an intuition or a conception. The former has an immediate relation to the object, and is singular and individual; the latter has but a mediate relation, by means of a characteristic mark, which may be common to several things.
Cognition is an objective perception.
Conception. A conception is either empirical or pure. A pure conception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding alone, and is not the conception of a pure sensuous image, is called notio.
Conceptions are distinguished on the one hand from sensation and perception, and on the other hand from the intuitions of pure reason or ideas. They are distinctly the product of thought and of the understanding, except when quite free from empirical elements.
Feeling (Gefuehl). That part of our nature which relates to passion and instinct. Feelings are connected both with our sensuous nature, our imagination, and the pure reason.
Form. See Matter.
Ideas. The product of the pure reason (Vernunft) or intuitive faculty. Wherever the absolute is introduced in thought we have ideas. Perfection in all its aspects is an idea, virtue and wisdom in their perfect purity and ideas. Kant remarks ("Critique of Pure Reason," Meiklejohn's translation, p. 256): "It is from the understanding alone that pure and transcendental conceptions take their origin; the reason does not properly give birth to any conception, but only frees the conception of the understanding from the unavoidable limitation of possible experience. A conception formed from notions which transcend the possibility of experience is an idea or a conception of reason."
Intuition (Anschauung) as used by Kant, is external or internal. External, sensuous intuition is identical with perception; internal intuition gives birth to ideas.
Matter and Form. "These two conceptions are at the foundation of all other reflection, being inseparably connected with every mode of exercising the understanding. By the former is implied that which can be determined in general; the second implies its determination, both in a transcendental sense, abstraction being made of any difference in that which is given, and of the mode in which it is determined. That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation, I term its matter; but that which effects that the content of the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call its form."--Kant, "Critique," op. cit.
Objective. What is inherent or relative to an object, or not Myself, except in the case when I reflect on myself, in which case my states of mind are objective to my thoughts. In a popular sense objective means external, as contrasted with the subjective or internal.
Perception, if it relates only to the subject as a modification of its state, is a sensation. An objective perception is a cognition (Erkenntniss).
Phenomena (Erscheinnngen). The undetermined object of an empirical intuition is called phenomenon.
Reason (pure; Germanice, "Vernunft"). The source of ideas of moral feelings and of conceptions free from all elements taken up from experience.
Representation (Vorstellung). All the products of the mind are styled representations (except emotions and mere sensations) and the term is applied to the whole genus.
Representation with consciousness is perceptio.
Sensation. The capacity of receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects is called sensibility. By means of sensibility objects are given to us, and it alone furnishes with intentions meaning sensuous intuitions. By the understanding they are thought, and from it arise conceptions.
Subjective. What has its source in and relation to the personality, to Myself, I, or the Ego; opposed to the objective, or what is inherent in and relative to the object. Not myself, except in the case when my states of mind are the object of my own reflection.
Supersensuous. Contrasted with and opposed to the sensuous. What is exclusively related to sense or imparted through the sensuous ideas is supersensuous. See Transcendental.
Transcendental. What exceeds the limits of sense and empirical observation. "I apply the term transcendental to all knowledge which is not so much occupied with objects as with the mode of our cognition of these objects, so far as this mode of cognition is possible a priori." Kant's "Critique," op. cit. p. 16.
Understanding (Verstand). The thought of faculty, the source of conceptions and notions (Begriffe) of the laws of logic, the categories, and judgment.
LETTERS ON THE AESTHETICAL EDUCATION OF MAN.