HORE GERMANICE. NO. I. Wer das Dichten will verstehen Muss in 's Land der Dichtung gehen Wer den Dichter will verstehen Muss in Dichters Lande gehen. Gedichte sind gemahlte Fensterscheiben Da ist alles dunkel und düster * Kommt aber nur einmal herein Begrüsst die heilige capelle Da ist's auf einmal farbig helle Geschicht und Zierrath glänzt in Schnelle If any one talent in this world of mediocrity be more decidedly rare than the rest, it is the talent of translation, especially of poetry; or rather to carry the idea fairly out, it may be questioned whether any such thing as translating poetry, be possible at all. A good poem in one language, is often the exciting cause of a good or bad poem in another, which last shall be called a translation, as Pope's Iliad for instance, is called a translation of Homer; but does not every schoolboy of any cleverness know, that though you may translate Homer's Iliad or his Odyssey for ever and ever, yet you never can translate him. Talma may take off Alexander, that's one step down, and a travelled ape may serve you up an imitation of Talma, that's another, and that brings you to about the distance from the conqueror, that most translations keep from their originals; for most of them are made under the double disadvantage, of an imperfect apprehension by the translator himself of the real genius of his author, and of an imperfect fashion of rendering what he does apprehend. Let somebody attitudinize to show you what the Apollo Belvedere is, or the Venus de Medicis, allow for their defects of conception and memory, their faults of form, and the disadvantages of "pantaloons and boddices," and then say whether such an exhibition satisfies or diminishes at all your desire to study with your own eyes those wonders of the chisel. If it does not, then never excuse your indolence in not learning languages upon any substitute you can get for knowing them by borrowing the knowledge of others; but above all, never depreciate nor disparage the untasted fruits, but suppress your envy when those who can taste, boast of them. The most remarkable poem of the present age, beyond all doubt or competition, is Goethe's Faust. There is but one voice on this matter among those who know it; but between these and those who do not know it, there is a gulph fixed, so that those who would pass into the class of the initiated cannot, except by an earnest application to the German; for I take it for granted few are ignorant of that work, who are not also ignorant of the language in which it is written. I would fain say something by way of insisting on the inducements to this study, and with this view shall attempt to give an account of some of the most striking passages in Faust, with occasional English versions of some stanzas, for which versions I claim the indulgence I have claimed for translators in general, to wit, that of being considered to have failed in an impossible undertaking. The ground work of the poem is the old superstition of Dr. Faust; that matters little, for in the progress of thinking in the present age no one cares much for the mere story, the canvas or skeleton of a work. We look for the author-for the poet-for opinions-allusions—satiric-reflections-originality of remark not incident—for beautiful expressions, lively conversations, and play of faney-and where these are, we care not whether the story be one handed down from Boccaccio or the Queen of Navarre, and a hundred times repeated, or a new fiction just born of the author's brain-indeed the last seems more like being introduced to strangers, and the chances are that it will therefore interest us less. The nature and character, truth and application of the sentiments and incidents strike us more forcibly when the parties concerned are our old familiar friends, than they can among new faces, and we require too that there should be a keeping and harmony in what we are told, with what we know already, and that our new ideas, should we be so fortunate as to get any, shall mix readily and kindly with the old. Faust is a pleasant book in this respect-the episode of Margaret it is true is Goethe's own, but the principal characters of the doctor and his tempter are faithful to the ancient letter. The devil is "proportioned as one's heart could wish a" devil— his cloven foot is not forgotten, and the superstitions of the magic powers of the number three, and of the blind working of mysterious triangles and pentagrams, are preserved entire. Faust sells his soul on the usual terms, and there is nothing very singular either in his reasons for doing so he has consumed the resources of life-he has found that all wisdom is sorrow and much study weariness-his familiarity with pleasure has extended to disgust-his familiarity with science to contempt, and his imagination can conceive no happiness in such a world, even though its wildest flights within the bounds of nature could be realized. He pours forth curses upon his existence, and in the deep feeling of the nothingness or inanity of the past and of the present, he finds an argument to despise or doubt the future, and by questioning its reality, justifies his recklessness as to any retribution he may heap upon it. Mephistopheles avails himself with the skill, peculiar to his tribe, of these favourable dispositions of the doctor. He gets leave first to tempt him, in a scene in heaven like that in Job, when he appears however as a wag only-a lover of fun and mischief-a scoffer, but not a fiendish destroyer; but in the end he turns out very evil disposed, even for a devil, delighting not merely in freaks and dilemmas, but in inflicting bitter anguish and in mocking it. Every one remembers the passage in Sterne in the theological arguments between Dr. Slop and my Uncle Toby. But the devil, says Dr. Slop, is damned to all eternity. I am very sorry for it, says my Uncle Toby. Whe-e-e-eugh, says Dr. Slop. My Uncle Toby's goodness of heart in this passage is most excellent, and until I read Faust I always thought with him; but if he should extend his pity to Mephistopheles, I should rather cry Whe-e-e-eugh with Dr. Slop. Between Faust and the devil it is all fair play. One grudges the old monopolizer his purchase of another eternal jewel certainly, but the doctor makes out his case so clearly, that the best thing he can do is to sell, that we yield to the conviction, and however we may disapprove the transaction, we do not feel that we could have prevented it, or opposed it to any purpose had we been there. Fight dog fight bear, it is the proverb's justice, and a man full of years and experience who has been hacknied, jostled, blasé, through a long life, may lay the blame on his own capacity if he does not become toward the end of it a pretty fair match for a fiend. But Margaret, poor Margaret, how different is all this with her-she is painted so lovely, so confiding, so child-like, artless, yet so guilty-she speaks from her failing heart such a voice of suppliant agony, that there should be a spirit found to give it an echo in reproaches to aggravate her misery and drive her to despair, it is a thing too horrible for a poet even to imagine of the devil. We seem to feel her tears falling, to hear her sobs in the broken sentences, and to look round for her gentle form with words of comfort and reassurance rising to our lips-be of good cheer-thy sins are forgiven thee. Such feelings rise so irresistibly that one expects to find them every where, even in the child and father of perdition, and it is a disappointment and a new and deeper stain even on his character that he has them not. The poem opens with an address of the author to the creatures of his fancy-the society of his declining age—the replacers of the companionships of his youth. It is very sweet and mournful and solemn, but seems to have no very direct bearing in any thing that follows. It has been done into English by Lord Levison Gower, and so done, that even to the mere English reader the vague melody of the original words conveys more of the spirit of the writer than all the sense of the translation. For the German is a language eminently poetical, of plastic ductility and infinitely rich, and admitting in a high degree of that suitableness of sound to sense, of which we talk so much and show so few examples. They who are ignorant and wish to be witty on this subject, may be witty if they can, or failing that, they may resort to the old story of the emperor who thought the German a fit language for his horse-fitter no doubt than for himself. But the initiated know, and the uninitiated may learn, if they will be reasonable, that no modern European language combines sa many attractions as the German. Its facility for compound words-the versatility of its inversions-its faculty of appropriating entire foreign dialects to its own use, and working them in to its own texture-its energy, sweetness, and expression-these are the things to be weighed and estimated, and which the wise may be easily won to appreciate, in utter contempt of the small dust of the balance, of old saws about emperors and horses, and of studied bouquets of reiterated gutturals, and "acht hundert acht und achtzig achteckige hechs Loepfe." This poem is followed by a prelude in the theatre behind the curtain, where the stage manager appears between his clown and poet, as preparing for the first exhibition of the new drama. The manager is full of anxiety. He exhorts the poet on the subject of his work as if it were still to do-as if he were there to inspire the actors, or to possess them in the very hour of their performance, and he supplicates for invention, novelty, variety, incident, and spirit, as one whose means of living depend on the event. He classes the poet and the clown together as the pillars of his hope-he reminds them that they have stood by him thus far through foul and fair, and begs them not to desert him here in his extremest needhe lectures them upon public taste and the most infallible claptraps and baits for applause, and declares it is far better to get cash from the present generation, than the shadowy hope of a harvest of praise from the next. All this is as nuts to the clown-to the poet bitter ashes. Suppose, says the former, scoffingly, I too should talk about posterity and neglect my business, who would make sport for the world that is passing— yet this must have its pleasures. You know what we stand in need of, dish it up for us by old rules and approved receipts, a love adventure, hopes, fears, and a catastrophe, a little noise and tinsel, and all goes down. But the dealer in metre stands upon his dignity-he speaks disrespectfully of the mob -gets on his high horse and appeals to future ages—then thinks of bygone days, and promises passionately that if they can be recalled, all contradictions shall be reconciled, all impossibilities performed, and all parties satisfied. Ay, once again those moments bring, When early hopes, a ripening throng, When morning mists, all dim and gray, Around life's rugged steeps were curl'd, The promise of a magic world. Possessing nought, yet rich-how sweet That love of truth-that self-deceit→ That chainless impulse-bid it move Those hopes those passions-bid them burn That strength of hatred-power of love And youth-oh bid my youth return. This, however, is asking too much, but the manager smooths him down as well as he can, and comforts him for the control he cannot have over time and the past, by offering the regions of space and all that therein is to his absolute disposal. He begs him again to astonish the expectant audience to the very |