Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Page 232
Duke.
The hope of seeing her alone reliev’d
The weary hours of slow laborious days!
Secretary.
And when delay and hindrance clogg’d the wheels,
With what impatience hast thou yearn’d for her,
As the rash lover yearns to see his mistress.
Duke.
Make no compare between the fire of youth
Devouring selfishly the thing it clutches
And that ecstatic glow a father feels
Who, fill’d with contemplation rapt, rejoices
At all development of wondrous powers,
At all the giant strides in culture’s path.
The present is the pledge that love demands.
The future is the parent’s treasur’d boon.
There lie the spreading acres of his hopes,
And there the ripening harvest of his joys!
Secretary.
Alas! these boundless pleasures thou hast lost;
This ever blossoming hope is now destroy’d.
Duke.
And have I lost it? But a moment since
Its perfect glory fill’d my joyful soul.
Alas! ’tis gone! Let your laments arise.
Let grief destroy this solid edifice
Which age too generous has preserv’d till now!
Accurs’d be all that’s left to me! accurs’d!
And all that shakes and totters now be welcome!
Boil up, ye floods, break o’er the dykes and change
The land to sea! Ye raging gulfs, o’erwhelm
In dire destruction ship and crew and treasure!
Spread out, ye war-compelling ranks, and drown
The fields with gore and every form of death!
Flash forth, ye lightning bolts, across the waste
And blast the haughty heads of solid towers,
Cast stone from stone, let flames arise and scourge
With horrid fury all the haunts of men,
That I, ring’d round by universal sorrow,
May bend before the Fate that hounds me!
Secretary.
This unexpected tragedy so monstrous
Weighs fearfully upon thee, noble Duke!
Duke.
Most suddenly it came, not unforewarn’d!
A happy Fate brought her from realms of death,
And in my arms she came to life again.
I saw with hasty passing glance the horror
Which now confronts me with its frozen stare.
I should have punish’d then her recklessness,
Have set my face with sternest opposition
Against her daring, and have check’d the madness
Which blindly deem’d itself invulnerable,
Immortal, and which sent her from the cliff,
Through wood and stream and thicket like a bird.
Secretary.
How should such deeds made certain by success
Have given presentiment of coming woe?
Duke.
The presage of these woes full well I felt
When I the last — when I the last time saw —
Yea! speak it out — the devastating word
That builds a hedge of darkness round thy way!
Oh, would that I had seen her once again!
Perchance, I might have warded off this blow!
I would have knelt before her, would have pray’d,
Have warn’d her, with a father’s faithful warning,
To spare herself and me, and for the sake Of future fortune to attempt no risk,
Of future fortune to attempt no risk,
Though tempted by the madness of the chase.
Alas! this hour was not vouchsaf’d to me!
And now I’ve lost my precious child forever.
She is no more! Her boldness only grew
From having easily escap’d that fall.
And no one there to warn her, none to guide!
The discipline of childhood was forgotten!
Whose hands did I entrust with such a treasure?
The hands compliant, pampering, of a woman!
No stringent word to bend my daughter’s will
In ways of temperate reasonableness!
With freedom uncontroll’d she let her roam
O’er every field that offer’d reckless daring.
I felt it oft and often half confess’d
That she was ill watch’d by her governess.
Secretary.
Oh, cast not blame upon that hapless creature!
In company with deathless grief she wanders,
God knows in what far land, now, unconsol’d!
She fled! for who could look thee in the face
If conscious that the least reproach were due?
Duke.
Oh, let me wreak my wrath on blameless others
Lest in despair I tear myself in pieces!
For I myself must bear the blame, though heavy.
Did I not with my foolish fond beginnings
Tempt death and danger on my darling’s head?
It was my pride to see the maiden win
The mastery of every undertaking.
And now I pay the fearful price in full.
In carriage, in the saddle should she shine,
A heroine for guiding foaming steeds!
Or diving through the water did she seem
A goddess to command the elements.
And so she thought to conquer every danger.
Ah me! instead of giving preservation
The wont of danger now has brought her death!
Secretary.
The wont of duty’s grand behests has brought
Death to the ne’er-to-be-forgotten maiden!
Duke.
Explain thyself!
Secretary.
And shall I wake thy pain
By telling of the childlike noble action?
Her aged, first and highly-honored friend
And teacher, from this city dwells remote,
In melancholy, pain, misanthropy.
’Twas she alone was able to console him.
Compassion put this on her as a duty;
But often when she wish’d to visit him
Her governess denied her. But she plann’d
To compass it. She boldly used the hours
Devoted to her morning ride to dash
With splendid wild impetuosity
And visit the aged, well-beloved man.
A single groom alone was in the secret.
This time he must have put the saddle on
As we suspect; for he cannot be found.
The wretched man and that unhappy woman
Both vanish’d from the world from fear of thee.
Duke.
Fortunate both! who nothing have to fear,
Whose sorrow for their master’s vanish joy
Has lightly chang’d to mere anxiety.
I too have naught to fear, have naught to hope,
So let me hear the whole and spare me not
The least detail! My soul is iron wrought.
SCENE III.
Duke. Secretary. Secular Priest.
Secretary.
Until this very moment, honor’d Prince,
Have I refrain’d from calling in a man
Who, also sad, appears before thee now.
He is the priest who from the hand of death
Receiv’d thy daughter, and when hope was none
Of saving her, with all a father’s care
Provided everything that love could do.
SCENE IV.
Duke. Secular Priest.
Secular Priest.
How earnestly, exalted Prince, have I
Cherish’d the wish to come before thy presence!
Now it is gratified, but at a moment
When thou and I with thee art bent with grief!
Duke.
Unwelc
ome messenger, e’en so, be welcome!
Thou hast beheld her last, thy heart has felt
The pathos of her last long yearning look,
Her last word hast thou reverently heard.
Her last sigh hast thou met with kind response.
Oh, tell me, did she speak? What were her words?
Remember’d she her father? Dost thou bring me
A heartfelt “farewell” from her dying lips?
Secular Priest.
We bid the unwelcome messenger be welcome
So long as he is silent and our hearts
Hold room for hope, for doubting still hold room.
Bad tidings spoken are detestable.
Duke.
Why dost thou hesitate? What deeper grief
Can I experience? She is no more.
And peace and silence at this moment hover
Above her tomb. Whate’er she may have suffer’d
Is past for her: for me begins. But speak.
Secular Priest.
A universal calamity is death.
Consider thus the evil which has come,
And let the path by which she pass’d away
Be hid in darkness like the shades of night.
Not every one can tread the flowery path
That leads unto the silent realm of shadows.
With forceful pain destruction often comes
And brings through pangs of hell eternal peace.
Duke.
She suffer’d much?
Secular Priest.
She suffer’d much, not long.
Duke.
There was a moment while my darling suffer’d,
A moment that she cried in vain for aid!
And I, where was I then? What enterprise,
What scene of pleasure chain’d me at the time?
Did nothing presage what a woful thing
Was come to rend in fragments all my life?
Her cry I heard not, and I felt no sign
Of that misfortune struck so surely home.
Far-working holy sympathy’s foreboding
Is but a fable. Sensitive and firm,
Shut in by his environment, man feels
The present good or else the present evil;
And love itself is deaf to distant sounds.
Secular Priest.
The very utmost comfort speech can give
I feel how little can avail thee now.
Duke.
A word can wound more readily than heal;
And grief, renew’d, forever strives in vain
To bring again the days of vanish’d joy.
And was there then no skill, no art availing
To call the fleeting spirit back to life?
What was thy first expedient? Oh, tell me,
What didst thou do to save her? Thou didst not
Leave any means untried!
Secular Priest.
Alas! Too late
When I had found her was it to devise.
Duke.
Then if forever I must mourn the loss
Of her young life’s delightful power
Let me deceive my grief with deeper grief,
Let me immortalize her dear remains!
Come, let us visit her! Where does she lie?
Secular Priest.
A worthy chapel holds the maiden’s tomb,
Kept consecrate and silent! From the altar
Across the iron bars I see the spot;
And while I live my prayers for her shall rise.
Duke.
Oh, come and lead me thither! With us twain
Shall go the wisest of all wise physicians.
Her beauteous body we will snatch perforce
Before corruption work. With choicest drugs
We will preserve the treasure of her body;
And of the atoms which erewhile were join’d
In that incomparable, priceless form,
None shall return unto the dust again.
Secular Priest.
What can I say? Must I confess the whole?
Thou canst not go! Alas! the form distorted,
No stranger could behold it without horror!
And in a father’s eyes — it could not be!
No, God forbid! thou must not look upon her.
Duke.
What new device of torment threatens me?
Secular Priest.
Oh, let me hold my peace, that words of mine
May not abuse remembrance of the lost!
Let me conceal the appalling sight of her
Dragg’d through the thicket, through the mangling rocks,
Disabled and disfigur’d and distorted,
Bleeding and crush’d, unrecognizable,
And lifeless, hanging from my arm. And I
With flooding tears — I bless’d the solemn hour
When I renounc’d a father’s holy hope.
Duke.
Thou hast not been a father. Thou art one
Of those self-seeking, hard, self-centred men
Who let their narrow lives unfruitful run,
To end in gloom. So get thee gone! I hate
The very sight of thee!
Secular Priest.
I knew ’twas so.
Who could forgive the bringer of such tidings?
[Turns to go.
Duke.
Forgive me and remain! Hast ever seen
A picture limn’d by art’s consummate skill
That once and once again thy recollection
Has striven to catch in all its wondrous beauty?
Oh, if thou hadst, then hadst thou surely never
So ruthlessly destroy’d the image which, for me,
Built with its thousand lines of loveliness,
Was all the world of fortune and of joy, —
And pleasure in remembrance so dispell’d!
Secular Priest.
What should I do? Conduct thee to the tomb
Bedew’d with countless tears from strangers’ eyes
Before I laid the rotting corpse away
To fall in mouldering peaceful dissolution!
Duke.
Silence! unfeeling man! thou only add’st
New torments to the pain thou think’st to soothe.
Ah, woe! the elements, no longer rul’d
By that fair spirit of order, now destroy
In noiseless conflict what was godlike once.
If o’er her growth and swift development
Paternal fancy hover’d, full of care,
So now before the insistence of despair
The joy of life is turn’d to dust and ashes.
Secular Priest.
What light and air have made in fleeting form
Is kept for long within the sealed tomb.
Duke.
The custom of the ancients was a wise one:
That when the active spirit pass’d away
The agency of purifying fire
Should solve the long and earnest work of nature,
Completed in the noble human form.
And when the flames their ruddy billows toss’d
Rolling to heaven and ‘mid the clouds was seen
The eagle’s mighty wing significant,
Then tears were dried and friends forsaken gaz’d
With vision clarified up to the realms
Where sat the new-crown’d god upon Olympos.
Oh, gather for me in a costly urn
The sad remains of flesh consum’d to ashes,
So that the yearning arms outstretch’d in vain
May clasp reality, that I may press
Against my breast so full of emptiness
The painfulest possession of my life!
Secular Priest.
Ever more bitter grief becomes by grieving.
Duke.
By grieving grief at last becomes enjoyment.
Oh, would that wandering ever on and on
I, laden with my melancholy burden
Of shrunken ashes, might with feeble footsteps
In expiation come where last I saw her.
There lay she dead within my arms, and there
Deceiv’d I saw her come to life again.
I thought I clasp’d her, thought I held her fast,
But now she is forever torn from me.
But there will I immortalize my sorrow.
A tribute to her rescue did I vow,
Enraptur’d by the marvel of my dream.
E’en now the gardener’s skilful hand is making
Through wood and fell a labyrinth of paths,
Enclosing round about the sacred spot
Where to his heart my royal master press’d
My daughter, and her princely birth confess’d.
Where henceforth symmetry and just proportion
Would grace the spot which brought me happiness.
There not a hand shall labor! Half completed
This plan shall be an emblem of my fate.
But the memorial — that I still shall found.
Heap’d up of unhewn bowlders, orderless,
There will I wander, there in silence dwell
Till Death at last shall bring desir’d relief.
Oh, let me there, like stone, dream life away,
Until the slender trace of former care
Shall vanish from this melancholy desert.
In freedom shall the meadow green with grass
And bough with bough in wildness intertwine,
The bending birch’s head shall sweep the ground,
The tender saplings wax to mighty trees,
And moss shall clothe around the slippery stems.
Time passes without note: for she is gone
By whose development I mark’d the years.
Secular Priest.
And will that man whose pleasure oft has been
To mingle in the beneficent whirl of life
Allow himself to shun the busy world
And choose the monotony of loneliness,
Because a burden unendurable
Has roll’d upon him with its threatening doom?
Go forth! with eagle swiftness through the land,
Through foreign kingdoms, that before thy mind
The world and all its glories may arise.
Duke.
What have I in the world to look for now,
When she no longer meets my eye who was
The only object that I cared to see?
Shall stream and mountain, vale and wood and fell,
In varied panorama pass before me,
And only wake the bitter need I feel
To hold once more the form so dearly lov’d?
From mountain-top down to the ocean wide
What would the wealth of nature be to me —
Recalling me to poverty and loss?
Secular Priest.
But novel wealth lies close before thy hand!
Duke.
’Tis through the eye undimm’d of youth alone