The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03

Next in order came The Maid of Orleans, expressly called by its author a romantic tragedy. It is a "rescue" of the Maid's character. Shakespeare had depicted her as a witch, Voltaire as a vulgar fraud. Schiller conceives her as a genuine ambassadress of God, or rather of the Holy Virgin. Not only does he accept at its face value the tradition of her "voices," her miraculous clairvoyance, her magic influence on the French troops; but he makes her fight in the ranks with men and gives to her a terrible avenging sword, before which no Englishman can stand. But she, too, had to have her tragic guilt. So Schiller makes her supernatural power depend—by the Virgin's express command—on her renunciation of the love of man. A fleeting passion for the English general Lionel, conceived on the battle-field in the fury of combat, fills her with remorse and the sense of treason to her high mission. For a while she is deprived of her self-confidence, and with it of her supernatural power. There follow scenes of bitter humiliation, until her expiation is complete. At last, purified by suffering, she recovers her divine strength, breaks her fetters, brings victory once more to the disheartened French soldiers, and dies in glory on the field of battle. One sees that it is not at all the real Jeanne d'Arc that Schiller depicts, but a glorified heroine invested with divine power and called to be the savior of her country. Here, for the first time in German drama, the passion of patriotism plays an important part.

After the completion of The Maid of Orleans Schiller was minded to try his hand on a tragedy "in the strictest Greek form." He had been deeply impressed by the art of Sophocles and wished to create something which should produce on the modern mind the effect of a Greek tragedy, with its simple structure, its few characters, and above all its chorus. But the choice of a subject was not easy, and for several months he occupied himself with other matters. He made a German version of Gozzi's Turandot and took notes for a tragedy about Perkin Warbeck. In the summer of 1802 he decided definitely to carry out his plan of vying with the Greeks. The Bride of Messina was finished in February, 1803. While he was working at it there arrived one day—it was in November, 1802—a patent of nobility from the chancelry of the Holy Roman Empire. It may be noted in passing that several years before he had been made an honorary citizen of the French Republic, his name having been presented at the same time with those of Washington, Wilberforce, and Kosciusko.

Among the later plays of Schiller The Bride of Messina is the one which shows his stately poetic diction at its best, but has proved least acceptable on the stage. As we have seen, it was an artistic experiment. A medieval prince of Messina has an ominous dream which is interpreted by an Arab astrologer to mean that a daughter to be born will cause the death of his two sons, thus making an end of his dynasty. When the child is born he orders it put to death. But meanwhile his queen has had a dream of contrary import, and thereby saves the life of her new-born daughter, but has her brought up remote from the court. In time the two quarrelsome brothers, ignorant that they have a sister, fall in love with the girl. One slays the other in a frenzy of jealous rage, the other commits suicide in remorse. This invention can hardly be called plausible. Indeed, so far as the mere fable is concerned, it is a house of cards which would collapse any moment at the breath of common sense. One must remember in reading the play that common sense was not one of the nine muses. The dreams take the place of the Delphic oracle, and the Greek chorus is represented by two semi-choruses, the retainers of the quarreling brothers, who speak their parts by the mouth of a leader, at one moment taking part in the action, at another delivering the detached comment of the ideal spectator. There is much splendid poetry in these pseudo-choruses, but it was impossible that such a scheme should produce the effect of the Greek choral dance.

Did Schiller feel that in The Bride of Messina he had wandered a little too far away from the vital concerns of modern life? Probably, for he next set to work on a play which should be popular in the best sense of the word—William Tell. It is his one play with a happy ending and has always been a prime favorite on the stage. The hero is the Swiss people, and the action idealizes the legendary uprising of the Forest Cantons against their Austrian governors. There are really three separate actions: the conspiracy, the love-affair of Bertha and Rudenz, the exploits of William Tell. All, however, contribute to the common end, which is the triumph of the Swiss people over their oppressors. The exposition is superb, there is rapidity of movement, variety, picturesqueness, the glamor of romance; and the feelings evoked are such as warm and keep warm the cockles of the heart. When the famous actor Iffland received the manuscript of the first act, in February, 1804, he wrote:

"I have read, devoured, bent my knee; and my heart, my tears, my rushing blood, have paid ecstatic homage to your spirit, to your heart. Oh, more! Soon, soon more! Pages, scraps—whatever you can send. I tender heart and hand to your genius. What a work! What wealth, power, poetic beauty, and irresistible force! God keep you! Amen."

With Tell off his hands Schiller next threw his tireless energy on a Russian subject—the story of Dmitri, reputed son of Ivan the Terrible. The reading, note-taking and planning proved a long laborious task, and there were many interruptions. In November, 1804, the hereditary Prince of Weimar brought home a Russian bride, Maria Paulovna, and for her reception he wrote The Homage of the Arts—a slight affair which served its purpose well. The reaction from these Russophil festivities left him in a weakened condition, and, feeling unequal to creative effort, he translated Racine's Phèdre into German verse, finishing it in February, 1805. Then he returned with great zest to his Russian play Demetrius, of which enough was written to indicate that it might have become his masterpiece. But the flame had burnt itself out. Toward the end of April he took a cold which led to a violent fever with delirium. The end came on May 9, 1805.

No attempt can here be made at a general estimate of Schiller's dramatic genius. The serious poetic drama, such as he wrote in his later years, is no longer in favor anywhere. In Germany, as in our own land, the temper of the time is on the whole hostile to that form of art. We demand, very properly, a drama attuned to the life of the present; one occupied, as we say, with living issues. Yet Schiller is very popular on the German stage. After the lapse of a century, and notwithstanding the fact that he seems to speak to us from the clouds, he holds his own. Why is this? It is partly because of a quality of his art that has been called his "monumental fresco-painting"; that is, his strong and luminous portraiture of the great historic forces that have shaped the destiny of nations. These forces are matters of the spirit, of the inner life; and they persist from age to age, but little affected by the changing fashion of the theatre. The reader of Schiller soon comes to feel that he deals with issues that are alive because they are immortal.

Another important factor in his classicity is the suggestion that goes out from his idealized personality. German sentiment has set him on a high pedestal and made a hero of him, so that his word is not exactly as another man's word. Something of this was felt by those about him even in his lifetime. Says Karoline von Wolzogen: "High seriousness and the winsome grace of a pure and noble soul were always present in Schiller's conversation; in listening to him one walked as among the changeless stars of heaven and the flowers of earth." This is the tribute of a partial friend, but it describes very well the impression produced by Schiller's writings. His love of freedom and beauty, his confidence in reason, his devotion to the idea of humanity, seem to exhale from his work and to invest it with a peculiar distinction. His plays and poems are a priceless memento to the spirit of a great and memorable epoch. Hundreds of writers have said their say about him, but no better word has been spoken than the noble tribute of Goethe:

 
  For he was ours. So let the note of pride
  Hush into silence all the mourner's ruth;
  In our safe harbor he was fain to bide
  And build for aye, after the storm of youth.
  We saw his mighty spirit onward stride
  To eternal realms of Beauty and of Truth;
  While far behind him lay fantasmally
  The vulgar things that fetter you and me.
 

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FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Translated by Edward, Lord Lytton.]

[Footnote 2: This Sonnet, by the author of this sketch of Schiller's life, was written for the Chicago Schiller Celebration of 1905, but has not been printed before. EDITOR.]

* * * * *

POEMS

[All poems in this section are translations by Edward, Lord Lytton, and appear by permission of George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., London.]

* * * * *

TO THE IDEAL (1795)

 
  Then wilt thou, with thy fancies holy—
       Wilt thou, faithless, fly from me?
     With thy joy, thy melancholy,
       Wilt thou thus relentless flee?
     O Golden Time, O Human May,
       Can nothing, Fleet One, thee restraint?
  Must thy sweet river glide away
  Into the eternal Ocean Main?
  The suns serene are lost and vanish'd
    That wont the path of youth to gild,
  And all the fair Ideals banish'd
    From that wild heart they whilome fill'd.
  Gone the divine and sweet believing
    In dreams which Heaven itself unfurl'd!
  What godlike shapes have years bereaving
    Swept from this real work-day world!
  As once, with tearful passion fired,
    The Cyprian Sculptor clasp'd the stone,
  Till the cold cheeks, delight-inspired,
    Blush'd—to sweet life the marble grown:
  So youth's desire for Nature!—round
    The Statue so my arms I wreathed,
  Till warmth and life in mine it found,
    And breath that poets breathe—it breathed;
  With my own burning thoughts it burn'd;—
    Its silence stirr'd to speech divine;—
  Its lips my glowing kiss return'd—
    Its heart in beating answer'd mine!
  How fair was then the flower—the tree!—
    How silver-sweet the fountain's fall!
  The soulless had a soul to me!
    My life its own life lent to all!
  The Universe of things seem'd swelling
    The panting heart to burst its bound,
  And wandering Fancy found a dwelling
    In every shape, thought, deed, and sound.
  Germ'd in the mystic buds, reposing,
    A whole creation slumbered mute,
  Alas, when from the buds unclosing,
    How scant and blighted sprung the fruit!
  How happy in his dreaming error,
    His own gay valor for his wing,
  Of not one care as yet in terror
    Did Youth upon his journey spring;
  Till floods of balm, through air's dominion,
    Bore upward to the faintest star—
  For never aught to that bright pinion
    Could dwell too high, or spread too far.
  Though laden with delight, how lightly
    The wanderer heavenward still could soar,
  And aye the ways of life how brightly
    The airy Pageant danced before!
  Love, showering gifts (life's sweetest) down,
    Fortune, with golden garlands gay,
  And Fame, with starbeams for a crown,
    And Truth, whose dwelling is the Day.
  Ah! midway soon lost evermore,
    Afar the blithe companions stray;
  In vain their faithless steps explore,
    As one by one, they glide away.
  Fleet Fortune was the first escaper—
    The thirst for wisdom linger'd yet;
  But doubts with many a gloomy vapor
    The sun-shape of the Truth beset!
  The holy crown which Fame was wreathing,
    Behold! the mean man's temples wore,
  And, but for one short spring-day breathing,
    Bloom'd Love—the Beautiful—no more!
  And ever stiller yet, and ever
    The barren path more lonely lay,
  Till scarce from waning Hope could quiver
    A glance along the gloomy way.
  Who, loving, lingered yet to guide me,
    When all her boon companions fled,
  Who stands consoling yet beside me,
    And follows to the House of Dread?
  Thine FRIENDSHIP—thine the hand so tender,
    Thine the balm dropping on the wound,
  Thy task the load more lightly to render—
    O! earliest sought and soonest found!
  And Thou, so pleased, with her uniting,
    To charm the soul-storm into peace,
  Sweet TOIL, in toil itself delighting,
    That more it labored, less could cease;
  Tho' but by grains thou aid'st the pile
    The vast Eternity uprears,
  At least thou strik'st from Time the while
    Life's debt—the minutes, days and years.[3]
 

* * * * *

THE VEILED IMAGE AT SAÏS (1795)

 
  A youth, whom wisdom's warm desire had lured
  To learn the secret lore of Egypt's priests,
  To Saïs came. And soon, from step to step
  Of upward mystery, swept his rapid soul!
  Still ever sped the glorious Hope along,
  Nor could the parch'd Impatience halt, appeased
  By the calm answer of the Hierophant—
  "What have I, if I have not all," he sigh'd;
  "And giv'st thou but the little and the more?
  Does thy truth dwindle to the gauge of gold,
  A sum that man may smaller or less small
  Possess and count—subtract or add to—still?
  Is not TRUTH one and indivisible?
  Take from the Harmony a single tone
  A single tint take from the Iris bow—
  And lo! what once was all, is nothing—while
  Fails to the lovely whole one tint or tone!"
   They stood within the temple's silent dome,
  And, as the young man paused abrupt, his gaze
  Upon a veil'd and giant IMAGE fell:
  Amazed he turn'd unto his guide—"And what
  Towers, yonder, vast beneath the veil?"
                              "THE TRUTH,"
  Answered the Priest.
            "And have I for the truth
  Panted and struggled with a lonely soul,
  And yon the thin and ceremonial robe
  That wraps her from mine eyes?"
                Replied the Priest,
  "There shrouds herself the still Divinity.
  Hear, and revere her best: 'Till I this veil
  Lift—may no mortal-born presume to raise;
  And who with guilty and unhallow'd hand
  Too soon profanes the Holy and Forbidden—
  He,' says the goddess."—
                        "Well?"
                           "'SHALL SEE THE TRUTH!'"
  "And wond'rous oracle; and hast thou never
  Lifted the veil?"
                "No! nor desired to raise!"
  "What! nor desired? O strange, incurious heart,
  Here the thin barrier—there reveal'd the truth!"
  Mildly return'd the priestly master: "Son,
  More mighty than thou dream'st of, Holy Law
  Spreads interwoven in yon slender web,
  Air-light to touch—lead-heavy to the soul!"
  The young man, thoughtful, turn'd him to his home,
  And the sharp fever of the Wish to Know
  Robb'd night of sleep. Around his couch he roll'd,
  Till midnight hatch'd resolve—
                            "Unto the shrine!"
  Stealthily on, the involuntary tread
  Bears him—he gains the boundary, scales the wall,
  And midway in the inmost, holiest dome,
  Strides with adventurous step the daring man.
  Now halts he where the lifeless Silence sleeps
  In the embrace of mournful Solitude;—
  Silence unstirr'd—save where the guilty tread
  Call'd the dull echo from mysterious vaults!
  High from the opening of the dome above,
  Came with wan smile the silver-shining moon.
  And, awful as some pale presiding god,
  Dim-gleaming through the hush of that large gloom,
  In its wan veil the Giant Image stood.
   With an unsteady step he onward past,
  Already touch'd the violating hand
  The Holy—and recoil'd! a shudder thrill'd
  His limbs, fire-hot and icy-cold in turns,
  As if invisible arms would pluck the soul
  Back from the deed.
                     "O miserable man!
  What would'st thou?" (Thus within the inmost heart
  Murmur'd the warning whisper.) "Wilt thou dare
  The All-hallow'd to profane? 'No mortal-born'
  (So spake the oracular word)—'may lift the veil
  Till I myself shall raise!' Yet said it not—
  The same oracular word—'who lifts the veil
  Shall see the truth?' Behind, be what there may,
  I dare the hazard—I will lift the veil—"
  Loud rang his shouting voice—"and I will see!"
                                         "SEE!"
  A lengthen'd echo, mocking, shrill'd again!
  He spoke and rais'd the veil! And ask'st thou what
  Unto the sacrilegious gaze lay bare?
  I know not—pale and senseless, stretch'd before
  The statue of the great Egyptian queen,
  The priests beheld him at the dawn of day;
  But what he saw, or what did there befall,
  His lips reveal'd not. Ever from his heart
  Was fled the sweet serenity of life,
  And the deep anguish dug the early grave
  "Woe—woe to him"—such were his warning words,
  Answering some curious and impetuous brain,
  "Woe—for her face shall charm him never more!
  Woe—woe to him who treads through Guilt to TRUTH!"
 

* * * * *

THE IDEAL AND THE ACTUAL LIFE (1795)

I

 
  Forever fair, forever calm and bright,
  Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light,
    For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice—
  Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb,
  And 'mid the universal ruin, bloom
    The rosy days of Gods—
                       With Man, the choice,
  Timid and anxious, hesitates between
    The sense's pleasure and the soul's content;
  While on celestial brows, aloft and sheen,
    The beams of both are blent.
 

II

 
  Seek'st thou on earth the life of Gods to share,
  Safe in the Realm of Death?—beware
    To pluck the fruits that glitter to thine eye;
  Content thyself with gazing on their glow—
  Short are the joys Possession can bestow,
    And in Possession sweet Desire will die.
  'Twas not the ninefold chain of waves that bound
    Thy daughter, Ceres, to the Stygian river—
  She pluck'd the fruit of the unholy ground,
    And so—was Hell's forever!
 

III

 
  The Weavers of the Web—the Fates—but sway
  The matter and the things of clay;
    Safe from each change that Time to Matter gives,
  Nature's blest playmate, free at will to stray
    With Gods a god, amidst the fields of Day,
    The FORM, the ARCHETYPE,[4] serenely lives.
  Would'st thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing?
    Cast from thee, Earth, the bitter and the real,
  High from this cramp'd and dungeon being, spring
    Into the Realm of the Ideal!
 

IV

 
  Here, bathed, Perfection, in thy purest ray,
  Free from the clogs and taints of clay,
    Hovers divine the Archetypal Man!
  Dim as those phantom ghosts of life that gleam
  And wander voiceless by the Stygian stream,—
    Fair as it stands in fields Elysian,
  Ere down to Flesh the Immortal doth descend:—
    If doubtful ever in the Actual life
  Each contest—here a victory crowns the end
    Of every nobler strife.
 

V

 
  Not from the strife itself to set thee free,
  But more to nerve—doth Victory
    Wave her rich garland from the Ideal clime.
  Whate'er thy wish, the Earth has no repose—
  Life still must drag thee onward as it flows,
    Whirling thee down the dancing surge of Time.
  But when the courage sinks beneath the dull
    Sense of its narrow limits—on the soul,
  Bright from the hill-tops of the Beautiful,
    Bursts the attainèd goal!
 

VI

 
  If worth thy while the glory and the strife
  Which fire the lists of Actual Life—
    The ardent rush to fortune or to fame,
  In the hot field where Strength and Valor are,
  And rolls the whirling thunder of the car,
    And the world, breathless, eyes the glorious game—
  Then dare and strive—the prize can but belong
    To him whose valor o'er his tribe prevails;
  In life the victory only crowns the strong—
    He who is feeble fails.
 

VII

 
  But Life, whose source, by crags around it pil'd,
  Chafed while confin'd, foams fierce and wild,
    Glides soft and smooth when once its streams expand,
  When its waves, glassing in their silver play,
  Aurora blent with Hesper's milder ray,
    Gain the Still BEAUTIFUL—that Shadow-Land!
  Here, contest grows but interchange of Love;
    All curb is but the bondage of the Grace;
  Gone is each foe,—Peace folds her wings above
    Her native dwelling-place.
 

VIII

 
  When, through dead stone to breathe a soul of light,
  With the dull matter to unite
    The kindling genius, some great sculptor glows;
  Behold him straining every nerve intent—
  Behold how, o'er the subject element,
    The stately THOUGHT its march laborious goes!
  For never, save to Toil untiring, spoke
    The unwilling Truth from her mysterious well—
  The statue only to the chisel's stroke
    Wakes from its marble cell.
 

IX

 
  But onward to the Sphere of Beauty—go
  Onward, O Child of Art! and, lo,
    Out of the matter which thy pains control
  The Statue springs!—not as with labor wrung
  From the hard block, but as from Nothing sprung—
    Airy and light—the offspring of the soul!
  The pangs, the cares, the weary toils it cost
    Leave not a trace when once the work is done—
  The Artist's human frailty merged and lost
    In Art's great victory won!
 

X

 
  If human Sin confronts the rigid law
  Of perfect Truth and Virtue, awe
    Seizes and saddens thee to see how far
  Beyond thy reach, Perfection;—if we test
  By the Ideal of the Good, the best,
    How mean our efforts and our actions are!
  This space between the Ideal of man's soul
    And man's achievement, who hath ever past?
  An ocean spreads between us and that goal
    Where anchor ne'er was cast!
 

XI

 
  But fly the boundary of the Senses—live
  The Ideal life free Thought can give;
    And, lo, the gulf shall vanish, and the chill
  Of the soul's impotent despair be gone!
  And with divinity thou sharest the throne,
    Let but divinity become thy will!
  Scorn not the Law—permit its iron band
    The sense (it cannot chain the soul) to thrall.
  Let man no more the will of Jove withstand,
    And Jove the bolt lets fall!
 

XII

 
  If, in the woes of Actual Human Life—
  If thou could'st see the serpent strife
    Which the Greek Art has made divine in stone—
  Could'st see the writhing limbs, the livid cheek,
  Note every pang, and hearken every shriek
    Of some despairing lost Laocoon,
  The human nature would thyself subdue
    To share the human woe before thine eye—
  Thy cheek would pale, and all thy soul be true
    To Man's great Sympathy.
 

XIII

 
  But in the Ideal Realm, aloof and far,
  Where the calm Art's pure dwellers are,
    Lo, the Laocoon writhes, but does not groan.
  Here, no sharp grief the high emotion knows—
  Here, suffering's self is made divine, and shows
    The brave resolve of the firm soul alone:
  Here, lovely as the rainbow on the dew
    Of the spent thunder-cloud, to Art is given,
  Gleaming through Grief's dark veil, the peaceful blue
    Of the sweet Moral Heaven.
 

XIV

 
  So, in the glorious parable, behold
  How, bow'd to mortal bonds, of old
    Life's dreary path divine Alcides trod:
  The hydra and the lion were his prey,
  And to restore the friend he loved today,
    He went undaunted to the black-brow'd God;
  And all the torments and the labors sore
    Wroth Juno sent—the meek majestic One,
  With patient spirit and unquailing, bore,
    Until the course was run—
 

XV

 
  Until the God cast down his garb of clay,
  And rent in hallowing flame away
    The mortal part from the divine—to soar
  To the empyreal air! Behold him spring
  Blithe in the pride of the unwonted wing,
    And the dull matter that confined before
  Sinks downward, downward, downward as a dream!
    Olympian hymns receive the escaping soul,
  And smiling Hebe, from the ambrosial stream,
    Fills for a God the bowl!
 

* * * * *