Postcards from Germany
Update for Schön siebenzeilig Lurley:
We knew Mark Twain spoke the awful German language. Now we learn he even sang it.
——— Mark Twain:
An Ancient Legend of the Rhine
from: A Tramp Abroad. Vol. 1–2. Leipzig: Tauchnitz, 1880, vol. 1,
translation of Heinrich Heine: Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
from: Buch der Lieder (Book of Songs), 1827:
Germany is rich in folk-songs, and the words and airs of several of them are peculiarly beautiful – but „The Lorelei“ is the people’s favourite. I could not endure it at first, but by-and-by it began to take hold of me, and now there is no tune which I like so well.
I cannot divine what it meaneth,
This haunting nameless pain:
A tale of the bygone ages
Keeps brooding through my brain:
The faint air cools in the gloaming,
And peaceful flows the Rhine,
The thirsty summits are drinking
The sunset’s flooding wine;
The loveliest maiden is sitting
High-throned in yon blue air,
Her golden jewels are shining,
She combs her golden hair;
She combs with comb that is golden,
And sings a weird refrain
That steeps in a deadly enchantment
The listener’s ravished brain:
The doomed in his drifting shallop,
Is tranced with the sad sweet tone,
He sees not the yawning breakers,
He sees but the maid alone:
The pitiless billwos engulf him!–
So perish sailor and bark;
And this, with her baleful singing,
Is the Lorelei’s gruesome work.
Images: Postcards from the Mittelrheintal about Darstellung der Loreley auf Postkarten, 1900.
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