Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels, vol. 1 (of 2)Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
General
Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels, vol. 1 (of 2)
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
Bildungsromans; German fiction -- Translations into English; Self-realization -- Fiction
"Dost know the land where citrons, lemons, grow,
Gold oranges 'neath dusky foliage glow,
From azure sky are blowing breezes soft,
The myrtles still, the laurel stands aloft?
'Tis there! 'tis there!
I would with thee, O my beloved one, go!
Dost know the house, its roofs do columns bear,
The hall with splendor bright, the chambers glare?
Therein stand marble forms, and look at me:
What is't, poor child, that they have done to thee?
Dost know that house?
'Tis there! 'tis there!
I would with thee, O my protector, go!
Dost know the mount, whose path with clouds is fraught,
Where by the mule through mist the way is sought,
Where dwell in caves the dragon's ancient brood,
Where falls the rock, and over it the flood,--
Dost know that mount?
'Tis there! 'tis there!
Does lead our road: O father, let us go!"
--_Editor's Version._
Next morning, on looking for Mignon about the house, Wilhelm did not
find her, but was informed that she had gone out early with Melina, who
had risen betimes to receive the wardrobe and other apparatus of his
theatre.
After the space of some hours, Wilhelm heard the sound of music before
his door. At first he thought it was the harper come again to visit him;
but he soon distinguished the tones of a cithern, and the voice which
began to sing was Mignon's. Wilhelm opened the door: the child came in,
and sang him the song we have just given above.
The music and general expression of it pleased our friend extremely,
though he could not understand all the words. He made her once more
repeat the stanzas, and explain them: he wrote them down, and translated
them into his native language. But the originality of its turns he
could imitate only from afar: its childlike innocence of expression
vanished from it in the process of reducing its broken phraseology to
uniformity, and combining its disjointed parts. The charm of the tune,
moreover, was entirely incomparable.
She began every verse in a stately and solemn manner, as if she wished
to draw attention towards something wonderful, as if she had something
weighty to communicate. In the third line, her tones became deeper and
gloomier; the words, "_Dost know?_" were uttered with a show of mystery
and eager circumspectness; in "'_Tis there! 'tis there!_" lay an
irresistible longing; and her "_Let us go!_" she modified at each
repetition, so that now it appeared to entreat and implore, now to impel
and persuade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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