Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature – 3. The Reaction in France

"What I had taken to be ravine and mountain, wood, meadow, and cliff, was one great head, the forest its hair and beard. The giant smiles to see his children happy at their play. He beckons, and straightway through the forest is heard a rustle of holy awe. I fell upon my knees, trembling with fear. I whispered to the little child: 'What is that great being yonder?' The child replied: 'The fear of him comes upon thee because thou hast been permitted to see him without warning; that is our father, our preserver; his name is Pan.'"

67

"Beloved, thou hast pierced my heart,Oh, bitterer this than hell's worst smart!"

68

"The child, a heavy weight, you have borne;Flap your wings at the mother, all forlorn;A weary way you have had to bear it,Catch hold of her cheek with your bill, and tear it," &c., &c.

69

"In my irritation,In the journey's agitation,I crushed the child," &c., &c.

70

Cf. Otto Brahm, Heinrich von Kleist.

71

This speech is taken from the early edition. "To think that he could crush this breast, Prothoe! a breast so full of song, Asteria! At every touch upon its strings it gave forth melody."

72

"The utmost that human powers can do, I have done; setting my all upon one throw of the dice, I have attempted the impossible. There the dice lie – and I have lost, have lost; 'tis this that I must force myself to understand."

73

"Set all the dogs upon him! Drive on the elephants with firebrands, that they may crush him under foot! Press on the chariots, that their scythes may mow his lusty limbs!"

74

"'At him, good dogs!' she cries, 'at him, good Tigris, Leäne, Sphinx, Melampus, Dirke, and Hyrkaon!' and, shouting thus, she rushes madly at him with the pack, and, like a dog among the dogs, catches him by the plume of his helmet and pulls him down, the earth shuddering at his fall. One has him by the neck, one by the breast. Weltering in his blood, he touches her soft cheek and cries: 'Penthesilea! sweet love! art thou beside thyself? Is this the bridal festival thou promisedst?' The lioness, the hungry lioness roaring for her prey on the barren plain, would have listened to him – but she – she tears the breastplate from his breast, and sets her teeth deep in his flesh – she and her hounds in rivalry; Oxus and Sphinx have him by the right breast, she by the left. When I arrived, the blood was streaming from her mouth and hands."

75

"Many is the woman who, with her arms round her lover's neck, has said: 'I love thee so, that I could eat thee.' If the fool tried, she was disgusted. It was not so with me, beloved. When I hung upon thy neck I said it not; I did it. I was not so mad as I seemed to thee to be."

76

"Kisses and bites – the two words rhyme (in German); and when one loves with all one's heart, it often happens that one confuses them."

77

Jul. Schmidt, Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur, ii. 307.

78

"Art thou not conscious of him in the world, his work?Dost thou not see him in the sunset glowThat falls so softly on the silent woods?Dost thou not hear him in the rippling stream,And in the nightingale's melodious notes?Is it in vain the heaven-high mountains speak,And hissing foam of rock-torn waterfall?When bright the sun into his temple shines,And all created life pulsates with joy,And magnifies its great Creator's name,Dost thou not seek the shrine of thy pure heartAnd worship there thine idol?"

79

"Thou art armed in adamant, thou holy one, against every approach of evil. The highly-favoured one embraced by thee leaves thee still innocent and pure."

80

"They write their plans for liberating Germany in cipher, and send them to each other by messengers whom the Romans catch and hang; they meet in the dusk, they eat, they drink, and sleep, when night comes, with their wives… The hope that Augustus may die to-morrow leads them to live on thus, covered with shame, from one week to another."

81

"How it all happened I'll tell you again; to-day I'm in too great a hurry."

82

Adolf Wilbrandt, Heinrich von Kleist, 1863; Otto Brehm, Heinrich von Kleist, 1884.

83

Hitzig, Lebens-Abriss Zacharias Werners, 1823; Schütz, Zacharias Werner, Biographie und Charakteristik, 1841.

84

"Life is the destiny of everything; through death comes birth; not one grain of seed is lost. He who has struggled through blood and darkness has overcome. All hail, O bleeding knight!"

85

"You wicked Jacques! What? Die and leave your old comrade? No, no, Jacques – you must not do it."

86

"Thou art not of this earth! No mortal offers such a sacrifice! Bless me, thou daughter of Olympian gods!"

87

Ruge, Werke, ii. 60, &c.

88

"When men of noble, knightly mien trod the banks of the Rhine."

89

"Silver for bruises, gold for blood! Pay me well, Plutus, and I'll fight well for you."

90

Sepp Görres und seine Zeitgenossen, Nordlingen, 1897.

91

Cf. Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Gentz und Adam Heinrich Müller. Stuttgart, 1857. – K. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy: Friedrich von Gentz. Leipzig, 1867. —Aus dem Nachlasse Friedrich von Gentz. Wien, 1867.