The Poems of Schiller — Third period

THE ELEUSINIAN FESTIVAL

   Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!     With it, the Cyane 17 blue intertwine    Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,     For the great queen is approaching her shrine, —    She who compels lawless passions to cease,     Who to link man with his fellow has come,    And into firm habitations of peace     Changed the rude tents' ever-wandering home.    Shyly in the mountain-cleft     Was the Troglodyte concealed;    And the roving Nomad left,     Desert lying, each broad field.    With the javelin, with the bow,     Strode the hunter through the land;    To the hapless stranger woe,     Billow-cast on that wild strand!    When, in her sad wanderings lost,     Seeking traces of her child,    Ceres hailed the dreary coast,     Ah, no verdant plain then smiled!    That she here with trust may stay,     None vouchsafes a sheltering roof;    Not a temple's columns gay     Give of godlike worship proof.    Fruit of no propitious ear     Bids her to the pure feast fly;    On the ghastly altars here     Human bones alone e'er dry.    Far as she might onward rove,     Misery found she still in all,    And within her soul of love,     Sorrowed she o'er man's deep fall.    "Is it thus I find the man     To whom we our image lend,    Whose fair limbs of noble span     Upward towards the heavens ascend?    Laid we not before his feet     Earth's unbounded godlike womb?    Yet upon his kingly seat     Wanders he without a home?"    "Does no god compassion feel?     Will none of the blissful race,    With an arm of miracle,     Raise him from his deep disgrace?    In the heights where rapture reigns     Pangs of others ne'er can move;    Yet man's anguish and man's pains     My tormented heart must prove."    "So that a man a man may be,     Let him make an endless bond    With the kind earth trustingly,     Who is ever good and fond    To revere the law of time,     And the moon's melodious song    Who, with silent step sublime,     Move their sacred course along."    And she softly parts the cloud     That conceals her from the sight;    Sudden, in the savage crowd,     Stands she, as a goddess bright.    There she finds the concourse rude     In their glad feast revelling,    And the chalice filled with blood     As a sacrifice they bring.    But she turns her face away,     Horror-struck, and speaks the while    "Bloody tiger-feasts ne'er may     Of a god the lips defile,    He needs victims free from stain,     Fruits matured by autumn's sun;    With the pure gifts of the plain     Honored is the Holy One!"    And she takes the heavy shaft     From the hunter's cruel hand;    With the murderous weapon's haft     Furrowing the light-strown sand, —    Takes from out her garland's crown,     Filled with life, one single grain,    Sinks it in the furrow down,     And the germ soon swells amain.    And the green stalks gracefully     Shoot, ere long, the ground above,    And, as far as eye can see,     Waves it like a golden grove.    With her smile the earth she cheers,     Binds the earliest sheaves so fair,    As her hearth the landmark rears, —     And the goddess breathes this prayer:    "Father Zeus, who reign'st o'er all     That in ether's mansions dwell,    Let a sign from thee now fall     That thou lov'st this offering well!    And from the unhappy crowd     That, as yet, has ne'er known thee,    Take away the eye's dark cloud,     Showing them their deity!"    Zeus, upon his lofty throne,     Harkens to his sister's prayer;    From the blue heights thundering down,     Hurls his forked lightning there,    Crackling, it begins to blaze,     From the altar whirling bounds, —    And his swift-winged eagle plays     High above in circling rounds.    Soon at the feet of their mistress are kneeling,     Filled with emotion, the rapturous throng;    Into humanity's earliest feeling     Melt their rude spirits, untutored and strong.    Each bloody weapon behind them they leave,     Rays on their senses beclouded soon shine,    And from the mouth of the queen they receive,     Gladly and meekly, instruction divine.    All the deities advance     Downward from their heavenly seats;    Themis' self 'tis leads the dance,     And, with staff of justice, metes    Unto every one his rights, —     Landmarks, too, 'tis hers to fix;    And in witness she invites     All the hidden powers of Styx.    And the forge-god, too, is there,     The inventive son of Zeus;    Fashioner of vessels fair     Skilled in clay and brass's use.    'Tis from him the art man knows     Tongs and bellows how to wield;    'Neath his hammer's heavy blows     Was the ploughshare first revealed.    With projecting, weighty spear,     Front of all, Minerva stands,    Lifts her voice so strong and clear,     And the godlike host commands.    Steadfast walls 'tis hers to found,     Shield and screen for every one,    That the scattered world around     Bind in loving unison.    The immortals' steps she guides     O'er the trackless plains so vast,    And where'er her foot abides     Is the boundary god held fast;    And her measuring chain is led     Round the mountain's border green, —    E'en the raging torrent's bed     In the holy ring is seen.    All the Nymphs and Oreads too     Who, the mountain pathways o'er,    Swift-foot Artemis pursue,     All to swell the concourse, pour,    Brandishing the hunting-spear, —     Set to work, — glad shouts uprise, —    'Neath their axes' blows so clear     Crashing down the pine-wood flies.    E'en the sedge-crowned God ascends     From his verdant spring to light,    And his raft's direction bends     At the goddess' word of might, —    While the hours, all gently bound,     Nimbly to their duty fly;    Rugged trunks are fashioned round     By her skilled hand gracefully.    E'en the sea-god thither fares; —     Sudden, with his trident's blow,    He the granite columns tears     From earth's entrails far below; —    In his mighty hands, on high,     Waves he them, like some light ball,    And with nimble Hermes by,     Raises up the rampart-wall.    But from out the golden strings     Lures Apollo harmony,    Measured time's sweet murmurings,     And the might of melody.    The Camoenae swell the strain     With their song of ninefold tone:    Captive bound in music's chain,     Softly stone unites to stone.    Cybele, with skilful hand,     Open throws the wide-winged door;    Locks and bolts by her are planned,     Sure to last forevermore.    Soon complete the wondrous halls     By the gods' own hands are made,    And the temple's glowing walls     Stand in festal pomp arrayed.    With a crown of myrtle twined,     Now the goddess queen comes there,    And she leads the fairest hind     To the shepherdess most fair.    Venus, with her beauteous boy,     That first pair herself attires;    All the gods bring gifts of joy,     Blessing their love's sacred fires.    Guided by the deities,     Soon the new-born townsmen pour,    Ushered in with harmonies,     Through the friendly open door.    Holding now the rites divine,     Ceres at Zeus' altar stands, —    Blessing those around the shrine,     Thus she speaks, with folded hands: —    "Freedom's love the beast inflames,     And the god rules free in air,    While the law of Nature tames     Each wild lust that lingers there.    Yet, when thus together thrown,     Man with man must fain unite;    And by his own worth alone     Can he freedom gain, and might."    Wreathe in a garland the corn's golden ear!     With it, the Cyane blue intertwine!    Rapture must render each glance bright and clear,     For the great queen is approaching her shrine, —    She who our homesteads so blissful has given,

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1

In Schiller the eight long lines that conclude each stanza of this charming love-poem, instead of rhyming alternately as in the translation, chime somewhat to the tune of Byron's Don Juan — six lines rhyming with each other, and the two last forming a separate couplet.

In other respects the translation, it is hoped, is sufficiently close and literal.

2

The peach.

3

Sung in "The Parasite," a comedy which Schiller translated from Picard — much the best comedy, by the way, that Picard ever wrote.

4

The idea diffused by the translator through this and the preceding stanza is more forcibly condensed by Schiller in four lines.

5

"And ere a man hath power to say, 'behold,'

The jaws of Darkness do devour it up,

So quick bright things come to confusion." —

SHAKESPEARE.

The three following ballads, in which Switzerland is the scene, betray their origin in Schiller's studies for the drama of William Tell.

6

The avalanche — the equivoque of the original, turning on the Swiss word Lawine, it is impossible to render intelligible to the English reader. The giants in the preceding line are the rocks that overhang the pass which winds now to the right, now to the left, of a roaring stream.

7

The Devil's Bridge. The Land of Delight (called in Tell "a serene valley of joy") to which the dreary portal (in Tell the black rock gate) leads, is the Urse Vale. The four rivers, in the next stanza, are the Reus, the Rhine, the Tessin, and the Rhone.

8

The everlasting glacier. See William Tell, act v, scene 2.

9

This has been paraphrased by Coleridge.

10

Ajax the Less.

11

Ulysses.

12

Achilles.

13

Diomed.

14

Cassandra.

15

It may be scarcely necessary to treat, however briefly, of the mythological legend on which this exquisite elegy is founded; yet we venture to do so rather than that the forgetfulness of the reader should militate against his enjoyment of the poem. Proserpine, according to the Homeride (for the story is not without variations), when gathering flowers with the Ocean-Nymphs, is carried off by Aidoneus, or Pluto. Her mother, Ceres, wanders over the earth for her in vain, and refuses to return to heaven till her daughter is restored to her. Finally, Jupiter commissions Hermes to persuade Pluto to render up his bride, who rejoins Ceres at Eleusis. Unfortunately she has swallowed a pomegranate seed in the Shades below, and is thus mysteriously doomed to spend one-third of the year with her husband in Hades, though for the remainder of the year she is permitted to dwell with Ceres and the gods. This is one of the very few mythological fables of Greece which can be safely interpreted into an allegory. Proserpine denotes the seed-corn one-third of the year below the earth; two-thirds (that is, dating from the appearance of the ear) above it. Schiller has treated this story with admirable and artistic beauty; and, by an alteration in its symbolical character has preserved the pathos of the external narrative, and heightened the beauty of the interior meaning — associating the productive principle of the earth with the immortality of the soul. Proserpine here is not the symbol of the buried seed, but the buried seed is the symbol of her — that is, of the dead. The exquisite feeling of this poem consoled Schiller's friend, Sophia La Roche, in her grief for her son's death.

16

What a beautiful vindication of the shortness of human life!

17

The corn-flower.