Part 23 (1/2)
CHAPTER XIV.
SONG AN INDISPENSABLE REQUISITE TO THE STUDENT, AS TO ALL GERMANS.
Where man sings, lie down--there certain peace is; Amongst the bad, all song of gladness ceases.
Traverse the whole territory of Germany, every where, in the north and in the south, thou wilt hear German songs.
What is the German's Fatherland?
So name me, finally, that land!
”Far as the German's free tongue springs, And hymns to G.o.d in heaven sings,”
That shall it be, while sun doth s.h.i.+ne!
That land, brave German, call it thine!
Serious and deep feeling are characteristic traits of the German, and may indeed distinguish his character, so variously modified as it is, amid all the divisions of the German race, and by its manifold points of contact with its foreign boundary neighbours, and thus becoming tinged with so many colours. He who has the skill to clear the original colour from its foreign mixtures, will continually find it lying as the one ground colour, which always remains the same. To this depth and sincerity of feeling the songs and poetry of the Germans are a necessity. As to the man--when all the chords of his heart are shaken by some mighty sorrow; when they threaten to rend asunder under the excess of agony--as then to him comes a flood of tears as a relief; which, as it were, combines the contending feelings of his internal being, and amalgamates them with the most neutral body--water; so song presents itself as a medium to prevent us from succ.u.mbing beneath an overwhelming feeling, which the sufferer would fain clothe in words, but finds all words too poor to represent. Let a language be as rich as it will, it may possibly express all that man thinks, but not all that he feels. Nature has lent the eye to the understanding that it may serve it, and in which it may wonderfully mirror itself. In this microcosm of the eye, her creative power has marvellously repeated, in little, every part of his masterpiece--man; and has so completely furnished it, that it can answer most admirably to its destination--to conduct man to the truth. But nature has bestowed upon her favourite yet another sense, through which the fibres of his brain can instantly be put into vibration. Through this she has rendered his position in society delightful, and endowed him with sensibility to foreign communications.
But shall these be the only advantages which this sense shall procure him? No; through this shall external impressions enter, which, corresponding with the laws of beauty, shall furnish him with a new enjoyment. Through this, feeling can be constantly and directly acted upon--that portion of the human soul where the animal and the divine nature so wonderfully meet. In vain would he attempt to escape from its lords.h.i.+p; its power extends farther than appears at the first sight; and when sufficiently observed, is found to be the ultimate spring of all human operations. Other nations may, if they please, believe that the ear was given them in order to listen to strange language,--the German is not so cruel as to rend Euterpe and Polyhymnia out of the band of the Nine Sisters. Every where in Germany are altars built to these sisters, and the G.o.ddesses smile down approval on the people, because they deem themselves worthy to scatter incense before them.
The faith in the mysterious might of music and of song, which so beautifully expressed itself in the Mythology of the Greeks, shone forth also in newer Sagas; and even refined Christendom has not disdained to employ music to work upon the hearts of its votaries.
Goethe has done homage to this beautiful faith when, in his Prologue to Faust, he causes Raphael to speak.
The sun, in its old way, goes sounding, With brother-spheres in rival song, And its prescribed course thus rounding, Careers with thunder-speed along.
Thus the Germans rejoice themselves in an affluence of popular songs, although they possess but few national poets. This latter fact easily explains itself, when one reflects how late the German speech arrived at a greater perfection, and that, at the same time that Germany achieved a literary independence and literary greatness, it lost its political freedom, and came out of its captivity a dismembered whole.
Take from Germany its wine, its songs, and we might name yet a third particular of a less middle character,[30] and it will become quite another country. The German expresses the most varied feelings in song, though he does not go quite so far as the opera, in which you cannot, without smiling, hear the Czar of Russia conclude a contract with the English and French amba.s.sadors singing, and ratify the Treaty of Peace in the most exquisite melodies. But the Germans acknowledge the truth of what Goethe has said:
What I erred in, what I sought for; What I lived through, what I fought for; Are but flowers in this bouquet: And the young, the old and ailing, And each virtue as each failing, Speak their language in some lay.
The common man in Germany sings as he goes to his labour; he sings while he works, in order to enliven himself, and when he has concluded he naturally sounds forth his song of satisfaction. A pleasure, without the accompaniment of singing, he does not understand. Thus the foreigner, who has a taste for singing, hears, with surprise, a chorus-song resounding from a public-house, or pa.s.sing along the streets, which might not sustain a very severe criticism, but which does all honour to the uneducated singers. So they establish themselves in the smallest villages into Gesang-vereine (singing companies), and the author recollects with particular pleasure, a serenade, which he heard in returning late one evening from Schriesheim, in the village of Handschuhsheim; and also the delightful choral-song, which a company of peasants and peasantesses, frequently raised in the summer evenings in the castle-gardens at Schwetzingen, and which in the stillness of twilight, when the splas.h.i.+ng of the distant fountains were only heard besides, produced an extraordinary effect.
Thus it happens that songs of simple contents and of simple airs, spread themselves rapidly amongst the people, and by no other means in Germany can you so speedily operate on the popular mind as through the medium of such songs. In almost every different place you hear different songs. As an example of these songs, which are current amongst the people, we may here give a very favourite one, which is sung in a sort of half recitative.
PRINCE EUGENE.[31]
Prince Eugene, that n.o.ble captain, For the Emp'ror fain would back win, Town and fortress of Belgrade, And that they at once might do it, And the army all rush to it, Caused he that a bridge be made,
When this work so far had ran on, That with baggage and with cannon They could pa.s.s the Danube flood, By Semlin struck they their tents all, And to chase the Turks they went all, To chase them far with jibes and blood.
It fell on the twenty-first of August, There came a spy through rain and storm-gust, Swore to the Prince, and showed him then, That the Turks did near him hover, As far as man could them discover, With three hundred thousand men.
When Prince Eugene thou comprehended, He bade that he should be attended By his generals and field-marshals; He caused them to be instructed How the troops should be conducted, And upon the foe should fall.
Through the parole the word was given, That when they count one and eleven At the midnight by the clock, Every man to horse should go then, For to skirmish with the foemen, All who strength had for the shock.
All to horse at once then leaping, And their swords before them keeping, Swift and silent they advance; The troopers and hussars also then, Struck right stoutly, blow for blow then, 'Twas, in truth, a lovely dance.
Gunners to the walls advancing, Play ye music to this dancing, With your cannons great and small; With the great ones, with the lesser, On the Turks! and on the Heathens!