CHORUS OF WOMEN PENITENTS
To heights thou'rt speeding
Of endless Eden:
Receive our pleading,
Transcendent Maiden,
With mercy laden!
MAGNA PECCATRIX [_St. Luke_, vii. 36]
By the love before him kneeling,--
Him, thy Son, a Godlike vision;
By the tears like balsam stealing,
Spite of Pharisees' derision;
By the box, whose ointment precious
Shed its spice and odors cheery;
By the locks, whose softest meshes
Dried the holy feet and weary!--
MULIER SAMARITANA [_St. John_, iv.]
By that well, the ancient station
Whither Abram's flocks were driven;
By the jar, whose restoration
To the Savior's lips was given;
By the fountain pure and vernal,
Thence its present bounty spending,--
Overflowing, bright, eternal,
Watering the worlds unending!--
MARIA AEGYPTIACA [_Acta Sanctorum_]
By the place where the immortal
Body of the Lord hath lain;
By the arm which, from the portal,
Warning, thrust me back again;
By the forty years' repentance
In the lonely desert land;
By the blissful farewell sentence
Which I wrote upon the sand!--
THE THREE
Thou thy presence not deniest
Unto sinful women ever,--
Liftest them to win the highest
Gain of penitent endeavor,--
So, from this good soul withdraw not--
Who but once forgot, transgressing,
Who her loving error saw not--
Pardon adequate, and blessing!
UNA POENITENTIUM [_Formerly named Margaret, stealing closer_]
Incline, O Maiden,
With mercy laden,
In light unfading,
Thy gracious countenance upon my bliss!
My loved, my lover,
His trials over
In yonder world, returns to me in this!
BLESSED BOYS [_Approaching in hovering circles_]
With mighty limbs he towers
Already above us;
He, for this love of ours,
Will richlier love us.
Early were we removed,
Ere Life could reach us;
Yet he hath learned and proved,
And he will teach us.
THE PENITENT [_Formerly named Margaret_]
The spirit choir around him seeing,
New to himself, he scarce divines
His heritage of new-born Being,
When like the Holy Host he shines.
Behold, how he each band hath cloven
The earthly life had round him thrown,
And through his garb, of ether woven,
The early force of youth is shown!
Vouchsafe to me that I instruct him!
Still dazzles him the Day's new glare.
MATER GLORIOSA
Rise thou to higher spheres! Conduct him,
Who, feeling thee, shall follow there!
DOCTOR MARIANUS [_Prostrate, adoring_]
Penitents, look up, elate.
Where she beams salvation;
Gratefully to blessed fate
Grow, in re-creation!
Be our souls, as they have been,
Dedicate to thee!
Virgin Holy, Mother, Queen,
Goddess, gracious be!
CHORUS MYSTICUS
All things transitory
But as symbols are sent:
Earth's insufficiency
Here grows to Event:
The Indescribable,
Here it is done:
The Woman Soul leadeth us
Upward and on!
MIGNON'S LOVE AND LONGING
From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.' Carlyle's Translation
Nothing is more touching than the first disclosure of a love which has
been nursed in silence; of a faith grown strong in secret, and which at
last comes forth in the hour of need and reveals itself to him who
formerly has reckoned it of small account. The bud which had been closed
so long and firmly was now ripe to burst its swathings, and Wilhelm's
heart could never have been readier to welcome the impressions of
affection.
She stood before him, and noticed his disquietude. "Master!" she cried,
"if thou art unhappy, what will become of Mignon?" "Dear little
creature," said he, taking her hands, "thou too art part of my
anxieties. I must go hence." She looked at his eyes, glistening with
restrained tears, and knelt down with vehemence before him. He kept her
hands; she laid her head upon his knees, and remained quite still. He
played with her hair, patted her, and spoke kindly to her. She continued
motionless for a considerable time. At last he felt a sort of
palpitating movement in her, which began very softly, and then by
degrees, with increasing violence, diffused itself over all her frame.
"What ails thee, Mignon?" cried he; "what ails thee?" She raised her
little head, looked at him, and all at once laid her hand upon her
heart, with the countenance of one repressing the utterance of pain. He
raised her up, and she fell upon his breast; he pressed her towards him,
and kissed her. She replied not by any pressure of the hand, by any
motion whatever. She held firmly against her heart; and all at once gave
a cry, which was accompanied by spasmodic movements of the body. She
started up, and immediately fell down before him, as if broken in every
joint. It was an excruciating moment! "My child!" cried he, raising her
up and clasping her fast,--"my child, what ails thee?" The palpitations
continued, spreading from the heart over all the lax and powerless
limbs; she was merely hanging in his arms. All at once she again became
quite stiff, like one enduring the sharpest corporeal agony; and soon
with a new vehemence all her frame once more became alive, and she threw
herself about his neck, like a bent spring that is closing; while in her
soul, as it were, a strong rent took place, and at the same moment a
stream of tears flowed from her shut eyes into his bosom. He held her
fast. She wept, and no tongue can express the force of these tears. Her
long hair had loosened, and was hanging down before her; it seemed as if
her whole being was melting incessantly into a brook of tears. Her rigid
limbs were again become relaxed; her inmost soul was pouring itself
forth; in the wild confusion of the moment, Wilhelm was afraid she would
dissolve in his arms, and leave nothing there for him to grasp. He held
her faster and faster. "My child!" cried he, "my child! thou art indeed
mine, if that word can comfort thee. Thou art mine! I will keep thee,
I will never forsake thee!" Her tears continued flowing. At last she
raised herself; a faint gladness shone upon her face. "My father!"
cried she, "thou wilt not forsake me? Wilt be my father? I am thy
child!"
Softly, at this moment, the harp began to sound before the door; the old
man brought his most affecting songs as an evening offering to our
friend, who, holding his child ever faster in his arms, enjoyed the most
pure and undescribable felicity.
* * * * *
Know'st thou the land where citron-apples bloom,
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom,
A gentle wind from deep-blue heaven blows,
The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows?
Know'st thou it then?
'Tis there! Tis there,
O my true loved one, thou with me must go!
Know'st thou the house, its porch with pillars tall?
The rooms do glitter, glitters bright the hall,
And marble statues stand, and look each one:
What's this, poor child, to thee they've done?
Know'st thou it then?
'Tis there! 'Tis there,
O my protector, thou with me must go!
"Know'st thou the hill, the bridge that hangs on cloud?
The mules in mist grope o'er the torrent loud,
In caves lie coiled the dragon's ancient brood,
The crag leaps down, and over it the flood:
Know'st thou it then?
'Tis there! 'Tis there
Our way runs: O my father, wilt thou go?"
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 "Know'st thou it then?" was uttered with a show of mystery
and eager circumspectness; in the "'Tis there! 'Tis there!" lay a
boundless longing; and her "With me must go!" she modified at each
repetition, so that now it appeared to entreat and implore, now to impel
and persuade.
On finishing her song for the second time, she stood silent for a
moment, looked keenly at Wilhelm, and asked him, "_Know'st_ thou the
land?" "It must mean Italy," said Wilhelm: "where didst thou get the
little song?" "Italy!" said Mignon, with an earnest air. "If thou go to
Italy, take me along with thee; for I am too cold here." "Hast thou been
there already, little dear?" said Wilhelm. But the child was silent, and
nothing more could be got out of her.
WILHELM MEISTER'S INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE
From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.' Carlyle's Translation
"Have you never," said Jarno, taking him aside, "read one of
Shakespeare's plays?"
"No," replied Wilhelm: "since the time when they became more known in
Germany, I have myself grown unacquainted with the theatre; and I know
not whether I should now rejoice that an old taste and occupation of my
youth, has been by chance renewed. In the mean time, all that I have
heard of these plays has excited little wish to become acquainted with
such extraordinary monsters, which appear to set probability and dignity
alike at defiance."
"I would advise you," said the other, "to make a trial, notwithstanding:
it can do one no harm to look at what is extraordinary with one's own
eyes. I will lend you a volume or two; and you cannot better spend your
time than by casting everything aside, and retiring to the solitude of
your old habitation, to look into the magic lantern of that unknown
world. It is sinful of you to waste your hours in dressing out these
apes to look more human, and teaching dogs to dance. One thing only I
require,--you must not cavil at the form; the rest I can leave to your
own good sense and feeling."
The horses were standing at the door; and Jarno mounted with some other
cavaliers, to go and hunt. Wilhelm looked after him with sadness. He
would fain have spoken much with this man who though in a harsh,
unfriendly way, gave him new ideas,--ideas that he had need of.
Oftentimes a man, when approaching some development of his powers,
capacities, and conceptions, gets into a perplexity from which a prudent
friend might easily deliver him. He resembles a traveler, who, at but a
short distance from the inn he is to rest at, falls into the water: were
any one to catch him then and pull him to the bank, with one good
wetting it were over; whereas, though he struggles out himself, it is
often at the side where he tumbled in, and he has to make a wide and
weary circuit before reaching his appointed object.
Wilhelm now began to have an inkling that things went forward in the
world differently from what he had supposed. He now viewed close at hand
the solemn and imposing life of the great and distinguished, and
wondered at the easy dignity which they contrived to give it. An army on
its march, a princely hero at the head of it, such a multitude of
co-operating warriors, such a multitude of crowding worshipers, exalted
his imagination. In this mood he received the promised books; and ere
long, as may be easily supposed, the stream of that mighty genius laid
hold of him and led him down to a shoreless ocean, where he soon
completely forgot and lost himself....
Wilhelm had scarcely read one or two of Shakespeare's plays, till their
effect on him became so strong that he could go no further. His whole
soul was in commotion. He sought an opportunity to speak with Jarno; to
whom, on meeting with him, he expressed his boundless gratitude for such
delicious entertainment.
"I clearly enough foresaw," said Jarno, "that you would not remain
insensible to the charms of the most extraordinary and most admirable of
all writers."
"Yes!" exclaimed our friend: "I cannot recollect that any book, any man,
any incident of my life, has produced such important effects on me, as
the precious works to which by your kindness I have been directed. They
seem as if they were performances of some celestial genius descending
among men, to make them by the mildest instructions acquainted with
themselves. They are no fictions! You would think, while reading them,
you stood before the inclosed awful Books of Fate, while the whirlwind
of most impassioned life was howling through the leaves, and tossing
them fiercely to and fro. The strength and tenderness, the power and
peacefulness of this man, have so astonished and transported me, that I
long vehemently for the time when I shall have it in my power to read
further."
"Bravo!" said Jarno, holding out his hand, and squeezing our friend's.
"This is as it should be! And the consequences which I hope for will
likewise surely follow."
"I wish," said Wilhelm, "I could but disclose to you all that is going
on within me even now. All the anticipations I have ever had regarding
man and his destiny, which have accompanied me from youth upwards often
unobserved by myself, I find developed and fulfilled in Shakespeare's
writings. It seems as if he cleared up every one of our enigmas to us,
though we cannot say, Here or there is the word of solution. His men
appear like natural men, and yet they are not. These, the most
mysterious and complex productions of creation, here act before us as if
they were watches, whose dial-plates and cases were of crystal, which
pointed out according to their use the course of the hours and minutes;
while at the same time you could discern the combination of wheels and
springs that turn them. The few glances I have cast over Shakespeare's
world incite me, more than anything beside, to quicken my footsteps
forward into the actual world, to mingle in the flood of destinies that
is suspended over it; and at length, if I shall prosper, to draw a few
cups from the great ocean of true nature, and to distribute them from
off the stage among the thirsting people of my native land."
WILHELM MEISTER'S ANALYSIS OF HAMLET
From 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship'
Seeing the company so favorably disposed, Wilhelm now hoped he might
further have it in his power to converse with them on the poetic merit
of the pieces which might come before them. "It is not enough," said he
next day, when they were all again assembled, "for the actor merely to
glance over a dramatic work, to judge of it by his first impression, and
thus without investigation to declare his satisfaction or
dissatisfaction with it. Such things may be allowed in a spectator,
whose purpose it is rather to be entertained and moved than formally to
criticize. But the actor, on the other hand, should be prepared to give
a reason for his praise or censure: and how shall he do this if he have
not taught himself to penetrate the sense, the views, and feelings of
his author? A common error is, to form a judgment of a drama from a
single part in it; and to look upon this part itself in an isolated
point of view, not in its connection with the whole. I have noticed this
within a few days so clearly in my own conduct, that I will give you the
account as an example, if you please to hear me patiently.
"You all know Shakespeare's incomparable 'Hamlet': our public reading of
it at the Castle yielded every one of us the greatest satisfaction. On
that occasion we proposed to act the piece; and I, not knowing what I
undertook, engaged to play the Prince's part. This I conceived that I
was studying, while I began to get by heart the strongest passages, the
soliloquies, and those scenes in which force of soul, vehemence, and
elevation of feeling have the freest scope; where the agitated heart is
allowed to display itself with touching expressiveness.
"I further conceived that I was penetrating quite into the spirit of the
character, while I endeavored as it were to take upon myself the load of
deep melancholy under which my prototype was laboring, and in this humor
to pursue him through the strange labyrinths of his caprices and his
singularities. Thus learning, thus practicing, I doubted not but I
should by-and-by become one person with my hero.
"But the farther I advanced, the more difficult did it become for me to
form any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last it
seemed as if impossible. I next went through the entire piece, without
interruption; but here too I found much that I could not away with. At
one time the characters, at another time the manner of displaying them,
seemed inconsistent; and I almost despaired of finding any general tint,
in which I might present my whole part with all its shadings and
variations. In such devious paths I toiled, and wandered long in vain;
till at length a hope arose that I might reach my aim in quite a new
way.
"I set about investigating every trace of Hamlet's character, as it had
shown itself before his father's death: I endeavored to distinguish what
in it was independent of this mournful event; independent of the
terrible events that followed; and what most probably the young man
would have been, had no such thing occurred.
"Soft, and from a noble stem, this royal flower had sprung up under the
immediate influences of majesty; the idea of moral rectitude with that
of princely elevation, the feeling of the good and dignified with the
consciousness of high birth, had in him been unfolded simultaneously. He
was a prince, by birth a prince; and he wished to reign, only that good
men might be good without obstruction. Pleasing in form, polished by
nature, courteous from the heart, he was meant to be the pattern of
youth and the joy of the world.
"Without any prominent passion, his love for Ophelia was a still
presentiment of sweet wants. His zeal in knightly accomplishments was
not entirely his own; it needed to be quickened and inflamed by praise
bestowed on others for excelling in them. Pure in sentiment, he knew the
honorable-minded, and could prize the rest which an upright spirit
tastes on the bosom of a friend. To a certain degree, he had learned to
discern and value the good and the beautiful in arts and sciences; the
mean, the vulgar was offensive to him: and if hatred could take root in
his tender soul, it was only so far as to make him properly despise the
false and changeful insects of a court, and play with them in easy
scorn. He was calm in his temper, artless in his conduct, neither
pleased with idleness nor too violently eager for employment. The
routine of a university he seemed to continue when at court. He
possessed more mirth of humor than of heart; he was a good companion,
pliant, courteous, discreet, and able to forget and forgive an injury,
yet never able to unite himself with those who overstept the limits of
the right, the good, and the becoming.
"When we read the piece again, you shall judge whether I am yet on the
proper track. I hope at least to bring forward passages that shall
support my opinion in its main points."
This delineation was received with warm approval; the company imagined
they foresaw that Hamlet's manner of proceeding might now be very
satisfactorily explained; they applauded this method of penetrating into
the spirit of a writer. Each of them proposed to himself to take up some
piece, and study it on these principles, and so unfold the author's
meaning ....
Loving Shakespeare as our friend did, he failed not to lead round the
conversation to the merits of that dramatist. Expressing, as he
entertained, the liveliest hopes of the new epoch which these exquisite
productions must form in Germany, he ere long introduced his 'Hamlet,'
who had busied him so much of late.
Serlo declared that he would long ago have played the piece, had this
been possible, and that he himself would willingly engage to act
Polonius. He added with a smile, "An Ophelia too will certainly turn up,
if we had but a Prince."
Wilhelm did not notice that Aurelia seemed a little hurt at her
brother's sarcasm. Our friend was in his proper vein, becoming copious
and didactic, expounding how he would have 'Hamlet' played. He
circumstantially delivered to his hearers the opinions we before saw him
busied with; taking all the trouble possible to make his notion of the
matter acceptable, skeptical as Serlo showed himself regarding it. "Well
then," said the latter finally, "suppose we grant you all this, what
will you explain by it?"
"Much, everything," said Wilhelm. "Conceive a prince such as I have
painted him, and that his father suddenly dies. Ambition and the love of
rule are not the passions that inspire him. As a king's son, he would
have been contented; but now he is first constrained to consider the
difference which separates a sovereign from a subject. The crown was not
hereditary; yet a longer possession of it by his father would have
strengthened the pretensions of an only son, and secured his hopes of
the succession. In place of this, he now beholds himself excluded by his
uncle, in spite of specious promises, most probably forever. He is now
poor in goods and favor, and a stranger in the scene which from youth he
had looked upon as his inheritance. His temper here assumes its first
mournful tinge. He feels that now he is not more, that he is less, than
a private nobleman; he offers himself as the servant of every one; he is
not courteous and condescending, he is needy and degraded.
"His past condition he remembers as a vanished dream. It is in vain that
his uncle strives to cheer him, to present his situation in another
point of view. The feeling of his nothingness will not leave him.
"The second stroke that came upon him wounded deeper, bowed still more.
It was the marriage of his mother. The faithful tender son had yet a
mother, when his father passed away. He hoped in the company of his
surviving, noble-minded parent, to reverence the heroic form of the
departed; but his mother too he loses, and it is something worse than
death that robs him of her. The trustful image which a good child loves
to form of its parents is gone. With the dead there is no help; on the
living no hold. She also is a woman, and her name is Frailty, like that
of all her sex.
"Now first does he feel himself completely bent and orphaned; and no
happiness of life can repay what he has lost. Not reflective or
sorrowful by nature, reflection and sorrow have become for him a heavy
obligation. It is thus that we see him first enter on the scene. I do
not think that I have mixed aught foreign with the piece, or overcharged
a single feature of it."
Serlo looked at his sister and said, "Did I give thee a false picture of
our friend? He begins well; he has still many things to tell us, many to
persuade us of." Wilhelm asseverated loudly that he meant not to
persuade but to convince; he begged for another moment's patience.
"Figure to yourselves this youth," cried he, "this son of princes;
conceive him vividly, bring his state before your eyes, and then observe
him when he learns that his father's spirit walks; stand by him in the
terrors of the night, when the venerable ghost itself appears before
him. A horrid shudder passes over him; he speaks to the mysterious form;
he sees it beckon him; he follows it, and hears. The fearful accusation
of his uncle rings in his ears; the summons to revenge, and the piercing
oft-repeated prayer, Remember me!
"And when the ghost has vanished, who is it that stands before us? A
young hero panting for vengeance? A prince by birth, rejoicing to be
called to punish the usurper of his crown? No! trouble and astonishment
take hold of the solitary young man; he grows bitter against smiling
villains, swears that he will not forget the spirit, and concludes with
the significant ejaculation:--
"'The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!'