My daughters shall wait on thee daintily;
My daughters around thee in dance shall sweep,
And rock thee and kiss thee and sing thee to sleep."_
"O father, dear father, and dost thou not mark
The elf-king's daughters move by in the dark?"--
"I see it, my child; but it is not they,
'Tis the old willow nodding its head so gray."
_"I love thee! thy beauty it charms me so;
And I'll take thee by force, if thou wilt not go!"_
"O father, dear father, he's grasping me,--
My heart is as cold as cold can be!"
The father rides swiftly,--with terror he gasps,--
The sobbing child in his arms he clasps;
He reaches the castle with spurring and dread;
But alack! in his arms the child lay dead!
Translation of Martin and Aytoun.
FROM 'THE WANDERER'S STORM SONG'
Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,
Neither blinding rain nor storm
Breathes upon his heart a chill.
Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,
To the lowering clouds,
To the beating hail,
He will sing cheerly,
As the lark there,
Thou that soarest.
Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,
Him thou'lt lift o'er miry places
On thy flaming pinions:
He will traverse
As on feet of flowers
Slime of Deucalion's deluge;
Slaying Python, strong, great,
Pythius Apollo!
Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,
Thou wilt spread thy downy wings beneath him,
When he sleeps upon the crags;
Thou wilt cover him with guardian pinions
In the midnight forest depths.
Whom thou desertest not, O Genius,
Thou wilt in whirling snow-storm
Warmly wrap him round;
To the warmth fly the Muses,
To the warmth fly the Graces.
Around me float, ye Muses,
And float, ye Graces!
This is water, this is earth
And the son of water and of earth,
Over whom I wander
Like the gods.
You are pure like the heart of water,
You are pure like the core of earth;
You float around me, and I float
Over water, over earth,
Like the gods.
Translation of Charles Harvey Genung.
THE GODLIKE
Noble be Man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Doth distinguish him
From all the beings
Which we know.
Hail to the Unknown, the
Higher Beings
Felt within us!
His pattern teach us
Faith in them!
For unfeeling
Is Nature:
Still shineth the sun
Over good and evil:
And to the sinner
Smile, as to the best,
The moon and the stars.
Wind and waters,
Thunder and hailstones,
Rustle on their way,
Smiting down as
They dash along,
One for another.
Just so does Fate
Grope round in the crowd,
Seize now the innocent,
Curly-haired boy,
Now on the old, bald
Crown of the villain.
By great adamantine
Laws everlasting,
Here we must all our
Round of existence
Faithfully finish.
There can none but Man
Perform the Impossible.
He understandeth,
Chooseth, and judgeth;
He can impart to the
Moment duration.
He alone may
The Good reward,
The Guilty punish,
Mend and deliver;
All the wayward, anomalous
Bind in the Useful.
And the Immortals--
Them we reverence,
As if they were men, and
Did, on a grand scale,
What the best man in little
Does, or fain would do.
Let noble Man
Be helpful and good!
Ever creating
The Right and the Useful--
Type of those loftier
Beings of whom the heart whispers!
Translation of John S. Dwight.
SOLITUDE
O ye kindly nymphs, who dwell 'mongst the rocks and the thickets,
Grant unto each whatsoever he may in silence desire!
Comfort impart to the mourner, and give to the doubter instruction,
And let the lover rejoice, finding the bliss that he craves.
For from the gods ye received what they ever denied unto mortals,
Power to comfort and aid all who in you may confide.
Translation of E. A. Bowring.
ERGO BIBAMUS!
For a praiseworthy object we're now gathered here,
So, brethren, sing Ergo bibamus!
Though talk may be hushed, yet the glasses ring clear:
Remember then, Ergo bibamus!
In truth 'tis an old, 'tis an excellent word;
With its sound so befitting each bosom is stirred,
And an echo the festal hall filling is heard,
A glorious Ergo bibamus!
I saw mine own love in her beauty so rare,
And bethought me of Ergo bibamus;
So I gently approached, and she let me stand there,
While I helped myself, thinking, Bibamus!
And when she's appeared, and will clasp you and kiss,
Or when those embraces and kisses ye miss,
Take refuge, till found is some worthier bliss,
In the comforting Ergo bibamus!
I am called by my fate far away from each friend;
Ye loved ones, then, Ergo bibamus!
With wallet light-laden from hence I must wend,
So double our Ergo bibamus!
Whatever to his treasure the niggard may add,
Yet regard for the joyous will ever be had,
For gladness lends ever its charms to the glad,
So, brethren, sing: Ergo bibamus!
And what shall we say of to-day as it flies?
I thought but of Ergo bibamus!
'Tis one of those truly that seldom arise,
So again and again sing Bibamus!
For joy through a wide-open portal it guides,
Bright glitter the clouds as the curtain divides,
And a form, a divine one, to greet us in glides,
While we thunder our Ergo bibamus.
Translation of E. A. Bowring.
ALEXIS AND DORA
Farther and farther away, alas! at each moment the vessel
Hastens, as onward it glides, cleaving the foam-covered flood!
Long is the track plowed up by the keel where dolphins are sporting,
Following fast in its rear, while it seems flying pursuit.
All forebodes a prosperous voyage; the sailor with calmness
Leans 'gainst the sail, which alone all that is needed performs.
Forward presses the heart of each seaman, like colors and streamers;
Backward one only is seen, mournfully fixed near the mast,
While on the blue-tinged mountains, which fast are receding, he
gazeth,
And as they sink in the sea, joy from his bosom departs.
Vanished from thee, too, O Dora, is now the vessel that robs thee
Of thine Alexis, thy friend,--ah, thy betrothed as well!
Thou, too, art after me gazing in vain. Our hearts are still
throbbing,
Though for each other, yet ah! 'gainst one another no more.
O thou single moment, wherein I found life! thou outweighest
Every day which had else coldly from memory fled.
'Twas in that moment alone, the last, that upon me descended
Life such as deities grant, though thou perceivedst it not.
Phoebus, in vain with thy rays dost thou clothe the ether in glory:
Thine all-brightening day hateful alone is to me.
Into myself I retreat for shelter, and there in the silence
Strive to recover the time when she appeared with each day.
Was it possible beauty like this to see, and not feel it?
Worked not those heavenly charms e'en on a mind dull as thine?
Blame not thyself, unhappy one! Oft doth the bard an enigma
Thus propose to the throng, skillfully hidden in words;
Each one enjoys the strange commingling of images graceful,
Yet still is wanting the word which will discover the sense.
When at length it is found, the heart of each hearer is gladdened,
And in the poem he sees meaning of twofold delight.
Wherefore so late didst thou remove the bandage, O Amor,
Which thou hadst placed o'er mine eyes,--wherefore remove it so
late?
Long did the vessel, when laden, lie waiting for favoring breezes,
Till in kindness the wind blew from the land o'er the sea.
Vacant times of youth! and vacant dreams of the future!
Ye all vanish, and naught, saving the moment, remains.
Yes! it remains,--my joy still remains! I hold thee, my Dora,
And thine image alone, Dora, by hope is disclosed.
Oft have I seen thee go, with modesty clad, to the temple,
While thy mother so dear solemnly went by thy side.
Eager and nimble thou wert, in bearing thy fruit to the market,
Boldly the pail from the well didst thou sustain on thy head.
Then was revealed thy neck, then seen thy shoulders so beauteous,
Then, before all things, the grace filling thy motions was seen.
Oft have I feared that the pitcher perchance was in danger of falling,
Yet it ever remained firm on the circular cloth.
Thus, fair neighbor, yes, thus I oft was wont to observe thee,
As on the stars I might gaze, as I might gaze on the moon;
Glad indeed at the sight, yet feeling within my calm bosom
Not the remotest desire ever to call them mine own.
Years thus fleeted away! Although our houses were only
Twenty paces apart, yet I thy threshold ne'er crossed.
Now by the fearful flood are we parted! Thou liest to Heaven,
Billow! thy beautiful blue seems to me dark as the night.
All were now in movement: a boy to the house of my father
Ran at full speed and exclaimed, "Hasten thee quick to the strand!
Hoisted the sail is already, e'en now in the wind it is fluttering,
While the anchor they weigh, heaving it up from the sand;
Come, Alexis, oh come!"--My worthy stout-hearted father
Pressed, with a blessing, his hand down on my curly-locked head,
While my mother carefully reached me a newly made bundle;
"Happy mayst thou return!" cried they--"both happy and rich!"
Then I sprang away, and under my arm held the bundle,
Running along by the wall. Standing I found thee hard by,
At the door of thy garden. Thou smilingly saidst then, "Alexis!
Say, are yon boisterous crew going thy comrades to be?
Foreign coasts wilt thou visit, and precious merchandise purchase,
Ornaments meet for the rich matrons who dwell in the town;
Bring me also, I pray thee, a light chain; gladly I'll pay thee,
Oft have I wished to possess some such a trinket as that."
There I remained, and asked, as merchants are wont, with precision
After the form and the weight which thy commission should have.
Modest indeed was the price thou didst name! I meanwhile was gazing
On thy neck, which deserved ornaments worn but by queens.
Loudly now rose the cry from the ship; then kindly thou spakest:--
"Take, I entreat thee, some fruit out of the garden, my friend!
Take the ripest oranges, figs of the whitest; the ocean
Beareth no fruit, and in truth, 'tis not produced by each land."
So I entered in. Thou pluckedst the fruit from the branches,
And the burden of gold was in thine apron upheld.
Oft did I cry, Enough! But fairer fruits were still falling
Into thy hand as I spake, ever obeying thy touch.
Presently didst thou reach the arbor; there lay there a basket,
Sweet blooming myrtle-trees waved, as we drew nigh, o'er our heads.
Then thou began'st to arrange the fruit with skill and in silence:
First the orange, which heavy as though 'twere of gold,
Then the yielding fig, by the slightest pressure disfigured,
And with myrtle, the gift soon was both covered and graced.
But I raised it not up. I stood. Our eyes met together,
And my eyesight grew dim, seeming obscured by a film.
Soon I felt thy bosom on mine! Mine arm was soon twining
Round thy beautiful form; thousand times kissed I thy neck.
On my shoulder sank thy head; thy fair arms, encircling,
Soon rendered perfect the ring knitting a rapturous pair.
Amor's hands I felt; he pressed us together with ardor,
And from the firmament clear, thrice did it thunder; then tears
Streamed from mine eyes in torrents, thou weptest, I wept, both were
weeping,
And 'mid our sorrow and bliss, even the world seemed to die.
Louder and louder they called from the strand; my feet would no longer
Bear my weight, and I cried:--"Dora! and art thou not mine?"
"Thine forever!" thou gently didst say. Then the tears we were
shedding
Seemed to be wiped from our eyes, as by the breath of a god.
Nearer was heard the cry "Alexis!" The stripling who sought me
Suddenly peeped through the door. How he the basket snatched up!
How he urged me away! how pressed I thy hand! Dost thou ask me
How the vessel I reached? Drunken I seemed, well I know,
Drunken my shipmates believed me, and so had pity upon me;
And as the breeze drove us on, distance the town soon obscured.
"Thine forever!" thou, Dora, didst murmur; it fell on my senses
With the thunder of Zeus! while by the thunderer's throne
Stood his daughter, the goddess of Love; the Graces were standing
Close by her side! so the bond beareth an impress divine!
Oh then hasten, thou ship, with every favoring zephyr!
Onward, thou powerful keel, cleaving the waves as they foam!
Bring me unto the foreign harbor, so that the goldsmith
May in his workshop prepare straightway the heavenly pledge!
Ay, of a truth, the chain shall indeed be a chain, O my Dora!
Nine times encircling thy neck, loosely around it entwined.
Other and manifold trinkets I'll buy thee; gold-mounted bracelets,
Richly and skillfully wrought, also shall grace thy fair hand.
There shall the ruby and emerald vie, the sapphire so lovely
Be to the jacinth opposed, seeming its foil; while the gold
Holds all the jewels together, in beauteous union commingled.
Oh, how the bridegroom exults, when he adorns his betrothed!
Pearls if I see, of thee they remind me; each ring that is shown me
Brings to my mind thy fair hand's graceful and tapering form.
I will barter and buy; the fairest of all shalt thou choose thee;
Joyously would I devote all of the cargo to thee.
Yet not trinkets and jewels alone is thy loved one procuring;
With them he brings thee whate'er gives to a housewife delight:
Fine and woolen coverlets, wrought with an edging of purple,
Fit for a couch where we both, lovingly, gently may rest;
Costly pieces of linen. Thou sittest and sewest, and clothest
Me, and thyself, and perchance even a third with it too.
Visions of hope, deceive ye my heart! Ye kindly immortals,
Soften this fierce-raging flame, wildly pervading my breast!
Yet how I long to feel them again, those rapturous torments,
When in their stead, Care draws nigh, coldly and fearfully calm.
Neither the Furies' torch, nor the hounds of hell with their barking,
Awe the delinquent so much, down in the plains of despair,
As by the motionless spectre I'm awed, that shows me the fair one
Far away: of a truth, open the garden door stands!
And another one cometh! For him the fruit, too, is falling,
And for him also the fig strengthening honey doth yield!
Doth she entice him as well to the arbor? He follows? Oh, make me
Blind, ye Immortals! efface visions like this from my mind!
Yes, she is but a maiden! And she who to one doth so quickly
Yield, to another erelong, doubtless, will turn herself round.
Smile not, Zeus, for this once, at an oath so cruelly broken!
Thunder more fearfully! Strike!--Stay--thy fierce lightnings
withhold!
Hurl at me thy quivering bolt! In the darkness of midnight
Strike with thy lightning this mast, make it a pitiful wreck!
Scatter the planks all around, and give to the boisterous billows
All these wares, and let _me_ be to the dolphins a prey!--
Now, ye Muses, enough! In vain would ye strive to depicture
How, in a love-laden breast, anguish alternates with bliss.
Ye cannot heal the wounds, it is true, that love hath inflicted;
Yet from you only proceeds, kindly ones, comfort and balm.
Translation of E. A. Bowring.
MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS
From 'Maxims and Reflections of Goethe.'
Translation of Bailey Saunders. Copyright 1892, by Macmillan & Co.
It is not always needful for truth to take a definite shape: it is
enough if it hovers about us like a spirit and produces harmony; if it
is wafted through the air like the sound of a bell, grave and kindly.
* * * * *
I must hold it for the greatest calamity of our time, which lets nothing
come to maturity, that one moment is consumed by the next, and the day
spent in the day; so that a man is always living from hand to mouth,
without having anything to show for it. Have we not already newspapers
for every hour of the day? A good head could assuredly intercalate one
or other of them. They publish abroad everything that every one does, or
is busy with or meditating; nay, his very designs are thereby dragged
into publicity. No one can rejoice or be sorry, but as a pastime for
others; and so it goes on from house to house, from city to city, from
kingdom to kingdom, and at last from one hemisphere to the other,--all
in post-haste.
* * * * *
During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and
small, I came upon this thought: In the web of the world the one may
well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little
men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness
and solidity; perhaps also the addition of some sort of pattern. But the
scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest
must join in submitting itself.
* * * * *
There is nothing more odious than the majority: it consists of a few
powerful men to lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive
weaklings; and of a mass of men who trot after them without in the least
knowing their own mind.
* * * * *
Translators are like busy match-makers: they sing the praises of some
half-veiled beauty, and extol her charms, and arouse an irresistible
longing for the original.
NATURE
Nature! We are surrounded by her and locked in her clasp: powerless to
leave her, and powerless to come closer to her. Unasked and unwarned she
takes us up into the whirl of her dance, and hurries on with us till we
are weary and fall from her arms.
There is constant life in her, motion and development; and yet she
remains where she was. She is eternally changing, nor for a moment does
she stand still. Of rest she knows nothing, and to all stagnation she
has affixed her curse. She is steadfast; her step is measured, her
exceptions rare, her laws immutable.
She loves herself, and clings eternally to herself with eyes and hearts
innumerable. She has divided herself that she may be her own delight.
She is ever making new creatures spring up to delight in her, and
imparts herself insatiably.
She rejoices in illusion. If a man destroys this in himself and others,
she punishes him like the hardest tyrant. If he follows her in
confidence, she presses him to her heart as it were her child.
She spurts forth her creatures out of nothing, and tells them not whence
they come and whither they go. They have only to go their way: she knows
the path.
Her crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts
gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She
isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few
draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.
She is all things. She rewards herself and punishes herself, and in
herself rejoices and is distressed. She is rough and gentle, loving and
terrible, powerless and almighty. In her everything is always present.
Past or Future she knows not. The Present is her Eternity. She is kind.
I praise her with all her works. She is wise and still. No one can force
her to explain herself, or frighten her into a gift that she does not
give willingly. She is crafty, but for a good end; and it is best not to
notice her cunning.
NIKOLAI VASILIEVITCH GOGOL
(1809-1852)
BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD
[Illustration: NIKOLAI GOGOL]
Gogol has been called the "father of modern Russian realism," and he has
been credited with the creation of all the types which we meet in the
great novelists who followed him. This is in great measure true,
especially so far as the male characters are concerned. The germs at
least, if not the condensed characterization in full, are recognizable
in Gogol's famous novel 'Dead Souls,' his Little-Russian stories 'Tales
from a Farm-House near Dikanka' and 'Mirgorod,' and his comedy 'The
Inspector,' which still holds the stage.
It was precisely because of his genius in seizing the national types
that the poet Pushkin, one of Gogol's earliest and warmest admirers,
gave to him the plans of 'Dead Souls' and 'The Inspector,' which he had
intended to make use of himself. That he became the "father of Russian
realism" was due not only to his own genius, but to the epoch in which
he lived, though he solved the problem for himself quite independently
of the Continental literatures which were undergoing the same process of
transformation from romanticism to realism. For, nearly a hundred years
before Gogol and his foreign contemporaries of the forties--the
pioneers, in their respective countries, of the new literature--won the
public, Europe had been living a sort of modern epic. In imitation of
the ancient epics, writers portrayed heroes of gigantic powers in every
direction, and set them in a framework of exceptional crises which
aroused their powerful emotions in the cause of right, or their
superhuman conflict with masterful persons or overwhelming woes. But the
daily experience of those who suffered from the manifold miseries of
battle and invasion in this modern epic epoch, made it impossible for
them to disregard longer the claim on their sympathies of the common
things and people of their world, though these can very easily be
ignored when one reads the ancient epics. Thus did realism have its dawn
in many lands when the era of peace gave men time to define their
position, and when pseudo-classicism had at last palled on their taste,
which had begun to recognize its coldness and inherent falsity.
Naturally, in this new quest of Truth, romanticism and realism were
mingled at first. This was the case with Gogol-Yanovsky, to give him his
full name. But he soon struck out in the right path. He was born and
reared in Little Russia, at Sorotchinsky, government of Poltava. He was
separated by only two generations from the epoch of the Zaporozhian
Kazak army, whose life he has recorded in his famous historical novel
'Taras Bulba,' his grandfather having been regimental scribe of the
Kazaks, an office of honor. The spirit of the Zaporozhian Kazaks still
lingered over the land, which was overflowing with legends, and with
fervent, childlike piety of the superstitious order. At least one half
of the Little-Russian stories which made Gogol's fame he owes to his
grandfather, who appears as Rudiy Panko the Bee-Farmer, in the 'Tales
from a Farm-House near Dikanka.' His father, who represented the modern
spirit, was an inimitable narrator of comic stories, and the talents of
this father and grandfather rendered their house the social centre of a
very wide neighborhood.
At school Gogol did not distinguish himself in his studies, but wrote a
great deal, all of an imitative character, and got up school plays in
emulation of those which he had seen at his own home. His lack of
scholarship made it impossible for him to pursue the learned career of
professor of history, on which he embarked after he had with labor
obtained, and shortly renounced, the career of copying-clerk in St.
Petersburg. His vast but dimly defined ambition to accomplish great
things for his fatherland in some mysterious way, and fame for himself,
equally suffered shipwreck to his mind; though if we consider the part
which the realistic literature he founded has played on the world's
stage, we may count his apparent defeat a solid victory. His brief
career as professor of history at the university was brought about by
his ambition, and through the influence of the literary men whose
friendship he had won by his first 'Little-Russian Tales.' They
recognized his genius, and at last he himself recognized that the new
style of writing which he had created was his vocation, and devoted
himself wholly to literature. At the close of 1831 the first volume of
'Tales from a Farm-House' appeared, and had an immense success. The
second volume, 'Mirgorod, followed, with equal success. It contained a
new element: the merriment of the first volume had been pure, unmixed;
in the second volume he had developed not only the realism but that
special trait of his genius, "laughter piercing through a mist of
tears," of which 'Old-Fashioned Gentry' and 'How the Two Ivans
Quarreled' offer celebrated examples. But success always flew to
Gogol's head: he immediately began to despise these products of his true
vocation, and to plan grandiose projects far beyond his powers of
education and entirely outside the range of his talent. Now, for
instance, he undertook a colossal work in nine volumes on the history of
the Middle Ages. Happily, he abandoned that, after his studies of
Little-Russian history incidental thereto had resulted in his epic of
the highest art, 'Taras Bulba.'