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- 01/22/2019
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Translation Trashbin - 22. Es schlug mein Herz
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This is the third significant poem by Goethe to explore same-sex love.
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Translation of
Es schlug mein Herz
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Es schlug mein Herz. Geschwind, zu Pferde!
Und fort, wild wie ein Held zur Schlacht.
Der Abend wiegte schon die Erde,
Und an den Bergen hing die Nacht.
Schon stund im Nebelkleid die Eiche
Wie ein getürmter Riese da,
Wo Finsternis aus dem Gesträuche
Mit hundert schwarzen Augen sah.
Der Mond von einem Wolkenhügel
Sah schläfrig aus dem Duft hervor,
Die Winde schwangen leise Flügel,
Umsausten schauerlich mein Ohr.
Die Nacht schuf tausend Ungeheuer,
Doch tausendfacher war mein Mut,
Mein Geist war ein verzehrend Feuer,
Mein ganzes Herz zerfloß in Glut.
Ich sah dich und die milde Freude
Floß aus dem süßen Blick auf mich.
Ganz war mein Herz an deiner Seite,
Und jeder Atemzug für dich.
Ein rosenfarbnes Frühlingswetter
Lag auf dem lieblichen Gesicht
Und Zärtlichkeit für mich, ihr Götter,
Ich hofft es, ich verdient es nicht.
Der Abschied, wie bedrängt, wie trübe!
Aus deinen Blicken sprach dein Herz.
In deinen Küssen welche Liebe,
O welche Wonne, welcher Schmerz!
Du gingst, ich stund und sah zur Erden
Und sah dir nach mit nassem Blick.
Und doch, welch Glück, geliebt zu werden,
Und lieben, Götter, welch ein Glück!
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As if on horse, how swiftly my heart beats,
Riding wild like a hero to fight
Where earth the twilight already defeats
To hang mountains heavy with the night.
Here time crawls to dress the celibate oak,
Veiling giants who shadow the skies,
And whose masses the undergrowth well cloak
To hide a hundred black, spying eyes.
The moon, pillowed on his bower of cloud,
Seems drowsy amid this macabre scene,
While the gaunt winds beat wings softly aloud
With dire warning for my ears most keen.
Though the dark births monsters beyond control,
Still a thousand times my courage blends
With the fire of my consuming soul
To go with it where’er my heart wends.
Then I spy you with your subdued elation
Buoyed atop sweet looks meant for me.
My heart draws us without separation
So each breath I take, you clearly see.
There, rose-colored weather like spring appears
To settle across your mellow face,
Making me entreat the heavenly spheres
How a man stands this worthy of grace.
But the parting is oppressed, trouble-beset;
Through your glance speaks your heart well enough.
In your kisses, oh what great love is met;
That which delights, that which can rebuff.
You go, I stay looking down to the ground
Where your image in wetness is burned.
Yet what joy in love there is to be found,
Even, dear gods, if it’s not returned.
This is a poem with a past. Arguably one of the most famous from all of German poetry, the version here will be startlingly unfamiliar to most everyone who knows it. Unspooling its folklore from last to first, Goethe as an old man cemented this poem’s false association with a girl he knew in his highly creative autobiography. A few years before that, this poem was included in a self-edited, “official” volume of poetry under the revised and obfuscating title Willkommen und Abschied, which is an association-free phrase meaning “the welcome and goodbye”. Moving father back in time, in 1785 the poem appeared for the first time in book form, edited by the poet, and bearing a different title. Although seemingly insignificant as changes goes, published under the heading of Willkomm und Abschied, the poet was making a strong statement about law and a lack of social justice by choosing to call it this. Moving back still further in time, the poem in its original form was published in 1771, without title, as it appears here. Going all the way back to the poem’s creation, the manuscript is dated nearly nine months prior to the fictional date of composition in Goethe’s autobiography. Why? Because the fictitious reason for the poem’s existence is a parting with the aforementioned girl nine months in the future from the poem’s actual date of birth.
So, now we know the parting with this young lady cannot be the origin-story of this poem. In addition to gaining a title for the second print edition, a significant number of lines were also edited by the poet. Each change gives the impression that Goethe is converting himself from a passive participant in the love encounter written about to the active role. Just to cite one, he changed “You go, I stay” to “I go, you stay.” There are many more such revisions in the poem.
However, the protest title of Willkomm und Abschied has almost unbelievable significance for LGBT people. It's an exact legalistic phrase (like 'malice aforethought' or ‘hanged by the neck until dead’) signaling a barbaric practice in German law, namely the "Welcome and Farewell" Gay men were expected to endure in prison. After being convicted, and first crossing the threshold of the prison, all the guards would be lined up in a row to beat the shit out of the man. The same crippling 'extra punishment' was meted out after his term was served and he was left crawling back over the prison threshold. That Goethe named it this is quite extraordinary, and that he later cover it up with the banal, legally meaningless Willkommen und Abschied is sad but almost expected. His great spark of revelation to the initiated reader what this poem is about – a nighttime encounter close to what we’d call “cruising” today – was darkened by the more mature man building up his reputation as anything but Gay.
This poem is not isolated, or a one-off. In my mind, the phrasing in the third Ode to Behrisch also relates to a nocturnal cruising scene.
But also leave gentle strolls at night,
Where in the moon's twilight waning
Harmless toads gather expectantly
At crossroads for their meetings unseen.
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