The Thousandth Regiment - 23. "Finally have the woods pendulously sunk"

I weep at the continuing descriptions of the hellish front. Artillery is the constant ostinato of the trenches, never fully silent, always rumbling underneath existence. And the smog of war, an amalgam of mist, smoke, poison and blood makes men yearn to die by daylight. 

Hmmmm … a wonderful picture brought me here .. but how do they fit?  The bird feeding it's young... and 

Where instead shrapnel rises like white herons,

And storm by storm, consecrate their blood upon earth.

Somehow they fit together … but how?  I will ponder that and see what I can find. I'll be back. 

15 minutes ago, MichaelS36 said:

Hmmmm … a wonderful picture brought me here .. but how do they fit?  The bird feeding it's young... and 

Where instead shrapnel rises like white herons,

And storm by storm, consecrate their blood upon earth.

 

Somehow they fit together … but how?  I will ponder that and see what I can find. I'll be back. 

There is Christian iconography that pelicans and herons will pierce their own breast to feed their starving chicks; this is an analogy for Christ's self-sacrifice for humanity. I believe Hans is tapping into that when he sees real herons take off from a patch of swampy woods near the trenches. He seems to say the birds will be shot down, and he wishes their death had meaning. 

This has been a tricky poem to tackle. I'm not sure I have presented the images in an understandable way... 

17 hours ago, AC Benus said:

There is Christian iconography that pelicans and herons will pierce their own breast to feed their starving chicks; this is an analogy for Christ's self-sacrifice for humanity. I believe Hans is tapping into that when he sees real herons take off from a patch of swampy woods near the trenches. He seems to say the birds will be shot down, and he wishes their death had meaning. 

This has been a tricky poem to tackle. I'm not sure I have presented the images in an understandable way... 

You know AC, I have never heard of this … it's wonderful you have and that you have the knowledge you do and that you share it with us. 

All of these poems are tricky … you have and are doing a brilliant job bringing them to us. I know there must be some cost to you, based on the subject and the intensity of most of these. 

I think to truly get this poem, to understand it, you need to have the knowledge that you have shared here. Lots of us do not have that in our education or background. More frankly just don't care but that's another story. 

My point is … share the picture and the information here because of that.  It doesn't lessen the impact of the poem, it brings more insight about it and also about it's author, the man and the poet.  I feel he was likely a lot like you. With a deep interest and love of many things. 

You, my friend, are a deep, very intelligent and soulful man. I am grateful for the opportunity to know you. I am grateful you share your work here and that you are a friend to both tim and myself.  xoxo

19 hours ago, AC Benus said:

There is Christian iconography that pelicans and herons will pierce their own breast to feed their starving chicks; this is an analogy for Christ's self-sacrifice for humanity. I believe Hans is tapping into that when he sees real herons take off from a patch of swampy woods near the trenches. He seems to say the birds will be shot down, and he wishes their death had meaning. 

This has been a tricky poem to tackle. I'm not sure I have presented the images in an understandable way... 

You remind me of long-ago learning that has lain dusty and unused in the recesses of my brain for years. What you say unlocks more of this treasure for us. Thank you. 

Since we have already discussed most of the sonnets very intensely it is often a little difficult for me to find something new to comment to you about them. I guess, you know very clearly what I think, how I analyze or interpret them and that I think, your translations are awesome. I keep telling you anyway. They are magnificent! 🙂 So I try to turn more to the structure and sound of words and effects Hans creates.

In the case of this poem, I want to focus on the layers of meanings, in the pictures Hans chose. Hans starts like a typical good night song, which leads the reader in the setting, but the comfortable coziness of the quiet night forest gets disturbed by the flames of the war very soon. So the darkness he talks about becomes uncomfortable, scary, frighting an opposite to the typical good night song. In the second stanza he uses the picture of an Echo is also used positively in German lyrics, here the "archerontisch" sound (achos Greek for pain/suffering and Acheron the river of the underworld) turns the Echo in something horrifying.

@MichaelS36the third stanza and the fourth contain a lot more layers. The wing-beat in the third stanza contains a few possible meanings, which are all grammatically rightful included. It is left to the reader, which possibility he feels connecting. I will look on the picture of a broken wing of a bird lying on the burned field and as a second point the wing-beat of fate. a) The wing of the bird, the heron which is also the bird phoenix (since Egypt times), who sacrifices himself and burns to ashes to rise again connects to the picture of the burning and flames in the stanzas before, as to the pictures of herons rising as sign of resurrection. And here the second symbol of the feeding pelican/heron/aka phoenix fits in, which nourishes the new with his blood, sacrifices himself. So I think @AC Benus is right, thinking it as the wish from Hans, that their sacrifice means something.

And here closes the circle with the wing-beat of fate, because Hans is doomed to this war, sees it already as it is and can only hope, that after his death the fate of the countries will turn in the direction, he longed for.

On 9/21/2019 at 10:03 AM, Parker Owens said:

I weep at the continuing descriptions of the hellish front. Artillery is the constant ostinato of the trenches, never fully silent, always rumbling underneath existence. And the smog of war, an amalgam of mist, smoke, poison and blood makes men yearn to die by daylight. 

Thank you, Parker. Several times in these Regiment poems, Ehrenbaum-Degele mentions the sounds (or mere reverberations) of the big guns moving. The effect is like saying the front lines shift like sand, while he stays fixed in one location. It makes for a very powerful analogy. 

As always, thanks for reading these and offering me your support

On 9/22/2019 at 4:12 AM, MichaelS36 said:

You know AC, I have never heard of this … it's wonderful you have and that you have the knowledge you do and that you share it with us. 

All of these poems are tricky … you have and are doing a brilliant job bringing them to us. I know there must be some cost to you, based on the subject and the intensity of most of these. 

I think to truly get this poem, to understand it, you need to have the knowledge that you have shared here. Lots of us do not have that in our education or background. More frankly just don't care but that's another story. 

My point is … share the picture and the information here because of that.  It doesn't lessen the impact of the poem, it brings more insight about it and also about it's author, the man and the poet.  I feel he was likely a lot like you. With a deep interest and love of many things. 

You, my friend, are a deep, very intelligent and soulful man. I am grateful for the opportunity to know you. I am grateful you share your work here and that you are a friend to both tim and myself.  xoxo

Thank you for your encouragement and comments, Mike. You are right about poems like this needing an introduction, and I have started to map out items to discuss in a true Regiment introduction for the reader. There is always more to learn, and for me this project has introduced me to some of Han's contemporary English-speaking poets. Most of these have been unknown to me, but Isaac Rosenberg's poetry is strikingly like that of Ehrenbaum-Degele. Both were about the same age, both were of the Jewish minority, and perhaps Rosenberg was Gay too, but it is hard to track down this information. Here is a short poem from him for comparison:

August 1914

What in our lives is burnt

In the fire of this?

The heart's dear granary?

The much we shall miss?

 

Three lives hath one life --

Iron, honey, gold.

The gold, the honey gone --

Left is the hard and cold.

 

Iron are our lives

Molten right through our youth.

A burnt space through ripe fields,

A fair mouth's broken tooth.

So thank you for your support. Yes, these take and have taken a part of me with them. But 'discovering' them has been a blessing as well

9 minutes ago, AC Benus said:

So thank you for your support. Yes, these take and have taken a part of me with them. But 'discovering' them has been a blessing as well

 

Thanks for this AC. 

@Lyssa thanks to you also for the added information. 

On 9/22/2019 at 5:48 AM, Parker Owens said:

You remind me of long-ago learning that has lain dusty and unused in the recesses of my brain for years. What you say unlocks more of this treasure for us. Thank you. 

Thank you for reading, Parker

On 9/22/2019 at 7:31 AM, Lyssa said:

Since we have already discussed most of the sonnets very intensely it is often a little difficult for me to find something new to comment to you about them. I guess, you know very clearly what I think, how I analyze or interpret them and that I think, your translations are awesome. I keep telling you anyway. They are magnificent! 🙂 So I try to turn more to the structure and sound of words and effects Hans creates.

In the case of this poem, I want to focus on the layers of meanings, in the pictures Hans chose. Hans starts like a typical good night song, which leads the reader in the setting, but the comfortable coziness of the quiet night forest gets disturbed by the flames of the war very soon. So the darkness he talks about becomes uncomfortable, scary, frighting an opposite to the typical good night song. In the second stanza he uses the picture of an Echo is also used positively in German lyrics, here the "archerontisch" sound (achos Greek for pain/suffering and Acheron the river of the underworld) turns the Echo in something horrifying.

@MichaelS36the third stanza and the fourth contain a lot more layers. The wing-beat in the third stanza contains a few possible meanings, which are all grammatically rightful included. It is left to the reader, which possibility he feels connecting. I will look on the picture of a broken wing of a bird lying on the burned field and as a second point the wing-beat of fate. a) The wing of the bird, the heron which is also the bird phoenix (since Egypt times), who sacrifices himself and burns to ashes to rise again connects to the picture of the burning and flames in the stanzas before, as to the pictures of herons rising as sign of resurrection. And here the second symbol of the feeding pelican/heron/aka phoenix fits in, which nourishes the new with his blood, sacrifices himself. So I think @AC Benus is right, thinking it as the wish from Hans, that their sacrifice means something.

And here closes the circle with the wing-beat of fate, because Hans is doomed to this war, sees it already as it is and can only hope, that after his death the fate of the countries will turn in the direction, he longed for.

 

I encourage you to always share items of these poems we have already discussed. Here you did that perfectly!

I still remember the sites you showed me illustrating the clear German understanding of herons being the bird ancient Egyptians believed to be the phoenix. This also applies to the reference to the River Stix's companion waterway in the Greek underworld. I have encountered this river being mentioned in Goethe too, which means the poets fully expected readers to know about it. But I suppose Classical Greek education in English is lacking when compared to German studies. There is an English word that matches Hans' perfectly, but acherontic seems hopelessly obscure to most readers (including me, lol), so I opted for a more literal "river of the dead" interpretation. Obviously, much is lost by doing this, but the only other option was to mention the River Stix and that would be a larger alteration to the poem, I feel.    

As always and ever, thank you - thank you - thank you - for your help and encouragement, Lyssa