Ein stiller Gruß zum Abschied – Trost (German Edition)

Schoeck Othmar

With all its Latin garb the heroic, poetic tone and the national content of the Waltharilied make it one of the most valuable remains of old German literature. This is reflected in the literature, where the monkish renunciation of the world is in striking contrast with the bubbling joy in life among the people at large. The lower classes revelled in the popular rimes of the minstrels, the Goiiard higher classes in the graceful rollicking Latin Poetry. It, too, is a Latin poem, in leonine hexameters, that is, an hexameter in which the caesura and the end of the line rime with each other, for example: The Hterary remains of the later time are very scanty.

It was written about at Tegemsee in Bavaria. Ruodiieb is the oldest novel of the Middle Ages; here for the first time an imaginary action is presented with poetic art as a picture of life. The romantic adventures of the hero, partly in the Orient, anticipate by many years much of the poetry of knighthood as it flourished later during the Crusades. Poetry of the Not until the second half of the eleventh cen- ciergy. The contents of their writings are religious exclusively. The story of the Re- demption was told in choruses which were to be sung on pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and the Virgin Mary was often celebrated in poems that charm us still with their beautiful simplicity.

German prose was cultivated to some slight extent toward the end of the eleventh century. The great strength which the between the church displayed in this conflict had a quick- Life and Lit-. In the course of time Crusades. Many thousand French and German nobles with their vassals followed the two monarchs, and thus the energy of the German nobility was turned toward a worthier goal than internecine warfare. The knightly hosts suffered indeed great disasters and failed in their attempt to drive the Turk from the Holy Land, but in other respects the happy results of the Second Crusade, for Germany at least, were extraordinary.

The Crusade had also brought the Germans into close relations with the French, and started the imitation of French manners and French culture by the German knighthood. The experience of the Germans was further enriched by contact with the Orient, their general knowl- edge was increased, and new views of life were opened to them. Besides all this, Lothaire the Saxon, who followed the Franconian emperors, had been succeeded in turn by the Hohenstaufens, and under the latter a strong national The Hohen- consciousucss arosc in Germany.

Lastly, new struggles between emperor and pope called forth all the mental and physical powers of Ger- many, and led to an increasing intercourse with Italy. Thus the intellectual life of the nation was quickened by new impulses which came in from all sides. Warring Germany was an appropriate place for militant knights; here they inscribed upon their banners piety, honor, loy- alty, courage, good breeding, and the service of noble ladies, and they strove to embody in their own lives the ideals of the age.

It is no wonder that the period of the Crusades and the Hohenstaufens became a golden age in German poetry, and that the class which fought out the momentous conflicts of the time also won the lead in the field of poetry. The subjects of the secular poets were national, indigenous, and were presented in a popular style. On the other hand, the clerical poets, in order to retain the favor of the public and by preference, introduced sec- ular themes taken from foreign authors. Their works are largely translations of French epics.

The verse-form they chose is the riming couplet of lines containing four stresses each, the so-called short couplet. The first pure lyric poetry of knighthood and the first gnomic, or senten- tious, didactic poetry of the town minstrels were also heard at this time. The structure of the verse is still careless; imperfect rimes and assonance prevail, and good technic is acquired slowly.

The numerous legendary accounts of the deeds of Alexander the Great were known in France first in Latin versions, and there they had found poetic ex- ciericai pressiou in the vernacular before the opening of the Middle High German period. It was the unoriginal moUey content of the poem which attracted Lamprecht's contemporaries, but the German poet shows talent of his own in his vivid' descriptions of batdes. A large group of sagas glorifying Charlemagne and his paladins had arisen in Germany, but in time they had died out at home and were remem- ' Lay of Alexander. In the German poem the strong national spirit of the French popular epic is replaced by a more universal Christian spirit, whose heroic and triumphant character expresses itself with vigor and terseness.

Here the great emperor is an ideal Christian prince, and Roland an ideal Christian knight. Konrad's poem was received with en- thusiasm and became so popular that it was rewritten as late as the thirteenth century, though with various altera- tions to suit a finer taste. The secular poets who wrote epics were mostly min- strels whose chief concern was to satisfy the taste of the Epics by people. Although very marked before this time. J The large mass of their verses was intended I Rother " merely for passing entertainment.

It was written in Bavaria about by a min- ' Lay of Roland. It tells, according to a saga which was shifted from one Lombard king to another, that Rother sent envoys to Constantinople to sue for the hand of the princess for him; but the ambassadors were thrown into prison, and Rother had to follow after and steal away his intended for himself. Later portions, in which a clever minstrel plays an important part, recount the abduction of the princess from Rother's court and his second expedition after her. The loyalty of German vassal and over-lord is the central theme of the poem.

On his return Ernest is pardoned by the emperor Otto I. The conflict between filial obedience and the claims of friendship, the kernel of the old story, is not fully developed in the poem as it is later in Uhland's drama, but it raises the whole above merely ephemeral literature. The poem, which has been preserved only in a fragmentary form, seems to have been written originally on the lower Rhine, but the main version now extant was probably completed in Bavaria about by a Middle Franconian minstrel. The popularity of Herzog Ernst is shown by numerous revised versions of it in Beast Epic: Of this poem, too, there are now only fragments, and a single revised version.

French influence appears later in lyric poetry than in epic. The oldest minne- singer known by name is Kiirenberg, an Aus- guTAn bers. Historical writing in Latin prose indeed Literature in attained what may be called its prime under the Latin. The lyrics of the Goliards reached their climax in the work of a man known as "the Arch- poet. Some courts, like that of the Dukes of Austria at Vienna and that of the Landgrave of Thuringia at Eisenach, were famous for their generosity.

The dependence of the poets was very harmful in that it cost some their self-respect and forced all the poets to conform, at least in part, to the pre- vailing fondness for foreign customs and display. Thence sprang the long descriptions of festivals, tourneys, arms, and horses, above all, the intense glorification of love and the exaggerated conception of the service of noble ladies which had little to do with real love.

These elements ap- pear most clearly in the epic of knighthood, as the epic poet at court told his story mainly not according to his own free choice but at command of his princely patron. In the case of the epic two classes are to be distinguished: The court epic, or the epic of knighthood. Intended for courtly hearers or readers, it mixes the foreign and native in conceptions and form. The popular epic, or national heroic poetry.

The material of these epics was taken from the native heroic saga and, deferring only to a limited degree to the demands of knightly custom, remained German in character, con- tent, and form. The speech of the common people in the various southern provinces differed, to be sure, so that one can speak of the Swabian and Alemannic, the Bavarian and Austrian dialects; but the higher classes of society, the court world, avoided word -forms that were distinctly dialectal, and there arose thus a universal south German polite language without marked colloquial forms.

This polite language was naturally employed by the poets of the time who were members of court circles, and their example was followed more or less closely by those who were not attached to courts. Thus it happens that the I native province of a poet can seldom be determined solely from the language of his works. Now and then the influ- '; ence of foreign culture appears unpleasantly in the strong I admixture of French words which were taken up in aris- ' tocratic circles along with French manners; this is, how-!

With the tacit adoption of a standard lan- guage, more attention was paid to its cultivation and use. Sentence construction grew more finished and less rigid, expression more choice; the careless treatment of THE COURT EPIC 29 the verse gave place to one that is strictly and richly developed, though it sometimes becomes artificial.

The Ivric was constructed largely according to French and Provencal models. The epic poets of noble birth rarely treated native themes, and even then hardly ever without a Latin source. Many revived Christian legends, many told of the Court storics of Charlemagne and his nobles in ac- cordance with the French saga cycle that had been introduced into Germany by Kom-ad's Rolandslied ; others treated stories of antiquity and the Orient, which they read in French versions.

However, most of the poets, and among these the greatest, took their themes from the oft-told romances of northern France, which had gathered round the figure of King Arthur and which included the Legend of the Holy Grail. The stories of his deeds and those of his heroes soread among the related Breton tribes in Brittanv, or Bretagne, and they were passed on thence to the neighbor- ing French, who wTote them down in prose.

There in northern France, between and , the extraordina- rily prolific and fanciful poet Chrestien de Troyes gathered the Arthurian romances together in several voluminous works and embellished them with figments of his own imagination; these fantastic tales were first taken up by the people in the form which Chrestien gave them. They present Arthur as the ideal king of chivalry, who has gath- ered the flower of knighthood about him in his royal strong- hold Karidol, that is, Carlisle in Cumberland, England, where he and they practise all the knightly virtues. The fabulous experiences of these knights, and especially their love adventures, were described and read with never-ending delight.

By the time of Chres- tien the Legend of the Holy Grail, a saga of un- of the Holy Certain origin, had been connected with the story of Parzival's adventures as a knight of the Round Table. According to the legend the grail is the miraculous vessel made of an emerald stone which was used at the Last Supper and in which Joseph of Arimathsea caught the blood of Christ; it is preserved in a magnificent temple built by the king of the Grail, Titurel, on Mons Salvationis, and is guarded by the knights of the Grail, or Templars, who must exercise all the virtues of knight- hood, but especially those of piety and self-denial.

Besides this and nuTrerous other stories and legends, the romance of Tristan and Isolde, likewise of Breton origin, is also loosely connected with the saga of King Arthur; its theme is the irresistible and overwhelming power of love. The poems in which Chrestien and other French poets turned these sagas into the glorification of chivalry and of the service of ladyhood, were the most copious sources of the Middle High German court epic. The merit of its authors therefore, even of the most important poets, lies less in their inventiveness than in the artistic form of their poems and in the deeper spiritual meaning which they have im- parted to characters and events.

The epic of knighthood came first to central Germany, by way of the lower Rhine. There he revised and finished his work some time before at the instigation of Count Hermann, from Landgrave, of Thuringia. Eneit is written in carefully rimed short couplets, and is the first German treatment of an antique theme in the spirit of knighthood. But this mediaeval spirit often clothes the heroic characters of Virgil in a humorously inapposite garb; Heinrich's iEneas is a model of courtly, knightly manners, and Lavinia's mother gives her minute and dis- tinctly mediaeval instruction about the nature of love, for love plays here a conspicuous part.

Nevertheless the poem marks a significant advance beyond the narrative art of older German story-tellers. It became a model for other poets at once, not only on account of its pure rimes and comprehensive descriptions of chivalrous love and knightly combats, but rather more because it was an attempt to write a long story closely and logically constructed, and to portray characters who were psychologically true and in- telligible. Eilhart, a Low Saxon from the vicinity of Hildesheim and a vassal of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, wrote Trisirant about in the language of his native province.

His poem, which is more popular and far less courtly than Heinrich's Eiuit, was soon overshadowed by Gottfried's epic on the same theme, and is preserved only in fragments, later revisions, and in a prose version. He was a vassal of a Swabian nobleman, Herr von Aue, and took part in a Crusade, probably the one in , for which he wrote several inspiring songs. He was highly educated for his time, as he understood both Latin and French.

With his first work, Erec, written in and based on a story by Chrestien de Troyes, he introduced the main body of Arthurian romances into German poetry. The long descriptions in the poem and the superfluous adventures of the hero are very tedious to us now, but the poem has a noble basic idea, the faithfulness of woman. Another chapter in the saga of King Arthur is retold in Hartmann's Iwein, also after Chrestien and written about Al- though quite dependent upon his model for the contents of his poem, the German is far superior to the French- man in tenderness of feeling and in range of thought.

But the poem lacks an ennobling fundamental theme, especially as compared with Erec. The overwrought conceptions of chivalrous love common at the time are well illustrated by the description of the fate of Iwein, who is rejected by his lady because he allowed an adventure to keep him away from her bfeyond an appointed time; crazed by the blow of her rejection, he sufl'ers agonies before his reason is restored. But even this is not enough; he must now go through severe trials and adventures before he is reunited with her.

Der arme Heinrich is a rare exception among the works of the court poets in that its theme is German; it was a tradition in the family of Hartmann's over-lord. With stirring warmth of feeling the poet glorifies the ca- pacity of woman for self-sacrifice and man's power of victory over self; Longfellow has made the story familiar to English readers in his Golden Legend. Hartmann's gift j as a story-teller, his artistic restraint and clearness, and the j finish of his language and verse were admired even in hisj own day; Gottfried von Strassburg praises especially his "crystalline words.

In this regard he is the model court epic poet. He grew to manhood poor and without schooling. He was a vassal of the Counts of Wertheim, who had estates in that neighbor- hood, and after or he was often at the court of the Landgrave of Thuringia, where he met the lyric poet Walther von der Vogelweide. In he returned for the last time to his wife and family, who were then living on Wolfram's fief Wildenberg, now Wehlenberg, a few miles west of Eschenbach.

Proud of his escutcheon, a knight through and through, Wolfram's character was never tarnished by the corrupting excesses of court Hfe, especially by the extravagances of chivalrous love. He was a man of warm and tender feeling, and the peaceful happiness of married life gave him more con- tentment than court love ever could. He was a man of thoughtful character, and he was, therefore, more mind- ful of the moral and religious obligations of knighthood Uhan of its pomp and display.

1. Browse Products.
2. Rías Baixas estuary.
3. Full text of "A brief history of German literature"?
4. Lucy Ladybug’s Backyard Adventure.
5. Johannes Brahms.
6. Happiness Quest East and West;
7. Quick and Easy Eats for the Cooking Challenged?

Besides seven poems, five of which are morning songs. Wolfram left two unfin- ished epics, Schionatulander, also called Titurel, and Wille- halm, and one finished epic, Parzival. He had the originals read to him section by section, and then dictated his verses. His memory must have been prodigious, as he kept the most intricate plots clearly in mind throughout. Wolfram's style is mucli less refined than Hartmann's, but it is more original; often as fresh as a folk-song, it lends itself easily to the expres- sion of every mood.

It is also rich in figures of speech, although they are now and then very odd and obscure. Wolfram's chief work is Parzival, an epic of ngaily, twenty-five thousand lines based on a portion of the sagas of King Arthur and the Holy Grail. The two- " Parzival. The German poem was probably written between and But one day he meets four knights in ghttering armor, and an unconquerable longing for the life of knighthood is awakened in him. His mother reluctantly sees him leave her, and dies of a broken heart. After many adventures Parzival arrives at King Arthur's court, receives instruction in chivalry from the aged knight Gurnemanz, and by his bravery wins the lady Condwiramur as his wife.

Later he comes to the castle of the Grail, where he has a chance to release the suffering king of the Grail, Anfortas, from his trouble by asking about the cause of it, but in his simplicity and false understanding of knightly manners Parzival omits the natural question of human sympathy. Thus he forfeits the crown of the Grail, and is unworthy of the Round Table which had received him.

Reviling his fate he doubts the goodness of God, and wanders in gloom five long years. At length his soul wins peace through the gentle teachings of the hermit Trevrizent, the brother of Herzeloide and Anfortas. Par- zival returns to Arthur purified, is received again at the Round Table, and goes forth once more to the castle of the Grail. Now he asks the question and receives the crown in the place of Anfortas. The poem closes with the reunion of Parzival and Condwiramur; the elder of their two sons, Lohengrin, is to succeed his father as king of the Grail.

In the middle of the poem, at the beginning of Parzival's wretched wanderings, Wolfram has inserted a long series of adventures which the Arthurian knight Gawan undertakes, in this way contrasting the spiritual knighthood of Parzival with the worldly knighthood of Gawan. In other places, too. Wolfram has interwoven various new episodes. The central theme of the epic as a whole is expressed at the beginning: This deep thought, the manner in which Wolfram illus- trates it by the development of his hero's character, and the lofty spiritual content of the poem raise Parzival far above all other poems of knighthood.

This basic idea and the impulse to higher spirituality which Wolfram's epic con-j tains are not to be found in the French sources; they were; the creation of the German poet. Its subject is the love story, exquisitely told, of Schionatulander and Sigune, a great-granddaughter of Titurel. Willehalm von Oranse, Wolfram's other unfinished epic, is based on a French historical saga concerning the sainted Count Willehalm, or William, of Toulouse.

• What Every Christian Ought to Know: Solid Grounding for a Growing Faith.
• Lebe(n) im Sein: Entfaltung, Wandlung & Neubeginn (German Edition).
• A Practical Approach to Cardiac Anesthesia (Practical Approach Series).
• Different..

Wolfram tells of Willehalm's encounters with the Mohammedans, especially of the celebrated Battle of Aleschans in The poem is distinguished by a masterly characterization of the heroine Gyburg and the herculean squire Rennewart, both of whom are infidels at the beginning of the story. The toler- ance with which the poet recognizes the virtues of the un- believers is very remarkable.

To him Christianity is the religion of 1 ove and humanity, and he is free from all fa- naticism. Admired and praised by his contemporaries Wolfram commanded an almost superstitious veneration even beyond the end of the Middle Ages. It is the story of omnipotent love, of the ruthless adulterous passion of Tristan and Isolde, induced, and therefore mitigated, by a magic potion whose power they did not know when they drank. One must only regret that he was not permitted to end his epic.

From the solemn tone of the beginning and from suggestions here and there it is probable that he did not intend merely to glorify unbounded lust, but rather to present an agonizing struggle between unquenchable passion and the dictates of moral law. The Alemannic knight Rudolf von Ems died excelled in beauty of verse-form, which he learned from Gottfried. His stories are too long, but he tells them well. Its hero, Gerhart, finds the highest happiness in hfe in renunciation of self and in activity for others out of pure love of God and man.

Rudolf's other noteworthy story is a version of an Oriental legend, Bar- laam und Josaphai. Throughout his works Rudolf exhib- its a charmingly simple, pious view of life. Konrad von Wiirzburg died , a thoroughly educated townsman, is also a master of graceful form after the pattern of Gott- fried.

The poem contains wonder- fully vivid descriptions of contemporaneous life, which make it especially valuable for the study of German man- ners and customs in the thirteenth century. Provinccs in the south-east, Aus-j tria and Styria, were its original home; there it grew up' according to its own nature and inclinations, strong in itself and affected but little by foreign example. The authors of the most important heroic poems were members of the knighthood who observed the taste of their courdy audiences especially in regard to language, but from the beginning their epics remained German in theme, concep- tion, and form.

The sources of the popular epic were old ballad-like folk-songs, which have now disappeared en- tirely, but whose existence is well attested. These songs, which were still sung in the thirteenth century by minstrels of a lower order, treated only single chapters of a saga. As they in all probability often contradicted each other, the authors of the great epics must at times have been obliged to deviate from some of the folk-songs, but they seem to have avoided unnecessary alterations as well as additions of themes which were not based on credible tradi- tion; to these poets the saga was history.

These char- acters were indeed so real and near to mediaeval poets, that almost no sense of historical perspective can be found in their poetry. As already suggested in connection with Heinrich von Veldeke's greatest work, customs and people, even those of the most remote age, are treated as con- temporaneous with the poets, or as of a time only slightly earlier. The style of the popular epic is simple and concise, and, with the exception of technical words and phrases used in describing court affairs, it is free from strange and unnatural turns of expression.

The versifica- tion clings to the old rule of a fixed number of stresses and an indefinite number of unstressed syllables; but the num- ber of both tended to become fixed after the example of the court epic. The poets use partly the popular Nibelung strophe and imitations of it, partly the short rimed couplets of the court epic and minstrel poetry, where each line con- tains four stresses, or, in the case of feminine or two- syllable rime, either three or four stresses.

All the heroic epics, strophic or otherwise, were intended to be read aloud, not sung as their sources were. The epics of this era which now exist in a complete form treat the Amelung, Nibelung, and Hegeling sagas as well as those of Ortnit, Hugdietrich, and Wolfdietrich, all of which have been outlined in a previous chapter. It was written by an unknown knightly poet in Austria about , and has been handed down in numerous copies ' Cf. The phraseology of the original can not be restored, still less the words of the folk-songs used by the poet. The poem contains nearly ten thousand lines grouped in the so-called Nibelung strophe, the use of which by Kiirenberg has already been mentioned.

Brahms - Complete Works

This strophe consists of four lines, each of which is divided by a caesura, the first half of the line containing four stresses throughout, and the second half three stresses in the first three lines and four in the last one; the rime is masculine, that is, of only one stressed syllable. The style is simple and without many figures of speech, but forcible and sincere.

A dream, in which she sees a pet falcon torn to pieces by two eagles, warns her never to love; but Siegfried, a young courageous prince at Xanten in the Netherlands, hears of her beauty and comes to woo her. Gunther consents to the union on condition that Siegfried will assist him as a vassal in winning Brunnhild, Queen of Iceland.

Accompanied by his chief vassal Hagen of Tronje, and many others, Gunther sets out, and Brunnhild is won by the aid of Sieg- fried, who is made invisible by his magic hood. All now return to Worms, where the double marriage is celebrated and a season of happiness begins. Ten years later, Siegfried and Kriemhild come to Worms from Xanten to attend a festival. Brunnhild's jealousy leads to quarrels between the two queens over the rank of their lords, and Hagen promises Brunnhild to avenge her for the insulting words of Kriemhild. He slays Siegfried treacherously on a hunting party by hurling his spear at Siegfried's one vulnerable spot.

Kriemhild is crushed by grief; for a long time she refuses to be reconciled even with her brothers, and she lives now only to avenge Siegfried's death. The Nibelung treasure is brought back from Xanten, but Hagen sinks it in the Rhine, as he fears its power in winning friends for Kriemhild. With the promise of the mes- senger Riidiger to avenge whatever wrongs have ever been done to her, Kriemhild gives her consent and journeys down the Danube to her new lord.

After thirteen years she and Etzel invite Gunther and his vassals to visit them, an invitation which they accept in spite of Hagen's fore- bodings and the prophecies of nixies in the Danube, whom they see on the way. When they arrive at Etzel's court Kriemhild demands the Nibelung treasure left to her by Siegfried, but Hagen refuses to disclose its hiding-place, and insolently acknowledges the murder of Siegfried.

Kriemhild thereupon incites the Huns to attack the Bur- gundians, or Nibelungs as they are now called, and the terrible fight begins. Kriemhild vainly offers to save her brothers if they will deliver up Hagen to her, and the frightful slaughter rages for two whole days. Again Hagen will not reveal the hiding-place of the hoard, and Kriemhild orders the head of Gunther to be brought to him as a warning not to persist in concealing the secret.

Exultant now that he alone of living men knows the secret of the hoard, and that it will never be revealed, he defies Kriemhild, and she completes her revenge by striking off his head with Siegfried's sword. Dietrich's vassal Hildebrand, unwilling to see the brave Hagen die in this way unavenged, slays Kriemhild. How much of this is the poet's own, and how much he found in the old heroic songs, can not be determined in detail.

Legendary elements in the Siegfried saga are suggested by the accounts of Siegfried's fight with the dragon, his invulnerability, the winning of the Rhine gold, and the magic hood. But the poet of the N ihelungenlied knew how to construct a unified whole and infuse new meaning and life into it, and he gave in this way quite as much as he took from his sources.

Here and there indeed he has allowed a contradiction in fact to stand as his sources con- tained it, or he fills in a gap with little success; he also even leaves some obscure passages unexplained, or only half succeeds in clothing semi-pagan ideas and episodes with the knightly Christian garb which he and other mediaeval poets like to use. But such minor blemishes are easily overlooked in view of the vivid and essentially harmonious picture presented by his work as a whole.

The construc- tion of the poem is so simple and compact that it has often been compared with a drama; indeed when Hebbel wrote his drama Die Nibelungen, he followed the course of the action in the poem without any significant changes. The great moral precept of it, faithfulness, is taught through a variety of forms, the faithfulness of lovers and friends, the faithfulness of vassal and king. The characters, especially those of Kriemhild and her chief enemy Hagen, were wrought by the hand of a great master. With fine restraint and effect they and their emotions are made real and clear, not by objective description, but by their own actions and words.

The general tone of the Nihelungenlied is, in harmony with the subject, profoundly serious; occasionally it is tender and idyllic. The domi- nant note is tragic, and this is struck at the beginning and the end: The best parts of Die Klage are the description of Hildebrand's nephew Wolfhart and the story of the way in which the news of Riidiger's death was received at his home. The great model of the Nihelungenlied soon aroused emulation, and within a few years, between and , some unknown poet of knightly birth in Austria "Gudrun. In the style, too, although this is less popular, the model is unmistakable.

Gudrun is divided into three parts, as the poet begins not only with the story of Gudrun's mother, Hilde, but even with that of her grandfather, Hagen of Ireland. The third part is the story of a Frisian princess Gudrun, who ' The Lament. For thirteen years Gudrun suffers, patient and calm throughout; even when forced to wash the clothes of her masters on the sea- shore, barefoot and meanly clad, she preserves her pride and dignity.

At last one day, when she is at her task on the shore, an angel in the form of a bird foretells her speedy deliverance, and the next day she sees two men approach- ing in a boat. They are Herwig and her brother. Joined by Wate and other vassals, they fight with the Normans the following day and win the victory. Gudrun returns in joy to her people, and is united with Herwig.

The first part of the poem, the story of Hagen, is prob- ably a free invention of the poet after the model of the The Origin of court cpics; the other two parts, however, are the Poem. The bird, or angel of prophecy, and the description of Wate at the slaughter of the Normans remind us vividly of the swan virgins and the sea giants of early Germanic myths.

The second part of the epic, con- cerning Hilde, is nearer the original form of the Hegeling saga than either of the other parts; but, as frequently hap- pened with the sagas, the conclusion, which was originally tragic, is here toned down into a happy one, and the story thus loses much of its power. A similar conclusion has already been noted in the story of Gudrun, which is really no more than a richly elaborated repetition of the Hilde story, the chief difference being that Hilde followed her captor willingly.

In spite of its long wanderings Gudrun preserves the character of its native country, the north German coast, with remarkable fidelity. Gudrun is a tale of Its Character and Pres- the sca, of wind and wave and voyages and castles by the sea with their views of passing sails; it offers a striking contrast with the inland scene' of the Nibelungenlied.

Gudrun, a heroine even as Kriemhild, is, however, not driven to frightful acts of vengeance which are a denial of her womanly nature. Her heroism is revealed in unabating faithfulness, in proud endurance of suffering, in her indom- itable hopefulness, and in her preservation of lofty moral purity in the presence of her tormentors. Her character is one of the noblest and most real in poetry. The poem has come down to us in a very unlucky form; the only extant manuscript of it was not written until the beginning of the sixteenth century, and even this manuscript is not a copy of the original poem, but a reproduction of a version dating from the end of the thirteenth century.

The other popular epics vary considerably in merit. The former, which is written in the strophe of the Nihelungenlied, has been very much distorted by the countless interpolations of later re- "Aibharts visers; but it contains a stirring portrayal of the heroic young Albhart, who keeps faithful watch in the conflict between Dietrich and Ermanarich, until he is treacherously murdered by Witege, the inan he "Laurin. LauHn, an idyllic minstrel compo- sition in rimed couplets, skilfully unites the Dietrich saga with one from the Tyrol concerning the pugnacious dwarf king Laurin and his strictly guarded rose garden.

The hero of " Bern " breaks into the garden, overpowers Laurin, and then in turn becomes his captive and is finally rescued by a maiden. Other phases of the Dietrich saga were often treated until the end of the thirteenth century, but with less force "DasEcken- and art. Die Rahenschlacht tells in six-line "DieRaben- strophcs of "the Battle of Ravenna" between Ermanarich and Dietrich; it suffers from too great length and clumsy presentation, but the murder of Etzel's two sons and Dietrich's brother at the hand of Witege, and Dietrich's vengeance are described well, al- " Der Rosen- though the merit of these passages seems to be garten.

The form is the so-called " shortened Nibelung strophe" ; that is, the last stress is usually missing. The poem has been preserved in five different versions, and tells how Kriemhild invites the heroes of "Bern" to her rose garden in Worms to measure themselves with the champions there. The victor is to receive a kiss and a wreath of roses from her. The visitors are victorious in the twelve contests; even Siegfried succumbs before the might of Dietrich.

In this contrast of the two greatest heroes of the popular epic, Siegfried and Dietrich, lies the chief interest of the poem. The figures of Dietrich and the brawny bellicose monk Ilsan are the most finished in the poem. Several epics by minstrels, written in the same shortened form of the Nibelung strophe, stand apart, in content, from the Dietrich saga.

In Ortnit, an old saga of Vandalic origin has been interwoven with stories of travel which had been popular since the Crusades: An expedition after a bride " woifd? The versions of Wolfdietrich, a story of East Frankish origin, as that of the hero's father Hugdietrich, vary greatly; but the central theme of the saga, the glorification of the faithfulness of king and vassal, is not wholly lost even in the maze of constantly increasing adventures.

Tacitus tells us that a profound veneration of the divine in woman was inherent in the members of the old Ger- its Ori n Dianic tribes, and the part which women play in the heroic sagas indicates a similar fine moral relation between the sexes. Here men and women are not drawn together merely by physical passion, but '"love of God. Nor does the conception of love as entertained by the best minnesingers differ essentially from the Germanic notion, at least in as far as these poets were not contaminated by foreign customs and literature.

But from the end of the twelfth century on, both the corrupt court life of France and the passionate, sensuous poetry of French, and espe- cially of the Provencal troubadours, were often imitated in Germany. The worship and service of a lady, or mistress, usually a married woman of noble birth, became the fashion, and the praises of their ladies were sung by the poets in imitation of their models. Provincial differences are unmistakable in this poetry.

The lyrics of the Rhine country and western Germany in general were naturally most influenced by their immediate neighbors; in the north the poets of northern France were the models, in the south the Proven9al poets. In Bavaria and Austria the 1 1 lyric remained truer to its origin, namely, as a natural outgrowth of native popular songs. The poets, who were for the most part members of the knighthood, were also composers; to each kind of strophe they invented they also created a tune, which The Verse- ,.

Whoever used it without authority was dubbed a "tune filcher. The third part, the Ahgesang, or "con- cluding song," is built on different lines from the other parts, and has its own melody. Its oldest representative was Her-' ger, who has already been mentioned. Apart from its form, in three parts, it shows no foreign influence.

Songs and gnomic verse were often written by the same poet; the greatest song-writer, Walther von der Vogelweide, was also the greatest author of gnomic poetry. Poems by about a hundred and sixty minnesingers have been handed down in manuscript collections; the Weingartener, the Litde Heidelberg, and the so-called Manesse, or Large Heidel- berg manuscripts, are the most important.

The last- named was written about and is now, together with' the second, in Heidelberg. It is the most comprehensive collection, containing about seven thousand strophes by a hundred and forty poets. Conner High School Chamber Johannes Brahms Composer. Browse all further reading about Brahms. Brahms Academic Festival Overture, Op. Simrock 3 An die Heimat, Op. Psalm "Herr, wie lange" Op. Die Boten der Liebe 1 Duette, Op. Gluck arranged for piano 12 Gavottes 3 Gedichte, Op. Und bald erkannte auch Govinda: Und sie folgten ihm nach und betrachteten ihn.

Dieser Mann war heilig. Nie hatte Siddhartha einen Menschen so verehrt, nie hatte er einen Menschen so geliebt wie diesen. Und Gotama nahm sie auf, indem er sprach: Tretet denn herzu und wandelt in Heiligkeit, allem Leid ein Ende zu bereiten. Siddhartha erwachte wie aus einem Schlafe, als er Govindas Worte vernahm.

Lange blickte er in Govindas Gesicht. Dann sprach er leise, mit einer Stimme ohne Spott: Immer, o Govinda, bist du mein Freund gewesen, immer bist du einen Schritt hinter mir gegangen. Oft habe ich gedacht: Wird Govinda nicht auch einmal einen Schritt allein tun, ohne mich, aus der eigenen Seele? Siddhartha legte seine Hand auf die Schulter Govindas: Siddhartha sprach freundlich zu ihm: Abgesagt hast du Heimat und Eltern, abgesagt Herkunft und Eigentum, abgesagt deinem eigenen Willen, abgesagt der Freundschaft.

So will es die Lehre, so will es der Erhabene. So hast du selbst es gewollt. Morgen, o Govinda, werde ich dich verlassen. Sehr gut ist des Erhabenen Lehre, wie sollte ich einen Fehler an ihr finden? Siddhartha aber wandelte in Gedanken durch den Hain. Und nun wird mein Freund bei den Deinen bleiben, zu dir hat er seine Zuflucht genommen. Ich aber trete meine Pilgerschaft aufs neue an. Diese ist es, welche Gotama lehrt, nichts anderes.

Du hast wahrlich recht, wenig ist an Meinungen gelegen. Nicht einen Augenblick habe ich an dir gezweifelt. Sie ist dir geworden aus deinem eigenen Suchen, auf deinem eigenen Wege, durch Gedanken, durch Versenkung, durch Erkenntnis, durch Erleuchtung. Nicht ist sie dir geworden durch Lehre!

Oftmals aber werde ich dieses Tages denken, o Erhabener, und dieser Stunde, da meine Augen einen Heiligen sahen. Die Augen des Buddha blickten still zu Boden, still in vollkommenem Gleichmut strahlte sein unerforschliches Gesicht. So wahrlich blickt und schreitet nur der Mensch, der ins Innerste seines Selbst gedrungen ist. Wohl, auch ich werde ins Innerste meines Selbst zu dringen suchen.

Vor keinem andern mehr will ich meine Augen niederschlagen, vor keinem mehr. Keine Lehre mehr wird mich verlocken, da dieses Menschen Lehre mich nicht verlockt hat. Beraubt hat mich der Buddha, dachte Siddhartha, beraubt hat er mich, und mehr noch hat er mich beschenkt. Beraubt hat er mich meines Freundes, dessen, der an mich glaubte und der nun an ihn glaubt, der mein Schatten war und nun Gotamas Schatten ist. Geschenkt aber hat er mir Siddhartha, mich selbst. Im langsamen Dahingehen dachte Siddhartha nach.

Langsamer ging der Denkende dahin und fragte sich selbst: Ich hatte Angst vor mir, ich war auf der Flucht vor mir! Ich selbst aber ging mir dabei verloren. Sinn und Wesen war nicht irgendwo hinter den Dingen, sie waren in ihnen, in allem. Was denn soll ich zu Hause und bei meinem Vater tun? Immer noch, auch in der fernsten Versenkung, war er seines Vaters Sohn gewesen, war Brahmane gewesen, hohen Standes, ein Geistiger.

Jetzt war er nur noch Siddhartha, der Erwachte, sonst nichts mehr. Tief sog er den Atem ein, und einen Augenblick fror er und schauderte. Niemand war so allein wie er. Dies war der letzte Schauder des Erwachens gewesen, der letzte Krampf der Geburt. Siddhartha lernte Neues auf jedem Schritt seines Weges, denn die Welt war verwandelt, und sein Herz war bezaubert. Nun aber weilte sein befreites Auge diesseits, es sah und erkannte die Sichtbarkeit, suchte Heimat in dieser Welt, suchte nicht das Wesen, zielte in kein Jenseits.

Siddhartha sah einen Schafbock ein Schaf verfolgen und begatten. All dieses war immer gewesen, und er hatte es nicht gesehen; er war nicht dabei gewesen. Was er zu Gotama gesagt hatte: Aber nie hatte er dies Selbst wirklich gefunden, weil er es mit dem Netz des Gedankens hatte fangen wollen. Govinda stand vor ihm, in einem gelben Asketengewand. Traurig sah Govinda aus, traurig fragte er: Warum hast du mich verlassen? Man kann viel von einem Flusse lernen.

Ein Heimatloser bin ich, ein Brahmanensohn und Samana. Du wirst mir das Geschenk ein anderes Mal geben. Auch das habe ich vom Flusse gelernt: Auch du, Samana, wirst wieder kommen. Kinder sind die Menschen. Um die Mittagszeit kam er durch ein Dorf. So betrete ich diese Stadt, dachte Siddhartha, unter einem holden Zeichen. Noch bin ich ein Samana, dachte er, noch immer, ein Asket und Bettler.

Dann ging er im Flusse baden. Du hast Siddhartha gesehen, den Brahmanensohn, welcher seine Heimat verlassen hat, um ein Samana zu werden, und drei Jahre lang ein Samana gewesen ist. Nun aber habe ich jenen Pfad verlassen, und kam in diese Stadt, und die erste, die mir noch vor dem Betreten der Stadt begegnete, warst du. Dies zu sagen, bin ich zu dir gekommen, o Kamala!

Du bist die erste Frau, zu welcher Siddhartha anders als mit niedergeschlagenen Augen redet. Auch gestern schon habe ich gelernt. Weniges ist, das mir noch fehlt, du Vortreffliche: Wisse, Schwereres hat Siddhartha sich vorgenommen, als solche Kleinigkeiten sind, und hat es erreicht. Wie sollte ich nicht erreichen, was ich gestern mir vorgenommen habe: Du wirst mich gelehrig sehen, Kamala, Schwereres habe ich gelernt, als was du mich lehren sollst.

Hast du es dir gemerkt? Dein Mund ist wie eine frisch aufgebrochene Feige, Kamala. Auch mein Mund ist rot und frisch, er wird zu deinem passen, du wirst sehen. So ist es, genau ebenso ist es auch mit Kamala, und mit den Freuden der Liebe. Du bist gelehrig, Siddhartha, so lerne auch dies: Liebe kann man erbetteln, erkaufen, geschenkt bekommen, auf der Gasse finden, aber rauben kann man sie nicht.

Da hast du dir einen falschen Weg ausgedacht. Es bleibt also dabei: Siddhartha wird wiederkommen, wenn er hat, was ihm noch fehlt: Aber sprich, holde Kamala, kannst du mir nicht noch einen kleinen Rat geben? Wer wollte nicht gerne einem armen, unwissenden Samana, der von den Schakalen aus dem Walde kommt, einen Rat geben? Anders kommt ein Armer nicht zu Geld. Was kannst du denn? Sie zog ihn mit den Augen zu sich, er beugte sein Gesicht auf ihres, und legte seinen Mund auf den Mund, der wie eine frisch aufgebrochene Feige war.

Aber schwer wird es dir werden, mit Versen so viel Geld zu erwerben, wie du brauchst. Denn du brauchst viel Geld, wenn du Kamalas Freund sein willst. Aber was wird aus dir werden? Kannst du nichts als denken, fasten, dichten? Ich habe die Schriften gelesen—". Auch ich kann es nicht. Morgen sehe ich dich wieder. Vielleicht schon morgen, dachte er, werde ich niemand mehr um Essen bitten. Er war kein Samana mehr, nicht mehr stand es ihm an, zu betteln. Er gab den Reiskuchen einem Hunde und blieb ohne Speise. Sei klug, brauner Samana. Aber sei nicht zu bescheiden!

Wie kommt das wohl? Hast du einen Zauber? So ist es, wenn Siddhartha ein Ziel, einen Vorsatz hat. Das ist es, was Siddhartha bei den Samanas gelernt hat. Jeder kann zaubern, jeder kann seine Ziele erreichen, wenn er denken kann, wenn er warten kann, wenn er fasten kann. Kamaswami trat ein, ein rascher, geschmeidiger Mann mit stark ergrauendem Haar, mit sehr klugen, vorsichtigen Augen, mit einem begehrlichen Mund. Doch bin ich es freiwillig, bin also nicht in Not. Ich bin mehr als drei Jahre besitzlos gewesen, und habe niemals daran gedacht, wovon ich leben solle.

Und was ist es nun, was du zu geben hast? Was ist es, das du gelernt hast, das du kannst? So aber kann Siddhartha ruhig warten, er kennt keine Ungeduld, er kennt keine Notlage, lange kann er sich vom Hunger belagern lassen und kann dazu lachen. Dazu, Herr, ist Fasten gut. Kamaswami ging hinaus und kehrte mit einer Rolle wieder, die er seinem Gaste hinreichte, indem er fragte: Nicht lange war er in Kamaswamis Hause, da nahm er schon an seines Hausherrn Handel teil. Vieles lehrte ihn ihr roter, kluger Mund. Vieles lehrte ihn ihre zarte, geschmeidige Hand.

Aber er hat das Geheimnis jener Menschen, zu welchen der Erfolg von selber kommt, sei das nun ein angeborener guter Stern, sei es Zauber, sei es etwas, das er bei den Samanas gelernt hat. So wird er eifriger werden. Kamaswami folgte dem Rat. Noch nie ist mit Schelten etwas erreicht worden.

Ich bin sehr zufrieden mit dieser Reise. Ich habe Menschen und Gegenden kennengelernt, ich habe Freundlichkeit und Vertrauen genossen, ich habe Freundschaft gefunden. Wenn der Tag kommt, an dem du sehen wirst: Schaden bringt mir dieser Siddhartha, dann sprich ein Wort, und Siddhartha wird seiner Wege gehen.

Als ihm Kamaswami einstmals vorhielt, er habe alles, was er verstehe, von ihm gelernt, gab er zur Antwort: Das sind deine Wissenschaften. Denken habe ich nicht bei dir gelernt, teurer Kamaswami, suche lieber du es von mir zu lernen. In der Tat war seine Seele nicht beim Handel.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf // Elisabeth Schwarzkopf - The Complete Recitals ( Remasters)

Er sah die Menschen auf eine kindliche oder tierhafte Art dahinleben, welche er zugleich liebte und auch verachtete. Allem stand er offen, was diese Menschen ihm zubrachten. Die Quelle lief irgendwo, wie fern von ihm, lief und lief unsichtbar, hatte nichts mehr mit seinem Leben zu tun.

Einmal sagte er zu ihr: Du bist Kamala, nichts andres, und in dir innen ist eine Stille und Zuflucht, in welche du zu jeder Stunde eingehen und bei dir daheim sein kannst, so wie auch ich es kann. Kamaswami ist ebenso klug wie ich, und hat doch keine Zuflucht in sich. Andre haben sie, die an Verstand kleine Kinder sind. Die meisten Menschen, Kamala, sind wie ein fallendes Blatt, das weht und dreht sich durch die Luft, und schwankt, und taumelt zu Boden. Andre aber, wenige, sind wie Sterne, die gehen eine feste Bahn, kein Wind erreicht sie, in sich selber haben sie ihr Gesetz und ihre Bahn.

Unter allen Gelehrten und Samanas, deren ich viele kannte, war einer von dieser Art, ein Vollkommener, nie kann ich ihn vergessen. Gut hast du meine Kunst gelernt, Siddhartha. Und dennoch, Lieber, bist du ein Samana geblieben, dennoch liebst du mich nicht, du liebst keinen Menschen. Ist es nicht so? Immer noch war es die Kunst des Denkens, des Wartens, des Fastens, von welcher sein Leben gelenkt wurde, immer noch waren die Menschen der Welt, die Kindermenschen, ihm fremd geblieben, wie er ihnen fremd war. Vieles zwar, das er von den Samanas gelernt, das er von Gotama gelernt, das er von seinem Vater, dem Brahmanen, gelernt hatte, war noch lange Zeit in ihm geblieben: Manches davon war in ihm geblieben, eines ums andre aber war untergesunken und hatte sich mit Staub bedeckt.

Er aber lernte dies nicht von ihnen, gerade dies nicht, diese Kinderfreude und Kindertorheit; er lernte von ihnen gerade das Unangenehme, was er selbst verachtete. Langsam ergriff ihn die Seelenkrankheit der Reichen. Siddhartha merkte es nicht. Da mahnte ihn einst ein Traum. Ich werde ihm meinen Lustgarten schenken, und werde meine Zuflucht zu seiner Lehre nehmen. Nie war es Siddhartha so seltsam klar geworden, wie nahe die Wollust dem Tode verwandt ist. Dann war er an ihrer Seite gelegen, und Kamalas Antlitz war ihm nahe gewesen, und unter ihren Augen und neben ihren Mundwinkeln hatte er, deutlich wie noch niemals, eine bange Schrift gelesen, eine Schrift von feinen Linien, von leisen Furchen, eine Schrift, die an den Herbst und an das Alter erinnerte, wie denn auch Siddhartha selbst, der erst in den Vierzigen stand, schon hier und dort ergraute Haare zwischen seinen schwarzen bemerkt hatte.

Seufzend hatte er von ihr Abschied genommen, die Seele voll Unlust, und voll verheimlichter Bangigkeit. In diesen Augenblicken hatte er einen Traum:. Er nahm ihn heraus, wog ihn einen Augenblick in der Hand und warf ihn dann weg, auf die Gasse hinaus, und im gleichen Augenblick erschrak er furchtbar, und das Herz tat ihm weh, so, als habe er mit diesem toten Vogel allen Wert und alles Gute von sich geworfen. O ja, mehrere Male hatte er solches erlebt. Einzig Kamala war ihm lieb, war ihm wertvoll gewesen—aber war sie es noch? Brauchte er sie noch, oder sie ihn?

Spielten sie nicht ein Spiel ohne Ende? Nein, es war nicht notwendig! Als er aufschauend die Sterne erblickte, dachte er: Er erhob sich, nahm Abschied vom Mangobaum, Abschied vom Lustgarten. Hatte sie es nicht immer erwartet? War er nicht ein Samana, ein Heimloser, ein Pilger? Lange sah sie ihm nach, dem fliegenden Vogel. Sie empfing von diesem Tage an keine Besucher mehr, und hielt ihr Haus verschlossen. Tot war der Vogel in seinem Herzen. Tief war er in Sansara verstrickt, Ekel und Tod hatte er von allen Seiten in sich eingesogen, wie ein Schwamm Wasser einsaugt, bis er voll ist.

Eine schauerliche Leere spiegelte ihm aus dem Wasser entgegen, welcher die furchtbare Leere in seiner Seele Antwort gab. Ja, er war am Ende. Mit verzerrtem Gesichte starrte er ins Wasser, sah sein Gesicht gespiegelt und spie danach. Er sank, mit geschlossenen Augen, dem Tod entgegen. Doch war dies nur ein Augenblick, ein Blitz. Vielleicht war er wirklich gestorben, war untergegangen und in einer neuen Gestalt wiedergeboren? Govinda freute sich, ihn wach zu finden, offenbar hatte er lange hier gesessen und auf sein Erwachen gewartet, obwohl er ihn nicht kannte.

Und dann, so scheint es, bin ich selbst eingeschlafen, der ich deinen Schlaf bewachen wollte. Nun magst du denn gehen. Wohin gehst du, o Freund? Immer ist es so. Du aber, Siddhartha, wo gehst du hin? Ich bin nur unterwegs. Doch verzeih, o Siddhartha, nicht wie ein Pilger siehst du aus. Und so ist es: Nie habe ich, der ich schon viele Jahre pilgere, solch einen Pilger angetroffen. Aber nun, heute, hast du eben einen solchen Pilger angetroffen, in solchen Schuhen, mit solchem Gewande. Ich trage die Kleider eines Reichen, da hast du recht gesehen. Er ist mir abhanden gekommen.

Schnell dreht sich das Rad der Gestaltungen, Govinda. Wo ist der Brahmane Siddhartha? Wo ist der Samana Siddhartha? Wo ist der Reiche Siddhartha? Mit Kummer, und doch auch mit Lachen, gedachte er jener Zeit. Und nun hatten sie ihn verlassen, keine von ihnen war mehr sein, nicht Fasten, nicht Warten, nicht Denken. Seltsam war es ihm in der Tat ergangen. Und jetzt, so schien es, jetzt war er wirklich ein Kindermensch geworden. Schwer fiel ihm das Denken, er hatte im Grunde keine Lust dazu, doch zwang er sich. Wie ist dies wunderlich!

Ja, seltsam war sein Geschick! Wunderlich in der Tat war mein Leben, so dachte er, wunderliche Umwege hat es genommen. Und doch ist dieser Weg sehr gut gewesen, und doch ist der Vogel in meiner Brust nicht gestorben. Aber welch ein Weg war das! Aber es war richtig so, mein Herz sagt Ja dazu, meine Augen lachen dazu. Mag er gehen, wie er will, ich will ihn gehen.

Kommt sie wohl aus diesem langen, guten Schlafe her, der mir so sehr wohlgetan hat? Oder von dem Worte Om, das ich aussprach? O wie gut ist dies Geflohensein, dies Freigewordensein! So war es gut. Nein, etwas anderes in ihm war gestorben, etwas, das schon, lange sich nach Sterben gesehnt hatte. War es nicht dies, was heute endlich seinen Tod gefunden hatte, hier im Walde an diesem lieblichen Flusse? Zu viel Wissen hatte ihn gehindert, zu viel heilige Verse, zu viel Opferregeln, zu viel Kasteiung, zu viel Tun und Streben! Er war gestorben, ein neuer Siddhartha war aus dem Schlaf erwacht.

Heute aber war er jung, war ein Kind, der neue Siddhartha, und war voll Freude. Von den Geheimnissen des Flusses aber sah er heute nur eines, das ergriff seine Seele. Warst du nicht ein Samana? Deines Namens kann ich mich nicht mehr entsinnen. Dankbar nahm er Vasudevas Einladung an.

Als aber Siddhartha schwieg, und eine lange Stille gewesen war, da sagte Vasudeva: Auch dir ist er Freund, auch zu dir spricht er. Das ist gut, das ist sehr gut. Bleibe bei mir, Siddhartha, mein Freund. Ich hatte einst eine Frau, ihr Lager war neben dem meinen, doch ist sie schon lange gestorben, lange habe ich allein gelebt.

Und keinen traf ich, der es verstand wie du. Auch hierin werde ich von dir lernen. Du wirst auch das andere von ihm lernen. Sprach Siddhartha, nach einer langen Pause: Ich kann dir das andere nicht sagen, o Freund. Sieh, ich bin kein Gelehrter, ich verstehe nicht zu sprechen, ich verstehe auch nicht zu denken. Freundlich lebte er neben Vasudeva, und zuweilen tauschten sie Worte miteinander, wenige und lang bedachte Worte. Vasudeva war kein Freund der Worte, selten gelang es Siddhartha, ihn zum Sprechen zu bewegen.

Nichts war, nichts wird sein; alles ist, alles hat Wesen und Gegenwart. Nein, keine Lehre konnte ein wahrhaft Suchender annehmen, einer, der wahrhaft finden wollte. Mochte er sterben, was ging dies den Knaben an? Er blickte auf und sah zuerst das Gesicht des Knaben, das ihn wunderlich erinnerte, an Vergessenes mahnte. Kamala blickte in seine Augen. Du gleichst ihm viel mehr, als du ihm damals glichest, da du mich und Kamaswami verlassen hast. In den Augen gleichst du ihm, Siddhartha. Ach, auch ich bin alt geworden, alt—kanntest du mich denn noch? Ihre Augen wurden irr und fielen zu.

Langsam, mit singender Stimme, begann er es zu sprechen, aus der Vergangenheit und Kindheit her kamen ihm die Worte geflossen. Und unter seinem Singsang wurde der Knabe ruhig, schluchzte noch hin und wieder auf und schlief ein. Siddhartha legte ihn auf Vasudevas Lager. Vasudeva stand am Herd und kochte Reis.

Stille las er es, aufmerksam, wartend, in ihr Leiden versenkt. Ihn anblickend, sagte sie: Ganz anders sind sie geworden. Du bist es, und bist es nicht. Kamala blickte ihm unverwandt in die Augen. Sie wollte es ihm sagen, aber die Zunge gehorchte ihrem Willen nicht mehr. Im Stall, wo ihre Ziege stand, machten sich die beiden Alten eine Streu zurecht, und Vasudeva legte sich schlafen. Mein Sohn ist mir geschenkt worden. Auf demselben Lager ist Kamala gestorben, auf welchem einst mein Weib gestorben ist.

Langsam hoffte er ihn zu gewinnen, durch freundliche Geduld. Lange Monate wartete Vasudeva, zusehend, wartete und schwieg. Dein Sohn, Lieber, macht dir Sorge, und auch mir macht er Sorge. Aber wissen wir denn, du und ich, wozu er berufen ist, zu welchem Wege, zu welchen Taten, zu welchen Leiden? Sage mir, mein Lieber: Du zwingst ihn nicht?

Inhoitsvazeichnis

Sehr gut, ich lobe dich. Bindest du ihn nicht in Bande mit deiner Liebe? Ist er mit alledem nicht gezwungen, nicht gestraft? Hast du daran nie gedacht? Aber sieh, wie soll ich ihn, der ohnehin kein sanftes Herz hat, in diese Welt geben? Durch Lehre, durch Gebet, durch Ermahnung? Glaubst du denn, Lieber, dieser Weg bleibe irgend jemandem vielleicht erspart? Noch niemals hatte Vasudeva so viele Worte gesprochen. Siddhartha konnte seines Freundes Rat nicht befolgen, er konnte den Sohn nicht hergeben. In der Geduld waren sie beide Meister. Nun aber, seit sein Sohn da war, nun war auch er, Siddhartha, vollends ein Kindermensch geworden, eines Menschen wegen leidend, einen Menschen liebend, an eine Liebe verloren, einer Liebe wegen ein Tor geworden.

Es kam ein Tag, an welchem des jungen Siddhartha Sinn zum Ausbruch kam und sich offen gegen seinen Vater wandte. Ich hasse dich, du bist nicht mein Vater, und wenn du zehnmal meiner Mutter Buhle gewesen bist! Am andern Morgen aber war er verschwunden. Verschwunden war auch das Boot, Siddhartha sah es am jenseitigen Ufer liegen. Der Knabe war entlaufen. Und wirklich war kein Ruder mehr im Boote. Er machte sich daran, ein neues Ruder zu zimmern.

Siddhartha aber nahm Abschied, um nach dem Entflohenen zu suchen. Vasudeva hinderte ihn nicht. Dennoch lief er ohne Rast, nicht mehr, um ihn zu retten, nur aus Verlangen, nur um ihn vielleicht nochmals zu sehen. Und er lief bis vor die Stadt. Lange stand er, nachdenkend, Bilder sehend, der Geschichte seines Lebens lauschend. An der Stelle des Wunschzieles, das ihn hierher und dem entflohenen Sohne nachgezogen hatte, stand nun Leere. Dies hatte er am Flusse gelernt, dies eine: Der Alte sah ihn nicht. Keiner sprach von dem, was heute geschehen war, keiner nannte den Namen des Knaben, keiner sprach von seiner Flucht, keiner sprach von der Wunde.

Lange noch brannte die Wunde. Nichts fehlte ihnen, nichts hatte der Wissende und Denker vor ihnen voraus als eine einzige Kleinigkeit, eine einzige winzig kleine Sache: Nicht von selbst erlosch diese Flamme. Es glich dem Gesicht seines Vaters, des Brahmanen. Hatte nicht auch sein Vater um ihn dasselbe Leid gelitten, wie er es nun um seinen Sohn litt?

Siddhartha setzte sich zu dem Greise, langsam begann er zu sprechen. Dabei sprach er immer fort. Sanft klang der vielstimmige Gesang des Flusses. Siddhartha schaute ins Wasser, und im ziehenden Wasser erschienen ihm Bilder: Nun ist es genug. Strahlend ging er hinweg; Siddhartha blickte ihm nach. Auch du, so scheint es mir, hast gesucht. Willst du mir ein Wort sagen, Verehrter? Erkannt aber, o Govinda, hast du den Schlafenden nicht. Hast du eine Lehre? Hast du einen Glauben, oder ein Wissen, dem du folgst, das dir leben und rechttun hilft?

Ich bin dabei geblieben. Dennoch habe ich seither viele Lehrer gehabt. Auch von ihm habe ich gelernt, auch ihm bin ich dankbar, sehr dankbar. Aber hast nicht du selbst, wenn auch nicht eine Lehre, so doch gewisse Gedanken, gewisse Erkenntnisse gefunden, welche dein eigen sind und die dir leben helfen? Sieh, mein Govinda, dies ist einer meiner Gedanken, die ich gefunden habe: Weisheit ist nicht mitteilbar. Weisheit, welche ein Weiser mitzuteilen versucht, klingt immer wie Narrheit.

Ich sage, was ich gefunden habe. Wissen kann man mitteilen, Weisheit aber nicht. Man kann sie finden, man kann sie leben, man kann von ihr getragen werden, man kann mit ihr Wunder tun, aber sagen und lehren kann man sie nicht. Von jeder Wahrheit ist das Gegenteil ebenso wahr! Einseitig ist alles, was mit Gedanken gedacht und mit Worten gesagt werden kann, alles einseitig, alles halb, alles entbehrt der Ganzheit, des Runden, der Einheit.

Die Welt selbst aber, das Seiende um uns her und in uns innen, ist nie einseitig. Zeit ist nicht wirklich, Govinda, ich habe dies oft und oft erfahren. Die Welt, Freund Govinda, ist nicht unvollkommen, oder auf einem langsamen Wege zur Vollkommenheit begriffen: Heute aber denke ich: Das sind Dinge, und Dinge kann man lieben. Worte aber kann ich nicht lieben.

Vielleicht ist es dies, was dich hindert, den Frieden zu finden, vielleicht sind es die vielen Worte. Es ist ein Gedanke. Offen gesagt, halte ich auch von Gedanken nicht viel. Ich halte von Dingen mehr. Ist das nicht nur Trug der Maja, nur Bild und Schein? Das ist es, was sie mir so lieb und verehrenswert macht: Darum kann ich sie lieben.

Und siehe, da sind wir mitten im Dickicht der Meinungen drin, im Streit um Worte. Denn ich kann nicht leugnen, meine Worte von der Liebe stehen im Widerspruch, im scheinbaren Widerspruch zu Gotamas Worten. Dann sprach Govinda, indem er sich zum Abschied verneigte: Heimlich bei sich aber dachte er: Einzig ihn, diesen Siddhartha, habe ich so gefunden. Indem Govinda also dachte, und ein Widerstreit in seinem Herzen war, neigte er sich nochmals zu Siddhartha, von Liebe gezogen.

Tief verneigte er sich vor dem ruhig Sitzenden. Schwerlich wird einer von uns den andern in dieser Gestalt wiedersehen.