Who is the bard of the Iliad among you? For since he likes puddings,Heyne begs he’ll accept these that from Gottingen come.“Give them to me! The kings’ quarrel I sang!”–“I, the fight near the vessels!”–“Hand me the puddings!I sang what upon Ida took place!”Gently! Don’t tear me to pieces! The puddings will not be sufficient;He […]

PUPIL.I am rejoiced, worthy sirs, to find you in pleno assembled;For I have come down below, seeking the one needful thing. ARISTOTLE.Quick to the point, my good friend! For the Jena Gazette comesto hand here,Even in hell,–so we know all that is passing above. PUPIL.So much the better! So give me (I will not depart […]

It has ever been so, my friend, and will ever remain so:Weakness has rules for itself,–vigor is crowned with success. CHOICE. If thou canst not give pleasure to all by thy deeds and thy knowledge,Give it then, unto the few; many to please is but vain.

Men now seek to explore each thing from within and without too!How canst thou make thy escape, Truth, from their eager pursuit?That they may catch thee, with nets and poles extended they seek theeBut with a spirit-like tread, glidest thou out of the throng.

How does the genius make itself known? In the way that in natureShows the Creator himself,–e’en in the infinite whole.Clear is the ether, and yet of depth that ne’er can be fathomed;Seen by the eye, it remains evermore closed to the sense.

Good from the good,–to the reason this is not hard of conception;But the genius has power good from the bad to evoke.‘Tis the conceived alone, that thou, imitator, canst practise;Food the conceived never is, save to the mind that conceives.

Knowledge to one is a goddess both heavenly and high,–to anotherOnly an excellent cow, yielding the butter he wants.

Once to a horse-fair,–it may perhaps have beenWhere other things are bought and sold,–I meanAt the Haymarket,–there the muses’ horseA hungry poet brought–to sell, of course. ‘The hippogriff neighed shrilly, loudly,And reared upon his hind-legs proudly;In utter wonderment each stood and cried:“The noble regal beast!” But, woe betide!Two hideous wings his slender form deface,The finest […]

“How far beneath me seems the earthly ball!The pigmy race below I scarce can see;How does my art, the noblest art of all,Bear me close up to heaven’s bright canopy!”So cries the slater from his tower’s high top,And so the little would-be mighty man,Hans Metaphysicus, from out his critic-shop.Explain, thou little would-be mighty man!The tower […]

The principle by which each thingToward strength and shape first tended,–The pulley whereon Zeus the ringOf earth, that loosely used to swing,With cautiousness suspended,–he is a clever man, I vow,Who its real name can tell me now,Unless to help him I consent–‘Tis: ten and twelve are different! Fire burns,–’tis chilly when it snows,Man always is […]

Round me are dwelling the falcon-eyed race, the Phaeacian people;Sunday with them never ends; ceaselessly moves round the spit.

True, as becometh a Switzer, I watch over Germany’s borders;But the light-footed Gaul jumps o’er the suffering stream.

I, too, at length discerned great Hercules’ energy mighty,–Saw his shade. He himself was not, alas, to be seen.Round him were heard, like the screaming of birds,the screams of tragedians,And, with the baying of dogs, barked dramaturgists around.There stood the giant in all his terrors; his bow was extended,And the bolt, fixed on the string, […]

Years has the master been laboring, but always without satisfaction;To an ingenious race ‘twould be in vision conferred.What they yesterday learned, to-day they fain would be teaching:Small compassion, alas, is by those gentlemen shown!

(HERR VON MECHELN OF BASLE.) Nature in charms is exhaustless, in beauty ever reviving;And, like Nature, fair art is inexhaustible too.Hail, thou honored old man! for both in thy heart thou preservestLiving sensations, and thus ne’er-ending youth is thy lot!

Once wisdom dwelt in tomes of ponderous size,While friendship from a pocketbook would talk;But now that knowledge in small compass lies,And floats in almanacs, as light as cork,Courageous man, thou dost not hesitateTo open for thy friends this house so great!Hast thou no fear, I seriously would ask,That thou may’st thus their patience overtask?

Two are the roads that before thee lie open from life to conduct thee;To the ideal one leads thee, the other to death.See that while yet thou art free, on the first thou commencest thy journey,Ere by the merciless fates on to the other thou’rt led!

Thou, by whom, freed from rules constrained and wrong,On truth and nature once again we’re placed,–Who, in the cradle e’en a hero strong,Stiffest the serpents round our genius laced,–Thou whom the godlike science has so longWith her unsullied sacred fillet graced,–Dost thou on ruined altars sacrificeTo that false muse whom we no longer prize? This […]

Ring and staff, oh to me on a Rhenish flask ye are welcome!Him a true shepherd I call, who thus gives drink to his sheep.Draught thrice blest! It is by the Muse I have won thee,–the Muse, too,Sends thee,–and even the church places upon thee her seal.

“Who would himself with shadows entertain,Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain,Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true?–Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned–Though the free-pinioned soul that once could dwellIn the large empire of the possible,This workday life with iron chains may bind,Yet thus the mastery […]