Sonett 146. Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth,
Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array,
Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? is this thy body's end?
Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,
And let that pine to aggravate thy store;
Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;
Within be fed, without be rich no more:

So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,
And, death once dead, there's no more dying then.*)

Sonett 147. My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease;

Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
Th' uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic mad with ever-more unrest:

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are,
At random from the truth vainly express'd;

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

Sonett 148. O me! what eyes hath love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's: no
How can it?! how can love's eye be true,

That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?

*) Es verdient das Sonett 146 ganz besondere Beachtung. Dasselbe spricht für die Richtigkeit aller unserer Ausführungen und legt von dem göttlichen Streben Shakespeare's, wie es sich in der von Aristoteles in der Nic. Eth. X. 7 gedachten Unsterblichmachung oder Tödtung des Todes, als dem absoluten Endzweck für den Menschen, zeigt, unverkennbar Zeugniss ab.

No marvel, then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not, till heaven clears.

O cunning love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.

Sonett 149. Canst thou, O cruel! say, I love thee not,
When I, against myself, with thee partake?
Do I not think on thee, when I forgot

Am of myself, all tyrant, for thy sake?
Who hateth thee that I do call my friend?
On whom frown'st thou that I do fawn upon?
Nay, if thou low'rst on me, do I not spend
Revenge upon myself with present moan?
What merit do I in myself respect,

That is so proud thy service to despise,
When all my best doth worship thy defect,
Commanded by the motion of thine eyes?

But, love, hate on, for now I know thy mind:
Those that can see thou lov'st, and I am blind.

Sonett 150. O! from what power hast thou this powerful might,
With insufficiency my heart to sway?

To make me give the lie to my true sight,
And swear that brightness doth not grace the day?
Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill,

That in the very refuse of thy deeds

There is such strength and warrantise of skill,
That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds?
Who taught thee how to make me love thee more,
The more I hear and see just cause of hate?
O! though I love what others do abhor,
With others thou should'st not abhor my state:
If thy unworthiness rais'd love in me,
More worthy I to be belov'd of thee.

Sonett 151. Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not, conscience is born of love?

Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:

For, thou betraying me, I do betray

My nobler part to my gross body's treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may

Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name, doth point out thee

As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.

No want of consciense hold it, that I call
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

Sonett 152. In loving thee thou know'st I am forsworn,
But thou art twice forsworn, to me love swearing,
In act thy bed-vow broke, and new faith torn,
In vowing new hate after new love bearing.
But why of two oaths' breach do I accuse thee,
When I break twenty? I am perjur'd most;
For all my vows are oaths but to misuse thee,
And all my honest faith in thee is lost:

For I have sworn deep oaths of thy deep kindness,
Oaths of thy love, thy truth, thy constancy;
And to enlighten thee, gave eyes to blindness
Or made them swear against the thing they see;
For I have sworn thee fair: more perjur'd I,
To swear against the truth so foul a lie!

Wir schliessen diesen Abschnitt mit der Bemerkung, dass gleichwie das letzte Sonett und manche der früheren auf das Identificiren des Schönen und Hässlichen referirt, so auch der Inhalt der Dichtung „A lover's complaint, by William Shakespeare" sich recht eigentlich auf den durch die Negation und die tragische beraubende Thätigkeit bewirkten Ambiguitätszustand, auf das fair-foul und Engel-Teufel sein, sowie auf die Erscheinung der Muse, als durch diese Thätigkeit violirt bezieht, und dürfen wir in dieser Rücksicht auf die Schlussverse jener Dichtung hinweisen, welche so lauten:

For lo! his passion, but an art of craft,
Even there resolv'd my reason into tears;
There my white stole of chastity I daff'd;
Shook off my sober guards, and civil fears:
Appear to him, as he to me appears,

All melting; though our drops this difference bore,
His poison'd me, and mine did him restore.

In him a plenitude of subtle matter,
Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,
Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,
Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,
In either's aptness, as it best deceives
To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes.
Or to turn white, and swoon at tragic shows:

That not a heart which in his level came,
Could scape the hail of his all-hurting aim,
Showing fair nature is both kind and tame,
And veil'd in them, did win whom he would maim:
Against the thing he sought he would exclaim;
When he most burn'd in heart-wish'd luxury,
He preach'd pure maid, and prais'd cold chastity.

Thus, merely with the garment of a grace

The naked and concealed fiend he cover'd;
That th' unexperienc'd gave the tempter place,
Which, like a cherubin, above them hover'd.
Who, young and simple, would not be so lover'd?
Ah me! I fell; and yet do question make,"
What I should do again for such a sake.

O! that infected moisture of his eye!

O, that false fire, which in his cheek so glowed!
O, that forc'd thunder from his heart did fly!
O, that sad breath his spongy lungs bestowed!
O, all that borrow'd motion, seeming owed,
Would yet again betray the fore-betray'd
And new pervert a reconciled maid!

Im Drama Hamlet ist, wenn man den ideellen Vorwurf in Betracht zieht, die Königin die Personification der violirten Muse

durch dieselbe ist des Geistes Kind Hamlet, geboren und ist sie daher Mutter desselben. Die Vergiftung des Königs und der Incest stehen in directem Zusammenhang; erstere mit ihren Folgen ist sinnbildlich für die Verwirklichung der Idee vermittelst des Begriffs der Negation und für das dadurch bewirkte Pathema; in der incestirten Königin aber erscheint die durch die beraubende Thätigkeit incestirte und violirte Muse Shakespeare's, dessen Name denn auch für die Namengebung der Königin im Drama Hamlet, Gertrude oder (gèr, altd. Speer, drut: stark) die Speerstarke, bestimmend gewesen sein dürfte.

Die Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit.

Das das schöpferische Sein (tò tí iv sivai*)) bekundende Werk.

(Sonette 1-17, betreffend die Belebung und Beseelung zum Zwecke der Immortalisation.)

Sonett 17.

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say, »this poet lies;
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces<<
So should my papers, yellow'd with their age

Be scorn'd, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage,
And stretched metre of an antique song;

But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice in it, and in my rhyme.

dass

Es ist schon oben darauf aufmerksam gemacht worden, nach Aristoteles die Selbstliebe eines guten Menschen die Freundschaft des Menschen gegen sich selbst ist.

Der Philosoph sagt (Nic. Ethik IX. 4 Stahr, S. 327) in dieser Beziehung:

Man definirt nämlich den Begriff Freund entweder so: Freund ist der, der für einen Andern das wirkliche oder scheinbare Gute will und thut um des Andern selbst willen; oder: der die Existenz und das Leben des Andern um dessen selbst willen wünscht. Dies letztere ist die Empfindung der Mütter gegen ihre Kinder, und des Freundes gegen den Freund, selbst dann, wenn leichte Misshelligkeiten

*),,to tí v elva bezeichnet das, was als der allgemeine Zweckbegriff, der seinem ideellen Sein nach in dem Denken der göttlichen Vernunft begründet ist, in dem Besonderen sich realisirt und in demselben als die beherrschende Einheit sich darstellt und als das Unveränderliche stets wiederkehrt; es wird dadurch das Allgemeine bezeichnet, welches das Individuelle in seiner Totalität bestimmt, und ist daher das, was wir den objectiven Begriff nennen, die Einheit des Seins und des Wesens: To Tí v elva das, was von Ewigkeit her war das Sein, d. h. das gedachte Sein vor seiner Erscheinung in der Wirklichkeit, das sich selbst Zweck ist und als das dem Besonderen Immanente sich selbst hervorbringt