guish-guilt and innocence-all that imagination, feeling, philosophy, and poetry could bind together by a strength almost superhuman-are here, glowing from the hand of their immortal author, with a life which shall endure until time shall be no more. Who shall say that he has fully conceived and understood this mighty whole, so that his eye hath revelled in all its beauty-his ear hath drunk all its deep harmony-his heart hath laughed with all its joy, and wept with all its sorrow-or his reason fully discoursed with that wisdom which seemeth ever deeper and fartherreaching the more nearly we approach it? Emphatically, here we find meat for strong men, and milk for the infant. Many reasoners, like the mathematician whose answer is known to every child-who deem poetry merely an idle gaud, have read 'Faust,' to find their souls' searching questions there answered. Many an imaginative artist, whose eye delighteth in bright manycolored pictures of life, has come here to riot in the wine-cellar, and dance on the Blocksberg, though his brain never teemed with a doubt he could not solve, nor his light heart ever sorrowed for himself or another. Again there are, and of the purest and best, for whom the mirth is all too boisterous-the reasoning too cunningly refined. But where, in the whole infinite range of things, living or ideal, can they find aught speaking to their heart's affections like the charming portraiture of Margaret, that very fondest, simplest, loveliest woman's nature? What pointed weapons cannot the satirist draw from this poem? Leaving this enumeration unexhausted, we must hastily pass to the language which displays and clothes in the life which colors this vast and changeful magic world of thought and poetry. They who are at all conversant with almost any of Goethe's poems will readily imagine what exquisite harmony, what variety of expression, and power of description his numbers here display; how he runs through all modes of the lyre, and is master of all;' keeping everywhere tone, time, and metre so faithfully with his varied matter and spirit of his noble strain, that each seems woven into and blended with the other, so as not to be separated from its true being, without rending the very soul from the body of his song. Before taking final leave of the subject, we will venture to make two passing remarks of general application to that class of translations which do not appear to be founded on a correct knowledge of the language in which the original Faust' was written. There is a point where the exact equivalency of words and idioms has no certain settlement, even by the most learned, if the nearest phrases and proximate verbal correspondence, not VOL. X., No. XLVIII.-75 the most identical in spirit of the two opposed languages, be sought as the acme of accuracy. Leaving the application of this to our readers, we say, that in no one thing is the opinion of countrymen of the author translated-ay, even of that author himself so fallacious, as in judging of the merits of translations, especially of those which attempt the most rigid accuracy. They look for the well-known words recalling their living parallels in their own work and language; and should they find these, can rarely see where the translation may have sunk in its own tongue, when measured with the original. Even when they may understand that tongue almost thoroughly, the masterpiece and their own language is so undividedly the object of their worship, that they can scarcely escape from the feeling, that what they see most like, they like best, though, perhaps, the well-loved features may be merely degraded by some mime's coarse conception of their spirit. The first thing that astonishes the reader on opening any given volume of Goethe's works, is the amazing comprehensiveness of the author's mind. Every species of writing--verse and prose, German and foreign literature, philosophy, history, anecdotes, moral sentences, and aesthetic criticism, especially on poetry and the drama, even science and philology—that study which we generally regard as only fit for those who are fit for nothing else -all pass in turn before us; and on every one he has something to say that is original and beautiful. There is no kind of literature which Goethe has not cultivated. He has written songs, epic poems, elegies, dramas, besides novels, tales, epigrams, &c., and all his performances are master-pieces; and there is no science which did not, at least for some time, engage his attention. Germany is indebted to him, not only as a poet, but also as an eminent scholar and natural philosopher. This child of nature, for so he may be truly called, was almost as universal as nature herself. He not only led the ideal back to nature, but he raised nature to the ideal. His heroes are in the romantic point of view precisely what the gods of Grecian sculpture were in the classical-god-like men, man-like gods. He concentrated all his poetical powers in the representation of man, that is to say, the ideal of human greatness and beauty of mind, the highest and most mysterious of wonders. The outward world was to him throughout only the foil, the antithesis or simile for man. He opposes the moral force of mankind to the blind power of nature, in order to represent the former in its superior nobility, or struggling in its victorious vigor. 1842.] 595 STABAT MATER. [THE following grew out of an attempt to ascertain whether it was possible (to the author) to translate the original into a corresponding English measure, with any degree of closeness, combined with any preservation of the deeply impassioned spirit which burns through every line of the rude and barbarous old monkish Latin. It is well known by its title as one of the grandest of the magnificent hymns of the Catholic Ritual; and it will be remembered, that, so powerful was the impression which had been produced by it upon the mind of Sir Walter Scott, who had heard it in the midst of all its accessaries of kindred arts, in the visit which he made to Italy shortly before his death, that its opening words were the last distinct sounds heard from his lips, as he lay during the solemn process of the passing away of his own great spirit. The imperfection of the translation, which is for the most part very close, sometimes literal, will be readily pardoned by those who will essay the same attempt.] I. Broken-hearted, lo! and tearful, Deep and keen the steel has gone. II. How afflicted, how distressed, Stands she now, that Virgin Blessed, Of her child, the Only-Born! III. Who may see, nor share her weeping, I. Stabat Mater dolorosa Dum pendebat Filius; II. O quam tristis et afflicta Mater Unigeniti, Quæ merebat et dolebat III. Quis est homo qui non fleret, In tanto supplicio ? Who behold her bosom sharing IV. Ransom for a world's offending, That dear head to wounds and blows; 'Mid the body's laceration, And the spirit's desolation, As his life-blood darkly flows. V. Fount of love, in this dread hour, Bid me share its grievous load; VI. Be my prayer, O Mother, granted, VII. Every sigh of thy affliction- Quis non posset contristari, IV. Pro peccatis suæ gentis V. Eia, Mater, fons amoris, Fac ut tecum lugeam! VI. Sancta Mater, istud agas, Cordi meo validè ! Pœnas mecum divide ! VII. Fac me vere tecum flere, Teach me all their agony! At his cross forever bending, In thy grief forever blending, Mother, let me live and die. VIII. Virgin, of all virgins highest, IX. Bid me drink that heavenly madness, Mingled bliss of grief and gladness, Of the Cross of thy dear Son! With his love my soul inflaming, Plead for it, oh Virgin, claiming, Mercy at his judgment throne! X. Shelter at that Cross, oh, yield me, Joys of Paradise inherit, When its clay to rest is laid! For Ever and Ever! Amen! Donec ego vixero ! In planctu, desidero. VIII. Virgo, virginum præclara, Fac me tecum plangere ! Fac ut portem Christi mortem, IX. Fac me plagis vulnerari, Ob amorem Filii ! X. Fac me cruce custodiri, Amen! In Sempiterna! Amen! |