Bootgesang, D 835

Boat song

(Poet's title: Bootgesang)

Part of  Sieben Gesänge aus Walter Scott’s Fräulein vom See 

All translations into English that appear on this website, unless otherwise stated, are by Malcolm Wren. You are free to use them on condition that you acknowledge Malcolm Wren as the translator and schubertsong.uk as the source. Unless otherwise stated, the comments and essays that appear after the texts and translations are by Malcolm Wren and are © Copyright.

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Canto II of ‘The Lady of the Lake’ is called ‘The Island’ and it recounts how the clan chief Roderigh Dhu crossed the waters of Lake Katrine in order to form an alliance with Douglas against his enemy, the king of Scotland. His plan involved taking Douglas’s daugher Ellen (already betrothed to Malcolm Graeme) as his bride.

Ellen Douglas is in conversation with the minstrel Allan Bane when he begins to hear the ‘pibroch’ (the music of the pipes) approaching:

     'Yet, by my minstrel faith, I heard—
     And hark again! some pipe of war
     Sends the hold pibroch from afar.'

     XVI.

     Far up the lengthened lake were spied
     Four darkening specks upon the tide,
     That, slow enlarging on the view,
     Four manned and massed barges grew,
     And, bearing downwards from Glengyle,
     Steered full upon the lonely isle;
     The point of Brianchoil they passed,
     And, to the windward as they cast,
     Against the sun they gave to shine
     The bold Sir Roderick's bannered Pine.
     Nearer and nearer as they bear,
     Spears, pikes, and axes flash in air.
     Now might you see the tartars brave,
     And plaids and plumage dance and wave:
     Now see the bonnets sink and rise,
     As his tough oar the rower plies;
     See, flashing at each sturdy stroke,
     The wave ascending into smoke;
     See the proud pipers on the bow,
     And mark the gaudy streamers flow
     From their loud chanters down, and sweep
     The furrowed bosom of the deep,
     As, rushing through the lake amain,
     They plied the ancient Highland strain.

     XVII.

     Ever, as on they bore, more loud
     And louder rung the pibroch proud.
     At first the sounds, by distance tame,
     Mellowed along the waters came,
     And, lingering long by cape and bay,
     Wailed every harsher note away,
     Then bursting bolder on the ear,
     The clan's shrill Gathering they could hear,
     Those thrilling sounds that call the might
     Of old Clan-Alpine to the fight.
     Thick beat the rapid notes, as when
     The mustering hundreds shake the glen,
     And hurrying at the signal dread,
     'Fine battered earth returns their tread.
     Then prelude light, of livelier tone,
     Expressed their merry marching on,
     Ere peal of closing battle rose,
     With mingled outcry, shrieks, and blows;
     And mimic din of stroke and ward,
     As broadsword upon target jarred;
     And groaning pause, ere yet again,
     Condensed, the battle yelled amain:
     The rapid charge, the rallying shout,
     Retreat borne headlong into rout,
     And bursts of triumph, to declare
     Clan-Alpine's congest—all were there.
     Nor ended thus the strain, but slow
     Sunk in a moan prolonged and low,
     And changed the conquering clarion swell
     For wild lament o'er those that fell.

      XVIII.

     The war-pipes ceased, but lake and hill
     Were busy with their echoes still;
     And, when they slept, a vocal strain
     Bade their hoarse chorus wake again,
     While loud a hundred clansmen raise
     Their voices in their Chieftain's praise.
     Each boatman, bending to his oar,
     With measured sweep the burden bore,
     In such wild cadence as the breeze
     Makes through December's leafless trees.
     The chorus first could Allan know,
     'Roderick Vich Alpine, ho! fro!'
     And near, and nearer as they rowed,
     Distinct the martial ditty flowed.

     XIX.

     Boat Song

     Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
          Honored and blessed be the ever-green Pine!
     Long may the tree, in his banner that glances,
          Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line!
               Heaven send it happy dew,
               Earth lend it sap anew,
          Gayly to bourgeon and broadly to grow,
               While every Highland glen
               Sends our shout back again,
          'Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

     Ours is no sapling, chance-sown by the fountain,
          Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade;
     When the whirlwind has stripped every leaf on the mountain,
          The more shall Clan-Alpine exult in her shade.
               Moored in the rifted rock,
               Proof to the tempest's shock,
          Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow;
               Menteith and Breadalbane, then,
               Echo his praise again,
          'Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

     XX.

     Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,
          And Bannochar's groans to our slogan replied;
     Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin,
          And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on her side.
               Widow and Saxon maid
               Long shall lament our raid,
          Think of Clan-Alpine with fear and with woe;
               Lennox and Leven-glen
               Shake when they hear again,
     'Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

     Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Highlands!
          Stretch to your oars for the ever-green Pine!
     O that the rosebud that graces yon islands
          Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine!
               O that some seedling gem,
               Worthy such noble stem,
          Honored and blessed in their shadow might grow!
               Loud should Clan-Alpine then
               Ring from her deepmost glen,
          Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!'

The context establishes this as both a ‘boat song’ (a barcarolle) and a ‘martial ditty’. It is both a salute to the Chief (the sturdy Pine tree in whose shade the Clan is protected) and a raiding song. On this occasion the raid is not into Lowland territory to take cattle, but on an island to claim a bride. Ellen is the rosebud who is expected to twine herself around the trunk of the great tree and then produce a ‘seedling’ who will inherit their qualities.

We have to remember that so many features of this story were novel for Scott’s first readers in 1810. The remote setting of an island in a Loch (lake) in the Trossachs, and the image of a mighty Clan (wearing ‘plaids and bonnets’) hailing their Chief (symbolised by a Scots Pine) to the strains of the bagpipes were not clichés of Scottishness at the time. After the defeat of the Highlanders by the Hanoverian monarchy in the rising of 1745-6 the martial associations of the clans were outlawed: no pipes, no kilts, no tartans. For most of Walter Scott’s first readers, particularly in England and the rest of Europe in the early 19th century, Scotland was associated more with the figures of the Lowland Enlightenment (David Hume, Adam Smith, James Watt etc.). In the 1790’s the poems of Robert Burns became wildly popular, but this again embodied Lowland rather than Highland culture. It was Scott himself who was primarily responsible for creating the hackneyed image of the Highlands (including through his arrangements for the visit of of King George IV to Scotland in 1822).[1] It was The Lady of the Lake itself which did more than anything to associate the Highland Clans with the Romantic movement. Rossini’s setting of the story as ‘La donna del lago‘ (written for Naples in 1819) became enormously successful. Indeed, it is almost certainly the popularity of the opera in Vienna after 1822 that led to Schubert’s interest in the poem.

Schubert could not have known that this ‘Boat Song’ had already been set to music in the United States by James Sanderson (in around 1812) and that it would be this version of ‘Hail to the Chief’ that would eventually become the official salute to the most powerful person on earth.

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[1] Hugh Trevor Roper, The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland in Eric Hobsbawm, Terence Ranger ed., The Invention of Tradition CUP 1983 pp.

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Original Spelling

Bootgesang

Triumph, er naht, Heil, Heil dem Helden,
Stets grünende Fichte, gesegnet sey du!
Lang, lang blüh in seinem hellschimmernden Banner
O Baum, du Schutz und Schmuck unsers Stamms!
Tränk ihn, Himmel, mit deinem Thau,
Spend ihm, Erde, neuen Saft,
Daß freudig er knosp', und weit sich verbreite!
Und jedes Hochlands Thal
Schalle jauchzend zurück:
Es lebe Sir Roderick, Clan-Alpines Held!
 
Es ist kein Pflänzchen, das sprießet an Quellen, 
Zu Beltane blüht und im Winter verwelkt.  
Wenn der Sturm verweht hat das Laub vom Gebirge,  
In seinem Schatten Clan-Alpine jauchzt.  
Geankert fest im harten Fels,  
Sturm stürzt umsonst daran,  
Fester gewurzelt, je heft'ger der Wind stößt.  
Menteith und Breadalbane
Hallen sein Lob zurück:  
Es lebe Sir Roderick, Clan-Alpines Held!
 
Stolz hat der Pibroch getönt in Glenfruin,
Banochars Stöhnen dem Slogan wiederhallt,
Glen-Luss und Ross-Dhu, sie dampfen in Trümmern
Und Loch-Lommonds Helden, es traf sie das Schwert.
Die Jungfrau des Sachsenvolks,
Die Wittwe, sie jammern laut,
Sie denken mit Furcht und mit Weh an Clan-Alpine;
Lenox und Levenglen
Beben, wenn's laut erschallt:
Es lebe Sir Roderick, Clan-Alpines Held!
 
Schlaget die Fluth für den Stolz der Hochlande!  
Rudert mit Macht für den immergrünen Baum!  
O wenn die Rose, die dort auf der Insel  
Blühet, sich schläng' ihm zum duftenden Kranz!  
O wenn ein edles Reiß,  
Würdig solch edlen Stamms
Freudig in seinem Schatten möcht' wachsen!
Laut würde Clan-Alpine
Rufen aus tiefster Schlucht:  
Es lebe Sir Roderick, Clan-Alpines Held!

Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Das Fräulein vom See. Ein Gedicht in sechs Gesängen von Walter Scott. Aus dem Englischen, und mit einer historischen Einleitung und Anmerkungen von D. Adam Storck, weiland Professor in Bremen. Zweite, vom Uebersetzer selbst noch verbesserte Auflage. Essen, bei G. D. Bädeker. 1823, pages 63-65; and with Das Fräulein vom See. Ein Gedicht in sechs Gesängen von Walter Scott. Aus dem Englischen, und mit einer historischen Einleitung und Anmerkungen von D. Adam Storck, Professor in Bremen. Essen, bei G. D. Bädeker. 1819, pages 67-69.

To see an early edition of the text, go to page 63 here: https://books.google.at/books?id=p0YRAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=de&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

For the full text of The Lady of the Lake: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3011/3011-h/3011-h.htm or https://archive.org/details/ladyoflake00scot3/page/n3/mode/2up