Der Hochzeitsbraten, D 930

The roast for the wedding

(Poet's title: Der Hochzeitsbraten)

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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"Fines, destitution, imprisonment, and even execution might be the result of poaching. An infamous case of uneven justice from the early nineteenth century involved Britain's Lord Palmerstone, who once defended a disgruntled veteran that had shot and wounded him in a botched assassination attempt. Four years later, this part-time humanitarian did not offer any aid to a second man who was convicted and hanged for poaching on one of his estates. It was one thing to shoot Lord Palmerstone, but apparently it was a much more serious matter to shoot his game."

Roger Pauly, Firearms. The Life Story of a Technology Greenwood Press 2004 p. 63

Therese was therefore right to warn Theobald about the consequences if they were caught catching hares and rabbits. Although hanging might not have been quite as common a punishment for this in the German-speaking lands as it was in England, it definitely happened. From the time of the Peasants’ War of 1525 onwards there had been tension between the old tradition of everyone having free access to the resources of ‘common land’ (including the woods and forests) and the growing power of landlords, who treated such behaviour as common theft. By the early 19th century the tensions had intensified. The new interest in folk tales (the Grimm brothers started publishing their versions in 1812) reinforced the idea that the fauna and flora of the forest were beyond the limits of ‘civilisation’ and therefore unavailable for private possession, yet at the same time aristocrats were doing more and more to assert their claims. They were employing more gamekeepers to deter poaching. All over Europe, increasing numbers of poachers were being punished. In Wiltshire, a small area of southern England, for example,

the average number of game committals tripled in each decade between 1760 and 1790. Following a pause during the Napoleonic Wars – when the authorities had other places to which they could send poachers – the number of game offenders in prison again began to increase. Where the annual average between 1790 and 1815 had been twelve, in the five years following the battle of Waterloo it was fifty-eight. In the 1820s, it rose even further, to an average of eighty-nine committals per year.

P. B. Munsche, Gentlemen and Poachers. The English Game Laws 1671 – 1831 Cambridge University Press 1981 p. 101
 

This is the context in which we have to understand the bargaining between Kaspar the gamekeeper and Theobald and Therese. If the bride and groom were so desperate that they had to go into the woods to find a hare to serve as the main dish at their wedding breakfast, we have to accept that they would not have had shiny new coins (talers = dollars!) to use as a bribe when it became clear that a newly stitched bag and a bottle of fruit wine would not be enough. Therese was clearly offering two different untouched round things in payment.

This might be a clue as to the physical characteristics of the soprano who first took the role. Graham Johnson also suggests that there is a reference in the text to the remarkable height of the tenor who played Theobald, since Kaspar calls him a ‘son of Anak’ (i.e. a giant, “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” Numbers 13:33 KJV).

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See also: William Savage, Poachers in the 18th century: https://penandpension.com/2018/10/10/poachers-in-the-18th-century/

and:

Abstract:

Studies of poaching in the nineteenth century have tended to understate the involvement of women in this archetypal rural crime. This article will suggest that female offending was both more significant and more widespread than previously assumed, but it will also highlight how in a variety of complex ways dominant conceptions of gender shaped perceptions of female poachers and often influenced their treatment before the courts. It will argue that alongside more widely effectual assumptions about appropriate male and female spheres and behaviours, the response of the authorities to female poachers was also shaped by powerful and increasingly culturally embedded notions about the sexually exclusive nature of hunting.

Harvey Osborne, ‘Unwomanly practices’: Poaching Crime, Gender and the Female Offender in Nineteenth-Century Britain (2016) in Rural History. Economy, Society, Culture Cambridge University Press

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Original Spelling

Der Hochzeitsbraten

Therese:
 Ach liebes Herz, ach Theobald,
 Laß dir nur diesmal raten,
 Ich bitt' dich, geh' nicht in den Wald,
 Wir brauchen keinen Braten.

Theobald:
 Der Stein ist scharf, ich fehle nicht,
 Den Hasen muß ich haben.
 Der Kerl muß uns als Hauptgericht
 Beim Hochzeitschmause laben.

Therese:
 Ich bitt' dich, Schatz'.

Theobald:
 Ich geh' allein.

Therese:
 Sie hängen dich!

Theobald:
 Was fällt dir ein!

Therese:
 Allein kann ich nicht bleiben.

Theobald:
 Nun gut, so magst du treiben.

Therese:
 Wo steckt er denn?

Theobald:
 Hier ist der Ort.

Therese:
 Gsch, gsch! Prr, prr!

Theobald:
 Jetzt treibe dort.
 Jetzt hier im Kraut.
 Jetzt im Gebüsch.
 Nur nicht so laut!

Therese:
 Nur immer frisch!

Kaspar:
 Horch! horch! horch! horch!

Theobald:
 Nur still, nur still!

Kaspar:
 Potz Blitz, was soll das sein?
 Ich glaub', sie jagen.
 Da schlag' der Hagel drein!

Theobald:
 Still! still!

Therese:
 Nur aufgepaßt!

Kaspar:
 Potz Blitz!

Theobald:
 Da sprach ja wer?

Therese:
 Was du nicht sagst!
 Gsch, gsch! Prr, prr!

Kaspar:
 Der kommt nicht aus,
 Den sperr' ich ein.

Theobald:
 Es wird der Wind gewesen sein.

Therese:
 O Lust, ein Jägersmann zu sein!
 Gsch, gsch! Prr, prr!
 Ein Has', ein Has'!

Theobald:
 Da liegt er schon!

Kaspar:
 Nun wart', Halunk, dich trifft dein Lohn!

Theobald:
 Welch Meisterschuß,
 Grad' in die Brust.

Kaspar:
 Du Galgenstrick, du Enakssohn,
 Du Haupthalunk', dich trifft dein Lohn!

Therese:
 O sieh! den feisten, feisten Rücken,
 Den will ich trefflich spicken.

Therese, Theobald:
 O Lust, o Lust,
 O süße Jägerlust.

Kaspar:
 Halt Diebsgepack! halt! halt!

Therese, Theobald:
 Nun ist es aus.

Kaspar:
 Den Hasen gebt, die Büchs' heraus.

Theobald:
 Ich muß...

Kaspar:
 ...in's Loch!

Therese:
 Ich will, ich will...

Kaspar:
 ...in's Arbeitshaus!

Therese, Theobald:
 O weh! o weh!
 Mit uns ist's aus.

Kaspar:
 Ich treib' euch schon das Stehlen aus.

Therese, Theobald:
 Herr Jäger, seid doch nicht von Stein,
 Die Hochzeit sollte morgen sein.

Kaspar:
 Was kümmert's mich!

Theobald:
 Mit Most will ich Euch reich verseh'n.

Therese:
 Und ich, ich strick' Euch einen Beutel.

Therese, Theobald:
 O hört, o hört!

Kaspar:
 Das Mädchen ist verzweifelt schön,
 Nein, nein, 's ist alles eitel.

Therese, Theobald:
 Und dieser Thaler weiß und blank,
 Laßt ihr uns geh'n,
 Sei Euer Dank,
 O hört, o hört!
 Ach! statt den Hasenrücken
 Muß ich/sie den Jäger spicken.

Kaspar:
 Sie ist doch zum Entzücken,
 Ich muß ein Aug' zudrücken.
 Nun wohl, weil ernstlich ihr bereut,
 Und 's erstemal im Forste seid,
 Mag Gnad' für Recht heut' walten,
 Ihr möget Hochzeit halten.

Theobald:
 O tausend Dank!

Therese:
 O lieber Herr!

Therese, Theobald:
 Gebt uns zur Hochzeit doch die Ehr'!

Kaspar:
 Es sei, ich komme morgen,
 Für 'n Braten will ich sorgen.

Alle:
 Lebt wohl, lebt wohl bis morgen.

Therese, Theobald:
 Das Herz ist frei von seiner Last,
 Wir haben Hochzeit und 'nen Gast,
 Und obendrein den Braten,
 So sind wir gut beraten;
 La la la la la.

Kaspar:
 Hol' euch der Fuchs, ich wäre fast
 Der Bräut'gam lieber als der Gast,
 Sie ist kein schlechter Braten,
 Der Kerl ist gut beraten;
 La la la la la.