The minstrel
(Poet's title: Der Liedler)
Set by Schubert:
D 209
[January 1815]
Gib, Schwester, mir die Harf herab,
Gib mir Biret und Wanderstab,
Kann hier nicht fürder weilen!
Bin ahnenlos, bin nur ein Knecht,
Bin für die edle Maid zu schlecht,
Muss stracks von hinnen eilen.
Still Schwester, bist gottlob nun Braut,
Wirst morgen Wilhelm angetraut,
Soll mich nichts weiter halten!
Nun küsse mich, leb, Trude, wohl!
Dies Herze, schmerz- und liebevoll,
Lass Gott den Herrn bewalten.
Der Liedler zog durch manches Land,
Am alten Rhein- und Donaustrand,
Wohl über Berg und Flüsse.
Wie weit er flieht, wohin er zieht,
Er trägt den Wurm im Herzen mit
Und singt nur sie, die Süße.
Und er’s nicht länger tragen kann,
Tät sich mit Schwert und Panzer an,
Den Tod sich zu erstreiten,
Im Tod ist Ruh, im Grab ist Ruh,
Das Grab deckt Herz und Wünsche zu;
Ein Grab will er erreiten.
Der Tod ihn floh, und Ruh ihn floh!
Des Herzogs Panner flattert froh
Der Heimat Gruß entgegen,
Entgegen wallt, entgegen schallt
Der Freunde Gruß durch Saat und Wald,
Auf allen Weg und Stegen.
Da ward ihm unterm Panzer weh!
Im Frührot glüht’ der ferne Schnee
Der heimischen Gebirge;
Ihm war, als zög’s mit Hünenkraft
Dahin sein Herz, der Brust entrafft,
Als ob’s ihn hier erwürge.
Da konnt’ er’s fürder nicht bestehn:
“Muss meine Heimat wiedersehn,
Muss sie noch einmal schauen!”
Die mit der Minne Rosenhand
Sein Herz an jene Berge band,
Die herrlichen, die blauen!
Da warf er Wehr und Waffe weg,
Sein Rüstzeug weg ins Dorngeheg;
Die liederreichen Saiten,
Die Harfe nur, der Süßen Ruhm,
Sein Klagespsalm, sein Heiligtum,
Soll ihn zurück begleiten.
Und als der Winter trat in´s Land,
Der Frost im Lauf die Ströme band,
Betrat er seine Berge,
Da lag’s, ein Leichentuch von Eis,
Lag’s vorn und neben totenweiß,
Wie tausend Hünensärge,
Lag’s unter ihm, sein Muttertal,
Das gräflich Schloss im Abendstrahl,
Wo Milla drin geborgen.
Glück auf! der Alpe Pilgerruh
Winkt heute Ruh dir Ärmster zu,
Zur Feste, Liedler, morgen!
“Ich hab nicht Rast, ich hab nicht Ruh,
Muss heute noch der Feste zu,
Wo Milla drin geborgen.”
Bist starr, bist blass. “Bin totenkrank,
Heut ist noch mein! tot, Gott sei Dank,
Todt findt mich wohl der Morgen.”
Horch Maulgetrab, horch Schellenklang
Vom Schloss herab der Alp’ entlang,
Zog’s unter Fackelhelle.
Ein Ritter führt, ihm angetraut,
Führt Milla heim als seine Braut.
“Bist, Liedler, schon zur Stelle!”
Der Liedler schaut´ und sank in sich.
Da bricht und schnaubet wütiglich
Ein Werwolf durch’s Gehege,
Die Maule fliehn, kein Zaum sie zwingt,
Der Schecke stürzt. Weh! Milla sinkt
Ohnmächtig hin am Wege.
Da riss er sich, ein Blitz, empor,
Zum Hort der Heißgeminnten vor,
Hoch auf des Untiers Nacken
Schwang er sein teures Harfenspiel,
Dass es zersplittert niederfiel,
Und Nick und Rachen knacken.
Und wenn er stark wie Simson wär,
Erschöpft mag er und sonder Wehr
Den Grimmen nicht bestehen,
Vom Busen, vom zerfleischten Arm
Quillt’s Herzblut nieder, liebewarm,
Schier denkt er zu vergehen.
Ein Blick auf sie, und alle Kraft
Mit einmal er zusammenrafft,
Die noch verborgen schliefe!
Ringt um den Werwolf Arm und Hand
Und stürzt sich von der Felsenwand
Mit ihm in schwindle Tiefe!
Fahr, Liedler, fahr auf ewig wohl,
Dein Herze, schmerz- und liebevoll,
Hat Ruh im Grab gefunden,
Das Grab ist aller Pilger Ruh,
Das Grab deckt Herz und Wünsche zu,
Macht alles Leids gesunden.
Take the harp down for me, sister,
Give me my hat and walking stick
I cannot stay here any longer!
I have no ancestors, I am just a common lad,
I am not good enough for the noble maid,
I have to hurry away from here immediately.
“Quiet, sister, thank God you are now a bride,
You are going to be married to Wilhelm tomorrow,
You can no longer hold on to me.
Now kiss me, fare, Trude, well!
This heart, full of pain and love,
Let the Lord God protect it.”
The minstrel passed through many a land
By the banks of the old Rhine and the Danube,
Crossing over mountains and rivers.
However far he flees, wherever he goes,
He carries the worm with him in his heart
And sings only about her, the sweet one.
And when he could not bear it any longer
He put on a shield and armour,
In order to go into battle with death.
In death there is calm, in the grave there is rest,
The grave covers up heart and desires;
He is determined to ride towards a grave.
Death fled from him and rest fled from him!
The Duke’s banner flutters merrily,
Offering a greeting from home,
Surging and resounding back and forth
Came the greetings of friends across sowed fields and through the woods
Along all the roads and footpaths.
Then the armour began to hurt him!
In the early red of dawn the distant snow glowed
On the hills of his homeland;
He felt as if a titanic power were pulling at
His heart, tugging at his breast,
As if he were being strangled here.
Then he could resist no longer:
“I have to see my homeland again,
I have to see her once more!”
The rosy hand of love
Bound his heart to those mountains,
Those majestic, blue mountains!
Then he threw away his shield and weapon,
He threw his equipment into the thorny hedge;
The song-rich strings of
His harp alone, praise for his sweetheart,
His lamenting psalm, his shrine,
Would be all that remained behind.
And when winter entered into the land
And frost stopped the streams in their course
He stepped into his mountains.
There it lay, a shroud of ice,
All around it lay white as death,
Like a thousand Titanic coffins!
Within it lay his maternal valley,
The Duke’s castle in the evening light
Sheltering Milla within it.
Good luck. The Alpine pilgrims’ lodge
Beckons and offers rest to the poor traveller today:
In the morning, minstrel, off to the stronghold!
I cannot rest, I am not at peace,
I really have to go today to the castle
Where Milla is being sheltered.
“You are stiff, you are pale!” I am mortally ill,
But today is still mine! Death, thank God,
Death will easily find me tomorrow.
Listen to the trotting of mules, listen to the sound of bells
Coming down from the castle along the mountainside
They are processing by the light of torches.
A knight is leading his betrothed,
He is leading Milla as his bride
And you, minstrel, are already in attendance!
The minstrel watched and sank into himself.
Then bursting and snorting furiously
A werewolf broke through the hedge,
The mules fled, nothing could stop them.
The pony fell. Oh no! Milla sinks
Unconscious onto the roadway.
Then he rose up like lightning
To protect the one he loved so warmly,
High up into the beast’s neck
He hurled his dear harp
With such strength that it was shattered when it fell back down
And the jaws and throat were crushed.
And even if he had been as strong as Samson
He would have been exhausted and without any weapon
He could not have resisted the raging beast.
From his breast, from his arm with flesh torn off
His heart’s blood poured, with the warmth of love,
He really thought he was about to die.
One look at her, and all his strength
Was called back up, he called on the strength
That had been sleeping, hidden away!
He wrestled with the werewolf, with his arms and hands around it,
And then fell off the cliff
With it into the dizzying depths.
Farewell, minstrel, farewell for ever!
Your heart, full of pain and love
Has found rest in the grave!
The grave is the repose of all pilgrims,
The grave covers up heart and desires,
It provides a cure for all suffering.
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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Themes and images in this text:
Abysses, clefts and crevasses Arms and embracing Bards and minstrels Bells Blood Blue Brothers and sisters Castles and towers Chest / breast Covers and covering Evening and the setting sun Farewell and leave taking Fields and meadows Fighting and wrestling Flags Frost and ice Graves and burials Hands Harps and Aeolian harps Heat Hearts Hedges Hills and mountains Home (Heimat) Horses Husband and wife Kissing Knights Laments, elegies and mourning Morning and morning songs Mother and child Mountains and cliffs Named rivers Paths Pilgrims and pilgrimage Red and purple Rivers (Fluß) Roses and pink Shrouds Snow Songs (general) Sounds Sweetness Swords and daggers Throats Thunder and lightning Torches Valleys Walking and wandering Walking sticks (Wanderstab) War, battles and fighting White Winter Woods – large woods and forests (Wald) Wounds
There are two distinct farewells in this ballad: ‘Lebewohl’ (lit: ‘live well’) and ‘Fahrwohl’ (lit: ‘travel well’). Both are marked as significant by the poet by means of embedding the addressee in the middle of the word. As the minstrel sets off on his journey he says farewell to his sister (‘fare, Trude, well!’) and at the end of the story the narrator bids farewell to the minstrel as he dies (‘fare, minstrel, fare for ever well!’). The unusual word order draws our attention to the two forms of the word ‘farewell’: the sister that is being left behind is told to ‘live well’ (Lebewohl) but when the minstrel’s travels are over (after he falls to a grisly death), and we all bid him adieu, he is told to ‘travel’ well (Fahrwohl).
In the course of the ballad we learn the names of the minstrel’s sister and her betrothed (Trude and Wilhelm) and of the noble lady he is in love with (Milla), but not that of the knight who marries her, nor, more significantly, the name of the protagonist himself. He is simply called a songster (though we never really hear an example of his singing). Similarly, we are told specifically where he goes when he has to leave home (up and down the Rhine and the Danube) but we are not told the name of the all-important native valley that he is trying so unsuccessfully to escape from. Since Joseph Kenner, the 19 year old author of the poem, was brought up in Kremsmünster, not far from the foot of the Styrian Alps, we can hazard a guess that he envisioned an Alpine valley somewhere in or near the Tauern mountain range.
It was the sight of these ‘blue remembered hills’ after a great deal of travelling as both a minstrel and a soldier (presumably as a mercenary) that lured him back. He must have been still on the plain (somewhere near Kremsmünster?) when he saw the snow topped mountains glistening in the red light of dawn and seemed to hear the call of friends across the intervening fields and woods. As he ascended higher the landscape changed colour: the mountains were no longer red but blue, and the valley was a dazzling white. This bleak expanse, where even the rivers have frozen solid, is his homeland, his Heimat. It is a land where he has known only loss and rejection; he has tried to break away but in his absence its power has grown in him. This is the experience of many an exile or ex-pat, who is driven from home for valid reasons but who begins to feel an increasing affection for the world that was once rejected.
For people like this, going home is never really possible. What has been built up as home in the memory and in expectation is not objectively there. When he reaches the land that glowed in the sunlight it is just ‘deathly white’, ‘a shroud of ice’. Although part of him has always known that Milla could never be his (the social gulf was too great, particularly in the feudal context of a valley society), when he is faced with the reality of his loss (on seeing the grim, torch-lit bridal procession) the shock precipitates an alarming series of events.
On the basic narrative level, the werewolf comes out of nowhere. He bursts through a hedge at the very moment that the minstrel realises that Milla is now lost to him forever. However, it does not take much effort in terms of symbolic or psychological reading to realise that what actually happens is that the beast within him is unleashed at that moment. In battling his inner beast he has to sacrifice his art (he throws his harp into the wolf’s jaws to stop it biting Milla) and ultimately his life (the minstrel and the wolf fall together into the abyss, rather like Holmes and his alter-ego Moriarty). How did all of this appear to Milla on her honeymoon journey? Her pony gave a start and she fell off. Did she see that her former minstrel had got in its way? Was she aware of a harp being shattered? Was there a howl or a thud when someone fell over the edge? What did the bridegroom make of the disturbance? All of these questions, though, return us to the rather humdrum level of the chronicler; what matters, essentially, is that the ballad takes the point of view of the minstrel himself. For him, a terrifying beast appeared out of nowhere. He had to rise to the challenge and protect his beloved. In wrestling a ravening wolf he was taking on all of the hurt of his life of disappointment and frustration. He has now arrived home, a home where he truly belongs. The grave covers up the heart and desires, so his pain is now healed. He is faring well.
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Original Spelling and notes on the text Der Liedler "Gib, Schwester, mir die Harf' herab, Gib mir Biret und Wanderstab, Kann hier nicht fürder weilen! Bin ahnenlos, bin nur ein Knecht, Bin für die edle Maid zu schlecht, Muß stracks von hinnen eilen! "Still, Schwester, bist Gottlob! nun Braut, Wirst morgen Wilhelm angetraut, Soll mich nichts weiter halten! Nun küsse mich, leb, Trude, wohl! Dies Herze, schmerz- und liebevoll, Laß Gott den Herrn bewalten!" - Der Liedler zog durch manches Land, Am alten Rhein- und Donaustrand, Wohl über Berg´ und Flüsse! Wie weit er flieht, wohin er zieht, Er trägt den Wurm im Herzen mit, Und singt nur sie, die Süße! Und er's nicht länger tragen kann! Thät sich mit Schwert und Panzer an, Den Tod sich zu erstreiten: Im Tod ist Ruh! im Grab ist Ruh´! Das Grab deckt Herz und Wünsche zu; Ein Grab will er erreiten! - Der Tod ihn floh, und Ruh ihn floh; Des Herzogs Panner flattert froh Der Heimath Gruß entgegen; Entgegen wallt, entgegen schallt Der Freunde Gruß durch Saat und Wald, Auf allen Weg' und Stegen. Da ward ihm unterm Panzer weh, Im Frühroth glüht der ferne Schnee Der heimischen Gebirge; Ihm war, als zög's mit Hünenkraft Dahin sein Herz, der Brust entrafft, Als ob's ihn hier erwürge! Da konnt er's fürder nicht besteh´n! "Muß meine Heimath wiederseh´n, Muß Sie noch einmal schauen!" Die mit der Minne Rosenhand Sein Herz an jene Berge band, Die herrlichen, die blauen! Da warf er Wehr und Waffe weg, Sein Rüstzeug weg ins Dorngeheg´, Die liederreichen Saiten, Die Harfe nur, der Süßen Ruhm, Sein Klagespsalm, sein Heiligthum, Soll ihn zurück begleiten. Und als der Winter trat in´s Land, Der Frost im Lauf die Ströme band, Betrat er seine Berge; Da lag's, ein Leichentuch von Eis, Lag's vorn´ und neben todtenweiß, Wie tausend Hünen-Särge! Lag's unter ihm, sein Mutterthal, Das gräflich Schloß im Abendstrahl, Wo Milla1 d´rinn geborgen! Glück auf, der Alpe Pilgerruh Winkt heute Ruh dir Ärmster zu, Zur Veste, Liedler morgen! "Ich hab nicht Rast, ich hab nicht Ruh, Muß heute noch der Feste zu, Wo Milla d´rinn geborgen! Bist starr, bist blaß! "Bin todtenkrank, Heut ist noch mein! Todt, Gott sey Dank, Todt find't mich wohl der Morgen!" Horch Maulgetrab´, horch Schellenklang Vom Schloß herab, der Alp' entlang Zog's unter Fackelhelle; Ein Ritter führt, ihm angetraut, Führt Milla heim als seine Braut: Bist Liedler schon zur Stelle! Der Liedler schaut´ und sank in sich; Da bricht und schnaubet wüthiglich Ein Wehrwolf durchs Gehäge, Die Maule flieh´n, kein Zaum sie zwingt, Der Schecke stürzt, weh! Milla sinkt Ohnmächtig hin am Wege. - Da riß er sich, ein Blitz, empor Zum Hort der Heißgeminnten vor! Hoch auf des Unthiers Nacken Schwang er sein theures Harfenspiel, Daß es zersplittert niederfiel, Und Nick und Rachen knacken. Und wenn er stark wie Simson wär, Erschöpft mag er und sonder Wehr Den Grimmen nicht bestehen! Vom Busen, vom zerfleischten Arm, Quillt's Herzblut nieder, liebewarm, Schier denkt er zu vergehen. Ein Blick auf Sie! und alle Kraft Mit einmahl er zusammenrafft, Die noch verborgen schliefe, Ringt um den Wehrwolf Arm und Hand, Und stürzt sich von der Felsenwand Mit ihm in schwindle Tiefe. - Fahr, Liedler, fahr auf ewig wohl! Dein Herze schmerz- und liebevoll Hat Ruh im Grab gefunden! Das Grab ist aller Pilger Ruh, Das Grab deckt Herz und Wünsche zu2, Macht alles Leids gesunden! 1 Schubert changed ´Die Süße´(his sweet one) to ´Wo Milla´(Where Milla). 2 Schubert changed this line, which the poet wrote as ´Das Grab deckt alle Wunden zu´ (The grave covers up all wounds).
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Selam. Ein Almanach für Freunde des Mannigfaltigen, Herausgegeben von I.F.Castelli, Vierter Jahrgang 1815, Wien, gedruckt und im Verlage bey Anton Strauß, pages 42-46.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 42 [82 von 440] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ255496908