The fisherman
(Poet's title: Der Fischer)
Set by Schubert:
D 225
[July 5, 1815]
Part of Goethe: The April 1816 collection sent to Goethe
Das Wasser rauscht’, das Wasser schwoll,
Ein Fischer saß daran,
Sah nach dem Angel ruhevoll,
Kühl bis ans Herz hinan.
Und wie er sitzt, und wie er lauscht,
Theilt sich die Flut empor.
Aus dem bewegten Wasser rauscht
Ein feuchtes Weib hervor.
Sie sang zu ihm, sie sprach zu ihm:
Was lockst du meine Brut
Mit Menschenwitz und Menschenlist
Hinauf in Todesglut?
Ach, wüsstest du, wie’s Fischlein ist
So wohlig auf dem Grund,
Du stiegst herunter, wie du bist,
Und würdest erst gesund.
Labt sich die liebe Sonne nicht,
Der Mond sich nicht im Meer?
Kehrt wellenatmend ihr Gesicht
Nicht doppelt schöner her?
Lockt dich der tiefe Himmel nicht?
Das feuchtverklärte Blau?
Lockt dich dein eigen Angesicht
Nicht her in ew’gen Tau?
Das Wasser rauscht’, das Wasser schwoll,
Netzt’ ihm den nackten Fuß;
Sein Herz wuchs ihm so sehnsuchtsvoll
Wie bei der Liebsten Gruß.
Sie sprach zu ihm, sie sang zu ihm;
Da war’s um ihn geschehn:
Halb zog sie ihn, halb sank er hin,
Und ward nicht mehr gesehn.
The water roared, the water swelled up,
A fisherman was sitting by it,
Watching his fishing rod calmly,
Keeping cool even down to the heart.
And as he sits and as he listens,
The floods rise up and divide:
Out of the perturbed water there surges
Forth a damp woman.
She sang to him, she spoke to him:
“Why are you tricking my brood
With human teasing and human cunning,
Luring them up into the deadly glow?
Oh if only you knew what it was like to be a little fish
So happy on the sea bed,
You would climb down, just as you are,
And that would heal you once and for all.
Does not the dear sun refresh itself
In the sea, the moon too?
Do not their faces, breathing the waves,
Appear doubly beautiful when reflected?
Does not the deep heaven attract you,
With its blue transfigured by water?
Are you not attracted by your own face
Here into the eternal dew?”
The water roared, the water swelled up,
Wetting his naked foot;
His heart grew so full of yearning,
As if greeted by his beloved.
She spoke to him, she sang to him;
Then he had had it;
She half pulled him, he half sank down,
And he was never seen again.
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:
Blue By water – beaches and general By water – river banks Dew Eternity Faces Feet Fish and fishing Floods and tides Hearts Heaven, the sky High, low and deep Listening Lorelei, water nymphs, mermaids etc Mirrors and reflections Night and the moon Pulling and dragging The sea Songs (general) Surface of the water The sun Surging Under the water, sinking and drowning Waves – Welle
Although the watery woman (a mermaid?) refers to the sun and the moon bathing in the sea, she might equally be a river nymph or a Lorelei and the setting might be inland. It all depends on how we envisage the angler sitting by the water. Was he on a river bank or on a boat (or even sitting on some sort of pier or jetty)? Why was he barefoot? The creature of the depths (undine, vilja or rusalka in some traditions) refers to the fish as her ‘brood’, and how happy they are in the depths (‘auf dem Grund’, lit. ‘on the ground’ or ‘on the bottom’, which could refer to a river bed or the sea bed, but it is not really possible to translate the phrase into English as ‘on the bed’!).
The fisherman has been by the water long enough to ‘enter the zone’. He has entered into the type of hypnotic calm that angling is famous for, summed up here as ‘keeping cool down to the heart’. He is so focused on the state of the water, the currents, the atmosphere and the tension in the line that he has become paradoxically detached from his normal reality. One way of putting this is to say that he has entered a state of yogic detachment which allows him to open up to other dimensions of experience. He hears the song of the water itself.
This is why the nymph sings and speaks ‘to him’; it is only he who is open to her voice. Any passers-by would say that he was ‘hearing things’. She complains about his human trickery and the mortal danger of the ‘glow’ that dooms the fish he drags up above the surface (at a time before an understanding of oxygen and its role in respiration, the death of fish out of the water must have been attributed to their exposure to light). She invites him to contemplate the happiness he is missing in the underwater world.
Stanza three is a masterpiece of rhetoric; it is all about looking down into the water at bodies above the surface. The key phrase is ‘der tiefe Himmel’ (the deep sky). The sun and moon appear on the surface of the water and we are invited to think of them as bathing, refreshing themselves, and as breathing in the waves. This image evokes the undulations which mean that the ‘heavenly’ bodies (static and fixed when looked at directly in the sky) become more like truly living ‘bodies’ (they appear to breathe in and out regularly as the waves ripple). Even the background blue of the sky is ‘transfigured’ when observed on and in the water. Why then should our own face and body not be transformed when reflected in the primeval ooze (the ‘eternal dew’)?
And so she has caught him. The specialist in tricks and deceptions has been tricked by visual illusions and rhetorical trickery.
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Original Spelling Der Fischer Das Wasser rauscht', das Wasser schwoll, Ein Fischer saß daran, Sah nach dem Angel ruhevoll, Kühl bis ans Herz hinan. Und wie er sitzt und wie er lauscht, Theilt sich die Fluth empor; Aus dem bewegten Wasser rauscht Ein feuchtes Weib hervor. Sie sang zu ihm, sie sprach zu ihm: Was lockst du meine Brut Mit Menschenwitz und Menschenlist Hinauf in Todesgluth? Ach wüßtest du, wie's Fischlein ist So wohlig auf dem Grund, Du stiegst herunter wie du bist Und würdest erst gesund. Labt sich die liebe Sonne nicht, Der Mond sich nicht im Meer? Kehrt wellenathmend ihr Gesicht Nicht doppelt schöner her? Lockt dich der tiefe Himmel nicht, Das feuchtverklärte Blau? Lockt dich dein eigen Angesicht Nicht her in ew'gen Thau? Das Wasser rauscht', das Wasser schwoll, Netzt' ihm den nackten Fuß; Sein Herz wuchs ihm so sehnsuchtsvoll Wie bei der Liebsten Gruß. Sie sprach zu ihm, sie sang zu ihm; Da war's um ihn geschehn: Halb zog sie ihn, halb sank er hin, Und ward nicht mehr gesehn.
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Goethe’s sämmtliche Schriften. Siebenter Band. / Gedichte von Goethe. Erster Theil. Lyrische Gedichte. Wien, 1810. Verlegt bey Anton Strauß. In Commission bey Geistinger, page 279-280; with Goethe’s Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, Erster Band, Stuttgart und Tübingen, in der J.G.Cottaschen Buchhandlung, 1827, pages 185-186; and with Johann Gottfried Herder’s Volkslieder. Nebst untermischten andern Stücken. Zweyter Theil. Leipzig, in der Weygandschen Buchhandlung, 1779, pages 3-4.
First published in Volks- und andere Lieder, mit Begleitung des Forte piano, In Musik gesetzt von Siegmund Freyherrn von Seckendorff. Weimar, bey Karl Ludolf Hoffmann. 1779, pages 4-5.
Note: The title in Herder’s “Volkslieder” is “Das Lied vom Fischer” (The fisherman’s song).
To see an early edition of this text, go to page 279 [293 von 418] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ163965701