Maggie by the ramparts
(Poet's title: Gretchen im Zwinger)
Set by Schubert:
D 564
Schubert did not set the stanzas in italics[May 1817]
Part of Goethe: Faust
Ach neige,
Du Schmerzenreiche,
Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Not!
Das Schwert im Herzen,
Mit tausend Schmerzen
Blickst auf zu deines Sohnes Tod!
Zum Vater blickst du,
Und Seufzer schickst du
Hinauf um sein’ und deine Not.
Wer fühlet,
Wie wühlet
Der Schmerz mir im Gebein?
Was mein armes Herz hier banget,
Was es zittert, was verlanget,
Weißt nur du, nur du allein.
Wohin ich immer gehe,
Wie weh, wie weh, wie wehe
Wird mir im Busen hier.
Ich bin ach kaum alleine,
Ich wein, ich wein, ich weine,
Das Herz zerbricht in mir.
Die Scherben vor meinem Fenster
Betaut’ ich mit Tränen, ach!
Als ich am frühen Morgen
Dir diese Blumen brach.
Schien hell in meine Kammer
Die Sonne früh herauf,
Saß ich in allem Jammer
In meinem Bett’ schon auf.
Hilf! rette mich von Schmach und Tod!
Ach neige,
Du Schmerzenreiche,
Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Not!
Oh look down,
You who are so full of suffering,
Turn your face gracefully towards my distress!
There is a sword in your heart,
With a thousand pains
As you look up watching your son die.
You look towards the Father
And you send sighs
Up because of his and your distress.
Who can feel
How it is burrowing
How this pain is burrowing into me, into my bones?
What my poor heart here is afraid of,
Why it is trembling, what it is calling out for,
Is something only you know, only you!
Wherever I go now,
What pain, what pain, what pain
There is here in my breast!
Yet the moment I am left alone,
I cry, I cry, I cry,
My heart is breaking inside me.
The flowerpots in front of my window,
Oh, I watered them with tears!
When early this morning I
Picked these flowers for you.
Shining bright in my room
Was the sun, up early.
I sat there sobbing
On my bed, already awake.
Help! Rescue me from disgrace and death!
Oh look down,
You who are so full of suffering,
Turn your face gracefully towards my distress!
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:
Being solitary, alone and lonely Bending Bones and skeletons Breaking and shattering Chest / breast Faces Hearts Mother and child Pain Prayers and praying Sighs and sighing Swords and daggers Virgin Mary
Goethe’s Faust Part One revolves around the scholar Faust’s seduction of the innocent Gretchen (Margarethe) as part of his determination to experience life more fully. By the point in the play where this extract is taken from, Gretchen has become aware that she is pregnant and that she is about to face dishonour and imprisonment. She therefore slips away from her neighbours and their gossip and turns to pray at a shrine to the Virgin Mary built into the town walls within the ‘Zwinger’ (a Zwinger is the area between the inner and the outer walls of a town or castle designed to trap invading soldiers and pick them off before they could breach the main defences).
The stage direction at the beginning of this scene (18) from the play reads as follows: “In der Mauerhöhle ein Andachtsbild der Mater dolorosa, Blumenkrüge davor” (A shrine of the Mater dolorosa in a niche in the ramparts, jugs with flowers in them in front of it). We have to imagine that Gretchen has now realised that she is going to be a mother and that this will bring along much more suffering than that involved in simply bearing and raising the child. Her whole life will be nothing but pain, and so her only resort can be to that other unmarried mother who suffered so terribly, Mary, the Mater dolorosa, mother of sorrows.
According to the Gospel of Luke, Mary’s suffering was predicted as soon as the baby Jesus was taken to the temple to be consecrated. The old prophet Simeon “blessed them and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2: 34-35). Gretchen immediately takes hold of this image of the sword piercing the heart and reflects on what it must have been like for Mary to watch her son being crucified (as much a question of shame as of physical agony, of course). If anyone can share Gretchen’s suffering it must surely be Mary.
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Original Spelling Gretchen im Zwinger Ach neige, Du Schmerzenreiche, Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Noth! Das Schwert im Herzen, Mit tausend Schmerzen Blickst auf zu deines Sohnes Tod. Zum Vater blickst du, Und Seufzer schickst du Hinauf um sein' und deine Noth. Wer fühlet, Wie wühlet Der Schmerz mir im Gebein? Was mein armes Herz hier banget, Was es zittert, was verlanget, Weißt nur du, nur du allein! Wohin ich immer gehe, Wie weh, wie weh, wie wehe Wird mir im Busen hier! Ich bin ach kaum alleine, Ich wein', ich wein', ich weine, Das Herz zerbricht in mir. Die Scherben vor meinem Fenster Bethaut' ich mit Thränen, ach! Als ich am frühen Morgen Dir diese Blumen brach. Schien hell in meine Kammer Die Sonne früh herauf, Saß ich in allem Jammer In meinem Bett' schon auf. Hilf! rette mich von Schmach und Tod! Ach neige, Du Schmerzenreiche, Dein Antlitz gnädig meiner Noth!
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Theater von Goethe. Erster Theil. Faust. Neueste Auflage. Wien 1816. Bey B. Ph. Bauer pages 205-207; with Goethe’s Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, Zwölfter Band, Stuttgart und Tübingen, in der J.G.Cottaschen Buchhandlung, 1828, pages 189-190; and with Faust. Ein Fragment. in Goethe’s Schriften. Siebenter Band. Leipzig, bey Georg Joachim Göschen, 1790, pages 161-163.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 205 [217 von 256] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ160623001