Evening song
(Poet's title: Abendlied)
Set by Schubert:
D 499
Schubert did not set the stanzas in italics[November 1816]
Der Mond ist aufgegangen,
Die goldnen Sternlein prangen
Am Himmel hell und klar;
Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
Und aus den Wiesen steiget
Der weiße Nebel wunderbar.
Wie ist die Welt so stille
Und in der Dämmrung Hülle
So traulich und so hold!
Als eine stille Kammer,
Wo ihr des Tages Jammer
Verschlafen und vergessen sollt!
Seht ihr den Mond dort stehen?
Er ist nur halb zu sehen
Und ist doch rund und schön!
So sind wohl manche Sachen,
Die wir getrost belachen,
Weil unsre Augen sie nicht sehn.
Wir stolze Menschenkinder
Sind eitel arme Sünder
Und wissen gar nicht viel;
Wir spinnen Luftgespinste
Und suchen viele Künste
Und kommen weiter von dem Ziel.
Gott, lass uns dein Heil schauen,
Auf nichts Vergänglichs trauen,
Nicht Eitelkeit uns freun!
Lass uns einfältig werden
Und vor dir hier auf Erden
Wie Kinder fromm und fröhlich sein!
* * *
Wollst endlich sonder Grämen
Aus dieser Welt uns nehmen
Durch einen sanften Tod!
Und, wenn du uns genommen,
Lass uns im Himmel kommen,
Du unser Herr und unser Gott!
So legt euch denn, ihr Brüder,
In Gottes Namen nieder;
Kalt ist der Abendhauch.
Verschon uns, Gott! mit Strafen,
Und lass uns ruhig schlafen!
Und unsern kranken Nachbar auch!
The moon has risen,
The tiny golden stars are on display
In the bright, clear sky.
The wood remains black and silent,
And rising from the meadows
The white mist is wonderful.
How calm the world is
And in the covering of twilight
It is so familiar and so dear!
As if it were a quiet room
Where the misery of the day
Could be slept away and forgotten.
Do you see the moon standing there? –
Only half of it can be seen
And yet it is round and beautiful!
That is how it is with quite a few things
Which we confidently dismiss
Since our eyes cannot see them.
We proud human children
Are vain, poor sinners,
And we really do not know much.
We spin thread from the air
And look for many skills
And we get further away from our goal.
God, may we behold your salvation
So as not to trust in anything that is ephemeral,
So that we do not enjoy vanity!
May we become simple,
And before you here on Earth
Let us be pious and happy, like children!
* * *
May you finally, without sorrow,
Take us from this earth
By means of a gentle death!
And, when you have taken us,
Let us enter Heaven,
Oh you our Lord and our God!
So, brothers, lie down,
Lie down in the name of God;
The breath of evening is cold.
God, spare us your punishments,
And let us sleep peacefully!
And our sick neighbour too!
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:
Appearance and reality Black Children and childhood Circles Covers and covering Evening and the setting sun Eyes Fields and meadows Forgetting Gold Heaven, the sky Mist and fog Night and the moon Noise and silence Rising and falling Rooms Serenades and songs at evening Sleep Spinning Stars Threads and yarn White Woods – large woods and forests (Wald)
Claudius’s famous text deliberately quotes and echoes (in its verse form) a popular Lutheran hymn by Paul Gerhardt from 1647:
Nun ruhen alle Wälder,
Vieh, Menschen, Städt und Felder,
Es schläft die ganze Welt;
ihr aber, meine Sinnen,
auf, auf, ihr sollt beginnen,
was eurem Schöpfer wohlgefällt.
Wo bist du, Sonne, blieben?
Die Nacht hat dich vertrieben,
die Nacht, des Tages Feind.
Fahr hin; ein andre Sonne,
mein Jesus, meine Wonne,
gar hell in meinem Herzen scheint.
Der Tag ist nun vergangen,
die güldnen Sternlein prangen
am blauen Himmelssaal;
also werd ich auch stehen,
wenn mich wird heißen gehen
mein Gott aus diesem Jammertal.
Der Leib eilt nun zur Ruhe,
legt ab das Kleid und Schuhe,
das Bild der Sterblichkeit;
die zieh ich aus, dagegen
wird Christus mir anlegen
den Rock der Ehr und Herrlichkeit.
Das Haupt, die Füß und Hände
sind froh, dass nun zum Ende
die Arbeit kommen sei.
Herz, freu dich, du sollst werden
vom Elend dieser Erden
und von der Sünden Arbeit frei.
Nun geht, ihr matten Glieder,
geht hin und legt euch nieder,
der Betten ihr begehrt.
Es kommen Stund und Zeiten,
da man euch wird bereiten
zur Ruh ein Bettlein in der Erd.
Mein Augen stehn verdrossen,
im Nu sind sie geschlossen.
Wo bleibt dann Leib und Seel?
Nimm sie zu deinen Gnaden,
sei gut für allen Schaden,
du Aug und Wächter Israel’.
Breit aus die Flügel beide,
o Jesu, meine Freude,
und nimm dein Küchlein ein.
Will Satan mich verschlingen,
so lass die Englein singen:
„Dies Kind soll unverletzet sein.“
Auch euch, ihr meine Lieben,
soll heute nicht betrüben
kein Unfall noch Gefahr.
Gott lass euch selig schlafen,
stell euch die güldnen Waffen
ums Bett und seiner Engel Schar.
All of the woods are now at rest,
Cattle, people, towns and fields,
The whole world is asleep;
But you, my thoughts,
Up, up, you should begin to do
What pleases your creator.
Where are you now, sun?
Night has driven you away,
Night, the enemy of day.
Go on your way; another sun,
My Jesus, my delight,
Is shining really brightly in my heart.
Day has now gone,
The tiny golden stars are on display
In the blue hall of the heavens;
Similarly I shall also be there
When I am called to go by
My God, away from this vale of misery.
The body is now rushing towards rest,
Taking off clothes and shoes,
The image of mortality;
As I take these off, in exchange
Christ will clothe me in
The gown of honour and majesty.
Head, feet and hands
Are relieved that the end
Of work has now come.
Heart, rejoice, you are going to be released from
The suffering of this earth
And free from the work of sin.
Now, exhausted limbs,
Go off and lie down,
You are ready for bed.
The time and hour will come
When people will prepare for you
A little bed where you can rest in the earth.
My eyes are weary,
In a moment they are closed.
Where are my body and soul, then?
Take them into your grace,
Repair any damage,
You who are the eyes and guardian of Israel.
Spread out both your wings
O Jesus, my joy,
And embrace your chick.
If Satan wants to devour me,
Let the angels sing:
“Let this child not be harmed.”
You too, those I love,
May you suffer no distress today,
Or any accident or danger.
May God allow you to rest in blessedness,
Place the golden weapons
And the host of his angels around your bed.
Where Gerhardt had emphasised evening as the end of the working day, with preparing for bed being linked explicitly to mortal human beings needing to prepare for death, Claudius is more interested in ‘thoughts at evening time’ and the need to reflect on our limited perceptions and understanding to make us better people even before we die.
Stanza 1 is fairly standard 18th century fare: the sky and the landscape have been transformed by the changing light of evening and we are made newly aware of the beauty around us. The earth is black (trees) and white (mist) but there is a resplendent, golden display above us. All of this is so comforting and familiar (stanza 2) that we feel safe at night, when we have been released from the troubles of the day (perhaps there is a deliberate contrast here with Gerhardt’s assumption that the night is full of dangers, including the risk of a direct assault by Satan).
It is in stanza 3 that Claudius begins to point the moral lesson. At the first or the third quarter of the month we see an illuminated semi-circle, yet we know the moon is round. Even during the full moon, when we only see a disc, we still know that it is a sphere, and there is half of the moon which we cannot see. This is a simple, but effective, lesson in epistemology, the study of the limits of (or even the possibility of) human knowledge. Even as Claudius was writing the poem the greatest modern contribution to this discipline was being prepared: Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (published two years after ‘Abendlied’). Claudius is often portrayed as an opponent of Enlightenment philosophy (since he defended piety and the need to acknowledge human limitations), yet he shares many of Kant’s attitudes. For both of them, the starting point of our understanding of what humans can (and cannot) know is the acknowledgement that we are restricted by who we are and where we are. We cannot know the moon as it is, we can only make deductions about it on the basis of what is visible to us. They also share a conviction that there is a vital tension between ignorance (or error) and knowledge. We know that we are deluded when we think the moon is semi-circular, but to believe that we are mistaken or unsure must mean that we know enough about it to realise that our knowledge is limited. This was one of the paradoxes that drove Kant to his great work.
For Claudius, it should simply drive us to acknowledge that we are not as grown up or knowledgeable as we think. Too many of us trust our beliefs and constructs far too easily, we ‘spin’ fantasies that we are convinced are real. It would be better if we were more childlike in the face of nature and put less trust in our attempts to understand or control it. For Claudius, the best response to the world was humility, but we should not confuse his position with gullibility or credulous religiosity. There is probably nothing in his analysis (apart from the pious tone and language) that a modern Green activist or Dawkins-style atheist would want to disagree with. We all still need to know that there are unknown unknowns.
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Original Spelling
Abendlied
Der Mond ist aufgegangen,
Die goldnen Sternlein prangen
Am Himmel hell und klar.
Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
Und aus den Wiesen steiget
Der weiße Nebel wunderbar.
Wie ist die Welt so stille,
Und in der Dämmrung Hülle
So traulich und so hold!
Als eine stille Kammer,
Wo ihr des Tages Jammer
Verschlafen und vergessen sollt.
Seht ihr den Mond dort stehen? -
Er ist nur halb zu sehen,
Und ist doch rund und schön!
So sind wohl manche Sachen,
Die wir getrost belachen,
Weil unsre Augen sie nicht sehn.
Wir stolze Menschenkinder
Sind eitel arme Sünder,
Und wissen gar nicht viel.
Wir spinnen Luftgespinnste
Und suchen viele Künste,
Und kommen weiter von dem Ziel.
Gott, laß uns d e i n Heil schauen,
Auf nichts Vergänglichs trauen,
Nicht Eitelkeit uns freun!
Laß uns einfältig werden,
Und vor dir hier auf Erden
Wie Kinder fromm und fröhlich seyn!
* * *
Wollst endlich sonder Grämen
Aus dieser Welt uns nehmen
Durch einen sanften Tod!
Und, wenn du uns genommen,
Laß uns im Himmel kommen,
Du unser Herr und unser Gott!
So legt euch denn, ihr Brüder,
In Gottes Namen nieder;
Kalt ist der Abendhauch.
Verschon' uns, Gott! mit Strafen,
Und laß uns ruhig schlafen!
Und unsern kranken Nachbar auch!
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s probable source, ASMUS omnia sua SECUM portans, oder Sämmtliche Werke des Wandsbecker Bothen, IV. Theil. Beym Verfasser, und in Commißion bey Friedrich Perthes in Hamburg. [1782], pages 91-92; with Poetische Blumenlese für das Jahr 1779. Herausgegeben von Joh. Heinr. Voß. Hamburg, bei Carl Ernst Bohn, pages 184-186; and with Johann Gottfried Herder’s Volkslieder. Nebst untermischten andern Stücken. Zweyter Theil. Leipzig, in der Weygandschen Buchhandlung, 1779, pages 297-298.
Note: Herder’s Volkslieder prints only the first five stanzas, and Claudius (in his ASMUS complete edition) separates the first five stanzas with three asterisks from the remaining two.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 91 [103 von 266] here: https://download.digitale-sammlungen.de/BOOKS/download.pl?id=bsb10924595