The stars
(Poet's title: Die Sterne)
Set by Schubert:
D 313
[October 19, 1815]
Part of Kosegarten (putative cycle)
Wie wohl ist mir im Dunkeln!
Wie weht die laue Nacht!
Die Sterne Gottes funkeln
In feierlicher Pracht!
Komm, Ida, komm ins Freie,
Und lass in jene Bläue,
Und lass zu jenen Höhn
Uns staunend aufwärts sehn.
Sieh, wie die L e i e r schimmert!
Sieh, wie der A d l e r glüht!
Sieh, wie die K r o n e flimmert
Und G e m m a Funken sprüht!
Die hellen W ä c h t e r winken,
Die goldnen W a g e n blinken,
Und stolz durchschwimmt der S c h w a n
Den blauen Ozean.
O Sterne Gottes, Zeugen
Und Boten bessrer Welt,
Ihr heißt den Aufruhr schweigen,
Der unsern Busen schwellt.
Ich seh hinauf, ihr Hehren,
Zu euren lichten Sphären,
Und Ahnung bessrer Lust
Stillt die empörte Brust.
O Ida, wenn die Schwermut
Dein sanftes Auge hüllt,
Wenn dir die Welt mit Wermut
Den Lebensbecher füllt;
So geh hinaus im Dunkeln
Und sieh die Sterne funkeln,
Und leiser wird dein Schmerz,
Und freier schlägt dein Herz.
Und wenn im öden Staube
Der irre Geist erkrankt;
Wenn tief in dir der Glaube
An Gott und Zukunft schwankt;
Schau auf zu jenen Fernen,
Zu jenen ew’gen Sternen!
Schau auf und glaub an Gott
Und segne Grab und Tod.
O Ida, wenn die Strenge
Des Schicksals einst uns trennt,
Und wenn das Weltgedränge
Nicht Blick noch Kuss uns gönnt;
So schau hinauf ins Freie,
In jene weite Bläue!
In jenen lichten Höhn,
Dort, dort ist Wiedersehn!
Und wenn ich einst, o Teure,
Von allem Kampf und Krieg
Im stillen Grabe feire,
So schau empor und sprich:
»In jenen hohen Fernen,
Auf jenen goldnen Sternen,
Dort, wo’s am hellsten blitzt,
Wallt mein Verlorner itzt.«
O Sterne Gottes, Boten
Und Bürger bessrer Welt,
Die ihr die Nacht der Toten
Zu milder Dämmrung hellt!
Umschimmert sanft die Stätte,
Wo ich aus stillem Bette
Und süßem Schlaf erwach
Zu Edens schönerm Tag!
How well I feel in the darkness!
How mildly the breezes of night waft past!
God’s stars sparkle
With a celebratory magnificence.
Come, Ida, come into the open space
And let us look up into that blueness
And let us look up into those heights
Let us look upwards in astonishment.
Look at how Lyra (the lyre) is shimmering,
Look at how Aquila (the eagle) is glowing!
Look at how Corona Borealis (the crown) is shining,
And sparks are flashing from Alpha Coronae Borealis!
The bright stars of Boötes (the herdsmen) are signalling,
The golden stars of Libra (the scales) are gleaming,
And Cygnus (the swan) is proudly swimming across
The blue ocean.
Oh, stars of God, witnesses to
And ambassadors from a better world,
You call on the tumult to calm down,
The turmoil that is rising up in our breast.
I look upward, you sublime ones,
To your bright spheres,
And a presentiment of a greater pleasure
Calms my rebellious breast.
Oh Ida, when melancholy
Shrouds your gentle eyes,
When the world offers wormwood
And fills the beaker of your life with it,
Just go out into the darkness,
And watch the stars glowing,
And your pain will be eased,
And your heart will beat more freely.
And if, in the barren dust
Your confused spirit falls ill,
If deep down within you faith
In God and the future is shaken,
Look up into those distant regions
To those eternal stars!
Look up and believe in God,
And bless the grave and death.
Oh Ida, when the force
Of destiny finally separates us,
And when the jostling world
Offers us neither sight of each other nor a kiss,
Then look upwards into the open spaces,
Into those broad blue expanses!
In those light heights,
There, there is where we shall see each other again!
And when the point comes, oh dear one,
When I have left all battles and wars,
Enjoying the quiet grave,
Then look upwards and say:
“In those lofty distances,
On those golden stars,
There, where the lightning is at its brightest,
That is where the one I have lost is now wandering.”
Oh stars of God, messengers from
And citizens of a better world,
You who offer to the night of the dead
A mild, bright dawn to come,
Gently shine around the place
Where I, from a quiet bed
And sweet sleep, wake up
To Eden’s more beautiful day!
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:
Beds Blue Chest / breast Crowns Cups and goblets Dust Eagles Eden Eternity Eyes Fire Gazes, glimpses and glances Gold Graves and burials Hearts High, low and deep Kissing Lyres Melancholy Messengers Morning and morning songs Near and far Night and the moon Pain The sea Sleep Space Spheres Stars Swans Sweetness Waking up War, battles and fighting
There is something very calming about the idea of distance. We look at the stars, and the raging fusion reactions that power them appear to us as something that is pleasantly glimmering, shimmering or twinkling. Those bright spheres (further away in reality than Kosegarten could have possibly known or imagined) somehow manage to still the torment in our breasts. Or when our problem is more to do with depression and melancholy than agitation or anxiety, simply looking at the glowing of the stars will ease our pain. They ‘put us in our place’ and allow us to distance ourselves emotionally from our inner life.
We sometimes call this ‘putting things into perspective’. Here again, the way we look at the stars tells us about how we see things. We are human, and we project our own concerns and drive to interpret phenomena in our own terms onto inananimate objects like stars. We look at the night sky and we see crowns, eagles, lyres and swans; when we think rationally (and geometrically) we are aware that the constellations do not correspond with the pattern of the stars as they are, they are simply the result of us looking at them from where we are. From other points in the cosmos, these patterns would not be apparent (but if it was humans who were observing the stars, we would see different patterns, similarly structured by our own experience). We therefore cannot look at a constellation without thinking about ourselves as observers. A swan (Cygnus) swimming across the ocean of the sky is a projection of our ideas of movement, calm, energy, serenity etc.
Kosegarten adds another level of anthropomorphism to his poem. He addresses the stars as ‘messengers’ or ‘ambassadors’ from another, better realm. They are also ‘witnesses’ to the existence of other dimensions. In the final stanza he calls them ‘citizens’ of a better world. This is all legal or diplomatic language, and is based on concepts of belonging and interaction. Kosegarten wrote the text during the final years of the Holy Roman Empire; in his world the concept of citizenship was more complex than it was in contemporary or later nation-states. It was possible to be a citizen (a Bürger) of a city (e.g. Rostock) or a region (e.g. Mecklenburg) yet also owe allegiance to a distant Holy Roman Emperor. People living in the next town or across the river would be subject to other authorities, but might also owe indirect allegiance to the same Holy Roman Emperor. All of them would send ambassadors to each other, but the ambassadors were always seen as representing a connected but different power. This is how Kosegarten sees the stars; they represent another dimension, but that is not a domain that is totally alien to us or beyond us, even though the very fact that they are ambassadors means that the authority they embody is absent.
Between Kosegarten writing the text and Schubert setting it to music, the Holy Roman Empire, which underlies much of the poem’s imagery, had been abolished in the wake of the wars precipitated by the French Revolution. It is worth remembering that the word ‘revolution’ in connection with these tumultuous events was itself taken from the domain of astronomy: Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium celestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) of 1543.
For Kosegarten, though, contemplating the heavens was not to be taken as an instigation to overthrow or transform political structures; as we look at the moving stars we should see a pattern of regular renewal and the promise of dawn and a new day. It is only because we are so far from the stars that we think of the night sky as dark. Because of our distance and the way we see things (our distorted perspective) the stars simply glitter and shimmer; when we are in that other dimension (after death) we shall realise how brightly they are shining. What looks like night (death) is in fact day (life).
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Original Spelling Die Sterne Wie wohl ist mir im Dunkeln! Wie weht die laue Nacht! Die Sterne Gottes funkeln In feyerlicher Pracht! Komm, Ida, komm ins Freye, Und laß in jene Bläue Und laß zu jenen Höhn Uns staunend aufwärts sehn. Sieh, wie die L e y e r schimmert! Sieh, wie der A d l e r glüht! Sieh, wie die K r o n e flimmert, Und G e m m a Funken sprüht! Die hellen W ä c h t e r winken, Die goldnen W a g e n blinken, Und stolz durchschwimmt der S c h w a n Den blauen Ozean. O! Sterne Gottes, Zeugen Und Boten beßrer Welt, Ihr heißt den Aufruhr schweigen, Der unsern Busen schwellt. Ich seh hinauf, ihr Hehren, Zu euren lichten Sphären, Und Ahnung beßrer Lust Stillt die empörte Brust. O Ida, wenn die Schwermuth Dein sanftes Auge hüllt, Wenn dir die Welt mit Wermuth Den Lebensbecher füllt; So geh hinaus im Dunkeln, Und sieh die Sterne funkeln, Und leiser wird dein Schmerz, Und freyer schlägt dein Herz. Und wenn im öden Staube Der irre Geist erkrankt; Wenn tief in dir der Glaube An Gott und Zukunft schwankt; Schau auf zu jenen Fernen Zu jenen ew'gen Sternen! Schau auf und glaub an Gott, Und segne Grab und Tod. O Ida, wenn die Strenge Des Schicksals einst uns trennt, Und wenn das Weltgedränge Nicht Blick noch Kuß uns gönnt; So schau hinauf ins Freye, In jene weite Bläue! In jenen lichten Höhn, Dort, dort ist Wiedersehn! Und wenn ich einst, o Theure, Von allem Kampf und Krieg Im stillen Grabe feyre, So schau empor und sprich: »In jenen hohen Fernen, Auf jenen goldnen Sternen, Dort, wo's am hellsten blitzt, Wallt mein Verlorner itzt.« O Sterne Gottes, Boten Und Bürger beßrer Welt, Die ihr die Nacht der Todten Zu milder Dämmrung hellt! Umschimmert sanft die Stätte, Wo ich aus stillem Bette Und süßem Schlaf erwach Zu Edens schönerm Tag!
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, L.T.Kosegarten’s Poesieen, Neueste Auflage, Zweyter Band, Berlin 1803, pages 6-9; and with Ludwig Theoboul Kosergarten’s Poesieen. Zweiter Band. Leipzig bei Heinrich Gräff. 1798, pages 301-304. Kosegarten’s poem is slightly different in later editions.
First published (only stanzas 1-4 and 6) in Musen-Almanach für das Jahr 1796. Herausgegeben von Schiller. Neustrelitz, bei dem Hofbuchhändler Michaelis, pages 174-176.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 6 [10 von 298] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ184217005