Fullness of love
(Poet's title: Fülle der Liebe)
Set by Schubert:
D 854
[August 1825]
Ein sehnend Streben
Teilt mir das Herz,
Bis alles Leben
Sich löst in Schmerz.
In Leid erwachte
Der junge Sinn,
Und Liebe brachte
Zum Ziel mich hin.
Ihr edle Flammen,
Wecktet mich auf,
Es ging mitsammen
Zu Gott der Lauf.
Ein Feuer war es,
Das alles treibt;
Ein starkes, klares,
Das ewig bleibt.
Was wir anstrebten,
War treu gemeint;
Was wir durchlebten,
Bleibt tief vereint.
Da trat ein Scheiden
Mir in die Brust;
Das tiefe Leiden
Der Liebeslust.
Im Seelengrunde
Wohnt mir Ein Bild,
Die Todeswunde
Ward nie gestillt.
Viel tausend Tränen
Flossen hinab;
Ein ewig Sehnen
Zu Ihr ins Grab.
In Liebes Wogen
Wallet der Geist,
Bis fortgezogen,
Die Brust zerreißt.
Ein Stern erschien mir
Vom Paradies;
Und dahin fliehn wir
Vereint gewiss.
Hier noch befeuchtet
Der Blick sich lind,
Wenn mich umleuchtet
Dies Himmelskind.
Ein Zauber waltet
Jetzt über mich,
Und der gestaltet
Dies all’ nach sich.
Als ob uns vermähle
Geistesgewalt,
Wo Seel’ in Seele
Hinüberwallt.
Ob auch zerspalten
Mir ist das Herz;
Selig doch halten
Will ich den Schmerz.
A striving that is full of longing
Is pulling my heart apart,
So much so that all life
Is dissolved in pain.
It awoke in suffering –
This young mind,
And love brought
Me to the goal.
You noble flames
Woke me up;
Alongside that
The journey took me to God.
It was a fire
That drives everything;
Something strong and clear
Which remains forever.
What we were striving towards
Was meant sincerely;
What we lived through together
Remains deeply united.
Then a separation appeared
In my breast;
The deep suffering
Of the pleasure of love.
In the foundations of my soul
A single image lives on for me;
The fatal wound
Has never healed.
Many thousands of tears
Have flown down;
An eternal longing
For her, into the grave.
In the waves of love
Her spirit is hovering,
Until the pulling apart
Tears up my breast.
A star appeared to me
From Paradise;
And that is where we are flying off to
United without any doubt.
Here I still feel a moistening
To soothe my eyes
When I feel her glowing around me
That child of heaven.
There is a magic
Over me now,
And which is forming
All of this in its own way,
As if we were being wedded
By the power of a spirit,
Where soul joins soul
As they surge onwards.
Although it is broken,
This heart of mine,
I shall still hold it to be something sacred,
This pain.
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:
Chest / breast Cutting and wounding Emptiness and fullness Eternity Fire Ghosts and spirits Graves and burials Hearts Heaven, the sky Laments, elegies and mourning Magic and enchantment Pain Soul Stars Tears and crying Waves – Woge Wounds
If this is a funeral lament it is rather insensitively focused on the emotions of the speaker. Although the wound that has never healed could indeed refer to the ‘wound of death’ (i.e. the beloved has actually died), it might equally be a ‘fatal wound’ that the poet has experienced. Similarly, the thousands of tears that have fallen into the grave might not literally refer to the grave of the beloved; the speaker might just be claiming that the weeping is going to continue until the end of his life.
So what is the awful wound, the painful separation if it is not someone’s death? Who or what is the ‘child of heaven’ who has appeared like a star ‘out of Paradise’? What is it that they have lived through with such intensity? Why is the poet so convinced that their two souls are being merged and that they are flying off to heaven ‘without any doubt’ (‘gewiß’ – something he ‘knows’ for certain, as he claims)? If they are so totally united why does he feel such an endless longing for her? How is it that the ‘fullness of love’ seems to result in the speaker’s heart being ‘torn apart’? Are these even the right questions to be asking?
Perhaps the ‘she’ that has appeared to him and united herself with his fate is not an actual person, but an abstraction or an ideal. Perhaps the fires that inspired him and accompanied him on his route towards God were some sort of spiritual flame rather than a reference to a different sort of old flame. Or perhaps we should not make such a dualistic distinction between physical and spiritual desire.
Because it appears to refer explicitly to the writer’s individual experience, it is always tempting to read this type of romantic poetry as a sort of coded autobiography. We want to equate the ‘she’ with ‘his’ wife (or lover). We want to know how much the text reveals about the writer’s life when he was not writing. In the case of Friedrich von Schlegel the temptation becomes overwhelming when we realise that the poem was written at around the time that he and his wife converted to Roman Catholicism.
For Dorothea Schlegel this was not even her only religious conversion. She was raised in Judaism (her father was the great Moses Mendelssohn) but she converted to Protestantism in 1804 in order to marry Schlegel (whose father had been a Lutheran pastor). By that time they had already been living together for over five years (as ‘free-loving romantics’) and she had been subjected to a rabbinical edict effectively divorcing her from her first husband, Simon Veit. In 1808 the now conventional married couple joined the Roman Catholic church and they moved to Vienna (before moving on to Rome itself). So fervent were the new converts that old friends and colleagues were astonished. If we are indeed tempted to read Fülle der Liebe as a sort of apologia for Schlegel’s conversion (with the references to ‘reaching the goal’, ‘the course of my life leading to God’ etc.) it is not easy to reconcile all of the language about tears, pain and the suffering heart with the seeming dogmatism and burning conviction of the new convert.
So, why is his heart broken? Who or what did the breaking?
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Original Spelling and note on the text Fülle der Liebe Ein sehnend Streben Theilt mir das Herz, Bis alles Leben Sich lös't in Schmerz. In Leid erwachte Der junge Sinn, Und Liebe brachte Zum Ziel mich hin. Ihr edle Flammen, Wecktet mich auf; Es ging mitsammen Zu Gott der Lauf. Ein Feuer war es, Das alles treibt; Ein starkes, klares, Das1 ewig bleibt. Was wir anstrebten, War treu gemeynt; Was wir durchlebten Bleibt tief vereint. Da trat ein Scheiden Mir in die Brust; Das tiefe Leiden Der Liebes Lust. Im Seelengrunde Wohnt mir Ein Bild; Die Todeswunde Ward nie gestillt. Viel tausend Thränen Flossen hinab; Ein ewig Sehnen Zu Ihr ins Grab. In Liebes Wogen Wallet der Geist, Bis fortgezogen, Die Brust zerreißt. Ein Stern erschien mir Vom Paradies; Und dahin flieh'n wir Vereint gewiß. Hier noch befeuchtet Der Blick sich lind, Wenn mich umleuchtet Dieß Himmelskind. Ein Zauber waltet Jetzt über mich, Und der gestaltet Dieß all nach sich, Als ob uns vermähle Geistesgewalt, Wo Seele in Seele Hinüberwallt. Ob auch zerspalten Mir ist das Herz; Seelig doch halten Will ich den Schmerz. 1 Schubert changed 'Was ewig bleibt' to 'Das ewig bleibt' (there is no essential difference in the meaning)
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Friedrich Schlegel’s sämmtliche Werke. Neunter Band. Wien, bey Jakob Mayer und Compagnie. 1823, pages 132-134; and with Fried. v. Schlegel’s sämmtliche Werke. Zweite Original-Ausgabe. Zehnter Band. Wien. Im Verlage bei Ignaz Klang. 1846, pages 119-120.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 132 [138 von 328] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ221257609