Harfenspieler (Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt), D 325, D 478/1

Harp-player

(Poet's title: Harfenspieler)

Part of  Goethe: Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre 

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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The old harper in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship attracts the hero’s attention immediately. Wilhelm recognises something intense and meaningful about his playing and singing and is annoyed by the lack of response on the part of his companions when they first hear the old man perform. He therefore goes in search of him early one morning and is directed to a rough inn, where he overhears the harp-player strumming and singing ‘sad and dreary’ phrases, leading up to ‘Der nie sein Brot mit Tränen aß’ (Schubert’s D 478 2). Wilhelm then enters the old man’s small room and tells him how moved he was by his singing. The harp-player asks why he has come to him since he was planning to come and play to him and his companions later.

"Wir sind hier ruhiger," versetzte Wilhelm, "singe mir, was du willst, was zu deiner Lage paßt, und tue nur, als ob ich gar nicht hier wäre. Es scheint mir, als ob du heute nicht irren könntest. Ich finde dich sehr glücklich, daß du dich in der Einsamkeit so angenehm beschäftigen und unterhalten kannst und, da du überall ein Fremdling bist, in deinem Herzen die angenehmste Bekanntschaft findest."

Der Alte blickte auf seine Seiten, und nachdem er sanft präludiert hatte, stimmte er an und sang: 

Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt,
Ach, der ist bald allein,
Ein jeder lebt, ein jeder liebt,
Und lässt ihn seiner Pein.

Ja, lasst mich meiner Qual!
Und kann ich nur einmal
Recht einsam sein,
Dann bin ich nicht allein.

Es schleicht ein Liebender, lauschend sacht!
Ob seine Freundin allein?
So überschleicht bei Tag und Nacht
Mich Einsamen die Pein,
Mich Einsamen die Qual.
Ach werd ich erst einmal
Einsam in Grabe sein,
Da lässt sie mich allein!

"We will be less disturbed here," answered Wilhelm, "sing to me, whatever you want, whatever suits your tune, and just behave as if I weren't even here. It seems to me that you can't go wrong today. I find that you are so happy that you can go about your business and manage things in your solitude, and even though you are a stranger everywhere you nevertheless find the most agreeable companions in your heart."

The old man looked around, and after he had played a soft prelude he struck up and sang:

Anyone who gives himself over to solitude,
Oh, he is soon alone;
This person lives, that person loves,
And they leave him to his agony.

Yes, leave me to my distress!
And if I am ever able
To be truly solitary,
Then I will not be alone.

A lover sneaks up, listening carefully,
Wondering if his girlfriend is alone.
Similarly by day and by night they creep up on
Me: agony in my solitude,
Distress in my solitude.
Oh, not until I find myself
Solitary in the grave
Will they eventually leave me alone!

The harp-player’s song is therefore an improvised response to what Wilhelm has just said. So happy in my solitude, eh? Agreeable companions in my heart, eh? Anyone who gives themselves over to solitude soon finds that they are never alone. People creep up on you (as Wilhelm has done, listening outside the room). Even worse companions creep up on you: anxiety and distress. They never leave you alone. I will never really be on my own until I am in the grave. That is solitude.

Goethe seems to be evoking two traditional figures in the character of the harper: the blind bards of the ancient world (also common in Celtic traditions) and the hermits of ascetic Christianity. Both types were isolated from their societies, and their distance allowed them to offer insight and wisdom that was inaccessible to people caught up in the whirl of ordinary life. The blind poet was a seer, able to see behind the confusing surface of events and reveal the patterns and significance of what was happening. Many of the early desert fathers were asked to resolve ecclesiastical and political disputes on the basis of their physical and spiritual distance from worldly concerns.

Some of these desert fathers might give us an idea of what the harper means when he refers to people ‘giving themselves over to solitude’. In the years after Christianity became acceptable to the government of the Roman Empire (in the course of the 4th Century) many people worried about a loss of intensity and devotion as compromises were made with power and wealth. Anthony of Egypt (as reported by St Athanasius) was the first of many hermits to leave the cities and cut themselves off in caves. Within a couple of generations there was competitive isolationism. Simeon Stylites was one of a number of desert residents who wanted to live on ever taller and narrower columns. The further away they went (or the taller the column they perched on) the more followers and sight-seers they attracted. There were always people ‘creeping up’ on these hermits. You are never alone, as the harper points out.

Or rather, when eventually you ARE left alone, then the battle begins. That is when the demons appear. In the story of St Anthony this is presented as the real challenge of the solitary life. There are temptations. He is pulled in various ways. He hears voices. He sees visions. He is now absolutely never left alone. There have been attempts to portray something of this inner turmoil in visual terms. Indeed the temptations of St Anthony was a common theme of medieval Christian iconography, eventually producing Grünewald’s astonishingly vivid Anthony panel in the Isenheim Altarpiece. Here Anthony is shown being attacked and pulled apart by countless tormenting creatures. To its first viewers, in a hospice, these might have represented something of the physical and emotional pain of the Bubonic Plague or ergot poisoning, as well as the spiritual agony that all potential saints might be expected to suffer.

For poets there is no need to resort to such graphic images. The old harp-player simply relies on abstract nouns: Pein, Qual (agony, distress). He then turns these into personified characters. Wilhelm has said that the old man seems to have found ‘the most agreeable companions in his heart’: these are they. He might be a loner, but while agony and distress are with him he will never be alone.

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Original Spelling

Harfenspieler

Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt
Ach! der ist bald allein,
Ein jeder lebt, ein jeder liebt,
Und läßt ihn seiner Pein.

Ja, laßt mich meiner Qual!
Und kann ich nur einmal
Recht einsam seyn,
Dann bin ich nicht allein.

Es schleicht ein Liebender lauschend sacht!
Ob seine Freundin allein?
So überschleicht bei Tag und Nacht
Mich Einsamen die Pein,
Mich Einsamen die Qual.
Ach werd ich erst einmal
Einsam in Grabe seyn,
Da läßt sie mich allein!

Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Goethe’s Werke. Zweyter Band. Original-Ausgabe. Wien, 1816. Bey Chr. Kaulfuß und C. Armbruster. Stuttgart. In der J. G. Cotta’schen Buchhandlung. Gedruckt bey Anton Strauß page 130; with Goethe’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand. Zweyter Band. Stuttgart und Tübingen, in der J.G.Cotta’schen Buchhandlung. 1827, page 120; and with Goethe’s Werke. Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand. Achtzehnter Band. Stuttgart und Tübingen, in der J.G.Cotta’schen Buchhandlung. 1828, pages 219-220.

First published in . Erster Band. Berlin. Bey Johann Friedrich Unger. 1795, pages 348-349. The poem appears in Book 2, Chapter 13 of Goethe’s novel.

To see an early edition of the text, go to page 130 [138 von 350] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ223421905

Carlyle’s English translation of Wilhelm Meister is available at http://www.bartleby.com/ebook/adobe/314.pdf