Idens Nachtgesang, D 227

Ida's night song

(Poet's title: Idens Nachtgesang)

Part of  Kosegarten (putative cycle) 

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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Ida confides to night and the stars since she lives in a society that does not allow women to take the first step in declaring love. She may have no sister or other trusted confidante, so we are asked to imagine what she would say if she were fully at liberty to speak. She is ‘tired of day’ because that is when she has to play her part and conform, pretending that she has not noticed or formed any sort of emotional connection with Mr. Right.

Even under the cover of darkness and free from the risk of sounding unladylike she is careful to clothe her passion in the decent garments of classical allusions. Rather than speaking directly about lips and breasts she refers to the smiles of the Muses and drinking nectar from nurse Urania. Stanza 4 veils her fantasies about masculinity, with talk of ‘Promethean fire’ and ‘Phoebus’s bubbling fountain’ failing to divert her mind from the more sensual attractions of the gentleman.

She now finds that she is no longer addressing the stars and the night sky; she is talking directly to the beloved and she is devoting herself to him for ever. She contrasts the linear, finite world of the labyrinth (where Ariadne used a fixed length of string to help Theseus escape from the minotaur’s lair) with the eternity symbolised by heavenly spheres and circles. The final stanza extends or mixes the metaphor by contrasting the finite number of grains of sands in Chronos’s hour glass (a.k.a. an egg timer) with the endless stream (gushing from an urn) that keeps major rivers supplied with water. It is perhaps unfortunate that these final two images (a phallic chronometer and a copious receptacle) are also so suggestively sexual, though on another level, they might tell us something about what was really on her mind.

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Original Spelling

Idens Nachtgesang

Vernimm es, Nacht, was Ida dir vertrauet,
Die satt des Tags, in deine Arme flieh't.
Ihr Sterne, die ihr hold und liebend auf mich schauet,
Vernehmt süßlauschend Idens Lied.

Den ich geahnt in liebvollen Stunden,
Dem sehnsuchtskrank mein Herz entgegen schlug,
O Nacht, o Sterne, hörts ich habe ihn gefunden,
Deß Bild ich längst im Busen trug.

Um seine Wiege lächelten die Musen,
Urania kos´t´ ihm auf dem keuschen Schooß,
Die Schönheit tränket´ ihn an ihrem Nektarbusen,
Und jede Charis zog ihn groß.

In seinen Augen blitzt promethisch Feuer.
Gerecht entbrennt sein Herz in Lieb und Zorn.
Es lüpft dem Schmachtenden die Wahrheit ihren Schleyer;
Ihm sprudelt Phöbus heil´ger Born.

Freund, du bist mein, nicht für die kurze Reise,
Die durch das Labyrinth des Lebens führt;
Sieh, sieh dies Sphären dort, die ewig schönen Kreise,
Wo fester unser Band sich schnürt.

Freund, ich bin dein, nicht für den Sand der Zeiten,
Der schnellversiegend Chronos Uhr entfleußt,
Dein für den Riesenstrom heilvoller Ewigkeiten,
Der aus des Ew'gen Urne scheußt.

Confirmed by Peter Rastl with L.T.Kosegarten’s Poesieen, Neueste Auflage, Zweyter Band, Berlin 1803, pages 112-113. This is the source used by Schubert. Kosegarten’s poem is different in later editions and has the title “Agnes Nachtgesang” 

To see an early edition of the text, go to page 112 [116 von 298] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ184217005