Mary (Spiritual song)
(Poet's title: Marie (Geistliches Lied))
Set by Schubert:
D 658
[May 1819]
Ich sehe dich in tausend Bildern,
Maria, lieblich ausgedrückt,
Doch keins von allen kann dich schildern,
Wie meine Seele dich erblickt.
Ich weiß nur, dass der Welt Getümmel
Seitdem mir wie ein Traum entfloh,
Und ein unnennbar süßer Himmel
Mir ewig im Gemüte steht.
I see you in a thousand images,
Maria, lovingly expressive,
Yet not one of all these images is able to portray you
In the way that my soul perceives you.
I only know that the chaos of the world
Has fled from me like a dream since that time,
And that an unnameable, sweet heaven
Is fixed forever within my being.
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:
Dreams Eternity Fading and losing colour Heaven, the sky Pictures and paintings Soul Sweetness Virgin Mary
In some religious traditions the spiritual realm is in conflict with the physical world where we live most of our lives. Devotees of this approach try to conquer or transcend ‘the flesh’. This was not the type of spirituality that appealed to Novalis, who had a background in pietism and the type of Lutheranism which encouraged its followers to find the spiritual within the physical. Consequently, the poet’s first love (for Sophie von Kühn, 1782 – 1797) became bound up with his mystical philosophy and his passionate literary activity. There was something about the very ordinariness of the girl (she was only 12 when the 22 year old Novalis first met her, and 13 when they became engaged), and the fact that she was not particularly attractive physically, that chimed with the poet’s conviction that the divine is present everywhere, even in the least likely contexts. Her early death (from tuberculosis) made her both horrifyingly physical and simultaneously spiritually inaccessible, allowing her to become the ideal metaphor in his Geistliche Lieder (Spiritual Songs). It is therefore not surprising that he connects Sophie with the virgin Mary (who, in the Protestant tradition, is celebrated for having been ordinary).
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Original Spelling and note on the text Marie (Geistliches Lied) Ich sehe dich in tausend Bildern, Maria, lieblich ausgedrückt, Doch keins von allen kann dich schildern, Wie meine Seele dich erblickt. Ich weiß nur, daß der Welt Getümmel Seitdem mir wie ein Traum entfloh1, Und ein unnennbar süßer Himmel Mir ewig im Gemüthe steht. 1 Schubert changed 'verweht' (faded for me) to 'entfloh' (fled from me)
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Novalis Schriften. Herausgegeben von Ludwig Tieck und Fr. Schlegel. Dritte Auflage. Zweiter Theil. Berlin, 1815. In der Realschulbuchhandlung, page 42; with Novalis Schriften. Herausgegeben von Friedrich Schlegel und Ludwig Tieck. Zweiter Theil. Berlin, 1802- In der Buchhandlung der Realschule, pages 157-158; and with Novalis Schriften. Kritische Neuausgabe auf Grund des handschriftlichen Nachlasses von Ernst Heilborn. Erster Theil. 1901. Druck und Verlag von Georg Reimer Berlin, page 345.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 42 [52 von 308] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ176643708