Surge of water
(Poet's title: Wasserflut)
Set by Schubert:
D 911/6
[February 1827]
Part of Winterreise, D 911
Manche Trän aus meinen Augen
Ist gefallen in den Schnee;
Seine kalten Flocken saugen
Durstig ein das heiße Weh!
Wenn die Gräser sprossen wollen,
Weht daher ein lauer Wind,
Und das Eis zerspringt in Schollen,
Und der weiche Schnee zerrinnt.
Schnee, du weißt von meinem Sehnen:
Sag, wohin doch geht dein Lauf?
Folge nach nur meinen Tränen,
Nimmt dich bald das Bächlein auf.
Wirst mit ihm die Stadt durchziehen,
Muntre Straßen ein und aus –
Fühlst du meine Tränen glühen,
Da ist meiner Liebsten Haus.
Lots of tears from my eyes
Have fallen into the snow;
Its cold flakes are sucking
Thirstily and drinking in my hot pain.
If or when the blades of grass want to sprout,
A mild wind will be stirred up,
And the ice will shatter into fragments,
And the soft snow will melt.
Snow, you know about my longing:
Speak, where on earth are you running off to?
If you just follow my tears
The little stream will soon take you up.
With him you can make your way through the town,
In and out of cheerful streets:
If you feel my tears starting to glow,
You are then at my beloved’s house.
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:
Floods and tides Frost and ice Grass Heat Houses Journeys Longing and yearning Rivers (Bächlein) Rivers – waterfalls, rapids and whirlpools Snow Tears and crying Towns Wind Winter
Poets can use rhyme and assonance in a number of ways. In the case of Müller, who was so concerned to use a simple rhyme-scheme in order to communicate directly with his readers, it would be a mistake to conclude that the simplicity has not also been used to make more complex points. Wasserflut revolves around a number of rhymes which continue the theme of the protagonist seeing the world and his experience in two contradictory ways at the same time.
He begins by looking at the snow – Schnee – and he sees his own sorrow – Weh. What if the snow is actually sucking up his sorrow, absorbing, not just reflecting it? Here comes the contrast. The sorrow is hot – heiße Weh – so the snow and the sorrow are incompatible. The outer appearance (the rhyme) belies the inner reality. The ice (Eis) has to melt when it comes into contact with this heat. His tears (Tränen) are a product of his longing (Sehnen), and the soft (weiche), white (weiße) snow knows (weißt) all about that. The snow then melts and sheds tears of its own, precipitating the surge or flood that gives the poem its title.
The water might flow but the ideas are not particularly fluent, since the poet is trying to identify a rather complex psychological state. The traveller is trying to escape from the source of his problems, but he cannot avoid being carried back there. In another sense, he is carrying that source with him: his own eyes have become a hot spring. The water gushes up out of the heated magma in the lower strata of his psyche and instigates a trickle that becomes a flood. Rather than cooling down as the ice and snow melts into the stream, the tears glow hotter as they approach the beloved’s house. In pouring it all out (aus) he has found himself still trapped, back in the house (Haus) he had to leave in ‘Gute Nacht‘.
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Original Spelling and notes on the text Wasserfluth Manche Thrän' aus meinen Augen Ist gefallen in den Schnee; Seine kalten Flocken saugen Durstig ein das heiße Weh. Wenn1 die Gräser sprossen wollen, Weht daher ein lauer Wind, Und das Eis zerspringt in Schollen, Und der weiche Schnee zerrinnt. Schnee, du weißt von meinem Sehnen: Sag, wohin doch2 geht dein Lauf? Folge nach nur meinen Thränen, Nimmt dich bald das Bächlein auf. Wirst mit ihm die Stadt durchziehen, Muntre Straßen ein und aus: Fühlst du meine Thränen glühen, Da ist meiner Liebsten Haus. 1 Schubert changed 'Wann' (When) to 'Wenn' (If or when) 2 Schubert changed 'Sag mir, wohin' (Tell me where) to 'Sag, wohin doch' (Speak, where on earth)
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten. Herausgegeben von Wilhelm Müller. Zweites Bändchen. Deßau 1824. Bei Christian Georg Ackermann, page 86; and with Urania. Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1823. Neue Folge, fünfter Jahrgang. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus. 1823, page 216.
First published in Urania (see above) as no. 6 of Wanderlieder von Wilhelm Müller. Die Winterreise. In 12 Liedern.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 216 Erstes Bild 254 here: https://download.digitale-sammlungen.de/BOOKS/download.pl?id=bsb10312443