This poem, from the 1827 collection ‘Buch der Lieder’, has its genesis in the young Heine’s slightly complicated love life. He was in love with his cousin Amalie, but she had no interest in the poet and anyway had feelings for another. But this other man in his turn did not reciprocate her feelings and married someone else, at which, at least according to Heine’s jaundiced and perhaps rather ungallant view of the matter, Amalie settled for ‘den ersten besten Mann’, the first man to come along, and married him, leaving poor Heine out in the cold.

If this poem with its line in neat ruefulness gives you the impression of reading a German version of A.E.Housman, that is not surprising: Housman once named Heine as one of the three principal influences on his own verse, along with the English ballads and the songs of Shakespeare.

The translation that follows is my own.

XXXIX

Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen,
Die hat einen andern erwählt;
Der andre liebt eine andre,
Und hat sich mit dieser vermählt.

Das Mädchen heiratet aus Ärger
Den ersten besten Mann,
Der ihr in den Weg gelaufen;
Der Jüngling ist übel dran.

Es ist eine alte Geschichte,
Doch bleibt sie immer neu;
Und wem sie just passieret,
Dem bricht das Herz entzwei.

Heinrich Heine

A young man loves a maiden,
Who would another wed;
This other loves another
And marries her instead.

The maiden out of chagrin
To have a husband still
Weds the first to come along;
The young man takes it ill.

The story is an old one,
Yet stays forever new,
And those to whom it happens,
It breaks their heart in two.