This famous poem by the German poet Heinrich Heine, dealing with the hopeless love of a slave for a sultan’s daughter, first appeared in print in 1846 and was subsequently included in his 1851 collection ‘Romanzero’. It draws its inspiration from a Persian story concerning a tribe for whom love between different social classes was strictly taboo, such that those involved were known for being driven to kill themselves. A growing interest in things oriental was characteristic of the time, and this particular theme, of dying for love, chimed in well with the preoccupations of the German romantic era (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1774 epistolary novel ‘Die Leiden des jungen Werthers’ has a lot to answer for).

The translation that follows is my own.

Der Asra

Täglich ging die wunderschöne
Sultanstochter auf und nieder
Um die Abendzeit am Springbrunn,
Wo die weissen Wässer plätschern.

Täglich stand der junge Sklave
Um die Abendzeit am Springbrunn,
Wo die weissen Wässer plätschern.
Täglich ward er bleich und bleicher.

Eines Abends trat die Fürstin
Auf ihn zu mit raschen Worten:
‘Deinen Namen will ich wissen,
Deine Heimat, deine Sippschaft!’

Und der Sklave sprach: ‘Ich heisse
Mohamed, ich bin aus Yemen,
Und mein Stamm sind jene Asra,
Welche sterben, wenn sie lieben.’

Heinrich Heine

The Asra

Daily walked the sultan’s daughter
In her beauty to and fro
By the fountain in the evening
Where the foam-white waters flow.

Daily watching stood the slave boy
Where the foam-white waters play
By the fountain in the evening,
Growing paler day by day.

Till one evening came the princess
With bold words and started in:
Saying ‘I would know your name,
The land you come from, and your kin!’

He answered: ‘I am called Mohammed,
I am a Yemeni, and I
Am of that tribe they call the Asra,
Those who, when they love, must die.’

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.

This ballad by the German poet Heinrich Heine (see also weeks 70 and 457) first appeared in a collection of 1822. It is a testimony to the fact that in France, and even beyond it, Napoleon Bonaparte was regarded as a Good Thing. This was not the case in Britain, of course, but even here, as many songs and stories of the time attest, old Boney was regarded with fascination and even a grudging amount of respect.

Which just goes to show that if a leader wants the allegiance of a people, all he has to do is offer them three things: pride, a sense of destiny, and an excuse for behaving very badly towards members of other tribes.

The translation that follows is my own.

Die Grenadiere

Nach Frankreich zogen zwei Grenadier,
Die waren in Rußland gefangen.
Und als sie kamen ins deutsche Quartier,
Sie ließen die Köpfe hangen.

Da hörten sie beide die traurige Mär:
Daß Frankreich verloren gegangen,
Besiegt und zerschlagen das große Heer –
Und der Kaiser, der Kaiser gefangen.

Da weinten zusammen die Grenadier
Wohl ob der kläglichen Kunde.
Der eine sprach: Wie weh wird mir,
Wie brennt meine alte Wunde!

Der andre sprach: Das Lied ist aus,
Auch ich möcht mit dir sterben,
Doch hab ich Weib und Kind zu Haus,
Die ohne mich verderben.

Was schert mich Weib, was schert mich Kind,
Ich trage weit beßres Verlangen;
Laß sie betteln gehn, wenn sie hungrig sind –
Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen!

Gewähr mir, Bruder, eine Bitt:
Wenn ich jetzt sterben werde,
So nimm meine Leiche nach Frankreich mit,
Begrab mich in Frankreichs Erde.

Das Ehrenkreuz am roten Band
sollst du aufs Herz mir legen;
Die Flinte gib mir in die Hand,
Und gürt mir um den Degen.

So will ich liegen und horchen still,
Wie eine Schildwach, im Grabe,
Bis einst ich höre Kanonengebrüll
Und wiehernder Rosse Getrabe.

Dann reitet mein Kaiser wohl über mein Grab,
Viel Schwerter klirren und blitzen;
Dann steig ich gewaffnet hervor aus dem Grab,
Den Kaiser, den Kaiser zu schützen.

Heinrich Heine

The Grenadiers

Two grenadiers were bound for France,
Returned from Russia’s snow,
And when they crossed the German line
They let their heads hang low.

For there they heard the tragic tale
Of France by fate forsaken:
Its army conquered and destroyed,
Its emperor, o taken!

The grenadiers together wept
This woeful news to learn.
One spoke: ‘Such hurt this does to me,
It makes my old wound burn’.

The other spoke: ‘The song is done,
And I would die with thee,
But I’ve a wife and child at home
Who’ll perish without me’.

‘What care I for wife and child
When better wants awaken!
Let them go beg, or let them starve.
My emperor, o taken!

‘But grant me, brother, one request
For what my death is worth:
Bear my body back to France
To bury in French earth.

‘My honour cross with ribbon red
Upon my heart be laid,
Place my musket in my hand,
And gird me with my blade.

‘So I will lie and listen still,
A sentry evermore,
Till neighing stallions stamp above
And I hear cannon roar.

‘Then I will know he rides again,
Swords flashing far afield,
And climb accoutred from my grave
My emperor to shield!’

The German poet Heinrich Heine fell ill in 1848, with what was eventually diagnosed as chronic lead poisoning, and spent the last eight years of his life confined to what he called his ‘mattress grave’ (Matratzengruft), from where he wrote a series of poems chronicling his situation with a lacerating blend of candour and irony. Here are two of them. The translations that follow are my own.

Der Scheidende

Erstorben ist in meiner Brust
Jedwede weltlich eitle Lust,
Schier is mir auch erstorben drin
Der Hass des Schlechten, sogar der Sinn
Für eigne wie für fremde Not –
Und in mir lebt noch nur der Tod!

Der Vorhang fällt, das Stück ist aus,
Und gähnend wandelt jetzt nach Haus
Mein liebes deutsches Publikum,
Die guten Leutchen sind nicht dumm;
Das speist jetzt ganz vergnügt zu Nacht,
Und trinkt sein Schõppchen, singt und lacht –
Er hatte recht, der edle Heros,
Der weiland sprach im Buch Homeros’:
Der kleinste lebendige Philister
Zu Stukkert am Neckar, viel glücklicher ist er
Als ich, der Pelide, der tote Held,
Der Schattenfürst in der Unterwelt.

Departure

Now in my breast has died the fire
Of every earthly vain desire,
My hate for wrong has vanished clean,
Likewise as if it had not been
Care for my own and others’ ill.
Now only death lives in me still.

The curtain falls, the play is done,
And my dear German public’s gone
Yawning on their way back home.
Those little folk are not so dumb:
They’ll eat, drink, laugh and sing tonight,
And take full pleasure. He was right,
That noble hero, he who said
In Homer’s book, as I once read,
The meanest Philistine alive
In Stuttgart town may better thrive
Than I, Achilles, in this bed,
A prince of shades among the dead.

Morphine

Gross ist die Ähnlichkeit der beiden schönen
Jünglingsgestalten, ob der eine gleich
Viel blässer als der andre, auch viel strenger,
Fast möchte ich sagen viel vornehmer aussieht
Als jener andre, welcher mich vertraulich
In seine Arme schloss – Wie lieblich sanft
War dann sein Lächeln, und sein Blick wie selig!
Dann mocht es wohl geschehn, dass seines Hauptes
Mohnblumenkranz auch meine Stirn berührte
Und seltsam duftend allen Schmerz verscheuchte
Aus meiner Seel – Doch solche Linderung,
Sie dauert kurze Zeit; genesen gänzlich
Kann ich nur dann, wenn seine Fackel senkt
Der andre Bruder, der so ernst und bleich. –
Gut ist der Schlaf, der Tod ist besser – freilich
Das beste wäre, nie geboren sein.

How alike they are, two beautiful
Forms of young men, though at the same time one
Much paler than the other, more severe,
I might even say, much more distinguished-looking
Than this, the other, who took me in his arms
So trustingly. How soft his smile, how loving
That gaze of his. Almost one might say
That poppy-wreath he wears around his head
Touched my own temples too, and drove out pain
With that strange scent it brings. But such relief
Lasts little time: now I can be quite well
Only when the other dips his torch,
The older brother, serious and pale.
Sleep is good, death better, but indeed
The best of all, never to have been born.