"Did hur not see hur true loves As hur came from London?" 67 Shakespeare has Ophelia sing part of one of the Walsingham ballads of this type. In the Black Man, a jig, occurs the following interesting variation of the first stanza: (Enter Thumpkin) Thump. "As ye came from Walsingham, Saw ye not my Dear? Gent. (Aside) Truly, aged Father, No. (11.46-49.) 68 In The Weakest Goeth to the Wall (1600), is a stanza which has a variant of the Walsingham ballads. The first two lines are: "King Richard's gone to Walsingham to the Holy Land, To kill Turk and Saracen, that the truth do withstand, etc.69 The tune of Walsingham was evidently very popular, and was even taught to singing birds: In Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune, a servant says, "When he brings in a prize, unless it be cockles, or callis sand to scoure with, Ile renounce my five mark a year, and all the hidden art I have in carving to teach young birds to whistle Walsingham." A character in Dryden's Limberham, says, "And her father, the famous cobbler, who taught Walsingham to the Blackbirds." In Cf. Deloney, Works, p. 580. this ballad in the Percy Folio. 67 There is an interesting imitation of Came yee not from Newcastle, Met yee not my true love ryding on a bony bay? (I, 253-4.) Hamlet IV, V, 23-6— quoted above; Cf. D. G. Rossetti, An Old Song Ended, in which he completes the pilgrim song begun by Ophelia. Die Singspiele der englischen Komoedianten, etc., von Johannes Bolte. (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1893.) p. 87 ff. "Chappell, Old Eng. Popular Music, p. 70. Don Quixote (Tr. Phillips, 1687, p. 278), is the following reference, "An infinite number of little birds, with painted wings of various colors-all naturally singing Walsingham. 9970 One of the "Psalmes and Songs of Sion," turned into the language, and set to the tunes of a strange land (1642) is to the tune of Walsingham. Osborne, (Traditional Memoirs, etc. 1653), referring to the Earl of Salisbury, says, "Many a hornpipe he tuned to his Phillis, And sweetly sung Walsingham to 's Amaryllis." The following stanza from an Elizabethan ballad entitled "A Lament to Walsingham" forms an appropriate conclusion to this study: "Sinne is where our Lady sate, Heaven turned is to helle; Sathan sit where our Lord did swaye Walsingham, Oh, farewell." TQ'td from Chappell, Old Eng. Popular Music, I, 70ff. NOTES ON TRANSLATING HEINE* BY LEONARD DOUGHTY Part II (Concluded) I have given way (once at least!) to the literal rendering, to reproduce the identical fancy of the poem, though a better English stanza than I have retained can be made by the slightest paraphrase,—in the last-stanza-but-one of the poem I name, "I Dreamed a False Sweet Dream," making it begin, Beside us grew a lovely lily blossom Gently I plucked and laid it on her breast. But the original is, Ich glaub', am Ende brach ich eine Lillie, (I think-at last I plucked a lily blossom, "I think"-with what pathos and heart-touching meaning the sad and fatal dying out of the dream is here in a phrase exhibited; and so on to the stark and deathly ending --Denn ich erwachte jahlings (And then-I was awake!) The same fancy,-"I think,"-is used at the end of "The Lorelei," with what different application! In the last stanza of the poem, "The Riddle," which is *This is the concluding portion of the article, the first part of which appeared in the April Review. The conclusion of the series of verses referred to in the article appears in another part of this number. (Editor Texas Review.) herewith reprinted with emendations from the former series, Heine uses the jibing conceit that has since become common with versifiers, of breaking off the rhyme of the last line, and substituting an unrhyming word, where the rhyme is expected. He succeeds in breaking the rhyme, as it were, in the midst of the two words; making their first few letters rhyme-the startling want of rhyme jarring upon the last syllables. Handvoll-Antwort (handful-answer), are the two words that are expected to rhyme. With approximate literality the stanza would be, So we question, till Death idly Rams into our mouths a handful In the stanza which I have retained I have attempted to reproduce the peculiar break of the rhyme, and, as it were, the change of voice, in the last line, which is in truth no part of the poem; but a sudden "coming to" out of the high-flown reverie, and a mere naive comment on the verses. I have placed the rhyme in the middle of the line, instead of making it, "That's no answer, I am certain"; and I have printed the line as a footnote to the poem! Far-fetched-yes; but I think that viewed as an original poem, it would be found to have something of the strangeness of the break so startlingly arranged by Heine in the original. The poem I translate as "Flowers of Fable," is entitled in the original, Sehnsuchtelei (passionate longing). It is a poem dread and sweet, and sad past all belief. It is comparable, in a way, to that other heart-rending poem, "The Carpenter's Son," in The Shropshire Lad. It is also comparable-though how alien!-to those other verses I translate as "The Prisoner's Gallows Song." It is as closely comparable to many another poem of totally different mood and meaning. Of all strange and sudden endings in Heine's poetry, here, it may be said, is the strangest. The saddest and maddest. The last two lines which I have translated, Master Hangman-any Master Canst thou build a bridge for me? are in the German, Meister Hämmerling, mein Lieber, (Master Hangman, my good fellow, Canst thou build a bridge for me?) Meister Hämmerling has two meanings literally, in German: Jack Ketch, and The Devil (note the capitals). Without the Meister, Hämmerling has many definitions; it is Puck; clown; Merry Andrew (Jack Pudding-Hanswurst); kobold; demon; devil; it enters into the myth of mine and mountain, as a personified evil power in Nature, represented as a hateful and powerful gnome. A kobold is a gnome that hammers underground; he is Hämmerling, as is whatever looks like him-in zany dress or awkward play, and it may be, in vindictive power of harm. Of course, Hammer, in German, is hammer in English; but Hammer in German is also-bully. The "kingly cognomen," "Karl der Hammer," was, I suspect, not given to Charles Martel without a touch and twist of Teuton humor and irony. There is a triple meaning in the word as Heine uses it. It is that which hath power over the body to kill it; and it is that which hath power over the spirit; and there is a shadowy touch of the meaning of actual carpentry-the actual building of the actual bridge, with the actual tools of the trade, that can build a Bridge-or build a Beam-or build a Cross. The word zimmern, with which Heine ends the poem, means, of course, the actual work done by a carpenter; such work as the hangman would do in building the gibbet; such as Christ learned in Joseph's shop; such as was done on-the Cross. |