But never, never will he forget.
Sooner would home and order perish
And the age of man grow monstrous
Before someone like him could ever forget
His origin and the true voice of youth.
Who was it that first perverted
The bonds of love and turned them
Into fetters? They’ve made
A mockery of their own principles
And surely the fire of heaven:
Then they’ve scorned the paths of mortals
And resolved on brazen acts,
Striving to become equal
With the gods.
The gods find their own
Immortality enough,
And if the heavenly beings need
Something it would be heroes and humans
And other kinds of mortal beings.
Because the most blessed ones
Feel nothing for themselves,
They need someone else,
If one may say so,
To feel empathy for them,
In the name of the gods.
Nonetheless it is their judgment,
If some dreamer wants to be like them
And won’t accept their lack of equality,
That his own home be destroyed,
What he loves most be decried as hostile,
And father and child be buried in ruins.
Therefore whoever has found
A well-chosen destiny is fortunate,
Where on a safe shore
Memories of journeys
And sorrows still come
Rushing up delightfully,
And he can see as far as
The borders of his resting place
Which God has drawn up for him at birth:
Then he will rest, blest with modesty,
Since all that he wanted, being
From Heaven, embraces the bold one,*
Uncoerced and without restraint,
Smiling, now that he's at rest.
Continues German text Home All poems
* The bold one is the Rhine, the river's conversion into a more manageable outflow having been compared in the two strophes preceding with man's duty to conquer his own hubris.
Website and Translations Copyright © 2022 by James Mitchell