The Poems of Goethe
Translated in the original metres
by Edgar Alfred Bowring
THE reluctance which must naturally be felt by any one in
venturing to give to the world a book such as the present, where
the beauties of the great original must inevitably be diminished,
if not destroyed, in the process of passing through the
translator's hands, cannot but be felt in all its force when that
translator has not penetrated beyond the outer courts of the
poetic fane, and can have no hope of advancing further, or of
reaching its sanctuary. But it is to me a subject of peculiar
satisfaction that your kind permission to have your name
inscribed upon this page serves to attain a twofold end--one
direct and personal, and relating to the present day; the other
reflected and historical, and belonging to times long gone by. Of
the first little need now be said, for the privilege is wholly
mine, in making this dedication: as to the second, one word of
explanation will suffice for those who have made the greatest
poet of Germany, almost of the world, their study, and to whom
the story of his life is not unknown. All who have followed the
career of GOETHE are familiar with the name and character of
DALBERG, and also with the deep and lasting friendship that
existed between them, from which SCHILLER too was not absent;
recalling to the mind the days of old, when a Virgil and a Horace
and a Maecenas sat side by side.
Remembering, then, the connection that, in a former century,
was formed and riveted between your illustrious ancestor and him
whom it is the object of these pages to represent, I deem it a
happy augury that the link then established finds itself not
wholly severed even now (although its strength may be
immeasurably weakened in the comparison), inasmuch as this page
brings them once more in contact, the one in the person of his
own descendant, the other in that of the translator of his Poems.
Believe me, with great truth,
Very faithfully yours,
EDGAR A. BOWRING.
London, April, 1853.
I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render
satisfactorily into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of
other lands, the responsibility assumed by the translator is
immeasurably increased when he attempts to transfer the thoughts
of those great men, who have lived for all the world and for all
ages, from the language in which they were originally clothed, to
one to which they may as yet have been strangers. Preeminently
is this the case with Goethe, the most masterly of all the master
minds of modern times, whose name is already inscribed on the
tablets of immortality, and whose fame already extends over the
earth, although as yet only in its infancy. Scarcely have two
decades passed away since he ceased to dwell among men, yet he
now stands before us, not as a mere individual, like those whom
the world is wont to call great, but as a type, as an emblem--the
recognised emblem and representative of the human mind in its
present stage of culture and advancement.