Saturday 1 September 2012

Mediterranean Travels (Goethe)


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: (trans. —okei)
Do you know the land of lemon groves and pines?
Where in leafy shade, the orange golden shines.
A soft sea breeze descends from an azure sky,
The myrtle standing calm and the laurel high.
                     There! There!
Would I with you, oh my dearest!, like to roam.

Painting: The Bridesmaid by John Everett Millais.

3 comments:

  1. I know a little bit. Not as much as I'd like, but enough to understand how such poetry might be inspired.

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  2. Goethe's poem was actually written to his Father! And is referring to Italy where Germans were encouraged to go when they came of age to learn about the "good life": art, culture, love, nature etc.

    There are two more verses, but they are personal (remembering his father's house perhaps) and difficult for me to understand (wish I knew what was meant by dragons?), so I didn't translate them...

    Know’st thou the house?
    On columns rests its roof;
    Glitters the hall, the
    chambers gleam aloof;
    And marble statues stand
    and gaze at me;—
    “What have they done,
    poor little child, to thee?”
    Know’st thou the house?
    Ah, there, ah, there
    Would I with thee, O my
    protector, go.

    Know’st thou the mount,
    with cloud-enveloped track?
    The mule seeks out his
    way in mist and rack;
    In caverns dwells the
    dragon’s ancient brood;
    Down leaps the crag, and
    over it the flood!
    Know’st thou the mount?
    Ah, there, ah, there
    Leadeth our road, O
    father, let us go!


    By the way Jon, you know how Phae has dragon imagery in her poetry, the dragon seen as a negative force unlike in far Eastern mythology. But interestingly, I read some quote translating from old Chinese texts saying "the man must tame the tiger, the woman the dragon" so the positive connotations of dragons was maybe for the male!

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  3. The tiger is a big cat, and of course cats are symbolically feminine...

    The dragon I think was a symbol of fertility, and also a bringer or rain.

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