 Wanderers Nachtlied II | |
| Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | |
Über allen Gipfeln | |
| Ist Ruh, | |
| In allen Wipfeln | |
| Spürest du | |
| Kaum einen Hauch; | |
| Die Vögelein schweigen in Walde. | |
| Warte nur, balde | |
| Ruhest du auch. |
Above all summits
is peace.
In all tree crests
you now sense
scarcely a breath.
The birds are quiet as tombs.
Just wait, soon
you too will rest.
Translated from the German by Thomas Dorsett
This poem is considered by many to be the finest short lyric in the German language. Shortly after it was written, Goethe inscribed the poem onto the wall of a little hunting cabin in central Germany. This occurred on September 6, 1776. At that time, Goethe was part of the court at Weimar where he had many functions. (The cabin is on a mountain near the silver mine which he administered. Goethe was already very famous across Europe due to his poignant novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, the subject of which is a tragic love affair.
A few months before his death in 1832, Goethe returned to the cabin for the fist time since he had composed the poem. As he read the poem, still quite legible on the wall of what had become known as"The Goethe Hut," tears flowed down his cheeks.
l. The Poem
This is a perfect short lyric. The many long vowels slow down the reader and have a calming effect. The feminine or soft endings (in this case the e at the end of Wald and at the end of bald--the word "bald" usually doesn't have a final e--all contribute to the soothing mindfulness of the poem. The German rhymes perfectly; I replaced--from necessity-- some of the full rhymes with half rhymes, i.e., "peace" with "sense" and "breath" with "rest." This conveys a somewhat modern touch; the rhyme scheme is, however, still maintained, albeit imperfectly. (It is impossible to convey the meaning with full rhymes in English. Most translations of this poem are either prose translations or ones that fall flat. There might be a better translation than mine somewhere, but I haven't found one with which I've been satisfied.)
If you have at least a working knowledge of German, read the poem aloud slowly; you might thus appreciate the poem's beauty without any further comment from me. Now let's proceed to an interpretation.
The poem begins with the cosmos and ends with the individual. It denotes a process of peace starting from the heavens, proceeding down from the treetops until it reaches the forest floor where the individual to whom the poem is addressed is located. "Above the summits" that is, in the sky, in the heavens, is peace. Scarcely a breath of wind occurs in the treetops; peace is there, too. The birds, intermediate creatures, at home both in the air and on the ground, have received this peace, too. Notice the last line demands that the person addressed must wait--peace hasn't come to him or her yet, but it definitely will.if he remains open to it.
The progression of peace from cosmos to ground is ideal, but it is not always thus in reality. It is conceivable that the individual could first find the peace in nature--the birds and treetops--and then find peace in the cosmos. Goethe presents what might be the most efficacious path, but it has variations.
What the poem says is that if you are agitated, meditate--the use of that word here is not an exaggeration, since the poem is quite contemplative--on the cosmos and on nature and you will soon find rest. That the cosmos has areas of extreme violence, such as occurs in the vicinity of black holes, or that nature is often "red in tooth and claw," is not an appropriate criticism against seeking peace in the natural world. We are talking about contemplation here--although natural, external images are presented, the symbolic meaning of the poem is that we are to find peace within. Nature can help us do that; that's what's important.
Since peace descends in the poem from on high to the human being, all things are united in peace. Therefore, the individual is united with both the cosmos and with nature, reducing separation to an illusion, albeit a very practical one.
The poem describes a way of looking outside that at the same time also looks inside; at the end come the joy, wisdom and serenity of true peace. Many people have viewed the last line as a reference to death. I see it more as death the way Nirvana, the snuffing out of the fire of individuality, is death. Wanderer's Night-Song is an extremely beautifully wise poem.
2. Goethe in Reverse
Goethe is not the only wise poet! I would like to quote here a haiku by Basho, the greatest composer of haiku in the Japanese language--and that says a lot. It is actually quite similar in content to the Goethe poem, except that the movement is reversed, from the individual (Earth) to the cosmos, instead of the other way around:
A wild sea-
In the distance over Sado
The Milky Way.
Just as in the Japanese poem, only images are presented, no abstract language such as "fear, worry" etc. Both poems suggest deeper meanings indirectly, through the use of suggestive images. This is a mark of the best poetry. Neither poem mentions an individual in torment--it is implied, however, in both poems. "Just wait, soon/ you too will rest" indicates that the peace above and around him has not yet entered this person, who is in a state of unrest. Basho's poem is very similar. "A wild sea" signifies inner turmoil. In nature, however, all storms are local, especially inner storms. There is an absolute contrast to the wild sea presented in the poem: the beauty, majesty and calm of the Milky Way.
The theme of both poems are exactly the same: get yourself in accord with the cosmos (Nature) and you will transcend all turbulence.
Although the movement is reversed in Basho's poem, in both poems the cosmos is a source of peace. Neither poet would begin a wisdom poem with the individual at peace and the cosmos in turmoil. Once again, we are not implying that plants and animals are not in "cutthroat" competition, nor are we denying the extreme violence of supernovas. The subject is the attainment of inner calm through contemplation of nature. In any case, we have no concept of nature except for what our consciousness perceives. (We can never know the "thing in itself" wrote Kant. As a part of the system, (nature) we cannot have complete knowledge of it, taught Gödel.) The theme of both poems is a natural way to heal a distracted mind--that is, by contemplation, by meditating on nature in its most sublime manifestations.
I recall the ending of a poem I wrote a long time ago:
...God's living promise:/
the abyss in the belly can be filled.
Goethe knew that; Basho knew that. They also knew that it wasn't easy. The poems might be short, but it might take a lifetime--Basho might have said that it could take several lifetimes--to realize the peace in the last line of each poem. But there is no doubt about it: the abyss in the belly can be filled.
3. Some People Just Don't Get It
There are people who are tone-deaf to poetry. They go for the content and not for the craft; they go for the musings and not for the music. A high IQ does not necessarily correlate with a high PQ, that is, a high Poetry Quotient. We will now give an example of a great man completely missing the beauty of Goethe's poem. The man in question is August von Humboldt, (1769-1859), the notable geographer, naturalist and explorer. The discussion of Goethe's poem occurs in the very entertaining novel, Measuring the World, die Vermessung der Welt, by Daniel Kehlmann. It is fiction, but inability to appreciate poetry in otherwise very accomplished individuals is certainly a common occurrence, as it is among the less educated. The episode occurs when Humboldt is asked by South Americans, during an exploratory trip to the Amazon, to provide some entertainment:
Mario asked Humboldt if he would please tell them a story.
He didn't know any stories, said Humboldt, and straightened his hat, which the monkey had turned around. And he didn't like telling them. But he could recite the most beautiful poem in the German language, freely translated into Spanish. Here it was. Above all the mountaintops it was silent, there was no wind in the trees, even the birds were quiet, and soon death would come.
Everyone looked at him
That's it, said Humboldt.
Yes, but, asked Bonpland.
Humboldt reached for the sextant.
Pardon, said Julio, but that couldn't have been the whole thing.
--The Measurement of the World, page 107
Who said Germans (in this case an Austrian) can't be funny?
4. Two Musical Renditions of Wanderer"s Night-Song
Many examples of German poetry of the nineteenth century have been transformed by composers into notable lieder. Music is more international--and more popular--than poetry; it is the lieder versions that keep much of the poetry alive outside the German-speaking world. Much of nineteenth century German poetry begs to be made into a lied, since the meter of most poems at the time is quite regular. (A notable exception to this is the poetry of Hölderlin, whose poetry has too much inner music to accommodate external tones.)
Goethe's Wanderer's Night-Song is also an exception, even when compared to his other poems. The lines are uneven; much of its beauty is due to inner rhymes and due to its imagery. Nevertheless, several outstanding composers have composed lieder to the text. I will briefly discuss two of them with suggested recordings.
Schubert (Youtube, Hans Hotter, Wanderers Nachtlied 11, D 794)
No one would come across as being foolish by claiming that Schubert was the best lieder composer ever. This is indeed a wonderful song, exuding peace and serenity. Hans Hotter's performance is flawless; it is a gem. My criticism here, however, is that Schubert misses the deeper meaning of Goethe's poem. (This isn't the only example; for instance, Schubert did not sense the irony of Heine's der Doppelgänger, yet created a masterpiece nevertheless.)
Schubert's lied evokes a scene from nature which induces peace. There is no cosmic descent. One gets a hint of the universal background by the use of the pedal tone in the tree-tops line. His use of notes of shorter duration makes the music of "scarcely a breath" sound ominous--as if chaos underlies the peace of the forest but will be given short shrift here. Then Schubert gets diverted with the birds--one imagines him listening in wonder to the birds on country walks. He breaks the movement of the poem by breaking the line, "die Vögelein schweigen/schweigen im Walde." This bird-interlude disturbs the unity of the poem. The ending is beautiful. The whole song is indeed exquisite; it succeeds superbly as music, but fails to grasp the meaning of Goethe's poem.
Youtube: Carl Loewe Wanders Nachtlied 1 Hermann Prey
(Note it's designated as Wanderers Nachtlied 1 on Youtube: this is an error.)
This lied alone is proof enough that Loewe is a neglected composer who deserves much more recognition. He might not be a Schumann or a Schubert, but he composed some music that should not be forgotten. I was astonished when I heard this piece; it is very impressive.
It's hard to imagine that Loewe was about a year older than Schubert, yet lived for forty-one years after Schubert's death. Schumann praised Loewe, but later his enthusiasm waned. Wagner thought he was first-rate.
Unlike Schubert, who usually gave his musical imagination free reign while composing music to a text, Loewe paid extremely close attention to the text. We hear the E flat triad in a metric accompaniment, indicating the peace above summits. The chords change as we pass to the peace of the treetops and to the peace of the quiet birds. The section about the birds is given an unbroken melodic line. Notice the piano accompaniment immediately before the "Warte, nur," ("Just wait") phrase. The piano plays three ascending quarter notes (representing, at least in my interpretation, the three aspects of descending peace, before the individual is reached.) The three ascending notes culminate in the dotted quarter, the eighth and the quarter note of "Warte nur." This is the high-point of the phrase--and the gist of the whole poem--peace coming to the individual. Notice the notes here ascend, while in the poem the peace descends. It's as if Loeve is telling us this is the same thing; the peace is welling up from deep inside, ascending into consciousness. A mirror image, as it were, sometimes makes the best accompaniment. This is a very deep understanding of Goethe's poem; the peace above the summit abides deep inside human beings, and can be brought out with the help of nature.
The ending is even more fascinating. Against all expectation, Loewe ends the last note not on the first note of the scale, but on the third. Also contrary to expectation, this note is a whole note, tied--noted probably with a fermata, indicating a very strong emphasis. The last note is sung on the word, "auch" meaning "also" (The translation does not follow the German word order.) The individual is the "auch". he, too finds rest. Now the individual ends on higher note--you can hear the ascent of the individual toward the cosmos. And notice the individual is indeed closer to the cosmos now, but has not ascended to the very top; the humility of the human condition is maintained.
Listen to the ending carefully. The last note sums up the entire poem in a strikingly original, effective manner. It is a transcendent moment.
This lied is an astounding example of recreating a text through music. It's as if Loewe has rewritten the poem while being faithful to it; in musical terms, that's indeed what he has done. This lied should be universally praised and used as a prime example of how to put a poem to music. Maybe this little essay will help lead to that realization, but I doubt it. The history of art is not always fair.
Conclusion
Goethe's Wanderer's Night-song is one of the most beautiful poems of the German language. It can easily be memorized--and should be. It's harder to realize--it might take a lifetime to spiritually reach the peace of the last line, but it can and should be the goal of us all. We can full fill our hunger with spiritual peace. Goethe expressed this in a very short poem that contains images and no abstractions; it is a true work of genius.
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