The Golden Goblet: Selected Poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Author:Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Published: 2019-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Bride of Corinth

Out of Athens came a youthful rover

Into Corinth, where he was unknown:

Hoping, for an ally, to win over

One of two fathers, friends, and one his own:

They had pledged to join

Daughter to the son

To be bride and bridegroom when they’d grown.

Will he, though, be welcomed in this bargain?

Can he buy the father’s favor dear?

After all, his kin and he are pagan:

These are baptized Christians most sincere.

Where a new creed grows,

Often loves and vows

Like a noxious weed are torn out here.

But already the whole house is sleeping;

Only mother’s up, and with a light

Entertains the guest with warm housekeeping,

Leads him to the room most grand and right.

Plied with food and wine,

He is called to dine;

Graciously she wishes him goodnight.

But before the meal so well assembled,

He is too tired for an appetite;

Into bed, full-clothed, he soon has tumbled,

Food and drink he cannot but forget;

Almost deep in rest,

When an unknown guest

Enters through a door left open yet.

For he sees, by his lamp’s gentle glimmer,

Shyly step a maiden veiled and gowned

All in white, into the silent chamber,

Round her head, a black and golden band.

Him she now espies,

Frightened with surprise,

And she raises up a quick white hand.

“Am I in this house so much a stranger,

Not to be alerted to this guest?

Kept here in a cell as if a danger—

Ah, I am with shame quite overpressed!

Rest here, if you please,

On your couch at ease;

I shall leave now quickly, as is best.”

“Lovely maiden, stay!” the boy beseeches,

Springs up swiftly from his place of rest:

“Ceres, see, and Bacchus give these riches:

You, dear girl, bring Amor to the feast!

You are pale with fear!

Dear one, let us here

See how glad the gods are at our tryst!”

“Keep away, young man, you are mistaken:

Pleasures have no property in me.”

But the last step has, alas, been taken.

In the mother’s sick delusion she,

Convalescent, swore

Youth and Nature were

Subject since to Heaven’s sole decree.

And the old gods’ gaily colored rabble

Void that house, left silent by the loss:

Heaven holds but One, invisible,

And a savior, worshipped on the cross;

Prey is slaughtered here,

Neither lamb nor steer,

But a ghastly human sacrifice.

And he asks, and weighs well each word of it,

So that not one fails to speak his soul:

“Can it be?—my bride, my one beloved,

Stands before me in this silent hall?

Mine may she be now!

For our fathers’ vow

Begged a heavenly blessing on us all!”

“You, good soul, can never now possess me,

They for you my sister do decree;

While in that still cell my griefs oppress me,

In her arms, oh pray you, think of me,

Who thinks but of you,

Lovesick for you, who

In the earth full soon will buried be.”

“No! In this flame let the pledge be given,

Hymen blazes here, shows us the way:

You’ll lose neither joy nor me, by heaven,

Come, love, to my father’s house away.

Darling, do not flee,

Celebrate with me

This unlooked-for feast and wedding day!”

Now they change love-tokens with each other,

Golden is the chain she gives him there,

And a silver chalice he will offer,

Peerless in its artistry, and fair.

“That is not for me,

But I make a plea

That you grant me one lock of your hair.

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