How the Wise Men Got to Chelm by Bernuth Ruth von;

Author:Bernuth, Ruth von;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL040000 Religion / Judaism / General
Publisher: New York University Press

O Deutschland meine ferne Liebe,

Gedenk ich deiner, wein ich fast!

Das munter Frankreich scheint mir trübe,

Das leichte Volk wird mir zur Last.

(Oh Germany, my far-off dear,

I all but weep to think of thee!

Light-hearted France seems drab and drear,

Her giddy race depresses me.)58

Folly enters in the second stanza, where the narrator longs for Germany’s “Narrheitsglöcklein, Glaubensglocken” (foolscap jingles, church-bells’ chime), by which he means the Germans’ “Grobheit” (lack of sophistication) as against the French excess of it; the taciturnity of the German woman “who comes to bed without a word” as against France’s “smiling women, always prating”; and Germany’s quiet stagnation as against the constant change in France, where “everything is whirling, flailing.”59 Thus, the narrator imagines Germany as a backward country in which he hears “Nachtwächterhörner” (nightwatchmen’s horns), “Nachtwächterlieder” (nightwatchmen’s songs), and the song of the nightingale.60

Finally, the last stanza transports the poet to Schilda, which stands, along with the oaks, for Germany:

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