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APPENDIX 7. KNOW YOU THE LAND?
Notwithstanding that Heimweh is an emotion much affected by lyric poets, and that ‘Know you the land?’ is a natural expression(1) of that emotion, a feeling persists that lines of influence should be traced between poems opening with that question.(2) Marx(3) attempted an elaborate tracing, implicating Goethe, Staël, Byron, and Carlyle.
1. Goethe, Mignon's song at the beginning of Book 3 of Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1800):
Kennst du das Land? wo die Citronen blühn,
Im dunkeln Laub die Gold=Orangen glühn.
Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,
Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht,
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Geliebter ziehn.
Kennst du das Haus? auf Saulen ruht sein Dach;
Es glänzt der Saal, es schimmert das Gemach,
Und Marmorbilder stehn und sehn mich an:
Was hat man dir, du armes Kind gethan?
Kennst du es wohl?
Dahin! Dahin
Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Beschützer, ziehn.
Kennst du den Berg und seinen Wolkensteg?
Das Maulthier sucht im Nebel seinen Weg,
In Hölen wohnt der Drachen alte Brut,
Es stiirzt der Fels und über ihn die Fluth.
Kennst du ihn wohl? Dahin! Dahin
Geht unser Weg! o Vater, lass uns ziehn!(4) [page 220:]
2. Staël, Épitre sur Naples’ (1805);
Connois-tu cette terre oft les myrtes fleurissent,
OA les rayons des cieux tombent avec amour,
Oil des sons enchanteurs dans les airs retentissent,
OA la plus douce nuit succade au plus beau jour?
As-tu senti, dis-moi, cette vie enivrante
Que le soleil du sud inspire A tous les sens?
As-tu godte jamais cette langueur touchante
Que les parfums, les fleurs et les flots caressans,
Les vents reveurs du soir, et les chants de l’aurore,
Font eprouver a l’homme en ces lieux fortunes?(5)
Although cette terre is a recherchd translation of das Land, there is evidence that it was intended as a translation: in de I’Allemagne (1810) Mme de Staël quotes Mignon's song in the words ‘Connais-tu cette terre oil les citronniers fleurissent, Sc.’(6)
3. Byron, ‘The bride of Abydos’ (1813).(7)
4. Carlyle, translation of Wilhelm Meister. Carlyle published three editions of this translation: 1824,(8) 1839,(9) 1871.(10)
1824: Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom?
Where the gold-orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom?
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves are of laurel and myrtle and rose?
My dearest and kindest, with thee would I go.
Know'st thou the house, with its turretted walls,
Where the chambers are glancing, and vast are the halls?
Where the figures of marble look on me so mild,
As if thinking: “Why thus did they use thee, poor child?”
Know'st thou it? Thither! O thither,
My guide and my guardian, with thee would I go.
Know'st thou the mountain, its cloud-covered arch,
Where the mules among mist o’er the wild torrent march?
In the clefts of it, dragons lie coil’d with their brood;
The rent crag rushes down, and above it the flood.
Know'st thou it? Thither! O thither,
Our way leadeth: Father! O come let us go!
The word rose in v. 4 represents nothing in Goethe, and may derive from Byron's Gúl. The metre is anapaestic dimeter,(11) varied in vv. 5-6, 12-13, 19-20 by dactylic trimeter catalectic.
1839: Know'st thou the land where citron-apples bloom,
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom,
A gentle wind from deep blue heaven blows,
The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows?
Know'st thou it then? ‘Tis there! ‘Tis there,
O my true lov’d one, thou with me must go!
Know'st thou the house, its porch with pillars tall?
The rooms do glitter, glitters bright the hall,
And marble statues stand, and look each one:
What's this, poor child, to thee they’ve done?
Know'st thou it then? 'Tis there! 'Tis there,
O my protector, thou with me must go! [page 221:]
Know'st thou the hill, the bridge that hangs on cloud?
The mules in mist grope o'er the torrent loud,
In caves lie coil'd the dragon's ancient brood,
The crag leaps down and over it the flood:
Know'st thou it then?
'Tis there! 'Tis there,
Our way runs; O my father, wilt thou go?
The word citron-apple in v. 1 is a hapax legomenon not in NED. Marx, p. 52, sagaciously calls the metre ‘iambic pentameter in exact imitation of Goethe's meter’. The limping v. 11, where Goethe's metre is regular, is not discussed by Marx.
1871: Know'st thou the land where lemon-trees do bloom,
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom;
A gentle wind from deep blue heaven blows,
The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows?
Know'st thou it, then?
'Tis there! 'tis there,
O my belov’d one, I with thee would go!
Know'st thou the house, its porch with pillars tall?
The rooms do glitter, glitters bright the hall,
And marble statues stand, and look me on:
What's this, poor child, to thee they’ve done?
Know'st thou it, then?
Know'st thou it? Thither! O thither,
'Tis there! 'tis there,
O my protector, I with thee would go! [page 222:]
Know'st thou the mountain, bridge that hangs on cloud?
The mules in mist grope o’er the torrent loud,
In caves lie coil’d the dragon's ancient brood,
The crag leaps down and over it the flood:
Know'st thou it, then?
‘Tis there! 'tis there
Our way runs; O my father, wilt thou go?
Marx, p. 55, finds the revisions in vv. 1 § 10 awkward. Note the restoration of lemon-trees.
After comparing these documents, we conclude:
1. Byron (pace Marx) owes nothing to Goethe. With Goethe's text before him, Byron would have had no reason not to compose an imitation in decasyllables.
2. Byron owes nothing to Stael. His explicit denial of charges of plagiary(12) may be dismissed as self-serving: but Epitre sur Naples, although composed in 1805, was first published in 1821, and Marx adduces no evidence that Byron had access to a ms. of Stael's poem.
3. Carlyle's anapaests cannot be imitated from Goethe. They are most likely from Byron, but a French source(13) is possible.
The persistence of the belief that Byron drew on Goethe may be traced to Bartlett's Quotations, a work whose influence should not be estimated by its infrequent occurrence in scholarly documentation.(14) Bartlett's first and second editions(15) give only the first verse of ‘The bride of Abydos’. Bartlett's third edition gives the following:
THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS.(16)
Canto i. St. 1.
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle,
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime;
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?42
Note 42, page 264.(17)
Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle, etc.
Know'st thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom,
Where the gold orange glows in the deep thicket's gloom,
Where a wind ever soft from the blue heaven blows,
And the groves are of laurel, and myrtle, and rose?
Goethe, Wilhelm Meister.(17)
That is all: no acknowledgement that Goethe wrote in the German tongue; no identification of Carlyle as translator; above all, no explanation for quoting the 1824 translation when the 1839 was already in circulation. Bartlett substantially copied this locus in the editions(18) he issued with Little Brown; and it has been piously reprinted by the onymous(19) and anonymous(20) editors of Little Brown's posthumous Bartletts.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 213:]
1 Literary critics would say an inevitable expression.
2 For example, when we were examining Poe's ms. transcript from ‘The bride of Abydos’ (pp. 61-62, above), Mr Rodney Dennis, curator of manuscripts in the Houghton library, glanced at the opening line and said, Ah yes, Goethe.
3 Olga Marx, Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister, Diss. Ph.D. Johns Hopkins Univ., 1925, pp. 50-55.
4 Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, Goethe's Werke, Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1816, 3:[233]. For bibliographical evidence that this is the edition that Carlyle translated from, see Marx, p. 11.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 221:]
5 Anne Germaine de Stael Holstein, OEuvres completes, Paris: Treuttel & Wurtz, 1821, 17:[401].
6 Ibid., 11:91. The aria which Carré and Barbier give to Mignon in Act I of the opera Mignon,
Connais-tu le pays ou fleurit l’oranger?
Le pays des fruits d’or et des roses vermeilles,
Ou la brise est plus douce et l’oiseau plus leger,
Ou dans toute saison butinent les abeilles,
Oil rayonne et sourit, comme un bienfait de Dieu,
Un eternel printemps sous un ciel toujours bleu! &c.,
owes little to Goethe beyond the opening words.
7 See p. 63, note 49, above.
8 Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship: A novel, from the German of Goethe. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, &c., 1824, 3 vols. Mignon's song is at 1 :229.
9 Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels: From the German of Goethe. London: James Fraser, 1839, 3 vols. Mignon's song is at 1 : [163].
10 Thomas Carlyle, Wilhelm Meister's apprenticeship and travels: Translated from the German of Goethe. London: Chapman & Hall, 1871, 2 vols. Mignon's song is at 1:118.
11 Marx, p. 52, calls it dactylic tetrameter. Since she does not cite Poe, we must assume independent paralogisms.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 222:]
12 Marguerite Power, countess of Blessington, A journal of the conversations of Lord Byron with the countess of Blessington, London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1894, p. 295.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 224:]
13 Cf. p. 147, note 46, above. Carlyle's French model cannot have been Stael: of the first 25 verses of Ecpitre sur Naples, only six admit an anapaestic scansion.
14 Cf. Shakespear, The tragedie of Iulius Caesar, 2.1.24-31:
But 'tis a common proofe,
That Lowlynesse is young Ambitions Ladder,
Whereto the Climber vpward turnes his Face:
But when he once attaines the vpmost Round,
He then vnto the Ladder turnes his Backe,
Lookes in the Clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend: so Caesar may;
Then least he may, preuent.
15 A collection of familiar quotations, with complete indices of authors and subjects, Cambridge [Massachusetts]: John Bartlett, 1855, p. 222; idem, new [2.] ed., 1856, p. 264.
16 Idem, 3. ed., 1858, p. 264. The footnote mark 42 is Bartlett's.
17 Ibid., p. 387.
18 Familiar quotations, &c., 4.. ed., Boston:Little Brown, 1863 ‘ p. 331; 5. ed., 1869, p. 478 ; 6. ed., 1874,p. 478; 7. ed. “ 1875 p. 523; 8.ed., 1882, p. 480 ; 9 ‘ ed. ‘ 1891, p. 549.
19 Nathan Haskell Dole., 10. ed., 1914, p. 549; Christopher Morley [!] and Louella D. Everett, 11. ed., 1937, p. 355; Morley and Everett, 12. ed., 1948, p. 355.
20 Thirteenth ed., 1955, cols. 455b, 378b.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - JAG68, 1968] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - EAP: The Rationale of Verse — a preliminary edition (Greenwood)