O fühle nun, Da die Dämmerung mit ihren Krähn Und modrigen Altarfetzen Flattert über die Entlaubnis, Da Grabeskerzen taumeln. Und Harpyien windig niederfahren Durch Zwielicht und Zweifelherbst— O fühle du die alten Götter hocken auf den Bergen, Böse über Zigeuner-Kesseln, die Verbannten! O fühle du die Entzweiung der Mächte, Zu deinem Haupt geballt die beiden Balger! Der schickt dir Regen, boshaft Boreas— Der Seelenherzog Hermes über die schwankenden Lampen Läßt er dich stolpern des Erebus. Günstig ist dir der Leto-Sohn Und günstig der Löser, Günstig auch Kypris..., Doch dir zu Häupten Ilischer Kampf der Dämonen! Du selbst der Staub nur ihrer Schlacht, Du selbst der Schreck nur ihres Schreis, Das Beben der Sphäre, Kurzhaftender Blitz ihrer Pole, Du nur der alte Sohn ihrer Balance.
O feel now, When the twilight with its crows And moldy altar rags Flaps over the defoliation, When the grave candles gutter, And harpies descend in gusts Through the half-light and dubious autumn— O feel the old gods crouched in the mountains, The evil above gypsy cauldrons, the banished. O feel the division of their powers, Both brawlers clenched for your head. He who one sends you rain, cruel Boreas— The Duke of Souls, Hermes, above the swaying lamps, He lets you stumble in Erebus. Leto’s son is better for you And the loser better, Cyprus better too... But for your head A Trojan War of demons. You but the dust of their battle, You but the fear of their cry, The quaking of their sphere, A short-lived flash of their poles, You, just the ancient son of their balance. [1910s]
Note: line 2, twilight (Dämmerung), the poem plays on the dual nature of the word twilight, which can mean dusk as well as dawn; line 4, defoliation (Entlaubnis), a neologism for a wasteland, i.e., the “dubious autumn” in line 7; line 12, the one, Zeus; Boreas, the god of the north wind; line 13, Duke of Souls (Seelenherzog), this appellation for Hermes Psychopompus should be read simultaneously as a military, noble, and religious title (e.g., as it might be applied in early German texts to a Roman emperor or prince archbishop); line 15, Erebus, the god and personification of darkness in the Greek underworld; line 16, Leto’s son, Apollo, the god of light, perhaps as Sol Invictus, the conquering sun and patron of soldiers; line 18, Cyprus, i.e., Aphrodite.
James Reidel | Ruths Worte > Ruth’s Word Contents | Mudlark No. 69 (2020)