Heine’s “Rückschau” and “Weltlauf”

 

  

The German texts of the poems and quoted prose are appended.

  

1.  Heine’s “Rückschau” 

 

A Look Back

 

I have smelled every smellable scent

that the kitchen of earth can present.

I’ve taken all pleasures I could,

just like a hero would,

drunk coffee and gobbled down cake,

known many fine girls for love’s sake,

worn a silk vest and a very fine cloak

with money jingling in my poke.

I rode on a horse like Gellert the Great;

I had more than a house, I had an estate!

On fortune’s green field I’ve often reclined

while golden sunrays on me shined.

A laurel wreath round my brow one would find

inspiring new dreams to be born in my mind,

dreams of fine roses and unending May.

So blissful it was then to me each day,

addicted to twilight and idle as sin!

Roast pigeons just saw my mouth and flew in!

An angel appeared and from out of his gown –

a vintage Champagne for me to drink down!

These, though, were visions, just bubbles of soap,

which burst.  Now I lie on a wet grassy slope.

Rheumatism has seized all my limbs

and my soul is so sad, it with shame overbrims.

Every joy and every delight

I have paid for with harsh acrid spite.

I’m soaked in the bitterest gall,

while bedbugs do bite and crawl.

Beset by every black grief,

I find I’m a liar, I find I’m a thief.

Each affluent booby and dry old maid

must be begged if I’m to be paid.

I’ve now grown so tired of dashing around,

I’m ready to lie in my grave in the ground.

For now, my Christian friends, good-bye!

It’s quite understood, we’ll meet in the sky. 

 

 

    This poem, though high-spirited, is anything but frivolous.  It appeared in Romanzero, Heine’s last book, written from his sick-bed with the knowledge that he would not recover.. 

     I translated this primarily for the fun of the couplets, many of which are constructed with the care of a stand-up comedian.  Punchlines arrive as regularly as the surf.  While maintaining these clanging insistent rhymes, I have jazzed up the rhythmic patterns (for the most part keeping a four-beat line of variable length) to avoid a sing-song tone.  The rhymes still create an impression of a certain jauntiness, which should not distract readers from Heine’s graver implications.  One may gather a hint of this darker tone from the title of one of the chapters in Adorno’s Notes to Literature: “Heine the Wound.”

     The irony that begins with naïve hyperbole, which comes to seem mere bravado as it is undercut and eventually all but inverted by bedbugs and illness and dependence on unworthy others.  The poet’s élan vital drained, he is fatigued with life, ready to leap into the grave.  Yet at the same time, he is a spirited observer of his own position and able to toss off an ironic greeting for the close, the hollow Christian promise of pie in the sky.  His supposed conversion serves as an example of the “begging” to which the author is reduced, yet he remains afloat in the sea of circumstance through artful and defiant words.  If he cannot eliminate life’s pains and injustices, he can at any rate make fun of them.

 

 

ii.  Heine’s “Weltlauf”

 

     This poem, also from Romanzero, provides economic analysis boiled down to the bare minimum.  In a society in which worth is measured by wealth, further success inevitably goes to those who have no need of it, while those in penury stand no chance.  As another poet put it “Them that's got shall get/ Them that's not shall lose/ So the bible said and it still is news.”

     In the French introduction to Lutetia Heine asserted his simple and radical belief that “all people have the right to eat.”  He proceeded to a righteous condemnation of capitalism.  “The old social order has long been judged and condemned.  Let justice prevail!  May the old society be shattered in which innocence always loses, where cynicism flourishes, where people exploit their fellow man!  May the old way be destroyed from the very base with its whitewashed graves, filled with lies and injustice.”

 

The Way of the World

 

If someone’s got a lot you know what’s next:

the money rolling in will never cease.

The man with very little at the start

will never find his wealth increase.

 

And if you haven’t anything at all,

you may as well be buried ‘neath the clay.

The right to live belongs only to those

who have the cash to pay their way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rückschau

 

Ich habe gerochen alle Gerüche

In dieser holden Erdenküche;

Was man genießen kann in der Welt,

Das hab ich genossen wie je ein Held!

Hab Kaffee getrunken, hab Kuchen gegessen.

Hab manche schöne Puppe besessen;

Trug seidne Westen, den feinsten Frack,

Mir klingelten auch Dukaten im Sack.

Wie Gellert ritt ich auf hohem Roß;

Ich hatte ein Haus, ich hatte ein Schloß.

Ich lag auf der grünen Wiese des Glücks,

Die Sonne grüßte goldigsten Blicks;

Ein Lorbeerkranz umschloß die Stirn,

Er duftete Träume mir ins Gehirn,

Träume von Rosen und ewigem Mai —

Es ward mir so selig zu Sinne dabei,

So dämmersüchtig, so sterbefaul —

Mir flogen gebratne Tauben ins Maul,

Und Englein kamen, und aus den Taschen

Sie zogen hervor Champagnerflaschen —

Das waren Visionen, Seifenblasen —

Sie platzten — Jetzt lieg ich auf feuchtem Rasen,

Die Glieder sind mir rheumatisch gelähmt,

Und meine Seele ist tief beschämt.

Ach, jede Lust, ach, jeden Genuß

Hab ich erkauft durch herben Verdruß;

Ich ward getränkt mit Bitternissen

Und grausam von den Wanzen gebissen;

Ich ward bedrängt von schwarzen Sorgen,

Ich mußte lügen, ich mußte borgen

Bei reichen Buben und alten Vetteln —

Ich glaube sogar, ich mußte betteln.

Jetzt bin ich müd vom Rennen und Laufen,

Jetzt will ich mich im Grabe verschnaufen.

Lebt wohl! Dort oben, ihr christlichen Brüder,

Ja, das versteht sich, dort sehn wir uns wieder.

 

 

Weltlauf

 

Hat man viel, so wird man bald

Noch viel mehr dazu bekommen.

Wer nur wenig hat, dem wird

Auch das Wenige genommen.

 

Wenn du aber gar nichts hast,

Ach, so lasse dich begraben —

Denn ein Recht zum Leben, Lump,

Haben nur die etwas haben.

 

 

 

 

The passage from the introduction to Lutetia in German is, in the original, “dass die Menschen alle das Recht zu essen haben.  Sie ist schon seit langer Zeit gerichtet, verurteilt, diese alte Gesellschaft.  Möge ihr Gerechtigkeit widerfahren!  Möge sie zertrūmmert warden, diese alte Welt, wo die Unschuld zu Grunde ging, wo der Cynismus gedieh, wo der Mensch durch den Menschen exploitiert wurde!  Mögen sie von Grund aus zerstört warden, diese ūbertūnchen Grabstätten, wo die Lüge und die Unbilligkeit residierten!”