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A New and Complete Translation

Essay 6

1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 [†]19 May 1767

2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 I still have not mentioned the addresses delivered to the audience before and after the main play on the first evening.[6.1]They were written by a poet who understands better than any other how to enliven profound ideas with wit and lend an agreeable air of playfulness to serious thought.[6.2] How could I better enhance these pages, than by sharing them in full with my readers? Here they are. They need no commentary. I only hope that they do not fall on deaf ears!

3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 They were both unusually well delivered; the first with all of the grace and dignity, and the second with all of the warmth, delicacy, and engaging courtesy that the particular content of each demands.

4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0  

5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 PROLOGUE[6.3]

6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 (SPOKEN BY MADAME LÖWEN)[6.4]

7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 Dear friends, who have enjoyed here the manifold display

8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0 Of humanity through the art of imitation:

9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0 You who gladly weep, you tender, better souls,

10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 How beautiful, how noble your desire to vex yourselves so;

11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 When by and by sweet tears, from melting hearts,

12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 0 Dissolved in tenderness, steal quietly down cheeks,

13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 When then the soul, assailed, with every nerve aquiver,

14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 Revels in suffering, and trembles with desire!

15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 O say: this art, that so melts your heart,

16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 This stream of passion, that surges through your core,

17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 Which pleases when it’s touching, and delights with fear,

18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 Which awakens you to pity, compassion, and generosity;

19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 This model of decorum that teaches every virtue –

20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 Is it not worth your favor and your patronage?

21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 0  

22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 Compassionate Providence sends this art to Earth

23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0 To benefit barbarians, so they become humane;[6.5]

24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0 It consecrates art with majesty, with genius, and passion divine,

25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 0 To be the teacher of princes and kings;

26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 0 It calls on art to use its power of enthralling us in tears

27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 0 To sharpen the dullest sense of compassion;

28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 0 To conquer evil and strengthen souls

29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0 Through sweet apprehension and pleasurable dread;

30 Leave a comment on paragraph 30 0 To mold, for benefit of the state, the angry, wild man

31 Leave a comment on paragraph 31 0 Into a person, citizen, patriot, and friend.

32 Leave a comment on paragraph 32 0  

33 Leave a comment on paragraph 33 0 Laws may well strengthen the safety of nations,

34 Leave a comment on paragraph 34 0 Like chains binding the hands of injustice:

35 Leave a comment on paragraph 35 0 But craftiness will always hide scoundrels from judges,

36 Leave a comment on paragraph 36 0 And power will often shelter nobility’s villains.

37 Leave a comment on paragraph 37 0 Who will avenge innocence, then? Woe to the enfetter’d state,

38 Leave a comment on paragraph 38 0 Whose only virtue is a book of laws!

39 Leave a comment on paragraph 39 0 Laws that merely bridle public crimes,

40 Leave a comment on paragraph 40 0 Laws abused to deliver verdicts of hate,

41 Leave a comment on paragraph 41 0 When selfishness, pride, and prejudice

42 Leave a comment on paragraph 42 0 Impose the spirit of oppression on the spirit of Solon![6.6]

43 Leave a comment on paragraph 43 0 Then corruption soon seizes the sword of majesty

44 Leave a comment on paragraph 44 0 In order to escape its retribution:

45 Leave a comment on paragraph 45 0 Then the power-hungry, rejoicing in the decay

46 Leave a comment on paragraph 46 0 Of integrity, plant a foot on freedom’s neck;

47 Leave a comment on paragraph 47 0 Make noble men languish in irons and shame

48 Leave a comment on paragraph 48 0 And slaughter the innocent with Themis’s bloodstained sword.[6.7]

49 Leave a comment on paragraph 49 0  

50 Leave a comment on paragraph 50 0 When he, unpunished by any and punishable by none,

51 Leave a comment on paragraph 51 0 The clever villain, the bloodthirsty tyrant,

52 Leave a comment on paragraph 52 0 When he suppresses innocence, who will defend it?

53 Leave a comment on paragraph 53 0 One is protected by pools of deceit, another armed with terror.

54 Leave a comment on paragraph 54 0 Who is the protector of innocence, who will stand in opposition? –

55 Leave a comment on paragraph 55 0 Who? – That fearless art, which wields both dagger and scourge

56 Leave a comment on paragraph 56 0 And dares to hold the mirror up

57 Leave a comment on paragraph 57 0 To all miscreants of unpunished folly;

58 Leave a comment on paragraph 58 0 Which unveils deception’s tangled web,

59 Leave a comment on paragraph 59 0 And tells tyrants that indeed tyrants they are;

60 Leave a comment on paragraph 60 0 Which, fearless, shows its strength before the throne,

61 Leave a comment on paragraph 61 0 And speaks to the hearts of princes in a thunderous tone;

62 Leave a comment on paragraph 62 0 Which frightens crowned murderers, and sobers the ambitious,

63 Leave a comment on paragraph 63 0 Chastens the hypocrite, and laughs the fool wiser;

64 Leave a comment on paragraph 64 0 Which teaches us a lesson by bringing the dead to life:

65 Leave a comment on paragraph 65 0 That great art with which we laugh, or cry.

66 Leave a comment on paragraph 66 0  

67 Leave a comment on paragraph 67 0 In Greece Thalia found protection, love, and the desire for learning;

68 Leave a comment on paragraph 68 0 In Rome, in Gaul, in Albion, and – here.[6.8]

69 Leave a comment on paragraph 69 0 When her tears have flowed with noble tenderness,

70 Leave a comment on paragraph 70 0 You, friends, have often joined in with yours;

71 Leave a comment on paragraph 71 0 You have openly merged your pain with hers,

72 Leave a comment on paragraph 72 0 And cried your applause with full hearts to her:

73 Leave a comment on paragraph 73 0 Like her, you have hated, loved, hoped, and feared,

74 Leave a comment on paragraph 74 0 And through suffering, rejoiced in your humanity.

75 Leave a comment on paragraph 75 0 For a long time she has sought a stage in vain:

76 Leave a comment on paragraph 76 0 In Hamburg she found protection: here is her Athens!

77 Leave a comment on paragraph 77 0 Here, in the bosom of peace, protected by wise patrons,

78 Leave a comment on paragraph 78 0 Encouraged by praise, perfected by the connoisseur,

79 Leave a comment on paragraph 79 0 Here will flourish – yes, I wish, I hope, I predict! –

80 Leave a comment on paragraph 80 0 A second Roscius, a second Sophocles,[6.9]

81 Leave a comment on paragraph 81 0 Who will revive Greek tragedy for the Germans:

82 Leave a comment on paragraph 82 0 And some of this fame shall be yours, you patrons

83 Leave a comment on paragraph 83 0 O be worthy of the same! Uphold your benefaction,

84 Leave a comment on paragraph 84 0 And remember, O remember, all Germany looks up to you!

85 Leave a comment on paragraph 85 0  

86 Leave a comment on paragraph 86 0 EPILOGUE

87 Leave a comment on paragraph 87 0 (DELIVERED BY MADAME HENSEL)

88 Leave a comment on paragraph 88 0 See here! how resolutely the stalwart Christian dies!

89 Leave a comment on paragraph 89 0 And how coldly he hates, who finds use in delusion,

90 Leave a comment on paragraph 90 0 Who needs barbarity, the better to make his cause,

91 Leave a comment on paragraph 91 0 His vision, his dream, into the word of God.

92 Leave a comment on paragraph 92 0 The spirit of delusion was persecution and violence,

93 Leave a comment on paragraph 93 0 Where blindness was merit, and fear, piety.

94 Leave a comment on paragraph 94 0 Thus the web of lies was protected with the flare

95 Leave a comment on paragraph 95 0 Of majesty, with poison, and with assassination.

96 Leave a comment on paragraph 96 0 Where conviction is lacking, fear steps in:

97 Leave a comment on paragraph 97 0 Truth is condemned, delusion claims blood.

98 Leave a comment on paragraph 98 0 Those whose faith differs from Ismenor’s

99 Leave a comment on paragraph 99 0 Must be hunted and converted by the sword.

100 Leave a comment on paragraph 100 0 And many an Aladin, whether conniving or weak, indulges

101 Leave a comment on paragraph 101 0 The dark court of holy murders,

102 Leave a comment on paragraph 102 0 And must use his sword against his friend,

103 Leave a comment on paragraph 103 0 The enemy of fanaticism, the martyr to the truth –

104 Leave a comment on paragraph 104 0 An abominable masterwork of ambition and cunning

105 Leave a comment on paragraph 105 0 For which no name is too harsh, no insult too bitter!

106 Leave a comment on paragraph 106 0 O dogma, that allows abuse of the deity itself,

107 Leave a comment on paragraph 107 0 Allows the dagger of hatred to be plunged into an innocent heart,

108 Leave a comment on paragraph 108 0 You, with your bloody banner so often carried over corpses:

109 Leave a comment on paragraph 109 0 Who will lend me a curse with which to condemn you, you abomination!

110 Leave a comment on paragraph 110 0 You friends, in whose breast the noble voice of humanity

111 Leave a comment on paragraph 111 0 Spoke out for the heroine, as she became an innocent victim

112 Leave a comment on paragraph 112 0 Of the priest’s fury and died for the truth:

113 Leave a comment on paragraph 113 0 Be thanked for this feeling, thanked for each tear!

114 Leave a comment on paragraph 114 0 He who errs does not deserve the high price of hate or derision:

115 Leave a comment on paragraph 115 0 The teachings of hatred are no teachings of God!

116 Leave a comment on paragraph 116 0 Oh! Love those who err, who are blind without malice,

117 Leave a comment on paragraph 117 0 Who perhaps are much weaker, but still human beings.

118 Leave a comment on paragraph 118 0 Teach them, tolerate them; do not force to tears those

119 Leave a comment on paragraph 119 0 Who cannot be reproached for anything other than different beliefs!

120 Leave a comment on paragraph 120 0 Righteous the man who, true to his faith,

121 Leave a comment on paragraph 121 0 Forces no one to deceive or viciously to pretend;

122 Leave a comment on paragraph 122 0 Who burns for truth, and, like Olint, never cobbled by fear,

123 Leave a comment on paragraph 123 0 Joyfully seals it with his blood.

124 Leave a comment on paragraph 124 0 Such an example, noble friends, deserves your applause:

125 Leave a comment on paragraph 125 0 What a blessing! if what Cronegk teaches so beautifully,

126 Leave a comment on paragraph 126 0 If the ideas, that have so ennobled him,

127 Leave a comment on paragraph 127 0 Were engraved deep in your hearts by our performance.

128 Leave a comment on paragraph 128 0 The poet’s life was beautiful, as is his repute;

129 Leave a comment on paragraph 129 0 He was, and – oh, forgive my tears! – died a Christian.

130 Leave a comment on paragraph 130 0 To posterity he left his magnificent heart in poems,

131 Leave a comment on paragraph 131 0 So that – and what more can one do? – he could teach us even in death.

132 Leave a comment on paragraph 132 0 If Sophronia has moved you here,

133 Leave a comment on paragraph 133 0 Do not withhold from his ashes what they are rightly owed:

134 Leave a comment on paragraph 134 0 The heartfelt sigh that he died, gratitude for his lessons,

135 Leave a comment on paragraph 135 0 And – ah! the sad tribute of a salty tear.

136 Leave a comment on paragraph 136 0 But us, noble friends, encourage with benevolence;

137 Leave a comment on paragraph 137 0 And if we have failed, please rebuke; but forgive.

138 Leave a comment on paragraph 138 0 Forgiveness encourages ever nobler striving,

139 Leave a comment on paragraph 139 0 And delicate reproach teaches how to earn the highest praise.

140 Leave a comment on paragraph 140 0 Remember that this art, with its thousand Quins for just one Garrick,[6.10]

141 Leave a comment on paragraph 141 0 Has just begun with us;

142 Leave a comment on paragraph 142 0 Do not expect too much, so that we may continue to improve,

143 Leave a comment on paragraph 143 0 And – certainly the privilege to judge is only yours, as ours is to be silent.

144 Leave a comment on paragraph 144 0  

  • 145 Leave a comment on paragraph 145 0
  • [†] Text in blue indicates passages omitted by Zimmern in her 1890 translation.
  • [6.1] Lessing continues his discussion, from [3], of Johann Friedrich Cronegk’s Olint und Sophronia; for the plot, see [1.2].
  • [6.2] The author of the prologue and epilogue is unknown. Some historians attribute authorship to Johann Jakob Dusch (1725–87), others to Johann Friedrich Löwen (1727–71), the director of the Hamburg National Theater; see J. G. Robertson 56–8. Regardless of its provenance, this introduction to the theater’s mission connects it to other eighteenth-century efforts to promote moral reform through the sentimental theater; a “civilized” populace was meant to espouse bourgeois ideological principles of moderation, compassion, and public citizenship (see Fischer-Lichte, “The Rise of the Middle Classes and the Theatre of Illusion” 146–70).
  • [6.3] Tr. note: Both the prologue and the epilogue are written in rhymed couplets in the original.
  • [6.4] Elisabeth Lucia Dorothea Löwen (1732–83) (frequently listed erroneously as Eleonore Luise Dorothea): daughter of the influential actor-manager Johann Friedrich Schönemann (1704–82) and wife of Johann Friedrich Löwen. A principal actress of the Hamburg theater.
  • [6.5] See [6.2].
  • [6.6] Solon (c.630–c.560 BCE): Athenian statesman famous for legislative reforms; his name is synonymous with humane and democratic justice.
  • [6.7] Themis: in Greek mythology the personification of justice.
  • [6.8] Gaul: territory in modern-day Western Europe that was inhabited by the Celtic Gauls during the Roman era; here meant to imply France. Albion: archaic name for England.
  • [6.9] Quintus Roscius Gallus (born ca. 134–26, died 62 or 63 BCE): ancient Roman comic and tragic performer whose name later became an appellation for great actors.
  • [6.10] James Quin: English actor (1693–1766), particularly noted for his performance of Falstaff. A leading actor of his time, Quin’s popularity was challenged by the ascendency of David Garrick. The latter was seen as a pioneer of new acting methods, in comparison to which Quin’s declamatory style appeared dated.
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Source: https://mcpress.media-commons.org/hamburg/essay-6-2/