The Story of Lorelei

(http://www.goethezeitportal.de/wissen/topographische-ansichten/orte-kultureller-erinnerung-die-loreley.html)
no copyright infringement intended

(click here for the Romanian version)

Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin,
Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt,
Im Abendsonnenschein.

Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr gold'nes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar,
Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme,
Und singt ein Lied dabei;
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewalt'ge Melodei.

Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe,
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh'.
Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn,
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen,
Die Lorelei getan.

(http://ingeb.org/Lieder/ichweiss.html)

I remember very well the moment when I firstly saw this poem, Lorelei, on a page in my manual of learning German. I was nine or ten. What I don't remember is the person who was then near me, explaining some words that were more difficult, and telling the story behind the verses (it could have been Frau Paranici, the old lady living in the same apartment with us, or it could have been one of my aunts - both knew German very well and were helping me with this language). But that moment I remember very well. I got immediately a special liking for Lorelei. It was astonishingly beautiful, and of course I was very impressed by the legend. It was my first encounter with Heine.

Years passed and time came for me to tell my son about Lorelei. He was about five years old and had just started to learn at the kindergarten small poems for that age (the kind of Was ist das? Ein altes Faß / Wenn's regnet / Wird's naß). Maybe it was too early for him to be told about Lorelei; on the other hand I taught him only two or three lines, so it was not that hard. And I think this poem is beautiful at an essential level, which speaks well regardless of age.

I never forgot the beginning lines, Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, / Daß ich so traurig bin, also the third line, Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten (though here various texts differ: some say uralten Zeiten, some others say alten Zeiten - philosophi certant, so to speak). When it came to the fourth, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn, I was starting to be not sure anymore about the correct spelling, mir or mich, dem or den (seemingly my knowledge of German being never in top shape) - as for the rest of the poem, it was slowly fading in my memory. But those first three lines remained for me like a memento, coming now and then to me throughout the years, and carrying the sense of the whole, that inexorable link between beauty, awe, and fatality.

Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin,
Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten,

Is beauty divine or demoniac? The question is maybe not correctly put, as it refers to the way we perceive beauty, and we do it both ways. Only we are following our human rules, while the beauty itself follows its own laws, it belongs to its own universe, that has no connection with ours.

from: Album deutscher Kunst und Dichtung. Hg. von Friedrich Bodenstedt. Mit Holzschnitten, nach Zeichnungen der Künstler, ausgeführt von R. Brend'amour und Anderen. Vierte, umgearbeitete Auflage. Berlin, Verlag der G. Grote'schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1877
(http://www.goethezeitportal.de/wissen/illustrationen/anthologien-und-sammlungen/friedrich-bodenstedt-album-deutscher-kunst-und-dichtung.html)
no copyright infringement intended

There is a superb rendering of Lorelei in Romanian, due to a poet whose life was a tragedy, that he converted in delicate rhymes. It's St O Iosif.

 Eu nu stiu ce poate sa fie
Ca-mi suna mereu in urechi
Cu vesnica-i melancolie
Un basmu din zilele vechi.

Se-ntuneca fara de veste,
Lin apele Rinului curg,
Si cresc ale muntilor creste
Maret stralucind in amurg.

Pe stanca un chip de femeie
S-arata din negura bland,
Bratara-i de aur scanteie,
Ea-si piaptana parul cantand.

Ea-si piaptana parul si canta
Un cantec de vraja al ei;
Te farmeca si te-nspaimanta
Cantarea frumoasei femei!

Pescarul, nebun, se repede
Cu luntrea lui mica si, dus,
Nici valuri, nici stanca nu vede,
El cauta numai in sus.

Valtoarea-l izbeste de coasta
Stancoasa, si moare-necat:
Loreley a facut-o aceasta
Cu viersul ei fermecat.

 (http://ro.wikisource.org/wiki/Loreley)

Sometimes I pass by the grave hosting St. O. Iosif and his little daughter. It is in the same cemetery where the tombstones of my close relatives are, my parents and grandparents, uncles and aunts, my first wife, and my elder sister. And when I see the place where St O Iosif rests, I'm thinking at him and his little daughter, at their tragic destinies, and at his version of Lorelei. And again the beginning lines come to mind,

 Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin,
Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten,

These three lines (and also the fourth, whose words were blurring, as I said) have traveled with me for all my life. I wished to voyage on the Rhine valley, to  see there the rocks where the voice of the blonde Jungfrau was bringing the boatmen to ecstasy, till they were loosing their senses and were crushed in the whitewater's rapids. Well, it didn't happen for me to travel there. I was instead on the borders of Potomac, where a similar place with three small rocky islands is carrying legends of their own.

It is about three nuns drowned in the river, which spewed them back as the three islands. Or it's about the three Algonquian sisters who were trying to escape a pursuing chieftain and swam across the river; they drowned and were turned into the rocky islets by the Great Spirit. Or it is about the three daughters of the Chief of the local tribe, who were marooned on the islands by their father after rejecting their suitors. The place is said to be cursed, and also they say that during foggy nights a moaning is heard: it's a claim for another life.

(wiki)

Whichever story is true, if any, that I cannot tell, but what I saw with my own eyes was just the opposite: kayakers leaning on the rocks and enjoying the sun. I was often there on weekends, walking from Key Bridge to the Fletcher Cove and sometimes further to Bethesda, or hiking on the other border of the river, on the Potomac Heritage Trail. For me this was a Lorelei place.

My Lorelei place on the Potomac

Here is an English rendering, authored by Frank Petersohn:

I cannot determine the meaning
Of sorrow that fills my breast:
A fable of old, through it streaming,
Allows my mind no rest.

The air is cool in the gloaming
And gently flows the Rhine.
The crest of the mountain is gleaming
In fading rays of sunshine.

The loveliest maiden is sitting
Up there, so wondrously fair;
Her golden jewelry is glist’ning;
She combs her golden hair.

She combs with a gilded comb, preening,
And sings a song, passing time.
It has a most wondrous, appealing
And pow’rful melodic rhyme.

The boatman aboard his small skiff, -
Enraptured with a wild ache,
Has no eye for the jagged cliff, -
His thoughts on the heights fear forsake.

I think that the waves will devour
Both boat and man, by and by,
And that, with her dulcet-voiced power
Was done by the Lorelei.

(http://newyork.untappedcities.com/2011/03/31/the-sirens-of-joyce-kilmer-park/)

Well, Lorelei was translated in many other tongues, and there are also versions in German dialects. I would give you here two such versions.

Firstly a version in the dialect spoken in the region of Ruhr (Ruhrpott-Übersetzung):

Ich weiß nich, wat soll dat bedeuten,
Dat ich so bräsig sein tu,
Ne Schote vertell ich euch Leutken,
Die läßt mich nich mehr in Ruh.

Der Abend waa schubbig und trocken,
Am Rhein waa unten nix los,
Ich süppelte grade en Schoppen,
Und den Lorenz pillerte bloß.

Dann, oben auf son Huckel,
Da sah ich ne Mudder, ne satte,
Ers dacht ich, se hätte en Buckel,
Doch se kämmte nur ihre Matte.

Se steht auf ihrn Putz und Gesänge,
Denn en töfftet Lied se tut schallern,
Kommt jez nich gleich wat inne Gänge,
Dann tu ich mich noch einen ballern.

Da kommt son Fürst aufen Schiffe,
In son urigen Mickerkahn,
Der Tüpp kuckt nich aufe Riffe,
Der kuckt nur de Olle an.

Der Tüpp und sein Kahn gehen unter,
De Riffkes haunse zu Brei.
Und eingestielt hat dat munter
Aufen Huckel de Lorelei.

(http://www.storyparadies.de/geschichte/Warum_ich_keine_Gedichte_mit_Dialekt_schreibe/3788)

And here is a version of the poem in Saxon dialect (Sächsische Übersetzung). It takes some liberties from the original, being rather an adaptation for kids.

Ich weeß nich, mich isses so gomisch,
Und ärchendwas macht mich verstimmt.
Ich globe, des is anadomisch,
Wie das bei de Menschen so kimmt.

De Elbe, de blätschert so friedlich,
Und e Fischgahn gommt aus dr Tschechei,
Drin sitzt ne Familche gemütlich,
Nu sindse gleich bei dr Bastei.

> Und obm uffm Berche, nu gugge,
Da gämmt sichn Freilein ihrn Zopp,
Se striecheltn feste mit Spugge
Und gläbtn als Gauz aufn Kopp.

Der Papa dort unten ihm Gahne
Schaut nuff bei das Freilein entzickt.
Die Mama, die spricht voller Ahne:

Die macht unsern Papa verrickt!

Nun fängt die dort obm uffm Berche
Zu singn noch an een Gublee.
Der Papa im Gahn tut sich wälze
Und jubelt vor Freude juchhee.

Sitzt ruhig! ruft ängstlich Ottielche,
Schon gibbelt ganz schregglich der Gahn -
Und plätzlich versingt de Familche,
Ach Freilein, was hamse gedan!?

(http://ingeb.org/Lieder/ichweiss.html)

The poem of Heine inspired also many composers. Maybe the best known song was created by Friedrich Silcher, in 1837,  and I must confess that everytime the lines from Lorelei come to my mind, they are joined by the melody. I found on youTube the video below: a record from 1939 with Richard Tauber. It was one of his last records in German. Due to his Jewish ascendance, after the Anschluss the Austrian tenor had to flee his country.  He settled to England and all his further records were in English.

Richard Tauber sings Die Lorelei, 1939
music by Friedrich Silcher
(video de goldenageofsong)

So, this is the story of Lorelei. It is said that even the devil has no power over her. He fell once in love and wanted her badly. No way! Strange things happened then, eventually the devil managed somehow to run, and never came back. As for the beautiful Jungfrau, she is still there on the top of the cliff, waiting for a man to come and take her. It will never happen though! To climb the cliff you need to fall in love, and all who did have been crushed by the rocks.


(Heinrich Heine)

(St O Iosif)