For They Were Servants of Your Sin

The subtitle of Dr. Rüdiger Nolte's lecture was "Johann Sebastian Bach's Art and Contempt for the Jews."

To get straight to the point. There is no hint that Bach was either anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic. In fact, at his time, antisemitism, the hate toward Jews because of their race, was unknown. Antisemitism is an "invention" of the late 19th century.

 
Dr. Nolte said it is not even sure that Bach met a Jew in person, because many towns, e.g., Freiburg, had banned Jews from living within their walls. 

 
And yet they were useful, for example, as moneylenders. They were granted access to the city for business during daylight hours and in "Christian" company.   

In Bach's library there was a book: Johannes Müller, Judaismus oder Jüdenthumb, Das ist Außführlicher Bericht von des Jüdischen Volckes Vnglauben, Blindheit und Verstockung (Judaism or Jewry, That is, A Detailed Account of the Unbelief, Blindness, and Obstinacy of the Jewish People), Hamburg 1644.

 
Did Bach read it? While he often wrote marginal notes by hand in other books, Müller's book contains no annotations.

 
Let us walk the painful path of the Jews through history.

In his impressive lecture Why Are the Jews Always to Blame, Professor Sabine Paganini showed that the anti-Judaism of the early Christians began during Paul's mission to the Gentiles, with a conflict between the group of Jewish Christians and that of Gentile Christians.

 
Paul expressed his view in his third letter to the Galatians, who were predominantly Gentile Christians: 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

The Jerusalem Christian community was only moderately pleased with this statement, for they insisted that all brothers in faith must follow the Mosaic Law, in particular, circumcision and keeping kosher.

The clash between the two factions of Christians is described in Acts 15:

1 Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: "Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question ... 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.

The reunion, known as the Council of Jerusalem, was presided over by Simon Peter, but the spokesperson for the Jewish Christians was James, the Brother of the Lord.

5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses." 6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the Gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." 

12 The whole assembly became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. 13 When they finished, James spoke up. "Brothers," he said, "listen to me. 14 Simon (Peter) has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. 15 The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:"

16 'After this, I will return and rebuild David's fallen tent. Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it. 17 that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, even all the Gentiles who bear my name, says the Lord, who does these things' 18 things known from long ago.'

19 "It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20 Instead, we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. 21 For the Law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath."

 With this compromise that Gentiles need not bear the yoke of circumcision, James defused the conflict, which nevertheless continued to smolder when Paul insisted in Romans 6:14, "You are not under the Law but under grace." He even warns Gentile Christians that if they accept circumcision, they are putting themselves back under the whole Law - and away from grace.

And, of course, Christians did not celebrate the Sabbath, but sanctified Sunday, the day of the Lord's resurrection; they ate pork and fish on Friday in remembrance of Jesus' crucifixion.

Paul relapses in Romans 19:4, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." For him, the moral Law is not abolished, but replaced (Romans 13:8-10), "8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the Law. 9 The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,' 'You shall not murder,' 'You shall not steal,' 'You shall not covet,' and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the Law."

With time, Judaism became "the other," and by the 2nd century, Church fathers spoke of Jews as "stuck in the Law." With all this, we must not forget that both Jesus and Paul were Jews, and the Law has been handed down to us Christians as the Ten Commandments.

Psalm 59:11-12 reads:
11 But do not kill them, Lord our shield,
or my people will forget.
In your might, uproot them
and bring them down.
12 For the sins of their mouths,
for the words of their lips,
let them be caught in their pride.
For the curses and lies they utter.

Enter Augustine. Inspired by the Psalm, he writes in De Civitate Dei, Book 18, ch. 46, "The Jews who slew Him, and would not believe in Him, because it behooved Him to die and rise again, are by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ."

He continues in Contra Faustum XII,23, "The Jews are like servants who carry the books from which Christians learn. Through their enemies, God testifies to the truth of the Church."

The Jews are necessary because they preserve the Holy Scriptures, guaranteeing the authenticity of the promises of the Old Testament, as they are non-Christian witnesses.

As a consequence,  Augustine writes in De Civitate Dei XV,7, "Just as Kain was not allowed to be killed, but was marked with a sign, so the Jews should not be killed, but scattered."

And the Jews continued to be necessary not only religiously but also secularly. When the 4th Lateran Council in 1215 tightened the canonical prohibition on Christians charging interest on loans, the Jews stepped in. 

Emperor Frederick II, in particular, appreciated their usefulness as lenders and, for their protection, declared the Jews as slaves of the royal chamber for all time in 1236. Although "protected" Jews had to pay protection money to their specific rulers, some became quite wealthy, and Christians regarded them with envy.

The plague in 1349, with the Jews suspected of well-poisoning, served as a pretext for deadly pogroms all over Europe. In killing the Jews, Christians were happy to get rid of their debts.

Jews never integrated into medieval societies. On the contrary, they were separated and placed in ghettos. To distinguish themselves, they had to wear special marks.

Enter Martin Luther. The Augustinian Monk writes in keeping with the spirit of his order's founder, "The Jews are of the blood of Christ, are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord, are the greatest race* on earth. Through them, the Holy Spirit has revealed all the books of Holy Scripture to the world. They are the children, we are only guests and strangers. In truth, we should be happy like the woman from Cana, like dogs allowed to eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' tables.
*Here, the word race is not meant in an ethnic sense

In 1523, Luther was in full conflict with the Old Church. So, in his treatise, "That Jesus Christ was born a Jew," he points out in his harsh manner, "For our fools, the popes, bishops, sophists, and monks, it is irrelevant that Jesus Christ was born a Jew. Those coarse donkey heads have treated the Jews in such a way that anyone who wanted to be a good Christian would have been better off becoming a Jew. And if I had been a Jew and had seen such fools and idiots ruling and teaching the Christian faith, I would rather have become a sow than a Christian."

"The popes have behaved toward the Jews like a whorehouse madam who teaches a girl to prostitute herself and then accuses her of not behaving like a virgin and then treated the Jews as if they were dogs and not human beings, doing nothing but scolding them and taking their goods ... I hope that if one treats the Jews kindly and teaches them thoroughly from the Holy Scriptures, many of them will become true Christians and return to the faith of their forefathers, the prophets and patriarchs."

"Not papal laws, but Christian charity that should determine our relationship with the Jews. Jews, if they had not heard the Gospel in our time, could become Christians," and he ends his writing with the expectation, "I will leave it at that for now, until I see what I have accomplished."

Luther was convinced that he could turn the Jews into proselytes if he explained to them in his evangelical way that Jesus is the Messiah: "One should treat Jews kindly and preach Christ to them lovingly."

The most symbolic image of the Middle Ages: the triumphant ecclesia stands opposite the blindfolded synagoga. Jews did not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. The statues stand in the vestibule of the Freiburg Minster Church, serving as Biblia pauperum for all believers who were unable to read.

But no such luck, the Jews remained stubborn. They stuck to their beliefs. So with age, Luther the Judenversteher (sympathizer of the Jews) became anti-Jewish.

In 1543, in his treatise "On the Jews and Their Lies," Luther takes up the two-hundred-year-old fake news that the Jews spread of the plague: "Such a desperate, evil, poisonous, devilish thing is this about these Jews, who have been the plague, pestilence, and all misfortune since 1400, and still are. In short, we have real devils in them ... There is no human heart ..."

And he continues, "The Jews pray that the Messiah will come and kill and destroy the Christians ... It is also our fault that we did not reckon with the great innocent blood they shed on our Lord and the Christians for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and until now, on children ... We do not punish them, we do not kill them, but instead of all their murders, curses, blasphemies, lies, and desecrations, we let them sit freely among us, protect and shield their schools, houses, bodies, and property, so that we make them lazy and secure, so that they can confidently suck our money and property dry and mock us, 'We, the Jews, do not work, we have good lazy days, the cursed goyim must work for us, but we get their money, so we are their masters, and they are our servants.'"

"What are we Christians to do with these despicable, depraved people, the Jews? It is not easy for us to bear them, knowing that they lie, blaspheme, and curse us ... Prayer books and the Talmudists should be confiscated, and their rabbis should be forbidden, on pain of death, to teach or preach. Money transactions and trade should be forbidden to them, so that, like Adam and Eve after the Fall, they must earn their bread by the sweat of their brow with pitchforks, axes, hoes, spades, and spindles. Their safe conduct must be revoked; indeed, it would be best if the Germans joined the common wisdom of other nations, such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., and made the Jews repay what they have extorted from us, and then expel them from the country forever."

And furiously Luther continues, "We cannot extinguish the unquenchable fire of God's wrath, nor convert the Jews. We must practice sharp mercy with prayer and fear of God. This sharp mercy includes setting fire to their synagogues or schools and covering what cannot be burned with earth and rubble so that no one will ever see a stone or slag from them, and breaking and destroying their houses so that they can be put under one roof or in a stable, like the Gypsies, so that they know they are not masters in our land, where they boast, but in misery and captivity ... for everything they have, they have stolen and robbed from us through their usury. Christ our Lord, convert them mercifully!"

In his sermon on the day of his death in Eisleben, Luther speaks his last words on the Jewish question, "If they do not convert, we should not tolerate or suffer them among us. Therefore, away with them, but if they convert and renounce their usury and accept Christ, we will gladly accept them as our brothers."

Converting the Jews was also the aim when, during the Restauration, German territories tried to accommodate them. With the advent of a constitutional monarchy in Baden in 1818, the state parliament debated Jewish emancipation. 

Enter Karl von Rotteck: The deputy from Freiburg made himself the spokesman, demanding that Jews earn their civil rights through increased integration into the Christian community by adopting manners and traditions, i.e., the use of the German language in everyday life and in public. They should abandon special Jewish clothing as an outward sign of distinction and sanctify Sunday instead of the Sabbath. Equal rights, yes - but only if Jews stopped being visibly Jewish.

In a previous blog you read, "Freiburg put up fierce resistance against freedom of movement. For fear of competition, the merchants wanted to retain the prohibition on Jews, the ban that had existed since 1424 and that the city council had once more confirmed in 1809. A petition addressed to the Baden parliament stated, 'Wir werden zum Judennest (We shall become a Jewish nest.)'"

Back to Rüdigere Nolte's lecture. He took the title of his lecture from a Passion sermon of the 16th century in the Wittenberg tradition of Martin Luther's postils:

For the evildoers, the Jews, as God has judged and driven them out, have nevertheless been servants of your sin ... i.e., the Jews are credited with having been servants of the sin of all of us.  

Enter Johann Sebastian Bach and Dr. Nolte posed the question:

Was contempt for Jews so commonplace in the early 18th century that Bach could understand his Passion compositions as purely spiritual and probably also aesthetic commissions?

While Bach adopts the Lutheran translation of the New Testament word for word as the libretto in his Passions, he oversteps in the St. John Passion in the scene in John 19:15: But they shouted, 'Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"

Clos-up of a viola d'amore showing six playable above six sympathetic strings (©Aviad2001/Wikipedia)

Towards the end of his lecture, Dr. Nolte attempted to illustrate the latent antisemitism in large sections of society with the image of a viola d'amore*.

*A viola d'amore usually has six or seven playing strings, which are sounded by drawing a bow across them, just as with a violin. In addition, it has an equal number of sympathetic strings located below the main strings, which are not played directly but vibrate in sympathy with the notes played.

1. The directly anti-Semitic accounts of the evangelists Matthew and John.

2. The Christian functionalization of "Jewishness" as a marker of contrast.

3. The indirect resonance as a fundamentally underlying "dark foil."

Is the comparison between the resonating strings of a "love viola" and the resonating "dark foil" of antisemitism a "good" comparison?

Enter Wilhelm Marr:

©Arkomano/Wikipedia

In his book Victory of Judaism over Germanicism, Marr defines the Jews as "Oriental strangers" of a "Semitic race" and synonymous with "financial power." By describing Jews as Semites*, he reinterpreted a term originally referring to a language family in a racist way, and subsequently, Marr called himself an anti-Semite.

*In Gen 10: "21 Of Sem also, the father of all the children of Heber, the elder brother of Japheth, sons were born. 22 The sons of Sem: Elam and Assur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram."

This was a paradigm shift: religious Judaism turned into ethnic antisemitism. Jews became a non-European race with unchangeable characteristics and traits. They were, in a negative sense, "citizens of the world" with no real homeland and being loyal only to each other. Fabricated propaganda works such as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" appeared and fueled fears of a subversive "world Jewry" striving for absolute power.

Jews pursue control of the international capital market (capitalism). They undermine traditional pillars of society through revolutions and new ideologies and decompose existing societies through amorality and hedonism.

Enter Adolf Hitler: At the beginning of the 20th century, Vienna was a stronghold of ethnic antisemitism, which Hitler adopted in Mein Kampf. Jews are unscrupulous materialists in contrast to the selfless heroism of the Aryan. They "degenerate" all forms of art. With their sexual licentiousness, they spread syphilis. In Mein Kampf, Hitler harped a lot on this sexually transmitted disease.

In Hitler's eyes, Judaism represented a hostile, biologically and morally corrosive foreign body that must be isolated and subsequently be ausgemerzt aus dem deutschen Volkskörper (eradicated from the German people). As we all know, Hitler's ideas culminated in the Shoah, the greatest cultural rupture in human history, whose horror is still unimaginable today.

Like Dr. Nolte, I conclude with a choir from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, which is depressingly relevant to the present day:

The world has deceived me with lies and fake news, many snares and secret traps. Lord, protect me in this danger, keep me safe from treachery.

**

Ian McKellen

I must confess to my shame that I was not familiar with this 86-year-old legendary actor.

My loyal readers know that I regularly watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His monologues are hilarious. As a non-English speaker, I often have to think long and hard before I understand a pun.

After his solo performance, Stephen welcomes guests, and that's when I usually switch off.

But on February 5, a sonoric voice caught my attention. Sir Ian McKellen fascinated me with his fine British accent and humor. I stayed tuned until the end of the 26-minute interview. Towards the end, Ian talked about a literary find. Here is a partial transcript of the interview:

Ian: Shakespeare wrote many plays, 37 of them, by himself, but he also contributed to other people's shows. And one of the speeches he wrote for a play called Thomas More has been preserved. And it’s the only sample of his actual handwriting of some of the words of a play by him. And it’s not in the Fuller library. It’s in the British library you can see it. It’s on display there in London.


And hark. On December 23 last year, I published a blog post that drew only mediocre interest from my readers. The blog addressed the Thomas More manuscript by William Shakespeare that I read in 2015 and had since forgotten.


Ian McKellen continued: And it happened that the play was never performed during Shakespeare’s lifetime because it was thought to be a bit seditious.

It had its actual premiere on stage in 1964. It was the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth, and I played Thomas More. So you are looking at a man who created a part by William Shakespeare.

Stephen: So this is handwritten. They know this is his handwriting of this monologue that you did ...

Ian: ... of a speech you probably don’t know but you ought to because it’s a wonderful speech.

Stephen: I don’t know that. Would you mind? Would you mind doing it for us?

Ian: No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t mind because you’ll enjoy it. All right. Live Theatre.

Stephen: What’s the setting?

Ian: It’s all happening 400 years ago and in London. There’s a riot happening, there’s a mob out in the streets, and they’re complaining about the presence of strangers in London, by which they mean the recent immigrants who arrived there. And they’re shouting the odds and complaining, and saying that the immigrants should be sent back home wherever they came from. And the authorities sent out this young lawyer, Thomas More, to put down the riot, which he does in two ways, one by saying that you can’t riot like this. It’s against the law. So shut up, be quiet, and also being by Shakespeare with an appeal to their humanity. So, in order to set it up, we really need somebody to shout that the strangers should be removed. Could someone do that?

And the audience shouts: The strangers be removed!

Because of the present situation in the ICE age, Ian McKellen’s performance went viral online.  

Here is a DEEP DIVE helping native speakers with Shakespeare’s English.

And finally, here is the whole 26-minute interview with Ian McKellen.

**

Doctor Atomic

The story of the first atomic bomb test on July 16, 1945, is not necessarily a subject for an opera. And yet composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars dared to write and stage one about a scientific drama.

In fact, the opera has no dramatic plot; instead, it features many dialogues about scruples, ambition, fears about life, doubts, and the search for redemption. Doctor Atomic is the father of the atomic bomb, Robert J. Oppenheimer, who was not only a brilliant scientist but also well-educated in literature and philosophy.

Typical Oppenheimer with his hat and pipe (©SWF)

Robert earned his doctorate in theoretical physics at the age of 23 in Göttingen in 1923 under Max Born, who was full of praise for his student, who, in turn, recalls his time in Göttingen, “The work here is dizzying. You live in a state of constant mental excitement.” Indeed, “In those years, physics was not developed—it erupted, Born remembered.”

The opera begins in the style of a Greek tragedy with a choir dressed in black, which, however, does not sing darkly about fate, but informs the audience about some trivialities of physics.

We believed that
"Matter can be neither
created nor destroyed
but only altered in form.“

We believed that
”Energy can be neither
created nor destroyed
but only altered in form."

But now we know that
energy may become matter,
and now we know that
matter may become energy
and thus be altered in form.

Oppenheimer leans against a wooden frame
representing the temporary shanty town of Los Alamos (©Theater Freiburg).

The first aria, sung by the American Faust, reflects his unconscious confession, "I cannot stop this Trinity test. Someone or something must stop me."

"Batter my heart, three person'd God; For you
As yet, but knock, breathe, knock, breathe, knock, breathe
Shine, and seek to mend;
Batter my heart, three person'd God;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, break, blow, break, blow, burn, and make me new.*
*The text is borrowed from John Donne's “Holy Sonnet XIV.”

Robert, without his attributes, pipe, and hat, is grilling his steak (©Theater Freiburg)

There is no God in Doctor Atomic. Only mechanisms, deadlines, and momentum, and on-stage glowing grills with lots of meat and a pile of beercans.

With the help of beer cans, Edward Teller ponders
the most effective arrangement of uranium blocks to achieve a critical mass (©Theater Freiburg).

The countdown is imminent. Hope comes from Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty, and her fictional Native American housemaid, Pasqualita. While Kitty invokes in vain her all-encompassing love as a counterforce, Pasqualita is stylized as a high priestess of reconciliation with divine nature.

The second act starts with a refrain sung by Pasqualita. The text is taken from a traditional Tewa lullaby song, and subsequent reiterations repeat the text with the direction changed to west, east, and south:

In the north, the cloud-flower blossoms
And now the lightning flashes
And now the thunder clashes
And now the rain comes down!
A-a-aha, a-a-aha, my little one.

Indeed, the rain threatens to delay the test explosion.

Even though the ignition and explosion of the atomic bomb would have made for a spectacular musical apotheosis of the opera, Adams deliberately refrains from this expected and thus trivial end. Instead, he composed an extended orchestral countdown with a multitude of ticking or striking clocks, unnaturally stretching time.

In the composer's own words: "When the countdown finally comes into view, time slows down on stage. The characters lose themselves in their own visions and fantasies. The closer the moment of detonation approaches, the more time and space begin to blur."

"I wrestled for months with the question of how to treat the explosion. I finally decided on an extended orchestral countdown, a palette of clock sounds, some ticking, others hammering like pile drivers, each at its own tempo. Underneath this clock polyphony lies a bloodcurdling roar from loudspeakers."

©Theater Freiburg

"I created this sound from a sampled drum roll, which I played in an endless loop and processed with heavy sound filtering. At the climax, I added a cluster of recorded baby cries that cuts through the theater space like a sound meter, tearing through the darkness. As the roar subsides, all that remains is a light shower of clock strike fragments played by harp, celesta, and tuned gongs."

"As they fade away quietly, we hear the voice of a Japanese woman. She repeats sentences from Hiroshima survivors that I found in John Hersey's famous report on the immediate aftermath: 'I can't find my husband,' and, speaking to her little boy, Kasuo, 'come here.' 'Mr. Tanimoto, please, help us.' 'Please, can we have some water?'"

©Theater Freiburg

The bones of the summoned dead later end up in a mill. Oppenheimer grinds them to dust and sprinkles them over the model of the skeleton house during the countdown.

The first atomic bomb detonated on July 16 in the Jornada del Muerto (The Path of the Dead) desert in the US state of New Mexico: “We knew the world would never be the same again. A few people laughed, others cried, but most were simply silent,” Oppenheimer later recalled. He, the father of the atomic bomb, quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, “If the brilliance of a thousand suns were to explode in the sky at once, it would be like the brilliance of the Almighty.” “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

©IMAGO/Pond5 Images

Contributors to the Manhattan Project, Dr. Robert J. Oppenheimer in a white hat and General Leslie Groves, in uniform, at the detonation site of the Trinity atomic bomb test. On the right edge of the photo is Robert Wilson, later the director of Fermilab near Chicago, where Red Baron met him.

In his lifetime, Oppenheimer did not regret his leadership of the Manhattan Project, but rather said, “Our work has changed the conditions of human life, but what happens with these changes is the problem of governments, not scientists.”

And so Max Born rightly laments, “Science has given man tremendous power, but no guidance on how to use it.”

**

At the School of Seeing

In a previous lecture, Sandra Richter showed some of Rilke's sketches that he continued to make throughout his life. His drawings are restrained and more meditative than virtuosic. They often depict landscapes, architecture, gardens, or figures in tranquil poses; they seem like visual counterparts to his poetry: focused, simplified, directed toward the essential. 

Once again, Professor Frick gave us an extraordinary lecture, showing that Rilke viewed drawing as a distinct form of seeing and contemplation.

Auguste Rodin in his atelier

Rilke deepened this approach particularly during his time in Paris, in the circle of Auguste Rodin. Close observation, patient work, and engagement with the subject were to characterize both his drawing and his writing.

While rarely creating illustrations for his own texts, drawing was more important to him as a means of training his perception.  His drawings provide an intimate insight into Rilke's artistic self-image beyond language.

As a “learnt“ physicist, I was unable to even begin to grasp the depth into which Prof. Frick drew his audience. I have selected four poems from Neue Gedichte (1907) and Neue Gedichte anderer Teil (1908). But instead of trying to analyze them, I would like to make a few personal comments.

Given Rilke's eloquence and his powerful use of language, translating his poems into other languages proves problematic. Red Baron found translations of three of my selected poems on the Internet. I attempted to translate the fourth myself.

Rilke's poem Das Karussell (The Carousel) brings back memories of my late wife Elisabeth. As a child, she spent time in France in 1946, after the war, when her father, a high school teacher of German, French, and English (!), worked as a translator in Vernon.

After the Americans had already "recruited" Wernher von Braun, the French had to make do with the second choice of German rocket scientists, whom they gathered in Vernon. These physicists and engineers naturally did not speak French.

Elisabeth rode the carousel in the Jardin de Luxembourg during a trip to Paris at that time, and her father quoted Rilke. She remembered the line, "And now and then a white elephant," when we took a walk in the Jardin in 2002.

  

Das Karussel

The Carousel

Mit einem Dach und seinem Schatten dreht sich eine kleine Weile der Bestand von bunten Pferden, alle aus dem Land, das lange zögert, eh es untergeht. Zwar manche sind an Wagen angespannt, doch alle haben Mut in ihren Mienen; ein böser roter Löwe geht mit ihnen und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Sogar ein Hirsch ist da, ganz wie im Wald, nur dass er einen Sattel trägt und drüber ein kleines blaues Mädchen aufgeschnallt. Und auf dem Löwen reitet weiß ein Junge und hält sich mit der kleinen heißen Hand dieweil der Löwe Zähne zeigt und Zunge. Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Und auf den Pferden kommen sie vorüber, auch Mädchen, helle, diesem Pferdesprunge fast schon entwachsen; mitten in dem Schwunge schauen sie auf, irgendwohin, herüber –. Und dann und wann ein weißer Elefant. Und das geht hin und eilt sich, dass es endet, und kreist und dreht sich nur und hat kein Ziel. Ein Rot, ein Grün, ein Grau vorbeigesendet, ein kleines kaum begonnenes Profil –. Und manchesmal ein Lächeln, hergewendet, ein seliges, das blendet und verschwendet an dieses atemlose blinde Spiel ... *

Beneath a roof and with its shadow spins for just a little while the stock of painted horses—all are from the land that lingers on before it vanishes. Though some are hitched to carriages, they all show fierceness in their faces; a frightening red lion walks among them and now and then there's a white elephant. Even a stag is there, like in the woods, except he bears a saddle and above it a little blue girl, firmly fastened. And on the lion rides a boy in white, who holds on with a small hot hand; meanwhile the lion shows his teeth and tongue. And now and then there's a white elephant. And on the horses they come passing by, girls also luminous, almost too grown up to join this horse ride; in mid-swing they look up, somewhere, this way -. And now and then there's a white elephant. And so it goes and hurries up to finish, and turns and circles only without aim. A red, a green, a gray sent gliding by, a little profile, barely seen and gone -. And every now and then a smile, turned hither, enchanted, ravishing, and lavishing upon this blind and breathless game ... Translated by Ulrich Fleming

When Prof. Frick cited Rilke's sonnet "Blaue Hortensie", an image vividly appeared in my memory.

Last fall, I was walking in Kirchzarten, a small town west of Freiburg, admiring the flowers in the front yards. Judge for yourself:

Blaue Hortensie

Blue Hortensia

So wie das letzte Grün in Farbentiegeln sind diese Blätter, trocken, stumpf und rauh, hinter den Blütendolden, die ein Blau nicht auf sich tragen, nur von ferne spiegeln. Sie spiegeln es verweint und ungenau, als wollten sie es wiederum verlieren, und wie in alten blauen Briefpapieren ist Gelb in ihnen, Violett und Grau; Verwaschenes wie an einer Kinderschürze, Nichtmehrgetragenes, dem nichts mehr geschieht: wie fühlt man eines kleinen Lebens Kürze. Doch plötzlich scheint das Blau sich zu verneuen in einer von den Dolden, und man sieht ein rührend Blaues sich vor Grünem freuen.

Like the last green in paint pots these leaves, dry, dull, and rough, behind the flower clusters that do not bear a blue, only reflect it from afar. They reflect it tearfully and imprecisely, as if they wanted to lose it again, and as in old blue stationery there is yellow in them, violet, and gray; Washed out like on a child's apron, No longer worn, nothing happening to it anymore: how one feels the brevity of a small life. But suddenly the blue seems to renew itself in one of the umbels, and one sees a touching blue rejoicing before green.

I had my childhood experiences with wild animals in captivity in the Hamburg zoo.

At Hagenbecks Tierpark, animals did not vegetate behind bars, but "lived" in large outdoor enclosures. Still, I had the feeling that their situation was sad.

I remember how elephants stretched out their trunks across a large ditch to suck up treats visitors held out to them and then put them in their mouths.

And now and then, there was a gray elephant that swung its trunk toward a nearby keeper to give him the Groschen (penny) that a visitor had slipped under it instead of a treat.

25 years later, it was still the same scenario when I visited Hagenbeck Zoo with my children.

Painters at the Jardin des Plantes (1902)

DER PANTHER IM JARDIN DES PLANTES, PARIS

THE PANTHER AT THE PARIS BOTANICAL GARDEN

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht. Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf – Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille – und hört im Herzen auf zu sein. *

His gaze against the sweeping of the bars has grown so weary that it can hold no more. To him, there seems to be a thousand bars and behind those thousand bars, no world. The soft the supple step and sturdy pace, that in the smallest of all circles turns, moves like a dance of strength around a core in which a mighty will is standing stunned. Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides up soundlessly – An image enters then, goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs — and in the heart ceases to be. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum

Torso of Milet at the Louvre in Paris. Found in 1885.

Archaïscher Torso Apollos

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Wir kannten nicht sein unerhörtes Haupt, darin die Augenäpfel reiften. Aber sein Torso glüht noch wie ein Kandelaber, in dem sein Schauen, nur zurückgeschraubt, sich hält und glänzt. Sonst könnte nicht der Bug der Brust dich blenden, und im leisen Drehen der Lenden könnte nicht ein Lächeln gehen zu jener Mitte, die die Zeugung trug. Sonst stünde dieser Stein entstellt und kurz unter der Schultern durchsichtigem Sturz und flimmerte nicht so wie Raubtierfelle; und bräche nicht aus allen seinen Rändern aus wie ein Stern: denn da ist keine Stelle, die dich nicht sieht. Du mußt dein Leben ändern. *

We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside, like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned too low, gleams in all its power. Otherwise the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could a smile run through the placid hips and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared. Otherwise, this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: would not, from all the borders of itself, burst like a star: for here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life. Translated by Stephen Mitchell

The torso looks at us, and we don't look at the torso? I couldn't help thinking of Brecht's alienation. But Rilke's thoughts go deeper. We should not leave it at a superficial glance at the torso, but ask ourselves, who are we in the face of what is looking at us.

Lettering at the Freiburg Theater

And as I am now, I am not yet adequate to my life. I must change it.

**

You Need Not Understand Life

... or Rilke and his environment in his work was the title of a lecture by Professor Sandra Richter, Director of the German Literature Archive at Marbach, in the framework of the Studium generale.

You need not understand life,

for then it will be like a party.

And let each day happen to you

like a child walking along, letting each breeze

give it many blossoms.

To gather them and save them

does not occur to a child.

It quietly removes them from its hair,

where they were so readily caught,

and in its dear young years

holds out its hands to new ones.

Rainer Maria Rilke gave poetry a new existential depth. He is therefore considered one of the most important poets of modern German-speaking literature. He combined linguistic precision with philosophical openness, making inner experience, loneliness, love, and death his central poetic themes. Rilke's poetry seeks to recreate the world in words and to open readers' eyes to an intensified view of his existence.

Red Baron studied physics, grappled with theology and existential questions, and is not done with that yet. Why can't I be a Rilke child and just live for the day? Even at 90, I reach out for new things, but the past won't let me go and keeps me brooding. And what haven't I accumulated in my life that weighs on me in my old age?

Next, spirited Sara gave the audience insight into remarkable Rilke documents held in the Marbach Archive.

Rilke's sketch of the Council Building in Konstanz,
where, in 1417 (not 1415), a conclave elected Pope Martin V.

Rilke sketched throughout his life. His drawings are restrained and more meditative than virtuosic. They often depict landscapes, architecture, gardens, or figures in tranquil poses; they seem like visual counterparts to his poetry: focused, simplified, directed toward the essential. Drawing was important to him as a means of training his perception.

Peacock Feather

Unmatched in your delicacy,
how I loved you even as a child.
I thought you were a sign of love,
which the elves pass around
on cool nights by silver-still ponds,
when all the children are asleep.

And because my dear grandmother
often read to me from wish sticks,
I dreamed, you delicate creature,
that your fine fibers were imbued
with the clever power of the riddle stick -
and I searched for you in the summer grass.

Here is a sample of Rilke's calligraphic handwriting.

The Song of Love and Death of Cornettist Christoph Rilke
(written in 1899 and published in 1904, 1906, and 1912)

The Flamingos. Jardin des Plantes.
Autumn 1907 or Spring 1908 in Paris

In Spiegelbildern wie von Fragonard ist doch von ihrem Weiß und ihrer Röte nicht mehr gegeben, als dir einer böte, wenn er von seiner Freundin sagt: sie war noch sanft von Schlaf. Denn steigen sie ins Grüne und stehn, auf rosa Stielen leicht gedreht, beisammen, blühend, wie in einem Beet, verführen sie verführender als Phryne sich selber; bis sie ihres Auges Bleiche hinhalsend bergen in der eignen Weiche, in welcher Schwarz und Fruchtrot sich versteckt. Auf einmal kreischt ein Neid durch die Volière; sie aber haben sich erstaunt gestreckt und schreiten einzeln ins Imaginäre.

In mirror images like those of Fragonard there is no more of their whiteness and redness than one would offer you when speaking of his girlfriend: she was still gentle from sleep. For when they rise into the greenery and stand, slightly twisted on pink stems, together, blooming, as if in a flowerbed, they seduce more seductively than Phryne herself; until they hide the pallor of their eyes in their own softness, in which black and fruit red are hidden. Suddenly, envy screeches through the aviary; but they have stretched themselves in amazement and stride individually into the imaginary.

Pain and death.

Sketch of an angel. Pencil on paper, 1922

From Rilke's last notebook, XII/1926:
Come, you last one, whom I acknowledge

Komm du, du letzter, den ich anerkenne, heilloser Schmerz im leiblichen Geweb: wie ich im Geiste brannte, sieh, ich brenne in dir; das Holz hat lange widerstrebt, der Flamme, die du loderst, zuzustimmen, nun aber nähr' ich dich und brenn in dir. Mein hiesig Mildsein wird in deinem Grimmen ein Grimm der Hölle nicht von hier. Ganz rein, ganz planlosfrei von Zukunft stieg ich auf des Leidens wirren Scheiterhaufen, so sicher nirgend Künftiges zu kaufen um dieses Herz, darin der Vorrat schwieg. Bin ich es noch, der da unkenntlich brennt? Erinnerungen reiß ich nicht herein. O Leben, Leben: Draußensein. Und ich in Lohe. Niemand der mich kennt.

Come, you last one I acknowledge, hopeless pain in my flesh: as I burned in spirit, see, I burn in you; the wood has long resisted to consent to the flame that you blaze, but now I feed you and burn in you. My gentleness here becomes in your fury a fury of hell not from here. Completely pure, completely free of plans for the future, I climbed onto the confused pyre of suffering, so sure that there was no future to buy for this heart, in which the supply was silent. Is it still me who burns unrecognizable there? I do not bring in memories. O life, life: being outside. And I in flames. No one who knows me.

Rilke's gravestone in Raron in Valais

Rose, oh reiner Widerspruch, Lust, Niemandes Schlaf zu sein unter soviel Lidern.

Rose, oh pure contradiction, desire, to be no one's sleep beneath so many eyelids.

**