Goethe and Schiller translations
These are modern English translations of the "Xenia" epigrams written in collaboration by the German poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, plus an elegy Goethe wrote for Schiller...
These are selected XENIA epigrams with all translations by Michael R. Burch...
#2 - Verse versus Kiss
She says an epigram’s too terse
to reveal her tender heart in verse ...
but really, darling, ain’t the thrill
of a kiss much shorter still?
#5 - Criticism
Why don’t I openly criticize the man? Because he’s a friend;
thus I reproach him in silence, as I do my own heart.
#11 - Highest Holiness
What is holiest? This heart-felt love
binding spirits together, now and forever.
#12 - Love versus Desire
You love what you have, and desire what you lack
because a rich nature expands, while a poor one retracts.
#19 - Nymph and Satyr
As shy as the trembling doe your horn frightens from the woods,
she flees the huntsman, fainting, uncertain of love.
#20 - Desire
What stirs the virgin’s heaving breasts to sighs?
What causes your bold gaze to brim with tears?
#23 - The Apex I
Everywhere women yield to men, but only at the apex
do the manliest men surrender to femininity.
#24 - The Apex II
What do we mean by the highest? The crystalline clarity of triumph
as it shines from the brow of a woman, from the brow of a goddess.
#25 -Human Life
Young sailors brave the sea beneath ten thousand sails
while old men drift ashore on any bark that avails.
#35 - Dead Ahead
What’s the hardest thing of all to do?
To see clearly with your own eyes what’s ahead of you.
#36 - Unexpected Consequence
Friends, before you utter the deepest, starkest truth, please pause,
because straight away people will blame you for its cause.
#41 - Earth versus Heaven
By doing good, you nurture humanity;
but by creating beauty, you scatter the seeds of divinity.
Keyword/Tags: Goethe, Schiller, German, Germany, translation, modern English translations, epitaph, epigram, love, kiss, friendship, desire, holy, holiness, earth, heaven, beauty, god, divinity, nature, spirit
Copyright ©
Michael Burch
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