This Want will give the Folk the mastery of Life, will raise it to the only living might. This Want once drove the Israelites, already turned to dull and sordid beasts of burden, through the waters of the salt Red Sea; and through the Red Sea also must Want drive us, if we are ever, cleansed from shame, to reach the promised land. We shall not drown beneath its waves; it is fatal only to the Pharaohs of this world, who once with host and captains, with horse and rider, were swallowed up therein,- those haughty, overweening Pharaohs who had forgotten that once a poor herdsman's son had through his prudent counsels saved their land and them from death by hunger! But the Folk, the chosen people, passed scathless through that sea towards the Land of Promise: and reached it when the desert sand had washed its body of the last remaining stain of slavery.-
Since the poor Israelites have led me thus into the region of the fairest of all poetry, the ever fresh and ever truthful poems of the Folk, I will take my leave-by way of moral-with the outline of a glorious Saga which long ago the raw, uncultured Folk of oldtime Germany indited for no other reason than that of inner, free Necessity.
Wieland the Smith, out of very joy in his handiwork, forged cunning trinkets for himself, and weapons keen and fair to see. One day as he was bathing on the shore, he saw a Swan-maiden (Schwanenjungfrau) come flying with her sisters through the air and, putting off her swan-apparel, plunge down into the sea. Aflame with sudden love, he rushed into the deeper waters; he wrestled with, and won the wondrous woman. Love, too, broke down her pride; in tender care for one another, they lived in blissful union.
A ring the Swan-maid gave to Wieland: this must he never let her win back from him; for greatly as she loved him, she had not lost her yearning for her ancient Freedom, for wind-borne passage to her happy island home; and this ring it was, that gave her strength to wing her flight. So Wieland wrought a goodly store of rings alike to that his Swan-wife gave him, and strung them on a hempen cord against his walclass="underline" amongst them all she should not recognise her own.
He came home once from journeying. Alack! There lay his house in ruins; his wife had flown away to farthest distance!
There was a King, Neiding (Envy) by name, who had heard much talk of Wieland's skill; he burned to trap the Smith, that thenceforth he might work for him alone. He found at last a valid pretext for such a deed of violence: the vein of gold which Wieland wrought into his smitheries belonged to Neiding's ground and soil; thus Wieland's art was a robbery of the royal possessions.-It was he who burst into the smithy; and now he fell upon the Smith himself; bound him with chains, and bore him off
Set down in Neiding's court, Wieland must hammer for the King all kinds of objects, useful, strong, and durable: harness, tools, and armour, by aid of which the King might broaden-out his realm. But since, for such a labour, Neiding must loose the captive's bonds, his care was how to leave his body free to move, yet hinder him from flight: and so he craftily bethought him of severing the sinews of poor Wieland's feet. For he rightly guessed that the Smith had only need of hands, and not of feet, to do his work.
Thus sate he then, in all his misery, the art-rich Wieland, the one-time blithesome wonder-smith: crippled, behind his anvil, at which he now must slave to swell his master's wealth; limping, lamed, and loathly, whene'er he strove to stand erect! Who might measure all his suffering, when he thought back to his Freedom, to his Art,-to his beloved wife! Who fathom all his grudge against this King, who had wrought him such an untold shame!
From his forge he gazed above to Heaven's blue, through which the Swan-maid once had flown to him; this air was her thrice-happy realm, through which she soared in blissful 'freedom, the while he breathed the smithy's stench and fume-all for the service of King Neiding's use! The shamed and self-bound man, should he never find his wife again!
Ha! since he was doomed to wretchedness for ever, since nevermore should joy or solace bloom for him,-if he yet might gain at least one only thing: Revenge, revenge upon this Neiding, who had brought him to this endless sorrow for his own base use! If it were only possible to sweep this wretch and all his brood from off the earth !-
Fearsome schemes of vengeance planned he; day by day increased his misery; and day by day grew ranker the desperate longing for revenge.-But how should he, the halting cripple, make ready for the battle that should lay his torturer low? One venturous forward step; and he must fall dishonoured to the ground, the plaything for his foeman's scorn!
"Thou dearest, distant wife! Had I thy wings! Had I thy wings, to wreak my vengeance, and swing myself aloft from out this shame ! "-
Then Want itself bent down its mighty pinions above the tortured Wieland's breast, and fanned its inspiration about his thoughtful brow. From Want, from terrible, all-powerful Want, the fettered artist learnt to mould what no man's mind had yet conceived. Wieland found it: found how to forge him WINGS. Wings whereon to mount aloft to wreak revenge on his tormentor,- Wings, to soar through Heaven's distance to the blessed island of his Wife!-
He did it: he fulfilled the task that utmost Want had set within him. Borne on the work of his own Art, he flew aloft; he rained his deadly shafts into King Neiding's heart ;-he swung himself in blissful, daring flight athwart the winds, to where he found the loved one of his youth.-
O sole and glorious Folk ! This is it, that thou thyself hast sung. Thou art thyself this Wieland ! Weld thou thy wings, and soar on high !
NOTES
(1)The above sentences, whose peculiar epigrammatic force it is welnigh impossible to convey in a translation, are of the highest significance as bearing upon the much debated question whether Wagner's philosophy was self-originated or derived from that of Schopenhauer. In our opinion, they and the following sections of this chapter give most positive answer in the former sense. Except that Wagner does not employ the term "Will," but rather "Necessity," the whole scheme is Schopenhauerian from beginning to end, and the gradual evolution of the "Will's" manifestation, from elementary force to Intellect and Spirit, might have been written by that greatest philosopher of the century. It is unnecessary to draw special attention to individual sentences; but an attentive perusal of this pregnant chapter cannot fall to bring home to those conversant with Schopenhauer's "Wille und Vorstellung" the remarkable fact that two cognate minds have developed an almost identical system of philosophy. For it must not be forgotten that R. Wagner was at the period of writing this essay, and long after, completely ignorant-as indeed was almost the whole world-of even the existence of the sage of Frankfort (vide Wagner's letters to Liszt). Another curious reflection aroused by this chapter is, that it should have been written when the Darwinian theory of the influence of environment upon evolution was as yet unpublished, if even formed.-TR.
(2) I.e. Art in general, or the Art of the Future in particular. -R. WAGNER.- The word 'Science' (Wissenschaft), also, must be understood in the broad sense in which it is employed in the next section (2).-TR.