Poems of The First Period by Friedrich Schiller (have you read this book .txt) 📕

Ha! Fearful blasphemy!

ZEUS. (More gently.)
How, my divine one? Wherefore such a tone?
What reptile dares to steal thine heart from me?

SEMELE.
My heart was vowed to him whose ape thou art!
Men ofttimes come beneath a godlike form
To snare a woman. Hence! thou art not Zeus!

ZEUS.
Thou doubtest? What! Can Semele still doubt
My godhead?

SEMELE. (Mournfully.)
Would that thou wert Zeus! No son
Of morrow-nothingness shall touch this mouth;
This heart is vowed to Zeus! Would thou wert he!

ZEUS. Thou weepest? Zeus is here,--weeps Semele?
(Falling down before her.)
Speak! But command! and then shall slavish nature
Lie trembling at the feet of Cadmus' daughter!
Command! and streams shall instantly make halt--
And Helicon, and Caucasus, and Cynthus,
And Athos, Mycale, and Rhodope, and Pindus,
Shall burst their bonds when I order it so,
And kiss the valleys and plains below,
And dance in the breeze like flakes of snow.
Command! and the winds from the east and the north,
And the fierce tornado shall sally forth,
While Poseidon's trident their power shall own,
When they shake to its base his watery throne;
The billows in angry fury shall rise,
And every sea-mark and dam despise;
The lightning shall gleam through the firmament black
While the poles of earth and of heaven shall crack,
The ocean the heights of Olympus explore,
From thousandfold jaws with wild deafening roar
The thunder shall howl, while with mad jubilee
The hurricane fierce sings in triumph to thee.
Command--

SEMELE, I'm but a woman, a frail woman
How can the potter bend before his pot?
How can the artist kneel before his statue?

ZEUS.
Pygmalion bowed before his masterpiece--
And Zeus now worships his own Semele!

SEMELE. (Weeping bitterly.)
Arise--arise! Alas for us poor maidens!
Zeus has my heart, gods only can I love,
The gods deride me, Zeus despises me!

ZEUS. Zeus who is now before thy feet--

SEMELE. Arise!
Zeus reigns on high, above the thunderbolts,
And, clasped in Juno's arms, a reptile scorns.

ZEUS. (Hastily.)
Ha! Semele and Juno!--which the reptile!

SEMELE.
How blessed beyond all utterance would be
Cadmus' daughter--wert thou Zeus! Alas!
Thou art not Zeus!

ZEUS. (Arises.) I am!
(He extends his hand, and a rainbow fills the hall; music
accompanies its appearance.)
Knowest thou me now?

SEMELE.
Strong is that mortal's arm whom gods protect,--
Saturnius loves thee--none can I e'er love
But deities--

ZEUS. What! art thou doubting still
Whether my might is lent me by the gods
And not god-born? The gods, my Semele,
In charity oft lend their strength to man;
Ne'er do the deities their terrors lend--
Death and destruction is the godhead's seal--
Bearer of death to thee were Zeus unveiled!
(He extends his hand. Thunder, fire, smoke, and earthquake.
Music accompanies the spell here and subsequently.)

SEMELE.
Withdraw, withdraw thy hand!--Oh, mercy, mercy,
For the poor nation! Yes, thou art the child
Of great Saturnius--

ZEUS. Ha! thou thoughtless one!
Shall Zeus, to please a woman's stubbornness,
Bid planets whirl, and bid the suns stand still?
Zeus will do so!--oft has a god's descendant
Ripped up the fire-impregnate womb of rocks,
And yet his might's confined to Tellus' bounds
Zeus only can do this!
(He extends his hand--the sun vanishes, and it becomes
suddenly night.)

SEMELE. (Falling down before him.)
Almighty one!
Couldst thou but love! [Day reappears.

ZEUS. Ha! Cadmus' daughter asks
Kronion if Kronion e'er can love!
One word and he throws off divinity--
Is flesh and blood, and dies, and is beloved!

SEMELE.
Would Zeus do that?
ZEUS. Speak, Semele! What more?
Apollo's self confesses that 'tis bliss
To be a man 'mongst men--a sign from thee,
And I'm a man!

SEMELE. (Falling on his neck.)
Oh Jupiter, the Epidaurus women
Thy Semele a foolish maiden call,
Because, though by the Thunderer beloved,
She can obtain naught from him--

ZEUS. (Eagerly.) They shall blush,
Those Epidaurus women! Ask!--but ask!
And by the dreaded Styx--whose boundless might
Binds e'en the gods like slaves--if Zeus deny thee,
Then shall the gods, e'en in that self-same moment,
Hurl me despairing to annihilation!

SEMELE. (Springing up joyfully.)
By this I know that thou'rt my Jupiter!
Thou swearest--and the Styx has heard thine oath!
Let me embrace thee, then, in the same guise
In which--

ZEUS. (Shrieking with alarm.)
Unhappy one! Oh stay! oh stay!

SEMELE. Saturnia--

ZEUS. (Attempting to stop her mouth.)
Be thou dumb!

SEMELE. Embraces thee.

ZEUS. (Pale, and turning away.)
Too late! The sound escaped!--The Styx!--'Tis death
Thou, Semele, hast gained!

SEMELE. Ha! Loves Zeus thus?

ZEUS.
All heaven I would have given, had I only
Loved thee but less! (Gazing at her with cold
horror.) Thou'rt lost--

SEMELE. Oh, Jupiter!

ZEUS. (Speaking furiously to himself,)
Ah! Now I mark thine exultation, Juno!
Accursed jealousy! This rose must die!
Too fair--alas! too sweet for Acheron!

SEMELE.
Methinks thou'rt niggard of thy majesty!

ZEUS.
Accursed be my majesty, that now
Has blinded thee! Accursed be my greatness,
That must destroy thee! Cursed be I myself
For having built my bliss on crumbling dust!

SEMELE.
These are but empty terrors, Zeus! In truth
I do not dread thy threats!
ZEUS. Deluded child!
Go! take a last farewell forever more
Of all thy friends beloved--naught, naught has power
To save thee, Semele! I am thy Zeus!
Yet that no more--Go--

SEMELE. Jealous one! the Styx!--
Think not that thou'lt be able to escape me. [Exit.

ZEUS.
No! Juno shall not triumph.--She shall tremble--
Aye, and by virtue of the deadly might
That makes the earth and makes the heavens my footstool,
Upon the sharpest rock in Thracia's land
With adamantine chains I'll bind her fast.
But, oh, this oath--
[Mercury appears in the distance.
What means thy hasty flight?

MERCURY.
I bring the fiery, winged, and weeping thanks
Of those whom thou hast blessed--

ZEUS. Again destroy them!

MERCURY. (In amazement.)
Zeus!

ZEUS. None shall now be blessed! She dies--
[The curtain falls.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The allusion in the original is to the seemingly magical power possessed by a Jew conjuror, named Philadelphia, which would not be understood in English.

[2] This most exquisite love poem is founded on the platonic notion, that souls were united in a pre-existent state, that love is the yearning of the spirit to reunite with the spirit with which it formerly made one--and which it discovers on earth. The idea has often been made
subservient to poetry, but never with so earnest and elaborate a beauty.

[3] "Und Empfindung soll mein Richtschwert seyn." A line of great vigor in the original, but which, if literally translated, would seem extravagant in English.

[4] Joseph, in the original.

[5] The youth's name was John Christian Weckherlin.

[6] Venus.

[7] Originally Laura, this having been one of the "Laura-Poems," as the Germans call them of which so many appeared in the Anthology (see Preface). English readers will probably not think that the change is for the better.

[8] Tityus.