Ossian in Germany Part 22

Auf diesem Steine der alternden Moose, Wollen wir sitzen, o Barden, und ihn singen.

The peculiar expression "Steine der alternden Moose" reminds us of the moss of years that covers most of Ossian's stones.[92] Other slight reminders of Ossianic description occur throughout the ode.

The bards in Ossian occasionally exercise the power of looking into the mirror of the future. So in the ode "Weissagung" (1773), the poet seizes the _Telyn_ and prophesies; likewise in the ode "Die Rosstrappe"

(1771);[93] in both, however, the sacred white horses mentioned by Tacitus, but not found in Ossian, play a part.

A frequent device that we find in Klopstock, especially at the height of his enthusiasm for Ossian, is the conjuring up of the spirits of the departed. Doubtless the songs of Ossian, in which the ghosts of the fallen play such an important role, inspired Klopstock with a fondness for this device. We must hold Ossian accountable, for example, when in the ode "Thuiskon" (1764) the h.o.a.ry ancestor of the German people is made to appear in the grove of the modern German bards. Similarly an old bard is conjured up in the ode "Der Hugel, und der Hain" (1767); in the ode "Rothschilds Graber" (1766) the souls of the departed appear to the poet, and spirits that hover around Braga or the G.o.ddess of the German language occur frequently in the odes of the period that coincides with Klopstock's most intense interest in Ossian.[94]

The influence of Ossian is particularly manifest in the first of the odes mentioned in the previous paragraph, in "Thuiskon." We have but to read the ode and for comparison the "Address to the Evening Star" and the "Apostrophe to Fingal and his Times" in "The Songs of Selma,"[95] to notice the resemblance. The time of the ghosts' appearance in both is at the rising of the evening star, which in "Thuiskon" sends down "entwolkte Schimmer," while in Ossian it "lifts its head from its clouds." Compare also ll. 56:

So entsenket die Erscheinung des Thuiskon, wie Silber staubt Von fallendem Gewa.s.ser ...

with "Fingal comes like a watery column of mist."[96]

Another ode of the same year, "Die fruhen Graber" (1764), shows undoubted traces of Ossian's influence. The entire _Stimmung_ is Ossianic and Ossianic touches are not wanting, as when the poet says, ll. 910:

Ihr Edleren, ach es bewachst Eure Maale schon ernstes Moos!

The poems of Ossian teem with laments for the departed, whose graves are marked by stones, grown over with moss. The danger of referring everything in Klopstock that savors of the Gaelic bard to Ossian has been pointed out, yet Ossian undoubtedly accentuated and brought into stronger relief much that already existed.

Klopstock's characterization of the songs of the bards given in ll.

3340 and 7784 of the ode "Der Hugel, und der Hain" is based largely upon his knowledge of the poems of Ossian which were supposedly further removed from the limitations of art and closer to nature than the poems of the Greeks.

The description of natural scenery and the comparison at the beginning of the ode "Aganippe und Phiala" (1764) reminds us strongly of Ossian, who was very fond of permitting several _as's_ and _so's_ to follow one another in his comparisons, a trick that was widely copied later in the imitations of Ossian and carried to excess.

Ll. 110:

Wie der Rhein im hoheren Thal fern herkommt, Rauschend, als kam' Wald und Felsen mit ihm, Hochwogig erhebt sich sein Strom, Wie das Weltmeer die Gestade Mit gehobner Woge besturmt! Als donnr' er, Rauschet der Strom, schaumt, fliegt, sturzt sich herab Ins Blumengefild, und im Fall Wird er Silber, das emporstaubt.

So ertont, so stromt der Gesang, Thuiskon, Deines Geschlechts ...

Compare, _e. g._, "Fingal," Book i, p. 221, ll. 410:

"As rushes a stream of foam from the dark shady deep of Cromla, when the thunder is travelling above, and darkbrown night sits on half the hill; through the breaches of the tempest look forth the dim faces of ghosts: So fierce, so vast, so terrible rushed on the sons of Erin. The chief, like a whale of ocean, whom all his billows pursue, poured valour forth as a stream, rolling his might along the sh.o.r.e."

Ossian is full of long comparisons, with several dependent clauses,[97]

and loves to heap up adjectives. Although the comparison of song to a stream frequently occurs in Ossian, we have seen[98] that it would be unsafe to attribute Klopstock's use of the comparison to Ossian, in fact, we find comparisons of the voice to a storm pouring down from the hills in the early books of the _Messiah_, and of course in cla.s.sical poetry.

Another example of the nature of Ossian's influence upon Klopstock, its power to strengthen existing conceptions, is offered by his use of the oak in comparisons. Koster[99] remarks, that Klopstock's numerous comparisons to the oak are all found in his later dramas, none in the _Messiah_. The oak, which Klopstock was so fond of regarding as the national tree-_die deutsche Eiche_-was as much at home in the highlands of Scotland as in the primeval forests of Germany, and according to Ossian occupied just as high a place in the minds of the Caledonians as in those of the Germani. The grove of oaks, the _Hain_, came to bear the same relation to bardic poetry that _Helicon_, the _Hugel_, bore to Greek poetry. It must have pleased Klopstock to find these groves of oaks so frequently mentioned in Ossian, in "The Songs of Selma," _e. g._,[100] and without a doubt Ossian's numerous comparisons to the oak had an influence upon Klopstock. In the _Hermannsschlacht_, Sc. 6, _e. g._, he says: "... so sturzt' er in sein Blut, wie die junge, schlanke Eiche der Donnersturm bricht." Compare "Temora," Bk. iii, p.

328, ll. 256: "Like a young oak falls Turlathon;" "Carthon," p. 163, l. 20: "There he lies, a goodly oak, which sudden blasts overturned!"

etc., etc.

Klopstock borrowed a name from Ossian and employed it freely in his odes, _Selma_, the name of the royal residence[101] of Fingal. He grew quite fond of the euphonious name, used it to apply to a girl, coined a corresponding masculine form _Selmar_, and out of the two made a pair of ideal lovers. Vetterlein[102] many years ago suggested that the names might have been taken from _Selim_ and _Selima_, names given by Prevod to a pair of tender lovers in the _Memoires d'un homme de qualite_;[103]

but no one of the present day would subscribe to that opinion. Had he kept the name of the maid in "The Songs of Selma," _Colma_, he would have been induced to call her lover, whose real name is _Salgar_, _Colmar_, and that would have led to confusion with the Ossianic hero of that name. The ode "Selmar und Selma," written in 1748, was originally ent.i.tled "Daphnis und Daphne." About the same time that the change of names took place, another ode was written with the t.i.tle "Selma und Selmar" (1766), in which the lovers promise that the first to die will appear to the other. This is a fancy that we frequently meet in the latter half of the 18th century, and it found nourishment in Ossian. The name Selma occurs furthermore in the ode "Die Erscheinung" (1777), and Selma and Selmar are the two ideal lovers in the ode "Das Bundniss," as late as 1789. The combination grew to be quite a popular one, and so we find "Elegien von Selma und Selmar" in Kosegarten's _Thranen und Wonnen_ (Stralsund, 1778), a poem "Selmar und Selma" by Friedrich s...o...b..rg[104]

that shows the influence of Ossian, another Ossianic poem of the same t.i.tle dedicated to Christian s...o...b..rg,[105] and many more. The popularity of the name Selma was still further increased by the translation of "The Songs of Selma" that appeared in _Werthers Leiden_.

The _Hermannsschlacht_ and the larger part of _Hermann und die Fursten_ were written at the height of Klopstock's enthusiasm for Ossian and we shall not search in vain for signs of the bard's influence in these dramas, particularly in the former. One of the most important and striking const.i.tuents of these dramas are the songs of the bards, interspersed throughout, which are thoroughly Ossianic in tone and spirit. Klopstock's bards, like those of Ossian, encourage the warriors to battle, proclaim the fame of the mighty; they tell of the deeds of the past, and when they sing: "h.o.r.et Thaten der vorigen Zeit," we recall Ossian's "tales of the times of old," or his "deeds of other times." The three choruses in Sc. 3 of the _Hermannsschlacht_ beginning with this exhortation are all decidedly Ossianic, _e. g._:

h.o.r.et Thaten der vorigen Zeit![106]

Zwar braucht ihr, euch zu entflammen, die Thaten der vorigen Zeit nicht, Doch tonen sie eurem horchenden Ohr Wie das Sauseln im Laube, wenn die Mondennacht glanzt.[107]

Compare _Messiah_, xx, ll. 4959:

Jetzo schwieg der Gesang; doch tonete fort der gehauchte Hall, und die Saite. So tonet der Hain, wenn weit in der Ferne Strome durch Felsen sturzen; und nah von den Bachen es rieselt: Wenn es vom Winde rauscht in den tausendblattrigen Ulmen.

Ossian has numerous comparisons to wind and storm, breeze and blast and gale, in much the same tone, for instance the following, "Berrathon,"

p. 379, ll. 13: "As the noise of an aged grove beneath the roaring wind, when a thousand ghosts break the trees by night." After the bards have finished in the second scene, first edition, Siegmar exclaims: "Das war gut, Barden, da.s.s Ihr von den Thaten unsrer Vater sangt!" Compare: "... sing nun dem Heere von den Thaten seiner Vater." "Lathmon," p. 272, ll. 78: "Their words were of the deeds of their fathers," etc.

When the bards in Sc. 2 sing:

Die Rader an dem Kriegeswagen Wodans Rauschen wie des Walds Strome die Gebirg' herab!

we are reminded of the car of Cuthullin in the first book of "Fingal"

and of Ossian's roaring streams that pour down the hills. Compare _Hermann und die Fursten_, Sc. 1:

Hermann stritt.

So sturzt von dem Gebirg herab Mit heulendem Sturme der Winterstrom Und breitet ringsum aus in dem Thal die herrschenden Wogen.

To liken a host of warriors unto a 'gathered cloud' or a 'ridge of mist'

is a favorite device of Ossian, and similarly in Sc. 2 of the _Hermannsschlacht_,[108] two choruses sing:

... Da zogen wir Deutschen uns Zusammen gleich einer Wolke.

And in the third scene a bard remarks: "Sie ziehn sich, wie ein d.i.c.ker Nebel, langsam in den Vorderbusch." And when the bards sing in the second scene:

Weit halle dein Schild! dein Schlachtruf tone, Wie das Weltmeer an dem Felsengestade!

or in the first edition:

Wie ein Donnersturm in dem Felsengebirg!

we can point to Ossian's shouts that are "louder than a storm" or like "thunder on distant hills."

"Die Flamme des gerechten Zorns," _Hermannsschlacht_, chorus, Sc. 3, calls up Ossian's 'flame of wrath,' but undoubtedly the Bible is the source of both.

In Sc. 6 we have the following lines:

Seht ihr nicht auf der Mondglanzwolke An der Eiche Wipfel, Eure Bruder schweben, und eure Vater?

Sie blicken auf euch herab.

Similarly in Ossian the ghosts of the fathers that float on clouds look down upon the warriors.

In Sc. 11 two choruses sing:

Wie des Wiederhalls in der Sommernacht war seines Schildes Ton, Wie des vollen Mondes der Glanz!

and so "CarricThura," p. 151, l. 27, "That s.h.i.+eld like the fullorbed moon," etc., and echoing s.h.i.+elds without number.