The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Ix Part 69

NATHALIE.

Oh, I am orphaned now a second time.

PRINCE.

Oh, friend, sweet friend, were this dark hour not given To grief, to be its own, thus would I speak: Oh, twine your branches here about this breast!

NATHALIE.

My dear, good cousin!

PRINCE.

Will you, will you?"

I believe that during this love-scene, lovers will not be the only ones to find amus.e.m.e.nt, though this is the case as a rule. The tenth scene of this act is the turning point of the play. The Prince hastens to the Elector with the conquered flags, rejoicing in the victory and in the cert.i.tude that the latter still lives. The Elector commands that his sword be taken from him and orders a court martial to be convoked. Let us not overlook what this scene is in itself, through the contrasts presented. It is moreover the chief argument for the correctness of the opinion I have already expressed concerning the idea of the play. For the Prince is far from being sensible of the fault committed, and when Hohenzollern says to him,

"The ordinance demands obedience," he replies bitterly: "So--so, so, so!"

And later:

"My cousin Frederick hopes to play the Brutus-- By G.o.d, in me he shall not find a son Who shall revere him 'neath the hangman's axe!" etc.

He cannot as yet be just to the Elector, because he is still too indulgent to himself.

In the first scene of the third act he has come a step nearer the truth.

He calls himself a plant which has burst into bloom too swiftly and opulently. But he still says,

"Come, was it such a capital offense, Two little seconds ere the order said, To have laid low the stoutness of the Swede?"

The dignity of the code of war, upon which the Elector's mode of action is based, still lies too remote from his comprehension; therefore he is persuaded that:

"Ere, at a kerchief's fall, he yields this heart, That loves him truly, to the muskets' fire, Ere that, I say, he'll lay his own breast bare And spill his own blood, drop by drop, in dust."

And when Hohenzollern lets fall a word about the mission of the Swedish amba.s.sador to ask for the hand of the Princess of Orange, the Prince is even inclined to think _unworthily_ of the Elector. He is capable of believing that the Elector will let him die because the Princess has be trothed herself to him. This is genuinely psychological, and here, where Homburg's character begins to appear in a dubious light, is actually the real touch-stone of it. That he loves and admires the Elector, he has already proved, that he has taken great trouble to find a reason for the latter's conduct that is not unworthy of him, is self-evident; for the human heart knows no greater pain than to have given admiration where it should have bestowed contempt. When, therefore, the Prince nevertheless believes that his betrothal to Nathalie has provoked the Elector's severity, he shows thereby that he has absolutely no comprehension of the dignity and necessity of the code of war, that consequently his violation of the ordinance could not have been caused by boyish petulancy, but by a grievous error, which, as an error, could be forgiven in a man. But for that very reason it is not inconsistent with his heroic character for him to exclaim "Oh, friend! Then help me! Save me! I am lost!" For a man shows himself as such when he gives up for lost a possession which is lost, not when he, like a madman, renounces everything for the sake of making fine phrases: and the Prince only does his duty when he tries in whatever way he can, to rescue his life from the despotic will of an individual. In the fifth scene, where he implores the Electress to intercede for him, he says:

"You would not speak thus, mother mine, if death Had ever terribly encompa.s.sed you As it doth me. With potencies of heaven, You and my lady, these who serve you, all The world that rings me round, seem blest to save The very stable-boy, the meanest, least, That tends your horses, pleading I could hang About his neck crying: Oh, save me, thou!"

Even that is, in my opinion, fine and human, for it is the first ebullition of emotion; and when is the feeling of painful loss ever separated from the lively desire to preserve the endangered possession?

I do not make this statement because I believe I am saying something new, but because I think it is something old which has not been sufficiently taken to heart. For the rest, this fifth scene is very beautiful and produces a deep effect. Who does not feel annihilated with the Prince when he exclaims:

"Since I beheld my grave, life, life, I want, And do not ask if it be kept with honor."

And farther on,

"And tell him this, forget it not, that I Desire Nathalie no more, for her All tenderness within my heart is quenched."

And how wonderful, how splendid does Nathalie appear in her calm n.o.bility! How absolutely true to nature it is that her strength first begins gently and noiselessly to unfold its wings when the man, whom she had looked upon as her ideal, from whom she had expected all things, has succ.u.mbed. And how genuinely womanly are the words with which she attempts to raise him up once more:

"Return, young hero, to your prison walls, And, on your pa.s.sage, imperturbably Regard once more the grave they dug for you.

It is not gloomier, nor more wide at all Than those the battle showed a thousand times!"

But poetic beauty is like the fragrance of flowers--it cannot be described, but only perceived.

Nathalie's character is rounded off in the first scene of the fourth act when she begs the Elector to liberate Homburg. She could have borne the death of the Prince, but this timorous misrepresentation of himself she cannot bear:

"I never guessed a man could sink so low Whom history applauded as her hero.

For look--I am a woman and I shrink From the mere worm that draws too near my foot; But so undone, so void of all control, So unheroic quite, though lion-like Death fiercely came, he should not find me thus!

Oh, what is human greatness, human fame!"

It is then that the Elector decides to make the Prince himself the judge of his offense, and writes him the following letter:

"My Prince of Homburg, when I made you prisoner Because of your too premature attack, I thought that I was doing what was right-- No more; and reckoned on your acquiescence.

If you believe that I have been unjust, Tell me I beg you in a word or two, And forthwith I will send you back your sword."

He gives this letter to Nathalie for her to deliver to the Prince. I must set down the words with which she receives the letter:

"I do not know and do not seek to know What woke your favor, liege, so suddenly.

But truly this, I feel this in my heart, You would not make ign.o.ble sport of me.

The letter hold whate'er it may--I trust That it hold pardon--and I thank you for it!"

Many another writer would have believed it was not enough for Nathalie to prove herself a heroine, but that she must stride onward with seven league boots and become an Amazon as well. Kleist, however, had looked deeply into feminine nature, he knew that woman's greatness only blooms above the abyss, and that she loses her wings the moment that earth again offers her a spot where she can safely and firmly tread. Nathalie sighs only once: "Oh what is human greatness, human fame!" But she rejoices when she has the saving letter of the Elector in her possession, and, without troubling herself further about its contents, she hastens, enraptured, to the Prince of Homburg.

The Prince receives the letter. He reads it aloud while Nathalie listens. She grows pale; for she feels what a man must do who is called upon to be his own judge. Nevertheless she urges the Prince to write the words which the Elector requires; she s.n.a.t.c.hes the letter from the Prince's hand; when he hesitates, she reminds him of the open grave he has already seen. But neither is the Prince any longer in doubt concerning the significance of the moment, concerning the Elector, concerning his own guilt. He says,

"I will not face the man who faces me So n.o.bly, with a knave's ign.o.ble front!

Guilt, heavy guilt, upon my conscience weighs, I fully do confess--"

He writes this to the Elector, and Nathalie embraces him exclaiming:

"And though twelve bullets made You dust this instant, I could not resist Caroling, sobbing, crying: 'Thus you please me!'"

I would gladly follow the great poet through the fifth act also, but it is not indispensable for the a.n.a.lysis of the play, as the _denouement_ is easy to foresee--namely that the Prince, after already suffering one death through the relinquishment of that idea which has been the guiding principle of his life hitherto, is spared a second death. Finally I must add that I have not chosen the _Prince of Homburg_ as the subject of my criticism because this tragedy is the most successful of all Kleist's plays, but merely because it offers the best opportunity for drawing a comparison between the dramatic achievements of Kleist and those of Korner. And now, courage. We must start in with Korner and we will choose that one of his products which is universally declared the greatest, his _Zriny_.

In discussing the _Prince of Homburg_ I could limit myself to a general outline, as it is not possible that any one who reads the play could ever have the least doubt whether the characters are correctly drawn. We have not such an easy task with Korner's _Zriny_, but rather must take the opposite way. In order not to overpa.s.s the limits of this essay, however, we will pay less attention to the play as a totality, which, indeed, can occupy our attention only if the first investigation prove favorable to the author.

The idea which kindles Zriny's enthusiasm is unconditional obedience to Emperor and Fatherland. It must be admitted that it is an idea which may have arisen in many a human breast in the year 1566, and which certainly animated the heroic Zriny. It is not sufficient, however, for the dramatic poet to give utterance to what fills the soul of his hero, for that falls to the lot of history to perform. While the historian looks upon every individual as a bomb, whose course and effect he must calculate, but with whose origin he is but slightly concerned, it is the affair of the dramatic poet--who, if he recognizes his high mission, strives to complete history--to show how the character whom he has chosen as a subject for treatment has become what he is. We find this, for example, in Shakespeare, to go back to the Bible of the playwright.

Every pa.s.sion which he describes we see as roots and tree at one and the same time. Theodor Korner simplified the matter, he only shows us the flame; whence it comes he leaves in doubt, and therefore has himself to thank if we are undecided whether his heroes are pursuing will-o'-the-wisps, or--to use his favorite metaphor--stars. I need not call attention to the fact that this way is by far the easier.

The plot of this play is sufficiently well known. I will therefore turn immediately to a closer examination of the several characters. Honor to whom honor is due; let Sultan Soliman advance. I will not pause at the first scene in which he appears, although even there he reveals d.a.m.nable weaknesses. After all a Turk may be forgiven for losing his temper because his physician-in-ordinary does not know how long he will live. In the second scene Korner has tried to outline the hero who demands Vienna for his funeral torch. He has not succeeded as well as he might.

"Karl, Karl!"--cries Soliman in his beard--"If only thou Thy Europe now would lie here at my feet"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE HUNS AND THE NIBELUNGS _From the Painting by Schnorr von Carolsfeld_]

Every other hero would have considered that in which Soliman beheld the curse of his life to be the greatest favor fortune could have shown him.

I do not expect much from the hound--this parable is very well suited to the Turks--who only fights with little yelping dogs. How far Mr. Korner has succeeded in spreading the oriental coloring over his picture is shown very plainly in the fourth scene, where Soliman receives his generals with the words:

"I greet you all, supporters of my throne, Most welcome comrades of my victories, I greet you all."

Seldom has the sun shone upon a politer Turk than this Soliman, who, to be sure, afterward throws around not only his oaths but his dagger. That it is no merit of Korner if we behold in his Soliman a hero and a Turk, must be evident to every one; but let us now examine whether he has succeeded any better in representing the commander-in-chief and the tyrant. We find both in the third scene of the third act. Mehmed reports to the Sultan that the a.s.sault has been repulsed.