English translation of Else Lasker-Schüler's "Weltende"


                   



                 




           


                           Else-Lasker-Schüler


                   End of the World

There is a weeping in the world
As though the dearest God Himself were dead,
And the plummeting shadow, it burdens down
Like a grave of lead.
Come, let’s hide and loneliness softens …
Life is locked in our hearts
As in coffins. 
You, let’s hug in a deep kiss —
A longing throbs throughout the world,
And we must die by this.
          (tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)























     Auguste Rodin: The Kiss, 1889



                                The (Un)free Verse of Lasker-Schüler
                                     in Weltende ("End of the World")

by Rolf-Peter Wille

It is not difficult to find an English prose translation of Lasker-Schüler’s Weltende. Reading such a translation, and not knowing the German, I should believe the original poem to be in "free verse". An example of the first stanza:
There is a crying in the world,
as if God himself was dead,
and the shadow of lead
is as heavy as a tomb. 
If I remove the lines, the result reads like a prose sentence: "There is a crying in the world, as if God himself was dead, and the shadow of lead is as heavy as a tomb." This is perhaps a poetic sentence and it has its dignity. But did Lasker-Schüler write this in free verse?
Es ist ein Weinen in der Welt,
Als ob der liebe Gott gestorben wär,
Und der bleierne Schatten, der niederfällt,
Lastet grabesschwer.
There is rhyme, of course: ABAB. The lines are unequally long, but they are not without meter. The first two lines are in iamb:

          There ís a wéeping ín the wórld
          As thóugh the déarest Gód Himsélf were déad,

When the third line shifts to dactyl
Ánd [hold] the plúmmeting shádow, it búr-[hold]-dens dówn
this is doubtlessly a shift in affect as the slowed tempo evokes the heaviness of the "leaden shadow". And the terse finality of the concluding line results not only from the image but also from the trochee:
Líke a gráve of léad
The first lines of the following two stanzas parody the iambic "shadow" line of the first one:
Ánd [hold]   the   plúm-me--ting shá----dow,    it   búr-[hold]-dens dówn
Cóme, [rest] let’s híde [rest] and lóne---li-----ness sóftens …
Yóu, [hold]  let’s húg    in    a     déep [hold] [hold] kíss
Obviously the hiding and kissing soothes the pain brought by the shadow. Likewise the three concluding lines
         Líke  a  gráve of léad
                    Ás    in  cóf--fins .
And must   díe  by   thís.
are not just related in death but metrically as well. Certainly no iamb is used here.

Lasker-Schüler does not compose without meter but she uses a specific meter for specific lines (images). Besides giving a "prose" translation in "free verse", a translator may also be tempted to "correct" the poem, remove the rhythmic shifts and render it all in iamb, for example:
There is a weeping in the world
As if the dearest God was dead,
The dismal shadow burdens down
As heavy as a grave of lead.
Read it aloud, if you like and then read again the original translation:
There is a weeping in the world
As though the dearest God Himself were dead,
And the plummeting shadow, it burdens down
Like a grave of lead.























                      Gustav Klimt: The Kiss, 1909

            
               Two Different Ends of the World: van Hoddis and Lasker-Schüler


Ironically the more famous and truly "expressionist" Weltende ("End of the World") by Jakob van Hoddis, written about six or seven years after Lasker-Schüler’s, is in rather regular iambic quatrains throughout:
From pointed pates blows off the burgher’s hat,
And all the booming air rocks like a scream.
Roof tilers break and tumble from the beam
And on the coasts—we read—the tide is fat.
(tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)
We can hardly imagine two more different poems. Both make biblical allusions, a "weeping in the world" here ("we wept, when we remembered Zion", psalm 137) and a "screaming in the air" there (Revelation?). Indeed the poems differ as weeping and screaming do. Van Hoddis Weltende feels like a scream on a Litfaßsäule (advertising column).

















                       Litfaßsäule, 1932

Lasker-Schüler’s Weltende, in spite of the coffins, uses intimacy to ward off the "dead" outside world. Her world is still a solid one, a very heavy one in fact, and her "kiss" resembles the Rodin sculpture. It does not resemble the weightless Art Nouveau painting of Klimt (see above). Irony is found in van Hoddis—not in Lasker Schüler.

Ironically though Lasker-Schüler put her Weltende into an ironic context in 1941, when she "recycled" it in a highly ironic play IchundIch ("IandI"). In a dispute between Faust and Mephisto she lets Faust recite her Weltende and Mephisto replies:
He [God] hears you not ….
as ev’n the Hell, in which you now are living,
q u i t e   m o d e r n i z e d, is God’s place not.
The purgatory was conceived
by monks as the poor sinners judgment spot.
(tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)
Following are Lasker Schüler’s two rather ironic descriptions of van Hoddis from 1910 and 1911:
Suddenly a raven flutters up, a black shimmering head scowls over the parapet of the lectern. Jakob van? He speaks his short verses bristling and brazen [trotzig und strotzend], these [verses] are so sharply minted, one could steal them from him. Quatrains—inscriptions; all of them should be inscribed on Thalers—in a welfare-poet state [Sozialdichterstaat]."
Jakob van Hoddis, the raven, has run off with a doll [dame]. Always he’d been sitting already, during the summer, on the ledge of the front window at Friedländer's in Potsdamerstraße 21, languishing, among the towering hats and rose bonnets, for that sweet little Marquise in her little peacock slippers. A soul, which could be bought for 60 Marks.
(tr. by Rolf-Peter Wille)
(Jakob van Hoddis fell in love with the "doll artist" Lotte Pritzel and even dressed up as a Pritzel doll.)
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Here is the original German poem:

              Weltende

Es ist ein Weinen in der Welt,
Als ob der liebe Gott gestorben wär,
Und der bleierne Schatten, der niederfällt,
Lastet grabesschwer.
Komm, wir wollen uns näher verbergen ...
Das Leben liegt in aller Herzen
Wie in Särgen.
Du, wir wollen uns tief küssen -
Es pocht eine Sehnsucht an die Welt,
An der wir sterben müssen.

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      Else Lasker-Schüler
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