To the beloved
(Poet's title: An die Geliebte)
Set by Schubert:
D 303
[October 15, 1815]
Part of Selam (putative cycle)
O dass ich dir vom stillen Auge
In seinem liebevollen Schein,
Die Träne von der Wange sauge,
Eh sie die Erde trinket ein.
Wohl hält sie zögernd auf der Wange
Und will sich heiß der Treue weihn;
Nun ich sie so im Kuss empfange,
Nun sind auch deine Schmerzen mein.
Oh, if only I could, from your quiet eye
With its loving glow, [if only I could]
Suck the tear from your cheek
Before the Earth drinks it up.
It is lingering and hesitating on your cheek
And it wants to dedicate itself warmly to faithfulness;
Now this is how I receive it with a kiss,
Now your sorrows too are mine.
All translations into English that appear on this website, unless otherwise stated, are by Malcolm Wren. You are free to use them on condition that you acknowledge Malcolm Wren as the translator and schubertsong.uk as the source. Unless otherwise stated, the comments and essays that appear after the texts and translations are by Malcolm Wren and are © Copyright.
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This might be the lover’s response to ‘Labetrank der Liebe‘ (Schubert’s D 302) in which someone (presumably a woman) in distress falls on her lover’s breast and receives solace in the form of a ‘drink of love’. What we could have in ‘An die Geliebte’ is the (presumably male) lover’s explanation of how satisfying it was to take up her tears, and with them, her agonies. The kiss is a form of mutual sharing rather than a gift from one to the other.
As in so much German poetry, the eye is thought of as emitting light (not just receiving it), so the speaker sees the beloved’s loving glow as emerging from the same source as the tear. Love and sorrow are emerging from the same deep well. The speaker wants to share both, and so expresses a desire to ‘suck up’ the lingering tear from her cheek. Paul Reid’s translation of this text [1] prefers the verb ‘to sip’ rather than ‘to suck’ as a translation of ‘saugen’, but this does not appear to capture the full intensity of the speaker’s determination.
[1] O that I might sip from your cheek
That tear which glistens so charmingly
As it rolls from your silent eye,
Before the ground swallows it up.
Paul Reid, The Beethoven Song Companion Manchester University Press 2007 page 58
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Original Spelling An die Geliebte O daß ich dir vom stillen Auge In seinem liebevollen Schein, Die Thräne von der Wange sauge, Eh' sie die Erde trinket ein. Wohl hält sie zögernd auf der Wange, Und will sich heiß der Treue weihn; Nun ich sie so im Kuß empfange, Nun sind auch deine Schmerzen mein.
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Selam. Ein Almanach für Freunde des Mannigfaltigen. Herausgegeben von I.F.Castelli. Dritter Jahrgang 1814. Wien, gedruckt und im Verlage bey Anton Strauß, page 205.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 205 [249 von 384] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ255496805