First loss
(Poet's title: Erster Verlust)
Set by Schubert:
D 226
[July 5, 1815]
Part of Goethe: The April 1816 collection sent to Goethe
Ach, wer bringt die schönen Tage,
Jene Tage der ersten Liebe,
Ach, wer bringt nur eine Stunde
Jener holden Zeit zurück!
Einsam nähr ich meine Wunde,
Und mit stets erneuter Klage
Traur’ ich ums verlorne Glück.
Ach, wer bringt die schönen Tage,
Jene holde Zeit zurück!
Oh, who will bring back those beautiful days,
Those days of first love,
Oh, who will bring just one hour
Of that beauteous time back?
Alone I nourish my wound,
And with perpetually renewed lament
I mourn the lost happiness.
Oh, who will bring those beautiful days,
That beauteous time, back!
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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Themes and images in this text:
Being solitary, alone and lonely Food, feeding and nursing Laments, elegies and mourning Lost and found Pain Sighs and sighing Wounds
It feels as if the wound will never heal. Does the lamenting soothe the pain or renew it? The speaker here is at that point where there can be no doubt about the answer: the loss is irretrievable and unassuagable. There can be only one response, not to ‘lick the wounds’ but to ‘feed’ them.
This is an alarming image. This is feeding (nähren) in the sense of nursing or breast feeding. It is as if the tears and the words of the lament are watering the growing plant of inner pain, or suckling a newborn agony. The speaker wants the happy days to return, but with every repetition of the verb ‘come back’ all that is restored is the loss. Every reference to beautiful days or hours intensifies the sense of being stuck in an endless present, a traumatic absence.
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Original Spelling Erster Verlust Ach, wer bringt die schönen Tage, Jene Tage der ersten Liebe, Ach wer bringt nur eine Stunde Jener holden Zeit zurück! Einsam nähr' ich meine Wunde Und mit stets erneuter Klage Traur' ich ums verlorne Glück. Ach, wer bringt die schönen Tage, Jene holde Zeit zurück!
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Goethe’s sämmtliche Schriften. Siebenter Band. / Gedichte von Goethe. Erster Theil. Lyrische Gedichte. Wien, 1810. Verlegt bey Anton Strauß. In Commission bey Geistinger, page 28; with Goethe’s Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, Erster Band, Stuttgart und Tübingen, in der J.G.Cottaschen Buchhandlung, 1827, page 63; and with Goethe’s Schriften. Achter Band. Leipzig, bey Georg Joachim Göschen, 1789, page 113.
First written 1785 by Goethe for his fragmentary Singspiel “Die ungleichen Hausgenossen” (Arie der Baronesse, Act II), with different stanzas 2 and 3.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 28 [42 von 418] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ163965701