Maggie at the spinning wheel
(Poet's title: Gretchen am Spinnrade)
Set by Schubert:
D 118
[October 19, 1814]
Part of Goethe: The April 1816 collection sent to Goethe Goethe: Faust
Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
Und nimmermehr.
Wo ich ihn nicht hab,
Ist mir das Grab,
Die ganze Welt
Ist mir vergällt,
Mein armer Kopf
Ist mir verrückt,
Mein armer Sinn
Ist mir zerstückt.
Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
Und nimmermehr.
Nach ihm nur schau ich
Zum Fenster hinaus,
Nach ihm nur geh ich
Aus dem Haus.
Sein hoher Gang,
Sein’ edle Gestalt,
Seines Mundes Lächeln,
Seiner Augen Gewalt,
Und seiner Rede
Zauberfluss,
Sein Händedruck,
Und ach, sein Kuss!
Meine Ruh ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer,
Ich finde sie nimmer
Und nimmermehr.
Mein Busen drängt
Sich nach ihm hin,
Ach dürft’ ich fassen
Und halten ihn,
Und küssen ihn,
So wie ich wollt’,
An seinen Küssen
Vergehen sollt’.
I have lost my peace of mind,
My heart is heavy,
I will never find it,
Never again.
Where I do not have him
Is the grave for me,
The whole world
Has turned as bitter as gall for me.
My poor head
Seems crazy to me,
My poor mind
Seems shattered to me.
I have lost my peace of mind,
My heart is heavy,
I will never find it,
Never again.
I only look for him
As I look out of the window,
I only go for him
When I leave the house.
His majestic walk,
His noble form,
The way his mouth smiles
The power of his eyes,
And his way of speaking –
Magical river –
The pressure of his hand,
And, oh, his kiss!
I have lost my peace of mind,
My heart is heavy,
I will never find it,
Never again.
My breast pushes
Itself towards him.
Oh if only I could get hold of him
And hold on to him
And kiss him,
Just as I would like to,
His kisses causing me
To pass away!
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.
☙
Themes and images in this text:
Arms and embracing Bitterness Breaking and shattering Chest / breast Eyes Gazes, glimpses and glances Graves and burials Hands Heads Hearts High, low and deep Houses Kissing Lost and found Madness Magic and enchantment Mouths Not moving Rest Rivers (Fluß) Rooms Smiling Spinning Walking and wandering Weight – light and heavy Wheels Windows Workers and working songs
She is in quite a spin. Round and round go her thoughts. Words are repeated and rhymes recur as Gretchen tries to understand her situation. The movement of the wheel is taking her nowhere, but its energy is conserved. The rotation twists her yarn and her mind.
What she is aware of first is the absence of calm. Her peace of mind has disappeared and she knows that it will never come back. Then comes a realisation of another absence. Without Faust she has no life (‘anywhere where he is not is my grave’). She is alone in her room, looking out of the window not seeing her lover. What she sees there is the rest of her world, all now turned to gall.
Of course, for her there is no world where he is not. He cannot be absent for her, since he is all she can think about. This is why the second part of the text focuses on the details of his presence. There is an element of memory at work here as she refers to his walk, his smile and his eyes, but as she recalls his speech and the pressure of his hand she is spinning later emotion into the yarn. After the kiss things were never the same again for her, she can never be unkissed. Even the phonetic form of the word ‘kiss’ (Kuss) recalls its effect: the initial plosive /k/ has happened and is lost in the ensuing vowel, but the final sibilant /s/ lingers.
The last part of the text is pure fantasy. She longs to hold him and kiss him in a different way, indeed she wants to die from kissing him. Where the image of the grave had been associated with loss, absence and gall at the beginning, she has now come to see death as bliss. It will be a way of possessing what she does not have but also a way of recovering her lost peace by passing into nothingness. The spinner is therefore both a spider (in German, eine Spinne) dying in its lover’s embrace and also the spider’s prey caught in a web and longing for its agony to end.
☙
Original Spelling Gretchen am Spinnrade Meine Ruh' ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer; Ich finde sie nimmer Und nimmermehr. Wo ich ihn nicht hab' Ist mir das Grab, Die ganze Welt Ist mir vergällt. Mein armer Kopf Ist mir verrückt, Mein armer Sinn Ist mir zerstückt. Meine Ruh' ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer; Ich finde sie nimmer Und nimmermehr. Nach ihm nur schau' ich Zum Fenster hinaus, Nach ihm nur geh' ich Aus dem Haus. Sein hoher Gang, Sein' edle Gestalt, Seines Mundes Lächeln, Seiner Augen Gewalt, Und seiner Rede Zauberfluß, Sein Händedruck, Und ach, sein Kuß! Meine Ruh' ist hin, Mein Herz ist schwer, Ich finde sie nimmer Und nimmermehr. Mein Busen drängt Sich nach ihm hin. Ach dürft ich fassen Und halten ihn! Und küssen ihn So wie ich wollt', An seinen Küssen Vergehen sollt'!
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s probable source, Goethe’s sämmtliche Schriften. Erster Band. / Theater von Goethe. Erster Theil. Faust. Die Laune desVerliebten. Die natürliche Tochter. Wien, 1810. Gedruckt bey Anton Strauß, und in Commission beyGeistinger. pages 166-167; with Goethe’s Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe letzter Hand, Zwölfter Band, Stuttgart und Tübingen, in der J.G.Cottaschen Buchhandlung, 1828, pages 177-178; with Faust. Eine Tragödie von Goethe, Tübingen, in der J.G.Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1808, pages 223-225; and with Faust. Ein Fragment. in Goethe’s Schriften. Siebenter Band. Leipzig, bey Georg Joachim Göschen, 1790, pages 133-135. Above the poem it is indicated “Gretchens Stube. Gretchen am Spinnrade allein.” (Maggie’s little room. Maggie alone at her spinning wheel). Note: Goethe did not split the final eight lines into two stanzas prior to 1828.
To see an early edition of the text choose page 166 [176 von 412] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ163965105