One type of love goes off in all directions
(Poet's title: Ariette der Claudine)
Set by Schubert:
D 239/6
[July 1815]
Liebe schwärmt auf allen Wegen;
Treue wohnt für sich allein.
Liebe kommt euch rasch entgegen;
Aufgesucht will Treue sein.
One type of love goes off in all directions;
Devotion lives for its own sake.
One type of love comes at you rapidly;
Devotion wants to be searched for.
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:
It is extraordinary (and surely unique in German poetry) for the word ‘Liebe’ to be used with negative connotations. ‘Liebe’ appears here in contrast to the word ‘Treue’ (devotion or commitment), so it presumably refers to Eros, erotic, passionate love, rather than Agape, self-giving spiritual love.
In the context of Goethe’s Singspiel, Claudine von Villa Bella, this short verse is sung by Claudine at the end of scene one. Her cousin, Lucinde, had earlier in the scene confessed to Claudine that she herself had fallen in love with ‘an adventurer’ (a sort of bandit or gang-leader, though unknown to her he is not what he seems). She then warned her cousin that Cupid’s darts could hit anyone at any time (‘Hin und wieder fliegen Pfeile’, D 239/3). In the following scene Claudine does indeed fall in love, with Pedro, the son of her father’s best friend (now dead). Her short verse before she goes off singing is intended to show the difference between the two types of love (and the two types of lover): the noble and the frivolous.
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Original Spelling Ariette der Claudine Liebe schwärmt auf allen Wegen; Treue wohnt für sich allein. Liebe kommt euch rasch entgegen; Aufgesucht will Treue seyn.
Confirmed by Peter Rastl with Schubert’s source, Goethe’s sämmtliche Schriften. Fünfter Band. / Theater von Goethe. Fünfter Theil. Claudine von Villa Bella. Erwin und Elmire. Jery und Bätely. Lila. Die Fischerinn. Scherz, List und Rache. Der Zauberflöte zweyter Theil. Wien, 1810. Verlegt bey Anton Strauß. In Commission bey Geistinger page 19; with Goethe’s Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe lezter Hand, Zehnter Band, Stuttgart und Tübingen, in der J.G.Cotta’schen Buchhandlung, 1827, page 217.
To see an early edition of the text, go to page 19 [29 von 348] here: http://digital.onb.ac.at/OnbViewer/viewer.faces?doc=ABO_%2BZ163965506