Ungeduld, D 795/7

Impatience

(Poet's title: Ungeduld)

Part of  Die schöne Müllerin, D 795 

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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 ‘Colin,’ said Cuddy then, ‘thou hast forgot
Thy selfe, me seemes, too much, to mount so hie:
Such loftie flight base shepheard seemeth not,
From flocks and fields to angels and to skie.’
  ‘True,’ answered he, ‘but her great excellence
Lifts me above the measure of my might:
That, being fild with furious insolence,
I feele my selfe like one yrapt in spright.
For when. I thinke of her, as oft I ought,
Then want I words to speake it fitly forth:
And when I speake of her what I have thought,
I cannot thinke according to her worth.
Yet will I thinke of her, yet will I speake,
So long as life my limbs doth hold together,
And when as death these vitall bands shall breake,
Her name recorded I will leave for ever.
Her name in every tree I will endosse,
That, as the trees do grow, her name may grow:
And in the ground each where will it engrosse,
And fill with stones, that all men may it know.
The speaking woods and murmuring waters fall,
Her name Ile teach in knowen termes to frame:
And eke my lambs, when for their dams they call,
Ile teach to call for Cynthia by name.
And long while after I am dead and rotten,
Amongst the shepheards daughters dancing rownd,
My layes made of her shall not be forgotten,
But sung by them with flowry gyrlonds crownd.
And ye, who so ye be, that shall survive,
When as ye heare her memory renewed,
Be witnesse of her bountie here alive,
Which she to Colin her poore shepheard shewed.’
  Much was the whole assembly of those heards
Moov’d at his speech, so feelingly he spake,
And stood awhile astonisht at his words . . .

From Edmund Spenser, Colin Clouts Come Home Againe (1591, first published 1595)

EARL OF WORCESTER
Good cousin, give me audience for a while.

HOTSPUR
I cry you mercy.

EARL OF WORCESTER
Those same noble Scots
That are your prisoners,--

HOTSPUR
I'll keep them all;
By God, he shall not have a Scot of them;
No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not:
I'll keep them, by this hand.

EARL OF WORCESTER
You start away
And lend no ear unto my purposes.
Those prisoners you shall keep.

HOTSPUR
Nay, I will; that's flat:
He said he would not ransom Mortimer;
Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer;
But I will find him when he lies asleep,
And in his ear I'll holla 'Mortimer!'
Nay,
I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak
Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him
To keep his anger still in motion.

EARL OF WORCESTER
Hear you, cousin; a word.

HOTSPUR
All studies here I solemnly defy,
Save how to gall and pinch this Bolingbroke:
And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales,
But that I think his father loves him not
And would be glad he met with some mischance,
I would have him poison'd with a pot of ale.

EARL OF WORCESTER
Farewell, kinsman: I'll talk to you
When you are better temper'd to attend.


William Shakespeare, Henry IV Part One Act I Scene 3 (1598)

Wilhelm Müller is generally known in Germany as ‘Greek’ Müller (because of his support for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire). It is much less well-known that he was an Anglophone (and Anglophile), who published a translation of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus at the age of twenty. We should therefore not be too surprised that he seems to have drawn on his detailed knowledge of Elizabethan drama and poetry in his own work. Whether or not the reference in Ungeduld to training the starling to repeat a phrase derives from Shakespeare is debatable, but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the opening of the text is a reworking of Spenser’s pastoral.

Colin (Spenser’s simple shepherd) lists all of the elements of his environment that he wants to use to declare his love for Cynthia, and Müller has used this to convey something of the miller boy’s teeming poetic sensibility. The lad’s passion is so great that he wants to write it everywhere, on bits of paper, on the bark of trees and even in sprouting cress seeds. These vivid images are in sharp contrast with his ability to communicate in direct speech. Three stanzas of Ungeduld are about what he would like to write, what he wants to say but cannot, and the final one is his realisation that he has failed to communicate any of this! Even his body language lacks the fluency and the clarity to convey his message. Müller has achieved the major feat of giving us access to the inner world of someone who is in effect inarticulate.

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Original Spelling

Ungeduld

Ich schnitt' es gern in alle Rinden ein,
Ich grüb' es gern in jeden Kieselstein,
Ich möcht' es sä'n auf jedes frische Beet
Mit Kressensamen, der es schnell verräth,
Auf jeden weißen Zettel möcht' ich's schreiben:
Dein ist mein Herz, und soll es ewig bleiben.

Ich möcht' mir ziehen einen jungen Staar,
Bis daß er spräch' die Worte rein und klar,
Bis er sie spräch' mit meines Mundes Klang,
Mit meines Herzens vollem, heißen Drang;
Dann säng' er hell durch ihre Fensterscheiben:
Dein ist mein Herz, und soll es ewig bleiben.

Den Morgenwinden möcht' ich's hauchen ein,
Ich möcht' es säuseln durch den regen Hain;
O, leuchtet' es aus jedem Blumenstern!
Trüg' es der Duft zu ihr von nah' und fern!
Ihr Wogen, könnt ihr nichts als Räder treiben?
Dein ist mein Herz, und soll es ewig bleiben.

Ich meint', es müßt' in meinen Augen stehn,
Auf meinen Wangen müßt' man's brennen sehn,
Zu lesen wär's auf meinem stummen Mund,
Ein jeder Athemzug gäb's laut ihr kund;
Und sie merkt nichts von all' dem bangen Treiben:
Dein ist mein Herz, und soll es ewig bleiben.

Confirmed with Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten. Herausgegeben von Wilhelm Müller. Erstes Bändchen. Zweite Auflage. Deßau 1826. Bei Christian Georg Ackermann, pages 19-20; and with Sieben und siebzig Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten. Herausgegeben von Wilhelm Müller. Dessau, 1821. Bei Christian Georg Ackermann, pages 20-21.

Published also in Frauentaschenbuch für das Jahr 1821 von de la Motte Fouqué. Nürnberg bei Joh. Leonh. Schrag, pages 401-402.

To see an early edition of the text, go to page 20 Erstes Bild 31 here: https://download.digitale-sammlungen.de/BOOKS/download.pl?id=bsb10115224