Читать книгу The Greatest German Classics (Vol. 1-14) - Various - Страница 56

Beneath your leafy gloom, ye waving boughs

Of this old, shady, consecrated grove,

As in the goddess' silent sanctuary,

With the same shuddering feeling forth I step,

As when I trod it first, nor ever here

Doth my unquiet spirit feel at home.

Long as a higher will, to which I bow,

Hath kept me here conceal'd, still, as at first,

I feel myself a stranger. For the sea

Doth sever me, alas! from those I love,

And day by day upon the shore I stand,

The land of Hellas seeking with my soul;

But to my sighs, the hollow-sounding waves

Bring, save their own hoarse murmurs, no reply.

Alas for him! who friendless and alone,

Remote from parents and from brethren dwells;

From him grief snatches every coming joy

Ere it doth reach his lip. His yearning thoughts

Throng back for ever to his father's halls,

Where first to him the radiant sun unclosed

The gates of heav'n; where closer, day by day,

Brothers and sisters, leagued in pastime sweet,

Around each other twin'd love's tender bonds.

I will not reckon with the gods; yet truly

Deserving of lament is woman's lot.

Man rules alike at home and in the field,

Nor is in foreign climes without resource;

Him conquest crowneth, him possession gladdens,

And him an honorable death awaits.

How circumscrib'd is woman's destiny!

Obedience to a harsh, imperious lord,

Her duty, and her comfort; sad her fate,

Whom hostile fortune drives to lands remote!

Thus Thoas holds me here, a noble man

Bound with a heavy though a sacred chain.

O how it shames me, goddess, to confess

That with repugnance I perform these rites

For thee, divine protectress! unto whom

I would in freedom dedicate my life.

In thee, Diana, I have always hoped,

And still I hope in thee, who didst infold

Within the holy shelter of thine arm

The outcast daughter of the mighty king.

Daughter of Jove! hast thou from ruin'd Troy

Led back in triumph to his native land

The mighty man, whom thou didst sore afflict,

His daughter's life in sacrifice demanding—

Hast thou for him, the godlike Agamemnon,

Who to thine altar led his darling child,

Preserv'd his wife, Electra, and his son,

His dearest treasures?—then at length restore

Thy suppliant also to her friends and home,

And save her, as thou once from death didst save,

So now, from living here, a second death.

[Illustration: IPHIGENIA Anselm Feuerbach]