Great Stories from the German Romantics. Ludwig Tieck
met them; it was Wolfram, the Duke’s Squire, who had long been looking for his master. The dark night was still lying over them, and no star twinkled from between the wet black clouds. The Duke felt weaker, and longed to reach some lodging, where he might sleep till day; besides, he was afraid that he might meet with Eckart, who stood like a spectre before his soul. He imagined he should never see the morning; and shuddered anew when the wind again rustled through the high trees, and the storm came down from the hollows of the mountains, and went rushing over his head. “Wolfram,” cried the Duke, in his anguish, “climb one of these tall pines, and look about if thou canst spy no light, no house or cottage, whither we may turn.”
The Squire, at the hazard of his life, clomb up a lofty pine, which the storm was waving from the one side to the other, and ever and anon bending down the top of it to the very ground; so that the Squire wavered to and fro upon it like a little squirrel. At last he reached the top, and cried: “Down there, in the valley, I see the glimmer of a candle; thither must we turn.” So he descended and showed the way; and in a while, they all perceived the cheerful light; at which the Duke once more took heart. Eckart still continued mute, and occupied within himself; he spoke no word, and looked at his inward thoughts. On arriving at the hut, they knocked; and a little old housewife let them in: as they entered, the stout Eckart set the Duke down from his shoulders, who threw himself immediately upon his knees, and in a fervent prayer thanked God for his deliverance. Eckart took his seat in a dark corner; and there he found fast asleep the poor old man, who had lately told him of his great misery about his sons, and the search he was making for them.
When the Duke had done praying, he said: “Very strange have my thoughts been this night, and the goodness of God and his almighty power never showed themselves so openly before to my obdurate heart: my mind also tells me that I have not long to live; and I desire nothing save that God would pardon me my manifold and heavy sins. You two, also, who have led me hither, I could wish to recompense, so far as in my power, before my end arrive. To thee, Wolfram, I give both the castles that are on these hills beside us; and in future, in remembrance of this awful night, thou shalt call them the Tannenhäuser, or Pine-houses. But who art thou, strange man,” continued he, “that hast placed thyself there in the nook, apart? Come forth, that I may also pay thee for thy toil.”
Then rose the hero from his place,
And stept into the light before them;
Deep lines of woe were on his face,
But with a patient mind he bore them.
And Burgundy, his heart forsook him,
To see that mild old gray-hair’d man;
His face grew pale, a trembling took him,
He swoon’d and sank to earth again.
“O, saints of heaven,” he wakes and cries,
“Is’t thou that art before my eyes?
How shall I fly? Where shall I hide me?
Was’t thou that in the wood didst guide me?
I kill’d thy children young and fair,
Me in thy arms how couldst thou bear?”
Thus Burgundy goes on to wail,
And feels the heart within him fail;
Death is at hand, remorse pursues him,
With streaming eyes he sinks on Eckart’s bosom;
And Eckart whispers to him low:
“Henceforth I have forgot the slight,
So thou and all the world may know,
Eckart was still thy trusty knight.”
Thus passed the hours till morning, when some other servants of the Duke arrived, and found their dying master. They laid him on a mule, and took him back to his castle. Eckart he could not suffer from his side; he would often take his hand and press it to his breast, and look at him with an imploring look. Then Eckart would embrace him, and speak a few kind words to him, and so the Prince would feel composed. At last he summoned all his Council, and declared to them that he appointed Eckart, the trusty man, to be guardian of his sons, seeing he had proved himself the noblest of all. And thus he died.
Thenceforward Eckart took on him the government with all zeal; and every person in the land admired his high manly spirit. Not long afterwards a rumour spread abroad in all quarters, of a strange Musician, who had come from Venus-Hill, who was travelling through the whole land, and seducing men with his playing, so that they disappeared, and no one could find any traces of them. Many credited the story, others not; Eckart recollected the unhappy old man.
“I have taken you for my sons,” said he to the young Princes, as he once stood with them on the hill before the Castle; “your happiness must now be my posterity; when dead, I shall still live in your joy.” They lay down on the slope, from which the fair country was visible for many a league; and here Eckart had to guard himself from speaking of his children; for they seemed as if coming towards him from the distant mountains, while he heard afar off a lovely sound.
“Comes it not like dreams
Stealing o’er the vales and streams?
Out of regions far from this,
Like the song of souls in bliss?”
This to the youths did Eckart say,
And caught the sound from far away;
And as the magic tones came nigher,
A wicked strange desire
Awakens in the breasts of these pure boys,
That drives them forth to seek for unknown joys.
“Come, let’s to the fields, to the meadows and mountains,
The forests invite us, the streams and the fountains;
Soft voices in secret for loitering chide us,
Away to the Garden of Pleasure they’ll guide us.”
The Player comes in foreign guise,
Appears before their wondering eyes;
And higher swells the music’s sound,
And brighter glows the emerald ground;
The flowers appear as drunk,
Twilight red has on them sunk;
And through the green grass play, with airy lightness,
Soft, fitful, blue and golden streaks of brightness.
Like a shadow, melts and flits away
All that bound men to this world of clay;
In Earth all toil and tumult cease,
Like one bright flower it blooms in peace;
The mountains rock in purple light,
The valleys shout as with delight;
All rush and whirl in the music’s noise,
And long to share of these offer’d joys;
The soul of man is allured to gladness,
And lies entranced in that blissful madness.
The Trusty Eckart felt it,
But wist not of the cause;
His heart the music melted,
He wondered what it was.
The world seems new and fairer,
All blooming like the rose;
Can Eckart be a sharer
In raptures such as those?
“Ha! Are those tones restoring
My wife and bonny sons?
All that I was deploring,
My