Tacitus Particularly Mentions This; And Speaking Of
The Germans Of His Time, He Says, "They Have An Idea That There
Is
something divine about a woman."[126] It is this feeling, handed down to us
from our Teutonic ancestors, that
Contributes mainly to make the European
so superior to all the Asiatic nations, where woman still remains a
degraded being, and 'tis this feeling that gives to us the palm above all
Greek and Roman glory. What are the modern European nations, the English,
French, Italians, Switzers, even Spanish and Portuguese, but the
descendants of these warlike Teutonic tribes who swept away the effeminate
Romans from the face of the earth? and do we not see the Teutonic policy
and usages, defective and degenerated as they sometimes are, the best
safeguard of liberty against the insidious interpretation of the Roman law,
which is founded on the pretended superiority of one nation, the inferred
inferiority of all the rest?
With regard to theatricals, I have witnessed the representation of a
tragedy, lately published, called Sappho, by a young poet of the name of
Grillparzer. This tragedy is strictly on the Greek model. Its versification
in iambics is so beautiful that it is regarded as the triumph of the
Classics over the Romantics; and by this piece Grillparzer has proved
the universality of his genius; for he wrote a short time ago a dramatic
piece in the romantic style and in the eight rhymed trochaic metre called
die Anhfrau (the ancestress) where supernatural agency is introduced.
This I have read; it is a piece full of interest; still it was thought too
outre by the Classiker. It was supposed that this was the peculiar
style of the author, and that he adopted it from inability to compose in
the classic taste, when behold! by way of proving the contrary, he has
given us a drama simple in its plot, where all the unities are preserved,
and where the subject one would think was too well known to produce much
interest; he has given, I say, to this piece (Sappho), from the extreme
harmony of its versification and the pathos of the sentiments expressed
therein, an effect which I doubt any tragedy of Euripides or Sophocles
surpasses. The character of Sappho and her passion for Phaon; his
indifference to her and attachment to the young Melitta, an attendant and
slave of Sappho's, and Sappho throwing herself into the sea after uniting
Phaon and Melitta, constitute the plot of the drama. But simple as the
plot, and old as the story is, it excites the greatest interest, and never
fails to draw tears from the audience. What can be more artless and
pathetic, for instance, than these lines of the young Melitta when she
regrets her expatriatioa:
Kein Busen schlaegt mlr bier in diesem Lande,
Und meine Freunden wohnen weit von hier.
In English:
No bosom beats for me in this strange land,
And far from here my friends and parents dwell.
I have no doubt that some of these days Sappho will be translated into
the idiom of modern Greece and acted in that country.
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