Joseph Victor von Scheffel

“ The old Etruscan era and that of the ancient German are also painted in a style which, could the truth be known, would probably be found as genially true to life as it is to the world-old, infinite spirit of Humour, which moved man in the same measure in ancient Egypt as in modern England. In these, as in his serious poems of a more ambitious nature, Joseph Victor Scheffel manifests a remarkable insight into the inner real life of the past. ”

“ Singer and stroller, the wind-whirling wild.
Iron throats for drinking--bellies like fires,
Gold souls unshrinking--which no one desires,
Thin garments sporting--weather so raw,
Ah--and our courting--on hay and in straw!
Parson, Sir Prudence, open your gate!
Travelling students your welcome await!
Suabia, Franconia have given us food,
Sans ceremonié--an all eating brood;
Fed us, rapacious, God keep them from harm!
Like the voracious and wild locust swarm,
What we've o'erpowered--once fertile and fair,
All is devoured--shorn barren and bare. ”

“ If any one should fail to comprehend the spirit of Scheffel's poetry let him go to the 'joyful Palatinate,' and to its ancient capital, Heidelberg. There he will find the frank, merry, and humorous characters of Scheffel's poems, and especially the prototypes of that thirsty soul, the Rodensteiner who pawned his three villages during the revelries 'Zu Heidelberg im Hirschen,' and finally bequeathed his thirst to the students. ”

“ Gallen, it gives us a faithful picture of the social life in South Western Germany--the most ancient seat and nucleus of German civilization during the tenth century,--in retaining and reproducing all the naïveté, freshness, and simple-minded views which are the charms of these celebrated chronicles, whilst the poet's figures are marked with that distinct individuality which raises the dry chronicle to a skilful and poetical tale of human passions and conflicts. Ekkehard may be compared with the best of Sir Walter Scott's novels. ”

“ What gives such a high value to these songs, and indeed to all the poetry of Scheffel, is the fact that they, in depicting the joyous vein in human nature, set forth a faithful abstract, a true poetical substratum, of the popular life and thought of South-Western Germany. ”

“ Joseph Victor passed with all the honours, and as one of the best pupils, all the classes of the Lyceum, and then devoted himself to the study of law at the University of Heidelberg. There he joined a so-called academical society of progress, without, however, taking part in the Baden revolution, which drove so many of his comrades into exile. ”

“ Ah! there the stone rays a heat that is horrible,
Cannot endure me!
All because I, when just seated, so nimbly
Jumped in a hurry.
Grasshoppers sit, sound asleep, by the road-side
Quiet as can be.
Dull ....
Ah me! what a dull day it is!
These are the times, hey, when people and cattle
Are scorching red-hot like the irons in a smithy! ”

“ After having passed the Government examination we find our young poet as 'Rechtspractikant' (practitioner of law) in the little town of Säckingen. Well might the little provincial place appear dull to a student coming from the liveliest university of Germany. Still the splendid scenery of the environs of Säckingen compensated for many shortcomings. With the numerous friends he won there, Scheffel made frequent excursions through the valleys which stretch in all directions from the Feldberg and the Rhine. ”

“ It is true, Scheffel was at first entirely ignored by the Berlin and Leipzig critics who assume to sit in judgment over modern German literature (he has, up to the present day, not even found a place in Brockhaus's Conversations-Lexicon) , but the unsophisticated public recognized the kernel of pure poetry in Scheffel's unpretentious verses; and his 'Trompeter' is at present the most popular poem in Germany. Its story is told with extreme simplicity and humour, in blank trochees with interspersed rhymed poems ”

“ It was published at the time when the 'incense perfume of the pious soul,' as Scheffel calls the poems of Oskar von Redwitz, had its firmest hold on the misguided taste of the public. In comparison with this sickly, effeminate poetry, the simple, natural, and yet intensely poetic production of Scheffel afforded something like the enjoyment of fresh mountain air after that of a hot-house. ”

“ Without being presented as such, these ballads, though complete in themselves, form in their connection a droll history of the world and of humanity--advancing from the early outburst of Granite and Basalt, through the boulder of Gneiss to the Ichthyosaurus and Megatherium. Man then appears as a dweller in the pre-historic Swiss-Lacustrine-dwelling on poles, where he bitterly bewails the misfortune of being a pioneer of civilization, and as one born before the invention of modern comforts. ”

“ He received his first instruction in the 'Lyceum' of his native place, a high school which enjoyed at the time a splendid reputation, and was considered the best in the Grand Duchy of Baden. Whatever may have been said against one or the other of the professors, the majority were remarkable men, knowing how to awaken the mental activity of their pupils. The social life of the 'Lyceists' was free from ordinary constraints; and the merry youths enjoyed many privileges, which at other places were strictly reserved for University students. ”

“ Scheffel did not remain long in Säckingen. He quitted the Government service, and, after passing some time in travels in South Germany, settled at Donaueschingen as Keeper of the Archives of Prince Fürstenberg. This town is likewise exceedingly small, the environs are bare and not to be compared with the romantic scenery of the Upper Rhine; but at the court of the refined princes of Fürstenberg there were at all times remarkable men, and the library afforded, in MSS. and documents, ample means for the study of Old German history, language, and literature. ”

“ The theatre was then excellent, and the 'Lyceists' visited it regularly. Eyen politics agitated the mind of this young generation. It must be remembered that thirty years ago Baden was the focus of political life, to which the eyes of every German patriot was directed; and although Mannheim was the seat of the agitation, the chamber united at Karlsruhe a number of men, whose names will ever be held in respect in Baden: Itzstein, Welcker, Bassermann, Hecker, Mathy, Soiron. ”

“ Another fruit of Scheffel's researches in mediæval literature is his charming little volume 'Frau Aventiure,' and likewise, although published much later, 'Juniperus,' the history of a German Crusader, and his most recent work, 'Die Bergpsalmen.' Both these latter works (the last one is written in verse) exhibit the same merits as Ekkehard, but they are laid out on a smaller scale, and are of a more fragmentary character. ”

“ And looking from the ruins of the castle over the beautiful valleys of the Neckar and the Rhine, he will perhaps understand the enthusiasm which our poet has for this blessed spot, in singing:
Und stechen mich die Dornen,
Und wird mir's draus zu kahl;
Geb' ich dem Pferd die Spornen,
Und reit' in's Neckarthal. ”

“ Anpumpen, to pump, is a German slang term for borrowing. Pumpus was the name of an Etruscan prince.
Dim was the sunlight, and November shivering
Ran with a light frost o'er the land Etruria,
A gentle head-ache of the last night's origin,
Went threading through the air with weary pinion-beat;
A weak and bankrupt feeling lay on hill and dale,
The sacred olive tree, whose last thin yellow leaf
Thrilled in the wind, stretched mournfully its branches forth
Barren and bare, as wanting what was needfullest ”

“ The last old postilli-ón.
'Now steam runs wild, wind burns in haste,
All time has burst its bonds;
The sun paints pictures; lightning fast
The long wire corresponds.
'Oh, armour new!--Oh, same old fight!
Where is there peace to-day?
Oh, gas, phosphorus, steam, and light!
Away, my horse,--away!'
WINE OF SIXTY-FIVE.
In luftiger Trinkkemenaten
--Den Ort gesteht man nicht ein--
Da prüften drei späte Nomaden
Den edelsten pfälzischen Wein.
In a tavern, in cool, pleasant weather--
I know not the name or the sign--
Three travellers were drinking together
The noblest Palatinate wine. ”

“ These ballads have been printed, sung, and imitated in Germany of late years to a great extent. Scheffel has in fact founded a school of humorous poetry--that of the burlesque-scientific and historical--which, though by no means pretentious, has at least made the world laugh heartily. I sincerely trust that the following translations will induce the reader to become familiar with the original.
I have omitted a few poems from the Gaudeamus, as deficient in the peculiar spirit of fun which characterises all that are here given ”

“ Now, the Counte Palatine and his Chancellor Mückenhäuser knew a godless wretche of this name who dwelte at Ketsch, and therefore whenn they returned home they inquired of ye fatt Enderle and of the tyme of his deathe, and observed that itt agreed withe the tyme whenn they did heare the crye upon ye sea, as Weyland, a Professor of Heidelberg; hath narrated in divers wrytings which hee left behinde.'
The translator has endeavoured to give this version of the extract from Merian in English corresponding to the style of the original old German.
Jetzt weicht, jetzt flieht! ”

“ Hunger nicht, sie fressen sich nicht.
S'kann auch kein zweckloser blinder
Unverstand sein, denn sie sind sonst
Klug und selbstbewusst im Handeln;
Warum, also, frag' umsonst ich,
Warum küssen sich die Menschen?
Warum meistens nur die Jüngern?
Warum diese meist im Frühling?
Ueber diese Punkte werd' ich
Morgen auf des Daches Giebel
Etwas naher meditiren.
In the delineations of the various characters of the 'Trompeter' Scheffel exhibits a gift of true poetical conception, a warmth of feeling, and a power of description, equalled by few of our modern poets ”

“ He proved to be a bold and even reckless swimmer, passing many a time through the bridge of Säckingen, saluting the bystanders as he accomplished this daring feat.
In the office of his court, located in an old convent of nuns, Scheffel found a number of old documents and MSS., and there his first poem was written, based on one of them: 'Der Trompeter von Säckingen. ”

“ Comedite amici et bibite et inebriamini charissimi, &c, &c.--Tobias Wagner, Evangel. Censur der Besoldischen Motiven, &c. Tübingen, 1640.
Im Winterrefectorium
Zu Maulbronn in dem Kloster
Da geht was um den Tisch herum
Klingt nicht wie Paternoster;
Die Martinsgans hat woklgethan,
Eilfinger blinkt im Kruge,
Nun hebt die nasse Andacht an
Und alles singt die Fuge:
A. V. K. L. W. H.
Complete Pocula!
In the winter refectorium
Of Maulbronn, in the cloister,
One hears a merry sound and hum,
Not like a paternoster. ”

“ The Gasthaus zum Faulen Pelz is a beerhouse in Heidelberg.
Footnote 5: Böblinger Rapsbauer. A Böbling farmer who plants rape-seed. Böblingen is the Little Pedlington of Germany. It is possible that the author intimates by this name the title of a very obscure provincial newspaper.--Translator. ”

“ To this study Scheffel now devoted himself, and, in combining his qualities as a poet with that of an historian, created his famous novel Ekkehard. Based chiefly on the Chronicles of the Monastery of St. ”

“ In their place I have given translations of a number of eccentric German-student songs of the new school, nearly all of which have found their way into the popular German song-books of late years.
CHARLES G. LELAND.
London, October, 1871.
JOSEPH VICTOR SCHEFFEL. AN INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR.
Joseph Victor Scheffel was born in the year 1826, at Karlsruhe, in Baden, where his father, a veteran officer, had taken up his residence. ”