The Serapion Brethren, Vol. I.

by E. T. A. Hoffmann

"'"Pray let me hear," said Heinrich with a scornful laugh, "perhaps it may teach me something of value."

"'"Heinrich," said Wolfframb, in a very earnest and serious tone, "it is true your song was couched in a very extraordinary 'manner,' quite unlike anything we had ever heard before, and the ideas soared high, even beyond the clouds. But something within me said that such a song could never come out of the pure human soul, but must be produced by supernatural agency--as necromancers manure the earth of home with magical substances, and it brings forth the strange plants of foreign lands. You have become a great master of song Heinrich, and are occupied in lofty matters; but do you still understand the sweet greeting of the evening wind when you wander through the deep forest shadows? Does your heart still throb with gladness at the rustling of the branches, and the voices of the mountain streams? Do the flowers still look up at you with the eyes of innocent children? Does the nightingale's complaining still make your heart well nigh faint with pain? Ah, Heinrich, there were many things in your song which filled me with a sense of unholy awe. I could not but think of the picture you drew of the poor disembodied shades wandering on the banks of Acheron, when the Landgrave once asked you the cause of your secret pain. I could but fancy that you had bidden farewell to love, and that what you have obtained in its place is but the useless hoard of the wanderer lost in the wilderness. Even now I cannot help fearing--pardon me for speaking so plainly--that you have bought your mastership with all that joy in life which is only vouchsafed to the pious and childlike of spirit. A dark presentiment seizes me. I think of what drove you from the Wartburg, and the circumstances in which you have returned. Many things may succeed with you, it is true; perhaps the beautiful star of hope to which I have been raising my eyes may set for me for ever. Still, Heinrich--here, take my hand on it--never can any ill-will towards you find place in my heart. Notwithstanding the good fortune which is streaming over you now, should you one day suddenly find yourself on the brink of some deep, bottomless abyss, and the whirl of giddiness seizes you, and you are about to fall down and be destroyed, I shall be standing behind you, firm in heart, and I will hold you fast with my strong arms."

"'Heinrich had listened in profound silence to all that Wolfframb said. He now covered his face with his mantle, and dashed rapidly in amongst the thick trees. And Wolfframb heard him sighing and gently sobbing as he sped quickly away.

"'THE CONTEST ON THE WARTBURG.

"'Much as at first the other masters marvelled at the haughty Heinrich's songs, and praised them, ere long they began to talk of spuriousness in the "manners," of emptiness and superficial display--nay, of absolute wickedness--in the works which he brought before them. Lady Mathilda, and she alone, had turned to the singer with her whole soul; and he praised her charms in a "manner" which all the other masters (except Wolfframb of Eschinbach, who reserved his opinion) declared to be heathenish and abominable. Before very long Lady Mathilda became a wholly altered creature. She looked down upon the other masters with scornful arrogance, and even withdrew her favour from Wolfframb of Eschinbach. She carried matters so far as to ask Heinrich of Ofterdingen to give her instruction in the craft of song, and began to write compositions herself quite in the style of his. From this time all beauty and attractiveness seemed to abandon this poor deluded lady. Discarding everything which serves to adorn noble ladies, and leaving off all womanly ways, she became an uncanny creature, neither woman nor man, detested by the women and laughed at by the men. The Landgrave, fearing that this disorder of hers might infect the other ladies of the Court, issued strict commands that no lady should occupy herself in composition under pain of banishment, and for this the men, who were much horrified at Mathilda's state, thanked him warmly. Countess Mathilda left the Wartburg, and repaired to a castle not far from Eisenach, whither Heinrich of Ofterdingen would have followed her had not the Landgrave ordered that he should go through with the contest to which the other masters had challenged him.

"'"Heinrich of Ofterdingen," the Landgrave said to this overweening minstrel, "you have in ugly fashion broken up and disturbed, by those unholy songs of yours, the fair and happy circle which I had collected in this place. Me you could never beguile; I saw clearly, from the beginning, that your songs did not come out of the depths of a pure, honest singer's heart, but were the fruits of the teaching of some false master. What avails outward ornamentation, glitter, and brilliance, when what it covers is merely a lifeless corpse? You sing of lofty matters, of mysteries of the universe, it is true, not as they dawn in the hearts of men, as sweet presciences of a higher life, but as the presumptuous astrologer tries to comprehend them, and reduce and measure them with compass and scale. You should blush, Heinrich of Ofterdingen, to think at what you have arrived, that your brave, honest spirit has bent itself to serve an unworthy master."

"'"I know not, my Lord," said Heinrich, "how far I merit your displeasure and your reproaches. You may possibly alter your opinion when you hear who the master was who opened to me that province of song which is his own special home. I left your Court in a condition of the deepest melancholy; and it may have been that the pain, which then threatened to destroy me, was in truth only caused by the powerful effort of the germ within me to burst its way towards the fertilizing breath of a higher life. In a strange and remarkable manner a little book came to my hands, in which the greatest master of song on earth had expounded, with the profoundest science, the principles of the art, adding one or two compositions of his own. The more I read and studied in this book, the clearer it became to me what a wretched affair it is when the singer cannot go beyond expressing in words merely that which he fancies he feels in his heart. But, more than this, I felt by degrees as though I were becoming gradually linked on to higher powers, who often sang through me, instead of its being I myself who sang, although I was, in absolute truth, the singer at the same time. My longing to see this great master himself, and listen to the profound wisdom and the critical judgments streaming from his very lips, became irresistible. I went, therefore, to Siebenbürgen, for, pray let me tell you, my Lord, it was to Master Klingsohr himself that I repaired; it is to him I am indebted for the super-earthly scope of my compositions, and perhaps you may now take a more favourable view of my feeble efforts."

"'"The Duke of Austria," the Landgrave said, "has told and has written me much in praise of your master. Master Klingsohr is versed in profound and secret sciences. He calculates the courses of the stars, and distinguishes the wonderful connection existing between them and the destinies of men. The secrets of the metals, the plants, and the gems are laid open to him, and at the same time he is skilled in the conduct of mundane affairs, and aids the Duke of Austria in action, as well as with advice and counsel. But what all this may have to do with the singer's pureness of heart I do not know, and I believe, moreover, that this is exactly the reason why Master Klingsohr's music, artfully and cleverly thought out and constructed as it doubtless is, has not the smallest power to touch or move my heart. However that may be, Heinrich of Ofterdingen, my masters, enraged, nay outraged, at your arrogant, overbearing demeanour, desire to sing against you for the prize, for several days together, and that shall now take place."

"'So the masters' contest began, but whether it was that Ofterdingen's spirit, confounded by false teaching, could no longer find its way by that pure light which served for truthful minds, or whether the interest of the occasion redoubled the powers of the other masters, the result was that each one who sang against him overcame him and gained the prize, in spite of his utmost efforts. Ofterdingen was very angry over this disgrace, and began songs which, with contemptuous allusions to Landgrave Hermann, extolled the Duke of Austria to the skies, calling him the only glorious sun that had arisen upon art. Moreover, he attacked the ladies of the Court with insolent and scornful words, and went on to praise only the charms and beauty of Lady Mathilda, in heathenish and reprobate style. It could not be but that all the masters--the gentle Wolfframb of Eschinbach included--fell into just and righteous indignation at this, so that they trod Heinrich of Ofterdingen's mastership into the mire in the most fervent and unsparing songs. Heinrich Schreiber and Johannes Bitterolff stripped off the false and deceptive outward glitter from Ofterdingen's compositions, and clearly demonstrated the feebleness of the skeleton form hidden beneath. But Walther of the Vogelweid, and Reinhard of Zweckhstein, went further. They maintained that Ofterdingen's conduct was worthy of condign punishment, which they were prepared and eager to inflict upon him, sword in hand.

"'Thus Heinrich of Ofterdingen saw his mastership contemptuously trodden into the mire, and found even his very life in danger. Full of despair and fury, he appealed to the Landgrave for protection; nay more, to entrust the decision of the contest for the mastership to Master Klingsohr, the most renowned master of the time.