"Hüte dich vor Menschendenkart,
Sie verdirbt dir Leib und Seele;
Unter allen Menschen giebt es
Keinen ordentlichen Menschen."[9]
[9] Guard against man's ways of thinking,
They destroy both soul and body;
'Mongst all men there's no such thing as
Any good and decent man.
(BOWRING)
There is a gay profundity in the warning against Feuerbach and Bauer, and there is wit, as brilliant as Voltaire's, but richer, and warmer, in the description of the creative deity:
"Droben in dem Sternenzelte,
Auf dem gold'nen Herrscherstuhle,
Weltregierend, majestätisch,
Sitzt ein kolossaler Eisbär " &c.[10]
[10] In yon starry bright pavilion,
On the golden seat of power,
World-directing and majestic,
Sits a mighty polar-bear.
(BOWRING)
What humour there is in the description of the bear-saints who dance before his throne!
The bear gives us something of the phraseology of all the different parties in turn, but it is the bigoted Teuton that he chiefly favours; it is he who is most severely satirised. The sleek bear-damsels remind us of a German pastor's daughters; the youngest cub turns somersaults exactly like Massmann, and is, like him, the product of home education, has never been able to learn Greek or Latin, or any language but his mother-tongue.
By strange, fantastic detours Heine invariably brings his reader back to the realities of his native land.
Aristophanic, in this respect, is the passage in which, when it rains, the cry is heard: "Six-and-thirty kings for an umbrella!" and again, when shelter is reached: "Six-and-thirty kings for a warm dressing-gown!"
And absolutely Aristophanic is the suppressed passage, in which the bird Hut-Hut tells how Solomon and Balkis ask each other riddles in the realm of shades, riddles like: