[Footnote 10: The Angel-chorusses in this scene present the only instances in which the translator, for the sake of retaining the ring and swing of the melody, has felt himself obliged to give a transfusion of the spirit of the thought, instead of its exact form.
The literal meaning of the first chorus is:—
Christ is arisen!
Joy to the Mortal,
Whom the ruinous,
Creeping, hereditary
Infirmities wound round.
Dr. Hedge has come nearer than any one to reconciling meaning and melody thus:—
"Christ has arisen!
Joy to our buried Head!
Whom the unmerited,
Trailing, inherited
Woes did imprison."
The present translator, without losing sight of the fact that "the Mortal" means Christ, has taken the liberty (constrained by rhyme,—which is sometimes more than the rudder of verse,) of making the congratulation include Humanity, as incarnated in Christ, "the second Adam."
In the closing Chorus of Angels, the translator found that he could best preserve the spirit of the five-fold rhyme:—
"Thätig ihn preisenden,
Liebe beweisenden,
Brüderlich speisenden,
Predigend reisenden,
Wonne verheissenden,"
by running it into three couplets.]
[Footnote 11: The prose account of the alchymical process is as follows:—