[Illustration: THE BETROTHAL Ludwig Richter]

Here do I therefore betroth you and bless for the years that are coming,
With the consent of the parents, and having this friend as a witness."

Then the neighbor saluted at once, and expressed his good wishes;
But when the clergyman now the golden circlet was drawing
Over the maiden's hand, he observed with amazement the other,
Which had already by Hermann been anxiously marked at the fountain.
And with a kindly raillery thus thereupon he addressed her:
"So, then thy second betrothal is this? Let us hope the first bridegroom
May not appear at the altar, and so prohibit the marriage."

But she, answering, said: "Oh, let me to this recollection
Yet one moment devote; for so much is due the good giver,
Him who bestowed it at parting, and never came back to his kindred.
All that should come he foresaw, when in haste the passion for freedom,
When a desire in the newly changed order of things to be working,
Urged him onward to Paris, where chains and death he encountered.
'Fare thee well,' were his words; 'I go, for all is in motion
Now for a time on the earth, and every thing seems to be parting.
E'en in the firmest states fundamental laws are dissolving;
Property falls away from the hand of the ancient possessor;
Friend is parted from friend; and so parts lover from lover.
Here I leave thee, and where I shall find thee again, or if ever,
Who can tell? Perhaps these words are our last ones together.
Man's but a stranger here on the earth, we are told and with reason;
And we are each of us now become more of strangers than ever.
Ours no more is the soil, and our treasures are all of them changing:
Silver and gold are melting away from their time-honored patterns.
All is in motion as though the already-shaped world into chaos
Meant to resolve itself backward into night, and to shape itself over.
Mine thou wilt keep thine heart, and should we be ever united
Over the ruins of earth, it will be as newly made creatures,
Beings transformed and free, no longer dependent on fortune;
For can aught fetter the man who has lived through days such as these are!
But if it is not to be, that, these dangers happily over,
Ever again we be granted the bliss of mutual embraces,
Oh, then before thy thoughts so keep my hovering image
That with unshaken mind thou be ready for good or for evil!
Should new ties allure thee again, and a new habitation,
Enter with gratitude into the joys that fate shall prepare thee;
Love those purely who love thee; be grateful to them who show kindness.
But thine uncertain foot should yet be planted but lightly,
For there is lurking the twofold pain of a new separation.
Blessings attend thy life; but value existence no higher
Than thine other possessions, and all possessions are cheating!'
Thus spoke the noble youth, and never again I beheld him.
Meanwhile I lost my all, and a thousand times thought of his warning.
Here, too, I think of his words, when love is sweetly preparing
Happiness for me anew, and glorious hopes are reviving.
Oh, forgive me, excellent friend, that e'en while I hold thee
Close to my side I tremble! So unto the late-landed sailor
Seem the most solid foundations of firmest earth to be rocking."

Thus she spoke, and placed the two rings on her finger together.
But her lover replied with a noble and manly emotion:
"So much the firmer then, amid these universal convulsions,
Be, Dorothea, our union! We two will hold fast and continue,
Firmly maintaining ourselves, and the right to our ample possessions.
For that man, who, when times are uncertain, is faltering in spirit,
Only increases the evil, and further and further transmits it;
While he refashions the world, who keeps himself steadfastly minded.
Poorly becomes it the German to give to these fearful excitements
Aught of continuance, or to be this way and that way inclining.
This is our own! let that be our word, and let us maintain it!
For to those resolute peoples respect will be ever accorded,
Who for God and the laws, for parents, women and children,
Fought and died, as together they stood with their front to the foeman.
Thou art mine own; and now what is mine, is mine more than ever.
Not with anxiety will I preserve it, and trembling enjoyment;
Rather with courage and strength. To-day should the enemy threaten,
Or in the future, equip me thyself and hand me my weapons.
Let me but know that under thy care are my house and dear parents,
Oh! I can then with assurance expose my breast to the foeman.
And were but every man minded like me, there would be an upspring
Might against might, and peace should revisit us all with its gladness."

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS

BY ARTHUR H. PALMER, A.M., LL.D.

Professor of German Language and Literature, Yale University

To what literary genus does Goethe's Iphigenia belongs? Dramatic in form, is it a drama? For A. W. Schlegel "an echo of Greek song," and for many German critics the best modern reproduction of Greek tragedy, it is for others a thoroughly German work in its substitution of profound moral struggles for the older passionate, more external conflicts. Schiller said: "It is, however, so astonishingly modern and un-Greek, that I cannot understand how it was ever thought to resemble a Greek play. It is purely moral; but the sensuous power, the life, the agitation, and everything which specifically belongs to a dramatic work is wanting." He adds, however, that it is a marvelous production which must forever remain the delight and wonderment of mankind. This is the view of G. H. Lewes, whose characterization is so apt also in other respects: "A drama it is not; it is a marvelous dramatic poem. The grand and solemn movement responds to the large and simple ideas which it unfolds. It has the calmness of majesty. In the limpid clearness of its language the involved mental processes of the characters are as transparent as the operations of bees within a crystal hive; while a constant strain of high and lofty music makes the reader feel as if in a holy temple. And above all witcheries of detail there is one capital witchery, belonging to Greek statues more than to other works of human cunning—the perfect unity of impression produced by the whole, so that nothing in it seems made, but all to grow; nothing is superfluous, but all is in organic dependence; nothing is there for detached effect, but the whole is effect. The poem fills the mind; beautiful as the separate passages are, admirers seldom think of passages, they think of the wondrous whole."