REVIEW OF HEINRICH VON KLEIST'S PLAY
THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG, OR THE BATTLE OF FEHRBELLIN (1850)
By FRIEDRICH HEBBEL
TRANSLATED BY FRANCES H. KING
THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG is one of the most peculiar creations of the German mind, for the reason that in it, through the mere horror of death, through death's darkening shadow, has been achieved what in all other tragedies (this work is a tragedy) is achieved only through death itself: that is to say, the moral purification and apotheosis of the hero. The whole drama is planned to bring about this result, and what Tieck, in a well known passage, declares to be, the kernel of it, namely the illustration of what subordination is, in reality is only the means to an end. Neither do I agree with Tieck when he remarks further that the sleep-walking scene with which the piece begins, and the final dénouement connected with it add to the other merits of the drama by lending it the charm of a pleasing and attractive fairy-tale. On the contrary, this feature is to be censured because it is disturbing, and if, as in Käthchen of Heilbronn, it were intimately inwoven in the organism of the work it would deprive the latter of its claim to be considered a classic. For man must not be forced to do penance for the mischief which the moon causes; otherwise we might be obliged to call it a tragedy if a man, having climbed up to the apex of the roof in his sleep, and been spied there by his sweetheart, who, in the first terror of surprise, called his name, should fall at her feet crushed to pieces! Happily, however, we can eliminate the whole sleep-walking episode and the work continues to be what it is; it stands immovable on a solid psychological foundation, and the rank weeds of Romanticism, have only twined themselves around it like superfluous arabesques. That, indeed, must not be understood to mean that half of the first and half of the last act could be struck out. If such a barbaric procedure were possible, Kleist would not be what, he is, a true poet, whom, like every original God-given growth, one must accept as a whole or must reject as a whole. No, we shall have to leave the Prince his garland-wreathing and the glove which he catches as a consequence of it. But the incident is by no means essential to the rest of the drama. The structure has, beside these artificial supports, other very different and entirely solid ones, and there is no need to enlarge upon the former unless one is animated with a desire to find fault. Here we have a youth who had the misfortune to have fortune smile upon him prematurely, and who loves where perhaps—he has as yet no certainty of it—he should not love; what more is needed to enable us to comprehend the arrogance displayed in the first catastrophe and the pusillanimity in the second? Kleist has put a set of pulleys in motion where the simplest lever would have sufficed, but the pulleys have been connected with the lever, and the purpose has been thoroughly accomplished, though not by the most direct, and therefore the best means.
The action, conceived from the point of view just described, is, briefly summed up, as follows: It is the evening, or rather the night, before the battle of Fehrbellin. The Great Elector, surrounded by his family, has gathered his generals about him and is making known to them, by his field-marshal, the plan which he has devised for the battle on the morrow. Each officer, Homburg among them, is informed what part he is to play in the bloody work of the following day; the Prince receives the most difficult post for one of his age and temperament, since he is to remain outside the firing line with the cavalry which he commands during the actual battle, and not until the victory is practically won can he come into action; even then he is to await a definite order from the Elector, and is merely to assist in completely routing the vanquished enemy. Here, be it noted, his ordeal already begins. It is not an accident that the Elector has assigned him a post which must necessarily bring him into conflict with his passions and the demands of his blood; the sovereign does it purposely in order that he may learn to control both. The Prince is scarcely listening to the field-marshal when his turn comes; he is absent-minded, for Nathalie, the Princess of Orange, an orphan who has taken refuge at the Brandenburg Court, and whom he secretly loves, is present, and the Electress is leaving with her and the other ladies while his orders are being dictated. However, be scarcely requires such pedantic instructions, for he sees in a battle only an opportunity for personal distinction in one form or another, not a moral task which can be properly executed only in one way. Nevertheless, he learns from his friend Hohenzollern exactly what the service requires of him; but of what avail is it? His friend can only lend him his ears, not his judgment, and thus the first act ends, conformably to this stage of his development, with a monologue, in which we learn that he is only thinking of the laurels and the girl at whose feet he will lay them, not of his duty and his country. Thus we see that the sleep-walking scene, and all that is connected with it, can easily be omitted; the exposition is complete without it, and therein lies the actual proof of the correctness of my view of the work. A youth always dreams of the man whom he already believes himself to be; there is therefore no need of a double-dream. The glove might have been replaced by a glance from the Princess, surprised unawares, followed by a sudden blush. Was it intended for me or for you? That is enough to occupy a youth to such an extent that he would pay no attention to Mars himself were he to descend to earth. The battle takes place and what was to be expected, occurs. The Prince attacks too soon, and the victory is indeed gained, but it is not as complete a one as it would have been possible to win. He knows very well what he is doing; it is impossible that he should not know it, and therefore the poet might have spared himself the carefully detailed description of his absent-mindedness in the first act. Colonel Kottwitz, who is second in command, reminds him, with the gruffness of an old man who might be at the same time his father and his teacher, of the order that he should await from his sovereign, and another officer even advises that his sword be taken from him. But he curtly inquires of old Kottwitz whether he has not received the order from his own heart, and he uses violence to the officer, then he dashes away crying: "Now, gentlemen, the countersign: A knave who follows not his general to the fight!" He arrives on the battlefield itself just at the moment when the rumor is spreading that the Elector has fallen. He performs marvels of valor, and we learn how much he loved his sovereign by seeing how he avenges him. This is one of the most brilliant episodes of the plot, and, truly, it alone is worth more than a whole catalogue full of the ordinary dramas that one hears applauded in our theatres. Sprinkled with blood, he hurries then into the peasant's but where the Electress, with her court of ladies, has had to take refuge because a, wheel of her coach broke while on the journey, and here he meets his Nathalie. The women, who have also heard the terrible rumor, are crushed; the Electress has fainted and the Princess, overcome by the gravity of the situation, laments in a few simple, touching words her complete loneliness. The Prince had not betrayed his affection for her at the Elector's Court, but now that fortune seems to have abandoned the fatherless and motherless girl, who was entirely dependent upon her powerful uncle, he allows his heart to utter the first sound, and to this sound she responds. Here we catch a gleam of his native, inborn nobility of soul, which at the end of the whole purifying process is to shine forth in perfect serenity, and we feel air unshakable confidence in him. This love scene, which is brought about by death, belongs to the highest sphere of art, and even the embarrassment which is evident in the words exchanged between the Prince and the Princess, is warranted by the relation in which they have hitherto stood to one another. They do not dare to speak out plainly.
The scene is hardly over when the rumor which occasioned it is proved to be false. The Elector lives and is already on the road to Berlin; the battle has decided the whole war, and peace promptly follows. There is infinite rejoicing, above all in the soul of the Prince. In the emotion of his overflowing heart he tells the Electress his sweet secret, and begs for her consent; she answers, "Not a suppliant on earth could I deny today, whate'er he ask, and you, our battle-hero, least of all." He is the happiest of mortals, and challenging "Caesar Divus" himself, as a rival in Fortune's favor, he, with the ladies, follows his sovereign to Berlin.
We must lay the proper weight upon this phase if we wish to comprehend the further development of the tragedy. Arrived in Berlin he hurries at once to the Elector, and places at his feet three flags captured from the enemy. The Elector asks him sternly whether he was in command at Fehrbellin, and when the Prince, in astonishment, replies in the affirmative, he orders his sword to be taken from him. It had been reported to the Elector that the Prince was wounded, and before knowing definitely whether Homburg or Colonel Kottwitz-whom he believed to be also capable of the deed-had led the cavalry into battle before receiving the order, the Sovereign had declared that the commanding officer was to be summoned before a court-martial and condemned to death without respect of person. Now he simply carries out the sentence. The Prince does not comprehend in the slightest; he would find it just as natural if the trees should begin to speak and the stones to fly. He must indeed obey, but as he gives up his sword, he declares bitterly that if his "Cousin Frederick" wishes to play the rôle of Brutus, he will not find in him a son who reveres him even under the executioner's ax. That is all the more natural, as he is conscious of what he felt and did on the battlefield in the moment when he received the news of the death of his present judge. His friends try to calm him. The Elector pays no attention to his passionate behavior, but with calm majesty reads the inscriptions on the Swedish flags, and the Prince is led off to prison. The noblest style is maintained throughout this scene, which would have delighted the English of Shakespeare's day.
In the third act we find the Prince somewhat changed, but not to any great extent. After thinking over the matter in solitude he has finally grasped that the Elector could not allow the violation of his express command to pass without some sort of punishment. But is it not sufficient punishment for him to have spent some days in prison, and does he not, moreover, deserve a reward because he entered it voluntarily and did not strangle the jailer? Therefore he knows positively that the first person to visit him will announce that he is free, and when his friend Hohenzollern enters his cell, he exclaims "Well, then, I'm free of my imprisonment." But when the latter examines his position with very different eyes, when, by producing a series of threatening facts each one more ominous than the other, he gradually silences the Prince's emotion, which demonstrates exactly what the Elector can do and what he cannot do, when he even tells him at last that the death warrant is about to be brought for signature to the Elector's cabinet, the Prince finally loses his foolish feeling of security, and then of course he goes to the opposite extreme. Nay, when the anxious Hohenzollern further informs him that the Swedish ambassador, who has arrived on the occasion of the peace negotiations, would ask the hand of the Princess of Orange for his master, but that the Princess seems to have made her choice already and thus is apparently thwarting the Elector's plan, and when he asks the Prince if he is not in some way tangled up in all this, the latter cries out despairingly "I am lost," and hurries off to the Electress to entreat her to intervene in his behalf.
On the way he receives a last impressive confirmation of the seriousness of his situation. He sees his grave being dug by torchlight. In the apartment of the Electress now takes place the much decried scene, which people refuse to comprehend, and therefore, of course, will not forgive the poet for writing. The Prince, in the presence of the girl he loves, begs for his life. He does so in the most ignominious fashion; indeed, in order to remove what he considers one of the worst rocks of offense, he even renounces Nathalie, while she stands by shuddering at the state of humiliation in which she beholds her heart's ideal. Certainly that is utterly unworthy of a hero and of a man, and we may unquestionably depend upon it that the poet, who in the same piece created the Elector beside the Prince, knew that as well as any of us. In fact, this scene has no other purpose than to show us that the Prince is not yet either a hero or a man, and that along the path he has trodden so far nobody can become either the one or the other. Up to this time he has led a hollow, sham existence, which could very well fill his head with giddy intoxication, but could not put any real backbone into him. Now, however, the true meaning of life, at least in one form, in the form of love, has at last come close enough to him to make the continuation of this sham existence impossible; therein lies the real import of the scene in which he and Nathalie declare their love, the great significance of which I pointed out above. If that had not taken place he would probably have become a duelling-celebrity, and after the first shock of surprise he would have been able to show the same contempt of death as a professional fencer accustomed to the duelling-ground, who, with perfect right, considers life—his own namely—to be a mere cipher; he would have awaited the bullets defiantly, with his arms crossed à la Napoleon, and the Elector would have had him shot, would indeed have been forced to have him shot. He can no longer sink to such depths as that now, but still less can he find the real moral strength soberly to make up his mind to take voluntary leave of the world; for he has as yet no feeling of completed existence and of duty performed to take away with him; his life is still a blank. Therefore at this moment he must act exactly as he does act; to be sure, the poet must not leave him in this doubtful stage for any length of time; but neither, indeed, does he do so. The Electress considers that any further step would be useless, as she has already of her own accord done her utmost. Nathalie, however, with death in her heart, promises to venture one last word with her uncle for the fallen man, but bitterly advises the Prince in any case to take another look at his grave, and to persuade himself that it is not one whit gloomier than the battle has showed it a thousand times.