Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
The Diver
By Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805)“B
As to plunge in yon gulf and follow
Through chamber and cave this beaker of gold,
Which already the waters whirlingly swallow?
Who retrieves the prize from the horrid abyss
Shall keep it: the gold and the glory be his!”
From the cliff that, gigantic and steep,
High over Charybdis’s whirlpool hung,
A glittering winecup down in the deep;
And again he asked, “Is there one so brave
As to plunge for the gold in the dangerous wave?”
The challenging words of the speaker;
And some glance downwards with looks of fear,
And none are ambitious of winning the beaker.
And a third time the King his question urges,—
“Dares none, then, breast the menacing surges?”
When a Page, fair-featured and soft,
Steps forth from the shuddering vassal-throng,
And his mantle and girdle already are doffed,
And the groups of nobles and damosels nigh,
Envisage the youth with a wondering eye.
And measures the drear depth under;
But the waters Charybdis had swallowed she now
Regurgitates bellowing back in thunder,
And the foam, with a stunning and horrible sound,
Breaks its hoar way through the waves around.
As when water is showered upon fire;
And skyward the spray agonizingly toils,
And flood over flood sweeps higher and higher,
Upheaving, downrolling, tumultuously,
As though the abyss would bring forth a young sea.
And down through the whirlpool’s well
A yawning blackness ye may discover,
Profound as the passage to central Hell;
And the waves, under many a struggle and spasm,
Are sucked in afresh by the gorge of the chasm.
Invokes the great name of God;
And blended shrieks of horror and ruth
Burst forth as he plunges headlong unawed:
And down he descends through the watery bed,
And the waves boom over his sinking head.
They roar in the hollows beneath,
And from mouth to mouth goes round the farewell,—
“Brave-spirited youth, good night in death!”
And louder and louder the roarings grow,
While with trembling all eyes are directed below.
Thy crown in the angry abyss,
And exclaim, “Who recovers the crown shall be king!”
The guerdon were powerless to tempt me, I wis;
For what in Charybdis’s caverns dwells
No chronicle penned of mortal tells.
Lies low in that gulf to-day,
And the shattered masts and the drifting keel
Alone tell the tale of the swooper’s prey.
But hark!—with a noise like the howling of storms,
Again the wild water the surface deforms!
As when water is spurted on fire,
And skyward the spray agonizingly toils,
And wave over wave beats higher and higher,
While the foam, with a stunning and horrible sound,
Breaks its white way through the waters around.
Loud raging beneath is o’er,
An arm and a neck are distinguished afar,
And a swimmer is seen to make for the shore,
And hardily buffeting surge and breaker,
He springs upon land with the golden beaker.
As he hails the bright face of the sun;
And a murmur goes round of delight and applause,—
He lives!—he is safe!—he has conquered and won!
He has mastered Charybdis’s perilous wave!
He has rescued his life and his prize from the grave!
At the foot of the throne he falls,
And he proffers his trophy on bended knee;
And the King to his beautiful daughter calls,
Who fills with red wine the golden cup,
While the gallant stripling again stands up.
Wheresoever Earth’s gales are driven!
For ghastly and drear is the region beneath;
And let man beware how he tempts high Heaven!
Let him never essay to uncurtain to light
What destiny shrouds in horror and night!
When, forth from the cleft of a rock,
A torrent outrushed with tremendous force,
And met me anew with deadening shock;
And I felt my brain swim and my senses reel
As the double-flood whirled me round like a wheel.
When my destiny darkliest frowned,
And he showed me a reef of rocks in the sea,
Whereunto I clung, and there I found
On a coral jag the goblet of gold,
Which else to the lowermost crypt had rolled.
Was all as a purple haze;
And though sound was none in these realms of wonder,
I shuddered when under my shrinking gaze
That wilderness lay developed where wander
The dragon and dog-fish and sea-salamander.
And the thornback and ravening shark
Their way through the dismal waters take,
While the hammer-fish wallowed below in the dark,
And the river-horse rose from his lair beneath,
And grinned through the grate of his spiky teeth.
Among skeleton larvæ, the only
Soul conscious of life—despairing of aid
In that vastness untrodden and lonely.
Not a human voice,—not an earthly sound,—
But silence, and water, and monsters around.
His hundred feelers to drag
Me down through the darkness; when, springing aside,
I abandoned my hold of the coral crag,
And the maelstrom grasped me with arms of strength,
And upwhirled and upbore me to daylight at length.”
“The golden cup is thine own,
But—I promise thee further this jewelled ring
That beams with a priceless hyacinth-stone,
Shouldst thou dive once more and discover for me
The mysteries shrined in the cells of the sea.”
And she fell at her father’s feet,—
“O father, enough what the youth has achieved!
Expose not his life anew, I entreat!
If this your heart’s longing you cannot well tame,
There are surely knights here who will rival his fame.”
And he spake, as it sank in the wave,
“Now, shouldst thou a second time bring it me up,
As my knight, and the bravest of all my brave,
Thou shall sit at my nuptial banquet, and she
Who pleads for thee thus thy wedded shall be!”
And his eyes on the maiden are cast,
And he sees her at first overspread with blushes,
And then growing pale and sinking aghast.
So, vowing to win so glorious a crown,
For Life or for Death he again plunges down.
And the foam is alive as before,
And all eyes are bent downward. In vain, in vain,—
The billows indeed re-dash and re-roar.
But while ages shall roll and those billows shall thunder,
That youth shall sleep under!