Soon I'll be grazing on the Neckar
Bald gras' ich am Neckar is a popular German song ( folksong ) that has often been printed in books of useful songs since the 1830s. The oldest source is the print in Des Knaben Wunderhorn , in Volume 2 (1808), p. 15 f:
Sometimes I'll be grazing on the Neckar,
sometimes I'll be on the Rhine,
sometimes I'll have a sweetheart,
sometimes I'll be alone.
What does grazing help me
when the sickle doesn't cut,
what does a darling help me
if it doesn't stay with me.
Six more stanzas describe the content: I am grazing on the Neckar and throw my golden ring in / from the Neckar into the Rhine and into the deep sea / the ring swims, a fish eats him, the fish comes on the king's table / the king asks who should the ring be, my darling says: belongs to me / the darling jumps up mountain, mountain down and brings me the golden ring / graze on the Neckar, on the Rhine, you always throw your ring in. - In the Wunderhorn this text is headed with eight quatrains with “Rheinischer Bundesring” ( explained by Heinz Rölleke that the title “satirically alludes to the founding of the Napoleonic-dominated Rheinbund” in 1806). Underneath, the Wunderhorn editors wrote “Mitgetheilt von Frau von Pattberg ” (exceptionally a source is correctly mentioned here), which, according to Heinz Rölleke (after preliminary work by others) means: “She composed the present version herself, no doubt from popular motifs”. In addition, Rölleke mentions the " corruption of the original" Soon I am grazing on the Aeckerl, soon I am grazing on the Reihn "" [ie grazing on the field and on the field] according to another Wunderhorn source (an undated submission by Carl Nehrlich [* 1773; † 1849]). In fact, there are traditional quatrains and single stanzas or Schnaderhüpfel (see on Gstanzl ), from which Ms. von Pattberg was probably inspired (you don't have to call it "corruption"), namely the quoted first two stanzas: "Soon I'll be grazing .. . ”And“ What helps me ... ”The remaining stanzas are reminiscent of a fairy tale about the“ Ringlein ”(motif: Polykratesring; see about Polykrates ) that someone finds in the fish served at table.
Gustav Mahler set the Wunderhorn text to music under the title Rheinlegendchen in 1905 , see Des Knaben Wunderhorn (Mahler) . The popular melody comes from oral tradition. According to the scholarly edition of Deutscher Liederhort , Volume 2, 1893, this is a "well-known Schnadahüpfel melody, before 1830" (the text by Ms. von Pattberg is also printed).
The term “graze” needs some explanation. In the older folk song usage, the “grazer” is not the woman willing to seduce (“brown” because she has to work in the heat of the sun; “noble” women are pale and pale), nor the “in the snow-white shirt” (through which the Sun is shining) "goes to the well" (fetches water and therefore has to leave the protective house), but apparently a maid who has to go so far from the farm to harvest hay (cut grass) that men believe they have a "right" to Seduction, even rape (similar to the hunter who “shoots” in the forest). Interpreted in this way, “grazing” means not only that you are sometimes with a loved one, sometimes alone (Str. 1), but also includes the “male” wish that the “loved one” bends to all male wishes. If I am unlucky or not “manly” enough, if my “sickle does not cut”, then it can happen that the treasure leaves me (Str. 2). Folk song texts have these nuances that trigger associations (as you wish) . So Auguste von Pattberg wrote quite “folksong-like” poetry, and the romantic era loved the range of tension between such nuances. The reference in the Internet Duden, "graze" = (colloquial) "look for something everywhere" does not do this justice. That is, so to speak, only the moderated meaning that is customary in use today.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano (ed.): Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Old German songs. Volume 2. Mohr and Zimmer, Heidelberg 1808, p. 15 f. (Page count in the first edition; Digitalisat in the German text archives ).
- ↑ in print without an apostrophe
- ↑ Achim von Arnim, Clemens Brentano (ed.): Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Old German songs ; ed. by Heinz Rölleke. 3 volumes. Reclam, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-15-030034-7 ; here Volume 2, p. 429 (commentary on Wunderhorn II 15). There are also further information.
- ↑ See Johannes Künzig : "The ring found in the fish belly in sagas, legends, fairy tales and songs". In: Festschrift for John Meier . Berlin - Leipzig 1934, pp. 85-100.
- ↑ Ludwig Erk, Franz Magnus Böhme (Ed.): Deutscher Liederhort. Volume 2. Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig 1893, p. 788 f. ( Digitized version ).
- ↑ Cf. Otto Holzapfel : Lied index: The older German-language popular song tradition ( online version on the Volksmusikarchiv homepage of the Upper Bavaria district ; in PDF format; ongoing updates) with further information.