The king in Thule

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"The King of Thule". Painting by Pierre Jean Van der Ouderaa

The King in Thule is a ballad by Johann Wolfgang Goethe from the year 1774. It is embedded in Goethe's Faust in the scene “Evening” (v. 2759-2782) and is sung by Gretchen. The question of whether the text was conceived by Goethe from the beginning as part of the "Faust" material or whether the text was written independently of the drama cannot be clearly clarified. Often reference is made to Goethe's poem by using the title Der König von Thule .

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Thule

The poem includes the following verses:

There was a king in Thule,
loyal to the grave,
To whom his lover gave
a golden cup when he was dying .

It was nothing to him about it,
he empties every feast;
His eyes drowned out as
often as he drank from them.

And when he came to die, he
counted 'his cities' in the kingdom,
Granted everything to his heirs,
Not the cup at the same time.

He sat at the king's meal,
the knights around him,
in the high fathers' hall,
there in the castle by the sea.

There stood the old drinker,
drank the last glow of life,
and threw the holy cup
down into the flood.

He saw him fall, drink
and sink deep into the sea, his
eyes would sink,
never drank a drop more.

The poem, which begins in the manner of a fairy tale, is set in the legendary Thule , according to the ancient idea of ​​the northernmost island. It is about the admirable, exemplary love and loyalty of a king for his beloved partner who died before him. The word “Buhle” can refer to both the king's wife and a lover.

The cup that the “Buhle” hands over to the king functions as a symbol of loyalty, femininity, love, religion, vitality, but also death. The high value of the cup is emphasized by the fact that it is made of gold and is used exclusively by the king at “every feast” (i.e. daily). Although it is a "royal" cup, it does not become part of a "royal treasure" that could be inherited or otherwise made available, but remains a highly personal object of value to the king, from whose use he will certainly exclude others after his death .

When the king has become a sentimental "old drinker" and suspects his imminent death, he calls his knights together in the ancestral hall for a kind of " last supper " and throws the cup into the sea, where it, before it sinks, turns away from an active life giver transformed into a "water drinker". Since water is a symbol of life, the cup absorbs life at the exact moment in which the king loses it.

The King in Thule is a formally strict poem that begins in the manner of a fairy tale ("It was"). The story told by him takes place in a fabulous country that cannot be precisely located, apparently in the Middle Ages: the knights around the king in the "high fathers' room" are reminiscent of King Arthur 's round table , the cup and its effect on the Holy Grail . Similar to a novella , the plot leads to an “unheard of” conclusion: the king “disinherits” some of his descendants by depriving them of his most valuable property.

Form and use of language

Stanza structure, meter and tone of the ballad The King in Thule refer to the genre folk song : The ballad consists of six stanzas with four verses each and contains a cross rhyme with alternating male and female cadenza . The meter is consistently threefold , the melody of the setting simple and memorable.

The choice of words and images uses formulations such as “even loyal”, “Buhle” or “His eyes went over” to a time long past at the end of the 18th century. Despite the simple language of the poem, the use of outdated terms and phrases can lead to problems of understanding.

Function of the song in the drama Faust

Goethe had planned the following version of his poem for the Urfaust :

There was a king in Tule,
a golden brook he would have
received from his Bule
on her deathbed.

He preferred the cup and
drink it at every feast.
His eyes went over him,
So often he drank from it. [...]

In both versions of the Faust drama, Gretchen sings the song while undressing before finding the gift that Faust, with Mephistopheles' help, left in her room. Gretchen dreams, like a teenager, of “romantic love”, which is sealed by a precious object (here: the golden cup), and thus shows her readiness for such a love. Given the mood in which she finds herself, she is not aware of the diabolical character of the gift that is then waiting for her, and ultimately also of the looming relationship with Faust.

The song “fits” not only thematically to the Gretchen tragedy , but also linguistically to the character Gretchen, insofar as Faust speaks predominantly in the New High German Knittel verse , the rhythm of the “Thule” poem.

reception

intertextuality

In the 19th century, Goethe's poem was considered a well-known “educational asset”, the knowledge of which was assumed by the audience through a large number of texts in which Goethe's poem, and in some cases its use in the Faust drama, is alluded to.

Clemens Brentano: The hunter to the shepherd and hunter and shepherd

In 1803 the romantic Clemens Brentano wrote a kind of continuation of Goethe's ballad, also in poetry, under the title The Hunter to the Shepherd :

[…] Ghosts give me the cup, give
me the cold hand,
because I am a devout drinker,
do not shy away from the glowing edge.

The siren in the waves,
if she had me in the moated castle , if she'd
drawn him, I'd like
to get rid of the fisherman.

But I have to go to Thule,
looking for
a cup on the bottom of the sea , my
lover can only drink well from it.

Where the treasures are buried
I have known long ago, patience, patience,
all treasures I will have
to pay all debts. [...]

In this poem, written before the publication of Goethe's Faust , the lyrical self, a hunter, denies that King von Thule will succeed in withdrawing the golden cup from posterity forever. Because someone like the hunter will be able to find “all the treasures”.

Brentano revised the poem and published the new version in 1817 under the title Jäger und Hirt . He took into account orgiastic scenes from Goethe's Faust .

Heinrich Heine: The new Alexander

In 1846, in the context of the Vormärz , Heinrich Heine wrote the poem Der neue Alexander , the first two stanzas of which begin with the words:

There is a king in Thule who drinks
champagne, he doesn't care;
And when he drinks his champagne,
then his eyes go over his head.

The knights sit around him,
The whole historical school ;
But his tongue becomes heavy,
The King of Thule slurs: [...]

For Heinrich Heine, the King of Thule is a swaggering regulars' table brother who, in his dreams of greatness (he wants to be like Alexander the Great ), differs from his bourgeois kindred spirits only by class.

Georg Wilhelm Rauchenecker: The last days of Thule

In 1889 the "romantic opera" The Last Days of Thule was premiered by Georg Wilhelm Rauchenecker . In this opera, the dying king is betrayed by his lover with his son. The cup also plays a central role in the opera; but it does not come from the king's lover, but from the sea goddess. Throwing it into the sea is rated as "sacrilege" by their appendix.

Theodor Fontane: Effi Briest

In the 17th chapter of Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest (published in 1895), Major Crampas, who wants to seduce Effi, wants to keep the drinking glass that Effi used. Thereupon she accuses him of intending to "play himself off on the King of Thule before the time". After Crampas, understanding Effi's allusion, nodded "with a touch of rascality", she continues with the words: "I do not like running around as a rhyming word for your King of Thule".

Effi von Innstetten recognizes an indirect quotation from Goethe in Crampas' behavior. She criticizes the major for pretending "ahead of time" as if he were the King of Thule by trying to keep the glass she drank from. However, she allows him to behave like this after her death, although she actually does not want to be considered his lover because she is married. With a poem about an extraordinary example of loyalty, Fontane ushers in an affair that ends in a continued act of infidelity. At the same time, he suggests that “Buhle”, despite the signals that Goethe's ballad sends, (also in Goethe's poem itself?) Could be the name for an adulterous woman. At least Effi understands the term in this sense (wrong?).

Georg Britting: The song of the alarm clock (or: Another King of Thule)

In 1953 Georg Britting wrote a story for an issue of the travel magazine Merian with the title Der Gesang des Weckers (or: Another King of Thule) . In this story, the protagonist, the widowed and childless editor Dr. Ehm, who worked for a South German newspaper for decades, compared to the King of Thule. In Britting's story, the mug in Goethe's poem corresponds to an alarm clock, which Dr. Ehms reliably woke his owner every working day at four in the morning. The day after his retirement, Dr. Um the alarm clock in a lake on whose bank he owns a house.

"And also for him [Dr. Ehm] his eyes went over when he stared at the alarm clock, which went down with a ring, and he took a life down with him, ”says the narrator, commenting on the“ disposal ”of the alarm clock following the example of the King of Thule. However, this process does not end Dr. Ehm's entire life, but only his professional life, which, despite the obligation to get up frequently early, is by no means rated negatively by the new retiree.

Settings

Due to its popular popularity, the ballad was set to music over sixty times, including a. by the following composers and music groups:

Translations

Danish translation "Der var en Konge i Thule, saa trofast til sin Grav. Hans Elskte med Lokker gule ham i Døden et Guld-Bæger gav." ... in: Chr. FW Bach: Faust. Tragedy af Goethe. [Part 1; in Danish from…]. Copenhagen 1847, p. 140 f.

Web links

Commons : There was a king in Thule  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: General German Kommersbuch: 217  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Gero von Wilpert : Subject dictionary of literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 8th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-23108-5 , pp. 1012-1013.
  2. ↑ It is therefore unclear whether the story has an offensive aftertaste: Joachim Kahl ( [1] ) takes the view that "Buhle in the archaic ballad tone is not meant derogatory". Dealing with the poem in Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest (see below) creates the opposite impression. The poem The Converted King in Thule from a " Abstinenten - song book" published in 1917 emphasizes the "sinfulness" of the king. The term “Buhle” experienced a deterioration in meaning since the time of the Reformation and was already out of date during Goethe's lifetime; see. Michael Fischer: There was a king in Thule (2007). In: Popular and Traditional Songs. Historical-critical song lexicon of the German Folk Song Archive
  3. ↑ In Brentano's poem (see below) the hunter treats the cup as such
  4. ↑ The poem was written during the storm and stress . Back then it was not considered “unmanly” for men to cry in public; see. V. 7
  5. ↑ It is unclear whether the negative connotation "notorious alcoholic", which Heine (see below) has taken up, which this term contains, is intended; see. also the parody: It was a studio in those in the "Allgemeine Deutsche Commersbuch" (1861)
  6. ↑ Nikolaus von Festenberg / Johannes Saltzwedel / Martin Wolf: The last glow of life . Der Spiegel 52/2004, p. 135
  7. ↑ cf. Someone’s eyes run over . Universal dictionary
  8. ^ Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Urfaust - evening. A small, clean room . Bibliotheca Augustana
  9. ↑ Sorin Dan Vadan Basics of Text Composition - On the use of metric shapes . litde.com
  10. ↑ Clemens Brentano: The hunter to the shepherd
  11. ↑ Clemens Brentano: Hunter and Shepherd
  12. ↑ Heinrich Heine: The new Alexander
  13. ↑ Engelbert Hellen: musirony - The last days of Thule
  14. ↑ Georg Britting: The song of the alarm clock (or: Another King of Thule) . In: ders .: Collected works . Volume 23, pp. 208-211
  15. ↑ Jan Schmidt: Faust on the theater and in music . Faust Museum Knittlingen 1980
  16. ↑ 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.