The ring of polycrates

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Beginning of the ballad in the Muses Almanac for 1798 (first print, excerpt from p. 24)

The Ring of Polycrates is a famous ballad by Friedrich Schiller, written in June 1797 and first published in the Muses Almanac for 1798 . It deals with the topic that greatest success leads to fear of a certain deep fall.

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Pythagorio, built on the ruins of the ancient city of Samos
Pharaoh Amasis (King of Egypt)

The ballad begins with the following words:

He stood on his battlements roof,
He looked with hilarious senses
at the ruled Samos.
"All this is subject to me," he
began to the king of Egypt,
"Confess that I am happy."

The plot of the story is squeezed into two days. Twelve of the sixteen stanzas deal with a conversation between the tyrant Polycrates of Samos and his friend, the Pharaoh Amasis, who is visiting the rich island of Samos, interrupted by reports of success, at most for several hours .

At the beginning, while the two look at "the ruled Samos", Polykrates boasts of his luck . This addresses two ancient ideas: the fickleness of the Tyche ( Fortuna , happiness) and the arrogance ( hubris ) that invokes retribution ( nemesis ). His friend, who was becoming more and more concerned about Polycrates, pointed out existing dangers to him three times (the campaign in Asia Minor, the danger to his fleet, the sea power of the Cretans). But hardly ever spoken, the warnings become irrelevant: a messenger of victory brings the head of the defeated enemy general, the Sami fleet arrives wearing a wreath, and the message “The Cretans have been dispersed by the storm” is delivered. Amasis, not calmed down by this, but appalled ("I dread the envy of the gods, | the unmixed joy of life | was not given to any earthly"), advises Polykrates to throw his most dear treasure into the sea in order to add a misfortune to his own happiness. Polycrates, "moved by fear", throws his favorite ring into the waters.

The next day the cook appears: The polycrate's ring has found itself in a caught fish. Amasis leaves Polycrates on the spot: “The gods want your perdition, | I hurry away, not to die with you. "

reception

Schiller could rely on his readers knowing Polykrates' future destiny: he was born in 522 BC. Captured by the Persian satrap Oroites , killed on Mykale , his body crucified. Schiller's source Herodotus had already emphasized this contrast between success and shameful end in the 3rd book of his histories .

In the circle around Schiller, the ballad received not only diverse approval but also criticism, as Schiller's correspondence with his friend Christian Gottfried Körner shows. Körner thought the fabric was too dry. He said that a narrative poem called for a human protagonist, and for this the strongest lighting. He missed this in the ring of Polykrates. This weakens the effect of the whole. Fate can never become the hero of a poem, but a person who struggles with fate can be. Schiller partially accepted these objections, but referred to the opinion of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , the Koerner term from which he judges and rebukes, regards as too narrow, and these poems, to which the Ring of Polykrates belongs, as a new one, the Genre that extends poetry.

“The dryness that you […] also notice in the Polycrates may hardly be separable from the subject; because the persons in it are there only for the sake of the idea, and as individuals subordinate to it. So the only question was whether it is permissible to make ballads out of such material; for they would hardly like to endure a longer life if the effect of the supersensible is not to lose. I do not have such a high conception of the ballad that poetry should not also be used as a mere means. "

- Friedrich Schiller : Letter to Körner of October 2, 1797

The ballad integrates all of the motifs into one quick plot. It shows that the verse can formulate more tightly and point more sharply than z. B. didactic prose on the downside of historical successes. Their conclusion, which leaves out the coming calamity, could appear to Napoleon's contemporaries as an anticipation of his happiness and end. It was an integral part of grammar school German lessons until at least the 1970s and was often parodied in this context.

The story of the ring is a well-known wandering legend that also appears in the life of St. Asaph , among other things .

Musical parodies

The Ring des Polykrates is the title of a burlesque, premiered in Munich in 1869, with song and dance in one act by August Schäffler (a Franconian poet, writer, archivist and historical researcher) and Max Stahl with music by Georg Kremplsetzer .

The Ring of Polycrates is also the title of a one-act, cheerful opera by the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold . The libretto follows the comedy of the same name by Heinrich Teweles . The work was created in 1913/14 and premiered in 1916. The action takes place in 1797. Two couples, a married couple and their servant couple, experience a happy love. A guest sowed doubts, they decided to cast the ring, following the example of Schiller's ballad, hot off the press, and the question of fate about the past life of women was asked. But luck endures. The guest is “sacrificed to the gods”.

Pictorial representations

Matthäus Merian, 0001.jpg
1.
Schiller play on poems and dramas Ring des Polykrates.jpg
2.


  1. “The Ring of Polycrates”, copper engraving by Matthäus Merian the Elder, 1630.
  2. “Der Ring des Polykrates”, chromolithography, around 1890. Part of a play based on poems and dramas by Friedrich Schiller .

See also

literature

Web links

Wikisource: The Ring of Polycrates  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Muses-Almanach for the year 1798 ( Memento of April 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), digital edition of the HAAB, Weimar; therein Schiller's Ballade, pp. 24–29 (Image 29–31), accessed on December 1, 2010
  2. ↑ Schiller Institute: Poet's Plant for Schiller's Birthday in 1998 , accessed on November 29, 2010
  3. ↑ Matthias Luserke-Jaqui (ed.): Schiller manual. Life - work - effect . Stuttgart 2005, p. 280f
  4. ↑ Ulrich Greiner: Ulrich Greiner's lyric seducer. A guide to reading poetry . Munich 2009, p. 30ff, ISBN 978-3-406-59069-6 .
  5. ↑ Michael Niehaus: The book of wandering things. From the ring of Polykrates to the stolen letter . Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-446-23405-5 .
  6. ↑ August Sperl : Schäffler, August, archivist and historical researcher, 1837-1891. In: Anton Chroust (ed.): CVs from Franconia. Volume 2. 1922, pp. 386-393.
  7. ↑ www.operone.de: Title and main authors , accessed on December 1, 2010
  8. ^ Heinrich Teweles: Der Ring des Polykrates , accessed on December 1, 2010
  9. ↑ Table of Contents after the text book from 1915 in www.zazzerino.info , accessed 30 November 2010
  10. ↑ Erich Wolfgang Korngold: The ring of the Polykrates . Text book, Mainz 1915