The feet in the fire
The feet in the fire is a ballad by Conrad Ferdinand Meyer , published in his poems in 1882, whichshows the clash of two extremely different worldviewsunder the theme of torture .
content
The ballad worries its listeners and readers from the very beginning:
The lightning flashes wildly. A tower stands in a pale light.
The thunder rolls. A rider fights with his horse,
jumps off and knocks on the gate and makes a noise. His coat whizzes
in the wind. He holds the shy fox by the reins.
A courier from the King of France seeks refuge in a castle from the storm. There he is accepted as a guest and entertained. The mood is depressed. He recognizes the premises and realizes to his horror that he has put himself under the control of one of the Huguenot families who were not only persecuted by his Catholic king, but in whose castle he himself was on the occasion of a few years ago Pogroms tortured the Junker's wife to death. He is assigned a bedroom. He locks himself in, but the image of the episode at that time, "Feet in the fire" , has been pushed out of his consciousness so far, and the assumption that he was recognized, causes him to fear to death. Through the repetition of the motif ( "two feet twitch in the embers" ) Meyer indicates that the crime will probably not leave the perpetrator in peace from now on.
The following morning the lord of the castle enters the guest room through a hidden door: He would have had the opportunity to kill his wife's murderer in his sleep at any time, but he has decided against it. This conflict affected the Junker so much that he "whose hair was still frizzy yesterday in dark brown" turned gray overnight.
To say goodbye, the lord of the castle, menacingly silent, accompanies the courier for a part of the way. It is clear to the perpetrator that he has been recognized. Meyer alleviates the emotional pressure of the preceding by a second description of nature. With the most succinct textual means, he shows how difficult it was for the host (see hospitality ) to spare the guilty party - who takes it upon himself to praise him for the fact that he has remained level-headed towards a man of the king. In the closing lines he gets to hear the quintessence of the religion of the persecuted:
"You say it! Own to the greatest king! Today
his service was difficult for me ... You murdered me like a devil my
wife! And live ... Vengeance is mine , says God. "
reception
Its inclusion in numerous reading books and anthologies has kept the ballad known in the German-speaking world. It is also included in the compilation Der Kanon published by Marcel Reich-Ranicki since 2002 .
literature
- The underlying Bible text can be found in Romans 12: 17-21
- Edgar Neis: interpretations of 66 ballads, moritats and chansons. Analysis and Comments. Bange-Verlag, Hollfeld 1978, ISBN 3-8044-0590-8 .
- The feet in the fire , illustrated by Jens Thiele. Jacoby & Stuart , Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-941087-46-0 .
