Hector song

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hector's Farewell to Andromache, painting by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein

Hector's farewell is a poem by Friedrich Schiller . It is sung in Schiller's Robbers by Amalia von Edelreich in the 2nd scene of the 2nd act. Karl Moor, who pretends to be Count von Brand, was not yet recognized by his lover Amalia, who thinks he is dead, when Amalia starts the Hector song.

In terms of content, the poem is about a classic farewell scene - from Homer's Iliad , in which the protagonist of the Trojan, the hero Hector , has to part with his wife Andromache for his predictable final duel against Achilles . In terms of motif, the depth of the feeling between the two singers for one another is emphasized at the same time.

Revised several times by Schiller, this song then became one of his most famous poems: Hector's Farewell (also as: Hector and Andromache in: Gedichte, 1800). Schiller called it "one of my best" (letter to Körner, May 27, 1793).

text

Andromache

Will Hector turn away from me for ever,
Where Achilles
makes terrible sacrifices to the patrol with his aloof hands ?
Who will teach your little ones in the future to
throw spears and honor the gods,
When the gloomy Orcus devours you?

Hector,

dear wife, command your tears,
After the battle my longing is fiery,
These arms protect Pergamus.
Fighting for the holy hearth of the gods
I fall, and the savior of the fatherland
I descend to the Stygian river.

Andromache

I never listen to the sound of your weapons,
Your iron lies
idle in the hall, Priam's great heroic tribe is spoiled.
You will go where no more day shines,
The Cocytus weeps through the deserts,
Your love in which Lethe dies.

Hector

I want to
sink all my longing, all my thinking, into the quiet stream of Lethe,
but not my love.
Listen! the savage is already raging against the walls,
gird me with my sword, stop mourning,
Hector's love does not die in the Lethe.

swell

  1. ↑ cf. Schiller's letter to Körner, May 27, 1793 in the Friedrich Schiller Archive

Web links

Wikisource: Hektorlied  - sources and full texts