Tired I'm going to rest

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I'm tired, go to rest , first printed in 1829
Book of songs for schools for small children , Kaiserswerth 1842, with the melody contained in the Evangelical Hymnbook from 1993, slightly modified
As a “spiritual folk song” in the appendix to the German Evangelical Hymn book from 1915

I'm tired, go to rest is a night prayer by Luise Hensel . She wrote the four-stanza poem when she was 18 years old in Berlin in autumn 1816 . It became the most popular of her poems, which was prayed at countless children's beds and sung with various melodies as an evening song. The romantic artistic naivety of the text also repeatedly provoked parodies .

Origin and text transmission

Biographically, the text was written at the time of Hensel's intense turn to Christianity in the spirit of Romanticism, which in 1818 led her, the daughter of a Protestant pastor, to convert to the Catholic Church . It was also the time of her first literary productivity, inspired by the spirit and tone of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn collection .

The text transmission is complicated. An autograph , dated 1816, but written later, was lost in the Second World War , but exists in a facsimile publication from 1935. The first print can be found in Melchior von Diepenbrock's Geistlicher Blumenstrauß , Sulzbach 1829 , without any indication of the author. The only print version authorized by Hensel , partly deviating from the autograph, offers Christoph Bernhard Schlüter , songs by Luise Hensel , Paderborn 1869.

Form and content

The poem with the heading evening song or night prayer consists of four stanzas to four trochaic , four-part lines in male rhyming pairs  - an artless form as an artistic stylistic device . Contrary to its later reception, the text is not originally a child's prayer, but an expression of the child's faith that has been regained or longed for.

The lyrical ego starts from the situation of going to bed and closing one's eyes and connects to this the first request that the father keep his eyes watch over the sleeper. The second stanza asks that wronged injustices should not be taken into account by grace for the sake of the blood of Jesus . With the third stanza, prayer becomes an intercession for relatives and for all people. The fourth stanza concretizes this by mentioning special needs. The closing lines mention the moon , who may "see the silent world", a nature-romantic parable for the divine watch, which is linked to the first stanza, but was later sometimes misunderstood and replaced by "pious" lines.

I'm tired, go to rest was never a hymn because of its domestic content, but it was a familiar devotional hymn in Protestant and Catholic families. The editors of the Evangelical Hymnbook (1993) upgraded this genre . a. by including Hensel's night prayer in the trunk section (No. 484). The Reformed (No. 621) and the Catholic Swiss hymnbooks (No. 685) also contain it.

text

Here is the text based on the Evangelical Hymn book with a note of the main text variants:

1. I'm tired, go to rest,
close my eyes.
Father, let your eyes be
over my bed.

2. If I did wrong today
, don't look at it, dear God.
Your grace and the blood of Jesus
make good all harm.

3. All who are related to me,
God, let rest in your hand;
all people, big and small,
should be your command.

4. Send calm to tired hearts,
close wet eyes.
Let the moon stand in the sky
and look at the silent world.

Melodies

Melody of the Evangelical Hymnal
Melody of the Swiss hymn books
Popular children's melody

The meter of the Ambrosian hymn strophe shortened by the opening syllable can be combined with numerous melodies, and this has also happened in the course of reception history. The Kaiserswerther melody of 1842 became popular, although it met with disapproval from experts because of its many tone repetitions. It is, with a few differences, the way of singing in the Evangelical Hymnal. The German Evangelical Hymnbook (1915) offered a melody going back to the Bohemian Brothers ; this can also be found in the Swiss hymn books.

Luise Hensel's grave inscription

Gravestone (renewed in 1932 with the old inscription)

Her grave inscription shows the importance of the night prayer in Luise Hensel's self-interpretation:

I'm tired, go to rest,
I sang in my youth.
Close both eyes,
death will soon tell me.
Lord, my God, you do that.
          Luise Hensel
Close both eyes
, the bridegroom has spoken.
Come, bride, what are you hesitating?
When the earthly eye is broken,
you look at me in blissful peace.
          Rev. Ruland

Translations

Translated into Danish, “Jeg er træt og går til ro, lukker mine øjne to ...” in the church hymn book Den danske Salmebog , Copenhagen 1953, no. 717 (source: “Luise Hensel, 1843”, translated by Kr. Arentzen, 1846 [Kristian August Emil Arentzen, 1823 - 1899, teacher in Copenhagen]), also in the current church hymn book Den Danske Salmebog , Copenhagen 2002, no. 717 (with corrected source: “Luise Hensel, 1817”); also in the hymn book of the Danish folk high school movement, Højskolesangbogen , 18th edition, Copenhagen 2006, No. 540 (source: "Luise Hensel, 1817", with a Danish melody by Jørgen Malling, 1869 [Jørgen Henrik Malling, 1836-1905]).

literature

Web links

Commons : I'm tired, go to rest  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anton Kippenberg (ed.): German poems in manuscripts , Leipzig 1935, No. 22
  2. ^ Text of the edition from 1879 on zeno.org
  3. ↑ autograph
  4. ↑ Diepenbrock 1829, Schlüter 1869
  5. ↑ Henkys pp. 406-407
  6. ↑ Henkys p. 406
  7. ↑ Henkys p. 404
  8. ↑ Autograph: "both eyes"; Diepenbrock and Schlüter "both eyes"
  9. ↑ Schlüter: "In the blood of Jesus"
  10. ↑ Diepenbrock and Schlüter: "do yes"
  11. ↑ So in the autograph; Diepenbrock and Schlüter: "Sick"
  12. ↑ The 4th stanza in the Swiss hymn books reads: "Send peace to sick hearts / dry your wet eyes. / God in heaven, keep watch, / give us a good night."
  13. ↑ Cf. Three Chinese with the double bass
  14. ^ Heinrich Ruland (1830–1908), pastor at the Paderborn market church ( paderborn.de )
  15. ↑ 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.