Paul Melissus

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Paul Melissus, engraving by Theodor de Bry

Paul Melissus (also Paulus Melissus Schedius ; actually Paul Schad , maiden name: Paulus Schad ; Paul Schede is reverse German from the Latinized name Paulus Schedius ; * December 20, 1539 in Mellrichstadt ; † February 3, 1602 in Heidelberg ) was a neo-Latin poet, translator and composer.

Life

Melissus was born as Paul Schad and son of Balthasar Schad (also: Schäd or Schede) from Königshofen and his wife Ottilia Melissa Schirling from Mailes near Stadtlauringen . Paul Schad later called his mother Melissa ("the Maileserin"). After attending school in Zwickau, he studied philology in Erfurt and Jena from 1557 to 1559 . His father lost a large part of his fortune due to a fire as well as arson in the Markgräflerkrieg and ill-considered surety payments, so that Paul had to break off his studies and , through the mediation of his maternal relatives, took over a position as cantor in Königsberg in Franconia in 1559 . From 1561 to 1564 he lived in Vienna , where he taught at a kind of cadet school and made friends with the Bohemian poet and poeta laureatus Caspar Cropacius . This inspired him to make his first poetic attempts, so that Scheder himself was crowned poet in 1561 . He stayed in Prague , Wittenberg and Leipzig , was appointed to the court of the Würzburg prince-bishop , accompanied the emperor to the Reichstag in Augsburg and took part in a campaign to Hungary against the Turks.

After he had been honored as "poeta laureatus" by Emperor Ferdinand I and was raised to the nobility on May 2, 1564 , he became ambassador in the service of Emperors Maximilian II and Rudolf II and traveled to from 1567 to 1586 France, Switzerland, Italy and England. In Paris he devoted himself anew to the sciences, especially jurisprudence. As a friend of the Huguenots , however, he had to flee after the Battle of Moncontour in 1569, but was captured by the French and Spanish. While it was believed in his hometown that he had died, he stayed in Besançon for three months and in Geneva for a year , where he converted to Calvinism . He made the acquaintance of the Palatinate Elector Friedrich III. who commissioned him to translate the Psalms of David . The first 50 psalms appeared under the title Die Psalmen Davids in German singing rhymes according to the French melody and syllable style brought together by Melisso, including the biblical text, including jechy psalms with short content and prayers. Heidelberg 1572 .

After the death of Friedrich III. Schedius traveled to Italy in 1576. He did not return to Germany until 1580, but traveled to England at the invitation of Elizabeth I , who wanted to win the poet over to her country. Schedius turned down the offer and left for France, from where Friedrich's son Kasimir took him to Heidelberg to entrust him with the management of the electoral library Bibliotheca Palatina . There he married Aemilia Jordan on September 24, 1590, the daughter of the Electoral Palatinate Council Ludwig Jordan. The son from this marriage died in childhood and Paul Schedius himself had to survive a long and serious illness. After his recovery he created retransmissions of the Our Father , the Apostles' Creed , the Magnificat and the Song of Simeon . He died of stick cough on February 3, 1602 at the age of 62 .

Melissus translated into German the psalms of David , which had been rhymed by Clément Marot and Théodore de Bèze for the Huguenot worship service . He was one of the first to introduce the sonnet and the terzines into German poetry. He was regarded by his contemporaries as the author of elaborate Latin love poems. In his literary history, Eduard Engel judges Schedius:

“The few remnants of his German song poetry prove that he had a remarkable gift for real song songs. With him there is an artistic fusion of folk tones with a refinement of expression through foreign language education. Schede also tried his hand at sonnets, alexandrines and even in terzins based on Italian and French models; but all these imitations are far behind his German songs, which just sound like folk songs [...] ”

- Eduard Engel

The Paul-Schedius-Weg in his hometown Mellrichstadt is named after Melissus .

Works

  • Cantiones . Poems, 1566. ( Digitized part books )
  • Psalms of David . 1572.
  • Schediasmata . Poems, 1574. ( digitized version )
  • Schediasmatum reliquiae . Poems, 1575. ( digitized version )
  • Epigrammata . 1580.
  • Odae Palatinae . 1588. ( digitized version )
  • Emmetron In Nuptias Serenissimi Illustrissimisque Principis Electoris Friderici IV. Comitis Palatini Ad Rhenum, Ducis Boiorum; Et ... Loisae Iulianae Principis Uraniae, Comitis Nassoviae. 1593. ( digitized version )
  • Meletemata . Poems, 1595. ( digitized version )

literature

Web links

Commons : Paulus Melissus  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Helmut Schlereth: Schnorrer - Dichter - Hofpfalzgraf: On the 400th anniversary of the death of Paul Schad from Mellrichstadt, called Schedius Melissus (1539–1602). In: Würzburg medical history reports. 21, 2002, pp. 268–281, here: pp. 268 ff.
  2. ↑ Eduard Engel: History of German Literature , First Volume, 1913, p. 178 f.
personal data
SURNAME Melissus, Paul
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schede, Paul (real name); Schedius Melissus, Paulus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer, translator and composer
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1539
PLACE OF BIRTH Mellrichstadt
DATE OF DEATH February 3, 1602
Place of death Heidelberg