Song of the Bell

The Song of the Bell (German: “"Das Lied von der Glocke"”) is a poem that the German poet Friedrich Schiller published in 1798.

It is one of the most famous poems of the German literature and with 430 lines also one of the longest.

Contents

The epigraph of the poem is Latin:

Vivos voco Mortuos plango Fulgura frango

In English:

I call the living I mourn the dead I break the lightening

The first lines start with the following lines:

Firmly bricked in the earth
Stands the mold, fired from clay.
Today the bell shall be.
Quickly, workers, be at hand.
From the forehead hot
Must run the sweat,
If the creation shall praise the master,
But the blessing comes from on-high.

For the work, that we prepare in earnest,
An earnest word is only right;
When accompanied by good banter,
Then work flows lively forth.
So with diligence let us observe,
What from weak strength does bud,
The useless man be scorned,
Who never views what he brings forth.
Exactly that is what adorns a man,
And for that he got his reason,
That in his innermost heart he feels,
What he creates with his hand.

In German:

Fest gemauert in der Erden
Steht die Form, aus Lehm gebrannt.
Heute muss die Glocke werden.
Frisch Gesellen, seid zur Hand.
Von der Stirne heiß
Rinnen muß der Schweiß,
Soll das Werk den Meister loben,
Doch der Segen kommt von oben.

Zum Werke, daß wir ernst bereiten,
Geziemt sich wohl ein ernstes Wort;
Wenn gute Reden sie begleiten,
Dann fließt die Arbeit munter fort.
So laßt uns jetzt mit Fleiß betrachten,
Was durch die schwache Kraft entspringt,
Den schlechten Mann muß man verachten,
Der nie bedacht, was er vollbringt.
Das ist's ja, was den Menschen zieret,
Und dazu ward ihm der Verstand,
Daß er im innern Herzen spüret,
Was er erschafft mit seiner Hand.

Importance

Students, who attended school in the late 19th and early 20th century, had to memorize and be able to recite the whole ode, while students who attended school in the 1940s and later had to memorize only some of its verses, although the ode took up about seven weeks in the curriculum.

External links

* [http://fathersforlife.org/hist/bell.htm Song of the Bell] (English version)
* [http://www.goethezeitportal.de/index.php?id=1440 illustrations by Alexander von Liezen Mayer]
* [http://www.goethezeitportal.de/index.php?id=1315 illustrations by Hans Kaufmann]
* [http://www.goethezeitportal.de/index.php?id=1693 illustrations by Andreas Müller]