TO LUNA - GOETHE

TO LUNA

by: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

ISTER of the earliest light,

Type of loveliness in sorrow,

Silver mists thy radiance borrow,

Even as they cross thy sight.

When thou comest to the sky,

In their dusky hollows waken,

Spirits that are sad, forsaken,

Birds that shun the day, and I.

 

Looking downward far and wide,

Hidden things thou dost discover.

Luna! help a hapless lover,

Lift him kindly to thy side!

Aided by thy friendly beams,

Let him through the lattice peeping,

Look into the room where, sleeping,

Lies the maiden of his dreams.

 

Ah, I see her! Now I gaze,

Bending in a trance Elysian,

And I strain my inmost vision,

And I gather all thy rays.

Bright and brighter yet I see

Charms no envious robes encumber;

And she draws me to her slumber

As Endymion once drew thee.

John Storer Cobb's English translation of 'To Luna' was first published inGoethe: Poetical Works, vol. 1. Boston: Francis A Niccolls & Company, 1902.

Traducción:TO LUNA
La hermana de la primera luz,
Tipo de belleza en el dolor,
Nieblas tu resplandor de plata prestada,
A pesar de que se cruzan delante de tus ojos.
Cuando vengas al cielo,
En sus huecos oscuros despertar,
Espíritus que están tristes, abandonados,
Las aves que huyen del día, y I.
Mirando hacia abajo a lo largo y ancho,
Cosas ocultas qué te descubre.
Luna! ayudar a un amante desgraciado,
Levantarlo amablemente a tu lado!
Con la ayuda de tus rayos amigable,
Deje que le asoma a través de la red,
Busque en la habitación donde, dormir,
Se encuentra a la doncella de sus sueños.

Ah, yo la veo! Ahora miro,
Flexión en un trance Elíseos,
Y me esfuerzo más profundo de mi visión,
Y reunir a todos tus rayos.
Brillante y más brillante aún que veo
Encantos no gravar túnicas envidia;
Y ella me atrae hacia su sueño
Como Endymion una vez te llamó.

J. W. Goethe.-
Extra information:

• Who was...?

ENDYMION

Endymion was a beautiful youth who fed his flock on Mount Latmos. One calm, clear night, Diana, the Moon, looked down and saw him sleeping. The cold heart of the virgin goddess was warmed by his surpassing beauty, and she came down to him, kissed him, and watched over him while he slept. Another story was that Jupiter bestowed on him the gift of perpetual youth united with perpetual sleep. Of one so gifted we can have but few adventures to record. Diana, it was said, took care that his fortunes should not suffer by his inactive life, for she made his flock increase and guarded his sheep and lambs from wild beasts. The story of Endymion has a peculiar charm from the human meaning which it so thinly veils. We see in Endymion the young poet, his fancy and his heart seeking in vain for that which can satisfy them, finding his favorite hour in the quiet moonlight, and nursing there beneath the beams of the bright and silent witness the melancholy and the ardor which consumes him. The story suggests aspiring and poetic love, a life spent more in dreams than in reality, and an early and welcome death. The "Endymion" of Keats is a wild and fanciful poem, containing some exquisite poetry, as this, to the moon: The sleeping kine Couched in thy brightness dream of fields divine. Innumerable mountains rise, and rise, Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes, And yet thy benediction passeth not One obscure hiding-place, one little spot Where pleasure may be sent; the nested wren Has thy fair face within its tranquil ken... Dr. Young in the "Night Thoughts" alludes to Endymion thus: These thoughts, O Night, are thine; From thee they came like lovers' secret sighs, While others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign, In shadows veiled, soft, sliding from her sphere, Her shepherd cheered, of her enamoured less Than I of thee. Fletcher, in The Faithful Shepherdess, tells: How the pale Phoebe, hunting in a grove, First saw the boy Endymion, from whose eyes She took eternal fire that never dies, How she conveyed him softly in a sleep, His temples bound with poppy, to the steep Head of old Latmos, where she stoops each night, Gilding the mountain with her brother's light, To kiss her sweetest.