The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr
Page 50
62. Corre!: Italian, ‘Run!’
63. the insulating plate of an electrical machine: Various forms of electrical or electrostatic machines were being made in the 18th and early 19th centuries as methods of converting mechanical into electrical energy were developed, and such machines were a source of considerable interest to the general public. In Hoffmann’s time, the earlier frictional machines of the 18th century were beginning to be superseded by ‘influence machines’ constructed on the basic principle of two Leyden jars (see Part II, note 35).
64. the diable boîteux: ‘The limping devil’ features in the novel of the same name by the French writer Alain-René Lesage (1668–1747), where the hero sets free a devil imprisoned in a phial, a theme familiar from many folk-tales all over the world.
65. Gymnotus electricus… Raja torpedo… Trichiurus indicus: Zoological names of the electric eel, electric ray and cutlass fish, all of which can deliver an electric charge.
66. Signor Cotugno: Domenico Cotugno (1736–1822), a Neapolitan doctor. This incident was described by Kluge in his work on animal magnetism (see Part II, note 43).
67. Je suis sauvée!: French, ‘I am saved!’
68. Mesmer and his dreadful operations: Franz Anton Mesmer (1734–1815), whose theory of animal magnetism was famous or notorious at the time, and who was able to produce violent or convulsive reactions in his patients after putting them into a hypnotic trance (the ‘dreadful operations’ referred to).
69. Kempelen: Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) devised a series of automata, one of which was the figure of a Turk who played chess. However, it was said that there was really a live dwarf inside the automaton.
70. chambre garnie: French, ‘furnished room’.
71. partie à la chasse: French, ‘hunting party’.
72. materia peccans: Latin, ‘sinning matter’, i.e. substance causing illness.
73. Johannes Kunisperger: Johannes Müller of Konigsberg in Franconia (1436–76), known as Johannes Kunisperger or Regiomontanus (from the Latinate version of the name of his native place), a mathematician and astronomer. The book Master Abraham and Murr were reading was probably his Temporal natürlicher Kunst der Astronomey – kurtzer Begriff von natürlichen Eynfluβ der Gestim (‘Temporally Natural Art of Astronomy – a Short Survey of the Natural Influence of the Stars’), date of publication not known.
74. Ovid’s De arte amandi and Manso’s Art of Love: Ovid’s famous verse work on the art of love is properly entitled Ars amatoria. Johann Kaspar Friedrich Manso (1759–1826) wrote a work thus entitled, and published in 1794, which is mocked by Goethe and Schiller in their Xenien.
75. ‘Lovely one…’: In this conversation between Murr and his lady-love Hoffmann is parodying the popular novelist Jean Paul (see Part I, note 21). In the original German the dialogue echoes almost word for word the conversation between the hero Albano and his beloved Linda (who eventually turns out to be his sister) in Jean Paul’s novel Titan of 1800–1803.
76. a cavalier stumbling through the maze of love: The reference is to a work by Johann Gottfried Schnabel (1692–c. 1752), best known for his very long novel based on the Robinson Crusoe theme. However, the book whose title is quoted here by Master Abraham, Der im Irrgarten der Liebe herumtaumelnde Cavalier, was an erotic novel published in 1738.
77. Venus otia amat… tutus eris!: ‘Venus loves idleness. If you seek an end to love, which shuns business, then get down to work and you will be at peace.’ From Ovid’s Remedia amoris, lines 143–4.
78. ‘I prowled the forest, quiet and wild…’: A reference to Goethe’s poem Jägers Abendlied (‘Huntsman’s Serenade’), which actually begins: Im Felde schleich ich still und wild… Puss in Boots sings the song in Tieck’s play of that name. Shortly after quoting this phrase, Murr breaks into verse of his own (printed as prose).
79. Exige… posce lyram: Another quotation from the Remedia amoris, lines 333 and 336. ‘Insist on the girl’s singing if she has no voice; if she had never learned to play the strings, demand a lyre.’
80. some witty playwright or other: August von Kotzebue (1761–1819) has a passage in his one-act play Der arme Poet (‘The Poor Poet’) of 1812 in which a character remarks that there is ‘no rhyme for Mensch’ (‘man’ in the sense of ‘humanity’), and adds, with a play on words, that man is ein ungereimtes Gechöpf, ‘an absurd creature’. In the original German of Murr’s poetic effusion and his subsequent comments on it, the other rhyming word concerned is Kater, ‘tomcat’. Obviously the English rendering of the verse and Murr’s comments as given here is very free, since it is not at all difficult to find rhymes for ‘cat’ and ‘man’ in English.
81. ‘Knowst thou the land…’: The famous song by the girl Mignon in Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. The German should really read: Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn, i.e. ‘flower’ and not glühn, ‘glow’. The song itself has been set by several composers including Schubert and Wolf.
82. ’tis love.alone!: The quotation is from Prince Tamino’s first aria in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, when he is presented with a portrait of Pamina, daughter of the Queen of the Night, and immediately falls in love.
83. jumping into bed with the bride booted and spurred: The kind of formality which used to be part of weddings by proxy, the boots and spurs indicating, of course, that there was no question of the proxy bridegroom’s actually consummating the marriage, and that his function was purely ceremonial.
84. entre nous soit dit: French, ‘be it said between ourselves’.
85. the mostro turchino: Italian, ‘dark blue monster’. Il mostro turchino is the title of a fairy-tale play of 1764 by Carlo Gozzi (see Part II, note 54).
86. basilisks: The basilisk of medieval legends and fables was supposed to be a serpent hatched from a cock’s egg, and was also called a cockatrice. As Julia says, its mere glance was believed to be fatal.
87. Ave maris stella: See Part I, note 12. Dei mater alma… felix coeli porta: ‘wise Mother of God… happy gate of Heaven.’
88. O sanctissima: ‘O holiest one’. Hoffmann wrote an a cappella hymn to this text in 1808, one of his Canzoni per 4 voci alla capella.
89. an elder bush: Whatever the ultimate function in the plot of the mysterious veiled woman might have been (it is one of the matters left unresolved with Hoffmann’s death before he could write the third volume of his novel, and several theories have been advanced), it may be interesting to note that the elder is a tree frequently associated with witches in European folklore. The wise, or the cautious, were supposed to ask an elder tree’s leave before cutting a branch.
90. Remember Hamlet and be my dear Horatio!: Hamlet (I.v), where Hamlet makes his friend Horatio, and Horatio’s companion Marcellus, swear never to say or even suggest that they have seen the ghost of Hamlet’s father.
91. the famous aria Di tanti palpiti: Italian, ‘Of so many heartbeats’. The aria is from Rossini’s Tancredi of 1813.
92. ‘My love, shall I see you no more?’: The reference is to the trio Soll ich dich, Teurer, nicht mehr sehn? from Mozart’s The Magic Flute, where Tamino and Pamina are parting from each other before Tamino goes through a series of tests, while Sarastro the high priest of Isis and Osiris reassures them that all will be well in the end.
93. O Heaven…: Murr is quoting Hamlet’s reaction to the tale told by his father’s ghost (Hamlet, I.v). Tieck had quoted the same passage in his play on the subject of Puss in Boots.
94. a second Franklin: With reference to Benjamin Franklin, the American scientist and statesman, famous not only for his successful campaigning for American independence but also for his research into electricity, which earned him a Fellowship of the Royal Society. He showed that lightning is a form of electricity and suggested the protection of buildings by lightning conductors.
95. Baumgarten’s History of the World: The translation, by Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (1706–57), of an encyclopaedic English work in several volumes, the first published in Germany in 1
744.
96. a sedate, well set-up Kapellmeister… my Self as Kapellmeister: The German here contains a play on words referring to the philosophical doctrine of Fichte, who put forward the theory that existence was to be seen only in terms of the Self, unlike his predecessor Kant, who believed in a mysterious source of all phenomena which exists outside consciousness, and which he called the ‘thing in itself’.
97. ad usum delphini: Latin, ‘for the use of the Dauphin’, figuratively = ‘arranged for pupils’.
98. Maledetto!: Italian, ‘Accursed!’
VOLUME TWO
PART III: MY APPRENTICE MONTHS
1. Hornvilla in Tieck’s Oktavian: The character is a peasant in a play by Ludwig Tieck based on a 16th-century popular story, originally written in French, in which the Emperor Octavianus banishes his wife and two sons and the children are carried off by wild animals, but all ends happily with a family reunion.
2. Pythagoras… catheti: Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher of the 6th century BC, was also credited with many discoveries in mathematics and astronomy. A cathetus is a now rare term for a straight line falling perpendicular to another line or a surface.
3. Philistine: Besides the usual meaning of this term, also common in English, of a narrow-minded, materialistic and uncultivated person, it was originally used in German universities to describe a non-student, and thus an outsider, and an ignorant person whom the students despised. Cf. the traditional conflict in British university cities between ‘town’ and ‘gown’. The cat Muzius is about to show himself an enthusiastic member of student society with its fraternities, and ready to introduce Murr to its traditional activities, such as drinking sessions and duelling.
4. mud in your eye: The expression Muzius uses in the original is a specific German student health – ‘Schmollis!’.
5. the principale: The lower register of the natural trumpet; the valved trumpet was not introduced until the 1820s, although there had been earlier keyed trumpets such as those for which Haydn and Hummel wrote their trumpet concertos.
6. addressing the Master with more formality than usual: In the original German, Madame Benzon switches to the use of Sie for the pronoun ‘you’ instead of Ihr, which could be used at this time for a single person, although in modern usage it is employed only as the more familiar form of addressing two or more people. Later in this conversation, she switches pronouns again, back to Ihr and then to the familiar singular du.
7. the moment of first love: Compare Byron’s Don Juan, contemporaneous with Murr, with its very similar sentiments, also put by a male writer into the mouth of a woman: ‘Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart, / ’Tis woman’s whole existence’ (Don Juan, Canto I).
8. a member of one of our feline fraternities: In the original German, Katzbursch, explicitly announcing for the first time the theme of the following episodes where Murr is introduced into such a fraternity, parodying the student fraternities or Burschenschaften of German universities, which had their own fixed customs and codes of honour. The president of such a fraternity was called the Senior (a post occupied in Murr’s fraternity by the cat Puff). After 1814 the term Burschenschaft was applied more particularly to a student movement deriving from the Wars of Liberation and aiming for political unity in Germany. The movement met with much political opposition from other spheres of society in the first decades of the 19th century. Note Murr’s quasi-nationalistic remarks about ‘an honest German pawshake’, etc.
9. Lucullan style: In the manner of the Roman commander Lucullus in the 1st century BC, who was famous for his luxurious banquets.
10. all of us born gymnasts: With reference to the gymnastics movement founded in 1810–11 in Berlin by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778–1852), known in Germany as the ‘father of gymnastics’.
11. a prohibited society: Secret societies such as the Freemasons, Illuminati and Rosicrucians were widespread in German states of the 18th and early 19th centuries, and encountered much opposition on the part of the authorities, who suspected them of subversive activities and sometimes banned them.
12. ‘Gaudeamus igitur’… juvenis… tumulus: The famous Latin student song. The words of the version thought to be quoted here by Hoffmann run: Gaudeamus igitur / iuvenes dum sumus / post molestam senectutem / nos habebit tumulus (‘Let us therefore rejoice while we are young; after burdensome old age the tomb will have us’). The last word in later versions is humus, ‘earth’.
13. ‘Oh Let the Politicians Talk’: A song by Leopold von Göckingk (1748–1828), originally entitled ‘Song to be Sung at Table’, and published in a collection of verses in 1793.
14. ‘Ecce quam bonum’: Another popular student song of the time. Its Latin refrain, adapted from the beginning of Psalm 133 (‘Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!’), ran: Ecce quam bonum / bonum et jucundum / habitare fratres / fratres in unum. Verses were then improvised, as the cats do here, and the refrain repeated.
15. the Wittenberg Chronicle: It will be remembered that Hamlet was studying at Wittenberg University (founded in 1502 and a favourite university among Danes in Shakespeare’s time), and his uncle Claudius speaks of his ‘intent, In going back to school in Wittenberg’ (Hamlet, I.ii).
16. Pro poena: Latin, ‘for punishment’, indicating that a forfeit must be paid by the person who does not contribute to a game or (in this case) a song.
17. ‘La fin couronne les oeuvres!’: ‘The end crowns the works!’, quoted from Henry VI Part 2 (V.ii). The wording is in French in Shakespeare’s original.
18. my badly wounded comrade: A reference, in the original, to Uhland’s poem Der gute Kamerad.
19. executing a movement: The German original here is a play on the word Satz, which besides meaning a leap or bound has many other senses, including a musical movement (of a sonata, etc.) and a philosophical dogma.
20. ichor: In Greek mythology, the liquid supposed to flow instead of blood in the veins of the gods. Hence, by association with ideas of superiority, Kreisler credits Prince Hector with having no common blood in his veins.
21. Nemesis: In Greek, ‘righteous indignation’. The personification of the goddess of retribution.
22. Medusa: In Greek mythology, one of the three female monsters called Gorgon. Medusa had snakes on her head instead of hair, and the sight of her was supposed to turn anyone who looked directly at her to stone. The hero Perseus managed to kill her by only viewing her in a mirror.
23. Ajax: One of the two heroes of that name supposed to have fought on the Greek side at the siege of Troy. Known as ‘the Lesser Ajax’ to distinguish him from the Greater or Telamonian Ajax, he was the fastest runner among the Greek forces.
24. glebae adscriptus: Latin, ‘bound to the land’, i.e. a serf or subject.
25. Cousin Romeo: See Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (II.ii). ‘O! that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek.’ In German, the name Juliet is the same as Julia.
26. Vespers: Hoffmann himself composed a setting of the Vespers, now lost; of his sacred compositions, only a Mass in D minor has been preserved.
27. Sed praeter omnia bibendum quid: Latin, ‘But above all, something to drink.’ Like some of the other remarks in Latin made by Father Hilarius, this is borrowed from Rabelais’s Gargantua.
28. per diem: Perhaps a euphemistic spelling for deum, in which case the phrase means ‘by God’.
29. in floribus: ‘In bloom’, i.e. flourishing.
30. Bibamus!: ‘Let us drink!’
31. distinguendum est inter et inter: ‘One thing must be distinguished from another’.
32. Vir sapiens non te abhorrebit Domine!: ‘Thou wilt not abhor a wise man, O Lord!’
33. cur, quomodo, quando, ubi: ‘Why, how, when, where’.
34. Ibi jacet lepus in pipere!: Literally, ‘that’s where the hare lies in the pepper’, translating a German phrase, Da liegt der Hase im Pfeffer!, meaning ‘that’s the trouble’.
35. ad patibulu
m cum illis: ‘To the gallows with them’.
36. Desunt: ‘They are absent’.
37. contra hostium insidias: ‘Against the wiles of the enemy’.
38. ad conventum conventuales: ‘To the convent, members of the community’.
39. Tartini: Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770), the Italian composer and violinist, who did in fact contemplate becoming a monk before concentrating on his musical career. His story, hinted at here, was a variation on the Heloïse and Abelard theme: he was secretly married to a relative of a Cardinal, and his wife was forced to enter a convent, whereupon Tartini took refuge in Assisi.
40. Johann Andreas Silbermann: A famous German organ-builder (1712–83). The Abbey of St Blaise in the Black Forest was a well-known Benedictine foundation.
41. Dieu soit loué: French, ‘God be praised’.
42. Moritz… and other physiological authors: Murr’s impressive list of authorities consists of real writers. Karl Philipp Moritz (1756–93), schoolmaster and novelist, was also the author of a journal on psychology. Wolf Davidson (1772–1800), a Berlin doctor, wrote a book on sleep. Heinrich Nudow (born 1752) was also a doctor; he too wrote on the theory of sleep. Dietrich Tiedemann (1748–1803), a professor of philosophy, discussed sleep in a theoretical work. Arnold Wienholt (1749–1804), who wrote on animal magnetism, included studies of its effect on sleep. Johann Christian Reil’s work ‘Rhapsodies on the Application of the Psychic Method of Curing Mental Disturbances’ has already been mentioned, see Part II, note 57. He lived from 1759–1813. Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert (1780–1860) wrote on the symbolism of dreaming. Carl Alexander Ferdinand Kluge (1782–1844) wrote on sleep in his study of animal magnetism (see Part II, notes 43, 57 and 66).
43. something the cat brought in: This passage is necessarily a free adaptation in English, since the German refers to the familiar words Kater (literally ‘tomcat’) or Katzenjammer (literally ‘cat’s misery’) for a hangover. As Muzius cannot bring himself to pronounce the word, only to warn Murr in oblique terms against laying himself open to the charge of suffering a hangover, a reader of the German cannot tell which of the two words for the condition he actually has in mind.