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| The Little Extras - Myths and Fantasies | |
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| The Little Extras - Myths and Fantasies | |
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The Lorelei
(drawing by Arthur Rackham)
At Bacharach, a blonde sorceress there was,
So the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire
described the Lorelei, and so we see
her, a golden-haired girl whose irresistible song
attracted the vessels of the Rhine and led them to shipwreck.
Though the legend has probably lived in the hearts of Rhine sailors since
antiquity, the Lorelei we know dates from the beginning of the 19th century.
The famous crag overhanging the waters of the Rhine
downstream from Bacharach was the subject of legends long before the Lorelei
appeared on the scene, however. Situated at one of the most dangerous passes in the Rhine, the rock inspired fear and curiosity because of its echo, which was believed to possess the powers of an oracle. When ships approached, passengers shouted questions about their fates. According to anonymous 12th century verses, dwarfs perched on the rock sent back answers through the echo. The crag also figured in the epic poem the Nibelungenlied. The hero, Siegfried, possessed a treasure, but the villain, Hagen, killed Siegfried and threw the treasure into the Rhine not far from the echoing rock.
In 1801, in his novel Godwi, the German
poet Clemens Brentano published a
ballad, "Lora-Lay,” set in medieval
times. He claimed to have created the myth by leading his readers to
believe that the Lorelei was a part of popular folklore. His heroine,
"so beautiful and so slender," was summoned by the bishop on account of the
havoc she was wreaking among the local menfolk.
My lord bishop, make me die;
The young girl, victim of an evil spell that was fatal even for her, had
another reason to beg for death: her lover had been unfaithful and had left
her. But the bishop, charmed like all the others, could not bring
himself to condemn her to death and sent her to a convent. On her way,
she climbed a rock to take one last look at the waters of the Rhine.
On the horizon she perceived a sail, and thought her lover was returning.
My heart with joy is full,
To Brentano, who was twenty-three when he wrote the tale, the poor girl was
the victim of her feelings and of her own gaze.
She incarnated the curse of love.
This theme was popular with other Romantics, who were fascinated by her at
about the same age. Both Joseph Eichendorff
and Apollinaire were twenty-two when
they took up the tale, and the German poet Heinrich
Heine was twenty-five. Eichendorff s contribution was
significant because he added to the legend. In his version, put to
music by Robert Schumann, the Lorelei is
dressed in black with a white veil and wears a crown of pearls in her blond
hair.
In Heine's version, the Lorelei is associated with the
sirens of the Odyssey whose voices called sailors to their death.
There is no longer anything about her magic gaze. Brentano's notion of
the siren's fatal gaze was not taken up again until the 20th century.
Apollinaire, inspired by the famous rock, wrote:
My heart becomes so tender - it is my lover |
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