Prometheus (Goethe)

Prometheus is a poem by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, in which the character of the mythic Prometheus addresses God (as Zeus) in misotheist accusation and defiance.

In early editions of the Collected Works it appeared in Volume II of Goethe's poems in a section of Vermischte Gedichte (assorted poems), shortly following the Gesang der Geister über den Wassern, and the Harzreise im Winter. It is immediately followed by the Ganymed, and the two poems together should be understood as a pair. Both belong to the period 1770-1775. Prometheus (1774) was planned as a drama but not completed, but this poem draws upon it. Prometheus is the creative and rebellious spirit which, rejected by God, angrily defies him and asserts itself; Ganymede is the boyish self which is adored and seduced by God. One is the lone defiant, the other the yielding accolyte. As the humanist poet, Goethe presents both identities as aspects or forms of the human condition.

Although the 'setting' is classical, the address to the Judaeo-Christian God is suggested by the section beginning 'Da ich ein Kind war...' (When I was a child): the use of 'Da' is distinctive, and by it Goethe evokes the Lutheran translation of Saint Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, 13.11: 'Da ich ein Kind war, da redete ich wie ein Kind...' (When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things). Unlike St Paul, Goethe's Prometheus grew up to disbelieve in the divine heart moved to pity for the afflicted.

The poem was set to music by Schubert and by Hugo Wolf.

Text

Original German Text

Bedecke deinen Himmel, Zeus,

Mit Wolkendunst

Und übe, dem Knaben gleich,

Der Disteln köpft,

An Eichen dich und Bergeshöhn;

Mußt mir meine Erde

Doch lassen stehn

Und meine Hütte, die du nicht gebaut,

Und meinen Herd,

Um dessen Glut

Du mich beneidest.

Ich kenne nichts Ärmeres

Unter der Sonn als euch, Götter!

Ihr nähret kümmerlich

Von Opfersteuern

Und Gebetshauch

Eure Majestät

Und darbtet, wären

Nicht Kinder und Bettler

Hoffnungsvolle Toren.

Da ich ein Kind war,

Nicht wußte, wo aus noch ein,

Kehrt ich mein verirrtes Auge

Zur Sonne, als wenn drüber wär

Ein Ohr, zu hören meine Klage,

Ein Herz wie meins,

Sich des Bedrängten zu erbarmen.

Wer half mir

Wider der Titanen Übermut?

Wer rettete vom Tode mich,

Von Sklaverei?

Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet,

Heilig glühend Herz?

Und glühtest jung und gut,

Betrogen, Rettungsdank

Dem Schlafenden da droben?

Ich dich ehren? Wofür?

Hast du die Schmerzen gelindert

Je des Beladenen?

Hast du die Tränen gestillet

Je des Geängsteten?

Hat nicht mich zum Manne geschmiedet

Die allmächtige Zeit

Und das ewige Schicksal,

Meine Herrn und deine?

Wähntest du etwa,

Ich sollte das Leben hassen,

In Wüsten fliehen,

Weil nicht alle

Blütenträume reiften?

Hier sitz ich, forme Menschen

Nach meinem Bilde,

Ein Geschlecht, das mir gleich sei,

Zu leiden, zu weinen,

Zu genießen und zu freuen sich,

Und dein nich zu achten,

Wie ich!

English Translation

Shroud your heaven, Zeus,

With cloudy vapours,

And do as you will, like the boy

That knocks the heads off thistles,

With oak-trees and mountain-tops;

Now you must leave alone

My Earth for Me,

And my hut, which you did not build,

And my hearth,

The glowing whereof

You envy me.

I know of nothing poorer

Under the sun, than you, you Gods!

Your majesty

Is barely nourished

By sacrificial offerings

And prayerful exhalations,

And should starve

Were children and beggars not

Fools full of Hope.

When I was a child,

And did not know the in or out,

I turned my wandering eyes toward

The sun, as if, beyond, there were

An ear to hear my lament,

A heart, like mine,

To be moved to pity for the afflicted.

Who helped me

Against the pride of the Titans?

Who delivered me from Death,

From Slavery?

Did you not accomplish it all yourself,

My holy, burning Heart?

And shone, young and good,

Deceived, your thanks for salvation

To the sleeping one above?

Should I honour you? Why?

Have you softened the sufferings,

Ever, of the burdened?

Have you stilled the tears,

Ever, of the anguished?

Was I not forged as a Man

By almighty Time

And eternal Fate,

My masters and thine?

Do you somehow imagine

That I should hate Life,

Flee to the desert,

Because not every

Flowering dream should bloom?

Here I sit, I form humans

After my own image;

A race, to be like me,

To sorrow, to weep,

To enjoy and delight itself,

And to heed you not at all -

Like Me!

Source

• J.W. Goethe, Goethe's Werke: Vollstandige Ausgabe letzter Hand (Vol II, 76-78). (J.G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung, Stuttgart und Tubingen 1827).
• J.W. Goethe, Gedichte (Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin u. Tübingen 1988)
• Dr Martin Luther, Die Bibel, oder die ganze Heilige Schrift des Alten und Neuen Testaments.