Poetry
Oberon
Christoph Martin Wieland · 1780
Opening lines
Noch einmahl sattelt mir den Hippogryfen, ihr Musen,
Zum Ritt ins alte romantische Land!
Wie lieblich um meinen entfesselten Busen
Der holde Wahnsinn spielt!
Once more, ye Muses, saddle me the hippogriff
For a ride into the old romantic land!
How sweetly round my unfettered breast
The gentle madness plays!
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
For killing a son of Charlemagne, Huon of Bordeaux is banished; he will return only after wresting from the caliph of Baghdad a handful of his beard and four molars, kissing his daughter three times and killing the man seated on his left. He sets out with Scherasmin, his father's former squire. Estranged from Titania, the elf king Oberon seeks a couple who remain faithful come what may: he chooses Huon and Rezia, the caliph's daughter, and gives the knight an enchanted horn that makes his enemies dance.
Context
The poem appeared in Weimar in 1780 and was revised seven times before reaching its definitive form in 1796. It draws on the French chanson de geste Huon de Bordeaux, on A Midsummer Night's Dream and on a version of Chaucer by Pope. Its influence was great: it can be traced in Schiller's Don Carlos, in Goethe's second Faust and in The Magic Flute, whose libretto owes something to an adaptation of the poem. In English, Sotheby and John Quincy Adams translated it.
Who it is for
A narrative poem in verse, with the plot of a chivalric romance; an early French translation was reissued in 2014.
Prizes and reception
A work that left its mark on the music and poetry of its time, down to Carl Maria von Weber's last opera, Oberon, first performed in 1826.