Caput 23
The Republic of Hamburg was never as great
As of old were Venice and Florence,
But, for oysters, Hamburg has beaten them both—
You get the best from Laurence.
When Campe and I to his cellar repaired,
'Twas an evening of glorious weather;
On oysters and Rhine wine we went to sup—
To riot in style together.
I warrant the company gathered there
Was neither sour nor ascetic.
I found old friends like Chaufepié,
And new ones as sympathetic.
There was Wille, whose face is an album in which
The names of his foes academic
Are legibly writ in the blows and scars
Delivered in wars polemic.
And Fuchs was among them, a heathen blind,
And a personal foe of Jehovah,
Who believes but in Hegel, and also, perhaps,
In the Venus of Canova.
My Campe that night was Amphitryon,
He was beaming and gay and pacific.
Like a blessed Madonna he sat and smiled,
Serene and beatific.
I ate and drank with an appetite good,
And I thought to myself, as I watched him,
“This Campe is really a first-rate man;
What publisher ever matched him?
“Who knows? Another publisher might
Have left me to starve and perish,
But he gives me food, and he gives me wine—
The man is a man to cherish.
“I thank Thee, Mighty Lord of all,
For the gift of the grape was Thy one;
I thank Thee for making a publisher
Of Campe, and making him my one!
“I thank Thee, Mighty Lord of all,
With grateful and deep emotion
For creating the Rhine wine on the earth,
And the oysters in the ocean,
“And also for bidding the lemons grow
To improve the oysters' flavour.
O Father, grant me to digest
This supper sweet to savour!”
Rhine wine can always soften me;
It heals my feuds with others,
And wakens longings in my breast
To love all men as brothers.
It drives me abroad to roam through the streets
When I've emptied sufficient glasses;
Soul longs for soul, and spies a mate
In each petticoat that passes.
At times like these I melt and yearn—
To be frank my mood is flabby;
Every woman seems a Helen of Troy,
And every cat's a tabby.
When I got as far as the Drehbahn street
I saw, where the moon was gleaming,
A nobly proportioned woman's form,
Of most majestic seeming.
Her healthy face was round, her lips
Were like cherries, her cheek a rose was,
Her lovely eyes were turquoise blue,
And a pretty pink her nose was.
She had on a starched white linen cap,
Like a mural crown she wore it,
Folded in battlemented form,
With many a peak and turret.
A snowy tunic reached to her calves,
And what calves they were!—their duty
To upbear, like stately pedestals,
Twin pillars of Doric beauty.
Judged by her features she only seemed
Of this world—a natural woman;
But, viewed from behind, she struck the eye
As something superhuman.
She advanced and said, “You are welcome home
To the Elbe which you left behind you
Just thirteen years ago; unchanged
After all those years I find you.
“You look perhaps for the lovely souls
That you were wont to meet here,
And with whom you dreamed the night away
Of old, in this pleasant street here.
“The hundred-headed hydra, Life—
Grim monster!—has consumed them.
The friends of your youth and the olden days—
The past has long entombed them.
“You will never again see the gracious flowers
That your young heart worshipped and cherished.
The storm-winds stripped them of their bloom;
They blossomed here, and perished.
“To wither, bruised and trodden down
Beneath Fate's cruel feet, is
The earthly lot, alas! my friend,
Of all that fair and sweet is.”
“And who are you, colossal form,
That welcome thus the rover?
Where you go, may I follow? You seem to me
Like a dream of the days long over.”
The woman, amused, replied with a smile,
“You are wrong. All the world knows me
To be proper, and moral, and daintily bred.
I am not what you suppose me.
“I am none of your little foreign lorettes,
Your Mam'selles cheap and pretty,
But Hammonia, the guardian deity
Of your famous Hamburg city.
“You are taken aback; you are terrified even,
O singer, once undaunted;
Would you still go with me? Come, decide,
And show your courage vaunted.”
But I laughed aloud and cried, “Lead on,
Most divine of lovely ladies!
Lead on, and I'll follow wherever you go,
Were it down to the gates of Hades!”
As of old were Venice and Florence,
But, for oysters, Hamburg has beaten them both—
You get the best from Laurence.
When Campe and I to his cellar repaired,
'Twas an evening of glorious weather;
On oysters and Rhine wine we went to sup—
To riot in style together.
I warrant the company gathered there
Was neither sour nor ascetic.
I found old friends like Chaufepié,
And new ones as sympathetic.
There was Wille, whose face is an album in which
The names of his foes academic
Are legibly writ in the blows and scars
Delivered in wars polemic.
And Fuchs was among them, a heathen blind,
And a personal foe of Jehovah,
Who believes but in Hegel, and also, perhaps,
In the Venus of Canova.
My Campe that night was Amphitryon,
He was beaming and gay and pacific.
Like a blessed Madonna he sat and smiled,
Serene and beatific.
I ate and drank with an appetite good,
And I thought to myself, as I watched him,
“This Campe is really a first-rate man;
What publisher ever matched him?
“Who knows? Another publisher might
Have left me to starve and perish,
But he gives me food, and he gives me wine—
The man is a man to cherish.
“I thank Thee, Mighty Lord of all,
For the gift of the grape was Thy one;
I thank Thee for making a publisher
Of Campe, and making him my one!
“I thank Thee, Mighty Lord of all,
With grateful and deep emotion
For creating the Rhine wine on the earth,
And the oysters in the ocean,
“And also for bidding the lemons grow
To improve the oysters' flavour.
O Father, grant me to digest
This supper sweet to savour!”
Rhine wine can always soften me;
It heals my feuds with others,
And wakens longings in my breast
To love all men as brothers.
It drives me abroad to roam through the streets
When I've emptied sufficient glasses;
Soul longs for soul, and spies a mate
In each petticoat that passes.
At times like these I melt and yearn—
To be frank my mood is flabby;
Every woman seems a Helen of Troy,
And every cat's a tabby.
When I got as far as the Drehbahn street
I saw, where the moon was gleaming,
A nobly proportioned woman's form,
Of most majestic seeming.
Her healthy face was round, her lips
Were like cherries, her cheek a rose was,
Her lovely eyes were turquoise blue,
And a pretty pink her nose was.
She had on a starched white linen cap,
Like a mural crown she wore it,
Folded in battlemented form,
With many a peak and turret.
A snowy tunic reached to her calves,
And what calves they were!—their duty
To upbear, like stately pedestals,
Twin pillars of Doric beauty.
Judged by her features she only seemed
Of this world—a natural woman;
But, viewed from behind, she struck the eye
As something superhuman.
She advanced and said, “You are welcome home
To the Elbe which you left behind you
Just thirteen years ago; unchanged
After all those years I find you.
“You look perhaps for the lovely souls
That you were wont to meet here,
And with whom you dreamed the night away
Of old, in this pleasant street here.
“The hundred-headed hydra, Life—
Grim monster!—has consumed them.
The friends of your youth and the olden days—
The past has long entombed them.
“You will never again see the gracious flowers
That your young heart worshipped and cherished.
The storm-winds stripped them of their bloom;
They blossomed here, and perished.
“To wither, bruised and trodden down
Beneath Fate's cruel feet, is
The earthly lot, alas! my friend,
Of all that fair and sweet is.”
“And who are you, colossal form,
That welcome thus the rover?
Where you go, may I follow? You seem to me
Like a dream of the days long over.”
The woman, amused, replied with a smile,
“You are wrong. All the world knows me
To be proper, and moral, and daintily bred.
I am not what you suppose me.
“I am none of your little foreign lorettes,
Your Mam'selles cheap and pretty,
But Hammonia, the guardian deity
Of your famous Hamburg city.
“You are taken aback; you are terrified even,
O singer, once undaunted;
Would you still go with me? Come, decide,
And show your courage vaunted.”
But I laughed aloud and cried, “Lead on,
Most divine of lovely ladies!
Lead on, and I'll follow wherever you go,
Were it down to the gates of Hades!”
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