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Translated by J. O. Sargent
PRINCE, soldier-lad, knight, and swindler in the city of Augsburg meet, | |
| In the hall the councillors brawling, and the people in the street; | |
| While want is abroad in the land, here crowds in the taverns riot; | |
| This thing, what do you call it? It is the Imperial Diet. | |
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| Max stood at the window gazing—on the tumultuous scene, | 5 |
| When entered in homely doublet a man of modest mien; | |
| “Why, Master Dürer, God bless you!” said Max with a joyous start, | |
| “How comes my Apelles to Babel? To the Diet how cometh Art?” | |
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| “I ’ve only one favor to beg, my lord,” the modest master said, | |
| “And may it be kindly granted,” and he humbly bowed his head; | 10 |
| “I would once more paint your portrait, and make of it, in sooth, | |
| The double of its original, in honesty and truth.” | |
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| The emperor in sadness his hand to the artist extends: | |
| “With me ’t is the dusk of evening, and before dark night descends | |
| You ’d be glad to show the landscape in the shadows of twilight drest,— | 15 |
| Well, friend, if that ’s your desire, I cheerfully grant your request.” | |
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| Placing the palette and canvas, the painter his pencil took: | |
| “Yet one thing I pray, my emperor, away with that austere look!” | |
| Max’s eye, fixed on the canvas, with a sudden emotion flashes, | |
| “As dark as the face of your canvas, my thoughts are of dust and ashes.” | 20 |
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| The painter plies his pencil. Mouth, cheeks, nose, looks are there, | |
| And the emperor for laughing falls backward in his chair: | |
| “Ha, ha, there, how defiantly the faithful canvas shows, | |
| As like, as in a looking-glass, my formidable nose.” | |
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| And color on color brightens, as blossoms in spring-time blow, | 25 |
| And the life and breath of spring-time through the circle of colors flow; | |
| Out bloom the colors caressing the lips with a genial smile, | |
| Enthroning with sober earnestness the sombre brow the while. | |
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| “Ah, there is the man entire, the mansion true and old, | |
| And at one of its windows Sorrow, with its chill, sad glance, behold; | 30 |
| Joy stands nodding and smiling at this other window of mine, | |
| For this house nothing remains now but to hang out the crown as a sign! * * * * * | |
| “God bless thee, brother Albert! Pray with my greeting call | |
| Upon Hans Sachs at Nuremburg, the man of rhyme and awl; | |
| When again he writes a poem, a requiem let it be; | 35 |
| You ’ll soon hear a king who is dear to you is dead, say this from me.” | |
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| So speaks the Prince, and sadly looks the honest man in the eye, | |
| And long with a mild expression regards him silently; | |
| The crowned and gilded portrait then contemplates for a while, | |
| And smiles on it as one who would rather weep than smile! | 40 |
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