by Joseph Viktor von Scheffel (1826 - 1886)
Translation © by Grant Hicks

Tristicia amorosa
Language: Latin 
Our translations:  ENG
Si liceret te amare 
ad Suevorum magnum mare 
sponsam te perducerem ..
stat nigerrimi basaltis 
mons et arx, cuius sub altis 
muris te reconderem.

Gloriabundus citharoedus 
gratum celebrarem foedus 
cantans ut luscinia: 
heia gaudium, tecum stare 
in fenestris et monstrare 
patriae confinia:

»Ecce pagum iuxta pagum, 
aurispledens, ingens, vagum 
aequor, en, podamicum .. 
fortes prope ripas nati 
cognomento non irati 
leporum lacustrium.«

Sed iam tace, cantilena:
desideria tam serena 
clam fovisse satis est .. 
rudi doctam adorare, 
doctae rudem educare 
eheu! non in fatis est!

Dolor animam infestat, 
desperanti nihil restat 
nisi vanum somnium ... 
O Viola byzantina, 
have, stella peregrina, 
dulcitudo omnium!

Confirmed with Joseph Viktor Scheffel, Frau Aventiure. Lieder aus Heinrich von Ofterdingen's Zeit, Stuttgart: Verlag der J. B. Metzler'schen Buchhandlung, 1873, Pages 135-136.

Note: The poem bears the following epigraph from Vol. I, page 96 of the Lieder-Saal ("Hall of Songs"), a collection of Middle High German poetry published beginning in 1820:

.. und sag ir uz getrüwem mut
früntschaft, lieb und alles gut,
von wunsch ir dazu liebes mê
denn trophen hab der Bodemsê.

...and speak to her with faithful heart 
of friendship, love, and all good things,
that you wish her in addition more love
than there are drops in the Bodensee.


Text Authorship:

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

  • ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "A Lover's Sadness", copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2013-12-27
Line count: 30
Word count: 102

A Lover's Sadness
Language: English  after the Latin 
If I were allowed to love you,
to the great sea of the Swabians
I would bring you as my betrothed ...
there, made of blackest basalt, stands
a mount and citadel, behind whose high 
walls I would conceal you.

Playing exultantly upon the lute
I would celebrate our happy covenant
singing like the nightingale:
what joy, to stand with you 
in the windows and point out
the boundaries of our homeland:

"Behold village after village;
sparkling like gold, the vast, unsettled 
sea — there, the Bodensee.
The hardy folk born by its banks
are not angered by the nickname
of 'lake hares'."

But now be silent, little song:
desires so serene 
it is enough to have cherished in secret ...
for the ignorant to honor the learned woman,
for the learned woman to educate the ignorant,
alas! this is not destined to be!

Sorrow infests the soul,
to the hopeless nothing remains 
but a vain dream;
O Violet of Byzantium,
hail, exotic star,
sweetness of all!

Note for stanza 3, line 6: the nickname Seehase, which can be translated as "sea hare" or "lake hare", has long been applied to the inhabitants of the Bodensee (Lake Constance, located on the Rhine at the northern foot of the Alps), according to Joseph Eiselein in his Badisches Sagen-Buch (Karlsruhe: Creuzbauer und Hasper, 1846).

Text Authorship:

  • Translation from Latin to English copyright © 2026 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
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This text was added to the website: 2026-04-06
Line count: 30
Word count: 165