LiederNet logo

CONTENTS

×
  • Home | Introduction
  • Composers (20,102)
  • Text Authors (19,442)
  • Go to a Random Text
  • What’s New
  • A Small Tour
  • FAQ & Links
  • Donors
  • DONATE

UTILITIES

  • Search Everything
  • Search by Surname
  • Search by Title or First Line
  • Search by Year
  • Search by Collection

CREDITS

  • Emily Ezust
  • Contributors (1,114)
  • Contact Information
  • Bibliography

  • Copyright Statement
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us on Facebook

×

Attention! Some of this material is not in the public domain.

It is illegal to copy and distribute copyright-protected material without permission. It is also illegal to reprint copyright texts or translations without the name of the author or translator.

Note: You must use the copyright symbol © when you reprint copyright-protected material.

See below for more information.

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
Translation © by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947)

Du musst verstehn!
Language: German (Deutsch) 
Du musst verstehn!
Aus Eins mach Zehn,
Und Zwei lass gehn,
Und Drei mach gleich,
So bist du reich.
Verlier die Vier!
Aus Fünf und Sechs -
So sagt die Hex -
Mach Sieben und Acht,
So ists vollbracht:
Und Neun ist Eins,
Und Zehn ist keins,
Das ist das Hexen-Einmaleins!

About the headline (FAQ)

Text Authorship:

  • by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832), no title, appears in Faust, in Der Tragödie erster Teil (Part I) [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

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

  • by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), "Du musst verstehn!", 2011 [ medium voice and piano ] [sung text checked 1 time]

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

  • ENG English (Gary Bachlund) , written 2011, copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2012-01-02
Line count: 13
Word count: 49

Understand this, then!
Language: English  after the German (Deutsch) 
Understand this, then!
From one make ten,
Two go just when
Three finds its niche,
And so you're rich.
The four you nix!
From five and six --
So says the witch --
To make the switch:
And nine is one,
And ten in none,
Now the hex is spun.

About the headline (FAQ)

Rhymed paraphrase.

Text Authorship:

  • by Gary Bachlund (b. 1947), written 2011, copyright © 2011, (re)printed on this website with kind permission [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Based on:

  • a text in German (Deutsch) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832), no title, appears in Faust, in Der Tragödie erster Teil (Part I)
    • Go to the text page.

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

    [ None yet in the database ]


Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]

This text was added to the website: 2012-01-02
Line count: 12
Word count: 48

Gentle Reminder

This website began in 1995 as a personal project by Emily Ezust, who has been working on it full-time without a salary since 2008. Our research has never had any government or institutional funding, so if you found the information here useful, please consider making a donation. Your help is greatly appreciated!
–Emily Ezust, Founder

Donate

We use cookies for internal analytics and to earn much-needed advertising revenue. (Did you know you can help support us by turning off ad-blockers?) To learn more, see our Privacy Policy. To learn how to opt out of cookies, please visit this site.

I acknowledge the use of cookies

Contact
Copyright
Privacy

Copyright © 2025 The LiederNet Archive

Site redesign by Shawn Thuris