Castalia 373
News from Nowhere
Dear Friends,
I’m so happy to share with you…
Wie lange noch? [How long?] (1944)
by Kurt Weill (1900 — 1950)
to a text by Walter Mehring (1896 — 1981)
performed by Ishmael Wallace, tenor and pianist
The German (please scroll down for my translation):
Wie lange noch?
Ich will's dir gesteh'n, es war eine Nacht,
da hab' ich mich willig dir hingegeben.
Du hast mich gehabt, von den Sinnen gebracht,
Ich glaubte ich könnte nicht ohne dich leben.
Du hast mich das Blaue vom Himmel versprochen
und ich habe dich wie 'nen Vater gepflegt.
Du hast mich gemartert, hast mich zerbrochen.
Ich hätt dir die Erde zu Füssen gelegt.
Sieh' mich doch an! Sieh’ mich doch an!
Wann kommt der Tag an dem ich dir sage: es ist vorbei!
Wann kommt der Tag, ach der Tag nach dem ich bange?
Wie lange noch? Wie lange noch? Wie lange?
Ich hab' dir geglaubt, ich war wie im Wahn
Von all' deinen Reden, von deinen Schwüren.
Was immer du wolltest, das hab' ich getan.
Wohin du auch wolltest, da liess ich mich führen.
Du hast mir das Blaue von Himmel versprochen
und ich! Ach ich hab' nicht zu weinen gewagt.
Doch du hast dein Wort, deine Schwüre gebrochen.
Ich habe geschwiegen un hab' mich geplagt.
Sieh' mich doch an!…
How long?
I will admit, there was a night
I willingly gave myself to you.
You drove me utterly insane;
I thought without you, I must die.
You promised me the heaven’s blue;
I cherished you as a daughter might.
You tortured, broke me through and through;
I’d have placed the whole world at your feet.
Look at me! When will it come, the day I tell you, “It’s over!”
When will it come, that day I dread?
How long now? How long?
I believed you, like a lunatic —
Believed your fine speeches, your vows.
Whatever you wished, I did it —
Where you wished to go, I let myself be led.
You promised me the heaven’s blue;
I did not dare to weep.
But you lied — broke all your promises!
I stewed and bit my lip.
Look at me…
(translation by IW)
So many years I have lived in the house of fear — hoping to win a glance from you, hoping to win a word of praise. I have struggled to breathe, struggled to swallow, struggled to prove I was a proper person.
Yet a step away, one sunswept tile away, is the house of love — the house where a crown waits, where a banquet is spread for me.
When our Lord healed the lepers, what exactly did He do? John Dominic Crossan suggests He defined leprosy away — redefined health to include leprosy. A common strategy in this world!
More likely, he showed the lepers what they were in Him.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
as Rumi writes1, there is no thought of the skin, no thought of right or wrong — but the skin improves.
Goodness appears when there is no thought of being good, when we are simply living in love2.
The house of love, William Morris has well described in his News from Nowhere, an anarchist utopia — anarchocommunist — which people of traditional bent also can treasure. It is that house in which one works, not from a sense of scarcity, but from genuine interest. This has always been a factor in work!
So I put my hand into my waistcoat-pocket, and said [to the boatman], “How much?” though still with the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps I was offering money to a gentleman. He looked puzzled, and said, “How much? I don’t quite understand what you are asking about. Do you mean the tide?…”
Thank you so much for reading, and for your support!
With every good wish,
Ishmael
Music as a Path:
I help musicians and music lovers deepen their connection with music through coaching online: counterpoint, harmony, analysis, composition, interpretation… For more details, please see my website:
In translation by Coleman Barks.
When one has first learned of good and evil, and is trying to be good, how much harm one does!