You are the garden locked,
Your childlike hands are waiting,
Your lips are without violence.
You are the fountain sealed,
Life’s frozen threshold,
Tart and cold in ignorance.
Take wings, north wind,
Come, south wind, across the hills,
And blow through this grove!
Let all fragrances come awake,
Let life free itself
From sleep’s frozen depth.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Canticum Canticorum IV, 12-16
Du bist der verschlossene Garten,
Deine kindischen Hände warten,
Deine Lippen sind ohne Gewalt.
Du bist die versiegelte Quelle,
Des Lebens starre Schwelle,
Unwissend herb und kalt.
Nimm, Wind von Norden, Flügel,
Lauf, Südwind, über die Hügel
Und weh durch diesen Hain!
Laß alle Düfte triefen,
Aus starren Schlafes Tiefen
Das Leben sich befrein!
Hugo Laurenz August Hofmann von Hofmannsthal (1874 – 1929), was an Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.
Hofmannsthal was born in Landstraße, Vienna, the son of an upper-class Austrian mother, Anna Maria Josefa Fohleutner (1852–1904), and an Austrian–Italian bank manager, Hugo August Peter Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal (1841–1915).His great-grandfather, Isaak Löw Hofmann, Edler von Hofmannsthal, from whom his family inherited the noble title “Edler von Hofmannsthal,” was a Jewish merchant ennobled by the Austrian emperor. He began to write poems and plays from an early age. He met the German poet Stefan George at the age of seventeen and had several poems published in George’s journal, Blätter für die Kunst. He studied law and later philology in Vienna but decided to devote himself to writing upon graduating in 1901. Along with Peter Altenberg and Arthur Schnitzler, he was a member of the avant garde group Young Vienna (Jung Wien).
❀ Photography: Reinfried Marass www.reinfriedmarass.com
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