Der Ring des Polykrates (poem)
The Ring of Polycrates is a written in June 1797 and first published in the Muses almanac for the year 1798 famous ballad by Friedrich Schiller. It deals with the issue that the greatest success can only fear the more certain the more deep fall.
Content
The ballad begins with the following words:
He stood on his roof battlements, He looked with hilarious senses On that ruled Samos back. "All these things I humbly, " He began to Egypt's king, " Confess that I am happy. "
The plot of the story is compressed into two days. Twelve of the sixteen verses deal with a unique success messages interrupted, possibly more hour discussion of the tyrant Polycrates of Samos with his friend, on the rich island of Samos to visit because pharaoh Amasis.
In the beginning, however, the two views of " that dominated Samos ," Polycrates his happiness boasts. Thus, two ancient ideas are addressed: the fickleness of Tyche ( Fortuna, happiness ) and the retaliation calling ( Nemesis ) on stoop arrogance ( hubris ). Three times, the more anxious to Polycrates expectant friend to this existing dangers ( the campaign in Asia Minor, the danger to his fleet, the naval power of the Cretans ). But no sooner pronounced, the warnings are unnecessary ( a Siegesbote brings the head of the defeated enemy commander, the Sami fleet runs on a crowned, the message " The Cretans the storm has scattered abroad " will be delivered ). Amasis, thereby not reassured, but horrified ( "I grauet before the gods envy, | unmixed joy of life | was given no Prayer") advises Polycrates to throw him his expensive treasure into the sea to his good fortune to do entry. Polycrates, become questionable, throws his favorite ring into the water.
The next day, the chef appears: The Ring of Polycrates has found itself in a caught fish. Amasis - " The gods want your ruin, | away I hasten not to die with you" - leaves the Polycrates on the spot.
Reception
Schiller could rely on the fact that his readers Polycrates ' future skill knew: He was 522 BC captured by the Persian satrap Oroites and crucified at Mycale. Already Schiller source Herodotus had highlighted this contrast of success and ignominious end in the third book of his Histories.
In a circle around the Schiller ballad next to a variety of approval learned quite some criticism, as the correspondence shows Schiller with his friend Christian Gottfried Körner. Grains held the fabric for too dry. He thought a narrative poem calling for a human main character, and for this the strongest lighting. This he missed in the ring of Polycrates. Thus, the effect of the whole is weakened. The fate can never be the hero of a poem, but rather a person who is struggling with fate. These objections did Schiller are partially, but referred to the opinion of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Korner's term, from which this judge and blame, look at for too tight, and these poems, to which the ring of Polycrates heard as a new one that wanted to know viewed poetry expanding genre.
" The drought that you [ ... ] also on Polycrates notice may be-ing well to separate from the object hardly; because the people darinn just for the sake of the idea are there, and as individuals of the same subordinieren. It therefore merely wondered whether it is possible to make ballads like substances; because a größres life they want hardly tolerated, if the effect of the supersensible is not to lose. I have heard of the ballad not as high concept that poetry should not be held also as a mere means of it. "
The Ballad binds all images in a fast action. It shows that the verse can formulate tighter and sharper than emphasize eg didactic prose about the downside of historical successes. Your conclusion which makes the coming disaster was away, the contemporaries of Napoleon appear as an anticipation of the happiness and the end. She was part of the abiding heritage of German secondary school education until at least the 1970s and was in this context often parodied.
The story of the ring is a well-known hiking legend, which appears among others in the life of St. Asaph.
Musical parodies
The Ring of Polycrates is the title of a 1869 in Munich, first performed burlesque song and dance in one act by August Schaffler and Max Steel with music by Georg Kremplsetzer.
The Ring of Polycrates is also the title of a one-act comic opera by the composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Free The libretto follows the eponymous comedy by Heinrich Teweles. The work was written 1913/14, and was first performed in 1916. The action takes place in 1797. Two couples, a couple and their servant couple who experience a happy love. A guest sows doubt, one decides on the model of Schiller's ballad of freshly printed to throw the ring, and the fate question of the antecedents of women is provided. But the happiness endures. The guest will be " sacrificed to the gods ."