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The Elf King
Erlkönig
(J.W. Goethe)
Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.
Who rides so late through night and wind? Have you ever walked by night, true night? Your street lamps drinking feebly from kerosene tins, they give you false day by night. They toss thin yellow straws like shredded suns before your feet. Stray from the black brick boxes of your houses, beyond the sickly-lit faces of your cobblestones, and there will be the ones who travel by night.
It is the father with his child;/ He folds the boy close in his arms,/He clasps him securely, he holds him warmly./He has always known the night, and he has taught the boy as well. The boys learns well, and does not sink into the pitch black, yawning mouth of the night. He is able to pick up his feet and they patter as he trots along. He picks out the teeth of treetops, clamping down on a sky to keep it from flying away from the earth. He can see in darkness; he can feel in the darkness. He recognizes his father by his different darkness, solemn dark swirls in his eyes as he glances down.
'Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?'
'Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron' und Schweif?'
'Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.'
"My son, why do you hide your face so anxiously?" The boy turns his chin from one side of the road to another, thoughtful and wise in knowing one track of blackened woodland is different from all others. He is quick and keeps his eyes ahead. His father only looks back when he knows his son is looking at his back and will show him his face. His face is gone. His father only sees his son's cheek, pale and white like the broad side of the moon. The real moon is gone. His boy has no eyes for him.
"Father, don't you see the Erlking?/The Erlking with his crown and his train?" His father and the elf king, they have the same crowns. Steep hats that pull at the night sky. They might be brothers. The boy would ask if his father is related to royalty. But the father gently turns his son's face away from the elf king leering from beyond the spindly black gates of his forest kingdom. Revelers with eyes marked like stars dance behind him. The tree branches lock him in and lock them out. "My son, it is a streak of mist."
'Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel' ich mit dir;
Manch' bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gulden Gewand.'
"Dear child, come go with me!/ I'll play the prettiest games with you./ Many colored flowers grow along the shore;/ my mother has many golden garments." The boy takes a step towards the elf king's invitation. His father takes his hand and leads him away, into the same night. The night that has no parties but has tree tops biting down on the sky to keep the earth together.
'Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht?'
'Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind.'
"My father, my father, and don't you hear/ the Erlking whispering promises to me?"/
The boy sees white for the first time in the gleaming row of the elf king's smile. They float, glowing, in a latticework ballroom, black sylvan arms linking together to put walls around his whirling guests. They are costumed like tarred angels, charcoal wings whirring. The elf king will dye him black and make him a fairy creature; he will reign as the prince of the holiday mass. The boy pulls his father's hand. His father puts a hand over his mouth to stifle the request. "Be quiet, stay quiet, my child;/ the wind is rustling in the dead leaves."
'Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn,
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.'
"My handsome boy, will you come with me?/ My daughters shall wait upon you;/ my daughters lead off in the dance every night,/and cradle and dance and sing you to sleep."
His children are gray and lovely, like when the dawn eats the night and laves the bushes into dingy boulders. They are seraphim leading the star-patterned chorus. They wear tiaras made of briars caught in fire, beautiful thorny headdresses in rich black hair. They keep the best crown for him, passing it back and forth on ashen hands they delicately sway their bodies.
Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort?'
'Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh' es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau.'
My father, my father, and don't you see there/The Erlking's daughters in the shadows?"
His father's vortex eyes follow the point of his son's pointed finger and they yank the elf king's frolicking offspring to a standstill. Their faces twist when their lissome bodies crack like old stone when they are stalled by his stirring night in his eyes. "My son, my son, I see it clearly;/ the old willows look so gray."
'Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt.'
'Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan!'
"I love you, your beautiful figure delights me!/ And if you are not willing, then I shall use force!"/ "My father, my father now he is taking hold of me!/ The Erlking has hurt me!"
The boy tips over on the pinnacle of the world: a hill with many crossed bars. He has left the night because his father, for whom the night was home, has left. He lives in a place with no phases of light, for tears are tears and hold him in dim blindness. The sky gleefully veers higher and higher and further and further away from the earth in escape. There is but one frail tree grasping at the violet, studded edges of its ascending skirt. The elf king comes calling from his kingdom to the funeral to foster in the orphaned princeling.
Dem Vater grauset's, er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreichet den Hof mit Müh' und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind was tot.
The father shudders, he rides swiftly on;
He holds in his arms his groaning child.
He reaches the courtyard weary and anxious:
in his arms the child was dead.
Author's Note: I love this poem and thought it was completely right for D. Gray-man.