------
For the second time in a week, Jean found herself unable to focus on her book. It was her turn to monitor the communications network. She was sitting at the main computer terminal, feet propped up on a server. In the seat next to her Doug was fiddling with a keyboard, eyes locked on the screen in front of him. She glanced at it for a moment and couldn't make head or tail of it.
"What are you doing, Doug?" The Professor would have a fit if something went wrong with the computer system. The mainframe in this room controlled not only the Institute's automatic defense system, but also handled most of the processing for the danger room and, most importantly, Cerebro. "Doug?"
The other boy turned to her, eyes slightly out of focus. "String ConStr = "User=Microsoft.Jet.OleDB.4.0; Data Source = x:\\mcs\\ComSatControl\\NASA.mdb?"
Jean's jaw dropped. What the heck? Doug was still looking intently at her with those strangely unfocused eyes.
"W-what?" she stammered. "Are you all right? Doug? Can you hear me?"
"DataRow AddNewRow1 = dDataSet.Tables["Institute"].Rows.Add..." Doug trailed off and shook his head. When he looked back at Jean, she saw he was actually focused on her face and breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry. What were you saying?"
Jean slipped a bookmark into 'Wuthering Heights' and set it aside. She sat back in her chair.
"What was all that about?" she asked him.
He shrugged. "Sorry. I guess I got a little caught up in what I was doing." Yeah. And elephants are kinda large. Nice understatement. "That happens occasionally. Drawback of my mutation, I guess. It's hard to explain," he said with a slight frown.
Jean raised her hands. "May I?"
The boy hesitated then shrugged. Jean took that as assent and cupped her hands around his head, closing her eyes. She reached out with her mind and...
...found herself floating in one of the most orderly minds she'd ever encountered. This was almost on a par with the Professor, she thought as she looked around. She turned around the image of his mind, marveling at the structure she found. Everywhere she looked she could see 'Doug' tapping something into a computer or writing on a chalkboard or in a notebook, or arguing with another simulacrum. There were shelves of books reaching high into the air all around her with more 'Dougs' consulting various references. A flicker caught her eye and she looked up.
Ah, she thought, I must be in his subconscious. Willing her projection to rise, she floated impossibly high through a glass ceiling - or floor, she corrected herself. The new scape was somewhat less structured and neat. In fact, it pretty much resembled the bedroom of any adolescent boy. Clothing was strewn about the room. Books were stacked precariously on the desk and floor, large stacks threatening to topple at the slightest breeze. There was only one 'Doug' here, and she knew instinctively that this was the Ego, or the Self. In other words, the real Doug.
'Hi,' the Ego-Doug said to her, setting aside a copy of 'Games' magazine. 'Get lost on your way in?'
'Sort of,' she admitted. Usually she found herself in a subject's conscious mind, not his subconscious. 'It's all subliminal, isn't it? Your power, that is.'
'Pretty much. I don't think about translating, I just do it. When I'm worked up, or really focused on something, I lose myself sometimes.' The Ego-Doug pointed at the floor. Jean looked down, seeing a wooden trapdoor set with a thick iron ring. 'When Kurt started bitching at me in German, that thing opened and I got swarmed.'
'I don't understand.'
'You kinda had to be there.'
Jean thought about that for a moment.
'You up for an experiment?' she asked the simulacrum. His response was a shrug.
She sent her thought out. 'Kurt! Come here!'
[...bamf...]
How odd that the sound is muted when I'm inside another mind, Jean thought. You'd think I'd hear it as loud as it usually is through Doug's ears. She opened her eyes - her real eyes - and looked around. Kurt was crouching on the back of her chair, blinking at her from above.
"You...rang?" he rumbled in as deep a voice as he could. Jean snickered. He was trying to sound like Lurch from the Addams Family, but came across more like Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley - with a heavy Teutonic accent, that is.
"It's dull around here and I thought I'd try to learn more about Doug's power. Mind helping us?"
Kurt nodded, flopping onto the other chair in the room. He took a moment to make himself comfortable, finally giving up and just curling up in it with his tail wrapped over one arm.
"Vhat you vant me to do?" he asked her.
"Just start talking in German. Anything. I want to see precisely how Doug's mind processes it." The little blue mutant shrugged and crossed himself. Catching her raised eyebrow, Kurt spread his hands.
"Vhat?"
"Sorry, go on." Jean closed her eyes and slipped back into Doug's mind. The Ego-Doug pulled of a pair of earphones and reached over to shut off a stereo system. She caught the faintest sound of 'Erasure' before he stopped the CD.
'Thought you'd never be back,' he said. She waved the simulacrum to silence.
'Shh,' she whispered. 'Listen.'
"...im Himmel, Geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein...[1]" she heard Kurt's voice as though through a thick wall. A grating sound distracted her and she looked down, jumping back just in time to avoid the trapdoor swinging up. Another Doug climbed up through the door, dropping it shut behind him.
Jean took a long look at this new mind-Doug. He was wearing, of all things, a white cassock and had a purple stole around his neck. A richly- encrusted cross hung from a golden chain on his neck, echoing the jeweled skullcap perched on his blond head. Tucked under his left arm was a leather-bound Bible. Without missing a beat, the new Doug flipped open the book and started reading.
'...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven...'
Jean blinked and looked at the Ego-Doug with wide eyes. The original Doug scratched his nose and shrugged helplessly at her.
'It just happens, I swear. If it isn't German, another of these guys comes up and starts translating for me,' Ego-Doug told her.
'Excuse me,' the other mind-Doug snapped testily. 'I'm trying to translate here.' Jean raised her eyebrows, but quieted anyway. The priest- Doug continued, shooting a nasty glare at her for her apparent interruption. 'Give us this day, our daily bread...'
'What's with the vestments?' she whispered to Ego-Doug.
'I'm not sure,' he replied, earning another glare from the priest- Doug.
"...und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit.[2] Amen," Kurt finished. "Vant me to continue?"
'...glory for all eternity, amen,' the priest-Doug echoed. Snapping the book shut, it wrenched open the trapdoor and disappeared through it. The trapdoor shut with a slam, leaving Jean alone with Ego-Doug. They exchanged another look.
'You think that one's bad, you should have seen what came up yesterday afternoon in the rec room,' Ego-Doug said, shivering at the memory. He crossed his arms and leaned against the desk. 'Fourteen - I counted them - Viking berserkers marched through that thing,' he gestured at the trapdoor, 'and started shouting in heavily-accented English. They all looked just like me!'
'Have you ever been down there?' she asked. 'Into your subconscious, I mean?'
Ego-Doug shook his head quickly. 'Are you kidding? You wouldn't believe some of the...the...well, some of the Dougs that have come out of there.'
'I can imagine,' Jean said. 'I'm going to ask Kurt to say something else in German, but I'm going back into your subconscious, first. Do you want to come along? I promise nothing is going to hurt you.'
"Jean?" Kurt asked her.
"One sec," she said aloud.
'I know I can't get hurt down there,' Ego-Doug told her. 'It's just weird seeing ME all over the place.' He sighed, and bent to open the door. 'Oh, well. At least I'll have company this time.'
Ego-Doug climbed down a ladder which appeared just below the door. Jean willed her projection through the floor, following the simulacrum to his well-ordered subconscious mind. The other Dougs paid them no mind as they entered, instead going about their own duties.
'Now what?' Ego-Doug asked, edging slightly closer to her.
"Say something else, Kurt, and make it something long," Jean said to Kurt. She must have overcompensated for the sound-dampening properties of mental contact, because the little blue guy jumped at her voice.
"Sheesh! You are talking to me or the whole mansion?"
"Sorry."
'Well?'
'Hang on, Kurt's trying to think of something he can recite at you. Us. Whatever,' she said. Almost immediately, the lights went out, only to be replaced by a red glow. Jean was uncomfortably reminded of the emergency lights in a movie theatre. All over the vast room, lights were snapping on at various desks and each and every Doug was carrying a penlight.
"Du bist wie eine Blume, So hold und schön und rein...[3]" Kurt started.
Jean and Ego-Doug looked around, fully expecting another simulacrum to join them. Instead, the other Dougs were all quickly looking through various books or looking things up on...
...oh, come on. There's no Internet in the mind. How on Earth was THAT one accessing an online dictionary?
A sharp white light flicked on high above them and Jean instinctively looked toward the light. There was a Doug on top of the ladder, looking bewildered. Jean wondered how he managed to wear lederhosen without blushing. Doug, the real Doug, looked like a blond-haired, blue-eyed young man from any northern European country. In that particular outfit, though, the mind-Doug looked like an extra from 'The Sound of Music.'
Jean had to bite back the question of whether or not all that leather was chafing his thighs.
'Hey! We got a problem, guys. The boss isn't up here,' the lederhosen-clad-Doug shouted down. 'I think. Man, what a freakin' pigsty. How can we live up here?'
'Give us a little credit,' another mind-Doug yelled back. 'We'll grow out of it. Eventually, anyway,' he added.
'Hold on, I found us,' another one called from behind them. Jean and Ego-Doug turned around to find another of the simulacrums. This one opened a book and thumbed to a page near the end. 'Sorry about the delay, boss,' he started. Then the mind-Doug saw Jean.
"...betend, daß Gott dich erhalte...[4]"
'Well, hello cutie,' the mind-Doug said. 'Don't mind me.' Then he started translating.
Jean looked around. Most of the other Dougs were not paying them any mind. Once in a while, another would run up to the one translating for them and pass along a note. The translator would correct himself and continue reading without stopping for breath. How interesting, Jean thought. Doug doesn't even have to concentrate. His mind just continually processes the information for him and passes it along.
They walked around the floor of the subconscious for a while, trailed by the ever-present translator. This one didn't seem to mind her presence nearly as much as the priest-Doug and so she and Ego-Doug were able to carry on a conversation.
'What's behind this door?' she asked as they neared a wall. A steel door was set into it, and a low hum emanated from behind the sealed entryway.
'Probably the computer language translators. It's a little freaky when one of those comes upstairs,' Ego-Doug replied. 'It still looks like me, but it's sort of black with gold circuitry covering it.'
Ah. How odd. They walked along in silence. The translator-Doug still followed along, cheerfully going on about a beautiful woman on a cliff somewhere.
"Und das hat mit ihrem Singen, Die Loreley getan.[5] Ok, Jean. How vas that?"
Jean patted Ego-Doug on the shoulder. 'I think I have an idea of how this works now,' she said, smiling at him.
'Good,' he said, blushing slightly. 'Maybe you can help me learn to keep it under control, then." She ruffled his hair in reply, then went back into her own mind.
Opening her eyes, she dropped her hands from Doug's temples and sat back.
"That was great, Kurt. Thank you," she told the little German.
"Bitte schoën," he said.
"By the way, what was that second bit?" Doug asked. "The first one was the Lord's Prayer, but I didn't recognize the other."
Jean swore Kurt was blushing under his fur. It was so hard to tell sometimes.
In response, Kurt hummed a couple bars of a tune. At their blank look, he shook his head. "It is from a song, Die Lorelei. Traditional love song back home."
A love song?
"And what made you think of that, Kurt?" Jean asked him in a teasing voice.
[Bamf!]
Hmph. Well, if that wasn't rude...
Doug snickered beside her and turned back toward the computer terminal. With a glance at the ceiling, Jean sent a questing thought toward Kurt's room and found him perched on the balcony railing, watching something in the back yard. Shaking her head in amusement, she picked up her book and flipped open to her marked page.
------
This scene started off a lot smaller, but I had a sudden inspiration from my 'Muse of Whimsicality' and just couldn't resist.
Translations:
[1]: ".in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name." (Not exactly, but it's the tail- end of the first line of the Lord's Prayer. You get the picture.
[2]: This is the last bit of the final line of the Lord's Prayer, which in English is usually spoken as 'For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.'
[3], [4], [5]: These don't really translate very well since they are snippets of a poem. All three lines are from 'Die Lorelei,' the first stanza of which is reproduced below.
Auf Deutsch: Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, Daß ich so traurig bin, Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn. Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt, Und ruhig fließt der Rhein; Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt, Im Abendsonnenschein.
Or, in English: I don't know, whatever hath befallen me, That I so pensive should be. From out of the past, an old legend Keeps haunting my memory: The air is cool, and the darkness Descends, in the vale of the Rhine; The tops of the hills are still glowing, Reflecting the evening sun's shine. - Heinrich Heine, 1823.
It's actually a little haunting in places, the melody that is. Still, it's quite beautiful and really is a traditional love song in German. For more information about this, run a Google on 'Die Lorelei' and have a blast. If you can find a downloadable copy of it, listen to it - you won't be disappointed.
Cheers, folks. Remember to leave a review.
For the second time in a week, Jean found herself unable to focus on her book. It was her turn to monitor the communications network. She was sitting at the main computer terminal, feet propped up on a server. In the seat next to her Doug was fiddling with a keyboard, eyes locked on the screen in front of him. She glanced at it for a moment and couldn't make head or tail of it.
"What are you doing, Doug?" The Professor would have a fit if something went wrong with the computer system. The mainframe in this room controlled not only the Institute's automatic defense system, but also handled most of the processing for the danger room and, most importantly, Cerebro. "Doug?"
The other boy turned to her, eyes slightly out of focus. "String ConStr = "User=Microsoft.Jet.OleDB.4.0; Data Source = x:\\mcs\\ComSatControl\\NASA.mdb?"
Jean's jaw dropped. What the heck? Doug was still looking intently at her with those strangely unfocused eyes.
"W-what?" she stammered. "Are you all right? Doug? Can you hear me?"
"DataRow AddNewRow1 = dDataSet.Tables["Institute"].Rows.Add..." Doug trailed off and shook his head. When he looked back at Jean, she saw he was actually focused on her face and breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry. What were you saying?"
Jean slipped a bookmark into 'Wuthering Heights' and set it aside. She sat back in her chair.
"What was all that about?" she asked him.
He shrugged. "Sorry. I guess I got a little caught up in what I was doing." Yeah. And elephants are kinda large. Nice understatement. "That happens occasionally. Drawback of my mutation, I guess. It's hard to explain," he said with a slight frown.
Jean raised her hands. "May I?"
The boy hesitated then shrugged. Jean took that as assent and cupped her hands around his head, closing her eyes. She reached out with her mind and...
...found herself floating in one of the most orderly minds she'd ever encountered. This was almost on a par with the Professor, she thought as she looked around. She turned around the image of his mind, marveling at the structure she found. Everywhere she looked she could see 'Doug' tapping something into a computer or writing on a chalkboard or in a notebook, or arguing with another simulacrum. There were shelves of books reaching high into the air all around her with more 'Dougs' consulting various references. A flicker caught her eye and she looked up.
Ah, she thought, I must be in his subconscious. Willing her projection to rise, she floated impossibly high through a glass ceiling - or floor, she corrected herself. The new scape was somewhat less structured and neat. In fact, it pretty much resembled the bedroom of any adolescent boy. Clothing was strewn about the room. Books were stacked precariously on the desk and floor, large stacks threatening to topple at the slightest breeze. There was only one 'Doug' here, and she knew instinctively that this was the Ego, or the Self. In other words, the real Doug.
'Hi,' the Ego-Doug said to her, setting aside a copy of 'Games' magazine. 'Get lost on your way in?'
'Sort of,' she admitted. Usually she found herself in a subject's conscious mind, not his subconscious. 'It's all subliminal, isn't it? Your power, that is.'
'Pretty much. I don't think about translating, I just do it. When I'm worked up, or really focused on something, I lose myself sometimes.' The Ego-Doug pointed at the floor. Jean looked down, seeing a wooden trapdoor set with a thick iron ring. 'When Kurt started bitching at me in German, that thing opened and I got swarmed.'
'I don't understand.'
'You kinda had to be there.'
Jean thought about that for a moment.
'You up for an experiment?' she asked the simulacrum. His response was a shrug.
She sent her thought out. 'Kurt! Come here!'
[...bamf...]
How odd that the sound is muted when I'm inside another mind, Jean thought. You'd think I'd hear it as loud as it usually is through Doug's ears. She opened her eyes - her real eyes - and looked around. Kurt was crouching on the back of her chair, blinking at her from above.
"You...rang?" he rumbled in as deep a voice as he could. Jean snickered. He was trying to sound like Lurch from the Addams Family, but came across more like Squiggy from Laverne and Shirley - with a heavy Teutonic accent, that is.
"It's dull around here and I thought I'd try to learn more about Doug's power. Mind helping us?"
Kurt nodded, flopping onto the other chair in the room. He took a moment to make himself comfortable, finally giving up and just curling up in it with his tail wrapped over one arm.
"Vhat you vant me to do?" he asked her.
"Just start talking in German. Anything. I want to see precisely how Doug's mind processes it." The little blue mutant shrugged and crossed himself. Catching her raised eyebrow, Kurt spread his hands.
"Vhat?"
"Sorry, go on." Jean closed her eyes and slipped back into Doug's mind. The Ego-Doug pulled of a pair of earphones and reached over to shut off a stereo system. She caught the faintest sound of 'Erasure' before he stopped the CD.
'Thought you'd never be back,' he said. She waved the simulacrum to silence.
'Shh,' she whispered. 'Listen.'
"...im Himmel, Geheiligt werde dein Name. Dein...[1]" she heard Kurt's voice as though through a thick wall. A grating sound distracted her and she looked down, jumping back just in time to avoid the trapdoor swinging up. Another Doug climbed up through the door, dropping it shut behind him.
Jean took a long look at this new mind-Doug. He was wearing, of all things, a white cassock and had a purple stole around his neck. A richly- encrusted cross hung from a golden chain on his neck, echoing the jeweled skullcap perched on his blond head. Tucked under his left arm was a leather-bound Bible. Without missing a beat, the new Doug flipped open the book and started reading.
'...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven...'
Jean blinked and looked at the Ego-Doug with wide eyes. The original Doug scratched his nose and shrugged helplessly at her.
'It just happens, I swear. If it isn't German, another of these guys comes up and starts translating for me,' Ego-Doug told her.
'Excuse me,' the other mind-Doug snapped testily. 'I'm trying to translate here.' Jean raised her eyebrows, but quieted anyway. The priest- Doug continued, shooting a nasty glare at her for her apparent interruption. 'Give us this day, our daily bread...'
'What's with the vestments?' she whispered to Ego-Doug.
'I'm not sure,' he replied, earning another glare from the priest- Doug.
"...und die Herrlichkeit in Ewigkeit.[2] Amen," Kurt finished. "Vant me to continue?"
'...glory for all eternity, amen,' the priest-Doug echoed. Snapping the book shut, it wrenched open the trapdoor and disappeared through it. The trapdoor shut with a slam, leaving Jean alone with Ego-Doug. They exchanged another look.
'You think that one's bad, you should have seen what came up yesterday afternoon in the rec room,' Ego-Doug said, shivering at the memory. He crossed his arms and leaned against the desk. 'Fourteen - I counted them - Viking berserkers marched through that thing,' he gestured at the trapdoor, 'and started shouting in heavily-accented English. They all looked just like me!'
'Have you ever been down there?' she asked. 'Into your subconscious, I mean?'
Ego-Doug shook his head quickly. 'Are you kidding? You wouldn't believe some of the...the...well, some of the Dougs that have come out of there.'
'I can imagine,' Jean said. 'I'm going to ask Kurt to say something else in German, but I'm going back into your subconscious, first. Do you want to come along? I promise nothing is going to hurt you.'
"Jean?" Kurt asked her.
"One sec," she said aloud.
'I know I can't get hurt down there,' Ego-Doug told her. 'It's just weird seeing ME all over the place.' He sighed, and bent to open the door. 'Oh, well. At least I'll have company this time.'
Ego-Doug climbed down a ladder which appeared just below the door. Jean willed her projection through the floor, following the simulacrum to his well-ordered subconscious mind. The other Dougs paid them no mind as they entered, instead going about their own duties.
'Now what?' Ego-Doug asked, edging slightly closer to her.
"Say something else, Kurt, and make it something long," Jean said to Kurt. She must have overcompensated for the sound-dampening properties of mental contact, because the little blue guy jumped at her voice.
"Sheesh! You are talking to me or the whole mansion?"
"Sorry."
'Well?'
'Hang on, Kurt's trying to think of something he can recite at you. Us. Whatever,' she said. Almost immediately, the lights went out, only to be replaced by a red glow. Jean was uncomfortably reminded of the emergency lights in a movie theatre. All over the vast room, lights were snapping on at various desks and each and every Doug was carrying a penlight.
"Du bist wie eine Blume, So hold und schön und rein...[3]" Kurt started.
Jean and Ego-Doug looked around, fully expecting another simulacrum to join them. Instead, the other Dougs were all quickly looking through various books or looking things up on...
...oh, come on. There's no Internet in the mind. How on Earth was THAT one accessing an online dictionary?
A sharp white light flicked on high above them and Jean instinctively looked toward the light. There was a Doug on top of the ladder, looking bewildered. Jean wondered how he managed to wear lederhosen without blushing. Doug, the real Doug, looked like a blond-haired, blue-eyed young man from any northern European country. In that particular outfit, though, the mind-Doug looked like an extra from 'The Sound of Music.'
Jean had to bite back the question of whether or not all that leather was chafing his thighs.
'Hey! We got a problem, guys. The boss isn't up here,' the lederhosen-clad-Doug shouted down. 'I think. Man, what a freakin' pigsty. How can we live up here?'
'Give us a little credit,' another mind-Doug yelled back. 'We'll grow out of it. Eventually, anyway,' he added.
'Hold on, I found us,' another one called from behind them. Jean and Ego-Doug turned around to find another of the simulacrums. This one opened a book and thumbed to a page near the end. 'Sorry about the delay, boss,' he started. Then the mind-Doug saw Jean.
"...betend, daß Gott dich erhalte...[4]"
'Well, hello cutie,' the mind-Doug said. 'Don't mind me.' Then he started translating.
Jean looked around. Most of the other Dougs were not paying them any mind. Once in a while, another would run up to the one translating for them and pass along a note. The translator would correct himself and continue reading without stopping for breath. How interesting, Jean thought. Doug doesn't even have to concentrate. His mind just continually processes the information for him and passes it along.
They walked around the floor of the subconscious for a while, trailed by the ever-present translator. This one didn't seem to mind her presence nearly as much as the priest-Doug and so she and Ego-Doug were able to carry on a conversation.
'What's behind this door?' she asked as they neared a wall. A steel door was set into it, and a low hum emanated from behind the sealed entryway.
'Probably the computer language translators. It's a little freaky when one of those comes upstairs,' Ego-Doug replied. 'It still looks like me, but it's sort of black with gold circuitry covering it.'
Ah. How odd. They walked along in silence. The translator-Doug still followed along, cheerfully going on about a beautiful woman on a cliff somewhere.
"Und das hat mit ihrem Singen, Die Loreley getan.[5] Ok, Jean. How vas that?"
Jean patted Ego-Doug on the shoulder. 'I think I have an idea of how this works now,' she said, smiling at him.
'Good,' he said, blushing slightly. 'Maybe you can help me learn to keep it under control, then." She ruffled his hair in reply, then went back into her own mind.
Opening her eyes, she dropped her hands from Doug's temples and sat back.
"That was great, Kurt. Thank you," she told the little German.
"Bitte schoën," he said.
"By the way, what was that second bit?" Doug asked. "The first one was the Lord's Prayer, but I didn't recognize the other."
Jean swore Kurt was blushing under his fur. It was so hard to tell sometimes.
In response, Kurt hummed a couple bars of a tune. At their blank look, he shook his head. "It is from a song, Die Lorelei. Traditional love song back home."
A love song?
"And what made you think of that, Kurt?" Jean asked him in a teasing voice.
[Bamf!]
Hmph. Well, if that wasn't rude...
Doug snickered beside her and turned back toward the computer terminal. With a glance at the ceiling, Jean sent a questing thought toward Kurt's room and found him perched on the balcony railing, watching something in the back yard. Shaking her head in amusement, she picked up her book and flipped open to her marked page.
------
This scene started off a lot smaller, but I had a sudden inspiration from my 'Muse of Whimsicality' and just couldn't resist.
Translations:
[1]: ".in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name." (Not exactly, but it's the tail- end of the first line of the Lord's Prayer. You get the picture.
[2]: This is the last bit of the final line of the Lord's Prayer, which in English is usually spoken as 'For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.'
[3], [4], [5]: These don't really translate very well since they are snippets of a poem. All three lines are from 'Die Lorelei,' the first stanza of which is reproduced below.
Auf Deutsch: Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten, Daß ich so traurig bin, Ein Märchen aus uralten Zeiten, Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn. Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt, Und ruhig fließt der Rhein; Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt, Im Abendsonnenschein.
Or, in English: I don't know, whatever hath befallen me, That I so pensive should be. From out of the past, an old legend Keeps haunting my memory: The air is cool, and the darkness Descends, in the vale of the Rhine; The tops of the hills are still glowing, Reflecting the evening sun's shine. - Heinrich Heine, 1823.
It's actually a little haunting in places, the melody that is. Still, it's quite beautiful and really is a traditional love song in German. For more information about this, run a Google on 'Die Lorelei' and have a blast. If you can find a downloadable copy of it, listen to it - you won't be disappointed.
Cheers, folks. Remember to leave a review.