PREFACE.

HE present collection of German Dactylic Poetry

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is intended to introduce into English schools a number of the more difficult, and, for this reason, hitherto less studied compositions of German poetical literature, beginning with Voss and coming down to the most eminent of our living poets, E. Geibel. It is hoped that this collection-small as it is, but containing nothing but gems-will be appreciated by those whose aims are not confined to merely imparting a certain knowledge of the German language, but who endeavour to instil mental culture of the highest order through the medium of German literature-which may in this respect well measure itself with the intellectual and poetical wealth of ancient Greece. To mention but one poem contained in the present volume, it may be said that those who have once mastered the whole purport of Schiller's 'Spaziergang,' will henceforth keep and cherish it as

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a treasure and a joy for ever. The Notes have been prepared with great care, and the Editor has been anxious to avail himself of the labours of preceding commentators, wherever such existed. In the greater part of the work, he was, however, obliged to rely on his own resources. He begs to acknowledge his numerous obligations to Mr R. L. Bensly for the very great care with which that learned gentleman read the commentary before it went to press, and for the valuable suggestions he was kind enough to make.

HAMBURG,

November, 1877.

RULES OF GERMAN PROSODY.

I.

1. All accented syllables are long.

2. All radical syllables are long, whether accented or not. 3. All suffixes and inseparable prefixes are short.

Obs. 1. Monosyllabic auxiliary verbs (hat, ist, muß, will, kann) may sometimes be treated as short. It is not, however, correct to extend this licence to other monosyllabic verbs, such as gibt, lacht, weint etc.

Obs. 2. In compound nouns the second substantive is sometimes, though incorrectly, treated as short by earlier poets, notably by Goethe and Schiller, e. g. Königsburg is L (amphimacer) in modern German prosody, though the writers referred to use it also as U (dactyl).

For further particulars see our introduction to Goethe's Hermann and Dorothea, Pitt Press Edition, pp. xvii. sq.

II.

I. A dactylic hexameter consists of five dactyls (~~), and one trochee (~), or spondee (≤ −).

2. A dactyl (~~) may be replaced by a spondee (-) in the first four feet.

Obs. It is not unfrequently replaced by a trochee (~~), especially when the employment of trisyllabic compounds cannot