Der Maler Friedrich Preller der Ältere wurde heute vor zweihundertzwanzig Jahren geboren, er war kein besonders guter Maler. Aber einige seiner Bilder sind von klein auf in meinem Kopf. Weil seine nackten Frauen so kugelig gedrechselte Brüste haben. Das hatte ich mit sechzehn in einem Bildband meines Opas entdeckt. Außer am Nacktbadestrand von Sylt gab es in den fünfziger Jahren ja wenige nackte Frauen zu sehen. Auf diesem Bild sind es die Sirenen, die Odysseus zu betören versuchen. Das Bild besitzt die Kunsthalle Kiel, aber sie hat es nicht ausgestellt, ebensoweig wie das Bild von Francesca da Rimini und Paolo Malatesta, das sich im Post Nackt findet. Entweder haben sie etwas gegen Aktmalerei oder etwas gegen zweitklassige Kunst. Wahrscheinlich ist es das Letztere. Ich habe das Bild von Odysseus und den Sirenen schon in dem Post Chanson abgebildet.
Das Bild gehört zu einem ganzen Zyklus von Odysseusbildern, die Preller gemalt hat. Wobei der Höhepunkt der kitschigen Aktmalerei wohl das Bild ist, wo Leukothea dem Odysseus im Sturm erscheint. Das Bild gehört auch der Kieler Kunsthalle, ist aber auch nicht ausgestellt. Ist aber sowieso egal, die Kunsthalle ist für fünf Jahre geschlossen. Die machen plötzlich überall zu. Das Focke Museum in Bremen ist erst in zwei Jahren wieder offen, und wann der Neubau vom Stadtmuseum in Oldenburg fertig ist, weiß niemand so recht. Und die Berliner Museen haben ihre Öffnungszeiten verkürzt. Wenn Sie alles über den Odysseus Zyklus von Friedrich Preller wissen wollen, dann klicken Sie diese schöne Seite vom →Goethezeitportal an.
Ein Gedicht über Odysseus habe ich natürlich, es ist das vielleicht berühmteste Gedicht von Lord Tennyson. Den mag ich zwar nicht besonders, ich habe in dem Post bêtes noires gesagt: Tennyson hat furchtbar lange und furchtbar langweilige Gedichte geschrieben, die von den langweiligen Viktorianern für große Lyrik genommen wurden. Aber Tennysons Ulysses, das T. S. Elio a perfect poem genannt hat, ist schon etwas Besonderes. Es ist auch etwas sehr Persönliches, Tennyson hat geschrieben: There is more about myself in 'Ulysses,' which was written under the sense of loss and that all had gone by, but that still life must be fought out to the end. It was more written with the feeling of his loss upon me than many poems. Das Gedicht ist in Blankversen geschrieben, dem seit Shakespeare bevorzugten Metrum der englischen Lyrik:
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Die letzte Strophe ist immer wieder zitiert worden. Sie ist auch in die Populäre Kultur gewandert. Der Chief Inspector Morse zitiert sie in der Folge Death is now my neighbour. Und James Bond Freunde wissen, dass Judi Dench als Geheimdienstchef M die Strophe in ✺Skyfall rezitiert.
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle -
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me -
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Die letzte Strophe ist immer wieder zitiert worden. Sie ist auch in die Populäre Kultur gewandert. Der Chief Inspector Morse zitiert sie in der Folge Death is now my neighbour. Und James Bond Freunde wissen, dass Judi Dench als Geheimdienstchef M die Strophe in ✺Skyfall rezitiert.
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