The Metamorphosis of the Plants

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Translated from the German by Fredrick Turner & Zsuzsanna Ozsvàth

You are perplexed, my love, by this thousandfold mixed profusion,
    Flowering tumultuously everywhere over the garden grounds;
So many names you are hearing, but one suppresses another,
    Echoing barbarously the sound makes in the ear.
Each of their shapes is alike, yet none resembles the other,
    Thus the whole of the choir points to a secret law,
Points to a holy puzzle. I wish, lovely friend, that I were able to
    Happily hand you at once the disentangling word!—   
Watch now and be transformed, how bit by bit the plant-form,
    Guided stepwise, builds to emerge in blossom and fruit!
Out of the germ it unfolds, the moment the still and fertile
    Lap of the earth has lovingly let it go out into life,
There where the charm of light, the holy eternal mover
    Now ushers in the most delicate structures of burgeoning leaves.
This was a power that simply slept in the seed; a prototype
    Lay there closed and curled up in itself inside the husk,
Leaf and taproot and seed, as yet half-formed and colorless;
    Thus the dry kernel holds and protects the dormant life,
Then it gushes, heaving up, trusting to milder moistures,
    Lifts itself all at once out of the enveloping night.
Still, though, it simply retains the form of its first appearance,
    Thus the infant reveals and betrays itself under the new plant.
Soon after that, a following impulse, renewing, throws upward
    Knot upon towering knot, in still the original shape.
Never the same, though; for always its self-generation is manifold,
    Always the following leaf, you see there, is fully informed:
Notched, expanded, and split into apex and branched divisions,
    That which in embryo rested  curled up in the organ below.
Now it achieves for the first time its highly-determined completion,
    Which in some species can leave you astonished and awed.
Fretted and tuned all over its mastlike and bristling surface,
    Now in full force appears the drive to be endlessly free.
Here, though, Nature with mighty hand halts the upbuilding,
    Leading it gently on until its full form is complete.
So with more measure it guides the sap and tightens the vessels,
    Suddenly blazoning out the pattern's more dainty effects.
Silently now the drive ebbs from the leading edges,
    Letting the vein of the stem build itself fully out.
Leafless and swiftly, though, rises the stalk in its greater elegance,
    Where the observer is drawn to a yet more miraculous form:
Ringed in a circle, each petal, in number defined or left open,
    Sets itself, smaller at first, by its twin that emerged before.
Crowding around the axle, the mounting cup comes to decision,
    Which, in its highest form, releases its colorbright crown.
Nature thus boasts now a nobler and fuller manifestation,
    Stepwise arraying organ on organ in ordered display.
Always you're freshly amazed when the flower on its stem, now open,
    Sways there above the slender scaffold of altering leaves.
Now, though, this splendor becomes a new shaping's annunciation,
    Yes, the bright-tinted petal feels the hand of God;
Swiftly it draws itself in,  and then the tenderest of structures
    Bifold strive to emerge, determined to make themselves one.
Intimate now they stand, the lovely couples together,
    Round the sacred altar in order arranging themselves.
Hymen floats nearby, and heavenly fragrances violently
    Pour their sweet and quickening odors all through the air.
Germcells at once swell up now, each an individual,
    Lovingly wrapped in the waxing fruits of the mothering womb.
Here, then, Nature closes the ring of eternal forces;
    Still, a new one promptly fastens itself to the old,
So that the chain might extend itself onward all through the ages,
    And that the whole be revitalized, as is the single one.
Turn now, beloved, your eyes to these blooming and colorful multitudes,
    See how, perplexing no longer, they stir there in view of your soul!
Every plant announces, to you now, the laws eternal,
    Every flower louder and louder is speaking with you.
You but decipher here the holy glyphs of the Goddess,
    Everywhere, though, you see her—in even their changing itself.
Slow crawls the caterpillar, in haste the butterfly flutters,
    Man the adaptable changes himself the foreordained form.
Think then also, my love, how from the germ of acquaintance
    Little by little in us a familiar dearness springs up,
Friendship unveils itself in power from our inner concealment,
    Till like Eros at last it procreates flower and fruit!
Think how soon these forms and those, in their manifold course of emerging,
    Gently have lent to our feelings the presence of Nature herself!
So then, rejoice—and rejoice for today! Love in its holiness
    Strives to the highest fruit of the same movement of thought,
Same outlook on things, in harmonic contemplation,
    Thus the pair make their bond, and find out a loftier world.

1779

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An iconic figure of the German Romanticism, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany on August 28, 1749. The multi talented Goethe, in addition to being a writer was also a theoretical physicist, biologist, polymath, pictorial artist and statesman. His services to poetry, prose and drama are an integral part of German literature. Goethe played a key role in the movement of Weimar Classicism, Sturm und Drang and Romanticism. He is credited for giving the Sturm und Drang movement its first major drama, Gtz von Berlichingen in 1733 and also its first main novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther in 1774, creating the classic archetype of a romantic hero. (Famous Authors)

Frederick Turner’s latest book is More Light: Selected Poems, 2004-2016 (Mundus Artium Press, 2017).

Zsuzsanna Ozsvàth’s book, Footsteps of Orpheus: The Life and Time of Miklós Radnóti, was published in 2000 by Indiana University Press.

Winter 2019 (Volume 71 Issue 4)

New York, New York

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Frederick Morgan (1922-2004)

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Founded in 1948, The Hudson Review is a quarterly magazine of literature and the arts published in New York City. Frederick Morgan, one of its founding editors, edited the magazine for its first fifty years. Paula Deitz has been the editor since 1998.

Since its beginning, the magazine has dealt with the area where literature bears on the intellectual life of the time and on diverse aspects of American culture. It has no university affiliation and is not committed to any narrow academic aim or to any particular political perspective. The magazine serves as a major forum for the work of new writers and for the exploration of new developments in literature and the arts. It has a distinguished record of publishing little-known or undiscovered writers, many of whom have become major literary figures. Each issue contains a wide range of material including: poetry, fiction, essays on literary and cultural topics, book reviews, reports from abroad, and chronicles covering film, theatre, dance, music and art. The Hudson Review is distributed in twenty-five countries.

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