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Wilhelm Busch:
Früher, da ich unerfahren
Früher, da ich unerfahren
Und bescheidner war als heute,
Hatten meine höchste Achtung
Andre Leute.
Später traf ich auf der Weide
Außer mir noch mehre Kälber,
Und nun schätz ich, sozusagen,
Erst mich selber.
Wie wahr, wie wahr!
Aber wenn jedes Kalb das verstünde, wäre es das Ende der Gesellschaft. Und des Wiener Schnitzels (Kalb-, niemals Schweinefleisch; dünn; in Schmalz gebacken, aber nicht fett; knusprig und ganz für sich allein über den Teller hängend!). Sogar Busch müßte das verstehen...
Was ich da auf der rechten Seite den Anglophonen über des Deutschen Art und Wesen verraten hätte? Fast nichts. Und tun sie nicht so: Haben Sie's nicht ohnehin lesen können? Na sehen Sie. Außerdem war es nur eine kurze Abhandlung über Kälber, "from pasture to palate" sozusagen.
Und weil wir schon bei Busch sind und von "pasture", von Wiesen- und Weideland sprechen, darf ich Ihnen als Ersatz - nein, nein, nein, kein Wienerschnitzel: Ein Wienerschnitzel kann durch nichts ersetzt werden! - darf ich Ihnen dafür eine Landschaft von Wilhelm anbieten? Dort könnte das Wienerschnitzel wenigstens eine Zeit lang mit anderen Wienerschnitzeln des unbehelligten Gedankenaustausches pflegen...
Wilhelm Busch:
Hügelige Wiesenlandschaft mit roter Figur
(Öl auf Pappe, Ausschnitt)
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Wilhelm Busch:
Earlier, while inexperienced
Earlier, while inexperienced
and much humbler round my brothers,
I admired and respected
mostly others.
I met later, on the pasture,
mooncalves like me, grazing duly -
and from then began to value
most yours truly.
How true, how true!
But if every (moon)calf understood that, it would end society as we know it. And the big Wiener Schnitzel as we love it (always veal, never pork; thin, crispy and all by itself hanging over the plate)! No beating about the Busch there!
But I need to explain something. I was taken to task - and rightfully so, thank you so much, John! - for initially using the (literally correct but for anglophones crucially wrong) word "calves" (now "mooncalves") in my translation. In German, of course, Kälber also means dolts, ninnys, or blockheads. Kamele (camels) sometimes serve the same purpose, as do Eseln (donkeys). Maybe I should have used that biblical term for donkey, but then my esteemed readers might have thought I had it backward...
And "calves" sounded just fine to a brain brought up on German menagerial expletives - and a brain that needed to survive and hence used the least common denominator by joining an English word to its German meaning. So what to do when I found out? Curse my brain for doing what comes naturally and what screwed me up more than once. And choose another term: Closest to the German Kalb is the English mooncalf, and so I took it and put it on Wilhelm's poetic pasture to graze and stare at the moon.
But I'll do penance for the shortcomings of my brain, as is my custom if not my wont. So, just in case the "mooncalves" don't quite cut the mustard either, or it turns out to be unchewable, here is an alternative second stanza (with additional rhyme):
Then I met at my own pleasure
dolts like me - and started coolly,
as it were, to love and treasure
just yours truly.
Now, that was the official part. But as long as I am revising the page - a most dangerous job at the best of times! - I have to give you a recent example of how the Germans themselves use Kälber. During the last, bitterly fought election in Germany, Edmund Stoiber - second in power in the (then) opposition party - sighed,
"Nur die dümmsten Kälber
wählen ihre Metzger selber"
and reaped a hurricane. As was pointed out in just a couple of the many comments that hereafter inundated the internet, this saying is likely an old German proverb, a genuine expression of common culture, a true scream of the vox populi - traceable back to at least the Weimar Republic.
When I was a kid, my father - and very carefully so, because the times were bad! - loved to vent his anger at politics by reciting the most common (and most addictive) version:
Nur die allerdümmsten Kälber
wählen ihren Schlächter selber!
(Literally:
(Only the most stupid calves
choose a butcher for themselves!
or, rhymedly sexier:
Only calves too dumb as breeder
choose a butcher as their leader!)
Well, enough. You get the point.
But, just for relevance, there were also speculations that Wilhelm Busch himself might have come up with that one. And that completes the circle for me. What greater honor than to represent the voice of the people?
My only question is: Where is Wilhelm now that we really need him?
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