Dies sei kein Herbstgedicht, wenden Sie ein? Sondern anakreontischerweise nur mit dem Frühling zu assoziieren?

Ja, ja, stimmt ja alles. Aber erst im Herbst des Lebens weiß man das so richtig zu schätzen.

Oder, wie Ihr größter Dichter trauert:

"Wie war es schön doch einst vor Jahren
als alle Gl......."

Wie's weitergeht?

Wie Ihr großer Philosoph sagt:

"Dies ist der Herbst: der bricht dir noch das Herz!"

Danken Sie dem Gedichtpool für die Friedrich von Hagedorn Seite mit einem Dutzend Gedichte (via "Autoren" zu erreichen)!

Wenn man die liest, hat man das Gefühl, daß zu von Hagedorns Zeiten (1708-1754) die schlimmsten Nachwehen des Dreißigjährigen Krieges (1618-1648) schon vorbei waren. Zumindestens in Gedichten. Ergo, "freut euch des Lebens..."!

Is this a fall poem, you ask?

No, not really - unless you use a different meaning for "fall". Or a bit of spin.

But, really, it is only the fall of life that starts to remember such anacreontics.

Emily Dickinson once wrote:

"Success is counted sweetest
by those, who ne'er succeed..."

And, we might add, by those who once did and no longer do...

"Forever waxes anacreontic the Fall of the Spring" could another poet have said.

With age, vocal cords get stiff while other sings don't. So, from all the "Wein, Weib und Gesang" (wine, women and song), "bleibt allein nur der Wein" (only wine remains, as the Viennese sadly sing).

Or, as the Buddhists think, in the end only karma is left over from spring's pleasures. It's all in the mind. But this spring thing ends in a fall any old time...

Das Thema verlangt nach dem Bilde. Nicht daß es kein Bild im eigenen Gehirn gebe. Im Gegenteil, im Gegenteil. Aber - jetzt mehr denn je - will der Mensch seine "virtual reality" der kleinen, grauen Zellen durch eine (oder besser, gleich durch mehrere) große, bunte Trugbilder ergänzt und verstärkt und bestätigt sehen. Verbraucherlogisch.

Bei Susanna im Bade ist uns die klassische Kunst zu willen. Wenn Sie, zum Beispiel, die Web Gallery of Art besuchen und nach "Susanna" suchen, gibt's da allerhand Liebliches zu schauen. Übrigens: "Susanna" als Suchwort entdeckt sie sowohl im Bade wie im Clinch mit den Stammesältesten ("Susanna in the Bath", "Susanna and the Elders").

Von vielen (und bekannteren und berühmteren) Gemälden habe ich hier drei ausgesucht: Eines, weil es Gedichtgefühle verkörpert ; eines, weil es gesellschaftliche Machtstruktur anspricht; eines, weil es persönliche Angst wiederspiegelt. Und alle drei zusammen, weil sie den weiten Bereich der menschlichen Auslegung ausloten. Glaube ich zumindestens.

Übertrieben gesagt: Das Bild von Alessandro Allori (1535-1607) ist pornographisch, das von Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) politisch, das von Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1651) persönlich.

Wenn Sie die Bilder wirklich sehen wollen - naja, nicht wirklich, aber mit wesentlich besserer Auflösung als ich Sie Ihnen bieten kann - besuchen Sie doch die Web Gallery of Art und verbringen Sie dort einen anregenden Abend.

Und wenn Sie ein bißchen mehr über das wissen wollen, was ich so meinem englisch-sprechenden Publikum unterschiebe, hüpfen Sie doch einmal ins rechtsseitige Basin.

"Der Worte sind genug gewechselt, laßt uns nun endlich Taten sehn!"

Alessandro Allori:
Susanna and the Elders

Peter Paul Rubens:
Susanna and the Elders

Artemesia Gentileschi:
Susanna and the Elders

A hexameter (six feet) followed by a pentameter (five feet) followed by six tetrameters (four times six feet)? What kind of prosody is this? Could von Hagedorn have been sixist? Or was he just stimulated by the idea of naked truth?

Or was he the youthful suitor imposed on an ancient story? Or just an admirer of the Old Testament, filled to the brim with lurid tales of sex and violence?

Anyway, it's also prosodically interesting, and that's what my translation mimics...

If you visit the Web Gallery of Art, you can have a good - and far more detailed! - look at the three paintings I have put on the left side. Incidentally, the Web Gallery is a marvellous site and you may, for a start, marvel at all the other famous paintings that deal with the subject. Just search for "Susanna" and see the Van Dyck, the Tintoretto, another Rubens, etc.

From this wealth of riches, I have selected the three on the left for their relevance to anacreontic poems, to societal mores, to personal fears. At least that's what I believe they are about.

On the left side I opined that the Allori was pornographic. That's how this very painterly painting strikes me. But let's describe it by a more pleasant name: let's just say it is picture-perfect prurient.

Why, you ask? Well, don't you see the inward-turned fingers? You think scratching is their sole significance?

Think again: these are most likely code for sexual arousal - look at some Japanese Shunga (erotic, literally "spring" drawings), where the Ukiyo-e (wood-block print) artists used the incurling toes - and various other physiological effects - for, well, clarity of artistic expression...

Why the Shunga Masters did that? A nod to realism, perhaps? Or a quest for higher prices? Or just to distinguish a scene of love/lust from one of rape (in which the toes are slightly turned back, as if in revulsion)?

Oh, that wasn't very nice of you to say! Too much ad hominem, you know. Please don't shoot the messenger! But it seems I have to give you less easily refuted reasons. Alright, then, consider this:

From behind Susanna's besieged hips, there peeks a little dog. The dog (correctly but still unfairly associated with uninhibited love-making in public) is used here as a symbol for wantonness and abandon.

And to the right of Susanna, at about the height of her, well, her heart (the Austrian expression "Lustapferln" would fit better), do lie some apples. The apple (incorrectly and unfairly) symbolizes the original temptation and the (often considered sexual) sin of Adam and Eve. Reminds me of a beloved verse,

"And pluck, till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."

You are still not convinced? Then I must paint the situation with a broader brush. Have a look at the strategically placed fountain. Now, if that's not downright dirty...

You say that's all in MY mind? Well, of course. It takes a dirty old translator to interpret the work of a dirty old painter. But dirty old men need art, too...

Ah, relax, the worst is over. Or, depending on your viewpoint, the worst is yet to come...

But not yet in the Rubens. The Rubens is not as direct and single/simple-minded as the Allori. (But, Susanna isn't painted quite as alluring either.)

The one facet that stands out for me in the Rubens is the dominance of the "Elders", the power of this traditional elite, their corrupted yet inescable authority, and the whole weight of societal architecture upon the struggling victim.

Never mind that, in the Good Book, all ends well (or unwell). Probability and experience favored another outcome.

Which gets me to the last painting, that of Artemisia Gentileschi. Yes, one of the very few women of note in the arts. If my dates have it right, she painted Susanna when she was 17.

Here the Elders tower like a mountain above her. The brown and red power of cabal and passion above innocent white skin. But was strikes me in particular is Artemesia's expression of fear, of pain, of revulsion; is her anticipation of an impending fate.

Two years later, her prospective teacher, Agostino Tassi, was convicted and imprisoned for raping her.