"changing for the better." Let these good people open their eyes, and they will see that Atta Troll was not shot down in the valley of Roncesvalles, but that he is still alive, very much alive, and making a dreadful noise, and that not in the Pyrenees, but just outside our doors, where he still keeps haranguing about equality and liberty and occasionally breaks his fetters and escapes from his masters. And when this occurs, then that icy monster Lascaro is likewise seen, with his hard, pallid face and his joyless mouth, and his disgust with his own task and his doubts and disbeliefs in himself. He still carries his gun and he still possesses some of that craftiness which his mother the witch has taught him, and he still knows how to entrap that poor, stupid Atta Troll, and to shoot him down when the spirit of "order and government," the spirit of a soulless capitalism, requires it.

No, there is very little feeling in the man as yet, and he seems as difficult to move as ever. There is apparently only one thing that can rouse him into action, and that is when a poet appears, one who knows the truth and who dares to speak the truth not only about Atta Troll, the people, but also about its Lascaros, its leaders, its emperors, and kings. Then and then only his hard features change, and his affected self-possession leaves him, then and then only his mask of calmness is thrown off, and he waxes very angry with the poet, and has his name banished from his court and his statues turned out of his cities and villas—nay, he would even level his gun to slay the truth-telling poet as he slew Atta Troll.

From which we may see that the modern Lascaro has become a sort of Don Quixote—for, truly is it not the height of folly for a mortal emperor to shoot at an immortal poet?

OSCAR LEVY

London, 1913

PREFACE   BY   HEINE

"ATTA TROLL" was composed in the late autumn of 1841, and appeared as a fragment in The Elegant World, of which my friend Laube had at that time resumed the editorship. The shape and contents of the poem were forced to conform to the narrow necessities of that periodical. I wrote at first only those cantos which might be printed and even these suffered many variations. It was my intention to issue the work later in its full completeness, but this commendable resolve remained unfulfilled—like all the mighty works of the Germans—such as the cathedral of Cologne, the God of Schelling, the Prussian Constitution, and the like. This also happened to "Atta Troll"—he was never finished. In such imperfect form, indifferently bolstered up and rounded only from without, do I now set him before the public, obedient to an impulse which certainly does not proceed from within.

"Atta Troll," as I have said, originated in the late autumn of 1841, at the time when the great mob which my enemies of various complexions, had drummed together against me, had not quite ceased its noise. It was a very large mob and indeed I would never have believed that Germany could produce so many rotten apples as then flew about my head! Our Fatherland is a blessed country! Citrons and oranges certainly do not grow here, and the laurel ekes out but a miserable existence, but rotten apples thrive in the happiest abundance, and never a great poet of ours but could write feelingly of them! On the occasion of that hue and cry in which I was to lose both my head and my laurels it happened that I lost neither. All the absurd accusations which were used to incite the mob against me have since then been miserably annihilated, even without my condescending to refute them. Time justified me, and the various German States have even, as I must most gratefully acknowledge, done me good service in this respect. The warrants of arrest which at every German station past the frontier await the return of this poet, are thoroughly renovated every year during the holy Christmastide, when the little candles glow merrily on the Christmas trees. It is this insecurity of the roads which has almost destroyed my pleasure in travelling through the German meads. I am therefore celebrating my Christmas in an alien land, and it will be as an exile in a foreign country that I shall end my days.

But those valiant champions of Light and Truth who accuse me of fickleness and servility, are able to go about quite securely in the Fatherland—as well-stalled servants of the State, as dignitaries of a Guild, or as regular guests of a club where of evenings they may regale themselves with the vinous juices of Father Rhine and with "sea-surrounded Schleswig-Holstein" oysters.

It was my express intention to indicate in the foregoing at what period "Atta Troll" was written. At that time the so-called art of political poetry was in full flower. The opposition, as Ruge says, sold its leather and became poetry. The Muses were given strict orders that they were thenceforth no longer to gad about in a wanton, easy-going fashion, but would be compelled to enter into national service, possibly as vivandières of liberty or as washerwomen of Christian-Germanic nationalism. Especially were the bowers of the German bards afflicted by that vague and sterile pathos, that useless fever of enthusiasm which, with absolute disregard for death, plunges itself into an ocean of generalities. This always reminds me of the American sailor who was so madly enthusiastic over General Jackson that he sprang from the mast-head into the sea, crying out: "I die for General Jackson!" Yes, even though we Germans as yet possessed no fleet, still we had plenty of sailors who were willing to die for General Jackson, in prose or verse. In those days talent was a rather questionable gift, for it brought one under suspicion of being a loose character. After thousands of years of grubbing deliberation, Impotence, sick and limping Impotence, at last discovered its greatest weapon against the over-encouragement of genius—it discovered, in fact, the antithesis between Talent and Character. It was almost personally flattering to the great masses when they heard it said that good, average people were certainly poor musicians as a rule, but that, on the other hand, fine musicians were not usually good people—that goodness was the important thing in this world and not music. Empty-Head now beat resolutely upon his full Heart, and Sentiment was trumps. I recall an author of that day who accounted his inability to write as a peculiar merit in himself, and who, because of his wooden style, was given a silver cup of honour.

By the eternal gods! at that time it became necessary to defend the inalienable rights of the spirit, above all in poetry. Inasmuch as I have made this defence the chief business of my life, I have kept it constantly before me in this poem whose tone and theme are both a protest against the plebiscite of the tribunes of the times. And verily, even the first fragments of "Atta Troll" which saw the light, aroused the wrath of my heroic worthies, my dear Romans, who accused me not only of a literary but also of a social reaction, and even of mocking the loftiest human ideals. As to the esthetic worth of my poem—of that I thought but little, as I still do to-day—I wrote it solely for my own joy and pleasure, in the fanciful dreamy manner of that romantic school in which I whiled away my happiest years of youth, and then wound up by thrashing the schoolmaster. Possibly in this regard my poem is to be condemned. But thou liest, Brutus, thou too, Cassius, and even thou, Asinius, when ye declare that my mockery is levelled against those ideals which constitute the noble achievements of man, for which I too have wrought and suffered so much. No, it is just because the poet constantly sees these ideas before him in all their clarity and greatness that he