"They grow by certain laws, like the tree's fruit-- / No juggling chance can metamorphose them. / Have I the human kernel first examined? / Then I know, too, the future will and action."

— Schiller, Friedrich (1759-1805)


Place of Publication
Tubingen
Date
1800
Metaphor
"They grow by certain laws, like the tree's fruit-- / No juggling chance can metamorphose them. / Have I the human kernel first examined? / Then I know, too, the future will and action."
Metaphor in Context
WALLENSTEIN (stops and turns himself round).
Are ye not like the women, who forever
Only recur to their first word, although
One had been talking reason by the hour!
Know, that the human being's thoughts and deeds
Are not like ocean billows, blindly moved.
The inner world, his microcosmus, is
The deep shaft, out of which they spring eternally.
They grow by certain laws, like the tree's fruit--
No juggling chance can metamorphose them.
Have I the human kernel first examined?
Then I know, too, the future will and action
.
(II.iii)

[Wallenstein. (bleibt stehen und kehrt sich um)
Seid ihr nicht wie die Weiber, die beständig
Zurück nur kommen auf ihr erstes Wort,
Wenn man Vernunft gesprochen stundenlang!
—Des Menschen Taten und Gedanken, wißt!
Sind nicht wie Meeres blind bewegte Wellen.
Die innre Welt, sein Mikrokosmus, ist
Der tiefe Schacht, aus dem sie ewig quellen.
Sie sind notwendig, wie des Baumes Frucht,
Sie kann der Zufall gaukelnd nicht verwandeln.
Hab ich des Menschen Kern erst untersucht,
So weiß ich auch sein Wollen und sein Handeln.
]
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Friedrich Schiller, The Death of Wallenstein, trans. S.T. Coleridge (1800). <English Text from Project Gutenberg><German Text from PG>
Date of Entry
04/22/2013

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.