Friedrich Schiller was born in Marbach, WÜrttemberg, November 10, 1759. His short life was one great heroic struggle. His first inclination was to study for the ministry, but the rigorous and arbitrary discipline of the Duke Karl Eugen, whose school the boy as the son of an officer had to enter, considered neither aptitude nor desire, and thus Schiller had to study medicine and become an army surgeon. That he might shape his own destiny he fled from WÜrttemberg in 1782. The following years, in which Schiller gradually gained the recognition he deserved, were a bitter battle against poverty; and when in 1789 he had been made professor of history in Jena, only two years passed before illness forced him to resign. At that moment generous friends came to his aid, and from now on Schiller could live for his ideals.

As he had mastered the field of history, he now for years put his entire energy into the study of philosophy to round out his Weltanschauung (his view of life) and his personality. Even as he worked, he knew that his years were numbered, but his indomitable will forced the weak body to do its bidding, and the best of Schiller's dramas, the greatest of his philosophical poems, were written in these years of illness. Thus Schiller proved himself the master of his fate, the captain of his soul. Only a few weeks before his death he wrote to Wilhelm von Humboldt, "Am Ende sind wir doch beide Idealisten, und wÜrden uns schÄmen, uns nachsagen zu lassen, daß die Dinge uns formten und wir nicht die Dinge." ("After all both of us are idealists and would be ashamed to have it reported of us that the things fashioned us and not we the things.") There was in Schiller, as Goethe said, ein Zug nach dem HÖheren, a trend toward higher things. Schiller died in Weimar, May 9, 1805.

As a poet Schiller is in many respects the exact counterpart of Goethe. The latter's lyric verse is the direct result of his everyday experience; his real domain is the simple lyric, das Lied. Schiller, however, confessed that lyric poetry in the narrower sense was not his province, but his exile. Hardly ever did an everyday experience move him to song, and he is at his best in the realm of philosophic poetry, where he has no equal. This philosophic tendency predominates even in his ballads, which are often the embodiment of a philosophical or ethical idea. While they lack the subtle lyrical atmosphere of Goethe's, they are distinguished by rhetorical vigor and dramatic life. Their very structure is dramatic, as an analysis of 18 and 19 will show.

18. Ibykus, a Greek lyric poet of the sixth century B.C., bom in Rhegium, a city in Southern Italy.

1. The Isthmian Games were celebrated every two years on the Isthmus
of Corinth in honor of Poseidon (Neptune), god of the sea.

6. Apollo, the god of song, archery and the sun (hence also called
Helios, 71).

10. AKRORINTH, the citadel of Corinth, situated on a mountain above
the city.

11. The pine was sacred to Poseidon. A wreath of pine was the award
of victory in the games (54).

23. DER GASTLICHE. Zeus, to whom hospitality was sacred.

61. PRYTANE, m.—en, prytanis, the chief magistrate.

82. BÜHNE, here used for the tiers of seats for the spectators.
Compare SchaugerÜste, 95.

91. KEKROPS' STADT==Athens. Kekrops, the legendary founder of the state of Athens. AULIS, a harbor in Boeotia.

92. PHOKIS, territory in Greece to the west of Boeotia.

103. RIESENMAß. Since the Greek actors wore buskins and a long mask, the gigantic stature of the chorus is in itself no indubitable proof of the supernatural origin of this chorus. Thus the spectators are unable to decide, whether they actually see the Eumenides or only a chorus impersonating them. This is the meaning of 145 and 146. This doubt yields to certainty as the action progresses (170 ff.).

117. sense beguiling, heart deluding.

118. ERINNYEN or Eumeniden. Eumenides, are the avenging goddesses of Greek mythology, the Furies.

150. weaves the dark entangled net of fate.

173. GEROCHEN, common form is gerÄcht.

182. DIE SZENE==Greek skaene [Greek: skaenae], the stage.

19. The problem of the limitation of human knowledge and of the human mind, already touched upon in Genesis 2, 17, had been brought into prominence in Schiller's time by the philosopher Kant. He had defined the limitations of the human mind: we can have no real knowledge of things themselves, but can know only the impressions that things make on our senses; furthermore our knowledge is limited to the finite, we have no knowledge of the Infinite, the Absolute. Schiller, not satisfied with the mere fact, in this poem expresses the conviction that there must be an ethical reason for this necessity, a reason that is beyond our ken. Compare also the beautiful words of Lessing: "Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz irgend ein Mensch ist, oder zu sein vermeinet, sondern die aufrichtige MÜhe, die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit zu kommen, macht den Wert des Menschen. Denn nicht durch den Besitz, sondern durch die Nachforschung der Wahrheit erweitern sich seine KrÄfte, worin allein seine immer wachsende Vollkommenheit bestehet. Der Besitz macht ruhig, trÄge, stolz.

"Wenn Gott in seiner Rechten alle Wahrheit, und in seiner Linken den einzigen immer regen Trieb nach Wahrheit, obschon mit dem Zusatze, mich immer und ewig zu irren, verschlossen hielte, und sprÄche zu mir: wÄhle! Ich fiele ihm mit Demut in seine Linke, und sagte: Vater, gib! die reine Wahrheit ist ja doch nur fÜr dich allein!"

SAIS, city in ancient Egypt, seat of a famous shrine to Isis.
ÄGYPTENLAND, Ägypten==Egypt.

6. HIEROPHANT, [Greek: hierophantaes] (literally, the interpreter of the holy), hierophant, a priest, the teacher of religious mysteries.

61. a thrill of heat and cold surges through his frame.

64. IN SEINEM INNERN, in his heart or within him.

65. DEN ALLHEILIGEN, the most holy (God). All here has an intensifying meaning.

81. WAR DAHIN, was gone.