Shelley’s “Song. Translated From the German” summons a hero to violent action with the promise of both glory and erotic delight. The speaker opens by urging someone to grasp a dagger and spear, embracing vengeance and death as a decree from above. The poem then yearns for a youthful champion of justice and truth, someone burning to send an oppressor to hell. For such a warrior, the rewards are vividly earthly: laurel crowns, the praise of fellow soldiers, and, above all, the ecstatic embraces of his beloved. The final stanza lingers on intoxicating kisses and “mutual, eternal” union, insisting that the brave are paid in rapture. The mood pulses with fierce, almost carnal energy, blending battlefield heat with the promise of physical union. It feels idealistic and deeply sensual, as if righteous fury and desire are one and the same.
Song. Translated From the German — Summary
Ah! grasp the dire dagger and couch the fell spear, If vengeance and death to thy bosom be dear, The dastard shall perish, death's torment shall prove, For fate and revenge are decreed from above.
Ah! where is the hero, whose nerves strung by youth, Will defend the firm cause of justice and truth; With insatiate desire whose bosom shall swell, To give up the oppressor to judgement and Hell--
For him shall the fair one twine chaplets of bays, To him shall each warrior give merited praise, And triumphant returned from the clangour of arms, He shall find his reward in his loved maiden's charms.
In ecstatic confusion the warrior shall sip, The kisses that glow on his love's dewy lip, And mutual, eternal, embraces shall prove, The rewards of the brave are the transports of love.