Richard Wagner's Prose Works, Volume 4: Art and Politics
Translated by William Ashton Ellis
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The opening
TO THE KINGLY FRIEND.
(Summer, 1864.)
MY King, thou rarest shield of this my living! Of bounteous good, thou overbrimming hoard! I seek in vain, at goal of all my striving, To match thy favouring grace with fitting word! Both tongue and pen are hush’d in sore misgiving, And yet o’er many a record have I por’d To find the word, the only word, to bear thee The thanks that deep within my heart I wear thee.
What thou hast wrought, still fills me with amazement, When I look back on what I was before. Erst shone no star but left me in abasement, No hope’s last ray but dwindled evermore: A prey to all the chance of world’s appraisement, A toy to haggling peddlers given o’er; What in me strove for freeborn artist’s action, I saw downtrodden in the rout of faction.
Who once His bishop’s wither’d staff commanded To deck itself with quick’ning leaves of green, E’en though, bereft of hope, life’s vessel stranded, He bade me yield up all that might have been, One thing around my inmost heart He banded, Faith in myself, in what my soul had seen: And promis’d, if I held that faith unshaken, So should the wither’d staff once more awaken.
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About this edition
- The words
- William Ashton Ellis's English translation, copied word for word.
- Left out
- Page numbers and running heads from the printed pages, in 146 places
- The library's stamps and barcode on the scanned copy (University of Toronto) (3 blocks)
- The title page and opening pages before chapter 1, in 2 places
- A preface, foreword or afterword, in 2 places
- Notes and pages added by translators, editors or publishers, in 7 places
- The index
- Other material that isn't the author's, in 4 places
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“sempre”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“P ?f”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“ff”) (3 blocks)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“cresc.”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“*Tj?^”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“QjjBB”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“-&•”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“Jtr”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“^1”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“£”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“etc.”) (2 blocks)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“"”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“%* **”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“S—”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“-x”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“r r”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“r ' '”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“8”)
- A music example printed as notation in “About Conducting”, read by the OCR as stray characters (“m”)