Extract from Die Lorelei, translated from Heinrich Heine by Stevie Smith

[simone-remy.livejournal.com]

This is a request for a full version of this translation please - I only just came across it in Hilary Mantel's talk on 'Royal Bodies' - I can't find the whole thing on line and I am very intrigued. Here's as much as I found;

An antique story comes to me
And fills me with anxiety
I wonder why I fear so much
What surely has no modern touch?

It is of Germany it speaks
One evening time, the mountain peaks
Are in the sun, but the old Rhine
Flows secretly and does not shine

There on a rock majestical
A girl with smile equivocal
Painted young and damned and fair
Sits and combs her yellow hair

With a yellow comb she combs it,
Sings a song and sometimes moans it,
That has a most peculiar turn
It makes the heart and belly burn,

The sailor sailing hearing it
Falls at once into a fit…