By FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL

TRANSLATED BY PAUL BERNARD THOMAS

PROLOGUE

Smiling with emotion Petrarch opens the collection of his immortal
romanzas with a prefatory survey. The clever Boccaccio talks with
flattering courtesy to all women, both at the beginning and at the end
of his opulent book. The great Cervantes too, an old man in agony, but
still genial and full of delicate wit, drapes the motley spectacle of
his lifelike writings with the costly tapestry of a preface, which in
itself is a beautiful and romantic painting.

Uproot a stately plant from its fertile, maternal soil, and there will
still cling lovingly to it much that can seem superfluous only to a
niggard.

But what shall my spirit bestow upon its offspring, which, like its
parent, is as poor in poesy as it is rich in love?

Just one word, a parting trope: It is not alone the royal eagle who
may despise the croaking of the raven; the swan, too, is proud and
takes no note of it. Nothing concerns him except to keep clean the
sheen of his white pinions. He thinks only of nestling against Leda's
bosom without hurting her, and of breathing forth into song everything
that is mortal within him.

[Illustration: #THE CREATION# _From the Painting by Moritz von
Schwind_]