If you love for the sake
of beauty
Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866)
Anonymous Translator
If you love for the sake
of beauty, O never love me!
Love the sun, which has bright golden hair.
If you love for the sake of youth, O never love me!
Love the spring, which is reborn each year.
If you love for the sake of wealth, O never love me!
Love the mermaid, whose pearls are rich and clear.
If you love for the sake of love alone, O yes then, love me!
Love me as I love you—forever!
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This is actually my assignment, but because I like this poem, I
feel like to post a part of my analysis here.
In short, the speaker states that if the listener loved her merely
for the sake of her beauty, youth, or wealth, he should never love her, because
her beauty, youth, and wealth is not going to stand forever, and it will
vanish in time. I think the speaker of this poem is a wealthy young
beautiful lady, yet agitated because she knows someday those will vanish
gradually, and will turn into nothing.
“Love the sun, which has bright golden hair.” Unlike human’s
beauty, Rückert represents the sun as a symbol for eternal beauty
with its inextinguishable bright flare. Here he puts visual imagery
portrays a lady looks up the beautiful bright sun hovering in the sky.
“Love the spring, which is reborn each year”, here, unlike
the human’s youth which will be consumed by time, Rückert epitomizes
the spring as something everlastingly young and never-get-old and dies because
it will have always born each year until the end of time. Rückert
expresses it by attaching visual imagery in implied depicts a meadow with a
green grass and growing leaves, flying butterflies and blossoming flower.
“Love the mermaid, whose pearls are rich and clear.” Rückert represents
the mermaid as the symbol of inexhaustible wealth, unlike human’s wealth that
will be decreased. Rückert uses visual imagery as well to depict deep of
ocean floor, the mermaids with countless pearls are swimming freely amid
countless glittering pearls.
The last two lines are the conclusion of the poem. Rückert
covers his poem with two last lines, the seventh and eighth lines: “If you
love for the sake of love alone, O yes then, love me!” and ”Love
me as I love you-forever!” Here, another conditional utterance used to
depict what the speaker’s want, which is being love for of the love itself, not
for the beauty, youth, or wealth that will only last temporarily before fading,
because love will never fade, but will be everlasting, as she loves him,
forever. Rückert impliedly portrays with a visual imagery when a young
beautiful lady after her long apprehension, come to a place where a young man
stood, she smiled, and embrace him.
How is your interpretation?