162b. Friedrich Schlegel to Wilhelm Schlegel in Braunschweig: Dresden, 6 March 1796 [*]
Dresden, 6 March 1796
I hold it against you not at all, my good friend, that you write me rarely and little or even not at all. What I read by you in print this past winter, and the prospect of soon being able to fraternize with you here whenever I like, certainly compensates me a bit. [1] I am, however, seriously angry with Karoline. For she has no excuse for this unfriendliness, since it cannot possibly take all that much time to sing through your excessively long Alexandrines. [2] If there has been no delay in Hannover with respect to the Dresden letters, [3] she must still have four or five letters from me she has not yet answered. . . .
Notes
[*] Sources: Walzel, 270; KFSA 23:287. Back.
[1] Wilhelm would soon be traveling from Braunschweig to Dresden; see Caroline’s undated letter to Luise Gotter during the autumn of 1795 (letter 156), note 2. Back.
[2] That is, in the translation of scenes from Romeo and Juliet sent to (and returned by) Wilhelm Gottlieb Becker (see Friedrich’s letter to Wilhelm on 30 January 1796 [letter 161b]). In a letter of February 1796 (Walzel, 264; KFSA 23:282), Friedrich explains to Wilhelm that he had then sent them along to Salomo Michaelis. Christian Gottfried Körner had found that the Alexandrines in the translation were longer than the meter in the original, and Friedrich confessed that he, too, preferred the shorter verses but could not show Körner because he only had copies of them in a letter. Caroline had scanned the verses for Wilhelm (see Friedrich’s letter to Wilhelm on 30 January 1796 [letter 161b]). Back.
[3] Friedrich’s letters seem to have been sent by way of the family in Hannover. Back.
Translation © 2011 Doug Stott