Up the Rhine

To Rüdesheim

It is no night to drown in: 

A full moon, river lapsing 

Black beneath bland mirror-sheen, 

The blue water-mists dropping 

Having arrived in Köln (Cologne) in the dark, after a long day's travel, the quiet of the River Rhine at dawn is very soothing. I wake to shrouded trees and murky mists, to the gentle swishing of the Rhine, as pink clouds stain the horizon, the reflections of bare poplars bent by our bow wave. :

Scrim after scrim like fishnets 

Though fishermen are sleeping, 

The massive castle turrets 

Doubling themselves in a glass 

All stillness.....

Lorelei

Sylvia Plath

Then, as we enter the Middle Rhine Valley, the current tenses as the river narrows between rising hills, and great castles begin to loom out of the clouds. Here is Marksburg, the core of which dates from the year 1200.  This is the only one of all the castles we see that has not been destroyed or reconstructed.   

Marksburg

Marksburg

Further up river we pass the castles of the Hostile Brothers, one of which is Burg Liebenstein, perched above the village of Kamp-Bornhofen.....

Liebenstein Castle

And then, near the diminutive Burg Maus (Mouse), we see the imposing Burg Katz (Cat), which was originally built in the 14th century but which was bombarded by Napoleon's forces in 1806 and then entirely rebuilt at the end of the 19th century.

Burg Katz - St Goarshausen

Burg Katz

Burg Katz - St Goarshausen

On the opposite bank here there is the great medieval ruin of Rheinfels Castle:

The Fortress of Burg Rheinfels

And then we approach the dangerous charms of the Lorelei, associated with the narrowest, swiftest, deepest, most treacherous part of the Rhine Gorge, with a 430 metre cliff overhanging a tight bend in the river....

The Lorelei (herself)

The legend here is associated with the potential danger of this stretch of the river, and it has passed into literature and folklore, with a famous poem by Heinrich Heine (in 1824) becoming a popular song in German, but then many more appearances in different cultures, including poems by Apollinaire and Sylvia Plath, music by Schumann and Shostakovich, and songs by, among others, Townes van Zandt and The Pogues....

You told me tales of love and glory

Same old sad songs, same old story

The sirens sing no lullaby

And no one knows but Lorelei

The Lorelei (from downstream)

The Lorelei (from upstream)

We sail on, oblivious to the siren murmurs:

Pfalzgrafenstein Castle, Kaub

But then, not far away, in a Wagnerian twist that may not be totally unrelated, I am bewitched by the three Rhinemaidens, Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde:

Or am I mistook?  Could these be they?

Or might Flosshilde have leapt to her doom?

The Rhinemaidens are the first and the last characters seen in Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen  [Me neither: Ed]  These damsels of indeterminate origin (though possibly related to the poor Lorelei) have been described as morally innocent, yet with a range of sophisticated emotions, including some that are seductive and elusive.....

But let's move on:

We are now high above the vineyards of Rüdesheim, where the Rhine spreads and flows East to West, so the northern slopes catch the sun all day and also benefit from reflected light off the shining waters, while the wooded hill crests protect the vines from chilly winds from the north....  This area is known as the Rheingau and it is Germany's most prestigious wine-producing region, despite it only producing 2.5% of the country's output.  80% of the wine from here is Riesling.

Brömserburg Castle (which used to contain a wine museum)

At the top of the cable car, within gardens laid out in 1763 by Johann Friedrich Karl Maximilian Amor Maria Count of Ostein (1735 - 1809)  [Ah yes - Him!  Ed.] there is the Niederwald Monopteros, with idyllic Arcadian views across the Rhine to Bingen [Get on with it.... Ed.]

And then we meet the Prussian Madonna, aka Germania, a monument which commemorates the founding of the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, when 25 individual states were united into one empire (the Second Reich) embodied by Germania, and the Prussian King was proclaimed Emperor William I.  With her crown raised and her sword peacefully lowered, Germania looks towards the new state, keeping watch on the Rhine.....

Das Niederwalddenkmal (The Niederwald Monument at Rüdesheim)

The erection of monuments such as this (the Berlin Victory Column in 1873, and the Hermann Monument in the Teutoburg Forest in 1875) was intended to awaken German national feeling, something that nowadays has to be contextualised as it expresses a culture of remembrance.  As with other monuments I have seen in Germany there is an ambivalence, but also a recognition that not all history is to be lauded. 

Far more subtle and yet easily as worthy is this modest stone near the river in Rüdesheim which commemorates the great republican poet of freedom, Friedrich Schiller:

Freude, schöner Götterfunken.

Tochter aus Elysium,

Wir betreten, feuertrunken,

Himmlische, dein Heiligtum.

Deine Zauber binden wieder,

Was die Mode streng geteilt,

Alle Menschen werden Brüder,

Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Joy, immortal incandescence,

Daughter of Elysium!

Breathing fire from thy presence

To thy temple-ground we come.

Whom the world estranged from others

Thy enchantments reunite,

Making mankind into brothers

Where thy gentle wings alight.

Friedrich Schiller

Ode to Joy (1786)

{I am indebted to my friend Dr Easton who reminded me of the following debate: At the outset, Schiller’s poem was conceived as an Ode to Freedom. The switch from freedom to joy must be understood as widening the scope of the Ode. Freedom may represent the basic foundations of our human condition, but Joy is the very blooming of this condition. Schiller revised the Ode around 1803. It is this revised version which Beethoven used to erect the impressive musical-textual monument of the fourth movement of his last symphony. He also modified Schiller’s text quite drastically in places, adding, by way of an introduction, a whole strophe of his own. I am still a little unsure, however, as the argument about Freude (joy) and Freunde (friend) doesn't account for the fact that freedom is Freiheit in German - I much prefer Freedom to Joy, though there are personal reasons for that.... }

And in the Christmas market in beautiful Rüdesheim with a hot glass of Weißer Winzerglühwein to keep out the cold, there is certainly an odour of joy, mingled with the Flammlachs and the Bratwurst....

And in the meantime, as the freight trains roll past, and the Rhine flows on, time, that imperturbable scourge of eternal youth, hastens us to dreamy sleep.....

River, river, have mercy

Take me down to the sea

For if I perish on these rocks

My love no more I'll see

But if my ship, which sails tomorrow

Should crash against these rocks

My sorrows I will drown before I die

It's you I'll see, not Lorelei

Philip Chevron

Lorelei

****

Dedicated to the Rhinemaidens and to my Lorelei

****

To be continued

Part 2

{wittily entitled Down the Rhine}

will follow shortly.....

****

A Rainy Night....

In Soho (and other stories)....

Anouk Aimee entices me. What can you say? Her call is her call. I sometimes wish it was so simple.....

But it is a rainy night. And I am in Soho. Not that that means much these days.....

I mean, far from the seedy side, these days you can be clean.....

And you don't need to be hungry....

I'm not singing for the future

I'm not dreaming of the past

I'm not talking of the first time

I never think about the last

Everywhere changes.  Nothing remains.  (The centre cannot hold....)  Cold, shiny alleys are the veins of an older city....

And where for sixty years or so i camisa & son provided the best of Italy on Old Compton Street, economical issues led to the demise of the family firm. It is sad to face the old shop front, without the bicycle, and to think of the passing of time..... But that is how it is....

And not far away there is another outpost of Europe, where pints are not the accepted measure....

Meanwhile there are those who like to sit:

And those who seek:

And the cool cats who rely on past vibes:

And those who, like me, will pay over the odds for something that reminds the soul of Italy:

Yay! 

Though one must not forget that there is inequality and some may sit on the cold steps of society rather than in the comfort of hallowed halls:

Night falls, and there are those who have no memories, no sense of the past, but who enjoy in their own perfectly secure way the delight of the now:

And the plastic angels still fly overhead, as they have flown for some years now.....

While, as dawn begins to wash the pavements, the big names reappear, their price tags only a mark of the way some people have, and others don't.....

It is Christmas time after all,

And everything is shiny and high gloss - good for glittering memories:

Nothing can be said about these delightful windows and their messages.  As long as I have more than you, or less than you, it matters not whether Jesus was born in a stable, nor whether he was conceived by miracle....

And all the tinsel and baubles and glitter of Christmas says is that in the depths of ugly winter we must rise up and cheer each other with love and kindness:

Whether we are Fortnum, or Mason.... Or immigrant, or visitor, or poor, or rich,

We should remember refugees and immigrants and those who have nowhere to lay their new born, even if the stage is clumsy and chronologically inaccurate:

And not forgetting that only a few yards away the scene is even less composed:

And that Nelson, our National Hero, is reduced to a fairy figure atop a foreign tree:

But then, with a new day, we take time to review the lives and works of:

Remarking that an early woodland work by Constable would have been the perfect image for Winnie the Pooh [Isn't that sacrilege?  Ed]

But then as the years passed and life took its toll, we find that both masters are watching the clouds form and the rain lash down.  Tell me who painted this?

And who this?

If you know your chocolates, this won't be difficult, but it was a surprise to me that John Constable (the painter of the second picture above) was just as able as his contemporary Turner to depict the falling of the skies, the concatenation of watery forms, and the lights of whirling shadows.

And so, I am led to the darkness again, and wander through the park night, marvelling at the variety of illusion around me, sometimes grand and robust:

Sometimes heartbreakingly alone and just soooo overthinking:

The Serpentine seems almost inviting in its pearly sheen:

But then the lights of the great Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park restore my faith in the Christmas Spirit, and I am reminded of how life is really about other people - I am reminded that it is worth attempting to understand the Buddhist concept of Dukkha, as the wheel of life turns.....

Though by a curious coincidence it is Claudia Cardinale who shakes me out of my melancholy and encourages me to consider the sinuous strands of sanity:

Don't ask me how, but Fellini's Otto e Mezzo still has the power to poke fun at my state of indecision.....

I'm not singing for the future

I'm not dreaming of the past

I'm not talking of the first time

I never think about the last

Now this song is nearly over

We may never find out what it means

Still there's a light I hold before me

And you're the measure of my dreams, the measure of my dreams

Shane Macgowan

A Rainy Night in Soho