Note 234 — III. CONVERSATIONS AND PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF WORDSWORTH.
Reading edition
Oberon, Canto viii. stanzas 69-80. The little touch about the new born babe's returning its mother's kiss is very romantic: though put modestly in the form of a query:
—Und scheint nicht jeden Kuss Sein kleiner mund dem ihren zu entsaugen?
The word entsaugen (suck off) is expressive—it very naturally characterises the kiss of an infant five minutes of age. Wieland had great nursery experience. 'My sweetest hours,' says he, in a letter quoted in the Survey,' are those in which I see about me, in all their glee of childhood, my whole posse of little half-way things between apes and angels.'
Mr. Sotheby's translation of the Oberon made the poem popular in this country. The original first appeared in 1780. S. C.