At Bacharach, a blonde sorceress there was, Who made all men perish from love.
So the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire described the Lorelei, and so we see her, a golden-haired girl whose irresistible song attracted the vessels of the Rhine and led them to shipwreck.
Though the legend has probably lived in the hearts of Rhine sailors since antiquity, the Lorelei we know dates from the beginning of the 19th century. The famous crag overhanging the waters of the Rhine downstream from Bacharach was the subject of legends long before the Lorelei appeared on the scene, however.
Situated at one of the most dangerous passes in the Rhine, the rock inspired fear and curiosity because of its echo, which was believed to possess the powers of an oracle. When ships approached, passengers shouted questions about their fates. According to anonymous 12th century verses, dwarfs perched on the rock sent back answers through the echo. The crag also figured in the epic poem the Nibelungenlied. The hero, Siegfried, possessed a treasure, but the villain, Hagen, killed Siegfried and threw the treasure into the Rhine not far from the echoing rock.
In 1801, in his novel Godwi, the German poet Clemens Brentano published a ballad, "Lora-Lay,” set in medieval times. He claimed to have created the myth by leading his readers to believe that the Lorelei was a part of popular folklore. His heroine, "so beautiful and so slender," was summoned by the bishop on account of the havoc she was wreaking among the local menfolk.
My lord bishop, make me die; I am weary of life, For all must perish Who gaze into my eyes.
The young girl, victim of an evil spell that was fatal even for her, had another reason to beg for death: her lover had been unfaithful and had left her. But the bishop, charmed like all the others, could not bring himself to condemn her to death and sent her to a convent. On her way, she climbed a rock to take one last look at the waters of the Rhine. On the horizon she perceived a sail, and thought her lover was returning.
My heart with joy is full, That must, must be my love! And then the lass bent down And plunged into the Rhine.
To Brentano, who was twenty-three when he wrote the tale, the poor girl was the victim of her feelings and of her own gaze. She incarnated the curse of love. This theme was popular with other Romantics, who were fascinated by her at about the same age. Both Joseph Eichendorff and Apollinaire were twenty-two when they took up the tale, and the German poet Heinrich Heine was twenty-five. Eichendorff s contribution was significant because he added to the legend. In his version, put to music by Robert Schumann, the Lorelei is dressed in black with a white veil and wears a crown of pearls in her blond hair.
In Heine's version, the Lorelei is associated with the sirens of the Odyssey whose voices called sailors to their death. There is no longer anything about her magic gaze. Brentano's notion of the siren's fatal gaze was not taken up again until the 20th century. Apollinaire, inspired by the famous rock, wrote:
My heart becomes so tender - it is my lover approaching And then she leaned forward and fell in the Rhine For she, had seen in the water the beauteous Loreley, Her eyes the color of the Rhine, her hair of sun.
