7.8 Grimm — «Der Froschkönig» — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the complete tale Der Froschkönig oder der eiserne Heinrich , the first story of the Grimms' collection, in the 1857 text. Recognise the forms of the subjunctive that appear in narration: käme, wäre, bräche, zerspränge , and als wäre , as if . Recognise the old past ward and older word orders in which the verb is not where modern German puts it. Read the rhymed refrains aloud with their rhythm. Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English So nahm sie eine goldene Kugel, warf sie in die Höhe und fieng sie wieder. Then she took a golden ball, threw it up in the air and caught it again. Die Königstochter folgte ihr mit den Augen nach, aber die Kugel verschwand, und der Brunnen war tief. The princess followed it with her eyes, but the ball disappeared, and the well was deep. Da erblickte sie einen Frosch, der seinen dicken häßlichen Kopf aus dem Wasser streckte. Then she saw a frog stretching its fat, ugly head out of the water. Der König aber ward zornig. But the king grew angry. Der treue Heinrich hatte sich so betrübt, als sein Herr war in einen Frosch verwandelt worden. Faithful Heinrich had grieved so much when his master was turned into a frog. Niemand hätte ihn aus dem Brunnen erlösen können als sie allein. No one but she alone could have freed him from the well. Prerequisites : 7.7 — you need the old spellings and fairy-tale narration from 7.7 Reading , relative clauses from 2.15 Grammar , and the passive from 2.19 Grammar . About this text Der Froschkönig stands at the head of the Kinder- und Hausmärchen , number one in every edition from 1812 to 1857. The text here is the 1857 version, the last that Wilhelm Grimm prepared, complete in 1,291 words and nine paragraphs, unchanged except that the printed page numbers are left out. It is in the public domain and taken from the transcription in German Wikisource. The English title is usually The Frog Prince , and many English readers know a version in which the princess kisses the frog. In the Grimms' tale there is no kiss: she throws the frog against the wall in a rage, and that is what breaks the spell. The second title, Iron Henry , refers to the prince's faithful servant, who appears only at the end and gives the story its last image: the iron bands around his heart, bursting one by one for joy. The tale is a lesson in keeping promises. The princess promises the frog everything to get her golden ball back, and her father, the king, holds her to it. That moral is stated outright twice, and you will find it easy to locate. Grammar in the tale The subjunctive in narration. Several verbs look like simple pasts with an umlaut or an -e : käme, wäre, bräche, zerspränge . These are forms of the subjunctive, which you will study from 2.23 Grammar on. In this text they appear in four situations, all easy to read once you know them. In reported questions and thoughts: woher die Stimme käme , where the voice was coming from ; wer draußen wäre , who was outside . In reported speech: er wäre von einer bösen Hexe verwünscht worden , he said he had been cursed by a wicked witch . After als meaning as if : als wäre etwas zerbrochen , as if something had broken . After damit , so that : damit es ihm nicht vor Weh und Traurigkeit zerspränge , so that it would not burst with grief and sorrow . For now, read each of these as the ordinary past: käme as kam , wäre as war , bräche as brach . ward . Der König aber ward zornig : ward is an old form of wurde , the past of werden . It survives in literature and in the Bible, and you will meet it often in older texts. Older word order. Two places put the verb where modern German would not. dessen Töchter waren alle schön keeps the verb second after a relative word; today it would be dessen Töchter alle schön waren . als sein Herr war in einen Frosch verwandelt worden puts war early; today it would go to the end. Such orders were possible in older German, especially for rhythm in storytelling. Sentences that open with da . Many sentences start with da , then : Da fieng sie an zu weinen , Da sagte der König . It moves the story forward one step at a time and puts the verb straight after it, in second position. Reading it a second time, paragraph by paragraph Paragraph 1 opens with one of the most famous first lines in German, In den alten Zeiten, wo das Wünschen noch geholfen hat , in olden times, when wishing still helped . It introduces the youngest princess, the well under the lime tree, and the golden ball. Paragraphs 2–3 are the bargain. The frog's demands come as a list of diminutives: Tischlein, Tellerlein, Becherlein, Bettlein . The princess promises everything and privately dismisses the frog, then runs off with the ball. Paragraphs 4–6 are the dinner and the climax. The frog climbs the marble stairs, plitsch platsch , and calls in verse. In paragraph 6 the king states the moral of the tale twice: was du versprochen hast, das mußt du auch halten , and then wer dir geholfen hat, als du in der Noth warst, den sollst du hernach nicht verachten . The princess obeys, then loses her temper. Paragraph 7 is the transformation, the marriage and the journey, and the faithful Heinrich appears. Paragraphs 8–9 are Heinrich's verse and his iron bands. The rhyme Herzen and Schmerzen is one of the commonest in German verse. Full translation An English translation of the whole text, made for this course and kept close to the original. The numbers are the paragraph numbers of the original text, so you can move between the two. In olden times, when wishing still helped, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which has seen so much, was astonished every time it shone in her face. Close by the king's castle lay a great dark forest, and in the forest under an old lime tree there was a well: now when the day was very hot, the king's child would go out into the