Hypochonder by Goethe

Der Teufel hol das Menschengeschlecht!
Man möchte rasend werden!
Da nehm ich mir so eifrig vor:
Will niemand weiter sehen,
Will all das Volk Gott und sich selbst
Und dem Teufel überlassen!
Und kaum seh ich ein Menschengesicht,
So hab ichs wieder lieb.


Prose translation:

Spleen
Devil take the human race! It's enough to drive one crazy! I keep making such firm resolutions to stop seeing people altogether and consign the whole nation to God and itself and the devil! And then I have only to catch sight of a human face and I love it again.

*

Isn't it incredible how a poem written in a language of which one has a poor understanding can be so melodious? This said, I do wish I could understand this without the notes - I can't imagine reading a translation of Byron or Shakespeare and receiving even a tenth of its magniloquence. There's also, as I'm about to explain, a weird sense of paranoia surrounding translations, at least for me there is. Even if the poet himself were to translate it, passion is such an evanescent thing that the translation would probably seem anaemic in comparison. This must be magnified hugely when translated by someone who did not even pen the piece to begin with. 

For example, I am not sure why my copy of this poem translates 'Hypochonder' to 'Spleen' - my German is remarkably bad but translation websites accord with what one might naturally assume and translate it to 'Hypochondriac' instead. I therefore hope the translator of my edition is not merely positing the words he feels are most conducive to the tone of each poem (n.b. 'splenetic', the adjective form of 'spleen', is one of the most entertaining words in existence. It explodes out of the mouth like some sort of incisor-punctured cherry tomato, laving acidic juices against the recipient's heretofore untomatoed countenance. Or, if you like, it unfurls like a colossal worm, cascades from the larynx like pestilence from Death's unholy maws and molests one's interlocutor. I'm all for plurality of description.) 

I do try not to type arrant bollocks, I really do. I know the success:fail ratio in this is pretty unflattering, but it's in my in-tray. Well then, solemnity mode activated: I am of the opinion that misanthropy, as expressed in this poem, is terribly misunderstood. Misanthropists are assumed to be base, maleficent, and overridingly pessimistic. I argue the opposite - misanthropists are frustrated optimists, they are so hopeful that their hopes cannot but be crushed. Misanthropists feel more keenly than most the wickedness of Man, and come to hate what they cannot alter. In short, misanthropy requires of its holder, more often than not, a great expectation of men; indeed, it is paradoxically those who are satisfied with mankind who debase it with their low estimation of its potential. Expressing satisfaction with man's monstrosities is certainly more wicked than to think man can do infinitely better. It is they who are pessimistic, it is they who wish to see humankind crushed under the weight of its own incompetence. It requires a horrendous individual to look on the atrocities mankind commits with such grim regularity and maintain no contempt for it. One might argue that mankind also does nice things, an argument I would refute on factual grounds but also on logical grounds - this is like saying, 'Yes, it is true that Ian from next door murdered my dog, but he is not evil! He sent me an elaborate Christmas card the very same year.' I say it takes a weak fool, and even an evil fool, not to condemn evil where it is reposed.

Surely this can be the only explanation of the sentiment of this poem. There is an instinctive love of mankind but also a resignation at its actions. A hopeless, despairing misanthropist as popularly perceived would not have this instinctive love of humanity, rather a sterile and irrational hatred to mankind's entire being. One must remember: misanthropy is, at its core, an unwelcome paradox. It is hate founded in love. It is the act of gazing with utter despair on the desecration of something profound and delicate; baying hopelessly at a swelling edifice of hate, ignorance and cauterising turpitude which compasses with malignance the sacrosanct. Misanthropy is the hallmark of the troubled soul.

I am supposed to be writing an essay on public expenditure. Though public expenditure is one of my heart's ferocious passions, and indeed I am known for my propensity to discuss, in violent terms, public expenditure in my sleep, I oddly find this more interesting. This blank, infinite, indifferent box of nothingness into which I am burying words which will certainly not be read is more interesting than public expenditure. I know - crazy talk... public expenditure is commonly held to be the most interesting topic humankind has contrived, yet I am a man of radical views and I will assert my unpopular opinion to the last. I will even go so far as to say, at the risk of inciting a riot, that public expenditure is overrated. It has become a concern for the masses, and is totally exhausted as a lode for refined enjoyment. Frankly I have stopped caring about public expenditure, and I urge you, against your heart's judgement, to join me in my disaffection. It simply will not be as fashionable in five years as it appears today. And, with this vaticination, I leave you gaunt and harrowed, like the stump of a felled tree. Avaunt!