Johann Gottfried Seume - Syracuse

Dresden to Lowositz (Lovosice)

Written in Budin.

In Pirna we spent an hour with Herr Siegfried,(1) whom you know as the author of Siama and Galmori, and who, with several acquaintances, escorted us to the border. Then the road began to climb; and although it had been mild down by the river, the weather was harsh above. Within a few hours we were already in snow. It grew deeper until a few hours beyond Peterswalde,(2) then gradually lessened, and ceased entirely again near Aussig.(3)

I had been given very strange ideas about the conspicuous manifestations of Bohemian Catholicism. I noticed nothing of the kind. On the contrary, I must say that everything pleased me exceedingly. Our inn at Peterswalde was as good as anyone with reasonable expectations could wish. The customs officer who endorsed my passport was friendly, the meal was not bad, and the serving girl was charmingly neat and pleasant. Laugh at this observation if you will, you old grumbler! A person would need a very sour and unaesthetic soul not to prefer a young, pretty, friendly face to an old, ugly, morose one. In our room, before a mirror hanging between two pictures of the Virgin, the girl adjusted her little silver cap with such charming innocence—as though, in all honour, she were quite willing to forgive herself a little disorder. The heretic Schnorr (4) gazed so rapturously into the eyes of this true-believing creature that one might have thought he was about to convert to her faith—or at least make her his model.

Moreover, the Bohemian-German dialect(5) as far as Lowositz is rather agreeable; it does not gurgle out the words half so thickly and unpleasantly as the mountain speech in Saxony.

The road from Peterswalde to Aussig (SN5) is rugged but beautiful; from Aussig—where one rejoins the Elbe(6)—romantically wild, with high mountains rising left and right along the river, full of ravines, cliffs, and sharp peaks. Here I was told of the complaint against the indiscipline of our Saxon compatriots, who during the Bavarian War of Succession(7) burned all the vine-stakes here for firewood. They need only have climbed a few hundred paces higher to find whole forests. Such things pain me to the depths of my soul on behalf of others. If the Austrians behaved just as badly, that does not make us any better. When will our humanity at last wipe away such stains?

At Lowositz(8) the mountains gradually come to an end; from there up toward Eger(9) and down toward Leitmeritz(10) there is beautiful, magnificent, fertile country, which two hours beyond Budin(11) becomes entirely flat. In Budin—a place where utter desolation seems to reign—I found a small collection of good books in the home of Lasar Tausig, a Jewish resident. As he had lent Lessing’s Nathan the Wise(12) to a friend, he gave me instead, for the evening, Kant’s The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God.(13)

Footnotes

(1) Siegfried: Johann Samuel Siegfried was the name used by the Pirna doctor and writer Johann Samuel Pretsch. His Siama und Galmory appeared in 1801. ↩︎
(2) Peterswalde: Modern Petrovice, Czech Republic, just south of the Saxon–Bohemian border near the Peterswald Pass on the old Dresden–Teplitz road. A customary first stop for travellers entering Bohemia from Saxony. ↩︎
(3) Aussig: Now Ústí nad Labem, a key river port on the Elbe where Seume descends from the border mountains and meets the river again. ↩︎
(4) Schnorr: Veit Hanns Schnorr von Carolsfeld (1764–1841), painter, engraver and Seume’s travelling companion at the beginning of the journey. Seume often styled himself “the heretic” and Schnorr “the Catholic,” but here he reverses the jest. ↩︎
(5) Bohemian-German dialect: The regional German spoken in northern Bohemia. Seume found its pronunciation more agreeable than the mountain dialects he had heard in Saxony. ↩︎
(6) Elbe River: One of Central Europe’s great waterways, rising in the Krkonoše (Giant Mountains) and flowing through Bohemia and Germany to Hamburg. Seume follows it repeatedly in his travels. ↩︎
(7) Bavarian War of Succession (1778–79): A brief conflict between Austria and a Prussian–Saxon alliance over the Bavarian succession. Seume reports the accusation that Saxon troops burned Bohemian vineyard stakes for firewood. ↩︎
(SN5)'The road from Peterswalde to Aussig' (Schnorr note): S. had packed some Greek and Latin authors, and I had packed some Italian books in my knapsack. In Peterswalde, he began to read—I believe Florus—and, with many a droll and sarcastic remark, tore out one read page after another, finally throwing the remaining shell into the stove. He systematically repeated this procedure with several books that interested him less, in order to gradually lighten his knapsack. He brought Homer, Virgil, and Horace back and gave them to his friends. ↩︎
(8) Lowositz: Today Lovosice, on the Elbe near Litoměřice; notable as the site of the Battle of Lobositz (1756) in the Seven Years’ War. ↩︎
(9) Eger: Now Cheb, in western Bohemia near the German border; a historic town in the basin of the same name. ↩︎
(10) Leitmeritz: Modern Litoměřice, one of the oldest Czech towns, situated at the confluence of the Elbe and the Ohře (Eger) River. ↩︎
(11) Budin: Budyně nad Ohří, a small town south of Litoměřice on the Ohře River, known for its Renaissance castle and quiet provincial air. Seume found it desolate. ↩︎
(12) Lessing’s Nathan the Wise (1779): Enlightenment drama advocating religious tolerance and rational virtue through its Jewish hero, Nathan. ↩︎
(13) Kant’s Der einzig mögliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes (1763): Kant’s early treatise examining the metaphysical arguments for God’s existence, first published in 1763. ↩︎

Map of Seume’s route from Dresden to Lovosice — Route map

Dresden to Lovosice, through Pirna, Petrovice and Ústí nad Labem.

Dresden to Lowositz

Dresden to Lowositz (Lovosice)

Footnotes

Route map