Dryden's Relation to Germany 55 



2. The Tempest or the Enchanted Island, A Source for 

 Bodmer's Noah 



No other pla3-s of Dryden were translated in Germany during 

 the eighteenth century, but Bodmer incorporated lines and situ- 

 ations from The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island (1670). As 

 early as 1743 he spoke of the beauty of innocence as depicted in 

 The Enchanted Island and The Conquest of Mexico}^ Three 

 years later he translated a number of lines from The Tempest, 

 which he prefaced with " In einem Engell. Schauspiel, die bezau- 

 berte Insel betietelt, wird ein junger Mensch eingefiihrt, der nie- 

 mals keine Frauenpersonen gesehen hat ; ihm eine Furcht vor ihnen 

 einzujagen, beschreibt sie ihm sein Oheim also : Bilde dir ein Mit- 

 telding zwischen jungen Mannern und Engeln ein . . . . "**' 



Later this situation and a number of others from The En- 

 chanted Island were incorporated by Bodmer in his epic, Noah.*'^ 

 In Dryden's Tempest Prospero, Duke of Milan, brings up his two 

 daughters and Hippolito, heir to the Dukedom of Mantua, in exile 

 on an enchanted island, keeping them ignorant of the opposite sex. 

 Bodmer similarly depicts the three sons of Noah and the three 

 daughters of Sipha, who were isolated from the world, being in- 

 closed by mountains. As Prospero warns his charges against the 

 wildness of man and the enticing danger of women, so the sons 

 ■of Noah and the daughters of Sipha were similarly warned. 



The parallel passages follow. 



Prospero describes women to Hippolito as : 



" Something between young men and angels . . . 

 Calm sleep is not so soft; nor winter suns 

 Nor summer shades, so pleasant. . . . 

 Their voices charm beyond the nightingales " : — II, 2. 



Japhet, Noah's youngest son, described the maidens thus : 



■" Sie sind ein Mittelding zwischen liingling und Engel. Der Schlaf ist 

 Nicht so sanft, als ihr Thun, noch die kiihlenden Schatten so lieblich, 

 Als ihr erquickender Mund : Musik ist in jeglichem Worte," III, 595 ff- 



39 Criiische Schriftcn, VII. p. 9. 



*'^ Der Maler der Sitten, I, pp. 419-420, Zurich, 1746. 



"*! Der Noah, in Zwolf Ges'dngen. Zurich, bey David Geszner, 1752. 



343 



