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POEMS AND BALLADS

OF

SCHILLER.

THE DIVER;

A BALLAD.

THE original of the story on which Schiller has founded this ballad, matchless perhaps for the power and grandeur of its descriptions, is to be found in Kircher. According to the true principles of imitative art, Schiller has preserved all that is striking in the legend, and ennobled all that is commonplace. The name of the Diver was Nicholas, surnamed the Fish. The King appears, according to Hoffmeister's probable conjectures, to have been either Frederic I. or Frederic II. of Sicily. Date from 1295 to 1377.

"OH, where is the knight or the squire so bold, As to dive to the howling charybdis below ?—

I cast in the whirlpool a goblet of gold,

And o'er it already the dark waters flow;
Whoever to me may the goblet bring,

Shall have for his guerdon that gift of his King."

A

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