Die Bürgschaft
"The Pledge" (German: "Die Bürgschaft", pronounced [diː ˈbʏʁkʃaft] ) is a ballad published by the German poet Friedrich Schiller in his 1799 Musen-Almanach. He took the idea out of the ancient legend of Damon and Pythias issuing from the Latin Fabulae by Gaius Julius Hyginus, as rendered in the medieval collection of the Gesta Romanorum. It magnifies the belief in fidelity and loving friendship, and remains today one of the most famous German poems.
This article is about the Schiller poem. For the unrelated opera by Kurt Weill, see Die Bürgschaft (opera).Versions[edit]
Schiller wrote the original version in summer 1798, simultaneously with his poem Der Kampf mit dem Drachen, and published both in 1799. In 1804 he re-worked the ballad and changed the name of the main character (from initially Moerus to Damon). It was translated into English by 1842 when it appeared in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine.
In the late 1930s, Bertolt Brecht wrote a verse commentary "Über Schillers Gedicht 'Die Bürgschaft'", a sonnet ironically praising the Golden Age in which contract had such moral force that the tyrant realizes that he is hardly needed. This has been set to music by Hanns Eisler.
In 1940 the Japanese author Osamu Dazai published the short story Run, Melos! reworking Schiller's poem. It is a widely read classic in Japanese schools.