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A translation of Lord Byron's (George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824 ) Cain, a dramatic mystery in three acts, by David Frischman. George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron, was born 22 January 1788 in London and died 19 April 1824 in Missolonghi, Greece. He was among the most famous of the English 'Romantic' poets; his contemporaries included Percy Shelley and John Keats. He was also a satirist whose poetry and personality captured the imagination of Europe. His major works include Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-18) and Don Juan (1819-24). He died of fever and exposure while engaged in the Greek struggle for independence. The story of Cain had fascinated Byron since the time when, as a boy of eight, his German master had read to him Gessner’s Der Tod Abels, while the poet’s indebtedness - first pointed out by Coleridge - to Milton’s Satan, in his conception of Lucifer, needs no elaboration here. But what marks Cain off from Manfred and the verse-tales in that element of idyllic tenderness associated with the characters of Cain’s wife, Adah, and their child, Enoch. This is beautiful in itself, and also serves as a fitting contrast to those sublimer scenes in which the hero is borne by Lucifer through the abysses of space and the dark abodes of Hades.
David Frischmann (1859-1922)--Known as a poet, short story writer, essayist, literary critic, and journalist, David Frischmann (b. Poland), has been acclaimed as one of modern Jewry's first major writers. At a young age he portrayed an interest and talent in writing. He first became a satirist, and then a short story writer, who dealt with such issues as the persistent theme of Jews coming into conflict with the mores of traditional Jewish society. Frischmann was noted to empathize with the sentiments that coincided with one trying to balance the values that stemmed from a traditional Jewish upbringing and the outside world.
A prime example is one of his pieces, Bar Midbar (1923). The work is a series of fictional biblical tales, which deals with the moral question that the Children of Israel came in contact with while they were wandering in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt. Throughout their journey they are depicted as being torn between their primitive lusts and habits and the new moral code that Moses is preaching to them. This piece was designed to address the conflict between religious faith and law, and man's natural instincts.
Frischmann was also an acclaimed literary critic, journalist, and editor and publisher. He spoke several languages and wrote in both Hebrew and Yiddish. Although he never immigrated to Israel, he was able to visit twice, in 1911 and 1912. |
