GENERAL NOTE: J. S. Bach’s setting of this dramma per musica was performed on August 3, 1725 for the name day of Leipzig professor August Friedrich Müller (the “August” mentioned in the text). The speaking characters are Aeolus, the Greek god of the winds; Pomona, a Roman goddess of fruitful abundance; Zephyrus, the Greek god representing the west (gentle) wind; and Pallas Athena, a Greek goddess here representing wisdom. Aeolus keeps the harsh winter winds captive in a cave until he releases them, bringing winter. The Greek mythology is here a little loose, but Pallas Athena is presented as the protector of the Muses and of their place on Mt. Helicon and in the region of Pieria.

¹ In modern German, “Gruft” refers to a “grave” or “[burial] vault,” but in older German the word was also used as a synonym for “Höhle” (“cave”).

² The sense of “Betrüben” here is not “traurig machen” (“to sadden/distress”) but the older-German sense “trübe machen” (“to roil”).

³ The poet’s printed libretto gives “verlöschend” (which also means “extinguished”).

⁴ Cedar trees grow large, flourish in winter, and live to a great age. Thus they were well-known biblical symbols of strength (e.g., Psalm 92:13).

⁵ The grammatically singular “das Gestirn” (literally, “the star”) is a collective noun that refers to “the stars”; the noun’s grammatical plural is “die Gestirne” (“the stars”). The librettist clearly connotes plural stars here, but he uses the singular article “das” (“the”), the plural noun “Gestirne” (“stars”), the singular verb “wird vermuten” (“will suppose”), and the plural possessive “ihr” (“their”).

⁶ “[Das] Feuer” (“[the] fire”), in connection with stars, was employed as a synonym for “das Funkeln” (“the twinkle,” “the sparkle”).

⁷ “Verziehen” had a very wide variety of meanings in older German. Here it is apparently used as a synonym for “zögern” (“to hold off”).

⁸ “Verwaist” (literally, “orphaned”) was sometimes used figuratively as a synonym for “einsam” (“lonely,” “forlorn”).

⁹ “Auf den Zweigen” (“on the/their branches”) in the poet’s printed libretto.

¹⁰ By analogy to “the red/rosy [facial] cheeks” (in German, “die rote Wangen”) of a person, the shimmering areas of a fruit of the earth were called “Wangen” (“cheeks”).

¹¹ “Lauschend” had a wide variety of meanings in older German, and its use here has been rendered most variously—many of the solutions, however, are lexicographically untenable—by previous translators of this libretto, namely as “attentive,” “delightful,” “harkening,” “idyllic,” “intimate,” “listening,” “mild,” “pleasant,” “refreshing,” or “spying.” The leading eighteenth-century German dictionary gives the following as one of the meanings of the verb “lauschen”: “einen geringern Grad des Schlummers zu bezeichnen; … Im Bette lauschen, im Bette liegen und der stillen Ruhe pflegen ohne zu schlummern” (“to indicate a lesser degree of slumber/quiescence; … ‘“lauschen” in bed,’ [means] lying in bed and cultivating quiet rest without slumbering”). Bach’s librettist used the adverb “lauschend” in this sense of “indolently” for another long poem of his, in which these lines apear: “ein Bach gelinde fliesset, / Sein Wasser mild und lauschend giesset” (“a brook mildly flows, / Its water gently and indolently pours [into the meadows]”). Note that Zephyrus, here addressed by Pallas, is the god of gentle/indolent breezes.

¹² In the poet’s printed libretto this line reads, “Seht, euer Wunsch soll euch gelingen” (“Look, your wish shall succeed for you”).

¹³ “Weil” (normally, “because”) was sometimes used as an (old-fashioned) adverb of time (“while”), especially in poetry and in unrefined speech.

¹⁴ The name of a mountain in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses.

¹⁵ “Anstellen” is here employed in it older-German sense as a synonym for “veranstalten” in its sense of “to organize.”

¹⁶ The “Pierinnen” are the Muses, said to have been born in Pieria.

¹⁷ “Weise” is employed here not in its sense of “scharfsinnig” (“perspicacious,” “sagacious”) but in its older-German sense of “viel wissend” (“much-knowing”).

¹⁸ A name prophetic for its literal meaning of “esteemed” and distinguished for its association both with the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus and the then-ruling Saxon elector Friedrich August.

¹⁹ Bach set lines 1–2 as the da capo, but the poet’s printed libretto indicates only line 1 as such.

²⁰ “Geflügelt” (literally, “winged”) is used here figuratively as a synonym for “beflügelt” (“quickened” in the sense of “made to move swiftly”; “fleet”).

²¹ The poet’s printed libretto gives an exclamation mark (as do modern editions), but Bach’s score gives a question mark.

²² Again (see the previous line), the poet’s printed libretto gives an exclamation mark (as do modern editions), but Bach’s score gives a question mark.

²³ The poet’s printed libretto again gives an exclamation mark (as do modern editions), but Bach’s score gives neither an exclamation nor a question mark.

²⁴ See movement 5, where Zephyrus was, by contrast, sad and humiliated among “the cool shades” of the “forlorn branches.”

²⁵ In Bach’s day, “zollen” ordinarily meant “to pay taxes,” but in poetry the verb was often used simply as a synonym for “geben” (“to give”) or “gewähren” (“to bestow/vouchsafe”).

²⁶ “Indem” is used here in the temporal sense of “while.”

²⁷ The poet’s printed libretto gives “geehrter Mann” (“honored man”) in the da capo, which is most likely just a typo for “gelehrter Mann” (“learned man”).