The Breitmann Ballads | Page 6

THEY HELD THE MASS MEETING
6. BREITMANN'S GREAT SPEECH III.
7. PARDT DE VIRST: -- THE AUTHOR ASSERTS THE VAST INTELLECTUAL
8. SUPERIORITY OF GERMANS TO AMERICANS PARDT DE SECOND: -- SHOWING HOW MR. HIRAM TWINE "PLAYED OFF"
9. ON SMITH BREITMANN AS AN UHLAN --
10. THE VISION II. BREITMANN IN A BALLOON III. BREITMANN AND BOUILLI IV. BREITMANN TAKES THE TOWN OF NANCY
11. BREITMANN IN BIVOUAC VI. BREITMANN'S LAST BARTY EUROPE --
12. BREITMANN IN PARIS BREITMANN IN LA SORBONNE BREITMANN IN FORTY-EIGHT BREITMANN IN BELGIUM --
13. SPA OSTENDE GENT BREITMANN IN HOLLAND --
14. 'S GRAVENHAGE -- THE HAGUE LEYDEN SCHEVENINGEN AMSTERDAM GERMANY --
15. BREITMANN AM RHEIN -- COLOGNE AM RHEIN -- NO. II AM RHEIN -- NO. III MUNICH FRANKFORT-ON-THE-MAIN ITALY --
16. BREITMANN IN ROME LA SCALA SANTA BREITMANN INTERVIEWS THE POPE THE FIRST EDITION OF BREITMANN --
17. SHOWING HOW AND WHY IT WAS THAT IT NEVER APPEARED LAST BALLADS --
18. BREITMANN IN TURKEY COBUS HAGELSTEIN FRITZERL SCHNALL THE GYPSY LOVER DORNENLIEDER BREITMANN'S SLEIGH-RIDE THE MAGIC SHOES GLOSSARY
INTRODUCTION?BY THE PUBLISHER
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"HANS BREITMANN GIFE A BARTY" - the first of the poems here submitted to the English public - appeared originally in 1857, in Graham's Magazine, in Philadelphia, and soon became widely known. Few American poems, indeed, have been held in better or more constant remembrance than the ballad of "Hans Breitmann's Barty;" for the words just quoted have actually passed into a proverbial expression. The other ballads of the present?collection, likewise published in several newspapers, were first collected in 1869 by Mr. Leland, the translator of Heine's?"Pictures of Travel" and "Book of Songs," and author of Meister Karl's Sketch -Book," Philadelphia, 1856 and "Sunshine in?Thought," New York, 1863. They are much of the same character as "The Barty" - most of them celebrating the martial career of "Hans Breitmann," whose prototype was a German, serving during the war in the 15th Pennsylvanian cavalry, and who - we have it on good authority - was a man of desperate courage whenever a cent could be made, and one who never fought unless?something could be made. The "rebs" "gobbled" him one day; but he re-appeared in three weeks overloaded with money and valuables. One of the American critics remarks: -?"Throughout all the ballads it is the same figure presented - an honest 'Deutscher,' drunk with the New World as with new wine, and rioting in the expression of purely Deutsch nature and?half-Deutsch ideas through a strange speech."
The poems are written in the dull broken English (not to be confounded with the Pennsylvanian German) spoken by millions of - mostly uneducated - Germans in America, immigrants to a great extent from southern Germany. Their English has not yet become a distinct dialect; and it would even be difficult to fix at?present the varieties in which it occurs. One of its prominent peculiarities, however, is easily perceived: it consists in the constant confounding of the soft and hard consonants; and the reader must well bear it in mind when translating the language that meets his eye into one to become intelligible to his ear. Thus to the German of our poet, kiss becomes giss; company - gompany; care - gare; count - gount; corner - gorner; till - dill; terrible - derrible; time - dime; mountain - moundain; thing - ding; through - droo; the - de; themselves - demselves; other - oder; party - barty; place - blace; pig - big; priest - breest; piano - biano; plaster - blaster; fine - vine; fighting - vighting; fellow - veller; or, vice versâ, he sounds got -?cot; green - creen; great - crate; gold dollars - cold tollars; dam - tam; dreadful - treadful; drunk - troonk; brown - prown; blood - ploot; bridge - pridge; barrel - parrel; boot - poot; begging - peggin'; blackguard - plackguart; rebel - repel; never - nefer; river - rifer; very - fery; give - gife; victory - fictory; evening - efening; revive - refife; jump - shoomp; join - choin; joy - choy; just - shoost; joke - choke; jingling - shingling;, &c.; or, through a kindred change, both - bofe; youth - youf; but mouth - mout'; earth - eart'; south - sout'; waiting - vaiten;' was - vas; widow - vidow; woman - voman; work - vork; one - von; we - ve, &c. And hence, by way of a compound mixture, we get from him drafel for travel, derriple for terrible, a daple-leck for a table-leg, bepples for pebbles, tisasder for disaster, schimnastig dricks for gymnastic tricks, let-bencil for lead-pencil, &c. The peculiarity of Germans pronouncing in their mother tongue s like sh when it is followed by a t or p, and of Germans in southern Germany often also final s like sh, naturally produced in their American jargon such results as shplit, shtop, shtraight, shtar,?shtupendous, shpree, shpirit, &c; ish(is), ash(as), &c.; and, by analogy led to shveet(sweet), schwig(swig),