Week 6
There has arisen from its narrow limits
My self and finds itself
As revelation of all worlds
Within the sway of time and space;
The world, as archetype divine,
Displays to me at every turn
The truth of my own likeness.
Week 32
I feel my own force, bearing fruit
And gaining strength to give me to the world.
My inmost being I feel charged with power
To turn with clearer insight
Toward the weaving of life's destiny.
—Translation by Ruth and Hans Pusch
Here are fifteen lectures, five of them untranslated as of this publication date, given by Rudolf Steiner at various cities in the first half of the year, 1915. They are from the lecture series entitled, The Mystery of Death (also known as The Secret of Death, published in German as, Das Geheimnis des Todes. Wesen und Bedeutung Mitteleuropas und die europaeischen Volksgeister.
The translation is based on Das Geheimnis des Todes, volume 159/160 of Rudolf Steiner's Complete Works (Gesamtausgabe), published in German by Rudolf-Steiner-Verlag, Dornach (Switzerland), second edition in 1980. Copyright © 1967: Rudolf-Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung Dornach.
Except for the poem at the end of the talks, the translations of the verses were taken from Our Dead, volume 261 of Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works, edited by SteinerBooks, Copyright © 2011.
The translations of Goethe's Faust were taken from: Faust I and II, edited and translated by Stuart Atkins, Princeton University Press, paperback printing 1994. Copyright © 1984 Suhrkamp/Insel Publishers, Boston. Inc.
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