Reapers (together): To the music of the reaper’s flute
No song is sung
But the sighing of wind in the fields.
Young Reaper: They that were reaping,
Reaping on that hill,
Walk now through the fields
Homeward, for it is dusk.
Reapers (together): Short is the way that leads
From the sea of Suma back to my home.
This little journey, up to the hill
And down to the shore again, and up to the hill—
This is my life, and the sum of hateful tasks.
If one should ask me
I too would answer
That on the shore of Suma
I live in sadness.
Yet if any guessed my name,
Then might I too have friends.
But now from my deep misery
Even those that were dearest
Are grown estranged. Here must I dwell abandoned
To one thought’s anguish:
That I must dwell here.
Priest: Hey, you reapers! I have a question to ask you.
Young Reaper: Is it to us you are speaking? What do you wish to know?
Priest: Was it one of you who was playing on the flute just now?
Young Reaper: Yes, it was we who were playing.
Priest: It was a pleasant sound, and all the pleasanter because one does not look for such music from men of your condition.
Young Reaper: Unlooked for from men of our condition, you say!
Have you not read:
“Do not envy what is above you
Nor despise what is below you”?
Moreover the songs of woodmen and the flute-playing of herdsmen,
