Will You Be Mein?

Du Bist Mein, Ich Bin Dein:

A German Love Poem

I wanted to do something a little bit different this month. With Valentine’s Day behind us and spring just weeks away, it felt appropriate to introduce to you one of my favorite love poems.

I first came into contact with this poem in 2005, during a senior seminar on German love poetry when I was in college. I read it in the original Mittelhochdeutsch (or Middle German) with the translation into modern German right next to it, but it is the rhythm and rhyme of the original that I love the most.

Dû bist mîn, ich bin dîn:
des solt dû gewis sîn.
dû bist beslozzen
in mînem herzen:
verlorn ist das slüzzelîn:
dû muost immer drinne sîn.

-Anonymous

Roughly translated, the poem reads,

Yes, it’s the German equivalent to “Roses are red, Violets are blue.” Who cares?

What’s interesting about this poem is that the poet is unknown. Written down sometime in the twelfth century, the text was found at the end of a love letter in the Tegernsee letter collection of the Bavarian State Library. It is known as one of the best known examples of German literature from the Middle Ages. There is some debate about whether or not the text should be considered a poem or part of a folk song.

Some question whether the poem and even the letters themselves could have been the fictional work of a monk or if the monk was in correspondence with a lady or nun. It’s difficult to say since the codex that includes the poem and letters are written in the same handwriting, suggesting they were transcribed as many manuscripts were back then.

The hopeless romantic within me would like to believe that the letters were written by two lovers, their names lost to time, and that the song was written by the monk because he liked it. Maybe it was stuck in his head as he was transcribing and writing it down at the end of a set of love letters seemed like the best place to get rid of his earworm. Sounds like something I would do, if I could get away with it.

Believe what you want about the authorship of the poem. Say what you want about the saccharine sweetness within the verse, it still holds as one of the most romantic poems I’ve ever read. Simple and to the point, the narrator holds nothing back. If only we could find more examples of this bold simplicity in our own time.