NOTES
Title-page.The Coming of Peace.This is a somewhat free translation of the title of Hauptmann’s play. Friedensfest means literally the Feast or Festival of Peace, but the English title we have chosen seemed more euphonious and has besides a bearing on the end of the play, when the old man at any-rate enters into his rest.
P. 6.O Gottogottogott!The effect of this exclamation, which Mrs Scholz uses all through the play, cannot be reproduced in English. We have tried, in the translation, by joining the words with a hyphen, to give as far as might be the look of one word. Oh Godohgodohgod! would only have puzzled readers. Even in speaking, the change from thettodmakes the attempt to pronounce the exclamation as one word almost impossible. Moreover to English eyes and ears “Oh God” of course carries a weight quite incongruous in Mrs Scholz’s chatter. Here, as in many other places, we were unable to arrive at an entirely satisfactory equivalent for the German.
P. 16.That’s an inhuman hand!This cannot be called atranslation. Mrs Scholz says: “Aus dem Grabe wachsen solche Hände!” She here alludes to an old German saying still quoted among the peasantry, which declares that the hand of anyone guilty of striking a parent would, after death, point upward from the grave in ceaseless self-accusation. We have been unable to find any similar superstition in English folk-lore.