indiscretions would be inexcusable, however grateful the reader might be.

Notes

l Melusina, a water sprite.

2 Miss Jenny, the heroine of a popular novel at the time.

3 Allemande, a precursor of the waltz.

4 Klopstock’s ode, “Die Frühlingsfeier” (“The Rites of Spring”).

5 Ossian, an Irish hero of the third century. Here the reference is to books of prose poems purported to be translations from the Gaelic (1762–1763) by James Macpherson and later exposed as fraudulent.

6 Cruse of oil, I Kings 17: 11–16.

7 Fingal, in the Ossianic legend, king of Morven and father of Ossian.

8 In various previous translations of Werther, the translator resorted to the original English text by James Macpherson, which is so weird and awkward it could never plausibly have moved Lotte and Werther to their tragic breakdown. Goethe’s translation into German of the part called The Songs of Selma, here attributed to Werther, is such a vast improvement on the Macpherson version that I preferred to translate it—C.H.

9 Emilia Galotti, drama by Lessing.

The End