The Veiled Image at Sais by Friedrich Schiller

Translation

Struck by a burning thirst for knowledge, a youth
Travelled to Egyptian lands—to Sais—
To breach the secret knowledge of its priests;
He eagerly made all the needed grades,
But still, relentlessly, kept climbing higher—
The hierophant could barely tame the boy.
“What good is one small part without the whole?”
Exclaimed the eager youth, without a pause.
“For, can the truth be really more or less?
The way you speak of truth is as if it
Were but just some mere earthly sum,
As if a question of just more or less.
Surely, it’s something whole and without parts;
The truth is pure and indivisible!
Remove one note and harmony dissolves,
Remove one color and the rainbow fades,
And nothing will remain, so long as that
One color, or one note, remains still absent.”

While the priest and the boy conversed,
They stood amid the precincts of a temple
Where a colossal statue stood, silent and veiled.
It captured the excited boy’s attention,
And so he turned towards the wise old priest
And asked, “What lies hidden beneath tha…