Historical dream account · English · machine translation
A wreath exchanged for a keepsake
Friedrich Hebbel (1813–1863)
Friedrich Hebbels Tagebücher. Zweiter Band (1887) · Printed pp. 468–469
Dreamer identified by the source: Hebbel’s wife (as identified in the diary)
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Today, Sunday: She is shown a cemetery where the grave of the court actress Rudlof is said to be—a young woman who has only very recently married an Englishman. She decides to visit it and lay on it the wreath of roses she is wearing in her hair. When she arrives, she cannot find the monument and asks the gravedigger’s daughter where it is. She is directed to a chapel and there meets Rudlof herself, dried up like a mummy, with her teeth fallen out. Rudlof tells her that she has had herself buried alive as penance for her unlawfully contracted marriage. She receives the wreath with delight and, in return, gives a brooch as a keepsake, taking it from a chest of drawers she has brought into the grave.
Den 18. Nov.; 1859 sequence; Heute Sonntag retained.
Read the original German account
A wreath exchanged for a keepsake
Heute Sonntag: Man zeigt ihr einen Kirchhof, auf dem sich das Grab der Hofschauspielerin Rudlof, einer jungen Person, die sich ganz kürzlich erst mit einem Engländer verheirathet hat, befinden soll. Sie entschließt sich, es zu besuchen und einen Rosenkranz, den sie gerade im Haar trägt, darauf nieder zu legen. Angekommen, kann sie das Denkmal nicht finden und fragt des Todtengräbers Tochter, wo es sey. Sie wird in eine Kapelle gewiesen und trifft dort die Rudlof selbst, mumienartig zusammen getrocknet, mit ausgefallenen Zähnen. Diese sagt ihr, sie habe sich zur Buße für ihre unrechtmäßig geschlossene Ehe lebendig begraben lassen, empfängt den Kranz mit Freuden und giebt ihrerseits zum Andenken eine Busen-Nadel her, die sie aus einer Commode nimmt, welche sie mit in’s Grab genommen hat.
Source & context
English machine translation. The original account, source credit and publication terms remain available.
Hebbel records the second of his wife’s two distinct dreams in the same entry. “Rosenkranz” is rendered as a wreath of roses because she wears it in her hair and lays it on the grave. Rudlof’s marriage, deathlike condition, burial and speech belong to the dream report and are not verified biographical allegations. Heute Sonntag remains unresolved as printed.
Friedrich Hebbel, Friedrich Hebbels Tagebücher. Zweiter Band (Berlin: G. Grote’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1887), edited by Felix Bamberg, Printed pp. 468–469. Dreamer: Hebbel’s wife (as identified in the diary); recorded by Friedrich Hebbel. Original German witness: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Biogr.506sv-2, via Internet Archive. Editorial title and navigation metadata added by Synastry; source wording, narrative uncertainty and distinct reported voices retained.
The heading reads Den 18. Nov. in the sequence immediately followed by the explicit Den 22. Nov. 1859 entry. The second dream begins Heute Sonntag. These printed relative/calendar descriptions are retained without silently reconciling them or assigning an exact dream date.
Public domain in the United States (original German 1887 edition) ↗
Original German diary passage from the independently witnessed 1887 second volume, edited by Felix Bamberg (1820–1893), of Friedrich Hebbel (1813–1863). The 1887 publication has an expired-US-publication basis; author/editor ordinary life-plus-70 terms have elapsed. No modern edition or English translation is copied. Public archive access is not itself a reuse grant; no new licence or blanket worldwide clearance is asserted.
Source locator and text provenance
Printed pp. 468–469
The original text and redactions are preserved. The page title is an editorial navigation label.
Original-scan-witnessed OCR letter/punctuation repairs; long-s transcribed as s; physical line/page furniture and division hyphens normalized exactly as the reversible ledger records. Historical spelling, wording and dream uncertainty retained. Second of the two explicitly distinguished dreams, from Heute Sonntag through the keepsake and chest of drawers. Crosses p. 468 to p. 469. The next Den 22. Nov. 1859 entry is separate.
- Account text SHA-256
- 274b5c2ee3a7a2895f04f2068e8819bf43d01f5eea27d8216da169e53c1e76ed
- Source file SHA-256
- ebd64c69b8734682c1c03d597a68ea4332c644f521634ab61208df941367032c
Content notes
- Historical recollection
Connections in the Loom
Titles, theme labels, illustrations and map connections are editorial navigation aids. They are separate from the account’s words and do not establish connections between real people.