ELDORADO - A SONG BY EDGAR ALLAN POE & BERND WAHLBRINCK

Lyrics by Edgar Allan_Poe
1. Gaily bedight, A gallant knight, In sunshine and in shadow, Had journeyed long, Singing a song, In search of Eldorado. 2. But he grew old This knight so bold And o'er his heart a shadow Fell as he found No spot of ground That looked like Eldorado.	3. And, as his strength Failed him at length, He met a pilgrim shadow "Shadow," said he, "Where can it be This land of Eldorado?" 4. "Over the Mountains Of the Moon, Down the Valley of the Shadow, Ride, boldly ride," The shade replied "If you seek for Eldorado!"
Note: gaily bedight = dressed in bright colours

Guitar Chords

These are the harmonies I used.

Am F
Gaily bedight,

C G
A gallant knight,

D Am
In sunshine and in shadow,

Am F
Had journeyed long,

C G
Singing a song,

D (open) Am
In search of Eldorado.

Here is a link to an attempt at a German translation of the poem.

And here is my own feeble attempt at a translation into German...

Gar schmuck so ritt er
Ein tapfrer Ritter
In Sonne und in Schatten
War weit gereist
Im Lied er preist
Und sucht er Eldorado

Doch er ward alt
Und langsam bald
Und auf sein Herz ein Schatten
Fiel als er fand
Kein einz'ges Land
Das war wie Eldorado

Und als trotz Kraft
Er's kaum noch schafft
Traf er den Pilger Schatten
"Oh Schatten mein
Wo kann es sein
Dies Land von Eldorado?"

"Über des Mondes
Blasse Berge
Tief ins Tal des grauen Schattens
Reit' mutig weiter
Immer weiter
Auf der Such' nach Eldorado!"

1. Gaily bedight
A gallant knight
In sunshine and in shadow
Had journeyed long
Singing a song
In search of Eldorado.

2. But he grew old
This knight so bold
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

3. And as his strength
Failed him at length
He met a pilgrim shadow
"Shadow," said he
"Where can it be
This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the Mountains
Of the Moon
Down the Valley of the Shadow
Ride, boldly ride,"
The shade replied
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

BACKGROUND INFO based on Wikipedia

Eldorado is a ballad poem by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the April 21, 1849 issue of The Flag of Our Union.

The poem describes the journey of a "gallant knight" in search of the legendary El Dorado. The knight spends much of his life on this quest. In his old age, he finally meets a "pilgrim shadow" who points the way through "the Valley of Shadow."

The poem is made up of four six-line stanzas. Poe uses the term shadow in the middle of each stanza. The meaning of the word, however, changes with each use. First, it is a literal shadow, where the sun is blocked out. In the second, it implies gloom or despair. The third use is a ghost. The final use, "the Valley of Shadow," can be replaced with "Valley of Death," possibly suggesting that Eldorado (or riches in general) does not exist in the living world.

The time of the poem's publication, 1849, was during the California gold rush and may have been Poe's reaction to that event.

HOWARD HAWKS:
El Dorado

In the remarkable 1966 movie El Dorado, directed by Howard Hawks, Edgar Allan Poe's poem Eldorado is featured in the music of the film, it is quoted by James Caan's character, Mississippi, and it provides the basic theme of the story.

It also turns out to be a running gag delivered in a very humorous way by James Caan - though the John Wayne character (Cole Thornton) does not seem to like it...

Mississippi: Always liked that poem too. Makes me wanna...

Cole: Ride, boldly ride? Well it don't work out that way.

Mississippi: I'm learnin' that.

Add'l info: "Eldorado" has four verses. James Caan recites three, omitting the second. He recites the first verse and part of the fourth riding with Wayne after they meet for the first time, the third when Wayne is about to ride out for the final gunfight, and the complete fourth when he himself takes up the second wagon's reins.

Here are the lyrics of the title music.

In sunshine and shadow, from darkness till noon
Over mountains that reach from the sky to the moon
A man with a dream that will never let go
Keeps searching to find El Dorado

So ride, boldly ride, to the end of the rainbow
Ride, boldly ride, till you find El Dorado

The wind becomes bitter, the sky turns to grey
His body grows weary, he can't find his way
But he'll never turn back, though he's lost in the snow
For he has to find El Dorado

So ride, boldly ride, to the end of the rainbow
Ride, boldly ride, till you find El Dorado

My Daddy once told me what a man ought to be
There's much more to life than the things we can see
And the godliest mortal you ever will know
Is the one with the dream of El Dorado

So ride, boldly ride, to the end of the rainbow
Ride, boldly ride, till you find El Dorado

Random Bits & Pieces

I have a feeling the worst thing that could happen to this gallant knight is actually finding his Eldorado.
Bernd Wahlbrinck
Der Weg ist das Ziel.
Konfuzius
It is interesting to note that the futility of the knight's quest is reflected in the movie song (see above) where it says, "Ride ... to the end of the rainbow".
Bernd Wahlbrinck
One thing strikes me: although this is a very short poem, the syntax is quite often, in a sense, "backwards", e.g.
     ... over his heart a shadow
     Fell as he found...
This is quite remarkable, and the question is, why or to what effect?
One possible solution: the backward structure is supposed to (subconsciously?) reflect the fact that the knight is actually not able to get anywhere nearer to his aim. In fact, it might suggest something similar to the myth of Sisyphus...
   Bernd Wahlbrinck
How about you: any other ideas!?

Allusions in Eldorado:

The Mountains of the Moon

In Poe Studies, vol. X, no. 2, December 1977, there is an interesting interpretation of The Mountains of the Moon:

A … source for Poe's allusion … may be found in Charles Anthon's Classical Dictionary, a work Poe knew well, borrowed from, praised, and defended. … Under the long and detailed entry for "Nilus," Anthon notes that Ptolemy fixes the source of one branch of the Nile "in numerous lakes at the foot of the Mountains of the Moon," and that the river, "as if it were doomed for ever to share the obscurity which covers the ancient history of the land to which it ministers, still conceals its true sources from the eager curiosity of modern science. ... The repeated failures which had already attended the various attempts to discover its fountains, convinced the geographers of Greece and Rome that success was impossible, and that it was the will of the gods to conceal from all generations this great secret of nature".

Given Poe's probable knowledge of this source, it seems likely that the poem's allusion to the Mountains of the Moon, in keeping with that to Eldorado, functions ironically to call up an image of the impossible quest, in this case, the search for the source of the Nile. Reinforcing this interpretation is the existence of a proverb using this search to signify impossibility: in the words of the entry "Nilus" in J. Lempriere's Classical Dictionary, on which Anthon's work of the same name is based, the river's "sources were unknown to the ancients, and the moderns are equally ignorant of their exact situation, whence an impossibility is generally expressed by the proverb of Nili caput quaere [to seek the source of the Nile]".

source: http://www.eapoe.org/pstudies/ps1970/p1977204.htm

Al-Idrisi map of 1533. Please note that on early Arabic maps of this type, South was placed at the top of the map. As a help the map on the right has therefore been turned upside down.

In the map on the right the Mountains of the Moon are in the 7 or 8 o'clock position; of course, they appear upside down. The lakes at the foot of the mountains and the Nile are clearly visible.