Goethe

Who Never Gets His Bread

Who Never Gets His Bread - meaning Summary

Suffering Reveals the Divine

The poem argues that personal suffering is necessary to understand higher powers. It claims those who have not endured sorrow and fearful nights cannot know the divine. The speaker presents a bleak moral economy: the divine will brings beings into life, leads them into sin, and then consigns them to pain, so that on earth every error is repaid. The tone is resigned and accusatory toward providence.

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Who has never eaten his bread with tears, Who has never, through night’s sorrowful hours, Sat on his bed and wept with fear, He knows not you, you heavenly powers. You lead us into life, and then Your Will leads us on, into sin, So you deliver us to pain: On Earth all error’s paid again.

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