The Portal of Initiation. First of the four Mystery Dramas, 1910. Also included in this binding is a translation of Goethe's The Green Snake and The Beautiful Lily, translated from the German by Thomas Carlyle.

THE PORTAL OF INITIATION :
A ROSICRUCIAN MYSTERY

INTRODUCTION
to this new edition
.
In theatre workshops it is a new custom to call the script of a play
a ‘score. This translation of the four Mystery Dramas wants to
be read aloud and listened to, in the way we listen to a musical
score. It is meant not only for eyes looking at the paper, but for
ears, and larynxes that are active.

The present edition has tried to preserve the vitality with which
the thoughts behind the words are expressed, and the rhythmical
flow of the lines, so characteristic of Rudolf Steiner's dramatic style.
Many almost insurmountable obstacles arise for the translator
through the freedom of sentence construction in the German text
which leads often to ambiguity. Difficulties come also from Rudolf
Steiner's creation of new words, words that are in harmony with the
spirit of the German language. He thus gives the spoken word a
mobility and transparency through which spirit realities can reveal
themselves. The English language rarely allows this kind of
spiritualization. But the speaker or the reader, reading aloud, can achieve
much by the way he speaks the lines: he has to put them into motion,
by having the last word of the sentence in mind alrcady at the start.
Such a mobility gives the listener the opportunity to grasp quickly
and clearly the underlying thought. This penetration to the vividly
moving thought is the best a translation can achieve.

The translation offered here is the result of work connected with
the stage productions of the Mystery Drama Acting Group in
New York City and Spring Valley, New York. The amateur group...