{"corpus":"steiner","locus":"GA 127/1911-12-19/p008","lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"text":"> (Scene Five: Tale of the Rockspring Wonder)\n> Once upon a time there was a boy  \n> who lived—the only child of a poor forester—  \n> within a woodland solitude. He knew  \n> besides his parents hardly any other people.  \n> His build was slender,  \n> his skin almost transparent.  \n> One could look long into his eyes:  \n> they treasured deepest spirit wonders.  \n> And though indeed few people entered  \n> the circle of his life,  \n> he never was in need of friends.  \n> When in the nearby mountains  \n> the golden sunlight glowed and glimmered,  \n> the boy's rapt, musing eye drew forth  \n> the spirit gold into his soul  \n> until his heart resembled  \n> the morning brightness of the sun.—  \n> But when through darkening clouds  \n> the morning sunrays could not pierce  \n> and dreariness hung over mountain heights,  \n> the boy's eye, too, grew dull;  \n> a mood of sadness filled his heart.—  \n> The spirit weaving of his narrow world  \n> took hold of him so fully  \n> that it was no less strange to him  \n> than were his body and his limbs.  \n> The trees and flowers of the woods  \n> were all his friends:  \n> there spoke to him from crown and calyx  \n> and from the lofty tree-tops spirit beings  \n> and what they whispered, he could understand.—  \n> Such wondrous things of worlds unknown  \n> unlocked themselves before the boy  \n> whenever his soul conversed  \n> with what most people would regard as lifeless.  \n> At evening his anxious parents  \n> from time to time missed their beloved child.—  \n> The boy was at a spot nearby  \n> where from the rocks a spring burst forth,  \n> and waterdrops, dispersing thousandfold,  \n> were scattered over stones.  \n> When moonlight's silver glance,  \n> in sparkling colours' sorcery,  \n> was mirrored in the water's misty spray,  \n> the boy could sit for hours on end  \n> beside the rock-born spring.  \n> And figures, formed by spirit-magic,  \n> arose before his youthful vision  \n> in rushing water and in moonlight's glimmer.  \n> They grew into three women's forms  \n> who told him of those things  \n> toward which his soul's desire was turned.—  \n> And when upon a gentle summer night  \n> the boy was sitting at the spring again,  \n> one woman of the three caught up a myriad of drops  \n> out of the glittering spray  \n> and gave them to the second woman.  \n> She fashioned from the tiny drops  \n> a chalice with a silver gleam  \n> and passed it to the third.  \n> She filled it with the moonlight's silver rays  \n> and gave it to the boy,  \n> who had beheld all this  \n> with youthful inner sight.—  \n> Now in the night  \n> which followed this event,  \n> he dreamed that he was robbed  \n> by a fierce dragon of the chalice.  \n> After this night the boy beheld  \n> just three times more the wonder of the spring.  \n> Henceforth the women came no more  \n> although the boy sat musing  \n> beside the rock-born spring in moonlight's silver sheen.  \n> And when three hundred sixty weeks  \n> had run their course three times,  \n> the boy had long become a man  \n> and left his parents' home and forest country  \n> to live in a strange city.  \n> One evening, tired from the day's hard toil,  \n> he pondered on what life had still in store for him,  \n> and suddenly he felt himself a boy,  \n> caught up and carried to his rock-born spring.  \n> Again he could behold the water-women  \n> and this time heard them speak.  \n> The first one said to him:\n>\n> *Remember me at any time  \n> you feel alone in life.  \n> I lure man's eye of soul  \n> to starry spaces and ethereal realms.  \n> And whosoever wills to feel me,  \n> I offer him the draught of hope in life  \n> out of my wonder goblet.—*\n>\n> And then the second spoke:\n>\n> *Do not forget me at the times  \n> when courage in your life is threatened.  \n> I lead man's yearning heart  \n> to depths of soul and up to spirit heights.  \n> And whosoever seeks his strength from me,  \n> for him I forge the steel of faith in life,  \n> shaped by my wonder hammer.—*\n>\n> The third one could be heard:\n>\n> *To me lift up your eye of spirit  \n> when your life's riddles overwhelm you.  \n> I spin the threads of thought that lead  \n> through labyrinths of life and the abyss of soul.  \n> And whosoever harbours trust in me,  \n> for him I weave the living rays of love  \n> upon my wonder loom.—*\n>\n> Thus it befell the man,  \n> and in the night that followed this  \n> he dreamed a dream:  \n> a savage dragon prowled  \n> in circles round about him,—  \n> and yet could not come near him.  \n> He was protected from that dragon by  \n> the beings he had seen beside the rock-born spring  \n> and who with him had left his home  \n> for this far-distant place.","text_trust":"verbatim","quote_safe":true,"title":"Three Lectures on the Mystery Dramas","date":"1911-12-19","location":null,"word_count":878,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/127/1911-12-19/p008","alignment_confidence":"low","alignment_reason":"count_diverges","two_voice_volume":false,"translation_credit":null,"edition_coverage":{"de":["original"],"en":["English"]},"available_versions":[{"lang":"de","edition":"original","edition_basis":null,"is_original":true,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/127/1911-12-19/p008"},{"lang":"en","edition":"English","edition_basis":null,"is_original":false,"is_default_edition":true,"url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/en/ga/127/1911-12-19/p008","paragraph_aligned":true}],"german_anchor":{"de_prefix":"1911-12-19","de_passages":[{"locus":"GA 127/1911-12-19/p007","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/127/1911-12-19/p007"},{"locus":"GA 127/1911-12-19/p008","url":"https://anthroposophy.ai/v1/steiner/de/ga/127/1911-12-19/p008"}],"bead_confidence":"medium","length_check":{"de_words":766,"en_words":878,"ratio":1.15,"partial":false},"correspondence":"established","note":"English passage numbering is edition-relative and this passage's lecture alignment is imperfect. The German original passage(s) above are the edition-invariant anchor — fetch them (lang='de') to verify wording before quoting across editions."}}