Rhine

The Rhine is one of the major European rivers. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein, Swiss-Austrian, Swiss-German borders. After that the Rhine defines much of the Franco-German border, after which it flows in a mostly northerly direction through the German Rhineland. Finally in Germany the Rhine turns into a predominantly westerly direction and flows into the Netherlands where it eventually empties into the North Sea. It digs an area of 9,973 sq km and its name derives from the Celtic Rēnos. It is the second-longest river in Central and Western Europe (after the Danube), at about 1,233 km (766 mi).

The Rhine and the Danube comprised much of the Roman Empire's northern inland boundary, and the Rhine has been a vital navigable waterway bringing trade and goods deep inland since those days. The various castles and defenses built along it attest to its prominence as a waterway in the Holy Roman Empire.

Quotes

• He would water his horses in the Rhine.
  • Boast said to have been uttered by a number of historical personages, including Arnaut de Cervole, Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania, Henry II of France, and Leon Trotsky.
    • Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century (New York: Ballantine, 1979), p. 228
    • Chalfant Robinson, tr., Continental Europe, 1270 to 1598 (New York: Henry Halt & Co., 1916), p. 370
    • Congressional Record—House (U.S. Government Printing Office, 9 November 1943), p. 9340

• The castled crag of Drachenfels,
  Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
  Whose breast of waters broadly swells
  Between the banks which bear the vine,
  And hills all rich with blossom'd trees,
  And fields which promise corn and wine,
  And scatter'd cities crowning these,
  Whose far white walls along them shine.
  • Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza 55.

• The river Rhine, it is well known,
  Doth wash your city of Cologne;
  But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
  Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Cologne" (1828).

• The Rhine! the Rhine! a blessing on the Rhine!
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion (1839), Book I, Chapter II.

• Beneath me flows the Rhine, and, like the stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins of the Past.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion (1839), Book I, Chapter III.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 673.

• Sie sollen ihn nicht haben
  Den freien, deutschen Rhein.
  • You shall never have it,
    The free German Rhine.
  • Nikolaus Becker, Der Rhein; popular in 1840; answered by Alfred de Musset, Nous l'avons eu, votre Rhin Allemand; appeared in the Atnenæum (Aug. 13, 1870).

• Am Rhein, am Rhein, da wachsen uns're Reben.
  • On the Rhine, on the Rhine, there grow our vines.
  • Claudius, Rheinweinlied.

• The air grows cool and darkles,
  The Rhine flows calmly on;
  The mountain summit sparkles
  In the light of the setting sun.
  • Heinrich Heine, The Lorelei.

• I've seen the Rhine with younger wave,
  O'er every obstacle to rave.
  I see the Rhine in his native wild
  Is still a mighty mountain child.
  • John Ruskin, A Tour on the Continent, Via Mala.

• Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein,
  Fest steht und treu die Wacht am Rhein!
  • Dear Fatherland no danger thine,
    Firm stand thy sons to watch the Rhine!
  • Max Schneckenburger, Die Wacht am Rhein.

• Oh, sweet thy current by town and by tower,
  The green sunny vale and the dark linden bower;
  Thy waves as they dimple smile back on the plain,
  And Rhine, ancient river, thou'rt German again!
  • Horace Wallace, Ode on the Rhine's Returning into Germany from France.