Is life, that she must yield to you
As though to God. But this she could not do.
Oh, what a lovely stroke it
Was—you simply broke it!
So now, a bachelor, with all indelicacy
You pride yourself on preaching—celibacy!... You must be angel-pure.
Glance at your legs, you’ll know for sure.
You pastor-hater, rash and wild,
You’ll not be father to a child.
Though—maybe you’ve had lots of tykes.
Each person may think what he likes.
Having come this far, Thurah wanted to assist Kierkegaard in producing
those scandalized feelings he apparently valued so highly. So Kierkegaard
was directed to take a stroll through the city streets one Sunday morning,
gathering a crowd of people as he walked along. And then the cycle would
be completed:
Take them to the cemetery
Where your father’s dead and buried.
Stand there, and stick out your tongue,
And shout: “Here, then, is your bastard son,
And go to Hell, you old whoremaster!
You can’t reply a word, you bastard!”
And now I’m finished with my song,
Unless moreMomentscome along.Another student of theology mounted a counteroffensive, publishing an
anonymous piece entitledThurah and Søren Kierkegaard. Thurah had plagia-
rized Grundtvig, the author claimed, but “in his hands, the powerful expres-
sions he took from Grundtvig’s writings became merely crude and taste-
less.” Thurah’s work, the author asserted, had now culminated in his
Rhymed Epistle, which can only have had the purpose of abusing Kierke-
gaard, “overwhelming him with the crudest language and the most vulgar
sorts of attacks on his morals.” Thurah’s assault had been conducted with
the sort of “baseness that should least of all be found in a student of theol-
ogy.” And the result was thus that the general mood, which previously had
beenagainstKierkegaard, had now turned in his favor: “Such abominable
accusations directed at a man whose reputation was so unsullied in this
respect could not do otherwise than call forth the serious disapprobation of
every Christian.”