Daura

Daura is the daughter of Armin in the tragic tale Werther reads from Ossian to Charlotte. Remembered for her beauty and sweetness, she is separated from those who might protect her by Erath’s deception; the rescue attempts that follow cost her brother and beloved their lives, and she dies alone on a rock as her father listens from shore. Her fate becomes the passage through which the recital’s grief reaches Werther and Charlotte.

Identity and Family

Armin names Daura as his lovely daughter and recalls her as fair as the moon, white as driven snow, and sweet as a breathing gale. She belongs to a family whose survival is already in question: Armin says that he is the last of his race, and the deaths of Daura and her brother Arindal leave him bereft. His memory of her is bound to the weather and the landscape, as he calls on autumn winds, mountain streams, storms, and the moon to bring back the night his children fell.

Daura is loved by Armar, a renowned warrior who seeks her hand. Their union initially appears welcome: Armin recalls that Armar was not long refused and that their friends had good hope for the match. That promise makes Erath’s false message especially destructive, turning an anticipated union into a chain of fatal misunderstandings.

Deception and the Failed Rescues

Erath, whose brother had been slain by Armar, disguises himself as an aged stranger and tells Daura that Armar waits for her on a rock at sea. Daura goes there, but the person she finds is not her beloved. When she calls for Armar and then for her father and brother, Erath has already fled laughing to land, leaving her isolated and unable to reach help.

Arindal hears her cries and comes down from the hill, armed with his bow and accompanied by five dogs. He captures Erath and binds him to an oak, then sets out by boat to bring Daura ashore. Armar arrives in anger and releases an arrow that strikes Arindal in the heart. The boat stops; Arindal dies on the rock, and Daura sees her brother’s blood around her feet. Armar then plunges into the sea to save her or die in the attempt, but a sudden blast from the hill sweeps over the waves, and he sinks without returning.

Death and Armin’s Grief

Left alone on the sea-beaten rock, Daura cries out through the night. Armin stands on shore beneath the faint moon and hears her calls, while wind and rain beat against the hill. Before morning, her voice weakens and fades; spent with grief, she dies. The tale gives no further account of her final moments, but makes her death the last consequence of Erath’s deception and the failed efforts to rescue her.

Armin’s loss continues after the night of her death. He says that his strength in war is gone and his pride among women has fallen, and when storms raise the waves he sits by the sounding shore, looking toward the fatal rock. At the setting moon, he sees the ghosts of his children walking together in mournful conversation. Daura thus persists in her father’s life not through action but through the recurring image of the place where he lost her.

Role in the Recital

Daura’s story is embedded in the Ossianic passage Werther reads aloud to Charlotte. When the account reaches its grief-stricken close, Charlotte’s tears stop his recitation; he drops the book, takes her hand, and weeps. Both feel that the misfortunes of Ossian’s heroes picture their own fate, and their shared tears intensify. Daura’s tragedy therefore links the tale’s familial losses to the emotional crisis between Werther and Charlotte: its lament does not remain distant literary sorrow, but becomes the language through which they confront their own distress.