NOTES. DEDICATION. 1. Gestalten, the forms created by his fancy, the characters of his Faust. 3. wohl, "really.' His hesitation is due to the fact that seven years had passed since he had touched his work. 4. jenem Wahn, "that illusion," i.e. that which first impelled him to attempt to recover and fix in definite shape the uncertain forms of the legend. 7. jugendlich, a considerable part of the Faust was written before 1775, when Goethe was only twenty-six years of age. 8. umwittert, lit. "forms an atmosphere around," "breathes around." Cf. Egmont, Act v. Sc. 2: "ins Feld, wo aus der Erde dampfend jede nächste Wohlthat der Natur, und durch die Himmel wehend alle Segen der Gestirne uns umwittern;" and 1. 143, von meinem Hauch umwittert," when the Earthspirit is speaking of the effect of his presence on Faust. 66 10. liebe Schatten, the dear shadows of old memories, which arise unbidden when he recalls the days when "the marionette-fable of Faust began to murmur with many voices in his soul." II. Cf. 1. 3535, in the Brockenscene "Und das Echo, wie die Sage Alter Zeiten, hallet wieder.” 13. The "es" is redundant by a very common construction, the order of the words being tie Klage wiederholt den labyrinthisch irren Lauf des Lebens; he feels the old pain once more, and the wail which it provokes recalls to him all the mazy wandering course of his past life. 15-16. um schöne Stunden vom Glück getäuscht, "cheated out of happy hours by fortune." He is probably alluding to such early friends as his sister Cornelia, Merck, Lenz, Basedow, Wagner, and Gotter. 17. die folgenden Gesänge, "the later strains," opposed to "die ersten;" he refers here and in the following lines to the Court circle at Weimar, to whom he read his Faust in 1775, and to the many friends, such as Klopstock, Jacobi, Merck, Wieland, and others, to whom he read or showed it about the same time. 19. zerstoben, scattered as dust," cf. 4048, where it is used of the dispersion and disappearance of the elves at the end of the Intermezzo. 231 20. verklungen, “died away," the "ver" brings the action of the verb to the vanishing point, as in vergehen, verfallen. 23-24. Goethe must have been thinking of Jacobi, Schlosser, and Klinger, who were living far away from him, while Lavater and the Stolbergs were now estranged from him. 99.66 30. strenge Herz, "stern, 'unbending.' "That night they overheard him, the serene man, who seemed almost above human affection, who disdained to reveal to others whatever grief he felt when his son died, they overheard Goethe weep.' Lewes's Life of Goethe, p. 450, describing the effect produced on Goethe by Schiller's death. 31. was ich besize, i.e. the present. 32. wird zu Wirklichkeiten, "grows into reality," "becomes actual." PRELUDE ON THE STAGE. 4. The Manager's warnings to the Poet, to be sure that he writes down to the level of his audience, uses sufficiently sensational effects, etc., closely resemble, in tone, those of the Stage-Keeper in the Induction of Jonson's Bartholomew Fair; where the latter complains of the Poet that "He has not hit the humours, he does not know them an some writer that I know had had but the penning o' this matter, he would have made you such a jig-a-jog in the booths, you should have thought an earthquake had been in the Fair! But these master-poets, they will have their own absurd courses, they will be informed of nothing! He has (sir reverence) kicked me three or four times about the tiring-house (I thank him!) for but offering to put in with my experience." Lustige Person. This character seems to have corresponded to the Kasperle of the German puppet-plays, and the Sganarelle of Molière. Cf. Goethe, Wahrheit und Dichtung, Bk. xiii. :—“Um nüßlich zu sein, mußte es (das Theater) sittlich sein, und dazu bildete es im nördlichen Deutschland um so mehr aus, als durch einen gewissen Halbgeschmack die lustige Person vertrieben ward, und obgleich geistreiche Köpfe für sie einsprachen, dennoch weichen mußte, da sie sich bereits von der Derbheit des deutschen Hanswursts gegen die Niedlichkeit und Zierlichkeit der italiänischen und französischen Harlekine gewendet hatte.” 6. leben läßt, "lets live," in the sense of providing him with the means of living. 9. Cf. Aristophanes' Knights, 629, 631 ἡ βουλὴ δ ̓ ἅπασ ̓ ἀκροωμένη ἔβλεψε νάπυ, καὶ τὰ μέτωπ ̓ ἀνέσπασεν. 16. "and with meaning be also attractive,” "To set them thinking, yet amuse them too." (Martin.) 66 19. Wehen, throes," technically used like the Greek wois, for the pangs of travail. 20. enge Gnadenpforte, cf. Matt. vii. 14. 30-40. Cf., for the thought, Matthew Arnold's verses (as in Text)— "We cannot kindle when we will The fire which in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides : But tasks in hours of insight will'd Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd." 31. Himmelsenge, "heavenly nook." (Lyric Poems, 'Morality.') 33. Segen would seem to be used here in its sense of a plenteous harvest. Cf. Schiller's Song of the Bell, 1. 141: Und die Speicher, vom Segen gebogen. The sympathy of his friends, das freundliche Gedränge of the Dedication, creates and nurtures his best inspirations-erpflegen differs from pflegen in implying that the cherishing is continued until its object is attained, i.e. until the poet's inspiration has reached its final and perfect form. 38. This was the fate which he felt had at the present moment overtaken his Fragment. 44. gefeßt, "supposing." 52. gewisser, "with greater certainty," i.e. with less chance of failure. 56. Düntzer thinks that Goethe here intends a sly hit at Kotzebue. 57. "But especially let there be enough of Incident." 61. in der Breite, "by sheer diffuseness." (Bayard Taylor.) 69. vorgelegt, "served up," i.e. put on the stage. 71. euch doch, "for your pains. 72-75. Cf. Jonson's lines to the Muse "Pied ignorance she neither loves nor fears, Nor hunts she after popular applause, Or foamy praise that drips from common jaws." (Cynthia's Revels,-Prologue.) 74. "The bungling work of these nice gentlemen;" faubern is used here ironically; cf. 1. 1858, Ein Floh ist mir ein saub'rer Gast, and for a similar inversion of meaning, 1. 2770, meine liebe Noth. 84. The worst of all, because newspapers are the favourite diet of the public, and do more to blunt their appreciation of the higher forms of Dramatic art than anything else. Cf. Goethe, in his Letter to Schiller, B. XXVI. 17. 90. The euch is an ethical dative. a full house merry?" "What, pray, is it which makes 99. verirren, "mystify." Goethe has acted up to this advice in his Brockenscene, and in the Intermezzo, as well as in the Hexenküche. 102. The poet's wrath is aroused by the suggestion that he should mystify his hearers. The function of the poet, he indignantly retorts, is not to confuse, but to bring harmony out of confusion, to reproduce, from the tangled web of Nature, order and rhythm. 104. das Menschenrecht, his right as man, as lord of creation; because he, the poet, is the noblest type of man, and by virtue of this right exercises supremacy over Nature. 108. Cf. Leonore's words in Goethe's Tasso "Sein Or vernimmt den Einklang der Natur; Was die Geschichte reicht, das Leben giebt, Sein Busen nimmt es gleich und willig auf; 109. zurücke schlingt, "winds back the world into his heart;" the metaphor is explained by the lines which follow. IIO. ew'ge Länge des Fadens, "the never-ending thread of life." 11. 151, and following. Cf. III. auf die Spindel zwingt, "forces on to her spindle." 112-117. "When Creation's jarring crowd clash and jangle in fretful discord, who is it that orders and quickens the long, level, everflowing stream (of being), so that it is stirred to rhythmic motion? Who summons the individual unit to the universal consecration, in which it beats in sublime harmony?" It is easier to feel the meaning of this passage than to translate it. The poet is claiming for himself the special function at once of bringing harmony out of the seeming discords of Nature, and of infusing life into her apparent monotonous sequence, die fließend immer gleiche Reihe of created beings, which is irrepressibly and eternally self-renewing. (Cf. 1010-25.) 118. zu Leidenschaften, for, i.e. at the service of. "Who links our passions with the tempest's glooms, Our solemn thoughts with twilight's roseate red?" (MARTIN.) 119. For a beautiful illustration of this line cf. 1. 717 and ff., where Faust, "in ernstem Sinne," follows the course of the setting sun, and yearns to be for ever in the sunset. 124. This follows naturally upon the allusion to the laurel-wreath. The meaning would seem to be that it is the poet who secures undying fame for men, and brings together those whom his song has raised to Olympus. The sentiment is the common Horatian one "et adscribi quietis Ordinibus patiar deorum.” (HOR. Od. iii. 3, 35, 36.) Selss interprets vereinet Götter as an allusion to Iliad i. 602-4. Cf. Wilhelm Meister, Bk. ii. c. 2, Wer hat, wenn du willst, Götter gebildet, uns zu ihnen erhoben, sie zu uns herniedergebracht, als der Dichter? 129-133. This is a pithy sketch of the circumstances immortalised by Molière in Le Dépit Amoureux. Probably the original proprietor of the idea is Terence "In amore hæc omnia insunt vitia: injuriæ, Bellum, pax rursum." (Eun. Act i. sc. 1.) 131. angefochten, "disturbed." 149. den Schwung, the sweep of the poet's imagination. "Your flights" (Bayard Taylor). Schein, the display either of Incident or of all the scenic properties which are described in 11. 201-206. 150. Wer fertig ist, "he who is formed." 151. Ein Werdender, one who is still growing." 160. "Joy in illusion, ardent thirst for truth." (Bayard Taylor.) For this use of Drang, cf. Prolog. 86. 174. In this assertion of poetry as the privilege of old age, cf. Aesch. Ag. 105-7 ἔτι γὰρ θεόθεν καταπνείει πειθὼ μολπᾶν ἀλκᾷ σύμφυτος αἰών. 176. The Biel is deliberately chosen by the poet himself, and is not imposed upon him by any momentary impression or by any external command. 177. holdem Irren, the sweet straying with which the poet roves on towards his goal ohne Hast ohne Rast. We may compare the Introduction to Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. 186. Stimmung, "mood." What's not set about to-day, Is never finished on the morrow." (MARTIN.) 197. er i.e. der Entschluß. 210. It is true that the course here implied for the drama is rather that of the Puppet Play than of Goethe's Faust, and in this Goethe may perhaps be purposely following the Director's advice and intending to mystify his readers: but at the same time it is worth observing that Pt. i. does actually open in Heaven, that all the rest of Pt. i. and nearly all of Pt. ii. concern Faust's earthly pilgrimage, and that at the very close of Pt. ii. the jaws of hell are exhibited, though their demand for Faust is foiled. PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. The reception which the "Fragment,' published in 1790, had obtained, had not been what Goethe hoped. Heyne, for instance, had written "There are fine passages in it, but with them there are such things as only he could give to the world who takes all other men |