[403] I presume this is the meaning of unserer eigenen Geliebten, but from the example given of Petrarch's Laura one would rather have expected that it was the poet's beloved whose name was not given. In any case the sense is rather obscure.
[404] I think it must be admitted that Hegel goes too far in the other extreme. The best tendency of our times is to reproduce Shakespeare as near to the best authenticated text as possible. No doubt our adaptation of French plays is in a certain sense an illustration of Hegel's contention; but generally it is recognized that where a work is great, as for example in the case of our Greek plays, it is far better to let them speak for themselves, and attempt no botching.
[405] Schiller's play.
[406] Schiefheiten, errors that divert truth from its path.
[407] We should rather have expected Erhalt than Gehalt here. Gehalt means, therefore, the essential part of the entire manifestation.
[408] Durch all das anderweitige Getriebe, i.e., through all that is otherwise mechanical.
[409] I am not certain whether there is a definite allusion here to anything in particular, or whether the Egyptian is taken to signify any folk outside Western culture, with possibly some subtle suggestion of those who held the favoured people in bondage, Philistines in short.
[410] Herausgeboren ist, cast forth, that is to say, as the natural growth of it—as Minerva from the head of Zeus.
[411] Imagination appears to me the best translation of Phantasie. Our English word, however, seems rather to lie between it and Vorstellung. Practically Hegel means here what we mean when we distinguish it from fancy (Einbildungskraft), though in Ruskin's original and most suggestive analysis of the terms, "fancy" of course implied a limited power of creative activity or at least associative activity.
[412] Leichtfertigkeit der Phantasie, i.e., a careless facility of imaginative activity.