NOTES.
[Footnote 1: Dedication. The idea of Faust had early entered into Goethe's mind. He probably began the work when he was about twenty years old. It was first published, as a fragment, in 1790, and did not appear in its present form till 1808, when its author's age was nearly sixty. By the "forms" are meant, of course, the shadowy personages and scenes of the drama.]
[Footnote 2: —"Thy messengers"—
"He maketh the winds his-messengers,
The flaming lightnings his ministers."
Noyes's Psalms, c. iv. 4.]
[Footnote 3: "The Word Divine." In translating the German "Werdende" (literally, the becoming, developing, or growing) by the term word, I mean the word in the largest sense: "In the beginning was the Word, &c." Perhaps "nature" would be a pretty good rendering, but "word," being derived from "werden," and expressing philosophically and scripturally the going forth or manifestation of mind, seemed to me as appropriate a translation as any.]
[Footnote 4: "The old fellow." The commentators do not seem quite agreed whether "den Alten" (the old one) is an entirely reverential phrase here, like the "ancient of days," or savors a little of profane pleasantry, like the title "old man" given by boys to their schoolmaster or of "the old gentleman" to their fathers. Considering who the speaker is, I have naturally inclined to the latter alternative.]
[Footnote 5: "Nostradamus" (properly named Michel Notre Dame) lived through the first half of the sixteenth century. He was born in the south of France and was of Jewish extraction. As physician and astrologer, he was held in high honor by the French nobility and kings.]
[Footnote 6: The "Macrocosm" is the great world of outward things, in contrast with its epitome, the little world in man, called the microcosm (or world in miniature).]
[Footnote 7: "Famulus" seems to mean a cross between a servant and a scholar. The Dominie Sampson called Wagner, is appended to Faust for the time somewhat as Sancho is to Don Quixote. The Doctor Faust of the legend has a servant by that name, who seems to have been more of a Sancho, in the sense given to the word by the old New England mothers when upbraiding bad boys (you Sanch'!). Curiously enough, Goethe had in early life a (treacherous) friend named Wagner, who plagiarized part of Faust and made a tragedy of it.]
[Footnote 8: "Mock-heroic play." We have Schlegel's authority for thus rendering the phrase "Haupt- und Staats-Action," (literally, "head and State-action,") who says that this title was given to dramas designed for puppets, when they treated of heroic and historical subjects.]
[Footnote 9: The literal sense of this couplet in the original is:— "Is he, in the bliss of becoming, To creative joy near—" "Werde-lust" presents the same difficulty that we found in note 3. This same word, "Werden," is also used by the poet in the introductory theatre scene (page 7), where he longs for the time when he himself was ripening, growing, becoming, or forming, (as Hayward renders it.) I agree with Hayward, "the meaning probably is, that our Saviour enjoys, in coming to life again," (I should say, in being born into the upper life,) "a happiness nearly equal to that of the Creator in creating.">[