The Autobiography of Goethe / Truth and Poetry: From My Own Life

by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My father, however, could not by any means be brought to approve of it. In accordance with his sentiments as a citizen of the empire, he had always kept aloof from the great, and although constantly coming in contact with the chargés d'affaires of the neighboring princes, he had nevertheless avoided all personal relations with them. In fact, courts were among the things about which he was accustomed to joke. He was not indeed displeased if any one opposed his opinions on this head; only he was not satisfied unless his opponent maintained his side with wit and spirit. If we allowed his "Procul a Jove procul a fulmine" to pass, but added that with lightning the question was not so much whence it came as whither it went; he would bring up the old proverb, "With great lords it is not good to eat cherries." When to this we replied that it was yet worse to eat with dainty people out of one basket, he would not deny the truth of this; only he was sure to have another proverb ready at hand which was to put us to confusion. For since proverbs and rhyming apophthegms proceed from the people, who, while they are forced to obey, like at least to speak their vengeance, just as their superiors, on the other hand, indemnify themselves by deeds; and since the poetry of the sixteenth century is almost wholly of a nervous didactic character, there is in our language no lack of jests and serious adages, directed from below upwards. We juniors, however, now began to aim from above downwards, fancying ourselves something great as we took up the cause of the great. Of these sayings and counter-sayings I will here insert a few.

A.
Long at court is long in hell,
B.
There many good folks warm them well.
A.
Such as I am, I'm still mine own,
To me shall favors ne'er be shown.
B.
Blush not a favor to receive,
For you must take, if you would give.
A.
This trouble at the court you catch,
That where you itch, you must not scratch.
B.
The sage, that would the people teach,
Must scratch a place that does not itch.
A.
Those who a slavish office choose,
One half of life are sure to lose,
And come what will they may be sure,
Old Nick the other will secure.
B.
Whoe'er with princes is at home,
Will some day find good fortune come;
Who courts the rabble,—to his cost
Will find that all his year is lost.
A.
Though wheat at court seems flourishing,
Doubt that great harvest it will bring,
When to your barn you deem it brought.
You'll find that after all 'tis nought.
B.
The wheat that blooms will ripen too,
For so of old it used to do;
And if a crop is spoil'd by hail,
The next year's harvest will not fail.
A.
He who would serve himself alone,
Should have a cottage of his own.
Dwell with his children and his wife,
Regale himself with light new wine,
And on the cheapest viands dine;
Then nothing can disturb his life.
B.
So, from a master you'ld be free?—
Whither think'st thou then to flee?
Dream not your freedom you will get,
You have a wife to rule you yet.
She by her stupid boy is ruled,
Thus in your cot you still are schooled.

Prospects of a Court-Life.

As I was lately looking up these rhymes in some old memorandum books, I fell in with many such jeux d'esprit, in which we had amplified pithy old German saws, in order to set them off against other proverbs which are equally verified by experience. A selection from them may perhaps hereafter, as an epilogue to the "Puppenspiele" (puppet shows), suggest some pleasant reflections.

But all these rejoinders could not move my father from his opinions. He was in the habit of saving his most stringent argument for the close of the discussion. This consisted of a minute description of Voltaire's adventure with Frederick the Second. He told us how the unbounded favor, familiarity, mutual obligations, were at once revoked and forgotten; how he had lived to see the comedy out in the arrest of that extraordinary poet and writer by the Frankfort civic guard, on the complaint of the Resident Freytag, and the warrant of the Burgomaster Fichard, and his confinement for some time in the tavern of the Rose, on the Zeil. To this we might have answered in many ways,—among others, that Voltaire was not free from blame himself,—but from filial respect we always yielded the point. On the present occasion, when these things and others like them were alluded to, I hardly knew how to demean myself, for he warned me explicitly, maintaining that the invitation was given only to entice me into a trap, in order to take vengeance on me for my mischievous treatment of the favored Wieland. Fully as I was convinced of the contrary, yet as I saw but too plainly that a preconceived opinion, excited by hypochondriac fancies, afflicted my worthy father, I was unwilling to act in direct opposition to his convictions. Still I could not find any excuse for failing to keep my promise without appearing ungrateful and uncourteous. Unfortunately our friend Fraülein Von Klettenberg, to whose advice we usually resorted in such cases, was confined to her bed. In her and my mother I had two incomparable companions. I called them Word and Deed; for when the former cast her serene or rather blissful glance over earthly things, what was confusion to us children of earth, at once grew plain before her, and she could almost always point out the right way, because she looked upon the labyrinth from above, and was not herself entangled in it. When a decision was once made, the readiness and energy of my mother could be relied on. While the former had Sight for her aid the latter had Faith, and as she maintained her serenity in all cases, she was never without the means of accomplishing what was proposed or desired. Accordingly she was now despatched to our sick friend to obtain her opinion, and when this turned out in my favour, she was entreated to gain the consent of my father, who yielded, against his belief and will.

Gods, Heroes, and Wieland

It was in a very cold season of the year that I arrived at the appointed hour in Mayence. My reception by the young princes and by their attendants, was no less friendly than the invitation. The conversation in Frankfort was recalled and resumed at the point where it had been broken off. When it touched upon the recent German literature and its audacities, it was perfectly natural that my famous piece, "Götter, Helden, und Wieland" (Gods, Heroes, and Wieland) should come up, at which I remarked with satisfaction that the thing was regarded with good humor. Being called on to give the real history of this jeu d'esprit, which had excited so great attention, I could not avoid confessing, first of all, that as true fellows of the Upper Rhine, we had no bounds either to our liking or disliking. With us, reverence for Shakspeare was carried to adoration. But Wieland, with his decided peculiarity of destroying the interest, both of himself and of his readers, had, in the notes to his translation, found much fault with the great author, and that in such a way as to vex us exceedingly, and to diminish in our eyes, the value of the work. We saw that Wieland, whom we had so highly revered as a poet, and who, as a translator, had rendered such great service, was, as a critic, capricious, one-sided, and unjust. Besides this, he had deliberately spoken against our idols, the Greeks, and this sharpened our hostility yet more. It is well known that the Greek gods and heroes are eminent not for moral but for glorified physical qualities, for which reason they afford such splendid subjects to artists. Now Wieland, in his Alceste, had presented heroes and demi-gods after the modern fashion. Against this we had nothing to say, as every one is at liberty to mould poetic traditions to his own ends and way of thinking. But in the letters on this opera, which he inserted in the Merkur, he appeared to us unduly to exalt this mode of treating them; in short, to show too much of the partisan, and to commit an unpardonable sin against the good ancients and their higher style, by his absolute unwillingness to recognise the strong, healthy nature which is the basis of their productions. I told them we had hardly discussed these grievances with some vehemence in our little society, when my ordinary rage for dramatizing everything came upon me one Sunday afternoon, and so at one sitting, over a bottle of good Burgundy, I wrote off the whole piece, just as it stands. It was no sooner read to those of my colleagues as were present, and received by them with exclamations of delight, than I sent the manuscript to Lenz at Strasburg, who appeared enraptured with it, and maintained that it must be printed without delay. After some correspondence, I at last consented, and he put it hastily to press at Strasburg. Some time afterwards, I learned that this was one of the first steps which Lenz took in his design to injure me, and to bring me into disgrace with the public; but at that time I neither knew nor surmised anything of the kind.

In this way I narrated to my new patrons, with perfect candour, the innocent origin of the piece, as well as I knew it myself, in order to convince them that it contained no personality, nor any ulterior motive. I also took care to let them understand with what gaiety and recklessness we were accustomed to banter and ridicule each other among ourselves. With this, I saw that they were quite content. They almost admired the great fear we had lest any one of ourselves should go to sleep upon his laurels. They compared such a society to those Buccaneers who, in every moment of repose, are afraid of becoming effeminate, and whose leaders, when there are no enemies in sight, and there is no one to plunder, will let off a pistol under the mess-table, in order that even in peace there may be no want of wounds and horrors. After considerable discussion pro and con upon this subject, I was at last induced to write Wieland a friendly letter. I gladly availed myself of the opportunity, as, in the Merkur, he had spoken most liberally of this piece of youthful folly, and as, in literary feuds, was almost always his custom, had ended the affair in the most skilful manner.

Prometheus, Deucalion and his Reviewers.

The few days of my stay at Mayence passed off very pleasantly; for when my new patrons were abroad on visits and banquets, I remained with their attendants, drew the portraits of several, or went skating, for which the frozen ditches of the fortification afforded excellent opportunity. I returned home full of the kindness I had met with, and, as I entered the house, was on the point of emptying my heart by a minute account of it; but I saw only troubled faces, and the conviction was soon forced upon me that our friend Fraülein von Klettenberg was no more. At this I was greatly concerned, because, in my present situation I needed her more than ever. They told me for my consolation, that a pious death had crowned her happy life, and that the cheerfulness of her faith had remained undisturbed to the end. But there was also another obstacle in the way of a free communication on the subject of my visit. My father, instead of rejoicing at the fortunate issue of this little adventure, persisted in his opinion, and maintained, on the other hand, that it was nothing but dissimulation, and that perhaps there was a danger of their carrying out in the end something still worse against me. I was thus driven to my younger friends with my narrative, and to them I could not tell it circumstantially enough. But, their attachment and good will, led to a result which to me was most unpleasant. Shortly afterwards, appeared a pamphlet, called "Prometheus, Deucalion and his Reviewers," also in a dramatic form. In this the comical notion was carried out, of putting little wood-cut figures before the dialogue, instead of proper names, and representing by all sorts of satirical images those critics who had expressed an opinion upon my works, or on works akin to them. In one place the Altona courier, without his head, was blowing his horn, here a bear was growling, and there a goose was cackling. The Merkur, too, was not forgotten, and many wild and tame animals were represented in the atelier of the sculptor endeavoring to put him out, while he, without taking particular notice of them, kept zealously at his work, and did not refrain from expressing his opinion about the matter in general. The appearance of this jeu d'esprit surprised me much, and was as unexpected as it was disagreeable. Its style and tone evidently showed that it was by one of our society, and indeed I feared it might be attributed to me. But what was most annoying, was the circumstance that "Prometheus" brought out some allusions to my stay at Mayence and to what was said there, which nobody but myself could have known. To me this was a proof that the author was one of those who formed my most intimate circle of friends, where he must have heard me relate these events in detail. Accordingly we all looked at each other, and each suspected the rest, but the unknown writer managed very well to keep his own secret. I uttered vehement reproaches against him, because it was exceedingly vexatious to me, after so gracious a reception and so important a conversation, and after the confiding letter I had written to Wieland, to see here an occasion for fresh distrust and disagreement. However my uncertainty on this point was not of long duration. As I walked up and down my room reading the book aloud, I heard clearly in the fancies and the turns of expression the voice of Wagner—and it was he. When I had rushed down stairs to impart my discovery to my mother, she confessed to me that she already knew it. Annoyed at the ill results of what had seemed to him a good and praiseworthy plan, the author had discovered himself to her, and besought her intercession with me, not to fulfil in his person my threat of holding no further intercourse with the writer who had so abused my confidence. The fact that I had found him out myself was very much in his favour, and the satisfaction always attending a discovery of one's own, inclined me to be merciful. The fault which had given occasion for such a proof of my sagacity, was forgiven. Nevertheless, it was not easy to convince the public that Wagner was the author, and that I had had no hand in the game. No one believed that he possessed such versatility of talent; and no one reflected, that it was very easy for him, though possessing no remarkable talents of his own, to notice, seize upon, and bring out in his own way all that for some time had passed either in jest and earnest in an intellectual society. And thus on this occasion as on many others afterwards, I had to suffer not only for my own follies, but also for the indiscretion and precipitancy of my friends.