Chapter 4 GOETHE.

Enthusiasm for ?akuntalā-Der Gott und die Bajadere; Der Paria-Goethe's Aversion for Hindu Mythology-Origin of the Divan-Oriental Character of the Work-Inaugurates the Oriental Movement.

In Wahrheit und Dichtung (B. xii. vol. xxii. p. 86) Goethe tells us that he first became acquainted with Hindu fables through Dapper's book of travel,86 while pursuing his law studies at Wetzlar, in 1771. He amused his circle of literary friends by relating stories of Rāma and the monkey Hanneman (i.e. Hanuman), who speedily won the favor of the audience. The poet himself, however, could not get any lasting pleasure from monstrosities; misshapen divinities shocked his aesthetic sense.

The first time that Goethe's attention was turned seriously to Eastern literature was in 1791, when, through Herder's efforts, he made the acquaintance of Kālidāsa's dramatic masterpiece ?akuntalā, which inspired the well known epigram "Willst du die Blüte des frühen," etc., an extravagant eulogy rather than an appreciative criticism. That the impression was not merely momentary is proved by the fact that five years later the poet took the inspiration for his Faust prologue from Kālidāsa's work.87 Otherwise it cannot be said that the then just awakening Sanskrit studies exercised any considerable influence on his poetic activity. For his two ballads dealing with Indic subjects, "Der Gott und die Bajadere" and "Der Paria", the material was taken, not from works of Sanskrit literature, but from a book of travel. The former poem was completed in 1797, though the idea was taken as early as 1783 from a German version of Sonnerat's travels, where the story is related according to the account of Abraham Roger88 in De Open-Deure. There the account is as follows: "'t Is ghebeurt ... dat Dewendre, onder Menschelijcke ghedaente, op eenen tijdt ghekomen is by een sekere Hoere, de welcke hy heeft willen beproeven of sy oock ghetrouw was. Hy accordeert met haer, ende gaf haer een goet Hoeren loon. Na den loon onthaelde sy hem dien nacht heel wel, sonder dat sy haer tot slapen begaf. Doch 't soude in dien nacht ghebeurt zijn dat Dewendre sich geliet of hy stierf; ende storf soo sy meynde. De Hoere die wilde met hem branden, haer Vrienden en konde het haer niet afraden; de welcke haer voor-hielden dat het haer Man niet en was. Maer nadien dat sy haer niet en liet gheseggen, soo lietse het yver toestellen om daer in te springen. Op't uyterste ghekomen zijnde, ontwaeckte Dewendre, ende seyde, dat hy hem hadde ghelaten doot te zijn, alleenlijck om te ondervinden hare trouwe; ende hy seyde haer toe, tot een loon van hare ghetrouwigheyt, dat sy met hem na Dewendrelocon (dat is een der platsen der gelucksaligheyt) gaen soude. Ende ghelijck den Bramine seyde, ist alsoo gheschiet."89

It will be seen that Goethe has changed the story considerably and for the better. How infinitely nobler is his idea of uniting the maiden with her divine lover on the flaming pyre from which both ascend to heaven! It may also be observed that Goethe substitutes Mahādēva, i.e. ?iva, for Dewendre90 and assigns to him an incarnation, though such incarnations are known only of Vi??u.

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The "Paria," a trilogy consisting of "Gebet," "Legende" and "Dank des Paria," was begun in 1816, but not finished until December, 1821. Even then it was not quite complete. The appearance of Delavigne's Le Paria and still more of Michael Beer's drama of the same name, spurred Goethe to a final effort and the poem was published in October, 1823.

The direct source is the legend which Sonnerat tells of the origin of the Paria-goddess Mariatale.91 Indirectly, however, the sources are found in Sanskrit literature. Two parts may be distinguished: The story of the temptation and punishment, and the story of the interchange of heads.92 The former story is that of the ascetic Jamadagni and his wife Rē?ukā, who was slain by her son Rāma at the command of the ascetic himself, in punishment for her yielding to an impure desire on beholding the prince Citraratha. Subsequently at the intercession of Rāma she is again restored to life through Jamadagni's supernatural power. The story is in Mahābhārata iii. c. 116 seq.93 and also in the Bhāgavata Purā?a, Bk. ix. c. 16,94 though here the harshness of the original version is somewhat softened.95

The second story is found in the Vētālapa?cavi?s'ati, being the sixth of the "twenty-five tales of a corpse-demon," which are also found in the twelfth book of the Kathāsaritsāgara.96 It relates how Madanasundarī, whose husband and brother-in-law had beheaded themselves in honor of Durgā, is commanded by the goddess to restore the corpses to life by joining to each its own head, and how by mistake she interchanges these heads.

The two stories were fused into one and so we get the legend in the form in which Sonnerat presents it. Goethe followed this form closely without inventing anything. He did, however, put into the poem an ethical content and a noble idea. Both the Indic ballads are a fervent plea for the innate nobility of humanity.

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Here the influence of India on Goethe's work ends. The progress of Sanskrit studies could not fail to excite the interest of the poet whose boast was his cosmopolitanism,97 but they did not incite him to production. For India's mythology, its religion and its abstrusest of philosophies he felt nothing but aversion. Especially hateful to him were the mythological monstrosities:

Und so will ich, ein für allemal,

Keine Bestien in dem G?ttersaal!

Die leidigen Elephantenrüssel,

Das umgeschlungene Schlangengenüssel,

Tief Urschildkr?t' im Weltensumpf,

Viel K?nigsk?pf' auf einem Rumpf,

Die müssen uns zur Verzweiflung bringen,

Wird sie nicht reiner Ost verschlingen.98

Goethe classed Indic antiquities with those of Egypt and China, and his attitude towards the question of their value is distinctly expressed in one of his prose proverbs: "Chinesische, Indische, Aegyptische Altertümer sind immer nur Curiosit?ten: es ist sehr wohl gethan, sich und die Welt damit bekannt zu machen; zu sittlicher und aesthetischer Bildung aber werden sie uns wenig fruchten."99

After all, Goethe's Orient did not extend beyond the Indus. It was confined mainly to Persia and Arabia, with an occasional excursion into Turkey.

To this Orient he turned at the time of Germany's deepest political degradation, when the best part of its soil was overrun by a foreign invader, and when the whole nation nerved itself for the life and death struggle that was to break its chains. The aged poet shrank from the tumult and strife about him and took refuge in the East. The opening lines of the first Divan poem express the motive of this poetical Hegire.

The history of the composition of the Divan is too well known to require repetition. It is given with great detail in the editions prepared by von Loeper and Düntzer.100 Suffice it to say that the direct impulse to the composition of the work was the appearance, in 1812, of the first complete version of Persia's greatest lyric poet Hāfi?, by the famous Viennese Orientalist von Hammer. The bulk of the poems were written between the years 1814 and 1819,101 although in the work as we now have it a number of poems are included which arose later than 1819 and were added to the editions of 1827 and 1837.102

The idea of dividing the collection into books was suggested by the fact that two of Hāfi?'s longer poems bear the titles ???? ????? ???? ????, i.e. "book of the cup-bearer" and "book of the minstrel," as well as by the seven-fold division which Sir William Jones had made of Oriental poetry.103 For the heroic there was no material, nor were some of the other divisions suitable for Goethe's purpose. So only the Buch der Liebe and the Buch des Unmuts (to correspond to satire) could be formed. Other books were formed in an analogous manner until they were twelve in number. The poet originally intended to make them of equal length, but this intention he never carried out, and so they are of very unequal extent, the longest being that of Suleika (53 poems) and the shortest those of Timur and of the Parsi (two poems each).

The great majority of the Divan-poems are not in any sense translations or reproductions, but entirely original compositions inspired by the poet's Oriental reading and study. The thoroughness and earnestness of these studies is attested by the explanatory notes which were added to the Divan and were published with it in 1819,104 and which show conclusively, that, although Goethe could not read Persian poetry in the original, he nevertheless succeeded admirably in entering into its spirit.

We have mentioned Hammer's translation of Hāfi? as the direct impulse to the composition of the Divan. It was also the principal source from which the poet drew his inspiration for the work. A single verse would often furnish a theme for a poem. Sometimes this poem would be a translation, e.g. "Eine Stelle suchte der Liebe Schmerz," p. 54 (H. 356. 8); but more often it was a very free paraphrase, e.g. the motto prefixed to Buch Hafis, a variation of the motto to Hammer's version (H. 222. 9). As an example of how a single verse is developed into an original poem we may cite "über meines Liebchens ?ugeln," p. 55, where the first stanza is a version of H. 221. 1, all the others being free invention. Other Persian poets besides Hāfi? also furnished material. Thus the opening passage of Sa?dī's Gulistān was used for "Im Athemholen," p. 10, where the sense, however, is altered and the line "So sonderbar ist das Leben gemischt" is added. A number of poems are based on the Pand Nāmah of ?A??ār, e.g. pp. 58, 60,105 and two are taken from Firdausī, namely "Firdusi spricht," p. 75 (Sh. N. i. p. 62, couplet 538; Mohl, i. 84; Fundgruben. ii. 64) and "Was machst du an der Welt?" p. 96 (Sh. N. i. p. 482, coupl. 788, 789; Red. p. 58). But it was not only the poetical works of Persia that were laid under contribution; sayings, anecdotes, descriptions, remarks of any kind in books of travel and the like were utilized as well. Thus Hammer in the preface to his version of Hāfi? relates the fatvā or judgment which a famous muftī of Constantinople pronounced on the poems of the great singer, and this gave Goethe the idea for his "Fetwa," p. 32.106 In the same preface107 is related the well known reply which Hāfi? is reported to have given to Timur, when called to account by the latter for the sentiment of the first couplet of the famous eighth ode, and this inspired the poem "H?tt' ich irgend wol Bedenken," p. 133. Similarly "Vom heutigen Tag," p. 94, is based on the words of an inscription over a caravansery at Ispahan found in Chardin's book. The story of Bahrāmgūr and Dilārām inventing rhyme108 gave rise to the poem "Behramgur, sagt man," p. 153. And so we might cite poems from other sources, Qurān, Jones' Poeseos, Diez' Buch des Kabus, etc., but the examples we have given are sufficient to show how Goethe used his material.

Throughout the Divan Persian similes and metaphors are copiously employed and help to create a genuine Oriental atmosphere. The adoration of the dust on the path of the beloved, p. 23 (cf. H. 497. 10); the image of the candle that is consumed by the flame as the lover is by yearning, p. 54 (cf. H. 414. 4); the love of the nightingale for the rose, p. 125 (cf. H. 318. 1); the lover captive in the maiden's tresses, p. 46 (cf. H. 338. 1); the arrows of the eye lashes, p. 129 (cf. H. 173. 2); the verses strung together like pearls, p. 193 (cf. H. 499. 11), are some of the peculiarly Persian metaphors that occur. Allusions to the loves of Yūsuf and Zalīχā, of Laīlā and Majnūn and of other Oriental couples are repeatedly brought in. Moreover, a whole book is devoted to the sāqī so familiar to students of Hāfi?, and Goethe does not shrink from alluding to the subject of boy-love, p. 181.

A great many of the poems, however, do not owe their inspiration to the Orient, and many are completely unoriental. Such are, for instance, those of the Randsch Namah, expressing, as they do, Goethe's opinions on contemporary literary and aesthetic matters. Again, many are inspired by personal experiences, and, as is now well known, the whole Buch Suleika owes its origin to the poet's love for Marianne von Willemer; some of its finest poems have been proved to have been written by this gifted lady. Such poems, written under the impressions of some actual occurrence, were sometimes subsequently orientalized. Some striking illustrations of this are given by Burdach in the essay which we cited before and to which we refer.

As the Divan was an original work, though inspired by Oriental sources, Goethe did not feel the necessity of imitating the extremely artificial forms of his Oriental models. Besides, he knew of these forms only indirectly through the work of Jones. What Hammer's versions could teach him on this point was certainly very little. Perhaps he did not realize what an essential element form is in Persian poetry, that, in fact, it generally predominates over the thought, and this so much that the unity of a γazal is entirely dependent on the recurrence of the rhyme. Instead of such recurrent rhyme he employs changing rhyme and free strophes. Only twice does he attempt anything like an imitation of the γazal, but in neither case does he satisfy the technical rules of this poetic form.109

From all this we see that Goethe in the Divan preserves his poetic independence. He remains a citizen of the West, though he chooses to dwell for a time in the East. As a rule he takes from there only what he finds congenial to his own nature. So we can understand his attitude towards mysticism. He has no love for it; it was utterly incompatible with his own habit of clear thinking. Speaking of Rūmī, the prince of mystics, he doubts if this poet could give a clear account of his own doctrine;110 the grades by which, according to Sūfī-doctrine, man rises to ultimate union with the Godhead he calls follies.111 Therefore to him Hāfi? was the singer of real love, real roses and real wine, and this conception of the great lyric poet was also adopted by all the later Hafizian singers.112 Unfortunately it cannot be said that it is quite correct. For even if we ignore the mystical interpretation which Oriental commentators give to the wine of Hāfi?, we cannot possibly ignore the fact that the love of which he sings is never the ideal love for woman, but mostly the love for a handsome boy.113

With the Divan Goethe inaugurated the Oriental movement in German poetry, which Rückert, Platen and Bodenstedt carried to its culmination. These later Hafizian singers remembered gratefully what they owed the sage of Weimar. Rückert pays his tribute to him in the opening poem of his ?stliche Rosen, where he hails him as lord of the East as he has been the star of the West.114 And Platen offers to him reverentially his first Ghaselen:

Der Orient sei neu bewegt,

Soll nicht nach dir die Welt vernüchtern,

Du selbst, du hast's in uns erregt:

So nimm hier, was ein Jüngling schüchtern

In eines Greisen H?nde legt.115

The poetic spirit of the Orient had been brought into German literature; it was reserved for Rückert and Platen to complete the work by bringing over also the poetic forms.

FOOTNOTES:

86 Asia, Oder: Ausführliche Beschreibung, etc. See Benfey, Orient u. Occident, i. p. 721, note.

87 See Düntzer, Goethes Faust, Leipz. 1882, p. 68.

88 This information is given by Düntzer in his Goethe ed. (KDNL. vol. 82), vol. i. p. 167, note. The French ed. of Sonnerat, Paris, 1783, does not contain the story. The German version to which Düntzer refers has not been accessible to me.

89 Roger, De Open-Deure, Leyden, 1651, pp. 166, 167, chap. xi.

90 It is to be noted that in Sanskrit literature dēvēndra is an epithet of ?iva as well as of Indra.

91 Voyage aux Indes et à la Chine, Paris, 1782, i. 244 seq.

92 See Benfey, Goethes Gedicht Legende und dessen indisches Vorbild in Or. u. Occ. i. 719-732. Benfey erroneously supposes the material of the poem to have been derived from Dapper.

93 Bombay edition; cf. also Engl. trans. of Mahābh. ed. Roy, vol. iii. p. 358 seq.

94 Nir?. Sāg. Press ed. Bomb. 1898, p. 407 seq. Cf. also Engl. tr. in Wealth of India ed. Dutt, Calc. 1895, pp. 62, 63.

95 For other Sanskrit sources see Petersb. Lex. sub voce rēnukā.

96 Nir?. Sāg. Press ed., Bombay, 1889, p. 481 seq. Cf. also Engl. tr. by Tawney, vol. ii. p. 261 seq.

97 See for instance his discussion of ?akuntalā, Gītagōvinda and Mēghadūta in Indische Dichtung, written 1821. Vol. 29, p. 809.

98 Vol. ii. p. 352.

99 Sprüche in Prosa, vol. 19, p. 112.

100 See also Konrad Burdach, Goethe's West-?stlicher Divan, Goethe Jahrbuch, vol. xvii. Appendix.

101 More than 200 poems out of 284 date from the years 1814, 1815 alone. Loeper in vol. vi. preface, p. xxviii.

102 Loeper, ibid. p. xv.

103 Poeseos, The Works of Sir William Jones, ed. Lord Teignmouth, London, 1807, vol. vi. chapters 12-18.

104 Based mainly on information contained in Hammer's Gesch. der sch?nen Redekünste Persiens, Wien, 1818.

105 Given in Fundgruben des Orients, Wien, 1809, vol. ii. pp. 222, 495, in the French translation of de Sacy.

106 Op. cit. p. xxxiv.

107 Ibid. pp. xvi, xvii.

108 Red. p. 35; Pizzi, Storia della Poesia Persiana, Torino, 1894, vol. i. p. 7. This story inspired also the scene between Helena and Faust. Faust, Act iii. See Düntzer, Goethes Faust, Leipz., 1882, ii. p. 216.

109 In tausend Formen, p. 169; Sie haben wegen der Trunkenheit, p. 178.

110 Noten u. Abhandlungen, p. 260.

111 Ibid. p. 264.

112 That Goethe knew of the mystic interpretation to which Hāfi? is subjected by Oriental commentators is evident from "Offenbar Geheimnis," p. 38, and from the next poem "Wink," p. 39.

113 See Paul Horn, Was verdanken wir Persien?, in Nord u. Süd, Sept. 1900, p. 389.

114 Rückert's Werke, vol. v. 286.

115 Platen, Werke, i. p. 255.

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