eurhythmic tendency in the construction of Greek plays, as Gruppe,* and after him Bode,† have maintained; or, more probably from motives of economy with respect to the actors, as Geppert asserts; certain it is that in the plays of Æschylus more than two speakers were never together on the stage, with one trivial exception in the Choëphorœ, where Pylades says a few words. Hence scholars have been puzzled to account for the distribution of the Prometheus into parts. In the first scene the protagonist would take Power and the deuteragonist Vulcan. Prometheus therefore must be silent, for there is no one to speak for him. Here comes the difficulty: If Prometheus is necessarily silent during the prologue, how does he become eloquent immediately on being left alone? Welcker || supposes that Prometheus was represented by a picture, and the protagonist at the close of the prologue got behind it, and spoke through it; an explanation accepted by Hermann, § but shown by Schomann⁋ to be full of difficulties. Let that point be settled as it may, the fact remains that the silence of Prometheus was forced by stage necessities, and was not meant as an indication of his selfreliance; the further proof of which is to be seen in his wailings and writhings throughout the play—notably in the scene with Mercury (v. 905), where Prometheus is scurrilously fluent. Shelley never makes his Titan flinch. He stands there as the sublime of endurance: "To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite; To forgive wrongs darker than death or night; This is grand; but grander far the conception of Goethe, whose Titan knows that he is a god, and that if he be true to himself no power can trouble or destroy his heritage of life and activity: Das was ich habe können sie nicht rauben, Und was sie haben mögen sie beschützen; Und so sind wir geschieden. epimetheus. Wie vieles ist denn Dein? Ariadne: oder die tragische Kunst der Griechen, p. 143. † Geschichte der Hellen, Dichtkunst, iii, p. 233. ‡ Alt-Griechische Bühne, p. 58. Opusc. II, p. 146. Trilogie, p. 30. N PROMETHEUS. Der Kreis den meine Wirksamkeit erfüllt.* This is a profound truth strikingly brought out. Godlike energy is seen only in creation; what we can do we are; our strength is measured by our plastic power. Thus the contempt of Prometheus for the idleness, the uncreativeness of the gods is both deep and * That which I have they cannot rob me of; that which they have, let them guard. Here mine, here thine; and thus are we distinguished. epimetheus. What, then, is thine? prometheus. The circle my activity doth fill! Here I sit and shape Man in my image: A race like myself, That will suffer and weep, Will rejoice and enjoy, And scorn thee, As I ! Even in this rough plaster-cast of translation, does not the grandeur and beauty of the original shine through? "I MUST tell you something which makes me happy; and that is the visit of many excellent men of all grades, and from all parts, who, among unimportant and intolerable visitors, call on me often, and stay some time. We first know that we exist, when we recognise ourselves in others (man weiss erst dass man ist, wenn man sich in andern wiederfindet)." It is thus he writes to the Countess Augusta von Stolberg, with whom he had formed, through correspondence, one of those romantic friendships which celebrated men, some time in their lives, are generally led to form. This correspondence is among the most characteristic evidences we have of his mental condition, and should be read by every one who wishes to correct the tone of the Autobiography. Above all, it is the repository of his fluctuating feelings respecting Lili, the woman whom, according to his statement to Eckermann, he loved more than any other. "She was the first, and I can also add she is the last, I truly loved; for all the inclinations which have since agitated my heart, were superficial and trivial in comparison."* There is no statement he has made respecting a matter of feeling, to which one may oppose a flatter contradiction. Indeed we find it difficult to believe he uttered such a sentence, unless we remember how carelessly in conversation such retrospective statements are made, and how, at his very advanced age, the memory of youthful feelings must have come back upon him with peculiar tenderness. Whatever caused him to make that statement, the statement is very questionable. I do not think that he loved Lili more than Frederika; and we shall hereafter have positive evidence that his love for the Frau von Stein, and for his wife, was of a much deeper and more enduring nature. "My love for Lili," he said to Eckermann, "had something so peculiar and delicate that even now it has influenced my style in the narrative of that painfullyhappy epoch. When you read the fourth volume of my Autobiography, you will see that my love was something quite different from love in novels." *Gespräche, iii, p. 299. Well, the fourth volume is now open to every one, and he must have peculiar powers of divination who can read any profound passion in the narrative. A colder love-history was never written by a poet. There is no emotion warming the narrative; there is little of a loving recollection, gathering all details into one continuous story; it is, indeed, with great difficulty one unravels the story at all. He seems to seize every excuse to interrupt the narrative by general reflections, or by sketches of other people. He speaks of himself as "the youth of whom we now write!" He speaks of her, and her circle, in the vaguest manner; and the feelings which agitated him we must "read between the lines." It is very true, however, that the love there depicted is unlike the love depicted in novels. In novels, whatever may be the amount of foolishness with which the writers adumbrate their ideal of the passion, this truth, at least, is everywhere set forth, that to love we must render up body and soul, heart and mind, all interests and all desires, all prudences and all ambitions, identifying our being with that of another, in union to become elevated. To love is for the soul to choose a companion, and travel with it along the perilous defiles and winding ways of life; mutually sustaining, when the path is terrible with dangers, mutually exhorting, when it is rugged with obstructions, and mutually rejoicing, when rich broad plains and sunny slopes make the journey a delight, showing in the quiet distance the resting-place we all seek in this world. It was not such companionship he sought with Lili; it was not such self-devotion which made him restlessly happy in her love. This child of sixteen, in all the merciless grace of maidenhood, proudly conscious of her power, ensnared his roving heart through the lures of passionate desire, but she never touched his soul; as the story we have to tell will sufficiently prove. Anna Elizabeth Schönemann, immortalised as Lili, was the daughter of a great banker in Frankfurt, who lived in the splendid style of merchant princes. She was sixteen when Goethe first fell in love with her. The age is significant. It was somewhat the age of Frederika, Lotte, Antoinette, and Maximiliane. An age when girlhood has charms of grace and person, of beauty and freshness, which even those will not deny who profoundly feel the superiority of a developed woman. There is poetry in this age; but there is no depth, no fulness of character. Imagine the wide-sweeping mind of the author of Götz, Faust, Prometheus, The Wandering Jew, Mahomet, in companionship with the mind of a girl of sixteen! Young, graceful, and Nor was Lili an exceptional character. |