B00ARI2G5C EBOK (52 page)

Förster
, Friedrich (1791–1868): a Berlin writer, editor of various periodicals.

Humboldt
, Alexander von (1769–1859): a distinguished scientist and explorer, with whom Goethe became acquainted in 1797.

Humboldt
, Wilhelm von (1767–1835): brother of Alexander; a distinguished scholar and statesman, founder of the University of Berlin. His ideas on classical culture were closely akin to those of Goethe and Schiller.

Iken
, Karl Jakob Ludwig (1789–1841): a writer, scholar, and translator from Bremen, whose correspondence with Goethe about ‘Helena’ showed considerable insight.

Kraukling
, Karl Konstantin (1792–1873): a librarian from Dresden who visited Goethe in the late summer of 1828.

Luden
, Heinrich (1780–1847): a professor of history from Berlin who visited Goethe in 1806.

Meyer
, Johann Heinrich (1760–1832): a Swiss painter and art historian whom Goethe met in Rome; he settled in Weimar, and both Goethe and Schiller were decisively influenced by his ideas.

Riemer
, Friedrich Wilhelm (1774–1854): a classical scholar, who became the tutor of Goethe’s son August in 1803 and lived in his house; Goethe relied on his advice on philological matters. He edited the poet’s posthumous work in collaboration with Eckermann.

Schiller
, Friedrich von (1759–1805): the dramatist, philosopher, historian, and poet who became Goethe’s close intellectual companion and co-founder of Weimar Classicism; the development of Goethe’s work on
Faust
owed much to his interest and influence.

Schubarth
, Karl Ernst (1796–1861): a classical scholar and critic from Berlin who published a book on Goethe’s work and met him in 1820.

Stapfer
, Philippe Albert (1766–1840): writer and diplomat, translator of Goethe’s dramatic works (including
Faust
) into French.

Zelter
, Karl Friedrich (1758–1832): a composer and music teacher from Berlin who from 1799 onwards became one of Goethe’s closest friends and set many of his poems to music.

I have not mentioned specific editions containing the letters and conversations quoted, since those who may wish to refer to the German text can nearly always identify them by their dates. There is no complete collection in English of Goethe’s letters or conversations. The standard English translation of Eckermann’s
Conversations with Goethe in the Last Years of his Life
is that by John Oxenford (1850; repr. Everyman’s Library, London, 1930). See also
Conversations and Encounters
, ed. and trans. David Luke and Robert Pick, Oswald Wolff (London, 1966) and
Letters from Goethe
, trans. Marianne Herzfeld and C. A. M. Sym (Edinburgh University Press, 1957).

Achilles
(
91
,
136
,
249
f
.): son of Peleus and the sea-goddess Thetis; the principal hero on the Greek side in the war against Troy, as described in Homer’s
Iliad
, of which he is the central figure. According to one of the many stories about him, he became the lover of
Helen
(q.v.) after they were both dead (8876 ff.), and can thus be cited by Faust (7435) as a precedent for his own pursuit of Helen (see Introd., p. xli and notes).

Aeolus
(
104
, ‘Aeolian’): the god of the winds, who kept storm-winds imprisoned in a cave, thus generating explosive pressure.

Aesculapius
(
92
): a semi-divine hero, the son of Apollo by a mortal woman; Apollo entrusted his education to the centaur
Chiron
(q.v.), and he was later worshipped as the god of healing and founder of medicine, thought even to be able to revive the dead. The names of his daughters—laso, Hygiea and Panacea—reflect his medical role. See also
Manto
.

Ajax
(
141
): one of the Greek heroes besieging Troy, notable for his exceptional stature and the great shield he carried.

Alcestis
(
249
): see
Pherae
.

Anaxagoras
(103-6,
248
): an Ionian philosopher of the 5th century
BC,
said to have written only one book, a treatise on Nature. According to his cosmology, a centrifugal motion initiated by primal Mind has hurled the heavenly bodies outwards from the earth like huge stones and heated them red-hot; they will fall back if this motion slackens. Anaxagoras was said to have foreseen the fall of a meteorite near Aegospotami in 467
BC,
predicting that it would fall out of the sun. Goethe adopts him as a representative of the theory that fire is the formative principle of the world (7855, 7865-8; see Introd., pp. xxxv f. and note).

Antaeus
(
80
, 160): a giant, the son of the sea-god Poseidon and the earth-goddess Gaia. His strength increased every time he touched the earth, so that Hercules could defeat him only by strangling him while lifting him in the air.

Aphidnus
(
135
): a friend of
Theseus
(q.v.) and lord of Aphidnae, a stronghold in Attica.

Aphrodite
(
113
,
119
,
162
): the Greek equivalent of Venus as the goddess of sexual love, also akin to the Oriental Astarte and Ishtar and the Egyptian Isis. She was said to have been a daughter of Zeus, but also to have been born of the sea foam (Gk. αϕρός) and to have come to land at Paphos in Cyprus or on the island of Cythera off the Laconian coast; she is thus also called the ‘Cyprian’ (8146), ‘Paphian’ (8343), or ‘Cytherean’ goddess. In later sources she is the mother of
Eros
(q.v.).

Apollo
(
95
,
157
,
160
,
162
): the son of Zeus and the goddess Leto, and perhaps the most important of the Olympian gods after Zeus. He represented beauty of form, law and order, prophecy, medicine, archery, music, and the arts generally, being particularly associated with Delphi where his oracle spoke, and with the nearby Mount Parnassus, the home of the Muses. Under his epithet Phoebus (‘shining’) (7535) he became identified with the sun-god. Line 9558 alludes to the story of his year-long service as a herdsman to Admetus, king of Pherae, a penance imposed on him for killing Zeus’s allies the Cyclopes.

Arcadia
(157 f.): the mountainous region in the central Peloponnese. Greek myth associated it especially with the gods Hermes (9644) and Pan (9538), and the Roman poet Virgil later founded the tradition which idealizes Arcadia as a setting for the idyllic pastoral life in beautiful and fertile natural surroundings (cf. the evocation of these in 9514-61). Arcadia was also believed to be the earth’s oldest inhabited land, older than the moon and hence the ‘first land’ (9565). Cf. Introd., pp. xlvi f. and note.

Ares
(
90
): the Greek god of war, identified with the Roman Mars (4959).

Argonauts
(89 f.,
249
): the heroes, in one of the most ancient of Greek legends, who sailed in the ship Argo to Colchis, at the eastern end of the Black Sea, to recover the Golden Fleece, a sacred trophy guarded by a dragon. The expedition was led by
Jason
(q.v.), but the names of the participants varied with later elaborations of the story.

Arimaspians
(
81
): a legendary one-eyed people living at the north-eastern limits of the known world; they fought with their neighbours the
Griffins
(q.v.) to gain possession of the hoards of gold which the Griffins guarded.

Athene
(later Athena; also known as Pallas Athene) (
108
,
124
): daughter of Zeus and the wise goddess Metis. Fearing that his children by Metis might be wiser than himself, Zeus swallowed her when she became pregnant, and Athene was born out of his head fully armed. She personified wisdom and warlike qualities, and was thought of as the patron goddess of Athens.

Atlas
(
57
,
94
): one of the
Titans
(q.v.) who rebelled against Zeus; as punishment he was given the task of holding up the sky on his head and shoulders.

Bacchus
(
173
): see
Dionysus
.

Boreads
(
90
): the winged sons of Boreas, the god of the north wind.

Cabiri
(
110
f,
113
ff.): ancient pre-Hellenic deities, associated particularly with the islands of Samothrace and Lemnos in the northern Aegean, where they were from early times the object of an important mystery cult about which little is known. They were portrayed as young boys not fully grown, or as jars or pitchers with human heads, in the manner of some early Egyptian gods. There were said to be seven or eight of them (8194-9); this and other points of uncertainty were discussed by modern scholars whom Goethe read (Creuzer,
The Symbolism and Mysticism of
Ancient Peoples
(1811); Schelling,
The Deities of Samothrace
(1815). The Cabin were thought to be friendly to man and to protect seafarers from storms; Goethe alludes to this in 8176-85, but their relevance in the Faustian context seems chiefly to be their association with the motif of unfinished development and aspiration to higher forms of existence (8200-5).

Castor
and
Pollux
(
124
): see
Twins
.

Chaos
(
95
,
109
): the original cosmic emptiness or formless matter, sometimes quasi-personified and said to have given birth to the primal deities Earth (Gaia), Night (Nyx), and Darkness (Erebus).

Chiron
(
85
,
88
-93,
248
f.): the divine semi-equine son of the ocean-goddess Philyra by Cronus the father of Zeus; Cronus approached Philyra disguised as a horse, and their son was born as the original centaur. He was benevolent and wise, being instructed by Apollo in medicine, prophecy, and other arts, and became the tutor of Aesculapius, Jason, Achilles, Hercules, and other heroes.

Cimmerian
(
140
): in Homeric legend, the Cimmerians were the inhabitants of a land of mist and perpetual darkness at the limits of the known world.

Circe
(
112
): in Homer, a daughter of the sun-god who lived on an island and practised evil enchantments, enticing strangers and turning them into animals; her spells were defeated by Ulysses, who became her lover (
Odyssey
, book x).

Clytemnestra
(
124
): daughter of Tyndareus, king of Sparta, and of his wife Leda, and thus half-sister to Helen; she married Agamemnon, king of Mycene, the brother of Helen’s husband Menelaus, but murdered him on his victorious return from Troy.

Cronus
: leader of the Titans and predecessor of
Zeus
(q.v.).

Cyclops
(
112
(‘monster with one eye’),
141
): the Cyclopes were a race of giants having a single large central eye; one of them, Polyphemus, is blinded by Ulysses in book ix of Homer’s
Odyssey
. In other contexts they appear as the forgers of the thunderbolts of Zeus or as workmen who built the walls of cities such as Mycene with massive natural stone blocks (9020 f.).

The
Cyprian
(
112
): see
Aphrodite
.

Cythera
(
124
): an island in the gulf of Laconia, associated with the cult of Aphrodite.

Deïphobus
(
142
,
153
): a Trojan prince who after the death of his brother Paris became the lover of Helen, thus incurring the wrath of Menelaus.

Delos
(
94
): a small island in the centre of the Aegean, supposed to have been the birthplace of Apollo and his twin sister Artemis (Diana). When Zeus’s mistress Leto was about to give birth to them, his jealous wife Hera forbade all lands to receive her, but Delos (in the account adopted by Goethe) rose from the sea to give her refuge.

Diana
(
105
): the Roman equivalent of Artemis, daughter of Zeus and the goddess Leto. She was chiefly thought of as goddess of hunting, but was
also identified with the moon-goddess Luna (Selene) by association with her twin brother Apollo as sun-god, as well as with the goddess Hecate who was associated with sorcery and the underworld and said to have a threefold shape. Anaxagoras (7903 ff.) invokes the moon-goddess as three goddesses in one.

Dionysus
(
174
): the son of Zeus and the Theban princess Semele; object of a very primitive or perhaps originally non-Greek cult as god of wine, viniculture, intoxication, and ecstasy. In 10011-38 Goethe evokes the ‘mystery’, or orgy, of his frenzied worshippers (satyrs, fauns, maenads, etc.), which involved promiscuous copulation and the tearing and devouring of the raw flesh of wild animals. Dionysus was also known as
Bacchus
(hence ‘bacchant(e)s’, ‘bacchanalia’), and the Romans usually adopted this name for their wine-god; the Greeks also associated him with the Egyptian god Osiris.

Dorids
(
112
,
120
f.): daughters of the sea-god Nereus by the ocean-nymph Doris; sisters of the Nereids, from whom Goethe’s sources did not distinguish them.

Dryad
(
107
): a tree-nymph (Gk. δρυς, tree, oak-tree); see also their chorus, 9992-8.

Eleusis
(
91
‘Eleusinian swamp’): a town on the Attic coast west of Athens, famous in antiquity as the site of a secret religious cult (Eleusinian Mysteries).