8/3/2019 Cooper - A Paracelsian Passage in Goethe's Ephemerides 1910

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A Paracelsian Passage in Goethe's Ephemerides.Author(s): W. A. CooperReviewed work(s):Source: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 25, No. 6 (Jun., 1910), pp. 168-170Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2916914 .Accessed: 24/02/2012 11:33

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168 MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. [Vol. xxvlVo. 6.A PARACELSIAN PASSAGE INGOETHE'S EPHEMERIDES.

In February, 770, before eaving his nativecity oattend heUniversityfStrasburg, oethecopied n his notebook phemerides number fquotations romParacelsus,to one of whichwish o call attention. t runs:"Darum ich wohl mag reden, asz die Artzt,so die Cadaverum natomniamiur ichnehmen,nichts lsunverstiindigeut sind,dannnicht erCadaver eigtdieAnatomey,ann iegiebt lleindie Bein, und des Beins Nachbaaren, och istaberdieKranckheit icht a." IAlthought that timeGoethewas nterestednthe neo-Platoniamystical hases of medicinie,neverthelesst may,witha reasonable egree fcertainty,e inferredromhepoint t which isquotation egins, nd thepoint twhichtends,that twasnot o much aracelsus'smystical is-tinction etweenheanatomyf the" cadaverand that fthe" corpus ofa particular iseasethat nterestedim, s it was thebold tatementthat an anatomicaldissection evealsthe bones

and the adjacentpartsof thebody,butnot hedisease,ince hedisease snot mongheremains.Perhaps t shouldbeourfirst imto make asclear as possiblewhatParacelsusmeans n theabove quotation. To do this twill be necessaryto give the context, esidesquoting n earlierpassage. The atter irst:" So ich nuhnsollvomCorpusreden esZip-perlins so wissen nfenglichn dieserVorreddass alle dingdie unspeinigen derwolthundtnicht auss dem Corpore,ber im Corporehrwerckverbringen: ann die kranckheitstun-sichtigniemandts atsnie gesehen das Corpusaber dasselbigest sichtig das istdas /dass wirklagen das unspeiniget."

Goethe'spassage is from he chapter" DePodagricis, iber Secundus, and I quote thecontext: "also sollenhr n demnrt uchwissenund erkennendass das Podagra, so es in sein

Corpusgenommenoll werden nd geformiertnseinAnatomey nnd nsein roprietate8,ass hrnicht nderst erstandendanndas der eib/dervonVatter ndMutter eboren irdtdieser eibnichtst/ uchnichts n ihn za handlen. DanndenFlamensichtmanauffsteigenaber ein or-pusnicht ussdem rkompt. Also denSchmert-zen empfindt an / aber sein COrpU8sichtnie-mands. Auffdas soll ein ander Grundgefiirtwerdenn erkanntnusses Podagram dannvonallendingen oll seinAnatomeytehn und wel-cherder st /dernicht erKranckheit natomeyweist kan der ein Artzt eyn? [Here followsGoethe's uotation.] ch redevonderAnatomeyderKranckheitennit des Leibs: darumb fihreichhiedieAstra, llein ussdenselbigennzeigun-gendieAnatomeyerKranckheitendass chfuirdas h6chst nd dz erst cht zu seyneinemeg-lichenArtzt: ohn welcheAnatomey ie nichtswarhaffligseschriebenstworden."Paracelsus elievedhat heprocessesf ife reindependentfthephysicaltructurefthe rgansof thebody nd he was willing oapply hetermanatomy nly owhathe consideredhenecessaryfoundationfmedicine,iz., a knowledgeftheultimateubstance f ife. It wasonly hewholefull ifeofnature nd manthat hadany ignifi-canceforhim.'A disease, onsidered s to its ultimate ub-stance, idnotmean ohim materialhing, uta spiritual,ivingthing.5While we shouldnotventure o assert hatGoethe cceptedhisdoc-trinewith ts consequences,everthelesshere sembodiednthe hort assagewhich e copied nideawhich ecamewithhim a fundamentalrin-ciple,namely he all-importancefstudyingnorganisms a living lhing,ot as a mechanism.There s a passage n theUrfaust367-372) thatsuggeststselfnthis onnection

"Wer willwas ebigs rkennenndbeschreiben,Mluss rst enGeistherauserreiben,Dannhat rdie Theil nseiner and,Fehlt eider ur asgeistlichand.Encheiresinaturae enntsieChimieBohrtich elbstinen selundweisnichtwie."' Sch8llo, riefe ndAufslitzeonGoethe,6; Deutsche it-

teraturdenkmalees18. und19.JahrhundertsnNeudrucken,xiv, 8; Weimar ed. ofGoethe,xxxviI, 87.2Opera, ed. Huser, Strasburg, 603, , 569."Ibid.,p. 573.4Cf. Haeser, ecrbucherGeechichteer'Medicin, ded., i, 87.fl6bid., . 95.

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June,1910.] MODERN LANGUAGE NOTES. 169Schr6ernd Steiner,heformern his preface,the atter n his ntroductiono vol.xxxiii oftheD. N. L. editionof Goethe's works,nterprettheselines as referringothto chemistrynd

anatomy. The lines are frequentlyuotedasembodying generalprinciple f quite broadbearing, nd this may well be donewithoutdoinganyviolence o Goethe's elief, houghweshallsee ater hathe was thinkingpecificallyfchemistry,r perhapsalchemy,whenhe wrotethepassage. Back inLeipsic, efore ehadreadParacelsus, ewrotehe ittle oem, ie Freuden,endingwith he ine,"So gehtsdir, ergliederereinerreuden."

As has beenpointed ut by Schr6er,6oethe'smain dea inthispoem, onfirmedythepassagefrom aracelsus,wasmoreclearlyndmore ullystated n a letter o HetzlerJr.,on the 14thofJuly, 1770, ". . . der Leichnamst nichtdasganzeThier, s geh6rt ochetwasdazu,noch inHauptstiick, nd bei der Gelegenheit, ie beyieder andern, in sehr hauptsichliches aupt-stuck: das Leben, der Geist der alles sch6nmacht. lassenSie mir dieFreudenfeindlicheErfahrungssucht,ie Sommerv6gel odtetundBlumen natomirt,ltenoderkaltenLeuten."Schr6er's uotation ftheParacelsian assageas a parallel o lines 1936ff.of Faust has lostsome fitsweight inceLippmann's iscoveryfGoethe's ourceforthechemical ermsmployedin these iines fFaust,' thought is easily on-ceivablethatGoethemay have had thegeneralprinciplen mind in the first our ines, venthough he words denGeistheraus u treibenbe clearly al)chemical, nd the last two inescontain stinging ibe at a pretentious,lbeitrare, pecimen f chemical erminology. ow-ever, t should not be deducedfromwhathasbeen aidthatGoethe houghtittleof chemistryor despised natomy,orhis manyexperimentsin the one and his important iscoveriesn theother rove xactly he opposite.Thefact hat Goethe eems o havebeenfond

of the dea commono all these assageseadsmeto venture he opinion hathe,andnot chiller,wasthe uthor fthexenion, erSprachforscher,Anatomierenagst u dieSprache,och ur hrCadaver;Geist nd eben ntschliipftluichtigdemrobencalpell.9The only authority,o far as I know, ponwhichthis distichhas everbeen attributedoSchiller, s the fact that Schiller's wife wrote"ISch. after t in her de luxe copy of theXentienolumeoftheMusen-Almanach."0venHoffmeister,hoproudlyoasted hat theposses-sionof that"Prachtexemplar" nabledhim to.nametheauthorof each of theVotivtafelmndmostof theXenien., asneverthelessnfactveryskepticalftheresultswith especto some ftheVotivtafeln,houghtillcocksurewithregard otheXenien. The cientificalueofthat Pracht-exemplar was oon ttacked ycertaincholars,though tilldefended yothers." The discoveryand publicationf the old manuscripthat hadwandered ack and forth etweenWeimar ndJena,growing ith ach ourney,eemed ohaveconsiderable eightn the problem f dividingthe iterarywnership,18ince forthe mostpartthedistichsre nthehandof oile or the other fthe poets. But even such manuscriptvidencehas notbeenuniversallyccepted s convincing.For example,Erich Schmidtmakesit appearhighly robable hatGoethe was the author fthree fthe distichs hatappear n this manu-scriptnSchiller's and." Seeing hat he xenionhereunder iscussionoesnot ven ppearn thatoriginalmanuscript,ndthe evidence f thepas-sage from aracelsus, he letter o Hetzler,thelines fromFaust,and the peculiarlyGoetheantendencyf the distich,ll oppose heconjectureofCharlotte . Schiller,twould eempermissibleto claimfor Goethe heauthorship fthe ines,themore o as no documentaryvidence as everbeenbroughtorward o substantiatehe laim fLotte chiller.

607ronikes Wiener oethe-Vereins,ii, Nr. 8, p. 31;and Faust,mit inl., etc.3teAufl. 892, . 124f.7Briefe,, 238f.8Chemiker-Zeitung,907, Nr.36, "EncheiresisNatu-rae." See alsoG.-J., xxT. 163f.

9Musen-Almanachfiras Jahr 797, rsg. on chiller,.234. No. 353 in the edition f Schmidt nd Suphan,SchriftenerGoethe-Gesellschaft,iii.10Hoffmeister,NachleseuSchiller8erken,II, 72,104."1Ibid., 4ff., 04 f.12Boas, Schiller nd GoethemXenienkampf,, 41 ff.IsCf.Boas-Maltzahn,chillers ndGoelhes enien-Manu-script,. 35."4Charakteriatiken,erlin, 886, . 318 .

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170 MODERN LANGUAGENOTES. [VoLxxv,No. 6.Goethe's contempt or the mirth-provoking,rather hanrespect-commandingerpetrationsfphilologists,specially ictionarytymologists,fthe time,needsno new demonstration.ufficeit to refero thepoemEtymologie,upposed obespokenby Mephistopheles,nd to the lines inFaust 7093 if.) in which heGreifgivesvent ohisdispleasuret beingwronglyalled " Greis''

"Nicht GreisenGreifen-Niemand hort sgernDaszman hnGreis ennt.JedemWorte lingtDer Jrsprungachwoes sichherbedingt:Grau,grimlich,riesgram,reulich, riber, rimmig,Etymologischleicherweisetimmig,Verstimmenns.MEPHISTOPrHELz.

Und doch,nichtbzuschweifen,Gefiillt as Grei m EhrentitelGr4ifen.GREIF.NatiirlichdieVerwandtschaftst rprobt,Zwar ft escholten, ehredoch elobt;Man greifeunnachMiidchen, ronen, old,DemGreifendenstmeist ortuna old.

W. A. COOPER.Stanford niversity.

THE WEAVERS' INSCRIPTION IN THECATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES.In thechapel f the SacredHeartof Mary, ntheNorth ideof thecathedral f Chartres,s awindow ivenbythe metier es tisserands ofthat ownnddedicatedo SaintVincent.Under-neath t,nearthemedallionswhere heweaveYsare represented,his nscriptioncan stillberead:

TERA : A CEST : AVTEL : TES LES: MESSES:QEN : CHARE: SONT: ACOILLI EN: TOERET : CESTE: VERRIE: CENT: CIL: QVIDO:LI : CONFRERE : SAINT: VIN

This inscriptionasgreatlyuzzled he rchme-ologistswho have discussedt. M. MAle peaksofit as an " inscriptionr6s bscure, ont nne

peutqu'entrevoire sens." De Lasteyrie2ug-gestedhefollowingnterpretation:A cet utel,toutes es messesqui en charge ontaccueillies... et donnArentette verri6re . . ceux quisont onfr6rese SaintVincent." Thisreadingis farfromiving clear meaning r an exactinterpretationf all the ettersf the nscription.All that ollows romt is that " confr6rieofSaintVincent avethe window;their onnectionwith he ltar nd themassess not pparent.I believethat it is possible o reacha moreprecise nd literalrenderingf the inscription.Whenweadopt heusualmethod,s deLasteyrieevidentlyid,beginningt the top and readingdown, t appearsconfused,ull of gaps and in-versions. Suppose,however,hatwe applythemethodused in reading the pictures n the" vitraux." It iswellknown hatthemedievalglass-workers,henpreparing window,eganat the bottom nd worked p. It is thusthatmostofthe"vitraux,"whether istorical, ys-ticalordogmatic,re to be read.8 Adoptinghismethod or the inscriptionnd numberinghewords s follows:TERA: A CEST : AVTEL : TES LES MESSES

17 18 19 20 18 14 15QEN: CHARE: SONT: ACOILLI: EN: TO16 17 10 11 12 18ERET: CE5TE: VERRIE: CENT: CIL: QVIDO:7 8 9 4 5 6 7LI: CONFRERE: SAINT: VIN1 2 8 4wegetthis esult: " Li confrereaintVincent ilqui doeret este verrie ont acoilli en totes esmesses encharetera cest utel.Thus read,everythings in orderexceptforthewords hareterand verne. And tbecomesalmostself-evidenthat the letters E of theformer elongwithVERRIE of the line below,forming erritre,nd that theyshouldbe re-placedbyan N or a nasalbar,forminghantera.Thewholenscriptionould hen ead " Li con-frereaintVincent, il quidonerenteste erriere,sont coilli n toteses messes 'en chantera cestautel." Or, nModern rench: "Les confreresde saintVincent, eux qui donntrentette yer-

I Facsimileby F. de Mdryn Revue el'art hritien,1888,p. 422. See also E. MAle, 'Artreligicuxu ziiissiadle,. 367f. 2Histoiree apeinturerverre,. 527.aSeeMile,op.cit., . 55.