23. On Goethe's Fairy Tale

It seems to me that all previous interpretations of the fairy tale suffer from the mistake of not taking into account one word that is explicitly mentioned in the fairy tale. When the old man with the lamp is asked which of the three secrets he knows is the most important, he answers: the revealed one. And when asked if he does not want to reveal it, he replies: as soon as I know the fourth. But the snake knows this fourth secret and whispers it to the old man. There can be no doubt that the secret that is revealed is the most important secret, for it brings about the state longed for by all the characters in the fairy tale. But since this state of affairs is described to us in great detail at the end, we must see the disclosure of the actual secret in the presentation of the circumstances at the end of the fairy tale. However, we must assume that the old man knows this secret very well, because he is, after all, the only person who is always above the circumstances, who directs and guides everything. And so the question arises, what can the old man learn from the snake? How to achieve what he and everyone else most urgently desire, the snake does not need to tell him, because he knows that himself. But we have seen that the snake is the most important being in the whole process, because only by sacrificing itself can everything be achieved. But it must come to the realization that this is necessary. And the old man cannot know when the time will come when the snake will come to this realization. Because that is up to the snake. The fourth secret is therefore when the snake wants to bring about the salvation of all the other figures through its sacrificial death. That she is willing to do this, she apparently whispers into the old man's ear. And now the latter can speak the word: “The time has come.”

What is now coming to light is the secret hidden in the fairy tale. And we just have to know how to find the crux of the matter, where the solution presents itself within the riddle. The desired goal is achieved in the revival of the youth, his union with the beautiful lily, and then through the fact that both realms, this side and the other side of the river, are connected by the magnificent bridge, on which all people can move freely back and forth as they please. Even though the snake is the originator of it all, she alone could not give the youth the gifts by which he can rule the newly established kingdom. These he receives from the three kings. From the brazen one he receives the sword with the order: “the sword on the left, the right free.”

The silver one gives him the scepter with the remark: “Feed the sheep.” Finally, the golden one places the oak wreath on his head with the words: “Recognize the highest.” Let us try to penetrate the meaning of these symbolic acts. The sword can only signify the power, the physical strength and violence that is given to the new ruler with it. However, he should not wield it in his right hand, where it always indicated a willingness to fight and war, but should hold it in his left hand, thus using it for protection, to ward off evil. The right hand, however, should be free for deeds of genuine humanity. What does the sceptre represent to the youth? The words: feed my sheep, remind us of Christ's command to the apostle: “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep”. Thus, piety and religious purity of heart emanate from this king and are imparted to the youth. Finally, from the third king, the youth is given the oak wreath and the gift of knowing the highest. The three kings are thus the three fundamental powers of the human mind: the will as the founder of power and physical strength and violence; the mind as the promoter of piety; and reason as the source of wisdom. Thus, it is not force, piety and wisdom themselves that are symbolized by the three kings, but the powers from which the latter emanate. Therefore, when the old man calls out the words, “There are three that rule on earth: wisdom, appearance and force,” the three kings each rise when their names are mentioned. There seems to be some ambiguity here in that the second king, the silver one, is presented as the ruler of the realm of appearances, whereas, judging by his words, we can only see in him the guardian spirit of piety. However, this contradiction is immediately resolved when we recall the close relationship that Goethe establishes between aesthetic and religious feelings. We need only think of words such as these: “There are only two true religions: one that recognizes the sacred that dwells in and around us in a completely formless way, and the other that recognizes and worships it in the most beautiful form.” Goethe sees art as only a different form of religion, and that is why he has the bearer of religion called upon here with the words: appearance, that is beautiful appearance. Now that we know the meaning of the kings, it will be possible to draw conclusions about other things that appear in the fairy tale. Above all, we are interested in the king of wisdom. He is made of gold. So we will have to see in gold a symbol of wisdom and everywhere we encounter this metal in the fairy tale, we will have to recognize this highest power of the human soul.

We now encounter gold in the form of the will-o'-the-wisp and the snake. Both relate to it quite differently. While the will-o'-the-wisps know how to acquire it easily everywhere and then throw it around wastefully and arrogantly, the snake only acquires it with difficulty and absorbs it organically, processing it in its body so that it permeates its entire being. So, without doubt, the will-o'-the-wisps are a symbol for all those personalities who gather their wisdom from all sides and then give it out lightly, without permeating themselves with it inwardly. In short, the will-o'-the-wisps represent all unproductive minds that can teach but not create. What they teach is therefore always more or less empty phrases. If these phrases fall on fertile ground, they can still achieve the very best.

A person can communicate a word to another that he does not understand at all and in which the person who hears it recognizes a deep meaning. The truth is expressed by the fact that this gold, which the will-o'-the-wisps only know how to flaunt, is processed by the serpent in the best way. The snake embodies the solid human striving, the strict progression on the path of wisdom, supported by honest work.

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Goethe expresses this by having them translated in the time of twilight on the shadow of the giant. The giant is thus at the same time the symbol of violence, of blind arbitrariness, and his shadow that of the senseless works of this arbitrariness. Arbitrariness acts unconsciously, it is powerless to create things that are preconscious and planned, just as the giant's shadow is not his own work, just as he accompanies it without his conscious intervention. Once we are familiar with the realm of the lily, that on the other side of the river will also be clear to us. It is, of course, that of mere natural, sensual life, where man gives in to his natural instincts, pursues every desire, every passion, and so the realm where not freedom but natural necessity reigns. The river is now what separates the two. What seizes it in its hand becomes arbitrary and that means spiritual death. We are all born to freedom, it is our original home. We all come from the same place, but we cannot return to it without a fundamental transformation of our personality. That is why the ferryman can take any traveler across, but cannot bring anyone across. Everyone can only cross over in the already characterized way. Only when that ideal state has truly been reached, when perfect wisdom, perfect piety and power prevail, then everyone can cross over and back at will, at any moment. That we are right in our assertion that the river is the symbol of the state and of society is proved by the fact that the temple of the ruler is erected above it.

There is also other evidence for this. The ferryman demands fruit of the earth from every traveler he ferries as a reward. These fruits of the earth are simply the duties that the state and society impose on people in return for their legal benefits and protection. When the ferryman rejects the gold pieces of the will-o'-the-wisps, it means that the state can only recognize real services, and will even become displeased if you try to fob it off with mere words. When the old woman has to confess to the river that she owes it by dipping her hand into the water, this also corresponds to reality. Those who refuse to provide the state with the services it prescribes are held liable for it with body and property.

Now let us consider the old man with the lamp. The lamp has the property of shining only where another light is brought to it. Here we must remember how Goethe expresses his own view through the saying of an old mystic: “Were the eye not solar, the sun could never behold it; were not the power of the God within us, how could we be enraptured by the Divine!” Just as the lamp does not shine in the dark, so the higher light of truth does not shine for those who do not have the appropriate organs from which the inner light flows towards the outer. But this higher light of enlightenment is the power that guides everything towards the ultimate goal. Wherever this light shines, everything radiates the gold of truth again. This means that all beings reveal their inner, nobler nature to us. The light of the lamp turns stone into gold, wood into silver, and dead animals into precious stones. It is the higher light that ultimately establishes the right harmony in the work of the three kings. In the past, the fourth king ruled and he was not influenced by the lamp. In him, the three elements, which can only be perfected separately, are in disorderly, chaotic confusion. He does not possess these elements properly, but has only usurped them. He was able to rule as long as there was darkness. When the light appears, his figure disintegrates into nothing. The will-o'-the-wisps lick up all the gold that he has inside him. This means that this unproductive science feeds on the past. It absorbs everything without selection or any sense of inner meaning. Who does not remember those historians and literary historians who absorbed every worthless trifle with [three manuscript pages missing here]

not consumed in activities that befit only the free human spirit, but brought to bear in the development of their powers within strict natural regularity. Man, who is inwardly unfree, will, if his activity[ies] run quite mechanically like clockwork, still prove himself best. —

Thus Goethe embodied his views on the relationship between a person's inner and outer development in this fairy tale.

The parallelism with the ideas that Schiller was actively pursuing at the time and that found expression in his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man is striking. Schiller also asked himself how freedom and natural necessity can coexist. And Schiller finds the bridge between the two in beauty and in artistic creation.

When the artist creates his works, he acts freely, but at the same time he unconsciously creates like a “dreamer, like a sleepwalker. In this respect, he is again subject to natural necessity. He is free and at the same time obeys the laws of nature. Indeed, he completely forgets his free self and creates under an irresistible compulsion, like nature. And so Schiller comes to the same conclusion by a completely different route. He also finds that only through an act of complete self-denial, through the sacrifice of the conscious self, can the realm of natural necessity be reconciled with that of freedom. The subject was certainly discussed at length between the two poets, for immediately after the first half of the fairy tale is received, Schiller refers to a conversation he had with Goethe, from which he reports that Goethe wants the highest to emerge from the interaction of all forces. Schiller solved the problem scientifically, Goethe poetically.

Perhaps my explanation will not be shared by many, perhaps it will be corrected or supplemented in some details. But I believe I have shown one thing: that Goethe's deep spirit, borne by the most perfect ideals and the most significant truths, also shines forth from this poem. And it is refreshing to see the two greatest minds of our nation working together in a joint intellectual endeavor on a task that should bring nothing less than the solution to the most serious question of conscience for humanity: How do we achieve perfect, unrestricted freedom? And for this reason, my observation that Goethe understood the realm of freedom to be on the other side of the river seemed to me not unworthy of mention.