1224–1237: Faust’s retranslation of (John 1:1) as ‘in the beginning was the Deed’ is not in itself alien to the Christian conception of the divine Logos as the active creative principle, but in Goethe’s emphasis it both continues the Urfaust polemic against empty words (385, 552f., etc.) and stands out as a key statement of the theme of ceaseless activity which is central to the 1797–1801 material (cf. Introd., pp. xxxiv f.). In Night (705) Faust has even envisaged death as the entry to a new sphere of ‘pure activity’, a conception in keeping with Goethe’s own later statement, reported by Eckermann (4 February 1829), that his conviction of man’s survival after death ‘is derived from the idea of activity’. As Faust restates his central positive principle, the dog (Mephistopheles as the antagonist of creation) howls in protest; the motif recalls the Devil’s attempts to interrupt Luther as he worked on his translation of the Bible.
1258, King Solomon’s Key: the Clavicula Saloinonis, a popular handbook of spells for the conjuration of elemental spirits, first extant in the sixteenth century and still in use in the eighteenth.
1272: the ‘Spell of the Four’ conjured spirits of the four elements, fire, water, air, and earth; ‘incubus’ (1290), in one of its meanings, was another name for the earth-goblin whose underground activities extended to cellars and houses. Faust’s use of these commands will cause the dog, if it is an elemental, to reveal itself in its true shape; if it is a devil it can be conjured with the crucifix (1298–1309) or a symbol of the Trinity (1319).
1333 f.: Faust alludes to biblical names for the Devil such as Beelzebub (lord of flies), Apollyon (destroyer), diabolus (slanderer, liar).
1395 f.: the five-pointed star or pentagram has been associated since antiquity with various symbolisms. It was used by the Pythagoreans and the Gnostics as well as in the cabbalistic and alchemical systems of medieval Jewish and Christian thought, and still plays a part in Satanistic rituals. As a deformed or five-clawed ‘witch-foot’ it was an apotropaic magical sign in Germanic folklore. Goethe found it reproduced and discussed in a book on magic and witchcraft published in 1666 under the title Anthro-podemus Plutonicus by Johannes Schultze (‘Johannes Prätorius’), a seventeenth-century popular writer on such subjects. Geometrically and graphically the pentagram is a figure of some interest, definable as a regular pentagon whose five sides are also the bases of outward-pointing identical isosceles triangles, or as an interlocking system of five identical capital ‘A’s whose crossbars are the sides of the pentagon, or as five straight lines each of which begins and ends at two of five equidistant points on the circumference of a circle enclosing the figure. The pentagram thus consists of five intersecting and joining straight lines of equal length; and when the sign was, for example, drawn with consecrated chalk on a threshold as a charm against witches, it was considered important to trace these lines continuously without raising the chalk from the ground, and to take care that there was no break at any of the five angles.
Faust’s Study (II): on the problems arising from this scene (particularly from 1583–634 and 1675–706) cf. Note 25 and Introd., pp. xxxvi–xxxix.
1656–9: this straightforward bargain involving Faust’s damnation in ‘the next world’ seems to be an artistically necessary concession by Goethe to the old Faust tradition. As in the Prologue (318–21; cf. Introd., p. xxx) its importance is immediately played down by Faust’s dismissive reply (166–70).
1712: the reference to a ‘doctoral feast’ is an unexpunged trace of Goethe’s original intention to write a further scene (cf. Note 25) between Faust’s Study (I) and Faust’s Study (II); after abandoning this idea he characteristically left the reference standing, as well as the hiatus between the two scenes.
1738 f.: it is to be presumed that during or immediately after these words Faust actually does write on a piece of paper and sign his name with blood. Goethe, again characteristically, disdains to insert any stage direction to this effect; like the motif of the afterlife (cf. Note 33), that of the written bond, dismissively ridiculed by Faust here and in his preceding speech, seems intended as a concession to tradition. Nor are we given any indication of what Faust writes; presumably it is an undertaking that if he loses his ‘wager’ (1698) the ‘pact’ will come into effect, that is to say he will be bound by the condition proposed by Mephistopheles in 1656–9. The ‘paper signed in blood’ is mentioned only twice more in the whole of the remainder of Faust, namely in two rather less than serious passages of Part Two (lines 6576–9 and 11,613; cf. Introd., p. xliii). In general Goethe’s reduction of the contract with the Devil to a bet reduces its seriousness (cf. Introd., pp. xxxvii). The quite different assumptions of the old Faust chap-books required a less urbane treatment of the theme, as may be judged from the following extract:
… In audacity and transgression, Doctor Faustus executed a written instrument and document to the evil spirit. This was a blasphemous and horrible thing, which was found in his lodging after he had lost his life. I will include it as a warning to all pious Christians, lest they yield to the Devil and be cheated of body and soul … When these two wicked parties contracted with one another, Doctor Faustus took a penknife, pricked open a vein in his left hand (and it is the veritable truth that upon this hand were seen graven and bloody the words: o homo fuge—id est: o mortal fly from him and do what is right), drained his blood into a crucible, set it on some hot coals and wrote as here followeth: ‘I, Johann Faustus, Dr., do publicly declare with mine own hand in covenant and by power of these presents: Whereas, mine own spiritual faculties having been exhaustively explored (including the gifts dispensed from above and graciously imparted to me), I still cannot comprehend; and whereas, it being my wish to probe further into the matter, I do propose to speculate upon the Elementa; and whereas mankind doth not teach such things; Now therefore have I summoned the spirit who calleth himself Mephostophiles [sic], a servant of the Hellish Prince in Orient, charged with informing and instructing me, and agreeing against a promissory instrument hereby transferred unto him to be subservient and obedient to me in all things; I do promise him in return that when I be fully sated of that which I desire of him, twenty-four years also being past, ended and expired, he may at such a time and in whatever manner or wise pleaseth him order, ordain, reign, rule and possess all that may be mine: body, property, flesh, blood, etc., herewith duly bound over in eternity and surrendered by covenant in mine own hand by authority and power of these presents, as well as of my mind, brain, intent, blood and will. I do now defy all living beings, all the Heavenly Host and all mankind, and this must be. In confirmation and contract whereof I have drawn out mine own blood for certification in lieu of a seal.—Doctor Faustus, the Adept in the Elementa and in Church Doctrine.’
(Translation from The History of Dr Faustus, ed. H. G. Haile; see Bibliography.)
1741–69: these lines, the last twenty-nine of the ‘infill material’ written in the third composition-phase, connect the foregoing negotiation with that part of the present scene (1770–867) which Goethe had written already and published ten years earlier (cf. Introd., pp. xxi f.). As a linking passage designed to minimize the appearance of a join, it picks up some threads from the earlier versions, alluding to the Earth Spirit (1746 f.), to Faust’s longing for communion with nature (1747 f.), his disillusionment with learning (1748 f.), and his desire to experience all the joys and sufferings of mankind (1754–8); his next speech (1765–75, which contains the actual join, 1769 f.) also clearly echoes lines 464–7 of the original Earth Spirit conjuration.
1851–67: Mephistopheles’ lago-like soliloquy (the only major soliloquy by Mephistopheles in Part One) is probably the most important passage in the Fragment version of 1790, and sets out the relatively traditional devil’s-bargain scenario with which Goethe was still operating at that stage; for further discussion of this point cf. Introd., pp. xxxviii f. In lines 1855 and 1866 incidentally (‘… signature or none’, ‘… bond that he has signed’) the German original does not expressly mention the blood-si
gned document (cf. Note 35).
1868–2050: the episodic satirical scene between Mephistopheles and the Student is essentially Urfaust material from the early 1770s, paralleling in important respects the scene between Faust and Wagner (cf. Note 15) which was also written at |that| time. It is notable that Mephistopheles (used |with| scant or ironic regard for his diabolic role) is here just as much a spokesman for the young Goethe as Faust in the Wagner scene. In both cases the naive interlocutor hears a polemic on ‘Storm and Stress’ lines against narrow academic pedantry, the bandying of empty words, ‘grey theory’ that draws no nourishment from the ‘golden tree of life’ (2038 f.). The Student scene incorporates the young Goethe’s recollections of university life at Leipzig in the late 1760s, particularly of the teaching methods which he had found so antiquated and uninspiring. The original version also alluded, in a long and pleasingly ribald passage, to the living-conditions suffered by Leipzig students in those days; this was excised when the scene underwent revision at the Fragment stage, but the passages on Law and Theology (1968–2000) were now added to complete this ironic review of the traditional four faculties (cf. Note 10).
1911–41: in Book VI of his autobiography Goethe later recalled the Leipzig foundation-course in logic: ‘… I found it strange to be told that those mental operations which I had performed with the greatest of ease since childhood must be pulled apart, isolated and virtually destroyed if I was to understand how to carry them out correctly.’
1940, encheirisis naturae: ‘an intervention by the hand of Nature’—a pompous pseudo-explanatory concept (used by one of Goethe’s teachers at Strasbourg) which made nonsense of the scientist’s claim to have discovered the essential truth.
1972–9: this Rousseauistic polemic in favour of ‘natural law’, delivered a little incongruously through Mephistopheles, again represents the view of the young Goethe, himself a practising lawyer at that time, although the passage about Law was in fact added at the Fragment stage (cf. Note 38).
1990–2000: in the passage satirizing theology, added for the 1790 version (cf. Note 38), Goethe continues the anti-verbalist polemic of the Urfaust (cf. 385, 552–7, 3453–7) which remained one of his characteristic themes; it recurs in Sc. 9 (2554–66) which he also wrote at the Fragment stage (cf. Notes 60 and 79).
2000: Matthew 5:18 (‘jot’=the letter iota). It is possible (cf. Notes 42 and 60) that Goethe is also alluding satirically to the Christological controversy at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), in which the difference of one iota between όμοούσιος (of the same nature [as the Father]) and όμοιούσιος (of similar nature) had vast doctrinal consequences.
2046 ff.: it was then customary for students to carry autograph books in which to collect the signatures of academics. Mephistopheles writes the words of the Serpent in Eden (Genesis 3:5, ‘you shall be as God, knowing good and evil’).
2051–72: a linking passage added for the 1790 Fragment. In 2069 Goethe alludes to a technological breakthrough of that age, the first hot-air balloon flights by the Montgolfier brothers in 1783; similar balloon experiments were now also being conducted by the Weimar court apothecary Buchholz.
2073–336: the tavern scene, like the scene with the Student (see Note 38), is Urfaust material, recalling Goethe’s university days at Leipzig. Auerbach’s wine-cellar near the market-place was a well-known meeting-place for students, with sixteenth-century murals depicting scenes from the Faust legend. Goethe originally wrote it almost entirely in prose, but versified and otherwise revised and improved it at the Fragment stage. The names and conversation of the revellers suggest student terminology and humour, though it is not clear that they are all students.
2090 f.: the ‘Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation’, for centuries a ramshackle and largely nominal instution and now in terminal decline, was a commonplace target of satire in the young Goethe’s day.
2098 ff.: an allusion to the student custom of electing as ‘king’ or ‘pope’ the performer of the most impressive drinking feat.
2184: Mephistopheles’ ‘cloven’ hoof is also alluded to in 2490, 4065, and 4140.
2189 f.: in Rippach, a village near Leipzig, the landlord’s name in the young Goethe’s time was Hans Ars, which lent itself to student ribaldry as Hans Arsch (Simple Simon, poor sucker, stupid prick; cf. Note 65).
2250–91: the magical trick of extracting wine from a table (performed in the original version of the scene by Faust himself) is Faust-book material, as is the motif (featured in one of the Auerbach murals) of Faust riding astride a wine-cask (2330).
2337–604: Goethe is thought to have written much of the Witch’s Kitchen scene in the garden of the Villa Borghese in Rome in the spring of 1788. This rather incongruous setting is perhaps reflected in the scene’s curious mixture of ironic and grotesque elements with the kind of folkloristic material he had used in the Urfaust (cf. Introd., p. xxiii).
2378–428: Goethe may have derived the baboons and their antics (the ape playing with the globe for instance) from certain grotesque motifs in sixteenth- and seventeen-century Flemish painting, examples of which he could have seen in Dresden.
2392, charity soup: the word Bettelsuppe was later used by Goethe in a letter to Schiller (26 July 1797) referring to a literary work of very inferior quality as ‘real soup-kitchen stuff, suited to the taste of the German public’.
2401, the lottery: this is thought to allude to the passion for gambling current in Italy at the time of Goethe’s visit.
2416–21: the sieve, as a device for sorting good things from bad, was in popular superstition also able to discriminate honest men from scoundrels.
2429–40: for Faust’s vision of perfect feminine beauty in the magic glass Goethe is thought to have had in mind a naked Venus such as Titian’s in Florence or Giorgione’s in Dresden.
2448–53 (and cf. 2427 f.): as token sceptres, or symbols of refinement and therefore of status, fly-whisks or bushy-topped fans have been used by potentates in certain cultures (in Africa in the present century for instance), and it seems possible that Goethe found some earlier European or non-European example of this in one of the authors or artists who were his sources for this scene. The associated passage about the broken crown may be an allusion to the precarious state of the French monarchy in the years immediately before the Revolution. Goethe had been interested in the notorious scandal at the French court about a diamond necklace (1785) and later published a minor dramatic work (Der Groβ-Cophta, 1791) about the adventurer Cagliostro and his involvement in this affair.
2540–52: it has been suggested that this nonsense-rhyme ironically disguises an allusion to the doctrine of numerical ‘magic squares’ which Goethe encountered in his alchemistic reading. One such square is the ternary acrostic illustrated below, in which each of the six horizontal and vertical lines of figures adds up to 15:
The witch’s words can be read in such a way as to fit this pattern. Thus, 1 is replaced by 10, to which 2 and 3 are added making us ‘rich’ with 15 (lines 2541–4); 4–5–6 becomes 0–7–8 (2545–8), and ‘that puts it straight’ (literally ‘that completes it’) in the sense that the figure can now easily be completed by entering in the third row the three numbers not yet used—with the exception of 9 which may be taken to stand for the square as a whole. Lines 2550 f. could then mean that 9 is one of the ‘magic’ square numbers but 10 is not.
2557–62: Goethe had no patience with the apophatic paradoxes of theology, and here takes occasion to satirize the dogma of the Trinity by comparing it to the witch’s numerical abracadabra, or perhaps to the ‘three in one’ magic square (cf. Note 59). The polemically anti-Christian tendency in Goethe’s thinking was particularly evident at the time of the Italian journey (cf. Introd., p. xxi) when this scene was written. It is also of interest that Mephistopheles’ two phallic gestures (stage directions after 2513 and 3291) both occur in scenes added at this time.
2603 f.: on the possible significance of the allusion to ‘Helen’ at this poi
nt see Introduction, p. xxiii. Mephistopheles’ remark in any case serves as a transition to the Gretchen sequence which Goethe, having already written it about fifteen years earlier, now attaches to the present Fragment material.
2605: the Gretchen scenes, which begin here, are taken from the Urfaust with very little alteration, and may be regarded as the early core of the tragic action of Faust Part I (cf. Introd., pp. xvii–xx). For his stage and dialogue directions Goethe uses the full form of the heroine’s name (in German ‘Margarete’) chiefly in the scenes before she is seduced (Sc. 10, 11, 13–16, 19) but also in the final scene just before her death (Sc. 28). In the remaining scenes (nearly all after the seduction but including 18) he uses the diminutive form ‘Gretchen’; this form is also nearly always used when she is addressed or referred to within the dialogue itself, though variants of the diminutive (‘Margretlein’, ‘Gretelchen’) occur once or twice (e.g. Sc. 12,13).