Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 10.djvu/177



so much in the way of commentary and criticism has been written about this renowned apologue, yet is its origin still enveloped in an apparently impenetrable fog. Many investigators, noted for learning and persevering research, have laboured to clear this away; yet, with every new effort, the only result seems to be a further recession of the date of its birth. The probability of reliable discovery has vanished and nought seems left but to relegate it, as one painstaking inquirer has suggested, to prehistoric times.

By some it is regarded as unquestionably a European production; others look upon the fundamental stories as the common property of various Aryan branches of the human family, and as having been brought from their Asiatic homes by Teutonic migrants. It has certainly been traced back to the tenth century, and Jacob Grimm arrives at the conclusion that it was then known under three forms, with the independent episodes in each so related as to furnish unmistakable hints of the groundwork of their later blending into one continuous narrative.

As with the date, so with the place of its birth. We have no clear idea of where the narrative first saw the light or of the form in which it was brought into being. The claims of France, Germany, and the Netherlands have all been plausibly and forcibly advanced, and it has been likewise maintained that Latin ought to be regarded as the medium through which vii