Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 13.djvu/87

Rh the jewel which like a prodigal he had cast away. In vain. He was in despair, and tried in dissipation to forget his grief.

This is his version of the affair given in the Autobiography, but by the evidence of his letters it is clear that it was not he who trifled with her affections, but she who played with him. It was not he who was inclined to escape when he found her love secured; he never did secure it.

"Erringen will der Mensch; er will nicht sicher seyn."

("Man loves to conquer, not to feel secure.")

As he truly says, in the little piece wherein he dramatises this episode; but the truth is often as applicable to woman as to man. At any rate, we know from the poet's own letters that it was Käthchen who teased and laughed at him, and it was in reality his own torments that he dramatised.

If we reverse the positions, we may read in some of his lyrics the burden of this experience. One entire play, or pastoral, is devoted to a poetical representation of these lovers' quarrels: this is "Die Laune des Verliebten," which is very curious as the earliest extant work of the great poet, and as the earliest specimen of his tendency to turn experience into song. In the opera of "Erwin und Elmire" he subsequently treated a similar subject, in a very different manner. The first effort is the more curious of the two. The style of composition is an imitation of those pastoral dramas, which, originated by Tasso and Guarini in the soft and almost luscious "Aminta" and "Pastor Fido," had by the French been made popular all over Europe.

Two happy and two unhappy lovers are somewhat artificially contrasted; the two latter representing Käthchen and the poet. Action there is none; the piece is made up of talk about love, some felicitous verses of the true stamp and ring, and an occasional