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Protesilaus (249): a Thessalian prince who after his death in the Trojan War was allowed to return to his grieving wife for three hours.
Proteus (113, 115-19, 122 f.): a sea-god subordinate to Poseidon. He was gifted with knowledge and prophecy, and particularly noted for his constant self-transformations, which he often used to avoid questioning; he would answer if caught and held long enough to resume his true shape.
Psyche (226): the personified human ‘soul’ (Gk. ψυξ, literally ‘breath’), represented in art as a human figure with butterfly’s wings, or simply as a butterfly, which Mephistopheles describes as a winged worm.
Psylli (119): the Psylli and Marsi were ancient peoples from Libya and central Italy respectively, who had in common a reputation for snake-charming and skill in the healing of snake-bites. Goethe, using other sources and his own invention, moves them to Cyprus, and makes them priestly guardians and escorts of the nature-goddess Galatea, fulfilling an eternal, cyclic function which unobtrusively continues (8370-8) despite successive conquests of the island by warring human civilizations. If Goethe regarded snake-charming as relevant to this theme, he does not make the connection clear.
Pythian priestess (145): the prophetess of Apollo’s oracle at Delphi was known as the ‘Pythia’, from the epithet ‘Pythian’ which the god had acquired after killing the serpent Python when he first came to Delphi, thus defeating the earth-goddess who preceded him there.
Rhea (108, 139): the sister and wife of Cronus and mother by him of Zeus and the other Olympian gods; sometimes identified with the Phrygian mother-goddess Cybele. The Roman equivalents of Cronus and Rhea were Saturn and Ops (7989).
Rhodes (Rhodos) (117): this island in the south-eastern Aegean was said to be specially favoured by the sun-god, who dispelled all clouds here as soon as they gathered (8293-8); the ‘Colossus of Rhodes’ was his statue, and a cult of Apollo was practised. Lines 8290-302 invoke Apollo as brother of the moon-goddess (8287 ff.; see Diana).
Samothrace (110): an island in the northern Aegean particularly associated with the mystery cult of the Cabiri (q.v.).
Satyr (S) (39, 86, 174): the companions of the revelry of Dionysus (q.v.) (see 10011-38), represented as partly human and partly animal and symbolizing wild uninhibited natural life. The Romans knew them as fauns (5819-28, 10018), Faunus being their equivalent of Pan (q.v.), to whom the satyrs are comparable; see also Silenus.
Scylla (133): a monster with six heads who lived in a cave at one side of a narrow sea passage, opposite the whirlpool Charybdis. In Homer’s Odyssey (book xii), Ulysses’ ship is forced to pass close to the cave, and Scylla seizes and devours six of his men. She was a daughter of Phorcys (q.v.) and therefore ‘sibling’ to Phorcyas.
Seismos (Gk. σεισμο’ζ, earthquake) (94 f.): Goethe’s personification of the earthquake and volcanic forces generally; see Introd., p. xxxvi and note.
Sibyl (Gk. σíβυλλα, Lat. sibylla) (92, 249): a general name for various prophetesses in the ancient world, whose ecstatic utterances were thought to be inspired by a god and recorded as precious oracles. Later, they were sometimes adopted by Christian teaching and art as having the same status as Old Testament prophets. Goethe’s use of such a figure in the ‘Classical Walpurgis Night’ thus reinforces the theme of Faust as a link between ancient and medieval culture.
Silenus (174): a kind of forest-god or nature-spirit, half human and half animal like Pan (q.v.) and the satyrs or fauns, though represented as an old man, drunken but gifted with wisdom.
Sirens (83 ff., 93 f, 109 f., 247): female demons whose magical singing lured seafarers to destruction. In Homer’s story (Odyssey, book xii), Ulysses stops his men’s ears with wax, but listens himself as the ship passes the rocks; he is enticed by the Sirens’ promise to tell him everything he wants to know (7204 f.), but has ordered his men to lash him to the mast (7210) and on no account to release him until they are out of danger. In art the Sirens were depicted as half women and half birds, a shape which Goethe seems to adopt for them (7152 f.), though he moves them from the rocky coast to more innocuous locations in Sc. 10a (the plain) and Sc. 10c (by the river) and in general reduces their sinister mythological role.
Sparta (124, 155, 157): capital city of the kingdom ruled by Helen’s putative father Tyndareus (see Leda) and then by her husband Menelaus. In historical times Sparta became an important military state with a distinctive, austere culture. It was also called Lacedaemon, a name which in its alternative Latin form Laconia is still that of the corresponding region in the southern Peloponnese, of which Sparta is the administrative centre.
Sphinxes (82-6, 94 ff., 246): the sphinx, a monster originating in Egyptian mythology, was a winged lion with a human head; in Greek literature it is female. The function of Goethe’s sphinxes in these scenes is less than consistent, but they seem in several passages, by association with the colossal stone sphinx at Giza, to represent proud monumental antiquity and stability (7241-8, 7528 f., 7574-81); cf. 1st note to p. 82.
Stymphalids, or ‘Stymphalian Birds’ (85, 247): monstrous birds infesting the forest round Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia; they were destroyed by Hercules as one of his twelve labours.
Telchines (pron. ‘Tel-khî-nês’) (117): legendary inhabitants of Rhodes, said to have magical powers and to be skilled metal-workers (as in the making of statues of the gods, 8299 ff.).
Thales (103-6, Sc. 10c passim, 247 f.): Thales of Miletus, according to tradition, was the first of the Greek philosophers (c.600 BC). He was credited with various discoveries, and said to have taught that all things are modifications of one eternal substance, which Thales held to be water. Goethe adopts him as the representative of the ‘neptunist’ doctrine (see Introd., p. xxxvi and note).
Thebes (141): the principal city of Boeotia, supposed to have been the birthplace of Dionysus and of Hercules and the scene of many other famous myths, notably those involving Oedipus and his family. Goethe’s allusion is to the legend of the seven champions who attacked the city, led by one of the warring sons of Oedipus; these were the subject of Aeschylus’s tragedy The Seven Against Thebes.
Thersites (28): in Homer’s Iliad, an ugly low-born Greek noted for his cynical and scurrilous abuse of the heroes besieging Troy; he also appears in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida. (Cf. Zoilus.)
Theseus (135): a mythical king of Athens, the son of Aegeus (after whom the Aegean Sea was named); he was thought of as a parallel figure to Hercules (8849) and credited with a number of similar heroic exploits, including the killing of the monstrous Minotaur of Crete. Goethe’s allusion is to the story according to which Theseus abducted Helen when she was a child, carrying her off to Aphidnae in Attica, where she was rescued by her brothers the Dioscuri (see Twins).
Thessaly (109, 246): the fertile plains of Thessaly were reputed, in mythical times and later, to be full of sorcerers and witches, able to predict the future and conjure the moon down to earth. (‘Thessalian witches’, 77, 106; ‘Thessalian hag’, 171).
Thetis (44): see Peleus.
Thyrsus-staff (101): a wand wreathed in ivy and vine-leaves, with a pine-cone at the top, carried by the worshippers of Dionysus.
Tiresias (133, 249): a Theban seer, appearing in many stories, who was blind but gifted with prophecy and a sevenfold or ninefold life-span (hence typifying extreme old age).
Titans (95): the original generation of gods, preceding Zeus (q.v.) and the other ‘Olympian’ deities. In the Greek myth, as in others world-wide, they were children of the Sky (Uranus) and the Earth (Gaia). Cronus, the youngest, overpowered and castrated his father Uranus, married his sister Rhea, and by her was the father of Zeus and his siblings, who in their turn eventually overthrew him and the other Titans after a ten-year war (the ‘Titanomachy’).
Tritons (110, 113 f., 247): originally ‘Triton’ was the name of an individual son of the sea-god Poseidon, half human in shape but resembling a fish from the waist down; he is then pluralized in some stories. Goethe’s ‘nereids and tr
itons’ correspond to mermaids and mermen.
Troy (Troia) (62, 112, 124, 128, etc.): an ancient fortified city in north-west Asia Minor, also called Ilium, and chiefly famous as the semi-legendary theme of the Iliad, the heroic epic poem traditionally attributed to Homer. The poem describes the last phase of the ten-year siege of Troy by an expedition of allied mainland Greeks, which ended in the city’s destruction (Trojan War, ?13th or 12th century BC); modern archaeological excavations have suggested that this story may have some historical basis. A second epic (the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer) describes the adventures of Ulysses (Gk. Odysseus) in the aftermath of the war. (See Helen, Menelaus, Paris, Achilles).
Twins (89 (‘Celestial Twins’), 91 (‘Twins’) 124 (‘the twins Castor and Pollux’)): the twin sons of Leda (q.v.), Castor and Polydeuces (Lat. Pollux). Zeus, the father of their sister Helen by Leda, was also said to have fathered one or both of the Twins, who were therefore known as the Dioscuri (Δις κουροι, ‘sons of Zeus’). Their exploits included an expedition to rescue their sister (7416) when she had been abducted by Theseus, and they were also said to have sailed with the Argonauts (7369). Later tradition associated them with the Cabiri and with the protection of mariners (10, 600 f.); they also appear as the zodiacal constellation of Gemini (the ‘Heavenly Twins’).
Tyndareus (124, 140): king of Sparta, husband of Helen’s mother Leda.
Ulysses (a generally adopted later spelling of’Ulyxes’, the Latin form of the original Greek name Odysseus) (85, 112): the hero of Homer’s Odyssey and a prominent figure in the Iliad (see Troy). Goethe alludes here only to his adventure with the Sirens (q.v.) (Odyssey, book XII).
Venus (108, 112): see Aphrodite.
Zeus (82, 121, 128, 162, etc.): the supreme god, identified by the Romans with Jupiter. His father, the Titan (q.v.) Cronus, feared his own overthrow, and swallowed all his offspring except Zeus, who was hidden from him and grew up in Crete, eventually defeating and dethroning Cronus and casting down the other Titans. He then divided the world by lot with his brothers Poseidon and Hades, these taking the sea and the underworld respectively, while Zeus ruled the heavens, commanding thunderstorms and the weather generally, like other sky-gods of world mythology; the ‘thunderbolt’, wielded only by him, signifies his supreme power. He is called ‘the cloud-gatherer’ by Homer, and lives on or above high mountain-tops, holding court especially on Mount Olympus. He is also the supreme representative of impartial justice. Although his official partner was his sister Hera (Juno), he loved many other goddesses and mortal women, and was called ‘father of gods and men’ as being the only god who had himself fathered other important gods, as well as various human or semi-divine heroes, (see Apollo, Diana, Dionysus, Helen, Leda, Twins, Hercules, Hermes, etc.).
Zoilus (28): a philosopher and rhetorician (4th century BC) of the ‘Cynic’ school, notorious and indeed proverbial for his carping and rancorous attacks on writers of genius and especially on Homer. As a disguise for Mephistopheles in the Carnival scene, Goethe conflates him with Ther-sites, this double identity as ‘Zoilo-Thersites’ being appropriate to the negative and cynical outlook professed by Mephistopheles in Faust generally.
A SELECTION OF
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
Eirik the Red and Other Icelandic Sagas
The German-Jewish Dialogue
The Kalevala
The Poetic Edda
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Orlando Furioso
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
The Decameron
GEORG BÜCHNER
Danton’s Death, Leonce and Lena, and Woyzeck
LUIS VAZ DE CAMÕES
The Lusiads
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote Exemplary Stories
CARLO COLLODI
The Adventures of Pinocchio
DANTE ALIGHIERI
The Divine Comedy Vita Nuova
LOPE DE VEGA
Three Major Plays
J. W. VON GOETHE
Elective Affinities
Erotic Poems
Faust: Part One and Part Two
The Flight to Italy
E. T. A. HOFFMANN
The Golden Pot and Other Tales
HENRIK IBSEN
An Enemy of the People, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm
Four Major Plays
Peer Gynt
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Selections from the Notebooks
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
Four Major Plays
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
Life, Letters, and Poetry
PETRARCH
Selections from the Canzoniere and Other Works
J. C. F. SCHILLER
Don Carlos and Mary Stuart
JOHANN AUGUST STRINDBERG
Miss Julie and Other Plays
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO
Orlando Furioso
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO
The Decameron
MATTEO MARIA BOIARDO
Orlando Innamorato
LUÍS VAZ DE CAMÕES
The Lusíads
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
Don Quixote de la Mancha Exemplary Stories
DANTE ALIGHIERI
The Divine Comedy Vita Nuova
BENITO PÉREZ GALDÓS
Nazarín
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Selections from the Notebooks
NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI
Discourses on Livy The Prince
MICHELANGELO
Life, Letters, and Poetry
PETRARCH
Selections from the Canzoniere and Other Works
GIORGIO VASARI
The Lives of the Artists
Six French Poets of the Nineteenth Century
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Cousin Bette
Eugénie Grandet
Pére Goriot
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
The Flowers of Evil
The Prose Poems and Fanfarlo
BENJAMIN CONSTANT
Adolphe
DENIS DIDEROT
Jacques the Fatalist
The Nun
ALEXANDRE DUMAS (PÈRE)
The Black Tulip
The Count of Monte Cristo
Louise de la Vallière
The Man in the Iron Mask
La Reine Margot
The Three Musketeers
Twenty Years After
The Vicomte de Bragelonne
ALEXANDRE DUMAS (FILS)
La Dame aux Camélias
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Madame Bovary
A Sentimental Education
Three Tales
VICTOR HUGO
The Essential Victor Hugo
Notre-Dame de Paris
J.-K. HUYSMANS
Against Nature
PIERRE CHODERLOS DE LACLOS
Les Liaisons dangereuses
MME DE LAFAYETTE
The Princesse de Clèves
GUILLAUME DU LORRIS and JEAN DE MEUN
The Romance of the Rose
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
A Day in the Country and Other Stories
A Life
Bel-Ami
Mademoiselle Fifi and Other Stories
Pierre et Jean
PROSPER MÉRIMÉE
Carmen and Other Stories
MOLIÈRE
Don Juan and Other Plays
The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, and Other Plays
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées and Other Writings
ABBÉ PRÉVOST
Manon Lescaut
JEAN RACINE
Britannicus, Phaedra, and Athaliah
ARTHUR RIMBAUD
Collected Poems
EDMOND ROSTAND
Cyrano de Bergerac
MARQUIS DE SADE
The Crimes of Love
The Misfortunes of Virtue and Other Early Tales
GEORGE SAND
Indiana
MME DE STAËL
Corinne
STENDHAL
The Red and the Black
The Charterhouse of Parma
PAUL VERLAINE
Selected Poems
JULES VERNE
Around the World in Eighty Days