the guesses of the science of his day. Tacitus speaks of a legend current among the Germans, that, beyond the land of the Suiones, the sun gives forth audible sounds in setting. The same statement is found in Posidonius and Juvenal. In Macpherson’s Ossian, "the rustling sun comes forth from his green-headed waves." Also in the German mediæval poem of “Titurel,” the sun is said to utter sounds sweeter than lutes and the songs of birds, on rising. The crash described by Ariel is only audible to the “spirit-hearing” of the elves, who at once disappear, and Faust awakens, his being “cleansed from the suffered woes.”
5. Look up!—The mountain summits, grand, supernal.
The scene described is Swiss, and from the neighborhood of the Lake of the Four Forest Cantons. Goethe’s projected journey to Italy in 1797 terminated with a tour in that region, in company with the artist Meyer. In the third volume of Eckermann’s Conversations, he is reported as having given the following account of his studies for the proposed epic of “Tell,” and the use he afterwards made of the material:—
“I visited again the lake and the little Cantons, and those attractive, beautiful, and sublime landscapes made such a renewed impression upon me, that I was tempted to embody in a poem the variety and richness of the scenery. In order, therefore, to add the proper interest and life to my description, I resolved to people the important locality with equally important personages, and the legend of Tell was the very thing I needed.”
After sketching his conceptions of the different characters, Goethe continued: “I was entirely possessed with the subject, and already began, from time to time, to hum my hexameters. I saw the lake in quiet moonshine, with illuminated mist in the gorges of the mountains. I saw it in the glow of the loveliest morning sun, and the awakening life and rejoicing of grove and meadow. Then I painted a storm, a thunder- gust, hurled from the gorges upon the lake. Moreover, there was no lack of night and silence, and secret meetings on bridges and Alpine paths.”
