The careful reader will find that there is some truth in each one of the foregoing explanations, and that the chief confusion has arisen from the circumstance that Goethe could not find, as Schiller feared, a poetic hoop capable of encircling such a cumulative mass of material. I will only add, that, in the Notes which follow, referring to the separate masks, I have given preference to the simplest and most direct interpretation, which is always the more poetic and the more consistent with the laws of Goethe’s mind, as manifested in his other works.
The scene of the Masquerade is not in Italy, as some suppose, but at the German Court, after the Emperor’s return from his coronation by the Pope, at Rome. Maximilian I. was the first German Emperor who omitted this ceremony.
17. Garden-Girls.
The Masquerade is properly opened by the lightest, gayest, and most attractive element of Society,—the young, unmarried women. Goethe took the fioraje of Florence (not the present race!) as types of grace, beauty, and that art which seems artlessness. These qualities are the “flowers which blossom all the year.” Hartung, in his notice of this passage, says: “Every woman, who dresses herself with taste, is an artist for her own body.”
“They” (the Garden-Girls) “represent, in contrast to the foregoing description of the needs of the Court, the simple, joyous, and enjoying nature of the race. The picturesque character of the poetry and the sententious grace of the address make this one of the most agreeable groups.”—Leutbecher.
18. Olive-Branch, with Fruit.
If the allegory is consistently developed, we must suppose that the Olive-Branch, the Wreath of Ears, and the Fancy-Wreath are types of female character, or of the different forms of attraction whereby women draw towards them the complementary male characters. Schnetger, however, gives a different interpretation: “Joy and enjoyment flourish
