“L’Etat, c’est moi!” Hartung insists that the line “Full well I know what every one does not” refers to Free-Masonry and its supposed connection with the French Revolution! Düntzer considers that the Ruler and his Court are responsible for the catastrophe (a view which seems to be justified by Goethe’s expressions, quoted in Note 7), while others assert that it is brought on by the thirst of the people for gold and their subsequent demoralization.
There is one objection to this interpretation, which I give for what it may be worth. The Fauns, Satyrs, Nymphs, and Gnomes are the attendants of Pan (the Emperor), and their parts are played—as the catastrophe shows us—by the personages of the Court. Kreyssig says: “ They storm onwards like a savage host, the Emperor as Pan, his associates as Gnomes and Fauns, collectively the representatives of rude natural forces and desires, in contrast to the spiritualized, Olympian forms of light, and when they rashly approach the fire and spirit fountain of Plutus, after their first, amazed admiration, they are properly tormented by the magic glow, although meanwhile only in sport. The part they play is more distinguished and externally stately, but not much more dignified than that of the holiday carousers whom Mephistopheles so tricked in Auerbach’s Cellar.”
39. Gnomes.
Düntzer asserts that the Fauns represent unrestricted indulgence in all forms of sensual appetite; the Satyrs the arrogant will of a Ruler who looks down upon and despises the people; the Gnomes the unbounded greed of power and wealth; and the Giants the stupid and stubborn nature of those counsellors who surround the throne and endeavor to crush every movement arising from the development of the people. Neither this nor any other of the more particular elucidations of the scene seems to me infallible. According to Hartung, the Fauns are peasants (Bauern), and the Satyrs demagogues, The field of conjecture, here, is still open to whoever wishes to enter it; and I shall not undertake to decide whether the masks represent classes or qualities.
