B00ARI2G5C EBOK (55 page)

Pherae
(
91
): a city in Thessaly, ruled by Admetus, whose wife Alcestis was brought back from the dead by Hercules after voluntarily sacrificing her life for her husband. By substituting ‘Pherae’ for ‘Leuce’ in 7435, Goethe deliberately associates this well-known story with that of the post-mortal encounter of Helen with Achilles on the island of
Leuce
(q.v.), which he uses as the main parallel to Helen’s union with Faust and to which he refers elsewhere, mentioning the traditionally correct venue (see
Euphorion, Leuce
). In 7435 Helen and Achilles meet ‘on [
auf
] Pherae’; the preposition, which suggests an island, is possibly an oversight.

Philemon
and
Baucis
(Act V, Sc. 17-19): Ovid (
Metamorphoses
, book VIII) retells the Greek story of how Zeus and Hermes were travelling incognito in Phrygia and were refused hospitality by everyone until a poor but pious couple took them in. The gods punished the rest of the people by causing a flood to engulf the land, but rewarded Philemon and Baucis by turning their hut into a temple and granting their wish to die together; the husband was turned into an oak and his wife into a linden-tree. For the indirect connection between this story and the opening scenes of Act V, see Introd., p. lxiii and note.

Philyra
(
88
): an ocean-nymph who became the mother of the centaur
Chiron
(q.v.); appalled at having given birth to a monster, she asked to be turned into a linden-tree (ϕιλ
ρα).

Phoebus
(
94
): one of the names of Apollo, associating him particularly with the sun.

Phorcyads
(
107
ff.): three hags, also known as the Graiae, representing extreme old age and ugliness; they lived in a remote, dark place, sharing one eye and one tooth between them. Like their sisters and neighbours the
Gorgons
(q.v.), they were daughters of the sea-ancient Phorcys or Phorcos; Goethe varies the usual Greek form of their name (Φορκ
δες, Lat. Phorcydes) to
Phorkyaden
, which I have imitated as ‘Phorcyads’. For his use of the myth generally, see Introd., pp. xxxviii f.

Phorcyas
(130-43 and Act III,
passim):
Mephistopheles in the shape (8027) of one of the
Phorcyads
(q.v.). Goethe uses
‘Phorcyas’
(his adaptation of the Greek singular form Φορκ
ς, ‘daughter of Phorcos’) virtually as a proper name, instead of’the Phorcyad’; his procedure in the case of’(the) Homunculus’ seems to be similar.

Phorcys, Phorcos
(
131
): see
Phorcyads
.

Pluto
(
43
,
104
(‘Plutonian’)): see
Hades
.

Plutus
(31-43): a god personifying riches (Gk. πλουτος, wealth; see Hades). Faust assumes the disguise of Plutus in the Carnival (see Introd., pp. xxv f. and note), but Goethe has ignored the tradition which represents Plutus as blind.

Poseidon
(
124
): the brother of Zeus and Hades, to whom it fell by lot to be the ruler of the seas, though he was also responsible for earthquakes (in Homer he is ‘the earth-shaker’). As an important god embodying and controlling elemental forces, he enjoyed an ancient and widespread cult; the Romans came to identify him with their water god Neptune. He was represented as stirring up the ocean with a trident, or riding across it with brazen-hooved horses. He was said to have fathered various monsters, including the one-eyed ‘Cyclops’ giants encountered by Ulysses during his voyage.

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.).