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Article
First published:08 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12133Read the full textPDFTOOLSSHARE
Abstract
In his poem “Die Braut von Corinth” (1797), Goethe introduces the figure of the vampire as an early agent of his concept of “Weltliteratur.” As such, his female vampire challenges critical assumptions of a cultural divide between Christian and “pagan” religions, vampire believers and non‐believers, and finally Western and Eastern literatures. Instead, Goethe’s “Braut” offers herself as a specimen of literary and cultural hybridity in a textual format entertained by Goethe for its liminality and heterogeneity—that of the “Ballade.” As a genre of originality without origin, the “Ballade” features a, in Homi Bhabha’s sense of the term, “traumatic” encounter with the unfathomable—the living dead, monstrous affection, and transcultural alterity—that can not be reconciled with one’s own world view, but only endured. Once endured, however, the disparate starts to form alliances across boundaries that Goethe will later refer to as “Weltliteratur.”
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe : Bride of Corinth (1797)
Goethe’s inspiration for the ‚Bride of Corinth‘ was the classic tale of ‚Philinnion‘ by Phlegon of Tralles. First published in 1797 as ‚Die Braut von Korinth‘, it was translated into English at a later date.
ONCE a stranger youth to Corinth came,
Who in Athens lived, but hoped that he
From a certain townsman there might claim,
As his father’s friend, kind courtesy.
Son and daughter, they
Had been wont to say
Should thereafter bride and bridegroom be.
But can he that boon so highly prized,
Save tis dearly bought, now hope to get?
They are Christians and have been baptized,
He and all of his are heathens yet.
For a newborn creed,
Like some loathsome weed,
Love and truth to root out oft will threat.
Father, daughter, all had gone to rest,
And the mother only watches late;
She receives with courtesy the guest,
And conducts him to the room of state.
Wine and food are brought,
Ere by him besought
Bidding him good night. she leaves him straight.
But he feels no relish now, in truth,
For the dainties so profusely spread;
Meat and drink forgets the wearied youth,
And, still dress’d, he lays him on the bed.
Scarce are closed his eyes,
When a form in-hies
Through the open door with silent tread.
By his glimmering lamp discerns he now
How, in veil and garment white array’d,
With a black and gold band round her brow,
Glides into the room a bashful maid.
But she, at his sight,
Lifts her hand so white,
And appears as though full sore afraid.
„Am I,“ cries she, „such a stranger here,
That the guest’s approach they could not name?
Ah, they keep me in my cloister drear,
Well nigh feel I vanquish’d by my shame.
On thy soft couch now
Slumber calmly thou!
„I’ll return as swiftly as I came.“
„Stay, thou fairest maiden!“ cries the boy,
Starting from his couch with eager haste:
„Here are Ceres‘, Bacchus‘ gifts of joy;
Amor bringest thou, with beauty grac’d!
Thou art pale with fear!
Loved one let us here
Prove the raptures the Immortals taste.“
„Draw not nigh, O Youth! afar remain!
Rapture now can never smile on me;
For the fatal step, alas! is ta’en,
Through my mother’s sick-bed phantasy.
Cured, she made this oath:
‚Youth and nature both
Shall henceforth to Heav’n devoted be.‘
„From the house, so silent now, are driven
All the gods who reign’d supreme of yore;
One Invisible now rules in heaven,
On the cross a Saviour they adore.
Victims slay they here,
Neither lamb nor steer,
But the altars reek with human gore.“
And he lists, and ev’ry word he weighs, While his eager
soul drinks in each sound:
„Can it be that now before my gaze
Stands my loved one on this silent ground?
Pledge to me thy troth!
Through our father’s oath:
With Heav’ns blessing will our love be crown’d.“
„Kindly youth, I never can be thine!
‚Tis my sister they intend for thee.
When I in the silent cloister pine,
Ah, within her arms remember me!
Thee alone I love,
While love’s pangs I prove
Soon the earth will veil my misery.“
„No! for by this glowing flame I swear,
Hymen hath himself propitious shown:
Let us to my fathers house repair,
And thoult find that joy is not yet flown,
Sweetest, here then stay,
And without delay
Hold we now our wedding feast alone!“
Then exchange they tokens of their truth;
She gives him a golden chain to wear,
And a silver chalice would the youth
Give her in return of beauty rare.
„That is not for me;
Yet I beg of thee,
One lock only give me of thy hair.“
Now the ghostly hour of midnight knell’d,
And she seem’d right joyous at the sign;
To her pallid lips the cup she held,
But she drank of nought but blood-red wine.
For to taste the bread
There before them spread,
Nought he spoke could make the maid incline.
To the youth the goblet then she brought,–
He too quaff’d with eager joy the bowl.
Love to crown the silent feast he sought,
Ah! full love-sick was the stripling’s soul.
From his prayer she shrinks,
Till at length he sinks
On the bed and weeps without control.
And she comes, and lays her near the boy:
„How I grieve to see thee sorrowing so!
If thou think’st to clasp my form with joy,
Thou must learn this secret sad to know;
Yes! the maid, whom thou
Call’st thy loved one now,
Is as cold as ice, though white as snow.“
Then he clasps her madly in his arm,
While love’s youthful might pervades his frame:
„Thou might’st hope, when with me, to grow warm.
E’en if from the grave thy spirit came!
Breath for breath, and kiss!
Overflow of bliss!
Dost not thou, like me, feel passion’s flame?“
Love still closer rivets now their lips,
Tears they mingle with their rapture blest,
From his mouth the flame she wildly sips,
Each is with the other’s thought possess’d.
His hot ardour’s flood
Warms her chilly blood,
But no heart is beating in her breast.
In her care to see that nought went wrong,
Now the mother happen’d to draw near;
At the door long hearkens she, full long,
Wond’ring at the sounds that greet her ear.
Tones of joy and sadness,
And love’s blissful madness,
As of bride and bridegroom they appear,
From the door she will not now remove
‚Till she gains full certainty of this;
And with anger hears she vows of love,
Soft caressing words of mutual bliss.
„Hush! the cock’s loud strain!
But thoult come again,
When the night returns!“–then kiss on kiss.
Then her wrath the mother cannot hold,
But unfastens straight the lock with ease
„In this house are girls become so bold,
As to seek e’en strangers‘ lusts to please?“
By her lamp’s clear glow
Looks she in,–and oh!
Sight of horror!–‚tis her child she sees.
Fain the youth would, in his first alarm,
With the veil that o’er her had been spread,
With the carpet, shield his love from harm;
But she casts them from her, void of dread,
And with spirit’s strength,
In its spectre length,
Lifts her figure slowly from the bed.
„Mother! mother!“–Thus her wan lips say:
„May not I one night of rapture share?
From the warm couch am I chased away?
Do I waken only to despair?
It contents not thee
To have driven me
An untimely shroud of death to wear?
„But from out my coffin’s prison-bounds
By a wond’rous fate I’m forced to rove,
While the blessings and the chaunting sounds
That your priests delight in, useless prove.
Water, salt, are vain
Fervent youth to chain,
Ah, e’en Earth can never cool down love!
„When that infant vow of love was spoken,
Venus‘ radiant temple smiled on both.
Mother! thou that promise since hast broken,
Fetter’d by a strange, deceitful oath.
Gods, though, hearken ne’er,
Should a mother swear
To deny her daughter’s plighted troth.
From my grave to wander I am forc’d,
Still to seek The Good’s long-sever’d link,
Still to love the bridegroom I have lost,
And the life-blood of his heart to drink;
When his race is run,
I must hasten on,
And the young must ’neath my vengeance sink,
„Beauteous youth! no longer mayst thou live;
Here must shrivel up thy form so fair;
Did not I to thee a token give,
Taking in return this lock of hair?
View it to thy sorrow!
Grey thoult be to-morrow,
Only to grow brown again when there.
„Mother, to this final prayer give ear!
Let a funeral pile be straightway dress’d;
Open then my cell so sad and drear,
That the flames may give the lovers rest!
When ascends the fire
From the glowing pyre,
To the gods of old we’ll hasten, blest.“
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Die Braut von Korinth
… [One of] the poems which are widely considered the originators of the theme of literary vampires is Goethe’s “Die Braut von Korinth” (“The Bride of Korinth,” 1797). As in Bürger’s “Lenore,” the use of the word “vampire” is suspiciously avoided, although Goethe himself referred to “Die Braut” as his “vampiric poem.” According to Christopher Frayling, Goethe was “the first to make the vampire respectable in literature,” which certainly has to do with Goethe’s status as the German poet, but also with the fact that Goethe derived his inspiration from a classical predecessor, namely Phlegon of Tralles’ Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum (approx. 130 AD). The story of the young Machates and his undead bride Philinion, who returns from the grave to spend her nights with the youth, was reworked by Goethe and transferred into a framework of the enlightenment. It becomes a plea against the inhuman ascetic aspects of Christianity when contrasted to the Dionysian joi-de-vivre of paganism. Thus, Goethe’s account of the dead girl’s return to life is a far cry from similar treatments of the “love beyond the grave” motif in Gothic literature or the gory paraphernalia of the Graveyard poets. Yet, the very selective perception of literary critics has over-emphasized some of the lines in “Die Braut von Korinth”–lines which indeed conjure up or directly address images of blood-drinking and a compulsive search for more victims, but which I believe to be mere inconsistencies with regard to the poem as a whole.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Eben schlug die dumpfe Geisterstunde,
Und nun schien es ihr erst wohl zu sein.
Gierig schlürfte sie mit blassem Munde
Nun den dunkel blutgefärbten Wein, …
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Aus dem Grabe werd ich ausgetrieben,
Noch zu suchen das vermißte Gut,
Noch den schon verlornen Mann zu lieben
Und zu saugen seines Herzens Blut.
Ists um den geschehn,
Muß nach andern gehn,
Und das junge Volk erliegt der Wut ….
Technical points:
Like Bürger’s “Lenore,” Goethe’s poem is often referred to as a ballad, since it displays some of the secondary formal elements of the artform, for example the description of a single episode; a swift development of events; minimal detail of surroundings; and an emphasis on the dramatic elements and the intensity of narration. Yet, on the structural level, the poem does not exhibit any of the repetitive features and the use of refrain as, e.g., Bürger’s “Lenore,” and which, [one could] claim, are indeed the decisive factors contributing to the development of the vampire genre.
One does Goethe or Bürger little justice when one refers to “Die Braut” and “Lenore” as “the usual Gothic poems,” as Twitchell condescendingly does in The Living Dead (163). By doing so, Twitchell reverses cause and effect. In addition, these poems certainly have to be acknowledged as the germinal stage of another developing genre. They were influential but not yet exemplary for what only a few years later was to become vampire fiction. Nevertheless, after the Germans had prepared the ground, it would take until 1819 for the first literal vampire to appear in English literature….
excerpted from:
Blood Obsession: Vampires, Serial Murder, And The Popular Imagination
JöRG WALTJE, Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2005, ISBN 0820474207
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Source: tvtropes.org
Literature / The Ghost of Philinnion
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Illustration for „The Bride of Corinth“, by Johannes Gehrts (1881)
„The Ghost of Philinnion“ (Φασμα Φιλιννιον) is a ghost story from Ancient Greece, passed around as a „true“ story which supposedly took place during the reign of King Philip II of Macedon (father of Alexander the Great).
Philinnion is the beautiful daughter of Demostratos, a citizen of Amphipolis in Macedon. At a young age, she is married to the general Krateros, but unfortunately she dies soon after the wedding, and is buried in the family crypt.
Machates, a young man from Pella, knows nothing of this when he visits Amphipolis and is hosted in the house of Demostratos. Machates has retired for the night when a beautiful girl turns up in his room: She is Philinnion, daughter of Demostratos, who has fallen in love with him and wants to spend the night with him. Machates does not say no.
„The Ghost of Philinnion“ is found in the Book of Marvels by Phlegon of Tralles (2nd century CE), although the beginning of the story is missing from the manuscript. A short summary by Proclus (5th century CE) provides some of the missing information, and also hints that the story may have been current in several variants.
The story has been adapted into a ballad as „Die Braut von Korinth“ („The Bride of Corinth“; 1797) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Apart from shifting the scene from Amphipolis to Corinth (and also moving it a few centuries forwards in time), Goethe gave the story an entirely new twist: The girl (no personal names are given) has earlier been promised to the young man, until her parents converted to Christianity, called off the engagement and sent their daughter to a monastery to become a nun.
The tale of Philinnion can be read online here, as can „The Bride of Corinth“ in the original language and in English translation.
Tropes in „The Ghost of Philinnion“:
- Boy Meets Ghoul: Philinnion seeks out Machates because she loves him, and the two have an affair without Machates realizing that Philinnion is an undead.
- Burn the Undead: On advice of a seer, the citizens of Amphipolis resolve to burn Philinnion’s body to prevent her from coming to life again.
- Dead All Along: Machates has no clue that Philinnion is dead until her mother tells him. Even then he cannot believe his visitor is a ghost, and prefers to believe that some other girl is impersonating the dead Philinnion.
Tropes in „The Bride of Corinth“
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: The undead daughter herself advises her mother to burn her body on a pyre, because she knows otherwise she will return to kill more young men, and she does not want that.
- Together in Death: The undead daughter reveals to her lover that he will die, and asks from her mother that they will be burnt together on a pyre.
