NOTES
M. Foucault, The Care of tl1e Self (= History of Sexuali�y, vol. 3), trans. Robert Hurley, New York 1 986. [References are to the French edition, Le Souci de soi, Paris 1984 - Trans.]
2 Am1uaire de la 5' Section de /'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, 1975-6.
3 Foucault, Souci, pp. 83--4.
4 We find this distinction again in Plotinus and in Bergson, the latter linking together joy and creation; cf. Henri Bergson, L 'E11ergir spiri111elle, 1 4th c<ln, P11ris 1 930, p. 24.
5 Scncc11, Ll'llrr, 2.l, (),
Reflections on the Idea of the "Cultivation of the Self"
213
6 Ibid, 23, 7.
7 Seneca, Letter, 1 24, 23.
8 Seneca, Letter, 92, 27.
9 Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7, 54; 9, 6; 8, 7.
10 Seneca, Letter, 46, 6.
1 1 B. Groethuysen, Anthropo/ogie philosophique, Paris 1952, repr. 1980, p. 80.
12 Cf. above.
13 ["Writing of the self"; M. Foucault, "L'ecriturc de soi," Corps ecrit 5 ( 1983), pp.
3-23 - Trans.]
14 Cf. above.
1 5 Art. cit., p. 8.
16 Above.
17 Cf. I. Hadot, "Epicure et l'enseignement philosophique hellenique et romain,"
in Actes du Ville Congres Bude, Paris 1969, p. 35 1 .
1 8 Loe. cit., pp. 1 1-13.
19 Cf. above.
ZO Reference [?]
Zl Marcus Aurelius, Meditatiom, 10, 28, 3.
Part IV
Them es
8
"Only the Present is our Happiness": The Value of the Present Instant in
Goethe and in Ancient Philosophy
"Then the spirit looks neither ahead nor behind. Only the present is our happiness." 1 In this verse from Goethe's Set'ond Fa11st, we find an expression of the art of concentrating on and recognizing the value of the present instant. It corresponds to an experience of time which was lived with particular intensity in such ancient philosophies as Epicureanism and Stoicism, and in what follows we shall be especially concerned with this type of experience. We ought not, however, to forget the literary context in which these lines arc spoken, the meaning they take on within the context of the Second Faw;/, and, more generally, within the work of Goethe. In the proces.o;, we will find that Goethe himself is a remarkable witness for the type of experience we have mentioned.
The verses quoted mark one of the climaxes of the Second Fa11s1; a moment when Faust seems to reach the culminating point of his "quest for the highest existencc." 2
Beside him, on the throne which he has had built for her, sits Helen, whom he had evoked in the first act, after a terrifying journey to the . realm of the Mothers, in order to amuse the emperor; but had since fallen hopelessly in love with her: Has the Source of Beauty, overflowing its banks, Flowed into the deepest recesses of my being? . . .
To you I dedicate the stirring of all strength, The essence too of passion;
To you, affection, love, worship, and madness.3
It is llcll·n for whom he has searched throughout the second act, throughout 1111 l hl' 111y1 hk11I formN of clntisical Green·. I le has spoken of her with 1hc
2 1 8
Themes
centaur Chiron, and with Manto the Sibyl, and finally, it is she who, in the third act, has come to take refuge in the medieval fortress -
perhaps Mistra in the Peloponnese - of which he appears as the lord and master.
It is then that the extraordinary encounter takes place between Faust and Helen; Faust, who, although he appears in the guise of a medieval knight, is really the personification of modern man, and Helen, who, although she is evoked in the form of the heroine of the Trojan War, is, in fact, the figure of beauty itself, and in the last analysis of the beauty of nature.
With consummate mastery, Goethe has succeeded in bringing these figures and symbols to life, in such a way that the encounter between Faust and Helen is as highly-charged with emotion as the meeting between two lovers, as laden with historical significance as the meeting between two epochs, and as fu ll of meaning as the encounter of a human being with his destiny.
The choice of poetic form is used very skillfully to represent both the dialogue of the two lovers and the encounter between two historical epochs.
Since the beginning of the third act, Helen had been speaking in the manner of ancient tragedy, and her words were set to the rhythm of iambic trimeters, while the chorus of captive Trojan women responded to her in strophe and antistrophc. Now, however, at the moment when Helen meets Faust and hears the watchman Lynccus speak in rhymed distichs, she is astonished and charmed by this unknown poetic form: No sooner has one word struck the car
Than another comes to caress its predccessor.4
The birth of Helen's love for Faust will, moreover, express itself in the same rhymed distichs, which Faust begins and Helen finishes, inventing the rhyme each time. As she learns this new poetic form, Helen learns, as Phorkyas says, to spell out the alphabet of love.; Helen begins: Tell me, then, how can I, too, speak so prettily?
"That's easy enough," replies Faust;
It must come from the heart,
And when one's breast with longing overflows,
One looks around, and asks -
llelt'n:
who sh11ll enjoy ii w ilh us.
"Only the Present is our Happiness "
219
Faust begins again:
Now the spirit looks not forward, nor behind
Only the present -
Helen:
is our happiness.
Faust: It is our treasure, our highest prize, our possession and our pledge.
But who confirms it?
Helen:
My hand.6
The love duet ends, for the moment, with this sign of Helen's yielding, and the rhyme-play thus ends in a "confinnatio" which is now no longer the echo of a rhyme, but the gift of a hand. Faust and Helen then fall silent, and embrace each other without a word, while the chorus, adopting the tone of an epithalamion, describes their embrace. Then the dialogue of love - and also of rhyming verses - starts up again between Faust and Helen, and causes us to live a moment of such intensity and pregnancy that both time and the drama seem to stop. Helen says:
I feel myself so far away and yet so close;
And I say only too gladly: Here Am I! Here!
Faust: I can scarcely breathe; my words tremble and falter; This is a dream, and time and place have disappeared.
Helen: It seems to me that I am broken down with age, and yet I am so new;
Mingled with you, I am faithful to the Unknown.
Faust: Don't rack your brains about your destiny, so unique!