MYSTIC LIGHT Goethe’s The Mysteries—An Interpretation Part 2 STANZAS 3 TO 10, INCLUSIVE. BROTHER MARK mountain that stands before him. SEEKS THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE CROSS We think here of another poet who, writing of his descent into the Inferno, said: OLLOWING THE BROADCAST of In the midway of this our mortal life the invitation to the Wisdom Feast I found me in a gloomy wood, astray which Goethe gives in the first two From the path direct. stanzas of The Mysteries, we are intro- duced to a pilgrim, by name Brother Had Goethe read Dante’s Divine Comedy? It FMark, who has arrived at the foot of the mountain cannot be doubted. Dante says that he was “mid- range, searching for the monastery headquarters of way of this our mortal life”—that is, about thirty- a Brotherhood which he knows is situated among five or thirty-six years of age—when he wandered its summits. off his course. Goethe does not tell us the age of Who is this pilgrim, sent on a sacred mission by the pilgrim, Brother Mark, but we surmise that he one brotherhood to another, arriving at the foot of is a young man, even a very young man. Can he be, the steep mountain somewhere in Germany? from perhaps, a type of the young Goethe himself? where, and by whom sent? The faint path which he has stumbled upon in The answer to these questions is not yet to be the thickets winds steadily upward, circling craggy revealed. Goethe says only that the journey has mountain faces, up which Mark must climb, until been undertaken from the most exalted of motives. at last, pausing to look back, he sees himself uplift- Weary from the day’s long journey, the poem tells ed high over the valley, for the whole mountain us, Brother Mark arrives, on a beautiful evening, at slope lies below him. He has come by a steep and the foot of a high mountain, staff in hand after the direct way, a difficult way which turned and twist- manner of a holy pilgrim. ed up the mountainside, and yet has brought him He has been travelling on foot; he is tired and speedily out upon a high place. On the West he hungry. He longs for a little food and drink, and a sees the sun magnificently throned between dark hospitable roof to shelter him for the night, for the clouds sinking toward the horizon. Shadows have sun is already descending toward the west and his already fallen into the deeply wooded gorges over goal is not in sight. which he has climbed. How beautiful, how friend- He has, it seems, wandered off the beaten track ly, the sun shines again for him now, here on the and must clamber through wooded gorges where heights! there is neither footbridge nor road. But at last he Yet darkness is not far away, and he turns to sur- thinks he discerns the faint traces of a footpath vey the upward path: There the summit, the peak through the thickets, which he hopes will lead him itself, stands stark against the evening sky. He up out of the gorges and to the summit of the steep summons strength to essay the final height, hoping 4 RAYS 04 that he has reached the end of his journey and will down his eyes in prayer. soon receive the reward of his labors. Now, he Praying, he feels anew the salvation flowing speaks to himself, now must it be discovered if any from the holy Sign; he feels anew the faith of half human beings dwell near this place. the world; but now, he feels within himself some- When he turns to continue climbing, the clangor thing more, a power penetrating every atom of his of bells resounds upon his ears. As one newborn, being. It is as if a whole new sense has flowered says the poet, he stands, hearkening to the sound, within his mind, awakened by the Sign which and looking down in the direction whence the bell- stands here upraised before him. Once more he sound has come, his quiet eyes light with pleasure contemplates the cross, his attention focusing now as he sees close by a green valley, softly cradled on the garland of roses which presses against the among the peaks. center from every side; and he puts the question: Then, all at once, he sees a beautiful building Who added to the cross the wreath of roses? lying in a green field before the woods; the last There they cling in a thick cluster of ruby petals, level rays of the setting sun fall upon it, as if in so that it looks as if the hard and rigid wood of the tryst, as if to point it out to him. He hastens cross were soft and burgeoning with life, as if the through the dew-wet meadow toward the dead wood had burst forth into these living roses! monastery which, says the poem, “lightens toward Do we see here an oblique comparison of the Rose him,” seems to beckon him, lying there lit up by Cross with Aaron’s rod that budded, or with the the shafts of the setting sun. (Or perhaps we are to blossoming thorn o£ Glastonbury, which was understand that the lamps are being lit within the taken from the Holy Land as a dry staff and plant- monastery.) ed in England, where it blossoms on Christmas Here is the end of his journey, this quiet, tranquil Eve? place. He knows it. His spirit is filled with calm Take note that Brother Mark’s question is not: and hope. The portal is shut but (presumably) as Who added to the cross the rose, or roses? but: the sun dips lower behind the peak, its beams Who added to the cross the wreath of roses touch and illuminate a mystery-filled symbol Several great families of Europe possessed which is raised high above the closed portal. coats-of-arms which included roses, cross, and The symbol is familiar, for indeed it is the cross star, separately or together; and when these fami- of Christ; yet this is not the cross as he has known lies endowed schools or colleges, these also were it heretofore. He stands and ponders, whispering allowed the privilege of using the family emblem, low the words of prayer which well up in his heart. or a variant of it, which thus constituted a sort of He asks himself, What meaning has this Sign to “seal” of noble or kingly approval. convey? He is unaware of the setting sun as he The family of Valentin Andreas (who, it is said, stands lost in thought; nor does he realize that the claimed in a posthumously published article that pealing of the bells has ceased. he had written the Fama Fraternitatis at the age of He muses: The Sign, which is here so magnifi- sixteen)* has as its coat-of-arms the St. Andrew’s cently erected on high, stands to all the world for cross (X) with four roses, one in each angle of the consolation and hope. How many thousands of cross. The golden rose of Eleanor of Aquitaine souls have pledged themselves to this Sign! How descended to her son Richard Lion-Heart, which many thousands of human hearts have ardently he combined with the red cross of St. George; and implored its aid! This is the Sign that has brought later we come upon the red and white roses of to nothing the power of death; the Sign that has Lancaster and York directly descended from this. shone forth on so many victory-banners over bat- Families in Italy, as well as in Germany, whose tlefields, one understands the poet to mean, where coats-of-arms bore the rose insignia in one form or men have fought and conquered in its Name. A another, might also be mentioned. The rose sym- very stream of comfort and refreshment flows bolism implicit in Dante’s Paradiso is too well through Brother Mark’s weary limbs, as he casts known to need discussion here, but it is well to RAYS 04 5 note that the Fama Fraternitatis first appeared as selves as such but are known by their fruits. an appendix to the 1614 edition of Boccalini’s The rose-garlanded cross appears first in world satiric work The Universal Reformation of literature in Goethe’s The Mysteries, heralding not Mankind. Because Martin Luther had included merely the dawn but the bright day of a new scien- rose and cross in his coat-of-arms*, which was tific-spiritual revelation. therefore the principal insignia of the Reformation, ******* the Catholic hierarchy looked upon all As our pilgrim, Brother Mark, gazes in rapt con- Rosicrucians as “Lutherans”—as Andreas assured- templation of the mysterious emblem high uplifted ly was. The Confessio Fraternitatis appeared in before him, winds from the peak drive the hover- 1615, and the last of the three Manifestoes, the ing silver clouds across the heavens, and against Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, in their motion the cross and roses seem to be mov- 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s death. ing, to be flying, upward! Three years after Shakespeare’s death there Out of the midst of the wreath, from the central appeared in England a work published by Robert point of the cross, a sudden beam of light shines Fludd, in which he described the Rose Cross as the forth.