THE MEISTER'S BRIDGES TO THE LILY

First of all, both the Meister and Danzig act in some way like the two Will-o'-wisps from Goethe's tale. The analogy is created right in the beginning when they both come to Palermo by crossing the stormy sea, just as their shiny counterparts also travel in storm. The characters' destination - "the ancient temple of Segeste" - resembles the destination of the Will-o'-wisps, who come to see the Lily and enter the Temple. The place where Danzig and the Meister stay seems to be "overpopulated" by  unusually twinkling flames, and the flames flicker in Danzig's eyes, too. As the Meister notices, "He answered me at first with a startled flicker of the eyes under the long lashes."

The Meister's own behavior is in time with the restlessness of the Will-o'-wisps, who admit to the Serpent that they had never "sat or lain." Like the Will-o'-wisp the Meister can't rest at night - he's been suffering from insomnia for a long time. The cause of his insomnia is the burning fire of his dark passions that keeps him awake. Eroticism is another thing that unites the Will-o'-wisps and the two characters of Andreacchi's novel. Indeed, the Will-o'-wisps flirt with all the female characters in the fairytale, including the Lily's attendants. Their self-description during the conversation with the Snake has an apparently sexual subtext, and their comment regarding vertical and horizontal lines is a metaphor for love-making.

The Lights glided towards her, skipped up over her, and laughed in their fashion. "Lady Cousin," said they, "you are of the horizontal line, yet what of that? It is true we are related only by the look; for, observe you," here both the Flames, compressing their whole breadth, made themselves as high and peaked as possible, "how prettily this taper length beseems us gentlemen of the vertical line! Take it not amiss of us, good Lady; what family can boast of such a thing?"[22]

The Meister's insomnia-amphisbaena appears to be one of his bridges to the "poison lily", the girl of his obsession. Another one is the "Giant's Shadow" that "resides" in the cloister. The "Giant" himself appears to be the venerable Abbess, whose enormous size leaves no doubts regarding her literary counterpart. 

"the door opened and a huge figure, nearly as broad as it was tall, entered and advanced in our direction, its progress as stately and ceremonious as that of a laden ship coming into harbour. This I took to be the Abbess."

It's not only the gigantic size of the Abbess, but the comparison to the harbor and the ship as well, that makes the allusion to Goethe's Giant unmistakable: Goethe's Giant alludes to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, a colossal statue that guarded the entrance to the harbor at Rhodes. In addition, the Abbess's wild temper is another hint at the Giant's aggressive shadow. Logically speaking, if the "shadow" is an allegory of one's state of mind, then the Abbess's fiery speeches represent her aggressive "shadow." Her monologues are filled with fiery speeches of destructive content. "War may be a necessity, if only to rid the world of this excrescence - culture," she declares to the Meister. And it's not the only "call for war" she makes.

One more allusion to the Giant completes the list of the Abbess' "ancestry." I mean the giant aloes that rises in the cloister above the plants. The description of the plant reminds us very much of the Abbess.

Among the errant paths there blooms a profusion of sweet and pungent greyish herbs, and a single giant aloes, like a green image of Kali the many-armed, the World Destroyer.

The mention of the goddess of time brings up the association with the Giant's statue, whose shadow "pointed out the hours" after the Temple was erected. According to the fairytale, the "colossal statue" was made of "reddish stone". The Abbess's ring - "hen's-egg ruby that sat upon her enormous finger" - seems to be "made" of the same stone… well, almost the same stone since the cloister's factory is a place of "demoniac genius" that tirelessly produces its artificial products.

The cloister factory of imitations echoes Goethe's ideas of "demoniac genius" that he expressed to Eckermann in regard to the French term "composition".

June 20, 1831. "The French use the word 'composition' inappropriately. The expression is degrading as applied to genuine productions of art and poetry. It is a thoroughly contemptible word, of which we should seek to get rid as soon as possible.

"How can one say, Mozart has composed 'Don Juan'! Composition! As if it were a piece of cake or biscuit, which had been mixed together with eggs, flour, and sugar! It is a spiritual creation, in which the details as well as the whole are pervaded by one spirit. Consequently, the producer did not follow his own experimental impulse, but acted under that of his demoniac genius."[23]

The "mixture" of marzipan in Scarabocchio reflects Goethe's views on spiritless creations as a mixture, a view that he also expressed in Faust and other works. The sisters in the cloister proudly produce marzipan that "they fashion into the likenesses of fruits and other comestibles, such as crustaceans, tiny fish, as well as holy images of the Lamb with bloodstained cross, and tiny blue and white Madonnas." Dr. Praetorius seems to be their "commander-in-chief". The Abbess's frog-like appearance is a humorous hint at the world of "hybrids" that she represents and curates. The green color of her face symbolizes the awkward imitation of both nature and the Green Serpent. Camouflaged as a "Green Serpent", the "green Giant", Abbess, shows the Meister the way to the garden of imitations. The shadows that appear there in the evening resemble bridges, since they connect the remote corners of the Garden:

"When I sat up again it was already late in the afternoon, for the air had grown quite cool and the shadows had stretched themselves to enormous lengths across the garden."

As if transferred by the shadows, the Meister enters the gardens of the Prince of Palermo, only to meet once again various hypostases of his intoxicating lily. The violent nature of the "Giant's Shadow" affects the Meister's perception of the gardens: each garden contributes to his nocturnal torture by triggering either his feelings or thoughts. The bridge of violence, however, doesn't end there. The enormous shadow of the violent imagination spreads far beyond the gardens, metamorphosing into the ravine as an inversion of the bridge. The scene of murder that occurs in the ravine becomes a contrapunctus of the sacred reunion between Goethe's Lily and Prince: it turns into a perverse union between the victim and the villain, the union that is sealed by blood-shading.

The chapter that follows the scene of murder is called Contrapunctus IV. In this chapter the Meister is transformed from the murderer into a proud creator. In the Orestes Trilogy, the murderous Clytemnaestra is called "amphisbaena" by Cassandra. According to Kenneth Burke, by "amphisbaena" Cassandra may actually mean Clytemnaestra's clever manipulation of the Greek grammar that allows the interpretation of some grammatical cases both ways.[24] In the same way, the verbal "amphisbaena" allows the Meister to proclaim his artistic triumph instead of confessing the mental killing.

THE KINGS

The world of imperfect "mixtures" spreads its roots far beyond the cloister's factory, informing the historical sights such as the shrine of Santa Rosalia that the Meister visits after the party in the cloister. The shrine is located underground and is associated with the underground sanctuary of the four Kings in the fairytale. During her visit to the sanctuary, the Green Serpent sees the Gold King, the Silver King, the Brazen King and also the "composite" King, who is a poor mixture of his brother.

 "A series of terrifying zig-zags" leading to the underground shrine is the Meister's serpentine amphisbaena that he follows into the cave. The passage to the shrine is paved with "various parts of the body, such as arms, legs, or heart, which the Saint had healed, modelled in gold, silver, or plaster of Paris". The mixture of body parts and metals appears to be an allegory of the "composite King", who in the fairytale is depicted as a poor mixture of his golden, silver, and brazen brothers. Respectively, the interior of the sanctuary seems to be a metaphor for the "composite King's" mind whose main feature is the lack of abstract thinking.

The door leads into a narrow passage formed by the natural rock, and filled with votive offerings to the Saint - flowers, trinkets, naïve depictions of the saintly doings painted on tile or wood…

The rock paintings reveal the utilitarian mind that works on concrete forms to convey obvious meanings. Painted on the "natural rock", the "naïve depictions" represent the mixture of art and nature, not their synthesis. This is the universe of the "composite King", built by "Giants" whose creative abilities are limited. All they can produce is imitation. The three divinities that the Meister meets in the shrine - the Infant of Prague, the Virgin Santa Rosalia, and the Blessed Alphonso - seem to be imitations of Goethe's Kings. For instance, the Gold King is described by Goethe as "a little rather than a tall person". In the novel, the "little person" becomes a colored statue of the Infant of Prague with tiny golden scepter in hands.