The basic similarities of both personages only outline their essential differences: the King is depicted as a living creature, and he wears an "unadorned mantle",  while the Infant is a colored idol in "a lace and taffeta gown".  Embellishment as a substitute for beauty is the main feature of the kingdom of imitations. The Virgin Rosalia's sepulcher is placed at the silver altar, which is associated with the Silver King. The latter symbolizes beauty, therefore, unlike his brother, he is "covered with a decorated robe" and his "crown, girdle and scepter" are "adorned with precious stones" - a combination of natural and manmade forms.  The Virgin Rosalia is "reclining upon a heap of jewels" in the "cloth-of-gold of her fine dress." Still, it makes you wonder if the jewels are made from the same "mixture" as the Virgin…

The Meister's visit to the shrine ends with a scandalous scene whose meaning can be seen better through the "lenses" of the fairytale. In the fairytale, the sanctuary is visited by the Man with the Lamp, who predicts the fall of the "composite King". Later on, the Will-o'-wisps test the solidity of the "composite King" by eating the gold from his imperfect mixture. As a result, the King collapses. Homeric laughter shakes the crowd that witnesses the awkward fall of the King.

"… the mixed King on a sudden very awkwardly plumped down. Whoever noticed him could scarcely keep from laughing, solemn as the moment was; for he was not sitting, he was not lying, he was - leaning, but shapelessly sunk together. The Lights … had dexterously licked-out the gold veins of the colossal figure to its very heart. But when at last the very tenderest filaments were eaten out, the image crashed suddenly together … Whoever could not laugh was obliged to turn away his eyes; this miserable shape and no-shape was offensive to behold."

This story is in complete accord with the odd burst of laughter in the shrine during Inquisitor's scolding of the Meister for his sinful nature. Like the Man with the Lamp, the Inquisitor predicts the Meister's fall. All of a sudden, the entire shrine begins to shake with ghostly laugher. In a blink of an eye, the scene changes from terrifying to mirthful.

'The day will come,' he said, drawing himself up to his full height and girth, purple and black as a great spider blotting out the light, 'that Day of Wrath, when you shall weep tears of blood from those very eyes. … Suddenly the cave was filled with quiet laughter as from a multitude of people far away. I removed my trembling hands from before my eyes and looked around for the source of this strange mirth. … on every face I saw signs of the same ghostly laughter. Even Santa Rosalia wore a delicate little moue of scandalized delight.

Tentatively, I turned my gaze towards the Papal Inquisitor. His great purple jaws were drawn back in a goblin's grin. … He gave a great belly laugh in which he was joined by the light, aerial laughter of the relics; the candle flames dipped and swayed and seemed to be laughing too, the roses quivered - only the boy was solemn as ever."

For some reason, the Meister is treated like the "composite King", and at some point, he is a "feeble creation" whose internal "flickering flames" of animal passions cause his spiritual, physical, and emotional collapse. As a "quantum" character, however, he exhibits his various natures, including those associated with the "composite King." This is true for all other characters in the novel. Regarding the Inquisitor, the purple color that in the fairytale is associated with the Man with the Lamp becomes the main attribute of the Inquisitor whose "purple jaws" and attire signal the likeness, though of the opposite sign.

The story of the Kings attains a new elaboration in Scarabocchio, that introduces a universe of odd creations - the nation of the "composite King", blatant, gnawed with base passions, wild, and distinguished by concrete thinking.  By interacting with these creatures, the main protagonists begin to reveal their own hidden likenesses within them.

APOLLO THE DISINTEGRATED

A Story about the Green Serpent and the Beautiful Lily is structured around Goethe's main idea of the synthesis of art and nature[25] that he expressed many times through his works and during his conversations, including the sonnet "Nature and Art" written in 1802. This also includes the synthesis of the two artistic schools known as Greek Classicism and German Romanticism. As is known, the latter was the main focus of that Weimar Classicism founded by Goethe and Schiller, who elaborated their ideas on the classical and the romantic. 

All these ideas find their contrapuntal development in Scarabocchio. The themes of sensual romanticism versus rational classicism, synthesis versus mixture, and nature versus imitation are woven into the whimsical canvas of the novel, gradually forming the ecclesiastical picture of the universal disunion that becomes the inverse theme of synthesis in the fairytale.

Like ghostly streams of air merging in momentary mirages of clouds, the characters of Scarabocchio drift toward each other, following the incantatory rhythms of their somnambulistic thoughts. The picture stirs, evolves, but nothing sticks together, nothing holds - everything percolates through the incorporeal fiber from which they themselves and their world are made.

It can't go unnoticed that the three protagonists belong to the domain of arts. At this point the poet, the musician and the painter incarnate different sides of Apollonian nature, including Apollo's personal characteristics, such as the rational and the emotional as the core of the Apollonian-Dionysian unity. The Temple they establish, however, is a congealed version of the Rational Apollo with the frozen figure of Pan at the entrance as a sign of the victory of the rational over the sensual.

This is the end of art - ascetic, concentric, invisible - leading directly to God.  The senses, the imagination, life on earth - all of these are cast aside, there isn't room for them .' 'But God made the world...' 'To tempt us to damnation.' 'Do you really think so? Do you really suppose the entire world - life, colour, sound and sense, is - what did you call it? A gigantic trap to bring about our downfall?'  'I'm sure of it. There's no other possible explanation. If I didn't believe it, I'd be obliged to regard art as a toy to titillate the senses, I'd be obliged to prefer the sexual incantations of Italian opera to the spirituality of Bach, and pink would become my favourite colour instead of grey.  I'd go out of my mind. I really would.'

Though Beale calls the Lily "Mother", there is no "family reunion" between the characters. Unlike the three interconnected spheres known in the Kabbalah as the Ten Sephirot[26] the Meister, Beale and Danzig rapidly fall apart, unable to integrate the intellectual, emotional and animal natures that constitute the nine sephirot. There is no divine radiance[27] in Beale's idea of North. Contrary to the souls' harmonious union achieved through the tenth sepirah, Beale's North is the "emasculate" version of a posthumous existence.

The allusion to the Ten Sephirot comes to mind in regard to the first chapter, The Ten Golden Sovereigns [from the Poet's Diary].  The chapter tells a story about the Meister meeting the little "Lily" in Naples in the flesh of an "undeveloped child", a Siamese girl-prostitute whom he is later nearly forced to marry. He pays the ten golden sovereigns instead, likewise the Will-o'-wisps pay gold to the Ferryman who takes them only half-way to the princess. By paying gold instead of the products of nature, Will-o'-wisps reveal their unreadiness to join the Lily. In the same way, the Meister, who is not ready to "marry" his little Lily, pays in gold instead of paying in feelings, which would be analogous to the product of nature.

THE SYNTHESIS

The mention of the synthesis first occurs through the theme of Strauss's Capriccio. The main idea of Capriccio revolves around the synthesis of the arts, which are represented by two men - a poet and a composer. The integration should appear as a result of their love for the same woman. The similarities between these plots allow one to speculate about the artists-characters in Scarabocchio as solving the analogous task of  synthesis. The theme continues to evolve through Wagner, whose name brings to the surface his concept of Gesamtkunstwerk - the monumental synthesis of arts that was incorporated into Der Ring des Nibelungen. Finally, the symphorion as "the sum total of all musical possibilities" on the one hand, and the "symphonic poem" on the other hand, seem to be the final step towards the completion of the synthesis between poetry and music.

This, however, doesn't happen, because of the negative predisposition that occurs as a result of the characters' poor decision-making. This includes the types of sacrifices they make. Generally speaking, a sacrifice creates a predisposition for the system's future development and is responsible for the sign of the outcome. In terms of the game of chess, all sacrifices made in the novel are positional sacrifices[28]: the characters sacrifice the "material" in the name of a better position. Nevertheless, their lack of strategic constraints, which also includes morals, eventually ruins the entire position. Although they achieve their goals it's rather a Pyrrhic victory. 

Thus, Beale sacrifices the symphorion in the name of his inner peace, and for the same reason he sacrifices his romantic nature. This only increases the negative predisposition, since stripping the system of diversity leads to uniformity, and this endangers the future. On the other hand, the Meister's "symphonic poem" that he proudly keeps doesn't improve the predisposition either. Even though the murder in the ravine is depicted in terms of martyrdom ("Above us the sky was stained the terrible red and gold of a martyr's window…") it nevertheless leads to the destruction of the characters and their world. To be more precise, the murder is followed by a short-term success - the birth of the  "symphonic poem",  and a long-term failure - the writer's hell that deprives the Meister of the ability to write.

I saw five demons sitting upon black clouds, and these were the Five Senses: Sight - the demon of Desire Hearing - the demon of Thought Taste - the demon of Pleasure Smell - the demon of Disgust Touch - the demon of Gratification * * * * * * * * * *

I am incapable of writing a single poem. Words escape me - I haven't the power. Byron does it, Spenser, Keats, Ibn Hazim - those god-like men who create with words. I have only things to play with.  Pre-made things, products of another brain, that must be materially broken to suit my fancies. By the time I had noticed the streak of dirt it was too late. The child no longer lay among the damp leaves at the bottom of the ravine in the endless twilight. Indoors, the effect was not the same. I was present at the execution of the poet, William Blake, on a charge of heresy. He had dark, burning eyes, a pair of heavy, white hands, a sensual mouth. His hair was uncurled. His books were thrown upon the pyre. Whereas I shall die wordlessly. There was an odour of roasted poet. He shrieked and sang, and called upon the angels to save him. Whereas I shall die in silence, bereft of the dignity of words, like a common thug upon the gallows. But they'll have to catch me first.

The martyrdom in Scarabocchio is contrapuntal to Goethe's idea of "pure humanity" that became a foundation for Iphigenie, the play he worked on during his journey to Italy, and that marked the beginning of Weimar Classicism. Two conflicting ideas - humanity and barbarism - clash in the play. Eventually barbarism succumbs to Humanität, owing to Iphigenie's ability to soften the heart of a barbarian King by her willingness to sacrifice her life in the name of her brother.  In the same manner she manages to lift the curse of the family murder that pursues the descendants of Tantalus, including her brother, Orestes, who had been determined to kill his mother, Clytemnestra.

Alas!- no sacrifice improves the weak position in Scarabocchio. In the end, the musician, Barton Beale, dies in the arms of the poet, the Meister, and in the process Beale attains some features of the artist, Danzig. As Beale stands on the roof of the castle, enveloped by the energy of the waltz, the "purple twilight" swiftly "connects" him to the sunset that is reminiscent of the one in the fairytale. The spiritual connection between all of them is now established. They are united in time and space by thought that is their constant torture.

Nevertheless, the synthesis is rejected since the notion of its integral element - Love - is stripped once again by the Prince-Beale ("love equals hell") of its multiple meanings. "Don't forget to love me. I'll be thinking of you up there," says Beale when he bids the Meister his farewell. He truly believes that the Meister's love is not harmful. He believes it regardless of the obvious and even regardless of his own claim that attachments are harmful. All this contributes to the negative predisposition.

The characters' group turns into a paradox - a "disjointed union": they are bound forever by the imperfect integrity that makes them drift apart endlessly without the possibility of liberation or synthesis. Their bond becomes their constant torture. It can't be resolved, just as hell can't be resolved, only continued.

Scarabocchio is a remarkable work by a remarkable writer. This masterful, stunningly imaginative, polyphonic piece is a harmonious unity of thought, imagery, and a unique technique.  It's a quantum fugue of shocking philosophies, odd lives and wild experiences woven into historical times, artistic movements, and personal fates. Its richness is inexhaustible, its depths are bottomless. This is a living universe of manmade forms, flourishing and metamorphosing - a genuinely Gothean synthesis of art and nature. One who ventures to embark on the journey along the "mythopoëic sea" should remember that "there is no road back through the woods from knowledge to original innocence". It's a non-Euclidean reading that requires non-Euclidean thinking. As Goethe once said to Eckermann, who expressed his admiration with Wilhelm Meister, "My dear young friend … I will confide to you something which may help you a great deal. My works … are not written for the multitude, but only for individuals who desire something congenial, and whose aims are like my own."[29]  

END