Note 695 — Chapter III · GOETHE AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

I can give one very egregious example of this. The famous phrase, “Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh,” has been seen from a very early period to have an allegorical, as well as a literal, interpretation. Indeed, in the Latin original (for the words are a translation, as genius translates, of Lucan, ii. 273, Pacem summa tenent) the context is perfectly unmistakable. I had myself fallen in love with Ueber allen Gipfeln when I got the Gedichte as a school-prize in the year 1860, and both the possible interpretations had struck me. Yet a very few years ago, for giving the poetical application, I was solemnly warned by a reviewer that there was nothing disgraceful in my not knowing German, but that to pretend to do so, and to give an impossible meaning to well-known words, was quite intolerable.