Goethe’s Märchen of the snake and the lily is an allegorical and highly stylized rendering of Schiller’s theory on the attainment of freedom by the soul and the promise of aesthetic and personal growth through the union of the sensible and supersensible (physical life harmonized with the actualization of the inner self), as found in his 1794 study, Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (On the Aesthetic Education of Men), inspired by the corrupted, over-rational philosophy of the French Revolution. Goethe’s fairytale tells the intricate story of the love between a prince and a lily, mediated through elaborate details of a complex series of events that begin one late evening on the side of a river.
I had not read the Märchen until after I heard the story of the man with the watch. I had not read the Märchen until after Mongolia but before the map and the Chinese boy and the insect circus. It has many intricate parts, and despite having an outcome to share, the individual elements are enormously sententious, though the reader often cannot decipher why.
Two excited will-o-the-wisps appear, engaging a weary ferryman to cross them upon restless waters, their frenetic and flighty behavior nearly capsizing the boat throughout the journey. As recompense to the upset driver, the two wisps shake their lithe bodies, showering the bottom of the vessel with many fine gold pieces. Shocked and anxious, the ferryman angrily and swiftly refuses their payment scolding them for nearly