"
And touching the love of his youth, Lotte, Goethe wrote to Kestner: "I
really had no idea that all that was in her, for I always loved her far
too much to observe her."
The Princess in "Tasso" and "Iphigenia" who delivers Orestes from unrest
and insanity, are modelled on Charlotte. Tasso is unmistakably a
fantastic woman-worshipper, a fact of which Leonore is fully aware:
Now he exalts her to the starry heavens,
In radiant glory, and before that form
Bows down like angels in the realms above.
Then, stealing after her, through silent fields,
He garlands in his wreath each beauteous flower.
He loves not us--forgive me what I say--
His lov'd ideal from the spheres he brings
And does invest it with the name we bear.
He has relinquished passion's fickle sway,
He clings no longer with delusion sweet
To outward form and beauty to atone
For brief excitement by disgust and hate.[4]
And Tasso says:
My very knees
Trembled beneath me and my spirit's strength
Was all required to hold myself erect,
And curb the strong desire to throw myself
Prostrate before her.
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