Act III is called "Helena" (referring to Helen of Troy) and almost
forms an independent drama. The first scene, which you do not
need to read, introduces Helena as a character. Recall that Manto
led Faust into the underworld where he intended to plead, Orpheus-like,
with Persephone for Helen's release. As a consequence, and
perhaps by means of Humunculus' self-sacrifice, this has been
accomplished. (In the Odyssey, the shades in the
underworld can be reanimated only by drinking the blood of a sacrificed
animal.) Accompanied by a group of captive Trojan women, Helen
has just arrived at the Palace of Menelaus (whom she abandoned when she
ran off with Paris). Menelaus and his Greek soldiers are still
back at the shore with their ships, on which he brought Helen and the
other women.
Helen reflects on all the trouble her beauty has caused, but, with
encouragement from the Trojan women, she reenters her palace as
queen. However, she finds it deserted and is horrified by the
stewardess she finds in charge, for it is Mephistopheles, still
disguised as the one-eyed, one-toothed hag, Phorcyas. The chorus
of women attack Phocyas for her ugliness, and she replies, "Old is the
saying, yet enduring its high truth, / That Modesty and Beauty never
hand in hand / Pursue their way along the verdant soil of earth."
(8754-6) In the process of their verbal sparring, Phorcyas
mentions various inhabitants of the Greek underworld, to which Helena
reacts with increasing disorientation. She is confused because
she is standing in front of her palace, apparently alive, yet she seems
to recall the horrors of the underworld (which she would know only if
she were dead). "Is this remembrance? or delusion seizing me? /
Was I all that? Or am I now? Or shall I be / That nightmare image of
that ravager of towns?" (8838-40) The idea is beginning to dawn
on H that she may not be as real as she thinks she is. As though
to reinforce her existence, P and H review the main events of her life,
but when they come to the story that the ghosts of Achilles and Helen
had been united after their deaths, she realizes, "I as a myth allied
myself to him as myth. / It was a dream, the words themselves proclaim
it so. / I fade away, becoming to myself a myth." (8879-81) And
she faints.
The chorus criticizes P for the negative effects of her speech, but
soon Helen recovers. Menelaus had ordered her to prepare for a
sacrifice, and she tells P to make the arrangements. P is ready
and willing to do so, but where is the sacrificial victim? It
soon becomes apparent Menelaus means to sacrifice Helen herself (and
hang the Trojan women). P says she knows a way out; she can lead
them to another palace, where they will be protected by its lord, who
is "high-spirited, bold-tempered, nobly made, / Judicious, too, like
few among the Greeks." (9011-12) (Of course she's talking about
Faust.) They hear Menelaus' approaching army and quickly agree
that Phorcyas is their only salvation, and so Ideal Ugliness leads
Ideal Beauty through the gathering mists (much like the Mothers' Void)
toward Faust's Gothic castle. Thus the scene ends.
Helen is of course Ideal Beauty, with its power to inspire both
devotion and conflict ("love and strife" — considered the primary
cosmic forces by some ancient Greek philosophers). Through the
efforts of Faust, Homunculus, and Mephistopheles (Phorcyas) she has
been "reanimated" and transformed from a static idea into a living
figure. But still, she is not real, as even she realizes on some
level. Nevertheless, she has achieved a certain degree of
embodiment, of reality, and so she is ready to meet Faust.
From a psychological standpoint a very interesting structure, or
complex, has been formed, which involves four figures: Homunculus,
Faust, Helen, and Phorcyas. Two males, two females: very
balanced. Homunculus, who began as a disembodied fiery spirit,
has disappeared from the scene, but through his self-immolation in the
Aegean Sea, he has become spirit immanent in matter. Faust (ego)
awaits in his citadel, and Helen (anima)
has materialized. Mephistopheles, by nature a shadow figure
through his evil actions and negative nature, has become even more so
by adopting an ugly form and the opposite sex. Yet (s)he is the
one to bring Helen to Faust. The four constitute what Jung called
a Quaternity, and it sets the stage for a comprehensive unfication of
the opposites in the psyche.
The remainder of Act III is a single long scene, which divides
naturally into two parts. In the first part Helena and the chorus
of Trojan women find themselves in the inner courtyard of an opulent
Gothic fortress. They are received kindly by serving people:
apparently spirits provided by Mephistopheles, beings whom the chorus
recognizes as akin to themselves. A throne is provided and Helen
is invited to take her place upon it.
Faust, garbed as a knight, appears with a bound man, Lynceus, at his
side and approaches Helen's throne. He explains that L has been
derelict in his duty, for he was supposed to watch for anyone
approaching the castle, but he did not warn of H's approach, and so F
was unable to prepare for her arrival in a worthy fashion. F
turns L over to H for punishment, and she asks him to explain his
failure. He replies, in the form of medieval German love poetry,
that he was blinded by her beauty, as dazzling as the sun. H
pardons him for, she says, the ultimate fault was hers. Faust
offers his entire domain and all the treasure it contains to Helen, in
tribute to her as his sovereign; Lynceus brings offerings to her,
accompanied by a hymn to her divine beauty. Faust says, "Let me
in chosen fealty at your feet / Acknowledge you as mistress unto whom /
By her mere advent fell estate and throne." (9270-2)
Faust's actions may seem excessively generous, but they can be
understood in the context of the doctrine of Courtly Love, which was
based on a platonic relationship between the Lover, a courageous
knight, and his Beloved, a virtuous noblewoman who was unattainable
(because married to someone else). The Lover was expected to be
entirely devoted to his Beloved and to dedicate himself in selfless
service to her; further, his unsatisfiable desire was understood to be
ennobling in itself. Powerful and highly respected women, such as
Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122?–1204), presided over Courts of Love, where
these practices were cultivated.
This idealization and near deification of women was correlated with
other, contemporary social developments, such as an improved status for
women (including a certain amount of financial independence), the rise
of the cult of the Virgin Mary in the 12th and 13th centuries, and
other new religious ideas, such as Joachim of Fiore's (c.1132–1202)
prophesy of the dawning of an "Age of the Spirit" in which the Holy
Spirit would incarnate as a woman. Significantly, this female
personification of the Holy Spirit was often identified with divine
Wisdom (Sophia), the World Soul, and Nature, all conceived as a
(female) spiritual force pervading the material world and inspiring it
with order, harmony, and creativity.
Psychologically, the practice of Courtly Love can be understood as
intentional and systematically organized anima projection.
That is, both the Lover and the Beloved understood that the Beloved was
taking upon herself the role of a vehicle to manifest the Eternal
Feminine (those aspects of the feminine common to all men though their
biological inheritance). For men, the anima is the nearest, most
accessible component of the collective unconscious, and therefore a
means of greater awareness of, and ultimate union with, the unconscious
mind (resulting in psychological integration).
Unconscious processes such as these cannot be governed by conscious
rationality, so in Courtly Love much of the meaning was conveyed, and
the practice conducted, by means of poetry and song, pregnant with
feeling and symbolic meaning. (A certain amount of ambiguity and
obscurity also avoided accusations of heresy!) These songs were
composed by the troubadours, whose art seems to have developed from
Islamic mystical poetry, in which Allah is identified with the
Beloved. (Some of you may know the Sufi poetry of Rumi [1207-73],
which is quite popular now.) These arts were brought to Europe by
the Moslem invaders and by returning Crusaders. Thus Lynceus
sings his hymns of praise to Helen in the meters used by the Minnesingers
("love singers"), who were the German troubadours. (For more on
psychological aspects of courtly love, see <www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/Classes/US310/Interp-Court-Love.html>
and <www.cs.utk.edu/~mclennan/Classes/US310/Dante-Fedeli-d-Amore.html>.)
Back to Faust. Helen invites F to sit by her side and
asks
him about the "strange and pleasing" way that Lynceus spoke, in which
"as one word repairs to the ear, / There comes another to caress the
first." (9367-71) She is referring, of course, to rhyme.
Since her appearance with the Trojan chorus they have spoken in forms
imitating classical Greek drama, but Lynceus and Faust speak in a
different way. Rhyme was rarely used in Classical Greek and Latin
poetry, and was largely unknown in Europe until well into the Middle
Ages, when it may have become popular in imitation of Arabic
poetry. Faust begins to instruct her in the art by means of a
collaborative activity, for "Exchange of speech allures it, calls it
forth" (9376). She learns quickly, inspired by longing and guided
by a coordination of sound and sense in both their minds
(9378-84). Indeed, by the time they are done with the lesson,
they are on the same wavelength, profoundly in love, and snuggled
tightly together!
Faust is on the verge of experiencing his "perfect moment" (remember
the wager?) when Phorcyas enters, cynical as usual, and announces that
Menelaus is marching with his army toward the castle. A repeat of the
Trojan War is in the offing, and we are reminded that strife is
the polar complement of love,
and Ideal Beauty excites competition along with desire. F
recognizes the inevitability of this turn of events: "For none deserves
the ladies' favor / But who can guard them with most strength."
(9444-5) The chorus also understands the connection well
(9482-90).
In an echo of Paris' reluctance to get "mussed up" in the war that he
had caused, F decides to run off with Helen to Arcadia, a kind of
Paradise, while his generals fight the war. This inattention to
practicalities can be seen as evidence of F's continuing inadequate
relation to earthly reality as opposed to matters of the mind and
spirit.
In a long speech (9506-9573) Faust announces that he will take Helen to
Arcadia, near to where she was born, where "She broke in radiance from
the shell" (9519), thus symbolically returning her to her
origins. Arcadia represents Ideal Nature, alive with spirits
(Pan, the nymphs), a timeless place where "Each is immortal in his own
demesne" (9552) and one cannot tell whether the inhabitants "are gods
or mortal men" (9557). This is like a return to the Garden of
Eden, "Where nature works within her own pure cycle, / All worlds link
up without an interim." (9560-1) That is, in this timeless place
defined by the eternal cycles of nature, all the worlds are united
without any separation or division: heaven and earth; mind and matter;
spirit, soul, and body; ideal and real. The ego, with its sense
of time and place, submerges completely into the oceanic depths of
nature.
The last part of F's speech (9562-9573) acknowledges that this ideal
realm is where Helen belongs. In another translation, "Remember
you are sprung from the greatest of the gods and in a special sense
belong to the early world" (9564-5). He invites her to let "Our
bliss become Arcadian and free" (9573). These final words effect
a magical transformation to Arcadia, the second part of the scene.
The remainder of Act III takes place in Arcadia, which is the
central region of the Peloponnese, the southern peninsula of
Greece. The Eurotas River, where Helen was conceived, flows south
from Arcadia into the territory of Sparta, where Helen was queen.
Arcadia was a relatively isolated rural area, in which life was
comparatively simple and unsophisticated. Thus, pastoral
literature, which celebrates, in idealized form, nature and the natural
life, often has been set in Arcadia ever since Virgil used it for his Eclogues.
Pastoral poetry dates back at least to the third cent. BCE (Theocritus'
Idylls) and continued to be popular through Goethe's time.
Certainly the Arcadian idea (or archetype) goes much further back, for
the idea of a Golden Age, in which innocent people lived simply in
peace and harmony with nature, is common to many cultural
traditions. Sometimes the Arcadian landscape takes the form of a
protected or enclosed garden, the Garden of Eden being a familiar
example. Typically, nature is represented as living and sentient
(hence, the presence of nymphs and other nature spirits), and divinity
is manifest (so the gods live among the people, interacting with them,
etc.).
This then is the setting of the last scene of Act III, an isolated and
idealized landscape in which people live in a perfect, harmonious
relationship with nature and each other. Although all of Act III
is outside of ordinary time and space, Arcadia is especially so, and
thus after the transformation of the previous scene we find the chorus
asleep, and Phorcyas remarks, "Who knows how long the maidens have been
slumbering?" (9574) Faust and Helen are nowhere in sight.
Phorcyas awakens the chorus and informs them that their lord and lady
have been living in the spacious caverns that surround them, and there
Helen has born a child, Euphorion. Phorcyas has been essential to
the union of Faust and Helen; he says, "me alone they summoned for
discreet attendance" (9589).
According to Jung, in alchemy the spirit Mercury (whom Mephisto
regularly represents) is necessary for the conjunction of the king and
queen, often symbolized by the sun and moon or by gold and
silver. From a different perspective, Mercury (the soul) operates
as a mediator to join the sun/king (incorporeal spirit) and moon/queen
(corporeal body and its appetites). Therefore it is interesting
(at least to me!) to ponder, from a psychological perspective, in what
sense the faculty represented by Mephisto is required in order to
transcend the opposites represented by Faust and Helen. From
these three a fourth is born, who is the child Euphorion.
Recall that some commentators say that the acts of Pt. II correspond to
the five elements. In Act I (fire), the Emperor was engulfed in
flames and the vision of Paris and Helen exploded; in Act II (water),
the action was guided by Thales (who said that water is the primary
substance of the universe) and Homunculus attained fulfillment by
sacrificing himself in the ocean out of longing for a sea
goddess. According to this scheme Act III should be associated
with the element air, and you should watch for images of air, wind,
clouds, and so forth, but more generally air can refer also to an
aerial spirit (for the root meaning of spiritus is breath).
"The wind bloweth where it listeth" certainly seems an apt description
of Euphorion. As Phorcyas describes him (9603-28), he jumps
lightly about from cliff to cliff, although his father warns him
"forbear to fly, untrammeled flight is not vouchsafed to thee"
(9608). For his safety, it is necessary that he stay grounded, in
touch with earth:
... in the earth inheres resilience
Which will buoy thee up, if only thou adhere to it on tiptoe, (9610)
Like the son of earth, Antaeus, it will strengthen thee at once.
Antaeus was a giant, a son of Gaia (the ancient Greek earth
goddess), whom Hercules was able to defeat only by keeping him out of
contact with the earth, from which he drew his strength.
(Previously, Faust compared himself to Antaeus when he acquired
strength from contact with the soil of Greece: 7075-7.) So,
Euphorion is a flighty spirit, full of energy, volatility, but in
danger of losing contact with earthly solidity. As Faust is
enlivened by his contact with earth and nature, so also is Euphorion;
they both have too much of a tendency to fly about and live in the
clouds; and as we will see they both are driven toward unbounded
action. (Recall also that F has neglected the very earthly matter
of involving himself in protecting his empire from the invading army.)
To some extent Arcadia itself suffers from a deficiency of contact with
earth (as does pastoral poetry), for it presents an idealized,
unearthly, vision of nature. Often we begin with a naive view of
nature and its beauty, which may crash to earth when we discover that
real nature is not so pretty.
Who is Euphorion? Some myths say he was the child born of the
spirits of Achilles and Helen on the White Isle, which is interesting,
since it creates a parallel between Faust and Achilles. However,
in conversation Goethe described Euphorion as the "spirit of poesy,"
and the chorus later calls him "poesy pure" (9863), so we must also
consider him from this perspective (and recall that the Boy Charioteer
was called "Poetry"). Indeed, he represents Byronic Romantic
poetry born of the classicism of Helen and and Germanic striving of
Faust. Finally, we must recognize him as the fourth of the
child-like figures that appear in Faust (Gretchen's infant, the Boy
Charioteer, Homunculus, Euphorion), all of whom are soon destroyed.
Eventually, the trio of Faust, Helen, and Euphorion appear on stage
(9695). Euphorion's effervescent activity, which mirrors F's
striving, cannot be constrained. At first he is an erotic force,
pursuing one of the Trojan maidens (9790-810), but then he switches
from love to strife and begins to exhibit a heroic character, "In
ardent spirit soon contriving / To join the strong and bold and free."
(9872-3) He is driven to challenge death, and after attempting to
fly, crashes to earth dead (9900). The corpse quickly vanishes,
leaving just his cloak, robe, and lyre behind; he plaintively calls to
his mother from the underworld.
The chorus sings a dirge, which has little to do with Euphorion, but is
in tribute to Byron, who had died shortly before this was
written. Like Euphorion's, Byron's nature led to its own
annihilation.
Helen announces that the bonds of life and love have been dissolved,
and after a last embrace of Faust, she vanishes to join her son in the
realm of Persephone, queen of the dead. Faust is left holding her
robe and veil, which Phorcyas tells him to hold onto. Sure
enough, they change into clouds, which carry Faust away.
(Phorcyas hangs onto the stuff that Euphorion left behind.)
In the final part of the scene, the chorus of the spirits of the Trojan
women splits into four parts, each of which transforms into a
particular kind of nature spirit and enchants its own domain of
nature. As the act ends, Mephistopheles, who has stage-managed
the entire Helena episode, removes his Phorcyas mask and reveals
himself.
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