Even after the age of seventy Goethe
remained actively attracted by very young ladies.Thus it came to pass
that, in a health-cure in Marienbad, he
flirted and proposed to 19 year-old Ulrike (she refused him;
he wrote the Marienbader Elegie).
Another lady ( who, at 22, described
herself in connection to Goethe as a "Kind" and struck elfin poses, in the
manner of Goethe's character "Mignon") was named Bettina.
Bettina is also the name Goethe chose for
a contorsionist whose flexibility allowed her to lick herself all over in
the lascivious cruel "Venetian Epigrams" (1790)*
Bettina's acrobatic feats, while keeping her
hands are on the ground and legs pointing upwards, made me think
of maniambulator Van's, in "Ada or Ardor"**
One of Goethe's epigrams reminded me of
Nabokov's first chapter in SM, the oft-quoted "the cradle rocks above an abyss",
in particular the structural contrast of the opening lines with
a cradle and the coffin in its last paragraph, both
wavering at the edge of nothingness.
I WOULD liken this gondola unto the
soft-rocking cradle,
And the chest on its deck seems a vast coffin to
be.
Yes! 'tween the cradle and coffin, we totter and waver for ever
On the
mighty canal, careless our lifetime is spent.
(internet
translation)
Surprisingly, another link led me to Thomas
Mann's "Death in Venice" ( particularly aimed by VN's strong opinions) related
to Goethe's tumbler: In "The Cambridge Companion to Thomas Mann," page 103: "There is, however, a
more specific association between Aschenbach and Goethe. Goethe's visit to
Venice in spring 1790 gave rise to the Venetian Epigrams. Here Mann found the
famous comparison of a black gondola to a coffin (VIII,464,G 1,176).