Goethe Swings Low

In case anyone else paused and was left a little curious about all that “Goethe’s bells” shit that the Consul keeps bringing up, here’s the skinny. And, no, it’s no about Goethe’s humongous testicles:

In Faust, Part 1, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the tragedy opens with Faust sitting in his study, contemplating all that he has studied throughout his life, and he is unhappy because despite all his studies he is unable to discover the workings of the world. He is dissatisfied with what can be discovered by science, and attempts to look for knowledge in Nostradamus and by invoking spirits. After he fails at this, Faust contemplates suicide, but upon hearing church bells decides not to kill himself.

There’s also a poem by Goethe called “The Walking Bell” (which is more to the Consul’s point than the above (not that the above should be ignored – Hell, I dare any one of you mofos to ignore Faust)) that for spatial considerations I’ve re-spaced in this quotation. It goes a little something like this:

A CHILD refused to go betimes
To church like other people;
He roam'd abroad, when rang the chimes
On Sundays from the steeple.
His mother said: "Loud rings the bell,
Its voice ne'er think of scorning;
Unless thou wilt behave thee well,
'Twill fetch thee without warning."
The child then thought: "High over head
The bell is safe suspended--"
So to the fields he straightway sped
As if 'twas school-time ended.
The bell now ceas'd as bell to ring,
Roused by the mother's twaddle;
But soon ensued a dreadful thing!--
The bell begins to waddle.
It waddles fast, though strange it seem;
The child, with trembling wonder,
Runs off, and flies, as in a dream;
The bell would draw him under.
He finds the proper time at last,
And straightway nimbly rushes
To church, to chapel, hastening fast
Through pastures, plains, and bushes.
Each Sunday and each feast as well,
His late disaster heeds he;
The moment that he bears the bell,
No other summons needs he.