“Pfeile mit Widerhaken”: On the Aphorisms in Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften and Wanderjahre

Summary

IN A LETTER TO WILHELM in which she describes how she found the key to the mysterious “Kästchen,” Hersilie includes a sketch of the object along with a remarkable commentary:

Hier aber, mein Freund, nun schließlich zu dieser Abbildung des Rätsels was sagen Sie? Erinnert es nicht an Pfeile mit Widerhaken? Gott sei uns gnädig!

(FA 10:599)

In the Middle Ages, barbed arrows were used for killing horses in battle; if one accidentally wounded a knight, the only way to prevent serious damage was to push the arrow further through his body and remove it when it emerged on the other side. The protagonist of Goethe's Torquato Tasso describes his rejection by the princess as precisely such a barbed arrow, and begs his friend Antonio to pull on it so that he can feel all the more keenly the force that tears him apart (V:5). In contrast, Hersilie's exclamation “Gott sei uns gnädig!” is not meant so earnestly. After all, she knows that the key is not really a barb, but simply “ein winzig kleines, stachlichtes Etwas” that she has found in the jacket of Felix's friend Fitz (FA 10:598).

Most critics interpret Hersilie's description of the key as a barbed arrow by visualizing it as an arrow shot by Cupid that sticks fast and cannot be pulled out. I would like to show, however, that the metaphor goes well beyond this familiar cultural reference.