In translating the libretto for an opera, the translator fre- quently has a very difficult task to do it so accurately that not only is the translation singable but the meaning harmonizes fairly well with the text and thus with the music. I cite, as an example of its sometimes being an altogether indifferent mat- ter, the number in the list in Don Giovanni, without, however, taking it as lightly as people usually would take it, thinking that nothing depends on such things. On the contrary, I view the matter with great esthetic seriousness and therefore regard it as a matter of indifference. But I do want to commend one quality of the number 1,003—namely, that it is uneven and ac- cidental, which is by no means unimportant; it gives the impression that the list is not at all final, but rather that Don Giovanni is on the move. We almost feel sorry for Leporello, who not only, as he himself says, must hold watch outside the door but, in addition, must keep account books so complex that they would give an experienced office secretary enough to do.
The sensuous as it is conceived in Don Juan, as a principle, has never before been so conceived in the world; for this rea- son the erotic is here qualified by another predicate: here the erotic is seduction. Strangely enough, the idea of a seducer was totally lacking in Greek culture. It is not my intention to laud Greek culture in any way for this, because, as everyone knows, the gods as well as human beings were promiscuous in love affairs; neither do I censure Christianity, for, after all, it has the idea only outside itself. The reason Greek culture lacks this idea is that its whole life is qualified as individuality. Thus the psychical is predominant, or always in harmony with the sensuous. Its love was therefore psychical, not sensuous, and it is this that instills the modesty that rests over all Greek love. They fell in love with a girl, moved heaven and earth to pos- sess her; when they succeeded, they perhaps grew weary of rh) 94 Either/Or, I her and sought a new love. In their inconstancy, they certainly could have a certain resemblance to Don Juan, and, to mention just one example, Hercules undoubtedly could provide a con- siderable list if one bears in mind that he sometimes took in- terest in entire families, numbering as many as fifty maidens™ and, as a kind of family son-in-law, polished them all off, by some accounts, in a single night. Yet he is essentially different from a Don Juan: he is no seducer. When one reflects on Greek love, it is according to its concept essentially faithful simply because it is psychical; and it is something accidental in the par- ticular individual that he loves many; and with regard to the many he loves, it is again accidental every time he loves anew one; when he loves one, he is not thinking of the next one.
Don Juan, however, is a downright seducer. His love is sen- suous, not psychical, and, according to its concept, sensuous love is not faithful but totally faithless; it loves not one but all—that is, it seduces all. It is indeed only in the moment, but considered in its concept, that moment is the sum of mo- ments, and so we have the seducer. Chivalric love is also psy- chical and therefore, according to its concept, essentially faith- ful; only the sensuous, according to its concept, is essentially faithless. But its faithlessness manifests itself in another way also: it continually becomes only a repetition.
Psychical love contains the dialectical in two ways. For one thing, there is in it doubt and disquietude about whether it will be happy, see its desire fulfilled, and be loved. Sensuous love does not have this concern. Even a Jupiter is unsure of his vic- tory, and this cannot be otherwise; indeed, he himself cannot wish it otherwise. This is not the case with Don Juan; he is brisk about his business and must always be regarded as com- pletely victorious. This could seem to be to his advantage, but it is actually destitution. Furthermore, psychical love also has another dialectic in that it is different also according to the re- lationship with each particular individual who is the object of love. Therein lies its richness, its fullness of content.
Such is not the case with Don Juan. For this he has no time; for him everything is merely an affair of the moment. Ina cer- tain sense it can be said of psychical love that to see her and to The Immediate Erotic Stages 95 love her are the same, but this only suggests a beginning. It holds true in a different way in connection with Don Juan. To see her and to love her are the same; this is in the moment. In the same moment everything is over, and the same thing re- peats itself indefinitely. If one imagines Don Juan as having psychical love, then to place 1,003 in Spain becomes ludicrous and a contradiction that is not even in accordance with the idea. It becomes an extravagance with a disturbing effect, even if one fancied that he was conceived ideally. If there is no me- dium other than language to describe this love, then one is in trouble, for as soon as one has given up the naiveté that can simple-mindedly maintain that in Spain there are 1,003, some- thing more is demanded: namely, psychical individualizing. The esthetic is not at all satisfied with tossing everything to- gether this way and wanting to astonish with the size of the number. Psychical love moves precisely in the rich variety of the individual life, where the nuances are the really significant. Sensuous love, however, can toss everything together. For it, the essential is completely abstract femininity and at most the more sensuous difference. Psychical love is continuance in time; sensuous love is disappearance in time, but the medium that expresses this is indeed music.
Music is superbly suited to achieve this, since it is much more abstract than language and therefore articulates not the particular but the universal in all its universality, and yet it ar- ticulates this universality not in the abstraction of reflection but in the concretion of immediacy. To give an example of what I mean, I shall discuss in some detail the second servant aria: the list of those seduced. This number may be regarded as Don Juan’s true epic.
If you doubt the correctness of what I say, then try an imag- inary construction. Imagine a poet, one more fortunately equipped by nature than anyone preceding him. Give him richness of expression; give him mastery and authority over the powers of language; let everything that has a breath of life be obedient to him, submissive to his slightest hint; let every- thing wait, prepared and primed, upon his word of command; let him be surrounded by a considerable company of light skir- 76 77 96 Either/Or, I mishers, fleet-footed messengers who run down thought in its swiftest flight; let nothing escape him, not even the slightest movement; let him lack no secret, nothing ineffable, in the en- tire world—then give him the task of celebrating Don Juan in epic style, of unrolling the list of the seduced. What will be the result: he will never finish. The defect, if you please, of the epic is that it can go on as long as necessary; his hero, the impro- viser, Don Juan, can go on as long as necessary. The poet will now introduce multiplicity, and there will always be enough in it that will please, but he will never achieve the effect Mozart achieved, for even if he did eventually finish,* he still would not have said half of what Mozart has expressed in this one number.
Mozart did not become involved in multiplicity; there are certain large formations that pass by. This has an adequate ba- sis in the medium itself, in the music, which is too abstract to express the differences. Hence the musical epic is relatively somewhat short, and yet in an unrivaled way it has the epic quality of being able to go on as long as necessary, since one can always have it begin from the beginning and listen to it again and again, simply because the universal is expressed and is expressed in the concretion of immediacy. Here one does not hear Don Giovanni as a particular individual; one does not hear what he says but hears his voice, the voice of the sen- suous, and hears it through the longings of femininity. Don Giovanni can become epic only by continually finishing and continually being able to begin all over again, for his life is the sum of repellerende moments [Momenter]*° that have no coher- ence, and his life as the moment is the sum of moments and as the sum of moments is the moment. Don Giovanni lies within this universality, in this hovering between being an individual and a force of nature; as soon as he becomes an individual, the esthetic acquires completely different categories.
That is why it is quite in order and has deep inner signifi- cance that in the seduction that occurs in the play, Zerlina’s se- duction, the girl is an ordinary peasant girl. Pseudo-estheti- cians, who, pretending to understand poets and composers, contribute everything to a misunderstanding of them, will The Immediate Erotic Stages 97 perhaps inform us that Zerlina is an unusual girl. Anyone who believes this shows that he has totally misunderstood Mozart and that he is using incorrect categories. That he misunder- stands Mozart is certainly clear, for Mozart has purposely kept Zerlina as insignificant as possible, which Hotho%’ also is aware of, without, however, perceiving the basic reason. If Don Giovanni's love had been qualified otherwise than as sen- suous, if he had been a seducer in the intellectual-spiritual sense—something we shall consider later—then it would have been a basic defect in the piece to have the heroine be a little peasant girl in the seduction that engages us dramatically in the play. In that case, the esthetic would demand that he be given a more difficult task. But for Don Giovanni these differences do not apply. IfI may imagine that he would speak about him- self in this way, he would perhaps say, ““You are mistaken. I am no husband who needs an unusual girl to make me happy; every girl has what makes me happy, and therefore I take them all.” That is how the words I touched on earlier must be under- stood: even coquettes as old as sixty—or in another place: pur ché porti la gonella, voi sapete quel ché fa [if she just wears a skirt, you know well enough what he does].°® For Don Giovanni, every girl is an ordinary girl, every love affair a story of every- day life. Zerlina is young and beautiful, and she is a woman; this is the extraordinary that she shares with hundreds of others. But it is not the extraordinary that Don Giovanni de- sires, but the ordinary that she shares with every woman. If this is not the case, then Don Giovanni ceases to be absolutely musical; then the esthetic demands words, lines, whereas now, since it is the case, Don Giovanni is absolutely musical.
I would like to illuminate the inner structure of the piece from another side as well. Elvira is a dangerous enemy to Don Giovanni. This is frequently emphasized in the lines by the Danish translator.°? Certainly it is a mistake for Don Giovanni to have lines to speak, but it does not follow from this that there should not be a single good comment among them. So Don Giovanni is afraid of Elvira. Presumably some esthetician would give a thorough explanation of this by coming up with a long rigmarole about Elvira as an extraordinary girl etc. This 78 79 98 Either/Or, I misses the point completely. She is dangerous to him because she has been seduced. In the same way, in entirely the same way, Zerlina is dangerous to him when she has been seduced. As soon as she has been seduced, she is raised to a higher sphere; she has a consciousness that Don Giovanni lacks. That is why she is dangerous to him. This, again, is not because of the accidental but because of the universal.
So Don Giovanni is a seducer; his eroticism is seduction. This no doubt says very much when it is understood properly, but very little when it is interpreted with a certain customary vagueness. We have already seen that with respect to Don Gio- vanni the concept of a seducer is essentially modified, since the object of his desire is the sensuous and this alone. This was im- portant in order to display the musical in Don Giovanni. In an- tiquity, the sensuous found its expression in the mute stillness of sculpture; in the Christian world, the sensuous had to burst out in all its impatient passion. Although it can thus be truly said that Don Giovanni is a seducer, this term, which can easily confuse the weak brains of some estheticians, frequently gives occasion for misunderstanding when some random comments that could be said about such a person and have been scraped together then are automatically transferred to Don Giovanni. At times, by tracking*down Don Giovanni's cunning, they have exposed their own to the light of day; at times they have talked themselves hoarse explaining his machinations and in- genuity—in short, the word “‘seducer” has prompted every- one to deal with him as best he could and to contribute his bit to a total misunderstanding.
Provided that it is more urgent for one to say something correct than to say anything whatsoever, one must apply the word “‘seducer” to Don Giovanni very cautiously. This is not because Don Giovanni is so perfect, but because he does not fall within ethical categories at all. Therefore, I would rather call him a deceiver, since there is always something more am- biguous in that term. To be a seducer always takes a certain re- flection and consciousness, and as soon as this is present, it can be appropriate to speak of craftiness and machinations and subtle wiles.© Don Giovanni lacks this consciousness. There- The Immediate Erotic Stages 99 fore, he does not seduce. He desires, and this desire acts seduc- tively. To this extent he does seduce. He enjoys the satisfaction of desire; as soon as he has enjoyed it, he seeks a new object, and so it goes on indefinitely. Thus he does indeed deceive, but still not in such a way that he plans his deception in advance; it is the power of the sensuous itself that deceives the seduced, and it is rather a kind of nemesis.®! He desires and continually goes on desiring and continually enjoys the satisfaction of de- sire. He lacks the time to be a seducer, the time beforehand in which to lay his plan and the time afterward in which to be- come conscious of his act. A seducer, therefore, ought to pos- sess a power that Don Giovanni does not have, however well equipped he is otherwise: the power of words. As soon as we give him the power of words, he ceases to be musical, and the esthetic interest becomes a different one.
Achim v. Arnim tells somewhere® of a seducer with an en- tirely different style, a seducer who falls within ethical cate- gories. Arnim describes him with words that in their truthful- ness, boldness, and pithiness are almost a match for a stroke of the bow by Mozart. He declares that he could speak with a woman in such a way that if the devil grabbed him he would talk himself free if he could manage to speak with his dam. This is the genuine seducer; the esthetic interest here is also something else: namely, the how, the method.© Therefore there is something very profound (perhaps most people have not noticed it) in the fact that Faust, who reproduces Don Juan, seduces only one girl, whereas Don Giovanni seduces by the hundreds; but in intensity this one girl is seduced and de- stroyed in an entirely different way than all those Don Gio- vanni deceived—precisely because Faust as a reproduction has an intellectual-spiritual quality. The power of a seducer like that is speech: that is, the lie. A few days ago, I heard a soldier speaking with another soldier about a third one who had de- ceived a girl; he did not describe it in detail, and yet his expres- sion was excellent: “He knew how to do it with lies and ail that.”” Such a seducer is of a kind entirely different from Don Giovanni, differs from him essentially, which can also be seen in this, that he and his activities are extremely unmusical and 80 100 Either/Or, I esthetically fall within the category of the interesting.** There- fore, from the properly esthetic point of view, the object of his desire is also something more than the merely sensuous.
But what kind of power is it, then, by which Don Giovanni seduces? It is the energy of desire, the energy of sensuous de- sire. He desires total femininity in every woman, and therein lies the sensuous, idealizing force with which he simultane- ously enhances and overcomes his prey. The reflection of this immense passion enhances and develops the desired one, who blushes in heightened beauty because of its reflection. Just as the fire of the enthusiast envelops with a seductive luster even those uninvolved persons who have some relation to him, so in a far deeper sense he transfigures every girl, since his rela- tion to her is an essential relation. This is why all the finite dif+ ferences vanish for him in comparison with the main point: to be a woman. The old ones he rejuvenates into the beautiful middle age of womanhood; the child he almost matures in an instant; everything that is woman is his prey (pur ché porti la go- nella, voi sapete quel ché fa). But this must not be understood as if his sensuousness were blindness; instinctively he knows very well how to make distinctions, and, above all, he ideal- izes. If | think back momentarily to a preceding stage, to the Page, the reader will perhaps recall that already in speaking of him I compared a remark by the Page with a remark by Don Giovanni. I have the mythical Page remain; I have the actual one join the army. If | now were to imagine that the mythical Page had extricated himself and had begun to move, I would call to mind here a comment by the Page that applies to Don Giovanni. When Cherubino, light as a bird, boldly leaps through the window, it affects Susanna so powerfully that she nearly faints, and when she has recovered she cries out, “‘See how he runs—oh, won’t he be a success with the girls!’ This is entirely appropriate for Susanna to say, and the reason for her fainting is not simply the performance of the bold leap but rather that he has already been a success with her. In fact, the Page is the eventual Don Giovanni, although this must not be ludicrously construed, as if by growing older the Page became Don Giovanni. Now, Don Giovanni not only is a success with The Immediate Erotic Stages 101 the girls, but he makes the girls happy—and unhappy—yet strangely enough in such a way that that is what they want, and it would be a poor sort of girl who would not wish to be- come unhappy in order to have been happy once with Don Giovanni.
Therefore, even if I go on calling Don Giovanni a seducer, I nevertheless do not at all think of him slyly laying his plans, subtly calculating the effect of his intrigues; that by which he deceives is the sensuous in its elemental originality, of which he is, as it were, the incarnation. Shrewd levelheadedness is lacking in him; his life is sparkling like the wine with which he fortifies himself; his life is turbulent like the melodies that ac- company his joyous repast; he is always jubilant. He needs no preparation, no plan, no time, for he is always ready; that is, the power is always in him, and the desire also, and only when he desires is he properly in his element. He sits down to dinner; happy as a god he flourishes his goblet—he rises with the nap- kin in his hand, ready for the attack. If Leporello awakens him in the middle of the night, he always wakes up sure of his vic- tory. But this power, this force, cannot be expressed in words; only music can give us a notion of it; for reflection and thought it is inexpressible. The craftiness of an ethically defined se- ducer I can clearly put into words, and music would venture in vain to carry out this task. With Don Giovanni, it is the op- posite. What kind of power is it? No one can say. Even if I asked Zerlina about it before she goes to the ball: By what power does he enthrall you?—she would answer: No one knows. And I would say: Well spoken, my child! You speak more wisely than the wise men of India; richtig, das weisz man nicht [correct, no one knows that], and the trouble is that I can- not explain it, either.
This power in Don Giovanni, this omnipotence, this life, only music can express, and I know no other predicate to de- scribe it than: it is exuberant gaiety. Thus when Kruse has Don Giovanni, as he comes onstage at Zerlina’s wedding, say, “Cheer up, children! You are indeed all dressed as for a wed- ding,’ he is saying something entirely appropriate and also something more than he perhaps thinks. Indeed, he himself 102 Either/Or, I brings the gaiety with him, and as for the wedding, it is not without significance that they are all dressed as for a wedding, because Don Giovanni is the groom not only for Zerlina, but he celebrates with games and songs the wedding of the young girls in the whole parish. No wonder that they flock about him, the happy maidens. Nor are they disappointed, for he has enough for all. Flattery, sighs, bold glances, tender hand- clasps, secret whispers, the dangerous closeness, the tempting distance—and yet these are only the lesser mysteries, prenup- tial gifts. It is a delight for Don Giovanni to survey such a rich harvest; he takes care of the whole parish, and yet it perhaps does not take him as long a time as Leporello spends at the of- fice.
All this discussion leads again to the real subject of this in- vestigation, that Don Giovanni is absolutely musical. He de- sires sensuously; he seduces with the demonic power of the sensuous; he seduces all. Words, lines, are not suitable for him, for then he immediately becomes a reflective individual. He does not have that kind of continuance at all but hurries on in an eternal vanishing, just like the music, which is over as soon as the sound has stopped and comes into existence again only when it sounds once again.
Therefore, if I were to raise the question of Don Giovanni's appearance, is he handsome, young or old, approximately how old, then it would only be a concession from my side and what can be said about it can expect to find a place here in the same way a tolerated sect finds a place in the state church. Handsome he is, not exactly young; if I were to suggest his age, I would suggest thirty-three years, which is the age of a generation. The dubiousness of becoming involved in such in- vestigations is that one easily loses the totality in dwelling on the particular, as if Don Giovanni seduced with his handsome- ness or anything else that could be mentioned; then one sees him but no longer hears him, and thereby he is lost. So if I, trying to do my part to help the reader gain a picture of Don Giovanni, were to say: See, there he stands! See how his eyes flame; he smiles triumphantly, so sure is he of his conquest. See his royal countenance, claiming that which is Caesar’s.”
The Immediate Erotic Stages 103 See how lightly he steps in the dance, how proudly he offers his hand. Who is the lucky one to whom it is offered? Or if I were to say: Look, there he stands in the forest shadows; he is leaning against a tree and accompanies himself on a guitar, and look, over there among the trees a young maiden is disappear- ing, alarmed like a startled wild deer. But he is in no hurry; he knows that she is seeking him. Or if I were to say: There he rests on the lake shore in the luminous night, so handsome that the moon stands still and relives the love affair of its youth,® so handsome that the young maidens of the town would give everything in daring to sneak over and make use of a moment of darkness to kiss him while the moon is rising again to shine in the heavens—if I did that, the alert reader would say: See here, there he has spoiled everything for himself; he himself has forgotten that Don Giovanni is not to be seen but is to be heard. Therefore I do not do that but say: Listen to Don Gio- vanni—that is, if you cannot get an idea of Don Giovanni by hearing him, then you never will. Listen to the beginning of his life; just as the lightning is discharged from the darkness of the thunderclouds, so he bursts out of the abyss of earnestness, swifter than the lightning’s flash, more capricious than light- ning and yet just as measured. Hear how he plunges down into the multiplicity of life, how he breaks against its solid embankment. Hear these light, dancing violin notes, hear the in- timation of joy, hear the jubilation of delight, hear the festive bliss of enjoyment. Hear his wild flight; he speeds past him- self, ever faster, never pausing. Hear the unrestrained craving of passion, hear the sighing of erotic love, hear the whisper of temptation, hear the vortex of seduction, hear the stillness of the moment—hear, hear, hear Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
2. Other Versions of Don Juan Considered in Relation to the Musical Interpretation It is common knowledge that the idea of Faust has been the subject of numerous interpretations, but this is by no means the case with Don Juan. This might seem strange, all the more so since the second idea characterizes a far more universal pe- riod in the development of individual life than the first. But the 84 85 104 Either/Or, I ready explanation of this is that the Faustian idea presupposes a kind of intellectual-spiritual maturity, which much more naturally lends itself to interpretation. Besides that, as I have pointed out above with respect to the fact that there does not exist a legend of that kind about Don Juan, people obscurely felt the difficulty with respect to the medium until Mozart dis- covered the medium and the idea. From that moment on, the idea first gained its deserved position and in turn has more than ever filled a span of years in individual life, but so satisfyingly that the urge to condense poetically what was experienced in fantasy did not become a poetic necessity. This in turn is an in- direct demonstration of the absolutely classic rank of the Mo- zart opera. The ideal along this line had already found its per- fect artistic expression to such a degree that it could indeed be tempting, but not tempting to poetic productivity.
Mozart’s music certainly has been tempting, for where is the young man who has not had a moment in his life when he would have given half his kingdom to be a Don Juan, or per- haps all of it, when he would have given half his lifetime for one year of being Don Juan, or perhaps his whole life? But that was as far as it went. The more profound natures, who were moved by the idea, found everything, even the softest breeze, expressed in Mozart’s music; in its grandiose passion, they found a full-toned expression for what stirred in their own in- ner beings, they perceived how every mood strained toward that music just as the brook hurries on in order to lose itself in the infinitude of the sea. These natures found just as much text as commentary in the Mozartian Don Juan, and thus as they glided onward and downward in its music and relished the joy of losing themselves in this way, they also acquired the riches of admiration. The Mozartian music was in no respect too nar- row; on the contrary, their own moods were expanded, took on a preternatural magnitude when they rediscovered them in Mozart. The lower natures, who have no intimation of the in- finite, perceive no infinitude. The bunglers, who think them- selves a Don Juan because they have pinched a peasant girl’s cheek, put their arms around a waitress, or made a young girl blush, of course understand neither the idea nor Mozart, or The Immediate Erotic Stages 105 how to produce a Don Juan themselves, except as a ludicrous freak, a family idol, who perhaps to the misty, sentimental eyes of some cousins would seem to be a true Don Juan, the epitome of all charm. In this sense, Faust has not as yet found an expression and, as noted above, never can, inasmuch as the idea is much more concrete. An interpretation of Faust can merit being called perfect, and yet a later generation will give rise to a new Faust, whereas Don Juan, because of the abstract character of the idea, lives on forever, in every age, and to wish to produce a Don Juan after Mozart will always be like want- ing to write an Ilias post Homerum [Iliad after Homer] in a sense even more profound than is the case with Homer.