- Schiller koponyája, Goethe verse
- Was Goethe mistaken about Schiller’s skull?
Regarding certain details (and the inadequency of details) I believe that the skull, which was believed to be Schiller’s skull, and which has been recently proved that it is not Schiller’s, got into the grave due to Goethe’s mistake, (thus, it is not the so called Froriep-skull). My theory is mainly based on Goethe’s poem. I know it is brave to use the content of a poem as a reason, but in this case we can make an exception. Let’s see the reasons one after the other.
According to the story, Schiller died in 1805 under rather extraordinary circumstances, and his body was put into a mass grave. This kind of burrying was not rare that time. His body was there for almost 20 years, than due to the struggle of the mayor of Weimar, the grave has been resurrected, Schiller’s skull and his bones have been chosen, then the skull and the bones have been burried again, next to the grave of Goethe.
The fact that such an excellent writer like Schiller is burried into a mass grave is rather strange, but it can be explained: burrying dead people in a dozen, disregarding age, sex or social position was a commonly used method in the Middle Ages too. When the cemetery became full, the bones were taken out of the cemetery and were put into a pile, in order to provide space for the new bodies. On the other hand, at the age of his death, Schiller might not have been such a ’useful’ person, who deserved a separated grave. He was the enemy of princes who tortured the people, he was a speaker committed to the belief in a new world. There might have been people who did not like all these things about Schiller. Finally, I would like to add that Goethe might have wanted to monopolize the so-called ’denkmal’ status.
Later then, in 1826, the story altered strangely: according to the majority of the sources, the mayor of Weimar opened the mass grave and chose one amongst the around 21 skulls, stating that the chosen skull is that of Schiller’s, and gave that skull to Goethe, who wrote a poem from this occasion (in fact, on this occasion). After that, Schiller’s most precious bodypart was on the desk of the Geheimrat for weeks, before it was put to its final place. In the next few hundred years, experts and scientists brought to light with the aid of DNA test that the bones they examined were not Schiller’s.
Without dealing with further details, I notice the following: in my opinion, it was Goethe who chose the skull which had been in the grave up to that point. As it is written above, the role of the mayor is emphasised by every source, but I think the true version of the story is not this one. Can a mayor make a decision like that on his own? Hardly could it happen, he must have had superiors too, principally, in Weimar that time. It is more probable that the mayor ordered to dig the bones, which can be originated to different bodies, out from the mass grave due to the order of someone else, and showed them to Goethe. Goethe was a Renaissance man, thus, he was a scientist as well. Earlier, he had worked in Jena with anatomist Loder and he had achieved everlasting merits about the domain of osteology. Thus, a more appropriate person than he was could not have been found for this task. In the light of the fact that he often visited cemeteries searching for skulls in order to examine them in that period, when he dealt with osteology, we can have almost no doubt about the fact that Goethe chose the skull, amongst several others, which was in the grave and was supposed to be Schiller’s skull in 1826. According to some sources the scene of the choice could have been the Anna Amalia Library of Weimar.
Finally, here is Goethe’s poem, in which he wrote the way he found Schiller’s remains in the gloomy charnel-house:
LINES ON SEEING SCHILLER’S SKULL.
WITHIN a gloomy charnel-house one day
I view’d the countless skulls, so strangely mated,
And of old times I thought, that now were grey.
Close pack’d they stand, that once so fiercely hated,
And hardy bones, that to the death contended,
Are lying cross’d,–to lie for ever, fated.
What held those crooked shoulder-blades suspended?
No one now asks; and limbs with vigour fired,
The hand, the foot–their use in life is ended.
Vainly ye sought the tomb for rest when tired;
Peace in the grave may not be yours; ye’re driven
Back into daylight by a force inspired;
But none can love the wither’d husk, though even
A glorious noble kernel it contained.
To me, an adept, was the writing given
Which not to all its holy sense explained,
When ‘mid the crowd, their icy shadows flinging,
I saw a form, that glorious still remained.
And even there, where mould and damp were clinging,
Gave me a blest, a rapture-fraught emotion,
As though from death a living fount were springing.
What mystic joy I felt! What rapt devotion!
That form, how pregnant with a godlike trace!
A look, how did it whirl me tow’rd that ocean
Whose rolling billows mightier shapes embrace!
Mysterious vessel! Oracle how dear!
Even to grasp thee is my hand too base,
Except to steal thee from thy prison here
With pious purpose, and devoutly go
Back to the air, free thoughts, and sunlight clear.
What greater gain in life can man e’er know
Than when God-Nature will to him explain
How into Spirit steadfastness may flow,
How steadfast, too, the Spirit-Born remain.
1826.
This was the story, according to the things mentioned above, it is probable that Goethe was mistaken, and he found the skull of someone else and not that of Schiller’s. If there is someone who has concrete datas concerning these events, be as kind to share them with us. My research, which was not so long and which did not cover everything, led me to this conclusion mentioned above, but I do not understand why this fact is surrounded by an embarrassing silence.