Brother Adoption Amongst Goethes Camerados

By Mitchell Santine Gould July, 2012

Several years ago, online at LeavesOfGrass.Org, I showed that Sir Walter Scott referred to Lord Byrons coinage of the term buon camerado, in the context of Don Juans question: Is not all love prohibited whatever,/ Excepting marriage? Given Walt Whitmans expressed affinity for both Goethe and Sir Walter Scott, it is interesting to find a reference to brotherly adoption in Scotts works. This was a 19th century strategy for protecting same-sex relations. The following is an excerpt from Goethes "Goetz von Berlichingen," as translated by Scott. -Re-enter GOETZ with wine and beakers. Goetz: ...We shall hardly find more pleasant days than those which we spent together at the Margrave's court-when we were inseparable night and day. I think with pleasure on the days of my youth... Weis: ...We always stuck together like brave boys-[Fills and hands to WEISLINGEN.] I shall never forget how the Margrave used to call us Castor and Pollux: it does me good to think of it. The Bishop of Wurtzburg called us so first. Goetz: That Bishop was a learned clerk, and withal so gentle-I shall remember as long as I live how he used to caress us, praise our union, and describe the good fortune of the man who has an adopted brother in a friend. Weis: No more of that! Goetz: Does it displease you? I know nothing more delightful after fatigue than to talk over old stories. Indeed, when I recall to mind how we were almost the same being, body and soul, and how I thought we were to continue so all our lives-Was not that my sole comfort when this hand was shot away at Landshut, and when you nursed and tended me like a brother? Weis: Alas! Goetz: Hadst thou followed me when I wished thee to go to Brabant with me, all would have remained well. But then that unhappy turn for Court-dangling seized thee, and thy coquetting and flirting with idle women.-I always told thee, when thou wouldst mix with these lounging, begging, court-sycophants, and entertain them with gossiping about unlucky matches and seduced girls, and such trash as they are interested about-I always told thee, Adelbert, thou wilt become a rogue...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [trans. Sir Walter Scott]. "Goetz of Berlichingen." (Scene 3). 335-6. The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, with Memoir of the Author. (Boston: Little, Brown & co.; 1857). Scott's translation of "Goetz von Berlichingen," a successful 1773 drama by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This play became famous for its use of a German phrase that roughly translates as "he can kiss my ass."