Philemon and Baucis
Philemon ( Greek Φιλήμων Philémon ) and Baucis ( Βαυκίς Baukís ; Latinized Baucis ) are characters from Greek mythology .
ovid
In the Metamorphoses Ovid describes the visit of the gods Jupiter ( Zeus ) and his son Mercury ( Hermes ) to a city in Phrygia . However, the residents do not allow the two hikers to enter.
Only Philemon and his wife Baucis, an old couple who live in a poor hut on the outskirts, practice hospitality , take them in and provide them with everything they have. From the fact that the wine jug miraculously fills itself again and again, they recognize their guests as gods, to whom they now also want to sacrifice their only goose. The heavenly ones deny them this, however, and urge them to follow them in order to avoid the punishment for the inhospitable city. From the heights, Philemon and Baucis are shocked to see that the city has sunk into a swamp. All that remains is her house, which is now being transformed into a temple of gold and marble. Asked by Zeus to state their wishes, they ask to be allowed to guard the temple as priests for their entire life and to die at the same hour, so that neither of them has to look at the other's grave. That's how it happens. They serve in the temple until one day, bent down on the temple steps and talking to each other about their age, they are transformed into an oak or a linden tree.
Literary resumption
Jean de la Fontaine worked on the subject in his fable Philémon et Baucis and "Christianized" it by making analogies to the New Testament episode in which Jesus of Nazareth found shelter in Emmaus and was only later recognized by his disciples.
In the 5th act of his Faust II, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe lets Philemon and Baucis appear as an old couple who resist the forced relocation by Faust and are therefore killed.
In addition, he mentions Philemon and Baucis in the first chapter of the second part of his work The Elective Affinities .
Kurt Tucholsky uses Philemon and Baucis in his 1930 poem Stations as an image for an aging couple.
Max Frisch also uses the characters Philemon and Baucis in his novel Mein Name sei Gantenbein . They appear as the idea of Lila and Gantenbein and in this way consolidate the Gantenbein role.
Bertolt Brecht uses the myth as the basis for his work The Good Man of Sezuan .
Leopold Ahlsen relocated the plot in his radio play of the same name (director: Walter Ohm BR version; Fritz Schröder-Jahn NWDR version) from 1955 to the world of the Greek partisans of World War II. Because the old couple cared for and hid an injured German soldier out of humane convictions, a merciless partisan leader had the two killed. After their last wish, they die together. They are hanged on the same tree and buried together at the same time.
In his essay On Love and Death, Patrick Süskind compares an old couple who, despite the age difference of 17 years, seem to be seriously in love with Philemon and Baucis.
Urs Widmer mentions these characters from Greek mythology in In the Congo .
Musical reception
1768 Philemon cum Baucide felicitas , libretto by P. Placidus Scharl with music by Anton Cajetan Adlgasser , performed for the inauguration of the new high altar in the Sacellum of the University of Salzburg.
The first act of Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Lefest d'Apollo , premiered in Parma in 1769, deals with the story of Philemon and Baucis.
Joseph Haydn processed the myth in his eponymous musical comedy from 1773 ( Hob. XXIXb: 2)
Charles Gounod composed the opera Philémon et Baucis (first performance in 1860 at the Théâtre-Lyrique , first performance of the second version in 1876 at the Opéra-Comique in Paris ).
Reinhard Mey mentions these mythological figures in his song Mein Testament from 1974: "So I just regretted one thing at that hour that we obviously did not have the lot of Philemon and Baucis."
Pictorial representations
- Adam Elsheimer uses Philemon and Baucis as a template for his painting.
- Peter Paul Rubens depicts the scene in which the city is currently being destroyed, 1625, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna
- Wolfgang Hildesheimer created the collages Philemon (1983) and Baukis (1989)
- Carl Andre created the pair of sculptures Philemon and Baucis (1981, Kröller-Müller Museum , Otterlo , Netherlands)
- Thomas Duttenhoefer created a bronze sculpture Philemon and Baucis (2004, Haus Bergfrieden, Kirn )
- Karl Manfred Rennertz created the pair of sculptures Philemon and Baucis (2011, Goetheplatz, Baden-Baden , Germany)
additional
- The Philemon-and-Baucis syndrome describes in the forensic literature the simultaneous death of long-term married partners.
literature
- Marie Luise Kaschnitz : Philemon and Baukis. In: (dies.): Greek myths. Insel, Frankfurt a. M. & Leipzig 2001, ISBN 3-458-17071-5 , pp. 129-137 (poetic retelling of the myth)
- Richard Wagner : Baukis 1 . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume III, 1, Stuttgart 1897, Col. 153 f.
- Paul Weizsäcker : Baucis . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 1,1, Leipzig 1886, Col. 753 f. ( Digitized version ).
Web links
- la: s: Metamorphoses (Ovidius) / Liber VIII , 8: 599-8: 709
- Ovid: Metamorphoses - Philemon and Baucis, Latin-German at gottwein.de
- Gustav Schwab: Legends of Classical Antiquity in the Gutenberg-DE project
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.611 to 724.
- ^ Walter Urbanek: German literature. The 19th and 20th centuries. Epochs, shapes, designs . CC Buchner, Bamberg, 3rd, verb. Ed. 1974. p. 542.
- ↑ Widmer: In the Congo . Zurich 1996, p. 188
- ↑ Le Fest d'Apollo in the register of works in the Gluck Complete Edition, accessed on September 13, 2019.
- ↑ Philemon and Baucis ou Jupiter's journey to earth. In: musicalics.com. Retrieved June 18, 2016 .
- ↑ Philemon et Baucis. In: musicalics.com. Retrieved June 18, 2016 .