Chapter 12 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Giangir, or the Rejected Throne (1748)[586]

Foreword and translation from German by Beate Allert

Lessing’s dramatic fragment, first published in 1786, is derived from the so-called Breslauer manuscript begun in 1748,^[587] when he was 19 years old.

There is some debate over the question whether Lessing had recourse to the works of Busbecq and de Thou. Stenzel also notes that Lessing was influenced by Racine’s Phedre and argues that Lessing “replaced” the motif of political treason as the reason for Mustafa’s execution with that of personal incest, thus taking it out of the political sphere into a private one.^[590] I do not concur with this reading, because Lessing leaves much to the imagination of the readers and does not actually elaborate on this question at all in his play. Cihangir (“Giangir”) after whom the play is titled does not appear onstage in the surviving fragments, although he is listed among the dramatic personae and is, in my interpretation, much more at the core of the play than earlier commentators and critics have conceded.

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

SOLIMANN, Emperor

ROXALANA, his second wife

MUSTAPHA, son of Solimann and his first wife

BAJAZET, son of Roxalana

GIANGIR, son of Roxalana

TEMIR

ACT I, scene 1

ROXALANA: My bold attack succeeds.

ACT I, scene 2

ROXALANA: And finally I see yet that Solimann loves me. Me, and in me also himself, his fortune, and his fame.

SOLIMANN: And finally I forced myself. My son is not my son. The tender bond of blood connects him to me in vain as long as in his wild breast he suffocates nature and duty. Whoever hurts his father does not hurt him, just as a child would not normally do. Therefore, if a father punishes, he does not punish as a father either. A horrible prison already holds Mustapha confined.

The Offender —who! Me? Who carried the dagger towards me? The Offender: My spouse—the crime is too horrid.

Mustapha, even if you had strangled me a thousand times— Mustapha, even while dying, still I would have forgiven you. Yet my spouse—you, however—

ROXALANA: Absorbing memories!

With an everyday face and without red shame, He offered me to do the crime which, were heaven not inclined to be neglectful, would neither have passed his lips nor entered his mind without him being instantly shattered.

SOLIMANN: The blessing would be too great if by the hand of the Almighty such a sinner would die. Such death would be much too beautiful. Whoever fails too ignominiously, the prince of princes, who are us, the worldly-princes, punishes only through his slaves.

ROXALANA: With trembling I have revealed to you his vice. Whether

I should tell you, whether I should not tell you—my soul, confused over this, it quickly made up its mind (One usually tends to decide for the best the latest) in forgetfulness, in its silent night it cannot annoy anyone, to act out of judicious duty. Yet your honor—

SOLIMANN: Yes—rightly so—Yes my honor may well be in the future dear to you. O son! O misfortune! My heart, otherwise favorable towards you, feels, now that I must punish you, the punishment of a hundred times, which falls upon you only once.

ROXALANA: Do you want to proceed so harshly? This I would not have believed—

SOLIMANN: So you did not believe that I would proceed with justice? ROXALANA: Who is the rare hero in whom nature becomes silent, in whom blood does not speak when all too severe laws draw into even harsher punishments guilty loved ones, offenders even so, but at the same time children in the offense? Do you want to be a phenomenon? Do you alone not want to feel, as if you were more than a human, what normally all fathers feel? Absolutely correct! He has deserved death—more than death, and justice will be angry if he escapes it. Yet—yes his fate will even today be reversed. Mustapha, fear nothing, your judge is your father.

SOLIMANN: You think too little of me. My son means much to me.

Yet justice and you count more than he. Justice and you quickly expel the father. Therefore, offender, fear me, your father will be your judge. He takes after his mother. She was not like you. She loved my throne and me because I possessed it.

ROXALANA: Damned selfishness! Yes, heaven, I demand your punishments for me, unprecedented punishments, if ever a mad desire were to enter into my breast aiming not for the husband but only for the throne. If through the decision of fate my Solimann were born in huts, from an unknown womb, in lowly dust: I would choose to love him nonetheless. If he occupied no throne, enough, my Solimann would be worth a throne.

SOLIMANN: O! Who so nobly thinks cannot love less unnobly. You shall also see my faithfulness—you shall see it today—Mustapha— ROXALANA: will straight away make you aware of other conclusions, as soon as you shall see him, the deceptive son.

SOLIMANN: Me? Me?

ROXALANA: The father, yes.

SOLIMANN: No, and to prevent this I shall send him to his death without a hearing, I see Temir comes, let me be with him alone—

ROXALANA: But for my sake, lord, do not shed his blood.

SOLIMANN: Generosity speaks out of you. To you it would bring fame, but to me only blame—No—Go!

ACT III

SOLIMANN: Temir, just come closer!

Do you yet know my misfortune? Have you already lamented me?

Do you recognize my son in this sinner?

And do you recognize me in him? Does he manifest his blood? O this damned son! To whom nothing—nothing—is sacred.

TEMIR: I would have sought flames first in the deepest ocean, in mountains on the lake, and in darkness in the sun than the ugliness of vice in Mustapha’s breast. Think about it, Solimann, how childishly faithful he seemed to you?

When did he annoy you? I have educated him and know his pliable heart that knows and loves virtue.

Fathers I portrayed to him as Gods in the world through whom the God of Gods constrains impulsive youth; Their blessing and their condemnation be God’s condemnation and blessing; Whoever honors them sincerely that person has honored God. The sacred bond of marriage through which the world exists, the strict law of chastity, the disgust of nature for the rival of the father, to become the husband of the mother, all this I imprinted while young on his impressionable heart. And this impression he lets be without any effect? What wonder when now the greatest guilt is upon me?

What wonder when jealousy now makes me look like him?

“From his teachings he has drawn this poison—

This one should be punished instead of him—he who intends the Emperor’s death—

Mustapha had to be only his suffering tool.”

So cruelly does he scold me. Even if you are not going to believe it, The mob believes it nevertheless since it always believes the worst. Just like when a young tree that promised profit and fruit to our pain withers and deceives our hope, the gardener must suffer, so shall I have to suffer too—

Yet God shall be witness—

SOLIMANN: No—I shall testify,

How much devotion and diligence you have applied to this tree. If a well taken care of tree withers because of a worm inside, One absolves the gardener, just as I absolve you, And one lets the blazing fire devour the useless wood.