Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais
The veiled image at Sais is a classic topos since antiquity and the early Enlightenment. It is the gods supposedly veiled statue of Isis and the goddess of Sais, which was already considered in antiquity as the divine embodiment of nature. An inscription is said to have found the entrance of her temple, which was depending on the author like this:
"I am all that is what has been and what will be. No mortal man has lifted my veil. "
Friedrich Schiller's ballad
This topic Schiller devoted his written in blank verse ballad from 1795. In it, Schiller linked Greek, Egyptian and biblical themes. Schiller published the poem for the first time in his magazine The Horen.
Content
A young man comes in search of the truth according to Sais in Egypt. There he meets in a rotunda on an oversized, veiled image. On the question of what is concealed there, replied the high priest: " The Truth ". He is amazed that no one had lifted the veil. The Hierophant declares that the deity forbid that. But the young man wants to know, at night he goes to it and lifts the veil. What is hidden behind the veil, it is not said, but the next day the priests found the pale youth; he is not talking about what they have seen, will never be happy again and finds an "early grave ". The final lines of the poem are his message:
" Woe to him who goes to the truth through debt, It will be gratifying to him nevermore. "
Reception
The design of the veiled Isis as the incomprehensibility of nature and its unveiling by science can be found in numerous natural history works of the Enlightenment. So, for example, among many others in Alexander von Humboldt, ideas for a Geography of Plants (1807 ).
As a counterpart to Schiller's ballad is Novalis ' literary fairy tales Hyacinth and Rosenblüthe in the novel fragment to read Apprentices at Sais (1799 ). Hyacinth leaves his beloved Rosenblüthe to find the statue of the veiled Virgin and to lift the veil. When he succeeds in this, he recognizes the face of Rosenblüthchen behind the veil. The truth is revealed to him as that of which he has gone out at the same time - as opposed to the truth in Schiller - as an individual and thus only about the mind -drafting of the truth. In the romantic counter-concept to Schiller, the absolute truth is indeed comprehensible, but only by capturing the inner world.
A veiled Virgin Novalis mentioned in the clergy songs.
The underlying story was also modern authors as a basis for their work. One of them was at the Vienna Film Academy. Directed by Henri Steinmetz was created in 2005 in cooperation with ZDF / 3sat, the short film The shrouded image with Kathrin Resetarits and Richy Müller.