PUHIWAHINE — MAORI POETESS by PEI TE HURINUI JONES

EPILOGUE Midnight: Author seated at desk with books and papers lying around on desk and floor. Author: Where shall I seek? Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turned down where I left off reading? Here it is, I think. Enter Ghost of Goethe Who comes again to spite me, when I am seeking for some clue to the mystery of Gotty's birth? Come in. Speak to me: what are you? Ghost: I am the spirit that denies. Your predicament, O man of the Antipodes, has compelled me. and I appear. I am Goethe! Author: Over these books of yours and my own papers from this my desk, often through the night I have searched, with much labour, through and through! And here I stick, as wise as when my steps first turned to school. I have no fond illusion, that I know anything worth the knowing; so I've turned me to speculation. Ghost: All my works are but fragments of the grand confession of my life. You will find there, in the pages of the books I see around you I have woven my living garment. But I warn you, where you find a dark corner in me. it is terribly dark. Ghost vanishes. Author: You will not daunt me! I will sit here and gum together pieces here and there. I will hash up scraps from others' feast. I shall conjure up and tell a story from the ashes whence the life has ceased! Enter te Rangihirawea. You have come at a time most inopportune. How shall we set about this task? Te Rangihirawea: Pardon—I heard you shouting; doubtless some lines of poetry you were reading? I come direct, filled with the most profound respect, to know the story of my great-grandfather. You did say his father's name was Antonio, and I came to tell you that my younger brother, now long since dead, was baptised with the same name by our late priest, Father Langerwerf, on his return from Germany. Author: It is now too late to know how much Father Langerwer knew. I wrote to Potsdam for information about Gotty's father, Antonio, whom your grandfather described as a cavalry officer in the Prussian army. The reply was that the records of the former Army archives, including those of the old Prussian army, were burnt in the air-raid on Potsdam on 14 April 1945.1 Letter from Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Potsdam, 13. 11. 1959. Te Rangihirawea: Could it be that Antonio or Antonia was a son of Goethe, or was one of his own baptismal name? My heart and soul are yearning to hear what story you have to tell. Author: The story I shall tell you can only be speculation. I begin by telling you there were many women in the life of the poet, Goethe, but Gotty was not his son by any of them. Gotty could have been the poet's grandson. For various reasons, which would take too long in the telling, I have formed the theory that Gotty's father, Antonio, was the son of Anna Elizabeth Schönemann. Anna, immortalised as Lili by Goethe, was the daughter of a great banker in Frankfurt. Lili's mother was widowed, and she was sixteen years of age when she first became acquainted with Goethe. She was young, graceful and charming. Lili's fascination over him, Goethe has expressed in a poem. Here are three verses from it:— Wherefore so resistlessly dost draw me Into scenes so bright? Had I not enough to soothe and charm me In the lonely night? Dreaming thro’ the golden hours of rapture Soothed my heart to rest, As I felt thy image sweetly living Deep within my breast. Alas! the gentle bloom of spring no longer Cheereth my poor heart, There is only spring, and love, and nature, Angel, where thou art! The parents of both sides were not in favour of a marriage. At a later stage the lovers were told by a certain Demoiselle Delf that she had managed to overcome objections, and gain the consent of both families. Subsequently, however, it turned out that the feeling of friends and relations had