Page 89 [89]
other. (What a great expression: "one an-other.") Different and
same. They are similar in that they are excluded from the world
of the light. The light is only for a few, the chosen (how boring the
Masonic interpretation of Mozart’s opera is!®). The song sung by
the chorus sounds practically like a schoolbook lesson.
„Wenn Tugend und Gerechtigkeit,
Der grossen Pfad mit Ruhm betreut,
Dann ist die Erde ein Himmelreich,
Und sterbliche den Göttern gleich.**
When virtue (Tugend) and justice (Gerichtigkeit) rule, everything
becomes possible: the “Earth and the heavens” and “mortals and
gods” draw near to each other (Sterbliche den Götter gleich). A perfect
and beautiful order is realized, where the type of person reigns
whose greatest evil is their inability to do evil. It lacks interest; this
world of Sarastro is infinitely perfect—and infinitely boring. There
is only one figure who may be an exception and is therefore true to
life: it is Papageno. He does not sacrifice himself for the ideal. He
wants areal woman, but not at the cost of his own life, and that is
why he can (and dares to) be a coward. He is an “Unmensch” in a
different way than a Monostatos, an Othello, or a Shylock. Such a
community as theirs is also foreign to him, as he is to them. With
the rule of the all-encompassing light and the complete exclusion
of darkness, a one-dimensional world opens before us. And if we
think about it, this is the real parousia: the complete exclusion of
43 For an example of this analysis see the useless book of the otherwise out¬
standing Jan Assmann, (Assmann 2005)
44 “If virtue and righteousness
pave the Great Path with honour,
then earth will be a paradise
and mortals resemble gods.”