[Footnote 137: A quarrel had arisen between Merck and Leuchsenring, and Goethe had warmly taken Merck's side.] [Footnote 138: As we have seen, Herder was jealous of Goethe's own attentions to Caroline.] Herder had good reason to resent the licence with which his private affairs had been obtruded on the public in _Pater Brey_,[139] but in the same year Goethe made him the main subject of another production which raises equally our astonishment at the manners of the time and at the wanton audacity of its author. In _Pater Brey_ the prevailing sentimentalism, as veiling dubious motives, had been the theme of ridicule; in _Satyros, oder der vergoetterte Waldteufel_, it was the extravagancies of the followers of Rousseau in their idealisation of the natural man. According to Kestner, as we have seen, Goethe himself greatly admired Rousseau, but was not one of his blind worshippers, and _Satyros_ is a sufficiently cogent proof of the fact. What is astounding is the means he chose to give point to his ridicule. Herder is Satyros, the Waldteufel,[140] who is represented as being humanely received by a hermit (Merck) while suffering from a wounded leg. Satyros requites his host with coarse abuse of himself and his religion, flings his crucifix into the neighbouring stream, and steals a valuable piece of linen cloth. Next by an enchanting melody he cajoles two maidens, Arsinoe and Psyche (Caroline Flachsland), into the belief that he is a superhuman being, and Psyche is so overcome that she submits to his embraces. The people of the neighbourhood flock to him, see in him a new god, and on his persuasion take to eating chestnuts, as the natural food of man--the priest of the community, Hermes, joining in their worship. The hermit appears on the scene, and on his abusing Satyros for the theft of his crucifix, the people decide to offer him as a sacrifice to their insulted divinity. By a stratagem of the wife of Hermes, the hermit is rescued and the bestiality of Satyros exposed. In no way disconcerted, Satyros leaves the throng with flouts at their asinine attachment to their conventional morality as opposed to the free life inculcated by nature. Goethe's later comment on this remarkable production is that it was "a document of the godlike insolence of our youth," and certainly no document could bring more vividly before us the world in which Goethe's genius came to fruition.[141] [Footnote 139: It was published in the autumn of the following year, 1774.] [Footnote 140: W. Scherer was the first to identify Herder with Satyros.] [Footnote 141: _Satyros_ was not published till 1814, after Herder's death, but he was aware of its existence.]