The Adventurous Simplicissimus · Chapter
IV: In What Manner Simplicissimus and Herzbruder Went to the Wars Again and Returned Thence explained
Simplicissimus and Herzbruder travel to Vienna, where Herzbruder promotes Simplicissimus's reputation as the Huntsman of Soest at a banquet with Imperialist officers.
What happens
Simplicissimus and Herzbruder travel to Vienna, where Herzbruder promotes Simplicissimus's reputation as the Huntsman of Soest at a banquet with Imperialist officers. Simplicissimus is offered a captaincy but the company is undermanned and poorly equipped. In a subsequent battle, Count Götz is killed, Herzbruder is wounded (losing his testicles), and Simplicissimus is lightly wounded. They return to Vienna to recover, but Herzbruder develops paralysis and is advised to take the waters at Griesbach. Herzbruder, abandoning his marriage plans, makes a will naming Simplicissimus his heir.
Themes in this chapter
Fortune and Fate
Simplicissimus reflects on how luck and opportunity shape power and riches, and how fate leads him away from advancement to a different path.
Folly and Wisdom
Simplicissimus's drunkenness at the banquet and refusal to hold out for higher rank are presented as foolishness, while Herzbruder's rebuke underscores the theme.
War and Destruction
The battle results in death (Count Götz), severe injury (Herzbruder's lost testicles and paralysis), and the futility of military ambition.
Characters to notice
- Simplicissimus
Returns to Vienna with Herzbruder, is promoted as the Huntsman of Soest, accepts a captaincy of a weak company, is wounded in the leg in battle, and becomes heir to Herzbruder's property.
- Ulrich Herzbruder
Promotes Simplicissimus at a banquet, is wounded in battle losing his testicles, develops paralysis, is advised to take the waters at Griesbach, and makes Simplicissimus his heir.
- Count von der Wahl
Present in Vienna and speaks of the Huntsman of Soest, having uncovered the trick played on Simplicissimus at Lippstadt.
- Count Götz
Present at the banquet and later killed in the battle where Simplicissimus and Herzbruder are wounded.
- Daniel St. André
Mentioned as the Hessian colonel who tricked Simplicissimus at Lippstadt.
Key passages
“Things be strangely ordered in this changeful world; ’Tis said he that should know all things would soon be rich: but I say he that always could seize his opportunity would soon be great and powerful.”
The world is unpredictable; knowing everything might make you rich, but seizing the right moment makes you great and powerful.
Simplicissimus's opening reflection on fortune and opportunity.
“So did luck, that is wont to give power and riches, look on me favourably for once, and gave me when I had been some eight days in Vienna opportunity in hand to mount upon the rungs of fame without hindrance: yet I did it not.”
Luck offered me a chance to rise to fame in Vienna after eight days, but I failed to take it.
Simplicissimus acknowledges his missed opportunity due to his own foolishness.
“And so doth fortune suddenly change. For Herzbruder just before had been minded to marry a young lady of quality, and to that end to get him made a Freiherr and me a nobleman: but now must he make other plans; for having lost that by which he had meant to propagate his family...”
Fortune shifted abruptly: Herzbruder had planned to marry and gain titles for both of us, but his injury forced him to abandon those plans.
The sudden reversal of fortune due to war wounds.
