23. “The spirit guides me. I see the wisdom at once, and write with confidence: In the beginning was the Deed.” These bold lines set the translator an impossible task. Geist here means intellect, wit, no less than spirit: the ghost in the machine. Tat is often translated as act, but perhaps its linguistic root is closer to deed: Tat as that which is getan; Deed as that which is done. I take the text from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe in 14 Bände, III, Dramatische Dichtungen 1 (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1981), 44.