The Knight Whose Insult Became a Mozart Composition

In 1504, during the siege of Landshut, a cannonball from his own side struck twenty-three-year-old Götz von Berlichingen and took his right hand. He had a blacksmith forge him an iron one — spring-loaded fingers, ratcheting knuckles, joints that could lock around a sword hilt or a set of reins — and went back to war for another forty years.

He fought fifteen feuds by his own count. He captured a count and ransomed him. He raided merchants until the Emperor himself placed him under an imperial ban. He had a second, fancier iron hand built for Sundays.

At some point during a standoff with the Bishop of Bamberg, Götz was ordered to surrender. He told the bishop's men to lick his arse. He liked the line well enough to dictate it into his autobiography.

The autobiography was published in 1731, a hundred and sixty-nine years after his death. A twenty-four-year-old Goethe read it and turned it into a play. The line stayed in. It became so famous that actors eventually replaced it with "My name is Götz von Berlichingen" — his name itself becoming the insult.

Nine years after Goethe's play, Mozart sat down in Vienna and set the phrase to music: Leck mich im Arsch, a canon for six voices, composed as a party piece for friends.

After Mozart died, his widow sent it to the publisher. They renamed it Laßt froh uns sein.

"Let us be glad."