[1] The story revolves around the crossing and bridging of a river, which represents the divide between the outer life of the senses and the ideal aspirations of the human being.
The ferryman takes the gold up to a high place, and deposits it in a rocky cleft, where it is discovered by a green snake.
The snake investigates the temple and finds four kings made of metal: one of gold, one silver, one bronze, and one a mixture of all three.
The snake is able to form a temporary bridge across the river at midday, and in this way, the wife and prince come to Lily's garden, where she is mourning her fate.
It has been claimed that "Das Märchen" was born out of Goethe's reading of The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz and that it is full of esoteric symbolism.
[2] Rudolf Steiner, in his 1918 book Goethe's Standard of the Soul, speaks of it as follows: "On the river stands the Temple in which the marriage of the Young Man with the Lily takes place.
Tom Raines gives the following historical background for "The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily": This Fairy Tale was written by Goethe as a response to a work of Schiller's entitled Über die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen ('Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man').
[4]The tale was the basis for Giselher Klebe's 1969 opera Das Märchen von der schönen Lilie.