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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Faust, by Goethe\r
-\r
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with\r
-almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or\r
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included\r
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net\r
-\r
-\r
-Title: Faust\r
-\r
-Author: Goethe\r
-\r
-Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14460]\r
-\r
-Language: English\r
-\r
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1\r
-\r
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAUST ***\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Bidwell and the PG Online\r
-Distributed Proofreading Team\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-FAUST\r
-\r
-\r
-A TRAGEDY\r
-\r
-TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN\r
-\r
-OF\r
-\r
-GOETHE\r
-\r
-\r
-WITH NOTES\r
-\r
-BY\r
-\r
-CHARLES T BROOKS\r
-\r
-\r
-SEVENTH EDITION.\r
-\r
-BOSTON\r
-TICKNOR AND FIELDS\r
-\r
-MDCCCLXVIII.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856,\r
-by CHARLES T. BROOKS,\r
-In the Clerk's Office of the District Court\r
-of the District of Rhode Island.\r
-\r
-UNIVERSITY PRESS:\r
-WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,\r
-CAMBRIDGE.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.\r
-\r
-\r
-Perhaps some apology ought to be given to English scholars, that is, those\r
-who do not know German, (to those, at least, who do not know what sort of\r
-a thing Faust is in the original,) for offering another translation to the\r
-public, of a poem which has been already translated, not only in a literal\r
-prose form, but also, twenty or thirty times, in metre, and sometimes with\r
-great spirit, beauty, and power.\r
-\r
-The author of the present version, then, has no knowledge that a rendering\r
-of this wonderful poem into the exact and ever-changing metre of the\r
-original has, until now, been so much as attempted. To name only one\r
-defect, the very best versions which he has seen neglect to follow the\r
-exquisite artist in the evidently planned and orderly intermixing of\r
-_male_ and _female_ rhymes, _i.e._ rhymes which fall on the last syllable\r
-and those which fall on the last but one. Now, every careful student of\r
-the versification of Faust must feel and see that Goethe did not\r
-intersperse the one kind of rhyme with the other, at random, as those\r
-translators do; who, also, give the female rhyme (on which the vivacity of\r
-dialogue and description often so much depends,) in so small a proportion.\r
-\r
-A similar criticism might be made of their liberty in neglecting Goethe's\r
-method of alternating different measures with each other.\r
-\r
-It seems as if, in respect to metre, at least, they had asked themselves,\r
-how would Goethe have written or shaped this in English, had that been his\r
-native language, instead of seeking _con amore_ (and _con fidelità_) as\r
-they should have done, to reproduce, both in spirit and in form, the\r
-movement, so free and yet orderly, of the singularly endowed and\r
-accomplished poet whom they undertook to represent.\r
-\r
-As to the objections which Hayward and some of his reviewers have\r
-instituted in advance against the possibility of a good and faithful\r
-metrical translation of a poem like Faust, they seem to the present\r
-translator full of paradox and sophistry. For instance, take this\r
-assertion of one of the reviewers: "The sacred and mysterious union of\r
-thought with verse, twin-born and immortally wedded from the moment of\r
-their common birth, can never be understood by those who desire verse\r
-translations of good poetry." If the last part of this statement had read\r
-"by those who can be contented with _prose_ translations of good poetry,"\r
-the position would have been nearer the truth. This much we might well\r
-admit, that, if the alternative were either to have a poem like Faust in a\r
-metre different and glaringly different from the original, or to have it\r
-in simple and strong prose, then the latter alternative would be the one\r
-every tasteful and feeling scholar would prefer; but surely to every one\r
-who can read the original or wants to know how this great song _sung\r
-itself_ (as Carlyle says) out of Goethe's soul, a mere prose rendering\r
-must be, comparatively, a _corpus mortuum._\r
-\r
-The translator most heartily dissents from Hayward's assertion that a\r
-translator of Faust "must sacrifice either metre or meaning." At least he\r
-flatters himself that he has made, in the main, (not a compromise between\r
-meaning and melody, though in certain instances he may have fallen into\r
-that, but) a combination of the meaning with the melody, which latter is\r
-so important, so vital a part of the lyric poem's meaning, in any worthy\r
-sense. "No poetic translation," says Hayward's reviewer, already quoted,\r
-"can give the rhythm and rhyme of the original; it can only substitute the\r
-rhythm and rhyme of the translator." One might just as well say "no\r
-_prose_ translation can give the _sense and spirit_ of the original; it\r
-can only substitute the _sense and spirit of the words and phrases of the\r
-translator's language_;" and then, these two assertions balancing each\r
-other, there will remain in the metrical translator's favor, that he may\r
-come as near to giving both the letter and the spirit, as the effects of\r
-the Babel dispersion will allow.\r
-\r
-As to the original creation, which he has attempted here to reproduce, the\r
-translator might say something, but prefers leaving his readers to the\r
-poet himself, as revealed in the poem, and to the various commentaries of\r
-which we have some accounts, at least, in English. A French translator of\r
-the poem speaks in his introduction as follows: "This Faust, conceived by\r
-him in his youth, completed in ripe age, the idea of which he carried with\r
-him through all the commotions of his life, as Camoens bore his poem with\r
-him through the waves, this Faust contains him entire. The thirst for\r
-knowledge and the martyrdom of doubt, had they not tormented his early\r
-years? Whence came to him the thought of taking refuge in a supernatural\r
-realm, of appealing to invisible powers, which plunged him, for a\r
-considerable time, into the dreams of Illuminati and made him even invent\r
-a religion? This irony of Mephistopheles, who carries on so audacious a\r
-game with the weakness and the desires of man, is it not the mocking,\r
-scornful side of the poet's spirit, a leaning to sullenness, which can be\r
-traced even into the earliest years of his life, a bitter leaven thrown\r
-into a strong soul forever by early satiety? The character of Faust\r
-especially, the man whose burning, untiring heart can neither enjoy\r
-fortune nor do without it, who gives himself unconditionally and watches\r
-himself with mistrust, who unites the enthusiasm of passion and the\r
-dejectedness of despair, is not this an eloquent opening up of the most\r
-secret and tumultuous part of the poet's soul? And now, to complete the\r
-image of his inner life, he has added the transcendingly sweet person of\r
-Margaret, an exalted reminiscence of a young girl, by whom, at the age of\r
-fourteen, he thought himself beloved, whose image ever floated round him,\r
-and has contributed some traits to each of his heroines. This heavenly\r
-surrender of a simple, good, and tender heart contrasts wonderfully with\r
-the sensual and gloomy passion of the lover, who, in the midst of his\r
-love-dreams, is persecuted by the phantoms of his imagination and by the\r
-nightmares of thought, with those sorrows of a soul, which is crushed, but\r
-not extinguished, which is tormented by the invincible want of happiness\r
-and the bitter feeling, how hard a thing it is to receive or to bestow."\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-DEDICATION.[1]\r
-\r
-Once more ye waver dreamily before me,\r
-Forms that so early cheered my troubled eyes!\r
-To hold you fast doth still my heart implore me?\r
-Still bid me clutch the charm that lures and flies?\r
-Ye crowd around! come, then, hold empire o'er me,\r
-As from the mist and haze of thought ye rise;\r
-The magic atmosphere, your train enwreathing,\r
-Through my thrilled bosom youthful bliss is breathing.\r
-\r
-Ye bring with you the forms of hours Elysian,\r
-And shades of dear ones rise to meet my gaze;\r
-First Love and Friendship steal upon my vision\r
-Like an old tale of legendary days;\r
-Sorrow renewed, in mournful repetition,\r
-Runs through life's devious, labyrinthine ways;\r
-And, sighing, names the good (by Fortune cheated\r
-Of blissful hours!) who have before me fleeted.\r
-\r
-These later songs of mine, alas! will never\r
-Sound in their ears to whom the first were sung!\r
-Scattered like dust, the friendly throng forever!\r
-Mute the first echo that so grateful rung!\r
-To the strange crowd I sing, whose very favor\r
-Like chilling sadness on my heart is flung;\r
-And all that kindled at those earlier numbers\r
-Roams the wide earth or in its bosom slumbers.\r
-\r
-And now I feel a long-unwonted yearning\r
-For that calm, pensive spirit-realm, to-day;\r
-Like an Aeolian lyre, (the breeze returning,)\r
-Floats in uncertain tones my lisping lay;\r
-Strange awe comes o'er me, tear on tear falls burning,\r
-The rigid heart to milder mood gives way!\r
-What I possess I see afar off lying,\r
-And what I lost is real and undying.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-PRELUDE\r
-\r
-IN THE THEATRE.\r
-\r
-\r
- _Manager. Dramatic Poet. Merry Person._\r
-\r
-_Manager_. You who in trouble and distress\r
-Have both held fast your old allegiance,\r
-What think ye? here in German regions\r
-Our enterprise may hope success?\r
-To please the crowd my purpose has been steady,\r
-Because they live and let one live at least.\r
-The posts are set, the boards are laid already,\r
-And every one is looking for a feast.\r
-They sit, with lifted brows, composed looks wearing,\r
-Expecting something that shall set them staring.\r
-I know the public palate, that's confest;\r
-Yet never pined so for a sound suggestion;\r
-True, they are not accustomed to the best,\r
-But they have read a dreadful deal, past question.\r
-How shall we work to make all fresh and new,\r
-Acceptable and profitable, too?\r
-For sure I love to see the torrent boiling,\r
-When towards our booth they crowd to find a place,\r
-Now rolling on a space and then recoiling,\r
-Then squeezing through the narrow door of grace:\r
-Long before dark each one his hard-fought station\r
-In sight of the box-office window takes,\r
-And as, round bakers' doors men crowd to escape starvation,\r
-For tickets here they almost break their necks.\r
-This wonder, on so mixed a mass, the Poet\r
-Alone can work; to-day, my friend, O, show it!\r
-\r
-_Poet_. Oh speak not to me of that motley ocean,\r
-Whose roar and greed the shuddering spirit chill!\r
-Hide from my sight that billowy commotion\r
-That draws us down the whirlpool 'gainst our will.\r
-No, lead me to that nook of calm devotion,\r
-Where blooms pure joy upon the Muses' hill;\r
-Where love and friendship aye create and cherish,\r
-With hand divine, heart-joys that never perish.\r
-Ah! what, from feeling's deepest fountain springing,\r
-Scarce from the stammering lips had faintly passed,\r
-Now, hopeful, venturing forth, now shyly clinging,\r
-To the wild moment's cry a prey is cast.\r
-Oft when for years the brain had heard it ringing\r
-It comes in full and rounded shape at last.\r
-What shines, is born but for the moment's pleasure;\r
-The genuine leaves posterity a treasure.\r
-\r
-_Merry Person_. Posterity! I'm sick of hearing of it;\r
-Supposing I the future age would profit,\r
-Who then would furnish ours with fun?\r
-For it must have it, ripe and mellow;\r
-The presence of a fine young fellow,\r
-Is cheering, too, methinks, to any one.\r
-Whoso can pleasantly communicate,\r
-Will not make war with popular caprices,\r
-For, as the circle waxes great,\r
-The power his word shall wield increases.\r
-Come, then, and let us now a model see,\r
-Let Phantasy with all her various choir,\r
-Sense, reason, passion, sensibility,\r
-But, mark me, folly too! the scene inspire.\r
-\r
-_Manager_. But the great point is action! Every one\r
-Comes as spectator, and the show's the fun.\r
-Let but the plot be spun off fast and thickly,\r
-So that the crowd shall gape in broad surprise,\r
-Then have you made a wide impression quickly,\r
-You are the man they'll idolize.\r
-The mass can only be impressed by masses;\r
-Then each at last picks out his proper part.\r
-Give much, and then to each one something passes,\r
-And each one leaves the house with happy heart.\r
-Have you a piece, give it at once in pieces!\r
-Such a ragout your fame increases;\r
-It costs as little pains to play as to invent.\r
-But what is gained, if you a whole present?\r
-Your public picks it presently to pieces.\r
-\r
-_Poet_. You do not feel how mean a trade like that must be!\r
-In the true Artist's eyes how false and hollow!\r
-Our genteel botchers, well I see,\r
-Have given the maxims that you follow.\r
-\r
-_Manager_. Such charges pass me like the idle wind;\r
-A man who has right work in mind\r
-Must choose the instruments most fitting.\r
-Consider what soft wood you have for splitting,\r
-And keep in view for whom you write!\r
-If this one from _ennui_ seeks flight,\r
-That other comes full from the groaning table,\r
-Or, the worst case of all to cite,\r
-From reading journals is for thought unable.\r
-Vacant and giddy, all agog for wonder,\r
-As to a masquerade they wing their way;\r
-The ladies give themselves and all their precious plunder\r
-And without wages help us play.\r
-On your poetic heights what dream comes o'er you?\r
-What glads a crowded house? Behold\r
-Your patrons in array before you!\r
-One half are raw, the other cold.\r
-One, after this play, hopes to play at cards,\r
-One a wild night to spend beside his doxy chooses,\r
-Poor fools, why court ye the regards,\r
-For such a set, of the chaste muses?\r
-I tell you, give them more and ever more and more,\r
-And then your mark you'll hardly stray from ever;\r
-To mystify be your endeavor,\r
-To satisfy is labor sore....\r
-What ails you? Are you pleased or pained? What notion----\r
-\r
-_Poet_. Go to, and find thyself another slave!\r
-What! and the lofty birthright Nature gave,\r
-The noblest talent Heaven to man has lent,\r
-Thou bid'st the Poet fling to folly's ocean!\r
-How does he stir each deep emotion?\r
-How does he conquer every element?\r
-But by the tide of song that from his bosom springs,\r
-And draws into his heart all living things?\r
-When Nature's hand, in endless iteration,\r
-The thread across the whizzing spindle flings,\r
-When the complex, monotonous creation\r
-Jangles with all its million strings:\r
-Who, then, the long, dull series animating,\r
-Breaks into rhythmic march the soulless round?\r
-And, to the law of All each member consecrating,\r
-Bids one majestic harmony resound?\r
-Who bids the tempest rage with passion's power?\r
-The earnest soul with evening-redness glow?\r
-Who scatters vernal bud and summer flower\r
-Along the path where loved ones go?\r
-Who weaves each green leaf in the wind that trembles\r
-To form the wreath that merit's brow shall crown?\r
-Who makes Olympus fast? the gods assembles?\r
-The power of manhood in the Poet shown.\r
-\r
-_Merry Person_. Come, then, put forth these noble powers,\r
-And, Poet, let thy path of flowers\r
-Follow a love-adventure's winding ways.\r
-One comes and sees by chance, one burns, one stays,\r
-And feels the gradual, sweet entangling!\r
-The pleasure grows, then comes a sudden jangling,\r
-Then rapture, then distress an arrow plants,\r
-And ere one dreams of it, lo! _there_ is a romance.\r
-Give us a drama in this fashion!\r
-Plunge into human life's full sea of passion!\r
-Each lives it, few its meaning ever guessed,\r
-Touch where you will, 'tis full of interest.\r
-Bright shadows fleeting o'er a mirror,\r
-A spark of truth and clouds of error,\r
-By means like these a drink is brewed\r
-To cheer and edify the multitude.\r
-The fairest flower of the youth sit listening\r
-Before your play, and wait the revelation;\r
-Each melancholy heart, with soft eyes glistening,\r
-Draws sad, sweet nourishment from your creation;\r
-This passion now, now that is stirred, by turns,\r
-And each one sees what in his bosom burns.\r
-Open alike, as yet, to weeping and to laughter,\r
-They still admire the flights, they still enjoy the show;\r
-Him who is formed, can nothing suit thereafter;\r
-The yet unformed with thanks will ever glow.\r
-\r
-_Poet_. Ay, give me back the joyous hours,\r
-When I myself was ripening, too,\r
-When song, the fount, flung up its showers\r
-Of beauty ever fresh and new.\r
-When a soft haze the world was veiling,\r
-Each bud a miracle bespoke,\r
-And from their stems a thousand flowers I broke,\r
-Their fragrance through the vales exhaling.\r
-I nothing and yet all possessed,\r
-Yearning for truth and in illusion blest.\r
-Give me the freedom of that hour,\r
-The tear of joy, the pleasing pain,\r
-Of hate and love the thrilling power,\r
-Oh, give me back my youth again!\r
-\r
-_Merry Person_. Youth, my good friend, thou needest certainly\r
-When ambushed foes are on thee springing,\r
-When loveliest maidens witchingly\r
-Their white arms round thy neck are flinging,\r
-When the far garland meets thy glance,\r
-High on the race-ground's goal suspended,\r
-When after many a mazy dance\r
-In drink and song the night is ended.\r
-But with a free and graceful soul\r
-To strike the old familiar lyre,\r
-And to a self-appointed goal\r
-Sweep lightly o'er the trembling wire,\r
-There lies, old gentlemen, to-day\r
-Your task; fear not, no vulgar error blinds us.\r
-Age does not make us childish, as they say,\r
-But we are still true children when it finds us.\r
-\r
-_Manager_. Come, words enough you two have bandied,\r
-Now let us see some deeds at last;\r
-While you toss compliments full-handed,\r
-The time for useful work flies fast.\r
-Why talk of being in the humor?\r
-Who hesitates will never be.\r
-If you are poets (so says rumor)\r
-Now then command your poetry.\r
-You know full well our need and pleasure,\r
-We want strong drink in brimming measure;\r
-Brew at it now without delay!\r
-To-morrow will not do what is not done to-day.\r
-Let not a day be lost in dallying,\r
-But seize the possibility\r
-Right by the forelock, courage rallying,\r
-And forth with fearless spirit sallying,--\r
-Once in the yoke and you are free.\r
- Upon our German boards, you know it,\r
-What any one would try, he may;\r
-Then stint me not, I beg, to-day,\r
-In scenery or machinery, Poet.\r
-With great and lesser heavenly lights make free,\r
-Spend starlight just as you desire;\r
-No want of water, rocks or fire\r
-Or birds or beasts to you shall be.\r
-So, in this narrow wooden house's bound,\r
-Stride through the whole creation's round,\r
-And with considerate swiftness wander\r
-From heaven, through this world, to the world down yonder.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- PROLOGUE\r
-\r
-\r
- IN HEAVEN.\r
-\r
-\r
-[THE LORD. THE HEAVENLY HOSTS _afterward_ MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-_The three archangels_, RAPHAEL, GABRIEL, _and_ MICHAEL, _come forward_.]\r
-\r
-_Raphael_. The sun, in ancient wise, is sounding,\r
- With brother-spheres, in rival song;\r
-And, his appointed journey rounding,\r
- With thunderous movement rolls along.\r
-His look, new strength to angels lending,\r
- No creature fathom can for aye;\r
-The lofty works, past comprehending,\r
- Stand lordly, as on time's first day.\r
-\r
-_Gabriel_. And swift, with wondrous swiftness fleeting,\r
- The pomp of earth turns round and round,\r
-The glow of Eden alternating\r
- With shuddering midnight's gloom profound;\r
-Up o'er the rocks the foaming ocean\r
- Heaves from its old, primeval bed,\r
-And rocks and seas, with endless motion,\r
- On in the spheral sweep are sped.\r
-\r
-_Michael_. And tempests roar, glad warfare waging,\r
- From sea to land, from land to sea,\r
-And bind round all, amidst their raging,\r
- A chain of giant energy.\r
-There, lurid desolation, blazing,\r
- Foreruns the volleyed thunder's way:\r
-Yet, Lord, thy messengers[2] are praising\r
- The mild procession of thy day.\r
-\r
-_All Three_. The sight new strength to angels lendeth,\r
- For none thy being fathom may,\r
-The works, no angel comprehendeth,\r
- Stand lordly as on time's first day.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Since, Lord, thou drawest near us once again,\r
-And how we do, dost graciously inquire,\r
-And to be pleased to see me once didst deign,\r
-I too among thy household venture nigher.\r
-Pardon, high words I cannot labor after,\r
-Though the whole court should look on me with scorn;\r
-My pathos certainly would stir thy laughter,\r
-Hadst thou not laughter long since quite forsworn.\r
-Of sun and worlds I've nought to tell worth mention,\r
-How men torment themselves takes my attention.\r
-The little God o' the world jogs on the same old way\r
-And is as singular as on the world's first day.\r
-A pity 'tis thou shouldst have given\r
-The fool, to make him worse, a gleam of light from heaven;\r
-He calls it reason, using it\r
-To be more beast than ever beast was yet.\r
-He seems to me, (your grace the word will pardon,)\r
-Like a long-legg'd grasshopper in the garden,\r
-Forever on the wing, and hops and sings\r
-The same old song, as in the grass he springs;\r
-Would he but stay there! no; he needs must muddle\r
-His prying nose in every puddle.\r
-\r
-_The Lord_. Hast nothing for our edification?\r
-Still thy old work of accusation?\r
-Will things on earth be never right for thee?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. No, Lord! I find them still as bad as bad can be.\r
-Poor souls! their miseries seem so much to please 'em,\r
-I scarce can find it in my heart to tease 'em.\r
-\r
-_The Lord_. Knowest thou Faust?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The Doctor?\r
-\r
-_The Lord_. Ay, my servant!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. He!\r
-Forsooth! he serves you in a famous fashion;\r
-No earthly meat or drink can feed his passion;\r
-Its grasping greed no space can measure;\r
-Half-conscious and half-crazed, he finds no rest;\r
-The fairest stars of heaven must swell his treasure.\r
-Each highest joy of earth must yield its zest,\r
-Not all the world--the boundless azure--\r
-Can fill the void within his craving breast.\r
-\r
-_The Lord_. He serves me somewhat darkly, now, I grant,\r
-Yet will he soon attain the light of reason.\r
-Sees not the gardener, in the green young plant,\r
-That bloom and fruit shall deck its coming season?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. What will you bet? You'll surely lose your wager!\r
-If you will give me leave henceforth,\r
-To lead him softly on, like an old stager.\r
-\r
-_The Lord_. So long as he shall live on earth,\r
-Do with him all that you desire.\r
-Man errs and staggers from his birth.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Thank you; I never did aspire\r
-To have with dead folk much transaction.\r
-In full fresh cheeks I take the greatest satisfaction.\r
-A corpse will never find me in the house;\r
-I love to play as puss does with the mouse.\r
-\r
-_The Lord_. All right, I give thee full permission!\r
-Draw down this spirit from its source,\r
-And, canst thou catch him, to perdition\r
-Carry him with thee in thy course,\r
-But stand abashed, if thou must needs confess,\r
-That a good man, though passion blur his vision,\r
-Has of the right way still a consciousness.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Good! but I'll make it a short story.\r
-About my wager I'm by no means sorry.\r
-And if I gain my end with glory\r
-Allow me to exult from a full breast.\r
-Dust shall he eat and that with zest,\r
-Like my old aunt, the snake, whose fame is hoary.\r
-\r
-_The Lord_. Well, go and come, and make thy trial;\r
-The like of thee I never yet did hate.\r
-Of all the spirits of denial\r
-The scamp is he I best can tolerate.\r
-Man is too prone, at best, to seek the way that's easy,\r
-He soon grows fond of unconditioned rest;\r
-And therefore such a comrade suits him best,\r
-Who spurs and works, true devil, always busy.\r
-But you, true sons of God, in growing measure,\r
-Enjoy rich beauty's living stores of pleasure!\r
-The Word[3] divine that lives and works for aye,\r
-Fold you in boundless love's embrace alluring,\r
-And what in floating vision glides away,\r
-That seize ye and make fast with thoughts enduring.\r
-\r
-[_Heaven closes, the archangels disperse._]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles. [Alone.]_ I like at times to exchange with him a word,\r
-And take care not to break with him. 'Tis civil\r
-In the old fellow[4] and so great a Lord\r
-To talk so kindly with the very devil.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST.\r
-\r
-\r
- _Night. In a narrow high-arched Gothic room_,\r
- FAUST _sitting uneasy at his desk_.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Have now, alas! quite studied through\r
-Philosophy and Medicine,\r
-And Law, and ah! Theology, too,\r
-With hot desire the truth to win!\r
-And here, at last, I stand, poor fool!\r
-As wise as when I entered school;\r
-Am called Magister, Doctor, indeed,--\r
-Ten livelong years cease not to lead\r
-Backward and forward, to and fro,\r
-My scholars by the nose--and lo!\r
-Just nothing, I see, is the sum of our learning,\r
-To the very core of my heart 'tis burning.\r
-'Tis true I'm more clever than all the foplings,\r
-Doctors, Magisters, Authors, and Popelings;\r
-Am plagued by no scruple, nor doubt, nor cavil,\r
-Nor lingering fear of hell or devil--\r
-What then? all pleasure is fled forever;\r
-To know one thing I vainly endeavor,\r
-There's nothing wherein one fellow-creature\r
-Could be mended or bettered with me for a teacher.\r
-And then, too, nor goods nor gold have I,\r
-Nor fame nor worldly dignity,--\r
-A condition no dog could longer live in!\r
-And so to magic my soul I've given,\r
-If, haply, by spirits' mouth and might,\r
-Some mysteries may not be brought to light;\r
-That to teach, no longer may be my lot,\r
-With bitter sweat, what I need to be taught;\r
-That I may know what the world contains\r
-In its innermost heart and finer veins,\r
-See all its energies and seeds\r
-And deal no more in words but in deeds.\r
- O full, round Moon, didst thou but thine\r
-For the last time on this woe of mine!\r
-Thou whom so many a midnight I\r
-Have watched, at this desk, come up the sky:\r
-O'er books and papers, a dreary pile,\r
-Then, mournful friend! uprose thy smile!\r
-Oh that I might on the mountain-height,\r
-Walk in the noon of thy blessed light,\r
-Round mountain-caverns with spirits hover,\r
-Float in thy gleamings the meadows over,\r
-And freed from the fumes of a lore-crammed brain,\r
-Bathe in thy dew and be well again!\r
- Woe! and these walls still prison me?\r
-Dull, dismal hole! my curse on thee!\r
-Where heaven's own light, with its blessed beams,\r
-Through painted panes all sickly gleams!\r
-Hemmed in by these old book-piles tall,\r
-Which, gnawed by worms and deep in must,\r
-Rise to the roof against a wall\r
-Of smoke-stained paper, thick with dust;\r
-'Mid glasses, boxes, where eye can see,\r
-Filled with old, obsolete instruments,\r
-Stuffed with old heirlooms of implements--\r
-That is thy world! There's a world for thee!\r
- And still dost ask what stifles so\r
-The fluttering heart within thy breast?\r
-By what inexplicable woe\r
-The springs of life are all oppressed?\r
-Instead of living nature, where\r
-God made and planted men, his sons,\r
-Through smoke and mould, around thee stare\r
-Grim skeletons and dead men's bones.\r
- Up! Fly! Far out into the land!\r
-And this mysterious volume, see!\r
-By Nostradamus's[5] own hand,\r
-Is it not guide enough for thee?\r
-Then shalt thou thread the starry skies,\r
-And, taught by nature in her walks,\r
-The spirit's might shall o'er thee rise,\r
-As ghost to ghost familiar talks.\r
-Vain hope that mere dry sense should here\r
-Explain the holy signs to thee.\r
-I feel you, spirits, hovering near;\r
-Oh, if you hear me, answer me!\r
- [_He opens the book and beholds the sign of the Macrocosm.[_6]]\r
-Ha! as I gaze, what ecstasy is this,\r
-In one full tide through all my senses flowing!\r
-I feel a new-born life, a holy bliss\r
-Through nerves and veins mysteriously glowing.\r
-Was it a God who wrote each sign?\r
-Which, all my inner tumult stilling,\r
-And this poor heart with rapture filling,\r
-Reveals to me, by force divine,\r
-Great Nature's energies around and through me thrilling?\r
-Am I a God? It grows so bright to me!\r
-Each character on which my eye reposes\r
-Nature in act before my soul discloses.\r
-The sage's word was truth, at last I see:\r
-"The spirit-world, unbarred, is waiting;\r
-Thy sense is locked, thy heart is dead!\r
-Up, scholar, bathe, unhesitating,\r
-The earthly breast in morning-red!"\r
- [_He contemplates the sign._]\r
-How all one whole harmonious weaves,\r
-Each in the other works and lives!\r
-See heavenly powers ascending and descending,\r
-The golden buckets, one long line, extending!\r
-See them with bliss-exhaling pinions winging\r
-Their way from heaven through earth--their singing\r
-Harmonious through the universe is ringing!\r
- Majestic show! but ah! a show alone!\r
-Nature! where find I thee, immense, unknown?\r
-Where you, ye breasts? Ye founts all life sustaining,\r
-On which hang heaven and earth, and where\r
-Men's withered hearts their waste repair--\r
-Ye gush, ye nurse, and I must sit complaining?\r
- [_He opens reluctantly the book and sees the sign of the earth-spirit._]\r
-How differently works on me this sign!\r
-Thou, spirit of the earth, art to me nearer;\r
-I feel my powers already higher, clearer,\r
-I glow already as with new-pressed wine,\r
-I feel the mood to brave life's ceaseless clashing,\r
-To bear its frowning woes, its raptures flashing,\r
-To mingle in the tempest's dashing,\r
-And not to tremble in the shipwreck's crashing;\r
-Clouds gather o'er my head--\r
-Them moon conceals her light--\r
-The lamp goes out!\r
-It smokes!--Red rays are darting, quivering\r
-Around my head--comes down\r
-A horror from the vaulted roof\r
-And seizes me!\r
-Spirit that I invoked, thou near me art,\r
-Unveil thyself!\r
-Ha! what a tearing in my heart!\r
-Upheaved like an ocean\r
-My senses toss with strange emotion!\r
-I feel my heart to thee entirely given!\r
-Thou must! and though the price were life--were heaven!\r
- [_He seizes the book and pronounces mysteriously the sign of the spirit.\r
- A ruddy flame darts out, the spirit appears in the flame._]\r
-\r
-_Spirit_. Who calls upon me?\r
-\r
-_Faust. [Turning away.]_ Horrid sight!\r
-\r
-_Spirit_. Long have I felt the mighty action,\r
-Upon my sphere, of thy attraction,\r
-And now--\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Away, intolerable sprite!\r
-\r
-_Spirit_. Thou breath'st a panting supplication\r
-To hear my voice, my face to see;\r
-Thy mighty prayer prevails on me,\r
-I come!--what miserable agitation\r
-Seizes this demigod! Where is the cry of thought?\r
-Where is the breast? that in itself a world begot,\r
-And bore and cherished, that with joy did tremble\r
-And fondly dream us spirits to resemble.\r
-Where art thou, Faust? whose voice rang through my ear,\r
-Whose mighty yearning drew me from my sphere?\r
-Is this thing thou? that, blasted by my breath,\r
-Through all life's windings shuddereth,\r
-A shrinking, cringing, writhing worm!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thee, flame-born creature, shall I fear?\r
-'Tis I, 'tis Faust, behold thy peer!\r
-\r
-_Spirit_. In life's tide currents, in action's storm,\r
-Up and down, like a wave,\r
-Like the wind I sweep!\r
-Cradle and grave--\r
-A limitless deep---\r
-An endless weaving\r
-To and fro,\r
-A restless heaving\r
-Of life and glow,--\r
-So shape I, on Destiny's thundering loom,\r
-The Godhead's live garment, eternal in bloom.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Spirit that sweep'st the world from end to end,\r
-How near, this hour, I feel myself to thee!\r
-\r
-_Spirit_. Thou'rt like the spirit thou canst comprehend,\r
-Not me! [_Vanishes._]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. [_Collapsing_.] Not thee?\r
- Whom then?\r
- I, image of the Godhead,\r
- And no peer for thee!\r
- [_A knocking_.]\r
-O Death! I know it!--'tis my Famulus--\r
-Good-bye, ye dreams of bliss Elysian!\r
-Shame! that so many a glowing vision\r
-This dried-up sneak must scatter thus!\r
-\r
- [WAGNER, _in sleeping-gown and night-cap, a lamp in his hand._\r
- FAUST _turns round with an annoyed look_.]\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. Excuse me! you're engaged in declamation;\r
-'Twas a Greek tragedy no doubt you read?\r
-I in this art should like initiation,\r
-For nowadays it stands one well instead.\r
-I've often heard them boast, a preacher\r
-Might profit with a player for his teacher.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Yes, when the preacher is a player, granted:\r
-As often happens in our modern ways.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. Ah! when one with such love of study's haunted,\r
-And scarcely sees the world on holidays,\r
-And takes a spy-glass, as it were, to read it,\r
-How can one by persuasion hope to lead it?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What you don't feel, you'll never catch by hunting,\r
-It must gush out spontaneous from the soul,\r
-And with a fresh delight enchanting\r
-The hearts of all that hear control.\r
-Sit there forever! Thaw your glue-pot,--\r
-Blow up your ash-heap to a flame, and brew,\r
-With a dull fire, in your stew-pot,\r
-Of other men's leavings a ragout!\r
-Children and apes will gaze delighted,\r
-If their critiques can pleasure impart;\r
-But never a heart will be ignited,\r
-Comes not the spark from the speaker's heart.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. Delivery makes the orator's success;\r
-There I'm still far behindhand, I confess.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Seek honest gains, without pretence!\r
-Be not a cymbal-tinkling fool!\r
-Sound understanding and good sense\r
-Speak out with little art or rule;\r
-And when you've something earnest to utter,\r
-Why hunt for words in such a flutter?\r
-Yes, your discourses, that are so refined'\r
-In which humanity's poor shreds you frizzle,\r
-Are unrefreshing as the mist and wind\r
-That through the withered leaves of autumn whistle!\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. Ah God! well, art is long!\r
-And life is short and fleeting.\r
-What headaches have I felt and what heart-beating,\r
-When critical desire was strong.\r
-How hard it is the ways and means to master\r
-By which one gains each fountain-head!\r
-\r
-And ere one yet has half the journey sped,\r
-The poor fool dies--O sad disaster!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Is parchment, then, the holy well-spring, thinkest,\r
-A draught from which thy thirst forever slakes?\r
-No quickening element thou drinkest,\r
-Till up from thine own soul the fountain breaks.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. Excuse me! in these olden pages\r
-We catch the spirit of the by-gone ages,\r
-We see what wisest men before our day have thought,\r
-And to what glorious heights we their bequests have brought.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. O yes, we've reached the stars at last!\r
-My friend, it is to us,--the buried past,--\r
-A book with seven seals protected;\r
-Your spirit of the times is, then,\r
-At bottom, your own spirit, gentlemen,\r
-In which the times are seen reflected.\r
-And often such a mess that none can bear it;\r
-At the first sight of it they run away.\r
-A dust-bin and a lumber-garret,\r
-At most a mock-heroic play[8]\r
-With fine, pragmatic maxims teeming,\r
-The mouths of puppets well-beseeming!\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. But then the world! the heart and mind of man!\r
-To know of these who would not pay attention?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. To know them, yes, as weaklings can!\r
-Who dares the child's true name outright to mention?\r
-The few who any thing thereof have learned,\r
-Who out of their heart's fulness needs must gabble,\r
-And show their thoughts and feelings to the rabble,\r
-Have evermore been crucified and burned.\r
-I pray you, friend, 'tis wearing into night,\r
-Let us adjourn here, for the present.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. I had been glad to stay till morning light,\r
-This learned talk with you has been so pleasant,\r
-But the first day of Easter comes to-morrow.\r
-And then an hour or two I'll borrow.\r
-With zeal have I applied myself to learning,\r
-True, I know much, yet to know all am burning.\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. [_Alone_.] See how in _his_ head only, hope still lingers,\r
-Who evermore to empty rubbish clings,\r
-With greedy hand grubs after precious things,\r
-And leaps for joy when some poor worm he fingers!\r
- That such a human voice should dare intrude,\r
-Where all was full of ghostly tones and features!\r
-Yet ah! this once, my gratitude\r
-Is due to thee, most wretched of earth's creatures.\r
-Thou snatchedst me from the despairing state\r
-In which my senses, well nigh crazed, were sunken.\r
-The apparition was so giant-great,\r
-That to a very dwarf my soul had shrunken.\r
- I, godlike, who in fancy saw but now\r
-Eternal truth's fair glass in wondrous nearness,\r
-Rejoiced in heavenly radiance and clearness,\r
-Leaving the earthly man below;\r
-I, more than cherub, whose free force\r
-Dreamed, through the veins of nature penetrating,\r
-To taste the life of Gods, like them creating,\r
-Behold me this presumption expiating!\r
-A word of thunder sweeps me from my course.\r
- Myself with thee no longer dare I measure;\r
-Had I the power to draw thee down at pleasure;\r
-To hold thee here I still had not the force.\r
-Oh, in that blest, ecstatic hour,\r
-I felt myself so small, so great;\r
-Thou drovest me with cruel power\r
-Back upon man's uncertain fate\r
-What shall I do? what slum, thus lonely?\r
-That impulse must I, then, obey?\r
-Alas! our very deeds, and not our sufferings only,\r
-How do they hem and choke life's way!\r
- To all the mind conceives of great and glorious\r
-A strange and baser mixture still adheres;\r
-Striving for earthly good are we victorious?\r
-A dream and cheat the better part appears.\r
-The feelings that could once such noble life inspire\r
-Are quenched and trampled out in passion's mire.\r
- Where Fantasy, erewhile, with daring flight\r
-Out to the infinite her wings expanded,\r
-A little space can now suffice her quite,\r
-When hope on hope time's gulf has wrecked and stranded.\r
-Care builds her nest far down the heart's recesses,\r
-There broods o'er dark, untold distresses,\r
-Restless she sits, and scares thy joy and peace away;\r
-She puts on some new mask with each new day,\r
-Herself as house and home, as wife and child presenting,\r
-As fire and water, bane and blade;\r
-What never hits makes thee afraid,\r
-And what is never lost she keeps thee still lamenting.\r
- Not like the Gods am I! Too deep that truth is thrust!\r
-But like the worm, that wriggles through the dust;\r
-Who, as along the dust for food he feels,\r
-Is crushed and buried by the traveller's heels.\r
- Is it not dust that makes this lofty wall\r
-Groan with its hundred shelves and cases;\r
-The rubbish and the thousand trifles all\r
-That crowd these dark, moth-peopled places?\r
-Here shall my craving heart find rest?\r
-Must I perchance a thousand books turn over,\r
-To find that men are everywhere distrest,\r
-And here and there one happy one discover?\r
-Why grin'st thou down upon me, hollow skull?\r
-But that thy brain, like mine, once trembling, hoping,\r
-Sought the light day, yet ever sorrowful,\r
-Burned for the truth in vain, in twilight groping?\r
-Ye, instruments, of course, are mocking me;\r
-Its wheels, cogs, bands, and barrels each one praises.\r
-I waited at the door; you were the key;\r
-Your ward is nicely turned, and yet no bolt it raises.\r
-Unlifted in the broadest day,\r
-Doth Nature's veil from prying eyes defend her,\r
-And what (he chooses not before thee to display,\r
-Not all thy screws and levers can force her to surrender.\r
-Old trumpery! not that I e'er used thee, but\r
-Because my father used thee, hang'st thou o'er me,\r
-Old scroll! thou hast been stained with smoke and smut\r
-Since, on this desk, the lamp first dimly gleamed before me.\r
-Better have squandered, far, I now can clearly see,\r
-My little all, than melt beneath it, in this Tophet!\r
-That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee,\r
-Earn and become possessor of it!\r
-What profits not a weary load will be;\r
-What it brings forth alone can yield the moment profit.\r
- Why do I gaze as if a spell had bound me\r
-Up yonder? Is that flask a magnet to the eyes?\r
-What lovely light, so sudden, blooms around me?\r
-As when in nightly woods we hail the full-moon-rise.\r
- I greet thee, rarest phial, precious potion!\r
-As now I take thee down with deep devotion,\r
-In thee I venerate man's wit and art.\r
-Quintessence of all soporific flowers,\r
-Extract of all the finest deadly powers,\r
-Thy favor to thy master now impart!\r
-I look on thee, the sight my pain appeases,\r
-I handle thee, the strife of longing ceases,\r
-The flood-tide of the spirit ebbs away.\r
-Far out to sea I'm drawn, sweet voices listening,\r
-The glassy waters at my feet are glistening,\r
-To new shores beckons me a new-born day.\r
- A fiery chariot floats, on airy pinions,\r
-To where I sit! Willing, it beareth me,\r
-On a new path, through ether's blue dominions,\r
-To untried spheres of pure activity.\r
-This lofty life, this bliss elysian,\r
-Worm that thou waft erewhile, deservest thou?\r
-Ay, on this earthly sun, this charming vision,\r
-Turn thy back resolutely now!\r
-Boldly draw near and rend the gates asunder,\r
-By which each cowering mortal gladly steals.\r
-Now is the time to show by deeds of wonder\r
-That manly greatness not to godlike glory yields;\r
-Before that gloomy pit to stand, unfearing,\r
-Where Fantasy self-damned in its own torment lies,\r
-Still onward to that pass-way steering,\r
-Around whose narrow mouth hell-flames forever rise;\r
-Calmly to dare the step, serene, unshrinking,\r
-Though into nothingness the hour should see thee sinking.\r
- Now, then, come down from thy old case, I bid thee,\r
-Where thou, forgotten, many a year hast hid thee,\r
-Into thy master's hand, pure, crystal glass!\r
-The joy-feasts of the fathers thou hast brightened,\r
-The hearts of gravest guests were lightened,\r
-When, pledged, from hand to hand they saw thee pass.\r
-Thy sides, with many a curious type bedight,\r
-Which each, as with one draught he quaffed the liquor\r
-Must read in rhyme from off the wondrous beaker,\r
-Remind me, ah! of many a youthful night.\r
-I shall not hand thee now to any neighbor,\r
-Not now to show my wit upon thy carvings labor;\r
-Here is a juice of quick-intoxicating might.\r
-The rich brown flood adown thy sides is streaming,\r
-With my own choice ingredients teeming;\r
-Be this last draught, as morning now is gleaming,\r
-Drained as a lofty pledge to greet the festal light!\r
- [_He puts the goblet to his lips_.\r
-\r
-_Ringing of bells and choral song_.\r
-\r
-_Chorus of Angels_. Christ hath arisen!\r
- Joy to humanity!\r
- No more shall vanity,\r
- Death and inanity\r
- Hold thee in prison!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What hum of music, what a radiant tone,\r
-Thrills through me, from my lips the goblet stealing!\r
-Ye murmuring bells, already make ye known\r
-The Easter morn's first hour, with solemn pealing?\r
-Sing you, ye choirs, e'en now, the glad, consoling song,\r
-That once, from angel-lips, through gloom sepulchral rung,\r
-A new immortal covenant sealing?\r
-\r
-_Chorus of Women_. Spices we carried,\r
- Laid them upon his breast;\r
- Tenderly buried\r
- Him whom we loved the best;\r
-\r
- Cleanly to bind him\r
- Took we the fondest care,\r
- Ah! and we find him\r
- Now no more there.\r
-\r
-_Chorus of Angels_. Christ hath ascended!\r
- Reign in benignity!\r
- Pain and indignity,\r
- Scorn and malignity,\r
- _Their_ work have ended.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Why seek ye me in dust, forlorn,\r
-Ye heavenly tones, with soft enchanting?\r
-Go, greet pure-hearted men this holy morn!\r
-Your message well I hear, but faith to me is wanting;\r
-Wonder, its dearest child, of Faith is born.\r
-To yonder spheres I dare no more aspire,\r
-Whence the sweet tidings downward float;\r
-And yet, from childhood heard, the old, familiar note\r
-Calls back e'en now to life my warm desire.\r
-Ah! once how sweetly fell on me the kiss\r
-Of heavenly love in the still Sabbath stealing!\r
-Prophetically rang the bells with solemn pealing;\r
-A prayer was then the ecstasy of bliss;\r
-A blessed and mysterious yearning\r
-Drew me to roam through meadows, woods, and skies;\r
-And, midst a thousand tear-drops burning,\r
-I felt a world within me rise\r
-That strain, oh, how it speaks youth's gleesome plays and feelings,\r
-Joys of spring-festivals long past;\r
-Remembrance holds me now, with childhood's fond appealings,\r
-Back from the fatal step, the last.\r
-Sound on, ye heavenly strains, that bliss restore me!\r
-Tears gush, once more the spell of earth is o'er me\r
-\r
-_Chorus of Disciples_. Has the grave's lowly one\r
- Risen victorious?\r
- Sits he, God's Holy One,\r
- High-throned and glorious?\r
- He, in this blest new birth,\r
- Rapture creative knows;[9]\r
- Ah! on the breast of earth\r
- Taste we still nature's woes.\r
- Left here to languish\r
- Lone in a world like this,\r
- Fills us with anguish\r
- Master, thy bliss!\r
-\r
-_Chorus of Angels_. Christ has arisen\r
- Out of corruption's gloom.\r
- Break from your prison,\r
- Burst every tomb!\r
- Livingly owning him,\r
- Lovingly throning him,\r
- Feasting fraternally,\r
- Praying diurnally,\r
- Bearing his messages,\r
- Sharing his promises,\r
- Find ye your master near,\r
- Find ye him here![10]\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- BEFORE THE GATE.\r
-\r
- _Pedestrians of all descriptions stroll forth_.\r
-\r
-_Mechanics' Apprentices_. Where are you going to carouse?\r
-\r
-_Others_. We're all going out to the Hunter's House.\r
-\r
-_The First_. We're going, ourselves, out to the Mill-House, brothers.\r
-\r
-_An Apprentice_. The Fountain-House I rather recommend.\r
-\r
-_Second_. 'Tis not a pleasant road, my friend.\r
-\r
-_The second group_. What will you do, then?\r
-\r
-_A Third_. I go with the others.\r
-\r
-_Fourth_. Come up to Burgdorf, there you're sure to find good cheer,\r
-The handsomest of girls and best of beer,\r
-And rows, too, of the very first water.\r
-\r
-_Fifth_. You monstrous madcap, does your skin\r
-Itch for the third time to try that inn?\r
-I've had enough for _my_ taste in that quarter.\r
-\r
-_Servant-girl_. No! I'm going back again to town for one.\r
-\r
-_Others_. Under those poplars we are sure to meet him.\r
-\r
-_First Girl_. But that for me is no great fun;\r
-For you are always sure to get him,\r
-He never dances with any but you.\r
-Great good to me your luck will do!\r
-\r
-_Others_. He's not alone, I heard him say,\r
-The curly-head would be with him to-day.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. Stars! how the buxom wenches stride there!\r
-Quick, brother! we must fasten alongside there.\r
-Strong beer, good smart tobacco, and the waist\r
-Of a right handsome gall, well rigg'd, now that's my taste.\r
-\r
-_Citizen's Daughter_. Do see those fine, young fellows yonder!\r
-'Tis, I declare, a great disgrace;\r
-When they might have the very best, I wonder,\r
-After these galls they needs must race!\r
-\r
-_Second scholar_ [_to the first_].\r
-Stop! not so fast! there come two more behind,\r
-My eyes! but ain't they dressed up neatly?\r
-One is my neighbor, or I'm blind;\r
-I love the girl, she looks so sweetly.\r
-Alone all quietly they go,\r
-You'll find they'll take us, by and bye, in tow.\r
-\r
-_First_. No, brother! I don't like these starched up ways.\r
-Make haste! before the game slips through our fingers.\r
-The hand that swings the broom o' Saturdays\r
-On Sundays round thy neck most sweetly lingers.\r
-\r
-_Citizen_. No, I don't like at all this new-made burgomaster!\r
-His insolence grows daily ever faster.\r
-No good from him the town will get!\r
-Will things grow better with him? Never!\r
-We're under more constraint than ever,\r
-And pay more tax than ever yet.\r
-\r
-_Beggar_. [_Sings_.] Good gentlemen, and you, fair ladies,\r
- With such red cheeks and handsome dress,\r
- Think what my melancholy trade is,\r
- And see and pity my distress!\r
- Help the poor harper, sisters, brothers!\r
- Who loves to give, alone is gay.\r
- This day, a holiday to others,\r
- Make it for me a harvest day.\r
-\r
-_Another citizen_.\r
-Sundays and holidays, I like, of all things, a good prattle\r
-Of war and fighting, and the whole array,\r
-When back in Turkey, far away,\r
-The peoples give each other battle.\r
-One stands before the window, drinks his glass,\r
-And sees the ships with flags glide slowly down the river;\r
-Comes home at night, when out of sight they pass,\r
-And sings with joy, "Oh, peace forever!"\r
-\r
-_Third citizen_. So I say, neighbor! let them have their way,\r
-Crack skulls and in their crazy riot\r
-Turn all things upside down they may,\r
-But leave us here in peace and quiet.\r
-\r
-_Old Woman_ [_to the citizen's daughter_].\r
-Heyday, brave prinking this! the fine young blood!\r
-Who is not smitten that has met you?--\r
-But not so proud! All very good!\r
-And what you want I'll promise soon to get you.\r
-\r
-_Citizen's Daughter_. Come, Agatha! I dread in public sight\r
-To prattle with such hags; don't stay, O, Luddy!\r
-'Tis true she showed me, on St. Andrew's night,\r
-My future sweetheart in the body.\r
-\r
-_The other_. She showed me mine, too, in a glass,\r
-Right soldierlike, with daring comrades round him.\r
-I look all round, I study all that pass,\r
-But to this hour I have not found him.\r
-\r
-_Soldiers_. Castles with lowering\r
- Bulwarks and towers,\r
- Maidens with towering\r
- Passions and powers,\r
- Both shall be ours!\r
- Daring the venture,\r
- Glorious the pay!\r
-\r
- When the brass trumpet\r
- Summons us loudly,\r
- Joy-ward or death-ward,\r
- On we march proudly.\r
- That is a storming!\r
-\r
- Life in its splendor!\r
- Castles and maidens\r
- Both must surrender.\r
- Daring the venture,\r
- Glorious the pay.\r
- There go the soldiers\r
- Marching away!\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST _and_ WAGNER.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Spring's warm look has unfettered the fountains,\r
-Brooks go tinkling with silvery feet;\r
-Hope's bright blossoms the valley greet;\r
-Weakly and sickly up the rough mountains\r
-Pale old Winter has made his retreat.\r
-Thence he launches, in sheer despite,\r
-Sleet and hail in impotent showers,\r
-O'er the green lawn as he takes his flight;\r
-But the sun will suffer no white,\r
-Everywhere waking the formative powers,\r
-Living colors he yearns to spread;\r
-Yet, as he finds it too early for flowers,\r
-Gayly dressed people he takes instead.\r
-Look from this height whereon we find us\r
-Back to the town we have left behind us,\r
-Where from the dark and narrow door\r
-Forth a motley multitude pour.\r
-They sun themselves gladly and all are gay,\r
-They celebrate Christ's resurrection to-day.\r
-For have not they themselves arisen?\r
-From smoky huts and hovels and stables,\r
-From labor's bonds and traffic's prison,\r
-From the confinement of roofs and gables,\r
-From many a cramping street and alley,\r
-From churches full of the old world's night,\r
-All have come out to the day's broad light.\r
-See, only see! how the masses sally\r
-Streaming and swarming through gardens and fields\r
-How the broad stream that bathes the valley\r
-Is everywhere cut with pleasure boats' keels,\r
-And that last skiff, so heavily laden,\r
-Almost to sinking, puts off in the stream;\r
-Ribbons and jewels of youngster and maiden\r
-From the far paths of the mountain gleam.\r
-How it hums o'er the fields and clangs from the steeple!\r
-This is the real heaven of the people,\r
-Both great and little are merry and gay,\r
-I am a man, too, I can be, to-day.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. With you, Sir Doctor, to go out walking\r
-Is at all times honor and gain enough;\r
-But to trust myself here alone would be shocking,\r
-For I am a foe to all that is rough.\r
-Fiddling and bowling and screams and laughter\r
-To me are the hatefullest noises on earth;\r
-They yell as if Satan himself were after,\r
-And call it music and call it mirth.\r
-\r
- [_Peasants (under the linden). Dance and song._]\r
-\r
-The shepherd prinked him for the dance,\r
-With jacket gay and spangle's glance,\r
-And all his finest quiddle.\r
-And round the linden lass and lad\r
-They wheeled and whirled and danced like mad.\r
-Huzza! huzza!\r
-Huzza! Ha, ha, ha!\r
-And tweedle-dee went the fiddle.\r
-\r
-And in he bounded through the whirl,\r
-And with his elbow punched a girl,\r
-Heigh diddle, diddle!\r
-The buxom wench she turned round quick,\r
-"Now that I call a scurvy trick!"\r
-Huzza! huzza!\r
-Huzza! ha, ha, ha!\r
-Tweedle-dee, tweedle-dee went the fiddle.\r
-\r
-And petticoats and coat-tails flew\r
-As up and down they went, and through,\r
-Across and down the middle.\r
-They all grew red, they all grew warm,\r
-And rested, panting, arm in arm,\r
-Huzza! huzza!\r
-Ta-ra-la!\r
-Tweedle-dee went the fiddle!\r
-\r
-"And don't be so familiar there!\r
-How many a one, with speeches fair,\r
-His trusting maid will diddle!"\r
-But still he flattered her aside--\r
-And from the linden sounded wide:\r
-Huzza! huzza!\r
-Huzza! huzza! ha! ha! ha!\r
-And tweedle-dee the fiddle.\r
-\r
-_Old Peasant._ Sir Doctor, this is kind of you,\r
-That with us here you deign to talk,\r
-And through the crowd of folk to-day\r
-A man so highly larned, walk.\r
-So take the fairest pitcher here,\r
-Which we with freshest drink have filled,\r
-I pledge it to you, praying aloud\r
-That, while your thirst thereby is stilled,\r
-So many days as the drops it contains\r
-May fill out the life that to you remains.\r
-\r
-_Faust._ I take the quickening draught and call\r
-For heaven's best blessing on one and all.\r
-\r
- [_The people form a circle round him._]\r
-\r
-_Old Peasant._ Your presence with us, this glad day,\r
-We take it very kind, indeed!\r
-In truth we've found you long ere this\r
-In evil days a friend in need!\r
-Full many a one stands living here,\r
-Whom, at death's door already laid,\r
-Your father snatched from fever's rage,\r
-When, by his skill, the plague he stayed.\r
-You, a young man, we daily saw\r
-Go with him to the pest-house then,\r
-And many a corpse was carried forth,\r
-But you came out alive again.\r
-With a charmed life you passed before us,\r
-Helped by the Helper watching o'er us.\r
-\r
-_All._ The well-tried man, and may he live,\r
-Long years a helping hand to give!\r
-\r
-_Faust._ Bow down to Him on high who sends\r
-His heavenly help and helping friends!\r
- [_He goes on with_ WAGNER.]\r
-\r
-_Wagner._ What feelings, O great man, thy heart must swell\r
-Thus to receive a people's veneration!\r
-O worthy all congratulation,\r
-Whose gifts to such advantage tell.\r
-The father to his son shows thee with exultation,\r
-All run and crowd and ask, the circle closer draws,\r
-The fiddle stops, the dancers pause,\r
-Thou goest--the lines fall back for thee.\r
-They fling their gay-decked caps on high;\r
-A little more and they would bow the knee\r
-As if the blessed Host came by.\r
-\r
-_Faust._ A few steps further on, until we reach that stone;\r
-There will we rest us from our wandering.\r
-How oft in prayer and penance there alone,\r
-Fasting, I sate, on holy mysteries pondering.\r
-There, rich in hope, in faith still firm,\r
-I've wept, sighed, wrung my hands and striven\r
-This plague's removal to extort (poor worm!)\r
-From the almighty Lord of Heaven.\r
-The crowd's applause has now a scornful tone;\r
-O couldst thou hear my conscience tell its story,\r
-How little either sire or son\r
-Has done to merit such a glory!\r
-My father was a worthy man, confused\r
-And darkened with his narrow lucubrations,\r
-Who with a whimsical, though well-meant patience,\r
-On Nature's holy circles mused.\r
-Shut up in his black laboratory,\r
-Experimenting without end,\r
-'Midst his adepts, till he grew hoary,\r
-He sought the opposing powers to blend.\r
-Thus, a red lion,[11] a bold suitor, married\r
-The silver lily, in the lukewarm bath,\r
-And, from one bride-bed to another harried,\r
-The two were seen to fly before the flaming wrath.\r
-If then, with colors gay and splendid,\r
-The glass the youthful queen revealed,\r
-Here was the physic, death the patients' sufferings ended,\r
-And no one asked, who then was healed?\r
-Thus, with electuaries so satanic,\r
-Worse than the plague with all its panic,\r
-We rioted through hill and vale;\r
-Myself, with my own hands, the drug to thousands giving,\r
-They passed away, and I am living\r
-To hear men's thanks the murderers hail!\r
-\r
-_Wagner._ Forbear! far other name that service merits!\r
-Can a brave man do more or less\r
-Than with nice conscientiousness\r
-To exercise the calling he inherits?\r
-If thou, as youth, thy father honorest,\r
-To learn from him thou wilt desire;\r
-If thou, as man, men with new light hast blest,\r
-Then may thy son to loftier heights aspire.\r
-\r
-_Faust._ O blest! who hopes to find repose,\r
-Up from this mighty sea of error diving!\r
-Man cannot use what he already knows,\r
-To use the unknown ever striving.\r
-But let not such dark thoughts a shadow throw\r
-O'er the bright joy this hour inspires!\r
-See how the setting sun, with ruddy glow,\r
-The green-embosomed hamlet fires!\r
-He sinks and fades, the day is lived and gone,\r
-He hastens forth new scenes of life to waken.\r
-O for a wing to lift and bear me on,\r
-And on, to where his last rays beckon!\r
-Then should I see the world's calm breast\r
-In everlasting sunset glowing,\r
-The summits all on fire, each valley steeped in rest,\r
-The silver brook to golden rivers flowing.\r
-No savage mountain climbing to the skies\r
-Should stay the godlike course with wild abysses;\r
-And now the sea, with sheltering, warm recesses\r
-Spreads out before the astonished eyes.\r
-At last it seems as if the God were sinking;\r
-But a new impulse fires the mind,\r
-Onward I speed, his endless glory drinking,\r
-The day before me and the night behind,\r
-The heavens above my head and under me the ocean.\r
-A lovely dream,--meanwhile he's gone from sight.\r
-Ah! sure, no earthly wing, in swiftest flight,\r
-May with the spirit's wings hold equal motion.\r
-Yet has each soul an inborn feeling\r
-Impelling it to mount and soar away,\r
-When, lost in heaven's blue depths, the lark is pealing\r
-High overhead her airy lay;\r
-When o'er the mountain pine's black shadow,\r
-With outspread wing the eagle sweeps,\r
-And, steering on o'er lake and meadow,\r
-The crane his homeward journey keeps.\r
-\r
-_Wagner._ I've had myself full many a wayward hour,\r
-But never yet felt such a passion's power.\r
-One soon grows tired of field and wood and brook,\r
-I envy not the fowl of heaven his pinions.\r
-Far nobler joy to soar through thought's dominions\r
-From page to page, from book to book!\r
-Ah! winter nights, so dear to mind and soul!\r
-Warm, blissful life through all the limbs is thrilling,\r
-And when thy hands unfold a genuine ancient scroll,\r
-It seems as if all heaven the room were filling.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. One passion only has thy heart possessed;\r
-The other, friend, O, learn it never!\r
-Two souls, alas! are lodged in my wild breast,\r
-Which evermore opposing ways endeavor,\r
-The one lives only on the joys of time,\r
-Still to the world with clamp-like organs clinging;\r
-The other leaves this earthly dust and slime,\r
-To fields of sainted sires up-springing.\r
-O, are there spirits in the air,\r
-That empire hold 'twixt earth's and heaven's dominions,\r
-Down from your realm of golden haze repair,\r
-Waft me to new, rich life, upon your rosy pinions!\r
-Ay! were a magic mantle only mine,\r
-To soar o'er earth's wide wildernesses,\r
-I would not sell it for the costliest dresses,\r
-Not for a royal robe the gift resign.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. O, call them not, the well known powers of air,\r
-That swarm through all the middle kingdom, weaving\r
-Their fairy webs, with many a fatal snare\r
-The feeble race of men deceiving.\r
-First, the sharp spirit-tooth, from out the North,\r
-And arrowy tongues and fangs come thickly flying;\r
-Then from the East they greedily dart forth,\r
-Sucking thy lungs, thy life-juice drying;\r
-If from the South they come with fever thirst,\r
-Upon thy head noon's fiery splendors heaping;\r
-The Westwind brings a swarm, refreshing first,\r
-Then all thy world with thee in stupor steeping.\r
-They listen gladly, aye on mischief bent,\r
-Gladly draw near, each weak point to espy,\r
-They make believe that they from heaven are sent,\r
-Whispering like angels, while they lie.\r
-But let us go! The earth looks gray, my friend,\r
-The air grows cool, the mists ascend!\r
-At night we learn our homes to prize.--\r
-Why dost thou stop and stare with all thy eyes?\r
-What can so chain thy sight there, in the gloaming?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Seest thou that black dog through stalks and stubble roaming?\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. I saw him some time since, he seemed not strange to me.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Look sharply! What dost take the beast to be?\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. For some poor poodle who has lost his master,\r
-And, dog-like, scents him o'er the ground.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Markst thou how, ever nearer, ever faster,\r
-Towards us his spiral track wheels round and round?\r
-And if my senses suffer no confusion,\r
-Behind him trails a fiery glare.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. 'Tis probably an optical illusion;\r
-I still see only a black poodle there.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. He seems to me as he were tracing slyly\r
-His magic rings our feet at last to snare.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. To me he seems to dart around our steps so shyly,\r
-As if he said: is one of them my master there?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. The circle narrows, he is near!\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. Thou seest! a dog we have, no spectre, here!\r
-He growls and stops, crawls on his belly, too,\r
-And wags his tail,--as all dogs do.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Come here, sir! come, our comrade be!\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. He has a poodle's drollery.\r
-Stand still, and he, too, waits to see;\r
-Speak to him, and he jumps on thee;\r
-Lose something, drop thy cane or sling it\r
-Into the stream, he'll run and bring it.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I think you're right; I trace no spirit here,\r
-'Tis all the fruit of training, that is clear.\r
-\r
-_Wagner_. A well-trained dog is a great treasure,\r
-Wise men in such will oft take pleasure.\r
-And he deserves your favor and a collar,\r
-He, of the students the accomplished scholar.\r
-\r
- [_They go in through the town gate._]\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- STUDY-CHAMBER.\r
-\r
- _Enter_ FAUST _with the_ POODLE.\r
-\r
-\r
-I leave behind me field and meadow\r
-Veiled in the dusk of holy night,\r
-Whose ominous and awful shadow\r
-Awakes the better soul to light.\r
-To sleep are lulled the wild desires,\r
-The hand of passion lies at rest;\r
-The love of man the bosom fires,\r
-The love of God stirs up the breast.\r
-\r
-Be quiet, poodle! what worrisome fiend hath possest thee,\r
-Nosing and snuffling so round the door?\r
-Go behind the stove there and rest thee,\r
-There's my best pillow--what wouldst thou more?\r
-As, out on the mountain-paths, frisking and leaping,\r
-Thou, to amuse us, hast done thy best,\r
-So now in return lie still in my keeping,\r
-A quiet, contented, and welcome guest.\r
-\r
-When, in our narrow chamber, nightly,\r
-The friendly lamp begins to burn,\r
-Then in the bosom thought beams brightly,\r
-Homeward the heart will then return.\r
-Reason once more bids passion ponder,\r
-Hope blooms again and smiles on man;\r
-Back to life's rills he yearns to wander,\r
-Ah! to the source where life began.\r
-\r
-Stop growling, poodle! In the music Elysian\r
-That laps my soul at this holy hour,\r
-These bestial noises have jarring power.\r
-We know that men will treat with derision\r
-Whatever they cannot understand,\r
-At goodness and truth and beauty's vision\r
-Will shut their eyes and murmur and howl at it;\r
-And must the dog, too, snarl and growl at it?\r
-\r
-But ah, with the best will, I feel already,\r
-No peace will well up in me, clear and steady.\r
-But why must hope so soon deceive us,\r
-And the dried-up stream in fever leave us?\r
-For in this I have had a full probation.\r
-And yet for this want a supply is provided,\r
-To a higher than earth the soul is guided,\r
-We are ready and yearn for revelation:\r
-And where are its light and warmth so blent\r
-As here in the New Testament?\r
-I feel, this moment, a mighty yearning\r
-To expound for once the ground text of all,\r
-The venerable original\r
-Into my own loved German honestly turning.\r
- [_He opens the volume, and applies himself to the task_.]\r
-"In the beginning was the _Word_." I read.\r
-But here I stick! Who helps me to proceed?\r
-The _Word_--so high I cannot--dare not, rate it,\r
-I must, then, otherwise translate it,\r
-If by the spirit I am rightly taught.\r
-It reads: "In the beginning was the _thought_."\r
-But study well this first line's lesson,\r
-Nor let thy pen to error overhasten!\r
-Is it the _thought_ does all from time's first hour?\r
-"In the beginning," read then, "was the _power_."\r
-Yet even while I write it down, my finger\r
-Is checked, a voice forbids me there to linger.\r
-The spirit helps! At once I dare to read\r
-And write: "In the beginning was the _deed_."\r
-\r
-If I with thee must share my chamber,\r
-Poodle, now, remember,\r
-No more howling,\r
-No more growling!\r
-I had as lief a bull should bellow,\r
-As have for a chum such a noisy fellow.\r
-Stop that yell, now,\r
-One of us must quit this cell now!\r
-'Tis hard to retract hospitality,\r
-But the door is open, thy way is free.\r
-But what ails the creature?\r
-Is this in the course of nature?\r
-Is it real? or one of Fancy's shows?\r
-\r
-How long and broad my poodle grows!\r
-He rises from the ground;\r
-That is no longer the form of a hound!\r
-Heaven avert the curse from us!\r
-He looks like a hippopotamus,\r
-With his fiery eyes and the terrible white\r
-Of his grinning teeth! oh what a fright\r
-Have I brought with me into the house! Ah now,\r
-No mystery art thou!\r
-Methinks for such half hellish brood\r
-The key of Solomon were good.\r
-\r
-_Spirits_ [_in the passage_]. Softly! a fellow is caught there!\r
- Keep back, all of you, follow him not there!\r
- Like the fox in the trap,\r
- Mourns the old hell-lynx his mishap.\r
- But give ye good heed!\r
- This way hover, that way hover,\r
- Over and over,\r
- And he shall right soon be freed.\r
- Help can you give him,\r
- O do not leave him!\r
- Many good turns he's done us,\r
- Many a fortune won us.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. First, to encounter the creature\r
-By the spell of the Four, says the teacher:\r
- Salamander shall glisten,[12]\r
- Undina lapse lightly,\r
- Sylph vanish brightly,\r
- Kobold quick listen.\r
-\r
-He to whom Nature\r
-Shows not, as teacher,\r
-Every force\r
-And secret source,\r
-Over the spirits\r
-No power inherits.\r
-\r
- Vanish in glowing\r
- Flame, Salamander!\r
- Inward, spirally flowing,\r
- Gurgle, Undine!\r
- Gleam in meteoric splendor,\r
- Airy Queen!\r
- Thy homely help render,\r
- Incubus! Incubus!\r
- Forth and end the charm for us!\r
-\r
-No kingdom of Nature\r
-Resides in the creature.\r
-He lies there grinning--'tis clear, my charm\r
-Has done the monster no mite of harm.\r
-I'll try, for thy curing,\r
-Stronger adjuring.\r
-\r
- Art thou a jail-bird,\r
- A runaway hell-bird?\r
- This sign,[13] then--adore it!\r
- They tremble before it\r
- All through the dark dwelling.\r
-\r
-His hair is bristling--his body swelling.\r
-\r
- Reprobate creature!\r
- Canst read his nature?\r
- The Uncreated,\r
- Ineffably Holy,\r
- With Deity mated,\r
- Sin's victim lowly?\r
-\r
-Driven behind the stove by my spells,\r
-Like an elephant he swells;\r
-He fills the whole room, so huge he's grown,\r
-He waxes shadowy faster and faster.\r
-Rise not up to the ceiling--down!\r
-Lay thyself at the feet of thy master!\r
-Thou seest, there's reason to dread my ire.\r
-I'll scorch thee with the holy fire!\r
-Wait not for the sight\r
-Of the thrice-glowing light!\r
-Wait not to feel the might\r
-Of the potentest spell in all my treasure!\r
-\r
-\r
- MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
- [_As the mist sinks, steps forth from behind the stove,\r
- dressed as a travelling scholasticus_.]\r
-Why all this noise? What is your worship's pleasure?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. This was the poodle's essence then!\r
-A travelling clark? Ha! ha! The casus is too funny.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I bow to the most learned among men!\r
-'Faith you did sweat me without ceremony.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What is thy name?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The question seems too small\r
-For one who holds the _word_ so very cheaply,\r
-Who, far removed from shadows all,\r
-For substances alone seeks deeply.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. With gentlemen like him in my presence,\r
-The name is apt to express the essence,\r
-Especially if, when you inquire,\r
-You find it God of flies,[14] Destroyer, Slanderer, Liar.\r
-Well now, who art thou then?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. A portion of that power,\r
-Which wills the bad and works the good at every hour.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Beneath thy riddle-word what meaning lies?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I am the spirit that denies!\r
-And justly so; for all that time creates,\r
-He does well who annihilates!\r
-Better, it ne'er had had beginning;\r
-And so, then, all that you call sinning,\r
-Destruction,--all you pronounce ill-meant,--\r
-Is my original element.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thou call'st thyself a part, yet lookst complete to me.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I speak the modest truth to thee.\r
-A world of folly in one little soul,\r
-_Man_ loves to think himself a whole;\r
-Part of the part am I, which once was all, the Gloom\r
-That brought forth Light itself from out her mighty womb,\r
-The upstart proud, that now with mother Night\r
-Disputes her ancient rank and space and right,\r
-Yet never shall prevail, since, do whate'er he will,\r
-He cleaves, a slave, to bodies still;\r
-From bodies flows, makes bodies fair to sight;\r
-A body in his course can check him,\r
-His doom, I therefore hope, will soon o'ertake him,\r
-With bodies merged in nothingness and night.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Ah, now I see thy high vocation!\r
-In gross thou canst not harm creation,\r
-And so in small hast now begun.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. And, truth to tell, e'en here, not much have done.\r
-That which at nothing the gauntlet has hurled,\r
-This, what's its name? this clumsy world,\r
-So far as I have undertaken,\r
-I have to own, remains unshaken\r
-By wave, storm, earthquake, fiery brand.\r
-Calm, after all, remain both sea and land.\r
-And the damn'd living fluff, of man and beast the brood,\r
-It laughs to scorn my utmost power.\r
-I've buried myriads by the hour,\r
-And still there circulates each hour a new, fresh blood.\r
-It were enough to drive one to distraction!\r
-Earth, water, air, in constant action,\r
-Through moist and dry, through warm and cold,\r
-Going forth in endless germination!\r
-Had I not claimed of fire a reservation,\r
-Not one thing I alone should hold.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thus, with the ever-working power\r
-Of good dost thou in strife persist,\r
-And in vain malice, to this hour,\r
-Clenchest thy cold and devilish fist!\r
-Go try some other occupation,\r
-Singular son of Chaos, thou!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. We'll give the thing consideration,\r
-When next we meet again! But now\r
-Might I for once, with leave retire?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Why thou shouldst ask I do not see.\r
-Now that I know thee, when desire\r
-Shall prompt thee, freely visit me.\r
-Window and door give free admission.\r
-At least there's left the chimney flue.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Let me confess there's one small prohibition\r
-\r
-Lies on thy threshold, 'gainst my walking through,\r
-The wizard-foot--[15]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Does that delay thee?\r
-The Pentagram disturbs thee? Now,\r
-Come tell me, son of hell, I pray thee,\r
-If that spell-binds thee, then how enteredst thou?\r
-_Thou_ shouldst proceed more circumspectly!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Mark well! the figure is not drawn correctly;\r
-One of the angles, 'tis the outer one,\r
-Is somewhat open, dost perceive it?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. That was a lucky hit, believe it!\r
-And I have caught thee then? Well done!\r
-'Twas wholly chance--I'm quite astounded!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The _poodle_ took no heed,\r
-as through the door he bounded;\r
-The case looks differently now;\r
-The _devil_ can leave the house no-how.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. The window offers free emission.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Devils and ghosts are bound by this condition:\r
-\r
-The way they entered in, they must come out. Allow\r
-In the first clause we're free, yet not so in the second.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. In hell itself, then, laws are reckoned?\r
-Now that I like; so then, one may, in fact,\r
-Conclude a binding compact with you gentry?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Whatever promise on our books finds entry,\r
-We strictly carry into act.\r
-But hereby hangs a grave condition,\r
-Of this we'll talk when next we meet;\r
-But for the present I entreat\r
-Most urgently your kind dismission.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Do stay but just one moment longer, then,\r
-Tell me good news and I'll release thee.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Let me go now! I'll soon come back again,\r
-Then may'st thou ask whate'er shall please thee.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I laid no snare for thee, old chap!\r
-Thou shouldst have watched and saved thy bacon.\r
-Who has the devil in his trap\r
-Must hold him fast, next time he'll not so soon be taken.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Well, if it please thee, I'm content to stay\r
-For company, on one condition,\r
-That I, for thy amusement, may\r
-To exercise my arts have free permission.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I gladly grant it, if they be\r
-Not disagreeable to me.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Thy senses, friend, in this one hour\r
-Shall grasp the world with clearer power\r
-Than in a year's monotony.\r
-The songs the tender spirits sing thee,\r
-The lovely images they bring thee\r
-Are not an idle magic play.\r
-Thou shalt enjoy the daintiest savor,\r
-Then feast thy taste on richest flavor,\r
-Then thy charmed heart shall melt away.\r
-Come, all are here, and all have been\r
-Well trained and practised, now begin!\r
-\r
-_Spirits_. Vanish, ye gloomy\r
- Vaulted abysses!\r
- Tenderer, clearer,\r
- Friendlier, nearer,\r
- Ether, look through!\r
- O that the darkling\r
- Cloud-piles were riven!\r
- Starlight is sparkling,\r
- Purer is heaven,\r
- Holier sunshine\r
- Softens the blue.\r
- Graces, adorning\r
- Sons of the morning--\r
- Shadowy wavings--\r
- Float along over;\r
- Yearnings and cravings\r
- After them hover.\r
- Garments ethereal,\r
- Tresses aerial,\r
- Float o'er the flowers,\r
- Float o'er the bowers,\r
- Where, with deep feeling,\r
- Thoughtful and tender,\r
- Lovers, embracing,\r
- Life-vows are sealing.\r
- Bowers on bowers!\r
- Graceful and slender\r
- Vines interlacing!\r
- Purple and blushing,\r
- Under the crushing\r
- Wine-presses gushing,\r
- Grape-blood, o'erflowing,\r
- Down over gleaming\r
- Precious stones streaming,\r
- Leaves the bright glowing\r
- Tops of the mountains,\r
- Leaves the red fountains,\r
- Widening and rushing,\r
- Till it encloses\r
- Green hills all flushing,\r
- Laden with roses.\r
- Happy ones, swarming,\r
- Ply their swift pinions,\r
- Glide through the charming\r
- Airy dominions,\r
- Sunward still fleering,\r
- Onward, where peering\r
- Far o'er the ocean,\r
- Islets are dancing\r
- With an entrancing,\r
- Magical motion;\r
- Hear them, in chorus,\r
- Singing high o'er us;\r
- Over the meadows\r
- Flit the bright shadows;\r
- Glad eyes are glancing,\r
- Tiny feet dancing.\r
- Up the high ridges\r
- Some of them clamber,\r
- Others are skimming\r
- Sky-lakes of amber,\r
- Others are swimming\r
- Over the ocean;--\r
- All are in motion,\r
- Life-ward all yearning,\r
- Longingly turning\r
- To the far-burning\r
- Star-light of bliss.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. He sleeps! Ye airy, tender youths, your numbers\r
-Have sung him into sweetest slumbers!\r
-You put me greatly in your debt by this.\r
-Thou art not yet the man that shall hold fast the devil!\r
-Still cheat his senses with your magic revel,\r
-Drown him in dreams of endless youth;\r
-But this charm-mountain on the sill to level,\r
-I need, O rat, thy pointed tooth!\r
-Nor need I conjure long, they're near me,\r
-E'en now comes scampering one, who presently will hear me.\r
-\r
-The sovereign lord of rats and mice,\r
-Of flies and frogs and bugs and lice,\r
-Commands thee to come forth this hour,\r
-And gnaw this threshold with great power,\r
-As he with oil the same shall smear--\r
-Ha! with a skip e'en now thou'rt here!\r
-But brisk to work! The point by which I'm cowered,\r
-Is on the ledge, the farthest forward.\r
-Yet one more bite, the deed is done.--\r
-Now, Faust, until we meet again, dream on!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. [_Waking_.] Again has witchcraft triumphed o'er me?\r
-Was it a ghostly show, so soon withdrawn?\r
-I dream, the devil stands himself before me--wake, to find a poodle gone!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- STUDY-CHAMBER.\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-\r
-_Faust_. A knock? Walk in! Who comes again to tease me?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. 'Tis I.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Come in!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Must say it thrice, to please me.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Come in then!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. That I like to hear.\r
-We shall, I hope, bear with each other;\r
-For to dispel thy crotchets, brother,\r
-As a young lord, I now appear,\r
-In scarlet dress, trimmed with gold lacing,\r
-A stiff silk cloak with stylish facing,\r
-A tall cock's feather in my hat,\r
-A long, sharp rapier to defend me,\r
-And I advise thee, short and flat,\r
-In the same costume to attend me;\r
-If thou wouldst, unembarrassed, see\r
-What sort of thing this life may be.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. In every dress I well may feel the sore\r
-Of this low earth-life's melancholy.\r
-I am too old to live for folly,\r
-Too young, to wish for nothing more.\r
-Am I content with all creation?\r
-Renounce! renounce! Renunciation--\r
-Such is the everlasting song\r
-That in the ears of all men rings,\r
-Which every hour, our whole life long,\r
-With brazen accents hoarsely sings.\r
-With terror I behold each morning's light,\r
-With bitter tears my eyes are filling,\r
-To see the day that shall not in its flight\r
-Fulfil for me one wish, not one, but killing\r
-Every presentiment of zest\r
-With wayward skepticism, chases\r
-The fair creations from my breast\r
-With all life's thousand cold grimaces.\r
-And when at night I stretch me on my bed\r
-And darkness spreads its shadow o'er me;\r
-No rest comes then anigh my weary head,\r
-Wild dreams and spectres dance before me.\r
-The God who dwells within my soul\r
-Can heave its depths at any hour;\r
-Who holds o'er all my faculties control\r
-Has o'er the outer world no power;\r
-Existence lies a load upon my breast,\r
-Life is a curse and death a long'd-for rest.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. And yet death never proves a wholly welcome guest.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. O blest! for whom, when victory's joy fire blazes,\r
-Death round his brow the bloody laurel windeth,\r
-Whom, weary with the dance's mazes,\r
-He on a maiden's bosom findeth.\r
-O that, beneath the exalted spirit's power,\r
-I had expired, in rapture sinking!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. And yet I knew one, in a midnight hour,\r
-Who a brown liquid shrank from drinking.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Eaves-dropping seems a favorite game with thee.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Omniscient am I not; yet much is known to me.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Since that sweet tone, with fond appealing,\r
-Drew me from witchcraft's horrid maze,\r
-And woke the lingering childlike feeling\r
-With harmonies of happier days;\r
-My curse on all the mock-creations\r
-That weave their spell around the soul,\r
-And bind it with their incantations\r
-And orgies to this wretched hole!\r
-Accursed be the high opinion\r
-Hugged by the self-exalting mind!\r
-Accursed all the dream-dominion\r
-That makes the dazzled senses blind!\r
-Curs'd be each vision that befools us,\r
-Of fame, outlasting earthly life!\r
-Curs'd all that, as possession, rules us,\r
-As house and barn, as child and wife!\r
-Accurs'd be mammon, when with treasure\r
-He fires our hearts for deeds of might,\r
-When, for a dream of idle pleasure,\r
-He makes our pillow smooth and light!\r
-Curs'd be the grape-vine's balsam-juices!\r
-On love's high grace my curses fall!\r
-On faith! On hope that man seduces,\r
-On patience last, not least, of all!\r
-\r
-_Choir of spirits_. [_Invisible_.] Woe! Woe!\r
- Thou hast ground it to dust,\r
- The beautiful world,\r
- With mighty fist;\r
- To ruins 'tis hurled;\r
- A demi-god's blow hath done it!\r
- A moment we look upon it,\r
- Then carry (sad duty!)\r
- The fragments over into nothingness,\r
- With tears unavailing\r
- Bewailing\r
- All the departed beauty.\r
- Lordlier\r
- Than all sons of men,\r
- Proudlier\r
- Build it again,\r
- Build it up in thy breast anew!\r
- A fresh career pursue,\r
- Before thee\r
- A clearer view,\r
- And, from the Empyréan,\r
- A new-born Paean\r
- Shall greet thee, too!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Be pleased to admire\r
- My juvenile choir!\r
- Hear how they counsel in manly measure\r
- Action and pleasure!\r
- Out into life,\r
- Its joy and strife,\r
- Away from this lonely hole,\r
- Where senses and soul\r
- Rot in stagnation,\r
- Calls thee their high invitation.\r
-\r
-Give over toying with thy sorrow\r
-Which like a vulture feeds upon thy heart;\r
-Thou shalt, in the worst company, to-morrow\r
-Feel that with men a man thou art.\r
-Yet I do not exactly intend\r
-Among the canaille to plant thee.\r
-I'm none of your magnates, I grant thee;\r
-Yet if thou art willing, my friend,\r
-Through life to jog on beside me,\r
-Thy pleasure in all things shall guide me,\r
-To thee will I bind me,\r
-A friend thou shalt find me,\r
-And, e'en to the grave,\r
-Shalt make me thy servant, make me thy slave!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And in return what service shall I render?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. There's ample grace--no hurry, not the least.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. No, no, the devil is an egotist,\r
-And does not easily "for God's sake" tender\r
-That which a neighbor may assist.\r
-Speak plainly the conditions, come!\r
-'Tis dangerous taking such a servant home.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I to thy service _here_ agree to bind me,\r
-To run and never rest at call of thee;\r
-When _over yonder_ thou shalt find me,\r
-Then thou shalt do as much for me.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I care not much what's over yonder:\r
-When thou hast knocked this world asunder,\r
-Come if it will the other may!\r
-Up from this earth my pleasures all are streaming,\r
-Down on my woes this earthly sun is beaming;\r
-Let me but end this fit of dreaming,\r
-Then come what will, I've nought to say.\r
-I'll hear no more of barren wonder\r
-If in that world they hate and love,\r
-And whether in that future yonder\r
-There's a Below and an Above.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles._ In such a mood thou well mayst venture.\r
-Bind thyself to me, and by this indenture\r
-Thou shalt enjoy with relish keen\r
-Fruits of my arts that man had never seen.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And what hast thou to give, poor devil?\r
-Was e'er a human mind, upon its lofty level,\r
-Conceived of by the like of thee?\r
-Yet hast thou food that brings satiety,\r
-Not satisfaction; gold that reftlessly,\r
-Like quicksilver, melts down within\r
-The hands; a game in which men never win;\r
-A maid that, hanging on my breast,\r
-Ogles a neighbor with her wanton glances;\r
-Of fame the glorious godlike zest,\r
-That like a short-lived meteor dances--\r
-Show me the fruit that, ere it's plucked, will rot,\r
-And trees from which new green is daily peeping!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Such a requirement scares me not;\r
-Such treasures have I in my keeping.\r
-Yet shall there also come a time, good friend,\r
-When we may feast on good things at our leisure.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. If e'er I lie content upon a lounge of pleasure--\r
-Then let there be of me an end!\r
-When thou with flattery canst cajole me,\r
-Till I self-satisfied shall be,\r
-When thou with pleasure canst befool me,\r
-Be that the last of days for me!\r
-I lay the wager!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Done!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And heartily!\r
-Whenever to the passing hour\r
-I cry: O stay! thou art so fair!\r
-To chain me down I give thee power\r
-To the black bottom of despair!\r
-Then let my knell no longer linger,\r
-Then from my service thou art free,\r
-Fall from the clock the index-finger,\r
-Be time all over, then, for me!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Think well, for we shall hold you to the letter.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Full right to that just now I gave;\r
-I spoke not as an idle braggart better.\r
-Henceforward I remain a slave,\r
-What care I who puts on the setter?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I shall this very day, at Doctor's-feast,[16]\r
-My bounden service duly pay thee.\r
-But one thing!--For insurance' sake, I pray thee,\r
-Grant me a line or two, at least.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Pedant! will writing gain thy faith, alone?\r
-In all thy life, no man, nor man's word hast thou known?\r
-Is't not enough that I the fatal word\r
-That passes on my future days have spoken?\r
-The world-stream raves and rushes (hast not heard?)\r
-And shall a promise hold, unbroken?\r
-Yet this delusion haunts the human breast,\r
-Who from his soul its roots would sever?\r
-Thrice happy in whose heart pure truth finds rest.\r
-No sacrifice shall he repent of ever!\r
-But from a formal, written, sealed attest,\r
-As from a spectre, all men shrink forever.\r
-The word and spirit die together,\r
-Killed by the sight of wax and leather.\r
-What wilt thou, evil sprite, from me?\r
-Brass, marble, parchment, paper, shall it be?\r
-Shall I subscribe with pencil, pen or graver?\r
-Among them all thy choice is free.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. This rhetoric of thine to me\r
-Hath a somewhat bombastic savor.\r
-Any small scrap of paper's good.\r
-Thy signature will need a single drop of blood.[17]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. If this will satisfy thy mood,\r
-I will consent thy whim to favor.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles._ Quite a peculiar juice is blood.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Fear not that I shall break this bond; O, never!\r
-My promise, rightly understood,\r
-Fulfils my nature's whole endeavor.\r
-I've puffed myself too high, I see;\r
-To _thy_ rank only I belong.\r
-The Lord of Spirits scorneth me,\r
-Nature, shut up, resents the wrong.\r
-The thread of thought is snapt asunder,\r
-All science to me is a stupid blunder.\r
-Let us in sensuality's deep\r
-Quench the passions within us blazing!\r
-And, the veil of sorcery raising,\r
-Wake each miracle from its long sleep!\r
-Plunge we into the billowy dance,\r
-The rush and roll of time and chance!\r
-Then may pleasure and distress,\r
-Disappointment and success,\r
-Follow each other as fast as they will;\r
-Man's restless activity flourishes still.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. No bound or goal is set to you;\r
-Where'er you like to wander sipping,\r
-And catch a tit-bit in your skipping,\r
-Eschew all coyness, just fall to,\r
-And may you find a good digestion!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Now, once for all, pleasure is not the question.\r
-I'm sworn to passion's whirl, the agony of bliss,\r
-The lover's hate, the sweets of bitterness.\r
-My heart, no more by pride of science driven,\r
-Shall open wide to let each sorrow enter,\r
-And all the good that to man's race is given,\r
-I will enjoy it to my being's centre,\r
-Through life's whole range, upward and downward sweeping,\r
-Their weal and woe upon my bosom heaping,\r
-Thus in my single self their selves all comprehending\r
-And with them in a common shipwreck ending.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. O trust me, who since first I fell from heaven,\r
-Have chewed this tough meat many a thousand year,\r
-No man digests the ancient leaven,\r
-No mortal, from the cradle to the bier.\r
-Trust one of _us_--the _whole_ creation\r
-To God alone belongs by right;\r
-_He_ has in endless day his habitation,\r
-_Us_ He hath made for utter night,\r
-_You_ for alternate dark and light.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. But then I _will!_\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Now that's worth hearing!\r
-But one thing haunts me, the old song,\r
-That time is short and art is long.\r
-You need some slight advice, I'm fearing.\r
-Take to you one of the poet-feather,\r
-Let the gentleman's thought, far-sweeping,\r
-Bring all the noblest traits together,\r
-On your one crown their honors heaping,\r
-The lion's mood\r
-The stag's rapidity,\r
-The fiery blood of Italy,\r
-The Northman's hardihood.\r
-Bid him teach thee the art of combining\r
-Greatness of soul with fly designing,\r
-And how, with warm and youthful passion,\r
-To fall in love by plan and fashion.\r
-Should like, myself, to come across 'm,\r
-Would name him Mr. Microcosm.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What am I then? if that for which my heart\r
-Yearns with invincible endeavor,\r
-The crown of man, must hang unreached forever?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Thou art at last--just what thou art.\r
-Pile perukes on thy head whose curls cannot be counted,\r
-On yard-high buskins let thy feet be mounted,\r
-Still thou art only what thou art.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Yes, I have vainly, let me not deny it,\r
-Of human learning ransacked all the stores,\r
-And when, at last, I set me down in quiet,\r
-There gushes up within no new-born force;\r
-I am not by a hair's-breadth higher,\r
-Am to the Infinite no nigher.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. My worthy sir, you see the matter\r
-As people generally see;\r
-But we must learn to take things better,\r
-Before life pleasures wholly flee.\r
-The deuce! thy head and all that's in it,\r
-Hands, feet and ------ are thine;\r
-What I enjoy with zest each minute,\r
-Is surely not the less mine?\r
-If I've six horses in my span,\r
-Is it not mine, their every power?\r
-I fly along as an undoubted man,\r
-On four and twenty legs the road I scour.\r
-Cheer up, then! let all thinking be,\r
-And out into the world with me!\r
-I tell thee, friend, a speculating churl\r
-Is like a beast, some evil spirit chases\r
-Along a barren heath in one perpetual whirl,\r
-While round about lie fair, green pasturing places.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. But how shall we begin?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. We sally forth e'en now.\r
-What martyrdom endurest thou!\r
-What kind of life is this to be living,\r
-Ennui to thyself and youngsters giving?\r
-Let Neighbor Belly that way go!\r
-To stay here threshing straw why car'st thou?\r
-The best that thou canst think and know\r
-To tell the boys not for the whole world dar'st thou.\r
-E'en now I hear one in the entry.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I have no heart the youth to see.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The poor boy waits there like a sentry,\r
-He shall not want a word from me.\r
-Come, give me, now, thy robe and bonnet;\r
-This mask will suit me charmingly.\r
- [_He puts them on_.]\r
-Now for my wit--rely upon it!\r
-'Twill take but fifteen minutes, I am sure.\r
-Meanwhile prepare thyself to make the pleasant tour!\r
-\r
- [_Exit_ FAUST.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [in_ FAUST'S _long gown_].\r
-Only despise all human wit and lore,\r
-The highest flights that thought can soar--\r
-Let but the lying spirit blind thee,\r
-And with his spells of witchcraft bind thee,\r
-Into my snare the victim creeps.--\r
-To him has destiny a spirit given,\r
-That unrestrainedly still onward sweeps,\r
-To scale the skies long since hath striven,\r
-And all earth's pleasures overleaps.\r
-He shall through life's wild scenes be driven,\r
-And through its flat unmeaningness,\r
-I'll make him writhe and stare and stiffen,\r
-And midst all sensual excess,\r
-His fevered lips, with thirst all parched and riven,\r
-Insatiably shall haunt refreshment's brink;\r
-And had he not, himself, his soul to Satan given,\r
-Still must he to perdition sink!\r
-\r
- [_Enter_ A SCHOLAR.]\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. I have but lately left my home,\r
-And with profound submission come,\r
-To hold with one some conversation\r
-Whom all men name with veneration.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles._ Your courtesy greatly flatters me\r
-A man like many another you see.\r
-Have you made any applications elsewhere?\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. Let me, I pray, your teachings share!\r
-With all good dispositions I come,\r
-A fresh young blood and money some;\r
-My mother would hardly hear of my going;\r
-But I long to learn here something worth knowing.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. You've come to the very place for it, then.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. Sincerely, could wish I were off again:\r
-My soul already has grown quite weary\r
-Of walls and halls, so dark and dreary,\r
-The narrowness oppresses me.\r
-One sees no green thing, not a tree.\r
-On the lecture-seats, I know not what ails me,\r
-Sight, hearing, thinking, every thing fails me.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. 'Tis all in use, we daily see.\r
-The child takes not the mother's breast\r
-In the first instance willingly,\r
-But soon it feeds itself with zest.\r
-So you at wisdom's breast your pleasure\r
-Will daily find in growing measure.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. I'll hang upon her neck, a raptured wooer,\r
-But only tell me, who shall lead me to her?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ere you go further, give your views\r
-As to which faculty you choose?\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. To be right learn'd I've long desired,\r
-And of the natural world aspired\r
-To have a perfect comprehension\r
-In this and in the heavenly sphere.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I see you're on the right track here;\r
-But you'll have to give undivided attention.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. My heart and soul in the work'll be found;\r
-Only, of course, it would give me pleasure,\r
-When summer holidays come round,\r
-To have for amusement a little leisure.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Use well the precious time, it flips away so,\r
-Yet method gains you time, if I may say so.\r
-I counsel you therefore, my worthy friend,\r
-The logical leisures first to attend.\r
-Then is your mind well trained and cased\r
-In Spanish boots,[18] all snugly laced,\r
-So that henceforth it can creep ahead\r
-On the road of thought with a cautious tread.\r
-And not at random shoot and strike,\r
-Zig-zagging Jack-o'-lanthorn-like.\r
-Then will you many a day be taught\r
-That what you once to do had thought\r
-Like eating and drinking, extempore,\r
-Requires the rule of one, two, three.\r
-It is, to be sure, with the fabric of thought,\r
-As with the _chef d'œuvre_ by weavers wrought,\r
-Where a thousand threads one treadle plies,\r
-Backward and forward the shuttles keep going,\r
-Invisibly the threads keep flowing,\r
-One stroke a thousand fastenings ties:\r
-Comes the philosopher and cries:\r
-I'll show you, it could not be otherwise:\r
-The first being so, the second so,\r
-The third and fourth must of course be so;\r
-And were not the first and second, you see,\r
-The third and fourth could never be.\r
-The scholars everywhere call this clever,\r
-But none have yet become weavers ever.\r
-Whoever will know a live thing and expound it,\r
-First kills out the spirit it had when he found it,\r
-And then the parts are all in his hand,\r
-Minus only the spiritual band!\r
-Encheiresin naturæ's[19] the chemical name,\r
-By which dunces themselves unwittingly shame.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. Cannot entirely comprehend you.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Better success will shortly attend you,\r
-When you learn to analyze all creation\r
-And give it a proper classification.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. I feel as confused by all you've said,\r
-As if 'twere a mill-wheel going round in my head!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The next thing most important to mention,\r
-Metaphysics will claim your attention!\r
-There see that you can clearly explain\r
-What fits not into the human brain:\r
-For that which will not go into the head,\r
-A pompous word will stand you in stead.\r
-But, this half-year, at least, observe\r
-From regularity never to swerve.\r
-You'll have five lectures every day;\r
-Be in at the stroke of the bell I pray!\r
-And well prepared in every part;\r
-Study each paragraph by heart,\r
-So that you scarce may need to look\r
-To see that he says no more than's in the book;\r
-And when he dictates, be at your post,\r
-As if you wrote for the Holy Ghost!\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. That caution is unnecessary!\r
-I know it profits one to write,\r
-For what one has in black and white,\r
-He to his home can safely carry.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. But choose some faculty, I pray!\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. I feel a strong dislike to try the legal college.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I cannot blame you much, I must acknowledge.\r
-I know how this profession stands to-day.\r
-Statutes and laws through all the ages\r
-Like a transmitted malady you trace;\r
-In every generation still it rages\r
-And softly creeps from place to place.\r
-Reason is nonsense, right an impudent suggestion;\r
-Alas for thee, that thou a grandson art!\r
-Of inborn law in which each man has part,\r
-Of that, unfortunately, there's no question.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. My loathing grows beneath your speech.\r
-O happy he whom you shall teach!\r
-To try theology I'm almost minded.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I must not let you by zeal be blinded.\r
-This is a science through whose field\r
-Nine out of ten in the wrong road will blunder,\r
-And in it so much poison lies concealed,\r
-That mould you this mistake for physic, no great wonder.\r
-Here also it were best, if only one you heard\r
-And swore to that one master's word.\r
-Upon the whole--words only heed you!\r
-These through the temple door will lead you\r
-Safe to the shrine of certainty.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. Yet in the word a thought must surely be.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. All right! But one must not perplex himself about it;\r
-For just where one must go without it,\r
-The word comes in, a friend in need, to thee.\r
-With words can one dispute most featly,\r
-With words build up a system neatly,\r
-In words thy faith may stand unshaken,\r
-From words there can be no iota taken.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. Forgive my keeping you with many questions,\r
-Yet must I trouble you once more,\r
-Will you not give me, on the score\r
-Of medicine, some brief suggestions?\r
-Three years are a short time, O God!\r
-And then the field is quite too broad.\r
-If one had only before his nose\r
-Something else as a hint to follow!--\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_aside_]. I'm heartily tired of this dry prose,\r
-Must play the devil again out hollow.\r
- [_Aloud_.]\r
-The healing art is quickly comprehended;\r
-Through great and little world you look abroad,\r
-And let it wag, when all is ended,\r
-As pleases God.\r
-Vain is it that your science sweeps the skies,\r
-Each, after all, learns only what he can;\r
-Who grasps the moment as it flies\r
-He is the real man.\r
-Your person somewhat takes the eye,\r
-Boldness you'll find an easy science,\r
-And if you on yourself rely,\r
-Others on you will place reliance.\r
-In the women's good graces seek first to be seated;\r
-Their oh's and ah's, well known of old,\r
-So thousand-fold,\r
-Are all from a single point to be treated;\r
-Be decently modest and then with ease\r
-You may get the blind side of them when you please.\r
-A title, first, their confidence must waken,\r
-That _your_ art many another art transcends,\r
-Then may you, lucky man, on all those trifles reckon\r
-For which another years of groping spends:\r
-Know how to press the little pulse that dances,\r
-And fearlessly, with sly and fiery glances,\r
-Clasp the dear creatures round the waist\r
-To see how tightly they are laced.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. This promises! One loves the How and Where to see!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Gray, worthy friend, is all your theory\r
-And green the golden tree of life.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. I seem,\r
-I swear to you, like one who walks in dream.\r
-Might I another time, without encroaching,\r
-Hear you the deepest things of wisdom broaching?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. So far as I have power, you may.\r
-\r
-_Scholar_. I cannot tear myself away,\r
-Till I to you my album have presented.\r
-Grant me one line and I'm contented!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. With pleasure.\r
- [_Writes and returns it_.]\r
-\r
-_Scholar [reads]._ Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum.\r
- [_Shuts it reverently, and bows himself out_.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_.\r
-Let but the brave old saw and my aunt, the serpent, guide thee,\r
-And, with thy likeness to God, shall woe one day betide thee!\r
-\r
-_Faust [enters_]. Which way now shall we go?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Which way it pleases thee.\r
-The little world and then the great we see.\r
-O with what gain, as well as pleasure,\r
-Wilt thou the rollicking cursus measure!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I fear the easy life and free\r
-With my long beard will scarce agree.\r
-'Tis vain for me to think of succeeding,\r
-I never could learn what is called good-breeding.\r
-In the presence of others I feel so small;\r
-I never can be at my ease at all.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Dear friend, vain trouble to yourself you're giving;\r
-Whence once you trust yourself, you know the art of living.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. But how are we to start, I pray?\r
-Where are thy servants, coach and horses?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. We spread the mantle, and away\r
-It bears us on our airy courses.\r
-But, on this bold excursion, thou\r
-Must take no great portmanteau now.\r
-A little oxygen, which I will soon make ready,\r
-From earth uplifts us, quick and steady.\r
-And if we're light, we'll soon surmount the sphere;\r
-I give thee hearty joy in this thy new career.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- AUERBACH'S CELLAR IN LEIPSIC.[20]\r
-\r
- _Carousal of Jolly Companions_.\r
-\r
-\r
-_Frosch_.[21] Will nobody drink? Stop those grimaces!\r
-I'll teach you how to be cutting your faces!\r
-Laugh out! You're like wet straw to-day,\r
-And blaze, at other times, like dry hay.\r
-\r
-_Brander_. 'Tis all your fault; no food for fun you bring,\r
-Not a nonsensical nor nasty thing.\r
-\r
-_Frosch [dashes a glass of wine over his bead_]. There you have both!\r
-\r
-_Brander_. You hog twice o'er!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. You wanted it, what would you more?\r
-\r
-_Siebel_ Out of the door with them that brawl!\r
-Strike up a round; swill, shout there, one and all!\r
-Wake up! Hurra!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Woe's me, I'm lost! Bring cotton!\r
-The rascal splits my ear-drum.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. Only shout on!\r
-When all the arches ring and yell,\r
-Then does the base make felt its true ground-swell.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. That's right, just throw him out, who undertakes to fret!\r
-A! tara! lara da!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. A! tara! lara da!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Our whistles all are wet.\r
- [_Sings_.]\r
- The dear old holy Romish realm,\r
- What holds it still together?\r
-\r
-_Brander_. A sorry song! Fie! a political song!\r
-A tiresome song! Thank God each morning therefor,\r
-That you have not the Romish realm to care for!\r
-At least I count it a great gain that He\r
-Kaiser nor chancellor has made of me.\r
-E'en we can't do without a head, however;\r
-To choose a pope let us endeavour.\r
-You know what qualification throws\r
-The casting vote and the true man shows.\r
-\r
-_Frosch [sings_].\r
- Lady Nightingale, upward soar,\r
- Greet me my darling ten thousand times o'er.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. No greetings to that girl! Who does so, I resent it!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. A greeting and a kiss! And you will not prevent it!\r
- [_Sings.]_\r
- Draw the bolts! the night is clear.\r
- Draw the bolts! Love watches near.\r
- Close the bolts! the dawn is here.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. Ay, sing away and praise and glorify your dear!\r
-Soon I shall have my time for laughter.\r
-The jade has jilted me, and will you too hereafter;\r
-May Kobold, for a lover, be her luck!\r
-At night may he upon the cross-way meet her;\r
-Or, coming from the Blocksberg, some old buck\r
-May, as he gallops by, a good-night bleat her!\r
-A fellow fine of real flesh and blood\r
-Is for the wench a deal too good.\r
-She'll get from me but one love-token,\r
-That is to have her window broken!\r
-\r
-_Brander [striking on the table_]. Attend! attend! To me give ear!\r
-I know what's life, ye gents, confess it:\r
-We've lovesick people sitting near,\r
-And it is proper they should hear\r
-A good-night strain as well as I can dress it.\r
-Give heed! And hear a bran-new song!\r
-Join in the chorus loud and strong!\r
- [_He sings_.]\r
- A rat in the cellar had built his nest,\r
- He daily grew sleeker and smoother,\r
- He lined his paunch from larder and chest,\r
- And was portly as Doctor Luther.\r
- The cook had set him poison one day;\r
- From that time forward he pined away\r
- As if he had love in his body.\r
-\r
-_Chorus [flouting_]. As if he had love in his body.\r
-\r
-_Brander_. He raced about with a terrible touse,\r
- From all the puddles went swilling,\r
- He gnawed and he scratched all over the house,\r
- His pain there was no stilling;\r
- He made full many a jump of distress,\r
- And soon the poor beast got enough, I guess,\r
- As if he had love in his body.\r
-\r
-_Chorus_. As if he had love in his body.\r
-\r
-_Brander_. With pain he ran, in open day,\r
- Right up into the kitchen;\r
- He fell on the hearth and there he lay\r
- Gasping and moaning and twitchin'.\r
- Then laughed the poisoner: "He! he! he!\r
- He's piping on the last hole," said she,\r
- "As if he had love in his body."\r
-\r
-_Chorus_. As if he had love in his body.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. Just hear now how the ninnies giggle!\r
-That's what I call a genuine art,\r
-To make poor rats with poison wriggle!\r
-\r
-_Brander_. You take their case so much to heart?\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. The bald pate and the butter-belly!\r
-The sad tale makes him mild and tame;\r
-He sees in the swollen rat, poor fellow!\r
-His own true likeness set in a frame.\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST _and_ MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Now, first of all, 'tis necessary\r
-To show you people making merry,\r
-That you may see how lightly life can run.\r
-Each day to this small folk's a feast of fun;\r
-Not over-witty, self-contented,\r
-Still round and round in circle-dance they whirl,\r
-As with their tails young kittens twirl.\r
-If with no headache they're tormented,\r
-Nor dunned by landlord for his pay,\r
-They're careless, unconcerned, and gay.\r
-\r
-_Brander_. They're fresh from travel, one might know it,\r
-Their air and manner plainly show it;\r
-They came here not an hour ago.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Thou verily art right! My Leipsic well I know!\r
-Paris in small it is, and cultivates its people.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. What do the strangers seem to thee?\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Just let me go! When wine our friendship mellows,\r
-Easy as drawing a child's tooth 'twill be\r
-To worm their secrets out of these two fellows.\r
-They're of a noble house, I dare to swear,\r
-They have a proud and discontented air.\r
-\r
-_Brander_. They're mountebanks, I'll bet a dollar!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Perhaps.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. I'll smoke them, mark you that!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_to Faust_]. These people never smell the old rat,\r
-E'en when he has them by the collar.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Fair greeting to you, sirs!\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. The same, and thanks to boot.\r
- [_In a low tone, faking a side look at MEPHISTOPHELES_.]\r
-Why has the churl one halting foot?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. With your permission, shall we make one party?\r
-Instead of a good drink, which get here no one can,\r
-Good company must make us hearty.\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. You seem a very fastidious man.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. I think you spent some time at Rippach[22] lately?\r
-You supped with Mister Hans not long since, I dare say?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. We passed him on the road today!\r
-Fine man! it grieved us parting with him, greatly.\r
-He'd much to say to us about his cousins,\r
-And sent to each, through us, his compliments by dozens.\r
- [_He bows to_ FROSCH.]\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_ [_softly_]. You've got it there! he takes!\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. The chap don't want for wit!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. I'll have him next time, wait a bit!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. If I mistook not, didn't we hear\r
-Some well-trained voices chorus singing?\r
-'Faith, music must sound finely here.\r
-From all these echoing arches ringing!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. You are perhaps a connoisseur?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. O no! my powers are small, I'm but an amateur.\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Give us a song!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. As many's you desire.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. But let it be a bran-new strain!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. No fear of that! We've just come back from Spain,\r
-The lovely land of wine and song and lyre.\r
- [_Sings_.]\r
- There was a king, right stately,\r
- Who had a great, big flea,--\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Hear him! A flea! D'ye take there, boys? A flea!\r
-I call that genteel company.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_resumes_]. There was a king, right stately,\r
- Who had a great, big flea,\r
- And loved him very greatly,\r
- As if his own son were he.\r
- He called the knight of stitches;\r
- The tailor came straightway:\r
- Ho! measure the youngster for breeches,\r
- And make him a coat to-day!\r
-\r
-_Brander_. But don't forget to charge the knight of stitches,\r
-The measure carefully to take,\r
-And, as he loves his precious neck,\r
-To leave no wrinkles in the breeches.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. In silk and velvet splendid\r
- The creature now was drest,\r
- To his coat were ribbons appended,\r
- A cross was on his breast.\r
- He had a great star on his collar,\r
- Was a minister, in short;\r
- And his relatives, greater and smaller,\r
- Became great people at court.\r
-\r
- The lords and ladies of honor\r
- Fared worse than if they were hung,\r
- The queen, she got them upon her,\r
- And all were bitten and stung,\r
- And did not dare to attack them,\r
- Nor scratch, but let them stick.\r
- We choke them and we crack them\r
- The moment we feel one prick.\r
-\r
-_Chorus_ [_loud_]. We choke 'em and we crack 'em\r
-The moment we feel one prick.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Bravo! Bravo! That was fine!\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. So shall each flea his life resign!\r
-\r
-_Brander_. Point your fingers and nip them fine!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Hurra for Liberty! Hurra for Wine!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I'd pledge the goddess, too, to show how high I set her,\r
-Right gladly, if your wines were just a trifle better.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. Don't say that thing again, you fretter!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Did I not fear the landlord to affront;\r
-I'd show these worthy guests this minute\r
-What kind of stuff our stock has in it.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. Just bring it on! I'll bear the brunt.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Give us a brimming glass, our praise shall then be ample,\r
-But don't dole out too small a sample;\r
-For if I'm to judge and criticize,\r
-I need a good mouthful to make me wise.\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_ [_softly_]. They're from the Rhine, as near as I can make it.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Bring us a gimlet here!\r
-\r
-_Brander_. What shall be done with that?\r
-You've not the casks before the door, I take it?\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. The landlord's tool-chest there is easily got at.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_takes the gimlet_] (_to Frosch_).\r
-What will you have? It costs but speaking.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. How do you mean? Have you so many kinds?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Enough to suit all sorts of minds.\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Aha! old sot, your lips already licking!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Well, then! if I must choose, let Rhine-wine fill my beaker,\r
-Our fatherland supplies the noblest liquor.\r
-\r
- MEPHISTOPHELES\r
- [_boring a hole in the rim of the table near the place\r
- where_ FROSCH _sits_].\r
-Get us a little wax right off to make the stoppers!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Ah, these are jugglers' tricks, and whappers!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_to Brander_]. And you?\r
-\r
-_Brander_. Champaigne's the wine for me,\r
-But then right sparkling it must be!\r
-\r
- [MEPHISTOPHELES _bores; meanwhile one of them has made\r
- the wax-stoppers and stopped the holes_.]\r
-\r
-_Brander_. Hankerings for foreign things will sometimes haunt you,\r
-The good so far one often finds;\r
-Your real German man can't bear the French, I grant you,\r
-And yet will gladly drink their wines.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_ [_while Mephistopheles approaches his seat_].\r
-I don't like sour, it sets my mouth awry,\r
-Let mine have real sweetness in it!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_bores_]. Well, you shall have Tokay this minute.\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. No, sirs, just look me in the eye!\r
-I see through this, 'tis what the chaps call smoking.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Come now! That would be serious joking,\r
-To make so free with worthy men.\r
-But quickly now! Speak out again!\r
-With what description can I serve you?\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Wait not to ask; with any, then.\r
-\r
- [_After all the holes are bored and stopped_.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_with singular gestures_].\r
-From the vine-stock grapes we pluck;\r
-Horns grow on the buck;\r
-Wine is juicy, the wooden table,\r
-Like wooden vines, to give wine is able.\r
-An eye for nature's depths receive!\r
-Here is a miracle, only believe!\r
-Now draw the plugs and drink your fill!\r
-\r
- ALL\r
- [_drawing the stoppers, and catching each in his glass\r
- the wine he had desired_].\r
-Sweet spring, that yields us what we will!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Only be careful not a drop to spill!\r
- [_They drink repeatedly_.]\r
-\r
-_All_ [_sing_]. We're happy all as cannibals,\r
- Five hundred hogs together.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Look at them now, they're happy as can be!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. To go would suit my inclination.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. But first give heed, their bestiality\r
-Will make a glorious demonstration.\r
-\r
- SIEBEL\r
- [_drinks carelessly; the wine is spilt upon the ground\r
- and turns to flame_].\r
-Help! fire! Ho! Help! The flames of hell!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [_conjuring the flame_].\r
-Peace, friendly element, be still!\r
- [_To the Toper_.]\r
-This time 'twas but a drop of fire from purgatory.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. What does this mean? Wait there, or you'll be sorry!\r
-It seems you do not know us well.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Not twice, in this way, will it do to joke us!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. I vote, we give him leave himself here _scarce_ to make.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. What, sir! How dare you undertake\r
-To carry on here your old hocus-pocus?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Be still, old wine-cask!\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. Broomstick, you!\r
-Insult to injury add? Confound you!\r
-\r
-_Brander_. Stop there! Or blows shall rain down round you!\r
-\r
- ALTMAYER\r
- [_draws a stopper out of the table; fire flies at him_].\r
-I burn! I burn!\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. Foul sorcery! Shame!\r
-Lay on! the rascal is fair game!\r
-\r
- [_They draw their knives and rush at_ MEPHISTOPHELES.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_with a serious mien_].\r
-Word and shape of air!\r
-Change place, new meaning wear!\r
-Be here--and there!\r
-\r
- [_They stand astounded and look at each other_.]\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Where am I? What a charming land!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Vine hills! My eyes! Is't true?\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. And grapes, too, close at hand!\r
-\r
-_Brander_. Beneath this green see what a stem is growing!\r
-See what a bunch of grapes is glowing!\r
- [_He seizes_ SIEBEL _by the nose. The rest do the same to each\r
- other and raise their knives._]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_as above_]. Loose, Error, from their eyes the band!\r
-How Satan plays his tricks, you need not now be told of.\r
- [_He vanishes with_ FAUST, _the companions start back from each\r
- other_.]\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. What ails me?\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. How?\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Was that thy nose, friend, I had hold of?\r
-\r
-_Brander_ [_to Siebel_]. And I have thine, too, in my hand!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. O what a shock! through all my limbs 'tis crawling!\r
-Get me a chair, be quick, I'm falling!\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. No, say what was the real case?\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. O show me where the churl is hiding!\r
-Alive he shall not leave the place!\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. Out through the cellar-door I saw him riding--\r
-Upon a cask--he went full chase.--\r
-Heavy as lead my feet are growing.\r
-\r
- [_Turning towards the table_.]\r
-\r
-My! If the wine should yet be flowing.\r
-\r
-_Siebel_. 'Twas all deception and moonshine.\r
-\r
-_Frosch_. Yet I was sure I did drink wine.\r
-\r
-_Brander_. But how about the bunches, brother?\r
-\r
-_Altmayer_. After such miracles, I'll doubt no other!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- WITCHES' KITCHEN.\r
-\r
- [_On a low hearth stands a great kettle over the fire. In the smoke,\r
-which rises from it, are seen various forms. A female monkey[28] sits by\r
-the kettle and skims it, and takes care that it does not run over. The\r
-male monkey with the young ones sits close by, warming himself. Walls and\r
-ceiling are adorned 'with the most singular witch-household stuff_.]\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Would that this vile witch-business were well over!\r
-Dost promise me I shall recover\r
-In this hodge-podge of craziness?\r
-From an old hag do I advice require?\r
-And will this filthy cooked-up mess\r
-My youth by thirty years bring nigher?\r
-Woe's me, if that's the best you know!\r
-Already hope is from my bosom banished.\r
-Has not a noble mind found long ago\r
-Some balsam to restore a youth that's vanished?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. My friend, again thou speakest a wise thought!\r
-I know a natural way to make thee young,--none apter!\r
-But in another book it must be sought,\r
-And is a quite peculiar chapter.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I beg to know it.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Well! here's one that needs no pay,\r
-No help of physic, nor enchanting.\r
-Out to the fields without delay,\r
-And take to hacking, digging, planting;\r
-Run the same round from day to day,\r
-A treadmill-life, contented, leading,\r
-With simple fare both mind and body feeding,\r
-Live with the beast as beast, nor count it robbery\r
-Shouldst thou manure, thyself, the field thou reapest;\r
-Follow this course and, trust to me,\r
-For eighty years thy youth thou keepest!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I am not used to that, I ne'er could bring me to it,\r
-To wield the spade, I could not do it.\r
-The narrow life befits me not at all.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. So must we on the witch, then, call.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. But why just that old hag? Canst thou\r
-Not brew thyself the needful liquor?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. That were a pretty pastime now\r
-I'd build about a thousand bridges quicker.\r
-Science and art alone won't do,\r
-The work will call for patience, too;\r
-Costs a still spirit years of occupation:\r
-Time, only, strengthens the fine fermentation.\r
-To tell each thing that forms a part\r
-Would sound to thee like wildest fable!\r
-The devil indeed has taught the art;\r
-To make it not the devil is able.\r
- [_Espying the animals_.]\r
-See, what a genteel breed we here parade!\r
-This is the house-boy! that's the maid!\r
- [_To the animals_.]\r
-Where's the old lady gone a mousing?\r
-\r
-_The animals_. Carousing;\r
-Out she went\r
-By the chimney-vent!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. How long does she spend in gadding and storming?\r
-\r
-_The animals_. While we are giving our paws a warming.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_to Faust_]. How do you find the dainty creatures?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Disgusting as I ever chanced to see!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. No! a discourse like this to me,\r
-I own, is one of life's most pleasant features;\r
- [_To the animals_.]\r
-Say, cursed dolls, that sweat, there, toiling!\r
-What are you twirling with the spoon?\r
-\r
-_Animals_. A common beggar-soup we're boiling.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. You'll have a run of custom soon.\r
-\r
- THE HE-MONKEY\r
- [_Comes along and fawns on_ MEPHISTOPHELES].\r
- O fling up the dice,\r
- Make me rich in a trice,\r
- Turn fortune's wheel over!\r
- My lot is right bad,\r
- If money I had,\r
- My wits would recover.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The monkey'd be as merry as a cricket,\r
-Would somebody give him a lottery-ticket!\r
-\r
- [_Meanwhile the young monkeys have been playing with a great\r
- ball, which they roll backward and forward_.]\r
-\r
-_The monkey_. 'The world's the ball;\r
- See't rise and fall,\r
- Its roll you follow;\r
- Like glass it rings:\r
- Both, brittle things!\r
- Within 'tis hollow.\r
- There it shines clear,\r
- And brighter here,--\r
- I live--by 'Pollo!--\r
- Dear son, I pray,\r
- Keep hands away!\r
- _Thou_ shalt fall so!\r
- 'Tis made of clay,\r
- Pots are, also.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. What means the sieve?\r
-\r
-_The monkey [takes it down_]. Wert thou a thief,\r
- 'Twould show the thief and shame him.\r
- [_Runs to his mate and makes her look through_.]\r
- Look through the sieve!\r
- Discern'st thou the thief,\r
- And darest not name him?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [approaching the fire_]. And what's this pot?\r
-\r
-_The monkeys_. The dunce! I'll be shot!\r
- He knows not the pot,\r
- He knows not the kettle!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Impertinence! Hush!\r
-\r
-_The monkey_. Here, take you the brush,\r
- And sit on the settle!\r
- [_He forces_ MEPHISTOPHELES _to sit down_.]\r
-\r
- FAUST\r
- [_who all this time has been standing before a looking-glass,\r
- now approaching and now receding from it_].\r
-\r
-What do I see? What heavenly face\r
-Doth, in this magic glass, enchant me!\r
-O love, in mercy, now, thy swiftest pinions grant me!\r
-And bear me to her field of space!\r
-Ah, if I seek to approach what doth so haunt me,\r
-If from this spot I dare to stir,\r
-Dimly as through a mist I gaze on her!--\r
-The loveliest vision of a woman!\r
-Such lovely woman can there be?\r
-Must I in these reposing limbs naught human.\r
-But of all heavens the finest essence see?\r
-Was such a thing on earth seen ever?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Why, when you see a God six days in hard work spend,\r
-And then cry bravo at the end,\r
-Of course you look for something clever.\r
-Look now thy fill; I have for thee\r
-Just such a jewel, and will lead thee to her;\r
-And happy, whose good fortune it shall be,\r
-To bear her home, a prospered wooer!\r
-\r
-[FAUST _keeps on looking into the mirror_. MEPHISTOPHELES\r
-_stretching himself out on the settle and playing with the brush,\r
-continues speaking_.]\r
-Here sit I like a king upon his throne,\r
-The sceptre in my hand,--I want the crown alone.\r
-\r
- THE ANIMALS\r
- [_who up to this time have been going through all sorts of queer antics\r
- with each other, bring_ MEPHISTOPHELES _a crown with a loud cry_].\r
- O do be so good,--\r
- With sweat and with blood,\r
- To take it and lime it;\r
- [_They go about clumsily with the crown and break it into two pieces,\r
- with which they jump round_.]\r
- 'Tis done now! We're free!\r
- We speak and we see,\r
- We hear and we rhyme it;\r
-\r
-_Faust [facing the mirror_]. Woe's me! I've almost lost my wits.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [pointing to the animals_].\r
-My head, too, I confess, is very near to spinning.\r
-\r
-_The animals_. And then if it hits\r
- And every thing fits,\r
- We've thoughts for our winning.\r
-\r
-_Faust [as before_]. Up to my heart the flame is flying!\r
-Let us begone--there's danger near!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [in the former position_].\r
-Well, this, at least, there's no denying,\r
-That we have undissembled poets here.\r
-\r
-[The kettle, which the she-monkey has hitherto left unmatched, begins to\r
-run over; a great flame breaks out, which roars up the chimney. The_ WITCH\r
-_comes riding down through the flame with a terrible outcry_.]\r
-\r
-_Witch_. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!\r
- The damned beast! The cursed sow!\r
- Neglected the kettle, scorched the Frau!\r
- The cursed crew!\r
- [_Seeing_ FAUST _and_ MEPHISTOPHELES.]\r
- And who are you?\r
- And what d'ye do?\r
- And what d'ye want?\r
- And who sneaked in?\r
- The fire-plague grim\r
- Shall light on him\r
- In every limb!\r
-\r
- [_She makes a dive at the kettle with the skimmer and spatters flames\r
- at _FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES_, and the creatures. These last whimper_.]\r
-\r
- MEPHISTOPHELES\r
- [_inverting the brush which he holds in his hand, and striking\r
- among the glasses and pots_].\r
-\r
- In two! In two!\r
- There lies the brew!\r
- There lies the glass!\r
- This joke must pass;\r
- For time-beat, ass!\r
- To thy melody, 'twill do.\r
- [_While the_ WITCH _starts back full of wrath and horror.]\r
-Skeleton! Scarcecrow! Spectre! Know'st thou me,\r
-Thy lord and master? What prevents my dashing\r
-Right in among thy cursed company,\r
-Thyself and all thy monkey spirits smashing?\r
-Has the red waistcoat thy respect no more?\r
-Has the cock's-feather, too, escaped attention?\r
-Hast never seen this face before?\r
-My name, perchance, wouldst have me mention?\r
-\r
-_The witch_. Pardon the rudeness, sir, in me!\r
-But sure no cloven foot I see.\r
-Nor find I your two ravens either.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I'll let thee off for this once so;\r
-For a long while has passed, full well I know,\r
-Since the last time we met together.\r
-The culture, too, which licks the world to shape,\r
-The devil himself cannot escape;\r
-The phantom of the North men's thoughts have left behind them,\r
-Horns, tail, and claws, where now d'ye find them?\r
-And for the foot, with which dispense I nowise can,\r
-'Twould with good circles hurt my standing;\r
-And so I've worn, some years, like many a fine young man,\r
-False calves to make me more commanding.\r
-\r
-_The witch [dancing_]. O I shall lose my wits, I fear,\r
-Do I, again, see Squire Satan here!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Woman, the name offends my ear!\r
-\r
-_The witch_. Why so? What has it done to you?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. It has long since to fable-books been banished;\r
-But men are none the better for it; true,\r
-The wicked _one_, but not the wicked _ones_, has vanished.\r
-Herr Baron callst thou me, then all is right and good;\r
-I am a cavalier, like others. Doubt me?\r
-Doubt for a moment of my noble blood?\r
-See here the family arms I bear about me!\r
- [_He makes an indecent gesture.]\r
-\r
-The witch [laughs immoderately_]. Ha! ha! full well I know you, sir!\r
-You are the same old rogue you always were!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [to Faust_]. I pray you, carefully attend,\r
-This is the way to deal with witches, friend.\r
-\r
-_The witch_. Now, gentles, what shall I produce?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. A right good glassful of the well-known juice!\r
-And pray you, let it be the oldest;\r
-Age makes it doubly strong for use.\r
-\r
-_The witch_. Right gladly! Here I have a bottle,\r
-From which, at times, I wet my throttle;\r
-Which now, not in the slightest, stinks;\r
-A glass to you I don't mind giving;\r
- [_Softly_.]\r
-But if this man, without preparing, drinks,\r
-He has not, well you know, another hour for living.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_.\r
-'Tis a good friend of mine, whom it shall straight cheer up;\r
-Thy kitchen's best to give him don't delay thee.\r
-Thy ring--thy spell, now, quick, I pray thee,\r
-And give him then a good full cup.\r
-\r
-[_The_ WITCH, _with strange gestures, draws a circle, and places singular\r
-things in it; mean-while the glasses begin to ring, the kettle to sound\r
-and make music. Finally, she brings a great book and places the monkeys in\r
-the circle, whom she uses as a reading-desk and to hold the torches. She\r
-beckons_ FAUST _to come to her_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust [to Mephistopheles_].\r
-Hold! what will come of this? These creatures,\r
-These frantic gestures and distorted features,\r
-And all the crazy, juggling fluff,\r
-I've known and loathed it long enough!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Pugh! that is only done to smoke us;\r
-Don't be so serious, my man!\r
-She must, as Doctor, play her hocus-pocus\r
-To make the dose work better, that's the plan.\r
- [_He constrains_ FAUST _to step into the circle_.]\r
-\r
- THE WITCH\r
- [_beginning with great emphasis to declaim out of the book_]\r
-\r
- Remember then!\r
- Of One make Ten,\r
- The Two let be,\r
- Make even Three,\r
- There's wealth for thee.\r
- The Four pass o'er!\r
- Of Five and Six,\r
- (The witch so speaks,)\r
- Make Seven and Eight,\r
- The thing is straight:\r
- And Nine is One\r
- And Ten is none--\r
- This is the witch's one-time-one![24]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. The old hag talks like one delirious.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. There's much more still, no less mysterious,\r
-I know it well, the whole book sounds just so!\r
-I've lost full many a year in poring o'er it,\r
-For perfect contradiction, you must know,\r
-A mystery stands, and fools and wise men bow before it,\r
-The art is old and new, my son.\r
-Men, in all times, by craft and terror,\r
-With One and Three, and Three and One,\r
-For truth have propagated error.\r
-They've gone on gabbling so a thousand years;\r
-Who on the fools would waste a minute?\r
-Man generally thinks, if words he only hears,\r
-Articulated noise must have some meaning in it.\r
-\r
-_The witch [goes on_]. Deep wisdom's power\r
- Has, to this hour,\r
- From all the world been hidden!\r
- Whoso thinks not,\r
- To him 'tis brought,\r
- To him it comes unbidden.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What nonsense is she talking here?\r
-My heart is on the point of cracking.\r
-In one great choir I seem to hear\r
-A hundred thousand ninnies clacking.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Enough, enough, rare Sibyl, sing us\r
-These runes no more, thy beverage bring us,\r
-And quickly fill the goblet to the brim;\r
-This drink may by my friend be safely taken:\r
-Full many grades the man can reckon,\r
-Many good swigs have entered him.\r
-\r
- [_The_ WITCH, _with many ceremonies, pours the drink into a cup;\r
- as she puts it to_ FAUST'S _lips, there rises a light flame_.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Down with it! Gulp it down! 'Twill prove\r
-All that thy heart's wild wants desire.\r
-Thou, with the devil, hand and glove,[25]\r
-And yet wilt be afraid of fire?\r
-\r
- [_The_ WITCH _breaks the circle_; FAUST _steps out_.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Now briskly forth! No rest for thee!\r
-\r
-_The witch_. Much comfort may the drink afford you!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [to the witch_]. And any favor you may ask of me,\r
-I'll gladly on Walpurgis' night accord you.\r
-\r
-_The witch_. Here is a song, which if you sometimes sing,\r
-'Twill stir up in your heart a special fire.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [to Faust_]. Only make haste; and even shouldst thou tire,\r
-Still follow me; one must perspire,\r
-That it may set his nerves all quivering.\r
-I'll teach thee by and bye to prize a noble leisure,\r
-And soon, too, shalt thou feel with hearty pleasure,\r
-How busy Cupid stirs, and shakes his nimble wing.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. But first one look in yonder glass, I pray thee!\r
-Such beauty I no more may find!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Nay! in the flesh thine eyes shall soon display thee\r
-The model of all woman-kind.\r
- [_Softly_.]\r
-Soon will, when once this drink shall heat thee,\r
-In every girl a Helen meet thee!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- A STREET.\r
-\r
- FAUST. MARGARET [_passing over_].\r
-\r
-_Faust_. My fair young lady, will it offend her\r
-If I offer my arm and escort to lend her?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Am neither lady, nor yet am fair!\r
-Can find my way home without any one's care.\r
- [_Disengages herself and exit_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. By heavens, but then the child _is_ fair!\r
-I've never seen the like, I swear.\r
-So modest is she and so pure,\r
-And somewhat saucy, too, to be sure.\r
-The light of the cheek, the lip's red bloom,\r
-I shall never forget to the day of doom!\r
-How me cast down her lovely eyes,\r
-Deep in my soul imprinted lies;\r
-How she spoke up, so curt and tart,\r
-Ah, that went right to my ravished heart!\r
- [_Enter_ MEPHISTOPHELES.]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Hark, thou shalt find me a way to address her!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Which one?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. She just went by.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. What! She?\r
-She came just now from her father confessor,\r
-Who from all sins pronounced her free;\r
-I stole behind her noiselessly,\r
-'Tis an innocent thing, who, for nothing at all,\r
-Must go to the confessional;\r
-O'er such as she no power I hold!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. But then she's over fourteen years old.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Thou speak'st exactly like Jack Rake,\r
-Who every fair flower his own would make.\r
-And thinks there can be no favor nor fame,\r
-But one may straightway pluck the same.\r
-But 'twill not always do, we see.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. My worthy Master Gravity,\r
-Let not a word of the Law be spoken!\r
-One thing be clearly understood,--\r
-Unless I clasp the sweet, young blood\r
-This night in my arms--then, well and good:\r
-When midnight strikes, our bond is broken.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Reflect on all that lies in the way!\r
-I need a fortnight, at least, to a day,\r
-For finding so much as a way to reach her.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Had I seven hours, to call my own,\r
-Without the devil's aid, alone\r
-I'd snare with ease so young a creature.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. You talk quite Frenchman-like to-day;\r
-But don't be vexed beyond all measure.\r
-What boots it thus to snatch at pleasure?\r
-'Tis not so great, by a long way,\r
-As if you first, with tender twaddle,\r
-And every sort of fiddle-faddle,\r
-Your little doll should mould and knead,\r
-As one in French romances may read.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. My appetite needs no such spur.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Now, then, without a jest or slur,\r
-I tell you, once for all, such speed\r
-With the fair creature won't succeed.\r
-Nothing will here by storm be taken;\r
-We must perforce on intrigue reckon.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Get me some trinket the angel has blest!\r
-Lead me to her chamber of rest!\r
-Get me a 'kerchief from her neck,\r
-A garter get me for love's sweet sake!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. To prove to you my willingness\r
-To aid and serve you in this distress;\r
-You shall visit her chamber, by me attended,\r
-Before the passing day is ended.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And see her, too? and have her?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Nay!\r
-She will to a neighbor's have gone away.\r
-Meanwhile alone by yourself you may,\r
-There in her atmosphere, feast at leisure\r
-And revel in dreams of future pleasure.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Shall we start at once?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. 'Tis too early yet.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Some present to take her for me you must get.\r
-\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Presents already! Brave! He's on the right foundation!\r
-Full many a noble place I know,\r
-And treasure buried long ago;\r
-Must make a bit of exploration.\r
-\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- EVENING.\r
-\r
- _A little cleanly Chamber_.\r
-\r
-MARGARET [_braiding and tying up her hair_.]\r
-I'd give a penny just to say\r
-What gentleman that was to-day!\r
-How very gallant he seemed to be,\r
-He's of a noble family;\r
-That I could read from his brow and bearing--\r
-And he would not have otherwise been so daring.\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Come in, step softly, do not fear!\r
-\r
-_Faust [after a pause_]. Leave me alone, I prithee, here!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [peering round_]. Not every maiden keeps so neat.\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust [gazing round_]. Welcome this hallowed still retreat!\r
-Where twilight weaves its magic glow.\r
-Seize on my heart, love-longing, sad and sweet,\r
-That on the dew of hope dost feed thy woe!\r
-How breathes around the sense of stillness,\r
-Of quiet, order, and content!\r
-In all this poverty what fulness!\r
-What blessedness within this prison pent!\r
- [_He throws himself into a leathern chair by the bed_.]\r
-Take me, too! as thou hast, in years long flown,\r
-In joy and grief, so many a generation!\r
-Ah me! how oft, on this ancestral throne,\r
-Have troops of children climbed with exultation!\r
-Perhaps, when Christmas brought the Holy Guest,\r
-My love has here, in grateful veneration\r
-The grandsire's withered hand with child-lips prest.\r
-I feel, O maiden, circling me,\r
-Thy spirit of grace and fulness hover,\r
-Which daily like a mother teaches thee\r
-The table-cloth to spread in snowy purity,\r
-And even, with crinkled sand the floor to cover.\r
-Dear, godlike hand! a touch of thine\r
-Makes this low house a heavenly kingdom slime!\r
-And here!\r
- [_He lifts a bed-curtain_.]\r
-What blissful awe my heart thrills through!\r
-Here for long hours could I linger.\r
-Here, Nature! in light dreams, thy airy finger\r
-The inborn angel's features drew!\r
-Here lay the child, when life's fresh heavings\r
-Its tender bosom first made warm,\r
-And here with pure, mysterious weavings\r
-The spirit wrought its godlike form!\r
- And thou! What brought thee here? what power\r
-Stirs in my deepest soul this hour?\r
-What wouldst thou here? What makes thy heart so sore?\r
-Unhappy Faust! I know thee thus no more.\r
- Breathe I a magic atmosphere?\r
-The will to enjoy how strong I felt it,--\r
-And in a dream of love am now all melted!\r
-Are we the sport of every puff of air?\r
- And if she suddenly should enter now,\r
-How would she thy presumptuous folly humble!\r
-Big John-o'dreams! ah, how wouldst thou\r
-Sink at her feet, collapse and crumble!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Quick, now! She comes! I'm looking at her.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Away! Away! O cruel fate!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Here is a box of moderate weight;\r
-I got it somewhere else--no matter!\r
-Just shut it up, here, in the press,\r
-I swear to you, 'twill turn her senses;\r
-I meant the trifles, I confess,\r
-To scale another fair one's fences.\r
-True, child is child and play is play.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Shall I? I know not.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Why delay?\r
-You mean perhaps to keep the bauble?\r
-If so, I counsel you to spare\r
-From idle passion hours so fair,\r
-And me, henceforth, all further trouble.\r
-I hope you are not avaricious!\r
-I rub my hands, I scratch my head--\r
- [_He places the casket in the press and locks it up again_.]\r
- (Quick! Time we sped!)--\r
-That the dear creature may be led\r
-And moulded by your will and wishes;\r
-And you stand here as glum,\r
-As one at the door of the auditorium,\r
-As if before your eyes you saw\r
-In bodily shape, with breathless awe,\r
-Metaphysics and physics, grim and gray!\r
-Away!\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret [with a lamp_]. It seems so close, so sultry here.\r
- [_She opens the window_.]\r
-Yet it isn't so very warm out there,\r
-I feel--I know not how--oh dear!\r
-I wish my mother 'ld come home, I declare!\r
-I feel a shudder all over me crawl--\r
-I'm a silly, timid thing, that's all!\r
- [_She begins to sing, while undressing_.]\r
- There was a king in Thulè,\r
- To whom, when near her grave,\r
- The mistress he loved so truly\r
- A golden goblet gave.\r
-\r
- He cherished it as a lover,\r
- He drained it, every bout;\r
- His eyes with tears ran over,\r
- As oft as he drank thereout.\r
-\r
- And when he found himself dying,\r
- His towns and cities he told;\r
- Naught else to his heir denying\r
- Save only the goblet of gold.\r
-\r
- His knights he straightway gathers\r
- And in the midst sate he,\r
- In the banquet hall of the fathers\r
- In the castle over the sea.\r
-\r
- There stood th' old knight of liquor,\r
- And drank the last life-glow,\r
- Then flung the holy beaker\r
- Into the flood below.\r
-\r
- He saw it plunging, drinking\r
- And sinking in the roar,\r
- His eyes in death were sinking,\r
- He never drank one drop more.\r
- [_She opens the press, to put away her clothes,\r
- and discovers the casket_.]\r
-\r
-How in the world came this fine casket here?\r
-I locked the press, I'm very clear.\r
-I wonder what's inside! Dear me! it's very queer!\r
-Perhaps 'twas brought here as a pawn,\r
-In place of something mother lent.\r
-Here is a little key hung on,\r
-A single peep I shan't repent!\r
-What's here? Good gracious! only see!\r
-I never saw the like in my born days!\r
-On some chief festival such finery\r
-Might on some noble lady blaze.\r
-How would this chain become my neck!\r
-Whose may this splendor be, so lonely?\r
- [_She arrays herself in it, and steps before the glass_.]\r
-Could I but claim the ear-rings only!\r
-A different figure one would make.\r
-What's beauty worth to thee, young blood!\r
-May all be very well and good;\r
-What then? 'Tis half for pity's sake\r
-They praise your pretty features.\r
-Each burns for gold,\r
-All turns on gold,--\r
-Alas for us! poor creatures!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- PROMENADE.\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST [_going up and down in thought_.] MEPHISTOPHELES _to him_.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. By all that ever was jilted! By all the infernal fires!\r
-I wish I knew something worse, to curse as my heart desires!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What griping pain has hold of thee?\r
-Such grins ne'er saw I in the worst stage-ranter!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Oh, to the devil I'd give myself instanter,\r
-If I were not already he!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Some pin's loose in your head, old fellow!\r
-That fits you, like a madman thus to bellow!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Just think, the pretty toy we got for Peg,\r
-A priest has hooked, the cursed plague I--\r
-The thing came under the eye of the mother,\r
-And caused her a dreadful internal pother:\r
-The woman's scent is fine and strong;\r
-Snuffles over her prayer-book all day long,\r
-And knows, by the smell of an article, plain,\r
-Whether the thing is holy or profane;\r
-And as to the box she was soon aware\r
-There could not be much blessing there.\r
-"My child," she cried, "unrighteous gains\r
-Ensnare the soul, dry up the veins.\r
-We'll consecrate it to God's mother,\r
-She'll give us some heavenly manna or other!"\r
-Little Margaret made a wry face; "I see\r
-'Tis, after all, a gift horse," said she;\r
-"And sure, no godless one is he\r
-Who brought it here so handsomely."\r
-The mother sent for a priest (they're cunning);\r
-Who scarce had found what game was running,\r
-When he rolled his greedy eyes like a lizard,\r
-And, "all is rightly disposed," said he,\r
-"Who conquers wins, for a certainty.\r
-The church has of old a famous gizzard,\r
-She calls it little whole lands to devour,\r
-Yet never a surfeit got to this hour;\r
-The church alone, dear ladies; _sans_ question,\r
-Can give unrighteous gains digestion."\r
-\r
-_Faust_. That is a general pratice, too,\r
-Common alike with king and Jew.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Then pocketed bracelets and chains and rings\r
-As if they were mushrooms or some such things,\r
-With no more thanks, (the greedy-guts!)\r
-Than if it had been a basket of nuts,\r
-Promised them all sorts of heavenly pay--\r
-And greatly edified were they.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And Margery?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Sits there in distress,\r
-And what to do she cannot guess,\r
-The jewels her daily and nightly thought,\r
-And he still more by whom they were brought.\r
-\r
-_Faust._ My heart is troubled for my pet.\r
-Get her at once another set!\r
-The first were no great things in their way.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles._ O yes, my gentleman finds all child's play!\r
-\r
-_Faust._ And what I wish, that mind and do!\r
-Stick closely to her neighbor, too.\r
-Don't be a devil soft as pap,\r
-And fetch me some new jewels, old chap!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles._ Yes, gracious Sir, I will with pleasure.\r
- [_Exit_ FAUST.]\r
-Such love-sick fools will puff away\r
-Sun, moon, and stars, and all in the azure,\r
-To please a maiden's whimsies, any day.\r
- [_Exit._]\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- THE NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE.\r
-\r
-\r
- MARTHA [_alone]._\r
-My dear good man--whom God forgive!\r
-He has not treated me well, as I live!\r
-Right off into the world he's gone\r
-And left me on the straw alone.\r
-I never did vex him, I say it sincerely,\r
-I always loved him, God knows how dearly.\r
- [_She weeps_.]\r
-Perhaps he's dead!--O cruel fate!--\r
-If I only had a certificate!\r
-\r
- _Enter_ MARGARET.\r
-Dame Martha!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. What now, Margery?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. I scarce can keep my knees from sinking!\r
-Within my press, again, not thinking,\r
-I find a box of ebony,\r
-With things--can't tell how grand they are,--\r
-More splendid than the first by far.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. You must not tell it to your mother,\r
-She'd serve it as she did the other.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Ah, only look! Behold and see!\r
-\r
-_Martha [puts them on her_]. Fortunate thing! I envy thee!\r
-\r
-_Margaret._ Alas, in the street or at church I never\r
-Could be seen on any account whatever.\r
-\r
-_Martha._ Come here as often as you've leisure,\r
-And prink yourself quite privately;\r
-Before the looking-glass walk up and down at pleasure,\r
-Fine times for both us 'twill be;\r
-Then, on occasions, say at some great feast,\r
-Can show them to the world, one at a time, at least.\r
-A chain, and then an ear-pearl comes to view;\r
-Your mother may not see, we'll make some pretext, too.\r
-\r
-_Margaret._ Who could have brought both caskets in succession?\r
-There's something here for just suspicion!\r
- [_A knock._ ]\r
-Ah, God! If that's my mother--then!\r
-\r
-_Martha_ [_peeping through the blind_].\r
-'Tis a strange gentleman--come in!\r
-\r
- [_Enter_ MEPHISTOPHELES.]\r
-Must, ladies, on your kindness reckon\r
-To excuse the freedom I have taken;\r
- [_Steps back with profound respect at seeing_ MARGARET.]\r
-I would for Dame Martha Schwerdtlein inquire!\r
-\r
-_Martha._ I'm she, what, sir, is your desire?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_aside to her_]. I know your face, for now 'twill do;\r
-A distinguished lady is visiting you.\r
-For a call so abrupt be pardon meted,\r
-This afternoon it shall be repeated.\r
-\r
-_Martha [aloud]._ For all the world, think, child! my sakes!\r
-The gentleman you for a lady takes.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Ah, God! I am a poor young blood;\r
-The gentleman is quite too good;\r
-The jewels and trinkets are none of my own.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ah, 'tis not the jewels and trinkets alone;\r
-Her look is so piercing, so _distinguè_!\r
-How glad I am to be suffered to stay.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. What bring you, sir? I long to hear--\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Would I'd a happier tale for your ear!\r
-I hope you'll forgive me this one for repeating:\r
-Your husband is dead and sends you a greeting.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Is dead? the faithful heart! Woe! Woe!\r
-My husband dead! I, too, shall go!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Ah, dearest Dame, despair not thou!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ Then, hear the mournful story now!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Ah, keep me free from love forever,\r
-I should never survive such a loss, no, never!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Joy and woe, woe and joy, must have each other.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Describe his closing hours to me!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. In Padua lies our departed brother,\r
-In the churchyard of St. Anthony,\r
-In a cool and quiet bed lies sleeping,\r
-In a sacred spot's eternal keeping.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. And this was all you had to bring me?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. All but one weighty, grave request!\r
-"Bid her, when I am dead, three hundred masses sing me!"\r
-With this I have made a clean pocket and breast.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. What! not a medal, pin nor stone?\r
-Such as, for memory's sake, no journeyman will lack,\r
-Saved in the bottom of his sack,\r
-And sooner would hunger, be a pauper--\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Madam, your case is hard, I own!\r
-But blame him not, he squandered ne'er a copper.\r
-He too bewailed his faults with penance sore,\r
-Ay, and his wretched luck bemoaned a great deal more.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Alas! that mortals so unhappy prove!\r
-I surely will for him pray many a requiem duly.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. You're worthy of a spouse this moment; truly\r
-You are a child a man might love.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. It's not yet time for that, ah no!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. If not a husband, say, meanwhile a beau.\r
-It is a choice and heavenly blessing,\r
-Such a dear thing to one's bosom pressing.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. With us the custom is not so.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Custom or not! It happens, though.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Tell on!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I slood beside his bed, as he lay dying,\r
-Better than dung it was somewhat,--\r
-Half-rotten straw; but then, he died as Christian ought,\r
-And found an unpaid score, on Heaven's account-book lying.\r
-"How must I hate myself," he cried, "inhuman!\r
-So to forsake my business and my woman!\r
-Oh! the remembrance murders me!\r
-Would she might still forgive me this side heaven!"\r
-\r
-_Martha_ [_weeping_]. The dear good man! he has been long forgiven.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. "But God knows, I was less to blame than she."\r
-\r
-_Martha_. A lie! And at death's door! abominable!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. If I to judge of men half-way am able,\r
-He surely fibbed while passing hence.\r
-"Ways to kill time, (he said)--be sure, I did not need them;\r
-First to get children--and then bread to feed them,\r
-And bread, too, in the widest sense,\r
-And even to eat my bit in peace could not be thought on."\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Has he all faithfulness, all love, so far forgotten,\r
-The drudgery by day and night!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Not so, he thought of you with all his might.\r
-He said: "When I from Malta went away,\r
-For wife and children my warm prayers ascended;\r
-And Heaven so far our cause befriended,\r
-Our ship a Turkish cruiser took one day,\r
-Which for the mighty Sultan bore a treasure.\r
-Then valor got its well-earned pay,\r
-And I too, who received but my just measure,\r
-A goodly portion bore away."\r
-\r
-_Martha_. How? Where? And he has left it somewhere buried?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Who knows which way by the four winds 'twas carried?\r
-He chanced to take a pretty damsel's eye,\r
-As, a strange sailor, he through Naples jaunted;\r
-All that she did for him so tenderly,\r
-E'en to his blessed end the poor man haunted.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. The scamp! his children thus to plunder!\r
-And could not all his troubles sore\r
-Arrest his vile career, I wonder?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. But mark! his death wipes off the score.\r
-Were I in your place now, good lady;\r
-One year I'd mourn him piously\r
-And look about, meanwhiles, for a new flame already.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Ah, God! another such as he\r
-I may not find with ease on this side heaven!\r
-Few such kind fools as this dear spouse of mine.\r
-Only to roving he was too much given,\r
-And foreign women and foreign wine,\r
-And that accursed game of dice.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Mere trifles these; you need not heed 'em,\r
-If he, on his part, not o'er-nice,\r
-Winked at, in you, an occasional freedom.\r
-I swear, on that condition, too,\r
-I would, myself, 'change rings with you!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. The gentleman is pleased to jest now!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [aside_]. I see it's now high time I stirred!\r
-She'd take the very devil at his word.\r
- [_To_ MARGERY.]\r
-How is it with your heart, my best, now?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. What means the gentleman?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles. [aside_]. Thou innocent young heart!\r
- [_Aloud_.]\r
-Ladies, farewell!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Farewell!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. But quick, before we part!--\r
-I'd like some witness, vouching truly\r
-Where, how and when my love died and was buried duly.\r
-I've always paid to order great attention,\r
-Would of his death read some newspaper mention.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ay, my dear lady, in the mouths of two\r
-Good witnesses each word is true;\r
-I've a friend, a fine fellow, who, when you desire,\r
-Will render on oath what you require.\r
-I'll bring him here.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. O pray, sir, do!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. And this young lady 'll be there too?\r
-Fine boy! has travelled everywhere,\r
-And all politeness to the fair.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Before him shame my face must cover.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Before no king the wide world over!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Behind the house, in my garden, at leisure,\r
-We'll wait this eve the gentlemen's pleasure.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- STREET.\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. How now? What progress? Will 't come right?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ha, bravo? So you're all on fire?\r
-Full soon you'll see whom you desire.\r
-In neighbor Martha's grounds we are to meet tonight.\r
-That woman's one of nature's picking\r
-For pandering and gipsy-tricking!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. So far, so good!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. But one thing we must do.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Well, one good turn deserves another, true.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. We simply make a solemn deposition\r
-That her lord's bones are laid in good condition\r
-In holy ground at Padua, hid from view.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. That's wise! But then we first must make the journey thither?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles. Sancta simplicitas_! no need of such to-do;\r
-Just swear, and ask not why or whether.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. If that's the best you have, the plan's not worth a feather.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. O holy man! now that's just you!\r
-In all thy life hast never, to this hour,\r
-To give false witness taken pains?\r
-Have you of God, the world, and all that it contains,\r
-Of man, and all that stirs within his heart and brains,\r
-Not given definitions with great power,\r
-Unscrupulous breast, unblushing brow?\r
-And if you search the matter clearly,\r
-Knew you as much thereof, to speak sincerely,\r
-As of Herr Schwerdtlein's death? Confess it now!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thou always wast a sophist and a liar.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ay, if one did not look a little nigher.\r
-For will you not, in honor, to-morrow\r
-Befool poor Margery to her sorrow,\r
-And all the oaths of true love borrow?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And from the heart, too.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Well and fair!\r
-Then there'll be talk of truth unending,\r
-Of love o'ermastering, all transcending--\r
-Will every word be heart-born there?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Enough! It will!--If, for the passion\r
-That fills and thrills my being's frame,\r
-I find no name, no fit expression,\r
-Then, through the world, with all my senses, ranging,\r
-Seek what most strongly speaks the unchanging.\r
-And call this glow, within me burning,\r
-Infinite--endless--endless yearning,\r
-Is that a devilish lying game?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I'm right, nathless!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Now, hark to me--\r
-This once, I pray, and spare my lungs, old fellow--\r
-Whoever _will_ be right, and has a tongue to bellow,\r
-Is sure to be.\r
-But come, enough of swaggering, let's be quit,\r
-For thou art right, because I must submit.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- GARDEN.\r
-\r
- MARGARET _on_ FAUST'S _arm_. MARTHA _with_ MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
- [_Promenading up and down_.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. The gentleman but makes me more confused\r
-\r
-With all his condescending goodness.\r
-Men who have travelled wide are used\r
-To bear with much from dread of rudeness;\r
-I know too well, a man of so much mind\r
-In my poor talk can little pleasure find.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. One look from thee, one word, delights me more\r
-Than this world's wisdom o'er and o'er.\r
- [_Kisses her hand_.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Don't take that trouble, sir! How could you bear to kiss it?\r
-A hand so ugly, coarse, and rough!\r
-How much I've had to do! must I confess it--\r
-Mother is more than close enough.\r
- [_They pass on_.]\r
-\r
-_Martha_. And you, sir, are you always travelling so?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Alas, that business forces us to do it!\r
-With what regret from many a place we go,\r
-Though tenderest bonds may bind us to it!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. 'Twill do in youth's tumultuous maze\r
-To wander round the world, a careless rover;\r
-But soon will come the evil days,\r
-And then, a lone dry stick, on the grave's brink to hover,\r
-For that nobody ever prays.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The distant prospect shakes my reason.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Then, worthy sir, bethink yourself in season.\r
- [_They pass on_.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Yes, out of sight and out of mind!\r
-Politeness you find no hard matter;\r
-But you have friends in plenty, better\r
-Than I, more sensible, more refined.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Dear girl, what one calls sensible on earth,\r
-Is often vanity and nonsense.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. How?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Ah, that the pure and simple never know\r
-Aught of themselves and all their holy worth!\r
-That meekness, lowliness, the highest measure\r
-Of gifts by nature lavished, full and free--\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. One little moment, only, think of me,\r
-I shall to think of you have ample time and leisure.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. You're, may be, much alone?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Our household is but small, I own,\r
-And yet needs care, if truth were known.\r
-We have no maid; so I attend to cooking, sweeping,\r
-Knit, sew, do every thing, in fact;\r
-And mother, in all branches of housekeeping,\r
-Is so exact!\r
-Not that she need be tied so very closely down;\r
-We might stand higher than some others, rather;\r
-A nice estate was left us by my father,\r
-A house and garden not far out of town.\r
-Yet, after all, my life runs pretty quiet;\r
-My brother is a soldier,\r
-My little sister's dead;\r
-With the dear child indeed a wearing life I led;\r
-And yet with all its plagues again would gladly try it,\r
-The child was such a pet.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. An angel, if like thee!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. I reared her and she heartily loved me.\r
-She and my father never saw each other,\r
-He died before her birth, and mother\r
-Was given up, so low she lay,\r
-But me, by slow degrees, recovered, day by day.\r
-Of course she now, long time so feeble,\r
-To nurse the poor little worm was unable,\r
-And so I reared it all alone,\r
-With milk and water; 'twas my own.\r
-Upon my bosom all day long\r
-It smiled and sprawled and so grew strong.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Ah! thou hast truly known joy's fairest flower.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. But no less truly many a heavy hour.\r
-The wee thing's cradle stood at night\r
-Close to my bed; did the least thing awake her,\r
-My sleep took flight;\r
-'Twas now to nurse her, now in bed to take her,\r
-Then, if she was not still, to rise,\r
-Walk up and down the room, and dance away her cries,\r
-And at the wash-tub stand, when morning streaked the skies;\r
-Then came the marketing and kitchen-tending,\r
-Day in, day out, work never-ending.\r
-One cannot always, sir, good temper keep;\r
-But then it sweetens food and sweetens sleep.\r
- [_They pass on_.]\r
-\r
-_Martha_. But the poor women suffer, you must own:\r
-A bachelor is hard of reformation.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Madam, it rests with such as you, alone,\r
-To help me mend my situation.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Speak plainly, sir, has none your fancy taken?\r
-Has none made out a tender flame to waken?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. The proverb says: A man's own hearth,\r
-And a brave wife, all gold and pearls are worth.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. I mean, has ne'er your heart been smitten slightly?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I have, on every hand, been entertained politely.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Have you not felt, I mean, a serious intention?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_.\r
-Jesting with women, that's a thing one ne'er should mention.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Ah, you misunderstand!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. It grieves me that I should!\r
-But this I understand--that you are good.\r
- [_They pass on_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. So then, my little angel recognized me,\r
-As I came through the garden gate?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Did not my downcast eyes show you surprised me?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And thou forgav'st that liberty, of late?\r
-That impudence of mine, so daring,\r
-As thou wast home from church repairing?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. I was confused, the like was new to me;\r
-No one could say a word to my dishonor.\r
-Ah, thought I, has he, haply, in thy manner\r
-Seen any boldness--impropriety?\r
-It seemed as if the feeling seized him,\r
-That he might treat this girl just as it pleased him.\r
-Let me confess! I knew not from what cause,\r
-Some flight relentings here began to threaten danger;\r
-I know, right angry with myself I was,\r
-That I could not be angrier with the stranger.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Sweet darling!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Let me once!\r
-\r
- [_She plucks a china-aster and picks off the leaves one after another_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What's that for? A bouquet?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. No, just for sport.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. How?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Go! you'll laugh at me; away!\r
- [_She picks and murmurs to herself_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What murmurest thou?\r
-\r
-_Margaret [half aloud_]. He loves me--loves me not.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Sweet face! from heaven that look was caught!\r
-\r
-_Margaret [goes on_]. Loves me--not--loves me--not--\r
- [_picking off the last leaf with tender joy_]\r
-He loves me!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Yes, my child! And be this floral word\r
-An oracle to thee. He loves thee!\r
-Knowest thou all it mean? He loves thee!\r
- [_Clasping both her hands_.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. What thrill is this!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. O, shudder not! This look of mine.\r
-This pressure of the hand shall tell thee\r
-What cannot be expressed:\r
-Give thyself up at once and feel a rapture,\r
-An ecstasy never to end!\r
-Never!--It's end were nothing but blank despair.\r
-No, unending! unending!\r
-\r
- [MARGARET _presses his hands, extricates herself, and runs away.\r
- He stands a moment in thought, then follows her_].\r
-\r
-_Martha [coming_]. The night falls fast.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ay, and we must away.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. If it were not for one vexation,\r
-I would insist upon your longer stay.\r
-Nobody seems to have no occupation,\r
-No care nor labor,\r
-Except to play the spy upon his neighbor;\r
-And one becomes town-talk, do whatsoe'er they may.\r
-But where's our pair of doves?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Flown up the alley yonder.\r
-Light summer-birds!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. He seems attached to her.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. No wonder.\r
-And she to him. So goes the world, they say.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- A SUMMER-HOUSE.\r
-\r
- MARGARET [_darts in, hides behind the door, presses the tip of\r
- her finger to her lips, and peeps through the crack_].\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. He comes!\r
-\r
- _Enter_ FAUST.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Ah rogue, how sly thou art!\r
-I've caught thee!\r
- [_Kisses her_.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret [embracing him and returning the kiss_].\r
-Dear good man! I love thee from my heart!\r
-\r
- [MEPHISTOPHELES _knocks_.]\r
-\r
-_Faust [stamping_]. Who's there?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. A friend!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. A beast!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Time flies, I don't offend you?\r
-\r
-_Martha [entering_]. Yes, sir, 'tis growing late.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. May I not now attend you?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Mother would--Fare thee well!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. And must I leave thee then? Farewell!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Adé!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Till, soon, we meet again!\r
-\r
- [_Exeunt_ FAUST _and_ MEPHISTOPHELES.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Good heavens! what such a man's one brain\r
-Can in itself alone contain!\r
-I blush my rudeness to confess,\r
-And answer all he says with yes.\r
-Am a poor, ignorant child, don't see\r
-What he can possibly find in me.\r
-\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- WOODS AND CAVERN.\r
-\r
-_Faust_ [_alone_]. Spirit sublime, thou gav'st me, gav'st me all\r
-For which I prayed. Thou didst not lift in vain\r
-Thy face upon me in a flame of fire.\r
-Gav'st me majestic nature for a realm,\r
-The power to feel, enjoy her. Not alone\r
-A freezing, formal visit didst thou grant;\r
-Deep down into her breast invitedst me\r
-To look, as if she were a bosom-friend.\r
-The series of animated things\r
-Thou bidst pass by me, teaching me to know\r
-My brothers in the waters, woods, and air.\r
-And when the storm-swept forest creaks and groans,\r
-The giant pine-tree crashes, rending off\r
-The neighboring boughs and limbs, and with deep roar\r
-The thundering mountain echoes to its fall,\r
-To a safe cavern then thou leadest me,\r
-Showst me myself; and my own bosom's deep\r
-Mysterious wonders open on my view.\r
-And when before my sight the moon comes up\r
-With soft effulgence; from the walls of rock,\r
-From the damp thicket, slowly float around\r
-The silvery shadows of a world gone by,\r
-And temper meditation's sterner joy.\r
- O! nothing perfect is vouchsafed to man:\r
-I feel it now! Attendant on this bliss,\r
-Which brings me ever nearer to the Gods,\r
-Thou gav'st me the companion, whom I now\r
-No more can spare, though cold and insolent;\r
-He makes me hate, despise myself, and turns\r
-Thy gifts to nothing with a word--a breath.\r
-He kindles up a wild-fire in my breast,\r
-Of restless longing for that lovely form.\r
-Thus from desire I hurry to enjoyment,\r
-And in enjoyment languish for desire.\r
-\r
- _Enter_ MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Will not this life have tired you by and bye?\r
-I wonder it so long delights you?\r
-'Tis well enough for once the thing to try;\r
-Then off to where a new invites you!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Would thou hadst something else to do,\r
-That thus to spoil my joy thou burnest.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Well! well! I'll leave thee, gladly too!--\r
-Thou dar'st not tell me that in earnest!\r
-'Twere no great loss, a fellow such as you,\r
-So crazy, snappish, and uncivil.\r
-One has, all day, his hands full, and more too;\r
-To worm out from him what he'd have one do,\r
-Or not do, puzzles e'en the very devil.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Now, that I like! That's just the tone!\r
-Wants thanks for boring me till I'm half dead!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Poor son of earth, if left alone,\r
-What sort of life wouldst thou have led?\r
-How oft, by methods all my own,\r
-I've chased the cobweb fancies from thy head!\r
-And but for me, to parts unknown\r
-Thou from this earth hadst long since fled.\r
-What dost thou here through cave and crevice groping?\r
-Why like a hornèd owl sit moping?\r
-And why from dripping stone, damp moss, and rotten wood\r
-Here, like a toad, suck in thy food?\r
-Delicious pastime! Ah, I see,\r
-Somewhat of Doctor sticks to thee.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What new life-power it gives me, canst thou guess--\r
-This conversation with the wilderness?\r
-Ay, couldst thou dream how sweet the employment,\r
-Thou wouldst be devil enough to grudge me my enjoyment.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ay, joy from super-earthly fountains!\r
-By night and day to lie upon the mountains,\r
-To clasp in ecstasy both earth and heaven,\r
-Swelled to a deity by fancy's leaven,\r
-Pierce, like a nervous thrill, earth's very marrow,\r
-Feel the whole six days' work for thee too narrow,\r
-To enjoy, I know not what, in blest elation,\r
-Then with thy lavish love o'erflow the whole creation.\r
-Below thy sight the mortal cast,\r
-And to the glorious vision give at last--\r
- [_with a gesture_]\r
-I must not say what termination!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Shame on thee!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. This displeases thee; well, surely,\r
-Thou hast a right to say "for shame" demurely.\r
-One must not mention that to chaste ears--never,\r
-Which chaste hearts cannot do without, however.\r
-And, in one word, I grudge you not the pleasure\r
-Of lying to yourself in moderate measure;\r
-But 'twill not hold out long, I know;\r
-Already thou art fast recoiling,\r
-And soon, at this rate, wilt be boiling\r
-With madness or despair and woe.\r
-Enough of this! Thy sweetheart sits there lonely,\r
-And all to her is close and drear.\r
-Her thoughts are on thy image only,\r
-She holds thee, past all utterance, dear.\r
-At first thy passion came bounding and rushing\r
-Like a brooklet o'erflowing with melted snow and rain;\r
-Into her heart thou hast poured it gushing:\r
-And now thy brooklet's dry again.\r
-Methinks, thy woodland throne resigning,\r
-'Twould better suit so great a lord\r
-The poor young monkey to reward\r
-For all the love with which she's pining.\r
-She finds the time dismally long;\r
-Stands at the window, sees the clouds on high\r
-Over the old town-wall go by.\r
-"Were I a little bird!"[26] so runneth her song\r
-All the day, half the night long.\r
-At times she'll be laughing, seldom smile,\r
-At times wept-out she'll seem,\r
-Then again tranquil, you'd deem,--\r
-Lovesick all the while.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Viper! Viper!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_aside_]. Ay! and the prey grows riper!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Reprobate! take thee far behind me!\r
-No more that lovely woman name!\r
-Bid not desire for her sweet person flame\r
-Through each half-maddened sense, again to blind me!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. What then's to do? She fancies thou hast flown,\r
-And more than half she's right, I own.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I'm near her, and, though far away, my word,\r
-I'd not forget her, lose her; never fear it!\r
-I envy e'en the body of the Lord,\r
-Oft as those precious lips of hers draw near it.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. No doubt; and oft my envious thought reposes\r
-On the twin-pair that feed among the roses.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Out, pimp!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Well done! Your jeers I find fair game for laughter.\r
-The God, who made both lad and lass,\r
-Unwilling for a bungling hand to pass,\r
-Made opportunity right after.\r
-But come! fine cause for lamentation!\r
-Her chamber is your destination,\r
-And not the grave, I guess.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What are the joys of heaven while her fond arms enfold me?\r
-O let her kindling bosom hold me!\r
-Feel I not always her distress?\r
-The houseless am I not? the unbefriended?\r
-The monster without aim or rest?\r
-That, like a cataract, from rock to rock descended\r
-To the abyss, with maddening greed possest:\r
-She, on its brink, with childlike thoughts and lowly,--\r
-Perched on the little Alpine field her cot,--\r
-This narrow world, so still and holy\r
-Ensphering, like a heaven, her lot.\r
-And I, God's hatred daring,\r
-Could not be content\r
-The rocks all headlong bearing,\r
-By me to ruins rent,--\r
-Her, yea her peace, must I o'erwhelm and bury!\r
-This victim, hell, to thee was necessary!\r
-Help me, thou fiend, the pang soon ending!\r
-What must be, let it quickly be!\r
-And let her fate upon my head descending,\r
-Crush, at one blow, both her and me.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Ha! how it seethes again and glows!\r
-Go in and comfort her, thou dunce!\r
-Where such a dolt no outlet sees or knows,\r
-He thinks he's reached the end at once.\r
-None but the brave deserve the fair!\r
-Thou _hast_ had devil enough to make a decent show of.\r
-For all the world a devil in despair\r
-Is just the insipidest thing I know of.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- MARGERY'S ROOM.\r
-\r
- MARGERY [_at the spinning-wheel alone_].\r
- My heart is heavy,\r
- My peace is o'er;\r
- I never--ah! never--\r
- Shall find it more.\r
- While him I crave,\r
- Each place is the grave,\r
- The world is all\r
- Turned into gall.\r
- My wretched brain\r
- Has lost its wits,\r
- My wretched sense\r
- Is all in bits.\r
- My heart is heavy,\r
- My peace is o'er;\r
- I never--ah! never--\r
- Shall find it more.\r
- Him only to greet, I\r
- The street look down,\r
- Him only to meet, I\r
- Roam through town.\r
- His lofty step,\r
- His noble height,\r
- His smile of sweetness,\r
- His eye of might,\r
- His words of magic,\r
- Breathing bliss,\r
- His hand's warm pressure\r
- And ah! his kiss.\r
- My heart is heavy,\r
- My peace is o'er,\r
- I never--ah! never--\r
- Shall find it more.\r
- My bosom yearns\r
- To behold him again.\r
- Ah, could I find him\r
- That best of men!\r
- I'd tell him then\r
- How I did miss him,\r
- And kiss him\r
- As much as I could,\r
- Die on his kisses\r
- I surely should!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- MARTHA'S GARDEN.\r
-\r
- MARGARET. FAUST.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Promise me, Henry.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What I can.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. How is it now with thy religion, say?\r
-I know thou art a dear good man,\r
-But fear thy thoughts do not run much that way.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Leave that, my child! Enough, thou hast my heart;\r
-For those I love with life I'd freely part;\r
-I would not harm a soul, nor of its faith bereave it.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. That's wrong, there's one true faith--one must believe it?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Must one?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Ah, could I influence thee, dearest!\r
-The holy sacraments thou scarce reverest.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I honor them.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. But yet without desire.\r
-Of mass and confession both thou'st long begun to tire.\r
-Believest thou in God?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. My. darling, who engages\r
-To say, I do believe in God?\r
-The question put to priests or sages:\r
-Their answer seems as if it sought\r
-To mock the asker.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Then believ'st thou not?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Sweet face, do not misunderstand my thought!\r
-Who dares express him?\r
-And who confess him,\r
-Saying, I do believe?\r
-A man's heart bearing,\r
-What man has the daring\r
-To say: I acknowledge him not?\r
-The All-enfolder,\r
-The All-upholder,\r
-Enfolds, upholds He not\r
-Thee, me, Himself?\r
-Upsprings not Heaven's blue arch high o'er thee?\r
-Underneath thee does not earth stand fast?\r
-See'st thou not, nightly climbing,\r
-Tenderly glancing eternal stars?\r
-Am I not gazing eye to eye on thee?\r
-Through brain and bosom\r
-Throngs not all life to thee,\r
-Weaving in everlasting mystery\r
-Obscurely, clearly, on all sides of thee?\r
-Fill with it, to its utmost stretch, thy breast,\r
-And in the consciousness when thou art wholly blest,\r
-Then call it what thou wilt,\r
-Joy! Heart! Love! God!\r
-I have no name to give it!\r
-All comes at last to feeling;\r
-Name is but sound and smoke,\r
-Beclouding Heaven's warm glow.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. That is all fine and good, I know;\r
-And just as the priest has often spoke,\r
-Only with somewhat different phrases.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. All hearts, too, in all places,\r
-Wherever Heaven pours down the day's broad blessing,\r
-Each in its way the truth is confessing;\r
-And why not I in mine, too?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Well, all have a way that they incline to,\r
-But still there is something wrong with thee;\r
-Thou hast no Christianity.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Dear child!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. It long has troubled me\r
-That thou shouldst keep such company.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. How so?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. The man whom thou for crony hast,\r
-Is one whom I with all my soul detest.\r
-Nothing in all my life has ever\r
-Stirred up in my heart such a deep disfavor\r
-As the ugly face that man has got.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Sweet plaything; fear him not!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. His presence stirs my blood, I own.\r
-I can love almost all men I've ever known;\r
-But much as thy presence with pleasure thrills me,\r
-That man with a secret horror fills me.\r
-And then for a knave I've suspected him long!\r
-God pardon me, if I do him wrong!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. To make up a world such odd sticks are needed.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Shouldn't like to live in the house where he did!\r
-Whenever I see him coming in,\r
-He always wears such a mocking grin.\r
-Half cold, half grim;\r
-One sees, that naught has interest for him;\r
-'Tis writ on his brow and can't be mistaken,\r
-No soul in him can love awaken.\r
-I feel in thy arms so happy, so free,\r
-I yield myself up so blissfully,\r
-He comes, and all in me is closed and frozen now.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Ah, thou mistrustful angel, thou!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. This weighs on me so sore,\r
-That when we meet, and he is by me,\r
-I feel, as if I loved thee now no more.\r
-Nor could I ever pray, if he were nigh me,\r
-That eats the very heart in me;\r
-Henry, it must be so with thee.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. 'Tis an antipathy of thine!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Farewell!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Ah, can I ne'er recline\r
-One little hour upon thy bosom, pressing\r
-My heart to thine and all my soul confessing?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Ah, if my chamber were alone,\r
-This night the bolt should give thee free admission;\r
-But mother wakes at every tone,\r
-And if she had the least suspicion,\r
-Heavens! I should die upon the spot!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thou angel, need of that there's not.\r
-Here is a flask! Three drops alone\r
-Mix with her drink, and nature\r
-Into a deep and pleasant sleep is thrown.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Refuse thee, what can I, poor creature?\r
-I hope, of course, it will not harm her!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Would I advise it then, my charmer?\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Best man, when thou dost look at me,\r
-I know not what, moves me to do thy will;\r
-I have already done so much for thee,\r
-Scarce any thing seems left me to fulfil.\r
- [_Exit_.]\r
-\r
- Enter_ MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Mephtftopheles_. The monkey! is she gone?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Hast played the spy again?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I overheard it all quite fully.\r
-The Doctor has been well catechized then?\r
-Hope it will sit well on him truly.\r
-The maidens won't rest till they know if the men\r
-Believe as good old custom bids them do.\r
-They think: if there he yields, he'll follow our will too.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Monster, thou wilt not, canst not see,\r
-How this true soul that loves so dearly,\r
-Yet hugs, at every cost,\r
-The faith which she\r
-Counts Heaven itself, is horror-struck sincerely\r
-To think of giving up her dearest man for lost.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Thou supersensual, sensual wooer,\r
-A girl by the nose is leading thee.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Abortion vile of fire and sewer!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. In physiognomy, too, her skill is masterly.\r
-When I am near she feels she knows not how,\r
-My little mask some secret meaning shows;\r
-She thinks, I'm certainly a genius, now,\r
-Perhaps the very devil--who knows?\r
-To-night then?--\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Well, what's that to you?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I find my pleasure in it, too!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- AT THE WELL.\r
-\r
- MARGERY _and_ LIZZY _with Pitchers._\r
-\r
-_Lizzy_. Hast heard no news of Barbara to-day?\r
-\r
-_Margery_. No, not a word. I've not been out much lately.\r
-\r
-_Lizzy_. It came to me through Sybill very straightly.\r
-She's made a fool of herself at last, they say.\r
-That comes of taking airs!\r
-\r
-_Margery_. What meanst thou?\r
-\r
-_Lizzy_. Pah!\r
-She daily eats and drinks for two now.\r
-\r
-_Margery_. Ah!\r
-\r
-_Lizzy_. It serves the jade right for being so callow.\r
-How long she's been hanging upon the fellow!\r
-Such a promenading!\r
-To fair and dance parading!\r
-Everywhere as first she must shine,\r
-He was treating her always with tarts and wine;\r
-She began to think herself something fine,\r
-And let her vanity so degrade her\r
-That she even accepted the presents he made her.\r
-There was hugging and smacking, and so it went on--\r
-And lo! and behold! the flower is gone!\r
-\r
-_Margery_. Poor thing!\r
-\r
-_Lizzy_. Canst any pity for her feel!\r
-When such as we spun at the wheel,\r
-Our mothers kept us in-doors after dark;\r
-While she stood cozy with her spark,\r
-Or sate on the door-bench, or sauntered round,\r
-And never an hour too long they found.\r
-But now her pride may let itself down,\r
-To do penance at church in the sinner's gown!\r
-\r
-_Margery_. He'll certainly take her for his wife.\r
-\r
-_Lizzy_. He'd be a fool! A spruce young blade\r
-Has room enough to ply his trade.\r
-Besides, he's gone.\r
-\r
-_Margery_. Now, that's not fair!\r
-\r
-_Lizzy_. If she gets him, her lot'll be hard to bear.\r
-The boys will tear up her wreath, and what's more,\r
-We'll strew chopped straw before her door.\r
-\r
- [_Exit._]\r
-\r
-_Margery [going home]_. Time was when I, too, instead of bewailing,\r
-Could boldly jeer at a poor girl's failing!\r
-When my scorn could scarcely find expression\r
-At hearing of another's transgression!\r
-How black it seemed! though black as could be,\r
-It never was black enough for me.\r
-I blessed my soul, and felt so high,\r
-And now, myself, in sin I lie!\r
-Yet--all that led me to it, sure,\r
-O God! it was so dear, so pure!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- DONJON.[27]\r
-\r
- [_In a niche a devotional image of the Mater Dolorosa,\r
- before it pots of flowers._]\r
-\r
-MARGERY [_puts fresh flowers into the pots_].\r
- Ah, hear me,\r
- Draw kindly near me,\r
- Mother of sorrows, heal my woe!\r
-\r
- Sword-pierced, and stricken\r
- With pangs that sicken,\r
- Thou seest thy son's last life-blood flow!\r
-\r
- Thy look--thy sighing---\r
- To God are crying,\r
- Charged with a son's and mother's woe!\r
-\r
- Sad mother!\r
- What other\r
- Knows the pangs that eat me to the bone?\r
- What within my poor heart burneth,\r
- How it trembleth, how it yearneth,\r
- Thou canst feel and thou alone!\r
-\r
- Go where I will, I never\r
- Find peace or hope--forever\r
- Woe, woe and misery!\r
-\r
- Alone, when all are sleeping,\r
- I'm weeping, weeping, weeping,\r
- My heart is crushed in me.\r
-\r
- The pots before my window,\r
- In the early morning-hours,\r
- Alas, my tears bedewed them,\r
- As I plucked for thee these flowers,\r
-\r
- When the bright sun good morrow\r
- In at my window said,\r
- Already, in my anguish,\r
- I sate there in my bed.\r
-\r
- From shame and death redeem me, oh!\r
- Draw near me,\r
- And, pitying, hear me,\r
- Mother of sorrows, heal my woe!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- NIGHT.\r
-\r
- _Street before_ MARGERY'S _Door._\r
-\r
-\r
- VALENTINE [_soldier,_ MARGERY'S _brother_].\r
-\r
-When at the mess I used to sit,\r
-Where many a one will show his wit,\r
-And heard my comrades one and all\r
-The flower of the sex extol,\r
-Drowning their praise with bumpers high,\r
-Leaning upon my elbows, I\r
-Would hear the braggadocios through,\r
-And then, when it came my turn, too,\r
-Would stroke my beard and, smiling, say,\r
-A brimming bumper in my hand:\r
-All very decent in their way!\r
-But is there one, in all the land,\r
-With my sweet Margy to compare,\r
-A candle to hold to my sister fair?\r
-Bravo! Kling! Klang! it echoed round!\r
-One party cried: 'tis truth he speaks,\r
-She is the jewel of the sex!\r
-And the braggarts all in silence were bound.\r
-And now!--one could pull out his hair with vexation,\r
-And run up the walls for mortification!--\r
-Every two-legged creature that goes in breeches\r
-Can mock me with sneers and stinging speeches!\r
-And I like a guilty debtor sitting,\r
-For fear of each casual word am sweating!\r
-And though I could smash them in my ire,\r
-I dare not call a soul of them liar.\r
-\r
-What's that comes yonder, sneaking along?\r
-There are two of them there, if I see not wrong.\r
-Is't he, I'll give him a dose that'll cure him,\r
-He'll not leave the spot alive, I assure him!\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. How from yon window of the sacristy\r
-The ever-burning lamp sends up its glimmer,\r
-And round the edge grows ever dimmer,\r
-Till in the gloom its flickerings die!\r
-So in my bosom all is nightlike.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. A starving tom-cat I feel quite like,\r
-That o'er the fire ladders crawls\r
-Then softly creeps, ground the walls.\r
-My aim's quite virtuous ne'ertheless,\r
-A bit of thievish lust, a bit of wantonness.\r
-I feel it all my members haunting--\r
-The glorious Walpurgis night.\r
-One day--then comes the feast enchanting\r
-That shall all pinings well requite.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Meanwhile can that the casket be, I wonder,\r
-I see behind rise glittering yonder.[28]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Yes, and thou soon shalt have the pleasure\r
-Of lifting out the precious treasure.\r
-I lately 'neath the lid did squint,\r
-Has piles of lion-dollars[29] in't.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. But not a jewel? Not a ring?\r
-To deck my mistress not a trinket?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I caught a glimpse of some such thing,\r
-Sort of pearl bracelet I should think it.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. That's well! I always like to bear\r
-Some present when I visit my fair.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. You should not murmur if your fate is,\r
-To have a bit of pleasure gratis.\r
-Now, as the stars fill heaven with their bright throng,\r
-List a fine piece, artistic purely:\r
-I sing her here a moral song,\r
-To make a fool of her more surely.\r
- [_Sings to the guitar_.][30]\r
- What dost thou here,\r
- Katrina dear,\r
- At daybreak drear,\r
- Before thy lover's chamber?\r
- Give o'er, give o'er!\r
- The maid his door\r
- Lets in, no more\r
- Goes out a maid--remember!\r
-\r
- Take heed! take heed!\r
- Once done, the deed\r
- Ye'll rue with speed--\r
- And then--good night--poor thing--a!\r
- Though ne'er so fair\r
- His speech, beware,\r
- Until you bear\r
- His ring upon your finger.\r
-\r
-_Valentine_ [_comes forward_].\r
-Whom lur'ft thou here? what prey dost scent?\r
-Rat-catching[81] offspring of perdition!\r
-To hell goes first the instrument!\r
-To hell then follows the musician!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. He 's broken the guitar! to music, then, good-bye, now.\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. A game of cracking skulls we'll try now!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopbeles_ [_to Faust_]. Never you flinch, Sir Doctor! Brisk!\r
-Mind every word I say---be wary!\r
-Stand close by me, out with your whisk!\r
-Thrust home upon the churl! I'll parry.\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. Then parry that!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Be sure. Why not?\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. And that!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. With ease!\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. The devil's aid he's got!\r
-But what is this? My hand's already lame.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_to Faust_]. Thrust home!\r
-\r
-_Valentine_ [_falls_]. O woe!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Now is the lubber tame!\r
-But come! We must be off. I hear a clatter;\r
-And cries of murder, too, that fast increase.\r
-I'm an old hand to manage the police,\r
-But then the penal court's another matter.\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Come out! Come out!\r
-\r
-_Margery_ [_at the window_]. Bring on a light!\r
-\r
-_Martha_ [_as above_]. They swear and scuffle, scream and fight.\r
-\r
-_People_. There's one, has got's death-blow!\r
-\r
-_Martha_ [_coming out_]. Where are the murderers, have they flown?\r
-\r
-_Margery_ [_coming out_]. Who's lying here?\r
-\r
-_People_. Thy mother's son.\r
-\r
-_Margery_. Almighty God! What woe!\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. I'm dying! that is quickly said,\r
-And even quicklier done.\r
-Women! Why howl, as if half-dead?\r
-Come, hear me, every one!\r
- [_All gather round him_.]\r
-My Margery, look! Young art thou still,\r
-But managest thy matters ill,\r
-Hast not learned out yet quite.\r
-I say in confidence--think it o'er:\r
-Thou art just once for all a whore;\r
-Why, be one, then, outright.\r
-\r
-_Margery_. My brother! God! What words to me!\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. In this game let our Lord God be!\r
-That which is done, alas! is done.\r
-And every thing its course will run.\r
-With one you secretly begin,\r
-Presently more of them come in,\r
-And when a dozen share in thee,\r
-Thou art the whole town's property.\r
-\r
-When shame is born to this world of sorrow,\r
-The birth is carefully hid from sight,\r
-And the mysterious veil of night\r
-To cover her head they borrow;\r
-Yes, they would gladly stifle the wearer;\r
-But as she grows and holds herself high,\r
-She walks uncovered in day's broad eye,\r
-Though she has not become a whit fairer.\r
-The uglier her face to sight,\r
-The more she courts the noonday light.\r
-\r
-Already I the time can see\r
-When all good souls shall shrink from thee,\r
-Thou prostitute, when thou go'st by them,\r
-As if a tainted corpse were nigh them.\r
-Thy heart within thy breast shall quake then,\r
-When they look thee in the face.\r
-Shalt wear no gold chain more on thy neck then!\r
-Shalt stand no more in the holy place!\r
-No pleasure in point-lace collars take then,\r
-Nor for the dance thy person deck then!\r
-But into some dark corner gliding,\r
-'Mong beggars and cripples wilt be hiding;\r
-And even should God thy sin forgive,\r
-Wilt be curs'd on earth while thou shalt live!\r
-\r
-_Martha_. Your soul to the mercy of God surrender!\r
-Will you add to your load the sin of slander?\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. Could I get at thy dried-up frame,\r
-Vile bawd, so lost to all sense of shame!\r
-Then might I hope, e'en this side Heaven,\r
-Richly to find my sins forgiven.\r
-\r
-_Margery_. My brother! This is hell to me!\r
-\r
-_Valentine_. I tell thee, let these weak tears be!\r
-When thy last hold of honor broke,\r
-Thou gav'st my heart the heaviest stroke.\r
-I'm going home now through the grave\r
-To God, a soldier and a brave.\r
- [_Dies_.]\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- CATHEDRAL.\r
-\r
- _Service, Organ, and Singing._\r
-\r
-\r
- [MARGERY _amidst a crowd of people._ EVIL SPIRIT _behind_ MARGERY.]\r
-\r
-_Evil Spirit_. How different was it with thee, Margy,\r
-When, innocent and artless,\r
-Thou cam'st here to the altar,\r
-From the well-thumbed little prayer-book,\r
-Petitions lisping,\r
-Half full of child's play,\r
-Half full of Heaven!\r
-Margy!\r
-Where are thy thoughts?\r
-What crime is buried\r
-Deep within thy heart?\r
-Prayest thou haply for thy mother, who\r
-Slept over into long, long pain, on thy account?\r
-Whose blood upon thy threshold lies?\r
---And stirs there not, already\r
-Beneath thy heart a life\r
-Tormenting itself and thee\r
-With bodings of its coming hour?\r
-\r
-_Margery_. Woe! Woe!\r
-Could I rid me of the thoughts,\r
-Still through my brain backward and forward flitting,\r
-Against my will!\r
-\r
-_Chorus_. Dies irae, dies illa\r
-Solvet saeclum in favillâ.\r
-\r
- [_Organ plays_.]\r
-\r
-_Evil Spirit_. Wrath smites thee!\r
-Hark! the trumpet sounds!\r
-The graves are trembling!\r
-And thy heart,\r
-Made o'er again\r
-For fiery torments,\r
-Waking from its ashes\r
-Starts up!\r
-\r
-_Margery_. Would I were hence!\r
-I feel as if the organ's peal\r
-My breath were stifling,\r
-The choral chant\r
-My heart were melting.\r
-\r
-_Chorus_. Judex ergo cum sedebit,\r
-Quidquid latet apparebit.\r
-Nil inultum remanebit.\r
-\r
-_Margery_. How cramped it feels!\r
-The walls and pillars\r
-Imprison me!\r
-And the arches\r
-Crush me!--Air!\r
-\r
-_Evil Spirit_. What! hide thee! sin and shame\r
-Will not be hidden!\r
-Air? Light?\r
-Woe's thee!\r
-\r
-_Chorus_. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?\r
-Quem patronum rogaturus?\r
-Cum vix justus sit securus.\r
-\r
-_Evil Spirit_. They turn their faces,\r
-The glorified, from thee.\r
-To take thy hand, the pure ones\r
-Shudder with horror.\r
-Woe!\r
-\r
-_Chorus_. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?\r
-\r
-_Margery_. Neighbor! your phial!--\r
- [_She swoons._]\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- WALPURGIS NIGHT.[32]\r
-\r
- _Harz Mountains._\r
-\r
- _District of Schirke and Elend._\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Wouldst thou not like a broomstick, now, to ride on?\r
-At this rate we are, still, a long way off;\r
-I'd rather have a good tough goat, by half,\r
-Than the best legs a man e'er set his pride on.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. So long as I've a pair of good fresh legs to stride on,\r
-Enough for me this knotty staff.\r
-What use of shortening the way!\r
-Following the valley's labyrinthine winding,\r
-Then up this rock a pathway finding,\r
-From which the spring leaps down in bubbling play,\r
-That is what spices such a walk, I say!\r
-Spring through the birch-tree's veins is flowing,\r
-The very pine is feeling it;\r
-Should not its influence set our limbs a-glowing?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I do not feel it, not a bit!\r
-My wintry blood runs very slowly;\r
-I wish my path were filled with frost and snow.\r
-The moon's imperfect disk, how melancholy\r
-It rises there with red, belated glow,\r
-And shines so badly, turn where'er one can turn,\r
-At every step he hits a rock or tree!\r
-With leave I'll beg a Jack-o'lantern!\r
-I see one yonder burning merrily.\r
-Heigh, there! my friend! May I thy aid desire?\r
-Why waste at such a rate thy fire?\r
-Come, light us up yon path, good fellow, pray!\r
-\r
-_Jack-o'lantern_. Out of respect, I hope I shall be able\r
-To rein a nature quite unstable;\r
-We usually take a zigzag way.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Heigh! heigh! He thinks man's crooked course to travel.\r
-Go straight ahead, or, by the devil,\r
-I'll blow your flickering life out with a puff.\r
-\r
-_Jack-o'lantern_. You're master of the house, that's plain enough,\r
-So I'll comply with your desire.\r
-But see! The mountain's magic-mad to-night,\r
-And if your guide's to be a Jack-o'lantern's light,\r
-Strict rectitude you'll scarce require.\r
-\r
-FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, JACK-O'LANTERN, _in alternate song_.\r
-\r
- Spheres of magic, dream, and vision,\r
- Now, it seems, are opening o'er us.\r
- For thy credit, use precision!\r
- Let the way be plain before us\r
- Through the lengthening desert regions.\r
-\r
- See how trees on trees, in legions,\r
- Hurrying by us, change their places,\r
- And the bowing crags make faces,\r
- And the rocks, long noses showing,\r
- Hear them snoring, hear them blowing![33]\r
-\r
- Down through stones, through mosses flowing,\r
- See the brook and brooklet springing.\r
- Hear I rustling? hear I singing?\r
- Love-plaints, sweet and melancholy,\r
- Voices of those days so holy?\r
- All our loving, longing, yearning?\r
- Echo, like a strain returning\r
- From the olden times, is ringing.\r
-\r
- Uhu! Schuhu! Tu-whit! Tu-whit!\r
- Are the jay, and owl, and pewit\r
- All awake and loudly calling?\r
- What goes through the bushes yonder?\r
- Can it be the Salamander--\r
- Belly thick and legs a-sprawling?\r
- Roots and fibres, snake-like, crawling,\r
- Out from rocky, sandy places,\r
- Wheresoe'er we turn our faces,\r
- Stretch enormous fingers round us,\r
- Here to catch us, there confound us;\r
- Thick, black knars to life are starting,\r
- Polypusses'-feelers darting\r
- At the traveller. Field-mice, swarming,\r
- Thousand-colored armies forming,\r
- Scamper on through moss and heather!\r
- And the glow-worms, in the darkling,\r
- With their crowded escort sparkling,\r
- Would confound us altogether.\r
-\r
- But to guess I'm vainly trying--\r
- Are we stopping? are we hieing?\r
- Round and round us all seems flying,\r
- Rocks and trees, that make grimaces,\r
- And the mist-lights of the places\r
- Ever swelling, multiplying.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Here's my coat-tail--tightly thumb it!\r
-We have reached a middle summit,\r
-Whence one stares to see how shines\r
-Mammon in the mountain-mines.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. How strangely through the dim recesses\r
-A dreary dawning seems to glow!\r
-And even down the deep abysses\r
-Its melancholy quiverings throw!\r
-Here smoke is boiling, mist exhaling;\r
-Here from a vapory veil it gleams,\r
-Then, a fine thread of light, goes trailing,\r
-Then gushes up in fiery streams.\r
-The valley, here, you see it follow,\r
-One mighty flood, with hundred rills,\r
-And here, pent up in some deep hollow,\r
-It breaks on all sides down the hills.\r
-Here, spark-showers, darting up before us,\r
-Like golden sand-clouds rise and fall.\r
-But yonder see how blazes o'er us,\r
-All up and down, the rocky wall!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Has not Sir Mammon gloriously lighted\r
-His palace for this festive night?\r
-Count thyself lucky for the sight:\r
-I catch e'en now a glimpse of noisy guests invited.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. How the mad tempest[34] sweeps the air!\r
-On cheek and neck the wind-gusts how they flout me.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Must seize the rock's old ribs and hold on stoutly!\r
-Else will they hurl thee down the dark abysses there.\r
-A mist-rain thickens the gloom.\r
-Hark, how the forests crash and boom!\r
-Out fly the owls in dread and wonder;\r
-Splitting their columns asunder,\r
-Hear it, the evergreen palaces shaking!\r
-Boughs are twisting and breaking!\r
-Of stems what a grinding and moaning!\r
-Of roots what a creaking and groaning!\r
-In frightful confusion, headlong tumbling,\r
-They fall, with a sound of thunder rumbling,\r
-And, through the wreck-piled ravines and abysses,\r
-The tempest howls and hisses.\r
-Hearst thou voices high up o'er us?\r
-Close around us--far before us?\r
-Through the mountain, all along,\r
-Swells a torrent of magic song.\r
-\r
-_Witches_ [_in chorus_]. The witches go to the Brocken's top,\r
- The stubble is yellow, and green the crop.\r
- They gather there at the well-known call,\r
- Sir Urian[85] sits at the head of all.\r
- Then on we go o'er stone and stock:\r
- The witch, she--and--the buck.\r
-\r
-_Voice_. Old Baubo comes along, I vow!\r
-She rides upon a farrow-sow.\r
-\r
-_Chorus_. Then honor to whom honor's due!\r
- Ma'am Baubo ahead! and lead the crew!\r
- A good fat sow, and ma'am on her back,\r
- Then follow the witches all in a pack.\r
-\r
-_Voice_. Which way didst thou come?\r
-\r
-_Voice_. By the Ilsenstein!\r
-Peeped into an owl's nest, mother of mine!\r
-What a pair of eyes!\r
-\r
-_Voice_. To hell with your flurry!\r
-Why ride in such hurry!\r
-\r
-_Voice_. The hag be confounded!\r
-My skin flie has wounded!\r
-\r
-_Witches_ [_chorus]._ The way is broad, the way is long,\r
- What means this noisy, crazy throng?\r
- The broom it scratches, the fork it flicks,\r
- The child is stifled, the mother breaks.\r
-\r
-_Wizards_ [_semi-chorus_]. Like housed-up snails we're creeping on,\r
-The women all ahead are gone.\r
-When to the Bad One's house we go,\r
-She gains a thousand steps, you know.\r
-\r
-_The other half_. We take it not precisely so;\r
-What she in thousand steps can go,\r
-Make all the haste she ever can,\r
-'Tis done in just one leap by man.\r
-\r
-_Voice_ [_above_]. Come on, come on, from Felsensee!\r
-\r
-_Voices_ [_from below_]. We'd gladly join your airy way.\r
-For wash and clean us as much as we will,\r
-We always prove unfruitful still.\r
-\r
-_Both chorusses_. The wind is hushed, the star shoots by,\r
- The moon she hides her sickly eye.\r
- The whirling, whizzing magic-choir\r
- Darts forth ten thousand sparks of fire.\r
-\r
-_Voice_ [_from below_]. Ho, there! whoa, there!\r
-\r
-_Voice_ [_from above_]. Who calls from the rocky cleft below there?\r
-\r
-_Voice_ [_below_]. Take me too! take me too!\r
-Three hundred years I've climbed to you,\r
-Seeking in vain my mates to come at,\r
-For I can never reach the summit.\r
-\r
-_Both chorusses_. Can ride the besom, the stick can ride,\r
- Can stride the pitchfork, the goat can stride;\r
- Who neither will ride to-night, nor can,\r
- Must be forever a ruined man.\r
-\r
-_Half-witch_ [_below_]. I hobble on--I'm out of wind--\r
-And still they leave me far behind!\r
-To find peace here in vain I come,\r
-I get no more than I left at home.\r
-\r
-_Chorus of witches_. The witch's salve can never fail,\r
- A rag will answer for a sail,\r
- Any trough will do for a ship, that's tight;\r
- He'll never fly who flies not to-night.\r
-\r
-_Both chorusses_. And when the highest peak we round,\r
- Then lightly graze along the ground,\r
- And cover the heath, where eye can see,\r
- With the flower of witch-errantry.\r
- [_They alight_.]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles._ What squeezing and pushing, what rustling and hustling!\r
-What hissing and twirling, what chattering and bustling!\r
-How it shines and sparkles and burns and stinks!\r
-A true witch-element, methinks!\r
-Keep close! or we are parted in two winks.\r
-Where art thou?\r
-\r
-_Faust_ [_in the distance_]. Here!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. What! carried off already?\r
-Then I must use my house-right.--Steady!\r
-Room! Squire Voland[36] comes. Sweet people, Clear the ground!\r
-Here, Doctor, grasp my arm! and, at a single bound;\r
-Let us escape, while yet 'tis easy;\r
-E'en for the like of me they're far too crazy.\r
-See! yonder, something shines with quite peculiar glare,\r
-And draws me to those bushes mazy.\r
-Come! come! and let us slip in there.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. All-contradicting sprite! To follow thee I'm fated.\r
-But I must say, thy plan was very bright!\r
-We seek the Brocken here, on the Walpurgis night,\r
-Then hold ourselves, when here, completely isolated!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. What motley flames light up the heather!\r
-A merry club is met together,\r
-In a small group one's not alone.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I'd rather be up there, I own!\r
-See! curling smoke and flames right blue!\r
-To see the Evil One they travel;\r
-There many a riddle to unravel.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. And tie up many another, too.\r
-Let the great world there rave and riot,\r
-We here will house ourselves in quiet.\r
-The saying has been long well known:\r
-In the great world one makes a small one of his own.\r
-I see young witches there quite naked all,\r
-And old ones who, more prudent, cover.\r
-For my sake some flight things look over;\r
-The fun is great, the trouble small.\r
-I hear them tuning instruments! Curs'd jangle!\r
-Well! one must learn with such things not to wrangle.\r
-Come on! Come on! For so it needs must be,\r
-Thou shalt at once be introduced by me.\r
-And I new thanks from thee be earning.\r
-That is no scanty space; what sayst thou, friend?\r
-Just take a look! thou scarce canst see the end.\r
-There, in a row, a hundred fires are burning;\r
-They dance, chat, cook, drink, love; where can be found\r
-Any thing better, now, the wide world round?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Wilt thou, as things are now in this condition,\r
-Present thyself for devil, or magician?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I've been much used, indeed, to going incognito;\r
-\r
-But then, on gala-day, one will his order show.\r
-No garter makes my rank appear,\r
-But then the cloven foot stands high in honor here.\r
-Seest thou the snail? Look there! where she comes creeping yonder!\r
-Had she already smelt the rat,\r
-I should not very greatly wonder.\r
-Disguise is useless now, depend on that.\r
-Come, then! we will from fire to fire wander,\r
-Thou shalt the wooer be and I the pander.\r
- [_To a party who sit round expiring embers_.]\r
-Old gentlemen, you scarce can hear the fiddle!\r
-You'd gain more praise from me, ensconced there in the middle,\r
-'Mongst that young rousing, tousing set.\r
-One can, at home, enough retirement get.\r
-\r
-_General_. Trust not the people's fickle favor!\r
-However much thou mayst for them have done.\r
-Nations, as well as women, ever,\r
-Worship the rising, not the setting sun.\r
-\r
-_Minister_. From the right path we've drifted far away,\r
-The good old past my heart engages;\r
-Those were the real golden ages,\r
-When such as we held all the sway.\r
-\r
-_Parvenu_. We were no simpletons, I trow,\r
-And often did the thing we should not;\r
-But all is turning topsy-turvy now,\r
-And if we tried to stem the wave, we could not.\r
-\r
-_Author_. Who on the whole will read a work today,\r
-Of moderate sense, with any pleasure?\r
-And as regards the dear young people, they\r
-Pert and precocious are beyond all measure.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_who all at once appears very old_].\r
-The race is ripened for the judgment day:\r
-So I, for the last time, climb the witch-mountain, thinking,\r
-And, as my cask runs thick, I say,\r
-The world, too, on its lees is sinking.\r
-\r
-_Witch-broker_. Good gentlemen, don't hurry by!\r
-The opportunity's a rare one!\r
-My stock is an uncommon fair one,\r
-Please give it an attentive eye.\r
-There's nothing in my shop, whatever,\r
-But on the earth its mate is found;\r
-That has not proved itself right clever\r
-To deal mankind some fatal wound.\r
-No dagger here, but blood has some time stained it;\r
-No cup, that has not held some hot and poisonous juice,\r
-And stung to death the throat that drained it;\r
-No trinket, but did once a maid seduce;\r
-No sword, but hath some tie of sacred honor riven,\r
-Or haply from behind through foeman's neck been driven.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. You're quite behind the times, I tell you, Aunty!\r
-By-gones be by-gones! done is done!\r
-Get us up something new and jaunty!\r
-For new things now the people run.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. To keep my wits I must endeavor!\r
-Call this a fair! I swear, I never--!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Upward the billowy mass is moving;\r
-You're shoved along and think, meanwhile, you're shoving.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What woman's that?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Mark her attentively.\r
-That's Lilith.[37]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Who?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopbeles_. Adam's first wife is she.\r
-Beware of her one charm, those lovely tresses,\r
-In which she shines preeminently fair.\r
-When those soft meshes once a young man snare,\r
-How hard 'twill be to escape he little guesses.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. There sit an old one and a young together;\r
-They've skipped it well along the heather!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. No rest from that till night is through.\r
-Another dance is up; come on! let us fall to.\r
-\r
-_Faust_ [_dancing with the young one_]. A lovely dream once came to me;\r
-In it I saw an apple-tree;\r
-Two beauteous apples beckoned there,\r
-I climbed to pluck the fruit so fair.\r
-\r
-_The Fair one_. Apples you greatly seem to prize,\r
-And did so even in Paradise.\r
-I feel myself delighted much\r
-That in my garden I have such.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_ [_with the old hag_]. A dismal dream once came to me;\r
-In it I saw a cloven tree,\r
-It had a ------ but still,\r
-I looked on it with right good-will.\r
-\r
-_The Hog_. With best respect I here salute\r
-The noble knight of the cloven foot!\r
-Let him hold a ------ near,\r
-If a ------ he does not fear.\r
-\r
-_Proctophantasmist_.[38] What's this ye undertake? Confounded crew!\r
-Have we not giv'n you demonstration?\r
-No spirit stands on legs in all creation,\r
-And here you dance just as we mortals do!\r
-\r
-_The Fair one_ [_dancing_]. What does that fellow at our ball?\r
-\r
-_Faust_ [_dancing_]. Eh! he must have a hand in all.\r
-What others dance that he appraises.\r
-Unless each step he criticizes,\r
-The step as good as no step he will call.\r
-But when we move ahead, that plagues him more than all.\r
-If in a circle you would still keep turning,\r
-As he himself in his old mill goes round,\r
-He would be sure to call that sound!\r
-And most so, if you went by his superior learning.\r
-\r
-_Proctophantasmist_. What, and you still are here! Unheard off obstinates!\r
-Begone! We've cleared it up! You shallow pates!\r
-The devilish pack from rules deliverance boasts.\r
-We've grown so wise, and Tegel[39] still sees ghosts.\r
-How long I've toiled to sweep these cobwebs from the brain,\r
-And yet--unheard of folly! all in vain.\r
-\r
-_The Fair one_. And yet on us the stupid bore still tries it!\r
-\r
-_Proctophantasmist_. I tell you spirits, to the face,\r
-I give to spirit-tyranny no place,\r
-My spirit cannot exercise it.\r
- [_They dance on_.]\r
-I can't succeed to-day, I know it;\r
-Still, there's the journey, which I like to make,\r
-And hope, before the final step I take,\r
-To rid the world of devil and of poet.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. You'll see him shortly sit into a puddle,\r
-In that way his heart is reassured;\r
-When on his rump the leeches well shall fuddle,\r
-Of spirits and of spirit he'll be cured.\r
- [_To_ FAUST, _who has left the dance_.]\r
-Why let the lovely girl slip through thy fingers,\r
-Who to thy dance so sweetly sang?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Ah, right amidst her singing, sprang\r
-A wee red mouse from her mouth and made me cower.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. That's nothing wrong! You're in a dainty way;\r
-Enough, the mouse at least wan't gray.\r
-Who minds such thing in happy amorous hour?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Then saw I--\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. What?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Mephisto, seest thou not\r
-Yon pale, fair child afar, who stands so sad and lonely,\r
-And moves so slowly from the spot,\r
-Her feet seem locked, and she drags them only.\r
-I must confess, she seems to me\r
-To look like my own good Margery.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Leave that alone! The sight no health can bring.\r
-it is a magic shape, an idol, no live thing.\r
-To meet it never can be good!\r
-Its haggard look congeals a mortal's blood,\r
-And almost turns him into stone;\r
-The story of Medusa thou hast known.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Yes, 'tis a dead one's eyes that stare upon me,\r
-Eyes that no loving hand e'er closed;\r
-That is the angel form of her who won me,\r
-Tis the dear breast on which I once reposed.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. 'Tis sorcery all, thou fool, misled by passion's dreams!\r
-For she to every one his own love seems.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What bliss! what woe! Methinks I never\r
-My sight from that sweet form can sever.\r
-Seeft thou, not thicker than a knife-blade's back,\r
-A small red ribbon, fitting sweetly\r
-The lovely neck it clasps so neatly?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I see the streak around her neck.\r
-Her head beneath her arm, you'll next behold her;\r
-Perseus has lopped it from her shoulder,--\r
-But let thy crazy passion rest!\r
-Come, climb with me yon hillock's breast,\r
-Was e'er the Prater[40] merrier then?\r
-And if no sorcerer's charm is o'er me,\r
-That is a theatre before me.\r
-What's doing there?\r
-\r
-_Servibilis_. They'll straight begin again.\r
-A bran-new piece, the very last of seven;\r
-To have so much, the fashion here thinks fit.\r
-By Dilettantes it is given;\r
-'Twas by a Dilettante writ.\r
-Excuse me, sirs, I go to greet you;\r
-I am the curtain-raising Dilettant.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. When I upon the Blocksberg meet you,\r
-That I approve; for there's your place, I grant.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- WALPURGIS-NIGHT'S DREAM, OR OBERON AND TITANIA'S GOLDEN NUPTIALS.\r
-\r
- _Intermezzo_.\r
-\r
-\r
-_Theatre manager_. Here, for once, we rest, to-day,\r
-Heirs of Mieding's[41] glory.\r
-All the scenery we display--\r
-Damp vale and mountain hoary!\r
-\r
-_Herald_. To make the wedding a golden one,\r
-Must fifty years expire;\r
-But when once the strife is done,\r
-I prize the _gold_ the higher.\r
-\r
-_Oberon_. Spirits, if my good ye mean,\r
-Now let all wrongs be righted;\r
-For to-day your king and queen\r
-Are once again united.\r
-\r
-_Puck_. Once let Puck coming whirling round,\r
-And set his foot to whisking,\r
-Hundreds with him throng the ground,\r
-Frolicking and frisking.\r
-\r
-_Ariel_. Ariel awakes the song\r
-With many a heavenly measure;\r
-Fools not few he draws along,\r
-But fair ones hear with pleasure.\r
-\r
-_Oberon_. Spouses who your feuds would smother,\r
-Take from us a moral!\r
-Two who wish to love each other,\r
-Need only first to quarrel.\r
-\r
-_Titania_. If she pouts and he looks grim,\r
-Take them both together,\r
-To the north pole carry him,\r
-And off with her to t'other.\r
-\r
- _Orchestra Tutti_.\r
-\r
-_Fortissimo_. Fly-snouts and gnats'-noses, these,\r
-And kin in all conditions,\r
-Grass-hid crickets, frogs in trees,\r
-We take for our musicians!\r
-\r
-_Solo_. See, the Bagpipe comes! fall back!\r
-Soap-bubble's name he owneth.\r
-How the _Schnecke-schnicke-schnack_\r
-Through his snub-nose droneth!\r
-_Spirit that is just shaping itself_. Spider-foot, toad's-belly, too,\r
-Give the child, and winglet!\r
-'Tis no animalcule, true,\r
-But a poetic thinglet.\r
-\r
-_A pair of lovers_. Little step and lofty bound\r
-Through honey-dew and flowers;\r
-Well thou trippest o'er the ground,\r
-But soarst not o'er the bowers.\r
-\r
-_Curious traveller_. This must be masquerade!\r
-How odd!\r
-My very eyes believe I?\r
-Oberon, the beauteous God\r
-Here, to-night perceive I!\r
-\r
-_Orthodox_. Neither claws, nor tail I see!\r
-And yet, without a cavil,\r
-Just as "the Gods of Greece"[42] were, he\r
-Must also be a devil.\r
-\r
-_Northern artist_. What here I catch is, to be sure,\r
-But sketchy recreation;\r
-And yet for my Italian tour\r
-'Tis timely preparation.\r
-\r
-_Purist_. Bad luck has brought me here, I see!\r
-The rioting grows louder.\r
-And of the whole witch company,\r
-There are but two, wear powder.\r
-\r
-_Young witch_. Powder becomes, like petticoat,\r
-Your little, gray old woman:\r
-Naked I sit upon my goat,\r
-And show the untrimmed human.\r
-\r
-_Matron_. To stand here jawing[43] with you, we\r
-Too much good-breeding cherish;\r
-But young and tender though you be,\r
-I hope you'll rot and perish.\r
-\r
-_Leader of the music_. Fly-snouts and gnat-noses, please,\r
-Swarm not so round the naked!\r
-Grass-hid crickets, frogs in trees,\r
-Keep time and don't forsake it!\r
-\r
-_Weathercock_ [_towards one side_]. Find better company, who can!\r
-Here, brides attended duly!\r
-There, bachelors, ranged man by man,\r
-Most hopeful people truly!\r
-\r
-_Weathercock [towards the other side_].\r
-And if the ground don't open straight,\r
-The crazy crew to swallow,\r
-You'll see me, at a furious rate,\r
-Jump down to hell's black hollow.\r
-\r
-_Xenia[_44] We are here as insects, ah!\r
-Small, sharp nippers wielding,\r
-Satan, as our _cher papa_,\r
-Worthy honor yielding.\r
-\r
-_Hennings_. See how naïvely, there, the throng\r
-Among themselves are jesting,\r
-You'll hear them, I've no doubt, ere long,\r
-Their good kind hearts protesting.\r
-\r
-_Musagetes_. Apollo in this witches' group\r
-Himself right gladly loses;\r
-For truly I could lead this troop\r
-Much easier than the muses.\r
-\r
-_Ci-devant genius of the age_. Right company will raise man up.\r
-Come, grasp my skirt, Lord bless us!\r
-The Blocksberg has a good broad top,\r
-Like Germany's Parnassus.\r
-\r
-_Curious traveller_. Tell me who is that stiff man?\r
-With what stiff step he travels!\r
-He noses out whate'er he can.\r
-"He scents the Jesuit devils."\r
-\r
-_Crane_. In clear, and muddy water, too,\r
-The long-billed gentleman fishes;\r
-Our pious gentlemen we view\r
-Fingering in devils' dishes.\r
-\r
-_Child of this world_. Yes, with the pious ones, 'tis clear,\r
-"All's grist that comes to their mill;"\r
-They build their tabernacles here,\r
-On Blocksberg, as on Carmel.\r
-\r
-_Dancer_. Hark! a new choir salutes my ear!\r
-I hear a distant drumming.\r
-"Be not disturbed! 'mong reeds you hear\r
-The one-toned bitterns bumming."\r
-\r
-_Dancing-master._ How each his legs kicks up and flings,\r
-Pulls foot as best he's able!\r
-The clumsy hops, the crooked springs,\r
-'Tis quite disreputable!\r
-\r
-_Fiddler_. The scurvy pack, they hate, 'tis clear,\r
-Like cats and dogs, each other.\r
-Like Orpheus' lute, the bagpipe here\r
-Binds beast to beast as brother.\r
-\r
-_Dogmatist_. You'll not scream down my reason, though,\r
-By criticism's cavils.\r
-The devil's something, that I know,\r
-Else how could there be devils?\r
-\r
-_Idealist_. Ah, phantasy, for once thy sway\r
-Is guilty of high treason.\r
-If all I see is I, to-day,\r
-'Tis plain I've lost my reason.\r
-\r
-_Realist_. To me, of all life's woes and plagues,\r
-Substance is most provoking,\r
-For the first time I feel my legs\r
-Beneath me almost rocking.\r
-\r
-_Supernaturalist_. I'm overjoyed at being here,\r
-And even among these rude ones;\r
-For if bad spirits are, 'tis clear,\r
-There also must be good ones.\r
-\r
-_Skeptic_. Where'er they spy the flame they roam,\r
-And think rich stores to rifle,\r
-Here such as I are quite at home,\r
-For _Zweifel_ rhymes with _Teufel_.[45]\r
-\r
-_Leader of the music_. Grass-hid cricket, frogs in trees,\r
-You cursed dilettanti!\r
-Fly-snouts and gnats'-noses, peace!\r
-Musicians you, right jaunty!\r
-\r
-_The Clever ones_. Sans-souci we call this band\r
-Of merry ones that skip it;\r
-Unable on our feet to stand,\r
-Upon our heads we trip it.\r
-\r
-_The Bunglers_. Time was, we caught our tit-bits, too,\r
-God help us now! that's done with!\r
-We've danced our leathers entirely through,\r
-And have only bare soles to run with.\r
-\r
-_Jack-o'lanterns_. From the dirty bog we come,\r
-Whence we've just arisen:\r
-Soon in the dance here, quite at home,\r
-As gay young _sparks_ we'll glisten.\r
-\r
-_Shooting star_. Trailing from the sky I shot,\r
-Not a star there missed me:\r
-Crooked up in this grassy spot,\r
-Who to my legs will assist me?\r
-\r
-_The solid men_. Room there! room there! clear the ground!\r
-Grass-blades well may fall so;\r
-Spirits are we, but 'tis found\r
-They have plump limbs also.\r
-\r
-_Puck_. Heavy men! do not, I say,\r
-Like elephants' calves go stumping:\r
-Let the plumpest one to-day\r
-Be Puck, the ever-jumping.\r
-\r
-_Ariel_. If the spirit gave, indeed,\r
-If nature gave you, pinions,\r
-Follow up my airy lead\r
-To the rose-dominions!\r
-\r
-_Orchestra_ [_pianissimo_]. Gauzy mist and fleecy cloud\r
-Sun and wind have banished.\r
-Foliage rustles, reeds pipe loud,\r
-All the show has vanished.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- DREARY DAY.[46]\r
-\r
- _Field_.\r
-\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. In wretchedness! In despair! Long hunted up and down the earth, a\r
-miserable fugitive, and caught at last! Locked up as a malefactor in\r
-prison, to converse with horrible torments--the sweet, unhappy creature!\r
-Even to this pass! even to this!--Treacherous, worthless spirit, and this\r
-thou hast hidden from me!--Stand up here--stand up! Roll thy devilish eyes\r
-round grimly in thy head! Stand and defy me with thy intolerable presence!\r
-Imprisoned! In irretrievable misery! Given over to evil spirits and to the\r
-judgment of unfeeling humanity, and me meanwhile thou lullest in insipid\r
-dissipations, concealest from me her growing anguish, and leavest her\r
-without help to perish!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. She is not the first!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Dog! abominable monster! Change him, thou Infinite Spirit! change\r
-the worm back into his canine form, as he was often pleased in the night\r
-to trot before me, to roll before the feet of the harmless wanderer, and,\r
-when he fell, to hang on his shoulders. Change him again into his favorite\r
-shape, that he may crawl before me on his belly in the sand, and that I\r
-may tread him under foot, the reprobate!--Not the first! Misery! Misery!\r
-inconceivable by any human soul! that more than one creature ever sank\r
-into the depth of this wretchedness, that the first in its writhing\r
-death-agony did not atone for the guilt of all the rest before the eyes of\r
-the eternally Forgiving! My very marrow and life are consumed by the\r
-misery of this single one; thou grinnest away composedly at the fate of\r
-thousands!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Here we are again at our wits' ends already, where the\r
-thread of sense, with you mortals, snaps short. Why make a partnership\r
-with us, if thou canst not carry it through? Wilt fly, and art not proof\r
-against dizziness? Did we thrust ourselves on thee, or thou on us?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Gnash not so thy greedy teeth against me! It disgusts me!--Great\r
-and glorious spirit, thou that deignedst to appear to me, who knowest my\r
-heart and soul, why yoke me to this shame-fellow, who feeds on mischief\r
-and feasts on ruin?\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Hast thou done?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Rescue her! O woe be unto thee! The most horrible curse on thee\r
-for thousands of years!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I cannot loose the bonds of the avenger, nor open his\r
-bolts.--Rescue her!--Who was it that plunged her into ruin? I or thou?\r
- [FAUST _looks wildly round_.]\r
-Grasp'st thou after the thunder? Well that it was not given to you\r
-miserable mortals! To crush an innocent respondent, that is a sort of\r
-tyrant's-way of getting room to breathe in embarrassment.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Lead me to her! She shall be free!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. And the danger which thou incurrest? Know that the guilt\r
-of blood at thy hand still lies upon the town. Over the place of the\r
-slain, avenging spirits hover and lurk for the returning murderer.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. That, too, from thee? Murder and death of a world upon thee,\r
-monster! Lead me thither, I say, and free her!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. I will lead thee, and hear what I can do! Have I all\r
-power in heaven and on earth? I will becloud the turnkey's senses; possess\r
-thyself of the keys, and bear her out with human hand. I will watch! The\r
-magic horses shall be ready, and I will bear you away. So much I can do.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Up and away!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- NIGHT. OPEN FIELD.\r
-\r
- FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES.\r
- _Scudding along on black horses_.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. What's doing, off there, round the gallows-tree?[47]\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Know not what they are doing and brewing.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Up they go--down they go--wheel about, reel about.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. A witches'-crew.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. They're strewing and vowing.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. Pass on! Pass on!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
- PRISON.\r
-\r
- FAUST [_with a bunch of keys and a lamp, before an iron door_]\r
-A long unwonted chill comes o'er me,\r
-I feel the whole great load of human woe.\r
-Within this clammy wall that frowns before me\r
-Lies one whom blinded love, not guilt, brought low!\r
-Thou lingerest, in hope to grow bolder!\r
-Thou fearest again to behold her!\r
-On! Thy shrinking slowly hastens the blow!\r
- [_He grasps the key. Singing from within_.]\r
-My mother, the harlot,\r
-That strung me up!\r
-My father, the varlet,\r
-That ate me up!\r
-My sister small,\r
-She gathered up all\r
-The bones that day,\r
-And in a cool place did lay;\r
-Then I woke, a sweet bird, at a magic call;\r
-Fly away, fly away!\r
-\r
-_Faust [unlocking_]. She little dreams, her lover is so near,\r
-The clanking chains, the rustling straw can hear;\r
- [_He enters_.]\r
-\r
-_Margaret [burying herself in the bed_]. Woe! woe!\r
-They come. O death of bitterness!\r
-\r
-_Faust_ [_softly_]. Hush! hush! I come to free thee; thou art dreaming.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_ [_prostrating herself before him_].\r
-Art thou a man, then feel for my distress.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thou'lt wake the guards with thy loud screaming!\r
- [_He seizes the chains to tin lock them._]\r
-\r
-_Margaret_ [_on her knees_]. Headsman, who's given thee this right\r
-O'er me, this power!\r
-Thou com'st for me at dead of night;\r
-In pity spare me, one short hour!\r
-Wilt't not be time when Matin bell has rung?\r
- [_She stands up._]\r
-Ah, I am yet so young, so young!\r
-And death pursuing!\r
-Fair was I too, and that was my undoing.\r
-My love was near, far is he now!\r
-Tom is the wreath, the scattered flowers lie low.\r
-Take not such violent hold of me!\r
-Spare me! what harm have I done to thee?\r
-Let me not in vain implore thee.\r
-Thou ne'er till now sawft her who lies before thee!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. O sorrow worse than death is o'er me!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Now I am wholly in thy power.\r
-But first I'd nurse my child--do not prevent me.\r
-I hugged it through the black night hour;\r
-They took it from me to torment me,\r
-And now they say I killed the pretty flower.\r
-I shall never be happy again, I know.\r
-They sing vile songs at me! 'Tis bad in them to do it!\r
-There's an old tale that ends just so,\r
-Who gave that meaning to it?\r
-\r
-_Faust [prostrates himself_]. A lover at thy feet is bending,\r
-Thy bonds of misery would be rending.\r
-\r
-_Margaret [flings herself beside him_].\r
-O let us kneel, the saints for aid invoking!\r
-See! 'neath the threshold smoking,\r
-Fire-breathing,\r
-Hell is seething!\r
-There prowling,\r
-And grim under cover,\r
-Satan is howling!\r
-\r
-_Faust [aloud_]. Margery! Margery!\r
-\r
-_Margaret [listening_]. That was the voice of my lover!\r
- [_She springs up. The chains fall off_.]\r
-\r
-Where is he? Where? He calls. I hear him.\r
-I'm free! Who hinders? I will be near him.\r
-I'll fly to his neck! I'll hold him!\r
-To my bosom I'll enfold him!\r
-He stood on the threshold--called Margery plainly!\r
-Hell's howling and clattering to drown it sought vainly,--\r
-Through the devilish, grim scoffs, that might turn one to stone,\r
-I caught the sweet, loving, enrapturing tone.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. 'Tis I!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. 'Tis thou! O say it once again.\r
- [_Clasping again._]\r
-'Tis he! 'tis he! Where now is all my pain?\r
-And where the dungeon's anguish? Joy-giver!\r
-'Tis thou! And come to deliver!\r
-I am delivered!\r
-Again before me lies the street,\r
-Where for the first time thou and I did meet.\r
-And the garden-bower,\r
-Where we spent that evening hour.\r
-\r
-_Faust_ [_trying to draw her away_]. Come! Come with me!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. O tarry!\r
-I tarry so gladly where thou tarriest.\r
- [_Caressing him._]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Hurry!\r
-Unless thou hurriest,\r
-Bitterly we both must rue it.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Kiss me! Canst no more do it?\r
-So short an absence, love, as this,\r
-And forgot how to kiss?\r
-What saddens me so as I hang about thy neck?\r
-When once, in thy words, thy looks, such a heaven of blisses\r
-Came o'er me, I thought my heart would break,\r
-And it seemed as if thou wouldst smother me with kisses.\r
-Kiss thou me!\r
-Else I kiss thee!\r
- [_She embraces him._]\r
-Woe! woe! thy lips are cold,\r
-Stone-dumb.\r
-Where's thy love left?\r
-Oh! I'm bereft!\r
-Who robbed me?\r
- [_She turns from him_]\r
-\r
-_Faust_. O come!\r
-Take courage, my darling! Let us go;\r
-I clasp-thee with unutterable glow;\r
-But follow me! For this alone I plead!\r
-\r
-_Margaret [turning to him_]. Is it, then, thou?\r
-And is it thou indeed?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. 'Tis I! Come, follow me!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Thou break'st my chain,\r
-And tak'st me to thy breast again!\r
-How comes it, then, that thou art not afraid of me?\r
-And dost thou know, my friend, who 'tis thou settest free?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Come! come! The night is on the wane.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Woe! woe! My mother I've slain!\r
-Have drowned the babe of mine!\r
-Was it not sent to be mine and thine?\r
-Thine, too--'tis thou! Scarce true doth it seem.\r
-Give me thy hand! 'Tis not a dream!\r
-Thy blessed hand!--But ah! there's dampness here!\r
-Go, wipe it off! I fear\r
-There's blood thereon.\r
-Ah God! what hast thou done!\r
-Put up thy sword again;\r
-I pray thee, do!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. The past is past--there leave it then,\r
-Thou kill'st me too!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. No, thou must longer tarry!\r
-I'll tell thee how each thou shalt bury;\r
-The places of sorrow\r
-Make ready to-morrow;\r
-Must give the best place to my mother,\r
-The very next to my brother,\r
-Me a little aside,\r
-But make not the space too wide!\r
-And on my right breast let the little one lie.\r
-No one else will be sleeping by me.\r
-Once, to feel _thy_ heart beat nigh me,\r
-Oh, 'twas a precious, a tender joy!\r
-But I shall have it no more--no, never;\r
-I seem to be forcing myself on thee ever,\r
-And thou repelling me freezingly;\r
-And 'tis thou, the same good soul, I see.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. If thou feelest 'tis I, then come with me\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Out yonder?\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Into the open air.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. If the grave is there,\r
-If death is lurking; then come!\r
-From here to the endless resting-place,\r
-And not another pace--Thou\r
-go'st e'en now? O, Henry, might I too.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thou canst! 'Tis but to will! The door stands open.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. I dare not go; for me there's no more hoping.\r
-What use to fly? They lie in wait for me.\r
-So wretched the lot to go round begging,\r
-With an evil conscience thy spirit plaguing!\r
-So wretched the lot, an exile roaming--And\r
-then on my heels they are ever coming!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. I shall be with thee.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Make haste! make haste!\r
-No time to waste!\r
-Save thy poor child!\r
-Quick! follow the edge\r
-Of the rushing rill,\r
-Over the bridge\r
-And by the mill,\r
-Then into the woods beyond\r
-On the left where lies the plank\r
-Over the pond.\r
-Seize hold of it quick!\r
-To rise 'tis trying,\r
-It struggles still!\r
-Rescue! rescue!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Bethink thyself, pray!\r
-A single step and thou art free!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Would we were by the mountain. See!\r
-There sits my mother on a stone,\r
-The sight on my brain is preying!\r
-There sits my mother on a stone,\r
-And her head is constantly swaying;\r
-She beckons not, nods not, her head falls o'er,\r
-So long she's been sleeping, she'll wake no more.\r
-She slept that we might take pleasure.\r
-O that was bliss without measure!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Since neither reason nor prayer thou hearest;\r
-I must venture by force to take thee, dearest.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Let go! No violence will I bear!\r
-Take not such a murderous hold of me!\r
-I once did all I could to gratify thee.\r
-\r
-_Faust_. The day is breaking! Dearest! dearest!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Day! Ay, it is day! the last great day breaks in!\r
-My wedding-day it should have been!\r
-Tell no one thou hast been with Margery!\r
-Alas for my garland! The hour's advancing!\r
-Retreat is in vain!\r
-We meet again,\r
-But not at the dancing.\r
-The multitude presses, no word is spoke.\r
-Square, streets, all places--\r
-sea of faces--\r
-The bell is tolling, the staff is broke.\r
-How they seize me and bind me!\r
-They hurry me off to the bloody block.[48]\r
-The blade that quivers behind me,\r
-Quivers at every neck with convulsive shock;\r
-Dumb lies the world as the grave!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. O had I ne'er been born!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [appears without_]. Up! or thou'rt lost! The morn\r
-Flushes the sky.\r
-Idle delaying! Praying and playing!\r
-My horses are neighing,\r
-They shudder and snort for the bound.\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. What's that, comes up from the ground?\r
-He! He! Avaunt! that face!\r
-What will he in the sacred place?\r
-He seeks me!\r
-\r
-_Faust_. Thou shalt live!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Great God in heaven!\r
-Unto thy judgment my soul have I given!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [to Faust_].\r
-Come! come! or in the lurch I leave both her and thee!\r
-\r
-_Margaret_. Thine am I, Father! Rescue me!\r
-Ye angels, holy bands, attend me!\r
-And camp around me to defend me I\r
-Henry! I dread to look on thee.\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles_. She's judged!\r
-\r
-_Voice [from above_]. She's saved!\r
-\r
-_Mephistopheles [to Faust_]. Come thou to me!\r
- [_Vanishes with_ FAUST.]\r
-\r
-_Voice [from within, dying away_]. Henry! Henry!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-NOTES.\r
-\r
-\r
-[Footnote 1: Dedication. The idea of Faust had early entered into Goethe's\r
-mind. He probably began the work when he was about twenty years old. It\r
-was first published, as a fragment, in 1790, and did not appear in its\r
-present form till 1808, when its author's age was nearly sixty. By the\r
-"forms" are meant, of course, the shadowy personages and scenes of the\r
-drama.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 2: --"Thy messengers"--\r
- "He maketh the winds his-messengers,\r
- The flaming lightnings his ministers."\r
- _Noyes's Psalms_, c. iv. 4.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 3: "The Word Divine." In translating the German "Werdende"\r
-(literally, the _becoming, developing_, or _growing_) by the term _word_,\r
-I mean the _word_ in the largest sense: "In the beginning was the Word,\r
-&c." Perhaps "nature" would be a pretty good rendering, but "word," being\r
-derived from "werden," and expressing philosophically and scripturally the\r
-going forth or manifestation of mind, seemed to me as appropriate a\r
-translation as any.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 4: "The old fellow." The commentators do not seem quite agreed\r
-whether "den Alten" (the old one) is an entirely reverential phrase here,\r
-like the "ancient of days," or savors a little of profane pleasantry, like\r
-the title "old man" given by boys to their schoolmaster or of "the old\r
-gentleman" to their fathers. Considering who the speaker is, I have\r
-naturally inclined to the latter alternative.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 5: "Nostradamus" (properly named Michel Notre Dame) lived\r
-through the first half of the sixteenth century. He was born in the south\r
-of France and was of Jewish extraction. As physician and astrologer, he\r
-was held in high honor by the French nobility and kings.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 6: The "Macrocosm" is the great world of outward things, in\r
-contrast with its epitome, the little world in man, called the microcosm\r
-(or world in miniature).]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 7: "Famulus" seems to mean a cross between a servant and a\r
-scholar. The Dominie Sampson called Wagner, is appended to Faust for the\r
-time somewhat as Sancho is to Don Quixote. The Doctor Faust of the legend\r
-has a servant by that name, who seems to have been more of a _Sancho_, in\r
-the sense given to the word by the old New England mothers when upbraiding\r
-bad boys (you Sanch'!). Curiously enough, Goethe had in early life a\r
-(treacherous) friend named Wagner, who plagiarized part of Faust and made\r
-a tragedy of it.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 8: "Mock-heroic play." We have Schlegel's authority for thus\r
-rendering the phrase "Haupt- und Staats-Action," (literally, "head and\r
-State-action,") who says that this title was given to dramas designed for\r
-puppets, when they treated of heroic and historical subjects.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 9: The literal sense of this couplet in the original is:--\r
- "Is he, in the bliss of becoming,\r
- To creative joy near--"\r
-"Werde-lust" presents the same difficulty that we found in note 3. This\r
-same word, "Werden," is also used by the poet in the introductory theatre\r
-scene (page 7), where he longs for the time when he himself was\r
-_ripening_, growing, becoming, or _forming_, (as Hayward renders it.) I\r
-agree with Hayward, "the meaning probably is, that our Saviour enjoys, in\r
-coming to life again," (I should say, in being born into the upper life,)\r
-"a happiness nearly equal to that of the Creator in creating."]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 10: The Angel-chorusses in this scene present the only instances\r
-in which the translator, for the sake of retaining the ring and swing of\r
-the melody, has felt himself obliged to give a transfusion of the spirit\r
-of the thought, instead of its exact form.\r
-\r
-The literal meaning of the first chorus is:--\r
-\r
- Christ is arisen!\r
- Joy to the Mortal,\r
- Whom the ruinous,\r
- Creeping, hereditary\r
- Infirmities wound round.\r
-\r
-Dr. Hedge has come nearer than any one to reconciling meaning and melody\r
-thus:--\r
-\r
- "Christ has arisen!\r
- Joy to our buried Head!\r
- Whom the unmerited,\r
- Trailing, inherited\r
- Woes did imprison."\r
-\r
-The present translator, without losing sight of the fact that "the Mortal"\r
-means Christ, has taken the liberty (constrained by rhyme,--which is\r
-sometimes more than the _rudder_ of verse,) of making the congratulation\r
-include Humanity, as incarnated in Christ, "the second Adam."\r
-\r
-In the closing Chorus of Angels, the translator found that he could best\r
-preserve the spirit of the five-fold rhyme:--\r
-\r
- "Thätig ihn preisenden,\r
- Liebe beweisenden,\r
- Brüderlich speisenden,\r
- Predigend reisenden,\r
- Wonne verheissenden,"\r
-\r
-by running it into three couplets.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 11: The prose account of the alchymical process is as follows:--\r
-\r
-"There was red mercury, a powerfully acting body, united with the tincture\r
-of antimony, at a gentle heat of the water-bath. Then, being exposed to\r
-the heat of open fire in an aludel, (or alembic,) a sublimate filled its\r
-heads in succession, which, if it appeared with various hues, was the\r
-desired medicine."]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 12: "Salamander, &c." The four represent the spirits of the\r
-four elements, fire, water, air, and earth, which Faust successively\r
-conjures, so that, if the monster belongs in any respect to this mundane\r
-sphere, he may be exorcized. But it turns out that he is beyond and\r
-beneath all.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 13: Here, of course, Faust makes the sign of the cross, or holds\r
-out a crucifix.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 14: "Fly-God," _i.e._ Beelzebub.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 15: The "Drudenfuss," or pentagram, was a pentagonal figure\r
-composed of three triangles, thus:\r
-[Illustration]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 16: Doctor's Feast. The inaugural feast given at taking a\r
-degree.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 17: "Blood." When at the first invention of printing, the art\r
-was ascribed to the devil, the illuminated red ink parts were said by the\r
-people to be done in blood.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 18: "The Spanish boot" was an instrument of torture, like the\r
-Scottish boot mentioned in Old Mortality.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 19: "Encheiresin Naturæ." Literally, a handling of nature.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 20: Still a famous place of public resort and entertainment. On\r
-the wall are two old paintings of Faust's carousal and his ride out of the\r
-door on a cask. One is accompanied by the following inscription, being two\r
-lines (Hexameter and Pentameter) broken into halves:--\r
-\r
- "Vive, bibe, obgregare, memor\r
- Fausti hujus et hujus\r
- Pœnæ. Aderat clauda haec,\r
- Ast erat ampla gradû. 1525."\r
-\r
- "Live, drink, be merry, remembering\r
- This Faust and his\r
- Punishment. It came slowly\r
- But was in ample measure."]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 21:_Frosch, Brander_, &c. These names seem to be chosen with an\r
-eye to adaptation, Frosch meaning frog, and Brander fireship. "Frog"\r
-happens also to be the nickname the students give to a pupil of the\r
-gymnasium, or school preparatory to the university.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 22: Rippach is a village near Leipsic, and Mr. Hans was a\r
-fictitious personage about whom the students used to quiz greenhorns.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 23: The original means literally _sea-cat_. Retzsch says, it is\r
-the little ring-tailed monkey.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 24: One-time-one, _i.e._ multiplication-table.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 25: "Hand and glove." The translator's coincidence with Miss\r
-Swanwick here was entirely accidental. The German is "thou and thou,"\r
-alluding to the fact that intimate friends among the Germans, like the\r
-sect of Friends, call each other _thou_.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 26: The following is a literal translation of the song referred\r
-to:--\r
-\r
- Were I a little bird,\r
- Had I two wings of mine,\r
- I'd fly to my dear;\r
- But that can never be,\r
- So I stay here.\r
-\r
- Though I am far from thee,\r
- Sleeping I'm near to thee,\r
- Talk with my dear;\r
- When I awake again,\r
- I am alone.\r
-\r
- Scarce is there an hour in the night,\r
- When sleep does not take its flight,\r
- And I think of thee,\r
- How many thousand times\r
- Thou gav'st thy heart to me.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 27: Donjon. The original is _Zwinger_, which Hayward says is\r
-untranslatable. It probably means an old tower, such as is often found in\r
-the free cities, where, in a dark passage-way, a lamp is sometimes placed,\r
-and a devotional image near it.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 28: It was a superstitious belief that the presence of buried\r
-treasure was indicated by a blue flame.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 29: Lion-dollars--a Bohemian coin, first minted three centuries\r
-ago, by Count Schlick, from the mines of Joachim's-Thal. The one side\r
-bears a lion, the other a full length image of St. John.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 30: An imitation of Ophelia's song: _Hamlet_, act 14, scene 5.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 31: The Rat-catcher was supposed to have the art of drawing rats\r
-after him by his whistle, like a sort of Orpheus.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 32: Walpurgis Night. May-night. Walpurgis is the female saint\r
-who converted the Saxons to Christianity.--The Brocken or Blocksberg is\r
-the highest peak of the Harz mountains, which comprise about 1350 square\r
-miles.--Schirke and Elend are two villages in the neighborhood.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 33: Shelley's translation of this couplet is very fine:\r
-("_O si sic omnia!_")\r
-\r
- "The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!\r
- How they snort and how they blow!"]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 34: The original is _Windsbraut_, (wind's-bride,) the word used\r
-in Luther's Bible to translate Paul's _Euroclydon_.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 35: One of the names of the devil in Germany.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 36: One of the names of Beelzebub.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 37: "The Talmudists say that Adam had a wife called Lilis before\r
-he married Eve, and of her he begat nothing but devils."\r
- _Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy_.\r
-\r
-A learned writer says that _Lullaby_ is derived from "Lilla, abi!" "Begone\r
-Lilleth!" she having been supposed to lie in wait for children to kill\r
-them.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 38: This name, derived from two Greek words meaning _rump_ and\r
-_fancy_, was meant for Nicolai of Berlin, a great hater of Goethe's\r
-writings, and is explained by the fact that the man had for a long time a\r
-violent affection of the nerves, and by the application he made of leeches\r
-as a remedy, (alluded to by Mephistopheles.)]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 39: Tegel (mistranslated _pond_ by Shelley) is a small place a\r
-few miles from Berlin, whose inhabitants were, in 1799, hoaxed by a ghost\r
-story, of which the scene was laid in the former place.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 40: The park in Vienna.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 41: He was scene-painter to the Weimar theatre.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 42: A poem of Schiller's, which gave great offence to the\r
-religious people of his day.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 43: A literal translation of _Maulen_, but a slang-term in\r
-Yankee land.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 44: Epigrams, published from time to time by Goethe and Schiller\r
-jointly. Hennings (whose name heads the next quatrain) was editor of the\r
-_Musaget_, (a title of Apollo, "leader of the muses,") and also of the\r
-_Genius of the Age_. The other satirical allusions to classes of\r
-notabilities will, without difficulty, be guessed out by the readers.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 45: "_Doubt_ is the only rhyme for devil," in German.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 46: The French translator, Stapfer, assigns as the probable\r
-reason why this scene alone, of the whole drama, should have been left in\r
-prose, "that it might not be said that Faust wanted any one of the\r
-possible forms of style."]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 47: Literally the _raven-stone_.]\r
-\r
-[Footnote 48: The _blood-seat_, in allusion to the old German custom of\r
-tying a woman, who was to be beheaded, into a wooden chair.]\r
-\r
- * * * * *\r
-\r
-P. S. There is a passage on page 84, the speech of Faust, ending with the\r
-lines:--\r
-\r
- Show me the fruit that, ere it's plucked, will rot,\r
- And trees from which new green is daily peeping,\r
-\r
-which seems to have puzzled or misled so much, not only English\r
-translators, but even German critics, that the present translator has\r
-concluded, for once, to depart from his usual course, and play the\r
-commentator, by giving his idea of Goethe's meaning, which is this: Faust\r
-admits that the devil has all the different kinds of Sodom-apples which he\r
-has just enumerated, gold that melts away in the hand, glory that vanishes\r
-like a meteor, and pleasure that perishes in the possession. But all these\r
-torments are too insipid for Faust's morbid and mad hankering after the\r
-luxury of spiritual pain. Show me, he says, the fruit that rots _before_\r
-one can pluck it, and [a still stronger expression of his diseased craving\r
-for agony] trees that fade so quickly as to be every day just putting\r
-forth new green, only to tantalize one with perpetual promise and\r
-perpetual disappointment.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Faust, by Goethe\r
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