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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14591 ***
+[Illustration]
+[Illustration]
+[Illustration]
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+FAUST
+
+
+_by_
+
+_Johann Wolfgang von Goethe_
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+
+_Harry Clarke_
+
+TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, IN
+THE ORIGINAL METRES, BY
+
+_Bayard Taylor_
+
+
+_An Illustrated Edition_
+
+THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+CLEVELAND, OHIO NEW YORK, N.Y.
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PREFACE
+AN GOETHE
+DEDICATION
+PRELUDE AT THE THEATRE
+PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN
+
+SCENE I. NIGHT (_Faust’s Monologue_)
+     II. BEFORE THE CITY-GATE
+    III. THE STUDY (_The Exorcism_)
+     IV. THE STUDY (_The Compact_)
+      V. AUERBACH’S CELLAR
+     VI. WITCHES’ KITCHEN
+    VII. A STREET
+   VIII. EVENING
+     IX. PROMENADE
+      X. THE NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE
+      XI. STREET
+     XII. GARDEN
+    XIII. A GARDEN-ARBOR
+     XIV. FOREST AND CAVERN
+      XV. MARGARET’S ROOM
+     XVI. MARTHA’S GARDEN
+    XVII. AT THE FOUNTAIN
+   XVIII. DONJON (_Margaret’s Prayer_)
+     XIX. NIGHT (_Valentine’s Death_)
+      XX. CATHEDRAL
+     XXI. WALPURGIS-NIGHT
+    XXII. OBERON AND TITANIA’S GOLDEN WEDDING
+   XXIII. DREARY DAY
+    XXIV. NIGHT
+     XXV. DUNGEON
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+FAUST
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: Preface]
+
+It is twenty years since I first determined to attempt the translation
+of _Faust_, in the original metres. At that time, although more than a
+score of English translations of the First Part, and three or four of
+the Second Part, were in existence, the experiment had not yet been
+made. The prose version of Hayward seemed to have been accepted as the
+standard, in default of anything more satisfactory: the English critics,
+generally sustaining the translator in his views concerning the
+secondary importance of form in Poetry, practically discouraged any
+further attempt; and no one, familiar with rhythmical expression through
+the needs of his own nature, had devoted the necessary love and patience
+to an adequate reproduction of the great work of Goethe’s life.
+
+Mr. Brooks was the first to undertake the task, and the publication of
+his translation of the First Part (in 1856) induced me, for a time, to
+give up my own design. No previous English version exhibited such
+abnegation of the translator’s own tastes and habits of thought, such
+reverent desire to present the original in its purest form. The care and
+conscience with which the work had been performed were so apparent, that
+I now state with reluctance what then seemed to me to be its only
+deficiencies,—a lack of the lyrical fire and fluency of the original in
+some passages, and an occasional lowering of the tone through the use of
+words which are literal, but not equivalent. The plan of translation
+adopted by Mr. Brooks was so entirely my own, that when further
+residence in Germany and a more careful study of both parts of _Faust_
+had satisfied me that the field was still open,—that the means
+furnished by the poetical affinity of the two languages had not yet been
+exhausted,—nothing remained for me but to follow him in all essential
+particulars. His example confirmed me in the belief that there were few
+difficulties in the way of a nearly literal yet thoroughly rhythmical
+version of _Faust_, which might not be overcome by loving labor. A
+comparison of seventeen English translations, in the arbitrary metres
+adopted by the translators, sufficiently showed the danger of allowing
+license in this respect: the white light of Goethe’s thought was thereby
+passed through the tinted glass of other minds, and assumed the coloring
+of each. Moreover, the plea of selecting different metres in the hope of
+producing a similar effect is unreasonable, where the identical metres
+are possible.
+
+The value of form, in a poetical work, is the first question to be
+considered. No poet ever understood this question more thoroughly than
+Goethe himself, or expressed a more positive opinion in regard to it.
+The alternative modes of translation which he presents (reported by
+Riemer, quoted by Mrs. Austin, in her “Characteristics of Goethe,” and
+accepted by Mr. Hayward),[A] are quite independent of his views
+concerning the value of form, which we find given elsewhere, in the
+clearest and most emphatic manner.[B] Poetry is not simply a fashion of
+expression: it is the form of expression absolutely required by a
+certain class of ideas. Poetry, indeed, may be distinguished from Prose
+by the single circumstance, that it is the utterance of whatever in man
+cannot be perfectly uttered in any other than a rhythmical form: it is
+useless to say that the naked meaning is independent of the form: on the
+contrary, the form contributes essentially to the fullness of the
+meaning. In Poetry which endures through its own inherent vitality,
+there is no forced union of these two elements. They are as intimately
+blended, and with the same mysterious beauty, as the sexes in the
+ancient Hermaphroditus. To attempt to represent Poetry in Prose, is very
+much like attempting to translate music into speech.[C]
+
+[A] “‘There are two maxims of translation,’ says he: ‘the one requires
+that the author, of a foreign nation, be brought to us in such a manner
+that we may regard him as our own; the other, on the contrary, demands
+of us that we transport ourselves over to him, and adopt his situation,
+his mode of speaking, and his peculiarities. The advantages of both are
+sufficiently known to all instructed persons, from masterly examples.’”
+Is it necessary, however, that there should always be this alternative?
+Where the languages are kindred, and equally capable of all varieties of
+metrical expression, may not both these “maxims” be observed in the same
+translation? Goethe, it is true, was of the opinion that _Faust_ ought
+to be given, in French, in the manner of Clement Marot; but this was
+undoubtedly because he felt the inadequacy of modern French to express
+the naive, simple realism of many passages. The same objection does not
+apply to English. There are a few archaic expressions in _Faust_, but no
+more than are still allowed—nay, frequently encouraged—in the English
+of our day.
+
+[B] “You are right,” said Goethe; “there are great and mysterious
+agencies included in the various forms of Poetry. If the substance of my
+‘Roman Elegies’ were to be expressed in the tone and measure of Byron’s
+‘Don Juan,’ it would really have an atrocious effect.”—_Eckermann_.
+
+“The rhythm,” said Goethe, “is an unconscious result of the poetic mood.
+If one should stop to consider it mechanically, when about to write a
+poem, one would become bewildered and accomplish nothing of real
+poetical value.”—_Ibid_.
+
+“_All that is poetic in character should be rythmically treated_! Such
+is my conviction; and if even a sort of poetic prose should be gradually
+introduced, it would only show that the distinction between prose and
+poetry had been completely lost sight of.”—_Goethe to Schiller_, 1797.
+
+Tycho Mommsen, in his excellent essay, _Die Kunst des Deutschen
+Uebersetzers aus neueren Sprachen_, goes so far as to say: “The metrical
+or rhymed modelling of a poetical work is so essentially the germ of its
+being, that, rather than by giving it up, we might hope to construct a
+similar work of art before the eyes of our countrymen, by giving up or
+changing the substance. The immeasurable result which has followed works
+wherein the form has been retained—such as the Homer of Voss, and the
+Shakespeare of Tieck and Schlegel—is an incontrovertible evidence of
+the vitality of the endeavor.”
+
+[C] “Goethe’s poems exercise a great sway over me, not only by their
+meaning, but also by their rhythm. It is a language which stimulates me
+to composition.”—_Beethoven_.
+
+The various theories of translation from the Greek and Latin poets have
+been admirably stated by Dryden in his Preface to the “Translations from
+Ovid’s Epistles,” and I do not wish to continue the endless
+discussion,—especially as our literature needs examples, not opinions.
+A recent expression, however, carries with it so much authority, that I
+feel bound to present some considerations which the accomplished scholar
+seems to have overlooked. Mr. Lewes[D] justly says: “The effect of
+poetry is a compound of music and suggestion; this music and this
+suggestion are intermingled in words, which to alter is to alter the
+effect. For words in poetry are not, as in prose, simple representatives
+of objects and ideas: they are parts of an organic whole,—they are
+tones in the harmony.” He thereupon illustrates the effect of
+translation by changing certain well-known English stanzas into others,
+equivalent in meaning, but lacking their felicity of words, their grace
+and melody. I cannot accept this illustration as valid, because Mr.
+Lewes purposely omits the very quality which an honest translator should
+exhaust his skill in endeavoring to reproduce. He turns away from the
+_one best_ word or phrase in the English lines he quotes, whereas the
+translator seeks precisely that one best word or phrase (having _all_
+the resources of his language at command), to represent what is said in
+_another_ language. More than this, his task is not simply mechanical:
+he must feel, and be guided by, a secondary inspiration. Surrendering
+himself to the full possession of the spirit which shall speak through
+him, he receives, also, a portion of the same creative power. Mr. Lewes
+reaches this conclusion: “If, therefore, we reflect what a poem _Faust_
+is, and that it contains almost every variety of style and metre, it
+will be tolerably evident that no one unacquainted with the original can
+form an adequate idea of it from translation,”[E] which is certainly
+correct of any translation wherein something of the rhythmical variety
+and beauty of the original is not retained. That very much of the
+rhythmical character may be retained in English, was long ago shown by
+Mr. Carlyle,[F] in the passages which he translated, both literally and
+rhythmically, from the _Helena_ (Part Second). In fact, we have so many
+instances of the possibility of reciprocally transferring the finest
+qualities of English and German poetry, that there is no sufficient
+excuse for an unmetrical translation of _Faust_. I refer especially to
+such subtile and melodious lyrics as “The Castle by the Sea,” of Uhland,
+and the “Silent Land” of Salis, translated by Mr. Longfellow; Goethe’s
+“Minstrel” and “Coptic Song,” by Dr. Hedge; Heine’s “Two Grenadiers,” by
+Dr. Furness and many of Heine’s songs by Mr. Leland; and also to the
+German translations of English lyrics, by Freiligrath and Strodtmann.[G]
+
+
+[D] Life of Goethe (Book VI.).
+
+[E] Mr. Lewes gives the following advice: “The English reader would
+perhaps best succeed who should first read Dr. Anster’s brilliant
+paraphrase, and then carefully go through Hayward’s prose translation.”
+This is singularly at variance with the view he has just expressed. Dr.
+Anster’s version is an almost incredible dilution of the original,
+written in _other_ metres; while Hayward’s entirely omits the element of
+poetry.
+
+[F] Foreign Review, 1828.
+
+[G] When Freiligrath can thus give us Walter Scott:—
+
+“Kommt, wie der Wind kommt, Wenn Wälder erzittern Kommt, wie die
+Brandung Wenn Flotten zersplittern! Schnell heran, schnell herab,
+Schneller kommt Al’e!—Häuptling und Bub’ und Knapp, Herr und Vasalle!”
+
+or Strodtmann thus reproduce Tennyson:—
+
+“Es fällt der Strahl auf Burg und Thal, Und schneeige Gipfel, reich an
+Sagen; Viel’ Lichter wehn auf blauen Seen, Bergab die Wasserstürze
+jagen! Blas, Hüfthorn, blas, in Wiederhall erschallend: Blas,
+Horn—antwortet, Echos, hallend, hallend, hallend!”
+
+—it must be a dull ear which would be satisfied with the omission of
+rhythm and rhyme.
+
+I have a more serious objection, however, to urge against Mr. Hayward’s
+prose translation. Where all the restraints of verse are flung aside, we
+should expect, at least, as accurate a reproduction of the sense,
+spirit, and tone of the original, as the genius of our language will
+permit. So far from having given us such a reproduction, Mr. Hayward not
+only occasionally mistakes the exact meaning of the German text,[H] but,
+wherever two phrases may be used to express the meaning with equal
+fidelity, he very frequently selects that which has the less grace,
+strength, or beauty.[I]
+
+[H] On his second page, the line _Mein Lied ertönt der unbekannten
+Menge_, “My song sounds to the unknown multitude,” is translated: “My
+_sorrow_ voices itself to the strange throng.” Other English
+translators, I notice, have followed Mr. Hayward in mistaking _Lied_ for
+_Leid_.
+
+I:
+ I take but one out of numerous instances, for the sake of
+illustration. The close of the Soldier’s Song (Part I. Scene II.) is:—
+
+          “Kühn is das Mühen,
+          Herrlich der Lohn!
+          Und die Soldaten
+          Ziehen davon.”
+
+Literally:
+
+          Bold is the endeavor,
+          Splendid the pay!
+          And the soldiers
+          March away.
+
+This Mr. Hayward translates:—
+
+          Bold the adventure,
+          Noble the reward—
+          And the soldiers
+          Are off.
+
+For there are few things which may not be said, in English, in a twofold
+manner,—one poetic, and the other prosaic. In German, equally, a word
+which in ordinary use has a bare prosaic character may receive a fairer
+and finer quality from its place in verse. The prose translator should
+certainly be able to feel the manifestation of this law in both
+languages, and should so choose his words as to meet their reciprocal
+requirements. A man, however, who is not keenly sensible to the power
+and beauty and value of rhythm, is likely to overlook these delicate yet
+most necessary distinctions. The author’s thought is stripped of a last
+grace in passing through his mind, and frequently presents very much the
+same resemblance to the original as an unhewn shaft to the fluted
+column. Mr. Hayward unconsciously illustrates his lack of a refined
+appreciation of verse, “in giving,” as he says, “_a sort of rhythmical
+arrangement_ to the lyrical parts,” his object being “to convey some
+notion of the variety of versification which forms one great charm of
+the poem.” A literal translation is always possible in the unrhymed
+passages; but even here Mr. Hayward’s ear did not dictate to him the
+necessity of preserving the original rhythm.
+
+While, therefore, I heartily recognize his lofty appreciation of
+_Faust_,—while I honor him for the patient and conscientious labor he
+has bestowed upon his translation,—I cannot but feel that he has
+himself illustrated the unsoundness of his argument. Nevertheless, the
+circumstance that his prose translation of _Faust_ has received so much
+acceptance proves those qualities of the original work which cannot be
+destroyed by a test so violent. From the cold bare outline thus
+produced, the reader unacquainted with the German language would
+scarcely guess what glow of color, what richness of changeful life, what
+fluent grace and energy of movement have been lost in the process. We
+must, of course, gratefully receive such an outline, where a nearer
+approach to the form of the original is impossible, but, until the
+latter has been demonstrated, we are wrong to remain content with the
+cheaper substitute.
+
+It seems to me that in all discussions upon this subject the capacities
+of the English language have received but scanty justice. The
+intellectual tendencies of our race have always been somewhat
+conservative, and its standards of literary taste or belief, once set
+up, are not varied without a struggle. The English ear is suspicious of
+new metres and unaccustomed forms of expression: there are critical
+detectives on the track of every author, and a violation of the accepted
+canons is followed by a summons to judgment. Thus the tendency is to
+contract rather than to expand the acknowledged excellences of the
+language.[J]
+
+[J] I cannot resist the temptation of quoting the following passage from
+Jacob Grimm: “No one of all the modern languages has acquired a greater
+force and strength than the English, through the derangement and
+relinquishment of its ancient laws of sound. The unteachable
+(nevertheless _learnable_) profusion of its middle-tones has conferred
+upon it an intrinsic power of expression, such as no other human tongue
+ever possessed. Its entire, thoroughly intellectual and wonderfully
+successful foundation and perfected development issued from a marvelous
+union of the two noblest tongues of Europe, the Germanic and the
+Romanic. Their mutual relation in the English language is well known,
+since the former furnished chiefly the material basis, while the latter
+added the intellectual conceptions. The English language, by and through
+which the greatest and most eminent poet of modern times—as contrasted
+with ancient classical poetry—(of course I can refer only to
+Shakespeare) was begotten and nourished, has a just claim to be called a
+language of the world; and it appears to be destined, like the English
+race, to a higher and broader sway in all quarters of the earth. For in
+richness, in compact adjustment of parts, and in pure intelligence, none
+of the living languages can be compared with it,—not even our German,
+which is divided even as we are divided, and which must cast off many
+imperfections before it can boldly enter on its career.”—_Ueber den
+Ursprung der Sprache_.
+
+The difficulties in the way of a nearly literal translation of _Faust_
+in the original metres have been exaggerated, because certain affinities
+between the two languages have not been properly considered. With all
+the splendor of versification in the work, it contains but few metres of
+which the English tongue is not equally capable. Hood has familiarized
+us with dactylic (triple) rhymes, and they are remarkably abundant and
+skillful in Mr. Lowell’s “Fable for the Critics”: even the unrhymed
+iambic hexameter of the _Helena_ occurs now and then in Milton’s _Samson
+Agonistes_. It is true that the metrical foot into which the German
+language most naturally falls is the _trochaic_, while in English it is
+the _iambic_: it is true that German is rich, involved, and tolerant of
+new combinations, while English is simple, direct, and rather shy of
+compounds; but precisely these differences are so modified in the German
+of _Faust_ that there is a mutual approach of the two languages. In
+_Faust_, the iambic measure predominates; the style is compact; the many
+licenses which the author allows himself are all directed towards a
+shorter mode of construction. On the other hand, English metre compels
+the use of inversions, admits many verbal liberties prohibited to prose,
+and so inclines towards various flexible features of its sister-tongue
+that many lines of _Faust_ may be repeated in English without the
+slightest change of meaning, measure, or rhyme. There are words, it is
+true, with so delicate a bloom upon them that it can in no wise be
+preserved; but even such words will always lose less when they carry
+with them their rhythmical atmosphere. The flow of Goethe’s verse is
+sometimes so similar to that of the corresponding English metre, that
+not only its harmonies and caesural pauses, but even its punctuation,
+may be easily retained.
+
+I am satisfied that the difference between a translation of _Faust_ in
+prose or metre is chiefly one of labor,—and of that labor which is
+successful in proportion as it is joyously performed. My own task has
+been cheered by the discovery, that the more closely I reproduced the
+language of the original, the more of its rhythmical character was
+transferred at the same time. If, now and then, there was an inevitable
+alternative of meaning or music, I gave the preference to the former. By
+the term “original metres” I do not mean a rigid, unyielding adherence
+to every foot, line, and rhyme of the German original, although this has
+very nearly been accomplished. Since the greater part of the work is
+written in an irregular measure, the lines varying from three to six
+feet, and the rhymes arranged according to the author’s will, I do not
+consider that an occasional change in the number of feet, or order of
+rhyme, is any violation of the metrical plan. The single slight liberty
+I have taken with the lyrical passages is in Margaret’s song,—“The King
+of Thule,”—in which, by omitting the alternate feminine rhymes, yet
+retaining the metre, I was enabled to make the translation strictly
+literal. If, in two or three instances, I have left a line unrhymed, I
+have balanced the omission by giving rhymes to other lines which stand
+unrhymed in the original text. For the same reason, I make no apology
+for the imperfect rhymes, which are frequently a translation as well as
+a necessity. With all its supreme qualities, _Faust_ is far from being a
+technically perfect work.[K]
+
+[K] “At present, everything runs in technical grooves, and the critical
+gentlemen begin to wrangle whether in a rhyme an _s_ should correspond
+with an _s_ and not with _sz_. If I were young and reckless enough, I
+would purposely offend all such technical caprices: I would use
+alliteration, assonance, false rhyme, just according to my own will or
+convenience—but, at the same time, I would attend to the main thing,
+and endeavor to say so many good things that every one would be
+attracted to read and remember them.”—_Goethe_, in 1831.
+
+The feminine and dactylic rhymes, which have been for the most part
+omitted by all metrical translators except Mr. Brooks, are
+indispensable. The characteristic tone of many passages would be nearly
+lost, without them. They give spirit and grace to the dialogue, point to
+the aphoristic portions (especially in the Second Part), and an
+ever-changing music to the lyrical passages. The English language,
+though not so rich as the German in such rhymes, is less deficient than
+is generally supposed. The difficulty to be overcome is one of
+construction rather than of the vocabulary. The present participle can
+only be used to a limited extent, on account of its weak termination,
+and the want of an accusative form to the noun also restricts the
+arrangement of words in English verse. I cannot hope to have been always
+successful; but I have at least labored long and patiently, bearing
+constantly in mind not only the meaning of the original and the
+mechanical structure of the lines, but also that subtile and haunting
+music which seems to govern rhythm instead of being governed by it.
+
+B.T.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+AN GOETHE
+
+
+_Erhabener Geist, im Geisterreich verloren!
+Wo immer Deine lichte Wohnung sey,
+Zum höh’ren Schaffen bist Du neugeboren,
+Und singest dort die voll’re Litanei.
+Von jenem Streben das Du auserkoren,
+Vom reinsten Aether, drin Du athmest frei,
+O neige Dich zu gnädigem Erwiedern
+Des letzten Wiederhalls von Deinen Liedern!
+
+
+II
+
+Den alten Musen die bestäubten Kronen
+Nahmst Du, zu neuem Glanz, mit kühner Hand:
+Du löst die Räthsel ältester Aeonen
+Durch jüngeren Glauben, helleren Verstand,
+Und machst, wo rege Menschengeister wohnen,
+Die ganze Erde Dir zum Vaterland;
+Und Deine Jünger sehn in Dir, verwundert,
+Verkörpert schon das werdende Jahrhundert.
+
+
+III
+
+Was Du gesungen, Aller Lust und Klagen,
+Des Lebens Wiedersprüche, neu vermählt,—
+Die Harfe tausendstimmig frisch geschlagen,
+Die Shakspeare einst, die einst Homer gewählt,—
+Darf ich in fremde Klänge übertragen
+Das Alles, wo so Mancher schon gefehlt?
+Lass Deinen Geist in meiner Stimme klingen,
+Und was Du sangst, lass mich es Dir nachsingen!_
+
+B.T.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: =Dedication=]
+
+Again ye come, ye hovering Forms! I find ye,
+As early to my clouded sight ye shone!
+Shall I attempt, this once, to seize and bind ye?
+Still o’er my heart is that illusion thrown?
+Ye crowd more near! Then, be the reign assigned ye,
+And sway me from your misty, shadowy zone!
+My bosom thrills, with youthful passion shaken,
+From magic airs that round your march awaken.
+
+Of joyous days ye bring the blissful vision;
+The dear, familiar phantoms rise again,
+And, like an old and half-extinct tradition,
+First Love returns, with Friendship in his train.
+Renewed is Pain: with mournful repetition
+Life tracks his devious, labyrinthine chain,
+And names the Good, whose cheating fortune tore them
+From happy hours, and left me to deplore them.
+
+They hear no longer these succeeding measures,
+The souls, to whom my earliest songs I sang:
+
+Dispersed the friendly troop, with all its pleasures,
+And still, alas! the echoes first that rang!
+I bring the unknown multitude my treasures;
+Their very plaudits give my heart a pang,
+And those beside, whose joy my Song so flattered,
+If still they live, wide through the world are scattered.
+
+And grasps me now a long-unwonted yearning
+For that serene and solemn Spirit-Land:
+My song, to faint Aeolian murmurs turning,
+Sways like a harp-string by the breezes fanned.
+I thrill and tremble; tear on tear is burning,
+And the stern heart is tenderly unmanned.
+What I possess, I see far distant lying,
+And what I lost, grows real and undying.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: =Prelude at the Theatre=]
+
+
+MANAGER    DRAMATIC POET    MERRY-ANDREW
+
+MANAGER
+
+You two, who oft a helping hand
+Have lent, in need and tribulation.
+Come, let me know your expectation
+Of this, our enterprise, in German land!
+I wish the crowd to feel itself well treated,
+Especially since it lives and lets me live;
+The posts are set, the booth of boards completed.
+And each awaits the banquet I shall give.
+Already there, with curious eyebrows raised,
+They sit sedate, and hope to be amazed.
+I know how one the People’s taste may flatter,
+Yet here a huge embarrassment I feel:
+What they’re accustomed to, is no great matter,
+But then, alas! they’ve read an awful deal.
+How shall we plan, that all be fresh and new,—
+Important matter, yet attractive too?
+For ’tis my pleasure-to behold them surging,
+When to our booth the current sets apace,
+And with tremendous, oft-repeated urging,
+Squeeze onward through the narrow gate of grace:
+By daylight even, they push and cram in
+To reach the seller’s box, a fighting host,
+And as for bread, around a baker’s door, in famine,
+To get a ticket break their necks almost.
+This miracle alone can work the Poet
+On men so various: now, my friend, pray show it.
+
+
+POET
+
+
+Speak not to me of yonder motley masses,
+Whom but to see, puts out the fire of Song!
+Hide from my view the surging crowd that passes,
+And in its whirlpool forces us along!
+No, lead me where some heavenly silence glasses
+The purer joys that round the Poet throng,—
+Where Love and Friendship still divinely fashion
+The bonds that bless, the wreaths that crown his passion!
+Ah, every utterance from the depths of feeling
+The timid lips have stammeringly expressed,—
+Now failing, now, perchance, success revealing,—
+Gulps the wild Moment in its greedy breast;
+Or oft, reluctant years its warrant sealing,
+Its perfect stature stands at last confessed!
+What dazzles, for the Moment spends its spirit:
+What’s genuine, shall Posterity inherit.
+
+
+MERRY-ANDREW
+
+
+Posterity! Don’t name the word to me!
+If _I_ should choose to preach Posterity,
+Where would you get contemporary fun?
+That men _will_ have it, there’s no blinking:
+A fine young fellow’s presence, to my thinking,
+Is something worth, to every one.
+Who genially his nature can outpour,
+Takes from the People’s moods no irritation;
+The wider circle he acquires, the more
+Securely works his inspiration.
+Then pluck up heart, and give us sterling coin!
+Let Fancy be with her attendants fitted,—
+Sense, Reason, Sentiment, and Passion join,—
+But have a care, lest Folly be omitted!
+
+MANAGER
+
+Chiefly, enough of incident prepare!
+They come to look, and they prefer to stare.
+Reel off a host of threads before their faces,
+So that they gape in stupid wonder: then
+By sheer diffuseness you have won their graces,
+And are, at once, most popular of men.
+Only by mass you touch the mass; for any
+Will finally, himself, his bit select:
+Who offers much, brings something unto many,
+And each goes home content with the effect,
+If you’ve a piece, why, just in pieces give it:
+A hash, a stew, will bring success, believe it!
+’Tis easily displayed, and easy to invent.
+What use, a Whole compactly to present?
+Your hearers pick and pluck, as soon as they receive it!
+
+POET
+
+You do not feel, how such a trade debases;
+How ill it suits the Artist, proud and true!
+The botching work each fine pretender traces
+Is, I perceive, a principle with you.
+
+MANAGER
+
+Such a reproach not in the least offends;
+A man who some result intends
+Must use the tools that best are fitting.
+Reflect, soft wood is given to you for splitting,
+And then, observe for whom you write!
+If one comes bored, exhausted quite,
+Another, satiate, leaves the banquet’s tapers,
+And, worst of all, full many a wight
+Is fresh from reading of the daily papers.
+Idly to us they come, as to a masquerade,
+Mere curiosity their spirits warming:
+The ladies with themselves, and with their finery, aid,
+Without a salary their parts performing.
+What dreams are yours in high poetic places?
+You’re pleased, forsooth, full houses to behold?
+Draw near, and view your patrons’ faces!
+The half are coarse, the half are cold.
+One, when the play is out, goes home to cards;
+A wild night on a wench’s breast another chooses:
+Why should you rack, poor, foolish bards,
+For ends like these, the gracious Muses?
+I tell you, give but more—more, ever more, they ask:
+Thus shall you hit the mark of gain and glory.
+Seek to confound your auditory!
+To satisfy them is a task.—
+What ails you now? Is’t suffering, or pleasure?
+
+POET
+
+Go, find yourself a more obedient slave!
+What! shall the Poet that which Nature gave,
+The highest right, supreme Humanity,
+Forfeit so wantonly, to swell your treasure?
+Whence o’er the heart his empire free?
+The elements of Life how conquers he?
+Is’t not his heart’s accord, urged outward far and dim,
+To wind the world in unison with him?
+When on the spindle, spun to endless distance,
+By Nature’s listless hand the thread is twirled,
+And the discordant tones of all existence
+In sullen jangle are together hurled,
+Who, then, the changeless orders of creation
+Divides, and kindles into rhythmic dance?
+Who brings the One to join the general ordination,
+Where it may throb in grandest consonance?
+Who bids the storm to passion stir the bosom?
+In brooding souls the sunset burn above?
+Who scatters every fairest April blossom
+Along the shining path of Love?
+Who braids the noteless leaves to crowns, requiting
+Desert with fame, in Action’s every field?
+Who makes Olympus sure, the Gods uniting?
+The might of Man, as in the Bard revealed.
+
+MERRY-ANDREW
+
+So, these fine forces, in conjunction,
+Propel the high poetic function,
+As in a love-adventure they might play!
+You meet by accident; you feel, you stay,
+And by degrees your heart is tangled;
+Bliss grows apace, and then its course is jangled;
+You’re ravished quite, then comes a touch of woe,
+And there’s a neat romance, completed ere you know!
+Let us, then, such a drama give!
+Grasp the exhaustless life that all men live!
+Each shares therein, though few may comprehend:
+Where’er you touch, there’s interest without end.
+In motley pictures little light,
+Much error, and of truth a glimmering mite,
+Thus the best beverage is supplied,
+Whence all the world is cheered and edified.
+Then, at your play, behold the fairest flower
+Of youth collect, to hear the revelation!
+Each tender soul, with sentimental power,
+Sucks melancholy food from your creation;
+And now in this, now that, the leaven works.
+For each beholds what in his bosom lurks.
+They still are moved at once to weeping or to laughter,
+Still wonder at your flights, enjoy the show they see:
+A mind, once formed, is never suited after;
+One yet in growth will ever grateful be.
+
+POET
+
+Then give me back that time of pleasures,
+While yet in joyous growth I sang,—
+When, like a fount, the crowding measures
+Uninterrupted gushed and sprang!
+Then bright mist veiled the world before me,
+In opening buds a marvel woke,
+As I the thousand blossoms broke,
+Which every valley richly bore me!
+I nothing had, and yet enough for youth—
+Joy in Illusion, ardent thirst for Truth.
+Give, unrestrained, the old emotion,
+The bliss that touched the verge of pain,
+The strength of Hate, Love’s deep devotion,—
+O, give me back my youth again!
+
+MERRY ANDREW
+
+Youth, good my friend, you certainly require
+When foes in combat sorely press you;
+When lovely maids, in fond desire,
+Hang on your bosom and caress you;
+When from the hard-won goal the wreath
+Beckons afar, the race awaiting;
+When, after dancing out your breath,
+You pass the night in dissipating:—
+But that familiar harp with soul
+To play,—with grace and bold expression,
+And towards a self-erected goal
+To walk with many a sweet digression,—
+This, aged Sirs, belongs to you,
+And we no less revere you for that reason:
+Age childish makes, they say, but ’tis not true;
+We’re only genuine children still, in Age’s season!
+
+
+MANAGER
+
+The words you’ve bandied are sufficient;
+’Tis deeds that I prefer to see:
+In compliments you’re both proficient,
+But might, the while, more useful be.
+What need to talk of Inspiration?
+’Tis no companion of Delay.
+If Poetry be your vocation,
+Let Poetry your will obey!
+Full well you know what here is wanting;
+The crowd for strongest drink is panting,
+And such, forthwith, I’d have you brew.
+What’s left undone to-day, To-morrow will not do.
+Waste not a day in vain digression:
+With resolute, courageous trust
+Seize every possible impression,
+And make it firmly your possession;
+You’ll then work on, because you must.
+Upon our German stage, you know it,
+Each tries his hand at what he will;
+So, take of traps and scenes your fill,
+And all you find, be sure to show it!
+Use both the great and lesser heavenly light,—
+Squander the stars in any number,
+Beasts, birds, trees, rocks, and all such lumber,
+Fire, water, darkness, Day and Night!
+Thus, in our booth’s contracted sphere,
+The circle of Creation will appear,
+And move, as we deliberately impel,
+From Heaven, across the World, to Hell!
+[Illustration]
+[Illustration]
+
+PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN
+
+THE LORD THE HEAVENLY HOST _Afterwards_
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+(_The_ THREE ARCHANGELS _come forward_.)
+
+
+RAPHAEL
+
+The sun-orb sings, in emulation,
+’Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:
+His path predestined through Creation
+He ends with step of thunder-sound.
+The angels from his visage splendid
+Draw power, whose measure none can say;
+The lofty works, uncomprehended,
+Are bright as on the earliest day.
+
+
+GABRIEL
+
+And swift, and swift beyond conceiving,
+The splendor of the world goes round,
+Day’s Eden-brightness still relieving
+The awful Night’s intense profound:
+The ocean-tides in foam are breaking,
+Against the rocks’ deep bases hurled,
+And both, the spheric race partaking,
+Eternal, swift, are onward whirled!
+
+
+MICHAEL
+
+And rival storms abroad are surging
+From sea to land, from land to sea.
+A chain of deepest action forging
+Round all, in wrathful energy.
+There flames a desolation, blazing
+Before the Thunder’s crashing way:
+Yet, Lord, Thy messengers are praising
+The gentle movement of Thy Day.
+
+
+THE THREE
+
+Though still by them uncomprehended,
+From these the angels draw their power,
+And all Thy works, sublime and splendid,
+Are bright as in Creation’s hour.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Since Thou, O Lord, deign’st to approach again
+And ask us how we do, in manner kindest,
+And heretofore to meet myself wert fain,
+Among Thy menials, now, my face Thou findest.
+Pardon, this troop I cannot follow after
+With lofty speech, though by them scorned and spurned:
+My pathos certainly would move Thy laughter,
+If Thou hadst not all merriment unlearned.
+Of suns and worlds I’ve nothing to be quoted;
+How men torment themselves, is all I’ve noted.
+The little god o’ the world sticks to the same old way,
+And is as whimsical as on Creation’s day.
+Life somewhat better might content him,
+But for the gleam of heavenly light which Thou hast lent him:
+He calls it Reason—thence his power’s increased,
+To be far beastlier than any beast.
+Saving Thy Gracious Presence, he to me
+A long-legged grasshopper appears to be,
+That springing flies, and flying springs,
+And in the grass the same old ditty sings.
+Would he still lay among the grass he grows in!
+Each bit of dung he seeks, to stick his nose in.
+
+
+THE LORD
+
+Hast thou, then, nothing more to mention?
+Com’st ever, thus, with ill intention?
+Find’st nothing right on earth, eternally?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+No, Lord! I find things, there, still bad as they can be.
+Man’s misery even to pity moves my nature;
+I’ve scarce the heart to plague the wretched creature.
+
+
+THE LORD
+
+Know’st Faust?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The Doctor Faust?
+
+
+THE LORD
+
+My servant, he!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Forsooth! He serves you after strange devices:
+No earthly meat or drink the fool suffices:
+His spirit’s ferment far aspireth;
+Half conscious of his frenzied, crazed unrest,
+The fairest stars from Heaven he requireth,
+From Earth the highest raptures and the best,
+And all the Near and Far that he desireth
+Fails to subdue the tumult of his breast.
+
+
+THE LORD
+
+Though still confused his service unto Me,
+I soon shall lead him to a clearer morning.
+Sees not the gardener, even while buds his tree,
+Both flower and fruit the future years adorning?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+What will you bet? There’s still a chance to gain him,
+If unto me full leave you give,
+Gently upon _my_ road to train him!
+
+
+THE LORD
+
+As long as he on earth shall live,
+So long I make no prohibition.
+While Man’s desires and aspirations stir,
+He cannot choose but err.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+My thanks! I find the dead no acquisition,
+And never cared to have them in my keeping.
+I much prefer the cheeks where ruddy blood is leaping,
+And when a corpse approaches, close my house:
+It goes with me, as with the cat the mouse.
+
+
+THE LORD
+
+Enough! What thou hast asked is granted.
+Turn off this spirit from his fountain-head;
+To trap him, let thy snares be planted,
+And him, with thee, be downward led;
+Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say:
+A good man, through obscurest aspiration,
+Has still an instinct of the one true way.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Agreed! But ’tis a short probation.
+About my bet I feel no trepidation.
+If I fulfill my expectation,
+You’ll let me triumph with a swelling breast:
+Dust shall he eat, and with a zest,
+As did a certain snake, my near relation.
+
+
+THE LORD
+
+Therein thou’rt free, according to thy merits;
+The like of thee have never moved My hate.
+Of all the bold, denying Spirits,
+The waggish knave least trouble doth create.
+Man’s active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level;
+Unqualified repose he learns to crave;
+Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave,
+Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil.
+But ye, God’s sons in love and duty,
+Enjoy the rich, the ever-living Beauty!
+Creative Power, that works eternal schemes,
+Clasp you in bonds of love, relaxing never,
+And what in wavering apparition gleams
+Fix in its place with thoughts that stand forever!
+
+
+(_Heaven closes: the_ ARCHANGELS _separate_.)
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_solus_)
+
+I like, at times, to hear The Ancient’s word,
+And have a care to be most civil:
+It’s really kind of such a noble Lord
+So humanly to gossip with the Devil!
+[Illustration]
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+FIRST PART OF THE TRAGEDY
+
+
+I
+
+NIGHT
+
+(_A lofty-arched, narrow, Gothic chamber_. FAUST, _in a chair at his
+desk, restless_.)
+
+
+FAUST
+
+I’ve studied now Philosophy
+And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—
+And even, alas! Theology,—
+From end to end, with labor keen;
+And here, poor fool! with all my lore
+I stand, no wiser than before:
+I’m Magister—yea, Doctor—hight,
+And straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,
+These ten years long, with many woes,
+I’ve led my scholars by the nose,—
+And see, that nothing can be known!
+_That_ knowledge cuts me to the bone.
+I’m cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,
+Doctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers;
+Neither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,
+Nor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.
+
+For this, all pleasure am I foregoing;
+I do not pretend to aught worth knowing,
+I do not pretend I could be a teacher
+To help or convert a fellow-creature.
+Then, too, I’ve neither lands nor gold,
+Nor the world’s least pomp or honor hold—
+No dog would endure such a curst existence!
+Wherefore, from Magic I seek assistance,
+That many a secret perchance I reach
+Through spirit-power and spirit-speech,
+And thus the bitter task forego
+Of saying the things I do not know,—
+That I may detect the inmost force
+Which binds the world, and guides its course;
+Its germs, productive powers explore,
+And rummage in empty words no more!
+
+O full and splendid Moon, whom I
+Have, from this desk, seen climb the sky
+So many a midnight,—would thy glow
+For the last time beheld my woe!
+Ever thine eye, most mournful friend,
+O’er books and papers saw me bend;
+But would that I, on mountains grand,
+Amid thy blessed light could stand,
+With spirits through mountain-caverns hover,
+Float in thy twilight the meadows over,
+And, freed from the fumes of lore that swathe me,
+To health in thy dewy fountains bathe me!
+
+Ah, me! this dungeon still I see.
+This drear, accursed masonry,
+Where even the welcome daylight strains
+But duskly through the painted panes.
+Hemmed in by many a toppling heap
+Of books worm-eaten, gray with dust,
+Which to the vaulted ceiling creep,
+Against the smoky paper thrust,—
+With glasses, boxes, round me stacked,
+And instruments together hurled,
+Ancestral lumber, stuffed and packed—
+Such is my world: and what a world!
+
+And do I ask, wherefore my heart
+Falters, oppressed with unknown needs?
+Why some inexplicable smart
+All movement of my life impedes?
+Alas! in living Nature’s stead,
+Where God His human creature set,
+In smoke and mould the fleshless dead
+And bones of beasts surround me yet!
+
+Fly! Up, and seek the broad, free land!
+And this one Book of Mystery
+From Nostradamus’ very hand,
+Is’t not sufficient company?
+When I the starry courses know,
+And Nature’s wise instruction seek,
+With light of power my soul shall glow,
+As when to spirits spirits speak.
+Tis vain, this empty brooding here,
+Though guessed the holy symbols be:
+Ye, Spirits, come—ye hover near—
+Oh, if you hear me, answer me!
+
+(_He opens the Book, and perceives the sign of the Macrocosm_.)
+
+Ha! what a sudden rapture leaps from this
+I view, through all my senses swiftly flowing!
+I feel a youthful, holy, vital bliss
+In every vein and fibre newly glowing.
+Was it a God, who traced this sign,
+With calm across my tumult stealing,
+My troubled heart to joy unsealing,
+With impulse, mystic and divine,
+The powers of Nature here, around my path, revealing?
+Am I a God?—so clear mine eyes!
+In these pure features I behold
+Creative Nature to my soul unfold.
+What says the sage, now first I recognize:
+“The spirit-world no closures fasten;
+Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead:
+Disciple, up! untiring, hasten
+To bathe thy breast in morning-red!”
+
+(_He contemplates the sign_.)
+
+How each the Whole its substance gives,
+Each in the other works and lives!
+Like heavenly forces rising and descending,
+Their golden urns reciprocally lending,
+With wings that winnow blessing
+From Heaven through Earth I see them pressing,
+Filling the All with harmony unceasing!
+How grand a show! but, ah! a show alone.
+Thee, boundless Nature, how make thee my own?
+Where you, ye beasts? Founts of all Being, shining,
+Whereon hang Heaven’s and Earth’s desire,
+Whereto our withered hearts aspire,—
+Ye flow, ye feed: and am I vainly pining?
+
+(_He turns the leaves impatiently, and perceives the sign of the
+Earth-Spirit_.)
+
+How otherwise upon me works this sign!
+Thou, Spirit of the Earth, art nearer:
+Even now my powers are loftier, clearer;
+I glow, as drunk with new-made wine:
+New strength and heart to meet the world incite me,
+The woe of earth, the bliss of earth, invite me,
+And though the shock of storms may smite me,
+No crash of shipwreck shall have power to fright me!
+Clouds gather over me—
+The moon conceals her light—
+The lamp’s extinguished!—
+Mists rise,—red, angry rays are darting
+Around my head!—There falls
+A horror from the vaulted roof,
+And seizes me!
+I feel thy presence, Spirit I invoke!
+Reveal thyself!
+Ha! in my heart what rending stroke!
+With new impulsion
+My senses heave in this convulsion!
+I feel thee draw my heart, absorb, exhaust me:
+Thou must! thou must! and though my life it cost me!
+
+(_He seizes the book, and mysteriously pronounces the sign of
+the Spirit. A ruddy flame flashes: the Spirit appears in
+the flame_.)
+
+
+SPIRIT
+
+Who calls me?
+
+
+FAUST (_with averted head_)
+
+Terrible to see!
+
+
+SPIRIT
+
+Me hast thou long with might attracted,
+Long from my sphere thy food exacted,
+And now—
+
+FAUST
+
+  Woe! I endure not thee!
+
+
+SPIRIT
+
+To view me is thine aspiration,
+My voice to hear, my countenance to see;
+Thy powerful yearning moveth me,
+Here am I!—what mean perturbation
+Thee, superhuman, shakes? Thy soul’s high calling, where?
+Where is the breast, which from itself a world did bear,
+And shaped and cherished—which with joy expanded,
+To be our peer, with us, the Spirits, banded?
+Where art thou, Faust, whose voice has pierced to me,
+Who towards me pressed with all thine energy?
+_He_ art thou, who, my presence breathing, seeing,
+Trembles through all the depths of being,
+A writhing worm, a terror-stricken form?
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Thee, form of flame, shall I then fear?
+Yes, I am Faust: I am thy peer!
+
+
+SPIRIT
+
+  In the tides of Life, in Action’s storm,
+  A fluctuant wave,
+  A shuttle free,
+  Birth and the Grave,
+  An eternal sea,
+  A weaving, flowing
+  Life, all-glowing,
+Thus at Time’s humming loom ’tis my hand prepares
+The garment of Life which the Deity wears!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou, who around the wide world wendest,
+Thou busy Spirit, how near I feel to thee!
+
+
+SPIRIT
+
+Thou’rt like the Spirit which thou comprehendest,
+Not me!
+
+(_Disappears_.)
+
+
+FAUST (_overwhelmed_)
+
+Not thee!
+Whom then?
+I, image of the Godhead!
+Not even like thee!
+
+(_A knock_).
+
+O Death!—I know it—’tis my Famulus!
+My fairest luck finds no fruition:
+In all the fullness of my vision
+The soulless sneak disturbs me thus!
+
+(_Enter_ WAGNER_, in dressing-gown and night-cap, a lamp in
+his hand. _FAUST_ turns impatiently_.)
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+Pardon, I heard your declamation;
+’Twas sure an old Greek tragedy you read?
+In such an art I crave some preparation,
+Since now it stands one in good stead.
+I’ve often heard it said, a preacher
+Might learn, with a comedian for a teacher.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Yes, when the priest comedian is by nature,
+As haply now and then the case may be.
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+Ah, when one studies thus, a prisoned creature,
+That scarce the world on holidays can see,—
+Scarce through a glass, by rare occasion,
+How shall one lead it by persuasion?
+
+
+FAUST
+
+You’ll ne’er attain it, save you know the feeling,
+Save from the soul it rises clear,
+Serene in primal strength, compelling
+The hearts and minds of all who hear.
+You sit forever gluing, patching;
+You cook the scraps from others’ fare;
+And from your heap of ashes hatching
+A starveling flame, ye blow it bare!
+Take children’s, monkeys’ gaze admiring,
+If such your taste, and be content;
+But ne’er from heart to heart you’ll speak inspiring,
+Save your own heart is eloquent!
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+Yet through delivery orators succeed;
+I feel that I am far behind, indeed.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Seek thou the honest recompense!
+Beware, a tinkling fool to be!
+With little art, clear wit and sense
+Suggest their own delivery;
+And if thou’rt moved to speak in earnest,
+What need, that after words thou yearnest?
+Yes, your discourses, with their glittering show,
+Where ye for men twist shredded thought like paper,
+Are unrefreshing as the winds that blow
+The rustling leaves through chill autumnal vapor!
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+Ah, God! but Art is long,
+And Life, alas! is fleeting.
+And oft, with zeal my critic-duties meeting,
+In head and breast there’s something wrong.
+
+How hard it is to compass the assistance
+Whereby one rises to the source!
+And, haply, ere one travels half the course
+Must the poor devil quit existence.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Is parchment, then, the holy fount before thee,
+A draught wherefrom thy thirst forever slakes?
+No true refreshment can restore thee,
+Save what from thine own soul spontaneous breaks.
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+Pardon! a great delight is granted
+When, in the spirit of the ages planted,
+We mark how, ere our times, a sage has thought,
+And then, how far his work, and grandly, we have brought.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+O yes, up to the stars at last!
+Listen, my friend: the ages that are past
+Are now a book with seven seals protected:
+What you the Spirit of the Ages call
+Is nothing but the spirit of you all,
+Wherein the Ages are reflected.
+So, oftentimes, you miserably mar it!
+At the first glance who sees it runs away.
+An offal-barrel and a lumber-garret,
+Or, at the best, a Punch-and-Judy play,
+With maxims most pragmatical and hitting,
+As in the mouths of puppets are befitting!
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+But then, the world—the human heart and brain!
+Of these one covets some slight apprehension.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Yes, of the kind which men attain!
+Who dares the child’s true name in public mention?
+The few, who thereof something really learned,
+Unwisely frank, with hearts that spurned concealing,
+And to the mob laid bare each thought and feeling,
+Have evermore been crucified and burned.
+I pray you, Friend, ’tis now the dead of night;
+Our converse here must be suspended.
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+I would have shared your watches with delight,
+That so our learned talk might be extended.
+To-morrow, though, I’ll ask, in Easter leisure,
+This and the other question, at your pleasure.
+Most zealously I seek for erudition:
+Much do I know—but to know all is my ambition.
+
+                                            [_Exit_.
+
+
+FAUST (_solus_)
+
+That brain, alone, not loses hope, whose choice is
+To stick in shallow trash forevermore,—
+Which digs with eager hand for buried ore,
+And, when it finds an angle-worm, rejoices!
+
+Dare such a human voice disturb the flow,
+Around me here, of spirit-presence fullest?
+And yet, this once my thanks I owe
+To thee, of all earth’s sons the poorest, dullest!
+For thou hast torn me from that desperate state
+Which threatened soon to overwhelm my senses:
+The apparition was so giant-great,
+It dwarfed and withered all my soul’s pretences!
+
+I, image of the Godhead, who began—
+Deeming Eternal Truth secure in nearness—
+To sun myself in heavenly light and clearness,
+And laid aside the earthly man;—
+I, more than Cherub, whose free force had planned
+To flow through Nature’s veins in glad pulsation,
+To reach beyond, enjoying in creation
+The life of Gods, behold my expiation!
+A thunder-word hath swept me from my stand.27
+
+With thee I dare not venture to compare me.
+Though I possessed the power to draw thee near me,
+The power to keep thee was denied my hand.
+When that ecstatic moment held me,
+I felt myself so small, so great;
+But thou hast ruthlessly repelled me
+Back upon Man’s uncertain fate.
+What shall I shun? Whose guidance borrow?
+Shall I accept that stress and strife?
+Ah! every deed of ours, no less than every sorrow,
+Impedes the onward march of life.
+
+Some alien substance more and more is cleaving
+To all the mind conceives of grand and fair;
+When this world’s Good is won by our achieving,
+The Better, then, is named a cheat and snare.
+The fine emotions, whence our lives we mould,
+Lie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.
+If hopeful Fancy once, in daring flight,
+Her longings to the Infinite expanded,
+Yet now a narrow space contents her quite,
+Since Time’s wild wave so many a fortune stranded.
+Care at the bottom of the heart is lurking:
+Her secret pangs in silence working,
+She, restless, rocks herself, disturbing joy and rest:
+In newer masks her face is ever drest,
+By turns as house and land, as wife and child, presented,—
+As water, fire, as poison, steel:
+We dread the blows we never feel,
+And what we never lose is yet by us lamented!
+
+I am not like the Gods! That truth is felt too deep:
+The worm am I, that in the dust doth creep,—
+That, while in dust it lives and seeks its bread,
+Is crushed and buried by the wanderer’s tread.
+
+Is not this dust, these walls within them hold,
+The hundred shelves, which cramp and chain me,
+The frippery, the trinkets thousandfold,
+That in this mothy den restrain me?
+Here shall I find the help I need?
+Shall here a thousand volumes teach me only
+That men, self-tortured, everywhere must bleed,—
+And here and there one happy man sits lonely?28
+What mean’st thou by that grin, thou hollow skull,
+Save that thy brain, like mine, a cloudy mirror,
+Sought once the shining day, and then, in twilight dull,29
+Thirsting for Truth, went wretchedly to Error?
+Ye instruments, forsooth, but jeer at me
+With wheel and cog, and shapes uncouth of wonder;
+I found the portal, you the keys should be;
+Your wards are deftly wrought, but drive no bolts asunder!
+Mysterious even in open day,
+Nature retains her veil, despite our clamors:
+That which she doth not willingly display
+Cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws, and hammers.
+Ye ancient tools, whose use I never knew,
+Here, since my father used ye, still ye moulder:
+Thou, ancient scroll, hast worn thy smoky hue
+Since at this desk the dim lamp wont to smoulder.
+’T were better far, had I my little idly spent,
+Than now to sweat beneath its burden, I confess it!
+What from your fathers’ heritage is lent,
+Earn it anew, to really possess it!30
+What serves not, is a sore impediment:
+The Moment’s need creates the thing to serve and bless it!
+
+Yet, wherefore tums my gaze to yonder point so lightly?
+Is yonder flask a magnet for mine eyes?
+Whence, all around me, glows the air so brightly,
+As when in woods at night the mellow moonbeam lies?
+
+I hail thee, wondrous, rarest vial!
+I take thee down devoutly, for the trial:
+Man’s art and wit I venerate in thee.
+Thou summary of gentle slumber-juices,
+Essence of deadly finest powers and uses,
+Unto thy master show thy favor free!
+I see thee, and the stings of pain diminish;
+I grasp thee, and my struggles slowly finish:
+My spirit’s flood-tide ebbeth more and more.
+Out on the open ocean speeds my dreaming;
+The glassy flood before my feet is gleaming,
+A new day beckons to a newer shore!
+
+A fiery chariot, borne on buoyant pinions,
+Sweeps near me now! I soon shall ready be
+To pierce the ether’s high, unknown dominions,
+To reach new spheres of pure activity!
+This godlike rapture, this supreme existence,
+Do I, but now a worm, deserve to track?
+Yes, resolute to reach some brighter distance,
+On Earth’s fair sun I turn my back 31
+Yes, let me dare those gates to fling asunder,
+Which every man would fain go slinking by!
+’T is time, through deeds this word of truth to thunder:
+That with the height of Gods Man’s dignity may vie!
+Nor from that gloomy gulf to shrink affrighted,
+Where Fancy doth herself to self-born pangs compel,—
+To struggle toward that pass benighted,
+Around whose narrow mouth flame all the fires of Hell,—
+To take this step with cheerful resolution,
+Though Nothingness should be the certain, swift conclusion!
+And now come down, thou cup of crystal clearest!
+Fresh from thine ancient cover thou appearest,
+So many years forgotten to my thought!
+Thou shon’st at old ancestral banquets cheery,
+The solemn guests thou madest merry,
+When one thy wassail to the other brought.
+The rich and skilful figures o’er thee wrought,
+The drinker’s duty, rhyme-wise to explain them,
+Or in one breath below the mark to drain them,
+From many a night of youth my memory caught.
+Now to a neighbor shall I pass thee never,
+Nor on thy curious art to test my wit endeavor,
+Here is a juice whence sleep is swiftly born.
+It fills with browner flood thy crystal hollow;
+I chose, prepared it: thus I follow,—
+With all my soul the final drink I swallow,
+A solemn festal cup, a greeting to the morn!
+[He sets the goblet to his mouth.
+(Chime of bells and choral song.)
+
+
+CHORUS OF ANGELS.32
+Christ is arisen!
+Joy to the Mortal One,
+Whom the unmerited,
+Clinging, inherited
+Needs did imprison.
+
+
+FAUST.
+What hollow humming, what a sharp, clear stroke,
+Drives from my lip the goblet’s, at their meeting?
+Announce the booming bells already woke
+The first glad hour of Easter’s festal greeting?
+Ye choirs, have ye begun the sweet, consoling chant,
+Which, through the night of Death, the angels ministrant
+Sang, God’s new Covenant repeating?
+
+
+CHORUS OF WOMEN
+
+          With spices and precious
+          Balm, we arrayed him;
+          Faithful and gracious,
+          We tenderly laid him:
+          Linen to bind him
+          Cleanlily wound we:
+          Ah! when we would find him,
+          Christ no more found we!
+
+
+CHORUS OF ANGELS
+
+          Christ is ascended!
+          Bliss hath invested him,—
+          Woes that molested him,
+          Trials that tested him,
+          Gloriously ended!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Why, here in dust, entice me with your spell,
+Ye gentle, powerful sounds of Heaven?
+Peal rather there, where tender natures dwell.
+Your messages I hear, but faith has not been given;
+The dearest child of Faith is Miracle.
+I venture not to soar to yonder regions
+Whence the glad tidings hither float;
+And yet, from childhood up familiar with the note,
+To Life it now renews the old allegiance.
+Once Heavenly Love sent down a burning kiss
+Upon my brow, in Sabbath silence holy;
+And, filled with mystic presage, chimed the church-bell slowly,
+And prayer dissolved me in a fervent bliss.
+A sweet, uncomprehended yearning
+Drove forth my feet through woods and meadows free,
+And while a thousand tears were burning,
+I felt a world arise for me.
+These chants, to youth and all its sports appealing,
+Proclaimed the Spring’s rejoicing holiday;
+And Memory holds me now, with childish feeling,
+Back from the last, the solemn way.
+Sound on, ye hymns of Heaven, so sweet and mild!
+My tears gush forth: the Earth takes back her child!
+
+
+CHORUS OF DISCIPLES
+
+        Has He, victoriously,
+        Burst from the vaulted
+        Grave, and all-gloriously
+        Now sits exalted?
+        Is He, in glow of birth,
+        Rapture creative near?
+        Ah! to the woe of earth
+        Still are we native here.
+        We, his aspiring
+        Followers, Him we miss;
+        Weeping, desiring,
+        Master, Thy bliss!
+
+CHORUS OF ANGELS
+
+        Christ is arisen,
+        Out of Corruption’s womb:
+        Burst ye the prison,
+        Break from your gloom!
+        Praising and pleading him,
+        Lovingly needing him,
+        Brotherly feeding him,
+        Preaching and speeding him,
+        Blessing, succeeding Him,
+        Thus is the Master near,—
+        Thus is He here!
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+BEFORE THE CITY-GATE
+
+(_Pedestrians of all kinds come forth_.)
+
+
+SEVERAL APPRENTICES
+
+Why do you go that way?
+
+
+OTHERS
+
+We’re for the Hunters’ lodge, to-day.
+
+
+THE FIRST
+
+We’ll saunter to the Mill, in yonder hollow.
+
+
+AN APPRENTICE
+
+Go to the River Tavern, I should say.
+
+
+SECOND APPRENTICE
+
+But then, it’s not a pleasant way.
+
+
+THE OTHERS
+
+And what will _you_?
+
+A THIRD
+
+            As goes the crowd, I follow.
+
+
+A FOURTH
+
+Come up to Burgdorf? There you’ll find good cheer,
+The finest lasses and the best of beer,
+And jolly rows and squabbles, trust me!
+
+
+A FIFTH
+
+You swaggering fellow, is your hide
+A third time itching to be tried?
+I won’t go there, your jolly rows disgust me!
+
+
+SERVANT-GIRL
+
+No,—no! I’ll turn and go to town again.
+
+
+ANOTHER
+
+We’ll surely find him by those poplars yonder.
+
+
+THE FIRST
+
+That’s no great luck for me, ’tis plain.
+You’ll have him, when and where you wander:
+His partner in the dance you’ll be,—
+But what is all your fun to me?
+
+
+THE OTHER
+
+He’s surely not alone to-day:
+He’ll be with Curly-head, I heard him say.
+
+
+A STUDENT
+
+Deuce! how they step, the buxom wenches!
+Come, Brother! we must see them to the benches.
+A strong, old beer, a pipe that stings and bites,
+A girl in Sunday clothes,—these three are my delights.
+
+
+CITIZEN’S DAUGHTER
+
+Just see those handsome fellows, there!
+It’s really shameful, I declare;—
+To follow servant-girls, when they
+Might have the most genteel society to-day!
+
+
+SECOND STUDENT (_to the First_)
+
+Not quite so fast! Two others come behind,—
+Those, dressed so prettily and neatly.
+My neighbor’s one of them, I find,
+A girl that takes my heart, completely.
+They go their way with looks demure,
+But they’ll accept us, after all, I’m sure.
+
+
+THE FIRST
+
+No, Brother! not for me their formal ways.
+Quick! lest our game escape us in the press:
+The hand that wields the broom on Saturdays
+Will best, on Sundays, fondle and caress.
+
+
+CITIZEN
+
+He suits me not at all, our new-made Burgomaster!
+Since he’s installed, his arrogance grows faster.
+How has he helped the town, I say?
+Things worsen,—what improvement names he?
+Obedience, more than ever, claims he,
+And more than ever we must pay!
+
+
+BEGGAR (_sings_)
+
+  Good gentlemen and lovely ladies,
+  So red of cheek and fine of dress,
+  Behold, how needful here your aid is,
+  And see and lighten my distress!
+  Let me not vainly sing my ditty;
+  He’s only glad who gives away:
+  A holiday, that shows your pity,
+  Shall be for me a harvest-day!
+
+
+ANOTHER CITIZEN
+
+On Sundays, holidays, there’s naught I take delight in,
+Like gossiping of war, and war’s array,
+When down in Turkey, far away,
+The foreign people are a-fighting.
+One at the window sits, with glass and friends,
+And sees all sorts of ships go down the river gliding:
+And blesses then, as home he wends
+At night, our times of peace abiding.
+
+
+THIRD CITIZEN
+
+Yes, Neighbor! that’s my notion, too:
+Why, let them break their heads, let loose their passions,
+And mix things madly through and through,
+So, here, we keep our good old fashions!
+
+
+OLD WOMAN (_to the Citizen’s Daughter_)
+
+Dear me, how fine! So handsome, and so young!
+Who wouldn’t lose his heart, that met you?
+Don’t be so proud! I’ll hold my tongue,
+And what you’d like I’ll undertake to get you.
+
+
+CITIZEN’S DAUGHTER
+
+Come, Agatha! I shun the witch’s sight
+Before folks, lest there be misgiving:
+’Tis true, she showed me, on Saint Andrew’s Night,
+My future sweetheart, just as he were living.
+
+
+THE OTHER
+
+She showed me mine, in crystal clear,
+With several wild young blades, a soldier-lover:
+I seek him everywhere, I pry and peer,
+And yet, somehow, his face I can’t discover.
+
+SOLDIERS
+
+        Castles, with lofty
+        Ramparts and towers,
+        Maidens disdainful
+        In Beauty’s array,
+        Both shall be ours!
+        Bold is the venture,
+        Splendid the pay!
+        Lads, let the trumpets
+        For us be suing,—
+        Calling to pleasure,
+        Calling to ruin.
+        Stormy our life is;
+        Such is its boon!
+        Maidens and castles
+        Capitulate soon.
+        Bold is the venture,
+        Splendid the pay!
+        And the soldiers go marching,
+        Marching away!
+
+
+FAUST AND WAGNER
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Released from ice are brook and river
+By the quickening glance of the gracious Spring;
+The colors of hope to the valley cling,
+And weak old Winter himself must shiver,
+Withdrawn to the mountains, a crownless king:
+Whence, ever retreating, he sends again
+Impotent showers of sleet that darkle
+In belts across the green o’ the plain.
+But the sun will permit no white to sparkle;
+Everywhere form in development moveth;
+He will brighten the world with the tints he loveth,
+And, lacking blossoms, blue, yellow, and red,
+He takes these gaudy people instead.
+Turn thee about, and from this height
+Back on the town direct thy sight.
+Out of the hollow, gloomy gate,
+The motley throngs come forth elate:
+Each will the joy of the sunshine hoard,
+To honor the Day of the Risen Lord!
+They feel, themselves, their resurrection:
+From the low, dark rooms, scarce habitable;
+From the bonds of Work, from Trade’s restriction;
+From the pressing weight of roof and gable;
+From the narrow, crushing streets and alleys;
+From the churches’ solemn and reverend night,
+All come forth to the cheerful light.
+How lively, see! the multitude sallies,
+Scattering through gardens and fields remote,
+While over the river, that broadly dallies,
+Dances so many a festive boat;
+And overladen, nigh to sinking,
+The last full wherry takes the stream.
+Yonder afar, from the hill-paths blinking,
+Their clothes are colors that softly gleam.
+I hear the noise of the village, even;
+Here is the People’s proper Heaven;
+Here high and low contented see!
+Here I am Man,—dare man to be!
+
+
+WAGNER
+
+To stroll with you, Sir Doctor, flatters;
+’Tis honor, profit, unto me.
+But I, alone, would shun these shallow matters,
+Since all that’s coarse provokes my enmity.
+This fiddling, shouting, ten-pin rolling
+I hate,—these noises of the throng:
+They rave, as Satan were their sports controlling.
+And call it mirth, and call it song!
+
+
+PEASANTS, UNDER THE LINDEN-TREE
+  (_Dance and Song_.)
+
+          All for the dance the shepherd dressed,
+          In ribbons, wreath, and gayest vest
+            Himself with care arraying:
+          Around the linden lass and lad
+          Already footed it like mad:
+            Hurrah! hurrah!
+            Hurrah—tarara-la!
+          The fiddle-bow was playing.
+
+          He broke the ranks, no whit afraid,
+          And with his elbow punched a maid,
+            Who stood, the dance surveying:
+          The buxom wench, she turned and said:
+          “Now, you I call a stupid-head!”
+            Hurrah! hurrah!
+            Hurrah—tarara-la!
+          “Be decent while you’re staying!”
+
+          Then round the circle went their flight,
+          They danced to left, they danced to right:
+          Their kirtles all were playing.
+          They first grew red, and then grew warm,
+          And rested, panting, arm in arm,—
+            Hurrah! hurrah!
+            Hurrah—tarara-la!
+          And hips and elbows straying.
+
+          Now, don’t be so familiar here!
+          How many a one has fooled his dear,
+          Waylaying and betraying!
+
+          And yet, he coaxed her soon aside,
+          And round the linden sounded wide.
+            Hurrah! hurrah!
+            Hurrah—tarara-la!
+          And the fiddle-bow was playing.
+
+OLD PEASANT
+
+Sir Doctor, it is good of you,
+That thus you condescend, to-day,
+Among this crowd of merry folk,
+A highly-learned man, to stray.
+Then also take the finest can,
+We fill with fresh wine, for your sake:
+I offer it, and humbly wish
+That not alone your thirst is slake,—
+That, as the drops below its brink,
+So many days of life you drink!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+I take the cup you kindly reach,
+With thanks and health to all and each.
+
+(_The People gather in a circle about him_.)
+
+
+OLD PEASANT
+
+In truth, ’tis well and fitly timed,
+That now our day of joy you share,
+Who heretofore, in evil days,
+Gave us so much of helping care.
+Still many a man stands living here,
+Saved by your father’s skillful hand,
+That snatched him from the fever’s rage
+And stayed the plague in all the land.
+Then also you, though but a youth,
+Went into every house of pain:
+Many the corpses carried forth,
+But you in health came out again.
+
+FAUST
+
+No test or trial you evaded:
+A Helping God the helper aided.
+
+ALL
+
+Health to the man, so skilled and tried.
+That for our help he long may abide!
+
+FAUST
+
+To Him above bow down, my friends,
+Who teaches help, and succor sends!
+
+(_He goes on with_ WAGNER.)
+
+WAGNER
+
+With what a feeling, thou great man, must thou
+Receive the people’s honest veneration!
+How lucky he, whose gifts his station
+With such advantages endow!
+Thou’rt shown to all the younger generation:
+Each asks, and presses near to gaze;
+The fiddle stops, the dance delays.
+Thou goest, they stand in rows to see,
+And all the caps are lifted high;
+A little more, and they would bend the knee
+As if the Holy Host came by.
+
+FAUST
+
+A few more steps ascend, as far as yonder stone!—
+Here from our wandering will we rest contented.
+Here, lost in thought, I’ve lingered oft alone,
+When foolish fasts and prayers my life tormented.
+Here, rich in hope and firm in faith,
+With tears, wrung hands and sighs, I’ve striven,
+The end of that far-spreading death
+Entreating from the Lord of Heaven!
+Now like contempt the crowd’s applauses seem:
+Couldst thou but read, within mine inmost spirit,
+How little now I deem,
+That sire or son such praises merit!
+My father’s was a sombre, brooding brain,
+Which through the holy spheres of Nature groped and wandered,
+And honestly, in his own fashion, pondered
+With labor whimsical, and pain:
+Who, in his dusky work-shop bending,
+With proved adepts in company,
+Made, from his recipes unending,
+Opposing substances agree.
+There was a Lion red, a wooer daring,
+Within the Lily’s tepid bath espoused,
+And both, tormented then by flame unsparing,
+By turns in either bridal chamber housed.
+If then appeared, with colors splendid,
+The young Queen in her crystal shell,
+This was the medicine—the patients’ woes soon ended,
+And none demanded: who got well?
+Thus we, our hellish boluses compounding,
+Among these vales and hills surrounding,
+Worse than the pestilence, have passed.
+Thousands were done to death from poison of my giving;
+And I must hear, by all the living,
+The shameless murderers praised at last!
+
+WAGNER
+
+Why, therefore, yield to such depression?
+A good man does his honest share
+In exercising, with the strictest care,
+The art bequeathed to his possession!
+Dost thou thy father honor, as a youth?
+Then may his teaching cheerfully impel thee:
+Dost thou, as man, increase the stores of truth?
+Then may thine own son afterwards excel thee.
+
+FAUST
+
+O happy he, who still renews
+The hope, from Error’s deeps to rise forever!
+That which one does not know, one needs to use;
+And what one knows, one uses never.
+But let us not, by such despondence, so
+The fortune of this hour embitter!
+Mark how, beneath the evening sunlight’s glow,
+The green-embosomed houses glitter!
+The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
+It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;
+Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil,
+Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!
+Then would I see eternal Evening gild
+The silent world beneath me glowing,
+On fire each mountain-peak, with peace each valley filled,
+The silver brook to golden rivers flowing.
+The mountain-chain, with all its gorges deep,
+Would then no more impede my godlike motion;
+And now before mine eyes expands the ocean
+With all its bays, in shining sleep!
+Yet, finally, the weary god is sinking;
+The new-born impulse fires my mind,—
+I hasten on, his beams eternal drinking,
+The Day before me and the Night behind,
+Above me heaven unfurled, the floor of waves beneath me,—
+A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.
+Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid
+Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.
+Yet in each soul is born the pleasure
+Of yearning onward, upward and away,
+When o’er our heads, lost in the vaulted azure,
+The lark sends down his flickering lay,—
+When over crags and piny highlands
+The poising eagle slowly soars,
+And over plains and lakes and islands
+The crane sails by to other shores.
+
+WAGNER
+
+I’ve had, myself, at times, some odd caprices,
+But never yet such impulse felt, as this is.
+One soon fatigues, on woods and fields to look,
+Nor would I beg the bird his wing to spare us:
+How otherwise the mental raptures bear us
+From page to page, from book to book!
+Then winter nights take loveliness untold,
+As warmer life in every limb had crowned you;
+And when your hands unroll some parchment rare and old,
+All Heaven descends, and opens bright around you!
+
+FAUST
+
+One impulse art thou conscious of, at best;
+O, never seek to know the other!
+Two souls, alas! reside within my breast,
+And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
+One with tenacious organs holds in love
+And clinging lust the world in its embraces;
+The other strongly sweeps, this dust above,
+Into the high ancestral spaces.
+If there be airy spirits near,
+’Twixt Heaven and Earth on potent errands fleeing,
+Let them drop down the golden atmosphere,
+And bear me forth to new and varied being!
+Yea, if a magic mantle once were mine,
+To waft me o’er the world at pleasure,
+I would not for the costliest stores of treasure—
+Not for a monarch’s robe—the gift resign.
+
+WAGNER
+
+Invoke not thus the well-known throng,
+Which through the firmament diffused is faring,
+And danger thousand-fold, our race to wrong.
+In every quarter is preparing.
+Swift from the North the spirit-fangs so sharp
+Sweep down, and with their barbéd points assail you;
+Then from the East they come, to dry and warp
+Your lungs, till breath and being fail you:
+If from the Desert sendeth them the South,
+With fire on fire your throbbing forehead crowning,
+The West leads on a host, to cure the drouth
+Only when meadow, field, and you are drowning.
+They gladly hearken, prompt for injury,—
+Gladly obey, because they gladly cheat us;
+From Heaven they represent themselves to be,
+And lisp like angels, when with lies they meet us.
+But, let us go! ’Tis gray and dusky all:
+The air is cold, the vapors fall.
+At night, one learns his house to prize:—
+Why stand you thus, with such astonished eyes?
+What, in the twilight, can your mind so trouble?
+
+FAUST
+
+Seest thou the black dog coursing there, through corn and
+stubble?
+
+WAGNER
+
+Long since: yet deemed him not important in the least.
+
+FAUST
+
+Inspect him close: for what tak’st thou the beast?
+
+WAGNER
+
+Why, for a poodle who has lost his master,
+And scents about, his track to find.
+
+FAUST
+
+Seest thou the spiral circles, narrowing faster,
+Which he, approaching, round us seems to wind?
+A streaming trail of fire, if I see rightly,
+Follows his path of mystery.
+
+WAGNER
+
+It may be that your eyes deceive you slightly;
+Naught but a plain black poodle do I see.
+
+FAUST
+
+It seems to me that with enchanted cunning
+He snares our feet, some future chain to bind.
+
+WAGNER
+
+I see him timidly, in doubt, around us running,
+Since, in his master’s stead, two strangers doth he find.
+
+FAUST
+
+The circle narrows: he is near!
+
+WAGNER
+
+A dog thou seest, and not a phantom, here!
+Behold him stop—upon his belly crawl—His
+tail set wagging: canine habits, all!
+
+FAUST
+
+Come, follow us! Come here, at least!
+
+WAGNER
+
+’Tis the absurdest, drollest beast.
+Stand still, and you will see him wait;
+Address him, and he gambols straight;
+If something’s lost, he’ll quickly bring it,—
+Your cane, if in the stream you fling it.
+
+FAUST
+
+No doubt you’re right: no trace of mind, I own,
+Is in the beast: I see but drill, alone.
+
+WAGNER
+
+The dog, when he’s well educated,
+Is by the wisest tolerated.
+Yes, he deserves your favor thoroughly,—
+The clever scholar of the students, he!
+
+(_They pass in the city-gate_.)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+THE STUDY
+
+FAUST
+
+(_Entering, with the poodle_.)
+
+     Behind me, field and meadow sleeping,
+     I leave in deep, prophetic night,
+     Within whose dread and holy keeping
+     The better soul awakes to light.
+     The wild desires no longer win us,
+     The deeds of passion cease to chain;
+     The love of Man revives within us,
+     The love of God revives again.
+
+Be still, thou poodle; make not such racket and riot!
+Why at the threshold wilt snuffing be?
+Behind the stove repose thee in quiet!
+My softest cushion I give to thee.
+As thou, up yonder, with running and leaping
+Amused us hast, on the mountain’s crest,
+
+So now I take thee into my keeping,
+A welcome, but also a silent, guest.
+
+     Ah, when, within our narrow chamber
+     The lamp with friendly lustre glows,
+     Flames in the breast each faded ember,
+     And in the heart, itself that knows.
+     Then Hope again lends sweet assistance,
+     And Reason then resumes her speech:
+     One yearns, the rivers of existence,
+     The very founts of Life, to reach.
+
+Snarl not, poodle! To the sound that rises,
+The sacred tones that my soul embrace,
+This bestial noise is out of place.
+We are used to see, that Man despises
+What he never comprehends,
+And the Good and the Beautiful vilipends,
+Finding them often hard to measure:
+Will the dog, like man, snarl _his_ displeasure?
+
+But ah! I feel, though will thereto be stronger,
+Contentment flows from out my breast no longer.
+Why must the stream so soon run dry and fail us,
+And burning thirst again assail us?
+Therein I’ve borne so much probation!
+And yet, this want may be supplied us;
+We call the Supernatural to guide us;
+We pine and thirst for Revelation,
+Which nowhere worthier is, more nobly sent,
+Than here, in our New Testament.
+I feel impelled, its meaning to determine,—
+With honest purpose, once for all,
+The hallowed Original
+To change to my beloved German.
+
+(_He opens a volume, and commences_.)
+’Tis written: “In the Beginning was the _Word_.”
+Here am I balked: who, now can help afford?
+The _Word?_—impossible so high to rate it;
+And otherwise must I translate it.
+If by the Spirit I am truly taught.
+Then thus: “In the Beginning was the _Thought_”
+This first line let me weigh completely,
+Lest my impatient pen proceed too fleetly.
+Is it the _Thought_ which works, creates, indeed?
+“In the Beginning was the _Power_,” I read.
+Yet, as I write, a warning is suggested,
+That I the sense may not have fairly tested.
+The Spirit aids me: now I see the light!
+“In the Beginning was the _Act_,” I write.
+
+If I must share my chamber with thee,
+Poodle, stop that howling, prithee!
+Cease to bark and bellow!
+Such a noisy, disturbing fellow
+I’ll no longer suffer near me.
+One of us, dost hear me!
+Must leave, I fear me.
+No longer guest-right I bestow;
+The door is open, art free to go.
+But what do I see in the creature?
+Is that in the course of nature?
+Is’t actual fact? or Fancy’s shows?
+How long and broad my poodle grows!
+He rises mightily:
+A canine form that cannot be!
+What a spectre I’ve harbored thus!
+He resembles a hippopotamus,
+With fiery eyes, teeth terrible to see:
+O, now am I sure of thee!
+For all of thy half-hellish brood
+The Key of Solomon is good.
+
+SPIRITS (_in the corridor_)
+
+     Some one, within, is caught!
+     Stay without, follow him not!
+     Like the fox in a snare,
+     Quakes the old hell-lynx there.
+     Take heed—look about!
+     Back and forth hover,
+     Under and over,
+     And he’ll work himself out.
+     If your aid avail him,
+     Let it not fail him;
+     For he, without measure,
+     Has wrought for our pleasure.
+
+FAUST
+
+First, to encounter the beast,
+The Words of the Four be addressed:
+    Salamander, shine glorious!
+    Wave, Undine, as bidden!
+    Sylph, be thou hidden!
+    Gnome, be laborious!
+
+Who knows not their sense
+(These elements),—
+Their properties
+And power not sees,—
+No mastery he inherits
+Over the Spirits.
+
+     Vanish in flaming ether,
+     Salamander!
+     Flow foamingly together,
+     Undine!
+     Shine in meteor-sheen,
+     Sylph!
+     Bring help to hearth and shelf.
+     Incubus! Incubus!
+     Step forward, and finish thus!
+
+Of the Four, no feature
+Lurks in the creature.
+Quiet he lies, and grins disdain:
+Not yet, it seems, have I given him pain.
+Now, to undisguise thee,
+Hear me exorcise thee!
+Art thou, my gay one,
+Hell’s fugitive stray-one?
+The sign witness now,
+Before which they bow,
+The cohorts of Hell!
+
+With hair all bristling, it begins to swell.
+
+     Base Being, hearest thou?
+     Knowest and fearest thou
+     The One, unoriginate,
+     Named inexpressibly,
+     Through all Heaven impermeate,
+     Pierced irredressibly!
+
+Behind the stove still banned,
+See it, an elephant, expand!
+It fills the space entire,
+Mist-like melting, ever faster.
+’Tis enough: ascend no higher,—
+Lay thyself at the feet of the Master!
+Thou seest, not vain the threats I bring thee:
+With holy fire I’ll scorch and sting thee!
+Wait not to know
+The threefold dazzling glow!
+Wait not to know
+The strongest art within my hands!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+(_while the vapor is dissipating, steps forth from behind the
+stove, in the costume of a Travelling Scholar_.)
+Why such a noise? What are my lord’s commands?
+
+FAUST
+
+This was the poodle’s real core,
+A travelling scholar, then? The _casus_ is diverting.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The learned gentleman I bow before:
+You’ve made me roundly sweat, that’s certain!
+
+FAUST
+
+What is thy name?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+A question small, it seems,
+For one whose mind the Word so much despises;
+Who, scorning all external gleams,
+The depths of being only prizes.
+
+FAUST
+
+With all you gentlemen, the name’s a test,
+Whereby the nature usually is expressed.
+Clearly the latter it implies
+In names like Beelzebub, Destroyer, Father of Lies.
+Who art thou, then?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Part of that Power, not understood,
+Which always wills the Bad, and always works the Good.
+
+FAUST
+
+What hidden sense in this enigma lies?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I am the Spirit that Denies!
+And justly so: for all things, from the Void
+Called forth, deserve to be destroyed:
+’Twere better, then, were naught created.
+Thus, all which you as Sin have rated,—
+Destruction,—aught with Evil blent,—
+That is my proper element.
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou nam’st thyself a part, yet show’st complete to me?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The modest truth I speak to thee.
+If Man, that microcosmic fool, can see
+Himself a whole so frequently,
+Part of the Part am I, once All, in primal Night,—
+Part of the Darkness which brought forth the Light,
+The haughty Light, which now disputes the space,
+And claims of Mother Night her ancient place.
+And yet, the struggle fails; since Light, howe’er it weaves,
+Still, fettered, unto bodies cleaves:
+It flows from bodies, bodies beautifies;
+By bodies is its course impeded;
+And so, but little time is needed,
+I hope, ere, as the bodies die, it dies!
+
+FAUST
+
+I see the plan thou art pursuing:
+Thou canst not compass general ruin,
+And hast on smaller scale begun.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And truly ’tis not much, when all is done.
+That which to Naught is in resistance set,—
+The Something of this clumsy world,—has yet,
+With all that I have undertaken,
+Not been by me disturbed or shaken:
+From earthquake, tempest, wave, volcano’s brand,
+Back into quiet settle sea and land!
+And that damned stuff, the bestial, human brood,—
+What use, in having that to play with?
+How many have I made away with!
+And ever circulates a newer, fresher blood.
+It makes me furious, such things beholding:
+From Water, Earth, and Air unfolding,
+A thousand germs break forth and grow,
+In dry, and wet, and warm, and chilly;
+And had I not the Flame reserved, why, really,
+There’s nothing special of my own to show!
+
+FAUST
+
+So, to the actively eternal
+Creative force, in cold disdain
+You now oppose the fist infernal,
+Whose wicked clench is all in vain!
+Some other labor seek thou rather,
+Queer Son of Chaos, to begin!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Well, we’ll consider: thou canst gather
+My views, when next I venture in.
+Might I, perhaps, depart at present?
+
+FAUST
+
+Why thou shouldst ask, I don’t perceive.
+Though our acquaintance is so recent,
+For further visits thou hast leave.
+The window’s here, the door is yonder;
+A chimney, also, you behold.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I must confess that forth I may not wander,
+My steps by one slight obstacle controlled,—
+The wizard’s-foot, that on your threshold made is.
+
+FAUST
+
+The pentagram prohibits thee?
+Why, tell me now, thou Son of Hades,
+If that prevents, how cam’st thou in to me?
+Could such a spirit be so cheated?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Inspect the thing: the drawing’s not completed.
+The outer angle, you may see,
+Is open left—the lines don’t fit it.
+
+FAUST
+
+Well,—Chance, this time, has fairly hit it!
+And thus, thou’rt prisoner to me?
+It seems the business has succeeded.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The poodle naught remarked, as after thee he speeded;
+But other aspects now obtain:
+The Devil can’t get out again.
+
+FAUST
+
+Try, then, the open window-pane!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+For Devils and for spectres this is law:
+Where they have entered in, there also they withdraw.
+The first is free to us; we’re governed by the second.
+
+FAUST
+
+In Hell itself, then, laws are reckoned?
+That’s well! So might a compact be
+Made with you gentlemen—and binding,—surely?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+All that is promised shall delight thee purely;
+No skinflint bargain shalt thou see.
+But this is not of swift conclusion;
+We’ll talk about the matter soon.
+And now, I do entreat this boon—
+Leave to withdraw from my intrusion.
+
+FAUST
+
+One moment more I ask thee to remain,
+Some pleasant news, at least, to tell me.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Release me, now! I soon shall come again;
+Then thou, at will, mayst question and compel me.
+
+FAUST
+
+I have not snares around thee cast;
+Thyself hast led thyself into the meshes.
+Who traps the Devil, hold him fast!
+Not soon a second time he’ll catch a prey so precious.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+An’t please thee, also I’m content to stay,
+And serve thee in a social station;
+But stipulating, that I may
+With arts of mine afford thee recreation.
+
+FAUST
+
+Thereto I willingly agree,
+If the diversion pleasant be.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+My friend, thou’lt win, past all pretences,
+More in this hour to soothe thy senses,
+Than in the year’s monotony.
+That which the dainty spirits sing thee,
+The lovely pictures they shall bring thee,
+Are more than magic’s empty show.
+Thy scent will be to bliss invited;
+Thy palate then with taste delighted,
+Thy nerves of touch ecstatic glow!
+All unprepared, the charm I spin:
+We’re here together, so begin!
+
+SPIRITS
+
+     Vanish, ye darking
+     Arches above him!
+     Loveliest weather,
+     Born of blue ether,
+     Break from the sky!
+     O that the darkling
+     Clouds had departed!
+     Starlight is sparkling,
+     Tranquiller-hearted
+     Suns are on high.
+     Heaven’s own children
+     In beauty bewildering,
+     Waveringly bending,
+     Pass as they hover;
+     Longing unending
+     Follows them over.
+     They, with their glowing
+     Garments, out-flowing,
+     Cover, in going,
+     Landscape and bower,
+     Where, in seclusion,
+     Lovers are plighted,
+     Lost in illusion.
+     Bower on bower!
+     Tendrils unblighted!
+     Lo! in a shower
+     Grapes that o’ercluster
+     Gush into must, or
+     Flow into rivers
+     Of foaming and flashing
+     Wine, that is dashing
+     Gems, as it boundeth
+     Down the high places,
+     And spreading, surroundeth
+     With crystalline spaces,
+     In happy embraces,
+     Blossoming forelands,
+     Emerald shore-lands!
+     And the winged races
+     Drink, and fly onward—
+     Fly ever sunward
+     To the enticing
+     Islands, that flatter,
+     Dipping and rising
+     Light on the water!
+     Hark, the inspiring
+     Sound of their quiring!
+     See, the entrancing
+     Whirl of their dancing!
+     All in the air are
+     Freer and fairer.
+     Some of them scaling
+     Boldly the highlands,
+     Others are sailing,
+     Circling the islands;
+     Others are flying;
+     Life-ward all hieing,—
+     All for the distant
+     Star of existent
+     Rapture and Love!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+He sleeps! Enough, ye fays! your airy number
+Have sung him truly into slumber:
+For this performance I your debtor prove.—
+Not yet art thou the man, to catch the Fiend and hold him!—
+With fairest images of dreams infold him,
+Plunge him in seas of sweet untruth!
+Yet, for the threshold’s magic which controlled him,
+The Devil needs a rat’s quick tooth.
+I use no lengthened invocation:
+Here rustles one that soon will work my liberation.
+
+The lord of rats and eke of mice,
+Of flies and bed-bugs, frogs and lice,
+Summons thee hither to the door-sill,
+To gnaw it where, with just a morsel
+Of oil, he paints the spot for thee:—
+There com’st thou, hopping on to me!
+To work, at once! The point which made me craven
+Is forward, on the ledge, engraven.
+Another bite makes free the door:
+So, dream thy dreams, O Faust, until we meet once more!
+
+FAUST _(awaking)_
+
+Am I again so foully cheated?
+Remains there naught of lofty spirit-sway,
+But that a dream the Devil counterfeited,
+And that a poodle ran away?
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+THE STUDY
+
+FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+FAUST
+
+A knock? Come in! Again my quiet broken?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+’Tis I!
+
+FAUST
+
+         Come in!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+                  Thrice must the words be spoken.
+
+FAUST
+
+Come in, then!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+                   Thus thou pleasest me.
+I hope we’ll suit each other well;
+For now, thy vapors to dispel,
+I come, a squire of high degree,
+In scarlet coat, with golden trimming,
+A cloak in silken lustre swimming,
+A tall cock’s-feather in my hat,
+A long, sharp sword for show or quarrel,—
+And I advise thee, brief and flat,
+To don the self-same gay apparel,
+That, from this den released, and free,
+Life be at last revealed to thee!
+
+FAUST
+
+This life of earth, whatever my attire,
+Would pain me in its wonted fashion.
+Too old am I to play with passion;
+Too young, to be without desire.
+What from the world have I to gain?
+Thou shalt abstain—renounce—refrain!
+Such is the everlasting song
+That in the ears of all men rings,—
+That unrelieved, our whole life long,
+Each hour, in passing, hoarsely sings.
+In very terror I at morn awake,
+Upon the verge of bitter weeping,
+To see the day of disappointment break,
+To no one hope of mine—not one—its promise keeping:—
+That even each joy’s presentiment
+With wilful cavil would diminish,
+With grinning masks of life prevent
+My mind its fairest work to finish!
+Then, too, when night descends, how anxiously
+Upon my couch of sleep I lay me:
+There, also, comes no rest to me,
+But some wild dream is sent to fray me.
+The God that in my breast is owned
+Can deeply stir the inner sources;
+The God, above my powers enthroned,
+He cannot change external forces.
+So, by the burden of my days oppressed,
+Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And yet is never Death a wholly welcome guest.
+
+FAUST
+
+O fortunate, for whom, when victory glances,
+The bloody laurels on the brow he bindeth!
+Whom, after rapid, maddening dances,
+In clasping maiden-arms he findeth!
+O would that I, before that spirit-power,
+Ravished and rapt from life, had sunken!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And yet, by some one, in that nightly hour,
+A certain liquid was not drunken.
+
+FAUST
+
+Eavesdropping, ha! thy pleasure seems to be.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Omniscient am I not; yet much is known to me.
+
+FAUST
+
+Though some familiar tone, retrieving
+My thoughts from torment, led me on,
+And sweet, clear echoes came, deceiving
+A faith bequeathed from Childhood’s dawn,
+Yet now I curse whate’er entices
+And snares the soul with visions vain;
+With dazzling cheats and dear devices
+Confines it in this cave of pain!
+Cursed be, at once, the high ambition
+Wherewith the mind itself deludes!
+Cursed be the glare of apparition
+That on the finer sense intrudes!
+Cursed be the lying dream’s impression
+Of name, and fame, and laurelled brow!
+Cursed, all that flatters as possession,
+As wife and child, as knave and plow!
+Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures
+To restless action spurs our fate!
+Cursed when, for soft, indulgent leisures,
+He lays for us the pillows straight!
+Cursed be the vine’s transcendent nectar,—
+The highest favor Love lets fall!
+Cursed, also, Hope!—cursed Faith, the spectre!
+And cursed be Patience most of all!
+
+CHORUS OF SPIRITS (_invisible_)
+
+     Woe! woe!
+     Thou hast it destroyed,
+     The beautiful world,
+     With powerful fist:
+     In ruin ’tis hurled,
+     By the blow of a demigod shattered!
+     The scattered
+     Fragments into the Void we carry,
+     Deploring
+     The beauty perished beyond restoring.
+     Mightier
+     For the children of men,
+     Brightlier
+     Build it again,
+     In thine own bosom build it anew!
+     Bid the new career
+     Commence,
+     With clearer sense,
+     And the new songs of cheer
+     Be sung thereto!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+These are the small dependants
+Who give me attendance.
+Hear them, to deeds and passion
+Counsel in shrewd old-fashion!
+Into the world of strife,
+Out of this lonely life
+That of senses and sap has betrayed thee,
+They would persuade thee.
+This nursing of the pain forego thee,
+That, like a vulture, feeds upon thy breast!
+The worst society thou find’st will show thee
+Thou art a man among the rest.
+But ’tis not meant to thrust
+Thee into the mob thou hatest!
+I am not one of the greatest,
+Yet, wilt thou to me entrust
+Thy steps through life, I’ll guide thee,—
+Will willingly walk beside thee,—
+Will serve thee at once and forever
+With best endeavor,
+And, if thou art satisfied,
+Will as servant, slave, with thee abide.
+
+FAUST
+
+And what shall be my counter-service therefor?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The time is long: thou need’st not now insist.
+
+FAUST
+
+No—no! The Devil is an egotist,
+And is not apt, without a why or wherefore,
+“For God’s sake,” others to assist.
+Speak thy conditions plain and clear!
+With such a servant danger comes, I fear.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+_Here_, an unwearied slave, I’ll wear thy tether,
+And to thine every nod obedient be:
+When _There_ again we come together,
+Then shalt thou do the same for me.
+
+FAUST
+
+The _There_ my scruples naught increases.
+When thou hast dashed this world to pieces,
+The other, then, its place may fill.
+Here, on this earth, my pleasures have their sources;
+Yon sun beholds my sorrows in his courses;
+And when from these my life itself divorces,
+Let happen all that can or will!
+I’ll hear no more: ’tis vain to ponder
+If there we cherish love or hate,
+Or, in the spheres we dream of yonder,
+A High and Low our souls await.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+In this sense, even, canst thou venture.
+Come, bind thyself by prompt indenture,
+And thou mine arts with joy shalt see:
+What no man ever saw, I’ll give to thee.
+
+FAUST
+
+Canst thou, poor Devil, give me whatsoever?
+When was a human soul, in its supreme endeavor,
+E’er understood by such as thou?
+Yet, hast thou food which never satiates, now,—
+The restless, ruddy gold hast thou,
+That runs, quicksilver-like, one’s fingers through,—
+A game whose winnings no man ever knew,—
+A maid that, even from my breast,
+Beckons my neighbor with her wanton glances,
+And Honor’s godlike zest,
+The meteor that a moment dances,—
+Show me the fruits that, ere they’re gathered, rot,
+And trees that daily with new leafage clothe them!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Such a demand alarms me not:
+Such treasures have I, and can show them.
+But still the time may reach us, good my friend.
+When peace we crave and more luxurious diet.
+
+FAUST
+
+When on an idler’s bed I stretch myself in quiet.
+There let, at once, my record end!
+Canst thou with lying flattery rule me,
+Until, self-pleased, myself I see,—
+Canst thou with rich enjoyment fool me,
+Let that day be the last for me!
+The bet I offer.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+                   Done!
+
+FAUST
+                         And heartily!
+When thus I hail the Moment flying:
+“Ah, still delay—thou art so fair!”
+Then bind me in thy bonds undying,
+My final ruin then declare!
+Then let the death-bell chime the token.
+Then art thou from thy service free!
+The clock may stop, the hand be broken,
+Then Time be finished unto me!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Consider well: my memory good is rated.
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou hast a perfect right thereto.
+My powers I have not rashly estimated:
+A slave am I, whate’er I do—
+If thine, or whose? ’tis needless to debate it.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Then at the Doctors’-banquet I, to-day,
+Will as a servant wait behind thee.
+But one thing more! Beyond all risk to bind thee,
+Give me a line or two, I pray.
+
+FAUST
+
+Demand’st thou, Pedant, too, a document?
+Hast never known a man, nor proved his word’s intent?
+Is’t not enough, that what I speak to-day
+Shall stand, with all my future days agreeing?
+In all its tides sweeps not the world away,
+And shall a promise bind my being?
+Yet this delusion in our hearts we bear:
+Who would himself therefrom deliver?
+Blest he, whose bosom Truth makes pure and fair!
+No sacrifice shall he repent of ever.
+Nathless a parchment, writ and stamped with care,
+A spectre is, which all to shun endeavor.
+The word, alas! dies even in the pen,
+And wax and leather keep the lordship then.
+What wilt from me, Base Spirit, say?—
+Brass, marble, parchment, paper, clay?
+The terms with graver, quill, or chisel, stated?
+I freely leave the choice to thee.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Why heat thyself, thus instantly,
+With eloquence exaggerated?
+Each leaf for such a pact is good;
+And to subscribe thy name thou’lt take a drop of blood.
+
+FAUST
+
+If thou therewith art fully satisfied,
+So let us by the farce abide.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Blood is a juice of rarest quality.
+
+FAUST
+
+Fear not that I this pact shall seek to sever?
+The promise that I make to thee
+Is just the sum of my endeavor.
+I have myself inflated all too high;
+My proper place is thy estate:
+The Mighty Spirit deigns me no reply,
+And Nature shuts on me her gate.
+The thread of Thought at last is broken,
+And knowledge brings disgust unspoken.
+Let us the sensual deeps explore,
+To quench the fervors of glowing passion!
+Let every marvel take form and fashion
+Through the impervious veil it wore!
+Plunge we in Time’s tumultuous dance,
+In the rush and roll of Circumstance!
+Then may delight and distress,
+And worry and success,
+Alternately follow, as best they can:
+Restless activity proves the man!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+For you no bound, no term is set.
+Whether you everywhere be trying,
+Or snatch a rapid bliss in flying,
+May it agree with you, what you get!
+Only fall to, and show no timid balking.
+
+FAUST
+
+But thou hast heard, ’tis not of joy we’re talking.
+I take the wildering whirl, enjoyment’s keenest pain,
+Enamored hate, exhilarant disdain.
+My bosom, of its thirst for knowledge sated,
+Shall not, henceforth, from any pang be wrested,
+And all of life for all mankind created
+Shall be within mine inmost being tested:
+The highest, lowest forms my soul shall borrow,
+Shall heap upon itself their bliss and sorrow,
+And thus, my own sole self to all their selves expanded,
+I too, at last, shall with them all be stranded!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Believe me, who for many a thousand year
+The same tough meat have chewed and tested,
+That from the cradle to the bier
+No man the ancient leaven has digested!
+Trust one of us, this Whole supernal
+Is made but for a God’s delight!
+_He_ dwells in splendor single and eternal,
+But _us_ he thrusts in darkness, out of sight,
+And _you_ he dowers with Day and Night.
+
+FAUST
+
+Nay, but I will!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+A good reply!
+One only fear still needs repeating:
+The art is long, the time is fleeting.
+Then let thyself be taught, say I!
+Go, league thyself with a poet,
+Give the rein to his imagination,
+Then wear the crown, and show it,
+Of the qualities of his creation,—
+The courage of the lion’s breed,
+The wild stag’s speed,
+The Italian’s fiery blood,
+The North’s firm fortitude!
+Let him find for thee the secret tether
+That binds the Noble and Mean together.
+And teach thy pulses of youth and pleasure
+To love by rule, and hate by measure!
+I’d like, myself, such a one to see:
+Sir Microcosm his name should be.
+
+FAUST
+
+What am I, then, if ’tis denied my part
+The crown of all humanity to win me,
+Whereto yearns every sense within me?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Why, on the whole, thou’rt—what thou art.
+Set wigs of million curls upon thy head, to raise thee,
+Wear shoes an ell in height,—the truth betrays thee,
+And thou remainest—what thou art.
+
+FAUST
+
+I feel, indeed, that I have made the treasure
+Of human thought and knowledge mine, in vain;
+And if I now sit down in restful leisure,
+No fount of newer strength is in my brain:
+I am no hair’s-breadth more in height,
+Nor nearer, to the Infinite,
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Good Sir, you see the facts precisely
+As they are seen by each and all.
+We must arrange them now, more wisely,
+Before the joys of life shall pall.
+Why, Zounds! Both hands and feet are, truly—
+And head and virile forces—thine:
+Yet all that I indulge in newly,
+Is’t thence less wholly mine?
+If I’ve six stallions in my stall,
+Are not their forces also lent me?
+I speed along, completest man of all,
+As though my legs were four-and-twenty.
+Take hold, then! let reflection rest,
+And plunge into the world with zest!
+I say to thee, a speculative wight
+Is like a beast on moorlands lean,
+That round and round some fiend misleads to evil plight,
+While all about lie pastures fresh and green.
+
+FAUST
+
+Then how shall we begin?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+We’ll try a wider sphere.
+What place of martyrdom is here!
+Is’t life, I ask, is’t even prudence,
+To bore thyself and bore the students?
+Let Neighbor Paunch to that attend!
+Why plague thyself with threshing straw forever?
+The best thou learnest, in the end
+Thou dar’st not tell the youngsters—never!
+I hear one’s footsteps, hither steering.
+
+FAUST
+To see him now I have no heart.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+So long the poor boy waits a hearing,
+He must not unconsoled depart.
+Thy cap and mantle straightway lend me!
+I’ll play the comedy with art.
+
+(_He disguises himself_.)
+
+My wits, be certain, will befriend me.
+But fifteen minutes’ time is all I need;
+For our fine trip, meanwhile, prepare thyself with speed!
+
+[_Exit_ FAUST.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+(_In_ FAUST’S _long mantle_.)
+
+Reason and Knowledge only thou despise,
+The highest strength in man that lies!
+Let but the Lying Spirit bind thee
+With magic works and shows that blind thee,
+And I shall have thee fast and sure!—
+Fate such a bold, untrammelled spirit gave him,
+As forwards, onwards, ever must endure;
+Whose over-hasty impulse drave him
+Past earthly joys he might secure.
+Dragged through the wildest life, will I enslave him,
+Through flat and stale indifference;
+With struggling, chilling, checking, so deprave him
+That, to his hot, insatiate sense,
+The dream of drink shall mock, but never lave him:
+Refreshment shall his lips in vain implore—
+Had he not made himself the Devil’s, naught could save
+him,
+Still were he lost forevermore!
+
+(_A_ STUDENT _enters_.)
+
+STUDENT
+
+A short time, only, am I here,
+And come, devoted and sincere,
+To greet and know the man of fame,
+Whom men to me with reverence name.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Your courtesy doth flatter me:
+You see a man, as others be.
+Have you, perchance, elsewhere begun?
+
+STUDENT
+
+Receive me now, I pray, as one
+Who comes to you with courage good,
+Somewhat of cash, and healthy blood:
+My mother was hardly willing to let me;
+But knowledge worth having I fain would get me.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Then you have reached the right place now.
+
+STUDENT
+
+I’d like to leave it, I must avow;
+I find these walls, these vaulted spaces
+Are anything but pleasant places.
+Tis all so cramped and close and mean;
+One sees no tree, no glimpse of green,
+And when the lecture-halls receive me,
+Seeing, hearing, and thinking leave me.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+All that depends on habitude.
+So from its mother’s breasts a child
+At first, reluctant, takes its food,
+But soon to seek them is beguiled.
+Thus, at the breasts of Wisdom clinging,
+Thou’lt find each day a greater rapture bringing.
+
+STUDENT
+
+I’ll hang thereon with joy, and freely drain them;
+But tell me, pray, the proper means to gain them.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Explain, before you further speak,
+The special faculty you seek.
+
+STUDENT
+
+I crave the highest erudition;
+And fain would make my acquisition
+All that there is in Earth and Heaven,
+In Nature and in Science too.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Here is the genuine path for you;
+Yet strict attention must be given.
+
+STUDENT
+
+Body and soul thereon I’ll wreak;
+Yet, truly, I’ve some inclination
+On summer holidays to seek
+A little freedom and recreation.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Use well your time! It flies so swiftly from us;
+But time through order may be won, I promise.
+So, Friend (my views to briefly sum),
+First, the _collegium logicum_.
+There will your mind be drilled and braced,
+As if in Spanish boots ’twere laced,
+And thus, to graver paces brought,
+’Twill plod along the path of thought,
+Instead of shooting here and there,
+A will-o’-the-wisp in murky air.
+Days will be spent to bid you know,
+What once you did at a single blow,
+Like eating and drinking, free and strong,—
+That one, two, three! thereto belong.
+Truly the fabric of mental fleece
+Resembles a weaver’s masterpiece,
+Where a thousand threads one treadle throws,
+Where fly the shuttles hither and thither.
+Unseen the threads are knit together.
+And an infinite combination grows.
+Then, the philosopher steps in
+And shows, no otherwise it could have been:
+The first was so, the second so,
+Therefore the third and fourth are so;
+Were not the first and second, then
+The third and fourth had never been.
+The scholars are everywhere believers,
+But never succeed in being weavers.
+He who would study organic existence,
+First drives out the soul with rigid persistence;
+Then the parts in his hand he may hold and class,
+But the spiritual link is lost, alas!
+_Encheiresin natures_, this Chemistry names,
+Nor knows how herself she banters and blames!
+
+STUDENT
+
+I cannot understand you quite.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Your mind will shortly be set aright,
+When you have learned, all things reducing,
+To classify them for your using.
+
+STUDENT
+
+I feel as stupid, from all you’ve said,
+As if a mill-wheel whirled in my head!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And after—first and foremost duty—Of
+Metaphysics learn the use and beauty!
+See that you most profoundly gain
+What does not suit the human brain!
+A splendid word to serve, you’ll find
+For what goes in—or won’t go in—your mind.
+But first, at least this half a year,
+To order rigidly adhere;
+Five hours a day, you understand,
+And when the clock strikes, be on hand!
+Prepare beforehand for your part
+With paragraphs all got by heart,
+So you can better watch, and look
+That naught is said but what is in the book:
+Yet in thy writing as unwearied be,
+As did the Holy Ghost dictate to thee!
+
+STUDENT
+
+No need to tell me twice to do it!
+I think, how useful ’tis to write;
+For what one has, in black and white,
+One carries home and then goes through it.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yet choose thyself a faculty!
+
+STUDENT
+
+I cannot reconcile myself to Jurisprudence.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Nor can I therefore greatly blame you students:
+I know what science this has come to be.
+All rights and laws are still transmitted
+Like an eternal sickness of the race,—
+From generation unto generation fitted,
+And shifted round from place to place.
+Reason becomes a sham, Beneficence a worry:
+Thou art a grandchild, therefore woe to thee!
+The right born with us, ours in verity,
+This to consider, there’s, alas! no hurry.
+
+STUDENT
+
+My own disgust is strengthened by your speech:
+O lucky he, whom you shall teach!
+I’ve almost for Theology decided.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I should not wish to see you here misguided:
+For, as regards this science, let me hint
+’Tis very hard to shun the false direction;
+There’s so much secret poison lurking in ’t,
+So like the medicine, it baffles your detection.
+Hear, therefore, one alone, for that is best, in sooth,
+And simply take your master’s words for truth.
+On _words_ let your attention centre!
+Then through the safest gate you’ll enter
+The temple-halls of Certainty.
+
+STUDENT
+
+Yet in the word must some idea be.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Of course! But only shun too over-sharp a tension,
+For just where fails the comprehension,
+A word steps promptly in as deputy.
+With words ’tis excellent disputing;
+Systems to words ’tis easy suiting;
+On words ’tis excellent believing;
+No word can ever lose a jot from thieving.
+
+STUDENT
+
+Pardon! With many questions I detain you.
+Yet must I trouble you again.
+Of Medicine I still would fain
+Hear one strong word that might explain you.
+Three years is but a little space.
+And, God! who can the field embrace?
+If one some index could be shown,
+’Twere easier groping forward, truly.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
+
+I’m tired enough of this dry tone,—
+Must play the Devil again, and fully.
+
+(_Aloud_)
+
+To grasp the spirit of Medicine is easy:
+Learn of the great and little world your fill,
+To let it go at last, so please ye,
+Just as God will!
+In vain that through the realms of science you may drift;
+Each one learns only—just what learn he can:
+Yet he who grasps the Moment’s gift,
+He is the proper man.
+Well-made you are, ’tis not to be denied,
+The rest a bold address will win you;
+If you but in yourself confide,
+At once confide all others in you.
+To lead the women, learn the special feeling!
+Their everlasting aches and groans,
+In thousand tones,
+Have all one source, one mode of healing;
+And if your acts are half discreet,
+You’ll always have them at your feet.
+A title first must draw and interest them,
+And show that yours all other arts exceeds;
+Then, as a greeting, you are free to touch and test them,
+While, thus to do, for years another pleads.
+You press and count the pulse’s dances,
+And then, with burning sidelong glances,
+You clasp the swelling hips, to see
+If tightly laced her corsets be.
+
+STUDENT
+
+That’s better, now! The How and Where, one sees.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+My worthy friend, gray are all theories,
+And green alone Life’s golden tree.
+
+STUDENT
+
+I swear to you, ’tis like a dream to me.
+Might I again presume, with trust unbounded,
+To hear your wisdom thoroughly expounded?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Most willingly, to what extent I may.
+
+STUDENT
+
+I cannot really go away:
+Allow me that my album first I reach you,—
+Grant me this favor, I beseech you!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Assuredly.
+
+(_He writes, and returns the book_.)
+
+STUDENT (_reads_)
+
+_Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum_.
+(_Closes the book with reverence, and withdraws_)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Follow the ancient text, and the snake thou wast ordered to trample!
+With all thy likeness to God, thou’lt yet be a sorry example!
+
+(FAUST _enters_.)
+
+FAUST
+
+Now, whither shall we go?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+As best it pleases thee.
+The little world, and then the great, we’ll see.
+With what delight, what profit winning,
+Shalt thou sponge through the term beginning!
+
+FAUST
+
+Yet with the flowing beard I wear,
+Both ease and grace will fail me there.
+The attempt, indeed, were a futile strife;
+I never could learn the ways of life.
+I feel so small before others, and thence
+Should always find embarrassments.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+My friend, thou soon shalt lose all such misgiving:
+Be thou but self-possessed, thou hast the art of living!
+
+FAUST
+
+How shall we leave the house, and start?
+Where hast thou servant, coach and horses?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+We’ll spread this cloak with proper art,
+Then through the air direct our courses.
+But only, on so bold a flight,
+Be sure to have thy luggage light.
+A little burning air, which I shall soon prepare us,
+Above the earth will nimbly bear us,
+And, if we’re light, we’ll travel swift and clear:
+I gratulate thee on thy new career!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+AUERBACH’S CELLAR IN LEIPZIG
+CAROUSAL OF JOLLY COMPANIONS
+
+FROSCH
+
+Is no one laughing? no one drinking?
+I’ll teach you how to grin, I’m thinking.
+To-day you’re like wet straw, so tame;
+And usually you’re all aflame.
+
+BRANDER
+
+Now that’s your fault; from you we nothing see,
+No beastliness and no stupidity.
+
+FROSCH
+
+(_Pours a glass of wine over_ BRANDER’S _head_.)
+There’s both together!
+
+BRANDER
+
+Twice a swine!
+
+FROSCH
+
+You wanted them: I’ve given you mine.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Turn out who quarrels—out the door!
+With open throat sing chorus, drink and roar!
+Up! holla! ho!
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Woe’s me, the fearful bellow!
+Bring cotton, quick! He’s split my ears, that fellow.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+When the vault echoes to the song,
+One first perceives the bass is deep and strong.
+
+FROSCH
+
+Well said! and out with him that takes the least offence!
+_Ah, tara, lara da_!
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+_Ah, tara, lara, da_!
+
+FROSCH
+
+The throats are tuned, commence!
+(_Sings_.)
+_The dear old holy Roman realm,
+How does it hold together_?
+
+BRANDER
+
+A nasty song! Fie! a political song—
+A most offensive song! Thank God, each morning, therefore,
+That you have not the Roman realm to care for!
+At least, I hold it so much gain for me,
+That I nor Chancellor nor Kaiser be.
+Yet also we must have a ruling head, I hope,
+And so we’ll choose ourselves a Pope.
+You know the quality that can
+Decide the choice, and elevate the man.
+
+FROSCH (_sings_)
+
+     _Soar up, soar up, Dame Nightingale!
+     Ten thousand times my sweetheart hail!_
+
+SIEBEL
+
+No, greet my sweetheart not! I tell you, I’ll resent it.
+
+FROSCH
+
+My sweetheart greet and kiss! I dare you to prevent it!
+
+            (_Sings_.)
+
+     _Draw the latch! the darkness makes:
+     Draw the latch! the lover wakes.
+     Shut the latch! the morning breaks_.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Yes, sing away, sing on, and praise, and brag of her!
+I’ll wait my proper time for laughter:
+Me by the nose she led, and now she’ll lead you after.
+Her paramour should be an ugly gnome,
+Where four roads cross, in wanton play to meet her:
+An old he-goat, from Blocksberg coming home,
+Should his good-night in lustful gallop bleat her!
+A fellow made of genuine flesh and blood
+Is for the wench a deal too good.
+Greet her? Not I: unless, when meeting,
+To smash her windows be a greeting!
+
+BRANDER (_pounding on the table_)
+
+Attention! Hearken now to me!
+Confess, Sirs, I know how to live.
+Enamored persons here have we,
+And I, as suits their quality,
+Must something fresh for their advantage give.
+Take heed! ’Tis of the latest cut, my strain,
+And all strike in at each refrain!
+
+     (_He sings_.)
+
+     There was a rat in the cellar-nest,
+     Whom fat and butter made smoother:
+     He had a paunch beneath his vest
+     Like that of Doctor Luther.
+     The cook laid poison cunningly,
+     And then as sore oppressed was he
+     As if he had love in his bosom.
+
+     CHORUS (_shouting_)
+
+     As if he had love in his bosom!
+
+     BRANDER
+
+     He ran around, he ran about,
+     His thirst in puddles laving;
+     He gnawed and scratched the house throughout.
+     But nothing cured his raving.
+     He whirled and jumped, with torment mad,
+     And soon enough the poor beast had,
+     As if he had love in his bosom.
+
+     CHORUS
+
+     As if he had love in his bosom!
+
+     BRANDER
+
+     And driven at last, in open day,
+     He ran into the kitchen,
+     Fell on the hearth, and squirming lay,
+     In the last convulsion twitching.
+     Then laughed the murderess in her glee:
+     “Ha! ha! he’s at his last gasp,” said she,
+     “As if he had love in his bosom!”
+
+CHORUS
+
+     As if he had love in his bosom!
+
+SIEBEL
+
+How the dull fools enjoy the matter!
+To me it is a proper art
+Poison for such poor rats to scatter.
+
+BRANDER
+
+Perhaps you’ll warmly take their part?
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+The bald-pate pot-belly I have noted:
+Misfortune tames him by degrees;
+For in the rat by poison bloated
+His own most natural form he sees.
+
+FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Before all else, I bring thee hither
+Where boon companions meet together,
+To let thee see how smooth life runs away.
+Here, for the folk, each day’s a holiday:
+With little wit, and ease to suit them,
+They whirl in narrow, circling trails,
+Like kittens playing with their tails?
+And if no headache persecute them,
+So long the host may credit give,
+They merrily and careless live.
+
+BRANDER
+
+The fact is easy to unravel,
+Their air’s so odd, they’ve just returned from travel:
+A single hour they’ve not been here.
+
+FROSCH
+
+You’ve verily hit the truth! Leipzig to me is dear:
+Paris in miniature, how it refines its people!
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Who are the strangers, should you guess?
+
+FROSCH
+
+Let me alone! I’ll set them first to drinking,
+And then, as one a child’s tooth draws, with cleverness,
+I’ll worm their secret out, I’m thinking.
+They’re of a noble house, that’s very clear:
+Haughty and discontented they appear.
+
+BRANDER
+
+They’re mountebanks, upon a revel.
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Perhaps.
+
+FROSCH
+
+Look out, I’ll smoke them now!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+Not if he had them by the neck, I vow,
+Would e’er these people scent the Devil!
+
+FAUST
+Fair greeting, gentlemen!
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Our thanks: we give the same.
+(_Murmurs, inspecting_ MEPHISTOPHELES _from the side_.)
+In one foot is the fellow lame?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Is it permitted that we share your leisure?
+In place of cheering drink, which one seeks vainly here,
+Your company shall give us pleasure.
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+A most fastidious person you appear.
+
+
+FROSCH
+
+No doubt ’twas late when you from Rippach started?
+And supping there with Hans occasioned your delay?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+We passed, without a call, to-day.
+At our last interview, before we parted
+Much of his cousins did he speak, entreating
+That we should give to each his kindly greeting.
+
+(_He bows to_ FROSCH.)
+
+ALTMAYER (_aside_)
+
+You have it now! he understands.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+A knave sharp-set!
+
+FROSCH
+
+Just wait awhile: I’ll have him yet.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+If I am right, we heard the sound
+Of well-trained voices, singing chorus;
+And truly, song must here rebound
+Superbly from the arches o’er us.
+
+FROSCH
+
+Are you, perhaps, a virtuoso?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+O no! my wish is great, my power is only so-so.
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Give us a song!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+If you desire, a number.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+So that it be a bran-new strain!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+We’ve just retraced our way from. Spain,
+The lovely land of wine, and song, and slumber.
+
+(_Sings_.)
+
+There was a king once reigning,
+Who had a big black flea—
+
+FROSCH
+
+Hear, hear! A flea! D’ye rightly take the jest?
+I call a flea a tidy guest.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_sings_)
+
+     There was a king once reigning,
+     Who had a big black flea,
+     And loved him past explaining,
+     As his own son were he.
+     He called his man of stitches;
+     The tailor came straightway:
+     Here, measure the lad for breeches.
+     And measure his coat, I say!
+
+BRANDER
+
+But mind, allow the tailor no caprices:
+Enjoin upon him, as his head is dear,
+To most exactly measure, sew and shear,
+So that the breeches have no creases!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+     In silk and velvet gleaming
+     He now was wholly drest—
+     Had a coat with ribbons streaming,
+     A cross upon his breast.
+     He had the first of stations,
+     A minister’s star and name;
+     And also all his relations
+     Great lords at court became.
+
+     And the lords and ladies of honor
+     Were plagued, awake and in bed;
+     The queen she got them upon her,
+     The maids were bitten and bled.
+     And they did not dare to brush them,
+     Or scratch them, day or night:
+     We crack them and we crush them,
+     At once, whene’er they bite.
+
+     CHORUS (_shouting_)
+
+     We crack them and we crush them,
+     At once, whene’er they bite!
+
+FROSCH
+Bravo! bravo! that was fine.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Every flea may it so befall!
+
+BRANDER
+
+Point your fingers and nip them all!
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Hurrah for Freedom! Hurrah for wine!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I fain would drink with you, my glass to Freedom clinking,
+If ’twere a better wine that here I see you drinking.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Don’t let us hear that speech again!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Did I not fear the landlord might complain,
+I’d treat these worthy guests, with pleasure,
+To some from out our cellar’s treasure.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Just treat, and let the landlord me arraign!
+
+FROSCH
+
+And if the wine be good, our praises shall be ample.
+But do not give too very small a sample;
+For, if its quality I decide,
+With a good mouthful I must be supplied.
+
+ALTMAYER (_aside_)
+
+They’re from the Rhine! I guessed as much, before.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Bring me a gimlet here!
+
+BRANDER
+
+What shall therewith be done?
+You’ve not the casks already at the door?
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Yonder, within the landlord’s box of tools, there’s one!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_takes the gimlet_)
+
+(_To_ FROSCH.)
+
+Now, give me of your taste some intimation.
+
+FROSCH
+
+How do you mean? Have you so many kinds?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The choice is free: make up your minds.
+
+ALTMAYER (_to_ FROSCH)
+
+Aha! you lick your chops, from sheer anticipation.
+
+FROSCH
+
+Good! if I have the choice, so let the wine be Rhenish!
+Our Fatherland can best the sparkling cup replenish.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+(_boring a hole in the edge of the table, at the place where_
+FROSCH _sits_)
+
+Get me a little wax, to make the stoppers, quick!
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Ah! I perceive a juggler’s trick.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ BRANDER)
+
+And you?
+
+BRANDER
+
+Champagne shall be my wine,
+And let it sparkle fresh and fine!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+(_bores: in the meantime one has made the wax stoppers, and
+plugged the holes with them_.)
+
+BRANDER
+
+What’s foreign one can’t always keep quite clear of,
+For good things, oft, are not so near;
+A German can’t endure the French to see or hear of,
+Yet drinks their wines with hearty cheer.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+(_as_ MEPHISTOPHELES _approaches his seat_)
+For me, I grant, sour wine is out of place;
+Fill up my glass with sweetest, will you?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_boring_)
+
+Tokay shall flow at once, to fill you!
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+No—look me, Sirs, straight in the face!
+I see you have your fun at our expense.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+O no! with gentlemen of such pretence,
+That were to venture far, indeed.
+Speak out, and make your choice with speed!
+With what a vintage can I serve you?
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+With any—only satisfy our need.
+
+(_After the holes have been bored and plugged_)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_with singular gestures_)
+
+     Grapes the vine-stem bears,
+     Horns the he-goat wears!
+     The grapes are juicy, the vines are wood,
+     The wooden table gives wine as good!
+     Into the depths of Nature peer,—
+     Only believe there’s a miracle here!
+
+Now draw the stoppers, and drink your fill!
+
+ALL
+
+(_as they draw out the stoppers, and the wine which has been
+desired flows into the glass of each)_
+
+O beautiful fountain, that flows at will!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+But have a care that you nothing spill!
+
+(_They drink repeatedly_.)
+
+ALL (_sing_)
+
+     As ’twere five hundred hogs, we feel
+     So cannibalic jolly!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+See, now, the race is happy—it is free!
+
+FAUST
+
+To leave them is my inclination.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Take notice, first! their bestiality
+Will make a brilliant demonstration.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+(_drinks carelessly: the wine spills upon the earth, and turns to
+flame_)
+
+Help! Fire! Help! Hell-fire is sent!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_charming away the flame)_
+
+Be quiet, friendly element!
+
+(_To the revellers_)
+
+A bit of purgatory ’twas for this time, merely.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+What mean you? Wait!—you’ll pay for’t dearly!
+You’ll know us, to your detriment.
+
+FROSCH
+
+Don’t try that game a second time upon us!
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+I think we’d better send him packing quietly.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+What, Sir! you dare to make so free,
+And play your hocus-pocus on us!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Be still, old wine-tub.
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Broomstick, you!
+You face it out, impertinent and heady?
+
+BRANDER
+
+Just wait! a shower of blows is ready.
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+(_draws a stopper out of the table: fire flies in his face_.)
+I burn! I burn!
+
+SIEBEL
+
+’Tis magic! Strike—
+The knave is outlawed! Cut him as you like!
+(_They draw their knives, and rush upon_ MEPHISTOPHELES.)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_with solemn gestures_)
+
+     False word and form of air,
+     Change place, and sense ensnare!
+     Be here—and there!
+
+(_They stand amazed and look at each other_.)
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Where am I? What a lovely land!
+
+FROSCH
+
+Vines? Can I trust my eyes?
+
+SIEBEL
+
+And purple grapes at hand!
+
+BRANDER
+
+Here, over this green arbor bending,
+See what a vine! what grapes depending!
+
+(_He takes_ SIEBEL _by the nose: the others do the same reciprocally,
+and raise their knives_.)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_as above_)
+
+Loose, Error, from their eyes the band,
+And how the Devil jests, be now enlightened!
+
+(_He disappears with_ FAUST: _the revellers start and separate_.)
+
+SIEBEL
+
+What happened?
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+How?
+
+FROSCH
+
+Was that your nose I tightened?
+
+BRANDER (_to_ SIEBEL)
+
+And yours that still I have in hand?
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+It was a blow that went through every limb!
+Give me a chair! I sink! my senses swim.
+
+FROSCH
+
+But what has happened, tell me now?
+
+SIEBEL
+
+Where is he? If I catch the scoundrel hiding,
+He shall not leave alive, I vow.
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+I saw him with these eyes upon a wine-cask riding
+Out of the cellar-door, just now.
+Still in my feet the fright like lead is weighing.
+(_He turns towards the table_.)
+Why! If the fount of wine should still be playing?
+
+SIEBEL
+
+’Twas all deceit, and lying, false design!
+
+FROSCH
+
+And yet it seemed as I were drinking wine.
+
+BRANDER
+
+But with the grapes how was it, pray?
+
+ALTMAYER
+
+Shall one believe no miracles, just say!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+WITCHES’ KITCHEN
+
+(_Upon a low hearth stands a great caldron, under which a fire
+is burning. Various figures appear in the vapors which
+rise from the caldron. An ape sits beside it, skims it, and
+watches lest it boil over. The he-ape, with the young
+ones, sits near and warms himself. Ceiling and walls are
+covered with the most fantastic witch-implements_.)
+
+FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+FAUST
+
+These crazy signs of witches’ craft repel me!
+I shall recover, dost thou tell me,
+Through this insane, chaotic play?
+From an old hag shall I demand assistance?
+And will her foul mess take away
+Full thirty years from my existence?
+Woe’s me, canst thou naught better find!
+Another baffled hope must be lamented:
+Has Nature, then, and has a noble mind
+Not any potent balsam yet invented?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Once more, my friend, thou talkest sensibly.
+There is, to make thee young, a simpler mode and apter;
+But in another book ’tis writ for thee,
+And is a most eccentric chapter.
+
+FAUST
+
+Yet will I know it.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Good! the method is revealed
+Without or gold or magic or physician.
+Betake thyself to yonder field,
+There hoe and dig, as thy condition;
+Restrain thyself, thy sense and will
+Within a narrow sphere to flourish;
+With unmixed food thy body nourish;
+Live with the ox as ox, and think it not a theft
+That thou manur’st the acre which thou reapest;—
+That, trust me, is the best mode left,
+Whereby for eighty years thy youth thou keepest!
+
+FAUST
+
+I am not used to that; I cannot stoop to try it—
+To take the spade in hand, and ply it.
+The narrow being suits me not at all.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Then to thine aid the witch must call.
+
+FAUST
+
+Wherefore the hag, and her alone?
+Canst thou thyself not brew the potion?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+That were a charming sport, I own:
+I’d build a thousand bridges meanwhile, I’ve a notion.
+Not Art and Science serve, alone;
+Patience must in the work be shown.
+Long is the calm brain active in creation;
+Time, only, strengthens the fine fermentation.
+And all, belonging thereunto,
+Is rare and strange, howe’er you take it:
+The Devil taught the thing, ’tis true,
+And yet the Devil cannot make it.
+(_Perceiving the Animals_)
+See, what a delicate race they be!
+That is the maid! the man is he!
+(_To the Animals_)
+It seems the mistress has gone away?
+
+THE ANIMALS
+
+Carousing, to-day!
+Off and about,
+By the chimney out!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+What time takes she for dissipating?
+
+THE ANIMALS
+
+While we to warm our paws are waiting.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+How findest thou the tender creatures?
+
+FAUST
+
+Absurder than I ever yet did see.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Why, just such talk as this, for me,
+Is that which has the most attractive features!
+
+(_To the Animals_)
+
+But tell me now, ye cursed puppets,
+Why do ye stir the porridge so?
+
+THE ANIMALS
+
+We’re cooking watery soup for beggars.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Then a great public you can show.
+
+THE HE-APE
+
+(_comes up and fawns on_ MEPHISTOPHELES)
+
+     O cast thou the dice!
+     Make me rich in a trice,
+     Let me win in good season!
+     Things are badly controlled,
+     And had I but gold,
+     So had I my reason.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+How would the ape be sure his luck enhances.
+Could he but try the lottery’s chances!
+
+(_In the meantime the young apes have been playing with a
+large ball, which they now roll forward_.)
+
+THE HE-APE
+
+     The world’s the ball:
+     Doth rise and fall,
+     And roll incessant:
+     Like glass doth ring,
+     A hollow thing,—
+     How soon will’t spring,
+     And drop, quiescent?
+     Here bright it gleams,
+     Here brighter seems:
+     I live at present!
+     Dear son, I say,
+     Keep thou away!
+     Thy doom is spoken!
+     ’Tis made of clay,
+     And will be broken.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+What means the sieve?
+
+THE HE-APE (_taking it down_)
+
+     Wert thou the thief,
+     I’d know him and shame him.
+
+(_He runs to the_ SHE-APE, _and lets her look through it_.)
+
+     Look through the sieve!
+     Know’st thou the thief,
+     And darest not name him?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_approaching the fire)_
+
+And what’s this pot?
+
+HE-APE AND SHE-APE
+
+     The fool knows it not!
+     He knows not the pot,
+     He knows not the kettle!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Impertinent beast!
+
+THE HE-APE
+
+Take the brush here, at least,
+And sit down on the settle!
+
+(_He invites_ MEPHISTOPHELES _to sit down_.)
+
+FAUST
+
+(_who during all this time has been standing before a mirror,
+now approaching and now retreating from it_)
+
+What do I see? What heavenly form revealed
+Shows through the glass from Magic’s fair dominions!
+O lend me, Love, the swiftest of thy pinions,
+And bear me to her beauteous field!
+Ah, if I leave this spot with fond designing,
+If I attempt to venture near,
+Dim, as through gathering mist, her charms appear!—
+A woman’s form, in beauty shining!
+Can woman, then, so lovely be?
+And must I find her body, there reclining,
+Of all the heavens the bright epitome?
+Can Earth with such a thing be mated?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Why, surely, if a God first plagues Himself six days,
+Then, self-contented, _Bravo_! says,
+Must something clever be created.
+This time, thine eyes be satiate!
+I’ll yet detect thy sweetheart and ensnare her,
+And blest is he, who has the lucky fate,
+Some day, as bridegroom, home to bear her.
+
+(FAUST _gazes continually in the mirror_. MEPHISTOPHELES,
+_stretching himself out on the settle, and playing with the
+brush, continues to speak_.)
+
+So sit I, like the King upon his throne:
+I hold the sceptre, here,—and lack the crown alone.
+
+THE ANIMALS
+
+(_who up to this time have been making all kinds of fantastic
+movements together bring a crown to_ MEPHISTOPHELES
+_with great noise_.)
+
+     O be thou so good
+     With sweat and with blood
+     The crown to belime!
+
+(_They handle the crown awkwardly and break it into two
+pieces, with which they spring around_.)
+
+     ’Tis done, let it be!
+     We speak and we see,
+     We hear and we rhyme!
+
+FAUST (_before the mirror_)
+
+Woe’s me! I fear to lose my wits.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_pointing to the Animals_)
+
+My own head, now, is really nigh to sinking.
+
+THE ANIMALS
+
+     If lucky our hits,
+     And everything fits,
+     ’Tis thoughts, and we’re thinking!
+
+FAUST (_as above_)
+
+My bosom burns with that sweet vision;
+Let us, with speed, away from here!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_in the same attitude_)
+
+One must, at least, make this admission—
+They’re poets, genuine and sincere.
+
+(_The caldron, which the_ SHE-APE _has up to this time neglected
+to watch, begins to boil over: there ensues a great flame_,
+_which blazes out the chimney. The_ WITCH _comes careering
+down through the flame, with terrible cries_.)
+
+THE WITCH
+
+     Ow! ow! ow! ow!
+     The damnéd beast—the curséd sow!
+     To leave the kettle, and singe the Frau!
+     Accurséd fere!
+
+(_Perceiving_ FAUST _and_ MEPHISTOPHELES.)
+
+     What is that here?
+     Who are you here?
+     What want you thus?
+     Who sneaks to us?
+     The fire-pain
+     Burn bone and brain!
+
+(_She plunges the skimming-ladle into the caldron, and scatters
+flames towards_ FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, _and the Animals.
+The Animals whimper_.)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+(_reversing the brush, which he has been holding in his hand,
+and striding among the jars and glasses_)
+
+     In two! in two!
+     There lies the brew!
+     There lies the glass!
+     The joke will pass,
+     As time, foul ass!
+     To the singing of thy crew.
+
+(_As the_ WITCH _starts back, full of wrath and horror_)
+
+Ha! know’st thou me? Abomination, thou!
+Know’st thou, at last, thy Lord and Master?
+What hinders me from smiting now
+Thee and thy monkey-sprites with fell disaster?
+Hast for the scarlet coat no reverence?
+Dost recognize no more the tall cock’s-feather?
+Have I concealed this countenance?—
+Must tell my name, old face of leather?
+
+THE WITCH
+
+O pardon, Sir, the rough salute!
+Yet I perceive no cloven foot;
+And both your ravens, where are _they_ now?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+This time, I’ll let thee ’scape the debt;
+For since we two together met,
+’Tis verily full many a day now.
+Culture, which smooth the whole world licks,
+Also unto the Devil sticks.
+The days of that old Northern phantom now are over:
+Where canst thou horns and tail and claws discover?
+And, as regards the foot, which I can’t spare, in truth,
+’Twould only make the people shun me;
+Therefore I’ve worn, like many a spindly youth,
+False calves these many years upon me.
+
+THE WITCH (_dancing_)
+
+Reason and sense forsake my brain,
+Since I behold Squire Satan here again!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Woman, from such a name refrain!
+
+THE WITCH
+
+Why so? What has it done to thee?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+It’s long been written in the Book of Fable;
+Yet, therefore, no whit better men we see:
+The Evil One has left, the evil ones are stable.
+Sir Baron call me thou, then is the matter good;
+A cavalier am I, like others in my bearing.
+Thou hast no doubt about my noble blood:
+See, here’s the coat-of-arms that I am wearing!
+
+(_He makes an indecent gesture_.)
+
+THE WITCH (_laughs immoderately_)
+
+Ha! ha! That’s just your way, I know:
+A rogue you are, and you were always so.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+My friend, take proper heed, I pray!
+To manage witches, this is just the way.
+
+THE WITCH
+
+Wherein, Sirs, can I be of use?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Give us a goblet of the well-known juice!
+But, I must beg you, of the oldest brewage;
+The years a double strength produce.
+
+THE WITCH
+
+With all my heart! Now, here’s a bottle,
+Wherefrom, sometimes, I wet my throttle,
+Which, also, not the slightest, stinks;
+And willingly a glass I’ll fill him.
+
+(_Whispering_)
+
+Yet, if this man without due preparation drinks,
+As well thou know’st, within an hour ’twill kill him.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+He is a friend of mine, with whom it will agree,
+And he deserves thy kitchen’s best potation:
+Come, draw thy circle, speak thine adjuration,
+And fill thy goblet full and free!
+
+THE WITCH
+
+(_with fantastic gestures draws a circle and places mysterious
+articles therein; meanwhile the glasses begin to ring, the
+caldron to sound, and make a musical accompaniment.
+Finally she brings a great book, and stations in the circle
+the Apes, who are obliged to serve as reading-desk, and to
+hold the torches. She then beckons_ FAUST _to approach_.)
+
+FAUST (_to_ MEPHISTOPHELES)
+
+Now, what shall come of this? the creatures antic,
+The crazy stuff, the gestures frantic,—
+All the repulsive cheats I view,—
+Are known to me, and hated, too.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+O, nonsense! That’s a thing for laughter;
+Don’t be so terribly severe!
+She juggles you as doctor now, that, after,
+The beverage may work the proper cheer.
+
+(_He persuades_ FAUST _to step into the circle_.)
+
+THE WITCH
+
+(_begins to declaim, with much emphasis, from the book_)
+
+     See, thus it’s done!
+     Make ten of one,
+     And two let be,
+     Make even three,
+     And rich thou ’It be.
+     Cast o’er the four!
+     From five and six
+     (The witch’s tricks)
+     Make seven and eight,
+     ’Tis finished straight!
+     And nine is one,
+     And ten is none.
+     This is the witch’s once-one’s-one!
+
+FAUST
+
+She talks like one who raves in fever.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Thou’lt hear much more before we leave her.
+’Tis all the same: the book I can repeat,
+Such time I’ve squandered o’er the history:
+A contradiction thus complete
+Is always for the wise, no less than fools, a mystery.
+The art is old and new, for verily
+All ages have been taught the matter,—
+By Three and One, and One and Three,
+Error instead of Truth to scatter.
+They prate and teach, and no one interferes;
+All from the fellowship of fools are shrinking.
+Man usually believes, if only words he hears,
+That also with them goes material for thinking!
+
+THE WITCH (_continues_)
+
+     The lofty skill
+     Of Science, still
+     From all men deeply hidden!
+     Who takes no thought,
+     To him ’tis brought,
+     ’Tis given unsought, unbidden!
+
+FAUST
+
+What nonsense she declaims before us!
+My head is nigh to split, I fear:
+It seems to me as if I hear
+A hundred thousand fools in chorus.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+O Sibyl excellent, enough of adjuration!
+But hither bring us thy potation,
+And quickly fill the beaker to the brim!
+This drink will bring my friend no injuries:
+He is a man of manifold degrees,
+And many draughts are known to him.
+
+(_The_ WITCH, _with many ceremonies, pours the drink into a
+cup; as_ FAUST _sets it to his lips, a light flame arises_.)
+
+Down with it quickly! Drain it off!
+’Twill warm thy heart with new desire:
+Art with the Devil hand and glove,
+And wilt thou be afraid of fire?
+
+(_The_ WITCH _breaks the circle_: FAUST _steps forth_.)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And now, away! Thou dar’st not rest.
+
+THE WITCH
+
+And much good may the liquor do thee!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to the_ WITCH)
+
+Thy wish be on Walpurgis Night expressed;
+What boon I have, shall then be given unto thee.
+
+THE WITCH
+
+Here is a song, which, if you sometimes sing,
+You’ll find it of peculiar operation.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+Come, walk at once! A rapid occupation
+Must start the needful perspiration,
+And through thy frame the liquor’s potence fling.
+The noble indolence I’ll teach thee then to treasure,
+And soon thou’lt be aware, with keenest thrills of pleasure,
+How Cupid stirs and leaps, on light and restless wing.
+
+FAUST
+
+One rapid glance within the mirror give me,
+How beautiful that woman-form!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+No, no! The paragon of all, believe me,
+Thou soon shalt see, alive and warm.
+
+_(Aside)_
+
+Thou’lt find, this drink thy blood compelling,
+Each woman beautiful as Helen!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+STREET
+
+FAUST MARGARET _(passing by)_
+
+FAUST
+
+Fair lady, let it not offend you,
+That arm and escort I would lend you!
+
+MARGARET
+
+I’m neither lady, neither fair,
+And home I can go without your care.
+
+[_She releases herself, and exit_.
+
+FAUST
+
+By Heaven, the girl is wondrous fair!
+Of all I’ve seen, beyond compare;
+So sweetly virtuous and pure,
+And yet a little pert, be sure!
+The lip so red, the cheek’s clear dawn,
+[Illustration:]
+I’ll not forget while the world rolls on!
+How she cast down her timid eyes,
+Deep in my heart imprinted lies:
+How short and sharp of speech was she,
+Why, ’twas a real ecstasy!
+
+(MEPHISTOPHELES _enters_)
+
+FAUST
+
+Hear, of that girl I’d have possession!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Which, then?
+
+FAUST
+
+The one who just went by.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+She, there? She’s coming from confession,
+Of every sin absolved; for I,
+Behind her chair, was listening nigh.
+So innocent is she, indeed,
+That to confess she had no need.
+I have no power o’er souls so green.
+
+FAUST
+
+And yet, she’s older than fourteen.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+How now! You’re talking like Jack Rake,
+Who every flower for himself would take,
+And fancies there are no favors more,
+Nor honors, save for him in store;
+Yet always doesn’t the thing succeed.
+
+FAUST
+
+Most Worthy Pedagogue, take heed!
+Let not a word of moral law be spoken!
+I claim, I tell thee, all my right;
+And if that image of delight
+Rest not within mine arms to-night,
+At midnight is our compact broken.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+But think, the chances of the case!
+I need, at least, a fortnight’s space,
+To find an opportune occasion.
+
+FAUST
+
+Had I but seven hours for all,
+I should not on the Devil call,
+But win her by my own persuasion.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+You almost like a Frenchman prate;
+Yet, pray, don’t take it as annoyance!
+Why, all at once, exhaust the joyance?
+Your bliss is by no means so great
+As if you’d use, to get control,
+All sorts of tender rigmarole,
+And knead and shape her to your thought,
+As in Italian tales ’tis taught.
+
+FAUST
+
+Without that, I have appetite.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+But now, leave jesting out of sight!
+I tell you, once for all, that speed
+With this fair girl will not succeed;
+By storm she cannot captured be;
+We must make use of strategy.
+
+FAUST
+
+Get me something the angel keeps!
+Lead me thither where she sleeps!
+Get me a kerchief from her breast,—
+A garter that her knee has pressed!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+That you may see how much I’d fain
+Further and satisfy your pain,
+We will no longer lose a minute;
+I’ll find her room to-day, and take you in it.
+
+FAUST
+
+And shall I see—possess her?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+No!
+Unto a neighbor she must go,
+And meanwhile thou, alone, mayst glow
+With every hope of future pleasure,
+Breathing her atmosphere in fullest measure.
+
+FAUST
+
+Can we go thither?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+’Tis too early yet.
+
+FAUST
+
+A gift for her I bid thee get!
+[_Exit_.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Presents at once? That’s good: he’s certain to get at her!
+Full many a pleasant place I know,
+And treasures, buried long ago:
+I must, perforce, look up the matter. _[Exit_.
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+EVENING A SMALL, NEATLY KEPT CHAMBER
+
+MARGARET
+
+(_plaiting and binding up the braids of her hair_)
+
+I’d something give, could I but say
+Who was that gentleman, to-day.
+Surely a gallant man was he,
+And of a noble family;
+And much could I in his face behold,—
+And he wouldn’t, else, have been so bold!
+
+                              [_Exit_
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES FAUST
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Come in, but gently: follow me!
+
+FAUST (_after a moment’s silence_)
+
+Leave me alone, I beg of thee!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_prying about_)
+
+Not every girl keeps things so neat.
+
+FAUST (_looking around_)
+
+O welcome, twilight soft and sweet,
+That breathes throughout this hallowed shrine!
+Sweet pain of love, bind thou with fetters fleet
+The heart that on the dew of hope must pine!
+How all around a sense impresses
+Of quiet, order, and content!
+This poverty what bounty blesses!
+What bliss within this narrow den is pent!
+
+(_He throws himself into a leathern arm-chair near the bed_.)
+
+Receive me, thou, that in thine open arms
+Departed joy and pain wert wont to gather!
+How oft the children, with their ruddy charms,
+Hung here, around this throne, where sat the father!
+Perchance my love, amid the childish band,
+Grateful for gifts the Holy Christmas gave her,
+Here meekly kissed the grandsire’s withered hand.
+I feel, O maid! thy very soul
+Of order and content around me whisper,—
+Which leads thee with its motherly control,
+The cloth upon thy board bids smoothly thee unroll,
+The sand beneath thy feet makes whiter, crisper.
+O dearest hand, to thee ’tis given
+To change this hut into a lower heaven!
+And here!
+
+(_He lifts one of the bed-curtains_.)
+
+What sweetest thrill is in my blood!
+Here could I spend whole hours, delaying:
+Here Nature shaped, as if in sportive playing,
+The angel blossom from the bud.
+Here lay the child, with Life’s warm essence
+The tender bosom filled and fair,
+And here was wrought, through holier, purer presence,
+The form diviner beings wear!
+
+And I? What drew me here with power?
+How deeply am I moved, this hour!
+What seek I? Why so full my heart, and sore?
+Miserable Faust! I know thee now no more.
+
+Is there a magic vapor here?
+I came, with lust of instant pleasure,
+And lie dissolved in dreams of love’s sweet leisure!
+Are we the sport of every changeful atmosphere?
+
+And if, this moment, came she in to me,
+How would I for the fault atonement render!
+How small the giant lout would be,
+Prone at her feet, relaxed and tender!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Be quick! I see her there, returning.
+
+FAUST
+
+Go! go! I never will retreat.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Here is a casket, not unmeet,
+Which elsewhere I have just been earning.
+Here, set it in the press, with haste!
+I swear, ’twill turn her head, to spy it:
+Some baubles I therein had placed,
+That you might win another by it.
+True, child is child, and play is play.
+
+FAUST
+
+I know not, should I do it?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Ask you, pray?
+Yourself, perhaps, would keep the bubble?
+Then I suggest, ’twere fair and just
+To spare the lovely day your lust,
+And spare to me the further trouble.
+You are not miserly, I trust?
+I rub my hands, in expectation tender—
+
+(_He places the casket in the press, and locks it again_.)
+
+Now quick, away!
+The sweet young maiden to betray,
+So that by wish and will you bend her;
+And you look as though
+To the lecture-hall you were forced to go,—
+As if stood before you, gray and loath,
+Physics and Metaphysics both!
+But away! [_Exeunt_.
+
+MARGARET (_with a lamp_)
+
+It is so close, so sultry, here!
+
+(_She opens the window_)
+
+And yet ’tis not so warm outside.
+I feel, I know not why, such fear!—
+Would mother came!—where can she bide?
+My body’s chill and shuddering,—
+I’m but a silly, fearsome thing!
+
+(_She begins to sing while undressing_)
+
+        There was a King in Thule,
+        Was faithful till the grave,—
+        To whom his mistress, dying,
+        A golden goblet gave.
+
+        Naught was to him more precious;
+        He drained it at every bout:
+        His eyes with tears ran over,
+        As oft as he drank thereout.
+
+        When came his time of dying,
+        The towns in his land he told,
+        Naught else to his heir denying
+        Except the goblet of gold.
+
+        He sat at the royal banquet
+        With his knights of high degree,
+        In the lofty hall of his fathers
+        In the Castle by the Sea.
+
+        There stood the old carouser,
+        And drank the last life-glow;
+        And hurled the hallowed goblet
+        Into the tide below.
+
+        He saw it plunging and filling,
+        And sinking deep in the sea:
+        Then fell his eyelids forever,
+        And never more drank he!
+
+(_She opens the press in order to arrange her clothes, and perceives
+the casket of jewels_.)
+
+How comes that lovely casket here to me?
+I locked the press, most certainly.
+’Tis truly wonderful! What can within it be?
+Perhaps ’twas brought by some one as a pawn,
+And mother gave a loan thereon?
+And here there hangs a key to fit:
+I have a mind to open it.
+What is that? God in Heaven! Whence came
+Such things? Never beheld I aught so fair!
+Rich ornaments, such as a noble dame
+On highest holidays might wear!
+How would the pearl-chain suit my hair?
+Ah, who may all this splendor own?
+
+(_She adorns herself with the jewelry, and steps before the
+mirror_.)
+
+Were but the ear-rings mine, alone!
+One has at once another air.
+What helps one’s beauty, youthful blood?
+One may possess them, well and good;
+But none the more do others care.
+They praise us half in pity, sure:
+To gold still tends,
+On gold depends
+All, all! Alas, we poor!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+PROMENADE
+
+(FAUST, _walking thoughtfully up and down. To him_ MEPHISTOPHELES.)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+By all love ever rejected! By hell-fire hot and unsparing!
+I wish I knew something worse, that I might use it for
+swearing!
+
+FAUST
+
+What ails thee? What is’t gripes thee, elf?
+A face like thine beheld I never.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I would myself unto the Devil deliver,
+If I were not a Devil myself!
+
+FAUST
+
+Thy head is out of order, sadly:
+It much becomes thee to be raving madly.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Just think, the pocket of a priest should get
+The trinkets left for Margaret!
+The mother saw them, and, instanter,
+A secret dread began to haunt her.
+Keen scent has she for tainted air;
+She snuffs within her book of prayer,
+And smells each article, to see
+If sacred or profane it be;
+So here she guessed, from every gem,
+That not much blessing came with them.
+“My child,” she said, “ill-gotten good
+Ensnares the soul, consumes the blood.
+Before the Mother of God we’ll lay it;
+With heavenly manna she’ll repay it!”
+But Margaret thought, with sour grimace,
+“A gift-horse is not out of place,
+And, truly! godless cannot be
+The one who brought such things to me.”
+A parson came, by the mother bidden:
+He saw, at once, where the game was hidden,
+And viewed it with a favor stealthy.
+He spake: “That is the proper view,—
+Who overcometh, winneth too.
+The Holy Church has a stomach healthy:
+Hath eaten many a land as forfeit,
+And never yet complained of surfeit:
+The Church alone, beyond all question,
+Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.”
+
+FAUST
+
+A general practice is the same,
+Which Jew and King may also claim.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Then bagged the spangles, chains, and rings,
+As if but toadstools were the things,
+And thanked no less, and thanked no more
+Than if a sack of nuts he bore,—
+Promised them fullest heavenly pay,
+And deeply edified were they.
+
+FAUST
+
+And Margaret?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Sits unrestful still,
+And knows not what she should, or will;
+Thinks on the jewels, day and night,
+But more on him who gave her such delight.
+
+FAUST
+
+The darling’s sorrow gives me pain.
+Get thou a set for her again!
+The first was not a great display.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+O yes, the gentleman finds it all child’s-play!
+
+FAUST
+
+Fix and arrange it to my will;
+And on her neighbor try thy skill!
+Don’t be a Devil stiff as paste,
+But get fresh jewels to her taste!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yes, gracious Sir, in all obedience!
+
+[_Exit_ FAUST.
+
+Such an enamored fool in air would blow
+Sun, moon, and all the starry legions,
+To give his sweetheart a diverting show.
+
+[_Exit_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+THE NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE
+
+MARTHA (_solus_)
+
+God forgive my husband, yet he
+Hasn’t done his duty by me!
+Off in the world he went straightway,—
+Left me lie in the straw where I lay.
+And, truly, I did naught to fret him:
+God knows I loved, and can’t forget him!
+
+(_She weeps_.)
+
+Perhaps he’s even dead! Ah, woe!—
+Had I a certificate to show!
+
+MARGARET (_comes_)
+
+Dame Martha!
+
+MARTHA
+
+Margaret! what’s happened thee?
+
+MARGARET
+
+I scarce can stand, my knees are trembling!
+I find a box, the first resembling,
+Within my press! Of ebony,—
+And things, all splendid to behold,
+And richer far than were the old.
+
+MARTHA
+
+You mustn’t tell it to your mother!
+’Twould go to the priest, as did the other.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Ah, look and see—just look and see!
+
+MARTHA (_adorning her_)
+
+O, what a blessed luck for thee!
+
+MARGARET
+
+But, ah! in the streets I dare not bear them,
+Nor in the church be seen to wear them.
+
+MARTHA
+
+Yet thou canst often this way wander,
+And secretly the jewels don,
+Walk up and down an hour, before the mirror yonder,—
+We’ll have our private joy thereon.
+And then a chance will come, a holiday,
+When, piece by piece, can one the things abroad display,
+A chain at first, then other ornament:
+Thy mother will not see, and stories we’ll invent.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Whoever could have brought me things so precious?
+That something’s wrong, I feel suspicious.
+
+(_A knock_)
+
+Good Heaven! My mother can that have been?
+
+MARTHA (_peeping through the blind_)
+
+’Tis some strange gentleman.—Come in!
+
+(MEPHISTOPHELES _enters_.)
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+That I so boldly introduce me,
+I beg you, ladies, to excuse me.
+
+(_Steps back reverently, on seeing_ MARGARET.)
+
+For Martha Schwerdtlein I’d inquire!
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+I’m she: what does the gentleman desire?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside to her_)
+
+It is enough that you are she:
+You’ve a visitor of high degree.
+Pardon the freedom I have ta’en,—
+Will after noon return again.
+
+
+MARTHA (_aloud_)
+
+Of all things in the world! Just hear—
+He takes thee for a lady, dear!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+I am a creature young and poor:
+The gentleman’s too kind, I’m sure.
+The jewels don’t belong to me.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Ah, not alone the jewelry!
+The look, the manner, both betray—
+Rejoiced am I that I may stay!
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+What is your business? I would fain—
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I would I had a more cheerful strain!
+Take not unkindly its repeating:
+Your husband’s dead, and sends a greeting.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+Is dead? Alas, that heart so true!
+My husband dead! Let me die, too!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Ah, dearest dame, let not your courage fail!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Hear me relate the mournful tale!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Therefore I’d never love, believe me!
+A loss like this to death would grieve me.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Joy follows woe, woe after joy comes flying.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+Relate his life’s sad close to me!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+In Padua buried, he is lying
+Beside the good Saint Antony,
+Within a grave well consecrated,
+For cool, eternal rest created.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+He gave you, further, no commission?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yes, one of weight, with many sighs:
+Three hundred masses buy, to save him from perdition!
+My hands are empty, otherwise.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+What! Not a pocket-piece? no jewelry?
+What every journeyman within his wallet spares,
+And as a token with him bears,
+And rather starves or begs, than loses?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Madam, it is a grief to me;
+Yet, on my word, his cash was put to proper uses.
+Besides, his penitence was very sore,
+And he lamented his ill fortune all the more.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Alack, that men are so unfortunate!
+Surely for his soul’s sake full many a prayer I’ll proffer.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+You well deserve a speedy marriage-offer:
+You are so kind, compassionate.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+O, no! As yet, it would not do.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+If not a husband, then a beau for you!
+It is the greatest heavenly blessing,
+To have a dear thing for one’s caressing.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+The country’s custom is not so.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Custom, or not! It happens, though.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+Continue, pray!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+  I stood beside his bed of dying.
+’Twas something better than manure,—
+Half-rotten straw: and yet, he died a Christian, sure,
+And found that heavier scores to his account were lying.
+He cried: “I find my conduct wholly hateful!
+To leave my wife, my trade, in manner so ungrateful!
+Ah, the remembrance makes me die!
+Would of my wrong to her I might be shriven!”
+
+
+MARTHA (_weeping_)
+
+The dear, good man! Long since was he forgiven.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+“Yet she, God knows! was more to blame than I.”
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+He lied! What! On the brink of death he slandered?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+In the last throes his senses wandered,
+If I such things but half can judge.
+He said: “I had no time for play, for gaping freedom:
+First children, and then work for bread to feed ’em,—
+For bread, in the widest sense, to drudge,
+And could not even eat my share in peace and quiet!”
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+Had he all love, all faith forgotten in his riot?
+My work and worry, day and night?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Not so: the memory of it touched him quite.
+Said he: “When I from Malta went away
+My prayers for wife and little ones were zealous,
+And such a luck from Heaven befell us,
+We made a Turkish merchantman our prey,
+That to the Soldan bore a mighty treasure.
+Then I received, as was most fit,
+Since bravery was paid in fullest measure,
+My well-apportioned share of it.”
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+Say, how? Say, where? If buried, did he own it?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Who knows, now, whither the four winds have blown it?
+A fair young damsel took him in her care,
+As he in Naples wandered round, unfriended;
+And she much love, much faith to him did bear,
+So that he felt it till his days were ended.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+The villain! From his children thieving!
+Even all the misery on him cast
+Could not prevent his shameful way of living!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+But see! He’s dead therefrom, at last.
+Were I in _your_ place, do not doubt me,
+I’d mourn him decently a year,
+And for another keep, meanwhile, my eyes about me.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+Ah, God! another one so dear
+As was my first, this world will hardly give me.
+There never was a sweeter fool than mine,
+Only he loved to roam and leave me,
+And foreign wenches and foreign wine,
+And the damned throw of dice, indeed.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Well, well! That might have done, however,
+If he had only been as clever,
+And treated _your_ slips with as little heed.
+I swear, with this condition, too,
+I would, myself, change rings with you.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+The gentleman is pleased to jest.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I’ll cut away, betimes, from here:
+She’d take the Devil at his word, I fear.
+
+(_To_ MARGARET)
+
+How fares the heart within your breast?
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+What means the gentleman?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
+
+  Sweet innocent, thou art!
+
+(_Aloud_.)
+
+ Ladies, farewell!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Farewell!
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+                  A moment, ere we part!
+I’d like to have a legal witness,
+Where, how, and when he died, to certify his fitness.
+Irregular ways I’ve always hated;
+I want his death in the weekly paper stated.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yes, my good dame, a pair of witnesses
+Always the truth establishes.
+I have a friend of high condition,
+Who’ll also add his deposition.
+I’ll bring him here.
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+                  Good Sir, pray do!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And this young lady will be present, too?
+A gallant youth! has travelled far:
+Ladies with him delighted are.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Before him I should blush, ashamed.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Before no king that could be named!
+
+
+MARTHA
+
+Behind the house, in my garden, then,
+This eve we’ll expect the gentlemen.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+A STREET
+
+FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+FAUST
+
+How is it? under way? and soon complete?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Ah, bravo! Do I find you burning?
+Well, Margaret soon will still your yearning:
+At Neighbor Martha’s you’ll this evening meet.
+A fitter woman ne’er was made
+To ply the pimp and gypsy trade!
+
+FAUST
+
+Tis well.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yet something is required from us.
+
+FAUST
+
+One service pays the other thus.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+We’ve but to make a deposition valid
+That now her husband’s limbs, outstretched and pallid,
+At Padua rest, in consecrated soil.
+
+FAUST
+
+Most wise! And first, of course, we’ll make the journey
+  thither?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+_Sancta simplicitas_! no need of such a toil;
+Depose, with knowledge or without it, either!
+
+FAUST
+
+If you’ve naught better, then, I’ll tear your pretty plan!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Now, there you are! O holy man!
+Is it the first time in your life you’re driven
+To bear false witness in a case?
+Of God, the world and all that in it has a place,
+Of Man, and all that moves the being of his race,
+Have you not terms and definitions given
+With brazen forehead, daring breast?
+And, if you’ll probe the thing profoundly,
+Knew you so much—and you’ll confess it roundly!—
+As here of Schwerdtlein’s death and place of rest?
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou art, and thou remain’st, a sophist, liar.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yes, knew I not more deeply thy desire.
+For wilt thou not, no lover fairer,
+Poor Margaret flatter, and ensnare her,
+And all thy soul’s devotion swear her?
+
+FAUST
+
+And from my heart.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+  ’Tis very fine!
+Thine endless love, thy faith assuring,
+The one almighty force enduring,—
+Will that, too, prompt this heart of thine?
+
+FAUST
+
+Hold! hold! It will!—If such my flame,
+And for the sense and power intense
+I seek, and cannot find, a name;
+Then range with all my senses through creation,
+Craving the speech of inspiration,
+And call this ardor, so supernal,
+Endless, eternal and eternal,—
+Is that a devilish lying game?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And yet I’m right!
+
+FAUST
+
+  Mark this, I beg of thee!
+And spare my lungs henceforth: whoever
+Intends to have the right, if but his
+  tongue be clever,
+Will have it, certainly.
+But come: the further talking brings
+  disgust,
+For thou art right, especially since I
+  must.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+GARDEN
+
+(MARGARET _on_ FAUST’S _arm_. MARTHA _and_ MEPHISTOPHELES
+_walking up and down_.)
+
+MARGARET
+
+I feel, the gentleman allows for me,
+Demeans himself, and shames me by it;
+A traveller is so used to be
+Kindly content with any diet.
+I know too well that my poor gossip can
+Ne’er entertain such an experienced man.
+
+FAUST
+
+A look from thee, a word, more entertains
+Than all the lore of wisest brains.
+
+(_He kisses her hand_.)
+
+MARGARET
+
+Don’t incommode yourself! How could you ever kiss it!
+It is so ugly, rough to see!
+What work I do,—how hard and steady is it!
+Mother is much too close with me.
+
+[_They pass_.
+
+MARTHA
+
+And you, Sir, travel always, do you not?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Alas, that trade and duty us so harry!
+With what a pang one leaves so many a spot,
+And dares not even now and then to tarry!
+
+MARTHA
+
+In young, wild years it suits your ways,
+This round and round the world in freedom sweeping;
+But then come on the evil days,
+And so, as bachelor, into his grave a-creeping,
+None ever found a thing to praise.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I dread to see how such a fate advances.
+
+MARTHA
+
+Then, worthy Sir, improve betimes your chances!
+
+[_They pass_.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Yes, out of sight is out of mind!
+Your courtesy an easy grace is;
+But you have friends in other places,
+And sensibler than I, you’ll find.
+
+FAUST
+
+Trust me, dear heart! what men call sensible
+Is oft mere vanity and narrowness.
+
+MARGARET
+
+  How so?
+
+FAUST
+
+Ah, that simplicity and innocence ne’er know
+Themselves, their holy value, and their spell!
+That meekness, lowliness, the highest graces
+Which Nature portions out so lovingly—
+
+MARGARET
+
+So you but think a moment’s space on me,
+All times I’ll have to think on you, all places!
+
+FAUST
+
+No doubt you’re much alone?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Yes, for our household small has grown,
+Yet must be cared for, you will own.
+We have no maid: I do the knitting, sewing, sweeping,
+The cooking, early work and late, in fact;
+And mother, in her notions of housekeeping,
+Is so exact!
+Not that she needs so much to keep expenses down:
+We, more than others, might take comfort, rather:
+A nice estate was left us by my father,
+A house, a little garden near the town.
+But now my days have less of noise and hurry;
+My brother is a soldier,
+My little sister’s dead.
+True, with the child a troubled life I led,
+Yet I would take again, and willing, all the worry,
+So very dear was she.
+
+FAUST
+
+An angel, if like thee!
+
+MARGARET
+
+I brought it up, and it was fond of me.
+Father had died before it saw the light,
+And mother’s case seemed hopeless quite,
+So weak and miserable she lay;
+And she recovered, then, so slowly, day by day.
+She could not think, herself, of giving
+The poor wee thing its natural living;
+And so I nursed it all alone
+With milk and water: ’twas my own.
+Lulled in my lap with many a song,
+It smiled, and tumbled, and grew strong.
+
+FAUST
+
+The purest bliss was surely then thy dower.
+
+MARGARET
+
+But surely, also, many a weary hour.
+I kept the baby’s cradle near
+My bed at night: if ’t even stirred, I’d guess it,
+And waking, hear.
+And I must nurse it, warm beside me press it,
+And oft, to quiet it, my bed forsake,
+And dandling back and forth the restless creature take,
+Then at the wash-tub stand, at morning’s break;
+And then the marketing and kitchen-tending,
+Day after day, the same thing, never-ending.
+One’s spirits, Sir, are thus not always good,
+But then one learns to relish rest and food.
+
+[_They pass_.
+
+MARTHA
+
+Yes, the poor women are bad off, ’tis true:
+A stubborn bachelor there’s no converting.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+It but depends upon the like of you,
+And I should turn to better ways than flirting.
+
+MARTHA
+
+Speak plainly, Sir, have you no one detected?
+Has not your heart been anywhere subjected?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The proverb says: One’s own warm hearth
+And a good wife, are gold and jewels worth.
+
+MARTHA
+
+I mean, have you not felt desire, though ne’er so slightly?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I’ve everywhere, in fact, been entertained politely.
+
+MARTHA
+
+I meant to say, were you not touched in earnest, ever?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+One should allow one’s self to jest with ladies never.
+
+
+MARTHA
+Ah, you don’t understand!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I’m sorry I’m so blind:
+But I am sure—that you are very kind.
+
+[_They pass_.
+
+FAUST
+
+And me, thou angel! didst thou recognize,
+As through the garden-gate I came?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Did you not see it? I cast down my eyes.
+
+FAUST
+
+And thou forgiv’st my freedom, and the blame
+To my impertinence befitting,
+As the Cathedral thou wert quitting?
+
+MARGARET
+
+I was confused, the like ne’er happened me;
+No one could ever speak to my discredit.
+Ah, thought I, in my conduct has he read it—
+Something immodest or unseemly free?
+He seemed to have the sudden feeling
+That with this wench ’twere very easy dealing.
+I will confess, I knew not what appeal
+On your behalf, here, in my bosom grew;
+But I was angry with myself, to feel
+That I could not be angrier with you.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Sweet darling!
+
+MARGARET
+
+Wait a while!
+
+(_She plucks a star-flower, and pulls off the leaves, one after
+the other_.)
+
+FAUST
+
+Shall that a nosegay be?
+
+MARGARET
+
+No, it is just in play.
+
+FAUST
+
+How?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Go! you’ll laugh at me.
+(_She pulls off the leaves and murmurs_.)
+
+FAUST
+
+What murmurest thou?
+
+MARGARET (_half aloud_)
+
+He loves me—loves me not.
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou sweet, angelic soul!
+
+MARGARET (_continues_)
+
+Loves me—not—loves me—not—
+(_plucking the last leaf, she cries with frank delight_:)
+
+He loves me!
+
+FAUST
+
+Yes, child! and let this blossom-word
+For thee be speech divine! He loves thee!
+Ah, know’st thou what it means? He loves thee!
+
+(_He grasps both her hands_.)
+
+MARGARET
+
+I’m all a-tremble!
+
+FAUST
+
+O tremble not! but let this look,
+Let this warm clasp of hands declare thee
+What is unspeakable!
+To yield one wholly, and to feel a rapture
+In yielding, that must be eternal!
+Eternal!—for the end would be despair.
+No, no,—no ending! no ending!
+
+MARTHA (_coming forward_)
+
+The night is falling.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+                    Ay! we must away.
+
+MARTHA
+
+I’d ask you, longer here to tarry,
+But evil tongues in this town have full play.
+It’s as if nobody had nothing to fetch and carry,
+Nor other labor,
+But spying all the doings of one’s neighbor:
+And one becomes the talk, do whatsoe’er one may.
+Where is our couple now?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+                 Flown up the alley yonder,
+The wilful summer-birds!
+
+MARTHA
+
+                 He seems of her still fonder.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And she of him. So runs the world away!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+A GARDEN-ARBOR
+
+(MARGARET _comes in, conceals herself behind the door, puts her
+finger to her lips, and peeps through the crack_.)
+
+MARGARET
+
+He comes!
+
+FAUST (_entering_)
+
+                  Ah, rogue! a tease thou art:
+I have thee!
+(_He kisses her_.)
+
+MARGARET
+
+(_clasping him, and returning the kiss_)
+             Dearest man! I love thee from my heart.
+
+(MEPHISTOPHELES _knocks_)
+
+FAUST (_stamping his foot_)
+
+Who’s there?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+A friend!
+
+FAUST
+
+              A beast!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+             Tis time to separate.
+
+MARTHA (_coming_)
+
+Yes, Sir, ’tis late.
+
+FAUST
+
+            May I not, then, upon you wait?
+
+MARGARET
+My mother would—farewell!
+
+FAUST
+
+            Ah, can I not remain?
+Farewell!
+
+MARTHA
+
+          Adieu!
+
+MARGARET
+
+             And soon to meet again!
+
+[_Exeunt_ FAUST _and_ MEPHISTOPHELES.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Dear God! However is it, such
+A man can think and know so much?
+I stand ashamed and in amaze,
+And answer “Yes” to all he says,
+A poor, unknowing child! and he—
+I can’t think what he finds in me! [_Exit_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+FOREST AND CAVERN
+
+FAUST (_solus_)
+
+Spirit sublime, thou gav’st me, gav’st me all
+For which I prayed. Not unto me in vain
+Hast thou thy countenance revealed in fire.
+Thou gav’st me Nature as a kingdom grand,
+With power to feel and to enjoy it. Thou
+Not only cold, amazed acquaintance yield’st,
+But grantest, that in her profoundest breast
+I gaze, as in the bosom of a friend.
+The ranks of living creatures thou dost lead
+Before me, teaching me to know my brothers
+In air and water and the silent wood.
+And when the storm in forests roars and grinds,
+The giant firs, in falling, neighbor boughs
+And neighbor trunks with crushing weight bear down,
+And falling, fill the hills with hollow thunders,—
+Then to the cave secure thou leadest me,
+Then show’st me mine own self, and in my breast
+The deep, mysterious miracles unfold.
+And when the perfect moon before my gaze
+Comes up with soothing light, around me float
+From every precipice and thicket damp
+The silvery phantoms of the ages past,
+And temper the austere delight of thought.
+
+That nothing can be perfect unto Man
+I now am conscious. With this ecstasy,
+Which brings me near and nearer to the Gods,
+Thou gav’st the comrade, whom I now no more
+Can do without, though, cold and scornful, he
+Demeans me to myself, and with a breath,
+A word, transforms thy gifts to nothingness.
+Within my breast he fans a lawless fire,
+Unwearied, for that fair and lovely form:
+Thus in desire I hasten to enjoyment,
+And in enjoyment pine to feel desire.
+
+(MEPHISTOPHELES _enters_.)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Have you not led this life quite long enough?
+How can a further test delight you?
+’Tis very well, that once one tries the stuff,
+But something new must then requite you.
+
+FAUST
+
+Would there were other work for thee!
+To plague my day auspicious thou returnest.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Well! I’ll engage to let thee be:
+Thou darest not tell me so in earnest.
+The loss of thee were truly very slight,—
+comrade crazy, rude, repelling:
+
+[Illustration]
+
+One has one’s hands full all the day and night;
+If what one does, or leaves undone, is right,
+From such a face as thine there is no telling.
+
+FAUST
+
+There is, again, thy proper tone!—
+That thou hast bored me, I must thankful be!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Poor Son of Earth, how couldst thou thus alone
+Have led thy life, bereft of me?
+I, for a time, at least, have worked thy cure;
+Thy fancy’s rickets plague thee not at all:
+Had I not been, so hadst thou, sure,
+Walked thyself off this earthly ball
+Why here to caverns, rocky hollows slinking,
+Sit’st thou, as ’twere an owl a-blinking?
+Why suck’st, from sodden moss and dripping stone,
+Toad-like, thy nourishment alone?
+A fine way, this, thy time to fill!
+The Doctor’s in thy body still.
+
+FAUST
+
+What fresh and vital forces, canst thou guess,
+Spring from my commerce with the wilderness?
+But, if thou hadst the power of guessing,
+Thou wouldst be devil enough to grudge my soul the blessing.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+A blessing drawn from supernatural fountains!
+In night and dew to lie upon the mountains;
+All Heaven and Earth in rapture penetrating;
+Thyself to Godhood haughtily inflating;
+To grub with yearning force through Earth’s dark marrow,
+Compress the six days’ work within thy bosom narrow,—
+To taste, I know not what, in haughty power,
+Thine own ecstatic life on all things shower,
+Thine earthly self behind thee cast,
+And then the lofty instinct, thus—
+
+(_With a gesture_:)
+
+at last,—
+daren’t say how—to pluck the final flower!
+
+FAUST
+
+Shame on thee!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yes, thou findest that unpleasant!
+Thou hast the moral right to cry me “shame!” at present.
+One dares not that before chaste ears declare,
+Which chaste hearts, notwithstanding, cannot spare;
+And, once for all, I grudge thee not the pleasure
+Of lying to thyself in moderate measure.
+But such a course thou wilt not long endure;
+Already art thou o’er-excited,
+And, if it last, wilt soon be plighted
+To madness and to horror, sure.
+Enough of that! Thy love sits lonely yonder,
+By all things saddened and oppressed;
+Her thoughts and yearnings seek thee, tenderer, fonder,—
+mighty love is in her breast.
+First came thy passion’s flood and poured around her
+As when from melted snow a streamlet overflows;
+Thou hast therewith so filled and drowned her,
+That now _thy_ stream all shallow shows.
+Methinks, instead of in the forests lording,
+The noble Sir should find it good,
+The love of this young silly blood
+At once to set about rewarding.
+Her time is miserably long;
+She haunts her window, watching clouds that stray
+O’er the old city-wall, and far away.
+“Were I a little bird!” so runs her song,
+Day long, and half night long.
+Now she is lively, mostly sad,
+Now, wept beyond her tears;
+Then again quiet she appears,—Always
+love-mad.
+
+FAUST
+
+Serpent! Serpent!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES _(aside)_
+
+Ha! do I trap thee!
+
+FAUST
+
+Get thee away with thine offences,
+Reprobate! Name not that fairest thing,
+Nor the desire for her sweet body bring
+Again before my half-distracted senses!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+What wouldst thou, then? She thinks that thou art flown;
+And half and half thou art, I own.
+
+FAUST
+
+Yet am I near, and love keeps watch and ward;
+Though I were ne’er so far, it cannot falter:
+I envy even the Body of the Lord
+The touching of her lips, before the altar.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+’Tis very well! _My_ envy oft reposes
+On your twin-pair, that feed among the roses.
+
+FAUST
+
+Away, thou pimp!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+You rail, and it is fun to me.
+The God, who fashioned youth and maid,
+Perceived the noblest purpose of His trade,
+And also made their opportunity.
+Go on! It is a woe profound!
+’Tis for your sweetheart’s room you’re bound,
+And not for death, indeed.
+
+FAUST
+
+What are, within her arms, the heavenly blisses?
+Though I be glowing with her kisses,
+Do I not always share her need?
+I am the fugitive, all houseless roaming,
+The monster without air or rest,
+That like a cataract, down rocks and gorges foaming,
+Leaps, maddened, into the abyss’s breast!
+And side-wards she, with young unwakened senses,
+Within her cabin on the Alpine field
+Her simple, homely life commences,
+Her little world therein concealed.
+And I, God’s hate flung o’er me,
+Had not enough, to thrust
+The stubborn rocks before me
+And strike them into dust!
+She and her peace I yet must undermine:
+Thou, Hell, hast claimed this sacrifice as thine!
+Help, Devil! through the coming pangs to push me;
+What must be, let it quickly be!
+Let fall on me her fate, and also crush me,—
+One ruin whelm both her and me!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Again it seethes, again it glows!
+Thou fool, go in and comfort her!
+When such a head as thine no outlet knows,
+It thinks the end must soon occur.
+Hail him, who keeps a steadfast mind!
+Thou, else, dost well the devil-nature wear:
+Naught so insipid in the world I find
+As is a devil in despair.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+MARGARET’S ROOM
+
+MARGARET
+
+(_at the spinning-wheel, alone_)
+
+        My peace is gone,
+        My heart is sore:
+        I never shall find it,
+        Ah, nevermore!
+
+        Save I have him near.
+        The grave is here;
+        The world is gall
+        And bitterness all.
+
+        My poor weak head
+        Is racked and crazed;
+        My thought is lost,
+        My senses mazed.
+
+        My peace is gone,
+        My heart is sore:
+        I never shall find it,
+        Ah, nevermore!
+
+        To see him, him only,
+        At the pane I sit;
+        To meet him, him only,
+        The house I quit.
+
+        His lofty gait,
+        His noble size,
+        The smile of his mouth,
+        The power of his eyes,
+
+        And the magic flow
+        Of his talk, the bliss
+        In the clasp of his hand,
+        And, ah! his kiss!
+
+        My peace is gone,
+        My heart is sore:
+        I never shall find it,
+        Ah, nevermore!
+
+        My bosom yearns
+        For him alone;
+        Ah, dared I clasp him,
+        And hold, and own!
+
+        And kiss his mouth,
+        To heart’s desire,
+        And on his kisses
+        At last expire!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+MARTHA’S GARDEN
+
+MARGARET FAUST
+
+MARGARET
+
+Promise me, Henry!—
+
+FAUST
+
+What I can!
+
+MARGARET
+
+How is’t with thy religion, pray?
+Thou art a dear, good-hearted man,
+And yet, I think, dost not incline that way.
+
+FAUST
+
+Leave that, my child! Thou know’st my love is tender;
+For love, my blood and life would I surrender,
+And as for Faith and Church, I grant to each his own.
+
+MARGARET
+
+That’s not enough: we must believe thereon.
+
+FAUST
+
+Must we?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Would that I had some influence!
+Then, too, thou honorest not the Holy Sacraments.
+
+FAUST
+
+I honor them.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Desiring no possession
+’Tis long since thou hast been to mass or to confession.
+Believest thou in God?
+
+FAUST
+
+My darling, who shall dare
+“I believe in God!” to say?
+Ask priest or sage the answer to declare,
+And it will seem a mocking play,
+A sarcasm on the asker.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Then thou believest not!
+
+FAUST
+
+Hear me not falsely, sweetest countenance!
+Who dare express Him?
+And who profess Him,
+Saying: I believe in Him!
+Who, feeling, seeing,
+Deny His being,
+Saying: I believe Him not!
+The All-enfolding,
+The All-upholding,
+Folds and upholds he not
+Thee, me, Himself?
+Arches not there the sky above us?
+Lies not beneath us, firm, the earth?
+And rise not, on us shining,
+Friendly, the everlasting stars?
+Look I not, eye to eye, on thee,
+And feel’st not, thronging
+To head and heart, the force,
+Still weaving its eternal secret,
+Invisible, visible, round thy life?
+Vast as it is, fill with that force thy heart,
+And when thou in the feeling wholly blessed art,
+Call it, then, what thou wilt,—
+Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! God!
+I have no name to give it!
+Feeling is all in all:
+The Name is sound and smoke,
+Obscuring Heaven’s clear glow.
+
+MARGARET
+
+All that is fine and good, to hear it so:
+Much the same way the preacher spoke,
+Only with slightly different phrases.
+
+FAUST
+
+The same thing, in all places,
+All hearts that beat beneath the heavenly day—
+Each in its language—say;
+Then why not I, in mine, as well?
+
+MARGARET
+
+To hear it thus, it may seem passable;
+And yet, some hitch in’t there must be
+For thou hast no Christianity.
+
+FAUST
+
+Dear love!
+
+MARGARET
+
+                  I’ve long been grieved to see
+That thou art in such company.
+
+FAUST
+
+How so?
+
+MARGARET
+
+        The man who with thee goes, thy mate,
+Within my deepest, inmost soul I hate.
+In all my life there’s nothing
+Has given my heart so keen a pang of loathing,
+As his repulsive face has done.
+
+FAUST
+
+Nay, fear him not, my sweetest one!
+
+MARGARET
+
+I feel his presence like something ill.
+I’ve else, for all, a kindly will,
+But, much as my heart to see thee yearneth,
+The secret horror of him returneth;
+And I think the man a knave, as I live!
+If I do him wrong, may God forgive!
+
+FAUST
+
+There must be such queer birds, however.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Live with the like of him, may I never!
+When once inside the door comes he,
+He looks around so sneeringly,
+And half in wrath:
+One sees that in nothing no interest he hath:
+’Tis written on his very forehead
+That love, to him, is a thing abhorréd.
+I am so happy on thine arm,
+So free, so yielding, and so warm,
+And in his presence stifled seems my heart.
+
+FAUST
+
+Foreboding angel that thou art!
+
+MARGARET
+
+It overcomes me in such degree,
+That wheresoe’er he meets us, even,
+I feel as though I’d lost my love for thee.
+When he is by, I could not pray to Heaven.
+That burns within me like a flame,
+And surely, Henry, ’tis with thee the same.
+
+FAUST
+
+There, now, is thine antipathy!
+
+MARGARET
+
+But I must go.
+
+FAUST
+
+                Ah, shall there never be
+A quiet hour, to see us fondly plighted,
+With breast to breast, and soul to soul united?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Ah, if I only slept alone!
+I’d draw the bolts to-night, for thy desire;
+But mother’s sleep so light has grown,
+And if we were discovered by her,
+’Twould be my death upon the spot!
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou angel, fear it not!
+Here is a phial: in her drink
+But three drops of it measure,
+And deepest sleep will on her senses sink.
+
+MARGARET
+
+What would I not, to give thee pleasure?
+It will not harm her, when one tries it?
+
+FAUST
+
+If ’twould, my love, would I advise it?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Ah, dearest man, if but thy face I see,
+I know not what compels me to thy will:
+So much have I already done for thee,
+That scarcely more is left me to fulfil.
+
+(_Enter_ MEPHISTOPHELES.) [_Exit_.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The monkey! Is she gone?
+
+FAUST
+
+                          Hast played the spy again?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I’ve heard, most fully, how she drew thee.
+The Doctor has been catechised, ’tis plain;
+Great good, I hope, the thing will do thee.
+The girls have much desire to ascertain
+If one is prim and good, as ancient rules compel:
+If there he’s led, they think, he’ll follow them as well.
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou, monster, wilt nor see nor own
+How this pure soul, of faith so lowly,
+So loving and ineffable,—
+The faith alone
+That her salvation is,—with scruples holy
+Pines, lest she hold as lost the man she loves so well!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Thou, full of sensual, super-sensual desire,
+A girl by the nose is leading thee.
+
+FAUST
+
+Abortion, thou, of filth and fire!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And then, how masterly she reads physiognomy!
+When I am present she’s impressed, she knows not how;
+She in my mask a hidden sense would read:
+She feels that surely I’m a genius now,—
+Perhaps the very Devil, indeed!
+Well, well,—to-night—?
+
+FAUST
+
+                          What’s that to thee?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Yet my delight ’twill also be!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+AT THE FOUNTAIN
+
+MARGARET _and_ LISBETH _With pitchers_.
+
+LISBETH
+
+Hast nothing heard of Barbara?
+
+MARGARET
+
+No, not a word. I go so little out.
+
+LISBETH
+
+It’s true, Sibylla said, to-day.
+She’s played the fool at last, there’s not a doubt.
+Such taking-on of airs!
+
+MARGARET
+
+                        How so?
+
+LISBETH
+
+                                 It stinks!
+She’s feeding two, whene’er she eats and drinks.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Ah!
+
+LISBETH
+
+    And so, at last, it serves her rightly.
+She clung to the fellow so long and tightly!
+That was a promenading!
+At village and dance parading!
+As the first they must everywhere shine,
+And he treated her always to pies and wine,
+And she made a to-do with her face so fine;
+So mean and shameless was her behavior,
+She took all the presents the fellow gave her.
+’Twas kissing and coddling, on and on!
+So now, at the end, the flower is gone.
+
+MARGARET
+
+The poor, poor thing!
+
+LISBETH
+
+                      Dost pity her, at that?
+When one of us at spinning sat,
+And mother, nights, ne’er let us out the door
+She sported with her paramour.
+On the door-bench, in the passage dark,
+The length of the time they’d never mark.
+So now her head no more she’ll lift,
+But do church-penance in her sinner’s shift!
+
+MARGARET
+
+He’ll surely take her for his wife.
+
+LISBETH
+
+He’d be a fool! A brisk young blade
+Has room, elsewhere, to ply his trade.
+Besides, he’s gone.
+
+MARGARET
+
+                   That is not fair!
+
+LISBETH
+
+If him she gets, why let her beware!
+The boys shall dash her wreath on the floor,
+And we’ll scatter chaff before her door!
+                                              [_Exit_.
+
+MARGARET (_returning home_)
+
+How scornfully I once reviled,
+When some poor maiden was beguiled!
+More speech than any tongue suffices
+I craved, to censure others’ vices.
+Black as it seemed, I blackened still,
+And blacker yet was in my will;
+And blessed myself, and boasted high,—
+And now—a living sin am I!
+Yet—all that drove my heart thereto,
+God! was so good, so dear, so true!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+DONJON
+
+(_In a niche of the wall a shrine, with an image of the Mater
+Dolorosa. Pots of flowers before it_.)
+
+MARGARET
+
+(_putting fresh flowers in the pots_)
+
+        Incline, O Maiden,
+        Thou sorrow-laden,
+        Thy gracious countenance upon my pain!
+
+        The sword Thy heart in,
+        With anguish smarting,
+        Thou lookest up to where Thy Son is slain!
+
+        Thou seest the Father;
+        Thy sad sighs gather,
+        And bear aloft Thy sorrow and His pain!
+
+        Ah, past guessing,
+        Beyond expressing,
+        The pangs that wring my flesh and bone!
+        Why this anxious heart so burneth,
+        Why it trembleth, why it yearneth,
+        Knowest Thou, and Thou alone!
+
+        Where’er I go, what sorrow,
+        What woe, what woe and sorrow
+        Within my bosom aches!
+        Alone, and ah! unsleeping,
+        I’m weeping, weeping, weeping,
+        The heart within me breaks.
+
+        The pots before my window,
+        Alas! my tears did wet,
+        As in the early morning
+        For thee these flowers I set.
+
+        Within my lonely chamber
+        The morning sun shone red:
+        I sat, in utter sorrow,
+        Already on my bed.
+
+        Help! rescue me from death and stain!
+        O Maiden!
+        Thou sorrow-laden,
+        Incline Thy countenance upon my pain!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+NIGHT
+
+STREET BEFORE MARGARET’S DOOR
+
+VALENTINE (_a soldier_, MARGARET’S _brother_)
+
+When I have sat at some carouse.
+Where each to each his brag allows,
+And many a comrade praised to me
+His pink of girls right lustily,
+With brimming glass that spilled the toast,
+And elbows planted as in boast:
+I sat in unconcerned repose,
+And heard the swagger as it rose.
+And stroking then my beard, I’d say,
+Smiling, the bumper in my hand:
+“Each well enough in her own way.
+But is there one in all the land
+Like sister Margaret, good as gold,—
+One that to her can a candle hold?”
+Cling! clang! “Here’s to her!” went around
+The board: “He speaks the truth!” cried some;
+“In her the flower o’ the sex is found!”
+And all the swaggerers were dumb.
+And now!—I could tear my hair with vexation.
+And dash out my brains in desperation!
+With turned-up nose each scamp may face me,
+With sneers and stinging taunts disgrace me,
+And, like a bankrupt debtor sitting,
+A chance-dropped word may set me sweating!
+Yet, though I thresh them all together,
+I cannot call them liars, either.
+
+But what comes sneaking, there, to view?
+If I mistake not, there are two.
+If _he’s_ one, let me at him drive!
+He shall not leave the spot alive.
+
+FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+FAUST
+
+How from the window of the sacristy
+Upward th’eternal lamp sends forth a glimmer,
+That, lessening side-wards, fainter grows and dimmer,
+Till darkness closes from the sky!
+The shadows thus within my bosom gather.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I’m like a sentimental tom-cat, rather,
+That round the tall fire-ladders sweeps,
+And stealthy, then, along the coping creeps:
+Quite virtuous, withal, I come,
+A little thievish and a little frolicsome.
+I feel in every limb the presage
+Forerunning the grand Walpurgis-Night:
+Day after to-morrow brings its message,
+And one keeps watch then with delight.
+
+FAUST
+
+Meanwhile, may not the treasure risen be,
+Which there, behind, I glimmering see?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Shalt soon experience the pleasure,
+To lift the kettle with its treasure.
+I lately gave therein a squint—
+Saw splendid lion-dollars in ’t.
+
+FAUST
+
+Not even a jewel, not a ring,
+To deck therewith my darling girl?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I saw, among the rest, a thing
+That seemed to be a chain of pearl.
+
+FAUST
+
+That’s well, indeed! For painful is it
+To bring no gift when her I visit.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Thou shouldst not find it so annoying,
+Without return to be enjoying.
+Now, while the sky leads forth its starry throng,
+Thou’lt hear a masterpiece, no work completer:
+I’ll sing her, first, a moral song,
+The surer, afterwards, to cheat her.
+
+(_Sings to the cither_.)
+
+        What dost thou here
+        In daybreak clear,
+        Kathrina dear,
+        Before thy lover’s door?
+        Beware! the blade
+        Lets in a maid.
+        That out a maid
+        Departeth nevermore!
+
+        The coaxing shun
+        Of such an one!
+        When once ’tis done
+        Good-night to thee, poor thing!
+        Love’s time is brief:
+        Unto no thief
+        Be warm and lief,
+        But with the wedding-ring!
+
+VALENTINE (_comes forward_)
+
+Whom wilt thou lure? God’s-element!
+Rat-catching piper, thou!—perdition!
+To the Devil, first, the instrument!
+To the Devil, then, the curst musician!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The cither’s smashed! For nothing more ’tis fitting.
+
+VALENTINE
+
+There’s yet a skull I must be splitting!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+Sir Doctor, don’t retreat, I pray!
+Stand by: I’ll lead, if you’ll but tarry:
+Out with your spit, without delay!
+You’ve but to lunge, and I will parry.
+
+VALENTINE
+
+Then parry that!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+                 Why not? ’tis light.
+VALENTINE
+
+That, too!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Of course.
+
+VALENTINE
+
+I think the Devil must fight!
+How is it, then? my hand’s already lame:
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+Thrust home!
+
+VALENTINE (_jails_)
+
+O God!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Now is the lubber tame!
+But come, away! ’Tis time for us to fly;
+For there arises now a murderous cry.
+With the police ’twere easy to compound it,
+But here the penal court will sift and sound it.
+
+[_Exit with_ FAUST.
+
+MARTHA (_at the window_)
+
+Come out! Come out!
+
+MARGARET (_at the window_)
+
+Quick, bring a light!
+
+MARTHA (_as above_)
+
+They swear and storm, they yell and fight!
+
+PEOPLE
+
+Here lies one dead already—see!
+
+MARTHA (_coming from the house_)
+
+The murderers, whither have they run?
+
+MARGARET (_coming out_)
+
+Who lies here?
+
+PEOPLE
+
+’Tis thy mother’s son!
+
+MARGARET
+
+Almighty God! what misery!
+
+VALENTINE
+
+I’m dying! That is quickly said,
+And quicker yet ’tis done.
+Why howl, you women there? Instead,
+Come here and listen, every one!
+
+(_All gather around him_)
+
+My Margaret, see! still young thou art,
+But not the least bit shrewd or smart,
+Thy business thus to slight:
+So this advice I bid thee heed—
+Now that thou art a whore indeed,
+Why, be one then, outright!
+
+MARGARET
+
+My brother! God! such words to me?
+
+VALENTINE
+
+In this game let our Lord God be!
+What’s done’s already done, alas!
+What follows it, must come to pass.
+With one begin’st thou secretly,
+Then soon will others come to thee,
+And when a dozen thee have known,
+Thou’rt also free to all the town.
+When Shame is born and first appears,
+She is in secret brought to light,
+And then they draw the veil of night
+Over her head and ears;
+Her life, in fact, they’re loath to spare her.
+But let her growth and strength display,
+She walks abroad unveiled by day,
+Yet is not grown a whit the fairer.
+The uglier she is to sight,
+The more she seeks the day’s broad light.
+The time I verily can discern
+When all the honest folk will turn
+From thee, thou jade! and seek protection
+As from a corpse that breeds infection.
+Thy guilty heart shall then dismay thee.
+When they but look thee in the face:—
+Shalt not in a golden chain array thee,
+Nor at the altar take thy place!
+Shalt not, in lace and ribbons flowing,
+Make merry when the dance is going!
+But in some corner, woe betide thee!
+Among the beggars and cripples hide thee;
+And so, though even God forgive,
+On earth a damned existence live!
+
+MARTHA
+
+Commend your soul to God for pardon,
+That you your heart with slander harden!
+
+VALENTINE
+
+Thou pimp most infamous, be still!
+Could I thy withered body kill,
+’Twould bring, for all my sinful pleasure,
+Forgiveness in the richest measure.
+
+MARGARET
+
+My brother! This is Hell’s own pain!
+
+VALENTINE
+
+I tell thee, from thy tears refrain!
+When thou from honor didst depart
+It stabbed me to the very heart.
+Now through the slumber of the grave
+I go to God as a soldier brave.
+
+(_Dies_.)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+CATHEDRAL
+
+SERVICE, ORGAN _and_ ANTHEM.
+
+(MARGARET _among much people: the_ EVIL SPIRIT _behind_
+MARGARET.)
+
+EVIL SPIRIT
+
+HOW otherwise was it, Margaret,
+When thou, still innocent,
+Here to the altar cam’st,
+And from the worn and fingered book
+Thy prayers didst prattle,
+Half sport of childhood,
+Half God within thee!
+Margaret!
+Where tends thy thought?
+Within thy bosom
+What hidden crime?
+Pray’st thou for mercy on thy mother’s soul,
+That fell asleep to long, long torment, and through thee?
+Upon thy threshold whose the blood?
+And stirreth not and quickens
+Something beneath thy heart,
+Thy life disquieting
+With most foreboding presence?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Woe! woe!
+Would I were free from the thoughts
+That cross me, drawing hither and thither
+Despite me!
+
+CHORUS
+
+        _Diesira, dies illa,
+        Solvet soeclum in favilla_!
+        _(Sound of the organ_.)
+
+EVIL SPIRIT
+
+Wrath takes thee!
+The trumpet peals!
+The graves tremble!
+And thy heart
+From ashy rest
+To fiery torments
+Now again requickened,
+Throbs to life!
+
+MARGARET
+
+Would I were forth!
+I feel as if the organ here
+My breath takes from me,
+My very heart
+Dissolved by the anthem!
+
+
+CHORUS
+
+        _Judex ergo cum sedebit,
+        Quidquid latet, ad parebit,
+        Nil inultum remanebit_.
+MARGARET
+
+I cannot breathe!
+The massy pillars
+Imprison me!
+The vaulted arches
+Crush me!—Air!
+
+EVIL SPIRIT
+
+Hide thyself! Sin and shame
+Stay never hidden.
+Air? Light?
+Woe to thee!
+
+CHORUS
+
+        _Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
+        Quem patronem rogaturus,
+        Cum vix Justus sit securus_?
+
+EVIL SPIRIT
+
+They turn their faces,
+The glorified, from thee:
+The pure, their hands to offer,
+Shuddering, refuse thee!
+Woe!
+
+CHORUS
+
+_Quid sum miser tune dicturus_?
+
+MARGARET
+
+Neighbor! your cordial! (_She falls in a swoon_.)
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+WALPURGIS-NIGHT
+
+THE HARTZ MOUNTAINS.
+
+_District of Schierke and Elend_.
+
+FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+DOST thou not wish a broomstick-steed’s assistance?
+The sturdiest he-goat I would gladly see:
+The way we take, our goal is yet some distance.
+
+FAUST
+
+So long as in my legs I feel the fresh existence.
+This knotted staff suffices me.
+What need to shorten so the way?
+Along this labyrinth of vales to wander,
+Then climb the rocky ramparts yonder,
+Wherefrom the fountain flings eternal spray,
+Is such delight, my steps would fain delay.
+The spring-time stirs within the fragrant birches,
+And even the fir-tree feels it now:
+Should then our limbs escape its gentle searches?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I notice no such thing, I vow!
+’Tis winter still within my body:
+Upon my path I wish for frost and snow.
+How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy,
+The moon’s lone disk, with its belated glow,
+And lights so dimly, that, as one advances,
+At every step one strikes a rock or tree!
+Let us, then, use a Jack-o’-lantern’s glances:
+I see one yonder, burning merrily.
+Ho, there! my friend! I’ll levy thine attendance:
+Why waste so vainly thy resplendence?
+Be kind enough to light us up the steep!
+
+WILL-O’-THE-WISP
+
+My reverence, I hope, will me enable
+To curb my temperament unstable;
+For zigzag courses we are wont to keep.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Indeed? he’d like mankind to imitate!
+Now, in the Devil’s name, go straight,
+Or I’ll blow out his being’s flickering spark!
+
+WILL-O’-THE-WISP
+
+You are the master of the house, I mark,
+And I shall try to serve you nicely.
+But then, reflect: the mountain’s magic-mad to-day,
+And if a will-o’-the-wisp must guide you on the way,
+You mustn’t take things too precisely.
+
+FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, WILL-O’-THE-WISP
+
+(_in alternating song_)
+
+     We, it seems, have entered newly
+     In the sphere of dreams enchanted.
+     Do thy bidding, guide us truly,
+     That our feet be forwards planted
+     In the vast, the desert spaces!
+     See them swiftly changing places,
+     Trees on trees beside us trooping,
+     And the crags above us stooping,
+     And the rocky snouts, outgrowing,—
+     Hear them snoring, hear them blowing!
+     O’er the stones, the grasses, flowing
+     Stream and streamlet seek the hollow.
+     Hear I noises? songs that follow?
+     Hear I tender love-petitions?
+     Voices of those heavenly visions?
+     Sounds of hope, of love undying!
+     And the echoes, like traditions
+     Of old days, come faint and hollow.
+
+     Hoo-hoo! Shoo-hoo! Nearer hover
+     Jay and screech-owl, and the plover,—
+     Are they all awake and crying?
+     Is’t the salamander pushes,
+     Bloated-bellied, through the bushes?
+     And the roots, like serpents twisted,
+     Through the sand and boulders toiling,
+     Fright us, weirdest links uncoiling
+     To entrap us, unresisted:
+     Living knots and gnarls uncanny
+     Feel with polypus-antennae
+     For the wanderer. Mice are flying,
+     Thousand-colored, herd-wise hieing
+     Through the moss and through the heather!
+
+     And the fire-flies wink and darkle,
+     Crowded swarms that soar and sparkle,
+     And in wildering escort gather!
+
+     Tell me, if we still are standing,
+     Or if further we’re ascending?
+     All is turning, whirling, blending,
+     Trees and rocks with grinning faces,
+     Wandering lights that spin in mazes,
+     Still increasing and expanding!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted!
+Here a middle-peak is planted,
+Whence one seeth, with amaze,
+Mammon in the mountain blaze.
+
+FAUST
+
+How strangely glimmers through the hollows
+A dreary light, like that of dawn!
+Its exhalation tracks and follows
+The deepest gorges, faint and wan.
+Here steam, there rolling vapor sweepeth;
+Here burns the glow through film and haze:
+Now like a tender thread it creepeth,
+Now like a fountain leaps and plays.
+Here winds away, and in a hundred
+Divided veins the valley braids:
+There, in a corner pressed and sundered,
+Itself detaches, spreads and fades.
+Here gush the sparkles incandescent
+Like scattered showers of golden sand;—
+But, see! in all their height, at present,
+The rocky ramparts blazing stand.
+
+[Illustration: _Under the old ribs of the rock retreating_,]
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Has not Sir Mammon grandly lighted
+His palace for this festal night?
+’Tis lucky thou hast seen the sight;
+The boisterous guests approach that were invited.
+
+FAUST
+
+How raves the tempest through the air!
+With what fierce blows upon my neck ’tis beating!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Under the old ribs of the rock retreating,
+Hold fast, lest thou be hurled down the abysses there!
+The night with the mist is black;
+Hark! how the forests grind and crack!
+Frightened, the owlets are scattered:
+Hearken! the pillars are shattered.
+The evergreen palaces shaking!
+Boughs are groaning and breaking,
+The tree-trunks terribly thunder,
+The roots are twisting asunder!
+In frightfully intricate crashing
+Each on the other is dashing,
+And over the wreck-strewn gorges
+The tempest whistles and surges!
+Hear’st thou voices higher ringing?
+Far away, or nearer singing?
+Yes, the mountain’s side along,
+Sweeps an infuriate glamouring song!
+
+WITCHES (_in chorus_)
+
+     The witches ride to the Brocken’s top,
+     The stubble is yellow, and green the crop.
+     There gathers the crowd for carnival:
+     Sir Urian sits over all.
+
+     And so they go over stone and stock;
+     The witch she——s, and——s the buck.
+
+A VOICE
+
+     Alone, old Baubo’s coming now;
+     She rides upon a farrow-sow.
+
+CHORUS
+
+     Then honor to whom the honor is due!
+     Dame Baubo first, to lead the crew!
+     A tough old sow and the mother thereon,
+     Then follow the witches, every one.
+
+A VOICE
+
+Which way com’st thou hither?
+
+VOICE
+
+O’er the Ilsen-stone.
+I peeped at the owl in her nest alone:
+How she stared and glared!
+
+VOICE
+
+Betake thee to Hell!
+Why so fast and so fell?
+
+VOICE
+
+She has scored and has flayed me:
+See the wounds she has made me!
+
+WITCHES (_chorus_)
+
+     The way is wide, the way is long:
+     See, what a wild and crazy throng!
+     The broom it scratches, the fork it thrusts,
+     The child is stifled, the mother bursts.
+WIZARDS (_semichorus_)
+
+     As doth the snail in shell, we crawl:
+     Before us go the women all.
+     When towards the Devil’s House we tread,
+     Woman’s a thousand steps ahead.
+
+OTHER SEMICHORUS
+
+     We do not measure with such care:
+     Woman in thousand steps is theft.
+     But howsoe’er she hasten may,
+     Man in one leap has cleared the way.
+
+VOICE (_from above_)
+
+Come on, come on, from Rocky Lake!
+
+VOICE (_from below_)
+
+Aloft we’d fain ourselves betake.
+We’ve washed, and are bright as ever you will,
+Yet we’re eternally sterile still.
+
+BOTH CHORUSES
+
+     The wind is hushed, the star shoots by.
+     The dreary moon forsakes the sky;
+     The magic notes, like spark on spark,
+     Drizzle, whistling through the dark.
+
+VOICE (_from below_)
+
+Halt, there! Ho, there!
+
+VOICE (_from above_)
+
+Who calls from the rocky cleft below there?
+
+VOICE (_below_)
+
+Take me, too! take me, too!
+I’m climbing now three hundred years,
+And yet the summit cannot see:
+Among my equals I would be.
+
+BOTH CHORUSES
+
+     Bears the broom and bears the stock,
+     Bears the fork and bears the buck:
+     Who cannot raise himself to-night
+     Is evermore a ruined wight.
+
+HALF-WITCH (_below_)
+
+So long I stumble, ill bestead,
+And the others are now so far ahead!
+At home I’ve neither rest nor cheer,
+And yet I cannot gain them here.
+
+CHORUS OF WITCHES
+
+     To cheer the witch will salve avail;
+     A rag will answer for a sail;
+     Each trough a goodly ship supplies;
+     He ne’er will fly, who now not flies.
+
+BOTH CHORUSES
+
+     When round the summit whirls our flight,
+     Then lower, and on the ground alight;
+     And far and wide the heather press
+     With witchhood’s swarms of wantonness!
+
+(_They settle down_.)
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+They crowd and push, they roar and clatter!
+They whirl and whistle, pull and chatter!
+They shine, and spirt, and stink, and burn!
+The true witch-element we learn.
+Keep close! or we are parted, in our turn,
+Where art thou?
+
+FAUST (_in the distance_)
+
+Here!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+What! whirled so far astray?
+Then house-right I must use, and clear the way.
+Make room! Squire Voland comes! Room, gentle rabble,
+room!
+
+Here, Doctor, hold to me: in one jump we’ll resume
+An easier space, and from the crowd be free:
+It’s too much, even for the like of me.
+Yonder, with special light, there’s something shining clearer
+Within those bushes; I’ve a mind to see.
+Come on! we’ll slip a little nearer.
+
+FAUST
+
+Spirit of Contradiction! On! I’ll follow straight.
+’Tis planned most wisely, if I judge aright:
+We climb the Brocken’s top in the Walpurgis-Night,
+That arbitrarily, here, ourselves we isolate.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+But see, what motley flames among the heather!
+There is a lively club together:
+In smaller circles one is not alone.
+
+FAUST
+
+Better the summit, I must own:
+There fire and whirling smoke I see.
+They seek the Evil One in wild confusion:
+Many enigmas there might find solution.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+But there enigmas also knotted be.
+Leave to the multitude their riot!
+Here will we house ourselves in quiet.
+It is an old, transmitted trade,
+That in the greater world the little worlds are made.
+I see stark-nude young witches congregate,
+And old ones, veiled and hidden shrewdly:
+On my account be kind, nor treat them rudely!
+The trouble’s small, the fun is great.
+I hear the noise of instruments attuning,—
+Vile din! yet one must learn to bear the crooning.
+Come, come along! It _must_ be, I declare!
+I’ll go ahead and introduce thee there,
+Thine obligation newly earning.
+That is no little space: what say’st thou, friend?
+Look yonder! thou canst scarcely see the end:
+A hundred fires along the ranks are burning.
+They dance, they chat, they cook, they drink, they court:
+Now where, just tell me, is there better sport?
+
+FAUST
+
+Wilt thou, to introduce us to the revel,
+Assume the part of wizard or of devil?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I’m mostly used, ’tis true, to go incognito,
+But on a gala-day one may his orders show.
+The Garter does not deck my suit,
+But honored and at home is here the cloven foot.
+Perceiv’st thou yonder snail? It cometh, slow and steady;
+So delicately its feelers pry,
+That it hath scented me already:
+I cannot here disguise me, if I try.
+But come! we’ll go from this fire to a newer:
+I am the go-between, and thou the wooer.
+
+(_To some, who are sitting around dying embers_:)
+
+Old gentlemen, why at the outskirts? Enter!
+I’d praise you if I found you snugly in the centre,
+With youth and revel round you like a zone:
+You each, at home, are quite enough alone.
+
+GENERAL
+
+Say, who would put his trust in nations,
+Howe’er for them one may have worked and planned?
+For with the people, as with women,
+Youth always has the upper hand.
+
+MINISTER
+
+They’re now too far from what is just and sage.
+I praise the old ones, not unduly:
+When we were all-in-all, then, truly,
+_Then_ was the real golden age.
+
+PARVENU
+
+We also were not stupid, either,
+And what we should not, often did;
+But now all things have from their bases slid,
+Just as we meant to hold them fast together.
+
+AUTHOR
+
+Who, now, a work of moderate sense will read?
+Such works are held as antiquate and mossy;
+And as regards the younger folk, indeed,
+They never yet have been so pert and saucy.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+(_who all at once appears very old_)
+
+I feel that men are ripe for Judgment-Day,
+Now for the last time I’ve the witches’-hill ascended:
+Since to the lees _my_ cask is drained away,
+The world’s, as well, must soon be ended.
+
+HUCKSTER-WITCH
+
+Ye gentlemen, don’t pass me thus!
+Let not the chance neglected be!
+Behold my wares attentively:
+The stock is rare and various.
+And yet, there’s nothing I’ve collected—
+No shop, on earth, like this you’ll find!—
+Which has not, once, sore hurt inflicted
+Upon the world, and on mankind.
+No dagger’s here, that set not blood to flowing;
+No cup, that hath not once, within a healthy frame
+Poured speedy death, in poison glowing:
+No gems, that have not brought a maid to shame;
+No sword, but severed ties for the unwary,
+Or from behind struck down the adversary.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Gossip! the times thou badly comprehendest:
+What’s done has happed—what haps, is done!
+’Twere better if for novelties thou sendest:
+By such alone can we be won.
+
+FAUST
+
+Let me not lose myself in all this pother!
+This is a fair, as never was another!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+The whirlpool swirls to get above:
+Thou’rt shoved thyself, imagining to shove.
+
+FAUST
+
+But who is that?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Note her especially,
+Tis Lilith.
+
+FAUST
+
+Who?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Adam’s first wife is she.
+Beware the lure within her lovely tresses,
+The splendid sole adornment of her hair!
+When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare,
+Not soon again she frees him from her jesses.
+
+FAUST
+
+Those two, the old one with the young one sitting,
+They’ve danced already more than fitting.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+No rest to-night for young or old!
+They start another dance: come now, let us take hold!
+
+FAUST (_dancing with the young witch_)
+
+     A lovely dream once came to me;
+     I then beheld an apple-tree,
+     And there two fairest apples shone:
+     They lured me so, I climbed thereon.
+
+THE FAIR ONE
+
+     Apples have been desired by you,
+     Since first in Paradise they grew;
+     And I am moved with joy, to know
+     That such within my garden grow.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_dancing with the old one_)
+
+     A dissolute dream once came to me:
+     Therein I saw a cloven tree,
+     Which had a————————;
+     Yet,——as ’twas, I fancied it.
+
+THE OLD ONE
+
+     I offer here my best salute
+     Unto the knight with cloven foot!
+     Let him a—————prepare,
+     If him—————————does not scare.
+
+PROKTOPHANTASMIST
+
+Accurséd folk! How dare you venture thus?
+Had you not, long since, demonstration
+That ghosts can’t stand on ordinary foundation?
+And now you even dance, like one of us!
+
+THE FAIR ONE (_dancing_)
+
+Why does he come, then, to our ball?
+
+FAUST (_dancing_)
+
+O, everywhere on him you fall!
+When others dance, he weighs the matter:
+If he can’t every step bechatter,
+Then ’tis the same as were the step not made;
+But if you forwards go, his ire is most displayed.
+If you would whirl in regular gyration
+As he does in his dull old mill,
+He’d show, at any rate, good-will,—
+Especially if you heard and heeded his hortation.
+
+PROKTOPHANTASMIST
+
+You still are here? Nay, ’tis a thing unheard!
+Vanish, at once! We’ve said the enlightening word.
+The pack of devils by no rules is daunted:
+We are so wise, and yet is Tegel haunted.
+To clear the folly out, how have I swept and stirred!
+Twill ne’er be clean: why, ’tis a thing unheard!
+
+THE FAIR ONE
+
+Then cease to bore us at our ball!
+
+PROKTOPHANTASMIST
+
+I tell you, spirits, to your face,
+I give to spirit-despotism no place;
+My spirit cannot practise it at all.
+
+(_The dance continues_)
+
+Naught will succeed, I see, amid such revels;
+Yet something from a tour I always save,
+And hope, before my last step to the grave,
+To overcome the poets and the devils.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+He now will seat him in the nearest puddle;
+The solace this, whereof he’s most assured:
+And when upon his rump the leeches hang and fuddle,
+He’ll be of spirits and of Spirit cured.
+
+(_To_ FAUST, _who has left the dance_:)
+
+Wherefore forsakest thou the lovely maiden,
+That in the dance so sweetly sang?
+
+FAUST
+
+Ah! in the midst of it there sprang
+A red mouse from her mouth—sufficient reason.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+That’s nothing! One must not so squeamish be;
+So the mouse was not gray, enough for thee.
+Who’d think of that in love’s selected season?
+
+FAUST
+
+Then saw I—.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+What?
+
+FAUST
+
+Mephisto, seest thou there,
+Alone and far, a girl most pale and fair?
+She falters on, her way scarce knowing,
+As if with fettered feet that stay her going.
+I must confess, it seems to me
+As if my kindly Margaret were she.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Let the thing be! All thence have evil drawn:
+It is a magic shape, a lifeless eidolon.
+Such to encounter is not good:
+Their blank, set stare benumbs the human blood,
+And one is almost turned to stone.
+Medusa’s tale to thee is known.
+
+FAUST
+
+Forsooth, the eyes they are of one whom, dying,
+No hand with loving pressure closed;
+That is the breast whereon I once was lying,—
+The body sweet, beside which I reposed!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Tis magic all, thou fool, seduced so easily!
+Unto each man his love she seems to be.
+
+FAUST
+
+The woe, the rapture, so ensnare me,
+That from her gaze I cannot tear me!
+And, strange! around her fairest throat
+A single scarlet band is gleaming,
+No broader than a knife-blade seeming!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Quite right! The mark I also note.
+Her head beneath her arm she’ll sometimes carry;
+Twas Perseus lopped it, her old adversary.
+Thou crav’st the same illusion still!
+Come, let us mount this little hill;
+The Prater shows no livelier stir,
+And, if they’ve not bewitched my sense,
+I verily see a theatre.
+What’s going on?
+
+SERVIBILIS
+                 ’Twill shortly recommence:
+A new performance—’tis the last of seven.
+To give that number is the custom here:
+’Twas by a Dilettante written,
+And Dilettanti in the parts appear.
+That now I vanish, pardon, I entreat you!
+As Dilettante I the curtain raise.
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+When I upon the Blocksberg meet you,
+I find it good: for that’s your proper place.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+WALPURGIS-NIGHT’S DREAM
+
+OBERON AND TITANIA’s GOLDEN WEDDING
+
+INTERMEZZO
+
+MANAGER
+
+Sons of Mieding, rest to-day!
+Needless your machinery:
+Misty vale and mountain gray,
+That is all the scenery.
+
+HERALD
+
+That the wedding golden be.
+Must fifty years be rounded:
+But _the Golden_ give to me,
+When the strife’s compounded.
+
+OBERON
+
+Spirits, if you’re here, be seen—
+Show yourselves, delighted!
+Fairy king and fairy queen,
+They are newly plighted.
+
+PUCK
+
+Cometh Puck, and, light of limb,
+Whisks and whirls in measure:
+Come a hundred after him,
+To share with him the pleasure.
+
+ARIEL
+
+Ariel’s song is heavenly-pure,
+His tones are sweet and rare ones:
+Though ugly faces he allure,
+Yet he allures the fair ones.
+
+OBERON
+
+Spouses, who would fain agree,
+Learn how we were mated!
+If your pairs would loving be,
+First be separated!
+
+TITANIA
+
+If her whims the wife control,
+And the man berate her,
+Take him to the Northern Pole,
+And her to the Equator!
+
+ORCHESTRA. TUTTI.
+
+_Fortissimo_.
+
+Snout of fly, mosquito-bill,
+And kin of all conditions,
+Frog in grass, and cricket-trill,—
+These are the musicians!
+
+SOLO
+
+See the bagpipe on our track!
+’Tis the soap-blown bubble:
+Hear the _schnecke-schnicke-schnack_
+Through his nostrils double!
+
+SPIRIT, JUST GROWING INTO FORM
+
+Spider’s foot and paunch of toad,
+And little wings—we know ’em!
+A little creature ’twill not be,
+But yet, a little poem.
+
+A LITTLE COUPLE
+
+Little step and lofty leap
+Through honey-dew and fragrance:
+You’ll never mount the airy steep
+With all your tripping vagrance.
+
+INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER
+
+Is’t but masquerading play?
+See I with precision?
+Oberon, the beauteous fay,
+Meets, to-night, my vision!
+
+ORTHODOX
+
+Not a claw, no tail I see!
+And yet, beyond a cavil,
+Like “the Gods of Greece,” must he
+Also be a devil.
+
+NORTHERN ARTIST
+
+I only seize, with sketchy air,
+Some outlines of the tourney;
+Yet I betimes myself prepare
+For my Italian journey.
+
+PURIST
+
+My bad luck brings me here, alas!
+How roars the orgy louder!
+And of the witches in the mass,
+But only two wear powder.
+
+YOUNG WITCH
+
+Powder becomes, like petticoat,
+A gray and wrinkled noddy;
+So I sit naked on my goat,
+And show a strapping body.
+
+MATRON
+
+We’ve too much tact and policy
+To rate with gibes a scolder;
+Yet, young and tender though you be,
+I hope to see you moulder.
+
+LEADER OF THE BAND
+
+Fly-snout and mosquito-bill,
+Don’t swarm so round the Naked!
+Frog in grass and cricket-trill,
+Observe the time, and make it!
+
+WEATHERCOCK (_towards one side_)
+
+Society to one’s desire!
+Brides only, and the sweetest!
+And bachelors of youth and fire.
+And prospects the completest!
+
+WEATHERCOCK (_towards the other side_)
+
+And if the Earth don’t open now
+To swallow up each ranter,
+Why, then will I myself, I vow,
+Jump into hell instanter!
+
+XENIES
+
+Us as little insects see!
+With sharpest nippers flitting,
+That our Papa Satan we
+May honor as is fitting.
+
+HENNINGS
+
+How, in crowds together massed,
+They are jesting, shameless!
+They will even say, at last,
+That their hearts are blameless.
+
+MUSAGETES
+
+Among this witches’ revelry
+His way one gladly loses;
+And, truly, it would easier be
+Than to command the Muses.
+
+CI-DEVANT GENIUS OF THE AGE
+
+The proper folks one’s talents laud:
+Come on, and none shall pass us!
+The Blocksberg has a summit broad,
+Like Germany’s Parnassus.
+
+INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER
+
+Say, who’s the stiff and pompous man?
+He walks with haughty paces:
+He snuffles all he snuffle can:
+“He scents the Jesuits’ traces.”
+
+CRANE
+
+Both clear and muddy streams, for me
+Are good to fish and sport in:
+And thus the pious man you see
+With even devils consorting.
+
+WORLDLING
+
+Yes, for the pious, I suspect,
+All instruments are fitting;
+And on the Blocksberg they erect
+Full many a place of meeting.
+
+DANCER
+
+A newer chorus now succeeds!
+I hear the distant drumming.
+“Don’t be disturbed! ’tis, in the reeds,
+The bittern’s changeless booming.”
+
+DANCING-MASTER
+
+How each his legs in nimble trip
+Lifts up, and makes a clearance!
+The crooked jump, the heavy skip,
+Nor care for the appearance.
+
+GOOD FELLOW
+
+The rabble by such hate are held,
+To maim and slay delights them:
+As Orpheus’ lyre the brutes compelled,
+The bagpipe here unites them.
+
+DOGMATIST
+
+I’ll not be led by any lure
+Of doubts or critic-cavils:
+The Devil must be something, sure,—
+Or how should there be devils?
+
+IDEALIST
+
+This once, the fancy wrought in me
+Is really too despotic:
+Forsooth, if I am all I see,
+I must be idiotic!
+
+REALIST
+
+This racking fuss on every hand,
+It gives me great vexation;
+And, for the first time, here I stand
+On insecure foundation.
+
+SUPERNATURALIST
+
+With much delight I see the play,
+And grant to these their merits,
+Since from the devils I also may
+Infer the better spirits.
+
+SCEPTIC
+
+The flame they follow, on and on,
+And think they’re near the treasure:
+But _Devil_ rhymes with _Doubt_ alone,
+So I am here with pleasure.
+
+LEADER OF THE BAND
+
+Frog in green, and cricket-trill.
+Such dilettants!—perdition!
+Fly-snout and mosquito-bill,—
+Each one’s a fine musician!
+
+THE ADROIT
+
+_Sans souci_, we call the clan
+Of merry creatures so, then;
+Go a-foot no more we can,
+And on our heads we go, then.
+
+THE AWKWARD
+
+Once many a bit we sponged, but now,
+God help us! that is done with:
+Our shoes are all danced out, we trow,
+We’ve but naked soles to run with.
+
+WILL-O’-THE WISPS
+
+From the marshes we appear,
+Where we originated;
+Yet in the ranks, at once, we’re here
+As glittering gallants rated.
+
+SHOOTING-STAR
+
+Darting hither from the sky,
+In star and fire light shooting,
+Cross-wise now in grass I lie:
+Who’ll help me to my footing?
+
+THE HEAVY FELLOWS
+
+Room! and round about us, room!
+Trodden are the grasses:
+Spirits also, spirits come,
+And they are bulky masses.
+
+PUCK
+
+Enter not so stall-fed quite,
+Like elephant-calves about one!
+And the heaviest weight to-night
+Be Puck, himself, the stout one!
+
+ARIEL
+
+If loving Nature at your back,
+Or Mind, the wings uncloses,
+Follow up my airy track
+To the mount of roses!
+
+ORCHESTRA
+
+_pianissimo_
+Cloud and trailing mist o’erhead
+Are now illuminated:
+Air in leaves, and wind in reed,
+And all is dissipated.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+DREARY DAY
+
+A FIELD
+
+FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+FAUST
+
+In misery! In despair! Long wretchedly astray on the face of the earth,
+and now imprisoned! That gracious, ill-starred creature shut in a
+dungeon as a criminal, and given up to fearful torments! To this has it
+come! to this!—Treacherous, contemptible spirit, and thou hast
+concealed it from me!—Stand, then,—stand! Roll the devilish eyes
+wrathfully in thy head! Stand and defy me with thine intolerable
+presence! Imprisoned! In irretrievable misery! Delivered up to evil
+spirits, and to condemning, unfeeling Man! And thou hast lulled me,
+meanwhile, with the most insipid dissipations, hast concealed from me
+her increasing wretchedness, and suffered her to go helplessly to ruin!
+[Illustration: _Roll the devilish eyes wrathfully in thy head_]
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+She is not the first.
+
+FAUST
+
+Dog! Abominable monster! Transform him, thou Infinite Spirit! transform
+the reptile again into his dog-shape? in which it pleased him often at
+night to scamper on before me, to roll himself at the feet of the
+unsuspecting wanderer, and hang upon his shoulders when he fell!
+Transform him again into his favorite likeness, that he may crawl upon
+his belly in the dust before me,—that I may trample him, the outlawed,
+under foot! Not the first! O woe! woe which no human soul can grasp,
+that more than one being should sink into the depths of this
+misery,—that the first, in its writhing death-agony under the eyes of
+the Eternal Forgiver, did not expiate the guilt of all others! The
+misery of this single one pierces to the very marrow of my life; and
+thou art calmly grinning at the fate of thousands!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Now we are already again at the end of our wits, where the understanding
+of you men runs wild. Why didst thou enter into fellowship with us, if
+thou canst not carry it out? Wilt fly, and art not secure against
+dizziness? Did we thrust ourselves upon thee, or thou thyself upon us?
+
+FAUST
+
+Gnash not thus thy devouring teeth at me? It fills me with horrible
+disgust. Mighty, glorious Spirit, who hast vouchsafed to me Thine
+apparition, who knowest my heart and my soul, why fetter me to the
+felon-comrade, who feeds on mischief and gluts himself with ruin?
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+Hast thou done?
+
+FAUST
+
+Rescue her, or woe to thee! The fearfullest curse be upon thee for
+thousands of ages!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I cannot loosen the bonds of the Avenger, nor undo his bolts. Rescue
+her? Who was it that plunged her into ruin? I, or thou?
+
+(FAUST _looks around wildly_.)
+
+Wilt thou grasp the thunder? Well that it has not been given to you,
+miserable mortals! To crush to pieces the innocent respondent—that is
+the tyrant-fashion of relieving one’s self in embarrassments.
+
+FAUST
+
+Take me thither! She shall be free!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+And the danger to which thou wilt expose thyself? Know that the guilt of
+blood, from thy hand, still lies upon the town! Avenging spirits hover
+over the spot where the victim fell, and lie in wait for the returning
+murderer.
+
+FAUST
+
+That, too, from thee? Murder and death of a world upon thee, monster!
+Take me thither, I say, and liberate her!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I will convey thee there; and hear, what I can do! Have I all the power
+in Heaven and on Earth? I will becloud the jailer’s senses: get
+possession of the key, and lead her forth with human hand! I will keep
+watch: the magic steeds are ready, I will carry you off. So much is in
+my power.
+
+FAUST
+
+Up and away!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+NIGHT
+
+OPEN FIELD
+
+(FAUST _and_ MEPHISTOPHELES _speeding onward on black horses_.)
+
+
+FAUST
+
+What weave they there round the raven-stone?
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+I know not what they are brewing and doing.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Soaring up, sweeping down, bowing and bending!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+A witches’-guild.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+They scatter, devote and doom!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+On! on!
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+DUNGEON
+
+FAUST
+
+(_with a bunch of keys and a lamp, before an iron door_)
+
+A shudder, long unfelt, comes o’er me;
+Mankind’s collected woe o’erwhelms me, here.
+She dwells within the dark, damp walls before me,
+And all her crime was a delusion dear!
+What! I delay to free her?
+I dread, once again to see her?
+On! my shrinking but lingers Death more near.
+
+(_He grasps the lock: the sound of singing is heard inside_.)
+
+     _My mother, the harlot,
+     Who put me to death;
+     My father, the varlet,
+     Who eaten me hath!
+     Little sister, so good,
+     Laid my bones in the wood,
+     In the damp moss and clay:_
+     _Then was I a beautiful bird o’ the wood;
+     Fly away! Fly away_!
+
+FAUST _(unlocking)_
+
+She does not dream her lover listens near;
+That he the rattling chain, the rustling straw, can hear.
+
+_(He enters_.)
+
+MARGARET (_hiding herself on the pallet_)
+Woe! woe! They come. O death of bitterness!
+
+FAUST (_whispering_)
+Hush! hush! The hour is come that frees thee.
+
+MARGARET (_throwing herself before him_)
+Art thou a man, then pity my distress!
+
+FAUST
+Thy cries will wake the guards, and they will seize thee!
+(_He takes hold of the fetters to unlock them_.)
+
+MARGARET (_on her knees_)
+
+Who, headsman! unto thee such power
+Over me could give?
+Thou’rt come for me at midnight-hour:
+Have mercy on me, let me live!
+Is’t not soon enough when morning chime has run?
+
+(_She rises_.)
+
+And I am yet so young, so young!
+And now Death comes, and ruin!
+I, too, was fair, and that was my undoing.
+My love was near, but now he’s far;
+Torn lies the wreath, scattered the blossoms are.
+Seize me not thus so violently!
+Spare me! What have I done to thee?
+Let me not vainly entreat thee!
+I never chanced, in all my days, to meet thee!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Shall I outlive this misery?
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Now am I wholly in thy might.
+But let me suckle, first, my baby!
+I blissed it all this livelong night;
+They took ’t away, to vex me, maybe,
+And now they say I killed the child outright.
+And never shall I be glad again.
+They sing songs about me! ’tis bad of the folk to do it!
+There’s an old story has the same refrain;
+Who bade them so construe it?
+
+
+FAUST (_falling upon his knees_)
+
+Here lieth one who loves thee ever,
+The thraldom of thy woe to sever.
+
+
+MARGARET (_flinging herself beside him_)
+
+O let us kneel, and call the Saints to hide us!
+Under the steps beside us,
+The threshold under,
+Hell heaves in thunder!
+The Evil One
+With terrible wrath
+Seeketh a path
+His prey to discover!
+
+FAUST (_aloud_)
+
+Margaret! Margaret!
+
+
+MARGARET (_attentively listening_)
+
+That was the voice of my lover!
+
+(_She springs to her feet: the fetters fall off_.)
+
+Where is he? I heard him call me.
+I am free! No one shall enthrall me.
+To his neck will I fly,
+On his bosom lie!
+On the threshold he stood, and _Margaret_! calling,
+Midst of Hell’s howling and noises appalling,
+Midst of the wrathful, infernal derision,
+I knew the sweet sound of the voice of the vision!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+’Tis I!
+
+MARGARET
+
+      ’Tis thou! O, say it once again!
+
+    (_Clasping him_.)
+
+’Tis he! ’tis he! Where now is all my pain?
+The anguish of the dungeon, and the chain?
+’Tis thou! Thou comest to save me,
+And I am saved!—
+Again the street I see
+Where first I looked on thee;
+And the garden, brightly blooming,
+Where I and Martha wait thy coming.
+
+
+FAUST (_struggling to leave_)
+
+Come! Come with me!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+                    Delay, now!
+So fain I stay, when thou delayest!
+
+  (_Caressing him_.)
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Away, now!
+If longer here thou stayest,
+We shall be made to dearly rue it.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Kiss me!—canst no longer do it?
+My friend, so short a time thou’rt missing,
+And hast unlearned thy kissing?
+Why is my heart so anxious, on thy breast?
+Where once a heaven thy glances did create me,
+A heaven thy loving words expressed,
+And thou didst kiss, as thou wouldst suffocate me—
+Kiss me!
+Or I’ll kiss thee!
+
+(_She embraces him_.)
+
+Ah, woe! thy lips are chill,
+And still.
+How changed in fashion
+Thy passion!
+Who has done me this ill?
+
+(_She turns away from him_.)
+
+FAUST
+
+Come, follow me! My darling, be more bold:
+I’ll clasp thee, soon, with warmth a thousand-fold;
+But follow now! ’Tis all I beg of thee.
+
+MARGARET (_turning to him_)
+
+And is it thou? Thou, surely, certainly?
+
+FAUST
+
+’Tis I! Come on!
+
+MARGARET
+
+Thou wilt unloose my chain,
+And in thy lap wilt take me once again.
+How comes it that thou dost not shrink from me?—
+Say, dost thou know, my friend, whom thou mak’st free?
+
+FAUST
+
+Come! come! The night already vanisheth.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+My mother have I put to death;
+I’ve drowned the baby born to thee.
+Was it not given to thee and me?
+Thee, too!—’Tis thou! It scarcely true doth seem—
+Give me thy hand! ’Tis not a dream!
+Thy dear, dear hand!—But, ah, ’tis wet!
+Why, wipe it off! Methinks that yet
+There’s blood thereon.
+Ah, God! what hast thou done?
+Nay, sheathe thy sword at last!
+Do not affray me!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+O, let the past be past!
+Thy words will slay me!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+No, no! Thou must outlive us.
+Now I’ll tell thee the graves to give us:
+Thou must begin to-morrow
+The work of sorrow!
+The best place give to my mother,
+Then close at her side my brother,
+And me a little away,
+But not too very far, I pray!
+And here, on my right breast, my baby lay!
+Nobody else will lie beside me!—
+Ah, within thine arms to hide me,
+That was a sweet and a gracious bliss,
+But no more, no more can I attain it!
+I would force myself on thee and constrain it,
+And it seems thou repellest my kiss:
+And yet ’tis thou, so good, so kind to see!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+If thou feel’st it is I, then come with me!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Out yonder?
+
+
+FAUST
+
+To freedom.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+  If the grave is there,
+Death lying in wait, then come!
+From here to eternal rest:
+No further step—no, no!
+Thou goest away! O Henry, if I could go!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou canst! Just will it! Open stands the door.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+I dare not go: there’s no hope any more.
+Why should I fly? They’ll still my steps waylay!
+It is so wretched, forced to beg my living,
+And a bad conscience sharper misery giving!
+It is so wretched, to be strange, forsaken,
+And I’d still be followed and taken!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+I’ll stay with thee.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Be quick! Be quick!
+Save thy perishing child!
+Away! Follow the ridge
+Up by the brook,
+
+[Illustration: _=If the grave is there,
+Death lying in wait, then come=_!]
+
+Over the bridge,
+Into the wood,
+To the left, where the plank is placed
+In the pool!
+Seize it in haste!
+’Tis trying to rise,
+’Tis struggling still!
+Save it! Save it!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Recall thy wandering will!
+One step, and thou art free at last!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+If the mountain we had only passed!
+There sits my mother upon a stone,—
+I feel an icy shiver!
+There sits my mother upon a stone,
+And her head is wagging ever.
+She beckons, she nods not, her heavy head falls o’er;
+She slept so long that she wakes no more.
+She slept, while we were caressing:
+Ah, those were the days of blessing!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Here words and prayers are nothing worth;
+I’ll venture, then, to bear thee forth.
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+No—let me go! I’ll suffer no force!
+Grasp me not so murderously!
+I’ve done, else, all things for the love of thee.
+
+
+FAUST
+
+The day dawns: Dearest! Dearest!
+
+MARGARET
+
+Day? Yes, the day comes,—the last day breaks for me!
+My wedding-day it was to be!
+Tell no one thou has been with Margaret!
+Woe for my garland! The chances
+Are over—’tis all in vain!
+We shall meet once again,
+But not at the dances!
+The crowd is thronging, no word is spoken:
+The square below
+And the streets overflow:
+The death-bell tolls, the wand is broken.
+I am seized, and bound, and delivered—
+Shoved to the block—they give the sign!
+Now over each neck has quivered
+The blade that is quivering over mine.
+Dumb lies the world like the grave!
+
+FAUST
+
+O had I ne’er been born!
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_appears outside_)
+
+Off! or you’re lost ere morn.
+Useless talking, delaying and praying!
+My horses are neighing:
+The morning twilight is near.
+
+MARGARET
+
+What rises up from the threshold here?
+He! he! suffer him not!
+What does he want in this holy spot?
+He seeks me!
+
+
+FAUST
+
+Thou shalt live.
+
+MARGARET
+
+Judgment of God! myself to thee I give.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+Come! or I’ll leave her in the lurch, and thee!
+
+
+MARGARET
+
+Thine am I, Father! rescue me!
+Ye angels, holy cohorts, guard me,
+Camp around, and from evil ward me!
+Henry! I shudder to think of thee.
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES
+
+She is judged!
+
+
+VOICE (_from above_)
+
+         She is saved!
+
+
+MEPHISTOPHELES (_to_ FAUST)
+
+                     Hither to me!
+
+(_He disappears with_ FAUST.)
+
+
+VOICE (_from within, dying away_)
+
+Henry! Henry!
+
+[illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14591 ***