8016 lines
200 KiB
Plaintext
8016 lines
200 KiB
Plaintext
Dedication
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Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms,
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Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision.
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Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more?
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Heart’s willing still to suffer that illusion?
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5 You crowd so near! Well then, you shall endure,
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And rouse me, from your mist and cloud’s confusion:
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My spirit feels so young again: it’s shaken
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By magic breezes that your breathings waken.
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You bring with you the sight of joyful days,
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10 And many a loved shade rises to the eye:
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And like some other half-forgotten phrase,
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First Love returns, and Friendship too is nigh:
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Pain is renewed, and sorrow: all the ways,
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Life wanders in its labyrinthine flight,
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15 Naming the good, those that Fate has robbed
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Of lovely hours, those slipped from me and lost.
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They can no longer hear this latest song,
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Spirits, to whom I gave my early singing:
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That kindly crowd itself is now long gone,
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20 Alas, it dies away, that first loud ringing!
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I bring my verses to the unknown throng,
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My heart’s made anxious even by their clapping,
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And those besides delighted by my verse,
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If they still live, are scattered through the Earth.
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25 I feel a long and unresolved desire
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For that serene and solemn land of ghosts:
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It quivers now, like an Aeolian lyre,
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My stuttering verse, with its uncertain notes,
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A shudder takes me: tear on tear, entire,
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30 The firm heart feels weakened and remote:
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What I possess seems far away from me,
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And what is gone becomes reality.
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Prelude On Stage
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(Director, Dramatist, Comedian)
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Director
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You two, who’ve often stood by me,
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In times of need, when trouble’s breaking,
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35 Say what success our undertaking
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Will meet with, then, in Germany?
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I’d rather like the crowd to enjoy it,
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Since they live and let live, truly.
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The stage is set, the boards complete,
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40 And they await our festivity.
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They’re seated already, eyebrows raised,
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Calmly hoping they’ll be amazed.
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I know how to make the people happy:
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But I’ve never been so embarrassed: not
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45 That they’ve been used to the best, you see,
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Yet they’ve all read such a dreadful lot.
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How can we make it all seem fresh and new,
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Weighty, but entertaining too?
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I’d love to see a joyful crowd, that’s certain,
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50 When the waves drive them to our place,
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And with tremendous and repeated surging,
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Squeeze them through the narrow gate of grace:
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In the light of day they’re there already,
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Pushing, till they’ve reached the window,
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55 As if they’re at the baker’s, starving, nearly
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Breaking their necks: just for a ticket. Oh!
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Only poets can work this miracle on men
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So various: the day is yours, my friend!
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Dramatist
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O, don’t speak to me of that varied crew,
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60 The sight of whom makes inspiration fade.
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Veil, from me, the surging multitude,
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Whose whirling will drives us everyway.
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No, some heavenly silence lead me to,
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Where for the poet alone pure joy’s at play:
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65 Where Love and Friendship too grace our hearts,
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Created and inspired by heavenly arts.
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Ah! What springs here from our deepest being,
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What the shy trembling lips in speaking meant,
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Now falling awry, and now perhaps succeeding,
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70 Is swallowed in the fierce Moment’s violence.
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Often, when the first years are done, unseeing,
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It appears at last, complete, in deepest sense.
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What dazzles is a Momentary act:
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What’s true is left for posterity, intact.
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Comedian
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75 Don’t speak about posterity to me!
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If I went on about posterity,
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Where would you get your worldly fun?
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Folk want it, and they’ll still have some.
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The presence of a fine young man
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80 Is nice, I think, for everyone.
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Who, comfortably, shares his wit,
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And to their moods takes no exception:
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He’ll make himself a greater hit,
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And win a more secure reception.
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85 Be brave, and show them what you’ve got,
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Have Fantasy with all her chorus, yes,
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Mind, Reason, Passion, Tears, the lot,
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But don’t you leave out Foolishness.
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Director
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Make sure, above all, plenty’s happening there!
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90 They come to look, and then they want to stare.
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Spin endlessly before their faces,
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So the people gape amazed,
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You’ve won them by your many paces,
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You’ll be the man most praised.
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95 The mass are only moved by things en masse,
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Each one, himself, will choose the bit he needs:
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Who brings a lot, brings something that will pass:
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And everyone goes home contentedly.
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You’ll give a piece, why then give it them in pieces!
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100 With such a stew you’re destined for success.
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Easy to serve, it’s as easy to invent.
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What use to bring them your complete intent?
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The Public will soon pick at what you’ve dressed.
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Dramatist
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You don’t see how badly such work will do!
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105 How little it suits the genuine creator!
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Already, I see, it’s a principle with you.
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The finest master is a sloppy worker.
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Director
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Such a reproach leaves me unmoved:
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The man who seeks to be approved,
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110 Must stick to the best tools for it,
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Think, soft wood’s the best to split,
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And have a look for whom you write!
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See, this is one that boredom drives,
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Another’s from some overloaded table,
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115 Or, worst of all, he’s one arrives,
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Like most, fresh from the daily paper.
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They rush here mindlessly, as to a Masque,
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And curiosity inspires their hurry:
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The ladies bring themselves, and in their best,
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120 Come and play their parts and ask no fee.
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What dream of yours is this, exalted verse?
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Doesn’t a full house make you happy?
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Have a good look at your patrons first!
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One half are coarse, the rest are chilly.
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125 After the show he hopes for card-play:
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He hopes for a wild night, and a woman’s kiss.
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Why then do so many poor fools plague,
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The sweet Muse, for such a goal as this?
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I tell you, just give them more and more,
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130 So you’ll never stray far from the mark,
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Just seek to confuse them, in the dark:
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To keep them happy, that’s hard - for sure.
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And now what’s wrong? Delight or Pain?
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Dramatist
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Go, look for another scribbler by night!
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135 Shall the poet throw away the highest right,
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The right of humanity, that Nature gave,
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Carelessly, so that you might gain!
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How will he move all hearts again?
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How will each element be his slave?
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140 Is that harmony nothing, from his breast unfurled,
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That draws back into his own heart, the world?
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When Nature winds the lengthened filaments,
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Indifferently, on her eternal spindle,
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When all the tuneless mass of elements,
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145 In their sullen discord, jar and jangle –
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Who parts the ever-flowing ranks of creation,
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Stirs them, so rhythmic measure is assured?
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Who calls the One to general ordination,
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Where it may ring in marvellous accord?
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150 Who lets the storm wind rage with passion,
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The sunset glow the senses move?
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Who scatters every lovely springtime blossom
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Beneath the footsteps of the one we love?
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Who weaves the slight green wreath of leaves,
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155 To honour work well done in every art?
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What makes Olympus sure, joins deities?
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The power of Man, revealed by the bard.
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Comedian
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So use it then, all this fine energy,
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And drive along the work of poetry,
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160 To show how we are driven in Love’s play.
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By chance we meet, we feel, we stay,
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And bit by bit we’re tightly bound:
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Happiness grows, and then it’s fenced around:
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We’re all inflamed then comes the sorrowing:
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165 Before you know it, there’s a novel brewing!
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Why don’t we give such a piece!
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Grasp the life of man complete!
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Everyone lives, though it’s seldom confessed,
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And wherever you grasp, there’s interest.
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170 In varied pictures there’s little light,
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A lot of error, and a gleam of right,
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So the best of drinks is brewed,
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So the world’s cheered and renewed.
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Then see the flower of lovely youth collect,
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175 To hear your words, and view the offering,
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And every tender nature will extract
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A melancholy food from what you bring,
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They’ll gain now this and that from your art,
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So each sees what is present in their heart.
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180 They’re readily moved to weeping or to laughter,
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They’ll admire your verve, and enjoy the show:
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What’s finished you can never alter after:
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Minds still in growth will be grateful, though.
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Dramatist
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So give me back that time again,
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185 When I was still ‘becoming’,
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When words gushed like a fountain
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In new, and endless flowing,
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Then for me mists veiled the world,
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In every bud the wonder glowed,
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190 A thousand flowers I unfurled,
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That every valley, richly, showed.
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I had nothing, yet enough:
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Joy in illusion, thirst for truth.
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Give every passion, free to move,
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195 The deepest bliss, filled with pain,
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The force of hate, the power of love,
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Oh, give me back my youth again!
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Comedian
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Youth is what you need, dear friend,
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When enemies jostle you, of course,
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200 And girls, filled with desire, bend
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Their arms around your neck, with force,
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When the swift-run race’s garland
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Beckons from the hard-won goal,
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When from the swirling dance, a man
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205 Drinks until the night is old.
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But to play that well-known lyre
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With courage and with grace,
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Moved by self-imposed desire,
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At a sweet wandering pace,
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210 That is your function, Age,
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And our respect won’t lessen.
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Age doesn’t make us childish, as they say,
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It finds that we’re still children.
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Director
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That’s enough words for the moment,
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215 Now let me see some action!
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While you’re handing out the compliments,
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You should also make things happen.
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Why talk so much of inspiration?
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Delay won’t make it flow, you see.
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220 Since Poetry gave the gift of creation,
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Take your orders then from Poetry.
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You know what’s wanted here,
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We need strong ale to appear:
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So brew me a barrel right away!
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225 Tomorrow won’t do what’s undone today,
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We shouldn’t waste a minute, so
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Decide what’s possible, and just
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Grasp it firmly like a hoe,
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Make sure that you let nothing go,
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230 And work it about, because you must.
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On the German stage, you see,
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Everyone tries out what he can:
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Don’t fail to show me, I’m your man,
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Your trap-doors, and your scenery.
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235 Use heavenly lights, the big and small,
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Squander stars in any number,
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Rocky cliffs, and fire, and water,
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Birds and creatures, use them all.
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So in our narrow playhouse waken
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240 The whole wide circle of creation,
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And stride, deliberately, as well,
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From Heaven, through the world, to Hell.
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Prologue In Heaven
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(God, the Heavenly Hosts, and then Mephistopheles.)
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(The Three Archangels step forward.)
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Raphael
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The Sun sings out, in ancient mode,
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His note among his brother-spheres,
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245 And ends his pre-determined road,
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With peals of thunder for our ears.
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The sight of him gives Angels power,
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Though none can understand the way:
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The inconceivable work is ours,
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250 As bright as on the primal day.
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Gabriel
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And swift, and swift, beyond conceiving,
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The splendour of the Earth turns round,
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A Paradisial light is interleaving,
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With night’s awesome profound.
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255 The ocean breaks with shining foam,
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Against the rocky cliffs deep base,
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And rock and ocean whirl and go,
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In the spheres’ swift eternal race.
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Michael
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And storms are roaring in their race
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260 From sea to land, and land to sea,
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Their raging forms a fierce embrace,
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All round, of deepest energy.
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The lightning’s devastations blaze
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Along the thunder-crashes’ way:
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265 Yet, Lord, your messengers, shall praise
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The gentle passage of your day.
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All Three
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The sight of it gives Angels power
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Though none can understand the way,
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And all your noble work is ours,
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270 As bright as on the primal day.
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Mephistopheles
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Since, O Lord, you near me once again,
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To ask how all below is doing now,
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And usually receive me without pain,
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You see me too among the vile crowd.
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275 Forgive me: I can’t speak in noble style,
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And since I’m still reviled by this whole crew,
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My pathos would be sure to make you smile,
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If you had not renounced all laughter too.
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You’ll get no word of suns and worlds from me.
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280 How men torment themselves is all I see.
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The little god of Earth sticks to the same old way,
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And is as strange as on that very first day.
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He might appreciate life a little more: he might,
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If you hadn’t lent him a gleam of Heavenly light:
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285 He calls it Reason, but only uses it
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To be more a beast than any beast as yet.
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He seems to me, saving Your Grace,
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Like a long-legged grasshopper: through space
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He’s always flying: he flies and then he springs,
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290 And in the grass the same old song he sings.
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If he’d just lie there in the grass it wouldn’t hurt!
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But he buries his nose in every piece of dirt.
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God
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Have you nothing else to name?
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Do you always come here to complain?
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295 Does nothing ever go right on the Earth?
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Mephistopheles
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No, Lord! I find, as always, it couldn’t be worse.
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I’m so involved with Man’s wretched ways,
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I’ve even stopped plaguing them, myself, these days.
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God
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Do you know, Faust?
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Mephistopheles
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The Doctor?
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God
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My servant, first!
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Mephistopheles
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300 In truth! He serves you in a peculiar manner.
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There’s no earthly food or drink at that fool’s dinner.
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He drives his spirit outwards, far,
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Half-conscious of its maddened dart:
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From Heaven demands the brightest star,
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305 And from the Earth, Joy’s highest art,
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And all the near and all the far,
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Fails to release his throbbing heart.
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God
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Though he’s still confused at how to serve me,
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I’ll soon lead him to a clearer dawning,
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310 In the green sapling, can’t the gardener see
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The flowers and fruit the coming years will bring.
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Mephistopheles
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What do you wager? I might win him yet!
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If you give me your permission first,
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I’ll lead him gently on the road I set.
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God
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315 As long as he’s alive on Earth,
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So long as that I won’t forbid it,
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For while man strives he errs.
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Mephistopheles
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My thanks: I’ve never willingly seen fit
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To spend my time amongst the dead,
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320 I much prefer fresh cheeks instead.
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To corpses, I close up my house:
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Or it’s too like a cat with a mouse.
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God
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Well and good, you’ve said what’s needed!
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Divert this spirit from his source,
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You know how to trap him, lead him,
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325 On your downward course,
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And when you must, then stand, amazed:
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A good man, in his darkest yearning,
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Is still aware of virtue’s ways.
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Mephistopheles
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330 That’s fine! There’s hardly any waiting.
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My wager’s more than safe I’m thinking.
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When I achieve my goal, in winning,
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You’ll let me triumph with a swelling heart.
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He’ll eat the dust, and with an art,
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335 Like the snake my mother, known for sinning.
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God
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You can appear freely too:
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Those like you I’ve never hated.
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Of all the spirits who deny, it’s you,
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The jester, who’s most lightly weighted.
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340 Man’s energies all too soon seek the level,
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He quickly desires unbroken slumber,
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So I gave him you to join the number,
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To move, and work, and play the devil.
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But you the genuine sons of light,
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345 Enjoy the living beauty bright!
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Becoming, that works and lives forever,
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Embrace you in love’s limits dear,
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And all that may as Appearance waver,
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Fix firmly with everlasting Idea!
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(Heaven closes, and the Archangels separate.)
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Mephistopheles (alone)
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350 I like to hear the Old Man’s words, from time to time,
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And take care, when I’m with him, not to spew.
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It’s very nice when such a great Gentleman,
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Chats with the devil, in ways so human, too!
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Scene I: Night
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(In a high-vaulted Gothic chamber, Faust, in a chair at his desk,
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restless.)
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Ah! Now I’ve done Philosophy,
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355 I’ve finished Law and Medicine,
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And sadly even Theology:
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Taken fierce pains, from end to end.
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Now here I am, a fool for sure!
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No wiser than I was before:
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360 Master, Doctor’s what they call me,
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And I’ve been ten years, already,
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Crosswise, arcing, to and fro,
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Leading my students by the nose,
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And see that we can know - nothing!
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365 It almost sets my heart burning.
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I’m cleverer than all these teachers,
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Doctors, Masters, scribes, preachers:
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I’m not plagued by doubt or scruple,
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Scared by neither Hell nor Devil –
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370 Instead all Joy is snatched away,
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What’s worth knowing, I can’t say,
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I can’t say what I should teach
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To make men better or convert each.
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And then I’ve neither goods nor gold,
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375 No worldly honour, or splendour hold:
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Not even a dog would play this part!
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So I’ve given myself to Magic art,
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To see if, through Spirit powers and lips,
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I might have all secrets at my fingertips.
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380 And no longer, with rancid sweat, so,
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Still have to speak what I cannot know:
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That I may understand whatever
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Binds the world’s innermost core together,
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See all its workings, and its seeds,
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385 Deal no more in words’ empty reeds.
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O, may you look, full moon that shines,
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On my pain for this last time:
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So many midnights from my desk,
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I have seen you, keeping watch:
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390 When over my books and paper,
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Saddest friend, you appear!
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Ah! If on the mountain height
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I might stand in your sweet light,
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Float with spirits in mountain caves,
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395 Swim the meadows in twilight’ waves,
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Free from the smoke of knowledge too,
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Bathe in your health-giving dew!
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Alas! In this prison must I stick?
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This hollow darkened hole of brick,
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400 Where even the lovely heavenly light
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||
Shines through stained glass, dull not bright.
|
||
Hemmed in, by heaps of books,
|
||
Piled to the highest vault, and higher,
|
||
Worm eaten, decked with dust,
|
||
405 Surrounded by smoke-blackened paper,
|
||
Glass vials, boxes round me, hurled,
|
||
Stuffed with Instruments thrown together,
|
||
Packed with ancestral lumber –
|
||
This is my world! And what a world!
|
||
410 And need you ask why my heart
|
||
Makes such tremors in my breast?
|
||
Why all my life-energies are
|
||
Choked by some unknown distress?
|
||
Smoke and mildew hem me in,
|
||
415 Instead of living Nature, then,
|
||
Where God once created Men,
|
||
Bones of creatures, and dead limbs!
|
||
Fly! Upwards! Into Space, flung wide!
|
||
Isn’t this book, with secrets crammed,
|
||
420 From Nostradamus’ very hand,
|
||
Enough to be my guide?
|
||
When I know the starry road,
|
||
And Nature, you instruct me,
|
||
My soul’s power, you shall flow,
|
||
425 As spirits can with spirits be.
|
||
Useless, this dusty pondering here
|
||
To read the sacred characters:
|
||
Soar round me, Spirits, and be near:
|
||
If you hear me, then answer!
|
||
|
||
(He opens the Book, and sees the Symbol of the Macrocosm)
|
||
|
||
430 Ah! In a moment, what bliss flows
|
||
Through my senses from this Sign!
|
||
I feel life’s youthful, holy joy: it glows,
|
||
Fresh in every nerve and vein of mine.
|
||
This symbol now that calms my inward raging,
|
||
435 Perhaps a god deigned to write,
|
||
Filling my poor heart with delight,
|
||
And with its mysterious urging
|
||
Revealing, round me, Nature’s might?
|
||
Am I a god? All seems so clear to me!
|
||
440 It seems the deepest works of Nature
|
||
Lie open to my soul, with purest feature.
|
||
Now I understand what wise men see:
|
||
“The world of spirits is not closed:
|
||
Your senses are: your heart is dead!
|
||
445 Rise, unwearied, disciple: bathe instead
|
||
Your earthly breast in the morning’s glow!”
|
||
|
||
(He gazes at the Symbol.)
|
||
|
||
How each to the Whole its selfhood gives,
|
||
One in another works and lives!
|
||
How Heavenly forces fall and rise,
|
||
450 Golden vessels pass each other by!
|
||
Blessings from their wings disperse:
|
||
They penetrate from Heaven to Earth,
|
||
Sounding a harmony through the Universe!
|
||
Such a picture! Ah, alas! Merely a picture!
|
||
455 How then can I grasp you endless Nature?
|
||
Where are your breasts that pour out Life entire,
|
||
To which the Earth and Heavens cling so,
|
||
Where withered hearts would drink? You flow
|
||
You nourish, yet I languish so, in vain desire.
|
||
|
||
(He strikes the book indignantly, and catches sight of the Symbol
|
||
of the Earth-Spirit.)
|
||
|
||
460 How differently it works on me, this Sign!
|
||
You, the Spirit of Earth, are nearer:
|
||
Already, I feel my power is greater,
|
||
Already, I glow, as with fresh wine.
|
||
I feel the courage to engage the world,
|
||
465 Into the pain and joy of Earth be hurled,
|
||
And though the storm wind is unfurled,
|
||
Fearless, in the shipwreck’s teeth, be whirled.
|
||
There’s cloud above me –
|
||
The Moon hides its light –
|
||
The lamp flickers!
|
||
470 Now it dies! Crimson rays dart
|
||
Round my head – Horror
|
||
Flickers from the vault above,
|
||
And grips me tight!
|
||
475 I feel you float around me,
|
||
Spirit, I summon to appear, speak to me!
|
||
Ah! What tears now at the core of me!
|
||
All my senses reeling
|
||
With fresh feeling!
|
||
480 I feel you draw my whole heart towards you!
|
||
You must! You must! Though my Life’s lost, too!
|
||
|
||
(He grips the book and speaks the mysterious name of the Spirit. A
|
||
crimson flame flashes, the Spirit appears in the flame.)
|
||
|
||
Spirit
|
||
|
||
Who calls me?
|
||
|
||
Faust (Looking away)
|
||
|
||
Terrible to gaze at!
|
||
|
||
Spirit
|
||
|
||
Mightily you have drawn me to you,
|
||
Long, from my sphere, snatched your food,
|
||
And now –
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
485 Ah! Endure you, I cannot!
|
||
|
||
Spirit
|
||
|
||
You beg me to show myself, you implore,
|
||
You wish to hear my voice, and see my face:
|
||
The mighty prayer of your soul weighs
|
||
With me, I am here! – What wretched terror
|
||
490 Grips you, the Superhuman! Where is your soul’s calling?
|
||
Where is the heart that made a world inside, enthralling:
|
||
Carried it, nourished it, swollen with joy, so tremulous,
|
||
That you too might be a Spirit, one of us?
|
||
Where are you, Faust, whose ringing voice
|
||
495 Drew towards me with all your force?
|
||
Are you he, who, breathing my breath,
|
||
Trembles in all your life’s depths,
|
||
A fearful, writhing worm?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Shall I fear you: you form of fire?
|
||
500 I am, I am Faust: I am your peer!
|
||
|
||
Spirit
|
||
|
||
In Life’s wave, in action’s storm,
|
||
I float, up and down,
|
||
I blow, to and fro!
|
||
Birth and the tomb,
|
||
505 An eternal flow,
|
||
A woven changing,
|
||
A glow of Being.
|
||
Over Time’s quivering loom intent,
|
||
Working the Godhead’s living garment.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
510 You who wander the world, on every hand,
|
||
Active Spirit, how close to you I feel!
|
||
|
||
Spirit
|
||
|
||
You’re like the Spirit that you understand
|
||
Not me!
|
||
|
||
(It vanishes.)
|
||
|
||
Faust (Overwhelmed)
|
||
|
||
Not you?
|
||
515 Who then?
|
||
I, the image of the Godhead!
|
||
Not even like you?
|
||
|
||
(A knock.)
|
||
|
||
Oh, fate! I know that sound – it’s my attendant –
|
||
My greatest fortune’s ruined!
|
||
520 In all the fullness of my doing,
|
||
He must intrude, that arid pedant!
|
||
|
||
(Wagner enters, in gown and nightcap, lamp in hand. Faust turns to
|
||
him impatiently.)
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
Forgive me! But I heard you declaim:
|
||
Reading, I’m sure, from some Greek tragedy?
|
||
To profit from that art is my aim,
|
||
525 Nowadays it goes down splendidly.
|
||
I’ve often heard it claimed, you see
|
||
A priest could learn from the Old Comedy.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Yes, when the priest’s a comedian already:
|
||
Which might well seem to be the case.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
530 Ah! When a man’s so penned in his study,
|
||
And scarcely sees the world on holidays,
|
||
And barely through the glass, and far off then,
|
||
How can he lead men, through persuading them?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never
|
||
535 Rises from the soul, and sways
|
||
The heart of every single hearer,
|
||
With deepest power, in simple ways.
|
||
You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,
|
||
Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,
|
||
540 Blowing on a miserable fire,
|
||
Made from your heap of dying ash.
|
||
Let apes and children praise your art,
|
||
If their admiration’s to your taste,
|
||
But you’ll never speak from heart to heart,
|
||
545 Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
Still, lecturing brings orators success:
|
||
I feel that I am far behind the rest.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Seek to profit honestly!
|
||
Don’t be an empty tinkling fool!
|
||
550 Understanding, and true clarity,
|
||
Express themselves without art’s rule!
|
||
And if you mean what you say,
|
||
Why hunt for words, anyway?
|
||
Yes, your speech, that glitters so,
|
||
555 Where you gather scraps for Man,
|
||
Is dead as the mist-filled winds that blow
|
||
Through the dried-up leaves of autumn!
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
Oh, God! Art is long
|
||
And life is short.
|
||
560 Often the studies that I’m working on
|
||
Make me anxious, in my head and heart.
|
||
How hard it is to command the means
|
||
By which a man attains the very source!
|
||
Before a man has travelled half his course,
|
||
565 The wretched devil has to die it seems.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Parchment then, is that your holy well,
|
||
From which drink always slakes your thirst?
|
||
You’ll never truly be refreshed until
|
||
It pours itself from your own soul, first.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
570 Pardon me, but it’s a great delight
|
||
When, moved by the spirit of the ages, we have sight
|
||
Of how a wiser man has thought, and how
|
||
Widely at last we’ve spread his word about.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Oh yes, as widely as the constellations!
|
||
575 My friend, all of the ages that are gone
|
||
Now make up a book with seven seals.
|
||
The spirit of the ages, that you find,
|
||
In the end, is the spirit of Humankind:
|
||
A mirror where all the ages are revealed.
|
||
580 And so often it’s all a mere misery
|
||
Something we run away from at first sight.
|
||
A pile of sweepings, a lumber room, maybe
|
||
At best, a puppet show, that’s bright
|
||
With maxims, excellent, pragmatic,
|
||
585 Suitable when dolls’ mouths wax dramatic!
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
But, the world! Men’s hearts and minds!
|
||
Something of those, at least, I’d like to know.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Yes, what men choose to understand!
|
||
Who dares to name the child’s real name, though?
|
||
590 The few who knew what might be learned,
|
||
Foolish enough to put their whole heart on show,
|
||
And reveal their feelings to the crowd below,
|
||
Mankind has always crucified and burned.
|
||
I beg you, friend, it’s now the dead of night,
|
||
595 We must break up this conversation.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
I would have watched with you, if I might
|
||
Speak with you still, so learned in oration.
|
||
But tomorrow, on Easter’s first holy day,
|
||
I’ll ask my several questions, if I may.
|
||
600 I’ve pursued my work, zealously studying:
|
||
There’s much I know: yet I’d know everything.
|
||
(He leaves.)
|
||
|
||
Faust (Alone.)
|
||
|
||
That mind alone never loses hope,
|
||
That keeps to the shallows eternally,
|
||
Grabs, with eager hand, the wealth it sees,
|
||
605 And rejoices at the worms for which it gropes!
|
||
Dare such a human voice echo, too,
|
||
Where this depth of Spirit surrounds me?
|
||
Ah yet! For just this once, my thanks to you,
|
||
You sorriest of all earth’s progeny!
|
||
610 You’ve torn me away from that despair,
|
||
That would have soon overwhelmed my senses.
|
||
Ah! The apparition was so hugely there,
|
||
It might have truly dwarfed my defences.
|
||
I, image of the Godhead, already one,
|
||
615 Who thought the spirit of eternal truth so near,
|
||
Enjoying the light, both heavenly and clear,
|
||
Setting to one side the earthbound man:
|
||
I, more than Angel, a free force,
|
||
Ready to flow through Nature’s veins,
|
||
620 And, in creating, enjoy the life divine,
|
||
Pulsing with ideas: must atone again!
|
||
A word like thunder swept me away.
|
||
I dare not measure myself against you.
|
||
I possessed the power to summon you,
|
||
625 But not the power to make you stay.
|
||
In that blissful moment, then
|
||
I felt myself so small, so great:
|
||
Cruelly you hurled me back again,
|
||
Into Man’s uncertain state.
|
||
630 What shall I learn from? Or leave?
|
||
Shall I obey that yearning?
|
||
Ah! Our actions, and not just our grief,
|
||
Impede us on life’s journey.
|
||
Some more and more alien substance presses
|
||
635 On the splendour that the Mind conceives:
|
||
And when we gain what this world possesses,
|
||
We say the better world’s dream deceives.
|
||
The splendid feelings that give us life,
|
||
Fade among the crowd’s earthly strife.
|
||
640 If imagination flew with courage, once,
|
||
And, full of hope, stretched out to eternity,
|
||
Now a little room is quite enough,
|
||
When joy on joy has gone, in time’s whirling sea.
|
||
Care has nested in the heart’s depths,
|
||
645 Restless, she rocks there, spoiling joy and rest,
|
||
There she works her secret pain,
|
||
And wears new masks, ever and again,
|
||
Appears as wife and child, fields and houses,
|
||
As water, fire, or knife or poison:
|
||
650 Still we tremble for what never strikes us,
|
||
And must still cry for what has not yet gone.
|
||
I am no god: I feel it all too deeply.
|
||
I am the worm that writhes in dust: see,
|
||
As in the dust it lives, and seeks to eat,
|
||
655 It’s crushed and buried by the passing feet.
|
||
Is this not dust, what these vaults hold,
|
||
These hundred shelves that cramp me:
|
||
This junk, and all the thousand-fold
|
||
Shapes, of a moth-ridden world, around me?
|
||
660 Will I find here what I’m lacking else,
|
||
Shall I read, perhaps, as a thousand books insist,
|
||
That Mankind everywhere torments itself,
|
||
So, here and there, some happy man exists?
|
||
What do you say to me, bare grinning skull?
|
||
665 Except that once your brain whirled like mine,
|
||
Sought the clear day, and in the twilight dull,
|
||
With a breath of truth, went wretchedly awry.
|
||
For sure, you instruments mock at me,
|
||
With cylinders and arms, wheels and cogs:
|
||
670 I stand at the door: and you should be the key:
|
||
You’re deftly cut, but you undo no locks.
|
||
Mysterious, even in broad daylight,
|
||
Nature won’t let her veil be raised:
|
||
What your spirit can’t bring to sight,
|
||
675 Won’t by screws and levers be displayed.
|
||
You, ancient tools, I’ve never used
|
||
You’re here because my father used you,
|
||
Ancient scroll, you’ve darkened too,
|
||
From smoking candles burned above you.
|
||
680 Better the little I had was squandered,
|
||
Than sweat here under its puny weight!
|
||
What from your father you’ve inherited,
|
||
You must earn again, to own it straight.
|
||
What’s never used, leaves us overburdened,
|
||
685 But we can use what the Moment may create!
|
||
Yet why does that place so draw my sight,
|
||
Is that flask a magnet for my gaze?
|
||
Why is there suddenly so sweet a light,
|
||
As moonlight in a midnight woodland plays?
|
||
690 I salute you, phial of rare potion,
|
||
I lift you down, with devotion!
|
||
In you I worship man’s art and mind,
|
||
Embodiment of sweet sleeping draughts:
|
||
Extract, with deadly power, refined,
|
||
695 Show your master all his craft!
|
||
I see you, and my pain diminishes,
|
||
I grasp you, and my struggles grow less,
|
||
My spirit’s flood tide ebbs, more and more,
|
||
I seem to be where ocean waters meet,
|
||
700 A glassy flood gleams around my feet,
|
||
New day invites me to a newer shore.
|
||
A fiery chariot sweeps nearer
|
||
On light wings! I feel ready, free
|
||
To cut a new path through the ether
|
||
705 And reach new spheres of pure activity.
|
||
This greater life, this godlike bliss!
|
||
You, but a worm, have you earned this?
|
||
Choosing to turn your back, ah yes,
|
||
On all Earth’s lovely Sun might promise!
|
||
710 Let me dare to throw those gates open,
|
||
That other men go creeping by!
|
||
Now’s the time, to prove through action
|
||
Man’s dignity may rise divinely high,
|
||
Never trembling at that void where,
|
||
715 Imagination damns itself to pain,
|
||
Striving towards the passage there,
|
||
Round whose mouth all Hell’s fires flame:
|
||
Choose to take that step, happy to go
|
||
Where danger lies, where Nothingness may flow.
|
||
720 Come here to me, cup of crystal, clear!
|
||
Free of your ancient cover now appear,
|
||
You whom I’ve never, for many a year,
|
||
Considered! You shone at ancestral feasts,
|
||
Cheering the over-serious guests:
|
||
725 One man passing you to another here.
|
||
It was the drinker’s duty to explain in rhyme
|
||
The splendour of your many carved designs
|
||
Or drain it at a draught, and breathe, in time:
|
||
You remind me of those youthful nights of mine.
|
||
730 Now I will never pass you to a friend,
|
||
Or test my wits on your art again.
|
||
Here’s a juice will stun any man born:
|
||
It fills your hollow with a browner liquid.
|
||
I prepared it, now I choose the fluid,
|
||
735 At last I drink, and with my soul I bid
|
||
A high and festive greeting to the Dawn!
|
||
|
||
(He puts the cup to his mouth.)
|
||
|
||
(Bells chime and a choir sings.)
|
||
|
||
Choir of Angels
|
||
|
||
Christ has arisen!
|
||
Joy to the One, of us,
|
||
Who the pernicious,
|
||
740 Ancestral, insidious,
|
||
Fault has unwoven.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What deep humming, what shining sound
|
||
Strikes the glass from my hand with power?
|
||
Already, do the hollow bells resound,
|
||
745 Proclaiming Easter’s festive course? Our
|
||
Choirs, do you already sing the hymn of consolation,
|
||
Which once rang out, in deathly night, in Angels’ oration,
|
||
That certainty of a new testament’s hour?
|
||
|
||
Chorus of Women
|
||
|
||
With pure spices
|
||
750 We embalmed him,
|
||
We his faithful
|
||
We entombed him:
|
||
Linen and bindings,
|
||
We unwound there,
|
||
755 Ah! Now we find
|
||
Christ is not here.
|
||
|
||
Choir of Angels
|
||
|
||
Christ has arisen!
|
||
Blissful Beloved,
|
||
Out of what grieved,
|
||
760 Tested, and healed:
|
||
His trial is won.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You heavenly sounds, powerful and mild,
|
||
Why, in the dust, here, do you seek me?
|
||
Ring out where tender hearts are reconciled.
|
||
765 I hear your message, but faith fails me:
|
||
The marvellous is faith’s dearest child.
|
||
I don’t attempt to rise to that sphere,
|
||
From which the message rings:
|
||
Yet I know from childhood what it sings,
|
||
770 And I’m recalled to life once more.
|
||
In other times a Heavenly kiss would fall
|
||
On me, in the deep Sabbath silence:
|
||
The bell notes filled with presentiments,
|
||
And a prayer was pleasure’s call:
|
||
775 A sweet yearning, beyond my understanding,
|
||
Set me wandering through woods and fields,
|
||
And while a thousand tears were burning
|
||
I felt a world around me come to be.
|
||
Love called out the lively games of youth,
|
||
780 The joy of spring’s idle holiday:
|
||
Memory’s childish feelings, in truth,
|
||
Hold me back from the last sombre way.
|
||
O, sing on you sweet songs of Heaven!
|
||
My tears flow, Earth claims me again!
|
||
|
||
Chorus of Disciples
|
||
|
||
785 Has the buried one
|
||
Already, living,
|
||
Raised himself, alone,
|
||
Splendidly soaring:
|
||
Is he, in teeming air,
|
||
790 Near to creative bliss:
|
||
Ah! In sorrow, we’re
|
||
Here on Earth’s breast.
|
||
Lacking Him, we
|
||
Languish, and sigh.
|
||
795 Ah! Master we
|
||
Cry for your joy!
|
||
|
||
Choir of Angels
|
||
|
||
Christ has arisen
|
||
Out of corruption’s sea.
|
||
Tear off your bindings
|
||
800 Joyfully free!
|
||
Actively praising him,
|
||
Lovingly claiming him,
|
||
Fraternally aiding him,
|
||
Prayerfully journeying,
|
||
805 Joyfully promising,
|
||
So is the Master near,
|
||
So is he here!
|
||
|
||
Scene II: In Front Of The City-Gate
|
||
|
||
(Passers-by of all kinds appear.)
|
||
|
||
Several Apprentices
|
||
|
||
So, then, where are you away to?
|
||
|
||
Others
|
||
|
||
We’re away to the Hunting Lodge.
|
||
|
||
The Former
|
||
|
||
810 We’re off to saunter by the Mill.
|
||
|
||
An Apprentice
|
||
|
||
Off to the Riverside Inn, I’d guess.
|
||
|
||
A Second Apprentice
|
||
|
||
The way there’s not of the best.
|
||
|
||
The Others
|
||
|
||
What about you?
|
||
|
||
A Third
|
||
|
||
I’m with the others, still.
|
||
|
||
A Fourth
|
||
|
||
Come to the Castle, you’ll find there
|
||
815 The prettiest girls, the finest beer,
|
||
And the best place for a fight.
|
||
|
||
A Fifth
|
||
|
||
You quarrelsome fool, are you looking
|
||
For a third good hiding?
|
||
Not for me, that place, I hate its very sight.
|
||
|
||
A Maidservant
|
||
|
||
820 No, No! I’m going back to town.
|
||
|
||
Another
|
||
|
||
We’ll find him by those poplar trees for sure.
|
||
|
||
The First
|
||
|
||
Well that’s no joy for me, now:
|
||
He’ll walk by your side, of course,
|
||
He’ll dance with you on the green.
|
||
825 Where’s the fun in that for me, then!
|
||
|
||
The Other
|
||
|
||
I’m sure he’s not alone, he said
|
||
He’d bring along that Curly-head.
|
||
|
||
A Student
|
||
|
||
My how they strut those bold women!
|
||
Brother, come on! We’ll follow them.
|
||
830 Fierce tobacco, strong beer,
|
||
And a girl in her finery, I prefer.
|
||
|
||
A Citizen’s Daughter
|
||
|
||
They are handsome boys there, I see!
|
||
But it’s truly a disgrace:
|
||
They could have the best of company,
|
||
835 And run after a painted face!
|
||
|
||
Second Student (to the first)
|
||
|
||
Not so fast! Those two behind,
|
||
They walk about so sweetly,
|
||
One must be that neighbour of mine:
|
||
I could fall for her completely.
|
||
840 They pass by with demure paces,
|
||
But in the end they’ll go with us.
|
||
|
||
The First
|
||
|
||
Brother, no! I shouldn’t bother, anyway.
|
||
Quick! Before our quarry gets away.
|
||
The hand that wields a broom on Saturday,
|
||
845 Gives the best caress, on Sunday too, I say.
|
||
|
||
Citizen
|
||
|
||
No, the new mayor doesn’t suit me!
|
||
Now he’s there he’s getting cocky.
|
||
And what’s he done to help the town?
|
||
Isn’t it getting worse each day?
|
||
850 As always it’s us who must obey,
|
||
And pay more money down.
|
||
|
||
A Beggar (sings)
|
||
|
||
Fine gentlemen, and lovely ladies,
|
||
Rosy-cheeked and finely dressed,
|
||
You could help me, for your aid is
|
||
855 Needed: see, ease my distress!
|
||
Don’t let me throw my song away,
|
||
Only he who gives is happy.
|
||
A day when all men celebrate,
|
||
Will be a harvest day for me!
|
||
|
||
Another Citizen
|
||
|
||
860 On holidays there’s nothing I like better
|
||
Than talking about war and war’s display,
|
||
When in Turkey far away,
|
||
People one another batter.
|
||
You sit by the window: have a glass:
|
||
865 See the bright boats glide down the river,
|
||
Then you walk back home and bless
|
||
Its peacefulness, and peace, forever.
|
||
|
||
Third Citizen
|
||
|
||
Neighbour, yes! I like that too:
|
||
Let them go and break their heads,
|
||
870 Make the mess they often do:
|
||
So long as we’re safe in our beds.
|
||
|
||
An Old Woman (to the citizen’s daughter)
|
||
|
||
Ah! So pretty! Sweet young blood!
|
||
Who wouldn’t gaze at you?
|
||
Don’t be so proud! I’m very good!
|
||
875 And what you want, I’ll bring you.
|
||
|
||
The Citizen’s Daughter
|
||
|
||
Agatha, come away! I must go carefully:
|
||
No walking freely with such a witch as her:
|
||
For on Saint Andrew’s Night she really
|
||
Showed me who’ll be my future Lover.
|
||
|
||
The Other
|
||
|
||
880 She showed me mine in a crystal ball,
|
||
A soldier, with lots of other brave men:
|
||
I look around: among them all,
|
||
Yet I can never find him.
|
||
|
||
The Soldiers
|
||
|
||
Castles with towering
|
||
885 Ramparts and wall,
|
||
Proud girls showing
|
||
Disdain for us all,
|
||
We want them to fall!
|
||
The action is brave,
|
||
890 And splendid the pay!
|
||
So let the trumpet,
|
||
Do our recruiting,
|
||
Calling to joy
|
||
Calling to ruin.
|
||
895 It’s a storm, blowing!
|
||
But it’s the life too!
|
||
Girls and castles
|
||
We must win you.
|
||
The action is brave,
|
||
900 Splendid the pay!
|
||
And the soldiers
|
||
Go marching away.
|
||
|
||
(Faust and Wagner)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Rivers and streams are freed from ice
|
||
By Spring’s sweet enlivening glance.
|
||
905 Valleys, green with Hope’s happiness, dance:
|
||
Old Winter, in his weakness, sighs,
|
||
Withdrawing to the harsh mountains.
|
||
From there, retreating, he sends down
|
||
Impotent showers of hail that show
|
||
910 In stripes across the quickening ground.
|
||
But the sun allows nothing white below,
|
||
Change and growth are everywhere,
|
||
He enlivens all with his colours there,
|
||
And lacking flowers of the fields outspread,
|
||
915 He takes these gaudy people instead.
|
||
Turn round, and from this mountain height,
|
||
Look down, where the town’s in sight.
|
||
That cavernous, dark gate,
|
||
The colourful crowd penetrate,
|
||
920 All will take the sun today,
|
||
The Risen Lord they’ll celebrate,
|
||
And feel they are resurrected,
|
||
From low houses, dully made,
|
||
From work, where they’re constricted,
|
||
925 From the roofs’ and gables’ weight,
|
||
From the crush of narrow streets,
|
||
From the churches’ solemn night
|
||
They’re all brought to the light.
|
||
Look now: see! The crowds, their feet
|
||
930 Crushing the gardens and meadows,
|
||
While on the river a cheerful fleet
|
||
Of little boats, everywhere it flows.
|
||
And over-laden, ready to sink,
|
||
The last barge takes to the stream.
|
||
From far off on the mountain’s brink,
|
||
All the bright clothing gleams.
|
||
I hear the noise from the village risen,
|
||
Here is the people’s true Heaven,
|
||
High and low shout happily:
|
||
940 Here I am Man: here, dare to be!
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
Doctor, to take a walk with you,
|
||
Is an honour and a prize:
|
||
Alone I’d have no business here, true,
|
||
Since everything that’s coarse I despise.
|
||
945 Shrieking, fiddlers, skittles flying,
|
||
To me it’s all a hateful noise:
|
||
They rush about possessed, crying,
|
||
And call it singing: and call it joy.
|
||
|
||
(Farm-workers under the lime tree. Dance and Song.)
|
||
|
||
The shepherd for the dance, had on
|
||
950 His gaudy jacket, wreath, and ribbon,
|
||
Making a fine show,
|
||
Under the linden-tree, already,
|
||
Everyone was dancing madly.
|
||
Hey! Hey!
|
||
955 Hurrah! Hurray!
|
||
So goes the fiddle-bow.
|
||
|
||
In his haste, in a whirl,
|
||
He stumbled against a girl,
|
||
With his elbow flailing:
|
||
960 Lively, she turned, and said:
|
||
Mind out, you wooden-head!
|
||
Hey! Hey!
|
||
Hurrah! Hurray!
|
||
Just watch where you’re sailing!
|
||
|
||
965 Fast around the circle bright,
|
||
They danced to left and right,
|
||
Skirts and jackets flying.
|
||
They grew red: they grew warm,
|
||
They rested, panting, arm on arm
|
||
970 Hey! Hey!
|
||
Hurrah! Hurray!
|
||
And hip, and elbow, lying.
|
||
|
||
Don’t be so familiar then!
|
||
That’s how many a lying man,
|
||
975 Cheated his wife so!
|
||
But he soon tempted her aside,
|
||
And from the linden echoed wide:
|
||
Hey! Hey!
|
||
Hurrah! Hurray!
|
||
980 So goes the fiddle-bow.
|
||
|
||
An Old Farmer
|
||
|
||
Doctor, it’s good of you today
|
||
Not to shun the crowd,
|
||
So that among the folk, at play,
|
||
The learned man walks about.
|
||
985 Then have some from the finest jug
|
||
That we’ve filled with fresh ale first,
|
||
I offer it now and wish it would,
|
||
Not only quench your thirst:
|
||
But the count of drops it holds
|
||
990 May it exceed your hours, all told.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’ll take some of your foaming drink,
|
||
And offer you all, health and thanks.
|
||
|
||
(The people gather round him in a circle.)
|
||
|
||
The Old Farmer
|
||
|
||
Truly, it’s a thing well done:
|
||
You’re here on our day of happiness,
|
||
Since in evil times now gone,
|
||
You’ve eased our distress!
|
||
Many a man stands here alive,
|
||
Whom your father, at the last,
|
||
Snatched from the fever’s rage,
|
||
1000 While the plague went past.
|
||
And you, only a young man, went,
|
||
Into every house of sickness, then,
|
||
Though many a corpse was carried forth,
|
||
You walked safely out again.
|
||
1005 Many a hard trial you withstood,
|
||
A Helper helped by the Helper above.
|
||
|
||
All
|
||
|
||
Health to the man who’s proven true,
|
||
Long may he help me and you!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
To Him above bow down instead,
|
||
1010 Who teaches help, and sends his aid.
|
||
|
||
(He walks off, with Wagner.)
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
How it must feel, O man of genius,
|
||
To be respected by the crowd!
|
||
O happy he whose gifts endow
|
||
Him with such advantages!
|
||
1015 The father shows you to his son, now
|
||
Each one asks and pushes near,
|
||
The fiddle halts, and the dancers there:
|
||
You pass: in ranks they stop to see,
|
||
And throw their caps high in the air:
|
||
1020 A little more and they’d bend the knee,
|
||
As if what they worshipped was holy.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Climb these few steps to that stone,
|
||
Here we’ll rest from our wandering.
|
||
Here I’ve sat often, thoughtful and alone,
|
||
1025 Tormenting myself with prayer and fasting.
|
||
Rich in hope, and firm of faith,
|
||
Wringing my hands, with sighs even,
|
||
Tears, to force the end of plague
|
||
From the very God of Heaven.
|
||
1030 The crowd’s approval now’s like scorn.
|
||
O if you could read within me
|
||
How little the father and the son
|
||
Deserve a fraction of their glory.
|
||
My father was a gloomy, honourable man,
|
||
1035 Who pondered Nature and the heavenly spheres,
|
||
Honestly, in his own fashion,
|
||
With eccentric studies it appears:
|
||
He, in his adepts’ company,
|
||
Locked in his dark workshop, forever
|
||
1040 Tried with endless recipes,
|
||
To make things opposite flow together.
|
||
The fiery Lion, a daring suitor,
|
||
Wed the Lily, in a lukewarm bath, there
|
||
In a fiery flame, both of them were
|
||
1045 Strained from one bride-bed into another,
|
||
Until the young Queen was descried,
|
||
In a mix of colours, in the glass:
|
||
There was the medicine: the patient died.
|
||
And who recovered? No one asked.
|
||
1050 So we roamed, with our hellish pills,
|
||
Among the valleys and the hills,
|
||
Worse than the pestilence itself we were.
|
||
I’ve poisoned a thousand: that’s quite clear:
|
||
And now from the withered old must hear
|
||
1055 How men praise a shameless murderer.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
How can you grieve at that!
|
||
Isn’t it enough for an honest man
|
||
To exercise the skill he has,
|
||
Carefully, precisely, as given?
|
||
1060 Honour your father as a youth,
|
||
And receive his teaching in your soul,
|
||
As a man, then, add to scientific truth,
|
||
So your son can achieve a higher goal.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
O happy the man who still can hope
|
||
1065 Though drowned in a sea of error!
|
||
Man needs the things he doesn’t know,
|
||
What he knows is useless, forever.
|
||
But don’t let such despondency
|
||
Spoil the deep goodness of the hour!
|
||
1070 In the evening glow, we see
|
||
The houses gleaming, green-embowered.
|
||
Mild it retreats, the day that’s left,
|
||
It slips away to claim new being.
|
||
Ah, that no wing from earth can lift
|
||
1075 Me, closer and closer to it, striving!
|
||
I’d see, in eternal evening’s light,
|
||
The silent Earth beneath my feet, forever,
|
||
The heights on fire, each valley quiet
|
||
While silver streams flow to a golden river.
|
||
1080 The wild peaks with their deep clefts,
|
||
Would cease to bar my godlike way,
|
||
Already the sea with its warm depths,
|
||
Opens to my astonished gaze.
|
||
At last the weary god sinks down to night:
|
||
1085 But in me a newer yearning wakes,
|
||
I hasten on, drinking his endless light:
|
||
The dark behind me: and ahead the day.
|
||
Heaven above me: and the waves below,
|
||
A lovely dream, although it vanishes.
|
||
1090 Ah! Wings of the mind, so weightless
|
||
No bodily wings could ever be so.
|
||
Yet it’s natural in every spirit, too,
|
||
That feeling drives us, up and on,
|
||
When over us, lost in the vault of blue,
|
||
1095 The lark sings his piercing song,
|
||
When over the steep pine-filled peaks,
|
||
The eagle widely soars,
|
||
And across the plains and seas,
|
||
The cranes seek their home shores.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
1100 I’ve often had strange moments, I know,
|
||
But I’ve never felt yearnings quite like those:
|
||
The joys of woods and fields soon fade
|
||
I wouldn’t ask the birds for wings: indeed,
|
||
How differently the mind’s raptures lead
|
||
1105 Us on, from book to book, and page to page!
|
||
Then winter nights are beautiful, and sweet,
|
||
A blissful warmth steals through your limbs, too
|
||
When you’ve unrolled some noble text, complete,
|
||
Oh, how heaven’s light descends on you!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
1110 You only feel the one yearning at best,
|
||
Oh, never seek to know the other!
|
||
Two souls, alas, exist in my breast,
|
||
One separated from another:
|
||
One, with its crude love of life, just
|
||
1115 Clings to the world, tenaciously, grips tight,
|
||
The other soars powerfully above the dust,
|
||
Into the far ancestral height.
|
||
Oh, let the spirits of the air,
|
||
Between the heavens and Earth, weaving,
|
||
1120 Descend through the golden atmosphere,
|
||
And lead me on to new and varied being!
|
||
Yes, if a magic cloak were mine, that
|
||
Would carry me off to foreign lands,
|
||
Not for the costliest garment in my hands,
|
||
1125 For the mantle of a king, would I resign it!
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
Don’t call to that familiar crowd,
|
||
Streaming in misty circles, spreading,
|
||
Preparing a thousand dangers now,
|
||
On every side, for human beings.
|
||
1130 The North winds’ sharp teeth penetrate,
|
||
Down here, and spit you with their fangs:
|
||
Then the East’s drying winds are at the gate,
|
||
To feed themselves on your lungs.
|
||
If, from the South, the desert sends them,
|
||
1135 And fire on fire burns on your brow,
|
||
The West brings a swarm to quench them,
|
||
And you and field and meadow drown.
|
||
They hear us, while they’re harming us,
|
||
Hear us, while they are betraying:
|
||
1140 They make out they’re from heaven above,
|
||
And lisp like angels when they’re lying.
|
||
Let’s go on! The world has darkened,
|
||
The air is cool: the mists descend!
|
||
Man values his own house at night.
|
||
1145 What is it occupies your sight?
|
||
What troubles you so, in the evening?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Through corn and stubble, see that black dog running?
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
I saw him long ago: he seems a wretched thing.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Look at him closely! What do you make of him?
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
1150 A dog that, in the way they do,
|
||
Sniffs around to find his master.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
See how he winds in wide spirals too,
|
||
Round us here, yet always coming nearer?
|
||
And if I’m right, I see a swirl of fire
|
||
1155 Twisting about, behind his track.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
Perhaps your eyesight proves a liar,
|
||
I only see a dog, that’s black.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
It seems to me that with a subtle magic,
|
||
He winds a fatal knot around our feet.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
1160 I see his timid and uncertain antics,
|
||
It’s strangers, not his master, whom he meets.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
The circle narrows: now he’s here!
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
You see a dog, there’s no spectre near!
|
||
He barks uncertainly, lies down and crawls,
|
||
1165 Wags his tail. Dogs’ habits, after all.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Come on! Here, now! Here, to me!
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
He’s a dogged hound, I agree.
|
||
Stand still and he holds his ground:
|
||
Talk to him, he dances round:
|
||
1170 What you’ve lost, he’ll bring to you:
|
||
Retrieve a stick from the water, too.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You’re right: and I see nothing
|
||
Like a Spirit there, it’s only training.
|
||
|
||
Wagner
|
||
|
||
A wise man finds agreeable,
|
||
1175 A dog that’s learnt its lesson well.
|
||
Yes, he deserves all your favour,
|
||
Among the students, the true scholar!
|
||
|
||
(They enter the City gate.)
|
||
|
||
Scene III: The Study
|
||
|
||
(Faust enters, with the dog.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Fields and meadows now I’ve left
|
||
Clothed in deepest night,
|
||
1180 Full of presentiments, a holy dread
|
||
Wakes the better soul in me to light.
|
||
Wild desires no longer stir
|
||
At every restless act of mine:
|
||
Love for Humanity is here,
|
||
1185 And here is Love Divine.
|
||
|
||
Quiet, dog! Stop running to and fro!
|
||
Why are you snuffling at the door?
|
||
Lie down now, behind the stove,
|
||
There’s my best cushion on the floor.
|
||
1190 Since you amused us running, leaping,
|
||
Out on the mountainside, with zest,
|
||
Now I take you into my keeping,
|
||
A welcome, and a silent guest.
|
||
|
||
Ah, when in our narrow room,
|
||
1195 The friendly lamp glows on the shelf,
|
||
Brightness burns in our inner gloom,
|
||
In the Heart, that knows itself.
|
||
Reason speaks with insistence,
|
||
And Hope once more appears,
|
||
1200 We see the River of Existence,
|
||
Ah, the founts of Life, are near.
|
||
|
||
Don’t growl, dog! With this holy sound
|
||
Which I, with all my soul, embrace,
|
||
Your bestial noise seems out of place.
|
||
1205 Men usually scorn the things, I’ve found,
|
||
That, by them, can’t be understood,
|
||
Grumbling at beauty, and the good,
|
||
That to them seems wearisome:
|
||
Can’t a dog, then, snarl like them?
|
||
|
||
1210 Oh, yet now I can feel no contentment
|
||
Flow through me, despite my best intent.
|
||
Why must the stream fail so quickly,
|
||
And once again leave us thirsty?
|
||
I’ve long experience of it, yet I think
|
||
1215 I could supply what’s missing, easily:
|
||
We learn to value what’s beyond the earthly,
|
||
We yearn to reach revelation’s brink,
|
||
That’s nowhere nobler or more excellent
|
||
Than where it burns in the New Testament.
|
||
1220 I yearn to render the first version,
|
||
With true feeling, once and for all,
|
||
Translate the sacred original
|
||
Into my beloved German.
|
||
|
||
(He opens the volume, and begins.)
|
||
|
||
It’s written here: ‘In the Beginning was the Word!’
|
||
1225 Here I stick already! Who can help me? It’s absurd,
|
||
Impossible, for me to rate the word so highly
|
||
I must try to say it differently
|
||
If I’m truly inspired by the Spirit. I find
|
||
I’ve written here: ‘In the Beginning was the Mind’.
|
||
1230 Let me consider that first sentence,
|
||
So my pen won’t run on in advance!
|
||
Is it Mind that works and creates what’s ours?
|
||
It should say: ‘In the beginning was the Power!’
|
||
Yet even while I write the words down,
|
||
1235 I’m warned: I’m no closer with these I’ve found.
|
||
The Spirit helps me! I have it now, intact.
|
||
And firmly write: ‘In the Beginning was the Act!’
|
||
|
||
If I’m to share my room with you,
|
||
Dog, you can stop howling too:
|
||
1240 Stop your yapping!
|
||
A fellow who’s always snapping,
|
||
I can’t allow too near me.
|
||
One of us you see,
|
||
Must leave the other free.
|
||
1245 I’ve no more hospitality to show,
|
||
The door’s open, you can go.
|
||
But what’s this I see!
|
||
Can this happen naturally?
|
||
Is it a phantom or is it real?
|
||
1250 The dog’s growing big and tall.
|
||
He rises powerfully,
|
||
It’s no doglike shape I see!
|
||
What a spectre I brought home!
|
||
Like a hippo in the room,
|
||
1255 With fiery eyes, and fearful jaws.
|
||
Oh! Now, what you are, I’m sure!
|
||
The Key of Solomon is good
|
||
For conjuring your half-hellish brood.
|
||
|
||
Spirits (In the corridor.)
|
||
|
||
Something’s trapped inside!
|
||
1260 Don’t follow it: stay outside!
|
||
Like a fox in a snare
|
||
An old lynx from hell trembles there.
|
||
Be careful what you’re about!
|
||
Float here: float there,
|
||
1265 Under and over,
|
||
And he’ll work his way out.
|
||
If you know how to help him,
|
||
Don’t let yourself fail him!
|
||
Since it’s all done for sure,
|
||
1270 Just for your pleasure.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
First speak the Words of the Four
|
||
To encounter the creature.
|
||
Salamander, be glowing,
|
||
Undine, flow near,
|
||
1275 Sylph, disappear,
|
||
Gnome, be delving.
|
||
|
||
Who does not know
|
||
The Elements so,
|
||
Their power sees,
|
||
1280 And properties,
|
||
Cannot lord it
|
||
Over the Spirits.
|
||
|
||
Vanish in flame,
|
||
Salamander!
|
||
1285 Rush together in foam,
|
||
Undine!
|
||
Shine with meteor-gleam,
|
||
Sylph!
|
||
Bring help to the home,
|
||
1290 Incubus! Incubus!
|
||
Go before and end it thus!
|
||
|
||
None of the Four
|
||
Show in the creature.
|
||
He lies there quietly grinning at me:
|
||
1295 I’ve not stirred him enough it seems.
|
||
But you’ll hear how
|
||
I’ll press him hard now.
|
||
My good fellow, are you
|
||
Exiled from Hell’s crew?
|
||
1300 Witness the Symbol
|
||
Before which they bow,
|
||
The dark crowd there!
|
||
Now it swells, with its bristling hair.
|
||
Depraved being!
|
||
1305 Can you know what you’re seeing?
|
||
The uncreated One
|
||
With name unexpressed,
|
||
Poured through Heaven,
|
||
Pierced without redress?
|
||
|
||
1310 Spellbound, behind the stove,
|
||
An elephant grows.
|
||
It fills the room, completely,
|
||
It will vanish like mist, I can see.
|
||
Don’t rise to the ceiling!
|
||
1315 Lie down at your master’s feet!
|
||
You see I don’t threaten you lightly.
|
||
I’ll sting you with fire that’s holy!
|
||
Don’t wait for the bright
|
||
Triple glowing Light!
|
||
1320 Don’t wait for
|
||
My highest art!
|
||
|
||
(As the mist clears, Mephistopheles steps from behind the stove,
|
||
dressed as a wandering Scholar.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Why such alarms? What command would my lord impart?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
This was the dog’s core!
|
||
A wandering scholar? The fact makes me smile.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1325 I bow to the learned lord!
|
||
You certainly made me sweat, in style.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
How are you named?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
A slight question
|
||
For one who so disdains the Word,
|
||
Is so distant from appearance: one
|
||
1330 Whom only the vital depths have stirred.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
We usually gather from your names
|
||
The nature of you gentlemen: it’s plain
|
||
What you are, we all too clearly recognise
|
||
One who’s called Liar, Ruin, Lord of the Flies.
|
||
1335 Well, what are you then?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Part of the Power that would
|
||
Always wish Evil, and always works the Good.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What meaning to these riddling words applies?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I am the spirit, ever, that denies!
|
||
And rightly so: since everything created,
|
||
1340 In turn deserves to be annihilated:
|
||
Better if nothing came to be.
|
||
So all that you call Sin, you see,
|
||
Destruction, in short, what you’ve meant
|
||
By Evil is my true element.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You call yourself a part, yet seem complete to me?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I’m speaking the truth to you, and modestly.
|
||
Even if Man’s accustomed to take
|
||
His small world for the Whole, that’s his mistake:
|
||
I’m part of the part, that once was - everything,
|
||
1350 Part of the darkness, from which Light, issuing,
|
||
Proud Light, emergent, disputed the highest place
|
||
With its mother Night, the bounds of Space,
|
||
And yet won nothing, however hard it tried,
|
||
Still stuck to Bodily Things, and so denied.
|
||
1355 It flows from bodies, which it beautifies,
|
||
And bodies block its way:
|
||
I hope the day’s not far away
|
||
When it, along with all these bodies, dies.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Now I see the plan you follow!
|
||
1360 You can’t destroy it all, and so
|
||
You’re working on a smaller scale.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
And frankly it’s a sorry tale.
|
||
What’s set against the Nothingness,
|
||
The Something, World’s clumsiness,
|
||
1365 Despite everything I’ve tried,
|
||
Won’t become a nothing: though I’d
|
||
Storms, quakes, and fires on every hand,
|
||
It deigned to stay as sea and land!
|
||
And those Men and creatures, all the damned,
|
||
1370 It’s no use my owning any of that crew:
|
||
How many I’ve already done with too!
|
||
Yet new fresh blood is always going round.
|
||
So it goes on, men make me furious!
|
||
With water, earth and air, of course,
|
||
1375 A thousand buds unfurl
|
||
In wet and dry, warm and cold!
|
||
And if I hadn’t kept back fire of old,
|
||
I’d have nothing left at all.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
So you set the Devil’s fist
|
||
1380 That vainly clenches itself,
|
||
Against the eternally active,
|
||
Wholesome, creative force!
|
||
Strange son of Chaos, start
|
||
On something else instead!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1385 Truly I’ll think about it: more
|
||
Next time, on that head!
|
||
Might I be allowed to go?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I see no reason for you to ask it.
|
||
Since I’ve learnt to know you now,
|
||
1390 When you wish: then make a visit.
|
||
There’s the door, here’s the window,
|
||
And, of course, there’s the chimney.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I must confess, I’m prevented though
|
||
By a little thing that hinders me,
|
||
1395 The Druid’s-foot on your doorsill –
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
The Pentagram gives you pain?
|
||
Then tell me, you Son of Hell,
|
||
If that’s the case, how did you gain
|
||
Entry? Are spirits like you cheated?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1400 Look carefully! It’s not completed:
|
||
One angle, if you inspect it closely
|
||
Has, as you see, been left a little open.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Just by chance as it happens!
|
||
And left you prisoner to me?
|
||
1405 Success created by approximation!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
The dog saw nothing, in his animation,
|
||
Now the affair seems inside out,
|
||
The Devil can’t get out of the house.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Why not try the window then?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1410 To devils and ghosts the same laws appertain:
|
||
The same way they enter in, they must go out.
|
||
In the first we’re free, in the second slaves to the act.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
So you still have laws in Hell, in fact?
|
||
That’s good, since it allows a pact,
|
||
1415 And one with you gentlemen truly binds?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
What’s promised you’ll enjoy, and find,
|
||
There’s nothing mean that we enact.
|
||
But it can’t be done so fast,
|
||
First we’ll have to talk it through,
|
||
1420 Yet, urgently, I beg of you
|
||
Let me go my way at last.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Wait a moment now,
|
||
Tell me some good news first.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I’ll soon be back, just let me go:
|
||
1425 Then you can ask me what you wish.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I didn’t place you here, tonight.
|
||
You trapped yourself in the lime.
|
||
Who snares the devil, holds him tight!
|
||
He won’t be caught like that a second time.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1430 I’m willing, if you so wish,
|
||
To stay here, in your company:
|
||
So long as we pass the time, and I insist,
|
||
On arts of mine, exclusively.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Gladly, you’re free to present
|
||
1435 Them, as long as they’re all pleasant.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
My friend you’ll win more
|
||
For your senses, in an hour,
|
||
Than in a whole year’s monotony.
|
||
What the tender spirits sing,
|
||
1440 The lovely pictures that they bring,
|
||
Are no empty wizardry.
|
||
First your sense of smell’s invited,
|
||
Then your palate is delighted,
|
||
And then your touch, you see.
|
||
1445 Now, I need no preparation,
|
||
We’re all here, so let’s begin!
|
||
|
||
Spirits
|
||
|
||
Vanish, you shadowy
|
||
Vaults above!
|
||
Cheerfully show,
|
||
1450 The friendliest blue
|
||
Of aether, down here.
|
||
Would that shadowy
|
||
Clouds had gone!
|
||
Starlight sparkling
|
||
1455 Milder sun
|
||
Shining clear.
|
||
Heavenly children
|
||
In lovely confusion,
|
||
Swaying and bending,
|
||
1460 Drifting past.
|
||
Affectionate yearning,
|
||
Following fast:
|
||
Their garments flowing
|
||
With fluttering ribbons,
|
||
1465 Cover the gardens,
|
||
Cover the leaves,
|
||
Where with each other
|
||
In deep conversation
|
||
Lover meets lover.
|
||
1470 Leaves on leaves!
|
||
Tendrils’ elation!
|
||
Grapes beneath
|
||
Crushed in a stream,
|
||
Pressed to extreme,
|
||
1475 Crushed to fountain,
|
||
Of foaming wine,
|
||
Trickling, fine,
|
||
Through rocks divine,
|
||
Leaving the heights,
|
||
1480 Spreading beneath,
|
||
Broad as the seas,
|
||
Valleys it fills
|
||
Round the green hills.
|
||
And the wings still,
|
||
1485 Blissfully drunk,
|
||
Fly to the sun,
|
||
Fly to the brightness,
|
||
Towards the islands,
|
||
Out of the waves
|
||
1490 Magically raised:
|
||
Now we can hear
|
||
The choir of joy near,
|
||
Over the meadow,
|
||
See how they dance now,
|
||
1495 All in the air
|
||
Dispersing there.
|
||
Some of them climbing
|
||
Over the mountains,
|
||
Others are swimming
|
||
1500 Over the ocean,
|
||
Others take flight:
|
||
All towards Life,
|
||
All towards distant,
|
||
Love of the stars, and
|
||
1505 Approval’s bliss.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
He’s asleep! Enough, you delicate children of air!
|
||
You’ve sung to him faithfully, I declare!
|
||
I’m in your debt for all this.
|
||
He’s not yet the man to hold devils fast!
|
||
1510 Spellbind him with dream-forms, cast
|
||
Him deep into illusions’ sea:
|
||
Now, for the magic sill I must pass,
|
||
I could use rat’s teeth: no need for me
|
||
To conjure up a lengthier spell,
|
||
1515 One’s rustling here that will do well.
|
||
|
||
The Lord of Rats and Mice,
|
||
Of Flies, Frogs, Bugs and Lice,
|
||
Summons you to venture here,
|
||
And gnaw the threshold where
|
||
1520 He stains it with a little oil -
|
||
You’ve hopped, already, to your toil!
|
||
Now set to work! The fatal point,
|
||
Is at the edge, it’s on the front.
|
||
One more bite, then it’s complete –
|
||
1525 Now Faust, dream deeply, till we meet.
|
||
|
||
Faust (Waking.)
|
||
|
||
Am I cheated then, once again?
|
||
Does the Spirit-Realm’s deep yearning fade:
|
||
So a mere dream has conjured up the devil,
|
||
And only a dog, it was, that ran away?
|
||
|
||
Scene IV: The Study
|
||
|
||
(Faust, Mephistopheles)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
1530 A knock? Enter! Who’s plaguing me again?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I am
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Enter!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Three times you must say it, then.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
So! Enter!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ah, now, you please me.
|
||
I hope we’ll get along together:
|
||
To drive away the gloomy weather,
|
||
1535 I’m dressed like young nobility,
|
||
In a scarlet gold-trimmed coat,
|
||
In a little silk-lined cloak,
|
||
A cockerel feather in my hat,
|
||
With a long, pointed sword,
|
||
1540 And I advise you, at that,
|
||
To do as I do, in a word:
|
||
So that, footloose, fancy free,
|
||
You can experience Life, with me.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
This life of earth, its narrowness,
|
||
1545 Pains me, however I’m turned out,
|
||
I’m too old to play about,
|
||
Too young, still, to be passionless.
|
||
What can the world bring me again?
|
||
Abstain! You shall! You must! Abstain!
|
||
1550 That’s the eternal song
|
||
That in our ears, forever, rings
|
||
The one, that, our whole life long,
|
||
Every hour, hoarsely, sings.
|
||
I wake in terror with the dawn,
|
||
1555 I cry, the bitterest tears, to see
|
||
Day grant no wish of mine, not one
|
||
As it passes by on its journey.
|
||
Even presentiments of joy
|
||
Ebb, in wilful depreciation:
|
||
1560 A thousand grimaces life employs
|
||
To hinder me in creation.
|
||
Then when night descends I must
|
||
Stretch out, worried, on my bed:
|
||
What comes to me is never rest,
|
||
1565 But some wild dream instead.
|
||
The God that lives inside my heart,
|
||
Can rouse my innermost seeing:
|
||
The one enthroned beyond my art,
|
||
Can’t stir external being:
|
||
1570 And so existence is a burden: sated,
|
||
Death’s desired, and Life is hated.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Yet Death’s a guest who’s visit’s never wholly celebrated.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Happy the man whom victory enhances,
|
||
Whose brow the bloodstained laurel warms,
|
||
1575 Who, after the swift whirling dances,
|
||
Finds himself in some girl’s arms!
|
||
If only, in my joy, then, I’d sunk down
|
||
Before that enrapturing Spirit power!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Yet someone, from a certain brown
|
||
1580 Liquid, drank not a drop, at midnight hour.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
It seems that you delight in spying.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I know a lot: and yet I’m not all-knowing.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
When sweet familiar tones drew me,
|
||
Away from the tormenting crowd,
|
||
1585 Then my other childhood feelings
|
||
Better times echoed, and allowed.
|
||
So I curse whatever snares the soul,
|
||
In its magical, enticing arms,
|
||
Banishes it to this mournful hole,
|
||
1590 With dazzling, seductive charms!
|
||
Cursed be those high Opinions first,
|
||
With which the mind entraps itself!
|
||
Then glittering Appearance curse,
|
||
In which the senses lose themselves!
|
||
1595 Curse what deceives us in our dreaming,
|
||
With thoughts of everlasting fame!
|
||
Curse the flattery of ‘possessing’
|
||
Wife and child, lands and name!
|
||
Curse Mammon, when he drives us
|
||
1600 To bold acts to win our treasure:
|
||
Or straightens out our pillows
|
||
For us to idle at our leisure!
|
||
Curse the sweet juice of the grape!
|
||
Curse the highest favours Love lets fall!
|
||
1605 Cursed be Hope! Cursed be Faith,
|
||
And cursed be Patience most of all!
|
||
|
||
Choir of Spirits (Unseen)
|
||
|
||
Sorrow! Sorrow!
|
||
You’ve destroyed it,
|
||
The beautiful world,
|
||
1610 With a powerful fist:
|
||
It tumbles, it’s hurled
|
||
To ruin! A demigod crushed it!
|
||
We carry
|
||
Fragments into the void,
|
||
1615 And sadly
|
||
Lament the Beauty that’s gone.
|
||
Stronger
|
||
For all of Earth’s sons,
|
||
Brighter,
|
||
1620 Build it again,
|
||
Build, in your heart!
|
||
Life’s new start,
|
||
Begin again,
|
||
With senses washed clean,
|
||
1625 And sound, then,
|
||
A newer art!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
They’re little, but fine,
|
||
These attendants of mine.
|
||
Precocious advice they give, listen,
|
||
1630 Regarding both action, and passion!
|
||
Into the World outside,
|
||
From Solitude, that’s dried
|
||
Your sap and senses,
|
||
They tempt us.
|
||
1635 Stop playing with grief,
|
||
That feeds, a vulture, on your breast,
|
||
The worst society, you’ll find, will prompt belief,
|
||
That you’re a Man among the rest.
|
||
Not that I mean
|
||
1640 To shove you into the mass.
|
||
Among ‘the greats’, I’m second-class:
|
||
But if you, in my company,
|
||
Your path through life would wend,
|
||
I’ll willingly condescend
|
||
1645 To serve you, as we go.
|
||
I’m your man, and so,
|
||
If it suits you of course,
|
||
I’m your slave: I’m yours!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
And what must I do in exchange?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1650 There’s lots of time: you’ve got the gist.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
No, no! The Devil is an egotist,
|
||
Does nothing lightly, or in God’s name,
|
||
To help another, so I insist,
|
||
Speak your demands out loud,
|
||
1655 Such servants are risks, in a house.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I’ll be your servant here, and I’ll
|
||
Not stop or rest, at your decree:
|
||
When we’re together, on the other side,
|
||
You’ll do the same for me.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
1660 The ‘other side’ concerns me less:
|
||
Shatter this world, in pieces,
|
||
The other one can take its place,
|
||
The root of my joy’s on this Earth,
|
||
And this Sun lights my sorrow:
|
||
1665 If I must part from them tomorrow,
|
||
What can or will be, that I’ll face.
|
||
I’ll hear no more of it, of whether
|
||
In that future, men both hate and love,
|
||
Or whether in those spheres, forever,
|
||
1670 We’re given a below and an above.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
In that case, you can venture all.
|
||
Commit yourself: today, you shall
|
||
View my arts with joy: I mean
|
||
To show you what no man has seen.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
1675 Poor devil what can you give? When has ever
|
||
A human spirit, in its highest endeavour,
|
||
Been understood by such a one as you?
|
||
You have a never-satiating food,
|
||
You have your restless gold, a slew
|
||
1680 Of quicksilver, melting in the hand,
|
||
Games whose prize no man can land,
|
||
A girl, who while she’s on my arm,
|
||
Snares a neighbour, with her eyes:
|
||
And Honour’s fine and godlike charm,
|
||
1685 That, like a meteor, dies?
|
||
Show me fruits then that rot, before they’re ready.
|
||
And trees grown green again, each day, too!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Such commands don’t frighten me:
|
||
With such treasures I can truly serve you.
|
||
1690 Still, my good friend, a time may come,
|
||
When one prefers to eat what’s good in peace.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
When I lie quiet in bed, at ease.
|
||
Then let my time be done!
|
||
If you fool me, with flatteries,
|
||
1695 Till my own self’s a joy to me,
|
||
If you snare me with luxury –
|
||
Let that be the last day I see!
|
||
That bet I’ll make!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
Done!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
And quickly!
|
||
When, to the Moment then, I say:
|
||
1700 ‘Ah, stay a while! You are so lovely!’
|
||
Then you can grasp me: then you may,
|
||
Then, to my ruin, I’ll go gladly!
|
||
Then they can ring the passing bell,
|
||
Then from your service you are free,
|
||
1705 The clocks may halt, the hands be still,
|
||
And time be past and done, for me!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Consider well, we’ll not forget.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You have your rights, complete:
|
||
I never over-estimate my powers.
|
||
1710 I’ll be a slave, in defeat:
|
||
Why ask whose slave or yours?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Today, likewise, at the Doctors’ Feast
|
||
I’ll do my duty as your servant.
|
||
One thing, though! – Re: life and death, I want
|
||
1715 A few lines from you, at the least.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You pedant, you demand it now in writing?
|
||
You still won’t take Man’s word for anything?
|
||
It’s not enough that the things I say,
|
||
Will always accord with my future?
|
||
1720 The world never ceases to wear away,
|
||
And shall a promise bind me, then, forever?
|
||
Yet that’s the illusion in our minds,
|
||
And who then would be free of it?
|
||
Happy the man, who pure truth finds,
|
||
1725 And who’ll never deign to sacrifice it!
|
||
Still a document, written and signed,
|
||
That’s a ghost makes all men fear it.
|
||
The word is already dying in the pen,
|
||
And wax and leather hold the power then.
|
||
1730 What do you want from me base spirit?
|
||
Will iron: marble: parchment: paper do it?
|
||
Shall I write with stylus, pen or chisel?
|
||
I’ll leave the whole decision up to you.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Why launch into oratory too?
|
||
1735 Hot-tempered: you exaggerate as well.
|
||
Any bit of paper’s just as good.
|
||
And you can sign it with a drop of blood.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
If it will satisfy you, and it should,
|
||
Then let’s complete the farce in full.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1740 Blood is a quite special fluid.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Have no fear I’ll break this pact!
|
||
The extreme I can promise you: it is
|
||
All the power my efforts can extract.
|
||
I’ve puffed myself up so highly
|
||
1745 I belong in your ranks now.
|
||
The mighty Spirit scorns me
|
||
And Nature shuts me out.
|
||
The thread of thought has turned to dust,
|
||
Knowledge fills me with disgust.
|
||
1750 Let the depths of sensuality
|
||
Satisfy my burning passion!
|
||
And, its impenetrable mask on,
|
||
Let every marvel be prepared for me!
|
||
Let’s plunge into time’s torrent,
|
||
1755 Into the whirlpools of event!
|
||
Then let joy, and distress,
|
||
Frustration, and success,
|
||
Follow each other, as well they can:
|
||
Restless activity proves the man!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1760 No goal or measure’s set for you.
|
||
Do as you wish, nibble at everything,
|
||
Catch at fragments while you’re flying,
|
||
Enjoy it all, whatever you find to do.
|
||
Now grab at it, and don’t be stupid!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
1765 It’s not joy we’re about: you heard it.
|
||
I’ll take the frenzy, pain-filled elation,
|
||
Loving hatred, enlivening frustration.
|
||
Cured of its urge to know, my mind
|
||
In future, will not hide from any pain,
|
||
1770 And what is shared by all mankind,
|
||
In my innermost self, I’ll contain:
|
||
My soul will grasp the high and low,
|
||
My heart accumulate its bliss and woe,
|
||
So this self will embrace all theirs,
|
||
1775 That, in the end, their fate it shares.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Believe me, many a thousand year
|
||
They’ve chewed hard food, and yet
|
||
From the cradle to the bier,
|
||
Not one has ever digested it!
|
||
1780 Trust one of us, this Whole thing
|
||
Was only made for a god’s delight!
|
||
In eternal splendour he is dwelling,
|
||
He placed us in the darkness quite,
|
||
And only gave you day and night.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
1785 But, I will!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
That’s good to hear!
|
||
Yet I’ve a fear, just the one:
|
||
Time is short, and art is long.
|
||
I think you need instruction.
|
||
Join forces with a poet: use poetry,
|
||
1790 Let him roam in imagination,
|
||
You’ll gain every noble quality
|
||
From your honorary occupation,
|
||
The lion’s brave attitude
|
||
The wild stag’s swiftness,
|
||
1795 The Italian’s fiery blood,
|
||
The North’s persistence.
|
||
Let him find the mysterious
|
||
Meeting of generous and devious,
|
||
While you, with passions young and hot,
|
||
1800 Fall in love, according to the plot.
|
||
I’d like to see such a gentleman, among us,
|
||
And I’d call him Mister Microcosmus.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What am I then, if it’s a flight too far,
|
||
For me to gain that human crown
|
||
1805 I yearn towards with every sense I own?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
In the end, you are – what you are.
|
||
Set your hair in a thousand curlicues
|
||
Place your feet in yard-high shoes,
|
||
You’ll remain forever, what you are.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
1810 All the treasures of the human spirit
|
||
I feel that I’ve expended, uselessly.
|
||
And wherever, at the last, I sit,
|
||
No new power flows, in me.
|
||
I’m not a hair’s breadth taller, as you see,
|
||
1815 And I’m no nearer to Infinity.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
My dear sir, you see the thing
|
||
Exactly as all men see it: why,
|
||
We must re-order everything,
|
||
Before the joys of life slip by.
|
||
1820 Hang it! Hands and feet, belong to you,
|
||
Certainly, a head, and a backside,
|
||
Yet everything I use as new
|
||
Why is my ownership of it denied?
|
||
When I can count on six stallions,
|
||
1825 Isn’t their horsepower mine to use?
|
||
I drive behind, and am a proper man,
|
||
As though I’d twenty-four legs, too.
|
||
Look lively! Leave the senses be,
|
||
And plunge into the world with me!
|
||
1830 I say to you that scholarly fellows
|
||
Are like the cattle on an arid heath:
|
||
Some evil spirit leads them round in circles,
|
||
While sweet green meadows lie beneath.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
How shall we begin then?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
From here, we’ll first win free.
|
||
1835 What kind of a martyrs’ hole can this be?
|
||
What kind of a teacher of life is he,
|
||
Who fills young minds with ennui?
|
||
Let your neighbours do it, and go!
|
||
Do you want to thresh straw forever?
|
||
1840 The best things you can ever know,
|
||
You dare not tell the youngsters, ever.
|
||
I hear one of them arriving, too!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’ve no desire to see him, though.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
The poor lad’s waited hours for you.
|
||
1845 He mustn’t go away un-consoled.
|
||
Come: give me your cap and gown.
|
||
The mask should look delicious. So!
|
||
|
||
(He disguises himself.)
|
||
|
||
Now I’ve lost what wit’s my own!
|
||
I want fifteen minutes with him, only:
|
||
1850 Meanwhile get ready for our journey!
|
||
|
||
(Faust exits.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (In Faust’s long gown.)
|
||
|
||
Reason and Science you despise,
|
||
Man’s highest powers: now the lies
|
||
Of the deceiving spirit must bind you
|
||
With those magic arts that blind you,
|
||
1855 And I’ll have you, totally –
|
||
Fate gave him such a spirit
|
||
It urges him ever onwards, wildly,
|
||
And, in his hasty striving, he has leapt
|
||
Beyond all earth’s ecstasies.
|
||
1860 I’ll drag him through raw life,
|
||
Through the meaningless and shallow,
|
||
I’ll freeze him: stick to him: keep him ripe,
|
||
Frustrate his insatiable greed, allow
|
||
Food and drink to drift before his eyes:
|
||
1865 In vain he’ll beg for consummation,
|
||
And if he weren’t the devil’s, why
|
||
He’d still go to his ruination!
|
||
|
||
(A student enters.)
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
I’m only here momentarily,
|
||
I’ve come, filled with humility,
|
||
1870 To speak to, and to stand before ,
|
||
One who’s spoken of with awe.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Your courtesy delights me greatly!
|
||
A man like other men you see.
|
||
Have you studied then, elsewhere?
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
1875 I beg you, please enrol me, here!
|
||
I come to you strong of courage,
|
||
Lined in pocket, healthy for my age:
|
||
My mother didn’t want to lose me: though,
|
||
I’d like to learn what it’s right for me to know.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1880 Then you’ve come to the right place, exactly.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
To be honest, I’d like to go already:
|
||
There’s little pleasure for me at all,
|
||
In these walls, and all these halls.
|
||
It’s such a narrow space I find,
|
||
1885 You see no trees, no leaves of any kind,
|
||
And in the lectures, on the benches,
|
||
All thought deserts me, and my senses.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
It will only come to you with habit.
|
||
So the child takes its mother’s breast
|
||
1890 Quite unwillingly at first, and yet it
|
||
Soon sucks away at her with zest.
|
||
So will you at Wisdom’s breast, here,
|
||
Feel every day a little zestier.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
I’ll cling to her neck with pleasure:
|
||
1895 But only tell me how to find her.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Explain, before you travel on
|
||
What faculty you’ve settled on.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
I want to be a true scholar,
|
||
I want to grasp, by the collar,
|
||
1900 What’s on earth, in heaven above,
|
||
In Science, and in Nature too.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Then here’s the very path for you,
|
||
But don’t allow yourself to wander off.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
I’ll be present heart and soul:
|
||
1905 Of course I’ll want to play,
|
||
Have some fun and freedom, though,
|
||
On each sweet summer holiday.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Use your time well: it slips away so fast, yet
|
||
Discipline will teach you how to win it.
|
||
1910 My dear friend, I’d advise, in sum,
|
||
First, the Collegium Logicum.
|
||
There your mind will be trained,
|
||
As if in Spanish boots, constrained,
|
||
So that painfully, as it ought,
|
||
1915 It creeps along the way of thought,
|
||
Not flitting about all over,
|
||
Wandering here and there.
|
||
So you’ll learn, in many days,
|
||
What you used to do, untaught, as in a haze,
|
||
1920 Like eating now, and drinking, you’ll see
|
||
The necessity of One! Two! Three!
|
||
Truly the intricacy of logic
|
||
Is like a master-weaver’s fabric,
|
||
Where the loom holds a thousand threads,
|
||
1925 Here and there the shuttles go
|
||
And the threads, invisibly, flow,
|
||
One pass serves for a thousand instead.
|
||
Then the philosopher steps in: he’ll show
|
||
That it certainly had to be so:
|
||
1930 The first was - so, the second - so,
|
||
And so, the third and fourth were - so:
|
||
If first and second had never been,
|
||
Third and fourth would not be seen.
|
||
All praise the scholars, beyond believing,
|
||
1935 But few of them ever turn to weaving.
|
||
To know and note the living, you’ll find it
|
||
Best to first dispense with the spirit:
|
||
Then with the pieces in your hand,
|
||
Ah! You’ve only lost the spiritual bond.
|
||
1940 ‘Natural treatment’, Chemistry calls it
|
||
Mocks at herself, and doesn’t know it.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
I’m not sure that I quite understand.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
You’ll soon know it all, as planned,
|
||
When you’ve learnt the science of reduction,
|
||
1945 And everything’s proper classification.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
After all that, I feel as stupid
|
||
As if I’d a mill wheel in my head.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Next, before all else, you’ll fix
|
||
Your mind on Metaphysics!
|
||
1950 See that you’re profoundly trained
|
||
In what never stirs in a human brain:
|
||
You’ll learn a splendid word
|
||
For what’s occurred or not occurred.
|
||
But for the present take six months
|
||
1955 To get yourself in order: start at once.
|
||
Five hours every day, lock
|
||
Yourself in, with a ticking clock!
|
||
Make sure you’re well prepared,
|
||
Study each paragraph with care,
|
||
1960 So afterwards you’ll be certain
|
||
Only what’s in the book, was written:
|
||
Then be as diligent when you pen it,
|
||
As if the Holy Ghost had said it!
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
You won’t need to tell me twice!
|
||
1965 I think, myself, it’s very helpful, too
|
||
That one can take back home, and use,
|
||
What someone’s penned in black and white.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
But choose a faculty, any one!
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
I wouldn’t be comfortable with Law.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
1970 I couldn’t name you anything more
|
||
Vile, I know how dogmatic it’s become.
|
||
Laws and rights are handed down
|
||
It’s an eternal disgrace:
|
||
They’re moved round from town to town
|
||
1975 Dragged around from place to place.
|
||
Reason is nonsense, kindness a disease,
|
||
If you’re a grandchild it’s a curse!
|
||
The rights we are born with,
|
||
To those, alas, no one refers!
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
1980 That just strengthens my disgust.
|
||
Happy the student that you instruct!
|
||
I’ve nearly settled on Theology.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I wouldn’t wish to guide you erroneously.
|
||
In what that branch of knowledge concerns
|
||
1985 It’s so difficult to avoid a fallacious route,
|
||
There’s so much poison hidden in what you learn,
|
||
And it’s barely distinguishable from the antidote.
|
||
The best thing here’s to make a single choice,
|
||
Then simply swear by your master’s voice.
|
||
1990 On the whole, to words stick fast!
|
||
Through the safest gate you’ll pass
|
||
To the Temple of Certainty.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
Yet surely words must have a sense.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Why, yes! But don’t torment yourself with worry,
|
||
1995 Where sense fails it’s only necessary
|
||
To supply a word, and change the tense.
|
||
With words fine arguments can be weighted,
|
||
With words whole Systems can be created,
|
||
With words, the mind does its conceiving,
|
||
2000 No word suffers a jot from thieving.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
Forgive me, I delay you with my questions,
|
||
But I must trouble you again,
|
||
On the subject of Medicine,
|
||
Have you no helpful word to say?
|
||
2005 Three years, so little time applied,
|
||
And, God, the field is rather wide!
|
||
If only you had some kind of pointer,
|
||
You would feel so much further on.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Aside.)
|
||
|
||
I’m tired of this desiccated banter
|
||
2010 I really must play the devil, at once.
|
||
|
||
(Aloud.)
|
||
|
||
To grasp the spirit of Medicine’s easily done:
|
||
You study the great and little world, until,
|
||
In the end you let it carry on
|
||
Just as God wills.
|
||
2015 Useless to roam round, scientifically:
|
||
Everyone learns only what he can:
|
||
The one who grasps the Moment fully,
|
||
He’s the proper man.
|
||
You’re quite a well-made fellow,
|
||
2020 You’re not short of courage too,
|
||
And when you’re easy with yourself,
|
||
Others will be easy with you.
|
||
Study, especially, female behaviour:
|
||
Their eternal aches and woes,
|
||
2025 All of the thousand-fold,
|
||
Rise from one point, and have one cure.
|
||
And if you’re half honourable about it
|
||
You shall have them in your pocket.
|
||
A title first: to give them comfort you
|
||
2030 Have skills that far exceed the others,
|
||
Then you’re free to touch the goods, and view
|
||
What someone else has prowled around for years.
|
||
Take the pulse firmly, you understand,
|
||
And then, with sidelong fiery glance,
|
||
2035 Grasp the slender hips, in haste,
|
||
To find out whether she’s tight-laced.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
That sounds much better! The Where and How, I see.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Grey, dear friend, is all theory,
|
||
And green the golden tree of life.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
2040 I swear it’s like a dream to me: may I
|
||
Trouble you, at some further time,
|
||
To expound your wisdom, so sublime?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
As much as I can, I’ll gladly explain.
|
||
|
||
Student
|
||
|
||
I can’t tear myself away,
|
||
2045 I must just pass you my album, sir,
|
||
Grant me the favour of your signature!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Very well.
|
||
|
||
(He writes and gives the book back.)
|
||
|
||
Student (Reading Mephistopheles’ Latin inscription which means:
|
||
‘You’ll be like God, acquainted with good and evil’.)
|
||
|
||
Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum.
|
||
|
||
(He makes his bows, and takes his leave.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Just follow the ancient text, and my mother the snake, too:
|
||
2050 And then your likeness to God will surely frighten you!
|
||
|
||
(Faust enters.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Where will we go, then?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Where you please.
|
||
The little world, and then the great, we’ll see.
|
||
With what profit and delight,
|
||
This term, you’ll be a parasite!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
2055 Yet with my long beard, I’ll
|
||
Lack life’s superficial style.
|
||
My attempt will come to nothing:
|
||
I know, in this world, I don’t fit in.
|
||
I feel so small next to other men,
|
||
2060 It only means embarrassment.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
My friend, just give yourself completely to it:
|
||
When you find yourself, you’ll soon know how to live it.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
How shall we depart from here, then?
|
||
I see not one servant, coach, or horse.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2065 We’ll just spread this cloak wide open,
|
||
Then through the air we’ll take our course.
|
||
For a daring trip like this we’re on,
|
||
Better not take much baggage along.
|
||
A little hot air I’ll ready, first,
|
||
2070 To lift us nimbly above the Earth,
|
||
And as we’re light we’ll soon get clear:
|
||
Congratulations on your new career!
|
||
|
||
Scene V: Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig
|
||
|
||
(Friends happily drinking.)
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Will none of you laugh? Nobody drink?
|
||
I’ll have to teach you to smile, I think!
|
||
2075 You’re all of you like wet straw today,
|
||
And usually you’re well away.
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
That’s up to you, you bring us nothing.
|
||
Nothing dumb, or dirty, nothing.
|
||
|
||
Frosch (Pouring a glass of wine over Brander’s head.)
|
||
|
||
You can have both!
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
Rotten swine!
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
2080 You wanted them both, so you got mine!
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Out the door, whoever fights! Get out!
|
||
Let’s sing a heart-felt chorus, drink and shout!
|
||
Up! Hurray! Ha!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Ah! I’m in agony!
|
||
Earplugs, here! This fellow’s deafened me.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
2085 It’s only when it echoes in the tower,
|
||
You hear a bass voice’s real power.
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Right, out with him who takes offence!
|
||
Ah! Do, re, me!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Ah! Do, re, me!
|
||
|
||
Fosch
|
||
|
||
Our throats are tuned: commence.
|
||
|
||
(He sings.)
|
||
|
||
2090 ‘Dear Holy Roman Empire,
|
||
How do you hold together?’
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
A lousy song! Bah! A political song -
|
||
A tiresome song! Thank God, every morning,
|
||
It isn’t you who must sit there worrying
|
||
2095 About the Empire! At least I’m better for
|
||
Not being a King or a Chancellor.
|
||
But we should have a leader, so
|
||
We’ll choose a Pope of our own.
|
||
You know the qualities that can
|
||
2100 Swing the vote, and elevate the man.
|
||
|
||
Frosch (Sings.)
|
||
|
||
‘Sing away, sweet Nightingale,
|
||
Greet my girl, and never fail.’
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Don’t greet my girl! I’ll not allow it!
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Greet and kiss her! You’ll not stop it!
|
||
|
||
(He sings.)
|
||
|
||
2105 ‘Slip the bolt in deepest night!
|
||
Slip it! Wake, the lover bright.
|
||
Slip it to! At break of dawn.’
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Yes, sing in praise of her, and boast: sing on!
|
||
I’ll laugh later when it suits:
|
||
2110 She leads me a dance, she’ll lead you too.
|
||
She should have a dwarf for a lover!
|
||
At the crossroads, let him woo her:
|
||
An old goat from Blocksberg, galloping over,
|
||
Can bleat goodnight, as it passes by her.
|
||
2115 An honest man, of flesh and blood,
|
||
For a girl like that’s far too good.
|
||
I’m not bothered even to say hello
|
||
Except perhaps to break her window.
|
||
|
||
Brander (Pounding on the table.)
|
||
|
||
Quiet! Quiet! Or you won’t hear!
|
||
2120 I know about life, you lot, confess.
|
||
Besotted persons sit among us,
|
||
As fits their status, then, I must
|
||
Give them, tonight, of my very best.
|
||
Listen! A song in the newest strain!
|
||
2125 And you can shout out the refrain!
|
||
|
||
(He sings.)
|
||
|
||
‘Once there was a cellar rat,
|
||
Who lived on grease, and butter:
|
||
He had a belly, round and fat,
|
||
Just like Doctor Luther.
|
||
2130 The cook set poison round about:
|
||
It brought on such a violent bout,
|
||
As if he’d love inside him.’
|
||
|
||
Chorus (Shouting.)
|
||
|
||
‘As if he’d love inside him!’
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
‘He ran here, and he ran there,
|
||
2135 And drank from all the puddles,
|
||
Gnawing, scratching, everywhere,
|
||
But nothing cured his shudders.
|
||
In torment, he leapt to the roof,
|
||
Poor beast, soon he’d had enough,
|
||
2140 As if he’d love inside him.’
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
‘As if he’d love inside him!’
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
‘Fear drove him to the light of day,
|
||
Into the kitchen then he ran,
|
||
Fell on the hearth and twitched away,
|
||
2145 Pitifully weak, and wan.
|
||
Then the murderess laughed with glee:
|
||
He’s on his last legs, I see,
|
||
As if he’d love inside him.’
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
‘As if he’d love inside him.’
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
2150 How pleased they are, the tiresome fools!
|
||
Spreading poison for wretched rats,
|
||
To me, that’s the right thing to do!
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
You’re in sympathy with them, perhaps?
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
That fat belly with a balding head!
|
||
2155 Bad luck makes him meek and mild:
|
||
From a swollen rat, he sees, with dread,
|
||
His own natural likeness is compiled.
|
||
|
||
(Faust and Mephistopheles appear.)
|
||
|
||
First of all, I had to bring you here,
|
||
Where cheerful friends sup together,
|
||
2160 To see how happily life slips away.
|
||
For these folk every day’s a holiday.
|
||
With lots of leisure, and little sense,
|
||
They revolve in their round-dance,
|
||
Chasing their tails as kittens prance,
|
||
2165 If the hangovers aren’t too intense,
|
||
If the landlord gives them credit,
|
||
They’re cheerful, and unworried by it.
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
They’re fresh from their travelling days,
|
||
You can tell by their foreign ways:
|
||
2170 They’ve not been back an hour: you see.
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
True, you’re right! My Leipzig’s dear to me!
|
||
It’s a little Paris, and educates its people.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Who do you think the strangers are?
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Let me find out! I’ll draw the truth,
|
||
2175 From those two, with a brimming glass,
|
||
As easily as you’d pull a child’s tooth.
|
||
It seems to me they’re of some noble house,
|
||
They look so discontented and so proud.
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
They’re surely strolling players, I’d guess!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Perhaps.
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
2180 Watch me screw it out of them, then!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
|
||
|
||
These folk wouldn’t feel the devil, even
|
||
If he’d got them dangling by the neck.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Greetings, sirs!
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Thank you, and greetings.
|
||
|
||
(He mutters away, inspecting Mephistopheles side-on.)
|
||
|
||
What’s wrong with his foot: why’s he limping?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2185 Allow us to sit with you, if you please.
|
||
Instead of fine ale that can’t be had,
|
||
We can still have good company.
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
You seem a choosy sort of lad.
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Was it late when you started out from Rippach?
|
||
2190 Perhaps you dined with Hans there, first?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
We passed straight by, today, without a rest!
|
||
We spoke to him last some time back,
|
||
When he talked a lot about his cousins,
|
||
And he sent to each his kind greetings.
|
||
|
||
(He bows to Frosch.)
|
||
|
||
Altmayer (Aside.)
|
||
|
||
He did you, there! He’s smart!
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
2195 A shrewd customer!
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Wait, I’ll have him soon, I’m sure!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
If I’m not wrong, we heard
|
||
A tuneful choir singing?
|
||
I’m sure, with this vault, the words
|
||
2200 Must really set it ringing!
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Are you by any chance a virtuoso?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
No! Though my desire is great, my skill is only so-so.
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Give us a song!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
If you wish it, a few.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
So long as it’s a brand-new one!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2205 Well, it’s from Spain that we’ve just come,
|
||
The lovely land of wine, and singing too.
|
||
|
||
(He sings.)
|
||
|
||
‘There was once a king, who
|
||
Had a giant flea’ –
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Listen! Did you get that? A flea.
|
||
2210 A flea’s an honest guest to me.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Sings.)
|
||
|
||
‘There was once a king, who
|
||
Had a giant flea,
|
||
He loved him very much, oh,
|
||
He was like a son, you see.
|
||
2215 The king called for his tailor,
|
||
He came right away:
|
||
Now, measure up the lad for
|
||
A suit of clothes, I say!’
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
Make sure the tailor’s sharp,
|
||
2220 And cuts them out precisely,
|
||
And, since his son’s dear to his heart,
|
||
Make sure there’s never a crease to see.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
‘All in silk and velvet,
|
||
He was smartly dressed,
|
||
2225 With ribbons on his coat,
|
||
A cross upon his chest.
|
||
He was the First Minister,
|
||
And so he wore a star:
|
||
His brothers and his sisters,
|
||
2230 He made noblest by far.
|
||
|
||
The lords and the ladies,
|
||
They were badly smitten,
|
||
The Queen and her maids,
|
||
They were stung and bitten.
|
||
2235 They didn’t dare to crush them,
|
||
Or scratch away, all night.
|
||
We smother them, and crush them,
|
||
The moment that they bite.’
|
||
|
||
Chorus (Shouted.)
|
||
|
||
‘We smother them, and crush them,
|
||
2240 The moment that they bite.’
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Bravo! Bravo! That went sweetly!
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
So shall it be with every flea!
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
Sharpen your nails, and crush them fine!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Long live freedom, and long live wine!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2245 I’d love to drink a glass, in freedom’s honour,
|
||
If only the wine were a little better.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Not again, we don’t want to hear!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I fear the landlord might complain
|
||
Or I’d give these worthy guests,
|
||
2250 One of my cellar’s very best.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Just bring it on! He’ll accept it: I’ll explain.
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Make it a good glass and we’ll praise it.
|
||
But don’t make it so small we can’t taste it.
|
||
Because if I’m truly going to decide,
|
||
2255 I need a really big mouthful inside.
|
||
|
||
Altmayer (Aside.)
|
||
|
||
They’re from the Rhine, as I guessed.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Bring me a corkscrew!
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
What for?
|
||
Is it outside already, this cask?
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
There’s one in the landlord’s toolbox, for sure.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Takes the corkscrew. To Frosch.)
|
||
|
||
2260 Now, what would you like to try?
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
What? Is there a selection, too?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
There’s a choice for every one of you.
|
||
|
||
Altmayer (To Frosch.)
|
||
|
||
Ah! You soon catch on: your lips are dry?
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Good! When I’ve a choice, I drink Rhenish.
|
||
2265 The Fatherland grants those best gifts to us.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Boring a hole in the table-edge where Frosch is
|
||
sitting.)
|
||
|
||
Bring me a little wax, to make the seals, as well!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Ah, that’s for the conjuring trick, I can tell.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Brander.)
|
||
|
||
And yours?
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
Champagne for me is fine:
|
||
Make it a truly sparkling wine!
|
||
|
||
(Mephistopheles bores the holes: one of the others makes the wax
|
||
stoppers and stops the holes with them.)
|
||
|
||
2270 We can’t always shun what’s foreign,
|
||
Things from far away are often fine.
|
||
Real Germans can’t abide a Frenchman,
|
||
And yet they gladly drink his wine.
|
||
|
||
Siebel (As Mephistopheles approaches his seat.)
|
||
|
||
I must confess I do dislike the dry,
|
||
2275 Give me a glass of the very sweetest!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Boring a hole.)
|
||
|
||
I’ll pour an instant Tokay for you, yes?
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Now, gentlemen, look me in the eye!
|
||
I see you’ve had the better of us there.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Now! Now! With guests so rare,
|
||
2280 That would be far too much for me to dare.
|
||
Quick! Time for you to declare!
|
||
Which wine can I serve you with?
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Any at all! Don’t make us ask forever.
|
||
|
||
(Now all the holes have been stopped and sealed.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (With a strange gesture.)
|
||
|
||
Grapes, they are the vine’s load!
|
||
2285 Horns, they are the he-goat’s:
|
||
Wine is juice: wood makes vines,
|
||
The wooden board shall give us wine.
|
||
Look deeper into Nature!
|
||
Have faith, and here’s a wonder!
|
||
2290 Now draw the stoppers, and drink up!
|
||
|
||
All (Draw the stoppers, and the wine they chose flows into each
|
||
glass.)
|
||
|
||
O lovely fount, that flows for us!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
But careful, don’t lose a drop!
|
||
|
||
(They drink repeatedly.)
|
||
|
||
All (Singing.)
|
||
|
||
‘We’re all of us cannibals now,
|
||
We’re like five hundred sows.’
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2295 The folk are free, and we can go, you see!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’d like to leave here now.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Watch first: their bestiality
|
||
Will make a splendid show.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
(He drinks carelessly, wine pours on the ground and bursts into
|
||
flame.)
|
||
|
||
Help! Fire! Hell burns bright!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Charming away the flame.)
|
||
|
||
2300 Friendly element, be quiet!
|
||
|
||
(To the drinkers.)
|
||
|
||
For this time, just a drop of Purgatory.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
What’s that? You wait! You’ll pay dearly!
|
||
It seems you don’t quite see us right.
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Try playing that trick a second time, on us!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
2305 I think we should quietly send him packing.
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
What, sir? You think you’re daring,
|
||
Tricking us with your hocus-pocus?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Be quiet, old wine-barrel!
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
You broomstick! You’ll show us you’re ill bred?
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
2310 Just wait, it’ll rain blows, on your head!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer (Draws a stopper and fire blazes in his face.)
|
||
|
||
I’m burning! Burning!
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
It’s magic, strike!
|
||
The man’s a rascal! Kick him as you like!
|
||
|
||
(They draw knives and rush at Mephistopheles.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (With solemn gestures.)
|
||
|
||
Word and Image, ensnare!
|
||
Alter, senses and air!
|
||
2315 Be here, and there!
|
||
|
||
(They look at each other, amazed.)
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Where am I? What a lovely land!
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Vineyards? Am I seeing straight?
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
And, likewise, grapes to hand!
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
Deep in this green arbour, here,
|
||
See, the vines! What grapes appear!
|
||
|
||
(He grasps Siebel by the nose: the others do the same reciprocally,
|
||
and raise their knives.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2320 From their eyes, Error, take the iron band,
|
||
And let them see how the Devil plays a joke.
|
||
|
||
(He vanishes with Faust: the revellers separate.)
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
What’s happening?
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
And how?
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
Was that your nose?
|
||
|
||
Brander (To Siebel.)
|
||
|
||
And I’ve still got your nose in my hand!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
It was a tremor, that passed through every limb!
|
||
2325 Pass me a stool: I’m sinking in!
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Tell me: what happened there, my friend?
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
Where is he? When I catch that fellow,
|
||
He won’t leave here alive again!
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
I saw him myself fly out of the cellar
|
||
2330 Riding on a barrel – and then –
|
||
I feel there’s lead still in my feet.
|
||
|
||
(He turns towards the table.)
|
||
|
||
Ah! Does the wine still flow as sweet?
|
||
|
||
Siebel
|
||
|
||
It was deception, cheating, lying.
|
||
|
||
Frosch
|
||
|
||
Still, it seemed that I drank wine.
|
||
|
||
Brander
|
||
|
||
2335 And what about all those grapes that hung there?
|
||
|
||
Altmayer
|
||
|
||
Tell me, now, we shouldn’t believe in wonders!
|
||
|
||
Scene VI: The Witches’ Kitchen
|
||
|
||
(A giant cauldron stands on a low hearth, with a fire under it.
|
||
Various shapes appear in the fumes from the cauldron. A She-Ape sits
|
||
next to it, skimming it, watching to see it doesn’t boil over. The
|
||
He-Ape, with young ones, sits nearby warming himself. The ceiling and
|
||
walls are covered with the Witches’ grotesque instruments.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
These magical wild beasts repel me, too!
|
||
Are you telling me I can be renewed,
|
||
Wandering around in this mad maze,
|
||
2340 Demanding help from some old hag:
|
||
That her foul cookery will spirit away
|
||
Thirty years from my age, just like that?
|
||
It’s sad, if you know of nothing better!
|
||
The star of hope has quickly set.
|
||
2345 Hasn’t some noble mind, or Nature,
|
||
Found some wondrous potion yet?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
My friend, what you say, again, is intelligent!
|
||
There’s a natural means to make you younger:
|
||
But it’s written, in a book quite different,
|
||
2350 And in an odd chapter.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’ll know it, then.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Fine! You’ve a method here that needs
|
||
No gold, no doctor, no magician:
|
||
Take yourself off to the nearest field,
|
||
To scratch around, and hoe, and dig in,
|
||
2355 Maintain yourself, and constrain
|
||
Your senses in a narrow sphere:
|
||
Feed yourself on the purest fare,
|
||
Be a beast among beasts: think it no robbery,
|
||
To manure the fields you harvest, there:
|
||
2360 Since that’s the best of ways, believe me,
|
||
To keep your youth for eighty years!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’m not used to it, can’t condescend,
|
||
To take a spade in hand, and bend:
|
||
That narrow life wouldn’t suit me at all.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2365 So you must call the witch then, after all.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Why is that old witch necessary!
|
||
Why can’t you, yourself, make the brew?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
What a lovely occupation for me!
|
||
And build a thousand bridges, meanwhile, too.
|
||
2370 It’s not just art and science that tell,
|
||
Patience is needed in the work as well.
|
||
A calm mind’s busy years in its creation,
|
||
Only time strengthens the fermentation.
|
||
And everything about it
|
||
2375 Is quite a peculiar show!
|
||
It’s true the Devil taught it:
|
||
The Devil can’t make it though.
|
||
|
||
(Seeing the creatures.)
|
||
|
||
See what a dainty race I hail!
|
||
This is the female: this is the male!
|
||
|
||
(To the creatures.)
|
||
|
||
2380 The mistress isn’t home, I say?
|
||
|
||
The Creatures
|
||
|
||
Feasting away,
|
||
Gone today,
|
||
The Chimney way!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
How long will she be swarming?
|
||
|
||
The Creatures
|
||
|
||
2385 As long as our paws are warming.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
|
||
|
||
What do you think of these tender creatures?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
As rude as any I ever saw!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ah, but to me this kind of discourse
|
||
Shows the most delightful features!
|
||
|
||
(To the creatures.)
|
||
|
||
2390 Accursed puppets, tell me true,
|
||
What are you stirring in that brew?
|
||
|
||
The Creatures
|
||
|
||
We’re cooking up thick beggars’ soup.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Then there’ll be thousands in the queue.
|
||
|
||
The He-Ape (Approaches and fawns on Mephistopheles.)
|
||
|
||
O, throw the dice quick,
|
||
2395 And let me be rich!
|
||
I’ll be the winner!
|
||
It’s all arranged badly,
|
||
And if I had money,
|
||
I’d be a thinker.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2400 Why does the ape think he’d be lucky,
|
||
If he’d only a chance to try the lottery!
|
||
|
||
(Meanwhile the young apes have been playing with a large ball, and
|
||
they roll it forward.)
|
||
|
||
The He-Ape
|
||
|
||
The world’s a ball
|
||
It lifts to fall,
|
||
Rolls without rest:
|
||
2405 Rings like glass,
|
||
And breaks as fast!
|
||
It’s hollow at best.
|
||
It’s shining here,
|
||
Here, what’s more:
|
||
2410 ‘I am living!’
|
||
A place dear son,
|
||
To keep far from!
|
||
You must die!
|
||
Its clay will soon
|
||
2415 In pieces, lie.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Why the sieve?
|
||
|
||
The He-Ape (Lifting it down.)
|
||
|
||
If you were a thief
|
||
I’d know you this minute.
|
||
|
||
(He runs to the She-Ape, and lets her look through the sieve.)
|
||
|
||
2420 Look through the sieve!
|
||
Can you see the thief,
|
||
But daren’t name him?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Approaching the fire.)
|
||
|
||
And this pot?
|
||
|
||
The He-Ape and She-Ape
|
||
|
||
What a silly lot!
|
||
Not to know a pot,
|
||
2425 Not to know a kettle!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Rude creature!
|
||
|
||
The He-Ape
|
||
|
||
Take this brush here,
|
||
And sit on the settle.
|
||
|
||
(He invites Mephistopheles to sit down.)
|
||
|
||
Faust (Who all this time has been standing in front of a mirror,
|
||
alternately approaching it and distancing himself from it.)
|
||
|
||
What do I see? What heavenly form
|
||
2430 Is this that the magic mirror brings!
|
||
Love, lend me your swiftest wings,
|
||
Then bear me to fields she adorns!
|
||
Ah, if I do not stand still here,
|
||
If I dare to venture nearer,
|
||
2435 I see as if through a mist, no clearer –
|
||
The loveliest form of Woman, there!
|
||
Is it possible: can Woman be so lovely?
|
||
Must I, in her outspread body, declare
|
||
The incarnation of all that’s heavenly?
|
||
2440 Can any such this earth deliver?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Naturally, if a God torments himself six days,
|
||
And says to himself, Bravo, at last, in praise,
|
||
He must have made something clever.
|
||
See, this time, what will satisfy you, forever:
|
||
2445 I’ll know how to fish that treasure out for you,
|
||
Happy, the one who finds good fortune in her,
|
||
And carries her home again, as his bride, too.
|
||
|
||
(Faust gazes endlessly in the mirror. Mephistopheles stretches
|
||
himself on the settle, plays with the brush, and continues to speak.)
|
||
|
||
Here I sit like a king on his throne,
|
||
The sceptre’s here, but where’s the crown?
|
||
|
||
The Creatures (Who up till now have been making all kinds of grotesque
|
||
movements together, bring Mephistopheles a crown, with great outcry.)
|
||
|
||
2450 Oh, with sweat and with blood,
|
||
If you’ll be so good,
|
||
Glue on this crown, sublime!
|
||
|
||
(They are awkward with the crown, and snap it in two pieces, with
|
||
which they leap about.)
|
||
|
||
Now that’s out of the way!
|
||
We see, and we say,
|
||
2455 We hear, and we rhyme -
|
||
|
||
Faust (In front of the mirror.)
|
||
|
||
Ah! I’ll go completely mad.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Pointing to the creatures.)
|
||
|
||
Now my head’s almost spinning.
|
||
|
||
The Creatures
|
||
|
||
If our luck’s not bad,
|
||
If there’s sense to be had,
|
||
2460 We must be thinking!
|
||
|
||
Faust (As before.)
|
||
|
||
My heart pains me with its burning! Quick,
|
||
Let’s leave this place, forego it!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Still in the same position.)
|
||
|
||
Well, at least one must admit
|
||
That they’re honest poets.
|
||
|
||
(The cauldron that the She-Ape has forgotten to keep a watch on, now
|
||
boils over: a great flame flares from the chimney. The Witch comes
|
||
careering down through the flames, with horrendous cries.)
|
||
|
||
2465 Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
|
||
Damned creature! Accursed sow!
|
||
You left the kettle: you’ve singed me now!
|
||
Accursed creature!
|
||
|
||
(Seeing Faust and Mephistopheles.)
|
||
|
||
What have we here?
|
||
2470 Who are you, here?
|
||
What do you want?
|
||
Who creeps unknown?
|
||
The fire’s pain own
|
||
In all your bone!
|
||
|
||
(She plunges the skimming-ladle into the cauldron, and scatters flame
|
||
towards Faust, Mephistopheles and the Creatures. The Creatures
|
||
whimper.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Reversing the brush he holds in his hand, and striking
|
||
among the jars and glasses.)
|
||
|
||
One, two! One, two!
|
||
There lies the brew!
|
||
There lies the glass!
|
||
A joke at last,
|
||
In time, she-ass,
|
||
2480 To your melody, too.
|
||
|
||
(As the Witch starts back in Anger and Horror.)
|
||
|
||
Do you know me? Skeleton! Scarecrow!
|
||
Do you know your lord and master?
|
||
What stops me from striking you, so,
|
||
Crushing you, and your ape-creatures?
|
||
2485 Have you no respect for a scarlet coat?
|
||
Don’t you understand a cockerel’s feather?
|
||
Have I hidden my face, you old she-goat?
|
||
Have I to name myself, as ever?
|
||
|
||
The Witch
|
||
|
||
Oh sir, forgive the rude welcome!
|
||
2490 I don’t see a single foot cloven.
|
||
And your two ravens - are where?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
This once, you get away with it:
|
||
It’s truly a good while, isn’t it,
|
||
Since we’ve been seen together.
|
||
2495 And Civilisation makes men level,
|
||
It even sticks to the Devil:
|
||
That Northern demon is no more:
|
||
Who sees horns now, or tail or claw?
|
||
As for the feet, which I can’t spare,
|
||
2500 That would harm me with the people.
|
||
So like many a youth, now, I wear,
|
||
False calves and false in-steps, as well.
|
||
|
||
The Witch (Dancing.)
|
||
|
||
Sense and reason flee my brain,
|
||
I see young Satan here again!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2505 Woman, I forbid that name!
|
||
|
||
The Witch
|
||
|
||
Why? What harm is caused so?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
It’s written in story books, always:
|
||
Men are no better for it, though:
|
||
The Evil One’s gone: the evil stays.
|
||
2510 Call me the Baron: that sounds good:
|
||
I’m a gentleman, like the other gentlemen.
|
||
Perhaps you doubt my noble blood:
|
||
See, here’s the crest I carry, then!
|
||
|
||
(He makes an indecent gesture.)
|
||
|
||
The Witch (Laughing immoderately.)
|
||
|
||
Ha! Ha! That’s your way, as ever.
|
||
2515 You’re the same rogue forever!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
|
||
|
||
My friend, take note: learn that this is
|
||
The proper way to handle witches.
|
||
|
||
The Witch
|
||
|
||
Now, gentlemen, say how I can be of use.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
A good glass of your well-known juice!
|
||
2520 But I must insist on the oldest:
|
||
The years double what it can do.
|
||
|
||
The Witch
|
||
|
||
Gladly! Here’s a flask, on the shelf:
|
||
I sometimes drink from it myself,
|
||
And it doesn’t really stink at all:
|
||
2525 I’ll gladly give him a glass or so.
|
||
|
||
(Whispering.)
|
||
|
||
If he drinks it unprepared, recall,
|
||
He won’t live a single hour, though.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
He’s my good friend: it’ll go down well:
|
||
Don’t begrudge the best of your kitchen.
|
||
2530 Draw the circle: speak the speech, then
|
||
Offer him a glass full!
|
||
|
||
(The Witch draws a circle with fantastic gestures, and places
|
||
mysterious articles inside it: meanwhile the glasses start to ring,
|
||
and the cauldron to echo, and make music. Finally she brings a large
|
||
book, sits the Apes in a ring, who serve as a reading desk and hold
|
||
torches. She beckons Faust to approach.)
|
||
|
||
Faust (To Mephistopheles.)
|
||
|
||
Tell me, now, what’s happening?
|
||
These wild gestures, crazy things,
|
||
All of this tasteless trickery,
|
||
2535 Is known, and hateful enough to me.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
A farce! You should be laughing:
|
||
Don’t be such a serious fellow!
|
||
This hocus-pocus she, the doctor’s, making,
|
||
So you’ll be aided by the juice to follow.
|
||
|
||
(He persuades Faust to enter the circle.)
|
||
|
||
The Witch (Begins to declaim from the book, with much emphasis.)
|
||
|
||
2540 You shall see, then!
|
||
From one make ten!
|
||
Let two go again,
|
||
Make three even,
|
||
You’re rich again.
|
||
2545 Take away four!
|
||
From five and six,
|
||
So says the Witch,
|
||
Make seven and eight,
|
||
So it’s full weight:
|
||
2550 And nine is one,
|
||
And ten is none.
|
||
This is the Witch’s one-times-one!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’m in the dark, the hag babbles with fever.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
There’s still more she’s not gone over,
|
||
2555 I know it well, the whole book’s like this:
|
||
I’ve wasted time on it before, though,
|
||
A perfect contradiction in terms is
|
||
Ever a mystery to the wise: fools more so.
|
||
My friend, the art’s both old and new,
|
||
2560 It’s like this in every age, with two
|
||
And one, and one and two,
|
||
Scattering error instead of truth.
|
||
Men prattle, and teach it undisturbed:
|
||
Who wants to be counted with the fools?
|
||
2565 Men always believe, when they hear words,
|
||
There must be thought behind them, too.
|
||
|
||
The Witch (Continuing.)
|
||
|
||
The highest skill,
|
||
The science, still
|
||
Is hidden from the rabble!
|
||
2570 One who never thought,
|
||
To him it’s brought,
|
||
He owns it without trouble.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Why talk this nonsense to us?
|
||
My head’s near split in two.
|
||
2575 It seems I hear the chorus,
|
||
Of a hundred thousand fools.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Enough, enough, O excellent Sibyl!
|
||
Bring the drink along: and fill
|
||
The cup, quick, to the very brim:
|
||
2580 The drink will bring my friend no harm:
|
||
He’s a man of many parts, and him
|
||
Many a noble draught has charmed.
|
||
|
||
(The Witch, ceremoniously, pours the drink into a cup: as Faust puts
|
||
it to his lips, a gentle flame rises.)
|
||
|
||
Down it quickly! Every time! It’ll
|
||
Likewise, warm your heart, entire.
|
||
2585 You’re hand in hand with the Devil:
|
||
Will you shrink before the fire?
|
||
|
||
(The Witch breaks the circle. Faust steps out.)
|
||
|
||
Now, quick, away! You may not rest.
|
||
|
||
The Witch
|
||
|
||
Much good may that potion do you!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To the Witch.)
|
||
|
||
On Walpurgis Night you can tell me best,
|
||
2590 What favour I can return to you.
|
||
|
||
The Witch
|
||
|
||
Here’s a song! Sing it sometimes, and you,
|
||
Will feel a peculiar effect: don’t ask me how.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
|
||
|
||
Come on, quickly, run about now:
|
||
You need to sweat, that will allow
|
||
2595 The power to penetrate, through and through.
|
||
Later, I’ll teach you to value leisure,
|
||
And soon you’ll find with deepest pleasure,
|
||
How Cupid stirs, and, now and then, leaps, too.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Let me look quickly in the glass, once more!
|
||
2600 How lovely that woman’s form, I descried!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
No! No! The paragon of all women, you’re
|
||
About to see before you, personified.
|
||
|
||
(Aside.)
|
||
|
||
With that drink in your body, well then,
|
||
All women will look to you like Helen.
|
||
|
||
Scene VII: A Street
|
||
|
||
(Faust. Margaret, passing by.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
2605 Lovely lady, may I offer you
|
||
My arm, and my protection, too?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Not lovely, nor the lady you detected,
|
||
I can go home, unprotected.
|
||
|
||
(She releases herself and exits.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
By Heavens, the child is lovely!
|
||
2610 I’ve never seen anything more so.
|
||
She’s virtuous, yet innocently
|
||
Pert, and quick-tongued though.
|
||
Her rosy lips, her clear cheeks,
|
||
I’ll not forget them in many a week!
|
||
2615 The way she cast down her eyes,
|
||
Deep in my heart, imprinted, lies:
|
||
How curt in her speech she was,
|
||
Well that was quite charming, of course!
|
||
|
||
(Mephistopheles enters.)
|
||
|
||
Listen, you must get that girl for me!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Which one?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
2620 The girl who just went by.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
That one, there? She’s come from the priest,
|
||
Absolved of all her sins, while I
|
||
Crept into a stall nearby:
|
||
She is such an innocent thing,
|
||
2625 She’s no need to sit confessing:
|
||
I’ve no power with such as those, I mean!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Yet, she’s older than fourteen.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Now you’re speaking like some Don Juan
|
||
Who wants every flower for himself alone,
|
||
2630 Conceited enough to think there’s no honour,
|
||
To be plucked except by him, nor favour:
|
||
But that’s never the case, you know.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Master Moraliser is that so?
|
||
With me, best leave morality alone!
|
||
2635 I’m telling you, short and sweet,
|
||
If that young heart doesn’t beat
|
||
Within my arms, tonight - so be it,
|
||
At midnight, then our pact is done.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Think, what a to and fro it will take!
|
||
2640 I need at least fourteen days, to make
|
||
Some kind of opportunity to meet her.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
If I’d seven hours at my call,
|
||
I’d not need the Devil at all,
|
||
To seduce such a creature.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2645 You’re almost talking like a Frenchman:
|
||
But don’t let yourself get all annoyed:
|
||
What’s the use if she’s only part enjoyed?
|
||
Your happiness won’t be as prolonged,
|
||
As if you were to knead and fashion
|
||
2650 That little doll, with every passion,
|
||
Up and down, as yearning preaches,
|
||
And many a cunning rascal teaches.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’ve enough appetite without all that.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Now, without complaint or jesting, what
|
||
2655 I’m telling you is, with this lovely child,
|
||
Once and for all, you mustn’t be wild.
|
||
She won’t be taken by storm, I said:
|
||
We’ll need to use cunning instead.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Get me a part of the angels’ treasure!
|
||
2660 Lead me to where she lies at leisure!
|
||
Get me a scarf from her neck: aspire
|
||
To a garter, that’s my heart’s desire.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
So you can see how I will strain
|
||
To help you, and ease your pain,
|
||
2665 We’ll not let an instant slip away,
|
||
I’ll lead you to her room today.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
And shall I see her? And have her?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
No! She has to visit a neighbour.
|
||
Meanwhile, you can be alone there,
|
||
2670 With every hope of future pleasure,
|
||
Enjoy her breathing space, at leisure.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Can we go?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Her room’s not yet free.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Look for a gift for her, from me!
|
||
|
||
(He exits.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
A present? Good! He’s sure to work it!
|
||
2675 I know many a lovely place, up here,
|
||
And many an ancient buried treasure:
|
||
I must have a look around for a bit.
|
||
(He exits.)
|
||
|
||
Scene VIII: Evening, A small well-kept room.
|
||
|
||
(Margaret, plaiting and fastening the braids of her hair.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’d give anything if I could say
|
||
Who that gentleman was, today!
|
||
2680 He’s brave for certain, I could see,
|
||
And from some noble family:
|
||
That his face readily told –
|
||
Or he wouldn’t have been so bold.
|
||
|
||
(She exits.) (Mephistopheles and Faust appear.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Come in: but quietly, I mean!
|
||
|
||
Faust (After a moment’s silence.)
|
||
|
||
2685 I’d ask you, now, to leave me be!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Poking about.)
|
||
|
||
Not every girl keeps thing so clean.
|
||
|
||
(Mephistopheles exits.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Welcome, sweet twilight glow,
|
||
That weaves throughout this shrine!
|
||
Sweet love-pangs grip my heart so,
|
||
2690 That on hope’s dew must live, and pine!
|
||
How a breath of peace breathes around,
|
||
Its order, and contentment!
|
||
In this poverty, what wealth is found!
|
||
In this prison, what enchantment!
|
||
|
||
(He throws himself into a leather armchair near the bed.)
|
||
|
||
2695 Accept me now, you, who with open arms
|
||
Gathered joy and pain, in past days, where,
|
||
How often, ah, with all their childish charms
|
||
The little flock hung round their father’s chair!
|
||
There my beloved, perhaps, cheeks full, stands,
|
||
2700 Grateful for all the gifts of Christmas fare,
|
||
Kissing her grandfather’s withered hands.
|
||
Sweet girl, I feel your spirit, softly stray,
|
||
Through the wealth of order, all around me,
|
||
That with motherliness instructs, each day,
|
||
2705 The tablecloth to lie smooth, at your say,
|
||
And even the wrinkled sand beneath your feet.
|
||
O beloved hand, so goddess-like!
|
||
This house because of you is Heaven’s like.
|
||
And here!
|
||
|
||
(He lifts one of the bed curtains.)
|
||
|
||
What grips me with its bliss!
|
||
2710 Here I could stand, slowly lingering.
|
||
Here, Nature, in its gentlest dreaming,
|
||
Formed an earthly angel within this.
|
||
Here the child lay! Life, warm,
|
||
Filled her delicate breast,
|
||
2715 And here, in pure and holy form,
|
||
A heavenly image was expressed!
|
||
And I! What leads me here?
|
||
Why do I feel so deeply stirred?
|
||
What do I seek? Why such a heavy heart?
|
||
2720 Poor Faust! I no longer know who you are.
|
||
Is there a magic fragrance round me?
|
||
I urged myself on, to the deepest delight,
|
||
And feel myself melt in Love’s dreaming flight!
|
||
Are we the sport of every lightest breeze?
|
||
2725 And if she appeared at this instant,
|
||
How to atone for being so indiscreet?
|
||
The great man, alas, of little moment!
|
||
Would lie here, melting, at her feet.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Appearing.)
|
||
|
||
Quick! I see her coming, there.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
2730 Away! Away! I’ll not return again.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Here’s a casket fairly loaded, then,
|
||
I’ve taken it from elsewhere.
|
||
Put it just here on the chest,
|
||
I swear it’ll dazzle her, when she sees:
|
||
2735 I’ve put in some trinkets, and the rest,
|
||
For you to win another, if you please.
|
||
Truly, a child’s a child, and play is play.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I don’t know, shall I?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Are you asking, pray?
|
||
Perhaps you’d like to keep the treasure, too?
|
||
2740 Then I’d advise your Lustfulness,
|
||
To spare the sweet hours of brightness,
|
||
And spare me a heap of trouble over you.
|
||
I hope that you’re not full of meanness!
|
||
I scratch my head: I rub my hands –
|
||
|
||
(He places the casket in the chest, and shuts it again.)
|
||
|
||
2745 Now off we go, and go quickly!
|
||
Through this you’ll bend the child, you see,
|
||
To your wish and will: as any fool understands:
|
||
Yet now you seem to me
|
||
As if you were heading for the lecture hall, and see
|
||
2750 Standing there grey-faced, in front of you,
|
||
Physics, and Metaphysics too!
|
||
Now, away!
|
||
|
||
(They exit.)
|
||
|
||
(Margaret with a lamp.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
It’s so close and sultry, here,
|
||
|
||
(She opens the window.)
|
||
|
||
And yet it’s not warm outside.
|
||
2755 It troubles me so, I don’t know why –
|
||
I wish that Mother were near.
|
||
A shudder ran through my whole body –
|
||
I’m such a foolish girl, so timid!
|
||
|
||
(She begins to sing, while undressing.)
|
||
|
||
‘There was a king in Thule, he
|
||
2760 Was faithful, to the grave,
|
||
To whom his dying lady
|
||
A golden goblet gave.
|
||
|
||
He valued nothing greater:
|
||
At every feast it shone:
|
||
2765 His tears were brimming over,
|
||
When he drank there-from.
|
||
|
||
When he himself was dying
|
||
No towns did he with-hold,
|
||
No wealth his heir denying,
|
||
2770 Except the cup of gold.
|
||
|
||
He gave a royal banquet,
|
||
His knights around him, all,
|
||
In his sea-girt turret,
|
||
In his ancestral hall.
|
||
|
||
2775 There the old king stood, yet,
|
||
Drinking life’s last glow:
|
||
Then threw the golden goblet
|
||
Into the waves below.
|
||
|
||
He saw it falling, drowning,
|
||
2780 Sinking in the sea,
|
||
Then, his eyelids closing,
|
||
Never again drank he.’
|
||
|
||
(She opens the chest in order to arrange her clothes, and sees the
|
||
casket.)
|
||
|
||
How can this lovely casket be here? I’m sure
|
||
I locked the chest when I was here before.
|
||
2785 It’s quite miraculous! What can it hold in store?
|
||
Perhaps someone brought it as security,
|
||
And my mother’s granted a loan on it?
|
||
There’s a ribbon hanging from it, there’s a key,
|
||
I’m quite determined to open it.
|
||
2790 What’s here? Heavens! What a show,
|
||
More than I’ve ever seen in all my days!
|
||
A jewel box! A noble lady might glow
|
||
With all of these on high holidays!
|
||
How would this chain look? This display
|
||
2795 Of splendour: who owns it, it’s so fine?
|
||
|
||
(She puts the jewellery on and stands in front of the mirror.)
|
||
|
||
If only the earrings were mine!
|
||
At once one looks so different.
|
||
What makes us beautiful, young blood?
|
||
All that’s fine and good,
|
||
2800 But it’s discounted, in the end,
|
||
They praise us half in pity.
|
||
To gold they tend,
|
||
On gold depend,
|
||
All things! Oh, poverty!
|
||
|
||
Scene IX: Promenade
|
||
|
||
(Faust walking about pensively. Mephistopheles appears.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2805 Scorned by all love! And by hellfire! What’s worse?
|
||
I wish I knew: I could use it in a curse!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What’s wrong? What’s pinching you so badly?
|
||
I never, in all my life, saw such a face!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I’d pack myself off to the Devil, in disgrace,
|
||
2810 If I weren’t a Devil myself already!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Is something troubling your brain?
|
||
It’s fitting that you’ve a raging pain.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
To think, the priest should get his hands on
|
||
Jewellery that was meant for Gretchen!
|
||
2815 Her mother snatched it up, to see,
|
||
And was gripped by secret anxiety.
|
||
That woman’s a marvellous sense of smell,
|
||
From nosing round in her prayer-book too well,
|
||
And sniffs things, ever and again,
|
||
2820 To see if they’re holy or profane:
|
||
And about the jewels, she felt, that’s clear,
|
||
There’s not much of a blessing here.
|
||
‘My child,’ she said, ‘ill-gotten goods
|
||
Snare the soul, and dissipate the blood.
|
||
2825 We’ll dedicate it to the Virgin,
|
||
She’ll repay us with manna from Heaven!’
|
||
Margaret, grimacing wryly, was quite put out:
|
||
Thinking: ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,
|
||
He’s not a godless man, nor one to fear,
|
||
2830 He who left these fine things here.’
|
||
Her mother let the parson in:
|
||
He’d scarcely let the game begin
|
||
Before his eyes filled with enjoyment.
|
||
He said: ‘So we see aright, we sinners,
|
||
2835 Who overcome themselves are winners.
|
||
The Church has a healthy stomach, when,
|
||
It gobbles up lands, and don’t forget,
|
||
It’s never over-eaten yet.
|
||
The Church alone, dear lady, could
|
||
2840 Always digest ill-gotten goods.’
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
That’s a universal custom, too, my friend,
|
||
With all those who rule, and those who lend.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Then he took the bangles, chains and rings,
|
||
As if they were merely trifling things,
|
||
2845 Thanked her too, no less nor more
|
||
Than if it were a sack of nuts one wore.
|
||
Promised them their reward when they died,
|
||
And left them suitably edified.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
And Gretchen?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Sits there, restlessly, still
|
||
2850 Not knowing what she should do, or will,
|
||
Thinks of the jewels night and day,
|
||
But more of him who placed them in her way.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
The dear girl’s sadness brings me pain.
|
||
Find some jewels for her, again!
|
||
2855 Those first were not so fine, I’d say.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Oh yes, to gentlemen it’s child’s play!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Fix it: arrange it, as I want you to,
|
||
Attach yourself to her neighbour, too!
|
||
Don’t be a devil made of clay,
|
||
2860 Get her fresh jewels straight away!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Yes, gracious sir, gladly, with all my heart.
|
||
|
||
(Faust exits.)
|
||
|
||
Such a lovesick fool would blow up the Sun,
|
||
High up in the air, with the Moon and Stars,
|
||
To provide his sweetheart with some diversion.
|
||
|
||
(He exits.)
|
||
|
||
Scene X: The Neighbour’s House
|
||
|
||
Martha (Alone.)
|
||
|
||
2865 God forgive that man I love so well,
|
||
He hasn’t done right by me at all!
|
||
Off into the world he’s gone,
|
||
And left me here, in the dust, alone.
|
||
Truly I did nothing to grieve him,
|
||
2870 I gave him, God knows, fine loving.
|
||
|
||
(She weeps.)
|
||
|
||
Perhaps, he’s even dead! – Yet, oh!
|
||
If I’d only his death certificate to show!
|
||
|
||
(Margaret enters.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Martha!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
My little Gretchen, what’s happened?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
My legs are giving way beneath me!
|
||
2875 I’ve found another box of jewellery
|
||
In the chest: it’s of ebony, fashioned,
|
||
Full of quite splendid things,
|
||
And richer than the first, I think.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
You’d better not tell your mother:
|
||
2880 She’ll give it to the Church, like the other.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Ah, See now! See what a show!
|
||
|
||
Martha (Dressing her with jewels.)
|
||
|
||
O you’re a lucky creature, though!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I can’t wear them in the street, alas,
|
||
Nor be seen like this, at Mass.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
2885 Come often then, to me, as before:
|
||
You can put them on, here, secretly:
|
||
Stand, for an hour, in front of the mirror,
|
||
We’ll take delight in them privately.
|
||
Then give us a holiday, an occasion,
|
||
2890 When people can see a fraction of them.
|
||
A chain first, then a pearl in the ear: your
|
||
Mother won’t know, say you’d them before.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Who could have left the second casket?
|
||
There’s something not proper about it!
|
||
|
||
(A knock.)
|
||
|
||
2895 Good God! Is it my mother, then?
|
||
|
||
Martha (Looking through the shutter.)
|
||
|
||
It’s a stranger, a gentleman – Come in!
|
||
|
||
(Mephistopheles enters.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
In introducing myself so freely,
|
||
I ask you ladies to excuse me.
|
||
|
||
(He steps back reverently on seeing Margaret.)
|
||
|
||
It’s Martha Schwerdtlein I seek!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
2900 I’m she, what do you wish with me?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Aside to her.)
|
||
|
||
I know you now: that’s enough for me:
|
||
You’ve a distinguished visitor there, I see.
|
||
Pardon the liberty I’ve taken, pray,
|
||
I’ll return this afternoon, if I may.
|
||
|
||
Martha (Aloud.)
|
||
|
||
2905 To think, child: of all things: just fancy!
|
||
The gentleman takes you for a lady.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’m a poor young thing he’ll find:
|
||
Heavens! The gentleman’s far too kind:
|
||
The jewels and trinkets aren’t mine.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2910 Ah, it’s not just the jewellery, mind:
|
||
The look: the manner: she has a way!
|
||
I’m pleased that I’m allowed to stay.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
What brings you here? I wish that you –
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I wish I brought you happier news! –
|
||
2915 This news I hope you’ll forgive me repeating:
|
||
Your husband’s dead, but sends a greeting.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
He’s dead? That true heart! Oh!
|
||
My man is dead! I’ll die, also!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Ah! Dear lady, don’t despair!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2920 Hear the mournful tale I bear!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
That’s why I’ll never love while I’ve breath,
|
||
Such a loss would grieve me to death.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Joy must have sorrows: sorrow its joys, too.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Tell me of his last hours: ah tell me!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2925 He’s buried in Padua, close to
|
||
The blessed Saint Anthony,
|
||
In a consecrated space,
|
||
A cool eternal resting place.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Have you brought nothing else, from him?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2930 Yes a request, it’s large and heavy:
|
||
For you to sing a hundred masses for him!
|
||
Otherwise, no, my pocket’s empty.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
What? No piece of show? No jewellery?
|
||
What every workman has in his purse,
|
||
2935 And keeps with him as his reserve,
|
||
Rather than having to starve or beg!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Madam, it’s a heavy grief to me:
|
||
But truly his money wasn’t wasted.
|
||
And then, he felt his errors greatly,
|
||
2940 Yes, and bemoaned his bad luck lately.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Ah! How unlucky all men are! I’ll
|
||
Be sure to offer many a prayer for him.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
You’re worthy of soon marrying:
|
||
You’re such a kindly child.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
2945 Oh, no! That wouldn’t do as yet.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
If not a husband, a lover, while you wait.
|
||
It’s heaven’s greatest charm,
|
||
To have a dear one on one’s arm.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
That’s not the custom of the country.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2950 Custom or not! It seems to be.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Go on with your tale!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I stood beside his death-bed,
|
||
Hardly better than a rubbish-tip, poor man,
|
||
Of half-rotten straw: yet he died a Christian,
|
||
And found that he was even further in debt.
|
||
2955 ‘Alas,’ he cried, ‘I hate myself, with good reason,
|
||
For leaving, as I did, my wife and my occupation!
|
||
Ah the memory of that is killing me,
|
||
Would in this life I might be forgiven, though!’
|
||
|
||
Martha (Weeping.)
|
||
|
||
The dear man! I forgave him long ago.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2960 ‘Although, God knows, she was more to blame than me.’
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
The liar! What! At death’s door, lies he was telling!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
In his last wanderings, he was rambling,
|
||
If I’m any judge myself of the thing.
|
||
‘I had,’ he said, ‘no time to gaze in play:
|
||
2965 First children, then bread for them each day,
|
||
And I mean bread in the wider sense:
|
||
And couldn’t even eat my share in silence.’
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Did he forget the love, the loyalty,
|
||
My drudgery, night and day!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2970 Not at all, he thought of it deeply, in his way.
|
||
He said: ‘As I was leaving Malta
|
||
I prayed hard for my wife and children:
|
||
And favour came to me from heaven,
|
||
Since our ship took a Turkish cutter,
|
||
2975 Carrying the great Sultan’s treasure.
|
||
There was a reward for bravery,
|
||
And I received, in due measure,
|
||
The generous share that fell to me.’
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
What? And where? Has he buried it by chance?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
2980 Who can tell: the four winds know the circumstance.
|
||
A lovely girl there took him on,
|
||
As he, a stranger, roamed round Naples:
|
||
She gave him loyalty, and loved the man,
|
||
And he felt it so, till his last hour fell.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
2985 He stole from his children, and his wife!
|
||
The rogue! All the pain and misery he met,
|
||
Couldn’t keep him from that shameful life!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ah, but: now he’s died of it!
|
||
If I were truly in your place,
|
||
2990 I’d mourn him quietly for a year,
|
||
And look, meanwhile, for a dear new face.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Ah, sweet God! I’ll not easily find another,
|
||
In all the world, such as my first one was!
|
||
There never was a dearer fool than mine.
|
||
2995 Only he loved roaming too much, at last,
|
||
And foreign women, and foreign wine,
|
||
And the rolling of those cursed dice.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Well, that would have still been fine,
|
||
If, with you, he’d followed that line,
|
||
3000 And noticed nothing, on your side.
|
||
I swear that, with that same condition,
|
||
I’d swap rings with you, no question!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
O, the gentleman’s pleased to jest!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To himself.)
|
||
|
||
I must fly from here, swift as a bird!
|
||
3005 She might hold the Devil to his word.
|
||
|
||
(To Gretchen.)
|
||
|
||
How does your heart feel? At rest?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
What does the gentleman mean?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To himself.)
|
||
|
||
Sweet, innocent child!
|
||
|
||
(Aloud.)
|
||
|
||
Farewell, ladies!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
Farewell!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
Oh, speak to me yet, a while!
|
||
I’d like a witness, as to where, how, and when
|
||
3010 My darling man died and was buried: then,
|
||
As I’ve always been a friend of tradition,
|
||
Put his death in the paper, the weekly edition.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Yes, dear lady, two witnesses you need
|
||
To verify the truth, or so all agree:
|
||
3015 I’ve a rather fine companion,
|
||
He can be your second man.
|
||
I’ll bring him here.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
Oh yes, please do!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
That young lady will be here, too?
|
||
He’s a brave youth! Travelled, yes,
|
||
3020 And with ladies he’s all politeness.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’d be shamed before the gentleman.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Not before any king on earth, madam.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Behind the house, then, in my garden,
|
||
Tonight: we’ll expect you gentlemen.
|
||
|
||
Scene XI: The Street
|
||
|
||
(Faust. Mephistopheles.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3025 How goes it? Will it be? Will it soon be done?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ah, bravo! Do I find you all on fire?
|
||
In double-quick time you’ll have your desire.
|
||
You’ll meet tonight, at her neighbour Martha’s home:
|
||
There’s a woman, who’s the thing,
|
||
3030 For procuring and for gipsying!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
All right!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
But, she needs something from us, too.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
One good turn deserves another, true.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
We only have to bear a valid witness,
|
||
That her husband’s outstretched members bless
|
||
3035 A consecrated place in Padua.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Brilliant! We must first make the journey there!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Sacred Simplicity! There’s no need to do that.
|
||
Just testify, without saying too much to her.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
If you can’t do better than that, your pact I’ll tear.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3040 O holy man! Now I see you there!
|
||
Is it the first time in your life, come swear,
|
||
That you’ve ever born false witness?
|
||
Haven’t you shown skill in definition
|
||
Of God, the World, what’s in it, Men,
|
||
3045 What moves them, in mind and breast?
|
||
With impudent brow, and swollen chest?
|
||
And if you look at it more deeply, oh yes,
|
||
Did you know as much now - confess,
|
||
As you do about Herr Schwerdtlein’s death?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3050 You are, and you’ll remain, a Liar and a Sophist.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Yes when no one’s the wiser for it.
|
||
This coming morn, in all honour though,
|
||
Won’t you beguile poor Gretchen so:
|
||
And swear you love her with all your soul?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
From my heart.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3055 Well, and good!
|
||
And will your eternal Truth and Love,
|
||
Your one all-powerful Force, above –
|
||
Flow from your heart, too, as it should?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Stop! Stop! It will! If I but feel,
|
||
3060 For that emotion, for that throng,
|
||
Seek the name, that none reveal,
|
||
Roam, with senses, through the world.
|
||
Seize on every highest word,
|
||
And call the fire, that I’m tasting,
|
||
3065 Endless, eternal, everlasting –
|
||
Does that to some devil’s game of lies belong?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Yet, I’m still right!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Hear one thing more,
|
||
I beg you, and spare my breath – the one
|
||
Who wants to hold fast, and has a tongue,
|
||
3070 He’ll hold for sure.
|
||
Come, chattering fills me with disgust,
|
||
And then you’re right, especially since I must.
|
||
|
||
Scene XII: The Garden
|
||
|
||
(Margaret on Faust’s arm, Martha and Mephistopheles walking up and
|
||
down.)
|
||
|
||
I know the gentleman flatters me,
|
||
Lowers himself, and shames me, too.
|
||
3075 A traveller is used to being
|
||
Content, out of courtesy, with any food.
|
||
I know too well, so learned a man,
|
||
Can’t feed himself on my poor bran.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
A glance, a word from you, feeds me more,
|
||
3080 Than all the world’s wisest lore.
|
||
|
||
(He kisses her hand.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Don’t trouble yourself! How could you kiss it?
|
||
It’s such a nasty, rough thing!
|
||
What work haven’t I done with it!
|
||
My mother’s so exacting.
|
||
|
||
(They move on.)
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
3085 And you, sir, you’re always travelling?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ah, work and duty are such a bother!
|
||
There’s many a place one’s sad at leaving,
|
||
And daren’t stay a moment longer!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
In youth it’s fine, up and down,
|
||
3090 Flitting about, the whole world over:
|
||
Then harsher days come round,
|
||
And lonely bachelors small joy discover,
|
||
In sliding towards their hole in the ground.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I view the prospect with horror.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
3095 Then take advice in time, dear sir.
|
||
|
||
(They move on.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Yes, out of sight is out of mind!
|
||
Politeness comes naturally to you:
|
||
But you’ll meet friends, often, who,
|
||
Are more sensible than me, you’ll find.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3100 Dearest, believe me, what men call sense,
|
||
Is often just vanity and short-sightedness.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
How so?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Ah, that simplicity and innocence never know
|
||
Themselves, or their heavenly worth!
|
||
That humble meekness, the highest grace
|
||
3105 That Nature bestows so lovingly –
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
It’s only for a moment that you think of me,
|
||
I’ve plenty of time to dream about your face.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You’re often alone, then?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Yes, our household’s a little one,
|
||
3110 Yet it has to be cared for by someone.
|
||
We have no servant: I sweep, knit, sew,
|
||
And cook, I’m working early and late:
|
||
And in everything my mother is so
|
||
Strict, and straight.
|
||
3115 Not that she has to be quite so economical:
|
||
We could be more generous than others:
|
||
My father left a little fortune for us:
|
||
A house and garden by the town-wall.
|
||
But now my days are spent quietly:
|
||
3120 My brother is a soldier: I’d
|
||
A younger sister who died.
|
||
The trouble I had with that child:
|
||
Yet I’d take it on again, the worry,
|
||
She was so dear to me.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
An angel, if like you.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
3125 I raised her, and she loved me too.
|
||
After my father died, she was born,
|
||
We gave mother up for lost, so worn
|
||
And wretchedly she lay there then,
|
||
And slowly, day by day, grew well again.
|
||
3130 She couldn’t think of feeding
|
||
It herself: that poor little thing,
|
||
And so I nursed it all alone,
|
||
On milk and water, as if it were my own,
|
||
In my arms, in my lap,
|
||
3135 It charmed me, tumbling, and grew fat.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You found your greatest happiness there, for sure.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
But also truly many a weary hour.
|
||
The baby’s cradle stood at night
|
||
Beside my bed: and if it hardly stirred
|
||
3140 I woke outright:
|
||
Now I nursed it, now laid it beside me: heard
|
||
When it cried, and left my bed, and often
|
||
Danced it back and forth, in the room: and then,
|
||
At break of dawn stood at the washtub, again:
|
||
3145 Then the market and the kitchen, oh,
|
||
And every day just like tomorrow.
|
||
One sometimes lacks the courage, sir, and yet
|
||
One appreciates one’s food and rest.
|
||
|
||
(They move on.)
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Women have the worst of it: it’s true:
|
||
3150 A bachelor is hard to change, you see.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
That just depends on the likes of you,
|
||
The right teacher might improve me.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Say, have you never found anyone, dear sir?
|
||
Has your heart never been captured, anywhere?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3155 The proverb says: A hearth of your own,
|
||
And a good wife, are worth pearls and gold.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
I mean: have you never felt desire, even lightly?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I’ve everywhere been treated most politely.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
I meant to say: were you never seriously smitten?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3160 With ladies, one should never dare be flippant.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Ah, you won’t understand me!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
I am sorry! Yet you’ll find
|
||
I understand – that you are very kind.
|
||
|
||
(They move on.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
And, Angel, did you recognise me again,
|
||
As soon as I appeared in the garden?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
3165 Didn’t you see my gaze drop then?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
And you forgive the liberty I’ve taken,
|
||
The impertinence of it all,
|
||
Just as you were leaving the Cathedral?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I was flustered, such a thing’s never happened to me:
|
||
3170 ‘Ah’, I thought, ‘has he seen, in your behaviour,
|
||
Something that’s impertinent or improper?
|
||
No one could ever say anything bad about me.
|
||
He seems to be walking suddenly, with you,
|
||
As though he dealt with a girl of easy virtue’.
|
||
3175 I confess, I didn’t know what it was, though,
|
||
That I began to feel, and to your advantage too,
|
||
But certainly I was angry with myself, oh,
|
||
That I could not be angrier with you.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Sweet darling!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Wait a moment!
|
||
|
||
(She picks a Marguerite and pulls the petals off one by one.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
What’s that for, a bouquet?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
No, it’s a game.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
What?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
3180 No, you’ll laugh if I say!
|
||
|
||
(She pulls off the petals, murmuring to herself.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What are you whispering?
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Half aloud.)
|
||
|
||
He loves me – he loves me not.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You sweet face that Heaven forgot!
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Continuing.)
|
||
|
||
Loves me – Not – Loves me – Not
|
||
|
||
(She plucks the last petal with delight.)
|
||
|
||
He loves me!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Yes, my child! Let this flower-speech
|
||
3185 Be heaven’s speech to you. He loves you!
|
||
Do you know what that means? He loves you!
|
||
|
||
(He grasps her hands.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’m trembling!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
Don’t tremble, let this look,
|
||
Let this clasping of hands tell you
|
||
3190 What’s inexpressible:
|
||
To give oneself wholly, and feel
|
||
A joy that must be eternal!
|
||
Eternal! – Its end would bring despair.
|
||
No, no end! No end!
|
||
|
||
(Margaret presses his hand, frees herself, and runs away. He stands a
|
||
moment in thought: then follows her.)
|
||
|
||
Martha (Coming forward.)
|
||
|
||
Night is falling.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3195 Yes, and we must away.
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
I’d ask you to remain here longer,
|
||
But this is quite a wicked place.
|
||
It’s as if they had nothing to do yonder,
|
||
And no work they should be doing
|
||
3200 But watching their neighbours’ to-ing and fro-ing,
|
||
And whatever one does, insults are hurled.
|
||
And our couple, now?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Flown up the passage, there.
|
||
Wilful little birds!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
He seems keen on her.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
And she on him. It’s the way of the world.
|
||
|
||
Scene XIII: An Arbour in the Garden
|
||
|
||
(Margaret comes in, hides behind the door of the garden-house, holds
|
||
her fingers to her lips, and peeps through the gaps.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
He’s coming.
|
||
|
||
Faust (Appearing.)
|
||
|
||
3205 Ah, rascal, you tease me so! I’ve got you!
|
||
|
||
(He kisses her.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Clasping him, and returning the kiss.)
|
||
|
||
Dearest man! With all my heart I love you!
|
||
|
||
(Mephistopheles knocks.)
|
||
|
||
Faust (Stamping his foot in frustration.)
|
||
|
||
Who’s there?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
A dear friend!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
A creature!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
It’s time to go.
|
||
|
||
Martha (Appearing.)
|
||
|
||
Yes, sir, it’s late!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
May I keep company with you, though?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
My mother would tell me, – Farewell!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
Must I go, then?
|
||
Farewell!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Goodbye, now!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
3210 And soon to meet again!
|
||
|
||
(Faust and Mephistopheles exit.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Dear God! That one man, by thinking,
|
||
Can know everything, oh, everything!
|
||
I stand in front of him, ashamed
|
||
And just say yes to all he says.
|
||
3215 I’m such a poor, ignorant child, and he -
|
||
I can’t understand what he sees in me.
|
||
|
||
Scene XIV: Forest and Cavern
|
||
|
||
(Faust, alone.)
|
||
|
||
Sublime spirit, you gave me all, all,
|
||
I asked for. Not in vain have you
|
||
Revealed your face to me in flame.
|
||
3220 You gave me Nature’s realm of splendour,
|
||
With the power to feel it, and enjoy.
|
||
Not merely as a cold, awed stranger,
|
||
But allowing me to look deep inside,
|
||
Like seeing into the heart of a friend.
|
||
3225 You lead the ranks of living creatures
|
||
Before me, showing me my brothers
|
||
In the silent woods, the air, the water.
|
||
And when the storm roars in the forest,
|
||
When giant firs fell their neighbours,
|
||
3230 Crushing nearby branches in their fall,
|
||
Filling the hills with hollow thunder,
|
||
You lead me to the safety of a cave,
|
||
Show me my own self, and reveal
|
||
Your deep, secret wonders in my heart.
|
||
3235 And when the pure Moon, to my eyes,
|
||
Rises, calming me, the silvery visions
|
||
Of former times, drift all around me,
|
||
From high cliffs, and moist thickets,
|
||
Tempering thought’s austere delight.
|
||
3240 Oh, I know now that nothing can be
|
||
Perfect for Mankind. You gave me,
|
||
With this joy, that brings me nearer,
|
||
Nearer to the gods, a companion,
|
||
Whom I can no longer do without,
|
||
Though he is impudent, and chilling,
|
||
3245 Degrades me in my own eyes, and with
|
||
A word, a breath, makes your gifts nothing.
|
||
He fans a wild fire in my heart,
|
||
Always alive to that lovely form.
|
||
So I rush from desire to enjoyment,
|
||
3250 And in enjoyment pine to feel desire.
|
||
|
||
(Mephistopheles enters.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Haven’t you had enough of this life yet?
|
||
How can you be happy all this time?
|
||
It’s fine for a man to try it for a bit,
|
||
But then you need a newer clime!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3255 I wish you’d something else to do,
|
||
Than plague me on a good day.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Now, now! I’d gladly ignore you,
|
||
You don’t really mean it anyway.
|
||
You’d be little loss to me,
|
||
3260 A rude, mad, sour companion.
|
||
One’s hands are full all day, and see,
|
||
What pleases you, or what to let be,
|
||
No one can tell from your expression.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
So that’s the tone he takes!
|
||
3265 I’m to thank him, for boring me.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Poor Son of Earth, how could you make
|
||
Your way through life without me?
|
||
I’ve cured you for a while at least
|
||
Of your twitches of imagination,
|
||
3270 If I weren’t here, you’d certainly
|
||
Have walked right off this earthly station.
|
||
In rocky hollows, in a hole,
|
||
Why sit around here, like an owl?
|
||
From soaking moss and dripping stone,
|
||
3275 Sucking your nourishment, like a toad?
|
||
Spend your time sweeter, better!
|
||
Your body’s still stuck there with the Doctor.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Do you understand the new power of being
|
||
That a walk in the wilderness can bring?
|
||
3280 But then, if you were able to guess,
|
||
You’re devil enough to begrudge my happiness.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
An other-worldly pleasure.
|
||
Night and day, mountains for leisure.
|
||
Clasping heaven and earth, blissfully,
|
||
3285 Inflating yourself, becoming a deity.
|
||
With expectant urge burrowing through earth’s core,
|
||
Feeling all that six days’ work, in yours,
|
||
To taste who knows what, in power’s pride,
|
||
Overflowing, almost, with the joy of life,
|
||
3290 Vanishing, the Earthly Son,
|
||
And into some deep Intuition –
|
||
|
||
(With a gesture.)
|
||
|
||
I can’t say how – passing inside.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Fie, on you!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ah, you don’t like it from me!
|
||
You’ve the right, to say ‘fie’ to me, politely.
|
||
3295 Before chaste ears men daren’t speak aloud,
|
||
That which chaste hearts can’t do without:
|
||
Short and sweet, I begrudge the pleasure you get
|
||
From occasionally lying to yourself, about it.
|
||
But you won’t hold out for long, I’m sure.
|
||
3300 You’re already over-driven,
|
||
Sooner or later you’ll be given
|
||
To madness, or to fear and horror.
|
||
Enough! Your lover sits inside,
|
||
All is dull, oppressive to her,
|
||
3305 She can’t get you out of her mind,
|
||
Her deep love overwhelms her.
|
||
First your love’s flood round her flowed,
|
||
As a stream pours from melted snow:
|
||
You’ve so filled her heart, and now,
|
||
3310 Your stream again is shallow.
|
||
Instead of enthroning yourself in the wood,
|
||
Let the great gentleman do some good,
|
||
To that poor little ape of flesh and blood,
|
||
And reward her, I think, for her love.
|
||
3315 Her days seem pitifully long:
|
||
She sits at the window, cloud drifting
|
||
Over the old City wall, sees it lifting.
|
||
‘Would I were a little bird!’ runs her song,
|
||
All day long, and all night long.
|
||
3320 Sometimes lively, mostly not,
|
||
Sometimes crying out, in tears,
|
||
Then quiet again, it appears,
|
||
And always in love.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You snake! You snake, you!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3325 A touch! That caught you!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Wretch! Be gone from my presence:
|
||
Don’t name that lovely girl to me!
|
||
Don’t bring desire for that sweet body
|
||
Before every half-maddened sense!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3330 Well, what then? She thinks you’ve flown away,
|
||
And, half and half, you already have, I’d say.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’m near her, and were I still far,
|
||
I can’t lose her or forget her,
|
||
I even envy the body of our Lord,
|
||
3335 When her lips touch it at the altar.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Quite so, my friend! My envy often closes
|
||
On that pair of twins that feed among the roses.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Away from me, procurer!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Fine, you curse and I must smile.
|
||
The god who made both man and woman,
|
||
3340 He likewise knew the noblest profession,
|
||
So made the opportunity as well.
|
||
Go on, it’s a crying shame!
|
||
Since you’re bound, all the same
|
||
For your lover’s room, not death.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3345 Where is the heavenly joy in her arms?
|
||
Let me warm myself with her charms!
|
||
Do I not always feel her absent breath?
|
||
Am I not the fugitive? The homeless one?
|
||
The creature without aim or rest,
|
||
3350 A torrent in the rocks, still thundering down,
|
||
Foaming eagerly into the abyss?
|
||
And she beside it, with vague childlike mind,
|
||
In a hut there, on a little Alpine field,
|
||
So, her first homely life you’d find,
|
||
3355 Hidden there in that little world.
|
||
And I, the god-forsaken,
|
||
Was not great enough,
|
||
To grasp the cliffs, and take them,
|
||
And crush them into dust!
|
||
3360 I still must undermine her peaceful life!
|
||
You, Hell, must have your sacrifice.
|
||
Help, Devil, curtail the anxious moment brewing.
|
||
What must be, let it be, and swiftly!
|
||
Let her fate also fall on me,
|
||
3365 And she and I rush to ruin!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Again it glows: again it seethes!
|
||
Go in and comfort her, you fool!
|
||
When a brain, like yours, no exit sees,
|
||
It calls it the end of all things, too.
|
||
3370 Praise him who keeps his courage fresh!
|
||
Or you’ll soon get quite be-devilled, there.
|
||
I find nothing in the world so tasteless,
|
||
As a Devil, in despair.
|
||
|
||
Scene XV: Gretchen’s Room
|
||
|
||
(Gretchen alone at the spinning wheel.)
|
||
|
||
‘My peace is gone,
|
||
3375 My heart is sore:
|
||
I’ll find it, never,
|
||
Oh, nevermore.
|
||
|
||
When he’s not here,
|
||
My grave is near,
|
||
3380 The world is all,
|
||
A bitter gall.
|
||
|
||
My poor head
|
||
Feels crazed to me.
|
||
My poor brain
|
||
3385 Seems dazed to me.
|
||
|
||
My peace is gone,
|
||
My heart is sore:
|
||
I’ll find it, never,
|
||
Oh, nevermore.
|
||
|
||
3390 Only to see him
|
||
I look out.
|
||
Only to meet him,
|
||
I leave the house.
|
||
|
||
His proud steps,
|
||
3395 His noble figure,
|
||
His smiling lips,
|
||
His eyes: their power.
|
||
|
||
And all his speech
|
||
Like magic is,
|
||
3400 His fingers’ touch,
|
||
And, oh, his kiss!
|
||
|
||
My peace is gone,
|
||
My heart is sore:
|
||
I’ll find it, never,
|
||
3405 Oh, nevermore.
|
||
|
||
My heart aches
|
||
To be with him,
|
||
Oh if I could
|
||
Cling to him,
|
||
|
||
3410 And kiss him,
|
||
The way I wish,
|
||
So I might die,
|
||
At his kiss!
|
||
|
||
Scene XVI: Martha’s Garden
|
||
|
||
(Margaret. Faust.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Promise me, Heinrich!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
If I can!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
3415 Say, as regards religion, how you feel.
|
||
I know that you are a dear, good man,
|
||
Yet, for you, it seems, it has no appeal.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Leave that alone, child! You feel I’m kind to you:
|
||
For Love I’d give my blood, my life too.
|
||
3420 I’ll rob no man of his church and faith.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
That’s not right, we must have faith.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Must we?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Ah, if in this I was only fluent!
|
||
You don’t respect the Holy Sacrament.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I respect it.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Without wanting it, though. You’ve passed
|
||
3425 So many years without confession, or mass.
|
||
Do you believe in God?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
My darling, who dare say:
|
||
‘I believe in God’?
|
||
Choose priest to ask, or sage,
|
||
The answer would seem a joke, would it not,
|
||
Played on whoever asks?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
3430 So, you don’t believe?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Sweetest being, don’t misunderstand me!
|
||
Who dares name the nameless?
|
||
Or who dares to confess:
|
||
‘I believe in him’?
|
||
3435 Yet who, in feeling,
|
||
Self-revealing,
|
||
Says: ‘I don’t believe’?
|
||
The all-clasping,
|
||
The all-upholding,
|
||
3440 Does it not clasp, uphold,
|
||
You: me, itself?
|
||
Don’t the heavens arch above us?
|
||
Doesn’t earth lie here under our feet?
|
||
And don’t the eternal stars, rising,
|
||
3445 Look down on us in friendship?
|
||
Are not my eyes reflected in yours?
|
||
And don’t all things press
|
||
On your head and heart,
|
||
And weave, in eternal mystery,
|
||
3450 Visibly: invisibly, around you?
|
||
Fill your heart from it: it is so vast,
|
||
And when you are blessed by the deepest feeling,
|
||
Call it then what you wish,
|
||
Joy! Heart! Love! God!
|
||
3455 I have no name
|
||
For it! Feeling is all:
|
||
Names are sound and smoke,
|
||
Veiling Heaven’s bright glow.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
That’s all well and good, I know,
|
||
3460 The priest says much the same,
|
||
Only, in slightly different words.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
It’s what all hearts, say, everywhere
|
||
Under the heavenly day,
|
||
Each in its own speech:
|
||
3465 And why not I in mine?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Listening to you, it almost seems quite fine,
|
||
Yet something still seems wrong, to me,
|
||
Since you don’t possess Christianity.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Dear child!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’ve long been grieved
|
||
3470 To see you in such company.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Why, who?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
That man who hangs round you so,
|
||
I hate him in my innermost soul:
|
||
Nothing in all my life has ever
|
||
Given my heart such pain, no, never,
|
||
3475 As his repulsive face has done.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Don’t be afraid of him, sweet one!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
His presence here, it chills my blood.
|
||
To every other man I wish good:
|
||
But much as I’m longing to see you
|
||
3480 I’ve a secret horror of seeing him, too,
|
||
I’ve thought him a rogue, all along!
|
||
God forgive me, if I do him wrong!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
There have to be such odd fellows.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’d rather not live with such as those!
|
||
3485 Once he’s inside the door, again,
|
||
He looks around in a mocking way,
|
||
And half-severely:
|
||
You can see he’s not at all in sympathy:
|
||
It’s written on his forehead even,
|
||
3490 That there’s no spirit of love within.
|
||
I’m so happy in your arms,
|
||
Free, untroubled, and so warm,
|
||
Yet I’m stifled in his presence.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You angel, full of presentiments!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
3495 It oppresses me, so deeply, too,
|
||
That when he meets with us, wherever,
|
||
I feel that I no longer love you.
|
||
Ah I can’t pray when he’s there,
|
||
And that gnaws inside me: oh,
|
||
3500 Heinrich, for you too, surely it’s so.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
It’s merely an antipathy!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I must go now.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Ah, will there never be
|
||
An hour where I can clasp you to my heart,
|
||
And heart to heart, and soul, to soul impart?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
3505 Ah, if I only slept alone!
|
||
For you, I’d gladly draw the bolt tonight:
|
||
But my mother hears the slightest tone,
|
||
And if we were caught outright,
|
||
I’d die on the selfsame spot!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3510 You angel: no need for that.
|
||
Here is a little phial to keep!
|
||
Three drops of this, in her drink, she’ll take,
|
||
And Nature will favour her with deepest sleep.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
What would I not do for your sake?
|
||
3515 I hope that it won’t harm her though!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Would I advise it, Love, if it were so?
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Ah, I only have to see you, dearest man,
|
||
And something bends me to your will,
|
||
For you, so much, I have already done,
|
||
3520 Little remains for me to do for you still.
|
||
|
||
(She exits.)
|
||
|
||
(Mephistopheles enters.)
|
||
|
||
The little monkey! Has it gone?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Spying again, are you?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I’ve heard in infinite detail, how
|
||
The Doctor works his catechism through,
|
||
And I hope it does you good, now.
|
||
3525 Girls are always so keen to review
|
||
Whether one’s virtuous, and sticks to the rules.
|
||
They think if a man can be led, he’ll follow too.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Monster, you can’t see
|
||
How this true loving soul,
|
||
3530 Full of a belief,
|
||
That is wholly
|
||
Her salvation, torments herself so,
|
||
In case her lover should be lost indeed.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
You sensual wooer, beyond the sensual,
|
||
3535 A Magdalen leads you by the nose, I see.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Abortion, of the filth and fire of hell!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
And how well she reads one’s physiognomy:
|
||
In my presence, senses, without knowing how,
|
||
The hidden mind behind the mask: she feels
|
||
3540 That I’m an evil genius, at least, and now
|
||
Perhaps, that it’s the Devil it conceals.
|
||
So, tonight? –
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What’s that to you?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I take my pleasure in it too!
|
||
|
||
Scene XVII: At The Fountain
|
||
|
||
(Gretchen and Lisbeth.)
|
||
|
||
Lisbeth
|
||
|
||
Have you not heard from Barbara?
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
3545 Not a word. I go out so seldom.
|
||
|
||
Lisbeth
|
||
|
||
It’s certain, Sibyl told me: well then,
|
||
She finally fell to that seducer.
|
||
There’s a lady for you!
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
How so?
|
||
|
||
Lisbeth
|
||
|
||
It stinks!
|
||
She’s feeding two when she eats and drinks.
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
3550 Oh!
|
||
|
||
Lisbeth
|
||
|
||
Serves her right then, finally.
|
||
She clung to that fellow, oh so tightly!
|
||
That was a fine to-ing and fro-ing,
|
||
Round the village, and dance-going,
|
||
3555 Ahead of us all, they had to shine,
|
||
Him treating her always to cakes and wine:
|
||
She the picture of loveliness, oh so fine,
|
||
So low after all, then, and so shameless,
|
||
And the gifts she took from him, nameless.
|
||
3560 It was all kissing and carrying on:
|
||
But now the flower is gone!
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
The poor thing!
|
||
|
||
Lisbeth
|
||
|
||
Why are you so pitying?
|
||
When each of us was at our spinning,
|
||
When mother never let us out,
|
||
3565 She and her lover hung about:
|
||
On the bench, in a dark alley,
|
||
Forgetting the time, he and she.
|
||
She can’t raise her head again,
|
||
In a sinner’s shift now, penitent.
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
3570 Surely he’ll take her for his wife.
|
||
|
||
Lisbeth
|
||
|
||
He’d be a fool! A lively fellow
|
||
Can ply his trade elsewhere, and so -
|
||
He’s gone.
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
Oh, that’s not nice!
|
||
|
||
Lisbeth
|
||
|
||
If she gets him, she’ll reap ill in a trice,
|
||
3575 The lads will tear at her wreath, what’s more
|
||
We’ll scatter chaff in front of her door!
|
||
|
||
(She exits.)
|
||
|
||
Gretchen (Walking home.)
|
||
|
||
How proudly I’d revile her, then,
|
||
Whenever some poor girl had fallen!
|
||
I couldn’t find words enough, I mean,
|
||
3580 To pour out scorn for another’s sin!
|
||
Black as it seemed, I made it blacker,
|
||
Not black enough for me: oh never.
|
||
It blessed its own being, that proud self,
|
||
Yet now I’m the image of sin, myself!
|
||
3585 Yet all that drove me on to do it,
|
||
God! Was so fine! Oh, so sweet!
|
||
|
||
Scene XVIII: A Tower
|
||
|
||
(In a niche of its wall a shrine, and image of the Mater Dolorosa,
|
||
with flowers in front of it. Gretchen sets out fresh flowers. )
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
Oh bow down,
|
||
Sorrowful one,
|
||
Your kind face, to my affliction!
|
||
|
||
3590 A sword in your heart,
|
||
Where a thousand pains start,
|
||
You look up, at your dead Son.
|
||
|
||
You look up to the Father,
|
||
You send Him your sighs, there,
|
||
3595 For His, and for your, affliction.
|
||
|
||
Who then can feel,
|
||
How like steel,
|
||
Is the pain inside my bones?
|
||
What my poor heart fears for,
|
||
3600 What it quakes for, and longs for
|
||
You know, and you alone!
|
||
|
||
Wherever I go now,
|
||
How sore, sore, sore now
|
||
How sore my heart must be!
|
||
3605 Ah, when I’m alone here,
|
||
I moan, moan, moan here:
|
||
My heart it breaks in me.
|
||
|
||
The pots before my window!
|
||
My tears bedewed them so,
|
||
3610 In the early dawn, when
|
||
I picked the flowers below.
|
||
|
||
The sun it shone so brightly,
|
||
And early, in my room,
|
||
Where I sat already,
|
||
3615 On my bed, in deepest gloom.
|
||
|
||
Help me! Oh, save me, from shame and destruction!
|
||
Oh, bow down,
|
||
Sorrowful one,
|
||
Your kind face, to my affliction!
|
||
|
||
Scene XIX: Night
|
||
|
||
(The Street in front of Gretchen’s door.)
|
||
|
||
Valentine (A soldier, Gretchen’s brother.)
|
||
|
||
3620 When I have sat, and heard the toasts,
|
||
Where everyone makes good his boasts,
|
||
And comrades praised, to me, the flower
|
||
Of maidenhood, and loud the hour,
|
||
With brimming glass that blurred the praise,
|
||
3625 And elbows sticking out all ways,
|
||
I sat in my own peace secure,
|
||
Listening to the boastful roar,
|
||
And as I stroked my beard, I’d smile
|
||
And take a full glass in my hand,
|
||
3630 Saying: ‘Each to his own, but I’ll
|
||
Ask if there’s any in this land,
|
||
Who, to my Gretel, can compare
|
||
Whose worth can ever equal hers?’
|
||
Hear! Hear! Clink! Clang! Went around:
|
||
3635 Some cried out: ‘He’s quite correct,
|
||
She’s an ornament to all her sex.’
|
||
There sat the boasters, not a sound.
|
||
And now! – I could tear my hair out, bawl,
|
||
And dash my head against the wall! –
|
||
3640 With jeers, they now turn up their noses:
|
||
Every rogue can taunt me, he supposes!
|
||
Like a bankrupt debtor, when I’m sitting,
|
||
A casual word can start me sweating!
|
||
And though I thrash them all together,
|
||
3645 I’ve still no right to call them liars.
|
||
|
||
Who goes there? What’s creeping by?
|
||
If I’m not wrong, there’s two I spy.
|
||
If it’s him, I’ll have him by the skin,
|
||
Alive he’ll not leave the place he’s in!
|
||
|
||
(Faust. Mephistopheles)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3650 How the glow of the eternal light
|
||
Shines from the Sacristy window, there,
|
||
On either side grows fainter, fainter,
|
||
And all around draws in the night!
|
||
Now it seems as dark within my heart.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3655 And I’ve a little of the tom-cat’s art,
|
||
That creeps around the fire escape,
|
||
Then slinks along the wall, a silent shape,
|
||
I’m quite virtuous in my way,
|
||
A little prone to thieve, and stray.
|
||
3660 The splendour of Walpurgis Night,
|
||
Already haunts all my members,
|
||
It’s the day after tomorrow’s light:
|
||
There, why one watches, one remembers.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Meanwhile you’ll bring that wealth to view,
|
||
3665 That I see there, glimmering, behind you?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
You’ll soon experience the delight
|
||
Of holding this cauldron to the light.
|
||
I recently had a squint inside –
|
||
Where splendid silver dollars hide.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
3670 And not a jewel, or a ring,
|
||
To adorn my darling girl?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Among the rest I saw a thing,
|
||
A sort of necklace, made of pearl.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
That’s good! It’s painful to me,
|
||
3675 To take no gift for her to see.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
You shouldn’t find it so annoying,
|
||
To get something now, for nothing.
|
||
Now the sky glows, filled with stars,
|
||
You’ll hear the work of a master:
|
||
3680 I’ll sing a few moralising bars,
|
||
All the better to seduce her.
|
||
|
||
(Sings to the zither.)
|
||
|
||
‘Why are you here,
|
||
Katrina dear,
|
||
In daylight clear,
|
||
3685 At your lover’s door?
|
||
No, no! Not when,
|
||
It will let in,
|
||
A maid, and then,
|
||
Let out a maid no more!
|
||
|
||
3690 Take care: for once
|
||
It’s over and done,
|
||
And it’s all gone,
|
||
Goodnight to you, poor thing!
|
||
Keep love’s belief,
|
||
And pleasure brief,
|
||
3695 From every thief,
|
||
Unless you’ve a wedding ring.’
|
||
|
||
Valentine (Approaching.)
|
||
|
||
Whom do you lure? By every element!
|
||
You evil-tongued rat-catcher!
|
||
3700 To the devil, with your instrument!
|
||
To the devil, too, with the singer!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
The zither’s broken! There’s nothing left of it.
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
There’s a still a skull left I’ll need to split!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
|
||
|
||
Look lively, Doctor! Don’t give ground.
|
||
3705 Stand by: I’ll command this thing.
|
||
Out with your fly-whisk, now.
|
||
You lunge! I’m parrying.
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
Parry, then!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
And why not, indeed?
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
And that!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ah, yes!
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
The devil opposes me!
|
||
3710 What’s this? My hand’s already maimed.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
|
||
|
||
Thrust, home!
|
||
|
||
Valentine (Falls.)
|
||
|
||
Ah!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Now, the lout is tamed!
|
||
Away, we must go! Swiftly, of course,
|
||
Soon the cries of murder will begin,
|
||
With the police, now, I’m well in:
|
||
3715 But not so much so with the courts.
|
||
|
||
(He exits with Faust.)
|
||
|
||
Martha (At the window.)
|
||
|
||
Come here! Come here!
|
||
|
||
Gretchen (At the window.)
|
||
|
||
Here’s a light!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Hear how they swear and struggle, yell and fight.
|
||
|
||
On-lookers
|
||
|
||
Here’s one dead already!
|
||
|
||
Martha (Leaving the house.)
|
||
|
||
Where have the murderers gone?
|
||
|
||
Gretchen (Leaving the house.)
|
||
|
||
Who is it, lying there?
|
||
|
||
On-lookers
|
||
|
||
3720 Your mother’s son.
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
Almighty God! What misery!
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
I’m dying! That’s soon spoken,
|
||
And, sooner still, it will be done.
|
||
Why stand there, crying, woman?
|
||
3725 Come, hear me everyone!
|
||
|
||
(They gather round him.)
|
||
|
||
You’re still young, my Gretchen, see!
|
||
And still haven’t sense enough, to be
|
||
Effective in your occupation.
|
||
I’ll tell you confidentially:
|
||
3730 Now that you’re a whore indeed,
|
||
Be one, by proclamation!
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
My brother! God! Why speak to me so?
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
In this business, leave God alone!
|
||
Sadly, what is done is done,
|
||
3735 And what will come: will come.
|
||
Begin with one, in secret, then,
|
||
Soon you’ll gather other men,
|
||
And, when a dozen of them have had you,
|
||
All the town can have you too.
|
||
3740 When Shame herself appears,
|
||
She’s first brought secretly to light,
|
||
Then they draw the veil of night
|
||
Over both her eyes and ears:
|
||
Men would gladly kill her, I say,
|
||
3745 But they let her walk about and prosper,
|
||
So she goes nakedly by day,
|
||
Yet isn’t any lovelier.
|
||
She’s the uglier to our sight,
|
||
The more it is she seeks the light.
|
||
3750 Truly I can see the day
|
||
When all honest people
|
||
Will turn aside from you, girl,
|
||
As from a corpse with plague.
|
||
Your heart’s flesh will despair,
|
||
3755 When they look you in the face,
|
||
You’ll have no golden chain to wear!
|
||
At the altar, there, you’ll have no place!
|
||
You’ll not be dancing joyfully
|
||
In all your lovely finery!
|
||
3760 In some wretched gloomy corner, you
|
||
Will hide, with cripples and beggars too,
|
||
And, though God may still forgive,
|
||
Be damned on earth while you live!
|
||
|
||
Martha
|
||
|
||
Commend your soul to God’s mercy!
|
||
3765 Will you end your life with blasphemy?
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
If I could destroy your withered body,
|
||
Shameless, bawd, I’d hope to see
|
||
A full measure of forgiveness
|
||
For me, and all my sinfulness.
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
3770 My brother! These are the pains of hell!
|
||
|
||
Valentine
|
||
|
||
I said, leave off weeping, girl!
|
||
When you and honour chose to part,
|
||
That was the sword-thrust in my heart.
|
||
I go, through a sleep within the grave,
|
||
3775 To God, as a soldier, true and brave.
|
||
|
||
(He dies.)
|
||
|
||
Scene XX: The Cathedral
|
||
|
||
(A Mass, with organ and choir.)
|
||
|
||
(Gretchen among a large congregation: the Evil Spirit behind
|
||
Gretchen.)
|
||
|
||
The Evil Spirit
|
||
|
||
How different it was, Gretchen,
|
||
When you, still innocent,
|
||
Came here to the altar,
|
||
And from that well-thumbed Book,
|
||
3780 Babbled your prayers,
|
||
Half, a childish game,
|
||
Half, God in your heart!
|
||
Gretchen!
|
||
What’s in your mind?
|
||
3785 In your heart,
|
||
What crime?
|
||
Do you pray for your mother’s soul, who
|
||
Through you, fell asleep to long, long torment?
|
||
Whose blood is on your doorstep?
|
||
3790 And beneath your heart,
|
||
Does not something stir and swell,
|
||
And trouble you, and itself,
|
||
A presence full of foreboding?
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
Oh! Oh!
|
||
3795 Would I were free of the thoughts
|
||
That rush here and there inside me,
|
||
Despite myself!
|
||
|
||
Choir (Singing the Requiem Mass, the verses of Thomas of Celano, which
|
||
commence: ‘That day, the day of wrath, will dissolve the world to
|
||
ash’.)
|
||
|
||
‘Dies Irae, dies illa,
|
||
Solvet saeclum in favilla!’
|
||
|
||
(The organ sounds.)
|
||
|
||
The Evil Spirit
|
||
|
||
3800 Wrath grasps you!
|
||
The trumpet sounds!
|
||
The grave trembles!
|
||
And your heart,
|
||
From ashen rest,
|
||
3805 To fiery torment
|
||
Brought again,
|
||
Shudders!
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
Would I were not here!
|
||
It seems to me as if the organ
|
||
3810 Steals my breath,
|
||
The Hymn dissolves
|
||
My heart in the abyss.
|
||
|
||
Choir
|
||
|
||
(Verse 6:‘So when the Judge takes the chair, whatever is hidden will
|
||
appear, nothing is left unpunished there.’)
|
||
|
||
‘Judex ergo cum sedebit,
|
||
Quidquid latet adparebit,
|
||
3815 Nil unultum remanebit.’
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
I’m so stifled!
|
||
The pillars of the walls
|
||
Imprison me!
|
||
The arches
|
||
3820 Crush me! – Air!
|
||
|
||
The Evil Spirit
|
||
|
||
Hide yourself! Sin and shame
|
||
Cannot be hidden.
|
||
Light? Air?
|
||
Misery, to you!
|
||
|
||
Choir (Verse 7: ‘What shall I say in that misery, who shall I ask to
|
||
speak for me, when the righteous will be saved, and barely?’)
|
||
|
||
3825 ‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus,
|
||
Quem patronum rogaturus,
|
||
Cum vix Justus sit securus?’
|
||
|
||
The Evil Spirit
|
||
|
||
The transfigured, turn
|
||
Their faces from you.
|
||
3830 The pure, shudder
|
||
To offer you their hand.
|
||
Misery!
|
||
|
||
Choir (Repeats: ‘What shall I say in that misery?’)
|
||
|
||
‘Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?’
|
||
|
||
Gretchen
|
||
|
||
Neighbour! Your restorative!
|
||
|
||
(She falls, fainting.)
|
||
|
||
Scene XXI: Walpurgis Night
|
||
|
||
(The Hartz Mountains, in the region of Schierke and Elend.)
|
||
|
||
(Faust, Mephistopheles.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
3835 Don’t you just long for a broomstick?
|
||
I wish I’d the sturdiest goat to ride.
|
||
Like this, the journey’s not so quick.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
So long as my legs can do the trick,
|
||
This knotted stick will do me fine.
|
||
3840 Why do we need a shorter way! –
|
||
To wander this labyrinth of valleys,
|
||
Climb all these cliffs and gullies,
|
||
From which the waters ever spray,
|
||
That’s a delight enchants the day!
|
||
3845 Spring stirs already in the birches,
|
||
And even the fir tree knows it now:
|
||
Shouldn’t our limbs feel it search us?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Truly, I don’t feel a thing!
|
||
It’s winter in my body, still,
|
||
3850 On my path I want it frosty, snowing.
|
||
How sadly the Moon’s imperfect circle
|
||
With its red belated glow, is rising,
|
||
So dim its light that at every step
|
||
You scrape a rock, or else a tree!
|
||
3855 Ah, there, a will o’ the wisp leapt!
|
||
It’s burning fiercely, now, I see.
|
||
Hey! My friend! May I ask your aid?
|
||
Would you like to give us a blaze?
|
||
Be so good as to light us up the hill!
|
||
|
||
Will O’ The Wisp
|
||
|
||
3860 With respect, I hope I’ll still be able,
|
||
To keep my Natural light quite stable:
|
||
We usually zig-zag here, at will.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Ha, ha! He thinks to play the human game.
|
||
Go straight along now, in the Devil’s name!
|
||
3865 Or I’ll blow out your flickering spark!
|
||
|
||
Will O’ The Wisp
|
||
|
||
You’re master of the house, I’ll remark,
|
||
And yes, I’ll serve you willingly.
|
||
But think! The mount is magically mad today,
|
||
And if a will o’ the wisp should lead the way,
|
||
3870 You mustn’t judge things too precisely.
|
||
|
||
Faust, Mephistopheles, The Will O’ The Wisp (In alternating song.)
|
||
|
||
We it seems, now find ourselves.
|
||
In the sphere of dreams and magic,
|
||
Do us honour, guide us well
|
||
So our journey will be quick,
|
||
3875 Through the wide, deserted spaces!
|
||
Tree on tree now shift their places,
|
||
See how fast they open to us
|
||
And the cliffs bow down before us,
|
||
And their long and rocky noses,
|
||
3880 How they whistle and blow, for us!
|
||
Through the stones, and through the grasses,
|
||
Stream and streamlet, downward, hurrying.
|
||
Is that rustling? Is that singing?
|
||
Do I hear sweet lovers’ sighing,
|
||
3885 Heavenly days, is that their babbling?
|
||
What we hope for, what we love!
|
||
And the echoes, like the murmuring
|
||
Of those other days, are ringing.
|
||
‘Too-wit! Too-woo!’ sounding nearer,
|
||
3890 Owl there, and jay, and plover,
|
||
Are they all awake above?
|
||
A salamander in the scrub, he’s
|
||
Long of leg, and fat of belly!
|
||
And every root like a snake,
|
||
3895 Over sand and rock all bent,
|
||
Stretches with a strange intent,
|
||
To scare us, of us prisoners make:
|
||
From the gnarled and living mass,
|
||
Stretching towards those who pass,
|
||
3900 Fibrous tentacles. And mice
|
||
Multi-coloured, lemming-wise,
|
||
In the moss and in the heather!
|
||
And all the fire-flies glowing,
|
||
Crushed together, tightly crowding,
|
||
3905 In their tangled cohorts gather.
|
||
Tell me, are we standing still,
|
||
Or are we climbing up the hill?
|
||
All seems spinning like a mill,
|
||
Rocks and trees, with angry faces
|
||
3910 Lights, now, wandering in spaces,
|
||
Massing: swelling at their will.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Grasp me bravely by the coat-tail!
|
||
Here’s a summit in the middle,
|
||
Where, astonished you can see,
|
||
3915 Mammon glowing furiously.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
How strangely, through the hollow, glows
|
||
A sort of dull red morning light!
|
||
Into the deepest gorge it flows,
|
||
Scenting abysses in their night.
|
||
3920 There vapour rises: here cloud sweeps,
|
||
Here the glow burns through the haze,
|
||
Now like a fragile thread it creeps,
|
||
Now like a coloured fountain plays.
|
||
Here a vast length winds its way,
|
||
3925 In a hundred veins, down the vales,
|
||
And here in a corner, locked away,
|
||
All at once, now lonely, fails.
|
||
Nearby the sparks pour down,
|
||
Like showers of golden sand,
|
||
3930 But see! On all the heights around,
|
||
The cliffs, now incandescent, stand.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Has Mammon not lit his palace
|
||
Splendidly, for this festivity?
|
||
It’s fortunate you’re here to see,
|
||
3935 I already sense the eager guests.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
How the wind roars through the air!
|
||
And whips around my head!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Grasp the ancient stony bed,
|
||
Lest you’re thrown in the abyss, there.
|
||
3940 Mist dims the night to deepest black.
|
||
Hear the forest timbers crack!
|
||
The owls are flying off in terror.
|
||
Hear, how the columns shatter,
|
||
In the vast, evergreen halls.
|
||
3945 Now the boughs groan and fall!
|
||
All the tree-trunks are thrumming!
|
||
All their roots are creaking, gaping!
|
||
Sinking in a tangled horror,
|
||
Crashing down on each other,
|
||
3950 And through the ruined gorges
|
||
The wind howls and surges.
|
||
Hear the voices on the heights?
|
||
Far away, and then nearby?
|
||
Yes, a furious magic song
|
||
3955 Sweeps the mountain, all along!
|
||
|
||
Witches (In chorus.)
|
||
|
||
To Brocken’s tip the witches stream,
|
||
The stubble’s yellow, the seed is green.
|
||
There the crowd of us will meet.
|
||
Lord Urian has the highest seat.
|
||
3960 So they go, over stone and sticks,
|
||
The stinking goat, the farting witch.
|
||
|
||
A Voice
|
||
|
||
Old Baubo comes, alone, and how:
|
||
She’s riding on a mother-sow.
|
||
|
||
Chorus
|
||
|
||
So honour then, where honour’s due!
|
||
3965 Baubo, goes first! Then, all the crew!
|
||
A tough old sow, a mother proud,
|
||
Then follow, all the witches’ crowd.
|
||
|
||
A voice
|
||
|
||
Which way did you come?
|
||
|
||
A voice
|
||
|
||
By the Ilsen Stone!
|
||
I gazed at the owl in her nest alone.
|
||
3970 What a pair of Eyes she made!
|
||
|
||
A Voice
|
||
|
||
O, all you who to Hell’s gate go!
|
||
Why ride there so quickly though?
|
||
|
||
A Voice
|
||
|
||
She’s driven me hard: oh, see,
|
||
The wounds, all over me!
|
||
|
||
Witches, Chorus
|
||
|
||
The way is broad: the way is long.
|
||
Where is this mad yearning from?
|
||
The fork will prick, the broom will scratch,
|
||
The child will smother: the mother crack.
|
||
|
||
Wizards, Half-Chorus
|
||
|
||
Like snails in their shells, we’re crawlers,
|
||
All the women are there before us.
|
||
3980 At the House of Evil, when we’re callers,
|
||
Woman’s a thousand steps before us.
|
||
|
||
The Other Half
|
||
|
||
We don’t measure with so much care,
|
||
In a thousand steps a Woman’s there.
|
||
But make whatever speed she can,
|
||
3985 A single leap, and there is Man.
|
||
|
||
Voice (From above.)
|
||
|
||
Come now: come now from stony mere!
|
||
|
||
Voice (From below.)
|
||
|
||
We’d like to climb the heights from here.
|
||
We’re as bright and clean as ever,
|
||
But we’re unfruitful still, forever.
|
||
|
||
Both Choruses
|
||
|
||
3990 The wind is quiet: a star shoots by,
|
||
The shadowy Moon departs the sky.
|
||
The magic choir’s a rush of sparks,
|
||
Thousands shower through the dark.
|
||
|
||
Voice (From below.)
|
||
|
||
Halt! Halt!
|
||
|
||
Voice (From above.)
|
||
|
||
3995 Who calls there, from the stony vault?
|
||
|
||
Voice (From below.)
|
||
|
||
Take me with you! Take me with you!
|
||
Climbing for three hundred years,
|
||
I haven’t reached the summit yet,
|
||
I long to be where my peers are met.
|
||
|
||
Both Choruses
|
||
|
||
4000 Here’s the broom: and here’s the stick,
|
||
The ram is here, the fork to prick.
|
||
Tonight, whoever can’t deliver
|
||
There’s a man is lost forever.
|
||
|
||
Half-witches (Below.)
|
||
|
||
I’ve stumbled round so long, down here:
|
||
4005 How far ahead the rest appear!
|
||
I get no peace around the house,
|
||
And get none either hereabouts.
|
||
|
||
Chorus of Witches
|
||
|
||
An ointment makes the witches hale:
|
||
A rag will do them for a sail,
|
||
4010 A trough’s a goodly ship, and tight:
|
||
He’ll fly not who flies not tonight.
|
||
|
||
Both Choruses
|
||
|
||
And once we’ve soared around,
|
||
So, alight then, on the ground,
|
||
Cover the heather, far and wide,
|
||
4015 With your swarming witches’ tide.
|
||
|
||
(They let themselves fall.)
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
They push and shove, they roar and clatter!
|
||
They whistle and whirl, jostle and chatter!
|
||
They glimmer and sparkle, stink and flare!
|
||
The genuine witch-element’s there!
|
||
4020 We’ll soon be parted, so stay near!
|
||
Where are you?
|
||
|
||
Faust (In the distance.)
|
||
Here!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
What! Nearly out of sight?
|
||
Then I’ll have to use a master’s right.
|
||
Ground! Sir Voland comes. Sweet folk, give ground!
|
||
Here, Doctor, hold tight! In a single bound,
|
||
4025 Far from the crowd, we’ll soon be free:
|
||
It’s too much, even for the likes of me.
|
||
Something burned there with a special light,
|
||
In that thicket, as far then as I could see,
|
||
Come on! We can slip inside, all right.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
4030 You spirit of contradiction! Go on! I follow you.
|
||
I think after all it’s worked out quite cleverly:
|
||
We walk the Brocken on Walpurgis Night, yet we
|
||
Are as isolated now, as we ever could choose.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
See now, what colours flare!
|
||
4035 A lively mob club together there.
|
||
In little groups one’s not alone.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’d still rather be higher, though!
|
||
I can see fire and whirling smoke.
|
||
There the crowd stream, to the Evil One:
|
||
4040 There many a puzzle finds solution.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
But many a puzzle’s knotted so.
|
||
Let the whole world have its riot,
|
||
Here we’ll house ourselves in quiet.
|
||
It’s a long and well-established tradition,
|
||
4045 From the great one makes a smaller edition.
|
||
I see young witches, naked, bare,
|
||
And old ones, veiled cunningly.
|
||
For my sake, be a little friendly.
|
||
The trouble’s slight, the fun is rare.
|
||
4050 I hear instruments being tuned, too!
|
||
A cursed din, you’ll soon get used to.
|
||
Come, with me! There’s no way otherwise,
|
||
I’ll step ahead, lead you to their eyes,
|
||
And earn your fresh gratitude, so.
|
||
4055 What say you? There’s lots of room, my friend.
|
||
Look over there! You can’t see its end.
|
||
A hundred fires burning, in a row,
|
||
They love, and drink, and dance, and chat,
|
||
Tell me where you’ll find better than that?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
4060 Will you, as we make our bow,
|
||
Play the devil, or wizard now?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
To be sure I’m used to travelling incognito,
|
||
But on formal occasions rank’s allowed to show.
|
||
I’ve no Knight’s garter to mark me out,
|
||
4065 But the cloven foot’s honoured in this house.
|
||
Do you see how that snail there crawls to me:
|
||
With those delicate feelers on its head,
|
||
It’s already scented me, you see,
|
||
I can’t deny myself, if I wished.
|
||
4070 Come! We’ll go from fire to fire,
|
||
I’m the broker: you’re the suitor.
|
||
|
||
(To some, sitting by dying embers.)
|
||
|
||
Old sirs, what do you sit at the edge for?
|
||
I’d praise you, in the middle, more,
|
||
Among the youthful buzz, and shout.
|
||
4075 You’re alone enough inside the house.
|
||
|
||
The General
|
||
|
||
Who would trust the Nation!
|
||
One’s toiled so long for it:
|
||
With the people, as with women,
|
||
Youth’s always the best fit.
|
||
|
||
The Minister
|
||
|
||
4080 From every rule they’ve gone astray,
|
||
Me, I praise the good old days,
|
||
Then, truly, we were all the rage,
|
||
That was a real golden age.
|
||
|
||
The Nouveau Riche
|
||
|
||
We weren’t so stupid, you’d have found,
|
||
4085 And often did, what wasn’t right:
|
||
But now it all turns round and round,
|
||
Just as we’d like to grasp it tight.
|
||
|
||
Author
|
||
|
||
Who writes anything good these days,
|
||
Or reads with moderate intelligence!
|
||
4090 And what the dear young folk all praise,
|
||
I’ve never seen such stupid nonsense.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Suddenly looking old.)
|
||
|
||
I feel folk are ripe for Judgement Day,
|
||
Of Witches’ Mount, I’ve made my last ascent.
|
||
And now my cask runs cloudy, anyway,
|
||
4095 The world itself is all as good as spent.
|
||
|
||
Witch-Marketeer
|
||
|
||
Gentlemen: don’t pass me by!
|
||
Don’t lose the opportunity!
|
||
Inspect my wares attentively,
|
||
I’ve a selection for your eye.
|
||
4100 There’s nothing on my stall, here,
|
||
On Earth, it’s equal you’ll not find,
|
||
That hasn’t caused some harm somewhere,
|
||
To the world itself, and then, mankind.
|
||
No knife that isn’t dyed in gore,
|
||
4105 No cup that, through some healthy body,
|
||
Hot, gnawing venom hasn’t poured,
|
||
No gems that haven’t bought some kindly
|
||
Girl, no sword that’s not cut ties that bind,
|
||
Or, perhaps, struck an enemy from behind.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
4110 Granny! You misunderstand the age.
|
||
What’s gone: is done! What’s done: is gone!
|
||
Get novelties they’re all the rage!
|
||
Now it’s novelties that lead us on.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Don’t let me lose myself in here!
|
||
4115 Now, this is what I call a fair!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
This whole whirlpool’s trying to climb above,
|
||
You think you’re shoving, and you’re being shoved!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Who is that, there?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Note that madam!
|
||
That’s Lilith.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
Who?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
First wife to Adam.
|
||
4120 Pay attention to her lovely hair,
|
||
The only adornment she need wear.
|
||
When she traps a young man in her snare,
|
||
She won’t soon let him from her care.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Those two, the old and young one, sitting,
|
||
4125 They’ve leapt about more than is fitting!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
No rest tonight for anyone.
|
||
Let’s grasp them. There’s a new dance, come!
|
||
|
||
Faust (Dancing with the lovely young witch.)
|
||
|
||
A lovely dream once came to me,
|
||
And there I saw an apple-tree,
|
||
4130 Two lovely apples, there, did shine,
|
||
Tempting me so, I had to climb.
|
||
|
||
The Young Witch
|
||
|
||
Apples you love a lot, I know,
|
||
That once in Paradise did grow.
|
||
I’m deeply moved with joy to feel,
|
||
4135 That such my garden does reveal.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Dancing with the old witch.)
|
||
|
||
A vile dream once came to me,
|
||
In it, I saw an old cleft tree,
|
||
A monstrous crack there met my eyes,
|
||
It pleased me, though, despite its size.
|
||
|
||
The Old Witch
|
||
|
||
4140 I offer my best greetings to
|
||
The knight of the cloven shoe!
|
||
He’ll need to have a real stopper,
|
||
If he’s not scared of that whopper.
|
||
|
||
A Rationalist (Nicolai)
|
||
|
||
Cursed Folk! How do you dare to?
|
||
4145 Haven’t we shown, for many a season,
|
||
Spirits can’t exist: it stands to reason?
|
||
Yet you dance around, just as we do!
|
||
|
||
The Lovely Witch (Dancing.)
|
||
|
||
Why’s he here then, at our ball?
|
||
|
||
Faust (Dancing.)
|
||
|
||
Oh! He’s everywhere, and into all.
|
||
4150 While others dance, he must reflect.
|
||
If he can’t discuss every last step,
|
||
It’s as good as if it didn’t happen.
|
||
He’s angriest at a forward pattern.
|
||
But if you turn around in circles,
|
||
4155 As he does in his ancient mills,
|
||
He’ll call it excellent, least ways
|
||
If you greet with interest what he says.
|
||
|
||
The Rationalist
|
||
|
||
You’re still there! Oh, it’s quite unheard of.
|
||
We’re enlightened now, so take yourselves off!
|
||
4160 The Devil’s crew’s discounted by every rule:
|
||
Yet though clever, still we’re haunted, in Tegel, too.
|
||
|
||
The Young Witch
|
||
|
||
Well listen: here we’re bored with it!
|
||
|
||
The Rationalist
|
||
|
||
4165 I tell you, Spirit, to your face:
|
||
For me, spirit-rule has no place:
|
||
Because my spirit can’t exercise it.
|
||
|
||
(The dance continues.)
|
||
|
||
I see, tonight, I’ll have no success:
|
||
But I get a bit from every trip,
|
||
4170 And hope, before the final step,
|
||
I’ll defeat the devils and the poets.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Now he’ll sit in some wet sump,
|
||
And console himself, like that, about you,
|
||
And if he sticks leeches on his rump,
|
||
4175 He’s cured of the Spirit, and Spirits, too.
|
||
|
||
(To Faust, who has left the dance.)
|
||
|
||
Why have you deserted that lovely girl,
|
||
Who sang so sweetly in the dancing?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Ugh! Right in the middle of her singing
|
||
A red mouse sprang out of her mouth.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
4180 That’s fine: don’t brood on it, anyway:
|
||
Enough, that the mouse wasn’t grey.
|
||
At harvest time who queries a mouse?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Then I saw –
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
What?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Mephisto, can you see
|
||
4185 That lovely child, far off, alone there,
|
||
Travelling slowly, so painfully,
|
||
As if her feet were chained together.
|
||
I must admit, without question
|
||
She’s the image of my sweet Gretchen.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Forget all that! It benefits no one.
|
||
4190 It’s a lifeless magic form, a phantom.
|
||
Encountering it will do you no good:
|
||
Its fixed stare freezes human blood,
|
||
And then one’s almost turned to stone:
|
||
Medusa’s story is surely known.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
4195 Those are the eyes of the dead, truly,
|
||
No loving hand has closed their void.
|
||
That’s the breast Gretchen offered to me:
|
||
That’s the sweet body I enjoyed.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
It’s magic, fool: you’re an easy one to move!
|
||
4200 She comes to all, as if she were their love.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What delight! What pain!
|
||
I can’t turn from her, again.
|
||
Strange, around her lovely throat,
|
||
A single scarlet cord adorns her,
|
||
4205 Like a knife-cut, and no wider!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
That’s right! I see it too: and note,
|
||
She can carry her head under her arm,
|
||
Since Perseus did her that fatal harm.
|
||
Always desire for that illusion!
|
||
4210 Come on, climb this bit of mountain:
|
||
It’s as lively as the Vienna Prater,
|
||
And if no one’s deceiving me,
|
||
I’m looking at a genuine theatre.
|
||
You’re showing?
|
||
|
||
Servibilis
|
||
|
||
It’ll be on again shortly.
|
||
4215 A fresh performance: last of seven.
|
||
That number, for us, is traditional.
|
||
An amateur’s written it, and then
|
||
It’s amateurs who perform it all.
|
||
Forgive me, sir, if I break off here,
|
||
4220 Since I’m the amateur curtain-raiser.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
That I find you on the Blocksberg’s good,
|
||
Since I find you exactly where I should.
|
||
|
||
Scene XXII: A Walpurgis Night’s Dream
|
||
|
||
Or
|
||
|
||
Oberon and Titania’s Golden Wedding.
|
||
|
||
An Interlude (Intermezzo)
|
||
|
||
Theatre Manager
|
||
|
||
You brave stagehands, of Weimar,
|
||
Take a rest, at least for today.
|
||
4225 Ancient mountains, misty vales are,
|
||
All the scenery for our play.
|
||
|
||
Herald
|
||
|
||
Fifty years we’ve passed by,
|
||
To make this wedding golden,
|
||
But let some argument arise:
|
||
4230 There’s gold in it, for me, then.
|
||
|
||
Oberon
|
||
|
||
Spirits, where I am, be seen:
|
||
Appear, all, at this moment:
|
||
Fairy King, and Fairy Queen,
|
||
Renew their old intent.
|
||
|
||
Puck
|
||
|
||
4235 Puck comes shooting through the air,
|
||
And moves his feet, in time:
|
||
After him a hundred, there,
|
||
Share his joyful rhyme.
|
||
|
||
Ariel
|
||
|
||
Ariel conducts his singing
|
||
4240 In pure and heavenly tones:
|
||
Ugly faces greet its ringing,
|
||
But also lovely ones.
|
||
|
||
Oberon
|
||
|
||
Partners if you’d get along,
|
||
Learn then from the two of us!
|
||
4245 If we in pairs would love for long,
|
||
Someone needs to separate us.
|
||
|
||
Titania
|
||
|
||
The sulky man, the wilful wife,
|
||
So they might know each other,
|
||
I’d show him all the Northern ice,
|
||
4250 And show her the Equator.
|
||
|
||
The Whole Orchestra (Tutti. Very loud.)
|
||
|
||
From fly-snout and midge-nose,
|
||
And all of their relations,
|
||
Frog and cricket, too, there flow
|
||
These musical vibrations!
|
||
|
||
Solo
|
||
|
||
4255 See, the bagpipes on their way!
|
||
Made from a soap-bubble.
|
||
Hear the snail’s-twaddle play
|
||
Through its stumpy nozzle.
|
||
|
||
Spirit (Newly formed.)
|
||
|
||
Spider’s-feet and toad’s-belly,
|
||
With useless winglets to ’em!
|
||
A little creature, it can’t be
|
||
But it makes a little poem.
|
||
|
||
A Tiny Couple
|
||
|
||
Little steps and high leaps,
|
||
Through honeydew and fragrance here,
|
||
4265 You still won’t do enough it seems,
|
||
To climb into the atmosphere.
|
||
|
||
A Curious Traveller
|
||
|
||
A masquerade of mockery?
|
||
Do I dare to trust my eyes?
|
||
Oberon, that fair divinity,
|
||
4270 Do I see him here, tonight?
|
||
|
||
The Orthodox
|
||
|
||
He’s no tail, and not a claw!
|
||
And yet it’s him, it’s true:
|
||
Like the gods of Greece, I’m sure,
|
||
He must be a devil too.
|
||
|
||
Northern Artist
|
||
|
||
4275 What I capture here today,
|
||
In truth is only sketchy:
|
||
Yet I prepare myself, someday
|
||
For my Italian journey.
|
||
|
||
Purist
|
||
|
||
Ah! My bad luck brings me here:
|
||
4280 Since I haven’t been invited!
|
||
Of all the witches to appear,
|
||
Only two are powdered.
|
||
|
||
Young Witch
|
||
|
||
Powder like a petticoat
|
||
On an old, grey witch you’ll see,
|
||
4285 While I sit naked on my goat,
|
||
And show a fine young body.
|
||
|
||
Married Woman
|
||
|
||
We have too much experience,
|
||
To moan about you, here, then!
|
||
Yet, as young and tender you are, once,
|
||
4290 So, I hope you will be, rotten.
|
||
|
||
Orchestral Conductor
|
||
|
||
Fly-snout and midge-nose,
|
||
Don’t swarm around the naked!
|
||
Frog and cricket, too, all know
|
||
Your time, and don’t mistake it!
|
||
|
||
A Wind-Vane (Swinging to one side.)
|
||
|
||
4295 Society, as one would like it done:
|
||
True pure brides along the slope!
|
||
And young fellows, one for one,
|
||
People quite brimful of hope!
|
||
|
||
The Wind-Vane (Swinging to the other side.)
|
||
|
||
And if the ground doesn’t split,
|
||
4300 And swallow everyone,
|
||
I’ll be so amazed at it,
|
||
I’ll leap into hell at once.
|
||
|
||
Xenies (Barbed verses: Greek – gifts exchanged.)
|
||
|
||
As insects we appear,
|
||
With little claws we’re nipping,
|
||
4305 To do Satan, our Papa,
|
||
Due honour as is fitting.
|
||
|
||
Hennings (August Von Hennings, a literary enemy.)
|
||
|
||
See them, packed in a crowd,
|
||
Naïve, together, poking fun!
|
||
At last, they’ll even say, aloud,
|
||
4310 Their hearts were blameless ones.
|
||
|
||
Musagete (Controller of the Muses: Greek – epithet of Apollo)
|
||
|
||
Among this witches’ crew,
|
||
I’d gladly lose my way:
|
||
They’re easier to manage, too
|
||
Than Muses, any day.
|
||
|
||
Former ‘Genius of the Age’
|
||
|
||
4315 One was someone, among real folk.
|
||
Come on, then: I can hold my end up!
|
||
Like Germany’s Parnassus, look,
|
||
The Blocksberg’s summit’s broad enough.
|
||
|
||
Curious Traveller (Nicolai)
|
||
|
||
Say, who’s that haughty man?
|
||
4320 He walks with such proud steps.
|
||
He sniffs as only a sniffer-out can.
|
||
‘He smells out Jesuits.’
|
||
|
||
A Crane (Lavater)
|
||
|
||
I like to fish among the clear
|
||
And the muddy levels:
|
||
4325 So the pious man appears
|
||
Mixing with the devils.
|
||
|
||
A Child of This World (Goethe himself.)
|
||
|
||
To the pious man, as I’m aware,
|
||
Every place is fitting,
|
||
So you build, on the Blocksberg here,
|
||
4330 Many a house of meeting.
|
||
|
||
A Dancer
|
||
|
||
Does some new choir succeed?
|
||
I hear a distant drum.
|
||
‘No! It’s the booming in the reeds,
|
||
Of bitterns, in unison.’
|
||
|
||
A Dancing Master
|
||
|
||
4335 How they lift their legs, this lot!
|
||
As best they can, they all take flight!
|
||
The cripples skip, the clumsy hop,
|
||
And don’t care at all what they look like.
|
||
|
||
A Fiddle-Player
|
||
|
||
The ragged mob all hate so much,
|
||
4340 They’d gladly crush the others.
|
||
Here the bagpipe draws them, just
|
||
As Orpheus’ lyre the creatures.
|
||
|
||
The Dogmatist
|
||
|
||
I won’t declare it’s madness, now,
|
||
Or show myself too critical.
|
||
4345 The devil must exist somehow,
|
||
Or how could we act the devil?
|
||
|
||
The Idealist
|
||
|
||
The fantasy in my mind,
|
||
For once, is too despotic.
|
||
Truly, if I am all, I find
|
||
4350 Today I’m idiotic!
|
||
|
||
The Realist
|
||
|
||
Here’s real pain, at hand,
|
||
It annoys me so to see it:
|
||
For the first time, here I stand,
|
||
Unsteady, on my feet.
|
||
|
||
A Believer in the Supernatural
|
||
|
||
4355 It’s very pleasant to be here,
|
||
And this crowd too has merit:
|
||
Since from the devil I infer
|
||
Some much more virtuous spirit.
|
||
|
||
A Sceptic
|
||
|
||
These little flames a-hunting go,
|
||
4360 And think they’re near the treasure:
|
||
But Devil rhymes with doubtful: so
|
||
My being here’s a pleasure.
|
||
|
||
Orchestral Conductor
|
||
|
||
Frog on leaf, and cricket, oh
|
||
You amateur editions!
|
||
4365 Fly-snout and midge-nose,
|
||
Remember you’re musicians!
|
||
|
||
The Skilful
|
||
|
||
Carefree, is what they call
|
||
This band of happy creatures:
|
||
When we can’t go on foot at all
|
||
4370 Our head it is that features.
|
||
|
||
The Maladroit
|
||
|
||
We picked up many a titbit once,
|
||
But now, God orders things so,
|
||
Our shoes are ragged from the dance,
|
||
And we travel on naked soles.
|
||
|
||
Will-O’-The-Wisps
|
||
|
||
4375 From the swamps we’ve come,
|
||
Where we first arose:
|
||
In the ranks here, we, at once,
|
||
As glittering gallants pose.
|
||
|
||
A Shooting Star
|
||
|
||
I shoot here from the sky
|
||
4380 And star- and firelight meet.
|
||
Now across the grass I lie -
|
||
Who’ll help me to my feet?
|
||
|
||
The Heavy-Footed
|
||
|
||
Room, round about us, room!
|
||
We crush the grasses under.
|
||
4385 Spirits come, and spirits too
|
||
Have their bulky members.
|
||
|
||
Puck
|
||
|
||
Don’t tread so heavily,
|
||
Like elephantine calves: let
|
||
Puck himself, the sturdy, be,
|
||
4390 On this night, the stoutest.
|
||
|
||
Ariel
|
||
|
||
Loving nature winged your backs,
|
||
You spirits, one supposes,
|
||
Follow, then, on my light track,
|
||
To the hill of roses!
|
||
|
||
Orchestra (Quietly: pianissimo)
|
||
|
||
4395 Trailing cloud, and misted trees,
|
||
Brighten with the day.
|
||
Breeze in leaves, and wind in reeds,
|
||
And all have flown away.
|
||
|
||
Scene XXIII: Gloomy Day
|
||
|
||
(A Field. Faust, Mephistopheles.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
In misery! Despair! Wandering wretchedly on the face of the earth,
|
||
for ages, and now imprisoned! That kind, unfortunate creature, locked
|
||
up in prison as a criminal, and lost in torment! To this! This! –
|
||
Treacherous, worthless spirit, you hid it from me! – Stand there,
|
||
then! Roll the devil’s eyes in your head, in anger! Stand there, and
|
||
defy me with your unbearable presence! Imprisoned! In irredeemable
|
||
misery! Delivered up to evil spirits, and the judgement of unfeeling
|
||
men! And you’ve troubled me meanwhile with tasteless diversions,
|
||
concealed her growing misery from me, and left her helpless in the
|
||
face of ruin!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
She is not the first.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Dog! Loathsome Monster! – Change him, infinite Spirit! Change the
|
||
worm into his dog-form, in which he often liked to scamper in front of
|
||
me, at night, rolling at the feet of the unsuspecting traveller, and
|
||
clambering on his shoulders when he fell. Change him into his
|
||
favourite likeness, so he can crawl on his belly in the sand in front
|
||
of me, and I can trample him, depraved thing, under my feet! – ‘Not
|
||
the first!’ – Misery! Misery! That no human spirit can grasp. That
|
||
more than one being should sink into the depth of this wretchedness:
|
||
that the first, writhing in its death-pangs, under the eyes of Eternal
|
||
Forgiveness, did not expiate the guilt of all the others! It pierces
|
||
to the marrow of my bones, the misery of this one being – and you
|
||
smile calmly at the fate of thousands!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Now we’re out of our wits again, already, at the point where men’s
|
||
brains are cracked. Why did you enter into partnership with us, if
|
||
you can’t go through with it? Would you take wing, and yet be free of
|
||
dizziness? Did we thrust ourselves on you, or you on us?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Don’t gnash your greedy jaws at me! It disgusts me! – Great and
|
||
glorious Spirit, you who revealed yourself to me, nobly, who know my
|
||
heart and soul, why shackle me to this disgraceful companion, who
|
||
feeds on injury, and at the last on ruin?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Have you finished?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Save her, or woe to you! May the weightiest curse fall on you for a
|
||
thousand ages!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I can’t undo the bonds of the Avenger, nor loose his bolts. – ‘Save
|
||
her!’ –
|
||
Who was it dragged her to ruin? I or you?
|
||
|
||
(Faust looks around, wildly.)
|
||
|
||
Would you grasp the lightning? A good thing it has not been allowed
|
||
you miserable mortals! To crush the innocent one who replies is the
|
||
tyrant’s way to free oneself of an embarrassment.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Take me to her! She shall be freed!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
And the danger you expose yourself to? Be aware, the guilty blood
|
||
from your hands lies on the town. Avenging spirits hover over the
|
||
place of death, and lie in wait for the murderer’s return.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
And not from yours, too? Murder, and death in this world, be on you,
|
||
monster! Take me there, I say, and free her.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
I’ll take you: listen to what I can do! Have I all the powers of
|
||
heaven and earth? I’ll confuse the jailor’s mind: you take possession
|
||
of the key, and bring her out, hand in human hand! I’ll keep watch:
|
||
magic horses are ready: I’ll carry you away. That, I can do.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Away!
|
||
|
||
Scene XXIV: Night
|
||
|
||
(An open field. Faust and Mephistopheles flying onwards on black
|
||
horses.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
What do they weave, round the Ravenstone?
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
4400 I don’t know what they’re cooking and brewing.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Soaring up, diving down, bending and bowing.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
A guild of witches.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
They scatter, they consecrate.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
Away! Away!
|
||
|
||
Scene XXV: A Dungeon
|
||
|
||
(Faust, with a bunch of keys and a lamp, in front of an iron door.)
|
||
|
||
4405 A long-forgotten shudder grips me,
|
||
I’m gripped by all of Mankind’s misery,
|
||
Here behind these damp walls, she
|
||
Lives: and all her guilt’s illusory.
|
||
Do I tremble, then, to free her!
|
||
4410 Do I dread, once more, to see her!
|
||
On! Fear adds to death’s proximity.
|
||
|
||
(He grips the lock. She sings within.)
|
||
|
||
My mother, the whore
|
||
She killed me!
|
||
My father, the rogue,
|
||
4415 He gnawed me!
|
||
Little sister alone
|
||
Laid out the bone
|
||
In the cool of the clay:
|
||
Then I was a sweet bird on the stone.
|
||
4420 Fly away! Fly away!
|
||
|
||
Faust (Unlocking the door.)
|
||
|
||
She doesn’t know her lover’s listening,
|
||
Hears the chains, the straw’s rustling.
|
||
|
||
(He enters.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Hiding herself in the bed of straw.)
|
||
|
||
Woe! Woe! It comes. Bitterest Death!
|
||
|
||
Faust (Whispering)
|
||
|
||
Hush! Hush! It’s I who come, to free you.
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Throwing herself down in front of him.)
|
||
|
||
4425 Are you a man? Then pity my distress.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Your cries will wake the jailors, too!
|
||
|
||
(He grasps the chains, to loose them.)
|
||
|
||
Margaret (On her knees.)
|
||
|
||
Who gives the executioner
|
||
Such power over me!
|
||
At midnight you’re already here.
|
||
4430 Let me live, have mercy on me!
|
||
Won’t it be soon enough when dawn should come?
|
||
|
||
(She stands up.)
|
||
|
||
I’m still so young, so young!
|
||
And yet I’ll die!
|
||
I was lovely too, that was my
|
||
4435 Ruin. My love was near, now he’s gone:
|
||
The garland’s torn: the flowers are done.
|
||
Don’t grip me, now, so violently!
|
||
What harm have I done you? Spare me!
|
||
Don’t let me beg for mercy, in vain,
|
||
4440 I’ve never seen you before today!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
How shall I endure this misery, say!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’m wholly in your power. Oh,
|
||
Let me feed my baby first.
|
||
I caressed it all night, though,
|
||
4445 They told me I caused it hurt,
|
||
And now they say I killed it, so,
|
||
And now I’ll never be happy again.
|
||
They sing songs of me! It’s wicked of folk!
|
||
There’s an old story ends this way,
|
||
4450 Who told them to tell it so?
|
||
|
||
Faust (Falling on his knees.)
|
||
|
||
A lover lies at your feet,
|
||
Who’ll end your painful slavery.
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Throwing herself down next to him.)
|
||
|
||
O let’s kneel, the saints will bless!
|
||
See here! Under these steps,
|
||
4455 Under this sill,
|
||
Seethes Hell!
|
||
The Evil One
|
||
With fierce anger,
|
||
Makes his groan!
|
||
|
||
Faust (Aloud)
|
||
|
||
4460 Gretchen! Gretchen!
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Listening closely.)
|
||
|
||
The voice of my lover!
|
||
|
||
(She leaps to her feet: the chains fall away.)
|
||
|
||
Where? I heard him call me.
|
||
I’m free! No one holds me.
|
||
To his neck, I shall fly,
|
||
4465 On his breast, I shall lie!
|
||
He called Gretchen! Stood at the sill.
|
||
Among the howls and cries of Hell,
|
||
Among the devil’s, scornful groans,
|
||
I knew his sweet, dear tones.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
I’m here!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
4470 Here! O, say it once again!
|
||
|
||
(She embraces him.)
|
||
|
||
It’s he! It’s he! Where now is all the pain?
|
||
Where now the chains, the dungeon’s misery?
|
||
You’re here! You come to save me.
|
||
I am saved!
|
||
4475 Already the street is there again,
|
||
Where I first saw you plain,
|
||
And the joyful garden,
|
||
Where Martha and I waited, then.
|
||
|
||
Faust (Struggling to move.)
|
||
|
||
Come with me! Come!
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Caressing him.)
|
||
|
||
O stay,
|
||
4480 I’ll gladly stay, if you are with me.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Away!
|
||
If you don’t hurry,
|
||
We’ll pay for this.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
What? You can no longer kiss?
|
||
4485 My dear, so short a time to miss me,
|
||
And you’ve forgotten how to kiss me?
|
||
Why am I so anxious on your breast?
|
||
When, once, at your words, your gaze,
|
||
With a whole heaven I was blessed,
|
||
4490 And you kissed me, enough to suffocate.
|
||
Kiss me!
|
||
I kiss you: see!
|
||
|
||
(She embraces him.)
|
||
|
||
Oh! How cold and silent,
|
||
Your lips.
|
||
4495 Where has your passion
|
||
Gone?
|
||
Who brought me this?
|
||
|
||
(She turns away from him.)
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Come! Follow me! Darling, be bold!
|
||
I’ll clasp you with a thousand-fold
|
||
4500 Warmth: now follow me! I beg you!
|
||
|
||
Margaret (Turning to him.)
|
||
|
||
And is it you? Is it really you?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
It is! Come, with me!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
You’ll loose the chains,
|
||
And take me to your breast, again.
|
||
How is it you don’t shrink from me?
|
||
4505 Do you know, friend, whom you free?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Come! Come! The night will soon be over.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I’ve killed my mother,
|
||
I’ve drowned my child.
|
||
Was it not given to you and I?
|
||
4510 You too. - You here! I scarce believe.
|
||
Give me your hand! This is no dream.
|
||
Your dear hand! – Ah, but it’s damp!
|
||
Wipe it clean! Why do I think,
|
||
It has blood on.
|
||
4515 Ah God! What have you done?
|
||
Put your sword away,
|
||
I beg you, please!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Let past be past I say!
|
||
You’re destroying me!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
4520 No you must live on: must do.
|
||
I’ll describe our graves to you.
|
||
You must begin them
|
||
This very dawn:
|
||
The best one is for my mother,
|
||
4525 Then, by her, my brother,
|
||
Myself, a little further, lay,
|
||
But not too far away!
|
||
And the little one, at my right breast.
|
||
No one else by me will lie! –
|
||
4530 Ah, to nestle at your side,
|
||
That was a sweet, a darling bliss!
|
||
But no more will I achieve it:
|
||
It’s as if I must force you to it,
|
||
As if you turn aside my kiss:
|
||
4535 And yet it’s you, so good, so sweet to see!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You know it is, so come with me!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Out there?
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
To Freedom.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
If the grave is there,
|
||
Death waiting, then I come!
|
||
4540 From here to everlasting rest,
|
||
And not a step further would
|
||
You go now? O Heinrich, if I could!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You can! Just will it! The door is open!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
I dare not: there’s no hope for me then.
|
||
4545 What use is flight? They lie in wait for me.
|
||
To be forced to beg is a bitter existence,
|
||
And cursed too with an evil conscience!
|
||
To wander among strangers, bitter,
|
||
And even then I’d still be captured!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
4550 I’ll stay beside you.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Quickly! Quickly!
|
||
Save my poor baby!
|
||
Away! Down the ridge,
|
||
Now, by the brook,
|
||
4555 Over the bridge,
|
||
Into the wood,
|
||
Left, where the plank is,
|
||
There, in the pool.
|
||
Seize it now: you!
|
||
4560 It’s trying to rise,
|
||
It’s moving still!
|
||
Save it! Save it!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Be sensible!
|
||
Only one step, and then you’re free!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
4565 If we were on the mountain, only!
|
||
There my mother sits, on a stone,
|
||
And oh, the cold, it grips me!
|
||
There my mother sits on a stone,
|
||
And wags her head, so heavy.
|
||
4570 No sign, no nod, for me, I’m sure
|
||
Her sleep’s so long: she’ll wake no more.
|
||
She slept, while we took our pleasure.
|
||
That was such a time to treasure!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Here all’s useless, speech or prayer:
|
||
4575 I’ll take you from this place: I’ll dare.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Let me alone! No, no force!
|
||
Don’t grip me so murderously, oh,
|
||
I’ve done all else to please you so.
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
The day breaks! Dearest! Dearest!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
4580 Day! Yes, it’s dawn! The last I’ll see:
|
||
My wedding day, that was to be!
|
||
Tell no one you’ve been with Gretchen. Ah, bright glance!
|
||
It’s done with: all in vain!
|
||
4585 We two will meet again:
|
||
But not in the dance.
|
||
The crowd gather, without speech.
|
||
The streets, the square,
|
||
Can’t hold them, there.
|
||
4590 The bell tolls, the wand breaks.
|
||
Now, they seize and tie me!
|
||
I’m dragged already to the block.
|
||
The blade that quivers over me,
|
||
Has quivered before over every neck.
|
||
4595 Silent the world, now, as the grave!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
Oh, would that I’d never seen the light!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (Appears outside.)
|
||
|
||
Away! Or you’ll be lost, tonight.
|
||
Useless staying and praying! Chattering!
|
||
The horses are shivering,
|
||
4600 The dawn breaks, clear.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
What rises in the doorway, here?
|
||
Him! Him! Send him away!
|
||
Why is he here in this holy place?
|
||
He wants me!
|
||
|
||
Faust
|
||
|
||
You will live!
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
4605 God of Judgement! To you, myself I give!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust)
|
||
|
||
Come! Now! Or I leave you both to stew.
|
||
|
||
Margaret
|
||
|
||
Father, save me! I belong to you!
|
||
Angels! In Holy Company,
|
||
Draw round me: guard me!
|
||
4610 Heinrich! For you, I fear.
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles
|
||
|
||
She is judged!
|
||
|
||
A Voice (From above.)
|
||
|
||
She is saved!
|
||
|
||
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
|
||
|
||
To me, here!
|
||
|
||
(He vanishes, with Faust.)
|
||
|
||
A Voice (From within, dying away.)
|
||
|
||
Heinrich! Heinrich!
|