--- /dev/null
+Dedication
+
+ Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms,
+ Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision.
+ Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more?
+ Heart’s willing still to suffer that illusion?
+5 You crowd so near! Well then, you shall endure,
+ And rouse me, from your mist and cloud’s confusion:
+ My spirit feels so young again: it’s shaken
+ By magic breezes that your breathings waken.
+
+ You bring with you the sight of joyful days,
+10 And many a loved shade rises to the eye:
+ And like some other half-forgotten phrase,
+ First Love returns, and Friendship too is nigh:
+ Pain is renewed, and sorrow: all the ways,
+ Life wanders in its labyrinthine flight,
+15 Naming the good, those that Fate has robbed
+ Of lovely hours, those slipped from me and lost.
+
+ They can no longer hear this latest song,
+ Spirits, to whom I gave my early singing:
+ That kindly crowd itself is now long gone,
+20 Alas, it dies away, that first loud ringing!
+ I bring my verses to the unknown throng,
+ My heart’s made anxious even by their clapping,
+ And those besides delighted by my verse,
+ If they still live, are scattered through the Earth.
+
+25 I feel a long and unresolved desire
+ For that serene and solemn land of ghosts:
+ It quivers now, like an Aeolian lyre,
+ My stuttering verse, with its uncertain notes,
+ A shudder takes me: tear on tear, entire,
+30 The firm heart feels weakened and remote:
+ What I possess seems far away from me,
+ And what is gone becomes reality.
+
+Prelude On Stage
+
+(Director, Dramatist, Comedian)
+
+Director
+
+ You two, who’ve often stood by me,
+ In times of need, when trouble’s breaking,
+35 Say what success our undertaking
+ Will meet with, then, in Germany?
+ I’d rather like the crowd to enjoy it,
+ Since they live and let live, truly.
+ The stage is set, the boards complete,
+40 And they await our festivity.
+ They’re seated already, eyebrows raised,
+ Calmly hoping they’ll be amazed.
+ I know how to make the people happy:
+ But I’ve never been so embarrassed: not
+45 That they’ve been used to the best, you see,
+ Yet they’ve all read such a dreadful lot.
+ How can we make it all seem fresh and new,
+ Weighty, but entertaining too?
+ I’d love to see a joyful crowd, that’s certain,
+50 When the waves drive them to our place,
+ And with tremendous and repeated surging,
+ Squeeze them through the narrow gate of grace:
+ In the light of day they’re there already,
+ Pushing, till they’ve reached the window,
+55 As if they’re at the baker’s, starving, nearly
+ Breaking their necks: just for a ticket. Oh!
+ Only poets can work this miracle on men
+ So various: the day is yours, my friend!
+
+Dramatist
+
+ O, don’t speak to me of that varied crew,
+60 The sight of whom makes inspiration fade.
+ Veil, from me, the surging multitude,
+ Whose whirling will drives us everyway.
+ No, some heavenly silence lead me to,
+ Where for the poet alone pure joy’s at play:
+65 Where Love and Friendship too grace our hearts,
+ Created and inspired by heavenly arts.
+
+ Ah! What springs here from our deepest being,
+ What the shy trembling lips in speaking meant,
+ Now falling awry, and now perhaps succeeding,
+70 Is swallowed in the fierce Moment’s violence.
+ Often, when the first years are done, unseeing,
+ It appears at last, complete, in deepest sense.
+ What dazzles is a Momentary act:
+ What’s true is left for posterity, intact.
+
+Comedian
+
+75 Don’t speak about posterity to me!
+ If I went on about posterity,
+ Where would you get your worldly fun?
+ Folk want it, and they’ll still have some.
+ The presence of a fine young man
+80 Is nice, I think, for everyone.
+ Who, comfortably, shares his wit,
+ And to their moods takes no exception:
+ He’ll make himself a greater hit,
+ And win a more secure reception.
+85 Be brave, and show them what you’ve got,
+ Have Fantasy with all her chorus, yes,
+ Mind, Reason, Passion, Tears, the lot,
+ But don’t you leave out Foolishness.
+
+Director
+
+ Make sure, above all, plenty’s happening there!
+90 They come to look, and then they want to stare.
+ Spin endlessly before their faces,
+ So the people gape amazed,
+ You’ve won them by your many paces,
+ You’ll be the man most praised.
+95 The mass are only moved by things en masse,
+ Each one, himself, will choose the bit he needs:
+ Who brings a lot, brings something that will pass:
+ And everyone goes home contentedly.
+ You’ll give a piece, why then give it them in pieces!
+100 With such a stew you’re destined for success.
+ Easy to serve, it’s as easy to invent.
+ What use to bring them your complete intent?
+ The Public will soon pick at what you’ve dressed.
+
+Dramatist
+
+ You don’t see how badly such work will do!
+105 How little it suits the genuine creator!
+ Already, I see, it’s a principle with you.
+ The finest master is a sloppy worker.
+
+Director
+
+ Such a reproach leaves me unmoved:
+ The man who seeks to be approved,
+110 Must stick to the best tools for it,
+ Think, soft wood’s the best to split,
+ And have a look for whom you write!
+ See, this is one that boredom drives,
+ Another’s from some overloaded table,
+115 Or, worst of all, he’s one arrives,
+ Like most, fresh from the daily paper.
+ They rush here mindlessly, as to a Masque,
+ And curiosity inspires their hurry:
+ The ladies bring themselves, and in their best,
+120 Come and play their parts and ask no fee.
+ What dream of yours is this, exalted verse?
+ Doesn’t a full house make you happy?
+ Have a good look at your patrons first!
+ One half are coarse, the rest are chilly.
+125 After the show he hopes for card-play:
+ He hopes for a wild night, and a woman’s kiss.
+ Why then do so many poor fools plague,
+ The sweet Muse, for such a goal as this?
+ I tell you, just give them more and more,
+130 So you’ll never stray far from the mark,
+ Just seek to confuse them, in the dark:
+ To keep them happy, that’s hard - for sure.
+ And now what’s wrong? Delight or Pain?
+
+Dramatist
+
+ Go, look for another scribbler by night!
+135 Shall the poet throw away the highest right,
+ The right of humanity, that Nature gave,
+ Carelessly, so that you might gain!
+ How will he move all hearts again?
+ How will each element be his slave?
+140 Is that harmony nothing, from his breast unfurled,
+ That draws back into his own heart, the world?
+ When Nature winds the lengthened filaments,
+ Indifferently, on her eternal spindle,
+ When all the tuneless mass of elements,
+145 In their sullen discord, jar and jangle –
+ Who parts the ever-flowing ranks of creation,
+ Stirs them, so rhythmic measure is assured?
+ Who calls the One to general ordination,
+ Where it may ring in marvellous accord?
+150 Who lets the storm wind rage with passion,
+ The sunset glow the senses move?
+ Who scatters every lovely springtime blossom
+ Beneath the footsteps of the one we love?
+ Who weaves the slight green wreath of leaves,
+155 To honour work well done in every art?
+ What makes Olympus sure, joins deities?
+ The power of Man, revealed by the bard.
+
+Comedian
+
+ So use it then, all this fine energy,
+ And drive along the work of poetry,
+160 To show how we are driven in Love’s play.
+ By chance we meet, we feel, we stay,
+ And bit by bit we’re tightly bound:
+ Happiness grows, and then it’s fenced around:
+ We’re all inflamed then comes the sorrowing:
+165 Before you know it, there’s a novel brewing!
+ Why don’t we give such a piece!
+ Grasp the life of man complete!
+ Everyone lives, though it’s seldom confessed,
+ And wherever you grasp, there’s interest.
+170 In varied pictures there’s little light,
+ A lot of error, and a gleam of right,
+ So the best of drinks is brewed,
+ So the world’s cheered and renewed.
+ Then see the flower of lovely youth collect,
+175 To hear your words, and view the offering,
+ And every tender nature will extract
+ A melancholy food from what you bring,
+ They’ll gain now this and that from your art,
+ So each sees what is present in their heart.
+180 They’re readily moved to weeping or to laughter,
+ They’ll admire your verve, and enjoy the show:
+ What’s finished you can never alter after:
+ Minds still in growth will be grateful, though.
+
+Dramatist
+
+ So give me back that time again,
+185 When I was still ‘becoming’,
+ When words gushed like a fountain
+ In new, and endless flowing,
+ Then for me mists veiled the world,
+ In every bud the wonder glowed,
+190 A thousand flowers I unfurled,
+ That every valley, richly, showed.
+ I had nothing, yet enough:
+ Joy in illusion, thirst for truth.
+ Give every passion, free to move,
+195 The deepest bliss, filled with pain,
+ The force of hate, the power of love,
+ Oh, give me back my youth again!
+
+Comedian
+
+ Youth is what you need, dear friend,
+ When enemies jostle you, of course,
+200 And girls, filled with desire, bend
+ Their arms around your neck, with force,
+ When the swift-run race’s garland
+ Beckons from the hard-won goal,
+ When from the swirling dance, a man
+205 Drinks until the night is old.
+ But to play that well-known lyre
+ With courage and with grace,
+ Moved by self-imposed desire,
+ At a sweet wandering pace,
+210 That is your function, Age,
+ And our respect won’t lessen.
+ Age doesn’t make us childish, as they say,
+ It finds that we’re still children.
+
+Director
+
+ That’s enough words for the moment,
+215 Now let me see some action!
+ While you’re handing out the compliments,
+ You should also make things happen.
+ Why talk so much of inspiration?
+ Delay won’t make it flow, you see.
+220 Since Poetry gave the gift of creation,
+ Take your orders then from Poetry.
+ You know what’s wanted here,
+ We need strong ale to appear:
+ So brew me a barrel right away!
+225 Tomorrow won’t do what’s undone today,
+ We shouldn’t waste a minute, so
+ Decide what’s possible, and just
+ Grasp it firmly like a hoe,
+ Make sure that you let nothing go,
+230 And work it about, because you must.
+ On the German stage, you see,
+ Everyone tries out what he can:
+ Don’t fail to show me, I’m your man,
+ Your trap-doors, and your scenery.
+235 Use heavenly lights, the big and small,
+ Squander stars in any number,
+ Rocky cliffs, and fire, and water,
+ Birds and creatures, use them all.
+ So in our narrow playhouse waken
+240 The whole wide circle of creation,
+ And stride, deliberately, as well,
+ From Heaven, through the world, to Hell.
+
+Prologue In Heaven
+
+(God, the Heavenly Hosts, and then Mephistopheles.)
+
+(The Three Archangels step forward.)
+
+Raphael
+
+ The Sun sings out, in ancient mode,
+ His note among his brother-spheres,
+245 And ends his pre-determined road,
+ With peals of thunder for our ears.
+ The sight of him gives Angels power,
+ Though none can understand the way:
+ The inconceivable work is ours,
+250 As bright as on the primal day.
+
+Gabriel
+
+ And swift, and swift, beyond conceiving,
+ The splendour of the Earth turns round,
+ A Paradisial light is interleaving,
+ With night’s awesome profound.
+255 The ocean breaks with shining foam,
+ Against the rocky cliffs deep base,
+ And rock and ocean whirl and go,
+ In the spheres’ swift eternal race.
+
+Michael
+
+ And storms are roaring in their race
+260 From sea to land, and land to sea,
+ Their raging forms a fierce embrace,
+ All round, of deepest energy.
+ The lightning’s devastations blaze
+ Along the thunder-crashes’ way:
+265 Yet, Lord, your messengers, shall praise
+ The gentle passage of your day.
+
+All Three
+
+ The sight of it gives Angels power
+ Though none can understand the way,
+ And all your noble work is ours,
+270 As bright as on the primal day.
+
+Mephistopheles
+
+ Since, O Lord, you near me once again,
+ To ask how all below is doing now,
+ And usually receive me without pain,
+ You see me too among the vile crowd.
+275 Forgive me: I can’t speak in noble style,
+ And since I’m still reviled by this whole crew,
+ My pathos would be sure to make you smile,
+ If you had not renounced all laughter too.
+ You’ll get no word of suns and worlds from me.
+280 How men torment themselves is all I see.
+ The little god of Earth sticks to the same old way,
+ And is as strange as on that very first day.
+ He might appreciate life a little more: he might,
+ If you hadn’t lent him a gleam of Heavenly light:
+285 He calls it Reason, but only uses it
+ To be more a beast than any beast as yet.
+ He seems to me, saving Your Grace,
+ Like a long-legged grasshopper: through space
+ He’s always flying: he flies and then he springs,
+290 And in the grass the same old song he sings.
+ If he’d just lie there in the grass it wouldn’t hurt!
+ But he buries his nose in every piece of dirt.
+
+God
+
+ Have you nothing else to name?
+ Do you always come here to complain?
+295 Does nothing ever go right on the Earth?
+
+Mephistopheles
+
+ No, Lord! I find, as always, it couldn’t be worse.
+ I’m so involved with Man’s wretched ways,
+ I’ve even stopped plaguing them, myself, these days.
+
+God
+
+ Do you know, Faust?
+
+Mephistopheles
+
+ The Doctor?
+
+ God
+ My servant, first!
+
+Mephistopheles
+
+300 In truth! He serves you in a peculiar manner.
+ There’s no earthly food or drink at that fool’s dinner.
+ He drives his spirit outwards, far,
+ Half-conscious of its maddened dart:
+ From Heaven demands the brightest star,
+305 And from the Earth, Joy’s highest art,
+ And all the near and all the far,
+ Fails to release his throbbing heart.
+
+God
+
+ Though he’s still confused at how to serve me,
+ I’ll soon lead him to a clearer dawning,
+310 In the green sapling, can’t the gardener see
+ The flowers and fruit the coming years will bring.
+
+Mephistopheles
+
+ What do you wager? I might win him yet!
+ If you give me your permission first,
+ I’ll lead him gently on the road I set.
+
+God
+
+315 As long as he’s alive on Earth,
+ So long as that I won’t forbid it,
+ For while man strives he errs.
+
+Mephistopheles
+
+ My thanks: I’ve never willingly seen fit
+ To spend my time amongst the dead,
+320 I much prefer fresh cheeks instead.
+ To corpses, I close up my house:
+ Or it’s too like a cat with a mouse.
+
+God
+
+ Well and good, you’ve said what’s needed!
+ Divert this spirit from his source,
+ You know how to trap him, lead him,
+325 On your downward course,
+ And when you must, then stand, amazed:
+ A good man, in his darkest yearning,
+ Is still aware of virtue’s ways.
+
+Mephistopheles
+
+330 That’s fine! There’s hardly any waiting.
+ My wager’s more than safe I’m thinking.
+ When I achieve my goal, in winning,
+ You’ll let me triumph with a swelling heart.
+ He’ll eat the dust, and with an art,
+335 Like the snake my mother, known for sinning.
+
+God
+
+ You can appear freely too:
+ Those like you I’ve never hated.
+ Of all the spirits who deny, it’s you,
+ The jester, who’s most lightly weighted.
+340 Man’s energies all too soon seek the level,
+ He quickly desires unbroken slumber,
+ So I gave him you to join the number,
+ To move, and work, and play the devil.
+ But you the genuine sons of light,
+345 Enjoy the living beauty bright!
+ Becoming, that works and lives forever,
+ Embrace you in love’s limits dear,
+ And all that may as Appearance waver,
+ Fix firmly with everlasting Idea!
+
+(Heaven closes, and the Archangels separate.)
+
+Mephistopheles (alone)
+
+350 I like to hear the Old Man’s words, from time to time,
+ And take care, when I’m with him, not to spew.
+ It’s very nice when such a great Gentleman,
+ Chats with the devil, in ways so human, too!
+
+Scene I: Night
+
+(In a high-vaulted Gothic chamber, Faust, in a chair at his desk,
+restless.)
+
+ Ah! Now I’ve done Philosophy,
+355 I’ve finished Law and Medicine,
+ And sadly even Theology:
+ Taken fierce pains, from end to end.
+ Now here I am, a fool for sure!
+ No wiser than I was before:
+360 Master, Doctor’s what they call me,
+ And I’ve been ten years, already,
+ Crosswise, arcing, to and fro,
+ Leading my students by the nose,
+ And see that we can know - nothing!
+365 It almost sets my heart burning.
+ I’m cleverer than all these teachers,
+ Doctors, Masters, scribes, preachers:
+ I’m not plagued by doubt or scruple,
+ Scared by neither Hell nor Devil –
+370 Instead all Joy is snatched away,
+ What’s worth knowing, I can’t say,
+ I can’t say what I should teach
+ To make men better or convert each.
+ And then I’ve neither goods nor gold,
+375 No worldly honour, or splendour hold:
+ Not even a dog would play this part!
+ So I’ve given myself to Magic art,
+ To see if, through Spirit powers and lips,
+ I might have all secrets at my fingertips.
+380 And no longer, with rancid sweat, so,
+ Still have to speak what I cannot know:
+ That I may understand whatever
+ Binds the world’s innermost core together,
+ See all its workings, and its seeds,
+385 Deal no more in words’ empty reeds.
+ O, may you look, full moon that shines,
+ On my pain for this last time:
+ So many midnights from my desk,
+ I have seen you, keeping watch:
+390 When over my books and paper,
+ Saddest friend, you appear!
+ Ah! If on the mountain height
+ I might stand in your sweet light,
+ Float with spirits in mountain caves,
+395 Swim the meadows in twilight’ waves,
+ Free from the smoke of knowledge too,
+ Bathe in your health-giving dew!
+ Alas! In this prison must I stick?
+ This hollow darkened hole of brick,
+400 Where even the lovely heavenly light
+ 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!
projects / plan9front.git / blobdiff