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