The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol 01 (page 5)

SCENE V

IPHIGENIA (alone)

I must obey him, for I see my friends
Beset with peril. Yet my own sad fate
Doth with increasing anguish move my heart.
May I no longer feed the silent hope
Which in my solitude I fondly cherish’d?
Shall the dire curse eternally endure?
And shall our fated race ne’er rise again
With blessings crown’d?—All mortal things decay—
The noblest powers, the purest joys of life
At length subside: then wherefore not the curse?
And have I vainly hoped that, guarded here,
Secluded from the fortunes of my race,
I, with pure heart and hands, some future day
Might cleanse the deep defilement of our house?
Scarce was my brother in my circling arms
From raging madness suddenly restor’d,
Scarce had the ship, long pray’d for, near’d the strand
Once more to waft me to my native shores,
When unrelenting Fate, with iron hand,
A double crime enjoins; commanding me
To steal the image, sacred and rever’d,
Confided to my care, and him deceive
To whom I owe my life and destiny.
Let not abhorrence spring within my heart!
Nor the old Titan’s hate, toward you, ye gods
Infix its vulture talons in my breast!
Save me and save your image in my soul!

An ancient song comes back upon mine ear—
I had forgotten it, and willingly—
The Parcæ’s song, which horribly they sang,
What time, hurl’d headlong from his golden seat,
Fell Tantalus. They with their noble friend
Keen anguish suffer’d; savage was their breast
And horrible their song. In days gone by,
When we were children, oft our ancient nurse
Would sing it to us, and I mark’d it well.

  Oh, fear the immortals,
Ye children of men!
Eternal dominion
They hold in their hands,
And o’er their wide empire
Wield absolute sway.
Whom they have exalted
Let him fear them most!
Around golden tables,
On cliffs and clouds resting
The seats are prepar’d.

  If contest ariseth,
The guests are hurl’d headlong,
Disgrac’d and dishonor’d,
To gloomy abysses,
And, fetter’d in darkness,
Await the vain longing
A juster decree.

  But in feasts everlasting,
Around the gold tables
Still dwell the immortals.
From mountain to mountain
They stride; while ascending
From fathomless chasms
The breath of the Titans,
Half-stifled with anguish,
Like volumes of incense
Fumes up to the skies.

  From races ill-fated,
Their-aspect joy-bringing,
Oft turn the celestials,
And shun in the children
To gaze on the features
Once lov’d and still speaking
Of their mighty sire.

  So chanted the Parcae;
The banish’d one hearkens
The song, the hoar captive
Immur’d in his dungeon,
His children’s doom ponders,
And boweth his head.

ACT V

SCENE I

THOAS, ARKAS

ARKAS

I own I am perplex’d and scarcely know
‘Gainst whom to point the shaft of my suspicion,
Whether the priestess aids the captives’ flight,
Or they themselves clandestinely contrive it.
‘Tis rumor’d that the ship which brought them here
Is lurking somewhere in a bay conceal’d.
This stranger’s madness, these new lustral rites,
The specious pretext for delay, excite
Mistrust, and call aloud for vigilance.

THOAS

Summon the priestess to attend me here!
Then go with speed, and strictly search the shore,
From yonder headland to Diana’s grove:
Forbear to violate its sacred depths,
A watchful ambush set, attack and seize,
According to your wont, whome’er ye find.
[ARKAS retires.]

SCENE II

THOAS (alone)

Fierce anger rages in my riven breast,
First against her, whom I esteemed so pure;
Then ‘gainst myself, whose foolish lenity
Hath fashion’d her for treason. Man is soon
Inur’d to slavery, and quickly learns
Submission, when of freedom quite depriv’d.
If she had fallen in the savage hands
Of my rude sires, and had their holy rage
Forborne to slay her, grateful for her life,
She would have recogniz’d her destiny,
Have shed before the shrine the stranger’s blood,
And duty nam’d what was necessity.

Now my forbearance in her breast allures
Audacious wishes. Vainly I had hoped
To bind her to me; rather she contrives
To shape an independent destiny.
She won my heart through flattery; and now
That I oppose her, seeks to gain her ends
By fraud and cunning, and my kindness deems
A worthless and prescriptive property.

SCENE III

IPHIGENIA, THOAS

IPHIGENIA

Me hast thou summon’d? wherefore art thou here?

THOAS

Wherefore delay the sacrifice? inform me.

IPHIGENIA

I have acquainted Arkas with the reasons.

THOAS

From thee I wish to hear them more at large.

IPHIGENIA

The goddess for reflection grants thee time.

THOAS

To thee this time seems also opportune.

IPHIGENIA

If to this cruel deed thy heart is steel’d,
Thou shouldst not come! A king who meditates
A deed inhuman, may find slaves enow,
Willing for hire to bear one-half the curse,
And leave the monarch’s presence undefil’d.
Enrapt in gloomy clouds he forges death,
Flaming destruction then his ministers
Hurl down upon his wretched victim’s head,
While he abideth high above the storm,
Calm and untroubled, an impassive god.

THOAS

A wild song, priestess, issued from thy lips.

IPHIGENIA

No priestess, king! but Agamemnon’s daughter;
While yet unknown, thou didst respect my words
A princess now,—and think’st thou to command me?
From youth I have been tutor’d to obey,
My parents first and then the deity;
And thus obeying, ever hath my soul
Known sweetest freedom. But nor then nor now
Have I been taught compliance with the voice
And savage mandates of a man.

THOAS

                         Not I,
An ancient law doth thy obedience claim.

IPHIGENIA

Our passions eagerly catch hold of laws
Which they can wield as weapons. But to me
Another law, one far more ancient, speaks
And doth command me to withstand thee, king!
That law declaring sacred every stranger.

THOAS

These men, methinks, lie very near thy heart,
When sympathy with them can lead thee thus
To violate discretion’s primal law,
That those in power should never be provok’d.

IPHIGENIA

Speaking or silent, thou canst always know
What is, and ever must be, in my heart.
Doth not remembrance of a common doom,
To soft compassion melt the hardest heart?
How much more mine! in them I see myself.
I trembling kneel’d before the altar once,
And solemnly the shade of early death
Environ’d me. Aloft the knife was rais’d
To pierce my bosom, throbbing with warm life;
A dizzy horror overwhelm’d my soul;
My eyes grew dim; I found myself in safety.
Are we not bound to render the distress’d
The gracious kindness from the gods receiv’d?
Thou know’st we are, and yet wilt thou compel me?

THOAS

Obey thine office, priestess, not the king.

IPHIGENIA

Cease! nor thus seek to cloak the savage force
Which triumphs o’er a woman’s feebleness.
Though woman, I am born as free as man.
Did Agamemnon’s son before thee stand,
And thou requiredst what became him not,
His arm and trusty weapon would defend
His bosom’s freedom. I have only words;
But it becomes a noble-minded man
To treat with due respect the words of woman.

THOAS

I more respect them than a brother’s sword.

IPHIGENIA

Uncertain ever is the chance of arms,
No prudent warrior doth despise his foe;
Nor yet defenceless ‘gainst severity
Hath nature left the weak; she gives him craft
And, willy, cunning; artful he delays,
Evades, eludes, and finally escapes.
Such arms are justified by violence.

THOAS

But circumspection countervails deceit.

IPHIGENIA

Which a pure spirit doth abhor to use.

THOAS

Do not incautiously condemn thyself.

IPHIGENIA

Oh, couldst thou see the struggle of my soul,
Courageously to ward the first attack
Of an unhappy doom, which threatens me!
Do I then stand before thee weaponless?
Prayer, lovely prayer, fair branch in woman’s hand,
More potent far than instruments of war,
Thou dost thrust back. What now remains for me
Wherewith my inborn freedom to defend?
Must I implore a miracle from heaven?
Is there no power within my spirit’s depths?

THOAS

Extravagant thy interest in the fate
Of these two strangers. Tell me who they are
For whom thy heart is thus so deeply mov’d.

IPHIGENIA

They are—they seem at least—I think them Greeks.

THOAS

Thy countrymen; no doubt they have renew’d
The pleasing picture of return.

IPHIGENIA (after a pause)

 Doth man
Lay undisputed claim to noble deeds?
Doth he alone to his heroic breast
Clasp the impossible? What call we great?
What deeds, though oft narrated, still uplift
with shuddering horror the narrator’s soul,
But those which, with improbable success,
The valiant have attempted? Shall the man
Who all alone steals on his foes by night,
And raging like an unexpected fire,
Destroys the slumbering host, and press’d at length
By rous’d opponents on his foeman’s steeds,
Retreats with booty—be alone extoll’d?
Or he who, scorning safety, boldly roams
Through woods and dreary wilds, to scour the land
Of thieves and robbers? Is naught left for us?
Must gentle woman quite forego her nature,
Force against force employ, like Amazons
Usurp the sword from man, and bloodily
Revenge oppression? In my heart I feel
The stirrings of a noble enterprize;
But if I fail—severe reproach, alas!
And bitter misery will be my doom.
Thus on my knees I supplicate the gods!
Oh, are ye truthful, as men say ye are,
Now prove it by your countenance and aid;
Honor the truth in me! Attend, O king
A secret plot deceitfully is laid;
Touching the captives thou dost ask in vain;
They have departed hence and seek their friends,
Who, with the ship, await them on the shore.
The eldest,—whom dire madness lately seiz’d,
And hath abandon’d now,—he is Orestes,
My brother, and the other Pylades,
His early friend and faithful confidant.
From Delphi, Phoebus sent them to this shore
With a divine command to steal away
The image of Diana, and to him
Bear back the sister thither, and for this
He promised to the blood-stained matricide,
The Fury-haunted son, deliverance.
I have surrender’d now into thy hands
The remnants of the house of Tantalus.
Destroy us—if thou canst.

THOAS

                     And dost thou think
That the uncultured Scythian will attend
The voice of truth and of humanity
Which Atreus, the Greek, heard not?

IPHIGENIA

                                ‘Tis heard
By every one, born ‘neath whatever clime,
Within whose bosom flows the stream of life,
Pure and unhinder’d.—What thy thought? O king,
What silent purpose broods in thy deep soul?
Is it destruction? Let me perish first!
For now, deliv’rance hopeless, I perceive
The dreadful peril into which I have
With rash precipitancy plung’d my friends.
Alas! I soon shall see them bound before me!
How to my brother shall I say farewell?
I, the unhappy author of his death.
Ne’er can I gaze again in his dear eyes!

THOAS

The traitors have contrived a cunning web,
And cast it round thee, who, secluded long,
Giv’st willing credence to thine own desires.

IPHIGENIA

No, no! I’d pledge my life these men are true.
And shouldst thou find them otherwise, O king,
Then let them perish both, and cast me forth,
That on some rock-girt island’s dreary shore
I may atone my folly. Are they true,
And is this man indeed my dear Orestes,
My brother, long implor’d,—release us both,
And o’er us stretch the kind protecting arm
Which long hath shelter’d me. My noble sire
Fell through his consort’s guilt,—she by her son;
On him alone the hope of Atreus’ race
Doth now repose. Oh, with pure heart, pure hand,
Let me depart to purify our house.
Yes, thou wilt keep thy promise; thou didst swear,
That were a safe return provided me,
I should be free to go. The hour is come.
A king doth never grant like common men,
Merely to gain a respite from petition;
Nor promise what he hopes will ne’er be claim’d.
Then first he feels his dignity supreme
When he can make the long-expecting happy.

THOAS

As fire opposes water, and doth seek
With hissing rage to overcome its foe,
So doth my anger strive against thy words.

IPHIGENIA

Let mercy, like the consecrated flame
Of silent sacrifice, encircled round
With songs of gratitude, and joy, and praise,
Above the tumult gently rise to heaven.

THOAS

How often hath this voice assuag’d my soul!

IPHIGENIA

Extend thy hand to me in sign of peace.

THOAS

Large thy demand within so short a time.

IPHIGENIA

Beneficence doth no reflection need.

THOAS

‘Tis needed oft, for evil springs from good.

IPHIGENIA

‘Tis doubt which good doth oft to evil turn.
Consider not; act as thy feelings prompt thee.

SCENE IV

ORESTES (armed), IPHIGENIA, THOAS

ORESTES (addressing his followers)

Redouble your exertions! hold them back!
Few moments will suffice; maintain your ground,
And keep a passage open to the ship
For me and for my sister.

(To IPHIGENIA, without perceiving THOAS.)

                          Come with speed!
We are betray’d,—brief time remains for flight.

(He perceives the king.)

THOAS (laying his hand on his sword)

None in my presence with impunity
His naked weapon wears.

IPHIGENIA

                     Do not profane
Diana’s sanctuary with rage and blood.
Command your people to forbear awhile,
And listen to the priestess, to the sister.

ORESTES

Say, who is he that threatens us?

IPHIGENIA
In him
Revere the king, who was my second father.
Forgive me, brother, that my childlike heart
Hath plac’d our fate thus wholly in his hands.
I have betray’d your meditated flight,
And thus from treachery redeem’d my soul.

ORESTES

Will he permit our peaceable return?

IPHIGENIA

Thy gleaming sword forbids me to reply.

ORESTES (sheathing his sword)

Then speak! thou seest I listen to thy words.

SCENE V

ORESTES, IPHIGENIA, THOAS

Enter PYLADES, soon after him ARKAS both with drawn swords.

PYLADES

Do not delay! our friends are putting forth
Their final strength, and, yielding step by step,
Are slowly driven backward to the sea.—
A conference of princes find I here?
Is this the sacred person of the king?

ARKAS

Calmly, as doth become thee, thou dost stand,
O king, surrounded by thine enemies.
Soon their temerity shall be chastiz’d;
Their yielding followers fly,—their ship is ours,
Speak but the word and it is wrapt in flames.

THOAS

Go, and command my people to forbear!
Let none annoy the foe while we confer.
[ARKAS retires.]

ORESTES

I willingly consent. Go, Pylades!
Collect the remnant of our friends, and wait
The appointed issue of our enterprize.
[PYLADES retires.]

SCENE VI

IPHIGENIA, THOAS, ORESTES

IPHIGENIA

Relieve my cares ere ye begin to speak.
I fear contention, if thou wilt not hear
The voice of equity, O king,—if thou
Wilt not, my brother, curb thy headstrong youth.

THOAS

I, as becomes the elder, check my rage.
Now answer me: how dost thou prove thyself
The priestess’ brother, Agamemnon’s son?

ORESTES

Behold the sword with which the hero slew
The valiant Trojans. From his murderer
I took the weapon, and implor’d the Gods
To grant me Agamemnon’s mighty arm,
Success, and valor, with a death more noble.
Select one of the leaders of thy host,
And place the best as my opponent here.
Where’er on earth the sons of heroes dwell,
This boon is to the stranger ne’er refus’d.

THOAS

This privilege hath ancient custom here
To strangers ne’er accorded.

ORESTES

                       Then from us
Commence the novel custom! A whole race
In imitation soon will consecrate
Its monarch’s noble action into law.
Nor let me only for our liberty,—
Let me, a stranger, for all strangers fight.
If I should fall, my doom be also theirs;
But if kind fortune crown me with success,
Let none e’er tread this shore, and fail to meet
The beaming eye of sympathy and love,
Or unconsoled depart!

THOAS

                  Thou dost not seem
Unworthy of thy boasted ancestry.
Great is the number of the valiant men
Who wait upon me; but I will myself,
Although advanc’d in years, oppose the foe,
And am prepar’d to try the chance of arms.

IPHIGENIA

No, no! such bloody proofs are not requir’d.
Unhand thy weapon, king! my lot consider;
Rash combat oft immortalizes man;
If he should fall, he is renown’d in song;
But after ages reckon not the tears
Which ceaseless the forsaken woman sheds;
And poets tell not of the thousand nights
Consum’d in weeping, and the dreary days,
Wherein her anguish’d soul, a prey to grief,
Doth vainly yearn to call her lov’d one back.
Fear warn’d me to beware lest robbers’ wiles
Might lure me from this sanctuary, and then
Betray me into bondage. Anxiously
I question’d them, each circumstance explor’d,
Demanded proofs, now is my heart assur’d.
See here, the mark on his right hand impress’d
As of three stars, which on his natal day
Were by the priest declar’d to indicate
Some dreadful deed therewith to be perform’d.
And then this scar, which doth his eyebrow cleave,
Redoubles my conviction. When a child,
Electra, rash and inconsiderate,
Such was her nature, loos’d him from her arms,
He fell against a tripos. Oh, ’tis he!—
Shall I adduce the likeness to his sire,
Or the deep rapture of my inmost heart,
In further token of assurance, king?

THOAS

E’en though thy words had banish’d every doubt,
And I had curb’d the anger in my breast,
Still must our arms decide. I see no peace.
Their purpose, as thou didst thyself confess,
Was to deprive me of Diana’s image.
And think ye I will look contented on?
The Greeks are wont to cast a longing eye
Upon the treasures of barbarians,
A golden fleece, good steeds, or daughters fair;
But force and guile not always have avail’d
To lead them, with their booty, safely home.

ORESTES

The image shall not be a cause of strife!
We now perceive the error which the god,
Our journey here commanding, like a veil,
Threw o’er our minds. His counsel I implor’d,
To free me from the Furies’ grisly band.
He answer’d, “Back to Greece the sister bring,
Who in the sanctuary on Tauris’ shore
Unwillingly abides; so ends the curse!”
To Phoebus’ sister we applied the words,
And he referr’d to thee! The bonds severe,
Which held thee from us, holy one, are rent,
And thou art ours once more. At thy blest touch,
I felt myself restor’d. Within thine arms,
Madness once more around me coil’d its folds,
Crushing the marrow in my frame, and then
Forever, like a serpent, fled to hell.
Through thee, the daylight gladdens me anew,
The counsel of the goddess now shines forth
In all its beauty and beneficence.
Like to a sacred image, unto which
An oracle immutably hath bound
A city’s welfare, thee she bore away,
Protectress of our house, and guarded here
Within this holy stillness, to become
A blessing to thy brother and thy race.
Now when each passage to escape seems clos’d,
And safety hopeless, thou dost give us all.
O king, incline thine heart to thoughts of peace!
Let her fulfil her mission, and complete
The consecration of our father’s house,
Me to their purified abode restore,
And place upon my brow the ancient crown!
Requite the blessing which her presence brought thee,
And let me now my nearer right enjoy!
Cunning and force, the proudest boast of man,
Fade in the lustre of her perfect truth;
Nor unrequited will a noble mind
Leave confidence, so childlike and so pure.

IPHIGENIA

Think on thy promise; let thy heart be mov’d
By what a true and honest tongue hath spoken!
Look on us, king! an opportunity
For such a noble deed not oft occurs.
Refuse thou canst not,—give thy quick consent.

THOAS

Then go!

IPHIGENIA

           Not so, my king! I cannot part
Without thy blessing, or in anger from thee,
Banish us not! the sacred right of guests
Still let us claim: so not eternally
Shall we be sever’d. Honor’d and belov’d
As mine own father was, art thou by me;
And this impression in my soul abides,
Let but the least among thy people bring
Back to mine ear the tones I heard from thee,
Or should I on the humblest see thy garb,
I will with joy receive him as a god,
Prepare his couch myself, beside our hearth
Invite him to a seat, and only ask
Touching thy fate and thee. Oh, may the gods
To thee the merited reward impart
Of all thy kindness and benignity!
Farewell! O turn thou not away, but give
One kindly word of parting in return!
So shall the wind more gently swell our sails,
And from our eyes with soften’d anguish flow,
The tears of separation. Fare thee well!
And graciously extend to me thy hand,
In pledge of ancient friendship.

THOAS (extending his hand)

Fare thee well!

* * * * *

THE FAUST LEGEND FROM MARLOWE TO GOETHE

By KUNO FRANCKE, PH.D., LL.D., LITT.D.

Professor of the History of German Culture, Harvard University

The Faust legend is a conglomerate of anonymous popular traditions, largely of medieval origin, which in the latter part of the sixteenth century came to be associated with an actual individual of the name of Faustus whose notorious career during the first four decades of the century, as a pseudo-scientific mountebank, juggler and magician can be traced through various parts of Germany. The Faust Book of 1587, the earliest collection of these tales, is of prevailingly theological character. It represents Faust as a sinner and reprobate, and it holds up his compact with Mephistopheles and his subsequent damnation as an example of human recklessness and as a warning to the faithful.

From this Faust Book, that is from its English translation, which appeared in 1588, Marlowe took his tragedy of Dr. Faustus (1589; published 1604). In Marlowe’s drama Faust appears as a typical man of the Renaissance, as an explorer and adventurer, as a superman craving for extraordinary power, wealth, enjoyment, and worldly eminence. The finer emotions are hardly touched upon. Mephistopheles is the medieval devil, harsh and grim and fierce, bent on seduction, without any comprehension of human aspirations. Helen of Troy is a she-devil, and becomes the final means of Faust’s destruction. Faust’s career has hardly an element of true greatness. None of the many tricks, conjurings and miracles, which Faust performs with Mephistopheles’ help, has any relation to the deeper meaning of life. From the compact on to the end hardly anything happens which brings Faust inwardly nearer either to heaven or hell. But there is a sturdiness of character and stirring intensity of action, with a happy admixture of buffoonery, through it all. And we feel something of the pathos and paradox of human passions in the fearful agony of Faust’s final doom.

The German popular Faust drama of the seventeenth century and its outgrowth the puppet plays, are a reflex both of Marlowe’s tragedy and the Faust Book of 1587, although they contain a number of original scenes, notably the Council of the Devils at the beginning. Here again, the underlying sentiment is the abhorrence of human recklessness and extravagance. In some of these plays, the vanity of bold ambition is brought out with particular emphasis through the contrast between the daring and dissatisfied Faust and his farcical counterpart, the jolly and contented Casperle. In the last scene, while Faust in despair and contrition is waiting for the sound of the midnight bell which is to be the signal of his destruction, Casperle, as night watchman, patrols the streets of the town, calling out the hours and singing the traditional verses of admonition to quiet and orderly conduct.

To the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, then, Faust appeared as a criminal who sins against the eternal laws of life, as a rebel against holiness who ruins his better self and finally earns the merited reward of his misdeeds. He could not appear thus to the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century is the age of Rationalism and of Romanticism. The eighteenth century glorifies human reason and human feeling. The right of man and the dignity of man are its principal watchwords. Such an age was bound to see in Faust a champion of freedom, nature, truth. Such an age was bound to see in Faust a symbol of human striving for completeness of life.

It is Lessing who has given to the Faust legend this turn. His Faust, unfortunately consisting only of a few fragmentary sketches, is a defense of Rationalism. The most important of these fragments, preserved to us in copies by some friends of Lessing’s, is the prelude, a council of devils. Satan is receiving reports from his subordinates as to what they have done to bring harm to the realm of God. The first devil who speaks has set the hut of some pious poor on fire; the second has buried a fleet of usurers in the waves. Both excite Satan’s disgust. “For,” he says, “to make the pious poor still poorer means only to chain him all the more firmly to God”; and the usurers, if, instead of being buried in the waves, they had been allowed to reach the goal of their voyage, would have wrought new evil on distant shores. Much more satisfied is Satan with the report of a third devil who has stolen the first kiss from a young innocent girl and thereby breathed the flame of desire into her veins; for he has worked evil in the world of the spirit and that means much more and is a much greater triumph for hell than to work evil in the world of bodies. But it is the fourth devil to whom Satan gives the prize. He has not done anything as yet. He has only a plan, but a plan which, if carried out, would put the deeds of all the other devils into the shade—the plan “to snatch from God his favorite.” This favorite of God is Faust, “a solitary, brooding youth, renouncing all passion except the passion for truth, entirely living in truth, entirely absorbed in it.” To snatch him from God—that would be a victory, over which the whole realm of night would rejoice. Satan is enchanted; the war against truth is his element. Yes, Faust must be seduced, he must be destroyed. And he shall be destroyed through his very aspiration. “Didst thou not say, he has desire for knowledge? That is enough for perdition!” His striving for truth is to lead him into darkness. Under such exclamations the devils break up, to set about their work of seduction; but, as they are breaking up, there is heard from above a divine voice: “Ye shall not conquer.”

It cannot be denied that Goethe’s earliest Faust conception, the so-called Ur-Faust of 1773 and ’74, lacks the wide sweep of thought that characterizes these fragments of Lessing’s drama. His Faust of the Storm and Stress period is essentially a Romanticist. He is a dreamer, craving for a sight of the divine, longing to fathom the inner working of nature, drunk with the mysteries of the universe. But he is also an unruly individualist, a reckless despiser of accepted morality; and it is hard to see how his relation with Gretchen, which forms by far the largest part of the Ur-Faust, can lead to anything but a tragic catastrophe. Only Goethe’s second Faust conception, which sets in with the end of the nineties of the eighteenth century, opens up a clear view of the heights of life.

Goethe was now in the full maturity of his powers, a man widely separated from the impetuous youth of the seventies whose Promethean emotions had burst forth with volcanic passion. He had meanwhile become a statesman and a philosopher. He had come to know in the court of Weimar a model of paternal government, conservative yet liberally inclined, and friendly to all higher culture. He had found in his truly spiritual relation to Frau von Stein a safe harbor for his tempestuous feelings. He had been brought face to face, during his sojourn in Italy, with the wonders of classic art. The study of Spinoza and his own scientific investigations had confirmed him in a thoroughly monistic view of the world and strengthened his belief in a universal law which makes evil itself an integral part of the good. The example of Schiller as well as his own practical experience had taught him that the untrammelled living out of personality must go hand in hand with incessant work for the common welfare of mankind. All this is reflected in the completed Part First of 1808; it finds its most comprehensive expression in Part Second, the bequest of the dying poet to posterity.

Restless endeavor, incessant striving from lower spheres of life to higher ones, from the sensuous to the spiritual, from enjoyment to work, from creed to deed, from self to humanity—this is the moving thought of Goethe’s completed Faust. The keynote is struck in the “Prologue in Heaven.” Faust, so we hear, the daring idealist, the servant of God, is to be tempted by Mephisto, the despiser of reason, the materialistic scoffer. But we also hear, and we hear it from God’s own lips, that the tempter will not succeed. God allows the devil free play, because he knows that he will frustrate his own ends. Faust will be led astray—”man errs while he strives”; but he will not abandon his higher aspirations; through aberration and sin he will find the true way toward which his inner nature instinctively guides him. He will not eat dust. Even in the compact with Mephisto the same ineradicable optimism asserts itself. Faust’s wager with the devil is nothing but an act of temporary despair, and the very fact that he does not hope anything from it shows that he will win it. He knows that sensual enjoyment will never give him satisfaction; he knows that, as long as he gives himself up to self-gratification, there will never be a moment to which he would say: “Abide, thou art so fair!” From the outset we feel that by living up to the very terms of the compact, Faust will rise superior to it; that by rushing into the whirlpool of earthly experience and passion, his being will be heightened and expanded.

And thus, everything in the whole drama, all its incidents and all its characters, become episodes in the rounding out of this grand, all-comprehensive personality. Gretchen and Helena, Wagner and Mephisto, Homunculus and Euphorion, the Emperor’s court and the shades of the Greek past, the broodings of medieval mysticism and the practical tasks of modern industrialism, the enlightened despotism of the eighteenth century and the ideal democracy of the future—all this and a great deal more enters into Faust’s being. He strides on from experience to experience, from task to task, expiating guilt by doing, losing himself and finding himself again. Blinded in old age by Dame Care, he feels a new light kindled within. Dying, he gazes into a far future. And even in the heavenly regions he goes on ever changing into new and higher and finer forms. It is this irrepressible spirit of striving which makes Goethe’s Faust the Bible of modern humanity.

INTRODUCTION TO FAUST

BY CALVIN THOMAS, LL.D.

Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Columbia University

The central theme of Goethe’s Faust may be put in the form of a question thus: Shall a man hate life because it does not match his dreams, or shall he embrace it eagerly and try to make the best of it as a social being? Goethe’s answer is at once scientific and religious, which partly explains its vital interest for the modern man. To be sure, his answer is given at the end of a long symbolic poem which contains much that is not exactly relevant to the main issue. It must never be forgotten that Faust is not the orderly development of a thesis in ethics, but a long succession of imaginative pictures. Some of them may seem too recondite and fantastic to meet our present-day demand for reality, but on the whole the poem deals with vital issues of the human spirit. At the end of it Faust arrives at a noble view of life, and his last words undoubtedly tell how Goethe himself thought that a good man might wish to end his days—unsated with life to the final moment, and expiring in an ecstasy of altruistic vision.

Goethe was about twenty years old when his imagination began to be haunted by the figure of the sixteenth century magician Doctor Faust. In 1772 or 1773 he commenced writing a play on the subject, little thinking of course that it would occupy him some sixty years. The old legend is a story of sin and damnation. Faust is represented as an eager student impelled by intellectual curiosity to the study of magic. From the point of view of the superstitious folk who created the legend this addiction to magic is itself sinful. But Faust is bad and reckless. By the aid of his black art he calls up a devil named (in the legend) Mephostophiles with whom he makes a contract of service. For twenty-four years Faust is to have all that he desires, and then his soul is to go to perdition. The contract is carried out. With the Devil as comrade and servant he lords it over time and space, feeds on the fat of the land, travels far and wide, and does all sorts of wonderful things. At the end of the stipulated time the Devil gets him.

From the very beginning of his musings on the theme Goethe thought of Faust as a man better than his reputation; as a misunderstood truth-seeker who had dared the terrors with which the popular imagination invested hell, in order that he might exhaust the possibilities of this life. Aside from his desire of transcendental knowledge and wide experience, there was a third trait of the legendary Faust which could hardly seem to Goethe anything but creditable to human nature: his passion for antique beauty. According to the old story Faust at one time wishes to marry; but as marriage is a Christian ordinance and he has forsworn Christianity, the Devil gives him, in place of a lawful wife, a fantom counterfeit of Helena, the ancient Queen of Beauty. The lovely fantom becomes Faust’s paramour and bears him a remarkable son called Justus Faustus.

What wonder if the young Goethe, himself disappointed with book-learning, eager for life, and beset by vague yearnings for mystic insight into the nature of things, saw in Faust a symbol of his own experience? But as soon as he began to identify himself with his hero it was all up with Faust’s utter damnableness: a young poet does not plan to send his own soul to perdition. At the same time, he could not very well imagine him as an out-and-out good man, since that would have been to turn the legend topsy-turvy. The league with the Devil, who would of course have to be conceived as in some sense or other an embodiment of evil, was the very heart of the old story.

At first Goethe planned his drama on lines that had little to do with traditional ideas of good and bad, heaven and hell, God and Devil. Faust is introduced as a youngish professor who has studied everything and been teaching for some ten years, with the result that he feels his knowledge to be vanity and his life a dreary routine of hypocrisy. He resorts to magic in the hope of—what? It is important for the understanding of the poem in its initial stages to bear in mind that Faust is not at first a votary of the vulgar black art which consists in calling up bad spirits and doing reprehensible things by their assistance. Further on he shows that he is a master of that art too, but at first he is concerned with “natural magic,” which some of the old mystics whom Goethe read conceived as the highest and divinest of sciences. The fundamental assumption of natural magic is that the universe as a whole and each component part of it is dominated by an indwelling spirit with whom it is possible for the magician to get into communication. If he succeeds he becomes “like” a spirit—freed from the trammels of the flesh, a partaker of divine knowledge and ecstatic happiness.

Pursuing his wonderful vagaries by means of a magic book that has come into his possession, Faust first experiments with the “sign” of the Macrocosm, but makes no attempt to summon its presiding genius, that is, the World-spirit. He has a wonderful vision of the harmonious Cosmos, but it is “only a spectacle,” whereas he craves food for his soul. So he turns to the sign of the Earth-spirit, whom he feels to be nearer to him. By an act of supreme daring he utters the formula which causes the Spirit to appear in fire—grand, awe-inspiring, terrible. A colloquy ensues at the end of which the Spirit rebuffs the presumptuous mortal with the words: “Thou art like the spirit whom thou comprehendest, not like me”—and disappears. The meaning is that Faust, who knows very little of the Earth, having always led the narrow life of a brooding scholar in one little corner of it, is not fit for intimacy with the mighty being who presides over the entire planet, with its rush and change, its life and death, its vast and ceaseless energy. He must have a wider experience. How shall he get it?

It is a moot question whether Goethe at first conceived Mephistopheles as the Earth-spirit’s envoy, sent for the express purpose of showing Faust about the world, or whether the Devil was thought of as coming of his own accord. Be that as it may, Faust is an experience-drama, and the Devil’s function is to provide the experience. And he is a devil, not the Devil, conceived as the bitter and malignant enemy of God, but a subordinate spirit whose business it is, in the world-economy, to spur man to activity. This he does partly by cynical criticism and opposition, but more especially by holding out the lures of the sensual life. At first Mephistopheles was not thought of as working solely for a reward in the shape of souls captured for eternity, but as playing his part for the diabolical pleasure of so doing. In the course of time, however, Goethe invested him more and more with the costume and traits of the traditionary Devil.

After the Earth-spirit’s rebuff Faust is in despair. He has set all his hope on help from the spirit-world, and the hope has failed. His famulus Wagner, a type of the ardent and contented bookworm, comes in to get instruction on the art of public speaking, and Faust lays down the law to him. After Wagner’s exit Faust is hopelessly despondent. After a mournful arraignment of life he is about to swallow a cup of poison that he has concocted, when his hand is staid by the first notes of the Easter celebration in a neighboring church. It reminds him of his happy youth when he, too, believed.

The coming day is Easter Sunday. Faust and Wagner take an afternoon walk together and witness the jollity of the common people. As they are about to return home at nightfall they pick up a casual black dog that has been circling around them. Arrived in his comfortable study, Faust feels more cheerful. In a mood of religious peace he sets about translating a passage of the New Testament into German. The dog becomes uneasy and begins to take on the appearance of a horrid monster. Faust sees that he has brought home a spirit and proceeds to conjure the beast. Presently Mephistopheles emerges from his canine disguise in the costume of a wandering scholar. Faust is amused. He enters into conversation with his guest and learns something of his character. A familiar acquaintance ensues, and one day the Devil finds him once more in a mood of bitter despair, advises him to quit the tedious professorial life, and offers to be his comrade and servant on a grand tour of pleasure. After some bickering they enter into a solemn agreement according to which Faust’s life is to end whenever he shall “stretch himself on a bed of ease,” completely satisfied with the passing moment, and shall say to that moment, “Pray tarry, thou art so fair.”

We see that the Devil can win in only one way, namely, by somehow making Faust a contented sensualist. On the other hand, Faust may win in either of two ways. First, he might conceivably go on to his dying day as a bitter pessimist at war with life. In that event he would certainly never be content with the present moment. Secondly, he may outgrow his pessimism, but never come to the point where he is willing to check the flight of Time; when, that is, he shall have no more plans, hopes, dreams, that reach into the future and seem worth living for. The question is, then, whether Mephistopheles, by any lure at his command, can subdue Faust’s forward-ranging idealism. The Devil expects to win; Faust wagers his immortal soul that the Devil will not win. In the old story the Devil appears promptly at the end of the twenty-four years, puts his victim to death, and takes possession of his soul. Goethe’s Mephistopheles is a gentleman of culture for whom such savagery would be impossible. He will wait until his comrade dies a natural death and then put in his claim in the Devil’s fashion; and it will be for the Lord in heaven to decide the case.

Such is the scheme of the drama, but after the compact is made we hear no more of it until just before the end of the Second Part. The action takes the form of a long succession of adventures undertaken for the sake of experience. Duty, obligation, routine, have been left behind. Faust has nothing to do but to go about and try experiments—first in the “little world” of humble folk (the remainder of Part First), and then in the “great world” of court life, government, and war (the Second Part).

By way of beginning Faust is taken to Auerbach’s Cellar, where four jolly companions are assembled for a drinking-bout. He is simply disgusted with the grossness and vulgarity of it all. He is too old—so the Devil concludes—for the rôle he is playing and must have his youth renewed. So they repair to an old witch, who gives Faust an elixir that makes him young again. The scene in the witch’s kitchen was written in Italy in 1788, by which time Goethe had come to think of his hero as an elderly man. The purpose of the scene was to account for the sudden change of Faust’s character from brooding philosopher to rake and seducer. Of course the elixir of youth is at the same time a love-philter.

Then come the matchless scenes that body forth the short romance of Margaret, her quick infatuation, her loss of virgin honor, the death of her mother and brother, her shame and misery, her agonizing death in prison. Here we are in the realm of pure realism, and never again did Goethe’s art sound such depths of tragic pathos. The atmosphere of the love-tragedy is entirely different from that of the Faust-legend. Mephistopheles as the abettor of Faust’s amorous passion has no need of magic. The rôle of Faust—that of a man pulled irresistibly by sexual passion, yet constantly tormented by his conscience—is repulsive, but very human. As he stands before the prison gate he says that “the whole sorrow of mankind” holds him in its grip. But this is a part of what he wished for. He wished for universal experience—to feel in his own soul all the weal and all the woe of humankind. At the end of the First Part he has drained the cup of sin and suffering.

Imbedded in the love-tragedy is one scene which will seem out of tune with what has just been said—the Walpurgis Night. Here we are back again in the atmosphere of the legend, with its magic, its witchcraft, its gross sensuality. We hardly recognize our friend Faust when we find him dancing with naked witches and singing lewd songs on the Brocken. The scene was written in 1800 when Goethe had become a little cynical with respect to the artistic coherence of Faust and looked on it as a “monstrosity.” It was a part of the early plan that Faust should add to the burden of his soul by frivolously deserting Margaret in the shame of her approaching motherhood and spending some time in gross pleasures. The visit to the Witches’ Sabbath on the Brocken was afterward invented to carry out this idea. In itself the idea was a good one; for if Faust was to drain the cup of sorrow, the ingredient of self-contempt could not be left out of the bitter chalice. A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is not so much remembering happier things as remembering that the happy state came to an end by one’s own wrongdoing. Still, most modern readers will think that Goethe, in elaborating the Brocken scene as an interesting study of the uncanny and the vile, let his hero sink needlessly far into the mire.

At the beginning of the Second Part Goethe does not reopen the book of crime and remorse with which the First Part closes. He needs a new Faust for whom that is all past—past, not in the sense of being lightly forgotten, but built into his character and remembered, say, as one remembers the ecstasy and the pain of twenty years ago. So he ushers him directly into the new life over a bridge of symbolism. The restoring process which in real life takes many years he concentrates into a single night and represents it as the work of kindly nocturnal fairies and the glorious Alpine sunrise. Faust awakens healed and reinvigorated, and the majesty of Nature inspires in him a resolve to “strive ever onward toward the highest existence.”

But these fine words convey a promise which is not at once fulfilled. Like the most of us, Faust does not long continue to abide on the Alpine heights of his own best insight and aspiration. The comrade is at hand who interrupts his lonely communion with the spirit of the mountains and draws him away to the Emperor’s court, where the pair soon ingratiate themselves as wonder-workers. They so please his Majesty with their marvelous illusions that they are regularly installed at court as purveyors of amusement. The first demand that is made on them is that they produce, for the entertainment of the court, the shades of the supremely beautiful Paris and Helena. To this end Mephistopheles devises the elaborate hocus-pocus of the Mothers. He sends Faust away to the vasty and viewless realm of the Ideal, instructing him how to bring thence a certain wonderful tripod, from the incense of which the desired forms can be made to appear. The show proceeds successfully, so far as the spectators are concerned, but an accident happens. Faust has been cautioned by his partner not to touch the fantom forms. But the moon-struck idealist falls in love with the beautiful Helena and, disregarding orders, attempts to hold her fast. The consequence is an explosion; the spirits vanish, and Faust receives an electric shock which paralyzes all his bodily functions. He is now in a trance; there is nothing left of him but a motionless body and a mute soul, dreaming of Helena. Mephistopheles pretends to be very much disgusted, but he knows where to go for help.

At the beginning of the second act we return to the old study that was deserted years ago. Faust’s former famulus, Dr. Wagner, has now become a world-renowned professor and is engaged in a great experiment, namely, in the production of a chemical man. By the aid of Mephisto’s magic the experiment is quickly brought to a successful issue, and Homunculus—one of Goethe’s whimsically delightful creations—emerges into being as an incorporeal radiant man in a glass bottle. The wonderful little fellow at once comprehends Faust’s malady and prescribes that he be taken to the land of his dreams. So away they go, the three of them, to the Classical Walpurgis Night, which is celebrated annually on the battle-field of Pharsalus in Thessaly. As soon as Faust’s feet touch classic soil he recovers his senses and sets out with enthusiasm to find Helena. After some wandering about among the classic fantoms he falls in with Chiron the Centaur, who carries him far away to the foot of Mount Olympus and leaves him with the wise priestess Manto, who escorts him to the Lower World and secures the consent of Queen Persephone to a temporary reappearance of Helena on earth.

Meanwhile Mephistopheles, delighted to find on classic ground creatures no less ugly than those familiar to him in the far Northwest, enters, seemingly by way of a lark, into a curious arrangement with the three daughters of Phorkys. These were imagined by the Greeks as hideous old hags who lived in perpetual darkness and had one eye and one tooth which they used in common. Mephistopheles borrows the form, the eye, and the tooth of a Phorkyad and transforms himself very acceptably into an image of the Supreme Ugliness. In that shape he-she manages the fantasmagory of the third act. As for the third member of the expedition to Thessaly, Homunculus, he is possessed by a consuming desire to “begin existence,” that is, to get a body and become a full-fledged member of the genus Homo. His wanderings in search of the best place to begin take him out into the Aegean Sea, where he is entranced by the beauty of the scene. In an ecstasy of prophetic joy he dashes his bottle to pieces against the shell-chariot of the lovely sea-nymph Galatea and dissolves himself with the shining animalculae of the sea. There he is now—coming up to the full estate of manhood by the various stages of protozoon, amoeba, mollusc, fish, reptile, bird, mammal, Man. It will take time, but he has no need to hurry.

Then follows the third act, a classico-romantic fantasmagoria, in which Faust as medieval knight, ruling his multitudinous vassals from his castle in Arcadia, the fabled land of poetry, is wedded to the classic Queen of Beauty. It is all very fantastic, but also very beautiful and marvelously pregnant in its symbolism. But at last the fair illusion comes to an end. Euphorion, the child of Helena and Faust, the ethereal, earth-spurning Genius of Poesy, perishes in an attempt to fly, and his grief-stricken mother follows him back to Hades. Nothing is left to Faust but a majestic, inspiring memory. He gathers the robe of Helena about him, and it bears him aloft and carries him, high up in the air and far above all that is vulgar, back to Germany. His vehicle of cloud lands him on a mountain-summit, where he is soon joined by Mephistopheles, who puts the question, What next? We are now at the beginning of Act IV. Faust proceeds to unfold a grand scheme of conflict with the Sea. On his flight he has observed the tides eternally beating in upon the shore and evermore receding, all to no purpose. This blind waste of energy has excited in him the spirit of opposition. He proposes to fight the sea by building dikes which shall hold the rushing water in check and make dry land of the tide-swept area. Mephistopheles enters readily into his plans. They help the Emperor to win a critical battle, and by way of reward Faust receives a vast tract of swampy sea-shore as his fief.

In Act V the great scheme has all been carried out. What was a watery desolation has been converted into a potential paradise. Faust is a great feudal lord, with a boundless domain and a fleet of ships that bring him the riches of far-away lands. But thus far he has simply been amusing himself on a grand scale. He has thought always mainly of himself. He has courted experience, among other things the experience of putting forth his power in a contest with the sea and performing a great feat of engineering. But it has not brought him a satisfaction in which he can rest. And he has not become a saint. An aged couple, who belong to the old régime and obstinately refuse to part with the little plot of ground on which they have lived for years, anger him to the point of madness. He wants their land so that he may build on it a watch-tower from which to survey and govern his possessions. He sends his servitor to remove them to a better home which he has prepared for them. But Mephistopheles carries out the order with reckless brutality, with the consequence that the old people are killed and their cottage burned to the ground. Thus Faust in his old age—by this time he is a hundred years old—has a fresh burden on his conscience. As he stands on the balcony of his palace at midnight, surveying the havoc he has unintentionally wrought, the smoke of the burning cottage is wafted toward him and takes the form of four gray old women. One of them, Dame Care, slips into the rich man’s palace by way of the keyhole and croons in his ear her dismal litany of care. Faust replies in a fine declaration of independence, beginning—

  The circle of the Earth is known to me,
What’s on the other side we can not see.

As Dame Care leaves him she breathes on his eyelids and makes him blind. But the inner light is not quenched. His hunger for life still unabated, he summons up all his energy and orders out an army of workmen to complete a great undertaking on which he has set his heart. On the edge of his domain, running along the distant foot-hills, is a miasmatic swamp which poisons the air and renders the land uninhabitable. He proposes to drain the swamp and thus create a home for millions yet to come.

His imagination ranges forward, picturing a free, industrious, self-reliant people swarming on the land that he has won from the sea and made fit for human uses. In the ecstasy of altruistic emotion he exclaims: “Such a throng I would fain see, standing with a free people on a free soil; I might say to the passing moment, ‘Pray tarry, thou art so fair.’ The traces of my earthly life can not pass away in eons.” That same instant he sinks back to earth—dying.

Is there in all literature anything finer, grander, more nobly conceived? What follows—the conflict of the angels and devils for the final possession of Faust’s soul—need not detain us long. We know how that will turn out. Indeed, the shrewd old Devil, while he goes through the form of making a stiff fight for what he pretends to think his rights, knows from the first that his is a losing battle. While he is watching the body of Faust to see where the soul is going to escape, the angels appear in a glory, bearing roses as their only weapon. With these they put the Devil and his minions to rout and bear away the dead man’s soul to the Holy Mountain, singing their triumphal chant—

Wer immer strebend sich bemüht,
Den können wir erlösen.

THE TRAGEDY OF FAUST

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Characters in the Prologue for the Theatre.

THE MANAGER. THE DRAMATIC POET. MERRYMAN.

Characters in the Prologue in Heaven.

THE LORD.
RAPHAEL}
GABRIEL} The Heavenly Host.
MICHAEL}
MEPHISTOPHELES.

Characters in the Tragedy.

FAUST.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
WAGNER, a Student.
MARGARET.
MARTHA, Margaret’s Neighbor.
VALENTINE, Margaret’s Brother.
OLD PEASANT.
A STUDENT.
ELIZABETH, an Acquaintance of Margaret’s.
FROSCH }
BRANDER } Guests in Auerbach’s Wine Cellar.
SIEBEL }
ALTMAYER }

Witches, old and young; Wizards, Will-o’-the-Wisp, Witch Peddler,
Protophantasmist, Servibilis, Monkeys, Spirits, Journeymen,
Country-folk, Citizens, Beggar, Old Fortune-teller, Shepherd, Soldier,
Students, etc.

In the Intermezzo.

OBERON. TITANIA. ARIEL. PUCK, ETC., ETC.

DEDICATION

Ye wavering shapes, again ye do enfold me,
As erst upon my troubled sight ye stole;
Shall I this time attempt to clasp, to hold ye?
Still for the fond illusion yearns my soul?
Ye press around! Come then, your captive hold me,
As upward from the vapory mist ye roll;
Within my breast youth’s throbbing pulse is bounding,
Fann’d by the magic breath your march surrounding.

Shades fondly loved appear, your train attending,
And visions fair of many a blissful day;
First-love and friendship their fond accents blending,
Like to some ancient, half-expiring lay;
Sorrow revives, her wail of anguish sending
Back o’er life’s devious labyrinthine way,
And names the dear ones, they whom Fate bereaving
Of life’s fair hours, left me behind them grieving.

They hear me not my later cadence singing,
The souls to whom my earlier lays I sang;
Dispersed the throng, their severed flight now winging;
Mute are the voices that responsive rang.
For stranger crowds the Orphean lyre now stringing,
E’en their applause is to my heart a pang;
Of old who listened to my song, glad hearted,
If yet they live, now wander widely parted.

A yearning long unfelt, each impulse swaying,
To yon calm spirit-realm uplifts my soul;
In faltering cadence, as when Zephyr playing,
Fans the Æolian harp, my numbers roll;
Tear follows tear, my steadfast heart obeying
The tender impulse, loses its control;
What I possess as from afar I see;
Those I have lost become realities to me.

PROLOGUE FOR THE THEATRE

MANAGER. DRAMATIC POET. MERRYMAN

MANAGER
Ye twain, in trouble and distress
True friends whom I so oft have found,
Say, for our scheme on German ground,
What prospect have we of success?
Fain would I please the public, win their thanks;
They live and let live, hence it is but meet.
The posts are now erected, and the planks,
And all look forward to a festal treat.
Their places taken, they, with eyebrows rais’d,
Sit patiently, and fain would be amaz’d.
I know the art to hit the public taste,
Yet ne’er of failure felt so keen a dread;
True, they are not accustomed to the best,
But then appalling the amount they’ve read.
How make our entertainment striking, new,
And yet significant and pleasing too?
For to be plain, I love to see the throng,
As to our booth the living tide progresses;
As wave on wave successive rolls along,
And through heaven’s narrow portal forceful presses;
Still in broad daylight, ere the clock strikes four,
With blows their way toward the box they take;
And, as for bread in famine, at the baker’s door,
For tickets are content their necks to break.
Such various minds the bard alone can sway,
My friend, oh work this miracle today!

POET

Oh of the motley throng speak not before me,
At whose aspect the Spirit wings its flight!
Conceal the surging concourse, I implore thee,
Whose vortex draws us with resistless might.
No, to some peaceful heavenly nook restore me,
Where only for the bard blooms pure delight,
Where love and friendship yield their choicest blessing,
Our heart’s true bliss, with godlike hand caressing.

What in the spirit’s depths was there created,
What shyly there the lip shaped forth in sound;
A failure now, with words now fitly mated,
In the wild tumult of the hour is drown’d;
Full oft the poet’s thought for years hath waited
Until at length with perfect form ’tis crowned;
What dazzles, for the moment born, must perish;
What genuine is posterity will cherish.

MERRYMAN

This cant about posterity I hate;
About posterity were I to prate,
Who then the living would amuse? For they
Will have diversion, ay, and ’tis their due.
A sprightly fellow’s presence at your play,
Methinks should also count for something too;
Whose genial wit the audience still inspires,
Knows from their changeful mood no angry feeling;
A wider circle he desires,
To their heart’s depths more surely thus appealing.
To work, then! Give a master-piece, my friend;
Bring Fancy with her choral trains before us,
Sense, reason, feeling, passion, but attend!
Let folly also swell the tragic chorus.

MANAGER

In chief, of incident enough prepare!
A show they want, they come to gape and stare.
Spin for their eyes abundant occupation,
So that the multitude may wondering gaze,
You by sheer bulk have won your reputation,
The man you are all love to praise.
By mass alone can you subdue the masses,
Each then selects in time what suits his bent.
Bring much, you something bring for various classes,
And from the house goes every one content.
You give a piece, abroad in pieces send it!
‘Tis a ragout—success must needs attend it;
‘Tis easy to serve up, as easy to invent.
A finish’d whole what boots it to present!
Full soon the public will in pieces rend it.

POET

How mean such handicraft as this you cannot feel!
How it revolts the genuine artist’s mind!
The sorry trash in which these coxcombs deal,
Is here approved on principle, I find.

MANAGER

Such a reproof disturbs me not a whit!
Who on efficient work is bent,
Must choose the fittest instrument.
Consider! ’tis soft wood you have to split;
Think too for whom you write, I pray!
One comes to while an hour away;
One from the festive board, a sated guest;
Others, more dreaded than the rest,
From journal-reading hurry to the play.
As to a masquerade, with absent minds, they press,
Sheer curiosity their footsteps winging;
Ladies display their persons and their dress,
Actors unpaid their service bringing.
What dreams beguile you on your poet’s height?
What puts a full house in a merry mood?
More closely view your patrons of the night!
The half are cold, the half are rude.
One, the play over, craves a game of cards;
Another a wild night in wanton joy would spend.
Poor fools the muses’ fair regards
Why court for such a paltry end?
I tell you, give them more, still more, ’tis all I ask,
Thus you will ne’er stray widely from the goal;
Your audience seek to mystify, cajole;—
To satisfy them—that’s a harder task.
What ails thee? art enraptured or distressed?

POET

Depart! elsewhere another servant choose.
What! shall the bard his godlike power abuse?
Man’s loftiest right, kind nature’s high bequest,
For your mean purpose basely sport away?
Whence comes his mastery o’er the human breast,
Whence o’er the elements his sway,
But from the harmony that, gushing from his soul,
Draws back into his heart the wondrous whole?
With careless hand when round her spindle, Nature
Winds the interminable thread of life;
When ‘mid the clash of Being every creature
Mingles in harsh inextricable strife;
Who deals their course unvaried till it falleth,
In rhythmic flow to music’s measur’d tone?
Each solitary note whose genius calleth,
To swell the mighty choir in unison?
Who in the raging storm sees passion low’ring?
Or flush of earnest thought in evening’s glow?
Who every blossom in sweet spring-time flowering
Along the loved one’s path would strow?
Who, Nature’s green familiar leaves entwining,
Wreathes glory’s garland, won on every field?
Makes sure Olympus, heavenly powers combining?
Man’s mighty spirit, in the bard reveal’d!

MERRYMAN

Come then, employ your lofty inspiration,
And carry on the poet’s avocation,
Just as we carry on a love affair.
Two meet by chance, are pleased, they linger there,
Insensibly are link’d, they scarce know how;
Fortune seems now propitious, adverse now,
Then come alternate rapture and despair;
And ’tis a true romance ere one’s aware.
Just such a drama let us now compose.
Plunge boldly into life-its, depths disclose!
Each lives it, not to many is it known,
‘Twill interest wheresoever seiz’d and shown;
Bright pictures, but obscure their meaning:
A ray of truth through error gleaming,
Thus you the best elixir brew,
To charm mankind, and edify them too.
Then youth’s fair blossoms crowd to view your play,
And wait as on an oracle; while they,
The tender souls, who love the melting mood,
Suck from your work their melancholy food;
Now this one, and now that, you deeply stir,
Each sees the working of his heart laid bare.
Their tears, their laughter, you command with ease,
The lofty still they honor, the illusive love.
Your finish’d gentlemen you ne’er can please;
A growing mind alone will grateful prove.

POET

Then give me back youth’s golden prime,
When my own spirit too was growing,
When from my heart th’ unbidden rhyme
Gush’d forth, a fount for ever flowing;
Then shadowy mist the world conceal’d,
And every bud sweet promise made,
Of wonders yet to be reveal’d,
As through the vales, with blooms inlaid,
Culling a thousand flowers I stray’d.
Naught had I, yet a rich profusion!
The thirst for truth, joy in each fond illusion.
Give me unquell’d those impulses to prove;—
Rapture so deep, its ecstasy was pain,
The power of hate, the energy of love,
Give me, oh give me back my youth again!

MERRYMAN

Youth, my good friend, you certainly require
When foes in battle round are pressing,
When a fair maid, her heart on fire,
Hangs on your neck with fond caressing,
When from afar, the victor’s crown,
To reach the hard-won goal inciteth;
When from the whirling dance, to drown
Your sense, the nights carouse inviteth.
But the familiar chords among
Boldly to sweep, with graceful cunning,
While to its goal, the verse along
Its winding path is sweetly running;
This task is yours, old gentlemen, today;
Nor are you therefore less in reverence held;
Age does not make us childish, as folk say,
It finds us genuine children e’en in eld.

MANAGER

A truce to words, mere empty sound,
Let deeds at length appear, my friends!
While idle compliments you round,
You might achieve some useful ends.
Why talk of the poetic vein?
Who hesitates will never know it;
If bards ye are, as ye maintain,
Now let your inspiration show it.
To you is known what we require,
Strong drink to sip is our desire;
Come, brew me such without delay!
Tomorrow sees undone, what happens not today;
Still forward press, nor ever tire!
The possible, with steadfast trust,
Resolve should by the forelock grasp;
Then she will never let go her clasp,
And labors on, because she must.
On German boards, you’re well aware,
The taste of each may have full sway;
Therefore in bringing out your play,
Nor scenes nor mechanism spare!
Heaven’s lamps employ, the greatest and the least,
Be lavish of the stellar lights,
Water, and fire, and rocky heights,
Spare not at all, nor birds, nor beast.
Thus let creation’s ample sphere
Forthwith in this our narrow booth appear,
And with considerate speed, through fancy’s spell,
Journey from heaven, thence through the world, to hell!

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN

THE LORD. THE HEAVENLY HOSTS. Afterward MEPHISTOPHELES

The three Archangels come forward

RAPHAEL

The Sun, in ancient guise, competing
With brother spheres in rival song,
With thunder-march, his orb completing,
Moves his predestin’d course along;
His aspect to the powers supernal
Gives strength, though fathom him none may;
Transcending thought, the works eternal
Are fair as on the primal day.

GABRIEL

With speed, thought baffling, unabating,
Earth’s splendor whirls in circling flight;
Its Eden-brightness alternating
With solemn, awe-inspiring night;
Ocean’s broad waves in wild commotion,
Against the rocks’ deep base are hurled;
And with the spheres, both rock and ocean
Eternally are swiftly whirled.

MICHAEL

And tempests roar in emulation
From sea to land, from land to sea,
And raging form, without cessation,
A chain of wondrous agency,
Full in the thunder’s path careering,
Flaring the swift destructions play;
But, Lord, Thy servants are revering
The mild procession of thy day.

THE THREE

Thine aspect to the powers supernal
Gives strength, though fathom thee none may;
And all thy works, sublime, eternal,
Are fair as on the primal day.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Since thou, O Lord, approachest us once more,
And how it fares with us, to ask art fain,
Since thou hast kindly welcom’d me of yore,
Thou see’st me also now among thy train.
Excuse me, fine harangues I cannot make,
Though all the circle look on me with scorn;
My pathos soon thy laughter would awake,
Hadst thou the laughing mood not long forsworn.
Of suns and worlds I nothing have to say,
I see alone mankind’s self-torturing pains.
The little world-god still the self-same stamp retains,
And is as wondrous now as on the primal day.
Better he might have fared, poor wight,
Hadst thou not given him a gleam of heavenly light;
Reason he names it, and doth so
Use it, than brutes more brutish still to grow.
With deference to your grace, he seems to me
Like any long-legged grasshopper to be,
Which ever flies, and flying springs,
And in the grass its ancient ditty sings.
Would he but always in the grass repose!
In every heap of dung he thrusts his nose.

THE LORD

Hast thou naught else to say? Is blame
In coming here, as ever, thy sole aim?
Does nothing on the earth to thee seem right?

MEPHISTOPHELES

No, Lord! I find things there, as ever, in sad plight.
Men, in their evil days, move my compassion;
Such sorry things to plague is nothing worth.

THE LORD

Know’st thou my servant, Faust?

MEPHISTOPHELES

The doctor?

THE LORD

Right.

MEPHISTOPHELES

He serves thee truly in a wondrous fashion.
Poor fool! His food and drink are not of earth.
An inward impulse hurries him afar,
Himself half conscious of his frenzied mood;
From heaven claimeth he the fairest star,
And from the earth craves every highest good,
And all that’s near, and all that’s far,
Fails to allay the tumult in his blood.

THE LORD

Though in perplexity he serves me now,
I soon will lead him where more light appears;
When buds the sapling, doth the gardener know
That flowers and fruit will deck the coming years!

MEPHISTOPHELES

What wilt thou wager? Him thou yet shall lose,
If leave to me thou wilt but give,
Gently to lead him as I choose!

THE LORD

So long as he on earth doth live,
So long ’tis not forbidden thee.
Man still must err, while he doth strive.

MEPHISTOPHELES

I thank you; for not willingly
I traffic with the dead, and still aver
That youth’s plump blooming cheek I very much prefer.
I’m not at home to corpses; ’tis my way,
Like cats with captive mice to toy and play.

THE LORD

Enough! ’tis granted thee! Divert
This mortal spirit from his primal source;
Him, canst thou seize, thy power exert
And lead him on thy downward course,
Then stand abash’d, when thou perforce must own,
A good man in his darkest aberration,
Of the right path is conscious still.

MEPHISTOPHELES

‘Tis done! Full soon thou’lt see my exultation;
As for my bet no fears I entertain.
And if my end I finally should gain,
Excuse my triumphing with all my soul.
Dust he shall eat, ay, and with relish take,
As did my cousin, the renownèd snake.

THE LORD

Here too thou’rt free to act without control;
I ne’er have cherished hate for such as thee.
Of all the spirits who deny,
The scoffer is least wearisome to me.
Ever too prone is man activity to shirk,
In unconditioned rest he fain would live;
Hence this companion purposely I give,
Who stirs, excites, and must, as devil, work.
But ye, the genuine sons of heaven, rejoice!
In the full living beauty still rejoice!
May that which works and lives, the ever-growing,
In bonds of love enfold you, mercy-fraught,
And Seeming’s changeful forms, around you flowing,
Do ye arrest, in ever-during thought!

[Heaven closes, the, Archangels disperse.]

MEPHISTOPHELES (alone)

The ancient one I like sometimes to see,
And not to break with him am always civil;
‘Tis courteous in so great a lord as he,
To speak so kindly even to the devil.

FAUST—PART I (1808)[34]

TRANSLATED BY ANNA SWANWICK

NIGHT

A high vaulted narrow Gothic chamber.

FAUST, restless, seated at his desk.

FAUST

I have, alas! Philosophy,
Medicine, Jurisprudence too,
And to my cost Theology,
With ardent labor, studied through.
And here I stand, with all my lore,
Poor fool, no wiser than before.
Magister, doctor styled, indeed,
Already these ten years I lead,
Up, down, across, and to and fro,
My pupils by the nose,—and learn,
That we in truth can nothing know!
That in my heart like fire doth burn.
‘Tis true, I’ve more cunning than all your dull tribe,
Magister and doctor, priest, parson, and scribe;
Scruple or doubt comes not to enthrall me,
Neither can devil nor hell now appal me—
Hence also my heart must all pleasure forego!
I may not pretend aught rightly to know,
I may not pretend, through teaching, to find
A means to improve or convert mankind.
Then I have neither goods nor treasure,
No worldly honor, rank, or pleasure;
No dog in such fashion would longer live!
Therefore myself to magic I give,
In hope, through spirit-voice and might,
Secrets now veiled to bring to light,
That I no more, with aching brow,
Need speak of what I nothing know;
That I the force may recognize
That binds creation’s inmost energies;
Her vital powers, her embryo seeds survey,
And fling the trade in empty words away.
O full-orb’d moon, did but thy rays
Their last upon mine anguish gaze!
Beside this desk, at dead of night,
Oft have I watched to hail thy light:
Then, pensive friend! o’er book and scroll,
With soothing power, thy radiance stole!
In thy dear light, ah, might I climb,
Freely, some mountain height sublime,
Round mountain caves with spirits ride,
In thy mild haze o’er meadows glide,
And, purged from knowledge-fumes, renew
My spirit, in thy healing dew!

Woe’s me! still prison’d in the gloom
Of this abhorr’d and musty room!
Where heaven’s dear light itself doth pass
But dimly through the painted glass!
Hemmed in by book-heaps, piled around,
Worm-eaten, hid ‘neath dust and mold,
Which to the high vault’s topmast bound,
A smoke-stained paper doth enfold;
With boxes round thee piled, and glass,
And many a useless instrument,
With old ancestral lumber blent—
This is thy world! a world! alas!
And dost thou ask why heaves thy heart,
With tighten’d pressure in thy breast?
Why the dull ache will not depart,
By which thy life-pulse is oppress’d?
Instead of nature’s living sphere,
Created for mankind of old,
Brute skeletons surround thee here,
And dead men’s bones in smoke and mold.
Up! Forth into the distant land!
Is not this book of mystery
By Nostradamus’ proper hand,
An all-sufficient guide? Thou’lt see
The courses of the stars unroll’d;
When nature doth her thoughts unfold
To thee, thy-soul shall rise, and seek
Communion high with her to hold,
As spirit cloth with spirit speak!
Vain by dull poring to divine
The meaning of each hallow’d sign.
Spirits! I feel you hov’ring near;
Make answer, if my voice ye hear!

[He opens the book and perceives the sign of the Macrocosmos.]

Ah! at this spectacle through every sense,
What sudden ecstasy of joy is flowing!
I feel new rapture, hallow’d and intense,
Through every nerve and vein with ardor glowing.
Was it a god who character’d this scroll,
The tumult in my-spirit healing,
O’er my sad heart with rapture stealing,
And by a mystic impulse, to my soul,
The powers of nature all around revealing.
Am I a god? What light intense
In these pure symbols do I see
Nature exert her vital energy?
Now of the wise man’s words I learn the sense;
“Unlock’d the spirit-world is lying,
Thy sense is shut, thy heart is dead!
Up scholar, lave, with zeal undying,
Thine earthly breast in the morning-red!”

[He contemplates the sign.]

How all things live and work, and ever blending,
Weave one vast whole from Being’s ample range!
How powers celestial, rising and descending,
Their golden buckets ceaseless interchange!
Their flight on rapture-breathing pinions winging,
From heaven to earth their genial influence bringing.
Through the wild sphere their chimes melodious ringing!

A wondrous show! but ah! a show alone!
Where shall I grasp thee, infinite nature, where?
Ye breasts, ye fountains of all life, whereon
Hang heaven and earth, from which the withered heart
For solace yearns, ye still impart
Your sweet and fostering tides-where are ye-where?
Ye gush, and must I languish in despair?

[He turns over the leaves of the book impatiently, and perceives the sign of the Earth-spirit.]

How all unlike the influence of this sign!
Earth-spirit, thou to me art nigher,
E’en now my strength is rising higher,
E’en now I glow as with new wine;
Courage I feel, abroad the world to dare,
The woe of earth, the bliss of earth to bear,
With storms to wrestle, brave the lightning’s glare,
And mid the crashing shipwreck not despair.

Clouds gather over me—
The moon conceals her light—
The lamp is quench’d—
Vapors are arising—Quiv’ring round my head
Flash the red beams—Down from the vaulted roof
A shuddering horror floats,
And seizes me!
I feel it, spirit, prayer-compell’d, ’tis thou
Art hovering near!
Unveil thyself!
Ha! How my heart is riven now!
Each sense, with eager palpitation,
Is strain’d to catch some new sensation!
I feel my heart surrender’d unto thee!
Thou must! Thou must! Though life should be the fee!

[He seizes the book, and pronounces mysteriously the sign of the spirit. A ruddy flame flashes up; the spirit appears in the flame.]

SPIRIT

Who calls me?

FAUST (turning aside)

Dreadful shape!

SPIRIT

With might,
Thou hast compell’d me to appear,
Long hast been sucking at my sphere,
And now—

FAUST

Woe’s me! I cannot bear thy sight!

SPIRIT

To see me thou dost breathe thine invocation,
My voice to hear, to gaze upon my brow;
Me doth thy strong entreaty bow—
Lo! I am here!—What cowering agitation
Grasps thee, the demigod! Where’s now the soul’s deep cry?
Where is the breast, which in its depths a world conceiv’d,
And bore and cherished? which, with ecstasy,
To rank itself with us, the spirits, heaved?
Where art thou, Faust? Whose voice heard I resound
Who toward me press’d with energy profound?
Art thou he? Thou,—who by my breath art blighted,
Who, in his spirit’s depths affrighted,
Trembles, a crush’d and writhing worm!

FAUST

Shall I yield, thing of flame, to thee?
Faust, and thine equal, I am he!

SPIRIT

In the currents of life, in action’s storm,
I float and I wave
With billowy motion!
Birth and the grave,
O limitless ocean,
A constant weaving
With change still rife,
A restless heaving,
A glowing life—-
Thus time’s whirring loom unceasing I ply,
And weave the life-garment of deity.

FAUST

Thou, restless spirit, dost from end to end
O’ersweep the world; how near I feel to thee!

SPIRIT

Thou’rt like the spirit, thou dost comprehend,
Not me! [Vanishes.]

FAUST (deeply moved)

Not thee
Whom then?
I, God’s own image!
And not rank with thee! [A knock.]
Oh death! I know it-’tis my famulus—
My fairest fortune now escapes!
That all these visionary shapes
A soulless groveller should banish thus!

[WAGNER in his dressing gown and night-cap, a lamp in his hand. FAUST turns round reluctantly.]

WAGNER

Pardon! I heard you here declaim;
A Grecian tragedy you doubtless read?
Improvement in this art is now my aim,
For now-a-days it much avails. Indeed
An actor, oft I’ve heard it said, as teacher,
May give instruction to a preacher.

FAUST

Ay, if your priest should be an actor too,
As not improbably may come to pass.

WAGNER

When in his study pent the whole year through,
Man views the world, as through an optic glass,
On a chance holiday, and scarcely then,
How by persuasion can he govern men?

FAUST

If feeling prompt not, if it doth not flow
Fresh from the spirit’s depths, with strong control
Swaying to rapture every listener’s soul,
Idle your toil; the chase you may forego!
Brood o’er your task! Together glue,
Cook from another’s feast your own ragout,
Still prosecute your paltry game,
And fan your ash-heaps into flame!
Thus children’s wonder you’ll excite,
And apes’, if such your appetite;
But that which issues from the heart alone,
Will bend the hearts of others to your own.

WAGNER

The speaker in delivery, will find
Success alone; I still am far behind.

FAUST

A worthy object still pursue!
Be not a hollow tinkling fool!
Sound understanding, judgment true,
Find utterance without art or rule;
And when in earnest you are moved to speak,
Then is it needful cunning words to seek?
Your fine harangues, so polish’d in their kind,
Wherein the shreds of human thought ye twist,
Are unrefreshing as the empty wind,
Whistling through wither’d leaves and autumn mist!

WAGNER

Oh God! How long is art,
Our life how short! With earnest zeal
Still as I ply the critic’s task, I feel
A strange oppression both of head and heart.
The very means—how hardly are they won,
By which we to the fountains rise!
And, haply, ere one half the course is run,
Check’d in his progress, the poor devil dies.

FAUST

Parchment, is that the sacred fount whence roll
Waters he thirsteth not who once hath quaffed?
Oh, if it gush not from thine inmost soul,
Thou hast not won the life-restoring draught.

WAGNER

Your pardon! ’tis delightful to transport
Oneself into the spirit of the past,
To see in times before us how a wise man thought,
And what a glorious height we have achieved at last.

FAUST

Ay, truly! even to the loftiest star!
To us, my friend, the ages that are pass’d
A book with seven seals, close-fasten’d, are;
And what the spirit of the times men call,
Is merely their own spirit after all,
Wherein, distorted oft, the times are glass’d.
Then truly, ’tis a sight to grieve the soul!
At the first glance we fly it in dismay;
A very lumber-room, a rubbish-hole;
At best a sort of mock-heroic play,
With saws pragmatical, and maxims sage,
To suit the puppets and their mimic stage.

WAGNER

But then the world and man, his heart and brain!
Touching these things all men would something know.

FAUST

Ay! what ‘mong men as knowledge doth obtain!
Who on the child its true name dares bestow?
The few who somewhat of these things have known,
Who their full hearts unguardedly reveal’d,
Nor thoughts, nor feelings, from the mob conceal’d,
Have died on crosses, or in flames been thrown.—
Excuse me, friend, far now the night is spent,
For this time we must say adieu.

WAGNER

Still to watch on I had been well content,
Thus to converse so learnedly with you.
But as tomorrow will be Easter-day,
Some further questions grant, I pray;
With diligence to study still I fondly cling;
Already I know much, but would know everything. [Exit.]

FAUST (alone)

How him alone all hope abandons never,
To empty trash who clings, with zeal untired,
With greed for treasure gropes, and, joy-inspir’d,
Exults if earth-worms second his endeavor.

And dare a voice of merely human birth,
E’en here, where shapes immortal throng’d, intrude?
Yet ah! thou poorest of the sons of earth,
For once, I e’en to thee feel gratitude.
Despair the power of sense did well-nigh blast,
And thou didst save me ere I sank dismay’d;
So giant-like the vision seem’d, so vast,
I felt myself shrink dwarf’d as I survey’d!

I, God’s own image, from this toil of clay
Already freed, with eager joy who hail’d
The mirror of eternal truth unveil’d,
Mid light effulgent and celestial day
I, more than cherub, whose unfetter’d soul
With penetrative glance aspir’d to flow
Through nature’s veins, and, still creating, know
The life of gods,—how am I punish’d now!
One thunder-word hath hurl’d me from the goal!

Spirit! I dare not lift me to thy sphere.
What though my power compell’d thee to appear,
My art was powerless to detain thee here.
In that great moment, rapture-fraught,
I felt myself so small, so great;
Fiercely didst thrust me from the realm of thought
Back on humanity’s uncertain fate!
Who’ll teach me now? What ought I to forego?
Ought I that impulse to obey?
Alas! our every deed, as well as every woe,
Impedes the tenor of life’s onward way!

E’en to the noblest by the soul conceiv’d,
Some feelings cling of baser quality;
And when the goods of this world are achiev’d,
Each nobler aim is term’d a cheat, a lie.
Our aspirations, our soul’s genuine life,
Grow torpid in the din of earthly strife.

Though youthful phantasy, while hope inspires,
Stretch o’er the infinite her wing sublime,
A narrow compass limits her desires,
When wreck’d our fortunes in the gulf of time.
In the deep heart of man care builds her nest,
O’er secret woes she broodeth there,
Sleepless she rocks herself and scareth joy and rest;
Still is she wont some new disguise to wear—
She may as house and court, as wife and child appear,
As dagger, poison, fire and flood;
Imagined evils chill thy blood,
And what thou ne’er shalt lose, o’er that dost shed the tear.

I am not like the gods! Feel it I must;
I’m like the earth-worm, writhing in the dust,
Which, as on dust it feeds, its native fare,
Crushed ‘neath the passer’s tread, lies buried there.

Is it not dust, wherewith this lofty wall,
With hundred shelves, confines me round;
Rubbish, in thousand shapes, may I not call
What in this moth-world doth my being bound?
Here, what doth fail me, shall I find?
Read in a thousand tomes that, everywhere,
Self-torture is the lot of human-kind,
With but one mortal happy, here and there
Thou hollow skull, that grin, what should it say,
But that thy brain, like mine, of old perplexed,
Still yearning for the truth, hath sought the light of day,
And in the twilight wandered, sorely vexed?
Ye instruments, forsooth, ye mock at me,—
With wheel, and cog, and ring, and cylinder;
To nature’s portals ye should be the key;
Cunning your wards, and yet the bolts ye fail to stir.
Inscrutable in broadest light,
To be unveil’d by force she doth refuse,
What she reveals not to thy mental sight
Thou wilt not wrest from her with levers and with screws.
Old useless furnitures, yet stand ye here,
Because my sire ye served, now dead and gone.
Old scroll, the smoke of years dost wear,
So long as o’er this desk the sorry lamp hath shone.
Better my little means hath squandered quite away
Than burden’d by that little here to sweat and groan!
Wouldst thou possess thy heritage, essay
By use to render it thine own!
What we employ not but impedes our way;
That which the hour creates, that can it use alone!

But wherefore to yon spot is riveted my gaze?
Is yonder flasket there a magnet to my sight?
Whence this mild radiance that around me plays,
As when, ‘mid forest gloom, reigneth the moon’s soft light?
Hail, precious phial! Thee, with reverent awe,
Down from thine old receptacle I draw!
Science in thee I hail and human art.

Essence of deadliest powers, refin’d and sure,
Of soothing anodynes abstraction pure,
Now in thy master’s need thy grace impart!
I gaze on thee, my pain is lull’d to rest;
I grasp thee, calm’d the tumult in my breast;
The flood-tide of my spirit ebbs away;
Onward I’m summon’d o’er a boundless main,
Calm at my feet expands the glassy plain,
To shores unknown allures a brighter day.

Lo, where a car of fire, on airy pinion,
Comes floating towards me! I’m prepar’d to fly
By a new track through ether’s wide dominion,
To distant spheres of pure activity.
This life intense, this godlike ecstasy—
Worm that thou art such rapture canst thou earn!
Only resolve, with courage stern and high,
Thy visage from the radiant sun to turn!
Dare with determin’d will to burst the portals
Past which in terror others fain would steal!
Now is the time, through deeds, to show that mortals
The calm sublimity of gods can feel;
To shudder not at yonder dark abyss
Where phantasy creates her own self-torturing brood;
Right onward to the yawning gulf to press,
Around whose narrow jaws rolleth hell’s fiery flood;
With glad resolve to take the fatal leap,
Though danger threaten thee, to sink in endless sleep!

Pure crystal goblet! forth I draw thee now
From out thine antiquated case, where thou
Forgotten hast reposed for many a year!
Oft at my father’s revels thou didst shine;
To glad the earnest guests was thine,
As each to other passed the generous cheer.
The gorgeous brede of figures, quaintly wrought,
Which he who quaff’d must first in rhyme expound,
Then drain the goblet at one draught profound,
Hath nights of boyhood to fond memory brought.
I to my neighbor shall not reach thee now,
Nor on thy rich device shall I my cunning show.
Here is a juice, makes drunk without delay;
Its dark brown flood thy crystal round doth fill;
Let this last draught, the product of my skill,
My own free choice, be quaff’d with resolute will,
A solemn festive greeting, to the coming day!
[He places the goblet to his mouth.]

[The ringing of bells, and choral voices.]

CHORUS OF ANGELS

Christ is arisen!
Mortal, all hail to thee,
Thou whom mortality,
Earth’s sad reality,
Held as in prison.

FAUST

What hum melodious, what clear silvery chime,
Thus draws the goblet from my lips away?
Ye deep-ton’d bells, do ye, with voice sublime,
Announce the solemn dawn of Easter-day?
Sweet choir! are ye the hymn of comfort singing,
Which once around the darkness of the grave,
From seraph-voices, in glad triumph ringing,
Of a new covenant assurance gave?

CHORUS OF WOMEN

We, his true-hearted,
With spices and myrrh.
Embalmed the departed,
And swathed Him with care;
Here we conveyed Him,
Our Master, so dear;
Alas! Where we laid Him,
The Christ is not here.

CHORUS OF ANGELS

Christ is arisen!
Blessed the loving one,
Who from earth’s trial-throes,
Healing and strengthening woes,
Soars as from prison.

FAUST

Wherefore, ye tones celestial, sweet and strong,
Come ye a dweller in the dust to seek?
Ring out your chimes believing crowds among,
The message well I hear, my faith alone is weak;
From faith her darling, miracle, hath sprung.
Aloft to yonder spheres I dare not soar,
Whence sound the tidings of great joy;
And yet, with this sweet strain familiar when a boy,
Back it recalleth me to life once more.
Then would celestial love, with holy kiss,
Come o’er me in the Sabbath’s stilly hour,
While, fraught with solemn meaning and mysterious power,
Chim’d the deep-sounding bell, and prayer was bliss;
A yearning impulse, undefin’d yet dear,
Drove me to wander on through wood and field;
With heaving breast and many a burning tear,
I felt with holy joy a world reveal’d.
Gay sports and festive hours proclaim’d with joyous pealing
This Easter hymn in days of old;
And fond remembrance now doth me, with childlike feeling,
Back from the last, the solemn step, withhold.
O still sound on, thou sweet celestial strain!
The tear-drop flows—Earth, I am thine again!

CHORUS OF DISCIPLES

He whom we mourned as dead,
Living and glorious,

From the dark grave hath fled,
O’er death victorious;
Almost creative bliss
Waits on His growing powers;
Ah! Him on earth we miss;
Sorrow and grief are ours.
Yearning He left His own,
Mid sore annoy;
Ah! we must needs bemoan,
Master, thy joy!

CHORUS OF ANGELS

Christ is arisen,
Redeem’d from decay.
The bonds which imprison
Your souls, rend away!
Praising the Lord with zeal,
By deeds that love reveal,
Like brethren true and leal
Sharing the daily meal,
To all that sorrow feel
Whisp’ring of heaven’s weal,
Still is the Master near,
Still is He here!

BEFORE THE GATE Promenaders of all sorts pass out.

ARTISANS

Why choose ye that direction, pray?

OTHERS

To the hunting-lodge we’re on our way.

THE FIRST

We toward the mill are strolling on.

A MECHANIC

A walk to Wasserhof were best.

A SECOND

The road is not a pleasant one.

THE OTHERS

What will you do?

A THIRD

I’ll join the rest.

A FOURTH

Let’s up to Burghof, there you’ll find good cheer,
The prettiest maidens and the best of beer,
And brawls of a prime sort.

A FIFTH

You scapegrace! How?
Your skin still itching for a row?
Thither I will not go, I loathe the place.

SERVANT GIRL

No, no! I to the town my steps retrace.

ANOTHER

Near yonder poplars he is sure to be.

THE FIRST

And if he is, what matters it to me!
With you he’ll walk, he’ll dance with none but you,
And with your pleasures what have I to do?

THE SECOND

Today he will not be alone, he said
His friend would be with him, the curly-head.

STUDENT

Why how those buxom girls step on!
Come, brother, we will follow them anon.
Strong beer, a damsel smartly dress’d,
Stinging tobacco—these I love the best.

BURGHER’S DAUGHTER

Look at those handsome fellows there!
‘Tis really shameful, I declare;
The very best society they shun,
After those servant-girls forsooth, to run.

SECOND STUDENT (to the first)

Not quite so fast! for in our rear,
Two girls, well-dress’d, are drawing near;
Not far from us the one doth dwell,
And, sooth to say, I like her well.
They walk demurely, yet you’ll see,
That they will let us join them presently.

THE FIRST

Not I! restraints of all kinds I detest.
Quick! let us catch the wild-game ere it flies;
The hand on Saturday the mop that plies
Will on the Sunday fondle you the best.

BURGHER

No, this new Burgomaster; I like him not, God knows;
No, he’s in office; daily more arrogant he grows;
And for the town, what doth he do for it?
Are not things worse from day to day?
To more restraints we must submit;
And taxes more than ever pay.

BEGGAR (sings)

Kind gentlemen and ladies fair,
So rosy-cheek’d and trimly dress’d,
Be pleas’d to listen to my prayer;
Relieve and pity the distress’d.
Let me not vainly sing my lay!
His heart’s most glad whose hand is free.
Now when all men keep holiday,
Should be a harvest-day to me.

OTHER BURGHER

On holidays and Sundays naught know I more inviting
Than chatting about war and war’s alarms,
When folk in Turkey, up in arms,
Far off, are ‘gainst each other fighting.
We at the window stand, our glasses drain
And watch adown the stream the painted vessels gliding;
Then joyful we at eve come home again,
And peaceful times we bless, peace long-abiding.

THIRD BURGHER

Ay, neighbor! So let matters stand for me!
There they may scatter one another’s brains,
And wild confusion round them see—
So here at home in quiet all remains!

OLD WOMAN (to the BURGHERS’ DAUGHTERS)

Heyday! How smart! The fresh young blood!
Who would not fall in love with you?
Not quite so proud! ‘Tis well and good!
And what you wish, that I could help you to.

BURGHER’S DAUGHTER

Come, Agatha! I care not to be seen
Walking in public with these witches. True,
My future lover, last St. Andrew’s E’en,
In flesh and blood she brought before my view.

ANOTHER

And mine she show’d me also in the glass.
A soldier’s figure, with companions bold;
I look around, I seek him as I pass—
In vain, his form I nowhere can behold.

SOLDIERS

Fortress with turrets
And walls high in air,
Damsel disdainful,
Haughty and fair—
These be my prey!
Bold is the venture,
Costly the pay!

Hark, how the trumpet
Thither doth call us
Where either pleasure
Or death may befall us!
Hail to the tumult!
Life’s in the field!
Damsel and fortress
To us must yield.
Bold is the venture,
Costly the pay!
Gaily the soldier
Marches away.

FAUST and WAGNER

FAUST

Loosed from their fetters are streams and rills
Through the gracious spring-tide’s all-quickening glow;
Hope’s budding joy in the vale doth blow;
Old Winter back to the savage hills
Withdraweth his force, decrepid now.
Thence only impotent icy grains
Scatters he as he wings his flight,
Striping with sleet the verdant plains;
But the sun endureth no trace of white;
Everywhere growth and movement are rife,
All things investing with hues of life
Though flowers are lacking, varied of dye,
Their colors the motley throng supply.
Turn thee around, and, from this height,
Back to the town direct thy sight.
Forth from the hollow, gloomy gate,
Stream forth the masses, in bright array.
Gladly seek they the sun today;

The Lord’s Resurrection they celebrate:
For they themselves have risen, with joy,
From tenement sordid, from cheerless room,
From bonds of toil, from care and annoy,
From gable and roof’s o’erhanging gloom,
From crowded alley and narrow street,
And from the churches’ awe-breathing night
All now have come forth into the light.
Look, only look, on nimble feet,
Through garden and field how spread the throng,
How o’er the river’s ample sheet
Many a gay wherry glides along;
And see, deep sinking in the tide,
Pushes the last boat now away.
E’en from yon far hill’s path-worn side,
Flash the bright hues of garments gay.
Hark! Sounds of village mirth arise;
This is the people’s paradise.
Both great and small send up a cheer;
Here am I man, I feel it here.

WAGNER

Sir Doctor, in a walk with you
There’s honor and instruction too;
Yet here alone I care not to resort,
Because I coarseness hate of every sort.
This fiddling, shouting, skittling, I detest;
I hate the tumult of the vulgar throng;
They roar as by the evil one possess’d,
And call it pleasure, call it song.

PEASANTS (under the linden-tree)

Dance and Sing.

  The shepherd for the dance was dress’d,
With ribbon, wreath, and colored vest,
A gallant show displaying.
And round about the linden-tree,

  They footed it right merrily.
Juchhe! Juchhe!
Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
So fiddle-bow was braying.
Our swain amidst the circle press’d,
He push’d a maiden trimly dress’d,
And jogg’d her with his elbow;
The buxom damsel turn’d her head,
“Now that’s a stupid trick!” she said,
Juchhe! Juchhe!
Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
Don’t be so rude, good fellow!

  Swift in the circle they advanced,
They danced to right, to left they danced,
And all the skirts were swinging.
And they grew red, and they grew warm,
Panting, they rested arm in arm,
Juchhe! Juchhe!
Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
To hip their elbow bringing.

  Don’t make so free! How many a maid
Has been betroth’d and then betray’d;
And has repented after!
Yet still he flatter’d her aside,
And from the linden, far and wide,
Juchhe! Juchhe!
Juchheisa! Heisa! He!
Rang fiddle-bow and laughter.

OLD PEASANT

Doctor, ’tis really kind of you,
To condescend to come this way,
A highly learned man like you,
To join our mirthful throng today.
Our fairest cup I offer you,
Which we with sparkling drink have crown’d,
And pledging you, I pray aloud,
That every drop within its round,
While it your present thirst allays,
May swell the number of your days.

FAUST

I take the cup you kindly reach, Thanks and prosperity to each! [The crowd gather round in a circle.]

OLD PEASANT

Ay, truly! ’tis well done, that you
Our festive meeting thus attend;
You, who in evil days of yore,
So often show’d yourself our friend!
Full many a one stands living here,
Who from the fever’s deadly blast
Your father rescu’d, when his skill
The fatal sickness stay’d at last.
A young man then, each house you sought,
Where reign’d the mortal pestilence.
Corpse after corpse was carried forth,
But still unscath’d you issued thence.
Sore then your trials and severe;
The Helper yonder aids the helper here.

ALL

Heaven bless the trusty friend, and long
To help the poor his life prolong!

FAUST

To Him above in homage bend, Who prompts the helper and Who help doth send. [He proceeds with WAGNER.]

WAGNER

What feelings, great man, must thy breast inspire,
At homage paid thee by this crowd! Thrice blest
Who from the gifts by him possessed
Such benefit can draw! The sire
Thee to his boy with reverence shows,

They press around, inquire, advance,
Hush’d is the fiddle, check’d the dance.
Where thou dost pass they stand in rows,
And each aloft his bonnet throws,
But little fails and they to thee,
As though the Host came by, would bend the knee.

FAUST

A few steps further, up to yonder stone!
Here rest we from our walk. In times long past,
Absorb’d in thought, here oft I sat alone,
And disciplin’d myself with prayer and fast.
Then rich in hope, with faith sincere,
With sighs, and hands in anguish press’d,
The end of that sore plague, with many a tear,
From heaven’s dread Lord, I sought to wrest.
The crowd’s applause assumes a scornful tone.
Oh, could’st thou in my inner being read
How little either sire or son
Of such renown deserves the meed!

My sire, of good repute, and sombre mood,
O’er nature’s powers and every mystic zone,
With honest zeal, but methods of his own,
With toil fantastic loved to brood;

His time in dark alchemic cell,
With brother-adepts he would spend,
And there antagonists compel
Through numberless receipts to blend.
A ruddy lion there, a suitor bold,
In tepid bath was with the lily wed.
Thence both, while open flames around them roll’d,
Were tortur’d to another bridal bed.

Was then the youthful queen descried
With varied colors in the flask—
This was our medicine; the patients died;
“Who were restored?” none cared to ask.
With our infernal mixture thus, ere long.
These hills and peaceful vales among
We rag’d more fiercely than the pest;
Myself the deadly poison did to thousands give;
They pined away, I yet must live
To hear the reckless murderers blest.

WAGNER

Why let this thought your soul o’ercast?
Can man do more than with nice skill,
With firm and conscientious will,
Practise the art transmitted from the past?
If thou thy sire dost honor in thy youth,
His lore thou gladly wilt receive;
In manhood, dost thou spread the bounds of truth,
Then may thy son a higher goal achieve.

FAUST

How blest, in whom the fond desire
From error’s sea to rise, hope still renews!
What a man knows not, that he doth require,
And what he knoweth, that he cannot use.
But let not moody thoughts their shadow throw
O’er the calm beauty of this hour serene!
In the rich sunset see how brightly glow
Yon cottage homes, girt round with verdant green!
Slow sinks the orb, the day is now no more;
Yonder he hastens to diffuse new life.
Oh for a pinion from the earth to soar,
And after, ever after him to strive!
Then should I see the world below,
Bathed in the deathless evening-beams,
The vales reposing, every height a-glow,
The silver brooklets meeting golden streams.
The savage mountain, with its cavern’d side,
Bars not my godlike progress. Lo, the ocean,
Its warm bays heaving with a tranquil motion,
To my rapt vision opes its ample tide!
But now at length the god appears to sink
A new-born impulse wings my flight,
Onward I press, his quenchless light to drink,
The day before me, and behind the night,
The pathless waves beneath, and over me the skies.
Fair dream, it vanish’d with the parting day!
Alas! that when on spirit-wing we rise,
No wing material lifts our mortal clay.
But ’tis our inborn impulse, deep and strong,
Upwards and onwards still to urge our flight,
When far above us pours its thrilling song
The sky-lark, lost in azure light;
When on extended wing amain
O’er pine-crown’d height the eagle soars;
And over moor and lake, the crane
Still striveth toward its native shores.

WAGNER

To strange conceits oft I myself must own,
But impulse such as this I ne’er have known
Nor woods, nor fields, can long our thoughts engage;
Their wings I envy not the feather’d kind;
Far otherwise the pleasures of the mind
Bear us from book to book, from page to page I
Then winter nights grow cheerful; keen delight
Warms every limb; and ah! when we unroll
Some old and precious parchment, at the sight
All heaven itself descends upon the soul.

FAUST

Thy heart by one sole impulse is possess’d;
Unconscious of the other still remain!
Two souls, alas! are lodg’d within my breast,
Which struggle there for undivided reign
One to the world, with obstinate desire,
And closely-cleaving organs, still adheres;
Above the mist, the other doth aspire,
With sacred vehemence, to purer spheres.
Oh, are there spirits in the air
Who float ‘twixt heaven and earth dominion wielding,
Stoop hither from your golden atmosphere,

Lead me to scenes, new life and fuller yielding!
A magic mantle did I but possess,
Abroad to waft me as on viewless wings,
I’d prize it far beyond the costliest dress,
Nor would I change it for the robe of kings.

WAGNER

Call not the spirits who on mischief wait!
Their troop familiar, streaming through the air,
From every quarter threaten man’s estate,
And danger in a thousand forms prepare!
They drive impetuous from the frozen north,
With fangs sharp-piercing, and keen arrowy tongues;
From the ungenial east they issue forth,
And prey, with parching breath, upon thy lungs;
If, waft’d on the desert’s flaming wing,
They from the south heap fire upon the brain,
Refreshment from the west at first they bring,
Anon to drown thyself and field and plain.
In wait for mischief, they are prompt to hear;
With guileful purpose our behests obey;
Like ministers of grace they oft appear,
And lisp like angels, to betray.
But let us hence! Gray eve doth all things blend,
The air grows chill, the mists descend!
‘Tis in the evening first our home we prize—
Why stand you thus, and gaze with wondering eyes?
What in the gloom thus moves you?

FAUST

                                  Yon black hound
See ‘st thou, through corn and stubble scampering round?

WAGNER

I’ve mark’d him long, naught strange in him I see!

FAUST

Note him! What takest thou the brute to be?

WAGNER

But for a poodle, whom his instinct serves
His master’s track to find once more.

FAUST

Dost mark how round us, with wide spiral curves,
He wheels, each circle closer than before?
And, if I err not, he appears to me
A line of ‘fire upon his track to leave.

WAGNER

Naught but a poodle black of hue I see;
‘Tis some illusion doth your sight deceive.

FAUST

Methinks a magic coil our feet around,
He for a future snare doth lightly spread.

WAGNER

Around us as in doubt I see him shyly bound,
Since he two strangers seeth in his master’s stead.

FAUST

The circle narrows, he’s already near!

WAGNER

A dog dost see, no spectre have we here;
He growls, doubts, lays him on his belly too,
And wags his tail-as dogs are wont to do.

FAUST

Come hither, Sirrah! join our company!

WAGNER

A very poodle, he appears to be!
Thou standest still, for thee he’ll wait;
Thou speak’st to him, he fawns upon thee straight;
Aught thou mayst lose, again he’ll bring,
And for thy stick will into water spring.

FAUST

Thou’rt right indeed; no traces now I see
Whatever of a spirit’s agency,
‘Tis training—nothing more.

WAGNER

                   A dog well taught
E’en by the wisest of us may be sought.
Ay, to your favor he’s entitled too,
Apt scholar of the students, ’tis his due!

[They enter the gate of the town.]

STUDY

FAUST (entering with, the poodle)

Now field and meadow I’ve forsaken;
O’er them deep night her veil doth draw;
In us the better soul doth waken,
With feelings of foreboding awe.
All lawless promptings, deeds unholy,
Now slumber, and all wild desires;
The love of man doth sway us wholly,
And love to God the soul inspires.

Peace, poodle, peace! Scamper not thus; obey me!
Why at the threshold snuffest thou so?
Behind the stove now quietly lay thee,
My softest cushion to thee I’ll throw.
As thou, without, didst please and amuse me,
Running and frisking about on the hill,
So tendance now I will not refuse thee;
A welcome guest, if thou’lt be still.

Ah! when the friendly taper gloweth,
Once more within our narrow cell,
Then in the heart itself that knoweth,
A light the darkness doth dispel.
Reason her voice resumes; returneth
Hope’s gracious bloom, with promise rife;
For streams of life the spirit yearneth,
Ah! for the very fount of life.
Poodle, snarl not! with the tone that arises,
Hallow’d and peaceful, my soul within,
Accords not thy growl, thy bestial din.
We find it not strange, that man despises
What he conceives not;
That he the good and fair misprizes—
Finding them often beyond his ken;
Will the dog snarl at them like men?

But ah! Despite my will, it stands confessed;
Contentment welleth up no longer in my breast.
Yet wherefore must the stream, alas, so soon be dry,
That we once more athirst should lie?
Full oft this sad experience hath been mine;
Nathless the want admits of compensation;
For things above the earth we learn to pine,
Our spirits yearn for revelation,
Which nowhere burns with purer beauty blent,
Than here in the New Testament.
To ope the ancient text an impulse strong
Impels me, and its sacred lore,
With honest purpose to explore,
And render into my loved German tongue.

[He opens a volume and applies himself to it.]

‘Tis writ, “In the beginning was the Word!”
I pause, perplex’d! Who now will help afford?
I cannot the mere Word so highly prize;
I must translate it otherwise,
If by the spirit guided as I read.
“In the beginning was the Sense!” Take heed,
The import of this primal sentence weigh,
Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray!
Is force creative then of Sense the dower?
“In the beginning was the Power!”
Thus should it stand: yet, while the line I trace,
A something warns me, once more to efface.
The spirit aids! from anxious scruples freed,
I write, “In the beginning was the Deed!”

Am I with thee my room to share,
Poodle, thy barking now forbear,
Forbear thy howling!
Comrade so noisy, ever growling,
I cannot suffer here to dwell.
One or the other, mark me well,
Forthwith must leave the cell.
I’m loath the guest-right to withhold;
The door’s ajar, the passage clear;
But what must now mine eyes behold!
Are nature’s laws suspended here?
Real is it, or a phantom show?
In length and breadth how doth my poodle grow!
He lifts himself with threat’ning mien,
In likeness of a dog no longer seen!
What spectre have I harbor’d thus!
Huge as a hippopotamus,
With fiery eye, terrific tooth!
Ah! now I know thee, sure enough!
For such a base, half-hellish brood,
The key of Solomon is good.

SPIRITS (without)

Captur’d there within is one!
Stay without and follow none!
Like a fox in iron snare,
Hell’s old lynx is quaking there,
But take heed’!
Hover round, above, below,
To and fro,
Then from durance is he freed!
Can ye aid him, spirits all,
Leave him not in mortal thrall!
Many a time and oft hath he
Served us, when at liberty.

FAUST

The monster to confront, at first,
The spell of Four must be rehears’d;

 Salamander shall kindle,
Writhe nymph of the wave,
In air sylph shall dwindle,
And Kobold shall slave.

Who doth ignore
The primal Four,
Nor knows aright
Their use and might,
O’er spirits will he
Ne’er master be!

 Vanish in the fiery glow,
Salamander!
Rushingly together flow,
Undine!
Shimmer in the meteor’s gleam,
Sylphide!
Hither bring thine homely aid,
Incubus! Incubus!
Step forth! I do adjure thee thus!

None of the Four
Lurks in the beast;
He grins at me, untroubled as before;
I have not hurt him in the least.
A spell of fear
Thou now shalt hear.

 Art thou, comrade fell,
Fugitive from Hell?
See then this sign,
Before which incline
The murky troops of Hell!
With bristling hair now doth the creature swell.

 Canst thou, reprobate,
Read the uncreate,
Unspeakable, diffused
Throughout the heavenly sphere,
Shamefully abused,
Transpierced with nail and spear!

Behind the stove, tam’d by my spells,
Like an elephant he swells;
Wholly now he fills the room,
He into mist will melt away.
Ascend not to the ceiling! Come,
Thyself at the master’s feet now lay!
Thou seest that mine is no idle threat.
With holy fire I will scorch thee yet!
Wait not the might
That lies in the triple-glowing light!
Wait not the might
Of all my arts in fullest measure!

MEPHISTOPHELES (as the mist sinks, comes forward from behind the stove, in the dress of a traveling scholar)

Why all this uproar? What’s the master’s pleasure?

FAUST

This then the kernel of the brute!
A traveling scholar? Why I needs must smile.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Your learned reverence humbly I salute!
You’ve made me swelter in a pretty style.

FAUST

Thy name?

MEPHISTOPHELES

         The question trifling seems from one,
Who it appears the Word doth rate so low;
Who, undeluded by mere outward show,
To Being’s depths would penetrate alone.

FAUST

With gentlemen like you indeed
The inward essence from the name we read,
As all too plainly it doth appear,
When Beelzebub, Destroyer, Liar, meets the ear.
Who then art thou?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Part of that power which still Produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill.

FAUST

What hidden mystery in this riddle lies?

MEPHISTOPHELES

The spirit I, which evermore denies!
And justly; for whate’er to light is brought
Deserves again to be reduced to naught;
Then better ’twere that naught should be.
Thus all the elements which ye
Destruction, Sin, or briefly, Evil, name,
As my peculiar element I claim.

FAUST

Thou nam’st thyself a part, and yet a whole I see.

MEPHISTOPHELES

The modest truth I speak to thee.
Though folly’s microcosm, man, it seems,
Himself to be a perfect whole esteems:
Part of the part am I, which at the first was all,
A part of darkness, which gave birth to light—
Proud light, who now his mother would enthrall,
Contesting space and ancient rank with night.
Yet he succeedeth not, for struggle as he will,
To forms material he adhereth still;
From them he streameth, them he maketh fair,
And still the progress of his beams they check;
And so, I trust, when comes the final wreck,
Light will, ere long, the doom of matter share.

FAUST

Thy worthy avocation now I guess!
Wholesale annihilation won’t prevail,
So thou’rt beginning on a smaller scale.

MEPHISTOPHELES

And, to say truth, as yet with small success.
Oppos’d to naught, this clumsy world,
The something—it subsisteth still;
Not yet is it to ruin hurl’d,
Despite the efforts of my will.
Tempests and earthquakes, fire and flood, I’ve tried;
Yet land and ocean still unchang’d abide!
And then of humankind and beasts, the accursed brood,—
Neither o’er them can I extend my sway.
What countless myriads have I swept away!
Yet ever circulates the fresh young blood.
It is enough to drive me to despair!
As in the earth, in water, and in air,
A thousand germs burst forth spontaneously;
In moisture, drought, heat, cold, they still appear!
Had I not flame selected as my sphere,
Nothing apart had been reserved for me.

FAUST

So thou with thy cold devil’s fist,
Still clench’d in malice impotent,
Dost the creative power resist,
The active, the beneficent!
Henceforth some other task essay,
Of Chaos thou the wondrous son!

MEPHISTOPHELES

We will consider what you say,
And talk about it more anon!
For this time have I leave to go?

FAUST

Why thou shouldst ask, I cannot see.
Since thee I now have learned to know,

At thy good pleasure, visit me.
Here is the window, here the door,
The chimney, too, may serve thy need.

MEPHISTOPHELES

I must confess, my stepping o’er
Thy threshold a slight hindrance doth impede;
The wizard-foot doth me retain.

FAUST

The pentagram thy peace doth mart
To me, thou son of hell, explain,
How camest thou in, if this thine exit bar?
Could such a spirit aught ensnare?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Observe it well, it is not drawn with care;
One of the angles, that which points without,
Is, as thou seest, not quite closed.

FAUST

Chance hath the matter happily dispos’d!
So thou my captive art? No doubt!
By accident thou thus art caught!

MEPHISTOPHELES

In sprang the dog, indeed, observing naught;
Things now assume another shape,
The devil’s in the house and can’t escape.

FAUST

Why through the window not withdraw?

MEPHISTOPHELES

For ghosts and for the devil ’tis a law,
Where they stole in, there they must forth. We’re free
The first to choose; as to the second, slaves are we.

FAUST

E’en hell hath its peculiar laws, I see!
I’m glad of that! a pact may then be made,
The which you gentlemen will surely keep?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Whate’er therein is promised thou shalt reap,
No tittle shall remain unpaid.
But such arrangements time require;
We’ll speak of them when next we meet;
Most earnestly I now entreat,
This once permission to retire.

FAUST

Another moment prithee here remain,
Me with some happy word to pleasure.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Now let me go! Ere long I’ll come again;
Then thou may’st question at thy leisure.

FAUST

‘Twas not my purpose thee to lime;
The snare hast entered of thine own free will:
Let him who holds the devil, hold him still!
So soon he’ll catch him not a second time.

MEPHISTOPHELES

If it so please thee, I’m at thy command;
Only on this condition, understand;
That worthily thy leisure to beguile,
I here may exercise my arts awhile.

FAUST

Thou’rt free to do so! Gladly I’ll attend;
But be thine art a pleasant one!

MEPHISTOPHELES

 My friend,
This hour enjoyment more intense
Shall captivate each ravish’d sense,
Than thou could’st compass in the bound
Of the whole year’s unvarying round;
And what the dainty spirits sing,
The lovely images they bring,
Are no fantastic sorcery.
Rich odors shall regale your smell,
On choicest sweets your palate dwell,
Your feelings thrill with ecstasy.
No preparation do we need,
Here we together are. Proceed.

SPIRITS

 Hence overshadowing gloom,
Vanish from sight!
O’er us thine azure dome,
Bend, beauteous light!
Dark clouds that o’er us spread,
Melt in thin air!
Stars, your soft radiance shed,
Tender and fair!
Girt with celestial might,
Winging their airy flight,
Spirits are thronging.
Follows their forms of light
Infinite longing!
Flutter their vestures bright
O’er field and grove!
Where in their leafy bower
Lovers the livelong hour
Vow deathless love.
Soft bloometh bud and bower!
Bloometh the grove!
Grapes from the spreading vine
Crown the full measure;
Fountains of foaming wine
Gush from the pressure.
Still where the currents wind,
Gems brightly gleam;
Leaving the hills behind
On rolls the stream;
Now into ample seas,

 Spreadeth the flood—
Laving the sunny leas,
Mantled with wood.

[Illustration: FAUST AND MEPHISTO Liezen-Mayer]

 Rapture the feather’d throng,
Gaily careering,
Sip as they float along;
Sunward they’re steering;
On toward the isles of light
Winging their way,
That on the waters bright
Dancingly play.
Hark to the choral strain,
Joyfully ringing!
While on the grassy plain
Dancers are springing;
Climbing the steep hill’s side,
Skimming the glassy tide,
Wander they there;
Others on pinions wide
Wing the blue air;
All lifeward tending, upward still wending,
Toward yonder stars that gleam,
Far, far above;
Stars from whose tender beam
Rains blissful love.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Well done, my dainty spirits! now he slumbers!
Ye have entranc’d him fairly with your numbers!
This minstrelsy of yours I must repay.—
Thou art not yet the man to hold the devil fast!—
With fairest shapes your spells around him cast,
And plunge him in a sea of dreams!
But that this charm be rent, the threshold passed,
Tooth of rat the way must clear.
I need not conjure long it seems,
One rustles hitherward, and soon my voice will hear.
The master of the rats and mice,
Of flies and frogs, of bugs and lice,
Commands thy presence; without fear
Come forth and gnaw the threshold here,
Where he with oil has smear’d it.—Thou
Com’st hopping forth already! Now
To work! The point that holds me bound
Is in the outer angle found.
Another bite—so—now ’tis done—
Now, Faustus, till we meet again, dream on.

FAUST (awaking)

Am I once more deluded! must I deem
That thus the throng of spirits disappear?
The devil’s presence—was it but a dream?
Hath but a poodle scap’d and left me here?