Part 3
EMPEROR: I could wish for many such jests.-- Suddenly I saw myself in a glowing sphere, It seemed to me almost as if I were Pluto. From night and coals lay a rocky ground, Glowing with little flames. From this and that gulf Many thousands of wild flames whirled up And flickered together into a vault. Toward the highest dome it tongued aloft, Which ever formed and ever vanished. Through distant space of winding columns of fire I saw the long processions of peoples moved, They pressed in a wide circle near And did homage, as they ever used to do. Among my court I recognized here and there one, I seemed a prince of a thousand salamanders.
MEPHISTOPHELES: That you are, Sire! since every element Recognizes majesty as unconditional. Obedient fire you have now proved; Cast yourself into the sea, where it rages wildest, And scarce you touch the pearl-rich ground, Then a glorious round forms, waving, You see light-green supple waves rise and fall, Swelling with purple hem into the fairest dwelling Around you, the center. At every step, Wherever you go, the palaces go with you. The walls themselves rejoice in life, In arrow-swift teeming, to and fro striving. Sea-monsters press toward the new mild light, They dart up, and none may enter in. There play colorfully gold-scaled dragons, The shark gapes, you laugh into his jaws. However the court now delights around you, Yet you never beheld such a throng. But you remain not parted from what is loveliest: There approach, curious, the Nereids Of the splendid dwelling in eternal freshness, The youngest shy and lustful like fishes, The later ones wise. Already Thetis learns of it, To the second Peleus she offers hand and mouth.-- Then the seat upon Olympus' domain...
EMPEROR: The airy spaces, those I leave to you: Soon enough one mounts that throne.
MEPHISTOPHELES: And, highest Lord! the earth you already have.
EMPEROR: What good fortune brought you here to me, Directly out of A Thousand and One Nights? If in fruitfulness you equal Scheherazade, I assure you of the highest of all graces. Be ever ready, when your daytime world, As often happens, displeases me most vilely.
MARSHAL: Most gracious sir, I thought in all my life Never to give tidings of such fair fortune As this, which makes me highly blessed, Enraptured in your presence: Account by account is settled, The usurer's claws are soothed, Freed am I from such hellish pain; In heaven it cannot be more cheerful.
MASTER OF THE HORSE: The pay is discharged in full, The whole army newly sworn, The foot-soldier feels fresh blood, And host and wenches fare well.
EMPEROR: How your breasts breathe, expanded! The wrinkled face brightened! How eagerly you step forward!
TREASURER: Question those who did the work.
FAUST: It befits the chancellor to present the matter.
CHANCELLOR: Blessed enough in my old days.-- So hear and behold the fateful sheet, Which has transformed all woe into weal. "Be it known to everyone who desires it: This note here is worth a thousand crowns. Secured to it, as certain pledge, Lies countless buried treasure in the imperial land. Now care is taken that the rich hoard, Raised at once, serve as recompense."
EMPEROR: I suspect crime, enormous fraud! Who forged here the signature of the emperor? Has such offense remained unpunished?
TREASURER: Remember! you yourself signed it; First last night. You stood as great Pan, The chancellor spoke with us to you: "Grant yourself the high festive pleasure, The people's weal, with a few pen-strokes." You drew them clean, then in this night Through the thousand-artist quickly multiplied a thousandfold. That the bounty might equally prosper for all, We stamped at once the whole series, Ten, thirty, fifty, a hundred are ready. You cannot imagine how well it did the people. See your city, else half-mouldered in death, How all lives and teems enjoying pleasure! Though your name long blessed the world, Never was it beheld so kindly. The alphabet is now superfluous, In this sign everyone is now blessed.
EMPEROR: And my people take it for good gold? The army, the court, it suffices for full pay? However it amazes me, I must let it pass.
MARSHAL: Impossible to catch the fugitives; With lightning-wink it scattered in its course. The exchange-banks stand open wide: They honor there every sheet Through gold and silver, certainly with discount. Now it goes from there to butcher, baker, tavern; Half the world seems to think only of feasting, While the other newly swells in garments. The shopkeeper cuts out, the tailor sews. At "Hail the Emperor!" it bubbles in the cellars, There it boils and roasts and clatters with plates.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Who strolls the terraces alone, Perceives the fairest, splendidly adorned, One eye concealed by the proud peacock fan, She smiles at us and looks after such a note; And quicker than through wit and rhetoric The richest love-favor is mediated. One will not plague oneself with purse and bag, A little leaf is easy to carry in the bosom, With love-letters it conveniently pairs here. The priest carries it devoutly in his breviary, And the soldier, to wheel about more swiftly, Lightens quickly the belt of his loins. His Majesty forgive, if into small things The high work I seem to lower.
FAUST: The excess of treasures, which, petrified, Deep in the soil of your lands lies dormant, Lies unused. The widest thought Is the most paltry bound of such riches; Fantasy, in its highest flight, Strains and never does enough for itself. Yet spirits, worthy, to gaze deep, Cherish boundless trust in the boundless.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Such paper, instead of gold and pearls, Is so convenient, one knows what one has; Need not first haggle, nor exchange, Can revel at will in love and wine. Would one have metal, a broker is ready, And if it fails there, we dig for a while. Goblet and chain are auctioned, And the paper, soon amortized, Shames the doubter who insolently mocks us. They want nothing else, are accustomed to it. Thus from now on in all imperial lands Enough of jewels, gold, paper remains.
EMPEROR: The high weal our realm owes to you; Where possible, let reward equal service. Trusted to you be the empire's inner soil, You are the worthiest custodians of the treasures. You know the wide, well-guarded hoard, And if one digs, let it be on your word. Unite now, you masters of our treasure, Fulfill with joy the dignities of your place, Where the upper world with the lower In unity blessed, joins together.
TREASURER: Let no furthest strife arise between us, I like the magician as colleague.
EMPEROR: Do I now at court gift man by man, Let each confess what he can use it for.
PAGE: I live merry, cheerful, of good cheer.
ANOTHER: I'll procure the sweetheart chain and rings.
CHAMBERLAIN: From now on I drink doubly better flask.
ANOTHER: The dice already itch in my pocket.
BANNER-LORD: My castle and field, I'll make them debt-free.
ANOTHER: It is a treasure, I'll add it to treasures.
EMPEROR: I hoped for joy and courage to new deeds; Yet who knows you, easily reads you. I note well: amid all treasures' bloom, As you were, you remain as before.
FOOL: You dispense graces, grant me some too!
EMPEROR: And live again, you'll soon drink them away.
FOOL: The magic leaves! I don't understand it right.
EMPEROR: I believe it, for you use them ill.
FOOL: Others get them; know not what I do.
EMPEROR: Take them, they fell to you indeed.
FOOL: Five thousand crowns would come to my hand!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Two-legged wineskin, are you risen again?
FOOL: Happens to me often, but not so well as now.
MEPHISTOPHELES: You rejoice so, it puts you in a sweat.
FOOL: Just look here, is that worth money?
MEPHISTOPHELES: You have for it what gullet and belly crave.
FOOL: And can I buy acre, house and cattle?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Of course! Just bid, that never fails you.
FOOL: And castle, with wood and hunt and fish-brook?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Indeed! I'd like to see you stern lord!
FOOL: Tonight I'll rock in real estate!--
MEPHISTOPHELES: Who doubts now our fool's wit!
Dark Gallery
MEPHISTOPHELES: Why draw you me into these gloomy passages? Is there not enough pleasure in there, In the dense, motley court-crowd Occasion for jest and deceit?
FAUST: Tell me not that, you wore it off long ago On the soles in old days; Yet now your coming and going Is only, to avoid your word to me. But I am tormented to act: The marshal and the chamberlain drive me now. The emperor wills, it must happen at once, Wills to see Helena and Paris before him; The paragon of men and of women In clear shapes he will behold. Quick to work! I may not break my word.
MEPHISTOPHELES: It was mad, to promise lightly.
FAUST: You, comrade, did not consider Where your arts lead us; First we made him rich, Now we shall amuse him.
MEPHISTOPHELES: You think it fits at once; Here we stand before steeper steps, You grasp into a most foreign realm, You make, at end, new debts profanely, Think to conjure Helena as lightly As the paper-ghost of the guilders.-- With witch-tricks, with ghost-webs, Hook-necked dwarfs I am at service straight; But devil's sweethearts, though not to blame, They cannot pass for heroines.
FAUST: There we have the old lyre-tune! With you one ever falls into uncertainty. You are the father of all hindrances, For every means you want new reward. With few murmurs, I know, it is done; As one looks round, you bring them to place.
MEPHISTOPHELES: The heathen folk concerns me not, They haunt their own hell; Yet there is a means.
FAUST: Speak, and without delay!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Unwillingly I reveal higher secret. Goddesses throne sublime in solitude, Around them no place, still less a time; To speak of them is embarrassment. The Mothers are they!
FAUST: Mothers!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Does it shudder you?
FAUST: The Mothers! Mothers!--'sounds so wondrous!
MEPHISTOPHELES: That it is too. Goddesses, unknown To you mortals, by us not gladly named. To their dwelling you may dig into the deepest; You yourself are to blame that we need them.
FAUST: Which way the path?
MEPHISTOPHELES: No path! Into the untrodden, Not to be trodden; a path to the unimplored, Not to be entreated. Are you ready?-- No castles are, no bolts to shove, By solitudes you'll be driven about. Have you conception of void and solitude?
FAUST: You spared, I think, such sayings; Here it smells of the witch-kitchen, Of a long-past time. Must I not consort with the world? Learn the empty, teach the empty?-- Spoke I reasonably, as I beheld, Rang contradiction doubly loud; Must I even, before repugnant strokes, Flee to solitude, to wilderness And, lest quite neglected, live alone, Yet at last give myself to the devil.
MEPHISTOPHELES: And had you swum across the ocean, Beheld the boundless there, You'd see there yet wave on wave come, Even if it horrified you before sinking. You'd see something. See perhaps in the green Of calmed seas gliding dolphins; See clouds drift, sun, moon and stars-- Nothing will you see in eternally empty distance, Not hear the step you take, Find no firm thing where you rest.
FAUST: You speak as first of all mystagogues, Who ever deceived true neophytes; Only reversed. You send me into the void, That there I may increase both art and force; You treat me, that I, like that cat, Scratch the chestnuts from the embers for you. Only on! we will fathom it, In your nothing I hope to find the all.
MEPHISTOPHELES: I praise you, ere you part from me, And see well that you know the devil; Here take this key.
FAUST: The little thing!
MEPHISTOPHELES: First grasp it and prize it not low.
FAUST: It grows in my hand! it shines, flashes!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Note you now soon what one possesses in it? The key will scent the right spot, Follow it down, it leads you to the Mothers.
FAUST: The Mothers! Ever strikes me like a blow! What is the word I may not hear?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Are you so limited, new word disturbs you? Will you hear only what you've heard already? Let nothing disturb you, however it sounds, Long accustomed to strangest things.
FAUST: Yet in stiffening I seek not my weal, The shudder is mankind's best part; However the world endears him that feeling, Seized, he feels deep the uncanny.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Sink then! I could also say: rise! 'Tis all one. Flee from the arisen Into the realms loosed from forms! Delight in what long since is no more; Like cloud-drifts winds the bustle, Swing the key, keep them from your body!
FAUST: Well! firm grasping it I feel new strength, The breast expands, forth to the great work.
MEPHISTOPHELES: A glowing tripod at last shows you, You are in the deepest, all-deepest ground. By its gleam you'll see the Mothers, Some sit, others stand and go, As it happens. Formation, transformation, Of eternal sense eternal entertainment. Haunted by images of all creation; They see you not, for they see but shades. There take heart, for the danger is great, And go straight at that tripod, Touch it with the key!
MEPHISTOPHELES: So is it right! It closes to, follows as faithful servant; Composed you sink, luck exalts you, And ere they note, you're back with it. And have you once brought it hither, You call hero and heroine from the night, The first who dared that deed; It is done, and you have achieved it. Then must forthwith, after magical handling, The incense-vapor turn into gods.
FAUST: And now what now?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Your being strive downward; Sink stamping, stamping you rise again.
MEPHISTOPHELES: If but the key serves him for the best! Curious am I, whether he returns.
Brightly Lighted Halls
CHAMBERLAIN: You still owe us the spirit-scene; Set about it! the lord is impatient.
MARSHAL: Just now the most gracious asked after it; You! delay not to the majesty's disgrace.
MEPHISTOPHELES: My comrade indeed went away for that; He knows already how to set about it, And labors sealed, silent, Must apply himself quite specially; For who would raise the treasure, the fair, Needs highest art, magic of the wise.
MARSHAL: What arts you need, is all one: The emperor wills that all be ready.
BLONDE: A word, my sir! You see a clear complexion, Yet so it is not in the cursed summer! Then sprout a hundred brownish red spots, Which to displeasure cover the white skin. A remedy!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Pity! such a luminous treasure Speckled in May like your panther-cats. Take frog-spawn, toad-tongues, cohobated, In fullest moonlight carefully distilled And, when it wanes, cleanly applied, Spring comes, the spots are gone.
BRUNETTE: The crowd presses near, to court you. I beg a remedy! A frozen foot Prevents me from walking as from dancing, Even awkwardly I move to greet.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Permit a tread from my foot.
BRUNETTE: Now, that happens well among lovers.
MEPHISTOPHELES: My footstep, child! has greater meaning. Like to like, whatever one suffered; Foot heals foot, so with all limbs. Come hither! Take care! you shall not return it.
BRUNETTE: Woe! Woe! it burns! that was a hard tread, + Like horse-hoof.
MEPHISTOPHELES: The healing you take with you. You can now dance at will, At table feasting foot with the loved one.
LADY: Let me through! Too great are my pains, They seethe burrowing in my deepest heart; Till yesterday He sought healing in my glances, He chatters with her and turns me his back.
MEPHISTOPHELES: It is dubious, but hear me. To him you must softly press near; Take this coal, draw him a stroke On sleeve, mantle, shoulder, as fits; He feels in the heart sweet repentant sting. The coal yet must you swallow at once, Bring no wine, no water to the lips; He sighs before your door yet tonight.
LADY: Is it no poison?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Respect, where it is due! Far would you have to run for such coal; It comes from a pyre, Which we else eagerly kindled.
PAGE: I am in love, one takes me not for full.
MEPHISTOPHELES: I know no more where to listen. Must not set your luck on the youngest. The older know to prize you.-- Again new ones! What a hard bout! I help myself at last with truth; The worst resort! The need is great.-- O Mothers, Mothers! Only let Faust loose! The lights already burn dim in the hall, The whole court moves at once. Decently I see them draw in train Through long passages, distant galleries. Now! they assemble in the wide space Of the old knight-hall, it scarce contains them. On broad walls tapestries bestowed, With armor corner and niche adorned. Here needs it, I think, no magic words; The spirits find themselves to the place of their own.
Knight's Hall
HERALD: My old office, to announce the play, Is cramped by the spirits' secret working; In vain one ventures, from sensible grounds, To explain the entangled dealing. The chairs are, the stools already at hand; They set the emperor right before the wall; On the tapestries he may there conveniently Behold the battles of the great time. Here sits now all, lord and court in round, The benches crowd in the background; Also sweetheart, in gloomy spirit-hours, Found by sweetheart lovely room at side. And so, as all fittingly taken place, We are ready; the spirits may come!
ASTROLOGER: Begin at once the drama its course, The lord commands it, you walls open yourselves! Nothing hinders more, here magic is at hand: The tapestries vanish, as rolled by fire; The wall splits, turns itself about, A deep theater seems to set up, Mysteriously a gleam to light us, And I ascend the proscenium.
MEPHISTOPHELES: From here I hope general favor, Whisperings are the devil's rhetoric. You know the measure in which the stars go, And will masterfully understand my whisper.
ASTROLOGER: Through wondrous power appears here to view, Solid enough, an old temple-build. Like Atlas who once bore the heaven, Stand in rows enough columns here; They may well suffice for the rock-load, Since two already bore a great building.
ARCHITECT: That were antique! I'd not know to praise it, It should be called clumsy and cumbersome. Rough they call noble, helplessly great. Slender pillars I love, striving, boundless; Pointed-arch zenith exalts the spirit; Such a building builds us most of all.
ASTROLOGER: Receive with reverence star-granted hours; Through magic word be reason bound; Against that, far hither move freely Glorious audacious fantasy. With eyes behold now what you boldly desired, Impossible is it, therefore just worthy of belief.
ASTROLOGER: In priestly robe, crowned, a wonder-man, Who now accomplishes what he confidently began. A tripod rises with him from hollow crypt, Already I scent from the bowl incense-fragrance. He prepares to bless the high work; Thenceforth only fortunate can meet.
FAUST: In your name, Mothers, who throne In the boundless, dwell eternally alone, Yet social. Your head hovers about The images of life, active, without life. What once was, in all splendor and seeming, Stirs there; for it wills to be eternal. And you dispense it, all-mighty powers, To the tent of day, to the vault of nights. The one the lovely course of life embraces, The other the bold magician seeks out; In rich gift, full of trust, he lets What each wishes, the wonder-worthy, behold.
ASTROLOGER: The glowing key scarce touches the bowl, A vaporous mist straight covers the space; It steals in, it waves cloud-like, Stretched, balled, crossed, divided, paired. And now recognize a spirit-masterpiece! As they wander, they make music. From airy tones wells a know-not-what, As they pass, all becomes melody. The column-shaft, also the triglyph rings, I think the whole temple sings. The misty sinks; from the light veil A fair youth steps forth in time. Here my office ceases, I need not name him, Who should not know the sweet Paris!
LADY: O! what a radiance of blooming youthful force!
SECOND: Like a peach fresh and full of juice!
THIRD: The finely drawn, sweetly swollen lips!
FOURTH: You'd like to sip at such a beaker?
FIFTH: He is quite pretty, if not exactly fine.
SIXTH: A bit could he be more dexterous.
KNIGHT: The shepherd-swain I believe here to scent, Of prince nothing and nothing of court-manners.
ANOTHER: Eh now! half naked is the boy surely fair, Yet must we see him first in harness!
LADY: He sits down, softly, pleasantly.
KNIGHT: On his lap were you comfortable?
ANOTHER: He leans the arm so daintily over the head.
CHAMBERLAIN: The boorishness! That I find illicit!
LADY: You gentlemen know at all something to carp.
SAME: In the emperor's presence to loll!
LADY: He only acts it! He thinks himself quite alone.
SAME: The play itself, here should it be polite.
LADY: Soft has sleep taken the fair one.
SAME: He snores now straight; natural it is, perfect!
YOUNG LADY: To the incense-vapor what smells so mixed, That refreshes my heart most inwardly?
OLDER: In truth! There penetrates a breath deep into the mind, It comes from him!
OLDEST: It is the blossom of growth, In the youth as ambrosia prepared And atmospherically spread all around.
MEPHISTOPHELES: That were she then! Before this I'd have rest; Fair she is well, but says not to me.
ASTROLOGER: For me this time is nothing further to do, Than as honorable man confess, I avow it now. The fair comes, and had I tongues of fire!-- Of beauty was ever much sung-- To whom she appears, is rapt out of himself, To whom she belonged, was blessed too high.
FAUST: Have I yet eyes? Shows itself deep in the sense The spring of beauty most richly poured? My terrible course brings most blessed gain. How was the world to me vain, unopened! What is it now since my priesthood? First worthy of wish, founded, lasting! Vanish from me the life's breath-force, If I ever grow unused to you!-- The well-shaped, which once enraptured me, In magic mirror-bliss delighted, Was but a foam-image of such fair!-- You are it, to whom I the stir of all force, The sum of passion, To you inclination, love, adoration, madness pay.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Compose yourself yet and fall not from the role!
OLDER LADY: Great, well-shaped, only the head too small.
YOUNGER: See but the foot! How could it be clumsier!
DIPLOMAT: Princesses have I seen of this sort, Methinks, she is from head to foot fair.
COURTIER: She approaches the sleeper craftily mild.
LADY: How ugly beside youth-pure image!
POET: By her beauty he is irradiated.
LADY: Endymion and Luna! as painted!
SAME: Quite right! The goddess seems to sink down, She bends over, his breath to drink; Enviable! A kiss! The measure is full.
DUENNA: Before all people! That is too wild!
FAUST: Fearful favor to the boy!--
MEPHISTOPHELES: Calm! still! Let the specter do what it will.
COURTIER: She steals away, light-footed; he awakes.
LADY: She looks round! That I well thought.
COURTIER: He wonders! A wonder is it, what befalls him.
LADY: To her no wonder, what she sees before her.
COURTIER: With decorum she turns to him about.
LADY: I note already, she takes him to task; In such case all men are dumb, He believes too, that he were the first.
KNIGHT: Let me prize her! Majestic fine!--
LADY: The wanton! That I call common!
PAGE: I'd like well in his place to be!
COURTIER: Who would not be caught in such net?
LADY: The jewel has passed through many a hand, Also the gilding rather worn.
ANOTHER: From tenth year on she was good for naught.
KNIGHT: Occasionally each takes the best; I'd hold to these fair remains.
LEARNED MAN: I see her clearly, yet confess freely: To doubt is, whether she the right be. The present seduces into excess, I hold before all to the written. There read I then, she truly did please All greybeards of Troy peculiarly; And as me thinks, perfectly fits here: I am not young, and yet she pleases me.
ASTROLOGER: No boy more! A bold hero-man, He embraces her, who scarce can defend; With strengthened arm he lifts her high up, Carries her off perhaps?
FAUST: Audacious fool! You dare! You hear not! hold! that is too much!
MEPHISTOPHELES: You make it yourself, the grimace-spirit-play!
“Stories of the world, in your language.”