Part 4
ASTROLOGER: But one word more! After all that came to pass, I name the piece the Rape of Helen.
FAUST: What rape! Am I for nothing in this place! Is not this key within my hand! It led me, through the horror and the wave and swell Of solitudes, unto the firm-strand. Here I set foot! Here are realities, From here the spirit may with spirits strive, The double realm, the great, prepare. Though far she was, how can she nearer be! I rescue her, and she is doubly mine. Ventured! Ye Mothers! Mothers! must permit! Who knew her, may not do without her.
ASTROLOGER: What dost thou, Faustus! Faustus!--With rude force He seizes her, already dims the shape. The key he turns toward the youth, Touches him!--Woe to us, woe! Now! in a trice!
MEPHISTOPHELES: There have ye it! Burdened with fools, Comes in the end to harm the devil himself.
2. Act—Lofty-vaulted narrow Gothic chamber
MEPHISTOPHELES: Lie here, unhappy one! seduced To over-loosely-tied love's band! Whom Helen paralyzes Comes not so easily to sense. Look I above, here, yonder, All unaltered is it, unimpaired; The colored panes are, methinks, more dim, The spider-webs have multiplied; The ink is clotted, yellowed is the paper; Yet all has stayed in place; Even the pen lies here still, With which Faust signed himself to the devil. Yea! deeper in the quill there sticks A little drop of blood, as I coaxed from him. To such a single piece I'd wish the greatest collector joy. Also hangs the old fur on the old peg, Reminds me of those trifles, How I once instructed the boy, Whereon he perhaps still feeds as youth. It comes on me in truth the longing, Smoke-warm casing, with thee united To prance once more as docent, As one who thinks himself quite in the right. The learned know to attain it, To the devil it is long since past.
CHORUS OF INSECTS: Welcome! welcome! Thou old patron! We hover and hum And know thee already. Only singly in silence Thou didst plant us; In thousands we come, Father, danced. The rogue in the bosom Hides himself so sore, From the fur the little lice Reveal themselves sooner.
MEPHISTOPHELES: How surprising the young creation joys me! Only sow, one reaps in time. I shake once more the old fluff, Yet one flutters here and there out.— Up! about! in hundred-thousand corners Haste ye, sweethearts, to hide. There, where the old boxes stand, Here in the browned parchment, In dusty shards of old pots, The hollow-eye of those skulls. In such a heap and moulder-life Must there be for ever crickets. Come, cover my shoulders once more! Today am I again principal. Yet helps it naught, to name me so; Where are the folk who acknowledge me?
FAMULUS: What a sounding! what a shudder! Staircase rocks, the wall trembles; Through the windows' colored quivering I see lightning-like weather. Springs the flooring, and from above Rattles lime and shifted rubble. And the door, fast bolted, Is by wonder-force unsealed.— There! How frightful! A giant Stands in Faust's old fleece! Before his glances, his beckoning Would I sink upon my knees. Shall I flee? Shall I stand? Ah, how will it go with me!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Come hither, my friend!—You are called Nicodemus.
FAMULUS: Most reverend sir! so is my name—Oremus.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Let that be! +
FAMULUS: How glad, that you know me!
MEPHISTOPHELES: I know it well, aged yet still student, Mossed sir! Also a learned man Studies straight on, because he cannot else. So one builds a modest house of cards, The greatest mind builds it not wholly out. But your master, that is a practiced one: Who knows him not, the noble Doctor Wagner, The First now in the learned world! He alone is it who holds it together, Wisdom's daily increaser. All-wisdom-coveting listeners, hearers Assemble round him in throngs. He shines solely from the chair; The keys he wields like Saint Peter, The lower so the upper he unlocks. As he before all glows and sparkles, No call, no fame holds further stand; Even Faustus' name is darkened, He is it who alone invented.
FAMULUS: Pardon, most reverend sir! if I say to you, If I dare to contradict: Of all that is not the question; Modesty is his allotted part. Into the incomprehensible vanishing Of the high man he knows not to find himself; Of whose return he implores comfort and salvation. The chamber, as in Doctor Faustus' days, Still untouched since he went far, Awaits its old lord. Scarcely dare I, to venture in. What must the star-hour be?— The masonry seems to me to anguish; Door-posts trembled, bolts sprang, Else came you yourself not in.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Where has the man betaken himself? Lead me to him, bring him hither!
FAMULUS: Ah! his prohibition is too sharp, I know not if I dare. For months, the great work's sake, Lived he in stillest silence. The tenderest of learned men, He looks like a charcoal-burner, Blackened from ear to nose, Eyes red from fire-blowing, So he languishes every moment; Clink of tongs gives music.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Should he deny me entrance? I am the man, to hasten him fortune. Scarcely have I taken post here, Stirs there behind, to me known, a guest. But this time he is of the newest, He will presumptuously dare beyond bounds.
BACCALAUREUS: Door and gate find I open! Now, there is at last to hope, That not, as heretofore, in the mould The living like a dead one Pines away, perishes And dies on life itself. These walls, these partitions Incline, sink toward the end, And if we not soon escape, Fall and crash will reach us. Am venturesome, as none, But further brings me no one. Yet what shall I learn today! Was it not here, so many years ago, Where I, anxious and oppressed, Came as good fox? Where I trusted these bearded ones, Edified myself on their prattle? From the old book-crusts They lied to me what they knew, What they knew, themselves not believed, Robbed themselves and me of life. How?—There behind in the cell Sits yet one dark-bright! Approaching I see with astonishment, Sits he yet in the fur, the brown, Truly, as I left him, Still wrapped in the rough fleece! Then he seemed indeed adept, When I understood him not. Today it will avail naught, Freshly gone at him! If, old sir, not Lethe's dim floods The slant-sunk, bald head swam through, See acknowledging here the pupil come, Outgrown academic rods. I find you yet, as I saw you; Another am I come again.
MEPHISTOPHELES: I joy, that I have rung you hither. I esteemed you then not small; The caterpillar already, the chrysalis indicates The future colorful butterfly. At the curled head and pointed collar You felt a childlike pleasure.— You wore surely never a queue?— Today I see you in the Swedish crop. Quite resolute and brisk you look; Only come not absolutely home.
BACCALAUREUS: My old sir! We are at the old place; Consider however renewed times' course And spare double-meaning words; We mind now quite otherwise. You mocked the good faithful boy; That succeeded you without art, What nowadays no one ventures.
MEPHISTOPHELES: When one tells youth pure truth, Which pleases not the yellow beaks, But they behind after years Experience all that bluntly on own skin, Then they deem, it came from own pate; Then goes: the master was a fool.
BACCALAUREUS: A knave perhaps!—for which teacher speaks The truth direct in our face? Each knows to increase as to diminish, Now grave, now cheerful wisely to pious children.
MEPHISTOPHELES: To learn there is indeed a time; To teach you are, I note, yourself ready. Since many moons, some suns Fullness of experience have you won.
BACCALAUREUS: Experience-essence! Foam and dust! And with the spirit not equal. Confess! what one has known from of old, It is by no means worth knowing.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Methinks it long. I was a fool, Now come I myself right stale and silly before.
BACC: That joys me sore! There hear I sense; The first greybeard whom I found reasonable!
MEPHISTOPHELES: I sought hidden-golden treasure, And dreadful coals I carried off.
BACCALAUREUS: Confess only, your skull, your bald-pate Is not worth more than those hollow ones there?
MEPHISTOPHELES: You know not, my friend, how rude you are?
BACCALAUREUS: In German one lies, when one is polite.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Here above light and air are taken from me; I find well with you an accommodation?
BACCALAUREUS: Presumptuous find I, that at the worst time One would be something, where one is nothing more. Man's life lives in blood, and where Moves the blood itself like in the youth so? That is living blood in fresh force, That creates new life from life. There stirs all, there is something done, The weak falls, the capable steps forth. Meanwhile we have won half the world, What have you then done? nodded, mused, Dreamed, pondered, plan and ever plan. Certain! age is a cold fever In the frost of whimsical need. Has one thirty years past, So is he already as good as dead. Best were, to slay you in time.
MEPHISTOPHELES: The devil has here naught further to say.
BACC: If I will not, then may no devil be.
MEPHISTOPHELES: The devil yet shortly trips you.
BACCALAUREUS: This is youth's noblest calling! The world, it was not, ere I created it; The sun I led from the sea up; With me began the moon's of change course; There decked itself the day on my ways, The earth greened, bloomed toward me. At my beck, in that first night, Unfolded itself all stars' splendor. Who, besides me, unbound you of all bars Philistine-like cramping thoughts? But I free, as it speaks in my spirit, Pursue glad my inner light, And wander swift, in ownmost rapture, The bright before me, darkness at the back.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Original, fare forth in your splendor!— How would insight wound you: Who can something foolish, who something wise think, That the foreworld has not already thought?— Yet are we also not endangered with this one, In few years it will be otherwise: Though the must behave quite absurd, It gives at last yet still wine. [You stay cold at my word, [I let it pass to you good children; [Consider: the devil, he is old, [So become old, him to understand!
Laboratory
WAGNER: The bell sounds, the frightful, Thrills through the sooty walls. No longer can the uncertain Of gravest expectation last. Already lighten the darkness; Already in the inmost phial It glows like living coal, Yea like the most glorious carbuncle, Out-raying lightnings through the dark. A bright white light appears! O that I lose it not this time!— Ah God! what rattles at the door?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Welcome! it is well meant.
WAGNER: Welcome to the star of the hour! But hold word and breath fast in the mouth, A glorious work is soon brought to stand.
MEPHISTOPHELES: What then is there? +
WAGNER: A man is being made.
MEPHISTOPHELES: A man? And what loving pair Have you shut into the smoke-hole?
WAGNER: God forbid! as formerly the mode of begetting was, We declare for idle tricks. The tender point, from which life sprang, The lovely force that from the inner thronged And took and gave, determined itself to mark, First next, then to appropriate foreign, That is now deposed from its dignity; If the beast yet further delights therein, So must man with his great gifts Yet henceforth have higher, higher origin. It shines! see!—Now is it truly to hope, That, if we from many hundred stuffs Through mixture—for on mixture it comes— The human-stuff composedly compound, In a retort lute And duly cohobate him, So is the work in silence done. It becomes! the mass stirs clearer! The conviction truer, truer: What one praised as Nature's mysterious, That we venture understandingly to try, And what she else let organize, That let us crystallize.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Who lives long, has much experienced, [Nothing new can for him happen on this world. I have already in my wander-years Seen crystallized human folk.
WAGNER: It rises, it flashes, it heaps itself, In the instant it is done. A great resolve seems at first mad; But we will of chance henceforth laugh, And such a brain, that shall think excellently, Will henceforth also make a thinker. The glass resounds of lovely force, It clouds, it clears, so must it become! I see in dainty shape A pretty mannikin behave. What will we, what will the world now more? For the secret lies in the day. Give but this sound ear, It becomes voice, becomes speech.
HOMUNCULUS: Now little father! how goes it? it was no jest. Come, press me tenderly to your heart! But not too firm, lest the glass spring. That is the property of things: To the natural the universe scarce suffices, What is artificial demands enclosed space. But you, rogue, cousin sir, are you At the right moment? I thank you. A good fate leads you to us; Whereas I am, must I also be active. I would forthwith gird myself to work. You are adept, to shorten me the ways.
WAGNER: But one word more! Hitherto must I be ashamed, For old and young storm me with problems. For example only: yet no one could grasp, How soul and body so beautifully fit, Hold so fast, as never to part, And yet embitter themselves the day forever. Then—+
MEPHISTOPHELES: Hold! I would rather ask: Why man and woman so ill trust? You come, my friend, hereover never to clarity. Here is to do, that just wants the little one.
HOMUNCULUS: What is to do? +
MEPHISTOPHELES: Here show your gift!
WAGNER: Forsooth, you are a most lovely boy!
HOMUNCULUS: Significant!— Fair surrounded!—Clear waters In the dense grove! Women, who disrobe, The dearest!—It becomes ever better. Yet one lets herself brightly distinguish, From highest hero-, well from god-stock. She sets the foot into the transparent bright; Of the noble body lovely life-flame Cools itself in the supple crystal of the wave.— But what noise of swiftly moved wings, What rushing, rippling stirs the smooth mirror? The maidens flee frightened; but alone The queen, she looks composed therein And sees with proud womanly delight The swans' prince nestle to her knee, Forward-tame. He seems to accustom.— On a sudden however rises a vapor And covers with densely-woven veil The loveliest of all scenes.
MEPHISTOPHELES: What you not all have to tell! So small you are, so great are you fantast. I see naught—+
HOMUNCULUS: That believe I. You from the north, In the fog-age grown young, In the heap of chivalry and priestling, Where were there your eye free! In the murk you are only at home. Browned stone, mouldered, odious, Point-arched, most flourish-curled, low!— Awakes us this one, gives it new need, He stays straight on the spot dead. Forest-springs, swans, naked beauties, That was his prophetic dream; How would he accustom himself here! I, the easiest, scarce endure it. Now forth with him! +
MEPHISTOPHELES: The outlet shall joy me.
HOMUNCULUS: Command the warrior into the battle, The maiden lead you to the round, So is straight all dispatched. Just now, as I quickly bethought, Is classical Walpurgis-night; The best that could befall. Bring him to his element!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Suchlike have I never heard.
HOMUNCULUS: How should it come to your ears! Romantic ghosts you know alone; A true ghost, also classical must it be.
MEPHISTOPHELES: But whither then shall the voyage direct? Already sicken me antique colleagues.
HOMUNCULUS: Northwestward, Satan, is your pleasure-revier, Southeastward this time however we sail— On great plain flows Peneios free, Bush-rounded, tree-rounded, in still—and moist bays; The level spreads to the mountains' ravines, And above lies Pharsalus, old and new.
MEPHISTOPHELES: O woe! away! and leave me those strifes Of tyranny and slavery aside. Me it long-wearies; for scarce is it done, So begin they from before again; And none notes: he is yet only teased By Asmodeus, who lurks behind. They strive, so goes, for freedom-rights; Exactly seen, are knaves against knaves.
HOMUNCULUS: The man leave his refractory being, Each must defend himself, as he can, From boy up, so becomes at last a man. Here asks it only, how this one can recover. Have you a means, so prove it here, Can you it not, so leave it to me.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Many a fragment-piece were to probe, Yet heathen-bar find I thrust before. The Greek folk, it never was quite good! Yet blinds you with free sense-play, Entices man's breast to cheerful sins; The ours will one ever find gloomy. And now, what for? +
HOMUNCULUS: You are else not bashful; And if I of Thessalian witches speak, So think I, have I something said.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Thessalian witches! Well! those are persons, For whom I have long asked. With them night for night to dwell, I believe not, that it pleases; Yet to the visit, attempt—+
HOMUNCULUS: The mantle here, And round the knight wrapped! The rag will you, as heretofore, Carry the one with the other; I light before. +
WAGNER: And I? +
HOMUNCULUS: Eh now, You stay at home, weightiest to do. Unfold you the old parchments, By prescription gather life-elements And join them with caution one to the other. The what bethink, more bethink how. Meanwhile I a bit of world wander through, Discover I well the dot on the i. Then is the great purpose reached; Such a reward deserves such a striving: Gold, honor, fame, healthy long life, And science and virtue—also perhaps. Fare well! +
WAGNER: Fare well! That presses the heart down to me. I already fear, I see you never again.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Now to the Peneios fresh down! Cousin sir is not to despise. At end we hang yet ab From creatures that we made.
Classical Walpurgis-night. Pharsalian Fields
ERICHTHO: To the shudder-feast of this night, as oft before, I step forth, Erichtho, I, the gloomy; Not so abominable, as the loathsome poets me In excess revile... They end never In praise and blame... over-pale appears to me already From grey tents' wave wide the vale thither, As after-image of the care- and horror-fullest night. How oft repeated itself! will itself ever Into the eternal repeat... None grants the realm To the other; grants it none, who won it with force And forcibly rules. For each, who his inner self Not to govern knows, governed full gladly The neighbor's will, to own proud sense according... Here but was a great example fought through: How itself force to forcefuller opposes, Freedom's sweet, thousand-blooming wreath tears, The stiff laurel bends round the head of the ruler. Here dreamed Magnus earlier greatness' blossom-day, To the wavering tongue-listening watched Caesar there! That will be measured. Knows the world yet, to whom it succeeded. Wake-fires glow, red flame-yielding, The ground exhales shed blood's reflection, And allured by rare wonder-glow of the night, Assembles itself of Hellenic saga legion. Round all fires wavers unsure or sits Comfortable of old days fabulous form... The moon, though imperfect, but brightly shining, Rises, mild glow spreading everywhere; The tents' illusion vanishes, fires burn blue. But above me! what unexpected meteor? It shines and lights bodily ball. I scent life. There beseems it me not, To living to approach, to whom I harmful am; That brings me evil repute and profits me not. Already sinks it down. I withdraw with good heed!
HOMUNCULUS: Hover once more the round Over flame- and shudder-horror; Is it yet in vale and ground Quite ghostly to behold.
MEPHISTOPHELES: See I, as through the old window In the north's heap and gloom, Quite abominable ghosts, Am I here as there at home.
HOMUNCULUS: See! there strides a tall one Wide step before us hence.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Is it yet, as were her anxious; Saw us through the air draw.
HOMUNCULUS: Let her stride! set him down, Your knight, and straight Returns him life again, For he seeks it in the fable-realm.
FAUST: Where is she?—+
HOMUNCULUS: Knew not to say, Yet here probably to inquire. In haste may you, ere it day, From flame to flame scenting go: Who to the Mothers dared, Has further naught to overcome.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Also I am here on my part; Yet knew I nothing better to our weal, Than: each may through the fires Try his own adventure. Then, to unite us again, Let your lantern, little one, sounding shine.
HOMUNCULUS: So shall it flash, shall it ring. Now fresh to new wonder-things!
FAUST: Where is she?—Ask now not further after... Were it not the clod, that bore her, The wave not, that beat toward her, So is it the air, that spoke her speech. Here! through a wonder, here in Greece! I felt straight the ground, where I stood; As me, the sleeper, fresh a spirit glowed through, So stand I, an Antaeus in mood. And find I here the strangest together, Search I earnest this labyrinth of flames.
On the upper Peneios
MEPHISTOPHELES: And as I these little fires roam through, So find I myself quite and wholly estranged, Almost all naked, only here and there shirted: The sphinxes shameless, the griffs impertinent, And what not all, curly and winged, From front and back in the eye mirrors... Though are we also from heart indecent, Yet the antique find I too lively; That must one with newest sense master And manifoldly fashionably plaster over... A odious folk! Yet may it not vex me, As new guest decently them to greet... Hail to the fair women, the wise greybeards!
GRIFF: Not greybeards! Griffs!—None hears it gladly, That one him greis names. To each word sounds The origin after, where it itself conditions: Grey, grim, grouch, gruesome, graves, grim, Etymologically equally consonant, + Disconcert us.
MEPHISTOPHELES: And yet, not to digress, Pleases the grei in the title of honor Griffs.
GRIFF: Naturally! The kinship is proved, Though oft scolded, more yet praised; One grip now after maidens, crowns, gold, To the griping is mostly Fortuna hold.
ANT: You speak of gold, we had much gathered, In rock- and caves secretly rammed; The Arimaspi-folk has it spied out, They laugh there, how far they carried it off.
GRIFFS: We will them soon to confession bring.
ARIMASPI: Only not to the free jubil-night. Till tomorrow is all brought through, It will us this time well succeed.
MEPHISTOPHELES: How light and glad I accustom myself hither, For I understand man for man.
SPHINX: We breathe our spirit-tones, And you embody them then. Now name yourself, till we know you further.
MEPHISTOPHELES: With many names thinks one me to name— Are Britons here? They travel else so much, Battlefields to track, waterfalls, Fallen walls, classical dull places; That were here for them a worthy goal. They witnessed also: In the old stage-play Saw one me there as old Iniquity.
SPHINX: How came one thereon? +
MEPHISTOPHELES: I know it myself not how.
SPHINX: May be! Have you of stars some tidings? What say you to the present hour?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Star shoots after star, close-cropped moon shines bright, And me is well at this dear place, I warm myself at your lion-fell. Upward to climb, were to harm; Give riddles, give if need charades.
SPHINX: Speak but yourself out, will be riddle soon. Attempt once, to unravel yourself most inwardly: "To the pious man needful as to the wicked, To the one a plastron, ascetically to scrape, Comrade to the other, mad things to perform, And both only, Zeus to amuse."
FIRST GRIFF: Him like I not! +
SECOND GRIFF: What will us the?
BOTH: The loathsome belongs not hither!
MEPHISTOPHELES: You think perhaps, the guest's nails scratch Not also so good as your sharp claws? Attempt once! +
SPHINX: You may only ever stay, Will it yet self drive you from our midst; In your land you do yourself some good, Yet, err I not, here is you ill at ease.
MEPHISTOPHELES: You are right appetizing above to behold, But below hither the beast makes me horror.
SPHINX: You false one comes to your bitter penance, For our paws are sound; You with shrivelled horse-foot Pleases it not in our bond.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Who are the birds, in the branches Of the poplar-stream swung?
SPHINX: Beware you only! The very best Has such a singsong already subdued.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”