Part 5
SIRENS: Ah, why would you pamper yourselves In the Ugly-and-Wondrous! Hark, we come here in throngs And in well-tuned tones; Thus it befits the Sirens.
SPHINXES: Compel them to descend! They hide among the branches Their loathsome hawk-talons, To fall upon you to your ruin, If you lend your ear.
SIRENS: Away with hatred! away with envy! Let us gather the clearest joys, Strewn beneath the heavens! Upon the water, upon the earth Be the cheeriest demeanor, That one offers the welcome guest.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Those are the fine tidings, Where from the throat, from the strings One tone entwines itself with another. The warbling is lost on me: It does indeed crawl about my ears, But it pierces not to the heart.
SPHINXES: Speak not of the heart! that is vanity; A leathern, shriveled pouch Fits your face far better.
FAUST: How wondrous! the beholding gives me contentment, In the repugnant, great, capable traits. I already divine a favorable fate; Where does this earnest gaze transport me? Before such once stood Oedipus; Before such Ulysses cowered in hempen bonds; By such the highest treasure was preserved, By these faithfully and without fail kept. I feel myself pervaded by fresh spirit; Great forms, great the recollections.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Else would you have cursed such things away, But now they seem to profit you; For where one seeks the beloved, Even monsters are welcome.
FAUST: You female forms must answer me: Has any of your number seen Helena?
SPHINXES: We do not reach up to her days, The last were slain by Hercules. Of Chiron you might inquire; He gallops about in this spirit-night; If he stands still for you, you have come far.
SIRENS: Yet it should not fail you!... As Ulysses tarried with us, Not passing by with scorn, He knew how to tell of much; They would confide all to you, Would you betake yourself To our shores by the green sea.
SPHINX: Let not yourself be deceived, elder. Instead of Ulysses letting himself be bound, Let our good counsel bind you; If you can find the lofty Chiron, You shall learn what I promised you.
MEPHISTOPHELES: What croaks past with beating of wings? So swift one cannot see it, And ever one after another, They would weary the hunter.
SPHINX: Comparable to the storm of winter wind, Scarcely reachable by Alcides' arrows; They are the swift Stymphalian birds, And well-meant is their croaking greeting, With vulture-beak and goose-foot. They would gladly prove themselves Among our circles as kin.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Yet other stuff hisses in between.
SPHINX: Of these be not afraid at all! They are the heads of the Lernaean serpent, Severed from the trunk, and believe themselves to be something. But say, what is to become of you? What restless gestures? Where would you go? Be off!... I see, that chorus there Turns you into a weathercock. Conquer not yourself, Go! Greet many a charming face! They are the Lamiae, pleasure-refined wenches, With smiling mouth and impudent brows, As please the satyr-folk; A goat's foot may there dare all.
MEPHISTOPHELES: You stay here then? that I may find you again.
SPHINXES: Yes! Mingle with the airy folk. We, from Egypt, are long accustomed, That our kind enthrones for a thousand years. And respect only our station, Thus we order the moon- and sun-days. Sitting before the pyramids, At the peoples' high court; Flood, war and peace-- And we do not change a face.
At the lower Peneios
PENEIOS: Stir yourself, you rustling reeds! Breathe softly, reed-siblings, Murmur, light willow-bushes, Lisp, poplar-quivering twigs, To interrupted dreams!... Yet a ghastly presaging wakes me, A secret all-moving tremor From the wandering stream and repose.
FAUST: Hear I aright, then must I believe: Behind the interlaced bowers Of these branches, these shrubs Sounds a human-like uttering. The wave seems to prattle, The little breezes like--a teasing jest.
NYMPHS: Best it would befall you, You laid yourself down, Refreshed in the cool Weary limbs, Enjoyed the ever You-shunning repose; We murmur, we trickle, We whisper to you.
FAUST: I am awake indeed! O let them wield, The incomparable forms, As my eye sends itself thither. So wondrous am I pervaded! Are they dreams? Are they recollections? Once before were you so blessed. Waters creep through the freshness Of the dense, softly moving thickets, They do not rush, they scarce trickle; From all sides a hundred springs Unite in the cleanly bright, For bathing shallow-deepened space. Healthy young women's limbs, By the moist mirror doubly To the delighted eye brought! Then sociable and joyfully bathing, Emboldened swimming, timorously wading; At last outcry and water-fight. I should content myself with these, My eye should here enjoy, Yet ever further strives my sense. The glance pierces sharp toward that covert, The rich foliage of green fullness Hides the lofty queen. Wondrous! also swans come Swimming from the bays, Majestically purely moved. Calm floating, tenderly social, But proud and self-pleased, As head and beak are borne... One however seems before all Boastfully bold to please himself, Sailing swift through all; His plumage swells ballooning, Wave itself, on waves billowing, He presses to the sacred spot.... The others swim to and fro With calmly gleaming plumage, Soon also in lively splendid strife, To divert the shy maidens, That they think not of their service, Only of their own safety.
NYMPHS: Lay, sisters, your ear On the green step of the bank; Hear I aright, it seems to me Like the sound of a horse's hoof. Knew I only who in this night Brought swift tidings.
FAUST: It seems to me as if the earth resounded, Sounding under a hasty horse. Thither my glance! A favorable fate, Shall it already reach me? O wonder beyond compare! A rider comes trotting near, He seems gifted with spirit and courage, Borne by a dazzling-white horse... I err not, I know him already, The famous son of Philyra!-- Halt, Chiron! halt! I have to tell you...
CHIRON: What is it? What's the matter? +
FAUST: Curb your step!
CHIRON: I do not rest. +
FAUST: Then I beg! take me with you!
CHIRON: Sit up! thus can I ask at leisure: Where lies the way? You stand here at the bank, I am ready to carry you through the river.
FAUST: Wherever you will. Forever I thank you for it... The great man, the noble pedagogue, Who, to his glory, reared a hero-people, The fair circle of the noble Argonauts And all who built the poet's world.
CHIRON: Let that lie in its place! Even Pallas comes as mentor to no honor; In the end they drive it in their own wise, As if they were not reared.
FAUST: The physician, who names every plant, Knows the roots to the deepest, Who brings healing to the sick, relief to the wounded, I embrace here in spirit- and body-strength!
CHIRON: If a hero was wounded beside me, Then I knew how to bring help and counsel; Yet I left my art at last To the root-women and the priests.
FAUST: You are the true great man, Who cannot hear words of praise. He seeks modestly to evade And acts as if there were his equal.
CHIRON: You seem to me skilled at feigning, To flatter prince as people.
FAUST: So will you yet confess to me: You have seen the greatest of your time, Striven after the noblest in deeds, Lived half-divinely earnest through the days. Yet among the heroic forms Whom did you hold for the most capable?
CHIRON: In the sublime Argonaut-circle Each was brave in his own wise, And according to the force that inspired him, He could suffice where another failed. The Dioscuri always conquered, Where youthful fullness and beauty prevailed. Resolve and swift deed for others' weal, Fell to the Boreads as fairest part. Reflective, forceful, wise, easy in counsel, Thus ruled Jason, pleasing to women. Then Orpheus: tender and ever quietly prudent, He struck the lyre all-surpassing. Keen-sighted Lynceus, who by day and night Brought the holy ship through cliff and shore... Only in company is danger proved: When one works, all the others praise...
FAUST: Of Hercules you will mention nothing?
CHIRON: Oh woe! stir not my longing... I had never seen Phoebus, Nor Ares, Hermes, as they are called; There I saw stand before my eyes What all men praise as divine. Thus was he a born king, As youth most glorious to behold; Subordinate to the elder brother And also to the dearest women. The second, Gaea bears not again, Not Hebe leads him heavenward; In vain the songs endeavor, In vain they torment the stone.
FAUST: However much sculptors insist upon him, So gloriously he never appeared. Of the fairest man you have spoken, Now speak also of the fairest woman!
CHIRON: What!... Womanly beauty means nothing, Is all too often a rigid image; Only such a being can I praise, That joyfully and life-loving wells forth. The beautiful remains blessed in herself; Grace makes irresistible, As Helena, when I bore her.
FAUST: You bore her? +
CHIRON: Yes, upon this back.
FAUST: Am I not already confused enough? And such a seat must bless me!
CHIRON: She grasped me so into the hair, As you do. +
FAUST: O wholly and entirely I lose myself! Tell, how? She is my only desire! Whence, whither, alas, bore you her?
CHIRON: The question is easily granted. The Dioscuri had in that time Freed the little sister from robber-fist. Yet these, unaccustomed to being conquered, Rallied and stormed on behind. There held the siblings' hasty course The swamps by Eleusis up; The brothers waded, I splashed, swam across; There she sprang off and stroked The moist mane, flattered And thanked lovely-wise and self-assured. How charming she was! young, the old man's delight!
FAUST: But ten years!... +
CHIRON: I see, the philologists, They have deceived you as themselves. Quite peculiar is it with mythological woman, The poet brings her, as he needs, to view: Never does she come of age, becomes not old, Ever of appetizing form, Is carried off young, in age still wooed; Enough, the poet is bound by no time.
FAUST: So be she bound by no time! Yet Achilles found her at Pherae, Even outside all time. What rare fortune: Won love against fate! And should not I, with most longing force, Draw the unique form into life? The eternal being, equal to gods, So great as tender, so sublime as lovely? You saw her once; today have I seen her, As fair as charming, as longed-for as fair. Now is my sense, my being strictly captured; I live not, can I not attain her.
CHIRON: My strange man! as human you are enraptured; Yet among spirits you seem quite mad. Now it chances here to your fortune; For every year, but few moments, I am wont to step before Manto, The daughter of Aesculapius; in silent prayer She entreats the father, that, to his honor, He finally clarify the physicians' sense And convert them from presumptuous killing... The dearest to me from the Sibyl-guild, Not grotesquely moved, beneficially mild; It may succeed her, with some tarrying, With root-powers to heal you from the ground.
FAUST: Healed I will not be, my sense is mighty; Then were I indeed base like others.
CHIRON: Miss not the healing of the noble spring! Swift down! We are at the spot.
FAUST: Say, where have you, in ghastly night, Through gravel-waters brought me to land?
CHIRON: Here Rome and Greece defied each other in strife, Peneios right, left Olympus at the side, The greatest realm that vanishes in the sand; The king flees, the citizen triumphs. Look up! here stands, meaningfully near, In moonlight the eternal temple there.
MANTO: From the horse's hoof Rings the holy step, Demigods draw near.
CHIRON: Quite right! Only the eyes opened!
MANTO: Welcome! I see you do not stay away.
CHIRON: Your temple-house still stands for you!
MANTO: Still roaming unwearied?
CHIRON: While to circle rejoices me.
MANTO: I wait, time circles me. And this one? +
CHIRON: The notorious night Has whirled him here. Helenen, with crazed senses, Helenen he will win And knows not, how and where to begin; Asklepian cure before others worthy.
MANTO: Him I love who desires the impossible.
MANTO: Step in, audacious one, shall rejoice! The dark passage leads to Persephoneia. In Olympus' hollow foot She listens secret, forbidden greeting. Here once I smuggled in Orpheus; Use it better! briskly! boldly!
At the upper Peneios
SIRENS: Plunge into Peneios' flood! Splashing befits to swim there, To strike up song upon song, For the accursed folk's good. Without water is no salvation! Lead we with bright host Hastily to the Aegean sea, Every pleasure would fall to us.
SIRENS: Foaming returns the wave, Flows no more down in its bed; Ground quakes, the water jams, Gravel and bank burst smoking. Flee we! Come all, come! None whom the wonder profits. Away! you noble joyful guests, To the sea-cheerful feast, Glimmering, where the trembling waves, Nets of shore, softly swell; There where Luna doubly shines, Bedews us with holy dew. There a freely moved life, Here an anxious earthquake; Haste every prudent one away! Dreadful it is around the place.
SEISMOS: Once more with force shoved, Bravely lifted with the shoulders! Thus we reach above, Where all must yield to us.
SPHINXES: What an repugnant trembling, Hideously gruesome presaging! What a swaying, what a quaking, Rocking to-and-fro striving! What intolerable annoyance! Yet we change not our place, Though the whole hell broke loose. Now arises an arch Wondrously. It is the same, That old one, long grown gray, Who built the isle of Delos, For a laboring woman's sake Drove it up from the wave. He, with striving, pressing, pushing, Arms taut, back bent, Like an Atlas in bearing, Lifts he ground, turf, earth, Gravel and grit and sand and loam, Our bank's quiet beds. Thus he tears a stretch Across the valley's quiet cover. Most strained, never weary, Colossal caryatid, Bears a fearful stone-framework, Still in the ground up to the bust; But further it shall not come, Sphinxes have taken their place.
SEISMOS: That have I alone mediated, One will finally grant me; And had I not shaken and rattled, How were this world so fair?-- How would your mountains stand above In splendid-pure ethereal blue, Had I not shoved them up To picturesque-enraptured view? As, before the highest ancestors, Night, Chaos, I bore myself strongly And, in company of Titans, With Pelion and Ossa as with balls struck, We ramped on in youthful heat, Until at last, weary even, We on Parnassus, as a double-cap, The two mountains impiously set... Apollo holds a joyful sojourn There now with the blessed choral Muses. Even Jupiters and his thunderbolts I lifted the seat high up. Now so, with enormous striving, I pressed from the abyss up hither And demand loudly, to new life, Cheerful inhabitants upon me.
SPHINXES: Primeval, one must confess, Is this here upheaved, Had we not ourselves seen, How it wrung itself from the soil. Bushy wood spreads up it, Still rock on rock presses moving near; A sphinx will not concern itself therewith: We let not disturb us in the holy seat.
GRIFFINS: Gold in flakes, gold in spangles Through the crevices see I quiver. Let not such treasure rob you, Ants, up! to pick it out.
CHORUS OF ANTS: As the giant ones Have lifted up, You twitchy-feet ones, Hastily above! Nimblest out and in! In such crevices Is every little bit Worth possessing. The very least Must you discover At the swiftest In every corner. All-ant-like must you be, You swarming hosts; Only with the gold in! The mountain let go.
GRIFFINS: In! In! Only gold in heaps! We lay our claws upon it; Are bars of the best kind, The greatest treasure is well secured.
PYGMIES: Have truly taken our place, Know not how it came to pass. Ask not whence we come, For we are now once here! To life's merry seat Fits any land; Shows a rocky crevice, The dwarf is at hand. Dwarf and dwarf-wife, swift to diligence, Exemplary each pair; Know not if in like wise It was already in paradise. Yet we find it here for the best, Bless thankfully our star; For in east as in west Mother Earth gladly bears.
DACTYLS: Has she in one night Brought forth the small ones, She will beget the smallest; Find also their like.
PYGMY-ELDEST: Haste, a convenient Seat to take! Hasty to work! Swift for strength! Yet is it peace; Build you the smithy, Armor and weapons For the host to make. You ants all, Nimble in the throng, Procure us metals! And you dactyls, Smallest, so many, To you be commanded, Woods to fetch! Lay together Secret flames, Procure us coals.
GENERALISSIMO: With arrow and bow Freshly marched out! At yonder pond Shoot me the herons, Innumerably nesting, Haughtily priding, At one stroke, All as one! That we appear With helm and trim.
ANTS AND DACTYLS: Who will save us! We procure the iron, They forge chains. To tear us loose, Is not yet timely, Therefore be supple.
THE CRANES OF IBYCUS: Murder-cry and death-lament! Anxious wing-flapping! What a groaning, what a moaning Pierces up to our heights! All are already slain, Lake reddened with their blood, Misshapen desire Robs the heron's noble pride. Already it waves on the helm Of these fat-belly-crook-leg-knaves. You companions of our host, Row-wanderers of the sea, We summon you to revenge In so near-related cause. Let none spare strength and blood! Eternal enmity to this brood!
MEPHISTOPHELES: The northern witches I knew well how to master, With these strange spirits it goes not just so. The Blocksberg remains a quite convenient locale, Wherever one is, one finds oneself together. Lady Ilse watches for us on her stone, On his height Heinrich will be lively, The snorers may snort at the misery, Yet all is done for a thousand years. Who knows here at all, where he walks and stands, Whether beneath him the ground swells?... I wander merrily through a smooth valley, And behind me rises suddenly A mountain, scarce to call a mountain, Yet high enough to part me from my sphinxes-- Here still flickers many a fire Down the vale and flames about the adventure... Still dances and floats me enticing, yielding before, Roguishly juggling, the gallant chorus. Only gently at it! All too used to nibbling, Wherever it be, one seeks something to snatch.
LAMIAE: Swiftly, swifter! And ever further! Then again hesitating, Chattering prattling. It is so cheerful, The old sinner To draw after us, To heavy penance. With stiff foot He comes hobbling, Staggered along; He drags the leg, As we flee him, Behind us after!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Accursed fate! Betrayed little men! From Adam forth seduced Hanses! One grows old, but who wise? Were you not already infatuated enough! One knows the folk is good for nothing at bottom, With pinched waist, painted face. Nothing have they sound to reply, Where one touches them, rotten in all limbs. One knows, one sees it, one can grasp it, And yet one dances when the jades pipe!
LAMIAE: Halt! he considers, hesitates, stands; Tell him that he escapes you not!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Only at it! and let yourself not foolishly Into the web of doubt; For if there were no witches, Who devil would want to be devil!
LAMIAE: Circle we around this hero! Love will in his heart Surely speak for one.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Though in uncertain shimmer You seem pretty women-folk, And so would I not scold you.
EMPUSA: Nor me! as such a one Let me in into your train.
LAMIAE: She is too much in our circle, Always spoils our play.
EMPUSA: Greeted by kinswoman Empusa, The dear one with the ass's foot! You have but one horse's foot, And yet, cousin, fairest greeting!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Here I thought all unknown And find alas near-kin; It is an old book to leaf through: From Harz to Hellas ever cousins!
EMPUSA: Decisively I know to act at once, Into much could I transform myself; But to your honor have I now Set the ass's little head.
MEPHISTOPHELES: I note, with these people Kinship means much; Yet may, whatever will, occur, The ass's head would I disown.
LAMIAE: That this loathsome one, she scares away What seems aught fair and lovely; What seemed aught fair and lovely-- She comes near, it is no more!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Also these little aunts tender and slight, They are all suspect to me; And behind such rose-cheeks I yet fear metamorphoses.
LAMIAE: Just try! are we many. Reach out! And have you luck in the game, Snatch you the best lot. What means this lustful whining? You are a miserable wooer, Strut about and act so great!-- Now mingles he in our bands; Let gradually the masks fall And give him your being bare.
MEPHISTOPHELES: The fairest have I chosen me... Oh woe me! what a dry besom! And this one?... Shameful face!
LAMIAE: Deserve you better? thinks it not.
MEPHISTOPHELES: The little one would I pawn myself... Lacerte slips from my hands! And serpent-like the smooth plait. Against that I grasp me the tall one... There I grab a thyrsus-staff, The pine-cone as the head! Where will it out?... Yet a stout one, At whom I might perhaps refresh myself; For the last time ventured! Be it! Right squishy, squelchy, that pay With high price Orientals... But alas! the puffball bursts in two!
LAMIAE: Part asunder, sway and float Lightning-like, with black flight surrounded The intruded witch-son! Uncertain, dreadful circles! Silent-pinioned, bats! Too cheaply he gets off.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Much wiser, it seems, am I not become; Absurd is it here, absurd in the north, Ghosts here as there perverse, Folk and poets insipid. It is just here a mumming-play As everywhere, a dance of senses. I grasped at holden mask-features And caught beings that made me shudder... I would gladly deceive myself, If it only lasted longer. Where am I then? Where will it out? That was a path, now is it a horror. I came here on smooth ways, And now rubble stands against me. In vain I clamber up and down, Where find I my sphinxes again? So mad had I not thought it, Such a mountain in one night! That I call a fresh witch-ride, They bring their Blocksberg with them.
OREAD: Come up here! My mountain is old, Stands in original shape. Honor the rugged rock-paths, Of Pindus last-stretched branches! Already stood I unshaken so, When Pompey fled over me. Beside it the creature of delusion Already vanishes at the cock's crow. Such tales I see often arise And suddenly pass away.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Be honor to you, venerable head, By high oak-power leaved around! The very clearest moonlight Pierces not into the darkness.-- Yet beside in the thicket draws A light that glows quite modest. How all must fit! In truth, it is Homunculus! Whence the way, you little fellow?
HOMUNCULUS: I hover thus from place to place And would gladly arise in best sense, Full of impatience, to shatter my glass; But what I have seen hitherto, Into that would I not venture. Only, to tell you in confidence: Two philosophers am I on the track, I listened, it said: Nature, Nature! From these will I not part, They must yet know earthly being; And I learn well at the end, Where I turn most wisely.
MEPHISTOPHELES: That do on your own hand. For where ghosts have taken place, Is also the philosopher welcome. That one may rejoice in his art and favor, He creates at once a dozen new ones. If you err not, you come not to understanding. Would you arise, arise on your own hand!
HOMUNCULUS: A good counsel is also not to be scorned.
MEPHISTOPHELES: So fare on! We will see further.
ANAXAGORAS: Your rigid mind will not bend; Does it need more to convince you?
THALES: The wave bends gladly to every wind, Yet keeps itself from the rugged rock.
ANAXAGORAS: Through fire-vapor is this rock at hand.
THALES: In the moist arose living thing.
HOMUNCULUS: Let me go at your side. Myself it lusts, to arise!
ANAXAGORAS: Have you, o Thales, ever in a night Brought forth such a mountain from slime?
THALES: Never was nature and her living flow Dependent on day and night and hours. She forms regulating every shape, And even in the great it is not force.
ANAXAGORAS: Here however it was! Plutonic grim fire, Aeolian vapor's explosive force, enormous, Broke through the flat ground's old crust, That new a mountain must straight arise.
THALES: What is thereby now further pursued? It is also there, and that is good at last. With such strife one loses time and while And yet leads patient folk on the rope.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”