Part 9
CHORUS: He has run past us; Mocking us with contempt, he now drags from the whole crowd the wildest maiden hither.
EUPHORION: I drag the sturdy little one here for forced enjoyment; for my bliss, for my delight I press the resistant breast, kiss the loathsome mouth, show forth strength and will.
MAIDEN: Let me go! In this frame there is also spirit's courage and power; your will is not like ours, so easily swept away. Do you think me in the throng? You trust your arm too much! Hold fast, and I shall scorch you, the fool, for my sport. Follow me into the light airs, follow me into the rigid vaults, chase the vanished goal!
EUPHORION: Rocky throng here among the woodland brush, what should the narrowness mean to me, am I not young and fresh. Winds, they rush indeed, waves, they roar there; I hear both afar, near would I be.
HELENA, FAUST AND CHORUS: Would you be like the chamois? We must shudder at the fall.
EUPHORION: Ever higher must I climb, ever farther must I gaze. Now I know where I am! In the middle of the island, in the middle of Pelops' land, earth—how sea-kindred.
CHORUS: Would you not in mountain and wood peacefully tarry? Then let us seek forthwith vines in rows, vines on the hillside, figs and apple-gold. Ah, in the lovely land remain you lovely!
EUPHORION: Do you dream the day of peace? Dream, who may dream. War! is the watchword. Victory! and so it rings on.
CHORUS: Who in peace wishes war back again, is severed from fortune's happiness.
EUPHORION: She who bore this land from danger into danger, free, of unbounded courage, prodigal of her own blood, the undampable holy sense— may it bring all who fight gain!
CHORUS: See above, how high he has climbed! And he seems not small to us: like in harness, like for victory, like of bronze and steel the gleam.
EUPHORION: No ramparts, no walls, each only conscious of himself; fast castle, to endure, is the man's brazen breast. Would you dwell unconquered, lightly armed, swift into the field; women become Amazons and every child a hero.
CHORUS: Holy poesy, ascend to heaven! Shine, fairest star, far and yet farther! And it reaches us yet ever, one still hears it, hears it gladly.
EUPHORION: No, not as a child am I come, in arms the youth arrives; joined to the strong, free, bold, he has already done in spirit. Now forth! Now there opens the path to glory.
HELENA AND FAUST: Scarcely called into life, given to the bright day scarce, you long from dizzy steps to painful space. Are we then nothing to you? Is the lovely bond a dream?
EUPHORION: And hear you thunder on the sea? There thunder back vale to vale, in dust and waves, host to host, in throng on throng, to pain and woe. And death is command, that is understood now once for all.
HELENA, FAUST AND CHORUS: What horror! what dread! Is death then command to you?
EUPHORION: Should I gaze from afar? No! I share care and need.
THE SAME: Overboldness and danger, deadly lot!
EUPHORION: Yet!—and a pair of wings unfolds loose! Thither! I must! I must! Grant me the flight!
CHORUS: Icarus! Icarus! Enough of woe.
HELENA AND FAUST: To joy follows straightway grim pain.
EUPHORION'S VOICE: Leave me not alone in the gloomy realm, mother!
CHORUS: Not alone!—wherever you tarry, for we believe we know you; ah! when you flee the day, no heart shall part from you. Scarcely we'd know to lament, envying we sing your lot: to you in clear and troubled days song and courage were fair and great. Ah! to earthly happiness born, of high ancestors, great strength, alas early lost to yourself, youth's bloom snatched away! Sharp glance, the world to behold, fellow-feeling with every heart's throe, love's glow of the best women and a most own song. Yet you ran unhalting free into the will-less net, so you sundered violently yourself from custom, from law; yet at last the highest musing gave the pure courage weight, would win the glorious, but it succeeded not. To whom succeeds it?—gloomy question, when fate muffles itself, on the most ill-fated day bleeding all people fall silent. Yet refresh new songs, stand not longer bowed deep: for the soil bears them again, as from of old it bore them.
HELENA: An old word proves true, alas, in me as well: that happiness and beauty abide not lasting joined. Torn is the band of life as of love; bewailing both, I say a painful farewell and cast myself yet once into your arms. Persephoneia, take the boy and me!
PHORKYAS: Hold fast what remained to you of all. The garment, let it not go. Already demons tug at the hem, would gladly tear it to the underworld. Hold fast! It is no longer the goddess you lost, yet is it divine. Use the high, inestimable favor and lift yourself up: it bears you over all common things swiftly through the ether, as long as you can endure. We see each other again, far, quite far from here.
PHORKYAS: Still happily found! The flame indeed is vanished, yet I care not for the world. Here stays enough, to initiate poets, to breed guild- and craft-envy; and can I not bestow talents, at least I lend the garment.
PANTHALIS: Now quickly, maidens! For we are rid of the spell, the old-Thessalian crone's wild mind-compulsion, and of the clamor's many-entangled tones' intoxication, confusing the ear, worse yet the inner sense. Down to Hades! The queen indeed hastened down with earnest step. To her sole be faithful maidens' step forthwith joined. We find her at the throne of the Unsearchable.
CHORUS: Queens indeed, everywhere are they welcome; also in Hades they stand at the top, proud joined to their own kind, with Persephoneia most inwardly familiar; but we in the background of deeper asphodel-meadows, long-stretched poplars, unfruitful willows consigned, what pastime have we? to pipe bat-like, whispering, joyless, ghostly.
PANTHALIS: Who won no name nor wills the noble, belongs to the elements; so fare you forth! To be with my queen, I long fervently; not only desert, also loyalty preserves us the person.
ALL: Given back are we to the daylight, though persons no more, that we feel, that we know, but to Hades return we never. Eternally living nature makes claim on us spirits, we on it full-valid claim.
A PART OF THE CHORUS: We, in this thousand-branch whisper-tremble, murmur-float, tempt playfully, lure softly root-upward the founts of life toward the boughs; soon with leaves, soon with blossoms lavish we adorn the fluttering hair free to airy thriving. Falls the fruit, forthwith gather life-lusting folk and herds to grasp, to nibble, coming hastily, pressing busily; and as before the first gods all bows around us.
ANOTHER PART: We, on this rock-wall's far-gleaming smooth mirror, nestle, in soft waves moving, flattering; hearken, listen to every sound, bird-songs, reed-flutes, be it Pan's terrible voice, answer is straightway ready; murmurs it, we murmur in reply, thunders it, roll our thunders in shaking redoubling, threefold, tenfold thereafter.
A THIRD PART: Sisters! we, of livelier sense, hasten with the brooks onward; for allure those distances' rich-adorned hill-ranges. Ever downward, ever deeper water we, meandering waving, now the meadow, then the lawns, like the garden round the house. There mark it the cypresses' slender tops, o'er landscape, shore-line and wave-mirror rising toward the ether.
A FOURTH PART: Wander you others, where it pleases; we encircle, we surround with rush the wholly planted hill, where at the stake the vine grows green; there at all hours of day shows the vintner's passion us his most loving diligence' doubtful success. Now with hoe, now with spade, now with shovel, cutting, binding he prays to all gods, most furtherably to the sun-god. Bacchus cares little, the softling, for the faithful servant, rests in bowers, leans in caves, babbling with the youngest faun. What to his dreaming's half-revel he ever needed, ever stays it him in skins, him in jugs and vessels, right and left the cool vaults, eternal times preserved. But have all gods, has now Helios before all, airing, moistening, warming, glowing, berry-horn piled up, where the still vintner wrought, there suddenly 'tis lively, and it rustles in every leaf, rattles from stock to stock. Baskets creak, buckets clatter, carrying-baskets groan forth, all toward the great vat to the treader's forceful dance; and so the holy fullness of pure-born juicy berries is trampled boldly, foaming, spurting mingles, loathsomely crushed. And now shrills into the ear the cymbals with the basins' brazen din, for Dionysos has unveiled from mysteries; comes forth with goat-footed ones, swinging goat-footed women, and between screams unbound wildly shrill Silenus' eared beast. Naught spared! cloven hooves tread all custom down, all senses whirl reeling, horribly deafened the ear. For the cup grope the drunk, overfilled are head and bellies, careful is yet one and another, but he increases the tumults, for to store new must, one empties swift the old skin!
4. Act—High Mountains
FAUST: The deepest of solitudes beholding beneath my foot, I tread considerate the rim of these peaks, dismissing my cloud's carrying-work, that gently o'er land and sea on clear days bore me. It parts slowly, not dissipating, from me. Toward the east strives the mass with gathered draft, toward it strides the eye astonished in admiration. It divides, changing, wave-like, variable. Yet would it model.—Yes! the eye deceives me not!— On sun-gleaming cushions gloriously outstretched, though giant-like, a god-similar woman-form, I see it! to Juno similar, to Leda, to Helen, how majestically lovely it wavers in my eye. Ah! already it shifts! formless broad and piled up it rests in the east, to far ice-mountains like, and mirrors blinding fleeting days' great sense. Yet around me hovers a tender bright mist-streak still breast and brow, clearing, cool and flattering. Now rises it light and lingering high and higher, joins together.—Deludes me an enchanting image, as youth's first, long-lacked highest good? The deepest heart's earliest treasures well up: Aurora's love, light flight denotes it me, the swift-felt, first, scarce understood glance, which, held fast, outshone every treasure. As soul-beauty rises the lovely form, dissolves not, lifts into the ether and draws the best of my inner with it forth.
MEPHISTOPHELES: That I call at last advanced! But now say, what possesses you? You descend into such horror's midst, in ghastly-yawning rock? I know it well, yet not at this place, for properly that was the ground of hell.
FAUST: You lack not foolish legends; begin again to spin suchlike.
MEPHISTOPHELES: When God the Lord—I know well why— banished us from the air into deepest depths, there, where centrally glowing, round about, an eternal fire flaming burned through, we found ourselves at all-too-great brightness in very cramped, uncomfortable position. The devils all began to cough, from above and from below to puff; hell swelled with sulfur-stink and—acid, that gave a gas! that went to the monstrous, so that soon the lands' flat crust, however thick, cracking must burst. Now have we it at another tip, what erst was ground, is now tip. They found thereon the right doctrines, the lowest into highest to turn. For we escaped slavish-hot vault into the excess of free air's dominion. An open secret, well kept, and late revealed to peoples only.
FAUST: Mountain-mass remains to me noble-silent, I ask not whence and not why. As nature founded itself in itself, it purely rounded the earth-ball, the peaks rejoiced, the gorges, and rock on rock and mountain on mountain ranged, the hills then comfortably downward formed, with gentle draw softened into the vale. There 'tis green and grows, and to rejoice itself, needs it not the mad whirlings.
MEPHISTOPHELES: That you speak so! That seems to you sun-clear; yet knows it otherwise, who was present. I was there, when yet down there seething the abyss swelled and bore streaming flames; when Moloch's hammer, rock on rock forging, hurled mountain-ruins into the distance. Still the land stares from foreign hundredweight-masses; who gives explanation of such slinging-power? The philosopher, he knows not to grasp it, there lies the rock, one must let it lie, to shame we've already thought ourselves.— The true-common folk alone comprehends and lets not disturb its conception; to it wisdom long since ripened: a wonder 'tis, the Satan comes to honor. My walker limps on his faith-crutch to the devil's stone, to the devil's bridge.
FAUST: 'Tis yet noteworthy to observe, to see how devils regard nature.
MEPHISTOPHELES: What concerns me! nature be, as it may! 'Tis point of honor: the devil was there! We are the folk, great things to reach; tumult, violence and nonsense! see the sign!— Yet, that I finally speak quite intelligibly, pleased you naught of our surface? You overlooked, in unmeasured widths, the realms of the world and their glories. But, insatiate, as you are, felt you perchance no lust?
FAUST: And yet! a great thing drew me. Guess! +
MEPHISTOPHELES: That is soon done. I sought me out such a capital, in the core citizen-nourishment-horror, crooked alleys, pointed gables, confined market, cabbage, turnips, onions; meat-banks, where the flies house, the fat roasts to devour; there find you at any time surely stench and activity. Then wide squares, broad streets, noble semblance to assume; and finally, where no gate confines, suburbs boundlessly prolonged. There rejoiced I in rolling-coaches, in the noisy to- and fro-rushing, in the eternal to- and fro-running of scattered ant-swarming. And when I drove, when I rode, appeared I ever their midst, by hundred-thousands honored.
FAUST: That can not satisfy me. One rejoices, that the folk increases, after its kind comfortably nourishes, even forms itself, instructs itself— and one only educates rebels.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Then built I, grandiose, myself conscious, at the merry place a castle for delight. Wood, hill, plains, meadow, field to a garden princely arranged. Before green walls velvet-mats, straight-paths, art-right shadows, cascade-fall, through rock to rock paired, and water-jets of every sort; venerably it rises there, but at the sides there hisses and pisses in thousand trifles. Then but let I fairest women build familiar-comfortable little houses; spent there boundless time in lovely-sociable solitude. I say women; for once for all I think the fair in plural.
FAUST: Bad and modern! Sardanapalus!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Guesses one well, whereto you strove? 'Twas surely lofty bold. You who to the moon so much nearer hovered, drew your craving thither?
FAUST: By no means! this earth-circle affords yet room for great deeds. Astonishing shall succeed, I feel force for bold diligence.
MEPHISTOPHELES: And so would you deserve fame? One notes, you come from heroines.
FAUST: Dominion gain I, property! The deed is all, naught the fame.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Yet will poets be found, to the posterity your glory to tell, through folly folly to ignite.
FAUST: Of all is nothing granted you. What know you, what the man desires? Your adverse being, bitter, sharp, what knows it, what the man needs?
MEPHISTOPHELES: Let it happen then after your will! Trust me the compass of your whims.
FAUST: My eye was drawn to the high sea; it swelled up, in itself to tower, then let it sink and poured the waves, the flat shore's breadth to storm. And that angered me; as overboldness the free spirit, that prizes all rights, through passionately excited blood into the displeasure of feeling places. I held it chance, sharpened my look: the wave stood and rolled then back, withdrew from the proudly reached goal; the hour comes, it repeats the play.
MEPHISTOPHELES: There is for me naught new to learn, that I know since hundred-thousand years.
FAUST: It creeps hither, at thousand-fold ends, unfruitful itself, unfruitfulness to lend; now swells it and grows and rolls and overspreads the waste stretch's loathsome domain. There rules wave on wave spirit-of-force, draws back, and naught is achieved, which to despair could frighten me! Purposeless force of unbound elements! There dares my spirit, itself to outfly; here would I fight, this would I defeat. And it is possible!—However it be flooding, at every hill it nestles past; however overboldly it may stir, slight height rises proudly against it, slight depth draws it mightily. There grasped I swift in spirit plan on plan: gain for yourself the precious enjoyment, the lordly sea from the shore to exclude, the moist breadth's bounds to narrow and, far inward, into itself to press. From step to step I knew to examine it; that is my wish, dare to promote it!
MEPHISTOPHELES: How easy that! Hear you the drums afar?
FAUST: Again war! the prudent hears it not gladly.
MEPHISTOPHELES: War or peace. Prudent is the endeavor, to draw something to one's advantage. One watches, notes every favorable nuance. Opportunity is there, now, Faust, seize!
FAUST: With such riddle-stuff spare me! And short and good, what should it? Explain yourself.
MEPHISTOPHELES: On my march remained not hidden from me: the good emperor hovers in great cares. You know him yes. When we him entertained, played false riches into his hands, then was the whole world his to sell. For young the throne fell to him, and him pleased it, falsely to conclude, it could well go together and be right desirable and fair: to rule and meanwhile enjoy.
FAUST: A great error. Who command shall, must in commanding find blessedness. His breast is full of high will, yet what he wills, no man may fathom. What he whispered in the ear to the truest, 'tis done, and all the world astonished. So will he ever be the highest, the worthiest—; enjoying makes common.
MEPHISTOPHELES: So is he not. He himself enjoyed, and how! Meanwhile fell apart the realm in anarchy, where great and small crosswise feuded and brothers drove out, killed, castle against castle, city against city, guild against nobility feud has, the bishop with chapter and congregation; whatsoe'er looked at each other, were enemies. In churches murder and manslaughter, before the gates is every buyer and wanderer lost. And all grew in boldness not small; for to live meant to defend.—Well, that went.
FAUST: It went—it limped, fell, stood again up, then overturned, rolled clumsily in heap.
MEPHISTOPHELES: And such condition might no one scold, each could, each would count. The smallest even, he counted full. But 'twas at last too mad for the best. The capable, they stood up with force and said: Lord is, who gives us rest. The emperor can't, wills not—let us elect, the new emperor newly the realm ensoul, in that he each secures, in a freshly created world peace and justice to wed.
FAUST: That sounds very priestly. +
MEPHISTOPHELES: Priests were they too, they secured the well-fed belly. They were more than others interested. The revolt swelled, the revolt was hallowed; and our emperor, whom we made glad, draws hither, perhaps to the last battle.
FAUST: He pities me; he was so good and open.
MEPHISTOPHELES: Come, see we to! the living shall hope. Free we him from this narrow vale! Once saved, 'tis for thousand times. Who knows, how yet the dice fall? And has he luck, so has he also vassals.
MEPHISTOPHELES: The position, I see, well is taken; we step to, then is the victory complete.
FAUST: What can there be expected? Deceit! magic-blinding! hollow show.
MEPHISTOPHELES: War-craft, to win battles! Fortify yourself in great senses, in that you ponder your purpose. Preserve we the emperor throne and land, so kneel you and receive the fief of boundless shore.
FAUST: Already much have you gone through, now, so win also a battle!
MEPHISTOPHELES: No, you win it! This time are you the generalissimo.
FAUST: That were me the right height, there to command, where I understand naught!
MEPHISTOPHELES: Let you the general-staff care, and the field-marshal is safe. War-stuff have I long since spied, the war-council formed forthwith from primeval-mountain's primeval-human-force; well to him, who rakes them together.
FAUST: What see I there, what bears arms? Have you the mountain-folk aroused?
MEPHISTOPHELES: No! but, like Master Peter Squenz, from the whole farce the quintessence.
MEPHISTOPHELES: There come my lads yes! You see, of very different ages, different dress and armor are they here; you'll fare not ill with them. Loves now every child the harness and the knight-collar; and, allegorical as the rogues are, they'll please only so much the more.
RAUFEBOLD: If one looks me in the eye, I'll straight with the fist in his face fly, and a coward, if he flees, I grab by his last hairs.
HABEBALD: Such empty handles, that are pranks, therewith one spoils his day; in taking be only unwearied, after all else ask then.
HALTEFEST: Therewith is also not much won! Soon a great good is spent, it rushes in life's stream down. Taking is right good, but better is, to keep; let you the gray fellow only rule, and none takes aught from you.
On the Fore-hill
SUPREME GENERAL Still ever seems the resolve well-weighed, that we into this opportune vale the whole army pressed drawn back; I hope firmly, us succeeds the choice.
EMPEROR: How it now goes, it must show; yet me displeases the half-flight, the yielding.
SUPREME GENERAL: Look here, my prince, on our right flank! Such terrain wishes the war-thought: not steep the hills, yet not too passable, to ours advantageous, to the foe entangling; we, half hidden, on wave-formed plain; the cavalry, it ventures not hither.
EMPEROR: Naught remains to me, than to praise; here can arm and breast be tried.
SUPREME GENERAL: Here, on the middle-meadow's flat spaces, you see the phalanx, cheerful to fight. The pikes glimmer flickering in the air, in sun-glow, through morning-mist-breath. How dark waves the mighty square! To thousands glows it here to great deed. You can thereon recognize the mass's force, I trust it, the foe's force to sunder.
EMPEROR: The fair sight have I for the first time. Such army counts for the double number.
SUPREME GENERAL: Of our left have I naught to report, the rigid rock occupy valiant heroes, the stony crags, that now from weapons flashes, the important pass of the narrow defile protects. I forebode already, here founder foe-forces unawares in the bloody business.
EMPEROR: There they draw hither, the false kinsmen, who called me uncle, cousin, brother, ever more and again more permitted, from the scepter force, from the throne reverence robbed, then, among themselves at strife, the realm laid waste and now combined against me rebelled. The crowd wavers in uncertain spirit, then streams it after, where the current tears it.
SUPREME GENERAL: A faithful man, on scout sent out, comes hastily rock-down; be it him succeeded!
FIRST SCOUT: Happily is it us succeeded, crafty, bold, our art, that we hither and thither pressed; yet we bring little favor. Many swear pure homage to you, as many a faithful band; but excuse of inaction: inner fermentation, people's danger.
EMPEROR: Himself to preserve stays self-interest's lesson, not gratitude and inclination, duty and honor. Consider you not, when your reckoning full, that neighbor's house-fire you shall consume?
SUPREME GENERAL: The second comes, only slowly descends he, the weary man's limbs all tremble.
SECOND SCOUT: First we observed with pleasure wild being's errant course; unexpected, without delay stepped a new emperor forth. And on prescribed tracks draws the crowd through the field; the unrolled false-flags follow all.—sheep-nature!
EMPEROR: A counter-emperor comes me to gain: now feel I first, that I the emperor am. Only as soldier laced I the harness on, to higher purpose is it now turned. At every feast, were it so glittering, naught missed, me lacked the danger. However you are, to the ring-play advised you, me beat the heart, I breathed tournament; and had you not from war dissuaded me, now shone I already in bright hero-deeds. Self-dependent felt I my breast sealed, when I there in the fire-realm mirrored me; the element pressed terribly upon me, 'twas but show, yet the show was great. Of victory and fame have I confused dreamed; I make good, what wantonly neglected.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”