I will soon lead him forth to the clear day. 70
When trees look green, full well the gardener knows
That fruits and blooms will deck the coming year.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What will You bet? — now am sure of winning —
Only, observe You give me full permission
To lead him softly on my path.
THE LORD:
As long 75
As he shall live upon the earth, so long
Is nothing unto thee forbidden — Man
Must err till he has ceased to struggle.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Thanks.
And that is all I ask; for willingly
I never make acquaintance with the dead. 80
The full fresh cheeks of youth are food for me,
And if a corpse knocks, I am not at home.
For I am like a cat — I like to play
A little with the mouse before I eat it.
THE LORD:
Well, well! it is permitted thee. Draw thou 85
His spirit from its springs; as thou find’st power
Seize him and lead him on thy downward path;
And stand ashamed when failure teaches thee
That a good man, even in his darkest longings,
Is well aware of the right way.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Well and good. 90
I am not in much doubt about my bet,
And if I lose, then ‘tis Your turn to crow;
Enjoy Your triumph then with a full breast.
Ay; dust shall he devour, and that with pleasure,
Like my old paramour, the famous Snake. 95
THE LORD:
Pray come here when it suits you; for I never
Had much dislike for people of your sort.
And, among all the Spirits who rebelled,
The knave was ever the least tedious to Me.
The active spirit of man soon sleeps, and soon 100
He seeks unbroken quiet; therefore I
Have given him the Devil for a companion,
Who may provoke him to some sort of work,
And must create forever. — But ye, pure
Children of God, enjoy eternal beauty; — 105
Let that which ever operates and lives
Clasp you within the limits of its love;
And seize with sweet and melancholy thoughts
The floating phantoms of its loveliness.
(HEAVEN CLOSES; THE ARCHANGELS EXEUNT.)
MEPHISTOPHELES:
From time to time I visit the old fellow, 110
And I take care to keep on good terms with Him.
Civil enough is the same God Almighty,
To talk so freely with the Devil himself.
SCENE 2. — MAY-DAY NIGHT.
THE HARTZ MOUNTAIN, A DESOLATE COUNTRY.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Would you not like a broomstick? As for me
I wish I had a good stout ram to ride;
For we are still far from the appointed place.
FAUST:
This knotted staff is help enough for me,
Whilst I feel fresh upon my legs. What good 5
Is there in making short a pleasant way?
To creep along the labyrinths of the vales,
And climb those rocks, where ever-babbling springs,
Precipitate themselves in waterfalls,
Is the true sport that seasons such a path. 10
Already Spring kindles the birchen spray,
And the hoar pines already feel her breath:
Shall she not work also within our limbs?
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Nothing of such an influence do I feel.
My body is all wintry, and I wish 15
The flowers upon our path were frost and snow.
But see how melancholy rises now,
Dimly uplifting her belated beam,
The blank unwelcome round of the red moon,
And gives so bad a light, that every step 20
One stumbles ‘gainst some crag. With your permission,
I’ll call on Ignis-fatuus to our aid:
I see one yonder burning jollily.
Halloo, my friend! may I request that you
Would favour us with your bright company? 25
Why should you blaze away there to no purpose?
Pray be so good as light us up this way.
IGNIS-FATUUS:
With reverence be it spoken, I will try
To overcome the lightness of my nature;
Our course, you know, is generally zigzag. 30
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Ha, ha! your worship thinks you have to deal
With men. Go straight on, in the Devil’s name,
Or I shall puff your flickering life out.
IGNIS-FATUUS:
Well,
I will accommodate myself to you. 35
Only consider that to-night this mountain
Is all enchanted, and if Jack-a-lantern
Shows you his way, though you should miss your own,
You ought not to be too exact with him.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, AND IGNIS-FATUUS, IN ALTERNATE CHORUS:
The limits of the sphere of dream, 40
The bounds of true and false, are past.
Lead us on, thou wandering Gleam,
Lead us onward, far and fast,
To the wide, the desert waste.
But see, how swift advance and shift 45
Trees behind trees, row by row, —
How, clift by clift, rocks bend and lift
Their frowning foreheads as we go.
The giant-snouted crags, ho! ho!
How they snort, and how they blow! 50
Through the mossy sods and stones,
Stream and streamlet hurry down —
A rushing throng! A sound of song
Beneath the vault of Heaven is blown!
Sweet notes of love, the speaking tones 55
Of this bright day, sent down to say
That Paradise on Earth is known,
Resound around, beneath, above.
All we hope and all we love
Finds a voice in this blithe strain, 60
Which wakens hill and wood and rill,
And vibrates far o’er field and vale,
And which Echo, like the tale
Of old times, repeats again.
To-whoo! to-whoo! near, nearer now 65
The sound of song, the rushing throng!
Are the screech, the lapwing, and the jay,
All awake as if ‘twere day?
See, with long legs and belly wide,
A salamander in the brake! 70
Every root is like a snake,
And along the loose hillside,
With strange contortions through the night,
Curls, to seize or to affright;
And, animated, strong, and many, 75
They dart forth polypus-antennae,
To blister with their poison spume
The wanderer. Through the dazzling gloom
The many-coloured mice, that thread
The dewy turf beneath our tread, 80
In troops each other’s motions cross,
Through the heath and through the moss;
And, in legions intertangled,
The fire-flies flit, and swarm, and throng,
Till all the mountain depths are spangled. 85
Tell me, shall we go or stay?
Shall we onward? Come along!
Everything around is swept
Forward, onward, far away!
Trees and masses intercept 90
The sight, and wisps on every side
Are puffed up and multiplied.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Now vigorously seize my skirt, and gain
This pinnacle of isolated crag.
One may observe with wonder from this point, 95
How Mammon glows among the mountains.
FAUST:
Ay —
And strangely through the solid depth below
A melancholy light, like the red dawn,
Shoots from the lowest gorge of the abyss
Of mountains, lightning hitherward: there rise 100
Pillars of smoke, here clouds float gently by;
Here the light burns soft as the enkindled air,
Or the illumined dust of golden flowers;
And now it glides like tender colours spreading;
And now bursts forth in fountains from the earth; 105
And now it winds, one torrent of broad light,
Through the far valley with a hundred veins;
And now once more within that narrow corner
Masses itself into intensest splendour.
And near us, see, sparks spring out of the ground, 110
Like golden sand scattered upon the darkness;
The pinnacles of that black wall of mountains
That hems us in are kindled.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Rare: in faith!
Does not Sir Mammon gloriously illuminate
His palace for this festival? — it is 115
A pleasure which you had not known before.
I spy the boisterous guests already.
FAUST:
How
The children of the wind rage in the air!
With what fierce strokes they fall upon my neck!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Cling tightly to the old ribs of the crag. 120
Beware! for if with them thou warrest
In their fierce flight towards the wilderness,
Their breath will sweep thee into dust, and drag
Thy body to a grave in the abyss.
A cloud thickens the night. 125
Hark! how the tempest crashes through the forest!
The owls fly out in strange affright;
The columns of the evergreen palaces
Are split and shattered;
The roots creak, and stretch, and groan; 130
And ruinously overthrown,
The trunks are crushed and shattered
By the fierce blast’s unconquerable stress.
Over each other crack and crash they all
In terrible and intertangled fall; 135
And through the ruins of the shaken mountain
The airs hiss and howl —
It is not the voice of the fountain,
Nor the wolf in his midnight prowl.
Dost thou not hear? 140
Strange accents are ringing
Aloft, afar, anear?
The witches are singing!
The torrent of a raging wizard song
Streams the whole mountain along. 145
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
The stubble is yellow, the corn is green,
Now to the Brocken the witches go;
The mighty multitude here may be seen
Gathering, wizard and witch, below.
Sir Urian is sitting aloft in the air; 150
Hey over stock! and hey over stone!
‘Twixt witches and incubi, what shall be done?
Tell it who dare! tell it who dare!
A VOICE:
Upon a sow-swine, whose farrows were nine,
Old Baubo rideth alone. 155
CHORUS:
Honour her, to whom honour is due,
Old mother Baubo, honour to you!
An able sow, with old Baubo upon her,
Is worthy of glory, and worthy of honour!
The legion of witches is coming behind, 160
Darkening the night, and outspeeding the wind —
A VOICE:
Which way comest thou?
A VOICE:
Over Ilsenstein;
The owl was awake in the white moonshine;
I saw her at rest in her downy nest,
And she stared at me with her broad, bright eyne. 165
VOICES:
And you may now as well take your course on to Hell,
Since you ride by so fast on the headlong blast.
A VOICE:
She dropped poison upon me as I passed.
Here are the wounds —
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come away! come along!
The way is wide, the way is long, 170
But what is that for a Bedlam throng?
Stick with the prong, and scratch with the broom.
The child in the cradle lies strangled at home,
And the mother is clapping her hands. —
SEMICHORUS OF WIZARDS 1:
We glide in
Like snails when the women are all away; 175
And from a house once given over to sin
Woman has a thousand steps to stray.
SEMICHORUS 2:
A thousand steps must a woman take,
Where a man but a single spring will make.
VOICES ABOVE:
Come with us, come with us, from Felsensee. 180
VOICES BELOW:
With what joy would we fly through the upper sky!
We are washed, we are ‘nointed, stark naked are we;
But our toil and our pain are forever in vain.
BOTH CHORUSES:
The wind is still, the stars are fled, 185
The melancholy moon is dead;
The magic notes, like spark on spark,
Drizzle, whistling through the dark. Come away!
VOICES BELOW:
Stay, Oh, stay!
VOICES ABOVE:
Out of the crannies of the rocks 190
Who calls?
VOICES BELOW:
Oh, let me join your flocks!
I, three hundred years have striven
To catch your skirt and mount to Heaven, —
And still in vain. Oh, might I be
With company akin to me! 195
BOTH CHORUSES:
Some on a ram and some on a prong,
On poles and on broomsticks we flutter along;
Forlorn is the wight who can rise not to-night.
A HALF-WITCH BELOW:
I have been tripping this many an hour:
Are the others already so far before? 200
No quiet at home, and no peace abroad!
And less methinks is found by the road.
CHORUS OF WITCHES:
Come onward, away! aroint thee, aroint!
A witch to be strong must anoint — anoint —
Then every trough will be boat enough; 205
With a rag for a sail we can sweep through the sky,
Who flies not to-night, when means he to fly?
BOTH CHORUSES:
We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
Witch-legions thicken around and around;
Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over. 210
(THEY DESCEND.)
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,
As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
There is a true witch element about us; 215
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided: —
Where are you?
FAUST (FROM A DISTANCE):
Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What!
I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, doctor, an with one step 220
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light —
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
This way: we shall slip down there in a minute. 225
FAUST
:
Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on —
‘Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time. 230
MEPHISTOPHELES:
See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether:
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.
FAUST:
Would that I were
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, 235
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably. Let the great world rage! 240
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
‘Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
Wisely attired with greater decency. 245
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
I hear them tune their instruments — one must
Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I’ll lead you
Among them; and what there you do and see, 250
As a fresh compact ‘twixt us two shall be.
How say you now? this space is wide enough —
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it —
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable: 255
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?
FAUST:
In introducing us, do you assume
The character of Wizard or of Devil? 260
MEPHISTOPHELES:
In truth, I generally go about
In strict incognito; and yet one likes
To wear one’s orders upon gala days.
I have no ribbon at my knee; but here
At home, the cloven foot is honourable. 265
See you that snail there? — she comes creeping up,
And with her feeling eyes hath smelt out something.
I could not, if I would, mask myself here.
Come now, we’ll go about from fire to fire:
I’ll be the Pimp, and you shall be the Lover. 270
(TO SOME OLD WOMEN, WHO ARE SITTING ROUND A HEAP OF GLIMMERING COALS.)
Old gentlewomen, what do you do out here?
You ought to be with the young rioters
Right in the thickest of the revelry —
But every one is best content at home.
General.
Who dare confide in right or a just claim? 275
So much as I had done for them! and now —
With women and the people ‘tis the same,