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L^7 



./ '■■:■ 



FAUST, 



9 Ktasttiv. 



BV 



J. W. VON GOETHE. 



TRANSLATED UY 



CAPTAIN KNOX, 



ATTiion or "the nriTii bister's budget/' 

"harry MOWBRAY," '* DAY DREAMS," 
Lie. LtC. 



LONDON : 
JOHN OLLIVIER, 59, PALL MALL. 

1847. 



li' 



I 

I 



• 



Fi I f A i' r 



i&>£.iiiQ5: tfTfinons on^but!^: Hp«v^ nK 

XXK TTttDskiA: ir, the nigg^fy] |v»i>x 

JTOBL imsmurt u- Imur^iiu^c'. n |vrm^itv 

i: jnalocons to t\m{ ciC n ^)Un< 

wiiQK rttsTj^TT ii w«s fo pty^bH^i^ t^\>nA 

•mhh 1^ iMycme!: with throhnmcemMh' wi^r-i'iA 

of "Fa^ A beakdir' ^okw rhc m-a> !> 1MhA\«\|r, 

iMW Pt na, that xhere is room oiu-^^r)^ t^>«* ^i^ mU tvti ihv 

Jmw b in eBaaaned rraid, 1 shul) uko K'aw h\ \\v%^^^\^ 

my voacm of this dnumn to iho |wU)io >vithont ll\i' 

CTttloniin overtnro which ;^<vmR h\ \\w h\\\\\\^\\\\M 

diaoordant. 

Hie difficulty of rMuloriiig KmiM inio Kn|^li^h hrtu 
been so fuUy acknowI<Hl|2;«H) thui Iho iHiiMti)H Iiin rntMi* 
to be looked upon as a mtrt of prMi>1iiMil hH|iiiili<HM' 
requiring some apology (Voin \\w iiiIvhiIiimmik (hmn 
lator. I think the hvni npoloity \n n i'imh'nnUm nl 
faith in the power of the l<;ii|<liffli lfiH|^iifi(/;i'; IimI I nin^J 



s' :; L t A- 



IL Oil JciULa^ A 4 












"-• 



IV PBErACE. 

also admit some personal motiyes of my own, namely, 
that many years ago, during a residence at Weimar, 
it was my good fortune that some effusions of mine, 
printed for private circulation in an ephemeral publi- 
cation called " Chaos," attracted the notice of 
Goethe, who did me the honour of having my portrait 
taken for his private collection, and I trust that a not 
unnatural anxiety to justify this preference may be 
considered a sufficient apology for the present attempt. 
I may venture to say for myself, that I have spared 
neither time nor labour in this task, which I have 
looked upon more in the Ught of the transposing of a 
beautiM piece of music from one key to another, than 
as a mere affair of arranging words and syllables. I 
can safely affirm that I have slurred / nothing ; and 
whilst I have, as far as possible, avoided any circuitous 
paraphrase, I have in no case availed myself of the 
inglorious expedientof rendering a passage Uterally but 
unintelligibly, and then sheltering myself behind the 
dictionary. I have endeavoured to convey the sense 
of each passage as closely, as tersely, and as clearly 
as possible, and have freely employed notes to illus- 
trate the text, in the hope that the extracts from 



PREFACE. V 

Milton, Bacon, and Shelley, will not be unacceptable 
either to the English or German reader, as shewing 
the identity of thought between great minds of the 
two nations. 

If this attempt of mine should add a link^ however 
imperfect, to the intellectual chain that connects the 
two great families of the Gothic race, I shall feel 
that, even though the effort should not be as success- 
ful as I could have wished, still I shall not have 
laboured altogether in vain. 

CHARLES H. KNOX. 

St. Jumea* Place ^ 
1846. 



DEDICATION. 



Ye fleeting phantoms,* ye approach again ! 

As once my troubled gaze ye sought of yore. 
Now shall I strive to clasp ye not in vain ? 

Still that illusion doth my heart adore ?f 
Closer ye draw ! 'tis well, unchallenged reign, J 

As forth from mist and cloud towards me ye soar ; 
My bosom flutters youthfully again 
At the witched atmosphere § that plays around your 
train. 

In ye the forms of happier days I hail. 

Amongst ye many much-loved shades upspring. 

Like to an olden half-forgotten tale, || 

First love and friendship in your ranks ye bring, 

* Schwankende geatalten.—Schwaxiken is to waver, a figure 
that flits before our eyes, so that we cannot fix it, is called 
a schwankende gestalt. 

As empty clouds by rising winds are tossed. 

Their fleeting forms scarce sooner found than lost. — Prior. 

t Faust was one of the earliest conceptions of Goethe, was, 
though intermittinglj, the work of his whole life, and was 
finished not many weeks before that life terminated. 

X Walten indicates uncontrolled power. 

§ Hauch is the motion of the air, caused by breathing, as 
contradistinguished from A them, animal breath. 

II Literally like an ancient half-expired tradition. 



VIU DEDICATION. 

The pain revives, and it recalls the wail 

That moans life's labyrinthine wandering, 
And names the friends that of their hours of hght 
By fate beguiled have vanished from my sight. 

The following songs alas they cannot hear, 
Those souls for whom I tuned my early lay,* 

The friendly throng is scattered far and near, 
The old responsive echo died away. 

To crowds unknown I voice mv sorrow drear. 
Even their applause upon my heart doth weigh. 

And those that in my songs rejoiced of yore. 

And still survive, dispersed, wander the wide world 
o'er. 

There seizes me a yearning long unknown. 
That tranquil earnest spirit realm to know. 

My faltering song in inarticulate tone. 
Like an EoUan harp floats faint and low. 

Emotion quells me, tear on tear flows on. 
The hardened heart feels a new mildness glow. 

All I possess seems distant to mine eyes. 

And things long disappeared become realities. 

* Many years elapsed between the commencement of Faust 
and its completion, towards the end of which period the dedi- 
cation was composed. 



ERRATA. 

lice 5, for on, raid o'er, 
„ 9, /«■ unnerving, TMdnnreriving. 
„ 3, /or bearC and heart, read head and heart. 
„ 12, /«■ your, riad thine. 
„ 2, j'oT duHty, rend lofty. 
„ 10, /or orerwrought, rtai o'erwrought. 
„ 15, /or clogs, rend cloys. 
,, 6, read upon Ibe path. 
„ 9, /or or -i^J for. 
„ 21. /or and, mid under. 
,, 7, /if world, rMd word. 
„ 9, /or to, «a4 in. 
„ 3, /or bouse, rrod hoar. 
„ 4, /or Ti, rtad 'Tis. 
„ 12, for the, read their, 
last line,/iir do. read dotb. 
line 7, for head, read heart. 
„ 10. /or gape, rtad squeak. 
„ll,/orpu^rMdju9^. 
„I2, therollo<viDgliDeaonutled: 

Dotb a witched atmoepbere eavelope mu ? 
I pressed lo this delight so eagerly. 
In a wild dream of love how feel distraugfn 
Are we of every breath of air (heaport .' 

„ 9, read lucludes — suatainii lie not. 

„ 13, /or Dkvovt Gehiub, r«ad Ci devast G enii 

,, 6, Maroiret fiatgt hinilf inide him. 



INTRODUCTION IN THE THEATRE.* 



■-f 



MANAGER. STAGE POET. HUMOURIST. 

Managee. 

Say, my two friends, who have failed not to stand 

By me so often in trouble and need — 
In the length and the breadth of old Germany's land, 

Hope ye will our undertaking succeed ? 
Pleasure I wish to the public to give. 
For it acts on the maxim, to hve and let live ; 
The booth is prepared, and the stage is bedecked, 
And all are determined a treat to expect. 
In critical calmness, with eyebrows upraised, 
They sit and desire to be hugely amazed. 

* In Germany, the theatres are frequently the property of 
the sovereign or the state, and their organization more resembles 
that of the staflf of- a public office than with us, the appoint- 
ments to many branches being permanent. 

B 



L INTEODUCTION IN THE THEATBE. 

How to humour the taste of the people I know ; 
But I never before found myself puzzled so. 
True, it may be that they have not been bred 
To the best — but a terrible deal they have read. 
How shall we manage, that all shall be new. 
And such as both pleases and means something too 1 
• For it gladdens my eyes to see the hot throng, 
Wh^n the stream towards our booth sets in heavy and 

strong, 
And before four o'clock — aye, by broad light of day,* 
t With throe upon throe makes its turbulent way ; 

* In Germany, theatrical hours, as well as all others, are 
much earlier than in England. At Weimar, when the transla- 
tor was there, the theatre began at six o'clock, and was oyer 
at nine, and probably that is the case now. One reason why 
theatricals are so much more flourishing on the continent than 
in England, is, that instead of interfering directly with the meals 
of the higher classes, as here, they fill up intervals between 
them, and the consequence is, a preponderance of cultivation 
and taste in the audience, to which the actor, to attain cha- 
racter in his profession, must act up, instead of as here, acting 
down to the audience, the overwhelming majority of whom, 
are very accurately described by the Manager, a few lines 
further on. It is to be remembered, that this is not supposed 
to take place in a regular theatre, but in the temporary theatre, 
or rather booth, of a strolling company. 

t Wehen is not a verb, but a real substantive. GeburtS' 
wehen are the pains of labour. 



INTEODUCTION IN THE THEATEB. O 

Scrambling and elbowing^ through the choked wicket. 
Our portal of heaven, to where sits the cash taker ; 

Risking their necks for the chance of a ticket. 
Like a famishing mob at the door of a baker. 

On such manifold minds, such miraculous sway. 

Is the Poet's alone ! My dear friend, oh, exert it to-day. 

Stage Poet. 

Oh! speak not to me of the mob ; at the sight 
Of the great Many-headed, the spirit takes flight. 
Veil from me the billowy thronging that still 
Drags U3 down to its whirlpool in spite of our will. 
Oh ! to heavenly retirement bear me apart. 

Where alone for the bard true enjoyment can 
flourish; 
Where friendship and love join the bUss of the heart. 

With the hand of a god to create and to nourish. 

In the depths of our bosoms, how many a thought. 

Through the faltering Ups climbing faintly to-day. 
Now eluding our grasp, now exultingly caught. 

Is devoured by the moment's tumultuous sway. 
Long, long years of struggUng are often decreed. 

Before at its perfected form it arrives : 
In the present, what glitters will often succeed ; 

For posterity, only the sterling survives. 



4 introduction in the theatre. 

Humourist. 

I wish of posterity less I might hear ; 

If I were to talk of posterity, who 
Would make for the present the ftm and the cheer 

That the present requires — and, what's more, will 
have too. 
The presence, besides, of a spirited lad,* 
Is something methinks well worth being had. 
Who imparts what he has in a manner to please. 
And will not take huff at the people's caprice. 
The wider his circle, the better he likes it. 
For he's sure to awaken more chords when he strikes 

it; 
Now set to like a man — shew a brilliant example, 
In each of her keys give of Fancy a sample. 
Understanding and reason,t 1^^ feeling abound. 
And passion, but mark ! Folly's voice in the chorus 
must sound. 

* Meaning himself. 

t Vernunft reason ; VerstaJid understanding. Kant divides 
intellect into understanding and reason. The understanding, 
acting upon experience, merely compares, judges and measures 
its representations, and is conversant solely with their mutual 
limits and relations, classifying them according Xo certain 
schemes of its own, which are called categories. While, how- 



introduction in the theatee. 5 

Manager. 

Above all things let plenty of action arise. 

They come but to see, to be pleased through the eyes ; 

When a long line of incidents off you have spun, 

At your work, that the many may stare in amaze, 
You've the bulk of the multitude's suffrages won. 

And the popular favour your labour repays. 
For by masses alone you the masses can stir. 
Each looks out for what he himself may prefer. 
And he who brings much will bring something that 
pleases 

All palates, and sends them contented away ; 
When you give them a piece, at once give it in pieces, 

With such a ragout you will sure make your way ; 
'Tis as easy to serve up as 'tis to invent. 
What use is it ever a whole to present. 
When it still by the public in fragments is rent ? 

Poet. 

Ye feel not how such a mere job must degrade. 
How little befits it, art's true-hearted child. 

Affectation so blundering, such mere tricks of trade. 
Among you I observe, indeed, maxims are styled. 

ever, the understanding is thus limited, the activity of the 
reason is unbounded, and, as the principle of principles, it is 
the base and verification of every special principle and reason. 



6 inteoduction in the theatre. 

Manager. 

A reproach such as that does not hurt me at all ; 

Who would turn out his work as a true workman 
should^ 
Must stick to the tools that are fittest of all* 

For his job. Yours, remember, is splitting soft 
wood.f 
And for whom are you labouring ? only just think. 

This one comes, by ennui to the theatre driven; 
And that one, o'erloaded with meat and with drink. 

Fresh from table ; and what is more horrible even. 
Full many a one comes from reading the papers. 

As if to a masque in conftision they press ; 
Curiosity wings every step of the gapers, 

The ladies themselves, all the sheen of their dress 
Throw into the bargain as part of the play. 
And act in our company all without pay. 
What dream is it, round your Parnassus that glows, 
What gladdens your heart when the house overflows? 
The half is indifferent — debauched is the rest. 

* " To endeavour to work on the vulgar with fine sense, is 
like attempting to saw blocks with a razor." — Pope. 

t Alluding to the splitting of wood for firewood, an impor* 
tant branch of the every-day business of life in Germany* 



INTRODUCTION IN THE THEATEE. 7 

This man, when the theatre's o'er, is intent 

On a nibher ; that thinks of a rapturous night 
On the breast of a girl ; why, unwise ones, torment 

The sweet muses, such audience as this to delight? 
To give more, and still more, be your efforts ad- 
dressed; 

Do ihis, and your object you never can miss. 
With mankind only seek to bewilder each brain ; 

To content them is not half so easy as this. 
Well ! what ails you now — is it pleasure or pain ? 

Poet. 

Away, a more flexible minister find ; 

Shall the poet indeed, your behest to obey. 
The loftiest right nature grants to mankind — 

The right of humanity, squander away ?* 
How avails he all hearts to his accents to bind ? 

O'er all elements whence is his conquering sway ? 

* <* We owe tbe great writers of the golden age of our litera- 
ture, to that fervid awakening of the public mind, which shook 
to dust the oldest and most oppressive form of the Christian 
religion. We owe Milton to the progress and development of 
the same spirit. The sacred Milton was, let it ever be re- 
membered, a republican, and a bold inquirer into morals 
and religion. The great writers of our own age are, we have 
reason to suppose, the companions and forerunners of some 



8 INTEODUCTION IN THE THEATRE. 

Is it not that his spirit, in loving accord. 
Finds in every hreast an harmonious chord,* 

And clasps all the world to his hosom entwined ? 
From the spindle when Nature her threadnever ending. 

Winds off with a hand that hath waited to none ; 
When the crowd of all Beings discordantly blending. 

Jangling harsh, into vexed intertanglement run ;'f 

unimagined change in our social condition, or the opinions 
which cement it. The cloud of mind is discharging its col- 
lected lightning, and the equilibrium between institutions and 
opinions is now restoring, or about to be restored." — Shelley. 

* *' Poetical abstractions are beautiful and new, not because 
the portions of which they are composed have no previous 
existence in the mind of man or in nature, but because the 
whole produced bj their combination has some intelligible and 
beautiful analogy with those sources of emotion and tliought, 
and with the contemporary condition of them." — Shelley. 

t " Therefore, because the acts and events of true history 
have not that magnitude which satisfies the mind of man, poesy 
feigneth acts and events greater and more heroical. Because true 
history propoundeth the sacrifices and issues of actions, not so 
agreeable to the merits of virtue and vice, therefore poesy feigns 
them more just in retribution, and more according to revealed 
providence. Because true history representeth actions and 
events more ordinary and less interchanged, therefore poesy 
endueth them with more rareness, and more unexpected and 
alternative variations ; so it appeareth that poetry serveth and 
conferreth to magnanimity, morality and delectation ; and 



INTEODUCTION IN THE THEATRE. 9 

Who can marshal the ranks, streaming wild in dis- 
union, 

And the life of a rhythmical progress inspire ? 
Who can summon the Lone to the general com- 
munion, 

Till exquisite symphony thrills through the choir ? 
Who passion invests with the hurricane's wing, 

And steeps earnest minds in the sunset's mild 
glow? 
Who all the most delicate blossoms of spring. 

O'er the path of the loved one rejoices to throw ? 
Who from the green chaplet of meaningless leaves. 
For desert of all natures a coronet weaves ? 
Who Olympus assures ? who with gods can unite ?* — 
'Tis the Poet, revealing man's soul in its might.f 

therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of 
divineness, because it does raise and erect the mind, by sub- 
mitting the shows of things to the desires of the mind ; 
whereas reason does buckle and bow the mind to the nature of 
things/'— Lord Bacon. 

* Can raise his mind to a loftiness of tone, such as belongs 
to gods. 

t So, when remote futurity is brought, 
Before the keen inquiry of bis thought, 
A terrible sagacity informs 
The poet's heart, — he looks for distant storms : 



10 introduction in the theatre. 

Humourist. 

These magnificent powers, I prithee, then use. 

And onwards your husiness of poetry carry. 
Just as an affau: of the heart one pursues ; 

By chance you first meet, you are smitten, you 
tarry; 
By and by are insensibly caught in the snare. 

Lovers' bliss, lovers' quarrels, your spirit entrance ; 
You are charmed, you are pained, and ere you are aware, 

The story grows into a Uttle romance. 

He bears the thunder, ere the tempest lowers ; 
And, armed with strength surpassing human powers, 
Seizes events as jet unknown to man. 
And darts his soul into the dawning plan. 
Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name 
Of Prophet and of Poet was the same ; 
Hence British poets, too, the priesthood shared, 
And every hallowed Druid was a bard.*' 

COWPER. 

" Poets are the Hierophants of an unapprehended inspira- 
tion, the mirrors of the gigantic shadows, which futurity casts 
upon the present, the words which express what they under- 
stand not, the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what 
they inspire, the influence which is moved not, but moves. 
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." 

Shellet. 



INTRODUCTION IN THE THEATRE. 11 

Such a true spectacle now let us give ; 
Let us grasp the whole life of mankind that they lire. 
That man lives so, for instance, — how, nobody knows. 
But when you represent it the interest soon grows. 
A many-hued picture, with clearness to brighten it. 
Much error, some sparkles of truth to enlighten it. 
For your audience this is the best potion to brew. 
That refreshes the world, and edifies too. 
Bound your play then our youth's fairest flowers as- 
sembling, 

WUl listen entranced to its longed-for revealing. 
And each tender soul in its ecstacy trembling. 

Will find what will nourish its mournful feeling. 
First this one is moved, then another affected. 
Each sees what he bears in his heart unsuspected : 
To laugh or to weep alike ready are they. 

They honour what soars, by what glitters are 
caught ; 
On the old finished worldling* is toil thrown away, 

'Tis youth undeveloped is grateful for aught. 

Poet. 

Oh, then give me the times of my youth back again. 
When, as yet undeveloped, my passionate soul 

In a still gushing fountain of strain upon strain 
Its fiilness would upwards unceasingly roll ; 
* Fertig, accomplished, completed. 



12 INTRODUCTION IN THE THEATRE. 

When the world in a mist from ray eye was concealed^ 
And each hlossom its promise of glory reveale J» 
And the thousand hright flowers I plucked in delight, 
That filled every valley with love and with light : 
I had nought yet enough, — I had thirst for the real. 
Yet a tremhling dehght in the glowing ideal. 
Oh, each headlong impulse unfettered restore. 

The ecstacy rendered still deeper by pain. 
Hate's strength, love's omnipotence, give me once 
more. 

Give me, oh, give me my youth back again. 

Humourist. 

As for youth, my good friend, its want you may find. 

When in the hot battle your enemy presses. 
Or when on your neck, with her white arms entwined. 

Hangs the fairest of maids with her loving caresses ; 
Or when from the goal, yet far distant, a glance 

Of the prize of the difficult course meets your sight; 
Or after the maddening whirl of the dance 

One carouses away through the turbulent night ; 
But with sweetest expression, with spirit and soul 

The familiar strings of the harp to awake. 
And gracefully on to your self-chosen goal 

Your way on through attractive meanderings to 
make: 



INTEODUCTION IN THE THEATKE. 13 

Such, old friend, is the duty you have to fulfil. 
And not less for that will we honour you still. 
Age makes us not children, as somehody teaches us. 
True children \i finds us whenever it reaches us. 

Manager. 

Come, enough and to spare of this word inter- 
changing ; 

I must beg that at last you some deeds will .j)ro- 
duce : 
For whilst you these compliments have been ex- 
changing. 

You might have been busy with something of use. 
What signifies talk of the right mood* so long? 

She appears not to him who inactive will stand ; 
Only give yourselves out for the children of song 

Of the ranks then of poetry take the command. 
Ye know very well what a drink we would sip. 

Right strong be the potion ye hold to our lip : 
Now to brew such a drink ; go unflinchingly on ; 
What you do not to-day is to-morrow undone. 
Never squander a day ; resolution should clasp 

Opportunity boldly, before it is gone. 
By the forelock, nor let it escape from its grasp. 

And so from necessity still it works on, 

• Slimmung, tune, mood, humour. 



14 INTEODUCTION IN THE THEATRE. 

You know^ in our German theatricals ever. 

Each tries every plan that comes into his mind ; 
So spare not to-day in your earnest endeavour. 

Machinery, scenery, aught you can find. 
The lights, both the greater and lesser, of heaven 

Are at your disposal, the stars at your call ; 
Fire, water, and rocks, in pro^sion are given. 

And the birds and the beasts and the fishes and all. 
Come, in this narrow booth be your powers appHed, 

The circle of all the creation display. 
Now on, swiftly but still circumspectively glide. 
From Heaven to Hell, taking Earth in your way. 



PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 



The Lobd. 

The Heavenly Host — afterwards Mephistopheles, 
The three Archangels advance. 

Raphael. 

In choral emiilation blending* 

With brother spheres, the sun hath chimed 
As erst, his course fore-ordered ending. 

In stately step, to thunder timed. 

* From the earliest ages there has been a remarkable ten- 
dency in the mind of man, to connect rhythmical harmony with 
the motions of the heavenly bodies. In the sacred writings 
we find music distinctly alluded to as coeval with creation. 

" 4. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the 
earth 7 declare, if thou hast understanding. 

*< 5. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest ? 
or who hath stretched the line upon it ? 



16 PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

His aspect gives the angels might — 

Though none to fathom him have power ; 

The works, above thought's loftiest flight. 
Are glorious as in time's first hour. 

" 6, Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? or who 
laid the corner'Stone thereof ; 

** 1, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
of God shouted for joy V:^Job 38. 

Founded upon this is the passage in Milton's Hymn to the 
Nativity, which has so often been compared with this chorus : 

** At last surrounds their sight 

A globe of circular light. 
That with long beams the shamefaced night arrayed ; 

The helmed cherubim 

And sword ed seraphim 
Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displayed, 

Harping, in loud and solemn quire, 

With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's new born Heir. 

Such music as 'tis said 

Never before was made. 
But when of old the sons of morning sung. 

While the Creator great 

His constellations set, 
And the well-balanced world on hinges hung : 

And cast the dark foundations deep, 

And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel keep. 

Ring out ye crystal spheres, 

Once bless our human ears. 



peologue in heaven^ 17 

Gabeiel. 

And swift beyond conception's range, 

Wheels round and round Earth's gorgeousness ; 

If ye have power to touch our senses so ; 

And let your silver chime, 

More in melodious time; 
And let the base of Heaven*s deep orean blow -, 

And with your ninefold harmony/ 

Make up full consort with the angelic 83rmphony/' 

Among the Heathens, we find Apollo alike the god of the sun 
and music, the seven strings of his lyre typifying the seven 
planets (counting the moon as one) ; and the Greek mythology 
was derived from the Egyptian, which probably goes back to 
the earliest distortion of the truth as known to Noah, and his 
immediate descendants. 
Milton has a fine passage to the same effect — 
" That day, as other solemn days, they spent 
In song and dance about the sacred hill ; 
Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere. 
Of planets and of fixed, in all her wheels. 
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate. 
Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular 
The most when most irregular they seem ; 
And in their motions harmony divine 
So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear 
Listens delighted." 

Nor is it to be supposed that so beautiful an association 
escaped such a mind as Shelley's. 

c 



18 PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

Celestial light to interchange 

With deep night's awful solemnness. 

Panthea, — " 'Tis the deep music of the rolling world, 
Kindling within the strings of the waved air ; 
^olian modulations. 

lone. — Listen too. 
How every pause is filled with undertones. 
Clear, silver, icy-keen awakening tones, 
That pierce the sense, and live within the soul, 
As the sharp stars pierce winter's crystal air, 
And gaze upon themselves within the sea." 

But Dryden soars yet higher, nearer perhaps to the truth 
than he himself was aware — 

« From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 
This universal frame began. 
When Nature underneath a heap 
Of jarring atoms lay. 
And could not raise her head, 
The tuneful voice was heard on high. 
Arise ye, more than dead ; 
Then Hot and Cold, and Moist and Dry, 
In order to their stations leap. 
And music's power obey. 
From harmony, from heavenly harmony, 
This universal frame began ; 
From harmony to harmony. 
Through all the compass of the notes it ran— 
The diapason closing full on man." ^ 



PEOLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 19 



Torrents of foam the sea uprears^ 

Against the rock's deep roots to hurl ;* 



It is strange that a mysterious instinct, implanted in the 
human breast, should, from the earliest times, have impelled the 
loftiest of human minds to associate the idea of audible harmony 
with the midnight heaven, an object which seems of all others, 
a gigantic embodiment of silence ; but it is stranger still, that 
the researches of modem science appear on the point of esta- 
blishing that what seemed alslately but baseless dream of the 
poet-world, is in reality the foreshadowing of the revelation of 
a pervading law of nature, and of connecting Harmony, through 
vWration, with the most important principles with which we are 
acquainted — what may be called the great driving powers of 
the universe— light, heat, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, 
nervous action, and possibly something more. 

* ** Agitation with loater turns out to be another of these re- 
storatives. The foulest air, shaken in a bottle with water for a 
sufficient length of time, recovers a great degree of its purity. 
Here then again, allowing for the scale upon which nature 
works, we see the salutary effects of storms and tempests. 
The yeasty waves, which confound the Heaven and the sea, are 
doing the very thing which was done in the bottle. Nothing 
can be of greater importance to the living creation than the 
salubrity of their atmosphere. It ought to reconcile us there- 
fore to those agitations of the elements, of which we sometimes 
deplore the consequ^ences, to know that they tend powerfully to 
restore to the air that purity, which so many causes are con- 
stantly impairing."— Pa ^i/'< Natural Theology, 



20 PEOLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

And rock and sea the pauseless spheres. 
In endless swiftness onwards whirl.* 



Michael. 

And each the other storms outstorm,f 
From sea to land, from land to sea ; 

* '' Another thing in the element, not less to be admired, is 
the constant round which it travels, and by which, without 
suffering adulteration or waste, it is continually offering itself 
ta the wants of the habitable globe. From the sea are exhaled 
those vapours which form the clouds. These clouds descend in 
showers, which, penetrating into the crevices of the hills, supply 
springs ; which springs flow in little streams into the valleys, 
and there uniting, become rivers ; which rivers, in return feed 
the ocean: so there is an incessant circulation of the same fluid, 
and not one drop probably more or less now than there was at 
the creation.*' — Foley's Natural Theology, 

Paley, however, seems strangely to overlook the agency of 
capillary attraction in the formation of springs and the circula- 
tion of water. 

t *' Throughout these infinite orbs of mingling light, 
Of which yon earth is one, is wide diffused 
A spirit of activity and life. 

That knows no term, cessation, or decay, 

* • • * 

But active, steadfast and eternal still. 



PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN i 21 

Round all, a chain enfrenzied form 

Of deep pervading energy. 
The wasting levin flames before 

The path on which the thunders play ; 

Oaides the fierce whirlwind, in the tempest roars, 

Cheers in the day, breathes in the balmy groves, 

Strengthens in health, and poisons in disease ; 

And in the storm of change that ceaselessly 

Rolls round the eternal universe, and shakes 

Its undecaying battlements, presides, 

Apportioning, with irresistible law, 

The space each spring of its machine shall fill : 

So that when waves on waves tumultuous heap 

Confusion to the clouds, and fiercely driven ; 

Heaven's lightnings scorch the uprooted ocean fords, 

Whilst to the eye of shipwrecked mariner 

AH seems unlinked contingency and chance ; 

No atom of this turbulence fulfills 

A vague and unnecessitated task. 

Or acts but as it must and ought to act." 

Shelley. 

• • • " What, but God, 

Inspiring God, who boundless spirit all, 
And unremitting energy pervades 
Adjusts, sustains, and animates the whole/' 

Thomson. 



22 PBOLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

But still thine angels,* Lord adore, 
fThy day that sweetly glides away.J 

* Boten signifies a messenger, or ambassador, and corres- 
ponds to the Greek Aggelos, Lat. Angelus. 

*' Angel is understood to be properly a name of office, not re- 
ferring to the nature of the person employed, but to his agency ; 
and it may be said perhaps with little risk, that if the word 
messenger, envoy, or delegate, be mentally substituted by the 
reader for angel, when the title occurs, the passage would lose 
nothing by the chang^/' — Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible. 

It may be remarked, that the early bishops were termed the 
' Angels' of their respective churches, and that the term 
minister, to this day, means indifferently an envoy or a pastor. 

t Wandeln, signifies progress without much exertion, loung- 
ing. 

X A strictly literal translation of this exquisite,' but alas 

unapproachable chorus, may possibly be acceptable to the 

reader : — 

Raphael. 

The sun, after the olden manner, chimes into the emulous 
chaunt of the brother spheres, and his forewritten journey, he 
completes with a gait of thunder. His aspect g^ves strength 
to the angels, even if no one is able to fathom him. The 
inconceivably lofty works are glorious as on the first day. 

Gabriel. 

And swift, inconceivably swift, the gorgeousness of the earth 
wheels itself round and round ; it alternates the brightness of 
Paradise with deep awful night. The sea foams up in broad 
streams to the deep foundation of the rocks, and rock and sea 
are hurried away in the eternal swift course of the spheres. 



prologue in heaven. 23 

The Theee in Choeus. 

Strength from the sight the angels gain^ 
Whilst none to fathom Thee have power, 

Michael. 

And storms are boisterous in their rivalry from sea to land, 
from land to sea, and raging form round about everything a 
chain of the deepest working. There a flashing desolation flames 
before the path of the thunderbolt, but still thy messengers, 
Lord, adore the sweet gliding away of thy day. 

The Three in Chorus. 

The sight gives strength to the angels, whilst no one can 
fathom thee, and all thy lofty works are glorious as on the first 
day. 

The completion of his fore-ordained journey by the sun, 
does not seem to me to mean the daily sunset, a signification 
which would poetically degrade the sun by making it subor- 
dinate to the earth, besides being astronomically incorrect, but 
to that gigantic progression known to exist, though by us 
dimly traced, and as yet unmeted, which the sun makes through 
space. Day and night fill the third and fourth lines of the 
second stanza. Raphael does not represent the sun as striking 
into the chorus of the bodies uhich revolve round him, but of the 
Brother Spheres, i^, other suns, so called fixed stars, but 
whose real condition is set forth by Humboldt in his Kosmos 
as follows : — 

*' The view of the heaven inlaid with stars, the relative 
position of the stars and nebulous spots, as also the distribution 
of these luminous masses, the charms of the landscape, if I may 
here make use of the expression, presented by the firmament at 
Itrge, will depend, in the course of milleniums relatively on 
the proper actual motions of the stars and nebulae, on the 



24 PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

And all thy lofty works remain^ 
As glorious as in time's first hour. 

translation of our solar system in space, on the bursting out 
of new stars, and on the disappearance or sudden diminution in 

intensity of light in old stars These statements 

seem to bring sensibly before us the vastness of the motions 
which in infinitely small divisions of time, go on incessantly 
like an eternal clock — the time-piece of the universe. If we 
im^ne, as in a vision of the fancy, the acuteness of our 
senses preternaturally sharpened even to the extreme limit of 
telescopic vision, and incidents compressed into a day or an hour, 
which are separated by vast intervals of time, everything like 
rest in spacial existence will forthwith disappear. We shall 
find the innumerable host of fixed stars, commoved in groups 
in different directions ; nebulae drawing hither and thither, like 
cosmic clouds ; the milky way breaking up in particular parts, 
and its veil rent : motion in every point of the vault of heaven, 
as on the surface of the earth in the germinating, leaf-pushing, 
flower-unfolding organums of its vegetable covering. . , . 
In the aggregate life of nature, organic as well as sidereal. 
Being, Maintaining and Becoming, are alike associated witk 
motion." 

The first stanza I underatand to relate to the sun as a glorious 
part of the universal whole. 

The second, to the earth as a part of the solar system, obeying 
the laws of which the sun is the centre. 

The third, to the earth as an integral body, under the influ- 
ence of laws peculiar to itself. 

The chorus, as drawing the whole system of the universe 
into the Deity. 



peologue in heaven. 25 

Mephistdpheles . * 

Since Thou, Lord, dost condesceud once more 

To ask how we are getting on below. 
And aye hast seen me willingly before. 

Amongst thy servants now my face I shew. 

* It seems to me that the personal character of Mephis- 
topheles (literally, a lover of dirt) or the branch of the principle 
of evil which he represents, is the perversion of the divine 
principle of Love, as embodied in the Belial of Milton, and the 
classical Cupido, the son of Nox and Erebus, distinguished for 
his debauchery and riotous disposition from the true Love, the 
son of Jupiter and Venus, (llie reader is referred to the 
account which Mcphistopheles gives of his own origin when 
questioned by Faust upon his appearing as a travelling scholar 
in the study.) The following is the passage in Milton to which 
I allude : — 

Belial came last, than whom a spirit more lewd 
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love 
Vice for itself: to him no temple stood 
Or altar smoked, yet who more oft than he 
In temples and at altars, when the priest 
Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled 
With lust and violence the house of God. 
In courts and palaces he also reigns. 
And in luxurious cities, where the noise 
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers. 
And injury and outrage : and when night 
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons. 



26 PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

Fine words are not my forte, excuse my style. 
Even though this scornful circle vote it low. 

My pathos certainly would make Thee smile, 
Hadst Thou not left o£f laughing long ago. 

Of Belialy flown with insolence and wine. 
V^itness the streets of Sodom, and that night 
In Gibeah. Paradise Lost. 

Belial is also represented as alone joining Satan in scof&ng at 
the effects of the artillery of hell upon the ranks of heaven : — 

To whom thus Belial in like gamesome mood, 

'< Leader, the terms we sent were terms of weight, 

Of hard contents, and full of force urged home :" 

and in '' Paradise Regained'' there is a remarkable similitude 
between the advice he gives as to the course to be pursued in the 
temptation of the Saviour, and that actually pursued by Mephis- 
topheles in the temptation of Faust : — 

Belial, the dissolntest spirit that fell. 
The sensualest, and after Asmodai 
The fleshliest incubus, and thus advised : 
*' Set women in his eye and in his walk 
Among the daughters of men the fairest found. 
Many are in each region passing fair 
As the noon sky, more like to goddesses 
Than mortal creatures, graceful and discreet. 
Expert in amorous arts, enchanting tongues, 
Persuasive, virgin majesty with mild. 
And sweet allayed, yet terrible to approach, 



PBOLOGVE IN HEATEN. 27 

About the sun and world I have no skill 
To hold forth, all indeed I ever see 
Is man, himself tormenting constantly. 

The little godling of the world is still 

Skilled to retire, and in retiring draw 
Hearts after them tangled in amorous nets ; 
Snch object hath the power to soften and tame 
SeTcrest temper, smooth the ruggedstbrow, 
Ennerve, and with voluptuous hope dissolve, 
Draw out with credulous desire and lead 
At will the manliest, resolutest breast, 
As the magnetic hardest iron draws : 
Women, when nothing else beguiled the heart 
Of wisest Solomon, and made him build 
And made him bow to the gods of his wives. 

Whereupon Satan turns sharp upon his counsellor, and unhesi- 
tatinglj saddles him with all the irregularities of the heathen 
mythology : — 

Have we not seen or by relation heard, 

In courts and regal chambers how thou lurkest, 

In grove or wood, by mossy fountain side. 

In valley or green meadow to waylay 

Some beauty rare, Calisto, Clymene, 

Daphne, and Semele, Antiopa 

Or Anymone, Syrinx, many more 

Too long, then layest thy 'scapes on names adored, 

Apollo, Neptune, Jupiter, and Pan, 

Satyr, or Faun, or Sylvan, 



28 PEOLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

Struck from the selfsame die^ and without change 
Remains as since his first creation, strange : 
A hetter Hfe he'd lead hadst thou not given 
Him a faint glimmering of the light of heaven : 
He calls it reason, yet doth it apply 
To heat the heasts in hestiaUty. 
Saving your presence, he seems to me 
Like a long-legged grasshopper only to he. 
That ever is hopping and flying along. 
And chirrupping down in the grass its old song ; 
And would in the grass he might ever repose. 
For in each hit of dirt he wiU hury his nose. 

'* He hath cast off all obedience to God, and likewise called 
Belial, which is an Hebrew word and signifies one that is good 
for nothing, a libertine, one that is extremely wicked. The most 
sabtle of these spirits contrived a temptation which might be 
most taking and dangerous to man in his exalted and happy state. 
He attempts him with art, by propounding the lure of knowledge 
and pleasure to inveigle the spiritual and sensitive. He first 
allured with the hopes of impunity, Ye shall not die. He then 
promised an universal knowledge of good and evil." — Cruden*s 
Concordance f (Devil)* 

The character of libertinism Mephistopheles supports to the 
end, even in his address to the angels who are carrying Faust's 
soul to heaven. He however fails in inspiring it in Faust, in 
whom, though disfigured by weaknesses and vices, the loftier 
principle of love predominates to the last, when he places the 
highest happiness in beneficence. 



prologue in heaven. 29 

The Loed. 

Hast thou no more to say, comest thou ever 
With some complaint? will the Earth please thee 
never ? 

Mephistopheles. 

No, Lord, for as from the heginning I find 
The Earth to this day a creation of evils. 

In their days of deep sorrow I feel for mankind. 
Even I have not heart to torment the poor devils. 

The Lord. 
Dost thou know Faust ? 

Mephistopheles. 

You mean the Doctor ? 



The Lord. 



Yea, 



My servant. 

Mephistopheles. 

Faith, he's a peculiar way 
Of serving you, the idiot does not think 
Aught good enough to be his meat and drink ; 
He's half aware though that his senses stray. 



30 PEOLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

Thoughts that uphursting m his soul ferment, 

Whirl him away into the infinite. 
The loveliest star that gems the firmament. 

And all the earth's most exquisite deUght 
He asks from each, yet never cometh rest 
From near or far to his unquiet hreast. 

The Lord. 

Though now he serves me in perplexity. 

Soon will I lead him where all things are clear ; 

The gardener knows when green huds deck the tree 
That flowers and fruit will grace the coming year. 

Mephistopheles. 

What will you wager that you shall lose him now. 
To tempt him my way me if you allow. 

The Lord. 

'Tis thine whilst yet he draws the hreath of life. 

To tempt him as thou listest ; 'tis the lot 
Of man to err whilst lasts his earthly strife. 

Mephistopheles. 

I thank thee kindly, for the dead are not 

Much to my taste, I like far more 

Life's plump fresh cheeks, and shut my door 



PROLOGUE IN HEATEN. 31 

Against a corpse ; Grimalkin's play 
With a caught mouse is more my way. 

The Lord. 

Enough, it is allowed thee, draw this soul* 
Forth from its deepest spring and hear him down. 
If thou canst grasp him with thee on thy path. 
And stand rehuked when that thou must confess 
An upright man, even in his dark distress. 
Still knoweth well the way that he should go. 

Mephistopheles. 

Done. That it will not he tedious, I trust ; 

Ahout losing the match I'm in no tribulation, 
And when I have won it, remember you must 

Allow me to triumph in full exultation. 
By my faith he shall greedily hck up the dust. 
Like the serpent of old, my much honoured relation. 

The Lord. 
So be it. In that also have thy will : 

* Ab Ziehen here I understand to signify to draw out (as 
used colloquially, vulgo to pump), to examine, to test, to 
analyse, to sift. Job is not the only parallel to this scene in 
Holy Writ. 

** Simon, Simon, behold Satan has desired to ha^e you, that 
he may sift you as wheat." — Luke zxii. 31. 



32 PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 

Such as thou art I never have abhorred ; 
Of all the spirits that deny the Lord,* 
t The Ubertine I easiest can endure ; 
Too quickly slackens mankind's % energy. 
He soon delights in absolute repose. 
Therefore to him I willingly accord 
A comrade that allures and influences him ; § 
And devil himself aids in creation still. 
II But ye, the perfect sons of God, enjoy 

* Deny not his existence, or his power, but his goodness. 

t Great difference of opinion exists as to how the word 
' Schalk ' ought to be translated. Our word ' Scamp/ used 
in its more opprobrious sense seems to express it most nearly. 
I have already given my reason for considering that Mephistoo 
pheles is the embodiment of that portion of the evil principle 
represented by Belial, and Cruden's definition appears to me 
ezac^y to render the schalk, viz. one that is good for nothing, 
a libertine. 

X Erschslaffen is to slachen^ and has nothing to say to 
slumbering. 

/V$ ** Whilst we labour to subdue our passions, we should take 
care not to extinguish them. Subduing our passions is disen- 
gaging ourselves from the world ; to which, however, whilst we 
reside in it, we must always bear relation, and we may detach 
ourselves to such a degree as to pass a useless and insipid life, 
which we were not meant to do. Our existence here is at least 
one part of a system.*' — Shenstone. 

II This passage is to be considered as a benedictory dismissal. 



PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 33 

The living riches of the Beautiful. 

The growing fulness of the time to come,* 

* Das werdendet the coming into existence; the principle 
of progressive development towards perfection that pervades 
the universe. ' Werden,* to become, indicates being in a state of 
transition, in opposition to ' Seyn,* to be, which signifies 
existence perfect, and, therefore, unchangeable. It is, however, 
remarkable that the passage, ' I am that I am,' Exodus iii. 
14, is translated by Luther, * Jch werde seyn der ich seyn werde,* 

** Rising to the highest elevation, of conceiving the entire 
stellar creation spread out as a mighty plain, may there not be 
seen, even as they are internally harmonious, the firmaments 
themselves, rejoicing in common external sympathies, and in 
majestic concert sweeping through profound abysses. Let no 
feeling of the infinitude of such a power, or of the awfulness 
of the requisite durations, here stun the human mind, or cause 
it to repel what — having ascended through so many gradations 
— it is entitled to assume to be probable. To realise the mean- 
ing of such a perspective, let us conceive it viewed rather by 
some far loftier being, who from the battlements of his own 
abode, can see beneath his feet, these mighty motions proceed- 
ing in unbroken harmony. To such a Being — and may not 
Man too one day become as such 1 — there will not, however 
mysterious it may yet remain, come from the whole of that vast 
interwoven agency one thought to crush or one doubt to be- 
wilder. There below him must they roll— those stupendous 
arrangements — not with a sound of fetters, but peacefully 
evolving grand results, and growing even as they course 
onwards, themselves into something more perfect. No clank- 

D 



34 PEOLOGUE IN HEAVEN, 

That works in life eternal, compass Ye 
In its sweet fold of love, and all that yet 

ing of fetters — only this august universe in undying strength 
moving freely as the river, and itself ever enlarging, expanding 
with the purposes of the Unfathomable Will/' 

NicHOLLs's Architecture of the Heavens. 

** The chronology of God is not as our chronology. See the 
patience of waiting evinced in the slow development of the 
animated kingdoms throughout the long series of geological 
ages. Nothing is it to him that an entire goodly planet, 
should, for an inconceivahle period, have no inhabiting organ- 
isms, superior to reptiles. Nothing is it to him that whole 
astral systems should be for infinitely longer spaces of time 
in the nebular embryo, unfit for the reception of one breathing 
or sentient being out of the myriad multitudes who are yet to 
manifest his goodness and his greatness. Progressive, not con- 
stant effect is his sublime rule. What then can it be to him 
that the human race goes through a career of impulsive acting 
for a few thousand years. ITie cruelties of ungoverned anger, 
the tyrannies of the rude and proud over humble and good, 
the martyr's pains and the patriot's despair, what are all these 
but incidents of an evolution of superior being which has been 
prearranged and set forward in independent action, free within 
a certain limit, but in the man constrained, through primordial 
law, to go on ever brightening and perfecting, yet never while 
the present dispensation of nature shall last to be quite perfect!" 
Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. 

*' The New Testament does not af^er death here promise us a 
soul hereafter unconnected with matter, and which has no 
connection with our present mind and soul, independent of time 



PKOLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 35 

Floats in phantasmal indefinitude. 

Invest ye with the pennanence of thought** 

and space. That is a fanciful idea, not founded on its expres- 
sions, when taken in their just and real meaning. On the 
contrary, it promises ns a mind like the present, founded on 
time and space, since it is like the present to hold a certain 
situation in time, and a certain locality in space, but it promises 
m mind situated in portions of time and of space different from 
the present, a mind composed of elements of matter more ex- 
tended, more perfect, and more glorious, a mind which formed 
of materials supplied by different globes, is consequently able 
to see farther into the past, and to think farther into the future^ 
than any mind here existing ; a mind which, freed from the 
partial and uneven combination incidental to it in this globe, 
will be exempt from the changes for evil, to which the present 
globe, mind as well as matter, is liable, and will only thence- 
forth experience the changes for the better, which matter, more 
justly poised, will alone continue to experience ; a mind which 
no longer fearing the death, the total decomposition to which it 
is subject in this globe, will thenceforth continue last and im- 
mortal.'* — Hope oh the Origin and Prospects of Man, 

*' 1. And I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth, for the first 
Heaven and the first Earth were passed away, and there was 
no more sea, 

7 2. And I John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem* coming 
down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned 
for her husband. 

** 3. And I heard a great voice oat of Heaven saying, 
Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell 
with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall 
be with them and be their God. 



36 PROLOGUE IN HEAYEN. 

"4, And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and 
there shall he no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither 
shall there he any more pain, for the former things are passed 
away." —Rev. cap. xxi. 

* God is the idea immanens, the true spiritual existence, 
the living principle which pervades the whole. The material 
universe is one phasis of his infinite attributes, namely, exten- 
sion. But Spinoza rigidly and universally teaches, that the 
one infinite substance has two infinite attributes, extension and 
thought. Extension is visible thought, and thought is invisi- 
ble extension. The use of the word *' substance," by which he 
signifies existence, the prima materia of the schoolmen, have led 
to much misunderstanding, and his adversaries have replied, as 
if he meant by substance what we express by matter and 
body . . . When Spinoza asserts thought to be the other 
infinite attribute of substance, he follows Parmenides, of whom 
Ritter says, " Thought appeared to him to exhibit merely one 
aspect of the all." 

Spinoza had a remarkable influence upon the philosophy of 
Germany in the 18th century. Goethe was an especial ad- 
mirer of the bold and uncompromising Jew. He says, ( Wahr- 
heit und Dichtuug)^ ''This spirit that wrought so decidedly 
upon mine, and was to have so great an influence upon my 
entire mode of thinking, was Spinoza. After I had looked in 
vain round the whole world for a way to reduce my strange 
being to shape, I fell at length upon the ethics of this man. 
What I may have drawn out of that work, what 1 may have 
read in it, of that I could give no account, enough that I 
found here a stilling of my passions, it seemed as if a wide and 
unbroken view of the sensuous and moral world opened itself to 



PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN. 37 

Heaven closes. The Archangels disperse, 

Mephistopheles, alone. 

The Antient now and then I gladly see, 

And shall take care I do not with him break. 

Handsome it is, in such a high grandee. 
Such civil speeches to the devil to make. 

me. But what especially bound me to him, was the un- 
bounded disinterestedness that beamed out of every sentence. 
The all-balancing calmness of Spinoza, contrasted with my 
all-agitating turbulence. His mathematical precision was the 
reverse of my poetical line of thought and expression ; and 
even that regulated mode of treatment, which one could not 
find conformable to moral objects, made me his passionate 
scholar, his most decided admirer.*' The reader will find that 
the most obscure passages in the Faust can commonly be cleared 
up by a reference to the doctrines of Spinoza. 



THE TRAGEDY. 

first part. 
Time — Night. 



Faust, restless in his chair, at his desk, in a high 
vaulted small gothic chamber, 

Faust.* 

Philosophy, and law» and medicine. 

And to my sorrow, too, theology 

By this time have I studied searchingly ; 

Poor fool, yet after aU, all this hot toil of mine> 

1 find myself no wiser than before. 

* Faust was born at Knittlingen, in Suabia, in the beginning 
of the 16th century, and was educated at Wittenberg. He then 
resided at Ingolstadt, where he devoted himself to medicine^ 
astrology, and magic, and employed his acquirements in such a 
manner as to convince his oouotrymeu that he had sold himself 
to the Devil. 



THE TRAGEDY. 39 

Master of Arts, and Doctor, indeed 

They call me, and now for this ten years I lead 

Up and down, and in and out. 

My scholars by the nose about. 

And see that we can nothing know :* 

It sears my heart it should be so. 

* ** Man is constituted a speculative being; he contemplates 
the world, and the objects around bim, not with a passive in- 
different gaze, as a set of phenomena in which he has no further 
interest than as thej affect his immediate situation, and can be 
rendered subservient to his comfort, but as a system disposed 
with order and design. He approves and feels the highest ad- 
miration of the harmony of its parts, the skill and efficiency of 
its contrivances. Some of these, which he can best trace and 
understand, he attempts to imitate, and finds that to a certain 
extent, though rudely and imperfectly, he can succeed , in 
others, that, though he can comprehend the contrivance, he is 
totally destitute of all means of imitation ; while in others, 
again, and these evidently the most important, though he sees 
the effect produced, yet the means by which it is done, are 
alike beyond his knowledge and his control ; thus he is led to 
the conception of a power and intelligence superior to his own, 
and adequate to the production and maintenance of all that he 
sees in nature, a Power and Intelligence to which he may well 
apply the term infinite, since he not only sees no actual limit to 
the instances in which they are manifested, but finds, on the 
contrary, that the farther he inquires, and the wider his sphere 
of observation extends, they continually open upon him in in- 



v 



THE TUAGEDY. 



Yet the mere mob of triflers, I know more than they ; 

The doctor, the master, the clerk, and the priest. 

No scruple plagues me, no doubt stands in my vfi^. 

Neither devil nor heU startles me in the least. 

'Tis so aU enjoyment to me is denied, 

I fancy the truth that I never can reach, 

I fancy that nothing I ever can teach 

Can better mankind, or their conduct can guide. 

Then in the world, nor land, nor gold. 

Nor rank, nor station, I my own can call. 

A Hfe like this no dog would longer bold. 

And therefore to the supernatural 

Have I myself devoted, that the force 

Of elemental spirits and their discourse 

May bring forth many hidden things to light ; 

May spare me the abhorred necessity. 

That bitter sweat from my hot forehead wrings. 

Of talking what I do not understand ; 

That I may measure the eternal band 

That holds the earth together, and may see 

What power quickens the still seeds of things 

creasing abundance ; and that, as the study of one prepares 
him to understand and appreciate another, refinement follows 
on refinement, wonder on wonder, till the faculties become be- 
wildered in admiration, and his intellect falls back upon itself 
in utter hopelessness of arriving nt the end,'* ^ Her schel. 



THE TItAGBDY. 41 

Into {Nrodactic»i's boundless raergj. 

And retail words no nMNre in petty traffiekry. 

Tboa rai£ant moon, oh ! might thy last 
Gleam be upon my sorrow cast. 
For whom so oft my yigil deep> 
Into the night Ftc loTed to keep. 
Then over books and papers, thou 

Friend of my sorrows, gladdest my sight : 
Oh would that on the mountain brow 

I wandered in thy much loved Hght, 
With spirits might float through the caverns beneath ; 

In thy silvery ghmmer the meadows might rove,* 
And far from Philosophy's pestilent breath. 

Might bathe me to health in the dew of thy love. 

Wretch ! still within this dungeon pent. 

This cursed hole do I remain. 
Where the sweet Ught from heaven sent 

Streams sadly through each painted pane. 
This hole, with heaps of books begirt. 
Worm-gnawed, begrimed with dust and dirt ; 
Which frt>m the ceiling to the floor 
A smoke dried paper covers o'er 

* ITdten, to more. In ikm Ubem, wtben und sind wir. In him 
we live and move, and have oar heing. Acts z?ii. 28. 



42 THE TRAGEDY. 

The wall, which cases, glasses line. 
And instruments all over crammed. 
With furniture as old as Adam jammed. 

This is thy world—and what a world is thine. 
And dost thou ask, by what restrained 

Thy heart is heavy in thy breast ? 
Why, by some suffering imexplained 

Are all thy springs of life repressed ? 
Instead of nature life abounding. 

In which the Lord created men. 
Are bones and skeletons surrounding 

Thee in thy smoky mouldy den. 

Fly ! up into the distant land : 

Does not this book, with secrets stored. 
By Nostradamus'* very hand. 

Sufficient company afford ? 
Then shalt thou know how planets roll ; 

And then with nature for a guide, 
Forth comes the power of thy soul, 

For spirits' converse qualified. 
The Holy Sign — to thee in vain 
Mere meditation would explain. 

* Nostradamus, Michel de Notre Dame» an astrologer and 
physician of the 16th centurj, was born at St. Remi, a small 
town of the Diocese of Avignon, in 1503. 



THE TRAGEDY. 43 



Spirits je, that hover near me, 
Give me answer if ve hear me. 



He opens the book and sees the sipi of ike 

Macrocosmos * 

Ha, what a gushing of delight 
Bursts on my senses at the sight ; 
Each glowing nerve and vein is rife 
With young and holy joy in life. 

Traced a god this sign that stilled 
Within my breast the raging strife ? 

My woewom heart with gladness filled, 
And that through a mysterious instinct threw. 
The powers of nature open to my view. 
Am I a (jod ? what light breaks in on me, 
In these pure features I can clearly see 
Nature at work, before my soul displayed, 
Now imderstand I what the wise man said. 

Closed is the world of spirits never, 
'Tis thy mind fails— thy heart is dead. 

Up Student, bathe unwearied ever 
Thine earthly breast in morning red. 

• ** The whole world or visible system, in opposition to the 
microcosm or world of man." — Johnson. 



44 THE TRAGEDY. 

He gazes on the Sign, 

How to the whole, each itself interweaves,* 
Each on the other acting works and Uves ; 

• " The researches of chemists have shewn that what the 
vulgar call corruption, destruction, &c., is nothing but a change 
of arrangement, of the same ingredient elements, the disposition 
of the same materials into other forms, without the loss or ac- 
tual destruction of a single atom, and thus any doubts of the 
permanence of natural laws are discountenanced, and the whole 
weight of appearances thrown into the opposite scale. One of 
the most obvious cases of apparent destruction, is, when any 
thing is ground to dust, and scattered to the winds. But it is 
one thing to grind a fabric to powder, and another to annihilate 
its materials ; scattered as they may be, they must fall some- 
where, and continue, if only as ingredients to the soil, to per- 
form their humble, but useful part, in the economy of nature. 
The destruction produced by fire is more striking; in many 
cases, as in the burning of a piece of charcoal, or a taper, there 
is no smoke, nothing visibly dissipated or carried away ; the 
burning body wastes and disappears, whilst nothing ieems to be 
produced but warmth and light, which we are not in the habit 
of considering as substances. When all has disappeared, ex- 
cepting, perhaps, some trifling ashes, we naturally enough 
suppose that it is gone, lost, destroyed. But when the question 
is examined more exactly, we detect in the invisible stream of 
heated air, which ascends from the glowing coal, or flaming 
wax, the whole ponderable matter only united in a new combi- 
nation with the air, and dissolved in it. Yet, so far from being 
thereby destroyed, it is only become again what it was before it 



THE TRAGEDY. 45 

Never ceasing up and down, 
How the Powers of Heaven go, 

existed in the form of charcoal or wax, an active agent in the 
business of tbe world, and a main support of animal and vege- 
table life, and is still susceptible of running again and again the 
same round ; so that for aught we can see to tbe contrary, the 
identical atom may lie concealed for thousands of centuries in a 
limestone rock, may at length be quarried, set free in the 
limekiln, mix with the air, be absorbed from it by plants, and 
in succession become part of the frames of myriads of living 
beings, till some concurrence of events, consigns it once more 
to a long repose, which, however, no way unfits it from again 
resuming its former activity/' 

Herschel's Natural Philosophy. 

Bitumen and sulphur form the link between earth and 
metals ; vitriols unite metals with salts ; crystallizations con- 
nect salts with stones ; the aunanthes lytophite form a kind of 
tie between stones and plants ; the polypus unites plants to 
insects ; the tube worm seems to lead to shells and reptiles ; the 
water-serpent, and the eel, form a passage from reptiles to fish ; 
the anas nigra are a medium between fishes and birds ; tbe bat, 
and the flying squirrel, link birds to quadrupeds; and the 
monkey equally gives the hand to quadrupeds, and to man. 

'' A beautiful connection subsists between the organic and 
inorganic kingdoms of nature. Inorganic matter affords food 
to plants, and they, on the other hand, yield subsistence to 
animals. The conditions necessary for animal and vegetable 
nutrition, are essentially different. An animal requires for its 
development, and for tbe sustenance of its vital functions, a 



46 THE TRAGEDY. 

Pass the golden vessels on,* 

Blessings from their pinions flow ; 
From the chambers of the sky, 

Through the earth they penetrate ; 
To universal harmony 

The miiverse thev modulate. f 

certain class of substances, which can be generated by organic 
beings possessed of life. Although many animals are entirely 
carnivorous, yet their primary nutriment must be derived from 
plants, for the animals upon which they subsist, receive their 
nourishment from vegetable matter. Plants, on the other hand, 
find new nutritive material only in inorganic substances. 
Hence one great end of vegetable life, is to generate matter 
adapted for the nutrition of animals, out of inorganic sub- 
stances, which are not fitted for this purpose." 

Liebig^s Chemistry of Agriculture. 

* Of Light by far the greater part he took 

Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed 
In the sun's orb, made porous to receive 
And drink the liquid light ; power to return 
Her gathered beams ; great palace now of light, 
Hither as to their fountain, other stars 
Repairing in their golden urns draw light, 
And hence the morning planet gilds her horns. 

Paradise Lost. 
t Below lay stretched the universe. 

There far as the remotest line 

That bounds imagination's flight, 



THE TRAGEDY. 47 

What a sight— but alas, only a sight : 
How shall I grasp thee Nature infinite,* 
Where are thy breasts ? hfe's universal springs,^ 
That Heaven and Earth sustain, 

Countless and unending orbs, 
In mazy motion intermingled. 
Yet still fulfilled immutably 

Eternal nature's law. 

Above, below, around, 

The curling systems formed 

A wilderness of harmony , 

Each with undeviating aim, 
In eloquent silence through the depths of space 

Pursued its wondrous way,— Shelley. 

• Spirit of Nature ! No, 
The pure diffusion of thy essence throbs 

Alike in every human heart, 

Thou aye erectest there 
Thy throne of power unappealable ; 
Thou art the judge before whose nod 
Man's brief and frail authority 

Is powerless as the wind 

That passeth idly by ; 
Thine the tribunal which surpasses 

The shew of human justice, 

As God surpasses Man. — Shelley, 

t Spirit of Nature, thou 
Life of interminable multitudes, 
Soul of these mighty spheres. 



48 THE TRAGEDY. 

To which the withered heart convulsive clings. 
Ye gush, ye nourish, yet I pine in vain. 

Whose changeless path through heaven's deep silence lie, 

Soul of that smallest thing 

The dwelling of whose life 

Is one faint April sun -gleam ; 

Man like these passive things 
Thy will unconsciously fulfilled. 
Like theirs his age of endless peace 

Whi( h Time is fast maturing. 

Will swiftly, surely come, 
And the unbounded frame which thou pervadest, 

Will be without a flaw 

Marring its perfect symmetry. 

Shelley. 

" The knowledge of nature is only possible on these two con- 
ditions : that there are certain relations subsisting between the 
System of Nature and the Human Mind, and that harmony 
reigns throughout the system of natural objects, and the neces- 
sary subordination of each separately to some general end. 
Considered in this light, organized being is the most excellent 
production of nature. The examination of any organical body 
displays an admirable subordination of the parts to the whole, 
and the whole itself is in exquisite harmony with each of its 
parts. But at the same time, the whole itself is but a mean to 
other ends, a part in a greater totality. Consequently the most 
exalted form of the teleological judgment, is that which con- 
siders the whole system of nature as one vast organical struc- 
t.ire.''— Kant. 



THE TEAGEDY. 49 

He turns the book over unwillingly, and gazes on the 
sign of the Spirit of the Earth. 

What different feelings waken at the sign ; 

Thou Spirit of the Earth* to me art nigher, 

Abeady do I feel my courage higher, 
I glow as with the glow of fresh strong wine, 

• *' The philosophy of Pjthagoras, which was full of super- 
Btition, did first plant a monstrous imagination, which after- 
wards was, by the school of Plato and others, watered and nou- 
rished. It was that the world was one entire living creature, 
insomuch as Apollonius of Tyana, a Pythagorean prophet, af- 
firmed that the ebbing and flowing of the sea was the respiration 
of the world, drawing in water and putting it forth again. They 
went on and inferred that if the world were a living creature, 
it had a soul and spirit, which they also held, calling it Spiritus 
Mundi, the Spirit or Soul of the world, by which they did not 
intend God, for they did admit of a deity beside, but only the 
soul or essential form of the universe. This foundation being 
laid, they might build upon it what they would, for in a living 
ereature, though never so great, as for example in a gn^at whale, 
the sense and effects of any one part of his body instantly make 
a transcen scion throughout the whole body, and that by this 
they did insinuate, that no distance of place nor want of indis- 
position of matter could hinder magical operations, but that, for 
example, we might here in Europe have sense and feeling of 
what was done in China, and likewise we might work any effect 
without and against nature, and this not holpen by tbe co-opera- 

£ 



50 THE TEAGEDY. 

Feel nerved myself upon the world to throw. 
To bear Earth's weal, to bear Earth's woe, 
To battle with tempests, and stand on the deck 
Undaunted amidst the loud crash of the wreck ; 
Clouds close above me. 
The moon hides her light, - 
The lamp glimmers faintly ; 
Smoke swells, red flashes sparkle round my head, 
A creeping horror on the air is shed, 
Down from the roof it sinks, and seizes me. 
Spirit invoked, I feel thou hoverest near. 
Unveil thyself— appear ! 

Ha, what conflict tears my heart. 
Unto what new emotions starts my mind,* 

Deep stirred and passion tossed, 
I feel my heart entire' to thee resigned. 
Thou must, thou must, though it my life should 
cost. 

tion of angels and spirits, but only by tbe unity and harmony of 
nature. There were some also that stayed not here, but went 
further, and held, that if the Spirit of Man, whom they call the 
Microcosm, do give a fit touch to the Spirit of the world, by 
strong imaginations and belief, it might command nature, for 
Paracelsus and some darksome authors of magic, do ascribe to 
imagination exalted the power of miracle working fate." 

Lord Baeon. 
* Literally all my senses are stirred up or harrowed. 



THE TRAGEDY. i>l 

He pronounces the sign of the Spirit of the Earth 
mysteriauslff. A reddish flame flashes. The 
Spirit appears in the flame. 

The Spirit. 
Who calls upon me ? 

Faust, turning away. 

Aspect of affright. 

The Spirit. 

Thy potent call hath brought me here. 
Thou, long nourished in my sphere : 
And now — 

Faust. 
Torture, I cannot bear the sight. 

The Spirit. 

With paifting supplication thou hast sought me, 

To hear my voice, my countenance to see, 
The mighty praying of thy soul has brought me ;* 

I am here. What piteous terror seizes thee 
Thou Superhuman ? Where the soul's bold call. 

The breast that in itself a world created. 
Bore, cherished, and in joy ecstatical 

Its swoln self to us, the spirits, elevated ? 

* Mich neigtf bends me, inclines me to comply with jour 
prayer. 



52 THE TRAGEDY. 

Where art thou Faust> whose voice so rang unto me. 
Who put forth all thine energies to woo me ? 
Yet now enveloped in my atmosphere, 
Trerablest within thy deepest soul for fear, 
A terrified and writhing worm. 

Faust. 

Thou shape of flame, I yield not so. 
In me, in Faust, thine equal know. 

Spirit. 

In the tide of life, in action's storm, 
Up and down I ever float ; 
Hover here and there. 
The cradle and the tomb. 
An eternal ocean, 
A changeful motion, 
A glowing Hving : 
I work at old Time's whirring loom, 
A garment of life for the Deity weaving. 

Faust. 

Thou that pervadest earth, and air, and sea. 
Creative Spirit, how I yearn to thee. 



the tragedy. 53 

Spirit. 

Mate wert thou to the spirit thou conceivest. 

But not to me. 

[Disappears. 

Faust — starting. 

Not thee, —whom then ? 
I in God's image made. 
Not equal even to thee ! 

[A knock at the door. 

Oh death ! I know it, it is my Famulus.* 

Farewell this lofty ecstacy of joy. 
That all the fulness of bright visions thus 

This brainless blockhead must destroy. 

f Wagner, in his dressing gown and night-capy a 
lamp in his hand — Faust turns unwillingly, 

Wagner. 

Pardon ; just now I heard you loud declaim ; 
A tragedy of Greece no doubt you read, 

* Famulus, a sort of literary aide-de-camp. 

t Goethe seems to ha^re gibbeted the name of Wagner, in 
retaliation for a small act of piracy, committed by an early 
friend of bis bearing it. He says, " On account of the conse- 
quences, I must recall the recollection of a good companion, 
who, without any extraordinary gifts, was neFertheless one of 



54 THE TRAGEDY. 

And much I wish to profit by the same ; 

For now a-days> the art tells well indeed : 
I've often heard how good a teacher 
A player might be to a preacher. 

Faust. 

Yes, if the preacher act himself a play. 

As sometimes may take place upon occasion. 

Wagneb. 

Ah, when one to one's study is confined. 

And sees the world but on a holiday. 

As through a telescope one sees mankind. 

How can one lead them by one's own persuasion ? 

Faust. 

Unless you feel, in vain pursuit ; 
Unless from out your soul it wells, 

us. He was called Wagner, and was first a member of tbe 
Strasburg, then of the Frankfurt companj. He was not without 
spirit, talent, and instruction. He shewed himself active, and 
so was welcome. He was also attached to me, and as I made 
no secret of m j projects, I told him, as I did others, of m j plot 
for Faust, especially tbe catastrophe of Gretchen. He took up 
the plot and used it for a tragedy, < the Infanticide.* That was 
the first time any one snatched away any of my designs. It 
vexed me, though I bore him no grudge for it.'* 

Wahrheit und Dichtung. 



THE TEAGEDY. 55 

And with delight of deepest root. 

The hearts of all who hear compels, 
*Sit busy you, and paste and glue. 

Cook other men's feasts up in hashes. 
And strive to blow a paltry glow 

Of fire from out your heap of ashes : 
Children and apes may much admh-e. 

If to their praise your taste incline ; 
In other hearts you nought inspire. 

That doth not flow all fresh from thine.f 



* Immer here does not exactly mean ever, but has a permis- 
sive or exhortatorj signification. 

t I know the mind that feels indeed the fire 
The muse imparts, and can command the lyre, 
Acts with a force and kindles with a zeal. 
Whatever the theme, that others never feel. 
If human woes her soft attention claim, 
A tender sympathy pervades the frame. 
She pours a sensibility divine, 
Along the nerve of every glowing line ; 
And of a deed not tamely to be borne, 
Free indignation and a sense of scorn, 
The strings are swept with such a power, so loud, 
The storm of music shakes the astonished crowd. 

Cowper, 



56 the tragedy. 

Wagneb. 

Yet 'tis delivery* bids the orator succeed^ 
I'm very far behind^ I feel it so indeed. 

Faust. 

To honest ends your thoughts direct,f 

Be not a juggUng idiot ; know 
That common sense and intellect^ 

With Utile art their object shew :% 

* Vortragf deliverj, elocution. The manner of delivering a 
speech as opposed to the matter contained in it, considered as 
an element of success. Greek, Prophora, 

t Faust here addresses Wagner in the third person singular, 
which is indicative of contempt, or rather of the contempt 
which he had already expressed having got the better of his 
patience and good breeding. 

X Cromwell's imperfect oratory is well known, but he knew 
what he meant himself, and in the end made others understand 
him ; and the greatest of living captains is a daily example of a 
man who leaves words to take care of themselves; and speaks 
things. 

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, 
Three piled hyperboles, spruce affectation. 
Figures pedantical : these summer flies 
Have blown me maggot full of affectation. 

Love*s Labour Lost, 



THE TRAGEDY. 57 

For when in earnest you would things express. 
Is not the chase for words all profitless ? 

The glittering floss of verbiage that mankind* 
To deck its scraps of rubbish fondly weaves,t 

Is drear and lifeless as the drifting wind 
That howls in autumn through the withered leaves. 

* Schnitzel are shaviugs or paper cuttings. The passage 
rang thus. '* Your discourses that are so glittering, in which 
you curl the shavings of humanity, are unnerving as the fog-wind 
that autumnally howls through the barren leaves.*' The orna- 
ments of cut paper, which in this country fill fire-places, will 
give the reader an idea of the meaning of this passage, a great 
show made of what is worthless, and (perhaps the metaphor 
may be carried further) supplies the place of an object of value. 

t '*There hath also been laboured and put in practice a method, 
which is not a lawful method, but a method of imposture, which 
is to deliver knowledge in such manner, as men may speedily 
come to make a show of learning who have it not. Such was 
the travail of Ragmundus Lullius in making the art which bears 
his name, not unlike to some books of Typocosmy, which have 
been nothing but a mass of words of all sorts, to give men 
countenance, that those which use the terms might be thought 
to understand the art, which collections are much like a frip- 
per's or broker's shop, that hath ends of everything but nothing 
of worth," — Lord Bacon. 

Lullius was an enthusiast of the 13th century, a native of 
Majorca. The Ars LuUiana, an attempt to methodize ideas, 
seems to have been a sort of classifying machine, or logical 
kaleidescope. 



58 the tragedy. 

Wagneb. 

Oh Lord, how long endureth art, 

How little life to us accorded. 
And nought hut fears for heart and heart, 

My critic lahours have rewarded ; 
How hard it is the means to ohtain. 

By which to reach the fountain head ; 
And ere the half-way house we gain 

Most likely a poor devil's dead.* 

Faust. 

Is parchment then to he the holy spring, 

A draught from which for ever quenches thirst ? 

No life renewed to thee that draught will bring, 
From your own soul that does not freshly burst. 

* It will be observed, that through this colloquy, Wagner 
does not underttand or answer Faust. His mind, dull and 
barren itself, cannot conceive the idea of originality, and, 
incapable itself of creating, depends entirely upon the creations 
of others for the mental food which a being endowed with 
reason requires, however defective in energy and comprehen- 
siveness that reason may be. He presents the image of a 
spunge, dry, lifeless and unproductive itself, but capable of ab- 
sorbing an enormous quantity of water. 



the tkagedt. 59 

Wagneb. 

Pardon, 'tis transport, when one's spirit's led 
Into the spirit of the times long fled. 
To see hefore our time how men of wisdom thought. 
And how much farther we the power of mind hare 
brought. 

Faust. 

Yes, yes, at last up to the stars we climb. 

My friend, to us, a closed book is the past; 
That which you call the spirit of past time. 

Is at the bottom but the shadow cast. 
From the great ones that then the earth directed. 
And in the mirror of the times reflected — 
And truly oft a pitiful display. 
At the first glance one turns from it away. 
'Tis but a dust bin, but a lumber room. 

At best a high heroic puppet-show. 
With fine pragmatic maxims, that become 

Right well the puppet's lips from which they flow. 

Wagneb. 

But yet the world and man, his heart, his mind. 
To understand these things is every one inclined. 



60 the tbagedy. 

Faust. 

Aye, what is called to understand ; but who 

Is there dares name the bantling honestly ? 
Of those who aught have known, the scanty few, 

Unwisely keeping watch neglectfiilly 
Upon the fulness of their hearts, who have bared 

Their deeper feeHngs and their loftier view 
Before the mass, for them have been prepared 

Ever the stake and cross.* 

* Before the times of Galileo and Harvey, the world believed 
in the diurnal immoveability of the earth and the stagnation of 
the blood, and for denying them the one was persecuted, and 
the other ridiculed. The intelligence and virtue of Socrates 
were punished with death. Anazagoras, when he attempted 
to propagate a just notion of the Supreme Being, was dragged 
to prison. Aristotle, after a long series of persecutions, 
swallowed poison. The great geometricians and chemists, as 
Gerbert, Roger Bacon, and others, were abhorred as magicians. 
Virgilius, Bishop of Latzburg, having asserted that there 
existed antipodes, the Archbishop of Mentz declared him a 
heretic, and consigned him to the flames; and the Abbot 
Frithemius, who was fond of improving stenography, or the art 
of secret writing, having published some curious works on that 
subject, they were condemned as works full of diabolical mys- 
tery. Galileo was condemned at Rome publicly to disavow his 
statements regarding the motion of the earth, the truth of which 



THE TRAGEDY. 61 

My friend, 'tis late ; 
Pardon me, we at last must separate, 

must have been abundantly manifest. He was imprisoned in 
the inquisition, and visited by Milton, who tells us he was then 
poor and old. Cornelius Agrippa, a native of Cologne, and 
distinguished by turns as a soldier, philosopher, physician, 
chemist, lawyer, and writer, was believed to be a magician, and 
to be accompanied by a familiar spirit in the shape of a blaclc 
dog, and was so violently persecuted, that he was obliged to fly 
from place to place, and not unfrequently when he walked he 
found the streets empty at his approach. This ingenious man 
died in a hospital. When Urban Grandier, another victim of 
the age, was led to the stake, a large fly settled on his head : a 
monk, who had heard that Beelzebub signifies in Hebrew the god 
of flies, reported that he saw this spirit come to take possession 
of him. Even the learned themselves, who had not applied to 
natural philosophy, seem to have acted with the same feelings 
as the most ignorant, for when Albertus Magnus, an eminent 
philosopher of the 13th century, constructed an automaton, or 
curious piece of mechanism, which sent forth distinct vocal 
sounds, Thomas Aquinas (a celebrated theologian), imagined 
it to be the work of the devil, and struck it with his staff, 
which, to the mortification of the great Albert, annihilated the 
labours of thirty years. Descartes was horribly persecuted in 
Holland when he first published his opinions. Voetius, a 
person of influence, accused him of Atheism, and had even 
projected in his mind to have the philosopher burned at 
Utrecht, in an extraordinary fire, which kindled on an eminence, 
might be observed by the seven provinces. The persecution of 



\ 



62 the tragedy. 

Wagner. 

Gladly the livelong night I had whiled away. 
Converse to hold with one so rich in lore. 

But on the morrow, Easter's holy day. 
Allow me that I ask a question more. 

Studious and diUgent I myself may call. 

Much I already know, but I would fain know all. 

Faust— aZowe. 

How hope entirely never quits the mind ; 
* He cleaves to worthless rubbish ceaselessly, 
He digs for hidden treasures greedily. 

And yet is glad the worms of earth to find. 

How dare such merely mortal accents sound, 
Where all pervading spirits reigned around. 
And yet, alas, yet for once I thank thee, thou 
Meanest of all Earth's sons, I thank thee now. 

science and genius lasted till the close of the seventeenth cen<^ 
\uryr—D' Israeli. 

Quere t Is there nothing of the sort in the nineteenth ? 
No war between theology and geology? No Westminster 
Abbey closed against Byron ? No denouncement of the em« 
ployment of the voltaic battery ? No vituperation of Shelley ? 

* Der, refers rather contemptuously to Wagner. 



THE TEAGEDY. 63 

Thou freedest me from the grasp of hopelessness,* 

That well nigh hid my tottering senses reel. 
But ah, the giant shadow's boundlessness 

The dwarf I am right well might make me feel.f 
Image of God, myself already deeming 

The mirror of eternal truth so nigh ; 
Revelling in Heaven's Hght, so brightly gleaming. 

The robe that clothes the soul in clay laid by. 
I more than cherub, whose enfranchised might 
Already prompted its presumptuous flight 
Through Nature's very veins, and dreamed it mine 
In creative power to taste the life divine. 
Vain hopes, for them what penance must I pay, 
One thunder-word has swept me far away, 

* The despair occasioned by the reply of the Spirit of the 
Earth as it disappeared on Wagner's arrival, the 'thunder word' 
of the next passage. 

t *' The boundless views of intellectual and moral as well as 
material relation, which open on him on all hands in the course 
of theet pursuits, the knowledge of the trivial place he occupies 
in the scale of creation, and the sense continually pressed upon 
him of his own weakness and incapacity to suspend and 
modify the slightest movement of the vast machinery he sees 
in action round him, must effectually convince him that humi- 
lity of pretension, not less than confidence of hope, is what 
best becomes his character." — HerscheL 



64 THE TEAGEDT, 

As being of an equal mould, 

The more I rate myself with thee ; 
The power to call, but not to hold, 

Was all that e'er was given to me. 
Ah! in that holy moment, when 

I felt myself so small — so great. 
Thou flungest me roughly back again 

Upon mankind's uncertain fate.* 
Who teaches me, from what I shall forbear ; 

Shall I each impulse recklessly obey ? 
Ah, what we do as well as what we bear. 

Checks us each instant on life's weary way. 

Some foreign element will still intrude 
Upon the spirit's loftiest conception. 



* ** The mind of man is as a mirror or glass, capable of the 
image of the universal world, and as joyful to receive the im- 
pressions thereof, as the eye rejoices to see the light ; and not 
only delighted in beholding the variety of things and the 
vicissitudes of times, but raised also to discover the inviolable 
laws and the infallible decrees of nature ; but if any man shall 
think, by view and inquiry into sensible things, to attain that 
light, whereby he may reveal unto himself the nature and will 
of God, then is he veiled through vain philosophy ; for the sense 
of man is as the sun, which shines and reveals bodies, but con- 
ceals and obscures the stars and bodies celestial." — Bacon, 



THE TRAGEDY. 65 

When we have reached the Things, this Earth calls 
good. 
We call Things better, error and deception. 
The glorious feelings whence our life hath birth. 
Are numbed in the thronged scramble of the Earth. 

What though with Hope her daring flight upholding. 
Fancy dilates to guage the eternal realm ; 

Yet Httle space contents her soon, beholding, 

N/fiow joy on joy doth time's abyss o'erwhelm. 

In the heart's depths nestles care. 

Secret sorrow nursmg there. 

To and fro uneasy tosses, . 

Ever peace and pleasure crosses ; 

Taking some new mask her features to conceal. 
Now house and land, now wife and child resem- 
bUng, 

Now fire and water now, now poison and now steel. 
Before all things that never happen trembhng ; 

Of things thou ne'er hast lost, the most thou weepest 
the losses. 

No godlike being am I, I feel conviction deep ; 
sNo, I am like the worm that in the dust doth creep. 
That living in the dust upon the dust is fed. 
And crushed into the dust, by passing traveller's 
tread. F 



66 THE TEAGEDY. 

Are they not dust, the objects that surround 

This dusty wall with all its hundred presses ? 
This pedlar's booth with thousand toys hung round. 

That in this wretched world, my soul oppresses. 
Here shall I hope what I require to find ? 

Read through a thousand books and find alone, 
How has mankind for ever scourged mankind. 

Whilst here and there appears a happy one. 
What doth thy grin thou hollow skull convey ? 

But that thy brain like mine was once over- 
wrought. 
Searched in the twilight for the light of day. 

In the desire of truth to madness brought ? 
Ye instruments, forsooth, too, mock at me, 

With wheels, cogs, cylinders and collars wrought j 
I stand before the door, and ye should be the key ; 

Your wards are complex, yet the bolt moves not. 
Nature, inscrutable in broadest day. 
Allows not that her veil be torn away ; 
What to thy mind she will not open fling, 
With screws and levers canst thou never wring. 
Thou, antient furniture, I never use ; 

Because my sire used thee dost here remain. 
So long the lamp bums at this desk, the hues 

Of smoke thy face, thou ancient scroll, will stain* 



THE THAGEBY. 67 

Better my little all in waste to spend, 
Than sweat here with that Kttle all oppressed ; 

The things that from thy forefathers descend 
So use that they may be by thee possessed. 
^Unused possessions are a grievous load, 

We can use only what is by the hour bestowed. 

But what to yonder spot attracts my sight ? 

Why is yon flask a magnet to my gaze ? 
Why is all near me now so sweetly bright. 

As when in woods by night the moonbeams round 
one plays? 

Thou matchless Vial, thee I bow before — 

I take thee down at last with reverence deep ; 
All mind and art of man in thee I adore, 

Thou essence of the hohest draughts of sleep. 
Extract of powers of subtlest deadHness, 

Some favour to thy master now display. 
I see thee, and my agony grows less ; 

I feel thee, and my struggle dies away. 
The spirit's tide hath turned — it ebbeth slow. 

It bears me to the mighty main away ; 
The burnished ocean at my feet doth glow, 

And to fresh shores beckons an imtried day. 



68 THE TRAGEDY. 

A car of fire I see towards me soar 

On pinions lights I feel my spirit high 
By a new road the ether to explore, 

For unknown spheres a purer energy. 
Thou late but worm, what worth of thine doth earn 

This lofty life, this ecstacy divine ; 
Aye, only now resolve thy back to turn 

Upon the sun that on thy earth doth shine. 
Those gates, whence others cowering hold aloof. 

Thou, armed in dauntlessness, in sunder tear ; 
Here is the time thy deeds shall give the proof, 

Man's dignity shrinks not Grod's loftiness to share. 
Before that sable cavern not to quail, 

Where Fancy her own torments doth invent ; 
Uncowed that narrow entrance to assail. 

Through whose close mouth all Hell in flames is 
sent ; 
Serenely resolute the step to take. 
Being or nothingness on the cast to stake. 

Now come, thou goblet, down, of crystal clear. 
From out thine ancient case. For many a year 
I have not thought of thee, since when my sire 
Held festive meetings, and 'twas thine to inspire 
His guests with gladness, when in jovial round 
They pledged each other, and when each was bound 



THE TRAGEDY. 69 

Of all thy many pictured ornaments,* 

Each one m festive couplets to explain. 
Then at one draught to drain thy whole contents, 

What days of youth dost thou recall again ! 
Now to no neighbours do I pass thee on. 
No -^t of mine wUl on thy art be shewn; 
Here is a drink that quickly steals away 
The senses ; see how its brown flood flUs up 
The long by me prepared self-chosen cup. 
Here my last draught with my whole soul I drain, 
High festive greeting to the coming day. 

[He sets the cup to his month 

Peal of hells and choms. 

Chorus of Angels. 

Christ has arisen from the tomb, 
Let the hour all mortals bless, 

* Goblets, curiously stained, and man j of great antiquity, 
abound in Germany. The Emperor and the seren electors, and 
some historical and scriptural paintings, are favourite subjects. 
It was customary in many great houses, upon the birth of an 
heir, to cause a glass of this sort to be blown, to become an 
heirloom, the size of the glass being frequently proportional 
to the rank of the family. As these were carefully preserved, 
they accumulated in gpieat numbers, and the text alludes to a 
sort of game in which they were employed. 



70 THE TEAGEDT. 

Whose hereditary doom, 

Is to be girt with wickedness. 

Faust. 

What a deep murmur on the night air swells. 

What a clear tone draws irresistibly 
The goblet from my mouth. Ye hollow bells. 

Proclaim ye Easter's dawn is drawing nigh ? 
The words of hope in that sweet music ringing. 

That once, when o'er his sepulchre did close 

The shades of night, from angel Hps arose. 
Assurance of a covenant renewed to mortals bringing. 

Chortjs op Women. 

His body in death 

With spices we dressed. 
And unfaihng in faith 

We left him to rest ; 
With graTcclothes we bound • 

His limbs for the bier, 
Alas, and we found 

Christ no more here. 

Chorus of Angels. 

Glorious in resurrection, 
Christ is arisen on high. 



THE TEAGEDY. 71 

Joy to the Lord of love ; 
He whom his deep dejection. 
Soul-searching agony 
Still doth stainless prove. 

Faust. 

What in your mighty sweetness do ye seek. 

Ye tones of Heaven, with me that dwell in dust ? 

Seek elsewhere mortals flexible and weak. 

I hear the message, but I cannot trust ; 

Faith's chosen child is the miraculous. 

I dare not strive those distant spheres to gain. 

From whence these holy tidings came to us ; 

And it seems that long remembered strain 

In youth, recalls me back to Hfe again.* 

* There is in souls a sympathy with sounds, 
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased 
With melting airs, is martial, brisk, or grave ; 
Some chord in unison with what we hear. 
Is touched within us, and the heart replies. 
How soft the music of those village bells. 
Falling at intervals upon the ear 
In cadence sweet, now dying all away. 
Now pealing loud again and louder still, 
Clear and sonorous as the gale comes on ; 
With easy force it opens all the cells 
Where memory slept. Whenever I have heard 



72 THE TKAGEDT. 

The kiss of heavenly love upon me fell, 

In the deep stillness of the Sabbath calm. 
The heart-felt fulness of the Sabbath bell, 

A prayer to my glad soul sufficient balm. 
Beyond conception sweet, a holy longing. 

Drove me to wander forth through wood and mead. 
And in the thousand tear-drops warmly thronging, 

I felt a world grow up, mine own indeed. 
The joyous sports of youth those tones revealing. 

Of the spring feast once more the joys unfolds. 
And recollection fraught with childish feeling. 

Me from the last dread step of all withholds ; 
Oh sound, sound on, thou sweet celestial strain. 
The tears well forth, the earth hath me again. 

Choeus of Disciples. 

Has he that tombed did lie 
Already gloriously 

A kindred melody, tbe scene revives, 

And with it all its pleasures, all its pains. — Cowper, 

The Hindoos account for the mysterious influence which 
melody exercises over the tone of our minds, by saying, that it 
is tbe spirit language in which our souls conversed, before the 
task of animating bodies was imposed upon them, and that 
music, reviving a dim shadowy recollection of a better state, 
softens, elevates, and directs heavenward tbe mind, enfran- 
chising it for tbe moment from tbe matter that encumbers it. 



THE TEAGEDY. /^ 

In life's sublimity 
Raised him on high ? 
He in his ecstacy. 
Growing divinity. 
Enters his rest. 

Of creative gladness ; 
"We on eai^th's breast. 

Linger in sadness ; 
He left us, his own. 

Behind him to pine ; 
Lord, we bemoan 

The bUss that is thine.* 

Choeus of Angels. 

Christ has arisen 

From the womb of decay. 
The bonds of your prison 

Tear joyful away ; 

♦ Literallj. 

Chorus of Disciples. 

The buried one, already gloriously, living and sublime, has 
raised himself on high. He, in the bliss of developing perfec- 
tion, is near the enjoyment of creating.* Alas, we are to our 

* Enjoying the highest bliss next to the supreme bliss of 
creating, that of advancing the ends of creation. 



74 THE TEAGEDY. 

By works unresting. 

Praise to him giving, 
Love manifesting. 

Brotherly living ; 
Preaching him everywhere, 
His perfect bUss declare. 

Ye is the Master near. 

For ye is here. 

sorrow on the earth's breast. He left us, his own, languishing 
here behind. Alas, Master, we weep thy bliss. 

Chorus of Angels. 

Christ is arisen from the womb' of corruption, tear yourselves 
joyfully free from your bonds. To ye, praising him by deeds, 
giving proofs of love, living together like brothers, travelling 
to preach him, promising^ his bliss, to ye the Master is near. 
For ye is here. 

' SchooSt lap, or figurative, womb ; as, der dunkle schoas der 
Zukunft, the womb of futurity. 

* Verheissen, to promise ; das land der verheissungj the land of 
promise. 



THE TRAGEDY. 75 

BEFORE THE GATE. 

Pedestrians of all sorts pass out. 

Some Aetificeks. 
Why go ye out that way ? 

Othees. 
To the Jagerhaus we're bound.* 

The Fiest. 
We towards the mill will stray. 

A Workman. 

The Wasserhof might I advise. 
Will still the best be found. 

A Second. 
Upon an ugly road it lies. 

* These are the names of places of public amusement, which 
abound in the neighbourhood of German towns, and by affording 
entertainment and recreation to the inhabitants in the open air 
and under the controul of public opinion and public feeling, 
contribute alike to the moral and personal health of the people. 
The Jaeger Haus is the place of rifle practice, of which there is 
an annual festival, under the name of VogtUcheissung, &c. &c. 
a necessary branch of the public defence, in countries where a 
levee en masse of the whole inhabitants to resist an invader, 
(poetically termed * Landstarm,*)i8 by no means an improbable 
event. 



76 the tragedy. 

The Second. 
What dost thou do? 

A Third. 
Go with the rest. 

Fourth. 
Come up to BurgdoiF^ there you'll find 
The fairest girls, beer of the best. 
And first-rate larks of every kind. 

Fifth. 

You ever roistering blade. 

For a third row* are you inclined? 

I'll not go there, I am afraid. 

Servant Girl. 
No, no, back to the town go I. 

Another. 
"We'll find him by the poplars certainly. 

The First. 
I'm not so highly gratified. 
To see him ever by your side ; 
He never dances but with you. 
What have I with your joys to do ? 

* Handel, rowB; HafK^e^corresponds to our ajfatr, which will 
equally express a skirmish, or a sugar-sale. 



th^ tbagedt. 11 

The Other. 

Alone be'U not be^ for he said 
He'd bring bim witb tbe curly bead. 

Student. 

By Jove, bow tbose lusty girls step out ; 

Come, brotber, to join tbem let us make baste ; 
A stinging pipe and beer tbat is stout. 

And a girl in ber finery, tbat's my taste. 

Citizens' Daughters.* 

Pretty young men tbose, only see ; 

Tbese are really sbameful goings on ; 
Tbey migbt live in tbe best of company. 

Yet after sucb girls as tbese must run. 

Second Student — to the First. 

Not so fast — bere are two coming up bebind ; 
They are neatly dressed, 'tis true — 
But a neighbour of mine is one of the two ; 

Towards tbe girl I am much inclined. 
They walk along all quietness, 
But will take us witb tbem nevertheless. 

* Burgermaedehen, citizens* daughters, in opposition to 
Landmaedchen, country girls. 



78 the teagedy. 

First. 

No, brother, no, such restraint I detest ; 

Look sharp to the chase, lest we lose the prey ; 

The hand that has twirled all the Saturday 
The mop, on the Sunday caresses the best. 

Citizen. 

No, the new Burgomaster I cannot admire ; 

Since he's been so he holds his head every day higher. 

And what for the good of the town has he done ? 

Day after day things are going worse on. 

"We the laws must more strictly than ever obey. 

And heavier rates than before we must pay. 

Beggar sings. 

Ye gentlemen and ladies bright. 

With rosy cheeks and gallant dress. 
Look upon me, a piteous sight. 

And mark and soften my distress. 
Ah, do not scorn my humble lay. 

Light heart is his whose hand is free ; 
To-day to you is Holiday ; 

Let it be Harvest day to me. 

Anothee Citizen. 
On Sundays and on HoUdays my delight 
Is to converse of battle, blood and fight. 



THE TRAGEDY. 79 

Where in the wilds of Turkey, distant far,* 
The savage people are engaged in war. 

One looks from out the window, sips hetimes. 
Sees down the stream the painted vessels ghde ; 
Then glad returning home at eventide. 

Blessings calls down on peace and peaceful times. 

Third Citizen. 

Yes, neighhour, on that point I'm clear. 

Let them hreak heads ahroad at will. 
And scatter ruin far and near. 

So that at home all remains quiet still. 



* At the period when this scene is laid, Turkish power en- 
grossed the attention of all Europe. Selim the First had 
driven back the Persian power to the Euphrates and Tigris. 
He defeated the Mamelukes, and conquered in 1517 Egypt, 
Syria, and Palestine. Solyman the Magnificent in 1522 took 
Rhodes from the Knights of St. John ; and by the victory of 
Mohacz in 1526, subdued half Hungary, exacted a tribute from 
Moldavia, and was so successful against the Persians, as to make 
Bagdad, Mesopotamia, and Georgia, subject to him. He 
threatened to overrun Germany, and was only prevented by a 
repulse under the walls of Vienna in 1529. The successful 
corsair Barbarossa was master of the Mediterranean, had con- 
quered Africa, and laid waste Minorca, Sicily, Apulia, and 
Corfu. 



80 THE TEAGEDT. 

Old "Woman — to the Citizens^ Daughters, 

How smart we are, how pretty too ; 
"Who would not fall in love with you ? 
Only keep pride from off your mind^ 
What you want I know where to find. 

BUEGES MaDCHEN. 

Come, Agatha, come, let no one see 
Us in such witch-Hke company ; 
On St. Andrew's night* she shewed to me 
My future lover bodily. 

The Othee. 

Mine, as a soldier, in the glass. 

With other bold fellows, she shewed to me ; 
I look for him everywhere, but alas. 

His face again I can never see. 

* <' It is believed that a maiden can invite and see her future 
beloved upon St. Andrew's night, St. Thomas's night, Christ- 
mas night, and New Year's night. A table must be laid for 
two, but there must be no forks there. Whatever the lover 
leaves behind him at his departure must be carefully gathered 
up ; he comes then to her who keeps it, and loves her warmlj. 
He must, however, never see it again, else he remembers the 
torture that he suffered on that night from supernatural power, 
and becomes aware of the incantation, whence great evil 
arises." — Grimm, deutsche Sagen, No. 114. 



THE TRAGEDY. 81 



Soldiers. 



Wall-girt town, tall parapet. 

High soul'd maid, with scornful eyes, 

On such prize my heart is set ; 
Gallant is the enterprise. 
Glorious is the prize. 

Rise we to the trumpet's breath. 
As for pleasure, so for death ; 
Thus is life in storm revealed. 
Maids and towns aHke must yield. 

Gallant is the enterprise. 

Glorious is the prize. 
And the soldiers, bold and gay, 
March away. 

Faust and Wagner. 

Faust. 

Now stream and streamlet both from ice are clear, 
At the sweet glances of the opening year. 
Inspiring hfe in aU things, green and bright. 
Grows in the valley, Hope's delight. 
And now the ancient winter in his weakness 
Draws himself back into his mountain bleakness. 
Thence sends he nothing from his far retreat, 
But showers of little power of hail and sleet ; 

G 



82 THE TEAGEDY. 

O'er the green meads, in patches Hght, 

But the sun endures no white. 

Everywhere growth and formation is rife, 

All with gay colours will flush into life; 

Though imperfect the landscape, its flowers without. 

It fills up their places with mortals decked out. 

Turn ahout on this gentle rise. 

On the city hehind you to cast back your eyes ; 

See from the dark gate's cavities, 

Issuing out what a motley swarm. 

Rejoicing each in the sunshine warm. 

They keep the day of the Lord arisen. 

For they themselves have broken from prison. 

From lowly houses, chambers, small 

And dull, from work and traffic's thrall. 

From gables and garrets' oppressive heat. 

From the jostling of the close-pent street. 

From the churches' solemn night, 

All of them are brought to light. 

See, only see, how the hurrying rout, 

Scattered o'er garden and meadow are roving, 
O'er the length and the breadth of the stream spread 
about, 

How many joy- freighted wherries are mo\*ing.* 

* Presuming that the scene is laid in Ingoldstadt, the river 
TTouId be the Danube. 



^nrr ^Ua^EIE:. ^» 



Pxd£ off ll^iff Im ikoKCE^ ^BBL; 



Tie people's "tme liEBWEn k ■^eiihr Iibbp -, 
T^ CMtt and :die snafll ^iHnt «Diim^, 
HcK' I JOE, ^sart I 5bi¥ £ sbh *&) lie. 



Wc^ ^ocSxc, t^nB le ^ia& 'waiii j^sn. 

Is boeom' and is pacfe tue^ 

But wToh no £ve wifi «f sraie ovm. 

Because I asi an 

To aB sons c^ Tn^acx^. 



I in BIT WIT beart disbar z 

TlifT n^ as if ^ii^ea % liie ikedl i3di^ 

And can it pleisare, caHk fiOBg. 



The shej^Kid fer the daaoeiras dressed. 
Garland and band and faroidered Test ; 

R^^it smart indeed was he tnraedout ; 
Close round the Ibne-liee sqneesed and presMd, 



84 THE TBAGEDT. 

They danced like maniacs round about. 
Juch he, juch he, 
Juch heisa, heisa he, 
.The fiddle went so gay. 

He squeezed himself into the whirl. 
And with his elbow nudged a girl. 
The lovely girl turned round her head ; 
Don't you be such a fool, she said, 

Juch he, juch he, 

Juch heisa, heisa he. 
Don't you be so ill bred. 

But on and on went round the ring, 
And right and left they took their fiing : 
Lord, how the petticoats did swing. 
And they grew red, and they grew warm. 
And rested panting arm on arm, 
Juch he, juch he, 
Juch heisa, heisa he. 
And elbow upon hip. 

Oh, do not make so free, she said. 
How many a man has many a maid 
Deceived first, and then betrayed ; 
But still he lured the girl aside. 
And from the lime tree far and wide. 



THE TBAGEDT. 85 

Juch he^ juch he, 
Juch heisa^ heisa he. 
Fiddling and shouting rang. 

Old Peasant. 

Oh, doctor, it is kind of you. 

That us to-day you have not spumed. 
And that amidst this motley crew. 

There moves a man so deeply learned. 
Accept from us our fairest cup ; 
I pledge you in it, and I pray 

That every drop in it that plays 
Not only may your thirst allay. 

But add one to your length of days. 

Faust. 

I take the heverage, with refreshment rife. 
Wish m return to each health and long life. 

The people assemble in a circle. 

Another Peasant. 

Aye truly, it is right well done. 

You on our days of joy appear. 
Who were to us, in times long gone. 

The best friend of our days of fear. 



86 THE TBAGEBY. 

Many a man stands here in life. 

That your own sire's skiliiil aid 
Tore from the raging fever strife. 

What time the pestilence he stayed. 
When you yourself in youth's first hloom. 
Went into every house of gloom. 
Full many a corpse was carried out ; 
But you through all went whole and stout. 
Through many hard trials triimiphant did go,. 
For the Helper ahove helped the Helper below. 

All. 

Health to the learned one — long may he live. 
Help at their need to the helpless to give. 

Faust. 

To Him on high never forgetting to bend. 
Who teaches to Help, and who Help can send. 

[JjTe passes on with Wagner. 

Wagner. 

Great man, what mui?t be thy sensation 
At the whole people's veneration ? 
Oh, happy he that can employ 
His gifts to merit such applause ; 



THE TRAGEDY* 87 

The father points thee to his hoy, 

£ach asks, and hastes, and closer draws. 

The fiddle stops, the dancers pause. 
In ranks they stand to honour thee ; 

Up go the caps into the sky ; 
A little, and they'd bow the knee 

As if the Host were passing by, 

Faust. 
But a few steps yet further to yon stone. 

Upon it we will from our wanderings rest. 
There deep in thought I oft have sat alone 

With praying and with fasting sore oppressed. 
Full Tich in hope, not to be shaken in faith. 

With tears and sighs and hands togetjher pressed, 
The termination of this plague of death 

From Heaven's lord, I fondly thought to wrest. 
The crowd's applause comes with a scornful tone. 

Oh, couldest thou my inmost heart but read 
Thou there would' st learn alike of sire and son. 

How little they deserved such praise indeed. 
My father was a hazy worthy man. 

Who after his own wise, with fair intent. 
His thoughts, in which some curious crotchets ran, 

On Nature and her holy circle bent. 
Who, making every alchemist a friend. 

Himself within the laboratory pent, 



V 



88 THE TEAGEDY. 

And after recipes that had no end. 

All adverse substances together blent. 
*There a bold lover was, a lion red. 
The lily in the tepid bath that wed, 
And then to flame and fire exposed, from one 
Bride chamber to another tortured on. 

* This passage is alchemical slang, and it is hard to say 
whether Goethe intended most to mystify his Wagner, his 
readers, or his translators. The medicine seems to have heen a 
preparation of corrosive sublimate and antimony ; the former a 
deadly poison, hut to this day largely employed in those quack 
meclicines, which profess, without any admixture of mercury 
in any form, to cure disorders in which mercury or calomel are 
commonly exhibited ; and we may remark for the benefit of our 
fair readers, that it enters largely into all washes, Kalydors, 
and such like so-called cosmetics. The latter, owing to its sudorific 
qualities, is even now often successfully employed in cases of 
plague. It was well known to the physicians of the I6th century, 
but uncertain in its effects from their ignorance of the proper 
method of preparing it ; but it is remarkable that these two in- 
gredients, corrosive sublimate and antimony, to this day form 
the basis of quack recipes for scurvy, one of which we sub- 
join : — *' Spilbury*s anti-scorbutic drops are said to consist of 
corrosive sublimate, prepared sulphuret of antimony, gentian 
root, and orange peel, equal parts, shavings of red saunders, 
made with proof spirit into a tincture, which is to be digested 
and strained." There seems to be a strong family likeness be- 
tween this recipe and Faust's. 



THE TEAGEDY. 89 

Then if her fonn, with varied colours dyed, 

The youthful queen, within the glass revealed. 
There was the medicine then, the patients died, 

And no one asked the question, Who was healed ? 
With these electuaries infernal we 
Than the fierce pestilence far more fatally 
Did rage these valleys and these hills among ; 
Myself the poison did to thousands give. 
They withered till they died, but I must still survive 
To hear the reckless murderer's praises sung. 

Wagnee. 

Why tease yourself about such stuff, 
Does not an honest man enough 
Strictly and conscientiously. 
Who practises the art that he 
Has been entrusted with ? If you 
In youth regard with honour due 
Your sire, you gladly will receive 
All knowledge that he has to give ; 
In manhood, if you more attain. 
Your son a higher point may gain. 

Faust. 

Oh happy he, to whom the hope is granted 
Forth from this sea of errors to arise ; 



90 THE TRAGEDY. 

What we know not, is by us ever wanted,* 

What we know, we can not utilitize. 
Yet let us not this moment's gentle joy 
With such dark melancholy thoughts alloy ; 
See in the evening sim's departing beams 
£ach green-girt cottage tremulously gleams ; 
It shifts, it fades, the day anears its end,f 

Yet speeds it on, new life still to create. 
Oh that no bird to me its wing will lend,| 

That I its glotious course might emulate ! 
In the eternal Evening-radiancy, 
The calm world at my feet I then should see ; 
Each hill on fire, each valley in repose. 
And silver brook to golden stream that flows, § 

* * Brauchen * means both ' to want ' and ' to make use of." 

t Literally, the day is over lived. 

X Oh that no wing raises me from the ground. 

§ There is no real doubt about the meaning of this passage. 
Any one who has travelled much in Gerauuqr must have re- 
marked the tendency of the larger strers to assume a golden 
biirnishment towardg 4— wK, whilst the smaller streamlets that 
filed tliem retain a silvery glitter. Some years ago, I find that 
I thus described a scene in the Neckar from personal observa- 
tion on the spot : — '^ Summer came, the bounteous hand of nature 
scattered its glittering stores of wild flowers in variegated 
profusion over the green fields. The lambs frisked in uncon- 
scious joy round the patient dams, the young foal feeling his 



THE TEAGEDY. 91 

The savage mountain's chasm-dinted breast,* 
My godlike course should never then arrest. 
Already ocean, with its glowing bays. 
Itself before my awe-struck eyes displays. 
But now the god appearsf at last to sink ; 

Still the new impulse wakes within my mind. 
Forth haste I his immortal hght to drink. 

The day before me, and the night behind, 

new-bom strength, careered with ungainly but yet exulting 
action about the pasture ; the fluttering insects, tribes of a day, 
filled the perfumed air with their merry hum. The shrill 
grasshopper chirped its song of cheerfulness firom the grass, the 
melodious carol of the birds rose in gay activity from every 
thicket, the trickling rivulets sparkled in the sun, the broad 
Neckar gleamed like a sheet of molten gold, the eavth was 
bright in its vesture of flowers, the clear expanse of heaven was 
blue above. Nature came forth in the loveliness of summer, 
and in the midst of all this beauty and glory and gladness, the 
lady of Angelach shaded her eyes, for her heart was breaking." 

The Rittmeister^s Budget, vol. i. p. 235. 

* Literally, the wild mountain with all its chasms. 

t Die Gottin, the Goddess ; the reader will remember, that 
the sun {die Sonne) is feminine in German ; but as the divi- 
nities, Helios, Phcebus, Sol or Apollo, whom we receive as 
representing the sun, are masculine, it is necessary to translate 
the word in the masculine gender. 



92 THE TEAGEDT. 

The heaven above me, under me the sea, 

A lovely dream ; the while he fadeth quite ; 
Alas ! no bodily wings so easily 

With the mind's soaring pinion will unite ; 
But that unborn belongs to all our race, 

That bids our feelings upwards, f(Hrwards rise, 
When over us, lost in the azure space. 

Its twittering song the lark sings in the skies. 
When over rugged pine-upholding steeps. 
With outspread wings the towering eagle sweeps : 
Or when the crane, o'er level plain and lake,* 
Towards its nest its toilsome way doth make. 

Wagner, 

Crotchetty moments I myself have known. 
But never yet felt impulse so high flown ; 
How soon one's eye of wood and meadow clogs. 

For a bird's pinion would I never long. 
How differently entrain us mental joys. 

From book to book, from page to page along. 
Then sweet and £ur the winter nights will grow, 
A holy life through all our hearts will glow ; 
And when a precious parchment you unroll. 
All heaven itself descends upon your soul. 

* See properly means a lake, meer, a sea. 



THE TEAGEDY. 93 



Faust. 



With one impulse alone art thou acquainted ; 

Of knowledge of the other, oh ! beware. 
Two souls, alas ! are in my bosom planted. 
Each from the other strives itself to tear ; 
One to the coarse lusts of the flesh given o'er. 

With grasping organs to the world clings fast ; 
The other, from the gloom strives hard to soar 

Into the regions of the Great Ones past. 
Oh ! if between the heaven and earth there be 

Spirits of power, hovering in the air. 
Forth from your golden clouds descend on me. 

Me to a newer brighter life to bear. 
A magic mantle did I but possess. 

O'er stranger distant lands unchecked to range. 
Not for the garb of greatest costliness, 

Even royal robes, would I that mantle change. 

Wagner. 

Invoke not the familiar host that swarms. 

Everywhere spread throughout our atmosphere. 

Preparing dangers in a thousand forms. 
For mortals from all quarters far and near. 

Forth from the North the sharp-toothed spirits press 
Upon you with their arrow-headed tongues. 



94 THE TEAGEUY. 

Whilst from the East, in fiery parchedness. 

They come to feed themselyes upon your lungs. 
If in the South, they from the desert burst. 

Heap fire on fire upon thy head's hot crown ; 
Then brings the West the swarms, refreshing first 

Thyself with fields and meadows but to drown ; 
They quickly hear, on mischief ever bent. 

Gladly obey, betraying joyfully. 
Assert themselves to be from heaven sent. 

And Usp in angel accents when they Ue. 
But let us go ; full grey the earth is grown. 
The air is chill, the fog is coming down. 
The house's value best at eve we prize. 
Why standest thou so — what wonder in thine eyes ? 
What is it so interests thee in the gloaming ? 

Faust. 

Seest thou that black dog through com and stubble 
roaming ? 

Wagner. 
Long since. Of small account he seems to me. 

Faust. 
Mark him well. What takest thou the beast to be ? 



THE TRAGEDY. 95 



Wagner. 



A dog, who in the fashion of his kind^ 
Puzzles himself his master's track to find. 

Faust. 

Dost thou observe what rings round us he makes 
Serpentine, how each circle brings him nigher ? 
And if I nought mistake, a streak of fire 
Draws after him the path he takes. 

.Wagner. 

Nought but a great black poodle do I see,* 
Some optical delusion it must be to thee. 

Faust. 

Light, magic nooses, or a future snare. 
It seems to me around our feet he draws. 

Wagner. 

I see him puzzled, timid, jump round us, because 
'Stead of his master here two strangers are. 

* Literally, I see nothing but a black poodle. How many 
more, like Wagner, see nothing but a black poodle? 
The cowslip by the river's brim, 
A yellow cowslip was to him. 
And it was nothing more. 



96 the teagedy, 

Faust. 
The circle closes, he's already near. 

Wagner. 

Thou seest no spectre, but a dog is here ; 

He growls and hesitates, he crouches on the ground. 

He wags his tail ; these are the habits of the hound. 

Faust. 
Join those our company. Come here. 

Wagner. 

It is in poodle fashion queer; 
Stand thou still, he waits upon you ; 
Speak to him, and he jumps upon you. 
Lose anything, and he to bring it again 
Into the water jump after your cane. 

Faust. 

You are right, there is no trace, I now see clearly. 
That marks a spirit ; all was training merely. 

Wagner. 

Even to a dog who is carefully trained, 

A wise man well attached may be ; 
And worthily he your favours has gained. 

For the flower of the flock of your students is he. 

[They enter the gate of the town. 



TRAGEDY. 97 



STUDY. 



Faust, mdenm§ wUk ike Poodle. 

From fidd and meadow I withdraw. 

That Ni^t's deep fiJling shadows steep, 
"With a foreboding holy awe 

That wakes our better soul from sleep. 
Each wild desire is now at rest 

With its tomultaous brood of deeds. 
The love of man first stirs the breast. 

And soon the love of Grod succeeds. 

Poodle, be still— run not about ! 

What to the threshold draws thy nose ? 
Behind the stove thy limbs stretch out. 

On my best cushion seek repose ; 
As out of doors thy gambols were 

A pleasure to us on the hill. 
Thou in return receive my care, 

A welcome guest, but quiet still. 

Ah, when within our nafrow cell 
The friendly lamp again doth bum. 

Then to the breast that knoweth well 
Itself, doth light again return. 

H 



9S THE TRAGEDY. 

Reason again begins to speak, 
And Hope again her blossoms brings. 

Longing the streams of Hfe we seek. 
Still more to seek life's deepest springs. 

Growl not. Poodle ; to the high and holy 
Tones that steep my soul, unsuited wholly 

Are thy bestial cries. 
We are accustomed that mankind despise 

That which surpasseth their capacities ; 
And as a useless burden that they should 
Murmur at all the Beautiful and Good. 

Snarls the dog also in this wise ? 

"WilUng the spirit is, but ah, I know 
Content no more can from my bosom flow ; 
But why so swiftly must that stream run dry. 
And we again in thirst unquenched must lie ? 
How much experience to my lot doth fell ? 

Still something compensates even this privation 
We learn to prize the supernatural. 

We long to pierce the depths of rerelation ; 
No where more rich in truth, more purely bright. 
Than burns in the New Testament its Hght ; 
I feel myself impelled the text once more 
In its original language to read o'er. 



,^ 



• ' 






He tpetu m tmlmmr mmi ■gKn ham^H H. 
\ Im die heammm^ to tbe woid, dodi nn 



Hie text; V^ iMse I stafi, vbo li^ps vie fbitlier oq f 

Tlie 0on^ 90 lug^ I GOBOt jasdynte» 

Tliepiasi^ I sBist odicnRse tmislate ; 

If tnm die Spiiit I tnie £^t baiv can^t^ 

It stands, — im die bfghmmg was die thousht ; 

Conader ipcH uliat diy tme aim skoold be. 

Let not tl^ pen nm on too rqadlj. 

Doth thonght create tbe uniyerse ? read an(^t> 

It stmds, — ^In tbe beginning was the might ; 

Tet something warns me» eren as my hand 

Traces this passage, that it cannot stand ; 

The Spirit hdps me, I at once see light. 

In the banning was the act, assured I write. 

WHl'st thon with me this chamber share, 

Poodle, from thy howls forbear ; 

Cease barking, such a teasing mate 

Here I cannot tolerate. 

One of us two at once must leave 

The study, even although I grieve 

At my inbospitality : 

The door is open, thy exit free. 



100 THE TRAGEDY, 

But what is this I see. 

Is it shadow or reality ? 

How grows my poodle broad and long ! 

He rises up so fierce and strong. 

Such giant hound the world ne'er saw. 

What monster have I brought into the house ? 

Already like an hippopotamus 

It seems, with fiery eyes and frightjfiil jaw ; 

Oh, thou art mine, I know it well ; 

Know, for such half-begotten brood of hell. 

The key of Solomon is fitting spell. 

Spirits in the passage. 

One within these walls is caught ; 

Stay without, follow him not ; 

As the fox in the snare 

Trembles the old lynx of hell ; 

But mark him well ! 
Soar here, soar there^ 
Up and down soar we. 
Soon he makes himself free. 

Would you use him as your own. 

Be careful he does not sit down ; 
Much already hath he done. 
That hath pleased us every one. 



THB TRAGEDY. 101 



Faust. 



This beast to encounter^ first of all, 

On the four elements I shall call.* 

Salamander shall glow, 

Undine shall flow. 

Sylph shall vanish in the skies* 

Cobold from the earth arise. 

* la German superstitions, the foar elements were supposed 
to be each entrusted to the special ofaarge of an appropriate 
order of spirits ; the air to the Sylphs, the water to the Un- 
dines, the fire to the Salamanders, and the earth, especially the 
development of animals, to the Gnomes or Cobolds. Of these, 
the Sylphs and Salamanders were not supposed to trouble their 
heads much about mortal matters, but the spirits of earth and 
water being everlastingly meddling, the latter generally doing 
mischief, the former, indifferently good and eyil, but generally 
clumsily. The water spirits were called Nix, Nickel, Wasser- 
man, Wassermadchen, Nixie, Seeweiblein, Wasserfeen, Undine. 

Those of the earth, Berggeist, Cobold, Gnome, Berg^mannlein, 
Moosleute, Erdmannlein, Ekerken, Zwerg. 

A branch of this family attached itself to certain homes, like 
the Scotch Brownie and the Irish Banshee, and the name of 
Burg Geist, Haus Geist, Hutchen, Hinzelman, Klopfer, Stiefel, 
Alp, Popele, Schlossjung frau. 

There is a strong fiunily likeness, arising from their common 
origin, between the superstitions of Germany and those of the 
Lowland Scotch. 



102 THE TEAGEDY. 

He that doth not understand 
The elemental hand. 
The strength that in them lies. 
Their various properties. 
The army of spirits will never command. 

Disappear in fiery gleam. 

Salamander ! 
Intertwine thy rushing stream. 

Undine ! 
Forth in meteor brightness beam. 

Sylph! 
Bring homely help, to shield from harm. 

Incubus! Incubus! 
Come forward, and complete the charm. 

None of the four is the beast within ;* 
He lies still, and looks on with a horrible grin. 
Not yet have I hurt him ; but soon he shall cower 
Beneath magical words of a loftier power. 

If, fellow, thou 

Art just escaped from hell, 

* Haring sammoned the four elements in vain, Faast per- 
ceives that his visitor is not of the earth, and hence concludes 
that he is from hell, and proceeds aceordinglj. 



TKS T1AG£DT. 103 

Behold tbe sign, befinne whose spell 
The hosts of darkness bow. 
He sweDsy his hairs stand xxp^ he feeb it now. 

Abandoned being, canst thou read the token 
Of him, the Unbegotten One, the Unspoken, 
Diffused through HeaTen's infinity. 
On earth transpierced atrociously ? 

Fast behind the stove hemmed in. 
He swells to elephantine size, 
j He fills up alLthe space within, 
1 Now melting in a doud will rise. 

Touch the roof not — rise no higher ; 
At thy master's feet lay low. 

Thou seest, my threats none dare despise, 
I sear thee with the sacred fire ; 

Await not thou. 
The holy light's thrice-scorching glow, 

Awdt not thou. 
My magic arts more fearful still. 

Mephistopheles comes forth from behind the stove, 
dressed like a travelling scholar ; the smoke falls » 

What is the matter, — what your worship's will ? 



104 THE TBAaSDT. 

Faust. 

So ! this is it. This is the poodle's seed, 
A travelling scholar. I must laugh indeed* 

MSFHISTOPHELES. 

Most learned Sir, aeeept my salutation. 
You've had me in a proper perspiration. 

Faust. 

What is thy name ? 

Mefhistofheles. 

The question seems but vam 
For one who holds the world in such disdain. 
And who, avoiding all mere outward show. 
The inmost depths of Nature strives to guage. 

Faust. 

But when of such as you the name we know. 
The nature we can commonly presage ; 
The name declares it : we no more require. 
Who hear you called Flygod, Destroyer, Liar ;* 
Enough, who art thou then ? 

* Baalzebab, or Beelzebub, the master of flies ; Abaddon 
(Heb.), Apollyon (Gr.), destroyer or exterminator ; Diabolos, 
the calumniator. 

Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable; 
Doing or suffering ; but of this be sure, 



the tbagedy. 105 

Mephistopheles. 

A portion of that poweiC» 
That ever Evil wills, Grood ever to create. 

Faust. 
Well, well, but how shall I this problem penetrate ? 

Mephistopheles. 

The Spirit am I that denies evermore. 

And that with justice, all creation 

Richly deserves annihilation ; 

Better it were that nought had ever been. 

^Tis thus all things, that are by your word sin. 

Destruction, in short evil, meant. 

Are my peculiar element. 

Faust. 
Thou callest thyself a part, yet standest whole by me. 

To do ought good neyer will be our task, 
But ever to do ill our sole delight, 
As being the contrary to His high will 
Whom we resist. If then His proyidence. 
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good. 
Our labour must be to prerent that end. 
And out of good still find the means of eyil. 
Which ofttimes may succeed."— Paradise Lo$u 



106 the teagedy. 

Mephistopheles. 

The unpretending truth is all I tell to thee. 
Though that small world of folly, Man, conceit 
Himself in general, a whole complete. 
Part of the part am I, that at the first was all;* 

Part of the darkness that hrought forth the light. 
That proud light that doth now in question call. 

The ancient rank and space of mother Night. 

* Chaos and his dark parilion spread 
Wide on the wasteful deep ; with him enthroned, 
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things, 
The consort of his reign; and by them stood 
Orcus and Ades, and the dreadful name 

Of Demagorgon. 

» » * * 

If some other place. 
From your dominions won, the etherial king 
Possesses lately, thither to arrive 
I travel this profound : direct my course : 
Directed, no mean recompense it brings 
To your behoof, if I that region lost. 
All usurpation thence expelled, reduce 
To her original darkness and your sway, 
(Which is my present journey,) and once more 
Erect the standard there of ancient Night, 
Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge. 

Faradm Lott, 



THE TEAGEDY. 107 

Yet it succeeds not, for howe'er it strives. 
It cleaves to bodies as if bound by gyves ; 
It streams from bodies, bodies beautifies. 
To stop its course, a body dotli suffice ; 
And so I hope, its time, expired at last. 
To ruin with all bodies will be cast. 

Faust. 

Aye, now I see your worthy trade ; 
Wanting the power to destroy wholesale. 
You now begin your dealings to retail. 

Mephistopheles. 

And truly I have little progress made ; 

This something, this rough clumsy world, that ever 

Itself opposes unto nothingness. 
In spite of every obstinate endeavour. 

All I have tried has been without success : 

Nox, one of the most ancient of the heathen deities, daughter 
of Chaos, who gave hirth to the Daj and the Night from her 
amour with her brother Erebus, son of Darkness and Chaos, 
a rude and shapeless mass of matter, which the poets supposed 
existed before the formation of the world. Hesiod first as- 
serted it, and it is probably obscurely drawn from Moses, being 
copied from the annals of Sanchoniathon, whose age is fixed 
as antecedent to the siege of Troy. 



108 . THB TBAGfiDT. 

Waves, tempests, earthquakes, fire, — all in yain. 

Still land and sea all undisturbed remain. 

And the infernal stock, of men and beasts the brood, 

I never can the better get : 

How many have I buried, yet 
Still ever circulates a young fresh blood. 
It b enough to drive one to despair. 
In water, on the earth, and in the air. 
Still ever thousand germs themselves unfold, 
In Dry and Moist, in Hot and Cold ;* 
Had I not specially fire retained,f 
Nought private to myself would have remained. 

Faust. 

So then, against the Unreposing 

Creation's salutary mighty 
Thou thy cold devil's fist opposing, 

Clenchest it in thy fruitless spite. 

* For Hot, Cold, Moist and D17, four champions fieroe. 
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring 
Their embryon atoms. — Paradiie Lost, 
t Elbis, the e?il spirit of the Mahometans, signifying Per- 
dition or Refractory, was so called because he would not bow 
the knee to Adam, alleging, that being composed of the 
superior Element Fxrb, he ooght not to be required to worship 
Earth. 



^3l!il 




. !--^Tt. . -r* --^ * *** 





I most 

A 
Thewimd 



obstacle does res&rm» 
daw, vapoa tbe sill* 



Faust. 

Hie pentagram 'tis giTes thee pain ; 

Oh tdl me then, thou son of HeU» 
If that checks thee, how didst thou entimoo pi\\% 

Into the trap how such a spirit Ml ? 



110 the teagedy. 

Mephistofheles. 

Observe it carefully, 'tis not drawn well ; 

Look there, that outer angle salient 
A little open is, as though mayest see. 

Faust. 

Ho, ho, 'twas then a lucky accident. 
Thus was it thou my prisoner came to be ; 
That was a godsend unexpected. 

Mephistofheles. 

The poodle jumping in no ill detected ; 
But now 'tis quite another case. 
The Devil cannot leave the place. 

Faust. 
And why not through the vnndow pass away ? 

Mephistopheles. 

It is a law that Devil and ghosts obey. 

As they came in their way out they must find ; 

We in the first are free, but in the second controlled. 

Faust. 
What, its own laws have power then Hell to bind ? 
Well, I rejoice to find that we can hold 
Such as you to a compact you'll keep truly. 



THE TEaGEDY. Ill 

Mephistopheles. 

Whatever we promise, that shalt thou have duly. 

No jot of it shall he abated. 

But cannot in a hurry be debated. 
Next time we meet, we'll talk it over coolly. 

But now most earnestly I pray. 

This time you let me go away. 

Faust. 

One little moment still remain ; 
Tell me some good news I pray. 

Mephistopheles. 

Let me but go, soon I come back again. 
Then at thy pleasure ask away. 

Faust. 

No snare, no trap for thee I set. 
Thou plungest thyself into the net ; 
Who holds the devil, let him hold him fast. 
No second chance will in his way be cast. 

Mephistopheles. 

Ready am I, if such thy will. 

With thee for company to stay ; 
But on condition, that my skill 

The time shall fitly while away. 



112 the teagbdy. 

Faust. 

Most 'mllingly: there, thou art free. 
Let but the show right pleasing be. 

Mephistopheles. 

More in this house, I promise thee. 
Enjoyment shall thy senses gain. 
Then a year's sameness would attain. 
The songs these tender spirits sing, 
The lovely images they bring. 
No empty fancy spectacle ; 
DeUght it yields thy sense of smell, 
Thy palate also will they please ; 
No preparation do we need. 
All are assembled, now proceed. 

Spirits. 

Vanish thou gloomy vault. 
And let the azure sky 
Look in with its enchanting friendliness ; 
Were but the black clouds melted, 
Each twinkling star would shme 
A mellowed sun within. 
The sons of the empyrean. 
The spirit world of beauty. 



THE TEAGEDY, 113 

Quivering adoration 
Soaring aloft. 
Longing mclinatioa 
Following after ; 
The drapery of fluttering ribbons 
Cover the plains. 
Cover the bowers, 
Wheie lovers deep musing 
Devote themselves for life. 
Bower by bower. 
Sprouting tendrils. 
The ponderous bunches 
Gush in the treading of the wine-press. 
The foaming rivers trickle 
Through pure gems. 
Leaving the hiUs behind. 
Extend to lakes, 
In the joy of the green growing hills 

Rejoicing ; 
And the birds sip rapture. 
Soaring to sunward. 
Soaring towards 
The islands of brightness. 
That dance on the waves 

In magical beauty. 
Where we may hear 

I 



114 THE TRAGEDY. 

Choruses of exultation. 
Where we may see 

Dancing on the meadows. 
Where all are scattered 

In houndless freedom. 
Some are climbing 

O'er the mountains. 
Others are swimming 

O'er the lakes ; 
Others are soaring far away ; 
All to the realms of life, 
All to the distant stars of love. 

The grace of Blessedness. 

Mephistopheles. 

Well done, sweet children of the air. He slumbers. 

Right fairly have ye sung him unto sleep. 
Your debtor am I for these magic numbers, 

Not yet art thou the man, O Faust, the Devil to 
keep. 
Let sweet dreamy shadows his senses beguile. 

Plunge him deep in a sea of unreal delusion ; 
The tooth of a rat I require the while, 

Of the spell on the threshold to work dissolution. 
Not long do I conjure, already anear me 
I hear one rustling, and quickly he'll hear me. 



THE TRAGEDY. 115 

The King and Lord of rats and mice, 

Of fleas and frogs, of bugs and lice. 

Commands thee boldly to appear. 

To gnaw the spell that holds him here. 

And as in it the oil he drops. 

The rat already forward hops. 

To work ! The spell that holds me fast 

Is in the edge there forward placed. 

Now one bite more, the work is done ; 

Now, Faust, imtil we meet again, dream on, 

Faust, awakening. 

What, what is it doth me again delude. 
Vanishes thus the spirit multitude ? 
It seemed a dream to me the Devil displayed, 
And then that his escape a poodle made. 



116 THE TRAGEDY* 



THE STUDY. 

Faust. Mephistopheles. 

Faust. 
A knock ? Come in ! Who will again torment me ? 

Mephistophele8. 

'Tis I. 

Faust. 

Come in. 

Mephistopheles. 

Three times it must be spoken. 

Faust. 

Come in then. 

Mephistopheles . 

Very good, the third time does content me ; 
I trust we shall agree in friendliness unbroken. 
For away and away all your crotchets to chase, 

I come to you now like a gallant young lord. 
With my scarlet apparel all edged with gold lace, 

Mv silk cloak as thick and as stiff as a board. 



THE TEAGEDT. 117 

The cock's feather stuck in my hat, and beside 
A long-pointed rapier hangs at my side ; 
And once for all, I must advise, 
This costume you adopt Ukewise, 
So that you may unhampered, free. 
Search for yourself what life may be. 

Faust. 

This earth's life's sorrow, pent, controlled, 

I still should feel whate'er attire 
I wear ; for play am I too old. 

Too young to be without desire. 
What from the world can I obtain ? 

Restrain thyself! refrain, refrain! 
That is the everlasting song 

In everybody's ear that rings, 
And that throughout our whole Ufe long. 

Still every hour hoarsely sings. 
Each mom my frame with horror thrills ; 

I could weep bitter tears to see. 
The day that in its course fulfils. 

No soUtary wish for me ; 
That aye each jojrward aspiration 

With cross-grained snarling ever curbs, 
My restless bosom's fond creation. 

With dull realities disturbs. 



118 THE TRAGEDY. 

Sad on the couch myself I fling 

When on the earth down sinks the night ; 
No rest in me that night doth bring, 

Wild dreams my spirit still affright. 
The god within my heart that dwells* 

Can stir my deepest, inmost soul. 
My powers to his will compels. 

But things without cannot control ; 
By being's weight am I thus sore oppressed^ 
I long for death— existence I detest. 

Mephistopheles . 
Yet death is never an entirely welcome guest. 

* It is a doctrine of Spinoza's, that the minds of men are not 
substances (tbat is to say, integral existences), but certain modi- 
fications of tbe divine attributes. ^* Hence it follows/' be re- 
marks, ^^ tbat tbe buman mind is a part of tbe intellect of tbe 
infinite God, so tbat wben we speak of tbe buman mind per- 
ceiving tbis or tbat, we can only mean tbat God, not as be i& 
infinite, but as be appears in tbe buman mind, or constitutes it» 
essence, bas tbis ov tbat idea ; aad wben we speak of God's 
baving tbis or tbat idea, we most conceive of bim not only a» 
constituting tbe buman mind, but as togetber witb.it, baving 
tbe idea of sometbingelse." (Cum dicimus Deum bane velillam 
ideam babere non tantum quateaus naturam bumans mentis 
constituit, sed quatenus simul cum mente buinan^, akerius rei 
etiam babet ideam.<— Coro2 zi. 2.) 



the tragedy. 119 

Faust, 

Oh ! happy he, in glorious Tictoiy, 

Whose temples Death with bloody laurels binds. 
Or in the maddening dance's ecstacy, 

In a fair maiden's arms the grim king finds ; 
Oh ! would, before that stately spirit's might. 

Enraptured in it, soulless I had sank^ Ol^/^^*^ 

Mephistopheles. 

Yet by a certain man, a certain night, 

A certain brownish liquid was not dnmk. <j<>'^>^-«-*^-'? 

Faust. 
So, prying your amusement seems to be. 

Mephistopheles . 
Omniscient am I not, but much is known to me. 

Faust. 

If by its frightful spirit-strife distracted, 
A sweet familiar tone my soul attracted. 
The yet remaining feelings of the child, • 

With chords of other days awaked, beguiled, 
Then be my curse on all, that round the mind 
Its toils of snare, and tricks of jugglery wind, . 
And pen it in this den of misery. 
With arts beguiling, powers of flattery. 



120 THE TEAOEDY, 

Accursed, first of all, the high intent 

With which the spirit will itself invest ; 
Accursed appearances' bewilderment. 

Ever upon our senses deep impressed ; 
Accursed be all deluding us in dreams. 
As fame, and lasting name's delusive gleams ; 
Accursed be possessions' flattering charm. 
As wife and child, as servant and as farm ; 
Accursed, too, be Mammon, when with treasures 

He moves to deeds of courage high. 
Or for the indolence of sensual pleasures. 

He smooths the couch on which we he ; 
Cursed be the balsam from the grape that flows. 
Cursed be that highest favour love bestows. 
Accursed be Hope, accursed be Faith, but first 
And chief of all, let Patience be accursed. 

Chobus op Spibits — Moonlight, 

Woe! woe! 
Unto destruction hast thou hurled 
• The lovely world ;* 

Besistless was the blow. 
It falls, into a thousand fragments riven, 
A demigod the stroke has given. 

* His own mind. 



THE TRAGEDY. 121 

We haye bonie 
The rums unto Nothingness, 

And we mourn 
The unreturnhig LoTeHness. 
Mightiest of the sons of men. 
Build it feirer up again. 
Build it thine own hreast within. 

Begin 

Newer life to enter on 
With unclouded faculties. 
And jet unheard melodies 

Shall mingle in its tone. 

Mephistopheles. 

Hark ! to my little pets. 

These are mine own. 
How like old people wise, 
Pleasure and action they adyise ! 

From the wide world 
No longer immure thee. 4 

Forth from thy sohtude, 
That congeals flesh and blood. 

Would they allure thee ! 

Cease with thy melancholy mood to play. 
That like a vulture eats thy life away ;. 



122 THE TRAGEDY. 

%e meanest company that thou canst find, 

Will make thee feel a man amongst mankind 

But yet I never did intend 

Thee with the common mob to blend. 

None of the great ones of the world am I, 

Yet if thou choosest in my company 

Thy course through life to take, 

Most wilHngly will I my business make 

Myself to thee at once to accommodate, 

To be thy mate. 
And if all goes according to my plan^ 
I am thy servant, am thy man. 

Faust. 
And how shall I all this to thee repay ? 

Mephistopheles. 
The time of payment yet is far away. 

> Faust. 

No, no ; the Devil is ever selfish, he 

Doeth nought freely, merely for God's sake. 

That to another might of service be ; 

Speak clearly out the terms that thou wouldst make, 

A servant such as thee I well might dangerous find. 



the tragedy. 123 

Mephistopheles . 

I will mjsdf HESE to thy service bind. 

Waiting thy glance, nor sleep nor rest will take ; 

If that when we ourselTcs theee yondee find. 
Thou nnto me a like return shall make. 

Faust. 

Small care have I about that yonder world. 
If once this into ruin thou hast hurled ; 
The other afterwards may have its birth ; 
An my enjoyments spring from out this earth. 
And upon all my sorrows, shines this sun. 

If I mvself from it could sever clear. 
Then let what will and can be done. 

No further then about it will I hear. 
If in the Future there be hate or love. 

Or even if m yonder sphere 
There be a world below, a world above. 

Mephistopheles. 

If such thy feeUngs are thou mayest be bold. 

Bind thyself, on the cast thy fortunes set. 
In these days, glad mine arts thou shalt behold, 

I give thee what no mortal e'er saw yet. 



124 the tragedy. 

Faust. 

What, wretched Devil, canst thou give ? 

The spirit of man, aspiring to the skies, 
Can being of thine order e'er conceive ? 

Yet hast thou food that never satisfies ? 
Hast thou red gold, that without rest, 
Like quicksilver, melts through the hand away, 
A game at which none ever win that play ; 
A girl that on my breast reclined, 
Herself doth to another leering bind ; 
The glorious godhke lust of fame, 
That vanishes like a meteor flame ; 
Shew me the fruits, that ere they're plucked decay. 
And trees that don fresh verdure every day ? 

^ Mephistopheles. 

Me no such a charge as that can terrify ; 

I can supply you treasures such as these. 
The time will come, my good friend, by and by. 

We shall enjoy some dainties at our ease. 

Faust. 

If ever on a couch of laziness 

Myself I stretch out, with a mind at ease. 
Then let me sink at once to nothingness ; 

If thou canst cheat me with thy flatteries. 



THE TRAGEDY. 125 

That with myself I may contented feel. 
Or with enjoyment can my senses steal. 
Then let me gaze upon my latest sun. 
I take the challenge. 

Mephistopheles . 
Done. 

Faust. 

And done and done. 
If to the passing moment I should say, 
" Tarry awhile, thou art so very fair,"* 

* Faust does, at the close of the second pare, say to the passing 
moment, ' Tarry, thou art so fair/ but he says it under the in- 
fluence of the divine love, not of the sensual love, which Me- 
phistopheles represents. He contemplates himself in the light 
of a benefactor of his kind, having converted a pestilent swamp 
into a scene of cheerful industry. ** I would gladly see such 
a throng ; stand upon free ground with a free people. I should 
then venture to say to the moment, ' Tarry, thou art so fair,' 
the trace of my days of earth cannot pass away in ages. In 
the anticipatory feeling of such a lofty happiness, I now enjoy 
the highest moment." He then dies. Mephistopheles instantly 
feels that his prey has escaped him. He claims him, in the 
language of Faust himself: 

The clock stands still. 

Chorus. 
Stands still, it is silent as midni ght. 
The hand falls. 



126 THE TRAGEDY, 

Then mayest thou cast me into chains straightway, 
Extinction willingly I then will bear. 

Then the death-bell may toll my knell. 
Then art thou free, thy service done, 

The clock may stop, the hand may drop. 
Be time for me for ever gone. 

Mefhistopheles . 
Consider well, for we shall not forget. 

Faust. 

To that an undisputed right you have ; 

No undue value on myself I set ; 
Remaining as I am, I am a slave. 

Thine or whose else's wherefore should I ask ? 

Mefhistopheles. 

It falls, it is completed. 

Chorus. 
It is past. 

Mefhistopheles. 
Fasti an idiot word. 
Why past ? 
The angels who bear Faust*s soul heavenwards, explain the 
reason of Mephistopheles* failure. ** The noble member of the 
spirit world is saved from the Evil One. Whosoever struggling 
exerts himself, him can we redeem. Love from above sjmpa> 
thised with him. The hosts of blessedness meet him with the 
most heartj welcome.'' 



the teagedy. 127 

Mephistopheles . 

This very day then, at your doctor's feast. 

As servaut I shall enter on my task ; 
But, as to guard 'gainst accidents is best, 

A pair of lines I must take leave to ask. 

Faust. 

What, something written, pedant, dost thou seek. 

Hath man, or man's word, ne'er been known to thee? 
Is it not ample, that the words I speak 

Dispose my days to all eternity? 
Doth not the world, in currents uncontrolled. 
Run riot ? Me then shall a promise hold ? 
Yet in our hearts this prejudice Hes deep. 

And who would willingly its chains unbind. 
Happy who truth pure in his breast doth keep. 

No sacrifice he ever will deplore ; 
But yet a parchment, duly stamped and signed, 

A spectre is that all men shrink before. 
The word expires already in the pen,* 

By wax and leather doth Dominion pass. 
What, Evil Spirit, wiliest thou of me then ? 

Paper or parchment, marble, brass, 

* " Words are very rascals since bonds defaced them.*' 

Twelfth Night. 



^8 THE TBAGEDT. 

Shall I with style, or pen, or graver sign ? 
I leave it all to thee, free choice be thine. 

Mephistopheles. 

Why overstrain thine eloquence. 
In such a passion-storm intense ? 
Any scrap thou hast is good 
Thou signest with a drop of blood. 

Faust. 

If thus thou art completely satisfied. 
In this toy be thy fancy gratified. 

Mephistopheles. 
Blood is a liquid of strange properties. 

Faust. 

Only fear not that I this contract break ; 

That, for which struggle all my energies. 
Is just the very promise that I make ; 
Myself I have too highly prized. 

And only in thine order is my place. 
Me the Great Spirit scornful has despised. 

And Nature shuts herself against my gaze. 
Broken is the thread of thought. 
All knowledge long has only loathing brought. 



THE TBAOEDY. 129 

In the depths of sensuality 

Quench we Passion's fiery glow. 
And unpierced veils of sorcsery. 

Over the wonders we are working throw. 
On the current of time let us fling us unheeding^ 
On the waves of events one another succeeding. 

Let discontent and satisfaction. 
Success and disappointment still 
Succeed each other as they will, 

'Tis unrest drives the man to action. 

Mefhistopheles. 

For thee is set no hound or measure, 
Nihble at all things at thy pleasure ; 
Snatch what you fancy on the wing. 
Much good to you may pleasure bring. 
Only set to and be not coy. 

Faust. 

Thou hast heard that the talk is not of joy. 
To tumult I myself do dedicate 
To joy in agony, enamoured hate, 
To disappointment that doth animate. 
Cured of the thirst of knowledge now, my breast 
No pang that cometh henceforth closed shall find, 

K 



130 THE TRAGEDY. 

I will enjoy, in my inmost self possessed. 

All that hatli been allotted to mankind. 
Grasp in my spirit all, most high — most deep — 
Their weal and woe on my own bosom heap, 
Expand my nature, till it doth include* 
All others, and then perish with the rest. 

Mephistopheles. 

Oh, credit me, who at this hard dry food. 

Have gnawed for many a thousand year. 

That from the cradle to the bier. 
No man the antient leaven can digest. 

This mighty whole, beUeve one like me 
Is only for a godhead wrought. 

In light eternal dwelleth he, 

* A somewhat similar sentiment is expressed in Coleridge's 
Religious Musings. 

No common centre man, no common s'ire 
Knoweth, a sordid solitary thing, 
'Mid countless brethren with a lonely heart, 
Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams, 
Feeling himself, his own lone self the whole, 
When he by sacred sympathy might make 
The whole one self. Self that no alien knows } 
Self far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel, 
Self-spreading still, oblivious of its own. 
But all in all possessing. 



THE TBA6EDT. 131 



Us hath he unto darkness brought. 
And day and night alternately for ye. 

Faust. 
But stm I will. 

Mephistophsles. 

'Tijeasy said. 

Only one thing goeth wrong, 

Time is short, art b long ; 

I thought you'd let yourself be taught. 

Have to you a poet brought ; 

Let him in lofty musing soar. 
And upon your honoured head 

All quaUties ennobling let hun pour. 
Stoutness of the lion heart, 
Speed to match the flying hart. 
The Italian's fiery blood. 
With the Northman's fortitude ; 

Let him for you the secret find. 

To combine cunning with a lofty mind ; 

And you, uniting youth's impulses warm 

With a set System, into love to charm. 



132 THE TRAGEDY. 

A gentleman like that I fain would know. 

Sir Microcosm* the name on him I would bestow. 



Faust. 

What am I then, if I cannot contrive 
At that crown of humanity to arrive. 
To reach which all my senses strive ? 

Mephistopheles . 

Thou in the end art what thou art ; 
A thousand locks in thy peruke unite. 
Or place thy feet in buskins, yards in height. 

Still thou remainest what thou art. 

Faust. 

I feel indeed I have gathered to my breast 
All treasures that Man's spirit e*er could bring. 

And when at last I come to take my rest. 
No fresh internal power to life doth spring, 

* Microcosm, the little world. " Man is so called as being 
imagined by some fanciful philosophers to have in him some- 
thing analogous to the four elements." — Johnson. 

''Philosophers say that mania a microcosm, or little world, 
resembling in miniature every part of the great, and the body 
natural may be compared to the body politic." — Swift. 



THB TBAGEDT. 133 

I am not now one single hair's-breadth higher. 
Nor to the Infinite an atom nigher. 

Mephistopheles. 

Come, my good Mend, those things you see 

As men such things will look upon ; 
Matters we must arrange more cleverly 

Before life's joys shall be for ever flown. 
Why, what the devil! Hands and feet. 

And head and passions, they are thine. 
All of which the use complete 

I can enjoy, is that less mine ? 
Hiring six horses, if I can. 

Are not the powers all mine own ? 
I dash along a proper man 

Borne two dozen legs upon. 
Come, up ! — let all your ponderings be. 
And out into the world with me ; 
I tell thee one in speculation lost 
A beast in a wild heath resembles most ; 
Driven by an evil spirit round and round. 
While fair green meadows all about abound. 

Faust. 
How shall we then begin ? 



154 the tbagsbt. 

Mephistopheles. 

Forth CTen now we'll go. 
This is a place of martyrdom indeed. 
That is a pretty life for you to lead, 
Yourself and all the young ones horing so ; 
Leave that to Mr. Paunch, your neighbour. 
In thrashing straw what useless labour ; 

And then the choicest of your lore 
To tell the youths you do not dare ; 

Even now I hear one at the door. 

Faust. 
To see him now I cannot bear. 

Mephistopheles. 

The poor lad now full long doth wait. 
Send him not off disconsolate ; 
Come, give me your cap and gown. 
Me right well the disguise will fit. 

He puts them on. 

And now trust all things to my wit 
But fifteen minutes, I have done, 
'Tis all I want ; meantime do thou prepare 
Thyself, to set out on a journey fair. 

Faust, ex. 



THE TBAGEDY. 135 

Mephistopheles, in Fausfs long robe. 

Reason and Science once despise,* 

The loftiest powers of mankind, 
Confirming through the sire of Hes, 

In dark and magic arts thy mind; 
Thee then unquestioned I possess, 

A spirit to this man hath Fate 
Bestowed that still will onward press. 

Whose cravings, too importunate, 

O'erleap the joys of earth. 
Him through wild life will I drag. 

Through senseless insipidity 
He shall sprawl, grow stiff, and flag ; 

And then his own insatiability. 
Shall dangle meat and drink his greedy lips before. 

For aught that yields refreshment shall he pray. 
And had he not himself unto the devil given o'er. 

Not the less surely had he gone that way. 

* Reason in man obBCured or not obeyed, 
Immediately inordinate desires, 
And upstart passions catch the government 
From reason, and to servitude reduce 
Man, till then free ; therefore, since he permits 
Within himself unworthy powers to reign 
Over free reason, God, in judgment just. 
Subjects him from without to violent lords. 

¥aTQdmLo9L 



136 THE TBAGEDY. 

A Student enters. 
Student. 

I came here but few hours ago, 
Aud come in all deyotion bowed, 

A man to speak to, and to know. 
In whose high praises all are loud. 

Mephistopheles. 

Much by your courtesy am I gratified. 
You see a man like unto many more ; 
Already have you not elsewhere appUed ? 

Student. 

Take me to you I do implore ; 
I come with heart and spirits good. 
Money enough, and fresh young blood ; 
My mother scarce would with me part. 
Yet something good from here I fain would learn. 

Mephistopheles. 
Here at the proper place thou art. 

Stndent. 
Good truth, already I would hence return : 
Each lofty wall, each gloomy hall, 
I find do not please me at all ; - 



THE TULGSDT. 137 

Here the space is all confined. 
Here is no ▼erdiire» not a tree 
In the halls, on the fbnns I find, 
I cease to hear, or think, or see. 

MSPHISTOPHBLE S. 

By habit you will ease acquire ; 

As takes a child the mother's breast. 
At first against its own desire. 

But soon it socks away with zest. 
Just so will you the breasts of Wisdom find. 
Each day still more delightful to your mind. 

Student. 

Upon her neck will I hang joyfully. 
How I can reach her but point out to me. 

Mephistophsles . 

Declare before you further go 
What line you take, which faculty. 

Student. 

Thoroughly learned I wish to be. 
And all in heaven and earth to know. 
All sciences, too, to embrace, 

And all that is of nature known. 



138 the tbagedy. 

Mephistopheles. 

Here you are on the proper trace. 
Take care you be not off it thrown. 

Student. 

Body and soul are in the task ; 
But still one comfort I would ask, 
A little leisure, free and gay. 
On each fine summer holiday. 

Mephistopheles. 

Make use of time, so fast it flies. 

Yet method shews how time to win ; 
My dear young friend, I would advise 

A course of logic first begin ; 
Your spirit thus so well broke in. 
In Spanish boots so tightly screwed,* 
In eyer circumspective mood 
Sneak along the path of thought ; 

Not in and out uncertain go. 

Like the wildfire's fitful glow. 
For many days will you be taught, 

What erst you settled at one blow. 

* An instrament of torture, a boot between whioh and the 
leg a wedge was driven. 



139 

Simple as meat and drink to thee. 
One, two, three, minst needfel be. 
'Us in the fiictorj of though 
Like to a web bj wearer wroog^ ; 
One treadle a thousand threads doth sway. 
Hither and thither the shnttks plajr. 
The threads, for speed imaeen, flj fi»t. 
Each stroke a thousand ties makes &st ; 
And then steps in Fhilosc^hj*, 
And proYes to you so it must be ; 
The first was so, the second so. 
Thence must the third and fourth be so. 
And had the second and first been not. 

The third and fourth had not been known ; 
Students prize this at every spot. 

Yet none of them hare wearers grown. 
He who would fiithom and describe what liyes^ 
His first care is, the spirit out he drives ; 
Then when he has the parts within his hand. 
There wants, alas, the ^iritual band ; 

* " If the logic of that gloomy period could be jmtly des- 
cribed as ' the art of talking unintelligibly upon matten of 
which we are ignorant,' its physics might with eqnal truth be 
summed up in a deliberate p re f erence of ignoranoe to knowledge 
in matten of erery day's experience and use." 

Heneh$Wt NatwnU Ptilwupty, 



140 THE TBAGEDY. 

*' Encheirisen naturae" calls it chemistry. 
Mocks itself, and knows not why. 

Student. 
I cannot understand you perfectly. 

Mephistopheles. 

Better you will next time — that comes with use. 
When you have learned all things to reduce. 
And all in their due order classify. 

Student. 

With all this talk, I so bewildered feel, 

As were my head a mill, my brain the wheel. 

Mephistopheles. 

Next I consider is your plan. 

To metaphysics turn your pains ; 
So in your thoughts profound you'll scan 

All that befits not huma^ brains. 
A pompous word will serve right well. 
What is or is not there to tell ; 
But first of all« for this half year. 

Observe the strictest discipline ; 
Two lectures every day you'll hear. 

As the clocks strikes do you walk in. 



141 



Be weD prqMRd TiMncif bcfar 

Whh ptti^niife n^ wen coMcd 

That TOQ mtpf tht better sec;. 

That Doa^ boI ki die book sbts be. 

Tet write awsr al sarli a nte» 

As if the HoIt Gboat Adererr woed dktate. 



A second time I need not that he told, 
I deari J see what use it maj become. 

For what one has in black and white enioird 
With mndi contentment can one canr home 

Mephistophslss. 
But choose me now a fiunltv. 

Studekt. 
The law I fear will nerer do for me. 

Mephistopheles. 

I cannot take that rery much amiss ; 
I know indeed what jurisprudence is : 
From sire to son pass laws and statutes ever. 
Like to an hereditary fever ; 
They drag along from race to race. 
And steal about firom place to place. 



142 THE TRAGEDY. 

Reason is madness, and kindness vexation, 

Woe to thee that thou tookest as a grandson thy 

station ; 
But of that law that all of us haye from our hirth, 
Of that law no question is raised upon earth. 

Student. 

You add to my aversion, happy he 
Whose lot it is by you thus taught to be, 
I'd almost now study theology. 

Mephistopheles. 

I would not willingly lead you astray. 

In what concerns this science, verily 
It is so hard to keep in the right way. 

So much concealed poison lies within, 
'Tis hard to part it from the medicine ; 
Here too 'tis best, that only one you hear. 
And then unto the master's word you swear. 
Upon the whole — stick fast to words ; 
A mass of words alone a path affords, 
Through the gates of the Fane of certainty. 

Student. 
But still some meaning in the word must be. 



the tkagedy. 143 

Mephistopheles. 

True, but one need not tease oneself for this, 

For where the meaning wanting is, 

A word supplies it timeously. 

With words how gloriously we war. 

With words how well a system can prepare ; 

On words we well can pin a belief unshaken. 

And from a word, no jot can e'en be taken. 

Student. 

Pardon me, that with questions I delay 
And tease you, yet I must beg one thing more. 

That you would be so good as just to say 
About the healing art one word of power. 

* << The stadjiog of words, and not matter, is so jusUy con- 
temptible, that as Hercules, when he saw the image of Adonis, 
Venus' minion, in a temple, said in disdain nil sacri ts, so there 
are none of Hercules's followers in learning, that is in the more 
severe and laborious toil of inquiries after truth, but will 
despise these delicacies and affectations as capable of no di- 
▼ineness. Indeed, it seems to me, that Pygmalion's frenzy 
is a good emblem and portraiture of this vanity ; for words are 
but the images of matter, and except they have the life of reason 
and invention, to fall in love with them is all as one as to fall 
in love with a picture.''— Bacon. 



144 THE TEAGEDY. 

Three years will quickly slip away. 
And then the field is yery wide. 
Were one but with a hint or two supplied. 

One much more easily would feel the way. 

Mephistopheles. 

Of this dry tone I am well nigh tired out. 

Now once again must I the devil play. [aside. 

The spirit of medicine easily one seizes. 

Study the great world and the small throughout. 

That in the end you let all things fall out. 

Just as God pleases. 
In vain ye flounder learnedly. 

Each learns only what he can. 
And he that seizes opportunity. 

He is in truth the proper man.* 
You in person passably well made, 

And surely will not fail in impudence. 
Be in yourself your confidence displayed. 

All other souls will give their confidence. 
Learn from the first with woman how to deal. 

Their everlasting Ahs ! and Ohs ! 

All their thousand little woes. 

* There is a tide in the affairs, &c. &c. &c. Probably the 
reader knows the i^emainder of the passage already. 



THE TKAGBDY.' 145 

From one point is for all the cure. 

And if you act with an air half demure. 

Then have you all of them beneath your thumb. 

First your diploma gives assurance due. 

That your art many arts doth overcome ; 

Then a hearty welcome you attends 

To all the little odds and ends. 

For which in vain another years may try ; 

Learn how to feel the pulse too, meaningly, 

With hot sly glances, round the taper waist 

Clasp them, to feel how tightly they are laced. 

Student. 
That seems all right, one sees where, how and why. 

Mephistopheles . 

Grey, my dear friend, is now all theory. 
But ever green of life the golden tree. 

Student. 

I swear this all is as a dream to me ; 

Might I then for another time implore. 

To probe your wisdom in its depths once more. 

Mephistopueles. 
Whatever I can shall willingly be done. 

L 



146 the tsagedt. 

Student. 

I cannot possibly from hence begone 
Without my album handing you, to craye 
That I this token of your grace may have. 

Mephistopheles. 
With pleasure. (He writes and returns it,) 

Student. (Reads,) 

Eritis secut Deus scientes bonum et malum. 

(Shuts it reverentially, and takes Ms leave.) 

Mephistopheles. 

Only follow the saying of old and my excellent cousin 

the snake. 
Your resemblance to God you will find sometime will 

make your head ache. 

Faust enters, 

Faust. 

Well> where shall we go now ? 

Mephistopheles. 

Where'er it pleases thee. 
The little world, then the great we shall see. 
With what enjoyment and what profit too. 
The course I open thou shalt revel through. 



the tbagedy. 147 

Faust. 

^But with my beard so long and gaunt 
The ease and confidence of life I want. 
No success the attempt will haye : 
I know not in the world how to behaye, 
I before others feel myself so small 
I shall at once into confusion fall. 

Mephistopheles. 

That, my good friend, will all with practice come. 
Confide but in yourself, at once you are at home. 

Faust. 

But tell me how we forth shall fare. 

Whence hast thou carriage, servants, steeds ? 

Mehistopheles. 

To spread this mantle out, is all that needs. 
That shall support us through the air ; 
But at this step thou takest so gallantly, 
Bight slender must thy baggage be ; 
A Uttle fire air that I shall prepare. 
Us from the earth will upwards heave. 
If we be Hght we mount fast in the air. 
Now on thy life's new course my compliments receive. 



148 THE TBA6EDT. 

AUERBACH'S CELLAR, IN LEIPZIG.* 
Party of merry fellows, 

Frosch. 

Will no one drink ? will no one laugh ? 

I'll teach ye all to make wry faces ; 
Ye smoulder now like wetted chaff, 

Tet flared up formerly like blazes.f 

Brandeb. 

The fault is yours, you bring not here 
Tomfoolery or swinish cheer. 

Frosch. 
Pours a glass of wine over his head. 
Then have you both. 

Bbander. 

You double boar. 

* A cellar under an old house in Leipzig, where wine and 
beer is still sold ; and where, according to tradition, this scene 
was enacted by Faust and his familiar. Two danlM represent it 
on the walls. 

t Lichterloh brennefit to bum brightly. 



the teagedy. 149 

Fbosgh. 
You would have it, one must be so. 

SlEBEL. 

Who quarrels, we will shew the door ; 
Good fellows all, sing, shout, and roar. 
And swill away, Ho ! Hollo ! Ho ! 

Altmajeb. 

Oh, mercy, bring some cotton here, 
I'm floored, the fellow splits my ear. 

SlEBEL. 

When the arches re-echo the thundering peal. 
The majestical might of the base you may feel.* 

Fbosgh. 

He that can*t take a joke, to the door be he shewn. 
Ah, tara, lara, da. 

Altmajeb. 

Ah, tara, lara, da. 

Fbosgh. 
Our throats now are tuned to the orthodox tone. 

* Baues Grundgewalt, the fandamental might of the base. 



150 THE TBAGEBT. 

SiflffS. 

The holy Roman empire, how 
The dear old lady holds till now,— 

Bbandeb. 

A hideous song — fie, a political lay ; 

A tiresome song ; he thankful, day hy day. 

That to the cares of state youVe nought to say ; 

At least I hold it all clear gain to me, 

Nor Emperor nor Chancellor to he ; 

But without a chairman our sport to direct. 

We never can get on, so a pope* we'll elect. 

Ye all know right well, what quaUfication 

f Turns the halance, and leads to the man's elevation. 

Fbosch. (Sings.) 

Up, up ! Lady Nightingale, up on the wing, 
Ten thousand salutes to my sweetheart to sing. 

* The electing what may be called master of the revels, has 
been common to all ages and countries ; but the form of ex- 
pression used by Brander, implied a confession of faith besides, 
its irreverent use of the Pope's name being understood to oon- 
rej a renunciation of his authority. 

t Den ausschbg gibt, the tungtie of the scales, ttrUcing out 
to one side, indicating to which side the scale inclines. 



THE TBAG£DT» 151 

SlEBEL. 

No salute to the sweetheart, I'll stand no snch thing. 

Fbosgh. 

Ay, salute to the sweetheart, and many a tdss. 
Neither you nor aught other shall hinder me this. 

Sings. 

Open holt> 'tis solemn night ; 
Open holt, the loved one watches ; 
Shut bolt, 'tis morning's light. 

SlEBEL. 

Ay, sing and praise her in your senseless catches, 
I, in my turn, will laugh to see 
Her humbug you as she humbugged me. 
For a lover a Cobold be on her bestowed. 
That will woo her, as fit, on a ghostly cross-road. 
Or a rough old he-goat, from the filocksberg returning, 
On his gallop may nod her good-night or good-morn- 
ing; 
But a gallant young fellow of true flesh and blood, 

For a wench such as that is a great deal too good. 

For her no salute will I hear of at all. 

Unless smashing her windows, saluting you call. 



152 THE TBAGEBT. 

Brandeb — striking the table. 

Attend, attend ! obedience give ! 
Admit that I know how to live. 
Lovesick folks are sitting round. 
From me they something shall receive 
Suited to their situation, 

A treat before we bid good-night 
Silence. A song of bran new fashion. 

And join the chorus main and might. 

He sings, 
A rat did in the cellar dwell ; 

He Hved on fat and butter, 
Unta his paunch began to swell 

As roimd as Doctor Luther. 
The cook set poison on the floor ; 
Ah, then the world pinched him sore. 
As in his body Love he bore. 

Chorus. 

As in his body Love he bore. 

Bbandeb. 

Raced here and there, raced in and out. 

And every puddle sought ; 
He gnawed and scratched the house throughout. 

His rage avaOed him nought ; 



THE TEAGEDY. 153 



Gave many a jump of anguish sore ; 
Soon with the poor beast all was o'er, 
As in his body Love he bore. 

At last for pain, in open day 

The kitchen entered he. 
Fell on the hearth, and writhed and lay. 

And panted piteously. 
With laughter did the poisoner roar ; 
Ah soon, said she, he'll gape no more. 
As in his body Love he bore. 

SlEBEL. 

How they rejoice, these fellows rude, 

A proper art, it seems to me. 
For the poor rats that poison strewed. 

Brandeb. 
They in your favour seem to be. 

Altmajeb. 

The fat man with the pate so bald. 
With ill-luck, tame, and mild is he. 

In the swollen rat he doth behold 
His likeness, hke as hke can be. 



154 the tbagedt. 

Faust and Mephistopheles. 

Mephistopheles. 

I must conduct you, first of all. 

Into some jovial company. 

To shew how lightly life slips hy ; 
To these each day's a festival. 
With Uttle sense, hut plenty still of fun, 
Each one doth roimd his Httle circle run. 
Like kitten himting its own tail ; 
And if no headache they he wail, 
So long the host will credit give, 
Happy, and without care they Hve. 

Bbandeb. 

Travellers put off their journey these. 
As by their curious ways one sees. 
Not one hour here they seem to be. 

Fbosch. 

Thou art right, my Leipzig is the place for me. 
It is a httle Paris —forms its men. 

SlEBEL. 

For what takest thou the strangers then ? 



the teageby. 155 

FbOsch. 

Let me alone, e're one a bumper drains, 
As easy as you'd draw a child* s tooth out, 

I'll warrant me I'll pick the fellows brains ; 
Sprigs of nobility I have little doubt. 

They've such a proud and discontented air. 

Bbandeb. 
I'll make a bet that mountebanks they are. 

Altmajer. 
Perhaps. 

Frosch. 
Attend, I'll trot them out. 

Mephistopheles to Faust, 

People like these detect the Devil not 
Even when them he has by the collar got. 

Faust. 
Good morning, gentlemen. 

SlEBEL. 

Thanks, we salute 
You in return. 

Aside, looking askance at Mephistopheles. 
How he Hmps on one foot. 



156 THB TBAGEBT. 

MfiPHISTOPHELES. 

Is it allowed ourselyes with you to set ? 

Instead of decent wine, which here we cannot get, 

Such company may well our hearts content. 

Altmajeb. 
Your taste appears extremely delicate. 

FUGSCH. 

From Rippach sure you must have started late ; 
Did you sup there with Hans* hefore you went ? 

Mephistopheles. 

* 

We passed that gentleman to-day. 

Had some talk with him on the way ; 

Of his relations had he much to say. 

And hade us, unto each, his compHments convey. 

He hows to Frosch, 

Altmajeb, aside. 
You've caught it, — he's awake. 

SlEBEL. 

Wide awake, verily, 

Fbosch. 
^0 ; wait, I'll be down on him by and by. 

* Hans voD Rippach — a sort of German Duke Humpberj. 



the teagedt. 1^7 

Mephistopheles. 

If I mistake not, we did hear 
In chorus practised voices sing ; 

Truly from the arched ceiling here. 
Music most gloriously must ring. 

Fbosch. 
An amateur no doubt are you. 

Mephistopheles. 
Oh, no ! my skill is small, but great is my desire. 

Altmajeb. 
Give us a song. 

Mephistopheles. 

As many as you require. 

Siebel. 
Only take care that it is spick span new. 

Mephistopheles. 

Lately returned from Spain are we. 

That beauteous land of wine and minstrelsy. 



158 THE TRAGEDY. 

ShffJS, 

Ohy once there was a king^ 
That a large flea did own. 

Feosch. 

Hark, 'tis a flea, did ye all understand? 
A flea's as fine a fellow as any in the land. 

Merhi sTorHELES sings. 

Ohy once there was a king. 

That a large flea did own^ 
And little less he loved 

This flea than his own son. 
Then called he to his tailor. 

Who soon was at his side. 
Take measure of this yoimker. 

For clothes, and hreeches beside. 

Bbander. 

Mind, in the tailor inculcate 
Accurately to measure it ; 

And, if he values ought his pate. 
Without a crease the breeches sit. 

Meibistopheles. 

In yelvet and in silk 

Now was this great flea dressed. 



THE TRAGEDY. 159 

Had ribbons on his coat. 

And a cross upon his breast. 
And minister he soon became. 

And a great star did sport, 
And then all his relations 

Became great folks at court. 

Then the court lords and ladies 

Were terribly annoyed ; 
The queen and all her waiting maids 

Were bitten, and stung, and gnawed ; 
But still they dared not crack them. 

Dared not away them fling. 
But we'd soon crack and choak them. 

If us they dare to sting.* 

Chortis. 
But we'll soon crack and choak them. 
If us they dare to sting. 

Frosch. 
Bravo, bravo, well sung all. 

SlEBEL. 

So, shall every flea befall. 

• Those golden flies, 

That, basking in the sunshine of acoart. 
Fatten on its corruption. What are they t 
The drones of the cominuaitj. — ShiUey. 



160 the tragedy. 

Bbandeb. 
Point the finger, and nick them fine. 

Altmajeb. 
Hurrah for freedom, hurrah fqr wine. 

Mephistopheles. 

I'll gladly drink a glass in honour of the free. 
Were the wine hut a Httle hetter quaUty. 

SlEBEL. 

We don't wish that remark again to hear. 

Mephistopheles. 

The host would he displeased I fear. 

Else for such worthy company 

A treat I from our cellar could supply. 

SlEBEL. 

I'll take the hlame, let's have it here. 

Fbosch. 

Only give us good wine, and our praise shall be 

ample ; 
But take care that you give not too stingy a sample. 



THE TBAGEDT. 161 

If I an opinion must give as a judge, 

I must have a good mouthful without stint or grudge. 

Altmajeb, aside. 
They*re from the Rhine I calculate. 

Mephistofheles. 
Bring here a gimblet. 

Beakder. 

Why, what for ? 
You've not your barrels at the gate. 

Altmajeb. 
Our host's tool-chest's behind the door. 

Mephistofheles takes the gimblet — to Frosch, 
Now tell me what your taste may be. 

Feosch. 
How mean you, have you got so many sorts ? 

Mephistofheles. 
To each and all I leave it free. 

Altmajeb to Frosch, 
You lick your lips already at the thoughts. 



162 the teagedt. 

Fbosch. 

Good, if the choice be mine, Rhine wine will I com- , 

mand. 
The fairest gifts of all come from the Fatherland. 

Mefhistofheles 

Bores a hole at the part of the rim of the table where 

Frosch sits. 

Now get a Httle wax, the corks to fix. 

Altmajeb. 

Oh ! that is nothing more than jugglers' tricks. 

Mephistopheles to Brander, 

And you ? 

Bbandeb. 

A glass of good Champagne for me. 
And gaUy sparkling let it be. 

PSIEPHISTOFHELES hores ; in the meantime one of 
them has made the wax corks, and stopped the 
holes. 

Bbandeb. 

One cannot always foreign things aToid, 
Things that are good so often distant be; 

A Frenchman no true German can abide. 
But still their wine he drinks right willingly. 



THE TEAGEDY* 163 

SiEBEL ^when • Mephistopheles approaches his 

place. 

I must confess, sour wine's no wine for me ; 
Give me a glass of genuine sweet. 

Mephistopheles. 
Tokay shall flow your will to meet. 

Altmajeb. 

Now, Grentlemen, in the face look me fiill, 
I see you're only making fools of us. 

Mephistopheles. 

No, no, indeed ! with guests so worshipful. 

That were indeed a little venturous ; 
But quick speak out, and let me know 
What wine for you I hid to flow. 

Altmajeb. 
Any, only don't he slow. 

As soon as all the holes are bored and stopped, 
Mephistopheles — with curious gestures. 

Grapes the vine doth hear, 
Horns doth the he-goat rear. 
The wine is juicy, wood the vine. 
The wooden tahle too hears wine. 



164 THE TRAGEDY- 

A glance into nature's depths receiye^ 

Here is a miracle, only believe. 

Now draw the corks and take your fill. 

All. 

When they have draum the corks and the required 

liquor into each glass flows. 
Oh, beauteous spring, that flows so gloilously. 

Mephistopheles. 

Only take care that nought you spill. 

{They drink repeatedly. 

All sing. 

Like cannibals our jollity. 

As if ^yt hundred swine were we. 

Mephistopheles. 
The people are free, see how merry they be. 

Faxjst. 
I should be glad to go away. 

Mephistopheles. 

j First watch how bestiahty 
: Will itself gloriously display. 



THE TBAGEDT. 165 

SlEBEL. 

Drinks carelessly; the wine /alls jOH the earth 
and becomes Jlame, 

Help ! Fire ! Help ! Hell's flames are here. 

Mefhistofheles, conjuring the flame. 
Be quiet, friendly element. 

To the fellow. 
This time was hut a drop from purgatory sent. 

SlEBEL. 

What's that ? Wait, you shall pay it dear ; 
It seems that us you do not know* 

Fbosch. 
A second time such tricks he'd hetter shew. 

Altmajeb. 
I think we'd better quietly let him go. 

SlEBEL. 

What, Sir, how dare you practise thus 
Your hocus pocus upon us ? 

Mefhistofhsles. 
Silence! old wine-cask. 



166 THE TEAGEDT. 

SlEBEL. 

Broomstick ! dare yon 
Towards us with insolence to bear you ? 

Bbandeb. 
Wait a bit,— blows shall rain around. 

Altmajeb. 

[Draws a cork from the table and fire fiashes out 

against him. 

I bum ! I burn ! 

SlEBEL. 

Sorcery, 
Hark at him, 'tis an outlawed hoimd.* 

[They draw their knives and attack Mephistophelean 

Mephistofheles, with earnest gesture. 

Lying speech ! 
Cheatmg form ! 
Sense! Place! 
Transform ! 

* Vogelfrei outlawed ; gerat caput lupinum, he bears a wolfs 
head, any one may kill him. 



THE TBAGEDY. 167 

FUt hither ! 
FUt thither ! 
{Thet/ stop astonished, and gaze at one another, 

Altmajeb. 
Where am I ? what a beauteous land ! 

Fbosch. 
Why, Tineyards ! see I right ? 

SlEBEL. 

Nay, grapes at hand ! 

Bbandeb. 

Here beneath this bower so green. 

See what a Tine, what grapes are to he seen I 

[He seizes Siebel by the nose, and the 
others do so to one another, and raise 
their knives, 

Mephistofheles. 

Error, take off the bandage from their eyes. 
And ye, beware the Devil's pleasantries ! 

[He vanishes with Fattst, the companions part. 

Siebel. 
What is the matter ? 



168 the tbagebt. 

Altmajeb. 
What! 

Feosch. 
Was that thy nose ? 

Bbakdeb to SieheL 
And upon thine my fingers do I close. 

Altmajeb. 

'Twas such a shock, through all my limhs that 

passed. 
Bring me a chair — I*m sinking fast. 

Fbosch. 
But what may it all be ? Tell me, I pray. 

SlEBEL. 

Where is the fellow ? Could I catch him. 
With life he should not get away. 

Altmajeb. 

Through the cellar door myself did watch him. 

Upon a barrel ride away. 

Heavy as lead my feet are growing, 

[Turns towards the table. 
By Jove ! I wonder is the wine still flowing. 



THE TBA6EDT. 169 

SlEBEL. 

All was deception, lying, and illusion. 

Fkosch. 
I thought I drank wine— 'twas a strange delusion. 

Bbandeb. 
What with the grapes, — how was it possible ? 

Altmajeb. 
Now, tell me not to believe a miracle ? 



170 THE TEAGEDY. 



WITCHES' KITCHEN.* 

A large caldron stands over the fire on a low hearth. 
In the steam that rises from it divers phantoms 
appear* A she-monkey sits hy the caldron and 
skims it, and takes care that it does not run over ; 
the he sits near it tuith the young one and warms 
himself. The walls and roof are decked out with 
extraordinary witch furniture. 

Faxjst. Mephistopheles. 

Faust. 

This bedlam witchcraft sickens me. 
Dost promise me recovery, indeed, 

* Menzel demotes a whole chapter to the jadicial proceedings 
in Germany against witches, at the period when Faast flourished, 
viz., the early part of the 16th century, of which it may be 
enough to say, that they commonly terminated tragically. His 
account of the belief as to their practices prevalent at that time 
may be interesting : — *' The accused woman can raise storms, 
kill from a distance, occasion sickness by a look, brew love 
potions, kindle unnatural hate and love, &c., with the help of 
the devil. She learned the art from another woman, who either 
had introduced her to the devil in the shape of a sweetheart, 



THE TEAGEDY. 171 

From this filth of lunacy ?* 

From an old woman do I comisel need ? 
Will this dogsmeat messf then take 
Full thirty years from off my back ? 

generallj as a yoath, or from whom she had received the witch 
ointment. She strips herself, anoints herself with the oint- 
ment, seizes a broom, distaff, spit, he-goat, or oven-fork, cat, 
&c., &c., mounts it, calls out, '* Oat above, and towards no- 
where," and proceeds throagh the chimnej-pot to the great 
Witches' Sabbath, on the Bloclcsberg,* in the Walpargis-night. 
Here all the witches assemble, dance with their backs turned to 
one another, and perform obscene rites to a black goat, which, 
in the end, takes fire and consumes, and the witches gather the 
ashes for magic purposes. Each then returns to the steed she 
has provided for the adventure, and returns home. Thenceforth 
the devil comes to the woman as a gallant, carries on an intrigue 
with her, and gives her power to practice sorcery, but keeps 
her in poverty and ill-usage." — Menzel, chap. 496. 

* Wustf means filth, not chaos. 

t SudeUuichereif kitchen-stuff, off-scourings. Sudelkuche is 
the scullery. 

* *' Upon the Blocksberg, or Broken, is the chief dance for all 
Germany. In Sweden the place is called Blokula. It sig- 
nifies, as regards the time (the first of May), and the symbol 
(the worshipping and consuming of the goat, as of the symbol 
of fertility), a remnant of ancient heathenism. In Swabia the 
witches assembled in the Henburg, near Balingen.'*— Menzel. 
Note to chapter on Witch Protecutiant, 



.♦ 



172 THE TEAGEDY. 

Woe me, if nothing more to you is known. 
Already is my hope for ever flown ! 
Can Nature and a noble spirit find 
No balsam, then, of any sort or kind ? 

Mephistopheles. 

My friend, now speak you sensibly once more 
There is a natural way youth to restore. 
But in another book it stands enrolled. 
And forms a chapter truly wondrous strange. 

Faust. 
I choose to know it. 

Mephistopheles . 

Well, then, without gold. 
Physic, or witchcraft, to effect this change. 
Take to the fields at once, begin 
To hoe and dig, thyself shut in, 
Body and mind alike, within 
A narrow circle, closely pent ; 
Be the simplest food thy nourishment ; 
Live with beasts as a beast, and think no ill 
To manure yourself the land you till. 
This, believe me, is the method true. 
At eighty years old one's youth to renew. 



the tbagedy. ' 173 

Faust. 

I am not used to it, nor could persuade 
Myself within my hand to take the spade. 
A Ufe confined would not suit me at all. 

Mephistopheles. 
Well, then, the witch we to our aid must call. 

Faust. 

But why will none but this old woman do — 
Can'st thou thyself not this elixir brew ? 

Mephistopheles. 

Oh, yes ! that were indeed a proper sport. 

To build a thousand bridges were as short. 

Not art and science only doth it ask : 

Patience is also needful to the task. 

A tranquil spirit labours for a length 

Of years, 'tis time gives his fine Hquor strength. 

And all that doth belong thereto. 

Are very wondrous things indeed. 
The Devil has taught it her, 'tis true, 

And yet himself would not succeed. 

[Glancinff at the monkeys. 
What charming creatures, only see. 
The maid is that, the boy is he. 



174 THE TEAGEDY. 

{To the Beasts) 
It seems that your lady is not in the house ? 

The Beasts. 

At the feast so gay, 

She is out of the house> 

Up by the chinmey-stpne, out and away. 

Mefhistofheles. 
How long for her revelling does she require ? 

The Beasts. 

The time we are warming our paws at the fire. 

Mefhistofheles to Faust, 
The tender beasts how do you find ? 

Faust. 
More hideous things I ne'er beheld. 

Mefhistofheles. 

Nay, that discourse we just have held. 
Is more than any other to my mind. 

(To the Beasts,) 
Accursed whelps ! now tell me what 
Is't you are stirring in the pot ? 



the teagedy. 175 

The Beasts. < 
Coarse beggars' broth is what we cook. 

Mefhistopheles. 
An d fo r much tuatom may ya l oa k i t^^rx,-^.^. 

The He approaches and fawns upon Mephis- 

topheles. 

Oh, the dice quickly throw. 
That rich I may grow. 

And let me gain : 
I cannot be worse. 
Oh, had I the purse, 

I should soon have the brain. 

Mefhistopheles. 

How happy this poor ape would be. 
Could he put in the lottery. 

[In the meantime the young monkeys are 
playing with a great hall, and rolling it 
about. 

The He. 

That is the world, 
It rises and sinks. 



176 THE TKAGEDY. 

Unceasingly whirled. 

Like glasses it clinks. 
How easy that hreaks. 

It is hollow at core ; 
What a gUtter it makes. 

And here more and more. 
I still live on. 
My darling son. 
Keep from it away. 

For thou must die. 
It is made of clay. 

And will tumble to potsherds by and by. 

Mephistopheles . 

What means the sieve ? 

[The He fetches it doum. 

If thou wast a thief, 
I soon should know. 

[He runs to the She, and makes her look 
through it. 

Look through the sieve ; 

Knowest thou the thief ? 
And yet thou darest not call him so. 

Mephistopheles, approaching the fire. 

And then this pot ? 



THE TRAGEDY. 177 

V 

He and She. 

The simpleton ! what ! 
He knows not the pot^ y 

He knows not the kettle. 

Mephistopheles. 
Rude animal ! Hush ! 

He. 

Come, take hold of this brush. 
And sit down on the settle. 

[He makes Mephistopheles sit down, 

Faust, 

Who all this time has stood be/ore a looking-glasSy 
alternately approaching it, and retiring from it. 

What do I see ? what heavenly form displays 
This magic mirror to my raptured gaze ? 
Oh, lend me, Love, the swiftest of thy pinions. 
And lead me quickly to her blessed dominions. 
Alas, to the same spot if rooted here 
I stand not, if I venture to draw near, 
Straightway a mist around that shape is rolled. 
Of woman's form the fairest to behold. 
Is it possible, — can woman be so fair ? 

N 



178 THE TRAGEDY. 

Must I behold^ within this form reclined. 
The essence of all Paradise enshrined ?* 
Is it allowed to Earth such bKss to share ? 

Mbphistopheles. 

'Tis natural, that when a god six days 
Toils, and when all is finished. Bravo ! says, 
Something should turn up that his skill displays. 
For this time look your fill, and when inclined. 
Some such a charmer for you I can find. 

* The reader will recollect the somewhat similar passage in 
As You Like It. 

Will I Rosalinda write ; 

Teaching all that read, to know 
The quintessence of everj sprite 

Hearen would in little show. 
Therefore Hearen Nature charged 

That one body should be filPd 
With all graces wide enlarged : 

Nature presently distilFd 
Helen's cheeky but not her heart ; 

Cleopatra's majesty ; 
Atalanta's better part ; 

Sad Lucretia's modesty. 
Thus Rosalind of many parts 

By heavenly synod was devised ; 
Of many faces, eyes, and hearts, 

To have the touches dearest prized. 



THE TBAGEDY. 1/9 

How blessed is he, by happy fate decreed, 
As bridegroom that fair creature home to lead. 

[Faust continues gdzing in the mirror, Mephis- 
TOPHELES lounging on the settle, and playing 
with the brush, continues speaking. 

Here sit I like the King upon the throne ; 

The sceptre hold I here, I want the crown alone. 

[The Beasts, who hitherto have been performing 
all sorts of out-of-the-way antics with one 
another, bring Mephistopheles a crown, 
with loud chattering. 

Oh, be but so good. 
With sweat and with blood 
The crown to smear. 

[They handle the crown awkwardly, and break 
it into two pieces, with which they dance 
about. 

Now it is done. 

We see and speak on. 

We rhyme and we hear. . 

Faust — towards the mirror. 
Woe's me ! alas, how crazed I feel. 



180 THE TRAGEDY. 

Mephistofheles— ^otn^tn^ to the monkeys. 
And even my brain begins to reel. 

The Beasts, 

With a lucky hit, 
When all things are fit. 
Then thoughts appear. 

Faust— a« above. ^ 

Flames are burning in my breast. 
Hence right swiftly let us flee. 

Mephistofheles— tn the same position. 

Well, it must be at least confessed. 
Honest poets these ones be. 

[The caldron which the She has for some time 
neglected begins to boil over, a great flame 
arises, and blazes out by the chimney stone. 
The Witch descends through the flame with 
hideotts clamour. 

The Witch. 
Au! Au! 

Infernal beast, accursed sow. 
Neglecting the caldron, scorching the dame^ 
Accursed beast. 



THE TKAGEDY. 181 

[Seeing Faust and Mephistopheles. 
What is that here ? 
Who are ye here ? 
With what intent^ 
Ye sneaking came ? 
The pang of flame 
Your bones torment. 

\_She dips with the ladle into the caldron, and 
sprinkles fire towards Faust, Mephistopheles, 
and the beasts ; the beasts whimper, 

Mephistopheles inverts the fan that he held in 
his hand, and strikes out among the glasses and 
pots. 

Smash, crash. 

There lies the trash ; 

There the glass lies in smash ; 

'Tis but a joke, beating time you see. 
You carrion hag, to your melody. 

[The Witch draws back full of rage and 
amazement* 

Knowest thou me not ? skeleton ! scarecrow ! 
Thy lord and master dost thou then not know ? 
What hinders me, that home I do not strike? 
You and your monkey devils, smash alike ? 



182 THE TRAGEDY. 

For the red doublet hast thou no more respect? 
And the cock's feather canst not recollect ? 
Did I my countenance conceal ? 
Must I ever my name reveal ? 

The Witch. 

Oh, Lord, forgive the rough salute, 

I did not see the horse's foot. 

And where then are your ravens twain ? 

Mephistopheles . 

For this time pardon you obtain. 
For 'tis, in truth, long time since we 
One another have chanced to see. 
Refinement, that the whole world now will taste. 
Has reached the Devil in its course at last. 
The Northern Phantom stalks no more about. 
Where see you ever horns, or tail, or claws ? 
The meaning of the foot, I cannot do without. 
Would in society some scandal cause ; 
Therefore, like many a gay young man, I wear 
False calves, and have done so for many a year. 

The Witch, dancing, 

I feel my senses turning, and my brain. 
To see the gaUant Satan here agam. 



the teagedy. 183 

Mephistopheles. 
From that name^ my good woman, pray refrain. 

The Witch, 
Why, what's it done to you ? 

Mephistopheles* 

Since years of old 
That name has been in story-books enrolled. 
And yet from that mankind has Uttle gained : 
Free from the Evil One the evil ones remained* 
Call me Lord Baron, 'twill be very good. 

Like other cavaliers I am a cavalier ; 
Thou doubtest nothing of my noble blood. 

And for the arms I bear, behold them here, 

[He makes an indecent gesture, the Witch 
laughing immoderately. 

Ha, ha ! at your old tricks once more : 

As much a scamp even now as e'er you were before. 

Mephistopheles to Faust. 

My friend, attend to this, and understand. 
With witches to converse this is the way. 

The Witch. 
Now, gentlemen, what please you to command ? 



184 the tragedy. 

Mephistopheles. 

A good glass of that well-known liquor, pray ; 
Let it be of the oldest, may I ask : 
Age doth its body twice as potent make. 

The Witch. 

Right willingly. Here, I have got a flask. 
From which a drop myself I sometimes take. 

That also in the least no longer stinks. 

So you a glass I joyfully will give. [aside. 

But unprepared, if this man of it drinks. 

Right well, you know, an hour he cannot live. 

Mephistopheles . 

He's a friend of mine — 'twill agree with him well. 
I grudge not the best of your brewing for him ; 
So draw round your circle and speak out your spell. 
And give him a cup, full up to the brim. 

[The Witch, with strange gestures , draws 
a circle, and places extraammary oh" 
jects in it, whereupon the glasses begin- 
ning to ring, and the caldron to sound, 
make music. Finally, she brings a great 
book, places the monkeys in the circle, to 
serve as a desk and hold the torch ; she 
beckons to Faust to approach. 



THE TRAGEDY. 185 

Faust to Mephistopheles. 

Now tell me what all this my be — 
These frantic gestures — that mad stuff ; 

This most disgusting jugglery 
I know, and I detest enough. 

Mephistopheles. 

Pooh, 'tis a jest ! Don't so fastidious be, 
For in her character of physician, she 
Some absurd hocus pocus must go through. 
So that the draught may do some good to you. 

[He compels Faust to enter the circle. 

The Witch, tvith great emphasis, begins to declaim 

out of the book. 

Thou must know. 
From one make ten. 
And let two go. 
Three ever make three, 
So thou art rich. 
And drop the four 
From five and six. 
So says the Witch : 
Make seven and eight. 



186 THE TEAGEDY. 

So all is done^ 
And nine is one 
And ten is nine, 
The Witch's way to calculate. 

Fatjst. 
The old hag seems to me to be delirious. 

Mephistopheles . 

There's more to come— so doth the whole book chime. 
I know it well, on it have spent much time. 
Self-contradiction if complete and serious, 
Remains for fools and wise alike mystenous. 
Ancient and modem is the art, my friend. 

In all times customary found. 
Through three and one and one and three to extend 

Error, instead of truth, around. 

So prattle they, so teach they in the schools. 

Unchallenged. Who will meddle with the fools ? 

When words alone they hear, the way of all mankind 

Is to suppose that there some thoughts too they will 

find. 

The Witch continues. 

The lofty might 
Of wisdom's light. 
From the whole world concealed ; 



THE TBAGEDY. 187 

Who thinketh nought. 
To him 'tis brought, 
'Tis without care revealed. 

Faust. 
What sort of nonsense does she chatter ? 

My head spHts with her noise uproarious. 
Methinks I hear with hideous clatter 

A hundred thousand fools in chorus. 

Mephistopheles . 

Enough, enough ! Oh, glorious sybil, end ! 
Give us the beverage and the cup. 
Quick, to the very brim fill up. 
The draught can do no mischief to my friend ; 
For he, a man of high degree, hath quaffed 
Already many a lusty draught. 

[The Witch, with many ceremonies, pours 
the potion into a cup. As Faust raises 
it to his mouth a light flame rises. 

Mephistopheles. 

Come, down with it ! — don't hesitate : 

It speedily wiD warm your heart. 
You, with the Devil so intimate, 
Indeed, at flame must never start. 

[The Witch breaks up the circle. Faust 
steps out. 



188 the teagedy. 

Mephistopheles . 
But now, away — you must not rest. 

The Witch. 
Much good the potion may do you. 

Mephistopheles. 

If for you I aught can do, 
Prefer on May-night your request. 

The Witch. 

Here is a song, sing it now and again ; 
A peculiar emotion you'll find it inspire. 

Mephistopheles. 

Come quickly, be guided, to business amain. 

Above all things 'tis needful that you should perspire. 

That its strength may pervade you within and 

without. 
Now idleness lordly I'll teach you to treasure. 
And soon you will feel with internal pleasure. 
How Cupid is stirring and leaping about. 

Faust. 

Quick, let me once more in the mirror gaze. 
Too fair that woman form that it displays. 



the tragedy. 189 

Mephistopheles. 

No, no, the model of all woman kind, 
You soon shall see before you bodily, (aside) 

With such a drink as this in you you'll find 
A Helen in each woman that you see. 



190 THE TEAGEDY. 

THE STREET. 

Faust — Mabgabet passing over. 

My fair young lady, may I dare. 
My arm and escort offer thee. 

Mabgabet. 

Am no young lady nor yet fair. 
Can go home without company. 

[She frees herself and departs. 

Faust. 

By Heavens, hut this child is fair ; 

I ne'er have seen such loveliness. 
Such virtuous and modest air. 

Yet something snappish not the less. 
Her ruby lips, her gleaming cheek. 

My life long shall I not forget. 
And how the ground her eyes did seek ; 

Deep in my heart their seal they set. 
How quick and home her answers went ; 

It is a perfect ravishment. 

Mephistopheles enters, 

Faust. 
Thou must get me that maiden fair. 



Well, which ? 



the tragedy. 191 

Mephistopheles. 

Faust. 
That one that just passed by. 



Mephistopheles. 

She comes from her confessor* s chair, 

With absolution plenary ; 
Up to the chair I crept quite close ; 

With sin that girl is undefiled. 
For nothing to confession goes ; 

I have no power o'er the child. 

Faust. 
She's fourteen years if she's an hour. 

Mephistopheles. 

There, like Hans Liederlich you rave. 

Who covets every lovely flower. 
Fancies all honour he can have. 
And favours for mere plucking, still 
Such things come not always at will. 

Faust. 

My very worthy moral preacher, 
Leave me in peace, I want no teacher. 



Jui' ooT' icr «*- VOL i 



A: minnirti: cur oanneccuL 

Tiiiuk wha: ma^ mol mar b«: iie ^ 

A tortxurh: I a: irms,: rrtrnm 
T(' iind aii opparnmirir. 

Sfveii hours wen- all I should 
Aiiil hold the Devil of bttle uae. 
Thai huh- monkev to seduce. 

Mephistophelks, 

\iur likt' a Prenchmaii rave awar ; 

lUi; trei not altout it, I pray. 

AfVbv hum tc» enjovmeiit straight ? 

Ttif jikasurt- is not half so great, 

A^ when y(vu hrst right thoroughly, 

AiViih aL sorts, of tomfoolerv, 

Tne doL have moulded, to your fioicy wrought, 

A> mjmy a tak- of Italy hath taught 

Faust. 
Widx^ut ihaL. 1 ha^re aj^tite. 



the teagedy. 193 

Mefhistopheles . 
Now, without joke, and without jest, 
I tell you, with that maiden bright 
Things cannot he so hotly pressed ; 
Here we by storm can nothing take. 
With stratagem our way must make. 

Faust. 

Bring me some token of that child of heaven. 

Or lead me to her place of rest. 

Bring me a kerchief l&om her breast, 
A garter of my charmer even. 

Mefhistopheles. 

That you may see that to your woes 

I proffer service free and fair. 
Not one moment will we lose ; 

To-day into her room you will I bear. 

Faust. 
And shall I see her ? — possess her ? 

Mephistophelss. 

No; 
She will be in a friend's house near. 
So that you can in solitude, 

o 



194 THE TRAGEDY. 

In hope of new beatitude, 
Revel unchecked in her sweet atmosphere. 

Faust. 
Can we at once into her chamber go ? 

Mephistopheles. 
Not so ; it is too early yet. 

Faust. 
Some present for her see and get. 

Mephistopheles. 

Presents already ; right, he'll sure succeed. 
I know of many a well-lined place, indeed. 
And many a treasure long hid in the ground^ 
I must a little look once more around. 



[Exit. 



THE TBAGEDT. 195 



EVENING. 

A small cleanly chamber, 

Margabet^ braiding and binding her hair. 

Something I'd give, did I but know 

Who that gentleman might be ; 
Right gallant did his bearing show. 

And he's of noble family. 
That in his forehead might be seen. 
He had not else so forward been. 



{Exit, 



Mefhistopheles. Faust. 

Mephistopheles. 
Come in, quite softly, but come in. 

Faust, after a short silence. 
Oh, leave me here alone, I pray. 

Mephistopheles, looking round.' 
Not every maid has things so clean. 



196 THE TRAGEDY. 

Faust, gazing about. 

Welcome, sweet twilight's glimmering ray. 
That dimly on this hallowed spot doth hrood ; 

Seize on my heart, oh Love's deUcious pasr p®-'^ 
That pining makest the Dew of Hope thy food. 

Oh, what a sense of stillness here doth reign. 
Breathing what order, what contentedness. 

What plenty doth this poverty contain. 
And in this dungeon even what blessedness. 

[He throws himself on the leathern chair 
by the bed. 
Receive me, thou from whom the world long gone. 

In weal and woe a welcome oft have found ; 
How often circling the paternal throne. 

Thee have a host of children clustered round. 
Perchance, too, thankful for her Christmas gift. 

With childhood's chubby cheeks, my darling here 
In pious fondness to her hps would lift 

The hand all withered of her grandsire dear. 

Maiden, I feel thy spirit hovering near. 
That mother-like doth teach thee, day by day. 
The table, with its snow-white cloth to lay. 
To strew the sand that crisps beneath thy feet. 
Oh, that dear hand, that godhke hand of thine. 
Through thee this hut becomes a realm divine. 
And here — 



THE TRAGEDY. 197 

\He raises a bed curtain. 
What a delicious trembling, blissful fear 
Seizes me. Long hours could I linger here. 
Nature ! Here, in dreams of lightness, 
Broughtest thou this angel-bom to perfect brightness. 
Here lay the child, with glowing life. 
Its tender bosom ever rife. 
And here each impulse, sanctified and pure. 
The godUke image did itself mature. 

And thou, what tempted thee in here to steal ? 

What deep heartfelt emotion do I feel. 

What wouldst thou here ? why doth thy heart sink 

so ? 
Poor mean-souled Faust, thee I no longer know. ^ | w 

And if this moment she returned again, ^T^^r 

For thy transgression how wouldst thou atone ? 

The greatest boaster, ah, how Httle then. 
Melted to reverence at lier feet lay thrown. 

Mephistopheles. 
Quick, coming from below the girl I see. 

Faust. 
Away, away ! here I return no more. 



198 THE TRAGEDY. 

M£PHISTOPHEL£ S . 

Here is a casket^ it weighs heavily. 

From somewhere else the prize I bore. 
Quick, put it in the press — ^in there ; 

It will turn her head, I swear. 
I put some little things within, 
Some one else to win. 
But child is child, and play is play. 

Faust. 
I know not ; shall I ? 

Mephistopheles. 

Dost delay ? 
Perchance you mean yourself to keep the prize. 
In that case I your rakishness would advise 
On it no more to waste the glorious hours of day. 
And further trouble to save me, 
I trust you are not miserly. 
I rub my hands, and scratch my head — 

[He puts the casket in the press, 
and shuts it again. 
Away — the bolt is sped. 
Now, the youthful lovely girl. 
To your heart's desire to twist and twirl. 
Yet from your air 
It seems as in the lecture room you were. 



THE TRAGEDY. 199 

Before you standing, bodily and grey. 
Physics and Metaphysics there. 
Away! 

Mabgaret, with a lamp. 

It feels so close, so musty here, 

l^She opens the window. 

Yet outside does not warm appear. 
I know not what doth o'er me come ; 
Would that my mother were at home. 
O'er all my limbs it seemed a shudder played. 
Well, I am but a silly fearful maid. 

She begins to sing whilst she is undressing herself. 
There was a king in Thule, 

Right true unto the grave. 
To him his sweetheart, dying, 

A golden goblet gave. 

Nought prized he more ; at every feast 

He drained it evermore. 
And every time he drunk from it. 

With tears his eyes ran o'er. 

On his death-bed, his cities 

He counted one by one ; 
Grudged nought to his successor. 

Save this dear cup alone. 



200 THE TEAGEDY. 

He sat at the regal banquet. 

Round stood his chivahy. 
In the high ancestral chamber. 

In his castle by the sea. 

There stood the ancient toper, 
Then his last draught quaffed he ; 

Then flung the hallowed goblet, 
Down in the deep, deep sea. 

He saw it faUing, fiUing, 

Till in the deep it sank ; 
His eyes failed as he watched it. 

No drop more e'er he drank. 

[She opens the press to put away her 
clothes and perceives the casket. 

How comes this pretty casket here to be ? 

I locked the press most certainly. 

'Tis wonderful ; what can there be within ? 

Perchance by some one as a pledge brought in. 

And that my mother money lent on it. 

There to the ribbon hangs a key ; 

'Twere no great harm, methinks, to open it. 

What is that ? God in heaven ! see ! 

I ne'er have seen such things in all my life. 

Gems ! Why, decked out in these, a noble's wife 



THE TRAGEDY. 201 

Upon the higliest holiday might go. 

I wonder how on me the chain would show. 

Whose all these fine things are I fain would know. 

[She puts them on and walks to the glass. 
If but the earrings only were mine own. 
One looks a different creature with them on. 
What use is beauty ? what is youth ? 
That is all very well in truth. 
And then the world leaves all alone. 
Half pity doth its praise express. 

For gold contend. 

On gold depend 
Still all. Alas, we moneyless ! 



202 THE TEAGEDT. 



PROMENADE. 

Faust in a reverie^ walking up and doum. 
Mephistofheles meets him, 

Mephistopheles. 

By the pangs of despised love— by each damnable 

element, 
I would I knew something worse, I might curse to 

my heart's content. 

Faust. 

What now ? What is it pinches thee so sore ? 
A face like thine I never saw before. 

Mephistopheles. 

I could bestow myself upon the spot 

On the Devil, if I myself a devil were not. 

Faust. 

Hath aught occurred to thee, to shake thy brain ? 
It becomes thee to rave like one insane. 



the teagedy. 203 

Mephistopheles. 
Just think, the gems for Margaret that I got, 

A priest has carried as a spoil away ; 
By chance a sight of them her mother caught. 

Some secret fear came over her straightway. 
The lady at a secret is wondrous clever, 
She sniffs and snuffles at her prayer-book ever. 
And of each article, by the smell. 
Whether 'tis sacred or profane can tell. 
She soon sniffed out of jewel and gem. 
That not much blessing came with them. 
My child, cried she, unlawful property 
Ensnares the soul, withers the blood up dry ; 
We will devote them to the Virgin dear. 
With heavenly manna she our souls will cheer. 
Poor Margaret made a piteous face ; 

'Tis a gift-horse, perhaps she thought ; 
Nor truly, is he without grace. 

Who here the gems so nicely brought. 
Then sent her mother for a priest. 

Who, scarcely had he heard the fun. 
Was with the prospect right well pleased. 

He said, well have ye thought and done ; 
He that himself subdues doth gain much good. 
The church hath a good stomach for such food. 
Whole countries hath it swallowed up with zest. 



204 THE TRAGEDY. 

And yet itself hath overeaten ne'er. 
It is the church alone, my lady dear, 
UnlawM property that can digest. 

Faust. 

Such power is yet in universal use. 

It's exercised, hesides, by Kings and Jews. 

Mephistopheles. v. 

Pounced upon bracelet, chain, and ring, 
As if they nought but mushrooms were. 

Gave thanks no more for any thing 
Than had a bag of nuts been there ; 

Promised rewards in Heaven above. 

Right edifying did it prove. 

Faust. 
And Margaret ? 

Mephistopheles. 

Ill at ease she sits. 
Knows not what mean her restless fits ; 
Broods day and night the trinkets o'er. 
Of him that brought them thinks yet more. 

Faust. 
grieve to hear my love doth fret ; 



THE TRAGEDY. 205 

Get her at once another set. 

For the first, no great things were they. 

Mephistopheles. 
Ay, to the gentleman 'tis all child's play. 

Faust. 

See that according to my wish all goes. 

And to her neighbour mind that you stick close ; 

Do not a milksop devil be. 

Fetch a fresh set of jewels immediately. 

Mephistopheles. 

Yes, honoured master, willingly enough. 

\_Fau8t exit. 
Why, such a love-sick fool as this would puff 
Sun, moon, and stars, and all, into the air. 
For the amusement pf his lady fair. 

[Exit. 



206 THE TBAGEDY. 



THE NEIGHBOUR'S HOUSE. 

Mabth A — alone. 

Now God forgive my husband dear ; 
By me he has not fairly done. 
Right out through all the world is gone ^ 

And leaves me a grass- widow here ; 

I never vexed him, nor a bad wife proved him, 
In truth, God knows how heartily I loved him. 

[She weeps. 
Perhaps he may be dead. Oh, luckless fate, 
Had I of it but a- certificate. 

Mabgabet enters. 



Mabgabet. 



Martha! 



Mabtha. 
Well love, what may it be ? 



the tbagedy. 207 

Makgaket. 

My knees are almost failing me ; 

I found again witbin my press 
A jewel case of ebony, 

Grems of such perfect loveliness ; 
Far richer than the first are they. 

Martha* 

Nought of it to your mother say, 

Else gives she them the priest straightway. 

Mabgabet. 
Only just see, now but look here. 

Mabtha puts them on her. 
Oh, thou most lucky creature dear. 

Mabgabet. 

But with these jewels on, unhappily, 

I dare not in the streets or church appear. 

Mabtha. 

Only come over to me often here. 

And then in private in the jewels arrayed. 

Before the mirror for an hour parade ; 



208 THE TRAGEDY. 

We shall have our delight in it. 

And hy and by will find occasion fit. 

Some festival or hohday will seize. 

To let the people see them by degrees. 

A chain first, then the earrings ; should your mother 

Observe them, we'll make some pretence or other. 

Margaret. 

Who can it be that the two caskets brought ? 
It cannot be exactly as it ought. 

[A knock at the door. 
Oh God, can that my mother be ? 

Martha, peeping through the blind, 
'Tis a strange gentleman. — Come in. 

Mephistopheles enters. 

Straightway to enter here, I have made free. 
Trust of the ladies I shall pardon win. 

[Steps hack respectfully before Margaret, 
Speech of Dame Martha Schwerdtlein I would pray. 

Martha. 
'Tis me, what hath the gentleman to say ? 



THE TBA6£DY« 209 

Mephistopheles, aside to her. 

I know you now, that is enough for me. 
I see that you have high-horn company ; 
Pray you forgive the freedom that I take. 
At eve will I another visit make. 

Martha. 

Think, child, of all that hap could hring, 
A nohle lady thinks he thee. 

Mabgabet. 

I am a poor young simple thing. 

Heavens ! he is far too good to me. 
Jewels and gems are not mine own. 

Mephistopheles . 

Oh, it was not the gems alone. 
Her striking air, her piercing eye. 
That I may stay, how glad am I. 

Mabtha, 
What news have you ? I long to know. 

Mephistopheles* 
Would I could better tidings shew ! 



210 THE TBA6EDT. 

But blame me not : your husband's dead. 
And begs to you to be remembered. 

Mabtha. 

Dead ! the true heart ! oh ! misery ! 
My husband dead ! oh ! I shall die ! 

Mabgabet. 
Do not despair, my Martha dear. 

Mefhistopheles. 
The sorrowful story only hear. 

Mabgabet. 

Therefore for all my life I will not love. 

Grief for the loved one's loss my death would prove. 

Mefhistopheles. 
Joy must have sorrow, sorrow joy must have. 

Mabtha. 
Tell me, I pray, of how his life did close. 

Mefhistopheles. 

He found in Padua his grave ; 

By the church of St. Anthony, repose 



THE TEAGEDY. 211 

His bones, in a spot consecrate and blessed, 
For a cool bed of everlasting rest. 

Martha. 
Have you nought else to me to bring ? 

Mefhistopheles. 

Yes, a large and weighty prayer ; 
Bid priests for him three hundred masses sing : 
My pockets of all other things are bare. 

Maetha. 

What ! not a token, not a trinket, such 
As each mechanic husbands in his pouch. 
With care apart for a remembrance set. 

And starves or begs sooner than be without. 

Mefhistopheles. 

Madam, right heartily I aU regret. 

In truth, his means he did not fling about ; 
Also his faults all he repented sore. 
Yes, and bewailed his own sad fate much more. 

Maegaeet. 

Alas, that men are so unfortunate ; 
Surely for him I will say many a mass. 



21^ the tragedy. 

Mefhistopheles. 

Right worthy are you of the marriage state ; 
You are a truly amiable lass. 

Maegaret. 
Ah no ; nought of the kind is talked of yet. 

Mefhistopheles. 

No husband ? well, meanwhile a gallant get, 
It were the best of gifts e'er heaven gave, 
Such a sweet creature in one's aifms to have. 

Margaret. 
Such things are not the custom of the land. 

Mefhistopheles. 
Custom or not, such things will happen yet. 

Martha. 
But tell me ! 

Mephistofhelbs. 

By his death-bed did I stand. 
Better than dung, 'twas straw half putrified ; 
But then he as a perfect christian died: 
Feeling too much down to his score was set. 



THE TEAGEDT. 213 

How deeply, cried he, I myself must hate. 
My trade to leave, and my wife desolate : 
By the remembrance! to death am driven. 
Were but her pardon, whilst -I yet live, given. 

' ' ' / 

Martha — loeeping. 
The dear good man, long since have I forgiven. 

Mephistopheles. 
But, God knows, she was more to blame than I. 

Maktha. 
There lies he ! what ! on the grave's brink to He ! 

Mephistopheles. 

No doubt he fabled mtich at his last .gasp. 

If I could only- half his meaning grasp. 

Few hours of pastime have been mine, he said. 

First I must children get, and then get bread ; 

And bread, too, in the widest sense, and yet 

Even then could never once in peace my portion eat. 

Mabtha. 

What, all my faith and love forgotten quite. 
The drudgery by day and night ! 



214 the tragedy. 

Mephistofheles. 

Not SO, he thought of you with all his heart. 
He said, when I from Malta did depart, 
I prayed most fervently for wife and child. 
And on my prayer a gracious heayen smiled. 
Our ship a Turkish vessel prize did make. 
That for the Sultan treasure had on hoard> 
And then had bravery its due reward ; 
Then did I duly of the spoil partake. 
And had my well told portion as was fit. 

Martha. 
Eh ? how ? Eh ? where ? perhaps he buried it. 

Mephistopheles. 

Who knows where the four winds have blown the pelf? 
A fair young lady took him to herself 
As he a stranger Naples walked about ; 
Much did she for him in love and truth ; 
As, to his holy end, he felt in sooth. 

Maetha. 

The rogue ! the robber of his children ! out 
Upon him ! Could all misery, all need. 
Not hinder him his shameless life indeed ? 



the tbagedy. 215 

Mefhistopheles. 

Yes, see ! he is dead now for that same reason. 

Were I now in your situation found, 
I should just mourn him for a decent season. 

Meanwhile, for a new sweetheart look around. 

Martha. 

Oh heavens, but what a man my first one was ; 

Such on earth I shall not find easily ; 
There scarce could be a kinder-hearted ass, ^ 

Only too fond of wandering was he : 
Went with strange women and strange wine astray, 
And then at those infernal dice would play. 

Mefhistopheles. 

If on his part, about as much in you 
He'd overlook, that very well might do ; 
If such an understanding were expressed, 
I swear myself I'd change with you the ring. 

Maetha. 
Oh, but the gentleman is pleased to jest. 

Mefhistopheles — to himself. 

Oh, no. Now will I in good time take wing, — 
The very devil to his word she'd pin. 



216 THE TBAGEDT. 

To Maegaeet. 
How goes it, gentle damsel, with your heart ? 

Margaeet. 
What means the gentleman ? 

Mephistopheles — to himself. 

The charming child, so pure and free from sin. 

[loud. 

Ladies, farewell. 

Maegaeet. 
Farewell. 

Maexha. 

Oh, say before we part. 
Some testimony I would gladly have. 
How, when, my darling died, and where his grave ? 
To order I have always been a friend indeed. 
Would gladly, too, his death in the newspaper read. 

Mephistopheles. 

Yes, my good lady, when two witnesses appear. 
The double testimony makes truth always clear ; 



THE TEAGEDY. 217 

A gallant comrade have I whom I'll bring 
Before the judge to testify the thing ; 
I'll bring him here. 

Maetha. 

Oh, yes, do so. 

Mephistopheles . 

And the young lady will be here also. 
'Tis a brave youth, well travelled too is he. 
And used to ladies' sweet society. 

Maegaeet. 
Before him then my cheeks with shame would glow. 

Mephistopheles. 
No, no, before no earthly potentate. 

Maetha. 

Behind the house, then. Sir, this evening ; 
Here in my garden, — we the gentlemen await. 



218 THE TBAGBDY. 



THE STREET. 

Faust. Mephistopheles. 

Faust. 
How goes it, — get you on, — will't soon be doi^et 

Mephistopheles. 

Ah, bravo ! now I find you in a flame ; 
In a short time will Margaret be your own. 

To-night we'll meet her with the worthy dame. 
In truth, it is a woman ready made« 
For such like procuress and gypsy trade. 

Faust. 
'Tis good ! 

Mephistopheles. 
But we in turn must something do. 

Faust. 
Well, one good turn deserves another too. 



the tbagedy. 219 

Mephistopheles . 

A formal deposition we must make. 

That her lord's limbs, outstretched, are to be found 

In Padua, in consecrated ground. 

Faust. 
How wise ; and what a journey we must take. 

Mephistopheles. 

Sancta simplicitas ! no need for doing so ; 
We prove all easily, although we little know. 

Faust. 
Hast thou no better way, 'tis our plan's orerthrow . 

Mephistopheles. 

Oh, holy man ! How innocent we are ! 

Is't the first time that you false witness bear ? 

Have you not given, with all authority. 

Full definition of the Deity ; 

And of the world, and aU that stirs therein ; 

Of man, what in his head, heart moves about ? 
All with undaimted breast, unshrinking mein. 

And now, to search the matter right throughout. 
Have you of them, the simple truth to own. 
As much as of this death of Schwerdtlein's known ? 



220 the tkagedy. 

Faust. 
Sophist and liar thou art, and wilt lie ever on. 

Mephistopheles. 

Yes, if one knew not something deeper yet. 

Will you not, in all honour, seeming fair. 
Befool to-morrow the poor Margaret, 

And love from your whole soul to her will swear ? 

Faust. 
And from my heart in truth. 

Mephistopheles. 

Ay, very well. 
Then talk you of eternal love and truth ; 
One all absorbing, all o'ermastering spell ; 
Will that. Sir, come from out your heart in sooth ? 

Faust. 

Enough, it will ; when in my heart's deep core, 
I feel, and for the feeling, for the thrill. 
Seek for a name, and seek all vainly still. 

Then through the world with all my senses soar. 

Grasp at the loftiest words of all ; 

And then this glow that wraps my soul in fire. 



THE TRAG£Dr. 22 t 

Unending, aye, eternal, call ; 
Is that the deviUsh mockery of a Uar ? 

Mephistofheles. 
Yet am I right. 

Faust. 

Listen, mark what I say 
I beg of thee, my lungs not to distress ; 
Who will be in the right, and doth possess 
A tongue, will certainly have his own way. 
But come, I am weary of this gossipry. 
Thou in the right must be, from my necessity. 



222 THE TRAGEDY. 



GARDEN. 

Mabgaeet on Faust's arm. Martha and Mephis- 
TOPHELES walking backwards and forwards. 

Makoabet. 

You are but trifling with me, well I know. 
To make me blush, yourself let down so low. 
A traveller is so accustomed still, 
'Stead of the deed to put up with the will. 
I know full well, a man of such attainment 
In mj poor talk can find small entertainment. 

Faust. 

A glance, a word from thee, delights me more, 
Far more, than all this world's profoundest lore. 

[He kisses her hand. 

Maeoaret. 

Plague yourself not ; what pleasure can it be 
To kiss it ? 'tis so hideous, is so rough. 
What have I not to do with every kind of stuff? 

My mother is indeed too hard on me. 

[They pass over. 



the tbagedy. 223 

Martha. 
And you, Sir, do you still pursue your way ? 

Mephistopheles. 

Alas, that business, duty, us constrain 
To part ; full many a place with how much pain 
We leave, in which we can no longer stay. 

Martha. 

One's years of wildness it doth well become. 
Free here and there throughout the world to roam. 
But then the evil time comes surely on. 
As bachelor, sneaking to the grave alone, 
To none that ever any good hath done. 

Mephistopheles. 
With terror do I see it from afar. 

Martha. 

Then, worthy Sir, in time yourself prepare. 

[They pau over, 

Margaret. 

Yes, out of sight is out of mind. / ^ 

How ready flows your courtesy ; 
But friends in hundreds you can find. 

All far more sensible than me. 



224 " the tragedy. 

Faust. 

Dearest, belieye, oft is what men call sense 
Mere yanity and a narrow mind. 

Mabgabet. 

How so ? 

Faust. 

When will simplicity and innocence 

Themselves and their own holy value know ? 
Lowliness, meekness, the best gifts are those 
That nature's treasury of love bestows. 

Mabgabet. 

A little moment wilt thou think on me — 
I shall have time enough to think on thee. 

Faust. 
Much of your time you spend in loneliness. 

Mabgabet. 

Yes, our household is but small, but yet 
It must be looked to, not the less. 

We have no maid ; I cook and sweep and net. 
And sew and run about, early and late. 
And mother is in all so accurate ; 



THE TEAGEDY. 225 

Not that she needs to live so sparingly, 

We could do even more than others do. 
My father left a pretty property, 

A house just by the town, a garden too. 
But now some very dreary days I have ; 

My brother's serving with his regiment. 
My Httle sister dear is in her grave ; 

Truly the child did sorely me torment. 
Yet I would undergo most willingly 

The trouble all again, so dear it was to me. 

Faust. 
An angel, if it aught resembled thee ! 

Margaret. 

I brought it up, and dearly it loved me. 
After my father's death the child was born. 

When my poor mother's life was given over ; 
She lay so ill, in such a state forlorn. 

And did but slowly bit by bit recover. 
She could not think (such was her sufTering), 
Herself of suckling the poor Httle thing. 
And so I brought the child up, all alone. 
With milk and water, till it became mine own ; 
In my arms, in my lap, sprawling about. 
It knew me, and took notice, and grew stout. 



226 the teagedt. 

Faust. 
Thou felt in it the holiest delight. 

Maegaeet. 

Yet, truly, many hours did trying prove. 
The Uttle creature's cradle stood at night 

Close to my bed, and never could it move 
But I awoke, must rise, and feed it then. 
Then take it into bed with me again. 
If 'twere not quiet, must from my bed get out. 
Tossing it up and down, must walk about. 
At morning early at the wash-tub be. 
Then to the marketing and fire see. 

To-day, to-morrow, the same order keep. 
Things go not always on so cheerfully j 

Yet sweet is food for that, and sweet is sleep. 

[They pass over, 

Maetha. 

Yes, of that the poor women have the worst. 
So hard to manage is a bachelor. 

Mephistopheles. 

*Twas such as you indeed that was the first 
To teach me better than I knew before. 



the tragedy. 227 

Maetha. 

Tell me, good sir, have you nought ever found ? 
Ne'er has your heart to any heart been bound ? 

Mephistopheles. 

The proverb says, a hearthstone that one owns. 
And a good wife, weigh more than gold and precious 
stones . 

Martha. 
I mean, have you no passion e'er conceived ? 

Mephistopheles. 
I have been everywhere right well received. 

Martha. 
I mean, you've ne'er felt seriously in your breast ? 

Mephistopheles. 
With ladies should we ne'er presume to jest. 

Martha. 
Oh ! you don't understand me. 



228 the teagedt. 

Mephistopheles. 

I'm much grieved 'tis so. 
But this, that you are very kind, I know. 

[Pas8» 

Faust. 

Me, little angel, didst thou recognise. 
The instant that I came into the garden ? 

Maegabet. 
Sawest thou it not ? I cast adown mine eyes. 

Faust. 

And thou the freedom that I took dost pardon. 
What my impertinence did venture on. 
Just as from the cathedral thou wert gone ? 

Maegaket. 

I was confounded ! ne'er the like had been 
Done to me ; none of me could evil say. 

** Ah !" thought I, " has the stranger in thy mien 

Aught impudent, or aught immodest, seen ? 

He thinks, I need but at once address 

This girl, come to the point at once with her." 

Yet something, what I know not, I confess. 
Quickly on your behalf began to stir. 



THE TRAGEDY. 229 

Right angry with myself yet was I certamly. 
That I could not be angrier with thee. 

Faust. 

Thou dearest. 

Margaket. 
Wait awhile. 

\_See plucks an aster, and plucks the 
leaves off one after the other, 

Faust, 
What is that for, to make a nosegay ? 

Margaret. 

Nay, 
'Tis nothing but a little foohsh play. 
Go, you would laugh at me. 

[She goes on plucking and murmuring, 

Faust. 
What murmurest thou ? 

Margaret — half aloud. 

He loves me — ^loves not me. 

Faust. 
Thou sweet heayen-lighted countenance. 



230 THE TRAGEDY. 

Margaret goes on. 

Loves me — ^not. Loves me — not, 

[Pulling the last leaf with affectionate 
delight. 

He loves me ! 

Faust. 

My darling, yes ! Let this flower-answer be 
God's revelation to thee. He loves thee ! 

Knowest thou what that means ? his love is thine ! 

[He clasps her two hands. 

Margaret. 
A trembling passes o'er me ! 

Faust. 

Ah, shudder not thus. Let this glance of mine. 

Let this hand pressure, tell 

That which is inexpressible. 

And yield us wholly to an ecstacy 

To feel, that must eternal be ! 

Eternal — aye — its end would be despair. 

No, no ! No end, no end ! 

\Margaret presses his hands, frees herself 
from him, and runs away. He stands 
for a moment, lost in thought, and then 
follows her. 



THE TRAGEDY. 231 

Maetha coming. 
The night comes on. 

Mephistopheles. 

Yes, and we must away. 

Martha. 

I should have prayed ye longer here to stay, 
But 'tis a wicked place in which we are. 
It seems that no one had aught else to do. 
And nothing in the world else to look to. 
But at their neighbours' goings on to stare, 

The least thing that one does sets all tongues moving; 
And our sweet pair, 

Mephistopheles. 

There up the walk are flown. 
Fond butterflies. 

Martha. 
He seems with her right loving. 

Mephistopheles. 
And she with him. So doth the world wag on. 



232 THE TRAGEDY. 



A GARDEN HOUSE. 

Margaret runs in, hides behind the door, places 
her finger on her lips, and peeps through the chink. 

Margaret. 
He comes ! 

Faust enters. 

Ah, little rogue, playest thou thus with me ? 
I've caught thee ! 

[He kisses her. 

Margaret— emiraciw^ him and returning 

the kiss. 

Best of men ! from my heart love I thee ! 

Mephtstopheles knocks. Faust stamping. 
Well, who comes there ? 

Mephistopheles . 

'Tis a good friend. 



the tragedy. 233 

Faust. 

A beast. 

Mephistopheles. 
It is full time to part. 

Martha enters. 
Yes, it is late. 

Faust. 

At least 
May I not see thee home ? 

Margaret. 
My mother would— adieu. 

Faust. 



Must I go ? 



Martha. 
Ade!* 

Margaret. 

Soon may we renew 



Our walk. 



[FatLst and Mephistopheles exeunt, 
* Ade ! is a vulgar corruption of adiea. 



234 the teagedy. 

Margaret. 

Thou gracious God ! why, such a man 

Was not within my fancy's utmost span ! 

I stand before him blushingly, 

In all he says, I yes reply. 

Yet am a poor untutored child ; 

Can't think what 'tis his fancy has beguiled. 

[Exit. 



THE TRAGEDY. 235 



FOREST AND CAVERN. 

Faust — alone. 

Spirit sublime ! thou gavest me, gavest me all — 
All that I prayed for. Not in vain hast thou 
Turned upon me thy countenance in fire. 
Thou gavest me glorious nature for a realm. 
With power to feel and to enjoy ; not only 
A cold bewildering converse didst thou grant, 
But did vouchsafe me, in her deepest breast, 
As in the bosom of a friend, to gaze. 
The ranks of Ufe thou marshallest before me. 
And teachest me to recognise my brother 
In the still thicket, in the air and water ; 
And when the tempest in the forest roars. 
And creaks, and strikes down the gigantic pine 
With crashing sway, rending the neighbouring boughs 
And neighbouring trunks, and, at its fall, a dull 
And sullen sound thunders along the hill. 



236 THE TRAGEDY. 

Into safe caverns then thou leddest me : then 
Didst shew me to myself, and of my breast 
The wonders deep concealed revealed themselves. 
And the pure moon rises before my eyes. 
Shedding deep calm around ; before me soar. 
From walls of rock, and from the dewy thicket. 
The silver phantoms of the past, to soothe 
The craving of the soul for earnest thought. 

Oh ! now I feel that nothing e'er becomes 
Perfect to man ; for thou, to this delight. 
That brings me near and nearer to the gods. 
Didst add this comrade, whom I can no more 
Dispense with, even though, ever cold and reckless. 
He lowers me in my own esteem, and turns 
Thy gifts to nothing with a single breath. 
Ever at work, he kindles in my breast 
A raging fire for that lovely form. 
So reel I from desire to enjoyment. 
And in enjoyment yet long for desire.* 

• The cloyed will, 
(That satiate yet unsatisfied desire, 
That tub both filled and running) ravening first 
The lamb, longs after for the garbage. 

Shakespeare (Cymbeliru), 



THE TRAGEDY. 237 



Mephistopueles enters. 



Mephistopheles. 

Well, with this life are you not satisfied ? 

For such a time, how can it pleasure you ; 
'Tis very well that once it should be tried. 

Then, forward, ever on to something new. 

Faust. 

I would that thou thyself couldst otherwise employ. 
Than thus to pester me the few days I enjoy. 

Mephistopheles. 

Well, well, Fd gladly take myself away. 
Though that in earnest you would scarcely say. 
In a companion, rough, odd, and unkind ; 
Truly but little I to lose can find. 
One has one's hands full all the Uvelong day. 
And from his countenance can never say. 
What pleases him, what must be left alone. 

Faust. 

Ay, truly, that is just the proper tone ; 

He bores me, then expects my gratitude be shewn. 



238 the teagedy, 

Mepbistopheles. 

How hadst thou. Earth's unhappy son, 
"Without me through thy life got on ? 
Of crotchets thy imagination hred, 

I now have wrought a cure for many a day ; 
And, were it not for me, thy soul had sped. 

Already from this glohe of thine away* 
Why sittest thou in caves and fissures day hy day, 
Like a great owl muddling thy time away ?* 
Why from damp moss and dripping stone 
Sip, like a toad, the food thou hvest on ? 
Oh, what a glorious manner time to kill; 
The doctor sticks within your hody still. 

Faust. 

Couldst thou but feel what freshness to the springs 
Of Life this wandering to the desert brings ; 
Couldst thou conceive it. Devil enough thou art. 
To envy me this blessedness of heart. 

Mephistopheles. 

A superhuman pleasure, verily. 

To be out on the hills in night and dew, 

* Versitienf to sit awajr, to lose bj sitting* 



THE TRAGEDY. 239 

In spanning earth and heaven supremely blessed, 
Swelling oneself to a divinity. 

Earth's marrow in vague dreamings piercing 
through. 
The six days' work to feel within your breast. 
To enjoy, I know not what, in haughty might. 

Anon, in rapturous love, that overflows 
On all, thine earthly nature vanished quite, 
And after all the intention bright, 

[With a gesture, 
I dare not mention how — to close. 

Faust. 
Fie on thee ! 

Mephistopheles. 

This not to thy taste appears. 
" Fie upon thee," to say thy right is plain. 
So morally ; one must not to chaste ears 
Speak things from which chaste hearts will not 

refrain. 
And once for all, I most ungrudgingly 
Agree, you sometimes to yourself shall lie 
In some things, only carried not too far. 
Already blown out of your course you are ; 
And if it lasts much longer, you will wholly 
Fret into madness, moping, melancholy. 
Enough of this ; thy charmer sits at home. 



240 THE TEAGEDY. 

And all to lier is drear and lowering* 
Out of her thoughts thy image will not come. 

The love she hears thee is o'erpowering. 
First came thy passion's furious overflow. 
Like a hrook hrimming o'er with melted snow, 
Into her heart its whole flood didst thou pour ; 
And now, behold, thy brook is dry once more. 
Methinks, instead of throning in the wood, 
The mighty gentleman might find it good 
To grant the Uttle monkey, pretty dear. 
Some slight repayment of her love sincere. 
Wretchedly slow doth time to her appear. 
She haunts the window, watches on the blast. 
The clouds, the old walls of the town, drive past. 
" Oh, were I but a bird ;" so goes her song 
All the day long, and then half the night long ; 
Whiles is she gay, but mostly clouded o'er. 

Then fairly, bitterly outwept. 

Anon she seems as if her sorrow slept. 
But lovelorn evermore. 

Faust. 
Serpent ! 

Mephistopheles to himself, 
'Tis good ! The bird is caught ! 



the tragedy. 241 

Faust. 

Reprobate ! haste thee from the spot, 
And name that lovely woman not ! 
Into my half-crazed brain the fierce desire 
For that sweet form do not again inspire. 

Mephistopheles. 

What shall it be ? she thinks that thou art flown ; 
And half-and-half already so thou art. 

Faust. 

Near am I her ; and were I distant gone, 

I ne'er could her forget, from her could part. 
I envy even the body of the Lord 
When it is pressed between those Ups adored. 

Mephistopheles. 

Well said, my friend ; I have envied you, indeed, 
Oft the twin pair that midst the roses feed. 

Faust. 
Pander, begone. 

Mephistopheles. 

*Tis good ; you rail, and I 
Must laugh. The God that lads and lasses made 
Saw the necessity of the noble trade 

R 



242 THE TRAGEDY. 

Of making opportunity. 
But come, here's piteous misery! 
Into your darling's chamber hie. 
There— not— I think— to die. 



Faust. 

What heavenly raptures in her arms caressed ? 

Oh, let me glow upon her gentle breast ! 

Do I not feel for her, her misery ? 

The false deserter, the base outcast, I, 

The monster, reckless, restless as the shock 

Of the swoln cataract, that from rock to rock 

Foams, maddens, headlong to the gulf below. 

She by its side, of childUke dreamy mind. 

Her household cares, to the small world confined. 

Her little Alpine field, her cottage low. 

And I, the God-detested, not content, 

Seized on the rocks, and them in fragments rent; 

Her and her peaceful state must besides undermine. 

Hell, must this victim also then be thine ? 

Help, Devil, this time of woe to hurry on. 

What must be done, let it at once be done. 

Her fate from mine inseparable make. 

That in the self-same ruin both partake. 






the tragedy. 243 

Mephistopheles. 

Ay, now agaiu it boils, and now it glows. 

Go into her, thou fool, some comfort bring ; 
When such a noddle as thine no outlet knows, 

It fancies straight the end of everything. 
Give me the man brave ever, ne'er downcast, 
Yet of the Devil a spice thou sometimes hast. 
To me the world nought more abhorrent bears. 
Than is a devil— that despairs. 



244 THE TBAGBDT. 



MARGARETS ROOM. 

Margaret at the spinning wheel — alone. 

My heart is dreary. 

My peaceful mind, 
I never, never. 

Again shall find. 

Life is without him 

Sepulchral all. 
And the whole wide world 

Is steeped in gall. 

My poor, poor head. 

It reeleth madly ; 
My poor, poor senses. 

They wander sadly. 

My heart is dreary. 
My peace of mind. 



THE TRAGEDY. 245 

I never, never, 
Again shall find. 

For him alone, 

My glances roam, 
For him alone 

I stray from home. 

His stately step ! 

His bearing high ! 
His lips' sweet smile ! 

His regal eye ! 

In winning words. 

What spell is his ! 
His hand's dear clasp. 

And, oh ! his kiss ! 

My heart is dreary. 

My peace of mind, 
I never, never. 

Again shall find. 

My bosom yearns 
But to enfold him ; 



246 



I 



THE TRAGEDY. 

Could I but dasp him. 
And ever hold him. 

Devour his kisses, 

AU I desire ; 
And in his kisses. 

In bhss expire I 



THE TEAGEDY. 24? 



MARTHA'S GARDEN. 

Margabet and Faust. 
Maegabet. 



Promise me, Henry. 

Faust. 
Whatsoe'er I can. 

Maegabet. 

Tell me what thy religious feelings are. 

Thou art in thy heart's heart a kind, good man ; 
And yet, I believe, for it dost Uttle care. 

Faust. 

Enough, my child. Thou feelest how dear thou art 
To me ; for thy sake I with life would part. 
From none would take his feelings or his creed. 

Maegabet. 
That is not right ; one must beliere indeed. 



248 THE TBAGEDT. 



Faust. 



Must one ? 



Margaret. 

Ah, thee could I hut influence. 
The sacrament, too, thou dost not reverence. 

Faust. 
I reverence it. 

Margaret. 

But still unlovingly. 
Hast not confessed, nor heen to mass for ages ! 
Believest thou in God ? 

Faust. 

My love, who dares reply — 
I believe in God ? Ask it of priests or sages. 
And 'twill appear the answer that they give 
But mocks the asker. 

Margaret. 
Then thou dost not believe ? 

Faust. 
Thou angel aspect, do not misconceive 



THE TEAGEDY. 249 

My words. Who is there dares to name his name ? 
And who proclaim — 
I beheve? 

Who feel. 

Yet nerve himself 

To say — I believe him not? 
He that encompasses the universe,* 

The all sustainer. 

Sustains he not 

Thee— me — Himself? 
Doth not the heaven vault itself above us ? 
Lies not the sohd earth beneath our feet? 
And rise not with their friendly gleam 
The immortal stars on high ? 
Gaze we not into one another's eyes ? 
And doth not all impress 
Conviction on thy head, thy heart, 

* *' Apart from considerations of space and time, we know 
this fact, that we are in the midst of Being, whose amoun 
perhaps, we cannot estimate, but which is yet all so exquisitely 
related, that the perfection of its parts has no dependance upon 
their magnitude — of Being» within whose august bosom the 
little ant has its home, secure as the path of the most splendid 
star, and whose mightiest intervals— if Infinite Power has built 
up its framework — Infinite Mercy and Infinite Love glowingly 
fill and give all things warmth, and lustre, and life — the sense 
of the presence of God." — NkholU* Architecture of the Heavens, 



250 THE TEAGEDY. 

And interweave within thy soul. 
Shrouded in mystery eternal. 
Through what is visible, the invisible ?* 

Fill thence thine heart, how big soe'er it be ; 

And when entirely in the feeling blessed, 

Then call it what thou wiliest. 

Call it BUss !— Heart ! -Love !— God ! 

I have no name for it. 

FeeUng is all in all. 

Name is but sound and smoke,f 

Clouding the glow of heaven. 

• These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good, 
Almighty, thine this universal frame. 
Thus wondrous fair — Thyself how wondrous then, 
Unspeakable, that sittest above those heavens, 
To us invisible, or dimly seen ^ 

In these thy lowest works ; yet these declare 
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine. 

Paradise Lost, 
Effulgence of my glory. Son beloved, 
Son, in whose face invisible is beheld 
Visibly what by Deity I am. 

Paradise LotU 
t " There can only be one substance, God. Whatever is, ii 
God, and without God nothing can be conceived ; for he is the 
sole substance, and modes cannot be conceived without sub- 



the tragedy. 251 

' Margaret. 

All that is very good and fair. 

Much the same thing doth the priest declare. 

Although in different words. 

stance ; but besides modes and substance nothing exists. God 
is not corporeal, but body is a mode of God, and therefore un- 
created. God is the cause of all things, and that immanently, 
but not transiently. He is the efficient cause of their essence 
as well as their existence, since otherwise their essence might 
be conceived without God, which is absurd. Thus all particular 
and concrete things are only the accidents or affections of 
God's attributes, or modes in which they are determinately 
expressed. God's power is the same as his essence, for he is 
the necessary cause both of himself and all things, and it is as 
impossible for us to conceive him not to act, as not to exist. 
God, viewed in the attributes of his infinite substance, is the 
same as Nature, that is, to use his fine and subtle expression, 
* Natura naturans ;' but in another sense, Nature, or ' natura 
naturata,' expresseb only the modes under which the divine at- 
tributes appear. • • • • • 

** The universe is taken as the manifestation of the Deity, not, 
as many suppose, as the Deity himself, but, to use the words of 
Cousin, the Deity passing into activity, but not exhausted by 
the act. • * . * * * • 

** God then, according to Spinoza, is the ' idea immanens,' 
the fundamental fact and reality of all existence, the only power, 
the only eternity. What we name the universe, is only the 
visible aspect, the realised form of bis existence." — Spinoia, 



252 the tragedy. 

Faust. 

So everywhere, 
All hearts beneath the light of heavenly day, 
Each in its own peculiar language, say. 
And why not I in mine ? 

It is remarkable that in the early editions, instead of ' Name 
is sound and smoke/ the text stood ' Nature is sound and 
smoke.' 

'' Contrivance, if established, appears to me to prove eveiytbiog 
that we wish to prove. Amongst other things, it proves the 
PERSONALITY of the Deitj, as distinguished from what is some- 
times called nature, sometimes called a principle ; which terms, 
in the mouths of those who use them philosophically, seem to 
be intended to admit and to express an e£Scacy, but to exclude 
and to deny a personal agent. Now that which can contrive, 
which can design, must be a person. These capacities consti- 
tute personality, for they imply consciousness and thought. 
They require that which can perceive an end or purpose, as 
well as the power of providing means and directing them to 
their end. They require a centre, in which perceptions unite, 
and from which volitions flow, — which is mind. The acts of a 
mind prove the existence of a mind, and in whatever a mind 
resides, is a person. The seat of intellect is a person. \9e have 
no authority to limit the properties of mind to any particular 
corporeal form, or to any particular circumscription of space. 
These properties subsist in created nature under a great variety 
of sensible forms ; also every animated being has its Mnsoritim, 
that is, a certain portion of space, within which perception and 



the tragedy. 253 

Margaret. ^ 

Thus understood 
*Tis plausible ; but still it does no good 
To thee, thou hast no Christianity. 

▼olition are exerted. This sphere may be enlarged to an inde- 
finite extent ; may comprehend the uniFerse, and being so 
imagined, may serve to furnish us with as good as notion as we 
are capable of forming of the immensity of the divine nature, 
that is, of a Being, infinite as well in essence as in power. Yet 
nevertheless a person. 

'^ ' No man hath seen God at any time.' And this, I believe, 
makes the great difficulty. Now it is a difficulty which chiefly 
arises from our not duly estimating the state of our faculties. 
The Deity, it is true, is the object of none of our senses ; but 
reflect what limited capacities animal senses have. Many ani- 
mals seem to have but one sense, or perhaps have at the most 
touch and taste. Ought such an animal to conclude against the 
existence of odours, sounds, and colours. To another species 
is given the sense of smelling. Thia is an advance in the know- 
ledge of the powers and properties of nature ; but if this favoured 
animal should infer, from its superiority over the class last de- 
scribed, that it perceived every thing which was perceptible in 
nature, it is known to us, though perhaps not suspected by the 
animal itself, that it proceeded upon a false and presumptuous 
estimate of its faculties. To another is added the sense of hetr- 
iug, which lets in a class of sensations entirely unconceiyed by 
the animal before spoken of: not only distinct, but remote 
from any which it had ever experienced, and greatly superior to 



254 the tbagedy. 

^ Faust. 

Dear child ! 

them. Yet this last animal has no more ground for believing 
that its senses comprehend all things and all properties of things 
which exist, than might have been claimed by the tribes of 
animals beneath it ; for we know that it is still possible to pos- 
sess another sense, that of sight, which shall disclose to the per- 
cipient a new world. This fifth sense makes the animal what 
the human animal is \ but to infer that possibility stops here; — 
that either this fifth sense is the last sense, or that the five com« 
prebend all evidence, is just as unwarrantable a conclusion, as 
that which might have been made by any of the different spe- 
cies, which possess fewer, or even by that, if such there be, 
which possessed only one. The conclusion of the one sense 
animal, and the conclusion of the five sense animal, stand upon 
the same authority. There may be more and other senses than 
those which we have. There may be senses suited to the per- 
ception of the powers, properties, and substance of spirits. 
These may belong to higher orders of rational agents, for there 
is not the smallest reason for supposing that we are the highest, 
or that the scale of creation stops with us. 

The gp'eat energies of nature are known to us only by their 
effects. The substances which produce them are as much con- 
cealed from us as the divine essence itself. GraxMaixon, though 
constantly present, though constantly exerting its influence^ 
though everywhere around us, near us, and within us, though 
diffused throughout all space, and penetrating the texture of all 
bodies with which we are acquainted, depends, — if upon a fluid^ 



the tragedy. 255 

Margaret. 

It long has made me weep, 
To see the company that thou dost keep. 

ft 

Faust. 
How so ? 

Margaret. 

The man thou ever hast with thee, 
I in my deepest, inmost soul ahhor. 
I ne'er remember in my life before 
Such a cold thrill through my heart, as ran 
At the repulsive visage of that man. 

Faust. 
My darling, fear him not. 

Margaret. 

His presence makes me shudder, though I feel 
Towards other men all kindness as I ought. 

upon a fluid which, though both powerful and uniyersal in its 
operation, is no object of sense to us, — if upon anj^ other kiud of 
substance or action, upon a substance and action from which we 
receive no distinguishable impressions. Is it then to be won- 
dered at, that it should in some measure be the same with the 
divine nature 1" — PaUy*s Natural Theology. 



256 THE TRAGEDY. 

Yet even when most I long thy face to see, 
I feel a secret horror o'er me steal. 
Then for a thorough rogue I hold him, too ; 
God pardon me if wrong to him I do. 

Faust. 
Some such eccentrics* there will always be. 

Maegaeet. 

For worlds I would not live with such as he. 

He comes unto the door with such a stare, 

Looks in with such a mocking leer. 

And almost fierce. One well can see, 

That he no sympathy can share ; 

'Tis written in his forehead clear. 

That what it is to love he doth not know. 

Within thine arms I feel so deeply blessed, 

Pierced through with such a glow, all unrepressed. 

And then his presence does my blood congeal. 

Faust. 
Misgiving angel. 

* Kaut is literally a screech owl, but is here employed in 
the same sense as the analogous English slang of * strange bird' 
would be. 



the tragedy. 257 

Makgaket. 

This feeling hath gained such a mastery o'er 
My heart, that if towards us he chance to stray, 

I almost feel that I love thee no more. 

And in his presence not a prayer could say ; 
And that upon my very heart doth prey. 

Doth not that, Henry, too, occur to thee ? 

Faust. 
Now yieldest thou to mere antipathy. 

Margaret. 
But now, farewell ! I must be gone. 

Faust. 

Ah, can I never count upon 

One little hour to hang upon thy breast ; 

Breast to breast, soul to soul in calmness pressed. 
« 

Margaret. 

Alas, if I but only slept alone. 

Gladly the bolt Fd open leave this night. 

But then my mother sleeps so very hght. 
And should she find us out, assuredly 
I should upon the very instant die. 

s 



258 THE TEAGEDT. 



Faust. 



Thou angel, have no fear. This vial take. 

Pour three drops in her night draught ; it will steep 
Her nature in profound and soothing sleep. 

Margaret. 

What is there I would not do for thy sake ? 
I trust it can do her no injury. 

Faust. 
If it could, love, would I advise it thee ? 

Margaret. 

Thou hest of men, when thee I gaze upon, 
I know not what me to thy will constrains ; 

So much for thee I have already done. 
That little more to do for me remains. 

[Exit. 

Mephistopheles enters, 

Mephistopheles. 
The monkey, is it gone ? 

Faust. 
Again the spy dost play ? 



the tragedy* 259 

Mephistopheles . 

I heard the whole throughout; the worthy Doctor say 
His catechism : I hope with him it will agree. 
The girls in that are interested mightily. 
If one is pious and meek, after the ancient way, 
If he is humhle in that, he'll he guided hy us, think 
they. 

Faust. 

Thou monster that thou art, thou canst not see, 
How this dear soul in its fidehty, 
Full of its faith, she thinks alone can give 
Eternal happiness, should deeply grieve. 
With holy grief, to think him she loves most, 
She must consider as for ever lost. 

Mephistopheles. 

Thou sighing, supersensual sensualist ; 
Thou art led hy the nose hy a Uttle flirt. 

Faust. 
Thou monster hirth of Fire and Dirt. 

Mephistopheles. 

Then she's a first-rate physiognomist ; 
And in my presence all ahroad she feels. 



260 TH£ TUAGEDT. 

Some mystic faculty my mask reveals. 
She feels a genius at the least in me, 
Perhaps the very devil I may be. 
Well— to-night ? 



Faust. 
What hast thou with that to do ? 



Mefhistofheles. 
I have my pleasure in it too. 



THE TBA6EDT. 261 



AT THE FOUNTAIN. 

Margaret and Elizabeth, toith pitchers. 

Elizabeth. 
Hast thou heard nought of Barbara ? 

Margaret. 

No, 
Nothmg. Abroad I seldom go. 

Elizabeth, 

Sybilla told me all to-day. 

For certain, she has chosen to play 

The fool. So much for upstart pride. 

Margaret. 
How so ? 

Elizabeth. 

Whene'er she eats and drinks. 
She feeds herself and one beside. 



262 THE TKAGEDY. 



Margaret. 



Alas! 



Elizabeth. 

It serves her right, methinks. 

How long upon him she hung on. 

What walkings out with him alone. 

What squiring to each village hall. 

Where she would aye be first of all. 

Such treating her to wine and cake ; 
So pufiPed up with her beauty, she 
Was yet so brazen, shamelessly 

Presents from him to take. 

There was a billing and a cooing ; 

Well it might end in her imdoing. 

Margaret. 
Poor thing ! 

Elizabeth. 

Yes, much she's to be pitied. 

Up in our rooms we sat and spun ; 
Our mothers never us permitted, 

Down to the door to run. 
Then with her love, so soft and sweet. 
She sat upon the threshold seat ; 



THE TEAGEDT. 263 

Or some dark passage chose to woo, 
Whilst all too fast the minutes flew. 
Now must her pride come down to do 
In church the penance meet. 

Mabgabet. 
He'll surely wed her ! 

Elizabeth. 

Not a hit. 
He'd be a fool to think of it. 
A sharp young lad Uke him is free. 
To go or stay ; he's left her too. 

Mabgabet. 
That is not right. 

Elizabeth. 

But even if she 
Got him, she'd little better be. 
Her bridal wreath would sure be torn 

By mocking boys, and we would strew 
ChafiF at her door, her bridal mom.* 

* Accordiug to an old German custom, the friends of a bride 
used to strew sand and flowers before her door on the morning of 
her wedding. But if the virtue of the bride had not been proof 
against temptation, cut straw was substituted for the flowers ; 
the tearing of her bridal wreath indicated* similar misadventure. 



264 THE TEAGEDY. 

Margaret — returning home. 

How stoutly I, 'tis but the other day. 
Could rail if a poor maiden went astray. 
For other's sins could scarcely find 
Hard words enough to speak my mind. 
How black and blacker still to me it seemed ; 
Nought black enough to call it then I deemed. 
And blessed myself, and held myself so high ; 
And now what but a child of sin am I ? 
Yet still, all that, 'gainst which I vainly strove. 
Ah me ! it was such goodness, 'twas such love. 



THE TBAGEDY. 265 



ZWINGER.* 

In a niche of the wall an image of the Mater 
Dolorosa, with flower vases before it, 

MxRGARi^T places fresh Jlowers in the vase. 

Mother of woes divine. 
Thy gracious brow incline 
On my extremity. 

Keener than pangs of steel 
Did thy pierced bosom feel. 
When thine uplifted eye 

* Zwinger, in its original signification, means a castle erected 
more for the purpose of curbing the inhabitants of a town, than 
of contributing to the defence of a place against external ene- 
mies. The Emperor of Russia's celebrated address to the citi- 
zens of Warsaw, on the subject of the citadel, is a familiar 
modern illustration of the ancient meaning of the word ; but 
its import has changed ; there is a Z winger palace in Dres- 
den, built about the beginning of the last century, without refe- 
rence to any military purpose. Retsch places this scene in the 
immediate neighbourhood of a church. 



266 THE TRAGEDY. 

Marked thy son's latest breath 
Fade into death. 

Lifting thy tearful eyes. 
Unto the Lord on high 

Sending thy heavy sighs, 
In thy son's misery, 
And thine extremity. 

Who feels what agony 

Riots unceasingly, 

In this poor wasted frame. 

Thou, only thou, canst tell, 
Whence such disquiet came, 

Why trembling on it fell. 
What will afford relief. 
Pity my grief. 

Wherever I may go, 

Still woe, still woe, still woe. 

Deep in my heart doth wake. 
Ah ! 'tis not all alone, 
I moan, I moan, I moan ; 

My heart swells nigh to break. 

The flower-pots at my window 
My tears bedewed in showers. 



THE TRAGEDY. 267 

As in the prime of morning, 

For thee I plucked these flowers. 

Ere in my chamber shone 
Clearly the early sun, 
Maddening in misery 
Up in my bed sat I. 
Help ! death and shame are nigh ! 
* Mother of woes divine. 
Gracious, thy brow incline. 
Look upon me. 

* The following are the stanzas in the 'Mater dolorosa,' 
upon which this is founded : 

Stabat Mater dolorosa, 
Juzta crucem lachrymosa, 
Dum pendebit filius, 
Cujus animam gementem, 
Coutristatem et dolentem, 
Pertransiyit gladius. 
Oh quam tristis et afflicta, 
Fuit ilia benedicta, 
Mater unigeniti. 
Quae moerebet et dolebat, 
£1 tremebat cam yidebat, 
Nati poenas incljti. 



268 THE TEAGEDY. 



NIGHT. 

Street be/ore Margaref a door* 

Valentine — a soldier, Margarefa brother. 

I used to sit in company. 

Where all themselves would glorify ; 

And each gay comrade loud would hoast. 

The flower of maids was her he loved, 
And with a bumper backed his toast.* 

I on my elbow leant unmoved. 
And sat, no fear, no doubt had I, 
But listened very silently 

Till all the swaggerersf had done. 
Then stroked my beard, and smiling gay. 
Would take a bumper up and say. 

Let each one praise his own ; 

* Das Lob verschwemmeiiy corresponds to the Irish phrase of 
drowning the shamrock. 

t Schwadroniren^ to swagger, from Schwadron a squadron of 
dragoons. 



THE TEAGEDY. 269 

Yet not within the country's bound 
Is my dear Margaret's equal found ; 
None with my sister can compare.* 

Then round and round the clatter went ; 
They shout, * he's right ;' and some would swear 

She is her sex's ornament. 
The boasters then were silent all. 

Now I am fit to tear mv hair, 
And beat my brains out on the wall ; 
Now every scoundrel me may twit, 

With snarling taunt and cutting sneer. 
Like a false bankrupt must I sit. 

And wince at each chance word I hear ; 
And could I crush them, still I ne'er 
Could call them Uars. 

Who comes here ? 
The very two, I do believe ; 
'Tis them, unless my eyes deceive. 
If that's the one, the fox is caught ;f 
Ahve he does not leave the spot. 



* Das wasser reichen, an idiomatical expression^ which may 
be rendered, somewhat freelj perhaps, by the phrase, to ' hold 
a candle/ 

t Ich pack ihn beim FelUy I hold him by the skin. 



270 the tragedy. 

Faust. Mephistopheles. 

Faust. 

As from yon vestry window there, the ray 
Of the lamp ever burning, flickers bright ; 

Wanes as it spreads, until it melts away, 
In the surrounding darkness of the night : 

So my heart glows within my bosom nightly. 

Mephistopheles. 

For me, I am like the tom cat, sprightly 
Along the fire escapes* that's crawling, 

And gently rubs against the wall ; 

But I am virtuous after all. 
A Uttle sly desire, a Httle caterwauling : 

Through all my Hmbs the spirit doth play, 

Of that first glorious night of May. 
After to-morrow comes it back ; 
'Tis then worth while to be awake. 

Faust. 

Doth the Ught I see gUmmering over there. 
The spot the treasure shall appear, declare ? 

* Feuer leitern, are the long ladders used in case of fire, 
which in Germany are always to be found hung on hooks, under 
the eaves of the churches, where they are both protected from 
weather and ready at hand when wanted. 



THE TRAGEDY. 271 



Mephistopheles. 

You shall experience, soon, the pleasure. 
Of raising up the hidden treasure ; 
At it I lately took a squint. 
Good Lion Dollars* are there in't. 

Faust. 

What, not a trinket ? not a ring, 
With which my darling I may deck ? 

Mephistopheles. 

I think I spied out some such thing. 
A string of pearls would suit her neck. 

* Lion, Lowen, or Louvain Dollars, Dollars of Brabant, coined 
at the capital of that duchj, Lowen or Louvain, and bearing 
the arms of Brabant, (Sable, a lion rampant, gules). It is well 
known that about the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth cen- 
turies, the mechanical skill of Europe was principally centred 
in the Low Countries, and in Numismatics it has left its impress 
upon most nations of Europe. Our terms, shilling, groat, penny, 
are derived from it, and the lineal successors of the lion dollars 
mentioned here, were, a few years ago. the only coin that was 
current, unchallenged and unquestioned, all over Germany. 
They are still very common under the name of Brabanters. 



272 the tragedy. 

Fatjst. 

That's right, I should indeed regret, 
To visit her without a present. 

Mephistopheles. 

Well, never mind ; you need not fret 
Gratis to light on something pleasant. 

Now that the heavens glow with starlight clear, 

A master-piece of art you'll hear. 

A moral song I shall sing to her. 

With greater certainty to undo her. 

{sinffs to the guitar. 

What dost thou here, before the break of morning. 
My pretty Kate, before thy lover's door? 

A maid he'll let thee in, but, oh, take warning, 
A maid from thence he lets thee out no more. 

Beware, beware in time ; if once *tis over. 
Farewell to thee, thou poor deluded thing : 

Love, if thou wilt, but pleasure not thy lover 
By stealth, unless thy finger binds the ring. 

Valentine. 

Hell and the devil ! for whom is meant. 
You cursed ratcatcher, here your snare ? 



THE TRAGEDY. 273 

First to the devil the instrument ! 
After it to the devil the player ! 

Mefhistopheles. 
Aye, smash goes the guitar ! there's no more to be said. 

Valentine. 
Aye, smash it goes, and now smash goes your head ! 

Mephistofheles. 

Now doctor, do just as I tell you ! Out 

At once cold steel !* stick to me, do not shrink. 
Lunge you ! — I parry.f 

Valentine. 
Parry that ! 

Mephistofheles. 

No doubt. 

Valentine. 
And that ! 

* Flederwisch, a cant word for sword. 

t It is the custom in German duels for the seconds to parry, 
or, if fought with broadswords, to guard. Hence Valentine 
takes Mepbistopheles' personal interference in the encounter ai 
a matter of course. 



274 the teagedt. 

Mefhistopheles. 
Of course. 

Valentine. 

The devil fights, I think. 
But what is this ? my hand's already lame. 



Mephistopheles. 



Give point ! 



Valentine falls. 
Oh, Christ ! 

Mephistopheles. 

Now is the lubber tame ! 
But now, away ! we must at once be gone. 

The howl of murder swells the gathering cry ; 
With mere police crime I can well get on. 

But deal not half so well with felony.* 

* JB/ut&ann, criminal judicature extending to capital cases. 
This passage seems to refer to the limitation imposed upon 
Satan in the Book of Joh with respect to life. Though Mephis- 
topheles is mainly instrumental in procuring the death of Mar- 
garet's brother, child, mother, and herself, he takes none with 
his own hand. 



THE TRAGEDY. 275 

Martha at the window- 
Without ! without ! 

Margaret at the toindow. 

Bring here a light ! 

Martha as above. 
They scuffle and riot, they shout and fight. 

The People. 
Here's one dead ! 

Martha coming out. 

Are the murderers gone ? 

Margaret coming out. 
Who lies there ? 

The People. 

'Tis thy mother's son. 

Margaret. 
Almighty God ! what misery ! 

Valentine. 

I die, — that's spoken easily ; 
More easily is done. 



2/6 THE TRAGEDY. 

Why do ye, women, howl and shriek ? 
Come here, and list to what I speak. 

\They all gather round him. 
My Margaret, young thou art, hut thou 
Art not discreet enough, and now 

Behavest not aright ; 
In confidence I whisper thee. 
That if thou wilt a harlot be. 

Be it at once outright. 

Maugaret. 
Brother ! Oh God ! what dost thou say ? 

Valentine. 

Leave our Lord God from out the play. 
What's done is done, for all our woe. 
And as things can go they will go. 
First, on the sly, with one begin, 
Then plenty more come trooping in ; 
And when a dozen have lain with thee. 
Common to the whole town thou'lt be. 

When shame is bom, how secretly 
The bantling in the world appears ; 

The mantle of obscurity 

Is wrapped about her head and ears. 



THE TEAGEDY. 277 

Glad would they kill her; still she grqws. 

And higher still her head doth bear ; 
In open day unveiled then goes, 

And yet is not a whit more fair. 
The more disgust her charms excite. 
The more she bares them to the light. 

The time I see already, when 
Each well-conditioned citizen. 
As from a tainted corpse, will shrink 

From thee, thou strumpet, in the street. 
Oh, how thy conscious heart will sink^ 

The looks they cast on thee to meet. 
No more to wear a golden chain. 

Nor near the altar take thy place ; 
No more at balls, thy bosom vain 

Shall flutter at thy collar's lace. 
In some dark hole of misery, 

With beggars and with cripples hide ; 
And even if God should pardon thee. 

On earth thy curse shall still abide. 

Mabtha. 

Commend thy soul to heavenly grace ; 
Not foul-mouthed, thus, thy Maker face. 

Valentine. » 

Did strength to reach thee but remain. 



278 THE TEAGBDY. 

Thou rotten, shameful procuress. 
And crush thee, I might hope to gam 
Pardon for all my urickedness. 

Margaret. 
Brother, what dreadful wretchedness ! 

Valentine. 

Leave tears, I say ; thy maiden fame when thou 
Renounced* St, 'twas the wound that reached my 
heart; 
Through death's sleep to God's footstool must I now, 
A soldier and an honest man, depart. 

[dies. 



THE TRAGEDY. 279 



THE CATHEDRAL. 

Mass. Organ. Choir. 

Margaret among the crowd, — Evil Spirit 

behind her. 

Evil Spirit. 

Margaret, what other days were thine. 
When, still the child of innocence. 
Here earnest thou to the altar : 
And from thkA^l^^h\(uVhbi^ciyie4* /! 
Lispedst forth prayers. 
Half child's prattle. 
Half God in thy heart ! 

Margaret ! 
Where wilt thou seek refuge t 
In thy heart 
What evil deeds ? 
Prayest thou for the soul of her, thy mother. 
Who through thee slept the sleep that wakes to 
endless pain ? 

* Vergriffm meana alflo, out of print, offendfed, ootnged, 
iolated. 



280 THE TRAGEDY. 

Whose blood is it that lieth at thy door ? 
Close to thy heart 

Throbs it not even now. 
Disquieting itself and thee 
With its ill-omened presence ? 

Margaret. 

Woe ! woe ! 
Would God that I were free 
From thoughts that flash athwart me. 

Spite of myself! 

Chorus. 

Dies Ira, Dies ilia, 
Solvet seeclum in favilla. [^Organ sounda. 

Evil Spirit. 

Wrath hath encompassed thee 1 
The trumpet sounds ! 
The graves heave ! 
And thy heart. 
From its sleep in its ashes» 
Recreated for its resurrection 
Of fiery torture. 
Arises trembling I 



THE TRAGEDY. 281 



Mabgabet. 

Were I but away from here ! 
I feel as if the organ 
Takes away my breath ; 
My heart sinks at the choir. 

Choib. 

Judex ergo cum sedebit, 
Quidquid latet adparebit. 
Nil inultum remanebit. 

Mabgabet. 

How close it is becoming ! 
The pillars close upon me ! 
The vaulted roof 
Crushes me ! Air ! 

Evil Spibit. 

Hide thyself! Sin and shame 
Remain not hidden ; 
Air ? Light ? Woe to thee ! 

Choib. 

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus ? 
Quem patronum rogaturus ? 
Cum vix Justus sit securus. 



282 the tragedy. 

Evil Spibit. 

The glorified their countenances turn 

Away from thee ; 
The spotless shudder at the thought 

Of helping thee. 
Woe! 

Choir. 
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus ? 

Margaret. 

Neighbour ! — your salts ! 

[She faints. 



THE TRAGEDY. 283 



WALPURGIS NIGHT. 

Harz gebirge, district of Schirke and ElcuiL 
Faust. Mephistopheles. 

Mephistopheles. 

A broomstick dost thou not at least desire ? 
The roughest goat would be a boon to me 
By this road, still far from our goal are we. 

Faust. 

This knotted stick is all that I require. 
While fresh and stout upon my legs I feel. 

What gain were it to shorten such a way ? 
Through all these labyrinthine vales to steal. 

And then these rocks to climb, from whence their 
spray 
Adown the ever bubbling fountains fling, 

Is the true zest that seasons such a way. 
Ah-eady in the birches stirs the spring, 

Already even the hoar pines feel her sway ; 

Should she not in our limbs a like effect display ? 



284 the tragedy. 

Mephistopheles. 

Truly I can perceive no trace of this ; 

All winterly my body is. 

I would my path were strewn with frost and snow ; 

How sadly rises the imperfect disk* 
Of the red moon, with her belated glow. 

Lighting so dimly that each step we risk 
Running against a rock, against a tree. 

To call a Wildfire I your leave will crave. 
I see one yonder, blazing merrily. 

Hey ! there, my friend, your company we'd have ; 
Why there so uselessly your glare display ? 
Just be so good and light us on our way. 

Ignis Fatuus. 

I hope I shall be able, (in deep respect 
I speak), my giddy nature to correct ; 
Mostly our course in zigzags twists about. 

Mephistopheles. 
Ay, ay ! you think mankind to imitate. 

* Scheibe means blank, i. e. a coin cut, but not stamped. 

To the blank moon 

Her office they assigned. 

Paradm Latt* 



THE TEAGEDY. 285 

Now in the devil's name, go straight ! 
Or else your flickering life will I blow out. 

Ignis Fatuus. 

I know you are the master, and obey ; 

Gladly myself to you accommodate. 
Consider, still, the mountain is to-day 

With madness magical infuriate ; 
And if a Wildfire shews to you the way. 

You must not be with him too accurate. 

Faust. Mephistopheles. Ignis Fatuus. 

In turns. 

We have entered, as it seems, 
Spheres of magic, realms of dreams ; 
Guide us well, thou child of fire. 
Honour for thyself acquire ! 
Swiftly forward let us press. 
Through the barren wilderness. 

Behold ! behold ! how tree by tree, 
Fast and faster backwards flee ; 
Cliff" by cliff", and crag by crag. 
How their heads they bow and wag ; 
And each giant granite nose. 
How it snorts,9and how it blows ! 



286 THE TBA6EDT. 

Down through stones^ and down through grau. 

Hurrying^ stream and streamlet pass ! 

Gurgling waters ? melting tones ? 

Hear I lovers' gentle moans 

Voice those days from Heaven ahove ? 

"What we hope, and what we love ! 

Back hy dying Echo rolled, 

Like a tale of times of old. 

To-whit ! to-whoo ! not far away. 

The owl, the pewit, and the jay. 

Have they all remained awake ? 

Are salamanders in the brake ? 

Legs stretched out, and paunches stout L 

And the roots, each like a snake. 

Twisting out from rock and sand. 

Stretch around a wondrous band. 

To frighten us, to seize on us ; 

From coarse gnarled knots, with life endued. 

Stretch fibres as of polypus 

Towards the wanderer. Thousand head 

Mice, in hosts, are there together. 

In the moss and in the heather ; 

And behold the fireflies gather. 

Whirling, thronging, swarmingly, 

A confounding company. 



THE TRAGEDY. 287 

Tell me, stop we at this place. 
Or our way still onwards win ? 
Everything appears to spin ; 
How the trees and rocks grimace. 
How increase the wild fires there. 
How they flicker, how they flare. 

Mephistopheles . 

Seize my skirt, and grasp it well ; 
There is a central pinnacle. 
Whence with wonderment one gazes ; 
How Mammon in the mountain hlazes. 

Faust. 

And see how strangely glimmers through the ground. 

Like morning's hlush, a dim and mournful gleam. 
And, piercing even the ahyss profound 

Of the deep chasms, plays its fitful heam. 
There reeks it high, there vapours curl and shift. 
There flames flash out from mist and gossamer-like 

drift; 
Creeps like a slender thread at first. 
Then, like a gushing fountain, out doth burst ; 
Winds in a streak of huge extent. 

With hundred veins, the vale throughout ; 
Then, in the narrow comer pent. 

Suddenly scatters all about ; 



288 THE TEAGEBY. 

There sparklets, crackling close at hand. 
Like sprinkled showers of golden sand ; 
But see, throughout its towering height entire, 
The wall of rocks is kindling into fire. 

Mephistopheles. 

Doth not Sir Mammon bravely light 
His palace for the feast to-night ? 
Such sight to see 'tis luck for thee ; 
The wild guests I already see. 

Faust. 

How maddens through the air the hurricane ; 
How on my neck it raineth blow on blow. 

Mephistopheles. 

Cling to the rock's old ribs with might and main. 

Else will it hurl you down the gulfs below. 
Black clouds are thickening on the thickening night. 

Hark ! the old forest is crashing amain ! 
The owls take to flight in their sudden affright ; 
Hark ! to the shriek of the pillars tall. 

Of the evergreen palaces rent in twain ; 
The branches are creaking and cracking all. 

And hearily moaning, the trunks complain ! 



THE TEAGEDY. 289 

And the roots snap and gape, as they yield to the 
strain ! 
In their fall intermingled, and hideously clashing. 
All through one another are splintering and crashing, 
And along the ravine's wreck-encumbered abysses. 
Hark to the blast, how it howls and it hisses ! 
Voices aloft on the hill, do ye hear ? 
Some that are distant, and some that are near ? 
Yes, the whole chain of the mountains along. 
Streams a mad torrent of magical song ! 

Witches, in chorus. 

The witches all to the Brocken repair. 

Yellow the stubble, green when sown ; 
The mob of them all is collected there. 
And Urian* above in the president's chair ; 
So drives it on o'er stock and stone. 

Voice. 

Old mother Banbo comes alone, 
A farrow sow she rides upon. 

Chobus. 

To whom honour is due, due honour pay I 
Old mother Banbo, for ever and aye ! 

* Urkm, the devil. 
U 



290 THE TEAGEDY. 

A slapping sow by the mother bestrid. 
The whole host of witches follow her lead. 

Voice. 
Which way earnest thou ? 

Voice. 

Over Ilsenstein's crest ! 
I peeped at the owl as she sat in her nest, 
She blinked and she glared, and she winked and she 
stared ! 

Voice. 

Oh, go to Hell ! 
"Why ridest thou so hard ? 

Voice. 

Me with her beak she well-nigh flayed, 
Only see the wounds she made ! 

Witches' Chokxjs. 

The way is broad, the way is long, 
What a raving bedlam throng ! ^ 

The fork sticks deep, the broom will sweep. 
Stifle the child, the mother goes wild. 



THE TBA6EDT. 291 

Wizards. Semkjhobus I. 

Into the house like snails we crawl. 
Before us keep the women all ; 
For the way to the evil house to find, 
A thousand steps' start has womankind. 

Semichokus II. 

We do not that so closely take. 
Woman a thousand steps may make ; 
But let her haste as hest she can. 
In one spring 'tis done hy the man. 

Voice above. 
Come with us, come with us, from Felseusee !* 

Voice yy-cww below. 

We would mount with you willingly ; 
We are washing, and stark naked are we. 
But barren to all eternity. 

Both Chobuses. 

The winds are still, the starlight fails, 
II er face the dim mom gladly veils ; 
The elfin chorus, revelling. 
Thousands of sparks around doth fling. 

* FlUenue, a lake in the Han gebirge. 



292 THE TRAGEDY. 

Voice yrom below. 
Stay ! stay ! 

Voice /rom above. 
Who from the clefts of the rocks doth pray ? 

Voice below. 

Take me with ye ! Take me with ye ! 
Already three hmidred years in vain 
I am climbing, and cannot the summit gain. 

With my own kind I long to be. 

Both Chobuses. 

The broom will bear, the stick will bear. 
The fork will bear, the goat will bear ; 
Who cannot raise himself to-day 
Is a lost man for ever and aye. 

Demi-Witch. 

For ever so long I have tottered on ; 
How far the others already are gone ! 
No rest at all have I at home. 
Neither here can at it come. 

Chosus op Witches. 
By the ointment the witch is with courage endued ; 



THE TSA6EDY. 293 

Any trumpery rag for a sail is good ; 

A capital boat any tub will supply ; 

Who flies not to-night, never, never will fly ! 

Both Chobuses. 

When we have flitted the summit round. 
Then let us settle on the ground. 
And cover the moorland, far and free. 
With all your swarm of witchery. 

[They descend, 

Mephistopheles. 

There is crowding and jostling, slipping and clat- 
tering! 

There is whizzing and whirling, and tugging and 
chattering ! 

Glare, sparkling, stinking, burning blent ! 

A real witch's element ! 

But keep close to me, lest we part, — take care ! 

Where art thou ? 

Faust, in the distance. 
Here! 

Mephistopheles . 

What ! whirled already there ? 



294 THE TBAGEDY. 

I my authority into use must bring. 

Room ! Yunker Voland* comes. Room ! Room ! 
Oh people sweet ! 
Here, doctor, here ! take hold, and at one spring. 

Let us from this thronging mob retreat ; 
It is too mad even for the hke of me. 

Close by there something shines with a peculiar 
glare. 
Something attracts me towards that shrubbery ; 

Come, come along ! and let us slip in there. 

Faust. 

Thou Spirit of Contradiction If Yet, lead on ! 
I think, indeed, this is right wisely done ; 
We seek the Brocken on Walpurgis night. 
By choice ourselves in solitude to bury. 

Mephistopheles. 

Only look there, what flames are burning bright ! 

Round them is gathered an assembly merry ; 
In a small party one is ne'er alone. 

Faust. 
But I would rather up there yonder be ! 

* Junker Voiand is another name for the Devil. 
t Widersprtichgeist, means a person who has acquired the 
habit of contradicting everything. 



THE TRAGEDY. 295 

Where the fire and the whirling smoke I see ; 
Many a problem there must be made plain. 

Mephistopheles. 

And many a problem tangled there again. 

Let but the great world riot on. 

Here in quiet we our rest will take ; 

For many years the practice hath been known. 

From forth the great world httle worlds to make. 

I see there young witches, naked and bare, 

And old ones, that prudently drapery wear ; 

Be friendly for once, if 'twere but for my sake. 

The trouble is little, the pleasure immense. 

Hark to the sound of the instruments ! 

Cursed jingle ! but still one must use oneself to it ; 

Come with me ! we cannot otherwise do it. 

I go in, and make your presentation. 

And lay you under a fresh obligation. 

Here is no space confined ; what sayest thou to it, 

friend ? 
Look down it, scarcely canst thou see the end. 
In rows, a hundred fires are glancing. 
What cooking, chattering, drinking, dancing. 
And making love, go on all round ; 
Say where aught better can be found ? 



296 the tbaoedy. 

Faust. 

Intendest thou, to introduce us here. 
As wizard or devil thyself to appear? 

Mephistofheles . 

Though much accustomed to incognito. 
On gala days doth one one's orders shew ; 
True, with no garter am I decorated. 
But here the horse's hoof is highly rated. 
Behold that snail there, crawling on the ground. 
Already with her feelers she has found 
Something particular in me. If I 
Wished it, I could not here myself deny. 
But come, from fire to fire we'll wander now ; 
The go-between* am I, the suitor thou. 

\to some who are sitting over some embers. 
Old friends, what do ye at the meeting's skirt ? 

I should have praised ye, had I ye but found 
Right in the thick, with youthfrd riot begirt ; 

At home for all doth solitude aboun^l. 

Genebal. 
Who would his faith to nations bind ? 

* The * werber* is the person who demands a woman in mar- 
riage on behalf of another, who is called the ' Freier.* 



THE TRAGEDY. 297 

How muchsoe'er one may for them have done« 
'Tis with the people as with womankind^ 
That youth doth evennore the best get on. 

Minister. 

From things as they should be we are far away ; 

The good old times, those are the times I praise, 
When truly we had things all our own way ; 

Ay, those, indeed, were proper golden days. 

Paevenu. 

And, in good truth, no fools were we. 

Though sometimes what we should not do, we did; 
But now things spin around us whirlingly. 

That we to stay unmoved would gladly bid. 

Author. 

Who above all things now a work would read. 
Containing even a moderate share of sense ! 

And as concerns the dear young folks, indeed. 
They never yet shewed such pert insolence. 

Mephistofheles, who suddenly appears very old. 

The people seem ripe for the end of all time. 
Sure, for the last time the witch mountain I climb ; 



298 THE TBAGEDT. 

And the whole world appears to be upon 
The turn, since my own cask doth thick and turbid 
run. 

Pedlab Witch. 

Gentlemen, do not so pass by ; 

Lose not this opportunity ; 

My stock in trade look closely o'er. 

Here are wares of every kind ; 
Yet is there nothing in my store 

Its like on earth that cannot find, 
That has not once some serious harm 

Brought on the earth and on mankind. 
No dirk, whence hath not flowed the life-blood warm; 
No goblet, whence into a healthy frame 

Hath parching, withering poison not been poured ; 
No ornament, that hath not brought to shame 

Some woman, amiable before ; no sword 
But, faithlessly some treaty broken through. 
Has stabbed the adversary from behind. 

Mefhistofheles. 

Cousin, to the temper of the times you are blind I 
AVhat's past is gone ! what's done is done ! 

Supply yourself but with things that are new. 
By novelties alone can we be won. 



N 



the teagedy. 299 

Faust. 

May this whirl but my reason spare. 
This I may call, indeed, a fair. 

Mephistopheles. 

The whole mob gathering, strives to soar above ; 
Most are you shoved when most you think to shove. 

Faust. 
Who then is that ? 

Mephistopheles. 

Observe her carefully ; 



'Tis LiUth. 



Faust. 
Who? 

Mephistopheles. 

♦Adam's first wife was she. 



* (I 



Lilith, the Rabbins say, was Adam's first wife 

Some Jewish doctors are of opinion, that Lilith is the moon, 
the influence whereof might be beneficial or hurtful to new-bom 
children, herein intimating the superstition of tlie heathen, who 
invoked the goddess Lucina, or the moon, when women were in 
labour. We are of opinion that this signifies a bird of night, or 
ilUomen, such as the screech-owl, the bat, and the lap-wing." 

Calmbt*8 Dietwnary of the BibU, 



300 THE TBAGEDT. 

Beware thee ever of her beauteous hair. 
Whose rare loyeliness she doth display ; 

When a young man with it she doth ensnare^ 
Not lightly lets she him again away. 

Faust. 

There sit a couple of them^ old and young, 
And many a glorious caper have they flung. 

Mefhistofheles. 

There is no pause to-day ; see how anew 
They are beginning : come, let us fall to. 

Faust, dancing imth the ymmg one. 

Once a fair dream came to me ; 
An apple tree before my sight. 
On it two apples glittered bright ; 

They charmed me, and I chmbed the tree. 

The Fair Witch, 

Since for apples so much you care. 
And since Eden have done so. 
Pleasure in my breast doth glow. 

That such my garden too doth bear. 



THE TKAGEDY. 301 

Mephistofheles^ unto the old one. 

Once a fair dream came to me. 
Once I saw a rifled tree. 

* :|e :|c « 4( 

* :): 3|c « * 

The Old One. 

With all my heart I do salute, 

The Knight that bears the horse's foot. 

* 4i Ai * * 

H* ^ n* •IP ^ 

Peoctophantasmist.* 

Accursed mob ! how dare ye thus go on ? 

Did we not long since solid proof advance. 
That ordinary feet no ghost stands on ? 

Yet like us mortals now indeed ye dance ! 

Fa IE Witch, dancing. 
What doth he at our ball, then, here ? 

Faust, dancing. 
Oh, he doth everywhere appear. 

* FroctophanUumutf this person represents Nicolai of Berli%. 
the seyerity of whose criticisms had given offence to Goethe. 



302 THE TEAGEDY. 

He must appraise the steps that others dance ; 
And if that each step down he cannot run. 
The step might just as well have not been done. 

What most torments him, is, when we advance. 

In an eternal round he wishes all to spin. 

As he too doth his dull old mill within. 

That would his heartiest approval meet, 

Specially if his help to it you did entreat. 

PROCTOPHANTASMIST. 

What ! still here ? No, that is too bad, indeed ! 

Do disappear. Have we not made all clear ? 
But this infernal pack no rules doth heed. 

We are so wise, and yet in Tegel* ghosts appear. 

To sweep these foUies out, I've toiled for many a 
year. 
Yet have not done so yet. It is too bad, indeed I 

Faie Witch. 
Then leave off boring us. Away, away. 

* Tegel is a small place near Berlin. In 1797, the house of 
a Mr. Schulze, at Tegel, was said to be disturbed by a spectre ; 
and though Nicolai fancied that he had cured the whole nation 
of superstition, yet a deputation of the inhabitauts was twice 
sent to ascertain the nature of the spectre. 



the tkagedy. -303 

Peoctophantasmist. 

Ghosts, to your faces openly I declare, 

That spirit despotism I "will not bear. 
My spirit cannot exercise its sway- 

\they dance on. 
To-day I see I shall no progress make. 

Still am prepared my journey to pursue ; 
And hope, before the latest step I take, 

The devil and the poet to subdue. 

Mephistopheles. 

At once himself he in a pond will seat, 

That is the way he takes his heart to cheer 
And when the leeches fasten on his rear 

Of spirits and spirit is his cure complete. 

[to Faust, who has left the dance. 

Why lettest thou that lovely girl away. 
That to thee in the dance so sweetly sang ? 

Faust. 
Alas ! just in the middle of her lay, 
A red mouse forth from out her mouth there sprang. 

Mephistopheles. 
All right ! We're not here so particular. 
It was enough that the mouse was not grey ; 
Who cares for such things in our hours of play ? 



304 the tragedy. 

Faust. 
Then saw I — 

Mefhistopheles . 
What? 

Faust. 

Mephisto^ seest thou there 
A pale, fair girl, alone, and far away ? 
She drags herself along so sad and slow« 
And then with shackled feet appears to go. 
I must confess the thought my mind doth strike, 
It is to my poor Margaret very like. 

Mefhistopheles. 

Leave it alone. It hath wrought good to none, 
A phantom, — Hfeless, — a mere shape alone ;* 
And to encounter it is never good. 
With its fixed gaze it freezes mortal's hlood. 
Until it almost turns them into stone. 
Medusa's story sure to you is known. 

Faust. 

In very truth a corpse's eyes are those. 
Whose Uds no loving hand was near to close ; 

* Idol, not a thing to be worshipped, but eidobng a thing 
seen, and onlj seen. 



THE TRAGEDY. 305 

That is the breast that Margaret yielded me, 
That the sweet form that I so gloated on. 

Mephistopheles. 

Thou easily deluded fool ! 'tis sorcery ; 
This seems to be his Love to every one. 

Faust. 
What a delight ! and yet what agony ! 

I cannot tear me from its glance away. 
And yet that lovely neck ; how curiously 

Doth it one narrow, crimson stripe display ; 
No breadth more than a knife's back doth it fill. 

Mephistopheles. 

'Tis very true, I see it also so ; 
Under her arm she carries it at will. 

Perseus cut it off for her long ago. 
For ever what a craving for delusion ! 

Up the hill here come away. 

Where all is even as in the Prater* gay. 
And if my brains are not in some confusion, 
I see a theatre quite plain. 
What's going on ? 

Seevibilis. 

They'll just begin again. 

• The Prater y the Hyde Park of Vienna. 



306 THE TSAGEDY. 

'Tis a new piece^ 'tis the last piece of seven. 
That is the number now is always given. 
An amateur has written all ; 

And amateurs take every part. 

Your pardon, gentlemen, if I depart. 
As amateur, the curtain up to haul. 

Mefhistopueles. 

Of finding you on the Blocksherg, I approve. 
It is the true circle in which you should move. 



WALPURGIS NIGHT'S DREAM, 



OR 



OBERON AND TITANIA'S 



GOLDEN WEDDING FEAST. 



INTERMEZZO. 



THE TRAGEDY. 309 



WALPURGIS NIGHT'S DREAM. 

Manager. 

Holiday to-day for once 
For us, Mieding's* gallant sons ; 
Dewy vale and ancient hill. 
Now is all the stage we fill. 

Hebald. 

Fiftyf years must all be passed. 

That the Feast may Golden be ; 
Now the quarrel's o'er at last. 

It makes it far more dear to me. 

Oberon. 

Sj)irits that about me soar. 
Be your airy forms displayed, 

* Mieding was Hcene painter to the theatre of Weimar, of 
which Goethe's son was for a long time manager, (a government 
situation, the theatre being the property pf the Grand Duke.) 

t The fiftieth anniversary of the wedding is called in Ger- 
many the ' golden wedding,' the twenty-fifth the ' silver.* 



310 THE tragedy;. 

For jour king and queen once more. 
All their quarrels up have made. 

Puck. 

Here comes Puck, and spins about. 
His feet whisking in the dance. 

After him a swarming rout. 
All to share his joy advance. 

Abiel. 

Song awakes in Ariel's voice. 
In sweet tones of heaven pure ; 

Many trifles it decoys. 

Fair ones, too, doth it allure. 

Obebon. 

Wedded ones, that would agree. 
Take the lessons we two give ; 

If a pair would loving be. 
Needs apart awhile they live. 

TiTANIA. 

Husband sulks ! and pouts the fair ! 

Seize them both and take them forth ; 
To the South the lady bear. 

And the husband to the North. 



th£ tbagedy. 311 

Orchestea Tutti. 
Fortissimo. 

Snout of fly and midges' nose, 

With their friends and fomily, 
Frogs and grasshoppers compose 

Our orchestral company. 

Solo. 

Here the hagpipe, Uke unto 

Buhhle that of soap one hlows ; 
Schnek, schnik, schnak ! hut Usten to 

Droning through his stumpy nose. 

Spirit that is fashioning itself. 
Spider's claw and toad's paunch take, 

Little wings for little wight. 
Though a creature 'twill not make, 

A little poem makes it quite. 

A Paie. 

Little step and lofty hound. 

Through the mist and through the vapours. 
You trip it featly on the ground. 

But mount not air for all your capers. 

Inquisitive Teavellee. 

Masquerading mummery! 
Shall I trust my sight, 



312 THE TRAGEDY. 

Oberon the fair to see. 
Here, indeed, to-night ? 

Orthodox. 

Here no claws, no tail we see. 

Yet it must be true ; 
Like unto the gods of Greece,* 

He's a devil too. 

* This does not refer to the * Gotter Griechenlanis* of Schiller, 
which, far from attributing any diabolical character to those 
personages, pathetically bewails their departure from the earth, 
which he calls ' ungodded' by their withdrawal. It refers to 
the opinion set forth in Paradise Lost, that the heathen divi- 
nities were really devils, permitted to remain, and in some 
degree rule on the earth, until the appearance of the Re- 
deemer. 

Milton thus gives the roll of the diabolical hierarchy 
alluded to. 

The rest were long to tell, though far renowned, 
The Ionian gods of Javan's issue ; held 
Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth, 
Their boasted parents ; Titan, Heaven's first-bom. 
With his enormous brood, and birthright seized 
By younger Saturn : he from mightier Jove, 
His own and Rhea's son, like measure found ; 
So Jove usurping reigned : there first in Crete 
And Ida known, thence on the snowy top 



THE TRAGEDY. 313 



NoRTHEEN Artist. 



All that I can seize to-night. 
Truly is but sketchingly ; 

Soon I hold myself bedight. 
For my tour in Italy. 

Purist. 

My ill fortune brought me here. 

Ah ! what low debauchery ! 
Of all the witches that appear. 

Only two should powdered be. 

Young Witch. 

Powder, like a petticoat. 

Does for women old and grey ; 
Whence I sit naked on my goat. 

And a lusty frame display. 



Of cold Oljmpus, ruled the middle air, 
Their highest heaven ; or on the Delphian cliff, 
Or in Dodona, or through all the bounds 
Of Doric land ; or who with Saturn old, 
Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields, 
And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost isles. 



Ji4 



We are too wdl bved bj fin; 

Heie to get imo a ftinr, 
Toong and tender at je age, 

Sooo I hope jtH rat awij. 

Capell Mxutkk. 

Nose of ftj and midges' nout, 
Boand the naked don't coDeet ; 

Frogs and graaahoppen look oat 
That ye keq> the time correct. 

Weathercock — at one tide. 

People ! all one ooold wish for ! 

Trulr none but brides there be ! 
And many a gay young bachelor ! 

A most hopeful company ! 

WEATHEacocK— fl^ the other tide. 

If earth does not open wide 

All to swallow in a lump. 
Then \, with a ready stride^ 

Into Hell at once will jump. 



the tbagbby, 315 

Xbnien.* 

Like to insects here we are ; 

With sharp and tiny beaks do we. 
Give Satan, our revered papa. 

Honour due his dignity. 

HENNINGS.f 

See, in crowded heaps how they 

With one another jest ; 
In the end they sure will say 

Their hearts were of the best. 

MUSAGET. 

Tis pleasant in this witches* throng. 

When oneself one loses ; 
I know how to lead th,em along. 

Far easier than Muses. 

A DEVOUT Genius of the time. 

With good folks one for some one passes. 
Come, hold my skirt, by me be led ! 

* The Xenim were philosophic epig^nuDB, very sharp and 
satirical, published by Goethe and Schiller. 

t Hennings was the editor of journals called the Spirit of the 
Age and the Musaget. 



^M6 THE TEAGEDY, 

The Blocksberg^ Gennany's Parnassus, 
Has a summit wide outspread. 

Curious Teaveller. 

Tell me, what call they that stiff man ? 

With proud and haughty steps he goes, 
He sniffs at all that sniff he can. 

For Jesuits he has a nose. 

Crane. 

In clear waters willingly 
Fish I, and in troubled too ; 

So, see you, men of piety 
With the devil have to do. 

Worldling. 

With the pious, believe in me. 

Every thing's a vehicle ; 
Here they on the Blocksberg, see, 

Build many a conventicle. 

Dancer. 

Here is a new chorus coming, 
I can make out distant drumming ; 
But, fear not ! in the reeds 'twill be 
The bittern's boom in harmony. 



the tkagedy. 317 

Dancing Master. 

How each one throws his legs about, 

Each getting on as best he may ; 
The crooked jumps, and jumps the stout. 

And nought of how it looks ask they. 

FiDDLEB. 

This ruffian pack hate one another. 
Each gladly would destroy her brother ; 
The pipe doth them together hold. 
As Orpheus' lyre the beasts of old. 

Dogmatic. 

My views admit no wandering, 

Or sceptical or critical ; 
The devil, indeed, must be something. 

Else how could devils be at all. 

Idealist. 
In my mind, the fantastical 

Hath far too lordly rule ; 
If I indeed should be the all, 

To>day I am a fool. 

Realist. 
Being plagues me exceedingly. 
And must torment me horridly ; 



318 THE TBAOEDT. 

Here for the first time staad I 
On my feet not steadily. 

SUFEBNATUBALIST. 

The scene I with much pleasure Tiew, 
And in this people much delight ; 

From deyils I conclusions true, 
Ahout good spirits, can draw aright. 

Sceptic* 

The flames they follow, close upon 
Its trace, and think the treasure near ; 

Devil and cavilf rhyme alone. 
At the right spot am I here. 

Cafell Meisteb. 

Grasshoppers and hull firogs, those 

Accursed amateurs. 
Snout of fly and midges' nose. 

The orchestra is yours. 

* Dogmatic, Idealist, Realist, Superaaturalist, Sceptic, are 
tlie representatives of Theological schools. 

t Auf Tettfel reimt der Zweifel nur, literally, ' Onlj Doubt 
rhymes to Devil/ 



THE TRAOEDY. 319 



Clever Ones, 



Sansouci, they christen so 

The roaring host of jolly hlades ; 
No more upon our feet we go. 

And so we walk upon our heads. 

Clumsy Ones. 

Many a bit we spunged of yore, 
But all that is passed and gone ;* 

Our shoes in dancing we outwore, 
Now on naked soles we run. 



Wildfires. 



Vf ±LtJJJCXM»XliJ» 

From the bog do we adyance. 
Whence we first have sprung ; 

Here see us gallants in the dance, 
The gayest of the throng. 

Falling Star. 

I shot from the heaven afar. 
In fiery glory of a star ; 
Here long in the grass have lain. 
Who will help me up again. 



* Gou bejohlen, recommended to God, t. e. bid adSeu to. 



320 the teagedy. 

The Massive Ones. 

Room, room, and romidabout, 

Down the grass it bears ; 
Spirits are coming, spirits stout. 

Right plump limbs are theirs. 

Puck. 

Do not tread so heavily. 

Like young elephants ; 
Toj^be the stoutest this day of joy, 

The sturdy Puck himself presents. 

Ariel. 

If nature, loving, bright, and gay, 
If the spirit wings bestows. 

Follow my light track to-day. 

To where blows the mountain rose. 

Oechestea. 
Pianissimo. 

Drifting clouds and vapours white. 
Burst above us into light ; 
Breeze in leaves, and winds that hover 
0*er the rushes. All is over ! 



THE TBAOEDT. 321 



GLOOMY DAY.— FIELD. 

Faust. Mefhistopheles. 

Faust. 

In wretchedness !— despairing ! — long wandering 
miserably about the world— and now a prisoner ! 
The affectionate, unhappy creature, shut up in a dun- 
geon, as an evil-doer, for hideous tortures ! To this ! 
this ! — Treacherous —worthless Spirit ! and thou hast 
concealed it from me ! Stay, only stay ! Roll thine 
hellish eyes, in thy rancour ! Stay and insult me with 
thine unbearable presence! A prisoner! — in irrepa- 
rable misery ! Given over to evil spirits, and to con- 
demning, unfeeling men ! And whilst thou wert 
lulUng me in tasteless dissipations, thou concealedst 
from me her accumulating misery, and let her perish 
without help. 

M BFHIST0PH£L£9. 

She is not the first ! 

Y 



322 the tragedy, 

Faust. 

Ilound I detestable monster ! Change hiro, Oh 
Eternal Spirit ! change the worm into his dog-like 
form, in which it used to be his pleasure often at 
night-fall to run round me, to roll before the feet of 
the harmless wanderer, and to fasten on his shoul- 
ders when he stumbled over him. Change him again 
into his darling shape, that he may crawl before me 
in the dust on his belly, that I may trample on him, 
the outcast ! Not the first ! Misery ! — Misery ! — 
incomprehensible to the soul of man, that more than 
one creature sank into the depths of this wretched- 
ness, or that the first, in the writhings of her deadly 
agony, should not have atoned for the sins of all the 
rest, in the eyes of Him that pardoneth ever ! The 
misery of this one curdles my blood, — thou grinnest 
cooUv over the fate of thousands ! 

MEPniSTOPHELES . 

Here we are again at our wit's end. So is it with 
you mortals, when your overstrained facultiei^ snap. 
Why mate ye yourselves with such as us, if ye can- 
not go through with it ? Wilt fly, yet art subject to 
giddiness ? Did we force ourselves upon thee, or thou 
upon us ? 



THE TRAGEDY. 323 



Faust. 



Gnash not thy ravenous teeth so at me ! I ahomi- 
nate thee ! Oh thou great, glorious Spirit, that didst 
vouchsafe to appear to me, that knowest my heart 
and soul, why fetter me to this vile companion that 
delights in evil, and revels in ruin ? 

Mefhistofueles . 
Art thou done ? 

Faust. 

Save her ! or woe to thee ! the curse of curses on 
thee for thousands of years ! 

Mefhistofheles. 

I cannot loose the honds of the avenger,— I cannot 
withdraw her holts. Save her ! Who was it plunged 
her into perdition ? I or thou? 

Faust looks wildly about. 

Mefhistofheles. 

Graspest thou at the thunder ? It is well for ye, 
wretched mortals that it is not granted ye ! To crush 
liim who is an innocent ohstacle, such is the practice 
of all tyrants to clear a way through all perplexities. 



324 the tragedy. 

Faust. 
Bring me to her ! She shall he free ! 

Mephistopheles. 

And the danger to which thou exposest thyself? 
Know the guilt of blood from thy hand yet Hes upon 
the town. Over the fatal spot hover avenging spi- 
rits, on the stoop for the returning murderer. 

Faust. 

That from thee ? Murder and death of a world 
upon thee, thou monster ! Bring me thither I say, 
and free her 1 

Mephistopheles . 

I will conduct you there ! and to what I can do, 
listen ! Have I all power in Heaven and on earth ? I 
will cloud the gaoler's senses ; do thou seize the 
keys, and bring her out with the hand of man. I 
keep watch ! the goblin steeds are ready ; I will carry 
you off. That can I do. 

Fau$t. 
Up and away ! 



THE TBA6BDY. 325 



NIGHT.— OPEN PLAIN. 

Faust — Mephistopheles, careering by on 

black horses. 

Faust. 
What are they busy at there on the scaffold ? 

Mephistopheles. 
Don't know what they're boiUng and brewing. 

Faust. 
Tliey soar, they swoop, they bend, they bow. 

Mephistopheles. 
A pack of witches. 

Faust. 
They arc strewing something, conjuring. 

Mephistopheles. 
Forward ! Forward ! 



326 THE TRAGEDY. 



DUNGEON. 

Faust, with a bunch of keys and a lamp, 
before an iron door, 

A trembling, long unknown, doth on me fall. 

All mankind's misery fastens on my breast ; 
Here dwelletb sbe within this damp, drear wall, 

A kind delusion, all that she transgressed ! 
From going to her dost thou quail ! 
At seeing her thy heart doth fail ! 

On ! on ! thy dalliance daUieth with death.* 

\He takes hold of the lock — singing is heard 
tffithin. 
My mother the harlot. 
Poor me that slew ; 
My father the varlet 
That ate me too ; 



» 



Zoegem means to delay, falter. Thy irresolution will be 
the cause of Margaret's death, which is approaching, if thou 
dost not act. 



THE TEAGEDT. -327 

My sister dear, so young and smalls 
Took the bones up, one and all. 
To a cool place, where I came to be 
A bird of the greenwood, fair and free. 
Fly away ! Fly away ! 

Faust — unlocking. 

Nought deemeth she, her lover's anxious ear 
The clanking chain, the rusthng straw can hear ! 

[He enters, 

Maegaeet, hiding herself in the litter. 
Woe ! woe ! they come. Oh, death of bitterness ! 

Faust, whispering. 
Be still ! be still ! to free thee I am here. 

Maegaeet, grovelling before him. 
Art thou a man ? oh, pity my distress ! 

Faust. 

Thou' It wake the jailor, if thy cries he hear! 

[//e takes hold of the chains to unlock them. 

Maegaeet, on her knees. 

Who, hangman, ever gave to thee the right 
Me to entreat so rough 1 



328 THE TBAGEBY. 

Already takest thou me ? 'tis but midnight ! 
Be pitiful ! Oh, let me Uve till day ! 

Is not the morning, early, soon enough ? 

[She stands up» 

And yet so young, so young am I ! 

And must already die ! 

Fair was I, too, and that was my undoing. 

Near was my love, now he is far away ; 

My chaplet torn, the flowers the ground bestrewing. 

Seize me not so savagely ! 

Spare me ! what have I done to thee ? 

Let me not all in vain implore ; 

I never saw thee all my Hfe before ! 

Faust. 
Oh, how shall I support this agony ? 

Mabgaret. 

Entirely within thy power am I. 
But first, oh, let me give the child the breast ! 
The livelong night it to my heart I pressed. 
They took it from me but to give me pain. 
And then they say that it by me was slain ; 
And never will my heart be Ught again. 
Then they sing songs about me ! 'Tis not well 



THE TRAGEDY. 32§ 

Of them ! an old tale ends so. Who did tell 
The people it was meant for me ? 

Faust Jiinffs himself down. 

A lover lieth at thy feet, to free 
Thee from this servitude of misery ! 

Margaret. 

Yes, kneel we and the saints implore ! 

Look ! heneath the stair, 
Ikneath the threshold of the door. 

Hell is hoiling there ! 
And the Evil One within, 
In hideous frenzy makes a frantic din ! 

Faust — aloud. 
Margaret ! Margaret ! 

Margaret— iin'M sudden attention. 

That was my love's voice. Where is he ? 

[She springs up, the chains /all off. 
I heard him call me. I am free. 
None shall prevent me ; I will fly 
Unto his neck, upon his hosom lie ! 
lie called upon Margaret ! he stood in the door ! 
And still through the howling and clatter of Hell. 



330 THE TRAGEDY, 

Through the fierce diaboUcal scoffing, once more 
The sweet, loving accents I knew, oh, how well ! 

Faust. 
•Tis 1 1 

Margaret — embracing him. 

Tis thou ! 'Tis thou ! Oh, say it once again 
'Tis he ! 'Tis he ! where is all misery ? 

"Where is the dungeon agony ? the chain ? 
'Tis thou ! And thou art come to rescue me ! 
And I am saved ! 
Already there, I see the street 
Where thou and I did for the first time meet ; 
And the cheerful garden see. 
Where I and ^f artha waited, love, for thee ! 

Faust — -forcing her out. 
Come with me ! Come with me ' 

Margaret. 

Oh, stay ! 
I linger so gladly, wherever thou art. 

[Caressing, 



the tbagedy. 331 

Faust. 

Haste to depart ! 

If thou speedest not away. 

We surely a dire retribution must pay. 

Margaret. 

What ! canst thou kiss no more again? 

My love, so short a time away, and yet 
Dost thou already how to kiss forget ? 

Why feel I on thy neck unwonted pain ? 
In days gone by, at thy word, at thy glance, 
A perfect heaven would my soul entrance ; 
Thy kisses, then, would well nigh stifle me. 
Kiss me ! 
Else I kiss thee ! [She embraces htm. 

Ah me ! thy lips are cold. 

Of speech bereft. 

And all thy love of old. 

Where is it left ? 

Who took it from me away ? 

[She turns avoay from him. 

Faust. 

Come I dearest ! follow — be a little bold ! 

I'll press thee to my heart with ardour thousand fold : 

But only follow me ! 'Tis all I pray ! 



332 the traobdt. 

Makgabet. 
And is it thee ? and is it surely thee ? 

Faust. 
'Tis I ; come with me. 

Mabgaeet. 

Thou hast unhound my chain. 
And to thy hosom claspest me again. 
How comes it that thou shrinkest not from me ? 
And knowest thou, love, whom thou makest free ? 

Faust. 
Come ! come ! already doth the deep night wane. 

Mabgabet. 

Mv mother I to death have done, 

I have drowned my little one. 

Was it not given to thee and me ? 

Thee, too ! I scarce can heheve that this is thee ! 

Give me thy hand ! It is no dream ! 

Thy darling hand ! But how moist doth it feel I 

Wipe it away ! to me thy hand doth seem 

As hlood did it bedew. 

Oh, God ! what hast thou done ! 



THE TBAGEDT. 333 

Put up thy sword, I pray ; 
I pray thee, do ! 

Faust. 

Let but the past be past and gone. 
Thou killest me ! 

Margaret. 

No, thou must all outUve ; 

The graves' description I to thee will give ; 

Them to prepare thy care must be 

At break of day. 

Give the best place to my mother. 

Close unto her lay my brother. 

Me on one side you must lay. 

Only not too far away ! 

The Uttle one on my right breast. 

No one else with me will rest ! 

Ah, to nestle to thy side, 

'Twas a sweet, a dear delight ! 
Never more will that betide ; 

I feel as if resistless might 
Drew me towards thee, yet in vain 
Thou thrustest me from thee back again ; 
And yet 'tis thee, thou lookest so good, to kind. 



334 the tragedy. 

Faust. 
If thou dost feel 'tis ine, oh, come I 

Maeqaret. 
A^Tiat! out there? 

Faust. 
Into the open air. 

Margaret. 

There my grave to find. 
Doth death lurk there ? Then come ! 
From here unto the bed of rest eternal. 
And not one single step beside. 
Thou goest forth ! 
Oh ! Henry, could I go forth at thy side ? 

Faust, 
Thou canst ! determine only ! open stands the door I 

Margaret. 

I dare not go. For me is hope no more ; 

What use were flight ? they still would ever watch me. 

It is so wretched charity to implore. 

And with an evil conscience evermore ! 

It is so sad strange lands to wander o*er. 

And after all they still would surely catch me I 



the tragedy, 335 

Faust. 
With thee I stay. 

Margaret* 

Haste! haste! away! 

Save thy poor child! 
Away ! keep to that way, 

(Jp to the stream. 

By the path. 

Into the wood, 
( )n the left where the plauks are. 

In the pond. 
Grasp it at once ! 

It tries to rise. 

It struggles yet ! 

Save it ! save it ! 

Faust. 

Oh, one short moment but collected be ! 
Take but one step, that instant thou art free I 

Margaret. 

Would that we the hill had passed ! 

Tliere sits my mother on a stone. 
My hair doth stand on end aghast ! 

Tliere sits my mother on a stone. 



336 THE TEAGEDY. 

Backwards and forwards her head she sways. 
She winks not, she nods not ; how heavy it wdghs. 
She slept so long, she never did wake. 
She slept that we might our pleasure take. 
Oh, happy days those were ! 

Faust. 

Of no avail is speech or prayer ; 
Away by force I thee will tear. 

Mabgaeet. 

Leave me ! no violence I will bear ! 

Seize me not so murderously ! 
Of old all I could do I did for love of thee. 

Faust. 
Day breaks ! Dearest ! Dearest ! 

Mabgaeet. 

Day ! Yes, day breaks ! My last day draweth on ; 

For my wedding-day 'twas meant ! 
That thou too well knewest, Margaret, tell to none. 
Woe ! my chaplet rent ! 
Now all is o'er ! 
We shall meet again, 
But at the dance no more. 



THE TRAGEDY. 337 

The crowd doth press, and silence deep doth reigo. 

The square, the street, the mass can scarcelj hold ; 
The death-bell tolls, the wand is snapped in twain. ^ 

How they pinion me, how tight they fold ! 
Already to the death-chair am I bound. 

Already every neck doth shiver. 

At the bare sword that for my neck doth qaiwer. 
Stillness as of the grave broods all arDmid ! 

Faust. 
Oh, would that I never had seen the day ! 

Mephistopheles. 

Up ! up ! ye are lost else! up and away ! 

Loitering and chattering ! useless dday ! 

My horses are shivering, and breaking is dzj I 

Ma RO A RET. • 

What is that that starts up from the floor ? 

He ! He ! Oh, send him awaj ! 
To the solemn place what comes he ior? 

Comes he for me ? 

FAtST. 

Lore, tboa shale Kref 

• Alluding to the bretkmf of Ube iCa^ «^ •iUir, eft« ii^jMl 
to the execatioiiCT' to do Ins defy, 

Z 



338 the tragedy. 

Margaret. 
Judgment of God, to thee myself I give! 

Mephistopiielks to Fatist. 
(■ome ! else you with her in the toils I leave! 

Margaret. 

Thine am I, Father ! Oh, my soul receive ! 

Ye angels, oh, ye holy hosts, assemble 
Around me, in my need my shield to be ! 

Henry ! to look on thee, I tremble. 

Mepuistopheles. 
She is condemned ! 

Voice from above. 
Is pardoned ! 

Mephistopheles to Faust. 
Here, to me ! 

[Vanishes mth Faust. 

Voice from withhiy dying away. 

m 

Henry ! Henry ! 

THE END. 



. t- 



4.