B00ARI2G5C EBOK

by Goethe, J. W. von

  Songs and spirit, all were great.

  Born to high ancestral calling,

  Blessed with gifts, with noble name,

  Soon, alas, self-lost, and falling

  In the bloom of youth and fame!

  Wide the world to your discerning,

  To your heart the heart’s depths known,

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  Women’s love your love returning,

  And a music all your own.

  But in your impetuous coursing

  Free into strict snares you ran,

  Spurning all convention, forcing

  Wide the narrow laws of man.

  Yet a last high purpose forming

  To pure courage lent its weight

  To a noble task conforming;

  But fulfilment comes too late.

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  Who fulfils it?—There’s no reading

  This dark riddle fate must show

  To a people dumbly bleeding

  On this day of greatest woe.

  Yet their spirit shall recover:

  Sing new songs, forget your pain!

  For this soil has bred for ever

  Greatness it will breed again.

  [A complete pause. The music stops.]

  HELEN [to FAUST].

  An ancient proverb proves itself in my case too,

  Alas: that beauty weds not long with happiness.

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  The bond of love is severed now, and so of life;

  Bewailing both, I bid a sorrowful farewell

  To you, and cast myself once more into your arms.

  Persephone, receive us both, the boy and me!

  [She embraces FAUST, her body vanishes, her dress and veil remain in his arms.]

  PHORCYAS [to FAUST].

  Hold fast to what remains to you of it all.*

  Her garment, do not let it go. Already

  Demons pluck at the corners, for they long

  To snatch it to the underworld. Hold fast!

  The goddess you have lost it is no longer,

  And yet it is divine. Use now this high

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  Favour beyond all price, and rise aloft:

  For through the ether swiftly it will bear you

  Beyond all base things, while you yet have life.

  I shall see you again, far, far from here.

  [HELEN ’s garments dissolve into clouds which envelop FAUST, carry him upwards, and drift away with him. PHORCYAS picks up EUPHORION’s costume, mantle, and lyre, and advances into the proscenium, holding up these relics as she speaks.]

  PHORCYAS. Well, here’s another lucky find!

  No sacred flame’s been left behind,

  Of course, but I’ve enough to keep things going.

  With these, poets can still be consecrated,

  Professional envy generated,

  And though talent itself can’t be created,

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  At least the outer garb I’ll be bestowing.

  [She sits down in the proscenium at the foot of a column.]

  PANTHALIS. Be quick now, girls! At last the enchantment’s at an end,

  The crazy spell cast by that old Thessalian hag;

  Likewise the strum of drunken tangled notes that so

  Confused our ears, still worse befuddling all our minds.

  Come, down to Hades! For the queen with solemn step

  Has hastened there before us, and immediately,

  As faithful servants, we must make her footprints ours.

  At the Inscrutable Goddess’s throne she waits for us.

  CHORUS. For queens, indeed, any place is agreeable;

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  Even in Hades they have high positions,

  Proudly consorting with their peers,

  On familiar terms with Persephone.

  But our sort remain in a background

  Of deep fields of asphodel,

  Keeping company with gangling

  Poplars and infertile willows:

  How shall we pass the time?

  Squeaking like bats,

  An unpleasant, ghostly susurration.

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  PANTHALIS. Those without noble purpose, who have acquired no name,

  Belong to the elements. So begone, the lot of you!

  For my most ardent wish is to be with my queen;

  By loyalty, as by merit, we may be persons still. [Exit.]

  ALL. We have been restored to the light of day;

  To be sure, we are no longer persons,

  This we feel, this we know;

  But to Hades we shall never return.

  We are spirits on whom ever-living

  Nature makes an absolute

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  Claim, as we do on Nature.

  PART OF THE CHORUS.

  We shall dwell amid this tremor of a thousand whispering branches,

  Tease their roots to woo the life-sap softly up into the rustling

  Tree-tops; there these floating tresses we shall deck with leaves and blossoms,

  In extravagant abundance, free to thrive at airy heights.

  When the ripe fruit falls, the people with their flocks will crowd here, eager

  Hands will gather, mouths will nibble; thus they’ll throng to snatch a harvest,

  And they’ll all bow down around us, as before the earliest gods.

  ANOTHER PART. We shall linger by these cliffs with mirror-smooth far-shining faces,

  Cling like gentle waves about them, flatter them in close caress;

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  So to every sound we’ll listen, songs of birds, the reed-pipes playing,

  And though Pan’s dread voice assail us, we shall instantly reply.

  Even murmuring wind we’ll answer, thunder we shall double-thunder,

  Utter shattering iteration, mutter threefold, tenfold roll.

  A THIRD PART. Sisters, we prefer more movement, we shall hasten with the streaming

  Waters, lured by those well-wooded hills, those ranges in the distance.

  Ever deeper down shall wander our meandering refreshment:

  Now the pastures, then the meadows, soon the garden round the house.

  There slim cypresses will mark us, tapering proud above the landscape,

  By our banks and mirroring waters rising headup to the sky.

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  A FOURTH PART. Wander where you like, the rest of you: our murmuring shall encircle

  The close-cultivated hillside, where staked vines are growing green,

  Tended daily, tended hourly by the vintager, whose toiling

  Passion and devoted labour earn their ever-doubtful prize.

  We shall see him hoeing, digging, heaping soil up, pruning, tying,

  Praying to the gods to aid him, to the sun-god most of all.

  The voluptuary Bacchus, careless of his faithful servant,

  Rests in caves and lolls in arbours, flirting with the youngest faun.

  All his dreaming, his half-drunken reveries have ever needed

  Stands supplied for him in wineskins, stands in jars and hollow vessels,

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  Right and left in cooling caverns, stored from immemorial time.

  But when all the gods, and Helios first among them, giving breezes,

  Giving moisture, warmth and fire, have heaped the grapes to horns of plenty:

  Then at last, where quiet growers worked, all springs to life and motion,

  All the leafy arbours rustle, all’s astir from vine to vine.

  Baskets creak and buckets clatter, groaning hods are fully loaded;

  All to the great vat are carried, to the treader’s lusty dance.

  So by those rude feet the sacred bounty of the ripe unblemished

  Grape is trodden, spurting grape-flesh crushed and mixed to foaming messes.

  Now the ear is penetrated by the cymbals’ brazen clangour:

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  For the unveiled Dionysus from his mysteries comes forth,

  Lea
ping with goat-footed satyrs, with goat-footed satyresses,

  And among them wildly braying comes Silenus’ long-eared beast.

  No constraints now! Cloven hooves will trample down all decent custom,

  All our senses reel, our ears are deafened with the hideous din.

  Drunken revellers grope for liquor, heads and bellies overflowing;

  Some still call for moderation, but can only swell the tumult;

  For old wineskins soon are empty which the grape’s new juice must fill!

  [Curtain, PHORCYAS rises up as a gigantic figure in the proscenium, but steps down from her cothurni, removes her mask and veil, and reveals herself as MEPHISTOPHELES, who then as an epilogue to the drama adds such comments as may be appropriate.]

  ACT FOUR

  14.HIGH MOUNTAINS

  [Rugged forbidding peaks. A cloud drifts up, leans against the cliff, settles on a projecting spur of rock, and divides.]

  FAUST [stepping out of it].

  Gazing at those deep solitudes beneath my feet,*

  I tread with circumspection this high mountain-brink,

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  Dismissing now my cloudy vehicle, which has brought

  Me gently through bright daylight over land and sea.

  Slowly it has released me, yet does not disperse.

  Towards the east it strives, a dense and vaporous mass;

  The astonished eye strives after it in wonderment.

  It parts as it moves on, in shifting, billowing change:

  Yet seeks a shape.—Yes! now my eye is not deceived!—

  On softest bedding, sun-gleamed, splendid there she lies,

  A woman’s form, most godlike, giant-like indeed:

  I see it! It is like Juno, Leda, Helena;

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  With what majestic charm it hovers in my sight!

  Alas, already it drifts away: amorphous, broad,

  Its icy summits towering in the distant east

  Reflect the dazzling greatness of these fleeting days.

  But round my breast and brow there hovers still, so cool,

  So pleasing and caressing, a bright wisp of cloud.

  Now lightly, hesitantly higher it ascends,

  And shapes itself.—Does joy delude, or do I see

  That first, that long-lost, dearest treasure of my youth?

  They rise to view, those riches of my deepest heart,

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  That leapt so lightly in the early dawn of love;

  That first look, quickly sensed and hardly understood:

  No precious jewel could have outshone it, had I held

  It fast. Oh lovely growth, oh spiritual form!

  Still undissolving, it floats skywards on and up,

  And draws my best and inmost soul to follow it.

  [A seven-league boot touches the ground. A second follows immediately. MEPHISTOPHELES dismounts. The boots hurry on.]

  MEPHISTOPHELES. Well, that’s quick marching, I must say!—

  Now, what are your intentions, pray?

  Why choose this savage place to pause,

  Where rocks upfang their dreadful jaws?

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  I know them, though from elsewhere, very well:

  This place was once, in fact, the floor of hell.

  FAUST. Another of your foolish tales, no doubt;

  Such stuff you never tire of handing out.

  MEPHISTOPHELES [seriously].

  When the Lord God—and I could tell you why—

  Hurled me and my lot headlong from the sky

  Into the fiery depths, the central flame

  For ever burning, evermore the same,

  We found ourselves, by this bright conflagration,

  In a most incommodious situation.

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  The devils all began to cough, to utter

  Much belching back and front, to sneeze and splutter;

  Hell filled with sulphurous acid fumes, expelling

  Its brimstone stench, like a great gasbag swelling!

  Until such monstrous force, as soon it must,

  Shattered the dry lands of the earth’s thick crust.

  Now, things are upside down: the great abyss

  Of former times has become peaks like this.

  And on this, too, their orthodoxy’s based,

  With nethermost by uppermost replaced;

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  For when we fled the hot pit’s servitude,

  Our lordship of the upper air ensued.

  An open secret, kept till now with care;

  Lately revealed to the nations everywhere. (Eph. 6:12)*

  FAUST. Mountains keep noble silence; let them be!

  Their whence and why’s no puzzlement to me.

  When Nature’s reign began, pure and self-grounded,

  Then this terrestrial globe it shaped and rounded.

  Glad of their peaks and chasms, it displayed

  Mountains and mountains, rocks and rocks it made;

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  The soft-curved hills it shaped then, gentling down

  Into the valleys; there all’s green and grown.

  Thus Nature takes her pleasure, never troubling

  With all your crazy swirl and boil and bubbling.

  MEPHISTOPHELES. Well, so you say; to you it seems just so.

  But I was there, my dear sir, and I know!

  I saw it all: the lower regions seethed,

  They swelled and spilled, great streams of fire they breathed,

  And Moloch’s hammer,* forging rock to rock,

  Scattered the fragments with its mighty knock.

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  The land’s still stiff with alien lumps of stone:

  How’s such momentum possible? The sages

  Try to explain, but still untouched for ages

  Those boulders lie, the answer’s still unknown.

  We rack our brains to death: what more

  Can thinking tell us?—Only the old lore

  Of simple folk has understood, they’ve read it

  In their tradition’s ripe unchanging store:

  Wonders they see, and Satan gets the credit!

  So on faith’s crutch my hobbling wanderer goes:

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  Devil’s Rock, Devil’s Bridge are all he knows.

  FAUST. An interesting viewpoint, I must say,

  To observe Nature’s works the Devil’s way.

  MEPHISTOPHELES. Let Nature do its will; what do I care!

  My word on it: Satan himself was there!

  Our methods—tumult, mad upheaval—get

  The best results; look round for proof!—But let

  Me now speak plain: can we still offer you

  No earthly joy? A panoramic view

  Confronts you, far and wide you see unfurled

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  The glory of the kingdoms of this world (Matt. 4):

  And can your discontentment still

  Discern no pleasing prospect?

  FAUST. Yes!

  A great thought has inspired me: guess

  It if you can.

  MEPHISTOPHELES. That I soon will.

  In your place, I’d seek out some city for

  My capital. One with a nookshotten core

  Of streets where burghers munch, of Gothic gables,

  Of poky markets selling vegetables—

  Onions and cabbages and beet;

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  Benchfuls of fly-infested meat.

  Come here at any time, you’ll sense

  The stink of ceaseless diligence.

  Wide avenues and squares then raise

  The social level of the place:

  And finally long suburbs sprawl,

  Impeded by no outer wall.

  There would be traffic, loud and fast,

  Such fun to watch! all bustling past,

  And to and fro the scuttling slither,

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  The swarming ants, hither and thither.

  And when
I drove or rode, I’d be

  Their cynosure for all to see:

  A hundred thousand would revere me!

  FAUST. All that, I fear, would fail to cheer me.

  One likes a growing population,

  Prospering, feeding, even taking

  Their ease, acquiring education—

  But they’re all rebels in the making.

  MEPHISTOPHELES. Then, somewhere suitable, to fit my state,

  A grandiose pleasure-palace I’d create.

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  Forests and hills, wide meadows, open land,

  Would be my garden, likewise very grand:

  Green walls and velvet greensward, avenues

  Straight as a die, precisely shaded views,

  Rocky cascades in even steps descending,

  And fountains in variety unending.

  Here, a great noble jet; there, bordering it,

  A thousand jetlets hiss and piss and spit.

  I would have maisonettes built, and instal

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  The most delightful women in them—all

  My time I’d spend most cosily enstewed

  In such companionable solitude.

  And I say ‘women’ quite advisedly:

  Charm in the singular’s no charm to me.

  FAUST. Babylonian debauch, modern vulgarity.*

  MEPHISTOPHELES. And what was your new project, may one ask?

  Some bold and noble striving, I’ll be bound;

  Perhaps, since you’ve learnt to float above the ground,

  A mission to the moon is our next task?

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  FAUST. Certainly not! This earthly sphere

  Is room enough for high deeds; here

  I still can achieve wonders. Never

  Have I felt such great strength for bold endeavour.

  MEPHISTOPHELES. So, fame is what you want? One sees you’ve been

  Consorting with a heroine.

  FAUST. I want to rule and to possess: what need

  Have I of fame? What matters but the deed?

  MEPHISTOPHELES. Poets will come nevertheless,

  Your posthumous glory to profess;

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  Fools, kindling further foolishness.

  FAUST. Mean spirit, you have no part nor lot

  In any of man’s longings: what

  Can your embittered caustic mind

  Know of the needs of humankind?

  MEPHISTOPHELES. Well, tell me—111 be governed by

  Your will—what whim you now would satisfy.

  FAUST. My eye fell, as I passed, on the high sea:

  It surged and swelled, mounted up more and more,

  Then checked, and spilt its waves tempestuously,

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  Venting its rage upon the flat, wide shore.

  And this displeased me: as when pride’s excess

  And angry blood and passion unconfined,