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Home  »  Faust, Part I  »  Faust. Part I

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). Faust. Part I.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Faust. Part I

3000–3499

The joy austere of contemplative thought.

Oh, that naught perfect is assign’d to man,

I feel, alas! With this exalted joy,

Which lifts me near and nearer to the gods,

Thou gav’st me this companion, unto whom

I needs must cling, though cold and insolent,

He still degrades me to myself, and turns

Thy glorious gifts to nothing, with a breath.

He in my bosom with malicious zeal

For that fair image fans a raging fire;

From craving to enjoyment thus I reel

And in enjoyment languish for desire.(MEPHISTOPHELES enters.)

MEPHISTOPHELES

Of this lone life have you not your fill?

How for so long can it have charms for you?

’Tis well enough to try it if you will;

But then away again to something new!

FAUST

Would you could better occupy your leisure,

Than in disturbing thus my hours of joy.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Well! Well! I’ll leave you to yourself with pleasure,

A serious tone you hardly dare employ.

To part from one so crazy, harsh, and cross,

Were not in truth a grievous loss.

The live-long day, for you I toil and fret;

Ne’er from his worship’s face a hint I get,

What pleases him, or what to let alone.

FAUST

Ay truly! that is just the proper tone!

He wearies me, and would with thanks be paid!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Poor Son of Earth, without my aid,

How would thy weary days have flown?

Thee of thy foolish whims I’ve cured,

Thy vain imaginations banished,

And but for me, be well assured,

Thou from this sphere must soon have vanished.

In rocky hollows and in caverns drear,

Why like an owl sit moping here?

Wherefore from dripping stones and moss with ooze embued,

Dost suck, like any toad, thy food?

A rare, sweet pastime. Verily!

The doctor cleaveth still to thee.

FAUST

Dost comprehend what bliss without alloy

From this wild wand’ring in the desert springs?—

Couldst thou but guess the new life-power it brings,

Thou wouldst be fiend enough to envy me my joy.

MEPHISTOPHELES

What super-earthly ecstasy! at night,

To lie in darkness on the dewy height,

Embracing heaven and earth in rapture high,

The soul dilating to a deity;

With prescient yearnings pierce the core of earth,

Feel in your labouring breast the six-days’ birth,

Enjoy, in proud delight what no one knows,

While your love-rapture o’er creation flows,—

The earthly lost in beatific vision,

And then the lofty intuition—(With a gesture.)

I need not tell you how—to close!

FAUST

Fie on you!

MEPHISTOPHELES

This displeases you? “For shame!”

You are forsooth entitled to exclaim;

We to chaste ears it seems must not pronounce

What, nathless, the chaste heart cannot renounce.

Well, to be brief, the joy as fit occasions rise,

I grudge you not, of specious lies.

But long this mood thou’lt not retain.

Already thou’rt again outworn,

And should this last, thou wilt be torn

By frenzy or remorse and pain.

Enough of this! Thy true love dwells apart,

And all to her seems flat and tame;

Alone thine image fills her heart,

She loves thee with an all-devouring flame.

First came thy passion with o’erpowering rush,

Like mountain torrent, swollen by the melted snow;

Full in her heart didst pour the sudden gush,

Now has thy brooklet ceased to flow.

Instead of sitting throned midst forests wild,

It would become so great a lord

To comfort the enamour’d child,

And the young monkey for her love reward.

To her the hours seem miserably long;

She from the window sees the clouds float by

As o’er the lofty city-walls they fly,

“If I a birdie were!” so runs her song,

Half through the night and all day long.

Cheerful sometimes, more oft at heart full sore;

Fairly outwept seem now her tears,

Anon she tranquil is, or so appears,

And love-sick evermore.

FAUST

Snake! Serpent vile!

MEPHISTOPHELES(aside)

Good! If I catch thee with my guile!

FAUST

Vile reprobate! go get thee hence;

Forbear the lovely girl to name!

Nor in my half-distracted sense,

Kindle anew the smouldering flame!

MEPHISTOPHELES

What wouldest thou! She thinks you’ve taken flight;

It seems, she’s partly in the right.

FAUST

I’m near her still—and should I distant rove,

Her I can ne’er forget, ne’er lose her love;

And all things touch’d by those sweet lips of hers,

Even the very Host, my envy stirs.

MEPHISTOPHELES

’Tis well! I oft have envied you indeed,

The twin-pair that among the roses feed.

FAUST

Pander, avaunt!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Go to! I laugh, the while you rail,

The power which fashion’d youth and maid,

Well understood the noble trade;

So neither shall occasion fail.

But hence!—A mighty grief I trow!

Unto thy lov’d one’s chamber thou

And not to death shouldst go.

FAUST

What is to me heaven’s joy within her arms?

What though my life her bosom warms!—

Do I not ever feel her woe?

The outcast am I not, unhoused, unblest,

Inhuman monster, without aim or rest,

Who, like the greedy surge, from rock to rock,

Sweeps down the dread abyss with desperate shock?

While she, within her lowly cot, which graced

The Alpine slope, beside the waters wild,

Her homely cares in that small world embraced,

Secluded lived, a simple, artless child.

Was’t not enough, in thy delirious whirl

To blast the steadfast rocks;

Her, and her peace as well,

Must I, God-hated one, to ruin hurl!

Dost claim this holocaust, remorseless Hell!

Fiend, help me to cut short the hours of dread!

Let what must happen, happen speedily!

Her direful doom fall crushing on my head,

And into ruin let her plunge with me!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Why how again it seethes and glows!

Away, thou fool! Her torment ease!

When such a head no issue sees,

It pictures straight the final close.

Long life to him who boldly dares!

A devil’s pluck thou’rt wont to show;

As for a devil who despairs,

Nothing I find so mawkish here below.

MARGARET’S ROOM

MARGARET(alone at her spinning wheel)

My peace is gone,

My heart is sore,

I find it never,

And nevermore!

Where him I have not,

Is the grave; and all

The world to me

Is turned to gall.

My wilder’d brain

Is overwrought;

My feeble senses

Are distraught.

My peace is gone,

My heart is sore,

I find it never,

And nevermore!

For him from the window

I gaze, at home;

For him and him only

Abroad I roam.

His lofty step,

His bearing high,

The smile of his lip,

The power of his eye,

His witching words,

Their tones of bliss,

His hand’s fond pressure

And ah—his kiss!

My peace is gone,

My heart is sore,

I find it never,

And nevermore.

My bosom aches

To feel him near;

Ah, could I clasp

And fold him here!

Kiss him and kiss him

Again would I,

And on his kisses

I fain would die.

MARTHA’S GARDEN
MARGARET and FAUST

MARGARET

Promise me, Henry!

FAUST

What I can!

MARGARET

How thy religion fares, I fain would hear.

Thou art a good kind-hearted man,

Only that way not well-disposed, I fear.

FAUST

Forbear, my child! Thou feelest thee I love;

My heart, my blood I’d give, my love to prove,

And none would of their faith or church bereave.

MARGARET

That’s not enough, we must ourselves believe!

FAUST

Must we?

MARGARET

Ah, could I but thy soul inspire!

Thou honourest not the sacraments, alas!

FAUST

I honour them.

MARGARET

But yet without desire;

’Tis long since thou hast been either to shrift or mass.

Dost thou believe in God?

FAUST

My darling, who dares say,

Yes, I in God believe?

Question or priest or sage, and they

Seem, in the answer you receive,

To mock the questioner.

MARGARET

Then thou dost not believe?

FAUST

Sweet one! my meaning do not misconceive!

Him who dare name?

And who proclaim,

Him I believe?

Who that can feel,

His heart can steel,

To say: I believe him not?

The All-embracer,

All-sustainer,

Holds and sustains he not

Thee, me, himself?

Lifts not the Heaven its dome above?

Doth not the firm-set earth beneath us lie?

And beaming tenderly with looks of love,

Climb not the everlasting stars on high?

Do we not gaze into each other’s eyes?

Nature’s impenetrable agencies,

Are they not thronging on thy heart and brain,

Viewless, or visible to mortal ken,

Around thee weaving their mysterious chain?

Fill thence thy heart, how large soe’er it be;

And in the feeling when thou utterly art blest,

Then call it, what thou wilt,—

Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! God!

I have no name for it!

’Tis feeling all;

Name is but sound and smoke

Shrouding the glow of heaven.

MARGARET

All this is doubtless good and fair;

Almost the same the parson says,

Only in slightly different phrase.

FAUST

Beneath Heaven’s sunshine, everywhere,

This is the utterance of the human heart;

Each in his language doth the like impart;

Then why not I in mine?

MARGARET

What thus I hear

Sounds plausible, yet I’m not reconciled;

There’s something wrong about it; much I fear

That thou art not a Christian.

FAUST

My sweet child!

MARGARET

Alas! it long hath sorely troubled me,

To see thee in such odious company.

FAUST

How so?

MARGARET

The man who comes with thee, I hate,

Yea, in my spirit’s inmost depths abhor;

As his loath’d visage, in my life before,

Naught to my heart e’er gave a pang so great.

FAUST

Him fear not, my sweet love!

MARGARET

His presence chills my blood.

Towards all beside I have a kindly mood;

Yet, though I yearn to gaze on thee, I feel

At sight of him strange horror o’er me steal;

That he’s a villain my conviction’s strong.

May Heaven forgive me, if I do him wrong!

FAUST

Yet such strange fellows in the world must be!

MARGARET

I would not live with such an one as he.

If for a moment he but enter here,

He looks around him with a mocking sneer,

And malice ill-conceal’d;

That he with naught on earth can sympathize is clear

Upon his brow ’tis legibly revealed,

That to his heart no living soul is dear.

So blest I feel, within thine arms,

So warm and happy,—free from all alarms;

And still my heart doth close when he comes near.

FAUST

Foreboding angel! check thy fear!

MARGARET

It so o’ermasters me, that when,

Or wheresoe’er, his step I hear,

I almost think, no more I love thee then.

Besides, when he is near, I ne’er could pray.

This eats into my heart; with thee

The same, my Henry, it must be.

FAUST

This is antipathy!

MARGARET

I must away.

FAUST

For one brief hour then may I never rest,

And heart to heart, and soul to soul be pressed?

MARGARET

Ah, if I slept alone! To-night

The bolt I fain would leave undrawn for thee;

But then my mother’s sleep is light,

Were we surprised by her, ah me!

Upon the spot I should be dead.

FAUST

Dear angel! there’s no cause for dread.

Here is a little phial,—if she take

Mixed in her drink three drops, ’twill steep

Her nature in a deep and soothing sleep.

MARGARET

What do I not for thy dear sake!

To her it will not harmful prove?

FAUST

Should I advise it else, sweet love?

MARGARET

I know not, dearest, when thy face I see,

What doth my spirit to thy will constrain;

Already I have done so much for thee,

That scarcely more to do doth now remain.(Exit.)

MEPHISTOPHELES(enters)

MEPHISTOPHELES

The monkey! Is she gone?

FAUST

Again hast played the spy?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Of all that pass’d I’m well apprized,

I heard the doctor catechised,

And trust he’ll profit much thereby!

Fain would the girls inquire indeed

Touching their lover’s faith and creed,

And whether pious in the good old way;

They think, if pliant there, us too he will obey.

FAUST

Thou monster, does not see that this

Pure soul, possessed by ardent love,

Full of the living faith,

To her of bliss

The only pledge, must holy anguish prove,

Holding the man she loves, fore-doomed to endless death!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Most sensual, supersensualist? The while

A damsel leads thee by the nose!

FAUST

Of filth and fire abortion vile!

MEPHISTOPHELES

In physiognomy strange skill she shows;

She in my presence feels she knows not how;

My mask it seems a hidden sense reveals;

That I’m a genius she must needs allow,

That I’m the very devil perhaps she feels.

So then to-night—

FAUST

What’s that to you?

MEPHISTOPHELES

I’ve my amusement in it too!

AT THE WELL

MARGARET and BESSY, with pitchers
BESSY

Of Barbara hast nothing heard?

MARGARET

I rarely go from home,—no, not a word.

BESSY

’Tis true: Sybilla told me so to-day!

That comes of being proud, methinks;

She played the fool at last.

MARGARET

How so?

BESSY

They say

That two she feedeth when she eats and drinks.

MARGARET

Alas!

BESSY

She’s rightly served, in sooth,

How long she hung upon the youth!

What promenades, what jaunts there were,

To dancing booth and village fair!

The first she everywhere must shine,

He always treating her to pastry and to wine

Of her good looks she was so vain,

So shameless too, that to retain

His presents, she did not disdain;

Sweet words and kisses came anon—

And then the virgin flower was gone.

MARGARET

Poor thing!

BESSY

Forsooth dost pity her?

At night, when at our wheels we sat,

Abroad our mothers ne’er would let us stir.

Then with her lover she must chat,

Or on the bench or in the dusky walk,

Thinking the hours too brief for their sweet talk;

Her proud head she will have to bow,

And in white sheet do penance now!

MARGARET

But he will surely marry her?

BESSY

Not he!

He won’t be such a fool! a gallant lad

Like him, can roam o’er land and sea,

Besides, he’s off.

MARGARET

That is not fair!

BESSY

If she should get him, ’twere almost as bad!

Her myrtle wreath the boys would tear;

And then we girls would plagued her too,

For we chopp’d straw before her door would strew!(Exit.)

MARGARET(walking towards home)

How stoutly once I could inveigh,

If a poor maiden went astray;

Not words enough my tongue could find,

’Gainst others’ sin to speak my mind!

Black as it seemed, I blacken’d it still more,

And strove to make it blacker than before.

And did myself securely bless—

Now my own trespass doth appear!

Yet ah!—what urg’d me to transgress,

God knows, it was so sweet, so dear!

ZWINGER
Enclosure between the City-wall and the Gate.
(In the niche of the wall a devotional image of the Mater dolorosa, with flower-pots before it.)

MARGARET(putting fresh flowers in the pots)

Ah, rich in sorrow, thou,

Stoop thy maternal brow,

And mark with pitying eye my misery!

The sword in thy pierced heart,

Thou dost with bitter smart,

Gaze upwards on thy Son’s death agony.

To the dear God on high,

Ascends thy piteous sigh,

Pleading for his and thy sore misery.

Ah, who can know

The torturing woe,

The pangs that rack me to the bone?

How my poor heart, without relief,

Trembles and throbs, its yearning grief

Thou knowest, thou alone!

Ah, wheresoe’er I go,

With woe, with woe, with woe,

My anguish’d breast is aching!

When all alone I creep,

I weep, I weep, I weep,

Alas! my heart is breaking!

The flower-pots at my window

Were wet with tears of mine,

The while I pluck’d these blossoms,

At dawn to deck thy shrine!

When early in my chamber

Shone bright the rising morn,

I sat there on my pallet,

My heart with anguish torn.

Help! from disgrace and death deliver me!

Ah! rich in sorrow, thou,

Stoop thy maternal brow,

And mark with pitying eye my misery!

NIGHT. STREET BEFORE MARGARET’S DOOR

VALENTINE(a soldier, MARGARET’S brother)

When seated ’mong the jovial crowd,

Where merry comrades boasting loud

Each named with pride his favourite lass,

And in her honour drain’d his glass;

Upon my elbows I would lean,

With easy quiet view the scene,

Nor give my tongue the rein until

Each swaggering blade had talked his fill.

Then smiling I my beard would stroke,

The while, with brimming glass, I spoke;

“Each to his taste!—but to my mind,

Where in the country will you find,

A maid, as my dear Gretchen fair,

Who with my sister can compare?”

Cling! Clang! so rang the jovial sound!

Shouts of assent went circling round;

Pride of her sex is she!—cried some;

Then were the noisy boasters dumb.

And now!—I could tear out my hair,

Or dash my brains out in despair!—

Me every scurvy knave may twit,

With stinging jest and taunting sneer!

Like skulking debtor I must sit,

And sweat each casual word to hear!

And though I smash’d them one and all,—

Yet them I could not liars call.

Who comes this way? who’s sneaking here?

If I mistake not, two draw near.

If he be one, have at him;—well I wot

Alive he shall not leave this spot!

FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES

FAUST

How from yon sacristy, athwart the night,

Its beams the ever-burning taper throws,

While ever waning, fades the glimmering light,

As gathering darkness doth around it close!

So night-like gloom doth in my bosom reign.

MEPHISTOPHELES

I’m like a tom-cat in a thievish vein,

That up fire-ladders tall and steep,

And round the walls doth slyly creep;

Virtuous withal, I feel, with, I confess,

A touch of thievish joy and wantonness.

Thus through my limbs already burns

The glorious Walpurgis night!

After to-morrow it returns,

Then why one wakes, one knows aright!

FAUST

Meanwhile, the treasure I see glimmering there,

Will it ascend into the open air?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Ere long thou wilt proceed with pleasure,

To raise the casket with its treasure;

I took a peep, therein are stored,

Of lion-dollars a rich hoard.

FAUST

And not a trinket? not a ring?

Wherewith my lovely girl to deck?

MEPHISTOPHELES

I saw among them some such thing,

A string of pearls to grace her neck.

FAUST

’Tis well! I’m always loath to go,

Without some gift my love to show.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Some pleasures gratis to enjoy,

Should surely cause you no annoy.

While bright with stars the heavens appear,

I’ll sing a masterpiece of art:

A moral song shall charm her ear,

More surely to beguile her heart.(Sings to the guitar.)

Kathrina say,

Why lingering stay

At dawn of day

Before your lover’s door?

Maiden, beware,

Nor enter there,

Lest forth you fare,

A maiden never more.

Maiden take heed!

Reck well my rede!

Is’t done, the deed?

Good night, you poor, poor thing!

The spoiler’s lies,

His arts despise,

Nor yield your prize,

Without the marriage ring!

VALENTINE(steps forward)

Whom are you luring here? I’ll give it you!

Accursed rat-catchers, your strains I’ll end!

First, to the devil the guitar I’ll send!

Then to the devil with the singer too!

MEPHISTOPHELES

The poor guitar! ’tis done for now.

VALENTINE

Your skull shall follow next, I trow!

MEPHISTOPHELES(to FAUST)

Doctor, stand fast! your strength collect!

Be prompt, and do as I direct.

Out with your whisk, keep close, I pray,

I’ll parry! do you thrust away!

VALENTINE

Then parry that!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Why not?

VALENTINE

That too!

MEPHISTOPHELES

With ease!

VALENTINE

The devil fights for you!

Why how is this? my hand’s already lamed!

MEPHISTOPHELES(to FAUST)

Thrust home!

VALENTINE(falls)

Alas!

MEPHISTOPHELES

There! Now the lubber’s tamed!

But quick, away! We must at once take wing;

A cry of murder strikes upon the ear;

With the police I know my course to steer,

But with the blood-ban ’tis another thing.

MARTHA(at the window)

Without! without!