In my own eyes, and turn your gifts to nothing.
He stirs my heart into a burning fire
Of passion for that lovely woman’s image.*
Thus from my lust I stumble to fulfilment,
And in fulfilment for more lust I languish. 3250
[Enter MEPHISTOPHELES.]
MEPHISTOPHELES. Well, have you not tired yet of this life-style?
How strange that it still interests you!
No doubt it’s good to try once in a while,
Till one moves on to something new!
FAUST. I wish you’d find some better occupation
Than to waste daylight bothering me.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Why now, I’ll gladly let you be;
I take the hint; no need for explanation.
Such an ill-humoured, crazy customer
Would be no loss, my dear good sir! 3260
One slaves away all day and night
To please my lord, to guess what he’d prefer—
And there’s no way to get it right.
FAUST. Oh yes, indeed, this tone’s in character!
He plagues me and wants thanks for it as well.
MEPHISTOPHELES. What sort of life would you have had—just tell
Me that, poor earthling!—without my
Assistance? For some time I’ve cured
Your scribble-scrabbling fancies; why,
If I’d not been there, rest assured 3270
You’d have already bid this world goodbye.
And now in clefts and caves you sit
Here like an ancient owl—what good is it?—
Sucking some toad-like sustenance, all on your own,
From this dank moss and dripping stone!
A charming way to pass the year!
You’re the learned doctor still, I fear.
FAUST. Can you not understand how my life’s strength increases
As I walk here in these wild places?
—Yes, if you could, you’d try to mar 3280
My satisfaction, devil as you are!
MEPHISTOPHELES. What supernatural delight!
Out on the mountains all the dewy night,
Embracing earth and heaven with ecstasy,
Swelling up into a divinity—
Earth’s guts yield to your thrusting aspiration,
Your heart contains the six days of creation,
So proud, so strong, such rapture, God knows what!
A love that overflows and penetrates the lot:
Mere mortal man no more! And then, my friend, 3290
How does the lofty intuition end?—
[With a gesture.]
I could mention how, but I’d better not.
FAUST. Shame on you!
MEPHISTOPHELES. So! my commentaries offend
Your modest ears, as well they may,
And you cry shame! One must of course not say
Out loud what modest minds are filled with anyway.
In short, good sir, by all means do
Delude yourself if it amuses you;
But you’ll soon feel it’s gone too far.
You’re three parts dead again the way things are: 3300
Much more of it will wear you out,
You’ll get the horrors, go clean mad no doubt.
Enough’s enough!—Your sweetheart sits and waits;
She’s trapped, she pines, she’s grieving so!
Only on you she meditates;
You are her one great love, you know!
Your passion’s first frenzy was a flood, as when
A stream overflows its banks as the snow melts in spring;
You poured it deep into her heart, poor thing—
And now your stream’s run dry again. 3310
Might I suggest it would befit
Your majesty to leave this woodland throne,
Go to that poor young child and cheer her up a bit,
Reward her for her amorous moan?
The time hangs heavy on her hands;
She’s watching the clouds; at her window she stands,
As they drift over the old town wall; she’s all alone;
All day and half the night she sings:
If only I had a little bird’s wings!
Sometimes she’s blithe as a dove, 3320
Mainly she’s sad, often she cries in streams,
Then she’s quiet again, as it seems;
But always in love!
FAUST. You snake! you snake!
MEPHISTOPHELES [aside]. My venom begins to take!
FAUST. Let me alone, you monster! I forbid
Your tongue to speak that beautiful girl’s name!
I desire her sweet body, I’m half mad
For it already; must you fan this flame?
MEPHISTOPHELES. What’s it all for? She thinks you’ve 3330
run away,
And there she’s half right, I must say.
FAUST. She’s always in my mind; no matter where
I am, I’m near to her, she’s near to me;
Even the body of Christ rouses my jealousy
By having touched her lips when I’m not there.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Indeed, my friend! And what of the twin roes
That feed among the lilies?* I begrudge you those!
FAUST. Clear off, disgusting pimp!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Good! Your abuse
Is so amusing. God himself, who made
Us male and female, was the first to choose 3340
That noble métier, joining man and maid.
Come, let us end this scene of gloom!* [UR
Are you going, tell me, to your sweetheart’s room,
Or to your own last resting-place?
FAUST. What are the joys of heaven in her embrace?
So close to her, her dear love warming me,
Yet still I feel her misery!
Who am I? The unhoused, the fugitive,
The aimless, restless reprobate,
Plunging like some wild waterfall from cliff to cliff 3350
Down to the abyss, in greedy furious spate!
And as I passed—she, childlike, innocent,
A hut, a meadow on the mountain-slope,
A home like that, such sweet content,
Her little world, her little scope!
And I, whom God had cursed,
Rocks could not satisfy
My rage to rive and burst
And wreck as I rushed by!
I had to ruin her, to undermine 3360
Her peace; she was our victim, hell’s and mine!
Help me, you devil, to cut short this waiting,
This fear! Let it be soon, if it must be!
May her fate crush me, my own fate out-fating,
And I be doomed with her, and she with me!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Well! now you’re on the boil again, that’s clear.
Go to her, comfort her, you dunderhead!
Because your silly brain can’t see the way ahead,
At once you imagine doomsday’s near.
One must keep fighting the good fight! [FRA 3370
You’re well bedevilled now, you’re one of us.
Devils must not despair, though sometimes they well might,
And that would be—devilish tedious.
18. GRETCHEN’S ROOM* [UR
[GRETCHEN at her spinning-wheel, alone.*]
GRETCHEN. My heart’s so heavy,
My heart’s so sore,
How can ever my heart
Be at peace any more?
How dead the whole world is,
How dark the day,
How bitter my life is 3380
Now he’s away!
My poor head’s troubled,
Oh what shall I do?
My poor mind’s broken
And torn in two.
My heart’s so heavy,
My heart’s so sore,
How can ever my heart
Be at peace any more?
&
nbsp; When I look from my window 3390
It’s him I must see;
I walk out wondering
Where can he be?
Oh his step so proud
And his head so high
And the smile on his lips
And the spell of his eye,
And his voice, like a stream
Of magic it is,
And his hand pressing mine 3400
And his kiss, his kiss!
My heart’s so heavy,
My heart’s so sore,
How can ever my heart
Be at peace any more?
My body’s on fire
With wanting him so;
Oh when shall I hold him
And never let go
And kiss him at last 3410
As I long to do,
And swoon on his kisses
And die there too!
19. MARTHA’S GARDEN [UR
[MARGARETA. FAUST.]
MARGARETA. Promise me, Heinrich*
FAUST. Whatever I can!
MARGARETA. Then tell me what you think about religion.
I know you are a dear good man,
But it means little to you, I imagine.
FAUST. My darling, let’s not talk of that. You know
I’d give my life for you, I love you so;
I wouldn’t want to take anyone’s faith away. 3420
MARGARETA. One must believe! That’s not right what you say!
FAUST. Ah, must one?
MARGARETA. Oh, if only I could show you!
You don’t respect the holy Sacraments, do you?
FAUST. I do.
MARGARETA. But you don’t want them! You don’t go
To Mass or to confession, that I know.
Do you believe in God?
FAUST. My dear, how can
Anyone dare to say: I believe in Him?
Ask a priest how, ask a learned man,
And all their answers merely seem
To mock the questioner.
MARGARETA. Then you don’t believe? 3430
FAUST. My sweet beloved child, don’t misconceive
My meaning! Who dare say God’s name?
Who dares to claim
That he believes in God?
And whose heart is so dead
That he has ever boldly said:
No, I do not believe?
Embracing all things,
Holding all things in being,
Does He not hold and keep 3440
You, me, even Himself?
Is not the heavens’ great vault up there on high,
And here below, does not the earth stand fast?
Do everlasting stars, gleaming with love,
Not rise above us through the sky?
Are we not here and gazing eye to eye?
Does all this not besiege
Your mind and heart,
And weave in unseen visibility
All round you its eternal mystery? 3450
Oh, fill your heart right up with all of this,
And when you’re brimming over with the bliss
Of such a feeling, call it what you like!
Call it joy, or your heart, or love, or God!
I have no name for it. The feeling’s all there is:*
The name’s mere noise and smoke—what does it do
But cloud the heavenly radiance?
MARGARETA. Well, I suppose all that makes sense;
I think the priest says something like that too—
Just in the wording there’s a difference. 3460
FAUST. It is what all men say,
All human hearts under the blessed day
Speak the same message, each
In its own speech:
May I not speak in mine?
MARGARETA. It sounds all very well, all very fine,
But there’s still something wrong about it,
For you’re not a Christian, I truly doubt it!
FAUST. Sweetheart!
MARGARETA. It’s always worried me
To see you keep such company. 3470
FAUST. What do you mean?
MARGARETA. That man you have with you—
I hate him, upon my soul I do!
It pierces me to the heart like a knife.
I’ve seen nothing so dreadful in all my life
As that man’s face and its ugly sneer.
FAUST. My poor child, why, there’s nothing to fear!
MARGARETA. It’s just that his presence offends me so.
I don’t usually dislike people, you know!
And I’d gaze at you just as long as I can,
But it makes my blood freeze to see that man— 3480
And I think he’s a scoundrel, anyway.
If I wrong him, God pardon what I say!
FAUST. Well, you know, some people just are rather odd.
MARGARETA. I wouldn’t live with a man like that!
As soon as he steps through the door, you can tell
You’re being looked so mockingly at
And half fiercely as well;
And he cares for nothing, not man nor God.
It’s as if he’d a mark on his brow that said
That he never has loved, that his heart is dead. 3490
Each time you put your arms round me
I’m yours so completely, so warm, so free!
But I close up inside at the sight of him.
FAUST. Dear fancy, sweet foreboding whim!
MARGARETA. It upsets me so much, each time I see
Him coming, that I even doubt
If I still love you, when he’s about.
Besides, when he’s there, I never could pray,
And that’s what’s eating my heart away.
Dear Heinrich, tell me you feel the same way! 3500
FAUST. You’ve just taken against him, and that’s all.
MARGARETA. I must go home now.
FAUST. Oh, tell me whether
We can have some peaceful hour together,
Lie breast to breast and mingle soul with soul!
MARGARETA. Oh, if only I slept alone it would be all right,
I’d leave you my door unbolted tonight.
But my mother sleeps lightly, and if she
Were to wake up and catch us, oh goodness me,
I’d drop down dead on the very spot!
FAUST. My darling, there need be no such surprise. 3510
Look, take this little flask I’ve got:
You must put just three drops in her drink
And into a sweet, sound sleep she’ll sink.
MARGARETA. What would I not do for your sake!
But she’ll be all right again, she’ll wake?
FAUST. Would I suggest it otherwise?
MARGARETA. I look at you, dear Heinrich, and somehow
My will is yours, it’s not my own will now.
Already I’ve done so many things for you,
There’s—almost nothing left to do. 3520
[Exit. Enter MEPHISTOPHELES.]
MEPHISTOPHELES. Pert monkey! Has she gone?
FAUST. Still eavesdropping and spying?
MEPHISTOPHELES. I listened to it all most carefully.
The learned Doctor was catechized!
I hope he will find it edifying.
Girls always check up, if they’re well-advised,
On one’s simple old-world piety;
Their theory is, if he swallows all
That stuff, he’ll be at our beck and call.
FAUST. To your vile mind, of course, it’s merely quaint
That that dear loving soul, filled with her faith, 3530
The only road to heaven that she knows,
Should so torment herself, poor saint,
Thinking her lover’s damned to everlasting death!
MEPHISTOPHELES. You supersensual sensual wooer,
A pretty maid has led you by the nose.
FAUST. You misborn monster, spawn of fire and s
hit!
MEPHISTOPHELES. And physiognomy, how well she’s mastered it!
When I’m around she feels—just what, she’s not quite sure;
My face, forsooth! conceals some runic spell;
She guesses I’m a genius certainly* 3540
Perhaps indeed the Devil as well.
So, it’s to be tonight—?
FAUST. What’s that to you?
MEPHISTOPHELES. I take a certain pleasure in it too!
20. AT THE WELL [UR
[GRETCHEN and LIESCHEN with water-jugs.]
LIESCHEN. You’ve heard about Barbara, haven’t you?
GRETCHEN. No; I hardly see anyone.
LIESCHEN. Well, it’s true!
She’s done it at last; Sybil told me today.
Made a fool of herself. That’s always the way
With those airs and graces.
GRETCHEN. But what?
LIESCHEN. It stinks!
There’s two to feed now when she eats and drinks!
GRETCHEN. Oh! … 3550
LIESCHEN. And serve her right at last, I say.
Throwing herself at the lad for so long!
Always on his arm, always walking along,
Off to the villages, off to the dance;
Oh, she had an eye to the main chance!
Such a beauty, of course, she must lead the way!
He courts her with pastries and wine every day;
She’s even so shameless, the little minx,
That she can accept presents from him, she thinks!
Cuddling and petting hour by hour— 3560
Well, now she’s lost her little flower!
GRETCHEN. Poor thing!
LIESCHEN. Don’t tell me you ‘re sorry for her!
Why, all the rest of us, there we were,
Spinning,* our mothers not letting us out
In the evenings, while she’s sitting about
In dark doorways with her fancy man,
Lingering in alleys as long as they can!
Well, now she’ll have her church penance to do,
And sit in her smock on the sinner’s pew!
GRETCHEN. But surely he’ll marry her now!
LIESCHEN. Not he! 3570
A smart boy like that, there are fish in the sea
In plenty for him; he’s not such a fool!
Anyway, he’s left.
GRETCHEN. That’s wrong of him!
LIESCHEN. Well,
If she gets him, she’ll get the rest of it too.
The boys’ll snatch the flowers from her head,
And we’ll throw her none, just chopped straw instead!* [Exit.]
GRETCHEN [as she walks home]. What angry things I used to say
When some poor girl had gone astray!
I used to rack my brains to find
Words to condemn sins of that kind; 3580
Blacker than black they seemed to be,
And were still not black enough for me,