B00ARI2G5C EBOK
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Wanders deeper in the maze,
Sees the whole world crookedways,
Burdening himself and others;
Still he breathes, yet chokes and smothers—
Not quite choked, yet life-bereft,
Stubborn, though with hope still left.
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Such a ceaseless downward course,
Bitter may not, must by force,
Now released, now re-pursued,
Restless sleep and tasteless food,
Binds him in a static state,
Makes him hell’s initiate.
FAUST. Horrible phantoms! Thus you still conspire
Again against mankind and yet again;
Even indifferent days you turn into a dire
Chaotic nexus of entangling pain.
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Demons, I know, are hard to exorcize,
The spirit-bond is loath to separate:
But though the creeping power of Care be great,
This power I will never recognize!
CARE. Suffer it then; for as I go
I leave a curse where I have passed.
Men live their lives in blindness: so
Shall even Faust be blinded at the last!
[She breathes on him. Exit.]
FAUST [blinded].
Night seems to close upon me deeper still,
But in my inmost soul a bright light shines.
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I hasten to complete my great designs:
My words alone can work my mastering will.
Rise from your sleep, my servants, every man!
Give visible success to my bold plan!
Set to work now with shovel and with spade:
I have marked it all out, let it be made!
With a well-ordered project and with hard
Toil we shall win supreme reward;
Until the edifice of this achievement stands,
One mind shall move a thousand hands.
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21.THE GREAT FORECOURT OF THE PALACE
[Torches. MEPHISTOPHELES as overseer leading a gang of LEMURS.*]
MEPHISTOPHELES. Come now, my lemur-goblins, patched-
Up semi-skeletons,
With mouldering sinews still attached
To move your rattling bones!
LEMURS [in chorus].
We came at once, sir, when you called;
Is there—we did half hear of it—
A plot of land here to be sold,
And shall we get our share of it?
Here are the chains, here are the posts
To measure out the site.
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Why did you summon us poor ghosts?
We can’t remember quite.
MEPHISTOPHELES. There’s no need for these mysteries;
Just use yourselves as measuring-rods!
The tallest of you can lie down lengthwise,
The rest stand round and cut away the sods.
A rectangle of earth dug deep,
A good old-fashioned place to sleep!
From palace to this narrow house descending—
That always was the stupid story’s ending.
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LEMURS [digging with mocking gestures].
In youth when I did love, did love*
Methought ’twas very sweet,
And night and day to music gay
I danced with nimble feet.
But Age with his crutch and cunning clutch
Has come to trip me now.
By a grave I stumbled, and in I tumbled;
They’d left it open somehow.
FAUST [comes out of the palace, groping at the doorpost].
The clash of spades: how it delights my heart!
These are my many workmen; here they toil,
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The alienated earth to reconcile,
To keep the ocean and the land apart,
To rule the unruly waves once more.
MEPHISTOPHELES [aside].
And yet it’s us you’re working for
With all your foolish dams and dikes;
Neptune, the water-devil, likes
To think of the great feast there’ll be
When they collapse. Do what you will, my friend,
You all are doomed! They are in league with me,
The elements, and shall destroy you in the end.*
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FAUST. Overseer!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Sir!
FAUST. I need more workers; bring
Them to me by the hundred! Use persuasion,
Cajole or bully them, try everything,
Inducements, money, force! This excavation
Must go ahead; the ditch I’ve now begun—
I must know daily how much has been done.
MEPHISTOPHELES [sotto voce].
The digging has gone well today;
No ditch or dike, but dust to dust, they say.*
FAUST. A swamp surrounds the mountains’ base;*
It poisons all I have achieved till now.
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I’ll drain it too; that rotten place
Shall be my last great project. I see how
To give those millions a new living-space:
They’ll not be safe, but active, free at least.
I see green fields, so fertile: man and beast
At once shall settle that new pleasant earth,
Bastioned by great embankments that will rise
About them, by bold labour brought to birth.
Here there shall be an inland paradise:
Outside, the sea, as high as it can reach,
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May rage and gnaw; and yet a common will,
Should it intrude, will act to close the breach.
Yes! to this vision I am wedded still,
And this as wisdom’s final word I teach:
Only that man earns freedom, merits life,
Who must reconquer both in constant daily strife.
In such a place, by danger still surrounded,
Youth, manhood, age, their brave new world have founded.
I long to see that multitude, and stand
With a free people on free land!
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Then to the moment I might say:
Beautiful moment, do not pass away!
Till many ages shall have passed
This record of my earthly life shall last.
And in anticipation of such bliss
What moment could give me greater joy than this?
[FAUST sinks back, the LEMURS seize him and lay him on the ground.]
MEPHISTOPHELES. Poor fool! Unpleasured and unsatisfied,
Still whoring after changeful fantasies,
This last, poor, empty moment he would seize,
Content with nothing else beside.
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How he resisted me! But in the end
Time wins; so here you lie, my senile friend.
The clock has stopped—
CHORUS. Has stopped! Like midnight it is stilled.
The clock-hands fall.
MEPHISTOPHELES. They fall. All is fulfilled.*
CHORUS. All’s over now.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Over! A stupid word!
Why over’? What can be
Over’ is just not there; it’s all the same to me!
Why bother to go on creating?
Making, then endlessly annihilating!
‘Over and past!’ What’s that supposed to mean?
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It’s no more than if it had never been,
Yet it goes bumbling round as if it were.
The Eternal Void is what I’d much prefer.
22.BURIAL RITES
A LEMUR [solo].
Why is the house so poorly made,
And hempen the shrouding-sheet?
LEMURS [in chorus].
’Twas built with pickaxe and with spade,
And for such a guest ’t
is meet.
A LEMUR [sob].
Who furnished it so ill, who took
The table and chairs away?
LEMURS [in chorus].
Not yours to own, ’twas all on loan,
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The creditors came today.
MEPHISTOPHELES. The body’s down, the spirit 111 soon fix,
I’ll show him his own blood-scribed document*—
Yet souls come hard these days, their friends invent
Loopholes, and try to play the Devil tricks.
Our older methods gave offence,
Our new ones don’t commend us greatly;
I used to do it all myself, but lately
I’ve had to send for adjutants.
Things are no longer what they were!
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Traditional custom, the old rules inspire
No confidence now; there’s nothing one can trust.
In former times a man would breathe his last,
Out popped the soul as quick as any mouse,
And snap! my waiting claws would close on it.
But nowadays it hesitates to quit
The gloomy corpse, its dark disgusting house;
Till in the end the elements at strife
Drive out the wretched scrap of life.
I rack my brains about it night and day:
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When, how, and where’s the question—who can say?
Old Death has lost his old decisive style;
Even the whether’s doubtful a long while.
Often I’ve watched stiff limbs with lustful eyes—
Sham-dead again! They twitch and squirm and rise.
[He makes fantastic summoning gestures, like a flank-man drilling troops.]
Come on then, at the double now, my friends,
Straight-horns and crooked-horns! Good solid fiends
Of the old school. And bring the jaws of hell,
Please, gentlemen, along with you as well!
Hell has a multiplicity of jaws, it’s true,
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And swallows up by rank and by degree;
Although in future those rules too
Will be relaxed, presumably.
[The frightful jaws of hell open up on the left.]
The fangs gape; through the arching orifice
Hell’s maw spews up a fiery ocean,
And in the seething murk of the abyss
I see the Infernal City’s ceaseless conflagration.
The red surf surges to the teeth: ‘At last’,
Think damned souls, swimming up, ‘here’s rescue!’ But the vast
Hyena-crunch reclaims them; with dismay
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They must pursue their incandescent way.
Amusing those odd corners look as well;
What horrors a small area can contain!
It’s supposed to scare sinners; they remain,
However, total sceptics about hell.
[To the fat devils with short straight horns.]
Now, you pot-bellied red-faced rascals, you!
How fat you are! Hot brimstone in your guts,
No doubt; you stiff-necked lumps, you no-necked clots!
Watch here for a sudden phosphorescent glow:
It’s called the soul, ‘Psyche’—pull off its wings!
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Without them, souls are nasty worm-like things.
I’ll stamp it with my seal; off with it then
Into the fire-storm!
You, the gentlemen
Resembling bladders, guard his lower parts!
Don’t let our prey squeeze out there—we don’t know
Exactly, but it might live where he farts;
Perhaps its whimsy takes it to do so—
Or in the navel maybe; that’s a place
It likes. Watch that, or you’ll be in disgrace!
[To the thin devils with long crooked horns.]
You, flanking giants, you tall gangling fools,
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Snatch at the air—keep practising, and keep
Your arms straight! Spread your claws, they’re good sharp tools;
Don’t let our fluttering bird give you the slip!
It must be tired of its old lodging now;
And genius, too—that must soar up somehow.
[A flash of glory from above right.]
THE HEAVENLY HOST. Follow, bright envoys,
Companions of heaven,
Unhurriedly soaring:
Let sin be forgiven,
Earth-creatures restoring,
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All natures partaking;
Let each feel the trace
As you pause at the place
Of your hovering grace!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Now what cacophony is this, what jangling
Noise from above, unwelcome as that light?
A boyish-girlish callow twing-a-twangling,
Fit for some pious nun or acolyte!
In vain we hatched that supersubtle plot
To lay the human population waste;
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Our most outrageous trick, just fancy what?
Exactly suits their dim religious taste.
The hypcrites, the riff-raff! Here they are!
That’s how they’ve cheated us of many a prize;
They fight with our own weapons in this war—
They’re devils too, but in disguise.
You there! Hold firm, on your eternal shame!
Stand round the grave, and guard it like hell’s flame!
CHORUS OF ANGELS [scattering roses].
Roses resplendent,
Roses balm-redolent,
Floating and hovering,
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Stem-wing and petal-wing,
Rosebuds reopening,
Blossom recovering,
Secretlgy succouring:
Hasten to him and bring
Crimson and green of spring,
Make him a paradise
Here where he lies!
MEPHISTOPHELES [to the demons].
What’s all this flinching, twitching? Did they teach
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You that in hell? Stand fast, and let them throw
Bouquets about! To battle-stations, each
Ugly man-jack of you! They think they’ll snow
Hot fiends up under flower-power! Blow,
And they’ll all wither, they’ll all fade and bleach!
Snuff them out, snuffle-snouts!—Enough, enough!
The whole flight’s blighted with your stinking puff!
Just take it easy! Shut your mouths and noses!
Damn you, you’re blowing far too hard!
Can’t you learn moderation? Look, those roses,
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They’re not just withering, they’re all black and charred—
They’re burning! Here they come, the poisoned flames.
Stand and resist, in the three devils’ names!—
They’re losing heart, they might as well retire.
My devils smell a new, insinuating fire!
ANGELS [in chorus].
Flowers of blessedness,
Flames with your dancing light,
Spreaders of happiness,
Powers of love that bless,
Givers of heart’s delight:
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True words that shine and last,
Brightness in ether lost,
For the eternal host
World without night!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Damn you, my satan-wimps! Now, by my wrath,
They’re standing on their heads; oh, shame on you!
The louts are turning cartwheels—the whole crew
Goes plunging arsewise back into perdition.
May you enjoy your well-deserved hot bath!
But I’ll not budge from my position.
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[Striking out at the roses as they float down.]
Begone,
will-o’-the-wisps! You’re bright lights, yes,
But once I catch you, you’re a sticky mess.
Ugh! Get away from me, you fluttering pack!—
They cling like pitch and sulphur to my back.
ANGELS [in chorus].
What has no part in you
You have no need of it,
What frets the heart in you
Do not take heed of it.
If the defences fail
Our strength must then prevail.
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Love: for by love alone
Heaven is won.
MEPHISTOPHELES. My head’s on fire, my heart and guts as well:*
This is worse than the flames of hell!
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Some superdiabolic element
Is piercing me. Is this the pain that’s meant,
Why unrequited lovers wail Alas!
And crane their necks to see their mistress pass?
Even I! What twists my head towards them somehow?
I was their mortal enemy till now:
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Even the sight of them was more than I could bear.
Am I possessed, then, by some alien force?
I like the look of these nice boys—of course
I do! What’s this? Why can’t I curse and swear?
I’d like to know who’s going to be
The fool in future, if they make a fool of me!
Young ruffians, how I hate them all! Yet I confess
They’re damned attractive none the less!—
My dears, would I be wrong to guess you are
By any chance cousins of Lucifer?
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You’re pretty! I must give you all a kiss!
I think you’ll suit me at a time like this.
I feel so comfy and so natural,
As if I’d seen you many times before;
So curiously cat-randy, and the more
I contemplate you, the more beautiful
You get. Come closer, please! Just one sweet glance!
THE ANGELS. We are coming; why do you shrink as we advance?
As we draw near, stand your ground if you can!
[THE ANGELS circle round, filling the entire stage.]
MEPHISTOPHELES [pushed forward to the proscenium].
You give us a bad name as sprites of hell,
And yet the witchcraft’s yours: your goblin-spell
Seduces woman and seduces man!
Damn this for an adventure! Can this be
The element of love, can it be real?
I burn all over, I can scarcely feel
My burnt hump where those flowers got at me.
You dither about so, my dears: come down!
Those lovely limbs should move more worldly-wise.
It’s true it suits you well, that serious frown;
But to see you smile would be a sweet surprise!
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Just once, please! It would give me such delight!
Just smile the little smile that lovers use—