Faust, Part One

Goethe's Part One has three opening pieces and some twenty-five scenes. By length it falls into two episodes, broken where Goethe's play itself turns: the scholar's tragedy, up to the Witch's Kitchen, and Gretchen's tragedy. The verse is condensed and rendered in free English verse, keeping the speakers and stage directions. The English is my own, made from the German.

Dedication

You come again, you wavering forms, that once appeared to my dim eyes when I was young. Shall I try this time to hold you fast? Does my heart still lean towards that dream? You press so close! Then have your way; rise up out of the mist and haze around me; my breast feels young again, shaken by the magic breath that clings about your train.

You bring with you the images of happy days, and many a loved shade comes up with you; like an old, half-faded legend, first love and friendship come with them; the pain returns, the lament repeats life's labyrinthine, wandering course, and names the good ones, cheated of fair hours by fortune, who have vanished before me.

They do not hear the songs that follow, the souls to whom I sang the first; the friendly crowd is scattered, the first echo, ah, has died away. My song sounds now to a strange multitude, whose very praise makes my heart afraid; and those who once took joy in it, if they live, wander scattered through the world.

And a longing long unknown takes hold of me for that still, solemn realm of spirits; my whispering song floats, in uncertain tones, like the Aeolian harp; a shudder seizes me, tear follows tear, the stern heart feels itself grow mild and soft; what I possess I see as far away, and what has vanished becomes real to me.

Prelude in the Theatre

The DIRECTOR, the POET, and the COMIC ACTOR.

DIRECTOR. You two, who have stood by me so often in need and trouble, tell me: what do you expect of our undertaking here in German lands? I want to please the crowd, because it lives and lets us live. The posts are up, the boards are laid, and everyone expects a feast. They sit already, brows raised, calm, and want to be amazed. How shall we do it, so all is fresh and new, and meaningful, and pleasing? Give them plenty. Give them more. Give them a stew!

POET. Don't speak to me of that motley crowd, at whose sight the spirit flees. Lead me to the quiet corner of heaven where pure joy blooms only for the poet. What has been made for glitter lives a moment; what is true is handed down to later times.

COMIC ACTOR. Later times! Don't tell me about later times! Suppose I talked of later times — who'd make fun for the present? Show some sense: let Fancy speak, with all her choruses, reason, understanding, feeling, passion — but mind you, not without some folly too!

DIRECTOR. Above all, let plenty happen! They come to look; they want to see. Who brings a lot brings something to a lot of people. Enough words have been exchanged; let me see deeds. On our German stage everyone tries what he likes: so spare me neither scenery nor machinery, use the great and little lights of heaven, stars in plenty, water, fire, rock-faces, beasts and birds. And so in this narrow house of boards pace out the whole circle of creation, and travel, swiftly, but with care, from heaven, through the world, to hell.

Prologue in Heaven

The LORD. The HEAVENLY HOSTS. Then MEPHISTOPHELES. The three ARCHANGELS step forward.

RAPHAEL. The sun sounds out, in ancient fashion, among the brother spheres its rival song, and its appointed journey it completes with thunder. Its sight gives the angels strength, though none can fathom it; the high, unfathomable works are glorious as on the first day.

GABRIEL. And swift beyond all thought the splendour of the earth revolves, paradise brightness changing with deep and fearful night.

MICHAEL. And storms roar, rivals, from sea to land, from land to sea, and forge a chain of deepest power round the world. Yet your messengers, Lord, revere the gentle passing of your day.

THE THREE. Its sight gives the angels strength, since none can fathom you, and all your lofty works are glorious as on the first day.

MEPHISTOPHELES. Since you, O Lord, come near again and ask how things are going with us, and since you used to like to see me, you see me here among your household too. Forgive me, I can't make grand speeches. Of suns and worlds I have nothing to say; I only see how men torment themselves. The little god of the world stays always the same, as odd as on the first day. He would live a little better if you had not given him the glimmer of heaven's light; he calls it Reason, and uses it only to be more beastly than any beast. He seems to me, if Your Grace will pardon me, like one of those long-legged grasshoppers that always fly, and flying leap, and sing their same old song down in the grass. And if only he lay in the grass! He pokes his nose in every heap of dung.

THE LORD. Have you nothing else to say? Do you only come to complain? Is nothing ever right for you on earth?

MEPHISTOPHELES. No, Lord! I find it there, as always, thoroughly bad. Men pity me in their days of misery; I hardly like to plague the poor things myself.

THE LORD. Do you know Faust?

MEPHISTOPHELES. The Doctor?

THE LORD. My servant.

MEPHISTOPHELES. Indeed! He serves you in a curious way. The fool's food and drink are not of this earth. His ferment drives him far away; he is half aware of his own madness: he demands from heaven the fairest stars and from the earth its highest pleasures, and nothing near or far can calm his deeply stirred heart.

THE LORD. Though he serves me now only in confusion, I shall soon lead him into clarity. The gardener knows, when the sapling greens, that flower and fruit will grace the coming years.

MEPHISTOPHELES. What will you wager? You will lose him yet, if you give me leave to lead him gently down my road.

THE LORD. As long as he lives on the earth, so long it shall not be forbidden you. Man errs as long as he strives.

MEPHISTOPHELES. I thank you; for with the dead I've never cared to have much to do. I like full, fresh cheeks best. For a corpse I'm not at home; I'm like the cat with the mouse.

THE LORD. Very well, it is left to you. Draw this spirit from its source, and lead him, if you can catch him, down your path with you; and stand ashamed when you must own: a good man, in his dark urge, is well aware of the right way.

MEPHISTOPHELES. All right! It won't take long. I'm not afraid for my wager. If I reach my goal, allow me my triumph with a full heart. Dust he shall eat, and with pleasure, like my aunt, the famous snake.

THE LORD. Appear then freely, here too; I have never hated your kind. Of all the spirits that deny, the rogue is least of all a burden to me. Man's activity slackens all too easily; he soon loves unconditional rest; so I am glad to give him the companion who goads and works and, as devil, must create. But you, true sons of God, rejoice in living beauty!

Heaven closes. The ARCHANGELS disperse.

MEPHISTOPHELES (alone). I like to see the Old Man now and then, and take care not to break with him. It's really nice of so great a lord to talk so humanly with the Devil himself.

Night

A high-vaulted, narrow Gothic room. FAUST, restless, in his chair at his desk.

FAUST. I have studied, alas, philosophy, law and medicine, and, worst of all, theology, thoroughly, with burning zeal. And here I stand, poor fool, and am no wiser than before. They call me Master, even Doctor, and for ten years now I've led my students up, down, crosswise, by the nose — and see that we can know nothing. It almost burns my heart out. I'm cleverer, true, than all those fops, doctors, masters, scribes and priests; no scruple or doubt torments me, I fear neither hell nor devil — but all my joy is torn from me. I don't pretend to know anything worth knowing, I don't pretend I could teach anything to better men or convert them. I have no goods or money, no honour or splendour in the world; no dog would want to live like this! So I have given myself to magic, to see if through the spirit's force and mouth some secrets might be revealed to me; so that I no longer, sweating, have to say what I don't know; so that I may know what holds the world together at its core, see all the working forces and the seeds, and stop rummaging in words.

O full moon, if only you looked down for the last time on my pain, you, for whom I've watched so many midnights at this desk! Ah, could I walk on mountain heights in your dear light, float with spirits round the caves, weave over meadows in your twilight, and, freed of all the smoke of knowledge, bathe myself healthy in your dew!

But no — I'm still stuck in this dungeon, this cursed, musty hole in the wall, where even the dear light of heaven breaks dimly through the painted panes, hemmed in by this heap of books, gnawed by worms and covered in dust, with smoky paper up to the vaulting, glasses and boxes all around, crammed with instruments, my forefathers' lumber stuffed in — that is your world! That's called a world!

Up! Out into the open country! And this mysterious book, from Nostradamus's own hand, is it not companion enough?

He opens the book and sees the sign of the Macrocosm.

Ha! What bliss streams at this sight suddenly through all my senses! Was it a god who wrote these signs? How everything weaves itself into the whole, one thing works and lives in another! How heavenly forces rise and descend and hand each other the golden buckets! What a spectacle! But, ah, a spectacle only! Where shall I grasp you, endless Nature? You breasts, where?

He turns the pages impatiently and sees the sign of the Earth Spirit.

How differently this sign works on me! You, Spirit of the Earth, are nearer. I feel my powers rise already; I feel the courage to go into the world, to bear the earth's woe, the earth's happiness, to wrestle with storms, and not to quail in the shipwreck's crash. Spirit I implore, you hover near me; reveal yourself!

He seizes the book and speaks the sign of the Spirit mysteriously. A reddish flame flashes; the SPIRIT appears in the flame.

SPIRIT. Who calls me?

FAUST (turning away). Terrible face!

SPIRIT. You have drawn me mightily, sucked long at my sphere, and now —

FAUST. Oh! I cannot bear you!

SPIRIT. Where is the soul that called? Where is the superman? Is this you, who, touched by my breath, trembles in all the depths of life, a fearful, shrinking worm?

FAUST. Shall I give way to you, figure of flame? It is I, it is Faust, your equal!

SPIRIT. In the floods of life, in the storm of action, I surge up and down, weave to and fro! Birth and grave, an eternal sea, a changing weaving, a glowing life: so I work at the whirring loom of time, and weave the living garment of God.

FAUST. You who range the wide world, busy spirit, how near I feel to you!

SPIRIT. You are like the spirit you understand — not me!

It vanishes.

FAUST (collapsing). Not you? Whom then? I, image of the Godhead! And not even like you!

A knock.

Oh death! I know it — that's my famulus. My finest happiness turns to nothing! That the fullness of these visions should be disturbed by that dry creeper!

WAGNER, in nightgown and nightcap, a lamp in his hand. FAUST turns away unwillingly.

WAGNER. Forgive me! I heard you declaiming; surely you were reading a Greek tragedy? I'd like to profit by that art; for nowadays it is very effective. I've often heard it said a player could teach a parson.

FAUST. Yes, when the parson is a player, as may well happen now and then. If you don't feel it, you will never get it; if it does not rise out of the soul and with deep, original delight compel the hearts of all who listen. Never will you move heart to heart unless it comes from your own heart.

WAGNER. Ah God! But art is long, and our life is short.

FAUST. Parchment — is that the holy spring from which one drink quenches thirst for ever? You have not won refreshment unless it pours out of your own soul.

WAGNER. Forgive me; but it's a great delight to put oneself into the spirit of the times, to see how a wise man thought before us, and how gloriously far we've come at last.

FAUST. Oh yes, as far as the stars! My friend, the times of the past are a book with seven seals to us. What you call the spirit of the times is at bottom the gentlemen's own spirit, in which the times are mirrored. Pardon me — it's late. Let's stop for now.

WAGNER. I would gladly have stayed up to talk so learnedly with you. But tomorrow, the first day of Easter, allow me one or two questions more. I have studied with zeal; I know a lot, but I want to know everything.

Exit.

FAUST (alone). How hope never leaves that head, that always clings to shallow stuff, digs with greedy hand for treasure, and is glad when it finds earthworms! I, image of God, who thought myself already near the mirror of eternal truth — a word of thunder has swept me away. What do I see? That little flask up there: I greet you, unique phial, which I now take down with reverence. In you I honour human wit and art. You essence of sweet sleeping juices, you extract of all fine deadly powers, show your favour to your master! I see you, and the pain is eased; I grasp you, and the striving slackens. To the open sea the tide is beckoning; a new day lures me to new shores. Now let me dare to tear open the gates that every man would gladly slink past. I bring this last drink, with all my soul, as a festive greeting to the morning.

He puts the cup to his mouth. Bells ring and a choir sings.

CHORUS OF ANGELS. Christ is risen! Joy to the mortal one, whom the destructive, creeping, inherited faults entangled.

FAUST. What deep humming, what clear tone, draws the cup from my mouth with power? Do you deep bells already proclaim the first hour of the Easter feast?

CHORUS OF WOMEN. With spices we tended him, we, his faithful ones, laid him here; cloth and bands we wound about him; and ah! we find Christ no longer here.

CHORUS OF ANGELS. Christ is risen! Blessed the loving one, who has passed the troubling, healing, purifying test.

FAUST. Why do you seek me in the dust, you heavenly tones, so strong and mild? I hear the message well; it is only faith I lack. And yet, used to that sound from childhood, it calls me back now into life. Once the kiss of heavenly love fell on me in the solemn stillness of the Sabbath; the bells rang full of foreboding, and a prayer was burning joy. A sweet, incomprehensible longing drove me through woods and meadows, and under a thousand hot tears I felt a world rise up for me. That memory now, with childlike feeling, holds me back from the last, most solemn step. Oh sound on, sweet songs of heaven! The tear wells up; the earth has me again!

Outside the Town Gate

People of all kinds go out walking: apprentices, maids, students, burghers, soldiers. A BEGGAR sings. Later FAUST and WAGNER.

FAUST. River and brooks are freed from ice by spring's lovely, quickening glance; in the valley hope's happiness grows green; old winter, in his weakness, has withdrawn into the rough mountains. Turn round and look back from these heights at the town. Out of the hollow, dark gate a motley crowd presses forth. They are celebrating the resurrection of the Lord, for they themselves are risen: from low houses' musty rooms, from the bonds of trade and craft, from the pressure of gables and roofs, from the crushing narrowness of the streets, from the churches' solemn night, they are all brought out into the light. I hear the village bustle already; here is the people's true heaven; here I am a man, here I may be one.

Under the lime tree, peasants dance and sing. An OLD PEASANT brings Faust a jug of wine.

OLD PEASANT. Doctor, it's good of you not to scorn us today. You helped us many a time, in the plague years, you and your father, when you were young.

FAUST. Bow before the One above, who teaches help and sends help.

They walk on.

FAUST. This praise sounds to me like mockery. My father was a dark, honest man, who brooded over nature and its holy circles in his own odd way; he shut himself in the black kitchen and mixed his potions, and the patients died, and nobody asked who got well. So we raged, with our hellish medicines, in these valleys, in these mountains, far worse than the plague. I myself gave the poison to thousands; they withered, and I must live to hear the brazen murderers praised.

WAGNER. How can you grieve over that?

FAUST. Oh, happy is he who can still hope to rise up out of this sea of error! Two souls, alas, live in my breast, and one would separate from the other; one, in rough lust for love, holds on to the world with clinging organs; the other rises powerfully from the dust to the fields of high ancestors. Oh, if there are spirits in the air, weaving between earth and heaven, come down from the golden haze, and lead me off to new and colourful life!

A black poodle runs in circles round them in the fields.

FAUST. Do you see the black dog running through the corn and stubble? Do you see how he runs in great spirals, closer and closer to us? And if I'm not mistaken, a trail of fire whirls behind him on his path.

WAGNER. I see only a black poodle. He's well trained; he's fit for a student.

FAUST. Then come with us, poodle.

Study (I)

FAUST, entering with the POODLE.