Chapter 9

We, it seems, have entered newly In the sphere of dreams enchanted. Do thy bidding, guide us truly, That our feet be forwards planted In the vast, the desert spaces! See them swiftly changing places, Trees on trees beside us trooping, And the crags above us stooping, And the rocky snouts, outgrowing,— Hear them snoring, hear them blowing! O’er the stones, the grasses, flowing Stream and streamlet seek the hollow. Hear I noises? songs that follow? Hear I tender love-petitions? Voices of those heavenly visions? Sounds of hope, of love undying! And the echoes, like traditions Of old days, come faint and hollow.

Hoo-hoo! Shoo-hoo! Nearer hover Jay and screech-owl, and the plover,— Are they all awake and crying? Is’t the salamander pushes, Bloated-bellied, through the bushes? And the roots, like serpents twisted, Through the sand and boulders toiling, Fright us, weirdest links uncoiling To entrap us, unresisted: Living knots and gnarls uncanny Feel with polypus-antennae For the wanderer. Mice are flying, Thousand-colored, herd-wise hieing Through the moss and through the heather!

And the fire-flies wink and darkle, Crowded swarms that soar and sparkle, And in wildering escort gather!

Tell me, if we still are standing, Or if further we’re ascending? All is turning, whirling, blending, Trees and rocks with grinning faces, Wandering lights that spin in mazes, Still increasing and expanding!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted! Here a middle-peak is planted, Whence one seeth, with amaze, Mammon in the mountain blaze.

FAUST

How strangely glimmers through the hollows A dreary light, like that of dawn! Its exhalation tracks and follows The deepest gorges, faint and wan. Here steam, there rolling vapor sweepeth; Here burns the glow through film and haze: Now like a tender thread it creepeth, Now like a fountain leaps and plays. Here winds away, and in a hundred Divided veins the valley braids: There, in a corner pressed and sundered, Itself detaches, spreads and fades. Here gush the sparkles incandescent Like scattered showers of golden sand;— But, see! in all their height, at present, The rocky ramparts blazing stand.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Has not Sir Mammon grandly lighted His palace for this festal night? ’Tis lucky thou hast seen the sight; The boisterous guests approach that were invited.

FAUST

How raves the tempest through the air! With what fierce blows upon my neck ’tis beating!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Under the old ribs of the rock retreating, Hold fast, lest thou be hurled down the abysses there! The night with the mist is black; Hark! how the forests grind and crack! Frightened, the owlets are scattered: Hearken! the pillars are shattered. The evergreen palaces shaking! Boughs are groaning and breaking, The tree-trunks terribly thunder, The roots are twisting asunder! In frightfully intricate crashing Each on the other is dashing, And over the wreck-strewn gorges The tempest whistles and surges! Hear’st thou voices higher ringing? Far away, or nearer singing? Yes, the mountain’s side along, Sweeps an infuriate glamouring song!

WITCHES (_in chorus_)

The witches ride to the Brocken’s top, The stubble is yellow, and green the crop. There gathers the crowd for carnival: Sir Urian sits over all.

And so they go over stone and stock; The witch she——s, and——s the buck.

A VOICE

Alone, old Baubo’s coming now; She rides upon a farrow-sow.

CHORUS

Then honor to whom the honor is due! Dame Baubo first, to lead the crew! A tough old sow and the mother thereon, Then follow the witches, every one.

A VOICE

Which way com’st thou hither?

VOICE

O’er the Ilsen-stone. I peeped at the owl in her nest alone: How she stared and glared!

VOICE

Betake thee to Hell! Why so fast and so fell?

VOICE

She has scored and has flayed me: See the wounds she has made me!

WITCHES (_chorus_)

The way is wide, the way is long: See, what a wild and crazy throng! The broom it scratches, the fork it thrusts, The child is stifled, the mother bursts. WIZARDS (_semichorus_)

As doth the snail in shell, we crawl: Before us go the women all. When towards the Devil’s House we tread, Woman’s a thousand steps ahead.

OTHER SEMICHORUS

We do not measure with such care: Woman in thousand steps is theft. But howsoe’er she hasten may, Man in one leap has cleared the way.

VOICE (_from above_)

Come on, come on, from Rocky Lake!

VOICE (_from below_)

Aloft we’d fain ourselves betake. We’ve washed, and are bright as ever you will, Yet we’re eternally sterile still.

BOTH CHORUSES

The wind is hushed, the star shoots by. The dreary moon forsakes the sky; The magic notes, like spark on spark, Drizzle, whistling through the dark.

VOICE (_from below_)

Halt, there! Ho, there!

VOICE (_from above_)

Who calls from the rocky cleft below there?

VOICE (_below_)

Take me, too! take me, too! I’m climbing now three hundred years, And yet the summit cannot see: Among my equals I would be.

BOTH CHORUSES

Bears the broom and bears the stock, Bears the fork and bears the buck: Who cannot raise himself to-night Is evermore a ruined wight.

HALF-WITCH (_below_)

So long I stumble, ill bestead, And the others are now so far ahead! At home I’ve neither rest nor cheer, And yet I cannot gain them here.

CHORUS OF WITCHES

To cheer the witch will salve avail; A rag will answer for a sail; Each trough a goodly ship supplies; He ne’er will fly, who now not flies.

BOTH CHORUSES

When round the summit whirls our flight, Then lower, and on the ground alight; And far and wide the heather press With witchhood’s swarms of wantonness!

(_They settle down_.)

MEPHISTOPHELES

They crowd and push, they roar and clatter! They whirl and whistle, pull and chatter! They shine, and spirt, and stink, and burn! The true witch-element we learn. Keep close! or we are parted, in our turn, Where art thou?

FAUST (_in the distance_)

Here!

MEPHISTOPHELES

What! whirled so far astray? Then house-right I must use, and clear the way. Make room! Squire Voland comes! Room, gentle rabble, room!

Here, Doctor, hold to me: in one jump we’ll resume An easier space, and from the crowd be free: It’s too much, even for the like of me. Yonder, with special light, there’s something shining clearer Within those bushes; I’ve a mind to see. Come on! we’ll slip a little nearer.

FAUST

Spirit of Contradiction! On! I’ll follow straight. ’Tis planned most wisely, if I judge aright: We climb the Brocken’s top in the Walpurgis-Night, That arbitrarily, here, ourselves we isolate.

MEPHISTOPHELES

But see, what motley flames among the heather! There is a lively club together: In smaller circles one is not alone.

FAUST

Better the summit, I must own: There fire and whirling smoke I see. They seek the Evil One in wild confusion: Many enigmas there might find solution.

MEPHISTOPHELES

But there enigmas also knotted be. Leave to the multitude their riot! Here will we house ourselves in quiet. It is an old, transmitted trade, That in the greater world the little worlds are made. I see stark-nude young witches congregate, And old ones, veiled and hidden shrewdly: On my account be kind, nor treat them rudely! The trouble’s small, the fun is great. I hear the noise of instruments attuning,— Vile din! yet one must learn to bear the crooning. Come, come along! It _must_ be, I declare! I’ll go ahead and introduce thee there, Thine obligation newly earning. That is no little space: what say’st thou, friend? Look yonder! thou canst scarcely see the end: A hundred fires along the ranks are burning. They dance, they chat, they cook, they drink, they court: Now where, just tell me, is there better sport?

FAUST

Wilt thou, to introduce us to the revel, Assume the part of wizard or of devil?

MEPHISTOPHELES

I’m mostly used, ’tis true, to go incognito, But on a gala-day one may his orders show. The Garter does not deck my suit, But honored and at home is here the cloven foot. Perceiv’st thou yonder snail? It cometh, slow and steady; So delicately its feelers pry, That it hath scented me already: I cannot here disguise me, if I try. But come! we’ll go from this fire to a newer: I am the go-between, and thou the wooer.

(_To some, who are sitting around dying embers_:)

Old gentlemen, why at the outskirts? Enter! I’d praise you if I found you snugly in the centre, With youth and revel round you like a zone: You each, at home, are quite enough alone.

GENERAL

Say, who would put his trust in nations, Howe’er for them one may have worked and planned? For with the people, as with women, Youth always has the upper hand.

MINISTER

They’re now too far from what is just and sage. I praise the old ones, not unduly: When we were all-in-all, then, truly, _Then_ was the real golden age.

PARVENU

We also were not stupid, either, And what we should not, often did; But now all things have from their bases slid, Just as we meant to hold them fast together.

AUTHOR

Who, now, a work of moderate sense will read? Such works are held as antiquate and mossy; And as regards the younger folk, indeed, They never yet have been so pert and saucy.

MEPHISTOPHELES

(_who all at once appears very old_)

I feel that men are ripe for Judgment-Day, Now for the last time I’ve the witches’-hill ascended: Since to the lees _my_ cask is drained away, The world’s, as well, must soon be ended.

HUCKSTER-WITCH

Ye gentlemen, don’t pass me thus! Let not the chance neglected be! Behold my wares attentively: The stock is rare and various. And yet, there’s nothing I’ve collected— No shop, on earth, like this you’ll find!— Which has not, once, sore hurt inflicted Upon the world, and on mankind. No dagger’s here, that set not blood to flowing; No cup, that hath not once, within a healthy frame Poured speedy death, in poison glowing: No gems, that have not brought a maid to shame; No sword, but severed ties for the unwary, Or from behind struck down the adversary.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Gossip! the times thou badly comprehendest: What’s done has happed—what haps, is done! ’Twere better if for novelties thou sendest: By such alone can we be won.

FAUST

Let me not lose myself in all this pother! This is a fair, as never was another!

MEPHISTOPHELES

The whirlpool swirls to get above: Thou’rt shoved thyself, imagining to shove.

FAUST

But who is that?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Note her especially, Tis Lilith.

FAUST

Who?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Adam’s first wife is she. Beware the lure within her lovely tresses, The splendid sole adornment of her hair! When she succeeds therewith a youth to snare, Not soon again she frees him from her jesses.

FAUST

Those two, the old one with the young one sitting, They’ve danced already more than fitting.

MEPHISTOPHELES

No rest to-night for young or old! They start another dance: come now, let us take hold!

FAUST (_dancing with the young witch_)

A lovely dream once came to me; I then beheld an apple-tree, And there two fairest apples shone: They lured me so, I climbed thereon.

THE FAIR ONE

Apples have been desired by you, Since first in Paradise they grew; And I am moved with joy, to know That such within my garden grow.

MEPHISTOPHELES (_dancing with the old one_)

A dissolute dream once came to me: Therein I saw a cloven tree, Which had a————————; Yet,——as ’twas, I fancied it.

THE OLD ONE

I offer here my best salute Unto the knight with cloven foot! Let him a—————prepare, If him—————————does not scare.

PROKTOPHANTASMIST

Accurséd folk! How dare you venture thus? Had you not, long since, demonstration That ghosts can’t stand on ordinary foundation? And now you even dance, like one of us!

THE FAIR ONE (_dancing_)

Why does he come, then, to our ball?

FAUST (_dancing_)

O, everywhere on him you fall! When others dance, he weighs the matter: If he can’t every step bechatter, Then ’tis the same as were the step not made; But if you forwards go, his ire is most displayed. If you would whirl in regular gyration As he does in his dull old mill, He’d show, at any rate, good-will,— Especially if you heard and heeded his hortation.

PROKTOPHANTASMIST

You still are here? Nay, ’tis a thing unheard! Vanish, at once! We’ve said the enlightening word. The pack of devils by no rules is daunted: We are so wise, and yet is Tegel haunted. To clear the folly out, how have I swept and stirred! Twill ne’er be clean: why, ’tis a thing unheard!

THE FAIR ONE

Then cease to bore us at our ball!

PROKTOPHANTASMIST

I tell you, spirits, to your face, I give to spirit-despotism no place; My spirit cannot practise it at all.

(_The dance continues_)

Naught will succeed, I see, amid such revels; Yet something from a tour I always save, And hope, before my last step to the grave, To overcome the poets and the devils.

MEPHISTOPHELES

He now will seat him in the nearest puddle; The solace this, whereof he’s most assured: And when upon his rump the leeches hang and fuddle, He’ll be of spirits and of Spirit cured.

(_To_ FAUST, _who has left the dance_:)

Wherefore forsakest thou the lovely maiden, That in the dance so sweetly sang?

FAUST

Ah! in the midst of it there sprang A red mouse from her mouth—sufficient reason.

MEPHISTOPHELES

That’s nothing! One must not so squeamish be; So the mouse was not gray, enough for thee. Who’d think of that in love’s selected season?

FAUST

Then saw I—.

MEPHISTOPHELES

What?

FAUST

Mephisto, seest thou there, Alone and far, a girl most pale and fair? She falters on, her way scarce knowing, As if with fettered feet that stay her going. I must confess, it seems to me As if my kindly Margaret were she.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Let the thing be! All thence have evil drawn: It is a magic shape, a lifeless eidolon. Such to encounter is not good: Their blank, set stare benumbs the human blood, And one is almost turned to stone. Medusa’s tale to thee is known.

FAUST

Forsooth, the eyes they are of one whom, dying, No hand with loving pressure closed; That is the breast whereon I once was lying,— The body sweet, beside which I reposed!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Tis magic all, thou fool, seduced so easily! Unto each man his love she seems to be.

FAUST

The woe, the rapture, so ensnare me, That from her gaze I cannot tear me! And, strange! around her fairest throat A single scarlet band is gleaming, No broader than a knife-blade seeming!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Quite right! The mark I also note. Her head beneath her arm she’ll sometimes carry; Twas Perseus lopped it, her old adversary. Thou crav’st the same illusion still! Come, let us mount this little hill; The Prater shows no livelier stir, And, if they’ve not bewitched my sense, I verily see a theatre. What’s going on?

SERVIBILIS ’Twill shortly recommence: A new performance—’tis the last of seven. To give that number is the custom here: ’Twas by a Dilettante written, And Dilettanti in the parts appear. That now I vanish, pardon, I entreat you! As Dilettante I the curtain raise.

MEPHISTOPHELES When I upon the Blocksberg meet you, I find it good: for that’s your proper place.

XXII

WALPURGIS-NIGHT’S DREAM

OBERON AND TITANIA’s GOLDEN WEDDING

INTERMEZZO

MANAGER

Sons of Mieding, rest to-day! Needless your machinery: Misty vale and mountain gray, That is all the scenery.

HERALD

That the wedding golden be. Must fifty years be rounded: But _the Golden_ give to me, When the strife’s compounded.

OBERON

Spirits, if you’re here, be seen— Show yourselves, delighted! Fairy king and fairy queen, They are newly plighted.

PUCK

Cometh Puck, and, light of limb, Whisks and whirls in measure: Come a hundred after him, To share with him the pleasure.

ARIEL

Ariel’s song is heavenly-pure, His tones are sweet and rare ones: Though ugly faces he allure, Yet he allures the fair ones.

OBERON

Spouses, who would fain agree, Learn how we were mated! If your pairs would loving be, First be separated!

TITANIA

If her whims the wife control, And the man berate her, Take him to the Northern Pole, And her to the Equator!

ORCHESTRA. TUTTI.

_Fortissimo_.

Snout of fly, mosquito-bill, And kin of all conditions, Frog in grass, and cricket-trill,— These are the musicians!

SOLO

See the bagpipe on our track! ’Tis the soap-blown bubble: Hear the _schnecke-schnicke-schnack_ Through his nostrils double!

SPIRIT, JUST GROWING INTO FORM

Spider’s foot and paunch of toad, And little wings—we know ’em! A little creature ’twill not be, But yet, a little poem.

A LITTLE COUPLE

Little step and lofty leap Through honey-dew and fragrance: You’ll never mount the airy steep With all your tripping vagrance.

INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER

Is’t but masquerading play? See I with precision? Oberon, the beauteous fay, Meets, to-night, my vision!

ORTHODOX

Not a claw, no tail I see! And yet, beyond a cavil, Like “the Gods of Greece,” must he Also be a devil.

NORTHERN ARTIST

I only seize, with sketchy air, Some outlines of the tourney; Yet I betimes myself prepare For my Italian journey.

PURIST

My bad luck brings me here, alas! How roars the orgy louder! And of the witches in the mass, But only two wear powder.

YOUNG WITCH

Powder becomes, like petticoat, A gray and wrinkled noddy; So I sit naked on my goat, And show a strapping body.

MATRON

We’ve too much tact and policy To rate with gibes a scolder; Yet, young and tender though you be, I hope to see you moulder.

LEADER OF THE BAND

Fly-snout and mosquito-bill, Don’t swarm so round the Naked! Frog in grass and cricket-trill, Observe the time, and make it!

WEATHERCOCK (_towards one side_)

Society to one’s desire! Brides only, and the sweetest! And bachelors of youth and fire. And prospects the completest!

WEATHERCOCK (_towards the other side_)

And if the Earth don’t open now To swallow up each ranter, Why, then will I myself, I vow, Jump into hell instanter!

XENIES

Us as little insects see! With sharpest nippers flitting, That our Papa Satan we May honor as is fitting.

HENNINGS

How, in crowds together massed, They are jesting, shameless! They will even say, at last, That their hearts are blameless.

MUSAGETES

Among this witches’ revelry His way one gladly loses; And, truly, it would easier be Than to command the Muses.

CI-DEVANT GENIUS OF THE AGE

The proper folks one’s talents laud: Come on, and none shall pass us! The Blocksberg has a summit broad, Like Germany’s Parnassus.

INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER

Say, who’s the stiff and pompous man? He walks with haughty paces: He snuffles all he snuffle can: “He scents the Jesuits’ traces.”

CRANE

Both clear and muddy streams, for me Are good to fish and sport in: And thus the pious man you see With even devils consorting.

WORLDLING

Yes, for the pious, I suspect, All instruments are fitting; And on the Blocksberg they erect Full many a place of meeting.

DANCER

A newer chorus now succeeds! I hear the distant drumming. “Don’t be disturbed! ’tis, in the reeds, The bittern’s changeless booming.”

DANCING-MASTER

How each his legs in nimble trip Lifts up, and makes a clearance! The crooked jump, the heavy skip, Nor care for the appearance.

GOOD FELLOW

The rabble by such hate are held, To maim and slay delights them: As Orpheus’ lyre the brutes compelled, The bagpipe here unites them.

DOGMATIST

I’ll not be led by any lure Of doubts or critic-cavils: The Devil must be something, sure,— Or how should there be devils?

IDEALIST

This once, the fancy wrought in me Is really too despotic: Forsooth, if I am all I see, I must be idiotic!

REALIST

This racking fuss on every hand, It gives me great vexation; And, for the first time, here I stand On insecure foundation.

SUPERNATURALIST

With much delight I see the play, And grant to these their merits, Since from the devils I also may Infer the better spirits.

SCEPTIC

The flame they follow, on and on, And think they’re near the treasure: But _Devil_ rhymes with _Doubt_ alone, So I am here with pleasure.

LEADER OF THE BAND

Frog in green, and cricket-trill. Such dilettants!—perdition! Fly-snout and mosquito-bill,— Each one’s a fine musician!

THE ADROIT

_Sans souci_, we call the clan Of merry creatures so, then; Go a-foot no more we can, And on our heads we go, then.

THE AWKWARD

Once many a bit we sponged, but now, God help us! that is done with: Our shoes are all danced out, we trow, We’ve but naked soles to run with.

WILL-O’-THE WISPS

From the marshes we appear, Where we originated; Yet in the ranks, at once, we’re here As glittering gallants rated.

SHOOTING-STAR

Darting hither from the sky, In star and fire light shooting, Cross-wise now in grass I lie: Who’ll help me to my footing?

THE HEAVY FELLOWS

Room! and round about us, room! Trodden are the grasses: Spirits also, spirits come, And they are bulky masses.

PUCK

Enter not so stall-fed quite, Like elephant-calves about one! And the heaviest weight to-night Be Puck, himself, the stout one!

ARIEL

If loving Nature at your back, Or Mind, the wings uncloses, Follow up my airy track To the mount of roses!

ORCHESTRA

_pianissimo_ Cloud and trailing mist o’erhead Are now illuminated: Air in leaves, and wind in reed, And all is dissipated.

XXIII

DREARY DAY

A FIELD

FAUST MEPHISTOPHELES

FAUST

In misery! In despair! Long wretchedly astray on the face of the earth, and now imprisoned! That gracious, ill-starred creature shut in a dungeon as a criminal, and given up to fearful torments! To this has it come! to this!—Treacherous, contemptible spirit, and thou hast concealed it from me!—Stand, then,—stand! Roll the devilish eyes wrathfully in thy head! Stand and defy me with thine intolerable presence! Imprisoned! In irretrievable misery! Delivered up to evil spirits, and to condemning, unfeeling Man! And thou hast lulled me, meanwhile, with the most insipid dissipations, hast concealed from me her increasing wretchedness, and suffered her to go helplessly to ruin! [Illustration: _Roll the devilish eyes wrathfully in thy head_]

MEPHISTOPHELES

She is not the first.

FAUST

Dog! Abominable monster! Transform him, thou Infinite Spirit! transform the reptile again into his dog-shape? in which it pleased him often at night to scamper on before me, to roll himself at the feet of the unsuspecting wanderer, and hang upon his shoulders when he fell! Transform him again into his favorite likeness, that he may crawl upon his belly in the dust before me,—that I may trample him, the outlawed, under foot! Not the first! O woe! woe which no human soul can grasp, that more than one being should sink into the depths of this misery,—that the first, in its writhing death-agony under the eyes of the Eternal Forgiver, did not expiate the guilt of all others! The misery of this single one pierces to the very marrow of my life; and thou art calmly grinning at the fate of thousands!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Now we are already again at the end of our wits, where the understanding of you men runs wild. Why didst thou enter into fellowship with us, if thou canst not carry it out? Wilt fly, and art not secure against dizziness? Did we thrust ourselves upon thee, or thou thyself upon us?

FAUST

Gnash not thus thy devouring teeth at me? It fills me with horrible disgust. Mighty, glorious Spirit, who hast vouchsafed to me Thine apparition, who knowest my heart and my soul, why fetter me to the felon-comrade, who feeds on mischief and gluts himself with ruin?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Hast thou done?

FAUST

Rescue her, or woe to thee! The fearfullest curse be upon thee for thousands of ages!

MEPHISTOPHELES