The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 01 Masterpieces of German Literature Translated Into English.
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMAN CLASSICS, VOL. I. ***
The
German Classics
of
The Nineteenth and
Twentieth Centuries
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Kuno Francke, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D.
1913
CONTENTS OF VOLUME I
Editor's Preface
Publishers Foreword
General Introduction.
By Richard M. Meyer
POEMS
The Heathrose.
Adapted from the translation by E.A. Bowring
Mahomet's Song.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
Prometheus.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
The Sea-Voyage.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
To the Moon.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
The Fisherman.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
The Erl-King.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
The Godlike.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
Mignon.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
Comfort in Tears.
Translated by W.E. Aytoun and Theodore Martin
Ergo Bibamus.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
Found.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
Hatem.
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman
Reunion.
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman
Procemion.
Translated by E.A. Bowring
A Legacy.
Translated by A.I. du P. Coleman
* * * * *
DRAMAS
* * * * *
Introduction to Faust.
Calvin Thomas
ILLUSTRATIONS-VOLUME I
Goethe. By J. J�ger
Goethe. By J. Stieler
Prometheus. By Titian
EDITOR'S PREFACE
THE GERMAN CLASSICS OF THE NINETEENTH AND TWENTIETH CENTURIES has been
planned to correct this narrow and inadequate view. Here for the first
time English readers will find a panorama of the whole of German
literature from Goethe to the present day; here for the first time
they will find the most representative writers of each period brought
together and exhibited by their most representative works; here for
the first time an opportunity will be offered to form a just
conception of the truly remarkable literary achievements of Germany
during the last hundred years.
That German lyric verse of the last hundred years should have been
distinguished by beauty of structure, depth of feeling, and wealth of
melody, is not to be wondered at if we remember that this was the
century of the revival of folk-song, and that it produced such
song-composers as Schubert and Schumann and Robert Franz and Hugo Wolf
and Richard Strauss. But it seems strange that, apart from Heine, even
the greatest of German lyric poets, such as Platen, Lenau, M�rike,
Annette von Droste, Geibel, Liliencron, Dehmel, M�nchhausen, Rilke,
should be so little known beyond the borders of the Fatherland.
The German novel of the past century was, for a long time,
unquestionably inferior to both the English and the French novel of
the same epoch. But in the midst of much that is tiresome and involved
and artificial, there stand out, even in the middle of the century,
such masterpieces of characterization as Otto Ludwig's _Zwischen
Himmel und Erde_ or Wilhelm Raabe's _Der Hungerpastor_, such
delightful revelations of genuine humor as Fritz Reuter's _Ut mine
Stromtid_, such penetrating studies of social conditions as Gustav
Freytag's _Soll und Haben_. And during the last third of the century
there has clearly developed a new, forcible, original style of German
novel writing. Seldom has the short story been handled more skilfully
and felicitously than by such men as Paul Heyse, Gottfried Keller, C.
F. Meyer, Theodor Storm. Seldom has the novel of tragic import and
passion been treated with greater refinement and delicacy than in such
works as Fontane's _Effi Briest_, Ricarda Huch's _Ludolf Ursleu_,
Wilhelm von Polenz's _Der B�ttnerbauer_, or Ludwig Thoma's _Andreas
V�st_. And it may be doubted whether, at the present moment, there is
any country where the novel is represented by so many gifted writers
or exhibits such exuberant vitality, such sturdy truthfulness, such
seriousness of purpose, or such a wide range of imagination as in
contemporary Germany.
All these dramatists, lyric poets, and novelists, and with them not a
few essayists, philosophers, orators, and publicists,[1] of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries will speak in the following volumes
to America and other countries of the English language. They have been
arranged, in the main, chronologically. The first three volumes have
been given to the mature work of Goethe and Schiller--time-tested and
securely niched. Volumes IV and V contain the principal Romanticists,
including Fichte and Schelling; Volume VI brings Heine, Grillparzer,
and Beethoven to view;
Volume VII, Hegel and Young Germany; Volume VIII, Auerbach, Gotthelf,
and Fritz Reuter; Volume IX, Hebbel and Ludwig; Volume X, Bismarck,
Moltke, Lassalle. Of the second half of the collection there might be
singled out: Volume XIV (Gottfried Keller and C.F. Meyer); Volume XV
(Schopenhauer, Wagner, Nietzsche, Emperor William II.); Volume XVIII
(Gerhart Hauptmann, Detlev von Liliencron, Richard Dehmel). The last
two volumes will be devoted to the most recent of contemporary authors.
The crux of the whole undertaking lies in the correctness and adequacy
of the translations. How difficult, if not impossible, a really
satisfactory translation is, especially in lyric poetry, no one
realizes more clearly than the editors. Their only comfort is that
they have succeeded in obtaining the assistance of many well trained
and thoroughly equipped scholars, among them such names of poets as
Hermann Hagedorn, Percy MacKaye, George Sylvester Viereck, and
Martin Sch�tze.
Kuno Francke.
PUBLISHERS' FOREWORD
The German Classics is the first work issued by The German Publication
Society in pursuance of a comprehensive plan to open to the
English-speaking people of the world the treasures of German thought
and achievement in Literature, Art and Science.
General Introduction
This impoverishment of the language the century of the great war tried
to remedy in two opposite ways. For the majority the easiest solution
was to borrow from their richer neighbors, and thus originated that
affectation of all things foreign, which, in speaking, led to the most
variegated use and misuse of foreign words. Patriotically-minded men,
on the contrary, endeavored to cultivate the purity of their mother
tongue the while they enriched it; this, above all, was the ambition
of the various "Linguistic Societies." Their activity, though soon
deprived of a wide usefulness by pedantry and a clannish spirit,
prepared the way for great feats of linguistic reorganization. Through
Christian Wolff a philosophic terminology was systematically created;
from Pietism were received new mediums of expression for intimate
conditions of the soul; neither must we quite overlook the fact that
to some extent a new system of German titles and official designations
was associated with the new institutions of the modern state. More
important, however, than these details--which might have been
accomplished by men like Johann Gottfried Herder, Immanuel Kant and
Goethe; like the statesman, Heinrich Freiherr von Stein; and the
warrior, General von Scharnhorst--was this fact that, in general, an
esthetic interest had been again awakened in the language, which too
long had served as a mere tool. Also the slowly developing study of
language was of some help; even the falsest etymology taught people to
look upon words as organisms; even the most superficial grammar, to
observe broad relationships and parallel formations. So, then, the
eighteenth century could, in the treatment of the mother tongue, enter
upon a goodly heritage, of which for a long time Johann Christoph
Gottsched might not unjustly be counted the guardian. It was a
thoroughly conservative linguistic stewardship, which received
gigantic expression in Adelung's Dictionary--with all its
deficiencies, the most important German dictionary that had been
compiled up to that time. Clearness, intelligibleness, exactitude were
insisted upon. It was demanded that there should be a distinct
difference between the language of the writer and that in everyday
use, and again a difference between poetic language and prose; on the
other hand, great care had to be taken that the difference should
never become too great, so that common intelligibility should not
suffer. Thus the new poetic language of Klopstock, precisely on
account of its power and richness, was obliged to submit to the
bitterest mockery and the most injudicious abuse from the partisans of
Gottsched. As the common ideal of the pedagogues of language, who were
by no means merely narrow-minded pedants, one may specify that which
had long ago been accomplished for France--namely, a uniform choice of
a stock of words best suited to the needs of a clear and luminous
literature for the cultivated class, and the stylistic application of
the same. Two things, above all, were neglected: they failed to
realize (as did France also) the continual development of a healthy
language, though the ancients had glimpses of this; and they failed
(this in contrast to France) to comprehend the radical differences
between the various forms of literary composition. Therefore the
pre-classical period still left enough to be done by the classical.
It was Klopstock who accomplished the most; he created a new, a lofty
poetic language, which was to be recognized, not by the use of
conventional metaphors and swelling hyperboles, but by the direct
expression of a highly exalted mood. However, the danger of a forced
overstraining of the language was combatted by Christoph Martin
Wieland, who formed a new and elegant narrative prose on Greek,
French, and English models, and also introduced the same style into
poetic narrative, herein abetted by Friedrich von Hagedorn as his
predecessor and co-worker. Right on the threshold, then, of the great
new German literature another mixture of styles sprang up, and we see,
for example, Klopstock strangely transplanting his pathos into the
field of theoretical researches on grammar and metrics, and Wieland
not always keeping his irony aloof from the most solemn subjects. But
beside them stood Gotthold Ephraim Lessing who proved himself to be
the most thoughtful of the reformers of poetry, in that he emphasized
the divisions--especially necessary for the stylistic development of
German poetry--of literary categories and the arts. The most
far-reaching influence, however, was exercised by Herder, when he
preached that the actual foundation of all poetic treatment of
language was the individual style, and exemplified the real nature of
original style, i. e., inwardly-appropriate modes of expression, by
referring, on the one hand, to the poetry of the people and, on the
other, to Shakespeare or the Bible, the latter considered as a higher
type of popular poetry.
So the weapons lay ready to the hand of the dramatist Lessing, the
lyric poet Goethe, and the preacher Herder, who had helped to forge
them for their own use; for drama, lyrics, and oratory separate
themselves quite naturally from ordinary language, and yet in their
subject matter, in the anticipation of an expectant audience, in the
unavoidable connection with popular forms of speech, in singing, and
the very nature of public assemblies, they have a basis that prevents
them from becoming conventional. But not quite so favorable was the
condition of the different varieties of narrative composition. Here a
peculiarly specific style, such as the French novel especially
possesses, never reached complete perfection. The style of Wieland
would necessarily appear too light as soon as the subject matter of
the novel became more intimate and personal; that of the imitators of
Homer necessarily too heavy. Perhaps here also Lessing's sense of
style might have furnished a model of permanent worth, in the same way
that he furnished one for the comedy and the didactic drama, for the
polemic treatise and the work of scientific research. For is not the
tale of the three rings, which forms the kernel of _Nathan the Wise_,
numbered among the great standard pieces of German elocution, in spite
of all the contradictions and obscurities which have of late been
pointed out in it, but which only the eye of the microscopist can
perceive? In general it is the "popular philosophers" who have, more
than any one else, produced a fixed prose style; as a reader of good
but not exclusively classical education once acknowledged to me that
the German of J.J. Engel was more comprehensible to him and seemed
more "modern" than that of Goethe. As a matter of fact, the narrator
Goethe, in the enchanting youthful composition of _Werther_, did
venture very close to the lyrical, but in his later novels his style
at times dangerously approached a dry statement of facts, or a
rhetorically inflated declamation; and even in _The Elective
Affinities_, which stands stylistically higher than any of his other
novels, he has not always avoided a certain stiltedness that forms a
painful contrast to the warmth of his sympathy for the characters. On
the other hand, in scientific compositions he succeeded in
accomplishing what had hitherto been unattainable--just because, in
this case, the new language had first to be created by him.
Seldom are even the great writers of the following period quite free
from the danger of a lack-lustre style in their treatment of the
language, above all in narrative composition. It is only in the
present day that Thomas Mann, Jacob Wassermann, and Ricarda Huch are
trying along different lines, but with equal zeal, to form a fixed
individual style for the German prose-epic. The great exceptions of
the middle period, the writers of prose-epics Jeremias Gotthelf and
Gottfried Keller, the novelists Paul Heyse and Marie von
Ebner-Eschenbach, the narrator of anecdotes Ludwig Anzengruber, with
his greater predecessor Johann Peter Hebel, and his lesser
contemporary Peter Rosegger, the portrayer of still-life Adalbert
Stifter and a few others, have, more by a happy instinct than anything
else, hit upon the style proper to their form of composition, lack of
which prevents us from enjoying an endless number of prose works of
the nineteenth century, which, as far as their subject matter goes,
are not unimportant. In this connection I will only mention Karl
Gutzkow's novels describing his own period, or, from an earlier time,
Clemens Brentano's fairy tales, Friedrich Hebbel's humoresques, or
even the rhetorically emotional historical compositions of Heinrich
von Treitschke, found in certain parts of his work. But this lack of a
fixed specific style spread likewise to other forms of composition;
Schiller's drama became too rhetorical; Friedrich R�ckert's lyric
poetry too prosaically didactic; that of Annette von Droste-H�lshoff
often too obscure and sketchy.
If, therefore, the struggle with the language was fought out
successfully by modern German literature only on the battleground of
the lyric (and even there, as we have seen, not without exceptions),
on the other hand a second conservative force was placed at the
service of the literary development with more uniform success, namely
_Metrics_. To be sure, here again this applies only to verse, for the
corresponding art of prose rhythm has been as good as lost to the
Germans, in contrast to the French, and almost more so to the English.
In prose also a conscious and systematic attempt to make an artistic
division into paragraphs, chapters, and books, has only been made in
recent times, above all in and since the writings of Nietzsche. For as
far as the treatment of language in itself is concerned, German
literature has hardly yet fully developed an artistic form; writers
still continue to treat it far too much as a mere tool. But verse is
felt to be an object for artistic molding, although here too the
naturalistic dogmas of the Storm and Stress writers, of the
Romanticists, Young Germans and Ultra-Moderns, have often shaken the
theories upon which the artistic perfection of our poetry is based.
Besides blank verse, the only other garb in vogue for the serious
drama was prose: this was not only used for realistic pictures of
conditions of a decidedly cheerful type (since Lessing had introduced
the _bourgeois_ dramas of Diderot into Germany), but also for pathetic
tragedies, the vital power of which the lack of stylistic disguising
of language was supposed to increase. This was the form employed in
the Storm and Stress drama, and therefore in the prison scene of
_Faust_, as also in Schiller's youthful dramas, and again we find it
adopted by Hebbel and the Young Germans, and by the naturalistic
school under the leadership of Ibsen. The Old German rhymed verse
found only a temporary place between these two forms. It was glorified
and made almost sacrosanct by having been used for the greatest of our
dramas, Goethe's _Faust_; Wildenbruch in particular tried to gain new
effects with it. Other attempts also went hand in hand with
deeper-reaching efforts to reconstruct the inner form of the drama;
thus the tendency to a veiled polyphony of language in the folk-scenes
of Christian Dietrich Grabbe and in all the plays of Heinrich von
Kleist; this in Hofmannsthal's _Oedipus_ led to regular choruses, of
quite a different type, however, from those of the _Bride of Messina_.
Gerhart Hauptmann's _Weavers_ and _Florian Geyer_ may be considered
the culminating points of this movement, in spite of their apparently
entirely prosaic form.
But the utmost was done by Goethe, when in _Werther_ and _G�tz_, in
_Prometheus_ or _Satyros_, but above all eventually in _Faust_, he
lived through in advance--or, as he himself said, he "anticipated"
(_vorf�hlte_)--the peculiar experience of the age with such intensity
that, in the work which resulted, the individual experience became the
direct experience of the whole generation.
On the other hand the Romantic school has also broadened the realm of
poetic material in a very important manner, by adding to it the
provinces of the phantastic, the visionary, the fairy-like, and by
giving to the symbolical an undreamed-of expansion.
With this new conception, however, new dangers are connected. Near at
hand lies the fear of a too open declaration of the most intimate
feelings. In many old-style poets of modern times, in H�lderlin, in
Kleist, Grillparzer, and Annette von Droste-H�lshoff this fear assumes
the character of ethical aversion to baring their feelings in public.
But near, too, lies the hunt after interesting experiences--the need
to "experience something" at any price--which marred the life of a
romantic poet of Brentano's talents, and also affected the conduct of
the realist Grabbe. A new responsibility was placed upon the shoulders
of the German poet, which rested heavily on men like Otto Ludwig, and
on account of which writers like Hebbel or Richard Wagner thought
themselves justified in claiming the royal privileges of the favorites
of the gods.
The infinitely difficult task of the modern poet is made still harder
by the fact that, in spite of all his efforts, he, happily, seldom
succeeds in transforming himself into, one would like to say, an
artistically working apparatus, such as Ibsen very nearly became; not,
however, without deploring the fact at the close of his life. The
German poet in particular has too strong a lyrical inheritance not to
re�cho the impressions _directly_ received by his heart. The struggle
between the demands of a purely artistic presentation of reality,
i. e., one governed exclusively by esthetic rules, and its sympathetic
rendering, constitutes the poetic tragedy of most of our "naturalistic
writers," and especially of the most important one among them, Gerhart
Hauptmann. But from this general ideal of the poet, who only through
his own experience will give to reality a true existence and the
possibility of permanence, there follows a straining after technical
requirements such as was formerly almost unknown. This results in an
effort in Germany all the more strenuous in proportion to the former
slackness regarding questions of artistic form. The peculiarities of
the different literary _genres_ are heeded with a severity such as has
been practised before only in antiquity or perhaps by the French.
Poets like Detlev von Liliencron, who formerly had appeared as
advocates of poetical frivolity, now chafed over banal aids for
rhyming, as once Alfred de Musset had done. Friedrich Spielhagen, the
brothers Heinrich and Thomas Mann, and Jacob Wassermann are seen to
busy themselves with the technical questions pertaining to the
prose-epic, no longer in a merely esthetical and easy-going fashion,
but as though they were working out questions vital to existence; and
truly it is bitter earnest with them where their art is concerned.
Often, as in painting, technique becomes the principal object, and the
young naturalism of Arno Holz and Johannes Schlaf has in all
seriousness raised technique to a dogma, without, however, in the long
run being able to get the upper hand of the German need of
establishing intimate relations with the subject of the art.
We have now said about all that, in our opinion, seems necessary for a
general introduction to modern German literature. For the rest, it is
of course quite obvious that it is German--and that it is a
literature. That it is German, is precisely why it is not exclusively
German: for in every epoch has it not been proclaimed in accents of
praise or of blame, until we are almost tired of hearing it, that the
inclination to take up and appropriate foreign possessions is peculiar
to the German nation--and to the Germanic spirit in general? Thus we
possess special presentations of German literature considered from the
standpoint of its antique elements, and also from that of its
Christian elements, and we could in the same way present theses which
would show its development from the standpoint of the Romance or of
the English influence. And yet latterly an exactly contrary attempt
has been made--in a spirited, if somewhat arbitrary book by Nadler,
which consists in trying to build up the history of German literature
entirely upon the peculiarities of the different tribes and provinces.
For the essence of the German, nay, even of the Swabian, or Bavarian,
or North German, or Austrian individuality, is in the long run
nourished rather than extinguished by all foreign influences. In spite
of this, it is of course important in the consideration of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to observe how the French pattern
that is at first followed almost with the unquestioned obedience
accorded to a fixed ethical model, is confronted by the English, which
brings about the celebrated--and probably overrated--struggle between
Gottsched and the Swiss School. We should also notice precisely how
the tendency of British literature toward originality--in which the
insular peculiarities were strongly emphasized--served to increase the
self-reliance of German literature; how a new movement in the style of
the antique was cultivated by the classical writers; and how the
Romantic School favored medieval-Christian tendencies--much to
Goethe's annoyance. It is of importance likewise to note the way in
which Young Germany learned how to gain political-literary effects
from the new French models; and finally, how the Northern realism of
presentation, amalgamated with Tolstoy's, Bj�rnson's, Strindberg's and
also Ibsen's ethical subjectivity, educated the naturalism of the
Germans. It is precisely those poets that are especially characterized
by German peculiarities who have also trained themselves in the use of
foreign subjects and forms: thus did Uhland, M�rike, Hebbel, and all
the Romanticists. We have already had occasion many times to call
attention in detail to the educational effect of foreign countries.
German literature is, in short, one that possesses the typical moments
of development which mark all literatures, and which Wilhelm Scherer
was the first to call to our notice: that is to say, it is a
complicated organism in which the most varied tendencies cross one
another, the most dissimilar generations of writers meet together, and
the most remarkable events occur in the most unforeseen manner.
If we should now try to get a closer view of the last and by far the
most important factor of literature, namely, the individual writers
themselves, this difficulty in obtaining a general view of the whole,
this working of the different parts against one another, this pulling
away from one another, presents itself more clearly to us here than
anywhere else. The attempt to classify the development of our
literature into distinct groups according to the personalities which
compose them has been frequently made, since I, in spite of all the
difficulties and dangers of such a hazardous enterprise, first
undertook, in my _German Literature of the Nineteenth Century_, to
give an historical and complete presentation of a literature which had
as yet scarcely become historic. I can here merely refer in passing to
my own efforts and to those of Bartels, Biese, Riemann, and
Soergel--to name only these; for in compliance with the purpose of
this introduction we must confine ourselves to giving a general
comprehensive outline--although it would be easy to improve upon it if
one went more into detail.
Such is the character that the world of virtuosos also bears about the
year 1700. The poems of Rudolf von Canitz and Johann von Besser are,
though in entirely different spheres, just the same kind of first
attempts of an imperfect art anxiously following foreign models as
Goethe's first Christian poem--though truly with the tremendous
difference that they represented the utmost that Frenchified courtly
art could ever attain to; while Goethe's poem, on the contrary, was
the immature sprig cut away before its time from the stem of a tree
soon to stand in the full glory of its bloom.
When now in the Leipzig period the young student discovers the poet
within him, he first does so in the customary way: he recognizes the
ability on his part to handle the language of the contemporary poets,
and also perhaps to imbue it with his own personal feelings. His poems
inserted in letters, which make a show of the elegant pretence of
improvisation, but in reality already display a great dexterity in
rhyming and in the use of imagery, may be compared to Hagedorn's
poetry; but at the same time Goethe is trying to attain the serious
tone of the "Pindarian" odes, just as Haller's stilted scholarly
poetry conquered a place beside Hagedorn's Epicurean philosophy of
life. The _Book of Annette_ (1767) as a whole, however, presents the
first attempt on the part of Goethe to reach a certain completeness in
his treatment of the poetic theme. In all his subsequent collections
of poems the same attempt is made, it is true with increasingly rigid
interpretation of the idea of "completeness," and in so far one is
reminded in this connection of the theoretic intentions and
performances of Gottsched.
Now let us consider Goethe after he had settled down in Weimar for the
second time. Scientific work seems for a while to have entirely
replaced poetic activity, as for a moment the scientific prose of
Ranke and Helmholtz came near to being of more consequence for the
German language than most of what was produced at the same time by
so-called poetry. Then the _Campaign in Champagne_ (1792), and the new
employment of his time with political problems, constitutes for Goethe
a temporary phase that may be compared with that recapturing of
history by political-historical writers like Freytag and Treitschke,
in the same way that _Hermann and Dorothea_ (1796), in which an old
historical anecdote of the time of the expulsion of the Protestants
from Salzburg is transplanted to the time of the French Revolution,
may be compared with the historical "Novellen" of Riehl, Scheffel, and
C.F. Meyer. Goethe's ballads (1797-1798) maintain the tradition that
was to be given new life by Fontane, Strachwitz, and C.F. Meyer.
Goethe's later novels with their didactic tendencies, and the
inclination to interpolate "Novellen" and diaries, lead up to
Gottfried Keller, Wilhelm Raabe and again to Fontane. The table-songs
and other convivial poetry of Goethe's old age are taken up again by
Scheffel; Goethe's "Novellen" themselves were continued by all those
eminent writers whom we have already named. The _Divan_, with its bent
toward immutable relations, prepares the way for the new lyric, until
finally, with the second part of _Faust_, mythical world-poetry and
symbolism complete the circle, just as the cycle of German literature
finishes with Nietzsche, Stefan George, Spitteler and Hofmannsthal. At
the same time new forces are starting to form the new cycle, or, to
speak like Goethe, the newest spiral: Hauptmann, Frenssen, Ricarda
Huch, Enrica von Handel, to name only these. And how many others have
we not previously left unnamed!
But all this has not been merely to exercise our ingenuity. By drawing
this parallel, which is naturally only to be taken approximately, we
have intended to make clear the comforting probability that, in spite
of all the exaggerating, narrowing down, and forcing to which it has
been obliged to submit, our modern and most recent German literature
is essentially a healthy literature. That, in spite of all deviation
caused by influential theorists--of the Storm and Stress, of the
Romantic School, of the period of Goethe's old age, of the epigonean
or naturalistic criticism, or by the dazzling phenomena of foreign
countries,--nevertheless in the essentials it obeys its own inner
laws. That in spite of all which in the present stage of our
literature may create a painful or confusing impression, _we have no
cause to doubt that a new and powerful upward development will take
place, and no cause either to underrate the literature of our own
day_! It is richer in great, and what is perhaps more important, in
serious talents than any other contemporary literature. No other can
show such wealth of material, no other such abundance of interesting
and, in part, entirely new productions. We do not say this in order to
disparage others who in some ways were, only a short time ago, so far
superior to us--as were the French in surety of form, the
Scandinavians in greatness of talents, the Russians in originality,
the English in cultivation of the general public; but we are inspired
to utter it by the hopeful joy which every one must feel who, in the
contemplation of our modern lyric poetry, our novels, dramas, epic and
didactic poetry, does not allow himself to be blinded by prejudice or
offended vanity. A great literature such as we possessed about 1800 we
of a certainty do not have to-day. A more hopeful chaos or one more
rich in fertile seeds we have not possessed since the days of
Romanticism. It is surely worth while to study this literature, and in
all its twists and turns to admire the heliotropism of the German
ideal and the importance which our German literature has won as a
mediator, an experimenter, and a model for that world-literature, the
outline of which the prophetic eye of the greatest German poet was the
first to discern, and his hand, equally expert in scientific and
poetic creation, the first to describe.
Johann Caspar Goethe, the poet's father, was the son of a prosperous
tailor, who was also a tailor's son. Having abundant means and being
of an ambitious turn, Johann Caspar prepared himself for the
profession of law, spent some time in Italy, and then settled in
Frankfurt in the hope of rising to distinction in the public service.
Disappointed in this hope, he procured the imperial title of
Councilor, which gave him a dignified social status but nothing in
particular to do. He thus became virtually a gentleman of leisure,
since his law practise was quite insignificant. In 1748 he married
Katharina Elisabeth Textor, whose father, Johann Wolfgang Textor, was
the town's chief magistrate and most eminent citizen. She was eighteen
years old at the time of her marriage--twenty years younger than her
husband--and well fitted to become a poet's mother. The gift on which
she especially prided herself was her story-telling. Wolfgang was the
first child of these parents.
He was much in contact with people of the humbler sort and learned to
like their racy dialect. He penetrated into the ghetto and learned the
jargon of the Jews. He even attacked biblical Hebrew, being led
thereto by his great love of the Old Testament.
The years 1773-1775 were for Goethe a time of high emotional tension,
from which he sought relief in rapid, desultory, and multifarious
writing. Exquisite songs, musical comedies of a sentimental tinge,
humorous and satiric skits in dramatic form, prose tragedy of
passionate error, and poetic tragedy of titanic revolt--all these and
more welled up from a sub-conscious spring of feeling, taking little
counsel of the sober intellect. Several minor productions were left
unfinished and were afterwards published in fragmentary form. Such is
the case with _Prometheus_, a splendid fragment, in which we get a
glimpse of the Titan battling, as the friend of man, against the
ever-living gods. Of the works completed and published at this time,
aside from _G�tz_ and _Werther_, the most notable were _Clavigo_ and
_Stella_, prose tragedies in which a fickle lover meets with condign
punishment. Another prose tragedy, _Egmont_, with its hero conceived
as a "demonic" nature borne on to his doom by his own buoyancy of
spirit, was nearly finished. Most important of all, a considerable
portion of _Faust_, which was to be its author's great life-work, was
"stormed out" during these early years at Frankfurt.
The legendary Faust is presented as a bad man who sells his soul to
the devil for twenty-four years of power and pleasure, gets what he
bargained for, and in the end goes to perdition. Young Goethe
conceived his hero differently: not as a bad man on the way to hell,
and not--at first--as a good man on the way to heaven. He thought of
him rather as a towering personality passionately athirst for
transcendental knowledge and universal experience; as a man whose
nature contained the very largest possibilities both for good and for
evil. It is probable that, when he began to write, Goethe did not
intend to anticipate the judgment of God upon Faust's career. The
essence of his dramatic plan was to carry his hero through a lifetime
of varied experience, letting him sin and suffer grandly, and at last
to give him something to do which would seem worth having lived for.
After the going down of the curtain, in all probability, he was to be
left in the hands of the Eternal Pardoner. Later in life, as we shall
see, Goethe decided not only to save his hero, but to make his
salvation a part of the dramatic action.
The close of the year 1775 brought a momentous change in Goethe's life
and prospects. On the invitation of the young duke Karl August, who
had met him and taken a liking to him, he went to visit the Weimar
court, not expecting to stay more than a few weeks. But the duke was
so pleased with his gifted and now famous guest that he presently
decided to keep him in Weimar, if possible, by making him a member of
the Council of State. Goethe was the more willing to remain, since he
detested his law practise, and his income from authorship was
pitifully small. Moreover, he saw in the boyish, impulsive,
sport-loving prince a sterling nature that might be led in the ways of
wise rulership. For the nonce this was mission enough. He took his
seat in the Council in June, 1776, with the title of Councilor of
Legation. At first there was not very much for him to do except to
familiarize himself with the physical and economic conditions of the
little duchy. This he did with a will. He set about studying
mineralogy, geology, botany, and was soon observing the homologies of
the vertebrate skeleton. Withal he was very attentive to
routine business.
All this produced a sobering and clarifying effect. The inner storm
and stress gradually subsided, and the new Goethe--statesman,
scientific investigator, man of the world, courtier, friend of
princes--came to see that after all feeling was not everything, and
that its untrammeled expression was not the whole of art. Form and
decorum counted for more than he had supposed, and revolution was not
the word of wisdom. Self-control was the only basis of character, and
limitation lay at the foundation of all art. To work to make things
better, even in a humble sphere, was better than to fret over the
badness of the world. Nature's method was that of bit-by-bit progress,
and to puzzle out her ways was a noble and fascinating employment. In
this general way of thinking he was confirmed by the study of
Spinoza's _Ethics_, a book which, as he said long afterwards, quieted
his passions and gave him a large and free outlook over the world. In
this process of quieting the passions some influence must be ascribed
to Charlotte von Stein, a woman in whom, for some twelve years of his
life, he found his muse and his madonna. His letters often address her
in terms of idolatrous endearment. She was a wife and a mother, but
Weimar society regarded her relation to Goethe as a platonic
attachment not to be condemned.
By the end of his first decade in Weimar Goethe began to feel that he
needed and had earned a vacation. His conduct of the public business
had been highly successful, but he had starved his esthetic nature;
for after all Weimar was only a good-sized village that could offer
little to the lover of art. Overwork had so told upon him that he was
unable to hold himself long to any literary project. He had begun half
a dozen important works, but had completed none of them, and the
public was beginning to suspect that the author of _G�tz_ and
_Werther_ was lost to literature. The effect of the whole
situation--that inner conflict between the poetic dreamer and the man
of affairs which is the theme of _Tasso_--was to produce a feeling of
depression, as of a bird caught in a net. So acute did the trouble
become that he afterwards spoke of it as a terrible disease. In the
summer of 1786 he contracted with the Leipzig publisher G�schen for a
new edition of his works in eight volumes; and to gain time for this
enterprise he resolved to take a trip to the land upon which he had
already twice looked down with longing--once in 1775 and again in
1779--from the summit of the Gotthard.
In Italy, where he remained nearly two years, Goethe's mind and art
underwent another notable change. He himself called it a spiritual
rebirth. Freed from all oppressive engagements, he gave himself to the
study of ancient sculpture and architecture, reveled in the splendors
of Renaissance painting, and pursued his botanical studies in the
enticing plant-world of the Italian gardens. Venice, Naples, Vesuvius,
Sicily, the sea, fascinated him in their several ways and gave him the
sense of being richer for the rest of his life. Sharing in the
care-free existence of the German artist-colony in Rome made him very
happy. It not only disciplined his judgment in matters of art and
opened a vast new world of ideas and impressions, but it restored the
lost balance between the intellectual and duty-bound man on the one
hand and the esthetic and sensual man on the other. He resolved never
again to put on the harness of an administrative drudge, but to claim
the freedom of a poet, an artist, a man of science. To this desire the
Duke of Weimar generously assented.
On his return to Weimar, in June, 1788, Goethe made it his first task
to finish the remaining works that were called for by his contract
with G�schen. _Egmont_ and _Tasso_ were soon disposed of, but _Faust_
proved intractable. While in Rome he had taken out the old manuscript
and written a scene or two, and had then somehow lost touch with the
subject. So he decided to revise what he had on hand and to publish a
part of the scenes as a fragment. This fragmentary _Faust_ came out in
1790. It attracted little attention, nor was any other of the new
works received with much warmth by the public of that day. They
expected something like _G�tz_ and _Werther_, and did not understand
the new Goethe, who showed in many ways that his heart was still in
Italy and that he found Weimar a little dull and provincial. Thus the
greatest of German poets had for the time being lost touch with the
German public; he saw that he must wait for the growth of the taste by
which he was to be understood and enjoyed. Matters were hardly made
better by his taking Christiane Vulpius into his house as his unwedded
wife. This step, which shocked Weimar society--except the duke and
Herder--had the effect of ending his unwholesome relation to Frau von
Stein, who was getting old and peevish. The character of Christiane
has often been pictured too harshly. She was certainly not her
husband's intellectual peer--he would have looked long for a wife of
that grade--and she became a little too fond of wine. On the other
hand, she was affectionate, devoted, true, and by no means lacking in
mental gifts. She and Goethe were happy together and faithful to
each other.
For several years after his return from Italy Goethe wrote nothing
that is of much importance in the history of his literary life. He
devoted himself largely to scientific studies in plant and animal
morphology and the theory of color. His discovery of the
intermaxillary bone in the human skull, and his theory that the
lateral organs of a plant are but successive phases of the leaf, have
given him an assured if modest place in the history of the development
hypothesis. On the other hand, his long and laborious effort to refute
Newton's theory of the composition of white light is now generally
regarded as a misdirection of energy. In his _Roman Elegies_ (1790) he
struck a note of pagan sensuality. The pensive distichs, telling of
the wanton doings of Amor amid the grandeur that was Rome, were a
little shocking in their frank portraiture of the emancipated flesh.
The outbreak of violence in France seemed to him nothing but madness
and folly, since he did not see the real Revolution, but only the
Paris Terror.
The year 1794 marks the beginning of more intimate relations between
Goethe and Schiller. Their memorable friendship lasted until
Schiller's death, in 1805--the richest decade in the whole history of
German letters. The two men became in a sense allies and stood
together in the championship of good taste and humane idealism.
Goethe's literary occupations during this period were very
multifarious; a list of his writings in the various fields of poetry,
drama, prose fiction, criticism, biography, art and art-history,
literary scholarship, and half a dozen sciences, would show a
many-sidedness to which there is no modern parallel. Of all this mass
of writing only a few works of major importance can even be
mentioned here.
During this high noon of his life Goethe again took up his long
neglected _Faust_, decided to make two parts of it, completed the
First Part, and thought out much that was to go into the Second Part.
By this time he had become somewhat alienated from the spirit of his
youth, when he had envisaged life in a mist of vague and stormy
emotionalism. His present passion was for clearness. So he boldly
decided to convert the old tragedy of sin and suffering into a drama
of mental clearing-up. The early Faust--the pessimist, murderer,
seducer--was to be presented as temporarily wandering in the dark; as
a man who had gone grievously wrong in passionate error, but was
essentially "good" by virtue of his aspiring nature, and hence, in the
Lord's fulness of time, was to be led out into the light and saved.
The First Part, ending with the heart-rending death of Margaret in her
prison-cell, and leaving Faust in an agony of remorse, was published
in 1808. Faust's redemption, by enlarged experience of life and
especially by his symbolic union with the Greek Queen of Beauty, was
reserved for the Second Part.
The other more notable works of this period are _Hermann and
Dorothea_, a delightful poem in dactylic hexameters, picturing a bit
of German still life against the sinister background of the French
Revolution, and the _Natural Daughter_, which was planned to body
forth, in the form of a dramatic trilogy in blank verse, certain
phases of Goethe's thinking about the upheaval in France. In the
former he appears once more as a poet of the plain people, with an eye
and a heart for their ways and their outlook upon life. Everybody
likes _Hermann and Dorothea_. On the other hand, the _Natural
Daughter_ is disappointing, and not merely because it is a fragment.
(Only the first part of the intended trilogy was written.) Goethe had
now convinced himself that the function of art is to present the
typical. Accordingly the characters appear as types of humanity
divested of all that is accidental or peculiar to the individual. The
most of them have not even a name. The consequence is that,
notwithstanding the splendid verse and the abounding wisdom of the
speeches, the personages do not seem to be made of genuine human
stuff. As a great thinker's comment on the Revolution the _Natural
Daughter_ is almost negligible.
The decade that followed the death of Schiller was for Germany a time
of terrible trial, during which Goethe pursued the even tenor of his
way as a poet and man of science. He had little sympathy with the
national uprising against Napoleon, whom he looked on as the
invincible subduer of the hated Revolution. From the point of view of
our modern nationalism, which was just then entering on its
world-transforming career, his conduct was unpatriotic. But let him at
least be rightly understood. It was not that he lacked sympathy for
the German people, but he misjudged and underestimated the new forces
that were coming into play. As the son of an earlier age he could only
conceive a people's welfare as the gift of a wise ruler. He thought of
politics as the affair of the great. He hated war and all eruptive
violence, being convinced that good would come, not by such means, but
by enlightenment, self-control and attending to one's work in one's
sphere. To the historian Luden he said in 1813:
It lies in the very style of the book and is a part of its author's
method of self-revelation. That he devotes so much space to the
seemingly transient and unimportant love-affairs of his youth is only
his way of recognizing that the poet-soul is born of love and
nourished by love. He felt that these fleeting amorosities were a part
of the natural history of his inner being.
And even in the serene afternoon of his life lovely woman often
disturbed his soul, just as in the days of his youth. But the poetic
expression of his feeling gradually became less simple and direct: he
liked to embroider it with musing reflections and exotic fancies
gathered from everywhere. Just as he endeavored with indefatigable
eagerness of mind to keep abreast of scientific research, so he tried
to assimilate the poetry of all nations. The Greeks and Romans no
longer sufficed his omnivorous appetite and his "panoramic ability."
When Hammer-Purgstall's German version of the _D[=i]w[=a]n_ of
H[=a]f[=i]z came into his hands he at once set about making himself at
home in the mental world of the Persian and Arabic poets. Thus arose
his _Divan_ (1819), in which he imitated the oriental costume, but not
the form. His aim was to reproduce in German verse the peculiar savor
of the Orientals, with their unique blend of sensuality, wit, and
mystic philosophy. But the feeling--the inner experience--was all his
own. The best book of the _Divan_, the one called _Suleika_, was
inspired by a very real liking for Marianne Willemer, a talented lady
who played the love-game with him and actually wrote some of the poems
long ascribed to Goethe himself.
Goethe died March 18, 1832. The story that his last words were "more
light" is probably nothing more than a happy invention.
Admirers of the great German see more in him than the author of the
various works which have been all too briefly characterized in the
preceding sketch. His is a case where, in very truth, the whole is
more than the sum of the parts. Goethe is the representative of an
epoch. He stands for certain ideals which are not those of the present
hour, but which it was of inestimable value to the modern man to have
thus nobly worked out and exemplified in practice. Behind and beneath
his writings, informing them and giving them their value for
posterity, is a wonderful personality which it is a delight and an
education to study in the whole process of its evolution. By way of
struggle, pain and error, like his own Faust, he arrived at a view of
life, in which he found inspiration and inner peace. It is outlined in
the verses which he placed before his short poems as a sort of motto:
POEMS
Eager streamlets
Join his waters. And now moves he
O'er the plain in silv'ry glory,
And the plain in him exults,
And the rivers from the plain,
And the streamlets from the mountain,
Shout with joy, exclaiming: "Brother,
Brother, take thy brethren with thee.
With thee to thine ag�d father,
To the everlasting ocean,
Who, with arms outstretching far,
Waiteth for us;
Ah, in vain those arms lie open
To embrace his yearning children;
For the thirsty sand consumes us
In the desert waste; the sunbeams
Drink our life-blood; hills around us
Into lakes would dam us! Brother,
Take thy brethren of the plain,
Take thy brethren of the mountain
With thee, to thy father's arms!"--
PROMETHEUS[7] (1774)
Cover thy spacious heavens, Zeus,
With clouds of mist,
And, like the boy who lops
The thistles' heads,
Disport with oaks and mountain-peaks;
Yet thou must leave
Who help'd me
Against the Titans' insolence?
Who rescued me from certain death,
From slavery?
Didst thou not do all this thyself,
My sacred glowing heart?
And glowedst, young and good,
Deceived with grateful thanks
To yonder slumbering one?
Of the anguish-stricken?
Was I not fashion'd to be a man
By omnipotent Time,
And by eternal Fate,
Masters of me and thee?
Who rides there so late through the night dark and drear?
The father it is, with his infant so dear;
He holdeth the boy tightly clasp'd in his arm,
He holdeth him safely, he keepeth him warm.
Noble be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguisheth him
From all the beings
Unto us known.
For unfeeling
Nature is ever
On bad and on good
The sun alike shineth;
And on the wicked,
As on the best,
The moon and stars gleam.
He and he only
The good can reward,
The bad can he punish,
Can heal and can save;
All that wanders and strays
Can usefully blend.
MIGNON[15] (1785)
FOUND[24] (1813)
In silent corner
Soon it was set;
There grows it ever,
There blooms it yet.
HATEM[25] (1815)
REUNION[26] (1815)
A LEGACY[31] (1829)
The main sources from which the poet drew his material are four. In
the first place the theme was invented by him out of an anecdote of
the flight of Protestant refugees from the Archbishopric of Salzburg
in 1731-1732. On the basis of this anecdote he drew the original
outlines of the meeting and union of the lovers. Secondly, as a
consequence of the French Revolution, Germans were forced to flee from
German territory west of the Rhine. Goethe was present with Prussian
troops in France in 1792, and observed the siege of Mainz in 1793.
Hence his knowledge of war and exile, with their attendant cruelties
and sufferings. Thirdly, the personal experiences of his own life
could not but contribute to his description of the then German
present. Features of Frankfurt and Ilmenau reappear. The characters
show traits of Goethe's parents, and possibly something of his wife is
in Dorothea. Hermann's mother bears the name of the poet's and reveals
many of her qualities. But some of these are given to the
landlord-father, while the elder Goethe's pedantry and petty
weaknesses are shown in the apothecary. The poet's experiences in the
field are realistically reproduced in many particulars of character
and incident, as are doubtless also his mother's vivid reports of
events in Frankfurt during July and August, 1796. We may feel sure too
that it was the occurrences of this summer that led Goethe to
transform the short, pure idyl of his first intention into a longer
epic of his own present. The fourth source is literary tradition,
which we may trace back through the verse idyl of Voss to the prose
idyl of Gessner, thence through the unnatural Arcadian pastorals of
the seventeenth and earlier centuries to the great Greek
creators,--Theocritus, of the idyl, and Homer, of the epic.
CALLIOPE
"See!" interrupted the wife; "even now some are yonder returning,
Who have beheld the procession: it must, then, already be over.
Look at the dust on their shoes! and see how their faces are glowing!
Every one carries his kerchief, and with it is wiping the sweat off.
Not for a sight like that would I run so far and so suffer,
Through such a heat; in sooth, enough shall I have in the telling."
Thereupon answered and said, with emphasis, thus, the good father:
"Rarely does weather like this attend such a harvest as this is.
We shall be bringing our grain in dry, as the hay was before it.
Not the least cloud to be seen, so perfectly clear is the heaven;
And, with delicious coolness, the wind blows in from the eastward.
That is the weather to last! over-ripe are the cornfields already;
We shall begin on the morrow to gather our copious harvest."
Cordially then the two men drew nigh, and saluted the couple;
Sat themselves down on the benches of wood that were placed in the doorway,
Shaking the dust from their feet, and fanning themselves with
their kerchiefs.
Then was the doctor, as soon as exchanged were the mutual greetings,
First to begin, and said, almost in a tone of vexation:
"Such is mankind, forsooth! and one man is just like another,
Liking to gape and to stare when ill-luck has befallen his neighbor.
Every one hurries to look at the flames, as they soar in destruction;
Runs to behold the poor culprit, to execution conducted:
Now all are sallying forth to gaze on the need of these exiles,
Nor is there one who considers that he, by a similar fortune,
May, in the future, if not indeed next, be likewise o'ertaken.
Levity not to be pardoned, I deem; yet it lies in man's nature."
Carefully brought forth the mother the clear and glorious vintage,
Cased in a well-polished flask, on a waiter of glittering pewter,
Set round with large green glasses, the drinking cups meet for the
Rhine wine.
So sat the three together about the highly waxed table,
Gleaming and round and brown, that on mighty feet was supported.
Joyously rang at once the glasses of landlord and pastor,
But his motionless held the third, and sat lost in reflection,
Until with words of good-humor the landlord challenged him, saying,--
"Come, sir neighbor, empty your glass, for God in His mercy
Thus far has kept us from evil, and so in the future will keep us.
For who acknowledges not, that since our dread conflagration,
When He so hardly chastised us, He now is continually blessing,
Constantly shielding, as man the apple of His eye watches over,
Holding it precious and dear above all the rest of His members?
Shall He in time to come not defend us and furnish us succor?
Only when danger is nigh do we see how great is His power.
Shall He this blooming town which He once by industrious burghers
Built up afresh from its ashes, and afterward blessed with abundance,
Now demolish again, and bring all the labor to nothing?"
Then made answer the landlord, with thoughts judicious and manly:
"Often the Rhine's broad stream have I with astonishment greeted,
As I have neared it again, after travelling abroad upon business.
Always majestic it seemed, and my mind and spirit exalted.
But I could never imagine its beautiful banks would so shortly
Be to a rampart transformed, to keep from our borders the Frenchman,
And its wide-spreading bed be a moat all passage to hinder.
See! thus nature protects, the stout-hearted Germans protect us,
And thus protects us the Lord, who then will be weakly despondent?
Weary already the combatants, all indications are peaceful.
Would it might be that when that festival, ardently longed for,
Shall in our church be observed, when the sacred _Te Deum_ is rising,
Swelled by the pealing of organ and bells, and the blaring of trumpets,--
Would it might be that that day should behold my Hermann, sir pastor,
Standing, his choice now made, with his bride before thee at the altar,
Making that festal day, that through every land shall be honored,
My anniversary, too, henceforth of domestic rejoicing!
But I observe with regret, that the youth so efficient and active
Ever in household affairs, when abroad is timid and backward.
Little enjoyment he finds in going about among others;
Nay, he will even avoid young ladies' society wholly;
Shuns the enlivening dance which all young persons delight in."
Thus he spoke and listened; for now was heard in the distance
Clattering of horses' hoofs drawing near, and the roll of the wagon,
Which, with furious haste, came thundering under the gateway.
TERPSICHORE
HERMANN
Now when of comely mien the son came into the chamber,
Turned with a searching look the eyes of the preacher upon him,
And, with the gaze of the student, who easily fathoms expression,
Scrutinized well his face and form and his general bearing.
Then with a smile he spoke, and said in words of affection:
"Truly a different being thou comest! I never have seen thee
Cheerful as now, nor ever beheld I thy glances so beaming.
Joyous thou comest, and happy: 'tis plain that among the poor people
Thou hast been sharing thy gifts, and receiving their blessings
upon thee."
Quietly then, and with serious words, the son made him answer:
"If I have acted as ye will commend, I know not; but I followed
That which my heart bade me do, as I shall exactly relate you.
Thou wert, mother, so long in rummaging 'mong thy old pieces,
Picking and choosing, that not until late was thy bundle together;
Then, too, the wine and the beer took care and time in the packing.
When I came forth through the gateway at last, and out on the high-road,
Backward the crowd of citizens streamed with women and children,
Coming to meet me; for far was already the band of the exiles.
Quicker I kept on my way, and drove with speed to the village,
Where they were meaning to rest, as I heard, and tarry till morning.
Thitherward up the new street as I hasted, a stout-timbered wagon,
Drawn by two oxen, I saw, of that region the largest and strongest;
While, with vigorous steps, a maiden was walking beside them,
And, a long staff in her hand, the two powerful creatures was guiding,
Urging them now, now holding them back; with skill did she drive them.
Soon as the maiden perceived me, she calmly drew near to the horses,
And in these words she addressed me: 'Not thus deplorable always
Has our condition been, as to-day on this journey thou seest.
I am not yet grown used to asking gifts of a stranger,
Which he will often unwillingly give, to be rid of the beggar.
But necessity drives me to speak; for here, on the straw, lies
Newly delivered of child, a rich land-owner's wife, whom I scarcely
Have in her pregnancy, safe brought off with the oxen and wagon.
Naked, now in her arms the new-born infant is lying,
And but little the help our friends will be able to furnish,
If in the neighboring village, indeed, where to-day we would rest us,
Still we shall find them; though much do I fear they already have
passed it.
Shouldst thou have linen to spare of any description, provided
Thou of this neighborhood art, to the poor in charity give it.'
"Thus she spoke, and the pale-faced mother raised herself feebly
Up from the straw, and toward me looked. Then said I in answer
'Surely unto the good, a spirit from heaven oft speaketh,
Making them feel the distress that threatens a suffering brother.
For thou must know that my mother, already presaging thy sorrows,
Gave me a bundle to use it straightway for the need of the naked.'
Then I untied the knots of the string, and the wrapper of father's
Unto her gave, and gave her as well the shirts and the linen.
And she thanked me with joy, and cried: 'The happy believe not
Miracles yet can be wrought: for only in need we acknowledge
God's own hand and finger, that leads the good to show goodness.
What unto us He has done through thee, may He do to thee also!'
And I beheld with what pleasure the sick woman handled the linens,
But with especial delight the dressing-gown's delicate flannel.
'Let us make haste,' the maid to her said, 'and come to the village,
Where our people will halt for the night and already are resting.
There these clothes for the children I, one and all, straightway
will portion.'
Then she saluted again, her thanks most warmly expressing,
Started the oxen; the wagon went on; but there I still lingered,
Still held the horses in check; for now my heart was divided
Whether to drive with speed to the village, and there the provisions
Share 'mong the rest of the people, or whether I here to the maiden
All should deliver at once, for her discreetly to portion.
And in an instant my heart had decided, and quietly driving
After the maiden, I soon overtook her, and said to her quickly:
'Hearken, good maiden;--my mother packed up not linen-stuffs only
Into the carriage, that I should have clothes to furnish the naked;
Wine and beer she added besides, and supply of provisions:
Plenty of all these things I have in the box of the carriage.
But now I feel myself moved to deliver these offerings also
Into thy hand; for so shall I best fulfil my commission.
Thou wilt divide them with judgment, while I must by chance be directed.'
Thereupon answered the maiden: 'I will with faithfulness portion
These thy gifts, that all shall bring comfort to those who are needy.'
Thus she spoke, and quickly the bog of the carriage I opened,
Brought forth thence the substantial hams, and brought out the
breadstuffs,
Bottles of wine and beer, and one and all gave to the maiden.
Willingly would I have given her more, but the carriage was empty.
All she packed at the sick woman's feet, and went on her journey.
I, with my horses and carriage, drove rapidly back to the city."
Straightway, then, and with warmth, the father replied to her, saying:
"Worthy of praise is the feeling, and truthful also the story,
Mother, that thou hast related; for so indeed every thing happened.
Better, however, is better. It is not the business of all men
Thus their life and estate to begin from the very foundation:
Every one needs not to worry himself as we and the rest did.
Oh, how happy is he whose father and mother shall give him,
Furnished and ready, a house which he can adorn with his increase.
Every beginning is hard; but most the beginning a household.
Many are human wants, and every thing daily grows dearer,
So that a man must consider the means of increasing his earnings.
This I hope therefore of thee, my Hermann, that into our dwelling
Thou wilt be bringing ere long a bride who is handsomely dowered;
For it is meet that a gallant young man have an opulent maiden.
Great is the comfort of home whene'er, with the woman elected,
Enter the useful presents, besides, in box and in basket.
Not for this many a year in vain has the mother been busy
Making her daughter's linens of strong and delicate texture;
God-parents have not in vain been giving their vessels of silver,
And the father laid by in his desk the rare pieces of money;
For there a day will come when she, with her gifts and possessions,
Shall that youth rejoice who has chosen her out of all others.
Well do I know how good in a house is a woman's position,
Who her own furniture round her knows, in kitchen and chamber;
Who herself the bed and herself the table has covered.
Only a well-dowered bride should I like to receive to my dwelling.
She who is poor is sure, in the end, to be scorned by her husband;
And will as servant be held, who as servant came in with her bundle.
Men will remain unjust when the season of love is gone over.
Yes, my Hermann, thy father's old age thou greatly canst gladden,
If thou a daughter-in-law will speedily bring to my dwelling,
Out of the neighborhood here,--from the house over yonder, the green one.
Rich is the man, I can tell thee. His manufactures and traffic
Daily are making him richer; for whence draws the merchant not profit?
Three daughters only he has, to divide his fortune among them.
True that the eldest already is taken; but there is the second
Still to be had, as well as the third; and not long so, it may be.
I would never have lingered till now, had I been in thy place;
But had fetched one of the maidens, as once I bore off thy dear mother."
Modestly then did the son to the urgent father make answer:
"Truly 'twas my wish too, as well as thine own, to have chosen
One of our neighbor's daughters, for we had been brought up together;
Played, in the early days, about the market-place fountain;
And, from the other boys' rudeness, I often have been their defender.
That, though, is long since past: the girls, as they grew to be older,
Properly stayed in the house, and shunned the more boisterous pastimes.
Well brought up are they, surely! I used sometimes to go over,
Partly to gratify thee, and because of our former acquaintance:
But no pleasure I ever could take in being among them;
For I was always obliged to endure their censures upon me.
Quite too long was my coat, the cloth too coarse, and the color
Quite too common; my hair was not cropped, as it should be, and frizzled.
I was resolved, at last, that I, also, would dress myself finely,
Just as those office-boys do who always are seen there on Sundays,
Wearing in summer their half-silken flaps, that dangle about them;
But I discovered, betimes, they made ever a laughing-stock of me.
And I was vexed when I saw it,--it wounded my pride; but more deeply
Felt I aggrieved that they the good-will should so far misinterpret
That in my heart I bore them,--especially Minna the youngest.
It was on Easter-day that last I went over to see them;
Wearing my best new coat, that is now hanging up in the closet,
And having frizzled my hair, like that of the other young fellows.
Soon as I entered, they tittered; but that not at me, as I fancied.
Minna before the piano was seated; the father was present,
Hearing his daughters sing, and full of delight and good-humor.
Much I could not understand of all that was said in the singing;
But of Pamina I often heard, and oft of Tamino:
And I, besides, could not stay there dumb; so, as soon as she ended,
Something about the words I asked, and about the two persons.
Thereupon all were silent and smiled; but the father made answer:
'Thou knowest no one, my friend, I believe, but Adam and Eve?'
No one restrained himself longer, but loud laughed out then the maidens,
Loud laughed out the boys, the old man held his sides for his laughing.
I, in embarrassment, dropped my hat, and the giggling continued,
On and on and on, for all they kept playing and singing.
Back to the house here I hurried, o'ercome with shame and vexation,
Hung up my coat in the closet, and pulled out the curls with my fingers,
Swearing that never again my foot should cross over that threshold.
And I was perfectly right; for vain are the maidens, and heartless.
E'en to this day, as I hear, I am called by them ever 'Tamino.'"
Thereupon answered the mother, and said: "Thou shouldest not, Hermann,
Be so long vexed with the children: indeed, they are all of them children.
Minna, believe me, is good, and was always disposed to thee kindly.
'Twas not long since she was asking about thee. Let her be thy chosen!"
Forth broke the father then, and in words of anger made answer:
"Little of joy will my life have in thee! I said it would be so
When I perceived that thy pleasure was solely in horses and farming:
Work which a servant, indeed, performs for an opulent master,
That thou doest; the father meanwhile must his son be deprived of,
Who should appear as his pride, in the sight of the rest of the townsmen.
Early with empty hopes thy mother was wont to deceive me,
When in the school thy studies, thy reading and writing, would never
As with the others succeed, but thy seat would be always the lowest.
That comes about, forsooth, when a youth has no feeling of honor
Dwelling within his breast, nor the wish to raise himself higher.
Had but my father so cared for me as thou hast been cared for;
If he had sent me to school, and provided me thus with instructors,
I should be other, I trow, than host of the Golden Lion!"
Then the son rose from his seat and noiselessly moved to the doorway,
Slowly, and speaking no word. The father, however, in passion
After him called, "Yes, go, thou obstinate fellow! I know thee!
Go and look after the business henceforth, that I have not to chide thee;
But do thou nowise imagine that ever a peasant-born maiden
Thou for a daughter-in-law shalt bring into my dwelling, the hussy!
Long have I lived in the world, and know how mankind should be dealt with;
Know how to entertain ladies and gentlemen so that contented
They shall depart from my house, and strangers agreeably can flatter.
Yet I'm resolved that some day I one will have for a daughter,
Who shall requite me in kind and sweeten my manifold labors;
Who the piano shall play to me, too; so that there shall with pleasure
All the handsomest people in town and the finest assemble,
As they on Sundays do now in the house of our neighbor." Here Hermann
Softly pressed on the latch, and so went out from the chamber.
THALIA
THE CITIZENS
Thus did the modest son slip away from the angry up-braiding;
But in the tone he had taken at first, the father continued:
"That comes not out of a man which he has not in him; and hardly
Shall the joy ever be mine of seeing my dearest wish granted:
That my son may not as his father be, but a better.
What would become of the house, and what of the city if each one
Were not with pleasure and always intent on maintaining, renewing,
Yea, and improving, too, as time and the foreigner teach us!
Man is not meant, forsooth, to grow from the ground like a mushroom,
Quickly to perish away on the spot of ground that begot him,
Leaving no trace behind of himself and his animate action!
As by the house we straightway can tell the mind of the master,
So, when we walk through a city, we judge of the persons who rule it.
For where the towers and walls are falling to ruin; where offal
Lies in heaps in the gutters, and alleys with offal are littered;
Where from its place has started the stone, and no one resets it;
Where the timbers are rotting away, and the house is awaiting
Vainly its new supports,--that place we may know is ill governed.
Since if not from above work order and cleanliness downward,
Easily grows the citizen used to untidy postponement;
Just as the beggar grows likewise used to his ragged apparel.
Therefore I wished that our Hermann might early set out on some travels;
That he at least might behold the cities of Strasburg and Frankfort,
Friendly Mannheim, too, that is cheerful and evenly builded.
He that has once beheld cities so cleanly and large, never after
Ceases his own native city, though small it may be, to embellish.
Do not the strangers who come here commend the repairs in our gateway,
Notice our whitewashed tower, and the church we have newly rebuilded?
Are not all praising our pavement? the covered canals full of water,
Laid with a wise distribution, which furnish us profit and safety,
So that no sooner does fire break out than 'tis promptly arrested?
Has not all this come to pass since the time of our great conflagration?
Builder I six times was named by the council, and won the approval,
Won moreover the heartfelt thanks of all the good burghers,
Actively carrying out what I planned, and also fulfilling
What had by upright men been designed, and left uncompleted.
Finally grew the same zeal in every one of the council;
All now labor together, and firmly decided already
Stands it to build the new causeway that shall with the high-road
connect us.
But I am sorely afraid that will not be the way with our children.
Some think only of pleasure and perishable apparel;
Others will cower at home, and behind the stove will sit brooding.
One of this kind, as I fear, we shall find to the last in our Hermann."
Thereupon when she was gone, the father thus smiling continued:
"What a strange folk, to be sure, are these women; and just like
the children;
Both of them bent upon living according as suiteth their pleasure,
While we others must never do aught but flatter and praise them.
Once for all time holds good the ancients' trustworthy proverb:
'Whoever goes not forward comes backward.' So must it be always."
Thereupon answered and said, in a tone of reflection, the doctor:
"That, sir neighbor, I willingly grant; for myself I am always
Casting about for improvement,--things new, so they be not too costly.
EUTERPE
"Mother, how hast thou surprised me!" he said in confusion; and quickly
Wiped the high-spirited youth his tears away. But the mother,
"What! do I find thee weeping, my son?" exclaimed in amazement.
"Nay, that is not like thyself: I never before have so seen thee!
Tell me, what burdens thy heart? what drives thee here, to be sitting
Under the pear-tree alone? These tears in thine eyes, what has
brought them?"
But, alas, how near is the foe! The Rhine with its waters
Guards us, indeed; but, ah, what now are rivers and mountains
'Gainst that terrible people that onward bears like a tempest!
For they summon their youths from every quarter together,
Call up their old men too, and press with violence forward.
Death cannot frighten the crowd: one multitude follows another.
And shall a German dare to linger behind in his homestead?
Hopes he perhaps to escape the everywhere threatened evil?
Nay, dear mother, I tell thee, today has made me regretful
That I was lately exempt, when out of our townsmen were chosen
Those who should serve in the army. An only son I am truly,
Also our business is great, and the charge of our household is weighty.
Yet were it better, I deem, in the front to offer resistance
There on the border, than here to await disaster and bondage.
So has my spirit declared, and deep in my innermost bosom
Courage and longing have now been aroused to live for my country,
Yea, and to die, presenting to others a worthy example.
If but the strength of Germany's youth were banded together
There on the frontier, resolved that it never would yield to the stranger,
Ah, he should not on our glorious soil be setting his footsteps,
Neither consuming before our eyes the fruit of our labor,
Ruling our men, and making his prey of our wives and our daughters.
Hark to me, mother: for I in the depths of my heart am determined
Quickly to do, and at once, what appears to me right and in reason;
For he chooses not always the best who longest considers.
Hearken, I shall not again return to the house; but directly
Go from this spot to the city, and there present to the soldiers
This right arm and this heart, to be spent in the fatherland's service.
Then let my father say if there be no feeling of honor
Dwelling within my breast, nor a wish to raise myself higher."
Then with significant words spoke the good and intelligent mother,
While from her eyes the quick-starting tears were silently falling:
"Son, what change has come o'er thee today, and over thy temper,
That thou speakest no more, as thou yesterday didst, and hast always,
Open and free, to thy mother, and tellest exactly thy wishes?
Any one else, had he heard thee thus speak, would in sooth have commended,
And this decision of thine would have highly approved as most noble,
Being misled by thy tone and by thy significant language.
Yet have I nothing but censure to speak; for better I know thee.
Thou concealest thy heart, and thy thoughts are not such as thou tellest.
Well do I know that it is not the drum, not the trumpet that calls thee:
Neither in uniform wouldst thou figure in sight of the maidens;
Since, for all thou art honest and brave, it is thy vocation
Here in quiet to care for the farm and provide for the household.
Tell me honestly, therefore, what goads thee to such a decision?"
Earnestly answered the son: "Nay, thou art mistaken, dear mother:
One day is not like another. The youth matures into manhood:
Better in stillness oft ripening to deeds than when in the tumult
Wildering and wild of existence, that many a youth has corrupted.
And, for as still as I am and was always, there yet in my bosom
Has such a heart been shaped as abhors all wrong and injustice;
And I have learned aright between worldly things to distinguish.
Arm and foot, besides, have been mightily strengthened by labor.
All this, I feel, is true: I dare with boldness maintain it.
Yet dost thou blame me with reason, O mother! for thou hast surprised me
Using a language half truthful and half that of dissimulation.
For, let me honestly own,--it is not the near danger that calls me
Forth from my father's house; nor is it the lofty ambition
Helpful to be to my country, and terrible unto the foeman.
They were but words that I spoke: they only were meant for concealing
Those emotions from thee with which my heart is distracted;
And so leave me, O mother! for, since the wishes are fruitless
Which in my bosom I cherish, my life must go fruitlessly over.
For, as I know, he injures himself who is singly devoted,
When for the common cause the whole are not working together."
Then he abandoned himself, the poor boy, to his sorrow, and weeping,
Weeping aloud on his kind mother's breast, he brokenly answered:
"Truly my father's words today have wounded me sorely,--
Words which I have not deserved; not today, nor at any time have I:
For it was early my greatest delight to honor my parents.
No one knew more, so I deemed, or was wiser than those who begot me,
And had with strictness ruled throughout the dark season of childhood.
Many the things, in truth, I with patience endured from my playmates,
When the good-will that I bore them they often requited with malice.
Often I suffered their flings and their blows to pass unresented;
But if they ventured to ridicule father, when he of a Sunday
Home from Church would come, with his solemn and dignified bearing;
If they made fun of his cap-string, or laughed at the flowers of
the wrapper
He with such stateliness wore, which was given away but this morning--
Threateningly doubled my fist in an instant; with furious passion
Fell I upon them, and struck out and hit, assailing them blindly,
Seeing not where. They howled as the blood gushed out from their noses:
Scarcely they made their escape from my passionate kicking and beating.
Then, as I older grew, I had much to endure from my father;
Violent words he oft vented on me, instead of on others,
When, at the board's last session, the council had roused his displeasure,
And I was made to atone for the quarrels and wiles of his colleagues.
Thou has pitied me often thyself; for much did I suffer,
Ever remembering with cordial respect the kindness of parents,
Solely intent on increasing for us their goods and possessions,
Much denying themselves in order to save for their children.
But, alas! saving alone, for the sake of a tardy enjoyment,--
That is not happiness: pile upon pile, and acre on acre,
Make us not happy, no matter how fair our estates may be rounded.
For the father grows old, and with him will grow old the children,
Losing the joy of the day, and bearing the care of tomorrow.
Look thou below, and see how before us in glory are lying,
Fair and abundant, the corn-fields; beneath them, the vineyard and garden;
Yonder the stables and barns; our beautiful line of possessions.
But when I look at the dwelling behind, where up in the gable
We can distinguish the window that marks my room in the attic;
When I look back, and remember how many a night from that window
I for the moon have watched; for the sun, how many a morning!
When the healthful sleep of a few short hours sufficed me,--
Ah, so lonely they seem to me then, the chamber and courtyard,
Garden and glorious field, away o'er the hill that is stretching;
All so desert before me lie: 'tis the wife that is wanting."
Thereupon spoke the good mother, and thus with intelligence answered:
"Son, not greater thy wish to bring thee a bride to thy chamber,
That thou mayst find thy nights a beautiful part of existence,
And that the work of the day may gain independence and freedom,
Than is thy father's wish too, and thy mother's. We always have
counselled,--
Yea, we have even insisted,--that thou shouldst elect thee a maiden.
But I was ever aware, and now my heart gives me assurance,
That till the hour appointed is come, and the maiden appointed
Shall with the hour appear, the choice will be left for the future,
While more strong than all else will be fear of grasping the wrong one.
If I may say it, my son, I believe thou already hast chosen;
For thy heart has been touched, and been made more than wontedly tender.
Speak it out honestly, then; for my soul has told me before-hand:
That same maiden it is, the exile, whom thou hast elected."
"Thou hast said, mother!" the son thereupon with eagerness answered.
"Yes, it is she; and if I today as my bride do not bring her
Home to our dwelling, she from me will go, perhaps vanish for ever,
Lost in the war's confusion and sad movings hither and thither.
Mother, forever in vain would then our abundant possessions
Prosper before me, and seasons to come be in vain to me fruitful.
Yea, I should hold in aversion the wonted house and the garden:
Even my mother's love, alas! would not comfort my sorrow.
Every tie, so I feel in my heart, by love is unloosened
Soon as she fastens her own; and not the maid is it only
Leaves behind father and mother, to follow the man she has chosen.
He too, the youth, no longer knows aught of mother and father,
When he the maiden, his only beloved, sees vanishing from him.
Suffer me, then, to go hence wherever despair shall impel me:
Since by my father himself the decisive words have been spoken;
Since his house can no longer be mine if he shut out the maiden,
Her whom alone as my bride I desire to bring to our dwelling."
Thus she hastily spoke, and up from the stone then arising,
Drew from his seat her son, who willingly followed. In silence
Both descended the hill, their important purpose revolving.
POLYHYMNIA
Thus he spoke; and scarce had he ended when entered the mother,
Holding her son by the hand, and so led him up to her husband.
"Father," she said, "how oft when we two have been chatting together,
Have we rejoiced in the thought of Hermann's future espousal,
When he should bring his bride to be the light of our dwelling!
Over and over again the matter we pondered: this maiden
Fixing upon for him first, and then that, with the gossip of parents.
But that day is now come; and Heaven at last has the maiden
Brought to him hither, and shown him; and now his heart has decided.
Said we not always then he should have his own choice in the matter?
Was it not just now thy wish that he might with lively affection
Feel himself drawn to some maiden? The hour is come that we hoped for.
Yes; he has felt and has chosen and come to a manly decision.
That same maiden it is that met him this morning, the stranger:
Say he may have her, or else, as he swears, his life shall be single."
"Give her me, father," so added the son: "my heart has elected
Clear and sure; she will be to you both the noblest of daughters."
But the father was silent. Then hastily rose the good pastor,
Took up the word and said: "The moment alone is decisive;
Fixes the life of man, and his future destiny settles.
After long taking of counsel, yet only the work of a moment
Every decision must be; and the wise alone seizes the right one.
Dangerous always it is comparing the one with the other
When we are making our choice, and so confusing our feelings.
Hermann is pure. From childhood up I have known him, and never
E'en as a boy was he wont to be reaching for this and the other:
What he desired was best for him too, and he held to it firmly.
Be not surprised and alarmed that now has appeared of a sudden,
What thou hast wished for so long. It is true that the present appearance
Bears not the form of the wish, exactly as thou hadst conceived it:
For our wishes oft hide from ourselves the object we wish for;
Gifts come down from above in the shapes appointed by Heaven.
Therefore misjudge not the maiden who now of thy dearly beloved,
Good and intelligent son has been first to touch the affections:
Happy to whom at once his first love's hand shall be given,
And in whose heart no tenderest wish must secretly languish.
Yes: his whole bearing assures me that now his fate is decided.
Genuine love matures in a moment the youth into manhood;
He is not easily moved; and I fear that if this be refused him,
Sadly his years will go by, those years that should be the fairest."
Straightway the son broke in, and with wing�d words made he answer:
"Do so, neighbor, and go and make thine inquiries; but with thee
I should be glad if our minister here were joined in the errand:
Two such excellent men would be irreproachable judges.
O my father! believe me, she's none of those wandering maidens,
Not one of those who stroll through the land in search of adventure,
And who seek to ensnare inexperienced youth in their meshes.
No: the hard fortunes of war, that universal destroyer,
Which is convulsing the earth and has hurled from its deep foundations
Many a structure already, have sent the poor girl into exile.
Are not now men of high birth, the most noble, in misery roaming?
Princes fly in disguise and kings are in banishment living.
So alas! also is she, the best among all of her sisters,
Driven an exile from home; yet, her personal sorrows forgetting,
She is devoted to others; herself without help, she is helpful.
Great is the want and the suffering over the earth that are spreading:
Shall not some happiness, too, be begotten of all this affliction,
And shall not I in the arms of my wife, my trusted companion,
Look back with joy to the war, as do ye to the great conflagration?"
Thus the father. The son cried out with joyful demeanor,
"Ere it is evening the noblest of daughters shall hither be brought you,
Such as no man with sound sense in his breast can fail to be pleased with.
Happy, I venture to hope, will be also the excellent maiden.
Yes; she will ever be grateful for having had father and mother
Given once more in you, and such as a child most delights in.
Now I will tarry no longer, but straightway harness the horses,
Drive forth our friends at once on the footsteps of my beloved,
Leaving them then to act for themselves, as their wisdom shall dictate,
Guide myself wholly, I promise, according to what they determine,
And, until I may call her my own, ne'er look on the maiden."
Thus he went forth: the others meanwhile remained in discussion,
Rapid and earnest, considering deeply their great undertaking.
Thus he spoke. The friends thereupon went their way to the village,
Where, in the houses and gardens and barns, the people were swarming;
Wagons on wagons stood crowded together along the broad highway.
Men for the harnessed horses and lowing cattle were caring,
While the women were busy in drying their clothes on the hedges,
And in the running brook the children were merrily splashing.
Making their way through the pressure of wagons, of people and cattle,
Went the commissioned spies, and to right and to left looked about them,
If they a figure might see that answered the maiden's description;
But not one of them all appeared the beautiful damsel.
Denser soon grew the press. A contest arose round the wagons
'Mongst the threatening men, wherein blended the cries of the women.
Rapidly then to the spot, and with dignified step, came an elder,
Joined the clamoring group, and straightway the uproar was silenced,
As he commanded peace, and rebuked with a fatherly sternness.
"Has, then, misfortune," he cried, "not yet so bound us together,
That we have finally learned to bear and forbear one another,
Though each one, it may be, do not measure his share of the labor?
He that is happy, forsooth, is contentious! Will sufferings never
Teach you to cease from your brawls of old between brother and brother?
Grudge not one to another a place on the soil of the stranger;
Rather divide what ye have, as yourselves ye would hope to find mercy."
Thus spoke the man and all became silent: restored to good humor,
Peaceably then the people arranged their cattle and wagons.
But when the clergyman now had heard what was said by the stranger,
And had the steadfast mind of the foreign justice discovered,
He to the man drew near and with words of meaning addressed him:
"True it is, father, that when in prosperity people are living,
Feeding themselves from the earth, which far and wide opens her bosom,
And in the years and months renews the coveted blessings,--
All goes on of itself, and each himself deems the wisest,
Deems the best, and so they continue abiding together,
He of greatest intelligence ranking no higher than others;
All that occurs, as if of itself, going quietly forward.
But let disaster unsettle the usual course of existence,
Tear down the buildings about us, lay waste the crops and the garden,
Banish the husband and wife from their old, familiar-grown dwelling,
Drive them to wander abroad through nights and days of privation,--
Then, ah then! we look round us to see what man is the wisest,
And no longer in vain his glorious words will be spoken.
Tell me, art thou not judge among this fugitive people,
Father, who thus in an instant canst bid their passions be quiet?
Thou dost appear to-day as one of those earliest leaders,
Who through deserts and wanderings guided the emigrant nations.
Yea, I could even believe I were speaking with Joshua or Moses."
Seeing the priest was inclined to speak yet more with the stranger,
And was desirous of learning his story and that of his people,
Privately into his ear his companion hastily whispered:
"Talk with the magistrate further, and lead him to speak of the maiden.
I, however, will wander in search, and as soon as I find her,
Come and report to thee here." The minister nodded, assenting;
And through the gardens, hedges, and barns, went the spy on his errand.
CLIO
THE AGE
Now when the foreign judge had been by the minister questioned
As to his people's distress, and how long their exile had lasted,
Thus made answer the man: "Of no recent date are our sorrows;
Since of the gathering bitter of years our people have drunken,--
Bitterness all the more dreadful because such fair hope had been blighted.
Who will pretend to deny that his heart swelled high in his bosom,
And that his freer breast with purer pulses was beating,
When we beheld the new sun arise in his earliest splendor,
When of the rights of men we heard, which to all should be common,
Were of a righteous equality told, and inspiriting freedom?
Every one hoped that then he should live his own life, and the fetters,
Binding the various lands, appeared their hold to be loosing,--
Fetters that had in the hand of sloth been held and self-seeking.
Looked not the eyes of all nations, throughout that calamitous season,
Toward the world's capital city, for so it had long been considered,
And of that glorious title was now, more than ever, deserving?
Were not the names of those men who first delivered the message,
Names to compare with the highest that under the heavens are spoken?
Did not, in every man, grow courage and spirit and language?
And, as neighbors, we, first of all, were zealously kindled.
Thereupon followed the war, and arm�d bodies of Frenchmen
Pressed to us nearer; yet nothing but friendship they seemed to be
bringing;
Ay, and they brought it too; for exalted the spirit within them:
They with rejoicing the festive trees of liberty planted,
Promising every man what was his own, and to each his own ruling.
High beat the heart of the youths, and even the aged were joyful;
Gaily the dance began about the newly raised standard.
Thus had they speedily won, these overmastering Frenchmen,
First the spirits of men by the fire and dash of their bearing,
Then the hearts of the women with irresistible graces.
Even the pressure of hungry war seemed to weigh on us lightly,
So before our vision did hope hang over the future,
Luring our eyes abroad into newly opening pathways.
Oh, how joyful the time when with her beloved the maiden
Whirls in the dance, the longed-for day of their union awaiting!
But more glorious that day on which to our vision the highest
Heart of man can conceive seemed near and attainable to us.
Loosened was every tongue, and men--the aged, the stripling--
Spoke aloud in words that were full of high feeling and wisdom.
Soon, however, the sky was o'ercast. A corrupt generation
Fought for the right of dominion, unworthy the good to establish;
So that they slew one another, their new-made neighbors and brothers
Held in subjection, and then sent the self-seeking masses against us.
Chiefs committed excesses and wholesale plunder upon us,
While those lower plundered and rioted down to the lowest:
Every one seemed but to care that something be left for the morrow.
Great past endurance the need, and daily grew the oppression:
They were the lords of the day; there was none to hear our complaining.
Then fell trouble and rage upon even the quietest spirit.
One thought only had all, and swore for their wrongs to have vengeance,
And for the bitter loss of their hope thus doubly deluded.
Presently Fortune turned and declared on the side of the German,
And with hurried marches the French retreated before us.
Ah! then as never before did we feel the sad fortunes of warfare:
He that is victor is great and good,--or at least he appears so,--
And he, as one of his own, will spare the man he has conquered,
Him whose service he daily needs, and whose property uses.
But no law the fugitive knows, save of self-preservation,
And, with a reckless greed, consumes all the possessions about him;
Then are his passions also inflamed: the despair that is in him
Out of his heart breaks forth, and takes shape in criminal action.
Nothing is further held sacred; but all is for plunder. His craving
Turns in fury on woman, and pleasure is changed into horror.
Death he sees everywhere round him, and madly enjoys his last moments,
Taking delight in blood, in the shriekings of anguish exulting.
Thereupon fiercely arose in our men the stern resolution
What had been lost to avenge, and defend what'er was remaining.
Every man sprang to his arms, by the flight of the foeman encouraged,
And by his blanching cheeks, and his timorous, wavering glances.
Ceaselessly now rang out the clanging peal of the tocsin.
Thought of no danger to come restrained their furious anger.
Quick into weapons of war the husbandman's peaceful utensils
All were converted; dripped with blood the scythe and the ploughshare.
Quarter was shown to none: the enemy fell without mercy.
Fury everywhere raged and the cowardly cunning of weakness.
Ne'er may I men so carried away by injurious passion
See again! the sight of the raging wild beast would be better.
Let not man prattle of freedom, as if himself he could govern!
Soon as the barriers are torn away, then all of the evil
Seems let loose, that by law had been driven deep back into corners."
Now when this praise the minister heard bestowed on the maiden,
Rose straightway for his friend a feeling of hope in his bosom,
And he had opened his lips to inquire what further befell her,
If on this mournful flight she now with her people were present;
When with a hasty step the village doctor approached them,
Twitched the clergyman's coat, and said in his ear in a whisper:
"I have discovered the maiden at last among several hundreds;
By the description I knew her, so come, let thine own eyes behold her!
Bring too the magistrate with thee, that so we may hear him yet further."
But as they turned to go, the justice was summoned to leave them,
Sent for by some of his people by whom his counsel was needed.
Straightway the preacher, however, the lead of the doctor had followed
Up to a gap in the fence where his finger he meaningly pointed.
"Seest thou the maiden?" he said: "she has made some clothes for the baby
Out of the well-known chintz,--I distinguish it plainly; and further
There are the covers of blue that Hermann gave in his bundle.
Well and quickly, forsooth, she has turned to advantage the presents.
Evident tokens are these, and all else answers well the description.
Mark how the stomacher's scarlet sets off the arch of her bosom,
Prettily laced, and the bodice of black fits close to her figure;
Neatly the edge of her kerchief is plaited into a ruffle,
Which, with a simple grace, her chin's rounded outline encircles;
Freely and lightly rises above it the head's dainty oval,
And her luxuriant hair over silver bodkins is braided.
Now she is sitting, yet still we behold her majestical stature,
And the blue petticoat's ample plaits, that down from her bosom
Hangs in abundant folds about her neatly shaped ankles,
She without question it is; come, therefore, and let us discover
Whether she honest and virtuous be, a housewifely maiden."
For I have oft seen put to the test the truth of the proverb:
Till thou a bushel of salt with a new acquaintance hast eaten,
Be not too ready to trust him; for time alone renders thee certain
How ye shall fare with each other, and how well your friendship shall
prosper.
Let us then rather at first make inquiries among the good people
By whom the maiden is known, and who can inform us about her."
Toward the good magistrate, then, the men directed their footsteps,
Who was again ascending the street in discharge of his duties.
Soon as the magistrate nearer had come, and looked into the garden,
"Her thou knowest already," he said; "for when I was telling
Of the heroic deed performed by the hand of that maiden,
When she snatched the man's sword, and delivered herself and her charges,
This was the one! she is vigorous born, as thou seest by her stature;
Yet she is good as strong, for her aged kinsman she tended
Until the day of his death, which was finally hastened by sorrow
Over his city's distress, and his own endangered possessions.
Also, with quiet submission, she bore the death of her lover,
Who a high-spirited youth, in the earliest flush of excitement,
Kindled by lofty resolve to fight for a glorious freedom,
Hurried to Paris, where early a terrible death he encountered.
For as at home, so there, his foes were deceit and oppression."
Thus the magistrate spoke. The others saluted and thanked him,
And from his purse a gold-piece the pastor drew forth;--for the silver
He had some hours before already in charity given,
When he in mournful groups had seen the poor fugitives passing;--
And to the magistrate handed it, saying: "Apportion the money
'Mongst thy destitute people, and God vouchsafe it an increase."
But the stranger declined it, and, answering, said: "We have rescued
Many a dollar among us, with clothing and other possessions,
And shall return, as I hope, ere yet our stock is exhausted."
Then the pastor replied, and pressed the money upon him:
"None should be backward in giving in days like the present, and no one
Ought to refuse to accept those gifts which in kindness are offered.
None can tell how long he may hold what in peace he possesses,
None how much longer yet he shall roam through the land of the stranger,
And of his farm be deprived, and deprived of the garden that feeds him."
So they hastened their steps, and came to where under the lindens
Hermann against the carriage was leaning. The horses were stamping
Wildly the turf; he held them in check, and, buried in musing,
Stood, into vacancy gazing before him; nor saw the two envoys,
Till, as they came, they called out and made to him signals of triumph.
E'en as far off as they then were, the doctor began to address him;
But they were presently nearer come and then the good pastor
Grasped his hand and exclaimed, interrupting the word of his comrade:
"Hail to thee, O young man! thy true eye and heart have well chosen;
Joy be to thee and the wife of thy youth; for of thee she is worthy.
Come then and turn us the wagon, and drive straightway to the village,
There the good maid to woo, and soon bring her home to thy dwelling."
"Let that be as it may!" made answer the youth, who had scarcely
Unto the words paid heed; but in silence had made his decision.
"I will go thither myself, will myself hear my destiny spoken
Out of the lips of a maiden in whom I a confidence cherish
Greater than heart of man has e'er before cherished in woman.
Say what she will, 'twill be good and wise; of that I am certain.
Should I behold her never again, yet this once will I see her;
Yet this once the clear gaze of those dark eyes will encounter.
If I must press her ne'er to my heart, yet that neck and that bosom
Will I behold once more, that my arm so longs to encircle;
Once more that mouth will see, whose kiss and whose 'yes' would for ever
Render me happy, from which a 'no' will for ever destroy me.
But ye must leave me alone. Do not wait for me here; but return ye
Back to my father and mother again, and give them the knowledge
That their son has not been deceived, that the maiden is worthy.
So then leave me alone! I shall follow the footpath that crosses
Over the hill by the pear-tree, and thence descends through our vineyard,
Taking a shorter way home. And oh, may I bring to our dwelling,
Joyful and quick my beloved! but perhaps I alone may come creeping
Over that path to the house, and ne'er again tread it with gladness."
Thus he spoke, and gave up the reins to the hand of the pastor,
Who understandingly grasped them, the foaming horses controlling,
Speedily mounted the carriage, and sat in the seat of the driver.
But thou didst laugh at his words, intelligent pastor, and answer:
"Sit thee down, and contentedly trust me both body and spirit;
For, in holding the reins, my hand grew long ago skilful,
Long has my eye been trained in making the nicest of turnings;
For we were practised well in driving the carriage in Strasburg,
When I the youthful baron accompanied thither; then daily
Rolled the carriage, guided by me, through the echoing gateway,
Out over dusty roads till we reached the meadows and lindens,
Steering through groups of the town's-folk beguiling the day there
with walking."
ERATO
DOROTHEA
Like as the traveller, who, when the sun is approaching its setting,
Fixes his eyes on it once again ere quickly it vanish,
Then on the sides of the rocks, and on all the darkening bushes,
Sees its hovering image; whatever direction he look in
That hastes before, and flickers and gleams in radiant colors,--
So before Hermann's eyes moved the beautiful shape of the maiden
Softly, and seeming to follow the path that led into the corn-field.
But he aroused from his wildering dream and turned himself slowly
Toward where the village lay and was wildered again; for again came
Moving to meet him the lofty form of the glorious maiden.
Fixedly gazed he upon her; herself it was and no phantom.
Bearing in either hand a larger jar and a smaller,
Each by the handle, with busy step she came on to the fountain.
Joyfully then he hastened to meet her; the sight of her gave him
Courage and strength; and thus the astonished girl he accosted:
"Do I then find thee, brave-hearted maiden, so soon again busy,
Rendering aid unto others, and happy in bringing them comfort?
Say why thou comest alone to this well which lies at such a distance,
When all the rest are content with the water they find in the village?
This has peculiar virtues, 'tis true; and the taste is delicious.
Thou to that mother wouldst bring it, I trow, whom thy faithfulness
rescued."
Thus she spoke, and the broad stone steps meanwhile had descended
With her companion beside her, and on the low wall of the fountain
Both sat them down. She bent herself over to draw, and he also
Took in his hand the jar that remained, and bent himself over;
And in the blue of the heavens, they, seeing their image reflected,
Friendly greetings and nods exchanged in the quivering mirror.
Thoughtful he bent his eyes on the ground, then quietly raised them
Up to her face, and, meeting with frankness the gaze of the maiden,
Felt himself solaced and stilled. But then impossible was it,
That he of love should speak; her eye told not of affection,
Only of clear understanding, requiring intelligent answer.
And he composed himself quickly, and cordially said to the maiden:
"Hearken to me, my child, and let me reply to thy question.
'Twas for thy sake that hither I came; why seek to conceal it?
Know I live happy at home with both my affectionate parents,
Faithfully giving my aid their house and estates in directing,
Being an only son, and because our affairs are extensive.
Mine is the charge of the farm; my father bears rule in the household;
While the presiding spirit of all is the diligent mother.
But thine experience doubtless has taught thee how grievously servants,
Now through deceit, and now through their carelessness, harass the
mistress,
Forcing her ever to change and replace one fault with another.
Long for that reason my mother has wished for a maid in the household,
Who not with hand alone, but with heart, too, will lend her assistance,
Taking the daughter's place, whom alas! she was early deprived of.
Now when today by the wagon I saw thee, so ready and cheerful,
Witnessed the strength of thine arms, and thy limbs of such healthful
proportion,
When thy intelligent speech I heard, I was smitten with wonder.
Hastening homeward, I there to my parents and neighbors the stranger
Praised as she well deserved. But I now am come hither to tell thee
What is their wish as mine.--Forgive me my stammering language."
Then from their seats they rose, and both of them turned to the fountain
One more look behind, and a tender longing possessed them.
Both of the water-jars then in silence she took by the handle,
Carried them up the steps, while behind her followed her lover.
One of the pitchers he begged her to give him to lighten the burden.
"Nay, let it be!" she said: "I carry them better so balanced.
Nor shall the master, who is to command, be doing me service.
Look not so gravely upon me, as thinking my fortune a hard one.
Early a woman should learn to serve, for that is her calling;
Since through service alone she finally comes to the headship,
Comes to the due command that is hers of right in the household.
Early the sister must wait on her brother, and wait on her parents;
Life must be always with her a perpetual coming and going,
Or be a fetching and carrying, making and doing for others.
Happy for her be she wonted to think no way is too grievous,
And if the hours of the night be to her as the hours of the daytime;
If she find never a needle too fine, nor a labor too trifling;
Wholly forgetful of self, and caring to live but in others!
For she will surely, as mother, have need of every virtue,
When, in the time of her illness, the cries of her infant arouse her
Calling for food from her weakness, and cares are to suffering added.
Twenty men bound into one were not able to bear such a burden;
Nor is it meant that they should, yet should they with gratitude view it."
Thus she spoke, and was come, meanwhile, with her silent companion,
Far as the floor of the barn, at the furthermost end of the garden,
Where was the sick woman lying, whom, glad, she had left with her
daughters,
Those late rescued maidens: fair pictures of innocence were they.
Both of them entered the barn; and, e'en as they did so, the justice,
Leading a child in each hand, came in from the other direction.
These had been lost, hitherto, from the sight of their sorrowing mother;
But in the midst of the crowd the old man now had descried them.
Joyfully sprang they forward to meet their dear mother's embraces,
And to salute with delight their brother, their unknown companion.
Next upon Dorothea they sprang with affectionate greeting,
Asking for bread and fruit, but more than all else for some water.
So then she handed the water about; and not only the children
Drank, but the sick woman, too, and her daughters, and with them
the justice.
All were refreshed, and highly commended the glorious water;
Acid it was to the taste, and reviving, and wholesome to drink of.
Then she knelt down on the floor by the side of the newly made mother,
Kissing the weeping woman, and taking her low-whispered blessing.
MELPOMENE
HERMAN AND DOROTHEA
Toward the setting sun the two thus went on their journey:
Close he had wrapped himself round with clouds portending a tempest.
Out from the veil, now here and now there, with fiery flashes,
Gleaming over the field shot forth the ominous lightning.
"May not these threatening heavens," said Hermann, "be presently sending
Hailstones upon us and violent rains; for fair is the harvest."
And in the waving luxuriant grain they delighted together:
Almost as high it reached as the lofty shapes that moved through it.
Thereupon spoke the maiden, and said to her guide and companion:
"Friend, unto whom I soon am to owe so kindly a fortune,
Shelter and home, while many an exile's exposed to the tempest,
Tell me concerning thy parents, I pray thee, and teach me to know them,
Them whom with all my heart I desire to serve in the future.
Who understands his master, more easily gives satisfaction,
Having regard to the things which to him seem chief in importance,
And on the doing of which his firm-set mind is determined.
Tell me therefore, I pray, how to win thy father and mother."
And to her question made answer the good and intelligent Hermann:
"Ah, what wisdom thou showest, thou good, thou excellent maiden,
Asking thus first of all concerning the tastes of my parents!
Know that in vain hitherto I have labored in serving my father,
Taking upon me as were it my own, the charge of the household;
Early and late at work in the fields, and o'erseeing the vine-yard.
But my mother I fully content, who can value my service;
And thou wilt also appear in her eyes the worthiest of maidens,
If for the house thou carest, as were it thine own thou wast keeping.
Otherwise is it with father, who cares for the outward appearance.
Do not regard me, good maiden, as one who is cold and unfeeling,
That unto thee a stranger I straightway discover my father.
Nay, I assure thee that never before have words such as these are
Freely dropped from my tongue, which is not accustomed to prattle;
But from out of my bosom thou lurest its every secret.
Some of the graces of life my good father covets about him,
Outward signs of affection he wishes, as well as of honor;
And an inferior servant might possibly give satisfaction,
Who could turn these to account, while he might be displeased with a
better."
Thereupon said she with joy, the while him hastening footsteps
Over the darkening pathway with easy motion she quickened:
"Truly I hope to them both I shall equally give satisfaction:
For in thy mother's nature I find such an one as mine own is,
And to the outward graces I've been from my childhood accustomed.
Greatly was courtesy valued among our neighbors the Frenchmen,
During their earlier days; it was common to noble and burgher,
As to the peasant, and every one made it the rule of his household.
So, on the side of us Germans, the children were likewise accustomed
Daily to bring to their parents, with kissing of hands and with curtseys,
Morning good-wishes, and all through the day to be prettily mannered.
Every thing thus that I learned, and to which I've been used from my
childhood,
All that my heart shall suggest, shall be brought into play for thy
father.
But who shall tell me of thee, and how thyself shouldst be treated,
Thou the only son of the house, and henceforth my master?"
Thus she said, and e'en as she spoke they stood under the pear-tree.
Down from the heavens the moon at her full was shedding her splendor.
Night had come on, and wholly obscured was the last gleam of sunlight,
So that contrasting masses lay side by side with each other,
Clear and bright as the day, and black with the shadows of midnight;
Gratefully fell upon Hermann's ear the kindly asked question
Under the shade of the glorious tree, the spot he so treasured,
Which but this morning had witnessed the tears he had shed for the exile.
And while they sat themselves down to rest them here for a little,
Thus spoke the amorous youth, as he grasped the hand of the maiden:
"Suffer thy heart to make answer, and follow it freely in all things."
Yet naught further he ventured to say although so propitious
Seemed the hour; he feared he should only haste on a refusal.
Ah, and he felt besides the ring on her finger, sad token!
Therefore they sat there, silent and still, beside one another.
First was the maiden to speak: "How sweet is this glorious moonlight!"
Said she at length: "It is as the light of the day in its brightness.
[Illustration: HERMAN AND DOROTHEA UNDER THE PEAR TREE Ludwig Richter]
There in the city I plainly can see the houses and court-yards,
And in the gable--methinks I can number its panes--is a window."
"What thou seest," the modest youth thereupon made her answer,--
"What thou seest is our dwelling, to which I am leading thee downward,
And that window yonder belongs to my room in the attic,
Which will be thine perhaps, for various changes are making.
All these fields, too, are ours; they are ripe for the harvest to-morrow.
Here in the shade we will rest, and partake of our noon-tide refreshment.
But it is time we began our descent through the vineyard and garden;
For dost thou mark how yon threatening storm-cloud comes nearer and
nearer,
Charged with lightning, and ready our fair full moon to extinguish?"
So they arose from their seats, and over the corn fields descended,
Through the luxuriant grain, enjoying the brightness of evening,
Until they came to the vineyard, and so entered into its shadow.
Then he guided her down o'er the numerous blocks that were lying,
Rough and unhewn on the pathway, and served as the steps of the alley.
Slowly the maiden descended, and leaning her hands on his shoulder,
While with uncertain beams, the moon through the leaves overlooked them,
Ere she was veiled by the cloud, and so left the couple in darkness.
Carefully Hermann's strength supported the maid that hung o'er him;
But, not knowing the path and the rough-hewn steps that led down it,
Missed she her footing, her ankle turned, and she surely had fallen,
Had not the dexterous youth his arm outstretched in an instant,
And his beloved upheld. She gently sank on his shoulder;
Breast was pressed against breast, and cheek against cheek. Thus he
stood there
Fixed as a marble statue, the force of will keeping him steadfast,
Drew her not to him more closely, but braced himself under her pressure.
Thus he the glorious burden felt, the warmth of her bosom,
And the perfume of her breath, that over his lips was exhaling;
Bore with the heart of a man the majestic form of the woman.
But she with playfulness said, concealing the pain that she suffered:
"That is a sign of misfortune, so timorous persons would tell us,
When on approaching a house we stumble not far from the threshold;
And for myself, I confess, I could wish for a happier omen.
Let us here linger awhile that thy parents may not have to blame thee,
Seeing a limping maid, and thou seem an incompetent landlord."
URANIA
PROSPECT
"Make it not worse than it is," the father replied with displeasure.
"For, as thou seest, we tarry ourselves and are waiting the issue."
Calmly, however, from where he was sitting the neighbor made answer:
"Never in hours of disquiet like this do I fail to be grateful
Unto my late, blessed father, who every root of impatience
Tore from my heart when a child, and left no fibre remaining;
So that I learned on the instant to wait as do none of your sages."
"Tell us," the pastor returned, "what legerdemain he made use of."
"That will I gladly relate, for all may draw from it a lesson;"
So made the neighbor reply. "When a boy I once stood of a Sunday
Full of impatience, and looking with eagerness out for the carriage
Which was to carry us forth to the spring that lies under the lindens.
Still the coach came not. I ran, like a weasel, now hither, now thither,
Up stairs and down, and forward and back, 'twixt the door and the window;
Even my fingers itched to be moving; I scratched on the tables,
Went about pounding and stamping, and hardly could keep me from weeping.
All was observed by the calm-tempered man; but at last when my folly
Came to be carried too far, by the arm he quietly took me,
Led me away to the window, and spoke in this serious language:
'Seest thou yonder the carpenter's shop that is closed for the Sunday?
He will re-open to-morrow, when plane and saw will be started,
And will keep on through the hours of labor from morning till evening.
But consider you this,--a day will be presently coming
When that man shall himself be astir and all of his workmen,
Making a coffin for thee to be quickly and skilfully finished.
Then that house of boards they will busily bring over hither,
Which must at last receive alike the impatient and patient,
And which is destined soon with close-pressing roof to be covered.'
Straightway I saw the whole thing in my mind as if it were doing;
Saw the boards fitting together, and saw the black color preparing,
Sat me down patiently then, and in quiet awaited the carriage.
Now when others I see, in seasons of anxious expectance,
Running distracted about, I cannot but think of the coffin."
But the door was now opened, and showed the majestical couple.
Filled with amaze were the friends, and amazed the affectionate parents,
Seeing the form of the maid so well matched with that of her lover.
Yea, the door seemed too low to allow the tall figures to enter,
As they together now appeared coming over the threshold.
Hermann had heard but in part; his limbs were inwardly trembling,
And of a sudden a stillness had fallen on all of the circle.
But by these words of derision, for such she could not but deem them,
Wounded, and stung to the depths of her soul, the excellent maiden,
Stood, while the fugitive blood o'er her cheeks and e'en to her bosom
Poured its flush. But she governed herself, and her courage collecting,
Answered the old man thus, her pain not wholly concealing:
"Truly for such a reception thy son had in no wise prepared me,
When he the ways of his father described, the excellent burgher.
Thou art a man of culture, I know, before whom I am standing;
Dealest with every one wisely, according as suits his position;
But thou hast scanty compassion, it seems, on one such as I am,
Who, a poor girl, am now crossing thy threshold with purpose to serve thee;
Else, with such bitter derision, thou wouldst not have made me remember
How far removed my fortune from that of thyself and thy son is.
True, I come poor to thy house, and bring with me naught but my bundle
Here where is every abundance to gladden the prosperous inmates.
Yet I know well myself; I feel the relations between us.
Say, is it noble, with so much of mockery straightway to greet me,
That I am sent from the house while my foot is scarce yet on the
threshold?"
Thus he spoke. The maiden had felt the full force of his language,
And she restrained her no more; but with passionate out-burst her feelings
Made themselves way; a sob broke forth from her now heaving bosom,
And, while the scalding tears poured down, she straightway made answer
"Ah, that rational man who thinks to advise us in sorrow,
Knows not how little of power his cold words have in relieving
Ever a heart from that woe which a sovereign fate has inflicted.
Ye are prosperous and glad; how then should a pleasantry wound you?
Yet but the lightest touch is a source of pain to the sick man.
Nay, concealment itself, if successful, had profited nothing.
Better show now what had later increased to a bitterer anguish,
And to an inward consuming despair might perhaps have reduced me.
Let me go back! for here in this house I can tarry no longer.
I will away, and wander in search of my hapless companions,
Whom I forsook in their need; for myself alone choosing the better.
This is my firm resolve, and I therefore may make a confession
Which might for years perhaps have else lain hid in my bosom.
Deeply indeed was I hurt by the father's words of derision;
Not that I'm sensitive, proud beyond what is fitting a servant;
But that my heart in truth had felt itself stirred with affection
Toward the youth who to-day had appeared to my eyes as a savior.
When he first left me there on the road, he still remained present,
Haunting my every thought; I fancied the fortunate maiden
Whom as a bride, perhaps, his heart had already elected.
When at the fountain I met him again, the sight of him wakened
Pleasure as great as if there had met me an angel from heaven;
And with what gladness I followed, when asked to come as his servant.
True, that I flattered myself in my heart,--I will not deny it,--
While we were hitherward coming, I might peradventure deserve him,
Should I become at last the important stay of the household.
Now I, alas! for the first time see what risk I was running,
When I would make my home so near to the secretly loved one;
Now for the first time feel how far removed a poor maiden
Is from an opulent youth, no matter how great her deserving.
All this I now confess, that my heart ye may not misinterpret,
In that 'twas hurt by a chance to which I owe my awaking.
Hiding my secret desires, this dread had been ever before me,
That at some early day he would bring him a bride to his dwelling;
And ah, how could I then my inward anguish have suffered!
Happily I have been warned, and happily now has my bosom
Been of its secret relieved, while yet there is cure for the evil.
But no more; I have spoken; and now shall nothing detain me
Longer here in a house where I stay but in shame and confusion,
Freely confessing my love and that foolish hope that I cherished.
Not the night which abroad is covered with lowering storm clouds;
Not the roll of the thunder--I hear its peal--shall deter me;
Not the pelt of the rain which without is beating in fury;
Neither the blustering tempest; for all these things have I suffered
During our sorrowful flight, and while the near foe was pursuing.
Now I again go forth, as I have so long been accustomed,
Carried away by the whirl of the times, and from every thing parted.
Fare ye well! I tarry no longer; all now is over."
Thus she spoke and back to the door she hastily turned her,
Still bearing under her arm, as she with her had brought it, her bundle.
But with both of her arms the mother seized hold of the maiden,
Clasping her round the waist, and exclaiming, amazed and bewildered:
"Tell me, what means all this? and these idle tears, say, what mean they?
I will not let thee depart: thou art the betrothed of my Hermann."
But still the father stood, observing the scene with displeasure,
Looked on the weeping girl, and said in a tone of vexation:
"This then must be the return that I get for all my indulgence,
That at the close of the day this most irksome of all things should happen!
For there is naught I can tolerate less than womanish weeping,
Violent outcries, which only involve in disorder and passion,
What with a little of sense had been more smoothly adjusted.
Settle the thing for yourselves: I'm going to bed; I've no patience
Longer to be a spectator of these your marvelous doings."
Quickly he turned as he spoke, and hastened to go to the chamber
Where he was wonted to rest, and his marriage bed was kept standing,
But he was held by his son, who said in a tone of entreaty:
"Father, hasten not from us, and be thou not wroth with the maiden.
I, only I, am to blame as the cause of all this confusion,
Which by his dissimulation our friend unexpectedly heightened.
Speak, O worthy sir; for to thee my cause I intrusted.
Heap not up sorrow and anger, but rather let all this be ended;
For I could hold thee never again in such high estimation,
If thou shouldst show but delight in pain, not superior wisdom."
Thereupon answered and said the excellent clergyman, smiling:
"Tell me, what other device could have drawn this charming confession
Out of the good maiden's lips, and thus have revealed her affection?
Has not thy trouble been straightway transformed into gladness and rapture?
Therefore speak up for thyself; what need of the tongue of another?"
Here do I therefore betroth you and bless for the years that are coming,
With the consent of the parents, and having this friend as a witness."
Then the neighbor saluted at once, and expressed his good wishes;
But when the clergyman now the golden circlet was drawing
Over the maiden's hand, he observed with amazement the other,
Which had already by Hermann been anxiously marked at the fountain.
And with a kindly raillery thus thereupon he addressed her:
"So, then thy second betrothal is this? Let us hope the first bridegroom
May not appear at the altar, and so prohibit the marriage."
But she, answering, said: "Oh, let me to this recollection
Yet one moment devote; for so much is due the good giver,
Him who bestowed it at parting, and never came back to his kindred.
All that should come he foresaw, when in haste the passion for freedom,
When a desire in the newly changed order of things to be working,
Urged him onward to Paris, where chains and death he encountered.
'Fare thee well,' were his words; 'I go, for all is in motion
Now for a time on the earth, and every thing seems to be parting.
E'en in the firmest states fundamental laws are dissolving;
Property falls away from the hand of the ancient possessor;
Friend is parted from friend; and so parts lover from lover.
Here I leave thee, and where I shall find thee again, or if ever,
Who can tell? Perhaps these words are our last ones together.
Man's but a stranger here on the earth, we are told and with reason;
And we are each of us now become more of strangers than ever.
Ours no more is the soil, and our treasures are all of them changing:
Silver and gold are melting away from their time-honored patterns.
All is in motion as though the already-shaped world into chaos
Meant to resolve itself backward into night, and to shape itself over.
Mine thou wilt keep thine heart, and should we be ever united
Over the ruins of earth, it will be as newly made creatures,
Beings transformed and free, no longer dependent on fortune;
For can aught fetter the man who has lived through days such as these are!
But if it is not to be, that, these dangers happily over,
Ever again we be granted the bliss of mutual embraces,
Oh, then before thy thoughts so keep my hovering image
That with unshaken mind thou be ready for good or for evil!
Should new ties allure thee again, and a new habitation,
Enter with gratitude into the joys that fate shall prepare thee;
Love those purely who love thee; be grateful to them who show kindness.
But thine uncertain foot should yet be planted but lightly,
For there is lurking the twofold pain of a new separation.
Blessings attend thy life; but value existence no higher
Than thine other possessions, and all possessions are cheating!'
Thus spoke the noble youth, and never again I beheld him.
Meanwhile I lost my all, and a thousand times thought of his warning.
Here, too, I think of his words, when love is sweetly preparing
Happiness for me anew, and glorious hopes are reviving.
Oh, forgive me, excellent friend, that e'en while I hold thee
Close to my side I tremble! So unto the late-landed sailor
Seem the most solid foundations of firmest earth to be rocking."
Thus she spoke, and placed the two rings on her finger together.
But her lover replied with a noble and manly emotion:
"So much the firmer then, amid these universal convulsions,
Be, Dorothea, our union! We two will hold fast and continue,
Firmly maintaining ourselves, and the right to our ample possessions.
For that man, who, when times are uncertain, is faltering in spirit,
Only increases the evil, and further and further transmits it;
While he refashions the world, who keeps himself steadfastly minded.
Poorly becomes it the German to give to these fearful excitements
Aught of continuance, or to be this way and that way inclining.
This is our own! let that be our word, and let us maintain it!
For to those resolute peoples respect will be ever accorded,
Who for God and the laws, for parents, women and children,
Fought and died, as together they stood with their front to the foeman.
Thou art mine own; and now what is mine, is mine more than ever.
Not with anxiety will I preserve it, and trembling enjoyment;
Rather with courage and strength. To-day should the enemy threaten,
Or in the future, equip me thyself and hand me my weapons.
Let me but know that under thy care are my house and dear parents,
Oh! I can then with assurance expose my breast to the foeman.
And were but every man minded like me, there would be an upspring
Might against might, and peace should revisit us all with its gladness."
* * * * *
But may we not deepen and spiritualize our conception of the drama and
say that in _Iphigenia_, Goethe created a new dramatic genus, the
soul-drama--the first psychological drama of modern literature, the
result of ethical and artistic development through two milleniums?
Surely a Greek dramatist of the first rank, come to life again in
Goethe's age and entering into the heritage of this development, would
have modernized both subject and form in the same way.
DRAMATIS PERSON�
IPHIGENIA.
THOAS, _King of the Taurians_.
ORESTES.
PYLADES.
ARKAS.
* * * * *
ACT I
IPHIGENIA
SCENE II
IPHIGENIA, ARKAS
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA (_alone_)
How to observe
His faithful counsel see I not in sooth.
But willingly the duty I perform
Of giving thanks for benefits receiv'd,
And much I wish that to the king my lips
With truth could utter what would please his ear.
SCENE III
IPHIGENIA, THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
Hidden there
Let them abide. A truce to horror now,
And tell me by what miracle thou sprangest
From race so savage.
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
I am a man.
And better 'tis we end this conference.
Hear then my last resolve. Be priestess still
Of the great goddess who selected thee;
And may she pardon me, that I from her,
Unjustly and with secret self-reproach,
Her ancient sacrifice so long withheld.
From olden time no stranger near'd our shore
But fell a victim at her sacred shrine.
But thou, with kind affection (which at times
Seem'd like a gentle daughter's tender love,
At times assum'd to my enraptur'd heart
The modest inclination of a bride),
Didst so inthral me, as with magic bowls,
That I forgot my duty. Thou didst rock
My senses in a dream: I did not hear
My people's murmurs: now they cry aloud,
Ascribing my poor son's untimely death
To this my guilt. No longer for thy sake
Will I oppose the wishes of the crowd,
Who urgently demand the sacrifice.
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA (_alone_)
ACT II
SCENE I
ORESTES, PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
Noble actions?
Time was, when fancy painted such before us!
When oft, the game pursuing, on we roam'd
O'er hill and valley; hoping that ere long,
Like our great ancestors in heart and hand,
With club and weapon arm'd, we so might track
The robber to his den, or monster huge.
And then at twilight, by the boundless sea,
Peaceful we sat, reclin'd against each other,
The waves came dancing to our very feet,
And all before us lay the wide, wide world;
Then on a sudden one would seize his sword,
And future deeds shone round us like the stars,
Which gemm'd in countless throngs the vault of night.
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
Far other are my thoughts, and not unskill'd
Have I the future and the past combin'd
In quiet meditation. Long, perchance,
Hath ripen'd in the counsel of the gods
The great event. Diana yearns to leave
The savage coast of these barbarians,
Foul with their sacrifice of human blood.
We were selected for the high emprize;
To us it is assign'd, and strangely thus
We are conducted to the threshold here.
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
Wait in peace!
Thou dost increase the evil, and dost take
The office of the Furies on thyself.
Let me contrive,--be still! And when at length
The time for action claims our powers combin'd,
Then will I summon thee, and on we'll stride,
With cautious boldness to achieve the event.
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
ORESTES
PYLADES
SCENE II
IPHIGENIA, PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
The woe,
Whose hateful presence ever dogs our steps,
I can with ease relate. Oh, would that thou
Couldst with like ease, divine one, shed on us
One ray of cheering hope! We are from Crete,
Adrastus' sons, and I, the youngest born,
Named Cephalus; my eldest brother, he,
Laodamas. Between us stood a youth
Savage and wild, who severed e'en in sport
The joy and concord of our early youth.
Long as our father led his powers at Troy,
Passive our mother's mandate we obey'd;
But when, enrich'd with booty, he return'd,
And shortly after died, a contest fierce
Both for the kingdom and their father's wealth,
His children parted. I the eldest joined;
He slew our brother; and the Furies hence
For kindred murder dog his restless steps.
But to this savage shore the Delphian god
Hath sent us, cheer'd by hope. He bade us wait
Within his sister's consecrated fane
The blessed hand of aid. Captives we are,
And, hither brought, before thee now we stand
Ordain'd for sacrifice. My tale is told.
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
Prostrate it lies. O unto us ensure
Deliverance. The promised aid of Heaven
More swiftly bring. Take pity on my brother.
O say to him a kind, a gracious word;
But spare him when thou speakest, earnestly
This I implore: for all too easily
Through joy and sorrow and through memory
Torn and distracted is his inmost being.
A feverish madness oft doth seize on him,
Yielding his spirit, beautiful and free,
A prey to furies.
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
PYLADES (_alone_)
ACT III
SCENE I
IPHIGENIA, ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
He fell!
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
If social bonds
Or ties more close connect thee with this house,
As this thy rapturous joy betrayeth to me,
O then rein in thy heart and hold it fast!
For insupportable the sudden plunge
From happiness to sorrow's gloomy depth.
Thou knowest only Agamemnon's death.
IPHIGENIA
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
Immortal powers!
Whose pure and blest existence glides away
'Mid ever shifting clouds, me have ye kept
So many years secluded from the world,
Retain'd me near yourselves, consign'd to me
The childlike task to feed the sacred fire,
And taught my spirit, like the hallow'd flame,
With never-clouded brightness to aspire
To your pure mansions,--but at length to feel
With keener woe the horror of my house?
O tell me of the poor unfortunate!
Speak of Orestes!
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
[ORESTES _retires_.]
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES (_returning_)
Dost thou for Pylades and for thyself
Implore the gods, blend not my name with yours;
Thou wilt not save the wretch whom thou wouldst join,
But will participate his curse and woe.
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
Thou!
IPHIGENIA
My own brother!
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
Lovely nymph!
Nor thy caresses, nor thyself I trust;
Diana claims attendants more severe,
And doth avenge her desecrated fane.
Remove thy circling arm! Wilt thou indeed
Safety and love upon a youth bestow,
And fondly tender him earth's fairest joy
Unto my friend, more worthy than myself,
Impart thy favors; 'mong yon rocks he roves.
Go, seek him; guide him hence, and heed not me.
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
SCENE II
SCENE III
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
PYLADES
ACT IV
SCENE I
IPHIGENIA
SCENE II
IPHIGENIA, ARKAS
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
I with speed
Will bear these tidings to the camp, and soon
Acquaint thee, priestess, with the king's reply.
There is a message I would gladly bear him;
'Twould quickly banish all perplexity
Thou didst not heed thy faithful friend's advice.
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
IPHIGENIA
ARKAS
SCENE III
IPHIGENIA (_alone_)
SCENE IV
IPHIGENIA, PYLADES
PYLADES
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
Him thou dost fly, who would have slain thy brother.
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
Alas! it still remains ingratitude;
Necessity alone can justify it.
PYLADES
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
In this fane
Pure hast thou kept thy heart. Life teaches us
To be less strict with others and ourselves;
Thou'lt learn the lesson too. So wonderful
Is human nature, and its varied ties
Are so involv'd and complicate, that none
May hope to keep his inmost spirit pure,
And walk without perplexity through life.
Nor are we call'd upon to judge ourselves;
With circumspection to pursue his path,
Is the immediate duty of a man;
For seldom can he rightly estimate,
Of his past conduct or his present deeds.
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
IPHIGENIA
PYLADES
SCENE V
IPHIGENIA (_alone_)
If contest ariseth,
The guests are hurl'd headlong,
Disgrac'd and dishonor'd,
To gloomy abysses,
And, fetter'd in darkness,
Await the vain longing
A juster decree.
ACT V
SCENE I
THOAS, ARKAS
ARKAS
THOAS
SCENE II
THOAS (_alone_)
SCENE III
IPHIGENIA, THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
Not I,
An ancient law doth thy obedience claim.
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
Doth man
Lay undisputed claim to noble deeds?
Doth he alone to his heroic breast
Clasp the impossible? What call we great?
What deeds, though oft narrated, still uplift
with shuddering horror the narrator's soul,
But those which, with improbable success,
The valiant have attempted? Shall the man
Who all alone steals on his foes by night,
And raging like an unexpected fire,
Destroys the slumbering host, and press'd at length
By rous'd opponents on his foeman's steeds,
Retreats with booty--be alone extoll'd?
Or he who, scorning safety, boldly roams
Through woods and dreary wilds, to scour the land
Of thieves and robbers? Is naught left for us?
Must gentle woman quite forego her nature,
Force against force employ, like Amazons
Usurp the sword from man, and bloodily
Revenge oppression? In my heart I feel
The stirrings of a noble enterprize;
But if I fail--severe reproach, alas!
And bitter misery will be my doom.
Thus on my knees I supplicate the gods!
Oh, are ye truthful, as men say ye are,
Now prove it by your countenance and aid;
Honor the truth in me! Attend, O king
A secret plot deceitfully is laid;
Touching the captives thou dost ask in vain;
They have departed hence and seek their friends,
Who, with the ship, await them on the shore.
The eldest,--whom dire madness lately seiz'd,
And hath abandon'd now,--he is Orestes,
My brother, and the other Pylades,
His early friend and faithful confidant.
From Delphi, Phoebus sent them to this shore
With a divine command to steal away
The image of Diana, and to him
Bear back the sister thither, and for this
He promised to the blood-stained matricide,
The Fury-haunted son, deliverance.
I have surrender'd now into thy hands
The remnants of the house of Tantalus.
Destroy us--if thou canst.
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
'Tis heard
By every one, born 'neath whatever clime,
Within whose bosom flows the stream of life,
Pure and unhinder'd.--What thy thought? O king,
What silent purpose broods in thy deep soul?
Is it destruction? Let me perish first!
For now, deliv'rance hopeless, I perceive
The dreadful peril into which I have
With rash precipitancy plung'd my friends.
Alas! I soon shall see them bound before me!
How to my brother shall I say farewell?
I, the unhappy author of his death.
Ne'er can I gaze again in his dear eyes!
THOAS
The traitors have contrived a cunning web,
And cast it round thee, who, secluded long,
Giv'st willing credence to thine own desires.
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
IPHIGENIA
SCENE IV
IPHIGENIA
Do not profane
Diana's sanctuary with rage and blood.
Command your people to forbear awhile,
And listen to the priestess, to the sister.
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
In him
Revere the king, who was my second father.
Forgive me, brother, that my childlike heart
Hath plac'd our fate thus wholly in his hands.
I have betray'd your meditated flight,
And thus from treachery redeem'd my soul.
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
Thy gleaming sword forbids me to reply.
SCENE V
PYLADES
ARKAS
THOAS
ORESTES
SCENE VI
IPHIGENIA
ORESTES
THOAS
ORESTES
Then from us
Commence the novel custom! A whole race
In imitation soon will consecrate
Its monarch's noble action into law.
Nor let me only for our liberty,--
Let me, a stranger, for all strangers fight.
If I should fall, my doom be also theirs;
But if kind fortune crown me with success,
Let none e'er tread this shore, and fail to meet
The beaming eye of sympathy and love,
Or unconsoled depart!
THOAS
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
ORESTES
IPHIGENIA
THOAS
Then go!
IPHIGENIA
* * * * *
THE FAUST LEGEND FROM MARLOWE TO GOETHE
From this Faust Book, that is from its English translation, which
appeared in 1588, Marlowe took his tragedy of _Dr. Faustus_ (1589;
published 1604). In Marlowe's drama Faust appears as a typical man of
the Renaissance, as an explorer and adventurer, as a superman craving
for extraordinary power, wealth, enjoyment, and worldly eminence. The
finer emotions are hardly touched upon. Mephistopheles is the medieval
devil, harsh and grim and fierce, bent on seduction, without any
comprehension of human aspirations. Helen of Troy is a she-devil, and
becomes the final means of Faust's destruction. Faust's career has
hardly an element of true greatness. None of the many tricks,
conjurings and miracles, which Faust performs with Mephistopheles'
help, has any relation to the deeper meaning of life. From the compact
on to the end hardly anything happens which brings Faust inwardly
nearer either to heaven or hell. But there is a sturdiness of
character and stirring intensity of action, with a happy admixture of
buffoonery, through it all. And we feel something of the pathos and
paradox of human passions in the fearful agony of Faust's final doom.
The German popular Faust drama of the seventeenth century and its
outgrowth the puppet plays, are a reflex both of Marlowe's tragedy and
the Faust Book of 1587, although they contain a number of original
scenes, notably the Council of the Devils at the beginning. Here
again, the underlying sentiment is the abhorrence of human
recklessness and extravagance. In some of these plays, the vanity of
bold ambition is brought out with particular emphasis through the
contrast between the daring and dissatisfied Faust and his farcical
counterpart, the jolly and contented Casperle. In the last scene,
while Faust in despair and contrition is waiting for the sound of the
midnight bell which is to be the signal of his destruction, Casperle,
as night watchman, patrols the streets of the town, calling out the
hours and singing the traditional verses of admonition to quiet and
orderly conduct.
It is Lessing who has given to the Faust legend this turn. His
_Faust_, unfortunately consisting only of a few fragmentary sketches,
is a defense of Rationalism. The most important of these fragments,
preserved to us in copies by some friends of Lessing's, is the
prelude, a council of devils. Satan is receiving reports from his
subordinates as to what they have done to bring harm to the realm of
God. The first devil who speaks has set the hut of some pious poor on
fire; the second has buried a fleet of usurers in the waves. Both
excite Satan's disgust. "For," he says, "to make the pious poor still
poorer means only to chain him all the more firmly to God"; and the
usurers, if, instead of being buried in the waves, they had been
allowed to reach the goal of their voyage, would have wrought new evil
on distant shores. Much more satisfied is Satan with the report of a
third devil who has stolen the first kiss from a young innocent girl
and thereby breathed the flame of desire into her veins; for he has
worked evil in the world of the spirit and that means much more and is
a much greater triumph for hell than to work evil in the world of
bodies. But it is the fourth devil to whom Satan gives the prize. He
has not done anything as yet. He has only a plan, but a plan which, if
carried out, would put the deeds of all the other devils into the
shade--the plan "to snatch from God his favorite." This favorite of
God is Faust, "a solitary, brooding youth, renouncing all passion
except the passion for truth, entirely living in truth, entirely
absorbed in it." To snatch him from God--that would be a victory, over
which the whole realm of night would rejoice. Satan is enchanted; the
war against truth is his element. Yes, Faust must be seduced, he must
be destroyed. And he shall be destroyed through his very aspiration.
"Didst thou not say, he has desire for knowledge? That is enough for
perdition!" His striving for truth is to lead him into darkness. Under
such exclamations the devils break up, to set about their work of
seduction; but, as they are breaking up, there is heard from above a
divine voice: "Ye shall not conquer."
Goethe was now in the full maturity of his powers, a man widely
separated from the impetuous youth of the seventies whose Promethean
emotions had burst forth with volcanic passion. He had meanwhile
become a statesman and a philosopher. He had come to know in the court
of Weimar a model of paternal government, conservative yet liberally
inclined, and friendly to all higher culture. He had found in his
truly spiritual relation to Frau von Stein a safe harbor for his
tempestuous feelings. He had been brought face to face, during his
sojourn in Italy, with the wonders of classic art. The study of
Spinoza and his own scientific investigations had confirmed him in a
thoroughly monistic view of the world and strengthened his belief in a
universal law which makes evil itself an integral part of the good.
The example of Schiller as well as his own practical experience had
taught him that the untrammelled living out of personality must go
hand in hand with incessant work for the common welfare of mankind.
All this is reflected in the completed Part First of 1808; it finds
its most comprehensive expression in Part Second, the bequest of the
dying poet to posterity.
And thus, everything in the whole drama, all its incidents and all its
characters, become episodes in the rounding out of this grand,
all-comprehensive personality. Gretchen and Helena, Wagner and
Mephisto, Homunculus and Euphorion, the Emperor's court and the shades
of the Greek past, the broodings of medieval mysticism and the
practical tasks of modern industrialism, the enlightened despotism of
the eighteenth century and the ideal democracy of the future--all this
and a great deal more enters into Faust's being. He strides on from
experience to experience, from task to task, expiating guilt by doing,
losing himself and finding himself again. Blinded in old age by Dame
Care, he feels a new light kindled within. Dying, he gazes into a far
future. And even in the heavenly regions he goes on ever changing into
new and higher and finer forms. It is this irrepressible spirit of
striving which makes Goethe's _Faust_ the Bible of modern humanity.
INTRODUCTION TO FAUST
Goethe was about twenty years old when his imagination began to be
haunted by the figure of the sixteenth century magician Doctor Faust.
In 1772 or 1773 he commenced writing a play on the subject, little
thinking of course that it would occupy him some sixty years. The old
legend is a story of sin and damnation. Faust is represented as an
eager student impelled by intellectual curiosity to the study of
magic. From the point of view of the superstitious folk who created
the legend this addiction to magic is itself sinful. But Faust is bad
and reckless. By the aid of his black art he calls up a devil named
(in the legend) Mephostophiles with whom he makes a contract of
service. For twenty-four years Faust is to have all that he desires,
and then his soul is to go to perdition. The contract is carried out.
With the Devil as comrade and servant he lords it over time and space,
feeds on the fat of the land, travels far and wide, and does all sorts
of wonderful things. At the end of the stipulated time the Devil
gets him.
From the very beginning of his musings on the theme Goethe thought of
Faust as a man better than his reputation; as a misunderstood
truth-seeker who had dared the terrors with which the popular
imagination invested hell, in order that he might exhaust the
possibilities of this life. Aside from his desire of transcendental
knowledge and wide experience, there was a third trait of the
legendary Faust which could hardly seem to Goethe anything but
creditable to human nature: his passion for antique beauty. According
to the old story Faust at one time wishes to marry; but as marriage is
a Christian ordinance and he has forsworn Christianity, the Devil
gives him, in place of a lawful wife, a fantom counterfeit of Helena,
the ancient Queen of Beauty. The lovely fantom becomes Faust's
paramour and bears him a remarkable son called Justus Faustus.
At first Goethe planned his drama on lines that had little to do with
traditional ideas of good and bad, heaven and hell, God and Devil.
Faust is introduced as a youngish professor who has studied everything
and been teaching for some ten years, with the result that he feels
his knowledge to be vanity and his life a dreary routine of hypocrisy.
He resorts to magic in the hope of--what? It is important for the
understanding of the poem in its initial stages to bear in mind that
Faust is not at first a votary of the vulgar black art which consists
in calling up bad spirits and doing reprehensible things by their
assistance. Further on he shows that he is a master of that art too,
but at first he is concerned with "natural magic," which some of the
old mystics whom Goethe read conceived as the highest and divinest of
sciences. The fundamental assumption of natural magic is that the
universe as a whole and each component part of it is dominated by an
indwelling spirit with whom it is possible for the magician to get
into communication. If he succeeds he becomes "like" a spirit--freed
from the trammels of the flesh, a partaker of divine knowledge and
ecstatic happiness.
Pursuing his wonderful vagaries by means of a magic book that has come
into his possession, Faust first experiments with the "sign" of the
Macrocosm, but makes no attempt to summon its presiding genius, that
is, the World-spirit. He has a wonderful vision of the harmonious
Cosmos, but it is "only a spectacle," whereas he craves food for his
soul. So he turns to the sign of the Earth-spirit, whom he feels to be
nearer to him. By an act of supreme daring he utters the formula which
causes the Spirit to appear in fire--grand, awe-inspiring, terrible. A
colloquy ensues at the end of which the Spirit rebuffs the
presumptuous mortal with the words: "Thou art like the spirit whom
thou comprehendest, not like me"--and disappears. The meaning is that
Faust, who knows very little of the Earth, having always led the
narrow life of a brooding scholar in one little corner of it, is not
fit for intimacy with the mighty being who presides over the entire
planet, with its rush and change, its life and death, its vast and
ceaseless energy. He must have a wider experience. How shall he
get it?
The coming day is Easter Sunday. Faust and Wagner take an afternoon
walk together and witness the jollity of the common people. As they
are about to return home at nightfall they pick up a casual black dog
that has been circling around them. Arrived in his comfortable study,
Faust feels more cheerful. In a mood of religious peace he sets about
translating a passage of the New Testament into German. The dog
becomes uneasy and begins to take on the appearance of a horrid
monster. Faust sees that he has brought home a spirit and proceeds to
conjure the beast. Presently Mephistopheles emerges from his canine
disguise in the costume of a wandering scholar. Faust is amused. He
enters into conversation with his guest and learns something of his
character. A familiar acquaintance ensues, and one day the Devil finds
him once more in a mood of bitter despair, advises him to quit the
tedious professorial life, and offers to be his comrade and servant on
a grand tour of pleasure. After some bickering they enter into a
solemn agreement according to which Faust's life is to end whenever he
shall "stretch himself on a bed of ease," completely satisfied with
the passing moment, and shall say to that moment, "Pray tarry, thou
art so fair."
We see that the Devil can win in only one way, namely, by somehow
making Faust a contented sensualist. On the other hand, Faust may win
in either of two ways. First, he might conceivably go on to his dying
day as a bitter pessimist at war with life. In that event he would
certainly never be content with the present moment. Secondly, he may
outgrow his pessimism, but never come to the point where he is willing
to check the flight of Time; when, that is, he shall have no more
plans, hopes, dreams, that reach into the future and seem worth living
for. The question is, then, whether Mephistopheles, by any lure at his
command, can subdue Faust's forward-ranging idealism. The Devil
expects to win; Faust wagers his immortal soul that the Devil will not
win. In the old story the Devil appears promptly at the end of the
twenty-four years, puts his victim to death, and takes possession of
his soul. Goethe's Mephistopheles is a gentleman of culture for whom
such savagery would be impossible. He will wait until his comrade dies
a natural death and then put in his claim in the Devil's fashion; and
it will be for the Lord in heaven to decide the case.
Such is the scheme of the drama, but after the compact is made we hear
no more of it until just before the end of the Second Part. The action
takes the form of a long succession of adventures undertaken for the
sake of experience. Duty, obligation, routine, have been left behind.
Faust has nothing to do but to go about and try experiments--first in
the "little world" of humble folk (the remainder of Part First), and
then in the "great world" of court life, government, and war (the
Second Part).
Then come the matchless scenes that body forth the short romance of
Margaret, her quick infatuation, her loss of virgin honor, the death
of her mother and brother, her shame and misery, her agonizing death
in prison. Here we are in the realm of pure realism, and never again
did Goethe's art sound such depths of tragic pathos. The atmosphere of
the love-tragedy is entirely different from that of the Faust-legend.
Mephistopheles as the abettor of Faust's amorous passion has no need
of magic. The r�le of Faust--that of a man pulled irresistibly by
sexual passion, yet constantly tormented by his conscience--is
repulsive, but very human. As he stands before the prison gate he says
that "the whole sorrow of mankind" holds him in its grip. But this is
a part of what he wished for. He wished for universal experience--to
feel in his own soul all the weal and all the woe of humankind. At the
end of the First Part he has drained the cup of sin and suffering.
Imbedded in the love-tragedy is one scene which will seem out of tune
with what has just been said--the Walpurgis Night. Here we are back
again in the atmosphere of the legend, with its magic, its witchcraft,
its gross sensuality. We hardly recognize our friend Faust when we
find him dancing with naked witches and singing lewd songs on the
Brocken. The scene was written in 1800 when Goethe had become a little
cynical with respect to the artistic coherence of _Faust_ and looked
on it as a "monstrosity." It was a part of the early plan that Faust
should add to the burden of his soul by frivolously deserting Margaret
in the shame of her approaching motherhood and spending some time in
gross pleasures. The visit to the Witches' Sabbath on the Brocken was
afterward invented to carry out this idea. In itself the idea was a
good one; for if Faust was to drain the cup of sorrow, the ingredient
of self-contempt could not be left out of the bitter chalice. A
sorrow's crown of sorrow is not so much remembering happier things as
remembering that the happy state came to an end by one's own
wrongdoing. Still, most modern readers will think that Goethe, in
elaborating the Brocken scene as an interesting study of the uncanny
and the vile, let his hero sink needlessly far into the mire.
At the beginning of the Second Part Goethe does not reopen the book of
crime and remorse with which the First Part closes. He needs a new
Faust for whom that is all past--past, not in the sense of being
lightly forgotten, but built into his character and remembered, say,
as one remembers the ecstasy and the pain of twenty years ago. So he
ushers him directly into the new life over a bridge of symbolism. The
restoring process which in real life takes many years he concentrates
into a single night and represents it as the work of kindly nocturnal
fairies and the glorious Alpine sunrise. Faust awakens healed and
reinvigorated, and the majesty of Nature inspires in him a resolve to
"strive ever onward toward the highest existence."
But these fine words convey a promise which is not at once fulfilled.
Like the most of us, Faust does not long continue to abide on the
Alpine heights of his own best insight and aspiration. The comrade is
at hand who interrupts his lonely communion with the spirit of the
mountains and draws him away to the Emperor's court, where the pair
soon ingratiate themselves as wonder-workers. They so please his
Majesty with their marvelous illusions that they are regularly
installed at court as purveyors of amusement. The first demand that is
made on them is that they produce, for the entertainment of the court,
the shades of the supremely beautiful Paris and Helena. To this end
Mephistopheles devises the elaborate hocus-pocus of the Mothers. He
sends Faust away to the vasty and viewless realm of the Ideal,
instructing him how to bring thence a certain wonderful tripod, from
the incense of which the desired forms can be made to appear. The show
proceeds successfully, so far as the spectators are concerned, but an
accident happens. Faust has been cautioned by his partner not to touch
the fantom forms. But the moon-struck idealist falls in love with the
beautiful Helena and, disregarding orders, attempts to hold her fast.
The consequence is an explosion; the spirits vanish, and Faust
receives an electric shock which paralyzes all his bodily functions.
He is now in a trance; there is nothing left of him but a motionless
body and a mute soul, dreaming of Helena. Mephistopheles pretends to
be very much disgusted, but he knows where to go for help.
At the beginning of the second act we return to the old study that was
deserted years ago. Faust's former famulus, Dr. Wagner, has now become
a world-renowned professor and is engaged in a great experiment,
namely, in the production of a chemical man. By the aid of Mephisto's
magic the experiment is quickly brought to a successful issue, and
Homunculus--one of Goethe's whimsically delightful creations--emerges
into being as an incorporeal radiant man in a glass bottle. The
wonderful little fellow at once comprehends Faust's malady and
prescribes that he be taken to the land of his dreams. So away they
go, the three of them, to the Classical Walpurgis Night, which is
celebrated annually on the battle-field of Pharsalus in Thessaly. As
soon as Faust's feet touch classic soil he recovers his senses and
sets out with enthusiasm to find Helena. After some wandering about
among the classic fantoms he falls in with Chiron the Centaur, who
carries him far away to the foot of Mount Olympus and leaves him with
the wise priestess Manto, who escorts him to the Lower World and
secures the consent of Queen Persephone to a temporary reappearance of
Helena on earth.
In Act V the great scheme has all been carried out. What was a watery
desolation has been converted into a potential paradise. Faust is a
great feudal lord, with a boundless domain and a fleet of ships that
bring him the riches of far-away lands. But thus far he has simply
been amusing himself on a grand scale. He has thought always mainly of
himself. He has courted experience, among other things the experience
of putting forth his power in a contest with the sea and performing a
great feat of engineering. But it has not brought him a satisfaction
in which he can rest. And he has not become a saint. An aged couple,
who belong to the old r�gime and obstinately refuse to part with the
little plot of ground on which they have lived for years, anger him to
the point of madness. He wants their land so that he may build on it a
watch-tower from which to survey and govern his possessions. He sends
his servitor to remove them to a better home which he has prepared for
them. But Mephistopheles carries out the order with reckless
brutality, with the consequence that the old people are killed and
their cottage burned to the ground. Thus Faust in his old age--by this
time he is a hundred years old--has a fresh burden on his conscience.
As he stands on the balcony of his palace at midnight, surveying the
havoc he has unintentionally wrought, the smoke of the burning cottage
is wafted toward him and takes the form of four gray old women. One of
them, Dame Care, slips into the rich man's palace by way of the
keyhole and croons in his ear her dismal litany of care. Faust replies
in a fine declaration of independence, beginning--
As Dame Care leaves him she breathes on his eyelids and makes him
blind. But the inner light is not quenched. His hunger for life still
unabated, he summons up all his energy and orders out an army of
workmen to complete a great undertaking on which he has set his heart.
On the edge of his domain, running along the distant foot-hills, is a
miasmatic swamp which poisons the air and renders the land
uninhabitable. He proposes to drain the swamp and thus create a home
for millions yet to come.
DRAMATIS PERSON�
THE MANAGER.
THE DRAMATIC POET.
MERRYMAN.
THE LORD.
RAPHAEL}
GABRIEL} The Heavenly Host.
MICHAEL}
MEPHISTOPHELES.
FAUST.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
WAGNER, a Student.
MARGARET.
MARTHA, Margaret's Neighbor.
VALENTINE, Margaret's Brother.
OLD PEASANT.
A STUDENT.
ELIZABETH, an Acquaintance of Margaret's.
FROSCH }
BRANDER } Guests in Auerbach's Wine Cellar.
SIEBEL }
ALTMAYER }
OBERON.
TITANIA.
ARIEL.
PUCK, ETC., ETC.
DEDICATION
MANAGER
Ye twain, in trouble and distress
True friends whom I so oft have found,
Say, for our scheme on German ground,
What prospect have we of success?
Fain would I please the public, win their thanks;
They live and let live, hence it is but meet.
The posts are now erected, and the planks,
And all look forward to a festal treat.
Their places taken, they, with eyebrows rais'd,
Sit patiently, and fain would be amaz'd.
I know the art to hit the public taste,
Yet ne'er of failure felt so keen a dread;
True, they are not accustomed to the best,
But then appalling the amount they've read.
How make our entertainment striking, new,
And yet significant and pleasing too?
For to be plain, I love to see the throng,
As to our booth the living tide progresses;
As wave on wave successive rolls along,
And through heaven's narrow portal forceful presses;
Still in broad daylight, ere the clock strikes four,
With blows their way toward the box they take;
And, as for bread in famine, at the baker's door,
For tickets are content their necks to break.
Such various minds the bard alone can sway,
My friend, oh work this miracle today!
POET
MERRYMAN
MANAGER
POET
MANAGER
POET
MERRYMAN
POET
MERRYMAN
MANAGER
PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN
RAPHAEL
GABRIEL
MICHAEL
THE THREE
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE LORD
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE LORD
MEPHISTOPHELES
The doctor?
THE LORD
Right.
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE LORD
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE LORD
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE LORD
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE LORD
Here too thou'rt free to act without control;
I ne'er have cherished hate for such as thee.
Of all the spirits who deny,
The scoffer is least wearisome to me.
Ever too prone is man activity to shirk,
In unconditioned rest he fain would live;
Hence this companion purposely I give,
Who stirs, excites, and must, as devil, work.
But ye, the genuine sons of heaven, rejoice!
In the full living beauty still rejoice!
May that which works and lives, the ever-growing,
In bonds of love enfold you, mercy-fraught,
And Seeming's changeful forms, around you flowing,
Do ye arrest, in ever-during thought!
MEPHISTOPHELES _(alone)_
FAUST--PART I (1808)[34]
NIGHT
FAUST
SPIRIT
Dreadful shape!
SPIRIT
With might,
Thou hast compell'd me to appear,
Long hast been sucking at my sphere,
And now--
FAUST
SPIRIT
FAUST
SPIRIT
FAUST
SPIRIT
Not thee
Whom then?
I, God's own image!
And not rank with thee! [_A knock_.]
Oh death! I know it-'tis my famulus--
My fairest fortune now escapes!
That all these visionary shapes
A soulless groveller should banish thus!
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
If feeling prompt not, if it doth not flow
Fresh from the spirit's depths, with strong control
Swaying to rapture every listener's soul,
Idle your toil; the chase you may forego!
Brood o'er your task! Together glue,
Cook from another's feast your own ragout,
Still prosecute your paltry game,
And fan your ash-heaps into flame!
Thus children's wonder you'll excite,
And apes', if such your appetite;
But that which issues from the heart alone,
Will bend the hearts of others to your own.
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
Ay, truly! even to the loftiest star!
To us, my friend, the ages that are pass'd
A book with seven seals, close-fasten'd, are;
And what the spirit of the times men call,
Is merely their own spirit after all,
Wherein, distorted oft, the times are glass'd.
Then truly, 'tis a sight to grieve the soul!
At the first glance we fly it in dismay;
A very lumber-room, a rubbish-hole;
At best a sort of mock-heroic play,
With saws pragmatical, and maxims sage,
To suit the puppets and their mimic stage.
WAGNER
But then the world and man, his heart and brain!
Touching these things all men would something know.
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST (_alone_)
CHORUS OF ANGELS
Christ is arisen!
Mortal, all hail to thee,
Thou whom mortality,
Earth's sad reality,
Held as in prison.
FAUST
CHORUS OF WOMEN
CHORUS OF ANGELS
Christ is arisen!
Blessed the loving one,
Who from earth's trial-throes,
Healing and strengthening woes,
Soars as from prison.
FAUST
CHORUS OF DISCIPLES
CHORUS OF ANGELS
Christ is arisen,
Redeem'd from decay.
The bonds which imprison
Your souls, rend away!
Praising the Lord with zeal,
By deeds that love reveal,
Like brethren true and leal
Sharing the daily meal,
To all that sorrow feel
Whisp'ring of heaven's weal,
Still is the Master near,
Still is He here!
ARTISANS
Why choose ye that direction, pray?
OTHERS
THE FIRST
A MECHANIC
A SECOND
THE OTHERS
A THIRD
A FOURTH
A FIFTH
SERVANT GIRL
ANOTHER
THE FIRST
THE SECOND
STUDENT
Why how those buxom girls step on!
Come, brother, we will follow them anon.
Strong beer, a damsel smartly dress'd,
Stinging tobacco--these I love the best.
BURGHER'S DAUGHTER
THE FIRST
BURGHER
BEGGAR (_sings_)
OTHER BURGHER
THIRD BURGHER
BURGHER'S DAUGHTER
ANOTHER
SOLDIERS
FAUST
WAGNER
OLD PEASANT
FAUST
OLD PEASANT
ALL
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
WAGNER
FAUST
WAGNER
STUDY
SPIRITS (_without_)
FAUST
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Thy name?
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Part of that power which still
Produceth good, whilst ever scheming ill.
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
My friend,
This hour enjoyment more intense
Shall captivate each ravish'd sense,
Than thou could'st compass in the bound
Of the whole year's unvarying round;
And what the dainty spirits sing,
The lovely images they bring,
Are no fantastic sorcery.
Rich odors shall regale your smell,
On choicest sweets your palate dwell,
Your feelings thrill with ecstasy.
No preparation do we need,
Here we together are. Proceed.
SPIRITS
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST (_awaking_)
STUDY
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
'Tis I!
FAUST
Come in!
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
'Tis well,
I hope that we shall soon agree!
For now your fancies to expel,
Here, as a youth of high degree,
I come in gold-lac'd scarlet vest,
And stiff-silk mantle richly dress'd,
A cock's gay feather for a plume,
A long and pointed rapier, too;
And briefly I would counsel you
To don at once the same costume,
And, free from trammels, speed away,
That what life is you may essay.
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
I own,
Though not omniscient, much to me is known.
FAUST
Woe! woe!
Thou hast destroy'd
The beautiful world
With violent blow;
'Tis shiver'd! 'tis shatter'd!
The fragments abroad by a demigod scatter'd!
Now we sweep
The wrecks into nothingness!
Fondly we weep
The beauty that's gone!
Thou, 'mongst the sons of earth,
Lofty and mighty one,
Build it once more!
In thine own bosom the lost world restore!
Now with unclouded sense
Enter a new career;
Songs shall salute thine ear,
Ne'er heard before!
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
No! no!
The devil is an egoist I know
And, for Heaven's sake, 'tis not his way
Kindness to any one to show.
Let the condition plainly be exprest!
Such a domestic is a dangerous guest.
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Settled!
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
We will go hence with speed,
A place of torment this indeed!
A precious life, thyself to bore,
And some few youngsters evermore!
Leave that to neighbor Paunch! Withdraw?
Why wilt thou plague thyself with thrashing straw?
The very best that thou dost know
Thou dar'st not to the striplings show.
One in the passage now doth wait!
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
[_Exit_ FAUST.]
MEPHISTOPHELES (_in_ FAUST'S _long gown_)
A STUDENT _enters_.
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
(_Aloud_)
STUDENT
There is some sense in that! one sees the how and why.
MEPHISTOPHELES
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
Command my humble service when you choose.
STUDENT
MEPHISTOPHELES
Willingly!
STUDENT (_reads_)
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST (_enters_)
Whither away?
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
_A Drinking Party_
FROSCH
BRANDER
There,
You have them both!
BRANDER
FROSCH
SIEBEL
ALTMAYER
SIEBEL
FROSCH
Right! out with him who takes offence!
A! tara lara da!
ALTMAYER
FROSCH
(_Sings_)
BRANDER
FROSCH (_sings_)
SIEBEL
FROSCH
(_Sings_)
SIEBEL
Ay, sing, sing on, praise her with all thy might!
My turn to laugh will come some day.
Me hath she jilted once, you the same trick she'll play.
Some gnome her lover be! where cross-roads meet,
With her to play the fool; or old he-goat,
From Blocksberg coming in swift gallop, bleat
A good night to her from his hairy throat!
A proper lad of genuine flesh and blood,
Is for the damsel far too good;
The greeting she shall have from me,
To smash her window-panes will be!
(_He sings_)
CHORUS (_shouting_)
BRANDER
CHORUS
BRANDER
CHORUS
SIEBEL
How the dull boors exulting shout!
Poison for the poor rats to strew
A fine exploit it is no doubt.
BRANDER
ALTMAYER
MEPHISTOPHELES
BRANDER
FROSCH
SIEBEL
FROSCH
BRANDER
Most like.
FROSCH
FAUST
Good-morrow, gentlemen!
STEBEL
MEPHISTOPHELES
ALTMAYER
FROSCH
MEPHISTOPHELES
SIEBEL
MEPHISTOPHELES
FROSCH
MEPHISTOPHELES
ALTMAYER
Give us a song!
MEPHISTOPHELES
SIEBEL
MEPHISTOPHELES
(_Sings_)
FROSCH
MEPHISTOPHELES (_sings_)
BRANDER
Take proper heed, the tailor strictly charge,
The nicest measurement to take,
And as he loves his head, to make
The hose quite smooth and not too large!
MEPHISTOPHELES
CHORUS _(shouting)_
FROSCH
SIEBEL
BRANDER
ALTMAYER
MEPHISTOPHELES
SIEBEL
MEPHISTOPHELES
SIEBEL
FROSCH
Give a good glass, and straight we'll praise you, one and all.
Only let not your samples be too small;
For if my judgment you desire,
Certes, an ample mouthful I require.
ALTMAYER _(aside)_
MEPHISTOPHELES
BRANDER
ALTMAYER
FROSCH
MEPHISTOPHELES
FROSCH
And you?
BRANDER
BRANDER
MEPHISTOPHELES (_bores_)
Tokay
Shall, if you wish it, flow without delay.
ALTMAYER
MEPHISTOPHELES
ALTMAYER
ALL (_as they draw the stoppers and the wine chosen by
each runs into his glass_)
MEPHISTOPHELES
ALL _(sing)_
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Stop,
Kind element, be still, I say!
(_To the Company_)
Of purgatorial fire as yet 'tis but a drop.
SIEBEL
FROSCH
ALTMAYER
MEPHISTOPHELES
SIEBEL
BRANDER
SIEBEL
ALTMAYER
FROSCH
SIEBEL
BRANDER
SIEBEL
ALTMAYER
How?
FROSCH
ALTMAYER
FROSCH
SIEBEL
ALTMAYER
SIEBEL
FROSCH
BRANDER
ALTMAYER
That none may miracles believe, who now will say?
WITCHES' KITCHEN
_A large caldron hangs over the fire on a low hearth; various figures
appear in the vapor rising from it. A_ FEMALE MONKEY _sits beside
the caldron to skim it, and watch that it does not boil over. The_
MALE MONKEY _with the young ones is seated near, warming himself.
The walls and ceiling are adorned with the strangest articles of
witch-furniture.
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Good! A remedy
Without physician, gold, or sorcery:
Away forthwith, and to the fields repair;
Begin to delve, to cultivate the ground;
Thy senses and thyself confine
Within the very narrowest round;
Support thyself upon the simplest fare;
Live like a very brute the brutes among;
Neither esteem it robbery
The acre thou dost reap, thyself to dung.
This the best method, credit me,
Again at eighty to grow hale and young.
FAUST
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE MONKEYS
Gone to carouse,
Out of the house,
Thro' the chimney and away!
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE MONKEYS
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
MONKEYS
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE HE-MONKEY
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE MONKEYS
MEPHISTOPHELES
Unmannerly beast!
Be civil at least!
THE HE-MONKEY
FAUST (_who all this time has been standing before a looking-glass,
now approaching, and now retiring front it_)
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
[_stretching himself on the settle and playing
with the whisk, continues to speak._]
Oh, be so good,
With sweat and with blood
The crown to lime!
THE MONKEYS
THE WITCH
Dash! Smash!
There lies the glass!
There lies the slime!
'Tis but a jest;
I but keep time,
Thou hellish pest,
To thine own chime!
[_While the_ WITCH _steps back in rage and astonishment_.]
Dost know me! Skeleton! Vile scarecrow, thou!
Thy lord and master dost thou know?
What holds me, that I deal not now
Thee and thine apes a stunning blow?
No more respect to my red vest dost pay?
Does my cock's feather no allegiance claim?
Have I my visage masked today?
Must I be forced myself to name?
THE WITCH
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE WITCH
But why? what mischief hath it done?
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE WITCH
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE WITCH
(_Aside._)
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
Gulp it down!
No hesitation! It will prove
A cordial, and your heart inspire!
What! with the devil hand and glove,
And yet shrink back afraid of fire?
[_The_ WITCH _dissolves the circle._ FAUST _steps out._]
MEPHISTOPHELES
WITCH
WITCH
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Nay! nay!
A model which all women shall surpass,
In flesh and blood ere long thou shalt survey.
(_Aside._)
As works the draught, thou presently shalt greet
A Helen in each woman thou dost meet.
A STREET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
[MEPHISTOPHELES _enters._]
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Which?
FAUST
She who but now passed.
MEPHISTOPHELES
What! She?
She from confession cometh here,
From every sin absolved and free;
I crept near the confessor's chair.
All innocence her virgin soul,
For next to nothing went she there;
O'er such as she I've no control!
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
You really talk
Like any gay Lothario,
Who every floweret from its stalk
Would pluck, and deems nor grace, nor truth,
Secure against his arts, forsooth!
This ne'er the less won't always do.
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
No!
She to a neighbor's house will go;
But in her atmosphere alone
The tedious hours meanwhile you may employ
In blissful dreams of future joy.
FAUST
Can we go now?
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
[_Exit_]
MEPHISTOPHELES
[_Exit_]
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
I know not--shall I?
MEPHISTOPHELES
Do you ask?
Perchance you would retain the treasure?
If such your wish, why then, I say,
Henceforth absolve me from my task,
Nor longer waste your hours of leisure.
I trust you're not by avarice led!
I rub my hands, I scratch my head,--
[_He places the casket in the press and closes the lock._]
[_She opens the press to put away her clothes, and perceives
the casket_.]
PROMENADE
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
And Gretchen!
MEPHISTOPHELES
In unquiet mood
Knows neither what she would or should;
The trinkets night and day thinks o'er;
On him who brought them, dwells still more.
FAUST
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
[FAUST _exit_.]
MEPHISTOPHELES
[_Exit._]
MARTHA (_alone_)
[_She weeps._]
(MARGARET _comes_.)
MARGARET
Dame Martha!
MARTHA
Gretchen?
MARGARET
Only think!
My knees beneath me well-nigh sink!
Within my press I've found today
Another case, of ebony.
And things--magnificent they are,
More costly than the first, by far.
MARTHA
MARGARET
MARGARET
Woe is me!
Them in the street I cannot wear,
Or in the church, or anywhere.
MARTHA
MARGARET
[_A knock._]
[MEPHISTOPHELES _enters_.]
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA (_aloud_)
MARGARET
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MARGARET
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARGARET
MEPHISTOPHELES
Joy still must sorrow, sorrow joy attend.
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARGARET
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARGARET
Ah no,
That time hath not yet come for me.
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
Go on, I pray!
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA (_weeping_)
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
Where the four winds have blown it, who can say?
In Naples as he stroll'd, a stranger there,--
A comely maid took pity on my friend:
And gave such tokens of her love and care,
That he retained them to his blessed end.
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
(_To_ MARGARET)
MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
(_aloud_)
Ladies, farewell!
MARGARET
Farewell!
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARGARET
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
A STREET
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Good!
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Sage indeed!
So I suppose we straight must journey there!
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Forbear!
When passion sways me, and I seek to frame
Fit utterance for feeling, deep, intense,
And for my frenzy finding no fit name,
Sweep round the ample world with every sense,
Grasp at the loftiest words to speak my flame,
And call the glow, wherewith I burn,
Quenchless, eternal, yea, eterne--
Is that of sophistry a devilish play?
MEPHISTOPHELES
Yet am I right!
FAUST
GARDEN
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
How?
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
Yet hath your heart no earnest preference known?
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
Sweet love!
MARGARET
MARGARET
FAUST
How?
MARGARET
FAUST
FAUST
MARGARET (_continues_)
He loves me!
FAUST
Yes!
And this flower-language, darling, let it be
A heavenly oracle! He loveth thee!
Know'st thou the meaning of, He loveth thee?
[_He seizes both her hands._]
MARGARET
I tremble so!
FAUST
MARTHA (_approaching_)
Night's closing.
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA
A SUMMER-HOUSE
[MARGARET _runs in, hides behind the door, holds the tip
of her finger to her lip, and peeps through the
crevice_.]
MARGARET
He comes!
FAUST
[MEPHISTOPHELES _knocks_.]
FAUST (_stamping_)
Who's there?
MEPHISTOPHELES
A friend!
FAUST
A brute!
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARTHA (_comes_)
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARTHA
Good-bye!
MARGARET
MARGARET
[_Exit._]
FAUST (_alone_)
Spirit sublime! Thou gav'st me, gav'st me all
For which I prayed! Not vainly hast thou turn'd
To me thy countenance in flaming fire:
Gavest me glorious nature for my realm,
And also power to feel her and enjoy;
Not merely with a cold and wondering glance,
Thou dost permit me in her depths profound,
As in the bosom of a friend to gaze.
Before me thou dost lead her living tribes,
And dost in silent grove, in air and stream
Teach me to know my kindred. And when roars
The howling storm-blast through the groaning wood,
Wrenching the giant pine, which in its fall
Crashing sweeps down its neighbor trunks and boughs,
While hollow thunder from the hill resounds:
Then thou dost lead me to some shelter'd cave,
Dost there reveal me to myself, and show
Of my own bosom the mysterious depths.
And when with soothing beam, the moon's pale orb
Full in my view climbs up the pathless sky,
From crag and dewy grove, the silvery forms
Of by-gone ages hover, and assuage
The joy austere of contemplative thought.
[MEPHISTOPHELES _enters_.]
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
(_with a gesture_)
FAUST
Fie on you!
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Pander, avaunt!
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
MARGARET'S ROOM
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!
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!
MARTHA'S GARDEN
MARGARET
FAUST
What I can!
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
Must we?
MARGARET
FAUST
I honor them.
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
My sweet child!
MARGARET
FAUST
How so?
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
This is antipathy!
MARGARET
I must away.
FAUST
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
(MEPHISTOPHELES _enters_)
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
AT THE WELL
BESSY
MARGARET
BESSY
MARGARET
How so?
BESSY
They say
That two she feedeth when she eats and drinks.
MARGARET
Alas!
BESSY
MARGARET
Poor thing!
BESSY
MARGARET
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
BESSY
[_Exit._]
ZWINGER
_Inclosure 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.)_
FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Meanwhile, the treasure I see glimmering there.
Will it ascend into the open air?
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
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.
MEPHISTOPHELES
VALENTINE
VALENTINE
MEPHISTOPHELES
Why not?
VALENTINE
That too!
MEPHISTOPHELES
With ease!
VALENTINE
Thrust home!
VALENTINE (_falls_)
Alas!
MEPHISTOPHELES
PEOPLE
PEOPLE
MARGARET
VALENTINE
MARGARET
VALENTINE
Abstain,
Nor dare God's holy name profane!
What's done, alas, is done and past!
Matters will take their course at last;
By stealth thou dost begin with one,
Others will follow him anon;
And when a dozen thee have known,
Thou'lt common be to all the town.
When infamy is newly born,
In secret she is brought to light,
And the mysterious veil of night
O'er head and ears is drawn;
The loathsome birth men fain would slay;
But soon, full grown, she waxes bold,
And though not fairer to behold,
With brazen front insults the day:
The more abhorrent to the sight,
The more she courts the day's pure light,
The time already I discern,
When thee all honest folk will spurn,
And shun thy hated form to meet,
As when a corpse infects the street.
Thy heart will sink in blank despair,
When they shall look thee in the face!
A golden chain no more thou'lt wear!
Nor near the altar take in church thy place!
In fair lace collar simply dight
Thou'lt dance no more with spirits light!
In darksome corners thou wilt bide,
Where beggars vile and cripples hide,
And e'en though God thy crime forgive,
On earth, a thing accursed, thou'lt live!
MARTHA
VALENTINE
MARGARET
VALENTINE
[_Dies._]
CATHEDRAL
EVIL-SPIRIT
MARGARET
Woe! Woe!
Oh, could I free me from the thoughts
That hither, thither, crowd upon my brain,
Against my will!
CHORUS
EVIL-SPIRIT
MARGARET
CHORUS
MARGARET
I feel oppressed!
The pillars of the wall
Imprison me!
The vaulted roof
Weighs down upon me!--air!
EVIL-SPIRIT
CHORUS
EVIL-SPIRIT
CHORUS
MARGARET
WALPURGIS-NIGHT
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
IGNIS FATUUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
Ho! ho!
So men, forsooth, he thinks to imitate!
Now, in the devil's name, for once go straight!
Or out at once your flickering life I'll blow.
IGNIS FATUUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
VOICES
Alone old Baubo's coming now;
She rides upon a farrow sow.
CHORUS
VOICE
VOICE
O'er Ilsenstein!
There I peep'd in an owlet's nest.
With her broad eye she gazed in mine!
VOICE
VOICE
VOICES (_above_)
BOTH CHORUSES
Stay! stay!
BOTH CHORUSES
DEMI-WITCH (_below_)
CHORUS OF WITCHES
BOTH CHORUSES
MEPHISTOPHELES
They crowd and jostle, whirl and flutter!
They whisper, babble, twirl, and splutter!
They glimmer, sparkle, stink and flare--
A true witch-element! Beware!
Stick close! else we shall severed be.
Where art thou?
Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
GENERAL
MINISTER
PARVENU
AUTHOR
HUCKSTER-WITCH
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Who?
MEPHISTOPHELES
Adam's first wife. Of her rich locks beware!
That charm in which she's parallel'd by few,
When in its toils a youth she doth ensnare
He will not soon escape, I promise you.
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
PROCTOPHANTASMIST
FAUST (_dancing_)
PROCTOPHANTASMIST
PROCTOPHANTASMIST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
Then saw I--
MEPHISTOPHELES
What?
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
SERVIBILIS
They are about to recommence;--the play,
Will be the last of seven, and spick-span new--
'Tis usual here that number to present.
A dilettante did the piece invent,
And dilettanti will enact it too.
Excuse me, gentlemen; to me's assign'd,
As dilettante to uplift the curtain.
MEPHISTOPHELES
INTERMEZZO
* * * * *
THEATRE
MANAGER
HERALD
OBERON
PUCK
ARIEL
OBERON
TITANIA
(_Solo_)
EMBRYO SPIRIT
A LITTLE PAIR
INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER
ORTHODOX
PURIST
YOUNG WITCH
MATRON
XENIEN
MUSAGET
INQUISITIVE TRAVELLER
CRANE
WORLDLING
DANCER
DANCING MASTER
DOGMATIST
IDEALIST
REALIST
SUPERNATURALIST
SCEPTIC
WILL-O'-THE-WISPS
SHOOTING STAR
PUCK
ARIEL
ORCHESTRA (_pianissimo_)
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Now we are once again at our wit's end, just where the reason of you
mortals snaps! Why dost thou seek our fellowship, if thou canst not go
through with it? Wilt fly, and art not proof against dizziness? Did we
force ourselves on thee, or thou on us?
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
Hast done?
FAUST
Save her!--or woe to thee! The direst of curses on thee for thousands
of years!
MEPHISTOPHELES
I cannot loose the bands of the avenger, nor withdraw his bolts.--Save
her!--Who was it plunged her into perdition? I or thou?
Would'st grasp the thunder? Well for you, poor mortals, that 'tis not
yours to wield! To smite to atoms the being, however innocent, who
obstructs his path, such is the tyrant's fashion of relieving himself
in difficulties!
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
And the danger to which thou dost expose thyself? Know, the guilt of
blood, shed by thy hand, lies yet upon the town. Over the place where
fell the murdered one, avenging spirits hover and watch for the
returning murderer.
FAUST
This too from thee? The death and downfall of a world be on thee,
monster! Conduct me thither, I say and set her free!
MEPHISTOPHELES
I will conduct thee. And what I can do,--hear! Have I all power in
heaven and upon earth? I'll cloud the senses of the warder,--do thou
possess thyself of the keys and lead her forth with human hand! I will
keep watch! The magic steeds are waiting, I bear thee off. Thus much
is in my power.
FAUST
Up and away!
FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
A witches' pack.
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
On! On!
DUNGEON
FAUST (_with a bunch of keys and a lamp before a small iron door_)
FAUST (_Softly_)
FAUST
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST (_aloud_)
Gretchen! Gretchen!
MARGARET (_listening_)
That was my lov'd one's voice!
FAUST
'Tis I!
MARGARET
MARGARET
Oh do not haste!
I love to linger where thou stayest. [_caressing him_.]
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
FAUST
'Tis I! Oh come!
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
Quick! Quick!
Save thy poor child!
Keep to the path
The brook along,
Over the bridge
To the wood beyond,
To the left, where the plank is,
In the pond.
Seize it at once!
It fain would rise,
It struggles still!
Save it. Oh save!
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
FAUST
MARGARET
MARGARET
MEPHISTOPHELES
Is saved!
Henry! Henry!
END OF PART I.
FAUST--SELECTIONS FROM PART II (1832)
A PLEASING LANDSCAPE
TWILIGHT
ARIEL
ARIEL
FAUST
TRUMPETS
EMPEROR
PAGE
EMPEROR
EMPEROR
CHANCELLOR
_Pause_
FIELD MARSHAL
TREASURER
STEWARD
MEPHISTOPHELES
He is a knave--he comprehends--
He lies--while lying serves his ends--
Full well I know--what lurks behind--
What next?--Some scheme is in the wind!--
MEPHISTOPHELES
CHANCELLOR
EMPEROR
MEPHISTOPHELES
TREASURER
CHANCELLOR
STEWARD
FIELD MARSHAL
MEPHISTOPHELES
EMPEROR
_Murmur_
MEPHISTOPHELES
_Murmur_
Like lead it lies my foot about--
Cramp'd is my arm--'tis only gout--
Twitchings I have in my great toe--
Down all my back strange pains I know--
Such indications make it clear
That sumless treasuries are here.
EMPEROR
MEPHISTOPHELES
EMPEROR
MEPHISTOPHELES
Take spade and hoe thyself;--dig on--
Great shalt thou be through peasant toil--
A herd of golden calves anon
Themselves shall tear from out the soil;
Then straight, with rapture newly born,
Thyself thou canst, thy sweet-heart wilt adorn.
A sparkling gem, lustrous, of varied dye,
Beauty exalts as well as majesty.
EMPEROR
MEPHISTOPHELES
Sire,
Relax, I pray, such vehement desire!
First let us see the motley, joyous show!
A mind distraught conducts not to the goal.
First must we calmness win through self-control,
Through things above deserve what lies below.
Who seeks for goodness, must himself be good;
Who seeks for joy, must moderate his blood;
Who wine desires, the luscious grape must press;
Who craveth miracles, more faith possess.
EMPEROR
[_Trumpets. Exeunt._]
MEPHISTOPHELES
* * * * *
(_Looking round_)
CHORUS OF INSECTS
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAMULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAMULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAMULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAMULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
BACCALAUREUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
BACCALAUREUS
BACCALAUREUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
BACCALAUREUS
Confess that pate of yours, though bare and old,
Than yonder hollow skull is worth no more!
MEPHISTOPHELES (_good-naturedly_)
BACCALAUREUS
BACCALAUREUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
BACCALAUREUS
MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
BACCALAUREUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
LABORATORY
MEPHISTOPHELES (_entering_)
WAGNER
(_Softly_)
WAGNER
A man is being made.
MEPHISTOPHELES
WAGNER
MEPHISTOPHELES
(_To_ MEPHISTOPHELES)
WAGNER
MEPHISTOPHELES
HOMUNCULUS
What's to be done?
HOMUNCULUS (_amazed_)
Momentous!
MEPHISTOPHELES
HOMUNCULUS
(_Looking round_)
HOMUNCULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
HOMUNCULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
HOMUNCULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
HOMUNCULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES
HOMUNCULUS
MEPHISTOPHELES (_lustfully_)
HOMUNCULUS
WAGNER (_alarmed_)
And I?
HOMUNCULUS
WAGNER
* * * * *
HELENA
CHORUS
HELENA
CHORUS
HELENA
Forthwith hath followed next this mandate of my lord:
"Now when in order thou all things hast duly seen,
As many tripods take, as needful thou may'st deem,
And vessels manifold, which he at hand requires,
Who duly would perform the sacrificial rite,
The caldrons, and the bowls, and shallow altar-plates;
Let purest water, too, from sacred fount be there,
In lofty pitchers; further, store of season'd wood,
Quick to accept the flame, hold thou in readiness;
A knife, of sharpest edge, let it not fail at last.
But I all other things to thy sole care resign."
So spake he, urging me at once to part; but naught,
Breathing the breath of life, the orderer appoints,
That, to the Olympians' honor, he to slaughter doom'd:
Suspicious seems it! yet, dismiss I further care;
To the high Gods' decree be everything referred,
Who evermore fulfil, what they in thought conceive;
It may, in sooth, by men, as evil or as good
Be counted, it by us, poor mortals, must be borne.
Full oft the ponderous axe on high the priest hath raised,
In consecration o'er the earth-bowed victim's neck.
Nor could achieve the rite, for he was hinder�d,
Or by approaching foe, or intervening God.
CHORUS
HELENA
CHORUS
HELENA
What I have seen ye, too, with your own eyes, shall see,
If ancient Night, within her wonder-teeming womb,
Hath not forthwith engulfed, once more, her ghastly birth;
But yet, that ye may know, with words I'll tell it you:--
What time the royal mansion's gloomy inner court,
Upon my task intent, with solemn step I trod,
I wondered at the drear and silent corridors.
Fell on mine ear no sound of busy servitors,
No stir of rapid haste, officious, met my gaze;
Before me there appeared no maid, no stewardess,
Who every stranger erst, with friendly greeting, hailed.
But when I neared at length the bosom of the hearth,
There saw I, by the light of dimly smouldering fire,
Crouched on the ground, a crone, close-veiled, of stature huge,
Not like to one asleep, but as absorbed in thought!
With accent of command I summon her to work,
The stewardess in her surmising, who perchance
My spouse, departing hence, with foresight there had placed;
Yet, closely muted up, still sits she, motionless;
At length, upon my threat, up-lifts she her right arm,
As though from hearth and hall she motioned me away.
Wrathful from her I turn, and forthwith hasten out,
Toward the steps, whereon aloft the Thalamos
Rises adorned, thereto the treasure-house hard by;
When, on a sudden, starts the wonder from the floor;
Barring with lordly mien my passage, she herself
In haggard height displays, with hollow eyes, blood-grimed,
An aspect weird and strange, confounding eye and thought.
Yet speak I to the winds; for language all in vain
Creatively essays to body forth such shapes.
There see herself! The light she ventures to confront!
Here are we master, till the lord and monarch comes;
The ghastly brood of Night doth Phoebus, beauty's friend,
Back to their caverns drive, or them he subjugates.
CHORUS
PHORKYAS
Trite is the word, yet high and true remains the sense:
That Shame and Beauty ne'er together, hand in hand,
Their onward way pursue, earth's verdant path along.
Deep-rooted in these twain dwelleth an ancient grudge,
So that, where'er they happen on their way to meet,
Upon her hated rival turneth each her back;
Then onward speeds her course with greater vehemence,
Shame filled with sorrow, Beauty insolent of mood,
Till her at length embraces Orcus' hollow night,
Unless old age erewhile her haughtiness hath tamed.
You find I now, ye wantons, from a foreign shore,
With insolence o'erflowing, like the clamorous flight
Of cranes, with shrilly scream that high above our heads,
A long and moving cloud, croaking send down their noise,
Which the lone pilgrim lures wending his silent way,
Aloft to turn his gaze; yet on their course they fare,
He also upon his: so will it be with us.
HELENA
PHORKYAS
FIRST CHORISTER
PHORKYAS
SECOND CHORISTER
PHORKYAS
THIRD CHORISTER
Who yonder dwell, in sooth, for thee are far too young.
PHORKYAS
FOURTH CHORISTER
PHORKYAS
FIFTH CHORISTER
PHORKYAS
'Tis not with blood, for which so keenly thou dost thirst.
SIXTH CHORISTER
PHORKYAS
SEVENTH CHORISTER
Thine I should stop were I to tell thee who thou art.
PHORKYAS
HELENA
PHORKYAS
HELENA
PHORKYAS
HELENA
PHORKYAS
HELENA
His daughter gave he, gave to him the kingdom's sway;
And from our wedded union sprang Hermione.
PHORKYAS
HELENA
PHORKYAS
HELENA
PHORKYAS
HELENA
PHORKYAS
HELENA
PHORKYAS
HELENA
CHORUS
Silence! Silence!
False seeing one, false speaking one, thou!
Through thy horrible, single-tooth'd lips,
Ghastly, what exhaleth
From such terrible loathsome gulf!
For the malignant one, kindliness feigning,
Rage of wolf 'neath the sheep's woolly fleece,
Far more terrible is unto me than
Jaws of the hound three-headed.
Anxiously watching stand we here:
When? How? Where of such malice
Bursteth the tempest
From this deep-lurking brood of Hell?
Now, 'stead of friendly words, freighted with comfort,
Lethe-bestowing, gracious and mild,
Thou art summoning from times departed,
Thoughts of the past most hateful,
Overshadowing not alone
All sheen gilding the present,
Also the future's
Mildly glimmering light of hope.
Silence! Silence!
That fair Helena's soul,
Ready e'en now to take flight,
Still may keep, yea firmly keep
The form of all forms, the loveliest,
Ever illumined of old by the sun.
* * * * *
PHORKYAS
CHORUS
Only speak, relate, and tell us, what of wonderful hath chanced!
We more willingly shall hearken that which we cannot believe;
For we are aweary, weary, gazing on these rocks around.
PHORKYAS
Children, how, already weary, though you scarce have rubbed your eyes?
Hearken then! Within these caverns, in these grottoes, in these bowers,
Shield and shelter have been given, as to lover-twain idyllic,
To our lord and to our lady--
CHORUS
How, within there?
PHORKYAS
Yea, secluded
From the world; and me, me only, they to secret service called.
Highly honored stood I near them, yet, as one in trust beseemeth,
Round I gazed on other objects, turning hither, turning thither,
Sought for roots, for barks and mosses, with their properties acquainted;
And they thus remained alone.
CHORUS
Thou would'st make believe that yonder, world-wide spaces lie within,
Wood and meadow, lake and brooklet; what strange fable spinnest thou!
PHORKYAS
CHORUS
This call'st thou marvelous,
Daughter of Creta?
Unto the bard's pregnant word
Hast thou perchance never listened?
Hast thou not heard of Ionia's,
Ne'er been instructed in Hellas'
Legends, from ages primeval,
Godlike, heroical treasure?
All, that still happeneth
Now in the present,
Sorrowful echo 'tis,
Of days ancestral, more noble;
Equals not in sooth thy story
That which beautiful fiction,
Than truth more worthy of credence,
Chanted hath of Maia's offspring!
This so shapely and potent, yet
Scarcely-born delicate nursling,
Straight have his gossiping nurses
Folded in purest swaddling fleece,
Fastened in costly swathings,
With their irrational notions.
Potent and shapely, ne'ertheless,
Draws the rogue his flexible limbs,
Body firm yet elastic,
Craftily forth; the purple shell,
Him so grievously binding,
Leaving quietly in its place;
As the perfected butterfly,
From the rigid chrysalid,
Pinion unfolding, rapidly glides,
Boldly and wantonly sailing through
Sun-impregnated ether.
PHORKYAS
Hark those notes so sweetly sounding;
Cast aside your fabled lore:
Gods, in olden time abounding,--
Let them go! their day is o'er.
CHORUS
EUPHORION
HELENA
FAUST
CHORUS
EUPHORION
FAUST
EUPHORION
HELENA
CHORUS
EUPHORION
FAUST
EUPHORION
Gracefully sporting,
Light-footed roes,
New frolic courting
Scorn ye repose:
I am the hunter,
Ye are the game.
CHORUS
EUPHORION
MAIDEN
EUPHORION
Higher must I climb, yet higher,
Wider still must be my gaze.
Know I now, where I stand:
'Midst of the sea-girt land,
'Midst of great Pelops' reign,
Kin both to earth and main.
CHORUS
EUPHORION
CHORUS
EUPHORION
CHORUS
EUPHORION
CHORUS
O hallowed Poesie,
Heavenward still soareth she!
Shine on, thou brightest star,
Farther and still more far!
Yet us she still doth cheer;
Even her voice to hear,
Joyful we are.
EUPHORION
EUPHORION
EUPHORION
[_He casts himself into the air; his garments support him
for a moment; his head flames, a trail of light follows him._]
CHORUS
Icarus! Icarus!
Oh woeful sight!
CHORUS (_dirge_)
* * * * *
OPEN COUNTRY
WANDERER
WANDERER
IN THE GARDEN
I trow,
He of wonders so amazing
Fain would hear; inform him thou.
BAUCIS
PHILEMON
BAUCIS
PHILEMON
BAUCIS
PHILEMON
PALACE
_Spacious ornamental garden; broad, straight canal._ FAUST
_in extreme old age, walking about, meditating._
FAUST (_starting_)
CHORUS
Here do we land,
Here are we now.
Hail to our lord;
Our patron, thou!
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
Expect ye now
No further pay;
For ye your share
Have ta'en away.
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES
THE THREE
(I _Kings_, xvi.)
DEEP NIGHT
(_Pause_)
FAUST
CHORUS
FAUST
MIDNIGHT
My name, it is Want.
SECOND
THIRD
My name, it is Care.
FOURTH
THREE (_together_)
WANT
BLAME
NEED
CARE
WANT
BLAME
NEED
And Need at your heels doth with yours blend her breath.[35]
THE THREE
(_Agitated_)
CARE
FAUST
CARE
FAUST
Withdraw thyself!
CARE
CARE
FAUST
CARE
FAUST
CARE
Shall he come or go? He ponders;--
All resolve from him is taken;
On the beaten path he wanders,
Groping on, as if forsaken.
Deeper still himself he loses,
Everything his sight abuses,
Both himself and others hating,
Taking breath--and suffocating,
Without life--yet scarcely dying,
Not despairing--not relying.
Rolling on without remission:
Loathsome ought, and sad permission,
Now deliverance, now vexation,
Semi-sleep,--poor recreation,
Nail him to his place and wear him,
And at last for hell prepare him.
FAUST
CARE
FAUST (_blind_)
_Torches_
MEPHISTOPHELES
MEPHISTOPHELES (_aside_)
Inspector!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Here.
FAUST
FAUST
* * * * *
[Footnote 1: For lack of space, scientists and historians have been
excluded.]
[Footnote 2: The chief original sources for the life of Goethe are his
own autobiographic writings, his letters, his diaries, and his
conversations. Of the autobiographic writings the most important are
(1) _Poetry and Truth from my Life_, which ends with the year 1775;
(2) _Italian Journey_, covering the period from September, 1786, to
June, 1788; (3) _Campaign in France_ and _Siege of Antwerp_, dealing
with episodes of the years 1792 and 1793; (4) _Annals (Tag- und
Jahreshefte)_, which are useful for his later years down to 1823. His
letters, forty-nine volumes in all, and his diaries, thirteen volumes,
are included in the great Weimar edition of Goethe's works. His
conversations, so far as they were recorded, have been well edited by
W. von Biedermann, ten volumes, Leipzig, 1889-1896.]
[Footnote 33: Permission The Macmillan Co., New York, and G. Bell &
Sons, Ltd., London.]
[Footnote 34: Permission The Macmillan Co., New York, and G. Bell and
Sons, Ltd., London.]
[Footnote 35: Not and Tod, the German equivalents for Need and Death,
form a rhyme. As this cannot be rendered in English, I have introduced
a slight alteration into my translation.]
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