Bab Bab 9 · PROMENADE

ggerated?

Each leaf for such a pact is good;

And to subscribe thy name thou’lt take a drop of blood.

FAUST

If thou therewith art fully satisfied,

So let us by the farce abide.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Blood is a juice of rarest quality.

FAUST

Fear not that I this pact shall seek to sever?

The promise that I make to thee

Is just the sum of my endeavor.

I have myself inflated all too high;

My proper place is thy estate:

The Mighty Spirit deigns me no reply,

And Nature shuts on me her gate.

The thread of Thought at last is broken,

And knowledge brings disgust unspoken.

Let us the sensual deeps explore,

To quench the fervors of glowing passion!

Let every marvel take form and fashion

Through the impervious veil it wore!

Plunge we in Time’s tumultuous dance,

In the rush and roll of Circumstance!

Then may delight and distress,

And worry and success,

Alternately follow, as best they can:

Restless activity proves the man!

MEPHISTOPHELES

For you no bound, no term is set.

Whether you everywhere be trying,

Or snatch a rapid bliss in flying,

May it agree with you, what you get!

Only fall to, and show no timid balking.

FAUST

But thou hast heard, ’tis not of joy we’re talking.

I take the wildering whirl, enjoyment’s keenest pain,

Enamored hate, exhilarant disdain.

My bosom, of its thirst for knowledge sated,

Shall not, henceforth, from any pang be wrested,

And all of life for all mankind created

Shall be within mine inmost being tested:

The highest, lowest forms my soul shall borrow,

Shall heap upon itself their bliss and sorrow,

And thus, my own sole self to all their selves expanded,

I too, at last, shall with them all be stranded!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Believe me, who for many a thousand year

The same tough meat have chewed and tested,

That from the cradle to the bier

No man the ancient leaven has digested!

Trust one of us, this Whole supernal

Is made but for a God’s delight!

_He_ dwells in splendor single and eternal,

But _us_ he thrusts in darkness, out of sight,

And _you_ he dowers with Day and Night.

FAUST

Nay, but I will!

MEPHISTOPHELES

A good reply!

One only fear still needs repeating:

The art is long, the time is fleeting.

Then let thyself be taught, say I!

Go, league thyself with a poet,

Give the rein to his imagination,

Then wear the crown, and show it,

Of the qualities of his creation,—

The courage of the lion’s breed,

The wild stag’s speed,

The Italian’s fiery blood,

The North’s firm fortitude!

Let him find for thee the secret tether

That binds the Noble and Mean together.

And teach thy pulses of youth and pleasure

To love by rule, and hate by measure!

I’d like, myself, such a one to see:

Sir Microcosm his name should be.

FAUST

What am I, then, if ’tis denied my part

The crown of all humanity to win me,

Whereto yearns every sense within me?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Why, on the whole, thou’rt—what thou art.

Set wigs of million curls upon thy head, to raise thee,

Wear shoes an ell in height,—the truth betrays thee,

And thou remainest—what thou art.

FAUST

I feel, indeed, that I have made the treasure

Of human thought and knowledge mine, in vain;

And if I now sit down in restful leisure,

No fount of newer strength is in my brain:

I am no hair’s-breadth more in height,

Nor nearer, to the Infinite,

MEPHISTOPHELES

Good Sir, you see the facts precisely

As they are seen by each and all.

We must arrange them now, more wisely,

Before the joys of life shall pall.

Why, Zounds! Both hands and feet are, truly—

And head and virile forces—thine:

Yet all that I indulge in newly,

Is’t thence less wholly mine?

If I’ve six stallions in my stall,

Are not their forces also lent me?

I speed along, completest man of all,

As though my legs were four-and-twenty.

Take hold, then! let reflection rest,

And plunge into the world with zest!

I say to thee, a speculative wight

Is like a beast on moorlands lean,

That round and round some fiend misleads to evil plight,

While all about lie pastures fresh and green.

FAUST

Then how shall we begin?

MEPHISTOPHELES

We’ll try a wider sphere.

What place of martyrdom is here!

Is’t life, I ask, is’t even prudence,

To bore thyself and bore the students?

Let Neighbor Paunch to that attend!

Why plague thyself with threshing straw forever?

The best thou learnest, in the end

Thou dar’st not tell the youngsters—never!

I hear one’s footsteps, hither steering.

FAUST

To see him now I have no heart.

MEPHISTOPHELES

So long the poor boy waits a hearing,

He must not unconsoled depart.

Thy cap and mantle straightway lend me!

I’ll play the comedy with art.

(_He disguises himself_.)

My wits, be certain, will befriend me.

But fifteen minutes’ time is all I need;

For our fine trip, meanwhile, prepare thyself with speed!

[_Exit_ FAUST.

MEPHISTOPHELES

(_In_ FAUST’S _long mantle_.)

Reason and Knowledge only thou despise,

The highest strength in man that lies!

Let but the Lying Spirit bind thee

With magic works and shows that blind thee,

And I shall have thee fast and sure!—

Fate such a bold, untrammelled spirit gave him,

As forwards, onwards, ever must endure;

Whose over-hasty impulse drave him

Past earthly joys he might secure.

Dragged through the wildest life, will I enslave him,

Through flat and stale indifference;

With struggling, chilling, checking, so deprave him

That, to his hot, insatiate sense,

The dream of drink shall mock, but never lave him:

Refreshment shall his lips in vain implore—

Had he not made himself the Devil’s, naught could save

him,

Still were he lost forevermore!

(_A_ STUDENT _enters_.)

STUDENT

A short time, only, am I here,

And come, devoted and sincere,

To greet and know the man of fame,

Whom men to me with reverence name.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Your courtesy doth flatter me:

You see a man, as others be.

Have you, perchance, elsewhere begun?

STUDENT

Receive me now, I pray, as one

Who comes to you with courage good,

Somewhat of cash, and healthy blood:

My mother was hardly willing to let me;

But knowledge worth having I fain would get me.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Then you have reached the right place now.

STUDENT

I’d like to leave it, I must avow;

I find these walls, these vaulted spaces

Are anything but pleasant places.

Tis all so cramped and close and mean;

One sees no tree, no glimpse of green,

And when the lecture-halls receive me,

Seeing, hearing, and thinking leave me.

MEPHISTOPHELES

All that depends on habitude.

So from its mother’s breasts a child

At first, reluctant, takes its food,

But soon to seek them is beguiled.

Thus, at the breasts of Wisdom clinging,

Thou’lt find each day a greater rapture bringing.

STUDENT

I’ll hang thereon with joy, and freely drain them;

But tell me, pray, the proper means to gain them.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Explain, before you further speak,

The special faculty you seek.

STUDENT

I crave the highest erudition;

And fain would make my acquisition

All that there is in Earth and Heaven,

In Nature and in Science too.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Here is the genuine path for you;

Yet strict attention must be given.

STUDENT

Body and soul thereon I’ll wreak;

Yet, truly, I’ve some inclination

On summer holidays to seek

A little freedom and recreation.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Use well your time! It flies so swiftly from us;

But time through order may be won, I promise.

So, Friend (my views to briefly sum),

First, the _collegium logicum_.

There will your mind be drilled and braced,

As if in Spanish boots ’twere laced,

And thus, to graver paces brought,

’Twill plod along the path of thought,

Instead of shooting here and there,

A will-o’-the-wisp in murky air.

Days will be spent to bid you know,

What once you did at a single blow,

Like eating and drinking, free and strong,—

That one, two, three! thereto belong.

Truly th

SCENE 10.