B00ARI2G5C EBOK (25 page)

Of patients… She’s the Sibyl I like best:

Not always in a fidget like the rest,

But calm and a good influence. Stay with her

A while: her medicines guarantee your cure.

FAUST
. I want no weakling’s cure! I will not be

Like the contemptible majority!

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CHIRON
. This noble healing fountain you should taste.

Dismount now! We are here: no time to waste.

FAUST
. Through stony streams you have carried me somehow

On this wild night; where have I landed now?

CHIRON
. Here Rome and Greece, Peneus on the right,

Olympus on the left, fought their great fight;
*

A mighty empire vanished in the sand,

Kings fled, the burgher gained the upper hand.

Look! The eternal temple, close and clear,

Looms over us in the moonlight here.

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MANTO
*
[in
the
temple,
dreaming]
.

With tremor of hooves

My sacred threshold moves.

Demigods are approaching.

CHIRON
.           It is so!

Open your eyes to know!

MANTO
[
waking]
.

Welcome! You keep your tryst, I see.

CHIRON
. Your temple stands and waits for me.

MANTO
. So tirelessly you wander still.

CHIRON
. Yours is the peace by stillness bounded

I need to circle round at will.

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MANTO
. I wait, by circling time surrounded.

What stranger’s here?

CHIRON
. This night of ill fame caught him

Into its vortex and has brought him

To us. His mind is much elated:

With Helen he’s infatuated,

And has no notion how to start.

The case deserves your Aesculapian art.

MANTO
. On the impossible he sets his heart;

Such men I love.

[
CHIRON
is already in the distance
.]

So enter with good cheer,

Rash wooer! Down through this dark passage here,

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In Olympus’ deep core, Persephone

Waits for forbidden greetings secretly.

I smuggled Orpheus in once this way too;

Use your chance better. Come now, down with you

[
They descend
.]

   
THE SIRENS
. Plunge into Peneus’ stream!

We must play and we must swim

And with singing long and loud

Comfort this unhappy crowd.

Where there’s water there’s salvation!

Now let our whole company

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Hasten to the Aegean Sea:

All shall there be jubilation.

[
An earthquake strikes.
]

Now the river churned to foam

Leaves the bed that was its home;

Earth is trembling, waters choke,

Banks and pebbles burst and smoke.

Flee this prodigy, come, hide!

Such a peril none can bide.

Come away, each noble guest:

By the sea our feast is best.

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Quivering waves that glint and gleam

Wet the shore in swelling stream,

And one moon shines out like two,

Moistening us with holy dew:

There is freedom, life and motion—

Here the shattered earth’s commotion.

From the depths what terrors rise!

Leave this place, all who are wise.

SEISMOS
*
[
rumbling and banging in the depths]
.

One more heave and one more shove,

And I’ll be there, up above,

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Out into the light of day;

No one there gets in my way.

THE SPHINXES
. How unpleasant is this quaking,

Ugly shuddering and shaking,

Sudden jolts and sudden shocks,

To and fro the whole place rocks;

How offensive a display!

But we’ll sit and not be shifted,

Though the roof of hell be lifted.

Now, how strange! an arch of stone

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Heaves in sight. That old man’s known

Well to us: for it was he

Who raised Delos from the sea,

Leto’s isle, that she might bear

Phoebus and his sister there.

How he strives and strains and presses!

Adas-like, with shoulders bent

And stiff-armed, see, he has sent

Sod and soil up, earth in masses,

Stones and gravel, sand and clay—

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Tears our peaceful banks away,

Lifts the valley’s quiet lid,

Interrupts the river’s course,

Thrusting up with tireless force,

A colossal caryatid:

Monstrous stonework he has carried

On his head, though still half buried.

But here ends his upstart story:

This is sphinxes’ territory.

SEISMOS
. All this is my unaided work,

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And in the end they’ll give me credit.

Without me here to quake and jolt and jerk,

Where would earth’s beauty be? I made it!—

Where would your mountains be, that rise

Splendid in pure ethereal blue,

If I’d not reared them out for you

And shaped that picture to enchant your eyes?

My earliest ancestors of all

Were Night and Chaos; I was strong,

I grew up with the Titans; before long

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With Pelion and Ossa we played ball.

In youthful rashness on we sported,

Till for a lark we finally transported

Both of those mountains through the air

And gave Parnassus a twin cap to wear…

Apollo to this day amuses

Himself there with the blessed Muses;

And even for Zeus the Thunderer, I

Fashioned his throne and raised it high.

Just so, with monstrous efforts, as you see

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I have emerged from the abyss,

And now demand new life to go with this:

Happy inhabitants to live on me!

THE SPHINXES
. Here’s a mountain we should now

Judge to be of ancient birth,

Had we not just witnessed how

It was churned up from the earth.

New rocks in their convulsions still compound it

Even as dense forest grows already round it.

A sphinx need be no whit perturbed:

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We shall remain enthroned and undisturbed.

THE GRIFFINS
. Gold in leaves and gold in slivers:

Through the fissures, look, it quivers!

Ants, come, claw this treasure free,

Seize your opportunity!

CHORUS OF ANTS
. The giants thrust

This mountain up somehow:

Creepy-crawlies, we must

Climb up it now.

Quick, scuttle in and out!

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These rocks contain

A fortune: we must find

The smallest grain.

We must investigate

Even the tiniest

Cranny immediately:

Hurry, make haste!

Come, swarming host,

Swarm about busily!

Bring gold: the barren stone,

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Leave it alone.

THE GRIFFINS
. Come, pile it up! Pile up the gold!

We’ll stretch our claws and take good hold,

And it will be well locked and barred:

No treasure that our grip can’t guard.

PYGMIES
. Here’s a spot to occupy.

Where we’re from we’ve no idea.

No use asking how or why;

We just happen to be here.

Life is quick to find its place,

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Glad of any new terrain:

Give us cracks in the rock face,

And the dwarves pop up again.

Male and female, dwarfish twosome,

Toiling gladly cleft by cleft;

Was it thus in nature’s bosom,

In the paradise we left?

We’re content here none the less;

East and west, where’s best to be?

Let us bless our luck, and bless

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Mother Earth’s fertility.

FINGERLINGS.
To these small folk the Earth

In one night gave birth;

Now the smallest appear,

Our kind too is here.

THE PYGMY ELDERS
. Take up positions,

In this new country,

And be in readiness,

Strong by your speediness!

Set up your foundry

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To make munitions,

To turn out weapons

When the war happens.

Ants, we’ve a task for you:

Metals we ask of you.

Swarm and get busy!

And you tom-fingerlings,

You thousand tiny things,

Bring us whatever

Wood you can gather!

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Heap it together:

Our metal-smiths require

Its secret fire.

THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
. Now in good order,

Set out with arrows

And shoot those herons

Down by the water,

All at one swoop!

Thousands of nests there;

Puffing their breasts there,

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All cock-a-hoop.

Fetch from that feathered breed

The helmet plumes we need!

THE ANTS AND FINGERLINGS
. Now who will Save US?

Iron for giants

We make, and they make

Chains to enslave us.

Too soon to break them: we

Must show compliance.

THE CRANES OF IBYCUS
. Shrieks of murder, dying cries,

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Wings’ fear-stricken susurration,

Moans and wails of lamentation:

Through the air to us they rise.

See, with blood the lake is red!

All the herons now lie dead,

Of their noble crests despoiled

By a greed perverse and wild,

And the plume already waves

On those bow-legged pot-paunched knaves.

You companions of our host,

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Wedgewise wanderers of the coast,

For revenge on you we call;

These were kindred of us all.

To the bane of that thrice-hated

Race let all be dedicated!

[
They scatter in flight with raucous cries
.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
[
on the plain]
.

Up north, the witches would respect one’s rights:

I just can’t deal with these damned foreign sprites.

The Blocksberg—that’s a snug spot, I must say;

One feels at home there, wander as one may.

Old
Use
on her Rocle still waits up for us,

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And so does
Heights
on his
Häghts;
the
Snorers

Are snorting towards
Elend
as before;
*

It’s all been there a thousand years or more.

But here, where does one stand? That’s the real trouble:

One can’t tell when the ground will burst a bubble

Under one’s feet. I’m calmly wandering

Down a wide valley—suddenly this thing

Pops up behind me; mountain one can’t say,

But high enough. My Sphinxes, where are they?

Hidden behind it… Here some fires still gleam

And flicker round; what wonders are downstream?

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That chorus—it still flirts invitingly,

Roguishly dancing, hovering, luring me

And yielding. Come! Lovers of tasty fare

Must take their chance to nibble anywhere.

THE LAMIAE
[
drawing
MEPHISTOPHELES
after them]
.

Now hurry! hurry!

Faster and faster!

Then pause a moment,

Chatter and comment.

It’s so amusing

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To be seducing

This old whore-master

Who would seduce us!

He will be sorry.

He has a dud foot;

Look at his club-foot

Hobbling and limping,

Clumping and stumping,

As he pursues us!

MEPHISTOPHELES
[
stopping in his tracks]
.

Oh, damned fate! Tricked and fooled again!

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Since Adam’s time, poor silly men!

Older, but wiser not a whit;

Even I often fell for it.

One knows they’re a completely worthless crew;

All laced up, and their faces painted too;

Unwholesome hags, no match for our advances—

In every limb they crumble at a touch;

One knows all this, eyes and hands tell as much,

And yet when these sluts play the tune, one dances!

THE LAMIAE
[
stopping
].

Stop! He deliberates, he’s in doubt.

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Keep in his path, don’t let him out!

MEPHISTOPHELES
[
advancingagain]
.

But let’s not be too sceptical;

It’s foolish. Come, another try!

For if there were no witches, why

The devil be the Devil at all?

THE LAMIAE
[
exerting their charm]
. Circle round this hero thus!

And his heart, we may be sure,

Will be touched by one of us.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Though the lighting is obscure,

You attract my wandering eyes;

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Pretty girls I don’t despise.

AN EMPUSA
[
thrusting herself in among them]
.

Don’t despise me either, please!

I’m as pretty as all these!

THE LAMIAE
. Now she intrudes again; this bitch,

She always comes to queer our pitch.

THE EMPUSA
[to
MEPHISTOPHELES]
. Your cousin, sir, begs leave to greet you!

Empusa Ass-hoof, pleased to meet you.