B00ARI2G5C EBOK (26 page)

Your hoof’s just from a horse, I know;

We’re close relations even so.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. I thought they’d all be strangers here;

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But they’re my family, I fear.

How old a book I’m browsing in!

German or Greek, they’re kith and kin.

THE EMPUSA
. I can act quickly, too, and change

My shape at will: I’ve a whole range

Of shapes. But in your honour now

The ass’s head seemed right somehow.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. These people set great store, I see,

By kindred and affinity.

But come what may, it must be said

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That I disclaim the ass’s head.

THE LAMIAE
. Leave her alone, the hag! She scares

Beauty and charm away; who dares

Look beautiful and charming when

She shows her ugly face again!

MEPHISTOPHELES
. These cousins too I must suspect:

They’re
svelte
and slim, but I detect

Behind those cheeks as red as roses

An imminent metamorphosis.

THE LAMIAE
. Why don’t you try us? We are many.

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Just chance your luck; if you have any,

You may expect to snatch the prize.

This lustful litany—why, you

Poor fellow, that’s no way to woo!

You’ll need some cutting down to size.—

But now he’s mixing with us all:

So gradually let your masks fall—

Be your bare selves before his eyes!

MEPHISTOPHELES
. The prettiest now—this one I’ll pick…

[
As he embraces her
]

Ugh! She’s a dried-up piece of stick!

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[
Seizing another
]

Or this… What a disgusting face!

THE LAMIAE
. And serve you right too! Know your place!

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Ill catch that little lizard there…

But she slips through my hands! Her hair,

A pigtail slimy as a snake!

But here’s a tall one I can take …

It’s nothing but a thyrsus-staff;

Her head’s a pine cone. What a laugh!

What next?… That fat one with the paps,

I’ll get a squeeze from her perhaps;

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Come, one last try!—Ah, squashy, plump!

An Oriental prince for this soft rump

Would pay hard gold… But it explodes!

A fox-fart puffball, by the hellish gods!

THE LAMIAE
.

Disperse now, flutter to and fro,

Swiftly and darkly round him, so,

This witch-man! Punish him, and rightly!

Uncanny circles, silent wings,

Bat-like, with half-seen hoverings!—

The rash intruder gets off lightly.

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MEPHISTOPHELES
[
shaking himself]
.

I’ve not learnt much from this experience,

It seems. The south, the north—neither makes sense;

Down here, back there, the ghosts are mad,

The common folk a bore, the poets bad.

Here too a masquerade, a dance

To give the senses one more chance.

I snatched at charming masks: they hid

Realities that really did

Make my flesh creep… Illusions are such fun,

If only they would stay with one.

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[
Losing his way among the boulders
.]

But now where am I? Here’s more trouble;

There was a path, and now it’s rubble.

I came this way on level ground,

Now these damned rocks are strewn all round.

This clambering up and down’s no good.

Where are my Sphinxes? Who ever would

Have thought of such a crazy scene?

In just one night a mountain’s been

Produced. Well done, that broomstick crew!

The Blocksberg’s in their luggage too.

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AN OREAD
[
from the natural cliff
*
]
. My mountain’s old: come up to me!

Since earliest antiquity

I stand: respect my steep rock-bridges,

The extremities of Pindus’ ridges.

This was my shape when Pompey fled

Over my unmoved watershed;

Whereas that lump, that phantom show

Will vanish at the next cock-crow.

I’ve seen such magic many times: it rears

Its head, and just as quickly disappears.

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MEPHISTOPHELES
. All honour to your summit, crowned

With noble oak-trees; they surround

An inner darkness standing dense

Against the moon’s bright radiance.—

And yet, close by the thicket gleams

And moves a modest light, it seems.

Well met by chance, I do confess!

It’s our Homunculus, no less!

Where are you off to, little man?

THE HOMUNCULUS
. I’m hovering about as best I can,

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And what I want’s to be born properly:

I just can’t wait to break my glass, you see.

However, I’d not care to get

Into the bodies that I’ve so far met.

But between you and me, I’m looking

For two philosophers: I heard them talking

And they kept saying ‘Nature, nature’! They

Shall be the guides I cling to on my way;

They surely know the secrets of the earth,

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And in the end, no doubt, I’ll learn

From them which way I should be wise to turn.

MEPHISTOPHELES. YOU
must find your own way to your own birth.

Where phantoms gather, the philosopher

Is welcome; he’ll create a dozen more

Phantoms at once, he can display

His art and his good will that way.

Only by error will you learn plain seeing.

Find your own way of coming into being!

THE HOMUNCULUS
. Good advice never comes amiss, who knows?

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Off with you then, and let’s see how it goes.

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[
They separate
.]

ANAXAGORAS
[
to
THALES]
.

I see you’re of the same opinion still:

What more’s required to bend your stubborn will?

THALES
. The waves will bend at every wind’s insistence;

From the unyielding rock they keep their distance.

ANAXAGORAS
. I say this rock by fire was created.

THALES
. In moisture all that lives originated.

THE HOMUNCULUS
[
appearing between them]
.

Allow me to accompany your debate!

I too am trying to originate.

ANAXAGORAS
. In one night, Thales, you I think would fail

To make from slime a mountain on this scale.

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THALES
. The peaceful flow of Nature’s living powers

Needs no constraint of nights or days or hours.

She moulds and rules all forms, and even on

The greatest scale no violence is done.

ANAXAGORAS
. It was done here! Monstrous Plutonian heat,

Aeolian explosive gas, replete

With rage, burst through the earth’s old flat crust, and so

At once compelled this great new hill to grow.

THALES
. Well, so you say; what then? The mountain came,

And when all’s said and done, that’s no great shame.

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We waste time thus disputing, and mislead

The patient flock who pay our words some heed.

ANAXAGORAS
. Those rocky clefts are habitation

Already for a pullulation

Of pygmies, ants and fingerlings—

Myrmidon races, busy little things!

[To
the
HOMUNCULUS.]

You lack ambition; your career

Is hermit-like. If you can here

Adapt yourself to sovereignty,

I will have you crowned king immediately.

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THE HOMUNCULUS
. Does my Thales advise it?

THALES
. No; with small

People one does small deeds, but with the great

The small can rise to greatness. Contemplate

Up there the menacing black cloud

Of cranes: they threaten the excited crowd

And would be equal danger to a king.

With beaks and talons sharp as knives

They set the pygmies running for their lives;

The fatal storm is flickering

Already. As the herons stood

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About that quiet mere, their blood

Was murderously shed: that arrow-rain

Waters fierce vengeance for the slain.

Rage of the herons’ kith and kin

Is roused against the pygmies’ sin.

What shield or spear can now avail,

What dwarfish helm with heron plume?

The ants and thumblings hide and quail;

The army flees but cannot flee its doom.

ANAXAGORAS
[
after a pause, solemnly].
*

The chthonic gods have favoured me till now:

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In this case to a higher power I bow.

Goddess, unageing on thy heavenly throne,

Thou of three names, three shapes in one:

Now in my people’s woe I call on thee,

Diana, Luna, Hecate!

Lifter of hearts, deepest in wisdom, tranquillest

In shining, in strong passion innermost:

Open the dreadful gulf of thy dark shade,

And without magic let thy ancient power be displayed!

[
A pause
.]

Is my prayer heard too soon?

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By my imploring

To heaven soaring,

Is Nature’s order overthrown?

And bigger, ever bigger, nearer looming,

The goddess’s encircling throne is coming,

A monster to the eye, a sight of dread,

Its fire darkening to red!…

No nearer! Mighty menace, great round thing,

By you the land, the sea, we all are perishing!

So it is true: Thessalian witches once

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Sang magic spells in wicked confidence

That dragged you down from your celestial course,

And used you with destructive force!

But now the lustrous disc is darkling,

Suddenly cracking, flashing, sparkling!

I hear it spit, I hear it hiss!

What thundering, what monstrous gale is this?—

Prostrate I lie—forgive me, powers divine!

I called it down, the spell was mine!

[
He prostrates himself
.]

THALES
. What curious things this man has seen and heard!

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I’m not quite sure what has occurred;

I noticed nothing, anyway.

These are mad times, one’s bound to say.

As for the moon, it’s still on high,

Floating as usual through the sky.

THE HOMUNCULUS
. The pygmies’ mountain, look! I’d swear

It was round-topped, now there’s a peak up there.

I did feel a great crash or shock—

The moon had dropped that lump of rock.

It squashed to death both friend and foe,

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No by-your-leave for doing so.

But in one night, I must concede,

It took creative art indeed

To build this mountain quite spontaneously

From underground and from the heavens simultaneously!

THALES
. Do not concern yourself; it was all fantasy.

We’re well rid of that squalid tribe. What a good thing

They didn’t choose you as their king.

Now for the festival, the great sea-treat!

Many a strange and honoured guest well meet. [
Exeunt
.]

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MEPHISTOPHELES
[
climbing on the opposite side]
. So here I am, dragging myself up these

Steep ledges, past stiff roots of old oak-trees!

Back home in my Harz-land, the resinous smell
*

Resembles pitch, which I like well,

As I do brimstone… In this old Greek place

There’s not a whiff of either, not a trace.

Do they have hell-fire here? If so,

What fuel do they use, I’d like to know?

A DRYAD
. Back in your native land, your native wit

No doubt sufficed; here, you seem short of it.

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Give up your homesick notions, they’re home-made;

And reverence these oak-trees’ sacred shade.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Things one was used to, they still haunt the mind;

Paradise is what one has left behind.

But tell me, what is in that cavern there,

In the dim light, a crouching shape, threefold?

THE DRYAD
. The Phorcyads; approach them if you dare;

Speak to them, if your blood does not run cold.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Why not?—I see: now this is most bizarre.

In all humility I must avow

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I’ve never met creatures like this till now.

They’re worse than mandrake-roots… How are

Even the blackest, oldest human sins

Still to seem ugly, if comparison begins

With this unholy trinity?

Even our most odious hells are places

Where we’d not let them show their faces.

How, in the very land of beauty, can this freak

Grow and be reverenced as antique?…

They stir, they seem to sense my presence; how

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They squeak! Like vampire bats they’re gibbering now.

A PHORCYAD
. Sisters, give me the eye, and it shall see

Who dares approach our temple-sanctuary.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Most honoured ladies, by your leave

I’m here,

To seek your threefold blessing I appear;

I come a stranger still, but I could show you

That ramifying kinship binds me to you.

I have seen gods most ancient and most proud,