B00ARI2G5C EBOK (41 page)

11370

I said exchange, not robbery!

Deaf savages! I curse this deed;

Now share my curse, your folly’s meed!

THE OTHERS, IN CHORUS
. The moral’s plain, hear it who can:

Never resist the powerful man.

Don’t put up a bold fight, or you

Risk house and home, and your life too. [
Exeunt
.]

FAUST
[
on the balcony]
.

The stars have hid their gleam and glow,

The fire sinks and glimmers low;

A breeze still fans its embers free

11380

And blows the reek across to me.

A rash command, too soon obeyed!—

What comes now, like a hovering shade?

[Enter
FOUR GREY WOMEN.]

THE FIRST
. My name is Want.

THE SECOND
. My name is Debt.

THE THIRD
. My name is Care.

THE FOURTH
. My name is Need.

THREE OF THEM
. The door will not open, well never get in.

This is a rich man’s house, there’s no way in.

WANT
. I am a shadow there.

DEBT
. I am as nothing there.

NEED
. They pay no heed to me, for they need nothing there.

CARE
. You are locked out, sisters, you cannot stay.

11390

But through his keyhole Care finds a way.

[
CARE
vanishes.]

WANT
. Come then, my grey sisters, for you must begone.

DEBT
. Ill follow you closely, sister, lead on!

NEED
. Need follows you, sister, as close as a breath.

ALL THREE
. The dark clouds are drifting, the stars disappearing:

From far off, from far off, another is nearing!

Our brother is coming; he comes— brother Death.

[
Exeunt
.]

FAUST
[
in the palace]
.

I saw four come, I only saw three go.

What their speech meant I do not know.

They talked of
debt
, and then another word

11400

That almost rhymed—could it be
death
I heard?

A dark and hollow sound, a ghostly sigh.

I have not broken through to freedom yet.

I must clear magic from my path, forget

All magic conjurations—for then I

Would be confronting Nature all alone:

Man’s life worth while, man standing on his own!

So it was once, before I probed the gloom

And dared to curse myself, with words of doom

That cursed the world. The air is swarming now

11410

With ghosts we would avoid if we knew how.

How logical and clear the daylight seems

Till the night weaves us in its web of dreams!

As we return from dewy fields, dusk falls

And birds of mischief croak their ominous calls.

All round us lurks this superstition’s snare;

Some haunting, half-seen thing cries out Beware!

We shrink back in alarm, and are alone.

Doors creak, and no one enters.

[
In sudden alarm
.]

Is someone

There at the door?

CARE
. You ask, need I reply?

11420

FAUST
And who are you?

CARE
. I am here, here am I.

FAUST
Go away!

CARE
. I am here where I should be.

FAUST
[
at first angry, then calmer, to himself]
.

I must take care to use no sorcery.

CARE
. Though no human ear can hear me,

Yet the echoing heart must fear me;

In an ever-changed disguise

All men’s lives I tyrannize.

On the roads and on the sea

Anxiously they ride with me;

Never looked for, always there,

11430

Cursed and flattered. I am Care:

Have I never crossed your path?

FAUST
. I merely raced across the earth,

Seized by the hair each passing joy,

Discarded all that did not satisfy;

What slipped my grasp, I let it go again.

I have merely desired, achieved, and then

Desired some other thing. Thus I have stormed

Through life; at first with pride and violence,

But now less rashly, with more sober sense.

11440

I’ve seen enough of this terrestrial sphere.

There is no view to the Beyond from here:

A fool will seek it, peer with mortal eyes

And dream of human life above the skies!

Let him stand fast in this world, and look round

With courage: here so much is to be found!

Why must he wander into timelessness?

What his mind grasps, he may possess.

Thus let him travel all his earthly day:

Though spirits haunt him, let him walk his way,

11450

Let both his pain and joy be in his forward stride—

Each moment leave him still unsatisfied!

CARE
. When a man is in my keeping,

All his world is dead or sleeping;

Everlasting dusk descending,

Sun not moving, dark not ending.

Though each outward sense be whole,

Night has nested in his soul;

Riches stand around him staling,

Unpossessed and unavailing;

11460

Gladness, sadness are mere whim,

Plenty cannot nourish him,

He delays both joy and pain

Till the day has passed again,

And on time-to-come intent

Comes to no accomplishment.

FAUST
. Stop! You’ll not put that blight on me!

I will not listen to such stuff.

Leave me! Your wretched litany

Can drive wise men to madness soon enough.

11470

CARE
. Shall he come or shall he go?

He can’t choose, he does not know.

In the middle of the road,

See, he staggers, tremble-toed!

Wanders deeper in the maze,

Sees the whole world crookedways,

Burdening himself and others;

Still he breathes, yet chokes and smothers—

Not quite choked, yet life-bereft,

Stubborn, though with hope still left.

11480

Such a ceaseless downward course,

Bitter
may not, must
by force,

Now released, now re-pursued,

Restless sleep and tasteless food,

Binds him in a static state,

Makes him hell’s initiate.

FAUST
. Horrible phantoms! Thus you still conspire

Again against mankind and yet again;

Even indifferent days you turn into a dire

Chaotic nexus of entangling pain.

11490

Demons, I know, are hard to exorcize,

The spirit-bond is loath to separate:

But though the creeping power of Care be great,

This power I will never recognize!

CARE
. Suffer it then; for as I go

I leave a curse where I have passed.

Men live their lives in blindness: so

Shall even Faust be blinded at the last!

[
She breathes on him. Exit
.]

FAUST
[
blinded]
.

Night seems to close upon me deeper still,

But in my inmost soul a bright light shines.

11500

I hasten to complete my great designs:

My words alone can work my mastering will.

Rise from your sleep, my servants, every man!

Give visible success to my bold plan!

Set to work now with shovel and with spade:

I have marked it all out, let it be made!

With a well-ordered project and with hard

Toil we shall win supreme reward;

Until the edifice of this achievement stands,

One mind shall move a thousand hands.

11510

[
Torches
.
MEPHISTOPHELES
as overseer leading a gang of
LEMURS
.
*
]

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Come now, my lemur-goblins, patched-

Up semi-skeletons,

With mouldering sinews still attached

To move your rattling bones!

LEMURS
[in chorus].

We came at once, sir, when you called;

Is there—we did half hear of it—

A plot of land here to be sold,

And shall we get our share of it?

Here are the chains, here are the posts

To measure out the site.

11520

Why did you summon us poor ghosts?

We can’t remember quite.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. There’s no need for these mysteries;

Just use yourselves as measuring-rods!

The tallest of you can lie down lengthwise,

The rest stand round and cut away the sods.

A rectangle of earth dug deep,

A good old-fashioned place to sleep!

From palace to this narrow house descending—

That always was the stupid story’s ending.

11530

LEMURS
[
digging with mocking gestures]
.

In youth when I did love, did love
*

Methought ’twas very sweet,

And night and day to music gay

I danced with nimble feet.

But Age with his crutch and cunning clutch

Has come to trip me now.

By a grave I stumbled, and in I tumbled;

They’d left it open somehow.

FAUST
[
comes out of the palace, groping at the doorpost
].

The clash of spades: how it delights my heart!

These are my many workmen; here they toil,

11540

The alienated earth to reconcile,

To keep the ocean and the land apart,

To rule the unruly waves once more.

MEPHISTOPHELES
[
aside]
.

And yet it’s us you’re working for

With all your foolish dams and dikes;

Neptune, the water-devil, likes

To think of the great feast there’ll be

When they collapse. Do what you will, my friend,

You all are doomed! They are in league with me,

The elements, and shall destroy you in the end.
*

11550

FAUST
. Overseer!

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Sir!

FAUST
. I need more workers; bring

Them to me by the hundred! Use persuasion,

Cajole or bully them, try everything,

Inducements, money, force! This excavation

Must go ahead; the ditch I’ve now begun—

I must know daily how much has been done.

MEPHISTOPHELES
[
sotto voce]
.

The digging has gone well today;

No ditch or dike, but dust to dust, they say.
*

FAUST
. A swamp surrounds the mountains’ base;
*

It poisons all I have achieved till now.

11560

I’ll drain it too; that rotten place

Shall be my last great project. I see how

To give those millions a new living-space:

They’ll not be safe, but active, free at least.

I see green fields, so fertile: man and beast

At once shall settle that new pleasant earth,

Bastioned by great embankments that will rise

About them, by bold labour brought to birth.

Here there shall be an inland paradise:

Outside, the sea, as high as it can reach,

11570

May rage and gnaw; and yet a common will,

Should it intrude, will act to close the breach.

Yes! to this vision I am wedded still,

And this as wisdom’s final word I teach:

Only that man earns freedom, merits life,

Who must reconquer both in constant daily strife.

In such a place, by danger still surrounded,

Youth, manhood, age, their brave new world have founded.

I long to see that multitude, and stand

With a free people on free land!

11580

Then to the moment I might say:

Beautiful moment, do not pass away!

Till many ages shall have passed

This record of my earthly life shall last.

And in anticipation of such bliss

What moment could give me greater joy than this?

[
FAUST
sinks back, the
LEMURS
seize him and lay him on the ground
.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Poor fool! Unpleasured and unsatisfied,

Still whoring after changeful fantasies,

This last, poor, empty moment he would seize,

Content with nothing else beside.

11590

How he resisted me! But in the end

Time wins; so here you lie, my senile friend.

The clock has stopped—

CHORUS
. Has stopped! Like midnight it is stilled.

The clock-hands fall.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. They fall. All is fulfilled.
*

CHORUS
. All’s over now.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Over! A stupid word!

Why over’? What can be

Over’ is just not there; it’s all the same to me!

Why bother to go on creating?

Making, then endlessly annihilating!

‘Over and past!’ What’s that supposed to mean?

11600

It’s no more than if it had never been,

Yet it goes bumbling round as if it were.

The Eternal Void is what I’d much prefer.

A LEMUR
[
solo
].

Why is the house so poorly made,

And hempen the shrouding-sheet?

LEMURS
[
in chorus]
.