Faust (4 page)

Authors: Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

BOOK: Faust

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	Such reproaches leave me unperturbed.
	A man who wants to make his mark
110	must try to wield the best of tools.
	You have coarse wood to split, remember that;
	consider those for whom you write!
	A customer may come because he’s bored,
	another may have had too much to eat;
	and what I most of all abhor:
	some have just put down their evening paper.
	They hurry here distracted, as to a masquerade,
	and seek us out from mere curiosity.
	The ladies come to treat the audience to their charms
120	and play their parts without a salary.
	Now are you still a dreamer on poetic heights?
	And yet content when our house is filled?
	Observe your benefactors at close range!
	Some are crude, the others cold as ice.
	And when it’s finished, this one wants a deck of cards
	and that one pleasure in a whore’s embrace.
	Why then invoke and plague the muses
	for such a goal as this, poor fools?
	I say to you, give more and more and always more,
130	and then you cannot miss by very much.
	You must attempt to mystify the people,
	they’re much too hard to satisfy—
	What’s got into you—are you anguished or ecstatic?

	Go find yourself another slave!
	The poet, I suppose, should wantonly give back,
	so you’d be pleased, the highest right
	that Nature granted him, the right of Man!
	How does the poet stir all hearts?
	How does he conquer every element?
140	Is it not the music welling from his heart
	that draws the world into his breast again?
	When Nature spins with unconcern
	the endless thread and winds it on the spindle,
	when the discordant mass of living things
	sounds its sullen dark cacophony,
	who divides the flowing changeless line,
	infusing life, and gives it pulse and rhythm?
	Who summons each to common consecration
	where each will sound in glorious harmony?
150	Who bids the storm accompany the passions,
	the sunset cast its glow on solemn thought?
	Who scatters every fairest April blossom
	along the path of his beloved?
	Who braids from undistinguished verdant leaves
	a wreath to honor merit?
	Who safeguards Mount Olympus, who unites the gods?
	Man’s power which in the poet stands revealed!

	Very well, then put to use those handsome powers
	and carry on the poet’s trade,
160	as one would carry on a love affair.
	One meets by accident, emotes, and lingers,
	and by and by one is entangled,
	one’s bliss increases, then one is in trouble;
	one’s rapture grows, then follow grief and pain,
	before you know, your story is completed.
	We must present a drama of this type!
	Reach for the fullness of a human life!
	We live it all, but few live knowingly;
	if you but touch it, it will fascinate.
170	A complex picture without clarity,
	much error with a little spark of truth—
	that’s the recipe to brew the potion
	whence all the world is quenched and edified.
	The fairest bloom of youth will congregate
	to see the play and wait for revelation;
	then every tender soul will eagerly absorb
	some food for melancholy from your work.
	First one and then another thing is stirred,
	so each can find what’s in his heart.
180	They weep and laugh quite easily;
	they honor fancy and they like their make-believe.
	The finished man, you know, is difficult to please;
	a growing mind will ever show you gratitude.

	Then let me live those years again
	when I could still mature and grow,
	when songs gushed up as from a spring
	that ceaselessly renewed itself within,
	when all the world was veiled in mist
	and every bud concealed a miracle,
190	when I gathered up a thousand flowers
	that richly decked the slopes and fields—
	then I had nothing, yet I had enough:
	a yen for phantoms, and an urge for truth.
	Give me back my unconstrained desires,
	my deep and painful time of bliss,
	the strength of hate, the force of love,
	give me back my youth again!

	You need your youth in any case, my friend,
	when pressed in battle by a surging foe,
200	when lovely girls with all their strength
	lock their arms about your neck,
	when far away the victor’s wreath
	lures the runner to a hard-won goal,
	when after frenzied whirling dances,
	you feast and drink throughout the night.
	But to pluck the lyre’s familiar strings
	with courage and with graceful mien,
	to sweep through charming aberrations
	to a self-appointed goal,
210	that, gentlemen, is where your duty lies,
	and we honor you no less for it.
	They say that age makes people childish;
	I say it merely finds us still true children.

	Sufficient words have been exchanged;
	now at last I want to see some action.
	While you are turning pretty compliments,
	some useful thing should be afoot.
	What good is it to speak of inspiration?
	To him who hesitates it never comes.
220	Since you are poets by profession,
	call out and commandeer some poetry.
	You are acquainted with our needs:
	We wish to swallow potent brew,
	so do not dally any longer!
	What you put off today will not be done tomorrow;
	you should never let a day slip by.
	Let resolution grasp what’s possible
	and seize it boldly by the hair;
	then you will never lose your grip,
230	but labor steadily, because you must.

	On our German stage, you know,
	we like to try out all we can;
	so don’t be stingy on this day
	with panoramas and machinery.
	Employ the great and small celestial light
	and scatter stars without constraint;
	nor are we short of water, fire, rocky crags,
	and birds and beasts we have galore.
	Within the narrow confines of our boards
240	you must traverse the circle of creation
	and move along in measured haste
	from Heaven through the world to Hell.

PROLOGUE IN HEAVEN
²

The Lord. The Heavenly Hosts
.

Later, Mephistopheles
.

Enter the three Archangels
.

	The sun intones his ancient song
	in contest with fraternal spheres,
	and with a roll of thunder
	rounds out his predetermined journey.
	His aspect strengthens angels,
	but none can fathom him.
	The inconceivable creations
250	are glorious as from the first.

	And swift beyond conception
	the earth’s full splendor wheels about.
	The light of paradise is followed
	by deep and baleful night;
	the ocean’s rivers churn and foam
	and lash the rocks’ foundations,
	and rocks and water hurtle onward
	in swift, perennial circles.

	The roaring storms race through the skies
260	from sea to land, from land to sea,
	and furiously they forge a chain
	of deep pervading energy.
	Then lightning wrecks the trail,
	then comes the crash of thunder;
	and yet, O Lord, your messengers revere
	the gentle movement of your day.

	The spectacle gives strength to angels,
	but none can fathom you,
	and all your high creations
270	are glorious as from the first.

	Because, O Lord, you show yourself and ask
	about conditions here with us,
	and you were glad in former days to have me near,
	you see me now as one among your servants.
	Forgive me, but I can’t indulge in lofty words,
	although this crowd will hold me in contempt;
	my pathos certainly would make you laugh,
	had you not dispensed with laughter long ago.
	I waste no words on suns and planets,
280	I only see how men torment themselves.
	Earth’s little god remains the same
	and is as quaint as from the first.
	He would have an easier time of it
	had you not let him glimpse celestial light;
	he calls it reason and he only uses it
	to be more bestial than the beasts.
	To me he seems—I beg your gracious Lord’s indulgence—
	a kind of grasshopper, a long-legged bug
	that’s always in flight and flies as it leaps
290	and in the grass scrapes out its ancient litany;
	I wish that he had never left the grass
	to rub his nose in imbecility!

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