In magic veil, from unseen hand,
Be wonders ever at our command!
Plunge we into the rush of Time!
Into Action’s rolling main!
Then let pleasure and pain,
Loss and gain,
Joy and sorrow, alternate chime!
Let bright suns shine, or dark clouds lower,
The man that works is master of the hour.
Mephistopheles.
To thee I set nor bound nor measure,
Every dainty thou may’st snatch,
Every flying joy may’st catch,
Drink deep, and drain each cup of pleasure;
Only have courage, friend, and be not shy!
Faust.
Content from thee thy proper wares to buy,
Thou markest well, I do not speak of joy,
Pleasure that smarts, giddy intoxication,
Enamoured hate, and stimulant vexation.
My bosom healed from hungry greed of science
With every human pang shall court alliance;
What all mankind of pain and of enjoyment
May taste, with them to taste be my employment;
Their deepest and their highest I will sound,
Want when they want, be filled when they abound,
My proper self unto their self extend,
And with them too be wrecked, and ruined in the end.
Mephistopheles.
Believe thou me, who speak from test severe,
Chewing the same hard food from year to year,
There lives (were but the naked truth confessed)
No man who, from his cradle to his bier,
The same sour leaven can digest!
Trust one of us—this universe so bright,
He made it only for his own delight;
Supreme He reigns, in endless glory shining,
To utter darkness me and mine consigning,
And grudges ev’n to you the day without the night.
Faust.
But I will!
Mephistopheles.
There you are right!
One thing alone gives me concern,
The time is short, and we have much to learn.
There is a way, if you would know it,
Just take into your pay a poet;
Then let the learned gentleman sweep
Through the wide realms of imagination
And every noble qualification,
Upon your honoured crown upheap,
The strength of the lion,
The wild deer’s agility,
The fire of the south,
With the north’s durability.
Then let his invention the secret unfold,
To be crafty and cunning, yet generous and bold;
And teach your youthful blood, as poets can,
To fall in love according to a plan.
Myself have a shrewd notion where we might
Enlist a cunning craftsman of this nature,
And Mr. Microcosmus he is hight.
Faust.
What am I then, if still I strive in vain
To reach the crown of manhood’s perfect stature,
The goal for which with all my life of life I strain?
Mephistopheles.
Thou art, do what thou wilt, just what thou art.
Heap wigs on wigs by millions on thy head,
And upon yard-high buskins tread,
Still thou remainest simply what thou art.
Faust.
I feel it well, in vain have I uphoarded
All treasures that the mind of man afforded,
And when I sit me down, I feel no more
A well of life within me than before;
Not ev’n one hairbreadth greater is my height,
Not one inch nearer to the infinite.
Mephistopheles.
My worthy friend, these things you view,
Just as they appear to you;
Some wiser method we must shape us,
Ere the joys of life escape us.
Why, what the devil! hands and feet,
Brain and brawn and blood are thine;
And what I drink, and what I eat,
Whose can it be, if ’tis not mine?
If I can number twice three horses,
Are not their muscles mine? and when I’m mounted,
I feel myself a man, and wheel my courses,
Just as if four-and-twenty legs I counted.
Quick then! have done with reverie,
And dash into the world with me!
I tell thee plain, a speculating fellow
Is like an ox on heath all brown and yellow,
Led in a circle by an evil spirit,
With roods of lush green pasture smiling near it.
Faust.
But how shall we commence?
Mephistopheles.
We start this minute:
Why, what a place of torture is here,
And what a life you live within it!
Yourself and your pack of younkers dear,
Killing outright with ennui!
Leave that to honest neighbour Paunch!
Thrashing of straw is not for thee:
Besides, into the best of all your knowledge,
You know ’tis not permitted you to launch
With chicken-hearted boys at College.
Ev’n now, methinks, I hear one on the stair.
Faust.
Send him away: I cannot bear—
Mephistopheles.
Poor boy! he’s waited long, nor must depart
Without some friendly word for head and heart;
Come, let me slip into your gown; the mask
Will suit me well; as for the teaching task,
[He puts onFaust’sscholastic robes.]
Leave that to me! I only ask
A quarter of an hour; and you make speed
And have all ready for our journey’s need. [Exit.
Mephistopheles.[solus]
Continue thus to hold at nought
Man’s highest power, his power of thought;
Thus let the Father of all lies
With shows of magic blind thine eyes,
And thou art mine, a certain prize.
To him hath Fate a spirit given,
With reinless impulse ever forwards driven,
Whose hasty striving overskips
The joys that flow for mortal lips;
Him drag I on through life’s wild chase,
Through flat unmeaning emptiness;
He shall cling and cleave to me,
Like a sprawling child in agony,
And food and drink, illusive hovering nigh,
Shall shun his parchèd lips, and cheat his longing eye;
He shall pine and pant and strain
For the thing he may not gain,
And, though he ne’er had sold him to do evil,
He would have damned himself without help from the devil.
Enter aStudent.
Student.
I am but fresh arrived to-day,
And come my best respects to pay,
To one whose name, from boor to Kaiser,
None, without veneration, mention.
Mephistopheles.
I feel obliged by your attention!
You see a man than other men no wiser:
Have you made inquiry elsewhere?
Student.
Beseech you, sir, be my adviser!
I come with money to spend and spare,
With fresh young blood, and a merry heart,
On my college career to start:
My mother sent me, not without a tear,
To get some needful schooling here.
Mephistopheles.
A better place you could not find.
Student.
To speak the truth, ’tis not much to my mind.
Within these narrow cloister walls,
These antiquated Gothic halls,
I feel myself but ill at ease;
No spot of green I see, no trees,
And ’mid your formal rows of benches,
I almost seem to lose my senses.
Mephistopheles.
That all depends on custom. Don’t you see
How a young babe at first is slow
To know its mother’s breast; but soon
With joy it strains the milky boon;
So you anon will suck nutrition
From Wisdom’s breasts with blest fruition.
Student.
I yearn to do so even now;
But, in the first place, tell me how?
Mephistopheles.
My help is yours, or great or small;
But choose your Faculty, first of all.
Student.
I aim at culture, learning, all
That men call science on the ball
Of earth, or in the starry tent
Of heaven; all Nature high and low,
Broad and deep, I seek to know.
Mephistopheles.
There you are on the proper scent;
Only beware of too much distraction.
Student.
With soul and body I’m girt for action,
And yet I cannot choose but praise
A little freedom and merriment,
On pleasant summer holidays.
Mephistopheles.
Redeem the time, for fast it fleets away,
But order rules the hour it cannot stay.
Therefore ’tis plain that you must pass
First of all through the logic class.
There will your mind be postured rightly,
Laced up in Spanish buskins tightly,
That with caution and care, as wisdom ought,
It may creep along the path of thought,
And not with fitful flickering glow
Will o’ the wisp it to and fro.
There, too, if you hear the gentleman through
The term, to every lecture true,
You’ll learn that a stroke of human thinking,
Which you had practised once as free
And natural as eating and drinking,
Cannot be made without one! two! three!
True, it should seem that the tissue of thought
Is like a web by cunning master wrought,
Where one stroke moves a thousand threads,
The shuttle shoots backwards and forwards between,
The slender threads flow together unseen,
And one with the others thousand-fold weds:
Then steps the philosopher forth to show
How of necessity it must be so:
If the first be so, the second is so,
And therefore the third and the fourth is so;
And unless the first and the second before be,
The third and the fourth can never more be.
So schoolmen teach and scholars believe,
But none of them yet ever learned to weave.
He who strives to know a thing well
Must first the spirit within expel,
Then can he count the parts in his hand,
Only without the spiritual band.
Encheiresis naturæ, ’tis clept in Chemistry,
Thus laughing at herself, albeit she knows not why.
Student.
I must confess I can’t quite comprehend you.
Mephistopheles.
In this respect time by and by will mend you,
When you have learned the crude mixed masses
To decompose, and rank them in their classes.
Student.
I feel as stupid to all he has said,
As a mill-wheel were whirling round in my head.
Mephistopheles.
After logic, first of all,
To the study of metaphysics fall!
There strive to know what ne’er was made
To go into a human head;
For what is within and without its command
A high-sounding word is always at hand.
But chiefly, for the first half year,
Let order in all your studies appear;
Five lectures a-day, that no time be lost,
And with the clock be at your post!
Come not, as some, without preparation,
But con his paragraphs o’er and o’er,
To be able to say, when you hear his oration,
That he gives you his book, and nothing more;
Yet not the less take down his words in writing,
As if the Holy Spirit were inditing!
Student.
I shall not quickly give you cause
To repeat so weighty a clause;
For what with black on white is written,
We carry it home, a sure possession.
Mephistopheles.
But, as I said, you must choose a profession.
Student.
With Law, I must confess, I never was much smitten.
Mephistopheles.
I should be loath to force your inclination,
Myself have some small skill in legislation;
For human laws and rights from sire to son,
Like an hereditary ill, flow on;
From generation dragged to generation,
And creeping slow from place to place.
Reason is changed to nonsense, good to evil,
Art thou a grandson, woe betide thy case!
Of Law they prate, most falsely clept the Civil,
But for that right, which from our birth we carry,
’Tis not a word found in their Dictionary.
Student.
Your words have much increased my detestation.
O happy he, to whom such guide points out the way!
And now, I almost feel an inclination
To give Theology the sway.
Mephistopheles.
I have no wish to lead you astray.
As to this science, ’tis so hard to eschew
The false way, and to hit upon the true,
And so much hidden poison lurks within,
That’s scarce distinguished from the medicine.
Methinks that here ’twere safest done
That you should listen but to one,
Andjurare in verba magistri
Is the best maxim to assist thee.
Upon the whole, I counsel thee
To stick to words as much as may be,
For such will still the surest way be
Into the temple of certainty.
Student.
Yet in a word some sense must surely lurk.
Mephistopheles.
Yes, but one must not go too curiously to work;
For, just when our ideas fail us,
A well-coined word may best avail us.
Words are best weapons in disputing,
In system-building and uprooting,
To words most men will swear, though mean they ne’er so little,
From words one cannot filch a single tittle.
Student.
Pardon me, if I trespass on your time,
Though to make wisdom speak seems scarce a crime;
On medicine, too, I am concerned
To hear some pregnant word from one so learned.
Three years, God knows, is a short time,
And we have far to go, and high to climb;
A wise man’s fingers pointing to the goal
Will save full many a groan to many a labouring soul.
Mephistopheles.[aside]
I’m weary of this dry pedantic strain,
’Tis time to play the genuine devil again.
[Aloud.] The spirit of Medicine ’tis not hard to seize:
The world, both great and small, you seek to know,
That in the end you may let all things go
As God shall please.
In vain you range around with scientific eyes,
Each one at length learns only what he can;
But he who knows the passing hour to prize,
That is the proper man.
A goodly shape and mien you vaunt,
And confidence, I guess, is not your want,
Trust but yourself, and, without more ado,
All other men will straightway trust you too.
But chiefly be intent to get a hold
O’ the women’s minds: their endless Oh! and Ah!
So thousandfold,
In all its change, obeys a single law,
And, if with half a modest air you come,
You have them all beneath your thumb.
A title first must purchase their reliance,
That you have skill surpassing vulgar science;
Thus have you hold at once of all the seven ends,
Round which another year of labour spends.
Study to press the pulse right tenderly,
And, with a sly and fiery eye,
To hold her freely round the slender waist,
That you may see how tightly she is laced.
Student.
This seems to promise better; here we see
Where to apply and how to use the knife.
Mephistopheles.
Grey, my good friend, is every theory,
But green the golden tree of life.
Student.
I vow I feel as in a dream; my brain
Contains much more than it can comprehend;
Some other day may I come back again,
To hear your wisdom to the end?
Mephistopheles.
What I can teach all men are free to know.
Student.
One little favour grant me ere I go;
It were my boast to take home on this page
[Presenting a leaf from his album.]
Some sapient maxim from a man so sage.
Mephistopheles.
Right willingly.
[He writes, and gives back the book.
Student.[reads]
Eritis sicut Deus scientes bonum et malum.
[He closes the book reverently, and takes his leave.
Mephistopheles.
Follow the ancient saw, and my cousin, the famous old Serpent,
Right soon shalt thou have cause, at thy godlike knowledge to tremble!
EnterFaust.
Faust.
Now, whither bound?
Mephistopheles.
Where’er it pleases you;
The world, both great and small, we view.
O! how it will delight, entrance you,
The merry reel of life to dance through!
Faust.
My beard, I am afraid, is rather long;
And without easy manners, gentle breeding,
I fear there is small chance of my succeeding;
I feel so awkward ’mid the busy throng,
So powerless and so insignificant,
And what all others have I seem to want.
Mephistopheles.
Bah! never fear; the simple art of living
Is just to live right on without misgiving!
Faust.
But how shall we commence our course?
I see nor coach, nor groom, nor horse.
Mephistopheles.
We only need your mantle to unfold,
And it shall waft us on the wind.
Who makes with me this journey bold
No bulky bundle busks behind;
A single puff of inflammable air,
And from the ground we nimbly fare.
Lightly we float. I wish the best of cheer
To Doctor Faustus on his new career.
end of act second.
Auerbach’s Wine-Cellar. Leipzig.
A Bout of Merry Fellows.
Frosch.
Will no one sing? none crack a joke?
I’ll teach you to make saucy faces!
Like old wet straw to-day you smoke,
While bright as flame your wonted blaze is.
Brander.
The blame lies with yourself, for you have given us
To-day no fun nor frolic to enliven us.
Frosch.[throwing a glass of wine over his head]
There hast thou both!
Brander.
Double swine!
Frosch.
You asked a joke—I gave it you in wine!
Siebel.
Out at the door with all who dare to quarrel!
Give all your pipes full play! this is no place to snarl.
Up! hollo! ho!
Altmayer.
Woe’s me! the devil and his crew are here!
Some cotton, ho! he makes my ear-drum crack.
Siebel.
Roar on! for, when the vault loud echoes back,
The deep bass notes come thundering on the ear.
Frosch.
Right, right! out with each saucy fellow!
A! tara lara da!
Altmayer.
A tara lara da!
Frosch.
Our throats are now quite mellow.
[Sings.] The holy Roman empire now,
How does it hold together?
A clumsy song!—fie! a political song!
A scurvy song! thank God, with each to-morrow,
The Roman empire can give you small sorrow;
For me, I deem I’m wealthier and wiser
For being neither Chancellor nor Kaiser.
Yet even we must have a head to rule us;
Let’s choose a pope in drinking well to school us,
Come, well you know the qualification
That lifts a man to consideration.
Frosch.[sings]
Mount up, lady nightingale,
Greet my love ten thousand times!
Siebel.
No, sir, not once,—I’ll hear no more of this.
Frosch.
But youshallhear!—A greeting and a kiss!
[He sings.] Ope the door in silent night.
Ope and let me in, I pray;
Shut the door, the morn is bright,
Shut it, love, I must away!
Siebel.
Yes! sing and sing! belaud her, and berhyme!
I’ll have my laugh at that—all in good time!
She jilted me right rarely; soon
She’ll make thee sing to the same tune;
’Twere fit a Kobold with his love should bless her,
On some cross road to cocker and caress her;
Or that some old he-goat, that tramps away
From merry Blocksberg on the first of May,
Should greet her passing with a lusty baa!
An honest man of genuine flesh and blood
Is for the wench by far too good.
Batter her doors, her windows shiver,
That’s all the serenade I’d give her!
Brander.[striking the table]
Gentlemen, hear! only attend to me,
You’ll see that I know how to live.
If love-sick people here there be,
To honour them, I’m bound to give
A song brim-full of the most melting passion.
I’ll sing a ditty of the newest fashion!
Give ear! and with full swell sonorous,
Let each and all ring forth the chorus!
[He sings.] In a pantry-hole there lived a rat,
On bacon and on butter,
It had a paunch as round and fat
As Doctor Martin Luther.
The cook placed poison in its way,
It felt as straitened all the day,
As if it had love in its body.
Chorus.[shouting]
As if it had love in its body.
Brander.
It ran within, it ran without,
And sipped in every puddle;
And scratched and gnawed, but bettered not
The fever of its noddle.
With many a twinge it tossed and tossed,
Seemed ready to give up the ghost,
As if it had love in its body.
Chorus.
As if it had love in its body.
Brander.
It left its hole for very pain,
Into the kitchen crawling,
And snuffling there with might and main,
Upon the earth lay sprawling.
The cook she laughed when she saw it die;
“It squeaks,” quoth she, “with its latest sigh,
As if it had love in its body.”
Chorus.
As if it had love in its body.
Siebel.
How the hard-hearted boys rejoice!
As if it were a trade so choice
To teach the rats and mice to die!
Brander.
Rats find great favour in your eyes.
Altmayer.
The oily paunch! the bald pate! he
Has eyes of sorrow for the creature:
For why? he could not fail to see
In the swoll’n rat his own best feature!
EnterFaustandMephistopheles.
Mephistopheles.
First thing of all I bring you here,
Into a company of jolly cheer,
That you may learn how men contrive
Without much thought or care to live.
These fellows feast their lives away
In a continual holiday;
With little wit and much content
Their narrow round of life is spent,
As playful kittens oft are found
To chase their own tails round and round.
So live they on from day to day,
As long as headache keeps away,
And by no anxious thought are crossed,
While they get credit from the host.
Brander.
These gentlemen are strangers; in their face
One reads they lack the breeding of the place;
They’re not an hour arrived, I warrant thee.
Frosch.
There you are right!—Leipzig’s the place, I say!
It is a little Paris in its way.
Siebel.
What, think you, may the strangers be?
Frosch.
Leave that to me!—I’ll soon fish out the truth.
Fill me a bumper till it overflows,
And then I’ll draw the worms out of their nose,
As easily as ’twere an infant’s tooth.
To me they seem to be of noble blood,
They look so discontented and so proud.
Brander.
Quack doctors both!—Altmayer, what think you?
Altmayer.
’Tis like.
Frosch.
Mark me! I’ll make them feel the screw.
Mephistopheles.[toFaust]
They have no nose to smell the devil out,
Even when he has them by the snout.
Faust.
Be greeted, gentlemen!
Siebel.
With much respect return we the salute.
[Softly, eyeingMephistophelesfrom the one side.]
What! does the fellow limp upon one foot?
Mephistopheles.
With your permission, we will make so free,
As to intrude upon your company.
The host’s poor wines may keep us in sobriety,
But we at least enjoy your good society.
Altmayer.
Our wine is good; and, for to speak the truth,
Your mother fed you with too nice a tooth.
Frosch.
When left you Rippach? you must have been pressed
For time. Supped you with Squire Hans by the way?[n7]
Mephistopheles.
We had no time to stay!
But when I last came by, I was his guest.
He spoke much of his cousins, and he sent
To you and all full many a compliment.
[He makes a bow toFrosch.
Altmayer.[softly]
You have him there!—he understands the jest!
Siebel.
He is a knowing one!
Frosch.
I’ll sift him through anon!
Mephistopheles.
As we came in, a concert struck my ear
Of skilful voices in a chorus pealing!
A gleesome song must sound most nobly here,
Re-echoed freely from the vaulted ceiling.
Frosch.
Perhaps you have yourself some skill?
Mephistopheles.
O no! had I the power, I should not want the will.
Altmayer.
Give us a song!
Mephistopheles.
A thousand, willingly!
Siebel.
Only brand-new, I say!—no thread-bare strain!
Mephistopheles.
We are but just come from a tour in Spain,
The lovely land of wine and melody.
[He sings.] There was a king in old times
That had a huge big flea—
Frosch.
Ha, ha! a flea!—he seems a man of taste!
A flea, I wis, is a most dainty guest?
Mephistopheles.[sings again]
There was a king in old times
That had a huge big flea,
As if it were his own son,
He loved it mightily.
He sent out for the tailor,
To get it a suit of clothes;
He made my lord a dress-coat,
He made him a pair of hose.
Brander.
Be sure that Monsieur le Tailleur be told
To take his measure most exact and nice,
And as upon his head he puts a price,
To make the hose without or crease or fold!
Mephistopheles.
In velvet and in silk clad
He strutted proudly then,
And showed his star and garter
With titled gentlemen.
Prime minister they made him,
With cross and ribbon gay,
And then all his relations
At court had much to say.
This caused no small vexation
At court; I tell you true—
The queen and all her ladies
Were bitten black and blue.
And yet they durst not catch them,
Nor crack them, when they might,
But we are free to catch them,
And crack them when they bite.
Chorus.[shouting]
But we are free to catch them
And crack them when they bite!
Frosch.
Bravo, bravo!—his voice is quite divine.
Siebel.
Such fate may every flea befall!
Brander.
Point your nails and crack ’em all!
Altmayer.
A glass to liberty!—long live the vine!
Mephistopheles.
I’d drink to liberty with right good will,
If we had only better wine to drink.
Siebel.
You might have kept that to yourself, I think!
Mephistopheles.
I only fear our host might take it ill,
Else should I give to every honoured guest
From our own cellar of the very best.
Siebel.
O never fear!—If you but find the wine,
Our host shall be content—the risk be mine!
Frosch.
Give me a flowing glass, and praise you shall not want,
So that your sample, mark me! be not scant;
I cannot judge of wine, unless I fill
My mouth and throat too with a goodly swill.
Altmayer.[softly]
I see the gentlemen are from the Rhine.
Mephistopheles.
Give me a gimlet here!—I’ll show you wine.
Brander.
What would the fellow bore?
Has he then wine-casks at the door?
Altmayer.
There, in the basket, you will find a store
Of tools, which our good landlord sometimes uses.
Mephistopheles.[Taking the gimlet.]
[ToFrosch.] Now every man may taste of what he chooses.
Frosch.
How mean you that? Can you afford?
Mephistopheles.
No fear of that; my cellar is well stored.
Altmayer.[toFrosch]
Aha! I see you smack your lips already.
Frosch.
I’ll have Rhine wine; what fatherland produces
Is better far than French or Spanish juices.
Mephistopheles.[boring a hole in the edge of the table whereFroschis sitting]
Fetch me some wax, to make the stoppers ready.
Altmayer.
He means to put us off with jugglery.
Mephistopheles.[toBrander]
And you, sir, what?
Brander.
Champagne for me!
And brisk and foaming let it be!
[Mephistophelesbores; meanwhile one of the party has got the stoppers ready, and closes the holes.
Brander.
To foreign climes a man must sometimes roam,
In quest of things he cannot find at home;
For Frenchmen Germans have no strong affection,
But to their wines we seldom make objection.
Siebel.[whileMephistophelesis coming round to him]
I have no taste for your sour wines to-day,
I wish to have a swig of good Tokay.
Mephistopheles.[boring]
That you shall have, and of the very best.
Altmayer.
No, gentlemen!—’tis plain you mean to jest;
If so, in me you much mistake your man.
Mephistopheles.
Ha! ha!—no little risk, methinks, I ran,
To venture tricks with noble guests like you.
Come! make your choice, speak boldly out, and I
Will do my best your wish to gratify.
Altmayer.
Give me what wine you please!—only not much ado.
[After having bored and stopped up all the holes.
Mephistopheles.[with strange gestures]
Grapes on the vine grow!
Horns on the goat!
The wine is juicy, the vine is of wood,
The wooden table can give it as good.
Look into Nature’s depths with me!
Whoso hath faith shall wonders see!
Now draw the corks, and quaff the wine!
All.[drawing the corks, and quaffing the out-streaming liquor each as he had desired]
O blessed stream!—O fount divine!
Mephistopheles.
Drink on! only be cautious in your hurry.
[They drink freely.
All.[singing]
No king of cannibals to day
More bravely rules the drinking bout,
Than we, when, like five hundred swine,
We drain the brimming bumpers out!
Mephistopheles.[toFaust]
Look at the fellows now!—are they not merry?
Faust.
I feel inclined to go!—’tis getting late.
Mephistopheles.
Soon shall we have a glorious revelation
Of the pure beast in man, if you but wait.
Siebel.[drinks carelessly; the wine falls to the ground and becomes flame]
Help! fire! the devil’s here! death and damnation!
Mephistopheles.[Addressing himself to the flames]
Peace, friendly element! be still!
[To the company.] This time ’twas but a spurt of purgatorial flame.
Siebel.
What’s that?—you little know your men; we’ll tame
Your impudence, you juggling knave, we will!
Frosch.
’Twere dangerous to repeat such gambols here!
Altmayer.
Methinks ’twere best to whisper in his ear
That he had better leave the room.
Siebel.
What, sirrah? do you then presume
To play your hocus-pocus here?
Mephistopheles.
Peace, old wine-cask!
Siebel.
You broomstick, you!
Must we then bear your insolence too?
Brander.
Wait! wait! it shall rain blows anon!
Altmayer.[draws a stopper from the table, and fire rushes out on him]
I burn! I burn!
Siebel.
There’s witchcraft in his face!
The fellow’s an outlaw! strike him down!
[They draw their knives and attackMephistopheles.
Mephistopheles.[with serious mien]
False be eye, and false be ear!
Change the sense, and change the place!
Now be there, and now be here!
[They look as thunderstruck, and stare at one another.
Altmayer.
Where am I? in what lovely land?
Frosch.
Vineyards! can it be so?
Siebel.
And grapes too quite at hand!
Brander.
And here beneath this shady tree,
This noble vine, these blushing clusters see!
[He seizesSiebelby the nose. The rest seize one another in the same manner, and lift up their knives.
Mephistopheles.[as above]
Let Error now their eyes unclose,
The devil’s joke to understand!
[He vanishes withFaust.The fellows start back from one another.
Siebel.
What’s the matter?
Altmayer.
How now?
Frosch.
Was that your nose?
Brander.[toSiebel]
And yours is in my hand!
Altmayer.
It was a stroke shot through my every limb!
Give me a chair!—I faint! My eyes grow dim!
Frosch.
Now tell me only what has been the matter?
Siebel.
Where is the fellow? Could I catch him here,
His life out of his body I should batter!
Altmayer.
I saw him just this instant disappear,
Riding upon a wine-cask—I declare
I feel a weight like lead about my feet.
[Turning to the table.]
I wonder if his d——d wine still be there!
Siebel.
There’s not a single drop; ’twas all a cheat.
Frosch.
And yet methinks that I was drinking wine.
Brander.
And I could swear I saw a clustered vine.
Altmayer.
Let none now say the age of miracles is past!