Faust, Part One quotes

MEPHISTOPHELES What will you bet? There’s still a chance to gain him, If unto me full leave you give, Gently upon my road to train him! THE LORD As long as he on earth shall live, So long I make no prohibition.

While Man’s desires and aspirations stir, He cannot choose but err.

MEPHISTOPHELES My thanks! I find the dead no acquisition, And never cared to have them in my keeping. I much prefer the cheeks where ruddy blood is leaping, And when a corpse approaches, close my house:

THE LORD Enough! What thou hast asked is granted. Turn off this spirit from his fountain-head; To trap him, let thy snares be planted, And him, with thee, be downward led; Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say:

A good man, through obscurest aspiration, Has still an instinct of the one true way.

MEPHISTOPHELES Agreed! But ’tis a short probation. About my bet I feel no trepidation. If I fulfill my expectation, You’ll let me triumph with a swelling breast: Dust shall he eat, and with a zest, As did a certain snake, my near relation.

(Heaven closes: the ARCHANGELS separate.) MEPHISTOPHELES (solus) I like, at times, to hear The Ancient’s word, And have a care to be most civil:

It’s really kind of such a noble Lord So humanly to gossip with the Devil!

Yes, your discourses, with their glittering show, Where ye for men twist shredded thought like paper, Are unrefreshing as the winds that blow The rustling leaves through chill autumnal vapor! WAGNER

Ah, God! but Art is long, And Life, alas! is fleeting.

And oft, with zeal my critic-duties meeting, In head and breast there’s something wrong. How hard it is to compass the assistance Whereby one rises to the source! And, haply, ere one travels half the course Must the poor devil quit existence.

Her secret pangs in silence working, She, restless, rocks herself, disturbing joy and rest: In newer masks her face is ever drest, By turns as house and land, as wife and child, presented,— As water, fire, as poison, steel:

We dread the blows we never feel, And what we never lose is yet by us lamented!

I am not like the Gods! That truth is felt too deep: The worm am I, that in the dust doth creep,— That, while in dust it lives and seeks its bread, Is crushed and buried by the wanderer’s tread.

Ye instruments, forsooth, but jeer at me With wheel and cog, and shapes uncouth of wonder; I found the portal, you the keys should be; Your wards are deftly wrought, but drive no bolts asunder!

Mysterious even in open day, Nature retains her veil, despite our clamors:

That which she doth not willingly display Cannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws, and hammers. Ye ancient tools, whose use I never knew, Here, since my father used ye, still ye moulder:

One impulse art thou conscious of, at best; O, never seek to know the other!

Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.

One with tenacious organs holds in love And clinging lust the world in its embraces; The other strongly sweeps, this dust above, Into the high ancestral spaces.

Then thus: “In the Beginning was the Thought” This first line let me weigh completely, Lest my impatient pen proceed too fleetly. Is it the Thought which works, creates, indeed? “In the Beginning was the Power,” I read.

Yet, as I write, a warning is suggested, That I the sense may not have fairly tested.

The Spirit aids me: now I see the light! “In the Beginning was the Act,” I write. If I must share my chamber with thee, Poodle, stop that howling, prithee! Cease to bark and bellow!

With all you gentlemen, the name’s a test, Whereby the nature usually is expressed. Clearly the latter it implies In names like Beelzebub, Destroyer, Father of Lies. Who art thou, then?

Part of that Power, not understood, Which always wills the Bad, and always works the Good.

What hidden sense in this enigma lies?

What hidden sense in this enigma lies?

I am the Spirit that Denies!

And justly so: for all things, from the Void Called forth, deserve to be destroyed: ’Twere better, then, were naught created. Thus, all which you as Sin have rated,— Destruction,—aught with Evil blent,— That is my proper element.

The modest truth I speak to thee. If Man, that microcosmic fool, can see Himself a whole so frequently, Part of the Part am I, once All, in primal Night,—

Part of the Darkness which brought forth the Light,

The haughty Light, which now disputes the space, And claims of Mother Night her ancient place. And yet, the struggle fails; since Light, howe’er it weaves, Still, fettered, unto bodies cleaves: It flows from bodies, bodies beautifies; By bodies is its course impeded;

The poodle naught remarked, as after thee he speeded; But other aspects now obtain:

The Devil can’t get out again.

Try, then, the open window-pane!

Yet this delusion in our hearts we bear: Who would himself therefrom deliver? Blest he, whose bosom Truth makes pure and fair! No sacrifice shall he repent of ever. Nathless a parchment, writ and stamped with care, A spectre is, which all to shun endeavor.

The word, alas! dies even in the pen, And wax and leather keep the lordship then.

What wilt from me, Base Spirit, say?— Brass, marble, parchment, paper, clay? The terms with graver, quill, or chisel, stated? I freely leave the choice to thee. MEPHISTOPHELES Why heat thyself, thus instantly, With eloquence exaggerated? Each leaf for such a pact is good;

Let every marvel take form and fashion Through the impervious veil it wore! Plunge we in Time’s tumultuous dance, In the rush and roll of Circumstance! Then may delight and distress, And worry and success, Alternately follow, as best they can:

Restless activity proves the man!

MEPHISTOPHELES For you no bound, no term is set. Whether you everywhere be trying, Or snatch a rapid bliss in flying, May it agree with you, what you get! Only fall to, and show no timid balking.

Not Art and Science serve, alone; Patience must in the work be shown. Long is the calm brain active in creation; Time, only, strengthens the fine fermentation. And all, belonging thereunto, Is rare and strange, howe’er you take it:

The Devil taught the thing, ’tis true, And yet the Devil cannot make it.

(Perceiving the Animals) See, what a delicate race they be! That is the maid! the man is he! (To the Animals) It seems the mistress has gone away?

This time, I’ll let thee ’scape the debt; For since we two together met, ’Tis verily full many a day now.

Culture, which smooth the whole world licks, Also unto the Devil sticks.

The days of that old Northern phantom now are over: Where canst thou horns and tail and claws discover? And, as regards the foot, which I can’t spare, in truth, ’Twould only make the people shun me;

The art is old and new, for verily All ages have been taught the matter,— By Three and One, and One and Three, Error instead of Truth to scatter. They prate and teach, and no one interferes; All from the fellowship of fools are shrinking.

Man usually believes, if only words he hears, That also with them goes material for thinking!

The lofty skill Of Science, still From all men deeply hidden! Who takes no thought, To him ’tis brought, ’Tis given unsought, unbidden!

He seemed to have the sudden feeling That with this wench ’twere very easy dealing. I will confess, I knew not what appeal On your behalf, here, in my bosom grew; But

I was angry with myself, to feel That I could not be angrier with you.

Wait a while!

Again it seethes, again it glows! Thou fool, go in and comfort her! When such a head as thine no outlet knows, It thinks the end must soon occur. Hail him, who keeps a steadfast mind! Thou, else, dost well the devil-nature wear:

Naught so insipid in the world I find As is a devil in despair.

Vast as it is, fill with that force thy heart, And when thou in the feeling wholly blessed art, Call it, then, what thou wilt,— Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! God! I have no name to give it!

Feeling is all in all: The Name is sound and smoke, Obscuring Heaven’s clear glow.

All that is fine and good, to hear it so: Much the same way the preacher spoke, Only with slightly different phrases.