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  "work": {
    "slug": "faust-i",
    "name": "Faust I (1808)"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "goethe-works",
      "name": "Works of Goethe",
      "url": "/sources/goethe-works/"
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      "slug": "faust",
      "name": "Faust (Parts I and II)",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 4,
    "slug": "04-scene-1-night",
    "title": "Scene I — Night",
    "of": 28,
    "words": 3477,
    "text": "(A lofty-arched, narrow, Gothic chamber. Faust, in a@ chair at his\ndesk, restless.)\n\nFaust.'4\n\n| VE studied now Philosophy\n\nAnd Jurisprudence, Medicine, —\nAnd even, alas! Theology, —\nFrom end to end, with labor keen ;\nAnd here, poor fool! with all my lore\nI stand, no wiser than before:\nI'm Magister — yea, Doctor — hight,\nAnd straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,\nThese ten years long, with many woes,\nI've led my scholars by the nose, —\nAnd see, that nothing can be known!\nThat knowledge cuts me to the bone.\n\nI'm cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,\n\n22 Faust.\n\nDoctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers ;\nNeither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,\nNor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.\nFor this, all pleasure am I foregoing ;\n\nI do not pretend to aught worth knowing,\n\nI do not pretend I could be a teacher\n\nTo help or convert a fellow-creature.\n\nThen, too, I 've neither lands nor gold,\n\nNor the world's least pomp or honor hold —\nNo dog would endure such a curst existence!\nWherefore, from Magic I seek assistance,\nThat many a secret perchance I reach\nThrough spirit-power and spirit-speech,\n\nAnd thus the bitter task forego\n\nOf saying the things I do not know, —\n\nThat I may detect the inmost force\n\nWhich binds the world, and guides its course ;\nIts germs, productive powers explore,\n\nAnd rummage in empty words no more!\n\nO full and splendid Moon, whom I\nHave, from this desk, seen climb the sky\nSo many a midnight, — would thy glow\nFor the last time beheld my woe!\n\nScene TL. 23\n\nEver thine eye, most mournful friend,\n\nO'er books and papers saw me bend;\n\nBut would that I, on mountains grand,\n\nAmid thy blessed light could stand,\n\nWith spirits through mountain-caverns hover,\nFloat in thy twilight the meadows over,\n\nAnd, freed from the fumes of lore that swathe me,\n\nTo health in thy dewy fountains bathe me!\n\nAh, me! this dungeon still I see,\n\nThis drear, accursed masonry,\n\nWhere even the welcome daylight strains\nBut duskly through the painted panes.\nHemmed in by many a toppling heap\nOf books worm-eaten, gray with dust,\nWhich to the vaulted ceiling creep,\nAgainst the smoky paper thrust, —\nWith glasses, boxes, round me stacked,\nAnd instruments together hurled,\nAncestral lumber, stuffed and packed —\n\nSuch is my world: and what a world!\n\nAnd do I ask, wherefore my heart\n\nFalters, oppressed with unknown needs?\n\n24 faust.\n\nWhy some inexplicable smart\n\nAll movement of my life impedes?\nAlas! in living Nature's stead,\n\nWhere God His human creature set,\nIn smoke and mould the fleshless dead\n\nAnd bones of beasts surround me yet!\n\nFly! Up, and seek the broad, free land !?5\nAnd this one Book of Mystery\n\nFrom Nostradamus' very hand,'®\n\nIs 't not sufficient company ?\n\nWhen I the starry courses know,\n\nAnd Nature's wise instruction seek,\nWith light of power my soul shall glow,\nAs when to spirits spirits speak.\n\n\"T is vain, this empty brooding here,\nThough guessed the holy symbols be:\nYe, Spirits, come — ye hover near —\n\nOh, if you hear me, answer me!\n(He opens the Book, and perceives the sign of the Macrocosm.)*'7\n\nHa! what a sudden rapture leaps from this\n\nI view, through all my senses swiftly flowing!\n\nScene T. 25\n\nI feel a youthful, holy, vital bliss\n\nIn every vein and fibre newly glowing.\nWas it a God, who traced this sign,\n\nWith calm across my tumult stealing,\n\nMy troubled heart to joy unsealing,\n\nWith impulse, mystic and divine,\n\nThe powers of Nature here, around my path, revealing?\nAm I a God? —so clear mine eyes!\n\nIn these pure features I behold\n\nCreative Nature to my soul unfold.\n\nWhat says the sage, now first I recognize:\n\"The spirit-world no closures fasten ;\nThy sense is shut, thy heart is dead:\nDisciple, up! untiring, hasten\n\nTo bathe thy breast in morning-red!\"\n\n(He contemplates the sign.)\n\nHow each the Whole its substance gives,\n\nEach in the other works and lives!\n\nLike heavenly forces rising and descending,\nTheir golden urns reciprocally lending,\n\nWith wings that winnow blessing\n\nFrom Heaven through Earth I see them pressing,\nFilling the All with harmony unceasing !\n\n26 Faust\n\nHow grand a show! but, ah! a show alone.\n\nThee, boundless Nature, how make thee my own?\nWhere you, ye breasts? Founts of all Being, shining,\nWhereon hang Heaven's and Earth's desire,\n\nWhereto our withered hearts aspire, —\n\nYe flow, ye feed: and am I vainly pining?\n\n(He turns the leaves impatiently, and perceives the sign of the Earth-\nSpirit.) 8\n\nHow otherwise upon me works this sign!\n\nThou, Spirit of the Earth, art nearer :\n\nEven now my powers are loftier, clearer ;\n\nI glow, as drunk with new-made wine:\n\nNew strength and heart to meet the world incite me,\nThe woe of earth, the bliss of earth, invite me,\n\nAnd though the shock of storms may smite me,\n\nNo crash of shipwreck shall have power to fright me!\nClouds gather over me —\n\nThe moon conceals her light —\n\nThe lamp 's extinguished ! —\n\nMists rise, — red, angry rays are darting\n\nAround my head!— There falls\n\nA horror from the vaulted roof,\n\nAnd seizes me!\n\nScene TL. 27\n\nI feel thy presence, Spirit I invoke!\n\nReveal thyself!\n\nHa! in my heart what rending stroke!\n\nWith new impulsion\n\nMy senses heave in this convulsion!\n\nI feel thee draw my heart, absorb, exhaust me:\n\nThou must! thou must! and though my life it cost me!\n(He seizes the book, and mysteriously pronounces the sign of the Spirit.\n\nA ruddy flame flashes: the Spirit appears in the flame.)\n\nSPIRIT.\n\nWho calls me?\n\nFaust (with averted head).\n\nTerrible to see!\n\nSPIRIT.\n\nMe hast thou long with might attracted,\nLong from my sphere thy food exacted,\n\nAnd now —\nFaust.\n\nWoe! I endure not thee !\n\nSPIRIT.\n\nTo view me is thine aspiration,\n\nMy voice to hear, my countenance to see;\n\n28 Faust.\n\nThy powerful yearning moveth me, |\nHere am I !— what mean perturbation\n\nThee, superhuman, shakes? Thy soul's high calling, where?\nWhere is the breast, which from itself a world did bear,\nAnd shaped and cherished — which with joy expanded,\nTo be our peer, with us, the Spirits, banded?\nWhere art thou, Faust, whose voice has pierced to me,\n\nWho towards me pressed with all thine energy?\n\nHe art thou, who, my presence breathing, seeing,\n\nTrembles through all the depths of being,\n\nA writhing worm, a terror-stricken form?\n\nFaust.\n\nThee, form of flame, shall I then fear?\nYes, Iam Faust: I am thy peer!\n\nSPIRIT.\n\nIn the tides of Life, in Action's storm,'9\nA fluctuant wave,\n\nA shuttle free,\n\nBirth and the Grave,\n\nAn eternal sea,\n\nA weaving, flowing\n\nLife, all-glowing,\n\nScene I. 29\n\nThus at Time's humming loom't is my hand prepares\n\nThe garment of Life which the Deity wears!\n\nFaust.\n\nThou, who around the wide world wendest,\n\nThou busy Spirit, how near I feel to thee!\n\nSPIRIT.\n\nThou 'rt like the Spirit which thou comprehendest,\n\nNot me!\n(Disappears.)\n\nFaust (overwhelmed).\n\nNot thee!\n\nWhom then? |\nI, image of the Godhead!\nNot even like thee!\n\n(4 knock.)\n\nO Death! —I know it —'t is my Famulus!?°\nMy fairest luck finds no fruition :\nIn all the fulness of my vision\n\nThe soulless sneak disturbs me thus!\n\n(Enter WAGNER, in dressing-gown and night-cap, a lamp in his hand.\n\nFaust turns impatiently.)\n\n30 faust.\n\nW AGNER.?!\nPardon, I heard your declamation ;\n\"T was sure an old Greek tragedy you read?\nIn such an art I crave some preparation,\nSince now it stands one in good stead.\nI 've often heard it said, a preacher\n\nMight learn, with a comedian for a teacher.\n\nFaust.\n\nYes, when the priest comedian is by nature,\n\nAs haply now and then the case may be.\n\nWAGNER.\n\nAh, when one studies thus, a prisoned creature,\nThat scarce the world on holidays can see, —\nScarce through a glass, by rare occasion,\n\nHow shall one lead it by persuasion ?\n\nFaust.\n\nYou 'll ne'er attain it, save you know the feeling,\nSave from the soul it rises clear,\nSerene in primal strength, compelling\n\nThe hearts and minds of all who hear.\n\nScene TL, 31\n\nYou sit forever gluing, patching ;\n\nYou cook the scraps from others' fare ;\nAnd from your heap of ashes hatching\n\nA starveling flame, ye blow it bare!\nTake children's, monkeys' gaze admiring,\nIf such your taste, and be content ;\n\nBut ne'er from heart to heart you ll speak inspiring,\n\nSave your own heart is eloquent !\n\nWAGNER.\n\nYet through delivery orators succeed ;\n\nI feel that I am far behind, indeed.\n\nFaust.\n\nSeek thou the honest recompense!\n\nBeware, a tinkling fool to be!\n\nWith little art, clear wit and sense\n\nSuggest their own delivery ;\n\nAnd if thou 'rt moved to speak in earnest,\n\nWhat need, that after words thou yearnest ?\n\nYes, your discourses, with their glittering show,\nWhere ye for men twist shredded thought like paper,\"\nAre unrefreshing as the winds that blow\n\nThe rustling leaves through chill autumnal vapor!\n\n32 Lraust.\n\nWAGNER.\n\nAh, God! but Art is long,?3\n\nAnd Life, alas! is fleeting.\n\nAnd oft, with zeal my critic-duties meeting,\nIn head and breast there 's something wrong.\nHow hard it is to compass the assistance\nWhereby one rises to the source !\n\nAnd, haply, ere one travels half the course\n\nMust the poor devil quit existence.\n\nFaust.\nIs parchment, then, the holy fount before thee,\nA draught wherefrom thy thirst forever slakes?\nNo true refreshment can restore thee,\n\nSave what from thine own soul spontaneous breaks.\n\nWAGNER.\nPardon! a great delight is granted\nWhen, in the spirit of the ages planted,\nWe mark how, ere our time, a sage has thought,\n\nAnd then, how far his work, and grandly, we have brought.\n\nFaust.\nO yes, up to the stars at last!\nListen, my friend: the ages that are past\n\nScene L, 33\n\nAre now a book with seven seals protected :\nWhat you the Spirit of the Ages call\n\nIs nothing but the spirit of you all,\nWherein the Ages are reflected.\n\nSo, oftentimes, you miserably mar it!\n\nAt the first glance who sees it runs away.\nAn offal-barrel and a lumber-garret,\n\nOr, at the best, a Punch-and-Judy play,™ .\nWith maxims most pragmatical and hitting,\n\nAs in the mouths of puppets are befitting ! -.\n\nWAGNER.\n\nBut then, the world — the human heart and brain!\n\nOf these one covets some slight apprehension.\n\nFaust.\n\nYes, of the kind which men attain!\n\nWho dares the child's true name in public mention ?\nThe few, who thereof something really learned,\nUnwisely frank, with hearts that spurned concealing,\nAnd to the mob laid bare each thought and feeling,\nHave evermore been crucified and burned.?5\n\nI pray you, Friend, 't is now the dead of night;\nOur converse here must be suspended.\n\n34 faust.\n\nWacner.\n\nI would have shared your watches with delight,\nThat so our learned talk might be extended.\"\nTo-morrow, though, I 'll ask, in Easter leisure,\nThis and the other question, at your pleasure.\nMost zealously I seek for erudition :\nMuch do I know — but to know all is my ambition.\n\n' [ Exit.\nFaust (solus). .\nThat brain, alone, not loses hope, whose choice is\nTo stick in shallow trash forevermore, —\nWhich digs with eager hand for buried ore,\n\nAnd, when it finds an angle-worm, rejoices!\n\nDare such a human voice disturb the flow,\nAround me here, of spirit-presence fullest ?\n\nAnd yet, this once my thanks I owe\n\nTo thee, of all earth's sons the poorest, dullest !\nFor thou hast torn me from that desperate state\nWhich threatened soon to overwhelm my senses :\nThe apparition was so giant-great,\n\nIt dwarfed and withered all my soul's pretences!\n\nI, image of the Godhead, who began —\n\nDeeming Eternal Truth secure in nearness —\n\nScene L, 35\n\nTo sun myself in heavenly light and clearness,\nAnd laid aside the earthly man ; —\n\nI, more than Cherub, whose free force had planned\nTo flow through Nature's veins in glad pulsation,\nTo reach beyond, enjoying in creation\n\nThe life of Gods, behold my expiation !\n\nA thunder-word hath swept me from my stand.\"\"\n\nWith thee I dare not venture to compare me.\nThough I possessed the power to draw thee near me,\nThe power to keep thee was denied my hand.\n\nWhen that ecstatic moment held me,\n\nI felt myself so small, so great ;\n\nBut thou hast ruthlessly repelled me\n\nBack upon Man's uncertain fate.\n\nWhat shall I shun? Whose guidance borrow?\n\nShall I accept that stress and strife?\n\nAh! every deed of ours, no less than every sorrow,\n\nImpedes the onward march of life.\n\nSome alien substance more and more is cleaving\nTo all the mind conceives of grand and fair ;\nWhen this world's Good is won by our achieving,\n\nThe Better, then, is named a cheat and snare.\n\n36 faust.\n\nThe fine emotions, whence our lives we mould,\nLie in the earthly tumult dumb and cold.\n\nIf hopeful Fancy once, in daring flight,\n\nHer longings to the Infinite expanded,\n\nYet now a narrow space contents her quite,\n\nSince Time's wild wave so many a fortune stranded.\nCare at the bottom of the heart is lurking:\n\nHer secret pangs in silence working,\n\nShe, restless, rocks herself, disturbing joy and rest :\nIn newer masks her face is ever drest,\n\nBy turns as house and land, as wife and child, presented, —\nAs water, fire, as poison, steel :\n\nWe dread the blows we never feel,\n\nAnd what we never lose is yet by us lamented !\n\nI am not like the Gods! That truth is felt too deep:\nThe worm am I, that in the dust doth creep, —\nThat, while in dust it lives and seeks its bread,\n\nIs crushed and buried by the wanderer's tread.\n\nIs not this dust, these walls within them hold,\nThe hundred shelves, which cramp and chain me,\nThe frippery, the trinkets thousandfold,\n\nThat in this mothy den restrain me?\n\nScene TL. 37\n\nHere shall I find the help I need?\n\nShall here a thousand volumes teach me only\n\nThat men, self-tortured, everywhere must bleed, — )\n\nAnd here and there one happy man sits lonely ?\"8\n\nWhat mean'st thou by that grin, thou hollow skull,\n\nSave that thy brain, like mine, a cloudy mirror,\n\nSought once the shining day, and then, in twiligh* dull,29\n\nThirsting for Truth, went wretchedly to Error?\n\nYe instruments, forsooth, but jeer at me\n\nWith wheel and cog, and shapes uncouth of wonder ;\n\nI found the portal, you the keys should be;\n\nYour wards are deftly wrought, but drive no bolts asunder !\n\nMysterious even in open day,\n\nNature retains her veil, despite our clamors:\n\nThat which she doth not willingly display\n\nCannot be wrenched from her with levers, screws, and\nhammers.\n\n, Ye ancient tools, whose use I never knew,\n\n_ Here, since my father used ye, still ye moulder :\n\nThou, ancient scroll, hast worn thy smoky hue\n\nSince at this desk the dim lamp wont to smoulder.\n\n'T were better far, had I my little idly spent,\n\nThan now to sweat beneath its burden, I confess it!\n\nWhat from your fathers' heritage is lent,\n\n38 Faust.\n\nEarn it anew, to really possess it !3°\nWhat serves not, is a sore impediment :\n\nThe Moment's need creates the thing to serve and bless it!\n\nYet, wherefore turns my gaze to yonder point so lightly ?\nIs yonder flask a magnet for mine eyes?\nWhence, all around me, glows the air so brightly,\n\n| As when in woods at night the mellow moonbeam lies?\n\nI hail thee, wondrous, rarest vial !\n\nI take thee down devoutly, for the trial :\nMan's art and wit I venerate in thee.\n\nThou summary of gentle slumber-juices,\nEssence of deadly finest powers and uses,\nUnto thy master show thy favor free!\n\nI see thee, and the stings of pain diminish ;\n\nI grasp thee, and my struggles slowly finish :\nMy spirit's flood-tide ebbeth more and more.\nOut on the open ocean speeds my dreaming ;\nThe glassy flood before my feet is gleaming,\n\nA new day beckons to a newer shore!\n\nA fiery chariot, borne on buoyant pinions,\n\nSweeps near me now! I soon shall ready be\n\nScene I. 39\n\nTo pierce the ether's high, unknown dominions,\n\nTo reach new spheres of pure activity !\n\nThis godlike rapture, this supreme existence,\n\nDo I, but now a worm, deserve to track?\n\nYes, resolute to reach some brighter distance,\n\nOn Earth's fair sun I turn my back! 3!\n\nYes, let me dare those gates to fling asunder,\n\nWhich every man would fain go slinking by!\n\n*T is time, through deeds this word of truth to thunder :\nThat with the height of Gods Man's dignity may vie!\nNor from that gloomy gulf to shrink affrighted,\n\nWhere Fancy doth herself to self-born pangs compel, —\nTo struggle toward that pass benighted,\n\nAround whose narrow mouth flame all the fires of Hell, —\nTo take this step with cheerful resolution,\n\nThough Nothingness should be the certain, swift con-\n\nclusion !\n\nAnd now come down, thou cup of crystal clearest !\nFresh from thine ancient cover thou appearest,\n\nSo many years forgotten to my thought!\n\nThou shon'st at old ancestral banquets cheery,\nThe solemn guests thou madest merry,\n\nWhen one thy wassail to the other brought.\n\n4O faust.\n\nThe rich and skilful figures o'er thee wrought,\nThe drinker's duty, rhyme-wise to explain them,\nOr in one breath below the mark to drain them,\nFrom many a night of youth my memory caught.\nNow to a neighbor shall I pass thee never,\n\nNor on thy curious art to test my wit endeavor:\nHere is a juice whence sleep is swiftly born.\n\nIt fills with browner flood thy crystal hollow ;\n\nI chose, prepared it: thus I follow, —\n\nWith all my soul the final drink I swallow,\n\nA solemn festal cup, a greeting to the morn!\n[He sets the goblet to his mouth.\n\n(Chime of bells and choral song.)\n\nCuorus or ANGELS.3?\nChrist is arisen !\nJoy to the Mortal One,\nWhom the unmerited,\nClinging, inherited\nNeeds did imprison.\n\nFaust.\nWhat hollow humming, what a sharp, clear stroke,\n\nDrives from my lip the goblet's, at their meeting ?\n\nScene L. Al\n\nAnnounce the booming bells already woke\n\nThe first glad hour of Easter's festal greeting?\n\nYe choirs, have ye begun the sweet, consoling chant,\n\nWhich, through the night of Death, the angels minis-\ntrant\n\nSang, God's new Covenant repeating ?\n\nCuorus oF WomMEN.\n\nWith spices and precious\nBalm, we arrayed him ;\nFaithful and gracious,\n\nWe tenderly laid him:\n\nLinen to bind him\n\nCleanlily wound we: |\n\nAh! when we would find him,\n\nChrist no more found we!\n\nCuorvus oF ANGELS.\n\nChrist 1s ascended !\n\nBliss hath invested him, —\nWoes that molested him,\nTrials that tested him,\nGloriously ended !\n\nA2 Faust.\n\nFaust.\n\nWhy, here in dust, entice me with your spell,\n\nYe gentle, powerful sounds of Heaven?\n\nPeal rather there, where tender natures dwell.\n\nYour messages I hear, but faith has not been given;\n\nThe dearest child of Faith is Miracle.\n\nI venture not to soar to yonder regions\n\nWhence the glad tidings hither float ;\n\nAnd yet, from childhood up familiar with the note,\n\nTo Life it now renews the old allegiance.\n\nOnce Heavenly Love sent down a burning kiss\n\nUpon my brow, in Sabbath silence holy ;\n\nAnd, filled with mystic presage, chimed the church-bell\nslowly,\n\nAnd prayer dissolved me in a fervent bliss.33\n\nA sweet, uncomprehended yearning\n\nDrove forth my feet through woods and meadows free,\n\nAnd while a thousand tears were burning, )\n\nI felt a world arise for me.\n\nThese chants, to youth and all its sports appealing,\n\nProclaimed the Spring's rejoicing holiday ;\n\nAnd Memory holds me now, with childish feeling,\n\nBack from the last, the solemn way.\n\nScene L. | A3\n\nSound on, ye hymns of Heaven, so sweet and mild!\n\nMy tears gush forth: the Earth takes back her child!\n\nCuorus OF DISCIPLES.\n\nHas He, victoriously,\nBurst from the vaulted\nGrave, and all-gloriously\nNow sits exalted ?\n\nIs He, in glow of birth,\nRapture creative near p34\nAh! to the woe of earth\nStill are we native here.\nWe, his aspiring\nFollowers, Him we miss ;\nWeeping, desiring,\nMaster, Thy bliss!\n\nCuorvus OF ANGELS.\n\nChrist is arisen,\n\nOut of Corruption's womb:\nBurst ye the prison,\n\nBreak from your gloom!\nPraising and pleading him,\nLovingly needing him,\n\nFaust\n\nBrotherly feeding him,\nPreaching and speeding him,\nBlessing, succeeding Him,\nThus is the Master near, —\n\nThus is He here!\n\nScene LI.\n\nIT.\nBEFORE THE CITY-GATE.35\n(Pedestrians of all kinds come forth.)",
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