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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)",
      "url": "/sources/faust/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 24,
    "slug": "24-scene-21-walpurgis-night",
    "title": "Scene XXI — Walpurgis-Night",
    "of": 28,
    "words": 3070,
    "text": "Tue Hartz Mountains.\nDistrict of Schierke and Elend.\nFaust. MEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nOST thou not wish a broomstick-steed's assistance ?\nThe sturdiest he-goat I would gladly see:\n\nThe way we take, our goal is yet some distance.\n\nFaust.\nSo long as in my legs I feel the fresh existence,\nThis knotted staff suffices me.\nWhat need to shorten so the way?\nAlong this labyrinth of vales to wander,\nThen climb the rocky ramparts yonder,\nWherefrom the fountain flings eternal spray,\nIs such delight, my steps would fain delay.\n\nThe spring-time stirs within the fragrant birches,\n\nScene XX. 251\n\nAnd even the fir-tree feels it now:\n\nShould then our limbs escape its gentle searches?\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nT notice no such thing, I vow!\n\n'T is winter still within my body:\n\nUpon my path I wish for frost and snow.\nHow sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy,\n\nThe moon's lone disk, with its belated glow,'9\nAnd lights so dimly, that, as one advances,\n\nAt every step one strikes a rock or tree!\n\nLet us, then, use a Jack-o'-lantern's glances:\n\nI see one yonder, burning merrily.\n\nHo, there! my friend! Ill levy thine attendance:\nWhy waste so vainly thy resplendence?\n\nBe kind enough to light us up the steep!\n\nWILL-0'-THE-WISspP.\n\nMy reverence, I hope, will me enable\nTo curb my temperament unstable ;\n\nFor zigzag courses we are wont to keep.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nIndeed? he'd like mankind to imitate!\n\n252 faust.\n\nNow, in the Devil's name, go straight,\n\nOr Ill blow out his being's flickering spark !\n\nWILL-0O '-THE-WIspP.\n\nYou are the master of the house, I mark,\n\nAnd I shall try to serve you nicely.\n\nBut then, reflect: the mountain's magic-mad to-day, .\nAnd if a will-o'-the-wisp must guide you on the way,\n\nYou must n't take things too precisely.\n\nFaust, MEPHISTOPHELES, WILL-0'-THE-WISP\n(in alternating song).\n\nWe, it seems, have entered newly\nIn the sphere of dreams enchanted.\nDo thy bidding, guide us truly,\nThat our feet be forwards planted\n\nIn the vast, the desert spaces |\n\nSee them swiftly changing places,\n\n_ Trees on trees beside us trooping,\nAnd the crags above us stooping,\nAnd the rocky snouts, outgrowing, —\n\nHear them snoring, hear them blowing ! \"3°\n\nScene XX. 253\n\nO'er the stones, the grasses, flowing\nStream and streamlet seek the hollow.\nHear I noises? songs that follow?\nHear I tender love-petitions?\n\nVoices of those heavenly visions?\nSounds of hope, of love undying!\nAnd the echoes, like traditions\n\nOf old days, come faint and hollow.\n\nHoo-hoo! Shoo-hoo! Nearer hover\nJay and screech-owl, and the plover, —\nAre they all awake and crying?\n\nIs *t the salamander pushes,\nBloated-bellied, through the bushes?\nAnd the roots, like serpents twisted,\nThrough the sand and boulders toiling,\nFright us, weirdest links uncoiling\n\nTo entrap us, unresisted :\n\nLiving knots and gnarls uncanny\n\nFeel with polypus-antennz\n\nFor the wanderer. Mice are flying,\nThousand-colored, herd-wise hieing\nThrough the moss and through the heather !\nAnd the fire-flies wink and darkle,\n\n254 Faust.\n\nCrowded swarms that soar and sparkle,\n\nAnd in wildering escort gather!\n\nTell me, if we still are standing,\n\nOr if further we 're ascending?\n\nAll is turning, whirling, blending,\nTrees and rocks with grinning faces,\nWandering lights that spin in mazes,\n\nStill increasing and expanding!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELESs\n\nGrasp my skirt with heart undaunted !\nHere a middle-peak is planted,\nWhence one seéth, with amaze,\n\nMammon in the mountain blaze.\n\nFaust.\n\nHow strangely glimmers through the hollows\nA dreary light, like that of dawn!\n\nIts exhalation tracks and follows —\n\nThe deepest gorges, faint and wan.\n\nHere steam, there rolling vapor sweepeth ;\nHere burns the glow through film and haze:\nNow like a tender thread it creepeth,\n\nNow like a fountain leaps and plays.\n\nScene XXT. ace\n\n~ Here.winds away, and in a hundred\nDivided veins the valley braids :\n\nThere, in a corner pressed and sundered,\nItself detaches, spreads and fades.\n\nHere gush the sparkles incandescent\n\nLike scattered showers of golden sand ; —\nBut, see! in all their height, at present,\nThe rocky ramparts blazing stand.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\nHas not Sir Mammon grandly lighted\nHis palace for this festal night?\n'T is lucky thou hast seen the sight ;\n\nThe boisterous guests approach that were invited.\n\nFaust.\nHow raves the tempest through the air ! \"3!\n\nWith what fierce blows upon my neck 't is beating!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\nUnder the old ribs of the rock retreating,\nHold fast, lest thou be hurled down the abysses there!\nThe night with the mist is black ;\nHark! how the forests grind and crack !\n\nFrightened, the owlets are scattered :\n\n256 : faust.\n\nHearken! the pillars are shattered,\nThe evergreen palaces shaking!\nBoughs are groaning and breaking,\nThe tree-trunks terribly thunder,\nThe roots are twisting asunder!\n\nIn frightfully intricate crashing\nEach on the other is dashing,\n\nAnd over the wreck-strewn gorges\nThe tempest whistles and surges!\nHear'st thou voices higher ringing ?\nFar away, or nearer singing?\n\nYes, the mountain's side along,\n\nSweeps an infuriate glamouring song!\n\nWitTcueEs (in chorus).\n\nThe witches ride to the Brocken's top,*3\nThe stubble is yellow, and green the crop.\nThere gathers the crowd for carnival :\n\nSir Urian sits over all.\n\nAnd so they go over stone and stock ;\n\nThe witch she s the buck.\n\ns, and\n\nA VolIce.\n\nAlone, old Baubo 's coming now ; \"33\n\nShe rides upon a farrow-sow.\n\nScene XX. 257\n\nCuHorRwus.\n\nThen honor to whom the honor is due!\nDame Baubo first, to lead the crew!\nA tough old sow and the mother thereon,\n\nThen follow the witches, every one.\n\nA Volce.\n\nWhich way com'st thou hither?\n\nVoICE.\nO'er the IJsen-stone.\n\nI peeped at the owl in her nest alone:\n\nHow she stared and glared !\n\nVOICE.\n\nBetake thee to Hell!\nWhy so fast and so fell ?\n\nVOICE.\n\nShe has scored and has flayed me:\n\nSee the wounds she has made me!\n\nWITCHES (chorus).\n\nThe way is wide, the way is long:\nSee, what a wild and crazy throng !\n\n258 Faust.\n\nThe broom it scratches, the fork it thrusts,\nThe child is stifled, the mother bursts.\n\nWizarps (semichorus).\nAs doth the snail in shell, we crawl:\nBefore us go the women all.\nWhen towards the Devil's House we tread,\n\nWoman 's a thousand steps ahead.\"3+\n\nOTHER SEMICHORUS.\n\nWe do not measure with such care:\nWoman in thousand steps is there,\nBut howsoe'er she hasten may,\n\nMan in one leap has cleared the way.\n\nVoice (from above).\n\nCome on, come on, from Rocky Lake!\n\n| Voice ( from below).\nAloft we 'd fain ourselves betake.\nWe 've washed, and are bright as ever you will,\n\nYet we're eternally sterile still.\"35\n\nBotu CHORUSES.\n\nThe wind is hushed, the star shoots by,\nThe dreary moon forsakes the sky ;\n\nScene XX. 259\n\nThe magic notes, like spark on spark,\nDrizzle, whistling through the dark.\"3¢\n\nVoice ( from below).\nHalt, there! Ho, there!\n\nVoice (from above).\nWho calls from the rocky cleft below there?\n\nVoice (dew).\nTake me, too! take me, too!\nI'm climbing now three hundred years,'37\nAnd yet the summit cannot see:\n\nAmong my equals I would be.\n\nBotH CHorusEs.\n\nBears the broom and bears the stock,\nBears the fork and bears the buck:\nWho cannot raise himself to-night\n\nIs evermore a ruined wight.\n\nHatrr-Wirtcu (below).\nSo long I stumble, ill bestead,\n\nAnd the others are now so far ahead!\n\n260 Faust,\n\nAt home I've neither rest nor cheer,\n\nAnd yet I cannot gain them here.\n\nCuorus oF WITCHES\n\nTo cheer the witch will salve avail ;\nA rag will answer for a sail ;\nEach trough a goodly ship supplies ;\n\nHe ne'er will fly, who now not flies.\n\nBotH CHORUSES.\n\nWhen round the summit whirls our flight,\nThen lower, and on the ground alight;\nAnd far and wide the heather press\n\nWith witchhood's swarms of wantonness!\n\n(They settle down.)\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nThey crowd and push, they roar and clatter !\nThey whirl and whistle, pull and chatter!\nThey shine, and spirt, and stink, and burn!\nThe true witch-element we learn.\n\nKeep close! or we are parted, in our turn.\nWhere art thou?\n\nScene XX. 261 |\n\nFaust (in the distance).\n\nHere!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nWhat! whirled so far astray?\nThen house-right I must use, and clear the way.\nMake room! Squire Voland comes!'33 Room, gentle\nrabble, room !\nHere, Doctor, hold to me: in one jump we'll resume\nAn easier space, and from the crowd be free:\nIt 's too much, even for the like of me.\nYonder, with special light, there 's something shining\nclearer\nWithin those bushes; I've a mind to see.\n\nCome on! we'll slip a little nearer.\n\nFaust.\n\nSpirit of Contradiction! On! Ill follow straight.\n'\"T is planned most wisely, if I judge aright:\nWe climb the Brocken's top in the Walpurgis-Night,\n\nThat arbitrarily, here, ourselves we isolate.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nBut see, what motley flames among the heather !\n\n262 Faust.\n\nThere is a lively club together:\n\nIn smaller circles one is not alone.\n\nFaust.\n\nBetter the summit, I must own:\n\nThere fire and whirling smoke I see.\n\nThey seek the Evil One in wild confusion:\nMany enigmas there might find solution.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\n' But there enigmas also knotted be.\n\nLeave to the multitude their riot!\n\nHere will we house ourselves in quiet.\n\nIt is an old, transmitted trade,\n\nThat in the greater world the little worlds are made.\nI see stark-nude young witches congregate,\n\nAnd old ones, veiled and hidden shrewdly :\n\nOn my account be kind, nor treat them rudely!\nThe trouble 's small, the fun is great.\n\nI hear the noise of instruments attuning, —\n\nVile din! yet one must learn to bear the crooning.\nCome, come along! It must be, I declare!\n\nI ']l go ahead and introduce thee there,\n\nThine obligation newly earning.\n\nScene XA. 263\n\nThat is no little space: what say'st thou, friend?\n\nLook yonder! thou canst scarcely see the end:\n\nA hundred fires along the ranks are burning.\n\nThey dance, they chat, they cook, they drink, they court:\n\nNow where, just tell me, is there better sport?\n\nFaust.\n\nWilt thou, to introduce us to the revel,\n\nAssume the part of wizard or of devil?\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nI'm mostly used, 't is true, to go incognito,\n\nBut on a gala-day one may his orders show.\n\nThe Garter does not deck my suit,\n\nBut honored and at home is here the cloven foot.\nPerceiv'st thou yonder snail? It cometh, slow and steady;\nSo delicately its feelers pry,\n\nThat it hath scented me already:\n\nI cannot here disguise me, if I try.\n\nBut come! well go from this fire to a newer:\n\nI am the go-between, and thou the wooer.\n(To some, who are sitting around dying embers :)\n\nOld gentlemen, why at the outskirts? Enter!\n\nI'd praise you if I found you snugly in the centre,\n\n264 Faust.\n\nWith youth and revel round you like a zone:\n\nYou each, at home, are quite enough alone.\n\nGENERAL,\n\nSay, who would put his trust in nations,\nHowe'er for them one may have worked and planned?\nFor with the people, as with women,\n\nYouth always has the upper hand.\n\nMINISTER.\n\nThey 're now too far from what is just and sage.\nI praise the old ones, not unduly:\nWhen we were all-in-all, then, truly,\n\nThen was the real golden age.\n\nPARVENU.\n\nWe also were not stupid, either,\nAnd what we should not, often did;\nBut now all things have from their bases slid,\n\nJust as we meant to hold them fast together.\n\nAUTHOR.\n\nWho, now, a work of moderate sense will read?\n\nSuch works are held as antiquate and mossy ;\n\nScene XXL 265\n\n' Andasregards the younger folk, indeed,\n\nThey never yet have been so pert and saucy.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES\n(who all at once appears very old ).139\n\nI feel that men are ripe for Judgment- Day,\nNow for the last time I 've the witches'-hill ascended :\nSince to the lees my cask is drained away,\n\nThe world's, as well, must soon be ended.\n\nHucksTER-WITCH.\n\nYe gentlemen, don't pass me thus !\n\nLet not the chance neglected be!\n\nBehold my wares attentively :\n\nThe stock is rare and various.\n\nAnd yet, there 's nothing I 've collected —\n\nNo shop, on earth, like this you 'll find! —\n\nWhich has not, once, sore hurt inflicted\n\nUpon the world, and on mankind.\n\nNo dagger 's here, that set not blood to flowing ; '4°\nNo cup, that hath not once, within a healthy frame\nPoured speedy death, in poison glowing:\n\nNo gems, that have not brought a maid to shame;\n\n266 Faust,\n\nNo sword, but severed ties for the unwary,\n\nOr from behind struck down the adversary.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nGossip! the times thou badly comprehendest :\nWhat 's done has happed — what haps, is done]!\n'T were better if for novelties thou sendest :\n\nBy such alone can we be won. |\n\nFaust.\n\nLet me not lose myself in all this pother |!\n\nThis is a fair, as never was another!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nThe whirlpool swirls to get above:\n\nThou 'rt shoved thyself, imagining to shove.\n\nFaust.\nBut who is that?\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\nNote her especially,\n\"T is Lilith.\nFaust.\n\nWho?\n\nScene XX. 267\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nAdam's first wife is she.'4!\nBeware the lure within her lovely tresses,\nThe splendid sole adornment of her hair!\nWhen she succeeds therewith a youth to snare,\n\nNot soon again she frees him from her jesses.\n\nFaust.\n\ns\n\nThose two, the old one with the young one sitting,\n\nThey 've danced already more than fitting.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nNo rest to-night for young or old!\n\nThey start another dance: come now, let us take hold!\n\nFaust (dancing with the young witch).\n\nA lovely dream once came to me; \"#\nI then beheld an apple-tree,\n\nAnd there two fairest apples shone:\nThey lured me so, I climbed thereon.\n\nTue Fair One.\n\nApples have been desired by you,\nSince first in Paradise they grew ;\n\n268 Faust.\n\nAnd I am moved with joy, to know\n\nThat such within my garden grow.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES (dancing with the old one).\n\nA dissolute dream once came to me:\nTherein I saw a cloven tree,\n\nWhich had a — .\n\nYet,\n\nas 't was, I fancied it.\n\nTHe O.Lp ONE.\n\nI offer here my best salute\n\nUnto the knight with cloven foot!\nLet him a\nIf him —— ——\n\nprepare,\n\ndoes not scare.\n\nPROKTOPHANTASMIST.'!43\n\nAccurséd folk! How dare you venture thus?\nHad you not, long since, demonstration\nThat ghosts can't stand on ordinary foundation?\n\nAnd now you even dance, like one of us!\n\nTHE Farr One (dancing).\nWhy does he come, then, to our ball?\n\nScene XX.\n\nFaust (dancing).\n\nO, everywhere on him you fall!\nWhen others dance, he weighs the matter :\nIf he can't every step bechatter,\n\nThen 't is the same as were the step not made;\n\nBut if you forwards go, his ire is most displayed.\n\nIf you would whirl in regular gyration\nAs he does in his dull old mill,\n\nHe 'd show, at any rate, good-will, —\n\nEspecially if you heard and heeded his hortation.\n\nPROKTOPHANTASMIST.\n\nYou still are here? Nay, 't is a thing unheard!\n\nVanish, at once! Weve said the enlightening word.\n\nThe pack of devils by no rules is daunted :\n\nWe are so wise, and yet is Tegel haunted.™\n\nTo clear the folly out, how have I swept and stirred!\n\n\"T will ne'er be clean: why, 't is a thing unheard !\n\nTue Farr One.\n\nThen cease to bore us at our ball!\n\nPROKTOPHANTASMIST.\n\nI tell you, spirits, to your face,\n\n270 Faust.\n\nI give to spirit-despotism no place;\n\nMy spirit cannot practise it at all.\n(The dance continues.)\n\nNaught will succeed, I see, amid such reveis;\nYet something from a tour I always save,'4s\nAnd hope, before my last step to the grave,\n\nTo overcome the poets and the devils.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nHe now will seat him in the nearest puddle;\nThe solace this, whereof he's most assured :\nAnd when upon his rump the leeches hang and fuddle,\nHe'll be of spirits and of Spirit cured.\n\n(To Faust, who has left the dance :)\nWherefore forsakest thou the lovely maiden,\n\nThat in the dance so sweetly sang?\n\nFaust.\n\nAh! in the midst of it there sprang\n\nA red mouse from her mouth — sufficient reason ! \"4°\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nThat 's nothing! One must not so squeamish be;\n\nScene XX.\n\nSo the mouse was not gray, enough for thee.\n\nWho 'd think of that in love's selected season?\n\nFaust.\nThen saw I—\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\nWhat?\nFaust.\n\nMephisto, seest thou there,\n\nAlone and far, a girl most pale and fair?\nShe falters on, her way scarce knowing,\n\nAs if with fettered feet that stay her going.\nI must confess, it seems to me\n\nAs if my kindly Margaret were she.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nLet the thing be! All thence have evil drawn:\nIt is a magic shape, a lifeless eidolon. |\n\nSuch to encounter is not good:\n\nTheir blank, set stare benumbs the human blood,\nAnd one is almost turned to stone.\n\nMedusa's tale to thee is known.\n\nFaust,\n\nForsooth, the eyes they are of one whom, dying,\n\n272 faust.\n\nNo hand with loving pressure closed ;\nThat is the breast whereon I once was lying, —\n\nThe body sweet, beside which I reposed!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\n'T is magic all, thou fool, seduced so easily !\n\nUnto each man his love she seems to be.\n\nFaust.\nThe woe, the rapture, so ensnare me,\nThat from her gaze I cannot tear me!\nAnd, strange! around her fairest throat\nA single scarlet band 1s gleaming,\n\nNo broader than a knife-blade seeming |!\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nQuite right! The mark I also note.\n\nHer head beneath her arm she 'I] sometimes carry ;\n*T was Perseus lopped it, her old adversary.\n\nThou crav'st the same illusion still!\n\nCome, let us mount this little hill;\n\nThe Prater shows no livelier stir,'47\n\nAnd, if they 've not bewitched my sense,\n\nI verily see a theatre.\n\nWhat 's going on?\n\nScene XX.\n\nSERVIBILIS. 148\n\n*T will shortly recommence:\n\nA new performance —'t is the last of seven.\nTo give that number is the custom here:\n\n\"T was by a Dilettante written,\n\nAnd Dilettanti in the parts appear.\n\nThat now I vanish, pardon, I entreat you!\n\n~\n\nAs Dilettante I the curtain raise.\n\nMEPHISTOPHELES.\n\nWhen I upon the Blocksberg meet you,\nI find it good: for that's your proper place.\n\nDigitized by Google\n\nScene XXL, 275\n\n| XXIL\nWALPURGIS-NIGHT'S DREAM.\nOBERON AND Tirania's GOLDEN WEDDING.'49",
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