Johannes, Capesius, Mary Fragment, eighth scene

JOHANNES:
These were the last strokes;
I may call the work finished.
It gives me deep satisfaction
To have been able to test
My skills on my beloved teacher.
And since I am allowed to hear
That your essence truly speaks to you
From the picture,
I am completely happy.

CAPESIUS:
You call me your teacher,
Because for three years
I was allowed to speak to you about ideas,
That presented themselves to my soul,
As I wandered in spirit
Through the nature of time and humanity.
I feel clearly how insignificant
Is what I gave you.
I must compare it
With that spirit which flows within you
So from the depths
Nature elevated to art.
And I must think
How strangely I spoke back then
When I first got to know
The circle of people
In which you received the power
To elevate yourselves so high.
It is often almost mysterious to me
How, despite all the fruits
You can receive here,
You could bear the desire
In my way of thinking
To see the development of the world.

JOHANNES:
I, too, must think of your words.
They have been deeply engraved
In my heart; you said:
It is as if you were not
Rejected by us,
Rather as if the way of thinking,
To which we are faithfully inclined,
Could not bear within itself
What springs from your spirit.
The three years
In which I was allowed to listen
To the words that flow so clearly from your lips,
Have shown me in the most beautiful sense
How fruitful it proves to be
When serious research
Connects with the light of the spirit
Within the human being.
I thank this light of the spirit
For the power of creation
Of which you have just spoken.
The power of creation,
Of which you just spoke.
I thank it no less
For the life to which I grow
The knowledge that I found through you.

CAPESIUS:
Yes, these last years,
They brought true wonders
Into my life.
I got to know you,
When you were in decline,
And a fleeting glance
At your faces already taught me
How pain-ridden
Your souls were.
And these years have
Not only made you happy people,
They have transformed you into creators.
And the proof of your creativity,
Proves to me
To be a wonderful effect
Of your own spirit.
I need only look
At this work,
Which brings my own nature
Meaningfully to me in form
And color.
I have often pondered
On the meaning of the words:
O man, know thyself.
Only today do I begin to sense
This profound meaning,
As you let my essence speak to me
From the image,
How it was so foreign to me before
And yet how convincing it seems,
As through the essence of the spirit
You reveal it in your work.
I would have to close myself off from
My own sense of truth,
If I wanted to deny
That the light
That works within you
Can reveal man to himself
In a way that must always remain closed to him
If he only follows such thinking
if they only follow a way of thinking
that I have previously made my own.
Yes, I see it clearly,
there are other sources of spirit,
and it is from them that the power flows
to penetrate the meaningful word:
O human, know thyself.

MARIA:
My dear professor, you speak
The word whose meaning
Shines in a new light
At every level of the mind.
It conceals the deepest depths.
It carries pain within it
And also bliss.
To achieve this,
That he, in this image
Of your own being
Was able to show you so faithfully
And through his work
Could elicit the word from you,
O man, know thyself,
To do this, our John
First had to experience all the suffering
Of this high word of truth
And he had to experience bliss
In it.

CAPESIUS:
It penetrates deep into my soul,
What you have just said.
And I carry a desire,
To hear a great deal from you soon
About these things.
But you said that shortly
Your friends want to come to you,
To see the picture.
I would not like to stand personally
Next to my picture.
I must therefore ask you
To come another time.

MARIA:
This dear soul already senses
Something of the transformation
That you have experienced.