Draft I. First scene: Capesius — Benedictus

CAPESIUS:
It is so kind of you
To grant my request
For a conversation that will
Ease the bitter torment
That gnaws at my soul.
What I have had to endure lately
Is such that I previously had no idea
That such cruel torment
Could befall the heart of a human being.
Despairing that knowledge
Of the reasons for existence is possible for humans
Seems insignificant to me
When I consider that now
I must believe with certainty
That without this knowledge
Man must walk the paths of life
As an aimless shadow being;
That like a deaf fruit
His existence passes without result,
There arises for him from his deepest self
A higher, a knowing self.
But when I try to grasp this self,
I grasp only empty ghostliness.
The dark emptiness stands before my gaze,
When I torment myself searching
For that knowledge which I am sure Exists.
I have seen in my young friend,
Johannes Thomasius, in truth,
How this knowledge creates
The human soul transforms.
Oh, if I could doubt, I would be happy.
I must no longer doubt.
Doubt may be misfortune,
But ruin, destruction, is
Not even to be able to guess
What it is impossible to doubt.
I am at an age
That soon approaches the gates of death.
I look back on a life
In which I have spoken to people in many ways
About the mysteries of life
And questions of existence.
And now it all seems to me
Just insubstantial talk,
Just waves of foam
On the sea of existence.
If only I could say
That we can know nothing,
I would walk courageously toward the dark gate.
I would find myself in the
Limited soul of man.
But since I know that what is effective
In humans is closed to me,
I am filled with horror,
Which, like a consuming fire,
Grips every fiber of my being.

BENEDICTUS:
And do you not feel how
The certainty that within yourselves
The powers you seek,
Could bring you into such a situation.

CAPESIUS:
I feel this well.
That high human powers are rooted in me,
It has become so clear to me.
For a long time I have cast off
Through your words and those of your circle
The treasures of knowledge that were supreme
My whole life to me.
Look how different from before
I have incorporated into my treasure trove of books.
Mysticism and secret science
I have devoted myself to in recent times.
And I have recognized
How pure gold lies in everything
What you say to me and others.
And how numbing it sounds in my soul
So much of what I have read.
I cannot, I must not doubt it,
But I cannot understand it either.
My powers are not sufficient
To think of anything definite,
When I hear that there is
Initiation into vast mysteries,
And that the highest wisdom
Is dangerous to guess,
That it proves completely impossible
For one person to entrust it
To another in words.
How should I respond to what is necessary,
If it plunges people into misfortune,
If it strikes them unprepared.
I know that I must recognize.
I know that I will be destroyed,
If the gates of recognition close to me.
But I also know that destruction can befall me,
if I should know unprepared.
So I fear to know
and must also fear not to know.

BENEDICTUS:
And can you not kindle a spark
of comfort,
when you hear from my mouth
that no one has ever gained knowledge
Who was not previously in your situation?

CAPESIUS:
I see nothing before me
But darkness and confusion.
Yet you stand before me
Like one from whose deepest heart
Words of wisdom flow.
And when I look at you,
I can certainly not doubt
the reality of knowledge.
But tell me one thing:
What does it mean
that the foundations of existence are being undermined,
that the solution to the riddle
is expressed in human language?
For my powers of thought
It is incomprehensible that I should know
What must remain hidden from me in the form of knowledge.
I see in you what alone
Makes life valuable to me.
I must believe in myself
That it exists.
But I lack any bridge
That can lead from your soul
To mine.
And I am denied even the ability to guess
Why you must not utter the solution word
With your lips.

BENEDICTUS:
You cannot hear the word from me,
But you are free
To receive the power of the word
If you let what you hear
Flow into the depths of your being.
CAPESIUS: With everything you say,
You remove me from that
Which is to come to me.

BENEDICTUS:
And yet you need only listen,
And it will come closer to you,
That you believe yourself to be so far from.
The divine beings speak to human souls
In a silent language.
Human words kill
The powers of speech of the gods,
The powers of speech of the gods
Are cloaked in resounding human words
Mysterious seeds of action.