Western European stream·Works of Goethe·Faust (Parts I and II)·Faust II (1832)·Act V — Midnight (Care)

Source context

Theme

Blindness, Care (Sorge), and the soul's confrontation with spiritual paralysis at the threshold of death

Soul-faculty

Consciousness Soul

Steiner

• GA 95, 1906-09-04Steiner cites the Chorus Mysticus of Faust II Act V in connection with the soul's passage through spiritual thresholds, indicating the close of Act V as a locus for esoteric teaching on the soul's post-mortem ascent.

Cross-tradition

• Stoic and Hellenistic philosophy (Merimna / Cura)The figure of Sorge (Care) as a binding, blinding power structurally parallels the Stoic concept of merimna — anxious attachment to temporal outcomes — which the sage must dissolve to attain inner freedom.
• Vedantic tradition (Avidya)Sorge's act of blinding Faust exhibits cross-tradition congruence with the Vedantic principle of avidya: nescience that persists even in the presence of outward activity, veiling the individual from direct cognition of the real.
• Sufi tradition (nafs al-ammara)The midnight confrontation with Care, in which the ego-will is stripped of sensory support, shows structural correspondence with the Sufi station in which the commanding self (nafs al-ammara) is exposed and rendered inoperative before higher spiritual encounter.

First.

\ { Y name, it is Want.

SECOND.

And mine, it is Guilt.

THIRD. And mine, it is Care.

FourtTu.

Necessity, mine.'©

THREE TOGETHER.

The portal is bolted, we cannot get in:

The owner is rich, we 've no business within.

Want, I shrink to a shadow.

5°

394Faust.
GuILT. I shrink unto naught. NECESSITY. The pampered from me turn the face and the thought. CaRE. Ye Sisters, ye neither can enter, nor dare; But the keyhole is free to the entrance of Care. (CarE disappears.) Want. Ye, grisly old Sisters, be banished from here |. GUILT. Beside thee, and bound to thee, I shall appear ! NECESSITY. At your heels goes Necessity, blight in her breath. THe THREE. The clouds are in motion, and cover each star! Behind there, behind! from afar, from afar, He cometh, our Brother! he comes, he is — — — — — — Death! Act V. 395 Faust (in the Palace). Four saw I come, but those that went were three; The sense of what they said was hid from me, But something like " Necessity" I heard; Thereafter, '* Death," a gloomy, threatening word! It sounded hollow, spectrally subdued : Not yet have I my liberty made good: If I could banish Magic's fell creations, And totally unlearn the incantations, — Stood I, O Nature! Man alone in thee, Then were it worth one's while a man to be! 8 Ere in the Obscure I sought it, such was I, — Ere I had cursed the world so wickedly. Now fills the air so many a haunting shape, That no one knows how best he may escape. What though One Day with rational brightness beams, The Night entangles us in webs of dreams. From our young fields of life we come, elate: There croaks a bird: what croaks he? Evil fate! By Superstition constantly insnared, It grows to us, and warns, and is declared. Intimidated thus, we stand alone. — : The portal jars, yet entrance is there none. ( Agitated.) Ts any one here?

396faust.
CaRE. Yes! must be my reply. Faust. And thou, who art thou, then? CaRE. Well, — here am I. Faust. Avaunt! CARE. I am where I should be. Faust (first angry, then composed, addressing himself). Take care, and speak no word of sorcery! Care. Though no ear should choose to hear me, Yet the shrinking heart must fear me: ) Though transformed to mortal eyes, Grimmest power I exercise. On the land, or ocean yonder, I, a dread companion, wander, Always found, yet never sought, Praised or cursed, as I have wrought! Hast thou not Care already known? Act V. | 397 Faust. I only through the world have flown: Each appetite I seized as by the hair; What not sufficed me, forth I let it fare, And what escaped me, I let go. I ve only craved, accomplished my delight, Then wished a second time, and thus with might Stormed through my life: at first 't was grand, completely, But now it moves most wisely and discreetly. The sphere of Earth is known enough to me; The view beyond is barred immutably : A fool, who there his blinking eyes directeth, And o'er his clouds of peers a place expecteth ! Firm let him stand, and look around him well! This World means something to the Capable." Why needs he through Eternity to wend? He here acquires what he can apprehend. Thus let him wander down his earthly day ; When spirits haunt, go quietly his way ; In marching onwards, bliss and torment find, Though, every moment, with unsated mind! CARE. Whom I once possess, shall never Find the world worth his endeavor :

398Faust.
Endless gloom around him folding, Rise nor set of sun beholding, Perfect in external senses, Inwardly his darkness dense is; And he knows not how to measure True possession of his treasure. Luck and Il become caprices ; Still he starves in all increases; Be it happiness or sorrow, He postpones it till the morrow ; To the Future only cleaveth : Nothing, therefore, he achieveth. Faust. Desist! So shalt thou not get hold of me! I have no mind to hear such drivel. Depart! Thy gloomy litany Might even befool the wisest man to evil. CaRE. Shall he go, or come ? — how guide him? Prompt decision is denied him ; Midway on the trodden highway Halting, he attempts a by-way ; Ever more astray, bemisted, Act V. Everything beholding twisted, Burdening himself and others, Taking breath, he chokes and smothers, Though not choked, in Life not sharing, Not resigned, and not despairing ! Such incessant rolling, spinning, — Painful quitting, hard beginning, — Now constraint, now liberation, — Semi-sleep, poor recreation, Firmly in his place insnare him And, at last, for Hell prepare him! Faust. Ill-omened spectres! By your treatment strays A thousand times the human race to error: Ye even transform the dull, indifferent days To vile confusion of entangling terror. 'T is hard, I know, from Demons to escape; The spirit's bond breaks not, howe'er one tries it ; And yet, O Care, thy power, thy creeping shape, Think not that I shall recognize it! CARE. So feel it now: my curse thou lt find, When forth from thee I've swiftly passed!

400Faust.
Throughout their whole existence men are blind ; So, Faust, be thou like them at last! (She breathes in his face.) Faust (blinded). The Night seems deeper now to press around me, But in my inmost spirit all is light ; '65 I rest not till the finished work hath crowned me: God's Word alone confers on me the might. Up from your couches, vassals, man by man! Make grandly visible my daring plan! Seize now your tools, with spade and shovel press! The work traced out must be a swift success. Quick diligence, severest ordering The most superb reward shall bring ; And, that the mighty work completed stands, One mind suffices for a thousand hands. ~— Act V. 401 VI. GREAT OUTER COURT OF THE PALACE. Torches. MEPHISTOPHELES (in advance, as Overseer). OME here, come here! Come on, come on! Ye Lemures, loose-hung creatures | Of sinew, ligament, and bone Your knitted semi-natures ! Lemures (in Chorus). Without delay are we at hand, And half 't is our impression That this concerns a spacious land, Whereof we 'Il have possession. The pointed stakes, we bring them all, The measuring-chain, for distance ; But we 've forgotten why the call Was made for our assistance. MEPHISTOPHELES. Here is no need of your artistic zeal : Proceed as you may think it best!

402Faust.
Your tallest lay full length, from head to heel, And lift the turf around him, all the rest! As for our fathers made, prepare To excavate a lengthened square! From palace to the narrow house transferred, Such is, at last, the issue most absurd. Lemures 166 (digging with mocking gestures). In youth when I did love, did love, Methought it was very sweet ; When 't was jolly and merry every way, And I blithely moved my feet. But now old Age, with his stealing steps, Hath clawed me with his crutch: _ I stumbled over the door of a grave ; Why leave they open such? Faust (comes forth from the Palace, groping his way along the door-posts). How I rejoice, to hear the clattering spade! It is the crowd, for me in service moiling, Till Earth be reconciled to toiling, Ad V. ; Till the proud waves be stayed, And the sea girded with a rigid zone. MEPHISTOPHELES (aside). And yet, thou 'rt laboring for us alone, | With all thy dikes and bulwarks daring ; Since thou for Neptune art preparing — The Ocean-Devil — carousal great. In every way shall ye be stranded ; The elements.with us ate banded, And ruin is the certain fate. | Faust. Overseer ! MEPHISTOPHELES. Here! Faust. However possible, Collect a crowd of men with vigor, Spur by indulgence, praise, or rigor, — Reward, allure, conscript, compel ! Each day report me, and correctly note Ifow grows in length the undertaken moat. MEPHISTOPHELES (half aloud). When they to me the information gave, They spake not of a moat, but of — @ grave." A404 Faust. Faust. Below the hills a marshy plain | Infects what I so long have been retrieving ; This stagnant pool likewise to drain Were now my latest and my best achieving. ° To many millions let me furnish soil, ' Though not secure, yet free to active toil ; Green, fertile fields, where men and herds go forth At once, with comfort, on the newest Earth, And swiftly settled on the hill's firm base, Created by the bold, industrious race. | A land like Paradise here, round about: Up to the brink the tide may roar without, And.though it gnaw, to burst with force the limit, By common impulse all unite to hem it. Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence ; The last result of wisdom stamps it true: He only earns his freedom and existence, Who daily conquers them anew.'® Thus here, by dangers girt, shall glide away Of childhood, manhood, age, the vigorous day : And such a throng I fain would see, — Stand on free soil among a people free! Then dared I hail the Moment fleeing : Act V. 405 "¢ Ah, still delay — thou art so fair!" The traces cannot, of mine earthly being, In zons perish, — they are there ! — In proud fore-feeling of such lofty bliss, I now enjoy the highest Moment, — this! (Faust sinks back: the Lemures take him and lay him upon the ground.) MEPHISTOPHELES. No joy could sate him, and suffice no bliss! To catch but shifting shapes was his endeavor: The latest, poorest, emptiest Moment — this, — He wished to hold it fast forever. Me he resisted in such vigorous wise, But Time is lord, on earth the old man lies." The clock stands still — CHoRus. Stands still! silent as midnight, now! The index falls. MEPHISTOPHELES. It falls; and it is finished, here! CHORUS. "T is past!

406faust.
MEPHISTOPHELES. — Past! a stupid word. If past, then why? Past and pure Naught, complete monotony | What good for us, this endlessly creating ?— What is created then annihilating? "And now it's past!"" Why read a page so twisted? °T is just the same as if it ne'er existed, Yet goes in circles round as if it had, however : I'd rather choose, instead, the Void forever. SEPULTURE.'/° Lemur. Solo. Who then hath built the house so ill, With shovel and with spade? . LEMuRES. 'Chorus. For thee, dull guest, in hempen vest, It all too well was made. Lemur. Solo, Who then so ill hath decked the hall? No chairs, nor table any ! Pd Act V. 407 LEmMuRES. Chorus. "*T was borrowed to return at call: The creditors are so many. MEPHISTOPHELES. The Body lies, and if the Spirit flee, I'll show it speedily my blood-signed title. — But, ah! they 've found such methods of requital, His souls the Devil must oft abstracted see! One now offends, the ancient way ; Upon the new we're not yet recommended : Once, I alone secured my prey, But now by helpers need to be befriended. In all things we must feel the spite! Transmitted custom, ancient right, — Nothing, indeed, can longer one confide in. * Once with the last breath left the soul her house; I kept good watch, and like the nimblest mouse, Whack! was she caught, and fast my claws her hide in! Now she delays, and is not fain to quit The dismal place, the corpse's hideous mansion ; The elements, in hostile, fierce expansion, Drive her, at last, disgracefully from it. And though I fret and worry till I'm weary,

408Faust.
When? How? and Where? remains the fatal query : Old Death is now no longer swift and strong ; Even the Whether has been doubtful long. Oft I beheld with lust the rigid members : *T was only sham; Life kindled from its embers. (Fantastic, whirling gestures of conjuration.) Come on! Strike up the double quick, anew, With straight or crooked horns, ye gentlemen infernal ! Of the old Devil-grit and kernel, And bring at once the Jaws of Hell with you! Hell hath a multitude of jaws, in short,!7! To use as suiteth place and dignity ; But we, however, in this final sport, Will henceforth less considerate be. | (The fearful Faws of Hell open, on the left.) The side-tusks yawn: then from the throat abysmal The raging, fiery torrents flow, And in the vapors of the background dismal I see the city flame in endless glow. Up to the teeth the breakers lash the red arena; The Damned, in hope of help, are swimming through; But, caught and mangled by the fell hyena, Their path of fiery torment they renew. Act V. 409 In every nook new horrors flash and brighten, In narrow space so much of dread supreme! Well have you done, the sinners thus to frighten ; — But still they 'll think it lie, and cheat, and dream! (To the stout Devils, with short, straight horns.) Now, paunchy scamps, with cheeks so redly burning! Ye glow, so fat with hellish sulphur fed ; With necks thick-set and stumpy, never turning, — Watch here below, if phosphor-light be shed: It is the Soul, the wingéd Psyche is it; Pluck off the wings, 't is but a hideous worm: '7? First with my stamp and seal the thing I'll visit, Then fling it to the whirling, fiery storm ! The lower parts be well inspected, Ye Bloats! perform your duty well: If there the Soul her seat selected We cannot yet exactly tell. Oft in the navel doth she stay : Look out for that, she thence may slip away! (To the lean Devils, with long, crooked horns.) Ye lean buffoons, file-leaders strange and giant, Grasp in the air, yourselves no respite give! Strong in the arms, with talons sharp and pliant,

52|
Alo | faust. - That ye may seize the fluttering fugitive! In her old home discomforted she lies, And Genius, surely, seeks at once to rise.'73 (Glory from above, on the right.) Tue Heaventy Host. Envoys, unhindered, Heavenly kindred, Follow us here ! Sinners forgiving, Dust to make living! Lovingest features Unto all creatures Show in your swaying, Delaying career ! MEPHISTOPHELES. Discords I hear, a harsh, disgusting strumming, Flung from above with the unwelcome Day ; "T is that emasculate and bungled humming Which Pious Cant delights in, every way. You know how we, atrociously contented, Destruction for the human race have planned : But the most infamous that we 've invented Ad V. Is just the thing their prayers demand.'74 The fops, they come as hypocrites, to fool us! Thus many have they snatched, before our eyes: With our own weapons they would overrule us; They 're also Devils — in disguise. To lose this case would be your lasting shame ; On to the grave, and fortify your claim ! Cuorus or ANGELS (scattering roses).175 Roses, ye glowing ones, Balsam-bestowing ones ! Fluttering, quivering, Sweetness delivering, Branching unblightedly, Budding delightedly, Bloom and be seen! Springtime declare him, In purple and green ! Paradise bear him, The Sleeper serene! MEPHISTOPHELES (0 the Satans). Why do ye jerk and squat? Is this Hell's rule? Stand to your ground, and let them sprinkle! Back to his place each gawky fool ! AII A412 Faust. They think, perhaps, with such a flowery crinkle, As if 't were snow, the Devils' heat to cool : Your breath shal] make it melt, and shrink, and wrinkle. Now blow, ye Blowers!—'T is enough, enough! Before your breath fades all the floating stuff. Not so much violence, — shut jaws and noses! Forsooth, ye blow too strongly at the roses. The proper measure can you never learn? They sting not only, but they wither, burn! | They hover on with flames of deadly lustre: Resist them ye, and close together cluster | — Your force gives out; all courage fails you so: The Devils scent the strange, alluring glow. ANGELs.!76 Blossoms of gratitude, Flames of beatitude, Love they are bearing now, Rapture preparing now, As the heart may ! Truth in its nearness, Ether in clearness, Give the Eternal Hosts Everywhere Day! Act V. 413 MEPHISTOPHELES,. O curse and shame upon such dolts be sped! Each Satan stands upon his head! In somersaults the stout ones whirl and swerve, And into Hell plunge bottom-uppermost. Now may your bath be hot as you deserve ! But I remain, unflinching, at my post. | (Beating off the hovering roses.) Off, will-o'-the-wisps! Bright as ye seem to be, When caught, the vilest clinging filth are ye. Why flutter thus? Off with you, quick ! — Like pitch and sulphur on my neck they stick. Cuorus oF ANGELS.177 What not appertaineth To you, cease to share it! What inwardly paineth, Refuse ye to bear it! If it press in with might, Use we our stronger right: Love but the Loving Leads to the Light! MEPHISTOPHELES. My head, heart, liver, by the flames are rent! AI4 Faust. An over-devilish element ! — Sharper than Hell's red conflagration! Thence so enormous is your lamentation, Unfortunate Enamored! who, so spurned, Your heads towards the sweethearts' side have turned. Mine, too! What twists my head in like position? With them am I not sworn to competition? The sight of them once made my hatred worse. Hath then an alien force transpierced my nature? I like to see them, youths of loveliest stature ; What now restrains me, that I dare not curse ? !78? — And if I take their cozening bait so, Who else, henceforth, the veriest fool will be? The stunning fellows, whom I hate so, How very charming they appear to me! — Tell me, sweet children, ere I miss you, Are ye not of the race of Lucifer ? You are so fair, forsooth, I'd like to kiss you;. It seems to me as if ye welcome were. I feel as comfortable and as trustful, As though a thousand times ere this we'd met! So surreptitiously catlike-lustful : With every glance ye're fairer, fairer yet. O, nearer come, — O, grant me one sweet look! Act V. 415 ANGELS. We come! Why shrink? Canst not our presence brook? Now we approach: so, if thou canst, remain! (The ANGELS, coming forward, occupy the whole space.) MEPHISTOPHELES (who is crowded into the proscenium). Us, Spirits damned, you brand with censure, Yet you are wizards by indenture ; For man and woman, luring, you enchain. — What chance the curst adventure brings me? Is this Love's chosen element ? The fire o'er all my body stings me; My neck I scarcely feel, so hotly sprent. — Ye hover back and forth; sink down and settle! Move your sweet limbs with more of worldly mettle! The serious air befits you well, awhile, But I should like, just once, to see you smile; That were, for me, an everlasting rapture. I mean, as lovers look, the heart to capture; About the mouth a simper there must be. Thee, tall one, as enticing I 'll admit thee; The priestly mien does not at all befit thee, So look at me the least bit wantonly ! A16 Faust. You might be nakeder, and modest made so: Your shirts' long drapery is over-moral. — They turn! —and, from the rear surveyed so, With their attraction there 's no need to quarrel! CuHorus oF ANGELS. Love still revealing, Flames, become clearer |! All, cursed with error, Truth be their healing! Glad self-retrieval Free them from Evil, In the all-folding Breast, Blessed, to rest! MepuisTopPHe es (collecting himself). How is't with me? — Like Job, the boils have cleft me From head to foot, so that myself I shun; Yet triumph also, when my self-inspection 's done, — When self and tribe I have confided in. The noble Devil-parts, at least, are left me! This love-attack 's a rash upon the skin. Burned out already are the scurvy fires, And one and all I damn you, as the case requires ! Act V. ALY Cuorus oF ANGELS.!79 Hallowed glories ! Round whom they brood, Wakes unto being Of bliss with the Good. Join ye, the Glorified, Rise to your goal! Airs are all purified, — Breathe now the Soul! (They rise, bearing away the immortal part of Faust.) MEPHISTOPHELES (looking around him). But how ?— at once I find them failing ! This race of minors takes me by surprise! They with their booty heavenwards are sailing ; Thence on this grave they cast their greedy eyes! My rare, great treasure they have peculated : | The lofty soul, to me hypothecated, They 've rapt away from me in cunning wise. But unto whom shall I appeal for justice? ~ Who would secure to me my well-earned right? Tricked so in one's old days, a great disgust 1s ; And I deserve it, this infernal spite. | I've managed in a most disgraceful fashion ;

418Faust.
A great investment has been thrown away : By lowest lust seduced, and senseless passion, The old, case-hardened Devil went astray. And if from all this childish-silly stuff His shrewd experience could not wrest him, So is, forsooth, the folly quite enough, Which, in conclusion, hath possessed him. Act V. A1g VII. MOUNTAIN-GORGES, FOREST, ROCK, DESERT. Hoty Ancuoritess, 3!

JSON: /api/sources/goethe-works/faust/faust-ii/11-act-v-midnight-care.json