{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_25732/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_25732","id":"gutenberg_25732","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25732","summary":null,"tags":["Category: German Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Faust, -approximately 1540 -- Legends","Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1749-1832. Faust"],"text":"Produced by Thierry Alberto, Henry Craig and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  +------------------------------------------------------------+\n  | Transcriber's Note:                                        |\n  |                                                            |\n  | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in        |\n  | this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of   |\n  | this document.                                             |\n  | The symbol for a trochee on page 134 is shown like this:   |\n  | - U                                                        |\n  | Text printed using the Greek alphabet in the original book |\n  | is shown as follows: [Greek: logos]                        |\n  +------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n\n\n\nTHE FAUST-LEGEND\nAND GOETHE'S 'FAUST'\n\nBY\n\nH. B. COTTERILL\n\nEDITOR OF GOETHE'S 'IPHIGENIE'\nSCHILLER'S 'LAGER' 'REFLECTIONS\nFROM THE NIBELUNGENLIED' DANTE'S\n'INFERNO' ETC.\n\nLONDON\nGEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY\n9 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.\n1912\n\nBALLANTYNE & COMPANY, LTD.\nTAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN\nLONDON\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThese lectures have been given perhaps half a dozen times, in England,\nin Switzerland and in Germany. On allowing them to appear in print I\nshould perhaps apologize to my readers for the somewhat free and\nfamiliar style in which parts of them are written; but even if I had the\ntime to recast them into a more serious form I should be unwilling to do\nso, for there is surely enough ponderous literature on the subject, and\nalthough some may resent in a book what often helps to make a lecture\nattractive, I think I can rely on the fact that many people agree with\nthe dictum of Horace:\n\n                       Ridiculum aeri\n    Fortius et melius magnas plerumque secat res,\n\nor, as Milton has it:\n\n                   Joking decides great things\n    Stronger and better oft than earnest can.\n\nAlmost the only change that I have made in my MS. has been the\nsubstitution or addition of an English translation in numerous places\nwhere I had formerly quoted the German original. On some occasions, when\nfirst writing the lectures, I very probably used the English version of\n_Faust_ by Bayard Taylor, but I have not the book at present at hand and\ncannot feel quite certain whether any of the verse translations are not\nmy own. The little book makes of course no pretence to be a contribution\nto critical or biographical literature. It is meant especially for those\nwho wish to know something more about the story of Faust and about\nGoethe's play, and who, because their knowledge of German does not\nsuffice or for other reasons, are unable to study the subject in any\nmore satisfactory way.\n\nH. B. C.\n\nFREIBURG IM BREISGAU\n_August 1912_\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n                                               PAGE\n\nTHE OLD FAUST LEGEND                              9\n\nGOETHE'S 'FAUST' (PART I.)                       56\n\nGOETHE'S 'FAUST' (PART II.)                     109\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE OLD FAUST-LEGEND\n\n\nAll of us have probably experienced the fact that it is possible to have\nbeen familiar for a long time with some great work of imagination--some\npoem or picture--to have learnt to love it almost as if it were a living\nperson, to imagine that we understand it and appreciate it fully, even\nto fancy that it has a special message, a deeper meaning, for us than\nfor almost any one else, and then to come across somebody--some\ncommentator perhaps--who informs us that our uncritical appreciation is\nquite worthless, mere shallow sentiment, and that until we can\naccurately analyze and formulate the Idea which the artist endeavoured\nto incorporate in his work, and classify the diverse manifestations of\nthis Idea as subjective, objective, symbolical, allegorical,\ndramatical-psychological or psychological-dramatical, we are not\nentitled to hold, far less to express, any opinion on the subject.\n\nWhen I realised that I had undertaken to lecture on _Faust_, I thought\nit my duty to study Goethe's German commentators--some of them at least;\nfor to study all would consume a lifetime. A few of the works of these\ncommentators I already possessed--some, I am sorry to say, with their\npages yet uncut. Others I procured, following the advice of German\nfriends well versed in the matter. I set to work on what was presumably\nthe best of these commentaries. As I laboured onwards, page after page,\nI found myself from time to time turning back to the title of the book.\nSure enough, it was _Ueber Goethe's Faust_. I laboured on--the suspicion\ndeepening at every turn of the page that perhaps the binder might have\nbound up the wrong text under the title _Ueber Goethe's Faust_. At the\nfifty-third page I came to a dead stop. Except quite incidentally\nneither Goethe nor Faust had as yet been mentioned. These fifty-three\npages had been entirely devoted to what seemed to my rather\nunmetaphysical mind a not very luminous or edifying dissertation on the\ndifference between _Ansicht_ and _Einsicht_--between mere Opinion and\ntrue critical Insight; and, as far as I could discover, the only\nconclusion as yet arrived at was that the writer possessed an exclusive\nmonopoly in the last-mentioned article.\n\nBut I will not inflict upon you any further description of my tusslings\nwith Teutonic interpreters of _Faust_--with their _egos_ and _non-egos_,\ntheir moral-aesthetic symbolisms and so on. Let us leave them to the\ntender mercies of Goethe himself, who was not sparing of his ridicule in\nregard to his commentators, nor, alas, at times in regard to his\ncountrymen. 'Of all nations,' he says, 'the Germans understand me\nleast.... Such people make life a burden by their abstruse thoughts and\ntheir _Ideas_, which they hunt up in all directions and insist on\ndiscovering in everything.... They come and ask _me_ what \"Ideas\" _I_\nhave incorporated in my _Faust_. Just as if I myself knew!--or could\ndescribe it, even if I did know!' Of course Goethe's great poem contains\nan Idea, if by that word we mean in a poem what we mean by _life_ in\nanything living; but it is not by dissection and analysis that we shall\ndiscover it. 'He who wishes,' says Goethe in _Faust_, 'to examine and\ndescribe anything living first does his best to expel the life. Then he\nhas got the dead parts in his hand; but what is wanting is just the\nspiritual bond.' It is my purpose--a purpose not easy of fulfilment--to\navoid this method of dissection and to place before you living\nrealities, not anatomical specimens.\n\nBut before we plunge _in medias res_ and grapple our present subject,\nnamely the old Faust-legend, I should like to say just a few words in\norder to show from what standpoint I think we should regard Goethe as a\npoet and a thinker--for that he is great both as a poet and as a thinker\ncannot be denied.\n\nGoethe describes his own philosophy as the philosophy of action. He\nbelieved in impulse, in inspiration, in action, rather than in\nreflexion, analysis and logic. 'Reflect not!' he makes Iphigenie\nexclaim--'Reflect not! Grant freely, as thou feel'st!' And in one of his\nEpigrams he says:\n\n    Yes, that's the right way,\n    When we cannot say\n    How we think. True thought\n    Comes as a gift, unsought.\n\nSuch theory of inspiration is thoroughly Greek, reminding one of\nPlato's 'muse-inspired madman' and of what Sophocles is related to have\nsaid to Aeschylus; 'Thou, Aeschylus, always dost the right thing--but\nunconsciously ([Greek: all' ouk eidos ge]).' Thus it was also with\nGoethe. All intellectual hobbies and shibboleths, all this endless\nwearisome discussion and dissection and analysis and criticism and\nbandying about of _opinion_, which is the very life-breath of modern\nintellectual existence and modern journalistic literature, Goethe\nrejected, as Plato had done in his _Phaedrus_, where he makes Socrates\ncall such things 'rotten soul-fodder.'\n\n'The whole! The whole!' was Goethe's frequent exclamation--'life!\naction! being!--the living whole, not the dead parts!' He was for ever\ndecrying mere thought, mere intellect, mere cleverness. And yet of all\nmoderns what greater intellect, what greater thinker, can we name than\nGoethe himself? Seldom, perhaps never, has there existed a mortal so\nmany-sided. 'In such manifold directions'--he wrote to his friend\nJacobi--'does my nature move, that I cannot be satisfied with _one_\nsingle mode of thought. As poet and artist I am polytheist; as a\nstudent of Nature I am pantheist. When I need a God for my personal\nnature, as a moral and spiritual human being, He also exists for me.\nHeaven and earth are such an immense realm that it can only be grasped\nby the collective intelligence of all intelligent beings.' Such\n'collective intelligence' Goethe perhaps more nearly possessed than any\nother human being has done. The lordly pleasure-house which he built for\nhis soul was such as Tennyson describes (and his words refer of course\nto Goethe):\n\n    Full of great rooms and small the palace stood,\n      All various, each a perfect whole\n    From living Nature, fit for every mood\n      And change of my still soul.\n\nAnd wonderfully true are those other lines of Tennyson--but rather\nbitter, as perhaps was to be expected of Tennyson when he was describing\na great character with which he had so little sympathy:\n\n    I take possession of man's mind and deed.\n      I care not what the sects may brawl.\n    I sit as God holding no form of creed,\n      But contemplating all.\n\nTo Goethe all things, both in Nature and in Art were but transitory\nreflexions of the real and eternal. 'Alles vergaengliche ist nur ein\nGleichnis'--all things transitory are but a parable, an allegory of\ntruth and reality--such are some of the last words of his great Poem;\nand thus too he regarded his own poetry. 'I have,' he said, 'always\nregarded all that I have produced as merely symbolic, and I did not much\ncare whether what I made were pots or dishes.' Even that life-poem of\nhis, _Faust_, which he planned and began as a young man of about\ntwenty-five, and the last lines of which he wrote a few months before\nhis death, aged eighty-two, only represents (as indeed do all great\nworks of art) _one_ aspect of belief--or perhaps I should rather say a\ncertain number of truth's innumerable aspects, none of them claiming to\nafford a full vision, and not a few of them apparently contradictory;\nfor, as both Plato and Shakespeare tell us, truth cannot be directly\nstated: it lies, as it were, in equipoise between contradictory\nstatements:\n\n    For no thought is contented. The better sort,\n    As thoughts of things divine ... do set the word\n    Against the word.\n\n_Faust_ does not claim to be a universal Gospel, nor to offer a final\nsolution of the riddle of existence. It makes no attempt to pile up\nPelions on Ossas--to scale heaven with the Babel-towers of the human\nreason. It merely holds up a mirror in which we see reflected certain\nviews of truth, such as presented themselves to Goethe from some of his\nintellectual heights. To regard it and judge it otherwise--to analyse\nits Idea--to insist on discovering its Moral--to compare it with some\nlittle self-contained system of theory or dogma which we ourselves may\nhave finally accepted--and to condemn Goethe as a prophet of lies\nbecause, viewing truth from such diverse standpoints (many of them\nperhaps quite inaccessible for us) he may seem at times to ignore some\nof our pet formulae--this, I think, would convict us of a lamentable lack\nof wisdom and humility. And if at times we feel pained by what may seem\nirreverent, let us remember that Goethe wrote also these words: 'With\nmany people who have God constantly on their tongues He becomes a\nphrase, a mere name uttered without any accompanying idea. If they were\npenetrated by God's greatness, they would rather be dumb and for very\nreverence not dare to name Him.'\n\nGoethe accepted not without a certain amount of pride the title given\nhim by some of his contemporaries--that of 'the last of the Heathen.'\nBut which of us will doubt the sincerity or fail to be touched by the\nhumility of his words: 'And yet perhaps I am such a Christian as Christ\nHimself would wish me to be.'\n\nThere are doubtless but very few (and I confess that I am not one of\nthese select few) who can accept Goethe in all his many-sidedness. We\nordinary mortals are incapable of such Protean versatility and are sure\nto find points, often many and important points, where we are strongly\nrepelled by his teachings and his personality. The idealist is\nscandalized by his vigorous realism, the realist and materialist by his\nidealism, the dogmatist by his free thought, the free-thinker by his\nreverence towards religion, while the scientific expert is apt to regard\nhim as a mere poet, oblivious or ignorant of the fact that, although\nwithout scientific training, besides propounding theories on Colour\nwhich were for a time accepted by leading authorities on that subject\nand besides making a discovery which had escaped the investigations of\nprofessional Anatomists (that of the intermaxillary bone), Goethe was\nthe discoverer of a law, that of the metamorphosis of leaves and\nflowers, which may be said to have almost revolutionised the science of\nBotany.\n\nLet us now turn to our subject and attempt to trace to its first sources\nthis strange and suggestive legend of Faust, the great Magician.\n\nAnd first, we shall see our way more clearly if we consider what is\nreally the nature of that magic, or black art, which played such an\nimportant part in the medieval imagination.\n\nPerhaps we may say that by 'magic' was denoted that art by which one was\nsupposed to gain a knowledge of, and a power over, the prime elements of\nNature and its cosmic potencies, so as to be able to combine and use\nthem independently of natural laws. It is this power that Faust in\nGoethe's play longs to attain:\n\n                  ... To find the force\n    That binds the world and guides its course,\n    Its germs and vital powers explore\n    And peddle with worthless words no more.\n\nIn almost every age and nation we find a vital Power, an ordering\nForce, recognised as present in the natural world, and the human mind\nseems ever prone to believe such Power to have affinity to human nature\nand to be, so to speak, open to a bargain. The fetish priest, the rain\ndoctor, the medicine-man, the Hindu yogi, the Persian Mage, the medieval\nsaint, and countless miracle-workers in every age, have ever believed\nthemselves to be, whether by force of will, or by ecstatic\ncontemplation, or by potent charms, in communion with the great Spirit\nof Nature, or with mighty cosmic influences--with Powers of Light or of\nDarkness; with Oromasdes or Arimanes, Brahma or Siva, Jehovah or Baal;\nwith Zoroastrian Devs, Persian Genii, guardian angels or attendant\ndemons; with the Virgin Queen of heaven--whether as Selene, Astarte,\nHecate, or the Madonna; with the Prince of the powers of this\nworld--with or without his horns and his cloven foot.\n\nNot only among the heathen--the orientals and Egyptians--but also among\nthe Chosen People we find the priests attesting their favour with the\nDeity, and asserting the truth of their religion, by what we may call\northodox magic. We all remember how Aaron's rod, in the form of an\northodox snake, swallowed up the unorthodox rod-snakes of the Egyptian\nsorcerers, and how Elijah attested the power of the true God by calling\ndown fire from heaven in his contest with the priests of the Sun-god\nBaal. King Solomon too was for many ages credited with magic powers and\nwas regarded in medieval times as the great authority in matters of\nwizardry.\n\nAmong the Greeks, although mysteries and witches played no small part in\nthe old religion and survived long in popular superstition, magic was\nthrust into the background by the poetic and philosophic Hellenic\nimagination. The powers of Nature were incorporated in the grand and\nbeautiful human forms of the Olympian gods, or in the dread shapes of\nthe Infernal deities. But even among those of the Greeks who were raised\nfar above the ordinary superstitions of the populace we find many traces\nof mysticism and magic, as for example in connexion with oracles, with\ndivine healing, with the efficacy of images and other sacred objects,\nand especially in connexion with Orphic and other Mysteries. And, while\nfor the most part Greek philosophy was rather imaginative than mystic,\nstill we encounter the genuine mystic element in such Greek sages as\nEmpedocles and Pythagoras, both of whom assumed the priestly character\nand seem to have laid claim to supernatural powers. Empedocles indeed,\nit is said, gave himself out to be a deity exiled from heaven, and was\napparently worshipped as such. According to a not very trustworthy\nlegend he threw himself into the crater of Mount Etna--perhaps in order\nthus to solve the mystery of existence. Pythagoras is said by some to\nhave met his death at the hands of the people of Crotona, who set fire\nto his house and burnt him alive with many of his disciples. Goethe\nevidently alludes to Pythagoras (as well perhaps as to John Huss and\nothers who found their death at the stake) in some well-known lines,\nwhich may be roughly thus translated:\n\n    The few that truth's deep mystery have learned\n      And could not keep it in their hearts concealed,\n      But to the mob their inner faith revealed,\n    Have evermore been crucified and burned.\n\nWe now come to Christianity. In the early ages of the Church the final\nappeal seems to have been an appeal to miracles, and we find the\napostles and their followers claiming the sole right of working miracles\nin the name of the one true God and anathematizing all other\nwonder-workers as in league with Satan. We all remember Elymas the\nSorcerer struck blind by St. Paul, and the adversary of St. Peter, Simon\nthe Mage, around whom first gathered the myths which lived so long in\nthe popular imagination and many of which we shall meet with in the\nlegend of Dr. Faust.\n\nThis Simon, the Magus or Sorcerer, who bewitched the people of Samaria,\nand was looked upon as 'the great power of God,' is said in the _Acts of\nthe Apostles_ to have been converted by St. Philip and to have brought\nupon himself a severe rebuke from St. Peter for offering to purchase\nwith money the gift of wonder-working. In about the third century the\nlegend of Simon Magus, as related by Clement of Alexandria, seems to\nhave already incorporated in a mythical form the discords of the early\nChurch, and especially the feud between the Jewish Christians, followers\nof St. Peter, and the Gentile proselytes, followers of St. Paul. Indeed\nSimon the Sorcerer was in course of time regarded by some as having been\nidentical with St. Paul--that is to say, it was believed that St. Paul\nhad been none other but Simon Magus in disguise. The voice heard at St.\nPaul's conversion and the light by which for a season he was struck\nblind were alleged to have been feats of wizardry by which he, a wolf in\nsheep's clothing, stole his way into the true fold in order to introduce\ndiscord and to betray the Church to the Gentiles.\n\nSt. Peter, the true Simon, is said to have followed the false Simon from\ncity to city, out-rivalling his Satanic miracles by orthodox miracles,\nuntil at length they reached Rome. Here Simon Magus by his magic arts\nsucceeded in flying up into the sky in the presence of the Emperor and\nhis court, but at the word of Peter the charm was broken and the wizard\nfell to earth and was killed.\n\nBut, besides this, the so-called Gnostic heresy introduced other\nelements into the legend. These Gnostics were a sect that arose in the\nearly times of Christianity. They pretended to a special insight into\nthe divine nature, and combined Platonic and oriental theories with\nChristian dogmas. They tried to convert the story of the Redemption into\na cosmological myth, and regarded the human person of Christ as a kind\nof phantom--a magic apparition. Some of these Gnostics seem to have\naccepted Simon Magus as the 'Power of God'--as the Logos, or divine\nReason, by which the world was created (or reduced from chaos to an\nordered Cosmos). From this a curious myth arose. This Logos, or creative\nPower, was identified with the Sun-god, as the source of life, and as\nSun-god was united to the Moon-goddess, Selene. Now the words Helen and\nSelene are connected in Greek, and Helen of Troy was accepted by these\nGnostics as a mythical form of the goddess of the moon. Hence it came\nthat in the Gnostic form of the Simon Magus legend he was married to\nHelen of Troy, and this notion found its way into the old Faust-legend,\nand is used by Goethe in that exceedingly wonderful and beautiful part\nof his great poem which is called the _Helena_.\n\nAfter the suppression of Gnostic and other early heresies came the\ncontest of the now united and politically powerful Church against the\nouter world of heathendom. While retaining for herself what we may call\na monopoly in orthodox magic the Church condemned as in league with the\ndevil _all_ speculation, whether theological or scientific--the one as\nleading to heresy, the other to sensual ends, such as riches, fame, and\nthose lusts of the flesh and that pride of intellect which were fatal to\nthe contemplative and ascetic ideals of medieval Christianity.\n\nIt was not among Teuton and Celtic savages but among the learned\nadherents of the old Greek philosophy that the Church in those earlier\ndays found her most dangerous and obstinate adversaries. Plato and\nAristotle (whose tenets the Christian Schoolmen afterwards endeavoured\nto harmonize with the teaching of the Gospel) were at first brought\nforward to oppose the new religion, these doctrines of Greek philosophy\nbeing largely supplemented by mystic ideas derived from oriental\nsources. It was however Pythagoras, the great Greek-Italian philosopher\nof the sixth century B.C., the predecessor and to some extent the\ninspirer of Socrates and Plato, who was most generally accepted as the\nrival of St. Paul. It was his mystical doctrines of Number and Harmony,\nof the Unit and the Triad, which were most often marshalled against the\nChristian doctrine of the Unity and Trinity of the Godhead. Indeed it\neven seems that Pythagoras was believed by some of these adversaries of\nChristianity to be the incarnation of Deity (as had been believed in his\nlifetime) and to be the friend and saviour of mankind, like Prometheus\nof old, who was said to have given his life for the human race devoted\nto destruction by the anger of an offended God.\n\nNo wonder that, embittered by such opponents, the Church launched her\nanathema against all the profane learning of the day--all study of the\nancient heathen philosophers and poets. The gods of Olympus became\nsynonymous with demons and monsters of the Christian hell, as we see in\nDante and in such old legends as that of the Hill of Venus. Plato and\nAristotle, and even Homer, were put on the index. Virgil especially was\nregarded as a dangerous wizard--although in another age he was honoured\nalmost as a prophet and a foreteller of the Messiah. I remember that\nmany years ago, when I was searching for Virgil's tomb on Posilipo near\nNaples, I was informed by a contadino, of whom I had asked my way, that\nVirgil ('Marone,' as he called him) was a great magician. The man knew\nnothing of Virgil as poet. Probably Virgil's account of the descent of\nAeneas into the lower world, and that strange _Eclogue_ of his, the\n_Pollio_, in which possibly a Sibylline prophecy of the coming of a\nMessiah is reproduced, may have credited him with magic lore, and may\nalso have invested him for a time with almost the dignity of a canonical\nMinor Prophet.\n\nNow, during these ante-Reformation ages the Roman Church claimed, as I\nhave said, a monopoly in orthodox magic. She could send a soul to hell,\nor by rites and exorcism she could save the sinner from his compact with\nSatan, as one sees in such legends as those of Merlin, of Tannhaeuser, of\nRobert the Devil, and of that Theophilus who was converted by flowers\nsent him from Paradise by the Virgin-Martyr St. Dorothea. Of another\nTheophilus, an eastern monk of perhaps the sixth century, we are told\nthat, like Faust, he made a written compact with the devil, but\nrepented and was saved by the Virgin Mary, who snatched the fatal\ndocument from the devil's claws and gave it back to the penitent.\n\nBut there is one early example of the wizard-legend where the magician\nis saved from his pact with Satan not so much by the counter-charms of\nthe Church as by the purity and steadfastness of Christian maidenhood,\nand for this reason I think the poet Shelley is right in regarding this\nlegend as 'the true germ of Goethe's _Faust_.' It is the story of\nCyprian and Justina, who were among the many victims of the persecution\nof the Christians by Diocletian, about 300 A.D. Cyprian was a sorcerer\nof Antioch whose diabolical arts failed to overcome the sanctity of\nJustina. He confessed himself conquered and withdrew into the desert as\na Christian hermit. The story has been dramatized by the Spanish poet\nCalderon in his _Magico Prodigioso_, a part of which has been finely\ntranslated by Shelley. The beautiful picture of St. Justina by Moretto,\nwhere Cyprian is kneeling before her and a white unicorn, the symbol of\nchastity, is crouching in the foreground, is well known.\n\nWith the Reformation another spirit arose and legends took a different\nform. In the Protestant world the orthodox magic of the Roman Church\nlost its saving power and was regarded as no less diabolic than all\nother black art. He was irretrievably lost who had once given over his\nsoul to magic and the devil (and the devil was at this time, as we know,\na very real personage--real enough to have an inkpot hurled at his head\nby Luther). The revival at the Renaissance of speculation and research,\ncombined as it was with all kinds of fantastic hopes of discovering\nprime matter, the 'Philosopher's stone,' and elixirs of life, bred in\nthe popular superstition a mysterious awe and attached to almost all\nscientific investigation the epithet 'black,' or diabolic, as opposed to\nthe 'white art' of holding communion with good spirits. Alchemy and\nastrology (words meaning merely what we call chemistry and astronomy)\nbecame words of hellish import, and he who practised these arts was in\nleague with Satan. Thus were regarded such men as Lully, Roger Bacon,\nthe Abbot Tritheim, and (perhaps best known of all, at least to all\nreaders of Browning) Bombastes Paracelsus, the contemporary of Faust,\nborn at Einsiedeln, between Brunnen and the lake of Zuerich, in the year\n1493.\n\nThus the sixteenth-century form of our legend is of the most tragic\ncharacter. In the oldest Faust-legend, which first took shape in this\ncentury, there is no hint of his being saved. And another of its\ncharacteristics is its strong anti-papal tendency. The devil appears in\nthe guise of a monk, and even as Mahomet or Antichrist in the guise of\nthe Pope himself.\n\nBut the Renaissance (if not the Reformation) introduced another,\nentirely new and most important, element into the legend--one which\nenabled Goethe to use the sulphurous old myth as the subject for a great\npoem. Not only was there a renaissance of learning, but also of art--an\nintense longing for both Knowledge and Beauty. To _know_ everything--to\nlearn the inner secret of Nature--to understand, as Faust longed to\nunderstand,\n\n                      The inmost force\n    That binds the world and guides its course--\n\nthis yearning after perfection by Knowledge was one of the fruits of the\nRenaissance. The other was the yearning to gain perfection by means of\n_feeling_, by the ecstatic contemplation of and communion with perfect\nBeauty--'to love infinitely and be loved,' as Aprile says in Browning's\n_Paracelsus_. These two impulses, the one toward Knowledge and the other\ntoward Love, were doubtless awakened by the study of Aristotle, that\n'master of those who know,' and of Plato's doctrine of the soul's\nlove-inspired yearnings for Truth and Beauty and for communion with the\nPerfect and the Eternal.\n\nI have called them _two_ impulses, and to the mind they must ever appear\ndistinct, nay sometimes contrary; but I need not remind you how\nChristianity teaches us to reconcile the ancient feud between the mind\nand the heart--between Knowledge and Love. You may perhaps remember how\nDante, to intimate to us that there can be no true knowledge without\nlove and no true love without knowledge, speaks of the Cherubim and the\nSeraphim as ideally the same, and tells us that the Seraphs, who love\nmost, also know most.\n\nBoth these impulses are noble and awaken our sympathy.\n\nNow, in order that _tragic_ art may have its effect it must possess what\nAristotle calls [Greek: pathos], so that we may be able to sympathize\nwith the sufferer. Thus, for instance, Milton enlists our sympathies\neven with his Satan, and it is perhaps because we cannot sympathize in\nany way with Dante's Lucifer that many feel repelled by the terrible\ncreation. But even in the oldest of the Faust-legends, and far more of\ncourse in Goethe's _Faust_, we are attracted by a 'pathetic' element,\nviz., the unsatisfied and insatiable longing of a human soul for\nKnowledge--for Truth--and its still intenser yearnings after ideal\nBeauty.\n\nThus, even the Faust of the older sixteenth-century legend, although he\nultimately falls a victim to the devil, has noble and high impulses by\nwhich we feel strongly attracted. He is lost, not through these\nimpulses, these yearnings for knowledge, but through his magic, and his\nsensual life. In spite of more than one fit of remorse he is unable to\nfree himself from the lusts of the flesh; he is obliged to sign a second\nbond with Mephisto and is dragged down ever lower into the abyss, until\nthe jaws of hell open and swallow him up--while the Faust of Goethe's\npoem gains strength through many an error and many a grievous fall,\ngradually shakes off the diabolic influence and rising on the\nstepping-stones of his dead self is finally rescued by God's mercy and\nreaches the higher spheres of another life.\n\nHow infinitely grander--how illimitable in its vistas--the subject\nbecomes when thus treated by a great poet we all must feel. And even if\nwe cannot with a whole heart accept as a true Gospel what (in spite of\nGoethe's admission that God's mercy was a necessary factor) seems to be\na gospel of _self-salvation_, we should not forget that this picture of\na man pressing on in his own strength amidst the lusts of the flesh and\nthe errors of the mind is perhaps the noblest and grandest kind of\npicture that dramatic art can offer us--that of the human will in its\nstruggle against destiny. In any case, I think, we cannot refuse our\nsympathy for these yearnings and searchings for truth amidst error. Do\nyou remember what Lessing said about such longings? 'If God'--he\nsaid--'should hold Truth itself in His right hand, and in His left the\nlonging for Truth, and should say to me _Choose!_ I would humbly fall\ndown before His left hand and say: _Father, pure Truth is for Thee\nalone. Give me the longing for Truth, though it be attended with\nnever-ending error._'\n\nThere seems no doubt that a man named Johann Faust, renowned for his\nlearning and credited with magical powers, actually did exist--probably\nabout 1490 to 1540. (He was therefore a contemporary of Paracelsus, and\nalso of Luther, Charles V., Henry VIII. and Raphael.) Several notices of\nthis Dr. Johann Faust occur in writers of the period. One of the most\ncircumstantial is by the friend and biographer of Melanchthon, who\nhimself seems to have met Faust. But the various myths that gathered\nround the magician were, it seems, first published in a continuous\nnarrative in 1587, that is about fifty years after his death. This is\nthe old _Frankfurter Faustbuch_, of which only one perfect specimen is\nnow known to exist. It is, I believe, in Leipzig. A mutilated copy is in\nthe Vienna Library.\n\nOne day, when to escape for a time from the German commentators above\nmentioned I had gone out for a walk, I found my way to the old\nWasserkirche--now the Free Library of the city of Zuerich, and here I\ndiscovered a facsimile reprint of this old Frankfurt Faust-book. As this\nis the oldest and most authentic basis of all later forms of the story\nand is doubtless the one which (as well as the puppet-play on the\nsubject) Goethe used as the ground-plan for his poem, I perhaps cannot\ndo better than give a brief abstract of its contents.\n\nIt is written in quaint old German and is interspersed with many pious\ncomments, biblical quotations and Latin words and phrases, and now and\nthen it breaks out into doggerel verse. The editor (Spiess by name)\ntells us that he publishes the book 'as a warning to all Christians and\nsensible people to avoid the terrible example of Doctor Faustus.' He\nevidently takes the thing very seriously and has purposely (as he says)\nomitted all 'magic formulae,' lest 'any should by this Historia be\nincited to inquisitiveness and imitation.' Johann Faust, according to\nthis version, was born at Roda, a village near Weimar. (Other versions\nsay at Knittlingen in Wuertemberg.) His parents were honest God-fearing\npeasants. His great abilities induced a rich relation in Wittenberg to\nadopt and educate him. He studied theology at Wittenberg (known to us\nall through Hamlet and Luther) and also at Cracow, outrivalling all\ncompetitors and gaining the title of Doctor of Theology. But he had not\nonly a 'teachable and quick' but also a 'foolish, silly, inquisitive'\nhead, and neglecting the Bible became a 'Speculator' and prided himself\nmore on being an Astrologus and a Mathematicus than a Theologus. As the\nold chronicler expresses it, he 'took to himself eagle's wings and\ndesired to search out the reasons of all in heaven and on earth.'\n\nHe now takes to 'Zauberei'--magic. Where four roads meet in the Spessart\nWald, a forest near Wittenberg, he inscribes mystic circles and performs\nincantations for the purpose of summoning the devil. After all kinds of\nfearful apparitions and noises, by which Faust is almost terrified to\ndeath, a demon appears in the shape of a 'grey monk.' Faust invites him\nto visit him at his house in Wittenberg. The demon visits him there and\ntells him of all the horrors of hell. But Faust persists in his plan and\nmakes a second rendezvous with the demon, who has now procured leave\nfrom his lord and master Lucifer to offer his services and attendance.\nThe compact is made. The demon is to serve him for twenty-four years.\nFaust is to renounce Christianity and to hate all Christians, and at the\nend of twenty-four years he is to belong to the demon 'to have power,\nrule and dominion over his soul, body, flesh, blood, and possessions,\nand that for all eternity.' This compact has to be signed with blood.\nFaust pierces his hand, and the blood flows out and forms the words 'O\nhomo fuge!'--'O man, escape!'--but Faust, though alarmed, is not\ndeterred. It is now agreed that the demon shall appear, whenever\nsummoned, in the form of a Franciscan monk. He then reveals his name:\nMephistopheles, or, as the old legend gives it, Meph_o_stoph_i_les--the\nmeaning of which is probably 'not loving the light'--[Greek: me phos\nphilon]--a compound which you may rightly remark must have been\nconcocted by a rather second-rate Greek scholar.\n\nAfter a season of dissipation, during which Faust is supplied with all\nthe luxuries that he desires--wine stolen from ducal, electoral, and\nepiscopal cellars, soft and costly raiment from the draperies and\nnaperies of Nuernberg and Frankfurt and so on (he had, for instance, only\nto open his window and call any bird, goose, turkey, or capon, and it\nwould at once fly in, ready roasted)--getting tired of this kind of\nthing he falls in love and wishes to marry. But Mephisto angrily tells\nhim that marriage is a thing pleasing to God and against the terms of\nthe compact. You will notice here the Lutheran and anti-papal\ntendency--marriage being a thing pleasing to God in itself, and any\ncompact being devilish which forbade it, as in the case of priests and\nmonks.\n\nThen follow long discussions and disputations between Faust and Mephisto\non the creation of the world, on hell and heaven, and on black art and\nastrology. None of us may be in a position to question a demon's\naccuracy with regard to how affairs stand in Hades, but Mephisto gives a\nvery unorthodox account of the creation--or rather he denies that there\nwas any creation. Matter according to his theory (and it is a theory of\nsome modern scientists and not only of medieval demons)--matter is\neternal and self-existent--uncreated, or self-created, whatever that may\nmean. Incited by these descriptions, and by his 'foolish silly\ninquisitive head,' Faust demands that he should pay a visit to both hell\nand heaven.\n\nFor the journey to Hell the services of Beelzebub have to be\nrequisitioned. The devilish worm, as the old writer calls Beelzebub,\nplaces Faust in a chair or pannier made of bones, hoists the chair on to\nhis back and plunges (like Empedocles) into a volcano. Faust is nearly\nstifled to death. He sees all kinds of griffins and monsters and great\nmultitudes of spirits tormented in the flames--among them emperors,\nkings and princes. Then in a deep sleep he is brought home and laid on\nhis bed. 'This Historia and recount of what he saw in hell,' says the\nold chronicler, 'hath Doctor Faustus himself written down with his own\nhand, and after his death it was found lying in a sealed book.' After\nthis (about ten years of the twenty-four having already elapsed) he is\ntaken up to heaven by Mephisto in a chariot drawn by dragons--not of\ncourse to the Empyrean, the abode of God, but up as far as the fixed\nstars (the eighth sphere). He finds the sun, which before he had\nbelieved to be only as big as the bottom of a cask, to be far larger\nthan the earth, and the planets to be as large as the earth, and the\nclouds of the upper sky to be as dense and hard as rocks of crystal.\nFrom these regions the earth looks as small as the 'yolk in an egg.' He\nsees all the kingdoms of the earth--Europe, Asia, and Africa (not\nAmerica, although America was discovered by Columbus in 1492, about the\ndate of Faust's birth).\n\nIn the sixteenth year Faust wishes to pay a visit to the chief cities\nand countries of the world. Mephisto changes himself into a horse--'with\nwings like a dromedary.' It is, I believe, not generally supposed that a\ndromedary has wings; but I suppose the old chronicler must have confused\na camel and an ostrich, thinking of the name which some Greek authors\ngive to the ostrich, namely _stroutho-camelos_ or 'sparrow-camel.'\n\nOn the back of his sparrow-camel horse Faust is carried through the air\nto many lands and cities and at length reaches Rome, and visits the\nPope, on whom he and Mephisto (both being invisible) play various\npractical jokes, blowing in his face, snatching his food away at meals\nand so on, till the Supreme Pontiff orders all the bells in Rome to be\nrung in order to exorcise the evil spirits by whom he is haunted. At\nConstantinople they befool the Sultan with magic tricks. Mephisto\ndisguises himself in the official robes of the Pope and persuades the\nSultan that he is Mahomet (another cut at the Pope, as Antichrist),\nwhile Faust installs himself in the Sultan's palace and enjoys life and\nfinally floats up into the air and disappears. They then visit Egypt,\nIndia, Africa, and other places, including the Garden of Eden and\nBritain.\n\nBritain is described (rightly perhaps) as 'very damp--abounding in water\nand in metals....' 'Here also is to be found,' adds our chronicler, 'the\nstone of God, which Doctor Faustus brought thence.' What he means by the\nstone of God is, I suppose, the so-called Philosopher's stone--used for\nthe manufacture of money out of any worthless substance. Faust might\nhave found a good deal of this stone of God without leaving Germany and\nseems to have left a considerable amount of it behind in Britain.\n\nPart III of the Faust-book relates his 'feats of nigromancy at the\ncourts of Potentates' and elsewhere, and his 'terrible end and\ndeparture.' At Innsbruck, in the presence of Charles V. and his court he\nsummons up the shades of Alexander the Great and his consort, I suppose\nRoxana, the beautiful Bactrian princess. You may be interested to learn\nthat Alexander the Great was a 'well-built stout little man with a thick\nyellow-red beard, red cheeks, and eyes like a basilisk,' and that the\nold chronicler, quite after the fashion of the modern purveyor for\nladies' journals, informs us that Roxana wore a dress entirely of blue\nvelvet trimmed with gold pieces and pearls.\n\nThe following chapters strike one as hardly in the same key with the\nrest of the book. They relate feats which remind one rather of Baron\nMuenchhausen. Faust swallows up a wagon of hay and a team of horses that\nget in his way. He makes stag-antlers grow on the head of a\nnobleman--saws off his own foot to give it as security for a loan\nborrowed from a Jew (reminding one of Shylock and his 'pound of\nflesh')--treats students to wine magically procured (as in the scene in\nAuerbach's cellar in Goethe's poem)--cuts off people's heads and sends\nthem to the barber to be shaved, and then replaces them (a most useful\ninvention)--makes flowers appear in vases (like modern spiritualists or\nIndian jugglers)--and lets flowers and grapes flourish in his garden at\nChristmas-time. His most important feat is summoning up (as he does in\nGoethe's poem) the shade of Helen of Troy. You will wish for a\ndescription of Helen--at least of her dress. She appeared in a splendid\nrobe of black-purple ... her hair, of a glorious golden hue, hung down\nto her knees--she had coal-black eyes, a lovely face, and a round head,\nher lips red as cherries, with a little mouth and a neck like a white\nswan, cheeks red as a rosebud, and a tall straight figure.\n\nA fit of remorse now seizes our magician. He is visited by a pious old\nman who nearly persuades him to repent and break his bond with the\ndevil. But Mephisto is too cunning for him, and induces him to sign a\nnew compact with his blood, promising to procure him Helen. For (as is\nalso the case in Goethe's poem) Faust himself has fallen violently in\nlove with the phantom that he had raised. By the help of Mephistopheles\nHelen herself--or one of her 'doubles' which play a part in Greek\nmythology--is summoned up, and lives with Faust as his wife. (At his\ndeath she, and their son, Justus Faust, disappear.)\n\nIn the last year he is overwhelmed with terrible despair, which is\ndeepened by the mockeries of the demon. On the last evening he invites\nhis friends to supper at the village Rimlich, near Wittenberg. After the\nsupper, he addresses his companions in a speech of intense and pathetic\nremorse, praying that God will save his soul though his body is forfeit\nto the devil. He tells them that at the stroke of twelve the demon will\ncome to fetch him. He begs them to go quietly to bed, and not to be\nalarmed if they hear a great uproar. At midnight a mighty wind sweeps\nover the house, and a terrible hissing is heard as of innumerable\nserpents. Faust's cries for help gradually die away. They rush into the\nsupper room and find him torn to pieces--eyes, brains, and teeth\nscattered in all directions. 'After this,' says our chronicler, 'it was\nso uncanny in the house that no man dared live in it. Doctor Faust also\nappeared in person to his Famulus (assistant) Wagner by night, and\nrelated to him many still more weird and mysterious things.... And thus\nendeth the whole and truthful Historia and Magic of Dr. Faust, from\nwhich every Christian man should take warning, and specially those who\nare of a presumptuous, proud, curious and obstinate mind and head, that\nthey may flee from all Magic, Incantation, and other works of the devil.\nAmen! This I wish for each and every one from the ground of my heart.\nAmen! Amen!'\n\nThe great popularity of this original Faust-book led to the publication\nof many other versions of the story. In the very next year a Faust-book\nin rime appeared. In some of these versions Mephisto has a very bad time\nof it, Faust setting him all kinds of impossible tasks--such as writing\nthe name of Christ or painting a crucifix, or taking him on Good Friday\nto Jerusalem--until the demon begs for his release, offering to give\nback the written compact. In Strassburg at a shooting competition\nFaust's magic bullet strikes Mephisto, who 'yells out again and again'\nin pain. In a Dutch version, where the demon has the name 'Jost,' Faust\namuses himself by throwing a bushel of corn into a thorn hedge late at\nnight, when poor 'Jost' is tired to death, and bids him pick up every\ngrain in the same way as in the old story Venus vents her malice on\nPsyche. The most important German version was that by Widmann--an\namplification of the old Faust-book. There also appeared a life of\nFaust's Famulus (assistant), Christopher Wagner, whom the devil attends\nin the form of an ape. Of one of these versions (I think Widmann's)\nthere appeared about 1590 an English translation, which was\nsupplemented by various English ballads on the same subject, and it was\nan Englishman--Shakespeare's great contemporary, the poet Christopher\nMarlowe--who was himself, as you know, a man of Faust-like temperament,\nand not unlike him in his fate--being killed in a drunken brawl--who\nfirst _dramatized_ the story. His brilliant and lurid play, 'The\nTragical History of Dr. Faustus' follows very closely most of the\ndetails given in the German Faust-books. Its poetical beauties (and they\nare many) are unfortunately, as Hallam rightly remarks, intermingled\nwith a great deal of coarse buffoonery. Possibly he had to consult the\ntaste of his public in introducing such a large ingredient of this\nbuffoon element--taken from what I called the Muenchhausen portion of the\nold legend. Patriotic German commentators sometimes deny that Goethe\nknew Marlowe's play (though he knew Shakespeare well), but I think there\nis no doubt that the opening monologue of Marlowe's play inspired the\nmore famous, though scarcely finer, opening scene of Goethe's drama.\n'Theology, adieu!' Faustus exclaims, taking up a book of magic--\n\n    These metaphysics of magicians,\n    And necromantic books are heavenly ...\n    All things that move between the quiet poles\n    Shall be at my command--Emperors and kings\n    Are but obey'd in their several provinces,...\n    But _his_ dominion that excels in _this_\n    Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man.\n    A sound magician is a mighty god.\n    Here, Faustus, tire thy brains to gain a deity.\n\nHis agony of despair at the last moment is very finely depicted, and\nthere are not a few passages in the play which, for beauty of expression\nand thought, are truly Shakespearean. Some of you possibly know the\nmagnificent lines addressed to Helen of Troy, which begin thus:\n\n    Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,\n    And burnt the topless towers of Ilium--\n\nand the lines which seem to allude to the identification of Helen with\nSelene, the Moon-goddess--\n\n    O thou art fairer than the evening air\n    Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.\n    Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter\n    When he appeared to hapless Semele;\n    More lovely than the monarch of the sky,\n    In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms.\n\nMarlowe's play was written about 1590. Now it is asserted that about\nthis time English travelling players visited Germany, and perhaps\nintroduced there Marlowe's drama; and possibly _this_ was the beginning\nof the German 'puppet-plays' on the subject of Faust. I do not feel\nquite sure about it. Faust puppet-plays seem to have existed almost\nsimultaneously with the old Faust-books, and there is even the trace of\none _before_ the oldest Faust-book; at least in the archives of the\nUniversity of Tuebingen an entry has been unearthed in which in 1587 two\nstudents were condemned to the 'Karzer,' or 'Black hole,' for composing\na 'Puppenspiel' on the subject of Dr. Faust.\n\nIn these Puppenspiele (puppet-shows) the comic element largely prevails\nand is kept up by the comic figure Kasperle, a buffoon or 'Hanswurst' of\nthe same character as the Italian Pulcinella, the progenitor of our\nEnglish 'Punch.' As might be expected, these puppet-shows introduced a\ngreat many variations of the story, most of them a mixture of tragedy\nand comedy. In one a raven brings the contract from the devil for Faust\nto sign. One of the conditions is that for twenty-four years Faust is\nnot to _wash_, or comb his hair or cut his nails--like Struwwelpeter.\nWhen Faust attempts to embrace Helen she turns into a snake--and when\nhe is finally carried off by the demon, Kasperle gives (what Euripides\nis accused of sometimes giving) a comic turn to the tragic catastrophe\nby cracking jokes.\n\nFor about 150 years after Marlowe no attempt was made by any German\nwriter to use the subject artistically. Indeed during this period\nGermany, devastated by the Thirty Years War and afterwards by French\nliterary influence, produced no literature worthy of mention, and what\nwriters it possessed were not such as would be likely to perceive the\npoetic material contained in a popular puppet-show.\n\nBut the legend had taken firm hold on the popular imagination and when\nGoethe was a boy (he was born in 1749) he saw a Faust-puppenspiel at\nFrankfurt, and afterwards at Strassburg, when he was a young man of\nabout twenty. He was at this time evidently also familiar with the old\n_Faustbuch_ itself, and it was then (about 1770) that he seems to have\nfirst conceived the idea of the drama which he sealed up as finished\nsixty years later (1831), a few months before his death.\n\nGoethe's early manhood coincided with that period in German thought and\nliterature which is called the 'Sturm und Drang'--that is the Storm and\nStress--period. The subject of Faust, the attraction of which had for so\nlong lain dormant, appealed powerfully to the adherents of this new\nschool, with their gospel of the divine rights of the human heart and of\ngenius, with their wild passionate graspings after omniscience, their\nTitanic heaven-storming aspirations after the unattainable and\nindescribable. Lessing himself, though never a genuine Sturm und Drang\nwriter, began a _Faust_, and when Goethe began his drama a new _Faust_,\nit is said, was being announced in almost every quarter of Germany.\nSomeone (I think it was Bayard Taylor) has reckoned up _twenty-nine\nFausts_ that were actually published in Germany while Goethe was working\nat his. Some one else (I think Ludwig von Arnim) has said: 'Not enough\n_Fausts_ are yet written. Every one should write one. There is as much\nroom for them as for straight lines in the circumference of a\ncircle'--which, as you know, is conceived by geometricians to consist of\nan infinite number of infinitely small straight lines.\n\nNone of these twenty-nine _Fausts_ are, as far as I know, of any value\nor interest except the unfinished play by Lessing, which, as it was\nwritten while Goethe was still a lad, and seems to have been only\nprinted in fragments at some later date, can hardly come under Bayard\nTaylor's list. From these fragments it is clear that Lessing meant to\nsave Faust's soul, if not his body. Toward the end of the last act, when\nthe devils are triumphing over their apparent victory and the possession\nof Faust's body, a voice from heaven is heard: 'Triumph not! Ye have not\nwon the battle over human nature and human knowledge. The Deity has not\ngiven to man the noblest impulses in order to bring him to eternal\nmisery. What you imagine you possess is only a phantom.'\n\nAlthough we cannot tell for certain how Lessing meant to solve the\nproblem, I think it is almost certain that Faust was to work out his own\nsalvation amidst error and sin much as Goethe's Faust does. Before\nattempting (as I shall do on other occasions) to give a description of\nthe two parts of Goethe's poem--in attempting which I shall keep as\nclosely as I can to the original and to questions arising directly out\nof Goethe's own words--it will be useful and interesting to consider the\nmost striking points in which his _Faust_ differs essentially from all\nits predecessors, except perhaps Lessing's--and Lessing, although he\nstruck the new chord, did not resolve it. But this is a subject\ninvolving many and far-reaching questions, which, if they are to be\nsolved at all, are not to be solved by theory and dogma. I shall\ntherefore endeavour to state the case as simply and as objectively as\npossible, avoiding metaphysical cobwebs and giving the _ego_ and\n_non-ego_ a wide berth. I shall content myself in most cases with merely\npointing out the doctrine apparently preached by Goethe (reminding you\nnow and then that even his own seemingly categorical dogmas were to him\nmerely temporary forms of thought) and shall prefer to let much justify\nits existence as an integral part of the living whole rather than to\nexpel the life by dissection and to examine the dead parts through the\nspectacles of a commentator.\n\nIn my next lecture, after a brief consideration of these preliminary\nquestions, I shall try to describe the first Part of the drama--a task\nof more than common difficulty, for the story is familiar to many of\nyou, and a bare rehearsal of the action of the play would prove\nwearisome, while any attempt to communicate by means of translation the\nwonderful beauty and force of Goethe's words is almost bound to prove a\nfailure.\n\nIn my third lecture I shall treat the second Part of the play, the\naction of which is far less generally known. It is not often read and is\nseldom seen on the stage. Indeed it was not written for the stage and\ndoes not lend itself to ordinary dramatic and operatic purposes, as the\nfirst Part does with its Gretchen episode. It embraces too huge a\ncircle--a circle within which lie all the possibilities of human life.\nIt is a kind of framework for all the tragedies and comedies and epics\nand lyrics ever conceived, or conceivable. What unity it has is not of\nthe stage or the dramatic Unities. But nevertheless on the stage it\nproduces effects which impress one with the sense of an imaginative\npower of an extraordinary kind.\n\nMany years ago, when it was being given in the Dresden theatre, I saw it\nperformed four or five times and I remember noticing the wonderful\nattraction that it had for minds of a certain class (and no very limited\nclass), while for others it was just such an unintelligible farrago of\nwearisome 'Zeug' as Dante's _Paradiso_ and Beethoven's _Ninth Symphony_\nare sometimes said to be.\n\nI believe it is the fashion with certain critics (especially with those\nwho have read it superficially) to speak of the Second Part of Goethe's\n_Faust_, as they do of _Paradise Regained_, with a certain\nsuperciliousness, as a superfluous excrescence, the artistically almost\nworthless product of a mind that had worked itself out and had exhausted\nits 'Idea.'\n\nThe truth is that the _first_ Part is only the merest fragment, and\nalthough the subject of Faust is endless and can never be fully treated\nin any one work of art (the whole poem 'necessarily remaining a\nfragment,' as Goethe himself said), nevertheless the _second_ Part does\nsolve in one of many possible ways the problem left unsolved by the\nfirst half of the poem, namely the final attainment of peace and\nhappiness by the human soul, and it is one of the noblest monuments of\nthe human intellect existing in the literature of the world.\n\nIndeed it is, I think, still more than this. It is not merely a monument\nof intellect but of poetic imagination, and I am much inclined to\nbelieve that the _Paradiso_ of Dante and the Second Part of Goethe's\n_Faust_ are perhaps two of the best, the most infallible, touchstones\nfor discovering whether we really possess what Tennyson calls the\n'poetic heart'--not a trumpery aesthetic imitation but the genuine\narticle.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nGOETHE'S 'FAUST'\n\nPART I\n\n\nWhen Goethe wrote to Schiller announcing his intention of once more\ntaking up his unfinished _Faust_, Schiller replied: 'My head grows dizzy\nwhen I think of it. The subject of Faust appears to supply such an\ninfinity of material.... I find no circle large enough to contain it.'\nGoethe answered: 'I expect to make my work at this barbarous\ncomposition, this _Fratze_ [_i.e._ caricature, as he often called it]\nless difficult than you imagine. I shall throw a sop to exorbitant\ndemands rather than try to satisfy them. The whole will always remain a\nfragment'--a fragment, perhaps we may add, in the same sense as even the\ngrandest Gothic building may be said to be only a part of the infinitely\ngreat ideal Gothic structure which will never be seen on earth, whereas\nin the Parthenon we have, or rather the Athenians in the days of\nPericles had, something final and complete, something which will\ntolerate no addition.\n\nIf Schiller's head grew dizzy at the thought of a Faust-drama, I fear\nthat one who has no Schiller head on his shoulders may prove a poor\nguide among the precipices and ravines of Goethe's life-poem, where the\npath is often very steep and slippery. But I will do my best; and\nperhaps I had better treat our subject as I proposed. At first I shall\npoint out a little more distinctly some of the characteristics which\ndistinguish Goethe's drama from the earlier versions of the story. Then\nI shall try to guide you steadily and rapidly through the action of the\nfirst Part, offering whatever comment may seem useful, and now and then\nperhaps asking you to step aside from the track in order to get a peep\nover some of the aforementioned precipices.\n\nAs we have already seen, one great difference between Goethe's _Faust_\nand many older versions of the story (including Marlowe's play, but\nexcluding Lessing's fragment) is the fact that the sinner is saved.\n\nShortly before his death, in 1832, Goethe wrote to Wilhelm v. Humboldt:\n'Sixty years ago, when as a young man I first conceived the idea of my\n_Faust_, the whole plan of it lay clearly before me.' From the first\ntherefore Goethe had conceived the second Part as integral to his poem.\nHe knew that, if he were to write a _Faust_ at all, Faust must be saved.\n\nWe have already arrived at the edge of one of those precipices of which\nI spoke--Faust must be saved. But what did Goethe mean, or, to ask a\nfairer question, what do we ourselves mean, by being _saved_? No formula\nof words seems able to provide us with a satisfactory answer. We can\nindeed use metaphors drawn from the universe of Time and Space--we can\nspeak of 'another world' and of a 'future life'--but as soon as we\nattempt to conceive such existence _sub specie aeternitatis_ our\nimagination fails: to use the metaphor of Socrates, we are dazzled by\nthe insupportable radiance of the eternal and infinite, and seek to rest\nour eyes by turning them toward shadows, reflexions, images: we accept\nthe beautiful image--the enigma (as St. Paul calls it) or allegory--of\na heaven in some far interspace of world and world.\n\nAs a poet, and especially as a dramatic poet, Goethe, if he treated the\nsubject at all, was compelled to accept some imaginative conception of a\nfuture life, and he could scarcely accept any other but that which was\nin keeping with the old legend--that heaven of angels and saints and\npenitents which was the converse of the legendary hell and its fiends.\nWhether however he was justified by the principles of true dramatic art\nin his attempt to depict his imaginative conception and to place on the\nstage a representation of heaven may be doubted. Certainly the effect of\nGoethe's picture, especially when seen on the stage, is such that one\ncannot but wish some other solution might have been devised, and one\nfeels as if one understood better than before why it was that\nShakespeare's dramatic instinct allowed no such lifting of the veil. You\nremember the last words of the dying Hamlet: 'The rest is silence.'\n\nThus far therefore we have come: by Faust being saved it is meant that\nhe escapes from the fiend and reaches heaven, reaches the 'higher\nspheres' of existence, as Goethe expresses it.\n\nBut the mere fact of his being saved does not form the essential\ndifference between this drama and earlier versions of the story. The\npoint of real importance is that he is not saved in a downward course by\nthe intervention of some _deus ex machina_, some orthodox counter-charm.\nHis course is not downward. His yearnings are not for bodily ease and\nsensual enjoyment but for truth--truth, not to be attained by\nspeculation or scientific research but by action and feeling--by\nstruggling onward through error and sin, and by gaining purification and\nstrength from trial and suffering and resistance to evil; so that evil\nitself is a means to his salvation and Mephistopheles an instrument of\ngood. Rising on the stepping-stones of his dead self he finds at last a\ncertain measure of peace and is in the end reunited to her whose earthly\nhappiness he had indeed ruined but whose love his heart has never\nforgotten. Indeed it is her love that is allowed to guide him ever\naright and to draw him up to higher spheres.\n\nWhen we once realize this we also realize how meaningless, or how\nindescribably less full of meaning, the poem would be without its second\nPart. And yet many, when they speak of Goethe's _Faust_, mean merely the\nfirst Part--or perhaps merely the little episode of Gretchen given in\nGounod's opera.\n\nI spoke of Goethe's gospel of self-salvation. Since doing so I have\nrecalled to memory some words of his which may seem to refute me. In\nreference to the song of the angels at the end of the poem he wrote as\nfollows: 'These verses contain the key of Faust's salvation: namely, in\nFaust himself an ever higher and purer aspiration, and from above\neternal love coming to his help; and they are in harmony with our\nreligious conceptions, according to which we cannot attain to heaven by\nour own strength unless it is helped by divine grace.'\n\nIt is true that _after death_ Faust's soul is saved from the demons and\nis carried up to heaven by God's angels, but Goethe's drama is mainly\nthe drama of Faust's earthly life, and from the 'Prologue in Heaven,'\nwhere, as it seems, the Deity undertakes _not_ to help him, but leaves\nhim to fight the battle entirely in his own strength, until the last\nmoment of his earthly existence there is no hint whatever, I think, of\nanything but self-salvation. On no occasion does he show the slightest\nsense of his own helplessness or of dependence on God's mercy. As for\n_remorse_, Goethe regarded it as a false emotion and as unworthy of a\nman. Although the perfect balance of his mind and his respect for much\nthat he could not himself accept saved him from the almost brutal\ninsouciance of such a form of expression he would probably have agreed\nwith Walt Whitman, who tells us that animals should serve us as an\nexample because 'they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their\nsins; they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.'\n\nLet us however dismiss criticism and turn to what Goethe as poet has\ngiven us--perhaps the noblest picture that dramatic art can give: that\nof a man striving onward and upward in his own strength, confronting (as\nGoethe says in reference to Shakespeare's plays) the inexorable course\nof the universe with the might of human will. We might take as the Alpha\nand Omega of _Faust_ these two lines from the poem:\n\n    Es irrt der Mensch so lang er strebt,\n\nand\n\n    Nur rastlos betaetigt sich der Mann,\n\nthe sense of which is that human nature must ever err as long as it\nstrives, but that true manhood is incessant striving.\n\nIt is a noble picture--perhaps the noblest conceivable. You remember\nBrowning's lines:\n\n    One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,\n      Never doubted clouds would break,\n    Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,\n    Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,\n                        Sleep to wake.\n\nIt will have already become evident what abstruse and insoluble\nquestions present themselves--rise, as it were, like ghosts of many an\nancient creed, on every side, as soon as we have crossed the threshold\nof this great Mausoleum of human thought and imagination. There is the\nspectre of the great Mystery of existence--of Life and Death and\nEternity; and that of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; and that of Evil\nitself--a phantom assuming at times such a visible and substantial shape\nand then dissolving into thin air as mere negation. And this\nMephistopheles--are we to regard him as a self-existent genuine demon of\na genuine Hell, or as our own mind's shadow? Is he something external,\nsomething that we can avoid, something that we can put to flight by\nresisting and get entirely free of--or has each one of us signed with\nthe blood of his human nature a compact with some such spiritual power,\nwith the demonic element within him, with that spirit of negation, of\ncynicism, of cold unideal utilitarian worldly-wisdom which mocks at\nfaith and love and every high and tender impulse--that part of our\nnature which, when some poor girl is sinking in the abyss, prompts us to\nanswer our heart's appeal with the sneer of Mephistopheles: 'She isn't\nthe first!'? Surely we can well understand the scorn and contempt which\nFaust feels for this demon companion of his. 'What canst thou, poor\ndevil, give me?' he exclaims--'Was the human spirit's aspiration Ever\nunderstood by such as thou!'\n\nThe real action of the play begins with the celebrated monologue of\nFaust. But this is preceded by a _Dedication_, by the _Prelude in the\ntheatre_, and by the _Prologue in Heaven_, added at various periods of\nGoethe's life. The _Prelude_ consists of a scene between a poet, a\ntheatrical director and a 'comic person.' It is merely a clever skit in\nwhich Goethe has a hit at the public and those who supply it with\nso-called drama. It has no organic connexion with the play. The\n_Prologue in Heaven_ begins with the songs of the three\nArchangels--sonorous verses of majestic harmony, like some grand\noverture by Bach or Handel. These verses are, I think, meant to intimate\nthe great harmonious order and procession of the natural and moral\nuniverse, as Pythagoras intimated them by his 'Music of the\nSpheres'--those eternal laws against which man, that tiny microcosm, so\nvainly strives.\n\nMephistopheles now enters, as in the Book of Job Satan is described\nentering God's presence, and, just as it happens in the Bible, the Lord\nasks him if he knows Faust, and, as in the case of Job, it is God\nhimself who not only allows but seems even to challenge the demon to try\nhis powers, foretelling his failure although promising no help to Faust.\n'It is left to thee,' says the Lord to Mephistopheles. 'Draw this\naspiring spirit from his fountain-head and lead him downward on thy\npath, if thou canst gain a hold upon him, and stand ashamed when thou\nshalt have to confess that a good man amidst his dim impulses is well\nconscious of the right way.'\n\nThat which distinguishes this scene from the similar scene in _Job_ is\nits irreverence. Indeed one might almost call it flippancy, and few\nwould deny that at times this flippancy is painful to them. The only\nexcuse that I can find for it is that, rightly or wrongly, Goethe meant\nus to be pained. I believe that here Mephistopheles represents\nespecially that element in human nature which is perhaps the meanest and\nmost disgusting of all, namely flippant and vulgar irreverence, and\nalthough we may not agree with John Wesley's definition of man as 'half\nbrute, half devil,' most of us will probably allow that a certain part\nof our nature (that part which Mephistopheles seems to represent) is\ncapable of an irreverence and a vulgarity of which the devil himself\nmight almost be ashamed.\n\nThe monologue with which the action of the play begins strikes at once\nthe new chord and gives us the leading motive--one so entirely different\nfrom that of the old legend--so indescribably nobler than that which is\ngiven in the opening monologue of Marlowe's play. But the old framework\nis still there. Faust renounces book-learning and betakes himself to\nmagic.\n\n    I've studied now philosophy,\n    Jurisprudence and medicine,\n    And e'en, alas, theology\n    From end to end with toil and teen,\n    And here I stand with all my lore,\n    Poor fool, no wiser than before.\n    No dog would live thus any more!\n    Therefore to magic I have turned,\n    If that through spirit-word and power\n    Many a secret may be learned\n    That I may find the inner force\n    Which binds the world and guides its course,\n    Its germs and vital powers explore\n    And peddle with worthless words no more.\n\nDisgusted with the useless quest after that science which deals only\nwith phenomena and their material causes, he turns to magic, as he does\nin the old legend; but it is here no diabolic medieval wizardry which\nshall enable him to summon the devil, for, as we shall see, Faust does\nnot summon the devil; Mephistopheles comes to him uncalled. Goethe has\nmerely used this motive of magic to intimate attainment of perfect\nknowledge of Nature through the might of genius--that revelation of the\ninner secrets of the universe which he himself, in what he calls the\n'Titanic, heaven-storming' period of his life, believed to be attainable\nby human genius in communion with Nature.\n\n'Nature and Genius' was the watchword of the followers of Rousseau and\nthe apostles of the Sturm und Drang gospel--a return to and communion\nwith Nature, such as Wordsworth preached and practised, and such as\nByron also preached but did not practise. Only to the human spirit in\nfull communion with the spirit of Nature, of which it is a part, are\nrevealed her mysteries. All other means, as Faust tells us, are useless.\n\n    Mysterious even in the open day\n    Nature within her veil withdraws from view.\n    What to thy spirit she will not display\n    Cannot be wrenched from her with crowbar or with screw.\n\nFaust turns from his dreary little world of books and charts and retorts\nand skeletons. He opens the window and gazes at the moon floating in her\nfull glory through the heaven. His heart is filled with a yearning to be\n'made one with Nature,' and in words which remind one of certain lines\nof Wordsworth he exclaims:\n\n    O might I on some mountain height,\n    Encircled in thy holy light,\n    With spirits hover round crags and caves,\n    O'er the meadows float on the moonlight's waves.\n\nThen, turning from Nature, he casts once more a look around his dreary\ncell:\n\n    Ah me, this dungeon still I see,\n    This drear accursed masonry,\n    Where e'en the welcome daylight strains\n    But duskly through the painted panes,\n    Hemmed in by many a toppling heap\n    Of books worm-eaten, grey with dust,\n    Which to the vaulted ceiling creep\n    Against the smoky paper thrust,\n    With glasses, boxes, round me stacked\n    And instruments together hurled,\n    Ancestral lumber stuffed and packed--\n    Such is my world! And what a world!...\n    Alas! In living Nature's stead,\n    Where God his human creatures set,\n    In smoke and mould the fleshless dead\n    And bones of beasts surround me yet.\n\nHe takes up the book of the Mystic astrologer Nostradamus and sees in it\nthe sign, or cipher, of the universe. As he gazes a wondrous vision\nreveals itself: the mystic lines of the cipher seem to live and move and\nto form one living whole; and in spirit he beholds the Powers of Nature\nascending and descending and reaching to each other golden vessels\nfilled with the waters of life and wafting with their wings blessing and\nharmony through the universe.\n\nAnd yet from this vision he turns away dissatisfied:\n\n    What wondrous vision! yet a vision only!\n    Where shall I grasp thee, Nature infinite?\n\nAnd from this cipher of the material universe, this vision of\ninconceivable immensity and infinite diversity, the human spirit which\nis not content with the dead bones of science and has entered into\ncommunion with Nature cannot but turn away dissatisfied--and even with\ndespair. Let me try to illustrate this in a more matter-of-fact way.\n\nThe human mind discovers, let us say, that the earth is not the centre\nof the universe; that the sun is larger than the 'bottom of a cask,' as\nin the old legend Faust discovered it to be; that there are other worlds\nquite as large as ours; that this earth of ours is a good deal smaller\nthan the sun and actually revolves round it; that even the sun itself is\nnot the centre of the universe but one of many suns--one of the\ncountless stars in that enormous starry wreath that surrounds us, and\nwhich we call the Milky Way. And we direct our telescopes to this Milky\nWay and find that what we took for nebula is for the most part an\naccumulation of countless millions of suns, each perhaps with its\nplanets. Then, as we sweep the sky with our glass, we discover\nnumberless little wreath-like spiral cloudlets, and find that they also\nare just such wreaths of countless millions of suns and solar systems,\nand that these seemingly tiny wreaths are revolving round some central\nbody or system, which itself must revolve round some other, and that\nagain round another ... until imagination fails. Is there, we ask, some\nfinal centre of all? some unmoved source of motion? Or is the material\nuniverse infinite?\n\nThen we turn our gaze in another direction and we find in the tiniest\ngrain of sand countless millions of molecules whose atoms (or\nelectrons), it is said, are in perpetual motion, revolving like the\nstars. Are then (we ask) the stars themselves nothing but molecules? Is\nthe whole material universe nothing but some grain of sand on the shore\nof the ocean of eternity?\n\nWe turn away dazzled, and we rest our eyes, as Socrates was wont to say,\non images, on reflexions. We try to make the mystery intelligible, or\nat least to pacify the reason by throwing it some such sop as the theory\nthat 'Size is only relative,' or that 'Space is only a mode of\nconsciousness' and therefore nothing real in itself. Or we lull the mind\nto sleep with imaginative metaphors and speak (as Plato did) of the\nCentral Fire of Hestia, the Hearth and Home of the Universe, or we call\nthat mysterious unmoved centre of all motion the Throne of God. Thus we\ntry to lay the spectre of infinite Space.\n\nOr consider Time instead of Space. In a single second how many waves of\nlight are supposed to enter the eye? About 500 billions I believe. And\nof these waves some 500 would not exceed the breadth of a hair. Now any\nbeing to whom these tiny waves were as slow as the ripples on a pond are\nto us would live our human life of three score years and ten in the\nhundredth part of _his_ second, while a being on one of those great\nworlds of space revolving but once in long aeons around its centre would\nlive--if his life were measured as ours--millions of our years. Here\nagain, in our dazzlement, we have recourse to metaphor and theory: we\nlay the spectre of Time by explaining it away as merely a 'mode' and as\ntherefore of no objective reality. In other words, dazed and outworn by\nthe incomprehensible infinities of Time and Space we console ourselves\nwith the theory that it is all a mere phenomenon, a projection of our\nown mind, and with Faust we exclaim\n\n    What wondrous vision! yet a vision only!\n\nand in the words of a still greater master of magic than Faust himself\nwe despairingly add that\n\n           like the baseless fabric of this vision,\n    The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,\n    The solemn temples, the great globe itself,\n    Yea all that it inherit, shall dissolve\n    And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,\n    Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff\n    As dreams are made of.\n\nFrom the cipher of the vast material universe, the Macrocosm, we turn\naway, as Faust did, with unsatisfied yearnings. Whither then shall we\nturn? Where shall we grasp Nature--not the empty vision, but the warm\nliving form? It is in our own heart that we find a refuge from the\ninfinities of Space and Time--in that human heart by which we live, in\nits tenderness, its joys, its fears. Here, and here alone, we find those\nultimate facts of existence which need no explanation, and which we\naccept just as they are, without any questionings. Here we find an\ninfinite universe--no less infinite than that of Space and Time--the\nuniverse of feeling.\n\nFrom the cipher of the Macrocosm Faust turns to that of the\nEarth-spirit, the spirit of human life and feeling. He is filled with a\nsudden, passionate yearning to share in the joys and the sorrows and the\naspirations and the strivings of humanity:\n\n    Thou, Spirit of the Earth, art nearer.\n    I feel my powers loftier, clearer,\n    I glow, as drunk with new-made wine;\n    New strength I feel out in the world to dare,\n    The woes of earth, the bliss of earth to bear,\n    To fight my way, though storms around me lash,\n    Nor know dismay amid the shipwreck's crash.\n\nHe calls upon this Earth-spirit, the Spirit of human life. He bends all\nthe might of his human will to draw him down from his sphere. 'Come!' he\nexclaims. 'Thou must! Thou must!--e'en should it cost my life!'\nEnveloped in blinding flame the Spirit of life appears. At the\napparition Faust cowers back terrified and turns his face away. But it\nis only for the moment. Stung by the contemptuous words of the phantom\nhe answers: 'Shall I yield to _thee_, Spectre of flame? 'Tis I, 'tis\nFaust, thine equal!' The human Mind claims equality with the Spirit of\nearthly life. But the phantom exclaims: 'Thou art akin to the spirit\nthat thou comprehendest--not to me!'--and disappears. Faust has yet to\nlearn a lesson that the mind of man can never learn of itself, the real\nnature and meaning of human life. But he has beheld the vision of life,\nhe has received the baptism of fire. Henceforth he is to fight his way\nthrough the storms of life and passion--to pass onward and upward and at\nlast to rise to 'higher spheres'; and amidst the fierce and insidious\nassaults of flesh and devil we shall see that he looks for strength and\nguidance to this Spirit that appeared to him in the blinding vision of\nliving empyreal flame.\n\nScarcely has the Earth-spirit vanished when, with a timid knock, there\nenters Faust's _famulus_, or assistant, Wagner. He has heard Faust's\nvoice and from its excited tones has concluded that he is practising\ndeclamation--reciting perhaps a Greek play. The poor amiable dryasdust\nliterary and scientific worm-grubber, whose maxim of life is _Zwar weiss\nich viel, doch moecht' ich Alles wissen_ (I know indeed a good deal, but\nI want to know _Everything_), wishes to profit from a lesson in\nelocution. A scene follows in which the contrast is graphically depicted\nbetween this half lovable, half contemptible scientific bookworm and\nFaust's Titanic heaven-storming aspirations after absolute truth. When\nhe is once more left alone, longing to face the mystery of life but\ncrushed by the contempt of the Earth-spirit, Faust is seized by despair.\nHe shrinks from encountering life, with its delusive joys, its pitiless\ninjustice and its arbitrary fate. He resolves to seek certainty--to\nsolve the riddle of life by death. As he moves the cup of poison to his\nlips there comes floating through the air the chime of bells and,\nperhaps from some near chapel, the hymn of Easter morn:\n\n    Joy unto mortals! Christ is arisen!\n\nHe pauses. Memories of childhood sweep over him, and he yields to the\nsweet voices that call him back from the threshold of the unseen.\n\n    Sound on sweet hymns of heaven! As gentle rain\n    My tears are falling. Earth hath me again.\n\nThus Faust escapes the cowardly act of suicide and gains new strength\nthrough the awakening, for a time at least, of the consciousness, which\nhad slumbered within him since the unreasoning days of childhood, that\nthere is that beyond life which alone makes life worth having.\n\nThe next scene shows us Faust already in contact with human nature, as\nrepresented by holiday crowds flocking out of the town into the woods\nand adjacent villages at Eastertide. Those who know Germany well will\nfeel the art with which Goethe at once transports us into the midst of a\nGermanic Feiertag in spring-time, with its bright sunlight, its throngs\nof townspeople streaming into the country--happy and merry without\nvulgar rowdyism; the smugly dressed apprentice and the servant-girl in\nher Sonntagsputz; the pert student and the demure Buergermaedchen with her\nnew Easter hat and her voluminous-waisted Frau Mama; the sedate\nschool-master or shopkeeper, leading his toddling child; sour-faced\nofficials; grey-locked and spectacled professors and 'town-fathers'\ndiscussing the world's news or some local grievance--all flocking\ncountryward, with some Waldhaus or Forsthaus Restaurant as their\nultimate goal. And those who know Frankfurt will recognize the scene at\nonce: up there above Sachsenhausen, on the road to the pine-woods and\nthe Jaegerhaus, from which one sees the whole city lying below one, with\nits great Dom and its medieval gates--the river Main gliding through its\nmidst and glittering away westward toward the Rhine; and in the far\nbackground the Taunus range and the dark Feldberg.\n\nAmidst this scene, externally still the more than middle-aged German\nprofessor (he must be fifty-seven or so) but with a heart full of newly\nwakened yearnings for human life with all its joys and passions, Faust\nwanders, trying to feel sympathy with all these multitudinous human\nbeings, attracted perhaps here and there, but evidently for the most\npart repelled and discouraged. He has yet to learn that a love for and a\nknowledge of humanity, such as he finally reaches, must begin with love\nfor and knowledge of _one_ human heart.\n\nAs he and Wagner return toward the city Faust gives vent to his pent-up\nfeelings--pours contempt on his own book-learning and wasted life and\nexpresses his yearnings for Nature, and the longing of his spirit for\nwings to fly away into the infinite:\n\n    For in each soul is born the rapture\n    Of yearning upward, and away,\n    When o'er our heads, lost in the azure,\n    The lark sends down her thrilling lay,\n    When over crags and pine-clad highlands\n    The poising eagle slowly soars,\n    And over plains and lakes and islands\n    The crane sails by to other shores.\n\nWhereat Wagner exclaims:\n\n    I've had myself at times an odd caprice,\n    But never yet such impulses as these.\n    The woods and fields soon get intensely flat,\n    And as for flight--I never longed for that!\n\nPoor dear Wagner, how well one seems to know thee, with thy purblind\nspectacled eyes peering into fusty books and parchments, or bending over\nthy crucibles and retorts! Truly a novel and interesting sight it would\nbe to see _thee_ assuming wings. In thy philosophy there is naught but\ndreams of elixirs of life or homunculi. Thy highest aspiration nowadays\nwould be to find the mechanical equivalent of thought--to prove that\nShakespeare's and Dante's imagination was due only to a slightly\nabnormal movement of brain-molecules--to find some method of measuring\nfaith, hope and charity in foot-pounds and thine own genius in electric\nvolts. Thou wouldst live and die, as other eminent scientists of these\nlatter days have done, in the certain hope and faith of demonstrating\nirrefutably that this curious phenomenon which we call 'life' is nothing\nbut the chemical action set up by the carbonic acid and ammonia of the\nprotoplasm.\n\nAs they walk and talk there appears a black dog ranging to and fro\nthrough a field, as if on the track of game. Ever nearer and nearer he\ncircles, and in his wake, as it appears to Faust, trails a flickering\nphosphorescent gleam. But Wagner ridicules the idea as an optical\ndelusion. _He_ sees nothing but an ordinary black poodle. 'Call him,' he\nsays, 'and he'll come fawning on you, or sit up and do his tricks, or\njump into the water after sticks.' The poodle follows them--and makes\nhimself at home by the stove in Faust's study.\n\nFaust has thus, after his first contact with the outer world of\nhumanity, returned once more to his cell--to the little world of his own\nthoughts and feelings. He finds himself once more amidst his piled-up\nbooks, his crucibles and retorts, his bones and skulls. He lights his\nlamp and feels the old familiar glow of intellectual satisfaction. _But\nthe poodle is there._ Faust has brought home with him something that\nwill now haunt him to the last moment of his life. There has been\nawakened in his nature the germ of that acorn (to use Goethe's metaphor\nwith regard to Hamlet) that will soon strike root and shatter the vase\nin which it is planted.\n\nAt present he is almost unconscious of this new presence. He is buried\nin thought, and his thoughts lead him toward the question of Revelation.\nHe is drawn to take up a Bible and turns, with a mind full of\nmetaphysical curiosity, to the passage 'In the beginning was the [Greek:\nlogos]--the Word.' More than once there comes from the poodle a growl of\ndisapprobation. Faust threatens to turn him out, and proceeds with his\nbiblical criticism.... 'In the beginning was the [Greek: logos].' How\nshall he translate [Greek: logos]? It cannot mean merely a 'word.' ... A\nword must have meaning, _thought_--and thought is nothing without\n_act_.... So this 'Word,' this 'Logos,' must be translated as Act or\nDeed.\n\nThese speculations are interrupted by horrible growlings, barks, and\nhowlings. As Faust looks towards the poodle he sees it rapidly swelling\nup into a monstrous form--huger than an elephant or hippopotamus, with\nfiery eyes and enormous tusks in its gaping mouth. He tries to exorcise\nthe phantom with 'Solomon's key' and other magic formulae, and at length,\nwhen he threatens it with the mystic formula of the Trinity, it\ndissolves into mist, and out of the mist steps forth Mephistopheles,\ndressed as a 'travelling scholar'--an itinerant professor, or quack\ndoctor.\n\nI find that some commentators accuse Goethe of dramatic inconsistency\nand of interrupting the sequence of the action, because he makes Faust\nfor a time return to his old speculations, and because Mephistopheles\ndoes not at once appear in the shape with which we are so familiar--with\nhis 'red gold-trimmed dress and mantle of stiff silk and the\ncock-feathers in his hat,' the type of the dissolute man-about-town of\nthe period. To me it seems very natural that, dispirited by his first\ncontact with the outer world--unable to feel any real sympathy with the\nrollicking and sleek self-sufficiency of that holiday crowd, Faust\nshould turn again to reflexion and speculation, and that when he is in\nthis depressed and metaphysical mood the demonic element in his nature\nshould first present itself--and that too in the disguise of an\nitinerant professor. For is it not the case that to many of us the devil\n_has_ come first just at such a time and in just such disguise?\n\nQuestioned as to his name and personality, Mephisto defines himself (he\ntoo being in a metaphysical mood) as 'the spirit of negation,' and as 'a\npart of that power which always wills evil and always works good'--'a\npart of that darkness which alone existed before the creation of\nlight'--and he expresses the hope that, as light is dependent for its\nexistence on the material world, both it and the world will ere long\nreturn to chaos and darkness. I have already touched upon this question\nof Evil as merely negative--merely a part of the whole--and will not\ndetain you further over it.\n\nMephistopheles now wishes to take his leave, promising to visit Faust\nagain. 'Visit me as you like,' says Faust, 'and now--there is the\nwindow! there's the door! or the chimney is at your service.' But the\ndevil must go out by the same way as he has entered, and on the\nthreshold to keep out evil spirits Faust has painted a mystic pentagram,\na figure with five points, the outer angle of which, being inaccurately\ndrawn, had left a gap through which Mephisto had slipped in; but being\nonce in, as in a mouse-trap, he cannot get out again.\n\nAs Faust now seems inclined to keep him prisoner, Mephistopheles summons\nspirits, who sing Faust to sleep. Then he calls a rat to gnaw a gap in\nthe pentagram, and escapes.\n\nWhen, in the next scene, Mephistopheles again appears, Faust is in a\nvery different state of mind, and Mephistopheles is also in a different\nshape. He is decked out with silken mantle and with cock-feathers in his\nhat, ready for any devilry. Faust is in the depths of morbid despair and\nbitterness at the thought of life:\n\n    'What from the world have I to gain?--\n     _Thou must renounce! renounce! refrain!_\n     Such is the everlasting song\n     That fills our ears our whole life long ...\n     With horror day by day I wake\n     And weeping watch the morning break\n     To think that each returning sun\n     Shall see fulfilled no wish of mine--not one.'\n\nHe vows he would rather die. 'And yet,' sarcastically remarks Mephisto,\n'some one a night or two ago did not drink a certain brown liquid.'\nStung by the sarcasm, Faust breaks out into curses against life, against\nlove and hope, and faith ... and 'cursed be patience most of all!'\n\nHere is the devil's opportunity. 'Life is yours yet, and all its\npleasures. Of what's beyond you nothing know. Give up all this morbid\nthinking, these dreams and self-delusions! Be a man! Enjoy life! Plunge\ninto pleasures of the senses! I will be your guide and show you the life\nworth living!'\n\nIn an ecstasy of embitterment and despair, though fully conscious that\nsuch a life can never bring him satisfaction and happiness, Faust\nexclaims: 'What wilt _thou_, poor devil, give me? Was the human spirit,\nin its aspirations, ever understood by such as _thou_?... And yet--hast\nthou the food that never satiates--hast thou red gold--hast thou love,\npassionate faithless love--hast thou the fruits that rot before one\nplucks them--hast thou the fruits of that tree of sensual pleasure which\ndaily puts forth new blossoms--then done! I accept.' 'But if,' he adds\n(and, alas, I must give merely the sense of these noble verses--for all\ntranslation is so unutterably flat)--'if I ever lay myself on the bed of\nidle self-content, if ever thou canst fool me with these phantoms of the\nsenses, if ever I say to the passing moment, _Stay; thou art so\nfair!_--then let my life be ended. This wager I offer thee.' 'Topp!'\n('Done!') exclaims Mephistopheles; and, as you know, the compact is\nsigned by Faust with his own blood.\n\nYou will observe that here there is no mention, as in the old legend, of\nany term of years--the compact is _for life_. Of what may come after\nthis life Faust makes no mention in his wager. He expressly says that\nall he cares about, all he can know, is _this_ life, and that he will\nhear nothing about any future life. This may be agnosticism or whatever\nelse we like to call it, but it is not formally selling one's soul, with\nor without one's body, for a _future_ life and for all eternity.\n\nMoreover Faust has _not_ summoned the devil. The devil has come to\nhim--is indeed a part of him. He does _not_ league himself with a\nhell-fiend for the sake of worldly power or fame or sensual enjoyment,\nof which he speaks with contempt. He only offers to come forward into\nthe battle of life and of passions to test the nobler powers and the\ndeeper beliefs and the yet dim aspirations of his better nature against\nthe powers of evil, against what he calls the 'cold devil's-fist' of\nnegation and cynicism and disbelief, against the brute within the man.\n\n    Thou hearest me! I do not speak of joy--\n    I dedicate myself to passion--pleasure--pain--\n    Enamour'd hate, and rapture of disdain.\n    What's highest or what's lowest I will know,\n    And heap upon my bosom weal and woe.\n\nFootsteps are now heard approaching. It is one of Faust's scholars.\nFaust 'has no heart to meet him'--and no wonder. He goes; and\nMephistopheles, throwing around him Faust's professorial mantle and\nplacing the professorial cap upon his head, awaits the scholar. The\nscene which ensues, in which Mephisto gives the young aspirant for\nknowledge his diabolic advice and his diabolic views on Science, Logic,\nMetaphysics, Medicine and even Theology--would offer ample material for\na very long course of lectures; but as it is one which is not closely\nconnected with the main action of the play it will have to be omitted.\nThe scholar retires--his poor young head whirling round like a\nmill-wheel with the advice he has received and carrying away his album,\nin which the devil has inscribed his favourite text 'Ye shall be as\ngods, knowing good and evil.' Then Faust re-enters, Mephistopheles\nspreads out his silken cape, and on it the two fly away through the air\non their adventures--first through the small and then the greater\nworld--first the world of personal feelings and passions, then the\ngreater world (is it really greater?) of art and politics and Humanity.\n\nFaust had said, as you remember,\n\n    What wilt thou, poor devil, give me?\n    Was the human spirit, in its aspirations\n    Ever understood by such as thou?\n\nThis is the leading motive of all that follows. With ever-deepening\ndisgust and contempt Faust, in his quest for truth through the jungles\nand quagmires of human passions, follows his guide. If ever Faust seems\nto catch sight of any far-off vision of eternal truth and beauty--as he\ndoes at times in his love for Gretchen, and again in his passion for\nideal beauty in Helen, and once again in that devotion to the cause of\nHumanity which finally allows him to express a satisfaction in life, and\nthus causes his life to end--if ever Faust shows any sign of real\ninterest or satisfaction, it is just _then_ that Mephistopheles displays\nmost clearly his utter inability to understand the 'human spirit in its\naspirations'; and it is _then_ that he shows most plainly his own\ndiabolic nature, pouring out his cynical contempt and gnashing his teeth\nat what he deems Faust's irrational disgust for all those bestialities\nthat seem to him (Mephistopheles) the sweetest joys of existence.\n\nHis very first attempt is a dead failure. He has carried Faust off\nthrough the air to Leipzig, and here he brings him into what to the\nMephisto-nature doubtless seems highly desirable and entertaining\ncompany--to the 'sing-song' (as I believe it is called in England) of\ntippling brawling students. The scene is Auerbach's Cellar, a well-known\nLeipzig 'Kneipe'--a kind of Wine taproom or Bodega. Among these brawling\ncomic-songsters Mephistopheles is in his element, and he treats them to\na comic ditty:\n\n    Of old there lived a king,\n      Who had a great big flea\n    As dear as any thing,\n      Or any son, could be ...\n\nand so on. We need not linger over the repulsive scene--so graphically\ndescribed.\n\nFinally Mephistopheles bores holes in the table and draws wine from\nthem.\n\nThe students come to handicuffs over it; they spill the wine, and it\nturns into flame.\n\nAmidst their drunken uproar Faust and Mephistopheles disappear.\n\nDuring the whole of this scene Faust _speaks no single word_, except a\ncurt but polite greeting on entering the Cellar and an appeal to\nMephistopheles to take him away from this 'scene of swinish bestiality.'\nHow different from the part that Faust plays in the old story where he\nhimself, not Mephistopheles, joins in the revelry and buffoonery!\n\nAuerbach's Cellar existed till lately, though the house above it had\nbeen rebuilt. It was the original 'Keller' that is mentioned in the old\nlegend. In it were to be seen two old pictures (with the date 1525). One\nrepresented Faust sitting at table with students; in the other he is\nflying off through the door astride on a wine cask.\n\nA weird scene now ensues: the Witches' Kitchen.\n\nFaust had asked how it was possible for him, the thought-worn\ngrey-haired professor, to care for, or take part in, what Mephistopheles\nlooked upon as 'life.' Mephistopheles therefore takes him to a witch,\nfrom whom he is to receive a magic draught that will 'strip off some\nthirty years from his body,' so that he becomes a young, man of, say,\nabout twenty-seven. This scene in the Witches' Kitchen is sometimes said\nto represent allegorically a long course of dissipation through which\nMephistopheles takes Faust, and which of course could not be represented\notherwise without extending the action of the play beyond all reasonable\nlimits. It is true that, after the draught Faust's character seems\nconsiderably changed for the worse. He develops a recklessness and a\nlicentiousness which scandalize even Mephistopheles himself, who tells\nhim that he is 'almost as bad as a Frenchman.'\n\nWhether we should understand it thus, or not, I do not feel quite sure,\nbut anyhow we have in future--to the end of the first Part--to take into\naccount the fact that, although loathing all such swinish sensuality as\nthat of tippling students, and hating all forms of mean selfishness and\ncunning and hypocrisy, Faust is (as so often is the case with otherwise\nnoble and lovable men) open to assault at that point where, as nowhere\nelse, the sensuous and ideal in our human nature seem to touch and\ncoalesce.\n\nWhen they enter the Witch is not at home. In the midst of the kitchen is\na large cauldron, and at its side, skimming it and seeing that it does\nnot run over is a Meerkatze--a kind of female ape. The Meerkater, or\nmale ape, squats by the fire, warming himself, and near by are several\nyoung apes. Mephistopheles is enraptured at the sight of the 'tender\npretty beasts,' but Faust finds them more disgusting than anything he\nhas ever seen.\n\nThe apes perform all kinds of antics and chatter a weird medley of half\nsense, half nonsense, in which one can dimly discern satirical allusions\nto various forms of the literary, political, and religious cant of\nGoethe's generation.\n\nThe animals enthrone Mephistopheles in a chair, give him a feather brush\nfor a sceptre, and offer him a broken crown, which he is to glue\ntogether with 'sweat and blood.' It is like some horrid nightmare. We\nfeel as if we were going mad; and so does Faust himself. But suddenly he\ncatches sight of a magic mirror, in which he sees a form of ravishing\nbeauty--not that of Gretchen or Helen, but some form of ideal\nloveliness. He stands there entranced.\n\nBut at this moment the cauldron boils over. A great flame shoots up the\nchimney. With a scream the witch comes clattering down, and launches\ncurses at the intruders--not recognising the devil in his costume as\nmodern roue. He abuses her roundly and tells her that his horns, tail\nand cloven hoof are gone out of fashion, modern culture having tabooed\nthem; and he forbids her to address him as Satan. That name is not\nup-to-date: he is now 'der Herr Baron.'\n\nWith a hocus-pocus of incantations she brews the magic draught, which\nFaust drinks. He is then hurried away by Mephistopheles back into the\nworld of humanity.\n\nWe have now come to the story of Margarete or Gretchen, which by many,\nperhaps by most, is looked upon as constituting the main subject of\nGoethe's _Faust_. It is doubtless the part which attracts one, which\nappeals to one's _heart_, more than any other, and it forms by itself a\npathetic little tragedy. The story itself is merely the old sad story of\npassion, weakness and misery, which has been told thousands of times in\nall ages and all languages.\n\nIt would be worse than useless to endeavour by any dissecting process to\ndiscover how by some act of creative power Goethe has inspired this\nlittle story with such wondrous vitality that there is probably in all\nliterature scarcely any character that lives for us, that seems so real,\nas Gretchen. Possibly to feel this one needs a knowledge of the original\npoem and an acquaintance not only with that Germany which is generally\nknown to the English visitor, but also with just that class of which\nGretchen is typical, and with just those little ways and those forms of\nexpression which are peculiar to that class and to the part of Germany\nto which Gretchen belonged. Every single word that she utters is so\nabsolutely true to nature that we seem to hear the voice of some real\nliving Gretchen, and can hardly believe that she merely exists in our\nimagination. This may perhaps be asserted of other poetic creations; but\nI confess that I know no other, not even in Shakespeare, that produces\non me quite the same kind of illusion. Homer's Nausicaa, the Antigone\nand Electra of Sophocles, Rosalind, Miranda, Imogen, Portia,\nCordelia--all these live for me, but not quite as Gretchen. Their\npresence I feel as something living, but a little visionary. Gretchen I\ncan see, and hear and almost touch. I need not recount at length her\nstory, for it is too well known. I need only recall to you memories of\ncertain facts and scenes: that first meeting in the street; the\nmysterious presents from the unknown lover; the meeting in the\nneighbour's garden and Gretchen's innocent prattlings about her home\nlife; Faust's growing passion, and the vain battlings of his higher\nnature; the insidious promptings and cynical ridicule of his demonic\ncompanion; the song of Gretchen at her spinning-wheel; her loving\nanxiety as to Faust's religious opinions, and his celebrated confession\nof faith; the sleeping draught by which Gretchen causes the death of her\nmother; her shame, remorse and despair; Gretchen kneeling with her gift\nof tear-sprent flowers before the Virgin's image; the return of her\nbrother, the young soldier, Valentin, and _his_ death--stabbed by her\nlover (or rather by Mephisto) at night beneath her window, and cursing\nher as he dies; the scene in the Cathedral; the pealing organ and the\nsolemn tones of the Dies Irae mingling with the terrible words of the\naccusing spirit, till Gretchen sinks fainting to the ground.\n\nAnd where is Faust? He has fled. The avengers of blood are on his track.\nHis selfish passion has been the cause of death to Gretchen's mother and\nbrother and has brought ruin on her--to end in madness, infanticide and\nthe block.\n\nI have often wondered whether the limitations of art might not allow the\npossibility of some drama on the same lines as _Faust_ in which he might\nbe saved by the purity and nobility of womanhood, as in the story of\nCyprian and Justina, instead of, as here, using the ruin of a poor girl\nas a stepping-stone in his career of self-salvation. Or, what if he had\nfelt such horror and remorse at her fate that he had broken his compact\nand freed himself from the demon? It will be said, perhaps, that this\nwould have been undramatic and that such a view is merely sentimental\nand subversive of all true art. But, once more, what if he had bravely\nstood by Gretchen, or had even shared her fate when she refused to be\nsaved by him?\n\nAnyhow, Goethe did not choose any of these methods; and if he had done\nso we should have had no second Part of _Faust_--nor indeed our next\nscene, the _Walpurgisnacht_.\n\nPursued not only by the avengers of blood but by the avenging furies of\nhis own conscience, Faust has plunged into a reckless life and\nexperiences those after-dreams of intellectual and aesthetic extravagance\nwhich so often follow such riotous living. This period--that of sensual\nriot and aesthetic dalliance--Goethe has, I think, symbolized by two wild\nand curious scenes, the _Walpurgisnacht_ and Oberon's Wedding, a kind of\n'after-dream' of the _Walpurgisnacht_.\n\nThe connexion of these scenes with the main action of the play has\npuzzled many critics, especially the curious Intermezzo which follows\nthe _Walpurgisnacht_, the 'Golden Wedding of Oberon and Titania,' a kind\nof dream-vision, or rather nightmare, in which besides the fairies of\nShakespeare's fairyland, besides will-o'-the-wisps and weather-cocks and\nshooting stars, numerous authors, philosophers and artists and other\ncharacters appear, including Goethe himself as the 'Welt-kind.' This\nscene was not originally written for _Faust_, but Goethe inserted it (I\nimagine) as an allegorical picture of over-indulgence in aestheticism and\nintellectualism (the 'opiate of the brain,' as Tennyson calls it)--a\nvice into which one is apt to be seduced by the hope of deadening pain\nof heart. Although not written for the play, this Intermezzo cannot be\nsaid to be superfluous, for the subject of _Faust_ is one that admits of\nalmost any imaginative conception that is descriptive of the experiences\nof human nature in its quest of truth.\n\nBut let us return to the _Walpurgisnacht_. On the 1st of May a great\nfestival was held by the ancient Druids, who on the preceding night used\nto perform on the mountains their terrible sacrifices, setting ablaze\nhuge wickerwork figures filled with human beings. Hence in later times\nthe superstition arose that on this night witches ghouls and fiends held\ntheir revels on the Brocken, or Blocksberg, in the Harz mountains. The\nname of Saint Walpurga (an English nun, who came to Germany in the\neighth century) became associated with this Witches' Sabbath, as the 1st\nof May was sacred to her. To this midnight orgy of the _Walpurgisnacht_\nMephistopheles takes Faust.... They are lighted on their toilsome ascent\nof the Blocksberg by a will-o'-the-wisp. A vast multitude of witches and\ngoblins are flocking to the summit; the midnight air resounds with their\nshrieks and jabberings; weird lights flash from every quarter, revealing\nthronging swarms of ghoulish shapes and dancing Hexen. The trees\nthemselves are dancing. The mountains nod. The crags jut forth long\nsnouts which snort and blow. Amid the crush and confusion Faust has to\ncling fast to his guide. Once the two get parted, and Mephistopheles is\nin anxiety lest he should lose Faust entirely, the idea being, I\nsuppose, that sometimes a human being outruns the devil himself in the\norgies of sensuality. At last they reach the dancers. Mephistopheles is\nhere in his element and joins in the dances with eagerness, bandying\njokes with the old hags and flirting with the younger witches. Nor does\nFaust seem at all disinclined to follow suit. He however desists\ndismayed when, as he is dancing with a witch of seductive loveliness, a\nred mouse jumps out of her mouth.\n\nAt length, when Mephisto, who finds it getting too hot even for him,\ncomes again to Faust, he discovers him silently gazing at a weird\nsight--one that might well have sobered him. 'Look!' says Faust:\n\n    'Look! seest thou not in the far distance there,\n     Standing alone, that child, so pale and fair?\n     She seems to move so slowly, and with pain,\n     As if her feet were fettered by a chain.\n     I must confess, I almost seem to trace\n     My poor good Gretchen in her form and face.'\n\nMephistopheles answers:\n\n    'Let her alone! It's dangerous to look.\n     It's a mere lifeless ghoul, a spectre-spook.\n     Such bogeys to encounter is not good;\n     Their rigid stare freezes one's very blood,\n     And one is often almost turned to stone.\n     Medusa's head, methinks, to thee is known!'\n\nBut Faust will not be convinced. It _is_ Gretchen--his 'poor good\nGretchen' as he calls her. And what is that red bleeding gash around\nher neck? What terrible thought does it suggest!\n\n    'How strange that round her lovely neck,\n     That narrow band of red is laid\n     No broader than a knife's keen blade!'\n\n'Quite right!' answers Mephistopheles with a ghastly joke--\n\n    'Quite right! I plainly see it's so.\n     Perseus cut off her head, you know.\n     She often carries it beneath her arm.'\n\nHe hurries Faust away. But soon these terrible presentiments are\nrealized. Faust learns--how we are not told--that Gretchen is in prison,\nand condemned to death on the scaffold; for in her madness--yes, surely\nin madness--she has drowned her own child.\n\nInstead of attempting to describe what follows, I shall offer a literal\nprose translation of some parts of the concluding scene, asking you to\nsupply by your imagination, as best you may, the power and harmony of\nGoethe's wonderful verse.\n\n\n\n_A gloomy day. Open country._\n\n_FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES. FAUST is speaking._\n\n     FAUST. In misery! In despair! Piteously wandering day after\n     day o'er the face of the earth,--and now imprisoned! That\n     sweet unhappy being shut up in a dungeon, as a criminal, and\n     exposed to horrible torments! Has it come to _this_!--to\n     this!... Treacherous, villainous spirit! and _this_ thou\n     hast concealed from me!... Stand there, stand, and roll thy\n     devilish eyes in fury! Imprisoned! In hopeless misery!\n     Delivered over to evil spirits and the heartless verdict of\n     mankind!... And _thou_ meantime hast lulled me with\n     loathsome dissipation ... thou hast hidden from me her\n     ever-deepening despair, and hast suffered her to perish\n     helplessly.\n\n     MEPH. She isn't the first.\n\n     FAUST. Dog! Abominable monster! Turn him, O Infinite Spirit,\n     turn this reptile back into his dog-shape ... that he may\n     crawl on his belly before me ... that I may trample the\n     abandoned wretch underfoot. Not the first!... Woe! Woe not\n     to be grasped by any human soul, that _more_ than _one_\n     should sink into this abyss of misery--that the _first_, in\n     her writhing agony before the eyes of the All-merciful,\n     should not have made satisfaction for the guilt of all\n     others. The misery of this _one_ pierces with agony my\n     deepest soul--and _thou_ calmly grinnest at the fate of\n     thousands!\n\n     MEPH. Here we are again, at the end of our wits!--where the\n     common sense of you mortals loses its hold and snaps. Why\n     dost thou make fellowship with us, if thou canst not carry\n     it through? Wilt thou fly, and art not secure from\n     dizziness? Did we thrust ourselves upon thee, or thou\n     thyself upon us?\n\n     FAUST. Gnash not thy ravening teeth at me! I loathe thee!\n     Mighty, glorious Spirit--thou who didst deign to appear to\n     me, and knowest my heart and soul, why dost thou fetter me\n     to this satellite of shame, who revels in evil and gluts\n     himself on destruction?\n\n     MEPH. Hast thou done?\n\n     FAUST. Save her, or woe to thee! The most terrible curse on\n     thee for thousands of years!\n\n     MEPH. I cannot loose the bonds of the avenger--cannot undo\n     his bolts. _Save her!_... Who was it that ruined her ... I\n     or thou?\n\n[_FAUST glares wildly round him._\n\n     MEPH. Wilt thou grasp after a thunderbolt? 'Tis well that it\n     was not given to you miserable mortals!...\n\n     FAUST. Take me to her! She _shall_ be free!... Take me to\n     her, I say, and liberate her!\n\n     MEPH. I will take thee to her--and do what I _can_ do.\n     Listen! Have I all power in heaven and on earth?--I will\n     becloud the jailer's senses. Then do thou get possession of\n     the keys, and lead her forth with human hand. I will keep\n     watch.--The magic steeds will be at hand ... I will carry\n     you off. So much lies in my power.\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\n     _Night. The open country. FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES\n     galloping past on black horses. They pass a group of\n     witches busy round their cauldron. They reach the prison.\n     Within is heard the voice of GRETCHEN singing an old\n     plaintive ballad. FAUST listens:_\n\n     'She dreams not' (he says) 'that her loved one is\n     listening, and hears her chains rattle and the straw as it\n     rustles.'\n\n[_He unlocks the prison door and steps in._\n\n     GRETCHEN (_crouching into her bed of straw_). Woe, woe--they\n     are coming! Bitter death!\n\n     FAUST. Hush! hush! I am come to free thee.\n\n     GRETCHEN (_grovelling before him_). If thou art a man, O\n     pity my distress!\n\n     FAUST. Thou wilt awaken the watchmen with thy cries. [_He\n     seizes her chain to unlock it._\n\n     GRETCHEN (_kneeling_). Who has given you, heads-man, this\n     power over me? You have come for me already at midnight.\n     Pity me, and let me live! Is to-morrow morning not soon\n     enough? And I am still so young--and I must die! Fair was I\n     too, and that was my ruin. Pity me! What harm have I ever\n     done to thee! I never saw thee before in all my life.\n\n     FAUST. Can I endure this misery?\n\n     GRETCHEN. I am wholly in your power. But let me first suckle\n     my child. I held it in my bosom all the night. They took it\n     from me, to vex me, and _now_ they say I've killed it....\n     And I shall never be happy any more!\n\n     FAUST (_kneels beside her_). He that loves thee kneels\n     before thee.\n\n     GRETCHEN. O let us kneel and call upon the saints. But ...\n     ah!... Look!... Under those steps, under the threshold, hell\n     is flaming. The Evil One is raging there so furiously.\n     Listen, how he roars and thunders!\n\n     FAUST. Gretchen! Gretchen!\n\n     GRETCHEN (_listening_). That was the voice of my friend!\n     Where is he? I heard him call.... Right through the howling\n     and uproar of hell, through the horrid laughter of the\n     devils, I recognized that sweet loving tone.\n\n     FAUST. It is I.\n\n     GRETCHEN. Thou!... O say it once more! (_Clasping him._) It\n     is! it is he! Where is now all my pain? Where is the anguish\n     of the dungeon and the chain?\n\n     FAUST. Come! Come with me!\n\n     GRETCHEN. O stay!... I am so happy at thy side.... What! not\n     one kiss!... Ah, woe, thy lips are cold. Where is all thy\n     love? Who has stolen it from me?\n\n     FAUST. Come! Follow!... Be courageous, loved one! Come with\n     me!\n\n     GRETCHEN. Thou art loosening my chain.... Know'st thou, my\n     friend, _whom_ thou art releasing?\n\n     FAUST. Come, come! Night is already on the wane.\n\n     GRETCHEN. My mother I have killed. I have drowned my child.\n     Was it not given to thee and to me? Yes, to thee too.... And\n     thou art really here! Thou! I can scarce believe it. Give me\n     thy hand--thy dear hand! _Ah_, but it is wet. Wipe it, wipe\n     it! It looks like blood upon it. O God, what hast thou done!\n     Put up thy sword, I beg thee! Put it away!\n\n     FAUST. Let the past be past. Thou art killing me.\n\n     GRETCHEN. No--_thou_ must live!... I will tell thee about\n     the graves that thou must provide to-morrow. Give mother\n     the best place, and brother close to her--and me a little on\n     one side ... only not too far away. And lay the little one\n     in my bosom.... No one else shall lie with me. To cling to\n     thy side, that was once such sweet blissful joy ... but I\n     seem no longer able ... as if I had to force myself, and as\n     if thou didst thrust me back.... And yet it _is_ thou, and\n     thou look'st so kind and good.\n\n     FAUST. If thou feel'st that it is I, then come!\n\n     GRETCHEN. Out _there_?\n\n     FAUST. To freedom!\n\n     GRETCHEN. I dare not. For me there is no hope more. What is\n     the use to flee? They are lurking after me.... It's so\n     wretched to have to beg, and that too with a bad conscience.\n     It's so wretched to wander about in strange lands ... and\n     they'll catch me all the same.\n\n     FAUST. I shall be with thee.\n\n     GRETCHEN. _Quick! Quick!_ Save it! Save my child!... Onward!\n     Right up that path alongside the stream ... over the bridge\n     ... there!... into the wood.... There! to the left! there,\n     where the plank lies--in the pond! Catch hold of it! Catch\n     it! It's rising!... It's struggling! Save it! save it!\n\n     FAUST. Bethink thyself! One step and thou art free!\n\n     GRETCHEN. If only we were over that hill!... There's mother\n     sitting there on a stone. (Ah! what was that, like an icy\n     hand, grasping my hair?) ... She sits and wags with her\n     head--she does not beckon or nod to us ... her head droops\n     so heavily. Yes, she slept so long, and she will wake no\n     more. She slept that we might have joy. Ah, those were happy\n     times!\n\n     FAUST. No entreaty avails--no words are of use. I shall have\n     to carry thee away. [_Seizes hold of her._\n\n     GRETCHEN. _Let me go!_ I will not suffer violence. Seize not\n     hold of me so murderously. All _else_ I did for _love_ of\n     thee.\n\n     FAUST. The day is dawning! Dearest! dearest!\n\n     GRETCHEN. _Day?_ Yes--the day is coming! The last day is\n     dawning! It was to have been my wedding day. Woe to my\n     wreath! But what is, must be! We shall see each other again\n     ... but not at the dance! The crowd is thronging.... One\n     hears no word.... The square, the streets, cannot contain\n     them.... The bell is tolling--the staff is broken.... They\n     seize me! They bind me fast! I am being dragged already to\n     the block! Each feels the axe at his own neck as its keen\n     blade flashes down on _mine_ ... and the world lies dark and\n     silent as the grave.\n\n     FAUST. O that I never had been born!\n\n     MEPH. (_appears at the door_). Come! or you are lost!...\n     Foolish, useless hesitation--delaying and gossiping! My\n     horses are shuddering and the morning twilight breaks.\n\n     GRETCHEN (_seeing MEPHISTOPHELES_). What is this that rises\n     from the ground? He! _He!_ Send him away! What does _he_\n     want at this holy spot?\n\n     MEPH. (_to FAUST_). Come! come! or I shall leave you in the\n     lurch.\n\n     GRETCHEN. I am thine, Father--save me! Ye angels, holy\n     cohorts, encamp around me and defend me! (_To FAUST._)\n     Heinrich, I shrink from thee in horror.\n\n     MEPH. She is judged.\n\n     VOICE FROM ABOVE. She is saved.\n\n     MEPH. _to_ FAUST. Here! to me!\n\n[_Disappears with FAUST._\n\n     [_A VOICE FROM WITHIN--the voice of GRETCHEN--calls on the\n     name of him she once loved--of him who has robbed her of\n     happiness and life itself. Fainter and fainter it calls,\n     then dies away into silence._\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nGOETHE'S 'FAUST'\n\n\nPART II\n\n\nThe picture which Goethe has given us in _Faust_ is in its main outlines\nthe picture of Goethe's own life. The Faust of Part I is the Goethe of\nearly days--of the Sturm und Drang period--the Goethe of _Werther's\nLeiden_, of _Goetz_, of _Prometheus_, of Gretchen, Lotte, Annette,\nFriederike and Lili; the Faust of the earlier scenes of Part II is\nGoethe at the ducal court of Weimar; the Faust of the _Helena_ is Goethe\nin Italy, Goethe at Bologna, standing in ecstatic veneration before what\nwas then believed to be Raphael's picture of St. Agatha, or wandering\nthrough the Colosseum at Rome, or writing his _Iphigenie_ on the shores\nof the Lago di Garda; and the Faust of the last act of all is Goethe\nreconciled to life and finding a certain measure of peace and happiness\nin his home, in the sympathy of his good-natured but unrefined wife and\nof others whom he loved, as well as in his scientific and philosophical\nstudies--until he seals up the MS. of his great poem and (to use his own\nwords) 'regards his life-work as ended and rests in the contemplation of\nthe past,' and then, a few months later, passes away from earth,\nmurmuring as he dies 'More light!'\n\nIt will be remembered that at the end of Part I Faust is dragged away by\nMephistopheles and leaves poor Gretchen to her doom. The fatal axe has\nnow fallen. Gretchen is dead.\n\nIn the opening scene of Part II we find him 'lying on a grassy bank,\nworn out and attempting to sleep.' A considerable time has evidently\nelapsed--a time doubtless of bitter grief and of the fiercest accusation\nagainst his evil counsellor, that part of his human nature which is\nrepresented by Mephistopheles and from which even in the last hour of\nhis life (as we shall see) he confesses it to be impossible wholly to\nfree himself:\n\n    Daemonen, weiss ich, wird man schwerlich los.\n    Das geistig-strenge Band is nicht zu trennen.\n\n'From demons it is, I know, scarce possible to free oneself. The\nspiritual bond is too strong to break.'\n\nBut it is not from grief or self-accusation that Faust is to gain new\ninspiration. It is from the healing power of Nature--in which Goethe\nbelieved far more than in remorse.\n\nThe scene amidst which Faust is now lying reminds one of some Swiss\nvalley. The rising sun is pouring a flood of golden light over the\nsnow-fields of the distant mountains and down from the edge of an\noverhanging precipice is falling a splendid cataract, such as the\nReichenbach or the Staub-bach, amidst whose spray gradually forms\nitself, as the sunshine touches it, an iridescent bow, brightening and\nfading, but hanging there immovable. Through this scene are flitting\nelfin forms--Ariel and his fays--singing to the liquid tones of Aeolian\nharps and lapping Faust's world-worn senses in the sweet harmonies of\nNature, tenderly effacing the memories of the past and inspiring him\nwith new hopes and new strength to face once more the battle of life.\n\nHe watches the rising sun, but blinded by excess of light he turns away,\nunable to gaze upon the flaming source of life, as erst he had turned\nfrom the apparition of the Earth-spirit. He seeks to rest his dazzled\neyes in reflected light (a metaphor used, as you may remember, also by\nSocrates in the parable of the Cave)--in the sun-lit mountain slopes,\nthe pine-woods and the glittering walls of rock, and in the colours of\nthe foam-bow suspended amidst the spray of the swift down-thundering\ncataract. In the ever-changing colours but motionless form of this bow\nhanging over the downward rush of the torrent Faust finds a symbol of\nhuman life suspended with its ever-varying hues above the stream of\ntime.\n\nIt is one of the truest and the most beautiful of all similitudes, this\nof pure sunlight refracted and broken into colours, symbolizing the One\nand the Many, the perfect and the imperfect, the eternal and the\ntemporal. Doubtless you are already thinking of Shelley's magnificent\nlines:\n\n    The One remains, the Many change and pass;\n      Heaven's light for ever shines, Earth's shadows fly,\n    Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,\n      Stains the white radiance of eternity.\n\nInto such variegated scene of reflected and refracted light Faust is now\nentering. He has passed through the 'little world' of personal\nfeeling--the world of the One, of the heart, and he is entering what\nMephistopheles calls the 'greater world' (for greater it appears to be\nfrom the Mephistophelean standpoint)--the world of the 'many,' of\npolitics and ethics and art and literature and society--the world whose\nhighest ideal is success, or, at the best, the 'greatest good of the\ngreatest number' and the evolution of that terrible ghoul the so-called\nSuper-man.\n\nIt is at the court of a German Kaiser that Faust first makes trial of\nthis so-called greater world. The young monarch has lately returned from\nItaly, where, as was once customary, he had been crowned by the Pope\nwith the iron Lombard crown. By his extravagances he has already emptied\nthe imperial coffers. His Chancellor, his Treasurers, his Paymasters are\nall at the verge of despair, and the Empire is on the brink of\nbankruptcy. To add to these misfortunes (perhaps the greatest of them in\nthe opinion of the young Kaiser) the court-fool has tumbled downstairs\nand has broken his neck; so at least it is believed; but cats and fools\nhave a way of falling on their feet, and this fool turns up again later.\nMeanwhile however Mephistopheles presents himself and is accepted as a\n_locum tenens_. To him the Kaiser turns for advice, and Mephistopheles\nproposes a clever expedient--meant as a satire on modern systems of\nfinance and State security. He suggests that, as the land belongs to the\nKaiser, and as in the ground there are doubtless great quantities of\nhidden treasures, buried in olden times, the Kaiser should, on the\nsecurity of these hidden and as yet undiscovered treasures, issue\n'promises to pay'--in other words paper money. This is done, and\nsuddenly the imperial court, in spite of its empty coffers, finds itself\nin affluence. The young Kaiser, delighted at the opportunity of\nindulging his taste for display and extravagance, decides on holding a\nmasquerade, such as he had lately witnessed at the Roman Carneval.\n\nThe description of this great court masquerade occupies a considerable\nspace in Goethe's drama, and is generally looked upon by the\ncommentators as one of the least successful parts of _Faust_. The\nquestion is, how are we to estimate _success_ in such a matter? For\nmyself I confess that I find this masquerade scene tedious and irksome,\nand can with difficulty read it through; but is not this just the effect\nthat Goethe wished to produce? Is not this just the effect that society,\nwith all its masquerades and mummeries, inevitably produces on any one\nwho, like Faust and with Faust's ideals and aspirations, is making trial\nof life in order to discover under what conditions it is worth living?\nInstead of telling us in so many words that Faust makes trial of all the\npomps and vanities of fashionable society and finds them utterly empty\nand ridiculous, fatal to all true life and disgusting to all true\nmanliness, Goethe gives us a picture of this tiresome foolish scene,\nwith all its absurdities and falsities and trumpery grandeurs, amidst\nwhich our friend Mephistopheles is so entirely in his element, and where\nFaust, with evident self-contempt and disgust, forces himself for a\nmoment to play a part. The various elements of fashionable society--and,\nas a contrast, certain very unfashionable elements--are introduced under\nthe disguise of these masked figures. Marketable belles and heiresses\nin the guise of flower-girls offer their charms and their fortunes in\nthe form of flowers and fruits to the highest bidder. The anxious mother\nis there with her daughters, hoping that among so many fools _one_ may\nbe at last secured. Idlers, parasites, toadies, club-frequenters and\ndiners-out are there in the masks of court-fools, and buffoons. The\nworking man, the trade-unionist and the striker, comes marching amidst\nthis scene of revelry, forcing his way through the ranks of consternated\nsociety, roughly asserting the sole nobility of labour and demanding the\noverthrow of the aristocrat and the capitalist--no new cry, as you see!\nIndeed it is as old as Rome and Athens and Babylon--as old, almost, as\nhumanity itself. Then appear the Graces, symbols of the refinements and\nelegancies of life, and the Fates, symbolizing the powers of Order and\nLaw, and the Furies, the types of revolution and war, and a huge\nelephant, the incorporation of the unwieldy State or Public, reminding\none of the 'Leviathan' of the philosopher Hobbes, and Thersites (that\nevil-tongued mischief-maker described by Homer) representing\nsociety-scandal and calumny. Then comes a chariot whose charioteer is a\nbeautiful boy, representing art or poetry. He is the same Euphorion whom\nwe shall meet later as the son of Faust and Helen, and identical with\nByron. On the chariot is enthroned Faust as Plutus the God of Money, and\nbehind him as groom or armour-bearer sits Mephisto, an emaciated\nhollow-eyed apparition denoting Avarice. Nymphs, Fauns, Satyrs and\nGnomes--types of the powers of Nature--attend the car and do homage to\nthe God of Money. The gnomes offer to show their master Plutus a\nsubterranean treasure-horde of molten gold. He approaches too close and\nhis beard catches fire. In a few moments an immense conflagration\nspreads through the crowds of revellers, which would have ended in a\nterrible catastrophe (such as had actually happened at the French court\nshortly before Goethe wrote this scene, and such as happened some\nfifteen years ago in Paris at some bazaar) had not Faust with the help\nof Mephistopheles extinguished the flames by the aid of magic.\n\nThe young Kaiser now demands from Faust that he shall give the court a\ndisplay of his magic arts. He commands him to raise the shades of Paris\nand Helen. Faust applies to Mephisto, but he professes himself unable to\nraise the shades of classical heroes and heroines. 'This heathen Greek\nfolk,' he says, 'have their own hell and their own devils. _I_ have no\npower over them. Still--there _is_ a means.' He then tells Faust that he\nwill have to descend to the 'Mothers,' 'die Muetter,' mysterious deities\n(mentioned by Greek authors) as worshipped in Sicily and dwelling in the\ninmost depths of the universe, at the very heart of Nature, beyond the\nconditions of Time and Space. He who will raise the shade of Helen, or\nideal beauty, must descend first to the 'Mothers'--must enter the realm\nof the spiritual, the unconditioned, the ideal, to which there is no\ndefined road, and to which even _thought_ cannot guide him. He must\nsurrender himself in _contemplation_ and sink to the very centre of the\nworld of appearances. Mephistopheles gives Faust a key, which glows and\nemits flames as he grasps it. Holding this key he will sink down to the\nrealm of the Mothers, where he will find a glowing tripod (the symbol\nof that Triad or Trinity which plays so large a part in the old\nPythagorean philosophy and in more than one religion). This tripod he is\nto touch with the key, and it will rise with him to the surface of the\nearth.\n\nThe imperial court is assembled. A stage has been erected. The court\nastrologer announces the play and Mephistopheles is installed in the\nprompter's box. All is in expectation and excitement. Then on the stage\nis seen rising from the ground the form of Faust attended by the tripod.\nHe touches the tripod with the glowing key. A dense mist of incense\narises, and as it clears away is seen--Paris. His appearance is greeted\nby the enthusiastic comments of the court ladies, young and old, and\ncriticized by the men courtiers--with evident jealousy. Helen then\nappears, and the comments and criticisms are reversed, female jealousy\nnow having its turn. Faust stands entranced at the loveliness of Helen.\nIn spite of the angry protests of Mephistopheles from the prompter's\nbox, who tells him to keep to his role and not to be taken in by a mere\nphantom of his own raising. Faust, unable any longer to control himself\nwhen Paris attempts to carry off Helen, rushes forward to rescue her. A\ngreat explosion takes place and all is darkness. Faust has fallen\nsenseless to the ground. Mephistopheles picks him up and carries him\naway--with contemptuous remarks.\n\nAt the beginning of the next act we find Faust lying, still insensible,\non his bed in his old room, where we first met him--his professor's\nstudy. His daring attempt to grasp ideal beauty has ended, as it often\ndoes end, and as it ended in Goethe's own case, in failure of a sudden\nand explosive nature. He is now to have an experience of a different\nnature. During the years while he has been making his first trial of the\nouter world, his old Famulus, Wagner, now professor in Faust's place,\nhas been devoting _his_ whole time and energies to realising that dream\nof science--the chemical production of life.\n\nIt is, says Professor Romanes, 'the dream of modern science that a\nmachine _may_ finally be constructed so elaborate in its multiple play\nof forces that it would begin to show evidences of consciousness and\nmind'--mind and motion being, according to certain modern scientists,\nidentical. Curiously enough a scientist of the same name--Wagner--who\nlived in the last century, did, like Faust's Famulus Wagner, in the same\nway devote his life to the production of a living organism--a\n'homunculus'--in the conviction, as he asserted, that 'in course of time\nchemistry is bound to succeed in producing organic bodies and in\ncreating a human being by means of crystallization'--an assertion not\nvery different from that of a still more trustworthy scientist, for\nProfessor Huxley himself has told us that he lived in 'the hope and the\nfaith that in course of time we shall see our way from the constituents\nof the protoplasm to its properties,' _i.e._ from carbonic acid, water,\nand ammonia to that mysterious thing which we call vitality or\nlife--from the molecular motion of the brain to Socratic wisdom,\nShakespearean genius, and Christian faith, hope and charity.\n\nIn the background of the stage we see Faust still lying insensible on\nhis bed. Mephistopheles comes forward muttering sarcastic comments on\nFaust's foolish infatuation. 'He whom Helen paralyzes,' he says,\n'doesn't come to his wits again so soon.' He then pulls the bell. The\nwindows rattle and the walls shake, as with earthquake. Wagner's\nterrified Famulus appears. He says that his master, the Herr Professor,\nhas locked himself up for days and nights together in his laboratory;\nthat he is engaged in a most delicate and important operation, namely\nthat of manufacturing a human being, and he really cannot be disturbed.\nMephistopheles however sends him back to demand admittance. Meanwhile he\ndons Faust's professorial costume, which he finds hanging in its old\nplace but infested with legions of moths, which buzz around him piping\nwelcome to their old mate. Then he takes his seat in Faust's\nprofessorial chair, and the same scholar enters to whom as a timid\n'Fuchs,' or freshman, Mephistopheles had in the first Part of the play\ngiven his diabolic advice as to the choice of a profession. The scholar\nis _now_, after a course of University education, a match for the devil\nhimself. He flouts poor Mephisto as a dried-up old pedant, not up to\ndate with the new generation's aesthetic and literary self-conceits, or\nwith its contempt for its elders--and for everything else except its own\nprecious self. 'Youth and its genius,' he exclaims, 'are the only things\nof value; as soon as one is thirty years of age he's just as good as\ndead ... and it would be far better if all people at thirty were knocked\non the head'; and he storms out of the room. Mephistopheles consoles\nhimself with the fact that the devil is old enough to have seen a good\nmany such new generations, with all their absurdities, their up-to-date\nfads and follies, pass away and give place to other forms of still more\nup-to-date and self-conceited absurdity.\n\nMephisto now enters the laboratory, where Wagner is intently engaged in\nwatching his chemical compound gradually crystallizing within a huge\nglass retort. As he watches, the outlines of a diminutive human being--a\nmannikin or 'homunculus'--become visible and rapidly gain distinct form.\nA tiny voice is heard issuing from the glass retort and addressing\nWagner as 'Daddy' and Mephistopheles as 'Cousin'; and it is to the\npresence of this 'Cousin,' we may infer, rather than to his scientific\n'Daddy' that the Homunculus really owes his existence. With the\nconnivance of Mephistopheles, the Mannikin, still in his glass retort,\nslips from the enamoured paternal grasp of Wagner, and floats through\nthe air into the adjacent room, hovering above Faust, who is still\nasleep on his couch.\n\nAs it hovers above the sleeper it begins to sing--to describe ravishing\ndreamland scenery--inspiring Faust with visions of sensuous loveliness.\nIt then bids Mephistopheles wrap Faust in his magic mantle and prepare\nfor an aerial flight.... 'Whither?' asks Mephistopheles. '_To Greece!_'\nis the answer: to the Pharsalian plain in Thessaly; and in spite of the\nprotests of Mephistopheles (who has no taste for the land of classic\nart) he is forced to obey. The sleeping form of Faust is borne aloft,\nthe Mannikin leading the way like a will-o'-the-wisp, gleaming within\nhis glass retort. '_Und ich?_' exclaims poor old Wagner in piteous\naccents. '_Ach, du!_' says Homunculus, '_Du bleibst zu Hause--!_' 'You\njust stop at home, and grub away among your musty manuscripts, and work\naway at your protoplasms and your elixirs of life.' Thus, guided by the\nHomunculus, Faust and Mephistopheles set forth on their aerial journey\nto ancient Greece--to the land where the ideals of art have found their\nhighest realization--in quest of Helen, the supreme type of all that the\nhuman mind has conceived as beautiful.\n\nIt is often asked, and I think _we_ may fairly ask, what Goethe meant to\nsymbolize by his Homunculus. You will have noticed that his material\ncomponents (as the carbonic acid and ammonia of Professor Huxley's\nprotoplasm) are supplied by his scientific 'Daddy,' but that the 'tertia\nvis,' that third power or 'spiritual bond' which combines his material\ncomponents, is supplied by the supernatural presence of Mephistopheles.\nI believe this Homunculus to be a symbol of poetic genius or\nimagination, which uses the material supplied by plodding pedantry--by\ncritical research, antiquarianism, scholarship, and science--slips from\nthe hands of its poor enamoured Daddy, and flies off to the land of\nidealism. Here, as we shall see, the Mannikin breaks free from his glass\nretort and is poured out like phosphorescent light on the waves of the\ngreat ocean.\n\nBut the quest for Helen, for ideal beauty, leads through scenes haunted\nby forms of weird and terrible nature--those forms in which the human\nimagination, as it gradually gains a sense of the supernatural and a\nsense of art, first incorporated its conceptions--forms, first, of\nhideous and terrific character: monstrous idols of Eastern and Egyptian\nsuperstition, Griffins, and Sphinxes, and bull-headed Molochs, and\nhorned Astartes, and many-breasted Cybeles, till in the Hellenic race it\nrose to the recognition of the beautiful and bodied forth divinity in\nthe human form divine, and found its highest ideal of beauty in Helen,\ndivinely fair of women. This phase in Faust's development--this stage in\nhis quest for beauty and truth--this delirium of his 'divine madness,'\nas Plato calls our ecstasy of yearning after ideal beauty, is symbolized\nby the classical _Walpurgisnacht_. (You remember the other\n_Walpurgisnacht_--that on the Blocksberg--which I described before.)\n\nGuided by the Mannikin, Faust and Mephistopheles arrive at the\nPharsalian fields--the great plain of Thessaly, renowned for the battle\nof Pharsalus, in which Caesar conquered Pompey--renowned too as the\nclassic ground of witches and wizards. Griffins, Sphinxes and Sirens\nmeet them. They can tell Faust nothing about Helen, but they direct him\nto Cheiron the Centaur (a link, as it were, between the monstrous forms\nof barbarous oriental imagination and Hellenic art). Cheiron the Centaur\nhas himself borne Helen on his back, and excites Faust's passion by the\ndescription of her beauty. He takes Faust to the prophetess Manto,\ndaughter of the old blind Theban prophet Teiresias, and she conducts him\nto a dark fissure--a Bocca dell' Inferno--at the foot of Mount Olympus,\nsuch as that which you may have seen in the Sibyl's cave on Lake\nAvernus; and here (as once Orpheus did in search of Eurydice) he\ndescends to the realms of the dead to seek the help of Persephone, Queen\nof Hades, in his quest for Helen. Meanwhile Mephisto has found that in\nspite of his distaste for classic art and beauty there are elements in\nthe classical witches' sabbath not less congenial to him than those of\nthe Blocksberg with its northern and more modern types of devilry and\nbestiality. He is enchanted with the ghoulish vampire Empusa and the\nmonster Lamia, half-snake half-woman, and at length finds _his_ ideal of\nbeauty in the loathsome and terrible Phorkyads, daughters of Phorkys, an\nold god of the sea. The Phorkyads are sometimes described as identical\nwith, sometimes as sisters of, the Gorgons, and represent the climax of\nall that Greek imagination has created of the horrible. The three\nsisters are pictured in Greek mythology as possessing between them only\none eye and one tooth, which they pass round for use. They dwelt in\nouter darkness, being too terrible for sun or moon to look upon. Even\nMephistopheles is at first a little staggered by the sight, but he soon\nfinds himself on familiar terms with them and ends by borrowing the form\nof one of them (she becoming for the time absorbed into her two\nsisters)--for as medieval devil he has no right of entree into that\nclassical scene in which he and Faust are now to play their parts. It is\ntherefore in the form of a Phorkyad or Gorgon that Mephisto will appear\nwhen we next meet him.\n\nMeanwhile the Homunculus has found congenial spirits among the\nsea-nymphs and sirens on the shores of the Aegean. He longs to gain\nfreedom from his glass, in which he is still imprisoned. Nereus the\nsea-god is unable to help him, but sends him to his father Proteus, the\ngreat ocean prophet, who bears him out into the midst of the ocean. Here\nGalatea the sea-goddess (identical with Aphrodite, the sea-born symbol\nof the beauty of the natural-world) passes by in her chariot drawn by\ndolphins and surrounded by Nereids. The Homunculus in an ecstasy of\nlove dashes himself against her chariot. The glass is shattered and he\nis poured forth in a stream of phosphorescent light over the waves--thus\nbeing once more made one with Nature.\n\nThe theory that _water_ was the prime element, a theory advocated\nespecially by the old Ionic philosopher Thales, was held by Goethe, who\nwas a 'sedimentarist' in geological matters, and in this classical\n_Walpurgisnacht_ he has introduced, much to the annoyance of many\ncritics, a dispute between Thales and other sages on the question\nwhether the formation of the world was due to fire or water.\n\nWe have now reached that part of _Faust_ which is known as the _Helena_.\nIt was written before the rest of Part II, though doubtless when he\nwrote it Goethe had already conceived the general outline of the whole\npoem. Of the wonderful versatility of Goethe's genius no more striking\nexample can be given than the sudden and complete change of scene, and\nnot only scene but ideas and feelings, by which we are transported from\nthe age of Luther and the court of a German Kaiser and the laboratory of\na modern scientist back--some 3500 years or so--to the age of the\nTrojan war.\n\nInstead of extravagance and grotesqueness, instead of the diversity, the\nrich ornamentation, the heaven-soaring pinnacles and spires of Gothic\nimagination--we have in the _Helena_ sculpturesque repose, simplicity,\ndignity and proportion. It is as if we had been suddenly transported\nfrom some Gothic cathedral to the Parthenon, or to Paestum.\n\nI know no poet who in any modern language has reproduced as Goethe has\ndone in his _Iphigenie_ and in the _Helena_ not only the external form\nbut also the spirit of Hellenic literature. While reading the _Helena_\nwe feel ourselves under the cloudless Grecian sky; we breathe the\nGrecian air with Helen herself.\n\nThe scene is laid before the palace of Menelaus at Sparta. Helen,\naccompanied by a band of captive Trojan maidens, has been disembarked at\nthe mouth of the river Eurotas by Menelaus, on his return from Troy, and\nhas been sent forward to Sparta to make preparation for the arrival of\nher husband and his warriors. Once more after those long eventful years\nsince she had fled to Troy with Paris she stands as in a dream before\nher own palace-home, dazed and wearied, her mind distraught with anxious\nthoughts; for during the long wearisome return across the Aegean sea her\nhusband Menelaus has addressed no friendly word to her, but seemed\ngloomily revolving in his heart some deed of vengeance. She knows not if\nshe is returning as queen, or as captive, doomed perhaps to the fate of\na slave.\n\nShe enters the palace alone. After a few moments she reappears,\nhorror-struck and scarce able to tell what she has seen. Crouching\nbeside the central hearth she has found a terrible shape--a ghastly\nhaggard thing, like some phantom of hell. It has followed her. It stands\nthere before her on the threshold of her palace. In terrible accents\nthis Gorgon-like monster denounces her, recounting all the ruin that by\nher fatal beauty she had wrought, interweaving into the story the\nvarious legends connected with her past life--those mysterious legends\nthat connect Helen not only with Paris and Menelaus but with Theseus and\nAchilles and with Egypt--legends of a second phantom-Helen, the 'double'\nof that Helen whom Menelaus has carried home from Troy--until alarmed\nand distracted, doubting her own identity, overwhelmed by anxiety about\nthe future and by terror at the grisly apparition, she seems herself to\nbe in truth fading away into a mere phantom, and sinks senseless to the\nground. After a fierce altercation between the chorus of captive maidens\nand the Gorgon-shape (in whom you will have recognized our old friend\nMephistopheles) Helen returns to consciousness. Then the\nPhorkyad-Mephistopheles tells her that the preparations which she has\nbeen ordered to make are in view of a sacrifice to be performed on the\narrival of Menelaus and that she herself (Helen) is the destined victim.\n\nIn despair Helen appeals to the Gorgon for advice, who bids her take\nrefuge in the neighbouring mountains of Arcadia, where a robber\nchieftain has his stronghold. Under the guidance of Mephisto, who raises\na thick mist, she and her maidens escape. They climb the mountain; the\nmists rise and they find themselves before the castle of a medieval\nbandit-prince, and it is Faust himself who comes forth to greet her and\nto welcome her as his queen and mistress. Faust, the symbol of the\nRenaissance and modern art, welcomes to his castle the ideal of Greek\nart and beauty.\n\nThe stately Greek measures now give way to the love-songs of Chivalry\nand Romance--to the measures of the Minnesinger and the Troubadour.\nFaust kneels in homage before the impersonation of ideal beauty, and\nHelen feels that she is _now_ no longer a mere ideal, a mere phantom.\nShe clings to her new, unknown lover, as to one who will make her\nrealize her own existence. It is an allegory of modern art--the art of\nDante, Giotto, Raphael, Shakespeare and Goethe--receiving as its queen\nthe ideal of Greek imagination and inspiring, as it were, the cold\nstatue with the warm vitality of a higher conception of chivalrous love\nand perfect womanhood.\n\nI have mentioned how the stately Greek measures in the _Helena_ give way\nto the metres of Romance and Chivalry. Perhaps it may be well to explain\nsome of these various metres.\n\nThe scene opens, as you know, with Helen's dignified and beautiful\nspeech:\n\n    Bewundert viel und viel gescholten Helena.\n\nThat is the well-known _iambic trimeter_, _i.e._ the metre of six feet\n(twelve syllables) used in all the speeches in Greek tragedy.\n\nThus the _Oedipus Tyrannos_ of Sophocles begins:\n\n    [Greek: O tekna, Kadmou tou palai nea trophe]\n\nand so on. It has twelve syllables, mostly (iambics) as in our blank\nverse. But blank verse has only ten syllables: 'I cannot tell what you\nand other men.' If one adds two syllables one gets the Greek iambic\nverse, thus: 'I cannot tell what you and other men believe.' The Chorus\nin the _Helena_ uses various rhythms such as are found in the choruses\nof Greek tragedy:\n\n        Schweige, schweige,\n    Missblickende, missredende du!\n    Aus so graesslichen, einzahnigen\n    Lippen was enthaucht wohl\n    Solchem furchtbaren Greuelschlund!\n\nThen Mephistopheles, as the Phorkyad, when Helen falls fainting,\naddresses her suddenly in another measure--a longer verse, such as is\nsometimes used by the Greek tragedians and comedians when something new\noccurs in the play. It is called a _tetrameter_, and consists of fifteen\nsyllables (mostly - U, called trochees). Thus, in Greek, [Greek: oi\ngerontes oi palaioi memphomestha te polei]--and in German:\n\n    Tritt hervor aus fluechtigen Wolken hohe Sonne dieses Tags--\n\nor the fine lines spoken by Helen:\n\n    Doch es ziemet Koeniginnen, allen Menschen ziemt es wohl,\n    Sich zu fassen, zu ermannen, was auch drohend ueberrascht.\n\nWhen Faust appears he begins to speak at once in modern blank verse of\nten syllables, such as we know in Milton and Shakespeare and Schiller.\nOne might have expected him to speak in some earlier romantic measure,\nto have used perhaps the metre of the old Nibelungenlied, as in\n\n    Es ist in alten Maehren wunders viel geseit,\n    Von Heleden lobebaeren, von grosser Arebeit,\n\nwhich is supposed to date from about 1150; or in Dante's _terza rima_,\nof about 1300, as\n\n    Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita.\n\nBut blank verse is after all the metre _par excellence_ of the\nRenaissance, that is of the revival of Greek influence, and Goethe chose\nit for this reason.\n\nNow the Watchman Lynceus ('the keen-eyed,' as the word means--and you\nperhaps remember him as the watchman of the Argonauts on the good ship\nArgo) represents here the early pre-Renaissance poets of Italy and\nProvence and Germany--the Troubadours and Trouveres and Minnesinger, who\nwere so surprised and dazzled by the sudden sunrise of the Renaissance\nwith its wonderful new apparition of Greek art that they (as Lynceus in\n_Faust_) failed to announce its coming; and therefore Lynceus here\nspeaks in a kind of early Troubadour metre, with _rime_. In classical\npoetry there is no rime. They did not like it; they even ridiculed it.\nFor instance Cicero, the great orator, once tried to write poetry, and\nproduced a line that said 'O fortunate Rome, when I was consul!' This\nwas not only conceited of him but unfortunately the line contained a\nrime and this rime brought down an avalanche of ridicule on his head. 'O\nfortunatam natam me consule Romam' was this unfortunate line. Rime was\nprobably first adopted by the monks in their medieval Latin hymns and\nwas used by the Troubadours and early Italian poets when they began to\nwrite in the vulgar tongue. Dante uses it in his canzoni and sonnets\nand ballads, as well of course as in his great poem. So it is quite\nright to make Lynceus speak in rime. Helen of course has never heard\nrime before, and she turns to Faust and asks him what it is that sounds\nso strange and beautiful in this song of Lynceus; and she wants to know\nhow _she_ too can learn the art. So Faust tells her just to try and the\nrimes will come of their own accord. But I will quote the passage, for\nit is very pretty; and I will add a rough translation.\n\n       Doch wuenscht' ich Unterricht warum die Rede\n       Des Manns mir seltsam klang, seltsam und freundlich--\n       Ein Ton scheint sich dem and'ren zu bequemen;\n       Und hat ein Wort zum Ohre sich gesellt,\n       Ein andres kommt, dem ersten liebzukosen....\n       So sage denn, wie spraech' ich auch so schoen.\n\nFAUST. Das ist gar leicht--es muss vom Herzen geh'n.\n       Und wenn die Brust von Sehnsucht ueberfliesst\n       Man sieht sich um, und fragt....\n\nHELEN.                    wer mitgeniesst.\n\nFAUST. Nun schaut der Geist nicht vorwaerts, nicht zurueck--\n       Die Gegenwart allein ...\n\nHELEN.                ist unser Glueck--\n\nFAUST. Schatz ist sie, Hochgewinn, Besitz und Pfand.\n       Bestaetigung, wer gibt sie?\n\nHELEN.                     Meine Hand.\n\n(HELEN. I fain would ask thee why the watchman's song\n       So strangely sounded--strange but beautiful.\n       Tones seemed to link themselves in harmony.\n       One word would come and nestle in the ear,\n       Then came another and caressed it there.\n       But say--how can I also learn the art?\n\nFAUST. Quite easily--one listens to one's heart,\n       And when its longings seem too great to bear\n       We look around for one ...\n\nHELEN.             our joy to share.\n\nFAUST. Not past nor future loving hearts can bless,\n       The _present_--\n\nHELEN.        is alone our happiness.\n\nFAUST. Before the prize of beauty, lo I stand,\n       But who assures the prize to me?\n\nHELEN.                     My hand!)\n\nIn the midst of this life of chivalrous love and romance Faust and Helen\npass a period of ecstatic bliss. But, as Goethe himself found, such\necstasies are only a passing phase. The end comes inevitably and\nsuddenly. A son is born to them, Euphorion by name (the name of the\nwinged son of Helen and Achilles, according to one legend). He is no\ncommon human child. As a butterfly from its chrysalis he bursts at once\ninto fully developed existence. He is of enchanting beauty but wild and\ncapricious; spurning the common earth he climbs ever higher and higher\namidst the mountain crags, singing ravishing melodies to his lyre. He\nreaches the topmost crag and casts himself into the air. A flame\nflickers upwards, and the body of a beautiful youth 'in which one seems\nto recognize a well-known form' falls to the ground, at the feet of\nFaust and Helen.\n\nEuphorion symbolizes modern poetry, and the well-known form is that of\nByron. For a moment the body lies there; it then dissolves in flame,\nwhich ascends to heaven, and a voice is heard calling on Helen to\nfollow.\n\nYes, she must follow. As flame she must return to her home in the\nEmpyrean--the home of ideal beauty and all other ideals. However much we\nstrive to realize ideal beauty in art or in our lives, however we may\nhold it to our hearts as a warm and living possession, it always escapes\nour grasp. The short-lived winged child of poetic inspiration gleams but\nfor a moment and disappears, as a flame flickering back to its native\nempyrean. And she, the mother, she too must follow, leaving us alone to\nface the stern reality of life and of death.\n\nIn the embrace of Faust Helen melts away into thin air, leaving in his\narms her robe and veil. These change into a cloud, which envelops him,\nraises him into the air and bears him also away. The Phorkyad picks up\nEuphorion's lyre and mantle; he steps forward and addresses the\naudience, assuring them that in the leavings of poetic genius he has got\nenough to fit out any number of modern poets, and is open to a bargain.\nHe then swells up to a gigantic height, removes the Gorgon-mask, and\nreveals himself as Mephistopheles once more the northern modern devil;\nand the curtain falls.\n\nWhen it rises for the Fourth Act we see a craggy mountain peak before\nus. A cloud approaches, and deposits Faust on the topmost crag. It\nlingers for a time, assuming wondrous shapes and then gradually melts\naway into the blue. Faust gazes at it. In its changing outlines he seems\nto discern first the regal forms of Olympian goddesses, of Juno, of\nLeda--then of Helen. But they fade away and, ere it disappears, the\ncloud assumes the likeness of that other half-forgotten human form which\nonce had aroused in his heart that which he now feels to have been a\nlove far truer and deeper than all his passion for ideal beauty--that\n'swiftly felt and scarcely comprehended' love for a human heart which,\nas he now confesses to himself, 'had it been retained would have been\nhis most precious possession.'\n\nA seven-league boot now passes by--followed in hot haste by another. Out\nof the boots steps forth Mephistopheles. He asks contemptuously if Faust\nhas had enough of heroines and all such ideal folly. He cannot\nunderstand why Faust is still dissatisfied with life. Surely he has seen\nenough of its pleasures. He advises him, if he is weary of court life,\nto build himself a Sultan's palace and harem and live in retirement--as\nTiberius did on the island of Capri. 'Not so,' answers Faust. 'This\nworld of earthly soil Still gives me room for greater action. I feel new\nstrength for nobler toil--Toil that at length shall bring me\nsatisfaction.'\n\nHe has determined to devote the rest of his life to humanity, to the\ngood of the human race. It is a project with which Mephistopheles\nnaturally has little sympathy. But he is forced to acquiesce, and, being\nbound to serve Faust even in this, he suggests a plan. The young Kaiser\nis at present in great difficulties. He is hard pressed by a rival\nEmperor--a pretender to the Imperial crown. Mephisto will by his magic\narts secure the Kaiser the victory over this pretender, and then Faust\nwill claim as recompense a tract of country bordering on the ocean. Here\nby means of canals and dykes, dug and built by demonic powers, Faust is\nto reclaim from the sea a large region of fertile country and to found a\nkind of model republic, where peace and prosperity and every social and\npolitical blessing shall find a home. The plan is carried out. At the\nsummons of Mephistopheles appear three gigantic warriors by whose help\nthe battle is won, and Faust gains his reward--the stretch of land on\nthe shore of the ocean. And he is not the only gainer. The Archbishop\ntakes the opportunity of extracting far more valuable concessions of\nland from the young Kaiser as penance for his having associated himself\nwith powers of darkness. The prelate even extracts the promise of tithes\nand dues from all the land still unclaimed by Faust. As Mephistopheles\naptly remarks, the Church seems to have a good digestion.\n\nMany years are now supposed to elapse. Faust has nearly completed his\ntask of expelling the sea and founding his ideal state. What had been a\nwatery waste is now like the garden of Eden in its luxuriant fertility.\nThousands of industrious happy mortals have found in this new country a\nrefuge and a home. Ships, laden with costly wares, throng the ports. On\nan eminence overlooking the scene stands the castle of Faust, and not\nfar off are a cottage and a chapel. On this scene the last act opens. A\nwanderer enters. He is seeking the cottage which once used to stand\nhere, on the very brink of the ocean. It was here that he was\nshipwrecked: here, on this very spot, the waves had cast him ashore:\nhere stands still the cottage of the poor old peasant and his wife who\nhad rescued him from death. But now the sea is sparkling in the blue\ndistance and beneath him spreads the new country with its waving\ncornfields. He enters the cottage and is welcomed by the poor old\ncouple (to whom Goethe has given the names Philemon and Baucis, the old\npeasant and his wife who, according to the Greek legend, were the only\nPhrygians who offered hospitality to Zeus, the King of the Gods, as he\nwas wandering about in disguise among mortals).\n\nFaust comes out on to the garden terrace of his castle. He is now an old\nman--close upon a hundred years of age. He gazes with a feeling of\nhappiness and satisfaction at the scene that lies below him--the wide\nexpanse of fertile land, the harbours and canals filled with shipping.\nSuddenly the bell in the little chapel begins to ring for Vespers.\n\nFaust's happiness is in a moment changed into bitterness and anger. This\ncottage, this chapel, this little plot of land are as thorns in his\nside: they are the Naboth's vineyard which he covets and which alone\ninterferes with his territorial rights. He has offered large sums of\nmoney, but the peasant will not give up his home.\n\nMephistopheles and his helpers (the same three gigantic supernatural\nbeings who took part in the battle) appear. Faust vents his anger and\nchagrin with regard to the peasant and the irritating ding-dong-dell of\nthe vesper bell. He commissions Mephistopheles to persuade the peasant\nto take the money and to make him turn out of his wretched hut.\nMephistopheles and his mates go to carry out the order. A few moments\nlater flames are seen to rise from the cottage and chapel.\nMephistopheles returns to relate that the peasant and the wanderer\nproved obstinate: in the scuffle the wanderer had been killed; the\ncottage had caught fire, and old Philemon and his wife had both died of\nterror.\n\nFaust turns upon Mephistopheles with fierce anger and curses him. 'I\nmeant exchange!' he exclaims. 'I meant to _make it good with money_! I\nmeant not robbery and murder. I curse the deed. Thou, not I, shalt bear\nthe guilt.'\n\nHere I do not find it easy to follow Faust's line of argument. Fair\nexchange is certainly said to be no robbery--but this theory of 'making\neverything good with money' is one which the average foreigner is apt to\nattribute especially to the average Britisher, and it does not raise\nFaust in one's estimation. I suppose he thinks he is doing the poor old\ncouple a blessing in disguise by ejecting them out of their wretched\nhovel and presenting them with a sum of money of perhaps ten times its\nvalue.\n\nPossibly Goethe means it to be a specimen of the kind of mistake that\nwell-meaning theoretical philanthropists are apt to commit with their\nJuggernaut of Human Progress. Faust is filled with great philanthropic\nideas--but perhaps he is a little apt to ignore the individual. Anyhow\nhis better self 'meant not robbery and murder' and is perhaps quite\njustified in cursing its demonic companion and giving him the whole of\nthe guilt.\n\nThe scene changes. It is midnight. Faust, sleepless and restless, is\npacing the hall in his castle. Outside, on the castle terrace, appear\nfour phantom shapes clothed as women in dusky robes. They are Want,\nGuilt, Care, and Need. The four grey sisters make halt before the\ncastle. In hollow, awe-inspiring tones they recite in turn their\ndirge-like strains: they chant of gathering clouds and darkness, and of\ntheir brother--Death. They approach the door of the castle hall. It is\nshut. Within lives a rich man, and none of them may enter, not even\nGuilt--none save only Care. She slips through the keyhole. Faust feels\nher unseen presence.\n\n'Is any one here?' he asks.\n\n'The question demandeth _Yes_!'\n\n'And thou ... who art thou?'\n\n''Tis enough that I am here.'\n\n'Avaunt!'\n\n'I am where I should be.'\n\nFaust defies the phantom. She, standing there invisible, recites in\ntones like the knell of a passing-bell the fate of a man haunted by\nCare: how he gradually loses sight of his high ideals and wanders\nblindly amid the maze of worldly illusions--how he loses faith and\njoy--how he starves amidst plenty--has no certain aim in life--burdening\nhimself and others, breathing air that chokes him, living a phantom\nlife--a dead thing, a death-in-life--supporting himself on a hope that\nis no hope, but despair--never content, never resigned, never knowing\nwhat he should do, or what he himself wishes.\n\n'Accursed spectres!' exclaims Faust. 'Thus ye ever treat the human race.\nFrom demons, I know, it is scarce possible to free oneself. But _thy_\npower, O Care--so great and so insidious though it be, I will _not_\nrecognize it!'\n\n'So _feel_ it now!' answers the phantom. 'Throughout their whole\nexistence men are mostly _blind_--So let it be at last with thee!'\n\nShe approaches, breathes in Faust's face, and he is struck blind.\n\nHe stands there dazed and astounded. Thick darkness has fallen upon him.\nAt last he speaks:\n\n    Still deeper seems the night to surge around me,\n    But in my inmost spirit all is light.\n    I'll rest not till the finished work has crown'd me.\n    God's promise--that alone doth give me might.\n\nHe hastens forth, groping his way in blindness, to call up his workmen.\nHis life is ending and he must end his work. It is midnight, but the\nlight within him makes him think the day has dawned. In the courtyard\nthere are awaiting him Mephistopheles and a band of Lemurs--horrible\nskeleton-figures with shovels and torches. They are digging his grave.\nFaust mistakes the sound for that of his workmen, and incites them to\nlabour. He orders the overseer, Mephistopheles, to press on with the\nwork ... to finish the last great moat--or 'Graben.'\n\n'_Man spricht_,' answers Mephistopheles _sotto voce_,\n\n    'Man spricht, wie man mir Nachricht gab,\n     Von keinem _Graben_--doch vom Grab.'\n\nIt is no moat, no Graben, that is now being dug, but a grave--a Grab.\n\nStanding on the very verge of his grave, Faust, reviewing the memories\nof his long life, feels that _at last_, though old and blind, with no\nmore hopes in earthly existence, he has won peace and happiness in\nhaving worked for others and in having given other human beings a\nmeasure of independence and of that true liberty and happiness which are\ngained only by honest toil. He alone truly _possesses_ and can _enjoy_\nwho has made a thing his own by earning it.\n\n    Yes, to this thought I hold with firm persistence;\n    The last result of wisdom stamps it true;\n    He only earns his freedom and existence\n    Who daily conquers them anew.\n    And such a throng I fain would see--\n    Would stand on a free soil, with people free.\n\nStanding there, on the very edge of his new-dug grave he blesses the\npresent moment and bids it stay. The fatal words are spoken and\naccording to the compact his life must end.\n\nHe sinks lifeless to the ground. The Lemurs lay him in the open grave.\nMephistopheles, triumphant, looks on and exclaims:\n\n    No joy could sate him, no delight suffice.\n    To grasp at empty shades was his endeavour.\n    The latest, poorest emptiest moment--this--\n    Poor fool, he tried to hold it fast for ever.\n    Me he resisted in such vigorous wise;\n    But Time is lord--and there the old man lies!\n    The clock stands still.\n\n'Stands still,' repeats a voice from heaven, 'still, silent, as the\nmidnight.' 'It is finished,' says Mephistopheles. 'Nay. 'Tis but past,'\nanswers the voice. 'Past!' exclaims Mephistopheles; 'how _past_ and yet\nnot _finished_?' ... He is enraged at the suspicion that life, though\npast, may not be _finished_--that Faust's human soul may _yet_ elude\nthat hell to which he destines it ... that of annihilation.\n\nThe Lemurs group themselves round the grave and chant with hollow\nvoices, such as skeletons may be supposed to have, a funeral dirge.\nMeantime Mephistopheles is busy summoning his demons to keep watch over\nthe dead body, lest the soul should escape like a mouse, or flicker up\nto heaven in a little flamelet. Hideous forms of demons, fat and thin,\nwith straight and crooked horns, tusked like boars and with claws like\nvultures, come thronging in, while the jaw of hell opens itself, showing\nin the distance the fiery city of Satan.\n\nAt this moment a celestial glory is seen descending from heaven and\nvoices of angels are heard singing a song of triumph and salvation. They\napproach ever nearer--Mephistopheles rages and curses, but in vain. They\ncome ever onward, casting before them roses, the flowers of Paradise,\nwhich burst in flame and scorch the demons, who, rushing at their\nangelic adversaries with their hellish prongs and forks and launching\nvainly their missiles of hell-fire, are hurled back by an invisible\npower and gradually driven off the stage, plunging in hideous ruin and\ncombustion down headlong into the jaws of hell.\n\nMephistopheles alone remains, foaming in impotent rage. He is surrounded\nby the choir of white-robed angels. He stands powerless there, while\nthey gather to themselves Faust's immortal part and ascend amidst songs\nof triumph to heaven.\n\nSome of us, perhaps most of us--in certain moods at least--feel\ninclined to close the book here, as we do with _Hamlet_ at the words\n'the rest is silence.' And this feeling is all the stronger when we have\nwitnessed the stage decorator's pasteboard heaven, where Apostles and\nFathers are posed artistically in rather perilous situations amid rocks\nand pine-trees, or balance themselves with evident anxiety mid-air on\npendent platforms representing clouds. Altogether this stage-heaven is a\nvery uncomfortable and depressing kind of place.\n\nBut when read in Goethe's poem and regarded as an allegorical vision the\nscene has a certain impressive grandeur, and some of the hymns of\nadoration and triumph are of exceeding beauty.\n\nThis Scene in Heaven opens with the songs of the three great Fathers,\nthe Pater Ecstaticus, Pater Profundus, and Pater Seraphicus, symbolizing\nthe three stages of human aspiration, namely ecstasy, contemplation and\nseraphic love. The Seraphic Father is of course St. Francis of Assisi.\nIn heaven, as he did on earth, he sings of the revelation of Eternal\nLove.\n\nAngels are now seen ascending and bearing Faust's immortal part, and as\nthey rise they sing:\n\n    The noble spirit now is free\n      And saved from evil scheming.\n    Whoe'er aspires unweariedly\n      Is not beyond redeeming,\n    And if he feels the grace of Love\n      That from on high is given\n    The blessed hosts that wait above\n      Shall welcome him to heaven.\n\nHis yet unawakened soul is greeted by the heavenly choirs and by the\nthree penitents, the Magdalene, the woman of Samaria and St. Mary of\nEgypt.\n\nThen appears 'timidly stealing forth' the glorified form of her who on\nearth was called Gretchen. In words that remind one of her former prayer\nof remorse and despair in the Cathedral she offers her petition to the\nVirgin:\n\n        O Mary, hear me!\n        From realms supernal\n        Of light eternal\n    Incline thy countenance upon my bliss!\n        My loved, my lover,\n        His trials over\n    In yonder world, returns to me in this.\n\nThe Virgin in her glory appears. She addresses Gretchen:\n\n    Come, raise thyself to higher spheres!\n    For he will follow when he feels thee near.\n\nGretchen soars up to the higher heaven, and the soul of Faust, now\nawakening to consciousness, rises also heavenward following her, while\nthe chorus of angels sings, in words the beauty and power of which I\ndare not mar by translation, telling how all things earthly are but a\nvision, and how in heaven the imperfect is made perfect and the\ninconceivable wins attainment, and how that which leads us upward and\nheavenward is immortal love.\n\n    Alles Vergaengliche\n    Ist nur ein Gleichnis;\n    Das Unzulaengliche,\n    Hier wird's Ereignis;\n    Das Unbeschreibliche,\n    Hier ist's getan;\n    Das Ewig-weibliche\n    Zieht uns hinan.\n\n  +--------------------------------------------------------------+\n  | Transcriber's Notes:                                         |\n  |                                                              |\n  | Page 15: Full stop added after \"dishes\"                      |\n  | Page 117: \"happended\" amended to \"happened\"                  |\n  | Page 128: closing quote mark added after 'double'            |\n  |                                                              |\n  | Hyphenation has generally been standardized. However, when   |\n  | hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of a word each occur    |\n  | an equal number of times, both versions have been retained   |\n  | (out-rivalling/outrivalling; up to date/up-to-date).         |\n  +--------------------------------------------------------------+","title":"The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust'","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":28689}