Notes from Faust Part One by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Faust Part One
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Trans. Bayard Taylor
II: Before the City-gate
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One impulse art thou conscious of, at best; O, never seek to know the other! Two souls, alas! reside within my breast, And each withdraws from, and repels, its brother.
III: The Study - Faust
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'Tis written: "In the Beginning was the Word." Here am I balked: who, now can help afford? The Word?—impossible so high to rate it; And otherwise must I translate it. If by the Spirit I am truly taught. Then thus: "In the Beginning was the Thought" This first line let me weigh completely, Lest my impatient pen proceed too fleetly. Is it the Thought which works, creates, indeed? "In the Beginning was the Power," I read. Yet, as I write, a warning is suggested, That I the sense may not have fairly tested. The Spirit aids me: now I see the light! "In the Beginning was the Act," I write.
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The modest truth I speak to thee. If Man, that microcosmic fool, can see Himself a whole so frequently, Part of the Part am I, once All, in primal Night,— Part of the Darkness which brought forth the Light, The haughty Light, which now disputes the space, And claims of Mother Night her ancient place. And yet, the struggle fails; since Light, howe'er it weaves, Still, fettered, unto bodies cleaves: It flows from bodies, bodies beautifies; By bodies is its course impeded; And so, but little time is needed, I hope, ere, as the bodies die, it dies!
He dethroned light from the exalted place Christianity generally assigns. It is still the revealer, but its power depends on objects to reveal, which are not eternal.
IV: The Study - Faust Mephistopheles - Faust
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This life of earth, whatever my attire, Would pain me in its wonted fashion. Too old am I to play with passion; Too young, to be without desire.
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The God that in my breast is owned Can deeply stir the inner sources; The God, above my powers enthroned, He cannot change external forces. So, by the burden of my days oppressed, Death is desired, and Life a thing unblest!
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Cursed be, at once, the high ambition Wherewith the mind itself deludes! Cursed be the glare of apparition That on the finer sense intrudes! Cursed be the lying dream's impression Of name, and fame, and laurelled brow! Cursed, all that flatters as possession, As wife and child, as knave and plow! Cursed Mammon be, when he with treasures To restless action spurs our fate! Cursed when, for soft, indulgent leisures, He lays for us the pillows straight! Cursed be the vine's transcendent nectar,— The highest favor Love lets fall! Cursed, also, Hope!—cursed Faith, the spectre! And cursed be Patience most of all!
IX: Promenade
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The Holy Church has a stomach healthy: Hath eaten many a land as forfeit, And never yet complained of surfeit: The Church alone, beyond all question, Has for ill–gotten goods the right digestion."
XIV: Forest and Cavern
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MEPHISTOPHELES
Poor Son of Earth, how couldst thou thus alone Have led thy life, bereft of me?
In several ways, men, indeed, couldn't do much without the Mephistopheles. He is the first rebel. He is also our most beloved scapegoat.
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MEPHISTOPHELES
Yes, thou findest that unpleasant! Thou hast the moral right to cry me "shame!" at present. One dares not that before chaste ears declare, Which chaste hearts, notwithstanding, cannot spare; And, once for all, I grudge thee not the pleasure Of lying to thyself in moderate measure.
XVI: Martha's Garden - Margaret Faust - Margaret
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FAUST
My darling, who shall dare "I believe in God!" to say? Ask priest or sage the answer to declare, And it will seem a mocking play, A sarcasm on the asker.
An interesting take on faith. Mostly inherited from society, and reinforced throughout life, a person rarely examines the rational basis of their faith. But a thinking man like Faust, or the men of letters like Faust and priests who could've thought about it sometimes, may have increasingly found it hard to profess faith with absolute solemnity in front of a scrutinising gaze.
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FAUST
Hear me not falsely, sweetest countenance! Who dare express Him? And who profess Him, Saying: I believe in Him! Who, feeling, seeing, Deny His being, Saying: I believe Him not! The All–enfolding, The All–upholding, Folds and upholds he not Thee, me, Himself? Arches not there the sky above us? Lies not beneath us, firm, the earth? And rise not, on us shining, Friendly, the everlasting stars? Look I not, eye to eye, on thee, And feel'st not, thronging To head and heart, the force, Still weaving its eternal secret, Invisible, visible, round thy life? Vast as it is, fill with that force thy heart, And when thou in the feeling wholly blessed art, Call it, then, what thou wilt,— Call it Bliss! Heart! Love! God! I have no name to give it! Feeling is all in all: The Name is sound and smoke, Obscuring Heaven's clear glow.
XXI: Walpurgis-night - The Hartz Mountains
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Tell me, if we still are standing,
Or if further we're ascending?
All is turning, whirling, blending,
Trees and rocks with grinning faces,
Wandering lights that spin in mazes,
Still increasing and expanding!
MEPHISTOPHELES
Grasp my skirt with heart undaunted! Here a middle–peak is planted, Whence one seeth, with amaze, Mammon in the mountain blaze.
First, we find Faust's mind-bending philosophical investigation being externalised by a metaphor of Will-O-Wisp.
Then we see the satanic promise of remedy, but not through philosophy, but through materialism, by promising Mammon's treasure.
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FAUST
Better the summit, I must own: There fire and whirling smoke I see. They seek the Evil One in wild confusion: Many enigmas there might find solution.
MEPHISTOPHELES
But there enigmas also knotted be. Leave to the multitude their riot! Here will we house ourselves in quiet. It is an old, transmitted trade, That in the greater world the little worlds are made.
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PROKTOPHANTASMIST
Accurséd folk! How dare you venture thus? Had you not, long since, demonstration That ghosts can't stand on ordinary foundation? And now you even dance, like one of us!
THE FAIR ONE (dancing)
Why does he come, then, to our ball?
FAUST (dancing)
O, everywhere on him you fall! When others dance, he weighs the matter: If he can't every step becchatter, Then 'tis the same as were the step not made; But if you forwards go, his ire is most displayed. If you would whirl in regular gyration As he does in his dull old mill, He'd show, at any rate, good–will,— Especially if you heard and heeded his hortation.
PROKTOPHANTASMIST
You still are here? Nay, 'tis a thing unheard! Vanish, at once! We've said the enlightening word. The pack of devils by no rules is daunted: We are so wise, and yet is Tegel haunted. To clear the folly out, how have I swept and stirred! Twill ne'er be clean: why, 'tis a thing unheard!
THE FAIR ONE
Then cease to bore us at our ball!
PROKTOPHANTASMIST
I tell you, spirits, to your face, I give to spirit–despotism no place; My spirit cannot practise it at all.
(The dance continues)
Naught will succeed, I see, amid such revels; Yet something from a tour I always save, And hope, before my last step to the grave, To overcome the poets and the devils.
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FAUST
The woe, the rapture, so ensnare me, That from her gaze I cannot tear me! And, strange! around her fairest throat A single scarlet band is gleaming, No broader than a knife–blade seeming!