THE SECOND PART OF GÖTHE'S FAUST.
TRANSLATED INTO RHYTHMICAL PROSE BY LEOPOLD J. BERNAYS.
(Continued from page 93.)
A HIGH RIDGE OF MOUNTAINS;
Bold, rugged, rocky summits. A cloud passes over, leans against the rock, and sinks down on a projecting flat.
Beholding deepest solitude beneath my feet,
I step, full thoughtfully, upon this summit's ridge,
Leaving my cloud-made chariot-frame, which gently me
In cheerful days o'er land and ocean carried has.
Slowly, not scattered like to dust, it parts from me.
To the East the mass is striving in its rolling march;
Wondering, astounded, strives the eye to follow it.
Wandering and waving, changing, it divides itself.
Yet it will take a shape. My eye deceives me not!
On sun-enlightened pillows laid all gloriously,
Indeed gigantic, lies a godlike woman-form.
I see ! Like Juno, Leda, or fair Helena,
How lovely, yet majestic, in my sight it waves.
Ah! now it changes! Formless, broad, and towering up.
It in the East reposes, like the glaciers far,
And of swift life the mighty import mirrors bright.
Yet hovers round me still a cloud-streak, tender, light,
Round breast and forehead, cheering, cool, and tenderly.
Now light and slow, it riseth high and higher still,
And draws together. Cheats me an enrapturing form,
As a most youthful, long-desired, and highest good?
Gush up the earliest treasures of the inmost soul,
Aurora's love, of easy flight, it shows to me,
The quick-receivèd glance, the first, scarce understood,
Which, firm preserved, shone above all treasure else.
Like spirit-beauty riseth up the lovely form,
Disperseth not, but riseth to the heavens above,
And with it forth it draws my soul's best part away.
(A seven-league boot stamps down.—Another follows immediately.— Mephistopheles descends.-The boots stride hastily onwards.) Mephistopheles.
At last I call that well stepped forward,
But tell me now what whim is this,
That 'midst such horror you've descended,
Amid these fearful yawning stones?
I know it well, though not on this position,
Here properly of hell there was the bottom.
Faust. It never fails you in your foolish legends,
The like again to utter you're beginning.
Mephistopheles (seriously).
When God the Lord-the reason well I know-
To depths the lowest us from Heaven banished,
There, where in central glow, around-around
A fire eternal burned with constant flaming,
We found, by the too great illumination,
We were in squeezed, unpleasant situation.
The devils all began to cough together,
And spit both at the top and at the bottom,
And hell swelled out with pitchy stink and acid.
That gave a gas! That grew at last enormous,
So that full soon the smooth crust of the countries,
Thick as it was, was burst and cracked asunder,
Now at the other extremity we have it,
That now is top which formerly was bottom.
On this too now they ground all proper doctrine,
To turn the bottom-most into the top-most.
For we escaped the hot and slavish cave
Into the ruling of the wide free air.
An evident mystery which was well preserved,
And only lately to the folk revealed.
Rock masses still to me are nobly dumb :
Wherefore and whence it comes I never ask?
When nature in herself, herself had founded,
Then hath she rounded off this earth-ball purely,
In summits, and abysses too, rejoicing,
Rock upon rock, and mount on mount upheaping;
The hills at length conveniently she fashioned,
With gentle march she softened them to valleys.
Then it was green and grew, and for rejoicing
She needeth not your mad and foolish spouting.
So say ye! clear as day it seems to you;
Yet knows he better who was present there.
I was below, when still beneath there, seething,
Swelled the abyss, and streaming poured out flames;
When Moloch's hammer, mount to mountain forging,
The rocky ruins to the distance struck.
Yet stiffens earth with strange and mighty masses;
Who can give reasons for such hurling might?
Philosophers, they cannot understand it:
There lies the rock, and we must leave it lying,
We have already thought ourselves to shame.
The faithful vulgar only comprehend,
Nor are disturbed in their comprehension.
Long time their wisdom has been ripe.
A wonder 'tis-and Satan then is honoured.
On his faith-crutches limps along my wand'rer,
To devil's mountains and to devil's bridges.
We must respect it too, as worth attention
To see how nature 's looked upon by devils.
What is't to me! Be nature what she will;
'Tis a point of honour: there the devil was !
We are the folk, the mighty to attain to,
Tumult, and force, and madness: see the sign of it !—
Yet that at last I may speak out quite clearly.
Did nothing on our upper surface please thee?
Thou overlook'dst in distances unmeasured,
"The kingdoms of the world and all their glory."
And yet, insatiate as thou art,
Didst thou experience no joy?
Yet something mighty drew me on.
Guess it!
Mephistopheles.
Oh that shall soon be done:
I would a capital like this select,
With burgher-feeding rubbish in the midst,
Crook-narrow lanes, and peaked gables,
A little market, cabbage, turnips, onions;
Shambles where blue-bottles inhabit
Upon the well fed meats to batten;
There wouldst thou find at every time,
For certain, stink and action too.
And then wide squares and streets the broadest
Take to themselves the chief appearance;
And lastly by no gates confined
Suburbs extended boundlessly.
In chariots there I'd take my pleasure
In noisy backward, forward rattling,
Eternal hither, thither running,
In scattered antlike heaps and swarming.
And whether I went in coach or horseback,
Of all I always seemed the centre
By hundred thousands honoured.
Faust. Such things as these can ne'er content me!
We joy to see that men increase,
In their own fashion live in comfort,
While they instruct themselves and polish;
And still we only nourish rebels.
Then would I build, grand, self-sufficing,
A pleasure-hall near some fair spot.
Wood, hill and valley, meadows, field,
All into noble gardens made.
With velvet lawns and walls all verdant,
Straight walks and shades by art prepared,
And cascades joined from rock to rock,
And water-jets of every kind;
Majestic there it soars, while at the edges
In thousand trifling streams it hisses, gushes.
And then would I prepare for fairest ladies
A quiet and retired cottage;
There would I while away the boundless time
In charming sociable solitude.
Ladies I say ladies; for once for all
As plural only of the fair I think.
Faust. Sardanapalus! Modern-bad!
Pray, might one guess whereto thou strivest?
It doubtless daring was and brave.
Since thou to the moon by so much nearer hover❜dst,
Thy choice perhaps hath led thee there?
Faust. Not so! For in this earthly ball
There still is room for mighty actions.
Some wondrous thing shall be accomplished,
I felt for daring labour strength.
And thus report then wilt thou merit :
We see from heroines thou comest.
Faust. I shall gain power and property!
The deed is all and nothing is the fame.
And yet there will be some day poets,
To tell posterity thy splendour,
Through folly, folly to enkindle.
Faust. Nothing of all to thee is given,
What knowest thou what man desires?
Thine adverse being, bitter, sharp,
What knows it of what man has need?
Let it be done then as thou willest!
With the fulfilment of thy whims entrust me.
Faust. My eye was fixed upon the lofty ocean;
And up it swelled sea upon sea up-piling.
And then it sank and shook its mighty billows,
Of the flat shore the broadness to encounter.
It grieved me much; as arrogance
Into unpleasant feelings turns,
Through blood when roused passionately,
The spirit free, which prizes every right.
I thought it chance and gave a keener look,
The billow stood and then rolled back again,
And from the proudly gained goal withdrew ;-
The hour comes, and it repeats the game.
Mephistopheles (to the spectators).
From this there's nothing new for me to gather,
I have known this already for some ages.
Faust (passionately continues).
Onward it creeps in many a thousand places,
Barren itself, its barrenness to scatter;
It swells, increases, rolls and passes o'er
Of the waste tract the unpleasant rude domain.
There power-inspired billow rules on billow,
And then retreats and nothing is accomplished,
Which to despair could drive me and to anguish !
Purposeless might of elements unbridled!
There dares my spirit's self to soar above thee,
There would I combat, this would gladly vanquish.
And possible it is: howe'er it flood
Yet every hill it cringeth passing by;
However haughtily it lift its billows
A petty hillock proudly stands against it,
A petty deep with might can drag it down.
Then quick my spirit thought of plan on plan;
Gain for thyself the costly, dear enjoyment
To shut out from the shore the lordly ocean,
The boundaries of the moist deep to narrow
And inward far into itself to drive it.
From step to step I could the whole determine,
That is my will, now dare thou it to further!
(Drums and warlike music behind the spectators, from the distance proceeding from the right hand.)
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