Munichartists.com – Authorized to Create Art
Today is a special day. Christopher Croft, an Artist located in the Westend, is having an exhibition at the Susan Boutwell Gallery located at Theresienstrasse 48 D-80333 Munich
The gallery is open from Wed through Friday 1200 to 1800 and Saturdays from 12-1500.
Here is an art piece I found on my way downtown from Notting Hill. The art piece is called Sacré Blur and is constructed from salvaged 18th and 19th century stained glass windows.
The windows have been reconfigured to create a magical place in the shape of a greenhouse.
The work is illuminated during the evenings and you can see from the video that it does twinkle even during the day.
Dear Munich Artists, Please Note the image below:
Today Feb. 1st, 2020 we begin again our Photo Challenges. We made a Facebook group specifically to share photo challenge images because this is an everyday thing for the rest of eternity (Or until another world crisis happens) and I want to see what you have been making in Munich (or wherever you now live.)
Here is the link for the facebook group for photo challenges.
Other News
Now that the Brexit fiasco is over and I am in recovery mode from the amount of danger we were in for the last three years, I can trufully say that I miss the relaxed environment of walking to my studio at Frauenstrasse and getting a cup of coffee at Viktualienmarkt but I love speaking English eventhough for some reason, I’m speaking more German in London than I did in Munich!
Currently I’m hovering around Notting Hill, enjoying juice smoothies and wearing Dock Martins while I gear up for this year’s workfest. Do not worry, I will not be organizing any large projects for artists in London. Instead, I am working with Trefuly to create a program to certify artists as Creative Coaches. It took Emmy a few years (7) to figure out that there was no pain point to fix with art communities but in the process of finding that answer, she found a few pain points which artists could help fix in other areas of the world.
One of those pain points has been her work for the last three years which she is not allowed to talk about. Top secret filled with intrique and super cool people who do not acknowledge her on the street. Instead, she is required to work in her own space and have them drop into her life through the internet to chat about world problems in an artistic way. Emmy calls this her Telenovella but I’m telling you that she is living life more like something out of the book, Burn after Reading.
The other pain point that artists are able to assist the rest of the world is work life balance. During my time in Munich, I never met as many people who threw the balls up into the air and managed to keep work, their creative passions and their family live in some sort of order. Many of you do this not because you are German and capable of managing many tasks in a day but because you love your family, your art and have the desire to keep both of them funded with a job that pays for a six week vacation.
In an effort to help everyone else maintain this type of balance, we are working with Trefuly to create an occupation that hopefully will be acknowledged as a serious job by the German bureaucracy and allow you to still be on Kunstsocialkasse.
Ah, you know us, we are always worrying about you as German creatives. Dada was right about the weight hovering above your heads. I hope you have been having fun and as soon as I dive into the artistic community in London, I will share what I find out about them. If you would like to share information with me for the Munich Artists website, please send me information to a new email address. Kyfio UG will be changing Emmy’s email because she is now immersed in Social Political art and she is never checking that email address. You know how it is… Life takes you in a different direction and you need to change email addresses that fit your new life. Please send Storey Tarris your mail at Trefuly@gmail.com with the subject Munich Artists News.
If you would like to reach me, Storey Tarris, a London based artist, I would love to hear what is happening in Munich or the rest of the world (If you moved like me.)
I will not be visiting Munich for events but if you happen to be at any of the London based art fairs, I will definitely come see you and share some photos.
I will post more information about Trefuly Artists Project as it becomes available. Until then, please join our Art Challenge and enjoy yourself a little bit. Winter is almost over!
Lets play catch up in the worst kind of way.
I moved to London and shed a layer of art skin. My delicate new art body was fragile and unable to deal with social media, email or anything having to do with Munich, Germany or a world going to Hell so I focused on my art practice, creating art and writing about things which were not art related.
My relocation overseas means that my Munich Artists energy is now shifted overseas but I am working on the following:
Munich Artists will now be curated by Storey Tarris. Storey does not organise anything nor does she have anything to do with past projects.
Happy 2018!
I am writing to let you know that Munich Artist’s experiment in collaborative and interactive art is over. We enjoyed working with you for five years but now are creating works outside of Germany and are pivoting the website in a different direction.
Because of this change, we terminated the exhibition/studio space at Frauenstrasse 18 and the Odeonsplatz display space.
I apologise to all the artists that I did not make a farewell party but the changes in my life in 2017 were life-altering and required an extensive review of my work focus, the usage of my creative energy and the direction I wanted my life to flow and that required time away from Munich, Germany.
I do appreciate your participation in our Munich Artists projects and I hope you will continue to meet and share your creative talents with each other. Barbara Süßmeier is continuing with collaborative projects and I encourage you to connect with her in Haidhausen if you would like to participate in a project.
Have a wonderful and creative year.
Love
Storey Tarris
Storey Tarris. a London Based Artist and current curator of Munich Artists Website.
Scribblitti is coming to Munich! According to the artist, “There is a story in every human being who wants to be told.” As you know Munich Artists loves stories and we love humanity so there is everything to love about Hu Be’s Scribblitti project.
Each piece created by Hu Be is personal incorporating a reworking of experiences to create a personal biography so what you will end up with on your walls is a piece of your own personal history interpreted by the artist in his unique style.
Scribblitti will be in Munich created home murals from June 27th until July 2nd. If you are interested in having Scribblitti create a mural in your home, you can contact him at +0039.3396414748
Happy June my Munich Artists!
This is a short note to let you know that we will be taking the summer off to work on projects not related to Munich or art. Because we are taking a break, we will also be leaving our Installation at Odeonsplatz in Place until September 2017 and canceling anything planned during the summer months.
Barbara has requested that all installations in her space be group installations so I will keep you posted as to what happens in her window over the next few months, if someone is interested in organizing the installations for those spaces, please connect with Barbara.
Go enjoy the summer and I look forward to seeing what you have created when we start posting again this fall.
Stay Creative!
Emmy
PS. New Installation Schedule
The Window at Odeonsplatz Installations:
The Window at Elsässer Str. installations:
Don’t be scared artists. Today I’m talking about a Lilypad which is a piece of technology not a plant. If you are adventuresome, the maker community would love to have you experiment with this form of technology and your artwork. If you don’t have any idea how in the world you could use such a device, here are two examples.
Kobakant – She created a crying dress.
Anouk Wiprecht Wearable Art
With this type of open source technology, you can create artwork using digital text, LED lights and various sound devices. The website for Arduino has hundreds of projects you can work on to learn the process before tackling a bigger and more intricate art piece.
On Saturday, I went to the Platform in Obersendling and attended a workshop organized by Mira Sacher and taught by Stefanie Wuschitz from Mz Baltazar’s Laboratory. Do you remember Saturday? It was a beautiful day full of blue skies and warm weather but I restrained myself from getting the “Bavarian Blue Sky Sickness” and headed over to the Platform for my first introduction to this hardware/software art tool.
Because I run on Colombian time, I arrived at the workshop five minutes late and saw a table full of electronic supplies and creatives with laptops.
Taking the last open chair, I opened my laptop with the Arduino software installed opened the software and froze. This was not an intuitive so I would have to pay extra special attention to the German explanation. Yes, I continue to take workshops at the Platform even though they are in German. So far, the value of the workshops overwhelms my natural inclination to avoid learning new things in German.
Four hours later, I bought my lilypad and brought it home so that I can make something really cool for an installation. If you are interested in learning more about lilypads, you can make a trip to Vienna and visit Steffi Wuschitz. I know they would love for you to visit their female-focused Maker’s Lab.
The platform will have two more workshops in their feminist Maker’s series.
Here is information for the next workshop in German:
FEMALE MAKERS 3.0
“Sniffin’ Glue” – Ein Zines-Workshop mit dem beißpony Artwork Team in Kooperation mit Archive Artist Publications
02. Juli 2017 → 14 – 17 UhrHalle der PLATFORM Kistlerhofstr. 70 → Haus 60 → 3. Stock 81379 MünchenIm Workshop Sniffin’ Glue werfen wir einen Blickbehind the zines. Zines sind selbst gemachte Hefte, die sich als kritisches Gegenstück zum Medienalltag der Massenkultur verstehen. Nicht selten sind sie außergewöhnlich gestaltet, mit eigenwilligem Layout und offen für Formate jenseits des DIN-Korsetts. Sie werden kopiert, untereinander ausgetauscht, über Buch- und Plattenläden, den Postversand und im Internet als E-Zines verbreitet. Der Workshop mit Stephanie Müller, Gründerin des Kunstprojektes rag*treasure und Gewinnerin desFörderpreis Musik gibt gemeinsam mit dem Münchner Maler und Filmemacher Klaus Erich Dietl einen Überblick über die Geschichte, Spezifika und Vielfalt des Mediums und stellt einige Beispiele von Grrrl Zines vor. Die Teilnehmer*innen haben Gelegenheit, im gemeinsamen Austausch miteinander gestickte Botschaften, genähte Zeichnungen, kurze Texte oder Miniatur-Hefte zu entwickeln. Eine Auswahl an Recyclingmaterialien (ausrangierte Zeitschriften, Postkarten, Warnwesten, Gitarrenplektren, Bandagen, Filmbänder, etc.) steht beim Experimentieren zur Verfügung. Gerne können auch eigene Dinge zum Umgestalten mitgebracht werden. Unkostenbeitrag 15 € (bitte bar mitbringen) Bitte meldet euch an: |
Innerfields visited Munich for ArtMUC and while they were in town and had time, the three artists wandered over to Odeonsplatz and created this amazing piece for me.
When they showed me what they wanted to do. It was perfect.
I’m so in love with what they made, that I’m thinking of putting MDF over it when we have the next installation so that in between installations, we can show their art piece. (UPDATE: We could not do this because the window owner asked us to paint over it.)
Here are some photos of the work in progress and the final piece.
For our installation series, we are using a window at Das Kleine Kunsteck in Haidhausen.
Das Kleine Kunsteck is owned by Barbara Süßmeier, a Bavarian-born artist working and living in the Haidhausen neighborhood.
Barbara likes what Munich Artists is trying to do with our collaborative work and we love that she is trying to build an art practice in Munich.
Building any business is a challenge but Barbara has many years of experience in business and a great passion for her artwork. A few years ago, Barbara decided to start changing her focus from numbers to oil and she mapped out a three-year plan to change from accounting to art.
With her idea firmly grounded in business, she opened a studio location in Haidhausen.
After working in her space for a year, Barbara realized that people were a little hesitant about going into a working artist’s studio if the door wasn’t wide open. “If the door is open, people will walk in for a chat, but if the door is closed, there is a fear that they are disturbing the artist.”
To help relieve this fear, Barbara came up with the name “Das Kleine Kunsteck” for her space. To help pay for her space, Barbara decided to create small gift items that people could purchase for presents. She currently has the following in her space:
Every time I visit Barbara’s studio, she has a new product she wants to create for the laden part of her space and her goal is to have the neighourhood think of her space and Das Kleine Kunsteck when they need a gift.
Because everything in the space is her own artwork, I asked Barbara why she was not using an artist’s name or just her name for the studio space. “I’m really proud of my name and I want people to know that I’m the artist for my larger art pieces but I also don’t want them to worry about coming into the studio. The Kleine Kunsteck helps relieve that fear.”
Barbara doesn’t take commissions but she is willing to discuss putting her artwork onto a suggested object such as a pillow. In a recent project with a dance studio, Barbara created the dance studio logo and then created pillows with her artwork. The dancers at the studio also requested some of her artwork on notebooks and other paper products and has been working on new notebooks for the dancers.
Although Munich Artists shared the news that it takes ten years for a Munich gallery to start breaking even, Barbara was nonplussed by this information. “I’m determined to make this work. ” This is the second very determined person Munich Artists has met in the last few weeks and we are very impressed by the amount of determination cropping up in the Munich creative sector.
Munich Artists is very thankful for Barbara and our new window spaces at Elsässer Str. 19
If you would like to visit Barbara, her store hours are:
The small Kunsteck
Elsässer Str. 19 Munich, Germany
Wed, Thu, Sat: 12:00 – 18:00 hrs
Fri: 12:00 – 20:00 hrs
Sun / Tue / Tue: Closed
If you want to see what is in the Munich Artists Installation Window, you can just walk by anytime day or night. Barbara leaves a light on at night which tells you how much she enjoys hosting Munich Artists in her space.
Pedigree is not what interests me. I’ve been very clear about this over the years but creativity, well made art, a strong artistic voice and a good story will always catch my attention.
Yesterday, I finally made it over to the back room gallery of Anne Uhrlandt to discuss her art project and I found the story of Nicolas Confais so interesting that I decided to write about him.
Nicolas is a religious man who decided to stop focusing exclusively on religion and head to the art academy. The decision meant that he would leave his life of silence at the monastery and attend the Art Academy in Munich to pursue a career as an artist.
After completing his studies, this 30 something spiritual man turned spiritual man/artist decided to focus on two different paths with his art practice. One path is the creation of artwork using bones and the other is a collaborative art practice with his friend Jakob Weiß.
In the small gallery in Schwabing, you can see examples of both of these art practices.
Munich Artists knows that artists disregard some of their best work because it is work created in the creative process—Artwork that is tossed to the side as the artist focuses on their larger art pieces created in different mediums and scale.
Anne Uhrlandt noticed Nicolas’s sketches and gave them prominence in the storyline of his current solo exhibition. On one wall, you can see a few of his drawings including a drawing done on brown paper.
With the above art piece, the artist laid out the design for the bone sculpture displayed below. The drawing on brown paper shows its purpose in the tiny tears fixed by the artist with tape. It is a piece with energy and purpose and, it is the one piece in this small exhibition that is currently sold.
The result of all the planning and drawing is a sculpture made of pig bones and an epoxy resin.
As you know, you can’t buy bones at the local art store and we don’t live in a dessert like Georgia O’Keefe where pigs have gone to die en masse. To create his art, Nicolas must take bones collected from slaughter houses and remove all organic matter. (stinky)
Once the bones have been cleaned and prepared, Nicolas adds the epoxy resin which makes the pieces of bone look like porcelain.
The final outcome is an art piece that is smooth and glassy with a feeling of fragility. The discarded remnants of our consumer society have been transformed into organic shapes that don’t hide the bone but are in line with traditional art practices where bones are used for art.
Collaborating with Another Artist
Hello collaboration. We are very happy to find you in Nicholas’s art practice. If you are a reader of Munich Artists, you will know that one of the foundations of our project is collaboration—the more the merrier.
We understand that some artists are lone wolves and we know that creating an art career can make artists hyper-focused on their own bellybuttons but, Nicholas has decided to take time out of his busy life and meet up with Jakob to create artwork on a regularly scheduled basis.
The two artists have been working on a series of collaborative art pieces that focus on a theme that they choose before starting the work meetup. Their collaborations have been going on for awhile (the two went to the art academy together) but, even though Nicholas no longer lives in Munich, the two artists get together and create, create, create!
You know how much I love that. It is the reason I have the window installations, it is the reason Munich Artists exists. I really believe that all creatives have the ability to work with another artist and create amazing things.
I also know this process of collaboration requires trust, respect and the ability to see the bigger picture. with this team’s collaborations, you can feel all of these things and also see a sense of humour.
I don’t think their collaborations have a name yet but Anne Uhrlandt mentioned that the two guys will finish their next collaboration at the back room gallery.
If you want to check out the exhibition, you can read about Anne and her gallery.
Walking through the open front door, I meandered past a jeweler busy at work and found myself in a cozy gray room filled with artwork by Nicolas Confais.
The room is filled without being stuffy and it was pleasant to sit down on a low bank and have a chat with Anne about her project and her aspirations for the future.
Anne Uhrlandt started her gallery project in 2014 because she missed dealing directly with art. Taking the plunge, she asked seven artists if they would allow her to represent them and they all said yes.
The seven artists represented by her gallery have very different art practices and range from a recent art school graduate to a well-established modernist. ” I think it is important that my gallery is able to provide a collector with a variety of art to choose from instead of just one art genre.”
Munich Artists doesn’t know much about what is “Normal” for a German gallery so we asked Anne if this was normal. “Absolutely not. The traditional way for galleries in Germany is to focus on a specific type of artwork so that they can become known for that area of art. Carrying a group of artists whose work is diverse is my way.”
For Anne Uhrlandt’s Kunsthandel, the focus of the gallery is threefold: Find the perfect art pieces for collectors; Support artists with her business/art trade knowledge; Curate interesting exhibitions.
This mix is being developed at her Schwabing Space, exhibitions in public spaces around Munich and at a recent showing at the CologneFineArtFair (COFA).
Although Anne enjoys taking artists to art fairs, she decided this year to focus on solo shows for the artists and build up her gallery’s vitamin C (Connections to collectors).
According to Anne, it takes ten years to build up a gallery and she has every intention to keep working on her project until everything clicks and she can afford a bigger space. (The Munich Artists dream!)
With a background working as an art sleuth* for The Art Loss Register, Anne became very familiar with art fairs and art galleries in Germanic speaking countries. What she didn’t expect was that she would have to change people’s perception of her when she decided to stop being an art sleuth and become an art gallerist. With a little bit of effort, the change happened and established art galleries welcomed her with hand kisses and open arms.
Anne has a very close relationship with her artists and likes building strong relationships with the artists associated with her gallery. Anne’s focus is not just on selling artwork but on making sure that the artwork is shown in the best way and that everyone is happy with the arrangement.
Her first solo exhibition in her small gallery space drew a whopping 80 people which she said was amazing. “People were too close to be distant.” Munich artists thinks this is an excellent side effect of a small space and is to be encouraged. Get closer creatives! Lets not be so distant.
If you would like to visit this tiny gallery, it is open whenever the jewelry shop is open. If you want to meet with Anne, you can find her at the gallery at the following times: Wed 17.30-19.00 & Sat 13.00-15.00 & by appointment.
After visiting Lenbachhaus, I handed my daughter a very large yellow book and asked her to take a look. “If you like what you see in this book, I will take you to this exhibition at the Lenbachhaus.”
My daughter is a talented artist who is anti-museum, anti-exhibition, anti-viewing other people’s work in traditional settings. So far in her young life, she’s agreed to visit one exhibition of Maximilian Lückenhaus’s work in Munich and a few exhibitions in while visiting London.
I kept my fingers crossed that the Big Yellow Book showing the Kico Collection would convince my daughter to visit another exhibition outside of her preferred viewing space (Instagram.)
Mentalies Gelb- SonnenHöchstand Die Sammlung KiCo
The heavy yellow book is the catalogue for the KiCo foundations collection which I picked up during the press conference for “Mentales Gelb. Sonnen Höchststand” an exhibition of artwork from the KiCo Foundation showing at the Lenbachhaus until October 8, 2017.
As I walked through the exhibition, I felt surrounded by artists who were passionate about their art practices— their passion exuded into the museum space and added an energy that made me want to keep walking through the rooms. I also had an urge to text the artists and send them hand clap emojis and ask them to hang out with me in Munich and create art. That is how happy I was walking through this exhibition and seeing their finished art pieces.
The creativity, the feeling of immersion and sometimes the humour of the artist is evident in the pieces exhibited and it was exhilarating to walk through the museum with the curator and director who both were overflowing with information and excitement about the pieces from the KiCo Collection.
The KiCo foundation works with the Kunstmuseum Bonn and focuses on the use of colour and light. As we walked through the exhibition with the collectors, you could tell how happy they were with their art collection and, their love of collecting art is a bonus for Germany and the global contemporary art audience who have an opportunity to see the art pieces in exhibitions.
Because Kico began their focus in abstract art focusing on light and colour, the collection and exhibition contain, video, photography, digital prints, painting, installations, sculptures, and even spider webs. Walking from one room to another, I felt like clapping my hands and cheering with what was chosen to be exhibited.
Selected Art Pieces
I didn’t realize how much I loved this room until I got home and saw how many photos I took of the artwork. The big wall shows artwork created by Franz Ackerman and the locations where he has traveled. (A wall travel journal) The smaller artworks are his inspiration for his larger pieces.
I laughed when I saw this piece because I know what it feels like to print the digital colour field and have it streaked. This art piece created in 2015 focuses on how a perfect digital piece can be printed multiple times and each time that it is printed it comes out flawed in some way even though the original file is perfect.
On the wall of the gallery, the collection displayed multiple gray colour fields that have all the errors created when the special canvas was put through a large digital printer.
From our own experience, the printing companies ask you not to have colour fields when printing digitally and they told us gray is one of the worst colours. Knowing this, it was fun to see Wade Guyton artwork blowing up this flaw in digital printing so we can enjoy the consequences of living in the real world and not in our computer files.
Gertrud Fassnacht got caught in my shot of Wolfgang Tillmanns’ work. She provides art tours and is involved in the Sendling art scene.
Below are three of Wolfgang Tillmanns Tamayo Lighter art pieces which play with exposing light on paper.
This artist has a sense of humour and the exhibited piece makes a statement about public art pieces that no one remembers why they exist.
The museum has masked the Lenbach bust in the lobby and if you go into the garden you can take a selfie with one of the masked sculptures in the garden. (You have to be kind of tall. I’m too short to take a good one without a selfie stick.)
Daniel covers the faces of the statues to make you pay attention to the sculpture. Who is it? Did you even know that the sculpture was there? Many of our public art pieces blend into the scenery. When the sculpture is gone, they know something is missing but they don’t quite remember what it was. This is what Daniel is focusing on with his masks and the sculptures. A grouping of Daniel Knorr photographs showcase the forgotten subjects and artists found by the artist.
The Ceal Floyer piece combines colour in the electrical cord and light in the projection and the bulb. A part of the installation is up on the corner of the ceiling and not in this shot (a looping video of hands). Ceal Floyer asks you to take a moment and look for the deeper meaning in the work. Another piece entitled “Monochrome Till” also asks you to see the deeper meaning. (The meaning has to do with colour.)
Gerhard Richter is the inspiration for many German artists. The large Glitch art piece to the right was created using a portion of one of his abstracts.
I know a few Munich Artists obessed with nature and would be fascinated with these art pieces created with spiderwebs. In this piece below, the artist dipped spider webs in ink. The spider web is inside a box so the artwork doesn’t get damaged by the lights.
Here is a link to more of his spider work. but his focus is not on spiders. the artist is “exploring sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment.”
“Round Rainbow” is Lovely. I could have stood in this room for hours. I did catch a bit of video of it rotating. you can see that on our facebook page.
When I arrived home, I found the book on the dining room table. Walking over to my daughter, I unplugged her ear bud and asked if Sunday was a “thing.” she nodded and put her earbud back in.
The Big yellow book contains all of the artworks in the current foundation and is available for under 40 Euro at the Lenbachhaus bookstore.
Ok Creatives! We have 2 installations where the deadlines are coming up super fast.
I thought this would make for an interesting installation. I will print a big vinyl text sign to go above the menus Which Say “What’s On the Menu? Munich Artists Take Away ” or something along those lines.
The menu cards created by Munich Artists will be displayed underneath. I want all of them to be A5 Portrait Folded two pages like the photo. PLEASE No landscape I will not use them… you can make an insert but make sure it attaches in some way when open so that I don’t have to worry about it. Please put your Studio number on the menu…. I want them to be able to actually call you. Inside where you have the WANTS.
If you have an old time phone you can lend me for the installation that would be cool. I want to put a phone on the orange table in the window. Fee for this installation is 10 Euro and a dose of good Karma. I will make little postcards for this Window Installation that has Everyone’s First Name and Phone number. Make sure you have a number you don’t mind sharing with the world.
DEADLINE for artwork to be at my studio is MAY 13, 2017
Pariser Str. 21, 81667 Munich / Haidhausen 089/67
97 1964 or 01578/22 16 901
Di./Do. 10-16 * Wed. 12-18 * Fri. 10-18 * Sat. 10-14
or at my studio at Frauenstrasse 18 by appointment. You can text me at +4915129111465 to schedule a time to pick one up or go visit Claudia, she will be very happy to see you. Bags cost 3 Euro. The fee for this installation is 20 Euro (minus 3 Euro if you buy the bag at Hands Gallery.)
We planned an event for this but it will be cancelled because there is a MARATHON that day. All artists wil be able to pick up their artwork at my studio. I will not unmask their pieces until they are there and can do it while I video tape it. All pieces will be shared on our Facebook page in a gallery. I can’t wait to see how they turn out!
Where is Stroke?
Last week, as I jotted down my schedule, I saw that something fun was missing and I didn’t understand why. Why was Stroke not on my calendar and why was Stroke not happening in May?
Tracking down Marco Schwalbe, I asked him where was Stroke and why was my favourite Munich Art Fair not happening in May 2017.
The Stroke/Schwalbe story is too long for a typical Munich Artists blog post so I’m going to sacrifice a few details, cut a few twists and turns out and get to the point as fast as Munich Artists can. (I guess I could have sacrificed this paragraph….)
The biggest twist in the Stroke story happened in 2016 when Raiko and Marco Schwalbe decided to stop working together.
Both brothers call the dissolution of their partnership a divorce which is a word that does not bring happy memories to anyone involved with that kind of thing. So, even though the two brothers worked for several years in the art world trying to bring art fairs to Munich and Berlin, they failed to keep on the same wavelength and decided to cut ties and divide up their creations.
Marco Schwalbe now has sole creative control over Stroke and he has full control over Stroke’s fate in Munich, Germany.
A NEW HOME
The dissolution of a partnership is always tough but in late 2016 the Stroke team forged ahead and tried to find Stroke a home for 2017. This proved to be difficult. The Praterinsel was sold to Urs Brunner and the new management substantially increased the rent for the space and reduced the space footprint for Stroke Art Fair due to safety issues with the older buildings.
Artists and event organisers working in Munich know what a pain it can be to get a space that is big enough and nice enough and cheap enough to make your project happen. This is what stroke faced in their hunt for a new art fair home for the 2017 season.
After a few failed attempts to secure a location, the owners of Werksviertel/Kunstpark Ost came to the rescue and offered Stroke one of their existing building until it is demolished in three years. This amazing opportunity allows Stroke to exist in 2017 but, the timeline for the art fair had to be adjusted for the new larger space and short time frame.
In an effort to make Stroke a quality event at the Werksviertel/Kunstpark Ost location, Marco Schwalbe decided to push the event back so that his team could take advantage of the larger space and rethink how Stroke would grow in this creative sector of Munich.
With a new space, Stroke will offer more quality artwork from more curated galleries. The focus for Stroke will continue to be contemporary emerging artists that embody the spirit of Stroke Art Fairs from the past while offering serious collectors a quality selection of emerging art from around the world.
Although Marco Schwalbe and Mevena Chopova will curate the galleries admitted to the fair, Loomit will be curating the outdoor opportunities for artists to create large scale art pieces.
In the future, Marco hopes to take Stroke along the road towards having dedicated artistic areas (digital, Illustration) and continue to provide Munich with a fun and well curated emerging art fair event.
In the future, the fair may go back to May but Marco is waiting to see how everything goes at the new location and this year’s October date.
If you are an emerging contemporary gallery and are interested in bringing your artwork to Munich, you can apply to the Stroke Art Fair being held in October 2017.
The fair will be happening from October 4 – October 8, 2017.
Marco will give the first opportunity to galleries who were booked for the May show and as I mentioned before, the focus of his team’s curation is emerging art for collectors who enjoy the Stroke experience.
With the addition of a new window at Elsässerstr, we added more fun things to work on this summer. If you are creative and want to play along with Munich Artists, here is the link to our Open Calls.
The complete list of current installations in the Windows can be found on the MA-the Window website and on our Munich Artists installation schedule page.
In addition to Installations, we will be doing Munich Stories 2017 and I will be sending all interested writers and artists an email in the next few days with information about the project. We are integrating the project into our Window installations.
FYI The RARE EXHIBITION is SPOTTED ON MUNICH ARTISTS OPEN CALL LIST.
We will be having an installation/Exhibition on the Topic of Pain. This is scheduled for October 2017. I want an exhibition space for this so any leads are appreciated. The installation windows will be working with the Exhibition as a symbiotic extension. I will be creating an Open Call for this so you guys have six months to Focus on Pain and give me some amazing works of art. The exhibition will be curated to a limited number of pieces and I’m a going to be picky cause exhibition space in Munich is limited and I want the pieces to fit with my vision.. tell a story… kind of be an installation in a Chinese scroll kind of way.
The windows will be open to all Munich Artists because I want you to express yourself and delve into the topic of pain. (I still have to figure out the installation details. I will share more details next week including fees etc.
(Psychological/emotional and Physical/body )
Welcome to our Say Hello 2017 Installation.
This year, I chose a small wooden box found at a local art store as the basis of each art object.
The box size was the only restriction imposed on the artists. The artists were asked to use the box as the starting point for their art object but they had the freedom to create an art piece resonating with their art style and focus as long as it was no wider than 16cm.
In addition to submitting an art object made from a box, the artists submitted samples of their voices which have been merged into a sound piece called the quiet murmur.
This year, our installation will be shown in three locations. The first Installation will be spread out over several windows and is divided into three sections: the murmur, the divide and the output.
The box melody installation visualises the art practice of Munich Artists, how artists keep their creative voices while working in a collaborative way with other artists.
The three components of the installation represent the following:
Because the installation spaces are all different, the installation will change at each location. We will share images of how the installation changes.
If you want to be involved with your installations, you can sign up to participate in one of our installations. Here is a list of the current openings. We will post a reminder for each installation in the weeks to come.
Note: If you want more information about Munich Artists Installations, you can connect with Emmy @kyfio.com .
Willkommen zu unserer “Say Hello 2017” Installation
Dieses Jahr habe ich mich dazu entschieden, eine kleine Holzkiste, die ich in einem Münchner Kunstladen gefunden habe, zum Mittelpunkt der Installation zu machen.
Die Größe der Holzkiste war dabei die einzige Restriktion (maximale Breite von 16cm), die ich den teilnehmenden Künstler auferlegt habe. Die Künstler sollten die Holzkiste als Startpunkt ihres individuellen Kunstwerks sehen und diese, ihrem eigenen Kunststil entsprechend, weiterentwickeln.
Neben dem Kunstwerk haben die teilnehmenden Künstler auch aufgenommene Stimmproben hinterlegt. Diese wurden von mir in einer Tonsequenz verarbeitet, die den Namen “quiet murmur” (leises Gemurmel) trägt.
Dieses Jahr wird die Installation in drei Lokationen gezeigt. Die erste Installation erstreckt sich über mehrere Schaufenster und ist in drei große Abschnitte unterteilt: the murmur (das Gemurmel), the divide (die Teilung) und the output (das Ergebnis).
Die “Box Melody” Installation verkörpert die gesamte Bandbreite an Munich Artists Künstlern und wie sie ihre eigene kreative Arbeitsweise und Energie beibehalten und dabei trotzdem Kunstwerke zusammen mit anderen Künstlern erschaffen.
Die drei Komponenten der Ausstellung repräsentieren dabei folgendes:
Das leise Gemurmel zeugt von den vielen tollen Munich Artists Künstlern, die eigene Kunstwerke erschaffen und andere Künstler inspirieren und unterstützen.
Die Teilung repräsentiert die Pause zwischen dem kreativen Prozess (Inspiration) und der Erstellung des Kunstwerks (Ausführung). Es zeugt von der Zeit und von dem Raum den die Künstler benötigen, um kreative Ideen in die Realität umzusetzen.
Das Ergebnis ist schließlich der Arbeitsnachweis aus Inspiration, Kreativität und Ausführung. Die Kreativität des einzelnen Künstlers, der sein Talent und sein Kunstwerk als Teil einer großen Munich Artists Installation zur Verfügung stellt.
Da alle drei Lokationen eine unterschiedliche räumliche Dimension haben, wird auch die Installation eine leicht unterschiedliche Ausprägung aufweisen. Nichtsdestotrotz werden die drei Komponenten in jeder Lokation repräsentiert und dargestellt werden.
Emmy Horstkamp, April 2017
We have 3 installation spaces for our Munich Artists installation series and now I need participation from Munich Artists! We will have sign up sheets for 5 Installations at our Saturday April 22, 2017 at our Say Hello Event.
Sign-ups for the following Munich Artists Installations that will be shown at Elsässerstr in Haidhausen:
Sign up for the Nagel Neu Installation at Odeonsplatz. This will be for a collage art piece created by Munich Artists. The deadline for submission will be July 26, 2017. This is a curated art Installation and Art artist will create a collage that integrates a Big Black Line.
FYI Here is the updated schedule for the Odeonsplatz Installations:
I am very lucky that we have a great group of creative artists willing to tackle a box for this year’s Say Hello installation.
The following artists are showing their art objects during our 2.5 month Window Installation in Munich, Germany.
Alexandra Simon
Benjamin Elger
Lana Sarajlic
Angelica Zeller-Michaelson
The Box Melody Installation combines the art objects and sound art. Each time we move the installation, the installation will change and we look forward to sharing these changes with you. The element that remains for all three installations is the art objects. Munich Artists have worked hard to share their creative talent and I am absolutely going to showcase their art during the installation rotation.
If you have any questions, you can email me emmy@kyfio.com .
Here we go!
While Our Say Hello Window Installation is at Odeonsplatz, we will have an installation called Goodbye at the window in Haidhausen. This installation is open to 25 Artists.
Good bye Installation
The installation will use black cloth tote bags. Claudia Ziersch has ordered our bags and is creating a tutorial for us on what I want you to do with the bag.
Each artist will get a black bag where they must tape a design/artwork to one side. This side will be exposed to the sun for the month and we will have a gathering at the end of the month to remove the bags from the window and remove the tape from the bags. The final bags will be photographed and shared on Facebook.
The cost for this installation is 20 Euro and includes the bag.
The bag deadline will be May 14, 2017. If you want to be there to watch your piece go up in the window, I will post the exact time we are installing the bags on Facebook. When I have the tutorial from Claudia, I will post it on Facebook and on this Installations page on Munich Artists. Artists who participated in Say Hello will get first dibs on this installation.
At the end of the installation, we will have a gathering where the artists get their bags and they will rip of the tape exposing the bleaching done by the sun. The final art pieces will be shown on the website. All bags must be priced for sale. I will create a price for the whole installation. If you want to make 2 bags, you can but we will only hang one bag in the window per artist so that each bag gets enough sun exposure.
During the Beginnings Installation at Odeonsplatz, we will have an installation in Haidausen called The end.
This is a super fun project and does not have a limit to the number of artists participating.
Each artist will create 4 pieces of artwork that fit in an A4 envelope (Please use enforced envelopes.) You will address and stamp your envelop to be mailed to an address where you want the enveloped mailed.
The envelopes you mail to me will be displayed in the window during the installation. At the end of the installation, you will be sent your self addressed stamped envelope with 3 pieces of art from a random selection of the other artists. One piece from each artist will be kept as the installation and will be priced to sell as The End installation.
The cost of this Swap 10 Euro and the one art piece you are leaving with me forever.
Deadline for Art pieces is June 23, 2017 meaning I must have your envelope by this date. There is no limit to where you live, this is open to every artist everywhere. If you are not in Germany, please add 10 Euro for postage (so international artists have a total cost of 20 Euro) If you are in Germany, you can add your own postage to your self addressed envelope.
Artwork addressed to me can be dropped off or mailed to:
Munich Artists Frauenstrasse 18, D-80469 Munich, Germany
During the My true Self installation downtown, we will have an installation called Your True Self at the Haidhausen window.
This your true self installation will require small mirrors like this one. (Thanks Angelica Zeller-Michaelson for the mirror and the inspiration.)
Each artist will be allowed to submit up to 5 small mirrors for the installation. You can put whatever artwork you want on the back of the mirror. If you put something on the front of the mirror, make sure it can handle a month exposure to the sun.
Cost per artist is 10 Euro (not including the mirrors.)
At Odeonsplatz, we will create an installation called Nagel Neu. The artwork shall be created using a new piece of Book Cardboard that 50 x 50. The art pieces must be collaged and use 3 colours—Orange, Green and Violet. I will have the 50 x 50 cardboard cut for the artists. Each artist will have some black lines on the cardboard piece that they will have to incorporate into the final artwork.
The collage work can be digital or traditional collage. This installation is open to 16 Artists who will be selected from the Say Hello Artists. All artwork must be priced for sale. The art piece will be sold as an individual installation piece. More information will be posted on an installation page on MA-The Window. The deadline for submissions is July 26, 2017.
All artwork will remain with Munich Artists as a complete installation. You must price your art piece for me for my records.
Recycled Cardboard – All art pieces must be up to an A3 in size and created on Cardboard. The installation will hang in the window and be placed on the floor of the window space. All paper used in this art piece must be from the recycle bin.
The colours for this piece are also limited to Orange, Green and Violet. If we have too many pieces for the window, they will be also be exhibited at Frauenstrasse 18.
That’s all for now. If you want to participate in these events, the sign up sheets will be posted at our April 22, 2017 gathering from 1400 to 1800.
LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT 6 MONTHS!
Hello Artists.
Starting in May 2017, we have installations at the following locations:
For the first series of Installations, Say Hello will be at Odeonsplatz and the responding Installations at Frauenstrasse 18 and at Elsässer Strasse 19 will be responses to Say Hello.
If you want to be a part of our Say Hello Installation, boxes are Due at Frauenstrass 18 by April 4, 2017. More information about the boxes can be found on our Say Hello German and English websites. (I still have a few left if you need one.)
Artists may create an art piece for Elsässer Strasse 19 for an installation that will be from May 28, 2017 to June 25, 2017.
The installation will focus on the end of a conversation. How to say Goodbye. For the installation,we will be using black bags. The bags have been ordered and Claudia at the Hands Gallery will be making us a tutorial about fabric sun bleaching which I will post on the blog when it is completed.
Artists may create an art piece for Frauenstrasse 18 for an installation that will be from May 28, 2017 to June 25, 2017.
The installation at Frauenstrasse 18, we will be focusing on internal thoughts upon meeting someone new.
All artwork for the response installations must be available for sale and must be submitted to Frauenstrasse 18. Please read the open calls on this blog post.
Some writers struggle to find things to write about while other writers live lives filled with story plots and adventures—enough to fill a book or maybe even a library.
Ken Macbeth Knowles is one of the writers whose life is filled with romantic plots ideas which is a good thing for those romantics around the world who may be worrying that romance is dead. You will be happy to know there is one spot in Munich where love at first sight and true love thrives like a weed.
In a neighbourhood called Bogenhausen in a quiet area of Munich, Ken Knowles loses roommates like some of us lose our socks. How is this possible? What is happening in Ken’s quiet neighourhood? Why is Ken losing all his roommates?
Love is the problem. or, love is the answer to my question. Although love can conquer anything it can’t conquer Ken’s roommate dilemma because love is the dilemma.
In a city filled with single people and in a German society where single people keep their own living spaces even when they get married, single souls are moving into Ken’s apartment and falling head over heels in love with their romantic partners leaving Ken in a wake of rose petals and baby talk.
Ken is getting a bit exasperated at the high turnover. Why are you all falling in love in his apartment? Is Ken is a lucky love charm? Is Ken is the perfect “friend” for your double blind date?
If this roommate thing happened one to Ken, then we would have nothing to talk about but Ken’s spare bedroom keeps vacating and this turnover has sparked the curiosity of Munich Artists who has been following this dilemma since Ken posted about it last year on his Facebook feed and then wrote this post.
In early 2016, Ken stopped renting to guys, hoping that single women would be less likely to fall in love in his apartment. Ken hoped this switch in roommate gender would stop the love trend from destabilising his home life but now, a year later, he is back on the hunt for new roommates as the love incubation dilemma seems to be gender neutral affecting both men and women and leaving him once again with an empty room.
Since gender was not a cure, Ken decided that maybe the length of stay would help so he is now looking for short-term roommates who want to hang out in his space and be struck by the love bug.
So, if you have a boyfriend/girlfriend who is unable to commit maybe a weekend at Ken’s apartment will push them over the edge. Or, if you are a writer/artist/creative needing a romantic muse, you may find Ken’s apartment the perfect spot to create that love related creative content or get back your creative groove.
You can find Ken’s apartment on those short term rental sites and you can also contact him through his website.
Love is life’s sweetest reward. Set your life on a course of adventure by booking a few nights at this love incubator in Munich. Ken is expecting you. Don’t delay.
PS. This is not an advertisement. I get nothing from Ken but the amusement that everyone around Ken is falling in love. If you have a story like this, please let me know. We love sharing the quirky things happening in Munich, Germany.
I am sharing my photographs today and then will start sharing the stories over the next three days.
Munich Artists went and checked out South Park (Südpark) in Sendling. The park is filled with people walking their dogs, running or just sitting and enjoying nature. The park is also right next to a busy road and has a large amount of fallen trees/debris/wild nature that can be turned into land art.
Last year, with city permission, Lore Galitz organized a group of 16 artists to create artwork in the nature park. The completed pieces were left in the park to deteriorate and return to nature but, some of the pieces have remained in tact and have been maintained by the people visiting the park.
This year, Lore Galitz decided to do the project again with 16 artists. Each artist is encouraged to walk through the woods and pick a spot to create a piece of land art. The artwork must use the materials of the forest and nothing man-made must be left behind after the land art pieces are completed and the exhibition is finished (October 2017.)
Lore would love to work with artists who love nature and want to create artwork for the benefit of the forest and who can be there on the dates that have been set. If you are interested in participating, you must contact LORE! The deadline for ideas to be submitted is next week. After that the package goes to the city for approval. You must be able to attend ALL the dates listed below.
Dates are listed below:
During MCBW, you can see Korean brands on display at Goldberg Studios – Studio 2
Müllerstraße 46 A 80469 Munich.
Re;Code is one of the brands on display during MCBW. The brand focuses on upcycling so there is no waste and uses all items from a piece of clothing from the textile to the buttons.
Each design is produced in a limited number and a tag declares how many pieces are made for each design.
For the workshop, I used this piece of fabric.
Our workshop leader was from Berlin. She trained in Korea and has her own design label called Dzaino.
Her design line focuses on denim and looks like this:
We started a project last year called inspired. For 2016, we used a piece of artwork by Brigitte Pruchnow as inspiration and artists were asked to make a piece of art influenced by the specific art piece created by Brigitte.
After the artists arrived at the studio to pick up their inspired books, I realized that the artwork meant more to these individual artists than I could grasp through the visual.
When they explained why they created their art pieces, I had a deeper appreciation for their individual art pieces and the book we created.
This lapse between the visual art pieces and the artistic meaning imbued through inspiration made me think about inspiration and how we are affected by the different forms of inspiration that surrounds us.
For the Inspired project 2016, we used this visual art piece by Brigitte Pruchnow. It is a mixed media art piece shared with a group of artists chosen by Brigitte.
The artists spent weeks creating art pieces and then submitted their work digitally for publication. The works were combined to create the Inspired book 2016 which was published in December 2017 by Munich Artists.
Active Vs Passive Inspiration
Looking at artwork is a passive form of inspiration. Looking at artwork inspires us in the same way as reading a good story or listening to music. In all of these activities, we are not actively doing something to receive the influence, it is just there seeping into our subconscious and changing how we create or explore our creative worlds.
If we wanted to provide active inspiration, creatives need to be creating together and making mistakes together. The process of creating, the process of production would propel the artists forward and in a direction, they may have not been exploring. The failures would guide them and inspire them to move on towards creative endeavors untapped and unexplored. This active inspiration can happen alone or in a collaborative environment.
Active inspiration can also be found when artists are actively observing their environments or finding new ways to create out of necessity. One artist from France, who showed at the Friday gallery told me to relax and work with what I had in my hands. No need to run out and hunt and gather. I watched and was inspired as he looked around and created a clever fix. This attitude shows creativity and inspiration by what is there which is they type of inspiration we hope the Say Hello 2017 box will inject into the artists participating.)
Negative Influences
Sometimes artists use drugs, emotional conflicts and physical reactions to spark inspiration. The problem with this form of inspiration is that the flow of inspiration is dependent on negative influences and the artist requires the negative inspiration to produce and be creative. This dependency has destroyed many artists and gets in the way of productivity and healthier inspirational influences.
Suggestions and Brainstorming
Conversations can be a passive or active for of inspiration depending on how involved the artists become. We can sit in a space and listen to what is being said and be inspired to create something or we can engage in an active discussion over a topic and find ourselves inspired to pursue a new body of work.
INSPIRED 2017
A conversation is the inspiration for Inspired 2017. During an open studio, I talked with a doctor about her practice and why she chose to specialize in Pain management.
The doctor stated that Pain is what helps us feel alive. Without feeling (Pain) we die. The doctor shared a story with me about a person whose pain was removed, and without being able to feel, the person died.
Her words made me think about Pain. It startled me that the pain I’ve felt in my life has helped keep me alive and it made me think about how past pain has shaped me as a person.
Her words inspired me to think about creating a book based on the idea of pain and the process of creation. I wanted artists to delve down and share an emotional experience that influences them and their artwork. I wanted to have artwork that reflected pain as an acknowledgement of life.
For the Inspired project 2017, we will be focusing on this idea of pain.
Inspired 2016 Installation at MA-Window
Starting on Sunday, the 2016 Inspired book is in the MA-Window at Odeonsplatz showing the artwork projected on the wall.
The artists who participated in the 2016 book are:
If you are interested in the artwork created for the book, some of the artists still have their pieces available. Contact the artist directly for more information. If you would like a copy of the book, we still have a few copies available for 50 Euro.
Frauenstrasse 18 will be hosting “Connected” during Munich Jewellery week.
Because Munich Artists loves Munich Jewellery Week, we will be trying to get to as many of the exhibitions as we can during the week. (Look at this and this post to see some of the artwork from prior years.)
If you are downtown, please visit Connected, and check out the artwork. The group will be doing a brunch on Saturday from 1000 to 1400. Other opening hours are as follows:
Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 10:00-14:00 with Champagne breakfast from 10:00-12:00, Sun 12.30-16.30
CONNECTED started as a casual conversation between two and then three people, and as time went on it developed into a concrete concept with a growing number of participants. Now we are eight and we are all connected somehow. We are all very different and work in diverse ways and are interested in a whole range of techniques, and we embrace an even greater array of materials. There is an intimacy and a dedication in the works, where precision and commitment to creating take a leading role. A whole new narrative appears as we tell stories as individuals within a group of makers, a true tribute to diversity.
Here are the artists websites all in a row.
We love that the group chose this topic for their 2017 exhibition. We hosted a conversation installation last year at the Friday Gallery, you can see Ines and Allun’s artwork here.
Munich Artists loves art books and photography books, Galleries that show art books and the artists willing to create artwork in book form.
This week, Munich Artists met Eva-Marlene Etzel and looked through her photography book entitled “Menschen, die behauten sich zu lieben.”
The book we examined is currently the only one and she brought it to me wrapped in bubble wrap. I loved looking through the book and hearing what Eva-Marlene had to say about her photography, her desire to work full time as a photographer and the ideas she wanted to develop for her fine art photography practice.
Eva-Marlene graduated from art school in Dortmund and now lives in Munich where she is working to develop her book project and build a photography practice.
As most of you know, one of the frustrating parts about being an artist is funding personal art projects.
Eva-Marlene is trying online crowdfunding for her book. Eva-Marlene will be running an indiegogo campaign until March 10, 2017.(Eva-Marlene is printing 20 or so copies of her photography book.)
Here are 8 things you should know about Eva-Marlene’s photography book.
Do you know literature Moths? This is one of my favourite book stores in Munich.
Yesterday on my way to the Container collective, I walked into Literature moths and wandered around to see what the store curators had selected for us.
Why do I call the book store owner and their staff curators? I give them this title because they select books they personally like rather than books they think we will like. This idea means that the books available within this store are not just mainstream. They have small publishers, art books and interesting small gift products that blend in with their eclectic book selection.
Because German is not my first language, I tend to avoid reading in German for fun but I could not stop myself from purchasing the following:
If you want to see more, watch the video below:
Here are eight reasons why you might like going this weekend:
süyümbike güvenç and Ling from spunkhaus.de were having a marbling and book making workshop at the messe.
My American mouth had issues with this creative use of the words creative and fantastic but I liked the workshop format of Julia Traxel and her partner Annette Neil. The two women cover different areas of the city and hold workshops at your house. Julia is in charge of Munich West and Annette covers Munich East.
The two women focus on workshops that make jewellery and small decorative items. They do not make things with felt or fabric.
If you want to have them come to your house, you must have six people and pick the type of workshop you want so they can bring the proper supplies. There is a fee per person plus you will pay for any materials used during the workshop. More information is available on their website.
This company has two stores focusing mainly on scrapbookers BUT they offer book making workshops so you can take those techniques and use your own artwork on paper. One store is up in the mountains and one is in Eching (A little bit closer.)
I love using encaustic and if you want to try to see how it feels, you can make a little card at this stand.
A packed crowd at this workshop. They will have Zentangle workshops all weekend to help people learn how to doodle. (Workshop is free)
I enjoyed talking to these two women. Their company is called Das Kleinbedruckte and they create wood stamps, wood stamp kits and textiles that are stamped with their wood stamps. You can either buy the materials from them to create stamped clothings/textiles or you can request that they make them for you. At this Messe, they will not let you do the stamping but they may do some custom orders if they are not too busy.
Kerstin designs the stamps and has them made in India. Like most wood stamps they are wonderful to hold in your hands and you will enjoy seeing them and talking to Fiona and Kerstin.
Oh my gosh, I loved this booth. Look at all those paintbrushes handmade in Germany. The company is well known in the craft industry but they are working their way into fine art paintbrushes and want you MUNICH ARTISTS to use their products.
I found out that it takes 8 years to become a paint brush Meister. PinselMeister. The company has two Meisters and a total of 12 people working to make their paintbrushes. Springer Pinsel is based in Nurenburg so we will see if we can get a tour of their factory one day. Maybe a tour and a lesson on how to make a paintbrush.
I have wanted this for months and now I have some. I have no clue what it is like to use but I’m excited to have some in my art supplies. The craft company who is currently at the Messe is from the Netherlands and he encouraged me to visit his website to buy more ink. These inks have been created by the artist/ designer Tim Holtz. Go visit his website for more information.
The coffee was good. They are looking for people interesting in a franchise to grow their coffee concept so if you have a hankering for a little coffee truck, contact them and I will buy a cup of coffee from your mobile coffee bar.
This is actually the first thing I did. For months I have wanted to try this concept but I did not want to be disappointed by the box. I wanted to see in person what you actually get in the box. I ordered two weeks worth of their menus so I will let you know how it goes on Facebook. There are two reasons to try this for my household. 1. My daughter needs to learn how to cook. 2. I dislike buying too many ingredients and having leftovers that we will not eat. Supposedly these boxes will help us solve those two things.
The produce is fresh and the packaging is all biodegradable so you can throw it in your brown trash bin or he suggested you mail it back to them. (We could also use it for an installation.)
Of course this has nothing to do with art which is why it is way down here at the end of this blog post. There were quite a few vendors that had nothing to do with art or craft but were targeting the audience who go to this kind of fair. For Hello Fresh and the Tierschutzverein, being at the fair worked. (I donated money to the Humane society and got two tote bags.
PS Eyeball art will be shared in Facebook.
Hello Container Collective. We have been waiting for you to get dressed for the party. Today, as I went to Boesner located at Atelierstraße 18, I walked through the Container Kollektiv and saw that it is still under construction with many happy construction workers working away.
As I walked by one of the finished containers, I saw two women sitting inside. Knocking on the window, I walked in, said hello and asked who they were and how they were using the space.
The three artists, Ana Saraiva, Sophie Herz and Melanie Meier will be using the container space as their studio for an undetermined amount of time and, they just moved in a few days before I knocked on their glass door.
When we talked with the Container Collective last August, Markus Frankl explained that he wanted the space to have rotating creatives to keep the space vibrant so we look forward to meeting a rotating stock of Munich creatives as they come in and spend some time in the collective.
Ana, Sophie and Melanie studied together at the Städtische Berufsfachschule für das Holzbildhauerhandwerk and each woman trained to create classical figurative art with steel, wood and stone—skills they are now using to create their art pieces.
The three artists are excited to be part of the container collective and will be developing their group studio and their individual art practices.
If you walk through the Container Collective, you can peek in the windows of their studio whenever you want but their container studio will not have specific opening hours.
If you see them inside, you are welcome to knock on their windows and go in for a look or you can look for Anna at the Kuhlmann Brothers coffee shop across the way.
Munich Artists looks forward to meeting more of the creatives inside each of the metal containers and sharing their stories with you. If you are a creative working at the Collective, let me know. We will be over there quite a bit in the near future sharing stories, sharing art and just enjoying a Munich based container park filled with creatives.
Here is a video of the container collective at night
Today, a small comment on my social media feed made me sad. The sadness came from the fact that a man posted a reminder of this woman’s death and I did not know what he was talking about. The sadness came from the fact that a very brave woman is remembered in a memorial in Munich but not in the everyday lives of the children and people wandering around the city of Munich.
Sophie Scholl is honoured in Munich for her bravery in a quiet way but we do not live in a quiet world and we do not live in a world that speaks German. These barriers are what need to be crossed to make sure that Sophie Scholl joins Anne Frank as an emblem of bravery for the English speaking world.
Sophie Scholl was beheaded on February 22. She was brave intellectual working to spread information—the truth in Germany at a time when truth was arbitrary.
This young woman used her intelligence to make a difference. She looked at her situation and found a way to fight against the Nazi haze. She was a gust blowing in clarity and she must be remembered.
Each of you is on this earth to make a difference. You do not have to be a feminist, a woman or a German to admire the strength of this woman or to step out of your cage and help others to make this world better.
Our world needs men and women willing to stand up for what they believe and to plant their feet firmly on the ground. Men and women must use not only their voices but their intelligence, strength, empathy, bravery, sympathy and financial clout to steer change in the right direction. Men are used to doing this. Women must take hold of their power and do the same.
We must change how we remember Sophie Scholl and how we deal with the consequences of staying on the sidelines for decades. The world is the way it is now because we let it become this way.
You cannot complain about how our society evolved when you and the generations before you did not actively work to make the world a better place. The world is what you allowed it to become.
From today forward be braver and follow your ideologies. If you do not have any, pick up a book and start creating some.
Next year and in the years to follow, I would like to make sure that Feb 22 is remembered in a more American way. I want it to be a little louder. I want social media to be plastered with Sophie Scholl and I want stories of bravery to be shared and written and remembered. I want songs to be sung. I want the echo of her bravery to awaken this trait in others.
Brave women existed, exist and will exist. Let us encourage them to make this world happier and safer and freer by supporting those men and women willing to stand up for their ideologies and sacrifice their lives for our souls.
Put Feb 22nd in your calendar and start creating so that we can share and strengthen the memory of Sophie scholl.
Guess what I got in my email today? A new submission platform for photographers.
PICTER
Picter is a new project by the creators of Der Greif. The platform allows photographers to manage their submissions to different open calls. The program is in Beta mode and currently has nine open calls for you to submit photographs.
Archive 01-09 from THE SMELL OF DUST on Vimeo. (One of the projects looking for submissions.)
Please Give Picter feedback so that it can grow up to be like FilmFreeway.
FILMFREEWAY
If you are into films or writing screenplays try using the website Filmfreeway. I talked to munich-based cinematographer Markus Ziegler and this is the platform he likes using. There are currently more than 5000 festivals to choose from with a little under 300 having no submissions fees.
INSPIRATION
If you need inspiration, to get you motivated to enter some photography or film or writing competitions, watch Markus Ziegler’s video series. Markus spent 100 days creating short videos each day based on a favourite phrase from Pulp Fiction.
After spending more than three months creating the videos, Markus is now ready to think about submitting The Markus Situation to festivals.
Kompetenzteam Kultur and Kreativwirtschaft sent over a few creative spaces that might interest you.
Here is the scoop.
The first available space is the Pop Up Space Hallo. Located at Ruffinihaus and Rindermarkt, this is a great space with lots of visibility downtown next to a cafe in a beautiful old Munich building not too far from the Apple store. The building will be renovated soon so stores are leaving and the city has decided to use the empty spaces for creative projects.
The available space:
April to middle of June 2017. Deadline March 3, 2017. (We applied for this one for Say Hello 2017 so keep your fingers crossed.)
For the applications, send in a concept with photos of the artwork/products/projects that will be presented along with a short biography TO THE CITY. The address is below.
Criteria for the Ruffinhaus:
OK, the actual criteria in German is below because I took liberties in the English version and you will need to write your application in GERMAN:
The SECOND SPACE is one or two windows in the Donisl Passage. I’ve mentioned this on our Facebook page but as I’ve seen over the last year, not everyone is paying attention when I write. (Why Not? I don’t throw gibberish at you. Why don’t you pay attention?)
Facts about the space:
Send in your application by June 30, 2017.
WHAT THEY NEED:
FOCUS OF SPACE:
The focus must be cultural and creative.
NOTE: When Kunst in Sendling showed in the window, the one they were given did NOT HAVE ELECTRICITY. So when you apply, if you need electricity, please make this very clear so they give you the correct window to showcase your idea.
HERE is the German version of what they need and the focus of the space:
Bewerbungskriterien für ein Schaufenster in der Donisl Passage
GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Send your super creative ideas and information IN GERMAN for the two above spaces to:
Landeshauptstadt München Kompetenzteam Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft Dachauer Str. 114 80636 München Tel.: +49(0)89/233-28917 Fax: +49(0)89/233-27966 E-Mail:kreativ@muenchen.de www.kreativ-muenchen.de
Munich Artists will be at the Window at Odeonsplatz for another year starting on March 5/6, 2017. Here is a link to MA-the window website.
The Window at Odeonsplatz Installations:
NOTE:
I am open to working with other art spaces to intertwine art ideas that incorporate the MA Window and another space. If you have a creative space inside the city limits of Munich and have an installation idea that would allow for a conversation to be created between MA-the Window and an installation in your space, you can email me at emmy@kyfio.com.
At this point, we have July and October open for collaborative installation projects with other creative spaces. If you want to collaborate in one of the other months, it has to work with what is posted in the schedule above.
Yesterday I went to Zuckerschnuerl.
I pass this store as I drive downtown in my little mini but there isn’t parking in this area of town so I never stop by and check out what is there. Yesterday, I walked along the Isar and decided to take ten minutes to go inside and see what they offer at this local store with stroller friendly planks on the stairs.
My initial thought before entering the store was that the zuckerschnuerl would be a cutesy store because the side window is filled with kids things and the name has sugar in it. Each time I whizzed by in my car, my brain registered “baby store, I don’t have a baby.”
My brain was partly correct. There are baby things in the store and the store is children and dog-friendly. A little baby was toddling around touching everything and the owner was not having a meltdown.
Although there are lots of kids things scattered around the store, the first thing I saw when I entered was the lightbox sign.
The signs come in all different sizes. I bought the A4 and one package of letters.
What will Munich Artists do with the light box?
First, we made our Instagram posts today for Munich Artists and TrefuChallenge.
Do you want to make something for my lightbox? The dimensions are:
If you make something, I will meet with you and we will take a photograph with my lightbox. The box uses batteries so I can go anywhere (ring 1/2) with the box. You can use the photo for whatever you want. You do not get the lightbox and it does not leave my control. (I’m a little bit of a control freak.)
As you know, I’m not a fan of the burbs. You can only get me out there when I have nothing to do (never happens) or when there are so many of you that I am compelled by the universe to go say hello. I will travel to the mountains because I love nature even though I hate getting little stones in my boots but that happens in the city too so no strike against nature but the space in between is not my domain.
If you have questions about the Say Hello 2017 Event, I will be posting a video about the box tomorrow along with some answers to questions I’ve received in my message box. The answers will only be posted in English. If you are German and want to translate them for me, that would be super cool of you. I don’t know if Holger has time this week to deal with this. He is super busy doing serious non-artsy work. (He loves Munich Artists but there are some serious people relying on his very smart German brain so he can only dedicate a few minutes a week to this project and I tapped into those minutes for a space proposal.)
If you do visit Zuckerschnuerl, check out this weekly calendar. I almost bought it but wasn’t sure where I would put it. I could see using something like this. You get 50 sheets. Each sheet is one week. (I don’t remember the price.)
———–
PS: Bee in My Bonnet this Week: I’m having issues with the terms concept store and pop-up store. If you are at a location for more than a very short period of time (weeks) you are not a popup store. For me personally, a concept store shares products in a novel way that adds to the experience of shopping. When I see a store for a year at a location, it is no longer a popup store. When I see the same merchandise in a store over and over, then it is not a concept store. What is your favourite place to find popup stores in Munich? What is your favourite concept store in Munich? Do you shop in Munich? If you have merchandise in a store, let me know so I can share. You know I like letting people know how they can support Munich-based creatives.
I know that is far away in time and space but sometimes we have to do a bit of planning and now I’m asking you whether you are interested in doing something for this. An Installation of Artwork? An online exhibition? A book Series (24 for the hours in the day) A Faust focused art happening? I will be going to a workshop where the city will be talking about the Festival Faust and want to know what you are interested in doing.
If you have not read Goethe’s Faust, here is the translation in English below or download the PDF from the Poetry in Translation Website.
Front Cover
Faust: Parts I & II
Goethe bust.jpg
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A Translation into English by
by A. S. KLINE
Published with Illustrations by EUGÈNE DELACROIX
© Copyright 2003 A. S. Kline
Cover design by Poetry in Translation
Digital reproductions of art in the main text are courtesy of the public domain collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (www.lacma.org) and the Yale University Art Gallery (artgallery.yale.edu). Identifications of works are provided beneath each image
All rights reserved under International and Pan American Copyright Conventions.
Textual content of this work may be freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose. Restrictions apply to adaptation of the work. Usage of any material for commercial purposes resulting in direct, indirect or incidental commercial gain requires permission to be sought and granted in writing from the copyright holder. Refer to the Poetry in Translation copyright statement (www.poetryintranslation.com/Admin/Copyright.htm)
Any statements or opinions expressed in this book reflect the views of the author alone. Although the author has made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at the time of going to press, the author does not assume and hereby disclaims any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause.
This digital edition is published by Poetry In Translation (www.poetryintranslation.com).
ISBN-10: 1507547269
ISBN-13: 978-1507547267
About This Work
Goethe’s two-part dramatic work, Faust, based on a traditional theme, and finally completed in 1831, is an exploration of that restless intellectual and emotional urge which found its fullest expression in the European Romantic movement, to which Goethe was an early and major contributor. Part I of the work outlines a pact Faust makes with the devil, Mephistopheles, and encompasses the tragedy of Gretchen, whom Faust seduces. Part II, developed over a long period of Goethe’s later life, reflects Goethe’s own transition from a predominantly Romantic to a wider world-view and explores more extensive themes, including the values of the Classical past, as it moves towards the work’s resolution.
The protagonist, Faust, is presented in a complex manner, and Goethe’s treatment of the subject matter raises ethical and spiritual issues, many of which are not resolved within the drama itself. Goethe’s stress is on Faust’s striving towards the good, and on the nature of human error, rather than on the traditional Christian view of sin and redemption, and the play’s opening sections and its conclusion can be seen as humanist allegory or metaphor rather than an expression of orthodox religious belief. It is left to the reader to draw their own conclusion about Faust’s everyman character, and the extent to which he earns his ultimate spiritual salvation.
The play had an enormous influence on later German thought and literature, and together with his lyric poetry has ensured Goethe’s place among the great European writers.
Contents
Part I
Dedication
Prelude On Stage
Prologue In Heaven
Scene I: Night
Scene II: In Front Of The City-Gate
Scene III: The Study
Scene IV: The Study
Scene V: Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig
Scene VI: The Witches’ Kitchen
Scene VII: A Street
Scene VIII: Evening
Scene IX: Promenade
Scene X: The Neighbour’s House
Scene XI: The Street
Scene XII: The Garden
Scene XIII: An Arbour in the Garden
Scene XIV: Forest and Cavern
Scene XV: Gretchen’s Room
Scene XVI: Martha’s Garden
Scene XVII: At The Fountain
Scene XVIII: A Tower
Scene XIX: Night
Scene XX: The Cathedral
Scene XXI: Walpurgis Night
Scene XXII: A Walpurgis Night’s Dream
Scene XXIII: Gloomy Day
Scene XXIV: Night
Scene XXV: A Dungeon
Part II
Act I Scene I: A Pleasant Landscape
Act I Scene II: The Emperor’s Castle: The Throne Room
Act I Scene III: A Spacious Hall with Adjoining Rooms
Act I Scene IV: A Pleasure Garden in the Morning Sun
Act I Scene V: A Gloomy Gallery
Act I Scene VI: Brilliantly Lit Halls
Act I Scene VII: The Hall of the Knights, Dimly Lit
Act II Scene I: A High-Arched, Narrow, Gothic Chamber
Act II Scene II: A Laboratory
Act II Scene III: Classical Walpurgis Night
Act II Scene IV: On The Upper Peneus Again
Act II Scene V: Rocky Coves in the Aegean Sea
Act II Scene VI: The Telchines of Rhodes
Act III Scene I: Before the Palace of Menelaus in Sparta
Act III Scene II: The Inner Court of The Castle
Act IV Scene I: High Mountains
Act IV Scene II: On the Headland
Act IV Scene III: The Rival Emperor’s Tent
Act V Scene I: Open Country
Act V Scene II: In the Little Garden
Act V Scene III: The Palace
Act V Scene IV: Dead of Night
Act V Scene V: Midnight
Act V Scene VI: The Great Outer Court of the Palace
Act V Scene VII: Mountain Gorges, Forest, Rock, Desert
Part I
Faust in His Studio, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn
‘Faust in His Studio’ – Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (The Netherlands, 1606 – 1669), Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Dedication
Again you show yourselves, you wavering Forms,
Revealed, as you once were, to clouded vision.
Shall I attempt to hold you fast once more?
Heart’s willing still to suffer that illusion?
You crowd so near! Well then, you shall endure, 5
And rouse me, from your mist and cloud’s confusion:
My spirit feels so young again: it’s shaken
By magic breezes that your breathings waken.
You bring with you the sight of joyful days,
And many a loved shade rises to the eye: 10
And like some other half-forgotten phrase,
First Love returns, and Friendship too is nigh:
Pain is renewed, and sorrow: all the ways,
Life wanders in its labyrinthine flight,
Naming the good, those that Fate has robbed 15
Of lovely hours, those slipped from me and lost.
They can no longer hear this latest song,
Spirits, to whom I gave my early singing:
That kindly crowd itself is now long gone,
Alas, it dies away, that first loud ringing! 20
I bring my verses to the unknown throng,
My heart’s made anxious even by their clapping,
And those besides delighted by my verse,
If they still live, are scattered through the Earth.
I feel a long and unresolved desire 25
For that serene and solemn land of ghosts,
It quivers now, like an Aeolian lyre,
My stuttering verse, with its uncertain notes,
A shudder takes me: tear on tear, entire,
The firm heart feels weakened and remote: 30
What I possess seems far away from me,
And what is gone becomes reality.
Prelude On Stage
(Director, Dramatist, Comedian)
Director You two, who’ve often stood by me,
In times of need, when trouble’s breaking,
Say what success our undertaking 35
Will meet with, then, in Germany?
I’d rather like the crowd to enjoy it,
Since they live and let live, truly.
The stage is set, the boards complete,
And they await our festivity. 40
They’re seated already, eyebrows raised,
Calmly hoping they’ll be amazed.
I know how to make the people happy:
But I’ve never been so embarrassed: not
That they’ve been used to the best, you see, 45
Yet they’ve all read such a dreadful lot.
How can we make it all seem fresh and new,
Weighty, but entertaining too?
I’d love to see a joyful crowd, that’s certain,
When the waves drive them to our place, 50
And with tremendous and repeated surging,
Squeeze them through the narrow gate of grace:
In the light of day they’re there already,
Pushing, till they’ve reached the window,
As if they’re at the baker’s, starving, nearly 55
Breaking their necks: just for a ticket. Oh!
Only poets can work this miracle on men
So various: the day is yours, my friend!
Dramatist O, don’t speak to me of that varied crew,
The sight of whom makes inspiration fade. 60
Veil, from me, the surging multitude,
Whose whirling will drives us everyway.
No, some heavenly silence lead me to,
Where for the poet alone pure joy’s at play:
Where Love and Friendship too grace our hearts, 65
Created and inspired by heavenly arts.
Ah! What springs here from our deepest being,
What the shy trembling lips in speaking meant,
Now falling awry, and now perhaps succeeding,
Is swallowed in the fierce Moment’s violence. 70
Often, when the first years are done, unseeing,
It appears at last, complete, in deepest sense.
What dazzles is a Momentary act:
What’s true is left for posterity, intact.
Comedian Don’t speak about posterity to me! 75
If I went on about posterity,
Where would you get your worldly fun?
Folk want it, and they’ll still have some.
The presence of a fine young man
Is nice, I think, for everyone. 80
Who, comfortably, shares his wit,
And to their moods takes no exception:
He’ll make himself a greater hit,
And win a more secure reception.
Be brave, and show them what you’ve got, 85
Have Fantasy with all her chorus, yes,
Mind, Reason, Passion, Tears, the lot,
But don’t you leave out Foolishness.
Director Make sure, above all, plenty’s happening there!
They come to look, and then they want to stare. 90
Spin endlessly before their faces,
So the people gape amazed,
You’ve won them by your many paces,
You’ll be the man most praised.
The mass are only moved by things en masse, 95
Each one, himself, will choose the bit he needs:
Who brings a lot, brings something that will pass:
And everyone goes home contentedly.
You’ll give a piece, why then give it them in pieces!
With such a stew you’re destined for success. 100
Easy to serve, it’s as easy to invent.
What use to bring them your complete intent?
The Public will soon pick at what you’ve dressed.
Dramatist You don’t see how badly such work will do!
How little it suits the genuine creator! 105
Already, I see, it’s a principle with you.
The finest master is a sloppy worker.
Director Such a reproach leaves me unmoved:
The man who seeks to be approved,
Must stick to the best tools for it, 110
Think, soft wood’s the best to split,
and have a look for whom you write!
See, this is one that boredom drives,
Another’s from some overloaded table,
Or, worst of all, he’s one arrives, 115
Like most, fresh from the daily paper.
They rush here mindlessly, as to a Masque,
And curiosity inspires their hurry:
The ladies bring themselves, and in their best,
Come and play their parts and ask no fee. 120
What dream of yours is this, exalted verse?
Doesn’t a full house make you happy?
Have a good look at your patrons first!
One half are coarse, the rest are chilly.
After the show he hopes for card-play: 125
He hopes for a wild night, and a woman’s kiss.
Why then do so many poor fools plague,
The sweet Muse, for such a goal as this?
I tell you, just give them more and more,
So you’ll never stray far from the mark, 130
Just seek to confuse them, in the dark:
To keep them happy, that’s hard – for sure.
And now what’s wrong? Delight or Pain?
Dramatist Go, look for another scribbler by night!
Shall the poet throw away the highest right, 135
The right of humanity, that Nature gave,
Carelessly, so that you might gain!
How will he move all hearts again?
How will each element be his slave?
Is that harmony nothing, from his breast unfurled, 140
That draws back into his own heart, the world?
When Nature winds the lengthened filaments,
Indifferently, on her eternal spindle,
When all the tuneless mass of elements,
In their sullen discord, jar and jangle – 145
Who parts the ever-flowing ranks of creation,
Stirs them, so rhythmic measure is assured?
Who calls the One to general ordination,
Where it may ring in marvellous accord?
Who lets the storm wind rage with passion, 150
The sunset glow the senses move?
Who scatters every lovely springtime blossom
Beneath the footsteps of the one we love?
Who weaves the slight green wreath of leaves,
To honour work well done in every art? 155
What makes Olympus sure, joins deities?
The power of Man, revealed by the bard.
Comedian So use it then, all this fine energy,
And drive along the work of poetry,
To show how we are driven in Love’s play. 160
By chance we meet, we feel, we stay,
And bit by bit we’re tightly bound:
Happiness grows, and then it’s fenced around:
We’re all inflamed then comes the sorrowing:
Before you know it, there’s a novel brewing! 165
Why don’t we give such a piece!
Grasp the life of man complete!
Everyone lives, though it’s seldom confessed,
And wherever you grasp, there’s interest.
In varied pictures there’s little light, 170
A lot of error, and a gleam of right,
So the best of drinks is brewed,
So the world’s cheered and renewed.
Then see the flower of lovely youth collect,
To hear your words, and view the offering, 175
And every tender nature will extract
A melancholy food from what you bring,
They’ll gain now this and that from your art,
So each sees what is present in their heart.
They’re readily moved to weeping or to laughter, 180
They’ll admire your verve, and enjoy the show:
What’s finished you can never alter after:
Minds still in growth will be grateful though.
Dramatist So give me back that time again,
When I was still ‘becoming’, 185
When words gushed like a fountain
In new, and endless flowing,
Then for me mists veiled the world,
In every bud the wonder glowed,
A thousand flowers I unfurled, 190
That every valley, richly, showed.
I had nothing, yet enough:
Joy in illusion, thirst for truth.
Give every passion, free to move,
The deepest bliss, filled with pain, 195
The force of hate, the power of love,
Oh, give me back my youth again!
Comedian Youth is what you need, dear friend,
When enemies jostle you, of course,
And girls, filled with desire, bend 200
Their arms around your neck, with force,
When the swift-run race’s garland
Beckons from the hard-won goal,
When from the swirling dance, a man
Drinks until the night is old. 205
But to play that well-known lyre
With courage and with grace,
Moved by self-imposed desire,
At a sweet wandering pace,
That is your function, Age, 210
And our respect won’t lessen.
Age doesn’t make us childish, as they say,
It finds that we’re still children.
Director That’s enough words for the moment,
Now let me see some action! 215
While you’re handing out the compliments,
You should also make things happen.
Why talk so much of inspiration?
Delay won’t make it flow, you see.
Since Poetry gave the gift of creation, 220
Take your orders then from Poetry.
You know what’s wanted here,
We need strong ale to appear:
So brew me a barrel right away!
Tomorrow won’t do what’s undone today, 225
We shouldn’t waste a minute, so
Decide what’s possible, and just
Grasp it firmly like a hoe,
Make sure that you let nothing go,
And work it about, because you must. 230
On the German stage, you see,
Everyone tries out what he can:
Don’t fail to show me, I’m your man,
Your trap-doors, and your scenery.
Use heavenly lights, the big and small, 235
Squander stars in any number,
Rocky cliffs, and fire, and water,
Birds and creatures, use them all.
So in our narrow playhouse waken
The whole wide circle of creation, 240
And stride, deliberately, as well,
From Heaven, through the world, to Hell.
Prologue In Heaven
(God, the Heavenly Hosts, and then Mephistopheles.)
(The Three Archangels step forward.)
Raphael The Sun sings out, in ancient mode,
His note among his brother-spheres,
And ends his pre-determined road, 245
With peals of thunder for our ears.
The sight of him gives Angels power,
Though none can understand the way:
The inconceivable work is ours,
As bright as on the primal day. 250
Gabriel And swift, and swift, beyond conceiving,
The splendour of the Earth turns round,
A Paradisial light is interleaving,
With night’s awesome profound.
The ocean breaks with shining foam, 255
Against the rocky cliffs deep base,
And rock and ocean whirl and go,
In the spheres’ swift eternal race.
Michael And storms are roaring in their race
From sea to land, and land to sea, 260
Their raging forms a fierce embrace,
All round, of deepest energy.
The lightning’s devastations blaze
Along the thunder-crashes’ way:
Yet, Lord, your messengers, shall praise 265
The gentle passage of your day.
All Three The sight of it gives Angels power
Though none can understand the way,
And all your noble work is ours,
As bright as on the primal day. 270
Mephistopheles Since, O Lord, you near me once again,
To ask how all below is doing now,
And usually receive me without pain,
You see me too among the vile crowd.
Forgive me: I can’t speak in noble style, 275
And since I’m still reviled by this whole crew,
My pathos would be sure to make you smile,
If you had not renounced all laughter too.
You’ll get no word of suns and worlds from me.
How men torment themselves is all I see. 280
The little god of Earth sticks to the same old way,
And is as strange as on that very first day.
He might appreciate life a little more: he might,
If you hadn’t lent him a gleam of Heavenly light:
He calls it Reason, but only uses it 285
To be more a beast than any beast as yet.
He seems to me, saving Your Grace,
Like a long-legged grasshopper: through space
He’s always flying: he flies and then he springs,
And in the grass the same old song he sings. 290
If he’d just lie there in the grass it wouldn’t hurt!
But he buries his nose in every piece of dirt.
God Have you nothing else to name?
Do you always come here to complain?
Does nothing ever go right on the Earth? 295
Mephistopheles No, Lord! I find, as always, it couldn’t be worse.
I’m so involved with Man’s wretched ways,
I’ve even stopped plaguing them, myself, these days.
God Do you know, Faust?
Mephistopheles The Doctor?
God My servant, first!
Mephistopheles In truth! He serves you in a peculiar manner. 300
There’s no earthly food or drink at that fool’s dinner.
He drives his spirit outwards, far,
Half-conscious of its maddened dart:
From Heaven demands the brightest star,
And from the Earth, Joy’s highest art, 305
And all the near and all the far,
Fails to release his throbbing heart.
God Though he’s still confused at how to serve me,
I’ll soon lead him to a clearer dawning,
In the green sapling, can’t the gardener see 310
The flowers and fruit the coming years will bring.
Mephistopheles What do you wager? I might win him yet!
If you give me your permission first,
I’ll lead him gently on the road I set.
God As long as he’s alive on Earth, 315
So long as that I won’t forbid it,
For while man strives he errs.
Mephistopheles My thanks: I’ve never willingly seen fit
To spend my time amongst the dead,
I much prefer fresh cheeks instead. 320
To corpses, I close up my house:
Or it’s too like a cat with a mouse.
God Well and good, you’ve said what’s needed!
Divert this spirit from his source,
You know how to trap him, lead him,
On your downward course, 325
And when you must, then stand, amazed:
A good man, in his darkest yearning,
Is still aware of virtue’s ways.
Mephistopheles That’s fine! There’s hardly any waiting. 330
My wager’s more than safe I’m thinking.
When I achieve my goal, in winning,
You’ll let me triumph with a swelling heart.
He’ll eat the dust, and with an art,
Like the snake my mother, known for sinning. 335
God You can appear freely too:
Those like you I’ve never hated.
Of all the spirits who deny, it’s you,
The joker, who’s most lightly weighted.
Man’s energies all too soon seek the level, 340
He quickly desires unbroken slumber,
So I gave him you to join the number,
To move, and work, and pass for the devil.
But you the genuine sons of light,
Enjoy the living beauty bright! 345
Becoming, that works and lives forever,
Embrace you in love’s limits dear,
And all that may as Appearance waver,
Fix firmly with everlasting Idea!
(Heaven closes, and the Archangels separate.)
Mephistopheles (alone)
I like to hear the Old Man’s words, from time to time, 350
And take care, when I’m with him, not to spew.
It’s very nice when such a great Gentleman,
Chats with the devil, in ways so human, too!
Mephistopheles in the Skies
‘Mephistopheles in the Skies’
Scene I: Night
(In a high-vaulted Gothic chamber, Faust, in a chair at his desk, restless.)
Faust Ah! Now I’ve done Philosophy,
I’ve finished Law and Medicine, 355
And sadly even Theology:
Taken fierce pains, from end to end.
Now here I am, a fool for sure!
No wiser than I was before:
Master, Doctor’s what they call me, 360
And I’ve been ten years, already,
Crosswise, arcing, to and fro,
Leading my students by the nose,
And see that we can know – nothing!
It almost sets my heart burning. 365
I’m cleverer than all these teachers,
Doctors, Masters, scribes, preachers:
I’m not plagued by doubt or scruple,
Scared by neither Hell nor Devil –
Instead all Joy is snatched away, 370
What’s worth knowing, I can’t say,
I can’t say what I should teach
To make men better or convert each.
And then I’ve neither goods nor gold,
No worldly honour, or splendour hold: 375
Not even a dog would play this part!
So I’ve given myself to Magic art,
To see if, through Spirit powers and lips,
I might have all secrets at my fingertips.
And no longer, with rancid sweat, so, 380
Still have to speak what I cannot know:
That I may understand whatever
Binds the world’s innermost core together,
See all its workings, and its seeds,
Deal no more in words’ empty reeds. 385
O, may you look, full moon that shines,
On my pain for this last time:
So many midnights from my desk,
I have seen you, keeping watch:
When over my books and paper, 390
Saddest friend, you appear!
Ah! If on the mountain height
I might stand in your sweet light,
Float with spirits in mountain caves,
Swim the meadows in twilight’ waves, 395
Free from the smoke of knowledge too,
Bathe in your health-giving dew!
Alas! In this prison must I stick?
This hollow darkened hole of brick,
Where even the lovely heavenly light 400
Shines through stained glass, dull not bright.
Hemmed in, by heaps of books,
Piled to the highest vault, and higher,
Worm eaten, decked with dust,
Surrounded by smoke-blackened paper, 405
Glass vials, boxes round me, hurled,
Stuffed with Instruments thrown together,
Packed with ancestral lumber –
This is my world! And what a world!
And need you ask why my heart 410
Makes such tremors in my breast?
Why all my life-energies are
Choked by some unknown distress?
Smoke and mildew hem me in,
Instead of living Nature, then, 415
Where God once created Men,
Bones of creatures, and dead limbs!
Fly! Upwards! Into Space, flung wide!
Isn’t this book, with secrets crammed,
From Nostradamus’ very hand, 420
Enough to be my guide?
When I know the starry road,
And Nature, you instruct me,
My soul’s power, you shall flow,
As spirits can with spirits be. 425
Useless, this dusty pondering here
To read the sacred characters:
Soar round me, Spirits, and be near:
If you hear me, then answer!
(He opens the Book, and sees the Symbol of the Macrocosm.)
Ah! In a moment, what bliss flows 430
Through my senses from this Sign!
I feel life’s youthful, holy joy: it glows,
Fresh in every nerve and vein of mine.
This symbol now that calms my inward raging,
Perhaps a god deigned to write, 435
Filling my poor heart with delight,
And with its mysterious urging
Revealing, round me, Nature’s might?
Am I a god? All seems so clear to me!
It seems the deepest works of Nature 440
Lie open to my soul, with purest feature.
Now I understand what wise men see:
“The world of spirits is not closed:
Your senses are: your heart is dead!
Rise, unwearied, disciple: bathe instead 445
Your earthly breast in the morning’s glow!”
(He gazes at the Symbol.)
How each to the Whole its selfhood gives,
One in another works and lives!
How Heavenly forces fall and rise,
Golden vessels pass each other by! 450
Blessings from their wings disperse:
They penetrate from Heaven to Earth,
Sounding a harmony through the Universe!
Such a picture! Ah, alas! Merely a picture!
How then can I grasp you endless Nature? 455
Where are your breasts that pour out Life entire,
To which the Earth and Heavens cling so,
Where withered hearts would drink? You flow
You nourish, yet I languish so, in vain desire.
(He strikes the book indignantly, and catches sight of the Symbol of the Earth-Spirit.)
How differently it works on me, this Sign! 460
You, the Spirit of Earth, are nearer:
Already, I feel my power is greater,
Already, I glow, as with fresh wine.
I feel the courage to engage the world,
Into the pain and joy of Earth be hurled, 465
And though the storm wind is unfurled,
Fearless, in the shipwreck’s teeth, be whirled.
There’s cloud above me –
The Moon hides its light –
The lamp flickers!
Now it dies! Crimson rays dart 470
Round my head – Horror
Flickers from the vault above,
And grips me tight!
I feel you float around me, 475
Spirit, I summon to appear, speak to me!
Ah! What tears now at the core of me!
All my senses reeling
With fresh feeling!
I feel you draw my whole heart towards you! 480
You must! You must! Though my Life’s lost, too!
(He grips the book and speaks the mysterious name of the Spirit. A crimson flame flashes, the Spirit appears in the flame.)
Spirit Who calls me?
Faust (Looking away.)
Terrible to gaze at!
Spirit Mightily you have drawn me to you,
Long, from my sphere, snatched your food,
And now –
Faust Ah! Endure you, I cannot! 485
Spirit You beg me to show myself, you implore,
You wish to hear my voice, and see my face:
The mighty prayer of your soul weighs
With me, I am here! – What wretched terror
Grips you, the Superhuman! Where is your soul’s calling? 490
Where is the heart that made a world inside, enthralling:
Carried it, nourished it, swollen with joy, so tremulous,
That you too might be a Spirit, one of us?
Where are you, Faust, whose ringing voice
Drew towards me with all your force? 495
Are you he, who, breathing my breath,
Trembles in all your life’s depths,
A fearful, writhing worm?
Faust Shall I fear you: you form of fire?
I am, I am Faust: I am your peer! 500
Spirit In Life’s wave, in action’s storm,
I float, up and down,
I blow, to and fro!
Birth and the tomb,
An eternal flow, 505
A woven changing,
A glow of Being.
Over Time’s quivering loom intent,
Working the Godhead’s living garment.
Faust You who wander the world, on every hand, 510
Active Spirit, how close to you I feel!
Spirit You’re like the Spirit that you understand
Not me!
(It vanishes.)
Faust (Overwhelmed.)
Not you?
Who then? 515
I, the image of the Godhead!
Not even like you?
(A knock.)
Oh, fate! I know that sound – it’s my attendant –
My greatest fortune’s ruined!
In all the fullness of my doing, 520
He must intrude, that arid pedant!
(Wagner enters, in gown and nightcap, lamp in hand. Faust turns to him impatiently.)
Wagner Forgive me! But I heard you declaim:
Reading, I’m sure, from some Greek tragedy?
To profit from that art is my aim,
Nowadays it goes down splendidly. 525
I’ve often heard it claimed, you see
A priest could learn from the Old Comedy.
Faust Yes, when the priest’s a comedian already:
Which might well seem to be the case.
Wagner Ah! When a man’s so penned in his study, 530
And scarcely sees the world on holidays,
And barely through the glass, and far off then,
How can he lead men, through persuading them?
Faust You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never
Rises from the soul, and sways 535
The heart of every single hearer,
With deepest power, in simple ways.
You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,
Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,
Blowing on a miserable fire, 540
Made from your heap of dying ash.
Let apes and children praise your art,
If their admiration’s to your taste,
But you’ll never speak from heart to heart,
Unless it rises up from your heart’s space. 545
Wagner Still, lecturing brings orators success:
I feel that I am far behind the rest.
Faust Seek to profit honestly!
Don’t be an empty tinkling fool!
Understanding, and true clarity, 550
Express themselves without art’s rule!
And if you mean what you say,
Why hunt for words, anyway?
Yes, your speech, that glitters so,
Where you gather scraps for Man, 555
Is dead as the mist-filled winds that blow
Through the dried-up leaves of autumn!
Wagner Oh, God! Art is long
And life is short.
Often the studies that I’m working on 560
Make me anxious, in my head and heart.
How hard it is to command the means
By which a man attains the very source!
Before a man has travelled half his course,
The wretched devil has to die it seems. 565
Faust Parchment then, is that your holy well,
From which drink always slakes your thirst?
You’ll never truly be refreshed until
It pours itself from your own soul, first.
Wagner Pardon me, but it’s a great delight 570
When, moved by the spirit of the ages, we have sight
Of how a wiser man has thought, and how
Widely at last we’ve spread his word about.
Faust Oh yes, as widely as the constellations!
My friend, all of the ages that are gone 575
Now make up a book with seven seals.
The spirit of the ages, that you find,
In the end, is the spirit of Humankind:
A mirror where all the ages are revealed.
And so often it’s all a mere misery 580
Something we run away from at first sight.
A pile of sweepings, a lumber room, maybe
At best, a puppet show, that’s bright
With maxims, excellent, pragmatic,
Suitable when dolls’ mouths wax dramatic! 585
Wagner But, the world! Men’s hearts and minds!
Something of those, at least, I’d like to know.
Faust Yes, what men choose to understand!
Who dares to name the child’s real name, though?
The few who knew what might be learned, 590
Foolish enough to put their whole heart on show,
And reveal their feelings to the crowd below,
Mankind has always crucified and burned.
I beg you, friend, it’s now the dead of night,
We must break up this conversation. 595
Wagner I would have watched with you, if I might
Speak with you still, so learned in oration.
But tomorrow, on Easter’s first holy day,
I’ll ask my several questions, if I may.
I’ve pursued my work, zealously studying: 600
There’s much I know: yet I’d know everything.
(He leaves.)
Faust (Alone.)
That mind alone never loses hope,
That keeps to the shallows eternally,
Grabs, with eager hand, the wealth it sees,
And rejoices at the worms for which it gropes! 605
Dare such a human voice echo, too,
Where this depth of Spirit surrounds me?
Ah yet! For just this once, my thanks to you,
You sorriest of all earth’s progeny!
You’ve torn me away from that despair, 610
That would have soon overwhelmed my senses.
Ah! The apparition was so hugely there,
It might have truly dwarfed my defences.
I, image of the Godhead, already one,
Who thought the spirit of eternal truth so near, 615
Enjoying the light, both heavenly and clear,
Setting to one side the earthbound man:
I, more than Angel, a free force,
Ready to flow through Nature’s veins,
And, in creating, enjoy the life divine, 620
Pulsing with ideas: must atone again!
A word like thunder swept me away.
I dare not measure myself against you.
I possessed the power to summon you,
But not the power to make you stay. 625
In that blissful moment, then
I felt myself so small, so great:
Cruelly you hurled me back again,
Into Man’s uncertain state.
What shall I learn from? Or leave? 630
Shall I obey that yearning?
Ah! Our actions, and not just our grief,
Impede us on life’s journey.
Some more and more alien substance presses
On the splendour that the Mind conceives: 635
And when we gain what this world possesses,
We say the better world’s dream deceives.
The splendid feelings that give us life,
Fade among the crowd’s earthly strife.
If imagination flew with courage, once, 640
And, full of hope, stretched out to eternity,
Now a little room is quite enough,
When joy on joy has gone, in time’s whirling sea.
Care has nested in the heart’s depths,
Restless, she rocks there, spoiling joy and rest, 645
There she works her secret pain,
And wears new masks, ever and again,
Appears as wife and child, fields and houses,
As water, fire, or knife or poison:
Still we tremble for what never strikes us, 650
And must still cry for what has not yet gone.
I am no god: I feel it all too deeply.
I am the worm that writhes in dust: see,
As in the dust it lives, and seeks to eat,
It’s crushed and buried by the passing feet. 655
Is this not dust, what these vaults hold,
These hundred shelves that cramp me:
This junk, and all the thousand-fold
Shapes, of a moth-ridden world, around me?
Will I find here what I’m lacking else, 660
Shall I read, perhaps, as a thousand books insist,
That Mankind everywhere torments itself,
So, here and there, some happy man exists?
What do you say to me, bare grinning skull?
Except that once your brain whirled like mine, 665
Sought the clear day, and in the twilight dull,
With a breath of truth, went wretchedly awry.
For sure, you instruments mock at me,
With cylinders and arms, wheels and cogs:
I stand at the door: and you should be the key: 670
You’re deftly cut, but you undo no locks.
Mysterious, even in broad daylight,
Nature won’t let her veil be raised:
What your spirit can’t bring to sight,
Won’t by screws and levers be displayed. 675
You, ancient tools, I’ve never used
You’re here because my father used you,
Ancient scroll, you’ve darkened too,
From smoking candles burned above you.
Better the little I had was squandered, 680
Than sweat here under its puny weight!
What from your father you’ve inherited,
You must earn again, to own it straight.
What’s never used, leaves us overburdened,
But we can use what the Moment may create! 685
Yet why does that place so draw my sight,
Is that flask a magnet for my gaze?
Why is there suddenly so sweet a light,
As moonlight in a midnight woodland plays?
I salute you, phial of rare potion, 690
I lift you down, with devotion!
In you I worship man’s art and mind,
Embodiment of sweet sleeping draughts:
Extract, with deadly power, refined,
Show your master all his craft! 695
I see you, and my pain diminishes,
I grasp you, and my struggles grow less,
My spirit’s flood tide ebbs, more and more,
I seem to be where ocean waters meet,
A glassy flood gleams around my feet, 700
New day invites me to a newer shore.
A fiery chariot sweeps nearer
On light wings! I feel ready, free
To cut a new path through the ether
And reach new spheres of pure activity. 705
This greater life, this godlike bliss!
You, but a worm, have you earned this?
Choosing to turn your back, ah yes,
On all Earth’s lovely Sun might promise!
Let me dare to throw those gates open, 710
That other men go creeping by!
Now’s the time, to prove through action
Man’s dignity may rise divinely high,
Never trembling at that void where,
Imagination damns itself to pain, 715
Striving towards the passage there,
Round whose mouth all Hell’s fires flame:
Choose to take that step, happy to go
Where danger lies, where Nothingness may flow.
Come here to me, cup of crystal, clear! 720
Free of your ancient cover now appear,
You whom I’ve never, for many a year,
Considered! You shone at ancestral feasts,
Cheering the over-serious guests:
One man passing you to another here. 725
It was the drinker’s duty to explain in rhyme
The splendour of your many carved designs
Or drain it at a draught, and breathe, in time:
You remind me of those youthful nights of mine.
Now I will never pass you to a friend, 730
Or test my wits on your art again.
Here’s a juice will stun any man born:
It fills your hollow with a browner liquid.
I prepared it, now I choose the fluid,
At last I drink, and with my soul I bid 735
A high and festive greeting to the Dawn!
(He puts the cup to his mouth.)
(Bells chime and a choir sings.)
Choir of Angels Christ has arisen!
Joy to the One, of us,
Who the pernicious,
Ancestral, insidious, 740
Fault has unwoven.
Faust What deep humming, what shining sound
Strikes the glass from my hand with power?
Already, do the hollow bells resound,
Proclaiming Easter’s festive course? Our 745
Choirs, do you already sing the hymn of consolation,
Which once rang out, in deathly night, in Angels’ oration,
That certainty of a new testament’s hour?
Chorus of Women With pure spices
We embalmed him, 750
We his faithful
We entombed him:
Linen and bindings,
We unwound there,
Ah! Now we find 755
Christ is not here.
Choir of Angels Christ has arisen!
Blissful Beloved,
Out of what grieved,
Tested, and healed: 760
His trial is won.
Faust You heavenly sounds, powerful and mild,
Why, in the dust, here, do you seek me?
Ring out where tender hearts are reconciled.
I hear your message, but faith fails me: 765
The marvellous is faith’s dearest child.
I don’t attempt to rise to that sphere,
From which the message rings:
Yet I know from childhood what it sings,
And I’m recalled to life once more. 770
In other times a Heavenly kiss would fall
On me, in the deep Sabbath silence:
The bell notes filled with presentiments,
And a prayer was pleasure’s call:
A sweet yearning, beyond my understanding, 775
Set me wandering through woods and fields,
And while a thousand tears were burning
I felt a world around me come to be.
Love called out the lively games of youth,
The joy of spring’s idle holiday: 780
Memory’s childish feelings, in truth,
Hold me back from the last sombre way.
O, sing on you sweet songs of Heaven!
My tears flow, Earth claims me again!
Chorus of Disciples Has the buried one 785
Already, living,
Raised himself, alone,
Splendidly soaring:
Is he, in teeming air,
Near to creative bliss: 790
Ah! In sorrow, we’re
Here on Earth’s breast.
Lacking Him, we
Languish, and sigh.
Ah! Master we 795
Cry for your joy!
Choir of Angels Christ has arisen
Out of corruption’s sea.
Tear off your bindings
Joyfully free! 800
Actively praising him,
Lovingly claiming him,
Fraternally aiding him,
Prayerfully journeying,
Joyfully promising, 805
So is the Master near,
So is he here!
Scene II: In Front Of The City-Gate
(Passers-by of all kinds appear.)
Several Apprentices So, then, where are you away to?
Others We’re away to the Hunting Lodge.
The Former We’re off to saunter by the Mill. 810
An Apprentice Off to the Riverside Inn, I’d guess.
A Second Apprentice The way there’s not of the best.
The Others What about you?
A Third I’m with the others, still.
A Fourth Come to the Castle, you’ll find there
The prettiest girls, the finest beer, 815
And the best place for a fight.
A Fifth You quarrelsome fool, are you looking
For a third good hiding?
Not for me, that place, I hate its very sight.
A Maidservant No, No! I’m going back to town. 820
Another We’ll find him by those poplar trees for sure.
The First Well that’s no joy for me, now:
He’ll walk by your side, of course,
He’ll dance with you on the green.
Where’s the fun in that for me, then! 825
The Other I’m sure he’s not alone, he said
He’d bring along that Curly-head.
A Student My how they strut those bold women!
Brother, come on! We’ll follow them.
Fierce tobacco, strong beer, 830
And a girl in her finery, I prefer.
A Citizen’s Daughter They are handsome boys there, I see!
But it’s truly a disgrace:
They could have the best of company,
And run after a painted face! 835
Second Student (To the first.)
Not so fast! Those two behind,
They walk about so sweetly,
One must be that neighbour of mine:
I could fall for her completely.
They pass by with demure paces, 840
But in the end they’ll go with us.
The First Brother, no! I shouldn’t bother, anyway.
Quick! Before our quarry gets away.
The hand that wields a broom on Saturday,
Gives the best caress, on Sunday too, I say. 845
Citizen No, the new mayor doesn’t suit me!
Now he’s there he’s getting cocky.
And what’s he done to help the town?
Isn’t it getting worse each day?
As always it’s us who must obey, 850
And pay more money down.
A Beggar (Sings.)
Fine gentlemen, and lovely ladies,
Rosy-cheeked and finely dressed,
You could help me, for your aid is
Needed: see, ease my distress! 855
Don’t let me throw my song away,
Only he who gives is happy.
A day when all men celebrate,
Will be a harvest day for me!
Another Citizen On holidays there’s nothing I like better 860
Than talking about war and war’s display,
When in Turkey far away,
People one another batter.
You sit by the window: have a glass:
See the bright boats glide down the river, 865
Then you walk back home and bless
Its peacefulness, and peace, forever.
Third Citizen Neighbour, yes! I like that too:
Let them go and break their heads,
Make the mess they often do: 870
So long as we’re safe in our beds.
An Old Woman (To the citizen’s daughter.)
Ah! So pretty! Sweet young blood!
Who wouldn’t gaze at you?
Don’t be so proud! I’m very good!
And what you want, I’ll bring you. 875
The Citizen’s Daughter Agatha, come away! I must go carefully:
No walking freely with such a witch as her:
For on Saint Andrew’s Night she really
Showed me who’ll be my future Lover.
The Other She showed me mine in a crystal ball, 880
A soldier, with lots of other brave men:
I look around: among them all,
Yet I can never find him.
The Soldiers Castles with towering
Ramparts and wall, 885
Proud girls showing
Disdain for us all,
We want them to fall!
The action is brave,
And splendid the pay! 890
So let the trumpet,
Do our recruiting,
Calling to joy
Calling to ruin.
It’s a storm, blowing! 895
But it’s the life too!
Girls and castles
We must win you.
The action is brave,
Splendid the pay! 900
And the soldiers
Go marching away.
(Faust and Wagner)
Faust Rivers and streams are freed from ice
By Spring’s sweet enlivening glance.
Valleys, green with Hope’s happiness, dance: 905
Old Winter, in his weakness, sighs,
Withdrawing to the harsh mountains.
From there, retreating, he sends down
Impotent showers of hail that show
In stripes across the quickening ground. 910
But the sun allows nothing white below,
Change and growth are everywhere,
He enlivens all with his colours there,
And lacking flowers of the fields outspread,
He takes these gaudy people instead. 915
Turn round, and from this mountain height,
Look down, where the town’s in sight.
That cavernous, dark gate,
The colourful crowd penetrate,
All will take the sun today, 920
The Risen Lord they’ll celebrate,
And feel they are resurrected,
From low houses, dully made,
From work, where they’re constricted,
From the roofs’ and gables’ weight, 925
From the crush of narrow streets,
From the churches’ solemn night
They’re all brought to the light.
Look now: see! The crowds, their feet
Crushing the gardens and meadows, 930
While on the river a cheerful fleet
Of little boats everywhere it flows.
And over-laden, ready to sink,
The last barge takes to the stream.
From far off on the mountain’s brink, 935
All the bright clothing gleams.
I hear the noise from the village risen,
Here is the people’s true Heaven,
High and low shout happily:
Here I am Man: here, dare to be! 940
Wagner Doctor, to take a walk with you,
Is an honour and a prize:
Alone I’d have no business here, true,
Since everything that’s coarse I despise.
Shrieking, fiddlers, skittles flying, 945
To me it’s all a hateful noise:
They rush about possessed, crying,
And call it singing: and call it joy.
(Farm-workers under the lime tree. Dance and Song.)
The shepherd for the dance, had on
His gaudy jacket, wreath, and ribbon, 950
Making a fine show,
Under the linden-tree, already,
Everyone was dancing madly.
Hey! Hey!
Hurrah! Hurray! 955
So goes the fiddle-bow.
In his haste, in a whirl,
He stumbled against a girl,
With his elbow flailing:
Lively, she turned, and said: 960
Mind out, you wooden-head!
Hey! Hey!
Hurrah! Hurray!
Just watch where you’re sailing!
Fast around the circle bright, 965
They danced to left and right,
Skirts and jackets flying.
They grew red: they grew warm,
They rested, panting, arm on arm
Hey! Hey! 970
Hurrah! Hurray!
And hip, and elbow, lying.
Don’t be so familiar then!
That’s how many a lying man,
Cheated his wife so! 975
But he soon tempted her aside,
And from the linden echoed wide:
Hey! Hey!
Hurrah! Hurray!
So goes the fiddle-bow. 980
An Old Farmer Doctor, it’s good of you today
Not to shun the crowd,
So that among the folk, at play,
The learned man walks about.
Then have some from the finest jug 985
That we’ve filled with fresh ale first,
I offer it now and wish it would,
Not only quench your thirst:
But the count of drops it holds
May it exceed your hours, all told. 990
Faust I’ll take some of your foaming drink,
And offer you all, health and thanks.
(The people gather round him in a circle.)
The Old Farmer Truly, it’s a thing well done:
You’re here on our day of happiness, 995
Since in evil times now gone,
You’ve eased our distress!
Many a man stands here alive,
Whom your father, at the last,
Snatched from the fever’s rage,
While the plague went past. 1000
And you, only a young man, went,
Into every house of sickness, then,
Though many a corpse was carried forth,
You walked safely out again.
Many a hard trial you withstood, 1005
A Helper helped by the Helper above.
All Health to the man who’s proven true,
Long may he help me and you!
Faust To Him above bow down instead,
Who teaches help, and sends his aid. 1010
(He walks off, with Wagner.)
Wagner How it must feel, O man of genius,
To be respected by the crowd!
O happy he whose gifts endow
Him with such advantages!
The father shows you to his son, now 1015
Each one asks and pushes near,
The fiddle halts, and the dancers there:
You pass: in ranks they stop to see,
And throw their caps high in the air:
A little more and they’d bend the knee, 1020
As if what they worshipped was holy.
Faust Climb these few steps to that stone,
Here we’ll rest from our wandering.
Here I’ve sat often, thoughtful and alone,
Tormenting myself with prayer and fasting. 1025
Rich in hope, and firm of faith,
Wringing my hands, with sighs even,
Tears, to force the end of plague
From the very God of Heaven.
The crowd’s approval now’s like scorn. 1030
O if you could read within me
How little the father and the son
Deserve a fraction of their glory.
My father was a gloomy, honourable man,
Who pondered Nature and the heavenly spheres, 1035
Honestly, in his own fashion,
With eccentric studies it appears:
He, in his adepts’ company,
Locked in his dark workshop, forever
Tried with endless recipes, 1040
To make things opposite flow together.
The fiery Lion, a daring suitor,
Wed the Lily, in a lukewarm bath, there
In a fiery flame, both of them were
Strained from one bride-bed into another, 1045
Until the young Queen was descried,
In a mix of colours, in the glass:
There was the medicine: the patient died.
And who recovered? No one asked.
So we roamed, with our hellish pills, 1050
Among the valleys and the hills,
Worse than the pestilence itself we were.
I’ve poisoned a thousand: that’s quite clear:
And now from the withered old must hear
How men praise a shameless murderer. 1055
Wagner How can you grieve at that!
Isn’t it enough for an honest man
To exercise the skill he has,
Carefully, precisely, as given?
Honour your father as a youth, 1060
And receive his teaching in your soul,
As a man, then, add to scientific truth,
So your son can achieve a higher goal.
Faust and Wagner
‘Faust and Wagner’
Faust O happy the man who still can hope
Though drowned in a sea of error! 1065
Man needs the things he doesn’t know,
What he knows is useless, forever.
But don’t let such despondency
Spoil the deep goodness of the hour!
In the evening glow, we see 1070
The houses gleaming, green-embowered.
Mild it retreats, the day that’s left,
It slips away to claim new being.
Ah, that no wing from earth can lift
Me, closer and closer to it, striving! 1075
I’d see, in eternal evening’s light,
The silent Earth beneath my feet, forever,
The heights on fire, each valley quiet
While silver streams flow to a golden river.
The wild peaks with their deep clefts, 1080
Would cease to bar my godlike way,
Already the sea with its warm depths,
Opens to my astonished gaze.
At last the weary god sinks down to night:
But in me a newer yearning wakes, 1085
I hasten on, drinking his endless light:
The dark behind me: and ahead the day.
Heaven above me: and the waves below,
A lovely dream, although it vanishes.
Ah! Wings of the mind, so weightless 1090
No bodily wings could ever be so.
Yet it’s natural in every spirit, too,
That feeling drives us, up and on,
When over us, lost in the vault of blue,
The lark sings his piercing song, 1095
When over the steep pine-filled peaks,
The eagle widely soars,
And across the plains and seas,
The cranes seek their home shores.
Wagner I’ve often had strange moments, I know, 1100
But I’ve never felt yearnings quite like those:
The joys of woods and fields soon fade
I wouldn’t ask the birds for wings: indeed,
How differently the mind’s raptures lead
Us on, from book to book, and page to page! 1105
Then winter nights are beautiful, and sweet,
A blissful warmth steals through your limbs, too
When you’ve unrolled some noble text, complete,
Oh, how heaven’s light descends on you!
Faust You only feel the one yearning at best, 1110
Oh, never seek to know the other!
Two souls, alas, exist in my breast,
One separated from another:
One, with its crude love of life, just
Clings to the world, tenaciously, grips tight, 1115
The other soars powerfully above the dust,
Into the far ancestral height.
Oh, let the spirits of the air,
Between the heavens and Earth, weaving,
Descend through the golden atmosphere, 1120
And lead me on to new and varied being!
Yes, if a magic cloak were mine, that
Would carry me off to foreign lands,
Not for the costliest garment in my hands,
For the mantle of a king, would I resign it! 1125
Wagner Don’t call to that familiar crowd,
Streaming in misty circles, spreading,
Preparing a thousand dangers now,
On every side, for human beings.
The North winds’ sharp teeth penetrate, 1130
Down here, and spit you with their fangs:
Then the East’s drying winds are at the gate,
To feed themselves on your lungs.
If, from the South, the desert sends them,
And fire on fire burns on your brow, 1135
The West brings a swarm to quench them,
And you and field and meadow drown.
They hear us, while they’re harming us,
Hear us, while they are betraying:
They make out they’re from heaven above, 1140
And lisp like angels when they’re lying.
Let’s go on! The world has darkened,
The air is cool: the mists descend!
Man values his own house at night.
What is it occupies your sight? 1145
What troubles you so, in the evening?
Faust Through corn and stubble, see that black dog running?
Wagner I saw him long ago: he seems a wretched thing.
Faust Look at him closely! What do you make of him?
Wagner A dog that, in the way they do, 1150
Sniffs around to find his master.
Faust See how he winds in wide spirals too,
Round us here, yet always coming nearer?
And if I’m right, I see a swirl of fire
Twisting about, behind his track. 1155
Wagner Perhaps your eyesight proves a liar,
I only see a dog, that’s black.
Faust It seems to me that with a subtle magic,
He winds a fatal knot around our feet.
Wagner I see his timid and uncertain antics, 1160
It’s strangers, not his master, whom he meets.
Faust The circle narrows: now he’s here!
Wagner You see a dog, there’s no spectre near!
He barks uncertainly, lies down and crawls,
Wags his tail. Dogs’ habits, after all. 1165
Faust Come on! Here, now! Here, to me!
Wagner He’s a dogged hound, I agree.
Stand still and he holds his ground:
Talk to him, he dances round:
What you’ve lost, he’ll bring to you: 1170
Retrieve a stick from the water, too.
Faust You’re right: and I see nothing
Like a Spirit there, it’s only training.
Faust, Mephistopheles, and the Water Spaniel
‘Faust, Mephistopheles, and the Water Spaniel’
Wagner A wise man finds agreeable,
A dog that’s learnt its lesson well. 1175
Yes, he deserves all your favour,
Among the students, the true scholar!
(They enter the City gate.)
Scene III: The Study
(Faust enters, with the dog.)
Faust Fields and meadows now I’ve left
Clothed in deepest night,
Full of presentiments, a holy dread 1180
Wakes the better soul in me to light.
Wild desires no longer stir
At every restless act of mine:
Love for Humanity is here,
And here is Love Divine. 1185
Quiet, dog! Stop running to and fro!
Why are you snuffling at the door?
Lie down now, behind the stove,
There’s my best cushion on the floor.
Since you amused us running, leaping, 1190
Out on the mountainside, with zest,
Now I take you into my keeping,
A welcome, and a silent guest.
Ah, when in our narrow room,
The friendly lamp glows on the shelf, 1195
Brightness burns in our inner gloom,
In the Heart, that knows itself.
Reason speaks with insistence,
And Hope once more appears,
We see the River of Existence, 1200
Ah, the founts of Life, are near.
Don’t growl, dog! With this holy sound
Which I, with all my soul, embrace,
Your bestial noise seems out of place.
Men usually scorn the things, I’ve found, 1205
That, by them, can’t be understood,
Grumbling at beauty, and the good,
That to them seems wearisome:
Can’t a dog, then, snarl like them?
Oh, yet now I can feel no contentment 1210
Flow through me, despite my best intent.
Why must the stream fail so quickly,
And once again leave us thirsty?
I’ve long experience of it, yet I think
I could supply what’s missing, easily: 1215
We learn to value what’s beyond the earthly,
We yearn to reach revelation’s brink,
That’s nowhere nobler or more excellent
Than where it burns in the New Testament.
I yearn to render the first version, 1220
With true feeling, once and for all,
Translate the sacred original
Into my beloved German.
(He opens the volume, and begins.)
Faust in His Study
‘Faust in His Study’
It’s written here: ‘In the Beginning was the Word!’
Here I stick already! Who can help me? It’s absurd, 1225
Impossible, for me to rate the word so highly
I must try to say it differently
If I’m truly inspired by the Spirit. I find
I’ve written here: ‘In the Beginning was the Mind’.
Let me consider that first sentence, 1230
So my pen won’t run on in advance!
Is it Mind that works and creates what’s ours?
It should say: ‘In the beginning was the Power!’
Yet even while I write the words down,
I’m warned: I’m no closer with these I’ve found. 1235
The Spirit helps me! I have it now, intact.
And firmly write: ‘In the Beginning was the Act!’
If I’m to share my room with you,
Dog, you can stop howling too:
Stop your yapping! 1240
A fellow who’s always snapping,
I can’t allow too near me.
One of us you see,
Must leave the other free.
I’ve no more hospitality to show, 1245
The door’s open, you can go.
But what’s this I see!
Can this happen naturally?
Is it a phantom or is it real?
The dog’s growing big and tall. 1250
He rises powerfully,
It’s no doglike shape I see!
What a spectre I brought home!
Like a hippo in the room,
With fiery eyes, and fearful jaws. 1255
Oh! Now, what you are, I’m sure!
The Key of Solomon is good
For conjuring your half-hellish brood.
Spirits (In the corridor.)
Something’s trapped inside!
Don’t follow it: stay outside! 1260
Like a fox in a snare
An old lynx from hell trembles there.
Be careful what you’re about!
Float here: float there,
Under and over, 1265
And he’ll work his way out.
If you know how to help him,
Don’t let yourself fail him!
Since it’s all done for sure,
Just for your pleasure. 1270
Faust First speak the Words of the Four
To encounter the creature.
Salamander, be glowing,
Undine, flow near,
Sylph, disappear, 1275
Gnome, be delving.
Who does not know
The Elements so,
Their power sees,
And properties, 1280
Cannot lord it
Over the Spirits.
Vanish in flame,
Salamander!
Rush together in foam, 1285
Undine!
Shine with meteor-gleam,
Sylph!
Bring help to the home,
Incubus! Incubus! 1290
Go before and end it thus!
None of the Four
Show in the creature.
He lies there quietly grinning at me:
I’ve not stirred him enough it seems. 1295
But you’ll hear how
I’ll press him hard now.
My good fellow, are you
Exiled from Hell’s crew?
Witness the Symbol 1300
Before which they bow,
The dark crowd there!
Now it swells, with its bristling hair.
Depraved being!
Can you know what you’re seeing? 1305
The uncreated One
With name unexpressed,
Poured through Heaven,
Pierced without redress?
Spellbound, behind the stove, 1310
An elephant grows.
It fills the room, completely,
It will vanish like mist, I can see.
Don’t rise to the ceiling!
Lie down at your master’s feet! 1315
You see I don’t threaten you lightly.
I’ll sting you with fire that’s holy!
Don’t wait for the bright
Triple glowing Light!
Don’t wait for 1320
My highest art!
(As the mist clears, Mephistopheles steps from behind the stove, dressed as a wandering Scholar.)
Mephistopheles Why such alarms? What command would my lord impart?
Faust This was the dog’s core!
A wandering scholar? The fact makes me smile.
Mephistopheles I bow to the learned lord! 1325
You certainly made me sweat, in style.
Faust How are you named?
Mephistopheles A slight question
For one who so disdains the Word,
Is so distant from appearance: one
Whom only the vital depths have stirred. 1330
Mephistopheles Appearing to Faust
‘Mephistopheles Appearing to Faust’
Faust We usually gather from your names
The nature of you gentlemen: it’s plain
What you are, we all too clearly recognise
One who’s called Liar, Ruin, Lord of the Flies.
Well, what are you then? 1335
Mephistopheles Part of the Power that would
Always wish Evil, and always works the Good.
Faust What meaning to these riddling words applies?
Mephistopheles I am the spirit, ever, that denies!
And rightly so: since everything created,
In turn deserves to be annihilated: 1340
Better if nothing came to be.
So all that you call Sin, you see,
Destruction, in short, what you’ve meant
By Evil is my true element.
Faust You call yourself a part, yet seem complete to me? 1345
Mephistopheles I’m speaking the truth to you, and modestly.
Even if Man’s accustomed to take
His small world for the Whole, that’s his mistake:
I’m part of the part, that once was – everything,
Part of the darkness, from which Light, issuing, 1350
Proud Light, emergent, disputed the highest place
With its mother Night, the bounds of Space,
And yet won nothing, however hard it tried,
Still stuck to Bodily Things, and so denied.
It flows from bodies, which it beautifies, 1355
And bodies block its way:
I hope the day’s not far away
When it, along with all these bodies, dies.
Faust Now I see the plan you follow!
You can’t destroy it all, and so 1360
You’re working on a smaller scale.
Mephistopheles And frankly it’s a sorry tale.
What’s set against the Nothingness,
The Something, World’s clumsiness,
Despite everything I’ve tried, 1365
Won’t become a nothing: though I’d
Storms, quakes, and fires on every hand,
It deigned to stay as sea and land!
And those Men and creatures, all the damned,
It’s no use my owning any of that crew: 1370
How many I’ve already done with too!
Yet new fresh blood is always going round.
So it goes on, men make me furious!
With water, earth and air, of course,
A thousand buds unfurl 1375
In wet and dry, warm and cold!
And if I hadn’t kept back fire of old,
I’d have nothing left at all.
Faust So you set the Devil’s fist
That vainly clenches itself, 1380
Against the eternally active,
Wholesome, creative force!
Strange son of Chaos, start
On something else instead!
Mephistopheles Truly I’ll think about it: more 1385
Next time, on that head!
Might I be allowed to go?
Faust I see no reason for you to ask it.
Since I’ve learnt to know you now,
When you wish: then make a visit. 1390
There’s the door, here’s the window,
And, of course, there’s the chimney.
Mephistopheles I must confess, I’m prevented though
By a little thing that hinders me,
The Druid’s-foot on your doorsill – 1395
Faust The Pentagram gives you pain?
Then tell me, you Son of Hell,
If that’s the case, how did you gain
Entry? Are spirits like you cheated?
Mephistopheles Look carefully! It’s not completed: 1400
One angle, if you inspect it closely
Has, as you see, been left a little open.
Faust Just by chance as it happens!
And left you prisoner to me?
Success created by approximation! 1405
Mephistopheles The dog saw nothing, in his animation,
Now the affair seems inside out,
The Devil can’t get out of the house.
Faust Why not try the window then?
Mephistopheles To devils and ghosts the same laws appertain: 1410
The same way they enter in, they must go out.
In the first we’re free, in the second slaves to the act.
Faust So you still have laws in Hell, in fact?
That’s good, since it allows a pact,
And one with you gentlemen truly binds? 1415
Mephistopheles What’s promised you’ll enjoy, and find,
There’s nothing mean that we enact.
But it can’t be done so fast,
First we’ll have to talk it through,
Yet, urgently, I beg of you 1420
Let me go my way at last.
Faust Wait a moment now,
Tell me some good news first.
Mephistopheles I’ll soon be back, just let me go:
Then you can ask me what you wish. 1425
Faust I didn’t place you here, tonight.
You trapped yourself in the lime.
Who snares the devil, holds him tight!
He won’t be caught like that a second time.
Mephistopheles I’m willing, if you so wish, 1430
To stay here, in your company:
So long as we pass the time, and I insist,
On arts of mine, exclusively.
Faust Gladly, you’re free to present
Them, as long as they’re all pleasant. 1435
Mephistopheles My friend you’ll win more
For your senses, in an hour,
Than in a whole year’s monotony.
What the tender spirits sing,
The lovely pictures that they bring, 1440
Are no empty wizardry.
First your sense of smell’s invited,
Then your palate is delighted,
And then your touch, you see.
Now, I need no preparation, 1445
We’re all here, so let’s begin!
Spirits Vanish, you shadowy
Vaults above!
Cheerfully show,
The friendliest blue 1450
Of aether, down here.
Would that shadowy
Clouds had gone!
Starlight sparkling
Milder sun 1455
Shining clear.
Heavenly children
In lovely confusion,
Swaying and bending,
Drifting past. 1460
Affectionate yearning,
Following fast:
Their garments flowing
With fluttering ribbons,
Cover the gardens, 1465
Cover the leaves,
Where with each other
In deep conversation
Lover meets lover.
Leaves on leaves! 1470
Tendrils’ elation!
Grapes beneath
Crushed in a stream,
Pressed to extreme,
Crushed to fountain, 1475
Of foaming wine,
Trickling, fine,
Through rocks divine,
Leaving the heights,
Spreading beneath, 1480
Broad as the seas,
Valleys it fills
Round the green hills.
And the wings still,
Blissfully drunk, 1485
Fly to the sun,
Fly to the brightness,
Towards the islands,
Out of the waves
Magically raised: 1490
Now we can hear
The choir of joy near,
Over the meadow,
See how they dance now,
All in the air 1495
Dispersing there.
Some of them climbing
Over the mountains,
Others are swimming
Over the ocean, 1500
Others take flight:
All towards Life,
All towards distant,
Love of the stars, and
Approval’s bliss. 1505
Mephistopheles He’s asleep! Enough, you delicate children of air!
You’ve sung to him faithfully, I declare!
I’m in your debt for all this.
He’s not yet the man to hold devils fast!
Spellbind him with dream-forms, cast 1510
Him deep into illusions’ sea:
Now, for the magic sill I must pass,
I could use rat’s teeth: no need for me
To conjure up a lengthier spell,
One’s rustling here that will do well. 1515
The Lord of Rats and Mice,
Of Flies, Frogs, Bugs and Lice,
Summons you to venture here,
And gnaw the threshold where
He stains it with a little oil – 1520
You’ve hopped, already, to your toil!
Now set to work! The fatal point,
Is at the edge, it’s on the front.
One more bite, then it’s complete –
Now Faust, dream deeply, till we meet. 1525
Faust (Waking.)
Am I cheated then, once again?
Does the Spirit-Realm’s deep yearning fade:
So a mere dream has conjured up the devil,
And only a dog, it was, that ran away?
Scene IV: The Study
(Faust, Mephistopheles)
Faust A knock? Enter! Who’s plaguing me again? 1530
Mephistopheles I am
Faust Enter!
Mephistopheles Three times you must say it, then.
Faust So! Enter!
Mephistopheles Ah, now, you please me.
I hope we’ll get along together:
To drive away the gloomy weather,
I’m dressed like young nobility, 1535
In a scarlet gold-trimmed coat,
In a little silk-lined cloak,
A cockerel feather in my hat,
With a long, pointed sword,
And I advise you, at that, 1540
To do as I do, in a word:
So that, footloose, fancy free,
You can experience Life, with me.
Faust This life of earth, its narrowness,
Pains me, however I’m turned out, 1545
I’m too old to play about,
Too young, still, to be passionless.
What can the world bring me again?
Abstain! You shall! You must! Abstain!
That’s the eternal song 1550
That in our ears, forever, rings
The one, that, our whole life long,
Every hour, hoarsely, sings.
I wake in terror with the dawn,
I cry, the bitterest tears, to see 1555
Day grant no wish of mine, not one
As it passes by on its journey.
Even presentiments of joy
Ebb, in wilful depreciation:
A thousand grimaces life employs 1560
To hinder me in creation.
Then when night descends I must
Stretch out, worried, on my bed:
What comes to me is never rest,
But some wild dream instead. 1565
The God that lives inside my heart,
Can rouse my innermost seeing:
The one enthroned beyond my art,
Can’t stir external being:
And so existence is a burden: sated, 1570
Death’s desired, and Life is hated.
Mephistopheles Yet Death’s a guest who’s visit’s never wholly celebrated.
Faust Happy the man whom victory enhances,
Whose brow the bloodstained laurel warms,
Who, after the swift whirling dances, 1575
Finds himself in some girl’s arms!
If only, in my joy, then, I’d sunk down
Before that enrapturing Spirit power!
Mephistopheles Yet someone, from a certain brown
Liquid, drank not a drop, at midnight hour. 1580
Faust It seems that you delight in spying.
Mephistopheles I know a lot: and yet I’m not all-knowing.
Faust When sweet familiar tones drew me,
Away from the tormenting crowd,
Then my other childhood feelings 1585
Better times echoed, and allowed.
So I curse whatever snares the soul,
In its magical, enticing arms,
Banishes it to this mournful hole,
With dazzling, seductive charms! 1590
Cursed be those high Opinions first,
With which the mind entraps itself!
Then glittering Appearance curse,
In which the senses lose themselves!
Curse what deceives us in our dreaming, 1595
With thoughts of everlasting fame!
Curse the flattery of ‘possessing’
Wife and child, lands and name!
Curse Mammon, when he drives us
To bold acts to win our treasure: 1600
Or straightens out our pillows
For us to idle at our leisure!
Curse the sweet juice of the grape!
Curse the highest favours Love lets fall!
Cursed be Hope! Cursed be Faith, 1605
And cursed be Patience most of all!
Choir of Spirits (Unseen.)
Sorrow! Sorrow!
You’ve destroyed it,
The beautiful world,
With a powerful fist: 1610
It tumbles, it’s hurled
To ruin! A demigod crushed it!
We carry
Fragments into the void,
And sadly 1615
Lament the Beauty that’s gone.
Stronger
For all of Earth’s sons,
Brighter,
Build it again, 1620
Build, in your heart!
Life’s new start,
Begin again,
With senses washed clean,
And sound, then, 1625
A newer art!
Mephistopheles They’re little, but fine,
These attendants of mine.
Precocious advice they give, listen,
Regarding both action, and passion! 1630
Into the World outside,
From Solitude, that’s dried
Your sap and senses,
They tempt us.
Stop playing with grief, 1635
That feeds, a vulture, on your breast,
The worst society, you’ll find, will prompt belief,
That you’re a Man among the rest.
Not that I mean
To shove you into the mass. 1640
Among ‘the greats’, I’m second-class:
But if you, in my company,
Your path through life would wend,
I’ll willingly condescend
To serve you, as we go. 1645
I’m your man, and so,
If it suits you of course,
I’m your slave: I’m yours!
Faust And what must I do in exchange?
Mephistopheles There’s lots of time: you’ve got the gist. 1650
Faust No, no! The Devil is an egotist,
Does nothing lightly, or in God’s name,
To help another, so I insist,
Speak your demands out loud,
Such servants are risks, in a house. 1655
Mephistopheles I’ll be your servant here, and I’ll
Not stop or rest, at your decree:
When we’re together, on the other side,
You’ll do the same for me.
Faust The ‘other side’ concerns me less: 1660
Shatter this world, in pieces,
The other one can take its place,
The root of my joy’s on this Earth,
And this Sun lights my sorrow:
If I must part from them tomorrow, 1665
What can or will be, that I’ll face.
I’ll hear no more of it, of whether
In that future, men both hate and love,
Or whether in those spheres, forever,
We’re given a below and an above. 1670
Mephistopheles In that case, you can venture all.
Commit yourself: today, you shall
View my arts with joy: I mean
To show you what no man has seen.
Faust Poor devil what can you give? When has ever 1675
A human spirit, in its highest endeavour,
Been understood by such a one as you?
You have a never-satiating food,
You have your restless gold, a slew
Of quicksilver, melting in the hand, 1680
Games whose prize no man can land,
A girl, who while she’s on my arm,
Snares a neighbour, with her eyes:
And Honour’s fine and godlike charm,
That, like a meteor, dies? 1685
Show me fruits then that rot, before they’re ready.
And trees grown green again, each day, too!
Mephistopheles Such commands don’t frighten me:
With such treasures I can truly serve you.
Still, my good friend, a time may come, 1690
When one prefers to eat what’s good in peace.
Faust When I lie quiet in bed, at ease.
Then let my time be done!
If you fool me, with flatteries,
Till my own self’s a joy to me, 1695
If you snare me with luxury –
Let that be the last day I see!
That bet I’ll make!
Mephistopheles Done!
Faust And quickly!
When, to the Moment then, I say:
‘Ah, stay a while! You are so lovely!’ 1700
Then you can grasp me: then you may,
Then, to my ruin, I’ll go gladly!
Then they can ring the passing bell,
Then from your service you are free,
The clocks may halt, the hands be still, 1705
And time be past and done, for me!
Mephistopheles Consider well, we’ll not forget.
Faust You have your rights, complete:
I never over-estimate my powers.
I’ll be a slave, in defeat: 1710
Why ask whose slave or yours?
Mephistopheles Today, likewise, at the Doctors’ Feast
I’ll do my duty as your servant.
One thing, though! – Re: life and death, I want
A few lines from you, at the least. 1715
Faust You pedant, you demand it now in writing?
You still won’t take Man’s word for anything?
It’s not enough that the things I say,
Will always accord with my future?
The world never ceases to wear away, 1720
And shall a promise bind me, then, forever?
Yet that’s the illusion in our minds,
And who then would be free of it?
Happy the man, who pure truth finds,
And who’ll never deign to sacrifice it! 1725
Still a document, written and signed,
That’s a ghost makes all men fear it.
The word is already dying in the pen,
And wax and leather hold the power then.
What do you want from me base spirit? 1730
Will iron: marble: parchment: paper do it?
Shall I write with stylus, pen or chisel?
I’ll leave the whole decision up to you.
Mephistopheles Why launch into oratory too?
Hot-tempered: you exaggerate as well. 1735
Any bit of paper’s just as good.
And you can sign it with a drop of blood.
Faust If it will satisfy you, and it should,
Then let’s complete the farce in full.
Mephistopheles Blood is a quite special fluid. 1740
Faust Have no fear I’ll break this pact!
The extreme I can promise you: it is
All the power my efforts can extract.
I’ve puffed myself up so highly
I belong in your ranks now. 1745
The mighty Spirit scorns me
And Nature shuts me out.
The thread of thought has turned to dust,
Knowledge fills me with disgust.
Let the depths of sensuality 1750
Satisfy my burning passion!
And, its impenetrable mask on,
Let every marvel be prepared for me!
Let’s plunge into time’s torrent,
Into the whirlpools of event! 1755
Then let joy, and distress,
Frustration, and success,
Follow each other, as well they can:
Restless activity proves the man!
Mephistopheles No goal or measure’s set for you. 1760
Do as you wish, nibble at everything,
Catch at fragments while you’re flying,
Enjoy it all, whatever you find to do.
Now grab at it, and don’t be stupid!
Faust It’s not joy we’re about: you heard it. 1765
I’ll take the frenzy, pain-filled elation,
Loving hatred, enlivening frustration.
Cured of its urge to know, my mind
In future, will not hide from any pain,
And what is shared by all mankind, 1770
In my innermost self, I’ll contain:
My soul will grasp the high and low,
My heart accumulate its bliss and woe,
So this self will embrace all theirs,
That, in the end, their fate it shares. 1775
Mephistopheles Believe me, many a thousand year
They’ve chewed hard food, and yet
From the cradle to the bier,
Not one has ever digested it!
Trust one of us, this Whole thing 1780
Was only made for a god’s delight!
In eternal splendour he is dwelling,
He placed us in the darkness quite,
And only gave you day and night.
Faust But, I will! 1785
Mephistopheles That’s good to hear!
Yet I’ve a fear, just the one:
Time is short, and art is long.
I think you need instruction.
Join forces with a poet: use poetry,
Let him roam in imagination, 1790
You’ll gain every noble quality
From your honorary occupation,
The lion’s brave attitude
The wild stag’s swiftness,
The Italian’s fiery blood, 1795
The North’s persistence.
Let him find the mysterious
Meeting of generous and devious,
While you, with passions young and hot,
Fall in love, according to the plot. 1800
I’d like to see such a gentleman, among us,
And I’d call him Mister Microcosmus.
Faust What am I then, if it’s a flight too far,
For me to gain that human crown
I yearn towards with every sense I own? 1805
Mephistopheles In the end, you are – what you are.
Set your hair in a thousand curlicues
Place your feet in yard-high shoes,
You’ll remain forever, what you are.
Faust All the treasures of the human spirit 1810
I feel that I’ve expended, uselessly.
And wherever, at the last, I sit,
No new power flows, in me.
I’m not a hair’s breadth taller, as you see,
And I’m no nearer to Infinity. 1815
Mephistopheles My dear sir, you see the thing
Exactly as all men see it: why,
We must re-order everything,
Before the joys of life slip by.
Hang it! Hands and feet, belong to you, 1820
Certainly, a head, and a backside,
Yet everything I use as new
Why is my ownership of it denied?
When I can count on six stallions,
Isn’t their horsepower mine to use? 1825
I drive behind, and am a proper man,
As though I’d twenty-four legs, too.
Look lively! Leave the senses be,
And plunge into the world with me!
I say to you that scholarly fellows 1830
Are like the cattle on an arid heath:
Some evil spirit leads them round in circles,
While sweet green meadows lie beneath.
Faust How shall we begin then?
Mephistopheles From here, we’ll first win free.
What kind of a martyrs’ hole can this be? 1835
What kind of a teacher of life is he,
Who fills young minds with ennui?
Let your neighbours do it, and go!
Do you want to thresh straw forever?
The best things you can ever know, 1840
You dare not tell the youngsters, ever.
I hear one of them arriving, too!
Faust I’ve no desire to see him, though.
Mephistopheles The poor lad’s waited hours for you.
He mustn’t go away un-consoled. 1845
Come: give me your cap and gown.
The mask should look delicious. So!
(He disguises himself.)
Now I’ve lost what wit’s my own!
I want fifteen minutes with him, only:
Meanwhile get ready for our journey! 1850
(Faust exits.)
Mephistopheles (In Faust’s long gown.)
Reason and Science you despise,
Man’s highest powers: now the lies
Of the deceiving spirit must bind you
With those magic arts that blind you,
And I’ll have you, totally – 1855
Fate gave him such a spirit
It urges him ever onwards, wildly,
And, in his hasty striving, he has leapt
Beyond all earth’s ecstasies.
I’ll drag him through raw life, 1860
Through the meaningless and shallow,
I’ll freeze him: stick to him: keep him ripe,
Frustrate his insatiable greed, allow
Food and drink to drift before his eyes:
In vain he’ll beg for consummation, 1865
And if he weren’t the devil’s, why
He’d still go to his ruination!
(A student enters.)
Student I’m only here momentarily,
I’ve come, filled with humility,
To speak to, and to stand before, 1870
One who’s spoken of with awe.
Mephistopheles Your courtesy delights me greatly!
A man like other men you see.
Have you studied then, elsewhere?
Student I beg you, please enrol me, here! 1875
I come to you strong of courage,
Lined in pocket, healthy for my age:
My mother didn’t want to lose me: though,
I’d like to learn what it’s right for me to know.
Mephistopheles Then you’ve come to the right place, exactly. 1880
Student To be honest, I’d like to go already:
There’s little pleasure for me at all,
In these walls, and all these halls.
It’s such a narrow space I find,
You see no trees, no leaves of any kind, 1885
And in the lectures, on the benches,
All thought deserts me, and my senses.
Mephistopheles Receiving the Student
‘Mephistopheles Receiving the Student’
Mephistopheles It will only come to you with habit.
So the child takes its mother’s breast
Quite unwillingly at first, and yet it 1890
Soon sucks away at her with zest.
So will you at Wisdom’s breast, here,
Feel every day a little zestier.
Student I’ll cling to her neck with pleasure:
But only tell me how to find her. 1895
Mephistopheles Explain, before you travel on
What faculty you’ve settled on.
Student I want to be a true scholar,
I want to grasp, by the collar,
What’s on earth, in heaven above, 1900
In Science, and in Nature too.
Mephistopheles Then here’s the very path for you,
But don’t allow yourself to wander off.
Student I’ll be present heart and soul:
Of course I’ll want to play, 1905
Have some fun and freedom, though,
On each sweet summer holiday.
Mephistopheles Use your time well: it slips away so fast, yet
Discipline will teach you how to win it.
My dear friend, I’d advise, in sum, 1910
First, the Collegium Logicum.
There your mind will be trained,
As if in Spanish boots, constrained,
So that painfully, as it ought,
It creeps along the way of thought, 1915
Not flitting about all over,
Wandering here and there.
So you’ll learn, in many days,
What you used to do, untaught, as in a haze,
Like eating now, and drinking, you’ll see 1920
The necessity of One! Two! Three!
Truly the intricacy of logic
Is like a master-weaver’s fabric,
Where the loom holds a thousand threads,
Here and there the shuttles go 1925
And the threads, invisibly, flow,
One pass serves for a thousand instead.
Then the philosopher steps in: he’ll show
That it certainly had to be so:
The first was – so, the second – so, 1930
And so, the third and fourth were – so:
If first and second had never been,
Third and fourth would not be seen.
All praise the scholars, beyond believing,
But few of them ever turn to weaving. 1935
To know and note the living, you’ll find it
Best to first dispense with the spirit:
Then with the pieces in your hand,
Ah! You’ve only lost the spiritual bond.
‘Natural treatment’, Chemistry calls it 1940
Mocks at herself, and doesn’t know it.
Student I’m not sure that I quite understand.
Mephistopheles You’ll soon know it all, as planned,
When you’ve learnt the science of reduction,
And everything’s proper classification. 1945
Student After all that, I feel as stupid
As if I’d a mill wheel in my head.
Mephistopheles Next, before all else, you’ll fix
Your mind on Metaphysics!
See that you’re profoundly trained 1950
In what never stirs in a human brain:
You’ll learn a splendid word
For what’s occurred or not occurred.
But for the present take six months
To get yourself in order: start at once. 1955
Five hours every day, lock
Yourself in, with a ticking clock!
Make sure you’re well prepared,
Study each paragraph with care,
So afterwards you’ll be certain 1960
Only what’s in the book, was written:
Then be as diligent when you pen it,
As if the Holy Ghost had said it!
Student You won’t need to tell me twice!
I think, myself, it’s very helpful, too 1965
That one can take back home, and use,
What someone’s penned in black and white.
Mephistopheles But choose a faculty, any one!
Student I wouldn’t be comfortable with Law.
Mephistopheles I couldn’t name you anything more 1970
Vile, I know how dogmatic it’s become.
Laws and rights are handed down
It’s an eternal disgrace:
They’re moved round from town to town
Dragged around from place to place. 1975
Reason is nonsense, kindness a disease,
If you’re a grandchild it’s a curse!
The rights we are born with,
To those, alas, no one refers!
Student That just strengthens my disgust. 1980
Happy the student that you instruct!
I’ve nearly settled on Theology.
Mephistopheles I wouldn’t wish to guide you erroneously.
In what that branch of knowledge concerns
It’s so difficult to avoid a fallacious route, 1985
There’s so much poison hidden in what you learn,
And it’s barely distinguishable from the antidote.
The best thing here’s to make a single choice,
Then simply swear by your master’s voice
On the whole, to words stick fast! 1990
Through the safest gate you’ll pass
To the Temple of Certainty.
Student Yet surely words must have a sense.
Mephistopheles Why, yes! But don’t torment yourself with worry,
Where sense fails it’s only necessary 1995
To supply a word, and change the tense.
With words fine arguments can be weighted,
With words whole Systems can be created,
With words, the mind does its conceiving,
No word suffers a jot from thieving. 2000
Student Forgive me, I delay you with my questions,
But I must trouble you again,
On the subject of Medicine,
Have you no helpful word to say?
Three years, so little time applied, 2005
And, God, the field is rather wide!
If only you had some kind of pointer,
You would feel so much further on.
Mephistopheles (Aside.)
I’m tired of this desiccated banter
I really must play the devil, at once. 2010
(Aloud.)
To grasp the spirit of Medicine’s easily done:
You study the great and little world, until,
In the end you let it carry on
Just as God wills.
Useless to roam round, scientifically: 2015
Everyone learns only what he can:
The one who grasps the Moment fully,
He’s the proper man.
You’re quite a well-made fellow,
You’re not short of courage too, 2020
And when you’re easy with yourself,
Others will be easy with you.
Study, especially, female behaviour:
Their eternal aches and woes,
All of the thousand-fold, 2025
Rise from one point, and have one cure.
And if you’re half honourable about it
You shall have them in your pocket.
A title first: to give them comfort you
Have skills that far exceed the others, 2030
Then you’re free to touch the goods, and view
What someone else has prowled around for years.
Take the pulse firmly, you understand,
And then, with sidelong fiery glance,
Grasp the slender hips, in haste, 2035
To find out whether she’s tight-laced.
Student That sounds much better! The Where and How, I see.
Mephistopheles Grey, dear friend, is all theory,
And green the golden tree of life.
Student I swear it’s like a dream to me: may I 2040
Trouble you, at some further time,
To expound your wisdom, so sublime?
Mephistopheles As much as I can, I’ll gladly explain.
Student I can’t tear myself away,
I must just pass you my album, sir, 2045
Grant me the favour of your signature!
Mephistopheles Very well.
(He writes and gives the book back.)
Student (Reading Mephistopheles’ Latin inscription which means: ‘You’ll be like God, acquainted with good and evil’.)
Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum.
(He makes his bows, and takes his leave.)
Mephistopheles Just follow the ancient text, and my mother the snake, too:
And then your likeness to God will surely frighten you! 2050
(Faust enters.)
Faust Where will we go, then?
Mephistopheles Where you please.
The little world, and then the great, we’ll see.
With what profit and delight,
This term, you’ll be a parasite!
Faust Yet with my long beard, I’ll 2055
Lack life’s superficial style.
My attempt will come to nothing:
I know, in this world, I don’t fit in.
I feel so small next to other men,
It only means embarrassment. 2060
Mephistopheles My friend, just give yourself completely to it:
When you find yourself, you’ll soon know how to live it.
Faust How shall we depart from here, then?
I see not one servant, coach, or horse.
Mephistopheles We’ll just spread this cloak wide open, 2065
Then through the air we’ll take our course.
For a daring trip like this we’re on,
Better not take much baggage along.
A little hot air I’ll ready, first,
To lift us nimbly above the Earth, 2070
And as we’re light we’ll soon get clear:
Congratulations on your new career!
Scene V: Auerbach’s Cellar in Leipzig
(Friends happily drinking.)
Frosch Will none of you laugh? Nobody drink?
I’ll have to teach you to smile, I think!
You’re all of you like wet straw today, 2075
And usually you’re well away.
Brander That’s up to you, you bring us nothing.
Nothing dumb, or dirty, nothing.
Frosch (Pouring a glass of wine over Brander’s head.)
You can have both!
Brander Rotten swine!
Frosch You wanted them both, so you got mine! 2080
Siebel Out the door, whoever fights! Get out!
Let’s sing a heart-felt chorus, drink and shout!
Up! Hurray! Ha!
Altmayer Ah! I’m in agony!
Earplugs, here! This fellow’s deafened me.
Siebel It’s only when it echoes in the tower, 2085
You hear a bass voice’s real power.
Frosch Right, out with him who takes offence!
Ah! Do, re, me!
Altmayer Ah! Do, re, me!
Fosch Our throats are tuned: commence.
(He sings.)
‘Dear Holy Roman Empire, 2090
How do you hold together?’
Brander A lousy song! Bah! A political song –
A tiresome song! Thank God, every morning,
It isn’t you who must sit there worrying
About the Empire! At least I’m better for 2095
Not being a King or a Chancellor.
But we should have a leader, so
We’ll choose a Pope of our own.
You know the qualities that can
Swing the vote, and elevate the man. 2100
Frosch (Sings.)
‘Sing away, sweet Nightingale,
Greet my girl, and never fail.’
Siebel Don’t greet my girl! I’ll not allow it!
Frosch Greet and kiss her! You’ll not stop it!
(He sings.)
‘Slip the bolt in deepest night! 2105
Slip it! Wake, the lover bright.
Slip it to! At break of dawn.’
Siebel Yes, sing in praise of her, and boast: sing on!
I’ll laugh later when it suits:
She leads me a dance, she’ll lead you too. 2110
She should have a dwarf for a lover!
At the crossroads, let him woo her:
An old goat from Blocksberg, galloping over,
Can bleat goodnight, as it passes by her.
An honest man, of flesh and blood, 2115
For a girl like that’s far too good.
I’m not bothered even to say hello
Except perhaps to break her window.
Brander (Pounding on the table.)
Quiet! Quiet! Or you won’t hear!
I know about life, you lot, confess. 2120
Besotted persons sit among us,
As fits their status, then, I must
Give them, tonight, of my very best.
Listen! A song in the newest strain!
And you can shout out the refrain! 2125
(He sings.)
‘Once there was a cellar rat,
Who lived on grease, and butter:
He had a belly, round and fat,
Just like Doctor Luther.
The cook set poison round about: 2130
It brought on such a violent bout,
As if he’d love inside him.’
Chorus (Shouting.)
‘As if he’d love inside him!’
Brander ‘He ran here, and he ran there,
And drank from all the puddles, 2135
Gnawing, scratching, everywhere,
But nothing cured his shudders.
In torment, he leapt to the roof,
Poor beast, soon he’d had enough,
As if he’d love inside him.’ 2140
Chorus ‘As if he’d love inside him!’
Brander ‘Fear drove him to the light of day,
Into the kitchen then he ran,
Fell on the hearth and twitched away,
Pitifully weak, and wan. 2145
Then the murderess laughed with glee:
He’s on his last legs, I see,
As if he’d love inside him.’
Chorus ‘As if he’d love inside him.’
Siebel How pleased they are, the tiresome fools! 2150
Spreading poison for wretched rats,
To me, that’s the right thing to do!
Brander You’re in sympathy with them, perhaps?
Altmayer That fat belly with a balding head!
Bad luck makes him meek and mild: 2155
From a swollen rat, he sees, with dread,
His own natural likeness is compiled.
(Faust and Mephistopheles appear.)
First of all, I had to bring you here,
Where cheerful friends sup together,
To see how happily life slips away. 2160
For these folk every day’s a holiday.
With lots of leisure, and little sense,
They revolve in their round-dance,
Chasing their tails as kittens prance,
If the hangovers aren’t too intense, 2165
If the landlord gives them credit,
They’re cheerful, and unworried by it.
Brander They’re fresh from their travelling days,
You can tell by their foreign ways:
They’ve not been back an hour: you see. 2170
Frosch True, you’re right! My Leipzig’s dear to me!
It’s a little Paris, and educates its people.
Siebel Who do you think the strangers are?
Frosch Let me find out! I’ll draw the truth,
From those two, with a brimming glass, 2175
As easily as you’d pull a child’s tooth.
It seems to me they’re of some noble house,
They look so discontented and so proud.
Brander They’re surely strolling players, I’d guess!
Altmayer Perhaps.
Frosch Watch me screw it out of them, then! 2180
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
These folk wouldn’t feel the devil, even
If he’d got them dangling by the neck.
Faust Greetings, sirs!
Siebel Thank you, and greetings.
(He mutters away, inspecting Mephistopheles side-on.)
What’s wrong with his foot: why’s he limping?
Mephistopheles Allow us to sit with you, if you please. 2185
Instead of fine ale that can’t be had,
We can still have good company.
Altmayer You seem a choosy sort of lad.
Frosch Was it late when you started out from Rippach?
Perhaps you dined with Hans there, first? 2190
Mephistopheles We passed straight by, today, without a rest!
We spoke to him last some time back,
When he talked a lot about his cousins,
And he sent to each his kind greetings.
(He bows to Frosch.)
Altmayer (Aside.)
He did you, there! He’s smart!
Siebel A shrewd customer! 2195
Frosc Wait, I’ll have him soon, I’m sure!
Mephistopheles If I’m not wrong, we heard
A tuneful choir singing?
I’m sure, with this vault, the words
Must really set it ringing! 2200
Frosch Are you by any chance a virtuoso?
Mephistopheles No! Though my desire is great, my skill is only so-so.
Altmayer Give us a song!
Mephistopheles If you wish it, a few.
Siebel So long as it’s a brand-new one!
Mephistopheles Well, it’s from Spain that we’ve just come, 2205
The lovely land of wine, and singing too.
(He sings.)
‘There was once a king, who
Had a giant flea’ –
Frosch Listen! Did you get that? A flea.
A flea’s an honest guest to me. 2210
Mephistopheles (Sings.)
‘There was once a king, who
Had a giant flea,
He loved him very much, oh,
He was like a son, you see.
The king called for his tailor, 2215
He came right away:
Now, measure up the lad for
A suit of clothes, I say!’
Brander Make sure the tailor’s sharp,
And cuts them out precisely, 2220
And, since his son’s dear to his heart,
Make sure there’s never a crease to see.
Mephistopheles ‘All in silk and velvet,
He was smartly dressed,
With ribbons on his coat, 2225
A cross upon his chest.
He was the First Minister,
And so he wore a star:
His brothers and his sisters,
He made noblest by far. 2230
The lords and the ladies,
They were badly smitten,
The Queen and her maids,
They were stung and bitten.
They didn’t dare to crush them, 2235
Or scratch away, all night.
We smother them, and crush them,
The moment that they bite.’
Chorus (Shouted.)
‘We smother them, and crush them,
The moment that they bite.’ 2240
Frosch Bravo! Bravo! That went sweetly!
Siebel So shall it be with every flea!
Brander Sharpen your nails, and crush them fine!
Altmayer Long live freedom, and long live wine!
Mephistopheles I’d love to drink a glass, in freedom’s honour, 2245
If only the wine were a little better.
Siebel Not again, we don’t want to hear!
Mephistopheles I fear the landlord might complain
Or I’d give these worthy guests,
One of my cellar’s very best. 2250
Siebel Just bring it on! He’ll accept it: I’ll explain.
Frosch Make it a good glass and we’ll praise it.
But don’t make it so small we can’t taste it.
Because if I’m truly going to decide,
I need a really big mouthful inside. 2255
Altmayer (Aside.)
They’re from the Rhine, as I guessed.
Mephistopheles Bring me a corkscrew!
Brander What for?
Is it outside already, this cask?
Altmayer There’s one in the landlord’s toolbox, for sure.
Mephistopheles (Takes the corkscrew. To Frosch.)
Now, what would you like to try? 2260
Frosch What? Is there a selection, too?
Mephistopheles There’s a choice for every one of you.
Altmayer(To Frosch.)
Ah! You soon catch on: your lips are dry?
Frosch Good! When I’ve a choice, I drink Rhenish.
The Fatherland grants those best gifts to us. 2265
Mephistopheles (Boring a hole in the table-edge where Frosch is sitting.)
Bring me a little wax, to make the seals, as well!
Altmayer Ah, that’s for the conjuring trick, I can tell.
Mephistopheles (To Brander.)
And yours?
Brander Champagne for me is fine:
Make it a truly sparkling wine!
(Mephistopheles bores the holes: one of the others makes the wax stoppers and stops the holes with them.)
We can’t always shun what’s foreign, 2270
Things from far away are often fine.
Real Germans can’t abide a Frenchman,
And yet they gladly drink his wine.
Siebel (As Mephistopheles approaches his seat.)
I must confess I do dislike the dry,
Give me a glass of the very sweetest! 2275
Mephistopheles (Boring a hole.)
I’ll pour an instant Tokay for you, yes?
Altmayer Now, gentlemen, look me in the eye!
I see you’ve had the better of us there.
Mephistopheles Now! Now! With guests so rare,
That would be far too much for me to dare. 2280
Quick! Time for you to declare!
Which wine can I serve you with?
Altmayer Any at all! Don’t make us ask forever.
(Now all the holes have been stopped and sealed.)
Mephistopheles (With a strange gesture.)
Grapes, they are the vine’s load!
Horns, they are the he-goat’s: 2285
Wine is juice: wood makes vines,
The wooden board shall give us wine.
Look deeper into Nature!
Have faith, and here’s a wonder!
Now draw the stoppers, and drink up! 2290
All (Draw the stoppers, and the wine they chose flows into each glass.)
O lovely fount, that flows for us!
Mephistopheles But careful, don’t lose a drop!
(They drink repeatedly.)
All (Singing.)
‘We’re all of us cannibals now,
We’re like five hundred sows.’
Mephistopheles The folk are free, and we can go, you see! 2295
Faust I’d like to leave here now.
Mephistopheles Watch first: their bestiality
Will make a splendid show.
Siebel(He drinks carelessly, wine pours on the ground and bursts into flame.)
Help! Fire! Hell burns bright!
Mephistopheles in the Students’ Tavern
‘Mephistopheles in the Students’ Tavern’
Mephistopheles (Charming away the flame.)
Friendly element, be quiet! 2300
(To the drinkers.)
For this time, just a drop of Purgatory.
Siebel What’s that? You wait! You’ll pay dearly!
It seems you don’t quite see us right.
Frosch Try playing that trick a second time, on us!
Altmayer I think we should quietly send him packing. 2305
Siebel What, sir? You think you’re daring,
Tricking us with your hocus-pocus?
Mephistopheles Be quiet, old wine-barrel!
Siebel You broomstick! You’ll show us you’re ill bred?
Brander Just wait, it’ll rain blows, on your head! 2310
Altmayer (Draws a stopper and fire blazes in his face.)
I’m burning! Burning!
Siebel It’s magic, strike!
The man’s a rascal! Kick him as you like!
(They draw knives and rush at Mephistopheles.)
Mephistopheles (With solemn gestures.)
Word and Image, ensnare!
Alter, senses and air!
Be here, and there! 2315
(They look at each other, amazed.)
Altmayer Where am I? What a lovely land!
Frosch Vineyards? Am I seeing straight?
Siebel And, likewise, grapes to hand!
Brander Deep in this green arbour, here,
See, the vines! What grapes appear!
(He grasps Siebel by the nose: the others do the same reciprocally, and raise their knives.)
Mephistopheles From their eyes, Error, take the iron band, 2320
And let them see how the Devil plays a joke.
(He vanishes with Faust: the revellers separate.)
Siebel What’s happening?
Altmayer And how?
Frosch Was that your nose?
Brander (To Siebel.)
And I’ve still got your nose in my hand!
Altmayer It was a tremor, that passed through every limb!
Pass me a stool: I’m sinking in! 2325
Frosch Tell me: what happened there, my friend?
Siebel Where is he? When I catch that fellow,
He won’t leave here alive again!
Altmayer I saw him myself fly out of the cellar
Riding on a barrel – and then – 2330
I feel there’s lead still in my feet.
(He turns towards the table.)
Ah! Does the wine still flow as sweet?
Siebel It was deception, cheating, lying.
Frosch Still, it seemed that I drank wine.
Brander And what about all those grapes that hung there? 2335
Altmayer Tell me, now, we shouldn’t believe in wonders!
Scene VI: The Witches’ Kitchen
(A giant cauldron stands on a low hearth, with a fire under it. Various shapes appear in the fumes from the cauldron. A She-Ape sits next to it, skimming it, watching to see it doesn’t boil over. The He-Ape, with young ones, sits nearby warming himself. The ceiling and walls are covered with the Witches’ grotesque instruments.)
Faust These magical wild beasts repel me, too!
Are you telling me I can be renewed,
Wandering around in this mad maze,
Demanding help from some old hag: 2340
That her foul cookery will spirit away
Thirty years from my age, just like that?
It’s sad, if you know of nothing better!
The star of hope has quickly set.
Hasn’t some noble mind, or Nature, 2345
Found some wondrous potion yet?
Mephistopheles My friend, what you say, again, is intelligent!
There’s a natural means to make you younger:
But it’s written, in a book quite different,
And in an odd chapter. 2350
Faust I’ll know it, then.
Mephistopheles Fine! You’ve a method here that needs
No gold, no doctor, no magician:
Take yourself off to the nearest field,
To scratch around, and hoe, and dig in,
Maintain yourself, and constrain 2355
Your senses in a narrow sphere:
Feed yourself on the purest fare,
Be a beast among beasts: think it no robbery,
To manure the fields you harvest, there:
Since that’s the best of ways, believe me, 2360
To keep your youth for eighty years!
Faust I’m not used to it, can’t condescend,
To take a spade in hand, and bend:
That narrow life wouldn’t suit me at all.
Mephistopheles So you must call the witch then, after all. 2365
Faust Why is that old witch necessary!
Why can’t you, yourself, make the brew?
Mephistopheles What a lovely occupation for me!
And build a thousand bridges, meanwhile, too.
It’s not just art and science that tell, 2370
Patience is needed in the work as well.
A calm mind’s busy years in its creation,
Only time strengthens the fermentation
And everything about it
Is quite a peculiar show! 2375
It’s true the Devil taught it:
The Devil can’t make it though.
(Seeing the creatures.)
See what a dainty race I hail!
This is the female: this is the male!
(To the creatures.)
The mistress isn’t home, I say? 2380
The Creatures Feasting away,
Gone today,
The Chimney way!
Mephistopheles How long will she be swarming?
The Creatures As long as our paws are warming. 2385
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
What do you think of these tender creatures?
Faust As rude as any I ever saw!
Mephistopheles Ah, but to me this kind of discourse
Shows the most delightful features!
(To the creatures.)
Accursed puppets, tell me true, 2390
What are you stirring in that brew?
The Creatures We’re cooking up thick beggars’ soup.
Mephistopheles Then there’ll be thousands in the queue.
The He-Ape (Approaches and fawns on Mephistopheles.)
O, throw the dice quick,
And let me be rich! 2395
I’ll be the winner!
It’s all arranged badly,
And if I had money,
I’d be a thinker.
Mephistopheles Why does the ape think he’d be lucky, 2400
If he’d only a chance to try the lottery!
(Meanwhile the young apes have been playing with a large ball, and they roll it forward.)
The He-Ape The world’s a ball
It lifts to fall,
Rolls without rest:
Rings like glass, 2405
And breaks as fast!
It’s hollow at best.
It’s shining here,
Here, what’s more:
‘I am living!’ 2410
A place dear son,
To keep far from!
You must die!
Its clay will soon
In pieces, lie. 2415
Mephistopheles Why the sieve?
The He-Ape (Lifting it down.)
If you were a thief
I’d know you this minute.
(He runs to the She-Ape, and lets her look through the sieve.)
Look through the sieve! 2420
Can you see the thief,
But daren’t name him?
Mephistopheles (Approaching the fire.)
And this pot?
The He-Ape and She-Ape What a silly lot!
Not to know a pot,
Not to know a kettle! 2425
Mephistopheles Rude creature!
The He-Ape Take this brush here,
And sit on the settle.
(He invites Mephistopheles to sit down.)
Faust (Who all this time has been standing in front of a mirror, alternately approaching it and distancing himself from it.)
What do I see? What heavenly form
Is this that the magic mirror brings! 2430
Love, lend me your swiftest wings,
Then bear me to fields she adorns!
Ah, if I do not stand still here,
If I dare to venture nearer,
I see as if through a mist, no clearer – 2435
The loveliest form of Woman, there!
Is it possible: can Woman be so lovely?
Must I, in her outspread body, declare
The incarnation of all that’s heavenly?
Can any such this earth deliver? 2440
Mephistopheles Naturally, if a God torments himself six days,
And says to himself, Bravo, at last,in praise,
He must have made something clever.
See, this time, what will satisfy you, forever:
I’ll know how to fish that treasure out for you, 2445
Happy, the one who finds good fortune in her,
And carries her home again, as his bride, too.
(Faust gazes endlessly in the mirror. Mephistopheles stretches himself on the settle, plays with the brush, and continues to speak.)
Here I sit like a king on his throne,
The sceptre’s here, but where’s the crown?
The Creatures (Who up till now have been making all kinds of grotesque movements together, bring Mephistopheles a crown, with great outcry.)
Oh, with sweat and with blood, 2450
If you’ll be so good,
Glue on this crown, sublime!
(They are awkward with the crown, and snap it in two pieces, with which they leap about.)
Now that’s out of the way!
We see, and we say,
We hear, and we rhyme – 2455
Faust (In front of the mirror.)
Ah! I’ll go completely mad.
Mephistopheles (Pointing to the creatures.)
Now my head’s almost spinning.
The Creatures If our luck’s not bad,
We must be thinking! 2460
Faust (As before.)
My heart pains me with its burning! Quick,
Let’s leave this place, forego it!
Mephistopheles (Still in the same position.)
Well, at least one must admit
That they’re honest poets.
(The cauldron that the She-Ape has forgotten to keep a watch on, now boils over: a great flame flares from the chimney. The Witch comes careering down through the flames, with horrendous cries.)
Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! 2465
Damned creature! Accursed sow!
You left the kettle: you’ve singed me now!
Accursed creature!
(Seeing Faust and Mephistopheles.)
What have we here?
Who are you, here? 2470
What do you want?
Who creeps unknown?
The fire’s pain own
In all your bone!
(She plunges the skimming-ladle into the cauldron, and scatters flame towards Faust, Mephistopheles and the Creatures. The Creatures whimper.)
Mephistopheles (Reversing the brush he holds in his hand, and striking among the jars and glasses.)
One, two! One, two! 2475
There lies the brew!
There lies the glass!
A joke at last,
In time, she-ass,
To your melody, too. 2480
(As the Witch starts back in Anger and Horror.)
Do you know me? Skeleton! Scarecrow!
Do you know your lord and master?
What stops me from striking you, so,
Crushing you, and your ape-creatures?
Have you no respect for a scarlet coat? 2485
Don’t you understand a cockerel’s feather?
Have I hidden my face, you old she-goat?
Have I to name myself, as ever?
The Witch Oh sir, forgive the rude welcome!
I don’t see a single foot cloven. 2490
And your two ravens – are where?
Mephistopheles This once, you get away with it:
It’s truly a good while, isn’t it,
Since we’ve been seen together.
And Civilisation makes men level, 2495
It even sticks to the Devil:
That Northern demon is no more:
Who sees horns now, or tail or claw?
As for the feet, which I can’t spare,
That would harm me with the people. 2500
So like many a youth, now, I wear,
False calves and false in-steps, as well.
The Witch (Dancing.)
Sense and reason flee my brain,
I see young Satan here again!
Mephistopheles Woman, I forbid that name! 2505
The Witch Why? What harm is caused so?
Mephistopheles It’s written in story books, always:
Men are no better for it, though:
The Evil One’s gone: the evil stays.
Call me the Baron: that sounds good: 2510
I’m a gentleman, like the other gentlemen.
Perhaps you doubt my noble blood:
See, here’s the crest I carry, then!
(He makes an indecent gesture.)
The Witch (Laughing immoderately.)
Ha! Ha! That’s your way, as ever.
You’re the same rogue forever! 2515
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
My friend, take note: learn that this is
The proper way to handle witches.
The Witch Now, gentlemen, say how I can be of use.
Mephistopheles A good glass of your well-known juice!
But I must insist on the oldest: 2520
The years double what it can do.
The Witch Gladly! Here’s a flask, on the shelf:
I sometimes drink from it myself,
And it doesn’t really stink at all:
I’ll gladly give him a glass or so. 2525
(Whispering.)
If he drinks it unprepared, recall,
He won’t live a single hour, though.
Mephistopheles He’s my good friend: it’ll go down well:
Don’t begrudge the best of your kitchen.
Draw the circle: speak the speech, then 2530
Offer him a glass full!
(The Witch draws a circle with fantastic gestures, and places mysterious articles inside it: meanwhile the glasses start to ring, and the cauldron to echo, and make music. Finally she brings a large book, sits the Apes in a ring, who serve as a reading desk and hold torches. She beckons Faust to approach.)
Faust (To Mephistopheles.)
Tell me, now, what’s happening?
These wild gestures, crazy things,
All of this tasteless trickery,
Is known, and hateful enough to me. 2535
Mephistopheles A farce! You should be laughing:
Don’t be such a serious fellow!
This hocus-pocus she, the doctor’s, making,
So you’ll be aided by the juice to follow.
(He persuades Faust to enter the circle.)
The Witch (Begins to declaim from the book, with much emphasis.)
You shall see, then! 2540
From one make ten!
Let two go again,
Make three even,
You’re rich again.
Take away four! 2545
From five and six,
So says the Witch,
Make seven and eight,
So it’s full weight:
And nine is one, 2550
And ten is none.
This is the Witch’s one-times-one!
Faust I’m in the dark, the hag babbles with fever.
Mephistopheles There’s still more she’s not gone over,
I know it well, the whole book’s like this: 2555
I’ve wasted time on it before, though,
A perfect contradiction in terms is
Ever a mystery to the wise: fools more so.
My friend, the art’s both old and new,
It’s like this in every age, with two 2560
And one, and one and two,
Scattering error instead of truth.
Men prattle, and teach it undisturbed:
Who wants to be counted with the fools?
Men always believe, when they hear words, 2565
There must be thought behind them, too.
The Witch (Continuing.)
The highest skill,
The science, still
Is hidden from the rabble!
One who never thought, 2570
To him it’s brought,
He owns it without trouble.
Faust Why talk this nonsense to us?
My head’s near split in two.
It seems I hear the chorus, 2575
Of a hundred thousand fools.
Mephistopheles Enough, enough, O excellent Sibyl!
Bring the drink along: and fill
The cup, quick, to the very brim:
The drink will bring my friend no harm: 2580
He’s a man of many parts, and him
Many a noble draught has charmed.
(The Witch, ceremoniously, pours the drink into a cup: as Faust puts it to his lips, a gentle flame rises.)
Down it quickly! Every time! It’ll
Likewise, warm your heart, entire.
You’re hand in hand with the Devil: 2585
Will you shrink before the fire?
(The Witch breaks the circle. Faust steps out.)
Now, quick, away! You may not rest.
The Witch Much good may that potion do you!
Mephistopheles (To the Witch.)
On Walpurgis Night you can tell me best,
What favour I can return to you. 2590
The Witch Here’s a song! Sing it sometimes, and you,
Will feel a peculiar effect: don’t ask me how.
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
Come on, quickly, run about now:
You need to sweat, that will allow
The power to penetrate, through and through. 2595
Later, I’ll teach you to value leisure,
And soon you’ll find with deepest pleasure,
How Cupid stirs, and, now and then, leaps, too.
Faust Let me look quickly in the glass, once more!
How lovely that woman’s form, I descried! 2600
Mephistopheles No! No! The paragon of all women, you’re
About to see before you, personified.
(Aside.)
With that drink in your body, well then,
All women will look to you like Helen.
Scene VII: A Street
(Faust. Margaret, passing by.)
Faust Lovely lady, may I offer you 2605
My arm, and my protection, too?
Faust Seeking to Seduce Marguerite
‘Faust Seeking to Seduce Marguerite’
Margaret Not lovely, nor the lady you detected,
I can go home, unprotected.
(She releases herself and exits.)
Faust By Heavens, the child is lovely!
I’ve never seen anything more so. 2610
She’s virtuous, yet innocently
Pert, and quick-tongued though.
Her rosy lips, her clear cheeks,
I’ll not forget them in many a week!
The way she cast down her eyes, 2615
Deep in my heart, imprinted, lies:
How curt in her speech she was,
Well that was quite charming, of course!
(Mephistopheles enters.)
Listen, you must get that girl for me!
Mephistopheles Which one?
Faust The girl who just went by. 2620
Mephistopheles That one, there? She’s come from the priest,
Absolved of all her sins, while I
Crept into a stall nearby:
She is such an innocent thing,
She’s no need to sit confessing: 2625
I’ve no power with such as those, I mean!
Faust Yet, she’s older than fourteen.
Mephistopheles Now you’re speaking like some Don Juan
Who wants every flower for himself alone,
Conceited enough to think there’s no honour, 2630
To be plucked except by him, nor favour:
But that’s never the case, you know.
Faust Master Moraliser is that so?
With me, best leave morality alone!
I’m telling you, short and sweet, 2635
If that young heart doesn’t beat
Within my arms, tonight – so be it,
At midnight, then our pact is done.
Mephistopheles Think, what a to and fro it will take!
I need at least fourteen days, to make 2640
Some kind of opportunity to meet her.
Faust If I’d seven hours at my call,
I’d not need the Devil at all,
To seduce such a creature.
Mephistopheles You’re almost talking like a Frenchman: 2645
But don’t let yourself get all annoyed:
What’s the use if she’s only part enjoyed?
Your happiness won’t be as prolonged,
As if you were to knead and fashion
That little doll, with every passion, 2650
Up and down, as yearning preaches,
And many a cunning rascal teaches.
Faust I’ve enough appetite without all that.
Mephistopheles Now, without complaint or jesting, what
I’m telling you is, with this lovely child, 2655
Once and for all, you mustn’t be wild.
She won’t be taken by storm, I said:
We’ll need to use cunning instead.
Faust Get me a part of the angels’ treasure!
Lead me to where she lies at leisure! 2660
Get me a scarf from her neck: aspire
To a garter, that’s my heart’s desire.
Mephistopheles So you can see how I will strain
To help you, and ease your pain,
We’ll not let an instant slip away, 2665
I’ll lead you to her room today.
Faust And shall I see her? And have her?
Mephistopheles No! She has to visit a neighbour.
Meanwhile, you can be alone there,
With every hope of future pleasure, 2670
Enjoy her breathing space, at leisure.
Faust Can we go?
Mephistopheles Her room’s not yet free.
Faust Look for a gift for her, from me!
(He exits.)
Mephistopheles A present? Good! He’s sure to work it!
I know many a lovely place, up here, 2675
And many an ancient buried treasure:
I must have a look around for a bit.
(He exits.)
Scene VIII: Evening, A small well-kept room
(Margaret, plaiting and fastening the braids of her hair.)
Margaret I’d give anything if I could say
Who that gentleman was, today!
He’s brave for certain, I could see, 2680
And from some noble family:
That his face readily told –
Or he wouldn’t have been so bold.
(She exits.)
(Mephistopheles and Faust appear.)
Mephistopheles Come in: but quietly, I mean!
Faust (After a moment’s silence.)
I’d ask you, now, to leave me be! 2685
Mephistopheles (Poking about.)
Not every girl keeps thing so clean.
(Mephistopheles exits.)
Faust Welcome, sweet twilight glow,
That weaves throughout this shrine!
Sweet love-pangs grip my heart so,
That on hope’s dew must live, and pine! 2690
How a breath of peace breathes around,
Its order, and contentment!
In this poverty, what wealth is found!
In this prison, what enchantment!
(He throws himself into a leather armchair near the bed.)
Accept me now, you, who with open arms 2695
Gathered joy and pain, in past days, where,
How often, ah, with all their childish charms
The little flock hung round their father’s chair!
There my beloved, perhaps, cheeks full, stands,
Grateful for all the gifts of Christmas fare, 2700
Kissing her grandfather’s withered hands.
Sweet girl, I feel your spirit, softly stray,
Through the wealth of order, all around me,
That with motherliness instructs, each day,
The tablecloth to lie smooth, at your say, 2705
And even the wrinkled sand beneath your feet.
O beloved hand, so goddess-like!
This house because of you is Heaven’s like.
And here!
(He lifts one of the bed curtains.)
What grips me with its bliss!
Here I could stand, slowly lingering. 2710
Here, Nature, in its gentlest dreaming,
Formed an earthly angel within this.
Here the child lay! Life, warm,
Filled her delicate breast,
And here, in pure and holy form, 2715
A heavenly image was expressed!
And I! What leads me here?
Why do I feel so deeply stirred?
What do I seek? Why such a heavy heart?
Poor Faust! I no longer know who you are. 2720
Is there a magic fragrance round me?
I urged myself on, to the deepest delight,
And feel myself melt in Love’s dreaming flight!
Are we the sport of every lightest breeze?
And if she appeared at this instant, 2725
How to atone for being so indiscreet?
The great man, alas, of little moment!
Would lie here, melting, at her feet.
Mephistopheles (Appearing.)
Quick! I see her coming, there.
Faust Away! Away! I’ll not return again. 2730
Mephistopheles Here’s a casket fairly loaded, then,
I’ve taken it from elsewhere.
Put it just here on the chest,
I swear it’ll dazzle her, when she sees:
I’ve put in some trinkets, and the rest, 2735
For you to win another, if you please.
Truly, a child’s a child, and play is play.
Faust I don’t know, shall I?
Mephistopheles Are you asking, pray?
Perhaps you’d like to keep the treasure, too?
Then I’d advise your Lustfulness, 2740
To spare the sweet hours of brightness,
And spare me a heap of trouble over you.
I hope that you’re not full of meanness!
I scratch my head: I rub my hands –
(He places the casket in the chest, and shuts it again.)
Now off we go, and go quickly! 2745
Through this you’ll bend the child, you see,
To your wish and will: as any fool understands:
Yet now you seem to me
As if you were heading for the lecture hall, and see
Standing there grey-faced, in front of you, 2750
Physics, and Metaphysics too!
Now, away!
(They exit.)
(Margaret with a lamp.)
Margaret It’s so close and sultry, here,
(She opens the window.)
And yet it’s not warm outside.
It troubles me so, I don’t know why – 2755
I wish that Mother were near.
A shudder ran through my whole body –
I’m such a foolish girl, so timid!
(She begins to sing, while undressing.)
‘There was a king in Thule, he
Was faithful, to the grave, 2760
To whom his dying lady
A golden goblet gave.
He valued nothing greater:
At every feast it shone:
His tears were brimming over, 2765
When he drank there-from.
When he himself was dying
No towns did he with-hold,
No wealth his heir denying,
Except the cup of gold. 2770
He gave a royal banquet,
His knights around him, all,
In his sea-girt turret,
In his ancestral hall.
There the old king stood, yet, 2775
Drinking life’s last glow:
Then threw the golden goblet
Into the waves below.
He saw it falling, drowning,
Sinking in the sea, 2780
Then, his eyelids closing,
Never again drank he.’
(She opens the chest in order to arrange her clothes, and sees the casket.)
How can this lovely casket be here? I’m sure
I locked the chest when I was here before.
It’s quite miraculous! What can it hold in store? 2785
Perhaps someone brought it as security,
And my mother’s granted a loan on it?
There’s a ribbon hanging from it, there’s a key,
I’m quite determined to open it.
What’s here? Heavens! What a show, 2790
More than I’ve ever seen in all my days!
A jewel box! A noble lady might glow
With all of these on high holidays!
How would this chain look? This display
Of splendour: who owns it, it’s so fine? 2795
(She puts the jewellery on and stands in front of the mirror.)
If only the earrings were mine!
At once one looks so different.
What makes us beautiful, young blood?
All that’s fine and good,
But it’s discounted, in the end, 2800
They praise us half in pity.
To gold they tend,
On gold depend,
All things! Oh, poverty!
Scene IX: Promenade
(Faust walking about pensively. Mephistopheles appears.)
Mephistopheles Scorned by all love! And by hellfire! What’s worse? 2805
I wish I knew: I could use it in a curse!
Faust What’s wrong? What’s pinching you so badly?
I never, in all my life, saw such a face!
Mephistopheles I’d pack myself off to the Devil, in disgrace,
If I weren’t a Devil myself already! 2810
Faust Is something troubling your brain?
It’s fitting that you’ve a raging pain.
Mephistopheles To think, the priest should get his hands on
Jewellery that was meant for Gretchen!
Her mother snatched it up, to see, 2815
And was gripped by secret anxiety.
That woman’s a marvellous sense of smell,
From nosing round in her prayer-book too well,
And sniffs things, ever and again,
To see if they’re holy or profane: 2820
And about the jewels, she felt, that’s clear,
There’s not much of a blessing here.
‘My child,’ she said, ‘ill-gotten goods
Snare the soul, and dissipate the blood.
We’ll dedicate it to the Virgin, 2825
She’ll repay us with manna from Heaven!’
Margaret, grimacing wryly, was quite put out:
Thinking: ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,
He’s not a godless man, nor one to fear,
He who left these fine things here.’ 2830
Her mother let the parson in:
He’d scarcely let the game begin
Before his eyes filled with enjoyment.
He said: ‘So we see aright, we sinners,
Who overcome themselves are winners. 2835
The Church has a healthy stomach, when,
It gobbles up lands, and don’t forget,
It’s never over-eaten yet.
The Church alone, dear lady, could
Always digest ill-gotten goods.’ 2840
Faust That’s a universal custom, too, my friend,
With all those who rule, and those who lend.
Mephistopheles Then he took the bangles, chains and rings,
As if they were merely trifling things,
Thanked her too, no less nor more 2845
Than if it were a sack of nuts, one wore.
Promised them their reward when they died,
And left them suitably edified.
Faust And Gretchen?
Mephistopheles Sits there, restlessly, still
Not knowing what she should do, or will, 2850
Thinks of the jewels night and day,
But more of him who placed them in her way.
Faust
The dear girl’s sadness brings me pain.
Find some jewels for her, again!
Those first were not so fine, I’d say. 2855
Mephistopheles Oh yes, to gentlemen it’s child’s play!
Faust Fix it: arrange it, as I want you to,
Attach yourself to her neighbour, too!
Don’t be a devil made of clay,
Get her fresh jewels straight away! 2860
Mephistopheles Yes, gracious sir, gladly, with all my heart.
(Faust exits.)
Such a lovesick fool would blow up the Sun,
High up in the air, with the Moon and Stars,
To provide his sweetheart with a diversion.
(He exits.)
Scene X: The Neighbour’s House
Martha (Alone.)
God forgive that man I love so well, 2865
He hasn’t done right by me at all!
Off into the world he’s gone,
And left me here, in the dust, alone.
Truly I did nothing to grieve him,
I gave him, God knows, fine loving. 2870
(She weeps.)
Perhaps, he’s even dead! – Yet, oh!
If I’d only his death certificate to show!
(Margaret enters.)
Margaret Martha!
Martha My little Gretchen, what’s happened?
Margaret My legs are giving way beneath me!
I’ve found another box of jewellery 2875
In the chest: it’s of ebony, fashioned,
Full of quite splendid things,
And richer than the first, I think.
Martha You’d better not tell your mother:
She’ll give it to the Church, like the other. 2880
Margaret Ah, See now! See what a show!
Martha (Dressing her with jewels.)
O you’re a lucky creature, though!
Margaret I can’t wear them in the street, alas,
Nor be seen like this, at Mass.
Martha Come often then, to me, as before: 2885
You can put them on, here, secretly:
Stand, for an hour, in front of the mirror,
We’ll take delight in them privately.
Then give us a holiday, an occasion,
When people can see a fraction of them. 2890
A chain first, then a pearl in the ear: your
Mother won’t know, say you’d them before.
Margaret Who could have left the second casket?
There’s something not proper about it!
(A knock.)
Good God! Is it my mother, then? 2895
Martha (Looking through the shutter.)
It’s a stranger, a gentleman – Come in!
(Mephistopheles enters.)
Mephistopheles Presents Himself in Martha’s Home
‘Mephistopheles Presents Himself in Martha’s Home’
Mephistopheles In introducing myself so freely,
I ask you ladies to excuse me.
(He steps back reverently on seeing Margaret.)
It’s Martha Schwerdtlein I seek!
Martha I’m she, what do you wish with me? 2900
Mephistopheles (Aside to her.)
I know you now: that’s enough for me:
You’ve a distinguished visitor there, I see.
Pardon the liberty I’ve taken, pray,
I’ll return this afternoon, if I may.
Martha (Aloud.)
To think, child: of all things: just fancy! 2905
The gentleman takes you for a lady.
Margaret I’m a poor young thing he’ll find:
Heavens! The gentleman’s far too kind:
The jewels and trinkets aren’t mine.
Mephistopheles Ah, it’s not just the jewellery, mind: 2910
The look: the manner: she has a way!
I’m pleased that I’m allowed to stay.
Martha What brings you here? I wish that you –
Mephistopheles I wish I brought you happier news! –
This news I hope you’ll forgive me repeating: 2915
Your husband’s dead, but sends a greeting.
Martha He’s dead? That true heart! Oh!
My man is dead! I’ll die, also!
Margaret Ah! Dear lady, don’t despair!
Mephistopheles Hear the mournful tale I bear! 2920
Margaret That’s why I’ll never love while I’ve breath,
Such a loss would grieve me to death.
Mephistopheles Joy must have sorrows: sorrow its joys, too.
Martha Tell me of his last hours: ah tell me!
Mephistopheles He’s buried in Padua, close to 2925
The blessed Saint Anthony,
In a consecrated space,
A cool eternal resting place.
Martha Have you brought nothing else, from him?
Mephistopheles Yes a request, it’s large and heavy: 2930
For you to sing a hundred masses for him!
Otherwise, no, my pocket’s empty.
Martha What? No piece of show? No jewellery?
What every workman has in his purse,
And keeps with him as his reserve, 2935
Rather than having to starve or beg!
Mephistopheles Madam, it’s a heavy grief to me:
But truly his money wasn’t wasted.
And then, he felt his errors greatly,
Yes, and bemoaned his bad luck lately. 2940
Margaret Ah! How unlucky all men are! I’ll
Be sure to offer many a prayer for him.
Mephistopheles You’re worthy of soon marrying:
You’re such a kindly child.
Margaret Oh, no! That wouldn’t do as yet. 2945
Mephistopheles If not a husband, a lover, while you wait.
It’s heaven’s greatest charm,
To have a dear one on one’s arm.
Margaret That’s not the custom of the country.
Mephistopheles Custom or not! It seems to be. 2950
Martha Go on with your tale!
Mephistopheles I stood beside his death-bed,
Hardly better than a rubbish-tip, poor man,
Of half-rotten straw: yet he died a Christian,
And found that he was even further in debt.
‘Alas,’ he cried, ‘I hate myself, with good reason, 2955
For leaving, as I did, my wife and my occupation!
Ah the memory of that is killing me,
Would in this life I might be forgiven, though!’
Martha (Weeping.)
The dear man! I forgave him long ago.
Mephistopheles ‘Although, God knows, she was more to blame than me.’ 2960
Martha The liar! What! At death’s door, lies he was telling!
Mephistopheles In his last wanderings, he was rambling,
If I’m any judge myself of the thing.
‘I had,’ he said, ‘no time to gaze in play:
First children, then bread for them each day, 2965
And I mean bread in the wider sense:
And couldn’t even eat my share in silence.’
Martha Did he forget the love, the loyalty,
My drudgery, night and day!
Mephistopheles Not at all, he thought of it deeply, in his way. 2970
He said: ‘As I was leaving Malta
I prayed hard for my wife and children:
And favour came to me from heaven,
Since our ship took a Turkish cutter,
Carrying the great Sultan’s treasure. 2975
There was a reward for bravery,
And I received, in due measure,
The generous share that fell to me.’
Martha What? And where? Has he buried it by chance?
Mephistopheles Who can tell: the four winds know the circumstance. 2980
A lovely girl there took him on,
As he, a stranger, roamed round Naples:
She gave him loyalty, and loved the man,
And he felt it so, till his last hour fell.
Martha He stole from his children, and his wife! 2985
The rogue! All the pain and misery he met,
Couldn’t keep him from that shameful life!
Mephistopheles Ah, but: now he’s died of it!
If I were truly in your place,
I’d mourn him quietly for a year, 2990
And look, meanwhile, for a dear new face.
Martha Ah, sweet God! I’ll not easily find another,
In all the world, such as my first one was!
There never was a dearer fool than mine.
Only he loved roaming too much, at last, 2995
And foreign women, and foreign wine,
And the rolling of those cursed dice.
Mephistopheles Well, that would have still been fine,
If, with you, he’d followed that line,
And noticed nothing, on your side. 3000
I swear that, with that same condition,
I’d swap rings with you, no question!
Martha O, the gentleman’s pleased to jest!
Mephistopheles (To himself.)
I must fly from here, swift as a bird!
She might hold the Devil to his word. 3005
(To Gretchen.)
How does your heart feel? At rest?
Margaret What does the gentleman mean?
Mephistopheles (To himself.)
Sweet, innocent child!
(Aloud.)
Farewell, ladies!
Margaret Farewell!
Martha Oh, speak to me yet, a while!
I’d like a witness, as to where, how, and when
My darling man died and was buried: then, 3010
As I’ve always been a friend of tradition,
Put his death in the paper, a weekly edition.
Mephistopheles Yes, dear lady, two witnesses you need
To verify the truth, or so all agree:
I’ve a rather fine companion, 3015
He can be your second man.
I’ll bring him here.
Martha Oh yes, please do!
Mephistopheles That young lady will be here, too?
He’s a brave youth! Travelled, yes,
And with ladies he’s all politeness. 3020
Margaret I’d be shamed before the gentleman.
Mephistopheles Not before any king on earth, madam.
Martha Behind the house, then, in my garden,
Tonight: we’ll expect you gentlemen.
Scene XI: The Street
(Faust. Mephistopheles.)
Faust How goes it? Will it be? Will it soon be done? 3025
Mephistopheles Ah, bravo! Do I find you all on fire?
In double-quick time you’ll have your desire.
You’ll meet tonight, at her neighbour Martha’s home:
There’s a woman, who’s the thing,
For procuring and for gipsying! 3030
Faust All right!
Mephistopheles But, she needs something from us, too.
Faust One good turn deserves another, true.
Mephistopheles We only have to bear a valid witness,
That her husband’s outstretched members bless
A consecrated place in Padua. 3035
Faust Brilliant! We must first make the journey there!
Mephistopheles Sacred Simplicity! There’s no need to do that.
Just testify, without saying too much to her.
Faust If you can’t do better than that, your pact I’ll tear.
Mephistopheles O holy man! Now I see you there! 3040
Is it the first time in your life, come swear,
That you’ve ever born false witness?
Haven’t you shown skill in definition
Of God, the World, what’s in it, Men,
What moves them, in mind and breast? 3045
With impudent brow, and swollen chest?
And if you look at it more deeply, oh yes,
Did you know as much now – confess,
As you do about Herr Schwerdtlein’s death?
Faust You are, and you’ll remain, a Liar and a Sophist. 3050
Mephistopheles Yes when no one’s the wiser for it.
The coming morn, in all honour though,
Won’t you beguile poor Gretchen so:
And swear you love her with all your soul?
Faust From my heart.
Mephistopheles Well, and good! 3055
And will your eternal Truth and Love,
Your one all-powerful Force, above –
Flow from your heart, too, as it should?
Faust Stop! Stop! It will! If I but feel,
For that emotion, for that throng, 3060
Seek the name, that none reveal,
Roam, with senses, through the world.
Seize on every highest word,
And call the fire, that I’m tasting,
Endless, eternal, everlasting – 3065
Does that to some devil’s game of lies belong?
Mephistopheles Yet, I’m still right!
Faust Hear one thing more,
I beg you, and spare my breath – the one
Who wants to hold fast, and has a tongue,
He’ll hold for sure. 3070
Come, chattering fills me with disgust,
And then you’re right, especially since I must.
Scene XII: The Garden
(Margaret on Faust’s arm, Martha and Mephistopheles walking up and down.)
Margaret I know the gentleman flatters me,
Lowers himself, and shames me, too.
A traveller is used to being 3075
Content, out of courtesy, with any food.
I know too well, so learned a man,
Can’t feed himself on my poor bran.
Faust A glance, a word from you, feeds me more,
Than all the world’s wisest lore. 3080
(He kisses her hand.)
Margaret Don’t trouble yourself! How could you kiss it?
It’s such a nasty, rough thing!
What work haven’t I done with it!
My mother’s so exacting.
(They move on.)
Martha And you, sir, you’re always travelling? 3085
Mephistopheles Ah, work and duty are such a bother!
There’s many a place one’s sad at leaving,
And daren’t stay a moment longer!
Martha In youth it’s fine, up and down,
Flitting about, the whole world over: 3090
Then harsher days come round,
And lonely bachelors small joy discover,
In sliding towards their hole in the ground.
Mephistopheles I view the prospect with horror.
Martha Then take advice in time, dear sir. 3095
(They move on.)
Margaret Yes, out of sight is out of mind!
Politeness comes naturally to you:
But you’ll meet friends, often, who,
Are more sensible than me, you’ll find.
Faust Dearest, believe me, what men call sense, 3100
Is often just vanity and short-sightedness.
Margaret How so?
Faust Ah, that simplicity and innocence never know
Themselves, or their heavenly worth!
That humble meekness, the highest grace
That Nature bestows so lovingly – 3105
Margaret It’s only for a moment that you think of me,
I’ve plenty of time to dream about your face.
Faust You’re often alone, then?
Margaret Yes, our household’s a little one,
Yet it has to be cared for by someone. 3110
We have no servant: I sweep, knit, sew,
And cook, I’m working early and late:
And in everything my mother is so
Strict, and straight.
Not that she has to be quite so economical: 3115
We could be more generous than others:
My father left a little fortune for us:
A house and garden by the town-wall.
But now my days are spent quietly:
My brother is a soldier: I’d 3120
A younger sister who died.
The trouble I had with that child:
Yet I’d take it on again, the worry,
She was so dear to me.
Faust An angel, if like you.
Margaret I raised her, and she loved me too. 3125
After my father died, she was born,
We gave mother up for lost, so worn
And wretchedly she lay there then,
And slowly, day by day, grew well again.
She couldn’t think of feeding 3130
It herself: that poor little thing,
And so I nursed it all alone,
On milk and water, as if it were my own,
In my arms, in my lap,
It charmed me, tumbling, and grew fat. 3135
Faust You found your greatest happiness there, for sure.
Margaret But also truly many a weary hour.
The baby’s cradle stood at night
Beside my bed: and if it hardly stirred
I woke outright: 3140
Now I nursed it, now laid it beside me: heard
When it cried, and left my bed, and often
Danced it back and forth, in the room: and then,
At break of dawn stood at the washtub, again:
Then the market and the kitchen, oh, 3145
And every day just like tomorrow.
One sometimes lacks the courage, sir, and yet
One appreciates one’s food and rest.
(They move on.)
Martha Women have the worst of it: it’s true:
A bachelor is hard to change, you see. 3150
Mephistopheles That just depends on the likes of you,
The right teacher might improve me.
Martha Say, have you never found anyone, dear sir?
Has your heart never been captured, anywhere?
Mephistopheles The proverb says: A hearth of your own, 3155
And a good wife, are worth pearls and gold.
Martha I mean: have you never felt desire, even lightly?
Mephistopheles I’ve everywhere been treated most politely.
Martha I meant to say: were you never seriously smitten?
Mephistopheles With ladies, one should never dare to be flippant. 3160
Martha Ah, you won’t understand me!
Mephistopheles I am sorry! Yet you’ll find
I understand – that you are very kind.
(They move on.)
Faust And, Angel, did you recognise me again,
As soon as I appeared in the garden?
Margaret Didn’t you see my gaze drop then? 3165
Faust And you forgive the liberty I’ve taken,
The impertinence of it all,
Just as you were leaving the Cathedral?
Margaret I was flustered, such a thing’s never happened to me:
‘Ah’, I thought, ‘has he seen, in your behaviour, 3170
Something that’s impertinent or improper?
No one could ever say anything bad about me.
He seems to be walking suddenly, with you,
As though he dealt with a girl of easy virtue’.
I confess, I didn’t know what it was, though, 3175
That I began to feel, and to your advantage too,
But certainly I was angry with myself, oh,
That I could not be angrier with you.
Faust Sweet darling!
Margaret Wait a moment!
(She picks a Marguerite and pulls the petals off one by one.)
Faust What’s that for, a bouquet?
Margaret No, it’s a game.
Faust What?
Margaret No, you’ll laugh if I say! 3180
(She pulls off the petals, murmuring to herself.)
Faust What are you whispering?
Margaret (Half aloud.)
He loves me – he loves me not.
Faust You sweet face that Heaven forgot!
Margaret (Continuing.)
Loves me – Not – Loves me – Not
(She plucks the last petal with delight.)
He loves me!
Faust Yes, my child! Let this flower-speech
Be heaven’s speech to you. He loves you! 3185
Do you know what that means? He loves you!
(He grasps her hands.)
Margaret I’m trembling!
Faust Don’t tremble, let this look,
Let this clasping of hands tell you
What’s inexpressible: 3190
To give oneself wholly, and feel
A joy that must be eternal!
Eternal! – Its end would bring despair.
No, no end! No end!
(Margaret presses his hand, frees herself, and runs away. He stands a moment in thought: then follows her.)
Martha (Coming forward.)
Night is falling.
Mephistopheles Yes, and we must away. 3195
Martha I’d ask you to remain here longer,
But this is quite a wicked place.
It’s as if they had nothing to do yonder,
And no work they should be doing
But watching their neighbours’ to-ing and fro-ing, 3200
And whatever one does, insults are hurled.
And our couple, now?
Mephistopheles Flown up the passage, there.
Wilful little birds!
Martha He seems keen on her.
Mephistopheles And she on him. It’s the way of the world.
Scene XIII: An Arbour in the Garden
(Margaret comes in, hides behind the door of the garden-house, holds her fingers to her lips, and peeps through the gaps.)
Margaret He’s coming.
Faust (Appearing.)
Ah, rascal, you tease me so! I’ve got you! 3205
(He kisses her.)
Margaret (Clasping him, and returning the kiss.)
Dearest man! With all my heart I love you!
(Mephistopheles knocks.)
Faust (Stamping his foot in frustration.)
Who’s there?
Mephistopheles A dear friend!
Faust A creature!
Mephistopheles It’s time to go.
Martha (Appearing.)
Yes, sir, it’s late!
Faust May I keep company with you, though?
Margaret My mother would tell me, – Farewell!
Faust Must I go, then?
Farewell!
Martha Goodbye, now!
Margaret And soon to meet again! 3210
(Faust and Mephistopheles exit.)
Margaret Dear God! That one man, by thinking,
Knows everything, oh, everything!
I stand in front of him, ashamed
And just say yes to all he says.
I’m such a poor, ignorant child, and he – 3215
I can’t understand what he sees in me.
Scene XIV: Forest and Cavern
(Faust, alone.)
Faust Sublime spirit, you gave me all, all,
I asked for. Not in vain have you
Revealed your face to me in flame.
You gave me Nature’s realm of splendour, 3220
With the power to feel it, and enjoy.
Not merely as a cold, awed stranger,
But allowing me to look deep inside,
Like seeing into the heart of a friend.
You lead the ranks of living creatures 3225
Before me, showing me my brothers
In the silent woods, the air, the water.
And when the storm roars in the forest,
When giant firs fell their neighbours,
Crushing nearby branches in their fall, 3230
Filling the hills with hollow thunder,
You lead me to the safety of a cave,
Show me my own self, and reveal
Your deep, secret wonders in my heart.
And when the pure Moon, to my eyes, 3235
Rises, calming me, the silvery visions
Of former times, drift all around me,
From high cliffs, and moist thickets,
Tempering thought’s austere delight.
Oh, I know now that nothing can be 3240
Perfect for Mankind. You gave me,
With this joy, that brings me nearer,
Nearer to the gods, a companion,
Whom I can no longer do without,
Though he is impudent, and chilling,
Degrades me in my own eyes, and with 3245
A word, a breath, makes your gifts nothing.
He fans a wild fire in my heart,
Always alive to that lovely form.
So I rush from desire to enjoyment,
And in enjoyment pine to feel desire. 3250
(Mephistopheles enters.)
Mephistopheles Haven’t you had enough of this life yet?
How can you be happy all this time?
It’s fine for a man to try it for a bit,
But then you need a newer clime!
Faust I wish you’d something else to do, 3255
Than plague me on a good day.
Mephistopheles Now, now! I’d gladly ignore you,
You don’t really mean it anyway.
You’d be little loss to me,
A rude, mad, sour companion. 3260
One’s hands are full all day, and see,
What pleases you, or what to let be,
No one can tell from your expression.
Faust So that’s the tone he takes!
I’m to thank him, for boring me. 3265
Mephistopheles Poor Son of Earth, how could you make
Your way through life without me?
I’ve cured you for a while at least
Of your twitches of imagination,
If I weren’t here, you’d certainly 3270
Have walked right off this earthly station.
In rocky hollows, in a hole,
Why sit around here, like an owl?
From soaking moss and dripping stone,
Sucking your nourishment, like a toad? 3275
Spend your time sweeter, better!
Your body’s still stuck there with the Doctor.
Faust Do you understand the new power of being
That a walk in the wilderness can bring?
But then, if you were able to guess, 3280
You’re devil enough to begrudge my happiness.
Mephistopheles An other-worldly pleasure.
Night and day, mountains for leisure.
Clasping heaven and earth, blissfully,
Inflating yourself, becoming a deity. 3285
With expectant urge burrowing through earth’s core,
Feeling all that six days’ work, in yours,
To taste who knows what, in power’s pride,
Overflowing, almost, with the joy of life,
Vanishing, the Earthly Son, 3290
And into some deep Intuition –
(With a gesture.)
I can’t say how – passing inside.
Faust Fie, on you!
Mephistopheles Ah, you don’t like it from me!
You’ve the right, to say ‘fie’ to me, politely.
Before chaste ears men daren’t speak aloud, 3295
That which chaste hearts can’t do without:
Short and sweet, I begrudge the pleasure you get
From occasionally lying to yourself, about it.
But you won’t hold out for long, I’m sure.
You’re already over-driven, 3300
Sooner or later you’ll be given
To madness, or to fear and horror.
Enough! Your lover sits inside,
All is dull, oppressive to her,
She can’t get you out of her mind, 3305
Her deep love overwhelms her.
First your love’s flood round her flowed,
As a stream pours from melted snow:
You’ve so filled her heart, and now,
Your stream again is shallow. 3310
Instead of enthroning yourself in the wood,
Let the great gentleman do some good,
To that poor little ape of flesh and blood,
And reward her, I think, for her love.
Her days seem pitifully long: 3315
She sits at the window, cloud drifting
Over the old City wall, sees it lifting.
‘Would I were a little bird!’ runs her song,
All day long, and all night long.
Sometimes lively, mostly not, 3320
Sometimes crying out, in tears,
Then quiet again, it appears,
And always in love.
Faust You snake! You snake, you!
Mephistopheles A touch! That caught you! 3325
Faust Wretch! Be gone from my presence:
Don’t name that lovely girl to me!
Don’t bring desire for that sweet body
Before every half-maddened sense!
Mephistopheles Well, what then? She thinks you’ve flown away, 3330
And, half and half, you already have, I’d say.
Faust I’m near her, and were I still far,
I can’t lose her or forget her,
I even envy the body of our Lord,
When her lips touch it at the altar. 3335
Mephistopheles Quite so, my friend! My envy often closes
On that pair of twins that feed among the roses.
Faust Away from me, procurer!
Mephistopheles Fine, you curse and I must smile.
The god who made both man and woman,
He likewise knew the noblest profession, 3340
So made the opportunity as well.
Go on, it’s a crying shame!
Since you’re bound, all the same
For your lover’s room, not death.
Faust Where is the heavenly joy in her arms? 3345
Let me warm myself with her charms!
Do I not always feel her absent breath?
Am I not the fugitive? The homeless one?
The creature without aim or rest,
A torrent in the rocks, still thundering down, 3350
Foaming eagerly into the abyss?
And she beside it, with vague childlike mind,
In a hut there, on a little Alpine field,
So, her first homely life you’d find,
Hidden there in that little world. 3355
And I, the god-forsaken,
Was not great enough,
To grasp the cliffs, and take them,
And crush them into dust!
I still must undermine her peaceful life! 3360
You, Hell, must have your sacrifice.
Help, Devil, curtail the anxious moment brewing.
What must be, let it be, and swiftly!
Let her fate also fall on me,
And she and I rush to ruin! 3365
Mephistopheles Again it glows: again it seethes!
Go in and comfort her, you fool!
When a brain, like yours, no exit sees,
It calls it the end of all things, too.
Praise him who keeps his courage fresh! 3370
Or you’ll soon get quite be-devilled, there.
I find nothing in the world so tasteless,
As a Devil, in despair.
Scene XV: Gretchen’s Room
(Gretchen alone at the spinning wheel.)
Gretchen at her Spinning Wheel
‘Gretchen at her Spinning Wheel’
Gretchen ‘My peace is gone,
My heart is sore: 3375
I’ll find it, never,
Oh, nevermore.
When he’s not here,
My grave is near,
The world is all, 3380
A bitter gall.
My poor head
Feels crazed to me.
My poor brain
Seems dazed to me. 3385
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore:
I’ll find it, never,
Oh, nevermore.
Only to see him 3390
I look out.
Only to meet him,
I leave the house.
His proud steps,
His noble figure, 3395
His smiling lips,
His eyes: their power.
And all his speech
Like magic is,
His fingers’ touch, 3400
And, oh, his kiss!
My peace is gone,
My heart is sore:
I’ll find it, never,
Oh, nevermore. 3405
My heart aches
To be with him,
Oh if I could
Cling to him,
And kiss him, 3410
The way I wish,
So I might die,
At his kiss!
Scene XVI: Martha’s Garden
(Margaret. Faust.)
Margaret Promise me, Heinrich!
Faust If I can!
Margaret Say, as regards religion, how you feel. 3415
I know that you are a dear, good man,
Yet, for you, it seems, it has no appeal.
Faust Leave that alone, child! You feel I’m kind to you:
For Love I’d give my blood, my life too.
I’ll rob no man of his church and faith. 3420
Margaret That’s not right, we must have faith.
Faust Must we?
Margaret Ah, if in this I was only fluent!
You don’t respect the Holy Sacrament.
Faust I respect it.
Margaret Without wanting it, though. You’ve passed
So many years without confession, or mass. 3425
Do you believe in God?
Faust My darling, who dare say:
‘I believe in God’?
Choose priest to ask, or sage,
The answer would seem a joke, would it not,
Played on whoever asks?
Margaret So, you don’t believe? 3430
Faust Sweetest being, don’t misunderstand me!
Who dares name the nameless?
Or who dares to confess:
‘I believe in him’?
Yet who, in feeling, 3435
Self-revealing,
Says: ‘I don’t believe’?
The all-clasping,
The all-upholding,
Does it not clasp, uphold, 3440
You: me, itself?
Don’t the heavens arch above us?
Doesn’t earth lie here under our feet?
And don’t the eternal stars, rising,
Look down on us in friendship? 3445
Are not my eyes reflected in yours?
And don’t all things press
On your head and heart,
And weave, in eternal mystery,
Visibly: invisibly, around you? 3450
Fill your heart from it: it is so vast,
And when you are blessed by the deepest feeling,
Call it then what you wish,
Joy! Heart! Love! God!
I have no name 3455
For it! Feeling is all:
Names are sound and smoke,
Veiling Heaven’s bright glow.
Margaret That’s all well and good, I know,
The priest says much the same, 3460
Only, in slightly different words.
Faust It’s what all hearts, say, everywhere
Under the heavenly day,
Each in its own speech:
And why not I in mine? 3465
Margaret Listening to you, it almost seems quite fine,
Yet something still seems wrong, to me,
Since you don’t possess Christianity.
Faust Dear child!
Margaret I’ve long been grieved
To see you in such company. 3470
Faust Why, who?
Margaret That man who hangs round you so,
I hate him in my innermost soul:
Nothing in all my life has ever
Given my heart such pain, no, never,
As his repulsive face has done. 3475
Faust Don’t be afraid of him, sweet one!
Margaret His presence here, it chills my blood.
To every other man I wish good:
But much as I’m longing to see you
I’ve a secret horror of seeing him, too, 3480
I’ve thought him a rogue, all along!
God forgive me, if I do him wrong!
Faust There have to be such odd fellows.
Margaret I’d rather not live with such as those!
Once he’s inside the door, again, 3485
He looks around in a mocking way,
And half-severely:
You can see he’s not at all in sympathy:
It’s written on his forehead even,
That there’s no spirit of love within. 3490
I’m so happy in your arms,
Free, untroubled, and so warm,
Yet I’m stifled in his presence.
Faust You angel, full of presentiments!
Margaret It oppresses me, so deeply, too, 3495
That when he meets with us, wherever,
I feel that I no longer love you.
Ah I can’t pray when he’s there,
And that gnaws inside me: oh,
Heinrich, for you too, surely it’s so. 3500
Faust It’s merely an antipathy!
Margaret I must go now.
Faust Ah, will there never be
An hour where I can clasp you to my heart,
And heart to heart, and soul, to soul impart?
Margaret Ah, if I only slept alone! 3505
For you, I’d gladly draw the bolt tonight:
But my mother hears the slightest tone,
And if we were caught outright,
I’d die on the selfsame spot!
Faust You angel: no need for that. 3510
Here is a little phial to keep!
Three drops of this, in her drink, she’ll take,
And Nature will favour her with deepest sleep.
Margaret What would I not do for your sake?
I hope that it won’t harm her though! 3515
Faust Would I advise it, Love, if it were so?
Margaret Ah, I only have to see you, dearest man,
And something bends me to your will,
For you, so much, I have already done,
Little remains for me to do for you still. 3520
(She exits.)
(Mephistopheles enters.)
The little monkey! Has it gone?
Faust Spying again, are you?
Mephistopheles I’ve heard in infinite detail, how
The Doctor works his catechism through,
And I hope it does you good, now.
Girls are always so keen to review 3525
Whether one’s virtuous, and sticks to the rules.
They think if a man can be led, he’ll follow too.
Faust Monster, you can’t see
How this true loving soul,
Full of a belief, 3530
That is wholly
Her salvation, torments herself so,
In case her lover should be lost indeed.
Mephistopheles You sensual wooer, beyond the sensual,
A Magdalen leads you by the nose, I see. 3535
Faust Abortion, of the filth and fire of hell!
Mephistopheles And how well she reads one’s physiognomy:
In my presence, senses, without knowing how,
The hidden mind behind the mask: she feels
That I’m an evil genius, at least, and now 3540
Perhaps, that it’s the Devil it conceals.
So, tonight? –
Faust What’s that to you?
Mephistopheles I take my pleasure in it too!
Scene XVII: At The Fountain
(Gretchen and Lisbeth.)
Lisbeth Have you not heard from Barbara?
Gretchen Not a word. I go out so seldom. 3545
Lisbeth It’s certain, Sibyl told me: well then,
She finally fell to that seducer.
There’s a lady for you!
Gretchen How so?
Lisbeth It stinks!
She’s feeding two when she eats and drinks.
Gretchen Oh! 3550
Lisbeth Serves her right then, finally.
She clung to that fellow, oh so tightly!
That was a fine to-ing and fro-ing,
Round the village, and dance-going,
Ahead of us all, they had to shine, 3555
Him treating her always to cakes and wine:
She the picture of loveliness, oh so fine,
So low after all, then, and so shameless,
And the gifts she took from him, nameless.
It was all kissing and carrying on: 3560
But now the flower is gone!
Gretchen The poor thing!
Lisbeth Why are you so pitying?
When each of us was at our spinning,
When mother never let us out,
She and her lover hung about: 3565
On the bench, in a dark alley,
Forgetting the time, he and she.
She can’t raise her head again,
In a sinner’s shift now, penitent.
Gretchen Surely he’ll take her for his wife. 3570
Lisbeth He’d be a fool! A lively fellow
Can ply his trade elsewhere, and so –
He’s gone.
Gretchen Oh, that’s not nice!
Lisbeth If she gets him, she’ll reap ill in a trice,
The lads will tear at her wreath, what’s more 3575
We’ll scatter chaffin front of her door!
(She exits.)
Gretchen (Walking home.)
How proudly I’d revile her, then,
Whenever some poor girl had fallen!
I couldn’t find words enough, I mean,
To pour out scorn for another’s sin! 3580
Black as it seemed, I made it blacker,
Not black enough for me: oh never.
It blessed its own being, that proud self,
Yet now I’m the image of sin, myself!
Yet all that drove me on to do it, 3585
God! Was so fine! Oh, so sweet!
Scene XVIII: A Tower
(In a niche of its wall a shrine, and image of the Mater Dolorosa, with flowers in front of it. Gretchen sets out fresh flowers. )
Gretchen Oh bow down,
Sorrowful one,
Your kind face, to my affliction!
A sword in your heart, 3590
Where a thousand pains start,
You look up, at your dead Son.
You look up to the Father,
You send Him your sighs, there,
For His, and for your, affliction. 3595
Who then can feel,
How like steel,
Is the pain inside my bones?
What my poor heart fears for,
What it quakes for, and longs for 3600
You know, and you alone!
Wherever I go now,
How sore, sore, sore now
How sore my heart must be!
Ah, when I’m alone here, 3605
I moan, moan, moan here:
My heart it breaks in me.
The pots before my window!
My tears bedewed them so,
In the early dawn, when 3610
I picked the flowers below.
The sun it shone so brightly,
And early, in my room,
Where I sat already,
On my bed, in deepest gloom. 3615
Help me! Oh, save me, from shame and destruction!
Oh, bow down,
Sorrowful one,
Your kind face, to my affliction!
Scene XIX: Night
(The Street in front of Gretchen’s door.)
Valentine (A soldier, Gretchen’s brother.)
When I have sat, and heard the toasts, 3620
Where everyone makes good his boasts,
And comrades praised, to me, the flower
Of maidenhood, and loud the hour,
With brimming glass that blurred the praise,
And elbows sticking out all ways, 3625
I sat in my own peace secure,
Listening to the boastful roar,
And as I stroked my beard, I’d smile
And take a full glass in my hand,
Saying: ‘Each to his own, but I’ll 3630
Ask if there’s any in this land,
Who, to my Gretel, can compare
Whose worth can ever equal hers?’
Hear! Hear! Clink! Clang! Went around:
Some cried out: ‘He’s quite correct, 3635
She’s an ornament to all her sex.’
There sat the boasters, not a sound.
And now! – I could tear my hair, bawl,
And dash my head against the wall! –
With jeers, they now turn up their noses: 3640
Every rogue can taunt me, he supposes!
Like a bankrupt debtor, when I’m sitting,
A casual word can start me sweating!
And though I thrash them all together,
I’ve still no right to call them liars. 3645
Who goes there? What’s creeping by?
If I’m not wrong, there’s two I spy.
If it’s him, I’ll have him by the skin,
Alive he’ll not leave the place he’s in!
(Faust. Mephistopheles)
Faust How the glow of the eternal light 3650
Shines from the Sacristy window, there,
On either side grows fainter, fainter,
And all around draws in the night!
Now it seems as dark within my heart.
Mephistopheles And I’ve a little of the tom-cat’s art, 3655
That creeps around the fire escape,
Then slinks along the wall, a silent shape,
I’m quite virtuous in my way,
A little prone to thieve, and stray.
The splendour of Walpurgis Night, 3660
Already haunts all my members,
It’s the day after tomorrow’s light:
There, why one watches, one remembers.
Faust Meanwhile you’ll bring that wealth to view,
That I see there, glimmering, behind you? 3665
Mephistopheles You’ll soon experience the delight
Of holding this cauldron to the light.
I recently had a squint inside –
Where splendid silver dollars hide.
Faust And not a jewel, or a ring, 3670
To adorn my darling girl?
Mephistopheles Among the rest I saw a thing,
A sort of necklace, made of pearl.
Faust That’s good! It’s painful to me,
To take no gift for her to see. 3675
Mephistopheles You shouldn’t find it so annoying,
To get something now, for nothing.
Now the sky glows, filled with stars,
You’ll hear the work of a master:
I’ll sing a few moralising bars, 3680
All the better to seduce her.
(Sings to the zither.)
‘Why are you here,
Katrina dear,
In daylight clear,
At your lover’s door? 3685
No, no! When,
It will let in,
A maid, and then,
Let out a maid no more!
Take care for once 3690
It’s over and done,
And it’s all gone,
Goodnight to you, poor thing!
Keep your love’s belief,
And the pleasure brief,
From every thief, 3695
Unless you’ve a wedding ring.’
Valentine (Approaching.)
Whom do you lure? By every element!
You evil-tongued rat-catcher!
To the devil, with your instrument! 3700
To the devil, too, with the singer!
Mephistopheles The zither’s broken! There’s nothing left of it.
Valentine There’s a still a skull left I’ll need to split!
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
Look lively, Doctor! Don’t give ground.
Stand by: I’ll command this thing. 3705
Out with your fly-whisk, now.
You lunge! I’m parrying.
The Duel between Faust and Valentine
‘The Duel between Faust and Valentine’
Valentine Parry, then!
Mephistopheles And why not, indeed?
Valentine And that!
Mephistopheles Ah, yes!
Valentine The devil opposes me!
What’s this? My hand’s already maimed. 3710
Mephistopheles (To Faust.)
Thrust, home!
Valentine (Falls.)
Ah!
Mephistopheles Now, the lout is tamed!
Away, we must go! Swiftly, of course,
Soon the cries of murder will begin,
With the police, now, I’m well in:
But not so much so, with the courts. 3715
(He exits with Faust.)
Mephistopheles and Faust Fleeing After the Duel
‘Mephistopheles and Faust Fleeing After the Duel’
Martha (At the window.)
Come here! Come here!
Gretchen (At the window.)
Here’s a light!
Martha Hear how they swear and struggle, yell and fight.
On-lookers Here’s one dead already!
Martha (Leaving the house.)
Where have the murderers gone?
Gretchen (Leaving the house.)
Who is it, lying there?
On-lookers Your mother’s son. 3720
Gretchen Almighty God! What misery!
Valentine I’m dying! That’s soon spoken,
And, sooner still, it will be done.
Why stand there, crying, woman?
Come, hear me everyone! 3725
(They gather round him.)
You’re still young, my Gretchen, see!
And still haven’t sense enough, to be
Effective in your occupation.
I’ll tell you confidentially:
Now that you’re a whore indeed, 3730
Be one, by proclamation!
Gretchen My brother! God! Why speak to me so?
Valentine In this business, leave God alone!
Sadly, what is done is done,
And what will come: will come. 3735
Begin with one, in secret, then,
Soon you’ll gather other men,
And, when a dozen of them have had you,
All the town can have you too.
When Shame herself appears, 3740
She’s first brought secretly to light,
Then they draw the veil of night
Over both her eyes and ears:
Men would gladly kill her, I say,
But they let her walk about and prosper, 3745
So she goes nakedly by day,
Yet isn’t any lovelier.
She’s the uglier to our sight,
The more it is she seeks the light.
Truly I can see the day 3750
When all honest people
Will turn aside from you, girl,
As from a corpse with plague.
Your heart’s flesh will despair,
When they look you in the face, 3755
You’ll have no golden chain to wear!
At the altar, there, you’ll have no place!
You’ll not be dancing joyfully
In all your lovely finery!
In some wretched gloomy corner, you 3760
Will hide, with cripples and beggars too,
And, though God may still forgive,
Be damned on earth while you live!
Martha Commend your soul to God’s mercy!
Will you end your life with blasphemy? 3765
Valentine If I could destroy your withered body,
Shameless, bawd, I’d hope to see
A full measure of forgiveness
For me, and all my sinfulness.
Gretchen My brother! These are the pains of hell! 3770
Valentine I said, leave off weeping, girl!
When you and honour chose to part,
That was the sword-thrust in my heart.
I go, through a sleep within the grave,
To God, as a soldier, true and brave. 3775
(He dies.)
Scene XX: The Cathedral
(A Mass, with organ and choir.)
(Gretchen among a large congregation: the Evil Spirit behind Gretchen.)
The Evil Spirit How different it was, Gretchen,
When you, still innocent,
Came here to the altar,
And from that well-thumbed Book,
Babbled your prayers, 3780
Half, a childish game,
Half, God in your heart!
Gretchen!
What’s in your mind?
In your heart, 3785
What crime?
Do you pray for your mother’s soul, who
Through yo