Mephistopheles.  Thou art at last—­just what thou art.  Pile perukes on thy head whose curls cannot be counted, On yard-high buskins let thy feet be mounted, Still thou art only what thou art.

Faust.  Yes, I have vainly, let me not deny it,
Of human learning ransacked all the stores,
And when, at last, I set me down in quiet,
There gushes up within no new-born force;
I am not by a hair’s-breadth higher,
Am to the Infinite no nigher.

Mephistopheles.  My worthy sir, you see the matter
As people generally see;
But we must learn to take things better,
Before life pleasures wholly flee. 
The deuce! thy head and all that’s in it,
Hands, feet and ------ are thine;
What I enjoy with zest each minute,
Is surely not the less mine? 
If I’ve six horses in my span,
Is it not mine, their every power? 
I fly along as an undoubted man,
On four and twenty legs the road I scour. 
Cheer up, then! let all thinking be,
And out into the world with me! 
I tell thee, friend, a speculating churl
Is like a beast, some evil spirit chases
Along a barren heath in one perpetual whirl,
While round about lie fair, green pasturing places.

Faust.  But how shall we begin?

Mephistopheles.  We sally forth e’en now. 
What martyrdom endurest thou! 
What kind of life is this to be living,
Ennui to thyself and youngsters giving? 
Let Neighbor Belly that way go! 
To stay here threshing straw why car’st thou? 
The best that thou canst think and know
To tell the boys not for the whole world dar’st thou. 
E’en now I hear one in the entry.

Faust.  I have no heart the youth to see.

Mephistopheles.  The poor boy waits there like a sentry,
He shall not want a word from me. 
Come, give me, now, thy robe and bonnet;
This mask will suit me charmingly.
           [He puts them on.]
Now for my wit—­rely upon it! 
’Twill take but fifteen minutes, I am sure. 
Meanwhile prepare thyself to make the pleasant tour!

[Exit FAUST.]

Mephistopheles [in FAUST’S long gown]. 
Only despise all human wit and lore,
The highest flights that thought can soar—­
Let but the lying spirit blind thee,
And with his spells of witchcraft bind thee,
Into my snare the victim creeps.—­
To him has destiny a spirit given,
That unrestrainedly still onward sweeps,
To scale the skies long since hath striven,
And all earth’s pleasures overleaps. 
He shall through life’s wild scenes be driven,
And through its flat unmeaningness,
I’ll make him writhe and stare and stiffen,
And midst all sensual excess,
His fevered lips, with thirst all parched and riven,
Insatiably shall haunt refreshment’s brink;
And had he not, himself, his soul to Satan given,
Still must he to perdition sink!