MEPHISTOPHELES

My thanks!  I find the dead no acquisition,
And never cared to have them in my keeping. 
I much prefer the cheeks where ruddy blood is leaping,
And when a corpse approaches, close my house: 
It goes with me, as with the cat the mouse.

THE LORD

Enough!  What thou hast asked is granted. 
Turn off this spirit from his fountain-head;
To trap him, let thy snares be planted,
And him, with thee, be downward led;
Then stand abashed, when thou art forced to say: 
A good man, through obscurest aspiration,
Has still an instinct of the one true way.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Agreed!  But ’tis a short probation. 
About my bet I feel no trepidation. 
If I fulfill my expectation,
You’ll let me triumph with a swelling breast: 
Dust shall he eat, and with a zest,
As did a certain snake, my near relation.

THE LORD

Therein thou’rt free, according to thy merits;
The like of thee have never moved My hate. 
Of all the bold, denying Spirits,
The waggish knave least trouble doth create. 
Man’s active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level;
Unqualified repose he learns to crave;
Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave,
Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil. 
But ye, God’s sons in love and duty,
Enjoy the rich, the ever-living Beauty! 
Creative Power, that works eternal schemes,
Clasp you in bonds of love, relaxing never,
And what in wavering apparition gleams
Fix in its place with thoughts that stand forever!

(Heaven closes:  the ARCHANGELS separate.)

MEPHISTOPHELES (solus)

I like, at times, to hear The Ancient’s word,
And have a care to be most civil: 
It’s really kind of such a noble Lord
So humanly to gossip with the Devil!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]

FIRST PART OF THE TRAGEDY

I

NIGHT

(A lofty-arched, narrow, Gothic chamber.  FAUST, in a chair at his desk, restless.)

FAUST

I’ve studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—­
And even, alas!  Theology,—­
From end to end, with labor keen;
And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before: 
I’m Magister—­yea, Doctor—­hight,
And straight or cross-wise, wrong or right,
These ten years long, with many woes,
I’ve led my scholars by the nose,—­
And see, that nothing can be known!
That knowledge cuts me to the bone. 
I’m cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,
Doctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers;
Neither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,
Nor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.