Scene II: A Laboratory

(In the fashion of the Middle Ages: lots of heavy apparatus for strange purposes.)

Wagner (At the furnace.)

The fearful bell is sounding,

The soot-black walls shudder.

My deepest expectation

Will be unsure no longer.

Soon the dark itself will lighten:

Soon in the innermost phial,

It will glow like living fire,

Yes, like the noblest ruby’s glow,

Lightning flashing in the shadow.

A clearest white light shines now!

Ah, not to lose it once more! –

Oh, God! Who’s rattling at the door?

Mephistopheles (Entering.)

Greetings! And kindly meant now.

Wagner (Anxiously.)

Welcome, to the planet of the hour!

(Whispering.)

But stifle your breath, and words’ power,

A noble work is likewise being weighed.

Mephistopheles (Whispering.)

What might it be?

Wagner (Whispering.)

A Man is being made.

Mephistopheles

A Man? And what loving couple

Have you got hidden, up the chimney?

Wagner

God Forbid! How unfashionable!

We’re free of all that idle foolery.

The tender moment from which life emerged,

The charming power with which its inner urge,

Took and gave, and clearly stamped its seal,

First in a near, and then a further field,

We now divest of all that dignity:

Though the creatures still enjoy it, we,

As Men, with all our greater gifts, begin,

To have, as we should, a nobler origin.

(He turns towards the furnace.)

It brightens! See! – Now there’s a real chance,

That, if from the hundred-fold substance,

By mixing – since mixing makes it happen –

The stuff of human life’s compounded,

And distilled in a flask, well-founded,

And in proper combination, grounded,

Then the silent work is done.

(He turns again to the furnace.)

It will be! The mass is clearer!

The proof comes nearer, nearer:

What man praises in deepest Nature,

Through Reason we dare to probe it,

And what she organises, here,

We’re now able to crystallise it.

Mephistopheles

Who lives a while, gains much experience,

And nothing new can happen on his journey.

In years of travelling, and in my presence,

I’ve seen, already, crystallised humanity.

Wagner (Up till now attending to the phial.)

It rises: flashes, there’s expansion

In a moment more it will be done.

Great aims seem foolish at the outset:

But we’ll laugh at Chance itself, yet,

And brains, with thoughts to celebrate,

In the future, a Thinker will create.

(He inspects the phial, rapturously.)

The glass rings with sweet power,

It darkens, clears: it must have being!

In a delicate form I see appear

A well-behaved little Man behaving.

What can the world ask more, what can we?

Now that this mystery’s visible to each.

Give ear to what these sounds may be,

They make a voice: they’re forming speech.

Homunculus (From the phial, to Wagner.)

Now, father! That was no joke. How are you?

Come: press me tenderly to your heart, too!

But not too hard, the glass may be too thin.

It’s in the very nature of the thing:

For the natural the world has barely space:

What’s artificial commands a narrow place.

(To Mephistopheles.)

But you, Rascal, my dear Cousin, are you

Here at the right moment? I thank you, too.

Good fortune’s led you here to me:

Since I exist, I must be doing, you see.

I’d like to begin my work today:

You’re skilful at shortening the way.

Wagner

But first, a word! Till now I’ve had no direction,

When old or young teased me with a question.

For example: no one’s found out, ever,

What makes body and soul fit together:

Stick tight, as if there’ll be no separation,

Yet always cause each other irritation.

So then, –

Mephistopheles

Stop! I’d rather he told me,

Why married people get by so wretchedly?

You’ll never discover that, my friend.

There’s work to do the little Man can tend.

Homunculus

What work’s to do?

Mephistopheles (Pointing to a side door.)

Employ your gifts on this!

Wagner (Still gazing at the phial.)

Truly, you’re the loveliest boy there is!

(The side-door opens: Faust is seen stretched out on a couch.)

Homunculus (Astonished.)

Interesting!

(The phial slips out of Wagner’s hands, hovers over Faust, and shines on him.)

Lovely surroundings! – Clear water

In thick forest! Women there: undressing.

The loveliest of all! – It’s getting clearer.

One’s left, different from the rest, gleaming:

Of highest race, for sure, a heavenly name.

She places her foot in the transparent glow,

Her noble body’s sweetly living flame

Cools itself in the yielding crystal flow. –

But what’s that rush of beating wings for:

That thrashing, splashing, in the mirror?

The lovely girls, intimidated, flee:

Their queen, alone, looks on, composedly,

To see, with a proud feminine pleasure,

The Swan-Prince press against her knee, there,

Forward yet tame. Familiar, he seems. –

But suddenly a vapour heaves,

And covers, with the veil it weaves,

The loveliest of scenes.

Mephistopheles

All the things that you could murmur!

So little: and such a great dreamer.

I see nothing –

Homunculus

So I believe. You’re Northern,

In the age of mist you’re born then,

In a jumble of priest-craft and chivalry,

So how could your sight be free!

You’re at home with darkness.

(He gazes around.)

Brown repulsive, mildewed walls,

Low, pointed arches, full of scrolls! –

One wakes, and gives another pain,

On the spot, dead then, he’ll remain.

Wooded founts, swans, naked beauty,

That was his far-sighted dream:

How could this place do duty!

I can scarcely endure the scene.

Carry him off!

Mephistopheles

I’d be happy: a last chance.

Homunculus

Order the soldier to the fight,

Lead the maiden to the dance,

Then everything’s done right.

Even now, thinks, quick as light,

It’s Classical Walpurgis Night:

That’s the best, if he were sent

To his own true element!

Mephistopheles

I’ve never heard that event named, here.

Homunculus

How could it come to your ear?

Only Romantic ghosts, for you:

A true ghost must be Classic too.

Mephistopheles

Which path do we take there? Already

Your antique colleagues quite repel me.

Homunculus

North-westward Satan, is your pleasure ground,

But this time we’re South-eastward bound –

In wider space flows Peneus, the free

By bushes, groves, and damp still bays:

Its levels stretch to mountain ways,

And over it Pharsalus: old, yet contemporary.

Mephistopheles

Oh! Enough! And keep all the fight,

Of tyranny and slavery, out of sight.

It bores me: they’re scarce done when

They start the whole thing over again:

And no one sees: they’re being re-aligned,

By Asmodeus, who works them from behind.

They clash, it’s said, for Freedom’s right:

Seen rightly, slave with slave is all the fight.

Homunculus

Leave Mankind’s wilfulness to me, then.

Each man defends himself, as best he can,

From childhood, till, at last, he is a man.

Just ask how we can get back there again.

Have you a method, then, let’s see:

If you haven’t, leave it all to me.

Mephistopheles

There’s many a Brocken trick I could display,

But I find that Pagan bolts have barred the way.

The whole Greek race was never that much use!

They dazzle with the senses’ freer play: it’s true:

They lure the heart of man to happier sins:

While ours, one always finds, are gloomy things.

And now, what?

Homunculus

Once you weren’t so witless:

When I spoke about Thessalian witches.

I can deliver what I said: just think a little.

Mephistopheles (Lustfully.)

Thessalian witches! Good! They’re the people

I once enquired about long ago.

I don’t think it would suit me, at all,

To live with them night after night, though,

Still, a visit, and a trial –

Homunculus

This mantle here,

Fold it around your knight there!

As before, the cloak can carry another,

One of you, along with the other.

I’ll light the way.

Wagner (Anxiously.)

And I?

Homunculus

Well, now, you

Stay home, there are important things to do.

Unfold all your ancient parchments,

Then, by rote, collect life’s elements,

And place them together with due care,

Consider What, more deeply consider How.

Meanwhile round the world, a bit, I’ll fare,

And find the last dot on the ‘i’, for now.

Then the great work will see its final stage:

Great effort will merit great reward, you’ll see:

Gold, honour, fame, a long and ripe old age,

And science too – and virtue, possibly.

Farewell!

Wagner (Sadly.)

Farewell! It gives me pain.

Already, I fear, I’ll not see you again.

Mephistopheles

Now to Peneus, lively, on!

Sir Cousin’s highly rated.

(To the audience.)

In the end we’re dependent on

The creatures we’ve created.

Scene III: Classical Walpurgis Night. The Pharsalian Fields.

(Darkness.)

Erichtho (The Thessalian Witch, see Lucan’s Pharsalia)

This night’s awesome feast, as so often in the past,

I enter now, I, Erichtho, the gloomy one:

Not so abominable as the wretched poets

Painted me, with excessive slander…they never

Cease their blame or praise…I see the valley whiten

With waves of tents that gleam greyer in the distance,

The after-image of that anxious, fearful night.

How often it’s repeated! In eternity

Acted out, again, forever…No one gives the realm

To another: to the one whose power won it:

Whose strength rules. Since each, incapable of ruling

His inner self, would gladly rule his neighbour’s will,

In the manner that his proud mind dictates to him…

But here a great instance was fought out, to the end,

Of how force may battle against a greater force,

Freedom’s lovely thousand-blossomed garland be torn,

And stubborn laurel be wound round the ruler’s brow.

Here, Pompey dreams of his youth and former greatness,

There, Caesar, listening, watches the balance tremble!

It settles, and the world knows whom it sinks towards.

The watch fires, glowing, send out their crimson flames:

The field exhales those images of squandered blood,

And lured by the strange wondrous splendour of the night,

A legion of Hellenic legends gather here.

They hover around all the fires uncertainly,

Or sit nearby, the fabled forms of ancient days….

The Moon, not full it is true, but of clearest light,

Rises, scattering mild radiance everywhere:

The ghostly tents vanish: the fires burn bluish now.

But, over my head, what sudden meteor’s this?

It shines, illuminates the material globe.

I smell Life. It’s not fitting for me to approach

Closer to the living, since I’m harmful to them:

It gives me a bad name, and is no benefit to me.

It sinks down already. I give way, thoughtfully!

(She Exits. The Airy Travellers speak from above.)

Homunculus

Once again float round the circle

Over flames and shuddering horror:

On the ground, and in the vale still,

It’s quite ghostly, we discover.