Faust Part 50

Let him a-----prepare, If him---------does not scare.

PROKTOPHANTASMIST

Accursed folk! How dare you venture thus?

Had you not, long since, demonstration That ghosts can't stand on ordinary foundation?

And now you even dance, like one of us!

THE FAIR ONE (dancing)

Why does he come, then, to our ball?

FAUST (dancing)

O, everywhere on him you fall!

When others dance, he weighs the matter: If he can't every step bechatter, Then 'tis the same as were the step not made; But if you forwards go, his ire is most displayed.

If you would whirl in regular gyration As he does in his dull old mill, He'd show, at any rate, good-will,- Especially if you heard and heeded his hortation.

PROKTOPHANTASMIST

You still are here? Nay, 'tis a thing unheard!

Vanish, at once! We've said the enlightening word.

The pack of devils by no rules is daunted: We are so wise, and yet is Tegel haunted.

To clear the folly out, how have I swept and stirred!

Twill ne'er be clean: why, 'tis a thing unheard!

THE FAIR ONE

Then cease to bore us at our ball!

PROKTOPHANTASMIST

I tell you, spirits, to your face, I give to spirit-despotism no place; My spirit cannot practise it at all.

(The dance continues)

Naught will succeed, I see, amid such revels; Yet something from a tour I always save, And hope, before my last step to the grave, To overcome the poets and the devils.

MEPHISTOPHELES

He now will seat him in the nearest puddle; The solace this, whereof he's most a.s.sured: And when upon his rump the leeches hang and fuddle, He'll be of spirits and of Spirit cured.

(To FAUST, who has left the dance:)

Wherefore forsakest thou the lovely maiden, That in the dance so sweetly sang?

FAUST

Ah! in the midst of it there sprang A red mouse from her mouth-sufficient reason.

MEPHISTOPHELES

That's nothing! One must not so squeamish be; So the mouse was not gray, enough for thee.

Who'd think of that in love's selected season?

FAUST

Then saw I-.

MEPHISTOPHELES

What?

FAUST

Mephisto, seest thou there, Alone and far, a girl most pale and fair?

She falters on, her way scarce knowing, As if with fettered feet that stay her going.

I must confess, it seems to me As if my kindly Margaret were she.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Let the thing be! All thence have evil drawn: It is a magic shape, a lifeless eidolon.

Such to encounter is not good: Their blank, set stare benumbs the human blood, And one is almost turned to stone.

Medusa's tale to thee is known.

FAUST

Forsooth, the eyes they are of one whom, dying, No hand with loving pressure closed; That is the breast whereon I once was lying,- The body sweet, beside which I reposed!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Tis magic all, thou fool, seduced so easily!

Unto each man his love she seems to be.

FAUST

The woe, the rapture, so ensnare me, That from her gaze I cannot tear me!

And, strange! around her fairest throat A single scarlet band is gleaming, No broader than a knife-blade seeming!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Quite right! The mark I also note.

Her head beneath her arm she'll sometimes carry; Twas Perseus lopped it, her old adversary.

Thou crav'st the same illusion still!

Come, let us mount this little hill; The Prater shows no livelier stir, And, if they've not bewitched my sense, I verily see a theatre.

What's going on?

SERVIBILIS

'Twill shortly recommence: A new performance-'tis the last of seven.

To give that number is the custom here: 'Twas by a Dilettante written, And Dilettanti in the parts appear.