B00ARI2G5C EBOK (35 page)

Professional envy generated,

And though talent itself can’t be created,

9960

At least the outer garb I’ll be bestowing.

[
She sits down in the proscenium at the foot of a column
.]

PANTHALIS
. Be quick now, girls! At last the enchantment’s at an end,

The crazy spell cast by that old Thessalian hag;

Likewise the strum of drunken tangled notes that so

Confused our ears, still worse befuddling all our minds.

Come, down to Hades! For the queen with solemn step

Has hastened there before us, and immediately,

As faithful servants, we must make her footprints ours.

At the Inscrutable Goddess’s throne she waits for us.

CHORUS
. For queens, indeed, any place is agreeable;

9970

Even in Hades they have high positions,

Proudly consorting with their peers,

On familiar terms with Persephone.

But our sort remain in a background

Of deep fields of asphodel,

Keeping company with gangling

Poplars and infertile willows:

How shall we pass the time?

Squeaking like bats,

An unpleasant, ghostly susurration.

9980

PANTHALIS
. Those without noble purpose, who have acquired no name,

Belong to the elements. So begone, the lot of you!

For my most ardent wish is to be with my queen;

By loyalty, as by merit, we may be persons still. [
Exit
.]

ALL
. We have been restored to the light of day;

To be sure, we are no longer persons,

This we feel, this we know;

But to Hades we shall never return.

We are spirits on whom ever-living

Nature makes an absolute

9990

Claim, as we do on Nature.

PART OF THE CHORUS
.

We shall dwell amid this tremor of a thousand whispering branches,

Tease their roots to woo the life-sap softly up into the rustling

Tree-tops; there these floating tresses we shall deck with leaves and blossoms,

In extravagant abundance, free to thrive at airy heights.

When the ripe fruit falls, the people with their flocks will crowd here, eager

Hands will gather, mouths will nibble; thus they’ll throng to snatch a harvest,

And they’ll all bow down around us, as before the earliest gods.

ANOTHER PART
. We shall linger by these cliffs with mirror-smooth far-shining faces,

Cling like gentle waves about them, flatter them in close caress;

10000

So to every sound we’ll listen, songs of birds, the reed-pipes playing,

And though Pan’s dread voice assail us, we shall instantly reply.

Even murmuring wind we’ll answer, thunder we shall double-thunder,

Utter shattering iteration, mutter threefold, tenfold roll.

A THIRD PART
. Sisters, we prefer more movement, we shall hasten with the streaming

Waters, lured by those well-wooded hills, those ranges in the distance.

Ever deeper down shall wander our meandering refreshment:

Now the pastures, then the meadows, soon the garden round the house.

There slim cypresses will mark us, tapering proud above the landscape,

By our banks and mirroring waters rising headup to the sky.

10010

A FOURTH PART
. Wander where you like, the rest of you: our murmuring shall encircle

The close-cultivated hillside, where staked vines are growing green,

Tended daily, tended hourly by the vintager, whose toiling

Passion and devoted labour earn their ever-doubtful prize.

We shall see him hoeing, digging, heaping soil up, pruning, tying,

Praying to the gods to aid him, to the sun-god most of all.

The voluptuary Bacchus, careless of his faithful servant,

Rests in caves and lolls in arbours, flirting with the youngest faun.

All his dreaming, his half-drunken reveries have ever needed

Stands supplied for him in wineskins, stands in jars and hollow vessels,

10020

Right and left in cooling caverns, stored from immemorial time.

But when all the gods, and Helios first among them, giving breezes,

Giving moisture, warmth and fire, have heaped the grapes to horns of plenty:

Then at last, where quiet growers worked, all springs to life and motion,

All the leafy arbours rustle, all’s astir from vine to vine.

Baskets creak and buckets clatter, groaning hods are fully loaded;

All to the great vat are carried, to the treader’s lusty dance.

So by those rude feet the sacred bounty of the ripe unblemished

Grape is trodden, spurting grape-flesh crushed and mixed to foaming messes.

Now the ear is penetrated by the cymbals’ brazen clangour:

10030

For the unveiled Dionysus from his mysteries comes forth,

Leaping with goat-footed satyrs, with goat-footed satyresses,

And among them wildly braying comes Silenus’ long-eared beast.

No constraints now! Cloven hooves will trample down all decent custom,

All our senses reel, our ears are deafened with the hideous din.

Drunken revellers grope for liquor, heads and bellies overflowing;

Some still call for moderation, but can only swell the tumult;

For old wineskins soon are empty which the grape’s new juice must fill!

[
Curtain
,
PHORCYAS
rises up as a gigantic figure in the proscenium, but steps down from her cothurni, removes her mask and veil, and reveals herself as
MEPHISTOPHELES,
who then as an epilogue to the drama adds such comments as may be appropriate
.]

[
Rugged forbidding peaks. A cloud drifts up, leans against the cliff, settles on a projecting spur of rock, and divides
.]

FAUST
[
stepping out of it
].

Gazing at those deep solitudes beneath my feet,
*

I tread with circumspection this high mountain-brink,

10040

Dismissing now my cloudy vehicle, which has brought

Me gently through bright daylight over land and sea.

Slowly it has released me, yet does not disperse.

Towards the east it strives, a dense and vaporous mass;

The astonished eye strives after it in wonderment.

It parts as it moves on, in shifting, billowing change:

Yet seeks a shape.—Yes! now my eye is not deceived!—

On softest bedding, sun-gleamed, splendid there she lies,

A woman’s form, most godlike, giant-like indeed:

I see it! It is like Juno, Leda, Helena;

10050

With what majestic charm it hovers in my sight!

Alas, already it drifts away: amorphous, broad,

Its icy summits towering in the distant east

Reflect the dazzling greatness of these fleeting days.

But round my breast and brow there hovers still, so cool,

So pleasing and caressing, a bright wisp of cloud.

Now lightly, hesitantly higher it ascends,

And shapes itself.—Does joy delude, or do I see

That first, that long-lost, dearest treasure of my youth?

They rise to view, those riches of my deepest heart,

10060

That leapt so lightly in the early dawn of love;

That first look, quickly sensed and hardly understood:

No precious jewel could have outshone it, had I held

It fast. Oh lovely growth, oh spiritual form!

Still undissolving, it floats skywards on and up,

And draws my best and inmost soul to follow it.

[
A seven-league boot touches the ground. A second follows immediately
.
MEPHISTOPHELES
dismounts. The boots hurry on
.]

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Well, that’s quick marching, I must say!—

Now, what are your intentions, pray?

Why choose this savage place to pause,

Where rocks upfang their dreadful jaws?

10070

I know them, though from elsewhere, very well:

This place was once, in fact, the floor of hell.

FAUST
. Another of your foolish tales, no doubt;

Such stuff you never tire of handing out.

MEPHISTOPHELES
[
seriously]
.

When the Lord God—and I could tell you why—

Hurled me and my lot headlong from the sky

Into the fiery depths, the central flame

For ever burning, evermore the same,

We found ourselves, by this bright conflagration,

In a most incommodious situation.

10080

The devils all began to cough, to utter

Much belching back and front, to sneeze and splutter;

Hell filled with sulphurous acid fumes, expelling

Its brimstone stench, like a great gasbag swelling!

Until such monstrous force, as soon it must,

Shattered the dry lands of the earth’s thick crust.

Now, things are upside down: the great abyss

Of former times has become peaks like this.

And on this, too, their orthodoxy’s based,

With nethermost by uppermost replaced;

10090

For when we fled the hot pit’s servitude,

Our lordship of the upper air ensued.

An open secret, kept till now with care;

Lately revealed to the nations everywhere. (
Eph
. 6:12)
*

FAUST
. Mountains keep noble silence; let them be!

Their whence and why’s no puzzlement to me.

When Nature’s reign began, pure and self-grounded,

Then this terrestrial globe it shaped and rounded.

Glad of their peaks and chasms, it displayed

Mountains and mountains, rocks and rocks it made;

10100

The soft-curved hills it shaped then, gentling down

Into the valleys; there all’s green and grown.

Thus Nature takes her pleasure, never troubling

With all your crazy swirl and boil and bubbling.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Well, so you say; to you it seems just so.

But I was there, my dear sir, and I know!

I saw it all: the lower regions seethed,

They swelled and spilled, great streams of fire they breathed,

And Moloch’s hammer,
*
forging rock to rock,

Scattered the fragments with its mighty knock.

10110

The land’s still stiff with alien lumps of stone:

How’s such momentum possible? The sages

Try to explain, but still untouched for ages

Those boulders lie, the answer’s still unknown.

We rack our brains to death: what more

Can thinking tell us?—Only the old lore

Of simple folk has understood, they’ve read it

In their tradition’s ripe unchanging store:

Wonders they see, and Satan gets the credit!

So on faith’s crutch my hobbling wanderer goes:

10120

Devil’s Rock, Devil’s Bridge are all he knows.

FAUST
. An interesting viewpoint, I must say,

To observe Nature’s works the Devil’s way.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Let Nature do its will; what do I care!

My word on it: Satan himself was there!

Our methods—tumult, mad upheaval—get

The best results; look round for proof!—But let

Me now speak plain: can we still offer you

No earthly joy? A panoramic view

Confronts you, far and wide you see unfurled

10130

The glory of the kingdoms of this world (
Matt
. 4):

And can your discontentment still

Discern no pleasing prospect?

FAUST
. Yes!

A great thought has inspired me: guess

It if you can.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. That I soon will.

In your place, I’d seek out some city for

My capital. One with a nookshotten core

Of streets where burghers munch, of Gothic gables,

Of poky markets selling vegetables—

Onions and cabbages and beet;

10140

Benchfuls of fly-infested meat.

Come here at any time, you’ll sense

The stink of ceaseless diligence.

Wide avenues and squares then raise

The social level of the place:

And finally long suburbs sprawl,

Impeded by no outer wall.

There would be traffic, loud and fast,

Such fun to watch! all bustling past,

And to and fro the scuttling slither,

10150

The swarming ants, hither and thither.

And when I drove or rode, I’d be

Their cynosure for all to see:

A hundred thousand would revere me!

FAUST
. All that, I fear, would fail to cheer me.

One likes a growing population,

Prospering, feeding, even taking

Their ease, acquiring education—

But they’re all rebels in the making.

MEPHISTOPHELES
. Then, somewhere suitable, to fit my state,

A grandiose pleasure-palace I’d create.

10160

Forests and hills, wide meadows, open land,

Would be my garden, likewise very grand:

Green walls and velvet greensward, avenues

Straight as a die, precisely shaded views,

Rocky cascades in even steps descending,

And fountains in variety unending.

Here, a great noble jet; there, bordering it,

A thousand jetlets hiss and piss and spit.

I would have maisonettes built, and instal

10170

The most delightful women in them—all

My time I’d spend most cosily enstewed

In such companionable solitude.

And I say ‘women’ quite advisedly:

Charm in the singular’s no charm to me.

FAUST
. Babylonian debauch, modern vulgarity.
*