Part 41

He sat at the royal banquet With his knights of high degree, In the lofty hall of his fathers In the Castle by the Sea.

There stood the old carouser, And drank the last life-glow; And hurled the hallowed goblet Into the tide below.

He saw it plunging and filling, And sinking deep in the sea: Then fell his eyelids forever, And never more drank he!

(She opens the press in order to arrange her clothes, and perceives the casket of jewels.)

How comes that lovely casket here to me? I locked the press, most certainly. ’Tis truly wonderful! What can within it be? Perhaps ’twas brought by some one as a pawn, And mother gave a loan thereon? And here there hangs a key to fit: I have a mind to open it. What is that? God in Heaven! Whence came Such things? Never beheld I aught so fair! Rich ornaments, such as a noble dame On highest holidays might wear! How would the pearl-chain suit my hair? Ah, who may all this splendor own?

(She adorns herself with the jewelry, and steps before the mirror.)

Were but the ear-rings mine, alone! One has at once another air. What helps one’s beauty, youthful blood? One may possess them, well and good; But none the more do others care. They praise us half in pity, sure: To gold still tends, On gold depends All, all! Alas, we poor!

PROMENADE

(FAUST, walking thoughtfully up and down. To him MEPHISTOPHELES.)

MEPHISTOPHELES

By all love ever rejected! By hell-fire hot and unsparing! I wish I knew something worse, that I might use it for swearing!

FAUST

What ails thee? What is’t gripes thee, elf? A face like thine beheld I never.

MEPHISTOPHELES

I would myself unto the Devil deliver, If I were not a Devil myself!

FAUST

Thy head is out of order, sadly: It much becomes thee to be raving madly.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Just think, the pocket of a priest should get The trinkets left for Margaret! The mother saw them, and, instanter, A secret dread began to haunt her. Keen scent has she for tainted air; She snuffs within her book of prayer, And smells each article, to see If sacred or profane it be; So here she guessed, from every gem, That not much blessing came with them. “My child,” she said, “ill-gotten good Ensnares the soul, consumes the blood. Before the Mother of God we’ll lay it; With heavenly manna she’ll repay it!” But Margaret thought, with sour grimace, “A gift-horse is not out of place, And, truly! godless cannot be The one who brought such things to me.” A parson came, by the mother bidden: He saw, at once, where the game was hidden, And viewed it with a favor stealthy. He spake: “That is the proper view,— Who overcometh, winneth too. The Holy Church has a stomach healthy: Hath eaten many a land as forfeit, And never yet complained of surfeit: The Church alone, beyond all question, Has for ill-gotten goods the right digestion.”

FAUST

A general practice is the same, Which Jew and King may also claim.

MEPHISTOPHELES

Then bagged the spangles, chains, and rings, As if but toadstools were the things, And thanked no less, and thanked no more Than if a sack of nuts he bore,— Promised them fullest heavenly pay, And deeply edified were they.

FAUST

And Margaret?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Sits unrestful still, And knows not what she should, or will; Thinks on the jewels, day and night, But more on him who gave her such delight.

FAUST