Part 67

What! whirled so far astray? Then house-right I must use, and clear the way. Make room! Squire Voland comes! Room, gentle rabble, room!

Here, Doctor, hold to me: in one jump we’ll resume An easier space, and from the crowd be free: It’s too much, even for the like of me. Yonder, with special light, there’s something shining clearer Within those bushes; I’ve a mind to see. Come on! we’ll slip a little nearer.

FAUST

Spirit of Contradiction! On! I’ll follow straight. ’Tis planned most wisely, if I judge aright: We climb the Brocken’s top in the Walpurgis-Night, That arbitrarily, here, ourselves we isolate.

MEPHISTOPHELES

But see, what motley flames among the heather! There is a lively club together: In smaller circles one is not alone.

FAUST

Better the summit, I must own: There fire and whirling smoke I see. They seek the Evil One in wild confusion: Many enigmas there might find solution.

MEPHISTOPHELES

But there enigmas also knotted be. Leave to the multitude their riot! Here will we house ourselves in quiet. It is an old, transmitted trade, That in the greater world the little worlds are made. I see stark-nude young witches congregate, And old ones, veiled and hidden shrewdly: On my account be kind, nor treat them rudely! The trouble’s small, the fun is great. I hear the noise of instruments attuning,— Vile din! yet one must learn to bear the crooning. Come, come along! It must be, I declare! I’ll go ahead and introduce thee there, Thine obligation newly earning. That is no little space: what say’st thou, friend? Look yonder! thou canst scarcely see the end: A hundred fires along the ranks are burning. They dance, they chat, they cook, they drink, they court: Now where, just tell me, is there better sport?

FAUST

Wilt thou, to introduce us to the revel, Assume the part of wizard or of devil?

MEPHISTOPHELES

I’m mostly used, ’tis true, to go incognito, But on a gala-day one may his orders show. The Garter does not deck my suit, But honored and at home is here the cloven foot. Perceiv’st thou yonder snail? It cometh, slow and steady; So delicately its feelers pry, That it hath scented me already: I cannot here disguise me, if I try. But come! we’ll go from this fire to a newer: I am the go-between, and thou the wooer.

(To some, who are sitting around dying embers:)

Old gentlemen, why at the outskirts? Enter! I’d praise you if I found you snugly in the centre, With youth and revel round you like a zone: You each, at home, are quite enough alone.

GENERAL

Say, who would put his trust in nations, Howe’er for them one may have worked and planned? For with the people, as with women, Youth always has the upper hand.

MINISTER

They’re now too far from what is just and sage. I praise the old ones, not unduly: When we were all-in-all, then, truly, Then was the real golden age.

PARVENU

We also were not stupid, either, And what we should not, often did; But now all things have from their bases slid, Just as we meant to hold them fast together.

AUTHOR

Who, now, a work of moderate sense will read? Such works are held as antiquate and mossy; And as regards the younger folk, indeed, They never yet have been so pert and saucy.

MEPHISTOPHELES

(who all at once appears very old)

I feel that men are ripe for Judgment-Day, Now for the last time I’ve the witches’-hill ascended: Since to the lees my cask is drained away, The world’s, as well, must soon be ended.

HUCKSTER-WITCH