 | Faustus : The Second Part |  |
84
Faustus—Mephistopheles.
Mephistopheles.
Why drag me down these dismal passages?
A pleasant notion of what pleasant is
You seem to have. The merriment within,
The gay throng of great people crowding thick—
Why drag me from it? 'tis the very scene
For drollery, cajolery and trick.
Faustus.
Speak not of that. You cannot but have been
Outwearied with its sameness long ago,
The glitter is all gone of that poor show.
The purpose—or I take it so to be—
Of all your restless shuffling to and fro,
Is to escape a moment's talk with me.
Now I am tortured into act tho' loth—
The Chamberlain and Marshal at me both.
The Emperor's impatient for the play
Of Helena and Paris, so they say:
He wills it, and there must be no delay.
The model forms of man's and woman's beauty
He would behold as they appeared in life:
Swift to the task—up, Spirit! do thy duty.
The emperor waits—I may not break my word.
85
So lightly to have promised was absurd.
Faustus.
This comes, companion, from the arts you use:
We made him rich, and now we must amuse.
Mephistopheles.
You think the thing is done as soon as said.
Here before steeps more perilous we stand,
That guard the frontier of a foreign land.
Art rash enough the hostile ground to tread?
Aye! with the devil to pay, 'tis mighty cheap,
Worlds of new debt upon your head to heap.
Would you call up their Helena of old,
Like those pale paper phantoms of false gold?
Of witch materials from the yielding sex—
Of dwarfy men, with puffed and pursy necks—
Of midnight ghosts and goblins, and the stuff
That ghosts are made of, you shall have enough.
But devils' drabs—tho' good things in their way—
Would not quite do your heroine parts to play.
Faustus.
Aye, twanging on the same old string again!
Why is it that you never can speak plain?
Consult with you! that always is about
One's worst expedient—you suggest new doubt.
86
An agent's—for each job who has his price;
Mumble but a few sounds, and, quick as thought,
While one looks round, you have them on the spot.
Mephistopheles.
I and the Heathen never hit it well.
They're none of mine, and they have their own hell.
But there are means—
Faustus.
Speak! speak! delay me not.
Mephistopheles.
But there are means—reluctantly do I
Unveil a higher Mystery—Goddesses
August enthrone themselves in loneliness.
Place none around them, glimpse of Time still less.
They are—we speak not of them, scarce will think—
They are the Mothers—
Faustus.
Mothers!
Mephistopheles.
Do you shrink?
Are you shuddering?
87
Mothers! mothers! It sounds strange.
Mephistopheles.
And is so. Goddesses beyond the range
Known to you mortals. We of them would keep
Strict silence. For their homes you may scrape deep
Under the undermost. Aye, go there, do.
You have yourself to blame for it; but for you
We'd have no need of them.
Faustus.
The road?
Mephistopheles.
The road!
There's no road. Road!—road to where none have trod
Ever—none ever will tread!—road to where
I warrant never suppliant bent in prayer,
Nor ever will hereafter! Art thou ready?
No locks are there—no bolts to be pushed back;
But solitudes whirl round in endless eddy.
Can'st grasp in thought what no words can express—
Vacuity and utter loneliness?
88
You might have spared, methinks, this solemn speeching;
Something of the old time it seems to smack;
Brings back the very smell of the witch kitchen.
Have I not dealt in the world? and have I not
There learned the empty?—there the empty taught?
What I saw clearly, if I spoke out plain,
Was I not doubly contradicted then?
And to escape the blows from all sides given,
To savage solitude was I not driven,
Till sick of life in such dull sameness passed,
I gave me over to the Devil at last?
Mephistopheles.
And hadst thou swum thro' ocean, even within
Its shoreless desolation, thou would'st see
Wave on wave coming everlastingly,
In the very jaws of ruin; something still
Would meet the eye—say, dolphins on the green
Of the smooth surface, sporting at their will;
Cloud-shadows trailing—sun, moon, many a star.
In the illimitable void afar
Nothing whatever—nothing there is seen.
Where your foot falls the unsubstantial ground
Sinks down—still sinks; you move—you hear no sound.
89
—The very rant of the hierophant
When he is wheedling some poor neophyte.
Your promise though is the reverse of his,
And its results in all things opposite.
You'd send me to the empty to increase
Science, Art, Power. I see what you are at—
The old tale of the chestnuts, and the cat
Scorching his paws in the cinders. Never mind,
I'll sift it to the depth: in this, your evil
Find good—in this your nothing all things find.
Mephistopheles.
We part; but I must own you know the devil.
Here take this Key.
Faustus.
That little thing!
Mephistopheles.
Aye, take
And hold it tight, nor little of it make.
Faustus.
It swells!—it shines!—it flashes in my hand!
Mephistopheles.
The virtue there is in it, understand!
The Key will scent the Mothers to their lair.
Follow his guidance down, and you are there.
90
The Mothers! it falls on me like a blow.
How can a word—a sound—affect me so?
Mephistopheles.
Such narrow-mindedness! At a new word
Quailing!—would'st never hear but what you've heard?
If—pardon me—a meaning's to be found,
Beyond what your thoughts reach to, in a sound,
Is that a matter to astonish us,
So long inured to the Miraculous?
Faustus.
Think not in torpor that I place my weal.
'Tis man's—'tis man's to shudder and to feel
The Human in us, though the world disown
And mock at feeling, seized and startled thus,
In on itself by strong revulsion thrown,
Thrills at the Vast—the Awful—the Unknown.
Mephistopheles.
Sink then! I might say rise—'tis one. Fly far
From earth—from all existences that are,
Into the realms of Image unconfined.
Gloat upon charms that long have ceased to be:
Like cloud-wreaths rising, rolling, the combined
Army of Apparitions rush on thee.
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From thy person keep them.
Faustus.
As I grasp the Key,
My heart expands to the great work, and strength
Is given me. Onward!
Mephistopheles.
A burning Tripod tells thee thou hast found
The deepest—art below the deepest ground;
And by its light the Mothers thou wilt see—
Some sit, and others stand, or, it may be,
In movement are. Formation, Transformation,
Eternal Play of the Eternal Mind,
With Semblances of all things in creation,
For ever and for ever sweeping round.
Onward! They see thee not, for they but see
Shapes substanceless. There's risk—be bold—be brave:
Straight to the Tripod; touch it with the Key.
[Faustus takes a firm commanding attitude with the key.
Mephistopheles
(looking at him).
All's right! it clings!—it follows! Faithful slave!
Thou reascendest,—Fortune raising thee—
Calm, self-possessed, as one that knows not fear;
Ere they have marked thine absence, thou art here.
92
Hero and Heroine you may raise to light—
The first to venture on such bold design.
'Tis done; to have accomplished it is thine—
And now as the magician bids, the clouds
Of waving incense shape them into Gods.
Faustus.
And now? what now?
Mephistopheles.
Thy being downward strain.
Stamp, and you sink; stamp—you ascend again.
[Faustus stamps and sinks.
Mephistopheles
(alone).
If the Key lead him but in the right track!
—I wonder, is he ever to come back?
| Faustus : The Second Part | |