University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

Before the Gate.
People of all ranks press out.
Group of Artisans.
Why do you go that way?

Others.
We're for “The Foresters” to-day.

First Group.
And we would sooner stroll off to the mill.

An Artisan.
Go to the Water court, that's my advice.

Second Artisan.
No pleasant path before you lies.

Second Group.
What then dost thou?

Third Artisan.
Where t'others go, I will.

Fourth.
Come up to Burgsdorf, then, there you will find good cheer,
The prettiest damsels, and the best of beer,
The sport the finest anywhere.

Fifth.
Cock o'the walk thou fain wouldst be,
Itches thy hide for drubbing three?
I loathe the place, just catch me going there.

Servant-Girl.
Nay, nay, I'm off, back to the town I'll go.

Second Girl.
We'll find him standing by yon poplar-tree.

First Girl.
Great happiness for me, if so;
To watch him sidle up to thee,
Dance with thee on the grass-plot there.
What for thy pleasures do I care!

Second Girl.
To-day he's not alone, he said
That he would come along with Curlyhead.

First Student.
Lord! how yon sturdy queans are striding!
Come, Brother, come! Push on, and walk beside them.
The strongest beer, tobacco hot and biting,
A housemaid in full dress are cates I most delight in.

First Citizen's Daughter.
There, look at those two fine young fellows!
It is a scandal really;
In the best company they would be welcome,
After those maids they run, you see!

Second Student.
Don't go so fast, two more come on behind,
And both most daintily drest, I vow!
Our neighbour's daughter's one, I find,
I'm a bit sweet upon her now.
They pace demurely, friend by friend,
But will accept our escort in the end.

First Student.
No, Brother, no! Quick, lest we lose our prey!
I can't be fashed my freakish tongue to fetter.
The hand that wields the broom on Saturday,
On Sunday will caress you all the better.

First Burgess.
No, I don't care for him, this new-made Burgomaster!
Now he's got there his pride grows daily faster.
What's he done for the town then, pray?
Each day growing worse, none to gainsay him,
Must we not all more humbly obey him,
And taxes, more then ever, pay?

Beggar
Sings.
Kind gentlemen, and lovely ladies,
So finely drest, cheeks like the rose,
Graciously deign to look upon me
And see, and succour all my woes!
Let me not grind my hurdy-gurdy
In vain! Who give thrice blest are they,
This day, when all are merry-making,
Be if for me my harvest day!

Second Burgess.
Sundays and holidays, there's naught I more delight in,
Than talk of war, and the fierce battle-cry,
When, far away in Turkey there,
I hear how folk with folk are fighting.
One at the window stands, his glass will drain,
Sees on the stream below the painted boats go by,
Then glad at even comes home again,
Blessed be peace, and peaceful times, say I.

Third Burgess.
Ay, neighbour, ay! I too let hap what may,
Each foreign fool crack t'other's noddle,
All topsy-turvey turn some day,
While, as of old, at home things toddle.

Old Woman
(to Citizen's Daughter.)
Hey! we're so smart! Young blood its tale will tell!
You've smitten all the men, I assure you.
Don't be so proud! All's going well!
And what you wish I know how to procure you.

First Citizen's Daughter.
Come, Agatha! I fear it is not right
With such a witch to chaffer openly;
And yet 'tis true that on St. Andrew's Night
My future Lover she showed to me.

Second Citizen's Daughter.
She showed me mine in the crystal sphere
A gallant soldier, mid his comrades bold;
I look around and seek him everywhere,
But ne'er he'll meet me as she foretold.

Soldiers.

Enter Faust and Wagner.
Faust.
Released from ice are stream and river,
At the glance of Spring's life-kindling eye;
The vale grows green with hope's ecstacy;
Old Winter grown weak, on limbs that shiver,
Back to the craggy hills must hie.
From thence he sends, as he turns to flight,
His feeble showers of icy grains;
In streaks they light o'er the greening plains;
But the sun brooks never a trace of white.
All things are stirring, living and striving,
All with gay colours would he enliven.
Though yet no flowers bloom o'er the lea,
This gay-clad crowd in their place takes he.
Turn round, and now, from this hillock high,
Look back, and fix on the town thine eye.
Out of the gloomy, vaulted gate
A motley multitude throngs elate.
Gladly each suns him on the sward,
They hallow the Rising of the Lord;
For they themselves have truly risen,
From musty rooms, homes most miserable,
From handicrafts, trades, as from bonds and prison;
From the oppression of roof and gable,
From the irksome crush of the narrow way,
From churches dim in their sacred night,
All with one impulse are seeking light.
See, just see! how the crowd swift-advancing
Through garden and field are scattering gay.
How, o'er the river's broad surface dancing,
Crowds of pleasure-boats glide to-day!
Almost to sinking overladen,
The last skiff pushes from the shore,
Bright-hued raiment of youth and maiden
Gleams from far hill-paths they wander o'er.
I hear the noise of the village fair,
The poor folks' real heaven is there.
Both great and small shout lustily;
Here am I man, and dare to be.

Wagner.
Doctor, to walk with you is recreation,
An honour that much profits me
Yet when alone I shun such dissipation;
To all that's rude I'm a sworn enemy.
Fiddling and shrieking, skittle-pitching,
Are noises I have hated long;
They howl as though some fiend had set them itching,
And call it pleasure, call it song.

Peasants
under the Linden.
Dance and Song.

Old Peasant.
Herr Doctor, this is kind of you
To mix with us you don't disdain,
So learned a man, as now you do,
While all throng round, to greet you fain.
Take then this mug of fine old ware,
That with cool drink for you we fill;
I bring it now, and wish aloud,
Not only that your drouth it still;
Each drop it holds of sound old beer
Add to your life another year!

Faust.
This cool, refreshing draught I drain,
Thank you, and pledge you all again!

(They crowd round him in a circle.)
Old Peasant.
In sooth, Herr Doctor, you've done well,
That you this happy day appear
For you, in evil days gone by,
Did what you could to help us here,
Where many a one stands living now,
Whom your good Father, snatched at last
From burning fever's rage, I trow;
He checked the plague's venemous blast.
And you yourself, young as you were,
Went into every pesthouse too,
Full many a corpse forth did they bear,
Yet out unscathed, thank God, came you,
Many a hard trial you bore that year;
The Helper above helped the helper here.

All.
Health to the true and well-tried man,
Long may he help, as help he can.

Faust.
To Him above in reverence bend,
Who help inspires and help doth send.

(He passes on with Wagner.)
Wagner.
O thou great man, what feelings must be thine,
So honoured by these folk who round thee crowd!
Oh! happy he with gifts endowed
Whence he may draw profit so fine!
The Father shows thee to his boy,
Each questions, hustles, hastes to gaze,
The fiddle stops, the dancer stays,
Thou goest, in ranks they stand and stare,
Up fly their caps into the air;
Little it lacks but they should bend the knee,
As came the Venerabile.

Faust.
A few steps more upward to yonder stone!
Let's rest awhile, after our wandering, there.
Here often I have sat in thought alone,
Torturing myself with fasting and with prayer,
In hope still rich, in faith still fast,
With tears and sighs my hands oft wringing,
I thought that foul plague's end at last
To force from God, to Him still clinging.
The crowd's applause sounds to me like scorn well won.
Oh! could'st thou in my inmost heart but read
How little Father and Son
Were worth such honour then indeed!
My Father was an honest charlatan,
O'er Nature's mystic circle would he brood with passion,
In all good faith, but in his own strange fashion,
His freakish thoughts to reveries ran.
He with his Brethren, Adepts able,
In smoky Kitchen with locked door,
Following receipts innumerable
Would loathesome broths together pour.
There the Red Lion rose, bold with desire
In tepid bath to wed the Lily fair.
Then both of them in flaming open fire
Were from one marriage-bed to another tortured there—
And then appeared a gay-clad Bride,
The Young Queen in the crystal glass,
Here was our Mithridate, the patients died,
And none asked: “Who got well?” Alas!
Thus did we rage with hellish boluses
Through all these vales, these mountains—these,
Worse than the plague, in that fond craze.
To thousands I myself the poisonous drug have given;
They perished, I must go on living,
That the rash murderer men may praise.

Wagner.
Why grieve with vain remorseful sighing?
Does not a man of good renown
Enough, the art his father handed down
With skill and knowledge punctually plying?
If thou, as youth, didst honour thine own sire,
Gladly his lore didst thou receive;
If thou, as man, for science didst more achieve,
Thy son may even reach a goal still higher.

Faust.
O happy he who still can hope
From this deep sea of error at last to rise!
What no man knows, each wants, will for it grope,
And what he knows can use nowise.
But let us not this hour's divinest grace
O'ercloud with thoughts born of such sadness!
See, as the sun departs with glowing face,
Each cottage, bowered in green, blushes for gladness.
Weary he sinks, done is his daily round,
Yet on he hastes, to call forth life again.
Oh! that no wings can lift me from the ground,
After him, near, and nearer still to strain!
To see in the eternal evenglow
Beneath my feet the calm world glowing,
Enkindled every height, at rest each vale below,
The Silberbach in golden streamlets flowing.
Naught now can stay me in my godlike flight,
Not the wild mountain with its clefts deep-yawning;
And soon with sun-warmed bays the sea is dawning
Clearly upon my astonished sight.
Though the God seems at last away to sink,
New impulse wakes in me new might,
I hasten on, his quenchless light to drink,
The day before me, after me the night,
The heavens above me still, below the billowing sea.
A splendid dream, even as it fades away.
Ah! for the Spirit's wings it seems but play
Mere bodily wings to outrival easily.
Yet in each mortal 'tis inborn,
His feelings urge him upward, onward still,
When o'er us, lost in the blue space of morn,
His quivering song the lark doth trill,
When o'er the rough crag's bristling pines,
The eagle soars on outstretched wing,
O'er plain and sea in ordered lines
The cranes press home swift voyaging.

Wagner.
I have had my hours of freakish reverie,
But such strange impulse never troubled me.
One soon gets tired of seeing field and grove,
A bird's wings I ne'er envied, nor desire.
How differently the Spirit's joys inspire,
From book to book, from page to page to rove!
This lends to Winter nights a joy so sweet,
A blissful life warms you from head to feet,
And ah! when some superb old parchment you unroll,
All heaven comes down, your pleasure is complete.

Faust.
With one strong impulse thou art now possest,
To know another school not thy heart!
Two souls, alas! are dwelling in my breast,
And one would from the other fly apart;
One to the world in love's fierce ecstasy
With grasping tentacles would ever cling,
The other from the gloom on powerful wing
To the ancestral fields would flee.
Oh! are there spirits in the air
That hovering between earth and heaven have sway,
Let them stoop from the golden ether there,
Bear me to new, more varied life away!
Yes, were but a magician's mantle mine,
To waft me to strange lands, I trow,
I would not barter it for costliest garments now,
Not a King's mantle, be it ne'er so fine.

Wagner.
Oh! call not down the ill-famed multitude,
Who, round their misty circles ever going,
A thousand plagues for men and perils shrewd,
From every quarter still are sowing.
From the North comes the stinging “Spirits' Tooth,”
Upon you with its arrow-pointed tongues;
From the East come they, bringing deadly drouth,
And love to feed upon your lungs.
When from the South they send the desert-wind,
Blast after blast falls glowing on your crown.
The West-wind brings the swarm, fresh airs blow kind,
Thee and thy field and meadow soon to drown.
They hear us gladly still on mischief bent,
Obey us gladly, to deceive us trying,
They feign that straight from heaven they are sent,
Whispering like angels when they are lying.
But let us go! The world's already grey,
The air grows cool, mist clouds the way.
At eve the joys of home we prize—
Why stand you so, amazement in your eyes?
What, in the twilight can enthrall you so?

Faust.
See yon black dog tracking through corn and stubble go?

Wagner.
I saw him long ago, he did not interest me.

Faust.
Look at him well! What think you the beast to be?

Wagner.
Merely a poodle, that in his own fashion
After his master's trail is worrying.

Faust.
Observe but how, in those wide circles going,
Near and more near to us he's hurrying.
And, if I err not, showers of sparks leap glowing
Around his path continually.

Wagner.
Naught but the same black poodle do I see;
Some optical delusion it must be.

Faust.
It seems as he a magic web were weaving
About our feet, our future lives to bind.

Wagner.
I see him timidly, doubtfully round us springing,
Two strangers, not his master, here to find.

Faust.
The circle narrows, now he is near!

Wagner.
You see, a dog, no ghostly thing is here.
He growls, fights shy, then on his belly lies,
And wags his tail in doggish wise.

Faust.
Come along with us then! Come here!

Wagner.
A comic poodle-dog, 'tis clear.
Stand still, he sits, and begs for you;
Call him, and he'll come jumping on you too;
Lose anything, and he'll soon find that thing,
Into the water for your stick he'll spring.

Faust.
Yes, thou art right; no trace I find remaining
Of spirits, good or bad, 'tis all mere training.

Wagner.
A well-trained dog will gain the faster
The affection of so wise a master.
Yes, he will well deserve that master's grace
Best scholar among students of his race.

(They enter the City gate.)