Faust [part 1]. Translated Into English in the Original Metres · Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
MEPHISTOPHELES
Under the old ribs of the rock retreating, Hold fast, lest thou be hurled down the abysses there! The night with the mist is black; Hark! how the forests grind and crack! Frightened, the owlets are scattered: Hearken! the pillars are shattered. The evergreen palaces shaking! Boughs are groaning and breaking, The tree-trunks terribly thunder, The roots are twisting asunder! In frightfully intricate crashing Each on the other is dashing, And over the wreck-strewn gorges The tempest whistles and surges! Hear’st thou voices higher ringing? Far away, or nearer singing? Yes, the mountain’s side along, Sweeps an infuriate glamouring song! WITCHES (_in chorus_) The witches ride to the Brocken’s top, The stubble is yellow, and green the crop. There gathers the crowd for carnival: Sir Urian sits over all. And so they go over stone and stock; The witch she——s, and——s the buck. Alone, old Baubo’s coming now; She rides upon a farrow-sow. Then honor to whom the honor is due! Dame Baubo first, to lead the crew! A tough old sow and the mother thereon, Then follow the witches, every one. Which way com’st thou hither? O’er the Ilsen-stone. I peeped at the owl in her nest alone: How she stared and glared! Betake thee to Hell! Why so fast and so fell? She has scored and has flayed me: See the wounds she has made me!
WITCHES (_chorus_) The way is wide, the way is long: See, what a wild and crazy throng! The broom it scratches, the fork it thrusts, The child is stifled, the mother bursts. WIZARDS (_semichorus_) As doth the snail in shell, we crawl: Before us go the women all. When towards the Devil’s House we tread, Woman’s a thousand steps ahead. We do not measure with such care: Woman in thousand steps is theft. But howsoe’er she hasten may, Man in one leap has cleared the way. VOICE (_from above_) Come on, come on, from Rocky Lake! VOICE (_from below_) Aloft we’d fain ourselves betake. We’ve washed, and are bright as ever you will, Yet we’re eternally sterile still. The wind is hushed, the star shoots by. The dreary moon forsakes the sky; The magic notes, like spark on spark, Drizzle, whistling through the dark. VOICE (_from below_) Halt, there! Ho, there! VOICE (_from above_) Who calls from the rocky cleft below there? VOICE (_below_) Take me, too! take me, too! I’m climbing now three hundred years, And yet the summit cannot see: Among my equals I would be. Bears the broom and bears the stock, Bears the fork and bears the buck: Who cannot raise himself to-night Is evermore a ruined wight. HALF-WITCH (_below_) So long I stumble, ill bestead, And the others are now so far ahead! At home I’ve neither rest nor cheer, And yet I cannot gain them here.
To cheer the witch will salve avail; A rag will answer for a sail; Each trough a goodly ship supplies; He ne’er will fly, who now not flies. When round the summit whirls our flight, Then lower, and on the ground alight; And far and wide the heather press With witchhood’s swarms of wantonness! (_They settle down_.) They crowd and push, they roar and clatter! They whirl and whistle, pull and chatter! They shine, and spirt, and stink, and burn! The true witch-element we learn. Keep close! or we are parted, in our turn, Where art thou? FAUST (_in the distance_) Here! 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. 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. But see, what motley flames among the heather! There is a lively club together: In smaller circles one is not alone. 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.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.