Free Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

asleep!
 
This concert leaves me in your debt.
 
You are not the man yet who can hold the devil.
1510
Weave about him shapes of honeyed dreams
 
and plunge him into seas of sweet delusions.
 
But to break this threshold’s magic spell
 
the devil needs the sharp tooth of a rat.
 
For this I need no lengthy conjuration;
 
there, it’s rustling now, it’ll quickly do my bidding.
 
The lord of rats, the lord of mice,
 
of flies and bedbugs, frogs and lice
 
commands you now to come into the open,
 
to gnaw away this bit of threshold timber
1520
while he daubs it with a drop of oil—
 
There—I see you scuttling out already!
 
Quick, to your task! The point that held me captive
 
is near the edge upon the outer angle.
 
Another bite—see, now it’s done.
 
Now, Faust, dream on till next we meet again.
    FAUST (
waking
) .
 
Have I been cheated once again?
 
Do the vanished spirits prove no more
 
than that the devil was a dreamed-up counterfeit
 
and that a poodle ran away from me?

STUDY
    Faust, Mephistopheles
.
    FAUST.
1530
A knock? Come in! Who’s plaguing me again?
    MEPHISTOPHELES.
 
It’s I.
    FAUST.
 
              Come in!
    MEPHISTOPHELES.
 
                                   It must be said three times.
    FAUST.
 
Come in then!
    MEPHISTOPHELES.
 
                                   Now you please me better.
 
You and I shall get along, I hope.
 
For I have come a noble gentleman
 
that I may drive your doldrums out.
 
Observe my scarlet dress with golden trim,
 
the cloak of stiffened silk,
 
the rooster’s feather in my hat,
 
the rapier hanging at my side.
1540
I now suggest, to make it brief,
 
that you move in similar attire,
 
that you, without restraints and ties,
 
may learn what life is all about.
    FAUST.
 
In every garment, I suppose, I’m bound to feel
 
the misery of earth’s constricted life.
 
I am too old for mere amusement
 
and still too young to be without desire.
 
What has the world to offer me?
 
You must renounce! Renounce your wishes!
1550
That is the never-ending litany
 
which every man hears ringing in his ears,
 
which every hour hoarsely tolls
 
throughout the livelong day.
 
I awake with horror in the morning,
 
and bitter tears well up in me
 
when I must face each day that in its course
 
cannot fulfill a single wish, not
one!
 
The very intimations of delight
 
are shattered by the carpings of the day
1560
which foil the inventions of my eager soul
 
with a thousand leering grimaces of life.
 
And when night begins to fall
 
I timidly recline upon my cot,
 
and even then I seek in vain for rest;
 
savage dreams come on to terrorize.
 
The god that lives within my bosom
 
can deeply stir my inmost core;
 
enthroned above my human powers,
 
He cannot move a single outward thing.
1570
And so, to be is nothing but a burden;
 
my life is odious and I long to die.
    MEPHISTOPHELES.
 
But somehow death is never quite a welcome guest.
    FAUST.
 
Oh, fortunate he for whom in victory’s blaze
 
death binds bloody laurels on the brow
 
and whom he places in a maiden’s arms
 
when the frenzied dance is over.
 
Oh, to have breathed my last and faded
 
exulting in the spirit’s sway!
    MEPHISTOPHELES.
 
Yet I know someone who in that night
1580
did not quite drink a dark brown potion.
    FAUST.
 
It seems that spying is your specialty.
    MEPHISTOPHELES.
 
I don’t know everything, but I’m aware of much.
    FAUST.
 
Ever since a sweet familiar note
 
drew me from my fearful bog
 
and deceived the remnants of my childlike faith
 
with allusions to a gladder day,
 
I curse all things that now entice my soul
 
with glittering toys and fantasies
 
and ensnare it in this cave of pain
1590
with flattering hocus-pocus and with tinsel bait.
 
I curse the high