Faust, Part One

“Mephistopheles: Ah, he serves you well, indeed!

He scorns earth’s fare and drinks celestial mead.

Poor fool, his ferment drives him far!

He half knows his own madness, I’ll be bound.

He’d pillage heaven for its brightest star,

And earth for every last delight that’s to be found;

Not all that’s near nor all that’s far

Can satisfy a heart so restless and profound.

The Lord: He serves me, but still serves me in confusion;

I will soon lead him into clarity.

A gardener knows, one day this young green tree

Will blossom and bear fruit in rich profusion.

Mephistopheles: If I may be his guide, you’ll lose him

yet;

I’ll subtly lead him my way, if you’ll let

Me do so; shall we have a bet?

The Lord: He lives on earth, and while he is alive

You have my leave for the attempt;

Man errs, till he has ceased to strive.”

Mephistopheles and the Lord have this conversation in the third prologue, as they establish the bet that will serve as the premise of Faust. The quote sets up this important bet, as well as introduces Faust’s restlessness and torment.

“I see all our search for knowledge is vain,

And this burns my heart with bitter pain.

I’ve more sense, to be sure, than the learned fools,

The masters and pastors, the scribes for the schools;

No scruples to plague me, no irksome doubt,

No hell-fire or devil to worry about—

Yet I take no pleasure in anything now;

For now I know nothing, I wonder how

I can still keep up the pretence of teaching

Or bettering mankind with my empty preaching.

Can I even boast any worldly success?

What fame or riches do I possess?

No dog would put up with such an existence!

And so I am seeking magic’s assistance,

Calling on spirits and their might

To show me many a secret sight,

To relieve me of the wretched task

Of telling things I ought rather to ask,

To grant me a vision of Nature’s forces

That bind the world, all its seeds and sources

And innermost life—all this I shall see,

And stop peddling in words that mean nothing to me.”

Faust says this at the start of the play, as he sits in his study. It sets up his inner conflict that will define his actions throughout the play, as he feels unfulfilled by traditional scholarship and reading, and instead turns to the spiritual world in his quest for meaning and knowledge. It also sets up the recurring motif of words and their (lack of) value, as he speaks of “words that mean nothing to me.”

“I had the power

To summon you, but could not hold you there.

I felt in that ecstatic hour

So small, and yet so great: and then

You hurled me back so cruelly

Into the changeful common state of men.

What must I do now? Who shall counsel me?

What urge claims my obedience?

Alas, not only pain, even activity

Itself can stop our life’s advance. […]

But what is this? My eyes, magnetically drawn,

Are fixed on that one spot, where I can see

That little flask: why does sweet light break over me,

As when in a dark wood the gentle moonbeams dawn?

Unique alembic! Reverently I lift

You down and greet you. Now, most subtle gift

Compounded of the wit and art of man,

Distilment of all drowsy syrups, kind

Quintessence of all deadly and refined

Elixirs, come, and serve your master as you can! […]

A fiery chariot on light wings descends

And hovers by me! I will set forth here

On a new journey to the heaven’s ends,

To pure activity in a new sphere!

sublime life, o godlike joy! And how 

Do I, the erstwhile worm, deserve it now?

I will be resolute, and turn away

For ever from the earth’s sweet day.

Dread doors, though all men sneak and shuffle past

You, I’ll confront you, tear you open wide!

Here it is time for me to prove at last

That by his noble deeds a man is deified;

Time not to shrink from the dark cavern where

Our fancy damns itself to its own tortured fate;

Time to approach the narrow gate

Ringed by the eternal flames of hell’s despair;

Time to step gladly over this great brink,

And if it is the void, into the void to sink!”

Faust says this after he summons and gets rejected by the Earth Spirit. It shows his misery and desperation before Mephistopheles arrives, which drives him to consider suicide and makes him disillusioned with the world and his life. It also introduces the poison, which will reappear throughout the play, first in the discussion of Faust’s father, and then in the poisoning of Gretchen’s mother.