Faust Read online

                 Two souls, alas, dwell in my breast,

                 each seeks to rule without the other.

  (1112–13)

  as we come upon the one explicit and unironic expression of Faustian ambivalence.

  While a diversity of approaches to the Faust poem have, over the approximately century and a half of its existence, produced indispensable insights, critics with an all too single-minded perspective tended to obscure values that are accessible only to a different optic. The poem’s philosophical problems—for example, those having to do with the nature of truth and of cosmic governance—have been explored perhaps more intensively than any other aspect. Psychological analyses of the characters have been carried out, as well as researches dealing exclusively with the rich field of Faustian imagery. We are fortunate in having comparative studies dealing with the literary and spiritual influences that went into the composition of both parts of the poem. A considerable body of evidence also has been marshaled in support of the proposition that a far-reaching analogy exists between Goethe’s vision of life-forms in the earth’s flora—such as dicotyledonous plants—and the principles governing the structure of Faust.

  When all is said and done, however, the simple question, What is Faust about? is still capable of eliciting fresh responses, if only for the reason that by looking for meaning we are implicitly searching for some underlying coherence or for a metaphor that might convincingly convey a sense of structure. To find textual confirmation for one’s own intuited image of unity in Faust is the exhilarating reward of devoted study. Certainly, even after only a fleeting acquaintance, one must ask the question: What is it that keeps Faust dissatisfied, even though he has mastered all the academic disciplines of his day? Why could he not be proud of his accomplishments and have faith in human progress like his redoubtable assistant Wagner? At least part of the answer may be found in the most concentrated symbol of Faust’s imperious need: the all-encompassing Moment, the Augenblick, that is the subject of the wager with Mephisto and the thematic undercurrent of the entire drama. To experience, in a single instant, the succession of events that mark our existence in time is equivalent to eliminating time altogether; it means an existence in a continuous present tense. As temporal creatures, nervously feeding a shortening future into a lengthening past, we attribute to the gods a timeless mode of being and an existence in total simultaneity. Therefore Faust’s craving for the “highest moment” really amounts to the ultimate hubris; he is reaching for more than mere superiority among men—more than Macbeth, who would be king, and more than Oedipus, the incomparable solver of riddles who was the king and came to know it too late. Faust reaches for divinity and is “hell-bent” to burst out of his imprisonment in temporality.

  Since Goethe’s death, in 1832, the Faust story, through its various transmutations, has become one of the central myths of the Western world. The theme fascinated composers like Wagner, Schumann, Berlioz, Gounod, Boito, and Mahler, all of whom created important operatic or orchestral scores inspired by Goethe’s drama. American writers have recently paid renewed attention to the earlier chapbook accounts. Stephen Vincent Benét’s play The Devil and Daniel Webster and the musical comedy Damn Yankees, transposed from a novel by Douglass Wallop, were successful Broadway productions and continue to be popular onstage and on television. Intellectually more demanding and ambitious are Thomas Mann’s last big novel, Doctor Faustus (1947), whose plot parallels the pre-Goethean story, but which also contains unmistakable imprints of Goethe’s Faust, and the 1981 motion picture Mephisto, loosely based on a novel concerned with the career and questionable morality of a German actor-director who achieved fame in his role of Mephisto. The film is a remarkable directorial accomplishment by Istvan Szabo.

  The headlong strides in the natural sciences and in technology, the imperious reach for nature’s inmost secrets by twentieth-century “speculators of the elements” operating in computerized laboratories, the thrust toward man-made velocities that seemingly approach the impassable limits this side of omnipresence—can these not be seen as assaults on hitherto forbidden realms? In our day the search for the Augenblick is proceeding with increasing intensity. According to the Gospel of Luke, Satan showed to Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world in an instant of time” and then offered them to him; and it is not difficult to see in this second temptation a prefiguration of the Faustian wager, a “harking forward” to late-twentieth-century technological wizardry.

  A Note on Using this eBook

  In this eBook edition of Faust, you can switch between the English translation and the original German text. Throughout the eBook you will see hyperlinks—embedded in the titles, character names, and line numbers in the left columns—that allow you to click back and forth between the two versions while still holding your place.

  A NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION

  TO MAKE great poetry accessible by translation is a joy as well as a harsh discipline. The joy is of the kind that follows the completion of any difficult piece of work. The discipline and harsh constraints flow from the peculiar forces at play. On the one hand, there is the obligation to remain as close as possible to the original text and to avoid “irresponsible” departures from it. From that point of view, each recasting or remolding of the poet’s carefully chosen phrases can be judged to be a little betrayal.

  The position at the other extreme has its source in the conviction that a good or faithful translation is only very rarely a literal transfer, that it is rather the transmigration of feeling, form, and thought from the imprecisions of one language to the quirks and coincidences of another.

  It is important to give heed to both contrary impulses without entirely submitting to either, maintaining, wherever possible, a delicate balance between them. I have striven toward an ideal of a vital, rhythmic, American idiom so that the general impression might be similar to what a German reader might receive from the original. By relinquishing rhyme and strict meter, except in the interspersed songs and ballads, I gained the freedom to be more faithful to sense and spirit than I could otherwise have been. I believe that a consistent adherence to all the details of prosody cannot be sustained in a work of the scope of Faust without doing violence to natural diction. Moreover, it has for some time been clear to me that a German rhymed line is not necessarily rendered most felicitously—or most faithfully—by an equivalent English rhyme. Such a translation easily suffers from a jingling quality that may vitiate or even falsify the mood of the original.

  The language of this translation is meant to be neither archaic nor wholly colloquial. Instead I tried to steer an intermediate course, in the hope of conveying a sense of the poetic immediacy and continual urgency of the German text.

  This Bantam Faust was first published in 1962, was reissued in 1967, and now—more than twenty years after its first appearance—is being granted a new life. It is not very often that translators are given a second chance, and it is strangely illuminating—when reviewing the earlier version—to be conveyed into one’s own past and, as it were, to come face-to-face with one’s translating persona of an earlier day. There is a nervous “hello” and also a firm “good-bye.”

  I feel inwardly connected to all those readers who came to Faust by way of my English version, and I am now tentatively confident that the changes in this new edition will further contribute to the understanding and enjoyment of one of the world’s supreme poetic works.

  GOETHE CHRONOLOGY

  1749 August 28. Johann Wolfgang Goethe born in Frankfurt, Germany.

  1765 Enrolls as a law student at the University of Leipzig; takes private lessons in art.

  1768 Falls seriously ill. Returns to Frankfurt. Reads Shakespeare for the first time; also books on alchemy. First anonymous collection of poems, called Neue Lieder, set to music and published by Breitkopf.

  1770 Travels to Strasbourg, in Alsace. Resumes his studies at the university. Falls in love with Friderike Brion, a parson’s daughter living in nearby Sesenheim. Meets German critic and essayist Herder.

  1771 Receives law degree. First plans for drama Götz von Berlichingen, profoundly influenced by Shakespeare. Also possible first sketches for a Faust drama.

  1773 Much preoccupied with drawing and portraiture. Completes Götz von Berlichingen.

  1774 Epistolary novel: The Sorrows of Young Werther.

  1775 Accepts invitation of the reigning duke of Weimar, Carl August, to join his court.

  1777 First version of Wilhelm Meister, a bildungsroman. Group of dithyrambic odes, “Prometheus,” etc.

  1780 Poems: “Der Fischer,” “Erlkönig,” and other ballads.

  1782 Receives title of nobility from the emperor.

  1784 Scientific writings: treatise concerning granite; discovery of the intermaxillary bone in humans.

  1785 Common-law marriage with Christiane Vulpius (legalized 1806).

  1786– First Italian journey. Dramas: Iphigenie auf Tauris,

  1788 Egmont.

  1789 Birth of son, August von Goethe. Poetry: Roman Elegies. Drama: Torquato Tasso.

  1790 Second Italian journey. Faust I first published as a fragment.

  1791 Becomes general manager of Weimar Court Theater. Completes treatise in biology: The Metamorphosis of Plants.

  1794 Meets Schiller. Beginning of collaboration and friendship between the two poets.

  1795 Completes first volume of Wilhelm Meister. Epic poem: Hermann und Dorothea. Second series of ballads, among them “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”

  1804 Madame de Staël visits with Goethe in Weimar.

  1805 Schiller dies.

  1808 Conversation with Napoleon. Faust I appears in complete form.

  1812 Meeting with B
eethoven.

  1816 His wife Christiane dies.

  1822 Theory of Color (Farbenlehre), opposing the physics of Isaac Newton.

  1823 First visit of Johann Peter Eckermann, subsequently Goethe’s secretary and faithful recorder of conversations with him.

  1831 Completes Faust II.

  1832 Dies in Weimar on March 22.

  FAUST: ENGLISH

  DEDICATION1

  WAVERING FORMS, you come again;

  once long ago you passed before my clouded sight.

  Should I now attempt to hold you fast?

  Does my heart still look for phantoms?

  You surge at me! Well, then you may rule

  as you rise about me out of mist and cloud.

  The airy magic in your path

  stirs youthful tremors in my breast.

  You bear the images of happy days,

  10 and friendly shadows rise to mind.

  With them, as in an almost muted tale,

  come youthful love and friendship.

  The pain is felt anew, and the lament

  sounds life’s labyrinthine wayward course

  and tells of friends who went before me

  and whom fate deprived of joyous hours.

  They cannot hear the songs which follow,

  the souls to whom I sang my first,

  scattered is the genial crowd,

  20 the early echo, ah, has died away.

  Now my voice sings for the unknown many

  whose very praise intimidates my heart.

  The living whom my song once charmed

  are now dispersed throughout the world.

  And I am seized by long forgotten yearnings

  for the solemn, silent world of spirits;

  as on an aeolian harp my whispered song

  lingers now in vagrant tones.

  I shudder, and a tear draws other tears;

  30 my austere heart grows soft and gentle.

  What I possess appears far in the distance,

  and what is past has turned into reality.

  PRELUDE IN THE THEATER

  Manager, Dramatic Poet, Comic Character.

  MANAGER.

  You two who often stood by me

  in times of hardship and of gloom,

  what do you think our enterprise

  should bring to German lands and people?

  I want the crowd to be well satisfied,

  for, as you know, it lives and lets us live.

  The boards are nailed, the stage is set,

  40 and all the world looks for a lavish feast.

  There they sit, with eyebrows raised,

  and calmly wait to be astounded.

  I have my ways to keep the people well disposed,

  but never was I in a fix like this.

  It’s true, they’re not accustomed to the best,

  yet they have read an awful lot of things.

  How shall we plot a new and fresh approach

  and make things pleasant and significant?

  I’ll grant, it pleases me to watch the crowds,

  50 as they stream and hustle to our tent

  and with mighty and repeated labors

  press onward through the narrow gate of grace;

  while the sun still shines—it’s scarcely four o’clock—

  they fight and scramble for the ticket window,

  and as if in famine begging at the baker’s door,

  they almost break their necks to gain admission.

  The poet alone can work this miracle

  on such a diverse group. My friend, the time is now!

  POET.

  Oh, speak no more of motley crowds to me,

  60 their presence makes my spirit flee.

  Veil from my sight those waves and surges

  that suck us down into their raging pools.

  Take me rather to a quiet little cell

  where pure delight blooms only for the poet,

  where our inmost joy is blessed and fostered

  by love and friendship and the hand of God.

  Alas! What sprang from our deepest feelings,

  what our lips tried timidly to form,

  failing now and now perhaps succeeding,

  70 is devoured by a single brutish moment.

  Often it must filter through the years

  before its final form appears perfected.

  What gleams like tinsel is but for the moment.

  What’s true remains intact for future days.

  COMEDIAN.

  Oh, save me from such talk of future days!

  Suppose I were concerned with progeny,

  then who would cheer our present generation?

  It lusts for fun and should be gratified.

  A fine young fellow in the present tense

  80 is worth a lot when all is said and done.

  If he can charm and make the public feel at ease,

  he will not mind its changing moods;

  he seeks the widest circle for himself,

  so that his act will thereby be more telling.

  And now be smart and show your finest qualities,

  let fantasy be heard with all its many voices,

  as well as mind and sensibility and passion,

  and then be sure to add a dose of folly.

  MANAGER.

  Above all, let there be sufficient action!

  90 They come to gaze and wish to see a spectacle.

  If many things reel off before their eyes,

  so that the mob can gape and be astounded,

  then you will sway the great majority

  and be a very popular man.

  The mass can only be subdued by massiveness,

  so each can pick a morsel for himself.

  A large amount contains enough for everyone,

  and each will leave contented with his share.

  Give us the piece you write in pieces!

  100 Try your fortune with a potpourri

  that’s quickly made and easily dished out.

  What good is it to sweat and to create a whole?

  The audience will yet pick the thing to pieces.

  POET.

  You do not feel the baseness of such handiwork.

  How improper for an artist worth his salt!

  I see, the botchery of your neat companions

  has been the maxim of your enterprise.

  MANAGER.

  Such reproaches leave me unperturbed.

  A man who wants to make his mark

  110 must try to wield the best of tools.

  You have coarse wood to split, remember that;

  consider those for whom you write!

  A customer may come because he’s bored,

  another may have had too much to eat;

  and what I most of all abhor:

  some have just put down their evening paper.

  They hurry here distracted, as to a masquerade,

  and seek us out from mere curiosity.

  The ladies come to treat the audience to their charms

  120 and play their parts without a salary.

  Now are you still a dreamer on poetic heights?

  And yet content when our house is filled?

  Observe your benefactors at close range!

  Some are crude, the others cold as ice.

  And when it’s finished, this one wants a deck of cards

  and that one pleasure in a whore’s embrace.

  Why then invoke and plague the muses

  for such a goal as this, poor fools?

  I say to you, give more and more and always more,

  130 and then you cannot miss by very much.