You Surely Don=T Have Casks Outside the Door
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You surely don’t have casks outside the door?
ALTMAYER. The host has got a tool chest out in back.
MEPHISTOPHELES (takes the gimlet. To FROSCH).
Now tell me, what would be most to your mind?2260
FROSCH. How do you mean? Do you have every kind?
MEPHISTOPHELES. To every man the choice is free.
ALTMAYER(to FROSCH). Aha! You start to lick your lips, I see.
FROSCH. If I can have my choice, it’s Rhine wine any time.
My homeland turns out products in their prime.
MEPHISTOPHELES (as he bores a hole in the table edge at Frosch’s
place). Get me some wax to use for stoppers. Quick!
ALTMAYER. Aw, this is some magician’s trick.
MEPHISTOPHELES (to BRANDER).
And you?
BRANDER. Champagne’ the thing for me.
And let it bubble busily!
(MEPHISTOPHELES bores a hole. Someone has meanwhile
made wax plugs and stops up the holes.)
This foreign stuff you sometimes can’t avoid,
Good things are often far away.
A Frenchman’s something no real German can abide
But he will drink their wines with relish any day.
SIEBEL (as MEPHISTOPHELES comes to his place).
I don’t like sour wine in any case.
A glass of sweet wine, if I may.
MEPHISTOPHELES (boring). For you at once shall flow Tokay.
ALTMAYER. No, gentlemen, now look me in the face!
You’re making fun of us, I know you are.
MEPHISTOPHELES. That would be going much too far
With such distinguished company.
Quick now, speak up! What shall it be?
What kind of wine can I serve you?
ALTMAYER. Don’ fuss too much, just any kind.
(after the holes have been bored and plugged)
MEPHISTOPHELES (with weird gestures).
Grapes the vine stem bears!
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Horns the he-goat wears!
The wine is juicy, of wood the vine,
The wooden table too gives wine.
Into the depths of Nature peer!
Have faith, a miracle is here.
Now draw the corks and drink your fill!
ALL (as they draw the corks and as the wine of their choice runs
into the glass). O lovely fountain, flowing all for us!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Just watch that none of it should spill!
(They drink again and again.)
ALL (singing). We’e got more fun than cannibals
Or than five hundred sows!
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Just look, they’re in their glory, they are free!
FAUST. I would prefer to go away.
MEPHISTOPHELES. You watch now, bestiality
Will gloriously come into play.
SIEBEL (drinks carelessly; the wine spills on the floor and turns
to flame). Help! Fire! Help! This flame is out of hell!
MEPHISTOPHELES (addressing the flame).
Be quiet, friendly element! All’s well.2300
(to the fellows)
This time it was a drop of purgatory merely.
SIEBEL. What’s this supposed to mean? You’ll pay for this, and dearly!
You don’t know us much, I can tell.
FROSCH. Don’t you try that a second time, you hear!
ALTMAYER. I think we’d better gently ease him on his way.
SIEBEL. What, Sir! Do you presume to play
Your hocus-pocus with us here?
MEPHISTOPHELES. Quiet, old wine vat!
SIEBEL.Spindling broomstick!
You dare to add your insults yet?
BRANDER. Just wait! A rain of fists you’ll get.
ALTMAYER (pulls out a cork from the table; fire leaps at him).
Help! I’m on fire!
SIEBEL. It’s magic flame.
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Stick him, boys! He’s anybody’s game!
(They draw their knives and go after MEPHISTOPHELES.)
MEPHISTOPHELES (gesturing in earnest).
False forms be seen,
Shift sense and scene!
Be here, be there!
(They stand in amazement and look at each other.)
ALTMAYER. Where am I? What a lovely land!
FROSCH. And vineyards? Am I seeing right?
SIEBEL. And grapes at hand?
BRANDER. Here under this green arbor, O!
Just see what grapes and grapevines grow!
(He grabs SIEBEL by the nose. The others do likewise to one
another and lift their knives.)
MEPHISTOPHELES (as before).
Error, slip the fetters from their view!
And see what jokes the Devil knows.
(He disappears with FAUST. The cronies move apart.)
SIEBEL. What’s happened?
ALTMAYER.How...?
FROSCH. Was that your nose?
BRANDER (to SIEBEL). And yours is here in my hand too!
ALTMAYER. I felt a shock go through my every limb!
Give me a chair, I’m caving in.
FROSCH. Just what did happen anyway?
SIEBEL. Where is he? Let me at him just once more
And he won’t live to get away!
ALTMAYER. I saw him go out through the tavern door...
And he was riding on a cask... Why, say!
My feet are weights of lead.
(turning toward the table)
You don’t suppose
By any chance the wine still flows?
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SIEBEL. It was all cheating lies and fraud.
FROSCH. Yet I drank wine, or so I thought.
BRANDER. And what about the grapes?
ALTMAYER. Yes, what about them?
But miracles occur, you cannot doubt them!
Witch’s Kitchen
A large cauldron stands over the fire on a low
hearth. Amid the steam rising from it various
forms are seen. A MONKEY[1]sits by the kettle
skimming it and watching that it does not boil
over. The HE-MONKEY sits near by with the
young ones, warming himself. Walls and ceil-
ing are hung with the most bizarre parapher-
nalia of witchcraft.[2]
FAUSTMEPHISTOPHELES
FAUST. I am revolted by this crazy witchery;
I shall be cured, you guarantee,
In this stark raving rookery?
Must I seek counsel from an aged crone?
And will her filthy cookery
Take thirty years off from my flesh and bone?
Alas for me if you can nothing better find!
Already hope has vanished, I despair.
Has neither Nature nor a wholesome mind
Devised a balm to cure me anywhere?
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Ah, now, my friend, you’re talking sense once more.
There is a natural way to make you young again,
But that is in another book, and on that score,
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It forms a curious chapter even then.
FAUST. I want to hear it.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Good! A way without recourse
To money, medicine, or sorcery:
Straight to the fields direct your course
And start to dig immediately;
There keep yourself and keep your mind
Within a circle close confined,
Eat only unadulterated food,
Live with the beats as beast, and count it good
To strew the harvest field with your own dung;
There is no better way, believe me,
Up to age eighty to stay young.
FAUST. I am not used to that, nor could I ever stand
To take a shovel in my hand.
For me that narrow life would never do.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Well, then it’s to the witch for you.
FAUST. But why just this old hag? What makes
You say that you can’t brew the cup?
MEPHISTOPHELES. A pretty pastime that! I could put up
A thousand bridges in the time it takes.[3]
This work needs skill and knowledge, it is true,
But it requires some patience too.
A quiet mind may work for years on end
But time alone achieves the potent blend.
And as for what there may be to it,
There’s many an odd ingredient.
The Devil taught her how to brew it,
But by himself the Devil cannot do it.
(catching sight of the ANIMALS)
Ah, see the cute breed by the fire!
That is the maid, that is the squire.
(to the ANIMALS)
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Where is the lady of the house?
THE ANIMALS. Out of the house
On a carouse
Up chimney and away.
MEPHISTOPHELES. How long does she rampage today?
THE ANIMALS. Until we get our paws warm, anyway.
MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST).
How do you like these cunning creatures?
FAUST. Repulsive to the nth degree.
MEPHISTOPHELES. No, discourse such as this one features
Is just the kind that most entrances me.
(to the ANIMALS)
Now, you accursed puppets you,
Why are you paddling in that broth, pray tell?
THE ANIMALS. We’re cooking up some beggars’ stew.
MEPHISTOPHELES. You’ll have a good big clientele.
THE HE-MONKEY (coming over and fawning on MEPHISTOPHELES).
O roll the dice
And make me nice
And rich with gains!
My lot is bad,
But if I had
Some money, I’d have brains.
MEPHISTOPHELES. How happy would this monkey be2400
If he could play the lottery!
(Meanwhile the young monkeys have been playing with a
large globe and now roll it forward.)
THE HE-MONKEY. That is the world;
Spun and twirled,
It never ceases;
It rings like glass,
But hollow, alas,
It breaks to pieces.
Here it gleams bright,
And here more bright,
Alive am I.
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Dear son, I say
Keep far away,
For you must die.
It’s made of clay,
And splinters fly.
MEPHISTOPHELES. And why the sieve?
THE HE-MONKEY (takes it down).
I’d know you if
You were a thief.[4]
(He runs to the SHE-MONKEY and has her look through it.)
Look through the sieve:
You see the thief
And name him not?
MEPHISTOPHELES (going over to the fire).
And why the pot?
THE HE-MONKEY AND THE SHE-MONKEY.
The silly sot!
Now know the pot,
Not know the kettle?
MEPHISTOPHELES. Uncivil beast!
THE HE-MONKEY. Here, take the whisk[5]
And sit on the settle.
(HE has MEPHISTOPHELES sit down.)
FAUST (has all this time been standing in front of a mirror, now
going up to it, now stepping back away from it).
What do I see with form divine
Upon this magic mirror shine?
O Love, lend me the swiftest of your pinions
And take me off to her dominions!
Unless I stand right here in this one place
And do not venture to go near,
I see her misted only and unclear.--
1
A woman of the utmost grace!
Can any woman be so fair?
In this recumbent body do I face
The essence of all heavens here?
Is there on earth the like of it?[6]
MEPHISTOPHELES.
It’s natural, if a god will six whole days expend
And then himself shout bravo! in the end,
That something smart must come of it.[7]
Go right ahead and gaze your fill;
Just such a sweetheart I can well provide,
And lucky is the man who will
Then take her with him as his bride.
(FAUST keeps right on looking into the mirror. MEPHI-
STOPHELES sprawls on the settle and toys with the whisk as
he goes on speaking.)
I sit here like a king upon his throne,
I hold a scepter, and I lack a crown alone.
(The ANIMALS, who have been going through all kinds of
odd motions helter-skelter, bring MEPHISTOPHELES a crown
amid loud cries.)
THE ANIMALS. O just be so good
As with sweat and blood
To glue this crown and lime it.
(They handle the crown clumsily and break it in two pieces,
then hop around with the pieces.)
Now it is done!
We talk, look, and run,
We listen and rhyme it-
FAUST (toward the mirror). I’m going crazy here, I feel!
1
MEPHISTOPHELES (pointing to the ANIMALS).
My own head now almost begins to reel.
THE ANIMALS. If we have luck
And don’t get stuck
We’ll make sense yet![8]
FAUST (as before). My heart is catching fire within!
Let’s get away from here, and fast!
MEPHISTOPHELES (in his previous posture).
This much you’ll have to grant at least:
As poets they are genuine.
(The kettle, which the SHE-MONKEY has left unwatched, be-
gins to boil over. A great flame flashes up the chimney. Down
through the flame comes the WITCH with hideous screams.)
THE WITCH. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!
Damnable brute! Accursed sow!
Neglect the kettle, scorch your mate!
Accursed beast!
(catching sight of FAUST and MEPHISTOPHELES)
What have we here?
Who are you here?
What do you want?
Who has sneaked in?
Flames and groans
Consume your bones!
(She dips the skimmer into the kettle and scoops flames at
FAUST, MEPHISTOPHELES, and the ANIMALS. The ANIMALS
whimper.)
MEPHISTOPHELES (reverses the whisk he is holding and goes
smashing the glasses and pots). Crash! And smash!
There goes your trash!
Your glassware’s done!
It’s all in fun.
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I’m only beating time,
Carrion, to your rhyme.
(as the WITCH falls back in fury and horror)
You recognize me, Bone-bag? Skeleton?
You know your master and your lord?
What keeps me now from going on
To pulverize you and your monkey horde!
For my red coat you have such small respect?
My rooster feather you don’t recognize?
Is my face hidden? Or do you expect
I’ll state my name and enterprise?
THE WITCH. O Sir, forgive this rude salute from me!
And yet no horse hoof do I see;
And where is your raven pair?[9]
MEPHISTOPHELES. This time I’ll let you get away with it.
It has been quite some while, I will admit,
Since last we met. And to be fair,
The culture that has licked the world up slick
Has even with the Devil turned the trick.
The northern phantom is no longer to be found;
Where will you see horns, tail, or claws around?
As for the foot, which I can’t do without,
It would work me much social harm, I fear;2500
And so, like many a young man, I’ve gone about
With padded calves this many a long year.[10]
THE WITCH (dancing). I’ll lose my mind for jubilation
To see Squire Satan back in circulation!
MEPHISTOPHELES. Woman, I forbid that appellation!
THE WITCH. Why? What harm has it ever done?
MEPHISTOPHELES.
It’s long since passed to fable books and vanished.
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Yet people are no better off. The Evil One
They’re rid of, but their evils are not banished.
Just call me Baron, that will do.
I am a cavalier like any cavalier.
You do not doubt my noble blood, and you
Can see the coat of arms that I wear here.
(He makes an indecent gesture.)[11]
THE WITCH (laughing immoderately).
Ha! Ha! Just like you, that I’ll swear!
Oh you’re a rogue, just as you always were!
MEPHISTOPHELES (to FAUST).
Learn this, my friend! This is the way
To handle witches any day.
THE WITCH. Now, gentlemen, how can I be of use?
MEPHISTOPHELES. A good glass of the well-known juice,
But of your oldest, is what I’m after;
It’s years that put the powers in those brews.
THE WITCH. Why, sure! Here is a bottle on my shelf
From which I sometimes take a nip myself
And which no longer has a trace of stink.
I’ll gladly pour you out a little glass.
(softly)
But if this man here unprepared should drink,
You know he’ll die before two hours pass.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
He’s a good friend, and I mean things to thrive with him;
Give him the best your kitchen offers, serve him well.
So draw your circle, speak your spell,
And fill his cup right to the brim.
(With bizarre gestures the WITCH describes a circle and
places strange things inside it. Meanwhile the glasses begin
to ring and the kettle to boom and make music. Finally she
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fetches a great book and disposes the monkeys within the
circle to serve her as a lectern and to hold torches. She
beckons FAUST to come to her.)
FAUST (to MEPHISTOPHELES).
Now tell me, what is all this leading to?
These frantic motions and this wild ado
And all of this disgusting stuff
I’ve known and hated long enough.
MEPHISTOPHELES.
Oh, nonsense! It’s just for the fun of it!
And don’t be such a prig! As a physician,
She needs to hocus-pocus just a bit
So that the juice can work on your condition.
(He gets FAUST into the circle.)
THE WITCH (begins to declaim with great bombast out of a book).
This must ye ken!
From one take ten;
Skip two; and then
Even up three,
And rich you’ll be.
Leave out the four.
From five and six,
Thus says the witch,
Make seven and eight,
And all is straight.
And nine is one,
And ten is none.
This is the witch’s one-times-one!
FAUST. I think the hag’s in fever and delirium.
MEPHISTOPHELES. Oh, there is lots more still to come.
As I well know, the whole book’s in that vein.
I’ve wasted much time going through its pages,
For total paradox will still remain
A mystery alike to fools and sages.
My friend, the art is old and new.
For ages it has been the thing to do,
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By Three and One, and One and Three,
To broadcast error in guise of verity.[12]
And so they teach and jabber unperturbed;
With fools, though, who is going to bother?
Man has a way of thinking, when he hears a word,
That certainly behind it lies some thought or other.
THE WITCH (continues). The lofty force
Of wisdom’s source
Is from the whole world hidden.
Once give up thinking,
And in a twinkling
It’s granted you unbidden.[13]
FAUST. What nonsense is she spouting now before us?