<- Faust and Margret. On the background devil Mephistopheles, hated by Margret, is walking with Margret's neighbor woman Martha. Faust is chained to Mephisto by their contract. Despite this contract, he maintains his own personality and ideas. In the introduction to the play God says to Mephisto that he is allowed to test Faust with a contract, because "A good man, in his dark urges, is well aware of the right path". The following fragment speaks for itself:
Margret: Well, tell me, what’s about you and religion?
You are a kind and good man,
but I think you don’t bother much about it.
Faust: Oh come on, darling! You feel, I’m good for you;
for my love I would risk my life and blood,
I wouldn’t take anybody’s feelings and church from him.
Margret: That’s not just, one must believe in it!
Faust: Must one?
Margret: Alas! If only I could do something about you!
You don’t even honour the holy sacraments!
Faust: I honour them.
Margret: But without desire.
To the Mass, the Confession, you didn’t go since long ago.
Do you believe in God?
Faust: My love, who dares say:
I believe in God?
Ask it to a priest or wise man,
And their answer only seems to mock
With whom asks the question.
Margret: So you don’t believe?
Faust: don’t misunderstand me, you beauty!
Who dares mention him?
And who acknowledge:
I believe him?
Who dares bear the sense
And be so audacious
As to say: I don’t believe him?
The All-compriser,
The All-container,
Doesn’t he comprise and contain
You, me, and himself?
Does not the heaven arch up there?
Does not the earth lie fixed down here?
And do not eternal stars
Rise, kindly smiling?
Don’t I and you look into each other’s eyes?
And doesn’t everything push up
To head and heart in you,
And doesn’t weave in eternal secret
Invisible visible next to you?
Fill your heart with this, however big it might be,
And when your sense abounds with salvation,
Then call it whatever you like,
Call it Luck! Heart! Love! God!
I don’t have names
For it! Sense is it all;
A name is sound and smoke,
Misting heavenly glow.
Margret: That’s all just and good;
Our pastor says thing like these, too,
Only in slightly different words.
Faust: Everybody says it everywhere,
Every heart under the heavenly day,
Everybody in his language,
Why not in mine?
Margret: hearing it that way, it seems bearable,
But it’s not right anyway,
For you are lacking Christian faith.
from: J.W. von Goethe: Faust, part I
Margret: Well, tell me, what’s about you and religion?
You are a kind and good man,
but I think you don’t bother much about it.
Faust: Oh come on, darling! You feel, I’m good for you;
for my love I would risk my life and blood,
I wouldn’t take anybody’s feelings and church from him.
Margret: That’s not just, one must believe in it!
Faust: Must one?
Margret: Alas! If only I could do something about you!
You don’t even honour the holy sacraments!
Faust: I honour them.
Margret: But without desire.
To the Mass, the Confession, you didn’t go since long ago.
Do you believe in God?
Faust: My love, who dares say:
I believe in God?
Ask it to a priest or wise man,
And their answer only seems to mock
With whom asks the question.
Margret: So you don’t believe?
Faust: don’t misunderstand me, you beauty!
Who dares mention him?
And who acknowledge:
I believe him?
Who dares bear the sense
And be so audacious
As to say: I don’t believe him?
The All-compriser,
The All-container,
Doesn’t he comprise and contain
You, me, and himself?
Does not the heaven arch up there?
Does not the earth lie fixed down here?
And do not eternal stars
Rise, kindly smiling?
Don’t I and you look into each other’s eyes?
And doesn’t everything push up
To head and heart in you,
And doesn’t weave in eternal secret
Invisible visible next to you?
Fill your heart with this, however big it might be,
And when your sense abounds with salvation,
Then call it whatever you like,
Call it Luck! Heart! Love! God!
I don’t have names
For it! Sense is it all;
A name is sound and smoke,
Misting heavenly glow.
Margret: That’s all just and good;
Our pastor says thing like these, too,
Only in slightly different words.
Faust: Everybody says it everywhere,
Every heart under the heavenly day,
Everybody in his language,
Why not in mine?
Margret: hearing it that way, it seems bearable,
But it’s not right anyway,
For you are lacking Christian faith.
from: J.W. von Goethe: Faust, part I
2 comments:
Christopher Marlow's play I saw first as a young 18 year old in Stratford upon Avon. Faust was played by Eric Porter and it was in those days when the theatre was becoming more "daring", Helen of Troy came on naked! At 18 this was a surprise for me (I wonder if it was for the Teachers who had organised it?) but in 1968 with "Hair" and "Oh Calcutta" on (or about to be) it was only natural for Stratford to be there too!
Helen was very beautiful but it was the production that was quite fantastic. The play well done is gold dust, this production was sensational. Faust's final hour was a theatrical gem, enough to make any impressionable teenager think about how to conduct the rest of his life; at least for a week or two!
I wish I was also there. Our school was very Roman Catholic and a play like this was unthinkable to show to the students. I had to do with visiting "My Fair Lady", the operette "Das Land des Lächelns"(Lehar) and other innocent stuff. By the way, Goethe from whom the fragment in my post was taken (it's not Marlow's version) got inspired by Marlow's Faust when he was around 20 years of age. Immediately thereafter he started to write his own Faust-version, which he completed when he was over 80 years. A real magnum opus! I like your "at least for a week or two". Maybe Goethe didn't fully experience his adolescence (when you read his autobiography, you would think so) and made this two weeks his whole life.
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