Faust: A Tragedy
two scatter their riches profusely among the mob of masquers--Poetry
pearls and spangles, which turn into moths and beetles as soon as
snatched; Plutus golden guineas and silver pennies; but they are red
hot, and burn the fingers of the appropriators. A general row takes
place, which, however, is only the overture to a greater one, with
which the masquerade concludes. Preceded and surrounded by dancing
groups of fauns and satyrs, giants, nymphs, and gnomes, the Emperor
appears in the character of the great Pan, the All of the world
(πᾶν). Plutus, _i.e._ Faustus, is now ready to close the scene
with a fire trick, like to that which, on the first start of his
magical career, he played off upon Brander, Siebel, Frosch, and the
other worthies of Auerbach's cellar. The little dwarfish gnomes
take the mighty Pan by the hand and lead him to a hole in the rock,
whence a fountain of fire wells out with many a freakish spurt of
subterranean flame. This the universal δαίμων, or mighty Pan, beholds
with infinite satisfaction; but lo! as he bends forward to
contemplate such miracle more near, his beard unglues itself and
catches fire; and the flame begins to play about at a furious rate,
cracking like a whip right and left, and with long snaky tongues
licking the roof of the welkin. The stage is now one web of
confusion and consternation; all hands are at work to clap
extinguishment on the earth-born flame; but the more they plash and
potter in the wild element, the more it blazes, and the cry is
raised--Oh treason!--that the Emperor is burning; whereupon the
herald very appropriately lifts up the moral complaint:--
"O Youth, O Youth! and wilt thou never
Learn to rein thy fancies flighty?
O Highness, Highness! wilt thou never
Be as wise as thou art mighty?"
and herewith, and with a conjuration of soft dews and mists
convocated by Plutus to lay the flaming devils whom he had raised,
ends the spectacle and the scene.
What next? The fourth scene discovers the Emperor on his holy Roman
throne, as in the second. Faust hopes that his Majesty has readily
pardoned the frolic of flame-jugglery with which the preceding
day's sport had ended; and the Emperor expresses his high delight
with the exhibition of such tricks; for nothing could give him
greater pleasure than to imagine himself for a season a king of
salamanders. Mephistopheles then comes forward with the finished
draught of his new scheme for the replenishing of the Imperial
exchequer; and, that his Majesty may not have long to wait for the
drudgery of the mattock and spade in bringing to light the hidden
treasures before promised, the affair is to be managed in the
meantime by paper money; and straightway, upon the faith of the
to-be-unearthed gold, the Minister of Finance is relieved from his
perplexities, and the whole country rises and swells and billows up
in a flux of prosperity. This as a prelude; but the serious work is
yet to come. The Emperor requests the great conjuror to produce for
his amusement something better than salamanders, and more wonderful
even than paper money. He wishes to see the famous beauty, the
Spartan Helen who set Troy on fire, and Paris the princely shepherd,
whose well-trimmed locks and gold-embroidered mantle had prevailed
to seduce her from her fidelity to her royal husband. Faust engages
to gratify the Imperial wishes; and Mephistopheles, after a little
demurring--the shades of the classical world being not within his
proper domain--consents. Whereupon the hero, holding in his hand a
magic key which he has received from his comrade, descends through
the earth into the empty and bodiless realm of the /Mothers/; and,
having abstracted from their presence a mystical tripod, ascends
into the upper air, and appears before the Imperial Court, where,
habited as a priest, he instantly invokes the shade of the famous
pair, to whom Aphrodite has been so lavish of her gifts. They
forthwith appear, and, environed by music and mist, exhibit their
classical charms, and repeat their storied loves to the modern eye.
The exhibition, of course, after the first surprise is over,
produces different effects on the spectators, according to their
different tastes; the Court critics, like other brethren of the same
carping fraternity, must have something to object, even to the queen
of beauties; but Faust is fascinated, and, at the first glance,
falls violently in love with the phantom which himself had raised.
As before the vanishing form which he had seen in the magic mirror,
when in the witches' kitchen, so here again he stands transfixed
with wonder, gazes in ecstasy, glows with passion, and, losing all
sense of propriety, raves in jealous indignation at Paris, for
venturing to handle too familiarly the object of his adoration. He
then rushes insanely to seize the bodiless form; but no sooner has
fleshly touch troubled the spiritual essence than an explosion
follows. The Doctor falls down in a swoon; the fair apparitions
vanish; and Mephistopheles, taking the hero on his back, leaves the
scene of the luckless conjuration amid darkness and confusion. Thus
ends the first act.
The second act displays the old Gothic, high-vaulted, narrow chamber
which we remember to have seen in the first scene of the first act
of this strange drama. This chamber formerly belonged to Doctor
Faust; it now belongs to his hopeful disciple in the art of alchemy,
the learned Doctor Wagner, whom we at once recognise as an old
friend. To refresh old memories further, the same young student is
introduced, to whom Mephistopheles, masqued in academical cap and
gown, had given such admirable instructions on his first entrance to
college life. He is now no longer a freshman, but a Bachelor of
Arts, well crammed with the customary amount of book lore, notable,
also, for a certain heroic dash of scepticism, which has taught him
to believe that a large amount of what passes for learning in the
world is humbug, and that the professors of learning, generally, are
only a more respectable sort of quacks. He stands in no need now of
a Faust or a Mephistopheles to instruct him; for he knows more than
all the most learned doctors can teach him by the simple omnipotence
of his own conceit. He has studied theology under some neologic
doctor of the age, is a decided disbeliever in the personality of
the Devil, and boasts with the most confident faith in the
infallibility of his own /Ego/--"_Unless I will, no devil may
exist!_" But the principal character in this scene is the learned
Doctor Wagner himself, who is exhibited in his laboratory, bending
and blowing over the hot coals of his furnace in the act of making a
man. And anon, not so much by the chymick wit of Wagner, of course,
as by the magic of Mephistopheles, /Homunculus/ does actually come
forth, all glowing and eager, enclosed within a glass phial, a brisk
little fellow, brimful of elastic energy, and fired with the heroic
resolve to be developed into the fulness of the freedom of the
perfect man, bursting his vitreous hull with all possible
expedition. To his chymick "fatherkin" Wagner he pays little or
no respect, but recognises Mephistopheles on the spot as first
cousin; in Faust, and the dreams of Spartan Helen that occupy his
fancy, being, like the Doctor, of a hot and amorous temperament, he
takes a wonderful interest; and, spurred on by that lust of
intellectual adventure which is characteristic of his nature, after
a few preliminary remarks, proposes to Mephistopheles that they
should all three set themselves afloat on the magic mantle, and
balloon over to Thessaly, where, amid the haunts of Erichtho and
other famous witches, an assembly of old classical ghosts and
goblins, heroes and heroines, is that night to be held. On this
phantasmal expedition the worthy triad accordingly set out without
delay; Homunculus to enlarge his mind and achieve development; Faust
to search out Helen; and Mephistopheles from mere curiosity; for, in
fact, he is quite a stranger in the classical Hades, and is not,
from anything that has come to his ear, inclined to imagine that
there is anything in Olympus which will suit his humour half so well
as the witches on the Brocken.
We are now prepared for what the poet has evidently dressed up with
special care, as the imposing spectacle of the second act, intending
to overpower the senses of the spectator with a profusion of
imaginative wealth, in the same fashion as he managed the Carnival
in the first act; with this slight difference, that, whereas there
we had a show of masqued realities, here we have a show of real
phantoms. To this phantasmal exhibition the poet gives the name of
the Classical Walpurgis-Night, or May-Day Night, the counterpart of
the Gothic Walpurgis-Night set forth with such power and variety in
the first part of the drama. Like the short intermezzo of Oberon and
Titania's golden wedding on the Brocken, the strange motley dance
of figures that are here made to pop up before us with significant
saws in their mouths, have little or nothing to do with the main
action of the piece. Faust and Homunculus and Mephistopheles appear
at intervals merely flitting through its luxuriant variety like
fire-flies in a forest full of lions and tigers, and camelopards,
and every curious wild beast. The scene is in the Pharsalian
Plains--Thessaly being the native ground of classical witchcraft and
enchantment--the time of course midnight. The prologue is spoken by
Erichtho, Lucan's famous witch, in Iambic trimeters which the poet
handles with the fine rhythmical tact so prominent in all his
productions. Immediately after her monologue the three magical
aeronauts appear; then colossal ants gathering gold grains; with
them gigantic griffins, keepers of the gold, and Arimaspi fighting
with the griffins for its possession; then Sphynxes, and Sirens, and
Stymphalides, and various, to the classical ear familiar, monsters
of the bird genus, who hold much talk, but not of much significance,
with Faust and his conductor. Suddenly the scene changes to the
banks of the Peneus, where the god of the classical flood sits
crowned with reeds, surrounded by gracefully sportive groups of
Nymphs, and majestically sailing swans. Thereafter a hollow tramp of
horses' hoofs announces the arrival of the Centaur Chiron, wise
pedagogue of Achilles and other renowned classical heroes. Him Faust
accosts, and requests a clue to the haunt of the fair Helen, the
possession of whom still burns in his inordinate desire as the only
thing capable of making him happy. To this request the wise bi-form
demi-god is not able, from his own resources, to accede; but he
takes the Doctor on his back; and off they tramp together to the
temple-cave of Manto--the famous prophet-daughter of Æsculapius.
With her Faust enters the subterranean regions, the realm of
Persephone; and the possession of Helen, as we shall see in the
third act, is the reward of his intrepidity. But, though Faust seems
now amply provided for, the phantasmal hubbub goes on. The Sirens
and the Sphynxes again come to the front, singing and soliloquising
as before; likewise the ants and the griffins; and to them presently
are associated, Seismos (earthquake), the Pygmies or Lilliputians,
and the Idæan Dactyles or Tom Thumbs of antiquity; with them--in
honour of Schiller, we may suppose--the cranes of Ibycus; then
Empusa the foul ass-footed blood-sucking hag, and troops of hideous
Lamias to captivate the Gothic taste of Mephistopheles; but even
these are not ugly enough for him; so he wanders on through the
Fair, till he encounters the three daughters of Phorcys, who had
only one eye and one tooth among them; and from one of these he
borrows her hideous mask, that he may perform juggleries behind it