Faust. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ kirtles all were playing.

      They first grew red, and then grew warm,

      And rested, panting, arm in arm,–

      Hurrah! hurrah!

      Hurrah–tarara-la!

      And hips and elbows straying.

      Now, don’t be so familiar here!

      How many a one has fooled his dear,

      Waylaying and betraying!

      And yet, he coaxed her soon aside,

      And round the linden sounded wide.

      Hurrah! hurrah!

      Hurrah–tarara-la!

      And the fiddle-bow was playing.

      OLD PEASANT

      Sir Doctor, it is good of you,

      That thus you condescend, to-day,

      Among this crowd of merry folk,

      A highly-learned man, to stray.

      Then also take the finest can,

      We fill with fresh wine, for your sake:

      I offer it, and humbly wish

      That not alone your thirst is slake,–

      That, as the drops below its brink,

      So many days of life you drink!

      FAUST

      I take the cup you kindly reach,

      With thanks and health to all and each.

      (The People gather in a circle about him.)

      OLD PEASANT

      In truth, ‘tis well and fitly timed,

      That now our day of joy you share,

      Who heretofore, in evil days,

      Gave us so much of helping care.

      Still many a man stands living here,

      Saved by your father’s skillful hand,

      That snatched him from the fever’s rage

      And stayed the plague in all the land.

      Then also you, though but a youth,

      Went into every house of pain:

      Many the corpses carried forth,

      But you in health came out again.

      FAUST

      No test or trial you evaded:

      A Helping God the helper aided.

      ALL

      Health to the man, so skilled and tried.

      That for our help he long may abide!

      FAUST

      To Him above bow down, my friends,

      Who teaches help, and succor sends!

      (He goes on with WAGNER.)

      WAGNER

      With what a feeling, thou great man, must thou

      Receive the people’s honest veneration!

      How lucky he, whose gifts his station

      With such advantages endow!

      Thou’rt shown to all the younger generation:

      Each asks, and presses near to gaze;

      The fiddle stops, the dance delays.

      Thou goest, they stand in rows to see,

      And all the caps are lifted high;

      A little more, and they would bend the knee

      As if the Holy Host came by.

      FAUST

      A few more steps ascend, as far as yonder stone!–

      Here from our wandering will we rest contented.

      Here, lost in thought, I’ve lingered oft alone,

      When foolish fasts and prayers my life tormented.

      Here, rich in hope and firm in faith,

      With tears, wrung hands and sighs, I’ve striven,

      The end of that far-spreading death

      Entreating from the Lord of Heaven!

      Now like contempt the crowd’s applauses seem:

      Couldst thou but read, within mine inmost spirit,

      How little now I deem,

      That sire or son such praises merit!

      My father’s was a sombre, brooding brain,

      Which through the holy spheres of Nature groped and wandered,

      And honestly, in his own fashion, pondered

      With labor whimsical, and pain:

      Who, in his dusky work-shop bending,

      With proved adepts in company,

      Made, from his recipes unending,

      Opposing substances agree.

      There was a Lion red, a wooer daring,

      Within the Lily’s tepid bath espoused,

      And both, tormented then by flame unsparing,

      By turns in either bridal chamber housed.

      If then appeared, with colors splendid,

      The young Queen in her crystal shell,

      This was the medicine–the patients’ woes soon ended,

      And none demanded: who got well?

      Thus we, our hellish boluses compounding,

СКАЧАТЬ