August 28 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day
The World’s Love Tragedy
“Almighty God, I am undone.” With this cry of despair, Margaret witnessed the fiendish work of Faust, her lover, who bartered his immortal soul for worldly pleasure. A thrilling drama, based on a famous medieval legend.
- Johann Wolfgang Goethe born Aug. 28, 1749.
From the 1930 Reading Guide
Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Page 158 opens inside Margaret’s prayer; the reading starts at the scene heading “Zwinger” on page 157.
ZWINGER
Enclosure between the City-wall and the Gate.
(In the niche of the wall a devotional image of the Mater dolorosa, with flower-pots before it.)
Margaret (putting fresh flowers in the pots)
Ah, rich in sorrow, thou,Stoop thy maternal brow,And mark with pitying eye my misery!The sword in thy pierced heart,Thou dost with bitter smart,Gaze upwards on thy Son’s death agony.To the dear God on high,Ascends thy piteous sigh,Pleading for his and thy sore misery.Ah, who can knowThe torturing woe,The pangs that rack me to the bone?How my poor heart, without relief,Trembles and throbs, its yearning griefThou knowest, thou alone!Ah, wheresoe’er I go,With woe, with woe, with woe,My anguish’d breast is aching!When all alone I creep,I weep, I weep, I weep,Alas! my heart is breaking!The flower-pots at my windowWere wet with tears of mine,The while I pluck’d these blossoms,At dawn to deck thy shrine!When early in my chamberShone bright the rising morn,I sat there on my pallet,My heart with anguish torn.Help! from disgrace and death deliver me!Ah! rich in sorrow, thou,Stoop thy maternal brow,And mark with pitying eye my misery!
NIGHT. STREET BEFORE MARGARET’S DOOR
Valentine (a soldier, Margaret’s brother)
When seated ’mong the jovial crowd,Where merry comrades boasting loudEach named with pride his favourite lass,And in her honour drain’d his glass;Upon my elbows I would lean,With easy quiet view the scene,Nor give my tongue the rein untilEach swaggering blade had talked his fill.Then smiling I my beard would stroke,The while, with brimming glass, I spoke;“Each to his taste!—but to my mind,Where in the country will you find,A maid, as my dear Gretchen fair,Who with my sister can compare?”Cling! Clang! so rang the jovial sound!Shouts of assent went circling round;Pride of her sex is she!—cried some;Then were the noisy boasters dumb.
And now!—I could tear out my hair,Or dash my brains out in despair!—Me every scurvy knave may twit,With stinging jest and taunting sneer!Like skulking debtor I must sit,And sweat each casual word to hear!And though I smash’d them one and all,—Yet them I could not liars call.
Who comes this way? who’s sneaking here?If I mistake not, two draw near.If he be one, have at him;—well I wotAlive he shall not leave this spot!
FAUST. MEPHISTOPHELES
Faust
How from yon sacristy, athwart the night,Its beams the ever-burning taper throws,While ever waning, fades the glimmering light,As gathering darkness doth around it close!So night-like gloom doth in my bosom reign.
Mephistopheles
I’m like a tom-cat in a thievish vein,That up fire-ladders tall and steep,And round the walls doth slyly creep;Virtuous withal, I feel, with, I confess,A touch of thievish joy and wantonness.Thus through my limbs already burnsThe glorious Walpurgis night!After to-morrow it returns,Then why one wakes, one knows aright!
Faust
Meanwhile, the treasure I see glimmering there,Will it ascend into the open air?
Mephistopheles
Ere long thou wilt proceed with pleasure,To raise the casket with its treasure;I took a peep, therein are stored,Of lion-dollars a rich hoard.
Faust
And not a trinket? not a ring?Wherewith my lovely girl to deck?
Mephistopheles
I saw among them some such thing,A string of pearls to grace her neck.
Faust
’Tis well! I’m always loath to go,Without some gift my love to show.
Mephistopheles
Some pleasures gratis to enjoy,Should surely cause you no annoy.While bright with stars the heavens appear,I’ll sing a masterpiece of art:A moral song shall charm her ear,More surely to beguile her heart.
(Sings to the guitar.)
Kathrina say,Why lingering stayAt dawn of dayBefore your lover’s door?Maiden, beware,Nor enter there,Lest forth you fare,A maiden never more.
Maiden take heed!Reck well my rede!Is’t done, the deed?Good night, you poor, poor thing!The spoiler’s lies,His arts despise,Nor yield your prize,Without the marriage ring!
Valentine (steps forward)
Whom are you luring here? I’ll give it you!Accursed rat-catchers, your strains I’ll end!First, to the devil the guitar I’ll send!Then to the devil with the singer too!
Mephistopheles
The poor guitar! ’tis done for now.
Valentine
Your skull shall follow next, I trow!
Mephistopheles (to Faust)
Doctor, stand fast! your strength collect!Be prompt, and do as I direct.Out with your whisk, keep close, I pray,I’ll parry! do you thrust away!
Valentine
Then parry that!
Mephistopheles
Why not?
Valentine
That too!
Mephistopheles
With ease!
Valentine
The devil fights for you!Why how is this? my hand’s already lamed!
Mephistopheles (to Faust)
Thrust home!
Valentine (falls)
Alas!
Mephistopheles
There! Now the lubber’s tamed!But quick, away! We must at once take wing;A cry of murder strikes upon the ear;With the police I know my course to steer,But with the blood-ban ’tis another thing.
Martha (at the window)
Without! without!
Margaret (at the window)
Quick, bring a light!
Martha (as above)
They rail and scuffle, scream and fight!
People
One lieth here already dead!
Martha (coming out)
Where are the murderers? are they fled?
Margaret (coming out)
Who lieth here?
People
Thy mother’s son.
Margaret
Almighty God! I am undone!
Valentine
I’m dying—’tis a soon-told tale,And sooner done the deed.Why, women, do ye howl and wail?To my last words give heed! (All gather round him.)My Gretchen, see! still young art thou,Art not discreet enough, I trow,Thou dost thy matters ill;Let this in confidence be said:Since thou the path of shame dost tread,Tread it with right good will!
Margaret
My brother! God! what can this mean?
Valentine
Abstain,Nor dare God’s holy name profane!What’s done, alas, is done and past!Matters will take their course at last;By stealth thou dost begin with one,Others will follow him anon;And when a dozen thee have known,Thou’lt common be to all the town.When infamy is newly born,In secret she is brought to light,And the mysterious veil of nightO’er head and ears is drawn;The loathsome birth men fain would slay;But soon, full grown, she waxes bold,And though not fairer to behold,With brazen front insults the day:The more abhorrent to the sight,The more she courts the day’s pure light.
The time already I discern,When thee all honest folk will spurn,And shun thy hated form to meet,As when a corpse infects the street.Thy heart will sink in blank despair,When they shall look thee in the face!A golden chain no more thou’lt wear!Nor near the altar take in church thy place!In fair lace collar simply dightThou’lt dance no more with spirits light!In darksome corners thou wilt bide,Where beggars vile and cripples hide,And e’en though God thy crime forgive,On earth, a thing accursed, thou’lt live!
Martha
Your parting soul to God commend!Your dying breath in slander will you spend?
Valentine
Could I but reach thy wither’d frame,Thou wretched beldame, void of shame!Full measure I might hope to winOf pardon then for every sin.
Margaret
Brother! what agonizing pain!
Valentine
I tell thee, from vain tears abstain!’Twas thy dishonour pierced my heart,Thy fall the fatal death-stab gave.Through the death-sleep I now departTo God, a soldier true and brave. (dies.)
CATHEDRAL
Service, Organ, and Anthem
MARGARET amongst a number of people
EVIL-SPIRIT behind MARGARET
Evil-Spirit
How different, Gretchen, was it once with thee,When thou, still full of innocence,Here to the altar camest,And from the small and well-conn’d bookDidst lisp thy prayer,Half childish sport,Half God in thy young heart!Gretchen!What thoughts are thine?What deed of shameLurks in thy sinful heart?Is thy prayer utter’d for thy mother’s soul,Who into long, long torment slept through thee?Whose blood is on thy threshold?—And stirs there not already ’neath thy heartAnother quick’ning pulse, that even nowTortures itself and theeWith its foreboding presence?
Margaret
Woe! Woe!Oh could I free me from the thoughtsThat hither, thither, crowd upon my brain,Against my will!
Chorus
Dies irae, dies illa,Solvet saeclum in favilla.
(The organ sounds.)
Evil-Spirit
Grim horror seizes thee!The trumpet sounds!The graves are shaken!And thy heartFrom ashy restFor torturing flamesAnew created,Trembles into life!
Margaret
Would I were hence!It is as if the organChoked my breath,As if the choirMelted my inmost heart!
Chorus
Judex ergo cum sedebit,Quidquid latet adparebit,Nil inultum remanebit.
Margaret
I feel oppressed!The pillars of the wallImprison me!The vaulted roofWeighs down upon me!—air!
Evil-Spirit
Wouldst hide thee? sin and shameRemain not hidden!Air! light!Woe’s thee!
Chorus
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?Quem patronum rogaturus!Cum vix justus sit securus.
Evil-Spirit
The glorified their faces turnAway from thee!Shudder the pure to reachTheir hands to thee!Woe!
Chorus
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus—
Margaret
Neighbour! your smelling bottle!
(She swoons away.)
Page 167 ends three lines into the next scene, “Walpurgis-Night”; the reading stops at the end of the Cathedral scene on that page.
Volume 19, pages 158–167 · See the scanned page on archive.org
This is the reading for August 28 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 70. There the assignment reads “Vol. 19, pp. 158–167.” Read it in the guide.