Faust Parts 1 & 2 E-Book

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price A fresh, performable version by John Clifford of Goethe's 'unstageable' masterpiece. God and Mephistopheles vie for the mortal soul of Dr Faust. Signing a pact with the nihilistic spirit, Faust is privy to knowledge unbound and sensual delights of which most men can only dream. But before long, the Doctor comes to realise that you should always be very careful what you wish for. Goethe began working on Faust in about 1772-5. He published a first fragment of it in 1790, then the whole of Part One in 1808. He saw the first performance of Part One in Brunswick in 1829, and was still making minor revisions to Part Two shortly before his death in March 1832. This two-part English version by John Clifford, in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, was first performed at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, in February 2006. 'A thoroughly modern interpretation, a litany of society's soul-selling compromises - sexual commoditisation, academic dumbing-down and capitalistic rapaciousness - that is entirely about today. It's frequently funny but never less than serious' - Guardian

Leseprobe

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

FAUST

a new version by

HOWARD BRENTON

from a literal translation by CHRISTA WEISMAN

NICK HERN BOOKSLONDON

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

A Note on the Text

Characters

Original Production

Part One

Part Two

About the Authors

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

A Note on the Text

This version of Faust was prepared for a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The aim was to make cuts which preserved Goethe’s vision and dramaturgy, but which made each part a play of around three hours’ length. Most of the cuts have been made in Part Two, which is a hugely complex poem, half-in and half-out of the theatre: the original is about twice as long as the text printed here. In rehearsal there were further cuts, but I have restored some passages for this edition, where I felt that, though perhaps dramatically slack, they are fascinating to read.

Michal Bogdanov, the play’s director, prepared a cut version of the original German text, which Christa Weisman then translated into an un-rhymed, unscanned literal version, deliberately void of any literal value but linguistically accurate. My job was to take courage, and a six-month-long deep breath, and to try to write Goethe’s great play/poem in my own language.

HB

Dramatis Personae

Part One

DIRECTOR

POET

ACTOR

THE LORD

MEPHISTOPHELES

THE ANGEL RAPHAEL

THE ANGEL GABRIEL

FAUST

THE EARTH SPIRIT

WAGNER, a student

A BEGGAR

OLD PEASANT

BRANDER, SIEBEL, FROSCH, ALTMAYER (drinkers)

A MALE MONKEY

A FEMALE MONKEY

AN OLD WITCH

MARGARETA (GRETCHEN)

MARTHA (GRETCHEN’s neighbour)

LIESCHEN

VALENTIN (GRETCHEN’s brother)

A WILL-O’-THE-WISP

WITCHES

A HALF-WITCH

A GENERAL

A POLITICIAN

A PARVENU

AN AUTHOR

A PEDLAR-WITCH

LILITH (ADAM’s wife)

A YOUNG WITCH

AN OLD WITCH

Heavenly hosts, choir of angels, students, soldiers, citizens, animals, monkeys

Part Two

ARIEL

FAUST

COURTIERS

THE EMPEROR

SQUIRES

MEPHISTOPHELES

CHANCELLOR

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

TREASURER

SENESCHAL

ASTROLOGER

HERALD

‘FEAR’, ‘HOPE’, ‘PRUDENCE’ (allegories in the carnival)

A DRUNKARD

‘BOY CHARIOTEER’, ‘STARVELING’, MEANNESS’ (allegories on MEPHISTOPHELES’ chariot at the carnival)

CHATTERING WOMEN

NYMPHS

PAGES

CHAMBERLAIN

STANDARD-BEARER

A FOOL

BLONDE WOMAN

BRUNETTE WOMAN

AN ARCHITECT

LADIES OF THE COURT

A KNIGHT

A DIPLOMAT

A DUENNA

A PROFESSOR

PARIS

HELEN OF TROY

A COURTIER

A POET

WAGNER (now older)

HOMUNCULUS

SPHINXES

GRIFFINS

SIRENS

THE LAMIAE

EMPUSA

MELELAUS

LYNCEUS

EUPHORION (child of FAUST and HELEN OF TROY)

A YOUNG GIRL

SMASH-ALL, GRAB-ALL, KEEP-ALL, SPEEDY-LOOT (scavengers on a battlefield)

GUARDS

ARCHBISHOP

A WAYFARER

BAUCIS (an old woman)

PHILEMON (her husband, also old)

THREE MIGHTY MEN

WANT, DEBT, NEED, CARE (the ‘four grey women’)

LEMURS

DOCTOR MARIANUS

MATER GLORIOSA

BLESSED BOYS

Soldiers, chorus of women prisoners, princes,

devils, anchorites, chorus of angels

This version of Faust was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 2 September 1995 with the following company of actors, all of whom played several parts, with the exception of those playing Faust and Mephistopheles:

Tilly Blackwood, Kate Duchêne, Sophie Heyman, Josie Lawrence, Melissa Lloyd, Jules Melvin, Shiela Steafel, Anita Wright

Nick Cavaliere, Paul Chahidi, Timothy Davies, Jeffrey Dench, John Dougall, Michael Feast (Faust), Christopher Godwin, James Hayes, Peter Holdway, Hugh Quarshie (Mephistopheles), Christopher Tune, Zubin Varla, Godfrey Walters

Directed by Michael BogdanovSet designed by Chris DyerCostumes designed by Kendra UllyartMusic by John Cameron

FAUST

PART ONE

1. Prologue in the Theatre

DIRECTOR

You two,

We’ve stuck together

In the theatre,

Despite the stress

Of life in our profession:

The disastrous openings,

The critical pannings and the odd success.

But I’ve a confession:

This time around,

I don’t know.

I feel that we’re on dodgy ground.

How do we make this show

About life and death

Funny and philosophical

In the same breath?

How do we make

Redemption entertaining?

I love to see an audience

Pour into the theatre,

A river, flood water

In a whirlpool in the foyer,

Fighting for a ticket and a drink:

A wave that rises then falls

Crashing into the stalls.

What will they all think?

Only you, the poet, can unite

So many different thoughts,

Feelings, dreams.

My friend,

We need a big one tonight.

POET

Don’t talk to me of theatre-goers,

That socially inadequate herd:

The pretentious nerd

In the gallery,

The glamorous nonentity

In the stalls.

Poetic inspiration panics

At the stink of gin and tonics;

The moment’s fashion

Glitters then fades away;

True poetry, true passion,

Must wait to have its day.

ACTOR

Ah, writing for posterity!

I say

Just knock out the play

In the here and now;

Don’t worry if you’re a poet or a hack.

The bigger the audience

the better the come-back.

OK let’s have reason, common sense,

The beautiful and true:

But with a bit of a gag and a giggle too.

DIRECTOR

And ram it home: spectacles,

Big effects, big sets,

Glamour and rippling pectorals,

Let the mob

Have it,

Wallop! Why not?

I get sick of art,

I get sick

Of breaking my heart

With ambiguity and difficulty;

I know exactly how I can

Make myself a popular man:

Stick

The lot on the stage;

Let purists rage,

Just chuck it all in:

Sentiment, sex and the sunday joint,

Give ’em a rich stew.

What’s the point

Of highly wrought but thin,

Bitterly complex

Plays for the few?

POET

But you well know that’s a recipe

For made-to-order, cliched

‘Popular’ drama;

It’s a maxim of yours to hate

Writing that exploits the secondrate.

DIRECTOR

A formula

That’s popular

Doesn’t worry me.

You’ve got to remember

Who comes to see

A play, whom it’s for;

This one’s got a one act bladder;

This one one’s madder

Than anything on the stage;

This one’s a bore

With a mind made up

By the critics’ page;

So, happiness is a full house?

Look again at the customers;

The smoothe, and the somewhat rougher,

The persistent

Cougher,

The likely lad out for an aftershow whirl

With a working girl;

The alki out of his head.

I tell you, do anything, surprise

’Em, hit ’em

Between the eyes:

Don’t and we . . . are . . . dead.

What’s the matter? What have I said?

POET

Go and look for another

Potboiling slave:

A real writer can’t throw away

The talent that nature gave.

What gives words the power to tear apart

The human heart?

What weaves the flowery charms

That tempt the lovers

To each other’s arms?

What protects Olympus and unites the gods?

It is the spirit of man

Expressed by the power

Of poetry,

Won by poor sods

Like me,

Sweating over words

Hour after hour.

ACTOR

Use it then,

This fabulous power,

Like in a love affair: seduce

Us, lose

Yourself in pain and ecstasy,

Throw away

All restraint.

Forget the middle-aged, pathetic

Nitpicking academic;

Write

A text

Full of fantasy,

With the ugly and the pretty,

The serious and the silly,

Hand in hand.

The old saying’s true:

Love your audience

And they’ll love you.

POET

Oh, to sing

Like that,

Give me back

The time when I began;

When the songs sang

Themselves,

Like water from a spring;

Make me strong,

Raging with the pain

Of love and hate,

Make me young again.

ACTOR

Don’t moan about age;

Wonder and rage

Burn on,

The wild-eyed

Child within you

Never died.

DIRECTOR

Right. Stop navel gazing.

Time to try something amazing.

With all the theatre’s tricks,

The whole mix:

The serious and the daft,

The sun, the moon, the stars

Animals, rocks, plants;

For it is our ambition

To use our craft

To pace out the circle of creation:

We have a story to tell:

A little stroll

From heaven

Through the world

And all the way

Down to hell.

2. Prologue in Heaven

The LORD, the HEAVENLY HOSTS. Afterwards MEPHISTOPHELES. The three ARCHANGELS come forward.

RAPHAEL

The sun sings its old song,

A furnace thundering

Dawn to night

Across the sky,

Drowning the music of the spheres;

Angels draw strength

From the blazing light,

Though no angel can fathom

The mystery of the mechanism

Of high heaven.

GABRIEL

And planet Earth speeds in space,

Spinning its double face;

Bright paradise of day concedes

To hell of night;

And eternity’s symphony,

The music of the spheres, fits

Plays in counterpointeding harmony:

The sea roars

And deep tides rip

The rocks of ocean floors

To bits . . .

MICHAEL

. . . And storms roll

Hand in hand, gripping the planet

Equator to pole;

Lightning flashes devastation

Sky to land

Before the thunderclap.

But, Oh Lord, you hold

The terrors of creation

Calmly in your hand;

Your angels kneel in adoration

As you walk, gently,

Along the paths of Heaven.

ALL THREE

No one, oh Lord, can know your ways:

Why the sky

Shines as bright as on the day you made it.

We are only fit to kneel in praise

As you pass by.

MEPH.

I see you are not too bored

To come out to see us again,

My Lord.

And here you find me,

Standing humbly

With the household servants.

I can’t, I fear,

Be flowery

With words of praise,

Like the heavenly circle here;

After

Such solemnity, I would try to raise

A laugh,

But I know you’ve given up laughter.

I, myself, know little

Of the music of the spheres;

I work down on earth:

I just see how people slog away

Weighed down by their fears.

The little gods of that world seem

As weird as they were on the day

That you gave them birth;

They suffer so much pain

Because you put a gleam

Of heaven’s light,

In the dim night

Of the human brain;

They call it ‘reason’ and only use it

To be more bestial than the beasts:

Humanity’s song

Is the buzz of a filthy fly,

Sung

As it feasts

On dung.

LORD

You love the filth, you love to abuse

Mankind and accuse

His maker. Is there nothing good on earth?

MEPH.

Absolutely nothing at all:

Gloom and doom, valleys of sorrows,

Bad todays and worse tomorrows.

Poor men and women, poor

would-be gods;

What’s the pleasure torturing

The miserable sods?

LORD

I have always meant

To lead humanity

To enlightenment.

Do you know Faust?

MEPH.

The scientist philosopher?

LORD

My faithful servant.

MEPH.

He serves you very strangely.

Faust eats and drinks nothing real;

The alcohol of fantasy

Makes him only half aware

Of what is really there;

He wants to steal

The brightest star

From heaven, yet wallow down below

In all the pleasures of the earth.

He tears himself apart;

Nothing high or low, near or far,

Can still

The violence of his troubled heart.

LORD

He worships me

Despite his great confusion;

All things are planned

And move to their conclusion.

I will lead

Faust to salvation;

The gardener will mend,

With time, the damaged shoot;

The green young tree

Will blossom in the end.

MEPH.

And yet,

My Lord,

Perhaps a little bet?

With your permission,

I’ll lead him, gently,

To perdition.

LORD

I concur.

As long as he lives, do your worst.

To err

Is human in the human struggle.

MEPH.

I thank you.

It is tedious, torturing the ranks

Of the dead; one longs

To get the tongs

Into something fresh:

The rosy cheeks of living flesh.

I have the cat’s know-how;

Mouse, I’m coming now.

LORD

Very well then,

I leave you to your game.

Turn that soul from the light,

Lead him to infernal night

If you can; then stand in shame,

All your powers useless

Against a good man

Who knows wrong from right.

MEPH.

The bet is won before I’ve begun;

I will, I must

Have my heart’s desire:

Faust will breathe the burning dust

In the middle of hell-fire.

LORD

You think you are free

To harm, but you are harmless;

How could God hate

The jester oblivious of his fate?

Heaven closes. The ARCHANGELS leave.

MEPH.

(Alone.)

Yes, now and then I look the old boy up,

To keep relations on a civil level;

And it’s very courteous of God, to sup

With me at all: I mean, I am the

Devil.

3. Night

A narrow, vaulted, gothic room: FAUST sitting restlessly at his desk.

FAUST

Years and years spent on philosophy,

Law, medicine,

And, oh, tedium, theology:

Ten years dedicated drudgery,

And for what?

I’m as ignorant

As when I began;

How can

I call myself master

Of science and humanities?

All my studies

Have ended in disaster:

My learning is a pose,

Ten years I’ve led

My wretched students by the nose.

All I know is that we know

Nothing, and it burns

My heart.

But why? Why? I’m not torn apart

By moral scruples, I’m free

Of fear of the devil and hellfire.

And yet

I’ve had all the joy, all the desire

Torn out of me;

I’ve failed to learn,

How can I teach?

Who am I to reach

Out to others and preach

Morality?

And I’m broke:

No money, no property,

No honorary

Doctorates,

No glittering prizes;

The long slog

Of the struggle to learn

Is worse than the life of a dog.

So:

So:

And so I turn to magic.

I yield to the powers of the spirit world.

I yearn to see unfurled

All the hidden mysteries:

How the core of the earth

Turns on its axis,

How the sun burns

But keeps it course.

With magic I’ll no longer be

An obscure academic, his career on the shelf:

I will understand

The creative force of life itself.

So:

So:

Full moon,

Shine down

One more time on my agony;

So many nights, my gloomy friend,

I’ve sat here

Waiting for you to appear

And throw your dim blue light

On the pages of my books.

Oh to walk out at night

In your lovely light;

To fly over mountains,

Skim over fields; flow

Through caves with spirits

In your glow,

Free of the sludge of knowledge

That clogs and inhibits

The brain and the senses.

Oh to cleanse myself,

To be born anew,

With your mystic light

Falling on my skin like dew.

But no:

No:

Still blocked.

Locked

In this hole, walled up

With rotting books,

Their spines peeling;

Notes and smoke-brown papers

Piled up to the ceiling;

The junk of years of study,

Jars of specimens gone cloudy,

Instruments long out of date.

Scholar,

This intellectual squalor

Is your fate,

You’re half dead:

Your spirit dulls.

God made you to be free;

Instead

You’re shut up here

Amongst old bones and skulls,

Smoke and decay.

Escape!

Escape!

Fly away.

Of all the books you only need this one.

Magic book, you will be my guide

To the orbits of the stars, the wide

Splendours of nature;

No more boring hours

Of logical thinking, scientific experimenting.

Now the whole

Universe will open for me, with this book

Spirits will speak to me,

I will set free the hidden powers

Of my soul.

Spirits, I feel you near,

Can you hear

Me?

He opens the book and sees the sign of the Macrocosmos.

Pleasure melts my veins, bliss

Floods my senses at the sight of this,

The mighty sign of macrocosmos.

Was it a god who drew

These signs that still

My torment, that fill

My heart with joy,

The magic signs that drive

Nature’s powers

And all that is alive?

Am I a god? An immortal light shines

In me;

I look at these designs and see

Nature bow

Before my soul. Now

I understand what the old magician said:

‘The spirit world is open

It is you who are shut:

Up, acolyte, cut

Down fear, be reborn

Bathe naked in the magic of the dawn.’

He is looking at the sign.

What a spectacle, but

Only that. A pretty pattern.

How can I batten

On you, nature,

Grip you,

Fix me hard to you,

and suck you,

Suckle on the breast

Where heaven and earth

Feed, and lie at rest . . .

Oh the need that flows,

The pain that grows in vain . . .

He turns the page angrily and sees the sign of the spirit of Earth.

The sign of the spirit of Earth.

Spirit, I feel my strength grow

Within me,

Like the fiery glow

Of new wine.

Suddenly I am alive

With the courage

To survive

All catastrophe;

To journey to the edge

Of all the pain and pleasure in the world,

The edge

Of earth’s extremes:

All pain, all pleasure.

The clouds close;

The light of the moon

Is hidden;

The pressure

Lowers in the glass,

The lamp glows

Dim;

Something forbidden

Is about to come to pass . . .

A hissing haze of steam

fills my brain,

Red rays

Flash behind my eyes;

I feel it:

A tremor, a sudden shudder

Deep in the cellars of the earth.

I feel you, Spirit:

Show yourself to me!

You must, you must . . .

My senses reel . . .

Tear my mind and heart to bits,

Take my sanity, my health,

Grind my flesh into the dust

But show yourself.

He takes the book and pronounces the sign of the Spirit mysteriously. A red flame flashes up, the Spirit appears in the flame.

SPIRIT

Who calls?

FAUST

Oh horror falls

Upon my soul.

SPIRIT

You pulled me here,

You wrenched me

From my sphere

Into your reality.

FAUST

I cannot bear to look at you.

SPIRIT

Are you the arrogant superman

Who thinks he can

Instruct the spirits to appear?

I came in pity for your passion,

But look at you:

One breath from me

And you writhe in fear

Like a worm.

FAUST

No. No. I’ll not squirm

Before a mere spectre;

I am Faust. I am as great as you.

SPIRIT

I Fly to and fro’

To and fro’,

Circling the globe,

As I work the roaring loom

Of time;

My threads are the threads of life

The wave

Of the eternal sea,

The womb,

The grave;

With them I weave

Nature’s living robe.

FAUST

Oh great spirit, my brother

Weaver of nature’s secrets,

We are like each other.

SPIRIT

No. You are like another.

Not me.

The SPIRIT OF EARTH disappears.

FAUST

(Collapsing.)

Not you? You mean I

Am made in the image of my creator?

Or do you mean . . . I am like an even greater

Spirit?

Who is it? Am I . . .

(Whisper.) As great as God?

A knock on the door.

FAUST

Oh no. My student. The clod

Hopper bore

Wagner, knocking on my door;

And there will be no reason, no reason,

Only to bore me the more.

WAGNER in dressing gown and nightcap, a lamp in his hand. FAUST turns to him, angrily.

WAGNER

Were you reading Greek?

Greek is full of tragic passions.

I had to have a peek. Could Greek be a factor

In getting good marks? Will you give me lessons?

‘Let the priest learn from the actor’,

That’s the saying.

FAUST

A good priest is an actor:

Preaching and praying

Is theatrical faking.

WAGNER

I’ve been studying all day.

It’s like looking down binoculars the wrong way.

If trying hard, if sweat of the brow

Counted, I’d be a genius by now.

FAUST

Instinct; go with the heart,

If you don’t feel it

Forget it.

WAGNER

But the orator succeeds by hammering out a style;

Sweat and hard labour, the midnight oil;

Knowledge is like bricks built up in a pile;

It’s ceaseless work and honest toil.

FAUST

Reason is effortless,

Great art, artless;

If you have something true to say

The words will come.

Go away, scrape a crumb

From an honest living;

Forget this rhetorical rot,

Words rattling

like dead leaves:

You’ve either got the talent

Or you’ve not.

WAGNER

Ars longa vita brevis;

My thoughts jam in paralysis,

My head and heart are stuffed with pain.

I descend into philosophy’s deep pothole,

Intellectual crampons on my brain.

Many have tried the descent and died.

But what pleasure is the treasure

Of history, to travel to the past and unravel

The wisest thoughts of the wisest men;

To see how we came here from where we were then.

FAUST

My dear, dear, pathetic friend,

The past is a locked junk room:

No one can go in.

No, the past

Is a rubbish-bin;

No, the past

Is a tatty puppet play.

The lessons of history?

Banalities,

Only fit for puppets to say.

WAGNER

But the workings of the heart and mind, the grand

Scheme of the world; if only we could understand

A bit of what it’s about.

FAUST

Understand?

You’ll get your hand

Cut off, tongue cut out;

It’s the stake for the few

Who understand.

But please, my friend,

May we end this . . .

Profound peregrination?

I have a deep fascination

For everything you say,

But I need my sleep.

WAGNER

My dear Faust, you’re right.

Day or night,

My enthusiasms

Tend to come in spasms.

But tomorrow is Good Friday;

Give me something of the holy day

To discuss with me; my studies bring

Me some insights, but I want to know

Everything.

WAGNER exits.

FAUST

A fool with a mind like glue

That squirms,

Stuck to the second-rate:

He wants to dig up treasures

And is happy with worms.

No wait.

This thick ape

Of a student

Was my escape;

The sight of the spirit

Struck me with terror.

I was face to face

With insanity.

Oh mighty force

What was my error?

I conjured you

But could not hold you to me.

Oh ecstasy,

For a second

I was at once

Gigantic as the world

And small as a molecule;

The power of a god

beckoned.

But you were cruel:

You crushed me,

Back into this miserable shape,

This clod

Of earth called man.

Who will teach me the magic?

I am made of dust and dead matter;

I am the worm

That picnickers flick

From the table cloth.

I am dust, dead matter and muck;

The moth

Chomps into the world

Of dust, dead matter and muck;

Books, furniture, possessions, the junk

Of daily life

Have buried me; I am curled

Up underground, sunk

In dust, dead matter and muck . . .

How we torture ourselves over the centuries,

Dreaming of forbidden things

That will help our escape from this:

That mankind the worm is a chrysalis,

That we will grow immortal wings.

What are you grinning at, skull?

Your brain, once, struggled with hope and passion

Toward the light, only to disintegrate

In the dull

Dusk of confusion.

And the worn out instruments

Of failed experiments,

My father’s old apparatus,

Do you reproach me too?

Oh to crash

Through the tedium, to tear

Up years of failed research

In a flash;

By one act, in one

Mad moment TO KNOW.

That phial.

Why do I stare

At that phial?

The poison I made,

Why does it glow

Like the moon in a dark forest?

Tiny phial I worship you,

I lift you in reverence;

You

Are all of man’s intelligence

In a little glass;

Pass

To me your powers,

Have pity on me . . .

Already in my mind

I see

A chariot of fire

To take me

To the spheres . . .

Yes, I’ll turn

My back against the sun.

What if I burn?

I have no fears,

I’ll rip open

The gates

Of death;

Gods, spirits, fates,

Man in his dignity

Is as brave as you.

Now I will go down

Into the dark cave

Where the imagination

Condemns itself

To its own damnation;

Happily I go

On the dangerous journey,

Around the blazing

Mouth of hell;

I risk everything

Sanity and health

My life itself.

Is Faust to fall

Into nothingness?

Yes. Cheerfully.

He couldn’t care less.

Down. Time to raise

A glass:

I toast my last breath

In the sun’s first rays.

He takes the chalice to his lips. There is a sound of church bells and a CHOIR singing.

CHOIR OF ANGELS

Christ the Lord is risen

Man’s great sin

Will be forgiven;

God rejoices

In high heaven,

Christ the Lord is risen.

FAUST

What sound

Rings

On the rim of the glass,

Pushing it from my lips?

Is it heaven that sings

To me,

That will not let me pass

From this world?

What was I about to do?

Was I striving

To reach the spheres above

By the horror of suicide?

The simple joy

Of simple faith in heaven’s love

Died long ago in me.

Yet . . . I have a memory . . . when I was a boy . . .

The choir singing,

My childlike faith

Shining on Easter morning.

Sing on, ring on heavenly sound;

My tears fall,

I am a man of no worth.

A memory of childhood innocence

Brings me back to earth.