This scene starts with the very famous monologue
of Faust in which he tells actually his misery.
He has studied many things, is a well known person
and respected for his knowledge. But in the bottom
of his heart he knows that he knows nothing, that
his work as a professor is a fraud. He feels he
does not teach anything of importance to his students.
His knowledge serves only to see that others only
know less than he does. He is afraid of nothing,
not hell, not devil. But as disillusioned as he
is, he can't even enjoy life.
In his desperation he uses magic to call for a
spirit and he even achieves to call one. But Faust
can't stand this apparition and starts to fear
it. The spirit disappears again. Not only that
the spirit allowed Faust to pass his limits, but
it made him feel his limits again. In this state
of agitation Wagner appears. Wagner is the type
of little bourgeois, stupid enough to be happy.
From the sociological point of view it is an interesting
person and really there are a lot of scientific
studies about this type of person. These people
are interested in everything, because actually
they are interested in nothing. They are happy
of anything, because are ignorant of any real
passion. They believe to be happy, because they
don't know what happiness is. They don't do anything
extraordinary, because they lack the fantasy to
have any idea for something extraordinary. They
are never disturbed, because they do not have
the sensitivity to feel the existing contradiction.
This is the type of person we call here the cattle-type-person,
because equal to a cow this type does not know
depression nor joy. The world in which he lives
in is very different from the world Faust lives
in. The discussion Faust and Wagner have makes
it quite clear. Let's have an example.
FAUST:
FAUST.
Habe
nun, ach! Philosophie,
Juristerei und Medizin,
Und leider auch Theologie
Durchaus studiert, mit heißem
Bemühn.
Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor!
Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;
Heiße Magister, heiße
Doktor gar
Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr
Herauf, herab und quer und krumm
Meine Schüler an der Nase
herum-
Und sehe, daß wir nichts
wissen können!
Das will mir schier das Herz verbrennen.
Zwar bin ich gescheiter als all
die Laffen,
Doktoren, Magister, Schreiber
und Pfaffen;
Mich plagen keine Skrupel noch
Zweifel,
Fürchte mich weder vor Hölle
noch Teufel-
Dafür ist mir auch alle Freud
entrissen,
Bilde mir nicht ein, was Rechts
zu wissen,
Bilde mir nicht ein, ich könnte
was lehren,
Die Menschen zu bessern und zu
bekehren.
Auch hab ich weder Gut noch Geld,
Noch Ehr und Herrlichkeit der
Welt;
Es möchte kein Hund so länger
leben!
Drum hab ich mich der Magie ergeben,
Ob mir durch Geistes Kraft und
Mund
Nicht manch Geheimnis würde
kund;
Daß ich nicht mehr mit saurem
Schweiß
Zu sagen brauche, was ich nicht
weiß;
Daß ich erkenne, was die
Welt
Im Innersten zusammenhält,
Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen,
Und tu nicht mehr in Worten kramen.
O sähst du, voller Mondenschein,
Zum letzenmal auf meine Pein,
Den ich so manche Mitternacht
An diesem Pult herangewacht:
Dann über Büchern und
Papier,
Trübsel'ger Freund, erschienst
du mir!
Ach! könnt ich doch auf Bergeshöhn
In deinem lieben Lichte gehn,
Um Bergeshöhle mit Geistern
schweben,
Auf Wiesen in deinem Dämmer
weben,
Von allem Wissensqualm entladen,
In deinem Tau gesund mich baden!
Weh! steck ich in dem Kerker noch?
Verfluchtes dumpfes Mauerloch,
Wo selbst das liebe Himmelslicht
Trüb durch gemalte Scheiben
bricht!
Beschränkt mit diesem Bücherhauf,
den Würme nagen, Staub bedeckt,
Den bis ans hohe Gewölb hinauf
Ein angeraucht Papier umsteckt;
Mit Gläsern, Büchsen
rings umstellt,
Mit Instrumenten vollgepfropft,
Urväter Hausrat drein gestopft-
Das ist deine Welt! das heißt
eine Welt!
Und fragst du noch, warum dein
Herz
Sich bang in deinem Busen klemmt?
Warum ein unerklärter Schmerz
Dir alle Lebensregung hemmt?
Statt der lebendigen Natur,
Da Gott die Menschen schuf hinein,
Umgibt in Rauch und Moder nur
Dich Tiergeripp und Totenbein.
Flieh! auf! hinaus ins weite Land!
I've
studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,
And even, alas! Theology
All through and through with ardour
keen!
Here now I stand, poor fool, and
see
I'm just as wise as formerly.
Am called a Master, even Doctor
too,
And now I've nearly ten years
through
Pulled my students by their noses
to and fro
And up and down, across, about,
And see there's nothing we can
know!
That all but burns my heart right
out.
True, I am more clever than all
the vain creatures,
The Doctors and Masters, Writers
and Preachers;
No doubts plague me, nor scruples
as well.
I'm not afraid of devil or hell.
To offset that, all joy is rent
from me.
I do not imagine I know aught
that's right;
I do not imagine I could teach
what might
Convert and improve humanity.
Nor have I gold or things of worth,
Or honours, splendours of the
earth.
No dog could live thus any more!
So I have turned to magic lore,
To see if through the spirit's
power and speech
Perchance full many a secret I
may reach,
So that no more with bitter sweat
I need to talk of what I don't
know yet,
So that I may perceive whatever
holds
The world together in its inmost
folds,
See all its seeds, its working
power,
And cease word-threshing from
this hour.
Oh, that, full moon, thou didst
but glow
Now for the last time on my woe,
Whom I beside this desk so oft
Have watched at midnight climb
aloft.
Then over books and paper here
To me, sad friend, thou didst
appear!
Ah! could I but on mountain height
Go onward in thy lovely light,
With spirits hover round mountain
caves,
Weave over meadows thy twilight
laves,
Discharged of all of Learning's
fumes, anew
Bathe me to health in thy healing
dew.
Woe! am I stuck and forced to
dwell
Still in this musty, cursed cell?
Where even heaven's dear light
strains
But dimly through the painted
panes!
Hemmed in by all this heap of
books,
Their gnawing worms, amid their
dust,
While to the arches, in all the
nooks,
Are smoke-stained papers midst
them thrust,
Boxes and glasses round me crammed,
And instruments in cases hurled,
Ancestral stuff around me jammed-
That is your world! That's called
a world!
And still you question why your
heart
Is cramped and anxious in your
breast?
Why each impulse to live has been
repressed
In you by some vague, unexplained
smart?
Instead of Nature's living sphere
In which God made mankind, you
have alone,
In smoke and mould around you
here,
Beasts' skeletons and dead men's
bone.
Up! Flee! Out into broad and open
land!
This dialogue is one of the most complete that
one could imagine. Wagner is afraid of not being
able to read all the books until he dies. Faust
says that books do not contain the truth. To
this Wagner does not respond, because he did not
even understand, what Faust wanted to say. He
only replies that he likes reading about, how
people have lived in other époques and that he
has thought of other people in the old times.
Faust answers that it is impossible to know something
about history, because historians present history
how they see it. All the dialogues between Wagner
and Faust are discussions like this one. The radical
scepticism of Faust is so far away from the little,
middle class world of Wagner. Wagner does not
even understand that Faust doubts actually everything,
in what he believes.
After Wagner has left, the crisis of Faust comes
to its climax and he tries to commit suicide with
poison. This is prevented in the last moment with
an choir of angels, that reminds him of his childhood,
of tranquil and sweet moments that he has lived.
FAUST:
FAUST.
Dies Lied verkündete der Jugend
muntre Spiele,
Der Frühlingsfeier freies Glück;
Erinnrung hält mich nun, mit kindlichem Gefühle,
Vom letzten, ernsten Schritt zurück.
O tönet fort, ihr süßen Himmelslieder!
Die Träne quillt, die Erde hat mich wieder!
Of youth's glad sports this song foretold
me,
The festival of spring in happy
freedom passed;
Now memories, with childlike feeling,
hold me
Back from that solemn step, the
last.
Sound on and on, thou sweet, celestial
strain!
The tear wells forth, the earth
has me again!
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