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ACT I.

I.

A PLEASANT LANDSCAPE.

Twilight.

Faust, bedded on flowery turf, fatigued, restless, endeavoring to sleep. Circle of hovering spirits in motion: graceful, diminutive figures.

ARIEL.^[1]

(Chant, accompanied by Æolian harps.)

WHEN the Spring returns serener
Raining blossoms over all;
When the fields with blessing greener
On the earth-born children call;
Then the craft of elves propitious
Hastes to help where help it can:
Be he holy, be he vicious,
Pity they the luckless man.

Who round this head in airy circles hover,
Yourselves in guise of noble Elves discover!
The fierce convulsions of his heart compose;

Remove the burning barbs of his remorses,

↑ This first scene has the character of a Prologue to the Second Part of Faust, the action of which commences with the following scene. An indefinite period of time separates the two parts of the drama. Neither in his own life nor in his poetical creations did Goethe ever give space to remorse for an irrevocable deed. When Faust disappears with Mephistopheles, all his later torture of soul has been already suggested to the reader, and nothing of it can properly be introduced here, where the whole plan and scope of the work is changed.

Goethe firmly believed in healthy and final recovery from moral as from physical hurt: his remedial agents were Time and Nature. In Riemer's collection of Brocardica I find the following fragment:—

Nichts taugt Ungeduld,
Noch weniger Reue:
Jene vermehrt die Schuld,
Diese schafft neue.

'Impatience is of no service, still less Remorse. That increases the offence, this creates new offences.) He overcame his own great sorrows by temporarily withdrawing from society and surrendering himself to the influences of Nature; and we are to suppose that Faust repeats this experience. The healing process is symbolized in this opening scene, wherein the elves represent the delicate, mysterious agencies through which Nature operates on the human soul. Ariel—who was Poetry in the Intermezzo of the Walpurgis-Night—here takes the place of Oberon as leader of the elves, possibly because the soul capable of a poetic apprehension of Nature is most open to her subtle consolations.

[1] This first scene has the character of a Prologue to the Second Part of Faust, the action of which commences with the following scene. An indefinite period of time separates the two parts of the drama. Neither in his own life nor in his poetical creations did Goethe ever give space to remorse for an irrevocable deed. When Faust disappears with Mephistopheles, all his later torture of soul has been already suggested to the reader, and nothing of it can properly be introduced here, where the whole plan and scope of the work is changed.

Goethe firmly believed in healthy and final recovery from moral as from physical hurt: his remedial agents were Time and Nature. In Riemer's collection of Brocardica I find the following fragment:—

Nichts taugt Ungeduld,
Noch weniger Reue:
Jene vermehrt die Schuld,
Diese schafft neue.

'Impatience is of no service, still less Remorse. That increases the offence, this creates new offences.) He overcame his own great sorrows by temporarily withdrawing from society and surrendering himself to the influences of Nature; and we are to suppose that Faust repeats this experience. The healing process is symbolized in this opening scene, wherein the elves represent the delicate, mysterious agencies through which Nature operates on the human soul. Ariel—who was Poetry in the Intermezzo of the Walpurgis-Night—here takes the place of Oberon as leader of the elves, possibly because the soul capable of a poetic apprehension of Nature is most open to her subtle consolations.

[1]