Thanks, I decline.
SATAN
You fail
To understand me. For I ask not this
As promise of you.
FAUST
What, then, do you mean?
What do you count on? Whence do you expect
Pay for your trouble and your risk—a risk
Not trivial, I warn you?
SATAN
Let me make
The matter clear to you. I know quite well
The risk is nothing, since my paradise
Will utterly delight you. Granting this,
You see my profit: you will stay with me
Willingly there forever, to my ends
An interested assistant. I will serve
Forth on my tables such delicious fare
That you will freely choose to be my guest
Through time and through eternity. I say:
Fie for a bond written in scrawly blood!
A bond of choice is better. Could a saint
Speak fairer to you? I risk everything,
And you risk nothing but a little time;
And time, as you are placed, seems not so dear
That you need hoard it.
FAUST
But your ends are—what?
SATAN