The Faust-Legend and Goethe's 'Faust'

by H. B. Cotterill

When it rises for the Fourth Act we see a craggy mountain peak before us. A cloud approaches, and deposits Faust on the topmost crag. It lingers for a time, assuming wondrous shapes and then gradually melts away into the blue. Faust gazes at it. In its changing outlines he seems to discern first the regal forms of Olympian goddesses, of Juno, of Leda—then of Helen. But they fade away and, ere it disappears, the cloud assumes the likeness of that other half-forgotten human form which once had aroused in his heart that which he now feels to have been a love far truer and deeper than all his passion for ideal beauty—that 'swiftly felt and scarcely comprehended' love for a human heart which, as he now confesses to himself, 'had it been retained would have been his most precious possession.'

A seven-league boot now passes by—followed in hot haste by another. Out of the boots steps forth Mephistopheles. He asks contemptuously if Faust has had enough of heroines and all such ideal folly. He cannot understand why Faust is still dissatisfied with life. Surely he has seen enough of its pleasures. He advises him, if he is weary of court life, to build himself a Sultan's palace and harem and live in retirement—as Tiberius did on the island of Capri. 'Not so,' answers Faust. 'This world of earthly soil Still gives me room for greater action. I feel new strength for nobler toil—Toil that at length shall bring me satisfaction.'

He has determined to devote the rest of his life to humanity, to the good of the human race. It is a project with which Mephistopheles naturally has little sympathy. But he is forced to acquiesce, and, being bound to serve Faust even in this, he suggests a plan. The young Kaiser is at present in great difficulties. He is hard pressed by a rival Emperor—a pretender to the Imperial crown. Mephisto will by his magic arts secure the Kaiser the victory over this pretender, and then Faust will claim as recompense a tract of country bordering on the ocean. Here by means of canals and dykes, dug and built by demonic powers, Faust is to reclaim from the sea a large region of fertile country and to found a kind of model republic, where peace and prosperity and every social and political blessing shall find a home. The plan is carried out. At the summons of Mephistopheles appear three gigantic warriors by whose help the battle is won, and Faust gains his reward—the stretch of land on the shore of the ocean. And he is not the only gainer. The Archbishop takes the opportunity of extracting far more valuable concessions of land from the young Kaiser as penance for his having associated himself with powers of darkness. The prelate even extracts the promise of tithes and dues from all the land still unclaimed by Faust. As Mephistopheles aptly remarks, the Church seems to have a good digestion.

Many years are now supposed to elapse. Faust has nearly completed his task of expelling the sea and founding his ideal state. What had been a watery waste is now like the garden of Eden in its luxuriant fertility. Thousands of industrious happy mortals have found in this new country a refuge and a home. Ships, laden with costly wares, throng the ports. On an eminence overlooking the scene stands the castle of Faust, and not far off are a cottage and a chapel. On this scene the last act opens. A wanderer enters. He is seeking the cottage which once used to stand here, on the very brink of the ocean. It was here that he was shipwrecked: here, on this very spot, the waves had cast him ashore: here stands still the cottage of the poor old peasant and his wife who had rescued him from death. But now the sea is sparkling in the blue distance and beneath him spreads the new country with its waving cornfields. He enters the cottage and is welcomed by the poor old couple (to whom Goethe has given the names Philemon and Baucis, the old peasant and his wife who, according to the Greek legend, were the only Phrygians who offered hospitality to Zeus, the King of the Gods, as he was wandering about in disguise among mortals).

Faust comes out on to the garden terrace of his castle. He is now an old man—close upon a hundred years of age. He gazes with a feeling of happiness and satisfaction at the scene that lies below him—the wide expanse of fertile land, the harbours and canals filled with shipping. Suddenly the bell in the little chapel begins to ring for Vespers.

Faust's happiness is in a moment changed into bitterness and anger. This cottage, this chapel, this little plot of land are as thorns in his side: they are the Naboth's vineyard which he covets and which alone interferes with his territorial rights. He has offered large sums of money, but the peasant will not give up his home.

Mephistopheles and his helpers (the same three gigantic supernatural beings who took part in the battle) appear. Faust vents his anger and chagrin with regard to the peasant and the irritating ding-dong-dell of the vesper bell. He commissions Mephistopheles to persuade the peasant to take the money and to make him turn out of his wretched hut. Mephistopheles and his mates go to carry out the order. A few moments later flames are seen to rise from the cottage and chapel. Mephistopheles returns to relate that the peasant and the wanderer proved obstinate: in the scuffle the wanderer had been killed; the cottage had caught fire, and old Philemon and his wife had both died of terror.

Faust turns upon Mephistopheles with fierce anger and curses him. 'I meant exchange!' he exclaims. 'I meant to make it good with money! I meant not robbery and murder. I curse the deed. Thou, not I, shalt bear the guilt.'

Here I do not find it easy to follow Faust's line of argument. Fair exchange is certainly said to be no robbery—but this theory of 'making everything good with money' is one which the average foreigner is apt to attribute especially to the average Britisher, and it does not raise Faust in one's estimation. I suppose he thinks he is doing the poor old couple a blessing in disguise by ejecting them out of their wretched hovel and presenting them with a sum of money of perhaps ten times its value.

Possibly Goethe means it to be a specimen of the kind of mistake that well-meaning theoretical philanthropists are apt to commit with their Juggernaut of Human Progress. Faust is filled with great philanthropic ideas—but perhaps he is a little apt to ignore the individual. Anyhow his better self 'meant not robbery and murder' and is perhaps quite justified in cursing its demonic companion and giving him the whole of the guilt.