THE FAIR ONE
Then cease to bore us at our ball!
PROKTOPHANTASMIST
I tell you, spirits, to your face,
I give to spirit-despotism no place;
My spirit cannot practise it at all.
(The dance continues)
Naught will succeed, I see, amid such revels;
Yet something from a tour I always save,
And hope, before my last step to the grave,
To overcome the poets and the devils.
MEPHISTOPHELES
He now will seat him in the nearest puddle;
The solace this, whereof he’s most assured:
And when upon his rump the leeches hang and fuddle,
He’ll be of spirits and of Spirit cured.
(To FAUST, who has left the dance:)
Wherefore forsakest thou the lovely maiden,
That in the dance so sweetly sang?