BOTH CHORUSES:
We cling to the skirt, and we strike on the ground;
Witch-legions thicken around and around;
Wizard-swarms cover the heath all over. _210
[THEY DESCEND.]
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What thronging, dashing, raging, rustling;
What whispering, babbling, hissing, bustling;
What glimmering, spurting, stinking, burning,
As Heaven and Earth were overturning.
There is a true witch element about us; _215
Take hold on me, or we shall be divided:—
Where are you?
NOTE: _217 What! wanting, 1822.
FAUST [FROM A DISTANCE]:
Here!
MEPHISTOPHELES:
What!
I must exert my authority in the house.
Place for young Voland! pray make way, good people.
Take hold on me, doctor, and with one step _220
Let us escape from this unpleasant crowd:
They are too mad for people of my sort.
Just there shines a peculiar kind of light—
Something attracts me in those bushes. Come
This way: we shall slip down there in a minute. _225
FAUST:
Spirit of Contradiction! Well, lead on—
’Twere a wise feat indeed to wander out
Into the Brocken upon May-day night,
And then to isolate oneself in scorn,
Disgusted with the humours of the time. _230
MEPHISTOPHELES:
See yonder, round a many-coloured flame
A merry club is huddled altogether:
Even with such little people as sit there
One would not be alone.
FAUST:
Would that I were
Up yonder in the glow and whirling smoke, _235
Where the blind million rush impetuously
To meet the evil ones; there might I solve
Many a riddle that torments me.
MEPHISTOPHELES:
Yet
Many a riddle there is tied anew
Inextricably. Let the great world rage! _240
We will stay here safe in the quiet dwellings.
’Tis an old custom. Men have ever built
Their own small world in the great world of all.
I see young witches naked there, and old ones
Wisely attired with greater decency. _245
Be guided now by me, and you shall buy
A pound of pleasure with a dram of trouble.
I hear them tune their instruments—one must
Get used to this damned scraping. Come, I’ll lead you
Among them; and what there you do and see, _250
As a fresh compact ’twixt us two shall be.
How say you now? this space is wide enough—
Look forth, you cannot see the end of it—
An hundred bonfires burn in rows, and they
Who throng around them seem innumerable: _255
Dancing and drinking, jabbering, making love,
And cooking, are at work. Now tell me, friend,
What is there better in the world than this?