FAUST
This senseless, juggling witchcraft I detest!
Dost promise that in this foul nest
Of madness I shall be restored?
Must I seek counsel from an ancient dame?
And can she, by these rites abhorred,
Take thirty winters from my frame?
Woe's me, if thou naught better canst suggest!
Hope has already fled my breast.
Has neither nature nor a noble mind
A balsam yet devis'd of any kind?
MEPHISTOPHELES
My friend, you now speak sensibly. In truth,
Nature a method giveth to renew thy youth:
But in another book the lesson's writ;—
It forms a curious chapter, I admit.
FAUST
I fain would know it.
MEPHISTOPHELES
Good! A remedy
Without physician, gold, or sorcery:
Away forthwith, and to the fields repair;
Begin to delve, to cultivate the ground;
Thy senses and thyself confine
Within the very narrowest round;
Support thyself upon the simplest fare;
Live like a very brute the brutes among;
Neither esteem it robbery
The acre thou dost reap, thyself to dung.
This the best method, credit me,
Again at eighty to grow hale and young.
FAUST
I am not used to it, nor can myself degrade
So far, as in my hand to take the spade.
This narrow life would suit me not at all.