While Man’s desires and aspirations stir,
He cannot choose but err.
* * * * *
A good man, through obscurest aspiration,
Has still an instinct of the one true way.”
The opening monologue, which shows Faust in his study fighting with the realization that “here, poor fool! with all my lore I stand, no wiser than before,” is an echo of the initial monologue of Marlowe’s tragedy, which came to Goethe through the medium of the popular drama and the puppet-show. Hitherto the pact had been for a definite period of twenty-four years, during which Faust was to enjoy all that the Devil could give him and then to fulfil without hope of mercy his part of the bargain. Goethe’s Faust, however, demands more than the fulfilment of transitory desires. He wants to grasp the moment of supreme satisfaction, and if Mephisto cannot give him that, Faust’s soul remains his own:—
“When on an idler’s bed I stretch myself in quiet,
There let, at once, my record end!
Canst thou with lying flattery rule me,
Until, self-pleased, myself I see,—