Come clean with all my pains !—it is a case The Girl. Then leave off teazing us so. Procto-phantasmist. I tell you, spirits, to your faces now, Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not. Yet I will take a round with you, and hope To beat the poet and the devil together. Mephistopheles. At last he will sit down in some foul puddle; That is his way of solacing himself ;— Until some leech, diverted with his gravity, Cures him of spirits and the spirit together. [To FAUST, who has seceded from the dance.] Why do you let that fair girl pass from you Faust. A red mouse in the middle of her singing Mephistopheles. That was all right, my friend : Be it enough that the mouse was not grey. Do not disturb your hour of happiness With close consideration of such trifles. Faust. Then saw I Mephistopheles. Faust. What? Seest thou not a pale Fair girl, standing alone, far, far away? She drags herself now forward with slow steps, I cannot overcome the thought that she Is like poor Margaret. Mephistopheles. Let it be-pass on No good can come of it-it is not well To meet it. It is an enchanted phantom, A lifeless idol; with its numbing look It freezes up the blood of man; and they Who meet its ghastly stare are turned to stone, Faust. Oh too true! Her eyes are like the eyes of a fresh corpse Which no beloved hand has closed. Alas! That is the breast which Margaret yielded to me— Those are the lovely limbs which I ejnoyed. Faust. Oh what delight! what woe! I cannot turn Adorn her lovely neck! Mephistopheles. Ay, she can carry Her head under her arm upon occasion; Perseus has cut it off for her. These pleasures It is as airy here as in a . . . ; And if I am not mightily deceived, I see a theatre. What may this mean? Attendant. Quite a new piece, the last of seven, for 'tis The custom now to represent that number. 'Tis written by a dilettante, and The actors who perform are dilettanti. Excuse me, gentlemen, but I must vanish: 1822. SHELLEY'S NOTES TO THE TRANSLATIONS. P. 439. The Antistrophe is omitted. P. 448. Of axes, for Etnean slaughterings. P. 482. Is bright as on creation's day. RAPHAEL. The sun sounds, according to ancient custom, In the song of emulation of his brother spheres, Fulfils with a step of thunder. Its countenance gives the Angels strength, The incredible high works GABRIEL. And swift, and inconceivably swift, The adornment of earth winds itself round, With deep dreadful night. The sea foams in broad waves From its deep bottom up to the rocks; And rocks and sea are torn on together In the eternal swift course of the spheres. MICHAEL. And storms roar in emulation From sea to land, from land to sea, The gentle alternations of thy day. CHORUS. Thy countenance gives the Angels strength, Though none can comprehend thee: And all thy lofty works Are excellent as at the first day. Such is a literal translation of this astonishing Chorus. It is impossible to represent in another language the melody of the versification; even the volatile strength and delicacy of the ideas escape in the crucible of translation, and the reader is surprised to find a caput mortuum. VOL. II. 2 I APPENDIX. VERSES ON A CAT. I. A CAT in distress, Nothing more, nothing less :Good folks, I must faithfully tell ye, As I am a sinner, It waits for some dinner To stuff out its own little belly. II. You would not easily guess All the modes of distress Which torture the tenants of earth, And the various evils Which, like so many devils, Attend the poor souls from their birth. III. Some a living require, And others desire An old fellow out of the way: And which is the best I leave to be guessed, For I cannot pretend to say. IV. One wants society, Another, variety, |