Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Come clean with all my pains !—it is a case
Unheard of!

The Girl. Then leave off teazing us so.

Procto-phantasmist. I tell you, spirits, to your faces now,
That I should not regret this despotism

Of spirits, but that mine can wield it not.
To-night I shall make poor work of it;

Yet I will take a round with you, and hope
Before my last step in the living dance

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
Who sang so sweetly to you in the dance?

Faust. A red mouse in the middle of her singing
Sprang from her mouth.

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,
And seems as if she moved with shackled feet:

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,
Like those who saw Medusa.

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.
Mephistopheles. It is all magic, poor deluded fool!
She looks to every one like his first love.

Faust. Oh what delight! what woe! I cannot turn
My looks from her sweet piteous countenance.
How strangely does a single bloodred line,
Not broader than the sharp edge of a knife,

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
End in delusion.-Gain this rising ground;

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:
I am a dilettante curtain-lifter.

1822.

SHELLEY'S NOTES TO THE TRANSLATIONS.

P. 439.
Strophe.

The Antistrophe is omitted.

P. 448.

Of axes, for Etnean slaughterings.
I confess I do not understand this.

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,
And its fore-written circle

Fulfils with a step of thunder.

Its countenance gives the Angels strength,
Though no one can fathom it.

The incredible high works
Are excellent as at the first day.

GABRIEL.

And swift, and inconceivably swift,

The adornment of earth winds itself round,
And exchanges paradise-clearness

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,
And make, raging, a chain
Of deepest operation round about.
There flames a flashing destruction
Before the path of the thunderbolt,
But thy servants, Lord, revere

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,

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »