And fills up all the space.
He’ll melt into a cloud; not so!
Down, I say, down, proud imp, and know
Here, at thy master’s feet, thy place!
In vain, in vain, thou seek’st to turn thee,
With an holy flame I burn thee!
Wait not the charm
Of the triple-glowing light!
Beware the harm
If thou invite
Upon thy head my spell of strongest might!
[The clouds vanish, and Mephistopheles comes forward from behind the fireplace, dressed like an itinerant scholar.
Scene V.
Faust and Mephistopheles.
Mephistopheles.
What’s all the noise about? I’m here at leisure
To work your worship’s will and pleasure.
Faust.
So, so! such kernel cracked from such a shell!
A travelling scholar! the jest likes me well!
Mephistopheles.
I greet the learned gentleman!
I’ve got a proper sweating ’neath your ban.
Faust.
What is thy name?
Mephistopheles.
What is my power were better,
From one who so despises the mere letter,
Who piercing through the coarse material shell,
With Being’s inmost substance loves to dwell.
Faust.
Yes, but you gentlemen proclaim
Your nature mostly in your name;
Destroyer, God of Flies, the Adversary,[1]
Such names their own interpretation carry.
But say, who art thou?
Mephistopheles.
I am a part of that primordial Might,
Which always wills the wrong, and always works the right.
Faust.
You speak in riddles; the interpretation?
Mephistopheles.
I am the Spirit of Negation:
And justly so; for all that is created
Deserves to be annihilated.
’Twere better, thus, that there were no creation.
Thus everything that you call evil,
Destruction, ruin, death, the devil,
Is my pure element and sphere.
Faust.
