In a continual holiday;
With little wit and much content
Their narrow round of life is spent,
As playful kittens oft are found
To chase their own tails round and round.
So live they on from day to day,
As long as headache keeps away,
And by no anxious thought are crossed,
While they get credit from the host.
Brander.
These gentlemen are strangers; in their face
One reads they lack the breeding of the place;
They’re not an hour arrived, I warrant thee.
Frosch.
There you are right!—Leipzig’s the place, I say!
It is a little Paris in its way.
Siebel.
What, think you, may the strangers be?
Frosch.
Leave that to me!—I’ll soon fish out the truth.
Fill me a bumper till it overflows,
And then I’ll draw the worms out of their nose,
As easily as ’twere an infant’s tooth.
To me they seem to be of noble blood,
They look so discontented and so proud.
Brander.
Quack doctors both!—Altmayer, what think you?
Altmayer.
’Tis like.
Frosch.
Mark me! I’ll make them feel the screw.
Mephistopheles. [to Faust]
They have no nose to smell the devil out,
Even when he has them by the snout.
Faust.
Be greeted, gentlemen!
Siebel.
With much respect return we the salute.
[Softly, eyeing Mephistopheles from the one side.]
What! does the fellow limp upon one foot?
Mephistopheles.
With your permission, we will make so free,
As to intrude upon your company.
The host’s poor wines may keep us in sobriety,
But we at least enjoy your good society.
Altmayer.
Our wine is good; and, for to speak the truth,
Your mother fed you with too nice a tooth.
Frosch.
When left you Rippach? you must have been pressed
