Only have courage, friend, and be not shy!
Faust.
Content from thee thy proper wares to buy,
Thou markest well, I do not speak of joy,
Pleasure that smarts, giddy intoxication,
Enamoured hate, and stimulant vexation.
My bosom healed from hungry greed of science
With every human pang shall court alliance;
What all mankind of pain and of enjoyment
May taste, with them to taste be my employment;
Their deepest and their highest I will sound,
Want when they want, be filled when they abound,
My proper self unto their self extend,
And with them too be wrecked, and ruined in the end.
Mephistopheles.
Believe thou me, who speak from test severe,
Chewing the same hard food from year to year,
There lives (were but the naked truth confessed)
No man who, from his cradle to his bier,
The same sour leaven can digest!
Trust one of us—this universe so bright,
He made it only for his own delight;
Supreme He reigns, in endless glory shining,
To utter darkness me and mine consigning,
And grudges ev’n to you the day without the night.
Faust.
But I will!
Mephistopheles.
There you are right!
One thing alone gives me concern,
The time is short, and we have much to learn.
There is a way, if you would know it,
Just take into your pay a poet;
Then let the learned gentleman sweep
Through the wide realms of imagination
And every noble qualification,
Upon your honored crown upheap,
The strength of the lion,
The wild deer’s agility,
The fire of the south,
