Make seven and eight,
And all is done.
And nine is one,
And ten is none;
Here take and spell, if you are able,
The Witches’ multiplication table.
Faust.
This is a jargon worse than Babel;
Say, is she fevered? is she mad?
Mephistopheles.
O never fear! the rest is quite as bad;
I know the book, and oft have vexed my brains
With bootless labor on its rhymes and rules;
A downright contradiction still remains,
Mysterious alike for wise men and for fools.
My friend, the art is old and new;
Ancient and modern schools agree
With three and one, and one and three
Plain to perplex, and false inweave with true.
So they expound, discourse, dispute, debate;
What man of sense would plague him with their prate?
Men pin their faith to words, in sounds high sapience weening,
Though words were surely made to have a meaning.
The Witch. [Goes on reading from the book]
The soul to know
Beneath the show,
And view it without blinking;
The simple mind
The craft will find,
Without the toil of thinking.
Faust.
What flood of nonsense now she’s pouring o’er us?
She’ll split my skull with her insensate chatter.
I feel as if I heard the ceaseless clatter
Of thirty thousand idiots in a chorus.
Mephistopheles.
Enough, kind Sibyl; thanks for thy good will!
Now bring your jug here, and the goblet fill
With this prime juice, till it be brimming o’er.
My friend here is a man of high degrees,
And will digest the draught with ease.
He has swilled many a goodly glass before.
[The Witch, with many ceremonies, pours the beverage into a cup. While Faust brings it to his mouth a light flame arises.
Mephistopheles.
Come, quaff it boldly, without thinking!
The draught will make thy heart to burn with love.
Art with the Devil hand and glove,
And from a fire-spurt would’st be shrinking?
[The Witch looses the circle. Faust steps out.
Mephistopheles.
