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MEPHISTOPHELES.

Here is a casket, it weighs heavily.
From somewhere else the prize I bore.
Quick, put it in the press-in there;
It will turn her head, I swear.
I put some little things within,
Some one else to win.

But child is child, and play is play.

I know not; shall I?

FAUST.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

Dost delay?

Perchance you mean yourself to keep the prize.
In that case I your rakishness would advise
On it no more to waste the glorious hours of day,
And further trouble to save me,

I trust you are not miserly.

I rub my hands, and scratch my head

[He puts the casket in the press, and shuts it again.

Away-the bolt is sped.

Now, the youthful lovely girl,

Το

your heart's desire to twist and twirl.

Yet from your air

It seems as in the lecture room you were,

Before you standing, bodily and grey,
Physics and Metaphysics there.

Away!

MARGARET, with a lamp.

It feels so close, so musty here,

[She opens the window.

Yet outside does not warm appear.
I know not what doth o'er me come;

Would that my mother were at home.

O'er all my limbs it seemed a shudder played.
Well, I am but a silly fearful maid.

She begins to sing whilst she is undressing herself.
There was a king in Thule,

Right true unto the grave,

To him his sweetheart, dying,

A golden goblet gave.

Nought prized he more; at every feast

He drained it evermore,

And every time he drunk from it,

With tears his eyes ran o'er.

On his death-bed, his cities
He counted one by one;
Grudged nought to his successor,
Save this dear cup alone.

He sat at the regal banquet,
Round stood his chivalry,
In the high ancestral chamber,
In his castle by the sea.

There stood the ancient toper,

Then his last draught quaffed he
Then flung the hallowed goblet,
Down in the deep, deep sea.

;

[blocks in formation]

No drop more e'er he drank.

[She opens the press to put away her clothes and perceives the casket.

How comes this pretty casket here to be?

I locked the press most certainly.

"Tis wonderful; what can there be within?
Perchance by some one as a pledge brought in,
And that my mother money lent on it.
There to the ribbon hangs a key;

"Twere no great harm, methinks, to open it.
What is that? God in heaven! see!

I ne'er have seen such things in all my life.
Gems! Why, decked out in these, a noble's wife

Upon the highest holiday might go.

I wonder how on me the chain would show.

Whose all these fine things are I fain would know. [She puts them on and walks to the glass.

If but the earrings only were mine own.

One looks a different creature with them on.
What use is beauty? what is youth?
That is all very well in truth.

And then the world leaves all alone.

Half pity doth its praise express.

For gold contend,

On gold depend

Still all. Alas, we moneyless!

PROMENADE.

FAUST in a reverie, walking up and down.
MEPHISTOPHELES meets him.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

By the pangs of despised love-by each damnable element,

I would I knew something worse, I might curse to my heart's content.

FAUST.

What now? What is it pinches thee so sore ?
A face like thine I never saw before.

MEPHISTOPHELES.

I could bestow myself upon the spot

On the Devil, if I myself a devil were not.

FAUST.

Hath aught occurred to thee, to shake thy brain? It becomes thee to rave like one insane.

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