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47. den unschuldig Entgegnenden, lit. "him who replies innocently," translate "in order to crush any innocent man who ventures to answer you." 48. Luft zu machen, "to free oneself."

54. Faust cannot endure that Mephistopheles should thus cast the guilt of Valentine's murder upon him.

4049. den Rabenstein, was a piece of high ground, enclosed with walls on which public executions took place. Cf. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, I., c. 3.-"Comes no hammering from the Rabenstein? Their gallows must even now be abuilding."

4050. Mephistopheles gives this evasive answer, lest the thought of how near Margaret was herself to the Rabenstein should throw Faust into a fresh paroxysm of rage; and for the same reason he bids him hurry past in 4054.

4053. The witches appear to be strewing the various ingredients into their caldron, and to be muttering over them the spells which are needed to consecrate (weihen) its contents, in order that the charm may be "firm and good."

One may compare with the general weirdness of this scene the scene in Egmont, Act v. (p. 98 and ff. in the Cottaische Ausgabe), in which Brackenburg describes the building of the scaffold for Egmont's execution.

4056. Cf. 1416-18, though the passage is not strictly parallel. In those lines Faust is wishing, for the sake of distraction and change, to experience every variety of human suffering, and particularises each; but here the woes of mankind are regarded as a whole, and the expression "Der Menschheit ganzer Jammer" is used to denote the intense agony under which Faust is at present suffering.

4058. ein guter Wahn, "having loved too well." (Martin.)

4061. dein Zagen zögert den Tod heran, lit. "thy shrinking lingers death hither." "zögern "being an intransitive verb, the meaning, of course, being that his shrinking and lingering bring on her death.

Birds quotes some appropriate parallels of Shakespeare's use of the word "linger "

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4062. This song is a variation of one which occurs in a well-known story written in the Low German dialect, called the "Machantel Boom” (the juniper tree); the story itself is included in Grimm's "Mährchen,” i. 47. Hayward gives the following summary of it :

:

"The wife of a rich man, whilst standing under a juniper tree, wishes for a little child as white as snow and as red as blood; and on

another occasion expresses a wish to be buried under the juniper when dead. Soon after, a little boy, as white as snow and as red as blood, is born; the mother dies of joy at beholding it, and is buried according to her wish. The husband marries again and has a daughter. The second wife, becoming jealous of the boy, murders him, and serves him up at table for the unconscious father to eat. The father finishes the whole dish, and throws the bones under the table. The little girl, who is made the innocent assistant in her mother's villany, picks them up, ties them in a silk handkerchief, and buries them under the juniper tree. The tree begins to move its branches mysteriously, and then a kind of cloud rises from it, a fire appears in the cloud, and out of the fire comes a beautiful bird, which flies away singing the following song:Min Moder de mi slacht't

Min Vader de mi att,
Min Swester de Marleenken
Söcht alle mine Beeniken,

Un bindt sie in een syden Dook,

Lagts unner den Machandelboom;

Kywitt! Kywitt! ach watt en schön Bagel bin ich!"

4085. This simple statement of the fact of her lover's absence is more eloquent in its brevity than any outburst of complaint or reproof could have been.

4090. buch, "why, I have never seen you before in my life." The "doch" throws more surprise into her words.

4099. The old story to which she refers is the one mentioned above. 4100. "Who bids them point it at me?"

4102. Jammerknechtschaft, "these grievous bonds," viz. her present imprisonment.

4117. Klappen, High German for "flappern," to chatter or gnash with the teeth. Goethe had probably in his mind Luther's translation of Matt. viii. 12, "Da wird sein Heulen und Zähnklappen."

4118. Cf. 3134-5. The impression made upon Margaret by Mephistopheles's rage and scorn flashes out here again in her madness.

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4147. "Who has robbed me of that." "jemand um etwas zu bringen must not be confused with "jemand umzubringen," "to destroy." Cf. 1. 4157.

4149. herze, present for future.

4160. dir auch, the sequence of thought seems to be that the child was Faust's as well as hers, and that therefore it is strange that he, whom she has robbed of his child, should be now come to save her.

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4185. so gut, fo fromm, "so kind, so good." 'gut" expresses the goodness of a kindly heart, fromm," the goodness of one who is

actuated by a sense of duty.

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4194. Margaret is held back by the feeling that she deserves punishment, and that retribution for her crimes is not only physically but morally inevitable. Faust cannot follow her in this; the moral instinct

that punishment must follow upon guilt, which is so strong in her, is unintelligible to him. His one thought is to save her from human justice, but Margaret has given herself over to the judgment of God (4255), and not even her lover may come between her and it.

4199. toch, "after all."

4202. The child still seems to her wildered brain to belong more to him than to her.

4219. As one would do who was under the influence of some strong soporific.

4228. sonst, is used here of time. Cf. 287.

"Time was, I gave up all to pleasure thee."-(MARTIN.)

4240. das Stäbchen, the staff of doom, which was broken by the sheriff after he had read the sentence of death.

4253. an dem heiligen Ort. She seems already conscious of the presence of the "holy hosts" who are to save her.

4261. Mephistopheles implies that she is beyond rescue, that it is no use to make any further effort to save her from the arm of the law. The words are adopted from the Puppet Play; at the end of Faust's twenty-four years of enjoyment the following words are heard"Prepara te ad mortem! Accusatus es! Judicatus es! In æternum damnatus es!"

Goethe probably purposely intended an ambiguity to attach to the words "Her zu mir," feeling that he must make thus much concession to the legend and the popular sentiment respecting Faust's end: but we should miss the whole spirit of the play and its connection with the Prologue and the Second Part, if we failed to recognise that Margaret and her sorrows play an important part in the gradual development and purification of Faust. The loving echo of the words "Heinrich, Heinrich," assures us that Margaret's memory and influence will abide with Faust to purify and to strengthen him. The riot of Auerbach's Cellar, and the lewdness of the Brocken, had alike proved ineffectual to debase and defile the soul of Faust; against them his own inherent manliness successfully revolted; in Margaret, however, the tempter seemed to have found a more effectual instrument, and at first it appeared only too probable that Mephistopheles would succeed in his object of causing Faust to "eat dust and enjoy it ;" but in exact proportion as the force of desire in Faust was tempered and changed into love and sympathy, so did the power of Mephistopheles wane, until at the last, Margaret's infinite sweetness and simplicity prevailed. Faust becomes conscious of the contrast between his own selfish passion and her trusting, generous love, and so there arises and increases in him a belief in human love and human self-devotion. Thus out of these ruins he by degrees builds up again in his bosom that fairer and firmer sympathy with his fellow-men which is fully developed towards the end of his life.

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APPENDICES.

I.

THE LEGEND OF FAUST.

It would be audacious, and futile, to attempt to catch the echoes of those "many tones" with which Goethe tells us (Autob. i. p. 357), the stage-fable of "Faust" murmured in his youthful ears. It is much to be regretted that his own allusions to the subject are so few and far between. For his 'Faust," it must be confessed, would gain interest if a key to its genesis and development were obtainable. Unjust as we must regard Coleridge's verdict that "the scenes are mere magic-lantern pictures," there is a spice of truth in it. The magical experiments, the Alchemy, the Witch's kitchen, the diablerie of the Brocken-to say nothing of the classical and other mysteries of Part II.-do need, for the ordinary comprehension, some connecting thread of legendary belief. Perhaps the absence of any analogous legend in English puts us at a disadvantage in this matter. Not even the splendour of Marlowe's imagination has transplanted Faustus into English popular imagination as, e.g., Prospero or Shylock has been transplanted: Paracelsus-a really close parallel to the historical Faust-in spite of Jonson's allusion, and Mr. Browning's fine but laborious poem, remains a name only to us; though few perhaps know that they name him as often as they use the term "bombastic." Perhaps, among ourselves, a mind which has been thrilled with the eerie legends of Michael Scott, has seen the tomb where his imperishable form lay in the dim chancel of Melrose, while

Those, thou may'st not look upon,

Were gathering fast round the yawning stone—

can best realise the weird mixture of fact and fable, science and magic, religion and credulity, with which the Faust Legend has been encompassed for centuries. It is matter for profound regret that Coleridge's intention of writing a poem on the subject of Michael Seott, with something of the design of Goethe's "Faust" (vid. Table Talk, Feb. 16, 1833) was never fulfilled.

Johann Faust was born during the last half of the 15th century, at Knittlingen, in Würtemberg. He studied at Cracow, whose University was even then of more than a century's standing, having been founded in 1349, and probably acquired there that scientific knowledge which was readily confounded by the vulgar, and perhaps by its possessors, with art-magic and occult learning. After his University training, he started on his travels, which extended widely over Europe. His pretensions were various; medicine, soothsaying in its divers branches, wizardry, astrology, etc. Melanchthon, according to his disciple Manlius, knew Faust, at Wittenberg, and formed a vigorous estimate of his character; he says it was "inquinatissima,” full of all foulness, and that he himself was "cloaca multorum diabolorum," the filthy channel of many devils. He appears to have credited also the popular rumour that Faust was killed by direct diabolic intervention, rent to pieces or strangled by Satan. But the tales of his death bear clearly the stamp of fable.

That he died, and

died, like other men, from want of breath, was quite sufficient ground for a popular belief that the conjuror had been choked by the Evil One.

So much for the facts, pretty well authenticated, of Faust's career. Mr. Birds calculates his death to have happened about the year 1550. Within forty years of this time, the legend of his compact with Satan, and of his preternatural powers, was made current by one Lerchheimer, in a book concerning Christianity and its attitude towards sorcery.

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