Mark Scrivener Poetry Blog No 65 Faust Talks to Wagner

FAUST TALKS TO HIS PUPIL, WAGNER (from Faust Scene one)

English verse version by Mark Scrivener © Mark Scrivener

Faust is interrupted by his scholastic and rather pedantic pupil, Wagner. They discuss the art of speech. Wagner is in favour of "method" but Faust maintains that true art must also come from the heart. The translation or rendering into English verse of such passages is tricky in that I feel it is necessary to carry through a clear diction while still keeping as much as possible of the poetic effect of the original. 


 

WAGNER IN NIGHTGOWN AND NIGHTCAP ENTERS, A LAMP IN HIS HAND. FAUST TURNS UNWILLINGLY

WAGNER

Please pardon me, I heard you speak a part;
You know by rote some tragic, old Greek play?
I'd like to profit from this art,
For it achieves so much today.
I've often heard it claimed a preacher
Should take an actor as his teacher.

FAUST

Yes, when the preacher is a ham,
And truly, sometimes it turns out that way.

WAGNER

Oh, banished in this museum as I am,
I see the world but on a holiday,
As through a spyglass, far apart...
How can I learn persuasion's art?

FAUST

If you don't feel it first, no hunt will bring
What doesn't flow from your soul's spring,
And with pleasure's primal force imparts
Its power to all your hearers' hearts.
Keep sitting! Glue it all together;
Cook stew from scraps left by another,
And blow a scanty flame that flashes
From out of your own heap of ashes.
You will amaze the child and ape,
If it's your taste to play that part.
Warm rays from heart to hearts won't radiate
If no glow comes from your own heart.

WAGNER

Yet winning speech is all delivery;
And still I feel that's all quite far from me.

FAUST

Seek only honest recompense.
Don't be like some bell-tinkling fool.
For understanding and good sense
Require little art to rule.
With earnest speaking isn't it absurd
To spend time hunting for a word?
Yes, for your speeches that glitter so,
Yet give us but curled snippets, bits to please,
Are like those stale and misty winds that blow
In autumn, rustling through the withered leaves.

WAGNER

Though art is long, oh, God,
Our life is short indeed!
Through striving, keen and critical, I find
I'm often troubled in my heart and mind.
How hard it is to have the means to lead
One to the final fountainhead.
Before, poor devil, you're halfway there
Your body's in the cold earth's care.

FAUST

Is parchment then the sacred, living spring
One sip of which will still your thirst forever?
You will not be refreshed by anything
That does not rise from your own soul's endeavour.

WAGNER

Please pardon! But it gives great satisfaction
To see the spirits of the past in action;
To comprehend how wise ones thought before our age;
How brilliantly we brought all to a further stage.

FAUST

Yes, right up to the stars on high.
You know, my friend, for us the times gone by
Are like a book with seven seals.
What you would call the spirit of the past
Is just the spirit of the ones who'd cast
Time's mirror bent by what each feels.
It often makes a shameful mess!
One glimpse of it will make you run away:
A lumber room, a rubbish bin, no less...
At best it's but a high, flag-waving play,
With excellent, pragmatic platitudes:
Most suitable for puppet interludes.

WAGNER

What of the world? The human heart and mind?
To know of these is everybody's aim.

FAUST

With what's called knowing! But who's inclined
To call the child by its right name?
Of the few who knew of something on that side,
Those fool enough, not guarding their full hearts, revealing,
To the rabble, their visions and their feeling,
They always have been burnt and crucified.
But please, my friend, it's grown late in the night,
And we must say, for now, adieu.

WAGNER

I'd like to stay forever that I might
Keep talking of such learned things with you.
Tomorrow's first of Easter holiday;
Then I shall ask more, if I may.
I've studied with great zeal the vast and small,
I know much, but I want to know it all.

HE EXITS