Poetry Blog 115 Cathedral next scene from Faust

CATHEDRAL- next scene from Faust

In this scene Margaret is tortured by her sense of guilt which appears to her as an evil spirit whispering to her while she hears some verses from the Latin hymn Dies Irae (which is about guilt and doom itself). I have worked out a "translation" of the hymn as it is important to the scene to grasp its emotional content also. 

 

by Charles-Antoine Cambon

The Cathedral Scene from 'Faust': Margaret tormented by the Evil Spirit

by Frank Cadogan Cowper from Wikigallery.org

CATHEDRAL

SERVICE, ORGAN AND SINGING. GRETCHEN AMONG MANY PEOPLE. EVIL SPIRIT BEHIND HER

EVIL SPIRIT

How otherwise, oh Gretchen,

It was with you when you,

Still full of innocence,

Came to the altar here,

And from the well-worn little book

You babbled prayers,

Half child-at-play

Half God within your heart!

Gretchen!

Where dwell your thoughts?

Within your heart

What misdeed’s harboured?

Are you now praying for your mother’s soul

That overslept to lasting, lasting pain?

And whose blood stains your threshold stones?

Already now beneath your heart

Does it not stir and swell

To frighten you and it

With its foreboding presence?

GRETCHEN

Oh, grief!

Were I but free of all the thoughts

Which sweep on back and forth in me,

Fighting me.

ORGAN TONE.

CHOIR

Dies irae, dies illa

Solvet saeclum in favilla.

(Day of Wrath, millennial day,

Earth to ash will pass away.

- 13th century hymn of Thomas of Celo)

EVIL SPIRIT

Wrath takes you!

The trumpet peals!

The graves are quaking!

And your heart

From ashen rest

To flame-fed torture

Rises up again

So quivering!

GRETCHEN

I wish I were

Far away from here! I feel as if

The organ’s robbing me

Of breath- song dissolves

My heart down to its deeps.

CHOIR

Judex ergo cum sedebit,

Quidquid latet adparebit,

Nil inultum remanebit.

(Before the judge all hidden-away

Things come into light of day-

Nothing unavenged will stay.)

GRETCHEN

I feel hemmed in!

The wall’s high pillars

Imprison me!

How the vault

Crushes me!- air!

EVIL SPIRIT

Conceal yourself! Sin, shame

Won’t stay concealed.

Air? Light?

Woe to you!

CHOIR

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

Quem patronum rogaturus?

Cum vix justus sit securus.

( I, the wretched, what shall I say,

Who implore upon that day,

When the just can hardly stay?)

EVIL SPIRIT

Transfigured ones

Avert their faces from you.

To stretch their hands towards you

Makes the pure shudder.

Woe!

CHOIR

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

( I, the wretched, what shall I say?)

GRETCHEN

Neighbour! Smelling salts!

SHE PASSES OUT.