Homunculus. What says my Thales? Thales. I would not advise it; with little people one does little deeds; with great people the small become great. Look there! The black clouds of cranes ! They threaten the disturbed people, and would so threaten the monarch. With sharp beaks and clawed legs, they pounce down upon the little ones; a fearful tempest already appears. A crime slew the herons surrounding their quiet peaceable pools. Yet that rain of murderous shots brings a fearfully bloody blessing of vengeance, and raises the rage of near relations for the sinful blood of the pigmies. What use now is shield, and helm, and spear? What helps the heron plumes of the dwarfs? How dactyl and ants hide themselves! The army already wavers, flies and falls. Anaxagoras (after a pause, solemnly). If I before have praised the subterranean, Thou breast-expanding, thoughtful in the loftiest, Open the dread abysmal of thy shades; Let, without magic, thine old power be shewn. (Pause.) Am I too quickly heard? Has my prayer To those heights The order of nature disturbed? And greater, ever greater, nears to us The Goddess' round and circumscribed throne, No nearer Threatening mighty circle, Thou wilt o'erthrow both us and land and ocean. Have from thy distant path down-called thee, [Casts himself on his face. Thales. What a deal this man has heard and seen! I do not quite know what happened to us, nor did I feel it with him. We must confess, these are mad hours; and Luna quite comfortably rocks in her place as before. Homunculus. Look to the seat of the pygmies; the mountain was round, now is it pointed. I felt a tremendous rebounding-the mountain had fallen out of the moon; and had immediately, without a warning, crushed and slain both friend and foe. Yet must I praise those arts, which, in one night, at once, from above and below, created this mountain structure. Thales. Be quiet! It was only imaginary. Let the villanous brood go hence! It is good that thou wert not king. Now away to the cheerful ocean feast; there are strange guests expected and honoured. [ They withdraw. Mephistopheles (climbing up the other side). Here must I drag through steep rocky paths, through the stiff roots of old oaks. The piny vapour on my Harz has something of pitch, and that, next to sulphur, I am partial to. .... Here, with these Greeks, the trace of it is scarcely to be scented. I am curious to find out with what they stir hell torment and flames. Dryad. Be at home and wise in your land; in the strange one you are not sufficiently dexterous. You should not turn your mind homeward; but honour the dignity of the sacred oaks. Mephistopheles. People think on what they have left,-what people are accustomed to remains a Paradise. Yet say, what triple thing has cowered down there in the cave, by the weak light. Dryad. The Phorkyads ! Venture to the place, and speak to them, if you are not afraid. Mephistopheles. Why not. I see something, and am astounded! Proud as I am, I must confess to myself, that I have never seen anything of the kind. Why, they are worse than Alrauns. Will people find the long reprobated sins in the least ugly, if they have seen this triple being? We would not suffer them on the steps of the most hideous of our hells. Here it has root in the land of beauty; and is called, with fame, antique. They move-they seem to perceive me-peeping, they twitter-bat-vampires! Phorkyads. Give me the eye, sisters, that it may ask who ventures so near our temple. Mephistopheles. Most honoured ones! allow me to approach you, and to receive your triple blessing. I come to you, certainly, still a stranger; yet, if I err not, a distant relation, I have before seen ancient worthy deities, and bowed myself most deeply before Ops and Rhea; I saw yesterday, or the day before, the Parca themselves, your sisters, Chaos sprung; but such as you have I never seen: I am now silent and delighted. Phorkyads. This spirit seems to have sense. Mephistopheles. My only surprise is that no poet praises you. Say, how comes it-how could it happen? I have never seen you, most worthy ones, in pictures; the chisel should try to reach you, not Juno, Pallas, Venus, and the like. Phorkyads. Sunk in solitude and stillest night, none of us three has ever thought of it. Mephistopheles. How could it be so? When you are retired from the world, no one sees or beholds you: then you would be obliged to dwell in those places, where splendour and art throne on equal seatswhere every day, swift, with double pace, a block of marble steps as a hero into life-where Phorkyads. Be silent, and give us no longings! What would it profit us, even if we knew it better? Born in night, to the nocturnal related; unknown almost to ourselves-entirely to others. Mephistopheles. In such a case there is not much to say; but one can transfer oneself to others: one eye, one tooth suffices for you three; then it would do equally well, mythologically, to comprehend the being of the three in two, and commit to me the third one's image for a short time. One of the Phorkyads. What do you think? Would that do? The others. We may try it; but no eye or tooth! Mephistopheles. Now, you have just taken away the best, how would then the closest picture be perfect! One of them. Do you shut one eye, 'tis easily done, let also one of your tusks be seen, and you will immediately become perfectly like us in profile, as if we were brothers and sisters. Mephistopheles. Much honour! Be it so! Mephistopheles (as a Phorkyad in profile). There stand 1 already the much loved son of Chaos! Phorkyads. We are incontrovertibly daughters of Chaos. Mephistopheles. People will rate me now, O shame, as an hermaphrodite. Phorkyads. In the new Ternal of the sisters, what beauty! We have two eyes, two teeth. Mephistopheles. I must hide myself from all eyes to frighten the devils in the pool of hell. [Exit. ROCK BAYS OF THE ÆGEAN SEA. The Moon staying in the Zenith. Sirens (lying on the cliffs around piping, and singing). Once, O moon, in nightly horror Pity us, O beauteous Luna ! Nereids and Tritons (as sea wonders). Sing aloud with shriller voices And with crowns and precious jewels Sirens. Well we know, in ocean freshness, Nereids and Tritons. Ere we came, O Sirens, hither, Sirens. In a twinkling they are gone! They have vanished to Samothrace! Gentle Luna, kindly stay That the night may still continue, Nor the day from hence expel us. [Withdraw. Thales (on the shore to Homunculus). I would readily lead you to old Nereus; we are not indeed far from his cave, but the disagreeable sour fellow has a hard head. The whole human race is always wrong to him, the grumbler. Yet futurity is opened to him, therefore every one respects him, and honours him at his post; he has also done good to many. Homunculus. Let us try, and knock! It will not at once cost the glass and the fire. Nereus. Are those human voices which my ear receives? How it at once enrages me to the bottom of my heart! Forms striving to reach the gods, yet ever compelled to be like themselves. Many years since I could rest divinely, yet I was urged to do good to the best of them; and when I saw the deeds at last accomplished, it was as if had given no advice. Thales. And yet, O ancient one of ocean, people trust thee; thou art the wise one, drive us not hence! Behold this flame, human like indeed, it entirely gives itself up to thy counsel. Nereus. Counsel! Has counsel ever profited men? A prudent word petrifies in a hard ear. However often the deed has angrily blamed itself, yet the people remain self-willed as before. How fatherly I warned Paris, before his lust ensnared another's wife. He stood boldly on the Grecian shore, I told him what I in spirit beheld; the air steaming, redness streaming over, beams glowing, and beneath, murder and death: Troy's judgment-day, fixed firm in rhyme, as frightful as it is notorious to thousands of years. The word of the old one seemed to the scoffer a play, he followed his pleasure and Ilion fell- a giant corse, stiff after long pain, a welcome meal to the eagles of Pindus. Did I not also tell beforehand to Ulysses the craft of Circe,-the horror of the Cyclops? His delay, his people's thoughtlessness, and all things else? Did it profit him? Until the favour of the waves bore him, much tossed about, late enough, to a hospitable shore. Thales. Such behaviour pains the wise man; yet the good always tries it again. A grain of gratitude, whch will content him highly, will outweigh a hundred-weight of ingratitude. For we are not come to pray for any thing trivial; the boy there wishes to come to being wisely. Nereus. Do not spoil my most strange humour! I have got to-day quite a different thing to do. I have called all my daughters hither, the graces of the sea, the Dorides. Neither Olympus nor your soil bears a beautiful form that moves so elegantly. They cast themselves, with the gracefullest movements, from water-dragons on to Neptune's horses, united in the most tender way to the element, so that even the foam seems to raise them. Galatea, now the fairest, comes borne in the play of colours of Venus' shell-chariot-Galatea, who, since Cypris has withdrawn from us, is herself honoured as goddess in Paphos. And therefore the fair one has, for a long while, possessed, as heiress, her templetown and chariot throne. Away! Hate does not become the heart, nor scoff the mouth, in the hour of paternal joy. Away to Proteus! Ask the man of wonders, how one may come to being and change. [He retires towards the sea. Thales. We have gained nothing by this step; if you meet Proteus, he melts away directly. And if you catch him at last, he only tells what astounds and perplexes. You are, once for all, in need of this counsel: let us try and wander on our path. [They withdraw. Sirens (above on the rocks). What see we from the distance Through the wave-dominions gliding? White sails were approaching, The glittering ocean damsels. Nereids and Tritons. What with us we're bearing Will bring to all contentment. From Chelones' giant buckler They're gods whom we are bringing : |