V The Old Age of Faust
The second Part of Faust is in the main a description of senile love—Amorous passion of the old man—Humble attitude of the old Faust—Platonic love for Helena—The old Faust’s conception of life—His optimism—The general idea of the play
The first Part of Faust was acclaimed by the world almost as soon as it appeared, but the second Part met a very cold reception. Everyone knows and reads the first Part; the second Part has few readers, and these chiefly poets and dramatists. No doubt it has more effect on the stage than when it is read, but this is due to subsidiary features in which it resembles a fine ballet. There is general agreement that the real meaning of the second Part is obscure, complex and difficult to interpret. Many literary critics have racked their brains in the effort to discover the author’s central idea. When Eckermann, who persuaded Goethe to revise and finish the second Part, asked what was the meaning of some of the scenes in it, Goethe evaded the question and played the sphinx. Thus, with regard to the famous “mothers” Goethe answered, with a mysterious air:—“You have the manuscript; study it, and see what you can make of it” (January 10, 1830). G. H. Lewes, although one of Goethe’s most resolute admirers, admitted the impossibility of grasping the sense of the second Part. The Wanderjahre and the second Part of Faust were arsenals of symbols, and it pleased the old poet to see acute critics labouring to interpret them whilst he was silent and refused to help them. Lewes thought that Goethe, so far from showing the smallest wish to clear up their difficulties, took a pleasure in giving them new problems to puzzle over. Lewes himself thought that the second Part was poor in idea and execution, and admitted that he had failed after repeatedly trying to get a conception of it that would reveal its beauties. In writing about it, he contented himself with giving a summary of it. Now this second Part, although its general lines had been laid down for long, was actually written during several years in the last period of the poet’s life. The fact that it was composed out of the regular sequence of the Acts and Scenes gives us an important clue. The third Act and then the second Part of the fifth Act were put on paper first. Next followed the first Act and part of the second; the classical Walpurgis night was written in 1830, the fourth Act in 1831, and last of all the beginning of the fifth Act.
As the second Part of Faust is a crowded motley, containing many subjects, obviously of minor importance, such as the volcanic theory of the earth and the disquisition on paper-money, the key-note may be found in the portions which were first composed. Now Act III. contains the story of Helena, and the second part of Act V. Faust’s activity for the general welfare.
Setting out from the conception that the works of Goethe reflect the acts and incidents of his own life, I shall try to explain on that basis the meaning of the most obscure of his writings.
I have already stated that love was the stimulus of Goethe’s activity in youth and age; it is the scarlet thread running through his history. There was no difficulty in his using his love for Frederique as material for a play; that a young man should love a young girl was natural enough. The story of an old man enamoured of a young beauty was quite another matter. It was said that one of the reasons that prevented his marriage with Ulrique de Lewetzow was the fear of ridicule (Lewes, op. cit., ii, p. 345), a fear that plays a large part in human affairs. It is easy to understand that the old poet was in a difficulty when he came to write of senile love. Faust’s love for Helena was not that of a supposed old man who became young by doffing his beard and changing his cloak, but of a real old man whom no mystery nor magic was to make young again. And yet old Faust’s love was a true passion, and Goethe has written no finer lines than those describing it.
When the second Part begins, Faust has passed through the terrible crisis of the first Part. Wearied and restless, he seeks a new mode of life.
Life’s pulses now with fresher force awaken
To greet the mild ethereal twilight o’er me;
This night, thou, Earth! hast also stood unshaken,
And now thou breathest, new-refreshed before me,
And now beginnest, all thy gladness granting,
A vigorous resolution to restore me,
To seek that higher life for which I’m panting.211
The invoked image of the most beautiful woman in the history of the world transforms Faust’s desire of love into an overwhelming passion.
Have I still eyes? Deep in my being springs
The fount of Beauty, in a torrent pouring!
A heavenly gain my path of terror brings.
The world was void, and shut to my exploring,—
And, since my priesthood, how hath it been graced!
Enduring ’tis, desirable, firm-based.
And let my breath of being blow to waste,
If I for thee unlearn my sacred duty!
The form, that long erewhile my fancy captured,
That from the magic mirror so enraptured,
Was but a frothy phantom of such beauty!
’Tis Thou, to whom the stir of all my forces,
The essence of my passion’s courses,—
Love, fancy, worship, madness,—here I render.212
In the throes of this passion, Faust is tortured by jealousy when he sees the lovely woman clinging to and kissing a young man. He desires her at all costs.
Am I nothing here? To stead me,
Is not this key still shining in my hand?
Through realms of terror, wastes and waves it led me,
Through solitudes, to where I firmly stand,
Here foothold is! Realities here centre!
The strife with spirits here the mind may venture,
And on its grand, its double lordship enter!
How far she was, and nearer, how divine!
I’ll rescue her and make her doubly mine.
Ye Mothers! Mothers! Crown this wild endeavour!
Who knows her once must hold her, and for ever.213
The disappearance of the beautiful woman so moved Faust that he fainted and fell into a prolonged sleep. As soon as he recovered consciousness he asked: “Where is she?” and set out to seek for her. When he learned that Chiron had already carried off Helena on his back Faust cried out:—
Her didst thou bear?
Chiron: This back she pressed.
Faust: Was I not wild enough, before;
And now such seat, to make me blest!
O, I scarcely dare
To trust my senses!—tell me more!
She is my only Aspiration!
Whence didst thou bear her—to what shore?214
Thou saw’st her once; to-day I saw her beam,
The dream of Beauty, beautiful as Dream!
My soul, my being, now is bound and chained;
I cannot live, unless she be attained.215
Chiron found this attitude of passionate emotion so strange that he advised Faust to take care of his health.
After many wanderings and difficulties Faust again met the woman he coveted and spoke to her as follows:—
What else remains, but that I give to thee
Myself, and all I vainly fancied mine?
Let me, before thy feet, in fealty true,
Thee now acknowledge, Lady, whose approach
Won thee at once possession and the throne!216
This language, so very different from what the same man had formerly addressed to Marguerite, is much more like that of an old lover to a young beauty whom he admires. When Helena invited Faust to sit on the throne beside her, he replied:—
First, kneeling, let the dedication be
Accepted, lofty Lady! Let me kiss
The gracious hand that lifts me to thy side.
Confirm me as co-regent of thy realm,
Whose borders are unknown, and win for thee
Guard, slave and worshipper, and all in one!217
The old man in the throes of a passion so great that he was wholly absorbed by it did not dare to address the beloved woman except in the most humble terms.
Helena made no declaration of love, but was complacent to him, and when Faust suggested: “Now let our throne become a bower unblighted,” Helena agreed to follow him to a secluded and green bower. There they remained alone for some time, cared for by an old servant.
The result of this union was not a child like that to which Marguerite gave birth and afterwards killed. It was a strange and peculiar being; a boy who immediately after his birth began to leap about and to alarm his parents by the activity of his movements.
Although Goethe preserved an obstinate silence when he was asked to explain many of the scenes in the second Part, he had no hesitation in explaining the significance of this astonishing child. “The child was not a human being but an allegory, in which was personified poetry, which is not bound to any time, to any place, or to any person” (Eckermann, December 20, 1829). Struck by the tragic fate of Byron, Goethe made the son of Faust and Helena a symbol of the English poet.
Literary critics, setting out from the categorical explanation of Goethe himself, have declared that the union of Faust and Helena was meant to denote the alliance of romanticism and classicism, a marriage from which was born modern poetry, personified in its highest representative, Byron. This, however, cannot be the idea of Goethe, who himself was far from an enthusiast about classicism and romanticism. “What,” he said, “is all this noise about the classic and the romantic? The essential thing is that a piece of work should be wholly good and serious; then it will also be classic” (Eckermann, October 17, 1828). It is much more probable that Goethe intended poetry to spring from the relations between the old Faust and his adorable companion, relations of a kind to be included in so-called platonic love. Such love inspires the creation of perfect work even in an old poet, when he is stimulated by a beautiful woman.
When Faust and Helena emerged from the grotto with their son, Helena said:—
Helena: Love, in human wise to bless us,
In a noble pair must be;
But divinely to possess us,
It must form a precious Three.
Faust: All we seek has therefore found us;
I am thine and thou art mine!
So we stand as love hath bound us;
Other fortune we resign.218
After the death of her son, Helena abandoned Faust, leaving him her garments:—
Helena: Also in me, alas! an old word proves its truth,
That Bliss and Beauty ne’er enduringly unite.
Torn is the link of Life, no less than that of Love;
So, both lamenting, painfully I say: Farewell!
And cast myself again,—once only,—in thine arms.219
After this crisis the old Faust sought to console himself in the bosom of nature, just as after the terrible catastrophe with Marguerite the contemplation of nature had given him the strength to live. On this occasion he reached the summit of a high mountain from which he watched the changing vapours of a cloud which seemed to him to assume the form of female beauty. But Faust was old, and now saw only memories of love. He cried out:—
Yes! mine eyes not err!—
On sun-illumined pillows beauteously reclined,
Colossal, truly, but a godlike woman-form,
I see! The like of Juno, Leda, Helena,
Majestically lovely, floats before my sight!
Ah! now ’tis broken! Towering broad and formlessly,
It rests along the east like distant icy hills,
And shapes the grand significance of fleeting days.
Yet still there clings a light and delicate band of mist
Around my breast and brow, caressing, cheering me.
Now light, delaying, it soars and higher soars,
And folds together.—Cheats me an ecstatic form,
As early-youthful, long-foregone and highest bliss?
The first glad treasures of my deepest heart break forth;
Aurora’s love, so light of pinion, is its type,
The swiftly-felt, the first, scarce-comprehended glance,
Outshining every treasure, when retained and held.
Like Spiritual Beauty mounts the gracious Form,
Dissolving not, but lifts itself through ether far,
And from my inner being bears the best away.220
This state of mind resembles Goethe’s condition after the rupture with Ulrique.
Love and poetry alike were over for him. None the less his craving for the higher life was not yet weakened. The desire to live was still very strong in the old Faust. But now he no longer as in the days of his youth dreamed of an ideal which could not be attained. When Mephistopheles asked him ironically:—
Then might one guess whereunto thou hast striven?
Boldly-sublime it was, I’m sure.
Since nearer to the moon thy flight was driven,
Would now thy mania that realm secure?
Faust: Not so! This sphere of earthly soil
Still gives us room for lofty doing.
Astounding plans e’en now are brewing:
I feel new strength for bolder toil.221
Such optimistic language, extraordinarily different from Faust’s lamentations in the first Part, becomes still more marked. When he was approaching his centenary he made the following profession of faith:—
I only through the world have flown:
Each appetite I seized as by the hair;
What not sufficed me, forth I let it fare,
And what escaped me, I let go.
I’ve only craved, accomplished my delight,
Then wished a second time, and thus with might
Stormed through my life: at first ’twas grand, completely,
But now it moves most wisely and discreetly.
The sphere of Earth is known enough to me;
The view beyond is barred immutably:
A fool, who there his blinking eyes directeth,
And o’er his clouds of peers a place expecteth!
Firm let him stand, and look around him well!
This World means something to the Capable.
Why needs he through Eternity to wend?
He here acquires what he can apprehend.222
When he had reached the maturity of his wisdom, Faust organised drainage works, the object of which was to increase the area of land that could be utilised:—
To many millions let me furnish soil,
Though not secure, yet free to active toil;
Green, fertile fields.
A land like Paradise here, round about.
Yes! to this thought I hold with firm persistence;
The last result of wisdom stamps it true:
He only earns his freedom and existence,
Who daily conquers them anew.
Thus here, by dangers girt, shall glide away
Of childhood, manhood, age, the vigorous day:
And such a throng I fain would see,
Stand on free soil among a people free!
Then dared I hail the Moment fleeing:
“Ah, still delay—thou art so fair!”
The traces cannot, of mine earthly being,
In æons perish,—they are there!—
In proud fore-feeling of such lofty bliss,
I now enjoy the highest Moment,—this!223
These were the last words of the wise centenarian. It has been said that they contain the quintessence of Goethe’s moral philosophy, and that they preach the sacrifice of the individual for the benefit of society. Lewes, for instance, takes this view, holding that Faust was the exposition of a man who had conquered the vanity of individual aspirations and joys, and had come to the knowledge of the great truth that man must live for man, and can find lasting happiness only in work for the benefit of humanity. For my own part, it seems to me that according to Goethe’s Faust man must dedicate a large part of his life to the complete development of his own individuality, and that it is only in the second half of his life, when he has grown wise by experience and feels satisfied as an individual, that he should use his activity for the good of mankind. It was no part either of the ideas of Goethe or of the nature of his work to preach the sacrifice of individuality.
Goethe was thus absorbed in Faust by the problem of the conflict between certain actions and guiding principles. The misdeeds of the hero in the first Part of his life had to be redeemed. He said to Eckermann that “the key to the salvation of Faust was to be found in the Angels’ Chorus”:—
The noble spirit now is free,
And saved from evil scheming:
Whoe’er aspires unweariedly
Is not beyond redeeming.224
However, that of which he did not speak, and which none the less was most important in Faust and in Goethe himself, is the action of love as a stimulant to artistic creation, and it was probably to this that he referred at the end of his tragedy. The mystical chorus sent up prayers in a religious and erotic ecstasy, and their mysterious song is:—
The Indescribable,
Here it is done;
The Woman-Soul leadeth us
Upward and on!225
Although these verses have been interpreted as love which sacrifices or even love which leads to the grace of God (Bode, p. 149), it is much more probable that it is love for feminine beauty, a love which makes possible the execution of wonderful things. Such an interpretation agrees with the fact that the verses are spoken by a mystic choir which speaks of the indescribable (das Unbeschreibliche) in which we must see the amorous passion of the old man. In such an interpretation the whole of Faust (and especially the second Part) is an eloquent pleading for the importance of love in the higher activity of man, in accordance with the law of human nature, which is a much better justification of Goethe’s conduct than all the arguments of his interpreters and admirers.
I do not agree with the common idea that the two Parts of Faust are two distinct works, but regard them as complementary. In the first Part we see the young pessimist, full of ardour and of desires, ready to make an end of his days and stopping at nothing to satisfy his thirst for love. In the second Part we have a mature old man still loving women, but in a different way, a man who is wise and optimistic, and who, having satiated the wants of his individual life, dedicates the rest of his days to mankind, and who, having reached a century, dies extremely happy, in fact almost exhibiting the instinct of natural death.