FAUST, PART SECOND: MR. GURNEY'S TRANSLATION.
Tam translation conveys a very inadequate notion of the original. The progress of the story may be gleaned from it ; and there are few gross mistakes of the author's meaning*; but there is nothing of the precision, the fulness of meaning, the grace, the rhythmic charms of GOETRE'S poem. The translation is the caput mortuum left in a retort after distillation. Among the many excellences of GOETHE'S poetry, not the least prominent are, the unconstrained conciseness which introduces not one unnecessary word, the absence of incongruous epithets, which is the consequence of no word being used without a definite meaning, and the exquisite rhythm of the
• Some rather startling mistakes occur here and there. For example, in the translation, Mephistopheles is made to remind Faust that he commenced the operation of winning land from the sea by sinking "a little grave." In the ongmal it is said, with more probability, to have been done by opening "a little ditch."
verse. The translator seems to have proceeded upon the principle, when the first word that came to hand did not adequately express his author's meaning, to add another, in the hope that they might indicate it between them ; and thus the conciseness of the original has been lost. Out of this attempt to make two wrong words pass for one right word, and also out of the practice of throwing in epi- thets to eke out the requisite number of syllables in a line, have arisen a number of incongruous images, for which the English reader must not blame GOETHE. The " limbs refreshed," which " bud forth anew like new-blown rose," are GURNEY'S own ; and so are the forest-boughs, of which we are told that
" In vapoury sunbeams they have slaked their thirst."
The versification of the translation is equally ill-adapted to con- vey a just idea of the original. It is frequently constrained, and not seldom slovenly. To avoid misapprehension, let us say, that this censure is passed upon the translation viewing it as a counter- part of the original. Viewed in itself, without reference to the original, it indicates considerable intelligence, energy, and elevated sentiment in its author, combined with no mean talent for versifica- tion, to which hurry or indolence has not allowed him to do justice.
Our estimate of the comparative merits of the First and Second Parts of Faust, is perhaps as little in accordance with Mr. GURNEY'S as our estimate of the merits of his translation. He appears to adopt ECKERMANN'S opinion, that "the Second Part of Faust reveals a much richer world than that contained in the First." This may be, but does it reveal this richer world with as much power and distinctness as the First Part did its poorer one ? If not, the Second Part is inferior as a poem. ECKERMANN adds, that "the First Part is almost entirely subjective" ; and that "in the Second Part, on the contrary, there is no subjectivity." This might be a recommendation if both are considered as the revelations of a mystagogue : but they are poems, and must be judged as poems—abstractions, however ingenious, subtile, or profound, do not constitute poetry ; poetry is the creature of the imagination. There is a substantial power about the First Part of Faust—a unity of purpose stamped upon it by the impassioned imagination which shaped it—that masters the mind of the reader. The pas- sionate but baffled aspiring of Faust—the reckless sarcasm of Mephistopheles—the ludicrous commonplace of Wagner—the un- conscious loveliness of innocence and goodness in Margaret—the bustling background, crowded with spirits good and bad, burghers, peasants, soldiers, students, all with their characteristic sayings and doings—present a picture of almost endless variety. The reader is led from image to image, from sentiment to sentiment ; but when he pauses at the close to look back, he finds that all his ideas in this motley assemblage converge to one common point, and prepare and lead him up to the catastrophe. The aim of Mephistopheles, "the abortion of dirt and fire," is to drag down the high mind of Faust to his own moral level. Faust, though a thinker, is not a mere thinker ; the principle of action is strong within him. He has run the round of human science, and is discontented with its narrow range, yet unable to overstep it. His position and habits as a recluse scholar have isolated him : though "young enough to feel," he is "too old to play " ; he would feel awkward in the world of pleasure. Possessing neither rank nor wealth, he cannot attain power. He seeks by the aid of magic to associate himself to the spirits which move and guide the universe, but shrinks from the contact of natures so alien to his own. In the moment of his de- jection and reckless despair, the fiend strikes in, and a compact is formed between them. Mephistopheles binds himself to the service of Faust here ; Faust is to be equally his serf when they meet "above yonder." The vassalage of Mephistopheles is to last till Faust enjoys a pleasure that shall make him wish time for a moment to stand still. This, the formal agreement, however, is the thing least thought of on either side. Faust thinks only of shaking off reflection in unintermitting activity ; Mephistopheles only of hes- tializing the whole mind of Faust. With this view, his first object is to increase, if possible, Faust's morbid contempt of life and his own nature. To that end, he hurries him through the Belial pleasures of a great town. Faust, wrought up to the proper pitch of recklessness, is brought in contact with a good, simple, beautiful girl ; in whom, for his own gratification, he seeks to kindle con- tagious passion, and with success. Lulled by pleasurable emotions, she does not awaken to the apprehension of guilt till her innocence is lost. Her remorse is heightened to anguish by a rapid succession of crimes, all directly arising out of her misconduct,—the death of her mother, to whom she administers poison intending to give her a sleeping-draught, in order that she may admit her lover to her chamber at night ; the death of her brother, slain by Faust while seeking to avenge his sister's shame. The sense of shame and guilt unsettles Margaret's reason ; she kills her child in her frenzy ; is arrested, and condemned to death. Faust has in the mean time been conducted by Mephistopheles to the saturnalia of witches ; the object being to prevent him from reflecting on his crimes while the memory of them was recent and lively, lest he should repent. At the close of the mad revel, he learns the fate of his mistress: and here the inherent goodness of human nature, which the Devil could not conceive, and consequently could not take into his cal- culations, comes for a moment to his aid. He loved Margaret for her unconscious goodness and innocence ; and the image of her suffering calls up not merely sympathy, but remorse for having de- stroyed that moral beauty which had won so upon him. He seeks to deliver her from prison ; but she, with instinctive horror, shrinks from the company of Mephistopheles; she resigns herself to the judgment of God. Heavenly voices proclaim that she is saved :
Mephistopheles exclaims to Faust, "Hither with me!" and dis- appears with him.
Thus closes the first stage in Faust's downward progress. No- thing can be more true than the portraiture of the emotions and events by which men may be led from good to evil, nothing more powerful than the forms and colours in which the poet has embodied them. The fragment was conceived in the fulness of youthful passion, and finished in the ripeness of the man's mature judgment.
In the Second Part of Faust, the unity of conception is pre- served, but the execution is comparatively feeble. Faust recovers from the madness of remorse, by the healing working of time and the impressions of the external world. He has not made amends, he has not repented ; the recollection of his guilt has merely become less vivid and overwhelming. He is in that most perilous con- dition with renewed vigour of action and a consciousness of guilt to which he has become indifferent. In this temper, he tries in turn the gaudy voluptuousness of the court and the refined volup- tuousness of art and literature. Neither can afford satisfaction to his aspirations. He yearns to do something, to have the conscious- ness within himself that he has done something. His is not the juggling desire to persuade men that he has done something, but the real aspiration to do it. He looks to the sea encroaching on the firm land, and feels ambitious to battle against the element, to rescue the solid earth from its power, and render it a fit habitation for men. To this end, he lends the assistance of his art to the Emperor, whom he rescues from rebels, and receives in return a grant of all the land he can reclaim from the sea. In the last act, we find him nearing the accomplishment of this gigantic undertaking. A land has been rescued from the waves, peopled with burghers and peasants. The inhabitants and their ruler are industrious, wealthy, and, like all men in that condi- tion, rather inclined to encroach upon their neighbours. More mer- chandise is brought into the harbours by their bold mariners than comes there by fair barter ; and Faust, in his eagerness to call all he sees his own, reenacts the story of Naboth's-vineyard. Remorse is the consequence—apprehension of the unsubstantial nature of his possessions—care. Still he is not satisfied. In the contempla- tion of a completed work, however, he does experience a momen- tary satisfaction, and wishes that the moment may last. The term of Mephistopheles's vassalage has expired. Faust expires, and the Devil is his own master again. But is Faust to be the Devil's slave in return ? That depends upon a higher will. Faust was not his own to give away. Before he entered into the compact with Mephistopheles, Mephistopheles had entered into a wager with his Creator. Faust was given to Mephistopheles to be tempted, and to be won, if the Devil could alter his nature into the likeness of his own. This Mephistopheles engaged to do; and having failed in doing it, he has not earned the mastery of Faust. Heavenly ministers interfere to prevent Mephistopheles from seizing on the departing soul; which, admitted into the lower heaven of Roman Catholic mythology, and purged of earthly crimes, appears in the image of its Maker, in which it was origi- nally created. Mephistopheles has not earned it ; and the final - decision on his claim, when they meet "above yonder," is left to be imagined.
It will appear from this retrospect that a unity of purpose per- vades both Parts of the poem. The struggle between the source of Good and the author of Evil, announced in the prologue, is kept in 'view to the close. The versification of the Second Part is as full of varied melody as that of the First. The imagery is as intensely and delicately beautiful ; the language is as full of meaning; the sarcasm is as dazzling, the reflection as weighty. The Emperor and his Court—the mutes, choruses, and "walking gentlemen"—. are characterized as briefly and happily as the corresponding per- sonages of Part First. All the accessories, in short, are in the Second Part equal to those of the First. But the actors, the prin- cipal personages, are shadowy and unsubstantial. Faust himself (except in the last act) is scarcely more distinctly portrayed than the subordinate characters ; and Mephistopheles is but the shadow of what he appeared before. The action drags. The second and third acts, in which Faust is supposed to be engaged in the pursuit of the beautiful of sense and of the imagination, are mere spun-out allegories, or rather a succession of riddles. They do not so much indicate truths as wrap them up. They communicate an unreality to this part of the story, which contrasts most unfavourably with the intense reality of the first part. They are a tiresome pro- longation of the mask in the second act, as that is itself a spun-out and more lifeless repetition of the excursion to the Brocken in the first act. In fine, the Second Part of Faust is as a drama inferior to the First, precisely for the reason which leads ECKERMANN and Mr. GURNEY to give it the preference— because it is less " substantive " ; because all the accessories are painfully elaborated, and the principal characters dimly indicated. The effect of contrasting the Second Part of Faust with the First,
is not unlike what would be produced by contrasting a dramatic representation by real actors with an exhibition of Chinese shadows.
The difference may be attributed in part to the different ages at which the two Parts were composed. Passion and the impressions of the external senses are felt most vividly in the earlier part of
life, and are then most forcibly expressed. Generalizations and abstractions are the fruits of more advanced years. But the "im- pulses of soul and sense" are the materials of poetry, abstractions and generalizations of philosophy. Hence, it is in youth and mature manhood that poems are produced, in advanced life philosophical
systems. There is more of a wise estimate of life and its ends in the Second Part of Faust, but less of poetic power. It is nearly the same discrepancy that exists between Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. It is to be regretted that GOETHE so long postponed the completion of his work, because it has occasioned this inequality in the execution of an eminently poetical conception. Faust em- bodies the popular creed of Germany about the middle of last century. Its imagery is in the highest degree national and characteristic. It is valuable for the beautiful, playful, and pro- found passages which abound in it ; and scarcely less valuable for the characteristic individuality of the poem of which they form a part. It is for Germany of the eighteenth century (for its con- ception, if not its completion, belongs to that xra) what the Iliad and Odyssey were for classical Greece, the Niebelungen Lied for Germany of the middle ages, SHAKSPERE'S Dramas and MILTON'S Paradise Lost for England of the times of ELIZABETH and the Commonwealth. It is a poem the imagery of which is charac- teristic of an age and a limited locality, the thoughts of which are " for all time."
We have said that the difference between the First and Second Parts of Faust is attributable to the different periods of life in which they were composed, "in part." The other source of their difference would lead to an estimate of all the writings of GOETHE j a theme too wide to be entered on at present, but which may be taken up when some other of his works fall under our review.
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