FAUST.

So! this is it. This is the poodle's seed,
A travelling scholar. I must laugh indeed.

MEPHISTOPHeles.

Most learned Sir, accept my salutation,
You've had me in a proper perspiration.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

The question seems but vain

For one who holds the world in such disdain,
And who, avoiding all mere outward show,
The inmost depths of Nature strives to guage.

FAUST.

But when of such as you the name we know,
The nature we can commonly presage ;

The name declares it: we no more require,
Who hear you called Flygod, Destroyer, Liar ;*
Enough, who art thou then?

* Baalzebub, or Beelzebub, the master of flies; Abaddon. (Heb.), Apollyon (Gr.), destroyer or exterminator; Diabolus, the calumniator.

Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable;

Doing or suffering; but of this be sure,

MEPHISTOPHEles.

A portion of that power,

That ever Evil wills, Good ever to create.

FAUST.

Well, well, but how shall I this problem penetrate?

MEPHISTOPHELES.

The Spirit am I that denies evermore,

And that with justice, all creation

Richly deserves annihilation;

Better it were that nought had ever been.

'Tis thus all things, that are by your word sin,

Destruction, in short evil, meant,

Are my peculiar element.

FAUST.

Thou callest thyself a part, yet standest whole by me.

To do ought good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,

As being the contrary to His high will
Whom we resist. If then His providence,
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to prevent that end,
And out of good still find the means of evil,
Which ofttimes may succeed.-Paradise Lost.

MEPHISTOPHEles.

The unpretending truth is all I tell to thee.
Though that small world of folly, Man, conceit
Himself in general, a whole complete,

Part of the part am I, that at the first was all;*

Part of the darkness that brought forth the light, That proud light that doth now in question call, The ancient rank and space of mother Night.

* Chaos and his dark pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful deep; with him enthroned,

Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The consort of his reign; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreadful name
Of Demagorgon.

If some other place,

From your dominions won, the etherial king
Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound: direct my course :
Directed, no mean recompense it brings
To your behoof, if I that region lost,
All usurpation thence expelled, reduce
To her original darkness and your sway,
(Which is my present journey,) and once more
Erect the standard there of ancient Night,
Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge.

Paradise Lost.

Yet it succeeds not, for howe'er it strives,
It cleaves to bodies as if bound by gyves;
It streams from bodies, bodies beautifies,
To stop its course, a body doth suffice;
And so I hope, its time, expired at last,
To ruin with all bodies will be cast.

FAUST.

Aye, now I see your worthy trade;
Wanting the power to destroy wholesale,
You now begin your dealings to retail.

MEPHISTOPHELEs.

And truly I have little progress made;
This something, this rough clumsy world, that ever
Itself opposes unto nothingness,

In spite of every obstinate endeavour,

All I have tried has been without success:

Nox, one of the most ancient of the heathen deities, daughter of Chaos, who gave birth to the Day and the Night from her amour with her brother Erebus, son of Darkness and Chaos, a rude and shapeless mass of matter, which the poets supposed existed before the formation of the world. Hesiod first asserted it, and it is probably obscurely drawn from Moses, being copied from the annals of Sanchoniathon, whose age is fixed as antecedent to the siege of Troy.

Waves, tempests, earthquakes, fire,—all in vain,
Still land and sea all undisturbed remain,

And the infernal stock, of men and beasts the brood,
I never can the better get :

How many have I buried, yet

Still ever circulates a young fresh blood.
It is enough to drive one to despair.
In water, on the earth, and in the air,
Still ever thousand germs themselves unfold,
In Dry and Moist, in Hot and Cold;*
Had I not specially fire retained,†

Nought private to myself would have remained.

FAUST.

So then, against the Unreposing
Creation's salutary might,

Thou thy cold devil's fist opposing,
Clenchest it in thy fruitless spite.

* For Hot, Cold, Moist and Dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring

Their embryon atoms.-Paradise Lost.

+ Elbis, the evil spirit of the Mahometans, signifying Perdition or Refractory, was so called because he would not bow the knee to Adam, alleging, that being composed of the superior Element FIRE, he ought not to be required to worship Earth.