/lit/ - Literature

By God, you liar and thief. My soul you shall not have, unless you grant me this fief.
Doubles!

Wagner

Ah! When a man’s so penned in his study, 530
And scarcely sees the world on holidays,
And barely through the glass, and far off then,
How can he lead men, through persuading them?

Faust

You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never
Rises from the soul, and sways 535
The heart of every single hearer,
With deepest power, in simple ways.
You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,
Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,
Blowing on a miserable fire, 540
Made from your heap of dying ash.
Let apes and children praise your art,
If their admiration’s to your taste,
But you’ll never speak from heart to heart,
Unless it rises up from your heart’s space. 545


Wagner

Still, lecturing brings orators success:
I feel that I am far behind the rest.

Faust

Seek to profit honestly!
Don’t be an empty tinkling fool!
Understanding, and true clarity, 550
Express themselves without art’s rule!
And if you mean what you say,
Why hunt for words, anyway?
Yes, your speech, that glitters so,
Where you gather scraps for Man, 555
Is dead as the mist-filled winds that blow
Through the dried-up leaves of autumn!

Wagner

Oh, God! Art is long
And life is short.
Often the studies that I’m working on 560
Make me anxious, in my head and heart.
How hard it is to command the means
By which a man attains the very source!
Before a man has travelled half his course,
The wretched devil has to die it seems.