OTTO958

Summary

Wagner is in his alchemist’s chamber, a laboratory that is filled with a cumbersome apparatus designed for fantastic purposes. He is at the hearth, excited. In the inmost vial of his apparatus something glows like a living ember. Mephistopheles enters and Wagner explains that he’s making a human being, not by means of procreation but a process he calls crystallization. The vial vibrates, clouds up, and then clears. Success seems certain.

Analysis

Wagner is a representative of Enlightenment science, which holds that the world is knowable only by reason and experiment. But he, too, is disconnected from the world, and troublingly thinks life is reducible to mere matter. Note that his experiment succeeds only when the devil enters, suggesting that evil magic is required to bring life out of inorganic materials.

Summary

Inside the vial is Homunculus, a very small human or humanoid creature, making dainty gestures. It speaks, addressing Wagner as its daddy and stating that it would like to begin working right now. Mephistopheles tells it to demonstrate its talents by interacting with Faust, who is still asleep in the other room. Homunculus hovers over to the magician and magically eavesdrops on his dreams: Helen is there, along with woodland springs and swans. It would kill the dreamer to wake into this moldy, ugly room from such beauty, says Homunculus. He says they should get Faust out of here.

Analysis

Wagner, with the devil’s quiet aid, succeeds in breaking nature’s laws and bringing Homunculus into the world, just as Faust has broken nature’s laws with his rampant criminality. Homunculus is the great Enlightenment achievement, the reduction of the miracle of life into mere mechanical processes. Faust’s dream is both sensual and spiritual, as his love for Gretchen was.

Summary

Homunculus suggests that Faust be taken to Classical Walpurgis Night, which Mephistopheles has never heard of. Homunculus explains that Satan prefers Romantic specters, the North, and the gloominess of sin, but that Classical Walpurgis Night is like the southwest in Greece, full of the creatures of classical myth and sensual pleasures. The devil is skeptical, but intrigued when Homunculus says that Thessalian witches will be there, as Mephistopheles has a lecherous interest in them. So it’s decided: Wagner will stay and attend to his studies while his creature escorts the devil and the still-sleeping Faust to Classical Walpurgis Night. They all exit.

Analysis

As Homunculus intuits, to properly possess Helen, Faust must not remove her from her historical context, but must instead learn to understand Classical Greece and its culture intimately. The only way for him to achieve such an understanding is by going to Classical Walpurgis Night. The devil has no knowledge of, or power over, Greek cultural resources—he knows only the ugly, and Greece promotes the beautiful. Ironically, Wagner’s invention is more human than its inventor in desiring to experience the world.

Summary

It is August 9th, and darkness lies over the Pharsalian Fields, where on this day in 48 BC Julius Caesar won a decisive victory over Pompey the Great during the Great Roman Civil War. The Thessalian witch Erichtho presides, anticipating the night’s celebration. She says that human beings, who are incompetent to rule over themselves, arrogantly seek to impose their wills on others, and power always meets a greater power, as was the case when Caesar defeated Pompey. Fires glow and redden in the Fields. Erichtho sees a shining light fly through the night and she withdraws.

Analysis

The mention of the Great Civil War foreshadows the rebellion soon to break out in the Emperor’s realm. Erichtho understands that human beings are only a small part of the universe, but they still falsely think themselves capable of mastery—and this causes their arrogant, futile wars. This point will be elaborated on later in this scene, in the war between the Pygmies and the cranes.

Summary

From the sky, accompanied by light, enter Homunculus, still in his vial, Mephistopheles, and Faust, who wakes upon landing, refreshed just to be in Greece. The three decide to seek their own adventures and split up. Mephistopheles, desiring erotic fun, meets griffins, who argue that the sounds of words reflect the origins from which their sense derives. He also meets riddling Sphinxes who sense that the devil is ill at ease here in pagan Greece. Soon after, he meets sirens too—part-bird, part-woman creatures that seduce men to their deaths with beautiful song—but their singing is wasted on the devil.

Analysis

The culture of Classical Greece is one where (in Goethe’s mind) reason, passion, and nature all existed in harmony. The Northern Germanic culture that produced Mephistopheles, in contrast, separates these elements, leading to unnaturalness of feeling and ugliness. The devil is indeed out of place here. Note that the griffins’ theory of language contradicts the devil’s—the griffins say that ideas are inherently attached to the words describing them, whereas the devil thinks of words as merely sound.

Summary

Faust enters, newly vigorous because of the strength and grandeur of Greece and its inhabitants, even the ugly ones. He asks the Sphinxes if any have seen Helen, and one suggests he speak to Chiron. The sirens attempt to tempt Faust, but he withdraws to look for Chiron. Mephistopheles insults and threatens the sirens, and begins ogling the Lamiae, who are coquettish creatures, part-snake and part-woman, said to devour children. He exits to speak with them.

Analysis

This is the first time in the drama that Faust has been taken to a world not of the devil’s choosing. It is no surprise, then, that he feels so refreshed. While Mephistopheles pursues sensual pleasure, the only part of Greek culture he understands, Faust and Homunculus seek to transcend themselves.

Summary

Meanwhile, Faust approaches a River God who is surrounded by streams and nymphs. The nymphs invite Faust to rest, and he experiences a beauty very similar to the dream he had while sleeping in his former study earlier, complete with woodland springs and swans.

Analysis

In Greece, dreams of sensuous, ideal beauty become a reality for Faust. The magician also hopes to rediscover Helen here, not as a mere vision but as a reality.

Summary

The centaur Chiron enters, and he invites Faust to mount and ride him. Faust acknowledges Chiron to be a great educator and skilled in medicine, and modest as well. The two discuss Greek heroes like Hercules, before Chiron adds that once Helen rode on his back just as Faust is doing now. Faust is beside himself. Chiron says that Faust may act heroically for a mortal, but in the spirit world his behavior looks like madness. The centaur offers to take him to Manto, a healer. Faust says he doesn’t want to be healed, but it is too late, and they’ve already arrived at the temple where Manto is living, at the foot of Mount Olympus.

Analysis

Chiron has the upper body of a man and the lower body of a horse, and as such portrays the integration of intelligence and sensation—reason and passion. Horseback riding is often associated in Western culture with sexual activity, which is perhaps why Faust is so excited to learn that Helen once rode on Chiron’s back as well. Faust’s behavior looks like madness in the spirit world because Faust has no concept of his microcosmic limitations.

Summary

Chiron introduces Manto to the crazed Faust. Manto says she loves this man who wants what cannot be. Chiron gallops into the distance, and Manto invites Faust to enter with her into Hades, the Greek underworld, so that joy can be his. The two exit, descending.
Manto appreciates Faust’s desire for transcendence and so agrees to help him restore Helen to life.

Summary

Elsewhere, earthquake-tremors rattle and rumble, making the Sphinxes uncomfortable, and a mountain rises up to the earth’s surface. (It is implied that this is caused by Faust rescuing Helen from Hades, which brings about upheaval in nature). Out of nowhere emerges a society of Pygmies, diminutive people, who begin to settle the mountain, building a forge, furnishing their troops with armor and weapons. A Pygmy general orders the destruction of a nearby flock of herons for their feathers, which will be used to plume Pygmy helmets. Just then, from the sky, an army of cranes enters. The cranes are disgusted by the murderous greed of the Pygmies and vow vengeance.

Analysis

The Pygmies, often portrayed as pudgy, exaggeratedly comical dwarfs, have no sense of self-restraint. They act impulsively and self-importantly, not unlike their counterparts in the Emperor’s court. They attempt to violently master the newly arisen mountain, living as though what is in their reach is the whole universe. They also violate nature in their conquest, killing the herons needlessly. The smallness of the scene provides a clear lesson for how humans look in the divine scheme of things.

Summary

Mephistopheles enters the plain beside the mountain. He complains of being uncomfortable with the witches here in Greece, but is nonetheless lured on by the Lamiae. The devil gives chase, only to stop and complain that their tight-laced waists and pained faces tell us how absolutely worthless these coquettish creatures really are, offering only what’s unhealthy.

Analysis

Mephistopheles feels like a stranger in a strange land. He is sexually aroused by the Lamiae, but they are unlike the lustful witches he’s used to, which makes him uncomfortable. He enjoys unhealthy pleasures, but the Lamiae seem resistant to him.

Summary

The Lamiae invite Mephistopheles to take his pick and choose the prettiest among them, but those he picks are revealed to be less than what they seem: a desiccated broomstick, a lizard, and a pine-cone headed wand. The Lamiae then summon bats to confuse and horrify this so-called uninvited witch’s son.

Analysis

Beauty and ugliness in Greece are idealized and ephemeral, and Mephistopheles is only used to taking pleasure in coarse flesh. Rather than sensually enjoying the Lamiae, they turn the tables on him by making him a victim of illusion, which must be rather embarrassing for the devil.

Summary

Mephistopheles shakes himself off, none the wiser, he says, for again pursuing mere sensual illusion. He walks off into some rubble, where he loses his way. A mountain nymph greets him and directs him to Homunculus, who is trying to destroy his vial and achieve a proper existence.

Analysis

Mephistopheles’s pursuit of the Lamiae is echoed later when he attempts to sexually engage angels while they rescue Faust’s soul. The devil is consistently, and humorously, a victim of his lustful disposition.

Summary

Homunculus tells Mephistopheles that he’s on the trail of two pre-Socratic philosophers, Anaxagoras and Thales, from whom he hopes to learn about Nature, real existence, and the wisest course for him to follow. The devil tells Homunculus that he’ll never learn if he doesn’t make his own mistakes, and the two separate.

Analysis

Homunculus’s search for transcendence leads him to fall in with two philosophers. In the play, philosophers are different from scholars in that Anaxagoras and Thales cultivate debate and draw their ideas from nature and experience instead of just reading. Homunculus does learn from these two, despite the devil’s warning.

Summary

Anaxagoras and Thales enter, arguing about the creation of the mountain on which the Pygmies have settled. Anaxagoras says it was created by fierce fire and an outburst of gas, while Thales holds that it was created without violence, by water. Homunculus introduces himself as one eager to evolve. Anaxagoras says that, for living modestly and like a hermit, Homunculus could be king of the creatures on the mountain, but Thales advises against it, saying that a little world produces petty deeds.

Analysis

Anaxagoras believes that land forms violently, while Thales believes that it forms peacefully. This debate becomes metaphorically important later, when Faust attempts to create new land by driving back the sea. Anaxagoras suggests that Homunculus should become politically involved. Thales, a more open-minded thinker, argues that in the microcosm, only little deeds can ever be performed.

Summary

Suddenly Thales observes that a black cloud of cranes is menacing the Pygmies on their mountain, avenging the herons. Anaxagoras, who has always praised the subterranean powers, now begs the moon to relieve the distress that the Pygmies and the other earth-bound creatures suffer. The moon comes near and explodes and flares, raining down rocks on crane and Pygmy alike. Thales urges the bewildered Anaxagoras and Homunculus not to get worked up, and proposes that the three pleasantly celebrate at the sea.

Analysis

Anaxagoras only thinks about the earth, whereas Thales thinks about the whole macrocosm of existence. As a result of his limitations, Anaxagoras takes sides in the political squabble between Pygmies and cranes, earth and sky. His intervention in this conflict ironically only results in future strife, as all self-important political action does.

Summary

Mephistopheles enters, climbing the mountain where Pygmies recently ruled. In a dim cave he sees an astoundingly ugly and monstrous triple shape, the Phorcides, three witch-sisters who share but one eye and one tooth between them, born in darkness and related to all that is nocturnal. The devil approaches and asks for their blessing, flattering them. He asks the sisters to combine their triple essence in two persons so that he can take on the likeness of the third. This is granted, and Mephistopheles stands transformed into the hermaphroditic Phorkyas, a bit embarrassed to be a hermaphrodite. He exits.

Analysis

Mephistopheles is drawn to the Phorcides because they alone in Greek culture embody something he can understand: ugliness. He seeks to transform into one of them so that he can play a part in the events to come, which will center on Helen (a devil, after all, has no role in Classical mythology). He is embarrassed to be a hermaphrodite, perhaps because he sees in his new body a sign of his own self-conflicted nature.

Summary

The moon is at its highest point in the sky. Sirens sit on rocks by the sea, fluting and singing. Thales and Homunculus arrive at the shore, the philosopher urging the creature to speak with the prophetic sea-god Nereus. Homunculus decides to take a chance, and he knocks at the door of Nereus’ cave. Nereus is enraged to hear human voices, for people seek to be gods but never heed his godly advice. He moves away toward the sea to be with his daughters, the nymphs, advising Homunculus to speak with the powerful shape-shifter Proteus instead about changing his form and achieving a real existence.

Analysis

Homunculus is seeking at the Aegean Sea nothing less than life. He wants to be transformed from his unnatural state into a natural one. The sea is an appropriate place to do this, of course, because it is the origin of life itself. Nereus recommends Homunculus speak to Proteus because Proteus is a master of shifting his shape, and this is exactly what Homunculus is looking to do. Proteus represents the power and diversity of life.

Summary

Homunculus and Thales withdraw to speak with Proteus. They lure him over to them by shining the lamp of Homunculus’s vial. The tricky shape-shifter comes in the form of a giant turtle and then, at Thales’ request, transforms into a stately human figure. Proteus advises Homunculus to achieve his real existence by going out into the open sea, where life began.

Analysis

Like Chiron, Proteus integrates the animal and the human, the intellectual and the sensual. The devil earlier told Homunculus that he can only learn from his own mistakes, but because he is an unnatural creature, Homunculus must rely on nature outside of himself for his education in existence.

Summary

Proteus transforms into a dolphin, on whose back Homunculus rides to the open waters. There his lamp illuminates the grace and beauty in the waters. From afar Thales sees Homunculus’ flame burn brighter with passion, till at last Homunculus shatters his vial and his fiery being embraces the waves. Everyone praises the elements.

Analysis

Homunculus goes out into the sea, where he learns the laws of nature to which he must accommodate himself if he is to really live. He lovingly surrenders his unnatural body to the natural waters, becoming one with the whole of nature. This scene foreshadows Faust’s ascension into heaven at the end of the play.

Summary

In the Underworld, Faust and Manto were granted their request that Helen be released from her ghostly afterlife to live again in a timeless moment, though Goethe only implies this. Act III opens in this timeless moment, just after the Trojan War. Helen and captive Trojan women have just returned to the palace of Helen’s husband, Menelaus. Helen does not know why he has summoned her: is it to reign as queen alongside him, or to atone for her having been kidnapped by his enemy Paris? She is the prize of war, but is she also a captive? She ascends to the palace. The Trojan women mourn their captivity.

Analysis

By becoming intimately familiar with the culture of Classical Greece, Faust makes it possible to bring the ideal beauty of Helen back into his world—as no longer a vision but a reality. To live, however, Helen must live in her own historical period, so Faust goes back in time to join her. Act III of Faust opens on a scene set where Homer’s Iliad—Goethe’s source for Helen, Paris, and Menelaus—leaves off. The Greeks have just defeated the Trojans and recovered Helen.

Summary

Inside the palace, Helen encounters empty passageways at first, and then a monstrously strange form: it is Phorkyas-Mephistopheles, the incarnation of the Ugly. The chorus of captive Trojan women sings about being held in terror’s grip at the sight of this hideousness. After maliciously reminding Helen of all the lovers she’s had in her life, Phorkyas-Mephistopheles insinuates that Menelaus intends to evilly murder his wife with an axe and hang all of the captive Trojan women from a palace rafter. All are terrified by this possibility.

Analysis

Faust, as a modern man, doesn’t realize that that he cannot possess the ideally beautiful Helen until she has been corrupted by evil—for Helen would never submit to Faust otherwise. It is to this end that Mephistopheles disguises himself as Phorkyas. Disguised thus, the devil speaks of good and evil, the language of Christianity. This confuses and frightens Helen, as such distinctions are culturally foreign to her.

Summary

Phorkyas-Mephistopheles sees only one way for Helen and her fellow captives to save themselves: in the hills north of Sparta a great, powerful, and magnanimous lord (Faust) has led a horde of Germanic barbarians in building an invincible fortress. The monster promises to instantly transport the women there if Helen gives the word to do so.

Analysis

Having made Helen spiritually insecure, Phorkyas-Mephistopheles convinces her to flee her murderous husband and escape to Faust’s medieval fortress. The devil might be lying about Menelaus’s murderous intentions, of course.

Summary

Although Helen senses that Phorkyas-Mephistopheles is a hostile spirit who will change good to bad, she gives the word, and the monster transports all of the women to Faust’s fortress. After mists spread and obscure their vision, Helen and the Trojan women find themselves suddenly in a prison-like pit or courtyard. They fear they’re as much captive now as they were before.

Analysis

Like Gretchen, Helen recognizes Mephistopheles’s hostility, and the devil does change good to bad by poisoning Greek culture with ideas of good and evil. Nonetheless, Helen chooses survival, even knowing that this choice will limit her power and freedom.

Summary

Helen and the captive Trojan women find themselves in a courtyard faced with ornate, fantastic medieval buildings. Phorkyas-Mephistopheles has vanished. Preceded by pages and squires, Faust appears dressed as a medieval lord, with a man shackled at his side: a watchman who failed to see Helen coming. Faust would have the man executed, but instead requests that Helen decide the watchman’s fate. After learning that her beauty overwhelmed the watchman, causing him to fail at his duties, she asks that he be freed, and her request is granted. But she also doubts that her effect on the people around her is altogether positive.

Analysis

In Faust’s castle, Greek culture—as represented by Helen and her companions—is now held prisoner. The devil delivers Helen to Faust to break through the magician’s dissatisfaction with life, hoping that he will become blissfully satisfied and so lose his soul. Helen chooses mercy for the watchman, an act that Faust does not learn from, for later as a ruler he will be very severe with his subjects. Helen is not the free woman Chiron described earlier, but now doubtful of herself after speaking with the devil, and spiritually shaken.

Summary

Faust announces that he also is overwhelmed by Helen’s beauty, so much so that he acknowledges Helen as his Lady, whose coming has won her both state and throne at once. She is showered with chests of riches, and offered all that Faust’s castle hides in its depths. Helen asks Faust to come to her side. She tells him that she has seen and heard so many marvelous things, and that she is amazed. She begins completing Faust’s sentences, and, deeply in love now, grants him her hand. The two are overwhelmed by joy.

Analysis

Faust’s courtship of Helen is very much like his courtship of Gretchen. He showers both women with treasures, and in both cases is an impostor pretending to be someone he’s not. Helen is an opportunist—if she must be a prisoner, she will understand her new world and its language, and she will have power even here.

Summary

Phorkyas-Mephistopheles enters and announces that Menelaus with his legions is approaching Faust’s castle to attack. Faust hurls abuses at the devil and declares the danger to be just an empty threat. Martial music sounds from within, and Faust’s troops, urged by their commander, march out to drive Menelaus back to the sea. Faust’s Princes form a circle about their lord, who gives them special commands and instructions, rewarding them generously with land for their loyal service. He then takes his seat by Helen, promising her an earthly paradise and freedom.

Analysis

After stealing Helen from the culture of Classical Greece, Faust is suddenly besieged, just as Troy was. His spiritual experience leads to political strife. The devil is attempting to interrupt the harmony of Faust and Helen’s marriage, but Faust easily succeeds in managing Menelaus’s threat. He grandly gives away lands that are not actually his to give away. The devil is excluded from Faust’s love for Helen, a love that will live or die on its own merits.

Summary

Faust and Helen stand in a shaded grove surrounded by cliffs, obscured from view. Phorkyas-Mephistopheles tells the chorus members gathered around that Faust and Helen have together just conceived and brought into the world a brilliant boy (later identified as Euphorion), a true genius who not only can already walk and talk, but who can bounce from mountaintop to mountaintop, his head bathed in light. The chorus says that this story and the ancient gods in general have no meaning for them. Nothing can affect their hearts that does not have its source in feeling.

Analysis

The marriage of Faust and Helen, of the Romantic desire for transcendence and ideal beauty, gives rise to Euphorion, the incarnation of Poetry. Euphorion is also modeled after Lord Byron, a Romantic English poet Goethe admired, who died fighting in the Greek War for Independence. Mephistopheles is misunderstood by the Classical chorus because he speaks abstractly, whereas they only speak out of deep feeling.

Summary

Faust, Helen, and Euphorion enter. Euphorion says that to see him dance makes his parents’ hearts dance, and his parents praise the perfection of their union and their love. The chorus is profoundly touched. Euphorion announces that he aspires to go high up in the sky, but his parents warn against it and so instead the brilliant boy dances with the chorus. Then Euphorion pretends to be a hunter, while the members of the chorus delightedly pretend to be the does he is to conquer.

Analysis

Like his father, Euphorion is ambitious. He aspires to reach the sky and to transcend his earthly nature. He is not a fully healthy child in this, presumably because Mephistopheles made Helen spiritually troubled before she gave birth to the brilliant boy. Euphorion now hunts on earth, but soon he will want to pursue his ideal into the clouds.

Summary

Euphorion singles out the wildest girl in the chorus and catches her, only for her to burst into flames and rise out of sight into the sky. Euphorion leaps up the cliffs to her, even as his parents and the chorus fear that he will fall. He is not content to dream but wants an ever-broader view of the world. He wants to wage war and win. Death, he cries, is an imperative—though he has faith that wings will sustain him.

Analysis

As Faust pursues ideal innocence and beauty in the figures of Gretchen and Helen, so Euphorion pursues the radiant girl in the chorus. His knowledge that he will die no matter what makes the boy reckless, as does his false faith in his wings.

Summary

Euphorion flings himself into the air, radiant, sustained a moment by his garments, but then he falls, like the mythical Icarus whose wax wings melted in the sun. His body falls at the feet of Helen and Faust and disappears. All that remains of him onstage are his garments. The boy’s bereaved parents grieve that their brief joy has ended in merciless pain. From below, Euphorion calls for his mother not to leave him in darkness alone.

Analysis

The imperfect marriage of Faust and Helen ends in tragedy. Unlike Homunculus, who successfully transcends his vial by observing nature’s limits, Euphorion attempts to escapes nature’s limits and dies in the attempt. Faust’s Romantic culture has failed to harmoniously unite with that of Classical Greece.

Summary

The chorus laments the beautiful youth’s death. Helen tells her beloved Faust that beauty and happiness can form no lasting union. She embraces him one more time before delivering herself to the Underworld, so that she might be with her fallen son once more. After she vanishes, Faust is left standing with nothing but Helen’s robes and veil in his arms. Phorkyas-Mephistopheles instructs Faust to cling tightly to these garments so that he can soar aloft on them. Indeed, the garments then dissolve into clouds, envelop Faust, and lift him up, carrying him away.

Analysis

Faust earlier abandoned the innocent Gretchen, and now he is abandoned by the beautiful Helen. He is now doomed, it would seem, to unhappiness. Helen returns to the Underworld, once again a ghostly image in Faust’s culture, to dwell among the failed dreams of Romantic poetry. Helen’s garments are still imbued with the Classical spirit of harmony, though, and so the artificial textiles can turn into a natural cloud.

Summary

One of Helen’s servants resolves to join her Queen in the Underworld, and accuses those who do not join her of having no high purpose, belonging merely to the physical world. This servant exits, and the chorus women who remain celebrate nature, accompanied by satyrs. Wine is consumed, and passions grow wild.

Analysis

After the high ideals of Classical Greek culture depart from the world, what’s left is the merely sensual: drunkenness and base sexual passion. These are the empty remnants of a great heritage.

Summary

The curtain falls on the scene. In the proscenium, Phorkyas rises to a gigantic height, pushes back his mask and veil, and stands revealed to the audience as Mephistopheles, as though prepared to deliver an epilogue.

Analysis

The devil has succeeded in preventing Faust from achieving union with a high ideal Faust had longed for. Perhaps now the magician will satisfy himself with idle pleasure and so lose his soul to the devil per their contract.

Summary

Faust, riding his cloud, floats onto a rugged, serrated peak. The cloud separates from him and shapes a figure in the sky resembling Helen. Just then two huge boots plump down on the peak. Mephistopheles steps down from them, and then the boots stride away without him. The devil says that mountains were formed by the sulfuric fumes coughed up by devils in hell, suggesting the topsy-turvy values of the world, and also explaining how devils came to be the princes of the air. He cites the Bible in presenting his account. Faust, for his part, claims that Nature made the globe complete and perfect.

Analysis

Faust’s transcendent quest to grasp an ideal of beauty has failed once and for all. His final vision of Helen is ephemeral and blows away. He must now turn his mind away from transcendence for good, and learn to make his life meaningful based on earthly endeavors. The devil anticipates this, attempting to persuade Faust that the world is not valuable enough to spend one’s time worrying about it. Faust disagrees.

Summary

Mephistopheles turns to the question of whether Faust has seen anything he’s desired in the world. The devil suspects not, but Faust contradicts him. Faust wants to create new land, narrowing the limits of the ocean’s expanse and forcing the waters back into themselves (this project alludes to the Biblical account of the third day of creation, when God separated water from land). Easy, the devil says.

Analysis

Faust doesn’t want to give up the rest of his life to mindless pleasures. He wants to create a real kingdom for himself, unlike his bogus kingdom in Greece. He has learned an important lesson: that human endeavors must unfold within nature’s limits. We cannot be gods, only earthly rulers.

Summary

Just then they hear the sound of distant drums and warlike music. Mephistopheles explains that the Emperor is at war. The false riches Faust created for him by printing paper money led the Emperor to attempt governing and leading a life of pleasure at the same time, which led to anarchy and feuds and rebellion. The devil proposes that he and Faust restore peace by assisting the Emperor put down the rebels.

Analysis

Faust is now focusing on earthly goals, but his record as a politician is rather bleak—his policy of printing paper money led the Emperor into a life of pleasure-seeking, which is incompatible with virtuous governance. To rule, one must often sacrifice one’s own pleasures to duty.

Summary

Faust and Mephistopheles cross to the next lower range of mountains and view the armies in the valley below. The devil says that with his and Faust’s aid the Emperor’s victory is certain, for the empty make-believe of magic provides the stratagems that win all battles. He suggests, moreover, that by aiding the Emperor Faust will get the boundless shore he seeks for his project of driving back the ocean.

Analysis

Mephistopheles suggests that all war is deception and illusion, an empty exercise in the grand scheme of things. As such, war is a human practice the devil is an expert in.

Summary

Faust orders Mephistopheles to win the battle for the Emperor, but the devil says the magician must be the general in charge today. Though Faust knows nothing of warfare, the devil assures him that he has created a war-council: the Three Mighty Men, like those who assisted the Biblical hero David defeat the Philistines. These three—one young and eager for bloodshed, one mature and eager for treasure, one old and conservative—enter, and together with Faust and Mephistopheles descend to a lower level of the mountains.

Analysis

Mephistopheles is entangling Faust into a scheme that he hopes will lead the man into idle pleasures and sloth. As the Emperor devotes his life to bodily pleasure, so too (the devil hopes) will Faust. The Three Mighty men are vicious and brutal, not the ideal instruments for a man like Faust, who wants to create a just kingdom.

Summary

The Emperor meets with his military officers in the imperial tent on a foothill. They discuss the strength of their army. Two scouts, however, enter with bad news: many loyal to the Emperor are too afraid to act on his behalf, and an Anti-Emperor has organized the many rebels under his banner. The Emperor resolves to reassert his identity as a noble leader by challenging the Anti-Emperor to single combat.

Analysis

The Anti-Emperor is probably no better than the Emperor, or so we might assume based on Goethe’s harsh treatment of politicians in general. Human government passes from one fool’s hands to another’s. The Emperor, though, with rare nobility, offers to fight the Anti-Emperor one-on-one.

Summary

Just then, an armored Faust enters with his Three Mighty Men. He offers the Emperor the help and strength of magic in his war, but, as grateful as the Emperor is, he asserts that he must rely on his own hand to put down the Anti-Emperor. However, when messengers return informing the Emperor that his challenge has been received by the rebels with scorn and ridicule, he orders his army to advance and permits the Three Mighty Men to march among his troops.

Analysis

Perhaps the Emperor offers to fight the Anti-Emperor because he knows that he himself is personally responsible for throwing his realm into chaos. It would be unjust to make others die on his behalf. This is a noble perception on the Emperor’s part, but it comes much too late, and might even be seen as mere posturing, an attempt to save his reputation.

Summary

Assisted by the Three Mighty Men and empty suits of armor that Mephistopheles animated, the Emperor’s army fights the rebels. However, after two ravens conference with the devil, he informs the Emperor that his army is losing—and so the Emperor reluctantly grants Mephistopheles command in his stead. Mephistopheles orders water spirits to create the illusion of a flood, which causes the enemy to flee, and he also blinds enemy soldiers with alternating dense shrouds of blackness and blinding flashes of light. The suits of armor regain their vigor and fight as though living once more. Soon the Emperor’s army achieves victory.

Analysis

The devil deceives the Emperor about the state of the war, which was always securely in the Emperor’s favor, so that he himself can wield absolute power in determining the course of battle. Mephistopheles has not enjoyed such pure destructive power yet in the play, and he savors it. The ensuing carnage is hideous to behold, a vision of what the world would be like if the devil were in charge. Of course, the play suggests that the devil often does come to be in charge of politicians.

Summary

Two of Faust’s Three Mighty Men enter the Anti-Emperor’s tent, which is piled up with wealth. They try to take little chests full of gold, but even these are all absurdly heavy. Several of the Emperor’s bodyguards enter and denounce the two Mighty Men as thieves, who in turn take what they can and clear out. The guards wonder why they didn’t attack the two Mighty Men, and wonder also why these two were somewhat ghost-like.

Analysis

The abundance of gold in the Anti-Emperor’s tent both suggests how abysmal the Emperor himself is at creating prosperity for his people (all his money is wasted on wine, we might think) and also how leaders selfishly hoard wealth for themselves. The Emperor’s guards seem unaware that the war was won through magic.

Summary

The Emperor enters with four princes. He is overjoyed that his army has won, regardless of the means. He gives high titles to the princes—Arch-Marshal, Arch-Cupbearer, and the like—and he grants them, along with the Chancellor-Archbishop (who enters during these proceedings), fine estates and authority subordinate only to his own. The four secular princes exit.

Analysis

The Emperor misguidedly promotes all the advisers who celebrated when the paper money was fatally circulated. These men have bad judgment, and yet they only continue to rise in power. No real recovery for the Emperor’s realm seems likely.

Summary

The Chancellor-Archbishop remains. He is gravely concerned that the Emperor conspired with Satan to achieve his magical victory, and worries that the Pope will consequently destroy the Emperor’s sinful realm. The Emperor says he will do anything to repent, and the Archbishop tells him to build a great cathedral and also to give gold to the Church, as well as donating building materials and laborers. The Emperor consents, and in his capacity as Chancellor his subordinate tells him that he’ll settle the details.

Analysis

The Chancellor-Archbishop speaks as though he were a pious critic of the Emperor’s Satanic alliance, but he is actually interested in consolidating his power and that of the Church as much as possible, going so far as to take advantage of a bloody crisis to do so. This is unchristian conduct in the extreme.

Summary

Finally, the Chancellor-Archbishop reminds the Emperor that he granted Faust the Empire’s coasts to rule as a feudal lord. The Archbishop demands for the Church the tithes, rents, dues, and taxes from this land as well. The Emperor responds with annoyance that this land doesn’t even exist yet, since it’s only high sea still. The Chancellor-Archbishop nonetheless insists, then exits. Alone, the Emperor sighs that, at this rate, he’ll soon have signed his entire realm away.

Analysis

It is ironic that to secure power over his kingdom, the Emperor gives most of it away and subjects what remains to exorbitant taxation. He sighs that he has signed his realm away, overlooking the much more important fact that he has totally failed the people he governs.