Friedrich Maximilian Klinger

“ This is the most painful punishment of all to a philosopher like thee. Drag him away, I repeat; torture him. Seize that Pope, and plunge him into the hottest pool; for their equals are not to be found in hell.
After their departure, Satan said to himself, smiling:
“When men wish to represent any thing abominable, they paint the Devil: let us, therefore, in revenge, when we wish to represent any thing infamous, depict man; and philosophers, popes, priests, conquerors, ministers, and authors, shall serve us as models.” ”

“ Truth, simplicity, and religion will be trodden under foot, for the sake of writing a book. Yes, yes, book-writing will become a universal employment, by which fools and men of genius will alike seek fame and emolument; caring very little whether they confuse the heads of their fellow-creatures, and hurl firebrands into the hearts of the innocent. The heaven, the earth, the secret strength of nature, the dark causes of her phenomena, the power which rules the stars and bowls the comets through space,—every thing visible and invisible,—they will wish to handle, measure, and dive into. ”

“ Faustus, thou art as great as man can be.
Faustus. Masquerading fiend, return into hell; must thou, too, deceive us by flattery?
Devil. Faustus, I am a spirit formed of flaming light; I saw the monstrous worlds arise out of nothing: thou art of dust, and of yesterday. Do I flatter thee?
p. 46Faustus. And yet must thou serve me if I command.
Devil. For that I expect the approbation of hell, besides a reward; neither man nor devil will work for nothing.
Faustus. What reward dost thou expect?
Devil. To have that which animates thee; that which would make thee my equal if it had power. ”

“ No one else has the power; and no one else, if he had such power, would dare to knock so loudly against the iron portals. Up! up! a man like him is worth a thousand of the scoundrels who come down hither every day by rote.” Then, turning to the devil Leviathan, his favourite, he added, “I choose thee, the subtlest seducer, the deadliest hater of the human race, to ascend and purchase for me, by thy dangerous services, the soul of this desperado. Only thou canst chain, satiate, and then, drive to despair, his craving heart and his proud and restless spirit. ”

“ I am thine, or another’s: I yet stand where no devil can penetrate. Faustus is yet his own master.
Devil. Thou wast so a few minutes since. But thy lot was cast when thou enteredst this circle. Whoever has looked me in the face turns back in vain; and thus I leave thee.
Faustus. Thou shalt speak, and remove the dark covering which conceals from me the world of spirits. I will know the destination of man, and the cause of moral evil in the world; I will know wherefore virtue suffers, and vice is rewarded; I will know why we must purchase a moment’s enjoyment by years of agony and sorrow. ”

“ In hell there is very little respect paid to these gloomy islanders, who would suck the marrow from all the carcasses in the universe, if they thought to find gold in the bones. They boast of their morality, and despise all other nations; yet if you were to place what you call virtue in one scale, and vice, with twopence, in the other, they would forget their morality, and pocket the money. They talk of their honour and integrity, but never enter into a treaty but with a firm resolution of breaking it as soon as a farthing is to be gained by so doing. ”

“ We wretches are without choice, without will; we are the slaves of evil and of imperious necessity; constrained and condemned to all eternity to wish nothing but evil, we are the instruments of revenge and punishment upon you. Ye are kings of the creation, free beings, masters of your destiny, which ye fix yourselves; masters of the future, which only depends upon your actions. It is on account of these prerogatives that we detest you, and rejoice when, by your follies, your impatience, and your crimes, you cease to be masters of yourselves. ”

“ I tell thee, p. 40the man after our own heart is born under that district of heaven. He is one of those who, endued by nature with hot and furious passions, rebel against all the old-established customs of society. When such a spirit tears its way through these cobwebs, it resembles a flame, which, by its own fury, speedily consumes the materials which feed its lustre. He is one of those visionary philosophers who strive to seize, through imagination, what is denied to cold understanding; and who, if they are unsuccessful, laugh at all knowledge, and make pleasure and enjoyment their gods. ”

“ Devil. Oh, my situation was much more difficult than yours, for you are assisted by the report of the dream, which already fills the whole city. Suppose, now, you were to let a man, dressed like the Dominican, slip into Clara’s cell, and the signs of the sinful deed were afterwards to appear, would not the whole world say that it was a trick of the arch foe of mankind? Let Satan have the credit of it, and do you remain sitting in your chair, adorned with that dignity which Heaven has been pleased to grant you. ”

“ Madman! in obedience to thy command, I burnt the castle of the fierce Wildgrave, with all its inhabitants, with his wife and his infant. What crime had they committed? It was a moment of delight to me. If the infant was consumed on the breast of the mother, it was thy work. If the Wildgrave attacked a neighbouring nobleman as the cause of the conflagration, set fire to his house, and ignominiously whipped him, it was thy work. ”

“ I promised to show thee men in their nakedness, in order to cure thee of the prejudices thou hadst imbibed from thy books, so that they might not disturb thee in the enjoyment of life. But when thou hast rid thyself of all these human frailties, and hast discovered that the pretended guidance of the Eternal One whom thou hast renounced on my account, and before whose sight thou mayst commit, undeterred, the most horrible atrocities, is only a delusion, perhaps thy soul will then have sufficient strength to understand these horrible mysteries ”

“ He was on the point of leaving this abode of monotonous horror, when the Devil whispered him to remain until the next day, and he would see a singular spectacle. The king had heard that a hermit lived in Calabria, who was honoured as a saint through all Sicily. This fool had, from his fourteenth to his fortieth year, dwelt upon a naked rock, where, exposed to the rains and tempests of heaven, he martyred his body by stripes and fasting, and refused his mind all cultivation. But, the rays of sanctity concealing his stupidity, he soon saw the prince and the peasant at his feet. ”

“ Faustus. I were well off then, truly; yet, adept as thou art, thou knowest little of men, if thou doubtest the strength of one who has set himself free from the bonds which nature has drawn so tightly round our hearts. How gentle did they appear to me once, when the eye of my youth clothed men and the world in the pure colours of morning! ’Tis gone; dark is my horizon; I stand on the gloomy verge of eternity, and have broken through the laws which keep the human race in harmony.
Devil. What madness is this, Faustus? Harmony! does she rule the confused dance of life? ”

“ I disclosed to the tyrant, who affects virtue, the wickedness of his favourite, and he found him only so much the more worthy of his friendship and favour. If this be the order and harmony of the moral world, then there is harmony and order in the brain of the poor lunatic, who is suffered to fall unprotected and unrevenged.”
He continued, while the Devil listened and laughed: “But allowing that man is obliged, by necessity, to do every thing he does, then must his deeds and his actions be ascribed to the Supreme Being, and they thereby cease to be punishable. ”

“ Why should an innocent, happy family be crushed along with those monsters? To satisfy thy blind vengeance, I was forced to bury them beneath stones and falling timbers. Judge and avenger at the same time, thou hadst not thought of this. Consider now all the consequences of thy delirium and thy folly; cast thine eyes along the whole chain, extending to the remotest posterity, and then sink beneath the terrible survey. Did I not once tell thee that man is much more rash in his decisions and in his vengeance, than the Devil is in the accomplishment of wickedness? ”

“ Devil. Who can boast that he has forced the fiend to do good? However, let this thought inflate thy bosom. Faustus, step out of the circle!
Faustus. It is not yet time.
Devil. Dost thou fear me? I repeat, thou shalt spend the moments allotted to thee according to thy own pleasure: yes, Faustus, I will fill for thee the intoxicating cup of enjoyment, as it has never been filled for any other mortal. Thy nerves shall wear away before thou hast emptied it. Count the sands of the shore, and thence thou mayst guess the number of joys that I will strew before thee. ”