Gossip!  For wares like these the time’s gone by,
What’s done is past! what’s past is done! 
With novelties your booth supply;
Us novelties attract alone.

FAUST

May this wild scene my senses spare! 
This, may in truth be called a fair!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Upward the eddying concourse throng;
Thinking to push, thyself art push’d along.

FAUST

Who’s that, pray?

MEPHISTOPHELES

 Mark her well!  That’s Lilith.

FAUST

 Who?

MEPHISTOPHELES

Adam’s first wife.  Of her rich locks beware! 
That charm in which she’s parallel’d by few,
When in its toils a youth she doth ensnare
He will not soon escape, I promise you.

FAUST

There sit a pair, the old one with the young;
Already they have bravely danced and sprung!

MEPHISTOPHELES

Here there is no repose today. 
Another dance begins; we’ll join it, come away!

FAUST (dancing with the young one)

 Once a fair vision came to me;
 Therein I saw an apple-tree,
 Two beauteous apples charmed mine eyes;
 I climb’d forthwith to reach the prize.

THE FAIR ONE

 Apples still fondly ye desire,
 From paradise it hath been so. 
 Feelings of joy my breast inspire
 That such too in my garden grow.

MEPHISTOPHELES (with the old one)

 Once a weird vision came to me;
 Therein I saw a rifted tree. 
 It had a.....;
 But as it was it pleased me too.

THE OLD ONE

 I beg most humbly to salute
 The gallant with the cloven foot! 
 Let him ... have ready here,
 If he a ... does not fear.

PROCTOPHANTASMIST

Accursed mob!  How dare ye thus to meet? 
Have I not shown and demonstrated too,
That ghosts stand not on ordinary feet? 
Yet here ye dance, as other mortals do!

THE FAIR ONE (dancing)

Then at our ball, what doth he here?

FAUST (dancing)

Oh!  He must everywhere appear. 
He must adjudge, when others dance;
If on each step his say’s not said,
So is that step as good as never made. 
He’s most annoyed, so soon as we advance;
If ye would circle in one narrow round. 
As he in his old mill, then doubtless he
Your dancing would approve,—­especially
If ye forthwith salute him with respect profound!

PROCTOPHANTASMIST