the Theatre nor the
Prologue in Heaven, but, with the exception of some verbal changes,
the opening scene which introduces us to Faust is identical with that
of the poem in its final form. Seated at his desk in a dusty Gothic
chamber, furnished with all the apparatus for scientific experiment,
Faust reviews his past life, and finds that he has been mocked from
the beginning. In every department of boasted knowledge he has made
himself a master, but it has brought satisfaction neither to his
intellect nor his heart, and he has turned to magic in the hope that
it would reveal to him the secrets that would make life worth living.
As in the completed _Faust_, he opens the book of Nostradamus and
finds the signs of the Macrocosmus and of the Earth-Spirit, by both of
which he is baffled in his attempt to enter the _arcana_ of being.

In the _Urfaust_, also, we have, with a few verbal alterations, the
Scene in which Faust communicates to his famulus Wagner his cynical
view of the value of human knowledge. In the _Urfaust_, however, are
lacking the Scenes that follow in the completed poem--Faust's
soliloquy and meditated suicide, the Easter walk, the appearance of
Mephistopheles in the shape of a poodle, and the compact that follows.
In place of these scenes we have but one, in which Mephistopheles,
without previous introduction, is represented as a professor giving
advice to a raw student who has come to consult him as to his future
course of conduct and study. Of all the Scenes in the _Urfaust_ this
is the feeblest, and its immaturity, as well as its evident references
to Goethe's own experiences at Leipzig, suggest that it was the
earliest written. This Scene is followed by another reminiscent of
Leipzig--the Scene in Auerbach's cellar, which mainly differs from
the later form in being written in prose and not in verse--Faust and
not Mephistopheles playing the conjuror in drawing wine from a table.
In the completed poem we are next introduced to the Witches' Kitchen,
where Faust is rejuvenated, and where he sees Margaret's image in a
mirror--the reader being thus prepared for the tragedy that is to
follow. In the _Urfaust_ we pass with no connecting link from the
Scene in Auerbach's Cellar to Faust's meeting with Margaret and the
successive Scenes which depict her self-abandonment to Faust and her
consequent misery and ruin. The content of these Scenes is virtually
the same in both forms--the most important difference being