sed out by the readers.]

[Footnote 45: "_Doubt_ is the only rhyme for devil," in German.]

[Footnote 46: The French translator, Stapfer, assigns as the probable
reason why this scene alone, of the whole drama, should have been left in
prose, "that it might not be said that Faust wanted any one of the
possible forms of style."]

[Footnote 47: Literally the _raven-stone_.]

[Footnote 48: The _blood-seat_, in allusion to the old German custom of
tying a woman, who was to be beheaded, into a wooden chair.]

* * * * *

P. S. There is a passage on page 84, the speech of Faust, ending with the
lines:--

Show me the fruit that, ere it's plucked, will rot,
And trees from which new green is daily peeping,

which seems to have puzzled or misled so much, not only English
translators, but even German critics, that the present translator has
concluded, for once, to depart from his usual course, and play the
commentator, by giving his idea of Goethe's meaning, which is this: Faust
admits that the devil has all the different kinds of Sodom-apples which he
has just enumerated, gold that melts away in the hand, glory that vanishes
like a meteor, and pleasure that perishes in the possession. But all these
torments are too insipid for Faust's morbid and mad hankering after the
luxury of spiritual pain. Show me, he says, the fruit that rots _before_
one can pluck it, and [a still stronger expression of his diseased craving
for agony] trees that fade so quickly as to be every day just putting
forth new green, only to tantalize one with perpetual promise and
perpetual disappointment.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Faust, by Goethe

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAUST ***

***** This file should be named 14460.txt or 14460.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/4/4/6/14460/

Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Bidwell and the PG Online
Distributed Proofreading Team

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying