FAUST
A monologue from the
play by Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Faust. Trans. Bayard Taylor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1898. |
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- VALENTINE: When I have sat at some carouse,
- Where each to each his brag allows,
- And many a comrade praised me
- His pink of girls right lustily,
- With brimming glass that spilled the toast,
- And elbows planted as in boast:
- I sat in unconcerned repose,
- And heard the swagger as it rose.
- And stroking then my beard, I'd say,
- Smiling, the bumper in my hand:
- "Each well enough in her own way,
- But is there one in all the land
- Like sister Margaret, good as gold,--
- One that to her can a candle hold?"
- Cling! clang! "Here's to her!" went around
- The board: "He speaks the truth!" cried some;
- "In her the flower o' the sex is found!"
- And all the swaggerers were dumb.
- And now!--I could tear my hair with vexation,
- And dash out my brains in desperation!
- With turned-up nose each scamp may face me,
- And, like a bankrupt debtor sitting,
- A chance-dropped word may set me sweating!
- Yet, though I thresh them all together,
- I cannot call them liars.
MORE MONOLOGUES BY GOETHE |
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