---
ga: 44
title: "The whole scene, third Act"
words: 2073
---
# The whole scene, third Act

MARY:  
I bring you the child,  
It needs a word  
From your mouth.

BENEDICTUS:  
My child, from now on  
You shall come to me every eveningAnd receive from me  
The word that shall guide you  
Into the realm of sleep.  
Is that what you want?

CHILD:  
I want it so very much.

BENEDICTUS:  
For this evening,  
Fill your mind,  
Until sleep envelops you,  
With the power of the word:  
The forces of light carry me  
To the house of the spirit.  
(Child exits.)

MARY:  
And now that this child's destiny  
Is to flow into the future  
In the shadow of your fatherly grace,  
It is also time that, questioning,  
That soul approaches the guide,  
Who has become his mother,  
If not through blood ties,  
Then through the powers of fate.  
You showed me the way  
That I should lead him  
From that day on  
When I found him  
Left at my door  
By his unknown mother.  
And miraculously  
The rules by which I  
Was allowed to guide him for years  
In accordance with your wisdom.  
The powers of his soul  
And also of his body,  
Which lay dormant in his being,  
Came to light.  
It seemed as if your instruction  
Had sprung from those realms  
In which the child's soul dwelt  
Before it built its bodily shell.  
As adults, we saw human hope,  
Which shone brighter with each new day.  
As adults, we saw the hope of humanity,  
Which shone brighter with each new day.  
You know how difficult  
It was for me to win  
The child's affection at first.  
He grew up in my care,  
And it was nothing more than habit  
That first bound his soul to mine.  
It stood by me, feeling  
That I provided it with the means  
For the growth of body and soul.  
So it was that your wisdom  
Worked only for itself  
And my mind worked no differently  
Than as the instrument of wisdom.  
The time came when  
The child's heart awoke  
To love for its nurse.  
An external cause brought  
The change in this life.  
The seer entered our circle.  
The child liked to be around her,  
And many beautiful words  
It learned under her spell.  
Then there came a moment  
When enthusiasm seized  
This wondrous woman,  
And the child could see  
The light glimmering in her eyes.  
Shaken to the core  
The young soul felt itself.  
She came to me with her fear.  
From that hour on  
The child was devoted to me  
With warm love.  
But since conscious feeling  
And not just instinct  
Received the gifts of life from me.  
And the warmer the young heart  
Trembled when his gaze  
Met mine,  
Your words of wisdom lost  
Their rightful fruitfulness.  
Much that had previously matured in the child  
Was bound to wither away.  
And so it seemed that this being  
Was repeating what had proved so terrible In the friend.  
I seem more and more  
To be a dark mystery to myself.  
You cannot defend me Against the anxious question of life:  
Why do I ruin friends and children  
You cannot defend me  
From the anxious question of life:  
Why do I corrupt my friend and child,  
When lovingly I attempt  
To perform on them  
The work that only spiritual wisdom  
Allows the heart to recognize as good.  
You have often pointed me  
To that lofty truth,  
That appearances spread  
On the surface of our lives.  
But I must have clarity,  
If I am to bear this fate,  
Which is cruel and does evil.

BENEDICTUS:  
Here, in this circle,  
A knot is forming  
From the threads  
Which karma spins  
In the becoming of worlds.  
O friend, your sufferings  
Are not only the consequence of your own fate.  
When I had climbed the step  
To be able to live  
In those primeval realms,  
Where high spirits weave  
The web of worldly existence,  
A divine being came to me,  
Who was to descend  
Into the realms of Earth and dwell  
In the flesh of a human being.  
At this turning point in time  
Our human karma demands this.  
A great step in the course of the world  
Is only possible when gods  
Endure the fate of humans.  
The eyes of the spirit can unfold,  
Which germinate in human souls,  
Only when a god has planted the seed  
In a human body.  
But I was given the task  
Of finding that human being  
Who in his own being  
Was to be the bearer of God.  
So I was to connect  
The deeds of heaven  
With a human being.  
My spiritual eye searched.  
It fell upon you.  
Your life had prepared you  
To be a mediator of salvation.  
In many lives you had  
Acquired receptivity  
For all that is great,  
That live in human hearts.  
The noble essence of beauty,  
The highest demand of virtue,  
You carried as a spiritual inheritance  
In your tender soul.  
And what your eternal self  
Brought into existence through birth,  
Became ripe fruit  
In your young years.  
You did not ascend too early  
To steep spiritual heights,  
And so you did not develop  
The urge to enter the realm of spirits,  
Before you had fully grasped  
The innocent joys of the senses.  
Your soul learned to recognize  
Earthly love and earthly wrath,  
When all spiritual inquiry  
Was still far from your thoughts.  
Enjoying beautiful nature,  
Picking the noble fruits of the arts  
Was the richness of your life.  
You were allowed to laugh cheerfully,  
As only children laugh,  
Who had never been touched  
By the shadows of life.  
You learned to recognize human happiness  
And to lament suffering  
In times  
When even your ancestors  
Had no inkling to question  
The origin of happiness and suffering.  
A soul of such disposition  
Enters earthly existence  
As the ripe fruit of many lives,  
And its childishness is blossom,  
Not root of the spiritual being.  
Only such a soul could  
Be chosen by me  
As the bearer of the god Whom fate  
Has determined To be the active force  
For our human world.  
And now recognize why  
Your being transforms into its opposite image  
If it wants to  
Pour itself into other beings.  
The spirit within you works  
In everything that can ripen in humans  
As fruit  
For the realm of eternity.  
It will kill many things  
In the realm of temporal existence.  
But victims of its death,  
They will scatter seeds  
In their deepest essence  
Of the higher life that  
Blooms from lowly dying.

MARIA:  
So that is how it is with me.  
You solve the dark riddle of my life.  
And I sense clarity  
In that twilight  
Which at this hour  
Seizes my soul.  
Yes, clarity, I feel it,  
But I curse it, this clarity,  
And I curse you,  
Who shaped me into a tool  
For your wild arts.  
Until this hour,  
I have never doubted  
Your spiritual greatness,  
But this one moment is enough  
To topple in my heart  
The throne I built for you,  
And as creatures of hell,  
I recognize your gods.  
I must seduce others,  
Because you seduced me first.  
I want to flee from you  
To distant places, where  
The voice that was once  
The herald of salvation to me  
Will not die away.  
I know that there are distant places  
Where my ears cannot hear  
The false doctrine of God,  
Which your lips proclaim —  
But these distant places must be so close  
That my curses can still reach you.  
The warmth of my own blood,  
You have stolen it from me,  
To give to your false god,  
What must have been mine.  
Oh, this warmth of blood,  
It will burn you  
At the root of your hellish arts.  
I had to believe your deception,  
And so that I could,  
You created me yourself  
As a deception.  
I saw how the powers of my being  
So often changed into their opposite;  
So change what love  
My heart turned to you,  
Now into wild hatred's fire.  
I hate Satan's powers.  
But I will strive  
That love for his ferocity  
Awakens in me,  
And I will make a pact  
With the most hideous of spirits,  
To find such fire  
That will burn you  
With all your hellish arts.  
I fly... ah — —  
(Falls down.)

BENEDICTUS:  
My son, you too are approaching  
Decision and fulfillment.  
In this hour,  
The voice and also the feeling die within you.  
You saw your dear friend  
Flee from us with wild words.  
The soul soars in the heights;  
Only the mortal image of your friend  
Spoke at that moment.  
This shell had to be abandoned  
By the noble being herself,  
So that the adversary  
Who wants to destroy me  
The work that is incumbent upon me  
For the future of mankind  
For the future of humanity  
And also for this human being.  
And if I could hold  
The curses and imprecations,  
Yes, even those she spoke,  
As realities  
Even for just a few seconds,  
All my wisdom  
Would immediately vanish into nothingness.  
And that curse,  
Which she has placed upon me,  
Seems to you like a dagger  
That pierces your own heart.  
You must choose.  
In this hour, you may  
Follow her and bind yourself  
To delusion and delusional beings.  
I must not prevent you.  
I cannot prevent you.  
But know that she who just cursed  
Was not the beloved being  
To whom you have been attached until now.  
The terrible hour had to come for her too,  
When the shell of her being  
Was penetrated  
By Lucifer's deceit,  
And his dark power  
And his dark power,  
She cursed in the noblest human body.  
The friend who was given  
To you in her,  
In this hour  
Left the shell of the gods.  
She should recognize  
What humans can become,  
Even if the fullest measure of nobility  
Lives in them,  
The self leaves the shell.  
They become Lucifer's prey.  
But this noble human being  
The essence of the self  
Will never see it disappear.  
But in order to find completely  
The essence of God within,  
She had to see all the depths  
Into which a human being  
Is capable of plunging. —  
The God within them will live  
In the most sublime depths of the soul,  
Since the eyes of their spirit  
Recognize in the body itself  
The dark guardian of hell.  
And should they be spared  
The cruelly dark moment,  
They would never have been allowed  
To ascend to the heights of the gods  
And bring the blessings of the gods  
Down to the valley of the earth.  
But you, my son,  
Have seen what is temporal  
In that being To whom all your love shines  
Fall into darkness.  
Because gods spoke to you  
From their mouths, you had to  
Hear the prince of hell himself  
From this voice as well.  
You will now surely find  
The way to her true nature.  
What flowed from her in light  
Became darkness within you.  
So let it flow, too,  
What as darkness from her  
Has just revealed itself to you,  
And it will turn back  
The ruin she brought you,  
Into blessing, and what of death  
She brought to your soul,  
Will be life to you,  
When you see it shining back  
At her death —.  
Here  
In this circle  
A knot is formed from the threads  
That karma spins  
In the becoming of the world.  
Do you have the strength in this hour  
To seek your friend  
Through the deception of her counter-image,  
Will keep your self  
In your own being.  
Ignite your full power  
With words that sound to you  
Through my mouth  
From the highest heights of the spirit.  
They will carry your soul  
To the free heights of the gods:  
The essence of light, it shines  
Through the vastness of space.  
The blessing of love, it warms  
The succession of times.  
And messengers of the spirit  
Marry the light  
Of love's soulfulness.  
And longing must grant  
The favor of the noble two;  
It draws forth  
Power and strength;  
And wisdom unites with them  
And in many ways  
Allows the image of man to be formed.

O spirits, speak  
Into this man's dead soul  
And awaken it from its nothingness  
To a new zest for life.

His thoughts rise  
Into primordial depths —  
What he thought as shadows,  
What he experienced as phantoms,  
Floats away from the world of forms,  
From whose abundance  
People thinking  
Dream in shadows —  
From whose abundance  
People seeing  
Live in phantoms.