Goethe’s Faust
Faust:
You pedant need it black on white?
Are man and a man’s word indeed new to your sight?
Is not my spoken word sufficient warrant
When it commits my life eternally? . . .
A parchment, signed and sealed, is an abhorrent
Specter that haunts us, and it makes us fret.
The word dies when we seize the pen,
And wax and leather lord it then.
What, evil spirit, do you ask?
Paper or parchment, stone or brass?
Should I use chisel, style, or quill?
It is completely up to you.
Mephisto:
Why get so hot and overdo
Your rhetoric? Why must you shrill?
Use any sheet, it is the same;
And with a drop of blood you sign your name.
Attest: Faust
