Here are a few lines from his first act, with Smiling Dave's additions and corrections to adapt this masterpiece to modern times. Goethe gets the italics; I get the plain font.
I've studied now Philosophy
And Jurisprudence, Medicine,—
And even, alas! Theology,—
From end to end, with labor keen;
And here, poor fool! with all my lore
I stand, no wiser than before.
[I have no wisdom, just a diploma,
And a mocking leer from Lisa Mona.
I can't get a job with all that junk
I leave school as I entered, a lazy punk.]
These ten years long, with many woes,
I've led my scholars by the nose,—
And see, that nothing can be known!
That knowledge cuts me to the bone.
[My parents tear their hair from woes
As I blow cocaine up through my nose.
And see, they'll in the poorhouse lie
Cause I majored in Philosophy.]
I'm cleverer, true, than those fops of teachers,
Doctors and Magisters, Scribes and Preachers;
[But they are the ones who have the jobs
And I'll have to look for banks to rob.]
Neither scruples nor doubts come now to smite me,
Nor Hell nor Devil can longer affright me.
For this, all pleasure am I foregoing;
I do not pretend to aught worth knowing,
I do not pretend I could be a teacher
To help or convert a fellow-creature.
[All that nothing cost me two hundred grand
And leaves me begging with an outstretched hand.]
Then, too, I've neither lands nor gold,
Nor the world's least pomp or honor hold—
No dog would endure such a curst existence!
Wherefore, from
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