Mephisto

Mephistopheles (also Mephistophilus, Mephistophilis, Mephostopheles, Mephisto and variants) is a name given to a devil or demon in the Faust legend.

In the Faust legend

MEPHISTO_PHILES in the 1527 Praxis Magia Faustiana attributed to Faust.The name is associated with the Faust legend of a scholar who wagered his soul against the devil being able to make Faust wish to live, even for a moment, based on the historical Johann Georg Faust. The name appears in the late 16th century Faust chapbooks. In the 1725 version which was read by Goethe, Mephostophiles is a devil in the form of a greyfriar summoned by Faust in a wood outside Wittenberg. The name Mephistophiles already appears in the 1527 Praxis Magia Faustiana, printed in Passau, alongside pseudo-Hebrew text. It is best explained as a purposedly obscure pseudo-Greek or pseudo-Hebrew formation of Renaissance magic.

From the chapbook, the name enters Faustian literature and is also used by authors from Marlowe down to Goethe. In the 1616 edition of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Mephostophiles became Mephistophilus.

Burton (1992, p. 61) speculates on Greek elements that may have played a part in the coining of the name, including Greek mē "not", phōs "light" and philos "lover", suggesting "not a lover of light" in parody of lucifer. Variations in mephost- may be due to attraction by Latin mephitis "pungent", and Goethe's Mephistopheles may due to Hebrew tophel "liar". Hamlin (2001, p. 9), however, suggests that the name is derived from the Hebrew 'Mephistoph,' meaning "destroyer of the good."

In a passage from Marlowe's Faustus, Mephostophiles says:

'Why this is hell, nor am I out of it. Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells In being deprived of everlasting bliss?'

Mephistopheles is also a name for the devil himself. Mephistopheles in later treatments of the Faust material frequently figures as a title character: in Meyer Lutz' Mephistopheles, or Faust and Marguerite (1855), Arrigo Boito's Mefistofele (1868), Klaus Mann's Mephisto, and Franz Liszt's Mephisto Waltzes.

Outside the Faust legend

See also: List of cultural references to Mephistopheles Shakespeare mentions "Mephistophilus" in the Merry Wives of Windsor (Act1, Sc1, line 64), and by the 17th century, the name had begun to lead an existence independent of the Faust legend. Burton (1992, p. 61) finds, "That the name is a purely modern invention of uncertain origins makes it an elegant symbol of the modern Devil with his many novel and diverse forms."

References

Burton, Jeffrey Russell, Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World, Ithaca, NY: Cornell (1986); 1990 reprint: ISBN 978-0801497186

Hamlin, Cyrus, et al, "Faust", New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company (2001): ISBN 978-0-393-97282-8