Thomasius, think well what thou dost know. What o'er this threshold lives is all unknown; Yet dost thou know quite well all I must ask, Before thou canst set foot within this realm. Thou must first part with many of those powers Which thou hast won when in thine earthly frame. Out of them all thou canst alone retain That which by efforts, pure and spiritual, Thou didst achieve, and which thou hast kept pure. But this thou hast thyself cast off from thee And given as his own to Ahriman. What still is thine hath been by Lucifer Destroyed for use within the spirit-world. This too upon the threshold I must take If thou wouldst really pass this portal by. So nought remains to thee; a lifeless life Must be thy lot within the spirit-realms. THOMASIUS: Yet I shall be and Theodora find. She'll be for me the source of fullest light, Which ever hath so richly been revealed Unto her soul, apart from lore of Earth. That is enough. And thou wilt set thyself In vain against me, even if the power Which I myself have won upon the Earth Should not fulfil the estimate which thou Didst form of my good spirit long ago. MARIA (to the Guardian): Thou knowest well, who hast been guardian Of this realm's threshold since the world began What beings need to cross the threshold o'er Who to thy kind and to thy time belong: So too with men, who meet thee at this gate If they do come alone, and cannot show That they have done true spirit-good they must Go back again from here to life on Earth. But this man here hath been allowed to bring That other soul unto thy threshold now Whom fate hath bound so closely with his own. Thou hast been ordered by high spirit powers To keep back many men from here, who would Try to approach the gateway of this realm And would but bring destruction on themselves If they should dare to pass the threshold o'er. Yet thou may'st throw it open unto those Who through their inmost personality Are in the spirit-realms inclined to love, And to such love can cling as they press through, As hath been foreordained them by the gods Before to battle Lucifer came forth. Standing before his throne my heart hath vowed With strictest oath, that in Earth's future times It would so serve this love that Lucifer, When he gives knowledge of it to men's souls Can do no harm. And those who listen well For the revealing of this love divine With earnest minds, as once they strove to grasp The knowledge given forth by Lucifer, They must inevitably find themselves. Johannes in his earthly form doth now No longer listen to my voice, as once, When in an earthly life long since passed by I was enabled to reveal to him That which had been entrusted to myself In holy temples in Hibernia