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THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS. - Christopher Marlowe, The Works of Christopher Marlowe vol. 1 [1590]

Edition used:

The Works of Christopher Marlowe, ed. A.H. Bullen (London: John C. Nimmo, 1885). Vol. 1.

Part of: The Works of Christopher Marlowe, 3 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS.

Enter CHORUS.

Chorus.

  • Not marching now in fields of Trasymene,
  • Where Mars did mate1 the Carthaginians;
  • Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,
  • In Courts of Kings where state is overturned;
  • Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,
  • Intends our Muse to vaunt2 his3 heavenly verse:
  • Only this, gentlemen,—we must perform
  • The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad;
  • To patient judgments we appeal our plaud,
  • And speak for Faustus in his infancy.

    10

  • Now is he born, his parents base of stock,
  • In Germany, within a town called Rhodes;1
  • Of riper years to Wertenberg2 he went,
  • Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up.
  • So soon he profits in Divinity,
  • The3 fruitful plot of scholarism graced,
  • That shortly he was graced with Doctor's name,
  • Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes
  • In heavenly matters of Theology;
  • Till swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit,

    20

  • His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
  • And, melting, Heavens conspired his overthrow;
  • For, falling to a devilish exercise,
  • And glutted now4 with learning's golden gifts,
  • He surfeits upon cursèd Necromancy.
  • Nothing so sweet as Magic is to him,
  • Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss.
  • And this the Man that in his Study sits!
  • [Exit.

SCENE I.

FAUSTUS discovered in his Study.

Faust.

  • Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess;
  • Having commenced be a Divine in show,
  • Yet level at the end of every Art,
  • And live and die in Aristotle's works.
  • Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravished me,
  • Bene disserere est finis logices.
  • Is to dispute well Logic's chiefest end?
  • Affords this Art no greater miracle?
  • Then read no more, thou hast attained the end;

    10

  • A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit:
  • Bid on cat me on1 farewell, Galen come,
  • Seeing Ubi desinit Philosophus ibi incipit Medicus;
  • Be a physician, Faustus, heap up gold,
  • And be eternised for some wondrous cure.
  • Summum bonum medicines sanitas,
  • The end of physic is our body's health.
  • Why, Faustus, hast thou not attained that end?
  • Is not thy common talk found2 Aphorisms?3
  • Are not thy bills4 hung up as monuments,

    20

  • Whereby whole cities have escaped the Plague,
  • And thousand desperate maladies been eased?
  • Yet art thou still but Faustus and a man.
  • Couldst1 thou make man to live eternally,
  • Or, being dead, raise them to life again,
  • Then this profession were to be esteemed.
  • Physic, farewell.—Where is Justinian?
  • Si una eademque res legatur2 duobus, alter rem, alter valorem ret, &c.
  • A pretty 3 case of paltry legacies!
  • Exhareditare filium non potest pater nisi, &f.4

    30

  • Such is the subject of the Institute
  • And universal Body of the Law.5
  • This6 study fits a mercenary drudge,
  • Who aims at nothing but external trash;
  • Too servile7 and illiberal for me.
  • When all is done Divinity is best;
  • Jerome's Bible, Faustus, view it well.
  • Stipendium peccati mors est. Ha! Stipendium, &c.
  • The reward of sin is death. That's hard.

    39

  • Si peccasse negamus fallimur et nulla est in nobis veritas. If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us. Why then, belike we must sin, and so consequently die;
  • Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
  • What doctrine call you this, Che sera sera,1
  • What will be shall be? Divinity, adieu!
  • These metaphysics of Magicians
  • And necromantic books are heavenly:
  • Lines, circles, scenes,2
  • “And sooner may a gulling weather-spie
  • By drawing forth heaven's sceanes tell certainly.”
  • (Later eds. of Donne read “scheme.”) letters, and characters:
  • Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.

    50

  • O what a world of profit and delight,
  • Of power, of honour, of omnipotence
  • Is promised to the studious artisan!
  • All things that move between the quiet poles
  • Shall be at my command: Emperors and Kings
  • Are but obeyed in their several provinces,
  • Nor can they raise the wind or rend the clouds;
  • But his dominion that exceeds in this
  • Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man.
  • A sound Magician is a mighty god:

    60

  • Here, Faustus, tire3 thy brains to gain a Deity.
  • Wagner!4
  • Wagner, commend,” &c.
  • Enter wagner.
  • Commend me to my dearest friends,
  • The German Valdes and Cornelius;
  • Request them earnestly to visit me.

Wag.

  • I will, sir.
  • [Exit.

Faust.

  • Their conference will be a greater help to me Than all my labours, plod I ne'er so fast
  • Enter Good Angel and Evil Angel.

G. Ang.

  • O Faustus! lay that damned book aside,
  • And gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul,
  • And heap God's heavy wrath upon thy head.

    70

  • Read, read the Scriptures: that is blasphemy.

E. Ang.

  • Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art,
  • Wherein all Nature's treasure1 is contained:
  • Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,
  • Lord and commander of these elements.
  • [Exeunt Angels.

Faust.

  • How am I glutted with conceit of this!
  • Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,
  • Resolve me of all ambiguities,
  • Perform what desperate enterprise I will?
  • I'll have them fly to India for gold,

    80

  • Ransack the Ocean for orient pearl,
  • And search all corners of the new-found world
  • For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;
  • I'll have them read me strange Philosophy
  • And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;
  • I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,2
  • And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg,
  • I'll have them fill the public schools with silk,1
  • Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad;
  • I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,

    90

  • And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,
  • And reign sole King of all our Provinces;
  • Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war
  • Than was the fiery keel2 at Antwerp's bridge,
  • I'll make my servile spirits to invent.
  • Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS.
  • Come, German Valdes and Cornelius,
  • And make me blest with your sage conference.
  • Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,
  • Know that your words have won me at the last
  • To practise Magic and concealed arts:

    100

  • Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy
  • That will receive no object, for my head
  • But ruminates on necromantic skill.
  • Philosophy is odious and obscure,
  • Both Law and Physic are for petty wits;
  • Divinity1 is basest of the three,
  • Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vild:
  • 'Tis Magic, Magic that hath ravished me.
  • Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt;
  • And I that have with concise syllogisms2

    110

  • Gravelled the pastors of the German Church,
  • And made the flowering pride of Wertenberg
  • Swarm to my problems, as the infernal spirits
  • On sweet Musaeus3 when he came to hell,
  • Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,
  • Whose shadows4 made all Europe honour him.

Vald.

  • Faustus, these books, thy wit, and our experience
  • Shall make all nations to canonise us.
  • As Indian Moors obey their Spanish Lords,
  • So shall the spirits1 of every element

    120

  • Be always serviceable to us three;
  • Like lions shall they guard us when we please;
  • Like Almain ratters2 with their horsemen's staves
  • Or Lapland giants,3 trotting by our sides;
  • Sometimes like women or unwedded maids,
  • Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
  • Than have the4 white breasts of the Queen of love:
  • From5 Venice shall they drag huge argosies,
  • And from America the golden fleece
  • That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury;

    130

  • If learned Faustus will be resolute.

Faust.

  • Valdes, as resolute am I in this As thou to live; therefore object it not.

Corn.

  • The miracles that Magic will perform Will make thee vow to study nothing else.
  • He that is grounded in Astrology,
  • Enriched with Tongues, well seen in6 Minerals,
  • Hath all the principles Magic doth require.
  • Then doubt not, Faustus, but to be renowm'd,
  • And more frequented for this mystery

    140

  • Than heretofore the Delphian Oracle.
  • The spirits tell me they can dry the sea,
  • And fetch the treasure of all foreign wrecks,
  • Ay, all the wealth that our forefathers hid
  • Within the massy entrails of the earth;
  • Then tell me, Fatistus, what shall we three want?

Faust.

  • Nothing, Cornelius! O this cheers my soul!
  • Come show me some demonstrations magical,
  • That I may conjure in some bushy 1 grove,
  • And have these joys in full possession.

    150

Vald.

  • Then haste thee to some solitary grove
  • And bear wise Bacon's and Albertus'2 works,
  • The Hebrew Psalter and New Testament;
  • And whatsoever else is requisite
  • We will inform thee ere our conference cease.

Corn.

  • Valdes, first let him know the words of art;
  • And then, all other ceremonies learned,
  • Faustus may try his cunning by himself.

Voald.

  • First I'll instruct thee in the rudiments,
  • And then wilt thou be perfecter than I.

    160

Faust.

  • Then come and dine with me, and after meat,
  • We'll canvas every quiddity thereof;
  • For ere I sleep I'll try what I can do:
  • This night I'll conjure tho' I die therefore.
  • [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Enter two Scholars.1

Ist Schol.

  • I wonder what's become of Faustus that was
  • wont to make our schools ring with sicprobo f

2nd Schol.

  • That shall we know, for see here comes his boy.
  • Enter WAGNER.

Ist Schol.

  • How now, sirrah! Where's thy master?

Wag.

  • God in heaven knows.

2nd Schol.

  • Why, dost not thou know?

Wag.

  • Yes, I know. But that follows not.

Ist Schol.

  • Go to, sirrah! leave your jesting, and tell us where he is.

    10

Wag.

  • That follows not necessary by force of argument, that you, being licentiates, should stand upon:2 therefore acknowledge your error and be attentive.

2nd Schol.3

  • Why, didst thou not say thou knewest?

Wag.

  • Have you any witness on't?

Ist Schol.

  • Yes, sirrah, I heard you.

Wag.

  • Ask my fellows if I be a thief.

2nd Schol.

  • Well, you will not tell us?

Wag.

  • Yes, sir, I will tell you; yet if you were not dunces, you would never ask me such a question; for

    [20

    is not he corpus naturale? and is not that mobile? then wherefore should you ask me such a question? But that I am by nature phlegmatic, slow to wrath, and prone to lechery (to love, I would say), it were not for you to come within forty feet of the place of execution, although I do not doubt to see you both hanged the next sessions. Thus having triumphed over you, I will set my countenance like a Precisian, and begin to speak thus:—Truly, my dear brethren, my master is within at dinner, with Valdes and Cornelius, as this wine, if it could speak, [30 would1 inform your worships; and so the Lord bless you, preserve you, and keep you, my dear brethren, my dear brethren.2
  • [Exit.

1st Schol.3

  • Nay, then, I fear he is fallen into that damned Art, for which they two are infamous through the world.

2nd Schol.

  • Were he a stranger, and not allied to me, yet should I grieve for him. But come, let us go and inform the Rector, and see if he by his grave counsel can reclaim him.

    40

1st Schol.

  • O, but I fear me nothing can reclaim him.

2nd Schol.

  • Yet let us try what we can do.
  • [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Enter FAUSTUS to conjure.1

Faust.

  • Now2
  • that the gloomy shadow of the earth
  • Longing to view Orion's drizzling look,
  • Leaps from the antarctic world unto the sky,
  • And dims the welkin with her pitchy breath,
  • Faustus, begin thine incantations,
  • And try if devils will obey thy hest,
  • Seeing thou hast prayed and sacrificed to them.
  • Within this circle is Jehovah's name,
  • Forward and backward anagrammatised,3
  • The breviated4 names of holy saints,

    10

  • Figures of every adjunct to the Heavens,
  • And characters of signs and erring5
  • “Sir, I was fnar and clerk, and all myself: None mourned but night, nor funeral tapers bore But trring stars.” stars,
  • By which the spirits are enforced to rise:
  • Then fear not, Faustus, but be resolute,
  • And try the uttermost magic can perform.
  • Sint tnihi Dei Acherontis propitii 1 Vakat numen triplex Jehovas Jgnei, aerii, aquatani spiritus, salvete! Orientis princcps Behebub, inferni ardcntis monarcha, et Demo-gorgon, propitiamus vos, ut apparent el surgat Mephistophilis, quod turneraris;1
  • perjehovam Gehennam, etcon [20 :ecratam aquam quam nunc spargo, signumque crucis quod nunc facio, et per vota nostra, ipst nunc surgat nobis dicatus2Mephistophilis t
  • Enter MEPHISTOPHILIS.
  • I charge thee to return and change thy shape;
  • Thou art too ugly to attend on me.
  • Go, and return an old Franciscan friar;
  • That holy shape becomes a devil best
  • [Exit MEPHISTOPHILIS.
  • I see there's virtue in my heavenly words;
  • Who would not be proficient in this art?
  • How pliant is this Mephistophilis,

    30

  • Full of obedience and humility!
  • Such is the force of Magic and my spells:
  • No[w],3
  • Faustus, thou art conjuror laureat,
  • That can'st command great Mephistophilis:
  • Quin regis Mephistophilis fratris imagine.
  • Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS like a Franciscan Friar.1

Meph.

  • Now, Faustus, what would'st thou have me [to] do?

Faust.

  • I charge thee wait upon me whilst I live, To do whatever Faustus shall command, Be it to make the moon 2 drop from her sphere, Or the ocean to overwhelm the world.

    40

Meph.

  • I am a servant to great Lucifer, And may not follow thee without his leave: No more than he commands must we perform.

Faust.

  • Did not he charge thee to appear to me?

Meph.

  • No, I came hither3 of mine own accord.

Faust.

  • Did not my conjuring speeches raise thee? Speak.

Meph.

  • That was the cause, but jtlper acddens;1
  • For when we hear one rack the name of God, Abjure the Scriptures and his Saviour Christ, We fly in hope to get his glorious soul;

    50

  • Nor will we come, unless he use such means Whereby he is in danger to be damned:
  • Therefore the shortest cut for conjuring
  • Is stoutly to abjure the Trinity,1
  • And pray devoutly to the Prince of Hell.

Faust.

  • So Faustus hath Already done; and holds this principle,
  • There is no Chief but only Belzebub,
  • To whom Faustus doth dedicate himself.
  • This word damnation terrifies not him,

    60

  • For he confounds Hell in Elysium;
  • His ghost be with the old philosophers!
  • But, leaving these vain trifles of men's souls,
  • Tell me what is that Lucifer thy lord?

Meph.

  • Arch-regent and commander of all spirits.

Faust.

  • Was not that Lucifer an Angel once?

Meph.

  • Yes, Faustus, and most dearly loved of God.

Faust.

  • How comes it then that he is Prince of Devils?

Meph.

  • O, by aspiring pride and insolence; For which God threw him from the face of heaven.

    70

Faust.

  • And what are you that live with Lucifer?

Meph.

  • Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer Conspired against our God with Lucifer, And are for ever damned with Lucifer.

Faust.

  • Where are you damned?

Meph.

  • In Hell.

Faust.

  • How comes it then that thou art out of Hell?

Meph.

  • 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,

    80

  • Am not tormented with ten thousand Hells,
  • In being deprived of everksting bliss?
  • O Faustus! leave these frivolous demands,
  • Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.

Faust.

  • What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate
  • For being deprived of the joys of Heaven?
  • Learn thou of Faustus manly fortitude,
  • And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess.
  • Go bear these2 tidings to great Lucifer:
  • Seeing Faustus hath incurred eternal death

    90

  • By desperate thoughts against Jove's deity,
  • Say he surrenders up to him his soul,
  • So he will spare him four and twenty 1 years,
  • Letting him live in all voluptuousness;
  • Having thee ever to attend on me;
  • To give me whatsoever I shall ask,
  • To tell me whatsoever I demand,
  • To slay mine enemies, and aid my friends,
  • And always be obedient to my will.
  • Go, and return to mighty Lucifer,

    100

  • And meet me in my study at midnight,
  • And then resolve me of thy master's mind.

Meph.

  • I will, Faustus.
  • [Exit.

Faust.

  • Had I as many souls as there be stars,
  • I'd give them all for Mephistophilis.
  • By him I'll be great Emperor of the world,
  • And make a bridge th[o]rough the moving air,
  • To pass the ocean with a band of men:
  • I'll join the hills that bind the Afric shore,
  • And make that country

    110

    continent to Spain,
  • And both contributory to my Crown.
  • The Emperor shall not live but by my leave,
  • Nor any Potentate of Germany.
  • Now that I have obtained what I desire,
  • I'll live in speculation of this Art
  • Till Mephistophilis return again.
  • [Exit.

SCENE IV.

Enter2 WAGNER and Clown.

Wag.

  • Sirrah, boy, come hither.

Clown.

  • How, boy! Swowns, boy! I hope you have seen many boys with such pickadevaunts3 as I have; boy, quotha!

Wag.

  • Tell me, sirrah, hast thou any comings in?

Clown.

  • Ay, and goings out too. You may see else.

Wag.

  • Alas, poor slave! see how poverty jesteth in his nakedness! the villain is bare and out of service, and so hungry that I know he would give his soul to the Devil for a shoulder of mutton, though it were blood-raw.

    10

Clown.

  • How. My soul to the Devil for a shoulder of mutton, though 'twere blood-raw! Not so, good friend. By'r Lady, I had need have it well roasted and good sauce to it, if I pay so dear.

Wag.

  • Well, wilt them serve us, and I'll make thee go like Qui mihi discipulus?1

Clown.

  • How, in verse?

Wag.

  • No, sirrah;in beaten silk and stavesacre.1

Clown.

  • How, how, Knave's acre!1
  • I, I thought that was all the land his father left him. Do you hear? I would be sorry to rob you of your living.

Wag.

  • Sirrah, I say in stavesacre.

Clown.

  • Oho! Oho! Stavesacre! Why then belike if I were your man I should be full of vermin.

Wag.

  • So thou shalt, whether thou beest with me or no. But, sirrah, leave your jesting, and bind yourself presently unto me for seven years, or I'll turn all the lice about thee into familiars, and they shall tear thee in pieces.

    29

Clown.

  • Do you hear, sir? You may save that labour: they are too familiar with me already: swowns! they are as bold with my flesh as if they had paid for their meat and drink.

Wag.

  • Well, do you hear, sirrah? Hold, take these guilders.
  • [Gives money.

Clown.

  • Gridirons! what be they?

Wag.

  • Why, French crowns.

Clown.

  • Mass, but in the name of French crowns, a man were as good have as many English counters. And what should I do with these?

    40

Wag.

  • Why, now, sirrah, thou art at an hour's warning, whensoever and wheresoever the Devil shall fetch thee.

Clown.

  • No, no. Here, take your gridirons again.

Wag.

  • Truly I'll none of them.

Clown.

  • Truly but you shall.

Wag.

  • Bear witness I gave them him.

Clown.

  • Bear witness I give them you again.

Wag.

  • Well, I will cause two Devils presently to fetch thee away—Baliol and Belcher.

    49

Clown.

  • Let your Baliol and your Belcher come here, and I'll knock them, they were never so knocked since they were Devils! Say I should kill one of them, what would folks say? “Do you see yonder tall fellow in the round slop1—he has killed the devil.” So I should be called Kill-devil all the parish over.
  • Enter two Devils: the Clown runs up and down crying.

Wag.

  • Baliol and Belcher! Spirits, away! [Exeunt Devils.

Clown.

  • What, are they gone? A vengeance on them, they have vild long nails! There was a he-devil, and a she-devil! I'll tell you how you shall know them; all he-devils has horns, and all she-devils has clifts and cloven feet.

    61

Wag.

  • Well, sirrah, follow me.

Clown.

  • But, do you hear—if I should serve you, would you teach me to raise up Banios and Belcheos?

Wag.

  • I will teach thee to turn thyself to anything; to a dog, or a cat, or a mouse, or a rat, or anything.

Clown.

  • How! a Christian fellow to a dog or a cat, a mouse or a rat! No, no, sir. If you turn me into anything, let it be in the likeness of a little pretty frisking flea, that I may be here and there and everywhere. Oh, I'll tickle the pretty wenches' plackets; I'll be amongst them, i' faith.

Wag.

  • Well, sirrah, come.

Clown.

  • But, do you hear, Wagner?

Wag.

  • How! Baliol and Belcher!

Clown.

  • O Lord! I pray, sir, let Banio and Belcher go sleep.

Wag.

  • Villain—call me Master Wagner, and let thy left eye be diametarily fixed upon my right heel, with quasi vestigias1 nostras insistere.
  • [Exit. go

Clown.

  • God forgive me, he speaks Dutch fustian. Well, I'll follow him: 111 serve him, that's flat [Exit.

SCENE V.

FAUSTUS discovered in his Study.

Faust.

  • Now, Faustus, must
  • Thou needs be damned, and canst thou not be saved: What boots it then to think of God or Heaven?
  • Away with such vain fancies, and despair:
  • Despair in God, and trust in Belzebub;
  • Now go not backward: no, Faustus, be resolute:
  • Why waverst thou? O, something soundeth in mine
  • ears
  • Abjure this Magic, turn to God again!
  • Ay, and Faustus will turn to God again.
  • To God?—He loves thee not—

    10

  • The God thou servst is thine own appetite,
  • Wherein is fixed the love of Belzebub;
  • To him I'll build an altar and a church,
  • And offer lukewarm blood of new-born babes.
  • Enter Good Angel and Evil Angel.

G. Ang.1

  • Sweet Faustus, leave that execrable Art.

Faust.

  • Contrition, prayer, repentance! What of them?

G. Ang.

  • O, they are means to bring thee unto Heaven.

E. Ang.

  • Rather, illusions—fruits of lunacy,
  • That makes men foolish that do trust them most.

G. Ang.

  • Sweet Faustus, think of Heaven, and heavenly
  • things.

    20

E. Ang.

  • No, Faustus, think of honour and of1
  • {Exeunt Angels.

Faust.

  • Of wealth!
  • Why the Signiory of Embden shall be mine.
  • When Mephistophilis shall stand by me,
  • What God can hurt thee? Faustus, thou art safe:
  • Cast no more doubts. Come, Mephistophilis,
  • And bring glad tidings from great Lucifer;—
  • Is't not midnight? Come, Mephistophilis;
  • Veni, veni, Mephistophile I
  • Enter MEPHISTOPHILIS.
  • Now tell me,1 what says Lucifer thy lord?

    30

Meph.

  • That I shall wait on Faustus whilst he2
  • So he will buy my service with his soul.

Faust.

  • Already Faustus hath hazarded that for thee.

Meph.

  • But, Faustus, thou must bequeath it solemnly,
  • And write a deed of gift with thine own blood,
  • For that security craves great Lucifer.
  • If thou deny it, I will back to Hell.

Faust.

  • Stay, Mephistophilis! and tell me what good
  • Will my soul do thy lord.

Meph.

  • Enlarge his kingdom.

    40

Faust.

  • Is that the reason why he tempts us thus?
  • Meph. Solamen miseris socios habuisse dolons.

Faust.

  • Why,3 have you any pain that tortures4 others?
  • Meph, As great as have the human souls of men.
  • But tell me, Faustus, shall I have thy soul?
  • And I will be thy slave, and wait on thee,
  • And give thee more than thou hast wit to ask.
  • Faust. Ay, Mephistophilis, I give it thee.

Meph.

  • Then, Faustus,1 stab thine arm courageously,
  • And bind thy soul that at some certain day.

    50

  • Great Lucifer may claim it as his own;
  • And then be thou as great as Lucifer.
  • Faust, stabbing his arm.] Lo, Mephistophilis, for
  • love of thee,
  • I cut mine arm, and with my proper blood
  • Assure my soul to be great Lucifer's,
  • Chief lord and regent of perpetual night!
  • View here the blood that trickles from mine arm,
  • And let it be propitious for my wish.

Meph.

  • But, Faustus, thou must
  • Write it in manner of a deed of gift.

    60

Faust.

  • Ay, so I will. [Writes^ But, Mephistophilis,
  • My blood congeals, and I can write no more.

Meph.

  • I'll fetch thee fire to dissolve it straight. [Exit.

Faust.

  • What might the staying of my blood portend?
  • Is it unwilling I should write this bill?
  • Why streams it not that I may write afresh?
  • Faustus gives to thee his soul. Ah, there it stayed.
  • Why should'st thou not? Is not thy soul thine own?
  • Then write again, Faustus gives to thee his soul.
  • Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS with a chafer of coals.
  • Meph. Here's fire. Come, Faustus, set it on.1

    70

Faust.

  • So now the blood begins to clear again;
  • Now will I make an end immediately.
  • Writes.

Meph.

  • O what will not I do to obtain his soul.
  • [Aside.
  • Faust. Consummatum est: this bill is ended,
  • And Faustus hath bequeathed his soul to Lucifer.
  • But what is this inscription on mine arm?
  • Homo, fuge! Whither should I fly?
  • If unto God, he'll throw me1 down to Hell
  • My senses are deceived; here's nothing writ:—
  • I see it plain; here in this place is writ

    80

  • Homo, fuge! Yet shall not Faustus fly.
  • Meph, I'll fetch him somewhat to delight his mind.
  • [Exit.
  • Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS with Devils, who give crowns
  • and rich apparel to FAUSTUS, dance, and depart.

Faust.

  • Speak, Mephistophilis, what means this show?

Meph.

  • Nothing, Faustus, but to delight thy mind withal,
  • And to show thee what Magic can perform.

Faust.

  • But may I raise up Spirits when I please?

Meph.

  • Ay, Faustus, and do greater things than these.

Faust.

  • Then there's enough for a thousand souls.
  • Here, Mephistophilis, receive this scroll,
  • A deed of gift of Body and of Soul:

    90

  • But yet conditionally that thou perform
  • All articles prescribed between us both.

Meph.

  • Faustus, I swear by Hell and Lucifer
  • To effect all promises between us made.

Faust.

  • Then hear me read them: On these conditions following. First, that Faustus may be a Spirit in form and substance. Secondly, that Mephistophilis shall be his servant, and at his command. Thirdly, shall do for him and bring him whatsoever he desires.1
  • Fourthly, that he shall be in his chamber or house invisible. Lastly, that he shall appear to the said John Faustus, at all times, and in what form or shape soever he pleases. I, John Faustus, of Wertenberg, Doctor, by these presents do give both body and soul to Lucifer, Prince of the East, and his minister, Mephistophilis; and furthermore grant unto them, that twenty-four years being expired, the articles above written inviolate, full power to fetch or carry the said John Faustus, body and soul, flesh, blood, or goods, into their habitation wheresoever. By me, JOHN FAUSTUS.

Meph.

  • Speak, Faustus, do you deliver this as your deed?

    110

Faust.

  • Ay, take it, and the Devil give thee good on't!

Meph.

  • Now, Faustus, ask what thou wilt.

Faust.

  • First will I question with thee about Hell.
  • Tell me where is the place that men call Hell?

Meph.

  • Under the Heavens.

Faust.

  • Ay, but whereabout?

Meph.

  • Within the bowels of these elements,
  • Where we are tortured and remain for ever;
  • Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
  • In one self place; for where we are is Hell,
  • And where Hell is there1 must we ever be:

    120

  • And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,
  • And every creature shall be purified,
  • All places shall be Hell that is not Heaven

Faust.

  • Come, I think Hell's a fable.

Meph. Ay.

  • think so still, till experience change thy mind.

Faust.

  • Why, think'st thou then that Faustus shall be damned?

Meph.

  • Ay, of necessity, for here's the scroll
  • Wherein thou hast given thy soul to Lucifer.

Faust.

  • Ay, and body too; but what of that?
  • Think'st thou that Faustus is so fond to imagine

    130

  • That, after this life, there is any pain?'
  • Tush; these are trifles, and mere old wives' tales.

Meph.

  • But, Faustus, I am an instance to prove the contrary,
  • For I am damned, and am now in Hell.

Faust.

  • How! now in Hell?
  • Nay, an this be Hell, I'll willingly be damned here;
  • What?2 Ed. 1616 reads,—“What, sleeping, eating, walking, and disputing.” walking, disputing, &c.?
  • But, leaving off this, let me have a wife,
  • The fairest maid in Germany;
  • For I am wanton and lascivious,

    140

  • And cannot live without a wife.1

“Meph.

  • Well, Faustus, thou shall have a wife.
  • [MEPHISTOPHILIS fetches in a woman-devil,
  • Faust. What sight is this?

Meph.

  • Now, Faustus, wilt thou have a wife?

Faust.

  • Here's a hot whore, indeed! No, I'll no wife.

Meph.

  • Marriage is but,” &c.

Meph.

  • How — a wife?
  • I prithee, Faustus, talk not of a wife.

Faust.

  • Nay, sweet Mephistophilis, fetch me one, for I will have one.

Meph.

  • Well — thou wilt have one. Sit there till I come: I'll fetch thee a wife in the devil's name. [Exit.
  • Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS with a Devil drest like a Woman, with fireworks.

Meph.

  • Tell me,2 Faustus, how dost thou like thy wife?

Faust.

  • A plague on her for a hot whore!

Meph.

  • Tut, Faustus,

    150

  • Marriage is but a ceremonial toy;
  • And3 if thou lovest me, think no4 more of it.
  • I'll cull thee out the fairest courtesans,
  • And bring them every morning to thy bed;
  • She whom thine eye shall like, thy heart shall have,
  • Be she as chaste as was Penelope,
  • As wise as Saba, or as beautiful
  • As was bright Lucifer before his fall.
  • Here, take this book, peruse it thoroughly: [Gives a book.
  • The iterating of these lines brings gold;

    160

  • The framing of this circle on the ground
  • Brings whirlwinds, tempests, thunder and1 lightning:
  • Pronounce this thrice devoutly to thyself,
  • And men in armour2 shall appear to thee,
  • Ready to execute what thou desir'st

Faust.

  • Thanks,3
  • This will I keep as chary as my life.
  • [Exeunt.”
  • Then begins a new scene —
  • (“Enter (csc) WAGNER solus.
  • Wag. Learned Faustus,
  • To know the secrets,” &c.)
  • which should come later.:— Mephistophilis yet fain would I have a book wherein I might behold all spells and incantations, that I might raise up spirits when I please.

Meph.

  • Here they are, in this book.
  • [Turns to them.

Faust.

  • Now would I have a book where I might see all characters and planets of the heavens, that I might know their motions and dispositions.

    172

Meph.

  • Here they are too.
  • [Turns to them.

Faust.

  • Nay, let me have one book more,—and then I have done,—wherein I might see all plants, herbs, and trees that grow upon the earth.

Meph.

  • Here they be.

Faust.

  • O, thou art deceived.

Meph.

  • Tut, I warrant thee.
  • [Turns to them Exeunt.

SCENE VI.1

Enter FAUSTUS and MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Faust.

  • When I behold the heavens, then I repent, And curse thee, wicked Mephistophilis, Because thou hast deprived me of those joys.

Meph.

  • Why,2

Meph.

  • 'Twas thine own seeking, Faustus; thank thyself.
  • But think'st thou Heaven is such a glorious thing?
  • I tell thee, Faustus, it is not half so fair
  • As thou or any man that breathes on earth.
  • ''Faust. How prov'st thou that?

“Meph.

  • 'Twas made for man; then he's more excellent.” Faustus,
  • Thinkest thou Heaven is such a glorious thing?
  • I tell thee 'tis not half so fair as thou,
  • Or any man that breathes on earth.

Faust.

  • How prov'st thou that?

Meph.

  • 'Twas made for man, therefore is man more excellent.

Faust.

  • If it were made for man, 'twas made for me;

    10

  • I will renounce this Magic and repent
  • Enter Good Angel and Evil Angel.

G. Ang.

  • Faustus, repent; yet God will pity thee.

E. Ang.

  • Thou art a Spirit; God cannot pity thee.

Faust.

  • Who buzzeth in mine ears I am a Spirit?
  • Be I a Devil, yet God may pity me;
  • Ay, God will pity me if I repent.

E. Ang.

  • Ay, but Faustus never shall repent.
  • [Exeunt Angels.

Faust.

  • My heart's so hardened I cannot repent
  • Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven,
  • But1 fearful echoes thunder in mine ears

    20

  • Faustus, thou art damned I Then swords and knives,
  • Poison,2 .gun, halters, and envenomed steel
  • Are laid before me to despatch myself,
  • And long ere this I should have slain myself,
  • Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair.
  • Have not I made blind Homer sing to me
  • Of Alexander's love and CEnon's death?
  • And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes
  • With ravishing sound of his melodious harp,
  • Made music with my Mephistophilis?

    30

  • Why should I die then, or basely despair?
  • I am resolved: Faustus shall ne'er repent—
  • Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again,
  • And argue of divine Astrology.
  • Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon?
  • Are all celestial bodies but one globe,
  • As is the substance of this centric earth?

Meph.

  • As are the elements, such are the spheres3
  • Mutually folded in each other's orb,
  • And, Faustus,

    40

  • All jointly move upon one axletree
  • Whose terminine is termed the world's wide pole;
  • Nor are the names of Saturn, Mars,
  • or Jupiter Feigned, but are erring stars.

Faust.

  • But tell me, have they all one motion both, situ et tempore.

Meph.

  • All jointly move from east to west in twenty-four hours upon the poles of the world; but differ in their motion upon the poles of the zodiac.

Faust.

  • Tush!

    50

  • These slender trifles Wagner can decide;
  • Hath Mephistophilis no greater skill?
  • Who knows not the double motion of the planets?
  • The first is finished in a natural day;
  • The second thus: as Saturn in thirty years; Jupiter in twelve: Mars in four; the Sun, Venus, and Mercury in a year; the moon in twenty-eight days. Tush, these are freshmen'sJ suppositions. But tell me, hath every sphere a dominion or intelligentia?

Meph.

  • Ay.

    60

Faust.

  • How many heavens, or spheres, are there?

Meph.

  • Nine: the seven planets, the firmament, and the empyreal heaven.2
  • Faust. But is there not ctclum igneum et cryitallinum?

'' Meph.

  • No, Faustus, they are but fables.
  • Faust. Resolve me then in this one question: Why,” &c.

Faust.

  • Well, resolve me in this question: Why have we not conjunctions, oppositions, aspects, eclipses, all at one time, but in some years we have more, in some less?

Meph.

  • Per inmqualem motute rcspectu totius.

Faust.

  • Well, I am answered. Tell me who made the world.

    70

Meph.

  • I will not.

Faust.

  • Sweet Mephistophilis, tell me.

Meph.

  • Move me not,1 for I will not tell thee.

Faust.

  • Villain, have I not bound thee to tell me anything?

Meph.

  • Ay, that is not against our kingdom; but this is. Think thou on Hell, Faustus, for thou art damned.

Faust.

  • Think, Faustus, upon God that made the world.

Meph.

  • Remember this.
  • [Exit.

Faust.

  • Ay, go, accursèd Spirit, to ugly Hell.

    80

  • 'Tis thou hast damned distressed Faustus' soul.
  • Is't not too late?
  • Re-enter Good Angel and Evil Angel.

E. Ang.

  • Too late.

G. Ang.

  • Never too late, if Faustus can repent.

E. Ang.

  • If thou repent, Devils shall tear thee in pieces.

G. Ang.

  • Repent, and they shall never raze thy skin.
  • [Exeunt Angels.

Faust.

  • Ah, Christ my Saviour,1
  • Seek to save distressed Faustus' soul!
  • Enter LUCIFER, BELZEBUB, and MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Luc.

  • Christ cannot save thy soul, for he is just;
  • There's none but I have interest in the same.

    90

Faust.

  • O, who art thou that look'st so terrible?

Luc.

  • I am Lucifer, And this is my companion-prince in Hell.

Faust.

  • O Faustus! they are come to fetch away2 thy soul!
  • Luc?3

Belz.

  • We are come to tell thee thou dost injure us.
  • Luc. Thou call'st on Christ contrary to thy promise.
  • Belz. Thou shouldst not think on God.

“Luc.

  • Think on the Devil.

“Belz.

  • And his dam too.”
  • (The mention of the devil's “dam” must surely have been added by; the actor to provoke a laugh from the groundlings.) We come to tell thee thou dost injure us.
  • Thou talk'st of Christ contrary to thy promise;
  • Thou should'st not think of God: think of the Devil, And of his dam too.

Faust.

  • Nor will I henceforth: pardon me in this,
  • And Faustus vows never to look to Heaven,
  • Never4 to name God, or to pray to him,

    100

  • To burn his Scriptures, slay his Ministers,
  • And make my Spirits pull his Churches down.

Luc.

  • Do so, and we will highly gratify thee. Faustus, we are come from Hell to show thee some pastime: sit down, and thou shalt see all the Seven Deadly Sins1 appear in their proper shapes.

Faust.

  • That sight will be as pleasing unto me,
  • As Paradise was to Adam the first day Of his creation.

Luc.

  • Talk not of paradise nor creation, but mark this show: talk of the Devil, and nothing else: come away!

    112

  • Enter the Seven Deadly Sins.
  • Now, Faustus, examine them of their several names and dispositions.

Faust.

  • What art thou—the first?

Pride.

  • I am Pride. I disdain to have any parents. I am like to Ovid's flea:2 I can creep into every corner of a wench; sometimes, like a perriwig, I sit upon her brow; or like a fan of feathers, I kiss her lips; indeed I do—what do I not? But, fie, what a scent is here! I'll not speak another word, except the ground were perfumed, and covered with cloth of arras.

    122

Faust.

  • What art thou—the second?

Covet.

  • I am Covetousness, begotten of an old churl in an old leathern bag; and might I have my wish I would desire that this house and all the people in it were turned
  • to gold, that I might lock you up in my good chest

    O

    , my sweet gold!

Faust.

  • What art thou—the third?

    129

Wrath.

  • I am Wrath. I had neither father nor mother: I leapt out of a lion's mouth when I was scarce half an hour old; and ever since I have run up and down the world with this case1 of rapiers, wounding myself when I had nobody to fight withal. I was born in Hell; and look to it, for some of you shall be my father.

Faust.

  • What art thou—the fourth?

Envy.

  • I am Envy, begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an oyster-wife. I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt. I am lean with seeing others eat.

    O

    that there would come a famine through all the world, that all might die, and I live alone! then thou should'st see how fat I would be. But must thou sit and I stand! Come down with a vengeance!

    143

Faust.

  • Away, envious rascal! What art thou—the fifth?

Glut.

  • Who, I, sir? I am Gluttony. My parents are all dead, and the devil a penny they have left me, but a bare pension, and that is thirty meals a day and ten bevers2 —a small trifle to suffice nature. O, I come of a royal parentage! My grandfather was a Gammon of Bacon, my grandmother was a Hogshead of Claret-wine,
  • my godfathers “were these, Peter Pickleherring, and-Martin Martlemas-beef;1
  • O, but my godmother, she was a jolly gentlewoman, and well beloved in every good town and city; her name was Mistress Margery March-beer.2
  • Now, Faustus, thou hast heard all my progeny, wilt thou bid me to supper?

    156

Faust.

  • No, I'll see thee hanged: thou wilt eat up all my victuals.
  • Glut Then the Devil choke thee!

Faust.

  • Choke thyself, glutton! Who art thou—the sixth?

    161

Sloth.

  • I am Sloth. I was begotten on a sunny bank, where I have lain ever since; and you have done me great injury to bring me from thence: let me be carried thither again by Gluttony and Lechery. I'll not speak another word for a king's ransom.

Faust.

  • What are you, Mistress Minx, the seventh and last?

Lech.

  • Who, I, sir? I am one that loves an inch of raw mutton better than an ell of fried stockfish; and the first letter of my name begins with L.3

    171

[Luc.]1

  • Away to Hell, to Hell! Now, Faustus, how dost thou like this?
  • [Exeunt the Sins.

Faust.

  • O, this feeds my soul!

Luc.

  • Tut, Faustus, in Hell is all manner of delight.

Faust.

  • O might I see Hell, and return again, How happy were I then!

Luc.

  • Thou shalt; I will send for thee at midnight. In meantime take this book; peruse it throughly, And thou shalt turn thyself2 into what shape thou wilt.

    180

Faust.

  • Great thanks, mighty Lucifer! This will I keep as chary as my life.

Luc.

  • Farewell, Faustus, and think on the Devil.

Faust.

  • Farewell, great Lucifer!
  • [Exeunt LUCIFER and BELZEBUB. Come, Mephistophilis.3
  • Enter CHORUS.

Chorus.

  • Learned Faustus, To know the secrets of Astronomy, Graven in the book of Jove's high firmament, Did mount himself to scale Olympus' top, Being seated in a chariot burning bright, Drawn by the strength of yoky dragons' necks.
  • He now is gone to prove Cosmography,
  • And, as I guess, will first arrive at Rome,
  • To see the Pope and manner of his Court,
  • And take some part of holy Peter's feast,
  • That to this day is highly solemnised.1
  • [Exit.

Chor.

  • Learned Faustus,
  • To find the secrets of Astronomy
  • Graven in the book of Jove's high firmament,
  • Did mount him up to scale Olympus' top;
  • Where, sitting in a chariot burning bright,
  • Drawn by the strength of yoked dragons' necks,
  • He views the clouds, the planets, and the stars,
  • The tropic zones, and quarters of the sky,
  • From the bright circle of the hornÈd moon
  • Even to the height of Primum Mobile;
  • And, whirling round with this circumference,
  • Within the concave compass of the pole,
  • From east to west his dragons swiftly glide,
  • And in eight days did bring him home again.
  • Not long he stay'd within his quiet house,
  • To rest his bones after his weary toil,
  • But new exploits do hale him out again
  • And, mounted then upon a dragon's back,
  • That with his wings did part the subtle air,
  • He now is gone to prove cosmography,
  • That measures coasts and kingdoms of the earth;
  • And, as I guess, will first arrive at Rome,
  • To see the Pope and manner of his court,
  • And take some part of holy Peter's feast,
  • The which this day is highly solemniss'd.
  • [Exit,
  • The additional lines seem worthy of Marlowe, and add considerably to the picturesqueness of the original.—In Henslowe's inventory of the property of the Admiral's men (Diary, p. 273) mention is made of “I dragon in fostes.” Perhaps (as Wagner suggests) Faustus alighted from his dragon-car at the beginning of the next scene.

SCENE VII.

Enter1 FAUSTUS and MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Faust.

  • Having now, my good Mephistophilis,
  • Passed with delight the stately town of Trier,2
  • Environed round with airy mountain-tops,
  • With walls of flint, and deep entrenched lakes,
  • Not to be won by any conquering prince;
  • From Paris next, coasting the realm of France,
  • We saw the river Maine fall into Rhine,
  • Whose banks are set with groves of fruitful vines;
  • Then up to Naples, rich Campania,
  • Whose buildings fair and gorgeous to the eye,

    10

  • The streets straight forth, and paved with finest brick,
  • Quarter the town in four equivalents:3
  • There saw we learned Maro's golden tomb,
  • The way he cut, an English mile in length,
  • Thorough a rock of stone in one night's space;4
  • From thence to Venice, Padua, and the rest,
  • In one5 of which a sumptuous temple stands,
  • That threats the stars with her aspiring top.1
  • Thus hitherto has Faustus spent his time:
  • But tell me, now, what resting-place is this?

    20

  • Hast thou, as erst I did command,
  • Conducted me within the walls of Rome?

Meph.2

  • Faustus, I have; and because we will not be unprovided, I have taken up his Holiness' privy-chamber for our use.

Faust.

  • I hope his Holiness will bid us welcome.

Meph.

  • Tut,3 'tis no matter, man, we'll be bold with his good cheer,
  • And now, my Faustus, that thou may'st perceive
  • What Rome containeth to delight thee with,
  • Know that this city stands upon seven hills
  • That underprop the groundwork of the same:
  • Just4 through the midst runs flowing Tiber's stream,
  • With winding banks that cut it in two parts:
  • Over the which four5 stately bridges lean,
  • That make safe passage to each part of Rome:
  • Upon the bridge called Ponte6 Angelo
  • Erected is a castle passing strong,
  • Within1 whose walls such store of ordnance are,

    40

  • And double2 cannons formed of carved brass,
  • As match the days within one complete year;
  • Besides the gates and high pyramides,
  • Which Julius Caesar brought from Africa.

Faust.

  • Now by the kingdoms of infernal rule,
  • Of Styx, of3 Acheron, and the fiery lake
  • Of ever-burning Phlegethon, I swear
  • That I do long to see the monuments
  • And situation of bright-splendent Rome:
  • Come therefore, let's away.
  • Meph4 Nay, Faustus, stay; I know you'd see the Pope,
  • And take some part of holy Peter's feast,

    51

  • Where thou shall see a troop of bald-pate friars,
  • Whose summum bonum is in belly-cheer.

Faust.

  • Well, I'm content to compass them some sport,
  • And by their folly make us merriment
  • Then charm me [Mephistophilis] that I
  • May be invisible, to do what I please
  • Unseen of any whilst I stay in Rome.
  • [MEPHISTOPHILIS charms him.

Meph. So.

  • Faustus, now Do what thou wilt, thou shall not be discerned.

    60

  • Sound a Sonnet.1
  • Enter the POPE and the CARDINAL OF LORRAIN to the banquet, with Friars attending.

Pope.

  • My Lord of Lorrain, wilt please you draw near?

Faust.

  • Fall to, and the devil choke you an you spare!

Pope.

  • How now! Who's that which spake?—Friars, look about.

First Friar.

  • Here's nobody, if it like your Holiness.

Pope.

  • My lord, here is a dainty dish was sent me from the Bishop of Milan.

Faust.

  • I thank you, sir.
  • [Snatches the dish.

Pope.

  • How now! Who's that which snatched the meat from me? Will no man look? My Lord, this dish was sent me from the Cardinal of Florence.

    70

Faust.

  • You say true; I'll ha't.
  • [Snatches the dish.

Pope.

  • What, again! My lord, I'll drink to your grace.

Faust.

  • I'll pledge your grace.
  • [Snatches the cup.

C. of Lor.

  • My lord, it may be some ghost newly crept out of Purgatory, come to beg a pardon of your Holiness.

Pope.

  • It may be so. Friars, prepare a dirge to lay the fury of this ghost. Once again, my lord, fall to.
  • [The POPE crosses himself.

Faust.

  • What, are you crossing of yourself? Well, use that trick no more I would advise you.
  • [The POPE crosses himself again.
  • Well, there's the second time. Aware the third,

    80

  • I give you fair warning.
  • [The POPE crosses himself again, and FAUSTUS hitshim a box of the ear; and they all run away.
  • Come on, Mephistophilis, what shall we do?

Meph.

  • Nay, I know not We shall be cursèd with bell, book, and candle.

Faust.

  • How! bell, book, and candle,—candle, book, and bell,
  • Forward and backward to curse Faustus to Hell!
  • Anon you shall hear a hog grunt, a calf bleat, an ass bray,
  • Because it is Saint Peter's holiday.
  • Re-enter the Friars to sing the Dirge.

First Friar.

  • Come, brethren, let's about our business with good devotion.
  • [They sing.
  • CursÈD be he that stole away his Holiness' meat from thetable! Maledicat Dominus!

    91

  • CursÈD be he that struck his Holiness a blow on the face.! Maledicat Dominus!
  • CursÈD be he that took1Friar Sandelo a blow on the pate! Maledicat Dominus
  • CursÈD be he that dislurbeth our holy dirge! Maledicat Dominus!
  • CursÈD be he that took away his Holiness' wine! Maledicat Dominus! Et omnes sancti! Amen!
  • MEPHISTOPHILIS and FAUSTUS beat the Friars, and fling fireworks among them: and so exeunt.
  • Enter CHORUS.

Chorus.

  • When Faustus had with pleasure ta'en the view
  • Of rarest things, and royal courts of kings,
  • He stayed his course, and so returned home;
  • Where such as bear his absence but with grief,
  • I mean his friends, and near'st companions,
  • Did gratulate his safety with kind words,
  • And in their conference of what befell,
  • Touching his journey through the world and air,
  • They put forth questions of Astrology,
  • Which Faustus answered with such learned skill,

    110

  • As they admired and wondered at his wit.
  • Now is his fame spread forth in every land;
  • Amongst the rest the Emperor is one,
  • Carolus the Fifth, at whose palace now
  • Faustus is feasted 'mongst his noblemen.
  • What there he did in trial of his art,
  • I leave untold—your eyes shall see performed.
  • [Exit.

SCENE VIII.

Enter1 ROBIN the Ostler with a book in his hand.

Robin.

  • O, this is admirable! here I ha' stolen one of Dr. Faustus's conjuring books, and i' faith I mean to search some circles for my own use. Now will I make
  • all the maidens in our parish dance at my pleasure, stark naked before me; and so by that means I shall see more than e'er I felt or saw yet.
  • Enter RALPH calling ROBIN.

Ralph.

  • Robin, prithee come away; there's a gentleman tarries to have his horse, and he would have his things rubbed and made clean: he keeps such a chafing with my mistress about it; and she has sent me to look thee out; prithee come away.

    II

Robin.

  • Keep out, keep out, or else you are blown up; you are dismembered, Ralph: keep out, for I am about a roaring piece of work.

Ralph.

  • Come, what doest thou with that same book? Thou can'st not read.

Robin.

  • Yes, my master and mistress shall find that I can read, he for his forehead, she for her private study; she's born to bear with me, or else my art fails.

Ralph.

  • Why, Robin, what book is that?

    20

Robin.

  • What book! why the most intolerable book for conjuring that e'er was invented by any brimstone devil.

Ralph.

  • Can'st thou conjure with it?

Robin.

  • I can do all these things easily with it; first, I can make thee drunk with ippocras1 at any tabern in Europe for nothing; that's one of my conjuring works.

Ralph.

  • Our Master Parson says that's nothing.

Robin.

  • True, Ralph; and more, Ralph, if thou hast
  • any mind to Nan Spit, our kitchenmaid, then turn her and wind her to thy own use as often as thou wilt, and at midnight.

    31

Ralph.

  • O brave Robin, shall I have Nan Spit, and to mine own use? On that condition I'd feed thy devil with horsebread1 as long as he lives, of free cost.

Robin.

  • No more, sweet Ralph: let's go and make clean our boots, which lie foul upon our hands, and then to our conjuring in the devil's name.
  • [Exeunt.

SCENE IX.

Enter2 ROBIN and RALPH with a silver goblet.

Robin.

  • Come, Ralph, did not I tell thee we were for ever made by this Doctor Faustus' book? ecce signum, here's a simple purchase3 for horsekeepers; our horses shall eat no hay as long as this lasts.

Ralph.

  • But, Robin, here comes the Vintner.

Robin.

  • Hush! I'll gull him supernaturally.
  • Enter Vintner.
  • Drawer, I hope all is paid: God be with you; come, Ralph.

Vint.

  • Soft, sir; a word with you. I must yet have a goblet paid from you, ere you go,

    10

Robin.

  • I, a goblet, Ralph; I, a goblet! I scorn you, and you are but a1 & c. I, a goblet! search me.

Vint.

  • I mean so, sir, with your favour.
  • [Searches him.

Robin.

  • How say you now?

Vint.

  • I must say somewhat to your fellow. You, sir!

Ralph.

  • Me, sir! me, sir! search your fill. [Vintner searches him.~ Now, sir, you may be ashamed to burden honest men with a matter of truth.

Vint.

  • Well, t'one2 of you hath this goblet about you.

    20

Robin.

  • You lie, drawer, 'tis afore me. [Aside.] Sirrah you, I'll teach you to impeach honest men;—stand by; —I'll scour you for a goblet!—stand aside you had best, I charge you in the name of Belzebub. Look to the goblet, Ralph.
  • [Aside to RALPH.

Vint.

  • What mean you, sirrah?

Robin.

  • I'll tell you what I mean. [Reads from a bwk.] Sanctobulorum Periphrasticon—Nay, I'll tickle you, Vintner. Look to the goblet, Ralph.
  • [Aside to RALPH.
  • [Reads.] Polypragmos Belseboramsframantopacostiphos tostu, Mephistophilis, & c.

    31

  • Enter MEPHISTOPHILIS, sets squibs at their backs, and then exit. They run about.

Vint.

  • O nomine Domini! what meanest thou, Robin? thou hast no goblet

Ralph.

  • Peccatum peccatorum Here's thy goblet, good Vintner.
  • [Gives the goblet to Vintner, who exit.

Robin.

  • Misericordia pro nobisi What shall I do? Good devil, forgive me now, and I'll never rob thy library more.
  • Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Meph1

  • Monarch of Hell, under whose black survey
  • Great potentates do kneel with awful fear,

    40

  • Upon whose altars thousand souls do lie,
  • How am I vexed with these villains' charms?
  • From Constantinople am I hither come
  • Only for pleasure of these damned slaves.

Robin.

  • How from Constantinople? You have had a great journey: will you take sixpence in your purse to pay for your supper, and begone?

Meph.

  • Well, villains, for your presumption, I transform thee into an ape, and thee into a dog; and so begone.
  • [Exit.

Robin.

  • How, into an ape; that's brave! I'll have fine sport with the boys. I'll get nuts and apples enow.

    51

Ralph.

  • And I must be a dog.

Robin.

  • I'faith thy head will never be out of the pottage pot.
  • [Exeunt.1

SCENE X.

Enter2 EMPEROR, FAUSTUS, and a Knight with Attendants.

Emp.

  • Master Doctor Faustus, I have heard strange report of thy knowledge in the black art, how that none in my empire nor in the whole world can compare with thee for the rare effects of magic: they say thou hast a familiar spirit, by whom thou canst accomplish what thou list This therefore is my request, that thou let me see some proof of thy skill, that mine eyes may be witnesses to confirm what mine ears have heard reported: and here I swear to thee by the honour of mine imperial crown, that, whatever thou doest, thou shalt be no ways prejudiced or endamaged.

    11

Knight.

  • I'faith he looks much like a conjuror.
  • [Aside.

Faust.

  • My gracious sovereign, though I must confess myself far inferior to the report men have published, and nothing answerable to the honour of your imperial majesty, yet for that love and duty binds me thereunto, I am content to do whatsoever your majesty shalt command me.

Emp.

  • Then, Doctor Faustus, mark what I shalt say.
  • As I was sometime solitary set

    20

  • Within my closet, sundry thoughts arose
  • About the honour of mine ancestors,
  • How they had won by prowess such exploits,
  • Got such riches, subdued so many kingdoms
  • As we that do succeed, or they that shall
  • Hereafter possess our throne, shall
  • (I fear me) ne'er attain to that degree
  • Of high renown and great authority;
  • Amongst which kings is Alexander the Great,
  • Chief spectacle of the world's pre-eminence,
  • The bright shining of whose glorious acts
  • Lightens the world with his reflecting beams,
  • As when I hear but motion made of him
  • It grieves my soul I never saw the man.
  • If therefore thou by cunning of thine art
  • Canst raise this man from hollow vaults below,
  • Where lies entombed this famous conqueror,
  • And bring with him his beauteous paramour,
  • Both in their right shapes, gesture, and attire
  • They used to wear during their time of life,

    40

  • Thou shalt both satisfy my just desire,
  • And give me cause to praise thee whilst I live.

Faust.

  • My gracious lord, I am ready to accomplish your request so far forth as by art, and power of my Spirit, I am able to perform.

Knight.

  • I'faith that's just nothing at all.
  • [Aside.

Faust.

  • But, if it like your grace, it is not in my ability to present before your eyes the true substantial bodies of those two deceased princes, which long since are consumed to dust.

    50

Knight.

  • Ay, marry, Master Doctor, now there's a sign of grace in you, when you will confess the truth. [Aside.

Faust.

  • But such spirits as can lively resemble Alexander and his paramour shalt appear before your grace in that manner that they both1 lived in, in their most flourishing estate; which I doubt not shalt sufficiently content your imperial majesty.

Emp.

  • Go to, Master Doctor, let me see them presently.

Knight.

  • Do you hear, Master Doctor? You bring Alexander and his paramour before the Emperor!

    61

Faust.

  • How then, sir?

Knight.

  • I'faith that's as true as Diana turned me to a stag!

Faust.

  • No, sir, but when Actaeon died, he left the horns for you. Mephistophilis, begone.
  • [Exit MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Knight.

  • Nay, an you go to conjuring, I'll begone.
  • [Exit.

Faust.

  • I'll meet with you anon for interrupting me so. Here they are, my gracious lord.
  • Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS with Spirits in the shaft of ALEXANDER and his Paramour.

Emp.

  • Master Doctor, I heard this lady while she lived had a wart or mole in her neck: how shalt I know whether it be so or no?

    72

Faust.

  • Your highness may boldly go and see.

Emp.

  • Sure these are no Spirits, but the true substantial bodies of those two deceased princes.
  • [Exeunt Spirits.

Faust.

  • Will't please your highness now to send for the Knight that was so pleasant with me here of late?

Emp.

  • One of you call him forth! [Exit Attendant.
  • Re-enter the Knight with a pair of horns on his head.
  • How now, Sir Knight! why I had thought thou had'st been a bachelor, but now I see thou hast a wife, that not only gives thee horns, but makes thee wear them. Feel on thy head.

    82

Knight.

  • Thou damned wretch and execrable dog, Bred in the concave of some monstrous rock, How darest thou thus abuse a gentleman? Villain, I say, undo what thou hast done!

Faust.

  • O, not so fast, sir; there's no haste; but, good, are you remembered how you crossed me in my conference with the Emperor? 1 think I have met with you for it.

    90

Emp.

  • Good Master Doctor, at my entreaty release him: he hath done penance sufficient.

Faust.

  • My gracious lord, not so much for the injury he offered me here in your presence, as to delight you with some mirth, hath Faustus worthily requited this injurious Knight: which, being all I desire, I am content to release him of his horns: and, Sir Knight, here-after speak well of scholars. Mephistophilis, transform htm straight. [MEPHISTOPHILIS removes the horns.] Now, my good lord, having done my duty I humbly take my leave.

    101

Emp.

  • Farewell, Master Doctor; yet, ere you go Expect from me a bounteous reward.
  • [Exeunt.

SCENE XI.

Enter2 FAUSTUS and MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Faust.

  • Now, Mephistophilis, the restless course
  • That Time doth run with calm and silent foot,
  • Shortening my days and thread of vital life,
  • Calls for the payment of my latest years:
  • Therefore, sweet Mephistophilis, let us
  • Make haste to Wertenberg.

Meph.

  • What, will you go on horseback or on foot?

Faust.

  • Nay, till I'm past this fair and pleasant green, I'll walk on foot.
  • Enter a Horse-Courser.2

Horse-C.

  • I have been all this day seeking one Master Fustian: mass, see where he is! God save you, Master Doctor!

    12

Faust.

  • What, horse-courser! You are well met.

Horse-C.

  • Do you hear, sir? I have brought you forty dollars for your horse.

Faust.

  • I cannot sell him so: if thou likest him for fifty, take him.

Horse-C.

  • Alas, sir, I have no more.—I pray you speak for me.

    19

Mtph.

  • I pray you-let him have him: he is an honest fellow, and he has a great charge, neither wife nor child.

Faust.

  • Well, come, give me your money. [Horse-Courser gives FAUSTUS the money.] My boy will deliver him to you. But I must tell you one thing before you have him; ride him not into the water at any hand.

Horse-C.

  • Why, sir, will he not drink of all waters?

Faust.

  • O yes, he will drink of all waters, but ride him not into the water: ride him over hedge or ditch, or where thou wilt, but not into the water.

    29

Horse-C.

  • Well, sir.—Now am I made man for ever: I'll not leave my horse for [twice] forty: if he had but the quality of hey-ding-ding, hey-ding-ding, I'd make a brave living on him: he has a buttock as slick1 as an eel [Aside.] Well, God b' wi' ye, sir, your boy will deliver him me: but hark you, sir; if my horse be sick or ill at ease, if I bring his water to you, you'll tell me what it is.

Faust.

  • Away, you villain; what, dost think I am a horse-doctor?
  • [Exit Horse-Courser.
  • What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemned to die? Thy fatal time doth draw to final end;

    40

    Despair doth drive distrust unto my thoughts:
  • Confound these passions with a quiet sleep:
  • Tush, Christ did call the thief upon the cross;
  • Then rest thee, Faustus, quiet in conceit
  • [Sleeps in his chair.
  • Re-enter Horse-Courser, all wet, crying.

Horse-C.

  • Alas, alas! Doctor Fustian quotha? mass, Doctor Lopus1 was never such a doctor: has given me a purgation has purged me of forty dollars; I shalt never see them more. But yet, like an ass as I was, I would not be ruled by him, for he bade me I should ride him into no water: now I, thinking my horse had had some [50 rare quality that he would not have had me known11 Be not you known on't,1 i.e. be not you aware of it.” of, I, like a venturous youth, rid him into the deep pond at the town's end. I was no sooner in the middle of the pond, but my horse vanished away, and I sat upon a bottle of hay, never so near drowning in my life. But I'll seek out my Doctor, and have my forty dollars again, or I'll make it the dearest horse!—0, yonder is his snipper-snapper.—Do you hear? you hey-pass,s where's your master?

Meph.

  • Why, sir, what would you? You cannot speak with him.

Horse-C.

  • But I will speak with him.

    62

Mtph.

  • Why, he's fast asleep. Come some other time.

Horse-C.

  • I'll speak with him now, or I'll break his glass windows about his ears.

Meph.

  • I tell thee he has not slept this eight nights.

Horse-C.

  • An he have not slept this eight weeks I'll speak with him.

Meph.

  • See where he is, fast asleep.

Horse-C.

  • Ay, this is he. God save you, Master Doctor, Master Doctor, Master Doctor Fustian!—Forty dollars, forty dollars for a bottle of hay!

    72

Meph.

  • Why, thou seest he hears thee not.

Horse-C.

  • So ho, ho!—so ho, ho! [Hollas in his ear.] No, will you not wake? I'll make you wake ere I go. [Pulls FAUSTUS by the leg, and fulls it away] Alas, I am undone! What shalt I do?

Faust.

  • O my leg, my leg! Help, Mephistophilis! call the officers. My leg, my leg!

Meph.

  • Come, villain, to the constable.

    80

Horse-C.

  • O lord, sir, let me go, and I'll give you forty dollars more.

Meph.

  • Where be they?

Horse-C.

  • I have none about me. Come to my ostry1 and I'll give them you.

Meph.

  • Begone quickly. [Horse-Courser runs away.

Faust.

  • What, is he gone? Farewell he! Faustus has his leg again, and the horse-courser, I take it, a bottle of hay for his labour. Well, this trick shalt cost him forty dollars more.

    90

  • Enter WAGNER.
  • How now, Wagner, what's the news with thee?

Wag.

  • Sir, the Duke of Vanholt doth earnestly entreat your company.

Faust.

  • The Duke of Vanholt! an honourable gentleman, to whom I must be no niggard of my cunning. Come, Mephistophilis, let's away to him.
  • [Exeunt.1

SCENE XII.

Enter1 the DUKE OF VANHOLT, the DUCHESS, FAUSTUS, and MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Duke.

  • Believe me, Master Doctor, this merriment hath much pleased me.

Faust.

  • My gracious lord, I am glad it contents you so well.—But it may be, madam, you take no delight in this. I have heard that great-bellied women do long for some dainties or other: what is it, madam? tell me, and you shalt have it.

Duchess.

  • Thanks, good Master Doctor; and for I see your courteous intent to pleasure me, I will not hide from you the thing my heart desires; and were it now summer, as it is January and the dead time of the winter, I would desire no better meat than a dish of ripe grapes.

Faust.

  • Alas, madam, that's nothing! Mephistophilis, begone. [JSxit MEPHISTOPHILIS.] Were it a greater thing than this, so it would content you, you should have it
  • Re-enter MEPHISTOPHILIS with grapes.
  • Here they be, madam; wilt please you taste on them?

Duke.

  • Believe me, Master Doctor, this makes me wonder above the rest, that being in the dead time of winter, and in the month of January, how you should come by these grapes.

    21

Faust.

  • If it like your grace, the year is divided into two circles over the whole world, that, when it is here winter with us, in the contrary circle it is summer with them, as in India, Saba, and farther countries in the East; and by means of a swift Spirit that I have I had them brought hither, as you see.—How do you like them, madam; be they good?

Duchess.

  • Believe me, Master Doctor, they be the best grapes that e'er I tasted in my life before.

    30

Faust.

  • I am glad they content you so, madam.

Duke.

  • Come, madam, let us in, where you must well reward this learned man for the great kindness he hath showed to you.

Duchess.

  • And so I will, my lord; and, whilst I live, rest beholding for this courtesy.

Faust.

  • I humbly thank your grace.

Duke.

  • Come, Master Doctor, follow us and receive your reward.
  • [Exeunt.

SCENE XIII.

SCENE XIV.

Enter3 FAUSTUS, with two or three Scholars and MEPHISTOPHILIS.

Ist Schol.

  • Master Doctor Faustus, since our conference about fair ladies, which was the beautifullest in all the world, we have determined with ourselves that Helen of Greece was the admirablest lady that ever lived: therefore,
  • Master Doctor, if you will do us that favour, as to let us see that peerless dame of Greece, whom all the world admires for majesty, we should think ourselves much beholding unto you.

Faust.

  • Gentlemen,
  • For that I know your friendship is unfeigned,

    10

  • And Faustus' custom is not to deny
  • The just requests of those that wish him well,
  • You shalt behold that peerless dame of Greece,
  • No otherways for pomp and majesty,
  • Than when Sir Paris crossed the seas with her,
  • And brought the spoils1 to rich Dardania.
  • Be silent, then, for danger is in words.
  • [Music sounds, and HELEN2
  • passeth wer the stage. 2nd SchoL Too simple is my wit to tell her praise, Whom all the world admires for majesty.3

3rd Schol.

  • No marvel though the angry Greeks pursued

    20

  • With ten years' war the rape of such a Queen,
  • Whose heavenly beauty passeth all compare.

1st Schol.

  • Since we have seen the pride of Nature's works,
  • And only paragon of excellence,
  • Let us depart; and for this glorious deed
  • Happy and blest be Faustus evermore.

Faustus.

  • Gentlemen, farewell—the same I wish to you.
  • [Exeunt Scholars. Enter an Old Man.

Old Man.1

  • Old Man. O gentle Faustus, leave this damned art,
  • This magic, that will charm thy soul to hell,
  • And quite bereave thee of salvation!
  • Though thou hast now offended like a man,
  • Do not persever in it like a devil.
  • Yet, yet thou hast an amiable soul,
  • If sm by custom grow not into nature;
  • Then, Faustus, will repentance come too late;
  • Then thou art banish'd from the sight of Heaven:
  • No mortal can express the pains of hell.
  • It may be, this my exhortation
  • Seems harsh and all unpleasant: let it not,
  • For, gentle son, I speak it not in wrath,
  • Or envy of thee, but in tender love,
  • And pity of thy future misery;
  • And so have hope that this my kind rebuke,
  • Checking thy body, may amend thy soul.”
  • Ah, Doctor Faustus, that I might prevail To guide thy steps unto the way of life,
  • By which sweet path thou may'st attain the goal

    30

  • That shalt conduct thee to celestial rest!
  • Break heart, drop blood, and mingle it with tears,
  • Tears falling from repentant heaviness
  • Of thy most vild and loathsome filthiness,
  • The stench whereof corrupts the inward soul
  • With such flagitious crimes of heinous sins
  • As no commiseration may expel,
  • But Mercy, Faustus, of thy Saviour sweet,
  • Whose blood alone must wash away thy guilt.

Faust.

  • Where art thou, Faustus? wretch, what hast thou done?
  • Damned1 art thou, Faustus, damned; despair and die! Hell calls2 for right, and with a roaring voice Says “Faustus! come! thine hour is almost3 come!” And Faustus now4 will come to do the right
  • [Mephistophilisgives htm a dagger.

Old Man.

  • Ah stay, good Faustus, stay thy desperate steps!
  • I see an angel hovers o'er thy head,
  • And, with a vial full of precious grace,
  • Offers to pour the same into thy soul:
  • Then call for Mercy, and avoid Despair.

Faust.

  • Ah,5 my sweet friend, I feel
  • Thy words do comfort my distressed soul.
  • Leave me a while to ponder on my sins.

Old Man.

  • I1 go, sweet Faustus, but with heavy cheer, Fearing the ruin of thy hopeless soul.
  • [Exit.

Faust.

  • AccursÈD2 Faustus, where is Mercy now?
  • I do repent; and yet I do despair:
  • Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast:
  • What shalt I do to shun the snares of death?

Meph.

  • Thou traitor, Faustus, I arrest thy soul
  • For disobedience to my sovereign Lord;

    60

  • Revolt, or I'll in piecemeal tear thy flesh.

Faust.

  • Sweet03 Mephistophilis, entreat thy lord
  • To pardon my unjust presumption.
  • And with my blood again I will confirm
  • My former vow I made to Lucifer.

Meph.

  • Do it then quickly, with unfeigned heart, Lest greater danger do attend thy drift
  • [FAUSTUS stabs his arm and writes with his blood on a paper.4

Faust.

  • Torment, sweet friend, that base and crooked age,5
  • That durst dissuade me from thy Lucifer,
  • With greatest torments that our Hell affords.

    70

Meph.

  • His faith is great: I cannot touch his soul;
  • But what I may afflict his body with
  • I will attempt, which is but little worth.

Faust.

  • One1 thing, good servant, let me crave of thee,
  • To glut the longing of my heart's desire,—
  • That I might have unto my paramour
  • That heavenly Helen, which I saw of late,
  • Whose sweet embracings may extinguish clean
  • These thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow,
  • And keep mine oath I made to Lucifer.

    80

Meph.

  • Faustus, this or what else thou shalt desire Shalt be performed in twinkling of an eye.
  • Re-enter HELEN.

Faust.

  • Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burnt the topless2 towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. [Kisses her.
  • Her lips sucks forth my soul; see where it flies!—
  • Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
  • Here will I dwell, for Heaven is1 in these lips,
  • And all is dross that is not Helena.
  • I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

    90

  • Instead of Troy, shalt Wertenberg be sacked:
  • And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
  • And wear thy colours on my plumed crest:
  • Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
  • And then return to Helen for a kiss.
  • Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
  • Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
  • Brighter are thou than flaming Jupiter
  • When he appeared to hapless Semele:
  • More lovely than the monarch of the sky
  • In wanton Arethusa's azur'd2 arms;
  • And none but thou shalt be my paramour!
  • [Exeunt.3

SCENE XV.

Enter4 the Old Man.

  • AccursÈD Faustus, miserable man,
  • That from thy soul exclud'st the Grace of Heaven,
  • And fly'st the throne of his tribunal seat!
  • Enter Devils.
  • Satan begins to sift me with his pride:
  • As in this furnace God shalt try my faith,
  • My faith, vile Hell, shalt triumph over thee.
  • Ambitious fiends! see how the heavens smile
  • At your repulse, and laugh your state to scorn!
  • Hence, Hell! for hence I fly unto my God.
  • [Exeunt on one side Devils—on the other, Old Man.

SCENE XVI.

Enter1 FAUSTUS with Scholars.

Faust.

  • Ah, gentlemen!

1st Schol.

  • What ails Faustus?

Faust.

  • Ah, my sweet chamber fellow, had I lived with thee, then had I lived still! but now I die eternally. Look, comes he not, comes he not?

2nd Schol.

  • What means Faustus?

3rd Schol.

  • Belike he is grown into some sickness by being over solitary.

Ist Schol.

  • If it be so, we'll have physicians to cure him. Tis but a surfeit Never fear, man.

    10

Faust.

  • A surfeit of deadly sin that hath damned both body and soul.

2nd Schol.

  • Yet, Faustus, look up to Heaven: remember God's mercies are infinite.

Faust.

  • But Faustus' offences can never be pardoned: the serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus. Ah, gentlemen, hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches! Though my heart pants and quivers to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years, oh, would I had never seen Wertenberg, never read book! and what wonders I have done, all Germany can witness, yea, all the world; for which Faustus hath lost both Germany and the world, yea Heaven itself, Heaven, the seat of God, the throne of the blessed, the kingdom of joy; and must remain in Hell for ever, Hell, ah, Hell, for ever! Sweet friends! what shalt become of Faustus being in Hell for ever?

    27

3rd Schol.

  • Yet, Faustus, call on God.

Faust.

  • On God, whom Faustus hath abjured! on God, whom Faustus hath blasphemed! Ah, my God, I would weep, -but the Devil draws in my tears. Gush forth blood instead of tears! Yea, life and soul! Oh, he stays my tongue! I would lift up my hands, but see, they hold them, they hold them!
  • All, Who, Faustus?

Faust.

  • Lucifer and Mephistophilis. Ah, gentlemen, I gave them my soul for my cunning!

All.

  • God forbid!

Faust.

  • God forbade it indeed; but Faustus hath done it: for vain pleasure of twenty-four years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them a bill with mine own blood: the date is expired j the time will come, and he will fetch me.

    43

Ist Schol.

  • Why did not Faustus tell us of this before, that divines might have prayed for thee?

Faust.

  • Oft have I thought to have done so; but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces if I named God; to fetch both body and soul if I once gave ear to divinity: and now 'tis too late. Gentlemen, away! lest you perish with me.

    50

2nd Schol.

  • Oh, what shalt we do to save1 Faustus?

Faust.

  • Talk not of me, but save yourselves, and depart.

3rd Schol.

  • God will strengthen me. I will stay with Fauitus.

Ist Schol.

  • Tempt not God, sweet friend; but let us into the next room, and there pray for him.

Faust. Ay.

  • pray for me, pray for me! and what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me.

2nd Schol.

  • Pray thou, and we will pray that God may-have mercy upon thee.

    61

Faust.

  • Gentlemen, farewell: if I live till morning I'll visit yau: if not—Faustus is gone to Hell.

All.

  • Faustus, farewell
  • [Exeunt Scholars. The dock strikes eleven.

Faust.

  • Ah, Faustus,
  • Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
  • And then thou must be damned perpetually!
  • Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of Heaven,
  • That time may cease, and midnight never come;
  • Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again and make

    70

  • Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
  • A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
  • That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
  • O lente, lente, currite noetis equi!1 The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The Devil will come, and Faustus must be damned. O, 111 leap up to2 my God! Who pulls me down? See,3 see where Christ's blood streams in the firniament!
  • One4 drop would save my soul—half a drop: ah. my Christ!
  • Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ! go Yet will I call on him: O spare me, Lucifer!— Where5 is it now? 'tis gone; and see where God Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows! Mountains and hills come, come and fall on me, And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!6 No!7 no!
  • Then will I headlong run into the earth;
  • Earth1 gape! O no, it will not harbour me!
  • You stars that reigned at my nativity,
  • Whose influence hath allotted Death and Hell,

    90

  • Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
  • Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud,2
  • That when you vomit forth into the air,
  • My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths.
  • So3 that my soul may but ascend to Heaven.
  • [The clock strikes the half hour.
  • Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon!4 God!
  • If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
  • Yet for Christ's sake whose blood hath ransomed me,
  • Impose some end to my incessant pain;

    100

  • Let Faustus live in Hell a thousand years—
  • A hundred thousand, and—at last—be saved!
  • O, no end is limited to damned souls!
  • Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
  • Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
  • Ah, Pythagoras' Metempsychosis! were that true,
  • This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
  • Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
  • For, when they die,
  • Their souls are soon dissolved in elements

    110

  • But mine must live, still to be plagued in Hell.
  • Curst be the parents that engendered me!
  • No, Faustus: curse thyself: curse Lucifer
  • That hath deprived thee of the joys of Heaven.
  • [The dock strikes twelve.
  • O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to Hell.
  • [Thunder and lightning,
  • O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean—ne'er be found.
  • [Enter Devils.
  • My God!1 my God! look not so fierce on me!
  • Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile!

    120

  • Ugly Hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
  • I'll burn my books!2 —Ah, Mephistophilis!
  • [Exeunt Devils with FAUSTUS.3
  • Enter CHORUS.

Chorus.

  • Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
  • And burned is Apollo's laurel bough,
  • That sometime grew within this learned man.
  • Faustus is gone; regard his hellish fall,
  • Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise
  • Only to wonder at unlawful things,
  • Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
  • To practise more than heavenly power permits.
  • [Exit.
  • Terminat hora diem; terminal author1 opus.

[1]“Mate “ordinarily means “confound; “but the Carthaginians were victorious in the engagement at Lake Trasimenus. Cunningham says the meaning must be “married the Carthaginians, espoused their cause;” but I strongly doubt whether the word “mate” was so used. It would perhaps be safer to suppose that Marlowe's memory was at fault. Ed. 1616 reads “the warlike Carthagens.”

[2]Soed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “daunt.”

[3]So all the 4tos. Dyce unnecessarily printed “her.” Ward compares Shakespeare's Sonnet xxi. 1-2,— “So is it not with me as with that Muse Stirr'd by a painted beauty to /us verse.”

[1]I.e. Roda, in the Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg.

[2]Ed. 1616 “Wittenberg” (which, of course, is the correct form).

[3]This line is omitted in ed. 1616. “Is there such a word as scholar-ism t” asks Wagner. Strange that he should have forgotten Greene's sneer at the poets, “who set the end of scholarism in an English blank-verse!”

[4]So later eds.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “more.”

[1]This is my own emendation. Ed. 1604 reads “Oncaymaeon,” which I take to be a corruption of the Aristotelian tt ol ii) 6v (“beingand not being “), The later 4105. give (with various spelling) “(Economy,” inserting the word “and “before “Galen.” Bat “(Economy,” though retained by all the editors, is nonsense. With the substitution of i for^ and e for ce, my emendation, which gives excellent sense, is a literal transcript of the reading of ed. 1604.

[2]So ed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “sound.”

[3]Medical rules.

[4]Prescriptions by which he had worked his cures Professor Ward thinks the reference is rather to “the advertisements by which, as a migratory physician, he had been in the habit of announang his advent, and perhaps his system of cures, and which were now ‘hung up as monuments’ in perpetuum.”

[1]So ed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “Wouldst.”

[2]Old copies “legatus.”

[3]Ed. 1616 “petty.”

[4]So ed. 1620.—Omitted in earlier copies.

[5]So ed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “Church.”

[6]So ed. 1616.—Ed. 1604 “His.” (Wagner's note is wrong.)

[7]“So ed. 1616.—Ed. 1604 “The deuill.”

[1]Old spelling for “sari”

[2]Dyce compares Donne's first satire, ed. 1633:—

[3]Soed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “trie.”

[4]I have adopted the arrangement proposed by Dyce. The old eds. read:—

  • “Enter Wagner.

[1]Soeds. 1609, 1616.—Ed. 1604 “treasury.”

[2]So Burden addresses Friar Bacon in Greene's Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay:

  • “Thou mean's! ere many years or days be past
  • To compass England with a wall of brass.”

[1]Dyce's correction for “skill “of the old copies.

[2]“During the blockade of Antwerp by the Prince of Parma in 1585, ' They of Antuerpe knowing that the bridge and the Stocadoes were finished, made a great shippe, to be a meanes to breake all this worke of the prince of Parmaes this great shippe was made of masons worke within, in the manner of a vaulted caue: vpon the hatches there were layed myll-stones, graue-stones, and others of great weight; and within the vault were many barrels of powder, ouer the which there were holes; and in them they had put matches, hanging at a thred, the which buning vntill they came vnto the thred, would fall into the powder, and so blow vp all. And for that they could not haue any one in this shippe to conduct it, Lanckhaer, a sea captaine of the Hollanders, being then in Antuerpe, gaue them counsell to tye a great beame at the end of it, to make it to keepe a straight course in the middest of the streame. In this sort floated this shippe the fourth of April, vntill that it came vnto the bridge; where (within a while after) the powder wrought his effect, with such violence, as the vessell, and all that was within it, and vpon it, flew in pieces, carrying away a part of the Stocado and of the bridge. The marqucsse of Roubay Vicont of Gant, caspar of Robles lord of Billy, and the Seignior of Torchies, brother vnto the Seignior of BOUTS, with many others, were presently slaine; which were toine in pieces, and dispersed abroad, both vpon the land and vpon the water.' Griemeston's Gencrall Historn oftke Netherlands, p. 875, ed, 1609.” Dyce.

[1]Lines 106–7 are omitted in later 4105.

[2]Dyce's correction for “consissylogismes “of eds. 1604, 16og.–Ed. 1616 “subtle syllogisms.”

[3]Cf. Virgil, &n., vi. 667.

[4]So eds. 1604,1609.—Ed. 1616 “shadow.” “In Book i. of his work De Occulta Philvsophta, Agrippa gives directions for the operations of scioraancy.”—Ward.

[1]So ed, 1616.–Eds. 1604, 1609, “subjects.” Perhaps “subjects” is right. Cf. 2 Tamiurlatae, iv. 2,1. 37; v. 3, L 165.

[2]See note i, p. 112.

[3]Cf. 2 Tzmburlaine, i. i:—

  • “Vast Grantland, compassed with the frozen sea
  • (Inhabited with tall and sturdy men,
  • Giants as big as hugy Polypheme).”

[4]Soed. 1620, and later 4tos. (Ed. 1616 “has”).—Eds. 1604, 1609, “Than in their” (a repetition from the previous line). Wagner gives “Than's in the”—which may well be styled Ucttaputidtatma.

[5]So ed. 1616.—Ed. 1604 “For.”

[6]Omitted in ed. 1604.

[1]Soed 1616.–Ed. 1604 “lusty;” ed. 1609 “little.”

[2]All the old copies read “Albanus.” The correction is Mitford's. “It is at the same time open to conjecture whether Marlowe did not, as Duntzer suggests, refer to Pietro d'Abano (Petrus de Apono), an Italian physician and alchemist who narrowly escaped burning by the Inquisition. He was born about 1250 and died about 1316, and wrote a work called Conciliator Differmttartan Philasophtnun et Medicerum.” — Ward.

[1]Before Faustus' house.

[2]So ed. 1616.–Ed. 1604 “upon't.”

[3]Lanes 14–17 are omitted in ed. 1616 and later 4tos.

[1]So ed. 1616.–Ed. 1604 “it would.”

[2]In ed. 1616 and later 4tos. the repetition is not found.

[3]Ed. 1616 and later 4103. read:—

  • “1 Scko. O Faustus!
  • Then I fear that which I have long suspected,
  • That thou art fallen into that damned art,
  • For which they two are infamous through the world.
  • “2 Scho, Were he a stranger not allied to me,
  • The danger of his soul would make me mourn;
  • But come, let us go and inform the Rector,
  • It may be his grave counsel may reclaim him.
  • “1 Scho, I fear me nothing will reclaim him now.
  • “2 Scko, Yet let us see what we can do.
  • [Exeunt.”

[1]The scene is laid in a grove.

[2]Lines 1–4 are repeated verbatim in the first scene of the 1594 Taming of a Shrew.

[3]Soed. 1616.–Eds. 1604, 1609, “and Agramithist.”

[4]Ed. 1616 “the abbreviated.”

[5]Wandering. Cf a passage in the Distracted Empcrvr v. 3 (a play first pnnted from MS. in vol. in. of my Collection of Old Plays):

[1]Ed. 1616 inserts “dragon” after “Mephistophilis.” Mitford proposed “per Dagon quod numen aens est,” and the late Mr. James Crossley wished to read “quod tu mandares.” A simpler correction (omitting “dragon “) would be “Quid tu moraris?” We may suppose that Faustus pauses after the first part of the invocation, chides Mephistophilis for the delay, and then proceeds to employ a weightier spelL (I am glad to hear from Mr. Fleay that he long ago made the correction I propose.)

[2]So ed. 1620 and later 4105.—Ed. 1604 “dicatis.”

[3]Lines 33-35 are omitted in ed. 1616. For “No,” J. H. Albers (vid. Wagner's Critical Commentary) suggests “Now.”

[1]Dyce quotes from the prose-tract The History of Dr. Faustus:— “After Dr. Faustus had made his promise to the devill, in the morning betimes he called the spirit before him, and commanded him that he should alwayes come to him like a fryer after the order of Saint Francis, with a bell in his band like Saint Anthony, and to nng it once or twice before he appeared, that he might know of his certaine coming.”

[2]A common feat of magicians and witches.

[3]Soed. 1620.—Earlier 4 tos, “accident.”

[1]So ed. 1620.—The earlier 4tos. “now hither.”

[1]Ed. 1616 “allgodliness.”

[2]Soed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “those.”2 Soed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “24.”

[1]So ed. x 6 x 6.-Eds, z 604, x 6090“24.”

[2]Scene a street.—The text of ed. 1616 is given in the Appendix.

[3]Beards cut sharply to a point (Fr. pu-d-drvant).—A scene in the 1594 Taming of a Shrew opens with a similar piece of fooling.

[1]Dyce remarks that these are the first words of W. Lily's, “Ad dis-cipulos carmen dt monbus.”

[1]A kind of larkspur, supposed to be efficacious in destroying vermin.

[1]“Knave's Acre (Poultney Street) is described by Strype, vi. 84, quoted in P. Cunningham's Handbook for London, as ' but narrow, and chiefly inhabited by those that deal in old goods, and glass bottles.' (It ran into Glasshouse Street.)” Ward. So ed. 1616.—Ed. 1604 “my.”

[1]Loose breeches, trunk-hose.

[1]So all the 4tos. As the mistake was doubtless intentional, 1 have not corrected it.

[1]In ed. 1616 the “Evil Angel” begins the colloquy with “Go forward, Faustus, with that famous art.”

[2]So ed. 1616.— Omitted in ed. 1604 wealth.

[1]So ed. 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604

[2]Soed. 1616.—Ed. 1604 “I. live. lives,

[3]Soed. 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604.

[4]Soed. 1604. “You” is of course the antecedent of “that.” Cf.

[1]So ed. 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604.

[1]This would not be intelligible without the assistance of the History of Dr. Faustus, the sixth chapter of which is headed—'How Dr. Faustus set his blood in a saucer on warme ashes and writ as followeth. '”Dyce.

[1]Soed. 1616.—Ed. 1604 “thee.”

[1]The words “he desires” are not found in the old copies. Dyce mentions that in the prose History of Dr. Faustui, ed. 1648, the 3rd article runs:—“That Mephistophilis should bring him anything and do for him whatsoever”a later edition adding “he desired.”

[1]Soed. 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604.

[2]Soed. 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604.

[1]Ed. 1616 proceeds as follows: —

[2]Omitted in eds. 1604, 1609. (The line is not in the later eds.)

[3]So ed 1616. — Not in ed. 1604.

[4]So ed. 1616. — Not in ed. 1604.

[1]Soed. 1604. Wagner, printing from ed. 1609, omits “and.'In either case “lightning”is a trisyllable. Ed. 1616 gives “Brings thunder, whirlwinds, storm, and lightning.”

[2]Ed. 1616 “harness”.

[3]Ed. 1616 reads “Faust, Thanks, Mephistophilis, for this sweet book:

[1]In eds. 1604, 1609, this scene is a continuation of the former. Before seeing the eds. of Wagner and Ward, I had marked the commencement of a new scene in my own copy.(Scene: a room in Faustus' house.)

[2]Ed. 1616 reads.—

[1]Lines 20-21 are omitted in ed. 1616.

[2]Ed. 1616 “Swords, poisons, halters,” &c,

[3]After this line ed. 1616 gives —.

  • “Even from the moon unto the empyreal orb.”

[2]Ed. 1616 proceeds—

[1]Ed. 1616 “Move me not, Faustus” (omitting “for I will not tell thee”).

[1]Ed. 1616 repeats the words “my Saviour.

[2]“Omitted in ed. 1616, to the advantage of the metre.

[3]The arrangement in ed. 1616 is as follows:—

[4]Lines Ioo-IO2 are omitted in ed. 1616.

[1]At Dulwrich College is preserved the '' plat “of an extemporal play by Richard Tarlton on the subject of the Seven Deadly Sins. See Collier's Engl Dram. Poetry, iii. 394 (ed. i).

[2]An allusion to the mediaeval Carmen de Pulice, formerly ascribed to Ovid.

[1]Pair of rapiers. Cf. Webster's White Devil (ed. 1857, p. 46).#x2014;

  • “My lord hath left me yet two case of jewels
  • Shall make me scorn your bounty.”

(The speaker, Flaminius, goes out and presently returns with “two case of pistols.”)

[2]Refreshment between meals.

[1]“Martleimas was the customary time for hanging up provisions to dry, which had been salted for winter provision, as our ancestors lived chiefly upon salted meat in the spring, the winter-fed cattle not being fit for use “—Nares. The Feast of St. Martin falls on November iith.

[2]The March brewing was much esteemed. In Shj ley's Captain Underwit a fencing-master's allowance is put at “twenty pipes of Bermudas [i.e. twenty pipefuls of tobacco] a day, six flagons of March beer, a quart of sack in a week,—for he scorns meat,” (See my Old Plays, ii. 323.)

[3]All the copies read “Lechery.” The change was proposed by Collier.

[1]Ed. 1616 reads:—

  • “Luc. Away to Hell, away! On, piper!
  • [Exeunt the Sins.
  • Faust. O, how this sight doth delight my soul!
  • Luc. But, Faustus, in hell,” & c.

[2]I should like to omit “thyself” for the metre's sake.

[3]In ed. 1616 there follows a clownish scene between Robin and Dick. I ave printed it after the play in the Appendix.

[1]In ed. 1616 the speech of the Chorus is expanded as follows:—

[1]The scene is laid in the Pope's privy-chamber.

[2]Treves.

[3]Ed. 1604 “equivalence.”

[4]Dyce quotes from Petrarch's Ittnerarium Syriacum:—” Non longe a Puteolis Falernus colhs attollitur, famoso palmite nobilis. Inter Fal-ernum et mare mons est saxeus hominum manibus confossus quod vulgus insulsum a Virgiho magicis cantaminibus factum putant.”

[5]So ed. 1616.—Ed. 1604 “in midst of which.” (From the prose fits-lory of Dr. Faust us, Dyce shows that the “sumptuous temple is St Mark's at Venice.)

[1]In ed. 1616 these two lines are added —

  • “Whose frame is paved with sundry coloured stones,
  • And rooft aloft with curious work in gold”

[2]A garbled version of what Marlowe wrote. Ed. 1616 gives —

  • “I have, my Fatugstus, and, for proof thereof,
  • This is the goodly palace of the Pope:
  • And, cause we are no common guests,
  • I choose his privy-chamber for our use.”

[3]Ed. 1616,—” All's one, for we'll be bold with his venison.”

[4]This line and the next, necessary for the sense, first occur in ed. 1616.

[5]Ed. 1616 “two.”

[6]Old eds. “Ponto.”

[1]Ed. 1616 reads:—

  • “Where thou shalt see such store of ord[i]nance
  • As that the double cannons, forg'd of brass,
  • Do match the number of the days contam'd
  • Within the compass of one c& mplete year.”

[2]“This probably means cannons with double bores. Two cannons with trifle bores were taken from the French at Malplaquet, and are now in the Woolwich Museum.”— Ward.

[3]Soed. 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604,

[4]From this point the scene is greatly expanded in ed. 1616. See Appendix.

[1]Nares enumerates six vanous forms—Sennet, Senet, Synnet, Cynet, Signet and Signate, It is defined by the same authority as “a particular set of notes on the trumpet or cornet, different from a flourish.”

[1]Wagner wanted to read'' strook,'' but Ward aptly compares Measure for Measure, ii. i. 189.—” If he took you a box o' the ear.”

[1]Scene: an Inn-yard. The scene is omitted in ed. 1616, and later 4tos.

[1]“A medicated drink composed usually of red wine, but sometimes white, with the addition of sugar and spices.”—Nares.

[1]It was a common practice among our ancestors to feed horses on bread. Nares quotes from Gervase Markham a recipe for making horse-loaves.

[2]Dyce supposes that a scene has dropped out before the re-entrance of Robin and Ralph. Scene an Inn-yard as before. (The text of ed. 1616 is given in the Appendix.)

[3]See note 3, p. 42.

[1]The choice of abuse was left to the actor (who was no doubt equal to the occasion). In an old play, the Tryallof C/itvalry (1605), we find the stage direction, “Exit Clown, speaking anything.”

[2]The one.

[1]Eds. 1604, 1609, read:—“Meph. Vanish, villaines, th' one like an ape, another like a bear, the third an ass for doing this enterprise,” then proceeding as m the text. The words that I have omitted are (as D)ce observed) quite unnecessary.

[1]For what follows in ed. 1616 see Appendix.

[2]Scene: the Emperor's palace at Innsbruck. The text of ed. 1616 is given in the Appendix.

[1]Dyce's correction for “best“of ed. 1604.

[2]Faustus and Mephistophilis are seen crossing a “fair and pleasant green.”they are supposed to arrive presently at Faustus' bouse. In the old ed. the present scene is not separated from the preceding.

[2]I.e. boise-scorser, horse-dealer.

[1]Sleek.

[1]Dr. Lopez, physician to Queen Elizabeth. He was hanged m 1594 for attempting to poison the Queen. The best account of him is to be found in an article by Mr. S. L Lee on The Original of Shyloct, Gentleman's Magazine, February 1880. Marlowe was dead before the doctor came into notoriety.

[1]So eds. 1604, 1609. Ward compares Othello, iii. 3, 119, “where the folios read, ' Be not acknown on't,' and the first and third quartos,

[1]A juggler's term, like “presto, fly.” Hence applied to the juggler himself.

[1]Hostelry, inn.

[1]In ed. 1616 there follows a scene in which the horse-courser relates to an ale-house audience how he had been cozened by Faustus. bee Appendix.

[1]Scene: court of the Duke of Vanholt. The text of ed. 1616 is given in the Appendix.

[1]Scene: a room in Faustus' house. Ed, 1616 reads:— “Thunder and lightning. Enter Devils with covered dishes; MEPHrs-TOPHILJS leads them into FAUSTUS' study, then enter WAGNEK.

[2]I have adopted Cunningham's obvious correction. Eds. 1604, 1609, “means to die shortly.”

[3]Scene: a room in Faustus' house.

[1]Perhaps an allusion to the legend that Paris when carrying off Helen plundered Sparta.

[2]Dyce quotes from the prose History of Dr. Faustus the following description of Helen—

“This lady appeared before them in a most rich gowne of purple velvet, costly imbrodiered; her haire hanged downe loose, as faire as the beaten gold, and of such length that it reached downe to her hammes; having most amorous cole-black eyes, a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as a cherry, her cheekes of a rose colour, her mouth small, her neck white like a swan, tall and slender of personage; m summe, there was no imperfect place in her: she looked round about with a rolling hawkes eye, a smiling and wanton countenance, which neere-hand inflamed the hearts of all the students, but that they per-swaded themselves she was a spirit, which made them lightly passe away such fancies.”

[3]Ed. 1616 reads:—

  • 2nd Schol. Was this fair Helen, whose admired worth
  • Made Greece with ten years' wars afflict poor Troy?
  • 3 yd Schol. Too simple is my wit to tell her worth,
  • Whom all the world admires for majesty.
  • 1 st Schol. Now we have seen the pride of Nature's work.
  • We'll take our leaves; and for this blessed sight,” &c.

[1]In ed. 1616 this speech runs as follows:—

[1]This line is omitted in ed. 1616.

[2]Ed. 1616 “Hell claims his right.”

[3]So ed. 1616.— Omitted in ed. 1604.

[4]So ed. 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604.

[5]Ed. 1616 “Oh, friend, I feel”

[1]Ed. 1616,—

  • “Faustus, I leave thee, but with grief of heart,
  • Fearing the enemy of thy hapless soul.”

[2]Ed. 1616 “Accursèd Faustus, wretch, what hast thou done?”

[3]Before this line ed. 1616 inserts “I do repent I e'er offended him.”

[4]This stage-direction is not in the old copies: it was suggested by Dyce,

[5]Ed. 1616 “that base and aged man.”

[1]Dyce quotes from the prose History of Dr. Faustus.

“To the ends that this miserable Faustus might fill the lust of his flesh and live in all manner of voluptuous pleasure, it came in his mind, after he had slept his first sleepe, and in the 23 year past of his time, that he had a great desire to lye with faire Helena of Greece, especially her whom he had seen and shewed unto the students at Wittenberg: wherefore he called unto his spirit Mephostophilis, commanding him to bring to him the faire Helena; which he also did. Whereupon he fell in love with her, and made her his common concubine and bedfellow; for she was so beautifull and delightfull a peece, that he could not be one houre from her, if he should therefore have suffered death, she had so stoln away his heart: and to his seeming, in time she was with childe, whom Faustus named Justus Faustus. The child told Doctor Faustus many things which were don in forraign countrys; but in the end, when Faustus lost his life, the mother and the child vanished away both together.”

[2]So Fletcher (Bmduca, ni. 2).—

  • “Loud Fame calls ye,
  • Pitch'd on the topless Apennine.”

Shakespeare surely remembered the preceding line when he wrote of Helen ia Troilus and Cretstda, u. 2:

“Why, she is a pearl Whose price hath launched ateve a thousand skips,”

[1]So ed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “be.”

[2]Ed. 1616 “azure.” The form “azur'd “is found in Shakespeare and Drayton.

[3]For what follows in ed. 1616 see Appendix,

[4]Evidently this is a new scene, though none of the editors has so printed it. The scene is laid in a room of Faustus' house, whither the Old Man has come to exhort Faustus to repentance.

[1]The additions made to this scene in ed. 1616 are given in the Appendix.

[1]So ed, 1616.—Omitted in ed. 1604.

[1]“By an exquisite touch of nature—the brain involuntarily simmon-ing words employed for other purposes in happier hours—he crfes aloud the line which Ovid whispered in Cormna's arms.”— A. Sfmmds. (It would be hypercritical to note that Ovid gives the words to Aurora:—

  • “At si, quern mails, Cephalum complexa teneres,
  • Clamares ‘lente currite noetis equi.’”
  • Amores, i, 13,11. 39-40.)

[2]Ed. 1616 “to Heaven.”

[3]Ed. 1620 “See where,” &c. (The line is omitted in ed, 1616.)

[4]Ed. 1616:—

  • “One drop of blood will save me: O my Christ!
  • Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!”

[5]Ed. 1616:—

  • “Where is it now? 'tis gone:
  • And see a threatening arm, an angry brow!”

[6]Ed. 1616 “heaven.”—Cf. Hosea x. 8:—” And they shalt saj to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us.”

[7]The word “No” is not repeated in ed. 1616.

[1]Ed. 1616 “Gape, earth.”

[2]Dyce suggests that we should read “clouds” for “cloud,” and “they vomit forth … from thtir smoky mouths.”

[3]Ed. 1616 “But let my soul mount and ascend to Heaven.”

[4]Ed. 1616:—

  • “O if my soul must suffer for my sin,
  • Impose some end,” &c.

[1]For “My God! my God!” ed. 1616 reads “O mercy, heaven”

[2]“So the Ephesians ‘burnt their books’ after St Paul's preaching, Acts ax. 19.”— Wagner,

[3]In ed. 1616 a scene between the scholars follows. See Appendix.

[1]Ed. 1616 “auctor.” Mottoes are not uncommonly found at the end of old plays. The motto in the text is found inscnbed at the end of the Distracted Emperor (an anonymous tragi-comedy printed for the first time in vol. m. of my Collection of Old flays}.

[2]Soed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “those.”2 Soed. 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “24.”

[2]So ed, 1616.—Eds. 1604, 1609, “land.”