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 enterprises I will?
I'll have them fly to India for gold,
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,
And with swift Rhine circle all Wirtemberg:
I'll have them fill the public schools with skill,
Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad:
I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,
And chase the Prince of Parma from our land;
And reign sole king of all the provinces:
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp bridge,
I'll make my servile Spirits to invent.
Come, German Valdes, and Cornelius,
And make me wise with your sage conference.

Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS.

Faust. Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,
Know that your words have won me at the last
To practise magic and concealed Arts.
Philosophy is odious and obscure:

Both Law and Physic are for petty wits:
Tis Magic, Magic, that hath ravish’d me.
Then, gentle friends, aid me in this attempt;
And I, that have with subtil syllogisms
Gravell'd the Pastors of the German Church,
And made the flowering pride of Wirtemberg
Swarm to my problems, as th' infernal Spirits
On sweet Musæus when he came to hell,
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,
Whose shadow made all Europe honour him.

Vald. Faustus, these books, thy wit, and our experience, Shall make all nations canonize us.

[Fourteen lines omitted.]

As Indian Moors obey their Spanish lords,
So shall the Spirits of every element

Be always serviceable to us three :

Like Lions shall they guard us when we please;
Like Almain Rutters with their horsemen's staves,
Or Lapland Giants trotting by our sides:
Sometimes like Women, or unwedded Maids,
Shadowing mroe beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love.
Corn. The miracles that magic will perform,
Will make thee vow to study nothing else.

He that is grounded in astrology,

Inricht with tongues, well seen in minerals,

Hath all the principles magic doth require.

Faust. Come show me some demonstrations magical, That I may conjure in some bushy grove,

And have these joys in full possession.

Vald. Then haste thee to some solitary grove,
And bear wise Bacon's and Albanus' works,
The Hebrew Psalter, and New Testament;
And whatsoever else is requisite

We will inform thee, ere our conference cease.

[Sc. 1.]

Faustus being instructed in the elements of magic by his friends Valdes and Cornelius, sells his soul to the devil, to have an Evil Spirit at his command for twenty-four years.—When the years are expired, the devils claim his soul.

FAUSTUS, the night of his death. WAGNER, his servant.

Faust. Say, Wagner, thou hast perused my will,

How dost thou like it?

Wag. Sir, so wondrous well,

As in all humble duty I do yield

My life and lasting service for your love.

[Exit.

Three Scholars enter.

Faust. Gramercy, Wagner.

Welcome, Gentlemen.

First Sch. Now, worthy Faustus, methinks your looks are changed.

Faust. O, Gentlemen.

Sec. Sch. What ails Faustus?

Faust. Ah, my sweet chamber-fellow, had I lived with thee,

then had I liv'd still, but now must die eternally. Look, Sirs, comes he not? comes he not?

First Sch. O my dear Faustus, what imports this fear?

Sec. Sch. Is all our pleasure turn'd to melancholy?
Third Sch. He is not well with being over solitary.

Sec. Sch. If it be so, we will have physicians, and Faustus shall be cured.

Third Sch. "Tis but a surfeit, Sir; fear nothing.

Faust. A surfeit of a deadly sin that hath damn'd both body and soul.

Sec. Sch. Yet, Faustus, look up to heaven, and remember, mercy is infinite.

Faust. But Faustus' offence can ne'er be pardoned. The serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not Faustus. O, Gentlemen, hear me with patience, and tremble not at my speeches. Though my heart pant and quiver to remember that I have been a student here these thirty years. O would I had ne'er seen Wirtemberg, 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, O hell, for ever. Sweet friends, what shall become of Faustus being in hell for ever?

Sec. Sch. Yet, Faustus, call on God.

Faust. On God whom Faustus hath abjured? on God whom Faustus hath blasphemed? O 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 'em, they hold 'em.

Scholars. Who, Faustus?

Faust. Why, Lucifer and Mephostophilis. O, gentlemen, I gave them my soul for my cunning.

Scholars. O God forbid.

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

First Sch. 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 me body and soul if I once gave ear to divinity: and now it is too late. Gentlemen, away, lest you perish with me.

Sec. Sch. O what may we do to save Faustus?

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

Third Sch. God will strengthen me; I will stay with Faustus. First Sch. Tempt not God, sweet friend, but let us into the next room and pray for him.

Faust. Ay, pray for me, pray for me; and what noise soever you hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me.

Sec. Sch. Pray thou, and we will pray, that God may have mercy upon thee.

Faust. Gentlemen, farewell; if I live till morning, I'll visit you; if not, Faustus is gone to hell.

Scholars. Faustus, farewell.

FAUSTUS alone. The clock strikes eleven.

Faust. O Faustus,

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd 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
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 noctis equi.

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
O, I will leap to heaven: who pulls me down?
See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament:
One drop of blood will save me: O, my Christ,
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ.
Yet will I call on him: O spare me, Lucifer.
Where is it now? 'tis gone;

And see, a threat'ning arm, and angry brow.
Mountains and hills come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven.
No? then will I headlong run into the earth:
Gape earth. O no, it will not harbour me.
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence have allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud;
That when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoaky mouths,
But let my soul mount and ascend to heaven.

The watch strikes.

O half the hour is past: 'twill all be past anon.
O if my soul must suffer for my sin,

Impose some end to my incessant pain.
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,

A hundred thousand, and at the last be saved:
No end is limited to damned souls.

Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast ?

O Pythagoras' Metempsychosis! were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be changed
Into some brutish beast.

All beasts are happy, for when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolved in elements:
But mine must live still to be plagued in hell.
Curst be the parents that engender'd me:
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer,
That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.

The clock strikes twelve.

It strikes, it strikes; now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell.
O soul, be chang'd into small water drops,
And fall into the ocean; ne'er be found.

0

Thunder, and enter the Devils.

mercy, Heaven! look not so fierce on me.
Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile:
Ugly hell gape not; come not, Lucifer :
I'll burn my books: O, Mephostophilis ! 1

Enter Scholars.

First Sch. Come, gentlemen, let us go visit Faustus,

For such a dreadful night was never seen

Since first the world's creation did begin;

Such fearful shrieks and cries were never heard.

Pray heaven the Doctor have escaped the danger.

[Sc. xiv.]

Sec. Sch. O help us heavens! see here are Faustus' limbs

All torn asunder by the hand of death.

Third Sch. The devil whom Faustus served hath torn him thus:

[Enter chorus and with eight lines the play ends.]

VOL. IV.-3