156 TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DR. FAUSTUS. As SEC. SCHOL. Well, gentlemen, though Faustus' end be such every Christian heart laments to think on, Yet, for he was a scholar once admir'd For wondrous knowledge in our German schools, And all the students, cloth'd in mourning black, Enter CHORUS. [Exeunt. CHOR. 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 deepness doth entice such forward wits Terminat hora diem; terminat auctor opus. 1 BALLAD OF FAUSTUS. [In the course of the notes on the earlier Faustus several extracts have been given from the prose History of Doctor Faustus; and the following ballad on the same subject may properly find a place here. It is now re-printed from a copy in The Roxburghe Collection, vol. ii. 235, Brit. Museum]. The Judgment of God shewed upon one John Faustus, Docter in ALL Christian men, give ear a while to me, At Wittenburge, a town in Germany, In learning, loe, my uncle brought up me, Then did I shun the holy Bible-book, Which was the cause of my utter damnation. The devil in fryars weeds appear'd to me, I * Twice did I make my tender flesh to bleed, For four and twenty years this bond was made, How dear my soul our Saviour Christ had bought. Would I had first been made a beast by kind! Or, would when reason first began to bloom, Woe to the day of my nativity! Woe to the time that once did foster me! The time I past away, with much delight, I wrought such wonders by my magick skill, The devil he carried me up into the sky, What pleasure I did wish to please my mind When four and twenty years was almost run, And carry me to everlasting night. peace] Another copy of this ballad in the British Museum.-Ballads, &c. 643, m. 10,-has "pleasure." Then all too late I curst my wicked deed, The dread + whereof doth make my heart to bleed; I then did wish both sun and moon to stay, At last, when I had but one hour to come, By twelve a clock my glass was almost out: But hope that Christ his kingdom you may gain, Printed by and for A. M. and sold by the + dread] So the other copy.-The Roxburghe copy "deed." present, lo,] The other copy "presently." |