SEC. SCHOL. Well, gentlemen, though Faustus' end be such As 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 learnèd man. Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits Terminat hora diem; terminat auctor opus. BALLAD OF FAUSTUS. [In the course of the notes on the earlier Faustus several extracts have been given from the prose Histpry 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, Twice did I make my tender flesh to bleed, For four and twenty years this bond was made, 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! And woe unto the hand that seal'd the bill! 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, * 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: Then present, lot, they came into the hall, You conjurors and damned witches all, 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." |