O lente, lente, currite noctis equil1

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The Devil will come, and Faustus must be damned.
O, I'll leap up to 2 my God! Who pulls me down?
See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firma-
ment!

One drop would save my soul-half a drop: ah, my

Christ! Pau

Ah, 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 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;

80

1 "By an exquisite touch of nature—the brain involuntarily summoning words employed for other purposes in happier hours-he cries aloud the line which Ovid whispered in Corinna's arms."-J. A. Symonds. (It would be hypercritical to note that Ovid gives the words to Aurora :— "At si, quem malis, Cephalum complexa teneres, Clamares lente currite noctis equi.""

2 Ed. 1616 "to Heaven."

-Amores, i. 13, IL. 39-40.)

* Ed. 1620 "See where," &c. (The line is omitted in ed. 1616.)

• 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 shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us."

7 The word "No" is not repeated in ed. 1616.

Earth1 gape! O no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reigned at my nativity,

Whose influence hath allotted Death and Hell,
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,
So that my soul may but ascend to Heaven.

90

[The clock strikes the half hour. Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon! O 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;

Let Faustus live in Hell a thousand years

A hundred thousand, and-at last-be saved!
O, no end is limited to damnèd 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,

1 Ed. 1616" Gape, earth."

100

2 Dyce suggests that we should read "clouds "for" cloud," and "they vomit forth.

from their smoky mouths."

3 Ed. 1616" But let my soul mount and ascend to Heaven."

+ Ed. 1616:

"O if my soul must suffer for my sin,

Impose some end," &c.

Their souls are soon dissolved in elements;
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.

110

[The clock strikes twelve.

O, it strikes, it strikes!
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to Hell.

Now, body, turn to air,

[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!
Ugly Hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books ! 2-Ah, Mephistophilis !

120

[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

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 xix. 19."-Wagner.

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

Only to wonder at unlawful things,

Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practise more than heavenly power permits [Exit.

Terminat hora diem; terminat author1 opus.

1 Ed. 1616 "auctor.

Mottoes are not uncommonly found at the end of old plays. The motto in the text is found inscribed at the end of the Distracted Emperor (an anonymous tragi-comedy printed for the first time in vol. iii, of my Collection of Old Plays).

APPENDIX TO DR. FAUSTUS.

SCENE 4 as printed in the 1616 quarto:

Enter WAGNER and the Clown.

Wag. Come hither, sirrah boy!

Clown. Boy! O! disgrace to my person! Zounds! boy in your face! you have seen many boys with beards, I am sure.

Wag. Sirrah, hast thou no comings in?

Clown. Yes, and goings out too, you may see, sir.

Wag. Alas, poor slave! see how poverty jests in his nakedness! I know the villain's 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.

Clown. Not so neither; I had need to have it well roasted, and good sauce to it, if I pay so dear, I can tell you.

Wag. Sirrah, wilt thou be my man, and wait on me? and I will make thee go like Qui mihi discipulus. Clown. What, in verse?

Wag. No, slave, in beaten silk and staves-acre.

Clown. Staves-acre? that's good to kill vermin; then belike if I serve you I shall be lousy.