Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Your soul gives essence to our wretched subjects,1
Whose matter is incorporate in your flesh.

Cel. Your pains do pierce our souls; no hope survives, For by your life we entertain our lives.

Tamb. But, sons, this subject, not of force enough

To hold the fiery spirit it contains,
Must part, imparting his impressions
By equal portions into both your breasts;
My flesh, divided in your precious shapes,
Shall still retain my spirit, though I die,
And live in all your seeds immortally.
Then now remove me, that I may resign
My place and proper title to my son.
First, take my scourge and my imperial crown,
And mount my royal chariot of estate,
That I may see thee crowned before I die.
Help me, my lords, to make my last remove.

170

180

[They lift him down.

Ther. A woful change, my lords; that daunts our

thoughts,

More than the ruin of our proper souls!

Tamb. Sit up, my son, [and] let me see how well

Thou wilt become thy father's majesty.

Amy. With what a flinty bosom should I joy

The breath of life and burthen of my soul,

If not resolved into resolvèd pains,

1 Collier proposed "substance;" but, as Dyce observed, “subject " occurs immediately below, and in iv. 2 (l. 37),—

"A form not meet to give that subject essence."

My body's mortifièd lineaments 1

Should exercise the motions of my heart,
Pierced with the joy of any dignity!

O father! if the unrelenting ears

Of death and hell be shut against my prayers,
And that the spiteful influence of Heaven,
Deny my soul fruition of her joy;

How should I step, or stir my hateful feet
Against the inward powers of my heart,
Leading a life that only strives to die,

And plead 2 in vain unpleasing sovereignty?

Tamb. Let not thy love exceed thine honour,

son,

Nor bar thy mind that magnanimity

That nobly must admit necessity.

Sit up, my boy, and with those silken reins

190

200

Bridle the steelèd stomachs of those jades.

Ther. My lord, you must obey his majesty, Since fate commands and proud necessity.

Amy. Heavens witness me with what a broken heart And damned 3 spirit I ascend this seat, And send my soul, before my father die, His anguish and his burning agony !

210

[They crown Aмyras.

Tamb. Now fetch the hearse of fair Zenocrate;

1 The text seems very corrupt. For "lineaments" the 4to. reads "laments."

2 There is little sense as the line stands. I suspect the true reading is "And pleased."

3 "Doomed, sorrowful."-Dyce.

Let it be placed by this my fatal chair,

And serve as parcel of my funeral.

Usum. Then feels your majesty no sovereign ease, Nor may our hearts, all drowned in tears of blood,

Joy any hope of your recovery?

Tamb. Casane, no; the monarch of the earth, And eyeless monster that torments my soul, Cannot behold the tears ye shed for me,

And therefore still augments his cruelty.

Tech. Then let some God oppose his holy power
Against the wrath and tyranny of Death,
That his tear-thirsty and unquenched hate
May be upon himself reverberate !

220

[They bring in the hearse of ZENOCRATE. Tamb. Now eyes enjoy your latest benefit, And when my soul hath virtue of your sight, Pierce through the coffin and the sheet of gold, And glut your longings with a heaven of joy. So reign, my son; scourge and controul those slaves, Guiding thy chariot with thy father's hand.

As precious is the charge thou undertakest

As that which Clymene's brain-sick son did guide, When wandering Phoebe's ivory cheeks were scorched, And all the earth, like Ætna, breathing fire;

Be warned by him, then; learn with awful eye

To sway a throne as dangerous as his;
For if thy body thrive not full of thoughts
As pure and fiery as Phyteus' 1 beams,

230

1 Dyce conjectures that "Phyteus" is a misprint for "Pythius."'*

The nature of these proud rebelling jades
Will take occasion by the slenderest hair,
And draw thee piecemeal like Hippolitus,

240

Through rocks more steep and sharp than Caspian clifts.1 The nature of thy chariot will not bear

A guide of baser temper than myself,

More than Heaven's coach the pride of Phaeton.
Farewell, my boys; my dearest friends farewell!
My body feels, my soul doth weep to see
Your sweet desires deprived my company,

For Tamburlaine, the scourge of God, must die.

[He dies. Amy. Meet heaven and earth, and here let all things

end,

For earth hath spent the pride of all her fruit,
And Heaven consumed his choicest living fire.
Let Earth and Heaven his timeless 2 death deplore,
For both their worths will equal him no more.

1 So the 8vo. Cf. Greene (in Orl. Fur.),

"The sands of Tagus, all of burnish'd gold,
Made Thetis never prouder on the clifts."

Shelley uses the form in Arethusa,—

"And up through the rifts

Of the Dorian clifts."

250

Dyce prints cliffs.

2 Untimely.

THE Tragedy of Dr. Faustus was entered on the Stationers' Books January 7, 1600-1, but the 4to. of 1604 is the earliest edition yet discovered. A copy (probably unique) of this edition is in the Bodleian Library. The title is :- -The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. As it hath bene Acted by the Right Honorable the Earle of Nottingham his seruants. Written by Ch. Marl. London Printed by V. S. for Thomas Bushell 1604. The text of ed. 1604 was first printed by Dyce, and more recently the precious 4to. has been inspected by Professor A. W. Ward, who published an edition of Faustus in 1878. A second 4to., of which there is a unique copy in the town library of Hamburg, appeared in 1609 with the following title :-The Tragicall History of the horrible Life and death of Doctor Faustus. Written by Ch. Marl. Imprinted at London by G. E. for John Wright and are to be sold at Christ-church gate. 1609. This edition agrees in almost every particular with the preceding. Its readings are reported in Wagner's edition (1877). The third 4to., which contains some scenes wholly re-written and others printed for the first time, was published in 1616 with the following title :-The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Written by Ch. Marl. London, Printed for John Wright, and are to be sold at his shop without Newgate, at the signe of the Bible, 1616. In the Introduction I have discussed fully the origin of these changes and additions. Other 4tos. agreeing in the main with ed. 1616 appeared in 1620, 1624, and 1631. In 1663 the play was issued once more in 4to. (with a very corrupt text).

I have followed the text of the first 4to., recording the reading of the later 4tos. where it seemed necessary. In all cases where I have adopted a later reading, the text of the editio princeps is given in a footnote. I have printed in an Appendix the scenes that were re-cast or added in ed. 1616; but where the changes and additions are not extensive, they are given in the footnotes. As Dr. Faustus is a series of dramatic scenes rather than a regular drama, I have made a division merely into scenes-not into acts and scenes. The same arrangement has been adopted in Professor Ward's edition.

VOL. I.

« ZurückWeiter »