3rd Schol. No marvel though the angry Greeks pur

sued

With ten years' war the rape of such a Queen,

Whose heavenly beauty passeth all compare.

20

1st Schol. Since we have seen the pride of Nature's works,

And only paragon of excellence,

Let us depart; and for this glorious deed

Happy and blest be Faustus evermore.

Faustus. Gentlemen, farewell—the same I wish you.

Enter an Old Man.

[Exeunt Scholars.

Old Man.1 Ah, Doctor Faustus, that I might prevail To guide thy steps unto the way of life,

"3rd Schol. Too simple is my wit to tell her worth,

Whom all the world admires for majesty.

"1st Schol. Now we have seen the pride of Nature's work, We'll take our leaves; and for this blessed sight," &c.

1 In ed. 1616 this speech runs as follows:

"Old Man. O gentle Faustus, leave this damnèd art, This magic, that will charm thy soul to hell,

And quite bereave thee of salvation!

Though thou hast now offended like a man,
Do not persever in it like a devil:

Yet, yet thou hast an amiable soul,

If sin by custom grow not into nature;

Then, Faustus, will repentance come too late;

Then thou art banish'd from the sight of Heaven :

No mortal can express the pains of hell,

It may be, this my exhortation

Seems harsh and all unpleasant: let it not;

For, gentle son, I speak it not in wrath,

Or envy of thee, but in tender love,

And pity of thy future misery;

And so have hope that this my kind rebuke,
Checking thy body, may amend thy soul."

By which sweet path thou may'st attain the goal
That shall conduct thee to celestial rest!
Break heart, drop blood, and mingle it with tears,
Tears falling from repentant heaviness
Of thy most vild and loathsome filthiness,
The stench whereof corrupts the inward soul
With such flagitious crimes of heinous sins
As no commiseration may expel,

But Mercy, Faustus, of thy Saviour sweet,
Whose blood alone must wash away thy guilt.

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Faust. Where art thou, Faustus? wretch, what hast

thou done?

40

Damned 1art thou, Faustus, damned; despair and die!
Hell calls for right, and with a roaring voice
Says "Faustus! come! thine hour is almost come!"
And Faustus now 3 will come to do thee right.

[MEPHISTOPHILIS gives him a dagger. Old Man. Ah stay, good Faustus, stay thy desperate steps!

I see an angel hovers o'er thy head,
And, with a vial full of precious grace,
Offers to pour the same into thy soul:
Then call for Mercy, and avoid Despair.
Faust. Ah, my sweet friend, I feel
Thy words do comfort my distressèd soul.
Leave me a while to ponder on my sins.

VOL. I.

1 This line is omitted in ed. 1616.
2 Ed. 1616"Hell claims his right."
3 So ed. 1616.-Omitted in ed. 1604.
* Ed. 1616 "Oh, friend, I feel."

S

50

Old Man. I go, sweet Faustus, but with heavy cheer, Fearing the ruin of thy hopeless soul.

[Exit. Faust. Accursed 2 Faustus, where is Mercy now?

I do repent; and yet I do despair :

Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast:
What shall I do to shun the snares of death?

Meph. Thou traitor, Faustus, I arrest thy soul
For disobedience to my sovereign Lord;
Revolt, or I'll in piecemeal tear thy flesh.

Faust. Sweet Mephistophilis, entreat thy lord
To pardon my unjust presumption.

And with my blood again I will confirm

My former vow I made to Lucifer.

Meph. Do it then quickly, with unfeigned heart, Lest greater danger do attend thy drift

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[FAUSTUS stabs his arm and writes with his blood on a

paper.4

Faust. Torment, sweet friend, that base and crooked age,5

That durst dissuade me from thy Lucifer,

With greatest torments that our Hell affords.

Meph. His faith is great: I cannot touch his soul;

But what I may afflict his body with

I will attempt, which is but little worth.

1 Ed. 1616,

"Faustus, I leave thee, but with grief of heart,
Fearing the enemy of thy hapless soul."

70

* Ed. 1616 "Accursed Faustus, wretch, what hast thou done?" 3 Before this line ed. 1616 inserts "I do repent I e'er offended him." This stage-direction is not in the old copies: it was suggested by Dyce. Ed. 1616"that base and aged man."

Faust. One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee,

To glut the longing of my heart's desire,—

That I might have unto my paramour
That heavenly Helen, which I saw of late,
Whose sweet embracings may extinguish clean
These thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow,
And keep mine oath I made to Lucifer.

Meph. Faustus, this or what else thou shalt desire.
Shall be performed in twinkling of an eye.

Re-enter HELEN.

80

Faust. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burnt the topless 2 towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. [Kisses her.

1 Dyce quotes from the prose History of Dr. Faustus:

"To the ends that this miserable Faustus might fill the lust of his flesh and live in all manner of voluptuous pleasure, it came in his mind, after he had slept his first sleepe, and in the 23 year past of his time, that he had a great desire to lye with faire Helena of Greece, especially her whom he had seen and shewed unto the students at Wittenberg : wherefore he called unto his spirit Mephostophilis, commanding him to bring to him the faire Helena; which he also did. Whereupon he fell in love with her, and made her his common concubine and bedfellow; for she was so beautifull and delightfull a peece, that he could not be one houre from her, if he should therefore have suffered death, she had so stoln away his heart: and to his seeming, in time she was with childe, whom Faustus named Justus Faustus. The child told Doctor Faustus many things which were don in forraign countrys; but in the end, when Faustus lost his life, the mother and the child vanished away both together."

2 So Fletcher (Bonduca, iii. 2):—

"Loud Fame calls ye,

Pitch'd on the topless Apennine."

Shakespeare surely remembered the preceding line when he wrote of Helen in Troilus and Cressida, ii, 2 :

"Why, she is a pearl

Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships.”

Her lips sucks forth my soul; see where it flies !-
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for Heaven is 1 in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sacked:
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumèd crest:
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars ;
Brighter are thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele:
More lovely than the monarch of the sky.
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd 2 arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

SCENE XV.

Enter the Old Man.

Accursed Faustus, miserable man,

90

100

[Exeunt.3

That from thy soul exclud'st the Grace of Heaven,
And fly'st the throne of his tribunal seat!

1 So ed. 1616.-Eds. 1604, 1609, "be."

2 Ed. 1616"azure." The form "azur'd " is found in Shakespeare and Drayton.

3 For what follows in ed. 1616 see Appendix.

4 Evidently this is a new scene, though none of the editors has so printed it. The scene is laid in a room of Faustus' house, whither the Old Man has come to exhort Faustus to repentance.