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The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Settle thy studies Faustus, and begin

to sound the depth of that thou wilt profess.

Having commenced, be a divine in show,

Yet level at the end of every art

And live and die in Aristotle's works.

Sweet Analytics, 'tis thou hast ravished me.

Bene disserere est finis logices.

Is to dispute well logic's chiefest end?

Affords this art no greater miracle?

Then read no more; thou hast attained that end.

A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit.

Bid economy farewell, and Galen come.

Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold

And be eternized for some wondrous cure.

Summum bonum, medicinae sanitas:

The end of physic is our body's health:

Why, Faustus, hast thou not attained that end?

Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,

Whereby whole cities have escaped the plague

And thousand desperate maladies been cured?

Yet art thou still but Faustus and a man.

Could'st thou make men to live eternally,

Or being dead, raise them to life again,

Then this profession were to be esteemed.

Physic farewell. Where is Justinian?

Si una eademque res legatur duobus,

AIter rem, alter valorem rei, etc.

A petty case of paltry legacies!

Exhaereditare filium non potest pater, nisi--

Such is the subject of the institute,

And universal body of the law.

This study fits a mercenary drudge,

Who aims at nothing but external trash,

Too servile aad illiberal for me.

When all is done, divinity is best;

Jerome's Bible, Faustus, view it well.

Stipendium peccati, mors est." Ha! Stipendium, &c:

The reward of sin is death? That's hard.

Si peccasse, negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas.

If we say that we have no sin

We deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us.

Why then belike we must sin,

And so consequently die.

Ay, we must die, an everlasting death.

What doctrine call you this: Che sera, sera,

What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu.

These metaphysics of magicians

And necromantic books are heavenly;

Lines, circles, letters, characters.

Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.

O what a world of profit and delight,

Of power, of honour, and omnipotence

Is promised to the studious artisan?

All things that move between the quiet poles

Shall be at my command. Emperors and Kings,

Are but obeyed in their several provinces,

But his dominion that exceeds in this,

Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man:

A sound magician is a demi-god.

Here, tire my brains to get a Deity. Enter Wagner.

Wagner, commend me to my dearest friends,

The German Valdes and Cornelius.

Request them earnestly to visit me.

Their conference will be a greater help to me,

Then all my labours, plod I ne'er so fast.

How am I glutted with conceipt of this!

Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,

Resolve me of all ambiguities,

Perform what desperate enterprise I will?

I'll have them fly to India for gold,

Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,

And search all corners of the new-found world

For pleasant fruits, and princely delicates.

I'll have them read me strange philosophy,

And tell the secrets of all foreign Kings.

I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,

And make swift Rhine, circle faire Wittenberg.

I'll have them fill the public schools with silk,

Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad.

I'll levy soldiers with the coin they bring,

And chase the Prince of Parma from our land,

And reign sole king of all the provinces.

Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war

Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp's bridge

I'll make my servile spirits to invent.

Come, German Valdes and Cornelius,

And make me blest with your sage conference. Enter Valdes.

Valdes, sweet Valdes and Cornelius! and Cornelius.

Know that your words have won me at the last

To practice magic and concealed arts.

Philosophy is odious and obscure.

Both law and physic are for petty wits.

'Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.

Then gentle friends aid me in this attempt,

And I, that have with subtle syllogisms

Gravelled the pastors of the German Church

And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg

Sworn to my problems, as th'infernal spirits

On sweet Musaes when he came to hell,

Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,

Whose shadow made all Europe honour him.

Valdes, as resolute am I in this,

As thou to live, therefore object it not.

Nothing Cornelius. O this cheers my soul.

Come, show me some demonstrations magical,

That I may conjure in some bushy grove,

And have these joys in full possession.

Then come and dine with me, and after meat

We'll canvass every quiddity thereof;

For ere I sleep, I'll try what I can do:

This night I'll conjure though I die therefore. Exeunt.

Now that the gloomy shadow of the night,

Longing to view Orion's drizzling look,

Leaps from th'Antarctic world unto the sky,

And dims the welkin, with her pitchy breathe,

Faustus, begin thine incantations

And try if devils will obey thy hest,

Seeing thou hast prayed and sacrificed to them.

Within this circle is Jehovah's name,

Forward, and backward, anagrammatised:

Th'abbreviated names of holy saints,

Figures of every adjunct to the heavens,

And characters of signs, and evening stars,

By which the spirits are enforced to rise.

Then fear not, Faustus, to be resolute

And try the utmost magic can perform.

Thunder. Sint mihi Dei Acherontis propitii! Valeat numen tri-

plex Jehovae! Ignei aerii, aquatani spiritus, salvete! Orientis

princeps Beelzebub, inferni ardentis monarcha, et Demigor-

gon, propitiamus vos, ut appareat, et surgat Mephistophilis

Dragon, quod tumeraris; per Jehovam, gehennam, et con-

secratam aquam quam nunc spargo; signumque crucis quod

nunc facio, et per vota nostra, ipse nunc surgat nobis dicatus

Mephistophilis!

Enter a Devil.

I charge thee to return, and change thy shape.

Thou art too ugly to attend on me.

Go and return an old Franciscan friar;

That holy shape becomes a devil best. Exit Devil.

I see there's virtue in my heavenly words.

Who would not be proficient in this art?

How pliant is this Mephistophilis?

Full of obedience and humility,

Such is the force of magic and my spells.

Enter Mephistophilis.

I charge thee wait upon me whil'st I live

To do what ever Faustus shall command.

Be it to make the moon drop from her sphere,

Or the ocean to overwhelm the world.

Did not he charge thee to appear to me?

Did not my conjuring raise thee? Speak.

So Faustus hath already done, and holds this principle:

There is no chief but only Beelzebub,

To whom Faustus doth dedicate himself.

This word Damnation terrifies not me,

For I confound hell in Elysium;

My ghost be with the old philosophers.

But leaving these vain trifles of men's souls,

Tell me, what is that Lucifer, thy Lord?

Was not that Lucifer an angel once?

How comes it then that he is Prince of Devils?

And what are you that live with Lucifer?

Where are you damned?

How comes it then that thou art out of hell?

What, is great Mephistophilis so passionate

For being deprived of the joys of heaven?

Learn thou of Faustus' manly fortitude,

And scorn those joys thou never shalt possess.

Go bear these tidings to great Lucifer,

Seeing Faustus hath incurred eternal death

By desperate thoughts against Jove's deity.

Say he surrenders up to him his soul,

So he will spare him four and twenty years,

Letting him live in all voluptuousness,

Having thee ever to attend on me,

To give me whatsoever I shall ask,

To tell me whatsoever I demand,

To slay mine enemies and to aid my friends,

And always be obedient to my will.

Go, and return to mighty Lucifer,

And meet me in my study at midnight,

And then resolve me of thy master's mind.

Had I as many souls as there be stars,

I'd give them all for Mephistophilis.

By him I'll be great Emperor of the world,

And make a bridge through the moving air

To pass the ocean. With a band of men

I'll join the hills that bind the Afric shore,

And make that country, continent to Spain,

And both contributory to my crown.

The Emperor shall not live but by my leave,

Nor any Potentate of Germany.

Now that I have obtained what I desired

I'll live in speculation of this art

Till Mephistophilis return again.Exit.

Dr. Faustus (B Text)