The Works of Christopher Marlowe

Dr. Faustus (B Text)


Act: 4 Scene: 3
Oh!
Nay, keep it. Faustus will have heads and hands.
I call your hearts to recompense this deed.
Knew you not, traitors, I was limited
For four and twenty years to breathe on earth?
And had you cut my body with your swords,
Or hewed this flesh and bones as small as sand,
Yet in a minute had my spirit returned,
And I had breathed a man made free from harm.
But wherefore do I dally my revenge?
Asteroth, Belimoth, Mephistophilis,
Enter Mephistophilisand other Devils.
Go horse these traitors on your firey backs, Enter Meph. & other Deuils.
And mount aloft with them as high as heaven;
Thence pitch them headlong to the lowest hell.
Yet stay, the world shall see their misery,
And hell shall after plague their treachery.
Go, Belimothe and take this caitiff hence,
And hurl him in some lake of mud and dirt.
Take thou this other; drag him through the woods
Among'st the pricking thorns and sharpest briars,
Whil'st with my gentle Mephistophilis,
This traitor flies unto some steep rock,
That rolling down, may break the villain's bones,
As he intended to dismember me.
Fly hence, dispatch my charge immediately.
Away.
What's here? An ambush to betray my life!
Then, Faustus, try thy skill. Base peasants, stand.
For lo, these trees remove at my command,
And stand as bulwarks 'twixt yourselves and me,
To shield me from your hated treachery.
Yet to encounter this your weak attempt,
Behold an army comes incontinent.