English 30: Introduction to Renaissance Studies

Fall 1995
Professor Rebecca Bushnell


Section VIII: The New Church

Dr. Faustus Comparison: Ending of "A" text


The clock strikes eleven.

Fau. Ah Faustus,
Now has thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damned perpetually:
Stand still, you ever moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease and midnight never come:
Fair nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day, or let this hour be but a year,
A month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul,
O lente lente curite noctis equi:
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 my God: Who pulls me down?
See see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop, ah my Christ,
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.
No no, then will I headlong run into the earth:
Earth gape, O no, it will not harbor me:
You stars the 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,
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:
Ah, half the hour is past!The watch strikes.
'Twill all be past anon:
Oh 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 incessent pain,
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years.
A hundred thousand, and at last be saved.
O no end is limited to damned souls,
Why were thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or, why is this immortal that thou hast?
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis were that true,
This soul fly from me, and I be changed
Unto some brutish beast: all beasts are happy, for when they die,
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:

The clock striketh twelve.

O it strikes, it strikes, now body turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell:

Thunder and lightning.

O soul, be changed into little waterdrops,
And fall into the Ocean, ne'er be found:
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me: Enter Devils.
Adders, and Serpents, let me breathe a while:
Ugly hell gape not, come not Lucifer,
I'll burn my books, ah Mephistopheles. exeunt with him

Enter Chorus.

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel boughs,
That sometime grew within this learned man:
Faustus is gone, regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise,
Onely to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits,
To practise more than heavenly power permits.

Teminat hora diem, Terminat Author opus.


Original Text Comparison
"A" Text Transcription | "B" Text Transcription


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