CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

FROM: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

(The clock strikes eleven)

FAUST. Ah Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd 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; ar 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, currite noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The Devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
O, I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down?
See, see where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
Ah rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!
Yet I will 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 I will headlong run into the earth;
Earth gape! O no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon labouring clouds,
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my oul may but ascend to Heaven!


(the clock strikes the half-hour.)


Ah, half the hour is past!"Twill all be past anon!
O God,
If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years--
A hundred thousand, and at least be sav'd!
O, no end is limited to damned souls!
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis! were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Unto some brutish beast! All beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live must live, still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curst be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus: curse thyself: curse Lucifer
That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.


(The clock strikes twelve.)


O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn into air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell.


(Thunder and lightning.)


O soul be chang'd into little water-drops,
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 awhile!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not Lucifer!
I'll burn my books!--Ah Mephistophilis!


(Exeunt Devils with Faustus.)


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