Text A Quotes

Not marching now in fields of Trasimene

When Mars did mate the Carthaginians.

Nor sporting in the dalliance of love

In courts of Kings where state is overturned

Till, swoll'n with cunning of a self-conceit,

His waxen wings did mount above his reach,

And melting heaven conspired his overthrow.

Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,

Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss.

Having commenced, be a divine in show,

Yet level at the end of every art,

And live and die in Aristotle's work.

Wouldst thou make man to live eternally?

Or, being dead, raise them to life again?

Too servile and illiberal for me.

When belike we must sin, 

And so consequently die.

What doctrine you call this, che sera sera?

Lines, circles, signs, letters, and characters-

Ay, these are those Faustus most desires

Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,

Lord and commander of these elements.

I'll have them read me strange philosophy

And tell the secrets of all foriegn kings.

Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy,

That will recieve no object, for my head

But ruminates on necromantic skill.

From Venice shall they drag huge argosies,

And from America the golden fleece

That yearly stuff old Philip's treasury,

Valdes, as resolute am I in this

As thou to live.

Then doubt not, Faustus, but to be renowned

And more frequented for this mystery

Than heretofore the Delphian oracle.

First I'll instruct thee in the rudiments,

And then wilt thou be perfecter than I.

Now that the gloomy shadow of the earth,

Longing to view Orion's drizzling look,

Leaps from th'Antarctic world onto the sky

I see there's virtue in my heavenly words.

Who would not be proficient in this art?

We fly in hope to get his glorious soul,

Nor will we come unless he use such means

Whereby he is in danger to be damned.

This word 'damnation' terrifies not him, 

For he confounds hell in Elysium.

His ghosts be with the old philosophers!

Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God

And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, 

Am not tormented with ten thousand hells

In being deprived of everlasting bliss?

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 land continent to Spain

And both contributory to my crown.

Despair in God and trust in Beelzebub.

Now go not backwards.  No, Faustus, be resolute.

And I will be thy slave, and wait on thee,

And give thee more than thou hast wit to ask.

Then stab thine arm courageously,

And bind thy soul that at some certain day

Great Lucifer may claim it as his own,

And then be thou as great as Lucifer.

What might the staying of my blood portend?

Is it unwilling I should write this bill?

Consummatum est.  This bill is ended,

And Faustus hath bequesthed his soul to Lucifer.

I see it plain.  Here in this place is writ

'Homo, fuge!'  Yet shall not Faustus fly.

I'll fetch him somewhat to delight 

his mind.

Within the bowles of these elements,

Where we are tortured and remain for ever.

Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed

In one self place, for where we are is hell,

And where hell is must we ever be.

And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,

And every creature shall be purified,

All places shall be hell that is not heaven.

Come, I think hell's a fable.

Ay, think so still, til experience change thy mind.

Why, think'st thou then that Faustus shall be damned?

Ay, of necessity, for here's the scroll 

Wherein thou hast given thy soul to Lucifer.

I am wanton and lascivious and cannot live without a wife.

She whom thine eye shall like, thy heart shall have,

Be she chaste as was Penelope,

As wise as Saba, or as beautiful

As was bright Lucifer before his fall.

O, thou art deceived.

Tut.  I warrant thee.

It was made for man; therefore is man more excellent.

And long ere this I should have slain myself

Had not sweet pleasure conquered deep despair.

Have not I made blind Homer sing to me

Of Alexander's love and Oenone's death?

Tush, these slender trifles Wagner can decide.

Hath Mephistopheles no greater skill?

Nine: the seven planets, the firmament, and the empyreal heaven.

Christ cannot save thy soul, for he is just.

There's none but I have int'rest in the same.

I'll not speak another word, except the ground were

perfumed and covered with cloth of arras.

Learned Faustus,

To know the secrets of astronomy

Graven in the books of Jove's high firmament,

Did mount himself to scale Olympus' top,

Being seated in a chariot burning bright

Drawn by the strength of yoky drangon's necks.

Where thou shalt see a troupe of bald-pate friars

Whose summun bonum is in belly cheer.

How am I vexed with these villians' charms!

I fear me, never attain to that degree

Of high renown and great authority.

Be if it like your Grace, it is not in my ability to

present before your eyes the true and substantial bodies

of those two deceased princes, which long since are 

consumbed to dust.

Despair doth drive unto my thoughts.

Confound these passions with a quiet sleep.

Tush!  Christ did call the thief upon the cross;

Then rest thee, Faustus, quiet in conceit.

And Faustus' custom is not to deny

The Just requests of those that wish him well,

Break heart, drop blood, and mingle it with tears-

Tears falling from repentant heaviness

Of thy most vile and loathsome filthiness,

Hell calls for right, and with a roaring voice

Says, 'Faustus, come! Thine hour is come.'

Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast.

What shall I do to shun the snares of death?

His faith is great.  I cannot touch his soul.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

And burnt the ******* towers of Ilium? 

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.

Her lips **** forth my soul.  See where it flies!

O, thou art fairer than the evening air,

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

More lovely than the monarch of the sky

In wanton Arethusa's azured arms;

And none but thou shalt be my paramour.

Accursed Faustus, miserable man,

That from thy soul exclud'st the grace of heaven

And fliest the throne of His tribunal seat!

As in this furnace God shall try my faith,

My faith, vile hell, shall triumph over thee.

Ah, my sweet chamber-fellow!  Had I lived with thee,

then had I lived still, but now I die eternally.  Look,

comes he not?  Comes he not?

But Faustus' offence can ne'er be pardoned.  The

serpent that tempted Eve may be saved, but not

Faustus.

Ah, my God, I would weep, but the devil draw in my tears.  Gush forth blood instead of tears, yea, life and soul.

Oft I have thought to have done so, but the devil threatened to tear me in pieces if I named God, to fetch both body and soul if I once gave ear to divinity.

O lente, lente currite noctis equi!

See, see where Christ's blood streams in the

    firmament!

One drop would save my soul, half a drop.  Ah, my

    Christ!

Now draws 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.

Curst be the parents that engendered me!

No Fausus, curse thyself.  Curse Lucifer,

That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.

My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!

Adder and serpents, let me breathe a while!

Ugly hell, gape not.  Come not, Lucifer!

I'll burn my books.  Ah, Mephistopheles!

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,

And burned is Apollo's laurel bough

That sometimes grew within this learned man.

Faustus is gone.  Regard his hellish fall,

Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise

Only to wonder at unlawful things,

Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits

To practise more than heavenly power permits.