SCENE 1

[Enter FAUSTUS in his study.]


FAUSTUS. 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 the end;
A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit.
Bid on kai me on farewell; Galen come:
Seeing, ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus.
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?
Is not thy common talk found aphorisms?
Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,
Wherby whole cities have escaped the plague,
And thousand desperate maladies been eased?
Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man.
Couldst 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,
Alter rem alter valorem rei, etc.
A pretty case of palrty legacies:
Exhereditare filium non protest 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 and illiberal for me.
When all is done, divinity is best:
Jerome's Bible, Faustus, view it well:
Stipendium peccati mors est: ha! Stipendium, etc.
The reward of sin is death? That's hard.
Si pecasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas.
If we say that we have no sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
What doctrine call you this? Che sara, sara:
What will be, shall be! Divinity, adieu!
These metaphysics of magicians,
And necromantic books are heavenly!
Lines, circles, schemes, letters and characters!
Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.
O what a world of profit and delight,
Of power, of honour, of 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 serveral provinces,
Nor can they raise the wind, or rend the clouds;
But his dominion that exceeds in this
Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man:
A sound magician is a mighty god.
Here Faustus, try thy brains to gain a deity.

[Enter Wagner.]

Wagner, commend me to my dearest friends,
The German Valdes, and Cornelius,
Request them earnestly to visit me.
WAGNER. Iwill sir.
FAUSTUS. Their conference will be greater help to me,
Than all my labors, plod I ne'er so fast.

[Enter the good Angel and the Evil Angel.]

GOOD ANGEL. O Faustus, lay that damned book aside,
And gaze not on it, lest it tempt thy soul,
And heap God's heavy wrath upon thy head:
Read, read the scriptures; that is blasphemy.
EVIL ANGEL. Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art,
Wherin all nature's treasury is contained:
Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,
Lord and commander of these elements.
FAUSTUS. How am I glutted with conceit of this!
Shall I make spirts fetch me what I please,
Resolve me 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 forein kings;
I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,
And make swift Rhine circle fair 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 our provinces.
Yea, stranger engines for the brunt of war,
Than was the fiery keel at Antwerp's bridge,
I'll make my servile spirts to invent.
Come German Valdes and Cornelius,
And make me blest with your sage conference.

[Enter VALDES and CORNELIUS.]

Valdes, sweet Valdes, and Cornelius,
Know that your words have won me at last
To practise magic and concealed arts;
Yet not your words only, but mine own fantasy,
That will receive no object for my head,
But ruminates on necromantic skill.
Philosophy is odious and obscure,
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible and vile.
'Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.
Then, gentle friends, aid me this attempt,
And I, that have with concise syllogisms
Gravelled the pastors of the German church,
And made the flowering pride of Wittenberg
Swarm to my problems, as the infernal spirts
On sweet Musaeus when he came to hell,
Will be as cunning as Agrippa was,
Whose shadows made all Europe honor him.
VALDES. Faustus, these books, thy wit, and our experience
Shall make all nations to canonize us.
As Indian Moors obey their Spanish lords,
So shall the spirts of every element
Be always serviceable to us three.
Like lions shall they guard us when we please,
Like Almaine rutters with their horsemen's staves,
Or Lapland giants trotting by our sides;
Sometimes like women, or unwedded maids,
Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than in the white breasts of the Queen of Love.
From Vanice shall they drag huge argosies,
And from America the golden fleece
That yearly stuffs old Philip's treasury,
If learned Faustus will be resolute.
FAUSTUS. Valdes, as am I in this
As thou to live, therefore object it not.
CORNELIUS. The miracles that magic will perform
Will make thee vow to study nothing else.
He that is grounded in astrology,
Enriched with tongues, well seen in minerals,
Hath all the principles magic doth require:
Then doubt not, Faustus, but to be renowed
And more frequented for this mystery,
Than heretofore the Delphian oracle.
The spirts tell me they can dry the sea,
And fetch the treasure of all foreign wrecks,
Ay, all the wealth that our forefathers hid
Within the massy entrails of the earth.
Then tell me, Faustus, what shall we three want?
FAUSTUS. Nothing Corenelius. O this cheers my soul!
Come, show me some demostrations magical,
That I may Conjure in some lusty grove,
And have these joys in full possesion.
VALDES. Then haste thee to some solitary grove,
And bear wise Bacon's and New Testament;
And whatsoever else is requisite
We will inform thee ere our conference cease.
CORNELIUS. Valdes, first let him know the words of art,
And then, all other ceremonies learned,
Faustus may try his cunning by himself.
VALDES. First, I'll instruct thee in the rudiments,
And then wilt thou be perfecter than I.
FAUSTUS. 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.


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