A CRITICAL EDIT

AND OF THE CEN

OF THE 1604 VERSION

AND REVISED 1616 TEXT

TRAGICAL HISTORY OF

DOCTOR FAUSTUS
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

EDITED BY MICHAEL KF/EFE

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS

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SCENE

IV

199

WAGNER.

Sirrah,
I
say
in
stavesacre!
CLOWN.
Oho, oho, stavesacre! Why then belike, if I were your man
I should be full of vermin.

20

WAGNER.

So thou shalt, whether thou beest with me or no. But sirrah,

leave your jesting, and bind yourself presently unto me for
seven years, or I'll turn all the lice about thee into familiars, 25
and they shall tear thee in pieces.
C LOWN.

Do you hear, sir? You may save that labor: they are too fami
liar with me already, swowns they are as bold with my flesh
as if they had paid for my meat and drink.
WAGNER.

We l l , d o y o u h e a r, s i r r a h ? H o l d , t a k e t h e s e g u i l d e r s . 3 0
C LOWN.

Gridirons, what be they?

WAGNER.

Why, French crowns.

C LOWN.

Mass, but for the name of French crowns, a man were as

21-29.] Gill suggests that this sequence may have been contributed by the comic actor John
Adams, who is known to have played with Sussex's Men in 1576 and the Queen's Men in
1583 and 1588, and who may by the early 1590s have belonged to the Admiral's Men. In the
Induction tojonson's Bartholmew Fair (1614), Adams is remembered, along with the clown
Richard Tarleton, for just such a slapstick routine: "And Adams, the rogue, ha' leaped and
capered upon him [Tarleton], and ha' dealt his vermin about, as though they had cost him
nothing" (Jonson vi. 14). See Gill 1990: xix-xxi, and the note to lines 45-49 below.
21. belike] in all likelihood.
25. seven years] the standard time-period for an apprenticeship or a contract of indentured
labor.
26. familiars] Witches and sorcerers were commonly believed to have attendant spirits who took
the form of animals.
30-34. guilders, French crowns, English counters] The joke has to do with the rapidly deflating value
of what Wagner is offering. He professes to give the Clown Dutch guilders; these coins,
originally minted in gold, but after 1543 in silver, circulated internationally. Observing,
it would seem, that the coins he has been given have holes punched in them, the Clown
affects to mis-hear "guilders" as "gridirons"whereupon Wagner re-identifies the coins as
French crowns (worth about four shillings apiece, but widely counterfeited in the late 1580s
and 1590s: Ormerod and Wortham, and Gill 1990: 69, note that in 1587 the government
responded to widespread coining with a proclamation urging members of the public to
strike holes in counterfeit French crowns). As Bevington and Rasmussen note, the name
carries the obscene secondary meaning of heads made bald by venereal disease (see A
Midsummer Night's Dream I. ii. 79, All's Well That Ends Well II. ii. 19, and Measure for Measure

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III

SCENE

229

MEPH.

Tut, 'tis no matter, man, we'll be bold with his good cheer.
And now my Faustus, that thou may'st perceive
What Rome containeth to delight thee with,
Know that this city stands upon seven hills
That underprop the groundwork of the

same;

30

Just through the midst runs flowing Tiber's stream,

With winding banks that cut it in two parts,
Over the which four stately bridges lean,
That make safe passage to each part of Rome.
Upon
the
bridge
call'd
Ponte
Angelo
Erected is a castle passing strong,
Within those walls such stores of ordnance are,
And double cannons, fram'd of carved brass,
As match the days within one complete year
Besides
the
gates
and
high
pyramides
Which Julius Caesar brought from Africa.
FAUSTUS.

Now, by the kingdoms of infernal rule,

Of Styx, Acheron, and the fiery lake
Of ever-burning Phlegethon, I swear
31-32.] These lines, missing in A, are clearly essential to the meaning of this passage. Gill (1990:
79) suggests that "B's editor noticed a surprising deficiency in A" and provided two lines
which versify the appropriate material from EFB. It is much more likely that the manu
script which (along with a copy of A3) was used in the printing of Bi contained these lines.
Their omission from Ai is presumably due to compositorial fatigue or carelessness.
35-36.] The papal fortress of Castel San Angelo, which incorporates the ancient mausoleum of
the emperor Hadrian, stands a short distance from the north end of the Ponte San Angelo;
this bridge, originally named the Pons Aelius, was built by Hadrian in 134 to provide a
connection between his circular mausoleum and the Campus Martius.
37. ordnance] military materials, especially artillery.
37-39.] In Bi these lines are expanded into four lines; the revision is presumably the work of
Rowley or Birde.
38. double cannons] Jump, identifying these as "probably cannons of very large calibre," cites
from C. ffoulkes, The Gun-Founders of England (Cambridge, 1937), an account of a "fair
double cannon" cast at Calais (then still held by England) in 1536; Henry VIII's desire to
inspect this great bombard at Westminster in 1537 was frustrated because the master-gun
ner at Calais failed to provide it with an axle-tree, and it could not be shipped across the
Channel.
40. pyramides] an obelisk, in this case the one brought to Rome from Egypt by the emperor
Caligula (not Julius Caesar), and moved to its present site in the Piazza San Pietro in 1586.
The word is pronounced with four syllables, with the stress on the second syllable, as in The
Massacre at Paris ii. 43-46 ("Set me to scale the high pyramides ..."). As that passage makes
clear, "pyramides" is singular, not plural.
42-46.] Greg remarks that it is "an extraordinary piece of rhodomontade" for Faustus to swear
by three of the four rivers of Hades "that he wants to see the sights!"

35

40

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SCENE

II

259

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? 70
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 I will call on him, oh spare me Lucifer!
Where
is
it
now?
'tis
gone,
75
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.
teasing. In this passage, he tells the goddess that she has left Tithonus's bed because he is
old, but in other circumstances would behave differently: "At si quern mavis Cephalum
complexa teneres, / clamares 'lente currite, noctis equi!'"lines which Marlowe trans
lated thus, in All Ovid's Elegies: "But heldst thou in thine arms some Cephalus, / Then
wouldst thou cry, stay night and run not thus." The playfully erotic associations of the line
make it especially poignant in this context.
70. O, /'// leap up ... who pulls me down?] As Steane (1964: 282) observed, this line contains
another Ovidian resonance, though in this case Faustus echoes a phrase from Marlowe's
translation of All Ovid's Elegies rather than Ovid's text. Anions I. xv ends with the boast
that, thanks to his poetry, Ovid will outlive his own funeral pyre: "Ergo etiam cum me
supremus adederit ignis, / vivam, parsque mei multa superstes erit" (I. xv. 41-2: "Then
even when the last fire has devoured me, / I shall live on, and my great part will yet sur
vive"or, in Marlowe's vivid translation, "Then though death rakes my bones in funeral
fire, / I'll live, and as he pulls me down mount higher"). Ormerod and Wortham suggest
a connection between line 70 and an image that appears in Geoffrey Whitney's Choice of
Emblems (1586), with these verses: "One hand with wings, would fly unto the stars, / And
raise me up to win immortal fame ... th'other still is bound, / With heavy stone which
holds it to the ground" (Whitney 152); they note that a version of this emblematic figure
appears on the title page of the 1604 quarto of Doctor Faustus.
71.] Compare 2 Tamburlaine V. iii. 48-50: "Come let us march against the powers of heaven, /
And set black streamers in the firmament / To signify the slaughter of the gods."
73.] This line, addressed to Lucifer, echoes one spoken by Edward II to his lover Gaveston:
"Rend not my heart with thy too piercing words" (Edward II I. iv. 117). Robert A.H. Smith
suggests an allusion in both cases to Joel 2: 12-13, where, faced by a terrifying prospect of
destruction that makes the earth quake and the heavens tremble, and that darkens the sun,
moon and stars, the Israelites are exhorted to repentance: "Turn you unto me with all your
heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, And rent ["rend" in the
Authorized Version] your heart, and not your clothes: and turn unto the Lord your God, for
he is gracious, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of
evil." There are multiple ironies in Faustus's plea to the devil not to rend his heart, when
according to Joel he himself should be rending it in a penitent turning to God (see Smith
1997: 483)78-79.] This is a recurrent motif in apocalyptic writings, e.g., Luke 23: 30: "Then shall they
begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us"; Revelation 6: 16: "And
said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the presence of him that
sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." See also Hosea 10: 8.

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A:

ACT

SCENE

III

VERSION)

293

Quid tu moraris? Per Iehovam, Gehennam et consecratam 20

aquam quam nunc spargo, signumque cruets quod nunc
facio, et per vota nostra, ipse nunc surgat nobis dicatis
Mephostophilis.
Enter a devil.
I charge thee to return and change thy shape.
Thou
art
too
ugly
to
attend
on
me;
25
Go, and return an old Franciscan friar:
That holy shape becomes a devil best.

Exit devil.
I see there's virtue in my heavenly words.
Who would not be proficient in this art?
How
pliant
is
this
Full of obedience and humility;
Such is the force of magic and my spells!

Mephostophilis,

30

Enter Mephostophilis.
MEPH.

Now Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do?

FAUSTUS.

I charge thee wait upon me whilst I live

To
do
whatever
Faustus
shall
Be it to make the moon drop from her sphere
Or the ocean to overwhelm the world.

command,

35

MEPH.

I am a servant to great Lucifer,

And may not follow thee without his leave;
No more than he commands

must

we

perform.

40

FAUSTUS.

Did not he charge thee to appear to me?

MEPH.

No, I came now hither of mine own accord.

FAUSTUS.

Did not my conjuring raise thee? Speak.

MEPH.

That was the cause, but yet per accidens,

For when we hear one rack

the

name

of

God,

Abjure the scriptures and his saviour Christ,

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 damn'd.
32.] Bi omits three lines which follow this line in Ai; see I. iii. 32-34 in my A-version edition.

45

APPENDIX

A:

ACT

II

SCENE

III

(l6l6

TEXT)

3O9

BAD ANGEL.

Too late.
GOOD ANGEL.

Never too late, if Faustus will repent.

BAD ANGEL.

If thou repent, devils will tear thee in pieces.

GOOD ANGEL.

Repent,

and

they

shall

never

raze

thy skin.
Exeunt Angels.

80

FAUSTUS.

0 Christ my saviour, my saviour,

Help to save distressed Faustus' soul.
Enter Lucifer, Belzebub, and Mephostophilis.
LUCIFER.

Christ cannot save thy soul, for he is just;

There's none but I have interest in the same.
FAUSTUS.

O,

what

art

thou

that

look'st

so

terribly?

85

LUCIFER.

1 am Lucifer, and this is my companion prince in hell.

FAUSTUS.

O Faustus, they are come to fetch thy soul!

BELZEBUB.

We are come to tell thee thou dost injure us.

LUCIFER.

Thou call'st on Christ, contrary to thy promise.

BELZEBUB.

Thou

should'st

not

think

on

God.

LUCIFER.

Think on the devil.

BELZEBUB.

And his dam too.

78. will repent] Bi's alteration of Ai's "can repent" has important theological implications: see the
note to II. iii. 80 in my A-version edition. Here as elsewhere the Bi revisers deflect attention
from the possibility that Faustus may be unable to exercise agency, and suggest instead that
he has a meaningful power of choice.
82. Help to save] Bi's revision of the A text's "Seek to save" has, once again, important theologi
cal implications: see the note to II. iii. 84 in my A-version edition.
88-91.] In Ai these lines are all spoken by Lucifer, while Belzebub remains silent. Bevington
and Rasmussen, believing Ai to have been printed from an authorial manuscript, identify
Bi's division of speeches here as "characteristic of a pattern of redundancy" which is "part
of a larger move in the B-text to augment the number of devils on stage" (Bevington and
Rasmussen 228, 44). But in this case, the same demonic trinity is on stage in Ai and Bi.

90

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A:

ACT

IV

SCENE

VI

TEXT)

351

FAUSTUS.

I humbly thank your Grace. Then fetch some beer.

[Exit Mephostophilis.]
HOR.
Ay marry, there spake a doctor indeed, and 'faith I'll drink
a health to thy wooden leg for that
FAUSTUS.

word.

70

My wooden leg? What dost thou mean by that?

CARTER.
Ha, ha, ha! Dost hear him, Dick? He has forgot his leg.
HOR.
Ay, ay, he does not stand much upon that.
FAUSTUS.
No, faith, not much upon a wooden leg.
CARTER.
Good lord, that flesh and blood should be so frail with your 75
worship! Do you not remember a horse-courser you sold
a horse to?
FAUSTUS.
Yes, I remember I sold one a horse.
CARTER.
And do you remember you bid he should not ride into the
water?
FAUSTUS.
Yes, I do very well remember that.
CARTER.
And do you remember nothing of your leg?
FAUSTUS.
No, in good sooth.
CARTER.
Then I pray, remember your curtsy.
FAUSTUS.
I
thank
you,
sir.

80

85

[Bows.]
CARTER.

'Tis not so much worth. I pray you tell me one thing.

68. Then fetch some beer] This command must be addressed to Mephostophilis rather to one of the
Duke's servants, since it is fulfilled by the appearance of the Hostess. (She presumably enters,
for comic effect, in a manner that makes clear she has been magically transported.)
73. stand much upon] with a quibble on the figurative sense of "attach much importance to."
82, 84. leg, curtsy] The Carter is playing on the metaphorical sense of "leg" (i.e., "to make a
leg") as "bow."
86. 'Tis ... ivorth] Faustus's bow hasn't helped the Carter tell whether or not he has a wooden leg.

APPENDIX B: THE HISTORIE OF ... DOCTOR JOHN FAUSTUS 391

3 Also, that in all Faustus his demands or interrogations the spirit

should tell him nothing but that which is true.
Hereupon the spirit answered and laid his case forth, that he had no
power of himself, until he had first given his prince (that was ruler over
him) to understand thereof, and to know if he could obtain so much of his
lord: Therefore speak farther that I may do thy whole desire to my prince:
for it is not in my power to fulfil without his leave....
Doctor Faustus upon this arose where he sat, and said, I will have my
request, and yet I will not be damned. The spirit answered, Then shalt
thou want thy desire, and yet art thou mine notwithstanding: if any man
would detain thee it is in vain, for thine infidelity hath confounded thee.
Hereupon spake Faustus: Get thee hence from me, and take Saint
Valentine's farewell and Crisam with thee, yet I conjure thee that thou
be here at evening, and bethink thyself on that I have asked thee, and ask
thy prince's counsel therein. Mephostophiles the spirit, thus answered,
vanished away, leaving Faustus in his study, where he sat pondering with
himself how he might obtain his request of the devil without loss of his
soul: yet fully he was resolved in himself rather than to want his pleasure,
to do whatsoever the spirit and his lord should condition upon.
EFB, Chap. 10
[...] Here Faustus said: But how came thy lord and master Lucifer to have
so great a fall from heaven? Mephostophiles answered: My lord Lucifer
was a fair angel, created of God as immortal, and being placed in the
seraphins, which are above the cherubins, he would have presumed unto
the throne of God, with intent to have thrust God out of his seat. Upon
this presumption the Lord cast him down headlong, and where before he
was an angel of light, now dwells he in darkness....
EFB, Chap. 13
[...] Faustus, my lord Lucifer (so called now, for that he was banished out
of the clear light of heaven) was at the first an angel of God; he sat on the
cherubins, and saw all the wonderful works of God, yea he was so of God
ordained for shape, pomp, authority, worthiness, and dwelling, that he far
exceeded all the other creatures of God, yea our gold and precious stones:
and so illuminated, that he far surpassed the brightness of the sun and all
other stars: wherefore God placed him on the cherubins, where he had a
kingly office, and was always before God's seat, to the end he might be
the more perfect in all his beings: but when he began to be high-minded,
proud, and so presumptuous that he would usurp the seat of his Majesty,

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and behold it was all in a flame of fire [....] and thus the castle burned and
consumed away clean.
Doctor Faustus, IV. iii
EFB, Chap. 39
Doctor Faustus on a time came to the Duke of Anholt, the which wel
comed him very courteously; this was in the month of January, where sit
ting at the table, he perceived the Duchess to be with child, and forbearing
himself until the meat was taken from the table, and that they brought in
the banqueting dishes, said Doctor Faustus to the Duchess, Gracious lady,
I have always heard that the great-bellied women do always long for some
dainties; I beseech therefore your Grace hide not your mind from me, but
tell me what you desire to eat. She answered him: Doctor Faustus, now
truly I will not hide from you what my heart doth most desire, namely,
that if it were now harvest, I would eat my belly full of ripe grapes and
other dainty fruit. Doctor Faustus answered hereupon, Gracious lady, this
is a small thing for me to do, for I can do more than this; wherefore he
took a plate, and made open one of the casements of the window, holding
it forth, where incontinent he had his dish full of all manner of fruits,
as red and white grapes, pears, and apples, the which came from out of
strange countries; all these he presented the Duchess, saying: Madam, I
pray you vouchsafe to taste of this dainty fruit, the which came from a
far country, for there the summer is not yet ended. The Duchess thanked
Faustus highly, and she fell to her fruit with full appetite. The Duke of
Anholt notwithstanding could not withhold to ask Faustus with what rea
son there were such young fruit to be had at that time of the year. Doctor
Faustus told him, May it please your Grace to understand that the year is
divided into two circles over the whole world, that when with us it is win
ter, in the contrary circle it is notwithstanding summer, for in India and
Saba there falleth or setteth the sun, so that it is so warm, that they have
twice a year fruit: and, gracious lord, I have a swift spirit, the which can
in the twinkling of an eye fulfil my desire in any thing, wherefore I sent
him into those countries, who hath brought this fruit as you see: whereat
the Duke was in great admiration.
1616 text, IV. vi. 102-11
EFB, Chap. 37
Doctor Faustus went into an inn, wherein were many tables full of clowns,
the which were tippling can after can of excellent wine, and to be short,
they were all drunken; and as they sat, they so sung and hallowed that
one could not hear a man speak for them. This angered Doctor Faustus,

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II. iv. i
The blinding of the wicked, and all the wicked deeds that follow thereupon,
are called the works of Satan, of which yet the cause is not to be sought
elsewhere than in the will of man, out of which ariseth the root of evil,
wherein resteth the foundation of the kingdom of Satan, which is sin.
II. iv. 3
The old writers [...] are sometime precisely [i.e., scrupulously] afraid simply
to confess the truth, because they fear lest they should so open a window
to wickedness, to speak irreverently of the works of God [...]. Augustine
himself sometime was not free from the superstition, as where he saith
that hardening and blinding pertain not to the work of God, but to his
foreknowledge. But the phrases of Scripture allow not these subtleties [...].
It is oftentimes said that God blindeth and hardeneth the reprobate, that
he turneth, boweth, and moveth their hearts, as I have elsewhere taught
more at large. But of what manner that is, it is never expressed, if we flee
to free foreknowledge or sufferance. Therefore we answer that it is done
after two manners. For first, whereas when his light is taken away, there
remaineth nothing but darkness and blindness: whereas when his spirit is
taken away, our hearts wax hard and become stones: whereas when his
direction ceaseth, they are wrested into crookedness. It is well said that he
doth blind, harden and bow them from whom he taketh away the power
to see, obey and do rightly. The second manner, which cometh near to
the property [i.e., proper meaning] of the words, is that for the executing
of his judgments by Satan, the minister of his wrath, he both appointeth
their purposes to what end it pleaseth him, and stirreth up their wills, and
strengtheneth their endeavors.
II. viii. 58-59
In weighing of sins (saith Augustine) let us not bring false balances to weigh
what we list and how we list at our own pleasure, saying: this is heavy, this
is light. But let us bring God's balance out of the holy Scriptures, as out
of the Lord's treasury, and let us therein weigh what is heavy: rather, let
us not weigh, but reknowledge things already weighed by the Lord. But
what saith the Scripture? Truly, when Paul saith that the reward of sin is
death [Romans 6: 23], he showeth that he knew not this stinking distinc
tion [i.e., between venial and mortal sins]. Sith we are too much inclined
to hypocrisy, this cherishment thereof ought not to have been added to
flatter our slothful consciences.
I would to God they would consider what that saying of Christ meaneth: He that transgresseth of one of the least of these commandments,