Christopher Marlowe
 
from SCENE 1 

OLD MAN:  O, gentle Faustus, leave this damned art,
This magic, that will charm thy soul to hell,
And quite bereave thee of salvation.
Though thou hast now offended like a man,
Do not persever in it like a devil.
Yet, yet, thou hast an amiable soul,
If sin by custom grow not into nature:
Then, Faustus, will repentance come too late,
Then thou art banished from the sight of heaven;
No mortal can express the pains of hell.
It may be this my exhortation
Seems harsh, and all unpleasant; let it not,
For, gentle son, I speak it not in wrath,
Or envy of thee, but in tender love,
And pity of thy future misery.
And so have hope, that this my kind rebuke,
Checking thy body, may amend thy soul.
FAUSTUS:  Break heart, drop blood, and mingle it with tears,
Tears falling from repentant heaviness
Of thy most vile and loathsome filthiness,
The stench whereof corrupts the inward soul
With such flagitious crimes of heinous sins
As no commiseration may expel,
But mercy, Faustus, of thy Savior sweet,
Whose blood alone must wash away thy guilt —
Where art thou, Faustus? wretch, what hast thou
    done?
Damn’d art thou, Faustus, damn’d; despair and
    die!
 (Mephistophilis gives him a dagger.) 
Hell claims his right, and with a roaring voice
Says, ‘Faustus, come; thine hour is almost come’;
And Faustus now will come to do thee right.
OLD MAN:  O stay, good Faustus, stay thy desperate steps!
I see an angel hover o'er thy head,
And with a vial full of precious grace,
Offers to pour the same into thy soul:
Then call for mercy, and avoid despair.
FAUSTUS:  O, friend, I feel 
thy words to comfort my distressed soul!
Leave me a while, to ponder on my sins.
OLD MAN:  Faustus, I leave thee, but with grief of heart,
Fearing the enemy of thy hapless soul. 
 (Exit.) 
FAUSTUS:  Accursed Faustus, where is mercy now??
I do repent, and yet I do despair:
Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast:
What shall I do to shun the snares of death?
MEPHISTOPH.:  Thou traitor, Faustus, I arrest thy soul,
For disobedience to my sovereign lord:
Revolt, or I'll in piecemeal tear thy flesh.
FAUSTUS:  I do repent I e'er offended him.
Sweet Mephistophilis, entreat thy lord
To pardon my unjust presumption,
And with my blood again I will confirm
The former vow I made to Lucifer.
MEPHISTOPH.:  Do it then, Faustus, with unfeigned heart,
Lest greater dangers do attend thy drift.
(Faustus stabs his arm, and writes on a paper with his blood.) 
FAUSTUS:  Torment, sweet friend, that base and aged man,
That durst dissuade me from thy Lucifer,
With greatest torment that our hell affords.
MEPHISTOPH.:  His faith is great; I cannot touch his soul;
But what I may afflict his body with,
I will attempt, which is but little worth.
FAUSTUS:  One thing, good servant, let me crave of thee
To glut the longing of my heart's desire, —
That I may have unto my paramour,
That heavenly Helen, which I saw of late,
Whose sweet embraces may extinguish clear
Those thoughts that do dissuade me from my vow,
And keep my vow I made to Lucifer.
MEPHISTOPH.:  This, or what else my Faustus shall desire,
Shall be performed in twinkling of an eye.
(Enter Helen again, passing over between two Cupids.) 
FAUSTUS:  Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? —
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.
(She kisses him.) 
Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies! —
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
(Enter Old Man.) 
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest:
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening's air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou then flaming Jupiter,
When he appeared to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the Monarch of the sky,
In wanton Arethusa's azure arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour! 
(Exeunt Faustus, Helen and Cupids.) 
OLD MAN:  Accursed Faustus, miserable man,
That from thy soul exclud’st the grace of Heaven,
And fliest the throne of his tribunal-seat!
(Enter the Devils.) 
Satan begins to sift me with his pride:
As in this furnace God shall try my faith,
My faith, vile hell, shall triumph over thee.
Ambitious fiends, see how the heavens smiles
At your repulse, and laughs your state to scorn!
Hence, hell! for hence I fly unto my God.
(Exeunt.) 

From Scene II
Enter the Good Angel and the Bad Angel at several doors.

GOOD ANGEL: Oh Faustus, if thou had'st given ear to me,
Innumerable joys had followed thee.
But thou did'st love the world.
BAD ANGEL:                                   Gave ear to me,
And now must taste hell's pains perpetually.
GOOD ANGEL: O, what will all thy riches, pleasures, pomps,
Avail thee now?
BAD ANGEL:                                   Nothing but vex thee more,
To want in hell, that had on earth such store.
(Music while the throne descends.)
GOOD ANGEL: O, thou hast lost celestial happiness,
Pleasures unspeakable, bliss without end.
Had'st thou affected sweet divinity,
Hell, or the Devil, had had no power on thee.
Had'st thou kept on that way, Faustus behold
In what resplendent glory thou had'st set
In yonder throne, like those bright shining Saints,
And triumphed over hell. That hast thou lost,
And now poor soul must thy good angel leave thee.
(The throne ascends.)
The jaws of hell are open to receive thee. 
(Exit. Hell is discovered.)
BAD ANGEL: Now, Faustus, let shine eyes with horror stare
Into that vast perpetual torture-house.
There are the Furies tossing damned souls
On burning forks; their bodies broil in lead:
There are live quarters broiling on the coals,
That ne'er can die. This ever-burning chair
Is for o'er-tortured souls to rest them in.
These, that are fed with sops of flaming fire,
Were gluttons, and loved only delicates,
And laughed to see the poor starve at their gates.
But yet all these are nothing; thou shalt see
Ten thousand tortures that more horrid be.
FAUSTUS: O, I have seen enough to torture me.
BAD ANGEL: Nay, thou must feel them, taste the smart of all.
He that loves pleasure must for pleasure fall.
And so I leave thee, Faustus, till anon.
Then wilt thou tumble in confusion. 
(Exit. Hell disappears. The clock strikes eleven.)
FAUSTUS: Ah, Faustus,
Now hast 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 currite 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 heaven — who pulls me down? —
See, see, where Christ’s blood streams in the
    firmament!
One drop of blood 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.
Gape, earth! O no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reigned at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus. like a foggy mist
Into the entrails of yon lab’ring cloud,
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smokey mouths,
But let my soul mount and ascend to heaven!
(The watch strikes.)
Ak, half the hour is past! 'Twill all be past anon.
O God,
if you wilt not have mercy on my soul,
Yet for Christ’s sake, whose blood hath ransomed me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain.
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav’d!
No end is limited to damned souls!
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Oh Pythagorus’ metempsychosis were that true,
This soul should 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.
Curs’d be the parents that engender’d 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!
O soul be changed into small water-drops,
And fall into the ocean ne'er be found.
(Thunder, and enter the Devils.)
My God, my God! Look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not Lucifer!
I'll burn my books! Ah, Mephistophilis! 
(Exeunt with him.)

EPILOGUE

Enter Chorus.
CHORUS: Cut is the branch that might have grown full
    straight,
And burned is Apollo’s laurel-bough,
That sometime 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 practice more than heavenly power permits. 1588