The Complete Plays (55 page)

FIRST SCHOLAR
Why did not Faustus tell us of this before, that divines might have prayed for thee?

FAUSTUS
Oft have I 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. And now ‘tis too late. Gentlemen, away, lest you perish with me.

SECOND SCHOLAR
O, what shall we do to
save
Faustus?

FAUSTUS
Talk not of me, but save yourselves and depart.

50    
THIRD SCHOLAR
God will strengthen me. I will stay with Faustus.

FIRST SCHOLAR
[
to the
THIRD SCHOLAR
] Tempt not God, sweet friend, but let us into the next room and there pray for him.

FAUSTUS
Ay, pray for me, pray for me! And what noise soever ye hear, come not unto me, for nothing can rescue me.

SECOND SCHOLAR
Pray thou, and we will pray that God may have mercy upon thee.

FAUSTUS
Gentlemen, farewell. If I live till morning, I'll visit

60   you; if not, Faustus is gone to hell.

ALL
Faustus, farewell.

Exeunt
SCHOLARS.

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!

70   
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 my God! Who pulls me down?

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 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!

80   
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.

Earth, gape! 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 labouring cloud,

That when you vomit forth into the air,

90   My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,

So that my soul may but ascend to heaven.

The watch
strikes.

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 ransomed me,

Impose some end to my incessant pain.

Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,

100   A hundred thousand, and at last be saved.

O, no end is limited to damnèd 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 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.

110   Curst be the parents that engendered 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.

Thunder and lightning.

O soul, be changed into little waterdrops,

And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!

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

Enter
[
LUCIFER, MEPHISTOPHELES,
and other
]
DEVILS.

Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!

Ugly hell, gape not. Come not, Lucifer!

120   
I'll burn my books
. Ah, Mephistopheles!

[
The
DEVILS
]
exeunt with him.

Enter
CHORUS.

CHORUS

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,

And burnèd is
Apollo's laurel bough

That sometime grew within this learnèd man.

Faustus is gone. Regard his hellish fall,

5      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.

[
Exit
.]

Terminat
hora diem; terminat author opus.

[Dramatis Personae

GAVESTON
THREE POOR MEN
KING EDWARD II
EARL OF LANCASTER
MORTIMER SENIOR
MORTIMER JUNIOR
EDMUND EARL OF KENT,
brother to King Edward II
GUY EARL OF WARWICK
THE BISHOP OF COVENTRY
THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
QUEEN ISABELLA
EARL OF PEMBROKE
BEAUMONT,
the Clerk of the Crown
SPENCER JUNIOR
BALDOCK
THE KING'S NIECE
A MESSENGER
TWO LADIES-IN-WAITING
JAMES
A HORSEBOY
EARL OF ARUNDEL
SPENCER SENIOR
PRINCE EDWARD,
later King Edward III
LEVUNE
A HERALD
SIR JOHN OF HAINAULT
RICE ap HOWELL
THE MAYOR OF BRISTOL
AN ABBOT
MONKS
A MOWER
EARL OF LEICESTER
THE BISHOP OF WINCHESTER
SIR WILLIAM TRUSSELL
SIR THOMAS BERKELEY
MATREVIS
GURNEY
LIGHTBORNE
A CHAMPION
LORDS
SOLDIERS
GUARDS
ATTENDANTS
]

Enter
GAVESTON
reading on a letter that was brought him from the
KING.

GAVESTON

‘My father is deceased; come, Gaveston,

And share the kingdom with thy dearest friend.'

Ah, words that make me surfeit with delight!

What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston

Than live and be the favourite of a king?

Sweet prince, I come; these, these thy amorous lines

Might have enforced me to have swum from
France
,

And like Leander gasped upon the sand,

So thou wouldst smile and take me in thy arms.

10    The sight of London to my exiled eyes

Is as Elysium to a new-come soul –

Not that I love the city or the men,

But that it harbours him I hold so dear,

The king, upon whose bosom let me
die
,

And with the world be still at enmity.

What
need the arctic people love starlight,

To whom the sun shines both by day and night?

Farewell, base stooping to the lordly peers;

My knee shall bow to none but to the king.

As for the multitude, that are but sparks

20   Raked up in embers of their poverty,

Tanti!
I'll
fawn
first on the wind

That glanceth at my lips and flieth away.

But how now, what are these?

Enter three
POOR MEN.

POOR MEN
Such as desire
your worship's service
.

GAVESTON
What canst thou do?

FIRST POOR MAN
I can ride.

GAVESTON
But I have no horses. What art thou?

SECOND POOR MAN
A traveller.

30    
GAVESTON
Let me see, thou wouldst do well to wait at my trencher and tell me lies at dinner time, and, as I like your discoursing, I'll have you. And what art thou?

THIRD POOR MAN
A soldier, that hath served
against the Scot
.

GAVESTON

Why, there are hospitals for such as you.

I have no war, and therefore, sir, begone.

THIRD POOR MAN

Farewell, and perish by a soldier's hand,

That wouldst reward them with an hospital.

GAVESTON
[
aside
]

Ay, ay, these words of his move me as much

As if a goose should play the
porcupine

40   And dart her plumes, thinking to pierce my breast.

But yet it is no pain to speak men fair;

I'll flatter these and make them live in hope.

[
To them
]

You know that I came lately out of France,

And yet I have not viewed my lord the king;

If I speed well, I'll entertain you all.

POOR MEN
We thank your worship.

GAVESTON

I have some business, leave me to myself.

POOR MEN
We will wait here about the court.

GAVESTON

Do. These are not men for me.

Exeunt
[POOR MEN].

50    I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,

Musicians that with touching of a string

May draw the pliant king which way I please.

Music and poetry is his delight;

Therefore I'll have Italian
masques
by night,

Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;

And in
the day, when he shall walk abroad,

Like
sylvan nymphs
my pages shall be clad;

My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,

Shall with their goat feet dance an antic hay.

Sometime a lovely boy in Dian's shape,

60    With hair that gilds the water as it glides,

Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,

And in his sportful hands an olive tree

To hide those parts which men delight to see,

Shall bathe him in a spring, and there hard by,

One like Actaeon peeping through the grove

Shall by the angry goddess be transformed,

And running in the likeness of an hart,

By yelping hounds pulled down and seem to die.

Such things as these best please his majesty,

70    My lord. Here comes the king and the nobles

From the parliament. I'll stand aside.

Enter the
KING [
EDWARD
], LANCASTER, MORTIMER
SENIOR, MORTIMER JUNIOR, EDMUND EARL OF KENT,
GUY EARL OF WARWICK,
etc.

EDWARD
Lancaster!

LANCASTER
My lord?

GAVESTON
[
aside
]

That earl of Lancaster do I abhor.

EDWARD

Will you not grant me this? [
Aside
] In spite of them

I'll have my will, and these two Mortimers

That cross me thus shall know I am displeased.

MORTIMER SENIOR

If you love us, my lord, hate Gaveston.

GAVESTON
[
aside
]

80    That villain Mortimer! I'll be his death.

MORTIMER
[
to
EDWARD]

Mine uncle here, this earl, and I myself Were sworn to your father at his death That he should ne'er return into the realm;

And know, my lord, ere I will break my oath,

This sword of mine that should offend your foes

Shall sleep within the scabbard at thy need,

And underneath thy banners march who will,

For Mortimer will hang his armour up.

GAVESTON
[
aside
]
Mort Dieu!

EDWARD

90   Well Mortimer, I'll make thee rue these words.

Beseems it thee to contradict thy king?

Frown'st thou thereat, aspiring Lancaster?

The sword shall plane the furrows of thy brows

And hew
these knees
that now are grown so stiff.

I will have Gaveston, and you shall know

What danger 'tis to stand against your king.

GAVESTON
[
aside
] Well done, Ned!

LANCASTER

My lord, why do you thus incense your peers,

That naturally would love and honour you

100  But for that base and obscure Gaveston?

Four earldoms have I besides Lancaster –

Derby, Salisbury, Lincoln, Leicester.

These will I sell to give my soldiers pay

Ere Gaveston shall stay within the realm.

Therefore, if he be come, expel him straight.

KENT

Barons and earls, your pride hath made me mute,

But now I'll speak, and
to the proof
, I hope.

I do remember in my father's days,

Lord Percy of the north, being highly moved,

110  Braved
Mowbray
in presence of the king,