Doctor Faustus: A 1604-Version Edition

7/17/2019 Doctor Faustus: A 1604-Version Edition

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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 TR GIC L HISTORY OF DOCTOR F USTUS



A C T 1 S C E N E I V 1 9 9

WAGNER.

S i r r a h , I s a y i n s t a v e s a c r e 2 0

CLOWN.

Oho, oho, stavesacre Why then belike, if I were your man

I should be full of vermin.

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.

CLOWN.

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.

W e 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

CLOWN.

Gridirons, what be they?

WAGNER.

Why, French crowns.

CLOWN.

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



A C T I I I S C E N E 1 2 2 9

M E P H .

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

T h a t u n d e r p r o p t h e g r o u n d w o r k o f t h e s a m e ; 3 0

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.

U p o n t h e b r i d g e c a l l ' d P o n t e A n g e l o 3 5

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—

B e s i d e s t h e g a t e s a n d h i g h p y r a m i d e s 4 0

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 "



A C T V S C E N E I I 2 5 9

The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,

The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.

O , I ' l l l e a p u p t o m y G o d : w h o p u l l s m e d o w n ? 7 0

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

W h e r e i s i t n o w ? ' t i s g o n e , 7 5

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.



A P P E N D I X A : A C T I S C E N E I I I ( 1 6 I 6 V E R S I O N ) 2 9 3

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.

T h o u a r t t o o u g l y t o a t t e n d o n m e ; 2 5

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?

H o w p l i a n t i s t h i s M e p h o s t o p h i l i s , 3 0

Full of obedience and humility;

Such is the force of magic and my spells

Enter Mephostophilis.

MEPH.

Now Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do?

FAUSTUS.

I charge thee wait upon me whilst I live

T o d o w h a t e v e r F a u s t u s s h a l l c o m m a n d , 3 5

Be it to make the moon drop from her sphere

Or the ocean to overwhelm the world.

MEPH.

I am a servant to great Lucifer,

And may not follow thee without his leave;

N o m o r e t h a n h e c o m m a n d s m u s t w e p e r f o r m . 4 0

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,

F o r w h e n w e h e a r o n e r a c k t h e n a m e o f G o d , 4 5

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.



A P P E N D I X A : A C T I I S C E N E I I I ( l 6 l 6 T E X T ) 3 O 9

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.

R e p e n t , a n d t h e y s h a l l n e v e r r a z e t h y s k i n . 8 0

Exeunt Angels.

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 , w h a t a r t t h o u t h a t l o o k ' s t s o t e r r i b l y ? 8 5

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.

T h o u s h o u l d ' s t n o t t h i n k o n G o d . 9 0

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.



A P P E N D I X A : A C T I V S C E N E V I ( I 6 I 6 T E X T ) 3 5 1

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 h e a l t h t o t h y w o o d e n l e g f o r t h a t w o r d . 7 0

FAUSTUS.

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

w a t e r ? 8 0

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 t h a n k y o u , s i r . 8 5

[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.



A P P E N D I X B : T H E H I S T O R I E O F . . . D O C T O R J O H N F A U S T U S 3 9 1

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,



A P P E N D I X B : T H E H 1 S T O R 1 E O F . . . D O C T O R J O H N F A U S T U S 4 O 5

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



A P P E N D I X D : C A L V I N : T H E I N S T I T U T I O N O F C H R I S T I A N R E L I G I O N 4 3 5

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 mean-

eth: He that transgresseth of one of the least of these commandments,

Doctor Faustus: A 1604-Version Edition

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