No More Learning

FOOTNOTES:

[X]: Christopher Marlowe was born at Canterbury in February,
1564, the year of Shakespeare's birth. From the King's School he went
to Cambridge, at Corpus, and took his degree in 1583. For the next ten
years, he lived in London; a tavern brawl ended his career on June 1,
1593. During those ten years, when Greene and Nashe and Peele were
beginning to shape the nascent drama, and Shakespeare was serving his
apprenticeship, most of the young authors were living wild enough
lives, and none, according to tradition, wilder than Kit Marlowe;
who, nevertheless, was doing mightier work, work more pregnant with
promise than any of them, and infinitely greater in achievement; for
Shakespeare's tragedies were still to come. That "Tamburlaine the
Great," the first play of a lad of twenty-three, should have been crude
and bombastic is not surprising; that "The Tragical History of Dr.
Faustus" should have been produced by an author aged probably less than
twenty-five is amazing. The story is traditional; two hundred years
after Marlowe, Goethe gave it its most familiar setting (see Vol. XVI,
p. 362). But although some part of Marlowe's play is grotesque, there
is no epithet which can fitly characterise its greatest scenes except
"tremendous. " What may not that tavern brawl have cost the world!


ACT III

SCENE I. --FAUSTUS' _study. Enter_ WAGNER.

WAGNER: I think my master means to die shortly.
He has made his will, and given me his wealth, his
house, his goods, and store of golden plate, besides two
thousand ducats ready coined. I wonder what he means?
If death were nigh, he would not frolic thus. He's now
at supper with the scholars, where there's such cheer as
Wagner in his life ne'er saw the like. Here he comes;
belike the feast is ended.

[_Exit. Enter_ FAUSTUS; MEPHISTOPHILIS _follows_.

FAUSTUS: Accursed Faustus! Wretch, what hast thou done?
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?

MEPHISTOPHILIS: 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.

MEPHISTOPHILIS: Do it, then, Faustus, with unfeigned heart,
Lest greater dangers do attend thy drift.