No More Learning

SCHOLARS: Faustus, farewell!

[_Exeunt_ SCHOLARS. _The clock strikes eleven_.

FAUSTUS: Oh, 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 eyes, 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 damn'd.
Oh, I'll leap up to heaven: who pulls me down?
See, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop of blood will save me: O my Christ!
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
Yet will I call on Him. Oh, spare me, Lucifer!
Where is it now? 'Tis gone.
And see, a threatening arm, an angry brow!
Mountains and hills, come, come and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of Heaven!
No?
Then will I headlong run into the earth;
Gape, earth! Oh, no, it will not harbour me.
Yon 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,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
But let my soul mount and ascend to heaven.

[_The clock strikes the half hour_.

Oh, half the hour is past; 'twill all be past anon.
Oh, if my soul must suffer for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pains;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be saved!
No end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul,
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Oh, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be changed
Into some brutish beast! All beasts are happy,
For when they die
Their souls are soon dissolved in elements;
But mine must live still, and 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 strikes twelve_.