The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus,
by Christopher Marlowe, is an English play based on Faust by Johan
Goethe. It is well worth reading, and I highly recommend that you do so. In summary,
Faustus is a professor of sorts who believes that he has reached the end of all
available knowledge and determines to study magic. This leads him to make a deal with
Mephistophilis, the servant of Lucifer, that he is to have all power for twenty four
years; however at the end of the twenty four years his soul is damned forever. This
arrangment is the origin of the term "Faustian deal" when one makes a very poor decision
for short term gain, thus figuratively selling one's soul to the
devil.
During his twenty four years, Faust is given
frequent opportunities to repent, but refuses. Instead he uses--and abuses-- his power
by summoning the spirit of Alexander the Great and even Helen of Troy. When he sees
Helen, Faust utters some of the more famous lines from the
play:
Was
this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of
Ilium--
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--
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.
I will be Paris, and for love of
thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be
sack'd;
There is much more
detail than can be related here; and again, you are strongly urged to read the entire
play. However, at the end, when his time is up, Faust at last repents, but it is too
late. Faustus is carried away by devils to hell. The play ends with a solemn admonition
by the chorus, an admonition that many students, seeking to make a "Faustian deal" might
do well to heed:
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.
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