Think on thy promise; let thy heart be mov'd By what a true and honest tongue hath spoken! Look on us, king! an opportunity For such a noble deed not oft occurs. Refuse thou canst not,--give thy quick consent.
Not so, my king! I cannot part Without thy blessing, or in anger from thee, Banish us not! the sacred right of guests Still let us claim: so not eternally Shall we be sever'd. Honor'd and belov'd As mine own father was, art thou by me; And this impression in my soul abides, Let but the least among thy people bring Back to mine ear the tones I heard from thee, Or should I on the humblest see thy garb, I will with joy receive him as a god, Prepare his couch myself, beside our hearth Invite him to a seat, and only ask Touching thy fate and thee. Oh, may the gods To thee the merited reward impart Of all thy kindness and benignity! Farewell! O turn thou not away, but give One kindly word of parting in return! So shall the wind more gently swell our sails, And from our eyes with soften'd anguish flow, The tears of separation. Fare thee well! And graciously extend to me thy hand, In pledge of ancient friendship.
Professor of the History of German Culture, Harvard University
The Faust legend is a conglomerate of anonymous popular traditions, largely of medieval origin, which in the latter part of the sixteenth century came to be associated with an actual individual of the name of Faustus whose notorious career during the first four decades of the century, as a pseudo-scientific mountebank, juggler and magician can be traced through various parts of Germany. The Faust Book of 1587, the earliest collection of these tales, is of prevailingly theological character. It represents Faust as a sinner and reprobate, and it holds up his compact with Mephistopheles and his subsequent damnation as an example of human recklessness and as a warning to the faithful.
From this Faust Book, that is from its English translation, which appeared in 1588, Marlowe took his tragedy of _Dr. Faustus_ (1589; published 1604). In Marlowe's drama Faust appears as a typical man of the Renaissance, as an explorer and adventurer, as a superman craving for extraordinary power, wealth, enjoyment, and worldly eminence. The finer emotions are hardly touched upon. Mephistopheles is the medieval devil, harsh and grim and fierce, bent on seduction, without any comprehension of human aspirations. Helen of Troy is a she-devil, and becomes the final means of Faust's destruction. Faust's career has hardly an element of true greatness. None of the many tricks, conjurings and miracles, which Faust performs with Mephistopheles' help, has any relation to the deeper meaning of life. From the compact on to the end hardly anything happens which brings Faust inwardly nearer either to heaven or hell. But there is a sturdiness of character and stirring intensity of action, with a happy admixture of buffoonery, through it all. And we feel something of the pathos and paradox of human passions in the fearful agony of Faust's final doom.