Nor is there agreement about the interpretation of the play, which seems unquestionably orthodox to some and questioningly heterodox to others. For some it is learned and theologically subtle, for others a populist, even subversive, barnstormer. No interpretation which positively excludes any of these possibilities can hope to be complete. The play’s dramatic mode lurches from solemn terror to proverbial, folksy comedy from scene to scene, even from line to line, as when Lucifer tells Faustus, ‘Thou shouldst not think of God. Think of the devil, / And of his dame, too’ (7.92–3). The disconcerting mixture of register is quintessentially Marlovian.
Quintessentially, but not exclusively. Legends of the magician Johann Faust who sold his soul to the devil developed in sixteenth-century Germany, and were collected and published by Johann Spies in the German Faustbook of 1587. Marlowe’s play depends for its detail on an English translation (by one ‘P. F.’), The Historie of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus. The earliest extant edition of this book dates from 1592., which might seem to make the case for the later dating of the play, but there are grounds for thinking that Marlowe knew an earlier, now lost, printing: the arguments are intricately discussed in J. H. Jones’s critical edition, The English Faust Book (1994). As well as supplying the incidents, the Faustbook also probably contributed its ‘solemnly edifying and crudely jocular’ (Levin 1954) tone to the play – a tone also found in such influential sixteenth-century books on magic as Agrippa’s De Occulta Philosophia. But there are differences. Despite its geographical expansiveness, the world of the Faustbook is domestic, biirgerlich. Faust is a trickster who shares a homely thieves’ kitchen with Wagner his servant and a ‘familiar’ Mephostophiles ‘that ever was diligent at Faustus’ command, going about the house, clothed like a friar, with a little bell in his hand, seen of none but Faustus’ (Jones 1994:100–101); Helen of Troy lives with him for a year and bears him a son. Marlowe sharpens the focus on Faustus’ academic environment, and winnows out many of the more trivial everyday bits of sorcery. The play occupies the less naturalistically defined, more abstract world of the Morality play: in the Faustbook, the old man is simply a concerned neighbour who invites the magician in for dinner and edification; in the play, his appearances are as abrupt and unexplained as those of the Good Angel, whose role, indeed, he seems to take over. By the same token, Faustus himself is sometimes (especially in soliloquy) a distinctive, credible personality, at other times merely an exemplary figure. His habit of talking about himself in the third person may reflect an acute self-consciousness – or a Morality-actor’s tendency to name himself for the convenience of his audience. His subjectivity fades in and out.
Marlowe’s focus on learning is much sharper. The Faustbook deals cursorily with its protagonist’s education in its first chapter:
But Doctor Faustus within short time after he had obtained his degree, fell into such fantasies and deep cogitations that he was marked of many, and of the most part of the students was called the Speculator; and sometimes he would throw the Scriptures from him as though he had no care of his former profession: so that he began a very ungodly life… (Jones 1994:92)
The author is suspicious of learning in general, and he can explain Faustus’ interest in magic only as the product of ‘a naughty mind’. By contrast, the play’s opening scene takes us inside Faustus’ thoughts, and we sense the tedium of the study, the dissatisfaction of knowledge. And Marlowe’s Faustus actually cites his texts. ‘The play itself is almost macaronic in its frequent scholarly lapses into Latinity’ (Levin 1954:137). (Macaronic texts are learned games which mingle Latin with the vernacular – a nice parallel to the play.) But how good was the Latin of its first audiences? And if they understood the words, did they also spot Faustus’ mistakes, his mis-citations and partial quotes? Or is the language of learning (standing out in italic type in the early black-letter quartos) a blind – verbal pyrotechnics to match the fireworks onstage? The Latin formula to summon the devil with which Marlowe furnishes Faustus sounds worryingly like the real thing; and Mephistopheles responds with scholastic precision: ‘That was the cause, but yet per accidens’ (3.47). At a performance one feels that something dangerous is happening.
Both the doctor and the devil are more precisely defined than in the Faustbook. There, Faustus is reluctant to give the devil the soul he demands; here, he offers it in exchange for twenty-four years of life. He seems driven by a terrible curiosity, yet he learns nothing new. Mephistopheles hides nothing, but he is playing a cat-and-mouse game: in the Faustbook, Faustus melts for himself the congealed blood which Mephistopheles here brings fire from hell to unclot, and his asides (‘O, what will not I do to obtain his soul?’, 5.73) are a glimpse into that unseen abyss. Somewhat later in the Faustbook, the devil torments the already damned Faustus with the thought of hell. Marlowe’s Mephistopheles is himself tormented by his own knowledge of hell, the only knowledge he has to offer. Faustus hopes that forbidden knowledge will bring him power (‘All things that move between the quiet poles / Shall be at my command’, 1.58–9), and imagines that power in terms of unlimited spatial extension (‘his dominion that exceeds in this / Stretcheth as far as doth the mind of man’, 1.62–3). Instead he finds himself on the brink of an unthinkable infinity: ‘Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it’ (3.78). ‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed / In one self place, for where we are is hell, / And where hell is must we ever be’ (5.123–5). In these scenes, the small space of the stage seems to open onto the depths. They are the most darkly compelling in Elizabethan drama.
The play’s middle scenes are disappointing, a loose concatenation of episodes. Hell, significantly, is much less frequently mentioned. At one level, this structural weakness is thoroughly appropriate: Faustus’ adventures are crude and demeaning because he is wasting the powers, and the time, he has secured. The Knight’s insulting observation rings true: ‘I’faith, he looks much like a conjurer’ (10.11). The comedy of the clowns’ scenes, too, though their authenticity is doubtful, may also be functional, parodying the mindlessness of Faustus’ own actions. Still, it seems unlikely that Marlowe was wholly responsible for their execution, and what relevance and coherence they have is thematic rather than theatrical. They treat as comic the very fears that haunt the main plot.
Those fears return in the closing scenes, and with them the intensity of the writing. No other play so deftly exploits the audience’s consciousness of the approaching end. Faustus’ end (the word pervades the play) is predictable, inevitable; he has bargained for it; yet the mind reels trying to comprehend exactly what is happening: ‘no end is limited to damned souls’ (14.101). Faustus’ pleasures become more extreme, more sensual and more desperate as he attempts to ‘extinguish’ (13.85) the thought of damnation. But he cannot escape the knowledge that he is literally a lost soul: ‘Where art thou, Faustus? Wretch, what hast thou done? / Damned art thou, Faustus, damned! Despair and die!’ (13.47–8). We are acutely aware at this point of the overdetermination of the play’s theology and its action. Faustus’ despair is both a psychological condition and a divine punishment, at once the cause and the consequence of his damnation, and in the play’s closing sequence supernatural intervention is indistinguishable from the working of his own mind. ‘Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast’ (13.64): space bends in the line, as does time in the running hour of his final soliloquy. (The Faustbook provided the merest hint: ‘Time ran away with Faustus as the hour-glass’, Jones 1994:174.) Watching his ‘hellish fall’, we are enjoined ‘[o]nly to wonder’ (Epilogue, 4, 6).
Doctor Faustus was highly successful, mutating but remaining in the repertoire even after the Restoration. A persistent early tradition associated performances of the play with the appearance of real devils. It is a testimony to its black theatrical magic.
The A- and B-Texts
The A-text first appeared in print in a black-letter quarto of 1604 (having been entered in the Stationers’ Register in 1601), with subsequen
t editions in 1609 and 1611. This is not a perfect text: it is short for a Renaissance play; the comic scenes in particular seem sketchy; and scene 6 is apparently misplaced. Scholars once thought that it was a memorial reconstruction, but modern opinion tends to the view that the text was set from the authorial ‘foul papers’ of Marlowe and the collaborator to whom the central scenes of the play were entrusted.
The B-text was first printed in a quarto of 1616, and reprinted six times between 1619 and 1663. This lacks some 36 lines of the A-text, but adds 676 lines of new material, and makes in addition thousands of smaller verbal changes (a few of these offer better readings than the A-text, and have been adopted in this edition). The additional scenes are probably those for which Philip Henslowe paid William Birde and Samuel Rowley £4 in 1602. They augment the action of the A-text with new incidents, and amplify the supernatural spectacle and anti-Catholic sentiment. In Rome, Faustus becomes involved with an anti-pope whom he spirits away to the imperial court. Here he comes into conflict with Benvolio (based on the A-text’s anonymous Knight) and eventually tricks him with a false head (apparently drawing on the use of the false leg in A). The plot against the Horse-Courser is expanded to provide further comic action for the A-text’s Clowns. It is apparent that the new scenes develop and interweave materials from the A-text. Possibly the most significant changes come at the end of the play, where now the action occurs under the gaze of the devils who remain above in the gallery (a stage space not used in the A-text); and Faustus is dismembered in view of the audience. The B-text thus tends to display literally what is only menacingly suggested in A.
Ultimately a preference for one text over the other cannot be based solely on bibliographical evidence, but rests on an understanding of what the two versions of the play are. Older scholarship viewed the A-text as a mangled version of the fuller B-text. Like most modern editors, we regard the B-text as an interesting theatrical adaptation and the A-text as the more authentic version of the play.
PROLOGUE
0.1 SD The Chorus, apparently for the first time on the English stage, is a single speaker.
1–2 The Carthaginians defeated the Romans near Lake Trasimeno in 217 BC; but since ‘mate’ must mean ‘overcome’, Marlowe seems to attribute the victory to the Romans and their god of war. Some gloss ‘mate’ as ‘side with, ally himself with’ (OED 4); but since its primary sense refers to sexual coupling, it could also be the equivalent to ‘screw’. Such ambiguities are frequent in this speech.
6 muse: Poet.
vaunt: B’s reading. A’s daunt looks like a compositor’s error (‘d’ and ‘V’ are easily confused in black-letter), and both sense and alliteration are against it.
9 To patient… plaud: We appeal (the case of) our applause to patient ‘judgements’ (with a pun), as to a higher court.
13 Wittenberg: For A’s Wertenberg. The university of Luther and of the Faustbook’s Faustus is probably meant; the more theologically radical university of Tübingen in Württemberg is possible but less likely.
15–17 So soon… name: Faustus’ studies in theology, the fertile ground of sanctified (‘graced’) learning, led quickly to his being graced (a technical academic term) with the title of Doctor.
21–2 waxen wings… overthrow: An allusion to the flight and fall of Icarus. See (N).
Scene 1
0.1 SD The study may have been represented by filling the discovery-space at the back of the stage with books, which were then used as props.
2 profess: (i) Claim expertise in, (ii) teach.
3 commenced: (i) Begun, (ii) taken a degree (as at Cambridge).
7 Bene disserere… logices: (Translated from Latin in line 8) not from Aristotle’s treatises on logic, the Prior and Posterior Analytics (A’s Analutikes (6) follows the Greek pronunciation), but the open ing definition of the Dialectic of Ramus (N).
logices: Greek genitive, for A’s logicis.
12 On kai me on: Greek, ‘being and non-being’, a topic in metaphysics.
13 ubi… medicus: Where the philosopher leaves off, there the doctor begins. Not from Galen (N), but from Aristotle, On Sense and Sense-Perception, 1.436a.
16 Summum… sanitas: (Translated in line 17) adapted from Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1094a8.
19 aphorisms: Principles of medicine, like the Aphorisms attributed to Hippocrates.
28–9 Si una… rei: If one and the same thing be left to two people, one (is entitled to) the thing, the other to the value of the thing (legatur for A’s legatus ). Very loosely based on Justinian (N), Institutes II.XX.8.
31 Exhaereditare… nisi: A father cannot disinherit (exhaereditare for A’s ex haereditari ) his son unless… Reminiscent of Justinian, Institutes II.xiii.
33 law: A’s Church could be defended since Justinian’s Institutes were central to Canon Law, but B’s law gives them their rightful place in the corpus juris (‘body of the law’) and makes better sense.
34 His: Of this.
36 Too servile: B’s reading; A’s The devill is nonsense.
38 Jerome’s Bible: St Jerome (N), here pronounced with three syllables, was responsible for the standard Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate.
39 Stipendium… est: Romans 6:23 (translated in line 41). Neither this nor lines 42–3 are quotations from the Vulgate text.
42–3 Sipeccasse… veritas: 1 John 1:8 (translated in lines 44–5).
49 Che serà, serà: Italian proverb, translated in line 50.
53 Lines… characters: The illustrations of line 52’s ‘necromantic books’.
schemes: Accepted emendation of A’s sceanes: diagrams.
characters: Symbols.
58 quiet poles: Motionless poles of the (Ptolemaic) universe.
78 Jove: Classicizing euphemism for God.
80 glutted with conceit: (i) Filled with hungry longing by the thought, (ii) filled only with imagined anticipation.
92 public schools: Universities.
silk: ForA’s skill.
95 the Prince of Parma: Spanish governor-general of the Netherlands, 1579–92.
98 fiery keel… bridge: Parma’s bridge over the Scheldt at Antwerp was destroyed by a Dutch fire-ship on 4 April 1585.
114–15 with… syllogisms / Gravelled: Confounded with succinct logical arguments.
117 problems: Questions posed for scholastic disputation.
119 Agrippa: (N) was famed for raising the phantoms (‘shadows’, 120) of the dead.
124 subjects: Servants, spirits taking material form. B’s spirits is the easier reading.
127 Almain rutters: German cavalry.
131 Queen of Love: Venus.
133–4 from America… treasury: The American gold which supplied the wealth of Philip II of Spain is compared to the Golden Fleece carried to Greece by Jason in the Argo.
140 in: Supplied from A2.
141 tongues: Languages.
well seen: Well versed.
145 the Delphian oracle: The oracle of Apollo at Delphi. A’s Dolphian is corrected from A2.
157 Hebrew Psalter… New Testament: The Psalms and the opening of St John’s Gospel were used in conjuring.
Scene 2
2 sic probo: Thus I prove it (to cap an argument).
11–12 That follows… upon’t: Graduates (‘licentiate[s]’) like you shouldn’t fall into such a non sequitur. Wagner parodies the style of scholastic disputation, punning on the physical and logical senses of ‘follows’ and ‘stand upon’.
17 Ask… a thief: I.e. your witness is as unreliable as one thief’s testimony in support of another.
20–21 corpus naturale… mobile: A natural body… capable of movement.
22–5 But that… execution: Wagner claims that only his good nature makes it safe for them to approach so dangerous a place (or perhaps that they can’t get near his standard of wit), then adds that he expects to see them hanged soon anyway.
28–32 Truly… dear brethren: A parody of the verbal style, as well as the pious expression,
of a puritan (‘precisian’).
37 Rector: Head of the university.
Scene 3
1–4 gloomy shadow… breath: Night, the shadow of the earth in Ptolemaic cosmology, rises into the sky from the south towards the constellation of Orion, the winter rising of which was associated with cloud and rain (Virgil’s nimbosus Orion, Aeneid 1, 535).
9 anagrammatized: B’s reading; A has and Agramathist.
10 breviated: The abbreviated form puns on the breviary, the Catholic office-book, which included readings from the lives of the saints.
11–12 Figures… stars: Representations of everything pertaining to the skies, and symbols of the signs of the Zodiac and the planets.
16–23 Sint… Mephistopheles: May the gods of Acheron (Hell) be propitious to me; let the threefold godhead of Jehovah be gone (or be powerful); hail, spirits of fire, air and water [aquatici for A’s Aquatani ]; prince of the east, Beelzebub, monarch of burning Hell, and Demogorgon, we ask your favour, that Mephistopheles may appear [appareat for A’s apariat ] and rise. Why do you delay [quid tumoraris for A’s quod tumeraris ]? By Jehovah, Hell, the consecrated water which I now scatter, by the sign of the cross which I now make, and by our prayers, may Mephistopheles himself now rise to us on our commands [dicatis for A’s dicaetis ].
35 Quin redis… imagine!: Why don’t you return, Mephistopheles, in the guise of a friar!
47 per accidens: As a secondary cause (Mephistopheles too speaks the language of scholarship). A’s accident may indicate Anglicization, or student argot.
61 confounds hell… Elysium: Faustus refuses to distinguish Hell from the pagan Elysian fields.
89 these: B’s reading; A’s those is probably a corruption from line 88.
109–10 I’ll join… Spain: Faustus imagines closing the Straits of Gibraltar.
The Complete Plays Page 61