CHAPTER II
How certain drunken Dutchmen were abused by their own conceit and self-imagination, of seeing the grand Doctor, Doctor Faustus
It shall not be impertinent (my very good friends) to declare as I am bound by a Translator’s duty, to shew what these my Dutch friends and Students have imparted unto me, not for that I will be a King of your hearts to command you to believe, but that you may with the rest of the History conceive the common opinion of him in the vulgar’s belief here in Germany, as concerning such the like illusions before pretended. About the same time, the next year wherein Faustus was thus handled betwixt six and seven o’clock in the morning, the five and twentieth day of June, 1539, there chanced certain Scholars to the number of nine, and five other Merchants (called of them Copfhmen) two being English, to walk abroad to a little village within four English miles (which is about one of theirs) of Wittenberg called Shaftsburg to the intent to make merry, whither being come they were exceeding pleasant, as Dutchmen are, especially when they be at their good Beer, for they are men very impatient of thirst, wherewith the Italian mocks them saying:
Germani multos possunt tolerare labores,
O vtinam possint tam bene ferre sitim.
Unto which they merrily answer:
Vt nos dura sitis, sic vos Venus improba vexat,
Lex lata est Veneri Iulia, nulla mero.
So long they drank, that at last they came to be within a little of drunk, fetching over the Green nine Muses[45] so often at sundry draughts, till they began to be exceeding merry and pleasant, till it being time to depart, so they set out for Wittenberg, and being within a mile or such a matter of the City, they came to a thick Grove called of them the Phogelwald which is Bird’s Wood in English, a place somewhat delightsome above any thereabouts, situated upon a top of a very high Hill, but the arms of it spread themselves somewhat lower into the neighbour valleys and meadows, full of very fine Crystalline brooks and springs, which running through the large ranks of trees empty themselves into the Elve, a River which keeps his current by Wittenberg; in this place in a fair Summer sunshine day, gather together a great number of country maids, servants, and other of the female sex, which they call Phogels (Birds); unto them there resort in such-like days, a great number of scholars to meet with these Birds, which exercise Venery either for pleasure, but indeed seldom but for gain, with whom when they have danced a great while (after some odd tune, as after that which they call Robinson’s delight, but more truly a jest, though somewhat tolerable) some twenty or thirty or forty couples together, then here steps out one couple, and here another, and get them to such odd corners, as their continual practice doth make known; on the same day wherein this merry company were wandering, who if I should not much err, I durst say they were most deeply drunk, being a Sun-shining day and having no other way to pass to Wittenberg, but only by this Phogelwald, where they determined to be lusty with some of the Phogels, they came at length to these fore-named places, where as to them it seemed sundry Women dancing, and amongst them divers Scholars, and verily they deemed Magister Doctor Faustus likewise, and seeing diverse maids standing idle, so many as would fit their many, they went to take them by the hands, and as their order is saluting them, to hop a bout or two (for all the high Dutchmens’ dances stand upon hopping, turning, winding, and such odd gesture) and as they seemed, they danced at great leisure till this said Faustus came to them, requesting them not to be amazed, for that it was reported he was dead, assuring them in very deed he was not in this World, but had changed it for a better, which if it did please them he would shew unto them, where betwixt their delights and his were no comparison, at his request they were all contented, and he leading the foremost, brought them down into a fair pleasant green, whereon instead of certain flowers grew Pots full of ye best beer, which they tasted on, finding them as good as any that ever they drunk in their whole lives, and farther into a most rich and sumptuous palace, wherein as they seemed they dwelt many days with great mirth and pleasure, till at length one more full of courtesy than the rest thanked Master Faustus for his good entertainment, at which words suddenly was heard so great a noise and howling especially of the poor Doctor, who was immediately reared up into the Air, accompanied with such a sort of black clouds and mists, as therewith not only the sky, but also their eyes were mightily darkened, and they brought into a deep Cavern, wherein besides most soft beds they had nothing to comfort themselves, in which they wallowed and slept till they snorted, some of the Scholars that were present at their departure being in a soberer conceit than the rest, desirous to see whither they would go, followed them fast after, till they espied them on this dirty ease, for instead of beds they were all bewrapped, and some more than half sunk in deep and yielding mire by the river’s banks. Whom when they saw in this more than miserable case, moved with pity, conveyed them in Waggons home: and being demanded in the morning (for then they were a little wiser) the occasion of their so great and seldom seen disorder, they declared it from the beginning to the ending, which they were so far from believing, that they counted it as canonical, which when some Students reported unto me, I could not abstain from hearty laughter, not only to see how they had abused themselves, but also others by so fond belief. For I said that in drunkenness, so thick a vapour as riseth from so thick a matter as their Beer, clambering up and spreading itself so universally in the fantasy, maketh it conceive no other impression, but that which the mind, afore it came to be overpressed, was conversant about, and it was evident that in all the talk they had, there was nothing mentioned but only Faustus, and Faustus’ merriments, and where a thing is amongst so many so agreeingly talked of, it is likely it should take effect as well in all as in one. Well, I was content to subscribe to their folly rather to satisfy their self-willed conceits, than mine own thought. Many odd pranks Faustus is made the father of, which are either so frivolous as nobody can credit but like frivolous people, or so merely smelling of the Cask, that a man may easily know the child by the Father.
Footnotes
[45] Perhaps a toast.