CHAPTER XLI
How Doctor Faustus with his company visited the Bishop of Saltzburg his Wine-cellar
Doctor Faustus having taken his leave of the Duke, he went to Wittenberg, near about Shrovetide, and being in company with certain Students, Doctor Faustus was himself the God Bacchus, who having well feasted the Students before with dainty fare, after the manner of Germanie, where it is counted no feast except all the bidden guests be drunk, which Doctor Faustus intending, said: Gentlemen and my guests, will it please you to take a cup of wine with me in a place or cellar whereunto I will bring you, and they all said willingly we will: which when Doctor Faustus heard, he took them forth, set either of them upon an holly wand, and so were conjured into the Bishop of Saltzburg his Cellar, for there about grew excellent pleasant Wine: there fell Faustus and his company to drinking and swilling, not of the worst but of the best, and as they were merry in the Cellar, came down to draw drink the Bishop’s butler: which when he perceived so many persons there he cried with a loud voice, thieves! thieves! This spited Doctor Faustus wonderfully, wherefore he made every one of his company to sit on their holly wand and so vanished away, and in parting Doctor Faustus took the Butler by the hair of the head and carried him away with them, until they came unto a mighty high-lopped tree, and on the top of that huge tree he set the Butler, where he remained in a most fearful perplexity, and Doctor Faustus departed to his house where they took their VALETE one of another, drinking the Wine the which they had stolen in great bottles of glass out of the Bishop’s cellar. The Butler that had held himself by the hand upon the lopped tree all the night, was almost frozen with cold, espying the day, and seeing the tree of so huge great highness, thought with himself it is impossible to come off this tree without peril of death: at length he had espied certain Clowns which were passing by, he cried for the love of God help me down: the Clowns seeing him so high, wondered what mad man would climb to so huge a tree, wherefore as a thing most miraculous, they carried tidings unto the Bishop of Saltzburg, then was there great running on every side to see a man in a huge tree, and many devices they practised to get him down with ropes, and being demanded by the Bishop how he came there, he said, that he was brought thither by the hair of the head of certain thieves that were robbing of the Wine-cellar, but what they were he knew not, for (said he) they had faces like men, but they wrought like Devils.