The history of the damnable life and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus, 1592, together with The second report of Faustus, containing his appearances and the deeds of Wagner, 1594.

by Unknown

CHAPTER XXIV

Of a certain Comet that appeared in Germanie, and how Doctor Faustus was desired by certain friends of his to know the meaning thereof

In Germanie over the Town of S. Eizleben was seen a mighty great Comet, whereat the people wondered; but Doctor Faustus being there, was asked of certain of his friends his judgment or opinion in the matter. Whereupon he answered, it falleth out often by the course and change of the Sun and Moon, that the Sun is under the earth, and the Moon above; but when the Moon draweth near the change, then is the Sun so strong that he taketh away all the light of the Moon, in such sort that he is as red as blood: and to the contrary, after they have been together, the Moon taketh her light again from him, and so increasing in light to the full, she will be as red as the Sun was before, and changeth herself into divers and sundry colours, of the which springeth a prodigious monster, or as you call it, a Comet, which is a figure or token appointed of God as a forewarning of his displeasure: as at one time he sendeth hunger, plague, sword, or such-like: being all tokens of his judgment: the which Comet cometh through the conjunction of the Sun and Moon begetting a monster, whose father is the Sun, and whose mother is the Moon, ☉ and ☽.

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