Devil. ’Twas said merely to do honour to the shape in which thou seest me: but words are vain. Set me to the proof. What dost thou require?
Faustus. Require? What an indefinite word for a devil! If thou art what thou seemest, anticipate desires, and gratify them ere they become wishes.
Devil. The noble steed champs the bit in fury when curbed by a timid rider: how he then resembles the man who feels wings that could bear him into light, yet who is kept down in the dark abyss! Faustus, thou art one of those fiery spirits who are not contented with the scanty meal of knowledge which Omniscience has set before them. Great is thy strength, mighty is thy soul, and bold thy will; but the curse of finite reason lies upon thee, as it does upon all. Faustus, thou art as great as man can be.
Faustus. Masquerading fiend, return into hell; must thou, too, deceive us by flattery?
Devil. Faustus, I am a spirit formed of flaming light; I saw the monstrous worlds arise out of nothing: thou art of dust, and of yesterday. Do I flatter thee?
Faustus. And yet must thou serve me if I command.
Devil. For that I expect the approbation of hell, besides a reward; neither man nor devil will work for nothing.
Faustus. What reward dost thou expect?
Devil. To have that which animates thee; that which would make thee my equal if it had power.
Faustus. I were well off then, truly; yet, adept as thou art, thou knowest little of men, if thou doubtest the strength of one who has set himself free from the bonds which nature has drawn so tightly round our hearts. How gentle did they appear to me once, when the eye of my youth clothed men and the world in the pure colours of morning! ’Tis gone; dark is my horizon; I stand on the gloomy verge of eternity, and have broken through the laws which keep the human race in harmony.