This right marvellous triumph thus presented, each one did his humble obeisance, the best beginning (though good there were none) and in the end with huge tumult and echoing of trumpets they crowned him a King, which when they had done, with the like ceremonies they conveyed out again the Doctor whom his wretchedness made a King, and his new King-ship nothing. Wagner started as if he had now begun to marvel, amazed at this merry Interlude, having recovered his memory again, he began softly to speak to himself in such-like manner. Is this (quoth he) the honour my Master hath in Hell? Is this the reverence with which the Fiends infernal use to entertain such guests? O ye Spirits of Hell, and ye even now revived Emperors of great Limbus, from whence have you drawn this extraordinary humanity, is it to scorn poor Faustus or to mock Wagner that you shew such reverence to a vile object, what then would they do to Wagner who is worthy to have a fitter servant than their King? At these words he blushed exceedingly, and began to rage very grievously with his conscience’s terror, and with some few tears repenting his irreligious conclusion, rose up from the ground, and supposing it to be but an illusion, dream, or a temptation, or else some conceit proceeding from his moist and melancholic fantasy, overpressed with too many vapours, raised up by continual thought into his Pores: wherefore he went forthwith into the streets (so much he distrusted himself) and demanded whether it rained, hailed, or thundered, and it was answered that it neither rained, hailed, nor thundered. Wagner, albeit he was newly revived from a fear, and scarcely thoroughly wakened from this his great terror, yet with this comical jest his decayed spirits began to recover their old strength and power, turning these great braveries of Devils into a merriment, and his conceived fear into a mere fancy. This was the first time that ever Faustus appeared unto his servant Wagner, who recited this unto his companions as a matter of great truth and little moment.
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.