O, might I see hell, and return again!
How happy were I then!...
I will renounce this magic and repent.
[54]:
My heart's so harden'd, I cannot repent;
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven,
But fearful echoes thunder unto my ears,
"Faustus, thou art damn'd!" Then swords, and knives,
Poison, guns, halters, and envenom'd steel
Are laid before me to dispatch myself.
And long ere this I should have slain myself,
Had not sweet pleasure conquer'd deep despair.
Have I not made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and Œnon's death?
And hath not he that built the walls of Thebes,
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp,
Made music with my Mephistophilis?
Why should I die then, or basely despair?
I am resolv'd; Faustus shall ne'er repent.—
Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again,
And argue of divine astrology.
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon?
Are all celestial bodies but one globe,
As is the substance of this centric earth?...
One thing.... let me crave of thee
To glut the longing of my heart's desire....
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships
And burn'd the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!
Her lips suck forth my soul—see where it flies.
Come, Helen, come give me my soul again;
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
O thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars!
[55]:
Ah, my God, I would weep! But the devil draws in my tears. Gush forth, blood, instead of tears! Yea, life and soul! O, he stays my tongue! I would lift up my hands. But see, they hold them, they hold them; Lucifer and Mephistophilis.
Oh, Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live;
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually.
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease and midnight never come.
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
Oh, I will leap to heaven: who pulls me down?
See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament:
One drop of blood will save me: Oh, my Christ,
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ.
Yet will I call on him:
Oh, half the hour is past: 't will all be past anon.
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at the last be saved:
It strikes, it strikes;
Oh soul, be chang'd into small water drops,
And fall into the ocean: ne'er be found.
[56]: Voir le jugement de Vittoria Accoramboni, celui de Virginia dans Webster, Coriolan et Jules César dans Shakspeare.
[57]: Rôle de Falstaff, dans Shakspeare; rôle de la reine, dans London, de Greene et Decker; rôle de Rosalinde, dans Shakespeare.
[58]: Voyez dans Webster, Duchess of Malfi, une scène d'accouchement admirable.
[59]: Voyez Hamlet, Coriolan, Hotspur.