The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, Then will I headlong run into the earth; Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon! If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul, Yet for Christ's sake whose blood hath ransomed me, Impose some end to my incessant pain; Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years A hundred thousand, and—at last-be saved ! O, no end is limited to damnèd souls ! Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis! were that true, Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy, Their souls are soon dissolved in elements; But mine must live, still to be plagued in hell. [The clock strikes twelve. O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air, [Thunder and lightning. O soul, be changed into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean-ne'er be found. [Enter Devils. I'll burn my books!-Ah Mephistophilis ! [Exeunt Devils with FAUSTUS. Enter CHORUS. HO. Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo's laurel bough, man. Faustus is gone; regard his hellish fall, Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits To practise more than heavenly power permits. E it. LTHOUGH The Jew of Malta was written between 1588 and 1592, there is no earlier edition of the play than the quarto of 1633. This was furnished with a brace of Prologues and Epilogues by Thomas Heywood, the dramatist, who tells the The source of the story is unknown; Mr. Symonds, arguing chiefly from its unrelieved cruelty, thinks it may be taken from some Spanish novel. THE PROLOGUE. Enter MACHIAVEL. Machiavel. Albeit the world thinks Machiavel is dead, Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps, And now the Guise1 is dead, is come from France, To view this land, and frolic with his friends. To some perhaps my name is odious, But such as love me guard me from their tongues ; And weigh not men, and therefore not men's words. I count religion but a childish toy, Birds of the air will tell of murders past! Many will talk of title to a crown : What right had Cæsar to the empery? Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure Hence comes it that a strong-built citadel. He had never bellowed, in a brazen bull, But whither am I bound? I come not, I, To read a lecture here in Britain, But to present the tragedy of a Jew, Who smiles to see how full his bags are crammed, Which money was not got without my means. I crave but this-grace him as he deserves, And let him not be entertained the worse Because he favours me. [Exit. 1 The Duc de Guise, who had organised the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, and was assassinated in 1588. 231 |