| |
Enter CHORUS | |
Chorus
NOT marching now in fields of Trasimene, | |
| Where Mars did mate 1 the Carthaginians; | |
| Nor sporting in the dalliance of love, | |
| In courts of kings where state is overturned’d; | 5 |
| Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds, | |
| Intends our Muse to vaunt his heavenly verse: | |
| Only this, gentlemen,—we must perform | |
| The form of Faustus’ fortunes, good or bad. | |
| To patient judgments we appeal our plaud, 2 | 10 |
| And speak for Faustus in his infancy. | |
| Now is he born, his parents base of stock, | |
| In Germany, within a town call’d Rhodes; 3 | |
| Of riper years to Wittenberg he went, | |
| Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up. | 15 |
| So soon he profits in divinity, | |
| The fruitful plot of scholarism grac’d, 4 | |
| That shortly he was grac’d with doctor’s name, | |
| Excelling all those sweet delight disputes | |
| In heavenly matters of theology; | 20 |
| Till swollen with cunning, 5 of a self-conceit, | |
| His waxen wings 6 did mount above his reach, | |
| And, melting, Heavens conspir’d his overthrow; | |
| For, falling to a devilish exercise, | |
| And glutted [now] with learning’s golden gifts, | 25 |
| He surfeits upon cursed necromancy. | |
| Nothing so sweet as magic is to him, | |
| Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss. | |
| And this the man that in his study sits! [Exit.] | |
