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The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus ▾
contents
  1. Editor’s Note
  2. Dramatis Personae
  3. Scene I
  4. Scene II
  5. Scene III
  6. Scene IV
  7. Scene V
  8. Scene VI
  9. Scene VII
  10. Scene VIII
  11. Scene IX
  12. Scene X
  13. Scene XI
  14. Scene XII
  15. Scene XIII
  16. Scene XIV
  17. Scene XV
  18. Scene XVI
  19. Endnotes
English ▾

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Christopher Marlowe

free · 14,767 words · 1 h 44 m audiobook, read by volunteers for LibriVox · first published 1604

text from Standard Ebooks

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Editor’s Note

The earliest known edition of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is that of 1604; there is a second edition with date of 1609, agreeing in almost every particular with the first; a third edition with new scenes and many alterations, was published in 1616. The text here given is that of 1604, with some readings adopted from the edition of 1616, in general agreement with the texts of Dyce and Bullen. It is very doubtful if any of the additions in the edition of 1616 are by Marlowe; Mr. Bullen thinks that some of them are. They are often ingenious, and sometimes they are improvements. They appear to be written by a clever and facile imitator of Marlowe’s style. The comic additions are taken from the prose History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Dr. John Faustus; the serious additions are closely moulded on Marlowe’s early work. We know that in 1602 William Bride and Samuel Rowley received four pounds for making “adicyones” to Faustus. I have retained the excellent plan, introduced by Professor Ward and adopted by Mr. Bullen, of dividing the play into scenes only: it is a dramatic poem rather than a regular drama.

—Havelock Ellis

Dramatis Personae

  • The Pope

  • Cardinal of Lorrain

  • Emperor of Germany

  • Duke of Vanholt

  • Faustus

  • Valdes, Friend to Faustus

  • Cornelius, Friend to Faustus

  • Wagner, Servant to Faustus

  • Clown

  • Robin

  • Ralph

  • Vintner, Horse-Courser, Knight, Old Man, Scholars, Friars, and Attendants

  • Duchess Of Vanholt

  • Lucifer

  • Belzebub

  • Mephistopheles

  • Good Angel

  • Evil Angel

  • The Seven Deadly Sins

  • Devils

  • Spirits in the shapes of Alexander the Great, of his Paramour, and of Helen of Troy

  • Chorus

Chorus

Reads.

Not marching now in fields of Thrasymene,
Where Mars did mate1 the Carthaginians;
Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,
In courts of kings where state is overturned;
Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,
Intends our Muse to vaunt her heavenly verse:
Only this, gentlemen—we must perform
The form of Faustus’ fortunes, good or bad:
To patient judgments we appeal our plaud,
And speak for Faustus in his infancy.
Now is he born, his parents base of stock,
In Germany, within a town called Rhodes;2
Of riper years to Wertenberg he went,
Whereas his kinsmen3 chiefly brought him up.
So soon he profits in divinity,
The fruitful plot of scholarism graced,
That shortly he was graced with doctor’s name,
Excelling all whose sweet delight disputes
In heavenly matters of theology;
Till swollen with cunning4 of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And, melting, heavens conspired his overthrow;
For, falling to a devilish exercise,
And glutted now with learning’s golden gifts,
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.

Scene I

restoring your place…

fetching the rest…

More by Christopher Marlowe

  • Edward II
    Marlowe writes a king who wrecks his kingdom for love of Gaveston and somehow makes you pity him more as he loses everything. It's bleak, cruel in places, and the deposition scenes cut deep.
  • The Jew of Malta
    You get a viciously funny, morally rotten theatrical ride through Barabas’s schemes, where everyone’s greed and hypocrisy keep feeding his ingenuity. The play is bluntly antisemitic in places, so it needs some historical distance, but its black comedy and gleeful distrust of piety still feel startlingly alive.

genres

  • Tragedy

appears in

  • Short Reads

—

thank you for reading

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. The text is in the US public domain, from the Standard Ebooks edition. Served from our own copy; read on their site for the full edition with images and typography.

Narrated by Elizabeth Klett, Lars Rolander (1942-2016), Rainer, Denny Sayers (d. 2015), CalmDragon, David Lawrence, Jason Mills, Arielle Lipshaw, Martin Geeson, Lucy Perry, Nadine Eckert-Boulet, Diana Majlinger, John Steigerwald, Algy Pug, Sandra G, Elizabeth Barr, Mary-Beth Blackburn, Sean Randall, Frank Booker, and Availle for LibriVox, also public domain.

First published in 1604.

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