Faustus Read Online Free PDF

wife, say, in a tavern; of his children, in the street. These practices are private, not to be profanely uttered.
    MAGUS: And yet we swear to God, and account it a jest.
    FAUSTUS: With respect, this is a disquisition not on the notional Dark Forces, but on the vagaries of language.
    MAGUS: Ah, language is all.
    FAUSTUS: The cries of birds may communicate some little-more-than-instinct, one to the next, but are to the higher order, nothing more than song. As must our plaintive imprecations be to those chimerical Powers above.
    MAGUS: And yet we hesitate before them.
    FAUSTUS: Again, what does it signify?
    MAGUS: That is my question, sir, to you.
    FAUSTUS: I swear the work is mine.
    MAGUS: Upon your family.
    FAUSTUS: Were I proved in default.
    MAGUS: … by whom?
    FAUSTUS: I swear the work is of my invention complete, entire.
    MAGUS: Upon the lives of your wife and child.
    FAUSTUS: Tell how you knew of my formula.
    MAGUS: I will not reveal myself to one unbound. Will you swear? (
Pause
) Will you swear?
    (
Pause
)
    FAUSTUS: I will.
    MAGUS: Upon the dirk. (
He draws the dirk and holds it in front of
FAUSTUS .) Grasp it.
    ( FAUSTUS
takes the dirk
.)
    FAUSTUS: I swear upon the lives of my wife and child. The manuscript is mine entire. Are you content? Am I now sworn?
    MAGUS: You are.
    FAUSTUS: Then divulge to me how you came to know of my work’s conclusion.
    MAGUS: I overheard your shortsighted friend, muttering the phrases to himself as he perused it. Now see my poor magic’s operation, and trade consternation for contempt. Do you despise me?
    FAUSTUS: Howe’er that may be. Good day, sir. I must take my leave.
    MAGUS: Is time so short?
    FAUSTUS: My child …
    MAGUS: You note his cries have ceased.
    FAUSTUS: Which need not trouble you. Adieu.
    MAGUS: But tarry.
    ( FAUSTUS
starts toward the upstage doors to his home
.)
    FAUSTUS: My family bids me.
    MAGUS: They have no more need of you. They are long dead. You are forsworn, and your false oath has consigned them to Hell.
    (
The
MAGUS
gestures, we hear the far-off ringing of a bell. The doors blow open violently to reveal, a scene of gray desolation, remnants of a building, a low mist upon the ground
.)
    ( FAUSTUS
turns from looking at the scene, to confront the
MAGUS
who, we find, has vanished
.)

ACT TWO

    The portals which led to
FAUSTUS ’s
home are opened, to reveal an expanse, upstage, of gray ruin
.
    FAUSTUS
comes onto the stage, and looks around him. We hear a far-off bell ringing, and see an old man walking in the ruins
. FAUSTUS
turns to encounter him. We see it is his
FRIEND ,
Fabian, now greatly aged
.
    FAUSTUS: Where do we find ourselves?
    FRIEND: I’ve often thought that it is Hell.
    FAUSTUS: In truth?
    FRIEND: I am grown so old it nor diverts nor profits me to lie.
    FAUSTUS: Have you grown old?
    FRIEND: As you observe.
    FAUSTUS: But we are of an age.
    FRIEND: If you assert it.
    FAUSTUS: Do you not know me?
    FRIEND: Your voice is not unfamiliar, but perhaps it merely pleases.
    FAUSTUS: Turn to me, look on me.
    FRIEND: It would not profit, no, for I am blind.
    FAUSTUS: Blind.
    FRIEND: Yes.
    FAUSTUS: What has befallen you? How came you to age?
    FRIEND: Sir, I assure you, it was the passage of time.
    FAUSTUS: (
Pause
) Are you mad? (
Pause
) Can you not answer me? Can you not aid me?
    FRIEND: Not the first, sir, but, perhaps, the second.
    FAUSTUS: I do not understand.
    FRIEND: A sundial may offer information, but you remark, it withholds comment. (
Pause
)
    FAUSTUS: Do you not know me?
    FRIEND: I beg pardon.
    FAUSTUS: I am Faustus.
    FRIEND: Ask again if I am mad, I shall return the favor.
    FAUSTUS: You suggest the debility is mine?
    FRIEND: You have said that you are Faustus.
    FAUSTUS: I am he.
    FRIEND: What sane being would assert it?
    FAUSTUS: I do not understand.
    FRIEND: Then you are mad. ( HE STARTS OFF .) Or perverse, merely. I mean no offense. Whom could I dare offend?
    FAUSTUS: Do not desert me.
    FRIEND: Aid me then. Would you oblige, in description of