The play traces an anguished scholar who, dissatisfied with limited human knowledge, makes a pact with a cynical supernatural agent who promises youth and worldly experience in exchange for servitude; their bargain leads the scholar into seduction of a young woman, social ruin, and moral catastrophe culminating in her imprisonment and the scholar's torment. Interwoven are metaphysical debates in a prologue between heaven and the tempter, episodic scenes of city taverns, a witches' revel, and a subterranean prison. Themes include the limits of reason, the hunger for experience, temptation, responsibility, and the possibility of redemption amid tragic consequences.