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The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus / From the Quarto of 1616 cover

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus / From the Quarto of 1616

Chapter 3: Edited By The Rev. Alexander Dyce.
By Christopher Marlowe
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About This Book

The play follows a brilliant but overreaching scholar who abandons theology and law to study necromancy, striking a pact that trades his soul for occult knowledge and worldly power. A demon serves him and he uses magic to command spirits, stage grand illusions, and pursue sensual and material pleasures amid comic interludes with servants and students. The work alternates spectacular supernatural scenes with moral debate, depicting repeated temptations, moments of remorse, and an inability to secure lasting repentance. A choric narrator frames the action and the drama closes as a tragic cautionary tale about ambition, knowledge, and the limits of human agency.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

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Title: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus

Author: Christopher Marlowe

Editor: Alexander Dyce

Release date: February 1, 1997 [eBook #811]
Most recently updated: January 18, 2013

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Gary R. L. Young, and David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS ***



THE TRAGICAL HISTORY
OF
DOCTOR FAUSTUS


By Christopher Marlowe

From The Quarto Of 1616.

Edited By The Rev. Alexander Dyce.



Transcribers Comments on the preparation of the E-Text:

SQUARE BRACKETS: The square brackets, i.e. are copied from the printed book, without change, except that the stage directions usually do not have closing brackets. These have been added.

FOOTNOTES: For this E-Text version of the book, the footnotes have been consolidated at the end of the play.

Numbering of the footnotes has been changed, and each footnote is given a unique identity.

CHANGES TO THE TEXT: Character names were expanded. For Example, FAUSTUS was FAUST; SECOND SCHOLAR was SEC. SCHOL.

OTHER COMMENTS: This E-Text of Doctor Faustus is taken from a volume of The Works of Christopher Marlowe. That volume also contains an earlier version of the play, based on the text of 1604, which is available as an E-Text. Some of the notes to the earlier version are applicable to, and help explain, this version.

Gary R. Young






Contents

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS

FOOTNOTES





The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Written by Ch. Mar. London, Printed for John Wright, and are to be sold at his shop without Newgate, at the signe of the Bible, 1616, 4to.

The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. With new Additions. Written by Ch. Mar. Printed at London for John Wright, and are to be sold at his shop without Newgate, 1624, 4to.

The Tragicall Historie of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. With new Additions. Written by Ch. Mar. Printed at London for John Wright, and are to be sold at his shop without Newgate, 1631, 4to.

In a few places I have amended the text of this play by means of 4to 1604.—I have made no use of the comparatively modern edition, 4to 1663.





DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

     THE POPE.
     THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY.
     RAYMOND, king of Hungary.
     DUKE OF SAXONY.
     BRUNO.
     DUKE OF VANHOLT.
     MARTINO,     |
     FREDERICK,   | gentlemen.
     BENVOLIO,    |
     FAUSTUS.
     VALDES,      | friends to FAUSTUS.
     CORNELIUS,   |
     WAGNER, servant to FAUSTUS.
     Clown.
     ROBIN.
     DICK.
     Vintner.
     Horse-courser.
     Carter.
     An Old Man.
     Scholars, Cardinals, ARCHBISHOP OF RHEIMS, Bishops, Monks,
          Friars, Soldiers, and Attendants.

     DUCHESS OF VANHOLT.
     Hostess.

     LUCIFER.
     BELZEBUB.
     MEPHISTOPHILIS.
     Good Angel.
     Evil Angel.
     The Seven Deadly Sins.
     Devils.
     Spirits in the shapes of ALEXANDER THE GREAT, of his Paramour,
          of DARIUS, and of HELEN.

     Chorus.





THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS

FROM THE QUARTO OF 1616.