Doctor Faustus (play) - Quotations

Quotations

Faustus includes a well-known speech addressed to the summoned shade of Helen of Troy, in Act V, scene I. The following is from the Gutenberg project e-text of the 1604 quarto (with footnotes removed).

Faustus

"Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium--

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--

''''

Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,

And all is dross that is not Helena.

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

Instead of Troy, shall Wertenberg be sack'd;

And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;

Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,

And then return to Helen for a kiss.

O, thou art fairer than the evening air

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;

Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter

When he appear'd to hapless Semele;

More lovely than the monarch of the sky

In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;

And none but thou shalt be my paramour!"

Excerpts from this speech appear in the film Shakespeare in Love and the Star Trek episode "The Squire of Gothos"; it also served as inspiration for the title of Volume 1 of the popular Age of Bronze comic book.

Another well-known quote comes after Faustus asks Mephistophilis how he is out of Hell, to which Mephistophilis replies:

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God,

And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,

Am not tormented with ten thousand hells

In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"

This quote comes from a translation of Saint John Chrysostom, and implies that Mephistophilis has both a deep knowledge of God and a desire to return to heaven.