![]() ![]() History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. ![]() " Mephastophilis " is the most common spelling in the 1604 quarto (the most frequently occurring spelling in the 1616 quarto is " Mephostophilis "). The A-Text and B-Text of Christopher Marlowes tragic history, Dr. ![]() The extraordinary image of grotesque macrocosmic appetite with which the scene opens is striking to the ear, and repays a reader's meditative pause: Now that the gloomy shadow of the earth, Longing to view Orions drisling looke, Leapes from th'antartike world unto the skie, And dimmes the welkin with her pitchy breath: 1 1 I have used this spelling of the spirit's name throughout this essay (except in quotations where other spellings occur). The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad: To patient judgments we appeal our plaud, And speak for Faustus in his infancy.(10) Now is he born, his parents base of stock, In Germany, within a town called Rhodes: Of riper years, to Wertenberg he went, Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up. He knows it is now too late to turn away from the evil and ask for forgiveness. I More, perhaps, than any other part of Doctor Faustus, the third scene of Act I (which begins with Faustus's invocation of Mephastophilis) 1 illustrates the difference between the experience of reading a play and of seeing it performed. An old man appears and tries to get Faustus to hope for salvation and yet Faustus cannot. ![]()
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