Faustus walking in the market-place, saw seven women sitting all in a
row, selling eggs, butter, etc. Of every one he bought something and
departed. No sooner was he gone but all the eggs and butter were gone
out of their baskets, and they knew not how. At last they were told that
Dr. Faustus had conjured their goods away. They thereupon ran speedily
to the doctor's house, and so demanded satisfaction for the ware. He
resolving to make himself and the town's people merry by his conjuring
art, made them return to their baskets naked as ever they were born; and
having danced a while in the market-place every one's goods were
conjured into their baskets again, and they set at liberty.
CHAPTER XII.
_How Faustus served a Country Fellow who was driving Swine._
Dr. Faustus, as he was going to Wurtemberg, overtook a country fellow
driving a hundred swine, who were very headstrong, some running one way
and some another; so that the driver could not tell how to get them
drove along. The doctor taking notice of it, so by his conjuring art he
made every one of them dance upon their two hind legs, with a fiddle in
one of their fore feet, and with the other fore foot they played upon
the fiddle, and so they danced and fiddled all the way until they came
into Wurtemberg market, the driver of them dancing all the way before
them, which made the people wonder. After the doctor had satisfied
himself with the spirit he conjured all of the fiddles away, and the
driver then offered them for sale, and quickly sold them all, and took
the money; but before he was gone out of the house Faustus had conjured
all the hogs out of the market-place, and sent them all home to the
driver's house. The man who bought them, seeing all the swine gone,
stopped the man who sold them and would have his money, which he was
forced to pay, and so returned home sorrowful, and not knowing what to
do; but, to his great surprise, found all the swine in their sties.
CHAPTER XIII.
_How Faustus begun to bethink himself of the near approach of his End._
Faustus having spun out his twenty-four years, within a month or two,
began to consider what he should do to cheat the devil, but could not
find any way to prevent his miserable end, which was now near, whereupon
he thus cries out to himself, "Oh! miserable wretch that I am, I have
given myself to the devil for a few years' pleasure, and now I must pay
full dear. I have had my desires; my filthy lusts I have satisfied, and
I must be tormented for ever and ever."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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