The history of the damnable life and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus, 1592, together with The second report of Faustus, containing his appearances and the deeds of Wagner, 1594.
History
The history of the damnable life and deserved death of Doctor John Faustus, 1592, together with The second report of Faustus, containing his appearances and the deeds of Wagner, 1594.
Faust, -approximately 1540 -- Legends
He once turned into a very wealthy monastery, in order to spend the
night there. A brother sets before him ordinary, weak, not very tasty
wine. Faust asks him for better wine from another barrel, which is
usually given to distinguished guests. The brother says: ‘I haven’t
the keys. The prior is asleep, and I may not rouse him.’ Faust
replies: ‘The keys lie in that corner; take them and open that barrel
on the left and bring me a drink!’ The brother refuses and declares
that he has no permission from the prior to give the guests other
wine. When Faust hears this, he says: ‘In a short time thou wilt
experience strange things, inhospitable brother!’ Early next morning
he went away full of bitterness, without taking leave, and sent a
raging devil into the monastery, who made an uproar day and night, and
set everything in motion in the church and in the rooms of the monks,
so that they had no peace, whatever they did. At last they consulted
as to whether they should abandon the monastery or totally destroy
it. They therefore announced their misfortune to the Count Palatine,
who took the monastery under his protection and sent away the monks,
to whom he allows every year what they need, keeping the rest for
himself. Some assert that even now, when monks enter the monastery,
there arises such a tumult, that the inhabitants have no peace. The
devil knows how to manage that.
_Another Instance of Faust._
When I was dining with him in the great College at Basle, he gave the
cook birds of various kinds, concerning which I did not know where he
had bought them or who had given them to him, since at that time none
was being sold in Basle, and they were birds such as I have never seen
in our neighbourhood. He had with him a dog and a horse, which, as
I believe, were devils, since they could do everything. Some people
told me that the dog had sometimes assumed the form of a servant and
brought him food. The wretched man came to a terrible end; for the
devil strangled him; his corpse lay on the bier on its face all the
time, although it was turned round five times.”
The chronicler appears to have been a superstitious person, and he is
the first to refer to Faust as being in league with the Devil, for
Trithemius had looked upon him as a dissolute, wandering scholar, and
Begardi thought him little more than a common charlatan. None of the
last three authorities quoted above has mention of Faust’s Christian
name, but he appears as _Johannes_ in a book compiled by Johannes
Manlius (Johann Mennel) in 1563, _Locorum Communium Collectanea_, which
consists mainly of reports of conversations with Melanchthon, to whom
the following reminiscence is also to be attributed:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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