Doctor Faustus being demanded the cause why the Stars fell from heaven, he answered: that is but our opinion; for if one Star fall, it is the great judgment of God upon us, as a forewarning of some great thing to come: for when we think that a Star falleth, it is but as a spark that issueth from a candle or a flame of fire, for if it were a substantial thing, we should not so soon lose the sight of them as we do. And likewise, if so be that we see as it were a stream of fire fall from the firmament, as oft it happeneth, yet are they no Stars, but as it were a flame of fire vanishing, but the Stars are substantial, therefore are they firm and not falling: if there fall any, it is a sign of some great matter to come, as a scourge to a people or country, and then such Star falling, the gates of heaven are opened, and the clouds send forth floods, or other plagues, to the damage of the whole land and people. CHAPTER XXVIII _How Faustus was asked a question as concerning thunder_ In the month of August, there was over Wittenberg a mighty great lightning and thunder, and as Doctor Faustus was jesting merrily in the market place with certain of his friends and companions being Physicians, they desired him to tell them the cause of that weather. Faustus answered: it hath been commonly seen heretofore, that before a thunder-clap fell a shower of rain or a gale of wind, for commonly after a wind followeth a rain, and after a rain a thunder-clap: such things come to pass when the four winds meet together in the heavens, the airy clouds are by force beaten against the fixed crystalline firmament, but when the airy clouds meet with the firmament, they are congealed, and so strike and rush against the firmament, as great pieces of ice when they meet on the water, the echo thereof soundeth in our ears, and that we call thunder, which indeed is none other than you have heard. =The third and last part of Doctor Faustus his merry conceits, shewing after what sort he practised Necromancy in the Courts of great Princes, and lastly of his fearful and pitiful end= CHAPTER XXIX _How the Emperor Carolus Quintus requested of Faustus to see some of his cunning, whereunto he agreed._