Doctor Faustus By Christopher Marlowe Summary and Analysis Scene 6



SCENE 6

FAUSTUS.
When I behold the heavens, then I repent,
And curse thee, wicked Mephistophilis,
Because thou hast depriv'd me of those joys.

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Why, Faustus,
Thinkest thou heaven is such a glorious thing?
I tell thee, 'tis not half so fair as thou,
Or any man that breathes on earth.

FAUSTUS.
How prov'st thou that?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
'Twas made for man, therefore is man more excellent.

FAUSTUS.
If it were made for man, 'twas made for me:
I will renounce this magic and repent.

Enter GOOD ANGEL and EVIL ANGEL.

GOOD ANGEL.
Faustus, repent; yet God will pity thee.

EVIL ANGEL.
Thou art a spirit; God cannot pity thee.

FAUSTUS.
Who buzzeth in mine ears I am a spirit?
Be I a devil, yet God may pity me;
Ay, God will pity me, if I repent.

EVIL ANGEL.
Ay, but Faustus never shall repent.
[Exeunt ANGELS.]

FAUSTUS.
My heart's so harden'd, I cannot repent:
Scarce can I name salvation, faith, or heaven,
But fearful echoes thunder in mine ears,
"Faustus, thou art damn'd!" then swords, and knives,
Poison, guns, halters, and envenom'd steel
Are laid before me to despatch myself;
And long ere this I should have slain myself,
Had not sweet pleasure conquer'd deep despair.
Have not I made blind Homer sing to me
Of Alexander's love and Oenon's death?
And hath not he, that built the walls of Thebes
With ravishing sound of his melodious harp,
Made music with my Mephistophilis?
Why should I die, then, or basely despair?
I am resolv'd; Faustus shall ne'er repent. —
Come, Mephistophilis, let us dispute again,
And argue of divine astrology.
Tell me, are there many heavens above the moon
Are all celestial bodies but one globe,
As is the substance of this centric earth?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
As are the elements, such are the spheres,
Mutually folded in each other's orb,
And, Faustus,
All jointly move upon one axletree,
Whose terminine is term'd the world's wide pole;
Nor are the names of Saturn, Mars, or Jupiter
Feign'd, but are erring stars.

FAUSTUS.
But, tell me, have they all one motion, both situ et
tempore?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
All jointly move from east to west in twenty-four hours
upon the poles of the world; but differ in their motion upon
the poles of the zodiac.

FAUSTUS.
Tush,
These slender trifles Wagner can decide:
Hath Mephistophilis no greater skill?
Who knows not the double motion of the planets?
The first is finish'd in a natural day;
The second thus; as Saturn in thirty years; Jupiter in twelve;
Mars in four; the Sun, Venus, and Mercury in a year; the Moon in
twenty-eight days. Tush, these are freshmen's suppositions.
But, tell me, hath every sphere a dominion or intelligentia?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Ay.

FAUSTUS.
How many heavens or spheres are there?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Nine; the seven planets, the firmament, and the empyreal
heaven.

FAUSTUS.
Well, resolve me in this question; why have we not
conjunctions, oppositions, aspects, eclipses, all at one time,
but in some years we have more, in some less?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Per inoequalem motum respectu totius.

FAUSTUS.
Well, I am answered. Tell me who made the world?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
I will not.

FAUSTUS.
Sweet Mephistophilis, tell me.

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Move me not, for I will not tell thee.

FAUSTUS.
Villain, have I not bound thee to tell me any thing?

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Ay, that is not against our kingdom; but this is. Think
thou on hell, Faustus, for thou art damned.

FAUSTUS.
Think, Faustus, upon God that made the world.

MEPHISTOPHILIS.
Remember this.
[Exit.]

Summary

Faustus begins to repent that he has made a contract with the devil. Mephistophilis tries to console Faustus by telling him that heaven is not such a glorious place and that humans are more wonderful than anything in heaven. The Good Angel and the Evil Angel appear, and each tries to influence Faustus' decision. Faustus is haunted by the thought that he is damned. He thinks that he would have killed himself by now if he had not been able to conjure up Homer to sing and soothe him. Now he asks Mephistophilis to argue about theoretical matters. Faustus is not satisfied with the things that Mephistophilis is able to tell him and maintains that even Wagner knows the answers to such questions. He now wants to know about the power behind the universe and who made the world. Mephistophilis tries to get him to think of hell and other things rather than about these heavier philosophical matters.

Faustus cries out for Christ to save him, and at this moment, Lucifer himself appears. Lucifer reminds him that he is breaking his promise by thinking on Christ. He tells Faustus that he has brought some entertainment to divert him.

The seven deadly sins — pride, covetousness, wrath, envy, gluttony, sloth, and lechery — appear before Faustus in the representation of their individual sin or nature. Faustus is delighted with the show and Lucifer hands him a book and promises to return at midnight. After everyone leaves, Wagner appears and says that Faustus has gone to Rome to see the pope.

Analysis

In this scene, we see for the first time a definite change in Faustus. He begins to repent of his pact with the devil. In a reversal of their roles, Mephistophilis now chides Faustus for his lack of resolution, whereas in a previous scene, Faustus had to reprimand Mephistophilis for not being resolute enough. The manner in which Mephistophilis tries to convince Faustus is an instance of logic. He says that humanity is better than heaven because earth "'twas made for man, therefore is man more excellent."

Note again that the Good Angel and the Evil Angel appear to Faustus at this point — that is, when he is once again in doubt about his decision. As previously, Faustus follows the path of the Evil Angel. Faustus is torn between two poles of belief which attract him. He desires to have the beauty of the classical world as represented by Homer and in a later scene by Helen, but at the same time he also wants to keep the best of the Christian tradition. Consequently, we have Christianity and classicism juxtaposed in these scenes; they are part of the tension in Faustus' mind. This tension also existed in the Renaissance world, which was interested both in the Hellenistic (Greek) world and the Christian world. The Renaissance tried to unify divergent interests in these two worlds.

According to the traditional Christian view, Faustus is now tempted by another sin — that of suicide. Faustus' first sin had been to deny God. Then he also fell into the sin of despair, wherein he lost hope for redemption. In this scene, he considers suicide, which is another cardinal sin.

As Faustus begins to demand deeper knowledge from Mephistophilis, he desires to know about the primary cause of the world, but Mephistophilis is unable to answer him. At every point when Faustus begins to question the universe or whenever Faustus begins to think about heavenly things, Mephistophilis tells him to "think on hell." Originally, Faustus made the pact in order to learn about the primal causes of the world; therefore, Mephistophilis is unable to fulfill his part of the bargain. Second, whenever Faustus brings up these questions, Mephistophilis tries to divert him because he possibly knows that thoughts of heaven would allow Faustus to break his contract with Lucifer.

It is a highly dramatic moment when Lucifer himself appears on the stage. Faustus maintains that Lucifer looks extremely ugly, and again the implication is that hell is ugly.

At the crucial moments when Faustus wavers, the devils always try to divert him in some sensual manner. When Faustus begins to question Mephistophilis about primeval causes, the devils try to take his mind off these noble questions and force him to think about carnal matters. Consequently, in this scene the powers of hell divert Faustus by bringing forth the seven deadly sins to entertain Faustus and to remove all these troublesome questions from his mind.

The appearance of the seven deadly sins is a holdover from the morality plays and becomes another type of interlude in the play. Furthermore, the manner in which they describe themselves is somewhat comic. Whereas in a morality play the seven deadly sins would be paraded before the main character as a warning to abstain from evil, in Doctor Faustus they are presented to Faustus only to delight and distract him from heavenly thoughts.

The seven deadly sins do have a philosophical significance and do carry forward the intellectual meaning of the plot, but they also function to appeal to the general audience, who would find entertainment in the grotesque physical appearance of these awesome creatures.

Immediately after the appearance of these seven deadly sins, Faustus says "O, this feeds my soul!" Previous to this scene, Faustus had used the same metaphor of eating to express his great hunger for knowledge and power, and now this metaphor is used to show how low Faustus has fallen when the dreadful show of the sins can satisfy his soul.

At the end of the scene, Wagner enters and takes over the function of the chorus by making expository explanations, filling in background material, and letting the audience know that Faustus has now flown to Rome, where he will meet with the pope.