SparkNotes: Complete Text of Doctor Faustus: Prologue

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Prologue

Enter CHORUS.:

CHORUS. Not marching in the fields of Thrasymene,

Where Mars did mate the warlike Carthagens;<1>

Nor sporting in the dalliance of love,

In courts of kings where state is overturn'd;

Nor in the pomp of proud audacious deeds,

Intends our Muse to vaunt her<2> heavenly verse:

Only this, gentles,—we must now perform

The form of Faustus' fortunes, good or bad:

And now to patient judgments we appeal,

And speak for Faustus in his infancy.

Now is he born of parents base of stock,

In Germany, within a town call'd Rhodes:

At riper years, to Wittenberg he went,

Whereas his kinsmen chiefly brought him up.

So much he profits in divinity,

That shortly he was grac'd with doctor's name,

Excelling all, and sweetly can dispute

In th' heavenly matters of theology;

Till swoln with cunning, of<3> a self-conceit,

His waxen wings did mount above his reach,

And, melting, heavens conspir'd his overthrow;

For, falling to a devilish exercise,

And glutted now with learning's golden gifts,

He surfeits upon<4> cursed necromancy;

Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,

Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss:

And this the man that in his study sits.

[Exit.]

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