SparkNotes: Complete Text of Doctor Faustus: Act I, Scene ii

Act I, Scene ii

Enter two SCHOLARS.:

FIRST SCHOLAR. I wonder what's become of Faustus, that was wont

to make our schools ring with sic probo.

SECOND SCHOLAR. That shall we presently know; here comes his boy.

Enter WAGNER.:

FIRST SCHOLAR. How now, sirrah! where's thy master?

WAGNER. God in heaven knows.

SECOND SCHOLAR. Why, dost not thou know, then?

WAGNER. Yes, I know; but that follows not.

FIRST SCHOLAR. Go to, sirrah! leave your jesting, and tell us

where he is.

WAGNER. That follows not by force of argument, which you, being

licentiates, should stand upon: therefore acknowledge your

error, and be attentive.

SECOND SCHOLAR. Then you will not tell us?

WAGNER. You are deceived, for I will tell you: yet, if you were

not dunces, you would never ask me such a question; for is he not

corpus naturale? and is not that mobile? then wherefore should

you ask me such a question? But that I am by nature phlegmatic,

slow to wrath, and prone to lechery (to love, I would say), it

were not for you to come within forty foot of the place of

execution, although I do not doubt but to see you both hanged

the next sessions. Thus having triumphed over you, I will set

my countenance like a precisian, and begin to speak thus:—

Truly, my dear brethren, my master is within at dinner, with

Valdes and Cornelius, as this wine, if it could speak, would

inform your worships: and so, the Lord bless you, preserve you,

and keep you, my dear brethren!

[Exit.]

FIRST SCHOLAR. O Faustus!

Then I fear that which I have long suspected,

That thou art fall'n into that<25> damned art

For which they two are infamous through the world.

SECOND SCHOLAR. Were he a stranger, not allied to me,

The danger of his soul would make me mourn.

But, come, let us go and inform the Rector:

It may be his grave counsel may reclaim him.<26>

FIRST SCHOLAR. I fear me nothing will reclaim him now.

SECOND SCHOLAR. Yet let us see what we can do.

[Exeunt.]