u not, traitors, I was limited
For four-and-twenty years to breathe on earth?
And, had you cut my body with your swords,
Or hew'd this flesh and bones as small as sand,
Yet in a minute had my spirit return'd,
And I had breath'd a man, made free from harm.
But wherefore do I dally my revenge?--
Asteroth, Belimoth, Mephistophilis?

Enter MEPHISTOPHILIS, and other Devils.

Go, horse these traitors on your fiery backs,
And mount aloft with them as high as heaven:
Thence pitch them headlong to the lowest hell.
Yet, stay: the world shall see their misery,
And hell shall after plague their treachery.
Go, Belimoth, and take this caitiff hence,
And hurl him in some lake of mud and dirt.
Take thou this other, drag him through [190] the woods
Amongst [191] the pricking thorns and sharpest briers;
Whilst, with my gentle Mephistophilis,
This traitor flies unto some steepy rock,
That, rolling down, may break the villain's bones,
As he intended to dismember me.
Fly hence; despatch my charge immediately.

FREDERICK. Pity us, gentle Faustus! save our lives!

FAUSTUS. Away!

FREDERICK. He must needs go that the devil drives.
[Exeunt MEPHISTOPHILIS and DEVILS with BENVOLIO, MARTINO,
and FREDERICK.]

Enter the ambushed SOLDIERS. [192]

FIRST SOLDIER. Come, sirs, prepare yourselves in readiness;
Make haste to help these noble gentlemen:
I heard them parley with the conjurer.

SECOND SOLDIER. See, where he comes! despatch and kill the slave.

FAUSTUS. What's here? an ambush to betray my life!
Then, Faustus, try thy skill.--Base peasants, stand!
For, lo, these [193] trees remove at my command,
And stand as bulwarks 'twixt yourselves and me,
To shield me from your hated treachery!
Yet, to encounter this your weak attempt,
Behold, an army comes incontinent!

FAUSTUS strikes the door, [194] and enter a DEVIL playing
on a drum; after him another, bearing an ensign; and divers
with weapons; MEPHISTOPHILIS with fire-works. They set upon
the SOLDIERS, drive them out, and exeunt.

Enter, at several doors, BENVOLIO, FREDERICK, and MARTINO,
their heads and faces bloody, and besmeared with mud and
dirt; all having horns on their heads.

MARTINO.