ut him.
Unfortunately, though it is given to few of us to be conquerors, it is
possible for all of us to gratify our senses if we will. Tamburlaine
gathers golden fruit, Faustus plucks berries from the same bush as
ourselves: only, he must have them from the topmost boughs. The
following passage has probably never been surpassed in its magic
idealization of that which is essentially base and carnal:

[_Enter_ HELEN, _passing over the stage between two_ CUPIDS.]

_Faustus._ Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?--
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.--[_Kisses her._]
Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies!--
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.
Here will I dwell, for heaven is in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sacked;
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azured arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

Poetry such as this has power to blind us for a moment to the underlying
meaning: Faustus enjoys a temporary transfiguration. But Marlowe's muse
flags in the effort to sublimate dross. Such a character as Faustus is
unfitted to support tragedy. His creator inspires him with his own
Bohemian joy in mere pleasure, his own thirst for fresh sensations, his
own vehement disregard of restraint--a disregard which brought Marlowe
to a tragic and unworthy end. But, as if in mockery, he degrades him
with unmanly, ignoble qualities that excite our derision. His mind is
pleased with toys that would amuse a child: at the conclusion of an
almost incredibly trivial Show of the Seven Deadly Sins he exclaims, 'O,
how this sight doth delight my soul!' His practical jokes are unworthy
of a court jester. The congealing of his blood agitates his
superstitious mind far more than the terrible frankness of
Mephistophilis. Miserably mean-spirited, he seeks to propitiate the
wrath of the fiend by invoking his torments upon an old man whose
disinterested appeal