Faust. Now, Mephistophilis, the restless course That Time doth run with calm and silent foot, Short’ning my days and thread of vital life, Calls for the payment of my latest years; Therefore, sweet Mephistophilis, let us5 Make haste to Wittenberg. Meph. What, will you go on horseback or on foot? Faust. Nay, till I’m past this fair and pleasant green, I’ll walk on foot.

Enter a Horse-Courser.

Horse-C. I have been all this day seeking 10 one Master Fustian: mass, see where he is! God save you. Master Doctor!

Faust. What, horse-courser! You are well met.

Horse-C. Do you hear, sir? I have brought 15 you forty dollars for your horse.

Faust. I cannot sell him so: if thou likest him for fifty, take him.

Horse-C.

Alas, sir, I have no more.—I pray you speak for me.

Meph. I pray you let him have him, he is an honest fellow, and he has a great charge, neither wife nor child.

Faust. Well, come, give me your money. [Horse-Courser gives Faustus the money.] 25 My boy will deliver him to you. But I must tell you one thing before you have him; ride him not into the water at any hand.

Horse-C. Why, sir, will he not drink of all waters? 30

Faust. O yes, he will drink of all waters, but ride him not into the water: ride him over hedge or ditch, or where thou wilt, but not into the water.

Horse-C. Well, sir.—Now I am made man 35 forever. I’ll not leave my horse for forty. If he had but the quality of hey-ding-ding, hey-ding-ding, I’d make a brave living on him: he has a buttock as slick as an eel. [Aside.] Well, God b’ wi’ ye, sir, your boy will deliver him me: but 40 hark ye, sir; if my horse be sick or ill at ease, if I bring his water to you, you’ll tell me what it is?

Exit Horse-courser.

Faust. Away, you villain; what, dost think I am a horse-doctor? What art thou, Faustus, but a man condemn’d to die?45 Thy fatal time doth draw to final end; Despair doth drive distrust unto my thoughts: Confound these passions with a quiet sleep: Tush, Christ did call the thief upon the cross; Then rest thee, Faustus, quiet in conceit.50 Sleeps in his chair.

Re-enter Horse-Courser, all wet, crying.

Horse-C. Alas, alas! Doctor Fustian, quotha? Mass, Doctor Lopus[455] was never such a doctor. Has given me a purgation has purg ’d me of forty dollars; I shall never see them more. But yet, like an ass as I was, I would not be ruled 55 by him, for he bade me I should ride him into no water. Now I, thinking my horse had had some rare quality that he would not have had me known of, I, like a venturous youth, rid him into the deep pond at the town’s end. I was 60 no sooner in the middle of the pond, but my horse vanish’d away, and I sat upon a bottle of hay, never so near drowning in my life. But I’ll seek out my Doctor, and have my forty dollars again, or I’ll make it the dearest horse!—O, 65 yonder is his snipper-snapper.—Do you hear? You hey-pass,[456] where’s your master?

Meph. Why, sir, what would you? You cannot speak with him.

Horse-C. But I will speak with him. 70

Meph. Why, he’s fast asleep. Come some other time.

Horse-C. I’ll speak with him now, or I’ll break his glass windows about his ears.

Meph. I tell thee he has not slept this 75 eight nights.

Horse-C. An he have not slept this eight weeks, I’ll speak with him.

Meph. See where he is, fast asleep. 79

Horse-C. Ay, this is he. God save you, Master Doctor! Master Doctor. Master Doctor Fustian!—Forty dollars, forty dollars for a bottle of hay!

Meph. Why, thou seest he hears thee not.

Horse-C. So ho, ho!—so ho, ho! (Hollas in 85 his ear.) No, will you not wake? I’ll make you wake ere I go. (Pulls Faustus by the leg, and pulls it away.) Alas, I am undone! What shall I do?

Faust. O my leg, my leg! Help, Mephistophilis! 90 call the officers. My leg, my leg!

Meph. Come, villain, to the constable.

Horse-C. O lord, sir, let me go, and I’ll give you forty dollars more.

Meph. Where be they? 95

Horse-C. I have none about me. Come to my ostry[457] and I’ll give them you.

Meph. Begone quickly.

Horse-Courser runs away.

Faust. What, is he gone? Farewell he! 99 Faustus has his leg again, and the horse-courser, I take it, a bottle of hay for his labour. Well, this trick shall cost him forty dollars more.

Enter Wagner.

How now, Wagner, what’s the news with thee?

Wag. Sir, the Duke of Vanholt doth earnestly105 entreat your company.

Faust. The Duke of Vanholt! an honourable gentleman, to whom I must be no niggard of my cunning. Come, Mephistophilis, let’s away to him. 110

Exeunt.

Notes in this chapter

Note 1 · A Green; afterwards, the house of Faustus.Note 2 · Dr. Lopez, physician to Queen Elizabeth, hanged in 1594 on the charge of conspiring to poison the Queen.Note 3 · A juggler’s term, like “presto, fly!” Hence applied to the juggler himself. (Bullen.)Note 4 · Inn.