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“Was this the face that launch'd 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 Wertenberg be sack'd;
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 appear'd to hapless Semele;
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azur'd arms;
And none but thou shalt be my paramour!”
The recent bbc production of Christopher Marlowe’s ‘Tragical History of Doctor Faustus’. John
Heffernan is both principals. Kindly seed.
(there are all sorts of problems with the received text. A.D.Hope (1907 – 2000) was an unusual
combination of fine scholar and first-rate poet. His ‘purged and amended’ Faustus is very good
indeed – I did not have the time to convert the scans into a single pdf) |
