FAUSTUS

"Werden and Sein, the old dichotomy!...

Here, let me pour this wretched German wine,

A bitter potion for one who's just returned

From sampling of the holy grapes of Italy. . .

In the twelfth year after Prince Hamlet died,

Soon after I received from Fortinbras,

The king, title of lord and councillor,

With lands and goods commensurate to this honor,

Returning from an embassy to the Pope,

I paused in Wittenberg to dream a little,

And there I sat in the remembered chamber

Of the fierce-bearded Doctor I once had loved,

Who now—I shall not name him here—has taken

The old blasted path into damnation,

And with his blood, abjuring gentle Christ,

Matched his indenture with the Prince of Demons—

­But when I knew him, wiser and more erudite

Than any of Europe's wise, whether at Paris,

Oxford or Bologna.

'Ah, Lord Horatio,

How fortunate this meeting. Only lately

My thoughts, famished for a pithy bone, a clue,

Have been a-prowling through this old den, Europe,

With its kings, bishops, burghers and sweaty peasants,

Wars, alliances, strokes and counterstrokes

Of our political being: seeking a base