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Concerning the Beautiful Helen
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Concerning the Beautiful Helen
from Greece, How She Lived for a Time
With Doctor Faustus
XXXVII
Doctor Faustus would fain omit or neglect naught pleasant and good unto the flesh. One midnight towards the end of the twenty-second year of his pact, while lying awake, he took thought again of Helen of Greece, whom he had awakened for the students on Whitsunday in Shrovetide (which we reported). Therefore, when morning came, he informed his spirit that he must present Helen to him, so that she might be his concubine.
This was done, and Helen was of the following description (Doctor Faustus had a portrait made of her): Her body was fine and erect, well-proportioned, tall, snow-white and crystalline. She had a complexion which seemed tinted with rose, a laughing demeanor, gold-yellow hair which reached almost to the calves of her legs, and brilliant laughing eyes with a sweet, loving gaze. Her nose was somewhat long, her teeth white as alabaster. In summa, there was not a single flaw about her body. Doctor Faustus beheld her and she captured his heart. He fell to frolicking with her, she became his bedfellow, and he came to love her so well that he could scarcely bear a moment apart from her.
While fond Faustus was living with Helen, she swelled up as were she with child. Doctor Faustus was rapturously happy, for, in the twenty-third year of his pact, she bare him a son whom he called Justus Faustus. This child told him many I things out of the future history of numerous lands. Later, When Faustus lost his life, there was none who knew whither wife and child were gone.
Concerning One Whose Wife Married
While He Was Captive in Turkey,
and How Doctor Faustus Informed
And Aided Him
XXXVIII
A fine gentleman of the nobility, Johann Werner of Reuttpueffel from Bennlingen, who had gone to school with Faustus and was a learned man, had been married for six years to an extremely beautiful woman, Sabina of Kettheim, when he was one evening through guile and drink brought to take an oath to go along to Turkey and the Holy Land. He kept his pledge and promise, saw many things, endured much, and had been gone almost five years when there came to his wife certain report that he was dead. The lady mourned for three years, during which time she had many suitors, among them an excellent person of the nobility whose name we dare not mention, but whom she now accepted.
When the time was approaching for their marriage celebration, Doctor Faustus discovered it, and he asked his Mephostophiles whether this Lord of Reuttpueffel were still alive. The spirit answered yes, he be alive and in Egypt in the city of Lylopolts, where he lay captive, having attempted to visit the city of Al-Cairo. This grieved Doctor Faustus, for he loved his friend and had not been pleased that the lady was remarrying so soon. He knew her husband had loved her well. The time for the marriage consummation and the subsequent ceremony being at hand, Doctor Faustus gazed into a mirror wherein he could see all things and by which means he was also able to inform the Lord of Reuttpueflel that his wife was about to be wed, at which the latter was much astonished.
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The hour of consummation arrived. The nobleman disrobed and went out to cast his water. It was then that Mephostophiles did use his art, for when the man came in and leapt into Sabina's bed to enjoy the fruits of love, when they hoisted their shirts and squeezed close together, it was all to no avail. The good lady, seeing that he did not want on and was hesitating, did reach out herself for the tool, wishing to help him, but she could achieve naught, and the night wore on in mere grasping, wiggling, and squeezing. This did cause the lady to grieve and to think on her previous husband whom she thought to be dead, for he had rightly known how to tousle her.
On the very same night, Faustus had freed the nobleman and had brought him asleep back to his castle. Now when the good lady beheld her young lord she fell at his feet and begged his forgiveness, indicating at the same time that the other had had naught and had been able to accomplish naught. My Lord of Reuttpueffel, noting that her account corresponded with what Doctor Faustus had reported, did accept her back again. The other good fellow, who finally recovered his potency, rode hastily away, not wishing to be seen again because of what had happened to him. Later, he lost his life in a war. The husband, however, is still jealous; and the good lady must hear from him, even though he did not witness it, how she did after all lie with another, who felt her and grasped her and, had he been able to cover her, would have done that, too.
Concerning the Testament:
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