INEVITABLE DAY

by Christopher Marlowe

FAUSTUS: Ah, Faustus.

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
O, I'll leap up to my God!--Who pulls me down?--
See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah, my Christ!--
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!
Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!--
Where is it now? tis gone: and see, where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God!
No, no!
Then will I headlong run into the earth:
Earth, gape! O, no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath alotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist,
Into the entrails of yon labouring clouds,
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven!
[The clock strikes the half-hour.]
Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon.
O God,
If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd!
O, no end is limited to damned souls!
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
[The clock strikes twelve.]
O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!
[Thunder and lightning.]
O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!
[Enter Devils.]
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books!
O Mephistopheles!

Read more at
http://www.monologuearchive.com/m/marlowe_008.html#h3RKHz0AX3p2Wg7b.99
 The Juggler of Our Lady
by Anatole France

In the days of King Louis there lived a poor juggler by the name of Barnabas, a native
of Compiegne, who wandered from city to city performing tricks of skill and prowess.
On fair days he would lay down in the public square a worn and aged carpet, and after
having attracted a group of children and idlers by certain amusing remarks which he
had learned from an old juggler, and which he invariably repeated in the same fashion
without altering a word, he would assume the strangest postures, and balance a pewter
plate on the tip of his nose. At first the crowd regarded him with indifference, but when,
with his hands and head on the ground he threw into the air and caught with his feet six
copper balls that glittered in the sunlight, or when, throwing himself back until his neck
touched his heels, he assumed the form of a perfect wheel and in that position juggled
with twelve knives, he elicited a murmur of admiration from his audience, and small
coins rained on his carpet.
Still, Barnabas of Compiegne, like most of those who exist by their accomplishments,
had a hard time making a living. Earning his bread by the sweat of his brow, he bore
rather more than his share of those miseries we are all heir to through the fault of our
Father Adam.
Besides, he was unable to work as much as he would have liked, for in order to exhibit
his wonderful talents, he required-like the trees-the warmth of the sun and the heat of
the day. In winter time he was no more than a tree stripped of its leaves, in fact, half-
dead. The frozen earth was too hard for the juggler. Like the cicada mentioned by Marie
de France, he suffered during the bad season from hunger and cold. But, since he had
a simple heart, he suffered in silence.
He had never thought much about the origin of wealth nor about the inequality of human
conditions. He firmly believed that if this world was evil the next could not but be good,
and this faith upheld him. He was not like the clever fellows who sell their souls to the
devil; he never took the name of God in vain; he lived the life of an honest man, and
though he had no wife of his own, he did not covet his neighbors for woman is the
enemy of strong men, as we learn by the story of Samson which is written in the
Scriptures.
Verily, his mind was not turned in the direction of carnal desire, and it caused him far
greater pain to renounce drinking than to forego the pleasure of women. For, though he
was not a drunkard, he enjoyed drinking when the weather was warm. He was a good
man, fearing God, and devout in his adoration of the Holy Virgin. When he went into a
church he never failed to kneel before the image of the Mother of God and to address
her with this prayer:
My Lady, watch over my life until it shall please God that I die, and when I am dead,
see that I have the joys of Paradise.
One evening, after a day of rain, as he walked sad and bent with his juggling balls under
his arm and his knives wrapped up in his old carpet seeking some barn where he might
go supperless to bed, he saw a monk going in his direction, and respectfully saluted
him. As they were both walking at the same pace, they fell into conversation.
Friend, said the monk, how does it happen that you are dressed all in green? Are you
perchance going to play the part of the fool in some mystery? No, indeed, father, said
Barnabas. My name is Barnabas, and my business is that of juggler. It would be the
finest calling in the world if I could eat every day.
Friend Barnabas, answered the monk, be careful what you say. There is no finer
calling than the monastic. The priest celebrates the praise of God, the Virgin, and the
saints; the life of a monk is a perpetual hymn to the Lord. And Barnabas replied:
Father, I confess I spoke like an ignorant man. My estate cannot be compared to yours,
and though there may be some merit in dancing and balancing a stick with a denier on
top of it on the end of your nose, it is in no wise comparable to your merit. Father, I wish
I might, like you, sing the Office every day, especially the Office of the Very Holy Virgin,
to whom I am specially and piously devoted. I would willingly give up the art by which I
am known from Soissons to Beauvais, in more than six hundred cities and villages, in
order to enter the monastic life.
The monk was touched by the simplicity of the juggler, and as he was not lacking in
discernment, he recognized in Barnabas one of those well-disposed men of whom Our
Lord has said, Let peace be with them on earth. And he made answer therefore:
Friend Barnabas, come with me and I will see that you enter the monastery of which I
am the Prior. He who led Mary the Egyptian through the desert put me across your path
in order that I might lead you to salvation.
Thus did Barnabas become a monk? In the monastery which he entered, the monks
celebrated most magnificently the cult of the Holy Virgin, each of them bringing to her
service all the knowledge and skill which God had given him.
The Prior, for his part, wrote books, setting forth, according to the rules of scholasticism,
all the virtues of the Mother of God. Brother Maurice copied these treatises with a
cunning hand on pages of parchment, while Brother Alesandre decorated them with
delicate miniatures representing the Queen of Heaven seated on the throne of
Solomon, with four lions on guard at the foot of it. Around her head, which was encircled
by a halo, flew seven doves, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: fear, piety, knowledge,
power, judgment, intelligence, and wisdom. With her were six golden-haired virgins:
Humility, Prudence, Retirement, Respect, Virginity, and Obedience. At her feet two little
figures, shining white and quite naked, stood in suppliant attitudes. They were souls
imploring, not in vain, Her all-powerful intercession for their salvation. On another page
Brother Alexandre depicted Eve in the presence of Mary, that one might see at the
same time sin and its redemption, woman humiliated, and the Virgin exalted. Among the
other much-prized pictures in his book were the Well of Living Waters, the Fountain, the
Lily, the Moon, the Sun, and the Closed Garden, of which much is said in the Canticle;
the Gate of Heaven and the City of God. These were all images of the Virgin.
Brother Marbode, too, was one of the cherished children of Mary. He was ever busy
cutting images of stone, so that his beard, his eyebrows and his hair were white with the
dust, and his eyes perpetually swollen and full of tears. But he was a hardy and a happy
man in his old age, and there was no doubt that the Queen of Paradise watched over
the declining days of Her child. Marbode represented Her seated in a pulpit, Her
forehead encircled by a halo, with an orb of pearls. He was at great pains to make the
folds of Her robe cover the feet of Her of whom the prophet has said, My beloved is like
a closed garden. At times he represented Her as a graceful child, and Her image
seemed to say, Lord, Thou art My Lord! There were also in the Monastery poets who
composed prose writings in Latin and hymns in honor of the Most Gracious Virgin Mary;
there was, indeed, one among thema Picardwho translated the Miracles of Our Lady
into rimed verses in the vulgar tongue. 3 Perceiving so great a competition in praise and
so fine a harvest of good works, Barnabas fell to lamenting his ignorance and simplicity.

Alas! he sighed as he walked by himself one day in the little garden shaded by the
Monastery wall, I am so unhappy because I cannot, like my brothers, give worthy
praise to the Holy Mother of God to whom I have consecrated all the love in my heart.
Alas, I am a stupid fellow, without art, and for your service, Madame, I have no edifying
sermons, no fine treatises nicely prepared according to the rules, no beautiful paintings,
no cunningly carved statues, and no verses counted off by feet and marching in
measure! Alas, I have nothing!
Thus did he lament and abandon himself to his misery. One evening when the monks
were talking together by way of diversion, he heard one of them tell of a monk who
could not recite anything but the Ave Maria. He was scorned for his ignorance, but after
he died there sprang from his mouth five roses, in honor of the five letters in the name
Maria. Thus was his holiness made manifest.
In listening to this story, Barnabas was conscious once more of the Virgins
beneficence, but he was not consoled by the example of the happy miracle, for his heart
was full of zeal and he wanted to celebrate the glory of His Lady in Heaven.
He sought for a way in which to do this, but in vain, and each day brought him greater
sorrow, until one morning he sprang joyously from his cot and ran to the chapel, where
he remained alone for more than an hour. He returned thither again after dinner, and
from that day onward he would go into the chapel every day the moment it was
deserted, passing the greater part of the time which the other monks dedicated to the
pursuit of the liberal arts and the sciences. He was no longer sad and he sighed no
more. But such singular conduct aroused the curiosity of the other monks, and they
asked themselves why Brother Barnabas retired alone so often, and the Prior, whose
business it was to know everything that his monks were doing, determined to observe
Barnabas. One day, therefore, when Barnabas was alone in the chapel, the Prior
entered in company with two of the oldest brothers, in order to watch, through the bars
of the door, what was going on within.
They saw Barnabas before the image of the Holy Virgin, his head on the floor and his
feet in the air, juggling with six copper balls and twelve knives. In honor of the Holy
Virgin he was performing the tricks which had in former days brought him the greatest
fame. Not understanding that he was thus putting his best talents at the service of the
Holy Virgin, the aged brothers cried out against such sacrilege. The Prior knew that
Barnabas had a simple soul, but he believed that the man had lost his wits. All three set
about to remove Barnabas from the chapel, when they saw the Virgin slowly descend
from the altar and, with a fold of her blue mantle, wipe the sweat that streamed over the
jugglers forehead.
Then the Prior, bowing his head down to the marble floor, repeated these words:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Amen, echoed the brothers, bowing down to the floor.