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[ABOVE: John Wright, frontispiece from Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, 1620—Public domain, Wikimedia]

Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare wove Christian concepts into their works. In these excerpts Faustus tries to avoid a well-deserved hell; Isabella reminds a judge he too will be judged; and Paulina assures Leontes she won’t employ sorcery to make a statue live.

UGLY HELL, GAPE NOT!

—from Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, 5.2 [1594] 

FAUSTUS: 

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 allotted 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 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!—Ah, Mephistophilis!

     [Exeunt DEVILS with FAUSTUS.] 

BREATHE MERCY

—from Shakespeare, Measure for Measure 2.2 [1604]

ISABELLA: 

How would you be

If He which is the top of judgment should

But judge you as you are? O, think on that,

And mercy then will breathe within your lips

Like man new-made.

FROM STONE TO FLESH

—from Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, 5.3 [1611]

PAULINA: 

Either forbear,

Quit presently the chapel, or resolve you

 For more amazement. If you can behold it,

 I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend

 And take you by the hand. But then you’ll think—

 Which I protest against—I am assisted

 By wicked powers.

LEONTES:  

What you can make her do

I am content to look on; what to speak,

I am content to hear, for ’tis as easy

To make her speak as move.

PAULINA:  

It is required

You do awake your faith. Then all stand still—

Or those that think it is unlawful business

I am about, let them depart.

LEONTES:  

Proceed. No foot shall stir.

PAULINA:  

Music, awake her! Strike!

  [Music sounds.]

’Tis time. Descend. Be stone no more. Approach.

Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come,

I’ll fill your grave up. Stir, nay, come away.

Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him

Dear life redeems you.—You perceive she stirs.

  [Hermione descends.]

Start not. Her actions shall be holy as

You hear my spell is lawful. 

By The editors

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