The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus: Week 4

Sympathy for Mephistopheles, featuring The Police and The Rolling Stones

[Faust in His Study, by Johannes Christiaan d’Arnaud Gerkens after Ary Scheffer, nineteenth century. Rijksmuseum]

"Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” – Simone Weil¹

“Please allow me to introduce myself
I'm a man of wealth and taste.” — The Rolling Stones

So begins the 1968 Rolling Stones hit, “Sympathy for the Devil,” a rocking tune with lyrics sung from the perspective of Lucifer, who boasts in line after line of his presence at some of the most evil events in human history. Yet, he notes, “After all, it was you and me.”²

The character of Lucifer doesn’t enter our play until Scene 6, but this song offers a helpful introduction to this week’s discussion (of Scenes 3 and 4) because it attempts (as the title suggests) to generate “sympathy” for the devil. He’s only human, after all!

Just kidding, of course. Neither Lucifer nor any of the demons—in real life or in the play—are human. But both the Rolling Stones song and Marlowe’s drama powerfully draw out the way in which we as humans are implicated in the devil’s work by our own choices. Neither the song nor the play purport that Satan is less than real, walking about, like a roaring lion, seeking whom he might devour.³ All the more reason to beware.

Marlowe makes clear throughout the play, in a variety of ways, that Faustus chooses his “Faustian bargain” of his own free will and does so with many warnings not to. As you read along, pay attention to these warnings and to the ways in which Faustus rationalizes ignoring them.

Scene 3 presents Faustus conjuring evil spirits for the first time. Notice that the entire scene is written in poetry (again, blank verse), so we know that this scene is elevated—as it should be as this matter of conjuring demons is very serious indeed.

The demon that Faustus conjures is Mephistopheles (the spelling varies from text to text, as does the form of the name; I’m using the spelling my spell checker seems to prefer!). This is a demon whose name and personage seem to have originated within the German literature around the Faust legend that Marlow is drawing from and has taken on a life of his own since then.

In fact, now seems like a good time to draw your attention to one of the more recent invocations of Mephistopheles: that is, “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” the 1983 hit by The Police. I will be completely honest here: this is where I learned both the existence and pronunciation of Mephistopheles. (Really, if you are having trouble with the name, this song helps!)

It is no coincidence that Sting, lead singer of The Police, was an English teacher in the days before the band became a worldwide phenomenon. The music of both The Police and Sting’s later solo work are filled with literary allusions.⁴ However, there’s more going on in “Wrapped Around Your Finger” than just a random reference to Mephistopheles. Pay attention to the song’s lyrics in light of the entirety of Doctor Faustus and you will see the same theme: the servant becoming the master.⁵

At this point in the play, Faustus clearly thinks he is the master: he is the one who beckons the demon and orders him around--quite confidently, in fact. When Mephistopheles enters, Faustus says, “I charge thee to return and change thy shape / Thou art too ugly to attend on me.” Pretty gutsy, I think, to tell a devil he’s ugly and to come back looking a different way.

I can’t let the lines that follow go unnoted. Comedy alert! When Faustus tells Mephistopheles to come back in the shape of a Franciscan friar because “that holy shape becomes a devil best,” that is a pointed anti-Catholic jab. No offense (I hope) to my Catholic readers, but this line would definitely elicit snickers from an English audience in the Renaissance era. (I hope you get a chuckle out of it, too.)

Mephistopheles complies and upon his return Faustus tells him that he is to “do whatever Faustus shall command.” (Remember, Faustus really thinks he’s the one in charge here. Poor guy.)

But notice how transparent Mephistopheles is when he says, candidly,

I am a servant to great Lucifer,

And may not follow thee without his leave;

No more than he commands must we perform.

Then he tries patiently to explain how Faustus’ conjuring works—and how it doesn’t.

Faustus is not dissuaded. He declares “no chief but only Beelzebub” and that he isn’t scared of this “damnation” nonsense.

Then follows a most moving passage in which Mephistopheles catechizes Faustus in the history of Lucifer and the cause of his fall: “aspiring pride and insolence.” Again, we must observe how truthful Mephistopheles is. And how blinded Faustus is determined to be.

Mephistopheles tells Faustus that he and the other demons are damned along with Lucifer. But Faustus is skeptical. After all, how can one be damned and standing right there in front of him, too?

But Mephistopheles explains,

`                            Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.

                             Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God,

                             And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven

                             Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,

                             In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?

Wow. I don’t know about you, but I almost have sympathy for this devil at these lines. And not only that, but then he exhorts Faustus, implores him to turn away from his dark designs:

                             O Faustus! Leave these frivolous demands,

                             Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.

But Faustus heeds not. He aspires to “be great Emperor of the world,” to rule over earthly powers and fly through air and oceans as he wishes.

Poor guy.

Enter then Wagner and the Clown, who replicate the scene before. Wagner “conjures” or beckons the Clown to come. But notice it is the Clown who says he’d sell his soul to the devil for a shoulder of mutton. This low, raucous scene⁶ (rendered in prose) that features the servant and the clown arguing and bartering—even as devils enter the scene—is a comic send-up of what Faustus is doing in earnest. And Wagner (the servant) insists upon being called “Master,” just as his master, Faustus, thinks he will be of Mephistopheles.

To be continued ….

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BOOK NOTE:

If you’ve been following along closely, you know I am working on my next book, which will be on calling and vocation—and how we are all called to pursue truth, goodness, and beauty. One of the things I love about writing a book is all the research I get to do in the process. A lot of books I must read are somewhat obligatory, sort of the ground level of the subject I’m writing about. But sometimes I stumble across a book that totally surprises and delights me.

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon was one of these books. What a fun and insightful book this was! (And, honestly, I don’t find most self-help books or ones about how to be creative that great.) It’s a short, well-designed, fun to hold book that has a lot of good nuggets. I have no doubt I will be citing it in my forthcoming book! (And, by the way, as a professor who has had to deal much more than I’d wish with plagiarism, I was very happy with the way Kleon carefully and clearly defines what he does and doesn’t mean by “stealing.” A+)

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1. Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, trans. By Emma Crawford and Mario von der Ruhr (London: Routledge, 2002), 117.

2. Here are the lyrics: https://genius.com/The-rolling-stones-sympathy-for-the-devil-lyrics

3. 1 Peter 5:8 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Peter%205%3A8

4. Sting’s most famous album is Ten Summoner’s Tales, a direct reference to The Summoner in The Canterbury Tales: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDNtAuXIhbEM_3wuQl7EMoIhPoJwxkGFI

5. Here are the lyrics: https://genius.com/The-police-wrapped-around-your-finger-lyrics

6. Yeah, there’s definitely some coarse joking about being a flea and what bodily privileges that might entail. (You weren’t just imagining that!) Just wait until we get to John Donne’s poem, “The Flea” ….