[Scene II.—Before Faustus’s House]
Enter two Scholars
First Scholar
I wonder what’s become of Faustus that was wont to make our schools ring with sic probo?30
Second Scholar
That shall we know, for see here comes his boy.
Enter Wagner
First Scholar
How now, sirrah! Where’s thy master?
Wagner
God in heaven knows!
Second Scholar
Why, dost not thou know?
Wagner
Yes, I know. But that follows not.
First Scholar
Go to, sirrah! Leave your jesting, and tell us where he is.
Wagner
That follows not necessary by force of argument, that you, being licentiate, should stand upon’t: therefore, acknowledge your error and be attentive.
Second Scholar
Why, didst thou not say thou knew’st?
Wagner
Have you any witness on’t?
First Scholar
Yes, sirrah, I heard you.
Wagner
Ask my fellow if I be a thief.
Second Scholar
Well, you will not tell us?
Wagner
Yes, sir, I will tell you; yet if you were not dunces, you would never ask me such a question; for is not he corpus naturale?31 and is not that mobile? Then wherefore should you ask me such a question? But that I am by nature phlegmatic, slow to wrath, and prone to lechery (to love, I would say), it were not for you to come within forty feet of the place of execution, although I do not doubt to see you both hang’d the next sessions. Thus having triumph’d over you, I will set my countenance like a precisian,32 and begin to speak thus:—Truly, my dear brethren, my master is within at dinner, with Valdes and Cornelius, as this wine, if it could speak, would inform your worships; and so the Lord bless you, preserve you, and keep you, my dear brethren, my dear brethren.
First Scholar
Nay, then, I fear he has fallen into that damned Art, for which they two are infamous through the world.
Second Scholar
Were he a stranger, and not allied to me, yet should I grieve for him. But come, let us go and inform the Rector, and see if he by his grave counsel can reclaim him.
First Scholar
O, but I fear me nothing can reclaim him.
Second Scholar
Yet let us try what we can do.
[Exeunt.]