This immortal Dr. Faustus, the product of the Renaissance and the Reformation, first comes into our ken at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when in 1604 he is introduced to us by Christopher Marlowe.  This is the same character that Goethe was to rediscover two centuries later, although in certain respects the earlier Faust was the fresher and more spontaneous.  And side by side with him Mephistopheles appears, of whom Faust asks:  “What good will my soul do thy lord?” “Enlarge his kingdom,” Mephistopheles replies.  “Is that the reason why he tempts us thus?” the Doctor asks again, and the evil spirit answers:  “Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris,” which, mistranslated into Romance, is the equivalent of our proverb—­“The misfortune of many is the consolation of fools.”  “Where we are is hell, and where hell is there must we ever be,” Mephistopheles continues, to which Faust answers that he thinks hell’s a fable and asks him who made the world.  And finally this tragic Doctor, tortured with our torture, meets Helen, who, although no doubt Marlowe never suspected it, is none other than renascent Culture.  And in Marlowe’s Faust there is a scene that is worth the whole of the second part of the Faust of Goethe.  Faust says to Helen:  “Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss”—­and he kisses her—­

    Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies! 
    Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. 
    Here will I dwell, for Helen is in these lips,
    And all is dross that is not Helena.

Give me my soul again!—­the cry of Faust, the Doctor, when, after having kissed Helen, he is about to be lost eternally.  For the primitive Faust has no ingenuous Margaret to save him.  This idea of his salvation was the invention of Goethe.  And is there not a Faust whom we all know, our own Faust?  This Faust has studied Philosophy, Jurisprudence, Medicine, and even Theology, only to find that we can know nothing, and he has sought escape in the open country (hinaus ins weite Land) and has encountered Mephistopheles, the embodiment of that force which, ever willing evil, ever achieves good in its own despite.  This Faust has been led by Mephistopheles to the arms of Margaret, child of the simple-hearted people, she whom Faust, the overwise, had lost.  And thanks to her—­for she gave herself to him—­this Faust is saved, redeemed by the people that believes with a simple faith.  But there was a second part, for that Faust was the anecdotical Faust and not the categorical Faust of Goethe, and he gave himself again to Culture, to Helen, and begot Euphorion upon her, and everything ends among mystical choruses with the discovery of the eternal feminine.  Poor Euphorion!

And this Helen is the spouse of the fair Menelaus, the Helen whom Paris bore away, who was the cause of the war of Troy, and of whom the ancient Trojans said that no one should be incensed because men fought for a woman who bore so terrible a likeness to the immortal gods.  But I rather think that Faust’s Helen was that other Helen who accompanied Simon Magus, and whom he declared to be the divine wisdom.  And Faust can say to her:  Give me my soul again!