As the Chorus delivers the Prologue to Doctor Faustus, he concludes with an allusion to the mythological failed flight of Icarus:
Till, swoll’n with cunning of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And melting heavens conspired his overthrow.
In the Greek myth, Icarus and his father Daedalus escape their unjust imprisonment by donning wings made of wax. Icarus’s joy at attaining freedom and experiencing human flight is cut short when he ignores his father’s warning about getting too close to the sun: flying too high causes his wings to melt, and he tragically falls to his death. By making this allusion, the Chorus puts the audience on edge, warning them that Faustus, like Icarus, will seek to reach beyond his means—and fail, horribly.
Later, in Scene 5, Faustus himself makes reference to the failure of man to fly:
'Homo, fuge!’ Whither should I fly?
If unto God, he’ll throw thee down to hell.
My senses are deceived; here’s nothing writ.
I see it plain. Here in this place is writ
‘Homo, fuge!’ Yet shall not Faustus fly.
The Latin phrase “homo, fuge!” translates to: “fly, man!” and is a direct allusion to a biblical passage, 1 Timothy 6:11. In the context of the original passage, “fly” does not mean literal flight; rather, the apostle Timothy is being instructed to flee from sin. When Faustus exclaims “homo, fuge!” he conflates the impossibility of human flight with the impossibility of escaping his heavy sins. In his mind, his fate is already written in stone: he has flown too close to the sun. Together, these two allusions foreshadow Faustus’s tragic end: his gluttonous and sinful desire to know and perform the highest form of knowledge (in his opinion: magic) leads to his demise.
As the Chorus delivers the Prologue to Doctor Faustus, he concludes with an allusion to the mythological failed flight of Icarus:
Till, swoll’n with cunning of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And melting heavens conspired his overthrow.
In the Greek myth, Icarus and his father Daedalus escape their unjust imprisonment by donning wings made of wax. Icarus’s joy at attaining freedom and experiencing human flight is cut short when he ignores his father’s warning about getting too close to the sun: flying too high causes his wings to melt, and he tragically falls to his death. By making this allusion, the Chorus puts the audience on edge, warning them that Faustus, like Icarus, will seek to reach beyond his means—and fail, horribly.
Later, in Scene 5, Faustus himself makes reference to the failure of man to fly:
'Homo, fuge!’ Whither should I fly?
If unto God, he’ll throw thee down to hell.
My senses are deceived; here’s nothing writ.
I see it plain. Here in this place is writ
‘Homo, fuge!’ Yet shall not Faustus fly.
The Latin phrase “homo, fuge!” translates to: “fly, man!” and is a direct allusion to a biblical passage, 1 Timothy 6:11. In the context of the original passage, “fly” does not mean literal flight; rather, the apostle Timothy is being instructed to flee from sin. When Faustus exclaims “homo, fuge!” he conflates the impossibility of human flight with the impossibility of escaping his heavy sins. In his mind, his fate is already written in stone: he has flown too close to the sun. Together, these two allusions foreshadow Faustus’s tragic end: his gluttonous and sinful desire to know and perform the highest form of knowledge (in his opinion: magic) leads to his demise.
From the start, Faustus’s desire for magic and power is charged with a hungry, lustful quality, which only grows stronger as the play goes on. For example, in his first soliloquy he claims that “’tis magic, magic that hath ravished me,” introducing an expressly sexual element to his interest in the practice of necromancy. This lascivious language appears again when Faustus makes his initial offer to sell his soul in return for the chance to “live in all voluptuousness”— and the very moment the bargain is struck, Faustus abandons all thoughts of lofty ambitions in favor of requesting a wife to satisfy his “wanton” nature. Thus, Doctor Faustus seems to suggest that magic and lust go hand in hand, and are perhaps equally capable of corrupting the soul.
Marlowe lends credence to this by alluding to Helen of Troy, a figure in Greek mythology best known for being the most beautiful woman in the world (thereby incidentally causing the Trojan War). In Scene 12, Faustus satisfies the wishes of the three Scholars by summoning Helen for their amusement, demonstrating the ease with which temptation can overtake even the devout. Later in the same scene, after again affirming his loyalty to hell, Faustus asks Mephastophilis to conjure Helen once more—true to his lecherous nature, seeing the most beautiful woman in the world just once is not enough. Seeing Helen again, Faustus is so enraptured that all concerns of his soul and damnation fade away:
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. [...]
Her lips sucks forth my soul. See where it flies!
Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. [...]
Here will I dwell, for heaven be in these lips,
And all is dross that is not Helena.
However, Faustus’s momentary peace is nothing more than an illusion. It is not even certain that Faustus has succeeded in summoning the real Helen of Troy, for when he visits the court of Charles V he is only able to conjure “such spirits as can lively resemble” the historical figures requested by the emperor. Therefore, it is highly likely that the Helen who appears before both the scholars and Faustus is simply another false imitation. It is also worthwhile to note that his false Helen is the play’s only named female character, and yet she has no lines—she is truly nothing but a mirage. By using his great (and terrible) gift of magic for simple, beautiful, ephemeral pleasures such as this, Faustus’s sacrifice of his soul becomes petty and trifling.
