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Allusion
Explanation and Analysis—Whither Should I Fly?:
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.
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