Intro
Here's another play about devils. It's Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, and it's the story of the brilliant Faustus, who makes a pact with the devil: he gives him his soul in exchange for knowledge and power.
Like most literary works from the Renaissance period, there are a lot of questions surrounding Marlowe's play, partly due to the fact that it's been passed down to us in a number of versions.
Let's have a look at some of the opening lines of the play. Faustus is in his study, doing what he likes to do: you know, study.
Quote
To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess;
Having commenced, be a divine in show,
Yet level at the end of every art,
And live and die in Aristotle's works.
Sweet Analytics 'tis thou has ravished me:
Bene disserere est finis logicis.
Is to dispute well Logic's chiefest end?
Affords this Art no greater miracle?
Then read no more, thou has attained the end;
A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit.
Bid Oncaymaeon farewell; Galen come:
Seeing Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipt medicus,
Be a physician Faustus, heap up gold,
And be eternis'd for some wondrous cure.
Analysis
For a long time, many editors of this play replaced the weird word "Oncaymaeon" with "Oeconomy" (as in, economy). Makes sense, right? Well, the only problem is that it totally messed up the meter of the line.
As W. W. Greg shows in his "The Rationale of Copy-Text," these editors were wrong to replace "Oncaymaeon" with "Oeconomy." That's because Faustus isn't talking about the economy here. He's using a Greek phrase—"on kai me on," which comes from Aristotle and means "being and not being."
Sure, "Oncaymaeon" is a weird spelling of the Greek phrase, but the point is that Faustus is saying something that has nothing to do with economics. He's not talking about money—he's talking about existence, about "being and not being."