"Doctor Faustus" (excerpts) by Christopher Marlowe (poetry reading)

This is a rant and I'm at a disadvantage because I can't do rants in full-cry and blood-curdlng volume. I don't want my neighbours to think I'm crazier than they already suspect, nor frighten passers-by into calling the cops. I usually do these while my wife making the school-run. I expect I have now sacrificed some of my mystique. The whole play is here:
http://www.uta.edu/english/SH/The%20Tragical%20History%20of%20Doctor%20Faustu...

Poor Kit Marlowe - he was only a boy - look at his crazy hair - what a pity that somebody knifed him in a pub. But doesn't he sound like Shakespeare though? It makes you wonder....

The Unit of Beauty was defined by Doctor Faustus to describe Helen of Troy and now known as the millihelen, abbreviated to mh, that being the wow-factor it takes to launch just one ship.

By launching a thousand ships, Helen's beauty rated 1000mh, but I wouldn't push out a small coracle for Dante Gabriel Rossetti's Helen of 1863 nor for Anthony Frederick Sandys' Helen of 1867, although I have nothing against ginger bints in general. You can see them both here:
http://preraphaelitesisterhood.com/?p=133

"O lente lente currite noctis equi" means "O, horses of night, run slowly, slowly" Latin has no specific word order, it just depends what you want to emphasise. The line's from Ovid and Marlowe did the best translations of his poems. .Loosely, it's a wish for time to pass slowly. When Ovid says it it's because he's in bed with his girlfriend. In one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Dr. Watson sees it engraved on a sundial.

The Helen I decided on is Evelyn de Morgan's Helen of Troy. of 1898.

Doctor Faustus is a famous etching by Rembrandt of 1650

Hell is by Hans Memling 1485, but deformed even more hideously by my use of Paint Shop Pro.

The Devils are part of The Last Judgement by Michaelangelo 1537

Mephistophilis actually is me - as you probably guessed - but I was painted as one of Two Satyrs by Pieter Paul Rubens in 1618 with remarkable foresight. My wife recognised me immediately.

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• Troy
• poem

[Nacha255]

"Poor Kit Marlowe - he was only a boy - look at his crazy hair - what a pity that somebody knifed him in a pub."

Kit Marlowe wasn't killed in a pub. He was killed in Eleanor Bull's house, which was a respectable establishment and possibly a safe-house for spies (Marlowe was probably a spy and the three people there with him that day all had connections with espionage). Also, Marlowe was 29 when he was killed. That portrait, which is not certainly of him, woulf have been painted when he was 21.

[SpokenVerse]

Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, what did you think of the play?

My remarks aren't meant to be taken seriously, you know, they are silly/facetious.

Thank you for your comment all the same.  I'm sure many listeners will find it thought-provoking and informative.

[JustSomePerson888]

@Nacha255 - if you're interested, this be one of the webpages on it,

206.192.23.201/dan/connectivit­y/phibiz/cherokee/index.html

and bearing in mind, Rosslyn chapel carvings suggest Templar travels to the 'new world' long before any official history dates it, as does the fact that Egyptian Pharaohs have been found with cocaine in them.

& Book of Enoch and many more were removed from the Bible after Elizabeth I's reign.

[JustSomePerson888]

@Nacha255 - if you like odd co-incidences, didn't that take place at somewhere called watergate, and apparently the tempest that scuppered the Armada took place on 9-11 of that year.

the English he wrote in is closest to today's - much moreso than in Shakespeare's writings, i find that also important based around an article Dan Winter wrote about how English letters come from Native American alphabets, Hunbatz Men has a book with that info also, Secrets of Mayan Science/Religion.

coverups.

[abergerwithfries]

Very well done! Bravo! I thought the first bit was the best, the Helen of Troy section, where Faustus' final monologue seemed a little dry. I tend to think of that scene as having more emotion and in the end more desperation by Faustus, but I can appreciate your more understated approach.

Again, bravo! Much appreciated!

[bloodbuddy7]

Can someone help me out? My english teacher keeps asserting that Marlow was an athiest on the basis of some speeches delivered by Faustus's evil angel (on his shoulder) and Mephistopheles. It seems like very weak reasoning to me (obviously devils are going to say things against God and religion!). Is there more to this?

[andTheCreativist]

...that Faustus, what a pitiful man.

[andTheCreativist]

...that Faustus, what a pitiful man.

[shahanajali]

wonderful!!!

[SanGuevara]

(Whistles in admiration)

[Nacha255]

I did not say that it's certainly not of him. I said that it's not certainly of him. The word order is important. "Certainly not" means that there's no possibility. "Not certainly" means that there is a possibility, but we don't know for sure. That's what I was saying.

[heliotropezzz333]

@Nacha255 Why do you say that the portrait was certainly not of him. It came from the university college he attended and the painting is Elizabethan. The age of the man depicted would have coincided with his age at the time.The university thinks it's him