Helen of Troy
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 suck 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!
I will be Paris, and for love of thee,
Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked
And I will combat with weak Menelaus,
And wear thy colors on my plumed crest
Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,
And then return to Helen for a kiss.
O thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appeared to hapless Semele
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa’s azured arms
And none but thou shalt be my paramour.
Romantic love inspires our finest and perhaps our most ridiculous emotions. It takes us a million miles from such dull necessities as reasonableness, proportion and common sense, and we are only too grateful for the holiday. For a moment everything seems possible. For a second we are heroes in some ancient story: Anthony and Cleopatra or Romeo and Juliet.
Helen enters and time appears to stand still; Marlowe’s soaring poetry sweeps us into Faustus’s awestruck reverie. “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/ And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?” he wonders, as we fall into wonder too. These world-famous lines evoke overwhelming rapture; and the way in which infatuation drives men to feats of heartbreaking courage and apocalyptic carnage.
The towers of Ilium, referring to Troy, appear topless because they stretch up into the sky, as if infinite, and yet we see them burn and turn to rubble, humbled by desire.
Who wouldn’t wage war to kiss the beatific Helen? Faustus, who has rejected God to seek omnipotence, is desperate for lasting glory. But how likely is it that this strange apparition will make him immortal?
The lines “Her lips suck forth my soul” convey the intensity of love’s first kiss, when all of our being seems to be taken up, yet there is a note of horror too. His soul is quite literally being stolen away, damning him for all eternity. Hell is in these lips and Helena is nothing if not dross.
Faustus’s mind whirls faster and faster, falling into a frenzy of images. When he boasts “I will be Paris,” it’s hard not to pity him, for there is perhaps a painful sense of recognition on the part of every reader. Who doesn’t want to feel like a hero when in love? Who wouldn’t want to think one’s love was destined to make history? Yet Faustus is far from being the great hero: he is a pale, thin, book-devouring geek who wastes his genius on delusions of grandeur.
His claim that “Instead of Troy shall Wittenberg be sacked” is too silly to take seriously. This German university town may have been the home of the Protestant revolution, but it cannot withstand the epic comparison. It just sounds too prosaic. It’s the equivalent of saying, “Instead of Troy shall Boston Common be sacked” while trying to keep a straight face. Still, brilliant poetry shines through his feverish idiocy. “O thou art fairer than the evening air/ Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars” is a stunning couplet that would reduce any lover to tears.
And yet at this peak of romantic vision, something distinctly odd happens—something we don’t notice at first maybe, as we rush through all the unfamiliar classical allusions, while squinting at the footnotes. Faustus compares Helen to the male divinities Jupiter and the mysterious “monarch of the skies,” so the gloating Satanist becomes, in turn, the hapless Semele ravished by Jupiter, and the sorrowful nymph Arethusa hunted down by the river-god Alpheus—believed to have been related to the sun.
Faustus is the butt of a cruel prank, one that takes him from dreams of becoming a kind of superman to ending up as the archetypal female victim. On the one hand, on a psychological level, this may describe the tragic arc we trace when we are besotted with someone wildly inappropriate. On the other, this tells something about the seductions and stupidities of evil. After all, this is hardly likely to be the real Helen. In fact, while Faustus is waxing lyrical, the audience in the theatre may see this Helen for what she is: a smirking, scarlet-skinned, hornéd beast. The good doctor conjures up demons to transcend both God and humanity, but as he sweeps off the stage in triumph, the Devil has the last terrible laugh.
Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (1564-1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Christopher Nield is a poet living in London.
