The Pact of Doctor Faust

Johann Georg Faust was a real wandering scholar, astrologer and alchemist of early sixteenth-century Germany, remembered as a braggart who claimed impossible powers. From his shadowy reputation grew one of Europe's darkest legends. Weary of the limits of human knowledge, the story says, Faust summoned the demon Mephistopheles and struck a bargain: twenty-four years of forbidden wisdom, wealth and pleasure in exchange for his immortal soul. He signed the contract in his own blood. For a time he conjured wonders, travelled the world and even called up the shade of Helen of Troy, but as the years ran out his dread grew unbearable. On the final night, alarmed friends heard a violent storm and cries from his locked room; in the morning his mangled body was found, the devil having claimed his due. Faust is said to have died in Staufen im Breisgau, where an inn still bears his name and marks the reputed spot. Retold by Marlowe, Goethe and countless others, his pact became the eternal warning against ambition without limit.