A brilliant scholar, glutted on theology and law, summons a devil named Mephistophilis and trades his eternal soul for twenty-four years of limitless power, only to discover that infinity cannot be purchased and that time, once sold, moves faster than any conjuration can slow. Marlowe staged this play around 1592, and its thundering blank verse gave the English theater its first tragic hero forged from intellect rather than royal blood. Faustus could have repented at any moment; the angels beg him to, and he nearly does, but his pride holds him like gravity. The final soliloquy, with its desperate plea for time to stop, remains the most harrowing exit in English drama.