Chapter 63

_How Faustus was asked a Question concerning the Spirits that vexed Men._

"That is most true," said he to Faustus, "concerning the stars and planets; but, I pray you, in what kind or manner do the spirits use to vex men so little by day and so greatly by night?"

Dr. Faustus answered: "Because the spirits are of God forbidden the light; their dwelling is in darkness, and the clearer the sun shineth, the farther the spirits have their abiding from it, but in the night when it is dark, they have their familiarity and abiding near unto us men. For although in the night we see not the sun, yet the brightness thereof so lighted the first moving of the firmament, as it doth here on earth in the day, by which reason we are able to see the stars and planets in the night, even so the rays of the sun piercing upwards into the firmament, the spirits abandon the place, and so come near us on earth, the darkness filling our heads with heavy dreams and fond fancies, with shrieking and crying in many deformed shapes: and sometimes when men go forth without light, there falleth to them a fear, that their hairs standeth up on end, so many start in their sleep, thinking there is a spirit by them, groping or feeling for him, going round about the house in their sleep, and many such like fancies, and all this is, because in the night the spirits are more familiarly by us than we are desirous of their company, and so they carry us, blinding us, and plaguing us more than we are able to perceive."