Chapter 65

_How Faustus was asked a Question concerning Thunder._

In the month of August there was over Wittenburg a mighty great lightning and thunder; and as Dr. Faustus was jesting merrily in the market-place with certain of his friends and companions, being physicians, they desired him to tell them the cause of that weather. Faustus answered: "It hath been commonly seen heretofore that, before a thunder-clap, fell a shower of rain or a gale of wind; for commonly after a wind falleth rain, and after rain a thunder-clap, such thickness come to pass when the four winds meet together in the heavens, the airy clouds are by force beaten against the fixed crystal firmament, but when the airy clouds meet with the firmament, they are congealed, and so strike, and rush against the firmament, as great pieces of ice when they meet on the water; then each other sounded in our ears, and that we call thunder, which indeed was none other than you have heard."

THE THIRD AND LAST OF DR. FAUSTUS HIS MERRY CONCEITS, SHOWING AFTER WHAT SORT HE PRACTISED NECROMANCY IN THE COURTS OF GREAT PRINCES: AND, LASTLY, OF HIS FEARFUL AND PITIFUL END.