Letter from Algernon Faustus to Olaus Wormius, Danish Natural Historian and Translator of 'al-Azif'
Anon we sailled from lyf relieved the ailing of oure physicks was nat prolonged; and I regret my part in the dullen of man to the spheres' songe. Hylic we been now as nat biforn. The Develes face: softe and ful; feminine, human, but eek ful large. Thine own koude fit hes hoole head in the mouth of swich a thyng, though it wolde paraunter take som doon: a twisting to oon side. Hes voys the noote of a likerous floutist; he ferde as if a quene. With hem I saw hes derke parlement of beeste kynde; mine yën nere plesede by surplys slepen greene, and fele freshe medes: the gardin of hes sable estaat, in which I was trapped by hye towres. Hes wene paramours nede nat grain I presume. There is beautee in yvel. If onli I had knouen: there is beautee in yvel. "I may been of youre sort," I seyde, and he smyled.
They cast me from London when the rood blinded me. After my first helinge in the Develes name I lookede up at Hevene in confusioun, that regne; and as for proces, I moorne mine unbokeled cofres, which dispenced sheeldes for an unhooly book of a Punic or Affrican kynde, soold by, foryeve me, shiten palmeres. One said "we lered from the Goode Women!" Mohammedans? I doute this is their werk.
—1381
Born into a family of minor nobility in London around 1348, documentation of Robert "Aux Gernon" Faust's life is practically non-existent, though attestations to his being can being found via his exhaustive literary and theological output from the 1370s onward (perhaps too exhaustive: at least some works are false, "psuedo-Faustian" attributions). He received a standard liberal arts education at the University of Cambridge, having enrolled as a sizar. Upon his return to London he procured a reputation as a magician, purportedly having acquired the ability to fly and enter dreams; one source describes him as possessing the power to transfigure his tongue into a centipede.
Despite this, Faust was undone by very tangible complications: having been irreversibly injured during Wat Tyler's Rebellion in 1381, he was compelled to depart from London on charges of Lollardy and "raptus" that same year. He died in 1414, having spent his final years as an impoverished anchorite in Maidstone, Kent. An uncharacterisitc turn to monasticism in his later life notwithstanding, Faust was largely an indifferent Christian, and, as aforementioned, gravitated toward proto-Protestantism and mystical alternatives throughout his adulthood; he had a particular interest in Muslim astrology and alchemy.
Faust's "toledo table" was purportedly discovered amongst the private possessions of one Edward Kelley upon his death in 1598, although it has since been lost.
Anonymous and Untitled: Poem Attributed to Algernon Faustus, c. 1370
How may I incur such wrath? "These short flikeres, youre lyves no thyng to this goon desir which hath arretted this angre." And that derke he who bar thilke woundes upon my body everemoore: my body, now youres, was crucified.The Fowele: Poem Attributed to Algernon Faustus, c. 1360s
My lief the fowele,
the servent of Venus;
derke medes
eclipse bitwene us;
and flien fro th'orisonte
she may reste upon my kne,
may fede from me
crowen colde sikes;
and for hir tress, blak fethers,
hir long nekke a tether
that holds us, defoules us
bindinge togeder.
Secular Refrain: Poem Attributed to Algernon Faustus, c. 1360s
Whan waden thurgh hir rosi cheke, my lief is the snou that blankets the frith and sweteli unsowes killing the Ver.Untitled: Poem Attributed to Algernon Faustus, c. 1390s
Wrappen aboute, is tongelees nighte; wights born for dales, nat piche blak heightes. What may be doon aboute that burnen of morninge in oure wanen lyves?Leven right as what we lief leves:
right whan what we hate
comth to be.
From the Journals of Algernon Faustus
I shrinke into a comforten fey, levere than awak to this sobre sterilitye. Telle me who or what I am governed by? Mine herte hath opened with some grotesque bubblen noise, blak bile cloddren in aire: what I thoughte were products of mynde; myself, some thyng stiren I can nat bridelen or bihold. We were right biforn; these advanced knouings mean no thyng. And so I souked it back in to me: my soule.
The weght with which the fairen of us povre creatures onfolde.
—1400