_Of a certain Comet that appeared in Germanie, and how Doctor Faustus
was desired by certain friends of his to know the meaning thereof_
In Germanie over the Town of S. Eizleben was seen a mighty great
Comet, whereat the people wondered; but Doctor Faustus being there,
was asked of certain of his friends his judgment or opinion in the
matter. Whereupon he answered, it falleth out often by the course and
change of the Sun and Moon, that the Sun is under the earth, and the
Moon above; but when the Moon draweth near the change, then is the Sun
so strong that he taketh away all the light of the Moon, in such sort
that he is as red as blood: and to the contrary, after they have been
together, the Moon taketh her light again from him, and so increasing
in light to the full, she will be as red as the Sun was before, and
changeth herself into divers and sundry colours, of the which springeth
a prodigious monster, or as you call it, a Comet, which is a figure or
token appointed of God as a forewarning of his displeasure: as at one
time he sendeth hunger, plague, sword, or such-like: being all tokens
of his judgment: the which Comet cometh through the conjunction of the
Sun and Moon begetting a monster, whose father is the Sun, and whose
mother is the Moon, ☉ and ☽.