_How Faustus was asked a question as concerning thunder_
In the month of August, there was over Wittenberg a mighty great
lightning and thunder, and as Doctor 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 followeth a rain, and after a rain a thunder-clap: such
things come to pass when the four winds meet together in the heavens,
the airy clouds are by force beaten against the fixed crystalline
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, the echo thereof soundeth in
our ears, and that we call thunder, which indeed is none other than you
have heard.
=The third and last part of Doctor Faustus his
merry conceits, shewing after what sort he
practised Necromancy in the Courts of
great Princes, and lastly of his
fearful and pitiful end=