_How four Jugglers cut one another’s head off, and set them on again;
and how Doctor Faustus deceived them_
Doctor Faustus came in the Lent unto Franckfort Fair, where his Spirit
Mephostophiles gave him to understand that in an Inn were four Jugglers
that cut one another’s head off, and after their cutting off, sent
them to the Barber to be trimmed, which many people saw. This angered
Faustus (for he meant to have himself the only Cock in the Devil’s
basket), and he went to the place where they were, to behold them.
And as these Jugglers were together, ready one to cut off the other’s
head, there stood also the Barbers ready to trim them, and by them
upon the table stood likewise a glass full of distilled water, and he
that was the chiefest among them stood by it. Thus they began, they
smote off the head of the first, and presently there was a Lily in the
glass of distilled water, where Faustus perceived this Lily as it were
springing, and the chief Juggler named it the tree of life, thus dealt
he with the first, making the Barber wash and comb his head, and then
he set it on again, presently the Lily vanished away out of the water,
hereat the man had his head whole and sound again; the like did they
with the other two: and as the turn and lot came to the chief Juggler
that he also should be beheaded, and that his Lily was most pleasant,
fair, and flourishing green, they smote his head off, and when it came
to be barbed, it troubled Faustus his conscience, in so much that he
could not abide to see another do anything, for he thought himself to
be the principal conjurer in the world, wherefore Doctor Faustus went
to the table whereat the other Jugglers kept that Lily, and so he took
a small knife and cut off the stalk of the Lily, saying to himself,
none of them should blind Faustus: yet no man saw Faustus to cut the
Lily, but when the rest of the Jugglers thought to have set on their
master’s head, they could not, wherefore they looked on the Lily, and
found it a bleeding: by this means the Juggler was beguiled, and so
died in his wickedness, yet not one thought that Doctor Faustus had
done it.