Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss…
Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies!-
…
Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars;
Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter
When he appear'd to hapless Semele:
More lovely than the monarch of the sky
In wanton Arethusa's azured arms:
And none but thou shalt be my paramour.

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was England's leading playwright and poet of his time. Marlowe introduced blank verse into plays - a technique we now associate with his immediate successor, William Shakespeare. Marlowe was a flamboyant character: an atheist, a homosexual and a spy. He died in mysterious circumstances in a lodging house in Deptford, aged just 29.

Marlowe's Doctor Faustus was the first play to be written about the philosopher who sells his soul to the devil. In this excerpt, Faust meets Helen of Troy. Fascinated by astronomy, Marlowe compares her to the stars and Jupiter.