So, as some of you may guess by the title of this post, I’m currently reading Doctor Faustus by Marlowe on my free time, and there’s quite a bit of Latin throughout the play (at least up to scene 5, which is where I’m currently at). In scene 5, Faustus calls Mephistopheles in Latin, veni, veni, Mephistophele. In scene 3, in a rather long passage in Latin for an play in English, Faustus refers to Mephistopheles in the nominative in the same way that his name is spelled in English. If I had to guess, his name is in the third declension. This notwithstanding, his name ends in -es, so why does Faustus call him (in the vocative) with his name ending in -e? Don’t only second declension nouns ending in -us take -e in the vocative?
Gratias vobis ago.