The Alchemist · Act II · Scene I (2/2) (2/3)

| Face | Nay, I know’t, sir, I have seen the ill fortune. What is some three ounces Of fresh materials? | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Is’t no more? | | Face | No more, sir. Of gold, t’amalgam with some six of mercury. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Away, here’s money. What will serve? | | Face | Ask him, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | How much? | | Subtle | Give him nine pound:⁠—you may give him ten. | | Pertinax Surly | Yes, twenty, and be cozened, do. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | There ’tis. Gives Face the money. | | Subtle | This needs not; but that you will have it so, To see conclusions of all: for two Of our inferior works are at fixation, A third is in ascension. Go your ways. Have you set the oil of luna in kemia? | | Face | Yes, sir. | | Subtle | And the philosopher’s vinegar? | | Face | Ay. | | | Exit. | | Pertinax Surly | We shall have a salad! | | Sir Epicure Mammon | When do you make projection? | | Subtle | Son, be not hasty, I exalt our medicine, By hanging him in balneo vaporoso, And giving him solution; then congeal him; And then dissolve him; then again congeal him; For look, how oft I iterate the work, So many times I add unto his virtue. As, if at first one ounce convert a hundred, After his second loose, he’ll turn a thousand; His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred: After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces Of any imperfect metal, into pure Silver or gold, in all examinations, As good as any of the natural mine. Get you your stuff here against afternoon, Your brass, your pewter, and your andirons. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Not those of iron? | | Subtle | Yes, you may bring them too: We’ll change all metals. | | Pertinax Surly | I believe you in that. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Then I may send my spits? | | Subtle | Yes, and your racks. | | Pertinax Surly | And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks? Shall he not? | | Subtle | If he please. | | Pertinax Surly | —To be an ass. | | Subtle | How, sir! | | Sir Epicure Mammon | This gentleman you must bear withal: I told you he had no faith. | | Pertinax Surly | And little hope, sir; But much less charity, should I gull myself. | | Subtle | Why, what have you observed, sir, in our art, Seems so impossible? | | Pertinax Surly | But your whole work, no more. That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir, As they do eggs in Egypt! | | Subtle | Sir, do you Believe that eggs are hatched so? | | Pertinax Surly | If I should? | | Subtle | Why, I think that the greater miracle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves. | | Pertinax Surly | That cannot be. The egg’s ordained by nature to that end, And is a chicken in potentia. | | Subtle | The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold, if they had time. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | And that Our art doth further. | | Subtle | Ay, for ’twere absurb To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter. | | Pertinax Surly | Ay, what is that? | | Subtle | Marry, we say⁠— | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Ay, now it heats: stand, Father, Pound him to dust. | | Subtle | It is, of the one part, A humid exhalation, which we call Materia liquida, or the unctuous water; On the other part, a certain crass and vicious Portion of earth; both which, concorporate, Do make the elementary matter of gold; Which is not yet propria materia, But common to all metals and all stones; For, where it is forsaken of that moisture, And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone: Where it retains more of the humid fatness, It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver, Who are the parents of all other metals. Nor can this remote matter suddenly Progress so from extreme unto extreme, As to grow gold, and leap o’er all the means. Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy And oily water, mercury is engendered; Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one, Which is the last, supplying the place of male, The other of the female, in all metals. Some do believe hermaphrodeity, That both do act and suffer. But these two Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive. And even in gold they are; for we do find Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them; And can produce the species of each metal More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth. Beside, who doth not see in daily practice Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps, Out of the carcases and dung of creatures; Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed? And these are living creatures, far more perfect And excellent than metals. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Well said, Father! Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument, He’ll bray you in a mortar. | | Pertinax Surly | Pray you, sir, stay. Rather than I’ll be brayed, sir, I’ll believe That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game, Somewhat like tricks o’ the cards, to cheat a man With charming. | | Subtle | Sir? | | Pertinax Surly | What else are all your terms, Whereon no one of your writers ’grees with other? Of your elixir, your lac virginis, Your stone, your medicine, and your chrysosperm, Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury, Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood, Your marcasite, your tutie, your magnesia, Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther; Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop, Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit, And then your red man, and your white woman, With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials, Of piss and eggshells, women’s terms, man’s blood, Hair o’ the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay, Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass, And worlds of other strange ingredients, Would burst a man to name? | | Subtle | And all these named, Intending but one thing; which art our writers Used to obscure their art. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Sir, so I told him⁠— Because the simple idiot should not learn it, And make it vulgar. | | Subtle | Was not all the knowledge Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols? Speak not the scriptures oft in parables? Are not the choicest fables of the poets, That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom, Wrapped in perplexed allegories? | | Sir Epicure Mammon | I urged that, And cleared to him, that Sisyphus was damned To roll the ceaseless stone, only because He would have made Ours common. | | Dol Common | Appears at the door.⁠— Who is this? | | Subtle | ’Sprecious!⁠—What do you mean? Go in, good lady, Let me entreat you. | | | Dol retires. | | | —Where’s this varlet? | | | *Reenter Face. | | Face | Sir. | | Subtle | You very knave! Do you use me thus? | | Face | Wherein, sir? | | Subtle | Go in and see, you traitor. Go! | | | Exit Face. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Who is it, sir? | | Subtle | Nothing, sir; nothing. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | What’s the matter, good sir? I have not seen you thus distempered: who is’t? | | Subtle | All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries; But ours the most ignorant.⁠— | | | Reenter Face. | | | What now? | | Face | ’Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you. | | Subtle | Would she, sir! Follow me. | | | Exit. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Stopping him. Stay, Lungs. | | Face | I dare not, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Stay, man; what is she? | | Face | A lord’s sister, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | How! Pray thee, stay. | | Face | She’s mad, sir, and sent hither⁠— He’ll be mad too.⁠— | | Sir Epicure Mammon | I warrant thee.⁠— Why sent hither? | | Face | Sir, to be cured. | | Subtle | Within. Why, rascal! | | Face | Lo you!⁠—Here, sir! | | | Exit. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | ’Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece. | | Pertinax Surly | Heart, this is a bawdyhouse! I will be burnt else. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | O, by this light, no: do not wrong him. He’s Too scrupulous that way: it is his vice. No, he’s a rare physician, do him right, An excellent Paracelsian, and has done Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all With spirits, he; he will not hear a word Of Galen; or his tedious recipes.⁠— | | | Reenter Face. | | | How now, Lungs! | | Face | Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant To have told your worship all. This must not hear. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | No, he will not be “gulled;” let him alone. | | Face | You are very right, sir, she is a most rare scholar, And is gone mad with studying Broughton’s works. If you but name a word touching the Hebrew, She falls into her fit, and will discourse So learnedly of genealogies, As you would run mad too, to hear her, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | How might one do t’ have conference with her, Lungs? | | Face | O divers have run mad upon the conference: I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste, To fetch a vial. | | Pertinax Surly | Be not gulled, Sir Mammon. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Wherein? Pray ye, be patient. | | Pertinax Surly | Yes, as you are, And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | You are too foul, believe it.⁠—Come here, Ulen, One word. | | Face | I dare not, in good faith. Going. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Stay, knave. | | Face | He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Drink that. Gives him money. What is she when she’s out of her fit? | | Face | O, the most affablest creature, sir! So merry! So pleasant! She’ll mount you up, like quicksilver, Over the helm; and circulate like oil, A very vegetal: discourse of state, Of mathematics, bawdry, anything⁠— | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Is she no way accessible? No means, No trick to give a man a taste of her⁠—wit⁠— Or so? | | Subtle | Within. Ulen! | | Face | I’ll come to you again, sir. | | | Exit. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Surly, I did not think one of your breeding Would traduce personages of worth. | | Pertinax Surly | Sir Epicure, Your friend to use; yet still loth to be gulled: I do not like your philosophical bawds. Their stone is letchery enough to pay for, Without this bait. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | ’Heart, you abuse yourself. I know the lady, and her friends, and means, The original of this disaster. Her brother Has told me all. | | Pertinax Surly | And yet you never saw her Till now! | | Sir Epicure Mammon | O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it, One of the treacherousest memories, I do think, Of all mankind. | | Pertinax Surly | What call you her brother? | | Sir Epicure Mammon | My lord⁠— He will not have his name known, now I think on’t. | | Pertinax Surly | A very treacherous memory! | | Sir Epicure Mammon | On my faith⁠— | | Pertinax Surly | Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it, Till we meet next. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Nay, by this hand, ’tis true. He’s one I honour, and my noble friend; And I respect his house. | | Pertinax Surly | Heart! Can it be, That a grave sir, a rich, that has no need, A wise sir, too, at other times, should thus, With his own oaths, and arguments, make hard means To gull himself? An this be your elixir, Your lapis mineralis, and your lunary, Give me your honest trick yet at primero, Or gleek; and take your lutum sapientis, Your menstruum simplex! I’ll have gold before you, And with less danger of the quicksilver, Or the hot sulphur. | | | Reenter Face. | | Face | Here’s one from Captain Face, sir, To Surly. Desires you meet him in the Temple-church, Some half-hour hence, and upon earnest business. Whispers to Mammon. Sir, if you please to quit us, now; and come Again within two hours, you shall have My master busy examining o’ the works; And I will steal you in, unto the party, That you may see her converse.⁠—Sir, shall I say, You’ll meet the Captain’s worship? | | Pertinax Surly | Sir, I will.⁠— Walks aside. But, by attorney, and to a second purpose. Now, I am sure it is a bawdyhouse; I’ll swear it, were the Marshal here to thank me: The naming this Commander doth confirm it. Don Face! Why, he’s the most authentic dealer In these commodities, the superintendant To all the quainter traffickers in town! He is the visitor, and does appoint, Who lies with whom, and at what hour; what price; Which gown, and in what smock; what fall; what tire. Him will I prove, by a third person, to find The subtleties of this dark labyrinth: Which if I do discover, dear Sir Mammon, You’ll give your poor friend leave, though no philosopher, To laugh: for you that are, ’tis thought, shall weep. | | Face | Sir, he does pray, you’ll not forget. | | Pertinax Surly | I will not, sir. Sir Epicure, I shall leave you. | | | Exit. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | I follow you, straight. | | Face | But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion. This gentleman has a parlous head. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | But wilt thou Ulen, Be constant to thy promise? | | Face | As my life, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me, And say, I am a noble fellow? | | Face | O, what else, sir? And that you’ll make her royal with the stone, An empress; and yourself, King of Bantam. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Wilt thou do this? | | Face | Will I, sir! | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Lungs, my Lungs! I love thee. | | Face | Send your stuff, sir, that my master May busy himself about projection. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Thou hast witched me, rogue: take, go. Gives him money. | | Face | Your jack, and all, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Thou art a villain⁠—I will send my jack, And the weights too. Slave, I could bite thine ear. Away, thou dost not care for me. | | Face | Not I, sir! | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Come, I was born to make thee, my good weasel, Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain With the best lord’s vermin of ’em all. | | Face | Away, sir. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | A count, nay, a count palatine⁠— | | Face | Good, sir, go. | | Sir Epicure Mammon | Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster. | | | Exit. | | | Reenter Subtle and Dol. | | Subtle | Has he bit? Has he bit? | | Face | And swallowed, too, my Subtle. I have given him line, and now he plays, i’faith. | | Subtle | And shall we twitch him? | | Face | Thorough both the gills. A wench is a rare bait, with which a man No sooner’s taken, but he straight firks mad. | | Subtle | Dol, my Lord What’ts’hums sister, you must now Bear yourself statelich. | | Dol Common | O let me alone. I’ll not forget my race, I warrant you. I’ll keep my distance, laugh and talk aloud; Have all the tricks of a proud scurvy lady, And be as rude as her woman. | | Face | Well said, sanguine! | | Subtle | But will he send his andirons? | | Face | His jack too, And’s iron shoeing-horn; I have spoke to him. Well, I must not lose my wary gamester yonder. | | Subtle | O Monsieur Caution, that will not be gulled? | | Face | Ay, If I can strike a fine hook into him, now! The Temple-church, there I have cast mine angle. Well, pray for me. I’ll about it. Knocking without. | | Subtle | What, more gudgeons! Dol, scout, scout! Dol goes to the window. Stay, Face, you must go to the door, ’Pray God it be my Anabaptist⁠—Who is’t, Dol? | | Dol Common | I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman. | | Subtle | Ods so! ’Tis he, he said he would send what call you him? The sanctified elder, that should deal For Mammon’s jack and andirons. Let him in. Stay, help me off, first, with my gown. | | | Exit Face with the gown. | | | Away, Madam, to your withdrawing chamber. | | | Exit Dol*. |