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

| | Now, In a new tune, new gesture, but old language.⁠— This fellow is sent from one negotiates with me About the stone too, for the holy Brethren Of Amsterdam, the exiled saints, that hope To raise their discipline by it. I must use him In some strange fashion, now, to make him admire me.⁠— | | | Enter Ananias. | | | Aloud. Where is my drudge? | | | Reenter Face. | | Face | Sir! | | Subtle | Take away the recipient, And rectify your menstrue from the phlegma. Then pour it on the Sol, in the cucurbite, And let them macerate together. | | Face | Yes, sir. And save the ground? | | Subtle | No: Terra damnata Must not have entrance in the work.⁠—Who are you? | | Ananias | A faithful brother, if it please you. | | Subtle | What’s that? A Lullianist? A Ripley? Filius artis? Can you sublime and dulcify? Calcine? Know you the sapor pontic? Sapor stiptic? Or what is homogene, or heterogene? | | Ananias | I understand no heathen language, truly. | | Subtle | Heathen! You Knipper-doling? Is Ars sacra, Or chrysopoeia, or spagyrica, Or the pamphysic, or panarchic knowledge, A heathen language? | | Ananias | Heathen Greek, I take it. | | Subtle | How! Heathen Greek? | | Ananias | All’s heathen but the Hebrew. | | Subtle | Sirrah, my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him, Like a philosopher: answer in the language. Name the vexations, and the martyrisations Of metals in the work. | | Face | Sir, putrefaction, Solution, ablution, sublimation, Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and Fixation. | | Subtle | This is heathen Greek to you, now!⁠— And when comes vivification? | | Face | After mortification. | | Subtle | What’s cohobation? | | Face | ’Tis the pouring on Your aqua regis, and then drawing him off, To the trine circle of the seven spheres. | | Subtle | What’s the proper passion of metals? | | Face | Malleation. | | Subtle | What’s your ultimum supplicium auri? | | Face | Antimonium. | | Subtle | This is heathen Greek to you!⁠—And what’s your mercury? | | Face | A very fugitive, he will be gone, sir. | | Subtle | How know you him? | | Face | By his viscosity, His oleosity, and his suscitability. | | Subtle | How do you sublime him? | | Face | With the calce of eggshells, White marble, talc. | | Subtle | Your magisterium now, What’s that? | | Face | Shifting, sir, your elements, Dry into cold, cold into moist, moist into hot, Hot into dry. | | Subtle | This is heathen Greek to you still! Your lapis philosophicus? | | Face | ’Tis a stone, And not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body: Which if you do dissolve, it is dissolved; If you coagulate, it is coagulated; If you make it to fly, it flieth. | | Subtle | Enough. | | | Exit Face. | | | This is heathen Greek to you! What are you, sir? | | Ananias | Please you, a servant of the exiled Brethren, That deal with widows’ and with orphans’ goods, And make a just account unto the Saints: A Deacon. | | Subtle | O, you are sent from master Wholesome, Your teacher? | | Ananias | From Tribulation Wholesome, Our very zealous pastor. | | Subtle | Good! I have Some orphans’ goods to come here. | | Ananias | Of what kind, sir? | | Subtle | Pewter and brass, andirons and kitchenware, Metals, that we must use our medicine on: Wherein the Brethren may have a pennyworth For ready money. | | Ananias | Were the orphans’ parents Sincere professors? | | Subtle | Why do you ask? | | Ananias | Because We then are to deal justly, and give, in truth, Their utmost value. | | Subtle | ’Slid, you’d cozen else, And if their parents were not of the faithful!⁠— I will not trust you, now I think on it, ’Till I have talked with your pastor. Have you brought money To buy more coals? | | Ananias | No, surely. | | Subtle | No! How so? | | Ananias | The Brethren bid me say unto you, sir, Surely, they will not venture any more, Till they may see projection. | | Subtle | How! | | Ananias | You have had, For the instruments, as bricks, and loam, and glasses, Already thirty pound; and for materials, They say, some ninety more: and they have heard since, That one at Heidelberg, made it of an egg, And a small paper of pin-dust. | | Subtle | What’s your name? | | Ananias | My name is Ananias. | | Subtle | Out, the varlet That cozened the Apostles! Hence, away! Flee, mischief! Had your holy Consistory No name to send me, of another sound, Than wicked Ananias? Send your elders Hither to make atonement for you quickly, And give me satisfaction; or out goes The fire; and down th’ alembics, and the furnace, Piger Henricus, or whatnot. Thou wretch! Both sericon and bufo shall be lost, Tell them. All hope of rooting out the Bishops, Or the antichristian hierarchy, shall perish, If they stay threescore minutes: the aqueity, Terreity, and sulphureity Shall run together again, and all be annulled, Thou wicked Ananias! | | | Exit Ananias. | | | This will fetch ’em, And make them haste towards their gulling more. A man must deal like a rough nurse, and fright Those that are froward, to an appetite. | | | Reenter Face, in his uniform, followed by Drugger. | | Face | He is busy with his spirits, but we’ll upon him. | | Subtle | How now! What mates, what Baiards have we here? | | Face | I told you, he would be furious.⁠—Sir, here’s Nab, Has brought you another piece of gold to look on: —We must appease him. Give it me⁠—and prays you, You would devise⁠—what is it, Nab? | | Drugger | A sign, sir. | | Face | Ay, a good lucky one, a thriving sign, Doctor. | | Subtle | I was devising now. | | Face | ’Slight, do not say so, He will repent he gave you any more⁠— What say you to his constellation, Doctor, The Balance? | | Subtle | No, that way is stale, and common. A townsman born in Taurus, gives the bull, Or the bull’s-head: in Aries, the ram, A poor device! No, I will have his name Formed in some mystic character; whose radii, Striking the senses of the passers by, Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections, That may result upon the party owns it: As thus⁠— | | Face | Nab! | | Subtle | He shall have “a bell,” that’s “Abel;” And by it standing one whose name is “Dee,” In a “rug” gown, there’s “D,” and “Rug,” that’s “drug:” And right anenst him a dog snarling “er;” There’s “Drugger,” Abel Drugger. That’s his sign. And here’s now mystery and hieroglyphic! | | Face | Abel, thou art made. | | Drugger | Sir, I do thank his worship. | | Face | Six o’ thy legs more will not do it, Nab. He has brought you a pipe of tobacco, Doctor. | | Drugger | Yes, sir; I have another thing I would impart⁠— | | Face | Out with it, Nab. | | Drugger | Sir, there is lodged, hard by me, A rich young widow⁠— | | Face | Good! A bona roba? | | Drugger | But nineteen, at the most. | | Face | Very good, Abel. | | Drugger | Marry, she’s not in fashion yet; she wears A hood, but it stands a cop. | | Face | No matter, Abel. | | Drugger | And I do now and then give her a fucus⁠— | | Face | What! Dost thou deal, Nab? | | Subtle | I did tell you, Captain. | | Drugger | And physic too, sometime, sir; for which she trusts me With all her mind. She’s come up here of purpose To learn the fashion. | | Face | Good (his match too!)⁠—On, Nab. | | Drugger | And she does strangely long to know her fortune. | | Face | Ods lid, Nab, send her to the Doctor, hither. | | Drugger | Yes, I have spoke to her of his worship already; But she’s afraid it will be blown abroad, And hurt her marriage. | | Face | Hurt it! ’Tis the way To heal it, if ’twere hurt; to make it more Followed and sought: Nab, thou shalt tell her this. She’ll be more known, more talked of; and your widows Are ne’er of any price till they be famous; Their honour is their multitude of suitors. Send her, it may be thy good fortune. What! Thou dost not know. | | Drugger | No, sir, she’ll never marry Under a knight: her brother has made a vow. | | Face | What! And dost thou despair, my little Nab, Knowing what the Doctor has set down for thee, And seeing so many of the city dubbed? One glass o’ thy water, with a Madam I know, Will have it done, Nab: what’s her brother, a knight? | | Drugger | No, sir, a gentleman newly warm in his land, sir, Scarce cold in his one and twenty, that does govern His sister here; and is a man himself Of some three thousand a year, and is come up To learn to quarrel, and to live by his wits, And will go down again, and die in the country. | | Face | How! To quarrel? | | Drugger | Yes, sir, to carry quarrels, As gallants do; to manage them by line. | | Face | ’Slid, Nab, the Doctor is the only man In Christendom for him. He has made a table, With mathematical demonstrations, Touching the art of quarrels: he will give him An instrument to quarrel by. Go, bring them both, Him and his sister. And, for thee, with her The Doctor haply may persuade. Go to: ’Shalt give his worship a new damask suit Upon the premises. | | Subtle | O, good Captain! | | Face | He shall; He is the honestest fellow, Doctor.⁠—Stay not, No offers; bring the damask, and the parties. | | Drugger | I’ll try my power, sir. | | Face | And thy will too, Nab. | | Subtle | ’Tis good tobacco, this! What is’t an ounce? | | Face | He’ll send you a pound, Doctor. | | Subtle | O no. | | Face | He will do’t. It is the goodest soul!⁠—Abel, about it. Thou shalt know more anon. Away, be gone. | | | Exit Drugger. | | | A miserable rogue, and lives with cheese, And has the worms. That was the cause, indeed, Why he came now: he dealt with me in private, To get a medicine for them. | | Subtle | And shall, sir. This works. | | Face | A wife, a wife for one on us, my dear Subtle! We’ll e’en draw lots, and he that fails, shall have The more in goods, the other has in tail. | | Subtle | Rather the less: for she may be so light She may want grains. | | Face | Ay, or be such a burden, A man would scarce endure her for the whole. | | Subtle | Faith, best let’s see her first, and then determine. | | Face | Content: but Dol must have no breath on’t. | | Subtle | Mum. Away you, to your Surly yonder, catch him. | | Face | ’Pray God I have not stayed too long. | | Subtle | I fear it. | | | Exeunt. |