The Alchemist · Act III · Scene II (2/2) (1/2)
Enter Subtle, followed by Tribulation and Ananias.
Subtle O, are you come? ’Twas time. Your threescore minutes Were at last thread, you see: and down had gone Furnus acediae, turris circulatorius: Lembec, bolt’s head, retort and pelican Had all been cinders.⁠—Wicked Ananias! Art thou returned? Nay then, it goes down yet.
Tribulation Wholesome Sir, be appeased; he is come to humble Himself in spirit, and to ask your patience, If too much zeal hath carried him aside From the due path.
Subtle Why, this doth qualify!
Tribulation Wholesome The Brethren had no purpose, verily, To give you the least grievance; but are ready To lend their willing hands to any project The spirit and you direct.
Subtle This qualifies more!
Tribulation Wholesome And for the orphans’ goods, let them be valued, Or what is needful else to the holy work, It shall be numbered; here, by me, the Saints, Throw down their purse before you.
Subtle This qualifies most! Why, thus it should be, now you understand. Have I discoursed so unto you of our stone, And of the good that it shall bring your cause? Showed you (beside the main of hiring forces Abroad, drawing the Hollanders, your friends, From the Indies, to serve you, with all their fleet) That even the medicinal use shall make you a faction, And party in the realm? As, put the case, That some great man in state, he have the gout, Why, you but send three drops of your elixir, You help him straight: there you have made a friend. Another has the palsy or the dropsy, He takes of your incombustible stuff, He’s young again: there you have made a friend, A lady that is past the feat of body, Though not of mind, and hath her face decayed Beyond all cure of paintings, you restore, With the oil of talc: there you have made a friend; And all her friends. A lord that is a leper, A knight that has the bone-ache, or a squire That hath both these, you make them smooth and sound, With a bare fricace of your medicine: still You increase your friends.
Tribulation Wholesome Ay, it is very pregnant.
Subtle And then the turning of this lawyer’s pewter To plate at Christmas.⁠—
Ananias Christ-tide, I pray you.
Subtle Yet, Ananias!
Ananias I have done.
Subtle Or changing His parcel gilt to massy gold. You cannot But raise you friends. Withal, to be of power To pay an army in the field, to buy The King of France out of his realms, or Spain Out of his Indies. What can you not do Against lords spiritual or temporal, That shall oppone you?
Tribulation Wholesome Verily, ’tis true. We may be temporal lords ourselves, I take it.
Subtle You may be anything, and leave off to make Long-winded exercises; or suck up Your “ha!” and “hum!” in a tune. I not deny, But such as are not graced in a state, May, for their ends, be adverse in religion, And get a tune to call the flock together: For, to say sooth, a tune does much with women, And other phlegmatic people; it is your bell.
Ananias Bells are profane; a tune may be religious.
Subtle No warning with you! Then farewell my patience. ’Slight, it shall down: I will not be thus tortured.
Tribulation Wholesome I pray you, sir.
Subtle All shall perish. I have spoken it.
Tribulation Wholesome Let me find grace, sir, in your eyes; the man He stands corrected: neither did his zeal, But as yourself, allow a tune somewhere. Which now, being toward the stone, we shall not need.
Subtle No, nor your holy vizard, to win widows To give you legacies; or make zealous wives To rob their husbands for the common cause: Nor take the start of bonds broke but one day, And say, they were forfeited by providence. Nor shall you need o’er night to eat huge meals, To celebrate your next day’s fast the better; The whilst the Brethren and the Sisters humbled, Abate the stiffness of the flesh. Nor cast Before your hungry hearers scrupulous bones; As whether a Christian may hawk or hunt, Or whether matrons of the holy assembly May lay their hair out, or wear doublets, Or have that idol starch about their linen.
Ananias It is indeed an idol.
Tribulation Wholesome Mind him not, sir. I do command thee, spirit of zeal, but trouble, To peace within him! Pray you, sir, go on.
Subtle Nor shall you need to libel ’gainst the prelates, And shorten so your ears against the hearing Of the next wire-drawn grace. Nor of necessity Rail against plays, to please the alderman Whose daily custard you devour; nor lie With zealous rage till you are hoarse. Not one Of these so singular arts. Nor call yourselves By names of Tribulation, Persecution, Restraint, Long-patience, and suchlike, affected By the whole family or wood of you, Only for glory, and to catch the ear Of the disciple.
Tribulation Wholesome Truly, sir, they are Ways that the godly Brethren have invented, For propagation of the glorious cause, As very notable means, and whereby also Themselves grow soon, and profitably, famous.
Subtle O, but the stone, all’s idle to it! Nothing! The art of angels’ nature’s miracle, The divine secret that doth fly in clouds From east to west: and whose tradition Is not from men, but spirits.
Ananias I hate traditions; I do not trust them⁠—
Tribulation Wholesome Peace!
Ananias They are popish all. I will not peace: I will not⁠—
Tribulation Wholesome Ananias!
Ananias Please the profane, to grieve the godly; I may not.
Subtle Well, Ananias, thou shalt overcome.
Tribulation Wholesome It is an ignorant zeal that haunts him, sir; But truly, else, a very faithful Brother, A botcher, and a man, by revelation, That hath a competent knowledge of the truth.
Subtle Has he a competent sum there in the bag To buy the goods within? I am made guardian, And must, for charity, and conscience sake, Now see the most be made for my poor orphan; Though I desire the Brethren too good gainers: There they are within. When you have viewed and bought ’em, And ta’en the inventory of what they are, They are ready for projection; there’s no more To do: cast on the medicine, so much silver As there is tin there, so much gold as brass, I’ll give’t you in by weight.
Tribulation Wholesome But how long time, Sir, must the saints expect yet?
Subtle Let me see, How’s the moon now? Eight, nine, ten days hence, He will be silver potate; then three days Before he citronise: Some fifteen days, The magisterium will be perfected.
Ananias About the second day of the third week, In the ninth month?
Subtle Yes, my good Ananias.
Tribulation Wholesome What will the orphan’s goods arise to, think you?
Subtle Some hundred marks, as much as filled three cars, Unladed now: you’ll make six millions of them.⁠— But I must have more coals laid in.
Tribulation Wholesome How?
Subtle Another load, And then we have finished. We must now increase Our fire to ignis ardens; we are past Fimus equinus, balnei, cineris, And all those lenter heats. If the holy purse Should with this draught fall low, and that the saints Do need a present sum, I have a trick To melt the pewter, you shall buy now, instantly, And with a tincture make you as good Dutch dollars As any are in Holland.
Tribulation Wholesome Can you so?
Subtle Ay, and shall ’bide the third examination.
Ananias It will be joyful tidings to the Brethren.
Subtle But you must carry it secret.
Tribulation Wholesome Ay; but stay, This act of coining, is it lawful?
Ananias Lawful! We know no magistrate; or, if we did, This is foreign coin.
Subtle It is no coining, sir. It is but casting.
Tribulation Wholesome Ha! You distinguish well: Casting of money may be lawful.
Ananias ’Tis, sir.
Tribulation Wholesome Truly, I take it so.
Subtle There is no scruple, Sir, to be made of it; believe Ananias: This case of conscience he is studied in.
Tribulation Wholesome I’ll make a question of it to the Brethren.
Ananias The Brethren shall approve it lawful, doubt not. Where shall it be done?
Knocking without.
Subtle For that we’ll talk anon. There’s some to speak with me. Go in, I pray you, And view the parcels. That’s the inventory. I’ll come to you straight.
Exeunt Tribulation and Ananias.
Who is it?⁠—Face! Appear.
Enter Face in his uniform.
How now! Good prize?
Face Good pox! Yond’ costive cheater Never came on.
Subtle How then?
Face I have walked the round Till now, and no such thing.
Subtle And have you quit him?
Face Quit him! An hell would quit him too, he were happy. ’Slight! Would you have me stalk like a mill-jade, All day, for one that will not yield us grains? I know him of old.
Subtle O, but to have gulled him, Had been a mastery.
Face Let him go, black boy! And turn thee, that some fresh news may possess thee. A noble count, a don of Spain, my dear Delicious compeer, and my party-bawd, Who is come hither private for his conscience, And brought munition with him, six great slops, Bigger than three Dutch hoys, beside round trunks, Furnished with pistolets, and pieces of eight, Will straight be here, my rogue, to have thy bath, (That is the colour,) and to make his battery Upon our Dol, our castle, our Cinque-Port, Our Dover pier, our what thou wilt. Where is she? She must prepare perfumes, delicate linen, The bath in chief, a banquet, and her wit, For she must milk his epididimis. Where is the doxy?
Subtle I’ll send her to thee: And but despatch my brace of little John Leydens, And come again myself.
Face Are they within then?
Subtle Numbering the sum.
Face How much?
Subtle A hundred marks, boy.
Exit.
Face Why, this is a lucky day. Ten pounds of Mammon! Three of my clerk! A portague of my grocer! This of the Brethren! Beside reversions, And states to come in the widow, and my count! My share today will not be bought for forty⁠—
Enter Dol.
Dol Common What?
Face Pounds, dainty Dorothy! Art thou so near?
Dol Common Yes; say, lord General, how fares our camp?
Face As with the few that had entrenched themselves Safe, by their discipline, against a world, Dol, And laughed within those trenches, and grew fat With thinking on the booties, Dol, brought in Daily by their small parties. This dear hour, A doughty don is taken with my Dol; And thou mayst make his ransom what thou wilt, My Dousabel; he shall be brought here fettered With thy fair looks, before he sees thee; and thrown In a down-bed, as dark as any dungeon; Where thou shalt keep him waking with thy drum; Thy drum, my Dol, thy drum; till he be tame As the poor blackbirds were in the great frost, Or bees are with a bason; and so hive him In the swanskin coverlid, and cambric sheets, Till he work honey and wax, my little God’s-gift.
Dol Common What is he, General?
Face An adalantado, A grandee, girl. Was not my Dapper here yet?
Dol Common No.
Face Nor my Drugger?
Dol Common Neither.
Face A pox on ’em, They are so long a furnishing! Such stinkards Would not be seen upon these festival days.⁠—
Reenter Subtle.
How now! Have you done?
Subtle Done. They are gone: the sum Is here in bank, my Face. I would we knew Another chapman now would buy ’em outright.
Face ’Slid, Nab shall do’t against he have the widow, To furnish household.
Subtle Excellent, well thought on: Pray God he come!
Face I pray he keep away Till our new business be o’erpast.
Subtle But, Face, How cam’st thou by this secret don?
Face A spirit Brought me th’ intelligence in a paper here, As I was conjuring yonder in my circle For Surly; I have my flies abroad. Your bath Is famous, Subtle, by my means. Sweet Dol, You must go tune your virginal, no losing O’ the least time: and, do you hear? Good action. Firk, like a flounder; kiss, like a scallop, close; And tickle him with thy mother tongue. His great Verdugoship has not a jot of language; So much the easier to be cozened, my Dolly. He will come here in a hired coach, obscure, And our own coachman, whom I have sent as guide, No creature else. Knocking without. Who’s that?
Exit Dol.
Subtle It is not he?
Face O no, not yet this hour.
Reenter Dol.
Subtle Who is’t?
Dol Common Dapper, Your clerk.
Face God’s will then, Queen of Fairy, On with your tire; and, Doctor, with your robes.
Exit Dol.
Let’s dispatch him for God’s sake.
Subtle ’Twill be long.
Face I warrant you, take but the cues I give you, It shall be brief enough. Goes to the window. ’Slight, here are more! Abel, and I think the angry boy, the heir, That fain would quarrel.
Subtle And the widow?
Face No, Not that I see. Away!
Exit Subtle.
Enter Dapper.
O sir, you are welcome. The Doctor is within a moving for you; I have had the most ado to win him to it!⁠— He swears you’ll be the darling of the dice: He never heard her Highness dote till now. Your aunt has given you the most gracious words That can be thought on.
Dapper Shall I see her Grace?
Face See her, and kiss her too.⁠—
Enter Drugger, followed by Kastril.
What, honest Nab! Hast brought the damask?
Drugger No, sir; here’s tobacco.
Face ’Tis well done, Nab; thou’lt bring the damask too?
Drugger Yes: here’s the gentleman, Captain, master Kastril, I have brought to see the Doctor.
Face Where’s the widow?
Drugger Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come.
Face O, is it so? Good time. Is your name Kastril, sir?
Kastril Ay, and the best of the Kastrils, I’d be sorry else, By fifteen hundred a year. Where is the Doctor? My mad tobacco-boy, here, tells me of one That can do things: has he any skill?
Face Wherein, sir?
Kastril To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly, Upon fit terms.
Face It seems, sir, you are but young About the town, that can make that a question.
Kastril Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech Of the angry boys, and seen them take tobacco; And in his shop; and I can take it too. And I would fain be one of ’em, and go down And practise in the country.
Face Sir, for the duello, The Doctor, I assure you, shall inform you, To the least shadow of a hair; and show you An instrument he has of his own making, Wherewith no sooner shall you make report Of any quarrel, but he will take the height on’t Most instantly, and tell in what degree Of safety it lies in, or mortality. And how it may be borne, whether in a right line, Or a half circle; or may else be cast Into an angle blunt, if not acute: And this he will demonstrate. And then, rules To give and take the lie by.
Kastril How! To take it?
Face Yes, in oblique he’ll show you, or in circle; But never in diameter. The whole town Study his theorems, and dispute them ordinarily At the eating academies.
Kastril But does he teach Living by the wits too?