The Alchemist · Act IV · Scene I (2/2) (1/2)
Enter Face and Mammon.
Face O sir, you’re come in the only finest time.⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon Where’s master?
Face Now preparing for projection, sir. Your stuff will be all changed shortly.
Sir Epicure Mammon Into gold?
Face To gold and silver, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon Silver I care not for.
Face Yes, sir, a little to give beggars.
Sir Epicure Mammon Where’s the lady?
Face At hand here. I have told her such brave things of you, Touching your bounty, and your noble spirit⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon Hast thou?
Face As she is almost in her fit to see you. But, good sir, no divinity in your conference, For fear of putting her in rage.⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon I warrant thee.
Face Six men [sir] will not hold her down: and then, If the old man should hear or see you⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon Fear not.
Face The very house, sir, would run mad. You know it, How scrupulous he is, and violent, ’Gainst the least act of sin. Physic, or mathematics, Poetry, state, or bawdry, as I told you, She will endure, and never startle; but No word of controversy.
Sir Epicure Mammon I am schooled, good Ulen.
Face And you must praise her house, remember that, And her nobility.
Sir Epicure Mammon Let me alone: No herald, no, nor antiquary, Lungs, Shall do it better. Go.
Face Aside. Why, this is yet A kind of modern happiness, to have Dol Common for a great lady.
Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon Now, Epicure, Heighten thyself, talk to her all in gold; Rain her as many showers as Jove did drops Unto his Danae; show the god a miser, Compared with Mammon. What! The stone will do’t. She shall feel gold, taste gold, hear gold, sleep gold; Nay, we will concumbere gold: I will be puissant, And mighty in my talk to her.⁠—
Reenter Face, with Dol richly dressed.
Here she comes.
Face To him, Dol, suckle him.⁠—This is the noble knight, I told your ladyship⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon Madam, with your pardon, I kiss your vesture.
Dol Common Sir, I were uncivil If I would suffer that; my lip to you, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon I hope my lord your brother be in health, lady.
Dol Common My lord, my brother is, though I no lady, sir.
Face Aside. Well said, my Guinea bird.
Sir Epicure Mammon Right noble madam⁠—
Face Aside. O, we shall have most fierce idolatry.
Sir Epicure Mammon ’Tis your prerogative.
Dol Common Rather your courtesy.
Sir Epicure Mammon Were there nought else to enlarge your virtues to me, These answers speak your breeding and your blood.
Dol Common Blood we boast none, sir, a poor baron’s daughter.
Sir Epicure Mammon Poor! And gat you? Profane not. Had your father Slept all the happy remnant of his life After that act, lien but there still, and panted, He had done enough to make himself, his issue, And his posterity noble.
Dol Common Sir, although We may be said to want the gilt and trappings, The dress of honour, yet we strive to keep The seeds and the materials.
Sir Epicure Mammon I do see The old ingredient, virtue, was not lost, Nor the drug money used to make your compound. There is a strange nobility in your eye, This lip, that chin! Methinks you do resemble One of the Austriac princes.
Face Very like! Aside. Her father was an Irish costermonger.
Sir Epicure Mammon The house of Valois just had such a nose, And such a forehead yet the Medici Of Florence boast.
Dol Common Troth, and I have been likened To all these princes.
Face Aside. I’ll be sworn, I heard it.
Sir Epicure Mammon I know not how! It is not anyone, But e’en the very choice of all their features.
Face Aside. I’ll in, and laugh.
Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon A certain touch, or air, That sparkles a divinity, beyond An earthly beauty!
Dol Common O, you play the courtier.
Sir Epicure Mammon Good lady, give me leave⁠—
Dol Common In faith, I may not, To mock me, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon To burn in this sweet flame; The phoenix never knew a nobler death.
Dol Common Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy What you would build. This art, sir, in your words, Calls your whole faith in question.
Sir Epicure Mammon By my soul⁠—
Dol Common Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon Nature Never bestowed upon mortality A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature; She played the stepdame in all faces else: Sweet Madam, let me be particular⁠—
Dol Common Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance.
Sir Epicure Mammon In no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask How your fair graces pass the hours? I see You are lodged here, in the house of a rare man, An excellent artist; but what’s that to you?
Dol Common Yes, sir; I study here the mathematics, And distillation.
Sir Epicure Mammon O, I cry your pardon. He’s a divine instructor! Can extract The souls of all things by his art; call all The virtues, and the miracles of the sun, Into a temperate furnace; teach dull nature What her own forces are. A man, the emperor Has courted above Kelly; sent his medals And chains, to invite him.
Dol Common Ay, and for his physic, sir⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon Above the art of Aesculapius, That drew the envy of the thunderer! I know all this, and more.
Dol Common Troth, I am taken, sir, Whole with these studies, that contemplate nature.
Sir Epicure Mammon It is a noble humour; but this form Was not intended to so dark a use. Had you been crooked, foul, of some coarse mould A cloister had done well; but such a feature That might stand up the glory of a kingdom, To live recluse! Is a mere soloecism, Though in a nunnery. It must not be. I muse, my lord your brother will permit it: You should spend half my land first, were I he. Does not this diamond better on my finger, Than in the quarry?
Dol Common Yes.
Sir Epicure Mammon Why, you are like it. You were created, lady, for the light. Here, you shall wear it; take it, the first pledge Of what I speak, to bind you to believe me.
Dol Common In chains of adamant?
Sir Epicure Mammon Yes, the strongest bands. And take a secret too⁠—here, by your side, Doth stand this hour, the happiest man in Europe.
Dol Common You are contended, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon Nay, in true being, The envy of princes and the fear of states.
Dol Common Say you so, Sir Epicure?
Sir Epicure Mammon Yes, and thou shalt prove it, Daughter of honour. I have cast mine eye Upon thy form, and I will rear this beauty Above all styles.
Dol Common You mean no treason, sir?
Sir Epicure Mammon No, I will take away that jealousy. I am the lord of the philosopher’s stone, And thou the lady.
Dol Common How, sir! Have you that?
Sir Epicure Mammon I am the master of the mystery. This day the good old wretch here o’ the house Has made it for us: now he’s at projection. Think therefore thy first wish now, let me hear it; And it shall rain into thy lap, no shower, But floods of gold, whole cataracts, a deluge, To get a nation on thee.
Dol Common You are pleased, sir, To work on the ambition of our sex.
Sir Epicure Mammon I am pleased the glory of her sex should know, This nook, here, of the Friars is no climate For her to live obscurely in, to learn Physic and surgery, for the constable’s wife Of some odd hundred in Essex; but come forth, And taste the air of palaces; eat, drink The toils of empirics, and their boasted practice; Tincture of pearl, and coral, gold, and amber; Be seen at feasts and triumphs; have it asked, What miracle she is; set all the eyes Of court afire, like a burning glass, And work them into cinders, when the jewels Of twenty states adorn thee, and the light Strikes out the stars! That when thy name is mentioned, Queens may look pale; and we but showing our love, Nero’s Poppaea may be lost in story! Thus will we have it.
Dol Common I could well consent, sir. But, in a monarchy, how will this be? The prince will soon take notice, and both seize You and your stone, it being a wealth unfit For any private subject.
Sir Epicure Mammon If he knew it.
Dol Common Yourself do boast it, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon To thee, my life.
Dol Common O, but beware, sir! You may come to end The remnants of your days in a loathed prison, By speaking of it.
Sir Epicure Mammon ’Tis no idle fear. We’ll therefore go withal, my girl, and live In a free state, where we will eat our mullets, Soused in high-country wines, sup pheasants’ eggs, And have our cockles boiled in silver shells; Our shrimps to swim again, as when they lived, In a rare butter made of dolphins’ milk, Whose cream does look like opals; and with these Delicate meats set ourselves high for pleasure, And take us down again, and then renew Our youth and strength with drinking the elixir, And so enjoy a perpetuity Of life and lust! And thou shalt have thy wardrobe Richer than nature’s, still to change thyself, And vary oftener, for thy pride, than she, Or art, her wise and almost-equal servant.
Reenter Face.
Face Sir, you are too loud. I hear you every word Into the laboratory. Some fitter place; The garden, or great chamber above. How like you her?
Sir Epicure Mammon Excellent! Lungs. There’s for thee.
Gives him money.
Face But do you hear? Good sir, beware, no mention of the Rabbins.
Sir Epicure Mammon We think not on ’em.
Exeunt Mammon and Dol.
Face O, it is well, sir.⁠—Subtle!
Enter Subtle.
Dost thou not laugh?
Subtle Yes; are they gone?
Face All’s clear.
Subtle The widow is come.
Face And your quarrelling disciple?
Subtle Ay.
Face I must to my captainship again then.
Subtle Stay, bring them in first.
Face So I meant. What is she? A bonnibel?
Subtle I know not.
Face We’ll draw lots: You’ll stand to that?
Subtle What else?
Face O, for a suit, To fall now like a curtain, flap!
Subtle To the door, man.
Face You’ll have the first kiss, ’cause I am not ready.
Exit.
Subtle Yes, and perhaps hit you through both the nostrils.
Face Within. Who would you speak with?
Kastril Within. Where’s the Captain?
Face Within. Gone, sir, About some business.
Kastril Within. Gone!
Face Within. He’ll return straight. But Master Doctor, his lieutenant, is here.
Enter Kastril, followed by Dame Pliant.
Subtle Come near, my worshipful boy, my terrae fili, That is, my boy of land; make thy approaches: Welcome; I know thy lusts, and thy desires, And I will serve and satisfy them. Begin, Charge me from thence, or thence, or in this line; Here is my centre: ground thy quarrel.
Kastril You lie.
Subtle How, child of wrath and anger! The loud lie? For what, my sudden boy?
Kastril Nay, that look you to, I am aforehand.
Subtle O, this is no true grammar, And as ill logic! You must render causes, child, Your first and second intentions, know your canons And your divisions, moods, degrees, and differences, Your predicaments, substance, and accident, Series, extern and intern, with their causes, Efficient, material, formal, final, And have your elements perfect.
Kastril Aside. What is this? The angry tongue he talks in?
Subtle That false precept, Of being aforehand, has deceived a number, And made them enter quarrels, oftentimes, Before they were aware; and afterward, Against their wills.
Kastril How must I do then, sir?
Subtle I cry this lady mercy: she should first Have been saluted. Kisses her. I do call you lady, Because you are to be one, ere’t be long, My soft and buxom widow.
Kastril Is she, i’faith?
Subtle Yes, or my art is an egregious liar.
Kastril How know you?
Subtle By inspection on her forehead, And subtlety of her lip, which must be tasted Often to make a judgment. Kisses her again. ’Slight, she melts Like a myrobolane:⁠—here is yet a line, In rivo frontis, tells me he is no knight.
Dame Pliant What is he then, sir?
Subtle Let me see your hand. O, your linea fortunae makes it plain; And stella here in monte Veneris. But, most of all, junctura annularis. He is a soldier, or a man of art, lady, But shall have some great honour shortly.
Dame Pliant Brother, He’s a rare man, believe me!
Reenter Face, in his uniform.
Kastril Hold your peace. Here comes the t’other rare man.⁠—’Save you, Captain.
Face Good master Kastril! Is this your sister?
Kastril Ay, sir. Please you to kiss her, and be proud to know her.
Face I shall be proud to know you, lady.
Kisses her.
Dame Pliant Brother, He calls me lady too.
Kastril Ay, peace: I heard it.
Takes her aside.
Face The count is come.
Subtle Where is he?
Face At the door.
Subtle Why, you must entertain him.
Face What will you do With these the while?
Subtle Why, have them up, and show them Some fustian book, or the dark glass.
Face ’Fore God, She is a delicate dabchick! I must have her.
Exit.
Subtle Must you! Ay, if your fortune will, you must.⁠— Come, sir, the Captain will come to us presently: I’ll have you to my chamber of demonstrations, Where I will show you both the grammar and logic, And rhetoric of quarrelling; my whole method Drawn out in tables; and my instrument, That hath the several scales upon’t, shall make you Able to quarrel at a straw’s-breadth by moonlight. And, lady, I’ll have you look in a glass, Some half an hour, but to clear your eyesight, Against you see your fortune; which is greater, Than I may judge upon the sudden, trust me.
Exit, followed by Kastril and Dame Pliant.**
Reenter Face.
Face Where are you, Doctor?
Subtle Within. I’ll come to you presently.
Face I will have this same widow, now I have seen her, On any composition.
Reenter Subtle.
Subtle What do you say?
Face Have you disposed of them?
Subtle I have sent them up.
Face Subtle, in troth, I needs must have this widow.
Subtle Is that the matter?
Face Nay, but hear me.
Subtle Go to. If you rebel once, Dol shall know it all: Therefore be quiet, and obey your chance.
Face Nay, thou art so violent now⁠—Do but conceive, Thou art old, and canst not serve⁠—
Subtle Who cannot? I? ’Slight, I will serve her with thee, for a⁠—
Face Nay, But understand: I’ll give you composition.
Subtle I will not treat with thee; what! Sell my fortune? ’Tis better than my birthright. Do not murmur: Win her, and carry her. If you grumble, Dol Knows it directly.
Face Well, sir, I am silent. Will you go help to fetch in Don in state?
Exit.
Subtle I follow you, sir. We must keep Face in awe, Or he will overlook us like a tyrant.
Reenter Face, introducing Surly disguised as a Spaniard.
Brain of a tailor! Who comes here? Don John!
Pertinax Surly Señores, beso las manos a vuestras mercedes.
Subtle Would you had stooped a little, and kissed our anos!
Face Peace, Subtle.