The Alchemist - Ben Jonson (nice books to read txt) 📗

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.

  MAM. Well said, father!
  Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
  He'll bray you in a mortar.

  SUR. 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.

  SUB. Sir?

  SUR. What else are all your terms,
  Whereon no one of your writers 'grees with other?
  Of your elixir, your lac virginis,
  Your stone, your med'cine, and your chrysosperm,
  Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,
  Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,
  Your marchesite, 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 egg-shells, 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?

  SUB. And all these named,
  Intending but one thing; which art our writers
  Used to obscure their art.

  MAM. Sir, so I told him—
  Because the simple idiot should not learn it,
  And make it vulgar.

  SUB. Was not all the knowledge
  Of the Aegyptians 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,
  Wrapp'd in perplexed allegories?

  MAM. I urg'd that,
  And clear'd to him, that Sisyphus was damn'd
  To roll the ceaseless stone, only because
  He would have made Ours common.

  DOL [APPEARS AT THE DOOR].—
  Who is this?

  SUB. 'Sprecious!—What do you mean? go in, good lady,
  Let me entreat you.
  [DOL RETIRES.]
  —Where's this varlet?

  [RE-ENTER FACE.]

  FACE. Sir.

  SUB. You very knave! do you use me thus?

  FACE. Wherein, sir?

  SUB. Go in and see, you traitor. Go!

  [EXIT FACE.]

  MAM. Who is it, sir?

  SUB. Nothing, sir; nothing.

  MAM. What's the matter, good sir?
  I have not seen you thus distemper'd: who is't?

  SUB. All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries;
  But ours the most ignorant.—
  [RE-ENTER FACE.]
  What now?

  FACE. 'Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.

  SUB. Would she, sir! Follow me.

  [EXIT.]

  MAM [STOPPING HIM]. Stay, Lungs.

  FACE. I dare not, sir.

  MAM. Stay, man; what is she?

  FACE. A lord's sister, sir.

  MAM. How! pray thee, stay.

  FACE. She's mad, sir, and sent hither—
  He'll be mad too.—

  MAM. I warrant thee.—
  Why sent hither?

  FACE. Sir, to be cured.

  SUB [WITHIN]. Why, rascal!

  FACE. Lo you!—Here, sir!

  [EXIT.]

  MAM. 'Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece.

  SUR. Heart, this is a bawdy-house! I will be burnt else.

  MAM. 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.—
  [RE-ENTER FACE.]
  How now, Lungs!

  FACE. Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant
  To have told your worship all. This must not hear.

  MAM. No, he will not be "gull'd;" 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.

  MAM. 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.

  SUR. Be not gull'd, sir Mammon.

  MAM. Wherein? pray ye, be patient.

  SUR. Yes, as you are,
  And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores.

  MAM. You are too foul, believe it.—Come here, Ulen,
  One word.

  FACE. I dare not, in good faith.
  [GOING.]

  MAM. Stay, knave.

  FACE. He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir.

  MAM. 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, any thing—

  MAM. Is she no way accessible? no means,
  No trick to give a man a taste of her—wit—
  Or so?

  SUB [WITHIN]. Ulen!

  FACE. I'll come to you again, sir.

  [EXIT.]

  MAM. Surly, I did not think one of your breeding
  Would traduce personages of worth.

  SUR. Sir Epicure,
  Your friend to use; yet still loth to be gull'd:
  I do not like your philosophical bawds.
  Their stone is letchery enough to pay for,
  Without this bait.

  MAM. 'Heart, you abuse yourself.
  I know the lady, and her friends, and means,
  The original of this disaster. Her brother
  Has told me all.

  SUR. And yet you never saw her
  Till now!

  MAM. O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it,
  One of the treacherousest memories, I do think,
  Of all mankind.

  SUR. What call you her brother?

  MAM. My lord—
  He will not have his name known, now I think on't.

  SUR. A very treacherous memory!

  MAM. On my faith—

  SUR. Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it,
  Till we meet next.

  MAM. Nay, by this hand, 'tis true.
  He's one I honour, and my noble friend;
  And I respect his house.

  SUR. 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.

  [RE-ENTER 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.
  Sir,
  [WHISPERS MAMMON.]
  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?

  SUR. Sir, I will.—
  [WALKS ASIDE.]
  But, by attorney, and to a second purpose.
  Now, I am sure it is a bawdy-house;
  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.

  SUR. I will not, sir.
  Sir Epicure, I shall leave you.

  [EXIT.]

  MAM. I follow you, straight.

  FACE. But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion.
  This gentleman has a parlous head.

  MAM. But wilt thou Ulen,
  Be constant to thy promise?

  FACE. As my life, sir.

  MAM. 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.

  MAM. Wilt thou do this?

  FACE. Will I, sir!

  MAM. Lungs, my Lungs!
  I love thee.

  FACE. Send your stuff, sir, that my master
  May busy himself about projection.

  MAM. Thou hast witch'd me, rogue: take, go.
  [GIVES HIM MONEY.]

  FACE. Your jack, and all, sir.

  MAM. 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!

  MAM. 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.

  MAM. A count, nay, a count palatine—

  FACE. Good, sir, go.

  MAM. Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster.

  [EXIT.]

  [RE-ENTER SUBTLE AND DOL.]

  SUB. Has he bit? has he bit?

  FACE. And swallowed, too, my Subtle.
  I have given him line, and now he plays, i'faith.

  SUB. 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.

  SUB. Dol, my Lord What'ts'hums sister, you must now
  Bear yourself statelich.

  DOL. 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!

  SUB. 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.

  SUB. O monsieur Caution, that WILL NOT BE GULL'D?

  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.]

  SUB. 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. I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman.

  SUB. 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.]
  Now,
  In a new tune, new gesture, but old language.—
  This fellow is sent from one negociates 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?

  [RE-ENTER FACE.]

  FACE. Sir!

  SUB. 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?

  SUB. No: terra damnata
  Must not have entrance in the work.—Who are you?

  ANA. A faithful brother, if it please you.

  SUB. 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?

  ANA. I understand no heathen language, truly.

  SUB. Heathen! you Knipper-doling? is Ars sacra,
  Or chrysopoeia, or spagyrica,
  Or the pamphysic, or panarchic knowledge,
  A heathen language?

  ANA. Heathen Greek, I take it.

  SUB. How! heathen Greek?

  ANA. All's heathen but the Hebrew.

  SUB. Sirrah, my varlet, stand you