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

SUB. What to do? lick figs
  Out at my—

  FACE. Rogue, rogue!—out of all your sleights.

  DOL. Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?

  SUB. O, let the wild sheep loose. I'll gum your silks
  With good strong water, an you come.

  DOL. Will you have
  The neighbours hear you? will you betray all?
  Hark! I hear somebody.

  FACE. Sirrah—

  SUB. I shall mar
  All that the tailor has made, if you approach.

  FACE. You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave,
  Dare you do this?

  SUB. Yes, faith; yes, faith.

  FACE. Why, who
  Am I, my mungrel? who am I?

  SUB. I'll tell you.,
  Since you know not yourself.

  FACE. Speak lower, rogue.

  SUB. Yes, you were once (time's not long past) the good,
  Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept
  Your master's worship's house here in the Friars,
  For the vacations—

  FACE. Will you be so loud?

  SUB. Since, by my means, translated suburb-captain.

  FACE. By your means, doctor dog!

  SUB. Within man's memory,
  All this I speak of.

  FACE. Why, I pray you, have I
  Been countenanced by you, or you by me?
  Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.

  SUB. I do not hear well.

  FACE. Not of this, I think it.
  But I shall put you in mind, sir;—at Pie-corner,
  Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks' stalls,
  Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk
  Piteously costive, with your pinch'd-horn-nose,
  And your complexion of the Roman wash,
  Stuck full of black and melancholic worms,
  Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard.

  SUB. I wish you could advance your voice a little.

  FACE. When you went pinn'd up in the several rags
  You had raked and pick'd from dunghills, before day;
  Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes;
  A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloke,
  That scarce would cover your no buttocks—

  SUB. So, sir!

  FACE. When all your alchemy, and your algebra,
  Your minerals, vegetals, and animals,
  Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades,
  Could not relieve your corps with so much linen
  Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
  I gave you countenance, credit for your coals,
  Your stills, your glasses, your materials;
  Built you a furnace, drew you customers,
  Advanced all your black arts; lent you, beside,
  A house to practise in—

  SUB. Your master's house!

  FACE. Where you have studied the more thriving skill
  Of bawdry since.

  SUB. Yes, in your master's house.
  You and the rats here kept possession.
  Make it not strange. I know you were one could keep
  The buttery-hatch still lock'd, and save the chippings,
  Sell the dole beer to aqua-vitae men,
  The which, together with your Christmas vails
  At post-and-pair, your letting out of counters,
  Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks,
  And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs,
  Here, since your mistress' death hath broke up house.

  FACE. You might talk softlier, rascal.

  SUB. No, you scarab,
  I'll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you
  How to beware to tempt a Fury again,
  That carries tempest in his hand and voice.

  FACE. The place has made you valiant.

  SUB. No, your clothes.—
  Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee out of dung,
  So poor, so wretched, when no living thing
  Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse?
  Rais'd thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots,
  Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fix'd thee
  In the third region, call'd our state of grace?
  Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
  Would twice have won me the philosopher's work?
  Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit
  For more than ordinary fellowships?
  Giv'n thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions,
  Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards,
  Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else?
  Made thee a second in mine own great art?
  And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel,
  Do you fly out in the projection?
  Would you be gone now?

  DOL. Gentlemen, what mean you?
  Will you mar all?

  SUB. Slave, thou hadst had no name—

  DOL. Will you undo yourselves with civil war?

  SUB. Never been known, past equi clibanum,
  The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars,
  Or an ale-house darker than deaf John's; been lost
  To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters,
  Had not I been.

  DOL. Do you know who hears you, sovereign?

  FACE. Sirrah—

  DOL. Nay, general, I thought you were civil.

  FACE. I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.

  SUB. And hang thyself, I care not.

  FACE. Hang thee, collier,
  And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will,
  Since thou hast moved me—

  DOL. O, this will o'erthrow all.

  FACE. Write thee up bawd in Paul's, have all thy tricks
  Of cozening with a hollow cole, dust, scrapings,
  Searching for things lost, with a sieve and sheers,
  Erecting figures in your rows of houses,
  And taking in of shadows with a glass,
  Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee,
  Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey's.

  DOL. Are you sound?
  Have you your senses, masters?

  FACE. I will have
  A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,
  Shall prove a true philosopher's stone to printers.

  SUB. Away, you trencher-rascal!

  FACE. Out, you dog-leech!
  The vomit of all prisons—

  DOL. Will you be
  Your own destructions, gentlemen?

  FACE. Still spew'd out
  For lying too heavy on the basket.

  SUB. Cheater!

  FACE. Bawd!

  SUB. Cow-herd!

  FACE. Conjurer!

  SUB. Cut-purse!

  FACE. Witch!

  DOL. O me!
  We are ruin'd, lost! have you no more regard
  To your reputations? where's your judgment? 'slight,
  Have yet some care of me, of your republic—

  FACE. Away, this brach! I'll bring thee, rogue, within
  The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio
  Of Harry the Eighth: ay, and perhaps thy neck
  Within a noose, for laundring gold and barbing it.

  DOL [SNATCHES FACE'S SWORD]. You'll bring your head within
  a cockscomb, will you?
  And you, sir, with your menstrue—
  [DASHES SUBTLE'S VIAL OUT OF HIS HAND.]
  Gather it up.—
  'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,
  Leave off your barking, and grow one again,
  Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.
  I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal,
  For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.
  Have you together cozen'd all this while,
  And all the world, and shall it now be said,
  You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?
  [TO FACE.]
  You will accuse him! you will "bring him in
  Within the statute!" Who shall take your word?
  A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,
  Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust
  So much as for a feather:
  [TO SUBTLE.]
  and you, too,
  Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult,
  And claim a primacy in the divisions!
  You must be chief! as if you only had
  The powder to project with, and the work
  Were not begun out of equality?
  The venture tripartite? all things in common?
  Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs,
  Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,
  And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,
  And lose not the beginning of a term,
  Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,
  And take my part, and quit you.

  FACE. 'Tis his fault;
  He ever murmurs, and objects his pains,
  And says, the weight of all lies upon him.

  SUB. Why, so it does.

  DOL. How does it? do not we
  Sustain our parts?

  SUB. Yes, but they are not equal.

  DOL. Why, if your part exceed to-day, I hope
  Ours may, to-morrow match it.

  SUB. Ay, they MAY.

  DOL. May, murmuring mastiff! ay, and do. Death on me!
  Help me to throttle him.

  [SEIZES SUB. BY THE THROAT.]

  SUB. Dorothy! mistress Dorothy!
  'Ods precious, I'll do any thing. What do you mean?

  DOL. Because o' your fermentation and cibation?

  SUB. Not I, by heaven—

  DOL. Your Sol and Luna
  [TO FACE.]
  —help me.

  SUB. Would I were hang'd then? I'll conform myself.

  DOL. Will you, sir? do so then, and quickly: swear.

  SUB. What should I swear?

  DOL. To leave your faction, sir,
  And labour kindly in the common work.

  SUB. Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside.
  I only used those speeches as a spur
  To him.

  DOL. I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we?

  FACE. 'Slid, prove to-day, who shall shark best.

  SUB. Agreed.

  DOL. Yes, and work close and friendly.

  SUB. 'Slight, the knot
  Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me.

  [THEY SHAKE HANDS.]

  DOL. Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make
  A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours,
  That scarce have smiled twice since the king came in,
  A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals,
  Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride,
  Or you t' have but a hole to thrust your heads in,
  For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree.
  And may don Provost ride a feasting long,
  In his old velvet jerkin and stain'd scarfs,
  My noble sovereign, and worthy general,
  Ere we contribute a new crewel garter
  To his most worsted worship.

  SUB. Royal Dol!
  Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself.

  FACE. For which at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph,
  And not be styled Dol Common, but Dol Proper,
  Dol Singular: the longest cut at night,
  Shall draw thee for his Doll Particular.

  [BELL RINGS WITHOUT.]

  SUB. Who's that? one rings. To the window, Dol:
  [EXIT DOL.]
  —pray heaven,
  The master do not trouble us this quarter.

  FACE. O, fear not him. While there dies one a week
  O' the plague, he's safe, from thinking toward London.
  Beside, he's busy at his hop-yards now;
  I had a letter from him. If he do,
  He'll send such word, for airing of the house,
  As you shall have sufficient time to quit it:
  Though we break up a fortnight, 'tis no matter.

  [RE-ENTER DOL.]

  SUB. Who is it, Dol?

  DOL. A fine young quodling.

  FACE. O,
  My lawyer's clerk, I lighted on last night,
  In Holborn, at the Dagger. He would have
  (I told you of him) a familiar,
  To rifle with at horses, and win cups.

  DOL. O, let him in.

  SUB. Stay. Who shall do't?

  FACE. Get you
  Your robes on: I will meet him as going out.

  DOL. And what shall I do?

  FACE. Not be seen; away!
  [EXIT DOL.]
  Seem you very reserv'd.

  SUB. Enough.

  [EXIT.]

  FACE [ALOUD AND RETIRING]. God be wi' you, sir,
  I pray you let him know that I was here:
  His name is Dapper. I would gladly have staid, but—

  DAP [WITHIN]. Captain, I am here.

  FACE. Who's that?—He's come, I think, doctor.

  [ENTER DAPPER.]

  Good faith, sir, I was going away.

  DAP. In truth
  I am very sorry, captain.

  FACE. But I thought
  Sure I should meet you.

  DAP. Ay, I am very glad.
  I had a scurvy writ or two to make,
  And I had lent my watch last night to one
  That dines to-day at the sheriff's, and so was robb'd
  Of my past-time.
  [RE-ENTER SUBTLE IN HIS VELVET CAP AND GOWN.]
  Is this the cunning-man?

  FACE. This is his worship.

  DAP. Is he a doctor?

  FACE. Yes.

  DAP. And have you broke with him, captain?

  FACE. Ay.

  DAP. And how?

  FACE. Faith, he does make the matter, sir, so dainty
  I know not what to say.

  DAP. Not so, good captain.

  FACE. Would I were fairly rid of it, believe me.

  DAP. Nay, now you grieve me, sir. Why should you wish so?
  I dare assure you, I'll not be ungrateful.

  FACE. I cannot think you will, sir. But the law
  Is such a thing—and then he says, Read's matter
  Falling so lately.

  DAP. Read! he was an ass,
  And dealt, sir, with a fool.

  FACE. It was a clerk, sir.

  DAP. A clerk!

  FACE. Nay, hear me, sir. You know the law
  Better, I think—

  DAP. I should, sir, and the danger:
  You know, I shewed the statute to you.

  FACE. You did so.

  DAP. And will I tell then!