The Alchemist - Ben Jonson (e reader manga txt) 📗
- Author: Ben Jonson
Book online «The Alchemist - Ben Jonson (e reader manga txt) 📗». Author Ben Jonson
—Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, Would her Grace speak with me?
I come.—Help, Dol!
Speaks through the keyhole.
Who’s there? Sir Epicure,
My master’s in the way. Please you to walk
Three or four turns, but till his back be turned,
And I am for you.—Quickly, Dol!
Her Grace
Commends her kindly to you, master Dapper.
I long to see her Grace.
SubtleShe now is set
At dinner in her bed, and she has sent you
From her own private trencher, a dead mouse,
And a piece of gingerbread, to be merry withal,
And stay your stomach, lest you faint with fasting:
Yet if you could hold out till she saw you, she says,
It would be better for you.
Sir, he shall
Hold out, an ’twere this two hours, for her highness;
I can assure you that. We will not lose
All we have done.—
He must not see, nor speak
To anybody, till then.
For that we’ll put, sir,
A stay in’s mouth.
Of what?
FaceOf gingerbread.
Make you it fit. He that hath pleased her Grace
Thus far, shall not now crinkle for a little.—
Gape, sir, and let him fit you.
Where shall we now
Bestow him?
In the privy.
SubtleCome along, sir,
I now must show you Fortune’s privy lodgings.
Are they perfumed, and his bath ready?
SubtleAll:
Only the fumigation’s somewhat strong.
Speaking through the keyhole.
Sir Epicure, I am yours, sir, by and by.
A room in Lovewit’s house.
Enter Face and Mammon. FaceO sir, you’re come in the only finest time.—
Sir Epicure MammonWhere’s master?
FaceNow preparing for projection, sir.
Your stuff will be all changed shortly.
Into gold?
FaceTo gold and silver, sir.
Sir Epicure MammonSilver I care not for.
FaceYes, sir, a little to give beggars.
Sir Epicure MammonWhere’s the lady?
FaceAt hand here. I have told her such brave things of you,
Touching your bounty, and your noble spirit—
Hast thou?
FaceAs she is almost in her fit to see you.
But, good sir, no divinity in your conference,
For fear of putting her in rage.—
I warrant thee.
FaceSix men [sir] will not hold her down: and then,
If the old man should hear or see you—
Fear not.
FaceThe 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.
I am schooled, good Ulen.
FaceAnd you must praise her house, remember that,
And her nobility.
Let me alone:
No herald, no, nor antiquary, Lungs,
Shall do it better. Go.
Aside. Why, this is yet
A kind of modern happiness, to have
Dol Common for a great lady.
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.—
Here she comes.
FaceTo him, Dol, suckle him.—This is the noble knight,
I told your ladyship—
Madam, with your pardon,
I kiss your vesture.
Sir, I were uncivil
If I would suffer that; my lip to you, sir.
I hope my lord your brother be in health, lady.
Dol CommonMy lord, my brother is, though I no lady, sir.
FaceAside. Well said, my Guinea bird.
Sir Epicure MammonRight noble madam—
FaceAside. O, we shall have most fierce idolatry.
Sir Epicure Mammon’Tis your prerogative.
Dol CommonRather your courtesy.
Sir Epicure MammonWere there nought else to enlarge your virtues to me,
These answers speak your breeding and your blood.
Blood we boast none, sir, a poor baron’s daughter.
Sir Epicure MammonPoor! 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.
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.
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.
Very like!
Aside.
Her father was an Irish costermonger.
The house of Valois just had such a nose,
And such a forehead yet the Medici
Of Florence boast.
Troth, and I have been likened
To all these princes.
Aside. I’ll be sworn, I heard it.
Sir Epicure MammonI know not how! It is not anyone,
But e’en the very choice of all their features.
Aside. I’ll in, and laugh.
Exit. Sir Epicure MammonA certain touch, or air,
That sparkles a divinity, beyond
An earthly beauty!
O, you play the courtier.
Sir Epicure MammonGood lady, give me leave—
Dol CommonIn faith, I may not,
To mock me, sir.
To burn in this sweet flame;
The phoenix never knew a nobler death.
Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy
What you would build. This art, sir, in your words,
Calls your whole faith in question.
By my soul—
Dol CommonNay, oaths are made of the same air, sir.
Sir Epicure MammonNature
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—
Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance.
Sir Epicure MammonIn no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask
How your fair
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