The Alchemist Alchemist The EMOTHE0304

Source text for this digital edition:
Jonson, Ben. The Alchemist. Edited by David Bevington. In: Bevington, David et al. (eds.). Renaissance Drama: A Norton Anthology. New York: W W Norton, 2001. p. 868-959.

Digital text editor for EMOTHE:

Vives Martínez, Mireia

Note on this digital edition

Reproduced with kind permission by W. W. Norton & Company. ©W. W. Norton & Company

To the lady most deserving her name and blood, Mary, Lady Wroth.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

SUBTLE the alchemist

FACE the housekeeper

DOLL Common their colleague

DAPPER a clerk

[Abel] DRUGGER a tobacco man

LOVEWIT master of the house

[Sir] Epicure MAMMON a knight

[Pertinax] SURLY a gamester

TRIBULATION [Wholesome] a pastor of Amsterdam

ANANIAS a deacon there

KASTRIL the angry boy

Dame PLIANT his sister, a widow

NEIGHBORS

OFFICERS

To the Reader

If thou be'st more, thou art an understander, and then I trust
thee. If thou art one that tak'st up, and but a pretender, beware
at what hands thou receiv'st thy commodity; for thou wert
never more fair in the way to be cozened (than in this age) in
poetry, especially in plays, wherein, now, the concupiscence of
dances and antics so reigneth, as to run away from Nature
and be afraid of her is the only point of art that tickles the
spectators. But how out of purpose and place do I name art?
When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of
it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders
of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms,
when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily
with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned
and sufficient for this by the many, through their excellent
vice of judgment. For they commend writers as they do fencers
or wrestlers, who, if they come in robustiously and put for
it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver
fellows, when many times their own rudeness is the cause of
their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that
boisterous force the foil. I deny not but that these men, who
always seek to do more than enough, may sometime happen
on some thing that is good and great; but very seldom, and
when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It
sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid
and vile about it, as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness
than a faint shadow. I speak not this out of a hope to do
good on any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to
the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more
suffrages, because the most favor common errors. But I give
thee this warning, that there is a great difference between
those that (to gain the opinion of copy) utter all they can, however
unfitly, and those that use election and a mean. For it is
only the disease of the unskillful to think rude things greater
than polished, or scattered more numerous than composed.

The Argument

T he sickness hot, a master quit for fear
H is house in town, and left one servant there.
E ase him corrupted, and gave means to know
A cheater and his punk, who, now brought low,
L eaving their narrow practice, were become
C oz'ners at large; and, only wanting some
H ouse to set up, with him they here contract
E ach for a share, and all begin to act.
M uch company they draw, and much abuse,
I n casting figures, telling fortunes, news,
S elling of flies, flat bawdry, with the stone
T ill it and they and all in fume are gone.

Prologue

Fortune, that favors fools, these two short hours
We wish away, both for your sakes and ours,
Judging spectators, and desire in place
To th'author justice, to ourselves but grace.
Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known
No country's mirth is better than our own.
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now called humors, feed the stage,
And which have still been subject for the rage
Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen
Did never aim to grieve, but better, men,
Howe'er the age he lives in doth endure
Then vices that she breeds above their cure.
But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And in their working gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased
But will with such fair correctives be pleased;
For here he doth not fear who can apply.
If there be any that will sit so nigh
Unto the stream to look what it doth run,
They shall find things they'd think or wish were done,
They are so natural follies, but so shown
As even the doers may see and yet not own.

1.1

[Enter] Face [with a sword], Subtle [with a vial of acid, and] Doll Common.

FACE

Believe't, I will.

SUBTLE

Thy worst. I fart at thee!

DOLL

Ha' you your wits? Why, gentlemen! For love –

FACE

Sirrah, I'll strip you –

SUBTLE

What to do? Lick figs

Out at my –

FACE

Rogue, rogue, out of all your sleights!

DOLL

Nay, look ye! Sovereign, General, are you madmen?

SUBTLE

Oh, let the wild sheep loose. –I'll gum your silks

With good strong water, an you come.

DOLL

Will you have

The neighbors hear you? Will you betray all?

Hark, I hear somebody.

FACE

Sirrah –

SUBTLE

I shall mar

All that the tailor has made, if you approach.

FACE

You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave,

Dare you do this?

SUBTLE

Yes, faith, yes, faith.

FACE

Why, who

Am I, my mongrel? Who am I?

SUBTLE

I'll tell you,

Since you know not yourself –

FACE

Speak lower, rogue.

SUBTLE

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?

SUBTLE

Since, by my means, translated suburb-captain.

FACE

By your means, Doctor Dog?

SUBTLE

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.

SUBTLE

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 pinched-horn nose

And your complexion of the Roman wash,

Stuck full of black and melancholic worms,

Like powder-corns shot at th'artillery yard.

SUBTLE

I wish you could advance your voice a little.

FACE

When you went pinned up in the several rags

You'd raked and picked from dunghills before day,

Your feet in moldy slippers for your kibes,

A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloak

That scarce would cover your no-buttocks –

SUBTLE

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 corpse, with so much linen

Would make you tinder but to see a fire,

I ga' you count'nance, 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 practice in –

SUBTLE

Your master's house.

FACE

Where you have studied the more thriving skill

Of bawdry since.

SUBTLE

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 locked 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.

SUBTLE

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.

SUBTLE

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?

Raised thee from brooms and dust and wat'ring pots?

Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fixed thee

I'the third region, called our state of grace?

Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains

Would twice have won me the philosophers' 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, cockpit, 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 i'the projection?

Would you be gone, now?

DOLL

Gentlemen, what mean you?

Will you mar all?

SUBTLE

Slave, thou hadst had no name –

DOLL

Will you undo yourselves with civil war?

SUBTLE

Never been known, past equi clibanum,

The heat of horse dung, underground, in cellars,

Or an alehouse darker than deaf John's; been lost

To all mankind but laundresses and tapsters,

Had not I been.

DOLL

D'you know who hears you, sovereign?

FACE

Sirrah –

DOLL

Nay, General, I thought you were civil.

FACE

I shall turn desperate if you grow thus loud.

SUBTLE

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 –

DOLL

(aside)

Oh, this'll o'erthrow all.

FACE

Write thee up bawd in Paul's; have all thy tricks

Of cozening with a hollow coal, dust, scrapings,

Searching for things lost with a sieve and shears,

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.

DOLL

Are you sound?

100

Ha' you your senses, masters?

FACE

I will have

101

A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,

102

Shall prove a true philosophers' stone to printers.

SUBTLE

103

Away, you trencher-rascal!

FACE

Out, you dog-leech,

104

The vomit of all prisons –

DOLL

Will you be

105

Your own destructions, gentlemen?

FACE

Still spewed out

106

For lying too heavy o'the basket!

SUBTLE

Cheater!

FACE

107

Bawd!

SUBTLE

Cowherd!

FACE

Conjurer!

SUBTLE

Cutpurse!

FACE

Witch!

DOLL

Oh, me!

108

We are ruined! Lost! Ha' you no more regard

109

To your reputations? Where's your judgment? 'Slight,

110

Have yet some care of me, o'your republic –

FACE

111

Away this brach! I'll bring thee, rogue, within

112

The statue of sorcery, tricesimo tertio

113

Of Harry the Eighth, ay, and perhaps thy neck

114

Within a noose, for laund'ring gold and barbing it.

DOLL

115

You'll bring your head within a coxcomb, will you?

She catcheth out Face his sword, and breaks Subtle's glass.

116

And you, sir, with your menstrue, gather it up.

117

'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,

118

Leave off your barking and grow one again,

119

Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.

120

I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal

121

For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt o'you both.

122

Ha' you together cozened all this while,

123

And all the world, and shall it now be said

124

You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?

125

[To Face]

You will accuse him? You will bring him in

126

Within the statue? Who shall take your word?

127

A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,

128

Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust

129

So much as for a feather!

[To Subtle]

And you, too,

130

Will give the cause, forsooth? You will insult,

131

And claim a primacy in the divisions?

132

You must be chief, as if you only had

133

The powder to project with, and the work

134

Were not begun out of equality?

135

The venture tripartite? All things in common?

136

Without priority? 'Sdeath, you perpetual curs,

137

Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly

138

And heartily and lovingly, as you should,

139

And lose not the beginning of a term,

140

Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,

141

And take my part and quit you.

FACE

'Tis his fault.

142

He ever murmurs, and objects his pains,

143

And says the weight of all lies upon him.

SUBTLE

144

Why, so it does.

DOLL

How does it? Do not we

145

Sustain our parts?

SUBTLE

Yes, but they are not equal.

DOLL

146

Why, if your part exceed today, I hope

147

Ours may tomorrow match it.

SUBTLE

Ay, they may.

DOLL

148

“May,” murmuring mastiff? Ay, and do. Death on me!

149

[To Face]

Help me to throttle him.

[She seizes Subtle.]

SUBTLE

Dorothy, mistress Dorothy!

150

'Od's precious, I'll do anything. What do you mean?

DOLL

151

Because o'your fermentation and cibation?

SUBTLE

152

Not I, by heaven –

DOLL

Your Sol and Luna –

[To Face]

Help me.

SUBTLE

153

Would I were hanged, then! I'll conform myself.

DOLL

154

Will you, sir? Do so, then, and quickly. Swear.

SUBTLE

155

What should I swear?

DOLL

To leave your faction, sir,

156

And labor kindly in the common work.

SUBTLE

157

Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside.

158

I only used those speeches as a spur

159

To him.

DOLL

I hope we need no spurs, sir.

[To Face]

Do we?

FACE

160

'Slid, prove today who shall shark best.

SUBTLE

Agreed.

DOLL

161

Yes, and work close and friendly.

SUBTLE

'Slight, the knot

162

Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me.

[They shake hands.]

DOLL

163

Why so, my good baboons! Shall we go make

164

A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbors,

165

That scarce have smiled twice sin' the king came in,

166

A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals

167

Would run themselves from breath to see me ride,

168

Or you t'have but a hole to thrust your heads in,

169

For which you should pay ear-rent? No, agree.

170

And may Don Provost ride a-feasting long

171

In his old velvet jerkin and stained scarves,

172

My noble sovereign and worthy general,

173

Ere we contribute a new crewel garter

174

To his most worsted worship.

SUBTLE

Royal Doll!

175

Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself.

FACE

176

For which, at supper, thou shalt sit in triumph,

177

And not be styled Doll Common but Doll Proper,

178

Doll Singular. The longest cut, at night,

179

Shall draw thee for his Doll Particular.

[A bell rings.]

SUBTLE

180

Who's that? One rings. To the window, Doll! Pray heav'n

181

The master do not trouble us this quarter.

[Doll goes to investigate.]

FACE

182

Oh, fear not him. While there dies one a week

183

O'the plague, he's safe from thinking toward London.

184

Beside, he's busy at his hopyards now;

185

I had a letter from him. If he do,

186

He'll send such word for airing o'the house

187

As you shall have sufficient time to quit it.

188

Though we break up a fortnight, 'tis no matter.

SUBTLE

189

[to Doll as she returns]

Who is it, Doll?

DOLL

A fine young quodling.

FACE

Oh,

190

My lawyer's clerk I lighted on last night

191

In Holborn, at the Dagger. He would have

192

(I told you of him) a familiar

193

To rifle with at horses and win cups.

DOLL

194

Oh, let him in.

SUBTLE

Stay. Who shall do't?

FACE

Get you

195

Your robes on. I will meet him, as going out.

DOLL

196

And what shall I do?

FACE

Not be seen. Away!

[Exit Doll.]

197

Seem you very reserved.

SUBTLE

Enough.

[Exit.]

FACE

198

[speaking loudly to Subtle offstage]

God b'w'you, sir.

199

I pray you, let him know that I was here.

200

His name is Dapper. I would gladly have stayed, but –

1.2

DAPPER

[calling from offstage]

Captain, I am here.

FACE

Who's that?

[He shouts to Subtle]

He's come, I think, Doctor.

[Enter] Dapper.

[To Dapper]

Good faith, sir, I was going away.

DAPPER

In truth,

I'm very sorry, Captain.

FACE

But I thought

Sure I should meet you.

DAPPER

Ay, I'm very glad.

I had a scurvy writ or two to make,

And I had lent my watch last night to one

That dines today at the sheriff's, and so was robbed

Of my pass-time.

[Enter] Subtle [in his robes. He stands apart, oblivious to Face and Dapper as they converse in hushed tones].

Is this the cunning man?

FACE

This is His Worship.

DAPPER

Is he a doctor?

FACE

Yes.

DAPPER

And ha' you broke with him, Captain?

FACE

Ay.

DAPPER

And how?

FACE

Faith, he does make the matter, sir, so dainty,

I know not what to say –

DAPPER

Not so, good Captain.

FACE

Would I were fairly rid on't, believe me.

DAPPER

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 –

DAPPER

Read? He was an ass,

And dealt, sir, with a fool.

FACE

It was a clerk, sir.

DAPPER

A clerk?

FACE

Nay, hear me, sir. You know the law

Better, I think –

DAPPER

I should, sir; and the danger.

You know I showed the statue to you?

FACE

You did so.

DAPPER

And will I tell, then? By this hand of flesh,

Would it might never write good court hand more

If I discovered. What do you think of me,

That I am a chiaus?

FACE

What's that?

DAPPER

The Turk was here –

As one would say, do you think I am a Turk?

FACE

I'll tell the doctor so.

DAPPER

Do, good sweet Captain.

[They approach Subtle.]

FACE

Come, noble Doctor, pray thee, let's prevail.

This is he gentleman, and he is no chiaus.

SUBTLE

Captain, I have returned you all my answer.

I would do much, sir, for your love –but this

I neither may nor can.

FACE

Tut, do not say so.

You deal now with a noble fellow, Doctor,

One that will thank you richly, and he's no chiaus.

Let that, sir, move you.

SUBTLE

Pray you, forbear –

FACE

He has

Four angels here –

SUBTLE

You do me wrong, good sir.

FACE

Doctor, wherein? To tempt you with these spirits?

SUBTLE

To tempt my art and love, sir, to my peril.

'Fore heav'n, I scarce can think you are my friend,

That so would draw me to apparent danger.

FACE

I draw you? A horse draw you, and a halter,

You and your flies together –

DAPPER

Nay, good Captain.

FACE

That know no difference of men.

SUBTLE

Good words, sir.

FACE

Good deeds, Sir Doctor Dog's Meat. 'Slight, I bring you

No cheating Clim o'the Cloughs, or Claribels,

That look as big as five-and-fifty and flush,

And spit out secrets like hot custard –

DAPPER

Captain!

FACE

Nor any melancholic underscribe

Shall tell the vicar, but a special gentle

That is the heir to forty marks a year,

Consorts with the small poets of the time,

Is the sole hope of his old grandmother,

That knows the law and writes you six fair hands,

Is a fine clerk and has his ciphering perfect,

Will take his oath o'the Greek Xenophon,

If need be, in his pocket, and can court

His mistress out of Ovid.

DAPPER

Nay, dear Captain.

FACE

Did you not tell me so?

DAPPER

Yes, but I'd ha' you

Use Master Doctor with some more respect.

FACE

Hang him, proud stag, with his broad velvet head!

But for your sake, I'd choke ere I would change

An article of breath with such a puck-fist!

Come, let's be gone.

[Face starts to leave.]

SUBTLE

Pray you, le' me speak with you.

DAPPER

His Worship calls you, Captain.

FACE

I am sorry

I e'er embarked myself in such a business.

DAPPER

Nay, good sir. He did call you.

FACE

Will he take, then?

SUBTLE

First, hear me –

FACE

Not a syllable, 'less you take.

SUBTLE

Pray ye, sir –

FACE

Upon no terms but an assumpsit.

SUBTLE

Your humor must be law.

He takes the money.

FACE

Why now, sir, talk.

Now I dare hear you with mine honor. Speak.

So may this gentleman too.

SUBTLE

[pretending confidentiality]

Why, sir –

FACE

No whisp'ring.

SUBTLE

'Fore heav'n, you do not apprehend the loss

You do yourself in this.

FACE

Wherein? For what?

SUBTLE

Marry, to be so importunate for one

That, when he has it, will undo you all:

He'll win up all the money i'the town.

FACE

How!

SUBTLE

Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester,

As they do crackers in a puppet play.

If I do give him a familiar, –

Give you him all you play for; never set him,

For he will have it.

FACE

You're mistaken, Doctor.

Why, he does ask one but for cups and horses,

A rifling fly –none o'your great familiars.

DAPPER

Yes, Captain, I would have it for all games.

SUBTLE

I told you so.

FACE

[drawing Dapper aside]

'Slight, that's a new business!

I understood you, a tame bird, to fly

Twice in a term or so, on Friday nights,

When you had left the office, for a nag

Of forty or fifty shillings.

DAPPER

Ay, 'tis true, sir,

But I do think now I shall leave the law,

And therefore –

FACE

Why, this changes quite the case!

D'you think that I dare move him?

DAPPER

If you please, sir,

All's one to him, I see.

FACE

What, for that money?

I cannot, with my conscience. Nor should you

Make the request, methinks.

DAPPER

No, sir, I mean

To add consideration.

FACE

Why, then, sir,

100

I'll try.

101

[To Subtle]

Say that it were for all games, Doctor?

SUBTLE

102

I say, then, not a mouth shall eat for him

103

At an ordinary but o'the score,

104

That is a gaming mouth, conceive me.

FACE

Indeed!

SUBTLE

105

He'll draw you all the treasure of the realm,

106

If it be set him.

FACE

Speak you this from art?

SUBTLE

107

Ay, sir, and reason too –the ground of art.

108

He's o'the only best complexion

109

The Queen of Faery loves.

FACE

What! Is he?

SUBTLE

Peace!

110

He'll overhear you. Sir, should she but she him –

FACE

111

What?

SUBTLE

Do not you tell him.

FACE

Will he win at cards too?

SUBTLE

112

The spirits of dead Holland, living Isaac,

113

You'd swear were in him –such a vigorous luck

114

As cannot be resisted. 'Slight, he'll put

115

Six o'your gallants to a cloak, indeed.

FACE

116

A strange success, that some man shall be born to!

SUBTLE

117

He hears you, man –

DAPPER

Sir, I'll not be ingrateful.

FACE

118

Faith, I have a confidence in his good nature.

119

You hear, he says he will not be ingrateful.

SUBTLE

120

Why, as you please; my venture follows yours.

FACE

121

Troth, do it, Doctor. Think him trusty, and make him.

122

He may make us both happy in an hour –

123

Win some five thousand pound, and send us two on't.

DAPPER

124

Believe it, and I will, sir.

FACE

And you shall, sir.

125

You have heard all?

DAPPER

No, what was't? Nothing, I, sir.

FACE

126

Nothing?

Face takes him aside.

DAPPER

A little, sir.

FACE

Well, a rare star

127

Reigned at your birth.

DAPPER

At mine, sir? No!

FACE

The doctor

128

Swears that you are –

SUBTLE

Nay, Captain, you'll tell all, now.

FACE

129

Allied to the Queen of Faery.

DAPPER

Who? That I am?

130

Believe it, no such matter.

FACE

Yes, and that

131

You were born with a caul o'your head.

DAPPER

Who says so?

FACE

Come,

132

You know it well enough, though you dissemble it.

DAPPER

133

I'fac, I do not. You are mistaken.

FACE

How!

134

Swear “by your fac”, and in a thing so known

135

Unto the doctor? How shall we, sir, trust you

136

I'the other matter? Can we ever think,

137

When you have won five or six thousand pound,

138

You'll send us shares in't, by this rate?

DAPPER

By Jove, sir,

139

I'll win ten thousand pound, and send you half.

140

“I'fac” 's no oath.

SUBTLE

[to Face]

No, no, he did but jest.

FACE

141

[to Subtle]

Go to. –Go, thank the doctor. He's your friend

142

To take it so.

DAPPER

I thank His Worship.

FACE

So?

143

Another angel.

DAPPER

Must I?

FACE

“Must you”? 'Slight,

144

What else is thanks? Will you be trivial?

145

[Dapper gives gold to Subtle.]

Doctor,

146

When must he come for his familiar?

DAPPER

147

Shall I not ha' it with me?

SUBTLE

Oh, good sir,

148

There must a world of ceremonies pass.

149

You must be bathed and fumigated first.

150

Besides, the Queen of Faery does not rise

151

Till it be noon.

FACE

Not if she danced tonight.

SUBTLE

152

And she must bless it.

FACE

Did you never see

153

Her Royal Grace yet?

DAPPER

Whom?

FACE

Your aunt of Faery.

SUBTLE

154

Not since she kissed him in the cradle, Captain,

155

I can resolve you that.

FACE

Well, see Her Grace,

156

Whate'er it cost you, for a thing that I know.

157

It will be somewhat hard to compass, but,

158

However, see her. You are made, believe it,

159

If you can see her. Her Grace is a lone woman,

160

And very rich, and if she take a fancy,

161

She will do strange things. See her, at any hand.

162

'Slid, she may hap to leave you all she has!

163

It is the doctor's fear.

DAPPER

How will't be done, then?

FACE

164

Let me alone; take you no thought. Do you

165

But say to me, “Captain, I'll see Her Grace.”

DAPPER

166

Captain, I'll see Her Grace.

FACE

Enough.

One knocks without.

SUBTLE

Who's there?

167

[Calling]

Anon!

168

(To Face)

Conduct him forth, by the back way.

169

[To Dapper]

Sir, against one o'clock, prepare yourself;

170

Till when you must be fasting. Only take

171

Three drops of vinegar in at your nose,

172

Two at your mouth, and one at either ear;

173

Then, bathe your fingers' ends and wash your eyes,

174

To sharpen your five senses; and cry “hum”

175

Thrice, and then “buzz” as often; and then come.

[Exit.]

FACE

176

Can you remember this?

DAPPER

I warrant you.

FACE

177

Well, then, away. 'Tis but your bestowing

178

Some twenty nobles 'mong Her Grace's servants;

179

And put on a clean shirt. You do not know

180

What grace Her Grace may do you in clean linen.

[Exeunt.]

1.3

[Enter] Subtle [with] Drugger.

SUBTLE

Come in.

[He calls offstage to imaginary persons.]

Good wives, I pray you forbear me now;

Troth, I can do you no good till afternoon. –

What is your name, say you? Abel Drugger?

DRUGGER

Yes, sir.

SUBTLE

A seller of tobacco?

DRUGGER

Yes, sir.

SUBTLE

Umh!

Free of the Grocers?

DRUGGER

Ay, an't please you.

SUBTLE

Well –

Your business, Abel?

DRUGGER

This, an't please Your Worship:

I am a young beginner, and am building

Of a new shop, an't like Your Worship, just

At corner of a street. Here's the plot on't.

[He shows a diagram.]

And I would know, by art, sir, of Your Worship,

Which way I should make my door, by necromancy,

And where my shelves, and which should be for boxes

And which for pots. I would be glad to thrive, sir.

And I was wished to Your Worship by a gentleman,

One Captain Face, that says you know men's planets,

And their good angels, and their bad.

SUBTLE

I do,

If I do see 'em –

[Enter] Face.

FACE

What! My honest Abel?

Thou art well met here!

DRUGGER

Troth, sir, I was speaking,

Just as Your Worship came here, of Your Worship.

I pray you, speak for me to Master Doctor.

FACE

He shall do anything. –Doctor, do you hear?

This is my friend Abel, an honest fellow.

He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not

Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil,

Nor washes it in muscadel and grains,

Nor buries it in gravel, underground,

Wrapped up in greasy leather or pissed clouts,

But keeps it in fine lily pots that, opened,

Smell like conserve of roses or French beans.

He has his maple block, his silver tongs,

Winchester pipes, and fire of juniper.

A neat, spruce, honest fellow, and no goldsmith.

SUBTLE

He's a fortunate fellow, that I am sure on –

FACE

Already, sir, ha' you found it? –Lo thee, Abel!

SUBTLE

And in right way toward riches.

FACE

Sir!

SUBTLE

This summer

He will be of the clothing of his company,

And next spring called to the scarlet. Spend what he can.

FACE

What, and so little beard?

SUBTLE

Sir, you must think

He may have a receipt to make hair come.

But he'll be wise, preserve his youth, and fine for't;

His fortune looks for him another way.

FACE

'Slid, Doctor, how canst thou know this so soon?

I am amused at that.

SUBTLE

By a rule, Captain,

In metoposcopy, which I do work by –

A certain star i'the forehead, which you see not.

Your chestnut or your olive-colored face

Does never fail, and your long ear doth promise.

I knew't by certain spots too, in his teeth,

And on the nail of his mercurial finger.

FACE

Which finger's that?

SUBTLE

[taking Drugger's hand]

His little finger. Look.

You were born upon a Wednesday?

DRUGGER

Yes, indeed, sir.

SUBTLE

The thumb, in chiromanty, we give Venus,

The forefinger to Jove, the midst to Saturn,

The ring to Sol, the least to Mercury,

Who was the lord, sir, of his horoscope,

His house of life being Libra, which foreshowed

He should be a merchant and should trade with balance.

FACE

Why, this is strange! Is't not, honest Nab?

SUBTLE

There is a ship now, coming from Ormuz,

That shall yield him such a commodity

Of drugs –

[He points to the diagram.]

This is the west, and this the south?

DRUGGER

Yes, sir.

SUBTLE

And those are your two sides?

DRUGGER

Ay, sir.

SUBTLE

Make me your door, then, south; your broad side, west;

And, on the east side of your shop, aloft,

Write Mathlai, Tarmiel, and Baraborat;

Upon the north part, Rael, Velel, Thiel.

They are the names of those mercurial spirits

That do fright flies from boxes.

DRUGGER

Yes, sir.

SUBTLE

And

Beneath your threshold bury me a lodestone

To draw in gallants, that wear spurs. The rest,

They'll seem to follow.

FACE

That's a secret, Nab!

SUBTLE

And, on your stall a puppet with a vice

And a court focus, to call city dames.

You shall deal much with minerals.

DRUGGER

Sir, I have,

At home, already –

SUBTLE

Ay, I know, you've arsenic,

Vitriol, sal tartar, argaile, alkali,

Cinoper: I know all. –This fellow, Captain,

Will come in time to be a great distiller,

And give a say –I will not say directly,

But very fair –at the philosophers' stone.

FACE

Why, how now, Abel! Is this true?

DRUGGER

[taking Face aside]

Good Captain,

What must I give?

FACE

Nay, I'll not counsel thee.

Thou hear'st what wealth (he says, spend what thou canst)

Thou'rt like to come to.

DRUGGER

I would gi' him a crown.

FACE

A crown! And toward such a fortune? Heart,

Thou shalt rather gi' him thy shop. No gold about thee?

DRUGGER

Yes, I have a portague I ha' kept this half year.

FACE

Out on thee, Nab! 'Slight, there was such an offer!

'Shalt keep't no longer; I'll gi' it him for thee.

[Face takes the coin and gives it to Subtle.]

Doctor, Nab prays Your Worship to drink this, and swears

He will appear more grateful as your skill

Does raise him in the world.

DRUGGER

I would entreat

Another favour of His Worship.

FACE

What is't, Nab?

DRUGGER

But to look over, sir, my almanac,

And cross out my ill days, that I may neither

Bargain nor trust upon them.

FACE

That he shall, Nab.

Leave it; it shall be done 'gainst afternoon.

SUBTLE

100

And a direction for his shelves.

FACE

Now, Nab,

101

Art thou well pleased, Nab?

DRUGGER

Thank, sir, both Your Worships.

FACE

102

Away!

[Exit Drugger.]

103

Why, now, you smoky persecutor of nature!

104

Now, do you see that something's to be done

105

Beside your beech coal and your cor'sive waters,

106

Your crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbites?

107

You must have stuff brought home to you to work on?

108

And yet you think I am at no expense

109

In searching out these veins, then following 'em,

110

Then trying 'em out. 'Fore God, my intelligence

111

Costs me more money than my share oft comes to

112

In these rare works.

SUBTLE

You're pleasant, sir.

1.4

[Enter] Doll.

How now?

What says my dainty Dollkin?

DOLL

Yonder fishwife

Will not away. And there's your giantess,

The bawd of Lambeth.

SUBTLE

Heart, I cannot speak with 'em.

DOLL

Not afore night, I have told 'em, in a voice

Thorough the trunk, like one of your familiars.

But I have spied Sir Epicure Mammon –

SUBTLE

Where?

DOLL

Coming along at far end of the lane,

Slow of his feet, but earnest of his tongue

To one that's with him.

SUBTLE

Face, go you and shift.

[Exit Face.]

Doll, you must presently make ready too.

DOLL

Why, what's the matter?

SUBTLE

Oh, I did look for him

With the sun's rising. Marvel he could sleep!

This is the day I am to perfect for him

The magisterium, our great work, the stone,

And yield it, made, into his hands –of which

He has, this month, talked as he were possessed;

And now he's dealing pieces on't away.

Methinks I see him ent'ring ordinaries,

Dispensing for the pox, and plaguy-houses,

Reaching his dose; walking Moorfields for lepers,

And off'ring citizens' wives pomander bracelets

As his preservative, made of the elixir;

Searching the spital to make old bawds young,

And the highways for beggars to make rich.

I see no end of his labors. He will make

Nature ashamed of her long sleep, when art,

Who's but a stepdame, shall do more than she,

In her best love to mankind, ever could.

If his dream last, he'll turn the age to gold.

[Exeunt.]

2.1

[Enter] Mammon [and] Surly.

MAMMON

Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore

In Novo Orbe; here's the rich Peru,

And there within, sir, are the golden mines,

Great Solomon's Ophir! He was sailing to't

Three years, but we have reached it in ten months.

This is the day wherein to all my friends

I will pronounce the happy word, “Be rich;

This day you shall be spectatissimi.”

You shall no more deal with the hollow die

Or the frail card; no more be at charge of keeping

The livery-punk for the young heir that must

Seal at all hours in his shirt; no more,

If he deny, ha' him beaten to't, as he is

That brings him the commodity. No more

Shall thirst of satin, or the covetous hunger

Of velvet entrails for a rude-spun cloak,

To be displayed at Madam Augusta's, make

The sons of sword and hazard fall before

The golden calf and on their knees, whole nights,

Commit idolatry with wine and trumpets,

Or go a-feasting after drum and ensign.

No more of this. You shall start up young viceroys,

And have your punks and punketees, my Surly.

And unto thee I speak it first, “Be rich.”

[Calling]

Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho!

FACE

(within)

Sir,

He'll come to you by and by.

MAMMON

That's his firedrake,

His lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals

Till he firk nature up in her own center.

You are not faithful, sir. This night I'll change

All that is metal in my house to gold,

And early in the morning will I send

To all the plumbers and the pewterers,

And buy their tin and lead up, and to Lothbury

For all the copper.

SURLY

What, and turn that too?

MAMMON

Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall,

And make them perfect Indies! You admire now?

SURLY

No, faith.

MAMMON

But when you see th'effects of the great med'cine,

Of which one part projected on a hundred

Of Mercury, or Venus, or the moon

Shall turn it to as many of the sun –

Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum –

You will believe me.

SURLY

Yes, when I see't I will.

But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I

Giving 'em no occasion, sure I'll have

A whore shall piss 'em out next day.

MAMMON

Ha! Why?

Do you think I fable with you? I assure you,

He that has once the flower of the sun,

The perfect ruby, which we call elixir,

Not only can do that, but by its virtue

Can confer honor, love, respect, long life,

Give safety, valor, yea, and victory

To whom he will. In eight-and-twenty days

I'll make an old man of fourscore a child.

SURLY

No doubt he's that already.

MAMMON

Nay, I mean

Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle,

To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters,

Young giants, as our philosophers have done

(The ancient patriarchs afore the flood),

But taking, once a week on a knife's point,

The quantity of a grain of mustard of it,

Become stout Marses and beget young Cupids.

SURLY

The decayed vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you,

That keep the fire alive there.

MAMMON

'Tis the secret

Of nature naturized 'gainst all infections,

Cures all diseases coming of all causes:

A month's grief in a day, a year's in twelve,

And of what age soever in a month,

Past all the doses of your drugging doctors.

I'll undertake withal to fright the plague

Out o'the kingdom in three months.

SURLY

And I'll

Be bound the players shall sing your praises then,

Without their poets.

MAMMON

Sir, I'll do't. Meantime

I'll give away so much unto my man

Shall serve th'whole city with preservative,

Weekly, each house his dose, and at the rate –

SURLY

As he that built the waterwork does with water?

MAMMON

You are incredulous.

SURLY

Faith, I have a humor;

I would not willingly be gulled. Your stone

Cannot transmute me.

MAMMON

Pertinax, my Surly,

Will you believe antiquity? Records?

I'll show you a book where Moses and his sister

And Solomon have written of the art;

Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam –

SURLY

How!

MAMMON

O'the philosophers' stone, and in High Dutch.

SURLY

Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch?

MAMMON

He did,

Which proves it was the primitive tongue.

SURLY

What paper?

MAMMON

On cedar board.

SURLY

Oh, that, indeed, they say,

Will last 'gainst worms.

MAMMON

'Tis like your Irish wood

'Gainst cobwebs. I have a piece of Jason's fleece, too,

Which was no other than a book of alchemy,

Writ in large sheepskin, a good fat ram-vellum.

Such was Pythagoras' thigh, Pandora's tub,

And all that fable of Medea's charms,

The manner of our work: the bulls, our furnace,

Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, the dragon;

The dragon's teeth, mercury sublimate,

That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting;

And they are gathered into Jason's helm,

Th'alembic, and then sowed in Mars his field,

100

And thence sublimed so often till they are fixed.

101

Both this, th'Hesperian garden, Cadmus' story,

102

Jove's shower, the boon of Midas, Argus' eyes,

103

Boccace his Demogorgon, thousands more,

104

All abstract riddles of our stone. –

2.2

[Enter] Face [as Lungs, the Alchemist's servant].

How now?

Do we succeed? Is our day come? And holds it?

FACE

The evening will set upon you, sir.

You have color for it, crimson; the red ferment

Has done his office. Three hours hence, prepare you

To see projection.

MAMMON

Pertinax, my Surly,

Again, I say to thee aloud, “Be rich.”

This day thou shalt have ingots, and tomorrow

Give lords th'affront. –Is it, my Zephyrus, right?

Blushes the bolt's-head?

FACE

Like a wench with child, sir,

That were but now discovered to her master.

MAMMON

Excellent witty Lungs! My only care is

Where to get stuff enough now to project on;

This town will not half serve me.

FACE

No, sir? Buy

The covering off o'churches.

MAMMON

That's true.

FACE

Yes.

Let 'em stand bare, as do their auditory,

Or cap 'em new with shingles.

MAMMON

No, good thatch;

Thatch will lie light upo' the rafters, Lungs.

Lungs, I will manumit thee from the furnace;

I will restore thee thy complexion, Puff,

Lost in the embers, and repair this brain,

Hurt wi'the fume o'the metals.

FACE

I have blown, sir,

Hard for Your Worship; thrown by many a coal

When 'twas not beech; weighed those I put in, just,

To keep your heat still even. These bleared eyes

Have waked to read your several colors, sir,

Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,

The peacock's tail, the plumed swan.

MAMMON

And lastly

Thou hast descried the flower, the sanguis agni?

FACE

Yes, sir.

MAMMON

Where's master?

FACE

At 's prayers, sir, he;

Good man, he's doing his devotions

For the success.

MAMMON

Lungs, I will set a period

To all thy labors. Thou shalt be the master

Of my seraglio.

FACE

Good, sir.

MAMMON

But do you hear?

I'll geld you, Lungs.

FACE

Yes, sir.

MAMMON

For I do mean

To have a list of wives and concubines

Equal with Solomon, who had the stone

Alike with me; and I will make me a back

With the elixir that shall be as tough

As Hercules, to encounter fifty a night.

Thou'rt sure thou saw'st it blood?

FACE

Both blood and spirit, sir.

MAMMON

I will have all my beds blown up, not stuffed;

Down is too hard. And then, mine oval room

Filled with such pictures as Tiberius took

From Elephantis, and dull Aretine

But coldly imitated. Then my glasses

Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse

And multiply the figures as I walk

Naked between my succubae. My mists

I'll have of perfume, vapored 'bout the room,

To lose ourselves in; and in baths like pits

To fall into, from whence we will come forth

And roll us dry in gossamer and roses. –

Is it arrived at ruby? –Where I spy

A wealthy citizen or rich lawyer

Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow

I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold.

FACE

And I shall carry it?

MAMMON

No. I'll ha' no bawds

But fathers and mothers. They will do it best,

Best of all others. And my flatterers

Shall be the pure and gravest of divines

That I can get for money; my mere fools

Eloquent burgesses; and then my poets

The same that writ so subtly of the fart,

Whom I will entertain still for that subject.

The few that would give out themselves to be

Court-and town-stallions, and eachwhere belie

Ladies who are known most innocent, for them,

Those will I beg to make me eunuchs of;

And they shall fan me with ten ostrich tails

Apiece, made in a plume to gather wind.

We will be brave, Puff, now we ha' the med'cine.

My meat shall all come in in Indian shells,

Dishes of agate set in gold and studded

With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies.

The tongues of carps, dormice, and camel's heels,

Boiled i'the spirit of Sol and dissolved pearl,

(Apicius' diet 'gainst the epilepsy) –

And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber,

Headed with diamond and carbuncle.

My footboy shall eat pheasants, calvered salmons,

Knots, godwits, lampreys; I myself will have

The beards of barbels served instead of salads,

Oiled mushrooms, and the swelling unctuous paps

Of a fat pregnant sow newly cut off,

Dressed with an exquisite and poignant sauce,

For which I'll say unto my cook, “There's gold;

Go forth, and be a knight.”

FACE

Sir, I'll go look

A little how it heightens.

MAMMON

Do.

[Exit Face.]

My shirts

I'll have of taffeta-sars'net, soft and light

As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment,

It shall be such as might provoke the Persian,

Were he to teach the world riot anew.

My gloves of fishes' and birds' skins, perfumed

With gums of Paradise and Eastern air –

SURLY

And do you think to have the stone with this?

MAMMON

No, I do think t'have all this with the stone.

SURLY

Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi,

A pious, holy, and religious man,

One free from mortal sin, a very virgin.

MAMMON

100

That makes it, sir; he is so. But I buy it;

101

My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch,

102

A notable, superstitious, good souls,

103

Has worn his knees bare and his slippers bald

104

With prayer and fasting for it; and, sir, let him

105

Do it alone, for me, still. Here he comes.

106

Not a profane word afore him; 'tis poison. –

2.3

[Enter] Subtle.

Good morrow, father.

SUBTLE

Gentle son, good morrow,

And to your friend there. What is he is with you?

MAMMON

An heretic that I did bring along

In hope, sir, to convert him.

SUBTLE

Son, I doubt

You're covetous, that thus you meet your time

I'the just point, prevent your day at morning.

This argues something worthy of a fear

Of importune and carnal appetite.

Take heed you do not cause the blessing leave you,

With your ungoverned haste! I should be sorry

To see my labors, now e'en at perfection,

Got by long watching and large patience,

Not prosper where my love and zeal hath placed 'em –

Which (heaven I call to witness, with yourself,

To whom I have poured my thoughts), in all my ends,

Have looked no way but unto public good,

To pious uses and dear charity,

Now grown a prodigy with men; wherein

If you, my son, should now prevaricate,

And to your own particular lusts employ

So great and catholic a bliss, be sure

A curse will follow, yea, and overtake

Your subtle and most secret ways.

MAMMON

I know, sir;

You shall not need to fear me. I but come

To ha' you confute this gentleman.

SURLY

Who is,

Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief

Toward your stone –would not be gulled.

SUBTLE

[to Mammon]

Well, son,

All that I can convince him in is this:

The work is done; bright Sol is in his robe.

We have a med'cine of the triple Soul,

The glorified spirit. Thanks be to heaven,

And make us worthy of it!

[Calling offstage]

Ulenspiegel!

FACE

[within]

Anon, sir.

SUBTLE

[calling]

Look well to the register,

And let your heat still lessen by degrees,

To the aludels.

FACE

[within]

Yes, sir.

SUBTLE

Did you look

O'the bolt's-head yet?

FACE

[within]

Which, on D, sir?

SUBTLE

Ay.

What's the complexion?

FACE

[within]

Whitish.

SUBTLE

Infuse vinegar,

To draw his volatile substance and his tincture,

And let the water in Glass E be filtered

And put into the gripe's egg. Lute him well,

And leave him closed in balneo.

FACE

[within]

I will, sir.

SURLY

What a brave language here is! Next to canting.

SUBTLE

[to Mammon]

I have another work you never saw, son,

That three days since passed the philosophers' wheel,

In the lent heat of Athanor, and 's become

Sulfur o'nature.

MAMMON

But 'tis for me?

SUBTLE

What need you?

You have enough, in that is perfect.

MAMMON

Oh, but –

SUBTLE

Why, this is covetise!

MAMMON

No, I assure you,

I shall employ it all in pious uses,

Founding of colleges and grammar schools,

Marrying young virgins, building hospitals,

And now and then a church.

[Enter] Face.

SUBTLE

How now?

FACE

Sir, please you,

Shall I not change the filter?

SUBTLE

Marry, yes.

And bring me the complexion of Glass B.

[Exit Face.]

MAMMON

Ha' you another?

SUBTLE

Yes, son. Were I assured

Your piety were firm, we would not want

The means to glorify it. But I hope the best:

I mean to tinct C in sand-heat tomorrow,

And give him imbibition.

MAMMON

Of white oil?

SUBTLE

No, sir, of red. F is come over the helm too,

I thank my Maker, in St. Mary's bath,

And shows lac Virginis. Blessed be heaven!

I sent you of his feces there, calcined;

Out of that calx I ha' won the salt of mercury.

MAMMON

By pouring on your rectified water?

SUBTLE

Yes, and reverberating in Athanor.

[Enter] Face.

How now? What color says it?

FACE

The ground black, sir.

MAMMON

That's your crow's head?

SURLY

Your coxcomb's, is't not?

SUBTLE

No, 'tis not perfect. Would it were the crow!

That work wants something.

SURLY

(aside)

Oh, I looked for this.

The hay is a-pitching.

SUBTLE

[to Face]

Are you sure you loosed 'em

I'their own menstrue?

FACE

Yes, sir, and then married 'em,

And put 'em in a bolt's-head nipped to digestion,

According as you bade me, when I set

The liquor of Mars to circulation

In the same heat.

SUBTLE

The process, then, was right.

FACE

Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake,

And what was saved was put into the pelican,

And signed with Hermes' seal.

SUBTLE

I think 'twas so.

We should have a new amalgama.

SURLY

(aside)

Oh, this ferret

Is rank as any polecat!

SUBTLE

But I care not.

Let him e'en die; we have enough beside,

In embryon. H has his white shirt on?

FACE

Yes, sir,

He's ripe for inceration; he stands warm

In his ash-fire, I would not you should let

And die now, if I might counsel, sir,

For luck's sake to the rest. It is not good.

MAMMON

He says right.

SURLY

(aside)

Ay, are you bolted?

FACE

Nay, I know't, sir;

I have seen th'ill fortune. What is some three ounces

Of fresh materials?

MAMMON

Is't no more?

FACE

No more, sir,

Of gold, t'amalgam, with some six of mercury.

MAMMON

Away! Here's money. What will serve?

FACE

[indicating Subtle]

Ask him, sir.

MAMMON

[to Subtle]

How much?

SUBTLE

Give him nine pound; you may gi' him ten,

SURLY

[aside]

Yes, twenty, and be cozened, do.

MAMMON

[giving money to Face]

There 'tis.

SUBTLE

This needs not, but that you will have it so

To see conclusions of all. For two

Of our inferior works are at fixation;

A third is in ascension. Go your ways. –

100

Ha' you set the oil of Luna in kemia?

FACE

101

Yes, sir.

SUBTLE

And the philosophers' vinegar?

FACE

Ay.

[Exit.]

SURLY

102

[aside]

We shall have a salad!

MAMMON

When do you make projection?

SUBTLE

103

Son, be not hasty. I exalt our med'cine

104

By hanging him in balneo vaporoso

105

And giving him solution, then congeal him

106

And then dissolve him, then again congeal him;

107

For look how oft I iterate the work,

108

So many times I add unto his virtue.

109

As, if at first one ounce convert a hundred,

110

After his second loose he'll turn a thousand;

111

His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred;

112

After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces

113

Of any imperfect metal into pure

114

Silver or gold, in all examinations

115

As good as any of the natural mine.

116

Get you your stuff here against afternoon –

117

Your brass, your pewter, and your andirons.

MAMMON

118

Not those of iron?

SUBTLE

Yes. You may bring them too.

119

We'll change all metals.

SURLY

[aside]

I believe you in that.

MAMMON

120

Then I may send my spits?

SUBTLE

Yes, and your racks.

SURLY

121

And dripping-pans and pot-hangers and hooks,

122

Shall he not?

SUBTLE

If he please.

SURLY

To be an ass.

SUBTLE

123

How, sir!

MAMMON

This gent'man you must bear withal.

124

I told you he had no faith.

SURLY

And little hope, sir,

125

But much less charity, should I gull myself.

SUBTLE

126

Why, what have you observed, sir, in our art

127

Seems so impossible?

SURLY

But your whole work, no more.

128

That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir,

129

As they do eggs in Egypt!

SUBTLE

Sir, do you

130

Believe that eggs are hatched so?

SURLY

If I should?

SUBTLE

131

Why, I think that the greater miracle.

132

No egg but differs from a chicken more

133

Than metals in themselves.

SURLY

That cannot be.

134

The egg's ordained by nature to that end,

135

And is chicken in potential.

SUBTLE

136

The same we say of lead and other metals,

137

Which would be gold, if they had time.

MAMMON

And that

138

Our art doth further.

SUBTLE

Ay, for 'twere absurd

139

To think that nature, in the earth, bred gold

140

Perfect i'the instant. Something went before.

141

There must be remote matter.

SURLY

Ay? What is that?

SUBTLE

142

Marry, we say –

MAMMON

Ay, now it heats. Stand, father;

143

Pound him to dust.

SUBTLE

It is, of the one part,

144

A humid exhalation which we call

145

Materia liquida or the unctuous water;

146

On th'other part, a certain crass and viscous

147

Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,

148

Do make the elementary matter of gold,

149

Which is not yet propria materia,

150

But common to all metals and all stones.

151

For, where it is forsaken of that moisture

152

And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone;

153

Where it retains more of the humid fatness,

154

It turns to sulfur or to quicksilver,

155

Who are the parents of all other metals.

156

Nor can this remote matter suddenly

157

Progress so from extreme unto extreme

158

As to grow gold and leap o'er all the means.

159

Nature doth first beget th'imperfect; then

160

Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy

161

And oil water, mercury is engendered;

162

Sulfur o'the fat and earthy part –the one

163

Which is the last supplying the place of male,

164

The other of the female, in all metals.

165

Some do believe hermaphrodeity,

166

That both do act and suffer. But these two

167

Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive.

168

And even in gold they are; for we do find

169

Seeds of them by our fire, and gold in them,

170

And can produce the species of each metal

171

More perfect thence than nature doth in earth.

172

Beside, who doth not see in daily practice

173

Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps

174

Out of the carcasses and dung of creatures –

175

Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed?

176

And these are living creatures, far more perfect

177

And excellent than metals.

MAMMON

Well said, father! –

178

Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,

179

He'll bray you in a mortar.

SURLY

Pray you, sir, stay.

180

Rather than I'll be brayed, sir, I'll believe

181

That alchemy is a pretty kind of game,

182

Somewhat like tricks o'the cards, to cheat a man

183

With charming.

SUBTLE

Sir?

SURLY

What else are all your terms,

184

Whereon no one o'your writers 'grees with other?

185

Of your elixir, your lac virginis,

186

Your stone, your med'cine, and your chrysosperm,

187

Your sal, your sulfur, and your mercury,

188

Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,

189

Your marcasite, your tutty, your magnesia,

190

Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther,

191

Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,

192

Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,

193

And then, your red man and your white woman,

194

With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials

195

Of piss and eggshells, women's terms, man's blood,

196

Hair o'the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,

197

Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,

198

And worlds of other strange ingredients,

199

Would burst a man to name?

SUBTLE

And all these named

200

Intending but one thing, which art our writers

201

Used to obscure their art.

MAMMON

Sir, so I told him –

202

Because the simple idiot should not learn it

203

And make it vulgar.

SUBTLE

Was not all the knowledge

204

Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols?

205

Speak not the Scriptures oft in parables?

206

Are not the choicest fables of the poets,

207

That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,

208

Wrapped in perplexed allegories?

MAMMON

I urged that,

209

And cleared to him that Sisyphus was damned

210

To roll the ceaseless stone only because

211

He would have made ours common. –

Doll is seen.

Who is this?

SUBTLE

212

God's precious, what do you mean? Go in, good lady,

213

Let me intreat you!

[Exit Doll.]

Where's this varlet?

[Enter] Face.

FACE

Sir?

SUBTLE

214

You very knave! Do you use me thus?

FACE

Wherein, sir?

SUBTLE

215

Go in and see, you traitor. Go!

[Exit Face.]

MAMMON

Who is it, sir?

SUBTLE

216

Nothing, sir, nothing.

MAMMON

What's the matter, good sir?

217

I have not seen you thus distempered. Who is't?

SUBTLE

218

All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries,

219

But ours the most ignorant.

Face returns.

What now?

FACE

220

'Twas not my fault, sir. She would speak with you.

SUBTLE

221

Would she, sir? Follow me.

[Exit. Face starts to follow.]

MAMMON

Stay, Lungs!

FACE

I dare not, sir.

MAMMON

222

Stay, man. What is she?

FACE

[still going]

A lord's sister, sir.

MAMMON

223

How! Pray thee, stay.

FACE

She's mad, sir, and sent hither –

224

He'll be mad, too.

MAMMON

I warrant thee. Why sent hither?

FACE

225

Sir, to be cured.

SUBTLE

[shouting from within]

Why, rascal!

FACE

Lo you!

[Calling]

Here, sir!

He goes out.

MAMMON

226

'Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece!

SURLY

227

Heart, this is a bawdy house! I'll be burnt else. –

MAMMON

228

Oh, by this light, no. Do not wrong him. He's

229

Too scrupulous that way. It is his vice.

230

No, he's a rare physician; do him right.

231

An excellent Paracelsian, and has done

232

Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all

233

With spirits, he. He will not hear a word

234

Of Galen or his tedious recipes. –

Face again.

235

How now, Lungs!

FACE

Softly, sir, speak softly. I meant

236

To ha' told Your Worship all. This must not hear.

MAMMON

237

No, he will not be gulled; let him alone.

FACE

238

You're very right, sir: she is a most rare scholar,

239

And is gone mad with studying Broughton's works.

240

If you but name a word touching the Hebrew,

241

She falls into her fit and will discourse

242

So learnedly of genealogies

243

As you would run mad, too, to hear her, sir.

MAMMON

244

How might one do t'have conference with her, Lungs?

FACE

245

Oh, divers have run mad upon the conference.

246

I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste

247

To fetch a vial.

SURLY

Be not gulled, Sir Mammon.

MAMMON

248

Wherein? Pray ye, be patient.

SURLY

Yes, as you are,

249

And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores.

MAMMON

250

You are too foul, believe it. –Come, here, Ulen.

251

One word.

[He whispers in Face's ear.]

FACE

I dare not, in good faith.

[Going.]

MAMMON

Stay, knave.

FACE

252

He's extreme angry that you saw her, sir.

MAMMON

253

[giving money]

Drink that. What is she when she's out of her fit?

FACE

254

Oh, the most affablest creature, sir! So merry!

255

So pleasant! She'll mount you up like quicksilver

256

Over the helm, and circulate like oil,

257

A very vegetal; discourse of state,

258

Of mathematics, bawdry, anything –

MAMMON

259

Is she no way accessible? No means,

260

No trick, to give a man a taste of her –wit–

261

Or so?

SUBTLE

[within]

Ulen!

FACE

I'll come to you again, sir.

[Exit.]

MAMMON

262

Surly, I did not think one o'your breeding

263

Would traduce personages of worth.

SURLY

Sir Epicure,

264

Your friend to use, yet still loath to be gulled.

265

I do not like your philosophical bawds.

266

Their stone is lechery enough to pay for

267

Without this bait.

MAMMON

Heart, you abuse yourself.

268

I know the lady, and her friends, and means,

269

The original of this disaster. Her brother

270

Has told me all.

SURLY

And yet you ne'er saw her

271

Till now?

MAMMON

Oh, yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it,

272

One o'the treacherous'st memories, I do think,

273

Of all mankind.

SURLY

What call you her brother?

MAMMON

My lord –

274

He wi' not have his name known, now I think on't.

SURLY

275

A very treacherous memory!

MAMMON

O'my faith –

SURLY

276

Tut, if you ha' it not about you, pass it

277

Till we meet next.

MAMMON

Nay, by this hand, 'tis true.

278

He's one I honor, and my noble friend,

279

And I respect his house.

SURLY

Heart! Can it be

280

That a grave sir, a rich, that has no need,

281

A wise sir, too, at other times, should thus

282

With his own oaths and arguments make hard means

283

To gull himself? An this be your elixir,

284

Your lapis mineralis, and your lunary,

285

Give me your honest trick yet at primero

286

Or gleek, and take your lutum sapientis,

287

Your menstruum simplex! I'll have gold before you,

288

And with less danger of the quicksilver

289

Or the hot sulfur.

[Enter Face as Lungs.]

FACE

(to Surly)

Here's one from Captain Face, sir,

290

Desires you meet him i'the Temple Church

291

Some half hour hence, and upon earnest business.

292

(He whispers [to] Mammon.)

Sir, if you please to quit us now and come

293

Again within two hours, you shall have

294

My master busy examining o'the works,

295

And I will steal you in unto the party,

296

That you may see her converse.

297

[Aloud to Surly]

Sir, shall I say

298

You'll meet the Captain's Worship?

SURLY

Sir, I will.

299

[Aside]

But by attorney, and to a second purpose.

300

Now I am sure it is a bawdy house;

301

I'll swear it, were the marshal here to thank me.

302

The naming this commander doth confirm it.

303

Don Face! Why, he's the most authentic dealer

304

I'these commodities, the superintendent

305

To all the quainter trafficers in town!

306

He is their visitor, and does appoint

307

Who lies with whom, and at what hour, what price,

308

Which gown, and in what smock, what fall, what tire.

309

Him will I prove, by a third person, to find

310

The subtleties of this dark labyrinth,

311

Which if I do discover, dear Sir Mammon,

312

You'll give your poor friend leave, though no philosopher,

313

To laugh; for you that are, 'tis thought, shall weep.

FACE

314

Sir. He does pray you'll not forget.

SURLY

I will not, sir. –

315

Sir Epicure, I shall leave you.

MAMMON

I follow you straight.

[Exit Surly.]

FACE

316

But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion.

317

This gent'man has a parlous head.

MAMMON

But wilt thou, Ulen,

318

Be constant to thy promise?

FACE

As my life, sir.

MAMMON

319

And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me,

320

And say I am a noble fellow?

FACE

Oh, what else, sir?

321

And that you'll make her royal with the stone,

322

An empress, and yourself King of Bantam.

MAMMON

323

Wilt thou do this?

FACE

Will I, sir?

MAMMON

Lungs, my Lungs!

324

I love thee.

FACE

Send your stuff, sir, that my master

325

May busy himself about projection.

MAMMON

326

Th'hast witched me, rogue.

[Giving money]

Take, go.

FACE

Your jack and all, sir.

MAMMON

327

Thou art a villain! I will send my jack,

328

And the weights too. Slave, I could bite thine ear.

329

Away! Thou dost not care for me.

FACE

Not I, sir?

MAMMON

330

Come, I was born to make thee, my good weasel,

331

Set thee on a bench, and ha' thee twirl a chain

332

With the best lord's vermin of 'em all.

FACE

Away, sir.

MAMMON

333

A count, nay, a count palatine –

FACE

Good sir, go.

MAMMON

334

Shall not advance thee better; no, nor faster.

[Exit.]

2.4

[Enter] Subtle [and] Doll.

SUBTLE

Has he bit? Has he bit?

FACE

And swallowed too, my Subtle.

I ha' giv'n him line, and now he plays, i'faith.

SUBTLE

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.

SUBTLE

Doll, my Lord What's-um's sister, you must now

Bear yourself statelich.

DOLL

Oh, 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!

SUBTLE

But will he send his andirons?

FACE

His jack too,

And 's iron shoeing-horn; I ha' spoke to him. Well,

I must not lose my wary gamester yonder.

SUBTLE

Oh, Monsieur Caution, that will not be gulled?

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.

One knocks.

SUBTLE

What, more gudgeons?

Doll, scout, scout!

[Doll goes to the window.]

Stay, Face, you must go to the door.

Pray God it be my Anabaptist. –Who is't, Doll?

DOLL

I know him not. He looks like a gold-end-man.

SUBTLE

Godso, '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. Away,

Madam, to your withdrawing chamber.

[Exit Doll, and Face with Subtle's gown.]

Now,

In a new tune, new gesture, but old language.

This fellow is sent from one negotiates 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.

2.5

[Enter] Ananias. [Subtle pretends not to see him.]

SUBTLE

[calling]

Where is my drudge?

[Enter] Face.

FACE

Sir?

SUBTLE

Take away the recipient,

And rectify your menstrue from the phlegma.

Then pour it o'the Sol in the cucurbite

And let 'em macerate together.

FACE

Yes, sir.

And save the ground?

SUBTLE

No. Terra damnata

Must not have entrance in the work.

[To Ananias]

Who are you?

ANANIAS

A faithful Brother, if it please you.

SUBTLE

What's that?

A Lullianist? A Ripley? Filius artis?

Can you sublime and dulcify? Calcine?

Know you the sapor pontic? Sapor styptic?

Or what is homogene or heterogene?

ANANIAS

I understand no heathen language, truly.

SUBTLE

Heathen, you Knipperdoling? Is Ars sacra,

Or chrysopoeia, or spagirica,

Or the pamphysic or panarchic knowledge

A heathen language?

ANANIAS

Heathen Greek, I take it.

SUBTLE

How? Heathen Greek?

ANANIAS

All's heathen but the Hebrew.

SUBTLE

[to Face]

Sirrah, my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him

Like a philosopher; answer i'the language.Name the vexations and the martyrizations

Of metals in the work.

FACE

Sir, putrefaction,

Solution, ablution, sublimation,

Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and

Fixation.

SUBTLE

[to Ananias]

This is heathen Greek to you, now? –

And when comes vivification?

FACE

After mortification.

SUBTLE

What's cohobation?

FACE

'Tis the pouring on

Your aqua regis and then drawing him off

To the trine circle of the seven spheres.

SUBTLE

What's the proper passion of metals?

FACE

Malleation.

SUBTLE

What's your ultimum supplicium auri?

FACE

Antimonium.

SUBTLE

This's heathen Greek to you? –And what's your mercury?

FACE

A very fugitive; he will be gone, sir.

SUBTLE

How know you him?

FACE

By his viscosity,

His oleosity, and his suscitability.

SUBTLE

How do you sublime him?

FACE

With the calce of eggshells,

White marble, talc.

SUBTLE

Your magisterium, now?

What's that?

FACE

Shifting, sir, your elements,

Dry into cold, cold into moist, moist in-

To hot, hot into dry.

SUBTLE

[to Ananias]

This's heathen Greek to you still? –

Your lapis philosophicus?

FACE

'Tis a stone and not

A stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body,

Which, if you do dissolve, it is dissolved;

If you coagulate, it is coagulated;

If you make it to fly, it flieth.

SUBTLE

Enough.

[Exit Face.]

This's heathen Greek to you? What are you, sir?

ANANIAS

Please you, a servant of the exiled Brethren,

That deal with widows' and with orphans' goods,

And make a just account unto the Saints –

A deacon.

SUBTLE

Oh, you are sent from Master Wholesome,

Your teacher?

ANANIAS

From Tribulation Wholesome,

Our very zealous pastor.

SUBTLE

Good. I have

Some orphans' goods to come here.

ANANIAS

Of what kind, sir?

SUBTLE

Pewter, and brass, andirons, and kitchenware,

Metals that we must use our med'cine on,

Wherein the Brethren may have a penn'orth,

For ready money.

ANANIAS

Were the orphans' parents

Sincere professors?

SUBTLE

Why do you ask?

ANANIAS

Because

We then are to deal justly, and give, in truth,

Their utmost value.

SUBTLE

'Slid, you'd cozen else,

And if their parents were not of the faithful?

I will not trust you, now I think on't,

Till I ha' talked with your pastor. Ha' you brought money

To buy more coals?

ANANIAS

No, surely.

SUBTLE

No? How so?

ANANIAS

The Brethren bid me say unto you, sir

Surely they will not venture any more

Till they may see projection.

SUBTLE

How!

ANANIAS

You've had,

For the instruments, as bricks, and loam, and glasses,

Already thirty pound, and for materials,

They say, some ninety more; and they have heard since

That one at Heidelberg made it of an egg

And a small paper of pin dust.

SUBTLE

What's your name?

ANANIAS

My name is Ananias. –

SUBTLE

Out, the varlet

That cozened the apostles! Hence, away!

Flee, mischief! Had your holy consistory

No name to send me, of another sound,

Than wicked Ananias? Send your elders

Hither to make atonement for you quickly

And gi' me satisfaction, or out goes

The fire, and down th'alembics, and the furnace,

Piger Henricus, or what not. Thou wretch,

Both sericon and bufo shall be lost,

Tell 'em. All hope of rooting out the bishops

Or th'anti-Christian hierarchy shall perish

If they stay threescore minutes. The aqueity,

Terreity, and sulfureity

Shall run together again and all be annulled.

Thou wicked Ananias!

[Exit Ananias.]

This will fetch 'em

And make 'em haste towards their gulling more.

A man must deal like a rough nurse and fright

Those that are forward to an appetite.

2.6

[Enter] Face [and] Drugger.

FACE

[aside to Drugger]

He's busy with his spirits, but well upon him.

SUBTLE

How now! What mates, what Bayards ha' we here?

FACE

[to Drugger]

I told you he would be furious. –Sir, here's Nab,

Has brought you another piece of gold to look on –

(To Drugger)

We must appease him. Give it me –

[To Subtle]

and prays you

You would devise –

(To Drugger)

What is it, Nab?

DRUGGER

A sign, sir.

FACE

Ay, a good lucky one, a thriving sign, Doctor.

SUBTLE

I was devising now.

FACE

(aside to Subtle)

'Slight, do not say so;

He will repent he ga' you any more. –

[Aloud]

What say you to his constellation, Doctor?

The Balance?

SUBTLE

No, that way is stale and common.

A townsman, born in Taurus, gives the Bull,

Or the Bull's head; in Aries, the Ram –

A poor device! No, I will have his name

Formed in some mystic character, whose radii,

Striking the senses of the passersby,

Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections

That may result upon the party owns it,

A thus –

FACE

Nab!

SUBTLE

He first shall have a bell, that's Abel;

And by it standing one whose name is Dee,

In a rug gown; there's D, and rug, that's Drug;

And right anenst him, a Dog snarling “er” –

There's Drugger, Abel Drugger. That's his sign.

And here's now mystery and hieroglyphic!

FACE

Abel, thou art made.

DRUGGER

[bowing]

Sir, I do thank His Worship.

FACE

Six o'thy legs more will not do it, Nab. –

He has brought you a pipe of tobacco, Doctor.

DRUGGER

[presenting the pipe to Subtle]

Yes, sir.

I have another thing I would impart –

FACE

Out with it, Nab.

DRUGGER

Sir, there is lodged hard by me

A rich young widow –

FACE

Good! A bona roba?

DRUGGER

But nineteen at the most.

FACE

Very good, Abel.

DRUGGER

Marry, sh' is not in fashion, yet; she wears

A hood, but 't stands a-cop.

FACE

No matter, Abel.

DRUGGER

And I do now and then give her a focus –

FACE

What, dost thou deal, Nab?

SUBTLE

I did tell you, Captain.

DRUGGER

And physic too sometime, sir, for which she trust me

With all her mind. She's come up here of purpose

To learn the fashion.

FACE

Good! His match too! On, Nab.

DRUGGER

And she does strangely long to know her fortune.

FACE

God's lid, Nab, send her to the doctor, hither.

DRUGGER

Yes, I have spoke to her of His Worship already;

But she's afraid it will be blown abroad

And hurt her marriage.

FACE

Hurt it? 'Tis the way

To heal it, if 'twere hurt –to make it more

Followed and sought. Nab, thou shalt tell her this.

She'll be more known, more talked of, and your widows

Are ne'er of any price till they be famous;

Their honor is their multitude of suitors.

Send her; it may be thy good fortune. What?

Thou dost not know?

DRUGGER

No, sir, she'll never marry

Under a knight. Her brother has made a vow.

FACE

What, and dost thou despair, my little Nab,

Knowing what the doctor has set down for thee,

And seeing so many o'the city dubbed?

One glass o'thy water, with a madam I know,

Will have it done, Nab. What's her brother? A knight?

DRUGGER

No, sir, a gentleman newly warm in his land, sir,

Scarce cold in his one-and-twenty, that does govern

His sister here, and is a man himself

Of some three thousand a year, and is come up

To learn to quarrel and to live by his wits,

And will go down again and die i'the country.

FACE

How! To quarrel?

DRUGGER

Yes, sir, to carry quarrels,

As gallants do, and manage 'em by line.

FACE

'Slid, Nab, the doctor is the only man

In Christendom for him. He has made a table,

With mathematical demonstrations,

Touching the art of quarrels. He will give him

An instrument to quarrel by. Go, bring 'em both,

Him and his sister. And, for thee, with her

The doctor haply may persuade. Go to!

Shalt give His Worship a new damask suit

Upon the premises.

SUBTLE

Oh, good Captain!

FACE

He shall;

He is the honestest fellow, Doctor. –Stay not,

No offers; bring the damask and the parties.

DRUGGER

I'll try my power, sir.

FACE

And thy will too, Nab.

SUBTLE

[smoking]

'Tis good tobacco, this! What is't an ounce?

FACE

He'll send you a pound, Doctor.

SUBTLE

Oh, no.

FACE

He will do't.

It is the goodest soul! –Abel, about it.

(Aside to him)

Thou shalt know more anon. Away, be gone!

[Exit Drugger.]

A miserable rogue, and lives with cheese,

And has the worms. That was the cause indeed

Why he came now. He dealt with me in private

To get a med'cine for 'em.

SUBTLE

And shall, sir. This works.

FACE

A wife, a wife, for one on's, my dear Subtle!

We'll e'en draw lots, and he that fails shall have

The more in goods, the other has in tail.

SUBTLE

Rather, the less. For she may be so light

She may want grains.

FACE

Ay, or be such a burden

A man would scarce endure her for the whole.

SUBTLE

Faith, best let's see her first and then determine.

FACE

Content. But Doll must ha' no breath on't.

SUBTLE

Mum.

Away! You to your Surly yonder; catch him.

FACE

Pray God I ha' not stayed too long.

SUBTLE

I fear it.

[Exeunt.]

3.1

[Enter] Tribulation [Wholesome and] Ananias.

TRIBULATION

These chastisements are common to the Saints,

And such rebukes we of the separation

Must bear with willing shoulders as the trials

Sent forth to tempt our frailties.

ANANIAS

In pure zeal,

I do not like the man. He is a heathen,

And speaks the language of Canaan, truly.

TRIBULATION

I think him a profane person, indeed.

ANANIAS

He bears

The visible mark of the Beast in his forehead.

And for his stone, it is a work of darkness,

And with philosophy blinds the eyes of man.

TRIBULATION

Good brother, we must bend unto all means

That may give furtherance to the holy cause.

ANANIAS

Which his cannot. The sanctified cause

Should have a sanctified course.

TRIBULATION

Not always necessary.

The children of perdition are ofttimes

Made instruments even of the greatest works.

Beside, we should give somewhat to man's nature,

The place he lives in, still about the fire

And fume of metals, that intoxicate

The brain of man and make him prone to passion.

Where have you greater atheists than your cooks?

Or more profane or choleric than your glassmen?

More anti-Christian than your bell-founders?

What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you –

Satan, our common enemy –but his being

Perpetually about the fire and boiling

Brimstone and arsenic? We must give, I say,

Unto the motives and the stirrers-up

Of humors in the blood. It may be so.

Whenas the work is done, the stone is made,

This heat of his may turn into a zeal

And stand up for the beauteous discipline

Against the menstruous cloth and rag of Rome. –

We must await his calling and the coming

Of the good spirit. You did fault t'upbraid him

With the Brethren's blessing of Heidelberg, weighing

What need we have to hasten on the work

For the restoring of the silenced Saints,

Which ne'er will be but by the philosophers' stone.

And so a learned elder, one of Scotland,

Assured me, aurum potabile being

The only med'cine for the civil magistrate

T'incline him to a feeling of a cause,

And must be daily used in the disease.

ANANIAS

I have not edified more, truly, by man,

Not since the beautiful light first shone on me;

And I am sad my zeal hath so offended.

TRIBULATION

Let us call on him, then.

ANANIAS

The motion's good,

And of the spirit. I will knock first.

[He knocks.]

Peace be within!

3.2

[Enter] Subtle.

SUBTLE

Oh, are you come? 'Twas time. Your threescore minutes

Were at the last thread, you see, and down had gone

Furnus acediae, turris circulatorius;

'Lembic, bolt's-head, retort, and pelican

Had all been cinders. Wicked Ananias!

Art thou returned? Nay then, it goes down yet.

TRIBULATION

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

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

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 th'Indies, to serve you, with all their fleet –

That even the med'cinal 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 oils of talc; there you have made a friend,

And all her friends. A lord that is a leper,

A knight that has the boneache, or a squire

That hath both these, you make 'em smooth and sound

With a bare fricace of your med'cine; still

You increase your friends.

TRIBULATION

Ay, 'tis 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

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

I pray you, sir –

SUBTLE

All shall perish, I have spoke it.

TRIBULATION

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 to'ard 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'ernight 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

[to Subtle]

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 wiredrawn 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

Truly, sir, they are

Ways that the godly Brethren have invented

For propagation of the glorious cause,

100

As very notable means, and whereby also

101

Themselves grow soon and profitably famous.

SUBTLE

102

Oh, but the stone, all's idle to it! Nothing!

103

The art of angels, nature's miracle,

104

The divine secret that doth fly in clouds

105

From east to west, and whose tradition

106

Is not from men, but spirits.

ANANIAS

I hate traditions.

107

I do not trust then –

TRIBULATION

Peace!

ANANIAS

They are popish all.

108

I will not peace. I will not –

TRIBULATION

Ananias!

ANANIAS

109

Please the profane to grieve the godly I may not.

SUBTLE

110

Well, Ananias, thou shalt overcome.

TRIBULATION

111

It is an ignorant zeal that haunts him, sir –

112

But truly, else, a very faithful Brother,

113

A botcher, and a man by revelation,

114

That hath a competent knowledge of the truth.

SUBTLE

115

Has he a competent sum there i'the bag

116

To buy the goods within? I am made guardian,

117

And must, for charity and conscience' sake,

118

Now see the most be made for my poor orphans –

119

Though I desire the Brethren, too, good gainers.

120

There they are, within. When you have viewed and bought 'em,

121

And ta'en the inventory of what they are,

122

They are ready for projection; there's no more

123

To do. Cast on the med'cine so much silver

124

As there is tin there, so much gold as brass;

125

I'll gi' it you in by weight.

TRIBULATION

But how long time,

126

Sir, must the Saints expect, yet?

SUBTLE

Let me see:

127

How's the moon now? Eight, nine, ten days hence

128

He will be silver potate; then three days

129

Before he citronize; some fifteen days,

130

The magisterium will be perfected.

ANANIAS

131

About the second day of the third week

132

In the ninth month?

SUBTLE

Yes, my good Ananias.

TRIBULATION

133

What will the orphans' goods arise to, think you?

SUBTLE

134

Some hundred marks; as much as filled three cars,

135

Unladed now; you'll make six millions of 'em.

136

But I must ha' more coals laid in.

TRIBULATION

How!

SUBTLE

Another load,

137

And then we ha' finished. We must now increase

138

Our fire to ignis ardens; we are past

139

Fimus equinus, balnei, cineris,

140

And all those lenter heats. If the holy purse

141

Should with this draft fall low, and that the Saints

142

Do need a present sum, I have a trick

143

To melt the pewter you shall buy now instantly,

144

And with a tincture make you as good Dutch dollars

145

As any are in Holland.

TRIBULATION

Can you so?

SUBTLE

146

Ay, and shall bide the third examination.

ANANIAS

147

It will be joyful tidings to the Brethren.

SUBTLE

148

But you must carry it secret.

TRIBULATION

Ay, but stay.

149

This act of coining: is it lawful?

ANANIAS

Lawful?

150

We know no magistrate. Or, if we did,

151

This's foreign coin.

SUBTLE

It is no coining, sir.

152

It is but casting.

TRIBULATION

Ha! You distinguish well.

153

Casting of money may be lawful.

ANANIAS

'Tis, sir.

TRIBULATION

154

Truly, I take it so.

SUBTLE

There is no scruple,

155

Sir, to be made of it. Believe Ananias;

156

This case of conscience he is studied in.

TRIBULATION

157

I'll make a question of it to the Brethren.

ANANIAS

158

The Brethren shall approve it lawful, doubt not.

159

Where shall't be done?

SUBTLE

For that we'll talk anon.

Knock without.

160

There's some to speak with me. Go in, I pray you,

161

And view the parcels.

162

[He gives them a paper.]

That's the inventory.

163

I'll come to you straight.

[Exeunt Tribulation and Ananias.]

[Calling]

Who is it? Face! Appear!

3.3

[Enter] Face [in his captain's uniform].

How now? Good prize?

FACE

Good pox! Yond costive cheater

Never came on.

SUBTLE

How then?

FACE

I ha' walked the round

Till now, and no such thing.

SUBTLE

And ha' 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

Oh, but to ha' gulled him

Had been a maistry!

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 color) and to make his batt'ry

Upon our Doll, 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 epididymis.

Where is the doxy?

SUBTLE

I'll send her to thee,

And but dispatch my brace of little John Leydens

And come again myself.

FACE

Are they within, then?

SUBTLE

Numb'ring the sum.

FACE

How much?

SUBTLE

A hundred marks, boy.

[Exit.]

FACE

Why, this's a lucky day. Ten pounds of Mammon!

Three o'my clerk! A portague o'my grocer!

This o'the Brethren! Beside reversions

And states to come i'the widow and my count!

My share today will not be bought for forty –

[Enter] Doll.

DOLL

What?

FACE

Pounds, dainty Dorothy. Art thou so near?

DOLL

Yes. Say, Lord General, how fares our camp?

FACE

As with the few that had entrenched themselves

Safe, by their discipline, against a world, Doll,

And laughed with those trenches, and grew fat

With thinking on the booties, Doll, brought in

Daily by their small parties. This dear hour

A doughty don is taken with my Doll,

And thou mayst make his ransom what thou wilt,

My Dowsabell. 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 Doll, thy drum –till he be tame

As the poor blackbirds were i'the great frost,

Or bees are with a basin, and so hive him

I'the swanskin coverlid and cambric sheets

Till he work honey and wax, my little God's-gift.

DOLL

What is he, General?

FACE

An adalantado,

A grandee, girl. Was not my Dapper here yet?

DOLL

No.

FACE

Nor my Drugger?

DOLL

Neither.

FACE

A pox on 'em,

They are so long a-furnishing! Such stinkards

Would not be seen upon these festival days.

[Enter] Subtle.

How now! Ha' 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 ha' 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 ha' my flies abroad. Your bath

Is famous, Subtle, by my means. –Sweet Doll,

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.

(One knocks.)

Who's that?

[Doll goes to the window.]

SUBTLE

It i' not he?

FACE

Oh, no, not yet this hour.

SUBTLE

[to Doll, as she returns]

Who is't?

DOLL

Dapper,

Your clerk.

FACE

God's will, then, Queen of Faery,

On with your tire! And, Doctor, with your robes.

Let's dispatch him, for God's sake.

[Exit Doll.]

SUBTLE

'Twill be long.

FACE

I warrant you, take but the cues I give you,

It shall be brief enough.

[He 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.]

3.4

[Enter] Dapper.

Oh, 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 o'the dice;

He never heard Her Highness dote till now, he says.

Your aunt has giv'n 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 [and] 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

Oh, is it so? Good time. –Is your name Kastril, sir?

KASTRIL

Ay, and the best o'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're 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 'em take tobacco,

And in his shop; and I can take it too.

And I would fain be one of 'em, and go down

And practice i'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! –

All 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?

FACE

Anything whatever.

You cannot think that subtlety but he read it.

He made me a captain. I was a stark pimp,

Just o'your standing, 'fore I met with him;

It i' not two months since. I'll tell you his method.

First, he will enter you at some ordinary.

KASTRIL

No, I'll not come there. You shall pardon me.

FACE

For why, sir?

KASTRIL

There's gaming there, and tricks.

FACE

Why, would you be

A gallant, and not game?

KASTRIL

Ay, 'twill spend a man.

FACE

Spend you? It will repair you when you are spent.

How do they live by their wits there, that have vented

Six times your fortunes?

KASTRIL

What, three thousand a year?

FACE

Ay, forty thousand.

KASTRIL

Are there such?

FACE

Ay, sir.

And gallants, yet.

[Indicating Dapper]

Here's a young gentleman

Is born to nothing –forty marks a year,

Which I count nothing. He's to be initiated

And have a fly o'the doctor. He will win you

By unresistible luck, within this fortnight,

Enough to buy a barony. They will set him

Upmost, at the groom-porter's, all the Christmas,

And, for the whole year through, at every place

Where there is play, present him with the chair,

The best attendance, the best drink, sometimes

Two glasses of canary, and pay nothing;

The purest linen and the sharpest knife,

The partridge next his trencher, and somewhere

The dainty bed, in private, with the dainty.

You shall ha' your ordinaries bid for him,

As playhouses for a poet, and the master

Pray him, aloud, to name what dish he affects,

Which must be buttered shrimps; and those that drink

To no mouth else will drink to his, as being

The goodly, president mouth of all the board.

KASTRIL

Do you not gull one?

FACE

Od's my life! Do you think it?

You shall have a cast commander (can but get

In credit with a glover or a spurrier

For some two pair of either's ware aforehand)

Will, by most swift posts, dealing with him,

Arrive at competent means to keep himself,

His punk, and naked boy in excellent fashion,

And be admired for't.

KASTRIL

Will the doctor teach this?

FACE

He will do more, sir: when your land is gone

(As men of spirit hate to keep earth long),

In a vacation, when small money is stirring

An ordinaries suspended till the term,

He'll show a perspective where on one side

You shall behold the faces and the persons

Of all sufficient young heirs in town,

Whose bonds are current for commodity;

On th'other side, the merchants' forms, and others

That, without help of any second broker,

Who would expect a share, will trust such parcels;

In the third square, the very street and sign

Where the commodity dwells and does but wait

To be delivered, be it pepper, soap,

Hops, or tobacco, oatmeal, woad, or cheeses –

All which you may so handle to enjoy

100

To your own use and never stand obliged.

KASTRIL

101

I'faith! Is he such a fellow?

FACE

Why, Nab here knows him.

102

And then for making matches for rich widows,

103

Young gentlewomen, heirs, the fortunat'st man!

104

He's sent to, far and near, all over England,

105

To have his counsel and to know their fortunes.

KASTRIL

106

God's will, my sister shall see him.

FACE

I'll tell you, sir,

107

What he did tell me of Nab. It's a strange thing!

108

(By the way, you must eat no cheese, Nab, it breeds melancholy,

109

And that same melancholy breeds worms; but pass it.)

110

He told me honest Nab here was ne'er at tavern

111

But once in's life.

DRUGGER

Truth, and no more I was not.

FACE

112

And then he was so sick –

DRUGGER

Could he tell you that, too?

FACE

113

How should I know it?

DRUGGER

In troth, we had been a-shooting,

114

And had a piece of fat ram-mutton to supper

115

That lay so heavy o'my stomach –

FACE

And he has no head

116

To bear any wine; for, what with the noise o'the fiddlers,

117

And care of his shop, for he dares keep no servants –

DRUGGER

118

My head did so ache –

FACE

As he was fain to be brought home,

119

The doctor told me. And then, a good old woman –

DRUGGER

120

Yes, faith, she dwells in Seacoal Lane –did cure me

121

With sodden ale and pellitory o'the wall;

122

Cost me but twopence. I had another sickness

123

Was worse than that.

FACE

Ay, that was with the grief

124

Thou took'st for being 'sessed at eighteen pence

125

For the waterwork.

DRUGGER

In truth, and it was like

126

T'have cost me almost my life.

FACE

Thy hair went off?

DRUGGER

127

Yes, sir. 'Twas done for spite.

FACE

Nay, so says the doctor.

KASTRIL

128

Pray thee, tobacco-boy, go fetch my suster;

129

I'll see this learned boy before I go,

130

And so shall she.

FACE

Sir, he is busy now.

131

But if you have a sister to fetch hither,

132

Perhaps your own pains may command her sooner,

133

And he by that time will be free.

KASTRIL

I go.

[Exit.]

FACE

134

Drugger, she's thine. The damask!

[Exit Drugger.]

(Aside)

Subtle and I

135

Must wrestle for her. – Come on, Master Dapper.

136

You see how I turn clients here away

137

To give your cause dispatch. Ha' you performed

138

The ceremonies were enjoined you?

DAPPER

Yes, o'the vinegar

139

And the clean shirt.

FACE

'Tis well. That shirt may do you

140

More worship than you think. Your aunt's afire,

141

But that she will not show it, t'have a sight on you.

142

Ha' you provided for Her Grace's servants?

DAPPER

143

Yes, here are six-score Edward shillings –

FACE

Good.

DAPPER

144

And an old Harry's sovereign –

FACE

Very good.

DAPPER

145

And three James shillings, and an Elizabeth groat;

146

Just twenty nobles.

FACE

Oh, you are too just.

147

I would you had had the other noble in Marys.

DAPPER

148

I have some Philip and Marys.

FACE

Ay, those same

149

Are best of all. Where are they? Hark, the doctor.

3.5

[Enter] Subtle disguised like a Priest of Faery [with a tattered robe].

SUBTLE

Is yet Her Grace's cousin come?

FACE

He is come.

SUBTLE

And is he fasting?

FACE

Yes.

SUBTLE

And hath cried “hum”?

FACE

[to Dapper]

Thrice, you must answer.

DAPPER

Thrice.

SUBTLE

And as oft “buzz”?

FACE

[to Dapper]

If you have, say.

DAPPER

I have.

SUBTLE

[presenting Dapper the robe]

Then to her coz,

Hoping that he hath vinegared his senses

As he was bid, the Faeiry Queen dispenses,

By me, this robe, the petticoat of Fortune,

Which that he straight put on she doth importune.

And though to Fortune near be her petticoat,

Yet nearer is her smock, the Queen doth note;

And therefore even of that a piece she hath sent,

Which, being a child, to wrap him in was rent,

And prays him for a scarf he now will wear it

(With as much love as then Her Grace did tear it)

About his eyes, to show he is fortunate.

They blind him with a rag.

And, trusting unto her to make his state,

He'll throw away all wordly pelf about him –

Which that he will perform, she doth not doubt him.

FACE

She need not doubt him, sir. Alas, he has nothing

But what he will part withal as willingly,

Upon Her Grace's word (throw away your purse!)

As she would ask it. (Handkerchiefs and all!)

She cannot bid that thing but he'll obey.

(If you have a ring about you, cast it off,

Or a silver seal at your wrist; Her Grace will send

Her fairies here to search you! Therefore deal

Directly with Her Highness. If they find

That you conceal a mite, you are undone.)

He throws away as they bid him.

DAPPER

Truly, there's all.

FACE

All what?

DAPPER

My money, truly.

FACE

Keep nothing that is transitory about you. –

(Aside to Subtle)

Bid Doll play music.

Doll enters with a cittern. They pinch him.

Look, the elves are come

To pinch you if you tell not truth. Advise you.

DAPPER

Oh, I have a paper with a spur-royal in't.

FACE

Ti, ti! –

They knew't, they say.

SUBTLE

Ti, ti, ti, ti! He has more yet.

FACE

Ti, ti, ti, ti! I'the t'other pocket?

SUBTLE

Titi, titi, titi, titi!

They must pinch him or he will never confess, they say.

DAPPER

Oh, oh!

FACE

Nay, pray you hold. He is Her Grace's nephew. –

Ti, ti, ti! What care you? Good faith, you shall care. –

Deal plainly, sir, and shame the fairies. Show

You are an innocent.

DAPPER

By this good light, I ha' nothing.

SUBTLE

Ti ti, ti ti to ta! He does equivocate, she says –

Ti, ti do ti, ti ti do, ti da! –and swears by the light, when he is blinded.

DAPPER

By this good dark, I ha' nothing but a half crown

Of gold about my wrist that my love gave me,

And a leaden heart I wore sin' she forsook me.

FACE

I thought 'twas something. And would you incur

Your aunt's displeasure for these trifles? Come,

I had rather you had thrown away twenty half crowns.

[He removes Dapper's coin bracelet.]

You may wear your leaden heart still. –How now?

[Subtle, Doll, and Face confer out of Dapper's hearing.]

SUBTLE

What news, Doll?

DOLL

Yonder's your knight, Sir Mammon.

FACE

God's lid, we never thought of him till now.

Where is he?

DOLL

Here, hard by. He's at the door.

SUBTLE

And you are not ready now? Doll, get his suit.

[Exit Doll.]

He must not be sent back.

FACE

Oh, by no means.

What shall we do with same puffin here,

Now he's o'the spit?

SUBTLE

Why, lay him back awhile

With some device. –

[Enter Doll with the clothes Face wears as Lungs.]

[Aloud]

Ti, ti ti, ti ti ti! Would Her Grace speak with me?

I come. –

[Aside]

Help, Doll!

FACE

(He speaks through the keyhole, the other knocking.)

Who's there? Sir Epicure,

My master's i'the way. Please you to walk

Three or four turns but till his back be turned,

And I am for you.

[Aside]

Quickly, Doll!

SUBTLE

[to Dapper]

Her Grace

Commends her kindly to you, Master Dapper.

DAPPER

I long to see Her Grace.

SUBTLE

She 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.

FACE

Sir, he shall

Hold out, an 'twere this two hours, for Her Highness;

I can assure you that. We will not lose

All we ha' done –

SUBTLE

He must nor see nor speak

To anybody till then.

FACE

For that we'll put, sir,

A stay in 's mouth.

SUBTLE

Of what?

FACE

Of 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.

[They gag Dapper.]

SUBTLE

[aside to Doll and Face]

Where shall we now

Bestow him?

DOLL

[to Subtle]

I'the privy.

SUBTLE

[aloud, to Dapper]

Come along, sir.

I now must show you Fortunes's privy lodgings

[The rogues converse privately.]

FACE

Are they perfumed, and his bath ready?

SUBTLE

All.

Only the fumigation's somewhat strong.

FACE

[through the door]

Sir Epicure, I am yours, sir, by and by.

[Exeunt Subtle and Doll with Dapper. Face changes to his disguise as Lungs.]

4.1

[Enter] Mammon.

FACE

Oh, sir, you're come i'the only finest time!

MAMMON

Where's master?

FACE

Now preparing for projection, sir.

Your stuff will b' all changed shortly.

MAMMON

Into gold?

FACE

To gold and silver, sir.

MAMMON

Silver I care not for.

FACE

Yes, sir, a little to give beggars.

MAMMON

Where's the lady?

FACE

At hand here. I ha' told her such brave things o'you,

Touching your bounty and your noble spirit –

MAMMON

Hast thou?

FACE

As she is almost in her fit to see you.

But, good sir, no divinity i'your conference,

For fear of putting her in rage.

MAMMON

I warrant thee.

FACE

Six men will not hold her down. And then

If the old man should hear or see you –

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.

MAMMON

I am schooled, good Ulen.

FACE

And you must praise her house, remember that,

And her nobility.

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

Doll Common for a great lady.

[Exit.]

MAMMON

Now, Epicure,

Heighten thyself. Talk to her all in gold;

Rain her as many showers as Jove did drops

Unto his Danaë; 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.

[Enter] Face [with] Doll [richly dressed].

FACE

[aside]

To him, Doll, suckle him.

[Aloud]

This is the noble knight

I told Your Ladyship –

MAMMON

Madam, with your pardon,

I kiss your vesture.

DOLL

Sir, I were uncivil

If I would suffer that. My lip to you, sir.

[She accepts a kiss.]

MAMMON

I hope my lord your brother be in health, lady?

DOLL

My lord my brother is, though I no lady, sir.

FACE

(aside to Doll)

Well said, my guinea bird.

MAMMON

Right noble madam –

FACE

(aside)

Oh, we shall have most fierce idolatry!

MAMMON

'Tis your prerogative.

DOLL

Rather your courtesy.

MAMMON

Were there nought else t'enlarge your virtues to me,

These answers speak your breeding and your blood.

DOLL

Blood we boast none, sir; a poor baron's daughter.

MAMMON

“Poor”! And gat you? Profane not. Had your father

Slept all the happy remnant of his life

After that act, lain but there still and panted,

He'd done enough to make himself, his issue,

And his posterity noble.

DOLL

Sir, although

We may be said to want the gilt and trappings,

The dress of honor, yet we strive to keep

The seeds and the materials.

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 i'your eye,

This lip, that chin! Methinks you do resemble

One o'the Austriac princes.

FACE

[aside]

Very like!

Her father was an Irish costermonger.

MAMMON

The house of Valois just had such a nose,

And such a forehead yet the Medici

Of Florence boast.

DOLL

Troth, and I have been lik'ned

To all these princes.

FACE

[aside]

I'll be sworn I heard it.

MAMMON

I know not how, it is not any one,

But e'en the very choice of all their features.

FACE

[aside]

I'll in and laugh.

[Exit.]

MAMMON

A certain touch, or air,

That sparkles a divinity beyond

An earthly beauty!

DOLL

Oh, you play the courtier.

MAMMON

Good lady, gi' me leave –

DOLL

In faith, I may not

To mock me, sir.

MAMMON

To burn i'this sweet flame;

The Phoenix never knew a nobler death.

DOLL

Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy

What you would build. This art, sir, i'your words

Calls your whole faith in question.

MAMMON

By my soul –

DOLL

Nay, oaths are made o'the same air, sir.

MAMMON

Nature

Never bestowed upon mortality

A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature;

She played the stepdame in all faces else.

Sweet madam, le' me be particular –

DOLL

Particular, sir? I pray you, know your distance.

MAMMON

In no ill sense, sweet lady, but to ask

How your fair graces pass the hours? I see

You're lodged here i'the house of a rare man,

An excellent artist –but what's that to you?

DOLL

Yes, sir. I study here the mathematics

And distillation.

MAMMON

Oh, 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 emp'ror

Has courted above Kelly, sent his medals

And chains t'invite him.

DOLL

Ay, and for his physic, sir –

MAMMON

Above the art of Aesculapius,

That drew the envy of the Thunderer!

I know all this, and more.

DOLL

Troth, I am taken, sir,

Whole with these studies that contemplate nature.

MAMMON

It is a noble humor. But this form

Was not intended to so dark a use!

Had you been crooked, foul, of some coarse mold,

100

A cloister had done well; but such a feature,

101

That might stand up the glory of a kingdom,

102

To live recluse is a mere solecism,

103

Though in a nunnery. It must not be.

104

I muse my lord your brother will permit it!

105

You should spend half my land first, were I he.

106

Does not this diamond better on my finger

107

Than i'the quarry?

DOLL

Yes.

MAMMON

Why, you are like it.

108

You were created, lady, for the light!

[He offers his diamond ring.]

109

Here, you shall wear it; take it, the first pledge

110

Of what I speak: to bind you to believe me.

DOLL

111

In chains of adamant?

MAMMON

Yes, the strongest bands.

112

And take a secret, too: here, by your side,

113

Doth stand, this hour, the happiest man in Europe.

DOLL

114

You are contented, sir?

MAMMON

Nay, in true being:

115

The envy of princes, and the fear of states.

DOLL

116

Say you so, Sir Epicure?

MAMMON

Yes, and thou shalt prove it,

117

Daughter of honor. I have cast mine eye

118

Upon thy form, and I will rear this beauty

119

Above all styles.

DOLL

You mean no treason, sir?

MAMMON

120

No, I will take away that jealousy.

121

I am the lord of the philosophers' stone,

122

And thou the lady.

DOLL

How, sir! Ha' you that?

MAMMON

123

I am the master of the maistry.

124

This day the good old wretch here o'the house

125

Has made it for us. Now he's at projection.

126

Think therefore thy first wish, now; let me hear it,

127

And it shall rain into thy lap –no shower,

128

But floods of gold, whole cataracts, a deluge,

129

To get a nation on thee!

DOLL

You are pleased, sir,

130

To work on the ambition of our sex.

MAMMON

131

I'm pleased the glory of her sex should know

132

This nook here of the Friars is no climate

133

For her to live obscurely in, to learn

134

Physic and surgery for the constable's wife

135

Of some odd hundred in Essex; but come forth

136

And taste the air of palaces; eat, drink

137

The toils of emp'rics, and their boasted practice –

138

Tincture of pearl and coral, gold, and amber;

139

Be seen at feasts and triumphs; have it asked

140

What miracle she is; set all the eyes

141

Of court afire like a burning glass

142

And work 'em into cinders, when the jewels

143

Of twenty states adorn thee and the light

144

Strikes out the stars, that, when thy name is mentioned,

145

Queens may look pale, and, we but showing our love,

146

Nero's Poppea may be lost in story!

147

Thus will we have it.

DOLL

I could well consent, sir.

148

But in a monarchy how will this be?

149

The prince will soon take notice, and both seize

150

You and your stone, it being a wealth unfit

151

For any private subject.

MAMMON

If he knew it.

DOLL

152

Yourself do boast it, sir.

MAMMON

To thee, my life.

DOLL

153

Oh, but beware, sir! You may come to end

154

The remnant of your days in a loathed prison

155

By speaking of it.

MAMMON

'Tis no idle fear!

156

We'll therefore go with all, my girl, and live

157

In a free state, where we will eat out mullets

158

Soused in high-country wines, sup pheasants' eggs,

159

And have our cockles boiled in silver shells,

160

Our shrimps to swim again, as when they lived,

161

In a rare butter made of dolphins' milk,

162

Whose cream does look like opals; and, with these

163

Delicate meats, set ourselves high for pleasure,

164

And take us down again, and then renew

165

Our youth and strength with drinking the elixir,

166

And so enjoy a perpetuity

167

Of life and lust. And thou shalt ha' thy wardrobe

168

Richer than Nature's, still to change thyself,

169

And vary oftener, for thy pride, than she,

170

Or Art, her wise and almost equal servant.

[Enter] Face [dresses as Lungs].

FACE

171

Sir, you are too loud. I hear you, every word,

172

Into the laboratory. Some fitter place:

173

The garden, or great chamber above.

174

[Aside to him]

How like you her?

MAMMON

175

[aside to Face]

Excellent, Lungs! There's for thee.

[He gives money.]

FACE

[aside to Mammon]

But do you hear?

176

Good sir, beware, no mention of the rabbins.

MAMMON

177

[aside to face]

We think not on 'em.

Face

Oh, it is well, sir.

[Exeunt Mammon and Doll.]

[Calling]

Subtle!

4.2

[Enter] Subtle [as the Alchemist].

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 'em 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

Oh, for a suit

To fall now, like a curtain: flap!

SUBTLE

To th'door, man.

FACE

You'll ha' the first kiss, 'cause I am not ready.

[He goes to the door.]

SUBTLE

[aside]

Yes, and perhaps hit you through both the nostrils.

[Enter] Kastril, [followed by] Dame Pliant.

FACE

Who would you speak with?

KASTRIL

Where's the Captain?

FACE

Gone, sir,

About some business.

KASTRIL

Gone?

FACE

He'll return straight.

But Master Doctor, his lieutenant, is here.

[Exit.]

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 'em. Begin;

Charge me from thence, or thence, or in this line.

Here is my center; 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

Oh, this's 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 ha' your elements perfect.

KASTRIL

What is this?

The angry tongue he talks in?

SUBTLE

That false precept

Of being aforehand has deceived a number,

And made 'em enter quarrels oftentimes

Before they were aware, and afterward

Against their wills.

KASTRIL

How must I do then, sir?

SUBTLE

[to Dame Pliant]

I cry this lady mercy. –She should first

Have been saluted. I do call you “lady”

Because you are to be one ere't be long,

My soft and buxom widow.

He kisses her.

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.

He kisses her again.

[Aside]

'Slight, she melts

Like a myrobalan! – Here is yet a line

In rivo frontis tells me he is no knight.

PLIANT

What is he then, sir?

SUBTLE

[to her]

Let me see your hand.

Oh, 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 honor shortly.

PLIANT

Brother,

He's a rare man, believe me!

[Enter] Face [in his captain's 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 kusse her, and be proud to know her?

FACE

I shall be proud to know, lady.

[He kisses her.]

PLIANT

Brother,

He calls me lady, too.

KASTRIL

Ay, peace. I heard it.

FACE

[taking Subtle aside]

The Count is come.

SUBTLE

Where is he?

FACE

At the door.

SUBTLE

Why, you must entertain him.

FACE

What'll you do

With these the while?

SUBTLE

Why, have 'em up, and show 'em

Some fustian book, or the dark glass.

FACE

'Fore God,

She is a delicate dabchick! I must have her.

[Exit.]

SUBTLE

[aside]

Must you? Ay, if your fortune will, you must. –

Come, sir, the captain will come to us presently.

I'll ha' you to my chamber of demonstrations,

Where I'll 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 scale 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.

[Exeunt.]

4.3

[Enter] Face.

FACE

Where are you, Doctor?

SUBTLE

[within]

I'll come to you presently.

FACE

I will ha' this same widow, now I ha' seen her,

On any composition.

[Enter] Subtle.

SUBTLE

What do you say?

FACE

Ha' you disposed of them?

SUBTLE

I ha' sent 'em 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, Doll 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 gi' 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, Doll

Knows it directly.

FACE

Well, sir, I am silent.

Will you go help to fetch in Don in state?

SUBTLE

I follow you, sir.

[Exit Face.]

We must keep Face in awe,

Or he will overlook us like a tyrant.

[Enter] Face, [with] Surly like a Spaniard. [Subtle and Face continue to speak aloud, assuming that the don understands no English.]

Brain of a tailor! Who comes here? Don John?

SURLY

21Señores, beso las manos a vuestras mercedes.

SUBTLE

Would you had stooped a little and kissed our anos.

FACE

Peace, Subtle!

SUBTLE

Stab me! I shall never hold, man.

He looks, in that deep ruff, like a head in a platter

Served in by a short cloak upon two trestles.

FACE

Or what do you say to a collar of brawn cut down

Beneath the souse and wriggled with a knife?

SUBTLE

'Slud, he does look too fat to be a Spaniard.

FACE

Perhaps some Fleming or some Hollander got him

In D'Alva's time –Count Egmont's bastard.

SUBTLE

[to Surly]

Don,

Your scurvy, yellow, Madrid face is welcome.

SURLY

Gratia.

SUBTLE

He speaks out of a fortification.

Pray God he ha' no squibs in those deep sets!

SURLY

34Por dios, señores, muy linda casa!

SUBTLE

What says he?

FACE

Praises the house, I think.

I know no more but 's action.

SUBTLE

[to Surly]

Yes, the casa,

My precious Diego, will prove fair enough

To cozen you in. Do you mark? You shall

Be cozened, Diego.

FACE

Cozened, do you see,

My worthy Donzel? Cozened.

SURLY

Entiendo.

SUBTLE

Do you intend it? So do we, dear Don.

Have you brought pistolets, or portagues,

My solemn Don? –Dost thou feel any?

FACE

(He feels his pockets.)

Full.

SUBTLE

You shall be emptied, Don, pumped and drawn

Dry, as they say.

FACE

Milked, in troth, sweet Don.

SUBTLE

See all the monsters –the great lion of all, Don.

SURLY

47Con licencia, se puede ver a esta señora?

SUBTLE

What talks he now?

FACE

O'the señora.

SUBTLE

O Don,

That is the lioness, which you shall see

Also, my Don.

FACE

'Slid, Subtle, how shall we do?

SUBTLE

For what?

FACE

Why, Doll's employed, you know.

SUBTLE

That's true!

'Fore heav'n, I know not. He must stay, that's all.

FACE

Stay? That he must not by no means.

SUBTLE

No? Why?

FACE

Unless you'll mar all. 'Slight, he'll suspect it.

And then he will not pay, not half so well.

This is a travelled punk-master, and does know

All the delays –a notable hot rascal,

And looks already rampant.

SUBTLE

'Sdeath, and Mammon

Must not be troubled.

FACE

Mammon, in no case!

SUBTLE

What shall we do, then?

FACE

Think. You must be sudden.

SURLY

61Entiendo que la señora es tan hermosa, que codicio tan 62a verla como la bien aventuranza de mi vida.

FACE

Mi vida? 'Slid, Subtle, he puts me in mind o'the widow.

What dost thou say to draw her to't, ha?

And tell her it is her fortune? All our venture

Now lies upon't. It is but one man more,

Which on 's chance to have her; and beside,

There is no maidenhead to be feared or lost.

What dost thou think on't, Subtle?

SUBTLE

Who, I? Why –

FACE

The credit of our house too is engaged.

SUBTLE

You made me an offer for my share erewhile.

What wilt thou gi' me, i'faith?

FACE

Oh, by that light,

I'll not buy now. You know your doom to me.

E'en take your lot, obey your chance, sir; win her,

And wear her –out for me.

SUBTLE

'Slight. I'll not work her, then.

FACE

It is the common cause; therefore bethink you.

Doll else must know it, as you said.

SUBTLE

I care not.

SURLY

78Señores, por qué se tarda tanto?

SUBTLE

Faith, I am not fit, I am old.

FACE

That's now no reason, sir.

SURLY

80Puede ser de hacer burla de mi amor?

FACE

You hear the don, too? By this air, I call,

And loose the hinges. –Doll!

SUBTLE

A plague of hell –

FACE

Will you then do?

SUBTLE

You're a terrible rogue!

I'll think of this. Will you, sir, call the widow?

FACE

Yes, and I'll take her too, with all her faults,

Now I do think on't better.

SUBTLE

With all my heart, sir.

Am I discharged o'the lot?

FACE

As you please.

SUBTLE

Hands.

[They shake hands.]

FACE

Remember now, that upon any change,

You never claim her.

SUBTLE

Much good joy and health to you, sir.

Marry a whore? Fate, let me wed a witch first.

SURLY

Por estas honradas barbas –

SUBTLE

He swears by his beard.

Dispatch, and call the brother too.

[Exit Face.]

SURLY

Tengo duda, señores,

93Que no me hagan alguna traición.

SUBTLE

How, issue on? Yes, presto, señor. Please you

Enthratha the chambratha, worthy Don,

Where, if it please the Fates, in your bathada

You shall be soaked, and stroked, and tubbed, and rubbed,

And scrubbed, and fubbed, dear Don, before you go.

You shall, in faith, my scurvy baboon Don,

100

Be curried, clawed, and flawed, and tawed, indeed.

101

I will the heartilier go about it now,

102

And make the widow a punk so much the sooner,

103

To be revenged on this impetuous Face.

104

The quickly doing of it is the grace.

[Exeunt.]

4.4

[Enter] Face, Kastril, [and] Dame Pliant.

FACE

Come, lady. I knew the doctor would not leave

Till he had found the very nick of her fortune.

KASTRIL

To be a countess, say you?

FACE

A Spanish countess, sir.

PLIANT

Why, is that better than an English countess?

FACE

Better? 'Slight, make you that a question, lady?

KASTRIL

Nay, she is a fool, Captain; you must pardon her.

FACE

Ask from your courtier to your Inns of Court man,

To your mere milliner: they will tell you all,

Your Spanish jennet is the best horse, your Spanish

Stoop is the best garb, your Spanish beard

Is the best cut, your Spanish ruffs are the best

Wear, your Spanish pavan the best dance.

Your Spanish titillation in a glove

The best perfume; and for your Spanish pike

And Spanish blade, let your poor captain speak. –

Here comes the doctor.

[Enter] Subtle [carrying a paper].

SUBTLE

My most honoured lady,

For so I am now to style you, having found

By this my scheme you are to undergo

An honourable fortune very shortly,

What will you say now, if some–

FACE

I ha' told her all, sir,

And her right worshipful brother here, that she shall be

A countess; do not delay 'em, sir. A Spanish countess.

SUBTLE

Still, my scarce worshipful Captain, you can keep

No secret! –Well, since he has told you, madam,

Do you forgive him, and I do.

KASTRIL

She shall do that, sir.

I'll look to't; 'tis my charge.

SUBTLE

Well, then, naught rests

But that she fit her love now to her fortune.

PLIANT

Truly, I shall never brook a Spaniard.

SUBTLE

No?

PLIANT

Never sin' eighty-eight could I abide 'em,

And that was some three year afore I was born, in truth.

SUBTLE

Come, you must love him or be miserable;

Choose which you will.

FACE

By this good rush, persuade her;

She will cry strawberries else within this twelvemonth.

SUBTLE

Nay, shads and mack'rel, which is worse.

FACE

Indeed, sir?

KASTRIL

God's lid, you shall love him, or I'll kick you.

PLIANT

Why,

I'll do as you will ha' me, brother.

KASTRIL

Do,

Or, by this hand, I'll maul you.

FACE

Nay, good sir,

Be not so fierce.

SUBTLE

No, my enraged child,

She will be ruled. What, when she comes to taste

The pleasures of a countess! To be courted –

FACE

And kissed, and ruffled!

SUBTLE

Ay, behind the hangings.

FACE

And then come forth in pomp!

SUBTLE

And know her state!

FACE

Of keeping all th'idolaters o'the chamber

Barer to her than at their pray'rs!

SUBTLE

Is served

Upon the knee!

FACE

And has her pages, ushers,

Footmen, and coaches –

SUBTLE

Her six mares –

FACE

Nay, eight!

SUBTLE

To hurry her through London to th'Exchange,

Bedlam, the china houses–

FACE

Yes, and have

The citizens gape at her, and praise her tires,

And my lord's goose-turd bands, that rides with her!

KASTRIL

Most brave! By this hand, you are not my suster

If you refuse.

PLIANT

I will not refuse, brother.

[Enter] Surly.

SURLY

53Qué es esto, señores, que no se venga? Esta tardanza me mata!

FACE

[to Kastril and Pliant]

It is the Count come!

The doctor knew he would be here, by his art.

SUBTLE

56Es galanta madama, Don! Galantissima!

SURLY

57Por todos los dioses, la más acabada hermosura, que he 58visto en mi vida!

FACE

Is't not a gallant language that they speak?

KASTRIL

An admirable language! Is't not French?

FACE

No, Spanish, sir.

KASTRIL

It goes like law-French,

And that, they say, is the courtliest language.

FACE

List, sir.

SURLY

63El Sol ha perdido su lumbre, con el resplandor, que trae esta dama. 64Válgame dios!

FACE

[to Kastril]

He admires your sister.

KASTRIL

Must not she make curtsy?

SUBTLE

'Od's will, she must go to him, man, and kiss him.

It is the Spanish fashion for the women

To make first court.

FACE

[to Kastril]

'Tis true he tells you, sir;

His art knows all.

SURLY

Por qué no se acude?

KASTRIL

He speaks to her, I think?

FACE

That he does, sir.

SURLY

71Por el amor de dios, que es esto, que se tarda?

KASTRIL

Nay, see: she will not understand him! –Gull!

Noddy!

PLIANT

What say you, brother?

KASTRIL

Ass, my suster,

Go kusse him, as the cunning man would ha' you!

I'll thrust a pin i'your buttocks else.

FACE

Oh, no, sir.

SURLY

76Señora mía, mi persona muy indignada está a llegar a tanta hermosura.

[He kisses her.]

FACE

Does he not use her bravely?

KASTRIL

Bravely, i'faith!

FACE

Nay, he will use her better.

KASTRIL

Do you think so?

SURLY

79Señora, si será servida, entramos.

[Exit with Dame Pliant.]

KASTRIL

Where does he carry her?

FACE

Into the garden, sir.

Take you no thought; I must interpret for her.

SUBTLE

[aside to Face]

Give Doll the word.

[Exit Face.]

Come, my fierce child, advance.

We'll to our quarrelling lesson again.

KASTRIL

Agreed.

I love a Spanish boy with all my heart.

SUBTLE

Nay, and by this means, sir, you shall be brother

To a great count.

KASTRIL

Ay, I knew that at first

This match will advance the house of the Kastrils.

SUBTLE

Pray God your sister prove but pliant!

KASTRIL

Why,

Her name is so, by her other husband.

SUBTLE

How!

KASTRIL

The widow Pliant. Knew you not that?

SUBTLE

No, faith, sir.

Yet, by erection of her figure I guesses it.

Come, let's go practice.

KASTRIL

Yes, but do you think, Doctor,

I e'er shall quarrel well?

SUBTLE

I warrant you.

[Exeunt.]

4.5

[Enter] Doll (in her fit of talking) [and Sir Epicure] Mammon

DOLL

For after Alexander's death–

MAMMON

Good lady–

DOLL

That Perdiccas and Antigonus were slain,

The two that stood, Seleuc' and Ptolomy–

MAMMON

Madam–

DOLL

Made up the two legs, and the fourth beast,

That was Gog-north and Egypt-south, which after

Was called Gog Iron-leg and South Iron-leg–

MAMMON

Lady–

Doll

And then Gog-horned. So was Egypt, too.

Then Egypt clay-leg and Gog clay-leg–

MAMMON

Sweet madam–

DOLL

And last Gog-dust, and Egypt-dust, which fall

In the last link of the fourth chain. And these

Be stars in story, which none see or look at–

MAMMON

What shall I do?

DOLL

For, as he says, except

We call the rabbins and the heathen Greeks–

MAMMON

Dear lady–

DOLL

To come from Salem and from Athens

And teach the people of great Britain–

[Enter] Face [as Lungs].

FACE

What's the matter, sir?

DOLL

To speak the tongue of Eber and Javan–

MAMMON

Oh,

She's in her fir.

DOLL

We shall know nothing–

FACE

Death, sir,

We are undone.

DOLL

Where, then, a learned linguist

Shall see the ancient used communion

Of vowels and consonants–

Face

My master will hear!

DOLL

A wisdom which Pythagoras held most high–

MAMMON

Sweet honourable lady!

DOLL

To comprise

All sounds of voices, in few marks of letters–

FACE

Nay, you must never hope to lay her now.

They speak together.

DOLL

And so we may arrive by Talmud skill

And profane Greek to raise the building up

Of Helen's house against the Ishmaelite,

King of Thogarma, and his habergeons

Brimstony, blue, and fiery; and the force

Of King Abaddon, and the beast of Cittim,

Which Rabbi David Kimchi, Onkelos,

And Aben-Ezra do interpret Rome.

FACE

How did you put her into't?

MAMMON

Alas, I talked

Of a fifth monarchy I would erect

With the philosophers' stone, by chance, and she

Falls on the other four straight.

FACE

Out of Broughton!

I told you so. 'Slid, stop her mouth.

MAMMON

Is't best?

FACE

She'll never leave else. If the old man hear her,

We are but feces, ashes.

SUBTLE

[within]

What's to do there?

FACE

Oh, we are lost! Now she hears him, she is quiet.

MAMMON

Where shall I hide me?

Upon Subtle's entry they disperse.

[Exeunt Doll and Face: Mammon tries to hide.]

SUBTLE

How! What sight is here?

Close deeds of darkness, and that shun the light!

Bring him again.

[He pretends to discover Mammon.]

Who is he? What, my son!

Oh, I have lived too long!

MAMMON

Nay, good, dear father,

There was no unchaste purpose.

SUBTLE

Not? And flee me

When I come in?

MAMMON

That was my error.

SUBTLE

Error?

Guilt, guilt, my son. Give it the right name. No marvel

If I found check in our great work within,

When such affairs as these were managing!

MAMMON

Why, have you so?

SUBTLE

It has stood still this half hour,

And all the rest of our less works gone back.

Where is the instrument of wickedness,

My lewd, false drudge?

MAMMON

Nay, good sir, blame not him.

Believe me, 'twas against his will or knowledge.

I saw her by chance.

SUBTLE

Will you commit more sin,

T'excuse a varlet?

MAMMON

By my hope, 'tis true, sir.

SUBTLE

Nay, then, I wonder less, if you, for whom

The blessing was prepared, would so tempt heaven,

And lose your fortunes.

MAMMON

Why, sir?

SUBTLE

This'll retard

The work a month at least.

MAMMON

Why, if it do,

What remedy? But think it not, good father.

Our purposes were honest.

SUBTLE

As they were,

So the reward will prove.

(A great crack and noise within.)

How now? Ay me!

God and all saints be good to us! What's that?

[Enter] Face [as Lungs still].

FACE

Oh, sir, we are defeated! All the works

Are flown in fumo: every glass is burst;

Furnace and all rent down, as if a bolt

Of thunder had been driven through the house.

Retorts, receivers, pelicans, bolt-heads,

All struck in shivers!

Subtle falls down as in a swoon.

Help, good sir! –Alas,

Coldness and death invades him. Nay, Sir Mammon,

Do the fair offices of a man! You stand

As you were readier to depart than he.

One knocks.

Who's there –My lord her brother is come.

MAMMON

Ha, Lungs?

FACE

His coach is at the door. Avoid his sight,

For he's as furious as his sister is mad.

MAMMON

Alas!

FACE

My brain is quite undone with the fume, sir;

I ne'er must hope to be mine own man again.

MAMMON

Is all lost, Lungs? Will nothing be preserved

Of all our cost?

FACE

Faith, very little, sir.

A peck of coals or so, which is cold comfort, sir.

MAMMON

Oh, my voluptuous mind! I am justly punished.

FACE

And so am I, sir.

MAMMON

Cast from all my hopes–

FACE

Nay, certainties, sir.

MAMMON

By mine own base affections.

Subtle seems [to] come to myself.

SUBTLE

Oh, the curst fruits of vice and lust!

MAMMON

Good father,

It was my sin. Forgive it.

SUBTLE

Hangs my roof

Over us still, and will not fall, O Justice,

Upon us for this wicked man?

FACE

[to Mammon]

Nay, look, sir,

You grieve him now with staying in his sight.

Good sir, the nobleman will come too, and take you,

And that may breed a tragedy.

MAMMON

I'll go.

FACE

Ay, and repent at home, sir. It may be,

For some good penance you may ha' it yet;

A hundred pound to the box at Bedlam–

MAMMON

Yes.

FACE

For the restoring such as ha' their wits.

MAMMON

I'll do't.

FACE

I'll send one to you to receive it.

MAMMON

Do.

Is no projection left?

FACE

All flown, or stinks, sir.

MAMMON

100

Will naught be saved that's good for med'cine, think'st thou?

FACE

101

I cannot tell, sir. There will be perhaps

102

Something about the scraping of the shards

103

Will cure the itch–

[aside]

though not your itch of mind, sir. –

104

It shall be saved for you, and sent home. Good sir,

105

This way, for fear the lord should meet you.

[Exit Mammon.]

SUBTLE

Face!

FACE

106

Ay.

SUBTLE

Is he gone?

FACE

Yes, and as heavily

107

As all the gold he hoped for were in his blood.

108

Let us be light, though.

SUBTLE

Ay, as balls, and bound

109

And hit our heads against the roof for joy!

110

There's so much of our care now cast away.

FACE

111

Now to our don.

SUBTLE

Yes, your young widow by this time

112

Is made a countess, Face; she's has been in travail

113

Of a young heir for you.

FACE

Good, sir.

SUBTLE

Off with your case,

114

And greet her kindly, as a bridegroom should,

115

After these common hazards.

FACE

Very well, sir.

116

Will you go fetch Don Diego off, the while?

SUBTLE

117

And fetch him over too, if you'll be pleased, sir.

118

Would Doll were in her place, to pick his pockets now!

FACE

119

Why, you can do it as well, if you would set to't.

120

I pray you, prove your virtue.

SUBTLE

For your sake, sir.

[Exeunt.]

4.6

[Enter] Surly [disguised still as a Spanish grandee, and] Dame Pliant.

SURLY

Lady, you see into what hands you are fall'n,

'Mongst what a nest of villains, and how near

Your honor was t'have catched a certain clap

Through your credulity, had I but been

So punctuality forward, as place, time,

And other circumstance would ha' made a man;

For you're a handsome woman. Would you were wise, too!

I am a gentleman come here disguised,

Only to find the knaveries of this citadel;

And where I might have wronged your honor, and have not,

I claim some interest in your love. You are,

They say, a widow, rich, and I am a bachelor,

Worth naught. Your fortunes may make me a man,

As mine ha' preserved you a woman. Think upon it,

And whether I have deserved you or no.

PLIANT

I will, sir.

SURLY

And for these household rogues, let me alone

To treat with them.

[Enter] Subtle.

SUBTLE

How doth my noble Diego

And my dear madam Countess? Hath the count

Been courteous, lady, liberal, and open?

Donzel, methinks you look melancholic

After your coitum, and scurvy! Tryly,

I do not like the dullness of your eye;

It hath a heavy cast; 'tis upsee Dutch,

And says you are a lumpish whoremaster.

Be lighter; I will make your pockets so.

He falls to picking of them.

SURLY

[disclosing himself]

Will you, Don bawd and pick-purse?

[He beats Subtle.]

How now? Reel you?

Stand up, sir. You shall find, since I am so heavy,

I'll gi' you equal weight.

SUBTLE

Help, murder!

SURLY

No, sir.

There's no such thing intended. A good cart

And a clean whip shall ease you of that fear.

I am the Spanish Don, that should be cozened,

Do you see? Cozened? Where's your Captain Face,

That parcel-broker and whole bawd, all rascal?

[Enter] Face [in his captain's uniform].

FACE

How, Surly!

SURLY

Oh, make your approach, good Captain.

I've found from whence your copper rings and spoons

Come now, wherewith you cheat abroad in taverns.

'Twas here you learned t'anoint your boot with brimstone,

Then rub men's gold on't for a kind of touch,

And say 'twas naught, when you had changed the color,

That you might ha't for nothing. And this doctor,

Your sooty, smoky-bearded compeer, he

Will close you so much gold in a bolt's-head,

And, on a turn, convey i'the stead another

With sublimed mercury that shall curst i'the heat

And fly out all in fumo. Then weeps Mammon;

Then swoons His Worship. Or he is the Faustus,

[Face slips out.]

That casteth figures, and can conjure, cures

Plague, piles, and pox by the ephemerides,

And holds intelligence with all the bawds

And midwives of three shires, while you send in

(Captain? What, is he gone?) damsels with child,

Wives that are barren, or the waiting-maid

With the greensickness.

[He seizes Subtle as he tries to escape.]

Nay, sir, you must tarry,

Though he be scaped, and answer by the ears, sir.

4.7

[Enter] Face [with] Kastril.

FACE

[to Kastril.]

Why, now's the time, if ever you will quarrel

Well, as they say, and be a trueborn child.

The doctor and your sister both are abused.

KASTRIL

Where is he? Which is he? He is a slave,

Whate'er he is, and the son of a whore.

[To Surly]

Are you

The man, sir, I would know?

SURLY

I should be loath, sir,

To confess so much.

KASTRIL

Then you lie i'your throat.

SURLY

How?

FACE

[to Kastril]

A very arrant rogue, sir, and a cheater,

Employed here by another conjuror

That does not love the doctor and would cross him

If he knew how.

SURLY

[to Kastril]

Sir, you are abused.

KASTRIL

You lie!

And 'tis no matter.

FACE

Well said, sir. He is

The impudent'st rascal –

SURLY

You are indeed.

[To Kastril]

Will you hear me, sir?

FACE

[to Kastril]

By no means. Bid him be gone.

KASTRIL

[to Surly]

Begone, sir, quickly.

SURLY

This's strange! –Lady, do you inform your brother.

[Dame Pliant whispers to Kastril.]

FACE

[to Kastril]

There is no such a foist in all the town.

The doctor had him presently, and finds yet

The Spanish count will come here.

[Aside to Subtle]

Bear up, Subtle.

SUBTLE

Yes, sir, he must appear within this hour.

FACE

And yet this rogue would come in a disguise,

By the temptation of another spirit,

To trouble our art, though he could not hurt it.

KASTRIL

Ay,

I know.

[To Pliant]

Away! You talk like a foolish mauther.

[Exit Dame Pliant.]

SURLY

Sir, all is truth she says.

FACE

[to Kastril]

Do not believe him, sir.

He is the lying'st swabber!

[To Surly]

Come your ways, sir.

SURLY

You are valiant out of company!

KASTRIL

Yes, how then, sir?

[Enter Drugger with a piece of damask.]

FACE

Nay, here's an honest fellow too that knows him

And all his tricks.

(Aside to Drugger)

Make good what I say, Abel;

This cheater would ha' cozened thee o'the widow. –

He owes this honest Drugger, here, seven pound

He has had on him in twopenny'orths of tobacco.

DRUGGER

Yes, sir. And he's damned himself three terms to pay me.

FACE

And what does he owe for lotium?

DRUGGER

Thirty shillings, sir,

And for six syringes.

SURLY

Hydra of villany!

FACE

[aside to Kastril]

Nay, sir, you must quarrel him out o'the house.

KASTRIL

I will. –

Sir, if you get not out o'doors, you lie,

And you are a pimp.

SURLY

Why, this is madness, sir,

Not valor in you. I must laugh at this.

KASTRIL

It is my humor. You are a pimp and a trig,

And an Amadis de Gaul, or a Don Quixote.

DRUGGER

Or a Knight o'the Curious Coxcomb, do you see?

[Enter] Ananias.

ANANIAS

Peace to the household!

KASTRIL

I'll keep peace for no man.

ANANIAS

Casting of dollars is concluded lawful.

KASTRIL

Is he the constable?

SUBTLE

Peace, Ananias.

FACE

[to Kastril]

No, sir.

KASTRIL

Then you are an otter, and a shad, a whit,

A very tim.

SURLY

You'll hear me, sir?

KASTRIL

I will not.

ANANIAS

What is the motive?

SUBTLE

Zeal in the young gentleman

Against his Spanish slops –

ANANIAS

They are profane,

Lewd, superstitious, and idolatrous breeches.

SURLY

New rascals!

KASTRIL

Will you be gone, sir?

ANANIAS

Avoid, Satan!

Thou art not of the light. That ruff of pride

About thy neck betrays thee, and is the same

With that which the unclean birds, in seventy-seven,

Were seen to prank it with on divers coasts.

Thou look'st like Antichrist in that lewd hat.

SURLY

I must give way.

KASTRIL

Begone, sir.

SURLY

But I'll take

A course with you –

ANANIAS

Depart, proud Spanish fiend!

SURLY

Captain and Doctor –

ANANIAS

Child of perdition!

KASTRIL

Hence, sir!

[Exit Surly.]

Did I not quarrel bravely?

FACE

Yes, indeed, sir.

KASTRIL

Nay, an I give my mind to't, I shall do't.

FACE

Oh, you must follow, sir, and threaten him tame.

He'll turn again else.

KASTRIL

I'll re-turn him, then.

[Exit.]

FACE

Drugger, this rogue prevented us for thee;

We had determined that thou shouldst ha' come

In a Spanish suit and ha' carried her so, and he,

A brokerly slave, goes, puts it on himself.

Hast brought the damask?

DRUGGER

[giving Face the damask]

Yes, sir.

FACE

Thou must borrow

A Spanish suit. Hast thou no credit with the players?

DRUGGER

Yes, sir. Did you never see me play the fool?

FACE

I know not, Nab.

[Aside]

Thou shalt, if I can help it. –

Hieronimo's old cloak, ruff, and hat will serve;

I'll tell thee more when thou bring'st 'em.

[Exit Drugger.]

ANANIAS

(Subtle hath whispered with him this while)

Sir, I know

The Spaniard hates the Brethren, and hath spies

Upon their actions; and that this was one

I make no scruple. But the holy Synod

Have been in prayer and meditation for it;

And 'tis revealed no less to them than me

That casting of money is most lawful.

SUBTLE

True.

But here I cannot do it; if the house

Should chance to be suspected, all would out

And we be locked up in the Tower forever,

To make gold there for th'state, never come out;

And then are you defeated.

ANANIAS

I will tell

This to the elders and the weaker Brethren,

That the whole company of the separation

May join in humble prayer again.

SUBTLE

And fasting.

ANANIAS

Yea, for some fitter place. The peace of mind

Rest with these walls!

SUBTLE

Thanks, courteous Ananias.

[Exit Ananias.]

FACE

What did he come for?

SUBTLE

About casting dollars

Presently, out of hand. And so I told him

A Spanish minister came here to spy

Against the faithful –

FACE

I conceive. Come, Subtle,

100

Thou art so down upon the least disaster!

101

How wouldst thou ha' done if I had not helped thee out?

SUBTLE

102

I thank thee, Face, for the angry boy, i'faith.

FACE

103

Who would ha' looked it should ha' been that rascal

104

Surly? He had dyed his beard and all. Well, sir,

105

Here's damask come to make you a suit.

[He shows Drugger's damask cloth.]

SUBTLE

Where's Drugger?

FACE

106

He is gone to borrow me a Spanish habit;

107

I'll be the count now.

SUBTLE

But where's the widow?

FACE

108

Within, with my lord's sister: Madam Doll

109

Is entertaining her.

SUBTLE

By your favour, Face,

110

Now she is honest, I will stand again.

FACE

111

You will not offer it!

SUBTLE

Why?

FACE

Stand to your word,

112

Or –here comes Doll. She knows –

SUBTLE

You're tyrannous still.

FACE

113

Strict for my right.

[Enter] Doll.

How now, Doll? Hast told her

114

The Spanish count will come?

DOLL

Yes, but another is come

115

You little looked for.

FACE

Who's that?

DOLL

Your master!

116

The master of the house.

SUBTLE

How, Doll!

FACE

She lies.

117

This is some trick. –Come, leave your quiblins, Dorothy.

DOLL

118

Look out and see.

[Face goes to the window.]

SUBTLE

Art thou in earnest?

DOLL

'Slight,

119

Forty o'the neighbors are about him, talking.

FACE

120

[returning]

'Tis he, by this good day.

DOLL

'Twill prove ill day

121

For some on us.

FACE

We are undone, and taken!

DOLL

122

Lost, I'm afraid!

SUBTLE

You said he would not come

123

While there died one a week within the liberties.

FACE

124

No, 'twas within the walls.

SUBTLE

Was't so? Cry you mercy;

125

I thought the liberties. What shall we do now, Face?

FACE

126

Be silent; not a word, if he call or knock.

127

I'll into mine old shape again, and meet him,

128

Of Jeremy, the butler. I'the meantime,

129

Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase

130

That we can carry i'the two trunks. I'll keep him

131

Off for today, if I cannot longer; and then

132

At night I'll ship you both away to Ratcliff,

133

Where we'll meet tomorrow, and there we'll share.

134

Let Mammon's brass and pewter keep the cellar;

135

We'll have another time for that. But, Doll,

136

Pray thee, go heat a little water quickly;

137

Subtle must shave me. All my captain's beard

138

Must off, to make me appear smooth Jeremy.

139

You'll do't?

SUBTLE

Yes, I'll shave you as well as I can.

FACE

140

And not cut my throat, but trim me?

SUBTLE

You shall see, sir.

[Exeunt.]

5.1

[Enter] Lovewit [and] Neighbors.

LOVEWIT

Has there been such resort, say you?

FIRST NEIGHBOR

Daily, sir.

SECOND NEIGHBOR

And nightly, too.

THIRD NEIGHBOR

Ay, some as brave as lords.

FORTH NEIGHBOR

Ladies and gentlewomen.

FIFTH NEIGHBOR

Citizens' wives.

FIRST NEIGHBOR

And knights.

SIXTH NEIGHBOR

In coaches.

SECOND NEIGHBOR

Yes, and oyster-women.

FIRST NEIGHBOR

Beside other gallants.

THIRD NEIGHBOR

Sailors' wives.

FOURTH NEIGHBOR

Tobacco men.

FIFTH NEIGHBOR

Another Pimlico!

LOVEWIT

What should my knave advance

To draw this company? He hung out no banners

Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen,

Or a huge lobster with six claws?

SIXTH NEIGHBOR

No, sir.

THIRD NEIGHBOR

We had gone in then, sir.

LOVEWIT

He has no gift

Of teaching i'the nose that e'er I knew of.

You saw no bills set up that promised cure

Of agues or the toothache?

SECOND NEIGHBOR

No such thing, sir.

LOVEWIT

Nor heard a drum struck for baboons or puppets?

FIFTH NEIGHBOR

Neither, sir.

LOVEWIT

What device should he bring forth now?

I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment.

Pray God he ha' not kept such open house

That he hath sold my hangings and my bedding!

I left him nothing else. If he have eat 'em,

A plague o'the moth, say I. Sure he has got

Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging:

The Friar and the Nun, or the new motion

Of the knight's courser covering the parson's mare,

The boy of six year old with the great thing,

Or't may be he has the fleas that run at tilt

Upon a table, or some dog to dance?

When saw you him?

FIRST NEIGHBOR

Who, sir, Jeremy?

SECOND NEIGHBOR

Jeremy butler?

We saw him not this month.

LOVEWIT

How!

FOURTH NEIGHBOR

Not these five weeks, sir.

FIRST NEIGHBOR

These six weeks, at the least.

LOVEWIT

You amaze me, neighbors!

FIFTH NEIGHBOR

Sure, if Your Worship know not where he is,

He's slipped away.

SIXTH NEIGHBOR

Pray God he be not made away!

LOVEWIT

Ha? It's no time to question, then.

He knocks.

SIXTH NEIGHBOR

About

Some three weeks since I heard a doleful cry,

As I sat up a-mending my wife's stockings.

LOVEWIT

This's strange, that none will answer! Didst thou hear

A cry, say'st thou?

SIXTH NEIGHBOR

Yes, sir, like unto a man

That had been strangled an hour and could not speak.

SECOND NEIGHBOR

I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o'clock

Next morning.

LOVEWIT

These be miracles, or you make 'em so!

A man an hour strangled, and could not speak,

And both you heard him cry?

THIRD NEIGHBOR

Yes, downward, sir.

LOVEWIT

Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee.

What trade art thou on?

THIRD NEIGHBOR

A smith, an't please Your Worship.

LOVEWIT

A smith? Then lend me thy help to get this door open.

THIRD NEIGHBOR

That I will presently, sir; but fetch my tools –

[Exit.]

FIRST NEIGHBOR

Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it.

5.2

LOVEWIT

[knocking again]

I will.

[Enter] Face [in his butler's livery].

FACE

What mean you, sir?

FIRST, SECOND, FOURTH NEIGHBORS

Oh, here's Jeremy!

FACE

Good sir, come from the door.

LOVEWIT

Why, what's the matter?

FACE

Yet farther; you are too near, yet.

LOVEWIT

I'the name of wonder!

What means the fellow?

FACE

The house, sir, has been visited.

LOVEWIT

What, with the plague? Stand thou then farther.

FACE

No, sir.

I had it not.

LOVEWIT

Who had it, then? O left

None else but thee i'the house.

FACE

Yes, sir. My fellow,

The cat, that kept the butt'ry, had it on her

A week before I spied it; but I got her

Conveyed away i'the night. And so I shut

The house up for a month –

LOVEWIT

How!

FACE

Purposing then, sir,

T'have burnt rose-vinegar, treacle, and tar,

And ha' made it sweet, that you should ne'er ha' known it,

Because I knew the news would but afflict you, sir.

LOVEWIT

Breathe less, and farther off. Why, this is stranger!

The neighbors tell me all here that the doors

Have still been open –

FACE

How, sir!

LOVEWIT

Gallants, men and women,

And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here

In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hoxton

In days of Pimlico and Eye-bright.

FACE

Sir,

Their wisdoms will not say so.

LOVEWIT

Today they speak

Of coaches and gallants; one in a French hood

Went in, they tell me, and another was seen

In a velvet gown, at the window; divers more

Pass in and out.

FACE

They did pass through the doors, then,

Or walls, I assure their eyesights and their spectacles;

For here, sir, are the keys, and here have been

In this my pocket now above twenty days.

And for before, I kept the fort alone there.

But that 'tis yet not deep i'the afternoon.

I should believe my neighbors had seen double

Through the black pot, and made these apparitions!

For, on my faith to Your Worship, for these three weeks

And upwards the door has not been opened.

LOVEWIT

Strange!

FIRST NEIGHBOR

Good faith, I think I saw a coach.

SECOND NEIGHBOR

And I too,

I'd ha' been sworn.

LOVEWIT

Do you but think it now?

And but one coach?

FOURTH NEIGHBOR

We cannot tell, sir. Jeremy

Is a very honest fellow.

FACE

Did you see me at all?

FIRST NEIGHBOR

No. That we are sure on.

SECOND NEIGHBOR

I'll be sworn o'that.

LOVEWIT

Fine rogues, to have your testimonies built on!

[Enter Third Neighbor with his tools.]

THIRD NEIGHBOR

Is Jeremy come?

FIRST NEIGHBOR

Oh, yes. You may leave your tools;

We were deceived, he says.

SECOND NEIGHBOR

He's had the keys,

And the door has been shut these three weeks.

THIRD NEIGHBOR

Like enough!

LOVEWIT

Peace, and get hence, you changelings.

FACE

[aside, seeing Surly and Mammon]

Surly come?

And Mammon made acquainted? They'll tell all.

How shall I beat them off? What shall I do?

Nothing's more wretched than a guilty conscience.

5.3

[Enter] Surly [and Sir Epicure] Mammon.

SURLY

[to Mammon]

No, sir, he was a great physician. This,

It was no bawdy house, but a mere chancel!

You knew the lord and his sister.

MAMMON

Nay, good Surly –

SURLY

The happy word, “Be rich” –

MAMMON

Play not the tyrant –

SURLY

Should be today pronounced to all your friends.

And where be your andirons now, and your brass pots,

That should ha' been golden flagons and great wedges?

MAMMON

Let me but breathe. What! They ha' shut their doors,

Methinks!

Mammon and Surly knock.

SURLY

Ay, now 'tis holiday with them.

MAMMON

Rogues,

Cozeners, impostors, bawds!

FACE

What mean you, sir?

MAMMON

To enter if we can.

FACE

Another man's house?

Here is the owner, sir. Turn you to him

And speak your business.

MAMMON

[to Lovewit]

Are you, sir, the owner?

LOVEWIT

Yes, sir.

MAMMON

And are those knaves within your cheaters?

LOVEWIT

What knaves? What cheaters?

MAMMON

Subtle and his Lungs.

FACE

The gentleman is distracted, sir. No lungs

Nor lights ha' been seen here these three weeks, sir,

Within these doors, upon my word.

SURLY

Your word,

Groom arrogant?

FACE

Yes, sir. I am the housekeeper,

And know the keys ha' not been out o'my hands.

SURLY

This's a new Face?

FACE

You do mistake the house, sir.

What sign was't at?

SURLY

You rascal! –This is one

O'the confederacy. Come, let's get officers,

And force the door.

LOVEWIT

Pray you stay, gentlemen.

SURLY

No, sir, we'll come with warrant.

MAMMON

Ay, and then

We shall ha' your doors open.

[Exeunt Mammon and Surly.]

LOVEWIT

[to Face]

What means this?

FACE

I cannot tell, sir.

FIRST NEIGHBOR

These are two o'the gallants

That we do think we saw.

FACE

Two o'the fools?

You talk as idly as they. –Good faith, sir,

I think the moon has crazed 'em all.

[Enter] Kastril.

(Aside)

Oh, me,

The angry boy come too? He'll make a noise,

And ne'er away till he have betrayed us all.

Kastril knocks.

KASTRIL

What, rogues, bawds, slaves! You'll open the door anon,

Punk, cockatrice, my suster! By this light,

I'll fetch the marshal to you. You are a whore

To keep your castle –

FACE

Who would you speak with, sir?

KASTRIL

The bawdy doctor and the cozening captain,

And Puss, my suster.

LOVEWIT

This is something, sure!

FACE

Upon my trust, the doors were never open, sir.

KASTRIL

I have heard all their tricks told me twice over

By the fat knight and the lean gentleman.

LOVEWIT

Here comes another.

[Enter] Ananias and Tribulation.

FACE

[aside]

Ananias too?

And his pastor?

TRIBULATION

The doors are shut against us.

They beat too at the door.

ANANIAS

Come forth, you seed of sulfur, sons of fire!

You stench, it is broke forth; abomination

Is in the house.

KASTRIL

Ay, my suster's there.

ANANIAS

The place,

It is become a cage of unclean birds.

KASTRIL

Yes, I will fetch the scavenger and the constable.

TRIBULATION

You shall do well.

ANANIAS

We'll join to weed them out.

KASTRIL

You will not come, then, punk device, my suster?

ANANIAS

Call her not sister. She is a harlot, verily.

KASTRIL

I'll raise the street.

LOVEWIT

Good gentlemen, a word.

ANANIAS

Satan, avoid, and hinder not our zeal!

[Exeunt Ananias, Tribulation, and Kastril.]

LOVEWIT

The world's turned Bedlam.

FACE

These are all broke loose

Out of Saint Katherine's, where they use to keep

The better sort of madfolks.

FIRST NEIGHBOR

[to Lovewit]

All these persons

We saw go in and out here.

SECOND NEIGHBOR

Yes, indeed, sir.

THIRD NEIGHBOR

These were the parties.

FACE

Peace, you drunkards! –Sir,

I wonder at it. Please you to give me leave

To touch the door, I'll try an the lock be changed.

LOVEWIT

It mazes me!

FACE

[examining the door]

Good faith, sir, I believe

There's no such thing. 'Tis all deceptio visus.

[Aside]

Would I could get him away!

DAPPER

(cries out within)

Master Captain! Master Doctor!

LOVEWIT

Who's that?

FACE

(aside)

Our clerk within, that I forgot! –I know not, sir.

DAPPER

[within]

For God's sake, when will Her Grace be at leisure?

FACE

Ha!

Illusions, some spirit o'the air!

(Aside)

His gag is melted,

And now he sets out the throat.

DAPPER

[within]

I am almost stifled –

FACE

(aside)

Would you were altogether!

LOVEWIT

'Tis i'the house.

Ha! List!

FACE

Believe it, sir, i'the air.

LOVEWIT

Peace, you –

DAPPER

[within]

Mine aunt's Grace does not use me well.

SUBTLE

[within[

You fool,

Peace, you'll mar all!

FACE

[speaking through the keyhole]

Or you will else, you rogue!

LOVEWIT

[hearing Face]

Oh, is it so? Then you converse with spirits!

Come, sir. No more o'your tricks, good Jeremy.

The truth, the shortest way.

FACE

Dismiss this rabble, sir.

[Aside]

What shall I do? I am catched.

LOVEWIT

Good neighbors,

I thank you all. You may depart.

[Exeunt Neighbors.]

Come sir,

You know that I am an indulgent master,

And therefore conceal nothing. What's your med'cine

To draw so many several sorts of wildfowl?

FACE

Sir, you were wont to affect mirth and wit –

But here's no place to talk on't i'the street.

Give me but leave to make the best of my fortune,

And only pardon me th'abuse of your house;

It's all I beg. I'll help you to a widow,

In recompence, that you shall gi' me thanks for,

Will make you seven years younger, and a rich one.

'Tis but your putting on a Spanish cloak.

I have her within. You need not fear the house;

It was not visited.

LOVEWIT

But by me, who came

Sooner than you expected.

FACE

It is true, sir.

Pray you forgive me.

LOVEWIT

Well, let's see your widow.

[Exeunt.]

5.4

[Enter] Subtle [and] Dapper.

SUBTLE

How! Ha' you eaten your gag?

DAPPER

Yes, faith, it crumbled

Away i'my mouth.

SUBTLE

You ha' spoiled all, then.

DAPPER

No!

I hope my aunt of Faery will forgive me.

SUBTLE

Your aunt's a gracious lady; but in troth

You were to blame.

DAPPER

The fume did overcome me,

And I did do't to stay my stomach. Pray you

So satisfy Her Grace.

[Enter] Face [in his captain's uniform].

Here comes the captain.

[Face and Subtle confer privately.]

FACE

How now, is his mouth down?

SUBTLE

Ay, he has spoken.

FACE

A pox! I heard him, and you too. He's undone, then.

I have been fain to say the house is haunted

With spirits, to keep churl back.

SUBTLE

And hast thou done it?

FACE

Sure, for this night.

SUBTLE

Why, then triumph and sing

Of Face so famous, the precious king

Of present wits.

FACE

Did you not hear the coil

About the door?

SUBTLE

Yes, and I dwindled with it.

FACE

Show him his aunt, and let him be dispatched;

I'll send her to you.

[Exit.]

SUBTLE

Well, sir, your aunt Her Grace

Will give you audience presently, on my suit

And the captain's word that you did not eat your gag

In any contempt of Her Highness.

DAPPER

Not I, in troth, sir.

[Enter] Doll like the Queen of Faery.

SUBTLE

Here she is come. Down o'your knees and wriggle!

She has a stately presence.

[Dapper kneels.]

Good. Yet nearer,

And bid, “God save you!”

DAPPER

Madam –

SUBTLE

And your aunt.

DAPPER

And my most gracious aunt, God save Your Grace.

DOLL

Nephew, we thought to have been angry with you,

But that sweet face of yours hath turned the tide,

And made it flow with joy that ebbed of love.

Arise, and touch our velvet gown.

SUBTLE

The skirts,

And kiss 'em. So.

[Dapper kisses the hem of her skirt.]

DOLL

Let me now stroke that head.

Much, nephew, shalt thou win; much shalt thou spend;

Much shalt thou give away; much shalt thou lend.

SUBTLE

(aside)

Ay, much, indeed. – Why do you not thank Her Grace?

I cannot speak for joy.

SUBTLE

See, the kind wretch!

Your Grace's kinsman right.

DOLL

Give me the bird. –

Here is your fly, in a purse about your neck, cousin.

[She puts a purse on a chain around his neck.]

Wear it, and feed it about this day sev'night,

On your right wrist –

SUBTLE

Open a vein with a pin

And let it suck but once a week. Till then

You must not look on't.

Doll

No. And, kinsman,

Bear yourself worthy of the blood you come on.

SUBTLE

Her Grace would ha' you eat no more Woolsack pies,

Nor Dagger frumenty.

DOLL

Nor break his fast

In Heaven and Hell.

SUBTLE

She's with you everywhere!

Nor play with costermongers at mumchance, tray-trip,

God-make-you-rich (whenas your aunt has done it); but keep

The gallant'st company and the best games –

DAPPER

Yes, sir.

SUBTLE

Gleek and primero; and what you get, be true to us.

DAPPER

By this hand, I will.

SUBTLE

You may bring 's a thousand pound

Before tomorrow night (if but three thousand

Be stirring), an you will.

DAPPER

I swear I will, then.

SUBTLE

Your fly will learn you all games.

FACE

[within]

Ha' you done there?

SUBTLE

[to Doll]

Your Grace will command him no more duties?

DOLL

No;

But come and see me often. I may chance

To leave him three or four hundred chests of treasure,

And some twelve thousand acres of Faery land,

If he game well and comely with good gamesters.

SUBTLE

There's a kind aunt! Kiss her departing part.

But you must sell your forty mark a year now.

DAPPER

Ay, sir, I mean.

SUBTLE

Or gi 't away. Pox on't!

DAPPER

I'll gi 't mine aunt. I'll go and fetch the writings.

SUBTLE

'Tis well. Away!

[Exit Dapper.]

[Enter] Face [with a cloak and hat].

FACE

Where's Subtle?

SUBTLE

Here. What news?

FACE

Drugger is at the door. Go take his suit

And bid him fetch a parson presently;

Say he shall marry the widow. Thou shalt spend

A hundred pound by the service!

[Exit Subtle.]

Now, queen Doll,

Ha' you packed up all?

DOLL

Yes.

FACE

And how do you like

The lady Pliant?

DOLL

A good, dull innocent.

[Enter Subtle, with garments.]

SUBTLE

Here's your Hieronimo's cloak and hat.

FACE

[taking the garments]

Give me 'em.

SUBTLE

And the ruff too?

FACE

[taking the ruff]

Yes. I'll come to you presently.

[Exit.]

SUBTLE

Now he is gone about his project, Doll,

I told you of, for the widow.

DOLL

'Tis direct

Against our articles.

SUBTLE

Well, we'll fit him, wench.

Hast thou gulled her of her jewels or her bracelets?

DOLL

No, but I will do't.

SUBTLE

Soon at night, my Dolly,

When we are shipped and all our goods aboard,

Eastward for Ratcliff, we will turn our course

To Brentford, westward, if thou say'st the word,

And take our leaves of his o'erweening rascal,

This peremptory Face.

DOLL

Content. I'm weary of him.

SUBTLE

Thou'st cause, when the slave will run a-wiving, Doll,

Against the instrument that was drawn between us.

DOLL

I'll pluck his bird as bare as I can.

SUBTLE

Yes, tell her

She must by any means address some present

To th'cunning man, make him amends for wronging

His art with her suspicion, send a ring

Or chain of pearl; she will be tortured else

Extremely in her sleep, say, and ha' strange things

Come to her. Wilt thou?

DOLL

Yes.

SUBTLE

My fine flittermouse,

My bird o'the night! We'll tickle it at the Pigeons,

When we have all, and may unlock the trunks,

And say, this's mine, and thine, and thine, and mine –

They kiss.

[Enter] Face.

FACE

What now, a-billing?

SUBTLE

Yes, a little exalted

In the good passage of our stock affairs.

FACE

Drugger has brought his parson. Take him in, Subtle,

And send Nab back again to wash his face.

SUBTLE

I will –and shave himself?

FACE

If you can get him.

[Exit Subtle.]

DOLL

You are hot upon it, Face, whate'er it is!

FACE

A trick that Doll shall spend ten pound a month by.

[Enter] Subtle.

100

Is he gone?

SUBTLE

The chaplain waits you i'the hall, sir.

FACE

101

I'll go bestow him.

[Exit.]

DOLL

He'll now marry her instantly.

SUBTLE

102

He cannot yet, he is not ready. Dear Doll,

103

Cozen her of all thou canst. To deceive him

104

Is no deceit, but justice, that would break

105

Such an inextricable tie as ours was.

DOLL

106

Let me alone to fit him.

[Enter] Face.

FACE

Come, my venturers,

107

You ha' packed up all? Where be the trunks? Bring forth.

SUBTLE

[producing the booty]

Here.

FACE

108

Let's see 'em. Where's the money?

SUBTLE

Here,

109

In this.

FACE

[counting the loot]

Mammon's ten pound; eight score before;

110

The Brethren's money, this; Drugger's and Dapper's.

111

What paper's that?

DOLL

The jewel of the waiting-maid's,

112

That stole it from her lady, to know certain –

FACE

113

If she should have precedence of her mistress?

DOLL

Yes.

FACE

114

What box is that?

SUBTLE

The fishwife's rings, I think,

115

And th'alewife's single money. Is't not, Doll?

DOLL

116

Yes, and the whistle that the sailor's wife

117

Brought you to know an her husband were with Ward.

FACE

118

We'll wet it tomorrow, and our silver beakers

119

And tavern cups. Where be the French petticoats

120

And girdles and hangers?

SUBTLE

Here, i'the trunk,

121

And the bolts of lawn.

FACE

Is Drugger's damask there?

122

And the tobacco?

SUBTLE

Yes.

FACE

Give me the keys.

DOLL

123

Why you the keys?

SUBTLE

No matter, Doll, because

124

We shall not open 'em before he comes.

FACE

125

'Tis true, you shall not open them, indeed,

126

Nor have 'em forth. Do you see? Not forth, Doll.

DOLL

No?

FACE

127

No, my smock-rampant. The right is, my master

128

Knows all, has pardoned me, and he will keep 'em.

129

Doctor, 'tis true –you look –for all your figures;

130

I sent for him, indeed. Wherefore, good partners,

131

Both he and she, be satisfied, for here

132

Determines the indenture tripartite

133

'Twixt Subtle, Doll, and Face. All I can do

134

Is to help you over the wall, o'the back-side,

135

Or lend you a sheet to save your velvet gown, Doll.

136

Here will be officers presently; bethink you

137

Of some course suddenly to scape the dock,

138

For thither you'll come else.

139

(Some knock.)

Hark you, thunder!

SUBTLE

140

You are a precious fiend!

OFFICER

[without]

Open the door!

FACE

141

Doll, I am sorry for thee, i'faith. But hear'st thou?

142

It shall go hard but I will place thee somewhere;

143

Thou shalt ha' my letter to Mistress Amo.

DOLL

Hang you –

FACE

144

Or Madam Caesarean.

DOLL

Pox upon you, rogue!

145

Would I had but time to beat thee!

FACE

Subtle,

146

Let's know where you set up next; I'll send you

147

A customer now and then, for old acquaintance.

148

What new course ha' you?

SUBTLE

Rogue, I'll hang myself,

149

That I may walk a greater devil than thou

150

And haunt thee i'the flock-bed and the buttery.

[Exeunt.]

5.5

[Enter] Lovewit [in Spanish costume, with the parson. Knocking is heard at the door].

LOVEWIT

[responding to the knocking]

What do you mean, my masters?

MAMMON

[without]

Open your door,

Cheaters, bawds, conjurers!

OFFICER

[without]

Or we'll break it open.

LOVEWIT

What warrant have you?

OFFICER

[without]

Warrant enough, sir, doubt not,

If you'll not open it.

LOVEWIT

Is there an officer there?

OFFICER

[without]

Yes, two, or three for failing.

LOVEWIT

Have but patience,

And I will open it straight.

[Enter] Face [as Jeremy the butler].

FACE

Sir, ha' you done?

Is it a marriage? Perfect?

LOVEWIT

Yes, my brain.

FACE

Off with your ruff and cloak, then; be yourself, sir.

[Lovewit removes the Spanish costume.]

SURLY

[without]

Down with the door!

KASTRIL

[without]

'Slight, ding it open!

LOVEWIT

[opening the door]

Hold,

Hold, gentlemen. What means this violence?

[Enter] Mammon, Surly, Kastril, Ananias, Tribulation, [and] Officers.

MAMMON

Where is this collier?

SURLY

And my Captain Face?

MAMMON

These day-owls.

SURLY

That are birding in men's purses.

MAMMON

Madam Suppository.

KASTRIL

Doxy, my suster.

ANANIAS

Locusts

Of the foul pit.

TRIBULATION

Profane as Bel and the dragon.

ANANIAS

Worse than the grasshoppers, or the lice of Egypt.

LOVEWIT

Good gentlemen, hear me. –Are you officers,

And cannot stay this violence?

OFFICER

Keep the peace!

LOVEWIT

Gentlemen, what is the matter? Whom do you seek?

MAMMON

The chemical cozener.

SURLY

And the captain pander.

KASTRIL

The nun my suster.

MAMMON

Madam Rabbi.

ANANIAS

Scorpions

And caterpillars.

LOVEWIT

Fewer at once, I pray you.

OFFICER

One after another, gentlemen, I charge you,

By virtue of my staff –

ANANIAS

They are the vessels

Of pride, lust, and the cart.

LOVEWIT

Good zeal, lie still

A little while.

TRIBULATION

Peace, Deacon Ananias.

LOVEWIT

The house is mine here, and the doors are open.

If there be any such persons as you seek for,

Use your authority; search on, o'God's name.

I am buy newly come to town, and, finding

This tumult 'bout my door, to tell you true,

It somewhat mazed me; till my man, here, fearing

My more displeasure, told me he had done

Somewhat an insolent part, let out my house

(Belike presuming on my known aversion

From any air o'the town while there was sickness)

To a doctor and a captain –who, what they are

Or where they be, he knows not.

MAMMON

Are they gone?

LOVEWIT

You may go in and search, sir.

They enter. [Mammon, Tribulation, Ananias, and the Officers disappear through stage doors as they begin their search of the house.]

Here I find

The empty walls worse than I left 'em, smoked,

A few cracked pots, and glasses, and a furnace,

The ceiling filled with poesies of the candle,

And “Madam with a dildo” writ o'the walls.

Only one gentlewoman I met here,

That is within, that said she was a widow –

KASTRIL

Ay, that's my suster. I'll go thump her. Where is she?

[He goes in.]

LOVEWIT

And should ha' married a Spanish count, but he,

When he came to't, neglected her so grossly

That I, a widower, am gone through with her.

SURLY

How! Have I lost her, then?

LOVEWIT

Were you the don, sir?

Good faith, now, she does blame you extremely, and says

You swore and told her you had ta'en the pains

To dye your beard and umber o'er your face,

Borrowed a suit and ruff, all for her love –

And then did nothing. What an oversight

And want of putting forward, sir, was this!

Well fare an old harquebusier, yet,

Could prime his powder, and give fire, and hit,

All in a twinkling!

Mammon comes forth.

MAMMON

The whole nest are fled!

LOVEWIT

What sort of birds were they?

MAMMON

A kind of choughs,

Or thievish daws, sir, that have picked my purse

Of eightscore and ten pounds within these five weeks,

Beside my first materials, and my goods,

That lie i'the cellar, which I am glad they ha' left.

I may have home yet.

LOVEWIT

Think you so, sir?

MAMMON

Ay.

LOVEWIT

By order of law, sir, but not otherwise.

MAMMON

Not mine own stuff?

LOVEWIT

Sir, I can take no knowledge

That they are yours but by public means.

If you can bring certificate that you were gulled of 'em,

Or any formal writ out of a court

Than you did cozen yourself, I will not hold them.

MAMMON

I'll rather lose 'em.

LOVEWIT

That you shall not, sir,

By me, in troth; upon these terms they are yours.

What, should they ha' been, sir, turned into gold all?

MAMMON

No.

I cannot tell. It may be they should. What then?

LOVEWIT

What a great loos in hope have you sustained!

MAMMON

Not I; the commonwealth has.

FACE

Ay, he would ha' built

The city new, and made a ditch about it

Of silver, should have run with cream from Hoxton,

That every Sunday in Moorfields the younkers

And tits and tomboys should have fed on, gratis.

MAMMON

I will go mount a turnip-cart and preach

The end o'the world within these two months. –Surly,

What! In a dream?

SURLY

Must I needs cheat myself

With that same foolish vice of honesty?

Come, let us go and hearken out the rogues.

That Face I'll mark for mine if e'er I meet him.

FACE

If I can hear of him, sir, I'll bring you word

Unto your lodging; for in troth they were strangers

To me. I thought 'em honest as myself, sir.

[Exeunt Surly and Mammon.]

They [Tribulation and Ananias] come forth.

TRIBULATION

'Tis well; the Saints shall not lose all yet. Go

And get some carts –

LOVEWIT

For what, my zealous friends?

ANANIAS

To bear away the portion of the righteous

Out of this den of thieves.

LOVEWIT

What is that portion?

ANANIAS

The goods, sometimes the orphans', that the Brethren

Bought with their silver pence.

LOVEWIT

What, those i'the cellar

The knight Sir Mammon claims?

ANANIAS

I do defy

The wicked Mammon; so do all the Brethren,

Thou profane man! I ask thee with what conscience

Thou canst advance that idol against us

100

That have the seal? Were not the shillings numbered

101

That made the pounds? Were not the pounds told out

102

Upon the second day of the fourth week,

103

In the eight month, upon the table dormant,

104

The year of the last patience of the Saints,

105

Six hundred and ten?

LOVEWIT

Mine earnest, vehement botcher,

106

And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you;

107

But, if you get you not away the sooner,

108

I shall confute you with a cudgel.

ANANIAS

Sir!

TRIBULATION

109

Be patient, Ananias.

ANANIAS

I am strong,

110

And will stand up, well girt, against an host

111

That threaten Gad in exile.

LOVEWIT

I shall send you

112

To Amsterdam, to your cellar.

ANANIAS

I will pray there

113

Against thy house. May dogs defile thy walls

114

And wasps and hornets breed beneath thy roof,

115

This seat of falsehood and this cave of coz'nage!

[Exeunt Tribulation and Ananias.]

Drugger enters, and he beats him away.

LOVEWIT

116

Another too?

DRUGGER

Not I, sir; I am no Brother.

LOVEWIT

117

Away, you Harry Nicholas! Do you talk?

[Exit Drugger.]

FACE

118

No, this was Abel Drugger.

119

(To the parson)

Good sir, go

120

And satisfy him; tell him all is done;

121

He stayed too long a-washing of his face.

122

The doctor, he shall hear of him at Westchester,

123

And of the captain, tell him, at Yarmouth, or

124

Some good port town else, lying for a wind.

[Exit parson.]

125

[To Lovewit]

If you can get off the angry child, now, sir –

[Enter Kastril and Dame Pliant.]

KASTRIL

126

(to his sister)

Come on, you ewe! You have matched most sweetly, ha' you not?

127

Did not I say I would never ha' you tupped

128

But by a dubbed boy, to make you a lady-tom?

129

'Slight, you are a mammet! Oh, I could touse you now.

130

Death, mun you marry, with a pox?

LOVEWIT

You lie, boy.

131

As sound as you; and I am aforehand with you.

KASTRIL

Anon?

LOVEWIT

132

Come, will you quarrel? I will feeze you, sirrah.

133

Why do you not buckle to your tools?

KASTRIL

God's light!

134

This is a fine old boy as e'er I saw!

LOVEWIT

135

What, do you change your copy now? Proceed;

136

Here stands my dove. Stoop at her, if you dare.

KASTRIL

137

'Slight, I must love him! I cannot choose, i'faith,

138

An I should be hanged for't! Suster, I protest

139

I honor thee for this match.

LOVEWIT

Oh, do you so, sir?

KASTRIL

140

Yes. An thou canst take tobacco and drink, old boy,

141

I'll give her five hundred pound more to her marriage

142

Than her own state.

LOVEWIT

Fill a pipeful, Jeremy.

FACE

143

Yes, but go in and take it, sir.

LOVEWIT

We will.

144

I will be ruled by thee in anything, Jeremy.

KASTRIL

145

'Slight, thou art not hidebound! Thou art a jovy boy!

146

Come, let's in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs.

LOVEWIT

147

Whiff in with your sister, brother boy.

[Exeunt Kastril and Dame Pliant.]

That master

148

That had received such happiness by a servant,

149

In such a widow, and with so much wealth,

150

Were very ungrateful if he would not be

151

A little indulgent to that servant's wit,

152

And help his fortune, though with some small strain

153

Of his own candor.

154

[To the audience]

Therefore, gentlemen

155

And kind spectators, if I have outstripped

156

An old man's gravity or strict canon, think

157

What a young wife and a good brain may do:

158

Stretch age's truth sometimes, and crack it too. –

159

Speak for thyself, knave.

FACE

So I will, sir. –Gentlemen,

160

My part a little fell in this last scene,

161

Yet 'twas decorum. And though I am clean

162

Got off from Subtle, Surly, Mammon, Doll,

163

Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, all

164

With whom I traded, yet I put myself

165

On you, that are my country; and this pelf

166

Which I have got, if you do quit me, rests

167

To feast you often, and invite new guests.

[Exeunt.]

Ben Jonson

The Alchemist

1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.7

5.1

5.2

5.3

5.4

5.5