Scene
I
An outer room in Lovewit’s house.
Enter Sir Epicure Mammon and Surly.
Sir Epicure 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 dye,
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, have 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.
Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho!
Face
Within.
Sir,
He’ll come to you by and by.
Sir Epicure Mammon
That is his firedrake,
His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals,
Till he firk nature up, in her own centre.
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 by their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury
For all the copper.
Pertinax Surly
What, and turn that too?
Sir Epicure Mammon
Yes, and I’ll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall,
And make them perfect Indies! You admire now?
Pertinax Surly
No, faith.
Sir Epicure Mammon
But when you see th’ effects of the Great Medicine,
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.
Pertinax Surly
Yes, when I see’t, I will.
But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I
Giving them no occasion, sure I’ll have
A whore, shall piss them out next day.
Sir Epicure 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 honour, love, respect, long life;
Give safety, valour, yea, and victory,
To whom he will. In eight and twenty days,
I’ll make an old man of fourscore, a child.
Pertinax Surly
No doubt; he’s that already.
Sir Epicure 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.
Pertinax Surly
The decayed Vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you,
That keep the fire alive, there.
Sir Epicure Mammon
’Tis the secret
Of nature naturised ’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 of the kingdom in three months.
Pertinax Surly
And I’ll
Be bound, the players shall sing your praises, then,
Without their poets.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Sir, I’ll do’t. Meantime,
I’ll give away so much unto my man,
Shall serve the whole city, with preservative
Weekly; each house his dose, and at the rate—
Pertinax Surly
As he that built the waterwork, does with water?
Sir Epicure Mammon
You are incredulous.
Pertinax Surly
Faith I have a humour,
I would not willingly be gulled. Your stone
Cannot transmute me.
Sir Epicure 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—
Pertinax Surly
How!
Sir Epicure Mammon
Of the philosopher’s stone, and in High Dutch.
Pertinax Surly
Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch?
Sir Epicure Mammon
He did;
Which proves it was the primitive tongue.
Pertinax Surly
What paper?
Sir Epicure Mammon
On cedar board.
Pertinax Surly
O that, indeed, they say,
Will last ’gainst worms.
Sir Epicure 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,
The alembic, and then sowed in Mars his field,
And thence sublimed so often, till they’re fixed.
Both this, the Hesperian garden, Cadmus’ story,
Jove’s shower, the boon of Midas, Argus’ eyes,
Boccace his Demogorgon, thousands more,
All abstract riddles of our stone.
Enter Face, as a servant.
—How now!
Do we succeed? Is our day come? And holds it?
Face
The evening will set red upon you, sir;
You have colour for it, crimson: the red ferment
Has done his office; three hours hence prepare you
To see projection.
Sir Epicure 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.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Excellent witty Lungs!—my only care
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.
Sir Epicure Mammon
That’s true.
Face
Yes.
Let them stand bare, as do their auditory;
Or cap them, new, with shingles.
Sir Epicure Mammon
No, good thatch:
Thatch will lie light upon the rafters, Lungs.—
Lungs, I will manumit thee from the furnace;
I will restore thee thy complexion, Puffe,
Lost in the embers; and repair this brain,
Hurt with 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 colours, sir,
Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,
The peacock’s tail, the plumed swan.
Sir Epicure Mammon
And, lastly,
Thou hast descryed the flower, the sanguis agni?
Face
Yes, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Where’s master?
Face
At his prayers, sir, he;
Good man, he’s doing his devotions
For the success.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Lungs, I will set a period
To all thy labours; thou shalt be the master
Of my seraglio.
Face
Good, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
But do you hear?
I’ll geld you, Lungs.
Face
Yes, sir.
Sir Epicure 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.
Sir Epicure 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, vapoured ’bout the room,
To lose ourselves in; and my 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 [a] 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?
Sir Epicure Mammon
No. I’ll have 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, each-where, bely
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, Puffe, now we have the medicine.
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 camels’ heels,
Boiled in 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.
Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Do.—My shirts
I’ll have of taffeta-sarsnet, 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—
Pertinax Surly
And do you think to have the stone with this?
Sir Epicure Mammon
No, I do think t’ have all this with the stone.
Pertinax Surly
Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi,
A pious, holy, and religious man,
One free from mortal sin, a very virgin.
Sir Epicure Mammon
That makes it, sir; he is so: but I buy it;
My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch,
A notable, superstitious, good soul,
Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald,
With prayer and fasting for it: and, sir, let him
Do it alone, for me, still. Here he comes.
Not a profane word afore him: ’tis poison.—
Enter Subtle.
Good morrow, Father.
Subtle
Gentle son, good morrow,
And to your friend there. What is he, is with you?
Sir Epicure Mammon
An heretic, that I did bring along,
In hope, sir, to convert him.
Subtle
Son, I doubt
You are covetous, that thus you meet your time
In 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 labours, now even at perfection,
Got by long watching and large patience,
Not prosper where my love and zeal hath placed them.
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.
Sir Epicure Mammon
I know, sir;
You shall not need to fear me; I but come,
To have you confute this gentleman.
Pertinax Surly
Who is,
Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief
Toward your stone; would not be gulled.
Subtle
Well, son,
All that I can convince him in, is this,
The work is done, bright Sol is in his robe.
We have a medicine of the triple soul,
The glorified spirit. Thanks be to heaven,
And make us worthy of it!—Ulen Spiegel!
Face
Within. Anon, sir.
Subtle
Look well to the register.
And let your heat still lessen by degrees,
To the aludels.
Face
Within. Yes, sir.
Subtle
Did you look
On 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.
Pertinax Surly
What a brave language here is! Next to canting.
Subtle
I have another work, you never saw, son,
That three days since past the philosopher’s wheel,
In the lent heat of Athanor; and’s become
Sulphur of Nature.
Sir Epicure Mammon
But ’tis for me?
Subtle
What need you?
You have enough in that is perfect.
Sir Epicure Mammon
O but—
Subtle
Why, this is covetise!
Sir Epicure 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.
Reenter 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.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Have 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.
Sir Epicure 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 faeces there calcined:
Out of that calx, I have won the salt of mercury.
Sir Epicure Mammon
By pouring on your rectified water?
Subtle
Yes, and reverberating in Athanor.
Reenter Face.
How now! What colour says it?
Face
The ground black, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
That’s your crow’s head?
Pertinax Surly
Your cockscomb’s, is it not?
Subtle
No, ’tis not perfect. Would it were the crow!
That work wants something.
Pertinax Surly
Aside. O, I looked for this.
The hay’s a pitching.
Subtle
Are you sure you loosed them
In their own menstrue?
Face
Yes, sir, and then married them,
And put them 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.
Pertinax Surly
Aside. O, this ferret
Is rank as any polecat.
Subtle
But I care not:
Let him e’en die; we have enough beside,
In embrion. 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
Any die now, if I might counsel, sir,
For luck’s sake to the rest: it is not good.
Sir Epicure Mammon
He says right.
Pertinax Surly
Aside. Ay, are you bolted?
Face
Nay, I know’t, sir,
I have seen the ill fortune. What is some three ounces
Of fresh materials?
Sir Epicure Mammon
Is’t no more?
Face
No more, sir.
Of gold, t’amalgam with some six of mercury.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Away, here’s money. What will serve?
Face
Ask him, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
How much?
Subtle
Give him nine pound:—you may give him ten.
Pertinax Surly
Yes, twenty, and be cozened, do.
Sir Epicure Mammon
There ’tis.
Gives Face the money.
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.
Have you set the oil of luna in kemia?
Face
Yes, sir.
Subtle
And the philosopher’s vinegar?
Face
Ay.
Exit.
Pertinax Surly
We shall have a salad!
Sir Epicure Mammon
When do you make projection?
Subtle
Son, be not hasty, I exalt our medicine,
By hanging him in balneo vaporoso,
And giving him solution; then congeal him;
And then dissolve him; then again congeal him;
For look, how oft I iterate the work,
So many times I add unto his virtue.
As, if at first one ounce convert a hundred,
After his second loose, he’ll turn a thousand;
His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred:
After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces
Of any imperfect metal, into pure
Silver or gold, in all examinations,
As good as any of the natural mine.
Get you your stuff here against afternoon,
Your brass, your pewter, and your andirons.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Not those of iron?
Subtle
Yes, you may bring them too:
We’ll change all metals.
Pertinax Surly
I believe you in that.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Then I may send my spits?
Subtle
Yes, and your racks.
Pertinax Surly
And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks?
Shall he not?
Subtle
If he please.
Pertinax Surly
—To be an ass.
Subtle
How, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon
This gentleman you must bear withal:
I told you he had no faith.
Pertinax Surly
And little hope, sir;
But much less charity, should I gull myself.
Subtle
Why, what have you observed, sir, in our art,
Seems so impossible?
Pertinax Surly
But your whole work, no more.
That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir,
As they do eggs in Egypt!
Subtle
Sir, do you
Believe that eggs are hatched so?
Pertinax Surly
If I should?
Subtle
Why, I think that the greater miracle.
No egg but differs from a chicken more
Than metals in themselves.
Pertinax Surly
That cannot be.
The egg’s ordained by nature to that end,
And is a chicken in potentia.
Subtle
The same we say of lead and other metals,
Which would be gold, if they had time.
Sir Epicure Mammon
And that
Our art doth further.
Subtle
Ay, for ’twere absurb
To think that nature in the earth bred gold
Perfect in the instant: something went before.
There must be remote matter.
Pertinax Surly
Ay, what is that?
Subtle
Marry, we say—
Sir Epicure Mammon
Ay, now it heats: stand, Father,
Pound him to dust.
Subtle
It is, of the one part,
A humid exhalation, which we call
Materia liquida, or the unctuous water;
On the other part, a certain crass and vicious
Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,
Do make the elementary matter of gold;
Which is not yet propria materia,
But common to all metals and all stones;
For, where it is forsaken of that moisture,
And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone:
Where it retains more of the humid fatness,
It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver,
Who are the parents of all other metals.
Nor can this remote matter suddenly
Progress so from extreme unto extreme,
As to grow gold, and leap o’er all the means.
Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then
Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy
And oily water, mercury is engendered;
Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one,
Which is the last, supplying the place of male,
The other of the female, in all metals.
Some do believe hermaphrodeity,
That both do act and suffer. But these two
Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive.
And even in gold they are; for we do find
Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them;
And can produce the species of each metal
More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth.
Beside, who doth not see in daily practice
Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps,
Out of the carcases and dung of creatures;
Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed?
And these are living creatures, far more perfect
And excellent than metals.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Well said, Father!
Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
He’ll bray you in a mortar.
Pertinax Surly
Pray you, sir, stay.
Rather than I’ll be brayed, sir, I’ll believe
That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game,
Somewhat like tricks o’ the cards, to cheat a man
With charming.
Subtle
Sir?
Pertinax Surly
What else are all your terms,
Whereon no one of your writers ’grees with other?
Of your elixir, your lac virginis,
Your stone, your medicine, and your chrysosperm,
Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,
Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,
Your marcasite, your tutie, your magnesia,
Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther;
Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,
And then your red man, and your white woman,
With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials,
Of piss and eggshells, women’s terms, man’s blood,
Hair o’ the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,
Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,
And worlds of other strange ingredients,
Would burst a man to name?
Subtle
And all these named,
Intending but one thing; which art our writers
Used to obscure their art.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Sir, so I told him—
Because the simple idiot should not learn it,
And make it vulgar.
Subtle
Was not all the knowledge
Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols?
Speak not the scriptures oft in parables?
Are not the choicest fables of the poets,
That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,
Wrapped in perplexed allegories?
Sir Epicure Mammon
I urged that,
And cleared to him, that Sisyphus was damned
To roll the ceaseless stone, only because
He would have made Ours common.
Dol Common
Appears at the door.—
Who is this?
Subtle
’Sprecious!—What do you mean? Go in, good lady,
Let me entreat you.
Dol retires.
—Where’s this varlet?
Reenter Face.
Face
Sir.
Subtle
You very knave! Do you use me thus?
Face
Wherein, sir?
Subtle
Go in and see, you traitor. Go!
Exit Face.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Who is it, sir?
Subtle
Nothing, sir; nothing.
Sir Epicure Mammon
What’s the matter, good sir?
I have not seen you thus distempered: who is’t?
Subtle
All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries;
But ours the most ignorant.—
Reenter Face.
What now?
Face
’Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.
Subtle
Would she, sir! Follow me.
Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Stopping him. Stay, Lungs.
Face
I dare not, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Stay, man; what is she?
Face
A lord’s sister, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
How! Pray thee, stay.
Face
She’s mad, sir, and sent hither—
He’ll be mad too.—
Sir Epicure Mammon
I warrant thee.—
Why sent hither?
Face
Sir, to be cured.
Subtle
Within. Why, rascal!
Face
Lo you!—Here, sir!
Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon
’Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece.
Pertinax Surly
Heart, this is a bawdyhouse! I will be burnt else.
Sir Epicure Mammon
O, by this light, no: do not wrong him. He’s
Too scrupulous that way: it is his vice.
No, he’s a rare physician, do him right,
An excellent Paracelsian, and has done
Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all
With spirits, he; he will not hear a word
Of Galen; or his tedious recipes.—
Reenter Face.
How now, Lungs!
Face
Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant
To have told your worship all. This must not hear.
Sir Epicure Mammon
No, he will not be “gulled;” let him alone.
Face
You are very right, sir, she is a most rare scholar,
And is gone mad with studying Broughton’s works.
If you but name a word touching the Hebrew,
She falls into her fit, and will discourse
So learnedly of genealogies,
As you would run mad too, to hear her, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
How might one do t’ have conference with her, Lungs?
Face
O divers have run mad upon the conference:
I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste,
To fetch a vial.
Pertinax Surly
Be not gulled, Sir Mammon.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Wherein? Pray ye, be patient.
Pertinax Surly
Yes, as you are,
And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores.
Sir Epicure Mammon
You are too foul, believe it.—Come here, Ulen,
One word.
Face
I dare not, in good faith.
Going.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Stay, knave.
Face
He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Drink that. Gives him money.
What is she when she’s out of her fit?
Face
O, the most affablest creature, sir! So merry!
So pleasant! She’ll mount you up, like quicksilver,
Over the helm; and circulate like oil,
A very vegetal: discourse of state,
Of mathematics, bawdry, anything—
Sir Epicure Mammon
Is she no way accessible? No means,
No trick to give a man a taste of her—wit—
Or so?
Subtle
Within. Ulen!
Face
I’ll come to you again, sir.
Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Surly, I did not think one of your breeding
Would traduce personages of worth.
Pertinax Surly
Sir Epicure,
Your friend to use; yet still loth to be gulled:
I do not like your philosophical bawds.
Their stone is letchery enough to pay for,
Without this bait.
Sir Epicure Mammon
’Heart, you abuse yourself.
I know the lady, and her friends, and means,
The original of this disaster. Her brother
Has told me all.
Pertinax Surly
And yet you never saw her
Till now!
Sir Epicure Mammon
O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it,
One of the treacherousest memories, I do think,
Of all mankind.
Pertinax Surly
What call you her brother?
Sir Epicure Mammon
My lord—
He will not have his name known, now I think on’t.
Pertinax Surly
A very treacherous memory!
Sir Epicure Mammon
On my faith—
Pertinax Surly
Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it,
Till we meet next.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Nay, by this hand, ’tis true.
He’s one I honour, and my noble friend;
And I respect his house.
Pertinax Surly
Heart! Can it be,
That a grave sir, a rich, that has no need,
A wise sir, too, at other times, should thus,
With his own oaths, and arguments, make hard means
To gull himself? An this be your elixir,
Your lapis mineralis, and your lunary,
Give me your honest trick yet at primero,
Or gleek; and take your lutum sapientis,
Your menstruum simplex! I’ll have gold before you,
And with less danger of the quicksilver,
Or the hot sulphur.
Reenter Face.
Face
Here’s one from Captain Face, sir,
To Surly.
Desires you meet him in the Temple-church,
Some half-hour hence, and upon earnest business.
Whispers to Mammon.
Sir, if you please to quit us, now; and come
Again within two hours, you shall have
My master busy examining o’ the works;
And I will steal you in, unto the party,
That you may see her converse.—Sir, shall I say,
You’ll meet the Captain’s worship?
Pertinax Surly
Sir, I will.—
Walks aside.
But, by attorney, and to a second purpose.
Now, I am sure it is a bawdyhouse;
I’ll swear it, were the Marshal here to thank me:
The naming this Commander doth confirm it.
Don Face! Why, he’s the most authentic dealer
In these commodities, the superintendant
To all the quainter traffickers in town!
He is the visitor, and does appoint,
Who lies with whom, and at what hour; what price;
Which gown, and in what smock; what fall; what tire.
Him will I prove, by a third person, to find
The subtleties of this dark labyrinth:
Which if I do discover, dear Sir Mammon,
You’ll give your poor friend leave, though no philosopher,
To laugh: for you that are, ’tis thought, shall weep.
Face
Sir, he does pray, you’ll not forget.
Pertinax Surly
I will not, sir.
Sir Epicure, I shall leave you.
Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon
I follow you, straight.
Face
But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion.
This gentleman has a parlous head.
Sir Epicure Mammon
But wilt thou Ulen,
Be constant to thy promise?
Face
As my life, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me,
And say, I am a noble fellow?
Face
O, what else, sir?
And that you’ll make her royal with the stone,
An empress; and yourself, King of Bantam.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Wilt thou do this?
Face
Will I, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon
Lungs, my Lungs!
I love thee.
Face
Send your stuff, sir, that my master
May busy himself about projection.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Thou hast witched me, rogue: take, go.
Gives him money.
Face
Your jack, and all, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Thou art a villain—I will send my jack,
And the weights too. Slave, I could bite thine ear.
Away, thou dost not care for me.
Face
Not I, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon
Come, I was born to make thee, my good weasel,
Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain
With the best lord’s vermin of ’em all.
Face
Away, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon
A count, nay, a count palatine—
Face
Good, sir, go.
Sir Epicure Mammon
Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster.
Exit.
Reenter Subtle and Dol.
Subtle
Has he bit? Has he bit?
Face
And swallowed, too, my Subtle.
I have given 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
Dol, my Lord What’ts’hums sister, you must now
Bear yourself statelich.
Dol Common
O let me alone.
I’ll not forget my race, I warrant you.
I’ll keep my distance, laugh and talk aloud;
Have all the tricks of a proud scurvy lady,
And be as rude as her woman.
Face
Well said, sanguine!
Subtle
But will he send his andirons?
Face
His jack too,
And’s iron shoeing-horn; I have spoke to him. Well,
I must not lose my wary gamester yonder.
Subtle
O 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.
Knocking without.
Subtle
What, more gudgeons!
Dol, scout, scout!
Dol goes to the window.
Stay, Face, you must go to the door,
’Pray God it be my Anabaptist—Who is’t, Dol?
Dol Common
I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman.
Subtle
Ods so! ’Tis he, he said he would send what call you him?
The sanctified elder, that should deal
For Mammon’s jack and andirons. Let him in.
Stay, help me off, first, with my gown.
Exit Face with the gown.
Away,
Madam, to your withdrawing chamber.
Exit Dol.
Now,
In a new tune, new gesture, but old language.—
This fellow is sent from one 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.—
Enter Ananias.
Aloud.
Where is my drudge?
Reenter Face.
Face
Sir!
Subtle
Take away the recipient,
And rectify your menstrue from the phlegma.
Then pour it on the Sol, in the cucurbite,
And let them macerate together.
Face
Yes, sir.
And save the ground?
Subtle
No: Terra damnata
Must not have entrance in the work.—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 stiptic?
Or what is homogene, or heterogene?
Ananias
I understand no heathen language, truly.
Subtle
Heathen! You Knipper-doling? Is Ars sacra,
Or chrysopoeia, or spagyrica,
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
Sirrah, my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him,
Like a philosopher: answer in the language.
Name the vexations, and the martyrisations
Of metals in the work.
Face
Sir, putrefaction,
Solution, ablution, sublimation,
Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and
Fixation.
Subtle
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 is 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 into hot,
Hot into dry.
Subtle
This is 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 is 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
O, 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 medicine on:
Wherein the Brethren may have a pennyworth
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 it,
’Till I have talked with your pastor. Have 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 have 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 give me satisfaction; or out goes
The fire; and down th’ alembics, and the furnace,
Piger Henricus, or whatnot. Thou wretch!
Both sericon and bufo shall be lost,
Tell them. All hope of rooting out the Bishops,
Or the antichristian hierarchy, shall perish,
If they stay threescore minutes: the aqueity,
Terreity, and sulphureity
Shall run together again, and all be annulled,
Thou wicked Ananias!
Exit Ananias.
This will fetch ’em,
And make them haste towards their gulling more.
A man must deal like a rough nurse, and fright
Those that are froward, to an appetite.
Reenter Face, in his uniform, followed by Drugger.
Face
He is busy with his spirits, but we’ll upon him.
Subtle
How now! What mates, what Baiards have we here?
Face
I told you, he would be furious.—Sir, here’s Nab,
Has brought you another piece of gold to look on:
—We must appease him. Give it me—and prays you,
You would devise—what is it, Nab?
Drugger
A sign, sir.
Face
Ay, a good lucky one, a thriving sign, Doctor.
Subtle
I was devising now.
Face
’Slight, do not say so,
He will repent he gave you any more—
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 passers by,
Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections,
That may result upon the party owns it:
As thus—
Face
Nab!
Subtle
He 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
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
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, she’s not in fashion yet; she wears
A hood, but it stands a cop.
Face
No matter, Abel.
Drugger
And I do now and then give her a fucus—
Face
What! Dost thou deal, Nab?
Subtle
I did tell you, Captain.
Drugger
And physic too, sometime, sir; for which she trusts 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
Ods 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 honour 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 of 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 in the country.
Face
How! To quarrel?
Drugger
Yes, sir, to carry quarrels,
As gallants do; to manage them 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 them 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
O, 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
’Tis good tobacco, this! What is’t an ounce?
Face
He’ll send you a pound, Doctor.
Subtle
O no.
Face
He will do’t.
It is the goodest soul!—Abel, about it.
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 medicine for them.
Subtle
And shall, sir. This works.
Face
A wife, a wife for one on us, 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 Dol must have no breath on’t.
Subtle
Mum.
Away you, to your Surly yonder, catch him.
Face
’Pray God I have not stayed too long.
Subtle
I fear it.
Exeunt.