According as you bade me, when I set
The liquor of Mars to circulation
In the same heat.
SUB. The process then was right.
FACE. Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake,
And what was saved was put into the pellican,
And sign’d with Hermes’ seal.
SUB. I think ’twas so.
We should have a new amalgama.
SUR [ASIDE]. O, this ferret
Is rank as any pole-cat.
SUB. 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.
MAM. He says right.
SUR [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?
MAM. Is’t no more?
FACE. No more, sir.
Of gold, t’amalgame with some six of mercury.
MAM. Away, here’s money. What will serve?
FACE. Ask him, sir.
MAM. How much?
SUB. Give him nine pound: — you may give him ten.
SUR. Yes, twenty, and be cozen’d, do.
MAM. There ’tis.
[GIVES FACE THE MONEY.]
SUB. 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.
SUB. And the philosopher’s vinegar?
FACE. Ay.
[EXIT.]
SUR. We shall have a sallad!
MAM. When do you make projection?
SUB. Son, be not hasty, I exalt our med’cine,
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.
MAM. Not those of iron?
SUB. Yes, you may bring them too:
We’ll change all metals.
SUR. I believe you in that.
MAM. Then I may send my spits?
SUB. Yes, and your racks.
SUR. And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks?
Shall he not?
SUB. If he please.
SUR. — To be an ass.
SUB. How, sir!
MAM. This gentleman you must bear withal:
I told you he had no faith.
SUR. And little hope, sir;
But much less charity, should I gull myself.
SUB. Why, what have you observ’d, sir, in our art,
Seems so impossible?
SUR. But your whole work, no more.
That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir,
As they do eggs in Egypt!
SUB. Sir, do you
Believe that eggs are hatch’d so?
SUR. If I should?
SUB. Why, I think that the greater miracle.
No egg but differs from a chicken more
Than metals in themselves.
SUR. That cannot be.
The egg’s ordain’d by nature to that end,
And is a chicken in potentia.
SUB. The same we say of lead and other metals,
Which would be gold, if they had time.
MAM. And that
Our art doth further.
SUB. 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.
SUR. Ay, what is that?
SUB. Marry, we say —
MAM. Ay, now it heats: stand, father,
Pound him to dust.
SUB. It is, of the one part,
A humid exhalation, which we call
Material 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 driness, 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 engender’d;
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.
MAM. Well said, father!
Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
He’ll bray you in a mortar.
SUR. Pray you, sir, stay.
Rather than I’ll be brayed, sir, I’ll believe
That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game,
Somewhat like tricks o’ the cards, to cheat a man
With charming.
SUB. Sir?
SUR. What else are all your terms,
Whereon no one of your writers ‘grees with other?
Of your elixir, your lac virginis,
Your stone, your med’cine, and your chrysosperm,
Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,
Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,
Your marchesite, your tutie, your magnesia,
Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther;
Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,
Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit,
And then your red man, and your white woman,
With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials,
Of piss and egg-shells, women’s terms, man’s blood,
Hair o’ the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,
Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,
And worlds of other strange ingredients,
Would burst a man to name?
SUB. And all these nam
ed,
Intending but one thing; which art our writers
Used to obscure their art.
MAM. Sir, so I told him —
Because the simple idiot should not learn it,
And make it vulgar.
SUB. Was not all the knowledge
Of the Aegyptians writ in mystic symbols?
Speak not the scriptures oft in parables?
Are not the choicest fables of the poets,
That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom,
Wrapp’d in perplexed allegories?
MAM. I urg’d that,
And clear’d to him, that Sisyphus was damn’d
To roll the ceaseless stone, only because
He would have made Ours common.
DOL [APPEARS AT THE DOOR]. —
Who is this?
SUB. ‘Sprecious! — What do you mean? go in, good lady,
Let me entreat you.
[DOL RETIRES.]
— Where’s this varlet?
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Sir.
SUB. You very knave! do you use me thus?
FACE. Wherein, sir?
SUB. Go in and see, you traitor. Go!
[EXIT FACE.]
MAM. Who is it, sir?
SUB. Nothing, sir; nothing.
MAM. What’s the matter, good sir?
I have not seen you thus distemper’d: who is’t?
SUB. All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries;
But ours the most ignorant. —
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
What now?
FACE. ’Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.
SUB. Would she, sir! Follow me.
[EXIT.]
MAM [STOPPING HIM]. Stay, Lungs.
FACE. I dare not, sir.
MAM. Stay, man; what is she?
FACE. A lord’s sister, sir.
MAM. How! pray thee, stay.
FACE. She’s mad, sir, and sent hither —
He’ll be mad too. —
MAM. I warrant thee. —
Why sent hither?
FACE. Sir, to be cured.
SUB [WITHIN]. Why, rascal!
FACE. Lo you! — Here, sir!
[EXIT.]
MAM. ‘Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece.
SUR. Heart, this is a bawdy-house! I will be burnt else.
MAM. O, by this light, no: do not wrong him. He’s
Too scrupulous that way: it is his vice.
No, he’s a rare physician, do him right,
An excellent Paracelsian, and has done
Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all
With spirits, he; he will not hear a word
Of Galen; or his tedious recipes. —
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
How now, Lungs!
FACE. Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant
To have told your worship all. This must not hear.
MAM. No, he will not be “gull’d;” let him alone.
FACE. You are very right, sir, she is a most rare scholar,
And is gone mad with studying Broughton’s works.
If you but name a word touching the Hebrew,
She falls into her fit, and will discourse
So learnedly of genealogies,
As you would run mad too, to hear her, sir.
MAM. How might one do t’ have conference with her, Lungs?
FACE. O divers have run mad upon the conference:
I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste,
To fetch a vial.
SUR. Be not gull’d, sir Mammon.
MAM. Wherein? pray ye, be patient.
SUR. Yes, as you are,
And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores.
MAM. You are too foul, believe it. — Come here, Ulen,
One word.
FACE. I dare not, in good faith.
[GOING.]
MAM. Stay, knave.
FACE. He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir.
MAM. Drink that.
[GIVES HIM MONEY.]
What is she when she’s out of her fit?
FACE. O, the most affablest creature, sir! so merry!
So pleasant! she’ll mount you up, like quicksilver,
Over the helm; and circulate like oil,
A very vegetal: discourse of state,
Of mathematics, bawdry, any thing —
MAM. Is she no way accessible? no means,
No trick to give a man a taste of her — wit —
Or so?
SUB [WITHIN]. Ulen!
FACE. I’ll come to you again, sir.
[EXIT.]
MAM. Surly, I did not think one of your breeding
Would traduce personages of worth.
SUR. Sir Epicure,
Your friend to use; yet still loth to be gull’d:
I do not like your philosophical bawds.
Their stone is letchery enough to pay for,
Without this bait.
MAM. ‘Heart, you abuse yourself.
I know the lady, and her friends, and means,
The original of this disaster. Her brother
Has told me all.
SUR. And yet you never saw her
Till now!
MAM. O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it,
One of the treacherousest memories, I do think,
Of all mankind.
SUR. What call you her brother?
MAM. My lord —
He will not have his name known, now I think on’t.
SUR. A very treacherous memory!
MAM. On my faith —
SUR. Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it,
Till we meet next.
MAM. Nay, by this hand, ’tis true.
He’s one I honour, and my noble friend;
And I respect his house.
SUR. Heart! can it be,
That a grave sir, a rich, that has no need,
A wise sir, too, at other times, should thus,
With his own oaths, and arguments, make hard means
To gull himself? An this be your elixir,
Your lapis mineralis, and your lunary,
Give me your honest trick yet at primero,
Or gleek; and take your lutum sapientis,
Your menstruum simplex! I’ll have gold before you,
And with less danger of the quicksilver,
Or the hot sulphur.
[RE-ENTER FACE.]
FACE. Here’s one from Captain Face, sir,
[TO SURLY.]
Desires you meet him in the Temple-church,
Some half-hour hence, and upon earnest business.
Sir,
[WHISPERS MAMMON.]
if you please to quit us, now; and come
Again within two hours, you shall have
My master busy examining o’ the works;
And I will steal you in, unto the party,
That you may see her converse. — Sir, shall I say,
You’ll meet the captain’s worship?
SUR. Sir, I will. —
[WALKS ASIDE.]
But, by attorney, and to a second purpose.
Now, I am sure it is a bawdy-house;
I’ll swear it, were the marshal here to thank me:
The naming this commander doth confirm it.
Don Face! why, he’s the most authentic dealer
In these commodities, the superintendant
To all the quainter traffickers in town!
He is the visitor, and does appoint,
Who lies with whom, and at what hour; what price;
Which gown, and in what smock; what fall; what tire.
Him will I prove, by a third person, to find
The subtleties of this dark labyrinth:
Which if I do discover, dear sir Mammon,
You’ll give your poor friend leave, though no philosopher,
To laugh: for you that are, ’tis thought, shall weep.
&n
bsp; FACE. Sir, he does pray, you’ll not forget.
SUR. I will not, sir.
Sir Epicure, I shall leave you.
[EXIT.]
MAM. I follow you, straight.
FACE. But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion.
This gentleman has a parlous head.
MAM. But wilt thou Ulen,
Be constant to thy promise?
FACE. As my life, sir.
MAM. And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me,
And say, I am a noble fellow?
FACE. O, what else, sir?
And that you’ll make her royal with the stone,
An empress; and yourself, King of Bantam.
MAM. Wilt thou do this?
FACE. Will I, sir!
MAM. Lungs, my Lungs!
I love thee.
FACE. Send your stuff, sir, that my master
May busy himself about projection.
MAM. Thou hast witch’d me, rogue: take, go.
[GIVES HIM MONEY.]
FACE. Your jack, and all, sir.
MAM. Thou art a villain — I will send my jack,
And the weights too. Slave, I could bite thine ear.
Away, thou dost not care for me.
FACE. Not I, sir!
MAM. Come, I was born to make thee, my good weasel,
Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain
With the best lord’s vermin of ’em all.
FACE. Away, sir.
MAM. A count, nay, a count palatine —
FACE. Good, sir, go.
MAM. Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster.
[EXIT.]
[RE-ENTER SUBTLE AND DOL.]
SUB. Has he bit? has he bit?
FACE. And swallowed, too, my Subtle.
I have given him line, and now he plays, i’faith.
SUB. And shall we twitch him?
FACE. Thorough both the gills.
A wench is a rare bait, with which a man
No sooner’s taken, but he straight firks mad.
SUB. Dol, my Lord What’ts’hums sister, you must now
Bear yourself statelich.
DOL. O let me alone.
I’ll not forget my race, I warrant you.
I’ll keep my distance, laugh and talk aloud;
Have all the tricks of a proud scurvy lady,
And be as rude as her woman.
FACE. Well said, sanguine!
SUB. But will he send his andirons?
FACE. His jack too,
And’s iron shoeing-horn; I have spoke to him. Well,
I must not lose my wary gamester yonder.
SUB. O monsieur Caution, that WILL NOT BE GULL’D?
FACE. Ay,
If I can strike a fine hook into him, now!
The Temple-church, there I have cast mine angle.
Well, pray for me. I’ll about it.
[KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
SUB. What, more gudgeons!
Dol, scout, scout!
[DOL GOES TO THE WINDOW.]
Stay, Face, you must go to the door,
‘Pray God it be my anabaptist — Who is’t, Dol?
DOL. I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman.
Masters of the Theatre Page 49
