The Alchemist

Believ’t, I will.

Thy worst. I fart at thee.

Have you your wits? Why, gentlemen! For love⁠—

Sirrah, I’ll strip you⁠—

What to do? Lick figs
Out at my⁠—

Rogue, rogue!⁠—out of all your sleights.

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

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

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

Sirrah⁠—

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

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

Yes, faith; yes, faith.

Why, who
Am I, my mongrel? Who am I?

I’ll tell you,
Since you know not yourself.

Speak lower, rogue.

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—

Will you be so loud?

Since, by my means, translated Suburb-Captain.

By your means, Doctor Dog!

Within man’s memory,
All this I speak of.

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

I do not hear well.

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 the artillery-yard.

I wish you could advance your voice a little.

When you went pinned up in the several rags
You had raked and picked from dunghills, before day;
Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes;
A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloak,
That scarce would cover your no buttocks⁠—

So, sir!

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

Your master’s house!

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

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.

You might talk softlier, rascal.

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.

The place has made you valiant.

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 watering-pots,
Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fixed thee
In the third region, called our state of grace?
Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
Would twice have won me the philosopher’s work?
Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit
For more than ordinary fellowships?
Given thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions,
Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards,
Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else?
Made thee a second in mine own great art?
And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel,
Do you fly out in the projection?
Would you be gone now?

Gentlemen, what mean you?
Will you mar all?

Slave, thou hadst had no name⁠—

Will you undo yourselves with civil war?

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

Do you know who hears you, Sovereign?

Sirrah⁠—

Nay, General, I thought you were civil.

I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.

And hang thyself, I care not.

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

O, this will o’erthrow all.

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 sheers,
Erecting figures in your rows of houses,
And taking in of shadows with a glass,
Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee,
Worse than Gamaliel Ratsey’s.

Are you sound?
Have you your senses, masters?

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

Away, you trencher-rascal!

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

Will you be
Your own destructions, gentlemen?

Still spewed out
For lying too heavy on the basket.

Cheater!

Bawd!

Cowherd!

Conjurer!

Cutpurse!

Witch!

O me!
We are ruined, lost! Have you no more regard
To your reputations? Where’s your judgment? ’Slight,
Have yet some care of me, of your republic⁠—

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

Snatches Face’s sword.
You’ll bring your head within a cockscomb, will you?
And you, sir, with your menstrue⁠—
Dashes Subtle’s vial out of his hand.
Gather it up.⁠—
’Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,
Leave off your barking, and grow one again,
Or, by the light that shines, I’ll cut your throats.
I’ll not be made a prey unto the marshal,
For ne’er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.
Have you together cozened all this while,
And all the world, and shall it now be said,
You’ve made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?
To Face.
You will accuse him! You will “bring him in
Within the statute!” Who shall take your word?
A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal Captain,
Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust
So much as for a feather:
To Subtle.
and you, too,
Will give the cause, forsooth! You will insult,
And claim a primacy in the divisions!
You must be chief! As if you only had
The powder to project with, and the work
Were not begun out of equality?
The venture tripartite? All things in common?
Without priority? ’Sdeath! You perpetual curs,
Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,
And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,
And lose not the beginning of a term,
Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,
And take my part, and quit you.

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

Why, so it does.

How does it? Do not we
Sustain our parts?

Yes, but they are not equal.

Why, if your part exceed today, I hope
Ours may, tomorrow match it.

Ay, they may.

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

Dorothy! Mistress Dorothy!
’Ods precious, I’ll do anything. What do you mean?

Because o’ your fermentation and cibation?

Not I, by heaven⁠—

Your Sol and Luna
To Face.
—help me.

Would I were hanged then? I’ll conform myself.

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

What should I swear?

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

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

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

’Slid, prove today, who shall shark best.

Agreed.

Yes, and work close and friendly.

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

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

Royal Dol!
Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself.

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

Who’s that? One rings. To the window, Dol:

—pray heaven,
The master do not trouble us this quarter.

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

Who is it, Dol?

A fine young quodling.

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

O, let him in.

Stay. Who shall do’t?

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

And what shall I do?

Not be seen; away!

Seem you very reserved.

Enough.

Aloud and retiring.
God be wi’ you, sir,
I pray you let him know that I was here:
His name is Dapper. I would gladly have stayed, but⁠—

Within. Captain, I am here.

Who’s that?⁠—He’s come, I think, Doctor.

In truth
I am very sorry, Captain.

But I thought
Sure I should meet you.

Ay, I am very glad.
I had a scurvy writ or two to make,
And I had lent my watch last night to one
That dines today at the sheriff’s, and so was robbed
Of my past-time.

Is this the cunning-man?

This is his worship.

Is he a Doctor?

Yes.

And have you broke with him, Captain?

Ay.

And how?

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

Not so, good Captain.

Would I were fairly rid of it, believe me.

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

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

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

It was a clerk, sir.

A clerk!

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

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

You did so.

And will I tell then! By this hand of flesh,
Would it might never write good court-hand more,
If I discover. What do you think of me,
That I am a chiaus?

What’s that?

The Turk was here.
As one would say, do you think I am a Turk?

I’ll tell the Doctor so.

Do, good sweet Captain.

Come, noble Doctor, pray thee let’s prevail;
This is the gentleman, and he is no chiaus.

Captain, I have returned you all my answer.
I would do much, sir, for your love⁠—But this
I neither may, nor can.

Tut, do not say so.
You deal now with a noble fellow, Doctor,
One that will thank you richly; and he is no chiaus:
Let that, sir, move you.

Pray you, forbear⁠—

He has
Four angels here.

You do me wrong, good sir.

Doctor, wherein? To tempt you with these spirits?

To tempt my art and love, sir, to my peril.
Fore heaven, I scarce can think you are my friend,
That so would draw me to apparent danger.

I draw you! A horse draw you, and a halter,
You, and your flies together⁠—

Nay, good Captain.

That know no difference of men.

Good words, sir.

Good deeds, sir, Doctor Dogs-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—

Captain!

Nor any melancholic under-scribe,
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 Testament,
If need be, in his pocket; and can court
His mistress out of Ovid.

Nay, dear Captain⁠—

Did you not tell me so?

Yes; but I’d have you
Use master Doctor with some more respect.

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 puckfist:
Come, let’s be gone.

Pray you let me speak with you.

His worship calls you, Captain.

I am sorry
I e’er embarked myself in such a business.

Nay, good sir; he did call you.

Will he take then?

First, hear me⁠—

Not a syllable, ’less you take.

Pray you, sir⁠—

Upon no terms but an assumpsit.

Your humour must be law.
He takes the four angels.

Why now, sir, talk.
Now I dare hear you with mine honour. Speak.
So may this gentleman too.

Why, sir⁠—
Offering to whisper Face.

No whispering.

Fore heaven, you do not apprehend the loss
You do yourself in this.

Wherein? For what?

Marry, to be so importunate for one,
That, when he has it, will undo you all:
He’ll win up all the money in the town.

How!

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.

You are mistaken, Doctor.
Why he does ask one but for cups and horses,
A rifling fly; none of your great familiars.

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

I told you so.

Taking Dapper aside.
’Slight, that is 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.

Ay, ’tis true, sir;
But I do think now I shall leave the law,
And therefore⁠—

Why, this changes quite the case.
Do you think that I dare move him?

If you please, sir;
All’s one to him, I see.

What! For that money?
I cannot with my conscience; nor should you
Make the request, methinks.

No, sir, I mean
To add consideration.

Why then, sir,
I’ll try.⁠—
Goes to Subtle.
Say that it were for all games, Doctor.

I say then, not a mouth shall eat for him
At any ordinary, but on the score,
That is a gaming mouth, conceive me.

Indeed!

He’ll draw you all the treasure of the realm,
If it be set him.

Speak you this from art?

Ay, sir, and reason too, the ground of art.
He is of the only best complexion,
The Queen of Fairy loves.

What! Is he?

Peace.
He’ll overhear you. Sir, should she but see him⁠—

What?

Do not you tell him.

Will he win at cards too?

The spirits of dead Holland, living Isaac,
You’d swear, were in him; such a vigorous luck
As cannot be resisted. ’Slight, he’ll put
Six of your gallants to a cloak, indeed.

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

He hears you, man⁠—

Sir, I’ll not be ingrateful.

Faith, I have confidence in his good nature:
You hear, he says he will not be ingrateful.

Why, as you please; my venture follows yours.

Troth, do it, Doctor; think him trusty, and make him.
He may make us both happy in an hour;
Win some five thousand pound, and send us two on’t.

Believe it, and I will, sir.

And you shall, sir.
Takes him aside.
You have heard all?

No, what was’t? Nothing, I, sir.

Nothing!

A little, sir.

Well, a rare star
Reigned at your birth.

At mine, sir! No.

The Doctor
Swears that you are⁠—

Nay, Captain, you’ll tell all now.

Allied to the Queen of Fairy.

Who! That I am?
Believe it, no such matter⁠—

Yes, and that
You were born with a cawl on your head.

Who says so?

Come,
You know it well enough, though you dissemble it.

I’fac, I do not; you are mistaken.

How!
Swear by your fac, and in a thing so known
Unto the Doctor? How shall we, sir, trust you
In the other matter? Can we ever think,
When you have won five or six thousand pound,
You’ll send us shares in’t, by this rate?

By Jove, sir,
I’ll win ten thousand pound, and send you half.
I’fac’s no oath.

No, no, he did but jest.

Go to. Go thank the Doctor: he’s your friend,
To take it so.

I thank his worship.

So!
Another angel.

Must I?

Must you! ’Slight,
What else is thanks? Will you be trivial?⁠—Doctor,
Dapper gives him the money.
When must he come for his familiar?

Shall I not have it with me?

O, good sir!
There must a world of ceremonies pass;
You must be bathed and fumigated first:
Besides the Queen of Fairy does not rise
Till it be noon.

Not, if she danced, tonight.

And she must bless it.

Did you never see
Her royal Grace yet?

Whom?

Your aunt of Fairy?

Not since she kissed him in the cradle, Captain;
I can resolve you that.

Well, see her Grace,
Whate’er it cost you, for a thing that I know.
It will be somewhat hard to compass; but
However, see her. You are made, believe it,
If you can see her. Her Grace is a lone woman,
And very rich; and if she take a fancy,
She will do strange things. See her, at any hand.
’Slid, she may hap to leave you all she has:
It is the Doctor’s fear.

How will’t be done, then?

Let me alone, take you no thought. Do you
But say to me, Captain, I’ll see her Grace.

“Captain, I’ll see her Grace.”

Enough.

Who’s there?
Anon.
Aside to Face.
—Conduct him forth by the back way.⁠—
Sir, against one o’clock prepare yourself;
Till when you must be fasting; only take
Three drops of vinegar in at your nose,
Two at your mouth, and one at either ear;
Then bathe your fingers’ ends and wash your eyes,
To sharpen your five senses, and cry “hum”
Thrice, and then “buz” as often; and then come.

Can you remember this?

I warrant you.

Well then, away. It is but your bestowing
Some twenty nobles ’mong her Grace’s servants,
And put on a clean shirt: you do not know
What grace her Grace may do you in clean linen.

Within. Come in! 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?

Yes, sir.

A seller of tobacco?

Yes, sir.

Umph!
Free of the grocers?

Ay, and’t please you.

Well⁠—
Your business, Abel?

This, and’t please your worship;
I am a young beginner, and am building
Of a new shop, and’t like your worship, just
At corner of a street:⁠—Here is the plot on’t⁠—
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.

I do,
If I do see them⁠—

What! My honest Abel?
Though art well met here.

Troth, sir, I was speaking,
Just as your worship came here, of your worship:
I pray you speak for me to Master Doctor.

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, under ground,
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.

He is a fortunate fellow, that I am sure on.

Already, sir, have you found it? Lo thee, Abel!

And in right way toward riches⁠—

Sir!

This summer
He will be of the clothing of his company,
And next spring called to the scarlet; spend what he can.

What, and so little beard?

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.

’Slid, Doctor, how canst thou know this so soon?
I am amused at that!

By a rule, Captain,
In metoposcopy, which I do work by;
A certain star in the forehead, which you see not.
Your chestnut or your olive-coloured 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.

Which finger’s that?

His little finger. Look.
You were born upon a Wednesday?

Yes, indeed, sir.

The thumb, in chiromancy, 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.

Why, this is strange! Is it not, honest Nab?

There is a ship now, coming from Ormus,
That shall yield him such a commodity
Of drugs
Pointing to the plan.
—This is the west, and this the south?

Yes, sir.

And those are your two sides?

Ay, sir.

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.

Yes, sir.

And
Beneath your threshold, bury me a loadstone
To draw in gallants that wear spurs: the rest,
They’ll seem to follow.

That’s a secret, Nab!

And, on your stall, a puppet, with a vice
And a court-fucus to call city-dames:
You shall deal much with minerals.

Sir, I have.
At home, already⁠—

Ay, I know you have 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 philosopher’s stone.

Why, how now, Abel! Is this true?

Aside to Face.
Good Captain,
What must I give?

Nay, I’ll not counsel thee.
Thou hear’st what wealth (he says, spend what thou canst,)
Thou’rt like to come to.

I would gi’ him a crown.

A crown! And toward such a fortune? Heart,
Thou shalt rather gi’ him thy shop. No gold about thee?

Yes, I have a portague, I have kept this half-year.

Out on thee, Nab! ’Slight, there was such an offer⁠—
Shalt keep’t no longer, I’ll give’t him for thee. Doctor,
Nab prays your worship to drink this, and swears
He will appear more grateful, as your skill
Does raise him in the world.

I would entreat
Another favour of his worship.

What is’t, Nab?

But to look over, sir, my almanac,
And cross out my ill-days, that I may neither
Bargain, nor trust upon them.

That he shall, Nab:
Leave it, it shall be done, ’gainst afternoon.

And a direction for his shelves.

Now, Nab,
Art thou well pleased, Nab?

’Thank, sir, both your worships.

Away.

Why, now, you smoaky persecutor of nature!
Now do you see, that something’s to be done,
Beside your beech-coal, and your corsive waters,
Your crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbites?
You must have stuff brought home to you, to work on:
And yet you think, I am at no expense
In searching out these veins, then following them,
Then trying them out. ’Fore God, my intelligence
Costs me more money, than my share oft comes to,
In these rare works.

You are pleasant, sir.

—How now!
What says my dainty Dolkin?

Yonder fishwife
Will not away. And there’s your giantess,
The bawd of Lambeth.

Heart, I cannot speak with them.

Not afore night, I have told them in a voice,
Thorough the trunk, like one of your familiars.
But I have spied sir Epicure Mammon⁠—

Where?

Coming along, at far end of the lane,
Slow of his feet, but earnest of his tongue
To one that’s with him.

Face, go you and shift.

Dol, you must presently make ready, too.

Why, what’s the matter?

O, 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 entering ordinaries,
Dispensing for the pox, and plaguey houses,
Reaching his dose, walking Moorfields for lepers,
And offering citizens’ wives pomander-bracelets,
As his preservative, made of the elixir;
Searching the spittal, to make old bawds young;
And the highways, for beggars, to make rich.
I see no end of his labours. He will make
Nature ashamed of her long sleep: when art,
Who’s but a step-dame, shall do more than she,
In her best love to mankind, ever could:
If his dream lasts, he’ll turn the age to gold.

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!

Within.
Sir,
He’ll come to you by and by.

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.

What, and turn that too?

Yes, and I’ll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall,
And make them perfect Indies! You admire now?

No, faith.

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.

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.

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.

No doubt; he’s that already.

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.

The decayed Vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you,
That keep the fire alive, there.

’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.

And I’ll
Be bound, the players shall sing your praises, then,
Without their poets.

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—

As he that built the waterwork, does with water?

You are incredulous.

Faith I have a humour,
I would not willingly be gulled. Your stone
Cannot transmute me.

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—

How!

Of the philosopher’s stone, and in High Dutch.

Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch?

He did;
Which proves it was the primitive tongue.

What paper?

On cedar board.

O that, indeed, they say,
Will last ’gainst worms.

’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.

—How now!
Do we succeed? Is our day come? And holds it?

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.

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?

Like a wench with child, sir,
That were but now discovered to her master.

Excellent witty Lungs!⁠—my only care
Where to get stuff enough now, to project on;
This town will not half serve me.

No, sir! Buy
The covering off o’ churches.

That’s true.

Yes.
Let them stand bare, as do their auditory;
Or cap them, new, with shingles.

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.

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.

And, lastly,
Thou hast descryed the flower, the sanguis agni?

Yes, sir.

Where’s master?

At his prayers, sir, he;
Good man, he’s doing his devotions
For the success.

Lungs, I will set a period
To all thy labours; thou shalt be the master
Of my seraglio.

Good, sir.

But do you hear?
I’ll geld you, Lungs.

Yes, sir.

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?

Both blood and spirit, sir.

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.

And I shall carry it?

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.”

Sir, I’ll go look
A little, how it heightens.

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—

And do you think to have the stone with this?

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

Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi,
A pious, holy, and religious man,
One free from mortal sin, a very virgin.

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.⁠—

Good morrow, Father.

Gentle son, good morrow,
And to your friend there. What is he, is with you?

An heretic, that I did bring along,
In hope, sir, to convert him.

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.

I know, sir;
You shall not need to fear me; I but come,
To have you confute this gentleman.

Who is,
Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief
Toward your stone; would not be gulled.

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!

Within. Anon, sir.

Look well to the register.
And let your heat still lessen by degrees,
To the aludels.

Within. Yes, sir.

Did you look
On the bolt’s head yet?

Within. Which? On D, sir?

Ay;
What’s the complexion?

Within. Whitish.

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.

Within. I will, sir.

What a brave language here is! Next to canting.

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.

But ’tis for me?

What need you?
You have enough in that is perfect.

O but⁠—

Why, this is covetise!

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.

How now!

Sir, please you,
Shall I not change the filter?

Marry, yes;
And bring me the complexion of glass B.

Have you another?

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.

Of white oil?

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.

By pouring on your rectified water?

Yes, and reverberating in Athanor.

How now! What colour says it?

The ground black, sir.

That’s your crow’s head?

Your cockscomb’s, is it not?

No, ’tis not perfect. Would it were the crow!
That work wants something.

Aside. O, I looked for this.
The hay’s a pitching.

Are you sure you loosed them
In their own menstrue?

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.

The process then was right.

Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake,
And what was saved was put into the pelican,
And signed with Hermes’ seal.

I think ’twas so.
We should have a new amalgama.

Aside. O, this ferret
Is rank as any polecat.

But I care not:
Let him e’en die; we have enough beside,
In embrion. H has his white shirt on?

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.

He says right.

Aside. Ay, are you bolted?

Nay, I know’t, sir,
I have seen the ill fortune. What is some three ounces
Of fresh materials?

Is’t no more?

No more, sir.
Of gold, t’amalgam with some six of mercury.

Away, here’s money. What will serve?

Ask him, sir.

How much?

Give him nine pound:⁠—you may give him ten.

Yes, twenty, and be cozened, do.

There ’tis.
Gives Face the money.

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?

Yes, sir.

And the philosopher’s vinegar?

Ay.

We shall have a salad!

When do you make projection?

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.

Not those of iron?

Yes, you may bring them too:
We’ll change all metals.

I believe you in that.

Then I may send my spits?

Yes, and your racks.

And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks?
Shall he not?

If he please.

—To be an ass.

How, sir!

This gentleman you must bear withal:
I told you he had no faith.

And little hope, sir;
But much less charity, should I gull myself.

Why, what have you observed, sir, in our art,
Seems so impossible?

But your whole work, no more.
That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir,
As they do eggs in Egypt!

Sir, do you
Believe that eggs are hatched so?

If I should?

Why, I think that the greater miracle.
No egg but differs from a chicken more
Than metals in themselves.

That cannot be.
The egg’s ordained by nature to that end,
And is a chicken in potentia.

The same we say of lead and other metals,
Which would be gold, if they had time.

And that
Our art doth further.

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.

Ay, what is that?

Marry, we say⁠—

Ay, now it heats: stand, Father,
Pound him to dust.

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.

Well said, Father!
Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,
He’ll bray you in a mortar.

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.

Sir?

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?

And all these named,
Intending but one thing; which art our writers
Used to obscure their art.

Sir, so I told him⁠—
Because the simple idiot should not learn it,
And make it vulgar.

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?

I urged that,
And cleared to him, that Sisyphus was damned
To roll the ceaseless stone, only because
He would have made Ours common.

Appears at the door.⁠—
Who is this?

’Sprecious!⁠—What do you mean? Go in, good lady,
Let me entreat you.

—Where’s this varlet?

Sir.

You very knave! Do you use me thus?

Wherein, sir?

Go in and see, you traitor. Go!

Who is it, sir?

Nothing, sir; nothing.

What’s the matter, good sir?
I have not seen you thus distempered: who is’t?

All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries;
But ours the most ignorant.⁠—

What now?

’Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.

Would she, sir! Follow me.

Stopping him. Stay, Lungs.

I dare not, sir.

Stay, man; what is she?

A lord’s sister, sir.

How! Pray thee, stay.

She’s mad, sir, and sent hither⁠—
He’ll be mad too.⁠—

I warrant thee.⁠—
Why sent hither?

Sir, to be cured.

Within. Why, rascal!

Lo you!⁠—Here, sir!

’Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece.

Heart, this is a bawdyhouse! I will be burnt else.

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.⁠—

How now, Lungs!

Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant
To have told your worship all. This must not hear.

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

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.

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

O divers have run mad upon the conference:
I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste,
To fetch a vial.

Be not gulled, Sir Mammon.

Wherein? Pray ye, be patient.

Yes, as you are,
And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores.

You are too foul, believe it.⁠—Come here, Ulen,
One word.

I dare not, in good faith.
Going.

Stay, knave.

He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir.

Drink that. Gives him money.
What is she when she’s out of her fit?

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—

Is she no way accessible? No means,
No trick to give a man a taste of her⁠—wit⁠—
Or so?

Within. Ulen!

I’ll come to you again, sir.

Surly, I did not think one of your breeding
Would traduce personages of worth.

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.

’Heart, you abuse yourself.
I know the lady, and her friends, and means,
The original of this disaster. Her brother
Has told me all.

And yet you never saw her
Till now!

O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it,
One of the treacherousest memories, I do think,
Of all mankind.

What call you her brother?

My lord⁠—
He will not have his name known, now I think on’t.

A very treacherous memory!

On my faith⁠—

Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it,
Till we meet next.

Nay, by this hand, ’tis true.
He’s one I honour, and my noble friend;
And I respect his house.

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.

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?

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.

Sir, he does pray, you’ll not forget.

I will not, sir.
Sir Epicure, I shall leave you.

I follow you, straight.

But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion.
This gentleman has a parlous head.

But wilt thou Ulen,
Be constant to thy promise?

As my life, sir.

And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me,
And say, I am a noble fellow?

O, what else, sir?
And that you’ll make her royal with the stone,
An empress; and yourself, King of Bantam.

Wilt thou do this?

Will I, sir!

Lungs, my Lungs!
I love thee.

Send your stuff, sir, that my master
May busy himself about projection.

Thou hast witched me, rogue: take, go.
Gives him money.

Your jack, and all, sir.

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.

Not I, sir!

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.

Away, sir.

A count, nay, a count palatine⁠—

Good, sir, go.

Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster.

Has he bit? Has he bit?

And swallowed, too, my Subtle.
I have given him line, and now he plays, i’faith.

And shall we twitch him?

Thorough both the gills.
A wench is a rare bait, with which a man
No sooner’s taken, but he straight firks mad.

Dol, my Lord What’ts’hums sister, you must now
Bear yourself statelich.

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.

Well said, sanguine!

But will he send his andirons?

His jack too,
And’s iron shoeing-horn; I have spoke to him. Well,
I must not lose my wary gamester yonder.

O Monsieur Caution, that will not be gulled?

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.

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?

I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman.

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.

Away,
Madam, to your withdrawing chamber.

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.⁠—

Aloud.
Where is my drudge?

Sir!

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.

Yes, sir.
And save the ground?

No: Terra damnata
Must not have entrance in the work.⁠—Who are you?

A faithful brother, if it please you.

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?

I understand no heathen language, truly.

Heathen! You Knipper-doling? Is Ars sacra,
Or chrysopoeia, or spagyrica,
Or the pamphysic, or panarchic knowledge,
A heathen language?

Heathen Greek, I take it.

How! Heathen Greek?

All’s heathen but the Hebrew.

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.

Sir, putrefaction,
Solution, ablution, sublimation,
Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and
Fixation.

This is heathen Greek to you, now!⁠—
And when comes vivification?

After mortification.

What’s cohobation?

’Tis the pouring on
Your aqua regis, and then drawing him off,
To the trine circle of the seven spheres.

What’s the proper passion of metals?

Malleation.

What’s your ultimum supplicium auri?

Antimonium.

This is heathen Greek to you!⁠—And what’s your mercury?

A very fugitive, he will be gone, sir.

How know you him?

By his viscosity,
His oleosity, and his suscitability.

How do you sublime him?

With the calce of eggshells,
White marble, talc.

Your magisterium now,
What’s that?

Shifting, sir, your elements,
Dry into cold, cold into moist, moist into hot,
Hot into dry.

This is heathen Greek to you still!
Your lapis philosophicus?

’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.

Enough.

This is heathen Greek to you! What are you, sir?

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.

O, you are sent from master Wholesome,
Your teacher?

From Tribulation Wholesome,
Our very zealous pastor.

Good! I have
Some orphans’ goods to come here.

Of what kind, sir?

Pewter and brass, andirons and kitchenware,
Metals, that we must use our medicine on:
Wherein the Brethren may have a pennyworth
For ready money.

Were the orphans’ parents
Sincere professors?

Why do you ask?

Because
We then are to deal justly, and give, in truth,
Their utmost value.

’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?

No, surely.

No! How so?

The Brethren bid me say unto you, sir,
Surely, they will not venture any more,
Till they may see projection.

How!

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.

What’s your name?

My name is Ananias.

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!

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.

He is busy with his spirits, but we’ll upon him.

How now! What mates, what Baiards have we here?

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?

A sign, sir.

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

I was devising now.

’Slight, do not say so,
He will repent he gave you any more⁠—
What say you to his constellation, Doctor,
The Balance?

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—

Nab!

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!

Abel, thou art made.

Sir, I do thank his worship.

Six o’ thy legs more will not do it, Nab.
He has brought you a pipe of tobacco, Doctor.

Yes, sir;
I have another thing I would impart⁠—

Out with it, Nab.

Sir, there is lodged, hard by me,
A rich young widow⁠—

Good! A bona roba?

But nineteen, at the most.

Very good, Abel.

Marry, she’s not in fashion yet; she wears
A hood, but it stands a cop.

No matter, Abel.

And I do now and then give her a fucus⁠—

What! Dost thou deal, Nab?

I did tell you, Captain.

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.

Good (his match too!)⁠—On, Nab.

And she does strangely long to know her fortune.

Ods lid, Nab, send her to the Doctor, hither.

Yes, I have spoke to her of his worship already;
But she’s afraid it will be blown abroad,
And hurt her marriage.

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.

No, sir, she’ll never marry
Under a knight: her brother has made a vow.

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?

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.

How! To quarrel?

Yes, sir, to carry quarrels,
As gallants do; to manage them by line.

’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.

O, good Captain!

He shall;
He is the honestest fellow, Doctor.⁠—Stay not,
No offers; bring the damask, and the parties.

I’ll try my power, sir.

And thy will too, Nab.

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

He’ll send you a pound, Doctor.

O no.

He will do’t.
It is the goodest soul!⁠—Abel, about it.
Thou shalt know more anon. Away, be gone.

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.

And shall, sir. This works.

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.

Rather the less: for she may be so light
She may want grains.

Ay, or be such a burden,
A man would scarce endure her for the whole.

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

Content: but Dol must have no breath on’t.

Mum.
Away you, to your Surly yonder, catch him.

’Pray God I have not stayed too long.

I fear it.

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.

In pure zeal,
I do not like the man; he is a heathen,
And speaks the language of Canaan, truly.

I think him a profane person indeed.

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.

Good brother, we must bend unto all means,
That may give furtherance to the holy cause.

Which his cannot: the sanctified cause
Should have a sanctified course.

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 glass-men?
More antichristian 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 humours in the blood. It may be so,
When as 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 philosopher’s stone.
And so a learned elder, one of Scotland,
Assured me; aurum potabile being
The only medicine, for the civil magistrate,
T’ incline him to a feeling of the cause;
And must be daily used in the disease.

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.

Let us call on him then.

The motion’s good,
And of the spirit; I will knock first.
Knocks.
Peace be within!

O, are you come? ’Twas time. Your threescore minutes
Were at last thread, you see: and down had gone
Furnus acediae, turris circulatorius:
Lembec, bolt’s head, retort and pelican
Had all been cinders.⁠—Wicked Ananias!
Art thou returned? Nay then, it goes down yet.

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.

Why, this doth qualify!

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.

This qualifies more!

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.

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 the Indies, to serve you, with all their fleet)
That even the medicinal 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 oil of talc: there you have made a friend;
And all her friends. A lord that is a leper,
A knight that has the bone-ache, or a squire
That hath both these, you make them smooth and sound,
With a bare fricace of your medicine: still
You increase your friends.

Ay, it is very pregnant.

And then the turning of this lawyer’s pewter
To plate at Christmas.⁠—

Christ-tide, I pray you.

Yet, Ananias!

I have done.

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?

Verily, ’tis true.
We may be temporal lords ourselves, I take it.

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.

Bells are profane; a tune may be religious.

No warning with you! Then farewell my patience.
’Slight, it shall down: I will not be thus tortured.

I pray you, sir.

All shall perish. I have spoken it.

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 toward the stone, we shall not need.

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’er night 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.

It is indeed an idol.

Mind him not, sir.
I do command thee, spirit of zeal, but trouble,
To peace within him! Pray you, sir, go on.

Nor shall you need to libel ’gainst the prelates,
And shorten so your ears against the hearing
Of the next wire-drawn 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.

Truly, sir, they are
Ways that the godly Brethren have invented,
For propagation of the glorious cause,
As very notable means, and whereby also
Themselves grow soon, and profitably, famous.

O, but the stone, all’s idle to it! Nothing!
The art of angels’ nature’s miracle,
The divine secret that doth fly in clouds
From east to west: and whose tradition
Is not from men, but spirits.

I hate traditions;
I do not trust them⁠—

Peace!

They are popish all.
I will not peace: I will not⁠—

Ananias!

Please the profane, to grieve the godly; I may not.

Well, Ananias, thou shalt overcome.

It is an ignorant zeal that haunts him, sir;
But truly, else, a very faithful Brother,
A botcher, and a man, by revelation,
That hath a competent knowledge of the truth.

Has he a competent sum there in the bag
To buy the goods within? I am made guardian,
And must, for charity, and conscience sake,
Now see the most be made for my poor orphan;
Though I desire the Brethren too good gainers:
There they are within. When you have viewed and bought ’em,
And ta’en the inventory of what they are,
They are ready for projection; there’s no more
To do: cast on the medicine, so much silver
As there is tin there, so much gold as brass,
I’ll give’t you in by weight.

But how long time,
Sir, must the saints expect yet?

Let me see,
How’s the moon now? Eight, nine, ten days hence,
He will be silver potate; then three days
Before he citronise: Some fifteen days,
The magisterium will be perfected.

About the second day of the third week,
In the ninth month?

Yes, my good Ananias.

What will the orphan’s goods arise to, think you?

Some hundred marks, as much as filled three cars,
Unladed now: you’ll make six millions of them.⁠—
But I must have more coals laid in.

How?

Another load,
And then we have finished. We must now increase
Our fire to ignis ardens; we are past
Fimus equinus, balnei, cineris,
And all those lenter heats. If the holy purse
Should with this draught fall low, and that the saints
Do need a present sum, I have a trick
To melt the pewter, you shall buy now, instantly,
And with a tincture make you as good Dutch dollars
As any are in Holland.

Can you so?

Ay, and shall ’bide the third examination.

It will be joyful tidings to the Brethren.

But you must carry it secret.

Ay; but stay,
This act of coining, is it lawful?

Lawful!
We know no magistrate; or, if we did,
This is foreign coin.

It is no coining, sir.
It is but casting.

Ha! You distinguish well:
Casting of money may be lawful.

’Tis, sir.

Truly, I take it so.

There is no scruple,
Sir, to be made of it; believe Ananias:
This case of conscience he is studied in.

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

The Brethren shall approve it lawful, doubt not.
Where shall it be done?

For that we’ll talk anon.
There’s some to speak with me. Go in, I pray you,
And view the parcels. That’s the inventory.
I’ll come to you straight.

Who is it?⁠—Face! Appear.

How now! Good prize?

Good pox! Yond’ costive cheater
Never came on.

How then?

I have walked the round
Till now, and no such thing.

And have you quit him?

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.

O, but to have gulled him,
Had been a mastery.

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 colour,) and to make his battery
Upon our Dol, 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 epididimis.
Where is the doxy?

I’ll send her to thee:
And but despatch my brace of little John Leydens,
And come again myself.

Are they within then?

Numbering the sum.

How much?

A hundred marks, boy.

Why, this is a lucky day. Ten pounds of Mammon!
Three of my clerk! A portague of my grocer!
This of the Brethren! Beside reversions,
And states to come in the widow, and my count!
My share today will not be bought for forty⁠—

What?

Pounds, dainty Dorothy! Art thou so near?

Yes; say, lord General, how fares our camp?

As with the few that had entrenched themselves
Safe, by their discipline, against a world, Dol,
And laughed within those trenches, and grew fat
With thinking on the booties, Dol, brought in
Daily by their small parties. This dear hour,
A doughty don is taken with my Dol;
And thou mayst make his ransom what thou wilt,
My Dousabel; 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 Dol, thy drum; till he be tame
As the poor blackbirds were in the great frost,
Or bees are with a bason; and so hive him
In the swanskin coverlid, and cambric sheets,
Till he work honey and wax, my little God’s-gift.

What is he, General?

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

No.

Nor my Drugger?

Neither.

A pox on ’em,
They are so long a furnishing! Such stinkards
Would not be seen upon these festival days.⁠—

How now! Have you done?

Done. They are gone: the sum
Is here in bank, my Face. I would we knew
Another chapman now would buy ’em outright.

’Slid, Nab shall do’t against he have the widow,
To furnish household.

Excellent, well thought on:
Pray God he come!

I pray he keep away
Till our new business be o’erpast.

But, Face,
How cam’st thou by this secret don?

A spirit
Brought me th’ intelligence in a paper here,
As I was conjuring yonder in my circle
For Surly; I have my flies abroad. Your bath
Is famous, Subtle, by my means. Sweet Dol,
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.
Knocking without.
Who’s that?

It is not he?

O no, not yet this hour.

Who is’t?

Dapper,
Your clerk.

God’s will then, Queen of Fairy,
On with your tire; and, Doctor, with your robes.

Let’s dispatch him for God’s sake.

’Twill be long.

I warrant you, take but the cues I give you,
It shall be brief enough.
Goes to the window.
’Slight, here are more!
Abel, and I think the angry boy, the heir,
That fain would quarrel.

And the widow?

No,
Not that I see. Away!

O 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 of the dice:
He never heard her Highness dote till now.
Your aunt has given you the most gracious words
That can be thought on.

Shall I see her Grace?

See her, and kiss her too.⁠—

What, honest Nab!
Hast brought the damask?

No, sir; here’s tobacco.

’Tis well done, Nab; thou’lt bring the damask too?

Yes: here’s the gentleman, Captain, master Kastril,
I have brought to see the Doctor.

Where’s the widow?

Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come.

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

Ay, and the best of 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?

Wherein, sir?

To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly,
Upon fit terms.

It seems, sir, you are but young
About the town, that can make that a question.

Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech
Of the angry boys, and seen them take tobacco;
And in his shop; and I can take it too.
And I would fain be one of ’em, and go down
And practise in the country.

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:
And this he will demonstrate. And then, rules
To give and take the lie by.

How! To take it?

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.

But does he teach
Living by the wits too?

Anything whatever.
You cannot think that subtlety, but he reads it.
He made me a Captain. I was a stark pimp,
Just of your standing, ’fore I met with him;
It is not two months since. I’ll tell you his method:
First, he will enter you at some ordinary.

No, I’ll not come there: you shall pardon me.

For why, sir?

There’s gaming there, and tricks.

Why, would you be
A gallant, and not game?

Ay, ’twill spend a man.

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?

What, three thousand a-year!

Ay, forty thousand.

Are there such?

Ay, sir,
And gallants yet. Here’s a young gentleman
Points to Dapper.
Is born to nothing⁠—forty marks a year,
Which I count nothing:⁠—he is to be initiated,
And have a fly of 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 have 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.

Do you not gull one?

’Ods 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.

Will the Doctor teach this?

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,
And 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
To your own use, and never stand obliged.

I’faith! Is he such a fellow?

Why, Nab here knows him.
And then for making matches for rich widows,
Young gentlewomen, heirs, the fortunat’st man!
He’s sent to, far and near, all over England,
To have his counsel, and to know their fortunes.

God’s will, my sister shall see him.

I’ll tell you, sir,
What he did tell me of Nab. It’s a strange thing:⁠—
By the way, you must eat no cheese, Nab, it breeds melancholy,
And that same melancholy breeds worms; but pass it:⁠—
He told me, honest Nab here was ne’er at tavern
But once in’s life!

Truth, and no more I was not.

And then he was so sick⁠—

Could he tell you that too?

How should I know it?

In troth we had been a-shooting,
And had a piece of fat ram-mutton to supper,
That lay so heavy o’ my stomach⁠—

And he has no head
To bear any wine; for what with the noise of the fiddlers,
And care of his shop, for he dares keep no servants⁠—

My head did so ache⁠—

And he was fain to be brought home,
The Doctor told me: and then a good old woman⁠—

Yes, faith, she dwells in Sea-coal Lane⁠—did cure me,
With sodden ale, and pellitory of the wall;
Cost me but twopence. I had another sickness
Was worse than that.

Ay, that was with the grief
Thou took’st for being ’sessed at eighteen-pence,
For the water-work.

In truth, and it was like
T’ have cost me almost my life.

Thy hair went off?

Yes, sir; ’twas done for spite.

Nay, so says the Doctor.

Pray thee, tobacco-boy, go fetch my sister;
I’ll see this learned boy before I go;
And so shall she.

Sir, he is busy now:
But if you have a sister to fetch hither,
Perhaps your own pains may command her sooner;
And he by that time will be free.

I go.

Drugger, she’s thine: the damask!⁠—

Subtle and I
Must wrestle for her.
Aside.
—Come on, master Dapper,
You see how I turn clients here away,
To give your cause dispatch; have you performed
The ceremonies were enjoined you?

Yes, of the vinegar,
And the clean shirt.

’Tis well: that shirt may do you
More worship than you think. Your aunt’s afire,
But that she will not show it, t’ have a sight of you.
Have you provided for her Grace’s servants?

Yes, here are six score Edward shillings.

Good!

And an old Harry’s sovereign.

Very good!

And three James shillings, and an Elizabeth groat,
Just twenty nobles.

O, you are too just.
I would you had had the other noble in Marys.

I have some Philip and Marys.

Ay, those same
Are best of all: where are they? Hark, the Doctor.

In a feigned voice. Is yet her grace’s cousin come?

He is come.

And is he fasting?

Yes.

And hath cried hum?

Thrice, you must answer.

Thrice.

And as oft buz?

If you have, say.

I have.

Then, to her cuz,
Hoping that he hath vinegared his senses,
As he was bid, the Fairy 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, ev’n 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 the rag.
And, trusting unto her to make his state,
He’ll throw away all worldly pelf about him;
Which that he will perform, she doth not doubt him.

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—
He throws away, as they bid him.
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.

Truly, there’s all.

All what?

My money; truly.

Keep nothing that is transitory about you.
Aside to Subtle.
Bid Dol play music.⁠—
Dol plays on the cittern within.
Look, the elves are come.
To pinch you, if you tell not truth. Advise you.

O! I have a paper with a spur-rial in’t.

Ti, ti.
They knew’t, they say.

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

Ti, ti-ti-ti.
Aside to Subtle.
In the other pocket.

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

O, O!

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 innocent.

By this good light, I have nothing.

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.

By this good Dark, I have nothing but a half-crown
Of gold about my wrist, that my love gave me;
And a leaden heart I wore since she forsook me.

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.
Takes it off.
You may wear your leaden heart still.⁠—

How now!

What news, Dol?

Yonder’s your knight, Sir Mammon.

’Ods lid, we never thought of him till now!
Where is he?

Here hard by: he is at the door.

And you are not ready now! Dol, get his suit.

He must not be sent back.

O, by no means.
What shall we do with this same puffin here,
Now he’s on the spit?

Why, lay him back awhile,
With some device.

—Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, Would her Grace speak with me?
I come.⁠—Help, Dol!

Speaks through the keyhole.
Who’s there? Sir Epicure,
My master’s in the way. Please you to walk
Three or four turns, but till his back be turned,
And I am for you.⁠—Quickly, Dol!

Her Grace
Commends her kindly to you, master Dapper.

I long to see her Grace.

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.

Sir, he shall
Hold out, an ’twere this two hours, for her highness;
I can assure you that. We will not lose
All we have done.⁠—

He must not see, nor speak
To anybody, till then.

For that we’ll put, sir,
A stay in’s mouth.

Of what?

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.

Where shall we now
Bestow him?