THE ALCHEMIST

BEN JONSON

Dramatis Personae

Subtle, the Alchemist
Face, the Housekeeper
Dol Common, their Colleague
Dapper, a Lawyer’s Clerk
Drugger, a Tobacco Man
Lovewit, Master of the House
Sir Epicure Mammon, a Knight
Pertinax Surly, a Gamester
Tribulation Wholesome, a Pastor of Amsterdam
Ananias, a Deacon there
Kastril, the angry Boy
Dame Pliant, his Sister, a Widow
Neighbours
Officers, Attendants, etc.

Scene: London.

The Alchemist to the lady most deserving her name and blood: Lady Mary Wroth.

Madam,

In the age of sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in the greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and zeal of the sacrificers: else what could a handle of gums have done in the sight of a hecatomb? or how might I appear at this altar, except with those affections that no less love the light and witness, than they have the conscience of your virtue? If what I offer bear an acceptable odour, and hold the first strength, it is your value of it, which remembers where, when, and to whom it was kindled. Otherwise, as the times are, there comes rarely forth that thing so full of authority or example, but by assiduity and custom grows less, and loses. This, yet, safe in your judgment (which is a Sidney’s) is forbidden to speak more, lest it talk or look like one of the ambitious faces of the time, who, the more they paint, are the less themselves.

To the Reader

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

The Alchemist

Argument

The sickness hot, a master quit, for fear,
His house in town, and left one servant there;
Ease him corrupted, and gave means to know

A Cheater, and his punk; who now brought low,
Leaving their narrow practice, were become
Cozeners at large; and only wanting some
House to set up, with him they here contract,
Each for a share, and all begin to act.
Much company they draw, and much abuse,
In casting figures, telling fortunes, news,
Selling of flies, flat bawdry with the stone,
Till it, and they, and all in fume are gone.

Prologue

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

Act I

Scene I

A room in Lovewit’s house.

Face	Believ’t, I will.
Subtle	Thy worst. I fart at thee.
Dol Common	Have you your wits? Why, gentlemen! For love⁠—
Face	Sirrah, I’ll strip you⁠—
Subtle	What to do? Lick figs Out at my⁠—
Face	Rogue, rogue!⁠—out of all your sleights.
Dol Common	Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?
Subtle	O, let the wild sheep loose. I’ll gum your silks With good strong water, an you come.
Dol Common	Will you have The neighbours hear you? Will you betray all? Hark! I hear somebody.
Face	Sirrah⁠—
Subtle	I shall mar All that the tailor has made, if you approach.
Face	You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave, Dare you do this?
Subtle	Yes, faith; yes, faith.
Face	Why, who Am I, my mongrel? Who am I?
Subtle	I’ll tell you, Since you know not yourself.
Face	Speak lower, rogue.
Subtle	Yes, you were once (time’s not long past) the good, Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept Your master’s worship’s house here in the Friars, For the vacations⁠—
Face	Will you be so loud?
Subtle	Since, by my means, translated Suburb-Captain.
Face	By your means, Doctor Dog!
Subtle	Within man’s memory, All this I speak of.
Face	Why, I pray you, have I Been countenanced by you, or you by me? Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
Subtle	I do not hear well.
Face	Not of this, I think it. But I shall put you in mind, sir;⁠—at Pie-corner, Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks’ stalls, Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk Piteously costive, with your pinched-horn-nose, And your complexion of the Roman wash, Stuck full of black and melancholic worms, Like powder corns shot at the artillery-yard.
Subtle	I wish you could advance your voice a little.
Face	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—
Subtle	So, sir!
Face	When all your alchemy, and your algebra, Your minerals, vegetals, and animals, Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades, Could not relieve your 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—
Subtle	Your master’s house!
Face	Where you have studied the more thriving skill Of bawdry since.
Subtle	Yes, in your master’s house. You and the rats here kept possession. Make it not strange. I know you were one could keep The buttery-hatch still locked, and save the chippings, Sell the dole beer to aqua-vitae men, The which, together with your Christmas vails At post-and-pair, your letting out of counters, Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks, And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs, Here, since your mistress’ death hath broke up house.
Face	You might talk softlier, rascal.
Subtle	No, you scarab, I’ll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you How to beware to tempt a Fury again, That carries tempest in his hand and voice.
Face	The place has made you valiant.
Subtle	No, your clothes.⁠— Thou vermin, have I ta’en thee out of dung, So poor, so wretched, when no living thing Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse? Raised thee from brooms, and dust, and 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?
Dol Common	Gentlemen, what mean you? Will you mar all?
Subtle	Slave, thou hadst had no name⁠—
Dol Common	Will you undo yourselves with civil war?
Subtle	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.
Dol Common	Do you know who hears you, Sovereign?
Face	Sirrah⁠—
Dol Common	Nay, General, I thought you were civil.
Face	I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.
Subtle	And hang thyself, I care not.
Face	Hang thee, collier, And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will, Since thou hast moved me⁠—
Dol Common	O, this will o’erthrow all.
Face	Write thee up bawd in Paul’s, have all thy tricks Of cozening with a hollow coal, dust, scrapings, Searching for things lost, with a sieve and 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.
Dol Common	Are you sound? Have you your senses, masters?
Face	I will have A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures, Shall prove a true philosopher’s stone to printers.
Subtle	Away, you trencher-rascal!
Face	Out, you dog-leech! The vomit of all prisons⁠—
Dol Common	Will you be Your own destructions, gentlemen?
Face	Still spewed out For lying too heavy on the basket.
Subtle	Cheater!
Face	Bawd!
Subtle	Cowherd!
Face	Conjurer!
Subtle	Cutpurse!
Face	Witch!
Dol Common	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—
Face	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.
Dol Common	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.
Face	’Tis his fault; He ever murmurs, and objects his pains, And says, the weight of all lies upon him.
Subtle	Why, so it does.
Dol Common	How does it? Do not we Sustain our parts?
Subtle	Yes, but they are not equal.
Dol Common	Why, if your part exceed today, I hope Ours may, tomorrow match it.
Subtle	Ay, they may.
Dol Common	May, murmuring mastiff! Ay, and do. Death on me! Help me to throttle him.
	Seizes Subtle* by the throat.*
Subtle	Dorothy! Mistress Dorothy! ’Ods precious, I’ll do anything. What do you mean?
Dol Common	Because o’ your fermentation and cibation?
Subtle	Not I, by heaven⁠—
Dol Common	Your Sol and Luna To Face. —help me.
Subtle	Would I were hanged then? I’ll conform myself.
Dol Common	Will you, sir? Do so then, and quickly: swear.
Subtle	What should I swear?
Dol Common	To leave your faction, sir, And labour kindly in the common work.
Subtle	Let me not breathe if I meant aught beside. I only used those speeches as a spur To him.
Dol Common	I hope we need no spurs, sir. Do we?
Face	’Slid, prove today, who shall shark best.
Subtle	Agreed.
Dol Common	Yes, and work close and friendly.
Subtle	’Slight, the knot Shall grow the stronger for this breach, with me.
	They shake hands.
Dol Common	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.
Subtle	Royal Dol! Spoken like Claridiana, and thyself.
Face	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.
	Bell rings without.
Subtle	Who’s that? One rings. To the window, Dol:
	Exit Dol.
	—pray heaven, The master do not trouble us this quarter.
Face	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.
	Re-enter Dol.
Subtle	Who is it, Dol?
Dol Common	A fine young quodling.
Face	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.
Dol Common	O, let him in.
Subtle	Stay. Who shall do’t?
Face	Get you Your robes on: I will meet him as going out.
Dol Common	And what shall I do?
Face	Not be seen; away!
	Exit Dol.
	Seem you very reserved.
Subtle	Enough.
	Exit.
Face	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—
Dapper	Within. Captain, I am here.
Face	Who’s that?⁠—He’s come, I think, Doctor.
	Enter Dapper.
	Good faith, sir, I was going away.
Dapper	In truth I am very sorry, Captain.
Face	But I thought Sure I should meet you.
Dapper	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.
	Re-enter Subtle* in his velvet cap and gown.*
	Is this the cunning-man?
Face	This is his worship.
Dapper	Is he a Doctor?
Face	Yes.
Dapper	And have you broke with him, Captain?
Face	Ay.
Dapper	And how?
Face	Faith, he does make the matter, sir, so dainty I know not what to say.
Dapper	Not so, good Captain.
Face	Would I were fairly rid of it, believe me.
Dapper	Nay, now you grieve me, sir. Why should you wish so? I dare assure you, I’ll not be ungrateful.
Face	I cannot think you will, sir. But the law Is such a thing⁠—and then he says, Read’s matter Falling so lately.
Dapper	Read! He was an ass, And dealt, sir, with a fool.
Face	It was a clerk, sir.
Dapper	A clerk!
Face	Nay, hear me, sir. You know the law Better, I think⁠—
Dapper	I should, sir, and the danger: You know, I showed the statute to you.
Face	You did so.
Dapper	And will I tell then! By this hand of flesh, Would it might never write good court-hand more, If I discover. What do you think of me, That I am a chiaus?
Face	What’s that?
Dapper	The Turk was here. As one would say, do you think I am a Turk?
Face	I’ll tell the Doctor so.
Dapper	Do, good sweet Captain.
Face	Come, noble Doctor, pray thee let’s prevail; This is the gentleman, and he is no chiaus.
Subtle	Captain, I have returned you all my answer. I would do much, sir, for your love⁠—But this I neither may, nor can.
Face	Tut, do not say so. You deal now with a noble fellow, Doctor, One that will thank you richly; and he is no chiaus: Let that, sir, move you.
Subtle	Pray you, forbear⁠—
Face	He has Four angels here.
Subtle	You do me wrong, good sir.
Face	Doctor, wherein? To tempt you with these spirits?
Subtle	To tempt my art and love, sir, to my peril. Fore heaven, I scarce can think you are my friend, That so would draw me to apparent danger.
Face	I draw you! A horse draw you, and a halter, You, and your flies together⁠—
Dapper	Nay, good Captain.
Face	That know no difference of men.
Subtle	Good words, sir.
Face	Good deeds, sir, Doctor 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—
Dapper	Captain!
Face	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 cyphering perfect. Will take his oath o’ the Greek Testament, If need be, in his pocket; and can court His mistress out of Ovid.
Dapper	Nay, dear Captain⁠—
Face	Did you not tell me so?
Dapper	Yes; but I’d have you Use master Doctor with some more respect.
Face	Hang him, proud stag, with his broad velvet head!⁠— But for your sake, I’d choke, ere I would change An article of breath with such a puckfist: Come, let’s be gone.
	Going.
Subtle	Pray you let me speak with you.
Dapper	His worship calls you, Captain.
Face	I am sorry I e’er embarked myself in such a business.
Dapper	Nay, good sir; he did call you.
Face	Will he take then?
Subtle	First, hear me⁠—
Face	Not a syllable, ’less you take.
Subtle	Pray you, sir⁠—
Face	Upon no terms but an assumpsit.
Subtle	Your humour must be law. He takes the four angels.
Face	Why now, sir, talk. Now I dare hear you with mine honour. Speak. So may this gentleman too.
Subtle	Why, sir⁠— Offering to whisper Face.
Face	No whispering.
Subtle	Fore heaven, you do not apprehend the loss You do yourself in this.
Face	Wherein? For what?
Subtle	Marry, to be so importunate for one, That, when he has it, will undo you all: He’ll win up all the money in the town.
Face	How!
Subtle	Yes, and blow up gamester after gamester, As they do crackers in a puppet-play. If I do give him a familiar, Give you him all you play for; never set him: For he will have it.
Face	You are mistaken, Doctor. Why he does ask one but for cups and horses, A rifling fly; none of your great familiars.
Dapper	Yes, Captain, I would have it for all games.
Subtle	I told you so.
Face	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.
Dapper	Ay, ’tis true, sir; But I do think now I shall leave the law, And therefore⁠—
Face	Why, this changes quite the case. Do you think that I dare move him?
Dapper	If you please, sir; All’s one to him, I see.
Face	What! For that money? I cannot with my conscience; nor should you Make the request, methinks.
Dapper	No, sir, I mean To add consideration.
Face	Why then, sir, I’ll try.⁠— Goes to Subtle. Say that it were for all games, Doctor.
Subtle	I say then, not a mouth shall eat for him At any ordinary, but on the score, That is a gaming mouth, conceive me.
Face	Indeed!
Subtle	He’ll draw you all the treasure of the realm, If it be set him.
Face	Speak you this from art?
Subtle	Ay, sir, and reason too, the ground of art. He is of the only best complexion, The Queen of Fairy loves.
Face	What! Is he?
Subtle	Peace. He’ll overhear you. Sir, should she but see him⁠—
Face	What?
Subtle	Do not you tell him.
Face	Will he win at cards too?
Subtle	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.
Face	A strange success, that some man shall be born to.
Subtle	He hears you, man⁠—
Dapper	Sir, I’ll not be ingrateful.
Face	Faith, I have confidence in his good nature: You hear, he says he will not be ingrateful.
Subtle	Why, as you please; my venture follows yours.
Face	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.
Dapper	Believe it, and I will, sir.
Face	And you shall, sir. Takes him aside. You have heard all?
Dapper	No, what was’t? Nothing, I, sir.
Face	Nothing!
Dapper	A little, sir.
Face	Well, a rare star Reigned at your birth.
Dapper	At mine, sir! No.
Face	The Doctor Swears that you are⁠—
Subtle	Nay, Captain, you’ll tell all now.
Face	Allied to the Queen of Fairy.
Dapper	Who! That I am? Believe it, no such matter⁠—
Face	Yes, and that You were born with a cawl on your head.
Dapper	Who says so?
Face	Come, You know it well enough, though you dissemble it.
Dapper	I’fac, I do not; you are mistaken.
Face	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?
Dapper	By Jove, sir, I’ll win ten thousand pound, and send you half. I’fac’s no oath.
Subtle	No, no, he did but jest.
Face	Go to. Go thank the Doctor: he’s your friend, To take it so.
Dapper	I thank his worship.
Face	So! Another angel.
Dapper	Must I?
Face	Must you! ’Slight, What else is thanks? Will you be trivial?⁠—Doctor, Dapper gives him the money. When must he come for his familiar?
Dapper	Shall I not have it with me?
Subtle	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.
Face	Not, if she danced, tonight.
Subtle	And she must bless it.
Face	Did you never see Her royal Grace yet?
Dapper	Whom?
Face	Your aunt of Fairy?
Subtle	Not since she kissed him in the cradle, Captain; I can resolve you that.
Face	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.
Dapper	How will’t be done, then?
Face	Let me alone, take you no thought. Do you But say to me, Captain, I’ll see her Grace.
Dapper	“Captain, I’ll see her Grace.”
Face	Enough.
	Knocking within.
Subtle	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.
	Exit.
Face	Can you remember this?
Dapper	I warrant you.
Face	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.
	Exeunt Face* and Dapper.*
Subtle	Within. Come in! Good wives, I pray you forbear me now; Troth I can do you no good till afternoon⁠—
	Re-enters, followed by Drugger.
	What is your name, say you? Abel Drugger?
Drugger	Yes, sir.
Subtle	A seller of tobacco?
Drugger	Yes, sir.
Subtle	Umph! Free of the grocers?
Drugger	Ay, and’t please you.
Subtle	Well⁠— Your business, Abel?
Drugger	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.
Subtle	I do, If I do see them⁠—
	Re-enter Face.
Face	What! My honest Abel? Though art well met here.
Drugger	Troth, sir, I was speaking, Just as your worship came here, of your worship: I pray you speak for me to Master Doctor.
Face	He shall do anything.⁠—Doctor, do you hear? This is my friend, Abel, an honest fellow; He lets me have good tobacco, and he does not Sophisticate it with sack-lees or oil, Nor washes it in muscadel and grains, Nor buries it in gravel, 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.
Subtle	He is a fortunate fellow, that I am sure on.
Face	Already, sir, have you found it? Lo thee, Abel!
Subtle	And in right way toward riches⁠—
Face	Sir!
Subtle	This summer He will be of the clothing of his company, And next spring called to the scarlet; spend what he can.
Face	What, and so little beard?
Subtle	Sir, you must think, He may have a receipt to make hair come: But he’ll be wise, preserve his youth, and fine for’t; His fortune looks for him another way.
Face	’Slid, Doctor, how canst thou know this so soon? I am amused at that!
Subtle	By a rule, Captain, In metoposcopy, which I do work by; A certain star 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.
Face	Which finger’s that?
Subtle	His little finger. Look. You were born upon a Wednesday?
Drugger	Yes, indeed, sir.
Subtle	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.
Face	Why, this is strange! Is it not, honest Nab?
Subtle	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?
Drugger	Yes, sir.
Subtle	And those are your two sides?
Drugger	Ay, sir.
Subtle	Make me your door, then, south; your broad side, west: And on the east side of your shop, aloft, Write Mathlai, Tarmiel, and Baraborat; Upon the north part, Rael, Velel, Thiel. They are the names of those mercurial spirits, That do fright flies from boxes.
Drugger	Yes, sir.
Subtle	And Beneath your threshold, bury me a loadstone To draw in gallants that wear spurs: the rest, They’ll seem to follow.
Face	That’s a secret, Nab!
Subtle	And, on your stall, a puppet, with a vice And a court-fucus to call city-dames: You shall deal much with minerals.
Drugger	Sir, I have. At home, already⁠—
Subtle	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.
Face	Why, how now, Abel! Is this true?
Drugger	Aside to Face. Good Captain, What must I give?
Face	Nay, I’ll not counsel thee. Thou hear’st what wealth (he says, spend what thou canst,) Thou’rt like to come to.
Drugger	I would gi’ him a crown.
Face	A crown! And toward such a fortune? Heart, Thou shalt rather gi’ him thy shop. No gold about thee?
Drugger	Yes, I have a portague, I have kept this half-year.
Face	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.
Drugger	I would entreat Another favour of his worship.
Face	What is’t, Nab?
Drugger	But to look over, sir, my almanack, And cross out my ill-days, that I may neither Bargain, nor trust upon them.
Face	That he shall, Nab: Leave it, it shall be done, ’gainst afternoon.
Subtle	And a direction for his shelves.
Face	Now, Nab, Art thou well pleased, Nab?
Drugger	’Thank, sir, both your worships.
Face	Away.
	Exit Drugger.
	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.
Subtle	You are pleasant, sir.
	Re-enter Dol.
	—How now! What says my dainty Dolkin?
Dol Common	Yonder fishwife Will not away. And there’s your giantess, The bawd of Lambeth.
Subtle	Heart, I cannot speak with them.
Dol Common	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—
Subtle	Where?
Dol Common	Coming along, at far end of the lane, Slow of his feet, but earnest of his tongue To one that’s with him.
Subtle	Face, go you and shift.
	Exit Face.
	Dol, you must presently make ready, too.
Dol Common	Why, what’s the matter?
Subtle	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.
	Exeunt.

Act II

Scene I

An outer room in Lovewit’s house.

	Enter Sir Epicure Mammon* and Surly.*
Sir Epicure Mammon	Come on, sir. Now, you set your foot on shore In Novo Orbe; here’s the rich Peru: And there within, sir, are the golden mines, Great Solomon’s Ophir! He was sailing to’t, Three years, but we have reached it in ten months. This is the day, wherein, to all my friends, I will pronounce the happy word, Be Rich; This day you shall be spectatissimi. You shall no more deal with the hollow dye, Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping The livery-punk for the young heir, that must Seal, at all hours, in his shirt: no more, If he deny, have him beaten to’t, as he is That brings him the commodity. No more Shall thirst of satin, or the covetous hunger Of velvet entrails for a rude-spun cloak, To be displayed at Madam Augusta’s, make The sons of Sword and Hazard fall before The golden calf, and on their knees, whole nights Commit idolatry with wine and trumpets: Or go a feasting after drum and ensign. No more of this. You shall start up young viceroys, And have your punks, and punketees, my Surly. And unto thee I speak it first, Be Rich. Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho!
Face	Within. Sir, He’ll come to you by and by.
Sir Epicure Mammon	That is his firedrake, His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals, Till he firk nature up, in her own centre. You are not faithful, sir. This night, I’ll change All that is metal, in my house, to gold: And, early in the morning, will I send To all the plumbers and the pewterers, And by their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury For all the copper.
Pertinax Surly	What, and turn that too?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Yes, and I’ll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall, And make them perfect Indies! You admire now?
Pertinax Surly	No, faith.
Sir Epicure Mammon	But when you see th’ effects of the Great Medicine, Of which one part projected on a hundred Of Mercury, or Venus, or the moon, Shall turn it to as many of the sun; Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum: You will believe me.
Pertinax Surly	Yes, when I see’t, I will. But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I Giving them no occasion, sure I’ll have A whore, shall piss them out next day.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Ha! Why? Do you think I fable with you? I assure you, He that has once the flower of the sun, The perfect ruby, which we call elixir, Not only can do that, but, by its virtue, Can confer honour, love, respect, long life; Give safety, valour, yea, and victory, To whom he will. In eight and twenty days, I’ll make an old man of fourscore, a child.
Pertinax Surly	No doubt; he’s that already.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Nay, I mean, Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle, To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters, Young giants; as our philosophers have done, The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood, But taking, once a week, on a knife’s point, The quantity of a grain of mustard of it; Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids.
Pertinax Surly	The decayed Vestals of Pict-hatch would thank you, That keep the fire alive, there.
Sir Epicure Mammon	’Tis the secret Of nature naturised ’gainst all infections, Cures all diseases coming of all causes; A month’s grief in a day, a year’s in twelve; And, of what age soever, in a month: Past all the doses of your drugging doctors. I’ll undertake, withal, to fright the plague Out of the kingdom in three months.
Pertinax Surly	And I’ll Be bound, the players shall sing your praises, then, Without their poets.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Sir, I’ll do’t. Meantime, I’ll give away so much unto my man, Shall serve the whole city, with preservative Weekly; each house his dose, and at the rate⁠—
Pertinax Surly	As he that built the waterwork, does with water?
Sir Epicure Mammon	You are incredulous.
Pertinax Surly	Faith I have a humour, I would not willingly be gulled. Your stone Cannot transmute me.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Pertinax, [my] Surly, Will you believe antiquity? Records? I’ll show you a book where Moses and his sister, And Solomon have written of the art; Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam⁠—
Pertinax Surly	How!
Sir Epicure Mammon	Of the philosopher’s stone, and in High Dutch.
Pertinax Surly	Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch?
Sir Epicure Mammon	He did; Which proves it was the primitive tongue.
Pertinax Surly	What paper?
Sir Epicure Mammon	On cedar board.
Pertinax Surly	O that, indeed, they say, Will last ’gainst worms.
Sir Epicure Mammon	’Tis like your Irish wood, ’Gainst cobwebs. I have a piece of Jason’s fleece, too, Which was no other than a book of alchemy, Writ in large sheepskin, a good fat ram-vellum. Such was Pythagoras’ thigh, Pandora’s tub, And, all that fable of Medea’s charms, The manner of our work; the bulls, our furnace, Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, the dragon: The dragon’s teeth, mercury sublimate, That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting; And they are gathered into Jason’s helm, The alembic, and then sowed in Mars his field, And thence sublimed so often, till they’re fixed. Both this, the Hesperian garden, Cadmus’ story, Jove’s shower, the boon of Midas, Argus’ eyes, Boccace his Demogorgon, thousands more, All abstract riddles of our stone.
	Enter Face, as a servant.
	—How now! Do we succeed? Is our day come? And holds it?
Face	The evening will set red upon you, sir; You have colour for it, crimson: the red ferment Has done his office; three hours hence prepare you To see projection.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Pertinax, my Surly. Again I say to thee, aloud, Be rich. This day, thou shalt have ingots; and tomorrow, Give lords th’ affront.⁠—Is it, my Zephyrus, right? Blushes the bolt’s head?
Face	Like a wench with child, sir, That were but now discovered to her master.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Excellent witty Lungs!⁠—my only care Where to get stuff enough now, to project on; This town will not half serve me.
Face	No, sir! Buy The covering off o’ churches.
Sir Epicure Mammon	That’s true.
Face	Yes. Let them stand bare, as do their auditory; Or cap them, new, with shingles.
Sir Epicure Mammon	No, good thatch: Thatch will lie light upon the rafters, Lungs.⁠— Lungs, I will manumit thee from the furnace; I will restore thee thy complexion, Puffe, Lost in the embers; and repair this brain, Hurt with the fume o’ the metals.
Face	I have blown, sir, Hard for your worship; thrown by many a coal, When ’twas not beech; weighed those I put in, just, To keep your heat still even; these bleared eyes Have waked to read your several colours, sir, Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow, The peacock’s tail, the plumed swan.
Sir Epicure Mammon	And, lastly, Thou hast descryed the flower, the sanguis agni?
Face	Yes, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Where’s master?
Face	At his prayers, sir, he; Good man, he’s doing his devotions For the success.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Lungs, I will set a period To all thy labours; thou shalt be the master Of my seraglio.
Face	Good, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	But do you hear? I’ll geld you, Lungs.
Face	Yes, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	For I do mean To have a list of wives and concubines, Equal with Solomon, who had the stone Alike with me; and I will make me a back With the elixir, that shall be as tough As Hercules, to encounter fifty a night.⁠— Thou’rt sure thou saw’st it blood?
Face	Both blood and spirit, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I will have all my beds blown up, not stuffed; Down is too hard: and then, mine oval room Filled with such pictures as Tiberius took From Elephantis, and dull Aretine But coldly imitated. Then, my glasses Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse And multiply the figures, as I walk Naked between my succubae. My mists I’ll have of perfume, vapoured ’bout the room, To lose ourselves in; and my baths, like pits To fall into; from whence we will come forth, And roll us dry in gossamer and roses.⁠— Is it arrived at ruby?⁠—Where I spy A wealthy citizen, or [a] rich lawyer, Have a sublimed pure wife, unto that fellow I’ll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold.
Face	And I shall carry it?
Sir Epicure Mammon	No. I’ll have no bawds, But fathers and mothers: they will do it best, Best of all others. And my flatterers Shall be the pure and gravest of divines, That I can get for money. My mere fools, Eloquent burgesses, and then my poets The same that writ so subtly of the fart, Whom I will entertain still for that subject. The few that would give out themselves to be Court and town-stallions, and, each-where, bely Ladies who are known most innocent for them; Those will I beg, to make me eunuchs of: And they shall fan me with ten ostrich tails Apiece, made in a plume to gather wind. We will be brave, Puffe, now we have the medicine. My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells, Dishes of agate set in gold, and studded With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies. The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels’ heels, Boiled in the spirit of Sol, and dissolved pearl, Apicius’ diet, ’gainst the epilepsy: And I will eat these broths with spoons of amber, Headed with diamond and carbuncle. My footboy shall eat pheasants, calvered salmons, Knots, godwits, lampreys: I myself will have The beards of barbels served, instead of salads; Oiled mushrooms; and the swelling unctuous paps Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off, Dressed with an exquisite, and poignant sauce; For which, I’ll say unto my cook, “There’s gold, Go forth, and be a knight.”
Face	Sir, I’ll go look A little, how it heightens.
	Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Do.⁠—My shirts I’ll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment, It shall be such as might provoke the Persian, Were he to teach the world riot anew. My gloves of fishes’ and birds’ skins, perfumed With gums of paradise, and eastern air⁠—
Pertinax Surly	And do you think to have the stone with this?
Sir Epicure Mammon	No, I do think t’ have all this with the stone.
Pertinax Surly	Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi, A pious, holy, and religious man, One free from mortal sin, a very virgin.
Sir Epicure Mammon	That makes it, sir; he is so: but I buy it; My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch, A notable, superstitious, good soul, Has worn his knees bare, and his slippers bald, With prayer and fasting for it: and, sir, let him Do it alone, for me, still. Here he comes. Not a profane word afore him: ’tis poison.⁠—
	Enter Subtle.
	Good morrow, Father.
Subtle	Gentle son, good morrow, And to your friend there. What is he, is with you?
Sir Epicure Mammon	An heretic, that I did bring along, In hope, sir, to convert him.
Subtle	Son, I doubt You are covetous, that thus you meet your time In the just point: prevent your day at morning. This argues something, worthy of a fear Of importune and carnal appetite. Take heed you do not cause the blessing leave you, With your ungoverned haste. I should be sorry To see my labours, now even at perfection, Got by long watching and large patience, Not prosper where my love and zeal hath placed them. Which (heaven I call to witness, with yourself, To whom I have poured my thoughts) in all my ends, Have looked no way, but unto public good, To pious uses, and dear charity Now grown a prodigy with men. Wherein If you, my son, should now prevaricate, And, to your own particular lusts employ So great and catholic a bliss, be sure A curse will follow, yea, and overtake Your subtle and most secret ways.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I know, sir; You shall not need to fear me; I but come, To have you confute this gentleman.
Pertinax Surly	Who is, Indeed, sir, somewhat costive of belief Toward your stone; would not be gulled.
Subtle	Well, son, All that I can convince him in, is this, The work is done, bright Sol is in his robe. We have a medicine of the triple soul, The glorified spirit. Thanks be to heaven, And make us worthy of it!⁠—Ulen Spiegel!
Face	Within. Anon, sir.
Subtle	Look well to the register. And let your heat still lessen by degrees, To the aludels.
Face	Within. Yes, sir.
Subtle	Did you look On the bolt’s head yet?
Face	Within. Which? On D, sir?
Subtle	Ay; What’s the complexion?
Face	Within. Whitish.
Subtle	Infuse vinegar, To draw his volatile substance and his tincture: And let the water in glass E be filtered, And put into the gripe’s egg. Lute him well; And leave him closed in balneo.
Face	Within. I will, sir.
Pertinax Surly	What a brave language here is! Next to canting.
Subtle	I have another work, you never saw, son, That three days since past the philosopher’s wheel, In the lent heat of Athanor; and’s become Sulphur of Nature.
Sir Epicure Mammon	But ’tis for me?
Subtle	What need you? You have enough in that is perfect.
Sir Epicure Mammon	O but⁠—
Subtle	Why, this is covetise!
Sir Epicure Mammon	No, I assure you, I shall employ it all in pious uses, Founding of colleges and grammar schools, Marrying young virgins, building hospitals, And now and then a church.
	Re-enter Face.
Subtle	How now!
Face	Sir, please you, Shall I not change the filter?
Subtle	Marry, yes; And bring me the complexion of glass B.
	Exit Face.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Have you another?
Subtle	Yes, son; were I assured⁠— Your piety were firm, we would not want The means to glorify it: but I hope the best.⁠— I mean to tinct C in sand-heat tomorrow, And give him imbibition.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Of white oil?
Subtle	No, sir, of red. F is come over the helm too, I thank my Maker, in St. Mary’s bath, And shows lac virginis. Blessed be heaven! I sent you of his faeces there calcined: Out of that calx, I have won the salt of mercury.
Sir Epicure Mammon	By pouring on your rectified water?
Subtle	Yes, and reverberating in Athanor.
	Re-enter Face.
	How now! What colour says it?
Face	The ground black, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	That’s your crow’s head?
Pertinax Surly	Your cockscomb’s, is it not?
Subtle	No, ’tis not perfect. Would it were the crow! That work wants something.
Pertinax Surly	Aside. O, I looked for this. The hay’s a pitching.
Subtle	Are you sure you loosed them In their own menstrue?
Face	Yes, sir, and then married them, And put them in a bolt’s head nipped to digestion, According as you bade me, when I set The liquor of Mars to circulation In the same heat.
Subtle	The process then was right.
Face	Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake, And what was saved was put into the pelican, And signed with Hermes’ seal.
Subtle	I think ’twas so. We should have a new amalgama.
Pertinax Surly	Aside. O, this ferret Is rank as any polecat.
Subtle	But I care not: Let him e’en die; we have enough beside, In embrion. H has his white shirt on?
Face	Yes, sir, He’s ripe for inceration, he stands warm, In his ash-fire. I would not you should let Any die now, if I might counsel, sir, For luck’s sake to the rest: it is not good.
Sir Epicure Mammon	He says right.
Pertinax Surly	Aside. Ay, are you bolted?
Face	Nay, I know’t, sir, I have seen the ill fortune. What is some three ounces Of fresh materials?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Is’t no more?
Face	No more, sir. Of gold, t’amalgam with some six of mercury.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Away, here’s money. What will serve?
Face	Ask him, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	How much?
Subtle	Give him nine pound:⁠—you may give him ten.
Pertinax Surly	Yes, twenty, and be cozened, do.
Sir Epicure Mammon	There ’tis. Gives Face* the money.*
Subtle	This needs not; but that you will have it so, To see conclusions of all: for two Of our inferior works are at fixation, A third is in ascension. Go your ways. Have you set the oil of luna in kemia?
Face	Yes, sir.
Subtle	And the philosopher’s vinegar?
Face	Ay.
	Exit.
Pertinax Surly	We shall have a salad!
Sir Epicure Mammon	When do you make projection?
Subtle	Son, be not hasty, I exalt our medicine, By hanging him in balneo vaporoso, And giving him solution; then congeal him; And then dissolve him; then again congeal him; For look, how oft I iterate the work, So many times I add unto his virtue. As, if at first one ounce convert a hundred, After his second loose, he’ll turn a thousand; His third solution, ten; his fourth, a hundred: After his fifth, a thousand thousand ounces Of any imperfect metal, into pure Silver or gold, in all examinations, As good as any of the natural mine. Get you your stuff here against afternoon, Your brass, your pewter, and your andirons.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Not those of iron?
Subtle	Yes, you may bring them too: We’ll change all metals.
Pertinax Surly	I believe you in that.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Then I may send my spits?
Subtle	Yes, and your racks.
Pertinax Surly	And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks? Shall he not?
Subtle	If he please.
Pertinax Surly	—To be an ass.
Subtle	How, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon	This gentleman you must bear withal: I told you he had no faith.
Pertinax Surly	And little hope, sir; But much less charity, should I gull myself.
Subtle	Why, what have you observed, sir, in our art, Seems so impossible?
Pertinax Surly	But your whole work, no more. That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir, As they do eggs in Egypt!
Subtle	Sir, do you Believe that eggs are hatched so?
Pertinax Surly	If I should?
Subtle	Why, I think that the greater miracle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves.
Pertinax Surly	That cannot be. The egg’s ordained by nature to that end, And is a chicken in potentia.
Subtle	The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold, if they had time.
Sir Epicure Mammon	And that Our art doth further.
Subtle	Ay, for ’twere absurb To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter.
Pertinax Surly	Ay, what is that?
Subtle	Marry, we say⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Ay, now it heats: stand, Father, Pound him to dust.
Subtle	It is, of the one part, A humid exhalation, which we call Materia liquida, or the unctuous water; On the other part, a certain crass and vicious Portion of earth; both which, concorporate, Do make the elementary matter of gold; Which is not yet propria materia, But common to all metals and all stones; For, where it is forsaken of that moisture, And hath more dryness, it becomes a stone: Where it retains more of the humid fatness, It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver, Who are the parents of all other metals. Nor can this remote matter suddenly Progress so from extreme unto extreme, As to grow gold, and leap o’er all the means. Nature doth first beget the imperfect, then Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy And oily water, mercury is engendered; Sulphur of the fat and earthy part; the one, Which is the last, supplying the place of male, The other of the female, in all metals. Some do believe hermaphrodeity, That both do act and suffer. But these two Make the rest ductile, malleable, extensive. And even in gold they are; for we do find Seeds of them, by our fire, and gold in them; And can produce the species of each metal More perfect thence, than nature doth in earth. Beside, who doth not see in daily practice Art can beget bees, hornets, beetles, wasps, Out of the carcases and dung of creatures; Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed? And these are living creatures, far more perfect And excellent than metals.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Well said, Father! Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument, He’ll bray you in a mortar.
Pertinax Surly	Pray you, sir, stay. Rather than I’ll be brayed, sir, I’ll believe That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game, Somewhat like tricks o’ the cards, to cheat a man With charming.
Subtle	Sir?
Pertinax Surly	What else are all your terms, Whereon no one of your writers ’grees with other? Of your elixir, your lac virginis, Your stone, your medicine, and your chrysosperm, Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury, Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood, Your marcasite, your tutie, your magnesia, Your toad, your crow, your dragon, and your panther; Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop, Your lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit, And then your red man, and your white woman, With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials, Of piss and eggshells, women’s terms, man’s blood, Hair o’ the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay, Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass, And worlds of other strange ingredients, Would burst a man to name?
Subtle	And all these named, Intending but one thing; which art our writers Used to obscure their art.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Sir, so I told him⁠— Because the simple idiot should not learn it, And make it vulgar.
Subtle	Was not all the knowledge Of the Egyptians writ in mystic symbols? Speak not the scriptures oft in parables? Are not the choicest fables of the poets, That were the fountains and first springs of wisdom, Wrapped in perplexed allegories?
Sir Epicure Mammon	I urged that, And cleared to him, that Sisyphus was damned To roll the ceaseless stone, only because He would have made Ours common.
Dol Common	Appears at the door.⁠— Who is this?
Subtle	’Sprecious!⁠—What do you mean? Go in, good lady, Let me entreat you.
	Dol retires.
	—Where’s this varlet?
	Re-enter Face.
Face	Sir.
Subtle	You very knave! Do you use me thus?
Face	Wherein, sir?
Subtle	Go in and see, you traitor. Go!
	Exit Face.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Who is it, sir?
Subtle	Nothing, sir; nothing.
Sir Epicure Mammon	What’s the matter, good sir? I have not seen you thus distempered: who is’t?
Subtle	All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries; But ours the most ignorant.⁠—
	Re-enter Face.
	What now?
Face	’Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.
Subtle	Would she, sir! Follow me.
	Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Stopping him. Stay, Lungs.
Face	I dare not, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Stay, man; what is she?
Face	A lord’s sister, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	How! Pray thee, stay.
Face	She’s mad, sir, and sent hither⁠— He’ll be mad too.⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	I warrant thee.⁠— Why sent hither?
Face	Sir, to be cured.
Subtle	Within. Why, rascal!
Face	Lo you!⁠—Here, sir!
	Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon	’Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece.
Pertinax Surly	Heart, this is a bawdyhouse! I will be burnt else.
Sir Epicure Mammon	O, by this light, no: do not wrong him. He’s Too scrupulous that way: it is his vice. No, he’s a rare physician, do him right, An excellent Paracelsian, and has done Strange cures with mineral physic. He deals all With spirits, he; he will not hear a word Of Galen; or his tedious recipes.⁠—
	Re-enter Face.
	How now, Lungs!
Face	Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant To have told your worship all. This must not hear.
Sir Epicure Mammon	No, he will not be “gulled;” let him alone.
Face	You are very right, sir, she is a most rare scholar, And is gone mad with studying Broughton’s works. If you but name a word touching the Hebrew, She falls into her fit, and will discourse So learnedly of genealogies, As you would run mad too, to hear her, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	How might one do t’ have conference with her, Lungs?
Face	O divers have run mad upon the conference: I do not know, sir. I am sent in haste, To fetch a vial.
Pertinax Surly	Be not gulled, Sir Mammon.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Wherein? Pray ye, be patient.
Pertinax Surly	Yes, as you are, And trust confederate knaves and bawds and whores.
Sir Epicure Mammon	You are too foul, believe it.⁠—Come here, Ulen, One word.
Face	I dare not, in good faith. Going.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Stay, knave.
Face	He is extreme angry that you saw her, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Drink that. Gives him money. What is she when she’s out of her fit?
Face	O, the most affablest creature, sir! So merry! So pleasant! She’ll mount you up, like quicksilver, Over the helm; and circulate like oil, A very vegetal: discourse of state, Of mathematics, bawdry, anything⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Is she no way accessible? No means, No trick to give a man a taste of her⁠—wit⁠— Or so?
Subtle	Within. Ulen!
Face	I’ll come to you again, sir.
	Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Surly, I did not think one of your breeding Would traduce personages of worth.
Pertinax Surly	Sir Epicure, Your friend to use; yet still loth to be gulled: I do not like your philosophical bawds. Their stone is letchery enough to pay for, Without this bait.
Sir Epicure Mammon	’Heart, you abuse yourself. I know the lady, and her friends, and means, The original of this disaster. Her brother Has told me all.
Pertinax Surly	And yet you never saw her Till now!
Sir Epicure Mammon	O yes, but I forgot. I have, believe it, One of the treacherousest memories, I do think, Of all mankind.
Pertinax Surly	What call you her brother?
Sir Epicure Mammon	My lord⁠— He will not have his name known, now I think on’t.
Pertinax Surly	A very treacherous memory!
Sir Epicure Mammon	On my faith⁠—
Pertinax Surly	Tut, if you have it not about you, pass it, Till we meet next.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Nay, by this hand, ’tis true. He’s one I honour, and my noble friend; And I respect his house.
Pertinax Surly	Heart! Can it be, That a grave sir, a rich, that has no need, A wise sir, too, at other times, should thus, With his own oaths, and arguments, make hard means To gull himself? An this be your elixir, Your lapis mineralis, and your lunary, Give me your honest trick yet at primero, Or gleek; and take your lutum sapientis, Your menstruum simplex! I’ll have gold before you, And with less danger of the quicksilver, Or the hot sulphur.
	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. Whispers to Mammon. Sir, if you please to quit us, now; and come Again within two hours, you shall have My master busy examining o’ the works; And I will steal you in, unto the party, That you may see her converse.⁠—Sir, shall I say, You’ll meet the Captain’s worship?
Pertinax Surly	Sir, I will.⁠— Walks aside. But, by attorney, and to a second purpose. Now, I am sure it is a bawdyhouse; I’ll swear it, were the Marshal here to thank me: The naming this Commander doth confirm it. Don Face! Why, he’s the most authentic dealer In these commodities, the superintendant To all the quainter traffickers in town! He is the visitor, and does appoint, Who lies with whom, and at what hour; what price; Which gown, and in what smock; what fall; what tire. Him will I prove, by a third person, to find The subtleties of this dark labyrinth: Which if I do discover, dear Sir Mammon, You’ll give your poor friend leave, though no philosopher, To laugh: for you that are, ’tis thought, shall weep.
Face	Sir, he does pray, you’ll not forget.
Pertinax Surly	I will not, sir. Sir Epicure, I shall leave you.
	Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I follow you, straight.
Face	But do so, good sir, to avoid suspicion. This gentleman has a parlous head.
Sir Epicure Mammon	But wilt thou Ulen, Be constant to thy promise?
Face	As my life, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	And wilt thou insinuate what I am, and praise me, And say, I am a noble fellow?
Face	O, what else, sir? And that you’ll make her royal with the stone, An empress; and yourself, King of Bantam.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Wilt thou do this?
Face	Will I, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon	Lungs, my Lungs! I love thee.
Face	Send your stuff, sir, that my master May busy himself about projection.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Thou hast witched me, rogue: take, go. Gives him money.
Face	Your jack, and all, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Thou art a villain⁠—I will send my jack, And the weights too. Slave, I could bite thine ear. Away, thou dost not care for me.
Face	Not I, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon	Come, I was born to make thee, my good weasel, Set thee on a bench, and have thee twirl a chain With the best lord’s vermin of ’em all.
Face	Away, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	A count, nay, a count palatine⁠—
Face	Good, sir, go.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Shall not advance thee better: no, nor faster.
	Exit.
	Re-enter Subtle* and Dol.*
Subtle	Has he bit? Has he bit?
Face	And swallowed, too, my Subtle. I have given him line, and now he plays, i’faith.
Subtle	And shall we twitch him?
Face	Thorough both the gills. A wench is a rare bait, with which a man No sooner’s taken, but he straight firks mad.
Subtle	Dol, my Lord What’ts’hums sister, you must now Bear yourself statelich.
Dol Common	O let me alone. I’ll not forget my race, I warrant you. I’ll keep my distance, laugh and talk aloud; Have all the tricks of a proud scurvy lady, And be as rude as her woman.
Face	Well said, sanguine!
Subtle	But will he send his andirons?
Face	His jack too, And’s iron shoeing-horn; I have spoke to him. Well, I must not lose my wary gamester yonder.
Subtle	O Monsieur Caution, that will not be gulled?
Face	Ay, If I can strike a fine hook into him, now! The Temple-church, there I have cast mine angle. Well, pray for me. I’ll about it. Knocking without.
Subtle	What, more gudgeons! Dol, scout, scout! Dol goes to the window. Stay, Face, you must go to the door, ’Pray God it be my Anabaptist⁠—Who is’t, Dol?
Dol Common	I know him not: he looks like a gold-endman.
Subtle	Ods so! ’Tis he, he said he would send what call you him? The sanctified elder, that should deal For Mammon’s jack and andirons. Let him in. Stay, help me off, first, with my gown.
	Exit Face* with the gown.*
	Away, Madam, to your withdrawing chamber.
	Exit Dol.
	Now, In a new tune, new gesture, but old language.⁠— This fellow is sent from one negotiates with me About the stone too, for the holy Brethren Of Amsterdam, the exiled saints, that hope To raise their discipline by it. I must use him In some strange fashion, now, to make him admire me.⁠—
	Enter Ananias.
	Aloud. Where is my drudge?
	Re-enter Face.
Face	Sir!
Subtle	Take away the recipient, And rectify your menstrue from the phlegma. Then pour it on the Sol, in the cucurbite, And let them macerate together.
Face	Yes, sir. And save the ground?
Subtle	No: Terra damnata Must not have entrance in the work.⁠—Who are you?
Ananias	A faithful brother, if it please you.
Subtle	What’s that? A Lullianist? A Ripley? Filius artis? Can you sublime and dulcify? Calcine? Know you the sapor pontic? Sapor stiptic? Or what is homogene, or heterogene?
Ananias	I understand no heathen language, truly.
Subtle	Heathen! You Knipper-doling? Is Ars sacra, Or chrysopoeia, or spagyrica, Or the pamphysic, or panarchic knowledge, A heathen language?
Ananias	Heathen Greek, I take it.
Subtle	How! Heathen Greek?
Ananias	All’s heathen but the Hebrew.
Subtle	Sirrah, my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him, Like a philosopher: answer in the language. Name the vexations, and the martyrisations Of metals in the work.
Face	Sir, putrefaction, Solution, ablution, sublimation, Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and Fixation.
Subtle	This is heathen Greek to you, now!⁠— And when comes vivification?
Face	After mortification.
Subtle	What’s cohobation?
Face	’Tis the pouring on Your aqua regis, and then drawing him off, To the trine circle of the seven spheres.
Subtle	What’s the proper passion of metals?
Face	Malleation.
Subtle	What’s your ultimum supplicium auri?
Face	Antimonium.
Subtle	This is heathen Greek to you!⁠—And what’s your mercury?
Face	A very fugitive, he will be gone, sir.
Subtle	How know you him?
Face	By his viscosity, His oleosity, and his suscitability.
Subtle	How do you sublime him?
Face	With the calce of eggshells, White marble, talc.
Subtle	Your magisterium now, What’s that?
Face	Shifting, sir, your elements, Dry into cold, cold into moist, moist into hot, Hot into dry.
Subtle	This is heathen Greek to you still! Your lapis philosophicus?
Face	’Tis a stone, And not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body: Which if you do dissolve, it is dissolved; If you coagulate, it is coagulated; If you make it to fly, it flieth.
Subtle	Enough.
	Exit Face.
	This is heathen Greek to you! What are you, sir?
Ananias	Please you, a servant of the exiled Brethren, That deal with widows’ and with orphans’ goods, And make a just account unto the Saints: A Deacon.
Subtle	O, you are sent from master Wholesome, Your teacher?
Ananias	From Tribulation Wholesome, Our very zealous pastor.
Subtle	Good! I have Some orphans’ goods to come here.
Ananias	Of what kind, sir?
Subtle	Pewter and brass, andirons and kitchenware, Metals, that we must use our medicine on: Wherein the Brethren may have a pennyworth For ready money.
Ananias	Were the orphans’ parents Sincere professors?
Subtle	Why do you ask?
Ananias	Because We then are to deal justly, and give, in truth, Their utmost value.
Subtle	’Slid, you’d cozen else, And if their parents were not of the faithful!⁠— I will not trust you, now I think on it, ’Till I have talked with your pastor. Have you brought money To buy more coals?
Ananias	No, surely.
Subtle	No! How so?
Ananias	The Brethren bid me say unto you, sir, Surely, they will not venture any more, Till they may see projection.
Subtle	How!
Ananias	You have had, For the instruments, as bricks, and loam, and glasses, Already thirty pound; and for materials, They say, some ninety more: and they have heard since, That one at Heidelberg, made it of an egg, And a small paper of pin-dust.
Subtle	What’s your name?
Ananias	My name is Ananias.
Subtle	Out, the varlet That cozened the Apostles! Hence, away! Flee, mischief! Had your holy Consistory No name to send me, of another sound, Than wicked Ananias? Send your elders Hither to make atonement for you quickly, And give me satisfaction; or out goes The fire; and down th’ alembics, and the furnace, Piger Henricus, or whatnot. Thou wretch! Both sericon and bufo shall be lost, Tell them. All hope of rooting out the Bishops, Or the antichristian hierarchy, shall perish, If they stay threescore minutes: the aqueity, Terreity, and sulphureity Shall run together again, and all be annulled, Thou wicked Ananias!
	Exit Ananias.
	This will fetch ’em, And make them haste towards their gulling more. A man must deal like a rough nurse, and fright Those that are froward, to an appetite.
	Re-enter Face, in his uniform, followed by Drugger.
Face	He is busy with his spirits, but we’ll upon him.
Subtle	How now! What mates, what Baiards have we here?
Face	I told you, he would be furious.⁠—Sir, here’s Nab, Has brought you another piece of gold to look on: —We must appease him. Give it me⁠—and prays you, You would devise⁠—what is it, Nab?
Drugger	A sign, sir.
Face	Ay, a good lucky one, a thriving sign, Doctor.
Subtle	I was devising now.
Face	’Slight, do not say so, He will repent he gave you any more⁠— What say you to his constellation, Doctor, The Balance?
Subtle	No, that way is stale, and common. A townsman born in Taurus, gives the bull, Or the bull’s-head: in Aries, the ram, A poor device! No, I will have his name Formed in some mystic character; whose radii, Striking the senses of the passers by, Shall, by a virtual influence, breed affections, That may result upon the party owns it: As thus⁠—
Face	Nab!
Subtle	He shall have “a bell,” that’s “Abel;” And by it standing one whose name is “Dee,” In a “rug” gown, there’s “D,” and “Rug,” that’s “drug:” And right anenst him a dog snarling “er;” There’s “Drugger,” Abel Drugger. That’s his sign. And here’s now mystery and hieroglyphic!
Face	Abel, thou art made.
Drugger	Sir, I do thank his worship.
Face	Six o’ thy legs more will not do it, Nab. He has brought you a pipe of tobacco, Doctor.
Drugger	Yes, sir; I have another thing I would impart⁠—
Face	Out with it, Nab.
Drugger	Sir, there is lodged, hard by me, A rich young widow⁠—
Face	Good! A bona roba?
Drugger	But nineteen, at the most.
Face	Very good, Abel.
Drugger	Marry, she’s not in fashion yet; she wears A hood, but it stands a cop.
Face	No matter, Abel.
Drugger	And I do now and then give her a fucus⁠—
Face	What! Dost thou deal, Nab?
Subtle	I did tell you, Captain.
Drugger	And physic too, sometime, sir; for which she trusts me With all her mind. She’s come up here of purpose To learn the fashion.
Face	Good (his match too!)⁠—On, Nab.
Drugger	And she does strangely long to know her fortune.
Face	Ods lid, Nab, send her to the Doctor, hither.
Drugger	Yes, I have spoke to her of his worship already; But she’s afraid it will be blown abroad, And hurt her marriage.
Face	Hurt it! ’Tis the way To heal it, if ’twere hurt; to make it more Followed and sought: Nab, thou shalt tell her this. She’ll be more known, more talked of; and your widows Are ne’er of any price till they be famous; Their honour is their multitude of suitors. Send her, it may be thy good fortune. What! Thou dost not know.
Drugger	No, sir, she’ll never marry Under a knight: her brother has made a vow.
Face	What! And dost thou despair, my little Nab, Knowing what the Doctor has set down for thee, And seeing so many of the city dubbed? One glass o’ thy water, with a Madam I know, Will have it done, Nab: what’s her brother, a knight?
Drugger	No, sir, a gentleman newly warm in his land, sir, Scarce cold in his one and twenty, that does govern His sister here; and is a man himself Of some three thousand a year, and is come up To learn to quarrel, and to live by his wits, And will go down again, and die in the country.
Face	How! To quarrel?
Drugger	Yes, sir, to carry quarrels, As gallants do; to manage them by line.
Face	’Slid, Nab, the Doctor is the only man In Christendom for him. He has made a table, With mathematical demonstrations, Touching the art of quarrels: he will give him An instrument to quarrel by. Go, bring them both, Him and his sister. And, for thee, with her The Doctor haply may persuade. Go to: ’Shalt give his worship a new damask suit Upon the premises.
Subtle	O, good Captain!
Face	He shall; He is the honestest fellow, Doctor.⁠—Stay not, No offers; bring the damask, and the parties.
Drugger	I’ll try my power, sir.
Face	And thy will too, Nab.
Subtle	’Tis good tobacco, this! What is’t an ounce?
Face	He’ll send you a pound, Doctor.
Subtle	O no.
Face	He will do’t. It is the goodest soul!⁠—Abel, about it. Thou shalt know more anon. Away, be gone.
	Exit Drugger.
	A miserable rogue, and lives with cheese, And has the worms. That was the cause, indeed, Why he came now: he dealt with me in private, To get a medicine for them.
Subtle	And shall, sir. This works.
Face	A wife, a wife for one on us, my dear Subtle! We’ll e’en draw lots, and he that fails, shall have The more in goods, the other has in tail.
Subtle	Rather the less: for she may be so light She may want grains.
Face	Ay, or be such a burden, A man would scarce endure her for the whole.
Subtle	Faith, best let’s see her first, and then determine.
Face	Content: but Dol must have no breath on’t.
Subtle	Mum. Away you, to your Surly yonder, catch him.
Face	’Pray God I have not stayed too long.
Subtle	I fear it.
	Exeunt.

Act III

Scene I

The lane before Lovewit’s house.

	Enter Tribulation Wholesome* and Ananias.*
Tribulation Wholesome	These chastisements are common to the saints, And such rebukes, we of the separation Must bear with willing shoulders, as the trials Sent forth to tempt our frailties.
Ananias	In pure zeal, I do not like the man; he is a heathen, And speaks the language of Canaan, truly.
Tribulation Wholesome	I think him a profane person indeed.
Ananias	He bears The visible mark of the beast in his forehead. And for his stone, it is a work of darkness, And with philosophy blinds the eyes of man.
Tribulation Wholesome	Good brother, we must bend unto all means, That may give furtherance to the holy cause.
Ananias	Which his cannot: the sanctified cause Should have a sanctified course.
Tribulation Wholesome	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.
Ananias	I have not edified more, truly, by man; Not since the beautiful light first shone on me: And I am sad my zeal hath so offended.
Tribulation Wholesome	Let us call on him then.
Ananias	The motion’s good, And of the spirit; I will knock first. Knocks. Peace be within!
	The door is opened, and they enter.

Scene II

A room in Lovewit’s house.

	Enter Subtle, followed by Tribulation* and Ananias.*
Subtle	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.
Tribulation Wholesome	Sir, be appeased; he is come to humble Himself in spirit, and to ask your patience, If too much zeal hath carried him aside From the due path.
Subtle	Why, this doth qualify!
Tribulation Wholesome	The Brethren had no purpose, verily, To give you the least grievance; but are ready To lend their willing hands to any project The spirit and you direct.
Subtle	This qualifies more!
Tribulation Wholesome	And for the orphans’ goods, let them be valued, Or what is needful else to the holy work, It shall be numbered; here, by me, the Saints, Throw down their purse before you.
Subtle	This qualifies most! Why, thus it should be, now you understand. Have I discoursed so unto you of our stone, And of the good that it shall bring your cause? Showed you (beside the main of hiring forces Abroad, drawing the Hollanders, your friends, From 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.
Tribulation Wholesome	Ay, it is very pregnant.
Subtle	And then the turning of this lawyer’s pewter To plate at Christmas.⁠—
Ananias	Christ-tide, I pray you.
Subtle	Yet, Ananias!
Ananias	I have done.
Subtle	Or changing His parcel gilt to massy gold. You cannot But raise you friends. Withal, to be of power To pay an army in the field, to buy The King of France out of his realms, or Spain Out of his Indies. What can you not do Against lords spiritual or temporal, That shall oppone you?
Tribulation Wholesome	Verily, ’tis true. We may be temporal lords ourselves, I take it.
Subtle	You may be anything, and leave off to make Long-winded exercises; or suck up Your “ha!” and “hum!” in a tune. I not deny, But such as are not graced in a state, May, for their ends, be adverse in religion, And get a tune to call the flock together: For, to say sooth, a tune does much with women, And other phlegmatic people; it is your bell.
Ananias	Bells are profane; a tune may be religious.
Subtle	No warning with you! Then farewell my patience. ’Slight, it shall down: I will not be thus tortured.
Tribulation Wholesome	I pray you, sir.
Subtle	All shall perish. I have spoken it.
Tribulation Wholesome	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.
Subtle	No, nor your holy vizard, to win widows To give you legacies; or make zealous wives To rob their husbands for the common cause: Nor take the start of bonds broke but one day, And say, they were forfeited by providence. Nor shall you need o’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.
Ananias	It is indeed an idol.
Tribulation Wholesome	Mind him not, sir. I do command thee, spirit of zeal, but trouble, To peace within him! Pray you, sir, go on.
Subtle	Nor shall you need to libel ’gainst the prelates, And shorten so your ears against the hearing Of the next 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.
Tribulation Wholesome	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.
Subtle	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.
Ananias	I hate traditions; I do not trust them⁠—
Tribulation Wholesome	Peace!
Ananias	They are popish all. I will not peace: I will not⁠—
Tribulation Wholesome	Ananias!
Ananias	Please the profane, to grieve the godly; I may not.
Subtle	Well, Ananias, thou shalt overcome.
Tribulation Wholesome	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.
Subtle	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.
Tribulation Wholesome	But how long time, Sir, must the saints expect yet?
Subtle	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.
Ananias	About the second day of the third week, In the ninth month?
Subtle	Yes, my good Ananias.
Tribulation Wholesome	What will the orphan’s goods arise to, think you?
Subtle	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.
Tribulation Wholesome	How?
Subtle	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.
Tribulation Wholesome	Can you so?
Subtle	Ay, and shall ’bide the third examination.
Ananias	It will be joyful tidings to the Brethren.
Subtle	But you must carry it secret.
Tribulation Wholesome	Ay; but stay, This act of coining, is it lawful?
Ananias	Lawful! We know no magistrate; or, if we did, This is foreign coin.
Subtle	It is no coining, sir. It is but casting.
Tribulation Wholesome	Ha! You distinguish well: Casting of money may be lawful.
Ananias	’Tis, sir.
Tribulation Wholesome	Truly, I take it so.
Subtle	There is no scruple, Sir, to be made of it; believe Ananias: This case of conscience he is studied in.
Tribulation Wholesome	I’ll make a question of it to the Brethren.
Ananias	The Brethren shall approve it lawful, doubt not. Where shall it be done?
	Knocking without.
Subtle	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.
	Exeunt Tribulation and Ananias
	Who is it?⁠—Face! Appear.
	Enter Face* in his uniform.*
	How now! Good prize?
Face	Good pox! Yond’ costive cheater Never came on.
Subtle	How then?
Face	I have walked the round Till now, and no such thing.
Subtle	And have you quit him?
Face	Quit him! An hell would quit him too, he were happy. ’Slight! Would you have me stalk like a mill-jade, All day, for one that will not yield us grains? I know him of old.
Subtle	O, but to have gulled him, Had been a mastery.
Face	Let him go, black boy! And turn thee, that some fresh news may possess thee. A noble count, a don of Spain, my dear Delicious compeer, and my party-bawd, Who is come hither private for his conscience, And brought munition with him, six great slops, Bigger than three Dutch hoys, beside round trunks, Furnished with pistolets, and pieces of eight, Will straight be here, my rogue, to have thy bath, (That is the 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?
Subtle	I’ll send her to thee: And but despatch my brace of little John Leydens, And come again myself.
Face	Are they within then?
Subtle	Numbering the sum.
Face	How much?
Subtle	A hundred marks, boy.
	Exit.
Face	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—
	Enter Dol.
Dol Common	What?
Face	Pounds, dainty Dorothy! Art thou so near?
Dol Common	Yes; say, lord General, how fares our camp?
Face	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.
Dol Common	What is he, General?
Face	An adalantado, A grandee, girl. Was not my Dapper here yet?
Dol Common	No.
Face	Nor my Drugger?
Dol Common	Neither.
Face	A pox on ’em, They are so long a furnishing! Such stinkards Would not be seen upon these festival days.⁠—
	Re-enter Subtle.
	How now! Have you done?
Subtle	Done. They are gone: the sum Is here in bank, my Face. I would we knew Another chapman now would buy ’em outright.
Face	’Slid, Nab shall do’t against he have the widow, To furnish household.
Subtle	Excellent, well thought on: Pray God he come!
Face	I pray he keep away Till our new business be o’erpast.
Subtle	But, Face, How cam’st thou by this secret don?
Face	A spirit Brought me th’ intelligence in a paper here, As I was conjuring yonder in my circle For Surly; I 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?
	Exit Dol.
Subtle	It is not he?
Face	O no, not yet this hour.
	Re-enter Dol.
Subtle	Who is’t?
Dol Common	Dapper, Your clerk.
Face	God’s will then, Queen of Fairy, On with your tire; and, Doctor, with your robes.
	Exit Dol.
	Let’s dispatch him for God’s sake.
Subtle	’Twill be long.
Face	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.
Subtle	And the widow?
Face	No, Not that I see. Away!
	Exit Subtle.
	Enter Dapper.
	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.
Dapper	Shall I see her Grace?
Face	See her, and kiss her too.⁠—
	Enter Drugger, followed by Kastril.
	What, honest Nab! Hast brought the damask?
Drugger	No, sir; here’s tobacco.
Face	’Tis well done, Nab; thou’lt bring the damask too?
Drugger	Yes: here’s the gentleman, Captain, master Kastril, I have brought to see the Doctor.
Face	Where’s the widow?
Drugger	Sir, as he likes, his sister, he says, shall come.
Face	O, is it so? Good time. Is your name Kastril, sir?
Kastril	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?
Face	Wherein, sir?
Kastril	To carry a business, manage a quarrel fairly, Upon fit terms.
Face	It seems, sir, you are but young About the town, that can make that a question.
Kastril	Sir, not so young, but I have heard some speech Of the angry boys, and seen 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.
Face	Sir, for the duello, The Doctor, I assure you, shall inform you, To the least shadow of a hair; and show you An instrument he has of his own making, Wherewith no sooner shall you make report Of any quarrel, but he will take the height on’t Most instantly, and tell in what degree Of safety it lies in, or mortality. And how it may be borne, whether in a right line, Or a half circle; or may else be cast Into an angle blunt, if not acute: And this he will demonstrate. And then, rules To give and take the lie by.
Kastril	How! To take it?
Face	Yes, in oblique he’ll show you, or in circle; But never in diameter. The whole town Study his theorems, and dispute them ordinarily At the eating academies.
Kastril	But does he teach Living by the wits too?
Face	Anything whatever. You cannot think that subtlety, but he 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.
Kastril	No, I’ll not come there: you shall pardon me.
Face	For why, sir?
Kastril	There’s gaming there, and tricks.
Face	Why, would you be A gallant, and not game?
Kastril	Ay, ’twill spend a man.
Face	Spend you! It will repair you when you are spent: How do they live by their wits there, that have vented Six times your fortunes?
Kastril	What, three thousand a-year!
Face	Ay, forty thousand.
Kastril	Are there such?
Face	Ay, sir, And gallants yet. 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.
Kastril	Do you not gull one?
Face	’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.
Kastril	Will the Doctor teach this?
Face	He will do more, sir: when your land is gone, As men of spirit hate to keep earth long, In a vacation, when small money is stirring, 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.
Kastril	I’faith! Is he such a fellow?
Face	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.
Kastril	God’s will, my sister shall see him.
Face	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!
Drugger	Truth, and no more I was not.
Face	And then he was so sick⁠—
Drugger	Could he tell you that too?
Face	How should I know it?
Drugger	In troth we had been a-shooting, And had a piece of fat ram-mutton to supper, That lay so heavy o’ my stomach⁠—
Face	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—
Drugger	My head did so ache⁠—
Face	And he was fain to be brought home, The Doctor told me: and then a good old woman⁠—
Drugger	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.
Face	Ay, that was with the grief Thou took’st for being ’sessed at eighteen-pence, For the water-work.
Drugger	In truth, and it was like T’ have cost me almost my life.
Face	Thy hair went off?
Drugger	Yes, sir; ’twas done for spite.
Face	Nay, so says the Doctor.
Kastril	Pray thee, tobacco-boy, go fetch my sister; I’ll see this learned boy before I go; And so shall she.
Face	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.
Kastril	I go.
	Exit.
Face	Drugger, she’s thine: the damask!⁠—
	Exit Drugger.
	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?
Dapper	Yes, of the vinegar, And the clean shirt.
Face	’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?
Dapper	Yes, here are six score Edward shillings.
Face	Good!
Dapper	And an old Harry’s sovereign.
Face	Very good!
Dapper	And three James shillings, and an Elizabeth groat, Just twenty nobles.
Face	O, you are too just. I would you had had the other noble in Marys.
Dapper	I have some Philip and Marys.
Face	Ay, those same Are best of all: where are they? Hark, the Doctor.
	Enter Subtle, disguised like a priest of Fairy, with a stripe of cloth.
Subtle	In a feigned voice. Is yet her grace’s cousin come?
Face	He is come.
Subtle	And is he fasting?
Face	Yes.
Subtle	And hath cried hum?
Face	Thrice, you must answer.
Dapper	Thrice.
Subtle	And as oft buz?
Face	If you have, say.
Dapper	I have.
Subtle	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.
Face	She need not doubt him, sir. Alas, he has nothing, But what he will part withal as willingly, Upon her Grace’s word⁠—throw away your purse⁠— As she would ask it;⁠—handkerchiefs and all⁠— 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.
Dapper	Truly, there’s all.
Face	All what?
Dapper	My money; truly.
Face	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.
	They pinch him.
Dapper	O! I have a paper with a spur-rial in’t.
Face	Ti, ti. They knew’t, they say.
Subtle	Ti, ti, ti, ti. He has more yet.
Face	Ti, ti-ti-ti. Aside to Subtle. In the other pocket.
Subtle	Titi, titi, titi, titi, titi. They must pinch him or he will never confess, they say.
	They pinch him again.
Dapper	O, O!
Face	Nay, pray you, hold: he is her Grace’s nephew, Ti, ti, ti? What care you? Good faith, you shall care.⁠— Deal plainly, sir, and shame the fairies. Show You are innocent.
Dapper	By this good light, I have nothing.
Subtle	Ti, ti, ti, ti, to, ta. He does equivocate she says: Ti, ti do ti, ti ti do, ti da; and swears by the Light when he is blinded.
Dapper	By this good Dark, I 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.
Face	I thought ’twas something. And would you incur Your aunt’s displeasure for these trifles? Come, I had rather you had thrown away twenty half-crowns. Takes it off. You may wear your leaden heart still.⁠—
	Enter Dol* hastily.*
	How now!
Subtle	What news, Dol?
Dol Common	Yonder’s your knight, Sir Mammon.
Face	’Ods lid, we never thought of him till now! Where is he?
Dol Common	Here hard by: he is at the door.
Subtle	And you are not ready now! Dol, get his suit.
	Exit Dol.
	He must not be sent back.
Face	O, by no means. What shall we do with this same puffin here, Now he’s on the spit?
Subtle	Why, lay him back awhile, With some device.
	Re-enter Dol, with Face’s clothes.
	—Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, Would her Grace speak with me? I come.⁠—Help, Dol!
	Knocking without.
Face	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!
Subtle	Her Grace Commends her kindly to you, master Dapper.
Dapper	I long to see her Grace.
Subtle	She now is set At dinner in her bed, and she has sent you From her own private trencher, a dead mouse, And a piece of gingerbread, to be merry withal, And stay your stomach, lest you faint with fasting: Yet if you could hold out till she saw you, she says, It would be better for you.
Face	Sir, he shall Hold out, an ’twere this two hours, for her highness; I can assure you that. We will not lose All we have done.⁠—
Subtle	He must not see, nor speak To anybody, till then.
Face	For that we’ll put, sir, A stay in’s mouth.
Subtle	Of what?
Face	Of gingerbread. Make you it fit. He that hath pleased her Grace Thus far, shall not now crinkle for a little.⁠— Gape, sir, and let him fit you.
	They thrust a gag of gingerbread in his mouth.
Subtle	Where shall we now Bestow him?
Dol Common	In the privy.
Subtle	Come along, sir, I now must show you Fortune’s privy lodgings.
Face	Are they perfumed, and his bath ready?
Subtle	All: Only the fumigation’s somewhat strong.
Face	Speaking through the keyhole. Sir Epicure, I am yours, sir, by and by.
	Exeunt with Dapper.

Act IV

Scene I

A room in Lovewit’s house.

	Enter Face* and Mammon.*
Face	O sir, you’re come in the only finest time.⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Where’s master?
Face	Now preparing for projection, sir. Your stuff will be all changed shortly.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Into gold?
Face	To gold and silver, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Silver I care not for.
Face	Yes, sir, a little to give beggars.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Where’s the lady?
Face	At hand here. I have told her such brave things of you, Touching your bounty, and your noble spirit⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Hast thou?
Face	As she is almost in her fit to see you. But, good sir, no divinity in your conference, For fear of putting her in rage.⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	I warrant thee.
Face	Six men [sir] will not hold her down: and then, If the old man should hear or see you⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Fear not.
Face	The very house, sir, would run mad. You know it, How scrupulous he is, and violent, ’Gainst the least act of sin. Physic, or mathematics, Poetry, state, or bawdry, as I told you, She will endure, and never startle; but No word of controversy.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I am schooled, good Ulen.
Face	And you must praise her house, remember that, And her nobility.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Let me alone: No herald, no, nor antiquary, Lungs, Shall do it better. Go.
Face	Aside. Why, this is yet A kind of modern happiness, to have Dol Common for a great lady.
	Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Now, Epicure, Heighten thyself, talk to her all in gold; Rain her as many showers as Jove did drops Unto his Danae; show the god a miser, Compared with Mammon. What! The stone will do’t. She shall feel gold, taste gold, hear gold, sleep gold; Nay, we will concumbere gold: I will be puissant, And mighty in my talk to her.⁠—
	Re-enter Face, with Dol* richly dressed.*
	Here she comes.
Face	To him, Dol, suckle him.⁠—This is the noble knight, I told your ladyship⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Madam, with your pardon, I kiss your vesture.
Dol Common	Sir, I were uncivil If I would suffer that; my lip to you, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I hope my lord your brother be in health, lady.
Dol Common	My lord, my brother is, though I no lady, sir.
Face	Aside. Well said, my Guinea bird.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Right noble madam⁠—
Face	Aside. O, we shall have most fierce idolatry.
Sir Epicure Mammon	’Tis your prerogative.
Dol Common	Rather your courtesy.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Were there nought else to enlarge your virtues to me, These answers speak your breeding and your blood.
Dol Common	Blood we boast none, sir, a poor baron’s daughter.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Poor! And gat you? Profane not. Had your father Slept all the happy remnant of his life After that act, lien but there still, and panted, He had done enough to make himself, his issue, And his posterity noble.
Dol Common	Sir, although We may be said to want the gilt and trappings, The dress of honour, yet we strive to keep The seeds and the materials.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I do see The old ingredient, virtue, was not lost, Nor the drug money used to make your compound. There is a strange nobility in your eye, This lip, that chin! Methinks you do resemble One of the Austriac princes.
Face	Very like! Aside. Her father was an Irish costermonger.
Sir Epicure Mammon	The house of Valois just had such a nose, And such a forehead yet the Medici Of Florence boast.
Dol Common	Troth, and I have been likened To all these princes.
Face	Aside. I’ll be sworn, I heard it.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I know not how! It is not anyone, But e’en the very choice of all their features.
Face	Aside. I’ll in, and laugh.
	Exit.
Sir Epicure Mammon	A certain touch, or air, That sparkles a divinity, beyond An earthly beauty!
Dol Common	O, you play the courtier.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Good lady, give me leave⁠—
Dol Common	In faith, I may not, To mock me, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	To burn in this sweet flame; The phoenix never knew a nobler death.
Dol Common	Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy What you would build. This art, sir, in your words, Calls your whole faith in question.
Sir Epicure Mammon	By my soul⁠—
Dol Common	Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Nature Never bestowed upon mortality A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature; She played the stepdame in all faces else: Sweet Madam, let me be particular⁠—
Dol Common	Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance.
Sir Epicure Mammon	In no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask How your fair graces pass the hours? I see You are lodged here, in the house of a rare man, An excellent artist; but what’s that to you?
Dol Common	Yes, sir; I study here the mathematics, And distillation.
Sir Epicure Mammon	O, I cry your pardon. He’s a divine instructor! Can extract The souls of all things by his art; call all The virtues, and the miracles of the sun, Into a temperate furnace; teach dull nature What her own forces are. A man, the emperor Has courted above Kelly; sent his medals And chains, to invite him.
Dol Common	Ay, and for his physic, sir⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Above the art of Aesculapius, That drew the envy of the thunderer! I know all this, and more.
Dol Common	Troth, I am taken, sir, Whole with these studies, that contemplate nature.
Sir Epicure Mammon	It is a noble humour; but this form Was not intended to so dark a use. Had you been crooked, foul, of some coarse mould A cloister had done well; but such a feature That might stand up the glory of a kingdom, To live recluse! Is a mere soloecism, Though in a nunnery. It must not be. I muse, my lord your brother will permit it: You should spend half my land first, were I he. Does not this diamond better on my finger, Than in the quarry?
Dol Common	Yes.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Why, you are like it. You were created, lady, for the light. Here, you shall wear it; take it, the first pledge Of what I speak, to bind you to believe me.
Dol Common	In chains of adamant?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Yes, the strongest bands. And take a secret too⁠—here, by your side, Doth stand this hour, the happiest man in Europe.
Dol Common	You are contended, sir!
Sir Epicure Mammon	Nay, in true being, The envy of princes and the fear of states.
Dol Common	Say you so, Sir Epicure?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Yes, and thou shalt prove it, Daughter of honour. I have cast mine eye Upon thy form, and I will rear this beauty Above all styles.
Dol Common	You mean no treason, sir?
Sir Epicure Mammon	No, I will take away that jealousy. I am the lord of the philosopher’s stone, And thou the lady.
Dol Common	How, sir! Have you that?
Sir Epicure Mammon	I am the master of the mystery. This day the good old wretch here o’ the house Has made it for us: now he’s at projection. Think therefore thy first wish now, let me hear it; And it shall rain into thy lap, no shower, But floods of gold, whole cataracts, a deluge, To get a nation on thee.
Dol Common	You are pleased, sir, To work on the ambition of our sex.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I am pleased the glory of her sex should know, This nook, here, of the Friars is no climate For her to live obscurely in, to learn Physic and surgery, for the constable’s wife Of some odd hundred in Essex; but come forth, And taste the air of palaces; eat, drink The toils of empirics, and their boasted practice; Tincture of pearl, and coral, gold, and amber; Be seen at feasts and triumphs; have it asked, What miracle she is; set all the eyes Of court afire, like a burning glass, And work them into cinders, when the jewels Of twenty states adorn thee, and the light Strikes out the stars! That when thy name is mentioned, Queens may look pale; and we but showing our love, Nero’s Poppaea may be lost in story! Thus will we have it.
Dol Common	I could well consent, sir. But, in a monarchy, how will this be? The prince will soon take notice, and both seize You and your stone, it being a wealth unfit For any private subject.
Sir Epicure Mammon	If he knew it.
Dol Common	Yourself do boast it, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	To thee, my life.
Dol Common	O, but beware, sir! You may come to end The remnants of your days in a loathed prison, By speaking of it.
Sir Epicure Mammon	’Tis no idle fear. We’ll therefore go withal, my girl, and live In a free state, where we will eat our mullets, Soused in high-country wines, sup pheasants’ eggs, And have our cockles boiled in silver shells; Our shrimps to swim again, as when they lived, In a rare butter made of dolphins’ milk, Whose cream does look like opals; and with these Delicate meats set ourselves high for pleasure, And take us down again, and then renew Our youth and strength with drinking the elixir, And so enjoy a perpetuity Of life and lust! And thou shalt have thy wardrobe Richer than nature’s, still to change thyself, And vary oftener, for thy pride, than she, Or art, her wise and almost-equal servant.
	Re-enter Face.
Face	Sir, you are too loud. I hear you every word Into the laboratory. Some fitter place; The garden, or great chamber above. How like you her?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Excellent! Lungs. There’s for thee.
	Gives him money.
Face	But do you hear? Good sir, beware, no mention of the Rabbins.
Sir Epicure Mammon	We think not on ’em.
	Exeunt Mammon* and Dol.*
Face	O, it is well, sir.⁠—Subtle!
	Enter Subtle.
	Dost thou not laugh?
Subtle	Yes; are they gone?
Face	All’s clear.
Subtle	The widow is come.
Face	And your quarrelling disciple?
Subtle	Ay.
Face	I must to my captainship again then.
Subtle	Stay, bring them in first.
Face	So I meant. What is she? A bonnibel?
Subtle	I know not.
Face	We’ll draw lots: You’ll stand to that?
Subtle	What else?
Face	O, for a suit, To fall now like a curtain, flap!
Subtle	To the door, man.
Face	You’ll have the first kiss, ’cause I am not ready.
	Exit.
Subtle	Yes, and perhaps hit you through both the nostrils.
Face	Within. Who would you speak with?
Kastril	Within. Where’s the Captain?
Face	Within. Gone, sir, About some business.
Kastril	Within. Gone!
Face	Within. He’ll return straight. But Master Doctor, his lieutenant, is here.
	Enter Kastril, followed by Dame Pliant.
Subtle	Come near, my worshipful boy, my terrae fili, That is, my boy of land; make thy approaches: Welcome; I know thy lusts, and thy desires, And I will serve and satisfy them. Begin, Charge me from thence, or thence, or in this line; Here is my centre: ground thy quarrel.
Kastril	You lie.
Subtle	How, child of wrath and anger! The loud lie? For what, my sudden boy?
Kastril	Nay, that look you to, I am aforehand.
Subtle	O, this is no true grammar, And as ill logic! You must render causes, child, Your first and second intentions, know your canons And your divisions, moods, degrees, and differences, Your predicaments, substance, and accident, Series, extern and intern, with their causes, Efficient, material, formal, final, And have your elements perfect.
Kastril	Aside. What is this? The angry tongue he talks in?
Subtle	That false precept, Of being aforehand, has deceived a number, And made them enter quarrels, oftentimes, Before they were aware; and afterward, Against their wills.
Kastril	How must I do then, sir?
Subtle	I cry this lady mercy: she should first Have been saluted. Kisses her. I do call you lady, Because you are to be one, ere’t be long, My soft and buxom widow.
Kastril	Is she, i’faith?
Subtle	Yes, or my art is an egregious liar.
Kastril	How know you?
Subtle	By inspection on her forehead, And subtlety of her lip, which must be tasted Often to make a judgment. Kisses her again. ’Slight, she melts Like a myrobolane:⁠—here is yet a line, In rivo frontis, tells me he is no knight.
Dame Pliant	What is he then, sir?
Subtle	Let me see your hand. O, your linea fortunae makes it plain; And stella here in monte Veneris. But, most of all, junctura annularis. He is a soldier, or a man of art, lady, But shall have some great honour shortly.
Dame Pliant	Brother, He’s a rare man, believe me!
	Re-enter Face, in his uniform.
Kastril	Hold your peace. Here comes the t’other rare man.⁠—’Save you, Captain.
Face	Good master Kastril! Is this your sister?
Kastril	Ay, sir. Please you to kiss her, and be proud to know her.
Face	I shall be proud to know you, lady.
	Kisses her.
Dame Pliant	Brother, He calls me lady too.
Kastril	Ay, peace: I heard it.
	Takes her aside.
Face	The count is come.
Subtle	Where is he?
Face	At the door.
Subtle	Why, you must entertain him.
Face	What will you do With these the while?
Subtle	Why, have them up, and show them Some fustian book, or the dark glass.
Face	’Fore God, She is a delicate dabchick! I must have her.
	Exit.
Subtle	Must you! Ay, if your fortune will, you must.⁠— Come, sir, the Captain will come to us presently: I’ll have you to my chamber of demonstrations, Where I will show you both the grammar and logic, And rhetoric of quarrelling; my whole method Drawn out in tables; and my instrument, That hath the several scales upon’t, shall make you Able to quarrel at a straw’s-breadth by moonlight. And, lady, I’ll have you look in a glass, Some half an hour, but to clear your eyesight, Against you see your fortune; which is greater, Than I may judge upon the sudden, trust me.
	Exit, followed by Kastril and Dame Pliant.
	Re-enter Face.
Face	Where are you, Doctor?
Subtle	Within. I’ll come to you presently.
Face	I will have this same widow, now I have seen her, On any composition.
	Re-enter Subtle.
Subtle	What do you say?
Face	Have you disposed of them?
Subtle	I have sent them up.
Face	Subtle, in troth, I needs must have this widow.
Subtle	Is that the matter?
Face	Nay, but hear me.
Subtle	Go to. If you rebel once, Dol shall know it all: Therefore be quiet, and obey your chance.
Face	Nay, thou art so violent now⁠—Do but conceive, Thou art old, and canst not serve⁠—
Subtle	Who cannot? I? ’Slight, I will serve her with thee, for a⁠—
Face	Nay, But understand: I’ll give you composition.
Subtle	I will not treat with thee; what! Sell my fortune? ’Tis better than my birthright. Do not murmur: Win her, and carry her. If you grumble, Dol Knows it directly.
Face	Well, sir, I am silent. Will you go help to fetch in Don in state?
	Exit.
Subtle	I follow you, sir. We must keep Face in awe, Or he will overlook us like a tyrant.
	Re-enter Face, introducing Surly* disguised as a Spaniard.*
	Brain of a tailor! Who comes here? Don John!
Pertinax Surly	Señores, beso las manos a vuestras mercedes.
Subtle	Would you had stooped a little, and kissed our anos!
Face	Peace, Subtle.
Subtle	Stab me; I shall never hold, man. He looks in that deep ruff like a head in a platter, Served in by a short cloak upon two trestles.
Face	Or, what do you say to a collar of brawn, cut down Beneath the souse, and wriggled with a knife?
Subtle	’Slud, he does look too fat to be a Spaniard.
Face	Perhaps some Fleming or some Hollander got him In d’Alva’s time; Count Egmont’s bastard.
Subtle	Don, Your scurvy, yellow, Madrid face is welcome.
Pertinax Surly	Gratia.
Subtle	He speaks out of a fortification. Pray God he have no squibs in those deep sets.
Pertinax Surly	Por dios, señores, muy linda casa!
Subtle	What says he?
Face	Praises the house, I think; I know no more but’s action.
Subtle	Yes, the casa, My precious Diego, will prove fair enough To cozen you in. Do you mark? You shall Be cozened, Diego.
Face	Cozened, do you see, My worthy Donzel, cozened.
Pertinax Surly	Entiendo.
Subtle	Do you intend it? So do we, dear Don. Have you brought pistolets, or portagues, My solemn Don?⁠—Dost thou feel any?
Face	Feels his pockets. Full.
Subtle	You shall be emptied, Don, pumped and drawn Dry, as they say.
Face	Milked, in troth, sweet Don.
Subtle	See all the monsters; the great lion of all, Don.
Pertinax Surly	Con licencia, se puede ver a esta señora?
Subtle	What talks he now?
Face	Of the Señora.
Subtle	O, Don, This is the lioness, which you shall see Also, my Don.
Face	’Slid, Subtle, how shall we do?
Subtle	For what?
Face	Why Dol’s employed, you know.
Subtle	That’s true. ’Fore heaven, I know not: he must stay, that’s all.
Face	Stay! That he must not by no means.
Subtle	No! Why?
Face	Unless you’ll mar all. ’Slight, he will suspect it: And then he will not pay, not half so well. This is a travelled punk-master, and does know All the delays; a notable hot rascal, And looks already rampant.
Subtle	’Sdeath, and Mammon Must not be troubled.
Face	Mammon! In no case.
Subtle	What shall we do then?
Face	Think: you must be sudden.
Pertinax Surly	Entiendo que la señora es tan hermosa, que codicio tan verla, como la bien aventuranza de mi vida.
Face	Mi vida! ’Slid, Subtle, he puts me in mind of the widow. What dost thou say to draw her to it, ha! And tell her ’tis her fortune? All our venture Now lies upon’t. It is but one man more, Which of us chance to have her: and beside, There is no maidenhead to be feared or lost. What dost thou think on’t, Subtle?
Subtle	Who? I? Why⁠—
Face	The credit of our house too is engaged.
Subtle	You made me an offer for my share erewhile. What wilt thou give me, i’faith?
Face	O, by that light I’ll not buy now: You know your doom to me. E’en take your lot, obey your chance, sir; win her, And wear her out, for me.
Subtle	’Slight, I’ll not work her then.
Face	It is the common cause; therefore bethink you. Dol else must know it, as you said.
Subtle	I care not.
Pertinax Surly	Señores, porque se tarda tanto?
Subtle	Faith, I am not fit, I am old.
Face	That’s now no reason, sir.
Pertinax Surly	Puede ser de hazer burla de mi amor?
Face	You hear the Don too? By this air, I call, And loose the hinges: Dol!
Subtle	A plague of hell⁠—
Face	Will you then do?
Subtle	You are a terrible rogue! I’ll think of this: will you, sir, call the widow?
Face	Yes, and I’ll take her too with all her faults, Now I do think on’t better.
Subtle	With all my heart, sir; Am I discharged o’ the lot?
Face	As you please.
Subtle	Hands.
	They take hands.
Face	Remember now, that upon any change, You never claim her.
Subtle	Much good joy, and health to you, sir, Marry a whore! Fate, let me wed a witch first.
Pertinax Surly	Por estas honradas barbas⁠—
Subtle	He swears by his beard. Dispatch, and call the brother too.
	Exit Face.
Pertinax Surly	Tengo duda, señores, que no me hagan alguna traycion.
Subtle	How, issue on? Yes, praesto, sennor. Please you Enthratha the chambrata, worthy Don: Where if you please the fates, in your bathada, You shall be soaked, and stroked, and tubbed and rubbed, And scrubbed, and fubbed, dear Don, before you go. You shall in faith, my scurvy baboon Don, Be curried, clawed, and flawed, and tawed, indeed. I will the heartlier go about it now, And make the widow a punk so much the sooner, To be revenged on this impetuous Face: The quickly doing of it is the grace.
	Exeunt Subtle* and Surly.*

Scene II

Another room in the same.

	Enter Face, Kastril, and Dame Pliant.
Face	Come, lady: I knew the Doctor would not leave, Till he had found the very nick of her fortune.
Kastril	To be a countess, say you, a Spanish countess, sir?
Dame Pliant	Why, is that better than an English countess?
Face	Better! ’Slight, make you that a question, lady?
Kastril	Nay, she is a fool, Captain, you must pardon her.
Face	Ask from your courtier, to your inns-of-court-man, To your mere milliner; they will tell you all, Your Spanish jennet is the best horse; your Spanish Stoop is the best garb; your Spanish beard Is the best cut; your Spanish ruffs are the best Wear; your Spanish pavan the best dance; Your Spanish titillation in a glove The best perfume: and for your Spanish pike, And Spanish blade, let your poor Captain speak⁠— Here comes the Doctor.
	Enter Subtle, with a paper.
Subtle	My most honoured lady, For so I am now to style you, having found By this my scheme, you are to undergo An honourable fortune, very shortly. What will you say now, if some⁠—
Face	I have told her all, sir, And her right worshipful brother here, that she shall be A countess; do not delay them, sir; a Spanish countess.
Subtle	Still, my scarce-worshipful Captain, you can keep No secret! Well, since he has told you, madam, Do you forgive him, and I do.
Kastril	She shall do that, sir; I’ll look to it, ’tis my charge.
Subtle	Well then: nought rests But that she fit her love now to her fortune.
Dame Pliant	Truly I shall never brook a Spaniard.
Subtle	No!
Dame Pliant	Never since eighty-eight could I abide them, And that was some three year afore I was born, in truth.
Subtle	Come, you must love him, or be miserable, Choose which you will.
Face	By this good rush, persuade her, She will cry strawberries else within this twelvemonth.
Subtle	Nay, shads and mackerel, which is worse.
Face	Indeed, sir!
Kastril	Od’s lid, you shall love him, or I’ll kick you.
Dame Pliant	Why, I’ll do as you will have me, brother.
Kastril	Do, Or by this hand I’ll maul you.
Face	Nay, good sir, Be not so fierce.
Subtle	No, my enraged child; She will be ruled. What, when she comes to taste The pleasures of a countess! To be courted⁠—
Face	And kissed, and ruffled!
Subtle	Ay, behind the hangings.
Face	And then come forth in pomp!
Subtle	And know her state!
Face	Of keeping all the idolaters of the chamber Barer to her, than at their prayers!
Subtle	Is served Upon the knee!
Face	And has her pages, ushers, Footmen, and coaches⁠—
Subtle	Her six mares⁠—
Face	Nay, eight!
Subtle	To hurry her through London, to the Exchange, Bedlam, the china-houses⁠—
Face	Yes, and have The citizens gape at her, and praise her tires, And my lord’s goose-turd bands, that ride with her!
Kastril	Most brave! By this hand, you are not my sister, If you refuse.
Dame Pliant	I will not refuse, brother.
	Enter Surly.
Pertinax Surly	Que es esto, señores, que no venga? Esta tardanza me mata!
Face	It is the Count come: The Doctor knew he would be here, by his art.
Subtle	En gallanta madama, Don! Gallantissima!
Pertinax Surly	Por todos los dioses, la mas acabada hermosura, que he visto en mi vida!
Face	Is’t not a gallant language that they speak?
Kastril	An admirable language! Is’t not French?
Face	No, Spanish, sir.
Kastril	It goes like law-French, And that, they say, is the courtliest language.
Face	List, sir.
Pertinax Surly	El sol ha perdido su lumbre, con el Esplandor que trae esta dama! Válgame Dios!
Face	He admires your sister.
Kastril	Must not she make curtsey?
Subtle	’Ods will, she must go to him, man, and kiss him! It is the Spanish fashion, for the women To make first court.
Face	’Tis true he tells you, sir: His art knows all.
Pertinax Surly	Porqué no se acude?
Kastril	He speaks to her, I think.
Face	That he does, sir.
Pertinax Surly	Por el amor de Dios, qué es esto que se tarda?
Kastril	Nay, see: she will not understand him! Gull, Noddy.
Dame Pliant	What say you, brother?
Kastril	Ass, my sister. Go kiss him, as the cunning man would have you; I’ll thrust a pin in your buttocks else.
Face	O no, sir.
Pertinax Surly	Señora mía, mi persona esta muy indigna de Allegara tanta hermosura.
Face	Does he not use her bravely?
Kastril	Bravely, i’faith!
Face	Nay, he will use her better.
Kastril	Do you think so?
Pertinax Surly	Señora, si sera servida, entremonos.
	Exit with Dame Pliant.
Kastril	Where does he carry her?
Face	Into the garden, sir; Take you no thought: I must interpret for her.
Subtle	Give Dol the word. Aside to Face, who goes out. —Come, my fierce child, advance, We’ll to our quarrelling lesson again.
Kastril	Agreed. I love a Spanish boy with all my heart.
Subtle	Nay, and by this means, sir, you shall be brother To a great count.
Kastril	Ay, I knew that at first, This match will advance the house of the Kastrils.
Subtle	’Pray God your sister prove but pliant!
Kastril	Why, Her name is so, by her other husband.
Subtle	How!
Kastril	The widow Pliant. Knew you not that?
Subtle	No, faith, sir; Yet, by erection of her figure, I guessed it. Come, let’s go practise.
Kastril	Yes, but do you think, Doctor, I e’er shall quarrel well?
Subtle	I warrant you.
	Exeunt.

Scene III

Another room in the same.

	Enter Dol* in her fit of raving, followed by Mammon.*
Dol Common	“For after Alexander’s death”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Good lady⁠—
Dol Common	“That Perdiccas and Antigonus, were slain, The two that stood, Seleuc’, and Ptolomee”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Madam⁠—
Dol Common	“Made up the two legs, and the fourth beast, That was Gog-north, and Egypt-south: which after Was called Gog-iron-leg and South-iron-leg”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Lady⁠—
Dol Common	“And then Gog-horned. So was Egypt, too: Then Egypt-clay-leg, and Gog-clay-leg”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Sweet madam⁠—
Dol Common	“And last Gog-dust, and Egypt-dust, which fall In the last link of the fourth chain. And these Be stars in story, which none see, or look at”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	What shall I do?
Dol Common	“For,” as he says, “except We call the Rabbins, and the heathen Greeks”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Dear lady⁠—
Dol Common	“To come from Salem, and from Athens, And teach the people of Great Britain”⁠—
	Enter Face, hastily, in his servant’s dress.
Face	What’s the matter, sir?
Dol Common	“To speak the tongue of Eber, and Javan”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	O, She’s in her fit.
Dol Common	“We shall know nothing”⁠—
Face	Death, sir, We are undone!
Dol Common	“Where then a learned linguist Shall see the ancient used communion Of vowels and consonants”⁠—
Face	My master will hear!
Dol Common	“A wisdom, which Pythagoras held most high”⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Sweet honourable lady!
Dol Common	“To comprise All sounds of voices, in few marks of letters”⁠—
Face	Nay, you must never hope to lay her now.
	They all speak together.
Dol Common	“And so we may arrive by Talmud skill, And profane Greek, to raise the building up Of Helen’s house against the Ismaelite, King of Thogarma, and his habergions Brimstony, blue, and fiery; and the force Of king Abaddon, and the beast of Cittim: Which rabbi David Kimchi, Onkelos, And Aben Ezra do interpret Rome.”
Face	How did you put her into’t?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Alas, I talked Of a fifth monarchy I would erect, With the philosopher’s stone, by chance, and she Falls on the other four straight.
Face	Out of Broughton! I told you so. ’Slid, stop her mouth.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Is’t best?
Face	She’ll never leave else. If the old man hear her, We are but faeces, ashes.
Subtle	Within. What’s to do there?
Face	O, we are lost! Now she hears him, she is quiet.
	Enter Subtle, they run different ways.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Where shall I hide me!
Subtle	How! What sight is here? Close deeds of darkness, and that shun the light! Bring him again. Who is he? What, my son! O, I have lived too long.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Nay, good, dear Father, There was no unchaste purpose.
Subtle	Not? And flee me When I come in?
Sir Epicure Mammon	That was my error.
Subtle	Error? Guilt, guilt, my son: give it the right name. No marvel, If I found check in our great work within, When such affairs as these were managing!
Sir Epicure Mammon	Why, have you so?
Subtle	It has stood still this half hour: And all the rest of our less works gone back. Where is the instrument of wickedness, My lewd false drudge?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Nay, good sir, blame not him; Believe me, ’twas against his will or knowledge: I saw her by chance.
Subtle	Will you commit more sin, To excuse a varlet?
Sir Epicure Mammon	By my hope, ’tis true, sir.
Subtle	Nay, then I wonder less, if you, for whom The blessing was prepared, would so tempt heaven, And lose your fortunes.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Why, sir?
Subtle	This will retard The work a month at least.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Why, if it do, What remedy? But think it not, good Father: Our purposes were honest.
Subtle	As they were, So the reward will prove. A loud explosion within. —How now! Ah me! God, and all saints be good to us.⁠—
	Re-enter Face.
	What’s that?
Face	O, sir, we are defeated! All the works Are flown in fumo, every glass is burst; Furnace, and all rent down, as if a bolt Of thunder had been driven through the house. Retorts, receivers, pelicans, bolt-heads, All struck in shivers! Subtle falls down as in a swoon. Help, good sir! Alas, Coldness and death invades him. Nay, Sir Mammon, Do the fair offices of a man! You stand, As you were readier to depart than he. Knocking within. Who’s there? My lord her brother is come.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Ha, Lungs!
Face	His coach is at the door. Avoid his sight, For he’s as furious as his sister’s mad.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Alas!
Face	My brain is quite undone with the fume, sir, I ne’er must hope to be mine own man again.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Is all lost, Lungs? Will nothing be preserved Of all our cost?
Face	Faith, very little, sir; A peck of coals or so, which is cold comfort, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	O, my voluptuous mind! I am justly punished.
Face	And so am I, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Cast from all my hopes⁠—
Face	Nay, certainties, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	By mine own base affections.
Subtle	Seeming to come to himself. O, the curst fruits of vice and lust!
Sir Epicure Mammon	Good Father, It was my sin. Forgive it.
Subtle	Hangs my roof Over us still, and will not fall, O justice, Upon us, for this wicked man!
Face	Nay, look, sir, You grieve him now with staying in his sight: Good sir, the nobleman will come too, and take you, And that may breed a tragedy.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I’ll go.
Face	Ay, and repent at home, sir. It may be, For some good penance you may have it yet; A hundred pound to the box at Bedlam⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Yes.
Face	For the restoring such as⁠—have their wits.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I’ll do’t.
Face	I’ll send one to you to receive it.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Do. Is no projection left?
Face	All flown, or stinks, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Will nought be saved that’s good for medicine, think’st thou?
Face	I cannot tell, sir. There will be perhaps, Something about the scraping of the shards, Will cure the itch⁠—though not your itch of mind, sir. Aside. It shall be saved for you, and sent home. Good sir, This way, for fear the lord should meet you.
	Exit Mammon.
Subtle	Raising his head. Face!
Face	Ay.
Subtle	Is he gone?
Face	Yes, and as heavily As all the gold he hoped for were in’s blood. Let us be light though.
Subtle	Leaping up. Ay, as balls, and bound And hit our heads against the roof for joy: There’s so much of our care now cast away.
Face	Now to our Don.
Subtle	Yes, your young widow by this time Is made a countess, Face; she has been in travail Of a young heir for you.
Face	Good sir.
Subtle	Off with your case, And greet her kindly, as a bridegroom should, After these common hazards.
Face	Very well, sir. Will you go fetch Don Diego off, the while?
Subtle	And fetch him over too, if you’ll be pleased, sir: Would Dol were in her place, to pick his pockets now!
Face	Why, you can do’t as well, if you would set to’t. I pray you prove your virtue.
Subtle	For your sake sir.
	Exeunt.

Scene IV

Another room in the same.

	Enter Surly* and Dame Pliant.*
Pertinax Surly	Lady, you see into what hands you are fallen; ’Mongst what a nest of villains! And how near Your honour was t’ have catched a certain clap, Through your credulity, had I but been So punctually forward, as place, time, And other circumstances would have made a man; For you’re a handsome woman: would you were wise too! I am a gentleman come here disguised, Only to find the knaveries of this citadel; And where I might have wronged your honour, and have not, I claim some interest in your love. You are, They say, a widow, rich: and I’m a bachelor, Worth nought: your fortunes may make me a man, As mine have preserved you a woman. Think upon it, And whether I have deserved you or no.
Dame Pliant	I will, sir.
Pertinax Surly	And for these household-rogues, let me alone To treat with them.
	Enter Subtle.
Subtle	How doth my noble Diego, And my dear madam Countess? Hath the Count Been courteous, lady? Liberal, and open? Donzel, methinks you look melancholic, After your coitum, and scurvy: truly, I do not like the dullness of your eye; It hath a heavy cast, ’tis upsee Dutch, And says you are a lumpish whoremaster. Be lighter, and I will make your pockets so. Attempts to pick them.
Pertinax Surly	Throws open his cloak. Will you, don bawd and pickpurse? Strikes him down. How now! Reel you? Stand up, sir, you shall find, since I am so heavy, I’ll give you equal weight.
Subtle	Help! Murder!
Pertinax Surly	No, sir, There’s no such thing intended: a good cart, And a clean whip shall ease you of that fear. I am the Spanish Don “that should be cozened, Do you see, cozened?” Where’s your Captain Face, That parcel broker, and whole-bawd, all rascal!
	Enter Face, in his uniform.
Face	How, Surly!
Pertinax Surly	O, make your approach, good Captain. I have found from whence your copper rings and spoons Come, now, wherewith you cheat abroad in taverns. ’Twas here you learned t’ anoint your boot with brimstone, Then rub men’s gold on’t for a kind of touch, And say ’twas naught, when you had changed the colour, That you might have’t for nothing. And this Doctor, Your sooty, smoky-bearded compeer, he Will close you so much gold, in a bolt’s head, And, on a turn, convey in the stead another With sublimed mercury, that shall burst in the heat, And fly out all in fumo! Then weeps Mammon; Then swoons his worship.
	Face slips out.
	Or, he is the Faustus, That casteth figures and can conjure, cures Plagues, piles, and pox, by the ephemerides, And holds intelligence with all the bawds And midwives of three shires: while you send in⁠— Captain!⁠—what! Is he gone?⁠—damsels with child, Wives that are barren, or the waiting-maid With the green sickness. Seizes Subtle* as he is retiring.* —Nay, sir, you must tarry, Though he be ’scaped; and answer by the ears, sir.
	Re-enter Face, with Kastril.
Face	Why, now’s the time, if ever you will quarrel Well, as they say, and be a true-born child: The Doctor and your sister both are abused.
Kastril	Where is he? Which is he? He is a slave, Whate’er he is, and the son of a whore.⁠—Are you The man, sir, I would know?
Pertinax Surly	I should be loath, sir, To confess so much.
Kastril	Then you lie in your throat.
Pertinax Surly	How!
Face	To Kastril. A very errant rogue, sir, and a cheater, Employed here by another conjurer That does not love the Doctor, and would cross him, If he knew how.
Pertinax Surly	Sir, you are abused.
Kastril	You lie: And ’tis no matter.
Face	Well said, sir! He is The impudent’st rascal⁠—
Pertinax Surly	You are indeed: Will you hear me, sir?
Face	By no means: bid him be gone.
Kastril	Begone, sir, quickly.
Pertinax Surly	This ’s strange!⁠—Lady, do you inform your brother.
Face	There is not such a foist in all the town, The Doctor had him presently; and finds yet, The Spanish Count will come here. Aside. —Bear up, Subtle.
Subtle	Yes, sir, he must appear within this hour.
Face	And yet this rogue would come in a disguise, By the temptation of another spirit, To trouble our art, though he could not hurt it!
Kastril	Ay, I know⁠— To his sister. Away, you talk like a foolish mauther.
Pertinax Surly	Sir, all is truth she says.
Face	Do not believe him, sir. He is the lying’st swabber! Come your ways, sir.
Pertinax Surly	You are valiant out of company!
Kastril	Yes, how then, sir?
	Enter Drugger, with a piece of damask.
Face	Nay, here’s an honest fellow, too, that knows him, And all his tricks. Make good what I say, Abel, Aside to Drugger. This cheater would have cozened thee o’ the widow.⁠— He owes this honest Drugger here, seven pound, He has had on him, in twopenny ’orths of tobacco.
Drugger	Yes, sir. And he has damned himself three terms to pay me.
Face	And what does he owe for lotium?
Drugger	Thirty shillings, sir; And for six syringes.
Pertinax Surly	Hydra of villainy!
Face	Nay, sir, you must quarrel him out o’ the house.
Kastril	I will: —Sir, if you get not out of doors, you lie; And you are a pimp.
Pertinax Surly	Why, this is madness, sir, Not valour in you; I must laugh at this.
Kastril	It is my humour: you are a pimp and a trig, And an Amadis de Gaul, or a Don Quixote.
Drugger	Or a knight o’ the curious coxcomb, do you see?
	Enter Ananias.
Ananias	Peace to the household!
Kastril	I’ll keep peace for no man.
Ananias	Casting of dollars is concluded lawful.
Kastril	Is he the constable?
Subtle	Peace, Ananias.
Face	No, sir.
Kastril	Then you are an otter, and a shad, a whit, A very tim.
Pertinax Surly	You’ll hear me, sir?
Kastril	I will not.
Ananias	What is the motive?
Subtle	Zeal in the young gentleman, Against his Spanish slops.
Ananias	They are profane, Lewd, superstitious, and idolatrous breeches.
Pertinax Surly	New rascals!
Kastril	Will you begone, sir?
Ananias	Avoid, Satan! Thou art not of the light: That ruff of pride About thy neck, betrays thee; and is the same With that which the unclean birds, in seventy-seven, Were seen to prank it with on divers coasts: Thou look’st like Antichrist, in that lewd hat.
Pertinax Surly	I must give way.
Kastril	Be gone, sir.
Pertinax Surly	But I’ll take A course with you⁠—
Ananias	Depart, proud Spanish fiend!
Pertinax Surly	Captain and Doctor.
Ananias	Child of perdition!
Kastril	Hence, sir!⁠—
	Exit Surly.
	Did I not quarrel bravely?
Face	Yes, indeed, sir.
Kastril	Nay, an I give my mind to’t, I shall do’t.
Face	O, you must follow, sir, and threaten him tame: He’ll turn again else.
Kastril	I’ll return him then.
	Exit.
	Subtle takes Ananias aside.
Face	Drugger, this rogue prevented us for thee: We had determined that thou should’st have come In a Spanish suit, and have carried her so; and he, A brokerly slave! Goes, puts it on himself. Hast brought the damask?
Drugger	Yes, sir.
Face	Thou must borrow A Spanish suit. Hast thou no credit with the players?
Drugger	Yes, sir; did you never see me play the Fool?
Face	I know not, Nab: Aside.⁠—Thou shalt, if I can help it.⁠— Hieronimo’s old cloak, ruff, and hat will serve; I’ll tell thee more when thou bring’st ’em.
	Exit Drugger.
Ananias	Sir, I know The Spaniard hates the Brethren, and hath spies Upon their actions: and that this was one I make no scruple.⁠—But the holy Synod Have been in prayer and meditation for it; And ’tis revealed no less to them than me, That casting of money is most lawful.
Subtle	True. But here I cannot do it: if the house Should chance to be suspected, all would out, And we be locked up in the Tower forever, To make gold there for the state, never come out; And then are you defeated.
Ananias	I will tell This to the Elders and the weaker Brethren, That the whole company of the separation May join in humble prayer again.
Subtle	And fasting.
Ananias	Yea, for some fitter place. The peace of mind Rest with these walls!
	Exit.
Subtle	Thanks, courteous Ananias.
Face	What did he come for?
Subtle	About casting dollars, Presently out of hand. And so I told him, A Spanish minister came here to spy, Against the faithful⁠—
Face	I conceive. Come, Subtle, Thou art so down upon the least disaster! How wouldst thou ha’ done, if I had not help’t thee out?
Subtle	I thank thee, Face, for the angry boy, i’faith.
Face	Who would have looked it should have been that rascal, Surly? He had dyed his beard and all. Well, sir. Here’s damask come to make you a suit.
Subtle	Where’s Drugger?
Face	He is gone to borrow me a Spanish habit; I’ll be the count, now.
Subtle	But where’s the widow?
Face	Within, with my lord’s sister; Madam Dol Is entertaining her.
Subtle	By your favour, Face, Now she is honest, I will stand again.
Face	You will not offer it.
Subtle	Why?
Face	Stand to your word, Or⁠—here comes Dol, she knows⁠—
Subtle	You are tyrannous still.
	Enter Dol, hastily.
Face	Strict for my right.⁠—How now, Dol! Hast [thou] told her, The Spanish count will come?
Dol Common	Yes; but another is come, You little looked for!
Face	Who’s that?
Dol Common	Your master; The master of the house.
Subtle	How, Dol!
Face	She lies, This is some trick. Come, leave your quiblins, Dorothy.
Dol Common	Look out, and see.
	Face goes to the window.
Subtle	Art thou in earnest?
Dol Common	’Slight, Forty of the neighbours are about him, talking.
Face	’Tis he, by this good day.
Dol Common	’Twill prove ill day For some on us.
Face	We are undone, and taken.
Dol Common	Lost, I’m afraid.
Subtle	You said he would not come, While there died one a week within the liberties.
Face	No: ’twas within the walls.
Subtle	Was’t so! Cry you mercy. I thought the liberties. What shall we do now, Face?
Face	Be silent: not a word, if he call or knock. I’ll into mine old shape again and meet him, Of Jeremy, the butler. In the meantime, Do you two pack up all the goods and purchase, That we can carry in the two trunks. I’ll keep him Off for today, if I cannot longer: and then At night, I’ll ship you both away to Ratcliff, Where we will meet tomorrow, and there we’ll share. Let Mammon’s brass and pewter keep the cellar; We’ll have another time for that. But, Dol, ’Prythee go heat a little water quickly; Subtle must shave me: all my Captain’s beard Must off, to make me appear smooth Jeremy. You’ll do it?
Subtle	Yes, I’ll shave you, as well as I can.
Face	And not cut my throat, but trim me?
Subtle	You shall see, sir.
	Exeunt.

Act V

Scene I

Before Lovewit’s door.

	Enter Lovewit, with several of the Neighbours.
Lovewit	Has there been such resort, say you?
1 Neighbour	Daily, sir.
2 Neighbour	And nightly, too.
3 Neighbour	Ay, some as brave as lords.
4 Neighbour	Ladies and gentlewomen.
5 Neighbour	Citizens’ wives.
1 Neighbour	And knights.
6 Neighbour	In coaches.
2 Neighbour	Yes, and oyster women.
1 Neighbour	Beside other gallants.
3 Neighbour	Sailors’ wives.
4 Neighbour	Tobacco men.
5 Neighbour	Another Pimlico!
Lovewit	What should my knave advance, To draw this company? He hung out no banners Of a strange calf with five legs to be seen, Or a huge lobster with six claws?
6 Neighbour	No, sir.
3 Neighbour	We had gone in then, sir.
Lovewit	He has no gift Of teaching in the nose that e’er I knew of. You saw no bills set up that promised cure Of agues, or the toothache?
2 Neighbour	No such thing, sir!
Lovewit	Nor heard a drum struck for baboons or puppets?
5 Neighbour	Neither, sir.
Lovewit	What device should he bring forth now? I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment: ’Pray God he have not kept such open house, That he hath sold my hangings, and my bedding! I left him nothing else. If he have eat them, A plague o’ the moth, say I! Sure he has got Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging! The friar and the nun; or the new motion Of the knight’s courser covering the parson’s mare; Or ’t may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt Upon a table, or some dog to dance. When saw you him?
1 Neighbour	Who, sir, Jeremy?
2 Neighbour	Jeremy butler? We saw him not this month.
Lovewit	How!
4 Neighbour	Not these five weeks, sir.
6 Neighbour	These six weeks at the least.
Lovewit	You amaze me, neighbours!
5 Neighbour	Sure, if your worship know not where he is, He’s slipt away.
6 Neighbour	Pray God, he be not made away.
Lovewit	Ha! It’s no time to question, then.
	Knocks at the door.
6 Neighbour	About Some three weeks since, I heard a doleful cry, As I sat up a mending my wife’s stockings.
Lovewit	’Tis strange that none will answer! Didst thou hear A cry, sayst thou?
6 Neighbour	Yes, sir, like unto a man That had been strangled an hour, and could not speak.
2 Neighbour	I heard it too, just this day three weeks, at two o’clock Next morning.
Lovewit	These be miracles, or you make them so! A man an hour strangled, and could not speak, And both you heard him cry?
3 Neighbour	Yes, downward, sir.
Lovewit	Thou art a wise fellow. Give me thy hand, I pray thee. What trade art thou on?
3 Neighbour	A smith, and’t please your worship.
Lovewit	A smith! Then lend me thy help to get this door open.
3 Neighbour	That I will presently, sir, but fetch my tools⁠—
	Exit.
1 Neighbour	Sir, best to knock again, afore you break it.
Lovewit	I will. Knocks again.
	Enter Face, in his butler’s livery.
Face	What mean you, sir?
1, 2, 4 Neighbour	O, here’s Jeremy!
Face	Good sir, come from the door.
Lovewit	Why, what’s the matter?
Face	Yet farther, you are too near yet.
Lovewit	In the name of wonder, What means the fellow!
Face	The house, sir, has been visited.
Lovewit	What, with the plague? Stand thou then farther.
Face	No, sir, I had it not.
Lovewit	Who had it then? I left None else but thee in the house.
Face	Yes, sir, my fellow, The cat that kept the buttery, had it on her A week before I spied it; but I got her Conveyed away in the night: and so I shut The house up for a month⁠—
Lovewit	How!
Face	Purposing then, sir, To have burnt rose-vinegar, treacle, and tar, And have made it sweet, that you should ne’er have known it; Because I knew the news would but afflict you, sir.
Lovewit	Breathe less, and farther off! Why this is stranger: The neighbours tell me all here that the doors Have still been open⁠—
Face	How, sir!
Lovewit	Gallants, men and women, And of all sorts, tag-rag, been seen to flock here In threaves, these ten weeks, as to a second Hogsden, In days of Pimlico and Eye-bright.
Face	Sir, Their wisdoms will not say so.
Lovewit	Today they speak Of coaches and gallants; one in a French hood Went in, they tell me; and another was seen In a velvet gown at the window: divers more Pass in and out.
Face	They did pass through the doors then, Or walls, I assure their eyesights, and their spectacles; For here, sir, are the keys, and here have been, In this my pocket, now above twenty days: And for before, I kept the fort alone there. But that ’tis yet not deep in the afternoon, I should believe my neighbours had seen double Through the black pot, and made these apparitions! For, on my faith to your worship, for these three weeks And upwards the door has not been opened.
Lovewit	Strange!
1 Neighbour	Good faith, I think I saw a coach.
2 Neighbour	And I too, I’d have been sworn.
Lovewit	Do you but think it now? And but one coach?
4 Neighbour	We cannot tell, sir: Jeremy Is a very honest fellow.
Face	Did you see me at all?
1 Neighbour	No; that we are sure on.
2 Neighbour	I’ll be sworn o’ that.
Lovewit	Fine rogues to have your testimonies built on!
	Re-enter 3 Neighbour, with his tools.
3 Neighbour	Is Jeremy come!
1 Neighbour	O yes; you may leave your tools; We were deceived, he says.
2 Neighbour	He has had the keys; And the door has been shut these three weeks.
3 Neighbour	Like enough.
Lovewit	Peace, and get hence, you changelings.
	Enter Surly* and Mammon.*
Face	Aside. Surly come! And Mammon made acquainted! They’ll tell all. How shall I beat them off? What shall I do? Nothing’s more wretched than a guilty conscience.
Pertinax Surly	No, sir, he was a great physician. This, It was no bawdyhouse, but a mere chancel! You knew the lord and his sister.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Nay, good Surly.⁠—
Pertinax Surly	The happy word, Be Rich⁠—
Sir Epicure Mammon	Play not the tyrant.⁠—
Pertinax Surly	“Should be today pronounced to all your friends.” And where be your andirons now? And your brass pots, That should have been golden flagons, and great wedges?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Let me but breathe. What, they have shut their doors, Methinks!
Pertinax Surly	Ay, now ’tis holiday with them.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Rogues, He and Surly* knock.* Cozeners, imposters, bawds!
Face	What mean you, sir?
Sir Epicure Mammon	To enter if we can.
Face	Another man’s house! Here is the owner, sir: turn you to him, And speak your business.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Are you, sir, the owner?
Lovewit	Yes, sir.
Sir Epicure Mammon	And are those knaves within your cheaters!
Lovewit	What knaves, what cheaters?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Subtle and his Lungs.
Face	The gentleman is distracted, sir! No lungs, Nor lights have been seen here these three weeks, sir, Within these doors, upon my word.
Pertinax Surly	Your word, Groom arrogant!
Face	Yes, sir, I am the housekeeper, And know the keys have not been out of my hands.
Pertinax Surly	This is a new Face.
Face	You do mistake the house, sir: What sign was’t at?
Pertinax Surly	You rascal! This is one Of the confederacy. Come, let’s get officers, And force the door.
Lovewit	’Pray you stay, gentlemen.
Pertinax Surly	No, sir, we’ll come with warrant.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Ay, and then We shall have your doors open.
	Exeunt Mammon* and Surly.*
Lovewit	What means this?
Face	I cannot tell, sir.
1 Neighbour	These are two of the gallants That we do think we saw.
Face	Two of the fools! Your talk as idly as they. Good faith, sir, I think the moon has crazed ’em all.⁠— Aside. O me,
	Enter Kastril.
	The angry boy come too! He’ll make a noise, And ne’er away till he have betrayed us all.
Kastril	Knocking. What rogues, bawds, slaves, you’ll open the door, anon! Punk, cockatrice, my sister! By this light I’ll fetch the marshal to you. You are a whore To keep your castle⁠—
Face	Who would you speak with, sir?
Kastril	The bawdy Doctor, and the cozening Captain, And puss my sister.
Lovewit	This is something, sure.
Face	Upon my trust, the doors were never open, sir.
Kastril	I have heard all their tricks told me twice over, By the fat knight and the lean gentleman.
Lovewit	Here comes another.
	Enter Ananias* and Tribulation.*
Face	Ananias too! And his pastor!
Tribulation Wholesome	Beating at the door. The doors are shut against us.
Ananias	Come forth, you seed of sulphur, sons of fire! Your stench it is broke forth; abomination Is in the house.
Kastril	Ay, my sister’s there.
Ananias	The place, It is become a cage of unclean birds.
Kastril	Yes, I will fetch the scavenger, and the constable.
Tribulation Wholesome	You shall do well.
Ananias	We’ll join to weed them out.
Kastril	You will not come then, punk devise, my sister!
Ananias	Call her not sister; she’s a harlot verily.
Kastril	I’ll raise the street.
Lovewit	Good gentlemen, a word.
Ananias	Satan avoid, and hinder not our zeal!
	Exeunt Ananias, Tribulation, and Kastril.
Lovewit	The world’s turned Bedlam.
Face	These are all broke loose, Out of St. Katherine’s, where they use to keep The better sort of mad-folks.
1 Neighbour	All these persons We saw go in and out here.
2 Neighbour	Yes, indeed, sir.
3 Neighbour	These were the parties.
Face	Peace, you drunkards! Sir, I wonder at it: please you to give me leave To touch the door, I’ll try an the lock be changed.
Lovewit	It mazes me!
Face	Goes to the door. Good faith, sir, I believe There’s no such thing: ’tis all deceptio visus.⁠— Aside. Would I could get him away.
Dapper	Within. Master Captain! Master Doctor!
Lovewit	Who’s that?
Face	Aside. Our clerk within, that I forgot! I know not, sir.
Dapper	Within. For God’s sake, when will her Grace be at leisure?
Face	Ha! Illusions, some spirit o’ the air⁠— Aside. His gag is melted, And now he sets out the throat.
Dapper	Within. I am almost stifled⁠—
Face	Aside. Would you were altogether.
Lovewit	’Tis in the house. Ha! List.
Face	Believe it, sir, in the air.
Lovewit	Peace, you.
Dapper	Within. Mine aunt’s Grace does not use me well.
Subtle	Within. You fool, Peace, you’ll mar all.
Face	Speaks through the keyhole, while Lovewit* advances to the door unobserved.* Or you will else, you rogue.
Lovewit	O, is it so? Then you converse with spirits!⁠— Come, sir. No more of your tricks, good Jeremy. The truth, the shortest way.
Face	Dismiss this rabble, sir.⁠— Aside. What shall I do? I am catched.
Lovewit	Good neighbours, I thank you all. You may depart.
	Exeunt Neighbours.
	—Come, sir, You know that I am an indulgent master; And therefore conceal nothing. What’s your medicine, To draw so many several sorts of wild fowl?
Face	Sir, you were wont to affect mirth and wit⁠— But here’s no place to talk on’t in the street. Give me but leave to make the best of my fortune, And only pardon me the abuse of your house: It’s all I beg. I’ll help you to a widow, In recompence, that you shall give me thanks for, Will make you seven years younger, and a rich one. ’Tis but your putting on a Spanish cloak: I have her within. You need not fear the house; It was not visited.
Lovewit	But by me, who came Sooner than you expected.
Face	It is true, sir. ’Pray you forgive me.
Lovewit	Well: let’s see your widow.
	Exeunt.

Scene II

A room in the same.

	Enter Subtle, leading in Dapper, with his eyes bound as before.
Subtle	How! You have eaten your gag?
Dapper	Yes faith, it crumbled Away in my mouth.
Subtle	You have spoiled all then.
Dapper	No! I hope my aunt of Fairy will forgive me.
Subtle	Your aunt’s a gracious lady; but in troth You were to blame.
Dapper	The fume did overcome me, And I did do’t to stay my stomach. ’Pray you So satisfy her Grace.
	Enter Face, in his uniform.
	Here comes the Captain.
Face	How now! Is his mouth down?
Subtle	Ay, he has spoken!
Face	A pox, I heard him, and you too.⁠—He’s undone then.⁠— I have been fain to say, the house is haunted With spirits, to keep churl back.
Subtle	And hast thou done it?
Face	Sure, for this night.
Subtle	Why, then triumph and sing Of Face so famous, the precious king Of present wits.
Face	Did you not hear the coil About the door?
Subtle	Yes, and I dwindled with it.
Face	Show him his aunt, and let him be dispatched: I’ll send her to you.
	Exit Face.
Subtle	Well, sir, your aunt her Grace Will give you audience presently, on my suit, And the Captain’s word that you did not eat your gag In any contempt of her Highness.
	Unbinds his eyes.
Dapper	Not I, in troth, sir.
	Enter Dol, like the Queen of Fairy.
Subtle	Here she is come. Down o’ your knees and wriggle: She has a stately presence. Dapper kneels, and shuffles towards her. Good! Yet nearer, And bid, God save you!
Dapper	Madam!
Subtle	And your aunt.
Dapper	And my most gracious aunt, God save your Grace.
Dol Common	Nephew, we thought to have been angry with you; But that sweet face of yours hath turned the tide, And made it flow with joy, that ebbed of love. Arise, and touch our velvet gown.
Subtle	The skirts, And kiss ’em. So!
Dol Common	Let me now stroke that head. “Much, nephew, shalt thou win, much shalt thou spend, Much shalt thou give away, much shalt thou lend.”
Subtle	Aside. Ay, much! Indeed.⁠—Why do you not thank her Grace?
Dapper	I cannot speak for joy.
Subtle	See, the kind wretch! Your Grace’s kinsman right.
Dol Common	Give me the bird. Here is your fly in a purse, about your neck, cousin; Wear it, and feed it about this day sev’n-night, On your right wrist⁠—
Subtle	Open a vein with a pin, And let it suck but once a week; till then, You must not look on’t.
Dol Common	No: and kinsman, Bear yourself worthy of the blood you come on.
Subtle	Her Grace would have you eat no more Woolsack pies, Nor Dagger frumety.
Dol Common	Nor break his fast In Heaven and Hell.
Subtle	She’s with you everywhere! Nor play with costermongers, at mum-chance, tray-trip, God make you rich; (when as your aunt has done it); But keep The gallantest company, and the best games⁠—
Dapper	Yes, sir.
Subtle	Gleek and primero; and what you get, be true to us.
Dapper	By this hand, I will.
Subtle	You may bring’s a thousand pound Before tomorrow night, if but three thousand Be stirring, an you will.
Dapper	I swear I will then.
Subtle	Your fly will learn you all games.
Face	Within. Have you done there?
Subtle	Your Grace will command him no more duties?
Dol Common	No: But come, and see me often. I may chance To leave him three or four hundred chests of treasure, And some twelve thousand acres of Fairyland, If he game well and comely with good gamesters.
Subtle	There’s a kind aunt! Kiss her departing part.⁠— But you must sell your forty mark a year, now.
Dapper	Ay, sir, I mean.
Subtle	Or, give’t away; pox on’t!
Dapper	I’ll give’t mine aunt. I’ll go and fetch the writings.
	Exit.
Subtle	’Tis well⁠—away!
	Re-enter Face.
Face	Where’s Subtle?
Subtle	Here: what news?
Face	Drugger is at the door, go take his suit, And bid him fetch a parson, presently; Say, he shall marry the widow. Thou shalt spend A hundred pound by the service!
	Exit Subtle.
	Now, queen Dol, Have you packed up all?
Dol Common	Yes.
Face	And how do you like The lady Pliant?
Dol Common	A good dull innocent.
	Re-enter Subtle.
Subtle	Here’s your Hieronimo’s cloak and hat.
Face	Give me them.
Subtle	And the ruff too?
Face	Yes; I’ll come to you presently.
	Exit.
Subtle	Now he is gone about his project, Dol, I told you of, for the widow.
Dol Common	’Tis direct Against our articles.
Subtle	Well, we will fit him, wench. Hast thou gulled her of her jewels or her bracelets?
Dol Common	No; but I will do’t.
Subtle	Soon at night, my Dolly, When we are shipped, and all our goods aboard, Eastward for Ratcliff, we will turn our course To Brainford, westward, if thou sayst the word, And take our leaves of this o’er-weening rascal, This peremptory Face.
Dol Common	Content, I’m weary of him.
Subtle	Thou’st cause, when the slave will run a wiving, Dol, Against the instrument that was drawn between us.
Dol Common	I’ll pluck his bird as bare as I can.
Subtle	Yes, tell her, She must by any means address some present To the cunning man, make him amends for wronging His art with her suspicion; send a ring, Or chain of pearl; she will be tortured else Extremely in her sleep, say, and have strange things Come to her. Wilt thou?
Dol Common	Yes.
Subtle	My fine flitter-mouse, My bird o’ the night! We’ll tickle it at the Pigeons, When we have all, and may unlock the trunks, And say, this’s mine, and thine; and thine, and mine.
	They kiss.
	Re-enter Face.
Face	What now! A billing?
Subtle	Yes, a little exalted In the good passage of our stock-affairs.
Face	Drugger has brought his parson; take him in, Subtle, And send Nab back again to wash his face.
Subtle	I will: and shave himself?
	Exit.
Face	If you can get him.
Dol Common	You are hot upon it, Face, whate’er it is!
Face	A trick that Dol shall spend ten pound a month by.
	Re-enter Subtle.
	Is he gone?
Subtle	The chaplain waits you in the hall, sir.
Face	I’ll go bestow him.
	Exit.
Dol Common	He’ll now marry her, instantly.
Subtle	He cannot yet, he is not ready. Dear Dol, Cozen her of all thou canst. To deceive him Is no deceit, but justice, that would break Such an inextricable tie as ours was.
Dol Common	Let me alone to fit him.
	Re-enter Face.
Face	Come, my venturers, You have packed up all? Where be the trunks? Bring forth.
Subtle	Here.
Face	Let us see them. Where’s the money?
Subtle	Here, In this.
Face	Mammon’s ten pound; eight score before: The Brethren’s money, this. Drugger’s and Dapper’s. What paper’s that?
Dol Common	The jewel of the waiting maid’s, That stole it from her lady, to know certain⁠—
Face	If she should have precedence of her mistress?
Dol Common	Yes.
Face	What box is that?
Subtle	The fishwives’ rings, I think, And the alewives’ single money. Is’t not, Dol?
Dol Common	Yes; and the whistle that the sailor’s wife Brought you to know an her husband were with Ward.
Face	We’ll wet it tomorrow; and our silver-beakers And tavern cups. Where be the French petticoats, And girdles and hangers?
Subtle	Here, in the trunk, And the bolts of lawn.
Face	Is Drugger’s damask there, And the tobacco?
Subtle	Yes.
Face	Give me the keys.
Dol Common	Why you the keys?
Subtle	No matter, Dol; because We shall not open them before he comes.
Face	’Tis true, you shall not open them, indeed; Nor have them forth, do you see? Not forth, Dol.
Dol Common	No!
Face	No, my smock rampant. The right is, my master Knows all, has pardoned me, and he will keep them; Doctor, ’tis true⁠—you look⁠—for all your figures: I sent for him, indeed. Wherefore, good partners, Both he and she be satisfied; for here Determines the indenture tripartite ’Twixt Subtle, Dol, and Face. All I can do Is to help you over the wall, o’ the backside, Or lend you a sheet to save your velvet gown, Dol. Here will be officers presently, bethink you Of some course suddenly to ’scape the dock: For thither you will come else. Loud knocking. Hark you, thunder.
Subtle	You are a precious fiend!
Officer	Without. Open the door.
Face	Dol, I am sorry for thee i’faith; but hear’st thou? It shall go hard but I will place thee somewhere: Thou shalt have my letter to mistress Amo⁠—
Dol Common	Hang you!
Face	Or madam Caesarean.
Dol Common	Pox upon you, rogue, Would I had but time to beat thee!
Face	Subtle, Let’s know where you set up next; I will send you A customer now and then, for old acquaintance: What new course have you?
Subtle	Rogue, I’ll hang myself; That I may walk a greater devil than thou, And haunt thee in the flock-bed and the buttery.
	Exeunt.

Scene III

An outer room in the same.

	Enter Lovewit* in the Spanish dress, with the Parson. Loud knocking at the door.*
Lovewit	What do you mean, my masters?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Without. Open your door, Cheaters, bawds, conjurers.
Officer	Without. Or we will break it open.
Lovewit	What warrant have you?
Officer	Without. Warrant enough, sir, doubt not, If you’ll not open it.
Lovewit	Is there an officer, there?
Officer	Without. Yes, two or three for failing.
Lovewit	Have but patience, And I will open it straight.
	Enter Face, as butler.
Face	Sir, have you done? Is it a marriage? Perfect?
Lovewit	Yes, my brain.
Face	Off with your ruff and cloak then; be yourself, sir.
Pertinax Surly	Without. Down with the door.
Kastril	Without. ’Slight, ding it open.
Lovewit	Opening the door. Hold, Hold, gentlemen, what means this violence?
	Mammon, Surly, Kastril, Ananias, Tribulation, and Officers, rush in.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Where is this collier?
Pertinax Surly	And my Captain Face?
Sir Epicure Mammon	These day owls.
Pertinax Surly	That are birding in men’s purses.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Madam Suppository.
Kastril	Doxy, my sister.
Ananias	Locusts Of the foul pit.
Tribulation Wholesome	Profane as Bel and the dragon.
Ananias	Worse than the grasshoppers, or the lice of Egypt.
Lovewit	Good gentlemen, hear me. Are you officers, And cannot stay this violence?
1 Officer	Keep the peace.
Lovewit	Gentlemen, what is the matter? Whom do you seek?
Sir Epicure Mammon	The chemical cozener.
Pertinax Surly	And the Captain pander.
Kastril	The nun my sister.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Madam Rabbi.
Ananias	Scorpions, And caterpillars.
Lovewit	Fewer at once, I pray you.
2 Officer	One after another, gentlemen, I charge you, By virtue of my staff.
Ananias	They are the vessels Of pride, lust, and the cart.
Lovewit	Good zeal, lie still A little while.
Tribulation Wholesome	Peace, deacon Ananias.
Lovewit	The house is mine here, and the doors are open; If there be any such persons as you seek for, Use your authority, search on o’ God’s name. I am but newly come to town, and finding This tumult ’bout my door, to tell you true, It somewhat mazed me; till my man, here, fearing My more displeasure, told me he had done Somewhat an insolent part, let out my house (Belike, presuming on my known aversion From any air o’ the town while there was sickness,) To a Doctor and a Captain: who, what they are Or where they be, he knows not.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Are they gone?
Lovewit	You may go in and search, sir.
	Mammon, Ananias, and Tribulation go in.
	Here, I find The empty walls worse than I left them, smoked, A few cracked pots, and glasses, and a furnace: The ceiling filled with poesies of the candle, And madam with a dildo writ o’ the walls: Only one gentlewoman, I met here, That is within, that said she was a widow⁠—
Kastril	Ay, that’s my sister; I’ll go thump her. Where is she?
	Goes in.
Lovewit	And should have married a Spanish Count, but he, When he came to’t, neglected her so grossly, That I, a widower, am gone through with her.
Pertinax Surly	How! Have I lost her then?
Lovewit	Were you the Don, sir? Good faith, now, she does blame you extremely, and says You swore, and told her you had taken the pains To dye your beard, and umber o’er your face, Borrowed a suit, and ruff, all for her love; And then did nothing. What an oversight, And want of putting forward, sir, was this! Well fare an old harquebuzier, yet, Could prime his powder, and give fire, and hit, All in a twinkling!
	Re-enter Mammon.
Sir Epicure Mammon	The whole nest are fled!
Lovewit	What sort of birds were they?
Sir Epicure Mammon	A kind of choughs, Or thievish daws, sir, that have picked my purse Of eight score and ten pounds within these five weeks, Beside my first materials; and my goods, That lie in the cellar, which I am glad they have left, I may have home yet.
Lovewit	Think you so, sir?
Sir Epicure Mammon	Ay.
Lovewit	By order of law, sir, but not otherwise.
Sir Epicure Mammon	Not mine own stuff!
Lovewit	Sir, I can take no knowledge That they are yours, but by public means. If you can bring certificate that you were gulled of them, Or any formal writ out of a court, That you did cozen yourself, I will not hold them.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I’ll rather lose them.
Lovewit	That you shall not, sir, By me, in troth: upon these terms, they are yours. What! Should they have been, sir, turned into gold, all?
Sir Epicure Mammon	No, I cannot tell⁠—It may be they should.⁠—What then?
Lovewit	What a great loss in hope have you sustained!
Sir Epicure Mammon	Not I, the Commonwealth has.
Face	Ay, he would have built The city new; and made a ditch about it Of silver, should have run with cream from Hogsden; That every Sunday, in Moorfields, the younkers, And tits and tomboys should have fed on, gratis.
Sir Epicure Mammon	I will go mount a turnip-cart, and preach The end of the world, within these two months. Surly, What! In a dream?
Pertinax Surly	Must I needs cheat myself, With that same foolish vice of honesty! Come, let us go and hearken out the rogues: That Face I’ll mark for mine, if e’er I meet him.
Face	If I can hear of him, sir, I’ll bring you word, Unto your lodging; for in troth, they were strangers To me, I thought them honest as myself, sir.
	Exeunt Mammon* and Surly.*
	Re-enter Ananias* and Tribulation.*
Tribulation Wholesome	’Tis well, the saints shall not lose all yet. Go, And get some carts⁠—
Lovewit	For what, my zealous friends?
Ananias	To bear away the portion of the righteous Out of this den of thieves.
Lovewit	What is that portion?
Ananias	The goods sometimes the orphan’s, that the Brethren Bought with their silver pence.
Lovewit	What, those in the cellar, The knight Sir Mammon claims?
Ananias	I do defy The wicked Mammon, so do all the Brethren, Thou profane man! I ask thee with what conscience Thou canst advance that idol against us, That have the seal? Were not the shillings numbered, That made the pounds; were not the pounds told out, Upon the second day of the fourth week, In the eighth month, upon the table dormant, The year of the last patience of the saints, Six hundred and ten?
Lovewit	Mine earnest vehement botcher, And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you: But if you get you not away the sooner, I shall confute you with a cudgel.
Ananias	Sir!
Tribulation Wholesome	Be patient, Ananias.
Ananias	I am strong, And will stand up, well girt, against an host That threaten Gad in exile.
Lovewit	I shall send you To Amsterdam, to your cellar.
Ananias	I will pray there, Against thy house: may dogs defile thy walls, And wasps and hornets breed beneath thy roof, This seat of falsehood, and this cave of cozenage!
	Exeunt Ananias* and Tribulation.*
	Enter Drugger.
Lovewit	Another too?
Drugger	Not I, sir, I am no Brother.
Lovewit	Beats him. Away, you Harry Nicholas! Do you talk?
	Exit Drugger.
Face	No, this was Abel Drugger. Good sir, go,
	To the Parson.
	And satisfy him; tell him all is done: He stayed too long a washing of his face. The Doctor, he shall hear of him at Westchester; And of the Captain, tell him, at Yarmouth, or Some good port town else, lying for a wind.
	Exit Parson.
	If you can get off the angry child, now, sir⁠—
	Enter Kastril, dragging in his sister.
Kastril	Come on, you ewe, you have matched most sweetly, have you not? Did not I say, I would never have you tupped But by a dubbed boy, to make you a lady tom? ’Slight, you are a mammet! O, I could touse you, now. Death, mun’ you marry, with a pox!
Lovewit	You lie, boy; As sound as you; and I’m aforehand with you.
Kastril	Anon!
Lovewit	Come, will you quarrel? I will feize you, sirrah; Why do you not buckle to your tools?
Kastril	Od’s light, This is a fine old boy as e’er I saw!
Lovewit	What, do you change your copy now? Proceed; Here stands my dove: stoop at her, if you dare.
Kastril	’Slight, I must love him! I cannot choose, i’faith, An I should be hanged for’t! Sister, I protest, I honour thee for this match.
Lovewit	O, do you so, sir?
Kastril	Yes, an thou canst take tobacco and drink, old boy, I’ll give her five hundred pound more to her marriage, Than her own state.
Lovewit	Fill a pipe full, Jeremy.
Face	Yes; but go in and take it, sir.
Lovewit	We will⁠— I will be ruled by thee in anything, Jeremy.
Kastril	’Slight, thou art not hidebound, thou art a jovy boy! Come, let us in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs.
Lovewit	Whiff in with your sister, brother boy.
	Exeunt Kastril and Dame Pliant.
	That master That had received such happiness by a servant, In such a widow, and with so much wealth, Were very ungrateful, if he would not be A little indulgent to that servant’s wit, And help his fortune, though with some small strain Of his own candour. Advancing. —“Therefore, gentlemen, And kind spectators, if I have outstript An old man’s gravity, or strict canon, think What a young wife and a good brain may do; Stretch age’s truth sometimes, and crack it too. Speak for thyself, knave.”
Face	“So I will, sir.”
	Advancing to the front of the stage.
	“Gentlemen, My part a little fell in this last scene, Yet ’twas decorum. And though I am clean Got off from Subtle, Surly, Mammon, Dol, Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, all With whom I traded: yet I put myself On you, that are my country: and this pelf Which I have got, if you do quit me, rests To feast you often, and invite new guests.”

The Alchemist
was published in 1612 by
Ben Jonson.

English eBooks

THE ALCHEMIST

THE ALCHEMIST

BEN JONSON

Dramatis Personae

To the Reader

The Alchemist

Argument

Prologue

Act I

Scene I

Act II

Scene I

Act III

Scene I

Scene II

Act IV

Scene I

Scene II

Scene III

Scene IV

Act V

Scene I

Scene II

Scene III

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