Volpone and Other Plays (32 page)

Will not away. And there's your giantess,

The bawd of Lambeth.

SUBTLE
:                                  'Heart, I cannot speak with– em.

DOL COMMON
:             Not afore night, i have told 'em in a voice,

Thorough the
trunk
, like one of your familiars.

But I have spied Sir Epicure Mammon –

SUBTLE
:                                                               Where?

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
.

10         
Dol, you must presently make ready, too.

[
Exit
FACE
.]

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 ent' ring ordinaries,

Dispensing for the pox, and
plaguy houses
,

20       Reaching his dose, walking Moorfields for lepers,

And off' ring citizens' wives
pomander
-bracelets

As his preservative, made of the elixir;

Searching the
'spital
, to make old bawds young;

And the highways, for beggars to make rich.

I see no end of his 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 last, he'll turn the age to gold.

   [
Exeunt
.]

   [
Outside
LOVEWIT'S
house
.]

   [
Enter
SIR EPICURE MAMMON
and
PERTINAX SURLY
.]

[
MAMMON
:] Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore

In
Novo orbe;
here's the rich Peru,

And there within, sir, are the golden mines,

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

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

This is the day wherein, to all my friends,

I will pronounce the happy word, ‘Be rich!'

This day you shall be
spectatissimi
.

You shall no more deal with the
hollow die
,

10       Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping

The
livery-punk
for the young heir, that must

Seal, at all hours, in his shirt; no more,

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

That brings him the commodity; no more

Shall thirst of satin, or the covetous hunger

Of velvet
entrails
for a rude-spun cloak,

To be displayed at Madam Augusta's, make

The sons of sword and hazard fall before

The golden calf, and on their knees, whole nights,

20        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.

MAMMON
:                                       That's his
fire-drake
,

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

30       All that is metal in my house to gold,

And, early in the morning, will I send

To all the plumbers and the pewterers

And buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury

For all the copper.

SURLY
:                                What, and turn that, too?

MAMMON
: Yes, and I'll purchase Devonshire and cornwall,

And make them perfect Indies! You
admire
now?

SURLY
: No, faith.

MAMMON
: But when you see th' effects of the Great Med'cine,

Of which one part projected on a hundred

Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon,

40       Shall turn it to as many of the Sun –

Nay, to a thousand – so
ad infinitum;

You will believe me.

SURLY
:                         Yes, when I see 't, I will.

But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I

Giving 'em no occasion, sure I'll have

A whore, shall piss 'em out next day.

MAMMON
:                                          Ha! Why?

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

He that has once the flower of the sun,

The perfect ruby, which we call elixir,

Not only can do that, but by its virtue,

Can confer honour, love, respect, long life;

50       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.

SURLY
: No doubt he's that already.

MAMMON
:                                       Nay, I mean,

Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle,

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

Young giants, as our philosophers have done –

The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood –

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

60       The quantity of a grain of mustard of it;

Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids.

SURLY
: The decayed vestals of Pickt-hatch would thank you,

That keep the fire alive there.

MAMMON
:                                 'Tis the
secret

Of nature naturized 'gainst all infections,

Cures all diseases coming of all causes;

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

And, of what age soever, in a month,

Past all the doses of your drugging doctors.

I'll undertake, withal, to fright the plague

70     Out o' the kingdom in three months.

SURLY
:                                                          And I'll

Be bound,
the players
shall sing your praises then,

Without their poets.

MAMMON
:                  Sir, I'll do 't. Meantime,

I'll give away so much unto my man,

Shall serve th' whole City with preservative

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

SURLY
: As he that built the water-work does with water?

MAMMON
: You are incredulous.

SURLY
:                                    Faith, I have a humour,

I would not willingly be gulled. Your Stone

Cannot transmute me.

MAMMON
:                  Pertinax, my Surly,

80     Will you believe antiquity? records?

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

And Solomon have written of the art;

Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam –

SURLY
:                                                          How!

MAMMON
: O' the Philosopher's Stone, and in High Dutch.

SURLY
: Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch?

MAMMON
:                                                      He Did;

Which proves it was the primitive tongue.

SURLY
:                                                           What paper?

MAMMON
: On cedar board.

SURLY
:                                      O that, indeed, they say,

Will last 'gainst worms.

MAMMON
:                        'Tis like your Irish wood

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

90       Which was no other than a book of alchemy,

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

Such was Pythagoras' thigh, Pandora's tub,

And all that fable of Medea's charms,

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

Still breathing fire; our
argent-vive
the dragon;

The dragon's teeth, mercury sublimate,

That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting;

And they are gathered into
Jason's
helm,

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

100    And thence sublimed so often, till they' re fixed.

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

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

Boccace's
Demogorgon
, thousands more,

All abstract riddles of our Stone.

   [
FACE
,
disguised as
SUBTLE'S
servant
,
LUNGS
or
ULEN SPIEGEL
,
admits them into the house
.]

[
MAMMON:
]                                    – 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.

MAMMON
:                      Pertinax, my Surly,

Again I say to thee, aloud, ‘Be rich!'

This day thou shalt have ingots, and tomorrow

Give lords th' auffront. - Is it, my Zephyrus, right?

Blushes the
bolt's head
?

FACE
:                                             Like a wench with child, sir,

10         That were but now discovered to her master.

MAMMON
: Excellent, witty Lungs! – My only care is

Where to get stuff enough now, to project on;

This town will not half serve me.

FACE
:                                                           No, sir? Buy

The covering off o' churches.

MAMMON
:                                   That's true.

FACE
:                                                                      Yes.

Let 'em stand bare, as do their
auditory
,

Or cap 'em new with shingles.

MAMMON
:                                  No, good thatch –

Thatch will lie light upo' the rafters, Lungs.

Lungs, I will manumit thee from the furnace;

I will restore thee thy complexion, Puff,

20       Lost in the embers; and repair this brain,

Hurt wi' the fume o' the metals.

FACE
:                                             I have blown, sir,

Hard, for your worship; thrown by many a coal,

When 't was 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 plumèd swan.

MAMMON
:                                             And lastly,

Thou hast descried the flower, the
sanguis agni
?

FACE
: Yes, sir.

MAMMON
:           Where's Master?

FACE
:                                            At's prayers, sir, he;

30       Good man, he's doing his devotions

For the success.