Volpone and Other Plays (34 page)

90    
FACE
:                                                           No more, sir,

Of gold, t' amalgam with some six of mercury.

MAMMON
: Away, here's money. What will serve?

FACE
:                                                                     Ask him, sir.

MAMMON
: How much?

SUBTLE
: Give him nine pound; you may gi' him ten.

SURLY
[
aside
]: Yes, twenty, and be cozened; do.

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.

Ha' you set the oil of Luna in
kemia
?

FACE
: Yes, sir.

SUBTLE
:            And the Philosopher's Vinegar?

100  
FACE
: Ay.

[
Exit
.]

SURLY
[
aside
]: We shall have a salad!

MAMMON
:                                      When do you make projection?

SUBTLE
: Son, be not hasty. I exalt our med' cine,

By poem0 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;

110        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.

MAMMON
: Not those of iron?

SUBTLE
:                           Yes, you may bring them too;

We'll change all metals

SURLY
[
aside
]:             I believe you in that.

MAMMON
: Then I may send my spits?

SUBTLE
:                                               Yes, and your racks.

120  
SURLY
: And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks?

Shall he not?

SUBTLE
:             If he please.

SURLY
:                                  – To be an ass.

SUBTLE
: How, sir!

MAMMON
:            This gent' man you must bear withal.

I told you he had no faith.

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?

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?

SURLY
:                                                If I should?

130  
SUBTLE
: Why, I think that the greater miracle.

No egg but differs from a chicken more

Than metals in themselves.

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.

MAMMON
:                                                     And that

Our art doth further.

SUBTLE
:                            Ay, for 't were absurd

To think that nature in the earth bred gold

Perfect, i' the instant. Something went before.

There must be remote matter.

140  
SURLY
:                           Ay, what is that?

SUBTLE
: Marry, we say –

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 th' other part, a certain crass and viscous

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.

150       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 th' imperfect, then

Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy

160   And oily water, mercury is engend' red;

Sulphur o' 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

170   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 carcasses and dung of creatures;

Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed?

And these are living creatures, far more perfect

And excellent than metals.

MAMMON
:                                Well said, father!

Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument,

He'll
bray
you in a mortar.

SURLY
:                                        Pray you, sir, stay.

Rather than I'll be brayed, sir, I'll believe

180    That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game,

Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man

With charming.

SUBTLE
:                    Sir?

SURLY
:                          What else are all your terms,

Whereon no one o' your writers ' grees with other?

Of your elixir, your
lac virginis
,

Your Stone, your med' cine, and your chrysosperm,

Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,

Your oil of height, your Tree of Life, your blood,

Your marchesite, your tutie, your magnesia,

Your Toad, your Crow, your Dragon, and your Panther,

190    Your sun, your moon, your firmament, your adrop,

Your
lato, azoch, zernich, chibrit, heautarit
,

And then your
red man
, and your white woman,

With all your broths, your menstrues, and materials

Of piss and egg-shells, women's
terms
, man's blood,

Hair o' the head, burnt clouts, chalk,
merds
, and clay,

Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,

And worlds of other strange ingredients,

Would burst a man to name?

SUBTLE
:                        And all these, named,

Intending but one thing; which art our writers

Used to obscure their art.

200  
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 perplexèd allegories?

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
is seen [at the door
.]

210                                                                Who is this?

SUBTLE
: God's precious! – What do you mean? Go in, good lady,

Let me entreat you.

[
DOL
retires
.]

[
Calling
.]                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
.]

MAMMON
:                                Who is it, sir?

SUBTLE
: Nothing, sir; nothing.

MAMMON
:                                What's the matter, good sir?

I have not seen you thus distemp' red: who is 't?

SUBTLE
: All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries;

But ours the most ignorant. –

FACE
returns
.

                                                        What now?

220  
FACE
: 'Twas not my fault, sir; she would speak with you.

SUBTLE
: Would she, sir! Follow me.

[
Exit
]

MAMMON
:                        Stay, Lungs!

FACE
:                                                        I dare not, sir.

MAMMON
: Stay, man; what is she?

FACE
:                        A lord's sister, sir.

MAMMON
: How! Pray thee, stay.

FACE
:                        She's mad, sir, and sent hither –

He'll be mad too –

MAMMON
:                
I warrant thee
. Why sent hither?

FACE
: Sir, to be cured.

SUBTIE
[
within
]:                    Why, rascal!

FACE
:                            Lo, you! – here, sir!

He goes out
.

MAMMON
: ' Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece!

SURLY
: ' Heart, this is a bawdy-house! I'll be burnt else.

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.

230     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. –

FACE
again
.

                                        How now, Lungs!

FACE
: Softly, sir; speak softly. I meant

To ha' told your worship all. This must not hear.

MAMMON
: No, he will not be gulled; let him alone.

FACE
: Y' 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,

240    She falls into her fit, and will discourse

So learnedly of genealogies,