The Alchemist, Ben Jonson [best short novels TXT] 📗

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 diverse 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,