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

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