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

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