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

clothes.

—Ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, ti, Would her Grace speak with me?
I come.⁠—Help, Dol!

Knocking without. Face

Speaks through the keyhole.
Who’s there? Sir Epicure,
My master’s in the way. Please you to walk
Three or four turns, but till his back be turned,
And I am for you.⁠—Quickly, Dol!

Subtle

Her Grace
Commends her kindly to you, master Dapper.

Dapper

I long to see her Grace.

Subtle

She now is set
At dinner in her bed, and she has sent you
From her own private trencher, a dead mouse,
And a piece of gingerbread, to be merry withal,
And stay your stomach, lest you faint with fasting:
Yet if you could hold out till she saw you, she says,
It would be better for you.

Face

Sir, he shall
Hold out, an ’twere this two hours, for her highness;
I can assure you that. We will not lose
All we have done.⁠—

Subtle

He must not see, nor speak
To anybody, till then.

Face

For that we’ll put, sir,
A stay in’s mouth.

Subtle

Of what?

Face

Of gingerbread.
Make you it fit. He that hath pleased her Grace
Thus far, shall not now crinkle for a little.⁠—
Gape, sir, and let him fit you.

They thrust a gag of gingerbread in his mouth. Subtle

Where shall we now
Bestow him?

Dol Common

In the privy.

Subtle

Come along, sir,
I now must show you Fortune’s privy lodgings.

Face

Are they perfumed, and his bath ready?

Subtle

All:
Only the fumigation’s somewhat strong.

Face

Speaking through the keyhole.
Sir Epicure, I am yours, sir, by and by.

Exeunt with Dapper. Act IV Scene I

A room in Lovewit’s house.

Enter Face and Mammon. Face

O sir, you’re come in the only finest time.⁠—

Sir Epicure Mammon

Where’s master?

Face

Now preparing for projection, sir.
Your stuff will be all changed shortly.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Into gold?

Face

To gold and silver, sir.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Silver I care not for.

Face

Yes, sir, a little to give beggars.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Where’s the lady?

Face

At hand here. I have told her such brave things of you,
Touching your bounty, and your noble spirit⁠—

Sir Epicure Mammon

Hast thou?

Face

As she is almost in her fit to see you.
But, good sir, no divinity in your conference,
For fear of putting her in rage.⁠—

Sir Epicure Mammon

I warrant thee.

Face

Six men [sir] will not hold her down: and then,
If the old man should hear or see you⁠—

Sir Epicure Mammon

Fear not.

Face

The very house, sir, would run mad. You know it,
How scrupulous he is, and violent,
’Gainst the least act of sin. Physic, or mathematics,
Poetry, state, or bawdry, as I told you,
She will endure, and never startle; but
No word of controversy.

Sir Epicure Mammon

I am schooled, good Ulen.

Face

And you must praise her house, remember that,
And her nobility.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Let me alone:
No herald, no, nor antiquary, Lungs,
Shall do it better. Go.

Face

Aside. Why, this is yet
A kind of modern happiness, to have
Dol Common for a great lady.

Exit. Sir Epicure Mammon

Now, Epicure,
Heighten thyself, talk to her all in gold;
Rain her as many showers as Jove did drops
Unto his Danae; show the god a miser,
Compared with Mammon. What! The stone will do’t.
She shall feel gold, taste gold, hear gold, sleep gold;
Nay, we will concumbere gold: I will be puissant,
And mighty in my talk to her.⁠—

Re-enter Face, with Dol richly dressed.

Here she comes.

Face

To him, Dol, suckle him.⁠—This is the noble knight,
I told your ladyship⁠—

Sir Epicure Mammon

Madam, with your pardon,
I kiss your vesture.

Dol Common

Sir, I were uncivil
If I would suffer that; my lip to you, sir.

Sir Epicure Mammon

I hope my lord your brother be in health, lady.

Dol Common

My lord, my brother is, though I no lady, sir.

Face

Aside. Well said, my Guinea bird.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Right noble madam⁠—

Face

Aside. O, we shall have most fierce idolatry.

Sir Epicure Mammon

’Tis your prerogative.

Dol Common

Rather your courtesy.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Were there nought else to enlarge your virtues to me,
These answers speak your breeding and your blood.

Dol Common

Blood we boast none, sir, a poor baron’s daughter.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Poor! And gat you? Profane not. Had your father
Slept all the happy remnant of his life
After that act, lien but there still, and panted,
He had done enough to make himself, his issue,
And his posterity noble.

Dol Common

Sir, although
We may be said to want the gilt and trappings,
The dress of honour, yet we strive to keep
The seeds and the materials.

Sir Epicure Mammon

I do see
The old ingredient, virtue, was not lost,
Nor the drug money used to make your compound.
There is a strange nobility in your eye,
This lip, that chin! Methinks you do resemble
One of the Austriac princes.

Face

Very like!
Aside.
Her father was an Irish costermonger.

Sir Epicure Mammon

The house of Valois just had such a nose,
And such a forehead yet the Medici
Of Florence boast.

Dol Common

Troth, and I have been likened
To all these princes.

Face

Aside. I’ll be sworn, I heard it.

Sir Epicure Mammon

I know not how! It is not anyone,
But e’en the very choice of all their features.

Face

Aside. I’ll in, and laugh.

Exit. Sir Epicure Mammon

A certain touch, or air,
That sparkles a divinity, beyond
An earthly beauty!

Dol Common

O, you play the courtier.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Good lady, give me leave⁠—

Dol Common

In faith, I may not,
To mock me, sir.

Sir Epicure Mammon

To burn in this sweet flame;
The phoenix never knew a nobler death.

Dol Common

Nay, now you court the courtier, and destroy
What you would build. This art, sir, in your words,
Calls your whole faith in question.

Sir Epicure Mammon

By my soul⁠—

Dol Common

Nay, oaths are made of the same air, sir.

Sir Epicure Mammon

Nature
Never bestowed upon mortality
A more unblamed, a more harmonious feature;
She played the stepdame in all faces else:
Sweet Madam, let me be particular⁠—

Dol Common

Particular, sir! I pray you know your distance.

Sir Epicure Mammon

In no ill sense, sweet lady; but to ask
How your fair