The Alchemist Part 4

MAM. Have you another?

SUB. Yes, son; were I a.s.sured -- Your piety were firm, we would not want The means to glorify it: but I hope the best. -- I mean to tinct C in sand-heat to-morrow, And give him imbibition.

MAM. Of white oil?

SUB. No, sir, of red. F is come over the helm too, I thank my Maker, in S. Mary's bath, And shews lac virginis. Blessed be heaven! I sent you of his faeces there calcined: Out of that calx, I have won the salt of mercury.

MAM. By pouring on your rectified water?

SUB. Yes, and reverberating in Athanor. [RE-ENTER FACE.] How now! what colour says it?

FACE. The ground black, sir.

MAM. That's your crow's head?

SUR. Your c.o.c.k's-comb's, is it not?

SUB. No, 'tis not perfect. Would it were the crow! That work wants something.

SUR [ASIDE]. O, I looked for this. The hay's a pitching.

SUB. Are you sure you loosed them In their own menstrue?

FACE. Yes, sir, and then married them, And put them in a bolt's-head nipp'd to digestion, According as you bade me, when I set The liquor of Mars to circulation In the same heat.

SUB. The process then was right.

FACE. Yes, by the token, sir, the retort brake, And what was saved was put into the pellican, And sign'd with Hermes' seal.

SUB. I think 'twas so. We should have a new amalgama.

SUR [ASIDE]. O, this ferret Is rank as any pole-cat.

SUB. But I care not: Let him e'en die; we have enough beside, In embrion. H has his white shirt on?

FACE. Yes, sir, He's ripe for inceration, he stands warm, In his ash-fire. I would not you should let Any die now, if I might counsel, sir, For luck's sake to the rest: it is not good.

MAM. He says right.

SUR [ASIDE]. Ay, are you bolted?

FACE. Nay, I know't, sir, I have seen the ill fortune. What is some three ounces Of fresh materials?

MAM. Is't no more?

FACE. No more, sir. Of gold, t'amalgame with some six of mercury.

MAM. Away, here's money. What will serve?

FACE. Ask him, sir.

MAM. How much?

SUB. Give him nine pound: -- you may give him ten.

SUR. Yes, twenty, and be cozen'd, do.

MAM. There 'tis. [GIVES FACE THE MONEY.]

SUB. 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. Have you set the oil of luna in kemia?

FACE. Yes, sir.

SUB. And the philosopher's vinegar?

FACE. Ay.

[EXIT.]

SUR. We shall have a sallad!

MAM. When do you make projection?

SUB. Son, be not hasty, I exalt our med'cine, By hanging 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; 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 bra.s.s, your pewter, and your andirons.

MAM. Not those of iron?

SUB. Yes, you may bring them too: We'll change all metals.

SUR. I believe you in that.

MAM. Then I may send my spits?

SUB. Yes, and your racks.

SUR. And dripping-pans, and pot-hangers, and hooks? Shall he not?

SUB. If he please.

SUR. -- To be an a.s.s.

SUB. How, sir!

MAM. This gentleman you must bear withal: I told you he had no faith.

SUR. And little hope, sir; But much less charity, should I gull myself.

SUB. Why, what have you observ'd, sir, in our art, Seems so impossible?

SUR. But your whole work, no more. That you should hatch gold in a furnace, sir, As they do eggs in Egypt!

SUB. Sir, do you Believe that eggs are hatch'd so?

SUR. If I should?

SUB. Why, I think that the greater miracle. No egg but differs from a chicken more Than metals in themselves.

SUR. That cannot be. The egg's ordain'd by nature to that end, And is a chicken in potentia.

SUB. The same we say of lead and other metals, Which would be gold, if they had time.

MAM. And that Our art doth further.

SUB. Ay, for 'twere absurb To think that nature in the earth bred gold Perfect in the instant: something went before. There must be remote matter.

SUR. Ay, what is that?

SUB. Marry, we say -- MAM. Ay, now it heats: stand, father, Pound him to dust.

SUB. It is, of the one part, A humid exhalation, which we call Material liquida, or the unctuous water; On the other part, a certain cra.s.s and vicious 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; For, where it is forsaken of that moisture, And hath more driness, 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 the imperfect, then Proceeds she to the perfect. Of that airy And oily water, mercury is engender'd; Sulphur of 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 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 carcases and dung of creatures; Yea, scorpions of an herb, being rightly placed? And these are living creatures, far more perfect And excellent than metals.

MAM. Well said, father! Nay, if he take you in hand, sir, with an argument, He'll bray you in a mortar.

SUR. Pray you, sir, stay. Rather than I'll be brayed, sir, I'll believe That Alchemy is a pretty kind of game, Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man With charming.

SUB. Sir?

SUR. What else are all your terms, Whereon no one of 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; 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 p.i.s.s and egg-sh.e.l.ls, women's terms, man's blood, Hair o' the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay, Powder of bones, scalings of iron, gla.s.s, And worlds of other strange ingredients, Would burst a man to name?

SUB. And all these named, Intending but one thing; which art our writers Used to obscure their art.

MAM. Sir, so I told him -- Because the simple idiot should not learn it, And make it vulgar.

SUB. Was not all the knowledge Of the Aegyptians 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, Wrapp'd in perplexed allegories?

MAM. I urg'd that, And clear'd to him, that Sisyphus was d.a.m.n'd To roll the ceaseless stone, only because He would have made Ours common.

DOL [APPEARS AT THE DOOR]. -- Who is this?

SUB. 'Sprecious! -- What do you mean? go in, good lady, Let me entreat you. [DOL RETIRES.] -- Where's this varlet?

[RE-ENTER FACE.]

FACE. Sir.

SUB. You very knave! do you use me thus?

FACE. Wherein, sir?

SUB. Go in and see, you traitor. Go!

[EXIT FACE.]

MAM. Who is it, sir?

SUB. Nothing, sir; nothing.

MAM. What's the matter, good sir? I have not seen you thus distemper'd: who is't?

SUB. All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries; But ours the most ignorant. -- [RE-ENTER FACE.] What now?

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

SUB. Would she, sir! Follow me.

[EXIT.]

MAM [STOPPING HIM]. Stay, Lungs.

FACE. I dare not, sir.

MAM. Stay, man; what is she?

FACE. A lord's sister, sir.

MAM. How! pray thee, stay.

FACE. She's mad, sir, and sent hither -- He'll be mad too. -- MAM. I warrant thee. -- Why sent hither?

FACE. Sir, to be cured.

SUB [WITHIN]. Why, rascal!

FACE. Lo you! -- Here, sir!

[EXIT.]

MAM. 'Fore G.o.d, a Bradamante, a brave piece.

SUR. Heart, this is a bawdy-house! I will be burnt else.

MAM. 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.

MAM. No, he will not be "gull'd;" 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.