Volpone and Other Plays

by Ben Jonson

  Vitriol, sal-tartar, argaile, alkali,

  Cinoper: I know all – This fellow, Captain,

  Will come, in time, to be a great distiller,

  And give a say –I will not say directly,

  80 But very fair – at the Philosopher’s Stone.

  FACE: Why, how now, Abel! is this true?

  DRUGGER [aside to FACE]: Good Captain,

  What must I give?

  FACE: Nay, I’ll not counsel thee.

  Thou hear’st what wealth he says (spend what thou canst)

  Th’ art like to come to.

  DRUGGER: I would gi’ him a crown.

  FACE: A crown! and toward such a fortune? Heart,

  Thou shalt rather gi’ him thy shop. No gold about thee?

  DRUGGER: Yes, I have a portague, I ha’ kept this half-year.

  FACE: Out on thee, Nab! ’Slight, there was such an offer –

  Shalt keep ’t no longer, I’ll gi’ it him for thee. Doctor,

  90 Nab prays your worship to drink this, and swears

  He will appear more grateful, as your skill

  Does raise him in the world.

  DRUGGER: I would entreat

  Another favour of his worship.

  FACE: What is’t, Nab?

  DRUGGER: But to look over, sir, my almanac,

  And cross out my ill-days, that I may neither

  Bargain, nor trust upon them.

  FACE: That he shall, Nab.

  Leave it, it shall be done, ’gainst afternoon.

  SUBTLE: And a direction for his shelves.

  FACE: Now, Nab,

  Art thou well pleased, Nab?

  DRUGGER: ’Thank, sir, both your worships.

  FACE: Away.

  [Exit DRUGGER.]

  100 Why, now, you smoky persecutor of nature!

  Now do you see, that something’s to be done,

  Beside your beech-coal, and your cor’sive waters,

  Your crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbites?

  You must have stuff brought home to you, to work on!

  And yet you think I am at no expense

  In searching out these veins, then following ’em,

  Then trying ’em out. ’Fore God, my intelligence

  Costs me more money than my share oft comes to,

  In these rare works.

  SUBTLE: You’ re pleasant, sir.

  [Enter DOL.]

  – How now!

  I, iv What says my dainty Dolkin?

  DOL COMMON: Yonder fish-wife

  Will not away. And there’s your giantess,

  The bawd of Lambeth.

  SUBTLE: ’Heart, I cannot speak with– em.

  DOL COMMON: Not afore night, i have told ’em in a voice,

  Thorough the trunk, like one of your familiars.

  But I have spied Sir Epicure Mammon –

  SUBTLE: Where?

  DOL COMMON: Coming along, at far end of the lane,

  Slow of his feet, but earnest of his tongue

  To one that’s with him.

  SUBTLE: Face, go you and shift.

  10 Dol, you must presently make ready, too.

  [Exit FACE.]

  DOL COMMON: Why, what’s the matter?

  SUBTLE: O, I did look for him

  With the sun’s rising; marvel he could sleep!

  This is the day I am to perfect for him

  The magisterium, our great work, the Stone;

  And yield it, made, into his hands; of which

  He has, this month, talked as he were possessed.

  And now he’s dealing pieces on ’t away.

  Methinks I see him ent’ ring ordinaries,

  Dispensing for the pox, and plaguy houses,

  20 Reaching his dose, walking Moorfields for lepers,

  And off’ ring citizens’ wives pomander-bracelets

  As his preservative, made of the elixir;

  Searching the ’spital, to make old bawds young;

  And the highways, for beggars to make rich.

  I see no end of his labours. He will make

  Nature ashamed of her long sleep; when art,

  Who’s but a step-dame, shall do more than she,

  In her best love to mankind, ever could.

  If his dream last, he’ll turn the age to gold.

  [Exeunt.]

  ACT TWO

  II, i [SCENE ONE]

  [Outside LOVEWIT’S house.]

  [Enter SIR EPICURE MAMMON and PERTINAX SURLY.]

  [MAMMON:] Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore

  In Novo orbe; here’s the rich Peru,

  And there within, sir, are the golden mines,

  Great Solomon’s Ophir! He was sailing to ’t

  Three years, but we have reached it in ten months.

  This is the day wherein, to all my friends,

  I will pronounce the happy word, ‘Be rich!’

  This day you shall be spectatissimi.

  You shall no more deal with the hollow die,

  10 Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping

  The livery-punk for the young heir, that must

  Seal, at all hours, in his shirt; no more,

  If he deny, ha’ him beaten to ’t, as he is

  That brings him the commodity; no more

  Shall thirst of satin, or the covetous hunger

  Of velvet entrails for a rude-spun cloak,

  To be displayed at Madam Augusta’s, make

  The sons of sword and hazard fall before

  The golden calf, and on their knees, whole nights,

  20 Commit idolatry with wine and trumpets,

  Or go a-feasting after drum and ensign.

  No more of this. You shall start up young viceroys,

  And have your punks and punketees, my Surly.

  And unto thee I speak it first, ‘Be rich!’

  Where is my Subtle there? Within, ho!

  [FACE (within):] Sir,

  He’ll come to you by and by.

  MAMMON: That’s his fire-drake,

  His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals,

  Till he firk nature up, in her own centre.

  You are not faithful, sir. This night I’ll change

  30 All that is metal in my house to gold,

  And, early in the morning, will I send

  To all the plumbers and the pewterers

  And buy their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury

  For all the copper.

  SURLY: What, and turn that, too?

  MAMMON: Yes, and I’ll purchase Devonshire and cornwall,

  And make them perfect Indies! You admire now?

  SURLY: No, faith.

  MAMMON: But when you see th’ effects of the Great Med’cine,

  Of which one part projected on a hundred

  Of Mercury, or Venus, or the Moon,

  40 Shall turn it to as many of the Sun –

  Nay, to a thousand – so ad infinitum;

  You will believe me.

  SURLY: Yes, when I see ’t, I will.

  But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I

  Giving ’em no occasion, sure I’ll have

  A whore, shall piss ’em out next day.

  MAMMON: Ha! Why?

  Do you think I fable with you? I assure you,

  He that has once the flower of the sun,

  The perfect ruby, which we call elixir,

  Not only can do that, but by its virtue,

  Can confer honour, love, respect, long life;

  50 Give safety, valour, yea, and victory,

  To whom he will. In eight-and-twenty days,

  I’ll make an old man of fourscore a child.

  SURLY: No doubt he’s that already.

  MAMMON: Nay, I mean,

  Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle,

  To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters,

  Young giants, as our philosophers have done –

  The ancient patriarchs, afore the flood –

 
But taking, once a week, on a knife’s point,

  60 The quantity of a grain of mustard of it;

  Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids.

  SURLY: The decayed vestals of Pickt-hatch would thank you,

  That keep the fire alive there.

  MAMMON: ’Tis the secret

  Of nature naturized ’gainst all infections,

  Cures all diseases coming of all causes;

  A month’s grief in a day, a year’s in twelve;

  And, of what age soever, in a month,

  Past all the doses of your drugging doctors.

  I’ll undertake, withal, to fright the plague

  70 Out o’ the kingdom in three months.

  SURLY: And I’ll

  Be bound, the players shall sing your praises then,

  Without their poets.

  MAMMON: Sir, I’ll do ’t. Meantime,

  I’ll give away so much unto my man,

  Shall serve th’ whole City with preservative

  Weekly; each house his dose, and at the rate –

  SURLY: As he that built the water-work does with water?

  MAMMON: You are incredulous.

  SURLY: Faith, I have a humour,

  I would not willingly be gulled. Your Stone

  Cannot transmute me.

  MAMMON: Pertinax, my Surly,

  80 Will you believe antiquity? records?

  I’ll show you a book where Moses, and his sister,

  And Solomon have written of the art;

  Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam –

  SURLY: How!

  MAMMON: O’ the Philosopher’s Stone, and in High Dutch.

  SURLY: Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch?

  MAMMON: He Did;

  Which proves it was the primitive tongue.

  SURLY: What paper?

  MAMMON: On cedar board.

  SURLY: O that, indeed, they say,

  Will last ’gainst worms.

  MAMMON: ’Tis like your Irish wood

  ’Gainst cobwebs. I have a piece of Jason’s fleece, too,

  90 Which was no other than a book of alchemy,

  Writ in large sheepskin, a good fat ram-vellum.

  Such was Pythagoras’ thigh, Pandora’s tub,

  And all that fable of Medea’s charms,

  The manner of our work: the bulls, our furnace,

  Still breathing fire; our argent-vive the dragon;

  The dragon’s teeth, mercury sublimate,

  That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting;

  And they are gathered into Jason’s helm,

  Th’ alembic, and then sowed in Mars’s field,

  100 And thence sublimed so often, till they’ re fixed.

  Both this, th’ Hesperian garden, Cadmus’ story,

  Jove’s shower, the boon of Midas, Argus’ eyes,

  Boccace’s Demogorgon, thousands more,

  All abstract riddles of our Stone.

  II, ii [SCENE TWO]

  [FACE, disguised as SUBTLE’S servant, LUNGS or ULEN SPIEGEL, admits them into the house.]

  [MAMMON:] – How now!

  Do we succeed? Is our day come? And holds it?

  FACE: The evening will set red upon you, sir;

  You have colour for it, crimson; the red ferment

  Has done his office; three hours hence prepare you

  To see projection.

  MAMMON: Pertinax, my Surly,

  Again I say to thee, aloud, ‘Be rich!’

  This day thou shalt have ingots, and tomorrow

  Give lords th’ auffront. - Is it, my Zephyrus, right?

  Blushes the bolt’s head?

  FACE: Like a wench with child, sir,

  10 That were but now discovered to her master.

  MAMMON: Excellent, witty Lungs! – My only care is

  Where to get stuff enough now, to project on;

  This town will not half serve me.

  FACE: No, sir? Buy

  The covering off o’ churches.

  MAMMON: That’s true.

  FACE: Yes.

  Let ’em stand bare, as do their auditory,

  Or cap ’em new with shingles.

  MAMMON: No, good thatch –

  Thatch will lie light upo’ the rafters, Lungs.

  Lungs, I will manumit thee from the furnace;

  I will restore thee thy complexion, Puff,

  20 Lost in the embers; and repair this brain,

  Hurt wi’ the fume o’ the metals.

  FACE: I have blown, sir,

  Hard, for your worship; thrown by many a coal,

  When ’t was not beech; weighed those I put in, just,

  To keep your heat still even. These bleared eyes

  Have waked to read your several colours, sir,

  Of the pale citron, the green lion, the crow,

  The peacock’s tail, the plumèd swan.

  MAMMON: And lastly,

  Thou hast descried the flower, the sanguis agni?

  FACE: Yes, sir.

  MAMMON: Where’s Master?

  FACE: At’s prayers, sir, he;

  30 Good man, he’s doing his devotions

  For the success.

  MAMMON: Lungs, I will set a period

  To all thy labours; thou shalt be the master

  Of my seraglio.

  FACE: Good, sir.

  MAMMON: But do you hear?

  I’ll geld you, Lungs.

  FACE: Yes, sir.

  MAMMON: For I do mean

  To have a list of wives and concubines

  Equal with Solomon, who had the Stone

  Alike with me; and I will make me a back

  With the elixir, that shall be as tough

  As Hercules, to encounter fifty a night. –

  Th’ art sure thou saw’st it blood?

  40 FACE: Both blood and siprit, sir.

  MAMMON: I will have all my beds blown up, not stuffed.

  Down is too hard; and then, mine oval room

  Filled with such pictures as Tiberius took

  From Elephantis, and dull Aretine

  But coldly imitated. Then, my glasses

  Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse

  And multiply the figures, as I walk

  Naked between my succubae. My mists

  I’ll have of perfume, vapoured ’ bout the room,

  50 To lose our selves in; and my baths, like pits

  To fall into, from whence we will come forth,

  And roll us dry in gossamer and roses. –

  Is it arrived at ruby? – Where I spy

  A wealthy citizen, or rich lawyer,

  Have a sublimed, pure wife, unto that fellow

  I’ll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold.

  FACE: And I shall carry it?

  MAMMON: No, I’ll ha’ no bawds

  But fathers and mothers – they will do it best,

  Best of all others. And my flatterers

  60 Shall be the pure and gravest of divines

  That I can get for money. My mere fools

  Eloquent burgesses, and then my poets

  The same that writ so subtly of the fart,

  Whom I will entertain still for that subject.

  The few that would give out themselves to be

  Court- and town-stallions and each-where bely

  Ladies who are known most innocent, for them,

  These will I beg, to make me eunuchs of,

  And they shall fan me with ten estrich tails

  70 Apiece, made in a plume to gather wind.

  We will be brave, Puff, now we ha’ the med’ cine.

  My meat shall all come in, in Indian shells,

  Dishes of agate set in gold, and studded

  With emeralds, sapphires, hyacinths, and rubies.

  The tongues of carps, dormice, and camels’ heels,

  Boiled i’ the spirit of Sol, and dissolved pearl

  (Apicius’ diet, ’ gainst the epilepsy);

  And I will eat these brot
hs with spoons of amber,

  Headed with diamond and carbuncle.

  80 My foot-boy shall eat pheasants, calvered salmons,

  Knots, godwits, lampreys. I myself will have

  The beards of barbels served instead of salads;

  Oiled mushrooms; and the swelling unctuous paps

  Of a fat pregnant sow, newly cut off,

  Dressed with an exquisite and poignant sauce;

  For which, I’ll say unto my cook, ‘There’s gold;

  Go forth, and be a knight!’

  FACE: Sir, I’ll go look

  A little, how it heightens.

  [Exit.]

  MAMMON: Do. – My shirts

  I’ll have of taffeta-sarsnet, soft and light

  90 As cobwebs; and for all my other raiment,

  It shall be such as might provoke the Persian,

  Were he to teach the world riot anew.

  My gloves of fishes’ and birds’ skins, perfumed

  With gums of paradise, and Eastern air –

  SURLY: And do you think to have the Stone with this?

  MAMMON: No, I do think t’ have all this with the Stone.

  SURLY: Why, I have heard he must be homo frugi,

  A pious, holy, and religious man,

  One free from mortal sin, a very virgin.

  100 MAMMON: That makes it, sir; he is so. But I buy it;

  My venture brings it me. He, honest wretch,

  A notable, superstitious, good soul,

  Has worn his knees bare and his slippers bald

  With prayer and fasting for it. And, sir, let him

  Do it alone, for me, still. Here he comes.

  Not a profane word afore him; ’tis poison –

  II, iii [Enter SUBTLE.]

  MAMMON: Good morrow, father.

  SUBTLE: Gentle son, good morrow,

  And to your friend there. What is he is with you?

  MAMMON: An heretic, that I did bring along,

  In hope, sir, to convert him.

  SUBTLE: Son, I doubt

  You’ re covetous, that thus you meet your time

  I’ the just point; prevent your day at morning.

  This argues something worthy of a fear

  Of importune and carnal appetite.

  Take heed you do not cause the blessing leave you,

  10 With your ungoverned haste. I should be sorry

  To see my labours, now e’ en at perfection,

  Got by long watching and large patience,

  Not prosper where my love and zeal hath placed ’em:

  Which (Heaven I call to witness, with your self,

  To whom I have poured my thoughts) in all my ends,

  Have looked no way, but unto public good,

  To pious uses, and dear charity,

  Now grown a prodigy with men. Wherein

  If you, my son, should now prevaricate,

  20 And to your own particular lusts employ