The Alchemist. A Comedy
Jonson, Ben
The Alchemist. A Comedy
Ben Jonson
The Alchemist
A Comedy
To the Lady, most Deserving Her Name, and Blood:
Mary, La[dy] Wroth
Madam,
In the age of sacrifices, the truth of religion was not in the greatness and fat of the offerings, but in the devotion and zeal of the sacrificers: else, what could a handful of gums have done in the sight of a hecatomb? Or how might I appear at this altar, except with those affections that no less love the light and witness than they have the conscience of your virtue? If what I offer bear an acceptable odour, and hold the first strength, it is your value of it, which remembers, where, when, and to whom it was kindled. Otherwise, as the times are, there comes rarely forth that thing, so full of authority or example, but by assiduity and custom grows less, and loses. This yet safe in your judgement (which is a Sidney's) is forbidden to speak more; lest it talk or look like one of the ambitious Faces of the time: who, the more they paint, are the less themselves.
Your La[dyship's] true honourer,
Ben. Jonson.
To the Reader
If thou beest more, thou art an Understander, and then I trust thee. If thou art one that tak'st up, and but a Pretender, beware at what hands thou receiv'st thy commodity; for thou wert never more fair in the way to be cozened (than in this Age) in Poetry, especially in Plays: wherein now the concupiscence of dances and antics so reigneth, as to run away from Nature and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose and place do I name Art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgement. For they commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers; who if they come in robustuously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows: when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not, but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may sometime happen on something that is good and great; but very seldom. And when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill. It sticks out perhaps and is more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about it: as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. I speak not this out of a hope to do good on any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more suffrages: because the most favour common errors. But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those that (to gain the opinion of copy) utter all they can, however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskilful to think rude things greater than polished: or scattered more numerous than composed.
The Persons of the Play
Subtle, the alchemist
Face, the housekeeper
Dol Common, their colleague
Dapper, a clerk
Abel Drugger, a tobacco-man
Lovewit, master of the house
Epicure Mammon, a knight
Surly, a gamester
Tribulation Wholesome, a pastor of Amsterdam
Ananias, a deacon there
Kastril, the angry boy
Dame Pliant, his sister, a widow
Neighbours
Officers
Mutes
The Scene
London
The Alchemist
The Argument
The sickness hot, a master quit, for fear,
H is house in town: and left one servant there.
E ase him corrupted, and gave means to know
A cheater and his punk; who, now brought low,
L eaving their narrow practice, were become
C ozeners at large: and only wanting some
H ouse to set up, with him they here contract,
E each for a share, and all begin to act.
M uch company they draw, and much abuse,
I n casting figures, telling fortunes, news,
S elling of flies, flat bawdry, with the stone:
T ill it, and they, and all in fume are gone.
Prologue
Fortune, that favours fools, these two short hours
We wish away; both for your sakes, and ours,
Judging spectators: and desire in place
To the author justice, to ourselves but grace.
Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known
No country's mirth is better than our own.
No clime breeds better matter, for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now called humours, feed the stage:
And which have still been subject for the rage
Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen
Did never aim to grieve, but better men;
Howe'er the age he lives in doth endure
The vices that she breeds, above their cure.
But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And in their working, gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseased,
But will, with such fair correctives, be pleased.
For here, he doth not fear, who can apply.
If there be any, that will sit so nigh
Unto the stream, to look what it doth run,
They shall find things they'd think, or wish, were done;
They are so natural follies, but so shown,
As even the doers may see, and yet not own.
Act I
Scene 1
[Lovewit's house and the lane outside]
Enter Face [with a sword], Subtle [with a phial], Dol Common
FAC.
Believe't, I will.
SUB.
Thy worst. I fart at thee.
DOL.
Ha' you your wits? Why gentlemen! For love –
FAC.
Sirrah, I'll strip you –
SUB.
What to do? Lick figs
Out at my –
FAC.
Rogue, rogue, out of all your sleights.
DOL.
Nay, look ye! Sovereign, General, are you madmen?
SUB.
Oh, let the wild sheep loose. I'll gum your silks
With good strong water, an' you come.
DOL.
Will you have
The neighbours hear you? Will you betray all?
Hark, I hear somebody.
FAC.
Sirrah –
SUB.
I shall mar
All that the tailor has made, if you approach.
FAC.
You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave,
Dare you do this?
SUB.
Yes faith, yes faith.
FAC.
Why! Who
Am I, my mongrel? Who am I?
SUB.
I'll tell you,
Since you know not yourself –
FAC.
Speak lower, rogue.
SUB.
Yes. You were once (time's not long past) the good,
Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum; that kept
Your master's worship's house, here, in the Friars,
For the vacations –
FAC.
Will you be so loud?
SUB.
Since, by my means, translated suburb-captain.
FAC.
By your means, Doctor dog?
SUB.
Within man's memory,
All this, I speak of.
FAC.
Why, I pray you, have I
Been countenanced by you? Or you, by me?
Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
SUB.
I do not hear well.
FAC.
Not of this, I think it.
But I shall put you in mind, sir, at Pie Corner,
Taking your meal of steam in, from cooks' stalls,
Where, like the father of hunger, you did walk
Piteously costive, with your pinched-horn-nose,
And your complexion, of the Roman wash,
Stuck full of black and melancholic worms,
Like powder-corns, shot, at the artillery yard.
SUB.
I wish you could advance your voice a little.
FAC.
When you went pinned up in the several rags
You'd raked and picked from dunghills, before day,
Your feet in mouldy slippers, for your kibes,
A felt of rug, and a thin threaden cloak,
That scarce would cover your no-buttocks –
SUB.
So, sir!
FAC.
When all your alchemy, and your algebra,
Your minerals, vegetals, and animals,
Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades,
Could not relieve your corpse, with so much linen
Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
I ga' you countenance, credit for your coals,
Your stills, your glasses, your materials,
Built you a furnace, drew you customers,
Advanced all your black arts; lent you, beside,
A house to practise in –
SUB.
Your master's house?
FAC.
Where you have studied the more thriving skill
Of bawdry, since.
SUB.
Yes, in your master's house.
You, and the rats, here, kept possession.
Make it not strange. I know, yo'were one could keep
The buttery-hatch still locked, and save the chippings,
Sell the dole-beer to aqua-vitae-men,
The which, together with your Christmas vails,
At post and pair, your letting out of counters,
Made you a pretty stock, some twenty marks,
And gave you credit to converse with cobwebs,
Here, since your mistress's death hath broke up house.
FAC.
You might talk softlier, rascal.
SUB.
No, you scarab,
I'll thunder you in pieces. I will teach you
How to beware to tempt a fury again
That carries tempest in his hand and voice.
FAC.
The place has made you valiant.
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