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 carcasses and dung of creatures;
Yea, scorpions, of an herb, being ritely 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, then 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 o' your writers grees with other?
Of your elixir, your lac virginis,
Your stone, your medicine, and your chrysosperm,
Your sal, your sulphur, and your mercury,
Your oil of height, your tree of life, your blood,
Your marcasite, your tutty, 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 piss, and egg-shells, women's terms, man's blood,
Hair o' the head, burnt clouts, chalk, merds, and clay,
Powder of bones, scalings of iron, glass,
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 Egyptians 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,
Wrapped in perplexed allegories?
MAM.
I urged that,
And cleared to him, that Sisyphus was damned
To roll the ceaseless stone only because
He would have made ours common.
(Dol is seen)
Who is this?
SUB.
God's precious – What do you mean? Go in, good lady,
Let me entreat you.
[She retires]
Where's this varlet?
[Enter Face]
FAC.
Sir?
SUB.
You very knave! Do you use me, thus?
FAC.
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 distempered. Who is't?
SUB.
All arts have still had, sir, their adversaries,
But ours the most ignorant.
(Face returns)
What now?
FAC.
'Twas not my fault, sir, she would speak with you.
SUB.
Would she, sir? Follow me.
[Exit]
MAM.
Stay, Lungs.
FAC.
I dare not, sir.
MAM.
Stay man, what is she?
FAC.
A lord's sister, sir.
MAM.
How! 'Pray thee stay?
FAC.
She's mad, sir, and sent hither –
(He'll be mad too.
MAM.
I warrant thee.) Why sent hither?
FAC.
Sir, to be cured.
SUB [Within]
Why, rascal!
FAC.
Lo you. Here, sir.
(He goes out)
MAM.
'Fore God, a Bradamante, a brave piece.
SUR.
Heart, this is a bawdy house! I'll be burnt else.
MAM.
Oh, 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.
How now, Lungs!
(Face again)
FAC.
Softly, sir, speak softly. I meant
To ha' told your worship all. This must not hear.
MAM.
No, he will not be gulled; let him alone.
FAC.
You're 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.
MAM.
How might one do to have conference with her, Lungs?
FAC.
Oh, divers have run mad upon the conference.
I do not know, sir: I am sent in haste,
To fetch a vial.
SUR.
Be not gulled, Sir Mammon.
MAM.
Wherein? 'Pray ye, be patient.
SUR.
Yes, as you are.
And trust confederate knaves, and bawds, and whores.
MAM.
You are too foul, believe it. Come, here, Ulen.
One word.
FAC.
I dare not, in good faith.
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