The Alchemist Ben Jonson (different e readers TXT) đ
- Author: Ben Jonson
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No countryâs 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;
Howeâer 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, theyâd 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 I
A room in Lovewitâs house.
FaceBelievât, I will.
SubtleThy worst. I fart at thee.
Dol CommonHave you your wits? Why, gentlemen! For loveâ â
FaceSirrah, Iâll strip youâ â
SubtleWhat to do? Lick figs
Out at myâ â
Rogue, rogue!â âout of all your sleights.
Dol CommonNay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?
SubtleO, let the wild sheep loose. Iâll gum your silks
With good strong water, an you come.
Will you have
The neighbours hear you? Will you betray all?
Hark! I hear somebody.
Sirrahâ â
SubtleI shall mar
All that the tailor has made, if you approach.
You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave,
Dare you do this?
Yes, faith; yes, faith.
FaceWhy, who
Am I, my mongrel? Who am I?
Iâll tell you,
Since you know not yourself.
Speak lower, rogue.
SubtleYes, you were once (timeâs not long past) the good,
Honest, plain, livery-three-pound-thrum, that kept
Your masterâs worshipâs house here in the Friars,
For the vacationsâ â
Will you be so loud?
SubtleSince, by my means, translated Suburb-Captain.
FaceBy your means, Doctor Dog!
SubtleWithin manâs memory,
All this I speak of.
Why, I pray you, have I
Been countenanced by you, or you by me?
Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
I do not hear well.
FaceNot of this, I think it.
But I shall put you in mind, sir;â âat Pie-corner,
Taking your meal of steam in, from cooksâ 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.
I wish you could advance your voice a little.
FaceWhen you went pinned up in the several rags
You had 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 buttocksâ â
So, sir!
FaceWhen all your alchemy, and your algebra,
Your minerals, vegetals, and animals,
Your conjuring, cozening, and your dozen of trades,
Could not relieve your corps with so much linen
Would make you tinder, but to see a fire;
I gave 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 inâ â
Your masterâs house!
FaceWhere you have studied the more thriving skill
Of bawdry since.
Yes, in your masterâs house.
You and the rats here kept possession.
Make it not strange. I know you 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 mistressâ death hath broke up house.
You might talk softlier, rascal.
SubtleNo, you scarab,
Iâll thunder you in pieces: I will teach you
How to beware to tempt a Fury again,
That carries tempest in his hand and voice.
The place has made you valiant.
SubtleNo, your clothes.â â
Thou vermin, have I taâen thee out of dung,
So poor, so wretched, when no living thing
Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse?
Raised thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots,
Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fixed thee
In the third region, called our state of grace?
Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
Would twice have won me the philosopherâs work?
Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit
For more than ordinary fellowships?
Given thee thy oaths, thy quarrelling dimensions,
Thy rules to cheat at horse-race, cock-pit, cards,
Dice, or whatever gallant tincture else?
Made thee a second in mine own great art?
And have I this for thanks! Do you rebel,
Do you fly out in the projection?
Would you be gone now?
Gentlemen, what mean you?
Will you mar all?
Slave, thou hadst had no nameâ â
Dol CommonWill you undo yourselves with civil war?
SubtleNever been known, past equi clibanum,
The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars,
Or an alehouse darker than deaf Johnâs; been lost
To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters,
Had not I been.
Do you know who hears you, Sovereign?
FaceSirrahâ â
Dol CommonNay, General, I thought you were civil.
FaceI shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.
SubtleAnd hang thyself, I care not.
FaceHang thee, collier,
And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will,
Since thou hast moved meâ â
O, this will oâerthrow all.
FaceWrite thee up bawd in Paulâs, have all thy tricks
Of cozening with a hollow coal, dust, scrapings,
Searching for things lost, with a sieve and sheers,
Erecting figures in your rows of houses,
And taking in of shadows with a glass,
Told in red letters; and a face cut for thee,
Worse than Gamaliel Ratseyâs.
Are you sound?
Have you your senses, masters?
I will have
A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,
Shall prove a true philosopherâs stone to printers.
Away, you trencher-rascal!
FaceOut, you dog-leech!
The vomit of all prisonsâ â
Will you be
Your own destructions, gentlemen?
Still spewed out
For lying too heavy on the
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