The Alchemist (3 of 46)

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ACT 1. SCENE 1.1. (CONT'D)


SUB. No, your clothes. --
Thou vermin, have I ta'en thee out of dung,
So poor, so wretched, when no living thing
Would keep thee company, but a spider, or worse?
Rais'd thee from brooms, and dust, and watering-pots,
Sublimed thee, and exalted thee, and fix'd thee
In the third region, call'd our state of grace?
Wrought thee to spirit, to quintessence, with pains
Would twice have won me the philosopher's work?
Put thee in words and fashion, made thee fit
For more than ordinary fellowships?
Giv'n 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?

DOL. Gentlemen, what mean you?
Will you mar all?

SUB. Slave, thou hadst had no name --

DOL. Will you undo yourselves with civil war?

SUB. Never been known, past equi clibanum,
The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars,
Or an ale-house darker than deaf John's; been lost
To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters,
Had not I been.

DOL. Do you know who hears you, sovereign?

FACE. Sirrah --

DOL. Nay, general, I thought you were civil.

FACE. I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.

SUB. And hang thyself, I care not.

FACE. Hang thee, collier,
And all thy pots, and pans, in picture, I will,
Since thou hast moved me --

DOL. O, this will o'erthrow all.

FACE. Write thee up bawd in Paul's, have all thy tricks
Of cozening with a hollow cole, 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 Ratsey's.

DOL. Are you sound?
Have you your senses, masters?

FACE. I will have
A book, but barely reckoning thy impostures,
Shall prove a true philosopher's stone to printers.

SUB. Away, you trencher-rascal!

FACE. Out, you dog-leech!
The vomit of all prisons --

DOL. Will you be
Your own destructions, gentlemen?

FACE. Still spew'd out
For lying too heavy on the basket.

SUB. Cheater!

FACE. Bawd!

SUB. Cow-herd!

FACE. Conjurer!

SUB. Cut-purse!

FACE. Witch!

DOL. O me!
We are ruin'd, lost! have you no more regard
To your reputations? where's your judgment? 'slight,
Have yet some care of me, of your republic --

FACE. Away, this brach! I'll bring thee, rogue, within
The statute of sorcery, tricesimo tertio
Of Harry the Eighth: ay, and perhaps thy neck
Within a noose, for laundring gold and barbing it.

DOL [SNATCHES FACE'S SWORD]. You'll bring your head within
a cockscomb, will you?
And you, sir, with your menstrue --
[DASHES SUBTLE'S VIAL OUT OF HIS HAND.]
Gather it up. --
'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,
Leave off your barking, and grow one again,
Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.
I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal,
For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.
Have you together cozen'd all this while,
And all the world, and shall it now be said,
You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?
[TO FACE.]
You will accuse him! you will "bring him in
Within the statute!" Who shall take your word?
A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,
Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust
So much as for a feather:
[TO SUBTLE.]
and you, too,
Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult,
And claim a primacy in the divisions!
You must be chief! as if you only had
The powder to project with, and the work
Were not begun out of equality?
The venture tripartite? all things in common?
Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs,
Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,
And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,
And lose not the beginning of a term,
Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,
And take my part, and quit you.

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