The Alchemist

’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 I

A room in Lovewit’s house.

Face	Believ’t, I will.
Subtle	Thy worst. I fart at thee.
Dol Common	Have you your wits? Why, gentlemen! For love⁠—
Face	Sirrah, I’ll strip you⁠—
Subtle	What to do? Lick figs Out at my⁠—
Face	Rogue, rogue!⁠—out of all your sleights.
Dol Common	Nay, look ye, sovereign, general, are you madmen?
Subtle	O, let the wild sheep loose. I’ll gum your silks With good strong water, an you come.
Dol Common	Will you have The neighbours hear you? Will you betray all? Hark! I hear somebody.
Face	Sirrah⁠—
Subtle	I shall mar All that the tailor has made, if you approach.
Face	You most notorious whelp, you insolent slave, Dare you do this?
Subtle	Yes, faith; yes, faith.
Face	Why, who Am I, my mongrel? Who am I?
Subtle	I’ll tell you, Since you know not yourself.
Face	Speak lower, rogue.
Subtle	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—
Face	Will you be so loud?
Subtle	Since, by my means, translated Suburb-Captain.
Face	By your means, Doctor Dog!
Subtle	Within man’s memory, All this I speak of.
Face	Why, I pray you, have I Been countenanced by you, or you by me? Do but collect, sir, where I met you first.
Subtle	I do not hear well.
Face	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.
Subtle	I wish you could advance your voice a little.
Face	When 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 buttocks⁠—
Subtle	So, sir!
Face	When 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 in⁠—
Subtle	Your master’s house!
Face	Where you have studied the more thriving skill Of bawdry since.
Subtle	Yes, in your master’s 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 mistress’ death hath broke up house.
Face	You might talk softlier, rascal.
Subtle	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.
Face	The place has made you valiant.
Subtle	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? 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 philosopher’s 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?
Dol Common	Gentlemen, what mean you? Will you mar all?
Subtle	Slave, thou hadst had no name⁠—
Dol Common	Will you undo yourselves with civil war?
Subtle	Never been known, past equi clibanum, The heat of horse-dung, under ground, in cellars, Or an alehouse darker than deaf John’s; been lost To all mankind, but laundresses and tapsters, Had not I been.
Dol Common	Do you know who hears you, Sovereign?
Face	Sirrah⁠—
Dol Common	Nay, General, I thought you were civil.
Face	I shall turn desperate, if you grow thus loud.
Subtle	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 Common	O, this will o’erthrow all.
Face	Write thee up bawd in Paul’s, 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 Ratsey’s.
Dol Common	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.
Subtle	Away, you trencher-rascal!
Face	Out, you dog-leech! The vomit of all prisons⁠—
Dol Common	Will you be Your own destructions, gentlemen?
Face	Still spewed out For lying too heavy on the