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[ Enter] Sir E PICURE M AMMON and S URLY 1
MAM. Come on, sir. Now you set your foot on shore | |
| In Novo Orbe; 2 here’s the rich Peru: | |
| And there within, sir, are the golden mines, | |
| Great Solomon’s Ophir! He was sailing to’t | 4 |
| Three years, but we have reach’d it in ten months. | |
| This is the day wherein, to all my friends, | |
| I will pronounce the happy word, Be rich; | |
| THIS DAY YOU SHALL BE SPECTATISSIMI. 3 | 8 |
| You shall no more deal with the hollow die, | |
| Or the frail card. No more be at charge of keeping | |
| The livery-punk 4 for the young heir, that must | |
| Seal, at all hours, in his shirt: no more, | 12 |
| If he deny, ha’ him beaten to’t, as he is | |
| That brings him the commodity. No more | |
| Shall thirst of satin, or the covetous hunger | |
| Of velvet entrails 5 for a rude-spun cloak, | 16 |
| To be display’d at Madam Augusta’s, make | |
| The sons of Sword and Hazard fall before | |
| The golden calf, and on their knees, whole nights, | |
| Commit idolatry with wine and trumpets: | 20 |
| Or go a feasting after drum and ensign. | |
| No more of this. You shall start up young viceroys. | |
| And unto thee I speak it first, BE RICH. | |
| Where is my Subtle, there? Within, ho! | 24 |
| [FACE, within.] Sir, | |
| He’ll come to you by and by. | |
| MAM. That is his fire-drake, 6 | |
| His Lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals, | 28 |
| Till he firk 7 nature up, in her own centre. | |
| You are not faithful, 8 sir. This night I’ll change | |
| All that is metal in my house to gold: | |
| And, early in the morning, will I send | 32 |
| To all the plumbers and the pewterers, | |
| And by their tin and lead up; and to Lothbury | |
| For all the copper. | |
| SUR. What, and turn that, too? | 36 |
| MAM. Yes, and I’ll purchase Devonshire and Cornwall, | |
| And make them perfect Indies! You admire now? | |
| SUR. No, faith. | |
| MAM. But when you see th’ effects of the Great Med’cine, | 40 |
| Of which one part projected on a hundred | |
| Of Mercury, or Venus, or the moon, | |
| Shall turn it to as many of the sun; 9 | |
| Nay, to a thousand, so ad infinitum: | 44 |
| You will believe me. | |
| SUR. Yes, when I see’t, I will. | |
| But if my eyes do cozen me so, and I | |
| Giving them no occasion, sure I’ll have | 48 |
| Them out next day. | |
| MAM. Ha! Why? | |
| Do you think I fable with you? I assure you, | |
| He that has once the flower of the sun, | 52 |
| The perfect ruby, which we call elixir, | |
| Not only can do that, but by its virtue, | |
| Can confer honour, love, respect, long life; | |
| Give safety, valour, yea, and victory, | 56 |
| To whom he will. In eight and twenty days, | |
| I’ll make an old man of fourscore, a child. | |
| SUR. No doubt; he’s that already. | |
| MAM. Nay, I mean, | 60 |
| Restore his years, renew him, like an eagle, | |
| To the fifth age; make him get sons and daughters, | |
| Young giants; as our philosophers have done, | |
| The ancient partriarchs, afore the flood, | 64 |
| But taking, once a week, on a knife’s point, | |
| The quantity of a grain of mustard of it; | |
| Become stout Marses, and beget young Cupids. | |
| SUR. The decay’d vestals of Pickt-hatch 10 would thank you, | 68 |
| That keep the fire alive there. | |
| MAM. ’Tis the secret | |
| Of nature naturiz’d ’gainst all infections, | |
| Cures all diseases coming of all causes; | 72 |
| A month’s grief in a day, a year’s in twelve; | |
| And, of what age soever, in a month: | |
| Past all the doses of your drugging doctors. | |
| I’ll undertake, withal, to fright the plague | 76 |
| Out o’ the kingdom in three months. | |
| SUR. And I’ll | |
| Be bound, the players shall sing your praises then, | |
| Without their poets. 11 | 80 |
| MAM. Sir, I’ll do’t. Meantime, | |
| I’ll give away so much unto my man, | |
| Shall serve th’ whole city with preservative | |
| Weekly; each house his dose, and at the rate—— | 84 |
| SUR. As he that built the Water-work does with water? | |
| MAM. You are incredulous. | |
| SUR. Faith, I have a humour, | |
| I would not willingly be gull’d. 12 Your stone | 88 |
| Cannot transmute me. | |
| MAM. Pertinax Surly, | |
| Will you believe antiquity? Records? | |
| I’ll show you a book where Moses, and his sister, | 92 |
| And Solomon have written of the art; | |
| Ay, and a treatise penn’d by Adam—— | |
| SUR. How! | |
| MAM. Of the philosopher’s stone, and in High Dutch. | 96 |
| SUR. Did Adam write, sir, in High Dutch? | |
| MAM. He did; | |
| Which proves it was the primitive tongue. | |
| SUR. What paper? | 100 |
| MAM. On cedar board. | |
| SUR. O that, indeed, they say, | |
| Will last ’gainst worms. | |
| MAM. ’Tis like your Irish wood, | 104 |
| ’Gainst cobwebs. I have a piece of Jason’s fleece too, | |
| Which was no other than a book of alchemy, | |
| Writ in large sheepskin, a good fat ram-vellum. | |
| Such was Pythagoras’ thigh, Pandora’s tub, | 108 |
| And all that fable of Medea’s charms, | |
| The manner of our work; the bulls, our furnace, | |
| Still breathing fire; our argent-vive, 13 the dragon: | |
| The dragon’s teeth, mercury sublimate, | 112 |
| That keeps the whiteness, hardness, and the biting; | |
| And they are gather’d into Jason’s helm, | |
| The alembic, and then sow’d in Mars his field, | |
| And thence sublim’d so often, till they’re fix’d. | 116 |
| Both this, th’ Hesperian garden, Cadmus’ story, | |
| Jove’s shower, the boon of Midas, Argus’ eyes, | |
| Boccace his Demogorgon, 14 thousands more, | |
| All abstract riddles of our stone.—How now! | 120 |
