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S UBTLE. [ Enter] A NANIAS 1
Where is my drudge? [Aloud.] | |
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[Enter] FACE
FACE. Sir! | |
| SUB. Take away the recipient, | |
| And rectify your menstrue from the phlegma. | 4 |
| Then pour it on the Sol, in the cucurbite, | |
| And let them macerate together. | |
| FACE. Yes, sir. | |
| And save the ground? | 8 |
| SUB. No: terra damnata | |
| Must not have entrance in the work.—Who are you? | |
| ANA. A faithful brother, 2 if it please you. | |
| SUB. What’s that? | 12 |
| A Lullianist? a Ripley? 3 Filius artis? | |
| Can you sublime and dulcify? Calcine? | |
| Know you the sapor pontic? Sapor stiptic? | |
| Or what is homogene, or heterogene? | 16 |
| ANA. I understand no heathen language, truly. | |
| SUB. Heathen! You Knipper-doling? 4 Is Ars sacra, | |
| Or chrysopœia, or spagyrica, | |
| Or the pamphysic, or panarchic knowledge, | 20 |
| A heathen language? | |
| ANA. Heathen Greek, I take it. | |
| SUB. How! Heathen Greek? | |
| ANA. All’s heathen but the Hebrew. | 24 |
| SUB. Sirrah my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him | |
| Like a philosopher: answer i’ the language. | |
| Name the vexations, and the martyrizations | |
| Of metals in the work. | 28 |
| FACE. Sir, putrefaction, | |
| Solution, ablution, sublimation, | |
| Cohobation, calcination, ceration, and | |
| Fixation. | 32 |
| SUB. This is heathen Greek, to you, now!— | |
| And when comes vivification? | |
| FACE. After mortification. | |
| SUB. What’s cohobation? | 36 |
| FACE. ’Tis the pouring on | |
| Your aqua regis, and then drawing him off, | |
| To the trine circle of the seven spheres. | |
| SUB. What’s the proper passion of metals? | 40 |
| FACE. Malleation. | |
| SUB. What’s your ultimum supplicium auri? | |
| FACE. Antimonium. | |
| SUB. This is heathen Greek to you!—And what’s your mercury? | 44 |
| FACE. A very fugitive, he will be gone, sir. | |
| SUB. How know you him? | |
| FACE. By his viscosity, | |
| His oleosity, and his suscitability. | 48 |
| SUB. How do you sublime him? | |
| FACE. With the calce of egg-shells, | |
| White marble, talc. | |
| SUB. Your magisterium now, | 52 |
| What’s that? | |
| FACE. Shifting, sir, your elements, | |
| Dry into cold, cold into moist, moist into hot, | |
| Hot into dry. | 56 |
| SUB. This is heathen Greek to you still! | |
| Your lapis philosophicus? | |
| FACE. ’Tis a stone, | |
| And not a stone; a spirit, a soul, and a body: | 60 |
| Which if you do dissolve, it is dissolv’d; | |
| If you coagulate, it is coagulated; | |
| If you make it to fly, it flieth. | |
| SUB. Enough. [Exit FACE.] | 64 |
| This is heathen Greek to you! What are you, sir? | |
| ANA. Please you, a servant of the exil’d brethren, | |
| That deal with widows’ and with orphans’ goods, | |
| And make a just account unto the saints: | 68 |
| A deacon. | |
| SUB. O, you are sent from Master Wholesome, | |
| Your teacher? | |
| ANA. From Tribulation Wholesome, | 72 |
| Our very zealous pastor. | |
| SUB. Good! I have | |
| Some orphans’ goods to come here. | |
| ANA. Of what kind, sir? | 76 |
| SUB. Pewter and brass, andirons and kitchen-ware. | |
| Metals, that we must use our med’cine on: | |
| Wherein the brethren may have a penn’orth | |
| For ready money. | 80 |
| ANA. Were the orphans’ parents | |
| Sincere professors? | |
| SUB. Why do you ask? | |
| ANA. Because | 84 |
| We then are to deal justly, and give, in truth, | |
| Their utmost value. | |
| SUB. ’Slid, you’d cozen else, | |
| An if their parents were not of the faithful!— | 88 |
| I will not trust you, now I think on it, | |
| Till I ha’ talk’d with your pastor. Ha’ you brought money | |
| To buy more coals? | |
| ANA. No, surely. | 92 |
| SUB. No? How so? | |
| ANA. The brethren bid me say unto you, sir, | |
| Surely, they will not venture any more | |
| Till they may see projection. | 96 |
| SUB. How! | |
| ANA. You’ve had | |
| For the instruments, as bricks, and lome, and glasses, | |
| Already thirty pound; and for materials, | 100 |
| They say, some ninety more: and they have heard since, | |
| That one, at Heidelberg, made it of an egg, | |
| And a small paper of pin-dust. | |
| SUB. What’s your name? | 104 |
| ANA. My name is Ananias. | |
| SUB. Out, the varlet | |
| That cozen’d the apostles! Hence, away! | |
| Flee, mischief! had your holy consistory | 108 |
| No name to send me, of another sound, | |
| Than wicked Ananias? Send your elders | |
| Hither, to make atonement for you, quickly, | |
| And give me satisfaction; or out goes | 112 |
| The fire; and down th’ alembecs, and the furnace, | |
| Piger Henricus, or what not. Thou wretch! | |
| Both sericon and bufo shall be lost, | |
| Tell them. All hope of rooting out the bishops, | 116 |
| Or th’ anti-Christian hierarchy shall perish, | |
| If they stay threescore minutes: the aqueity, | |
| Terreity, and sulphureity | |
| Shall run together again, and all be annull’d, | 120 |
| Thou wicked Ananias! [Exit ANANIAS.] This will fetch ’em, | |
| And make ’em haste towards their gulling more. | |
| A man must deal like a rough nurse, and fright | |
| Those that are froward, to an appetite. | 124 |
