The Alchemist

“Much company they draw, and much abuse,

In casting figures, telling fortunes, new,

Selling of flies, flat bawdry with the stone,

Till it, and they, and all in fume are gone.”

Jonson’s argument is a description of the plot of the play, which includes “abuse,” “telling fortunetelling,” and lewd sex jokes. The key phrase here is “in fume”—the play’s performance is ephemeral, and will disappear in smoke as soon as the run time is done. The image also foreshadows the ending. Within the world of the play, all the wealth supposedly gained over the course of the play will disappear into Lovewit’s pockets, Face will disappear into the persona of Jeremy, and Dol and Subtle will disappear to another town to set up a new con.

“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.”

Jonson wants his play to improve the morals of the audience by enticing them with humorous and relatable characters—a standard claim of satire. “Fair correctives” is advice presented in a pleasant form; Jonson assures the audience that they do not need to fear being berated so long as they can take the play in the comic vein it is meant. Like Lovewit, they should enjoy the cleverness on display rather than getting angry at it. According to this passage, Jonson chooses this method to deliver his message because people are so enamored with vices that the best way to reach them is through those vices.

“DOL: Why, so, my good baboons! Shall we go make

A sort of sober, scurvy, precise neighbours,

That scarce have smiled twice since the king came in,

A feast of laughter at our follies? Rascals,

Would run themselves from breath, to see me ride,

Or you t’have but a hole to thrust your heads in,

For which you should pay ear-rent?”

Dol is less scared of the legal punishments that the three would receive if caught than of being laughed at by Lovewit’s neighbors, who have not been welcoming. The trio loves their mastery of deception and performance more than the profit they generate—a passion confirmed by Subtle’s later annoyance that he won’t get to gull Surly.

“FACE: Why, now, you smoky persecutor of nature!

Now do you see, that something’s to be done;

Beside your beech-coal, and your corsive waters,

Your crosslets, crucibles, and cucurbits?

You must have stuff brought home to you, to work on:

And yet you think, I am at no expense

In searching out these veins, then following them,

Then trying them out. ‘Fore God, my intelligence

Costs me more money, than my share oft comes to,

In these rare works.”

Face explains that his side of the operation is as or more difficult than Subtle’s. Though Subtle seems to do some amount of actual alchemy, Face is the one that brings in clients and convinces them to pay for Subtle’s services. As their names suggest, Subtle’s art is more about atmosphere, while Face is the person addressing clients and figuring out how to tempt them best.

“SUBTLE: Methinks I see him entering ordinaries,

Dispensing for the pox, and plague-houses,

Reaching his dose, walking Moorfields for lepers,

And offering citizens’ wives pomander-bracelets,

As his preservative, made of the elixir;

Searching the spittle, to make old bawds young;

And the highways, for beggars, to make rich.”

Subtle’s presentation of Epicure Mammon is sarcastic. Mammon’s name explains his predilections: Mammon is the term for wealth as an evil influence, while an epicure is a food-obsessed glutton, over-indulging in food and drink. Subtle quips that even Mammon’s good deeds with the philosopher’s stone will only help “citizens’ wives, whom he’s planning to seduce, “bawds,” or those who manage sex workers, and “highway beggars,” or those cast out of society.

“MAMMON: Pertinax, my Surly,

Will you believe antiquity? Records?

I’ll show you a book where Moses and his sister,

And Solomon have written of the art;

Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam—

SURLY: How!

MAMMON: O’ the philosopher’s stone, and in high Dutch.

SURLY: Did Adam write, sir, in high Dutch?

MAMMON: He did; Which proves it was the primitive tongue.

SURLY: What paper?

MAMMON: On cedar board.

SURLY: Oh that, indeed, they say,

Will last ‘gainst worms.”

Mammon firmly believes that the relics in his possession, such as writings from the biblical Adam in Dutch, are legitimate, but Surly is not convinced. His snarky comment about “cedar” being proof “’gainst worms” shows that he does not believe Mammon’s outlandish claims. Obviously, even if the mythical Adam existed, he would not have spoken Dutch, and however protected, a cedar board would not last thousands of years. Mammon’s credulity here explains why he falls for the idea of the philosopher’s stone Subtle has promised him.

“SURLY: But, by attorney, and to a second purpose.

Now, I am sure it is a bawdyhouse;

I’ll swear it, were the marshal here to thank me:

The naming this commander doth confirm it.

Don Face! Why, he’s the most authentic dealer

I’ these commodities, the superintendent

To all the quainter traffickers in town!”

Surly reveals that he is going to alert the marshal about Face, Subtle, and Dol’s schemes. He is ostensibly protecting Mammon, but it is clear that he is also personally invested in the trio’s downfall: He assumes that Dol is a sex worker and that Face oversees some portion of London’s sex work operations. Surly’s conviction that Face is this powerful figure implies that Face may be active in illicit business around town even when Lovewit is at home.

“ANANIAS: You’ve had,

For the instruments, as bricks, and loam, and glasses,

Already thirty pound; and for materials,

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.”

Ananias becomes a threat to the team’s operations when he points out that other alchemists perform tasks more cheaply. The 30 and 90 pound figures show Face’s method of bilking customers as they get farther into the arrangement, taking advantage of the sunk cost fallacy that sends good money after bad. While Anabaptists are becoming aware of the trio’s shadiness, Ananias does not revoke the arrangement, but asks for progress, which Subtle, of course, cannot show.

“TRIBULATION: What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you,

Satan, our common enemy, but his being

Perpetually about the fire, and boiling

Brimstone and arsenic? We must give, I say,

Unto the motives, and the stirrers up

Of humours in the blood. It may be so,

When as the work is done, the stone is made,

This heat of his may turn into a zeal,

And stand up for the beauteous discipline,

Against the menstruous cloth and rage of Rome.”

Wholesome defends Subtle, arguing that professional proximity to fire is also proximity to the devil. He thinks that Subtle’s passion for alchemy can be changed into religious zeal once he sees the Anabaptists’ use of the stone. Unlike Mammon, Wholesome is not interested in the stone for personal pleasure; instead, he is interested in its power to convert people to the Anabaptists’ cause. He specifies that by aligning with the Anabaptists, Subtle will stand against the Roman Catholic Church, linking Wholesome’s motivation to the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics in Jonson’s England.

“TRIBULATION: Aye; but stay,

This act of coining, is it lawful?

ANANIAS: Lawful!

We know no magistrate; or, if we did,

This is foreign coin.

SUBTLE: It is no coining, sir.

It is but casting.”

The first time Ananias and Subtle agree is when Ananias claims that the Anabaptists do not need to answer to the law and that it is legal to counterfeit foreign coins. Subtle counters that minting foreign money is not even counterfeiting. Here, Ananias’s vice is revealed: He is greedy enough to commit crimes to further the Anabaptist cause of swelling their ranks, while Wholesome is only willing to verbally acquiesce with perceived immoral people for the same purpose.

“MAMMON There is a strange nobility I’ your eye,

This lip, that chin! Methinks you do resemble

One o’ the Austriac princes.”

FACE [aside]: Very like!

Her father was an Irish costermonger.

MAMMON: The house of Valois just had such a nose,

And such a forehead yet the Medici

Of Florence boast.

DOL COMMON: Troth, and I have been likened

To all these princes.”

This passage confirms that Face’s customers ultimately see what they want to see in Face’s salesmanship, Subtle’s magic, and Dol’s appearance. Face’s interjection to the audience reminds them that Dol is just a “common” woman, as her name suggests. Mammon, however, can see noble features in her because he has deluded himself with dreams of marrying a vulnerable member of the nobility, which fits his self-image.

“DAME PLIANT: What is he then, sir?

SUBTLE: Let me see your hand.

Oh, your linea Firtunae makes it plain;

And stella here in monte Veneris.

But most of all, junctura annularis.

He is a soldier, or a man of art, lady,

But shall have some great honour shortly.

DAME PLIANT: Brother,

He’s a rare man, believe me!”

Immediately, Subtle convinces Pliant that he is able to predict the future. His method relies on promising the customer with something too hard to resist. Face and Subtle know that the widowed Pliant wants to remarry to get out from under her brother’s thumb, so predicting an excellent match to a member of the nobility or similarly high-status man hooks her. Moreover, Subtle uses complex Latin terms to sound impressive and to prevent Pliant or Kastril from fully understanding most of what he says.

“FACE: Mi vida! ‘Slid, Subtle, he puts me in mind o’ the widow.

What dost thou say to draw her to it, ha!

And tell her ‘tis her fortune? All out venture

Now lies upon’t. It is but one man more,

Which of us chance to have her: and beside,

There is no maidenhead to be feared or lost.

What dost thou think on’t, Subtle?”

Face realizes that the widow could be used as a distraction, and his reasoning is a long sex joke that hinges on extreme practicality. Subtle could convince Pliant that it is her destiny to have sex with the Spanish noble; since she has already been married, it’s assumed she’s had sex—“one man more” won’t make her less marriageable or despoil her physically. This reasoning soothes Face and Subtle, both of whom are trying to marry Pliant as well.

“KASTRIL: Aye, I knew that at first,

This match will advance the house of the Kastrils.

SUBTLE: ’Pray God your sister prove but pliant!

KASTRIL: Why,

Her name is so, by her other husband.

SUBTLE: How!

KASTRIL: The widow Pliant. Knew you not that?”

This passage reveals Kastril’s motivation for agreeing to marry off his sister—he is only willing to let go of his control of her money for a match that elevates the Kastril family. The scene’s comedy hinges on Pliant’s name. Subtle’s use of the word “pliant” amazes Kastril—his sister is not only pliant by nature, but by name also.

“MAMMON: Is all lost, Lungs? Will nothing be preserved

Of all our cost?

FACE: Faith, very little, sir;

A peck of coals or so, which is cold comfort, sir.

MAMMON: Oh, my voluptuous mind! I am justly punished.

FACE: And so am I, sir.

MAMMON: Cast from all my hopes—

FACE: Nay, certainties, sir.

MAMMON: By mine own base affections.

SUBTLE: [Seeming to come to himself] Oh, the curst fruits of vice and lust!”

This passage highlights how Mammon is framed as the one responsible for the failure of the stone. When Subtle “comes to himself,” he realizes that the team is no longer responsible for faking some kind of philosopher’s stone, as Mammon has inadvertently given them a way out. When Face notes that Mammon had “certainties” of success instead of only “hopes,” he doubles down on the idea that if Mammon had not tried to sleep with Dol, the philosopher’s stone would have succeeded.

“SURLY: I am a gentleman come here disguised,

Only to find the knaveries of this citadel;

And where I might have wronged your honour, and have not,

I claim some interest in your love. You are,

They say, a widow, rich: and I’m a bachelor,

Worth naught: your fortunes may make me a man,

As mine ha’ preserved you a woman. Think upon it,

And whether I have deserved you or no.”

Surly is transactional as he tries to woo Pliant: He has just refrained from sexually assaulting her, so he expects that she should marry him to repay his “kindness.” He phrases his proposal as a business deal: Pliant is rich, while he has no money; her money would make him a man just as him not raping her has “preserved you a woman.” Modern audiences are suitably horrified by this exchange, which would have come off as menacing and unflattering to Surly in Jonson’s time—but probably less disturbing than today.

“FACE: And what does he owe for lotium?

DRUGGER: Thirty shillings, sir;

And for six syringes.

SURLY: Hydra of villainy!

FACE: Nay, sir, you must quarrel him out o’ the house.

KASTRIL: I will:

Sir, if you get not out o’ doors, you lie;

And you are a pimp.

SURLY: Why, this is madness, sir,

Not valour in you; I must laugh at this.”

Face continues to trick Kastril by involving Drugger in the deception. The easily led Drugger is happy to jump in to insist to Kastril that Surly is deeply indebted. Surly’s comment about a “hydra” refers to a multi-headed beast that grows more heads as each is cut off: He has connected Drugger to Face, Subtle, and Dol as another co-conspirator. Surly tries to get Kastril back on his side by accusing him of not displaying “valour” but instead “madness” by listening to Face—an argument that does not fly with the irascible Kastril.

“ANANIAS: Sir, I know

The Spaniard hates the Brethren, and hath spies

Upon their actions: and that this was one

I make no scruple. But the Holy Synod

Have been in prayer and meditation for it;

And ‘tis revealed no less to them than me,

That casting of money is most lawful.”

Ananias has been duped by Face and Subtle’s accusations against Surly; Ananias believes Surly is a Spanish spy, checking on the affairs of the Anabaptists. Since Ananias still wants to proceed with the counterfeiting of money, though, Subtle tells him that it is too risky to do in their own home. Though Ananias has been a skeptic of Subtle’s magical abilities, he now believes Subtle can be useful in other ways.

“LOVEWIT: What device should he bring forth now?

I love a teeming wit as I love my nourishment:

’Pray God he ha’ not kept such open house,

That he hath sold my hangings, and my bedding!

I left him nothing else. If he have eat ‘em,

A plague o’ the moth, say I! Sure he has got

Some bawdy pictures to call all this ging!

The friar and the nun; or the new motion

Of the knight’s courser covering the parson’s mare;

Or ‘t may be, he has the fleas that run at tilt

Upon a table, or some dog to dance.

When you saw him?”

Contrary to what the audience would likely expect, Lovewit is not upset by Jeremy’s misbehavior—he has not returned to punish the play’s transgressors. Instead, Lovewit is a stand-in for the play’s audience: He appreciates the cleverness required to pull in such a diverse crowd of marks and his only fear is that his own possessions have been harmed. This characterization of Lovewit frames him as an intelligent, easy-going person, and this passage foreshadows a smooth ending for Jeremy/Face.

“FACE: They did pass through the doors then,

Or walls, I assure their eyesights, and their spectacles;

For here, sir, are the keys, and here have been,

In this my pocket, now about twenty days:

And for before, I kept the fort alone there.

But that ‘tis yet not deep i’the afternoon,

I should believe my neighbours had seen double

Through the black pot, and made these apparitions!

For, on my faith to your worship, for these three weeks

And upwards the door has not been opened.”

Face/Jeremy somehow manages to convince Lovewit that the neighbors have hallucinated en masse, and the neighbors believe it, as well, noting that Jeremy is “a very honest fellow” (337). The elaborate nature of the lie, in which Jeremy initially accepts that there were people in the house, then notes they must have come through the walls, elaborately disproves what the neighbors claim. Primarily, however, Face/Jeremy is believable because the neighbors want to believe him.

“LOVEWIT: Come, sir,

You know that I am an indulgent master;

And therefore conceal nothing. What’s your medicine,

To draw so many several sorts of wild fowl?

FACE: Sir, you were wont to affect mirth and wit—

(But here’s no place to talk on ‘t i’ the street.)

Give me but leave to make the best of my fortune,

And only pardon me the abuse of your house:

It’s all I beg. I’ll help you to a widow,

In recompense, that you shall gi’ me thanks for,

’Tis but your putting on a Spanish cloak:

I have her within. You need not fear the house;

It was not visited.

LOVEWIT: But by me, who came

Sooner than you expected.”

When Face/Jeremy finally admits to his wrongdoing, Lovewit is lenient. In fact, Face/Jeremy only actually asks for forgiveness for using the house for his purposes, since he assures Lovewit that nothing has been lost in the venture. Knowing his employer’s enjoyment of his tricky servant, Face even asks to keep his winnings, and offers to set Pliant up with Lovewit. That Lovewit is willing to disguise himself in the Spanish outfit shows us that he is happy to participate in Face’s schemes to some degree.

“FACE: No, my smock rampant. The right is, my master

Knows all, has pardoned me, and he will keep ‘em;

Doctor, ‘tis true (you look) for all your figures:

I sent for him, indeed. Wherefore, good partners,

Both he and she be satisfied; for here

Determines the indenture tripartitie

’Twixt Subtle, Dol, and Face. All I can do

Is to help you over the wall, o’ the back-side,

Or lend you a sheet to save your velvet gown, Dol.

Here will be officers presently, bethink you

Of some course suddenly to ‘scape the dock:

For thither you will come else.”

Face reveals that he has betrayed the group: As befits the tricky, but profitable servant character from folklore, Face called for Lovewit to return home so that Lovewit could take all the stolen goods and marry the widow. However, Face will help Subtle and Dol leave before they get arrested—without their goods, but with the freedom to set up shop elsewhere. This outcome has been Face’s plan all along.

“LOVEWIT: Sir, I can take no knowledge

That they are yours, but by public means.

If you can bring certificate that you were gulled of them,

Or any formal writ out of a court,

That you did cozen yourself, I will not hold them.

MAMMON: I’ll rather lose ‘em.

LOVEWIT: That you shall not, sir,

By me, in trot: upon these terms, they are yours.

What! Should they ha’ been, sir, turned into gold, all?”

Lovewit finds a way to keep Mammon’s goods: To get them back, Mammon needs legal authorization, which would involve revealing to the courts that he, a knight, allowed himself to be conned. Of course, Mammon is not willing to shame himself that way—he’d “rather lose” his goods than be publicly humiliated. Lovewit mocks Mammon, laughing that Mammon’s greatest loss was losing the hope that his goods would be turned to gold.