The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson

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Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists at Court (1615)

Edited by Martin Butler

INTRODUCTION

Mercury Vindicated tracks back to territory that Jonson had already explored in detail in The Alchemist. Its central conceit is a contrast between the King – here identified with Nature herself, the parent of all things and the ‘spring whence order flows’ (187) – and the alchemists, impoverished devotees of a false science, who have set up their Art in competition with Nature. The alchemists mistakenly believe that in these debased times they can better Nature’s creations; Jonson represents their misbegotten schemes as an attack on the god Mercury, who here personifies the metal named after him, which was a central component in alchemical work. Mercury’s flight from the tortures inflicted by the alchemists echoes Subtle’s account of the ‘vexations and martyrizations / Of metals’ performed in alchemy (Alch., 2.5.20–1) and the complaints of ‘Poor Mercury’ in ‘On the Famous Voyage’ about ‘Paracelsus / And all his followers, that had so abused him, / And in so shitten sort so long had used him; / For (where he was the god of eloquence / And subtlety of metals) they dispense / His spirits now in pills and eke in potions / Suppositories, cataplasms and lotions’ (Epigr. 133.96–102). In the masque, Mercury finds succour in the superior wisdom of King James, whose majestic light causes the alchemists to vanish. However, the antimasque retains its political edge through its implication that Whitehall is infested with drones and that its inferior officers are in danger of being led astray by dreams of the alchemical kind.

Jonson’s text revisits a number of topics and sources that he had used in The Alchemist, particularly the claims for alchemy’s creative powers associated with the writings of Paracelsus. There are passing resemblances to Michael Sendivogius’s Dialogus Mercurii, Alchymistae et Naturae (‘A Dialogue between Mercury, the Alchemist and Nature’), a satirical tract printed in the 1607 edition of Sendivogius’s Novum lumen chymicum (an English version appears in A New Light of Alchemy, 1650). In this dialogue the alchemist is frustrated by his inability to ‘fix’ Mercury (that is, render liquid mercury solid by combining it with some other substance), and Mercury complains of the laboratory torments through which he is put. Eventually Mercury’s mother, Nature, intervenes and tells the alchemist to go hang himself (see Linden, 1977). If Jonson had read this, it might have supplied the germ of his fable, but it is more likely that the masque compounds motifs which were widely distributed across the alchemical literature that he knew so well. For example, the idea that alchemists persecute Mercury was already a topos in Paracelsus (see 47n.).

Mercury Vindicated was first printed in the 1616 folio, where it appears between The Irish Masque and The Golden Age Restored. There is no indication of the date of performance, but it can be reliably identified with the masque danced at the Whitehall Banqueting House on 6 January 1615, and repeated two days later. The Irish Masque belongs to Christmas 1613–14: the performances during this season (in which the Somerset marriage was celebrated) are very fully recorded, and Mercury Vindicated is not among them. The Golden Age Restored was danced in January 1616: it is headed ‘1615’ in the folio, but external evidence shows that this date is calculated by the legal calendar, in which the year was reckoned to begin on 25 March (see the Introduction to Gold. Age). This leaves the masque for Christmas 1614–15 unaccounted for, and Mercury Vindicated is the only available candidate. Evidently the folio’s sequencing of these masques was both chronological and accurate. The text is generally clean, and was probably based on an authorial transcript. No music survives from the performance, nor do any scene or costume designs. Probably the designs were undertaken by Simon Basil, the surveyor of the king’s works, or by some other member of the Office of Works such as the master carpenter William Portington, who executed the set for The Masque of Beauty. Inigo Jones was out of the country, not yet having returned from the Italian journey on which he embarked in April 1613.

The occasion was notable for being the first time on which George Villiers, the newly emerging favourite, danced in a masque. Villiers had only recently met James, during the August progress. He was promptly brought to court, and as early as November it was rumoured that he would be made a gentleman of the bedchamber. His early success alarmed the reigning favourite, the Earl of Somerset. Somerset blocked his appointment and arranged for his own cousin, Robert Kerr of Ancrum, to be sworn in, but this merely displaced the rivalry over patronage onto Mercury Vindicated, in which both the young men were put publicly through their masquing paces. John Chamberlain said that ‘the principal motive’ of the evening was ‘thought to be the gracing of young Villiers and to bring him on the stage’ (Masque Archive, Merc. Vind., 6). It cannot have escaped Somerset’s attention that Jonson’s theme was the perfection and freedom of the king’s sunlike power to make his own ‘creatures’ (153).

 

   MERCURY  VINDICATED FROM THE
ALCHEMISTS AT COURT
by  gentlemen the King’s servants

After the loud music, the scene

 

discovered, being a laboratory or alchemists’ workhouse;

 VULCAN looking to the

 

registers, while a

 CYCLOP

 ,

tending the fire, to the

 

cornetts began to

sing.

CYCLOP

Soft , subtle fire, thou soul of  Art,

Now do thy part 5

On  weaker Nature, that through age is  lamed.

Take but thy time, now she is old,

And the sun her friend grown cold,

She will no more in strife with thee be named.

 Look but how few confess her now, 10

In cheek or brow!

 From every head, almost, how she is frighted!

The very age abhors her so

That it learns to speak and  go

 As if by Art alone it could be righted. 15

The song ended

,  

MERCURY appeared, thrusting out his head and afterward his body at the

tunnel of the middle furnace; which Vulcan, espying, cried out to the

 

Cyclop.

VULCAN

Stay, see! Our Mercury is coming forth; Art and all the elements,

assist! Call forth our  philosophers. He will be gone, he will evaporate. Dear

Mercury!  Help, he flies! He is scaped! Precious golden Mercury, be fixed; be 20

not so  volatile. Will none of the sons of Art appear?

In which time, Mercury, having run once or twice about the room, takes breath and speaks.

MERCURY

Now the place and goodness of it protect me! One tender-hearted

creature or other, save Mercury and free him! Ne’er an old gentlewoman

i’the house that has a  wrinkle about her to hide me in? I could run into 25

a servingwoman’s pocket now, her glove, any little hole. Some merciful

  farthingale among so many, be bounteous and undertake me! I will   stand

close up, anywhere, to escape this  polt-footed philosopher, old  Smug here

of Lemnos, and his smoky family. Has he given me time to breathe? Oh, the

variety of  torment that I have endured in the reign of the Cyclops, beyond 30

the most exquisite wit of   tyrants! The whole household of ’em are become

alchemists, since their trade of  armour-making failed them, only to keep

themselves in fire  for this winter; for the mischief  of a secret that they know,

above the consuming of coals and  drawing of   usquebagh – howsoever they

may pretend under the specious names of  Geber,  Arnold,  Lully,  Bombast 35

of  Hohenheim, to commit miracles in art and treason again’  nature; and as

if the title of philosopher,  that creature of glory, were to be fetched out of

a furnace, abuse the curious and credulous nation of metal-men through

the world, and make Mercury their instrument. I am their  crude and their

sublimate, their  precipitate and their unctuous, their  male and their female, 40

sometimes their hermaphrodite;  what they list to style me. It is I that am

 corroded and exalted and sublimed and reduced and fetched over and filtered

and washed and wiped. What between their  salts and their sulphurs, their

 oils and their tartars, their brines and their vinegars, you might take me

out now a  soused Mercury, now a salted Mercury, now a smoked and dried 45

Mercury, now a powdered and pickled Mercury; never herring, oyster, or

 cucumber passed so many  vexations. My whole life with ’em hath been an

exercise of torture; one, two, three, four, and five times an hour ha’ they

made me dance  the philosophical circle, like an  ape through a hoop, or a dog

 in a wheel. I am their  turnspit indeed: they eat or smell no roast meat but 50

in my name. I am their  bill of credit still, that passes for their victuals and

 house-room. It is through me they ha’ got this corner o’the court to  cozen

in, where they  shark for a hungry diet  below stairs, and cheat upon your

under-officers, promising mountains for their meat, and all upon Mercury’s

 security. A poor page o’the larder they have made obstinately believe he shall 55

be physician for the Household next summer; they will give him a quantity

of  the quintessence shall serve him to cure  kibes or the  mormal o’the shin,

take away the   pustules i’the nose, and Mercury is  engaged for it. A child o’the

scullery steals all their coals for ’em too, and he is bid sleep secure; he shall

find a corner o’the philosopher’s stone for’t under his  bolster one day, and 60

have  the proverb inverted. Against which, one day I am to deliver the buttery

in so many  firkins of  aurum potabile as it delivers out  bombards of  budge to

them between  this and that. For the pantry, they  are at a certainty with me,

and keep a   tally: an  ingot, a loaf, or a wedge of some five-pound weight,

which is  a thing of nothing, a trifle. And so the  blackguard are pleased with  a 65

toy, a lease of life – for some  999 – especially those o’the  boiling house; they

are to have  Medea’s kettle hung up that they may  souse into it when they

will, and come out renewed like so many   stripped snakes at their pleasure.

But these are  petty engagements and, as I said, below the stairs; marry, above

here,  perpetuity of beauty (do you hear, ladies?), health, riches, honours, a 70

matter of immortality is nothing. They will  calcine you a grave matron – as

it might be a  mother o’the maids – and spring up a young virgin out of her

ashes as fresh as a  phoenix; lay you an old courtier o’the coals like a sausage

or a  bloat-herring, and after they ha’ broiled him enough,  blow a soul into

him with a pair of bellows, till he start up into his  galliard that was made 75

when  Monsieur was here. They profess familiarly to melt down all the old

sinners o’the  suburbs once inhalf a year, into fresh gamesters  again; get all

the  cracked maidenheads and cast ’em into new ingots;  half the wenches

o’the town are alchemy. See, they begin to muster again, and draw their

forces out against me! The  genius of the place defend me! You that are both 80

the  Sol and Jupiter of this  sphere, Mercury invokes your majesty against the

sooty tribe here; for in your favour only I grow recovered and warm.

At which time Vulcan, entering with a troop of

 

threadbare ALCHEMISTS, prepares them to

the first antimasque.

VULCAN

Begin your  charm, sound music, circle him in, and take him! If he will 85

not obey, bind him.

They all danced about Mercury with variety of

 

changes, whilst he defends himself with

his

 

caduceus, and after the dance spake.

MERCURY

It is in vain, Vulcan, to  pitch your net in the sight of the fowl thus:

I am no sleepy  Mars, to be catched i’your subtle   toils. I know what your 90

aims are, sir: to  tear the wings from my head and heels, and  lute me up in

a glass  with my own seals, while you might wrest the caduceus out of my

hand, to the  adultery and spoil of Nature, and make your accesses by it to her

dishonour more easy. [To the King] Sir, would you believe it should be come

to that height of impudence in mankind, that such a nest of  fire-worms as 95

these are – because their patron  Mulciber heretofore has made  stools stir and

statues dance, a  dog of brass to bark and (which some will say was his worst

act) a  woman to speak – should therefore with their heats called  balnei, cineris,

or horse-dung, profess to outwork the sun in  virtue and contend to the great

act of generation, nay, almost creation? It is so, though. For in yonder vessels 100

which you see in their laboratory, they have enclosed materials to produce

men, beyond the deeds of  Deucalion or  Prometheus – of which one, they

say, had the philosopher’s stone and threw it over his shoulder, the other the

fire, and lost it. And what men are they, they are so busy about, think you?

Not common or ordinary creatures, but of rarity and excellence, such as the 105

times wanted and the age had a special deal of need of; such as there was a

necessity they should be artificial, for Nature could never have thought or

dreamt o’their composition. I can  remember some o’their titles to you, and

the  ingredients; do not look for  Paracelsus’ man among ’em, that he promised

you out of white bread and   deal-wine, for he never came to light. But of these, 110

let me see: the first that occurs, a  master of the duel, a carrier of the   differences.

To him went spirit of ale, a good quantity, with the  amalgama of sugar and

nutmegs, oil of oaths,  sulphur of quarrel,  strong waters, valour  precipitate,

vapoured o’er the  helm with tobacco, and the  rosin of Mars with a dram o’ the

business, for that’s the word of  tincture, the  ‘business’. Let me alone with 115

the business. I will carry the business. I do understand the business. I do find

an affront i’the business. Then another is a  fencer i’the mathematics, or the

town’s  cunning-man, a creature of art too; a supposed  secretary to the stars,

but indeed a kind of lying  intelligencer from those parts. His materials, if I

be not deceived, were juice of almanacs, extraction of  ephemerides, scales of 120

the globe, filings of  figures, dust o’the  twelve houses,  conserve of questions,

salt of confederacy, a pound of adventure, a grain of skill, and a drop of truth.

I saw  vegetals too, as well as minerals, put into one glass there, as  adder’s

tongue,  title-bane, nitre of clients, tartar of  false conveyance,  aurum palpabile,

with a huge deal of talk, to which they added tincture of conscience with 125

the   faeces of honesty; but for what this was, I could not learn; only I have

overheard one o’the artists say,  out o’the corruption of a lawyer was the best

generation of a  broker in suits. Whether this were he or no, I know not.

VULCAN

Thou art a scorner, Mercury, and out of the pride of thy protection here

mak’st it thy study to revile Art, but it will turn to thine own  contumely 130

soon. [Calling] Call forth the  creatures of the first class, and let them move to

the harmony of our heat, till the slanderer have   sealed up  his lips, to his own

torment.

MERCURY

Let ’em come, let ’em come; I would not wish a greater punishment

to thy impudence. 135

There enters the second antimasque, of IMPERFECT CREATURES with

 

helms of

 

limbecks on their heads; whose dance ended, Mercury proceeded.

MERCURY

 Art thou not ashamed, Vulcan, to offer in defence of thy fire and art,

against the excellence of the sun and Nature, creatures more imperfect than

the very flies and insects that are her trespasses and  scapes? Vanish with thy 140

insolence, thou and thy impostors, and all mention of you melt before the

majesty of this light, whose Mercury henceforth I profess to be, and never

again the philosophers’. Vanish, I say, that all who have but their senses

may see and judge the difference between thy ridiculous monsters and  his

 absolute features. 145

At which the whole scene changed to a glorious bower, wherein NATURE was placed with

PROMETHEUS at her feet, and the twelve MASQUERS standing about them. After they

had been awhile viewed, PROMETHEUS descended, and NATURE after him, singing.

NATURE

 How young and fresh am I tonight,

To see’t kept day by so much light, 150

And twelve my sons stand in  their maker’s sight!

Help,  wise Prometheus, something must be done

To show they are the creatures of the sun,

That each to other

Is a brother, 155

And Nature here no  stepdame, but a mother.

CHORUS

Come forth, come forth,  prove all the numbers then

 That make perfection up, and may  absolve you men.

NATURE

But  show thy winding ways and arts,

Thy risings and thy timely starts 160

Of  stealing fire from ladies’ eyes and hearts.

Those softer circles are the young man’s heaven,

And there more  orbs and planets are than seven,

To know whose motion

Were a notion 165

As worthy of youth’s study as devotion.

CHORUS

Come forth, come forth;  prove all the time will gain,

For Nature bids the best, and never  bade in vain.

The first

 

dance; after which this

 

song.

PROMETHEUS

 How many ’mongst these ladies here 170

Wish now they such a mother were!

NATURE

Not one, I fear,

And read it in their  laughters.

There’s more, I guess, would wish to be my daughters.

PROMETHEUS

 You think they would not be so old 175

For so much glory.

NATURE

I think that thought so told

Is no false piece of story.

’Tis yet with them but beauty’s noon,

They would not  grandams be too soon. 180

PROMETHEUS

Is that your sex’s humour?

’Tis then since  Niobe was changed that they have left that

 tumour.

CHORUS

Move, move  again, in  forms as heretofore.

NATURE

’Tis form allures.

Then move; the ladies here are  store. 185

PROMETHEUS

Nature is motion’s mother, as   she is yours –

CHORUS

The spring whence order flows, that all directs,

And knits the causes with th’effects.

 

The main dance. Then dancing with the ladies. Then their last dance. After which,

Prometheus calls to them in

song.

190

PROMETHEUS

 What, ha’ you done

So soon?

And can you from such beauty part?

You’ll do a wonder more than I.

I  woman with her ills did fly, 195

But you their good and them deny.

CHORUS

Sure each hath left his heart

In pawn to come again, or else he durst not start.

NATURE

They are loath to go,

I know, 200

Or sure they are no sons of mine.

There is no banquet, boys, like this;

If you hope better, you will miss.

Stay here, and take each one a kiss,

CHORUS

Which if you can  refine, 205

The taste knows no such  cates, nor yet the palate wine.

No cause of tarrying shun;

They are not worth his light,  go backward from the sun. 

Title I follow the heading adopted by modern editors, though F1 leaves it ambiguous whether ‘AT COURT’ is part of the title or a gloss on the place of performance – as it is, for example, in the headings for Irish, Love Rest., and Gold. Age, which have a parallel formula. In this case, it seems likely that ‘at court’ belongs to the title, since Mercury goes on to describe how the alchemists have insinuated themselves into obscure nooks at Whitehall. The alternative is to suppose that the title was originally intended to read ‘In a Masque at Court’, but was shortened to save space in printing – as could have happened in F1, where the masque does not have an opening to itself, but begins in the middle of a page, with its header crammed into three lines (see the Textual Essay).
Title 1 AT COURT By gentlemen] AT COVRT BY / Gentlemen F1
VINDICATED Set free; rescued (OED, Vindicate, 2). This is the commonest sense at this time, though OED’s sense 3 (earliest citation 1635) may also be relevant: ‘To clear from censure, criticism, suspicion, or doubt, by means of demonstration; to justify or uphold by evidence or argument.’ In the masque’s action, Mercury is both liberated and justified; he may additionally need vindicating because of his dubious reputation as god of thieves, pickpockets, and liars. Cf. the later title, Time Vindicated to his Honours.
gentlemen . . . servants This formula is also used at the head of Love Rest., Irish, and (with some variation) Gold. Age, and it seems to indicate that the masquers, although not of aristocratic status, were lesser members of the royal household, probably gentlemen of the privy chamber or similar. A parallel formula (‘His Majesty’s servants’) is often used on the title-pages of plays to identify the professional acting company the King’s Men, some members of which might have had speaking or singing roles in these masques. However, masque title-pages always focused on the dancers, not the speakers, and the term ‘gentlemen’ was never applied to the acting company. In Merc. Vind., then, the term ‘gentlemen’ must refer to the courtiers alone, and this was certainly the status of Villiers and Kerr, the only two dancers known to have performed in this masque. For ‘the king’s men’ meaning ‘courtiers’, see Und. 43.211.
1 discovered Probably the auxiliary verb ‘is’ should be implied: the curtains opened in order to reveal the scene.
2 VULCAN Roman god of fire, furnaces, and metalwork, often depicted as a manufacturer or smith: see Haddington, 209–11. Paracelsus (see 35–6n.) called alchemy Vulcan’s art (Duncan, 1942a, 629–30).
2 registers adjustable plates which regulate airflow into a furnace: see Alch., 2.3.33.
2 CYCLOP In Greek myth, a one-eyed giant, one of three who forged the thunderbolts. In Virgil’s Aeneid, 8.439–53, the Cyclops assist Vulcan in his smithy on Mount Etna. Jonson uses the name’s older form; ‘Cyclops’ was possible as a singular, but only became dominant after the publication of Pope’s translation of Homer (1725). Jonson uses it as the plural at 30.
2 cyclop] F1 (Cyclope)
2 cornetts Wooden wind instruments with brass mouthpieces and a distinctive crescent shape, that produce a sound which blends brass and woodwind characteristics (the spelling is now commonly used to distinguish it from the modern cornet, a brass instrument). They appear infrequently in masques, and are usually associated with some kind of special effect, such as rustic or pompous music: see Queens, 610, Oberon, 9, and Neptune, 333. For the Cyclop to sing accompanied by cornetts was very unusual; it would have made a strong contrast with the songs of the main masque, accompanied by lutes.
4 SH] F1 (Cyclope)
4, 15 Art] F1 (art)
6 weaker Nature An allusion to the widely held belief that Nature was in her old age and the cosmos was declining with her, sun and earth both losing their potency; see Harris (1949). The fullest expression of this idea is Bishop Geoffrey Goodman’s The Fall of Man, or The Corruption of Nature Proved by the Light of our Natural Reason (1616); the most famous comes in Donne’s The First Anniversary (1611), ‘so did the world from its first hour decay’ (201). In Alch., 1.4.25–7, Sir Epicure Mammon prefers art to nature on just this principle: ‘He will make / Nature ashamed of her long sleep, when Art, / Who’s but a stepdame, shall do more than she.’ Jonson voices the idea of the decay of the world at Forest 4.14 and Discoveries, 215–18; though for a strong rebuttal of this notion, affirming that nature really continues as vigorous as ever, see Discoveries, 89–92.
6 lamed Perhaps an echo of the god Vulcan’s disability, as he was often depicted as lame. See 28n. below.
10–11 i.e. Alas, that so few persons (especially women) adhere to nature, using cosmetics instead to alter their appearance.
12 From every head Presumably this means to imply wigs as well as cosmetics. For ladies wearing both, cf. Epicene, 1.1.94–5.
14 go walk, bear itself.
15 As if guided by artificial beauty alone.
16 MERCURY In this masque, Mercury is both the deity (god of wit and eloquence) and the material substance. In alchemy, mercury and sulphur were held to be the two primary principles of all metals, and operations performed on them were at the heart of alchemical work.
17 Cyclop] F1 (Cyclope)
19 philosophers alchemists (the name implies they are adepts of an occult science).
20 Help, he flies!] Nichols; helpe. He flies. F1
21 volatile Mercury is volatile because at normal temperatures it is a liquid. One aim of the alchemical process was to ‘fix’ mercury into its ‘sophic’ form, from which, it was thought, the philosopher’s stone could be made: ‘fixation’ was the process of rendering mercury solid by combining it with some other substance. Cf. Alch., 2.5.32, where Face calls Mercury ‘a very fugitive’ since ‘he will be gone’.
25 wrinkle in her face. As Orgel points out, Mercury was used in cosmetics, so would have collected in an old woman’s wrinkles. However, there may be an underlying indecent meaning, continued in ‘any little hole’, ‘undertake’, and ‘stand close up’ (27–8).
27 farthingale] F1 (vardingale)
27 farthingale hooped skirt, fashionable at this time. See Chamberlain (Letters, ed. McLure, 1939), 1.426.
27–8 stand close up,] F3; stand, close, vp, F1
27–8 stand . . . anywhere F1’s heavy punctuation (see collation) underlines the bawdry in this passage.
28 polt-footed club-footed. Vulcan is often represented as lame, a disability which the myths explain in contradictory ways: either he was born crippled, which caused him to be rejected by his mother, Juno (Hera), who threw him out of heaven; or he was crippled when Jupiter (Zeus) threw him from heaven for siding against him with his mother. See Homer, Iliad, 1.590–4, 18.395–405; and cf. Und., 43.1, 111–17.
28 Smug A common nickname for a blacksmith, probably from ‘smuggy’ = smutty. OED cites Rowlands’s Knave of Clubs (c. 1609): ‘a smug of Vulcan’s forging trade’.
30 torment Cf. Alch., 1.3.100, where the alchemist Subtle is described as a ‘smoky persecutor of nature’.
31 tyrants] F1 (Tyrannes)
31 tyrants (Who could be expected to be ingenious or ‘exquisite’ in their tortures.)
32 armour-making This craft was in decline because technologies of warfare were changing, but Mercury also refers to the King’s reputation as a peacemaker, which would have undermined the munitions industry. Vulcan manufactured the fabled armour of Achilles and Aeneas (Homer, Iliad, 18.468–618; Virgil, Aeneid, 8.439–53, 608–731).
33–4 for . . . above i.e. They are ignorant of anything beyond.
33 of a secret] H&S; of Secret F1; a secret G
34 drawing pouring out.
34 usquebagh – howsoever] this edn; Vskabah. Howsoeuer F1
34 usquebagh whisky (Gaelic, ‘water of life’).
35 Geber Jaber: Abou Moussah Djafar al Sofi, eighth-century Arabian alchemist and reputed author of alchemical texts, including Summa perfectionis magisterii in sua natura.
35 Arnold Arnoldus de Villa Nova (1235?–1314); French physician, astrologer, and alchemist.
35 Lully Ramon Lull (1232–1316), mystical philosopher born in Majorca. He devised a universal philosophical system drawing on Christian, Jewish, and Muslim occult traditions, which advocated approaching God through mystical contemplation of His divine names. Alchemical texts were attributed to him, incorrectly. See Volp., 2.2.112 and n.; Alch., 2.5.8.
35–6 Bombast of Hohenheim Theophrast Bombast von Hohenheim (1493–1541), the pioneering Swiss chemist who adopted the name Paracelsus (meaning ‘beyond Celsus’, the author of De medicina, first century ad). He was the first to apply chemical principles to medicine, rejecting Galen’s outdated theory of humours for a pathology based on empirical observation. His treatises said physicians should explore alchemical processes, where medicines could be found that were better than naturally occurring ones. Duncan (1942a), 626, compares his Hermetic and Alchemical Writings (trans. A. E. Waite, 1894), 2.155n.; ‘We assume no one will doubt that the chemical art has been devised to supply the deficiencies of Nature; for although Nature supplies very many most excellent remedies, she has, notwithstanding, produced some which are imperfect and crude.’ See also Volp., 2.2.114 and n.; Alch., 2.3.230.
36 Hohenheim] Nichols; Hohenhein F1
36 nature; and] Nichols; nature. And F1
37 that . . . glory This phrase is reused at Discoveries, 377–8.
39, 40 crude, sublimate mercury before and after alchemical refinement.
40 precipitate, unctuous mercury in solid or ‘oily’ form, after chemical processing. See Alch., 2.3.144.
40 male, female Alchemists thought that substances were comprised of male and female elements, embodied in ‘sophic’ sulphur and ‘sophic’ mercury, which united to produce a hermaphroditic ‘child’. In some treatises, the term ‘mercury’ was confusingly used for all three elements. Duncan (1942a), 632, gives examples.
41 what whatever.
42–3 corroded . . . wiped processes used in alchemy. Many of these are alluded to in Alch. See 1.1.68–9, 2.3.39, 60, 97–8.
43 salts, sulphurs Cf. Alch., 2.3.186. After mercury, sulphur was alchemy’s other major component.
44 oils . . . vinegars Cf. Alch., 2.3.99–100.
45 soused (1) pickled, like a fish by being steeped in vinegar; (2) swindled (OED, v.1 2b); (3) intoxicated (OED, v.1 2d). Sousing, salting, smoking, and drying were all culinary preparations performed on foods such as herrings, oysters, and cucumbers (46). For an ironic comparison between food-preparation and alchemical processes, see Alch., 2.3.99–101.
47 cucumber] F1 (Coucumer)
47 vexations distresses, but also an alchemical term for a violent process; see Alch., 2.5.20, where Face lists ten ‘vexations’ through which the alchemist puts his metals. The alchemists in the masque have been fruitlessly attempting to ‘fix’ Mercury through various laboratory operations (see 21n. above). Duncan (1942a), 631, compares Paracelsus (1894), 1.56: ‘sophists take occasion to persecute Mercury himself with various torments, as with sublimations, coagulations, mercurial waters, aquafortis, and the like’.
49 the philosophical circle the ‘Philosopher’s Wheel’: the full cycle of alchemical changes that ‘rotated’ the materials for the stone through the four elements. Cf. Alch., 2.3.44.
49 ape . . . hoop performing ape.
50 in a wheel on a treadwheel.
50 turnspit dog who turns a wheel in a kitchen powering the roasting spit, or the kitchen boy who performs the same function manually (OED, Turnspit, 1, 2) – one of the very minor ‘under-officers’ (54) of the royal household that Mercury goes on to mention. The word could be applied to the mechanism itself, but that was much rarer (OED, 3).
51 bill of credit letter (usually from a bank or financial institution) to a third party authorizing the person in whose favour it is written to draw money. The phrase is not recorded in this form in OED before 1655 (Credit, n., 10b), though presumably it is cognate with ‘bill of exchange’, first recorded in 1579 (Bill, n.3, 9a). Mercury means that the alchemists’ financial gettings come through him, though perhaps he is also referring metaphorically to whatever system of certification was in place to admit to the tables in the royal household courtiers and officers who were entitled to eat at the king’s expense. Certainly at the later Stuart court the lord chamberlain kept lists of those with dining rights, and gave small dockets to individuals to prove that they had been sworn in the king’s service (Robert Bucholz, personal communication). See 62n. below.
52 house-room lodging.
52 cozen] F1 (coozen)
53 shark use sharp practice.
53 below stairs i.e. among the royal servants, who were responsible for the court’s daily outlay of hospitality. Mercury goes on to list the household departments where the alchemists have insinuated themselves.
55 security promise, pledge (for the payment of a debt).
57 the quintessence the elixir or purest essence of matter, of which heavenly bodies were composed. Alchemists believed that this, when distilled, would create gold.
57 kibes chilblains.
57 mormal an inflamed sore. The same injury as Chaucer’s Cook, who had a mormal on the shin (General Prologue, 386).
58 pustules] F1 (pustles)
58 pustules pimples.
58 engaged pledged (as ‘security’, 55 above).
60 bolster pillow or cushion.
61 the proverb The Latin proverb is carbonem pro thesauro invenire, ‘to find coal instead of treasure’; i.e. to have one’s hopes dashed.
62 firkins small casks.
62 aurum potabile drinkable gold; a medicinal preparation of gold in vegetable oil. See Volp., 1.4.73.
62 bombards leather jugs.
62 budge rations. ‘Bouge of court’ was the allowance of daily victual given to officials by the crown, in lieu of salary: from the French ‘bouche’ = mouth (OED, Bouche n.1, and Bouge n.2, citing Cotgrave, Dictionary 1611: ‘Avoir bouche à court, to eat and drink scot-free, to have budge-a-court, to be in ordinary at court’).
63 this this day.
63 are . . . with have made sure of.
64 tally: an] Orgel; tally, An F1
64 tally record of their outlay (such as household departments would indeed maintain).
64 ingot, loaf, wedge The quantities of philosopher’s stone they expect in return.
65 a thing of nothing] F1 state 1; nothing of nothing F1 state 2
65 blackguard menial kitchen servants, responsible for pots and pans (see Love Rest., 92 and n.).
65–6 a toy, a lease] F1 state 1; a any lease F1 state 2
66 999 the number of years of their lease.
66 boiling house one of the royal kitchen departments (see Love Rest., 95, and Neptune, 167).
67 Medea’s kettle Medea used her magic to restore Jason’s father, Aeson, to youth; Ovid (Met., 7.262–3) mentions the cauldron in which she made her potions. It was believed that the philosopher’s stone could have similar effects. See Alch., 2.1.52–61, where Sir Epicure Mammon describes his hopes of recovering his youth through the stone. At 93 he mentions ‘Medea’s charms’, supposing them to be an allegory of the alchemical process.
67 souse plunge.
68 stripped] Wh (subst.); strip’d F1
68 stripped snakes snakes that have shed their skins.
69 petty engagements trivial undertakings.
70–1 perpetuity . . . immortality It was believed that the philosopher’s stone would not only create wealth but could restore health and confer long life. Cf. Volp., 2.2.163ff., and Alch., 2.1.49–51.
71 calcine oxidize; reduce to a pure alchemical form by roasting.
72 mother . . . maids the head of the royal maids of honour: like Moria in Cynthia. Typically, an older woman.
73 phoenix fabulous Arabian bird reputed to renew itself through immolation.
74 bloat-herring bloater; a smoked herring.
74–5 blow . . . him Echoing Genesis 2.7: ‘And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul’ (Authorized Version).
75 galliard a lively dance; one of the social dances that would be used in the masque’s revels.
76 Monsieur The Duc d’Alençon, who paid court to Elizabeth in 1579.
77 suburbs where the brothels were located.
77 again; get] G; againe. Get F1
78 cracked broken.
78–9 half . . . alchemy i.e. because they only pretend to be virgins.
80 genius tutelary spirit.
81 Sol and Jupiter Sun and king of the gods. These are alchemical terms, used as synonyms for gold, the ruler of other metals, and here applied to King James.
81 sphere, Mercury] F2; spheare Mercury, F1
83 threadbare Alchemists were supposed to deserve the stone only if they wanted spiritual rather than worldly wealth; but their poverty also comments ironically on their folly.
85 charm magic spell, as in the antimasque to Queens. Normally a ‘charm’ would be recited, but is here danced in symbolically circular form, like the circles drawn by conjurers in which to raise or control spirits. In Queens, 316, the dancing witches made backward circles; and cf. Mac., 4.1.129–30, and AYLI, 2.5.51 (where Jaques explains the refrain ‘ducdame’ as a ‘Greek invocation to call fools into a circle’). In the Ode ‘If men and times’, 39, Jonson calls on Minerva to ‘charm the round’; and in Bart. Fair, 4.4.103ff. Cutting challenges Quarlous by drawing him into a circle.
87 changes i.e. sequences of steps or dance figures; not recorded in OED in this sense. OED Change, n., 8a, ‘the different orders in which a set or series of things can be arranged; permutations’, supplies the general meaning but without the specific choreographic sense which was idiomatic at this time. Cf. Marston, The Malcontent (ed. G. K. Hunter, 1975), 5.6.86.1–2: ‘then the cornetts sound the measure, one change, and rest’; Dudley Carleton on the masque of 1 January 1603: ‘The first measure was full of changes and seemed confused’ (Lee, 1972, 54); and Queens, 608.
88 caduceus wand, entwined by two serpents.
89 pitch . . . fowl Proverbial: in vain the net is spread in sight of the birds (Tilley, V3).
90 Mars Whose affair with Venus, Vulcan’s wife, ended when Vulcan trapped them in a net while asleep together (Homer, Odyssey, 8.266–366).
90 toils] G; toyes F1
90 toils nets.
91 tear . . . heels i.e. remove my volatility.
91 lute seal with lute (= cement, used to make the joints in alchemical vessels airtight; see Alch., 2.3.40, 285).
92 with . . . seals with the seals of Hermes, that is ‘hermetically’. Hermes was the Greek equivalent of the god Mercury. Cf. Alch., 2.3.79.
93 adultery adulteration.
95 fire-worms fireflies.
96 Mulciber An epithet of Vulcan; literally, ‘the softener’ (Orgel2).
96–7 stools . . . dance In Homer’s Iliad (18.373–7, 416–21), the house of Hephaestos (the Greek Vulcan) is furnished with moving tripods and statues.
97 dog . . . bark In the Odyssey (7.91–4), Alcinous’s palace is guarded by dogs of silver and gold made by Hephaestos.
98 woman Pandora, created out of earth by Vulcan.
98–9 balnei. . . horse-dung Forms of gentle heating in alchemy, using a water bath, ashes, and fermenting horse-dung. They are listed in Alch., 1.1.83; 2.3.41, 85; and 3.2.139.
99 virtue power.
102 Deucalion The Greek equivalent of Noah, a son of Prometheus. He survived the universal flood sent by Zeus to punish the sins of the Bronze Age, and repopulated the world by throwing stones over his shoulder, which turned into people.
102 Prometheus Who gave men fire stolen from the gods, for which he was punished by being chained to a rock, where his liver was daily torn out by an eagle. He was also said to have created man out of earth and water: see Pausanias, 10.4.4; Horace, Odes, 1.16.13.
108 remember mention.
109 ingredients;] Wh (subst.); ingredients F1
109 Paracelsus’ man In De natura rerum (‘Of the Nature of Things’, in his Opera, 1575, 1.370, 377), Paracelsus gives a chemical formula for creating an artificial man, by warming human semen in a sealed vessel for forty days, then nourishing it with blood for forty weeks. This will create something ‘like a human being’, at first ‘transparent and without body’, but eventually ‘a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should afterward be educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and begins to display intelligence’ (Paracelsus, 1894, 1.124).
110 deal-wine] F1 (dele-wine)
110 deal-wine Probably, Rhenish wine.
111 master . . . duel Such as Subtle pretends to be, in Alch., 4.2.
111 differences] F3; differencies F1
111 differences quarrels.
112 amalgama alloy.
113 sulphur Sulphur was highly inflammable, hence it would be a suitable component of a quarrelsome personality.
113 strong waters (1) acids; (2) alcohol.
113 precipitate (1) chemically produced; (2) headstrong.
114 helm a flask with a tube or a jutting neck, used in distilling; when a substance ‘came over the helm’ it vaporized and passed into another retort. See Alch., 2.3.60. The figures in the second antimasque will be wearing ‘helms of limbecks on their heads’ (136–37).
114 rosin resin; distilled turpentine.
114–15 the business Cf. Alch., 3.4.18, and Devil, 3.3.106–30, where ‘business’ is used as a cant word associated with quarrelling and arguments over honour. The phrase is mocked in the character of a roaring boy, appended to the sixth edition of Overbury’s The Wife: ‘If any private quarrel happen among our great courtiers, he proclaims the business, that’s the word, the business, as if all the united forces of the Romish Catholics were making up for Germany’ (Overbury, 1615, K7) (H&S).
115 tincture in alchemy, the quintessence of a thing.
115 ‘business’] after G; businesse F1
117 fencer skilled practitioner; expert in some area of knowledge.
118 cunning-man conjurer, fortune-teller (Alch., 1.2.8, 4.4.74).
118 secretary . . . stars astrologer.
119 intelligencer newsmonger.
120 ephemerides astrological almanacs.
121 figures horoscopes.
121 twelve houses signs of the zodiac.
121 conserve a medical or confectionary preparation of some part of a plant, preserved with sugar.
123 vegetals plant extracts.
123–4 adder’s tongue a spiked fern.
124 title-bane ‘lawyer’s poison’ (Orgel); an imaginary plant, named on an analogy with ratsbane (= rat poison).
124 false conveyance illegal transfer of property.
124 aurum palpabile Literally, ‘touchable gold’; bribes. Cf. 62n.
126 faeces] Wh; faces F1
126 faeces sediment. An alchemical term (Alch., 2.3.63); there may be a pun on ‘faces’ (= outward appearances), as in the naming of the character Face.
127–8 out . . . suits Mercury invokes the pseudo-scientific doctrine of equivocal generation – still held to be true at this time – that living organisms could be spontaneously produced from inorganic matter. Cf. Alch., 2.3.171–6, and Mag. Lady, 3.6.58–9.
128 broker in suits legal agent.
130 contumely reproach.
131 creatures . . . class Not explained, but presumably this refers to some hierarchy within the works of artificial creation supposedly performed by alchemy.
132 sealed up his lips] this edn; seal’d vp his owne lips F1
132 sealed . . . lips This punishment for slander is performed on Carlo Buffone, in EMO 5.3, and was apparently done in real life to the jester Charles Chester, on whom Carlo Buffone was based. See EMO, Names of the Actors, 18 and n.
132 his lips Probably F1’s redundant repetition of ‘owne’ (see collation) was created by scribal or compositorial eyeskip.
136 helms See 114n.
137 limbecks alembics; distilling vessels (see Alch., 2.1.99). These costumes attest that the ‘imperfect creatures’ have been artificially created in the laboratory.
138 SH] G; not in F1
140 scapes transgressions, nature’s inferior by-products. Alluding to the doctrine of equivocal generation (see 127–8n.), but also to lusus naturae, the ‘sports of nature’. See New Inn, 1.1.31n.
144 his the sun’s; the king’s.
145 absolute features perfect creations.
149 How . . . fresh Nature’s song refutes the Cyclop’s opinion about her supposed decay (4–15).
151 their maker’s the King’s, who as dispenser of patronage is the ground of their being at court.
152 wise Prometheus An echo of vir prudentissimus, the standard phrase which was used of Prometheus in the dictionaries of classical mythology from which Jonson often drew material; see Starnes and Talbert (1955), 155. It alludes to Prometheus’s status as the supreme craftsman and man of wisdom.
156 stepdame Echoing Nature’s lament in Claudian’s De raptu Proserpinae (‘The Rape of Proserpine’), 3.39–40, after Proserpine is taken to hell: se iam quae genetrix mortalibus ante fuisset in dirae subito mores transisse novercae, ‘she complained that she, who was erstwhile the mother of all living things, had suddenly taken upon her the hated guise of a stepmother’ (H&S). In Alch., 1.4.25–7 (quoted in 6n. above), Art is referred to as a ‘stepdame’ in comparison with the true mother, Nature.
157 prove . . . numbers make trial of all the figures. The Chorus refers to the well-proportioned patterns created by the masquers’ dancing, which harmonious proportionality is here linked on a symbolic level to the underlying harmonies of the universe. For a more extended treatment of this association, see Pleasure Rec., 209–50.
159 ] stanza break, this edn; continuous verse F1
158 absolve you accomplish you as.
149, 159 SH] G; not in F1
161 stealing fire Like Prometheus, who gave men fire stolen from the gods (see 102n.).
163 orbs . . . seven Alluding to the Ptolemaic cosmological system, which conceived the universe as concentric spheres nested within each other, seven of which carried the heavenly bodies that moved.
167 prove all try all that.
168 bade] F2; bad F1
169 dance, after] Wh; dance. / After F1
169 song.] G; song. / Promethevs. Natvre. F1
170–88 Walls (1996), 90–1 notes this song’s irregular rhyme and metre, and suggests that the musical setting may have been recitative rather a stanzaic form or declamatory dialogue. If so, this would have been a striking innovation. Recitative was a recent Italian invention, and the earliest (though by no means certain) evidence for its use in England comes two years later in Vision and Lovers MM. However, in the absence of firmer information, this interpretation remains necessarily speculative.
173 laughters The court ladies laugh because they would rather be the masquers’ lovers than their mothers. At this time, the pronunciation of ‘laughters’ and ‘daughters’ would have made a perfect rhyme; see Dobson (1957), 329, 390.
175–6 You . . . glory] G; one line in F1
180 grandams] F1 (Grandames)
182 Niobe Niobe was excessively proud of her twelve offspring; as a punishment, they were killed by Apollo and Diana, and out of grief she turned into a rock. See Cynthia (Q), 1.2.85 n., 5.5.102–3, 232.
182 tumour vanity; inflated conceit.
183 again,] F1; againe, in order rang’d conj. H&S
183 forms (1) beauty, comeliness (OED, Form, n., 1e); (2) living bodies (OED, 3), as distinct from the imperfect creatures of the antimasque; (3) orderly arrangement, regularity, good order (OED, 8), as in the dance.
185 store (1) plentiful; (2) precious.
186 she is] F1; she’s Wh
186 she is The metre of this line requires a single syllable; perhaps a Jonsonian elision ‘she’is’ was ignored by the compositor.
189–90 ] this edn; four lines in F1, dividing . . . / dance. / . . . Ladies; / . . . dance. / After
191 What, ha’] H&S; WHat ’ha F1
195 woman Pandora, the first woman, was created by Vulcan at Jove’s command, to revenge Prometheus’s theft of fire from heaven. Prometheus advised his brother Epimetheus not to take her as a gift. When Epimetheus did so and opened her box, all the ills of humankind escaped from it.
205 refine purify; cleanse from impurities. It may be an intentional irony that this word glances at the vocabulary of alchemy.
206 cates delicacies.
208 go who go.
A NOTE ON THE MASQUERS The only recorded names are ‘Mr Villars’ – i.e. the new favourite George Villiers, who had not yet been raised to the peerage – and Robert Kerr of Ancrum (1578–1654), a gentleman of Prince Charles’s household and cousin to the reigning favourite, Somerset. See Masque Archive, Merc. Vind., 1.
The spring whence order flows, that all directs, See more
See more
To show they are the creatures of the sun, See more