The Alchemist

By Ben Jonson

The Alchemist Summaries and Commentary, Part 1

Act 1

Act 1 . Scene 1

The play opens with an explosion of words. Three characters enter, two locked in bitter verbal combat. There is nothing to suggest that these three are partners, the first hint of a common purpose being Dol's attempt to quiet them saying, "Will you betray all?" (I.i.8) A few lines later Face too, attempts to quiet the argument. He is however so provoked by Subtle that they are both soon shouting.

Through their taunts, the identity of the characters and the nature of their relationship is revealed. Face is the butler of the house in which they reside. With his master away at his "hop-yards" Face has been running scams from the house and has enlisted the help of Subtle and Doll. Subtle, it soon becomes clear, is the alchemist who Face claims was, before they met, penniless and dressed in rags. Face gave him "A house to practise in" and the tools to advance his black arts. It is clear, however, that the black art which Subtle practises is not alchemy but cozenry, that is, confidence trickery. With the pretence of being a sorcerer, Subtle tricks unsuspecting out of their money. It is Face's role to provide Subtle with gulls, fools ripe for the plucking. Dol, the third corner of the "venture tripartite", is a whore, which gives the three a second tool in their cozenery, sex.

That the introduction to these three is through a vicious argument immediately shows the fragility of their union. Their "republic", as Dol terms it, is at any moment pray to the possibility that they will "undo (themselves), with civil war" (I.i.82). Note, however, how they do refer to their partnership as "a republic", their "common work" and the "venture tripartite". Later when Face goes against their agreement, Dol claims that his actions are "direct/ Against our articles" (V.iv.71-72) To speak of 'articles' is to speak of a formal, legal agreement which is at odds with the nature of their venture, thievery. As E B Partridge points out, "They are thieves but they throw a specious air of legality over their activities by euphemistic terms believing the common fallacy that, if one refers to low things in high words, one raises them both legally and aesthetically". The specious use of language to invert the truth is a constant theme of the play.

Once Dol has stopped their bickering (for the time being) by reminding them of the need to "Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly" (I.i.137) i.e. to work harmoniously together, they are interrupted by a knock at the door. Subtle fears it is the master of the house, Lovewit, returned from the country. Face allays his fears, reminding him that "while there dies one a week/ O' the plague" (I.i.182) there is no chance of the master returning. This suggestion, however, makes it clear to the audience that they are in a race against time for at some point the master shall return, and owing to the nature of drama this is likely to be sooner rather than later.

The knock, however, merely signals the arrival of the first gull, Face's "lawyer's clerk", Dapper who seeks some mystical thing to give him luck at gambling. Despite Subtle's denials, it may be seen from an early stage that Face is the one they look to to orchestrate the cozenry as they ask him, "Who shall do't?" (I.i.194) and "What shall I do?" (I.i.196).

Having established the central characters, everything which happens in the play from this point on is a direct result of the cozeners' plans to gull the neighbourhood and a constant stream of ready fools now follows. At first carefully controlled by the three, the gulling quickly spirals out of control until they must react spontaneously with great comic effect.

Act 1. Scene 2

For this scene, Subtle dons his Doctor's robes and Face appears as Captain Face, a disguise he uses for much deception. Face pretends to be on his way out having just broached the question of Dapper's request with "the noble Doctor". The Doctor, Face claims, is not overly keen to help Dapper, owing to the Statute against Sorcery, mentioned in scene 1, and the recent case of Simon Read who was charged, though pardoned, for invoking spirits. (The case of Read, like many of the tricks used in The Alchemist, was a real case, of which the audience would've been well aware. This is one of the many examples of Jonson using contemporary references to ground his play in reality, aiding his educative aims (see Jonson's 'Theory of Comedy' below)). Face feigns reluctance on the part of the Doctor in order to make Dapper all the more eager, a trick used in other spots of the play. There then ensues an mock argument between Face and Subtle in which Face attempts to persuade 'the Doctor' to help Dapper. Though the argument is put on for the benefit of trickery it, of course, contains undertones, giving Face an opportunity to insult Subtle and continue the argument of scene 1. Indeed Face insults Subtle with such force that Dapper is lead to comment "I'd ha' you use master Doctor with some more respect" (I.ii.60). Thus it may be seen that by appearing to be on the side of the victim, Face bolsters the veracity of Subtle's claims, whether he be in the guise of alchemist, doctor or astrologer.

Once Dapper has parted with more money to 'persuade' the Doctor, Subtle quickly spins tales of the great riches Dapper is destined to receive. Though Dapper only came to get a little luck "for cups, and horses" he is quickly tempted by talk of gambling greatness and soon talks of leaving law to gamble professionally. His spiralling dreams are directed by Subtle's hints of greatness though fuelled by his own greed. As The Alchemist shows throughout, the greedy are willingly duped.

The double act of Face and Subtle is in full effect here. As Subtle persuades Dapper of his future good fortune, Face reprimands him for his lack of gratitude asking "Will you be trivial?" (I.ii.141), ie why worry about the small sums you are giving the Doctor in the face of your future riches? Dapper, once snared in this way, is told how he is "Ally'd to the Queen of Faery" (I.i.126) and is sent away to prepare for a meeting with her when he will be bestowed with great fortune. In truth of course it is the cozeners who have fortune to look forward to, as the afternoon's meeting is the occasion of his full cozening.

Act 1. Scene 3

It is in this scene that Subtle's specious learning really comes in to its own. He appears to the next victim, Abel Drugger, a tobacconist, as an astrologer and quickly impresses him with his knowledge of metoscopy (character reading and fortune telling by inspection of appearance) and the planets. Drugger seeks astrological advice for his business, asking where he should place his shelves, his pots and boxes for the best results, seeing Subtle as a necromantical practitioner of Feng Shui. Again Face plays the role of go between for the victim, commending his business practices and pushing him to be more generous in his payment.

It is of note that whilst for Dapper, a lawyer's clerk, Subtle appeared as a Doctor, for the lower in rank Drugger he is merely an astrologer and the fooling is less fantastical. Having said this, Subtle does play on Drugger's somewhat humble dreams saying, "This fellow, Captain,/ Will come, in time, to be a great distiller" (I.iii.78). Drugger leaves happy in the knowledge that his business will thrive.

With Drugger gone, Face resumes his quarrel with Subtle, bemoaning the difficulty and expense of seeking out gulls. Though quarrelling, however, his speech has a business like air again revealing the pretensions of the rogues.

Act 1. Scene 4

The argument is interrupted by the entrance of Dol who has found fresh gulls to cozen later. She has also "spied Sir Epicure Mammon" who, it fast becomes clear, is their greatest project. Here the name Mammon is important and distinctive, as it resonates with biblical significance of evil and fallen arch angels. In Milton's Paradise Lost it is Mammon who is fallen even before the archangels are repulsed, because he continually looks down at the pavements of gold in Heaven - more intent on wealth than God's glory, his greed superseding his devotion.

The culmination of this project, Subtle reveals, is to take place today, for it is today that he is "to perfect for him/ The magisterium... the stone". The creation of the philosopher's stone, that which would turn base metals into gold, was the ultimate aim of all alchemists and Mammon has commissioned Subtle to do this. Mammon then, even before his entrance, is revealed as a man most prone to the temptations laid out by the three cozeners. Mammon's dreams have turned the stone into more than a device for the transmutation of metals but into general elixir of life, curing all diseases. Subtle talks of the great dreams of this man who in his excitement has been promising cures to all and sundry and in his greed planned great riches for, "If his dreams last, he'll turn the age to gold" (I.iv.29)

Mammon's vivid imagination coupled with his greed leads to the most fabulously voluptuous speeches, filled with expectation, which is of course ultimately doomed. Note that despite his greed, his arrival is perhaps later than expected, for Subtle "did look for him/ With the sun's rising" (I.iv.11-12). This suggests that even his with the fulfilment of dreams so close he is still lazy, another trait which allows the three, with their 'get rich quick' schemes, to cozen him easily.

Act 2

Act 2. Scene 1

Mammon enters with his friend, the cynical Surly. As they enter the house, Mammon refers to it as "novo orbe", that is the new world, for Mammon believes the Stone will change the world, indeed change nature herself. The house is also his Peru, that being the source of Spanish gold, and 'Great Solomon's Orphir', Orphir being where Solomon made his gold after he had acquired the Stone. All these foreign names and ancient references conjure up images of orientalist grandeur and the exotic opulence of the East, synonymous for Johnson's audience with passion, excess, otherness and evil. All this implies, as the rogues have before, that the house is a realm unto itself, with its own rules and possibilities. Whilst Mammon believes this because it is to be the starting point of his creation of a new order, for the rogues it is a world of their own creation for inside the house they are the masters claiming to transmute dreams into reality, just as alchemy transmutes base metals into gold. Parallels between the processes of alchemy and various elements of the play, including its structure, are to be found throughout.

This scene is mostly spent with Mammon waxing lyrical about how the stone shall change everything. It is not just to be his route to untold riches for it shall also "confer honour, love, respect, long life/ Give safety, valour: yea and victory" (II.i.50-51). Yet all these things Mammon essentially sees as coming from the creation of gold. He seems to see the satiation of desire as the solution to all his and indeed the world's problems. The stone will satisfy, not just his desire for gold but also his and all men's desires for sexual potency. The connection between money and sex is made in many ways throughout the play as we see it portrayed as a commodity, usable and exploitable.

Surly is "not willingly gull'd", "Your stone" he claims, "cannot transmute me". In an effort to persuade, Mammon points to mythical proof of the power of the stone speaking of "a treatise penn'd by Adam/ O' the philosopher's stone, and in High Dutch" (II.i.83-84). High Dutch it was claimed, by for example Johanes Goropius Becanus in Origanes Anterpianae in 1569, was the original language confused at Babel, giving rise to many different languages. Ian Donaldson suggests that "The Alchemist depicts a new Babel, a house in which different people try in different ways to reach the heaven of their private fantasies, yet are driven further and further from the common language which joins them to each other and to common sense".

Whilst Mammon, then, sees the philosopher's stone as something primitive almost closer to the true reality of the world than the everyday, something that will enable him to herald a new age like the golden ages of the past, for example Adam's time in paradise, his fantasies are in fact taking him further and further from reality. This break from reality is mirrored in the confusion of languages in The Alchemist. The alchemical cant, astrological and numerological jargon, the talk of Hebrew and High Dutch and Surly's later use of Spanish all take language further from truth and reality. The corruption of verbal communication throughout The Alchemist is an important theme and typifies contemporary concerns about language - its purpose is to communicate not to obfuscate, a concern reiterated in Milton's Paradise Lost where Satan the arch villain and root of evil is endowed with similar rhetorical and manipulative skills.

In the final speech of the scene, for further proof, Mammon claims that various classical stories are "All abstract riddles of our stone" (II.i.104), that is secret, figurative presentations. The stone, he seems to believe, is, and always has been, at the very heart of the truth of the world and in acquiring it he shall return to this truth. Such a viewpoint can only come from the greediest of men, who place their desire for wealth at the centre of their universe.

Act 2. Scene 2

Here Face enters, playing the role of Lungs, the alchemist's assistant, later called Ulen Spiegel, a mythical German practical joker. He reassures Mammon that all is set for "projection", setting Mammon off on further more outlandish and greedier dreams of the future with the stone. He fully reveals his immoral desires, first stating that his only worry is getting enough stuff to transmute. Face wonderfully fuels his immorality by suggesting that he buy the lead coverings off the churches. Mammon needs no persuading and has soon launched into sexual fantasies, drooling at the thought of what the stone will bring him. He believes it will enable him to have any women he desires and shall give him the power to have fifty in a night should he so desire! His talk is entirely of sensual pleasure, from perfumed mists to exquisite foods. By the time Surly points out that it is generally believed that the man who gains the stone must be "a pious, holy and religious man" (II.ii.98) Mammon has well revealed that he is the antithesis of these adjectives. This, he believes, poses no problem for he does not make the stone but merely buys it. The phrase "But I buy it" well demonstrates how in Mammon's world money and satisfying the desire for money are the only things that matter, all other things simply fall into place afterwards.

Act 2. Scene 3

The previous scene ends on an ironic note with Mammon praising Subtle's piety and claiming that he is a man free enough of greed to create the philosopher's stone. Subtle, of course, has created the dream of the stone entirely out of greed. In this scene we are treated to Subtle's pretence of piety as he appears in the role of the holy alchemist, the greatest of roles for the greatest of gulls - Johnson thus highlights the gap between appearance and reality, fantasy and fact.

The scene opens with Subtle warning Mammon of the dangers of "importune, and carnal appetite" (II.iii.8) lest his wanton mind should jeopardise their project. This of course is a set up to allow Subtle to blame the lack of a stone on Mammon's "voluptuous mind". There follows a discussion between Subtle and Face regarding the progress of the stone. It is couched in alchemical jargon which, though deliberately obscurantist, is largely taken from Martin Delrio's Disquisitiones Magicae (1599). Jonson's use of the language of alchemy is well informed and any discussion of its principles in The Alchemist would have been accepted by the authorities of the day. Indeed when the sceptical Surly challenges Subtle, as he does later in the scene, it is not the principles of alchemy that he takes issue with but rather the esoteric nature of the terms used. Subtle, for his part, uses the standard argument of the day in support of his cant that being that the terms are deliberately obscure so that, as Mammon is keen to point out, "the simple idiot should not learn it,/ And make it vulgar" (II.iii.201-202) Mammon, to support the claim, relates the story of Sisyphus who was damned for betraying the secrets of the Gods saying "Sisyphus was damn'd/ To roll the ceaseless stone, only because/ He would have made ours common" (II.iii.208-210).

As he says "common", in a neat theatrical joke, Dol Common appears and Mammon's downfall is furthered. Dol appears as bait for Mammon who sees her and is tempted by Face who leads him to believe she is "a lord's sister". In the hope of sexual conquest, Mammon asks Face to arrange a meeting with her. Face warns Mammon that the alchemist would be very angry if he discovered that he was with her and this harks back to Subtle's warnings of the possibility of endangering the project through giving in to carnal appetites. Thrown into this perfect set up is the easy means for 'the alchemist' to discover Mammon with Dol as Face claims that she has "gone mad, with studying Broughton's works", and "If you but name a word, touching the Hebrew,/ She falls into a fit". In this way, Mammon's downfall is guaranteed, artfully engineered by the rogues. The ease with which the cozeners manipulate him is further shown when he enters into deception himself to defend their name, attacking Surly who has been convinced by the sight of Dol that he is in a brothel. Mammon lies through his teeth and claims to "know the lady, and her friends, and means,/ The original of this disaster" (II.iii.267-268) Such is his greed for gold and sexual conquest that he cozens himself, without prompting, showing that though the three are exploiting people's dreams, if blame is to be apportioned, the fault lies as much with the dreamers as with the exploiters.

Throughout the scene, Surly makes disparaging remarks about the alchemist and his "Lungs" revealing that he is indeed not "willingly gulled". It is quickly obvious that he could become a thorn in the side of the thieving republic and when Face, relishing the challenge of gulling the sharp witted Surly, says that a certain 'Captain Face' would like to meet him later, he spies his chance, and sets out to prove "by a third person", in other words in disguise, that the set up is a sham. Thus ends the scene with Mammon heading off to find stuff to be transmuted and Surly plotting the downfall of the cozeners. So far the plot has largely been within the control of the three but it may be seen that with the arrival of Surly complexities lie ahead.

Act 2. Scene 4

Using the imagery of fishing to express the 'capture' of Mammon the three celebrate the success of their trickery before being interrupted by a knock at the door which signals the arrival of "more gudgeons". It is the Ananias the Anabaptist.

The Anabaptists were particularly extreme Puritans and it was Puritan antagonism to the theatre that had forced professional theatre companies to work outside the city of London's main walls. The Puritans were opposed to the theatre for a variety of reasons not least because they saw it as frivolous fun and it managed to draw huge crowds. They were also alarmed at its secular basis. Over the years of Elizabethan theatre they launched many attacks upon it, for example Stephen Gossom's Playes Confuted in Five Actions (1582), but royal patronage ensured that the theatre survived despite the Puritan pressure. They were, therefore, a group who Jonson was doubtless keen to satirise, indeed the alchemical jargon employed in the play may be seen as an attack on the religious cant which permeated the Church. The Anabaptists in The Alchemist are depicted as hypocritical and greedy for power, a view of them probably shared by many in society at the time.

Act 2. Scene 5

Ananias, one of "the exil'd brethren", exiled to England from the Netherlands after the attempts of John of Leyden, the Anabaptist 'king' of Munster, to seize control of Dutch towns, enters. Subtle has stated that he must somehow make this Anabaptist minion admire him and ignores Ananias at first, instead talking in jargon to Face. When he does take note of Ananias he is almost rude, deliberately mistaking his claims to be "a faithful brother" (II.v.7) for claims of being an alchemist. He fills the air with jargon which Ananias dismisses as "Heathen Greek" (II.v.16) for "All's heathen but the Hebrew". As Herford and Simpson note in their famous edition of the play, Puritans at the time wanted Hebrew to be used as a universal language. They believed that it had been handed down by Adam and then given to the Hebrew race after the confusion of Babel.

Subtle continues to attempt to blind Ananias with alchemy before asking of the reason for his visit. The Anabaptists it seems have also commissioned Subtle to create the stone in the hope of "rooting out the bishops/ Or th' antichristian hierarchy" (II.v.82-83). They too are greedy for power and Subtle has done well out of them having gulled a significant amount of money from them already. Ananias has been sent to tell Subtle

that he shall have no more money until they get some results. At this, Subtle explodes, calling Ananias "the varlet,/ That cozen'd the Apostles" for in Acts V i-xi a man named Ananias lies about money to the apostle Peter and promptly dies. Subtle claims that without more money they shall have no chance of success and in this way ensures that he may gull them much further, for he says "A man must deal like a rough nurse, and fright/ Those that are froward to an appetite" (II.v.89-90). Ananias is thus sent off to fetch his superior, Tribulation Wholesome.

Act 2. Scene 6

As Ananias leaves, Drugger, the tobacconist, enters with Face seeking a lucky shop sign. Subtle, of course, rises to the occasion creating a "mystery and hieroglyphic" combining Drugger's name with the name of John Dee, the famous Elizabethan mathematician and astrologer who was also interested in alchemy. Dee was a name that would have been familiar to Jonson's audience, another example of Jonson's use of contemporary references. Once this easy piece of gulling is out of the way Drugger tells Subtle and Face of a young women of his acquaintance who wishes to have her fortune read. The women in question is Dame Pliant, a nineteen year old "rich young widow". Immediately the cozeners see a fresh opportunity, indeed the possibility of a wife for one of them, and encourage Drugger to bring her to the house. It then comes to light that she also has a brother who wishes to learn to quarrel, the art of witty quarrelling being much valued in certain sectors of gentlemanly society at the time. Of course, "The doctor is the only man/ In Christendom for him" (II.vi.65-66) and Drugger is sent off to fetch these two new gulls.

When he's gone, Face suggests they draw lots for the hand of Dame Pliant with the winner gaining the lady and the loser being recompensed in goods. In the world of their republic it is clear that sex is more closely connected with money and business then love. This attitude towards women and more specifically towards sex may be seen throughout the play.

This arrangement between the two marks the first real split in the "venture tripartite" as they warn each other that Dol must be kept unaware of this business dealing from which she obviously has nothing to gain.