Volpone (tired with her talk) Ah me! I have ta'en a grasshopper by the wing.
In "The Alchemist" Subtle says to Face,
Sirrah my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him
Like a philosopher: answer in the language,
Name the vexations and the martyrizations
Of metals in the work.
Face. Sir, putrefaction,
Solution, ablution, sublimation,
Cohabation, calcination, ceration and
Fixation.
From "Every Man out of his Humour."
Macilente. Pork! heart! what dost thou with such a greasy dish? I think thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on't, it looks so like a glue-pot.
Carlo. True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with it too, they would not like rugged laths, rub out so many doublets as they do; but thou knowest not a good dish thou. No marvel though, that saucy stubborn generation, the Jews, were forbidden it, for what would they have done, well pampered with fat pork, that durst murmur at their Maker out of garlick and onions? 'Slight! fed with it—the strummel-patched, goggle-eyed, grumbledones would have gigantomachized.—
The following extracts will give a slight idea of Ben Jonson's varied talent. At the conclusion of a play directed against plagiarists and libellers, he sums up—
"Blush, folly, blush! here's none that fears
The wagging of an ass's ears,
Although a wolfish case he wears.
Detraction is but baseness varlet
And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet."
From "The Alchemist."
Tribulation. What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you.
Sathan our common enemy, but his being
Perpetually about the fire, and boiling
Brimstone and arsenic?...
Fastidious. How like you her wit.
Macilente. Her ingenuity is excellent, Sir.
Fast. You see the subject of her sweet fingers there (the viol)
oh, she tickles it so that—she makes it laugh most divinely—I'll
tell you a good jest just now, and yourself shall say it's a good
one. I have wished myself to be that instrument, I think a thousand
times, and not so few by heaven.