Qu. Go to, knight! I have more means than thou art aware of. I have not lived amongst goldsmiths and goldmakers all this while, but I have learned something worthy of my time with ’hem. And not to let thee stink where thou stand’st, knight, I’ll let thee know some of my skill presently. 221
Sea. Do, good Frank, I beseech thee.
Qu. I will blanch copper so cunningly that it shall endure all proofs but the test: it shall endure malleation, it shall have the ponderosity of Luna, and the tenacity of Luna—by no means friable.
Pe. ’Slight! where learn’st thou these terms, trow?
Qu. Tush, knight! the terms of this art every ignorant quacksalver is perfect in; but I’ll tell you how yourself
shall blanch copper thus cunningly. Take arsenic, otherwise called realga (which indeed is plain ratsbane); sublime ’hem three or four times, then take the sublimate of this realga, and put ’hem into a glass, into chymia, and let them have a convenient decoction natural, four-and-twenty hours, and he will become perfectly fixed; then take this fixed powder, and project him upon well-purged copper, et habebis magisterium. 237
Ambo. Excellent Frank, let us hug thee!
Qu. Nay, this I will do besides. I’ll take you off twelvepence from every angel, with a kind of aquafortis, and never deface any part of the image.
Pe. But then it will want weight?
Qu. You shall restore that thus: Take your sal achime prepared, and your distilled urine, and let your angels lie in it but four-and-twenty hours, and they shall have their perfect weight again. Come on, now; I hold this is enough to put some spirit into the livers of you; I’ll infuse more another time. We have saluted the proud air long enough with our bare sconces. Now will I have you to a wench’s house of mine at London, there make shift to shift us, and after, take such fortunes as the stars shall assign us. 252