The Brazen Head. Time is.
Miles. Time is! Why, Master Brazen-head, have you such a capital nose, and answer you with syllables, "Time is"? Is this all my master's cunning, to spend seven years' study about "Time is"? Well, sir, it may be we shall have some better orations of it anon: well, I'll watch you as narrowly as ever you were watched, and I'll play with you as the nightingale with the slow-worm; I'll set a prick against my breast. Now rest there, Miles.—Lord have mercy upon me, I have almost killed myself! [A great noise.] Up, Miles; list how they rumble.
The Brazen Head. Time was.
Miles. Well, Friar Bacon, you have spent your seven years' study well, that can make your head speak but two words at once, "Time was." Yea, marry, time was when my master was a wise man, but that was before he began to make the Brazen Head. You shall lie while your arse ache, an your Head speak no better. Well, I will watch, and walk up and down, and be a peripatetian and a philosopher of Aristotle's stamp. [A great noise.] What, a fresh noise? Take thy pistols in hand, Miles.
The Brazen Head. Time is past.
[A lightning flashes forth, and a hand appears that breaks down the Head with a hammer.
Miles. Master, master, up! hell's broken loose; your Head speaks; and there's such a thunder and lightning, that I warrant all Oxford is up in arms. Out of your bed, and take a brown-bill in your hand; the latter day is come.
Bacon. Miles, I come. O passing warily watch'd!
Bacon will make thee next himself in love.
When spake the head?
Miles. When spake the head! did not you say that he should tell strange principles of philosophy? Why, sir, it speaks but two words at a time.
Bacon. Why, villain, hath it spoken oft?