The Brazen Head (speaks). Time is.
Miles. Time is! Why, Master Brazen-Head, you have such a capital nose, and answer you with syllables, ‘Time is’? Is this 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 glow-worm; I’ll set a prick against my breast.[12] 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 (loquitur). 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 you ache, an your head speak no better. Well, I will watch, and walk up and down, and be a peripatetian[13] and a philosopher of Aristotle’s stamp. (A great noise.) What, a fresh noise? Take thy pistols in hand, Miles. (A lightning flashes forth, and a Hand appears that breaks down the Head with a hammer.) 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 brownbill in your hand; the latter day is come.
Bacon. Miles, I come. (Rises and comes forward.)
O, passing warily watched!
Bacon will make thee next himself in love.
When spake the Head?
Miles. When spake the Head? Did you not 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?
Miles. Oft! ay, marry hath it, thrice; but in all those three times it hath uttered but seven words.
Bacon. As how?
Miles. Marry, sir, the first time he said, ‘Time is,’ as if Fabius Commentator[14] should have pronounced a sentence; then he said, ‘Time was;’ and the third time, with thunder and lightning, as in great choler, he said, ‘Time is past.’