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Act 1, Scene 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Alchemist, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Alchemy and Transformation
Religion
Sex and Greed
Deception and Gullibility
Summary
Analysis
Sir Epicure Mammon enters with his friend, Surly. Mammon is excited; creating the philosopher’s stone is supposed to take years, but Subtle has done it in just 10 months. Today is the day, Mammon tells Surly, when the world becomes rich. After today, there won’t be any reason to cheat at dice or cards, and there will be no need to ever charge anything again. Everyone will have the most luxurious satins and velvets, and no one will want for a thing. There will be no need for brothels, and there won’t be so many drunk soldiers and gamblers starting trouble. “No more of this,” Mammon says, “young viceroys.”
Mammon’s claim that with enough money there will be no more “young viceroys” plays on the word “vice,” which Jonson has already identified as the basis for his play. In this way, Jonson thus implies that vice is directly related to poverty and need; however, since ridding the world of poverty and need is unrealistic, Jonson insinuates there will always be vice. Mammon, too, proves himself to be gullible. Not only does he believe in the philosopher’s stone, he believes Subtle has created it faster than anyone else.
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Face yells to Mammon from another room and tells him that they will be out soon. Mammon explains to Surly that the man yelling is Subtle’s “fire-drake, / His lungs, his Zephyrus, he that puffs his coals.” Mammon continues his excitement. Tonight, when he goes home, he plans to turn all his metal into gold. And then, in the morning, he will go to every pewterer and plumber he knows and buy up all their tin and copper. Surly can’t believe it. Does he plan to turn it all to gold? Yes, Mammon says, and he will buy Devonshire and Cornwall, too.
Mammon frequently refers to Face as “Lungs,” which means he is Subtle’s alchemical assistant and explains why Face had to remove his captain’s disguise. Mammon’s desire to turn all the metal in his house to gold and then buy up all the copper and tin, too, suggests he is very greedy. Mammon is even planning to buy Devonshire and Cornwall, where copper and tin are mined, so he can turn it all to gold. Mammon isn’t happy with just a bit of wealth; he wants as much as possible.
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Surly doesn’t believe Mammon. The philosopher’s stone must be a hoax, he says. When Surly sees “th’ effects of the great medicine” he will believe, Mammon claims. Surly still isn’t convinced. It is true, Mammon says. Subtle has perfected the “elixir,” and it can “confer honour, love, respect, long life, / Give safety, valour—yea, and victory, / To whom he will.” With the elixir, Mammon can restore one’s years and give a man longevity like the “ancient patriarchs” simply by giving them a minute amount of elixir once a week. Surly is dubious, but if Mammon is right, the prostitutes at “Pict-hatch” will thank him, Surly jokes.
Surly isn’t gullible and easily duped like Mammon, and he doesn’t believe that Subtle has created the stone; however, Mammon claims the “great medicine,” or elixir of life, made from the stone will turn him into a believer. In Jonson’s time, many believed the elixir could bestow all the things Mammon lists here. The “ancient patriarchs” is a reference to the biblical Adam and Moses, who were said to have lived over 800 years because of the elixir. Surly’s joke about the prostitutes at Pict-hatch, a London brothel where many of the women were infected with syphilis, again suggests that sex a common vice in London and broader society.
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The elixir can cure any illness, Mammon tells Surly, and once he has it, Mammon plans to put an end to the plague. Surly still doesn’t believe him and says he cannot be “transmuted” by the philosopher’s stone. If Surly won’t believe him, Mammon says, he will believe historical record. Mammon knows of books in which Moses, Solomon, and Adam have written of the philosopher’s stone. How else can one explain “Irish wood” or Jason’s fleece? Or “Pythagoras’ thigh” and “Pandora’s tub,” he asks? These are all, Mammon says, “abstract riddles of our stone.”
In alchemy, base metals that are turned to gold are said to be “transmuted,” and Surly makes a play on this word here, as he claims he can’t be “transmuted,” or transformed into a believer of alchemy. With the plague, a particularly deadly illness, taking over London, it is no wonder that Mammon and others want to believe in the elixir of life, as it is the only sure way to save their lives from the illness. Furthermore, Mammon uses alchemy and the stone to explain biblical stories and ancient myths, like “Irish wood” (St. Patrick’s ability to chase insects out of Ireland), Pythagoras’s brilliance, Pandora’s box, and Jason’s golden fleece.
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