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Act 1, Scene 4
Themes
and Colors
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.
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.”
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