Without priority? 'Sdeath! you perpetual curs,
Fall to your couples again, and cozen kindly,
And heartily, and lovingly, as you should,
And lose not the beginning of a term,
Or, by this hand, I shall grow factious too,
And take my part, and quit you.
Face.'Tis his fault;
He ever murmurs, and objects his pains,
And says, the weight of all lies upon him.
Sub.Why, so it does.
Dol.How does it? do not we
Sustain our parts?
Sub.Yes, but they are not equal.
Dol.Why, if your part exceed to-day, I hope
Ours may, to-morrow match it.
Sub.Ay, they may.
Dol.May, murmuring mastiff! ay, and do.
Death on me!
Help me to throttle him.[Seizes Sub. by the throat.
Sub.Dorothy! mistress Dorothy!
'Ods precious, I'll do any thing. What do you mean?
Dol.Because o' your fermentation and cibation?[1]
Sub.Not I, by heaven———
Dol.Your Sol and Luna——— help me.[to Face.
- ↑ Because of your fermentation and cibation?] I trust tha the reader will not expect me to explain all the technical terms of this art. An adept himself, perhaps, would be puzzled by some of them; and I am a mere tyro. Fermentation is the sixth process in alchemy, and means the mutation of any substance into the nature of the ferment, after its primary qualities have been destroyed. Cibation (the seventh process) is feeding the matter in preparation, with fresh substances, to supply the waste of evaporation, &c. Sol and Luna, with which mistress Dorothea reproaches Subtle just below, are gold and silver; for in the cant of alchemy, nothing goes by its right name.
