Overview
Context
Dol Common is speaking furiously to her fellow
to read the context for this monologue from The Alchemist and to unlock other amazing theatre resources!Text
You'll bring your head within
a cockscomb, will you?
And you, sir, with your menstrue—
[DASHES SUBTLE'S VIAL OUT OF HIS HAND.]
Gather it up.—
'Sdeath, you abominable pair of stinkards,
Leave off your barking, and grow one again,
Or, by the light that shines, I'll cut your throats.
I'll not be made a prey unto the marshal,
For ne'er a snarling dog-bolt of you both.
Have you together cozen'd all this while,
And all the world, and shall it now be said,
You've made most courteous shift to cozen yourselves?
[TO FACE.]
You will accuse him! you will "bring him in
Within the statute!" Who shall take your word?
A whoreson, upstart, apocryphal captain,
Whom not a Puritan in Blackfriars will trust
So much as for a feather:
[TO SUBTLE.]
and you, too,
Will give the cause, forsooth! you will insult,
And claim a primacy in the divisions!
You must be chief! as if you only had
The powder to project with, and the work
Were not begun out of equality?
The venture tripartite? all things in common?
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.
Ben Jonson, The Alchemist, Project Gutenberg [https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4081/4081-h/4081-h.htm#link2H40008]
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