From Costiveness to Comic Relief:

Purgation in The Alchemist

Tony PerrelloUniversity of South Carolina at Columbia

Ben Jonson's The Alchemist was first performed by the King'sMen in their recently reacquired theater, The Blackfriars, in 1610.The number of London plague deaths reached epidemicproportions in the previous year (theaters, of course, weredenounced as breeding grounds for the sickness). Two models oftreatment for epidemic were outlined in the city's Plague Orders:display and containment, or expulsion. The rich fled London whenthe Death came to town, leaving the poor and sick confined to theirhouseholds, in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. As onewoodcut from a seventeenth-century broadside reads, "How littledo they regard the poor, which they leave behind them." A fewdestitute characters that are left behind manage to thrive inJonson's play through the con-game of alchemy; Jonson portraysthese figures as endemic to the illness which corrupts London, asCheryl Lynn Ross has shown (439-41).

Jonson weaves a web of correspondences in TheAlchemist.Thebodies of characters-especially the corrupt Face, the rogue, Subtle,and the whore, Dol Common-are metonymically associated withthe plague through their ties to excrement and immorality. Thesecorruption-plague-excrement figures rise from the "liberties"outside of London walls to infest and sicken the house-body whichhas been abandoned by its proper ruling component, the MasterLovewit. Carnival topsy-turvydom ensues as the parasitic lordsand lady of misrule reign in his absence. .

Subtle and Face fantasize about social mobility, and theiraspirations are played out in images from the alimentary canalthroughout the play. Images of filth, feces, constipation, andevacuation dominate the play and are bandied about as part of adiscourse of power and dominance. Such forbidden scatologicallanguage is a type of privatized bodily discourse which FrankWhigham attempts to exhume in his study of the body inRenaissance drama, a discourse which he says deals "with classingestion, retention, and evacuation-in short, with a social codingof the alimentary tract" (333). In the holiday atmosphere of

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Blackfriars (the site of Lovewit's house as well as the theater of theKing's Men), however, such abusive and creatural languageultimately leads to renewal. The festive abuse in Jonson's playfollows a paradigm best described by Mikhail Bakhtin in his now-classic study of the Medieval Carnival tradition, Rabelaisand HisWorld.

Critics have noted the eerie metatheatricality of The Alchemist.The world of the play and its characters is the world of the currenttheatrical community that has gathered to view the play-a cityattempting to carry on despite contagion and death. The Argumentwhich begins Jonson's play alludes to the predictable scenarioenacted whenever grim-visaged Death swept away more than fortyLondoners a week:

The sickness hot, a master quit, for fear,His house in town, and left one servant there.Ease him corrupted. . .

Lovewit, the master of the House, fled the city after his wife's namewas added to the plaguey bill. Doors and windows have beenlocked, and the servant, Jeremy (later, Face), confined to the housein accordance with the containment model. But the setting of TIleAlchemist does not simply mirror social reality; it dissolves theboundaries which separate theatrical artifice and safety from theterror of a diseased city. David Riggs notes that "Jonson situatesthe master's abandoned house on the exact site occupied by theBlackfriars theater" which makes the theater-goers' situation "notjust analogous, but identical, to that of their onstage counterparts.Despite the risk of disease, they too could not resist the lure of thecrowded "House" in the Blackfriars" (171). Riggs's description ofthe Blackfriars edifice as, specifically, a "crowded" house issignificant in establishing the dangerous atmosphere of bothworlds of the play.

Congestion, or overcrowding, inspired fear and panic duringtimes of plague because the disease was thought to spread directlythrough human contact. James I in fact issued a royal edict in thesummer of 1608 entitled "A Proclamation for Buildings." Fearfulthat London had invited overcrowding and plague, Jamesattempted to curtail the "overflow of people, specially of themeaner sort" by prohibiting the erection of new foundations for

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(1.1.3)

In 1636 the "Colledge of Physicians" printed an eclecticpamphletentitledCertainnecessanjDirections,aswellfor theCureofthePlague,asfor thepreventingof infection. Included among thecontents of this publication is a hodgepodge of caveats for thosefleeing to the country, home-made purgative medicines, and,strangely, a series of laws designed to contain and punish roguesand vagabonds who prey on the unfortunate. A lengthy actspecifically targets those who play roles which transcend class anddabble in mysterious arts, including: "allpersons calling themselvesSchollars, going about begging . . . or plying any subtile craft, orunlawful games and plays, or faining themselves to haveknowledge of physiognomie, paImestrie, or other like craftyscience, or pretending that they can tell destinies, fortunes, or othersuch like fantasticall imaginations" (D2). This catalogue of rogueryapplies directly to a sham-artist like Subtle, who professesproficiency in metoposcopy (character reading by physiognomy),chiromancy (divination by hand analysis), divination throughnecromancy, and alchemy. In threatening to strip Subtle at theplay's beginning, Face establishes him as an immediate vagabondfrom the liberties, who would have undergone the followingtreatment under the Act for Punishment of Rogues and Vagabonds:"Such person shall be taken . . . stripped naked from the middleupwards, and shall be openly whipped until his or her body bebloody" (D3).

Subtle's reply to Face's implication is anything but subtle. Heimagines that Facewill strip him only to lick his hemorrhoids (figs),thereby reducing Face and his tongue-the instrument of divinerhetoric-to the level of a swab for Subtle's bum. Subtle's maneuverrecalls a central episode in the first book of Rabelais' novel,Gargantuaand Pantagntel,in which the young Gargantuadescribeshis efforts, through trial and error, to find the perfect swab. Thereare long, uproarious catalogues of items, beginning with a scarf,hood, neckerchief, earpiece, and cap, moving through plants,furniture, and birds, finally culminating in the perfect scut-wipe: aplump, downy goose, which brings him heavenly bliss, repletewith images of demigods and the Elysian Fields (Rabelais89).

In RabelaisandHis World,Bakhtinbegins a discussionof thisbizarre episode with the debasement of the first five swabs. Theyare all apparel for the head and upper body that are turned,cartwheel, to the lower bodily stratum: "Thesefive swabs belong to

buildings and discouraging public assembly (Stuart 193).Physicians at this time were all but unanimous in denouncing largegatherings of people in confined areas, such as playhouses.However, when the death rates dropped below forty a week,people flocked to the theater anyway (Riggs171).

As TheAlchemistbegins, we are thrust in mediasres into anintestine flyting match. Subtle aggressively taunts Face with hisanus:

Face.Believe it, I will.

Sub. Thy worst. I fart at thee.Dol Com. Ha'you your wits? Why, gentlemen, for love-

(1.1.1-2)

It so happens that "wits" (Lovewit, the proper head of the house)are precisely what is missing. E.R.Curtius identifies such animatedanality as a common folk motif of the "kitchen humor" of themiddle ages,otherwiseknown as the proktoslalon, or speakingass(435). The right voice, the household head, has been replaced byanother voice from below.

Subtle, until recently "the father of hunger," a vagabond fromthe liberties, the area outside the reach of London rule, attempts torise in status. As Gail Kern Paster says of Subtle's crepitation,"Subtle must construe such a fart as deliberate and aggressive,signifying control, aim, the effectuality of will, and the socialdominance implied by turning one's back" (145). Subtle's bowelsare loose, and he is prepared to "thunder" Face into pieces. Whilethe lords and lady of misrule hold sway in the house, the anus,rather than reason, governs behavior. Peristalsis is power.

After Subtle hurls the initial fart at his opponent, the altercationcontinues:

Face.Sirrah, I'll strip you-Sub. What to do? Lick figs

Out at my-

Face attempts to regain leverage with a threat to strip Subtle nakedand shame him, turn him into an object of ridicule. The threat ofstripping Subtle is an assertion of class superiority.

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the wide category of themes and images related to the substitutionof the face by the buttocks, the top by the bottom. The rump is the'back of the face,' the 'face turned inside out'" (373). What is mostimportant to Bakhtin, however, is the renewal of the debasedswabs in the realm of laughter. Each swab is touched, tested,thrust downwards into the lower bodily realm, and relieved of itsnormal material burden in the world to be renewed by laughter:"This is why the material bodily lower stratum is needed, for itgaily and simultaneously materializes and unburdens" (376).

Finally, Bakhtin proceeds to the anagogical layer ofinterpretation, in which the anus becomes the entrance to theunderworld, and the beatific pleasure of the final swab, marked bya physiological progress from that nether region upwards throughthe intestines to the heart and brain, becomes a parody of medievaltopography and hagiography, including the ascension of the soulafter death (Bakhtin376-81).

Little Gargantua tries over fifty different devices in his research.He does not try the human tongue, which Subtle wants to try.Subtle's suggestion, however, has turned face (or Face) to buttocks,has turned face inside out. Subtle's backside is the entrance to thelower depths of a part of the lower depths of London. It is, asBakhtin would say, "an underworld in the underworld" (378). In adistressful and death-ridden time of plague, Jonson portrays aLondon which is already topsy-turvy and he relieves its dirtiestaspects of their gross, material burdens through laughter. Theepisode in Rabelais focuses on bodily pleasure, at least forGargantua, whereas power and dominance, and not pleasure, is theprimary concern of Subtle and Face. However, the pleasureinduced by laughter and the banishment of melancholy-the finalcause of Comedy-constitutes renewal.

Robert Burton, ruminating upon the diverse kinds of retentionand evacuation, writes: "In the first rank of these, I may well reckonup costiveness, and keeping in of our ordinary excrements, which,as it often causes other diseases, so this of Melancholy in particular"(229). A common technique of debasement in TheAlchemist is torefer to an opponent as "costive"(constipated). It is part of the cantof the play, its social code. Face describes Subtle in his naturalenvironment as "Piteously costive" and "Stuck full of black andmelancholic worms" (1.1.28-30). Face later refers to his gull, Surly,as a "costive cheater." Another gull named Abel Drugger, who

wants nothing more than Necromantic advice on properlymarketing tobacco, is repeatedly described as a miserable, cheese-eating rogue who suffers from a melancholy that "breeds worms"and is urged to "pass it" (3.1.81-4,3.4.107-8). Another gull, theunfortunate Dapper, is blindfolded, gagged, and confined in theJakes, where he is forgotten until the flatulent explosion of theAthanor, an alchemical furnace fueled by rotting horse dung.

Costiveness, in fact, was often cited as a cause of plague inindividuals, presumably because of the foul vapors that excrementwould release in the body. Here is advice for the treatment of aplague victim from an unnamed seventeenth-century physician:

If the patient bee cosstive and bound in his bodie, let himtake a suppositarie made with a little boiled honey, and alittle fine powder of salt, and so taken in at the fundament,and kept till it move a stoole. (Certain D2)

Such medical lore even infiltrated the realm of the kitchen.Gervase Markham, in TheEnglishHousewife,offers a no-fail remedyfor the pestilent fever (plague). Certain herbs and syrups are firstadministered to the stomach of the infected body which, Markhamclaims, "... will not only heal it, but also strengthen his stomach. If(as it is most common in this sickness) the party shall grow costive,you shall give him a suppository made of honey" (11).

In seventeenth-century medical theory, costiveness wasconsidered a potentially dangerous symptom of the plague. InJonson's play, costiveness becomes associated with low socialstatus, powerlessness, and villainy. The costive body, then, like theplague-ridden body, is an entity which corrupts the social organismand must be shunned or evacuated.

Expulsion takes place in act five of Jonson's play. WhenLovewit returns, he is denied access to his house. Face, fromwithin, tells him that the house has been visited by plague: "For,onmy faith to your worship, for these three weeks/ And upwards, thedoor has not been opened" (5.2.33-4). Of course, people havepassed in, left their gold, and passed back out, such as Dapper,who, before he is locked in the privy, is fleeced and expelled bySubtle and Face, respectively: "Conduct him forth by the back way"(1.2.163). As Lovewit arrives to find access denied, the gulls returnen masse,along with a determined mob. They are locked out. Just

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as Face first found Subtle "Piteously costive" on a dunghill,Lovewit's house is constipated and in need of purging.

Expulsion takes place under duress, as officer, citizens, andgulls pound on the locked doors. Hurriedly, Subtle and Dol aresqueezed "0' the back side" (5.4.133). As soon as the bawd and thecon man evacuate the household, Lovewit reenters his properspace: "The house is mine here, and the doors are open" (5.5.26).Not only does regularity seem to be restored to Lovewit's house,but there is promise of generation and prosperity as he anticipatesthe dowry of the widow, Dame Pliant. Face even promises to feastthe audience with the "pelf" he has won from the dupes.

Lovewit's house is purged after a period of irregularity to allowfor comic resolution and continuity. However, the ending of TheAlchemist is not all that conventional. "Pelf,"after all, is defined as"ill-gotten cash," but carries the secondary meaning of "refuse" or"rubbish." We are therefore cued to the fact that corruption stillexists in Lovewit's house. After all, Face has by no means beenexpelled from the house, and Lovewit, by accepting and embracingstolen goods, may well be seen as a corruption-plague-excrementhimself. The crowd at Blackfriars in 1610 may have been purged ofpensiveness by the ribald hilarity of TheAlchemist. For the sake ofthis two-hours traffic, however, spectators have risked their livesand endangered those of their neighbors. The pall of the Deathinevitably colors the original performance of this comedy. It wouldnot be purged for another couple of generations.

Works Cited

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelaisand His World. 1968. Trans. Helene Iswolsky.Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984.

Burton, Robert. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Vol. 1. Ed. Thomas C.Faulkner, Nicolas K. Kiessling, and Rhonda L. Blair. New York:TudorPublishing Company, 1975.

Certain Necessary Directions, as well for the Cure of the Plague,asforPreventingthe Infection. 1636. Norwood: Walter J. Johnson, Inc.,TheatrumOrbis Terrarum, Ltd., 1979.

Curtius, Ernst Robert. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Trans.Willard R. Trask. New York: Pantheon Books, 1953.

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Jonson, Ben. The Alchemist. Drama of the English Renaissance II: TheStuart Period. Ed. Russell A. Fraser and Nonnan Rabkin. New York:Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1976. 143-90.

Markham, Gervase. The English Housewife. Ed. Michael R. Best. Montreal:McGill-Queen's UP, 1986.

Paster, Gail Kern. The Body Embarrassed. New York: Cornell UP, 1993.

Rabelais, Francois. The PortableRabelais. Ed. and Trans. Samuel Putnam.New York: Penguin Books, 1974. Rpt. 1978, 1979.

Riggs, David. Ben Jonson:A Life. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989.

Ross, Cheryl Lynn. "The Plague of The Alchemist." Renaissance Quarterly41:3 (1988): 439-58.

Stuart RoyalProclamations. Vol. 1. Ed. James F. Larkin c.s.v. and Paul L.Hughs. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1973.

Whigham, Frank. "Reading Social Conflict in the Alimentary Tract: Moreon the Body in Renaissance Drama." English Literary History 55:2(1988): 333-50.

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