me; for then by magic art I’ll work To end my seven years’ task with excellence. If that a wink but shut thy watchful eye, Then farewell Bacon’s glory and his fame! Draw close the curtains, Miles: now, for thy life, Be watchful, and ... (Falls asleep.)
Miles. So; I thought you would talk yourself asleep anon; and ’tis no marvel, for Bungay on the days, and he on the nights, have watched just these ten and fifty days: now this is the night, and ’tis my task, and no more. Now, Jesus bless me, what a goodly head it is! and a nose! You talk of Nos10 autem glorificare; but here’s a nose that I warrant may be called Nos autem populare for the people of the parish. Well, I am furnished with weapons: now, sir, I will set me down by a post, and make it as good as a watchman to wake me, if I chance to slumber. I thought, Goodman Head, I would call you out of your memento.11 Passion o’ God, I have almost broke my pate! (A great noise.) Up, Miles, to your task; take your brown-bill in your hand; here’s some of your master’s hobgoblins abroad.
The Brazen Head (speaks). Time is.
Miles. Time is! Why, Master Brazen-Head, you have such a capital nose, and answer you with syllables, ‘Time is’? Is this my master’s cunning, to spend seven years’ study about ‘Time is’? Well, sir, it may be we shall have some better orations of it anon: well, I’ll watch you as narrowly as ever you were watched, and I’ll play with you as the nightingale with the glow-worm; I’ll set a prick against my breast.12 Now rest there, Miles. Lord have mercy upon me, I have almost killed myself. (A great noise.) Up, Miles; list how they rumble.
The Brazen Head (loquitur). Time was.
Miles. Well, Friar Bacon, you have spent your seven years’ study well, that can make your Head speak but two words at once, ‘Time was.’ Yea, marry, time was when my master was a wise man; but that was before he began to make the Brazen Head. You shall lie while you ache, an your head speak no better. Well, I will watch, and walk up and down, and be a peripatetian13 and a philosopher of Aristotle’s stamp. (A great noise.) What, a fresh noise? Take thy pistols in hand, Miles. (A lightning flashes forth, and a Hand appears that breaks down the Head with a hammer.) Master, master, up! Hell’s broken loose! Your Head speaks; and there’s such a thunder and lightning, that I warrant all Oxford is up in arms. Out of your bed, and take a brownbill in your hand; the latter day is come.
Bacon. Miles, I come. (Rises and comes forward.) O, passing warily watched! Bacon will make thee next himself in love. When spake the Head?
Miles. When spake the Head? Did you not say that he should tell strange principles of philosophy? Why, sir, it speaks but two words at a time.
Bacon. Why, villain, hath it spoken oft?
Miles. Oft! ay, marry hath it, thrice; but in all those three times it hath uttered but seven words.
Bacon. As how?
Miles. Marry, sir, the first time he said, ‘Time is,’ as if Fabius Commentator14 should have pronounced a sentence; then he said, ‘Time was;’ and the third time, with thunder and lightning, as in great choler, he said, ‘Time is past.’
Bacon. ’Tis past, indeed. Ah, villain! Time is past;
My life, my fame, my glory, are all past.
Bacon,
The turrets of thy hope are ruined down,
Thy seven years’ study lieth in the dust:
Thy Brazen Head lies broken through a slave
That watched, and would not when the Head did will.
What said the Head first?
Miles. Even, sir, ‘Time is.’
Bacon. Villain, if thou hadst called to Bacon then,
If thou hadst watched, and waked the sleepy friar,
The Brazen Head had uttered aphorisms,
And England had been circled round with brass:
But proud Asmenoth,15 ruler of the North, And Demogorgon,16 master of the Fates, Grudge that a mortal man should work so much. Hell trembled at my deep-commanding spells, Fiends frowned to see a man their over-match; Bacon might boast more than a man might boast; But now the braves17 of Bacon have an end, Europe’s conceit of Bacon hath an end, His seven years’ practice sorteth to ill end: And, villain, sith my glory hath an end, I will appoint thee to some fatal end.18 Villain, avoid! get thee from Bacon’s sight! Vagrant, go, roam and range about the world, And perish as a vagabond on earth!
Miles. Why, then, sir, you forbid me your service?
Bacon. My service, villain, with a fatal curse,
That direful plagues and mischief fall on thee.
Miles. ’Tis no matter, I am against you with the old proverb, ‘The more the fox is cursed, the better he fares.’ God be with you, sir: I’ll take but a book in my hand, a wide-sleeved gown on my back, and a crowned cap19 on my head, and see if I can merit promotion.
Bacon. Some fiend or ghost haunt on thy weary steps,
Until they do transport thee quick to Hell!
For Bacon shall have never any day,
To lose the fame and honour of his Head.
(Exeunt.
Scene XII. passes in King Henry’s Court, and the royal consent is given to Earl Lacy’s marriage with the Fair Maid, which is fixed to take place on the same day as Prince Edward’s marriage to the Princess Elinor. In Scene XIII. we again go back to Bacon’s cell. The friar is bewailing the destruction of his Brazen Head to Friar Bungay, when two young gentlemen, named Lambert and Sealsby, enter, in order to look into the ‘glass prospective,’ and see how their fathers are faring. Unhappily, at this very moment, the elder Lambert and Sealsby, having quarrelled, are engaged ‘in combat hard by Fressingfield,’ and stab each other to the death, whereupon their sons immediately come to blows, with a like fatal result. Bacon, deeply affected, breaks the magic crystal which has been the unwitting cause of so sad a catastrophe, expresses his regret that he ever dabbled in the unholy science, and announces his resolve to spend the remainder of his life ‘in pure devotion.’
At Fressingfield, in Scene XIV., the opportune arrival of Lacy and his friends prevents Margaret from carrying out her intention of retiring to the nunnery at Framlingham, and with obliging readiness she consents to marry the Earl. Scene XV. shifts to Bacon’s cell, where a devil complains that the friar hath raised him from the darkest deep to search about the world for Miles, his man, and torment him in punishment for his neglect of orders.
Miles makes his appearance, and after some comic dialogue, intended to tickle the
