ベンジョンソン『錬金術師』におけるGeber's Cook

Abstract

Alchemy was still legitimate pursuits in Early Modern England. Although alchemy had been a statutory offence since 1403-4, both the state and the universities tolerated private study of alchemy as long as it did not lead to any scandalous accusations of fraud or witchcraft. Early Jacobean audience of Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, first performed in 1610 at the Globe, were very likely to have a mixed feeling toward alchemy, which was thoroughly caricatured in this comedy. Jonson had done an extensive research on medieval and early modern authorities on alchemy, such as Pseudo-Geber, Raymond Lull, Thomas Norton, and George Ripley, whose treatises of alchemy were available in vernacular by the end of the sixteenth century. Jonson deployed the very authorities mentioned above in order to satirize Subtle and Face, alchemical charlatans in the play, by indicating that they fit the characterizations of Geber's cook, an epithet to denote a false or ignorant alchemist who carried out erroneous experiments using urine, eggs, hair and blood, a practice unanimously denounced by Norton and Ripley. William Perkins thought there were three classes people who were likely to become witches, Catholics, learned magicians, and unlearned quacks, all of whom turned out to be the objects of satire in the Alchemist.