The House of Doctor Dee

'Well, I thank God.'

'Say nothing of God here, my good doctor. The very noise of this place puts me in mind of hell. I love an interlude or a show as much as any man but, lord, the preparation!'

I was about to complain about the state of the painted cloths, which lay unfinished on the ground, but I stopped myself and offered him a smile. 'All great work takes time,' I replied. 'We are corrupted nature.'

'I thought you would say so, Doctor Dee.' I could have struck him for his malipert sauciness. 'But I wish that we might have only a dumb show before the tragical act.'

He laughed at his own wit, so I cut him short. 'Now that you speak of acts, Mr Mekes…' Whereupon I began to remind him of the order of representations; how in the tragic scenes it was necessary to have columns, pediments and statues, while the comic would require mere balconies and windows. 'And for the satyric,' I continued, 'we need your trees and herbs and hills.'

'Silk,' said he. 'Silk for the flowers. It is much more commendable than the natural things themselves.' He gave a little turn, as if it were a figure in a dance. 'Oh good lord, what magnificence there might be with sundry trees and fruits, herbs and flowers, all made with fine silk of diverse colours. And shall you want watercourses with banks of coral and mother of pearl? And shells of ivory laid between the stones? Oh good lord!'

'There will be a greater marvel still, Mr Mekes, when your trees and flowers descend.'

'Descend?' He was in a little effeminate pang of perplexity.

'There will be an engine underneath the stage, which will cause all your display gently to sink.'

'And what will come in its place?'

'Oh a miracle, Mr Mekes, a miracle.'

*

And so it was, as the various parts of the scene began to yield. The notes of the viol and the lute moved strangely so that the music became, in a mysterious manner, the emblem of the whole spectacle: there were such harmonies within these changing chords that they echoed the very harmony of heaven. On my stage, numerology, geometry and astrology were all combined in one. As the music played, a roof of stars appeared, many shining spheres wrought within a background of the deepest blue; and upon the same ground of artifice it seemed as if the eleven circles of the eleven heavens revolved wonderfully with the planets and the stars. Nothing perishes, but stands in eternity: which is to say the moon, Mercury, Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the fixed stars of the firmament, the crystalline heavens, the primum mobile, and then the imperial heaven which is the godhead and the source of all our life and light.

Whereupon the roof of the stars opened and suddenly there came down circles of light and glass, one within another, all within a sphere and all as it were turning perpetually; which light and motion so occupied the eyes of the concourse that they hardly saw above this glistening sphere an infinite number of lights which blazed down upon the scene. These were the fixed stars which ever stand at like distance one from another, and neither come nearer together nor go further asunder. At which moment came a louder and fuller music, harmonia mundi, like the primum mobile itself which ravishes all the spheres; and then, as this great image was set before them, a sweet odour crept forth among the beholders. Image — no, not image, but emblem. O thou picture of the celestial world drawn in little compass! O thou perspective glass, in which we may behold upon earth all the frame and wonders of the heavens! So then it was that three figures came down from the painted vault of the universe and seemed to hover in the air (held up by iron chains which could not be seen), and in their majestic attire of robes coloured white, black and red they were the tokens of astrology, of natural philosophy and of opticks, through which the cabala of nature may be known. Then all vanished away behind a curtain of mist and darkness, and the spectacle ended.

Whereupon there was a hum of conversation, as if flies in swarms were buzzing about the hall. There were some who sat in silence, scarcely able to take the measure of what they had recently observed, while others discoursed as loud as ever they could upon the merits of the engines, the painted scenes and such like.

'There is nothing new here,' said one. 'It is all old stuff dressed up. Wherefore does he dwell upon past topics when there is so much in the present world to concern us?'

'Newfangleness,' said another, 'and without meaning. Some new new nothing.'

'Like the frozen zone,' said a third. 'Without humane actions or passions to move us.'

Others again merely stretched, and sighed, and gaped at the fellows beside them. I stood at the back, my head bowed, like some aged reverend gentleman in my black velvet coat and black cloth gown. I said not a word but watched everything, as my heart sank rapidly beneath me: for what end had my spectacle been prepared, now that the larger part of the hall merely yawned and scratched their heads as if they had seen nothing at all? I had displayed to them certain secrets of the known world, but the glistening spheres were to them no more than children's toys or a trickery and a deceit which signified nothing. Was this always the path by which true knowledge would be received? I, who had taken much great care to produce this artificial spectacle, was of no more account than some old forsworn mathematician whose diagrams are viewed hastily once and then forgotten. I had created wonders but, truly, there is no wonder greater than the folly and forgetfulness of the world.

Nathaniel Cadman came up to me smiling aimlessly, like some vagabond boy. 'Here is my hand,' said he. 'Take it. By God, sir, I love you. I could not love you so well as I do if you were the heir of a kingdom.' I bowed to him. 'I could scarce make an end to my words, sir, in a thousand years —'

But then he stopped abruptly when an idle fellow clapped him on the back. 'Is this he?' he asked. 'Is this the cunning man? The doctor?'

Nathaniel Cadman flapped his hand like a Frenchman. 'The right worshipful master, John Dee,' he said.

'At your service, sir,' I replied and bowed again, while all the time locking my fingers together beneath my cloak.

'When he was in my service,' the fool Cadman added, 'he cost me more angels than are in heaven.'

At that I crossed myself. The newly arrived gentleman (though in truth little more than a squab) was dressed in dainty gear, with a great monstrous ruff of cambric, and boots that might have come up to his very eyes if the ruff were not there as a barricade. 'I think,' he said, introducing himself to me as Bartholomew Bodele, 'that I have known you before?'

'If you knew me before, sir, you may the easier know me now.'

'Oh you are a Platonist, sir. I cry you mercy. I took you to be a maker of engines.'

'The world is filled with errors and vain reports, and if I were to answer them all I could not find enough words.'

At this retort he held his peace, but we were joined now by others of his kind who, being also known to Nathaniel Cadman, set up a clamour that we should eat and drink together. I do not care for companions, whether they be gallants or car-men, since they leave me bereft of that intercourse with my own self which aids my work: to spend too much time in company leads me into so great a storm of doubting and misliking that I scarcely know myself. But there was no help for it at this present juncture: they saluted me with fair words and pressed me to ride with them into the city. 'But the engines,' I said, 'and the scenes of the spectacle must all be carefully preserved.'

'No rats or spiders will injure them in the space of one night,' Nathaniel Cadman replied, 'and I doubt that any jarkman or crossbiter will remove the spheres or stars. You concern yourself too much, Doctor Dee. Pass the time with us, your followers. Come and eat.'