Genre:

Poetry, Drollery

Subjects:

Chemistry, Gender, Psychology

People mentioned:

Ben Jonson

    Compares the attraction between him and his beloved Mary to that between chemical elements and compounds. Likens his affinity for Mary to that between Potassium and Oxygen. Wishes that 'I, my Mary, were an acid, / A living acid; thou an alkali' / Endow'd with human sense, that brought together, / We might both coalesce into one salt'. Other chemical combinations to which he compares his relationship include sulphuric acid and soda (resulting in Glauber's salt) and potassa and aqua-fortis (resulting in saltpetre). Believes that 'We'd live and love together, until death / Should decompose the fleshly tertium quid, / Leaving our souls to all eternity / Amalgamated'.