Volpone or the fox

Texto utilizado para esta edición digital:
Jonson, Ben. Volpone. In: Black, Joseph et al. (ed.) The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Renaissance and the Early Seventeenth Century Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press, 2006, [6 vols.], vol. 2, pp. 594-656.

Adaptación digital para EMOTHE:

Soler Sánchez, Victoria

Nota a la edición digital

Reproduced by kind permission of Broadview Press.

Dedicatoria

To the most noble and most equal sisters, the two famous universities, for their love and acceptance shown to his poem in the presentation, Ben Jonson, the grateful acknowledger, dedicates both it and himself

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

Volpone, a magnifico

Mosca, his parasite

Voltore, an advocate

Corbaccio, an old gentleman

Corvino, a merchant

Avocatori, four magistrates

Notario, the registrer

Nano, a dwarf

Castrone, an eunuch

Grege, (the crowd)

Sir Politic Would-be, a knight

Peregrine, a gentleman traveler

Bonario, son to Corbaccio

Fine Madam Would-be, Sir Politic’s wife

Celia, the merchant's wife

Commandatori, officers of justice

Mercatori, three merchants

Androgyno, a hermaphrodite

Servitori, a servant

Women, two

The scene: Venice.

The argument

V olpone, childless, rich, feigns sick, despairs,
O ffers his state to hopes of several heirs,
L ies languishing; his parasite receives
P resents of all, assures, deludes; then weaves
O ther cross plots, which ope themselves, are told.
N ew tricks for safety are sought; they thrive: when bold,
E ach tempts the other again, and all are sold.

Prologue

Now, luck yet send us, and a little wit
Will serve to make our play hit;
(According to the palates of the season)
Here is rhyme, not empty of reason.
This we were bid to credit from our poet,
Whose true scope, if you would know it,
In all his poems still hath been this measure,
To mix profit with your pleasure;
And not as some, whose throats their envy failing,
Cry hoarsely, "All he writes is railing,"
And when his plays come forth, think they can flour them,
With saying, ‘He was a year about them.’
To this there needs no lie, but this his creature,
Which was two months since no feature;
And though he dares give them five lives to mend it,
'Tis known, five weeks fully penned it,
From his own hand; without a co-adjutor,
Novice, journey-man, or tutor.
Yet thus much I can give you as a token
Of his play's worth, no eggs are broken,
Nor quaking custards with fierce teeth affrighted,
Wherewith your rout are so delighted;
Nor hales he in a gull old ends reciting,
To stop gaps in his loose writing;
With such a deal of monstrous and forced action,
As might make Bedlam a faction:
Nor made he his play for jests stolen from each table,
But makes jests to fit his fable;
And so presents quick comedy refined,
As best critics have designed;
The laws of time, place, persons he observeth,
From no needful rule he swerveth.
All gall and copperas from his ink he draineth,
Only a little salt remaineth,
Wherewith he'll rub your cheeks, till red, with laughter,
They shall look fresh a week after.

ACT 1

SCENE 1

(Enter Volpone and Mosca.)

VOLPONE

Good morning to the day; and next, my gold! –

Open the shrine, that I may see my saint.

[Mosca reveals the treasure.]

Hail the world's soul, and mine! more glad than is

The teeming earth to see the longed-for sun

Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram,

Am I, to view thy splendour darkening his;

That lying here, amongst my other hoards,

Show'st like a flame by night, or like the day

Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled

Unto the center. O thou son of Sol,

But brighter than thy father, let me kiss,

With adoration, thee, and every relic

Of sacred treasure in this blessed room.

Well did wise poets, by thy glorious name,

Title that age which they would have the best;

Thou being the best of things, and far transcending

All style of joy, in children, parents, friends,

Or any other waking dream on earth:

Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe,

They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids;

Such are thy beauties and our loves! Dear saint,

Riches, the dumb god, that giv'st all men tongues,

Thou canst do naught, and yet mak'st men do all things;

The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot,

Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame,

Honour, and all things else. Who can get thee,

He shall be noble valiant, honest, wise –

MOSCA

And what he will, sir. Riches are in fortune

A greater good than wisdom is in nature.

VOLPONE

True, my beloved Mosca. Yet I glory

More in the cunning purchase of my wealth,

Than in the glad possession, since I gain

No common way; I use no trade, no venture;

I wound no earth with plough-shares, fat no beasts,

To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron,

Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder;

I blow no subtle glass; expose no ships

To threat'nings of the furrow-faced sea;

I turn no monies in the public bank,

Nor usure private.

MOSCA

No, sir, nor devour

Soft prodigals. You shall have some will swallow

A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch

Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for it;

Tear forth the fathers of poor families

Out of their beds, and coffin them alive

In some kind clasping prison, where their bones

May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten:

But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses;

You loathe the widow's or the orphan's tears

Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries

Ring in your roofs, and beat the air for vengeance.

VOLPONE

Right, Mosca, I do lothe it.

MOSCA

And besides, sir,

You are not like the thresher that doth stand

With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn,

And, hungry, dares not taste the smallest grain,

But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs;

Nor like the merchant, who hath filled his vaults

With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines,

Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar:

You will lie not in straw, whilst moths and worms

Feed on your sumptuous hangings and soft beds;

You know the use of riches, and dare give now

From that bright heap, to me, your poor observer,

Or to your dwarf, or your hermaphrodite,

Your eunuch, or what other household trifle

Your pleasure allows maintenance –

VOLPONE

Hold thee, Mosca,

[Gives him money.]

Take of my hand; thou strik'st on truth in all,

And they are envious term thee parasite.

Call forth my dwarf, my eunuch, and my fool,

And let them make me sport.

[Exit Mosca.]

What should I do

But cocker up my genius, and live free

To all delights my fortune calls me to?

I have no wife, no parent, child, ally,

To give my substance to; but whom I make

Must be my heir: and this makes men observe me:

This draws new clients daily to my house,

Women and men of every sex and age,

That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels,

With hope that when I die (which they expect

Each greedy minute) it shall then return

Ten-fold upon them; whilst some, covetous

Above the rest, seek to engross me whole,

And counter-work the one unto the other,

Contend in gifts as they would seem in love:

All which I suffer, playing with their hopes,

And am content to coin them into profit,

And look upon their kindness, and take more,

And look on that; still bearing them in hand,

Letting the cherry knock against their lips,

And draw it by their mouths and back again. – How now!

ACT 1, Scene 2

(Enter Mosca with Nano, Androgyno, and Castrone.)

NANO

Now, room for fresh gamester, who do will you to know,

They do bring you neither play nor university show;

And therefore do entreat you, that whatsoever they rehearse,

May not fare a whit the worse, for the false pace of the verse.

If you wonder at this, you will wonder more ere we pass,

For know, here is enclosed the soul of Pythagoras,

That juggler divine, as hereafter shall follow;

Which soul, fast and loose, sir, came first from Apollo,

And was breathed into Aethalides, Mercurius, his son,

Where it had the gift to remember all that ever was done.

From thence it fled forth, and made quick transmigration

To goldilocked Euphorbus, who was killed in good fashion,

At the siege of old Troy, by the cuckold of Sparta.

Hermotimus was next (I find it in my charta)

To whom it did pass, where no sooner it was missing

But with one Pyrrhus of Delos it learned to go a-fishing;

And thence did it enter the sophist of Greece.

From Pythagore, she went into a beautiful piece,

Hight Aspasia, the meretrix; and the next toss of her

Was again of a whore, she became a philosopher,

Crates the cynic, as itself doth relate it:

Since kings, knights, and beggars, knaves, lords, and

fools gat it,

Besides ox and ass, camel, mule, goat, and brock,

In all which it hath spoke, as in the cobbler’s cock.

But I come not here to discourse of that matter,

Or his one, two, or three, or his great oath, “By quarter!”

His musics, his trigon, his golden thigh,

Or his telling how elements shift, but I

Would ask, how of late thou hast suffered translation,

And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation.

ANDROGYNO

Like one of the reformed, a fool, as you see,

Counting all old doctrine heresy.

NANO

But not on thine own forbid meats hast thou ventured?

ANDROGYNO

On fish, when first a Carthusian I entered.

NANO

Why, then thy dogmatical silence hath left thee?

ANDROGYNO

Of that an obstreperous lawyer bereft me.

NANO

O wonderful change, when sir lawyer forsook thee!

For Pythagore's sake, what body then took thee?

ANDROGYNO

A good dull mule.

NANO

And how, by that means,

Thou wert brought to allow of the eating of beans?

ANDROGYNO

Yes.

NANO

But from the mule into whom didst thou pass?

ANDROGYNO

Into a very strange beast, by some writers called an ass;

By others, a precise, pure, illuminate brother,

Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one another;

And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctified lie,

Betwixt every spoonful of a nativity-pie.

NANO

Now quit thee, for heaven, of that profane nation,

And gently report thy next transmigration.

ANDROGYNO

To the same that I am.

NANO

A creature of delight,

And, what is more than a fool, an hermaphrodite!

Now, prithee, sweet soul, in all thy variation,

Which body would’st thou choose, to keep up thy station?

ANDROGYNO

Troth, this I am in: even here would I tarry.

NANO

'Cause here the delight of each sex thou canst vary?

ANDROGYNO

Alas, those pleasures be stale and forsaken;

No, 'tis your fool wherewith I am so taken,

The only one creature that I can call blessed;

For all other forms I have proved most distressed.

NANO

Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras still.

This learned opinion we celebrate will,

Fellow eunuch, as behoves us, with all our wit and art,

To dignify that whereof ourselves are so great and

special a part.

VOLPONE

Now, very, very pretty! Mosca, this

Was thy invention?

MOSCA

If it please my patron,

Not else.

VOLPONE

It doth, good Mosca.

MOSCA

Then it was, sir.

[song]

Fools, they are the only nation

Worth men's envy or admiration:

Free from care or sorrow-taking,

Selves and others merry making:

All they speak or do is sterling.

Your fool he is your great man's darling,

And your ladies’ sport and pleasure;

Tongue and bauble are his treasure.

E'en his face begetteth laughter,

And he speaks truth free from slaughter;

He's the grace of every feast,

And sometimes the chiefest guest;

Hath his trencher and his stool,

When wit waits upon the fool.

O, who would not be

He, he, he?

One knocks without.

VOLPONE

Who's that? Away!

[Exeunt Nano and Castrone.]

Look, Mosca.

[Exit Androgyno.]

MOSCA

Fool begone!

'Tis Signor Voltore, the advocate;

I know him by his knock.

VOLPONE

Fetch me my gown,

My furs and night-caps; say, my couch is changing,

And let him entertain himself awhile

Without i' the gallery.

[Exit Mosca.]

Now, now, my clients

Begin their visitation! Vulture, kite,

Raven, and gor-crow, all my birds of prey,

That think me turning carcass, now they come;

I am not for them yet-

[Re-enter Mosca, with the gown, etc.]

How now! The news?

MOSCA

A piece of plate, sir.

VOLPONE

Of what bigness?

MOSCA

Huge,

Massy, and antique, with your name inscribed,

And arms engraven.

VOLPONE

Good! And not a fox

Streched on the earth, with fine delusive sleights,

Mocking a gaping crow? ha, Mosca!

MOSCA

Sharp, sir.

VOLPONE

100

Give me my furs. Why dost thou laugh so, man?

MOSCA

I cannot choose, sir, when I apprehend

What thoughts he has without now, as he walks:

That this might be the last gift he should give;

That this would fetch you; if you died to-day,

105

And gave him all, what he should be to-morrow;

What large return would come of all his ventures;

How he should worshiped be, and reverenced;

Ride with his furs, and foot-cloths; waited on

By herds of fools, and clients; have clear way

110

Made for his mule, as lettered as himself;

Be called the great and learned advocate:

And then concludes, there's naught impossible.

VOLPONE

Yes, to be learned, Mosca.

MOSCA

O, no: rich

Implies it. Hood an ass with reverend purple,

115

So you can hide his two ambitious ears,

And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor.

VOLPONE

My caps, my caps, good Mosca. Fetch him in.

MOSCA

Stay, sir; your ointment for your eyes.

VOLPONE

That's true;

Dispatch, dispatch: I long to have possession

120

Of my new present.

MOSCA

That, and thousands more,

I hope to see you lord of.

VOLPONE

Thanks, kind Mosca.

MOSCA

And that, when I am lost in blended dust,

And hundred such as I am, in succession -

VOLPONE

Nay, that were too much, Mosca.

MOSCA

You shall live

125

Still, to delude these harpies.

VOLPONE

Loving Mosca!

'Tis well: my pillow now, and let him enter.

[Exit Mosca.]

Now, my feigned cough, my phthisic, and my gout,

My apoplexy, palsy, and catarrhs,

Help, with your forced functions, this my posture,

130

Wherein, this three year, I have milked their hopes.

He comes; I hear him-Uh!

[Coughing.]

uh, uh, uh, uh! O -

ACT 1, Scene 3

[Enter Mosca, ushering in Voltore, carrying a platter.]

MOSCA

You still are what you were, sir. Only you,

Of all the rest, are he commands his love,

And you do wisely to preserve it thus,

With early visitation, and kind notes

Of your good meaning to him, which, I know,

Cannot but come most grateful. Patron! Sir!

Here's Signior Voltore is come-

VOLPONE

[Faintly.]

What say you?

MOSCA

Sir, Signior Voltore is come this morning

To visit you.

VOLPONE

I thank him.

MOSCA

And hath brought

A piece of antique plate, bought of St. Mark,

With which he here presents you.

VOLPONE

He is welcome.

Pray him to come more often.

MOSCA

Yes.

VOLTORE

What says he?

MOSCA

He thanks you, and desires you see him often.

VOLPONE

Mosca.

MOSCA

My patron!

VOLPONE

Bring him near, where is he?

I long to feel his hand.

MOSCA

The plate is here, sir.

VOLTORE

How fare you, sir?

VOLPONE

I thank you, Signor Voltore;

Where is the plate? Mine eyes are bad.

VOLTORE

[Putting it into his hands.]

I'm sorry,

To see you still thus weak.

MOSCA

[aside]

That he’s not weaker.

VOLPONE

[Taking hold of the platter.]

You are too munificent.

VOLTORE

No, sir; would to heaven,

I could as well give health to you, as that plate!

VOLPONE

You give, sir, what you can: I thank you. Your love

Hath taste in this, and shall not be unanswered:

I pray you see me often.

VOLTORE

Yes, I shall, sir.

VOLPONE

Be not far from me.

MOSCA

[To Voltore]

Do you observe that, sir?

VOLPONE

Hearken unto me still; it will concern you.

MOSCA

[To Voltore]

You are a happy man, sir; know your good.

VOLPONE

I cannot now last long -

MOSCA

[To Voltore]

You are his heir, sir.

VOLTORE

Am I?

VOLPONE

I feel me going; uh! uh! uh! uh!

I’m sailing to my port, uh! uh! uh! uh!

And I am glad I am so near my haven.

MOSCA

Alas, kind gentleman! Well, we must all go -

VOLTORE

But, Mosca -

MOSCA

Age will conquer.

VOLTORE

Pray thee, hear me:

Am I inscribed his heir for certain?

MOSCA

Are you!

I do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe

To write me in your family. All my hopes

Depend upon your worship: I am lost,

Except the rising sun do shine on me.

VOLTORE

It shall both shine, and warm thee, Mosca.

MOSCA

Sir,

I am a man, that hath not done your love

All the worst offices: here I wear your keys,

See all your coffers and your caskets locked,

Keep the poor inventory of your jewels,

Your plate and monies; am your steward, sir,

Husband your goods here.

VOLTORE

But am I sole heir?

MOSCA

Without a partner, sir; confirmed this morning:

The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry

Upon the parchment.

VOLTORE

Happy, happy, me!

By what good chance, sweet Mosca?

MOSCA

Your desert, sir;

I know no second cause.

VOLTORE

Thy modesty

Is not to know it; well, we shall requite it.

MOSCA

He ever liked your course, sir; that first took him.

I oft have heard him say, how he admired

Men of your large profession, that could speak

To every cause, and things mere contraries,

Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law;

That, with most quick agility, could turn,

And return; make knots, and undo them;

Give forked counsel; take provoking gold

On either hand, and put it up: these men,

He knew, would thrive with their humility.

And, for his part, he thought he should be blest

To have his heir of such a suffering spirit,

So wise, so grave, of so perplexed a tongue,

And loud withal, that would not wag, nor scarce

Lie still, without a fee, when every word

Your worship but lets fall, is a cecchine!

(Another knocks.)

Who's that? one knocks; I would not have you seen, sir.

And yet — pretend you came, and went in haste:

I'll fashion an excuse — and, gentle sir,

When you do come to swim in golden lard,

Up to the arms in honey, that your chin

Is borne up stiff, with fatness of the flood,

Think on your vassal; but remember me:

I have not been your worst of clients.

VOLTORE

Mosca!—

MOSCA

When will you have your inventory brought, sir?

Or see a copy of the will? —Anon! —

I'll bring them to you, sir. Away, be gone,

Put business in your face.

[Exit Voltore.]

VOLPONE

[Springing up.]

Excellent, Mosca!

Come hither, let me kiss thee.

MOSCA

Keep you still, sir.

Here is Corbaccio.

VOLPONE

Set the plate away:

The vulture's gone, and the old raven's come!

ACT 1, Scene 4

MOSCA

Betake you to your silence, and your sleep.

[Putting the plate aside.]

Stand there and multiply. Now, we shall see

A wretch who is indeed more impotent

Than this can feign to be; yet hopes to hop

Over his grave-

[Enter Corbaccio.]

Signior Corbaccio!

You're very welcome, sir.

CORBACCIO

How does your patron?

MOSCA

Troth, as he did, sir; no amends.

CORBACCIO

What! mends he?

MOSCA

No, sir: he’s rather worse.

CORBACCIO

That's well. Where is he?

MOSCA

Upon his couch, sir, newly fallen asleep.

CORBACCIO

Does he sleep well?

MOSCA

No wink, sir, all this night.

Nor yesterday; but slumbers.

CORBACCIO

Good! He should take

Some counsel of physicians: I have brought him

An opiate here, from mine own doctor.

MOSCA

He will not hear of drugs.

CORBACCIO

Why? I myself

Stood by while it was made, saw all the ingredients:

And know, it cannot but most gently work:

My life for his, 'tis but to make him sleep.

VOLPONE

[Aside]

Aye, his last sleep, if he would take it.

MOSCA

Sir,

He has no faith in physic.

CORBACCIO

Say you, say you?

MOSCA

He has no faith in physic: he does think

Most of your doctors are the greater danger

And worse disease, to escape. I often have

Heard him protest, that your physician

Should never be his heir.

CORBACCIO

Not I his heir?

MOSCA

Not your physician, sir.

CORBACCIO

O, no, no, no,

I do not mean it.

MOSCA

No, sir, nor their fees

He cannot brook: he says, they flay a man,

Before they kill him.

CORBACCIO

Right, I do conceive you.

MOSCA

And then they do it by experiment;

For which the law not only doth absolve them,

But gives them great reward: and he is loath

To hire his death, so.

CORBACCIO

It is true, they kill

With as much license as a judge.

MOSCA

Nay, more;

For he but kills, sir, where the law condemns,

And these can kill him too.

CORBACCIO

Aye, or me;

Or any man. How does his apoplex?

Is that strong on him still?

MOSCA

Most violent.

His speech is broken, and his eyes are set,

His face drawn longer than 'twas wont–

CORBACCIO

How! how!

Stronger than he was wont?

MOSCA

No, sir: his face

Drawn longer than 'twas wont.

CORBACCIO

O, good!

MOSCA

His mouth

Is ever gaping, and his eyelids hang.

CORBACCIO

Good.

MOSCA

A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints,

And makes the colour of his flesh like lead.

CORBACCIO

‘Tis good.

MOSCA

His pulse beats slow, and dull.

CORBACCIO

Good symptoms still.

MOSCA

And from his brain–

CORBACCIO

Ha? How? not from his brain?

MOSCA

Yes, sir, and from his brain–

CORBACCIO

I conceive you; good.

MOSCA

Flows a cold sweat, with a continual rheum,

Forth the resolved corners of his eyes.

CORBACCIO

Is't possible? Yet I am better, ha!

How does he, with the swimming of his head?

MOSCA

O, sir, 'tis past the scotomy; he now

Hath lost his feeling, and hath left to snort:

Your hardly can perceive him, that he breathes.

CORBACCIO

Excellent, excellent! sure I shall outlast him:

This makes me young again, a score of years.

MOSCA

I was a coming for you, sir.

CORBACCIO

Has he made his will?

What has he given me?

MOSCA

No, sir.

CORBACCIO

Nothing! Ha?

MOSCA

He has not made his will, sir.

CORBACCIO

Oh, oh, oh!

What then did Voltore, the lawyer, here?

MOSCA

He smelt a carcass, sir, when he but heard

My master was about his testament;

As I did urge him to it for your good -

CORBACCIO

He came unto him, did he? I thought so.

MOSCA

Yes, and presented him this piece of plate.

CORBACCIO

To be his heir?

MOSCA

I do not know, sir.

CORBACCIO

True:

I know it too.

MOSCA

[aside.]

By your own scale, sir.

CORBACCIO

Well,

I shall prevent him, yet. See, Mosca, look,

Here, I have brought a bag of bright cecchines,

Will quite weigh down his plate.

MOSCA

[Taking the bag.]

Yea, marry, sir.

This is true physic, this your sacred medicine;

No talk of opiates, to this great elixir!

CORBACCIO

'Tis aurum palpabile, if not potabile.

MOSCA

It shall be ministered to him, in his bowl.

CORBACCIO

Ay, do, do, do.

MOSCA

Most blessed cordial!

This will recover him.

CORBACCIO

Yes, do, do, do.

MOSCA

I think it were not best, sir.

CORBACCIO

What?

MOSCA

To recover him.

CORBACCIO

O, no, no, no; by no means.

MOSCA

Why, sir, this

Will work some strange effect, if he but feel it.

CORBACCIO

'Tis true, therefore forbear, I'll take my venture:

Give me it again.

MOSCA

At no hand; pardon me:

You shall not do yourself that wrong, sir. I

Will so advise you, you shall have it all.

CORBACCIO

How?

MOSCA

All, sir; 'tis your right, your own: no man

Can claim a part: 'tis yours, without a rival,

Decreed by destiny.

CORBACCIO

How, how, good Mosca?

MOSCA

I'll tell you, sir. This fit he shall recover.

CORBACCIO

I do conceive you.

MOSCA

And, on first advantage

Of his gained sense, will I re-importune him

Unto the making of his testament:

And show him this.

[Pointing to the money.]

CORBACCIO

Good, good.

MOSCA

'Tis better yet,

If you will hear, sir.

CORBACCIO

Yes, with all my heart.

MOSCA

Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed;

There, frame a will; whereto you shall inscribe

My master your sole heir.

CORBACCIO

And disinherit

My son!

MOSCA

O, sir, the better: for that colour

Shall make it much more taking.

CORBACCIO

O, but colour?

MOSCA

This will, sir, you shall send it unto me.

Now, when I come to enforce, as I will do,

100

Your cares, your watchings, and your many prayers,

Your more than many gifts, your this day’s present,

And last, produce your will; where, without thought,

Or least regard, unto your proper issue,

A son so brave, and highly meriting,

105

The stream of your diverted love hath thrown you

Upon my master, and made him your heir:

He cannot be so stupid, or stone-dead,

But out of conscience, and mere gratitude–

CORBACCIO

He must pronounce me his?

MOSCA

‘Tis true.

CORBACCIO

This plot

110

Did I think on before.

MOSCA

I do believe it.

CORBACCIO

Do you not believe it?

MOSCA

Yes, sir.

CORBACCIO

Mine own project.

MOSCA

Which, when he hath done, sir–

CORBACCIO

Published me his heir?

MOSCA

And you so certain to survive him–

CORBACCIO

Aye.

MOSCA

Being so lusty a man–

CORBACCIO

‘Tis true.

MOSCA

Yes, sir–

CORBACCIO

115

I thought on that too. See, how he should be

The very organ to express my thoughts!

MOSCA

You have not only done yourself a good–

CORBACCIO

But multiplied it on my son.

MOSCA

‘Tis right, sir.

CORBACCIO

Still, my invention.

MOSCA

‘Las, sir! heaven knows,

120

It hath been all my study, all my care,

(I e’en grow gray withal), how to work things–

CORBACCIO

I do conceive, sweet Mosca.

MOSCA

You are he,

For whom I labour here.

CORBACCIO

Ay, do, do, do:

I’ll straight about it.

[Going.]

MOSCA

[Aside]

Rook go with you, raven!

CORBACCIO

125

I know thee honest.

MOSCA

You do lie, sir!

CORBACCIO

And –

MOSCA

Your knowledge is no better than your ears, sir.

CORBACCIO

I do not doubt, to be a father to thee.

MOSCA

Nor I to gull my brother of his blessing.

CORBACCIO

I may have my youth restored to me, why not?

MOSCA

130

Your worship is a precious ass!

CORBACCIO

What say’st thou?

MOSCA

I do desire your worship to make haste, sir.

CORBACCIO

‘Tis done. ‘tis done; I go.

[Exit.]

VOLPONE

[Leaping up.]

Oh, I shall burst!

Let out my sides, let out my sides –

MOSCA

Contain

Your flux of laughter, sir: you know this hope

135

Is such a bait, it covers any hook.

VOLPONE

Oh, but thy working, and thy placing it!

I cannot hold; good rascal, let me kiss thee:

I never knew thee in so rare a humour.

MOSCA

Alas, sir, I but do as I am taught;

140

Follow your grave instructions; give them words;

Pour oil into their ears, and send them hence.

VOLPONE

‘Tis true, ‘tis true. What a rare punishment

Is avarice to itself!

MOSCA

Aye, with our help, sir.

VOLPONE

So many cares, so many maladies,

145

So many fears attending on old age,

Yea, death so often called on, as no wish

Can be more frequent with them, their limbs faint,

Their senses dull, their seeing, hearing, going,

All dead before them; yea, their very teeth,

150

Their instruments of eating, failing them:

Yet this is reckoned life! nay, here was one,

Is now gone home, that wishes to live longer!

Feels not his gout, nor palsy; feigns himself

Younger by scores of years, flatters his age

155

With confident belying it, hopes he may,

With charms, like Aeson, have his youth restored:

And with these thoughts so battens, as if fate

Would be as easily cheated on, as he,

And all turns air!

(Another knocks.)

Who’s that there, now? A third!

MOSCA

160

Close, to your couch again; I hear his voice:

It is Corvino, our spruce merchant.

VOLPONE

Dead.

MOSCA

Another bout, sir, with your eyes. Who’s there?

ACT 1, Scene 5

[Enter Corvino.]

MOSCA

Signior Corvino! Come most wished for! O,

How happy were you, if you knew it, now!

CORVINO

Why? what? wherein?

MOSCA

The tardy hour is come, sir.

CORVINO

He is not dead?

MOSCA

Not dead, sir, but as good;

He knows no man.

CORVINO

How shall I do, then?

MOSCA

Why, sir?

CORVINO

I have brought him here a pearl.

MOSCA

Perhaps he has

So much remembrance left, as to know you, sir:

He still calls on you; nothing but your name

Is in his mouth. Is your pearl orient, sir?

CORVINO

Venice was never owner of the like.

VOLPONE

[Faintly.]

Signior Corvino!

MOSCA

Hark.

VOLPONE

Signior Corvino!

MOSCA

He calls you; step and give it him. – He’s here, sir,

And he has brought you a rich pearl.

CORVINO

[to Voltone]

How do you, sir?

[To Mosca]

Tell him, it doubles the twelfth carat.

MOSCA

Sir,

He cannot understand, his hearing’s gone;

And yet it comforts him to see you –

CORVINO

Say,

I have a diamond for him, too.

MOSCA

Best show it, sir;

Put it into his hand; ‘tis only there

He apprehends: he has his feeling, yet.

See how he grasps it!

CORVINO

‘Las, good gentleman!

How pitiful the sight is!

MOSCA

Tut! forget, sir.

The weeping of an heir should still be laughter

Under a visor.

CORVINO

Why, am I his heir?

MOSCA

Sir, I am sworn, I may not show the will

Till he be dead; But here has been Corbaccio,

Here has been Voltore, here were others too,

I cannot number ‘em, they were so many;

All gaping here for legacies: but I,

Taking the vantage of his naming you,

“Signior Corvino! Signior Corvino!”, took

Paper, and pen, and ink, and there I asked him,

Whom he would have his heir. “Corvino.” Who

Should be executor? “Corvino.” And,

To any question he was silent to,

I still interpreted the nods he made,

Through weakness, for consent: and sent home th’others,

Nothing bequeathed them, but to cry and curse.

[They embrace.]

CORVINO

O, my dear Mosca! Does he not perceive us?

MOSCA

No more than a blind harper. He knows no man,

No face of friend, nor name of any servant,

Who ‘twas that fed him last, or gave him drink:

Not those he hath begotten, or brought up,

Can he remember.

CORVINO

Has he children?

MOSCA

Bastards,

Some dozen, or more, that he begot on beggars,

Gypsies, and Jews, and black-moors, when he was drunk.

Knew you not that, sir? ‘tis the common fable.

The dwarf, the fool, the eunuch, are all his;

He’s the true father of his family,

In all, save me:- but he has given them nothing.

CORVINO

That’s well, that’s well! Art sure he does not hear us?

MOSCA

Sure, sir! why, look you, credit your own sense.

[Shouts in Volpone’s ear]

The pox approach, and add to your diseases,

If it would send you hence the sooner, sir.

For your incontinence, it hath deserved it

Throughly, and throughly, and the plague to boot!—

You may come near, sir. —Would you would once close

Those filthy eyes of yours, that flow with slime,

Like two frog-pits; and those same hanging cheeks,

Covered with hide instead of skin – Nay, help, sir –

That look like frozen dish-clouts set on end!

CORVINO

Or like an old smoked wall, on which the rain

Ran down in streaks!

MOSCA

Excellent, sir! speak out:

You may be louder yet; a culverin

Discharged in his ear would hardly bore it.

CORVINO

His nose is like a common sewer, still running.

MOSCA

‘Tis good! And what his mouth?

CORVINO

A very draught.

MOSCA

O, stop it up –

CORVINO

By no means.

MOSCA

‘Pray you, let me:

Faith, I could stifle him rarely with a pillow.

As well as any woman that should keep him.

CORVINO

Do you as will; but I’ll be gone.

MOSCA

Be so:

It is your presence makes him last so long.

CORVINO

I pray you, use no violence.

MOSCA

No, sir? Why?

Why should you be thus scrupulous, pray you, sir?

CORVINO

Nay, at your discretion.

MOSCA

Well, good sir, begone.

CORVINO

I will not trouble him now, to take my pearl.

MOSCA

Puh! nor your diamond. What a needless care

Is this afflicts you? Is not all here yours?

Am not I here, whom you have made your creature?

That owe my being to you?

CORVINO

Grateful Mosca!

Thou art my friend, my fellow, my companion,

My partner, and shalt share in all my fortunes.

MOSCA

Excepting one.

CORVINO

What’s that?

MOSCA

Your gallant wife, sir.-

[Exit Corvino.]

Now is he gone: we had no other means

To shoot him hence, but this.

VOLPONE

My divine Mosca!

Thou hast to-day outgone thyself.

(Another knocks.)

Who’s there?

I will be troubled with no more. Prepare

Me music, dances, banquets, all delights;

The Turk is not more sensual in his pleasures,

Than will Volpone

[Exit Mosca.]

Let me see; a pearl!

A diamond! Plate! Cecchines! Good morning’s purchase.

Why, this is better than rob churches, yet;

Or fat, by eating, once a month, a man—

[Re-enter Mosca.]

Who is’t?

MOSCA

The beauteous Lady Would-be, sir,

Wife to the English knight, Sir Politic Would-be,

(This is the style, sir, is directed me,)

Hath sent to know how you have slept to-night,

And if you would be visited?

VOLPONE

Not now:

Some three hours hence –

MOSCA

I told the squire so much.

VOLPONE

When I am high with mirth and wine; then, then:

100

‘Fore heaven, I wonder at the desperate valor

Of the bold English, that they dare let loose

Their wives to all encounters!

MOSCA

Sir, this knight

Had not his name for nothing, he is politic,

And knows, howe’er his wife affect strange airs,

105

She hath not yet the face to be dishonest:

But had she Signior Corvino’s wife’s face –

VOLPONE

Has she so rare a face?

MOSCA

O, sir, the wonder,

The blazing star of Italy! a wench

Of the first year! a beauty ripe as harvest!

110

Whose skin is whiter than a swan all over,

Than silver, snow, or lilies! a soft lip,

Would tempt you to eternity of kissing!

And flesh that melteth in the touch to blood!

Bright as your gold, and lovely as your gold!

VOLPONE

115

Why had not I known this before?

MOSCA

Alas, sir,

Myself but yesterday discovered it.

VOLPONE

How might I see her?

MOSCA

O, not possible;

She’s kept as warily as is your gold;

Never does come abroad, never takes air,

120

But at a window. All her looks are sweet,

As the first grapes or cherries, and are watched

As near as they are.

VOLPONE

I must see her.

MOSCA

Sir,

There is a guard of spies ten thick upon her,

All his whole household; each of which is set

125

Upon his fellow, and have all their charge,

When he goes out, when he comes in, examined.

VOLPONE

I will go see her, though but at her window.

MOSCA

In some disguise, then.

VOLPONE

That is true; I must

Maintain mine own shape still the same: we’ll think.

[Exeunt.]

ACT 2

SCENE 1

[Enter Politic Would-be, Peregrine]

SIR POLITIC

Sir, to a wise man, all the world’s his soil:

It is not Italy, nor France, nor Europe,

That must bound me, if my fates call me forth.

Yet, I protest, it is no salt desire

Of seeing countries, shifting a religion,

Nor any disaffection to the state

Where I was bred, and unto which I owe

My dearest plots, hath brought me out; much less,

That idle, antique, stale, gray-headed project

Of knowing men’s minds and manners, with Ulysses!

But a peculiar humor of my wife’s

Laid for this height of Venice, to observe,

To quote, to learn the language, and so forth –

I hope you travel, sir, with license?

PEREGRINE

Yes.

SIR POLITIC

I dare the safelier converse- How long, sir,

Since you left England?

PEREGRINE

Seven weeks.

SIR POLITIC

So lately!

You have not been with my Lord Ambassador?

PEREGRINE

Not yet, sir.

SIR POLITIC

Pray you, what news, sir, vents our Climate?

I heard last night a most strange thing reported

By some of my lord’s followers, and I long

To hear how ‘twill be seconded.

PEREGRINE

What was’t, sir?

SIR POLITIC

Marry, sir, of a raven that should build

In a ship royal of the king’s.

PEREGRINE

[Aside.]

This fellow,

Does he gull me, trow? or is gulled? – Your name, sir?

SIR POLITIC

My name is Politic Would-be,

PEREGRINE

[Aside]

O, that speaks him –

A knight, sir?

SIR POLITIC

A poor knight, sir.

PEREGRINE

Your lady

Lies here in Venice, for intelligence

Of tires, and fashions, and behaviour,

Among the courtesans? The fine Lady Would-be?

SIR POLITIC

Yes, sir; the spider and the bee, oft times,

Suck from one flower.

PEREGRINE

Good Sir Politic,

I cry you mercy; I have heard much of you:

‘Tis true, sir, of your raven.

SIR POLITIC

On your knowledge?

PEREGRINE

Yes, and your lion’s whelping in the Tower.

SIR POLITIC

Another whelp!

PEREGRINE

Another, sir.

SIR POLITIC

Now, heaven!

What prodigies be these? The fires at Berwick!

And the new star! These things concurring, strange,

And full of omen! Saw you those meteors?

PEREGRINE

I did, sir.

SIR POLITIC

Fearful! Pray you, sir, confirm me,

Were there three porpoises seen above the Bridge,

As they give out?

PEREGRINE

Six, and a sturgeon, sir.

SIR POLITIC

I am astonished.

PEREGRINE

Nay, sir, be not so;

I’ll tell you a greater prodigy than these.

SIR POLITIC

What should these things portend?

PEREGRINE

The very day

(Let me be sure) that I put forth from London,

There was a whale discovered in the river,

As high as Woolwich, that had waited there,

Few know how many months, for the subversion

Of the Stode Fleet.

SIR POLITIC

Is’t possible? believe it,

‘Twas either sent from Spain, or the archdukes:

Spinola’s whale, upon my life, my credit!

Will they not leave these projects? Worthy sir,

Some other news.

PEREGRINE

Faith, Stone the fool is dead,

And they do lack a tavern fool extremely.

SIR POLITIC

Is Mas’ Stone dead?

PEREGRINE

He’s dead, sir; why, I hope

You thought him not immortal?

[Aside]

O, this knight,

Were he well known, would be a precious thing

To fit our English stage: he that should write

But such a fellow, should be thought to feign

Extremely, if not maliciously.

SIR POLITIC

Stone dead!

PEREGRINE

Dead.— Lord! how deeply, sir, you apprehend it?

He was no kinsman to you?

SIR POLITIC

That I know of.

Well! that same fellow was an unknown fool.

PEREGRINE

And yet you knew him, it seems?

SIR POLITIC

I did so. Sir,

I knew him one of the most dangerous heads

Living within the state, and so I held him.

PEREGRINE

Indeed, sir?

SIR POLITIC

While he lived, in action,

He has received weekly intelligence,

Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,

For all parts of the world, in cabbages;

And those dispensed again to ambassadors

In oranges, musk-melons, apricots,

Lemons, pome-citrons, and such-like; sometimes

In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles.

PEREGRINE

You make me wonder.

SIR POLITIC

Sir, upon my knowledge.

Nay, I’ve observed him, at your public ordinary,

Take his advertisement from a traveller,

A concealed statesman, in a trencher of meat;

And instantly, before the meal was done,

Convey an answer in a tooth-pick.

PEREGRINE

Strange!

How could this be, sir?

SIR POLITIC

Why, the meat was cut

so like his character, and so laid, as he

must easily read the cipher.

PEREGRINE

I have heard,

He could not read, sir.

SIR POLITIC

So ‘twas given out,

In policy, by those that did employ him:

But he could read, and had your languages,

And to’t, as sound a noddle –

PEREGRINE

I have heard, sir,

That your baboons were spies, and that they were

A kind of subtle nation near to China.

SIR POLITIC

Aye, aye, your Mamuluchi. Faith, they had

Their hand in a French plot or two; but they

Were so extremely given to women, as

They made discovery of all: yet I

Had my advices here, on Wednesday last.

From one of their own coat, they were returned,

Made their relations, as the fashion is,

And now stand fair for fresh employment.

PEREGRINE

[Aside]

’Heart!

This Sir Pol will be ignorant of nothing.

It seems, sir, you know all.

SIR POLITIC

Not all, sir, but

100

I have some general notions. I do love

To note and to observe: though I live out,

Free from the active torrent, yet I’d mark

The currents and the passages of things,

For mine own private use; and know the ebbs

105

And flows of state.

PEREGRINE

Believe it, sir, I hold

Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes,

For casting me thus luckily upon you,

Whose knowledge, if your bounty equal it,

May do me great assistance, in instruction

110

For my behaviour, and my bearing, which

Is yet so rude and raw.

SIR POLITIC

Why, came you forth

Empty of rules for travel?

PEREGRINE

Faith, I had

Some common ones, from out that vulgar grammar,

Which he that cried Italian to me, taught me.

SIR POLITIC

115

Why this it is that spoils all our brave bloods,

Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants.

Fellows of outside, and mere bark. You seem

To be a gentleman, of ingenuous race: —

I not profess it, but my fate hath been

120

To be, where I have been consulted with,

In this high kind, touching some great men’s sons,

Persons of blood and honour. –

PEREGRINE

Who be these, sir?

ACT 1, SCENE 2

(Enter Mosca, Nano followed by Grege.)

MOSCA

Under that window, there it must be. The same.

[They set out a platform.]

SIR POLITIC

Fellows, to mount a bank. Did your instructor

In the dear tongues, never discourse to you

Of the Italian mountebanks?

PEREGRINE

Yes, sir.

SIR POLITIC

Why,

Here you shall see one.

PEREGRINE

They are quacksalvers;

Fellows, that live by venting oils and drugs.

SIR POLITIC

Was that the character he gave you of them?

PEREGRINE

As I remember.

SIR POLITIC

Pity his ignorance.

They are the only knowing men of Europe!

Great general scholars, excellent physicians,

Most admired statesmen, professed favourites,

And cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes;

The only languaged men of all the world!

PEREGRINE

And I have heard, they are most lewd impostors;

Made all of terms and shreds; no less beliers

Of great men’s favours, than their own vile med’cines;

Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths:

Selling that drug for two-pence, ere they part,

Which they have valued at twelve crowns before.

SIR POLITIC

Sir, calumnies are answered best with silence.

Yourself shall judge. — Who is it mounts, my friends?

MOSCA

Scoto of Mantua, sir.

SIR POLITIC

Is’t he? Nay, then

I’ll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold

Another man than has been phant’sied to you.

I wonder yet, that he should mount his bank,

Here in this nook, that has been wont t’appear

In face of the piazza!—Here he comes.

[Enter Volpone, disguised as a mountebank doctor, and followed by a crowd of people.]

VOLPONE

[To Nano]

Mount, zany.

GREGE

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow!

SIR POLITIC

See how the people follow him! He’s a man

May write ten thousand crowns in bank here. Note,

[Volpone mounts the platform.]

Mark but his gesture—I do use to observe

The state he keeps in getting up.

PEREGRINE

‘Tis worth it, sir.

VOLPONE

Most noble gentlemen, and my worthy patrons! It may seem strange, that I, your Scoto

Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of the Portico to the Procuratia, should now, after eight months absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza.

SIR POLITIC

Did not I now object the same?

PEREGRINE

Peace, sir.

VOLPONE

Let me tell you: I am not, as your Lombard proverb saith, cold on my feet; or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate, than I accustomed: look not for it. Nor that the calumnious reports of that

impudent detractor, and shame to our profession (Alessandro Buttone, I mean), who gave out, in public, I was condemned a sforzato to the galleys, for poisoning the cardinal Bembo's... cook, hath at all attached, much less dejected me. No, no, worthy gentlemen; to

tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pavement, as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccacio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist: some of them

discoursing their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the Turks' galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they were the Christians' galleys, where very temperately they eat bread, and drunk water, as a wholesome penance, enjoined them by their confessors, for base

pilferies.

SIR POLITIC

Note but his bearing, and contempt of these.

VOLPONE

These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's-worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapped up in several scartoccios, are

able, very well, to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet, these meagre, starved spirits, who have half stopped the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their favourers among your shrivelled salad-eating artisans, who are overjoyed that they may have their

half-pe'rth of physic; though it purge them into another world, it makes no matter.

SIR POLITIC

Excellent! Have you heard better language, sir?

VOLPONE

Well, let them go. And, gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, know, that for this time, our

bank, being thus removed from the clamours of the canaglia, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell.

SIR POLITIC

I told you, sir, his end.

PEREGRINE

You did so, sir.

VOLPONE

I protest, I, and my six servants, are not able

to make of this precious liquor, so fast as it is fetched away from my lodging by gentlemen of your city; strangers of the terra-firma; worshipful merchants; aye, and senators too: who, ever since my arrival, have detained me to their uses, by their splendidous

liberalities. And worthily; for, what avails your rich man to have his magazines stuffed with moscadelli, or of the purest grape, when his physicians prescribe him, on pain of death, to drink nothing but water cocted with aniseeds? O, health! Health! The blessing of the rich! the

riches of the poor! Who can buy thee at too dear a rate, since there is no enjoying this world without thee? Be not then so sparing of your purses, honourable gentlemen, as to abridge the natural course of life –

PEREGRINE

You see his end.

SIR POLITIC

Aye, is’t not good?

VOLPONE

For, when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air, falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, or any other part; take you a ducat, or your cecchine of gold, and apply to the place affected: see what good effect it can work. No, no, 'tis this blessed

100

unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humours, that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes –

PEREGRINE

I would he had put in dry too.

SIR POLITIC

Pray you, observe.

VOLPONE

To fortify the most indigest and crude

105

stomach, aye, were it of one that, through extreme weakness, vomited blood, applying only a warm napkin to the place, after the unction and fricace;— for the vertigine in the head, putting but a drop into your nostrils, likewise behind the ears; a most sovereign and

110

approved remedy: the mal caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralyses, epilepsies, tremor-cordia, retired nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, stopping of the liver, the stone, the strangury, hernia ventosa, iliaca passio; stops a dysenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small

115

guts; and cures melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to my printed receipt. (Pointing to his bill and his glass) For, this is the physician, this the medicine; this counsels, this cures; this gives the direction, this works the effect; and, in sum, both

120

together may be termed an abstract of the theoric and practic in the Aesculapian art. 'Twill cost you eight crowns. And,—Zan Fritada, prithee sing a verse extempore in honour of it.

SIR POLITIC

How do you like him, sir?

PEREGRINE

Most strangely, I!

SIR POLITIC

125

Is not his language rare?

PEREGRINE

But alchemy,

I never heard the like; or Broughton’s books.

SONG

NANO

Had old Hippocrates or Galen,

(That to their books put med’cines all in,)

But known this secret, they had never

(Of which they will be guilty ever)

Been murderers of so much paper,

Or wasted many a hurtless taper;

No Indian drug has e’er been famed,

Tobacco, sassafras not named;

Ne yet, of guacum one small stick, sir,

Nor Raymond Lully’s great elixir.

Ne had been known the Danish Gonswart

Or Paracelsus, with his long sword.

PEREGRINE

All, this, yet, will not do; eight crowns is high.

VOLPONE

No more. Gentlemen, if I had but time to

discourse to you the miraculous effects of this my oil, surnamed Oglio del Scoto; with the countless catalogue of those I have cured of the aforesaid, and many more diseases; the patents and privileges of all the princes and commonwealths of Christendom; or but the depositions

of those that appeared on my part, before the Signiory of the Sanita and most learned College of Physicians; where I was authorized, upon notice taken of the admirable virtues of my medicaments, and mine own excellency in matter of rare and unknown secrets, not

only to disperse them publicly in this famous city, but in all the territories, that happily joy under the govern- ment of the most pious and magnificent states of Italy. But may some other gallant fellow say, O, there be diverse that make profession to have as good, and as

experimented receipts as yours: indeed, very many have assayed, like apes, in imitation of that, which is really and essentially in me, to make of this oil; bestowed great cost in furnaces, stills, alembics, continual fires, and preparation of the ingredients (as indeed there goes to it

six hundred several simples, besides some quantity of human fat, for the conglutination, which we buy of the anatomists), but, when these practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo: ha, ha, ha! Poor wretches! I rather pity their folly

and indiscretion, than their loss of time and money; for these may be recovered by industry: but to be a fool born, is a disease incurable. For myself, I always from my youth have endeavoured to get the rarest secrets, and book them, either in exchange, or for money; I spared

nor cost nor labour, where anything was worthy to be learned. And, gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, I will undertake, by virtue of chemical art, out of the honour- able hat that covers your head, to extract the four elements; that is to say, the fire, air, water, and earth,

and return you your felt without burn or stain. For, whilst others have been at the Balloo, I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honour and reputation.

SIR POLITIC

I do assure you, sir, that is his aim.

VOLPONE

But to our price-

PEREGRINE

And that withal, Sir Politic.

VOLPONE

You all know, honourable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight crowns; but for this time, I am content to be deprived of it for six: six crowns is the price, and less in courtesy I

know you cannot offer me; take it or leave it, howsoever, both it and I am at your service. I ask you not as the value of the thing, for then I should demand of you a thousand crowns, so the Cardinals Montalto, Fernese, the great Duke of Tuscany, my gossip, with

diverse other princes, have given me; but I despise money. Only to show my affection to you, honourable gentlemen, and your illustrious state here, I have neglected the messages of these princes, mine own offices, framed my journey hither, only to present you

with the fruits of my travels. Tune your voices once more to the touch of your instruments, and give the honourable assembly some delightful recreation.

PEREGRINE

What monstrous and most painful circumstance

Is here, to get some three or four gazets,

Some three-pence, in the whole! for that ‘twill come to.

(Song)

NANO

You that would last long, list to my song,

Make no more coil, but buy of this oil.

Would you be ever fair and young?

Stout of teeth, and strong of tongue?

Tart of palate? quick of ear?

Sharp of sight? of nostril clear?

Moist of hand? and light of foot?

Or, I will come nearer to't,

Would you live free from all diseases?

Do the act your mistress pleases,

Yet fright all aches from your bones?

Here's a medicine, for the nones.

VOLPONE

Well, I am in a humour at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains; to the

rich in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. Wherefore now mark: I asked you six crowns; and six crowns, at other times, you have paid me; you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one; nor half a ducat; no, nor a moccenigo.

Six–pence it will cost you, or six hundred pound –expect no lower price, for, by the banner of my front, I will not bate a bagatine, —that I will have, only, a pledge of your loves, to carry something from amongst you, to show I am not contemned by you. Therefore,

now, toss your handkerchiefs, cheerfully, cheerfully; and be advertised, that the first heroic spirit that deigns to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something, beside, shall please it better, than if I had presented it with a double pistolet.

PEREGRINE

Will you be that heroic spark, Sir Politic?

[Celia throws down her handkerchief from the window above].

O, see! The window has prevented you.

VOLPONE

Lady, I kiss your bounty; and, for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto of Mantua, I will return you, over and above my oil, a secret of that high

and inestimable nature, shall make you for ever enamoured on that minute, wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be despised, an object. Here is a powder concealed in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand

volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world is but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that

bank as a private purse to the purchase of it. I will only tell you; it is the powder that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo), that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, coloured her hair; from her derived to Helen, and at the

sack of Troy unfortunately lost: till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court of France (but much sophisticated), wherewith the ladies there, now, colour their hair. The rest, at this

present, remains with me; extracted to a quintessence: so that, wherever it but touches, in youth it perpetually preserves, in age restores the complexion; seats your teeth, did they dance like virginal jacks, firm as a wall; makes them white as ivory, that were black as –

ACT 2, SCENE 3

(Enter Corvino.)

CORVINO

Spite o’the devil, and my shame! Come down here;

Come down; —No house but mine to make your scene?

Signior Flaminio, will you down, sir? Down?

What, is my wife your Franciscina, sir?

No windows on the whole Piazza, here,

To make your properties, but mine? but mine?

[Beats away Volpone, Nano, etc.]

Heart! ere tomorrow I shall be new-christened,

And called the Pantalone di Besogniosi

About the town.

PEREGRINE

What should this mean, Sir Pol?

SIR POLITIC

Some trick of state, believe it; I will home.

PEREGRINE

It may be some design on you.

SIR POLITIC

I know not,

I’ll stand upon my guard.

PEREGRINE

It is your best, sir.

SIR POLITIC

This three weeks, all my advices, all my letters.

They have been intercepted.

PEREGRINE

Indeed, sir!

Best have a care.

SIR POLITIC

Nay, so I will.

PEREGRINE

This knight,

I may not lose him, for my mirth, till night.

[Exeunt]

ACT 2, SCENE 4

(Enter Volpone, Mosca.)

VOLPONE

O, I am wounded!

MOSCA

Where, sir?

VOLPONE

Not without;

Those blows were nothing: I could bear them ever.

But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes,

Hath shot himself into me like a flame;

Where, now, he flings about his burning heat,

As in a furnace an ambitious fire,

Whose vent is stopped. The fight is all within me.

I cannot live, except thou help me, Mosca;

My liver melts, and I, without the hope

Of some soft air, from her refreshing breath,

Am but a heap of cinders.

MOSCA

‘Las, good sir,

Would you had never seen her!

VOLPONE

Nay, would thou

Hads’t never told me of her!

MOSCA

Sir, ‘tis true;

I do confess I was unfortunate,

And you unhappy: but I’m bound in conscience,

No less than duty, to effect my best

To your release of torment, and I will, sir.

VOLPONE

Dear Mosca, shall I hope?

MOSCA

Sir, more than dear,

I will not bid you to despair of aught

Within a human compass.

VOLPONE

O, there spoke

My better angel, Mosca, take my keys,

Gold, plate, and jewels, all’s at thy devotion;

Employ them how thou wilt; nay, coin me too:

So thou, in this, but crown my longings, Mosca.

MOSCA

Use but your patience.

VOLPONE

So I have.

MOSCA

I doubt not

To bring success to your desires.

VOLPONE

Nay, then,

I not repent me of my late disguise.

MOSCA

If you can horn him, sir, you need not.

VOLPONE

True;

Besides, I never meant him for my heir.

Is not the colour of my beard and eyebrows

To make me known?

MOSCA

No jot.

VOLPONE

I did it well.

MOSCA

So well, would I could follow you in mine,

With half the happiness! —and yet I would

Escape your epilogue.

VOLPONE

But were they gulled

With a belief that I was Scoto?

MOSCA

Sir,

Scoto himself could hardly have distinguished!

I have not time to flatter you now; we’ll part;

And as I prosper, so applaud my art.

(Exeunt.)

ACT 2, SCENE 5

[Enter Corvino, Celia.)

CORVINO

Death of mine honour, with the city’s fool!

A juggling, tooth-drawing, prating mountebank!

And at a public window! where, whilst he,

With his strained action, and his dole of faces,

To his drug-lecture draws your itching ears,

A crew of old, unmarried, noted lechers,

Stood leering up like satyrs; and you smile

Most graciously, and fan your favours forth,

To give your hot spectators satisfaction!

What, was your mountebank their call? Their whistle?

Or were you enamoured on his copper rings,

His saffron jewel, with the toad-stone in’t?

Or his embroidered suit, with the cope-stitch,

Made of a hearse cloth? Or his old tilt-feather?

Or his starched beard? Well, you shall have him, yes!

He shall come home, and minister unto you

The fricace for the mother. Or, let me see,

I think you’d rather mount; would you not mount?

Why, if you’ll mount, you may; yes, truly, you may:

And so you may be seen, down to the foot.

Get you a cittern, Lady Vanity,

And be a dealer with the virtuous man;

Make one: I’ll but protest myself a cuckold

And save your dowry. I’m a Dutchman, I!

For, if you thought me an Italian,

You would be damned, ere you did this, you whore!

Thou’Idst tremble, to imagine that the murder

Of father, mother, brother, all thy race,

Should follow, as the subject of my justice.

CELIA

Good sir, have patience.

CORVINO

What couldst thou propose

Less to thyself than, in this heat of wrath

And stung with my dishonor, I should strike

[draws his sword]

This steel unto thee, with as many stabs

As thou wert gazed upon with goatish eyes?

CELIA

Alas, sir, be appeased! I could not think

My being at the window should more now

Move your impatience, than at other times.

CORVINO

No! not to seek and entertain a parley

With a known knave, before a multitude!

You were an actor with your handkerchief,

Which he most sweetly kissed in the receipt,

And might, no doubt, return it with a letter,

And ‘point the place where you might meet; your sister’s,

Your mother’s, or your aunt’s might serve the turn.

CELIA

Why, dear sir, when do I make these excuses,

Or ever stir abroad but to the church?

And that so seldom–

CORVINO

Well, it shall be less;

And thy restraint before was liberty,

To what I now decree: and therefore mark me.

First, I will have this bawdy light dammed up;

And, till’t be done, some two or three yards off,

I’ll chalk a line, o’er which if thou but chance

To set thy desperate foot, more hell, more horror,

More wild remorseless rage shall seize on thee,

Than on a conjuror, that had heedless left

His circle’s safety ere his devil was laid.

Then here’s a lock which I will hang upon thee,

And, now I think on’t, I will keep thee backwards;

Thy lodging shall be backwards, thy walks backwards;

Thy prospect, all be backwards; and no pleasure,

That thou shalt know but backwards: nay, since you force

My honest nature, know it is your own,

Being too open, makes me use you thus:

Since you will not contain your subtle nostrils

In a sweet room, but they must snuff the air

Of rank and sweaty passengers–

[Knocking.]

One knocks.

Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life;

Not look toward the window. If thou dost–

Nay stay, hear this–let me not prosper, whore,

But I will make thee an anatomy,

Dissect thee mine own self, and read a lecture

Upon thee to the city, and in public.

Away!

[Exit Celia.]

Who’s there?

[Enter Servitore]

SERVANT

‘Tis Signor Mosca, sir.

ACT 2, SCENE 6

CORVINO

Let him come in. His master’s dead: there’s yet

Some good to help the bad.-

(Enter Mosca.)

My Mosca, welcome!

I guess your news.

MOSCA

I fear you cannot, sir.

CORVINO

Is’t not his death?

MOSCA

Rather the contrary.

CORVINO

Not his recovery?

MOSCA

Yes, sir.

CORVINO

I am cursed,

I am bewitched! My crosses meet to vex me!

How? how? how? how?

MOSCA

Why, sir, with Scoto’s oil;

Corbaccio and Voltore brought of it,

Whilst I was busy in an inner room–

CORVINO

Death! That damned mountebank; but for the law,

Now, I could kill the rascal. It cannot be,

His oil should have that virtue. Have not I

Known him a common rogue, come fidding in

To the osteria with a tumbling whore,

And, when he has done all his forced tricks, been glad

Of a poor spoonful of dead wine with flies in’t?

It cannot be. All his ingredients

Are a sheep’s gall, a roasted bitch’s marrow,

Some few sod earwings, pounded caterpillars,

A little capon’s grease, and fasting spittle:

I know them to a dram.

MOSCA

I know not, sir;

But some on’t there they poured into his ears,

Some in his nostrils, and recovered him,

Applying but the fricace.

CORVINO

Pox o’that fricace!

MOSCA

And since, to seem the more officious

And flattering of his health, there, they have had,

At extreme fees, the College of Physicians

Consulting on him, how they might restore him;

Where one would have a cataplasm of spices,

Another a flayed ape clapped to his breast,

A third would have it a dog, a fourth an oil,

With wild cats' skins: at last, they all resolved

That, to preserve him, was no other means,

But some young woman must be straight sought out,

Lusty, and full of juice, to sleep by him;

And to this service, most unhappily,

And most unwillingly, am I now employed,

Which here I thought to pre-acquaint you with,

For your advice, since it concerns you most;

Because, I would not do that thing might cross

Your ends, on whom I have my whole dependence, sir:

Yet, if I do it not, they may delate

My slackness to my patron, work me out

Of his opinion; and there all your hopes,

Ventures, or whatsoever, are all frustrate!

I do but tell you, sir. Besides, they are all

Now striving, who shall first present him; therefore—

I could entreat you, briefly conclude somewhat;

Prevent them if you can.

CORVINO

Death to my hopes!

This is my villainous fortune! Best to hire

Some common courtesan?

MOSCA

Aye, I thought on that, sir;

But they are all so subtle, full of art—

And age again doting and flexible,

So as–I cannot tell–we may, perchance,

Light on a quean may cheat us all.

CORVINO

‘Tis true.

MOSCA

No, no: it must be one that has no tricks, sir,

Some simple thing, a creature made unto it;

Some wrench you may command. Have you no kinswoman?

God’s so –Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, sir.

One o’the doctors offered there his daughter.

CORVINO

How!

MOSCA

Yes, Signior Lupo, the physician.

CORVINO

His daughter?

MOSCA

And a virgin, sir. Why, alas,

He knows the state of’s body, what it is,

That naught can warm his blood, sir, but a fever;

Nor any incantation raise his spirit:

A long forgetfulness hath seized that part.

Besides, sir, who shall know it? Some one or two–

CORVINO

I pray thee give me leave.

[Walks aside.]

If any man

But I had has this luck–The thing in itself,

I know, is nothing–Wherefore should not I

As well command my blood and my affections

As this dull doctor? In the point of honour

The cases are all one, of wife and daughter.

MOSCA

[Aside]

I hear him coming.

CORVINO

She shall do’t: ‘tis done.

‘Slight! if this doctor, who is not engaged,

Unless it be for his counsel, which is nothing,

Offer his daughter, what should I, that am

So deeply in? I will prevent him— Wretch!

Covetous wretch! Mosca, I have determined.

MOSCA

How, sir?

CORVINO

We’ll make all sure. The party you wot of

Shall be mine own wife, Mosca.

MOSCA

Sir, the thing

But that I would not seem the counsel you

I should have motioned to you, at the first:

And make your count, you have cut all their throats.

Why, ‘tis directly taking a possession!

And in his next fit, we may let him go.

‘Tis but to pull the pillow from his head,

And he is throttled; it had been done before,

But for your scrupulous doubts.

CORVINO

Aye, a plague on’t,

My conscience fools my wit! Well, I’ll be brief,

And so be thou, lest they should be before us:

Go home, prepare him, tell him with what zeal

And willingness I do it; swear it was

On the first hearing, as thou may’st do, truly,

Mine own free motion.

MOSCA

Sir, I warrant you,

I’ll so possess him with it, that the rest

Of his starved clients shall be banished all;

And, only you received. But come not, sir,

100

Until I send, for I have something else

To ripen for your good- you must not know’t.

CORVINO

But do not you forget to send now.

MOSCA

Fear not.

[Exit Mosca.]

ACT 2, SCENE 7

CORVINO

Where are you, wife? my Celia! wife!

[Enter Celia.]

—What, blubbering?

Come, dry those tears. I think thou thought’st me in earnest;

Ha! By this light I talked so but to try thee.

Methinks the lightness of the occasion.

Should have confirmed thee. Come, I am not jealous.

CELIA

No!

CORVINO

Faith I am not, I, nor never was;

It is a poor unprofitable humour.

Do not I know, if women have a will,

They’ll do ‘gainst all the watches of the world,

And that the fiercest spies are tamed with gold?

Tut, I am confident in thee, thou shalt see’t;

And see I’ll give thee cause too, to believe it.

Come kiss me. Go, and make thee ready, straight,

In all thy best attire, thy choicest jewels,

Put them all on, and, with them, thy best looks;

We are invited to a solemn feast,

At old Volpone’s, where it shall appear

How fair I am free from jealousy or fear.

[Exeunt.]

ACT 3

SCENE 1

[Enter Mosca.]

MOSCA

I fear, I shall begin to grow in love

With my dear self, and most prosperous parts,

They do so spring and burgeon; I can feel

A whimsy in my blood: I know not how,

Success hath made me wanton. I could skip

Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake,

I am so limber. O! your parasite

Is a most precious thing, dropt from above,

Not bred ‘mongst clods and clotpoles, here on earth.

I muse, the mystery was not made a science,

It is so liberally professed! Almost

All the wise world is little else, in nature,

But parasites or sub-parasites. And yet,

I mean not those that have your bare town-art,

To know who’s fit to feed them; have no house,

No family, no care, and therefore mould

Tales for men’s ears, to bait that sense; or get

Kitchen-invention, and some stale receipts

To please the belly, and the groin; nor those,

With their court dog-tricks, that can fawn and fleer,

Make their revenue out of legs and faces,

Echo my lord, and lick away a moth:

But your fine elegant rascal, that can rise,

And stoop, almost together, like an arrow,

Shoot through the air as nimbly as a star;

Turn short as doth a swallow, and be here

And there, and here, and yonder, all at once;

Present to any humour, all occasion;

And change a visor, swifter than a thought!

This is the creature had the art born with him;

Toils not to learn it, but doth practice it

Out of most excellent nature: and such sparks

Are the true parasites, others but their zanies.

ACT 3, SCENE 2

[Enter Bonario.]

MOSCA

Who’s this? Bonario, old Corbaccio’s son?

The person I was bound to seek. –Fair sir,

You are happily met.

BONARIO

That cannot be by thee.

MOSCA

Why, sir?

BONARIO

Nay, pray thee, know thy way, and

leave me:

I would be loath to interchange discourse

With such a mate as thou art.

MOSCA

Courteous sir,

Scorn not my poverty.

BONARIO

Not I, by heaven;

But thou shalt give me leave to hate thy baseness.

MOSCA

Baseness!

BONARIO

Aye; answer me, is not thy sloth

Sufficient argument? Thy flattery?

Thy means of feeding?

MOSCA

Heaven be good to me!

These imputations are too common, sir,

And easily stuck on virtue when she’s poor.

You are unequal to me, and however

Your sentence may be righteous, yet you are not,

That, ere you know me, thus proceed in censure;

St. Mark bear witness ‘gainst you, ‘tis inhuman.

[Weeps.]

BONARIO

What! does he weep? the sign is soft and good:

I do repent me that I was so harsh.

MOSCA

‘Tis true, that, swayed by strong necessity,

I am enforced to eat my careful bread

With too much obsequy; ‘tis true, beside,

That I am fain to spin mine own poor raiment

Out of my mere observance, being not born

To a free fortune: but that I have done

Base offices in rending friends asunder,

Dividing families, betraying counsels,

Whispering false lies, or mining men with praises,

Trained their credulity with perjuries,

Corrupted chastity, or am in love

With mine own tender ease, but would not rather

Prove the most rugged, and laborious course,

That might redeem my present estimation,

Let me here perish in all hope of goodness.

BONARIO

[Aside.]

This cannot be a personated passion!

I was to blame, so to mistake thy nature;

Prithee, forgive me: and speak out thy business.

MOSCA

Sir, it concerns you; and though I may seem

At first to make a main offense in manners,

And in my gratitude unto my master;

Yet, for the pure love, which I bear all right

And hatred of the wrong, I must reveal it.

This very hour your father is in purpose

To disinherit you–

BONARIO

How!

MOSCA

And thrust you forth,

As a mere stranger to his blood. ‘tis true, sir.

The work no way engageth me, but, as

I claim an interest in the general state

Of goodness and true virtue, which I hear

To abound in you: and for which mere respect,

Without a second aim, sir, I have done it.

BONARIO

This tale hath lost thee much of the late trust

Thou hadst with me; it is impossible:

I know not how to lend it any thought,

My father should be so unnatural.

MOSCA

It is a confidence that well becomes,

Your piety; and formed, no doubt, it is

From your own simple innocence, which makes

Your wrong more monstrous and abhorred. But, sir,

I now will tell you more. This very minute

It is or will be doing; and if you

Shall be but pleased to go with me, I’ll bring you,

I dare not say where you shall see, but where

Your ear shall be a witness of the deed;

Hear yourself written bastard, and professed

The common issue of the earth.

BONARIO

I’m mazed!

MOSCA

Sir, if I do it not, draw your just sword

And score your vengeance on my front and face:

Mark me your villain: you have too much wrong,

And I do suffer for you, sir. My heart

Weeps blood in anguish–

BONARIO

Lead. I follow thee.

[Exeunt.]

ACT 3, SCENE 3

(Enter Volpone, Nano, Androgyno, and Castrone)

VOLPONE

Mosca stays long, methinks. Bring forth your sports,

And help to make the wretched time more sweet.

NANO

Dwarf, fool, and eunuch, well met here we be.

A question it were now, whether of us three,

Being all the known delicates of a rich man,

In pleasing him, claim the precedency can?

CASTRONE

I claim for myself.

ANDROGYNO

And so doth the fool.

NANO

‘Tis foolish indeed; let me set you both to school.

First for your dwarf: he’s little and witty,

And every thing, as it is little, is pretty;

Else why do men say to a creature of my shape,

So soon as they see him. It’s a pretty little ape?

And why a pretty ape? But for pleasing imitation

Of greater men’s actions in a ridiculous fashion?

Beside, this feat body of mine doth not crave

Half the meat, drink, and cloth, one of your bulks will have.

Admit your fool’s face be the mother of laughter,

Yet, for his brain, it must always come after:

And though that do feed him, it’s a pitiful case,

His body is beholding to such a bad face.

(One knocks).

VOLPONE

Who’s there? My couch; away! look! Nano, see:

Give me my caps, first–go, inquire.

[Exeunt Nano, Androgyno, and Castrone.]

Now, Cupid

Send it be Mosca, and with fair return!

NANO

(Within.)

It is the beauteous madam–

VOLPONE

Would-be–is it?

NANO

The same.

VOLPONE

Now torment on me! Squire her in;

For she will enter, or dwell here for’ever;

Nay, quickly. That my fit were past! I fear

A second hell too, that my loathing this

Will quite expel my appetite to the other:

Would she were taking, now, her tedious leave.

Lord, how it threats me what I am to suffer!

ACT 3, SCENE 4

(Re-enter Nano, with Lady Politic Would-be.)

LADY POLITIC

I thank you, good sir. Pray you signify

Unto your patron, I am here. — This band

Shows not my neck enough. I trouble you, sir;

Let me request you, bid one of my women

Come hither to me. — In good faith, I am dressed

Most favourably to-day! It is no matter:

‘Tis well enough.

[Enter 1 Woman.]

Look, see, these petulant things!

How they have done this!

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

I do feel the fever

Entering in at mine ears. Oh, for a charm

To fright in hence!

LADY POLITIC

Come nearer: is this curl

In his right place? Or this? Why is this higher

Than all the rest? You have not washed your eyes, yet!

Or do they not stand even in your head?

Where’s your fellow? Call her.

[Exit I Woman.]

NANO

Now Saint Mark

Deliver us! anon, she’ll beat her women,

Because her nose is red.

[Enter 1 with 2 Women.]

LADY POLITIC

I pray you, view

This tire, forsooth: are all things apt, or no?

1 WOMAN

One hair a little, here, sticks out, forsooth.

LADY POLITIC

Does’t so, forsooth! And where was your dear sight,

When it did so, forsooth! What now! Bird-eyed?

And you, too? Pray you, both approach and mend it.

Now, by that light, I muse you are not ashamed!

I, that have preached these things so oft unto you,

Read you the principles, argued all the grounds,

Disputed every fitness, every grace,

Called you to counsel of so frequent dressings–

NANO

(aside)

More carefully than of your fame or honour.

LADY POLITIC

Made you acquainted, what an ample dowry

The knowledge of these things would be unto you,

Able, alone, to get you noble husbands

At your return: and you thus to neglect it!

Besides you seeing what a curious nation

The Italians are, what will they say of me?

"The English lady cannot dress herself."

Here's a fine imputation to our country!

Well, go your ways, and stay in the next room.

This fucus was too coarse too; it's no matter —

Good sir, you'll give them entertainment?

[Exeunt Nano and Waiting-Women.]

VOLPONE

The storm comes toward me.

LADY POLITIC

How does my Volp?

VOLPONE

Troubled with noise, I cannot sleep; I dreamt

That a strange fury entered, now, my house,

And, with the dreadful tempest of her breath,

Did cleave my roof asunder.

LADY POLITIC

Believe me, and I

Had the most fearful dream, could I remember’t –

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

Out on my fate! I have given her the occasion

How to torment me: she will tell me hers.

LADY POLITIC

Me thought the golden mediocrity,

Polite and delicate –

VOLPONE

O, if you do love me,

No more: I sweat and suffer, at the mention

Of any dream; feel how I tremble yet.

LADY POLITIC

Alas, good soul! the passion of the heart.

Seed-pearl were good now, boiled with syrup of apples,

Tincture of gold, and coral, citron-pills,

Your elecampane root, myrobalanes –

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

Ah me, I have ta’en a grasshopper by the wing!

LADY POLITIC

Burnt silk, and amber; you have muscadel

Good i’the house –

VOLPONE

You will not drink, and part?

LADY POLITIC

No, fear not that. I doubt, we shall not get

Some English saffron, half a dram would serve;

Your sixteen cloves, a little musk, dried mints,

Bugloss, and barley-meal –

VOLPONE

[aside]

She's in again!

Before I feigned diseases, now I have one.

LADY POLITIC

And these applied with a right scarlet cloth.

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

Another flood of words! a very torrent!

LADY POLITIC

Shall I, sir, make you a poultice?

VOLPONE

No, no, no.

I'm very well; you need prescribe no more.

LADY POLITIC

I have a little studied physic, but now,

I'm all for music, save, in the forenoons,

An hour or two for painting. I would have

A lady, indeed, to have all, letters and arts,

Be able to discourse, to write, to paint,

But principal, as Plato holds, your music,

And so does wise Pythagoras, I take it,

Is your true rapture: when there is concent

In face, in voice, and clothes: and is, indeed,

Our sex's chiefest ornament.

VOLPONE

The poet

As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,

Says, that your highest female grace is silence.

LADY POLITIC

Which of your poets? Petrarch, or Tasso, or Dante?

Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine?

Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

Is everything a cause to my destruction?

LADY POLITIC

I think I have two or three of them about me.

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

The sun, the sea, will sooner both stand still

Than her eternal tongue! nothing can ‘scape it.

LADY POLITIC

Here’s Pastor Fido –

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

Profess obstinate silence;

That's now my safest.

LADY POLITIC

All our English writers,

I mean such as are happy in the Italian,

Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly:

Almost as much as from Montagnié:

He has so modern and facile a vein,

Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear!

Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he,

In days of sonnetting, trusted them with much:

Dante is hard, and few can understand him.

But, for a desperate wit, there's Aretine;

Only, his pictures are a little obscene –

You mark me not.

VOLPONE

Alas, my mind's perturbed.

LADY POLITIC

Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves,

100

Make use of our philosophy –

VOLPONE

Ohimé!

LADY POLITIC

And, as we find our passions do rebel,

Encounter them with reason, or divert them,

By giving scope unto some other humor

Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies,

105

There's nothing more doth overwhelm the judgment,

And cloud the understanding, than too much

Settling and fixing, and, as 'twere, subsiding

Upon one object. For the incorporating

Of these same outward things, into that part,

110

Which we call mental, leaves some certain feces

That stop the organs, and as Plato says,

Assassinate our knowledge.

VOLPONE

[aside]

Now, the spirit

Of patience help me!

LADY POLITIC

Come, in faith, I must

Visit you more a days; and make you well:

115

Laugh and be lusty.

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

My good angel save me!

LADY POLITIC

There was but one sole man in all the world

With whom I e'er could sympathise; and he

Would lie you, often, three, four hours together

To hear me speak; and be sometimes so rapt,

120

As he would answer me quite from the purpose,

Like you, and you are like him, just. I'll discourse,

An't be but only, sir, to bring you asleep,

How we did spend our time and loves together

For some six years.

VOLPONE

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

LADY POLITIC

125

For we were coaetani and brought up –

VOLPONE

Some power, some fate, some fortune rescue me!

ACT 3 SCENE 5

(Enter Mosca)

MOSCA

God save you, madam!

LADY POLITIC

Good sir.

VOLPONE

Mosca? Welcome,

Welcome to my redemption.

MOSCA

Why, sir?

VOLPONE

Oh,

Rid me of this my torture, quickly, there;

My madam, with the everlasting voice:

The bells, in time of pestilence, ne'er made

Like noise, or were in that perpetual motion!

The cock-pit comes not near it. All my house,

But now, steamed like a bath with her thick breath,

A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce

Another woman, such a hail of words

She has let fall. For hell's sake, rid her hence.

MOSCA

Has she presented?

VOLPONE

Oh, I do not care;

I'll take her absence, upon any price,

With any loss.

MOSCA

Madam –

LADY POLITIC

I have brought your patron

A toy, a cap here, of mine own work.

MOSCA

[taking it from her]

'Tis well.

I had forgot to tell you, I saw your knight.

Where you would little think it. –

LADY POLITIC

Where?

MOSCA

Marry,

Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend

Rowing upon the water in a gondola

With the most cunning courtesan of Venice.

LADY POLITIC

Is't true?

MOSCA

Pursue them, and believe your eyes:

Leave me, to make your gift.

[Exit Lady Would-be.]

I knew 'twould take.

For, lightly, they that use themselves most license,

Are still most jealous.

VOLPONE

Mosca, hearty thanks,

For thy quick fiction, and delivery of me.

Now to my hopes, what say'st thou?

[Re-enter Lady Politic.]

LADY POLITIC

But do you hear, Sir?

VOLPONE

Again! I fear a paroxism.

LADY POLITIC

Which way

Rowed they together?

MOSCA

Toward the Rialto.

LADY POLITIC

I pray you lend me your dwarf.

MOSCA

I pray, you take him—

[Exit Lady Would-be.]

Your hopes, sir, are like happy blossoms, fair,

And promise timely fruit, if you will stay

But the maturing; keep you at your couch,

Corbaccio will arrive straight, with the will;

When he is gone, I'll tell you more.

[Exit Mosca.]

VOLPONE

My blood,

My spirits are returned; I am alive:

And, like your wanton gamester at primero,

Whose thought had whispered to him, not go less,

Methinks I lie, and draw – for an encounter.

[He gets into bed and closes the bed curtains.]

ACT 3, SCENE 6

[Mosca leads Bonario in and hides him.]

MOSCA

Sir, here concealed, you may hear all. But, pray you

Have patience, sir.

(One knocks.)

The same's your father knocks:

I am compelled to leave you.

[Exit]

BONARIO

Do so... Yet

Cannot my thought imagine this a truth.

ACT 3, SCENE 7

[Enter Mosca and Corvino, Celia following.]

MOSCA

Death on me! You are come too soon, what meant you?

Did not I say, I would send?

CORVINO

Yes, but I feared

You might forget it, and then they prevent us.

MOSCA

[Aside]

Prevent! Did e'er man haste so, for his horns?

A courtier would not ply it so, for a place.

Well, now there’s no helping it, stay here;

I'll presently return.

CORVINO

Where are you, Celia?

You know not wherefore I have brought you hither?

CELIA

Not well, except you told me.

CORVINO

Now I will:

Hark hither.

MOSCA

(To Banario)

Sir, your father hath sent word,

It will be half an hour ere he come;

And therefore, if you please to walk the while

Into that gallery — at the upper end,

There are some books to entertain the time:

And I'll take care no man shall come unto you, sir.

BONARIO

Yes, I will stay there. ow.

[Aside]

I do doubt this fell.

MOSCA

There; he is far enough; he can hear nothing:

And, for his father, I can keep him off.

CORVINO

Nay, now, there is no starting back, and therefore,

Resolve upon it: I have so decreed.

It must be done. Nor would I move't afore,

Because I would avoid all shifts and tricks,

That might deny me.

CELIA

Sir, let me beseech you,

Affect not these strange trials; if you doubt

My chastity, why, lock me up forever;

Make me the heir of darkness. Let me live,

Where I may please your fears, if not your trust.

CORVINO

Believe it, I have no such humour, I.

All that I speak I mean; yet I 'm not mad;

Nor horn-mad, see you? Go to, show yourself

Obedient, and a wife.

CELIA

O heaven!

CORVINO

I say it,

Do so.

CELIA

Was this the train?

CORVINO

I've told you reasons:

What the physicians have set down: how much

It may concern me; what my engagements are;

My means; and the necessity of those means

For my recovery: wherefore, if you be

Loyal, and mine, be won, respect my venture.

CELIA

Before your honour?

CORVINO

Honour! Tut, a breath.

There's no such thing in nature; a mere term

Invented to awe fools. What is my gold

The worse for touching, clothes for being looked on?

Why, this is no more. An old, decrepit wretch,

That has no sense, no sinew; takes his meat

With others' fingers; only knows to gape,

When you do scald his gums; a voice, a shadow;

And, what can this man hurt you?

CELIA

[Aside.]

Lord! what spirit

Is this hath entered him?

CORVINO

And for your fame,

That's such a jig; as if I would go tell it,

Cry it on the Piazza! Who shall know it,

But he that cannot speak it, and this fellow

Whose lips are in my pocket? Save yourself.

If you'll proclaim't, you may! I know no other

Shall come to know it.

CELIA

Are heaven and saints then nothing?

Will they be blind or stupid?

CORVINO

How!

CELIA

Good sir,

Be jealous still, emulate them; and think

What hate they burn with toward every sin.

CORVINO

I grant you: if I thought it were a sin,

I would not urge you. Should I offer this

To some young Frenchman, or hot Tuscan blood

That had read Aretine, conned all his prints,

Knew every quirk within lust's labyrinth,

And were professed critic in lechery;

And I would look upon him, and applaud him,

This were a sin: but here, 'tis contrary,

A pious work, mere charity for physic,

And honest polity, to assure mine own.

CELIA

O heaven! canst thou suffer such a change?

VOLPONE

Thou art mine honour, Mosca, and my pride,

My joy, my tickling, my delight! Go, bring them.

MOSCA

Please you draw near, sir.

CORVINO

Come on, what —

You will not be rebellious? by that light —

MOSCA

Sir, Signior Corvino, here, is come to see you.

VOLPONE

Oh!

MOSCA

And hearing of the consultation had,

So lately, for your health, is come to offer,

Or rather, sir, to prostitute—

CORVINO

Thanks, sweet Mosca.

MOSCA

Freely, unasked or unentreated –

CORVINO

Well.

MOSCA

As the true fervent instance of his love,

His own most fair and proper wife; the beauty,

Only of price in Venice—

CORVINO

'Tis well urged.

MOSCA

To be your comfortress, and to preserve you.

VOLPONE

Alas, I am past, already! Pray you, thank him

For his good care and promptness. But, for that,

'Tis a vain labour; e'en to fight 'gainst heaven,

Applying fire to stone —uh, uh, uh, uh—

Making a dead leaf grow again. I take

His wishes gently, though; and you may tell him,

What I have done for him. Marry, my state is hopeless!

Will him to pray for me, and to use his fortune

With reverence, when he comes to't.

MOSCA

Do you hear, sir?

Go to him with your wife.

CORVINO

Heart of my father!

Wilt thou persist thus? Come, I pray thee, come.

Thou seest 'tis nothing, Celia! By this hand,

I shall grow violent. Come, do't, I say.

CELIA

Sir, kill me, rather: I will take down poison,

Eat burning coals, do anything —

CORVINO

Be damned!

Heart, I will drag thee hence, home, by the hair;

Cry thee a strumpet through the streets; rip up

Thy mouth unto thine ears; and slit thy nose,

Like a raw rochet!—Do not tempt me; come,

100

Yield! I am loath. Death! I will buy some slave

Whom I will kill, and bind thee to him, alive;

And at my window hang you forth, devising

Some monstrous crime, which I, in capital letters,

Will eat into thy flesh with aquafortis,

105

And burning corsives, on this stubborn breast.

Now, by the blood thou hast incensed, I'll do it!

CELIA

Sir, what you please, you may, I am your martyr.

CORVINO

Be not thus obstinate. I have not deserved it:

Think who it is entreats you. Prithee, sweet:

110

Good faith, thou shalt have jewels, gowns, attires,

What thou wilt think, and ask. Do but go kiss him.

Or touch him, but. For my sake. At my suit.

This once. No! Not! I shall remember this.

Will you disgrace me thus? Do you thirst my undoing?

MOSCA

115

Nay, gentle lady, be advised.

CORVINO

No, no.

She has watched her time. God’s precious, this is scurvy,

'Tis very scurvy; and you are—

MOSCA

Nay, good, sir.

CORVINO

An arrant locust, by heaven, a locust!

Whore, crocodile, that hast thy tears prepared,

120

Expecting how thou'lt bid ‘em flow—

MOSCA

Nay, pray you, sir!

She will consider.

CELIA

Would my life would serve

To satisfy—

CORVINO

S'death! if she would but speak to him,

And save my reputation, it were somewhat;

But spitefully to affect my utter ruin!

MOSCA

125

Aye, now you have put your fortune in her hands.

Why i'faith, it is her modesty, I must quit her.

If you were absent, she would be more coming;

I know it: and dare undertake for her.

What woman can before her husband? Pray you,

130

Let us depart, and leave her here.

CORVINO

Sweet Celia,

Thou may’st redeem all, yet; I'll say no more:

If not, esteem yourself as lost.

(Celia starts to leave.)

Nay, stay there.

[Exeunt Corvino and Mosca.]

CELIA

O God, and his good angels! whither, whither,

Is shame fled human breasts? that with such ease,

135

Men dare put off your honours, and their own?

Is that, which ever was a cause of life,

Now placed beneath the basest circumstance,

And modesty an exile made, for money?

VOLPONE

Aye, in Corvino, and such earth-fed minds,

140

(He leaps off from his couch.)

That never tasted the true heaven of love.

Assure thee, Celia, he that would sell thee,

Only for hope of gain, and that uncertain,

He would have sold his part of Paradise

For ready money, had he met a copeman.

145

Why art thou mazed to see me thus revived?

Rather applaud thy beauty's miracle;

'Tis thy great work: that hath, not now alone,

But sundry times raised me, in several shapes,

And, but this morning, like a mountebank,

150

To see thee at thy window: aye, before

I would have left my practice, for thy love,

In varying figures, I would have contended

With the blue Proteus, or the horned flood.

Now art thou welcome.

CELIA

Sir!

VOLPONE

Nay, fly me not.

155

Nor let thy false imagination

That I was bed-rid, make thee think I am so:

Thou shalt not find it. I am, now, as fresh,

As hot, as high, and in as jovial plight,

As when, in that so celebrated scene,

160

At recitation of our comedy,

For entertainment of the great Valois,

I acted young Antinous, and attracted

The eyes and ears of all the ladies present,

To admire each graceful gesture, note, and footing.

(Song.)

165

Come, my Celia, let us prove,

While we can, the sports of love,

Time will not be ours for ever,

He, at length, our good will sever;

Spend not then his gifts in vain;

170

Suns, that set, may rise again;

But if once we lose this light,

'Tis with us perpetual night.

Why should we defer our joys?

Fame and rumour are but toys.

175

Cannot we delude the eyes

Of a few poor household spies?

Or his easier ears beguile,

Thus removed by our wile?—

'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal:

180

But the sweet thefts to reveal;

To be taken, to be seen,

These have crimes accounted been.

CELIA

Some serene blast me, or dire lightning strike

This my offending face!

VOLPONE

Why droops my Celia?

185

Thou hast, in place of a base husband, found

A worthy lover: use thy fortune well,

With secrecy and pleasure. See, behold,

What thou art queen of; not in expectation,

As I feed others: but possessed and crowned.

190

See, here, a rope of pearl; and each, more orient

Than that the brave Egyptian queen caroused;

Dissolve and drink them. See, a carbuncle,

May put out both the eyes of our St. Mark;

A diamond, would have bought Lollia Paulina,

195

When she came in like star-light, hid with jewels,

That were the spoils of provinces; take these,

And wear, and lose them: yet remains an ear-ring

To purchase them again, and this whole state.

A gem but worth a private patrimony,

200

Is nothing: we will eat such at a meal.

The heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales,

The brains of peacocks, and of ostriches,

Shall be our food: and, could we get the phoenix,

Though nature lost her kind, she were our dish.

CELIA

205

Good sir, these things might move a mind affected

With such delights; but I, whose innocence

Is all I can think wealthy, or worth the enjoying,

And which, once lost, I have naught to lose beyond it,

Cannot be taken with these sensual baits:

210

If you have conscience—

VOLPONE

'Tis the beggar's virtue;

If thou hast wisdom, hear me, Celia.

Thy baths shall be the juice of July-flowers,

Spirit of roses, and of violets,

The milk of unicorns, and panthers' breath

215

Gathered in bags, and mixed with Cretan wines.

Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber,

Which we will take, until my roof whirl round

With the vertigo: and my dwarf shall dance,

My eunuch sing, my fool make up the antic,

220

Whilst we, in changed shapes, act Ovid's tales,

Thou, like Europa now, and I like Jove,

Then I like Mars, and thou like Erycine:

So, of the rest, till we have quite run through,

And wearied all the fables of the gods.

225

Then will I have thee in more modern forms,

Attired like some sprightly dame of France,

Brave Tuscan lady, or proud Spanish beauty;

Sometimes, unto the Persian Sophy's wife;

Or the Grand Signior's mistress; and, for change,

230

To one of our most artful courtesans,

Or some quick Negro, or cold Russian;

And I will meet thee in as many shapes:

Where we may so transfuse our wandering souls

Out at our lips, and score up sums of pleasures,

235

[Sings.]

That the curious shall not know

How to tell them as they flow;

And the envious, when they find

What their number is, be pined.

CELIA

If you have ears that will be pierced—or eyes

240

That can be opened—a heart that may be touched—

Or any part that yet sounds man about you—

If you have touch of holy saints—or heaven—

Do me the grace to let me ‘scape—if not,

Be bountiful and kill me. You do know,

245

I am a creature, hither ill betrayed,

By one, whose shame I would forget it were.—

If you will deign me neither of these graces,

Yet feed your wrath, sir, rather than your lust —

(It is a vice comes nearer manliness)—

250

And punish that unhappy crime of nature,

Which you miscall my beauty— flay my face,

Or poison it with ointments, for seducing

Your blood to this rebellion—Rub these hands,

With what may cause an eating leprosy,

255

E'en to my bones and marrow— any thing,

That may disfavour me, save in my honour—

And I will kneel to you, pray for you, pay down

A thousand hourly vows, sir, for your health

Report and think you virtuous—

VOLPONE

Think me cold,

260

Frozen and impotent, and so report me?

That I had Nestor's hernia, thou wouldst think.

I do degenerate, and abuse my nation,

To play with opportunity thus long;

I should have done the act, and then have parleyed.

265

Yield, or I'll force thee.

CELIA

O! just God!

VOLPONE

In vain –

BONARIO

(He leaps out from where Mosca had placed him.)

Forbear, foul ravisher, libidinous swine!

Free the forced lady, or thou diest, impostor.

But that I'm loath to snatch thy punishment

Out of the hand of justice, thou shouldst, yet,

270

Be made the timely sacrifice of vengeance,

Before this altar, and this dross, thy idol.—

Lady, let's quit the place., it is the den

Of villainy; fear naught, you have a guard:

And he, ere long, shall meet his just reward.

[Exeunt Bonario and Celia.]

VOLPONE

275

Fall on me, roof, and bury me in ruin!

Become my grave, that wert my shelter! O!

I am unmasked, unspirited, undone,

Betrayed to beggary, to infamy—

ACT 3, SCENE 8

[Enter Mosca, bleeding.]

MOSCA

Where shall I run, most wretched shame of men,

To beat out my unlucky brains?

VOLPONE

Here, here.

What! dost thou bleed?

MOSCA

O that his well-driven sword

Had been so courteous to have cleft me down

Unto the navel, ere I lived to see

My life, my hopes, my spirits, my patron, all

Thus desperately engaged, by my error!

VOLPONE

Woe on thy fortune!

MOSCA

And my follies, sir.

VOLPONE

Thou hast made me miserable.

MOSCA

And myself, sir.

Who would have thought he would have hearkened so?

VOLPONE

What shall we do?

MOSCA

I know not; if my heart

Could expiate the mischance, I'd pluck it out.

Will you be pleased to hang me, or cut my throat?

And I'll requite you, sir. Let's die like Romans,

Since we have lived like Grecians.

[They knock without.]

VOLPONE

Hark! who's there?

I hear some footing: officers, the Saffi,

Come to apprehend us! I do feel the brand

Hissing already at my forehead; now

Mine ears are boring.

MOSCA

To your couch, sir, you

[Volpone lies down.]{tf}Guilty men

Make that place good, however.

Suspect what they deserve still.

[Opens door.]

Signior Corbaccio!

ACT 3, SCENE 9

[Enter Corbaccio .]

CORBACCIO

Why, how now, Mosca!

[Enter Voltore, behind]

MOSCA

Oh, undone, amazed, sir.

Your son, I know not by what accident,

Acquainted with your purpose to my patron,

Touching your will, and making him your heir,

Entered our house with violence, his sword drawn,

Sought for you, called you wretch, unnatural,

Vowed he would kill you.

CORBACCIO

Me!

MOSCA

Yes, and my patron.

CORBACCIO

This act shall disinherit him indeed;

Here is the will.

MOSCA

'Tis well, sir.

CORBACCIO

Right and well:

Be you as careful now for me.

MOSCA

My life, sir,

Is not more tendered; I am only yours.

CORBACCIO

How does he? Will he die shortly,

think'st thou?

MOSCA

I fear

He'll outlast May.

CORBACCIO

To-day?

MOSCA

No, last our May, sir.

CORBACCIO

Could’st thou not give him a dram?

MOSCA

O, by no means, sir.

CORBACCIO

Nay, I'll not bid you.

VOLTORE

[Aside.]

This is a knave, I see.

MOSCA

[Aside.]

How! Signior Voltore! Did he hear me?

VOLTORE

Parasite!

MOSCA

Who's that? O, sir, most timely welcome—

[joins Voltore]

VOLTORE

Scarce,

To the discovery of your tricks, I fear.

You are his, only? And mine also, are you not?

MOSCA

Who? I, sir?

VOLTORE

You, sir. What device is this

About a will?

MOSCA

A plot for you, sir.

VOLTORE

Come,

Put not your foists upon me; I shall scent them.

MOSCA

Did you not hear it?

VOLTORE

Yes, I hear Corbaccio

Hath made your patron there his heir.

MOSCA

'Tis true,

By my device, drawn to it by my plot,

With hope—

VOLTORE

Your patron should reciprocate?

And you have promised?

MOSCA

For your good I did, sir.

Nay, more, I told his son, brought, hid him here,

Where he might hear his father pass the deed:

Being persuaded to it by this thought, sir,

That the unnaturalness, first, of the act,

And then his father's oft disclaiming in him

(Which I did mean t' help on) would sure enrage him

To do some violence upon his parent,

On which the law should take sufficient hold,

And you be stated in a double hope:

Truth be my comfort, and my conscience,

My only aim was to dig you a fortune

Out of these two old rotten sepulchres –

VOLTORE

I cry thee mercy, Mosca.

MOSCA

Worth your patience,

And your great merit, sir. And see the change!

VOLTORE

Why, what success?

MOSCA

Most hapless! You must help, sir.

Whilst we expected the old raven, in comes

Corvino's wife, sent hither by her husband –

VOLTORE

What, with a present?

MOSCA

No, sir, on visitation –

I'll tell you how anon — and staying long,

The youth he grows impatient, rushes forth,

Seizeth the lady, wounds me, makes her swear –

Or he would murder her, that was his vow –

To affirm my patron to have done her rape,

Which how unlike it is, you see! and hence,

With that pretext he's gone, to accuse his father,

Defame my patron, defeat you –

VOLTORE

Where is her husband?

Let him be sent for straight.

MOSCA

Sir, I'll go fetch him.

VOLTORE

Bring him to the Scrutineo.

MOSCA

Sir, I will.

VOLTORE

This must be stopped.

MOSCA

O you do nobly, sir.

Alas, 'twas laboured all, sir, for your good;

Nor was there want of counsel in the plot:

But fortune can, at any time, o’erthrow

The projects of a hundred learned clerks, sir.

CORBACCIO

[Listening]

What's that?

VOLTORE

Will't please you, sir, to go along?

[Exeunt Corbaccio and Voltore.]

MOSCA

Patron, go in, and pray for our success.

VOLTORE

Need makes devotion: heaven your labour bless!

[Exeunt]

ACT 4

SCENE 1

[Enter Sir Politic Would-be and Peregrine.]

SIR POLITIC

I told you, sir, it was a plot: you see

What observation is! You mentioned me

For some instructions: I will tell you, sir

(Since we are met here in the height of Venice),

Some few particulars I have set down,

Only for this meridian, fit to be known

Of your crude traveller, and they are these.

I will not touch, sir, at your phrase, or clothes,

For they are old.

PEREGRINE

Sir, I have better.

SIR POLITIC

Pardon,

I meant as they are themes.

PEREGRINE

O, sir, proceed:

I'll slander you no more of wit, good sir.

SIR POLITIC

First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious,

Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret

On any terms, not to your father, scarce

A fable, but with caution: make sure choice

Both of your company, and discourse; beware

You never speak a truth –

PEREGRINE

How!

SIR POLITIC

Not to strangers,

For those be they you must converse with most;

Others I would not know, sir, but at distance,

So as I still might be a saver in them:

You shall have tricks else past upon you hourly.

And then, for your religion, profess none,

But wonder at the diversity of all:

And, for your part, protest, were there no other

But simply the laws o' the land, you could content you,

Nick Machiavel, and Monsieur Bodin, both

Were of this mind. Then must you learn the use

And handling of your silver fork at meals,

The metal of your glass; (these are main matters

With your Italian;) and to know the hour

When you must eat your melons, and your figs.

PEREGRINE

Is that a point of state, too?

SIR POLITIC

Here it is:

For your Venetian, if he see a man

Preposterous in the least, he has him straight;

He has: he strips him. I'll acquaint you, sir.

I now have lived here, 'tis some fourteen months;

Within the first week of my landing here,

All took me for a citizen of Venice,

I knew the forms so well –

PEREGRINE

[Aside.]

And nothing else.

SIR POLITIC

I had read Contarine, took me a house,

Dealt with my Jews to furnish it with moveables –

Well, if I could but find one man, one man

To mine own heart, whom I durst trust, I would –

PEREGRINE

What, what, sir?

SIR POLITIC

Make him rich; make him a fortune:

He should not think again. I would command it.

PEREGRINE

As how?

SIR POLITIC

With certain projects that I have –

Which I may not discover.

PEREGRINE

[Aside.]

If I had

But one to wager with, I would lay odds now,

He tells me instantly.

SIR POLITIC

One is, and that

I care not greatly who knows, to serve the state

Of Venice with red herrings for three years,

And at a certain rate, from Rotterdam,

Where I have correspondence. There's a letter,

Sent me from one o' the States, and to that purpose:

He cannot write his name, but that's his mark.

PEREGRINE

He is a chandler?

SIR POLITIC

No, a cheesemonger.

There are some others too, with whom I treat

About the same negotiation;

And I will undertake it: for 'tis thus.

I'll do't with ease, I have cast it all: Your hoy

Carries but three men in her and a boy;

And she shall make me three returns a year:

So, if there come but one of three, I save;

If two, I can defalk. But this is now,

If my main project fail.

PEREGRINE

Then you have others?

SIR POLITIC

I should be loath to draw the subtle air

Of such a place, without my thousand aims.

I'll not dissemble, sir: where'er I come,

I love to be considerative; and 'tis true,

I have at my free hours thought upon

Some certain goods unto the state of Venice,

Which I do call my cautions; and, sir, which

I mean, in hope of pension, to propound

To the Great Council, then unto the Forty,

So to the Ten. My means are made already –

PEREGRINE

By whom?

SIR POLITIC

Sir, one that though his place be obscure,

Yet he can sway, and they will hear him. He's

A commendatore.

PEREGRINE

What, a common sergeant?

SIR POLITIC

Sir, such as they are, put it in their mouths,

What they should say, sometimes; as well as greater:

I think I have my notes to show you –

PEREGRINE

Good sir.

SIR POLITIC

But you shall swear unto me, on your gentry,

Not to anticipate –

PEREGRINE

I, sir!

SIR POLITIC

Nor reveal

A circumstance – My paper is not with me.

PEREGRINE

O, but you can remember, sir.

SIR POLITIC

My first is

Concerning tinder-boxes. You must know

No family is here without its box.

Now, sir, it being so portable a thing,

Put case, that you or I were ill affected

Unto the state, sir; with it in our pockets

Might not I go into the Arsenale,

Or you, come out again, and none the wiser?

PEREGRINE

Except yourself, sir.

SIR POLITIC

Go to, then. I therefore

Advertise to the state, how fit it were,

That none but such as were known patriots,

Sound lovers of their country, should be suffered

To enjoy them in their houses; and even those

Sealed at some office, and at such a bigness

As might not lurk in pockets.

PEREGRINE

Admirable!

SIR POLITIC

100

My next is, how to inquire, and be resolved,

By present demonstration, whether a ship,

Newly arrived from Soria, or from

Any suspected part of all the Levant,

Be guilty of the plague: and where they use

105

To lie out forty, fifty days, sometimes

About the Lazaretto, for their trial;

I'll save that charge and loss unto the merchant,

And in an hour clear the doubt.

PEREGRINE

Indeed, sir!

SIR POLITIC

Or – I will lose my labour.

PEREGRINE

My faith, that's much.

SIR POLITIC

110

Nay, sir, conceive me. It will cost me in onions,

Some thirty livres –

PEREGRINE

Which is one pound sterling.

SIR POLITIC

Beside my water-works: for this I do, sir,

First, I bring in your ship 'twixt two brick walls;

But those the state shall venture: on the one

115

I strain me a fair tarpaulin, and in that

I stick my onions, cut in halves: the other

Is full of loop-holes, out at which I thrust

The noses of my bellows; and those bellows

I keep, with water-works, in perpetual motion,

120

Which is the easiest matter of a hundred.

Now, sir, your onion, which doth naturally

Attract the infection, and your bellows blowing

The air upon him, will show, instantly,

By his changed colour, if there be contagion;

125

Or else remain as fair as at the first.

—Now it is known, 'tis nothing.

PEREGRINE

You are right, sir.

SIR POLITIC

I would I had my note.

PEREGRINE

Faith, so would I:

But you have done well for once, sir.

SIR POLITIC

Were I false,

Or would be made so, I could show you reasons

130

How I could sell this state now to the Turk,

Spite of their galleys, or their –

PEREGRINE

Pray you, sir Politic.

SIR POLITIC

I have them not about me.

PEREGRINE

That I feared:

They are there, sir.

SIR POLITIC

No, this is my diary,

Wherein I note my actions of the day.

PEREGRINE

135

Pray you, let's see, sir. What is here?

“Notandum,

A rat had gnawn my spur leathers; notwithstanding,

I put on new, and did go forth: but first

I threw three beans over the threshold. Item,

140

I went and bought two toothpicks, whereof one

I burst immediately, in a discourse

With a Dutch merchant, 'bout ragion’ del stato.

From him I went and paid a mocenigo

For piecing my silk stockings; by the way

145

I cheapened sprats; and at St. Mark's I urined.

Faith, these are politic notes!

SIR POLITIC

Sir, I do slip

No action of my life, but thus I quote it.

PEREGRINE

Believe me, it is wise!

SIR POLITIC

Nay, sir, read forth.

ACT 4, SCENE 2

(Enter Lady Politic Would-be, Nano, and the two Women.)

LADY POLITIC

Where should this loose knight be, trow?

Sure he's housed.

NANO

Why, then he's fast.

LADY POLITIC

Aye, he plays both with me.

I pray you stay. This heat will do more harm

To my complexion, than his heart is worth.

I do not care to hinder, but to take him.—

How it comes off!

My master's yonder.

LADY POLITIC

Where?

With a young gentleman.

LADY POLITIC

That same's the party;

In man's apparel! Pray you, sir, jog my knight:

I will be tender to his reputation,

However he demerit.

SIR POLITIC

My lady!

PEREGRINE

Where?

SIR POLITIC

'Tis she indeed, sir; you shall know her. She is,

Were she not mine, a lady of that merit,

For fashion and behaviour; and for beauty

I durst compare –

PEREGRINE

It seems you are not jealous,

That dare commend her.

SIR POLITIC

Nay, and for discourse –

PEREGRINE

Being your wife, she cannot miss that.

SIR POLITIC

Madam,

Here is a gentleman; pray you use him fairly;

He seems a youth, but he is—

LADY POLITIC

None.

SIR POLITIC

Yes, one

Has put his face as soon into the world –

LADY POLITIC

You mean, as early? But to-day?

SIR POLITIC

How's this?

LADY POLITIC

Why, in this habit, sir; you apprehend me:—

Well, Master Would-be, this doth not become you;

I had thought the odour, sir, of your good name

Had been more precious to you; that you would not

Have done this dire massacre on your honour;

One of your gravity and rank besides!

But knights, I see, care little for the oath

They make to ladies; chiefly, their own ladies.

SIR POLITIC

Now, by my spurs, the symbol of my knighthood, –

PEREGRINE

(Aside.)

Lord, how his brain is humbled for an oath!

SIR POLITIC

I reach you not.

LADY POLITIC

Right, sir, your policy

May bear it through thus.

[To Peregrine]

—Sir, a word with you.

I would be loath to contest publicly

With any gentlewoman, or to seem

Forward, or violent; as The Courtier says;

It comes too near rusticity in a lady,

Which I would shun by all means: and however

I may deserve from master Would-be, yet

T' have one fair gentlewoman thus be made

The unkind instrument to wrong another,

And one she knows not, aye, and to perséver;

In my poor judgment, is not warranted

From being a solecism in our sex,

If not in manners.

PEREGRINE

How is this!

SIR POLITIC

Sweet madam,

Come nearer to your aim.

LADY POLITIC

Marry, and will, sir.

Since you provoke me with your impudence,

And laughter of your light land-siren here,

Your Sporus, your hermaphrodite—.

PEREGRINE

What's here?

Poetic fury and historic storms!

SIR POLITIC

The gentleman, believe it, is of worth,

And of our nation.

LADY POLITIC

Aye, your Whitefriars nation.

Come, I blush for you, Master Would-be, I:

And am ashamed you should have no more forehead,

Than thus to be the patron, or St. George,

To a lewd harlot, a base fricatrice,

A female devil, in a male outside.

SIR POLITIC

Nay,

An you be such a one, I must bid adieu

To your delights. The case appears too liquid.

[Exit.]

LADY POLITIC

Aye, you may carry't clear, with your state-face!—

But for your carnival concupiscence,

Who here is fled for liberty of conscience,

From furious persecution of the marshal,

Her will I disple.

PEREGRINE

This is fine, i'faith!

And do you use this often? Is this part

Of your wit's exercise, 'gainst you have occasion?

Madam –

LADY POLITIC

Go to, sir.

PEREGRINE

Do you hear me, lady?

Why, if your knight have set you to beg shirts,

Or to invite me home, you might have done it

A nearer way, by far.

LADY POLITIC

This cannot work you

Out of my snare.

PEREGRINE

Why, am I in it, then?

Indeed your husband told me you were fair.

And so you are; only your nose inclines,

That side that's next the sun, to the queen-apple.

LADY POLITIC

This cannot be endured by any patience.

ACT 4, SCENE 3

[Enter Mosca]

MOSCA

What is the matter, madam?

LADY POLITIC

If the Senate

Right not my quest in this, I will protest them

To all the world, no aristocracy.

MOSCA

What is the injury, lady?

LADY POLITIC

Why, the callet

You told me of, here I have ta’en disguised.

MOSCA

Who? this! What means your ladyship? The creature

I mentioned to you is apprehended now,

Before the senate; you shall see her –

LADY POLITIC

Where?

MOSCA

I'll bring you to her. This young gentlernan,

I saw him land this morning at the port.

LADY POLITIC

Is't possible? How has my judgment wandered?

Sir, I must, blushing, say to you, I have erred;

And plead your pardon.

PEREGRINE

What, more changes yet?

LADY POLITIC

I hope you have not the malice to remember

A gentlewoman's passion. If you stay

In Venice here, please you to use me, sir —

MOSCA

Will you go, madam?

LADY POLITIC

Pray you, sir, use me; in faith,

The more you see me, the more I shall conceive

You have forgot our quarrel.

[Exeunt Mosca, Lady Would-be, Nano, and Waiting- women.]

PEREGRINE

This is rare!

Sir Politick Would-be? No; Sir Politick Bawd,

To bring me thus acquainted with his wife!

Well, wise Sir Pol, since you have practised thus

Upon my freshmanship, I'll try your salt-head,

What proof it is against a counter-plot.

ACT 4, SCENE 4

[Enter Voltore, Corbaccio, Corvino, and Mosca.]

VOLTORE

Well, now you know the carriage of the business,

Your constancy is all that is required

Unto the safety of it.

MOSCA

Is the lie

Safely conveyed amongst us? is that sure?

Knows every man his burden?

CORVINO

Yes.

MOSCA

Then shrink not.

CORVINO

But knows the advocate the truth?

MOSCA

O, sir,

By no means; I devised a formal tale,

That salved your reputation. But be valiant, sir.

CORVINO

I fear no one but him, that this his pleading

Should make him stand for a co-heir—

MOSCA

Co-halter!

Hang him; we will but use his tongue, his noise,

As we do Croaker’s, here.

CORVINO

Aye, what shall he do?

MOSCA

When we have done, you mean?

CORVINO

Yes.

MOSCA

Why, we'll think –

Sell him for mummia; he's half dust already.

(To Voltore.)

Do you not smile, to see this buffalo,

How he doth sport it with his head?

[Aside.]

I should,

If all were well and past.

(To Corbaccio)

Sir, only you

Are he that shall enjoy the crop of all,

And these not know for whom they toil.

CORBACCIO

Aye, peace.

MOSCA

(To Corvino)

But you shall eat it. Much!

(Then to Voltore again)

—Worshipful sir,

Mercury sit upon your thundering tongue,

Or the French Hercules, and make your language

As conquering as his club, to beat along,

As with a tempest, flat, our adversaries;

But much more yours, sir.

VOLTORE

Here they come, have done.

MOSCA

I have another witness, if you need, sir,

I can produce.

VOLTORE

Who is it?

MOSCA

Sir, I have her.

ACT 4, SCENE 5

(Enter 4 Avocatori, Bonario, Celia, Notario, Commendatori, and Others.)

1 AVOCATORI

The like of this the Senate never heard of.

2 AVOCATORI

'Twill come most strange to them when we report it.

4 AVOCATORI

The gentlewoman has been ever held

Of unreproved name.

3 AVOCATORI

So, the young man.

4 AVOCATORI

The more unnatural part that of his father.

2 AVOCATORI

More of the husband.

1 AVOCATORI

I not know to give

His act a name, it is so monstrous!

4 AVOCATORI

But the impostor, he's a thing created

To exceed example!

1 AVOCATORI

And all after-times!

2 AVOCATORI

I never heard a true voluptuary

Described, but him.

3 AVOCATORI

Appear yet those were cited?

NOTARIO

All but the old magnifico, Volpone.

1 AVOCATORI

Why is not he here?

MOSCA

Please your fatherhoods,

Here is his advocate: himself's so weak,

So feeble –

4 AVOCATORI

What are you?

BONARIO

His parasite,

His knave, his pander. I beseech the court

He may be forced to come, that your grave eyes

May bear strong witness of his strange impostures.

VOLTORE

Upon my faith and credit with your virtues,

He is not able to endure the air.

2 AVOCATORI

Bring him, however.

3 AVOCATORI

We will see him.

4 AVOCATORI

Fetch him.

VOLTORE

Your fatherhoods' fit pleasures be obeyed;

But sure, the sight will rather move your pities,

Than indignation. May it please the court,

In the mean time, he may be heard in me;

I know this place most void of prejudice,

And therefore crave it, since we have no reason

To fear our truth should hurt our cause.

3 AVOCATORI

Speak free.

VOLTORE

Then know, most honoured fathers, I must now

Discover to your strangely abusèd ears,

The most prodigious and most frontless piece

Of solid impudence, and treachery,

That ever vicious nature yet brought forth

To shame the state of Venice. This lewd woman,

That wants no artificial looks or tears

To help the visor she has now put on,

Hath long been known a close adulteress

To that lascivious youth there; not suspected,

I say, but known, and taken in the act

With him; and by this man, the easy husband,

Pardoned; whose timeless bounty makes him now

Stand here, the most unhappy, innocent person,

That ever man's own goodness made accused.

For these not knowing how to owe a gift

Of that dear grace, but with their shame; being placed

So above all powers of their gratitude,

Began to hate the benefit; and, in place

Of thanks, devise to extirpe the memory

Of such an act: wherein I pray your fatherhoods

To observe the malice, yea, the rage of creatures

Discovered in their evils; and what heart

Such take, even from their crimes:— but that anon

Will more appear.—This gentleman, the father,

Hearing of this foul fact, with many others,

Which daily struck at his too tender ears,

And grieved in nothing more than that he could not

Preserve himself a parent, (his son's ills

Growing to that strange flood,) at last decreed

To disinherit him.

1 AVOCATORI

These be strange turns!

2 AVOCATORI

The young man's fame was ever fair and honest.

VOLTORE

So much more full of danger is his vice,

That can beguile so under shade of virtue.

But, as I said, my honoured sires, his father

Having this settled purpose, by what means

To him betrayed, we know not, and this day

Appointed for the deed; that parricide,

I cannot style him better, by confederacy

Preparing this his paramour to be there,

Entered Volpone's house, (who was the man,

Your fatherhoods must understand, designed

For the inheritance,) there sought his father:—

But with what purpose sought he him, my lords?

(I tremble to pronounce it, that a son

Unto a father, and to such a father,

Should have so foul, felonious intent)

It was to murder him. When, being prevented

By his more happy absence, what then did he?

Not check his wicked thoughts: no, now new deeds:

(Mischief doth never end where it begins)

An act of horror, fathers! he dragged forth

The agèd gentleman that had there lain bed-rid

Three years and more, out of his innocent couch,

Naked upon the floor, there left him; wounded

His servant in the face: and with this strumpet

The stale to his forged practice, who was glad

To be so active, (I shall here desire

Your Fatherhoods to note but my collections,

As most remarkable) thought, at once, to stop

His father's ends; discredit his free choice,

In the old gentleman; redeem themselves,

By laying infamy upon this man,

To whom, with blushing, they should owe their lives.

1 AVOCATORI

What proofs have you of this?

BONARIO

Most honored fathers,

I humbly crave there be no credit given

To this man's mercenary tongue.

2 AVOCATORI

Forbear.

BONARIO

His soul moves in his fee.

3 AVOCATORI

O, sir.

BONARIO

This fellow,

For six sols more, would plead against his maker.

1 AVOCATORI

You do forget yourself.

VOLTORE

Nay, nay, grave fathers,

100

Let him have scope: can any man imagine

That he will spare his accuser, that would not

Have spared his parent?

1 AVOCATORI

Well, produce your proofs.

CELIA

I would I could forget I were a creature.

VOLTORE

Signior Corbaccio!

4 AVOCATORI

What is he?

VOLTORE

The father.

2 AVOCATORI

105

Has he had an oath?

NOTARIO

Yes.

CORBACCIO

What must I do now?

NOTARIO

Your testimony's craved.

CORBACCIO

Speak to the knave?

I'll have my mouth first stopped with earth; my heart

Abhors his knowledge: I disclaim in him.

1 AVOCATORI

But for what cause?

CORBACCIO

The mere portent of nature!

110

He is an utter stranger to my loins.

BONARIO

Have they made you to this?

CORBACCIO

I will not hear thee,

Monster of men, swine, goat, wolf, parricide!

Speak not, thou viper.

BONARIO

Sir, I will sit down,

And rather wish my innocence should suffer,

115

Than I resist the authority of a father.

VOLTORE

Signior Corvino!

2 AVOCATORI

This is strange.

1 AVOCATORI

Who's this?

NOTARIO

The husband.

4 AVOCATORI

Is he sworn?

NOTARIO

He is.

3 AVOCATORI

Speak, then.

CORVINO

This woman, please your fatherhoods, is a whore,

Of most hot exercise, more than a partridge,

120

Upon record –

1 AVOCATORI

No more.

CORVINO

Neighs like a jennet.

NOTARIO

Preserve the honour of the court.

CORVINO

I shall,

And modesty of your most reverend ears.

And yet I hope that I may say, these eyes

Have seen her glued unto that piece of cedar,

125

That fine well-timbered gallant; and that here

The letters may be read, thorough the horn,

That makes the story perfect.

MOSCA

Excellent! sir.

CORVINO

There is no shame in this now, is there?

MOSCA

None.

CORVINO

Or if I said, I hoped that she were onward

130

To her damnation, if there be a hell

Greater than whore and woman; a good Christian

May make the doubt.

3 AVOCATORI

His grief hath made him frantic.

1 AVOCATORI

Remove him hence.

2 AVOCATORI

Look to the woman.

CORVINO

Rare!

Prettily feigned, again!

4 AVOCATORI

Stand from about her.

1 AVOCATORI

135

Give her the air.

3 AVOCATORI

[to Mosca]

What can you say?

MOSCA

My wound,

May it please your wisdoms, speaks for me, received

In aid of my good patron, when he missed

His sought-for father, when that well-taught dame

Had her cue given her, to cry out, “a rape!”

BONARIO

140

O, most laid impudence! Fathers—

3 AVOCATORI

Sir, be silent;

You had your hearing free, so must they theirs.

2 AVOCATORI

I do begin to doubt the imposture here.

4 AVOCATORI

This woman has too many moods.

VOLTORE

Grave fathers,

She is a creature of a most professed

145

And prostituted lewdness.

CORVINO

Most impetuous,

Unsatisfied, grave fathers!

VOLTORE

May her feignings

Not take your wisdoms, but this day she baited

A stranger, a grave knight, with her loose eyes,

And more lascivious kisses. This man saw them

150

Together on the water, in a gondola.

MOSCA

Here is the lady herself, that saw them too;

Without; who then had in the open streets

Pursued them, but for saving her knight's honor.

1 AVOCATORI

Produce that lady.

2 AVOCATORI

Let her come.

[Exit Mosca.]

4 AVOCATORI

These things,

155

They strike with wonder!

3 AVOCATORI

I am turned a stone!

ACT 4, SCENE 6

(Enter Mosca and Lady Would-Be.)

MOSCA.

Be resolute, madam.

LADY WOULD-BE

Aye, this same is she.

Out, thou chameleon harlot! Now thine eyes

Vie tears with the hyena. Dar'st thou look

Upon my wronged face?– I cry your pardons.

I fear I have forgettingly transgressed

Against the dignity of the court –

2 AVOCATORI

No, madam.

LADY WOULD-BE

And been exorbitant –

2 AVOCATORI

You have not, lady.

4 AVOCATORI

These proofs are strong.

LADY WOULD-BE

Surely, I had no purpose

To scandalize your honours, or my sex's.

3 AVOCATORI

We do believe it.

LADY WOULD-BE

Surely, you may believe it.

2 AVOCATORI

Madam, we do.

LADY WOULD-BE

Indeed you may. My breeding

Is not so coarse –

4 AVOCATORI

We know it.

LADY WOULD-BE

To offend

With pertinacy –

3 AVOCATORI

Lady –

LADY WOULD-BE

Such a presence!

No, surely.

1 AVOCATORI

We well think it.

LADY WOULD-BE

You may think it.

1 AVOCATORI

Let her o'ercome. What witnesses have you

To make good your report?

BONARIO

Our consciences.

CELIA

And heaven, that never fails the innocent.

4 AVOCATORI

These are no testimonies.

BONARIO

Not in your courts,

Where multitude and clamour overcomes.

1 AVOCATORI

Nay, then you do wax insolent.

(Volpone is brought in, as impotent.)

VOLTORE

Here, here,

The testimony comes, that will convince,

And put to utter dumbness their bold tongues:

See here, grave fathers, here's the ravisher,

The rider on men's wives, the great impostor,

The grand voluptuary! Do you not think

These limbs should affect venery? Or these eyes

Covet a concubine? Pray you mark these hands;

Are they not fit to stroke a lady's breasts?–

Perhaps he doth dissemble!

BONARIO

So he does.

VOLTORE

Would you have him tortured?

BONARIO

I would have him proved.

VOLTORE

Best try him then with goads, or burning irons;

Put him to the strappado: I have heard

The rack hath cured the gout; faith, give it him,

And help him of a malady; be courteous.

I'll undertake, before these honored fathers,

He shall have yet as many left diseases

As she has known adulterers, or thou strumpets.

O, my most equal hearers, if these deeds,

Acts of this bold and most exorbitant strain,

May pass with sufferance, what one citizen

But owes the forfeit of his life, yea, fame,

To him that dares traduce him? Which of you

Are safe, my honoured fathers? I would ask,

With leave of your grave fatherhoods, if their plot

Have any face or colour like to truth?

Or if, unto the dullest nostril here,

It smell not rank, and most abhorrèd slander?

I crave your care of this good gentleman,

Whose life is much endangered by their fable;

And as for them, I will conclude with this,

That vicious persons, when they are hot and fleshed

In impious acts, their constancy abounds:

Damned deeds are done with greatest confidence.

1 AVOCATORI

Take them to custody, and sever them.

2 AVOCATORI

'Tis pity two such prodigies should live.

1 AVOCATORI

Let the old gentleman be returned with care.

I'm sorry your credulity hath wronged him.

[Exeunt Officers with Volpone.]

4 AVOCATORI

These are two creatures!

3 AVOCATORI

I’ve an earthquake in me.

2 AVOCATORI

Their shame, even in their cradles, fled their faces.

4 AVOCATORI

You have done a worthy service to the state, sir,

In their discovery.

1 AVOCATORI

You shall hear, ere night,

What punishment the court decrees upon them.

VOLTORE

We thank your fatherhoods.

[Exeunt Avocatori, Notario, Officers with Bonario and Celia.]

How like you it?

MOSCA

Rare.

I'd have your tongue, sir, tipped with gold for this;

I'd have you be the heir to the whole city;

The earth I'd have want men, ere you want living:

They're bound to erect your statue in St. Mark's.

Signior Corvino, I would have you go

And show yourself, that you have conquered.

CORVINO

Yes.

MOSCA

It was much better that you should profess

Yourself a cuckold thus, than that the other

Should have been proved.

CORVINO

Nay, I considered that:

Now it is her fault.

MOSCA

Then it had been yours.

CORVINO

True; I do doubt this advocate still.

MOSCA

I'faith

You need not; I dare ease you of that care.

CORVINO

I trust thee, Mosca.

MOSCA

As your own soul, sir.

[Exit CORVINO.]

CORBACCIO

Mosca!

MOSCA

Now for your business, sir.

CORBACCIO

How! Have you business?

MOSCA

Yes, yours, sir.

CORBACCIO

O, none else?

MOSCA

None else, not I.

CORBACCIO

Be careful, then.

MOSCA

Rest you with both your eyes, sir.

CORBACCIO

Dispatch it.

MOSCA

Instantly.

CORBACCIO

And look that all,

Whatever, be put in, jewels, plate, moneys.

Household stuff, bedding, curtains.

MOSCA

Curtain-rings, sir.

Only the advocate's fee must be deducted.

CORBACCIO

I'll pay him now; you'll be too prodigal.

MOSCA

Sir, I must tender it.

CORBACCIO

Two cecchines is well?

MOSCA

No, six, sir.

CORBACCIO

'Tis too much.

MOSCA

He talked a great while;

You must consider that, sir.

CORBACCIO

Well, there's three –

MOSCA

I'll give it him.

CORBACCIO

Do so, and there's for thee.

[Exit Corbaccio.]

MOSCA

Bountiful bones! What horrid strange offence

Did he commit 'gainst nature, in his youth,

Worthy this age?

[To Voltore.]

You see, sir, how I work

Unto your ends: take you no notice.

VOLTORE

No,

I'll leave you.

[Exit Voltore.]

MOSCA

All is yours, the devil and all:

Good advocate— Madam, I'll bring you home.

LADY WOULD-BE

No, I'll go see your patron.

MOSCA

That you shall not:

I'll tell you why. My purpose is to urge

My patron to reform his will; and for

The zeal you have shown to-day, whereas before

You were but third or fourth, you shall be now

100

Put in the first: which would appear as begged

If you were present. Therefore –

LADY WOULD-BE

You shall sway me.

[Exeunt.]

ACT 5

SCENE 1

(Enter Volpone.)

VOLPONE

Well, I am here, and all this brunt is past.

I ne'er was in dislike with my disguise

Till this fled moment: here 'twas good, in private;

But in your public, – cavè whilst I breathe.

'Fore God, my left leg 'gan to have the cramp,

And I apprehended straight some power had struck me

With a dead palsy: well, I must be merry,

And shake it off. A many of these fears

Would put me into some villainous disease,

Should they come thick upon me: I'll prevent 'em.

Give me a bowl of lusty wine, to fright

This humour from my heart.

(He drinks.)

– Hum, hum, hum!

'Tis almost gone already; I shall conquer.

Any device, now, of rare ingenious knavery,

That would possess me with a violent laughter,

Would make me up again.

(Drinks again.)

So, so, so, so.

This heat is life; 'tis blood by this time:– Mosca!

ACT 5, SCENE 2

[Enter MOSCA.]

MOSCA

How now, sir? Does the day look clear again?

Are we recovered, and wrought out of error,

Into our way, to see our path before us?

Is our trade free once more?

VOLPONE

Exquisite, Mosca!

MOSCA

Was it not carried learnedly?

VOLPONE

And stoutly:

Good wits are greatest in extremities.

MOSCA

It were a folly beyond thought, to trust

Any grand act unto a cowardly spirit:

You are not taken with it enough, methinks.

VOLPONE

O, more than if I had enjoyed the wench:

The pleasure of all woman-kind's not like it.

MOSCA

Why, now you speak, sir. We must here be fixed;

Here we must rest; this is our master-piece;

We cannot think to go beyond this.

VOLPONE

True,

Thou hast played thy prize, my precious Mosca.

MOSCA

Nay, sir,

To gull the court –

VOLPONE

And quite divert the torrent

Upon the innocent.

MOSCA

Yes, and to make

So rare a music out of discords –

VOLPONE

Right.

That yet to me's the strangest, how thou hast borne it!

That these, being so divided 'mongst themselves,

Should not scent somewhat, or in me or thee,

Or doubt their own side.

MOSCA

True, they will not see't.

Too much light blinds them, I think. Each of them

Is so possessed and stuffed with his own hopes,

That any thing unto the contrary,

Never so true, or never so apparent,

Never so palpable, they will resist it –

VOLPONE

Like a temptation of the devil.

MOSCA

Right, sir.

Merchants may talk of trade, and your great signiors

Of land that yields well; but if Italy

Have any glebe more fruitful than these fellows,

I am deceived. Did not your advocate rare?

VOLPONE

O – "My most honoured fathers, my grave fathers,

Under correction of your fatherhoods,

What face of truth is here? If these strange deeds

May pass, most honored fathers" – I had much ado

To forbear laughing.

MOSCA

It seemed to me, you sweat, sir.

VOLPONE

In troth, I did a little.

MOSCA

But confess, sir,

Were you not daunted?

VOLPONE

In good faith, I was

A little in a mist, but not dejected;

Never, but still my self.

MOSCA

I think it, sir.

Now, so truth help me, I must needs say this, sir,

And out of conscience for your advocate:

He’s taken pains, in faith, sir, and deserved,

In my poor judgment, I speak it under favour,

Not to contrary you, sir, very richly –

Well – to be cozened.

VOLPONE

Troth, and I think so too,

By that I heard him, in the latter end.

MOSCA

O, but before, sir: had you heard him first

Draw it to certain heads, then aggravate,

Then use his vehement figures – I looked still

When he would shift a shirt: and, doing this

Out of pure love, no hope of gain –

VOLPONE

'Tis right.

I cannot answer him, Mosca, as I would,

Not yet; but for thy sake, at thy entreaty,

I will begin, even now– to vex them all,

This very instant.

MOSCA

Good sir.

VOLPONE

Call the dwarf

And eunuch forth.

MOSCA

Castrone, Nano!

[Enter Castrone and Nano.]

NANO

Here.

VOLPONE

Shall we have a jig now?

MOSCA

What you please, sir.

VOLPONE

Go, straight give out about the streets, you two,

That I am dead; do it with constancy,

Sadly, do you hear? Impute it to the grief

Of this late slander.

[Exeunt Castrone and Nano.]

MOSCA

What do you mean, sir?

VOLPONE

Oh,

I shall have instantly my Vulture, Crow,

Raven, come flying hither, on the news,

To peck for carrion, my she-wolf, and all,

Greedy, and full of expectation –

MOSCA

And then to have it ravished from their mouths?

VOLPONE

'Tis true. I will have thee put on a gown,

And take upon thee, as thou wert mine heir:

Show them a will: open that chest, and reach

Forth one of those that has the blanks; I'll straight

Put in thy name.

MOSCA

[Getting a blank will]

It will be rare, sir.

VOLPONE

Aye,

When they ev’n gape, and find themselves deluded –

MOSCA

Yes.

VOLPONE

And thou use them scurvily!

Dispatch, get on thy gown.

MOSCA

(Dressing.)

But, what, sir, if they ask

After the body?

VOLPONE

Say, it was corrupted.

MOSCA

I'll say it stunk, sir; and was fain to have it

Coffined up instantly, and sent away.

VOLPONE

Any thing; what thou wilt. Hold, here's my will.

Get thee a cap, a count-book, pen and ink,

Papers afore thee; sit as thou wert taking

An inventory of parcels. I'll get up

Behind the curtain, on a stool, and hearken;

Sometime peep over, see how they do look,

With what degrees their blood doth leave their faces.

O, 'twill afford me a rare meal of laughter!

MOSCA

Your advocate will turn stark dull upon it.

VOLPONE

It will take off his oratory's edge.

MOSCA

But your clarissimo, old round-back, he

Will crump you like a hog-louse, with the touch.

VOLPONE

And what Corvino?

MOSCA

O, sir, look for him,

To-morrow morning, with a rope and dagger,

To visit all the streets; he must run mad.

My lady too, that came into the court,

To bear false witness for your worship –

VOLPONE

Yes,

And kissed me 'fore the fathers, when my face

Flowed all with oils.

MOSCA

And sweat– sir. Why, your gold

Is such another med’cine, it dries up

100

All those offensive savors: it transforms

The most deformed, and restores them lovely,

As 'twere the strange poetical girdle. Jove

Could not invent t'himself a shroud more subtle

To pass Acrisius' guards. It is the thing

105

Makes all the world her grace, her youth, her beauty.

VOLPONE

I think she loves me.

MOSCA

Who? The lady, sir?

She's jealous of you.

VOLPONE

Dost thou say so?

[Knocking outside.]

MOSCA

Hark,

There's some already.

VOLPONE

Look.

MOSCA

It is the Vulture;

He has the quickest scent.

VOLPONE

I'll to my place,

110

Thou to thy posture.

[Conceals himself.]

MOSCA

I am set.

VOLPONE

But, Mosca,

Play the artificer now, torture them rarely.

ACT 5, SCENE 3

[Enter Voltore.]

VOLTORE

How now, my Mosca?

MOSCA

Turkey carpets, nine –

VOLTORE

Taking an inventory! That is well.

MOSCA

Two suits of bedding, tissue–

VOLTORE

Where's the will?

Let me read that the while.

[Enter Corbaccio in a sedan chair.]

CORBACCIO

So, set me down,

And get you home.

[Exeunt servants.]

VOLTORE

Is he come now, to trouble us!

MOSCA

Of cloth of gold, two more –

CORBACCIO

Is it done, Mosca?

MOSCA

Of several velvets, eight –

VOLTORE

I like his care.

CORBACCIO

Dost thou not hear?

[Enter Corvino.]

CORBACCIO

Ha! is the hour come, Mosca?

(Volpone peeps from behind a traverse.)

VOLTORE

[aside]

Aye, now they muster.

CORVINO

What does the advocate here,

Or this Corbaccio?

CORBACCIO

What do these here?

[Enter Lady Politic Would-be.]

LADY WOULD-BE

Mosca!

Is his thread spun?

MOSCA

Eight chests of linen–

VOLPONE

My fine dame Would-be, too!

CORVINO

Mosca, the will,

That I may show it these, and rid them hence.

MOSCA

Six chests of diaper, four of damask. – There.

[Gives Corvino the will.]

CORBACCIO

Is that the will?

MOSCA

Down-beds and bolsters –

VOLPONE

[Aside.]

Rare!