PROLOGUE.
Now, luck yet sends us, and a little wit
Will serve to make our play hit;
(According to the palates of the season)
Here is rhime, 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 flout 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 penn'd 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 Bethlem 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 1.1.
A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE.
ENTER VOLPONE AND MOSCA.
VOLP: Good morning to the day; and next, my gold:
Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint.
[MOSCA WITHDRAWS THE CURTAIN, AND DISCOVERS PILES OF GOLD,
PLATE, JEWELS, ETC.]
Hail the world's soul, and mine! more glad than is
The teeming earth to see the long'd-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,
Shew'st like a flame by night; or like the day
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the centre. O thou son of Sol,
But brighter than thy father, let me kiss,
With adoration, thee, and every relick
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;
That canst do nought, 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,—
MOS: And what he will, sir. Riches are in fortune
A greater good than wisdom is in nature.
VOLP: 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.
MOS: 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 forth-coming, when the flesh is rotten:
But your sweet nature doth abhor these courses;
You lothe the widdow's or the orphan's tears
Should wash your pavements, or their piteous cries
Ring in your roofs, and beat the air for vengeance.
VOLP: Right, Mosca; I do lothe it.
MOS: And besides, sir,
You are not like a 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 fill'd his vaults
With Romagnia, and rich Candian wines,
Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar:
You will not lie 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.
VOLP: 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 MOS.]
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,
To 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!
[RE-ENTER MOSCA WITH NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.]
NAN: Now, room for fresh gamesters, 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 inclosed the soul of Pythagoras,
That juggler divine, as hereafter shall follow;
Which soul, fast and loose, sir, came first from Apollo,
And was breath'd 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 goldy-lock'd 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 learn'd 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 cynick, as it self 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 cobler's cock.
But I come not here to discourse of that matter,
Or his one, two, or three, or his greath oath, BY QUATER!
His musics, his trigon, his golden thigh,
Or his telling how elements shift, but I
Would ask, how of late thou best suffered translation,
And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation.
AND: Like one of the reformed, a fool, as you see,
Counting all old doctrine heresy.
NAN: But not on thine own forbid meats hast thou ventured?
AND: On fish, when first a Carthusian I enter'd.
NAN: Why, then thy dogmatical silence hath left thee?
AND: Of that an obstreperous lawyer bereft me.
NAN: O wonderful change, when sir lawyer forsook thee!
For Pythagore's sake, what body then took thee?
AND: A good dull mule.
NAN: And how! by that means
Thou wert brought to allow of the eating of beans?
AND: Yes.
NAN: But from the mule into whom didst thou pass?
AND: Into a very strange beast, by some writers call'd 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.
NAN: Now quit thee, for heaven, of that profane nation;
And gently report thy next transmigration.
AND: To the same that I am.
NAN: 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?
AND: Troth, this I am in: even here would I tarry.
NAN: 'Cause here the delight of each sex thou canst vary?
AND: 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.
NAN: 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.
VOLP: Now, very, very pretty! Mosca, this
Was thy invention?
MOS: If it please my patron,
Not else.
VOLP: It doth, good Mosca.
MOS: Then it was, sir.
NANO AND CASTRONE [SING.]: 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?
[KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
VOLP: Who's that? Away!
[EXEUNT NANO AND CASTRONE.]
Look, Mosca. Fool, begone!
[EXIT ANDROGYNO.]
MOS: 'Tis Signior Voltore, the advocate;
I know him by his knock.
VOLP: 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 gorcrow, all my birds of prey,
That think me turning carcase, now they come;
I am not for them yet—
[RE-ENTER MOSCA, WITH THE GOWN, ETC.]
How now! the news?
MOS: A piece of plate, sir.
VOLP: Of what bigness?
MOS: Huge,
Massy, and antique, with your name inscribed,
And arms engraven.
VOLP: Good! and not a fox
Stretch'd on the earth, with fine delusive sleights,
Mocking a gaping crow? ha, Mosca?
MOS: Sharp, sir.
VOLP: Give me my furs.
[PUTS ON HIS SICK DRESS.]
Why dost thou laugh so, man?
MOS: 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,
And gave him all, what he should be to-morrow;
What large return would come of all his ventures;
How he should worship'd be, and reverenced;
Ride with his furs, and foot-cloths; waited on
By herds of fools, and clients; have clear way
Made for his mule, as letter'd as himself;
Be call'd the great and learned advocate:
And then concludes, there's nought impossible.
VOLP: Yes, to be learned, Mosca.
MOS: O no: rich
Implies it. Hood an ass with reverend purple,
So you can hide his two ambitious ears,
And he shall pass for a cathedral doctor.
VOLP: My caps, my caps, good Mosca. Fetch him in.
MOS: Stay, sir, your ointment for your eyes.
VOLP: That's true;
Dispatch, dispatch: I long to have possession
Of my new present.
MOS: That, and thousands more,
I hope, to see you lord of.
VOLP: Thanks, kind Mosca.
MOS: And that, when I am lost in blended dust,
And hundred such as I am, in succession—
VOLP: Nay, that were too much, Mosca.
MOS: You shall live,
Still, to delude these harpies.
VOLP: Loving Mosca!
'Tis well: my pillow now, and let him enter.
[EXIT MOSCA.]
Now, my fain'd cough, my pthisic, and my gout,
My apoplexy, palsy, and catarrhs,
Help, with your forced functions, this my posture,
Wherein, this three year, I have milk'd their hopes.
He comes; I hear him—Uh! [COUGHING.] uh! uh! uh! O—
[RE-ENTER MOSCA, INTRODUCING VOLTORE, WITH A PIECE OF PLATE.]
MOS: 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—
VOLP [FAINTLY.]: What say you?
MOS: Sir, signior Voltore is come this morning
To visit you.
VOLP: I thank him.
MOS: And hath brought
A piece of antique plate, bought of St Mark,
With which he here presents you.
VOLP: He is welcome.
Pray him to come more often.
MOS: Yes.
VOLT: What says he?
MOS: He thanks you, and desires you see him often.
VOLP: Mosca.
MOS: My patron!
VOLP: Bring him near, where is he?
I long to feel his hand.
MOS: The plate is here, sir.
VOLT: How fare you, sir?
VOLP: I thank you, signior Voltore;
Where is the plate? mine eyes are bad.
VOLT [PUTTING IT INTO HIS HANDS.]: I'm sorry,
To see you still thus weak.
MOS [ASIDE.]: That he's not weaker.
VOLP: You are too munificent.
VOLT: No sir; would to heaven,
I could as well give health to you, as that plate!
VOLP: You give, sir, what you can: I thank you. Your love
Hath taste in this, and shall not be unanswer'd:
I pray you see me often.
VOLT: Yes, I shall sir.
VOLP: Be not far from me.
MOS: Do you observe that, sir?
VOLP: Hearken unto me still; it will concern you.
MOS: You are a happy man, sir; know your good.
VOLP: I cannot now last long—
MOS: You are his heir, sir.
VOLT: Am I?
VOLP: 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.
MOS: Alas, kind gentleman! Well, we must all go—
VOLT: But, Mosca—
MOS: Age will conquer.
VOLT: 'Pray thee hear me:
Am I inscribed his heir for certain?
MOS: 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.
VOLT: It shall both shine, and warm thee, Mosca.
MOS: 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 lock'd,
Keep the poor inventory of your jewels,
Your plate and monies; am your steward, sir.
Husband your goods here.
VOLT: But am I sole heir?
MOS: Without a partner, sir; confirm'd this morning:
The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry
Upon the parchment.
VOLT: Happy, happy, me!
By what good chance, sweet Mosca?
MOS: Your desert, sir;
I know no second cause.
VOLT: Thy modesty
Is not to know it; well, we shall requite it.
MOS: 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 [re-] return; [could] 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 perplex'd 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 chequin!—
[LOUD KNOCKING WITHOUT.]
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 born up stiff, with fatness of the flood,
Think on your vassal; but remember me:
I have not been your worst of clients.
VOLT: Mosca!—
MOS: When will you have your inventory brought, sir?
Or see a coppy of the will?—Anon!—
I will bring them to you, sir. Away, be gone,
Put business in your face.
[EXIT VOLTORE.]
VOLP [SPRINGING UP.]: Excellent Mosca!
Come hither, let me kiss thee.
MOS: Keep you still, sir.
Here is Corbaccio.
VOLP: Set the plate away:
The vulture's gone, and the old raven's come!
MOS: Betake you to your silence, and your sleep:
Stand there and multiply.
[PUTTING THE PLATE TO THE REST.]
Now, shall we 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.
CORB: How does your patron?
MOS: Troth, as he did, sir; no amends.
CORB: What! mends he?
MOS: No, sir: he's rather worse.
CORB: That's well. Where is he?
MOS: Upon his couch sir, newly fall'n asleep.
CORB: Does he sleep well?
MOS: No wink, sir, all this night.
Nor yesterday; but slumbers.
CORB: Good! he should take
Some counsel of physicians: I have brought him
An opiate here, from mine own doctor.
MOS: He will not hear of drugs.
CORB: 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.
VOLP [ASIDE.]: Ay, his last sleep, if he would take it.
MOS: Sir,
He has no faith in physic.
CORB: 'Say you? 'say you?
MOS: 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.
CORB: Not I his heir?
MOS: Not your physician, sir.
CORB: O, no, no, no,
I do not mean it.
MOS: No, sir, nor their fees
He cannot brook: he says, they flay a man,
Before they kill him.
CORB: Right, I do conceive you.
MOS: And then they do it by experiment;
For which the law not only doth absolve them,
But gives them great reward: and he is loth
To hire his death, so.
CORB: It is true, they kill,
With as much license as a judge.
MOS: Nay, more;
For he but kills, sir, where the law condemns,
And these can kill him too.
CORB: Ay, or me;
Or any man. How does his apoplex?
Is that strong on him still?
MOS: Most violent.
His speech is broken, and his eyes are set,
His face drawn longer than 'twas wont—
CORB: How! how!
Stronger then he was wont?
MOS: No, sir: his face
Drawn longer than 'twas wont.
CORB: O, good!
MOS: His mouth
Is ever gaping, and his eyelids hang.
CORB: Good.
MOS: A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints,
And makes the colour of his flesh like lead.
CORB: 'Tis good.
MOS: His pulse beats slow, and dull.
CORB: Good symptoms, still.
MOS: And from his brain—
CORB: I conceive you; good.
MOS: Flows a cold sweat, with a continual rheum,
Forth the resolved corners of his eyes.
CORB: Is't possible? yet I am better, ha!
How does he, with the swimming of his head?
B: O, sir, 'tis past the scotomy; he now
Hath lost his feeling, and hath left to snort:
You hardly can perceive him, that he breathes.
CORB: Excellent, excellent! sure I shall outlast him:
This makes me young again, a score of years.
MOS: I was a coming for you, sir.
CORB: Has he made his will?
What has he given me?
MOS: No, sir.
CORB: Nothing! ha?
MOS: He has not made his will, sir.
CORB: Oh, oh, oh!
But what did Voltore, the Lawyer, here?
MOS: He smelt a carcase, sir, when he but heard
My master was about his testament;
As I did urge him to it for your good—
CORB: He came unto him, did he? I thought so.
MOS: Yes, and presented him this piece of plate.
CORB: To be his heir?
MOS: I do not know, sir.
CORB: True:
I know it too.
MOS [ASIDE.]: By your own scale, sir.
CORB: Well,
I shall prevent him, yet. See, Mosca, look,
Here, I have brought a bag of bright chequines,
Will quite weigh down his plate.
MOS [TAKING THE BAG.]: Yea, marry, sir.
This is true physic, this your sacred medicine,
No talk of opiates, to this great elixir!
CORB: 'Tis aurum palpabile, if not potabile.
MOS: It shall be minister'd to him, in his bowl.
CORB: Ay, do, do, do.
MOS: Most blessed cordial!
This will recover him.
CORB: Yes, do, do, do.
MOS: I think it were not best, sir.
CORB: What?
MOS: To recover him.
CORB: O, no, no, no; by no means.
MOS: Why, sir, this
Will work some strange effect, if he but feel it.
CORB: 'Tis true, therefore forbear; I'll take my venture:
Give me it again.
MOS: At no hand; pardon me:
You shall not do yourself that wrong, sir. I
Will so advise you, you shall have it all.
CORB: How?
MOS: All, sir; 'tis your right, your own; no man
Can claim a part: 'tis yours, without a rival,
Decreed by destiny.
CORB: How, how, good Mosca?
MOS: I'll tell you sir. This fit he shall recover.
CORB: I do conceive you.
MOS: And, on first advantage
Of his gain'd sense, will I re-importune him
Unto the making of his testament:
And shew him this.
[POINTING TO THE MONEY.]
CORB: Good, good.
MOS: 'Tis better yet,
If you will hear, sir.
CORB: Yes, with all my heart.
MOS: Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed;
There, frame a will; whereto you shall inscribe
My master your sole heir.
CORB: And disinherit
My son!
MOS: O, sir, the better: for that colour
Shall make it much more taking.
CORB: O, but colour?
MOS: This will sir, you shall send it unto me.
Now, when I come to inforce, as I will do,
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,
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—
CORB: He must pronounce me his?
MOS: 'Tis true.
CORB: This plot
Did I think on before.
MOS: I do believe it.
CORB: Do you not believe it?
MOS: Yes, sir.
CORB: Mine own project.
MOS: Which, when he hath done, sir.
CORB: Publish'd me his heir?
MOS: And you so certain to survive him—
CORB: Ay.
MOS: Being so lusty a man—
CORB: 'Tis true.
MOS: Yes, sir—
CORB: I thought on that too. See, how he should be
The very organ to express my thoughts!
MOS: You have not only done yourself a good—
CORB: But multiplied it on my son.
MOS: 'Tis right, sir.
CORB: Still, my invention.
MOS: 'Las, sir! heaven knows,
It hath been all my study, all my care,
(I e'en grow gray withal,) how to work things—
CORB: I do conceive, sweet Mosca.
MOS: You are he,
For whom I labour here.
CORB: Ay, do, do, do:
I'll straight about it.
[GOING.]
MOS: Rook go with you, raven!
CORB: I know thee honest.
MOS [ASIDE.]: You do lie, sir!
CORB: And—
MOS: Your knowledge is no better than your ears, sir.
CORB: I do not doubt, to be a father to thee.
MOS: Nor I to gull my brother of his blessing.
CORB: I may have my youth restored to me, why not?
MOS: Your worship is a precious ass!
CORB: What say'st thou?
MOS: I do desire your worship to make haste, sir.
CORB: 'Tis done, 'tis done, I go.
[EXIT.]
VOLP [LEAPING FROM HIS COUCH.]: O, I shall burst!
Let out my sides, let out my sides—
MOS: Contain
Your flux of laughter, sir: you know this hope
Is such a bait, it covers any hook.
VOLP: O, 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.
MOS: Alas sir, I but do as I am taught;
Follow your grave instructions; give them words;
Pour oil into their ears, and send them hence.
VOLP: 'Tis true, 'tis true. What a rare punishment
Is avarice to itself!
MOS: Ay, with our help, sir.
VOLP: So many cares, so many maladies,
So many fears attending on old age,
Yea, death so often call'd 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,
Their instruments of eating, failing them:
Yet this is reckon'd 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
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!
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
Who's that there, now? a third?
MOS: Close, to your couch again; I hear his voice:
It is Corvino, our spruce merchant.
VOLP [LIES DOWN AS BEFORE.]: Dead.
MOS: Another bout, sir, with your eyes.
[ANOINTING THEM.]
—Who's there?
[ENTER CORVINO.]
Signior Corvino! come most wish'd for! O,
How happy were you, if you knew it, now!
CORV: Why? what? wherein?
MOS: The tardy hour is come, sir.
CORV: He is not dead?
MOS: Not dead, sir, but as good;
He knows no man.
CORV: How shall I do then?
MOS: Why, sir?
CORV: I have brought him here a pearl.
MOS: 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?
CORV: Venice was never owner of the like.
VOLP [FAINTLY.]: Signior Corvino.
MOS: Hark.
VOLP: Signior Corvino!
MOS: He calls you; step and give it him.—He's here, sir,
And he has brought you a rich pearl.
CORV: How do you, sir?
Tell him, it doubles the twelfth caract.
MOS: Sir,
He cannot understand, his hearing's gone;
And yet it comforts him to see you—
CORV: Say,
I have a diamond for him, too.
MOS: Best shew it, sir;
Put it into his hand; 'tis only there
He apprehends: he has his feeling, yet.
See how he grasps it!
CORV: 'Las, good gentleman!
How pitiful the sight is!
MOS: Tut! forget, sir.
The weeping of an heir should still be laughter
Under a visor.
CORV: Why, am I his heir?
MOS: Sir, I am sworn, I may not shew 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 too,
I still interpreted the nods he made,
Through weakness, for consent: and sent home th' others,
Nothing bequeath'd them, but to cry and curse.
CORV: O, my dear Mosca!
[THEY EMBRACE.]
Does he not perceive us?
MOS: 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.
CORV: Has he children?
MOS: Bastards,
Some dozen, or more, that he begot on beggars,
Gipsies, 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 giv'n them nothing.
CORV: That's well, that's well. Art sure he does not hear us?
MOS: Sure, sir! why, look you, credit your own sense.
[SHOUTS IN VOL.'S EAR.]
The pox approach, and add to your diseases,
If it would send you hence the sooner, sir,
For your incontinence, it hath deserv'd it
Thoroughly, and thoroughly, 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,
Cover'd with hide, instead of skin—Nay help, sir—
That look like frozen dish-clouts, set on end!
CORV [ALOUD.]: Or like an old smoked wall, on which the rain
Ran down in streaks!
MOS: Excellent! sir, speak out:
You may be louder yet: A culverin
Discharged in his ear would hardly bore it.
CORV: His nose is like a common sewer, still running.
MOS: 'Tis good! And what his mouth?
CORV: A very draught.
MOS: O, stop it up—
CORV: By no means.
MOS: 'Pray you, let me.
Faith I could stifle him, rarely with a pillow,
As well as any woman that should keep him.
CORV: Do as you will: but I'll begone.
MOS: Be so:
It is your presence makes him last so long.
CORV: I pray you, use no violence.
MOS: No, sir! why?
Why should you be thus scrupulous, pray you, sir?
CORV: Nay, at your discretion.
MOS: Well, good sir, begone.
CORV: I will not trouble him now, to take my pearl.
MOS: 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?
CORV: Grateful Mosca!
Thou art my friend, my fellow, my companion,
My partner, and shalt share in all my fortunes.
MOS: Excepting one.
CORV: What's that?
MOS: Your gallant wife, sir,—
[EXIT CORV.]
Now is he gone: we had no other means
To shoot him hence, but this.
VOLP: My divine Mosca!
Thou hast to-day outgone thyself.
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
—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 MOS.]
Let me see; a pearl!
A diamond! plate! chequines! 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?
MOS: The beauteous lady Would-be, sir.
Wife to the English knight, Sir Politick 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?
VOLP: Not now:
Some three hours hence—
MOS: I told the squire so much.
VOLP: When I am high with mirth and wine; then, then:
'Fore heaven, I wonder at the desperate valour
Of the bold English, that they dare let loose
Their wives to all encounters!
MOS: Sir, this knight
Had not his name for nothing, he is politick,
And knows, howe'er his wife affect strange airs,
She hath not yet the face to be dishonest:
But had she signior Corvino's wife's face—
VOLP: Has she so rare a face?
MOS: O, sir, the wonder,
The blazing star of Italy! a wench
Of the first year! a beauty ripe as harvest!
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!
VOLP: Why had not I known this before?
MOS: Alas, sir,
Myself but yesterday discover'd it.
VOLP: How might I see her?
MOS: O, not possible;
She's kept as warily as is your gold;
Never does come abroad, never takes air,
But at a window. All her looks are sweet,
As the first grapes or cherries, and are watch'd
As near as they are.
VOLP: I must see her.
MOS: Sir,
There is a guard of spies ten thick upon her,
All his whole household; each of which is set
Upon his fellow, and have all their charge,
When he goes out, when he comes in, examined.
VOLP: I will go see her, though but at her window.
MOS: In some disguise, then.
VOLP: That is true; I must
Maintain mine own shape still the same: we'll think.
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 2. SCENE 2.1.
ST. MARK'S PLACE; A RETIRED CORNER BEFORE CORVINO'S HOUSE.
ENTER SIR POLITICK WOULD-BE, AND PEREGRINE.
SIR P: 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 humour 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?
PER: Yes.
SIR P: I dare the safelier converse—How long, sir,
Since you left England?
PER: Seven weeks.
SIR P: So lately!
You have not been with my lord ambassador?
PER: Not yet, sir.
SIR P: 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.
PER: What was't, sir?
SIR P: Marry, sir, of a raven that should build
In a ship royal of the king's.
PER [ASIDE.]: This fellow,
Does he gull me, trow? or is gull'd?
—Your name, sir.
SIR P: My name is Politick Would-be.
PER [ASIDE.]: O, that speaks him.
—A knight, sir?
SIR P: A poor knight, sir.
PER: Your lady
Lies here in Venice, for intelligence
Of tires, and fashions, and behaviour,
Among the courtezans? the fine lady Would-be?
SIR P: Yes, sir; the spider and the bee, ofttimes,
Suck from one flower.
PER: Good Sir Politick,
I cry you mercy; I have heard much of you:
'Tis true, sir, of your raven.
SIR P: On your knowledge?
PER: Yes, and your lion's whelping, in the Tower.
SIR P: Another whelp!
PER: Another, sir.
SIR P: 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?
PER: I did, sir.
SIR P: Fearful! Pray you, sir, confirm me,
Were there three porpoises seen above the bridge,
As they give out?
PER: Six, and a sturgeon, sir.
SIR P: I am astonish'd.
PER: Nay, sir, be not so;
I'll tell you a greater prodigy than these.
SIR P: What should these things portend?
PER: The very day
(Let me be sure) that I put forth from London,
There was a whale discover'd in the river,
As high as Woolwich, that had waited there,
Few know how many months, for the subversion
Of the Stode fleet.
SIR P: 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.
PER: Faith, Stone the fool is dead;
And they do lack a tavern fool extremely.
SIR P: Is Mass Stone dead?
PER: 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 P: Stone dead!
PER: Dead.—Lord! how deeply sir, you apprehend it?
He was no kinsman to you?
SIR P: That I know of.
Well! that same fellow was an unknown fool.
PER: And yet you knew him, it seems?
SIR P: I did so. Sir,
I knew him one of the most dangerous heads
Living within the state, and so I held him.
PER: Indeed, sir?
SIR P: 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, apricocks,
Lemons, pome-citrons, and such-like: sometimes
In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles.
PER: You make me wonder.
SIR P: Sir, upon my knowledge.
Nay, I've observed him, at your public ordinary,
Take his advertisement from a traveller
A conceal'd statesman, in a trencher of meat;
And instantly, before the meal was done,
Convey an answer in a tooth-pick.
PER: Strange!
How could this be, sir?
SIR P: Why, the meat was cut
So like his character, and so laid, as he
Must easily read the cipher.
PER: I have heard,
He could not read, sir.
SIR P: 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—
PER: I have heard, sir,
That your baboons were spies, and that they were
A kind of subtle nation near to China:
SIR P: Ay, ay, 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 return'd,
Made their relations, as the fashion is,
And now stand fair for fresh employment.
PER: 'Heart!
[ASIDE.]
This sir Pol will be ignorant of nothing.
—It seems, sir, you know all?
SIR P: Not all sir, but
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,
And flows of state.
PER: 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
For my behaviour, and my bearing, which
Is yet so rude and raw.
SIR P: Why, came you forth
Empty of rules, for travel?
PER: Faith, I had
Some common ones, from out that vulgar grammar,
Which he that cried Italian to me, taught me.
SIR P: 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
To be, where I have been consulted with,
In this high kind, touching some great men's sons,
Persons of blood, and honour.—
[ENTER MOSCA AND NANO DISGUISED, FOLLOWED BY PERSONS WITH
MATERIALS FOR ERECTING A STAGE.]
PER: Who be these, sir?
MOS: Under that window, there 't must be. The same.
SIR P: Fellows, to mount a bank. Did your instructor
In the dear tongues, never discourse to you
Of the Italian mountebanks?
PER: Yes, sir.
SIR P: Why,
Here shall you see one.
PER: They are quacksalvers;
Fellows, that live by venting oils and drugs.
SIR P: Was that the character he gave you of them?
PER: As I remember.
SIR P: Pity his ignorance.
They are the only knowing men of Europe!
Great general scholars, excellent physicians,
Most admired statesmen, profest favourites,
And cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes;
The only languaged men of all the world!
PER: 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 P: Sir, calumnies are answer'd best with silence.
Yourself shall judge.—Who is it mounts, my friends?
MOS: Scoto of Mantua, sir.
SIR P: 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.]
VOLP [TO NANO.]: Mount zany.
MOB: Follow, follow, follow, follow!
SIR P: See how the people follow him! he's a man
May write ten thousand crowns in bank here. Note,
[VOLPONE MOUNTS THE STAGE.]
Mark but his gesture:—I do use to observe
The state he keeps in getting up.
PER: 'Tis worth it, sir.
VOLP: 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 P: Did not I now object the same?
PER: Peace, sir.
VOLP: 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 condemn'd 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 P: Note but his bearing, and contempt of these.
VOLP: These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with
one poor groat's-worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up
in several scartoccios, are able, very well, to kill their
twenty a week, and play; yet, these meagre, starved spirits,
who have half stopt the organs of their minds with earthy
oppilations, want not their favourers among your shrivell'd
sallad-eating artizans, 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 P: Excellent! have you heard better language, sir?
VOLP: 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 P: I told you, sir, his end.
PER: You did so, sir.
VOLP: I protest, I, and my six servants, are not able to make
of this precious liquor, so fast as it is fetch'd away from my
lodging by gentlemen of your city; strangers of the Terra-firma;
worshipful merchants; ay, 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 stuft 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—
PER: You see his end.
SIR P: Ay, is't not good?
VOLP: 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 chequin of gold, and apply to
the place affected: see what good effect it can work. No, no,
'tis this blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath
only power to disperse all malignant humours, that proceed
either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes—
PER: I would he had put in dry too.
SIR P: 'Pray you, observe.
VOLP: To fortify the most indigest and crude stomach, ay, 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 approved remedy. The mal caduco, cramps, convulsions,
paralysies, epilepsies, tremor-cordia, retired nerves, ill
vapours of the spleen, stopping of the liver, the stone, the
strangury, hernia ventosa, iliaca passio; stops a disenteria
immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts: and cures
melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to
my printed receipt.
[POINTING TO HIS BILL AND HIS VIAL.]
For, this is the physician, this the medicine; this counsels,
this cures; this gives the direction, this works the effect;
and, in sum, both together may be termed an abstract of the
theorick and practick in the Aesculapian art. 'Twill cost you
eight crowns. And,—Zan Fritada, prithee sing a verse extempore
in honour of it.
SIR P: How do you like him, sir?
PER: Most strangely, I!
SIR P: Is not his language rare?
PER: But alchemy,
I never heard the like: or Broughton's books.
NANO [SINGS.]: 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 had e'er been famed,
Tabacco, sassafras not named;
Ne yet, of guacum one small stick, sir,
Nor Raymund Lully's great elixir.
Ne had been known the Danish Gonswart,
Or Paracelsus, with his long-sword.
PER: All this, yet, will not do, eight crowns is high.
VOLP: 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 pattents 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
authorised, 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 government
of the most pious and magnificent states of Italy. But may some
other gallant fellow say, O, there be divers 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, alembecks, 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 any thing was worthy to be
learned. And gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, I will undertake,
by virtue of chemical art, out of the honourable 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 P: I do assure you, sir, that is his aim.
VOLP: But, to our price—
PER: And that withal, sir Pol.
VOLP: 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 divers other princes, have
given me; but I despise money. Only to shew 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.
PER: What monstrous and most painful circumstance
Is here, to get some three or four gazettes,
Some three-pence in the whole! for that 'twill come to.
NANO [SINGS.]: 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 med'cine, for the nones.
VOLP: 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 ask'd 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
moccinigo. Sixpence 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 shew I am not
contemn'd by you. Therefore, now, toss your handkerchiefs,
cheerfully, cheerfully; and be advertised, that the first
heroic spirit that deignes 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.
PER: Will you be that heroic spark, sir Pol?
[CELIA AT A WINDOW ABOVE, THROWS DOWN HER HANDKERCHIEF.]
O see! the window has prevented you.
VOLP: 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 enamour'd on that minute, wherein your
eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be
despised, an object. Here is a powder conceal'd 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,
clear'd her wrinkles, firm'd her gums, fill'd her skin, colour'd
her hair; from her deriv'd 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, whereever 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—
[ENTER CORVINO.]
COR: Spight 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 to-morrow, I shall be new-christen'd,
And call'd the Pantalone di Besogniosi,
About the town.
PER: What should this mean, sir Pol?
SIR P: Some trick of state, believe it. I will home.
PER: It may be some design on you:
SIR P: I know not.
I'll stand upon my guard.
PER: It is your best, sir.
SIR P: This three weeks, all my advices, all my letters,
They have been intercepted.
PER: Indeed, sir!
Best have a care.
SIR P: Nay, so I will.
PER: This knight,
I may not lose him, for my mirth, till night.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 2.2.
A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE.
ENTER VOLPONE AND MOSCA.
VOLP: O, I am wounded!
MOS: Where, sir?
VOLP: 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 stopt. 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.
MOS: 'Las, good sir,
Would you had never seen her!
VOLP: Nay, would thou
Had'st never told me of her!
MOS: 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.
VOLP: Dear Mosca, shall I hope?
MOS: Sir, more than dear,
I will not bid you to dispair of aught
Within a human compass.
VOLP: 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.
MOS: Use but your patience.
VOLP: So I have.
MOS: I doubt not
To bring success to your desires.
VOLP: Nay, then,
I not repent me of my late disguise.
MOS: If you can horn him, sir, you need not.
VOLP: True:
Besides, I never meant him for my heir.—
Is not the colour of my beard and eyebrows,
To make me known?
MOS: No jot.
VOLP: I did it well.
MOS: So well, would I could follow you in mine,
With half the happiness!
[ASIDE.]
—and yet I would
Escape your Epilogue.
VOLP: But were they gull'd
With a belief that I was Scoto?
MOS: Sir,
Scoto himself could hardly have distinguish'd!
I have not time to flatter you now; we'll part;
And as I prosper, so applaud my art.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 2.3.
A ROOM IN CORVINO'S HOUSE.
ENTER CORVINO, WITH HIS SWORD IN HIS HAND, DRAGGING
IN CELIA.
CORV: 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 strain'd action, and his dole of faces,
To his drug-lecture draws your itching ears,
A crew of old, unmarried, noted letchers,
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 enamour'd on his copper rings,
His saffron jewel, with the toad-stone in't,
Or his embroider'd suit, with the cope-stitch,
Made of a herse-cloth? or his old tilt-feather?
Or his starch'd 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 damn'd, ere you did this, you whore!
Thou'dst tremble, to imagine, that the murder
Of father, mother, brother, all thy race,
Should follow, as the subject of my justice.
CEL: Good sir, have pacience.
CORV: What couldst thou propose
Less to thyself, than in this heat of wrath
And stung with my dishonour, I should strike
This steel into thee, with as many stabs,
As thou wert gaz'd upon with goatish eyes?
CEL: Alas, sir, be appeas'd! I could not think
My being at the window should more now
Move your impatience, than at other times.
CORV: 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 kist 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.
CEL: Why, dear sir, when do I make these excuses,
Or ever stir abroad, but to the church?
And that so seldom—
CORV: 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 damm'd 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 conjurer, 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 WITHIN.]
—One knocks.
Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life;
Nor 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.]
[ENTER SERVANT.]
Who's there?
SERV: 'Tis signior Mosca, sir.
CORV: Let him come in.
[EXIT SERVANT.]
His master's dead: There's yet
Some good to help the bad.—
[ENTER MOSCA.]
My Mosca, welcome!
I guess your news.
MOS: I fear you cannot, sir.
CORV: Is't not his death?
MOS: Rather the contrary.
CORV: Not his recovery?
MOS: Yes, sir,
CORV: I am curs'd,
I am bewitch'd, my crosses meet to vex me.
How? how? how? how?
MOS: Why, sir, with Scoto's oil;
Corbaccio and Voltore brought of it,
Whilst I was busy in an inner room—
CORV: Death! that damn'd 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 fidling 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 earwigs pounded caterpillars,
A little capon's grease, and fasting spittle:
I know them to a dram.
MOS: I know not, sir,
But some on't, there, they pour'd into his ears,
Some in his nostrils, and recover'd him;
Applying but the fricace.
CORV: Pox o' that fricace.
MOS: And since, to seem the more officious
And flatt'ring 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 flay'd ape clapp'd 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 employ'd,
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 dependance, 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.
CORV: Death to my hopes,
This is my villainous fortune! Best to hire
Some common courtezan.
MOS: Ay, 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.
CORV: 'Tis true.
MOS: No, no: it must be one that has no tricks, sir,
Some simple thing, a creature made unto it;
Some wench you may command. Have you no kinswoman?
Odso—Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, sir.
One o' the doctors offer'd there his daughter.
CORV: How!
MOS: Yes, signior Lupo, the physician.
CORV: His daughter!
MOS: And a virgin, sir. Why? alas,
He knows the state of's body, what it is;
That nought 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—
CORV: I prithee give me leave.
[WALKS ASIDE.]
If any man
But I had had this luck—The thing in't self,
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.
MOS [ASIDE.]: I hear him coming.
CORV: She shall do't: 'tis done.
Slight! if this doctor, who is not engaged,
Unless 't 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.
MOS: How, sir?
CORV: We'll make all sure. The party you wot of
Shall be mine own wife, Mosca.
MOS: Sir, the thing,
But that I would not seem to counsel you,
I should have motion'd 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.
CORV: Ay, 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 mayst do, truly,
Mine own free motion.
MOS: Sir, I warrant you,
I'll so possess him with it, that the rest
Of his starv'd clients shall be banish'd all;
And only you received. But come not, sir,
Until I send, for I have something else
To ripen for your good, you must not know't.
CORV: But do not you forget to send now.
MOS: Fear not.
[EXIT.]
CORV: Where are you, wife? my Celia? wife?
[RE-ENTER CELIA.]
—What, blubbering?
Come, dry those tears. I think thou thought'st me in earnest;
Ha! by this light I talk'd so but to try thee:
Methinks the lightness of the occasion
Should have confirm'd thee. Come, I am not jealous.
CEL: No!
CORV: 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 feircest 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 far I am free from jealousy or fear.
[exeunt.]