A STREET.
ENTER MOSCA.
MOS: I fear, I shall begin to grow in love
With my dear self, and my 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 clodpoles, here on earth.
I muse, the mystery was not made a science,
It is so liberally profest! 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 practise it
Out of most excellent nature: and such sparks
Are the true parasites, others but their zanis.
[ENTER BONARIO.]
MOS: Who's this? Bonario, old Corbaccio's son?
The person I was bound to seek.—Fair sir,
You are happily met.
BON: That cannot be by thee.
MOS: Why, sir?
BON: Nay, pray thee know thy way, and leave me:
I would be loth to interchange discourse
With such a mate as thou art
MOS: Courteous sir,
Scorn not my poverty.
BON: Not I, by heaven;
But thou shalt give me leave to hate thy baseness.
MOS: Baseness!
BON: Ay; answer me, is not thy sloth
Sufficient argument? thy flattery?
Thy means of feeding?
MOS: 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.]
BON [ASIDE.]: What! does he weep? the sign is soft and good;
I do repent me that I was so harsh.
MOS: 'Tis true, that, sway'd 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,
Train'd 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.
BON [ASIDE.]: This cannot be a personated passion.—
I was to blame, so to mistake thy nature;
Prithee, forgive me: and speak out thy business.
MOS: Sir, it concerns you; and though I may seem,
At first to make a main offence 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—
BON: How!
MOS: 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.
BON: 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.
MOS: It is a confidence that well becomes
Your piety; and form'd, no doubt, it is
From your own simple innocence: which makes
Your wrong more monstrous, and abhorr'd. But, sir,
I now will tell you more. This very minute,
It is, or will be doing; and, if you
Shall be but pleas'd 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 profest
The common issue of the earth.
BON: I am amazed!
MOS: 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—
BON: Lead; I follow thee.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 3.2.
A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE.
ENTER VOLPONE.
VOLP: Mosca stays long, methinks. Bring forth your sports,
And help to make the wretched time more sweet.
[ENTER NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.]
NAN: 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?
CAS: I claim for myself.
AND: And so doth the fool.
NAN: '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, 'tis a pitiful case,
His body is beholding to such a bad face.
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
VOLP: Who's there? my couch; away! look! Nano, see:
[EXE. AND. AND CAS.]
Give me my caps, first—go, enquire.
[EXIT NANO.]
—Now, Cupid
Send it be Mosca, and with fair return!
NAN [WITHIN.]: It is the beauteous madam—
VOLP: Would-be?—is it?
NAN: The same.
VOLP: Now torment on me! Squire her in;
For she will enter, or dwell here for ever:
Nay, quickly.
[RETIRES TO HIS COUCH.]
—That my fit were past! I fear
A second hell too, that my lothing 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!
[RE-ENTER NANO, WITH LADY POLITICK WOULD-BE.]
LADY P: I thank you, good sir. 'Pray you signify
Unto your patron, I am here.—This band
Shews 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 drest
Most favorably, to-day! It is no matter:
'Tis well enough.—
[ENTER 1 WAITING-WOMAN.]
Look, see, these petulant things,
How they have done this!
VOLP [ASIDE.]: I do feel the fever
Entering in at mine ears; O, for a charm,
To fright it hence.
LADY P: Come nearer: Is this curl
In his right place, or this? Why is this higher
Then all the rest? You have not wash'd your eyes, yet!
Or do they not stand even in your head?
Where is your fellow? call her.
[EXIT 1 WOMAN.]
NAN: Now, St. Mark
Deliver us! anon, she will beat her women,
Because her nose is red.
[RE-ENTER 1 WITH 2 WOMAN.]
LADY P: I pray you, view
This tire, forsooth; are all things apt, or no?
1 WOM: One hair a little, here, sticks out, forsooth.
LADY P: 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 preach'd these things so oft unto you,
Read you the principles, argued all the grounds,
Disputed every fitness, every grace,
Call'd you to counsel of so frequent dressings—
NAN [ASIDE.]: More carefully than of your fame or honour.
LADY P: 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 course too, it's no matter.—
Good-sir, you will give them entertainment?
[EXEUNT NANO AND WAITING-WOMEN.]
VOLP: The storm comes toward me.
LADY P [GOES TO THE COUCH.]: How does my Volpone?
VOLP: Troubled with noise, I cannot sleep; I dreamt
That a strange fury enter'd, now, my house,
And, with the dreadful tempest of her breath,
Did cleave my roof asunder.
LADY P: Believe me, and I
Had the most fearful dream, could I remember't—
VOLP [ASIDE.]: Out on my fate! I have given her the occasion
How to torment me: she will tell me hers.
LADY P: Me thought, the golden mediocrity,
Polite and delicate—
VOLP: O, if you do love me,
No more; I sweat, and suffer, at the mention
Of any dream: feel, how I tremble yet.
LADY P: Alas, good soul! the passion of the heart.
Seed-pearl were good now, boil'd with syrup of apples,
Tincture of gold, and coral, citron-pills,
Your elicampane root, myrobalanes—
VOLP [ASIDE.]: Ah me, I have ta'en a grass-hopper by the wing!
LADY P: Burnt silk, and amber: you have muscadel
Good in the house—
VOLP: You will not drink, and part?
LADY P: 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—
VOLP [ASIDE.]: She's in again!
Before I fain'd diseases, now I have one.
LADY P: And these applied with a right scarlet cloth.
VOLP [ASIDE.]: Another flood of words! a very torrent!
LADY P: Shall I, sir, make you a poultice?
VOLP: No, no, no;
I am very well: you need prescribe no more.
LADY P: 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.
VOLP: The poet
As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,
Says that your highest female grace is silence.
LADY P: Which of your poets? Petrarch, or Tasso, or Dante?
Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine?
Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.
VOLP [ASIDE.]: Is every thing a cause to my distruction?
LADY P: I think I have two or three of them about me.
VOLP [ASIDE.]: The sun, the sea will sooner both stand still,
Then her eternal tongue; nothing can 'scape it.
LADY P: Here's pastor Fido—
VOLP [ASIDE.]: Profess obstinate silence,
That's now my safest.
LADY P: 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 Montagnie;
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 sonetting, 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.
VOLP: Alas, my mind is perturb'd.
LADY P: Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves,
Make use of our philosophy—
VOLP: Oh me!
LADY P: And as we find our passions do rebel,
Encounter them with reason, or divert them,
By giving scope unto some other humour
Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies,
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,
Which we call mental, leaves some certain faeces
That stop the organs, and as Plato says,
Assassinate our Knowledge.
VOLP [ASIDE.]: Now, the spirit
Of patience help me!
LADY P: Come, in faith, I must
Visit you more a days; and make you well:
Laugh and be lusty.
VOLP [ASIDE.]: My good angel save me!
LADY P: 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,
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.
VOLP: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
LADY P: For we were coaetanei, and brought up—
VOLP: Some power, some fate, some fortune rescue me!
[ENTER MOSCA.]
MOS: God save you, madam!
LADY P: Good sir.
VOLP: Mosca? welcome,
Welcome to my redemption.
MOS: Why, sir?
VOLP: 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, steam'd 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.
MOS: Has she presented?
VOLP: O, I do not care;
I'll take her absence, upon any price,
With any loss.
MOS: Madam—
LADY P: I have brought your patron
A toy, a cap here, of mine own work.
MOS: 'Tis well.
I had forgot to tell you, I saw your knight,
Where you would little think it.—
LADY P: Where?
MOS: Marry,
Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend,
Rowing upon the water in a gondole,
With the most cunning courtezan of Venice.
LADY P: Is't true?
MOS: Pursue them, and believe your eyes;
Leave me, to make your gift.
[EXIT LADY P. HASTILY.]
—I knew 'twould take:
For, lightly, they, that use themselves most license,
Are still most jealous.
VOLP: Mosca, hearty thanks,
For thy quick fiction, and delivery of me.
Now to my hopes, what say'st thou?
[RE-ENTER LADY P. WOULD-BE.]
LADY P: But do you hear, sir?—
VOLP: Again! I fear a paroxysm.
LADY P: Which way
Row'd they together?
MOS: Toward the Rialto.
LADY P: I pray you lend me your dwarf.
MOS: I pray you, take him.—
[EXIT LADY P.]
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.]
VOLP: My blood,
My spirits are return'd; I am alive:
And like your wanton gamester, at primero,
Whose thought had whisper'd to him, not go less,
Methinks I lie, and draw—for an encounter.
[THE SCENE CLOSES UPON VOLPONE.]
SCENE 3.3
THE PASSAGE LEADING TO VOLPONE'S CHAMBER.
ENTER MOSCA AND BONARIO.
MOS: Sir, here conceal'd,
[SHEWS HIM A CLOSET.]
you may here all. But, pray you,
Have patience, sir;
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
—the same's your father knocks:
I am compell'd to leave you.
[EXIT.]
BON: Do so.—Yet,
Cannot my thought imagine this a truth.
[GOES INTO THE CLOSET.]
SCENE 3.4.
ANOTHER PART OF THE SAME.
ENTER MOSCA AND CORVINO, CELIA FOLLOWING.
MOS: Death on me! you are come too soon, what meant you?
Did not I say, I would send?
CORV: Yes, but I fear'd
You might forget it, and then they prevent us.
MOS [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.
[EXIT.]
CORV: Where are you, Celia?
You know not wherefore I have brought you hither?
CEL: Not well, except you told me.
CORV: Now, I will:
Hark hither.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 3.5.
A CLOSET OPENING INTO A GALLERY.
ENTER MOSCA AND BONARIO.
MOS: 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.
BON: Yes, I will stay there.
[ASIDE.]—I do doubt this fellow.
[EXIT.]
MOS [LOOKING AFTER HIM.]: There; he is far enough;
he can hear nothing:
And, for his father, I can keep him off.
[EXIT.]
SCENE 3.6.
VOLPONE'S CHAMBER.—VOLPONE ON HIS COUCH.
MOSCA SITTING BY HIM.
ENTER CORVINO, FORCING IN CELIA.
CORV: 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.
CEL: Sir, let me beseech you,
Affect not these strange trials; if you doubt
My chastity, why, lock me up for ever:
Make me the heir of darkness. Let me live,
Where I may please your fears, if not your trust.
CORV: 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, shew yourself
Obedient, and a wife.
CEL: O heaven!
CORV: I say it,
Do so.
CEL: Was this the train?
CORV: 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.
CEL: Before your honour?
CORV: 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 look'd 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?
CEL [ASIDE.]: Lord! what spirit
Is this hath enter'd him?
CORV: 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.
CEL: Are heaven and saints then nothing?
Will they be blind or stupid?
CORV: How!
CEL: Good sir,
Be jealous still, emulate them; and think
What hate they burn with toward every sin.
CORV: 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, conn'd 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.
CEL: O heaven! canst thou suffer such a change?
VOLP: Thou art mine honour, Mosca, and my pride,
My joy, my tickling, my delight! Go bring them.
MOS [ADVANCING.]: Please you draw near, sir.
CORV: Come on, what—
You will not be rebellious? by that light—
MOS: Sir,
Signior Corvino, here, is come to see you.
VOLP: Oh!
MOS: And hearing of the consultation had,
So lately, for your health, is come to offer,
Or rather, sir, to prostitute—
CORV: Thanks, sweet Mosca.
MOS: Freely, unask'd, or unintreated—
CORV: Well.
MOS: As the true fervent instance of his love,
His own most fair and proper wife; the beauty,
Only of price in Venice—
CORV: 'Tis well urged.
MOS: To be your comfortress, and to preserve you.
VOLP: 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—
[COUGHING.] 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.
MOS: Do you hear, sir?
Go to him with your wife.
CORV: 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.
CEL: Sir, kill me, rather: I will take down poison,
Eat burning coals, do any thing.—
CORV: Be damn'd!
Heart, I'll 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 rotchet!—Do not tempt me; come,
Yield, I am loth—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,
And burning corsives, on this stubborn breast.
Now, by the blood thou hast incensed, I'll do it!
CEL: Sir, what you please, you may, I am your martyr.
CORV: Be not thus obstinate, I have not deserved it:
Think who it is intreats you. 'Prithee, sweet;—
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?
MOS: Nay, gentle lady, be advised.
CORV: No, no.
She has watch'd her time. Ods precious, this is scurvy,
'Tis very scurvy: and you are—
MOS: Nay, good, sir.
CORV: An arrant Locust, by heaven, a locust!
Whore, crocodile, that hast thy tears prepared,
Expecting how thou'lt bid them flow—
MOS: Nay, 'Pray you, sir!
She will consider.
CEL: Would my life would serve
To satisfy—
CORV: S'death! if she would but speak to him,
And save my reputation, it were somewhat;
But spightfully to affect my utter ruin!
MOS: Ay, 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,
Let us depart, and leave her here.
CORV: Sweet Celia,
Thou may'st redeem all, yet; I'll say no more:
If not, esteem yourself as lost,—Nay, stay there.
[SHUTS THE DOOR, AND EXIT WITH MOSCA.]
CEL: O God, and his good angels! whither, whither,
Is shame fled human breasts? that with such ease,
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?
VOLP: Ay, in Corvino, and such earth-fed minds,
[LEAPING 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 cope-man.
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;
To see thee at thy window: ay, 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.
CEL: Sir!
VOLP: Nay, fly me not.
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,
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.
[SINGS.]
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;
Suns, that set, may rise again:
But if once we loose this light,
'Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumour are but toys.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies?
Or his easier ears beguile,
Thus remooved by our wile?—
'Tis no sin love's fruits to steal:
But the sweet thefts to reveal;
To be taken, to be seen,
These have crimes accounted been.
CEL: Some serene blast me, or dire lightning strike
This my offending face!
VOLP: Why droops my Celia?
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 possess'd, and crown'd.
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,
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,
Is nothing: we will eat such at a meal.
The heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales,
The brains of peacocks, and of estriches,
Shall be our food: and, could we get the phoenix,
Though nature lost her kind, she were our dish.
CEL: Good sir, these things might move a mind affected
With such delights; but I, whose innocence
Is all I can think wealthy, or worth th' enjoying,
And which, once lost, I have nought to lose beyond it,
Cannot be taken with these sensual baits:
If you have conscience—
VOLP: '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
Gather'd in bags, and mixt 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.
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.
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,
To one of our most artful courtezans,
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,
[SINGS.]
That the curious shall not know
How to tell them as they flow;
And the envious, when they find
What there number is, be pined.
CEL: If you have ears that will be pierc'd—or eyes
That can be open'd—a heart that may be touch'd—
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,
I am a creature, hither ill betray'd,
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,)
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,
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—
VOLP: Think me cold,
Frosen 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 parley'd.
Yield, or I'll force thee.
[SEIZES HER.]
CEL: O! just God!
VOLP: In vain—
BON [RUSHING IN]: Forbear, foul ravisher, libidinous swine!
Free the forced lady, or thou diest, impostor.
But that I'm loth to snatch thy punishment
Out of the hand of justice, thou shouldst, yet,
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 villany; fear nought, you have a guard:
And he, ere long, shall meet his just reward.
[EXEUNT BON. AND CEL.]
VOLP: Fall on me, roof, and bury me in ruin!
Become my grave, that wert my shelter! O!
I am unmask'd, unspirited, undone,
Betray'd to beggary, to infamy—
[ENTER MOSCA, WOUNDED AND BLEEDING.]
MOS: Where shall I run, most wretched shame of men,
To beat out my unlucky brains?
VOLP: Here, here.
What! dost thou bleed?
MOS: O that his well-driv'n 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!
VOLP: Woe on thy fortune!
MOS: And my follies, sir.
VOLP: Thou hast made me miserable.
MOS: And myself, sir.
Who would have thought he would have harken'd, so?
VOLP: What shall we do?
MOS: 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 us die like Romans,
Since we have lived like Grecians.
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
VOLP: 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.
MOS: To your couch, sir, you,
Make that place good, however.
[VOLPONE LIES DOWN, AS BEFORE.]
—Guilty men
Suspect what they deserve still.
[ENTER CORBACCIO.]
Signior Corbaccio!
CORB: Why, how now, Mosca?
MOS: O, 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,
Enter'd our house with violence, his sword drawn
Sought for you, call'd you wretch, unnatural,
Vow'd he would kill you.
CORB: Me!
MOS: Yes, and my patron.
CORB: This act shall disinherit him indeed;
Here is the Will.
MOS: 'Tis well, sir.
CORB: Right and well:
Be you as careful now for me.
[ENTER VOLTORE, BEHIND.]
MOS: My life, sir,
Is not more tender'd; I am only yours.
CORB: How does he? will he die shortly, think'st thou?
MOS: I fear
He'll outlast May.
CORB: To-day?
MOS: No, last out May, sir.
CORB: Could'st thou not give him a dram?
MOS: O, by no means, sir.
CORB: Nay, I'll not bid you.
VOLT [COMING FORWARD.]: This is a knave, I see.
MOS [SEEING VOLTORE.]: How! signior Voltore!
[ASIDE.] did he hear me?
VOLT: Parasite!
MOS: Who's that?—O, sir, most timely welcome—
VOLT: Scarce,
To the discovery of your tricks, I fear.
You are his, ONLY? and mine, also? are you not?
MOS: Who? I, sir?
VOLT: You, sir. What device is this
About a Will?
MOS: A plot for you, sir.
VOLT: Come,
Put not your foists upon me; I shall scent them.
MOS: Did you not hear it?
VOLT: Yes, I hear Corbaccio
Hath made your patron there his heir.
MOS: 'Tis true,
By my device, drawn to it by my plot,
With hope—
VOLT: Your patron should reciprocate?
And you have promised?
MOS: 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—
VOLT: I cry thee mercy, Mosca.
MOS: Worth your patience,
And your great merit, sir. And see the change!
VOLT: Why, what success?
MOS: Most happless! you must help, sir.
Whilst we expected the old raven, in comes
Corvino's wife, sent hither by her husband—
VOLT: What, with a present?
MOS: 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—
VOLT: Where is her husband?
Let him be sent for straight.
MOS: Sir, I'll go fetch him.
VOLT: Bring him to the Scrutineo.
MOS: Sir, I will.
VOLT: This must be stopt.
MOS: O you do nobly, sir.
Alas, 'twas labor'd 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.
CORB [LISTENING]: What's that?
VOLT: Will't please you, sir, to go along?
[EXIT CORBACCIO, FOLLOWED BY VOLTORE.]
MOS: Patron, go in, and pray for our success.
VOLP [RISING FROM HIS COUCH.]: Need makes devotion:
heaven your labour bless!
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 4. SCENE 4.1.
A STREET.
[ENTER SIR POLITICK WOULD-BE AND PEREGRINE.]
SIR P: I told you, sir, it was a plot: you see
What observation is! You mention'd me,
For some instructions: I will tell you, sir,
(Since we are met here in this height of Venice,)
Some few perticulars 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.
PER: Sir, I have better.
SIR P: Pardon,
I meant, as they are themes.
PER: O, sir, proceed:
I'll slander you no more of wit, good sir.
SIR P: First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious,
Very reserv'd, and lock'd; 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—
PER: How!
SIR P: 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,
Nic. 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.
PER: Is that a point of state too?
SIR P: 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—
PER [ASIDE.]: And nothing else.
SIR P: I had read Contarene, 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—
PER: What, what, sir?
SIR P: Make him rich; make him a fortune:
He should not think again. I would command it.
PER: As how?
SIR P: With certain projects that I have;
Which I may not discover.
PER [ASIDE.]: If I had
But one to wager with, I would lay odds now,
He tells me instantly.
SIR P: 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 correspendence. There's a letter,
Sent me from one of the states, and to that purpose:
He cannot write his name, but that's his mark.
PER: He's a chandler?
SIR P: No, a cheesemonger.
There are some others too with whom I treat
About the same negociation;
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.
PER: Then you have others?
SIR P: I should be loth 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—
PER: By whom?
SIR P: Sir, one that, though his place be obscure,
Yet he can sway, and they will hear him. He's
A commandador.
PER: What! a common serjeant?
SIR P: 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 shew you—
[SEARCHING HIS POCKETS.]
PER: Good sir.
SIR P: But you shall swear unto me, on your gentry,
Not to anticipate—
PER: I, sir!
SIR P: Nor reveal
A circumstance—My paper is not with me.
PER: O, but you can remember, sir.
SIR P: 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 Arsenal,
Or you, come out again, and none the wiser?
PER: Except yourself, sir.
SIR P: 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 suffer'd
To enjoy them in their houses; and even those
Seal'd at some office, and at such a bigness
As might not lurk in pockets.
PER: Admirable!
SIR P: My next is, how to enquire, and be resolv'd,
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
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.
PER: Indeed, sir!
SIR P: Or—I will lose my labour.
PER: 'My faith, that's much.
SIR P: Nay, sir, conceive me. It will cost me in onions,
Some thirty livres—
PER: Which is one pound sterling.
SIR P: 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
I strain me a fair tarpauling, 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,
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;
Or else remain as fair as at the first.
—Now it is known, 'tis nothing.
PER: You are right, sir.
SIR P: I would I had my note.
PER: 'Faith, so would I:
But you have done well for once, sir.
SIR P: Were I false,
Or would be made so, I could shew you reasons
How I could sell this state now, to the Turk;
Spite of their galleys, or their—
[EXAMINING HIS PAPERS.]
PER: Pray you, sir Pol.
SIR P: I have them not about me.
PER: That I fear'd.
They are there, sir.
SIR P: No. This is my diary,
Wherein I note my actions of the day.
PER: Pray you let's see, sir. What is here?
[READS.]
"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,
I went and bought two tooth-picks, whereof one
I burst immediatly, in a discourse
With a Dutch merchant, 'bout ragion del stato.
From him I went and paid a moccinigo,
For piecing my silk stockings; by the way
I cheapen'd sprats; and at St. Mark's I urined."
'Faith, these are politic notes!
SIR P: Sir, I do slip
No action of my life, but thus I quote it.
PER: Believe me, it is wise!
SIR P: Nay, sir, read forth.
[ENTER, AT A DISTANCE, LADY POLITICK-WOULD BE, NANO,
AND TWO WAITING-WOMEN.]
LADY P: Where should this loose knight be, trow?
sure he's housed.
NAN: Why, then he's fast.
LADY P: Ay, 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.)
[RUBBING HER CHEEKS.]
How it comes off!
1 WOM: My master's yonder.
LADY P: Where?
1 WOM: With a young gentleman.
LADY P: That same's the party;
In man's apparel! 'Pray you, sir, jog my knight:
I'll be tender to his reputation,
However he demerit.
SIR P [SEEING HER]: My lady!
PER: Where?
SIR P: '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—
PER: It seems you are not jealous,
That dare commend her.
SIR P: Nay, and for discourse—
PER: Being your wife, she cannot miss that.
SIR P [INTRODUCING PER.]: Madam,
Here is a gentleman, pray you, use him fairly;
He seems a youth, but he is—
LADY P: None.
SIR P: Yes, one
Has put his face as soon into the world—
LADY P: You mean, as early? but to-day?
SIR P: How's this?
LADY P: 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 P: Now by my spurs, the symbol of my knighthood,—
PER [ASIDE.]: Lord, how his brain is humbled for an oath!
SIR P: I reach you not.
LADY P: Right, sir, your policy
May bear it through, thus.
[TO PER.]
sir, a word with you.
I would be loth to contest publicly
With any gentlewoman, or to seem
Froward, 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, ay, and to persever;
In my poor judgment, is not warranted
From being a solecism in our sex,
If not in manners.
PER: How is this!
SIR P: Sweet madam,
Come nearer to your aim.
LADY P: Marry, and will, sir.
Since you provoke me with your impudence,
And laughter of your light land-syren here,
Your Sporus, your hermaphrodite—
PER: What's here?
Poetic fury, and historic storms?
SIR P: The gentleman, believe it, is of worth,
And of our nation.
LADY P: Ay, your White-friars nation.
Come, I blush for you, master Would-be, I;
And am asham'd 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 P: Nay,
And you be such a one, I must bid adieu
To your delights. The case appears too liquid.
[EXIT.]
LADY P: Ay, 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 dis'ple.
PER: 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 P: Go to, sir.
PER: 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 P: This cannot work you
Out of my snare.
PER: 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 P: This cannot be endur'd by any patience.
[ENTER MOSCA.]
MOS: What is the matter, madam?
LADY P: If the Senate
Right not my quest in this; I'll protest them
To all the world, no aristocracy.
MOS: What is the injury, lady?
LADY P: Why, the callet
You told me of, here I have ta'en disguised.
MOS: Who? this! what means your ladyship? the creature
I mention'd to you is apprehended now,
Before the senate; you shall see her—
LADY P: Where?
MOS: I'll bring you to her. This young gentleman,
I saw him land this morning at the port.
LADY P: Is't possible! how has my judgment wander'd?
Sir, I must, blushing, say to you, I have err'd;
And plead your pardon.
PER: What, more changes yet!
LADY P: 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—
MOS: Will you go, madam?
LADY P: 'Pray you, sir, use me. In faith,
The more you see me, the more I shall conceive
You have forgot our quarrel.
[EXEUNT LADY WOULD-BE, MOSCA, NANO, AND WAITING-WOMEN.]
PER: 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 freshman-ship, I'll try your salt-head,
What proof it is against a counter-plot.
[EXIT.]
SCENE 4.2.
THE SCRUTINEO, OR SENATE-HOUSE.
ENTER VOLTORE, CORBACCIO, CORVINO, AND MOSCA.
VOLT: Well, now you know the carriage of the business,
Your constancy is all that is required
Unto the safety of it.
MOS: Is the lie
Safely convey'd amongst us? is that sure?
Knows every man his burden?
CORV: Yes.
MOS: Then shrink not.
CORV: But knows the advocate the truth?
MOS: O, sir,
By no means; I devised a formal tale,
That salv'd your reputation. But be valiant, sir.
CORV: I fear no one but him, that this his pleading
Should make him stand for a co-heir—
MOS: Co-halter!
Hang him; we will but use his tongue, his noise,
As we do croakers here.
CORV: Ay, what shall he do?
MOS: When we have done, you mean?
CORV: Yes.
MOS: Why, we'll think:
Sell him for mummia; he's half dust already.
[TO VOLTORE.]
Do not you smile, to see this buffalo,
How he does 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.
CORB: Ay, peace.
MOS [TURNING TO CORVINO.]: But you shall eat it.
Much! [ASIDE.]
[TO VOLTORE.]
—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.
VOLT: Here they come, have done.
MOS: I have another witness, if you need, sir,
I can produce.
VOLT: Who is it?
MOS: Sir, I have her.
[ENTER AVOCATORI AND TAKE THEIR SEATS,
BONARIO, CELIA, NOTARIO, COMMANDADORI, SAFFI,
AND OTHER OFFICERS OF JUSTICE.]
1 AVOC: The like of this the senate never heard of.
2 AVOC: 'Twill come most strange to them when we report it.
4 AVOC: The gentlewoman has been ever held
Of unreproved name.
3 AVOC: So has the youth.
4 AVOC: The more unnatural part that of his father.
2 AVOC: More of the husband.
1 AVOC: I not know to give
His act a name, it is so monstrous!
4 AVOC: But the impostor, he's a thing created
To exceed example!
1 AVOC: And all after-times!
2 AVOC: I never heard a true voluptuary
Discribed, but him.
3 AVOC: Appear yet those were cited?
NOT: All, but the old magnifico, Volpone.
1 AVOC: Why is not he here?
MOS: Please your fatherhoods,
Here is his advocate: himself's so weak,
So feeble—
4 AVOC: What are you?
BON: His parasite,
His knave, his pandar—I beseech the court,
He may be forced to come, that your grave eyes
May bear strong witness of his strange impostures.
VOLT: Upon my faith and credit with your virtues,
He is not able to endure the air.
2 AVOC: Bring him, however.
3 AVOC: We will see him.
4 AVOC: Fetch him.
VOLT: Your fatherhoods fit pleasures be obey'd;
[EXEUNT OFFICERS.]
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 AVOC: Speak free.
VOLT: Then know, most honour'd fathers, I must now
Discover to your strangely abused 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 vizor 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,
Pardon'd: 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
Discover'd 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 AVOC: These be strange turns!
2 AVOC: The young man's fame was ever fair and honest.
VOLT: So much more full of danger is his vice,
That can beguile so under shade of virtue.
But, as I said, my honour'd sires, his father
Having this settled purpose, by what means
To him betray'd, 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,
Enter'd Volpone's house, (who was the man,
Your fatherhoods must understand, design'd
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 ever end where it begins)
An act of horror, fathers! he dragg'd forth
The aged 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 AVOC: What proofs have you of this?
BON: Most honoured fathers,
I humbly crave there be no credit given
To this man's mercenary tongue.
2 AVOC: Forbear.
BON: His soul moves in his fee.
3 AVOC: O, sir.
BON: This fellow,
For six sols more, would plead against his Maker.
1 AVOC: You do forget yourself.
VOLT: Nay, nay, grave fathers,
Let him have scope: can any man imagine
That he will spare his accuser, that would not
Have spared his parent?
1 AVOC: Well, produce your proofs.
CEL: I would I could forget I were a creature.
VOLT: Signior Corbaccio.
[CORBACCIO COMES FORWARD.]
1 AVOC: What is he?
VOLT: The father.
2 AVOC: Has he had an oath?
NOT: Yes.
CORB: What must I do now?
NOT: Your testimony's craved.
CORB: Speak to the knave?
I'll have my mouth first stopt with earth; my heart
Abhors his knowledge: I disclaim in him.
1 AVOC: But for what cause?
CORB: The mere portent of nature!
He is an utter stranger to my loins.
BON: Have they made you to this?
CORB: I will not hear thee,
Monster of men, swine, goat, wolf, parricide!
Speak not, thou viper.
BON: Sir, I will sit down,
And rather wish my innocence should suffer,
Then I resist the authority of a father.
VOLT: Signior Corvino!
[CORVINO COMES FORWARD.]
2 AVOC: This is strange.
1 AVOC: Who's this?
NOT: The husband.
4 AVOC: Is he sworn?
NOT: He is.
3 AVOC: Speak, then.
CORV: This woman, please your fatherhoods, is a whore,
Of most hot exercise, more than a partrich,
Upon record—
1 AVOC: No more.
CORV: Neighs like a jennet.
NOT: Preserve the honour of the court.
CORV: 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,
That fine well-timber'd gallant; and that here
The letters may be read, through the horn,
That make the story perfect.
MOS: Excellent! sir.
CORV [ASIDE TO MOSCA.]: There's no shame in this now, is there?
MOS: None.
CORV: Or if I said, I hoped that she were onward
To her damnation, if there be a hell
Greater than whore and woman; a good catholic
May make the doubt.
3 AVOC: His grief hath made him frantic.
1 AVOC: Remove him hence.
2 AVOC: Look to the woman.
[CELIA SWOONS.]
CORV: Rare!
Prettily feign'd, again!
4 AVOC: Stand from about her.
1 AVOC: Give her the air.
3 AVOC [TO MOSCA.]: What can you say?
MOS: My wound,
May it please your wisdoms, speaks for me, received
In aid of my good patron, when he mist
His sought-for father, when that well-taught dame
Had her cue given her, to cry out, A rape!
BON: O most laid impudence! Fathers—
3 AVOC: Sir, be silent;
You had your hearing free, so must they theirs.
2 AVOC: I do begin to doubt the imposture here.
4 AVOC: This woman has too many moods.
VOLT: Grave fathers,
She is a creature of a most profest
And prostituted lewdness.
CORV: Most impetuous,
Unsatisfied, grave fathers!
VOLT: 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
Together on the water in a gondola.
MOS: 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 honour.
1 AVOC: Produce that lady.
2 AVOC: Let her come.
[EXIT MOSCA.]
4 AVOC: These things,
They strike with wonder!
3 AVOC: I am turn'd a stone.
[RE-ENTER MOSCA WITH LADY WOULD-BE.]
MOS: Be resolute, madam.
LADY P: Ay, this same is she.
[POINTING TO CELIA.]
Out, thou chameleon harlot! now thine eyes
Vie tears with the hyaena. Dar'st thou look
Upon my wronged face?—I cry your pardons,
I fear I have forgettingly transgrest
Against the dignity of the court—
2 AVOC: No, madam.
LADY P: And been exorbitant—
2 AVOC: You have not, lady.
4 AVOC: These proofs are strong.
LADY P: Surely, I had no purpose
To scandalise your honours, or my sex's.
3 AVOC: We do believe it.
LADY P: Surely, you may believe it.
2 AVOC: Madam, we do.
LADY P: Indeed, you may; my breeding
Is not so coarse—
1 AVOC: We know it.
LADY P: To offend
With pertinacy—
3 AVOC: Lady—
LADY P: Such a presence!
No surely.
1 AVOC: We well think it.
LADY P: You may think it.
1 AVOC: Let her o'ercome. What witnesses have you
To make good your report?
BON: Our consciences.
CEL: And heaven, that never fails the innocent.
4 AVOC: These are no testimonies.
BON: Not in your courts,
Where multitude, and clamour overcomes.
1 AVOC: Nay, then you do wax insolent.
[RE-ENTER OFFICERS, BEARING VOLPONE ON A COUCH.]
VOLT: 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!
BON: So he does.
VOLT: Would you have him tortured?
BON: I would have him proved.
VOLT: 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 honour'd 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 honour'd 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 abhorred slander?
I crave your care of this good gentleman,
Whose life is much endanger'd by their fable;
And as for them, I will conclude with this,
That vicious persons, when they're hot and flesh'd
In impious acts, their constancy abounds:
Damn'd deeds are done with greatest confidence.
1 AVOC: Take them to custody, and sever them.
2 AVOC: 'Tis pity two such prodigies should live.
1 AVOC: Let the old gentleman be return'd with care;
[EXEUNT OFFICERS WITH VOLPONE.]
I'm sorry our credulity hath wrong'd him.
4 AVOC: These are two creatures!
3 AVOC: I've an earthquake in me.
2 AVOC: Their shame, even in their cradles, fled their faces.
4 AVOC [TO VOLT.]: You have done a worthy service to the state, sir,
In their discovery.
1 AVOC: You shall hear, ere night,
What punishment the court decrees upon them.
[EXEUNT AVOCAT., NOT., AND OFFICERS WITH BONARIO AND CELIA.]
VOLT: We thank your fatherhoods.—How like you it?
MOS: Rare.
I'd have your tongue, sir, tipt 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 shew yourself, that you have conquer'd.
CORV: Yes.
MOS: It was much better that you should profess
Yourself a cuckold thus, than that the other
Should have been prov'd.
CORV: Nay, I consider'd that:
Now it is her fault:
MOS: Then it had been yours.
CORV: True; I do doubt this advocate still.
MOS: I'faith,
You need not, I dare ease you of that care.
CORV: I trust thee, Mosca.
[EXIT.]
MOS: As your own soul, sir.
CORB: Mosca!
MOS: Now for your business, sir.
CORB: How! have you business?
MOS: Yes, your's, sir.
CORB: O, none else?
MOS: None else, not I.
CORB: Be careful, then.
MOS: Rest you with both your eyes, sir.
CORB: Dispatch it.
MOS: Instantly.
CORB: And look that all,
Whatever, be put in, jewels, plate, moneys,
Household stuff, bedding, curtains.
MOS: Curtain-rings, sir.
Only the advocate's fee must be deducted.
CORB: I'll pay him now; you'll be too prodigal.
MOS: Sir, I must tender it.
CORB: Two chequines is well?
MOS: No, six, sir.
CORB: 'Tis too much.
MOS: He talk'd a great while;
You must consider that, sir.
CORB: Well, there's three—
MOS: I'll give it him.
CORB: Do so, and there's for thee.
[EXIT.]
MOS [ASIDE.]: Bountiful bones! What horrid strange offence
Did he commit 'gainst nature, in his youth,
Worthy this age?
[TO VOLT.]—You see, sir, how I work
Unto your ends; take you no notice.
VOLT: No,
I'll leave you.
[EXIT.]
MOS: All is yours, the devil and all:
Good advocate!—Madam, I'll bring you home.
LADY P: No, I'll go see your patron.
MOS: 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 shewn to-day, whereas before
You were but third or fourth, you shall be now
Put in the first; which would appear as begg'd,
If you were present. Therefore—
LADY P: You shall sway me.
[EXEUNT.]
ACT 5. SCENE 5.1
A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE.
ENTER VOLPONE.
VOLP: 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,—cave whilst I breathe.
'Fore God, my left leg began 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 villanous 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.
[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!
[ENTER MOSCA.]
MOS: How now, sir? does the day look clear again?
Are we recover'd, and wrought out of error,
Into our way, to see our path before us?
Is our trade free once more?
VOLP: Exquisite Mosca!
MOS: Was it not carried learnedly?
VOLP: And stoutly:
Good wits are greatest in extremities.
MOS: It were a folly beyond thought, to trust
Any grand act unto a cowardly spirit:
You are not taken with it enough, methinks?
VOLP: O, more than if I had enjoy'd the wench:
The pleasure of all woman-kind's not like it.
MOS: Why now you speak, sir. We must here be fix'd;
Here we must rest; this is our master-piece;
We cannot think to go beyond this.
VOLP: True.
Thou hast play'd thy prize, my precious Mosca.
MOS: Nay, sir,
To gull the court—
VOLP: And quite divert the torrent
Upon the innocent.
MOS: Yes, and to make
So rare a music out of discords—
VOLP: 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.
MOS: True, they will not see't.
Too much light blinds them, I think. Each of them
Is so possest and stuft with his own hopes,
That any thing unto the contrary,
Never so true, or never so apparent,
Never so palpable, they will resist it—
VOLP: Like a temptation of the devil.
MOS: 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 deceiv'd. Did not your advocate rare?
VOLP: O—"My most honour'd fathers, my grave fathers,
Under correction of your fatherhoods,
What face of truth is here? If these strange deeds
May pass, most honour'd fathers"—I had much ado
To forbear laughing.
MOS: It seem'd to me, you sweat, sir.
VOLP: In troth, I did a little.
MOS: But confess, sir,
Were you not daunted?
VOLP: In good faith, I was
A little in a mist, but not dejected;
Never, but still my self.
MOS: I think it, sir.
Now, so truth help me, I must needs say this, sir,
And out of conscience for your advocate:
He has taken pains, in faith, sir, and deserv'd,
In my poor judgment, I speak it under favour,
Not to contrary you, sir, very richly—
Well—to be cozen'd.
VOLP: Troth, and I think so too,
By that I heard him, in the latter end.
MOS: O, but before, sir: had you heard him first
Draw it to certain heads, then aggravate,
Then use his vehement figures—I look'd still
When he would shift a shirt: and, doing this
Out of pure love, no hope of gain—
VOLP: '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.
MOS: Good sir.
VOLP: Call the dwarf
And eunuch forth.
MOS: Castrone, Nano!
[ENTER CASTRONE AND NANO.]
NANO: Here.
VOLP: Shall we have a jig now?
MOS: What you please, sir.
VOLP: 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 CAST. AND NANO.]
MOS: What do you mean, sir?
VOLP: O,
I shall have instantly my Vulture, Crow,
Raven, come flying hither, on the news,
To peck for carrion, my she-wolfe, and all,
Greedy, and full of expectation—
MOS: And then to have it ravish'd from their mouths!
VOLP: 'Tis true. I will have thee put on a gown,
And take upon thee, as thou wert mine heir:
Shew them a will; Open that chest, and reach
Forth one of those that has the blanks; I'll straight
Put in thy name.
MOS [GIVES HIM A PAPER.]: It will be rare, sir.
VOLP: Ay,
When they ev'n gape, and find themselves deluded—
MOS: Yes.
VOLP: And thou use them scurvily!
Dispatch, get on thy gown.
MOS [PUTTING ON A GOWN.]: But, what, sir, if they ask
After the body?
VOLP: Say, it was corrupted.
MOS: I'll say it stunk, sir; and was fain to have it
Coffin'd up instantly, and sent away.
VOLP: 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!
MOS [PUTTING ON A CAP, AND SETTING OUT THE TABLE, ETC.]:
Your advocate will turn stark dull upon it.
VOLP: It will take off his oratory's edge.
MOS: But your clarissimo, old round-back, he
Will crump you like a hog-louse, with the touch.
VOLP: And what Corvino?
MOS: 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—
VOLP: Yes,
And kist me 'fore the fathers; when my face
Flow'd all with oils.
MOS: And sweat, sir. Why, your gold
Is such another med'cine, it dries up
All those offensive savours: 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
Makes all the world her grace, her youth, her beauty.
VOLP: I think she loves me.
MOS: Who? the lady, sir?
She's jealous of you.
VOLP: Dost thou say so?
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
MOS: Hark,
There's some already.
VOLP: Look.
MOS: It is the Vulture:
He has the quickest scent.
VOLP: I'll to my place,
Thou to thy posture.
[GOES BEHIND THE CURTAIN.]
MOS: I am set.
VOLP: But, Mosca,
Play the artificer now, torture them rarely.
[ENTER VOLTORE.]
VOLT: How now, my Mosca?
MOS [WRITING.]: "Turkey carpets, nine"—
VOLT: Taking an inventory! that is well.
MOS: "Two suits of bedding, tissue"—
VOLT: Where's the Will?
Let me read that the while.
[ENTER SERVANTS, WITH CORBACCIO IN A CHAIR.]
CORB: So, set me down:
And get you home.
[EXEUNT SERVANTS.]
VOLT: Is he come now, to trouble us!
MOS: "Of cloth of gold, two more"—
CORB: Is it done, Mosca?
MOS: "Of several velvets, eight"—
VOLT: I like his care.
CORB: Dost thou not hear?
[ENTER CORVINO.]
CORB: Ha! is the hour come, Mosca?
VOLP [PEEPING OVER THE CURTAIN.]: Ay, now, they muster.
CORV: What does the advocate here,
Or this Corbaccio?
CORB: What do these here?
[ENTER LADY POL. WOULD-BE.]
LADY P: Mosca!
Is his thread spun?
MOS: "Eight chests of linen"—
VOLP: O,
My fine dame Would-be, too!
CORV: Mosca, the Will,
That I may shew it these, and rid them hence.
MOS: "Six chests of diaper, four of damask."—There.
[GIVES THEM THE WILL CARELESSLY, OVER HIS SHOULDER.]
CORB: Is that the will?
MOS: "Down-beds, and bolsters"—
VOLP: Rare!
Be busy still. Now they begin to flutter:
They never think of me. Look, see, see, see!
How their swift eyes run over the long deed,
Unto the name, and to the legacies,
What is bequeath'd them there—
MOS: "Ten suits of hangings"—
VOLP: Ay, in their garters, Mosca. Now their hopes
Are at the gasp.
VOLT: Mosca the heir?
CORB: What's that?
VOLP: My advocate is dumb; look to my merchant,
He has heard of some strange storm, a ship is lost,
He faints; my lady will swoon. Old glazen eyes,
He hath not reach'd his despair yet.
CORB [TAKES THE WILL.]: All these
Are out of hope: I am sure, the man.
CORV: But, Mosca—
MOS: "Two cabinets."
CORV: Is this in earnest?
MOS: "One
Of ebony"—
CORV: Or do you but delude me?
MOS: The other, mother of pearl—I am very busy.
Good faith, it is a fortune thrown upon me—
"Item, one salt of agate"—not my seeking.
LADY P: Do you hear, sir?
MOS: "A perfum'd box"—'Pray you forbear,
You see I'm troubled—"made of an onyx"—
LADY P: How!
MOS: To-morrow or next day, I shall be at leisure
To talk with you all.
CORV: Is this my large hope's issue?
LADY P: Sir, I must have a fairer answer.
MOS: Madam!
Marry, and shall: 'pray you, fairly quit my house.
Nay, raise no tempest with your looks; but hark you,
Remember what your ladyship offer'd me,
To put you in an heir; go to, think on it:
And what you said e'en your best madams did
For maintenance, and why not you? Enough.
Go home, and use the poor sir Pol, your knight, well,
For fear I tell some riddles; go, be melancholy.
[EXIT LADY WOULD-BE.]
VOLP: O, my fine devil!
CORV: Mosca, 'pray you a word.
MOS: Lord! will you not take your dispatch hence yet?
Methinks, of all, you should have been the example.
Why should you stay here? with what thought? what promise?
Hear you; do not you know, I know you an ass,
And that you would most fain have been a wittol,
If fortune would have let you? that you are
A declared cuckold, on good terms? This pearl,
You'll say, was yours? right: this diamond?
I'll not deny't, but thank you. Much here else?
It may be so. Why, think that these good works
May help to hide your bad. I'll not betray you;
Although you be but extraordinary,
And have it only in title, it sufficeth:
Go home, be melancholy too, or mad.
[EXIT CORVINO.]
VOLP: Rare Mosca! how his villany becomes him!
VOLT: Certain he doth delude all these for me.
CORB: Mosca the heir!
VOLP: O, his four eyes have found it.
CORB: I am cozen'd, cheated, by a parasite slave;
Harlot, thou hast gull'd me.
MOS: Yes, sir. Stop your mouth,
Or I shall draw the only tooth is left.
Are not you he, that filthy covetous wretch,
With the three legs, that, here, in hope of prey,
Have, any time this three years, snuff'd about,
With your most grovelling nose; and would have hired
Me to the poisoning of my patron, sir?
Are not you he that have to-day in court
Profess'd the disinheriting of your son?
Perjured yourself? Go home, and die, and stink.
If you but croak a syllable, all comes out:
Away, and call your porters!
[exit corbaccio.]
Go, go, stink.
VOLP: Excellent varlet!
VOLT: Now, my faithful Mosca,
I find thy constancy.
MOS: Sir!
VOLT: Sincere.
MOS [WRITING.]: "A table
Of porphyry"—I marle, you'll be thus troublesome.
VOLP: Nay, leave off now, they are gone.
MOS: Why? who are you?
What! who did send for you? O, cry you mercy,
Reverend sir! Good faith, I am grieved for you,
That any chance of mine should thus defeat
Your (I must needs say) most deserving travails:
But I protest, sir, it was cast upon me,
And I could almost wish to be without it,
But that the will o' the dead must be observ'd,
Marry, my joy is that you need it not,
You have a gift, sir, (thank your education,)
Will never let you want, while there are men,
And malice, to breed causes. Would I had
But half the like, for all my fortune, sir!
If I have any suits, as I do hope,
Things being so easy and direct, I shall not,
I will make bold with your obstreperous aid,
Conceive me,—for your fee, sir. In mean time,
You that have so much law, I know have the conscience,
Not to be covetous of what is mine.
Good sir, I thank you for my plate; 'twill help
To set up a young man. Good faith, you look
As you were costive; best go home and purge, sir.
[EXIT VOLTORE.]
VOLP [COMES FROM BEHIND THE CURTAIN.]:
Bid him eat lettuce well.
My witty mischief,
Let me embrace thee. O that I could now
Transform thee to a Venus!—Mosca, go,
Straight take my habit of clarissimo,
And walk the streets; be seen, torment them more:
We must pursue, as well as plot. Who would
Have lost this feast?
MOS: I doubt it will lose them.
VOLP: O, my recovery shall recover all.
That I could now but think on some disguise
To meet them in, and ask them questions:
How I would vex them still at every turn!
MOS: Sir, I can fit you.
VOLP: Canst thou?
MOS: Yes, I know
One o' the commandadori, sir, so like you;
Him will I straight make drunk, and bring you his habit.
VOLP: A rare disguise, and answering thy brain!
O, I will be a sharp disease unto them.
MOS: Sir, you must look for curses—
VOLP: Till they burst;
The Fox fares ever best when he is curst.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 5.2.
A HALL IN SIR POLITICK'S HOUSE.
ENTER PEREGRINE DISGUISED, AND THREE MERCHANTS.
PER: Am I enough disguised?
1 MER: I warrant you.
PER: All my ambition is to fright him only.
2 MER: If you could ship him away, 'twere excellent.
3 MER: To Zant, or to Aleppo?
PER: Yes, and have his
Adventures put i' the Book of Voyages.
And his gull'd story register'd for truth.
Well, gentlemen, when I am in a while,
And that you think us warm in our discourse,
Know your approaches.
1 MER: Trust it to our care.
[EXEUNT MERCHANTS.]
[ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.]
PER: Save you, fair lady! Is sir Pol within?
WOM: I do not know, sir.
PER: Pray you say unto him,
Here is a merchant, upon earnest business,
Desires to speak with him.
WOM: I will see, sir.
[EXIT.]
PER: Pray you.—
I see the family is all female here.
[RE-ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.]
WOM: He says, sir, he has weighty affairs of state,
That now require him whole; some other time
You may possess him.
PER: Pray you say again,
If those require him whole, these will exact him,
Whereof I bring him tidings.
[EXIT WOMAN.]
—What might be
His grave affair of state now! how to make
Bolognian sausages here in Venice, sparing
One o' the ingredients?
[RE-ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.]
WOM: Sir, he says, he knows
By your word "tidings," that you are no statesman,
And therefore wills you stay.
PER: Sweet, pray you return him;
I have not read so many proclamations,
And studied them for words, as he has done—
But—here he deigns to come.
[EXIT WOMAN.]
[ENTER SIR POLITICK.]
SIR P: Sir, I must crave
Your courteous pardon. There hath chanced to-day,
Unkind disaster 'twixt my lady and me;
And I was penning my apology,
To give her satisfaction, as you came now.
PER: Sir, I am grieved I bring you worse disaster:
The gentleman you met at the port to-day,
That told you, he was newly arrived—
SIR P: Ay, was
A fugitive punk?
PER: No, sir, a spy set on you;
And he has made relation to the senate,
That you profest to him to have a plot
To sell the State of Venice to the Turk.
SIR P: O me!
PER: For which, warrants are sign'd by this time,
To apprehend you, and to search your study
For papers—
SIR P: Alas, sir, I have none, but notes
Drawn out of play-books—
PER: All the better, sir.
SIR P: And some essays. What shall I do?
PER: Sir, best
Convey yourself into a sugar-chest;
Or, if you could lie round, a frail were rare:
And I could send you aboard.
SIR P: Sir, I but talk'd so,
For discourse sake merely.
[KNOCKING WITHIN.]
PER: Hark! they are there.
SIR P: I am a wretch, a wretch!
PER: What will you do, sir?
Have you ne'er a currant-butt to leap into?
They'll put you to the rack, you must be sudden.
SIR P: Sir, I have an ingine—
3 MER [WITHIN.]: Sir Politick Would-be?
2 MER [WITHIN.]: Where is he?
SIR P: That I have thought upon before time.
PER: What is it?
SIR P: I shall ne'er endure the torture.
Marry, it is, sir, of a tortoise-shell,
Fitted for these extremities: pray you, sir, help me.
Here I've a place, sir, to put back my legs,
Please you to lay it on, sir,
[LIES DOWN WHILE PEREGRINE PLACES THE SHELL UPON HIM.]
—with this cap,
And my black gloves. I'll lie, sir, like a tortoise,
'Till they are gone.
PER: And call you this an ingine?
SIR P: Mine own device—Good sir, bid my wife's women
To burn my papers.
[EXIT PEREGRINE.]
[THE THREE MERCHANTS RUSH IN.]
1 MER: Where is he hid?
3 MER: We must,
And will sure find him.
2 MER: Which is his study?
[RE-ENTER PEREGRINE.]
1 MER: What
Are you, sir?
PER: I am a merchant, that came here
To look upon this tortoise.
3 MER: How!
1 MER: St. Mark!
What beast is this!
PER: It is a fish.
2 MER: Come out here!
PER: Nay, you may strike him, sir, and tread upon him;
He'll bear a cart.
1 MER: What, to run over him?
PER: Yes, sir.
3 MER: Let's jump upon him.
2 MER: Can he not go?
PER: He creeps, sir.
1 MER: Let's see him creep.
PER: No, good sir, you will hurt him.
2 MER: Heart, I will see him creep, or prick his guts.
3 MER: Come out here!
PER: Pray you, sir!
[ASIDE TO SIR POLITICK.]
—Creep a little.
1 MER: Forth.
2 MER: Yet farther.
PER: Good sir!—Creep.
2 MER: We'll see his legs.
[THEY PULL OFF THE SHELL AND DISCOVER HIM.]
3 MER: Ods so, he has garters!
1 MER: Ay, and gloves!
2 MER: Is this
Your fearful tortoise?
PER [DISCOVERING HIMSELF.]: Now, sir Pol, we are even;
For your next project I shall be prepared:
I am sorry for the funeral of your notes, sir.
1 MER: 'Twere a rare motion to be seen in Fleet-street.
2 MER: Ay, in the Term.
1 MER: Or Smithfield, in the fair.
3 MER: Methinks 'tis but a melancholy sight.
PER: Farewell, most politic tortoise!
[EXEUNT PER. AND MERCHANTS.]
[RE-ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.]
SIR P: Where's my lady?
Knows she of this?
WOM: I know not, sir.
SIR P: Enquire.—
O, I shall be the fable of all feasts,
The freight of the gazetti; ship-boy's tale;
And, which is worst, even talk for ordinaries.
WOM: My lady's come most melancholy home,
And says, sir, she will straight to sea, for physic.
SIR P: And I to shun this place and clime for ever;
Creeping with house on back: and think it well,
To shrink my poor head in my politic shell.
[EXEUNT.]
SCENE 5.3.
A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE.
ENTER MOSCA IN THE HABIT OF A CLARISSIMO;
AND VOLPONE IN THAT OF A COMMANDADORE.
VOLP: Am I then like him?
MOS: O, sir, you are he;
No man can sever you.
VOLP: Good.
MOS: But what am I?
VOLP: 'Fore heaven, a brave clarissimo, thou becom'st it!
Pity thou wert not born one.
MOS [ASIDE.]: If I hold
My made one, 'twill be well.
VOLP: I'll go and see
What news first at the court.
[EXIT.]
MOS: Do so. My Fox
Is out of his hole, and ere he shall re-enter,
I'll make him languish in his borrow'd case,
Except he come to composition with me.—
Androgyno, Castrone, Nano!
[ENTER ANDROGYNO, CASTRONE AND NANO.]
ALL: Here.
MOS: Go, recreate yourselves abroad; go sport.—
[EXEUNT.]
So, now I have the keys, and am possest.
Since he will needs be dead afore his time,
I'll bury him, or gain by him: I am his heir,
And so will keep me, till he share at least.
To cozen him of all, were but a cheat
Well placed; no man would construe it a sin:
Let his sport pay for it, this is call'd the Fox-trap.
[EXIT.]
SCENE 5.4
A STREET.
ENTER CORBACCIO AND CORVINO.
CORB: They say, the court is set.
CORV: We must maintain
Our first tale good, for both our reputations.
CORB: Why, mine's no tale: my son would there have kill'd me.
CORV: That's true, I had forgot:—
[ASIDE.]—mine is, I am sure.
But for your Will, sir.
CORB: Ay, I'll come upon him
For that hereafter; now his patron's dead.
[ENTER VOLPONE.]
VOLP: Signior Corvino! and Corbaccio! sir,
Much joy unto you.
CORV: Of what?
VOLP: The sudden good,
Dropt down upon you—
CORB: Where?
VOLP: And, none knows how,
From old Volpone, sir.
CORB: Out, arrant knave!
VOLP: Let not your too much wealth, sir, make you furious.
CORB: Away, thou varlet!
VOLP: Why, sir?
CORB: Dost thou mock me?
VOLP: You mock the world, sir; did you not change Wills?
CORB: Out, harlot!
VOLP: O! belike you are the man,
Signior Corvino? 'faith, you carry it well;
You grow not mad withal: I love your spirit:
You are not over-leaven'd with your fortune.
You should have some would swell now, like a wine-fat,
With such an autumn—Did he give you all, sir?
CORB: Avoid, you rascal!
VOLP: Troth, your wife has shewn
Herself a very woman; but you are well,
You need not care, you have a good estate,
To bear it out sir, better by this chance:
Except Corbaccio have a share.
CORV: Hence, varlet.
VOLP: You will not be acknown, sir; why, 'tis wise.
Thus do all gamesters, at all games, dissemble:
No man will seem to win.
[exeunt corvino and corbaccio.]
—Here comes my vulture,
Heaving his beak up in the air, and snuffing.
[ENTER VOLTORE.]
VOLT: Outstript thus, by a parasite! a slave,
Would run on errands, and make legs for crumbs?
Well, what I'll do—
VOLP: The court stays for your worship.
I e'en rejoice, sir, at your worship's happiness,
And that it fell into so learned hands,
That understand the fingering—
VOLT: What do you mean?
VOLP: I mean to be a suitor to your worship,
For the small tenement, out of reparations,
That, to the end of your long row of houses,
By the Piscaria: it was, in Volpone's time,
Your predecessor, ere he grew diseased,
A handsome, pretty, custom'd bawdy-house,
As any was in Venice, none dispraised;
But fell with him; his body and that house
Decay'd, together.
VOLT: Come sir, leave your prating.
VOLP: Why, if your worship give me but your hand,
That I may have the refusal, I have done.
'Tis a mere toy to you, sir; candle-rents;
As your learn'd worship knows—
VOLT: What do I know?
VOLP: Marry, no end of your wealth, sir, God decrease it!
VOLT: Mistaking knave! what, mockst thou my misfortune?
[EXIT.]
VOLP: His blessing on your heart, sir; would 'twere more!—
Now to my first again, at the next corner.
[EXIT.]
SCENE 5.5.
ANOTHER PART OF THE STREET.
ENTER CORBACCIO AND CORVINO;—
MOSCA PASSES OVER THE STAGE, BEFORE THEM.
CORB: See, in our habit! see the impudent varlet!
CORV: That I could shoot mine eyes at him like gun-stones.
[ENTER VOLPONE.]
VOLP: But is this true, sir, of the parasite?
CORB: Again, to afflict us! monster!
VOLP: In good faith, sir,
I'm heartily grieved, a beard of your grave length
Should be so over-reach'd. I never brook'd
That parasite's hair; methought his nose should cozen:
There still was somewhat in his look, did promise
The bane of a clarissimo.
CORB: Knave—
VOLP: Methinks
Yet you, that are so traded in the world,
A witty merchant, the fine bird, Corvino,
That have such moral emblems on your name,
Should not have sung your shame; and dropt your cheese,
To let the Fox laugh at your emptiness.
CORV: Sirrah, you think the privilege of the place,
And your red saucy cap, that seems to me
Nail'd to your jolt-head with those two chequines,
Can warrant your abuses; come you hither:
You shall perceive, sir, I dare beat you; approach.
VOLP: No haste, sir, I do know your valour well,
Since you durst publish what you are, sir.
CORV: Tarry,
I'd speak with you.
VOLP: Sir, sir, another time—
CORV: Nay, now.
VOLP: O lord, sir! I were a wise man,
Would stand the fury of a distracted cuckold.
[AS HE IS RUNNING OFF, RE-ENTER MOSCA.]
CORB: What, come again!
VOLP: Upon 'em, Mosca; save me.
CORB: The air's infected where he breathes.
CORV: Let's fly him.
[EXEUNT CORV. AND CORB.]
VOLP: Excellent basilisk! turn upon the vulture.
[ENTER VOLTORE.]
VOLT: Well, flesh-fly, it is summer with you now;
Your winter will come on.
MOS: Good advocate,
Prithee not rail, nor threaten out of place thus;
Thou'lt make a solecism, as madam says.
Get you a biggin more, your brain breaks loose.
[EXIT.]
VOLT: Well, sir.
VOLP: Would you have me beat the insolent slave,
Throw dirt upon his first good clothes?
VOLT: This same
Is doubtless some familiar.
VOLP: Sir, the court,
In troth, stays for you. I am mad, a mule
That never read Justinian, should get up,
And ride an advocate. Had you no quirk
To avoid gullage, sir, by such a creature?
I hope you do but jest; he has not done it:
'Tis but confederacy, to blind the rest.
You are the heir.
VOLT: A strange, officious,
Troublesome knave! thou dost torment me.
VOLP: I know—
It cannot be, sir, that you should be cozen'd;
'Tis not within the wit of man to do it;
You are so wise, so prudent; and 'tis fit
That wealth and wisdom still should go together.
[EXEUNT.]