by Ben Jonson
CORVINO: I will not trouble him now to take my pearl?
MOSCA: Puh! nor your diamond. What a needless care
Is this afflicts you! Is not all here yours?
Am not I here, whom you have made your creature?
That owe my being to you?
CORVINO: Grateful Mosca!
80 Thou art my friend, my fellow, my companion,
My partner, and shalt share in all my fortunes.
MOSCA: Excepting one.
CORVINO: What’s that?
MOSCA: Your gallant wife, sir.
[Exit CORVINO.]
Now is he gone; we had no other means
To shoot him hence but this.
VOLPONE: My divine Mosca!
Thou hast today outgone thyself.
Another knocks.
Who’s there?
I will be troubled with no more. Prepare
Me music, dances, banquets, all delights;
The Turk is not more sensual in his pleasures
Than will Volpone.
[Exit MOSCA.]
Let me see: a pearl!
90 A diamond! plate! chequins! Good morning’s purchase.
Why, this is better than rob churches, yet,
Or fat, by eating once a month a man.
[Enter MOSCA.]
Who is ’t?
MOSCA: The beauteous lady would-be, sir,
Wife to the English knight, Sir Politic Would-be,
(This is the style, sir, is directed me)
Hath sent to know how you have slept tonight,
And if you would be visited?
VOLPONE: Not now.
Some three hours hence, –
MOSCA: I told the squire so much.
VOLPONE: When I am high with mirth and wine, then, then.
100 ‘Fore heaven, I wonder at the desperate valour
Of the bold English, that they dare let loose
Their wives to all encounters!
MOSCA: Sir, this knight
Had not his name for nothing; he is politic,
And knows, howe’er his wife affect strange airs,
She hath not yet the face to be dishonest.
But had she Signior Corvino’s wife’s face –
VOLPONE: Has she so rare a face?
MOSCA: O, sir, the wonder,
The blazing star of Italy! a wench
O’the first year! a beauty ripe as harvest!
110 Whose skin is whiter than a swan, all over!
Than silver, snow, or lilies! a soft lip,
Would tempt you to eternity of kissing!
And flesh that melteth in the touch to blood!
Bright as your gold! and lovely as your gold!
VOLPONE: Why had not I known this before?
MOSCA: Alas, sir,
Myself but yesterday discovered it.
VOLPONE: How might I see her?
MOSCA: O, not possible;
She’s kept as warily as is your gold,
Never does come abroad, never takes air
120 But at a window. All her looks are sweet
As the first grapes or cherries, and are watched
As near as they are.
VOLPONE: I must see her –
MOSCA: Sir,
There is a guard, of ten spies 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.
VOLPONE: I will go see her, though but at her window.
MOSCA: In some disguise then.
VOLPONE: That is true. I must
Maintain mine own shape still the same: we’ll think.
[Exeunt.]
ACT TWO
II, i [SCENE ONE]
[The Public Square outside Corvino’s house.]
[Enter SIR POLITIC WOULD–BE and PEREGRINE.]
[SIR POLITIC:] Sir, to a wise man, all the world’s his soil.
It is not Italy, nor France, nor Europe,
That must bound me, if my fates call me forth.
Yet, I protest, it is no salt desire
Of seeing countries, shifting a religion,
Nor any disaffection to the state
Where I was bred, and unto which I owe
My dearest plots, hath brought me out; much less
That idle, antique, stale, grey-headed project.
10 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 licence?
PEREGRINE: Yes.
SIR POLITIC: I dare the safelier converse – How long, sir,
Since you left England?
PEREGRINE: Seven weeks.
SIR POLITIC: So lately!
You ha’not been with my Lord Ambassador?
PEREGRINE: Not yet, sir.
SIR POLITIC: Pray you, what news, sir, vents our climate?
I heard last night a most strange thing reported
20 By some of my lord’s followers, and I long
To hear how ’twill be seconded.
PEREGRINE: What was’t, sir?
SIR POLITIC: Marry, sir, of a raven, that should build
In a ship royal of the King’s.
PEREGRINE [aside]: – This fellow,
Does he gull me, trow? or is gulled? – Your name, sir?
SIR POLITIC: My name is Politic Would-be.
PEREGRINE [aside]: – O, that speaks him–
A knight, sir?
SIR POLITIC: A poor knight, sir.
PEREGRINE: Your lady
Lies here, in Venice, for intelligence
Of tires, and fashions, and behaviour
Among the courtesans? The fine Lady Would-be?
30 SIR POLITIC: Yes, sir, the spider and the bee oft-times
Suck from one flower.
PEREGRINE: Good Sir Politic!
I cry you mercy; I have heard much of you.
’Tis true, sir, of your raven.
SIR POLITIC: On your knowledge?
PEREGRINE: Yes, and your lion’s whelping in the Tower.
SIR POLITIC: Another whelp!
PEREGRINE: Another, sir.
SIR POLITIC: Now heaven!
What prodigies be these? The fires at Berwick!
And the new star! These things concurring, strange!
And full of omen! Saw you those meteors?
PEREGRINE: I did, sir.
SIR POLITIC: Fearful! Pray you, sir, confirm me,
40 Were there three porpoises seen above the bridge,
As they give out?
PEREGRINE: Six, and a sturgeon, sir.
SIR POLITIC: I am astonished!
PEREGRINE: Nay, sir, be not so;
I’ll tell you a greater prodigy than these –
SIR POLITIC: What should these things portend?
PEREGRINE: The very day
(Let me be sure) that I put forth from London,
There was a whale discovered in the river,
As high as Woolwich, that had waited there,
Few know how many months, for the subversion
Of the Stode fleet.
SIR POLITIC: Is’t possible? Believe it,
50 ’Twas either sent from Spain, or the Archdukes!
Spinola’s whale, upon my life, my credit!
Will they not leave these projects? Worthy sir,
Some other news.
PEREGRINE: Faith, Stone the fool is dead,
And they do lack a tavern fool extremely.
SIR POLITIC: Is Mas’Stone dead?
PEREGRINE: He’s dead, sir; why, I hope
You thought him not immortal? [Aside.] – O, this knight,
Were he well known, would be a precious thing
To fit our English stage. He that should write
But such a fellow, shou
ld be thought to feign
Extremely, if not maliciously –
60 SIR POLITIC: Stone dead!
PEREGRINE: Dead. Lord, how deeply, sir, you apprehend it!
He was no kinsman to you?
SIR POLITIC: That I know of.
Well, that same fellow was an unknown fool.
PEREGRINE: And yet you know him, it seems?
SIR POLITIC: I did so. Sir,
I knew him one of the most dangerous heads
Living within the state, and so I held him.
PEREGRINE: Indeed, sir?
SIR POLITIC: While he lived, in action.
He has received weekly intelligence,
Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,
70 For all parts of the world, in cabbages;
And those dispensed, again, t’ambassadors,
In oranges, musk-melons, apricots,
Lemons, pome-citrons, and suchlike; sometimes
In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles.
PEREGRINE: You make me wonder.
SIR POLITIC: Sir, upon my knowledge.
Nay, I have observed him at your public ordinary
Take his advertisement from a traveller,
A concealed statesman, in a trencher of meat;
And, instantly, before the meal was done,
80 Convey an answer in a toothpick.
PEREGRINE: Strange!
How could this be, sir?
SIR POLITIC: Why, the meat was cut
So like his character, and so laid as he
Must easily read the cipher.
PEREGRINE: I have heard
He could not read, sir.
SIR POLITIC: So ’twas given out,
In policy, by those that did employ him:
But he could read, and had your languages,
And to ’t, as sound a noddle –
PEREGRINE: I have heard, sir,
That your baboons were spies, and that they were
A kind of subtle nation near to China.
90 SIR POLITIC: 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 returned,
Made their relations, as the fashion is,
And now stand fair for fresh employment.
PEREGRINE [aside]: –Heart!
This Sir Pol will be ignorant of nothing –
It seems, sir, you know all.
SIR POLITIC: Not all, sir. But
100 I have some general notions; I do love
To note and to observe: though I live out,
Free from the active torrent, yet I’d mark
The currents and the passages of things
For mine own private use; and know the ebbs
And flows of state.
PEREGRINE: Believe it, sir, I hold
Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes
For casting me thus luckily upon you,
Whose knowledge, if your bounty equal it,
May do me great assistance in instruction
110 For my behaviour, and my bearing, which
Is yet so rude and raw.
SIR POLITIC: Why? came you forth
Empty of rules for travel?
PEREGRINE: Faith, I had
Some common ones, from out that vulgar grammar,
Which he that cried Italian to me, taught me.
SIR POLITIC: Why, this it is that spoils all our brave bloods,
Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants,
Fellows of outside, and mere bark. You seem
To be a gentleman, of ingenuous race –
I not profess it, but my fate hath been
120 To be where I have been consulted with
In this high kind, touching some great men’s sons,
Persons of blood and honour –
PEREGRINE: Who be these, sir?
II, ii [Enter MOSCA and NANO, disguised, with properties for erecting 11, ii a scaffold stage.]
[MOSCA:] Under that window, there ’t must be. The same.
SIR POLITIC: Fellows to mount a bank! Did your instructor
In the dear tongues never discourse to you
Of the Italian mountebanks?
PEREGRINE: Yes, sir.
SIR POLITIC: Why,
Here shall you see one.
PEREGRINE: They are quacksalvers,
Fellows that live by venting oils and drugs.
SIR POLITIC: Was that the character he gave you of them?
PEREGRINE: As I remember.
SIR POLITIC: Pity his ignorance.
They are the only knowing men of Europe!
10 Great general scholars, excellent physicians,
Most admired statesmen, professed favourites
And cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes!
The only languaged men of all the world!
PEREGRINE: And I have heard they are most lewd impostors,
Made all of terms and shreds; no less beliers
Of great men’s favours than their own vile med’cines;
Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths,
Selling that drug for twopence, ere they part,
Which they have valued at twelve crowns before.
20 SIR POLITIC: Sir, calumnies are answered best with silence.
Yourself shall judge. Who is it mounts, my friends?
MOSCA: Scoto of Mantua, sir.
SIR POLITIC: Is’t he? Nay, then
I’ll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold
Another man than has been phant’sied to you.
I wonder, yet, that he should mount his bank
Here, in this nook, that has been wont t’appear
In face of the Piazza! Here he comes.
[Enter VOLPONE, disguised as a Mountebank, and followed by the GREGE, or crowd.]
VOLPONE [to NANO]: Mount, zany.
GREGE: Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow!
SIR POLITIC: See how the people follow him! He’s a man
May write ten thousand crowns in bank here.
[VOLPONE mounts the stage.]
30 Note,
Mark but his gesture. I do use to observe
The state he keeps in getting up!
PEREGRINE: ’Tis worth it, sir.
VOLPONE: Most noble gentlemen, and my worthy patrons, it may seem strange that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of the Portico to the Procuratia, should now, after eight months’absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza.
SIR POLITIC: Did not I now object the same?
PEREGRINE: Peace, sir.
40 VOLPONE: Let me tell you: I am not, as your lombard proverb saith, cold on my feet, or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate than I accustomed. Look not for it. nor that the calumnious reports of that impudent detractor, and shame to our profession (Alessandro Buttone, I mean) who gave out, in public, i was condemned a sforzato to the galleys, for poisoning the Cardinal Bembo’s – cook, hath at all attached, much less dejected me. No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlatani that spread their cloaks on the pavement as if they meant to do feats
50 of activity, and then come in lamely with their mouldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist: some of them discoursing their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the Turk’s galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they were the Christian’s galleys, where very temperately they eat bread, and drunk water, as a wholesome penance, enjoined them by their confessors, for base pilferies.
SIR POLITIC: Note but his bearing and contempt of these.
VOLPONE: These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groatswort
h of unprepared antimony, finely
60 wrapped up in several scartocaos, are able, very well, to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet these meagre, starved spirits, who have half stopped the organs of their minds with earthly oppilations, want not their favourers among your shrivelled salad-eating artisans, who are overjoyed that they may have their half-pe’rth of physic; though it purge ’em into another world, ’t makes no matter.
SIR POLITIC: Excellent! ha’you heard better language, sir?
VOLPONE: Well, let ’em go. And, gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, know that for this time our bank, being thus removed
70 from the clamours of the canaglia, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell.
SIR POLITIC: I told you, sir, his end.
PEREGRINE: You did so, sir.
VOLPONE: I protest, I and my six servants are not able to make of this precious liquor so fast as it is fetched away from my lodging by gentlemen of your city, strangers of the Terra Firma, worshipful merchants, 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 stuffed with moscadelli, or of the purest grape,
80 when his physicians prescribe him, on pain of death, to drink nothing but water cocted with aniseeds? O health! health! the blessing of the rich! the riches of the poor! who can buy thee at too dear a rate, since there is no enjoying this world without thee? Be not then so sparing of your purses, honourable gentlemen, as to abridge the natural course of life –
PEREGRINE: You see his end?
SIR POLITIC: Ay, is’t not good?
VOLPONE: For, when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, or any other part, take you a ducat, or your chequin of gold, and apply to the
90 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 –
PEREGRINE: I would he had put in dry too.
SIR POLITIC: Pray you, observe.
VOLPONE: 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,
100 para-lyses, epilepsies, tremor cordia, retired nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, stoppings of the liver, the stone, the strangury, hernia ventosa, iliaca passio; stops a dysenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts; and cures melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to my printed receipt.