by Ben Jonson
VOLPONE: The poet,
As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,
Says that your highest female grace is silence.
LADY WOULD-BE: Which o’your poets? Petrarch? or Tasso? or Dante?
80 Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine?
Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.
VOLPONE [aside]: Is everything a cause to my destruction?
LADY WOULD-BE: I think I ha’two or three of ’em about me.
VOLPONE [aside]: The sun, the sea, will sooner both stand still
Than her eternal tongue! Nothing can ’scape it.
LADY WOULD-BE: Here’s Pastor Fido–
VOLVONE [aside]: Profess obstinate silence;
That’s now my safest.
LADY WOULD-BE: All our English writers,
I mean such as are happy in th’Italian,
Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly;
90 Almost as much as from Montagnié:
He has so modern and facile a vein,
Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear.
Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he,
In days of sonneting, trusted ’em with much.
Dante is hard, and few can understand him.
But for a desperate wit, there’s Aretine!
Only, his pictures are a little obscene –
You mark me not.
VOLPONE: Alas, my mind’s perturbed.
LADY WOULD-BE: Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves,
100 Make use of our philosophy -
VOLPONE: O’y me!
LADY WOULD-BE: And as we find our passions do rebel,
Encounter ’em with reason, or divert ’em
By giving scope unto some other humour
Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies
There’s nothing more doth overwhelm the judgement,
And clouds the understanding, than too much
Settling and fixing, and, as ’twere, subsiding
Upon one object. For the incorporating
Of these same outward things into that part
110 Which we call mental, leaves some certain faeces
That stop the organs, and, as Plato says,
Assassinates our knowledge.
VOLPONE [aside]: Now, the spirit
Of patience help me!
LADY WOULD-BE: Come, in faith, I must
Visit you more a-days and make you well.
Laugh and be lusty!
VOLPONE [aside]: My good angel save me!
LADY WOULD-BE: There was but one sole man in all the world
With whom I e’er could sympathize; and he
Would lie you often, three, four hours together
To hear me speak; and be sometime so rapt,
120 As he would answer me quite from the purpose,
Like you, and you are like him, just. I’ll discourse,
(An’t be but only, sir, to bring you asleep)
How we did spend our time and loves together,
For some six years.
VOLPONE: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
LADY WOULD-BE: For we were coeetanei, and brought up -
VOLPONE [aside]: Some power, some fate, some fortune rescueme!
III, v [Enter MOSCA.]
[MOSCA:] God save you, madam!
LADY WOULD-BE: Good sir.
VOLPONE: Mosca, welcome!
Welcome to my redemption.
MOSCA: Why, sir?
VOLPONE [aside to MOSCA]: Oh,
Rid me of this my torture quickly, there,
My madam with the everlasting voice;
The bells in time of pestilence ne’er made
Like noise, or were in that perpetual motion!
The cock-pit comes not near it. All my house,
But now, steamed like a bath with her thick breath.
A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce
10 Another woman, such a hail of words
She has let fall. For hell’s sake, rid her hence.
MOSCA: Has she presented?
VOLPONE: Oh, I do not care;
I’ll take her absence upon any price,
With any loss.
MOSCA: Madam -
LADY WOULD-BE: I ha’brought your patron
A toy, a cap here, of mine own work.
MOSCA: ’Tis well
I had forgot to tell you I saw your knight
Where you’d little think it.
LADY WOULD-BE: Where?
MOSCA: Marry,
Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend him,
Rowing upon the water in a gondole,
20 With the most cunning courtesan of Venice.
LADY WOULD-BE: Is’t true?
MOSCA: Pursue ’em, and believe your eyes.
Leave me to make your gift.
[Exit LADY WOULD-BE.]
I knew ’twould take.
For lightly, they that use themselves most licence,
Are still most jealous.
VOLPONE: Mosca, hearty thanks
For thy quick fiction and delivery of me.
Now to my hopes, what sayst thou?
[Re-enter LADY WOULD-BE.]
LADY WOULD-BE: But do you hear, sir?
VOLPONE: Again! I fear a paroxysm.
LADY WOULD-BE: Which way
Rowed they together?
MOSCA: Toward the Rialto.
LADY WOULD-BE: I pray you lend me your dwarf.
MOSCA: I pray you, take him.
[Exit LADY WOULD-BE.]
30 Your hopes, sir, are like happy blossoms fair,
And promise timely fruit, if you will stay
But the maturing; keep you at your couch.
Corbaccio will arrive straight with the will;
When he is gone, I’ll tell you more.
[Exit MOSCA.]
VOLPONE: My blood,
My spirits are returned; I am alive;
And, like your wanton gamester at primero,
Whose thought had whispered to him, not go less,
Methinks I lie, and draw – for an encounter.
[VOLPONE draws the curtains of his bed.]
III, vi [MOSCA leads in BONARIO and hides him.]
[MOSCA:] Sir, here concealed you may hear all. But pray you
One knocks.
Have patience, sir; the same’s your father knocks.
I am compelled to leave you.
BONARIO: Do so. – Yet
Cannot my thought imagine this a truth.
III, vi [MOSCA admits CORVINO with CELIA.]
[MOSCA:] Death on me! you are come too soon, what meant you?
Did not I say I would send?
CORVINO: Yes, but I feared
You might forget it, and then they prevent us.
MOSCA: Prevent! [Aside] 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.
[He crosses the stage.]
CORVINO: Where are you, Celia?
You know not wherefore I have brought you hither?
CELIA: Not well, except you told me.
CORVINO: Now I will:
Hark hither.
[They talk apart.]
10 MOSCA (To BONARIO): Sir, your father hath sent word,
It will be half an hour ere he come;
And therefore, if you please to walk the while
Into that gallery – at the upper end
There are some books to entertain the time.
And I’ll take care no man shall come unto you, sir.
BONARIO: Yes, I will stay there. [Aside] I do doubt this fellow.
[Exit.]
MOSCA: There, he is far enough; he can hear nothing.
And for his father, I can keep him off.
[MOSCA stands by VOLPONE’s bed.]
CORVINO: Nay, now, there is no starting back, and therefore
20 Resolve
upon it: I have so decreed.
It must be done. Nor would I move’t afore,
Because I would avoid all shifts and tricks,
That might deny me.
CELIA: Sir, let me beseech you,
Affect not these strange trials; if you doubt
My chastity, why, lock me up forever;
Make me the heir of darkness. Let me live
Where I may please your fears, if not your trust.
CORVINO: Believe it, I have no such humour, I
All that I speak I mean; yet I am not mad,
30 Not horn-mad, see you? Go to, show yourself
Obedient, and a wife.
CELIA: O heaven!
CORVINO: I say it,
Do so.
CELIA: Was this the train?
CORVINO: I’ve told you reasons:
What the physicians have set down; how much
It may concern me; what my engagements are;
My means, and the necessity of those means
For my recovery; wherefore, if you be
Loyal and mine, be won, respect my venture.
CELIA: Before your honour?
CORVINO: Honour! tut, a breath.
There’s no such thing in nature; a mere term
40 Invented to awe fools. What, is my gold
The worse for touching? clothes for being looked on?
Why, this ’s no more. An old, decrepit wretch,
That has no sense, no sinew; takes his meat
With others’ fingers; only knows to gape
When you do scald his gums; a voice, a shadow;
And what can this man hurt you?
CELIA: Lord! what spirit
Is this hath entered him?
CORVINO: And for your fame,
That’s such a jig; as if I would go tell it,
Cry it, on the Piazza! Who shall know it
50 But he that cannot speak it, and this fellow,
Whose lips are i’ my pocket, save yourself –
If you’ll proclaim ’t, you may. I know no other
Should come to know it.
CELIA: Are heaven and saints then nothing?
Will they be blind, or stupid?
CORVINO: How?
CELIA: Good sir,
Be jealous still, emulate them, and think
What hate they burn with toward every sin.
CORVINO: I grant you: if I thought it were a sin
I would not urge you. Should I offer this
To some young Frenchman, or hot Tuscan blood
60 That had read Aretine, conned all his prints,
Knew every quirk within lust’s labyrinth,
And were professed critic in lechery;
And I would look upon him, and applaud him,
This were a sin; but here, ’tis contrary,
A pious work, mere charity, for physic
And honest policy to assure mine own.
CELIA: O heaven! canst thou suffer such a change?
VOLPONE: Thou art mine honour, Mosca, and my pride,
My joy, my tickling, my delight! Go, bring ’em.
MOSCA [advancing]: Please you draw near, sir.
70 CORVINO: Come on, what –
You will not be rebellious? By that light –
[He forces CELIA to the bed.]
MOSCA: Sir, signior corvino, here, is come to see you.
VOLPONE: oh!
MOSCA: And hearing of the consultation had,
So lately, for your health, is come to offer,
Or rather, sir, to prostitute –
CORVINO: Thanks, sweet Mosca.
MOSCA: Freely, unasked, or unentreated –
CORVINO: Well
MOSCA: As the true, fervent instance of his love,
His own most fair and proper wife, the beauty
Only of price in Venice –
CORVINO: ’Tis well urged.
80 MOSCA: To be your comfortress, and to preserve you.
VOLPONE: Alas, I’m 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 a stone: uh, uh, uh, uh!
Making a dead leaf grow again. I take
His wishes gently, though; and you may tell him
What I’ve done for him. Marry, my state is hopeless!
Will him to pray for me, and t’ use his fortune
With reverence when he comes to’t.
MOSCA: Do you hear, sir?
90 Go to him with your wife.
CORVINO: [to CELIA]: Heart of my father!
Wilt thou persist thus? Come, I pray thee, come.
Thou seest ’tis nothing, Celia. By this hand
I shall grow violent. Come, do ’t, I say.
CELIA: Sir, kill me rather. I will take down poison,
Eat burning coals, do anything –
CORVINO: Be damned!
Heart! I will drag thee hence home by the hair,
Cry thee a strumpet through the streets, rip up
Thy mouth unto thine ears, and slit thy nose,
Like a raw rochet! – Do not tempt me, come.
100 Yield, I am 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 cor’sives, on this stubborn breast.
Now, by the blood thou hast incensed, I’ll do ’t!
CELIA: Sir, what you please, you may; I am your martyr.
CORVINO: Be not thus obstinate, I ha’ not deserved it.
Think who it is entreats you. Pray thee, sweet;
110 Good faith, thou shalt have jewels, gowns, attires,
What thou wilt, think and ask. Do but go kiss him.
Or touch him, but. For my sake. At my suit.
This once. No? Not? I shall remember this.
Will you disgrace me thus? D’ you thirst my undoing?
MOSCA: Nay, gentle lady, be advised.
CORVINO: No, no.
She has watched her time. God’s precious, this is Scurvy,
’Tis very scurvy; and you are –
MOSCA: Nay, good sir.
CORVINO: An errant locust, by heaven, a locust! whore,
Crocodile, that hast thy tears prepared,
Expecting how thou’lt bid ’em flow.
120 MOSCA: Nay, pray you, sir!
She will consider.
CELIA Would my life would serve
To satisfy.
CORVINO: ’Sdeath! if she would but speak to him,
And save my reputation, ’twere somewhat;
But spitefully to effect my utter ruin!
MOSCA: Ay, now you’ve 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.
130 CORVINO: Sweet Celia,
Thou may’st redeem all yet; I’ll say no more.
If not, esteem yourself as lost. Nay, stay there.
[Exeunt MOSCA and CORVINO.]
CELIA: 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?
VOLPONE: Ay, in Corvino, and such earth-fed minds,
He leaps off from the couch.
140 That never tasted the true heaven of love.
Assure thee, Celia, he that would sell thee,
Only for hope of gain, and that uncertain,
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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,
150 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 hornèd flood.
Now, art thou welcome.
CELIA: Sir!
VOLPONE: 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,
160 At recitation of our comedy,
For entertainment of the great Valois,
I acted young Antinous, and attracted
The eyes and ears of all the ladies present,
T’ admire each graceful gesture, note, and footing.
SONG
Come, my Celia, let us prove,
While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He, at length, our good will sever;
170 Spend not then his gifts in vain.
Suns that set may rise again;
But if once we lose this light,
’Tis with us perpetual night.
Why should we defer our joys?
Fame and rumour are but toys.
Cannot we delude the eyes
Of a few poor household spies?
Or his easier ears beguile,
Thus removèd by our wile?
180 ’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.
CELIA: Some serene blast me, or dire lightning strike
This my offending face.
VOLPONE: 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,
190 As I feed others, but possessed and crowned.
See, here, a rope of pearl, and each more orient
Than that the brave Egyptian queen caroused;
Dissolve and drink ’em. 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 ’em; yet remains an ear-ring
To purchase them again, and this whole state.
200 A gem but worth a private patrimony