Volpone and Other Plays
Page 14
VOLTORE: Where’s the will?
Let me read that the while.
[Enter servants, carrying CORBACCIO in a chair.]
CORBACCIO: So, set me down,
And get you home.
[Exeunt servants.]
VOLTORE: Is he come now, to trouble us?
MOSCA: Of cloth of gold, two more –
CORBACCIO: Is it done, Mosca?
MOSCA: Of several velvets, eight –
VOLTORE: I like his care.
CORBACCIO: Dost thou not hear?
[Enter CORVINO.]
CORVINO: Ha! Is the hour come, Mosca?
VOLPONE [aside]: Ay, now they muster!
Volpone peeps from behind a traverse.
CORVINO: What does the advocate here,
Or this Corbaccio?
CORBACCIO: What do these here?
[Enter LADY WOULD-BE.]
10 LADY WOULD-BE: Mosca!
Is his thread spun?
MOSCA: Eight chests of linen –
VOLPONE [aside]: O,
My fine Dame Would-be, too!
CORVINO: Mosca, the will,
That I may show it these and rid ’em hence.
MOSCA: Six chests of diaper, four of damask – There.
[He gives them are will and continues writing.]
CORBACCIO: Is that the will?
MOSCA: Down-beds, and bolsters –
VOLPONE [aside]: Rare!
Be busy still. Now they begin to flutter;
They never dunk of me. Look, see, see, see!
How their swift eyes run over the long deed
Unto the name, and to the legacies,
What is bequeathed them there.
20 MOSCA: Ten suits of poem0s –
VOLPONE [aside]: Ay, i’ their garters, Mosca. Now their hopes
Are at the gasp.
VOLTORE: Mosca the heir!
CORBACCIO: What’s that?
VOLPONE [aside]: 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 reached his despair, yet.
CORBACCIO: All these
Are out of hope; I’m sure the man.
CORVINO: But, Mosca –
MOSCA: Two cabinets –
CORVINO: Is this in earnest?
MOSCA: One
Of ebony –
CORVINO: Or do you but delude me?
30 MOSCA: 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 WOULD-BE: Do you hear, sir?
MOSCA: A perfumed box – pray you forbear,
You see I’m troubled – made of an onyx –
LADY WOULD-BE: How?
MOSCA: Tomorrow, or next day, I shall be at leisure
To talk with you all.
CORVINO: Is this my large hope’s issue?
LADY WOULD-BE: Sir, I must have a fairer answer.
MOSCA: Madam!
Marry, and shall: pray you, fairly quit my house.
Nay, raise no tempest with your looks; but hark you,
40 Remember what your ladyship offered me
To put you in an heir; go to, think on ’t.
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 melancholic.
[Exit LADY WOULD-BE.]
VOLPONE [aside]: O my fine devil!
CORVINO: Mosca, pray you a word.
MOSCA: Lord! Will not you take your dispatch hence yet?
Methinks of all you should have been th’ example
why should you stay here? With what thought? What promise?
50 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.
60 Go home, be melancholic too, or mad.
[Exit CORVINO.]
VOLPONE [aside]: Rare, Mosca! How his villainy becomes him!
VOLTORE: Certain he doth delude all these for me.
CORBACCIO: Mosca the heir?
VOLPONE [aside]: O, his four eyes have found it!
CORBACCIO. I’m cozened, cheated, by a parasite slave!
Harlot, th’ ast gulled me.
MOSCA: 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 year, snuffed about
70 With your most grov’ ling nose, and would have hired
Me to the pois’ ning of my patron, sir?
Are not you he that have, today, in court,
Professed the disinheriting of your son?
Perjured yourself? Go home, and the, and stink.
If you but croak a syllable, all comes out
Away, and call your porters! Go, go stink.
[Exit CORBACCIO.]
VOLPONE [aside]: Excellent varlet!
VOLTORE: Now, my faithful Mosca,
I find thy constancy –
MOSCA: Sir?
VOLTORE: Sincere.
MOSCA [writing again]: A table
Of porphyry – I mar’l you’ll be thus troublesome.
VOLTORE: Nay, leave off now, they are gone.
80 MOSCA: 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’ th’ dead must be observed.
Marry, my joy is that you need it not;
You have a gift, sir (thank your education)
90 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 meantime,
You that have so much law, I know ha’ the conscience
Not to be covetous of what is mine.
Good sir, I thank you for my plate; ’twill help
100 To set up a young man. Good faith, you look
As you were costive; best go home and purge, sir.
[Exit VOLTORE.]
VOLPONE: Bid him eat lettuce well! My witty mischief,
[Coming from behind the curtains.]
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 ’em more.
We must pursue as well as plot. Who would
Have lost this feast?
MOSCA: I doubt it will lose them.
VOLPONE: O, my recovery shall recover all.
110 That I could now but think on some disguies
To meet ’em in, and ask ’em questions.
How I would vex ’em still at every turn!
MOSCA: Sir, I can fit you.
VOLPONE
: Canst thou?
MOSCA: Yes, I know
One o’ th’ commendatori, sir, so like you;
Him will I straight make drunk, and bring you his habit
VOLPONE: A rare disguise, and answering thy brain!
O, I will be a sharp disease unto ’em.
MOSCA: Sir, you must look for curses –
VOLPONE: Till they burst;
The Fox fares ever best when he is cursed.
[Exeunt.]
V, iv [SCENE TWO]
[SIR POLITIC’S lodging.]
[Enter PEREGRINE, disguised, and three MERCHANTS.]
[PEREGRINE:] Am I enough disguised?
1ST MERCHANT: I warrant you.
PEREGRINE: All my ambition is to fright him only.
2ND MERCHANT: If you could ship him away, ’twere excellent
3RD MERCHANT: To Zant, or to Aleppo?
PEREGRINE: Yes, and ha’ his
Adventures put i’ th’ Book of Voyages,
And his gulled story registered for truth?
Well, gentlemen, when I am in a while,
And that you think us warm in our discourse,
Know your approaches.
1ST MERCHANT: Trust it to our care.
[Exeunt MERCHANTS.]
[Enter WOMAN.]
PEREGRINE: Save you, fair lady. Is Sir Pol within?
10 WOMAN: I do not know, sir.
PEREGRINE: Pray you say unto him,
Here is a merchant, upon earnest business,
Desires to speak with him.
WOMAN: I will see, sir.
PEREGRINE: Pray you.
[Exit WOMAN.]
I see the family is all female here.
[Re-enter WOMAN.]
WOMAN: He says, sir, he has weighty affairs of state
That now require him whole; some other time
You may possess him.
PEREGRINE: Pray you, say again,
If those require him whole, these will exact him,
Whereof I bring him tidings.
[Exit WOMAN.] What might be
20 His grave affair of state now? How to make
Bolognian sausages here in Venice, sparing
One o’ th’ ingredients?
[Re-enter WOMAN.]
WOMAN: Sir, he says he knows
By your word ‘tidings’ that you are no statesman,
30 And therefore wills you stay.
PEREGRINE: 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.
[Enter SIR POLITIC.]
SIR POLITIC: Sir, I must crave
Your courteous pardon. There hath chanced today
Unkind disaster ’twixt my lady and me,
30 And I was penning my apology
To give her satisfaction, as you came now.
PEREGRINE: Sir, I am grieved I bring you worse disaster:
The gentleman you met at th’ port today,
That told you he was newly arrived –
SIR POLITIC: Ay, was
A fugitive punk?
PEREGRINE: No, sir, a spy set on you,
And he has made relation to the Senate
That you professed to him to have a plot
To sell the state of Venice to the Turk.
SIR POLITIC: O me!
PEREGRINE: For which warrants are signed by this time
40 To apprehend you and to search your study
For papers –
SIR POLITIC: Alas, sir, I have none but notes
Drawn out of play-books –
PEREGRINE: All the better, sir.
SIR POLITIC: And some essays. What shall I do?
PEREGRINE: 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 POLITIC: Sir, I but talked so
For discourse’ sake merely.
They knock without.
PEREGRINE: Hark, they are there.
SIR POLITIC: I am a wretch, a wretch!
PEREGRINE: What will you do, sir?
Ha’ you ne’ er a currant-butt to leap into?
50 They’ ll put you to the rack, you must be sudden.
SIR POLITIC: Sir, I have an engine –
3RD MERCHANT [outside]: Sir Politic Would-be!
2ND MERCHANT [outside]: Where is he?
SIR POLITIC: That I have thought up-on beforetime.
PEREGRINE: What is it?
SIR POLITIC: I shall ne’ er endure the torture!
Marry, it is, sir, of a tortoise-shell,
Fitted for these extremities. Pray you, sir, help me.
[He gets into a large tortoise-shell.]
Here I’ve a place, sir, to put back my legs;
Please you to lay it on, sir. With this cap
And my black gloves, I’ll lie, sir, like a tortoise,
Till they are gone.
PEREGRINE: And call you this an engine?
60 SIR POLITIC: My own device – Good sir, bid my wife’s women
To burn my papers.
They [the three MERCHANTS] rush in.
1ST MERCHANT: Where’s he hid?
3RD MERCHANT: We must,
And will, sure, find him.
2ND MERCHANT: Which is his study?
1ST MERCHANT: What
Are you, sir?
PEREGRINE: I’m a merchant that came here
To look upon this tortoise.
3RD MERCHANT: How!
1ST MERCHANT: St Mark!
What beast is this?
PEREGRINE: It is a fish.
2ND MERCHANT [kicking the ‘tortoise’ ]: Come out here!
PEREGRINE: Nay, you may strike him, sir, and tread upon him.
He’ ll bear a cart.
1ST MERCHANT: What, to run over him?
PEREGRINE: Yes.
3RD MERCHANT: Let’s jump upon him.
2ND MERCHANT: Can he not go?
PEREGRINE: He creeps, sir.
1ST MBRCHANT: Let’s see him creep. [Goading him.]
PEREGRINE: No, good sir, you will hurt
him.
70 2ND MERCHANT: Heart, I’ll see him creep, or prick his guts.
3RD MERCHANT: Come out here!
PEREGRINE [aside to SIR POLITIC]: Pray you, sir, creep a little.
1ST MERCHANT: Forth!
2ND MERCHANT: Yet further.
PEREGRINE [aside to SIR POLITIC]: Good sir, creep!
2ND MERCHANT: We’ ll see his legs.
3RD MERCHANT: Godso, he has garters!
1ST MERCHANT: Ay, and gloves!
They pull off the shell and discover him.
2ND MERCHANT: Is this
Your fearful tortoise?
PEREGRINE: Now, Sir Pol, we are even;
For your next project I shall be prepared.
I am sorry for the funeral of your notes, sir.
1ST MERCHANT: ’Twere a rare motion to be seen in Fleet Street
2ND MERCHANT: Ay, i’ the term.
1ST MERCHANT: Or Smithfield, in the fair.
3RD MERCHANT: Methinks ’tis but a melancholic sight.
PEREGRINE: Farewell, most politic tortoise!
[Exeunt PEREGRINE and the three MERCHANTS.]
[Re-enter WOMAN.]
80 SIR POLITIC: Where’s my lady?
Knows she of this?
WOMAN: I know not, sir.
SIR POLITIC: Inquire.
[Exit WOMAN.]
O, I shall be the fable of all feasts,
The freight of the gazetti, ship-boys’ tale,
And, which is worst, even talk for ordinaries.
[Re-enter WOMAN.]
WOMAN: My lady’s come most melancholic home,
And says, sir, she will straight to sea, for physic.
SIR POLITIC: And I, to shun this place and clime forever,
Creeping with h
ouse on back, and think it well
To shrink my poor head in my politic shell.
[Exeunt.]
V, V [SCENE THREE]
[VOLPONE’S house.]
[Enter VOLPONE and MOSCA.] The first in the habit of a Commendatore; the other [in that] of a Clarissimo.
[VOLPONE:] Am I then like him?
MOSCA: O sir, you are he;
No man can sever you.
VOLPONE: Good.
MOSCA: But what am I?
VOLPONE: ‘Fore heav’n, a brave clarissimo, thou becom’st it!
Pity thou wert not born one
MOSCA [aside]: If I hold
My made one, ’twill be well.
VOLPONE: I’ll go and see
What news, first, at the court.
[Exit.]
MOSCA: Do so. My fox
Is out on his hole, and ere he shall re-enter,
I’ll make him languish in his borrowed case,
Except he come to composition with me.
Androgyno, Castrone, Nano!
[Enter ANDROGYNO, CASTRONE, and NANO.]
ALL: Here!
MOSCA: Go recreate yourselves abroad, go sport.
[Exeunt.]
So, now I have the keys and am possessed.
Since he will needs be dead afore his time,
I’ll bury him, or gain by him. I’m 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 cònstrue it a sin.
Let his sport pay for ’t. This is called the fox-trap.
[Exit.]
v, vi [SCENE FOUR]
[A street.]
[Enter COSBACCIO and CORVINO.]
[CORBACCIO:] They say the court is set.
CORVINO: We must maintain
Our first tale good, for both our reputations.
CORBACCIO: Why, mine’s no tale! My son would, there, have killed me.
CORVINO: That’s true, I had forgot. Mine is, I am sure.
But for your will, sir.
CORBACCIO: Ay, I’ll come upon him
For that hereafter, now his patron’s dead.
[Enter VOLPONE, disguised.]
VOLPONE: Signor Corvino! And Corbaccio! Sir,
Much joy unto you.
CORVINO: Of what?
VOLPONE: The sudden good
Dropped down upon you –
CORBACCIO: Where?
VOLPONE: And none knows how,
From old Volpone, sir.
10 CORBACCIO: Out, arrant knave!
VOLPONE: Let not your too much wealth, sir, make you furious.
CORBACCIO: Away, thou varlet.
VOLPONE: Why, sir?
CORBACCIO: Dost thou mock me?
VOLPONE: You mock the world, sir; did you not change wills?
CORBACCIO: Out, harlot!
VOLPONE: O! belike you are the man,
Signor Corvino? Faith, you carry it well;
You grow not mad withal, I love your spirit.