Volpone and Other Plays
Page 28
And the bolts of lawn.
120 FACE: Is Drugger’s damask there,
And the tobacco?
SUBTLE: Yes.
FACE: Give me the keys.
DOL COMMON: Why you the keys?
SUBTLE: No matter, Dol; because
We shall not open ’em before he comes.
FACE: ’Tis true, you shall not open them, indeed;
Nor have ’em forth, do you see? Not forth, Dol
DOL COMMON: No!
FACE: No, my smock-rampant. The right is, my master
Knows all, has pardoned me, and he will keep ’em.
Doctor, ’tis true – you look – for all your figures!
130 I sent for him, indeed. Wherefore, good partners,
Both he and she, be satisfied; for here
Determines the poem3aure tripartite
‘Twixt Subde, Dol, and Face. All I can do
Is to help you over the wall, o’ the back-side,
Or lend you a sheet to save your velvet gown, Dol
Here will be officers presently; bethink you
Of some course suddenly to ’scape the dock;
For thither you’ll come else.
[Loud knocking at the door.]
Hark you, thunder!
SUBTLE: You are a precious fiend!
OFFICERS [without]: Open the door!
FACE: Dol, I am sorry for thee, i’ faith; but hear’st thou?
140 It shall go hard, but I will place thee somewhere.
Thou shalt ha’ my letter to Mistress Amo –
DOL COMMON: Hang you!
FACE: Or Madam Caesarean.
DOL COMMON: Pox upon you, rogue,
Would I had but time to beat thee!
FACE: Subtle,
Let’s know where you set up next; I’ll send you
A customer now and then, for old acquaintance.
What new course ha’ you?
SUBTLE: Rogue, I’ll hang myself,
That I may walk a greater devil than thou,
And haunt thee i’ the flock-bed and the buttery.
[Exeunt.]
V,v [Enter LOVEWIT in Spanish dress, with the Parson. Loud knocking
at the door.]
[LOVEWIT:] What do you mean, my masters?
MAMMON [without]: Open your door,
Cheaters, bawds, conjurers!
OFFICER [without]: Or we’ll break it open.
LOVEWIT: What warrant have you?
OFFICER [without]: Warrant enough, sir, doubt
not,
If you’ll not open it.
LOVEWIT: Is there an officer there?
OFFICER [without]: Yes, two or three for failing.
LOVEWIT: Have but patience,
And I will open it straight.
[Enter FACE in his butler’s livery.]
FACE: Sir, ha’ you done?
Is it a marriage? Perfect?
LOVEWIT: Yes, my brain.
FACE: Off with your ruff and cloak then; be yourself, sir.
SURLY [without]: Down with the door.
KASTRIL [without]: ’Slight, ding it open.
LOVEWIT [throwing off his disguise and opening the door]: Hold,
10 Hold, gentlemen, what means this violence?
[Enter MAMMON, SURLY, KASTRIL, ANANIAS, TRIBULATION
WHOLESOME, and OFFICERS.]
MAMMON: Where is this collier?
SURLY: And my Captain Face?
MAMMON: These day-owls.
SURLY: That are birding in men’s purses.
MAMMON: Madam Suppository.
KASTRIL: Doxy, my suster.
ANANIAS: Locusts
Of the foul pit.
TRIBULATION: Profane as Bel and the Dragon.
ANANIAS: Worse than the grasshoppers or the lice of Egypt.
LOVEWIT: Good gentlemen, hear me. Are you officers,
And cannot stay this violence?
OFFICER: Keep the peace.
LOVEWIT: Gentlemen, what is the matter? Whom do you seek?
MAMMON: The chemical cozener.
SURLY: And the captain pandar.
KASTRIL: The nun, my suster.
MAMMON: Madam Rabbi.
20 ANANIAS: Scorpions,
And caterpillars.
LOVEWIT: Fewer at once, I pray you.
OFFICER: One after another, gentlemen, I charge you,
By virtue of my staff.
ANANIAS: They are the vessels
Of pride, lust, and the cart.
LOVEWIT: Good zeal. lie still
A little while.
TRIBULATION: Peace, Deacon Ananias.
LOVEWIT: The house is mine here, and the doors are open;
If there be any such persons as you seek for,
Use your authority, search on o’ God’s name.
I am but newly come to town, and finding
30 This tumult ’ bout my door, to tell you true,
It somewhat ’ mazed me; till my man here, fearing
My more displeasure, told me he had done
Somewhat an insolent part, let out my house
(Belike presuming on my known aversion
From any air o’ the town while there was sickness),
To a Doctor and a Captain; who, what they are
Or where they be, he knows not.
MAMMON: Are they gone?
LOVEWIT: You may go in and search, sir.
They enter.
Here, I find
The empty walls worse than I left ’em, smoked,
40 A few cracked pots, and glasses, and a furnace;
The ceiling filled with poesies of the candle,
And ’ Madam with a dildo’ writ o’ the walls.
Only one gentlewoman I met here,
That is within, that said she was a widow –
KASTRIL: Ay, that’s my suster; I’ll go thump her. Where is she?
[Goes in.]
LOVEWIT: And should ha’ married a Spanish count, but he,
When he came to’t, neglected her so grossly,
That I, a widower, am gone through with her.
SURLY: How! have I lost her, then?
LOVEWIT: Were you the Don, sir?
50 Good faith, now, she does blame you extremely, and says
You swore, and told her you had ta’ en the pains
To dye your beard, and umber o’ er your face,
Borrowed a suit and ruff, all for her love:
And then did nothing. What an oversight
And want of putting forward, sir, was this!
Well fare an old harquebusier yet,
Could prime his powder, and give fire, and hit,
All in a twinkling!
MAMMON comes forth.
MAMMON: The whole nest are fled!
LOVEWIT: What sort of birds were they?
MAMMON: A kind of choughs,
60 Or thievish daws, sir, that have picked my purse
Of eight-score and ten pounds within these five weeks,
Beside my first materials; and my goods,
That lie i’ the cellar, which I am glad they ha’ left,
I may have home yet.
LOVEWIT: Think you so, sir?
MAMMON: Ay.
LOVEWIT: By order of law, sir, but not otherwise.
MAMMON: Not mine own stuff?
LOVEWIT: Sir, I can take no knowledge
That they are yours, but by public means.
If you can bring certificate that you were gulled of ’em,
Or any formal writ out of a court,
70 That you did cozen yourself, I will not hold them.
MAMMON: I’ll rather lose ’em.
LOVEWIT: That you shall not, sir,
By me, in troth. Upon these terms, they’ re yours.
What, should they ha’ been, sir, turned into gold, all?
MAMMON: No.
I cannot tell. – It may be they should. – What then?
LOVEWIT: What a great loss in hope have you sustained!
/> MAMMON: Not I; the commonwealth has.
FACE: Ay, he would ha’ built
The City new; and made a ditch about it
Of silver, should have run with cream from Hogsden;
That every Sunday in Moorfields the younkers
80 And tits and tom-boys should have fed on, gratis.
MAMMON: I will go mount a turnip-cart, and preach
The end o’ the world within these two months. – Surly,
What! in a dream?
SURLY: Must I needs cheat myself
With that same foolish vice of honesty?
Come, let us go and hearken out the rogues.
That Face I’ll mark for mine, if e’ er I meet him.
FACE: If I can hear of him, sir, I’ll bring you word
Unto your lodging; for in troth, they were strangers
To me; I thought ’em honest as myself, sir.
[Exeunt SURLY and MAMMON.]
[ANANIAS and TRIBULATION WHOLESOME] come forth.
90 TRIBULATION: ’Tis well, the Saints shall not lose all yet. Go
And get some carts –
LOVEWIT: For what, my zealous friends?
ANANIAS: To bear away the portion of the righteous
Out of this den of thieves.
LOVEWIT: What is that portion?
ANANIAS: The goods, sometimes the orphans’, that the Brethren
Bought with their silver pence.
LOVEWIT: What, those i’ the cellar,
The knight Sir Mammon claims?
ANANIAS: I do defy
The wicked Mammon, so do all the Brethren.
Thou profane man! I ask thee with what conscience
Thou canst advance that idol against us
100 That have the seal? Were not the shillings numb’ red
That made the pounds; were not the pounds told out
Upon the second day of the fourth week,
In the eighth month, upon the table dormant,
The year of the last patience of the Saints,
Six hundred and ten?
LOVEWIT: Mine earnest vehement botcher,
And deacon also, I cannot dispute with you;
But if you get you not away the sooner,
I shall confute you with a cudgel.
ANANIAS: Sir!
TRIBULATION: Be patient, Ananias.
ANANIAS: I am strong,
110 And will stand up, well girt, against an host
That threaten Gad in exile.
LOVEWIT: I shall send you
To Amsterdam, to your cellar.
ANANIAS: I will pray there,
Against thy house. May dogs defile thy walls,
And wasps and hornets breed beneath thy roof,
This seat of falsehood, and this cave of coz’ nage!
[Exeunt ANANIAS and TRIBULATION WHOLESOME.]
DRUGGER enters.
LOVEWIT: Another, too?
DRUGGER: Not I, sir, I am no Brother.
LOVEWIT: Away, you Harry Nicholas! do you talk?
He beats him away.
FACE: No, this was Abel Drugger. (To the PARSON) Good sir, go,
And satisfy him; tell him all is done.
120 He stayed too long a-washing of his face.
The Doctor, he shall hear of him at Westchester;
And of the Captain, tell him, at Yarmouth, or
Some good port-town else, lying for a wind.
[Exit PARSON.]
If you get off the angry child now, sir –
[Enter KASTRIL, with his sister, DAME PLIANT.]
KASTRIL (To his sister.): Come on, you ewe, you have matched
most sweetly, ha’ you not?
Did not I say, I would never ha’ you tupped
But by a dubbed boy, to make you a lady-tom?
’Slight, you are a mammet! O, I could touse you now.
Death, mun you marry with a pox!
LOVEWIT: You lie, boy;
130 As sound as you; and I’ m aforehand with you.KASTRIL: Anon
LOVEWIT: Come, will you quarrel? I will feize you, sirrah;
Why do you not buckle to vour tools?
KASTRIL: God’s light,
This is a fine old boy as e’ er I saw!
LOVEWIT: What, do you change your copy now? Proceed;
Here stands my dove; stoop at her if you dare.
KASTRIL: ’Slight, I must love him! I cannot choose, i’ faith, An’ I should be hanged for ’t! Suster, I protest, I honour thee for this match.
LOVEWIT: O, do you so, sir?
KASTRIL: Yes, an’ thou canst take tobacco and drink, old boy,
140 I’ll give her five hundred pound more to her marriage,
Than her own state.
LOVEWIT: Fill a pipe full, Jeremy.
FACE: Yes; but go in and take it, sir.
LOVEWIT: We will.
I will be ruled by thee in anything, Jeremy.
KASTRIL: ’Slight, thou art not hide-bound, thou art a jovy boy!
Come, let’s in, I pray thee, and take our whiffs.
LOVEWIT: Whiff in with your sister, brother boy.
[Exeunt KASTRIL and DAME PLIANT.]
That master
That had received such happiness by a servant,
In such a widow, and with so much wealth,
Were very ungrateful, if he would not be
130 A little indulgent to that servant’s wit,
And help his fortune, though with some small strain
Of his own candour.
[Advancing to address the audience.]
Therefore, gentlemen,
And kind spectators, if I have outstripped
An old man’s gravity, or strict canon, think
What a young wife and a good brain may do:
Stretch age’s truth sometimes, and crack it too.
Speak for thyself, knave.
FACE: So I will, sir.
[Advancing also.] Gentlemen,
My part a little fell in this last scene,
Yet ’twas decorum. And though I am clean
Got off from Subtle, Surly, Mammon, Dol, 160
Hot Ananias, Dapper, Drugger, all
With whom I traded; yet I put myself
On you, that are my country; and this pelf
Which I have got, if you do quit me, rests,
To feast you often, and invite new guests.
[Exeunt.]
THE END
BARTHOLOMEW FAIR
PRELIMINARY NOTE
1. STAGE-HISTORY
Bartholomew Fair was first acted by the Lady Elizabeth’s Men at the Hope Theatre, Bankside, on 31 October 1614, and was played at Court the following day. It was acted after the Restoration, and much liked by that indefatigable playgoer, Samuel Pepys. An anti-Puritan farce based in part on Jonson’s play was staged before King Charles II, greatly to the annoyance of Puritan divines. The play was only intermittently performed in the eighteenth century until 1731, and after that time it seems to have completely disappeared from the theatrical repertory, save for one adaptation acted in 1735. Bartholomew Fair itself was last held in 1855. The Phoenix Society gave a single performance of the play in Oxford in 1921. The Marlowe Society of Cambridge produced the play in 1947, and undergraduates at Oxford performed it in 1962. The very large cast makes frequent professional performances unlikely, but in 1950 the Old Vic Company, under the direction of George Devine, acted the comedy on the great open stage of the Assembly Hall of the Church of Scodand in Edinburgh during the Festival, and later brought the production to the Waterloo Road. Mark Dignam played Busy and Roger Livesey Justice Overdo; Alec Chines and Robert Eddison were especially good as the testy Humphrey Wasp and the ninny Bartholomew Cokes.
2. LOCATION AND TIME-SCHEME
The action of the play takes place in one day: the Feast of St Bartholomew (i.e. 24 August), presumably 1614. The comedy opens early in the morning and ends with Justice Overdo magnanimously inviting the entire dramatis personae home to supper. The first act is se
t in Litlewit’s house, and requires no scenic elaboration; the rest of the entertainment takes place at the Fair. The stalls, booths, and stocks may have been on view throughout Act 1 in the Jacobean performances; it is moré likely that at the end of Act 1 they were erected in full view of the audience by the characters of the Fair themselves, before, after, or even during Justice Overdo’s soliloquy. (The official accounts for the second performance – at the Court of King James – include sums of money for ‘Canvas for the Boothes and other necessaries for a play called Bartholomew Fair’.) The transformation scene at Edinburgh whereby the Assembly Hall became the bustling Fair was one of the most striking effects in Devine’s production. In any performance characters can retreat into their own stalls when not required, and Ursula’s booth, centrally located for most of the play, serves as a curtained ‘discovery-place’ in which Mistress Litlewit and Mistress Overdo are eventually revealed in the party scene. It is up to individual directors to decide such things as whether the stocks remain on-stage throughout Aa Iv. Leatherhead’s puppet–theatre seems to be re-erected in the central position during Act v, while the real audience and the audience-within-the-play look on.
3. EARLY PUBLICATION
Bartholomew Fair was not included in the 1616 Folio Worker, it was printed (very badly for a Jonsonian text) in folio sheets in 1631, but not published until it was included in the Second Folio, the two–volume Workes issued posthumously in 1640. Ben Jonson was paralysed from 1628, and his eyesight was failing. Only three plays were set up for the new Folio in his lifetime, and his exemplary standards of proof-reading were not maintained.
Throughout the Folio text Bartholomew Fair is spelt Bartholmew Fair, and this form is used on the title-page printed in 1631 – Bartholmew Fayre. This probably shows Jonson’s intention to retain contemporary pronunciation. The Jacobean Londoners appear to have stressed the first syllable (hence St Barde in Nightingale’s song – and Bart’s as the present-day abbreviation of the famous London teaching hospital), and their pronunciation was probably Banle-mew or Bartle-my in casual, everyday speech. I have followed Eugene Waith in printing the tide Bartholomew Fair and using Barthol’mew in the speeches.
4. LATER EDITIONS AND CRITICAL COMMENTARY
Bartholomew Fair has been reprinted in many collected and selected editions of Jonson’s works, and in anthologies of drama. It has been edited and annotated in recent years for the Revels Plays by Professor E. A. Horsman (1960), for the Yale Ben Jonson by Eugene M. Waith (1963), for Nebraska’s Regents Renaissance Drama series by Edward B. Partridge (1964), and by Maurice Hussey (1964). I have been able to consult their texts and notes. J. J. Enck and J. A. Barish each devote a chapter to the comedy. Dr Enck regards it as a master-work. Dr Barish concentrates on the technicalities of Jonson’s prose. Freda Townsend in Apologie for Bartholmew Fayre sees the play as the culmination of Jonson’s playwriting career, and argues that his brilliant dramatic practice did not always accord with his neo-classical precepts. Brian Gibbons discusses the play in the light of other satirical comedies of London life in Jacobean City Comedy.