Volpone and Other Plays

by Ben Jonson

  OVERDO [aside]: This pig-woman do I know, and I will put her

  70 in for my second enormity. She hath been before me, punk, pinnace, and bawd, any time these two and twenty years, upon record i’ the Pie-powders.

  URSULA: Fill again, you unlucky vermin.

  MOONCALF: Pray you be not angry, mistress; I’ ll ha’ it widened anon.

  URSULA: No, no, I shall e’ en dwindle away to’t, ere the fair be done, you think, now you ha’ heated me! A poor vexed thing I am. I feel myself dropping already, as fast as I can; two stone o’ Suet a day is my proportion. I can but hold life and soul together

  80 with this (here’s to you, Nightingale) and a whiff of tobacco, at most. Where’s my pipe now? not filled? Thou arrant incubee!

  NIGHTINGALE: Nay, Urs’ la, thou’ lt gall between the tongue and the teedi with fretting, now.

  URSULA: How can I hope that ever he’ ll discharge his place of trust - tapster, a man of reckoning under me - that remembers nothing I say to him?

  [Exit NIGHTINGALE.]

  But look to’t, sirrah, you were best; threepence a pipeful I will ha’ made of all my whole half-pound of tobacco, and a quarter of a pound of colts-foot mixed with it too, to eke it out. I that

  90 have dealt so long in the fire will not be to seek in smoke, now. Then, six and twenty shillings a barrel I will advance o’ my beer, and fifty shillings a hundred o’ my bottle-ale; I ha’ told you the ways how to raise it. Froth your cans well i’ the filling, at length, rogue, and jog your bottles o’ the buttock, sirrah, then skink out the first glass, ever, and drink with all companies, though you be sure to be drunk; you’ ll misreckon the better, and be less ashamed on’t. But your true trick, rascal, must be ever busy, and mis-take away the bottles and cans in haste before they be half drunk off, and never hear anybody call (if they should chance to mark you) till you ha’ brought fresh,

  100 and be able to forswear ’ em. Give me a drink of ale.

  OVERDO [aside]: This is the very womb and bed of enormity, gross as herself! This must all down for enormity, all, every whit on’t.

  One knocks.

  URSULA: Look who’s there, sirrah! Five shillings a pig is my price, at least; if it be a sow-pig, sixpence more; if she be a great-bellied wife, and long for’t, sixpence more for that.

  OVERDO [aside]: O temporal O mores! I would not ha’ lost my discovery of this one grievance for my place and worship o’ the bench. How is the poor subject abused here! Well, I will fall in no

  110 with her, and with her Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity. [To URSULA] By thy leave, goodly woman, and the fatness of the fair, oily as the king’s constable’s lamp, and shining as his shoeing-horn! Hath thy ale virtue, or thy beer strength? that the tongue of man may be tickled? and his palate pleased in the morning? Let thy pretty nephew here go search and see.

  URSULA: What new roarer is this?

  MOONCALF: O Lord! do you not know him, mistress? ’Tis mad

  120 Arthur of Bradley, that makes the orations. Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you? Welcome to the Fair! When shall we hear you again, to handle your matters? With your back again’ a booth, ha? I ha’ been one o’ your little disciples i’ my days!

  OVERDO: Let me drink, boy, with my love, thy aunt, here, that I may be eloquent; but of thy best, lest it be bitter in my mouth, and my words fall foul on the fair.

  URSULA: Why dost thou not fetch him drink? And offer him to sit?

  MOONCALF: Is’t ale or beer, Master Arthur?

  130 OVERDO: Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best; the same thy dove drinketh and thou drawest on holy days.

  URSULA: Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale; they say a fool’s handsel is lucky.

  OVERDO: Bring both, child. Ale for Arthur and beer for Bradley. Ale for thy aunt, boy.

  [Exit MOONCALF.]

  [Aside.] My disguise takes to the very wish and reach of it. I shall, by the benefit of this, discover enough and more, and yet get off with the reputation of what I would be: a certain

  140 middling thing between a fool and a madman.

  ii,iii [Enter JORDAN KNOCKEM.]

  [KNOCKEM:] What! my little lean Urs’ la! my she-bear! art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs, to grunt out another Barthol’ - mew Fair, ha?

  URSULA: Yes, and to amble afoot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart, up the heavy hill.

  KNOCKEM: Of Holborn, Urs’ la, meanst thou so? For what? For what, pretty Urs?

  UREULA: For cutting halfpenny purses, or stealing little penny dogs out o’ the Fair.

  10 KNOCKEM: O! good words, good words, Urs.

  OVERDO [aside]: Another special enormity! A cutpurse of the sword, the boot, and the feather! Those are his marks.

  [Re-enter MOONCALF, with the ale.]

  URSULA: You are one of those horse-leeches that gave out I was dead in Turnbull Street of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes?

  KNOCKEM: No, ’twas better meat, Urs: cow’s udders, cow’s udders!

  URSULA: Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day.

  20KNOCKEM: What? Thou’ lt poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt thou? Or a spider in a tobacco-pipe, Urs? Come, there’s no malice in these fat folks. I never fear thee, an’ I can ’scape thy lean Mooncalf here. Let’s drink it out, good Urs, and no vapours!

  [Exit URSULA.]

  OVERDO: Dost thou hear, boy? (There’s for thy ale, and the remnant for thee.) Speak in thy faith of a faucet, now; is this goodly person before us here, this vapours, a knight of the knife?

  MOONCALF: What mean you by that, Master Arthur?

  OVERDO: I mean a child of the horn-thumb, a babe of booty, boy, a cutpurse.

  30 MOONCALF: O Lord, sir! far from it. This is Master Dan Knockem –Jordan, the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-courser, sir.

  OVERDO: Thy dainty dame, though, called him cutpurse.

  MOONCALF: Like enough, sir. She’ ll do forty such things in an hour (an’ you listen to her) for her recreation, if the toy take her i’ the greasy kerchief. It makes her fat, you see. She battens with it.

  40 OVERDO [aside]: Here might I ha’ been deceived, now, and ha’ put a fool’s blot upon myself, if I had not played an after-game o’ discretion.

  URSULA comes in again, dropping.

  KNOCKEM: Alas, poor Urs, this’s an ill season for thee.

  URSULA: Hang yourself, hackney-man.

  KNOCKEM: How, how, Urs? vapours? motion breed vapours?

  URSULA: Vapours? Never tusk nor twirl your dibble, good Jordan. I know what you’ ll take to a very drop. Though you be captain o’ the roarers, and fight well at the case of piss-pots, you shall not fright me with your lion-chap, sir, nor your tusks. You angry? You are hungry. Come, a pig’s head will stop your mouth and stay your stomach at all times.

  50 KNOCKEM: Thou art such another mad merry Urs still! Troth, I do make conscience of vexing thee now i’ the dog-days, this hot weather, for fear of found’ ring thee i’ the body, and melting down a pillar of the Fair. Pray thee take thy chair again, and keep state; and let’s have a fresh bottle of ale and a pipe of tobacco; and no vapours. I’ ll ha’ this belly o’ thine taken up and thy grass scoured, wench. Look! here’s Ezekiel Edgworth, a fine boy of his inches as any is i’ the Fair! Has still money in his purse, and will pay all with a kind heart; and good vapours.

  II, iv [Enter] to them [EZEKIEL] EDGWORTH, NIGHTINGALE, CORN-CUTTER, TINDERBOX-MAN, and PASSENGERS.

  [EDGWORTH:] That I will, indeed, willingly, Master Knockem.

  [To MOONCALF] Fetch some ale and tobacco.

  [Exit MOONCALF.]

  LEATHERHEAD: What do you lack, gentlemen? Maid, see a fine hobby-horse for your young master; cost you but a token a week his provender.

  CORN-CUTTER: Ha’ you any corns i’ your feet and toes?

  TINDERBOX-MAN: Buy a mousetrap, a mousetrap, or a tormentor for a flea!

  TRASH: Buy some gingerbread!

  NIGHTINGALE:

 
10 Ballads, ballads! fine new ballads:

  Hear for your love and buy for your money!

  A delicate ballad o’ ‘The Ferret and the Coney’.

  ’ A Preservative again the Punks’ Evil.’

  Another of ‘Goose-green Starch and the Devil’.

  ‘A dozen of Divine Points’ and ‘The Godly Garters’.

  ‘The Fairing of Good Counsel’, of an ell and three quarters.

  What is’t you buy?

  ‘The Windmill blown down by the witch’s fart!’

  Or ‘Saint George, that O! did break the dragon’s heart!’

  [Re-enter MOONCALF.]

  BDGWORTH: Master Nightingale, come hither, leave your mart a little.

  [Exeunt PASSENGERS, CORN-CUTTER, and TINDERBOX-MAN.]

  NIGHTINGALE: O My Secretary! What says my secretary?

  OVERDO: Child o’ the bottles, what’s he? what’s he?

  MOONCALF: A civil young gentleman, Master Arthur, that keeps company with the roarers and disburses all, still. He has ever money in his purse. He pays for them, and they roar for him -one does good offices for another. They call him the secretary, but he serves nobody. A great friend of the ballad-man’s –they are never asunder.

  OVERDO: What pity ’tis so civil a young man should haunt this

  30 debauched company! Here’s the bane of the youth of our time apparent. A proper penman, I see’t in his countenance; he has a good clerk’s look with him, and I warrant him a quick hand.

  MOONCALF: A very quick hand, sir.

  [Exit.]

  40 EDGWORTH [to NIGHTINGALE]: All the purses and purchase I give you today by conveyance, bring hither to Urs’la’s presently. Here we will meet at night in her lodge, and share. Look you choose good places for your standing i’ the Fair when you sing, Nightingale.

  This they whisper, that OVERDO hears it not.

  URSULA: AY, near the fullest passages; and shift ’em often.

  BDGWORTH: And i’ your singing you must use your hawk’s eye nimbly, and fly the purse to a mark still-where ’tis worn and o’ which side – that you may gi’ me the sign with your beak, or hang your head that way i’ the tune.

  URSULA: Enough, talk no more on’t. Your friendship, masters, is not now to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and away. The fair fills apace, company begins to

  50 come in, and I ha’ ne’ er a pig ready yet.

  KNOCKEM: Well said! Fill the cups and light the tobacco. Let’s give fire i’ th’ works and noble vapours.

  BDGWORTH: And shall we ha’ smocks, Urs’ la and good whimsies, ha?

  URSULA: Come, you are i’ your bawdy vein! The best the Fair will afford, ’ Zekiel, if Bawd Whit keep his word.

  [Re-enter MOONCALF.]

  How do the pigs, Mooncalf?

  MOONCALF: Very passionate, mistress; one on ’ em has wept out an eye. Master Arthur o’ Bradley is melancholy, here; nobody

  60 talks to him. will you any tobacco, Master Arthur?

  OVERDO: No, boy, let my meditations alone.

  MOONCALF: He’s studying for an oration, now.

  OVERDO [aside]: If I can, with this day’s travail, and all my policy, but rescue this youth here out of the hands of the lewd man and the strange woman, I will sit down at night and say with my friend Ovid, Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis, etc.

  KNOCKEM: Here ’ Zekiel; here’s a health to U rs’ la, and a kind vapour. Thou hast money i’ thy pune still; and store! How dost thou come by it? Pray thee vapour thy friends some in a

  70 courteous vapour.

  [exit URSULA.]

  EDGWORTH: Half I have, Master Dan Knockem, is always at your service.

  OVERDO [aside]: Ha, sweet nature! What goshawk would prey upon such a lamb?

  KNOCKEM: Let’s see what ’tis, ’ Zekiel! Count it, come, fill him to pledge me.

  II,v [Enter WINWIFE and QUARLOUS.]

  WINWIFE: We are here before ’ em, methinks.

  QUARLOUS: All the better; we shall see ’ em come in now.

  LEATHERHEAD: What do you lack, gentlemen, what is’t you lack? A fine horse? A lion? A bull? A bear? A dog, or a cat? An excellent fine Barthol’ mew-bird? Or an instrument? What is’t you lack?

  QUARLOUS: ’Slid! here’s Orpheus among the beasts, with his fiddle and all!

  TRASH: Will you buy any comfortable bread, gentlemen?

  10 QUARLOUS: And Ceres selling her daughter’s picture in ginger-work!

  WINWIFE: That these people should be so ignorant to think us chapmen for ’ em! Do we look as if we would buy gingerbread? Or hobby-horses?

  QUARLOUS: Why, they know no better ware than they have, nor better customers than come. And our very being here makes us fit to be demanded, as well as others. Would Cokes would come! There were a true customer for ’ em.

  KNOCKEM [to EDGWORTH]: How much is’t? Thirty shillings? Who’s yonder? Ned Winwife? and Tom Quarlous, I thinl!

  20 Yes. (Gi’ me it all, gi’ me it all.) Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! Will you take a pipe of tobacco with us? (Do not discredit me now, ’ Zekiel.)

  WINWIFE: Do not see him! He is the roaring horse-courser. Pray thee let’s avoid him; turn down this way.

  QUARLOUS: ’ Slud, I’ ll see him, and roar with him too, an’ he roared as loud as Neptune; pray thee go with me.

  WINWIFE: You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please, as this.

  30 QUAHLOUS: Go to then, come along. We ha’ nothing to do, man, but to see sights now.

  KNOCKEM: Welcome, Master Quarlous and Master Winwife! Will you take any froth and smoke with us?

  QUARLOUS: Yes, sir, but you’ll pardon us if we knew not of so much familiarity between us afore.

  KNOCKEM: As what, sir?

  QUARLOUS: To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.

  KNOCKEM: A good vapour! Will you sit down, sir? This is old Urs’la’s mansion. How like you her bower? Here you may ha’

  40 your punk and your pig in state, sir, both piping hot.

  QUARLOUS: I had rather ha’ my punk cold, sir.

  OVERDO [aside]: There’s for me; punk! and pig!

  URSULA: What, Mooncalf? You rogue.

  She calls [from] within.

  MOONCALF: By and by; the bottle is almost off, mistress. Here, Master Arthur.

  URSULA [within]: I’ll part you and your play-fellow there i’ the guarded coat, an’ you sunder not the sooner.

  KNOCKEM: Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks; you do not talk nor drink; are you proud?

  50 WINWIFE: Not of the company I am in, sir, nor the place, I assure you.

  KNOCKEM: You do not except at the company, do you? Are you in vapours, sir?

  MOONCALF: Nay, good Master Dan Knockem, respect my mistress’ bower, as you call it; for the honour of our booth, none o’ your vapours here.

  She comes out with a firebrand.

  URSULA: Why, you thin lean polecat you, an’ they have a mind to be i’ their vapours, must you hinder ha’ What did you know, vermin, if they would ha’ lost a cloak, or such a trifle?

  60 Must you be drawing the air of pacification here, while I am tormented, within, i’ the fire, you weasel?

  MOONCALF: Good mistress, ’twas in the behalf of your booth’s credit that I spoke.

  URSULA: Why? Would my booth ha’ broke if they had fall’ n out in’t, sir? Or would their heat ha’ fired it? In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs, and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I’ ll both baste and roast you till your eyes drop out like ’ em. (Leave the bottle behind you, and be curst awhile.)

  [Exit MOONCALF.]

  QUARLOUS: Body o’ the Fair! what’s this? Mother o’ the bawds?

  70 KNOCKEM: No, she’s mother o’ the pigs, sir, mother o’ the pigs!

  WINWIFE: Mother o’ the Furies, I think, by her firebrand.

  QUARLOUS: Nay, she is too fat to be a Fury, sure some walking sow of tallow!

  WINWIFE: An inspired vessel of kitchen-stuff!

/>   She drinks this while.

  QUARLOUS: She’ll make excellent gear for the coach-makers here in Smithfield to anoint wheels and axle-trees with.

  URSULA: Ay, ay, gamesters, mock a plain plump soft wench o’ the suburbs, do, because she’s juicy and wholesome. You must ha’ your thin pinched ware, pent up i’ the compass of a dog-collar (or ’twill not do), that looks like a long laced conger, set

  80 upright, and a green feather, like fennel, i’ the jowl on’t.

  KNOCKEM: Well said, Urs, my good Urs; to ’em, Urs!

  QUARLOUS: Is she your quagmire Dan Knockem? Is this your bog?

  NIGHTINGALE: We shall have a quarrel presently.

  KNOCKEM: How? Bog? Quagmire? Foul vapours! Hum’ h!

  QUARLOUS: Yes, he that would venture for’t, I assure him, might sink into her and be drowned a week ere any friend he had could find where he were.

  90 WINWIFE: And then he would be a fortnight weighing up again.

  QUARLOUS: ’Twere like falling into a whole shire of butter. They had need be a team of Dutchmen, should draw him out.

  KNOCKEM: Answer ’ em, Urs. Where’s thy Barthol’mew-wit, now, Urs? thy Barthol’mew-wit?

  URSULA: Hang ’ em, rotten, roguy cheaters, I hope to see ’ em plagued one day (poxed they are already, I am sure) with lean playhouse poultry, that has the bony rump sticking out like the ace of spades or the point of a partizan, that every rib of ’ em is like the tooth of a saw; and will so grate ’ em with their hips and

  100 shoulders, as (take ’ em altogether) they were as good lie with a hurdle.

  QUARLOUS: Out upon her, how she drips! She’s able to give a man the sweating sickness with looking on her.

  URSULA: Marry look off, with a patch o’ your face and a dozen i’ your breech, though they be o’ scarlet, sir. I ha’ seen as fine out-sides as either o’ yours bring lousy linings to the brokens ere now, twice a week!

  QUARLOUS: Do you think there may be a fine new cucking-stool i’ the Fair to be purchased? One large enough, I mean.

  110 I know there is a pond of capacity for her.

  URSULA: For your mother, you rascal! Out, you rogue, you hedge-bird, you pimp, you pannier-man’s bastard, you!