Volpone and Other Plays

by Ben Jonson

  QUARLOUS: Ha, ha, ha!

  URSULA: Do you sneer, you dog’s-head, you trendle-tail! You look as you were begotten atop of a cart in harvest-time, when the whelp was hot and eager. Go, snuff after your brother’s bitch, Mistress Commodity. That’s the livery you wear; ’twill be out at the elbows shortly. It’s time you went to’t, for the tother remnant.

  120 KNOCEEM: Peace, Urs, peace, Urs. [Aside] They’ ll Kill the poor whale and make oil of her. – Pray thee go in.

  URSULA: I’ll see ’em poxed first, and piled, and double-piled.

  WINWIFE: Let’s away; her language grows greasier than her pigs.

  URSULA: Does’t so, snotty nose? Good Lord! are you snivelling? You were engendered on a she-beggar in a barn when the bald thrasher, your sire, was scarce warm.

  WINWIFE: Pray thee, let’s go.

  QUARLOUS: No, faith; I’ ll stay the end of her, now; I know she cannot last long; I find by her similes she wanes apace.

  URSULA: Does she so? I’ ll set you gone. Gi’ me my pig-pan hither a little.

  130 I’ ll scald you hence, an’ you will not go.

  [Exit.]

  KNOCKEM: Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours! And very idle vapours, I assure you!

  QUARLOUS: You are a very serious ass, we assure you.

  KNOCKEM: Hum’ h! Ass? And serious? Nay, then pardon me my vapour. I have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: any man that does vapour me the ass, Master Quarlous –

  QUARLOUS: What then, Master Jordan?

  KNOCKEM: I do vapour him the lie.

  140 QUARLOUS: Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that.

  [Strikes him.]

  KNOCKEM: Nay, then, vapours upon vapours.

  EDGWORTH, NIGHTINGALE: ’Ware the pan, the pan, the pan; she comes with the pan, gentlemen!

  URSULA comes in with the scalding-pan. They fight. She falls with it.

  God bless the woman.

  URSULA: Oh!

  [Exeunt QUARLOUS and WINWIFE.]

  TRASH [running in]: What’s the matter?

  OVERDO: Goodly woman!

  MOONCALF: Mistress!

  URSULA: Curse of hell, that ever I saw these fiends! Oh! I ha’

  150 scalded my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg! I ha’ lost a limb in the service! Run for some cream and salad oil, quickly! [To MOON CALF] Are you under-peering, you baboon? Rip off my hose, an’ you be men, men, men!

  MOONCALF: Run you for some cream, good Mother Joan. I’ ll look to your basket.

  [Exit JOAN TRASH.]

  LEATHERHEAD: Best sit up i’ your chair, Urs’la. Help, gentlemen.

  [They lift her up.]

  KNOCKEM: Be of good cheer, Urs; thou hast hindered me the currying of a couple of stallions here, that abused the good race-bawd

  160 o’ Smithfield; ’twas time for ’ em to go.

  NIGHTINGALE: I’faith, when the pan came; they had made you run else. [Aside to EDGWORTH] This had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured.

  EDGWORTH: Not a whit; these fellows were too fine to carry money.

  KNOCKEM: Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out o’ the air; take off her shoes; body o’ me, she has the mallanders, the scratches, the crown scab, and the quitter bone i’ the tother leg.

  URSULA: Oh! the pox, why do you put me in mind o’ my leg

  170 thus, to make it prick and shoot? Would you ha’ me i’ the Hospital afore my time?

  KNOCKEM: Patience, Urs. Take a good heart; ’tis but a blister as big as a windgall. I’ ll take it away with the white of an egg, a little honey, and hog’s grease; ha’ thy pasterns well rolled, and thou shalt pace again by tomorrow. I’ ll tend thy booth and look to thy affairs the while; thou shalt sit i’ thy chair and give directions, and shine Ursa major.

  [Exeunt KNOCKEM, MOONCALF, and LEATHERHEAD, carrying URSULA in her chair into her booth.]

  II, vi [OVERDO:] These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco! the foam of the one and the fumes of the other! Stay, young man, and despise not the wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee.

  [Enter COKES, WASP, MISTRESS OVERDO, and GRACE.]

  EDGWORTH: Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed I’ ll hear some o’ this!

  COKES: Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair, Mistress Grace.

  EDGWORTH [to NIGHTINGALE]: ’Slight, he will call company, you shall see, and put us into doings presently.

  10 OVERDO: Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows, when he openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there? Thirst not after it, youth; thirst not after it.

  COKES: This is a brave fellow, Numps; let’s hear him.

  WASP: ’Sblood, how brave is he? In a guarded coat? You were best truck with him; e’en strip and truck presently; it will become you. Why will you hear him? Because he is an ass, and may be akin to the Cokeses?

  COKES: O, good Numps!

  20 OVERDO: Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed, tobacco.

  COKES: Brave words!

  OVERDO: Whose complexion is like the Indian’s that vents it!

  COKES: Are they not brave words, sister?

  OVERDO: And who can tell if, before the gathering and making up thereof, the alligarta hath not pissed thereon?

  WASP: ’Heart, let ’em be brave words, as brave as they will! An’ they were all the brava words in a country, how then? Will you away yet? Ha’ you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away, I pray you, be not you accessory. If you do lose your

  30 licence, or somewhat else, sir, with list’ ning to his fables, say Numps is a witch, with all my heart, do, say so.

  COKBS: Avoid, i’ your satin doublet, Numps.

  OVERDO: The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as some late writers affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor the drying of it, nor the lighting or burning, can any way persway or assuage.

  COKES: Good, i’ faith! is’t not, sister?

  OVERDO: Hence it is that the lungs of the tobacconist are rotted,

  40 the liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman’s booth, here, and the whole body within, black as her pan you saw e’ en now without.

  COKES: A fine similitude, that, sir! Did you see the pan?

  EDGWORTH: Yes, sir.

  OVERDO: Nay, the hole in the nose here, of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril (if I may so call it), which makes that they can vent the tobacco out like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lys, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! when the poor innocent pox, having nothing to do there, is

  50 miserably, and most unconscionably slandered.

  COKES: Who would ha’ missed this, sister?

  MISTRESS OVERDO: Not anybody but Numps.

  COKES: He does not understand.

  EDGWORTH [aside]: Nor you feel.

  He picketh his purse.

  COKES: What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt and an old fox in’t? The best music i’ the Fair will not move a log.

  EDGWORTH giving the purse to NIGHTINGALE]: In to Urs’la, Nightingale, and carry her comfort; see it told. This fellow was

  60 sent to us by fortune for our first fairing.

  [Exit NIGHTINGALE.]

  OVERDO: But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair?

  COKES: That’s to us, sister. Brave i’ faith!

  OVERDO: Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield! and hear what malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering, it causeth snuffling, and snarling, and now and then a hurt.

  MISTRESS OVERDO: He hath something of Master Overdo, me-thinks, brother.

  COKES: So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo;

  70 and ’tis when he speaks.

  OVERDO: Look into any angle o’ the town – the straits, or the Bermudas – where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time but w
ith bottle-ale and tobacco? The lecturer is o’ one side, and his pupils o’ the other; but the seconds are still bottle-ale and tobacco, for which the lecturer reads and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in tobacco! and ten more in ale again. Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and (that being slavered) so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit! And still the bottle-ale

  80 slavereth, and the tobacco stinketh!

  WASP: Heart of a madman! are you rooted here? Will you never away? What can any man find out in this bawling fellow to grow here for? He is a full handful higher sin’ he heard him. Will you fix here? And set up a booth, sir?

  OVERDO: I will conclude briefly –

  WASP: Hold your peace, you roaring rascal! I’ ll run my head i’ your chaps else. – You were best build a booth and entertain him; make your will, an’ you say the word, and him your heir! Heart, I never knew one taken with a mouth of a peck, afore.

  90 By this light, I’ ll carry you away o’ my back, an’ you will not come.

  He gets him up on pick-pack.

  COKES: Stay, Numps, stay, set me down! I ha’ lost my purse, Numps, O my purse! One o’ my fine purses is gone!

  MISTRESS OVERDO: Is’t indeed, brother?

  COKES: Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue, else! A plague of all roguy, damned cutpurses for me.

  WASP: Bless ’ em with all my heart, with all my heart, do you see! Now, as I am no infidel, that I know of, I am glad on’t. Ay I am; here’s my witness! do you see, sir? I did not tell you of his

  100 fables, I? No, no, I am a dull malt-horse, I, I know nothing. Are you not justly served i’ your conscience now? Speak i’ your conscience. Much good do you with all my heart, and his good heart that has it, with all my heart again.

  EDGWORTH [aside]: This fellow is very charitable; would he had a purse, too! But I must not be too bold all at a time.

  COKES: Nay, Numps, it is not my best purse.

  WASP: Not your best! Death! why should it be your worst? Why should it be any, indeed, at all? Answer me to that. Gi’

  110 me a reason from you, why it should be any?

  COKES: Nor my gold, Numps; I ha’ that yet; look here else, sister.

  [Shows his other purse.]

  WASP: Why so, there’s all the feeling he has!

  MISTRESS OVERDO: I pray you, have a better care of that, brother.

  COKES: Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this, that catch can. I would fain see him get this, look you here.

  WASP: So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so! Very good.

  COKES: I would ha’ him come again, and but offer at it. Sister, will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just where th’

  120 other was, and if we ha’ good luck, you shall see a delicate fine trap to catch the cutpurse nibbling.

  EDGWORTH [aside]: Faith, and he’ ll try ere you be out o’ the Fair.

  COKES: Come, Mistress Grace, prithee be not melancholy for my mischance; sorrow wi’ not keep it, sweetheart.

  GRACE: I do not think on’t, sir.

  COKES: ’Twas but a little scurvy white money, hang it; It may hang the cutpurse one day. I ha’ gold left to gi’ thee a fairing, yet, as hard as the world goes. Nothing angers me but that

  130 nobody here looked like a cutpurse, unless ’twere Numps.

  WASP: How? I? I look like a cutpurse? Death! your sister’s a cutpurse! and your mother and father and all your kin were cutpurses! And here is a rogue is the bawd o’ the cutpurses, whom I will beat to begin with.

  They speak all together, and WASP beats the JUSTICE.

  COKES: Numps, Numps!

  OVERDO: Hold thy hand, child of wrath and heir of anger. Make it not Childermass day in thy fury, or the feast of the French Barthol‘mew, parent of the Massacre. Murder, murder, murder!

  MISTRESS OVERDO: Good Master Humphrey.

  WASP: You are the patrico, are you? the Patriarch of the cutpurses? You share, sir, they say; let them share this with you. Are you i’ your hot fit of preaching again? I’ ll cool you.

  [Exeunt.]

  ACT THREE

  III, i [The Fair.]

  [LEATHERHEAD, JOAN TRASH, and others sit at their booths and stalls.]

  [Enter WHIT, HAGGIS, and BRISTLE.]

  [WHIT:] Nay, ’tish all gone, now! Dish ’tish, phen tou vilt not be phitin call, Master Offisher! Phat ish a man te better to lishen out noishes for tee an’ tou art in an oder ’ orld – being very shuffishient noishes and gallantsh too, one o’ their brabblesh would have fed ush all dish fortnight; but tou art so bushy about beggersh still, tou hast no leshure to intend shentlemen, an’t be.

  HAGGIS: Why, I told you, Davy Bristle.

  BRISTLE: Come, come, you told me a pudding, Toby Haggis; a matter of nothing; I am sure it came to nothing! You said,

  10 ‘Let’s go to Urs’ la’s, ’ indeed; but then you met the man with the monsters, and I could not get you from him. An old fool, not leave seeing yet?

  HAGGIS: Why, who would ha’ thought anybody would ha’ quarrelled so early? Or that the ale o’ the Fair would ha’ been up so soon?

  WHIT: Phy, phat o’ clock tost tou tink it ish, man?

  HAGGIS: I cannot tell.

  WHIT: Tou art a vishe vatchman, i’ te mean-teeme.

  HAGGIS: Why, should the watch go by the clock, or the clock by the watch, I pray?

  20 BRISTLE: One should go by another, if they did well.

  WHIT: Tou art right now! Phen didst tou ever know or hear of a shuffishient vatchman but he did tell the clock, phat bushiness soever he had?

  BRISTLE: Nay, that’s most true, a sufficient watchman knows what o’ clock it is.

  WHIT: Shleeping or vaking! ash well as te clock himshelf, or te jack dat shtrikes him!

  BRISTLE: Let’s inquire of Master Leatherhead, or Joan Trash here.

  30 Master Leatherhead, do you hear, Master Leatherhead?

  WHIT: If it be a Ledderhead, tish a very tick Ledderhead, tat sho mush noish vill not piersh him.

  LEATHERHEAD: I have a little business now, good friends; do not trouble me.

  WHIT: Phat? Because o’ty wrought neet-cap and ty phelvet sherkin, man? Phy? I have sheen tee in ty ledder sherkin ere now, mashter o’ de hobby-horses, as bushy and as stately as tou sheem’st to be.

  TRASH: Why, what an’ you have, Captain Whit? He has his choice of jerkins, you may see by that, and his caps too, I assure

  40 you, when he pleases to be either sick or employed.

  LEATHERHEAD: God a mercy, Joan, answer for me.

  WHIT: Away, be not sheen i’ my company; here be shentlemen, and men of vorship.

  [Exeunt HAGGIS and BRISTLE.]

  III ii [Enter QUARLOUS and WINWIFE.]

  QUARLOUS: We had wonderful ill luck to miss this prologue o’ the purse, but the best is we shall have five acts of him ere night. He’ll be spectacle enough! I’ll answer for’t.

  WHIT: O Creesh! Duke Quarlous, how dosht tou? Tou dosht not know me, I fear? I am te vishesht man, but Justish overdo, in all barthol’ mew fair, now. Gi’ me twelvepence from tee, I vill help tee to a vife vorth forty marks for’t, an’t be.

  QUARLOUS: Away, rogue, pimp, away.

  WHIT: And she shall show tee as fine cut’ ork for’t in her shmock too as tou cansht vish i’ faith. Vilt tou have her, vorshipful

  10 vinvife?I vill help tee to her, here, be an’t be, in te pig-quarter, gi’ me ty twel’ pence from tee.

  WINWIFE: Why, there’s twel’ pence; pray thee, wilt thou be gone?

  WHIT: Tou art a vorthy man, and a vorshipful man still.

  QUARLOUS: Get you gone, rascal.

  WHIT: I do mean it, man, prinsh Quarlous, if tou hasht need on me, tou shalt find me here at Urs’ la’s. I vill see phat ale and punk ish i’ te pigshty for tee, bless ty good vorship.

  [Exit.]

  QUARLOUS: Look! who comes here! john Littlewit!

  20 WINWIFE: And his wife, and my widow, her mother – the who
le family.

  [Enter, at a distance, BUSY, DAME PURBCRAFT, LITTLEWIT, and MISTRESS LITTLEWIT.]

  QUARLOUS: ’Slight, you must gi’ em all fairings, now!

  WINWIFE: Not I, I’ ll not see ’em.

  QUARLOUS:They are going a-feasting. What school-master’s that is with ’em?

  WINWIFE: That’s my rival, I believe, the baker!

  BUSY: So, walk on in the middle way, fore-right; turn neither to the right hand nor to the left. Let not your eyes be drawn aside with vanity, nor your ear with noises.

  30 QUARLOUS: O, I Know him by that start!

  LEATHERHEAD: What do you lack? What do you buy, pretty mistress? a fine hobby-horse, to make your son a tilter? a drum to make a sol a fiddle to makehim a reveller? What is’t you lack? Little dogs for your daughters? or babies, male or female?

  BUSY: Look not toward them, hearken not! The place is smith-field, or the field of smiths, the grove of hobby-horses and trinkets. The wares are the wares of devils; and the whole Fair is the shop of satan! They are hooks and baits, very baits, that

  40 are hung out on every side to catch you, and to hold you as it were, by the gills and by the nostrils, as the fisher dodi; there-fore, you must not look, nor turn toward them. The heathen man could stop his ears with waxagainst the harlot o’ the sea; do you the like, with your fingers, against the bells of the Beast.

  WINWIFE: What flashes comes from him!

  QUARLOUS: O, he has diose of his oven! A notable hot baker ’twas, when he plied the peel. He is leading his flock into the Fair, now.

  WINWIFE: Rather driving ’ em to the pens; for he will let ’ em look upon nothing.

  50 [Enter KNOCKEM and Whit, from URSULA’S booth.]

  KNOCKEM: Gentlewomen, the weather’s hot! whither walk you? have a care o’ your fine velvet caps; the Fair is dusty. Take a sweet delicate booth with boughs, here, i’ the way, and cool yourselves i’the shade, you and your friends. The best pig and bottle-ale i’ the Fair, sir. Old Urs’ la is cook, there you may read: the pig’s head speaks it. Poor soul, she has had a stringhalt, the mary-hinchco; butshe’s prettily amended.

  LITTLEWIT is gazing at the sign, which is the Pig’s Head with a large writing under it.

  60 WHIT: A delicate show-pig, hide mistress, with shweet sauce, and crackling like de bay leaf i’ de fire, la! tou shalt ha’ de clean side o’ de table-clot and dy glass vashed with phatersh of dame Annessh Cleare.