Volpone and Other Plays
Page 35
WASP: Yet these will serve to pick the pictures out o’ your pockets, you shall see.
COKES: So I heard ’ em say. Pray thee mind him not, fellow; he’ ll have an oar in everything.
50 NIGHTINGALE: It was intended, sir, as if a purse should chance to be cut in my presence, now, I may be blameless, though; as by the sequel will more plainly appear.
COKES: We shall find that i’ the matter. Pray thee begin.
NIGHTINGALE: To the tune of Paggington’s Pound, sir.
COKES: FA, la la la, la la la, fa la la la. Nay, I’ ll put thee in tune, and all! Mine own country dance! Pray thee begin.
NIGHTINGALE: It is a gentle admonition, you must know, sir, both to the purse-cutter and the purse-bearer.
COKES: Not a word more, out o’ the tune, an’ thou lov’st me.
FA, la la la, la la la, fa la la la. Come, when?
60 NIGHTINGALE: [singing]: My masters and friends and good people draw near,
And look to your purses, for that I do say;
COKES: Ha, ha, this chimes! Good counsel at first dash.
NIGHTINGALE: And though little money in them you do bear,
It cost more to get than to lose in a day. COKES: Good!
You oft have been told,
Both the young and the old,
And bidden beware of the cutpurse so bold;
COKES: Well said! He were to blame that would not, i’ faith.
70 Then it you take heed not, free me from the curse,
who both give you warning for and the cutpurse.
Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy nurse,
Than live to be hangèd for cutting a purse.
COKES: Good i’ faith, how say you, Numps? Is there any barm i’ this?
NIGHTINGALE: It hath been upbraided to men of my trade
COKES: The more coxcombs they that did it, I wusse.
80 That oftentimes we are the cause of this crime.
Alack and for pity, why should it be said?
As if they regarded or places or time.
Examples have been
Of some that were seen
In Westminster Hall, yea the pleaders between;
COKES: God a mercy for that! Why should they be more free indeed?
Then why should the judges be free from this curse,
More than my poor self, for cutting the purse?
Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy nurse,
He signs the burden with him.
Than live to be hangèd for cutting a purse.
COKES: That again, good ballad-man, that again. O rare! I would fain rub mine elbow now, but I dare not pull out my hand. On, I pray thee; he that made this ballad shall be poet to my masque.
NIGHTINGALE: At Worcester ’tis known well, and even i’ the jail,
A knight of good worship did there show his face,
100 Against the foul sinners, in zeal for to rail,
And lost (ipso facto) his purse in the place.
COKES: Is it possible?
Nay, once from the seat
Of judgement so great
A judge there did lose a fair pouch of velvet]. COKES: I’faith?
O Lord for thy mercy, how wicked or worse
Are those that so venture their necks for a purse!
Youth, youth, etc.
COKES: I’ faith?
COKES [sings the burden with him again]: Youth, youth, etc.
Pray thee stay a little, friend. Yet o’ thy conscience, Numps,
110 speak, is there any harm i’ this?
WASP: To tell you true, ’tis too good for you, ’ less you had grace to follow it.
OVERDO [aside]: It doth discover enormity, I’ ll mark it more; I ha’ not liked a paltry piece of poetry so well, a good while.
COKES: Youth, youth, etc.
Where’s this youth, now? A man must call upon him, for his own good, and yet he will not appear. Look here, here’s for him; handy-dandy, which hand will he have?
He shows his purse.
On, I pray thee, with the rest; I do hear of him, but I cannot see him, this Master Youth, the cutpurse.
120 NIGHTINGALE: At plays and at sermons, and at the sessions,
’Tis daily their practice such booty to make:
Yea, under the gallows, at executions,
They stick not the stare-abouts’ purses to take.
Nay, one without grace,
COKES: That was a fine fellow! I would have him, now.
At a better place,
At court, and in Christmas, before the King’s face.
Alack then for pity, must I bear the curse
130 That only belongs to the cunning cutpurse?
COKES: But where’s their cunning now, when they should use it? They are all chained now, I warrant you.
Youth, youth, etc.
The rat-catcher’s charms are all fools and asses to this! A pox on ’ em, that they will not come! that a man should have such a desire to a thing and want it!
QUARLOUS: ’Fore God, I’ d give half the Fair, an’ ’twere mine, for a cutpurse for him, to save his longing.
140 COKES: Look you, sister, here, here, where is’t now? which
pocket is’t in, for a wager?
He shows his purse again.
WASP: I beseech you leave your wagers and let him end his matter, an’t may be.
COKES: O, are you edified, Numps?
OVERDO [aside]: Indeed he does interrupt him too much; there Numps spoke to purpose.
COKES: Sister, I am an ass, I cannot keep my purse.
[He shows it] again.
On on, I pray thee, friend.
EDGWORTH gets up to him and tickles him in the ear with a strawtwice to draw his hand out of his pocket.
NIGHTINGALE: But O, you vile nation of cutpurses all,
WINWIFE [aside]: Will you see sport? Look, there’s a fellow gathers up him, mark.
150 Relent and repent, and amend and be sound,
And know that you ought not, by honest men’s fall,
Advance your own fortunes, to die above ground;
QUARLOUS [aside]: Good i’ faith!O,h has lighted on the wrong pocket.
And though you go gay
In silks as you may,
It is not the highway to heaven (as they say).
Repent then, repent you, for better, for worse:
WINWIFE: He has it, ‘fore God he is a brave fellow; pity he should be detected.
And kiss not the gallows for cutting a purse. Youth,
youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy nurse,
Than live to be hangè for cutting a purse.
ALL: An excellent ballad! an excellent ballad!
EDGWORTH: Friend, let me ha’ the first, let me ha’ the first, I pray you.
170 COKES: Pardon me, sir. First come, first served; and I’ ll buy the whole bundle too.
[EDGWORTH gives the purse to NIGHTINGALE.]
WINWIFE [aside]: That conveyance was better than all, did you see’t?
He has given the purse to the ballad-singer.
QUARLOUS: Has he?
EDGWORTH: Sir, I cry you mercy; I’ ll not hinder the poor man’s profit; pray you, mistake me not.
COKES: Sir, I take you for an honest gentleman, if that be mistaking; I met you today afore. Ha! humh! O God! my purse is gone, my purse, my purse, etc.!
180 WASP: Come, Do not make a stir and cry yourself an ass thorough the Fair afore your time.
COKES: Why, hast thou it, Numps? Good Numps, how came you by it? I mar’ l!
190 WASP: I pray you seek some other gamester to play the fool with. You may lose it time enough, for all your Fair-wit.
COKES: By this good hand, glove and all, I ha’ lost it already, if thou hast it not; feel else, and Mistress Grace’s handkercher, too, out o’ the tother pocket.
WASP: Why, ’ tis well; very well, exceeding pretty, and well.
EDGWORTH: Are you sure you ha’ lost it, sir?
NIGHTINGALE: I hope you suspect not me, sir.
EDGWORTH: Thee? That were a jest indeed! Dost thou think the gentleman is foolish? Where hadst thou hands, I pray thee? [To NIGHTINGALE] Away, ass, away.
[Exit NIGHTINGALE.]
OVERDO [aside]: I shall be beaten again if I be spied.
EDGWORTH: Sir, I suspect an odd fellow, yonder, is stealing away.
200 MISTRESS OVERDO: Brother, it is the preaching fellow! You shall suspect him. He was at your tother purse, you know! Nay, stay, sir, and view the work you ha’ done; an’ you be beneficed at the gallows and preach there, thank your own handiwork.
COKES: Sir, you shall take no pride in your preferment; you shall be silenced quickly.
[They seize JUSTICE OVERDO.]
OVERDO: What do you mean, sweet buds of gentility?
COKES: To ha’ my pennyworths out on you, bud. No less than two purses a day serve you? I thought you a simple fellow, when my man Numps beat you i’ the morning, and pitied you –
210 MISTRESS OVERDO: So did I, I’ ll be sworn, brother; but now I see he is a lewd and pernicious enormity (as Master Overdo calls him).
OVERDO [aside]: Mine own words turned upon me like swords.
COKES: Cannot a man’s purse be at quiet for you i’ the master’s pocket, but you must entice it forth and debauch it?
WASP: Sir, sir, keep your debauch and your fine Barthol’ mewterms to yourself, and make as much on ’ em as you please. But gi’ me this from you i’ the meantime; I beseech you, see if I can look to this.
[WASP tries to get the box with the licence.]
220 COKES: Why, Numps?
WASP: Why? Because you are an ass, sir; there’s a reason the shortest way, an’ you will needs ha’ it. Now you ha’ got the trick of losing, you’ d lose your breech, an’t were loose. I know you sir; come, deliver.
WASP takes the licence from him.
You’ll go and crack the vermin you breed now, will you? ’Tis very fine, will you ha’ the truth on’t? They are such retchless flies as you are, that blow cutpurses abroad in every corner; your foolish having of money makes ’ em. An’ there were no wiser than I, sir, the trade should lie open for you, sir; it should i’ faith, sir. I would teach your with to come to your head, sir, as well as your land to come into your hand, I assure you, sir.
230 WINWIFE: Alack, good Numps.
WASP: Nay, gentlemen, never pity me; I am not worth it. Lord send me at home once, to Harrow o’ the Hill again; if I travel any more, call me Coriat, with all my heart.
[Exeunt WASP, COKES, and MISTRESS OVERDO; JUSTICE OVERDO is carried out.]
QUARLOUS: Stay, sir, I must have a word with you in private. Do you hear?
EDGWORTH: With me, sir? What’s your pleasure, good sir?
QUARLOUS: Do not deny it, you are a cutpurse, sir; dus gentleman here, and I, saw you, nor do we mean to detect you (though we can sufficiently inform ourselves toward the danger of concealing you), but you must do us a piece of service.
BDGWORTH: Good gentlemen, do not undo me; I am a civil young man, and but a beginner, indeed.
QUARLOUS: Sir, your beginning shall bring on your ending, for us. We are no catchpoles nor constables. That you are to undertake is this; you saw the old fellow with the black box here?
BDGWORTH: The little old governor, sir?
QUARLOUS: That same. I see you have flown him to a mark already. I would ha’ you get away that box from him, and bring it us.
250 BDGWORTH: Would you ha’ the box and all, sir? or only that that is in’t? I’ ll get you that, and leave him the box to play with still (which will be the harder o’ the two), because I would gain your worships’ good opinion of me.
WINWIFE: He says well; ’tis the greater mastery, and ’twill make the more sport when ‘tis missed.
EDGWORTH: Ay, and ’twill be the longer a-missing, to draw on the sport.
260 QUARLOUS: But look you do it now, sirrah, and keep your word, or –
EDGWORTH: Sir, if ever I break my word with a gentleman, may I never read word at my need. Where shall I find you?
QUARLOUS: Somewhere i’ the Fair, hereabouts. Dispatch it quickly. I would fain see the careful fool deluded! Of all beasts I love the serious ass – he that takes pains to be one, and plays the fool with the greatest diligence that can be.
GRACE: Then you would not choose, sir, but love my guardian, Justice Overdo, who is answerable to that description in every hair of him.
270 QUARLOUS: So I have heard. But how came you, Mistress Wellborn, to be his ward, or have relation to him, at first?
GRACE: Faith, through a common calamity; he bought me, sir; and now he will marry me to his wife’s brother, this wise gentleman that you see, or else I must pay value o’ my land.
QUARLOUS: ’Slid, is there no device of disparagement, or so? Talk with some crafty fellow, some picklock o’ the law! Would I had studied a year longer i’ the Inns of Court, an’t had been but i’ your case.
280 WINWIFE [aside]: Ay, Master Quarlous, are you proffering?
GRACE: You’ d bring but little aid, sir.
WINWIFE [aside>]: I’ll look to you i’ faith, gamester. – An unfortunate foolish tribe you are fall’n into, lady; I wonder you can endure ’em.
GRACE: Sir, they that cannot work their fetters off must wear ‘em.
WINWIFE: You see what care they have on you, to leave you thus.
GRACE: Faith, the same they have of themselves, sir. I cannot greatly complain if this were all the plea I had against ‘em.
290 WINWIFE: ’Tis true! but will you please to withdraw with us a little, and make them think they have lost you? I hope our manners ha’ been such hitherto, and our language, as will give you no cause to doubt yourself in our company.
GRACE: Sir, I will give myself no cause; I am so secure of mine own manners as I suspect not yours.
QUARLOUS: Look where John Littlewit comes.
WINWIFE: Away, I’ll not be seen by him.
QUARLOUS: No, you were not best, he’d tell his mother, the widow.
WINWIFE: Heart, what do you mean?
300 QUARLOUS: Cry you mercy, is the wind there? Must not the widow be named?
[Exeunt GRACE, WINWIFE, and QUARLOUS.]
III, VI [Enter LITTLEWIT and MISTRESS LITTLEWIT.]
[LITTLEWIT:] Do you hear, Win, Win?
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT: What say you, John?
LITTLEWIT: While they are paying the reckoning, Win, I’ll tell you a thing, Win: we shall never see any sights i’ the Fair, Win, except you long still, Win. Good Win, sweet win, long to see some hobby-horses and some drums and rattles and dogs and fine devices, Win. The bull with the five legs, Win, and the great hog. Now you ha’ begun with pig, you may long for anything, Win, and so for my motion, Win.
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT: But we sha’ not eat o’ the bull and
10 the hog, John; how shall I long then?
LITTLEWIT: O yes, Win! you may long to see as well as to taste, Win. How did the ‘pothecary’s wife, Win, that longed to see the anatomy, Win? Or the lady, Win, that desired to spit i’ the great lawyer’s mouth after an eloquent pleading? I assure you they longed, Win; good Win, go in, and long.
[Exeunt LITTLEWIT and MISTRESS LITTLEWIT.]
TRASH: I think we are rid of our new customer, Brother Leather-head; we shall hear no more of him.
They plot to be gone.
LEATHERHEAD: All the better; let’s pack up all and be gone before he find us.
20 TRASH: Stay a little, yonder comes a company; it may be we may take some more money.
[Enter KNOCKEM and BUSY.]
KNOCKEM: Sir, I will take your counsel, and cut my hair, and leave vapours. I see that tobacco, and bottle-ale, and pig, and Whit, and very Urs’ la herself, is all vanity.
BUSY: Only pig was not comprehended in my admonition; the rest were. For long hair, it is an ensign of pride, a
banner, and the world is full of those banners, very full of banners. And bottle-ale is a drink of Satan’s, a diet-drink of satan’s, devised
30 to puff us up and make us swell in this latter age of vanity, as the smoke of tobacco to keep us in mist and error; but the fleshly woman, which you call urs’ la, is above all to be avoided, having the marks upon her of the three enemies of man: the World, as being in the fair; the Devil, as being in the fire; and the Flesh, as being herself.
[Enter DAME PURECRAFT.]
DAME PURECRAFT: Brother Zeal-of-the-Land! what shall we do? My daughter, Win-the-Fight, is fall’n into her fit of longing again.
BUSY: For more pig? There is no more, is there?
40 DAME PURECRAFT: To see some sights i’ the fair.
BUSY: Sister, let her fly the impurity of the place swiftly, lest she partake of the pitch thereof. Thou art the seat of the Beast, O smithfield, and I will leave thee. Idolatry peepeth out on every side of thee.
KNOCKEM [aside]: An excellent right hypocrite! Now his belly is full, he falls a-railing and kicking, the jade. A very good vapour! I’ ll in and joy Urs’ la with telling how her pig works; two and a half he eat to his share. And he has drunk a pailful. He eats with his eyes as well as his teeth.
[Exit.]
50 LBATHERHEAD: What do you lack, gentlemen? What is’t you buy? Rattles, drums, babies –
BUSY: Peace with thy apocryphal wares, thou profane publican – dry bells, thy dragons, and thy Toby’s dogs. Thy hobby-horse is an idol, a very idol, a fierce and rank idol; and thou the Nebuchadnezzar, the proud Nebuchadnezzar of the Fair, that sett’st it up for children to fall down to and worship.
LEATHERHEAD: Cry you mercy, sir, will you buy a fiddle to fill up your noise?
[Re-enter LITTLEWIT and MISTRESS LITTLEWIT.]
60 LITTLEWIT: Look, win; do look o’ God’s name, and save your longing. Here be fine sights.
DAME PURECRAFT: Ay, child, so you hate ‘em, as our brother Zeal does, you may look on ’em.