by Ben Jonson
GRACE: I know no fitter match than a puppet to commit with an hypocrite!
BUSY: First, I say unto thee, idol, thou hast no calling.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: You lie; I am called Dionysius.
LEATHERHEAD: The motion says you lie, he is called Dionysius i’ the matter, and to that calling he answers.
50 BUSY: I mean no vocation, idol, no present lawful calling.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: Is yours a lawful calling?
LEATHERHEAD: The motion asketh if yours be a lawful calling.
BUSY: Yes, mine is of the spirit.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: Then idol is a lawful calling.
LEATHERHEAD: He says, then idol is a lawful calling! For you called him idol, and your calling is of the spirit.
COKES: Well disputed, hobby-horse!
BUSY: Take not part with the wicked, young gallant. He neigheth and hinnyeth; all is but hinnying sophistry. I call him idol again.
60 Yet, I say, his calling, his profession is profane, it is profane, idol.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: It is not profane!
LEATHERHEAD: It is not profane, he says.
BUSY: It is profane.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: It is not profane.
BUSY: It is profane.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: It is not profane.
LEATHERHEAD: Well said, confute him with ‘not’, still. You cannot bear him down with your base noise, sir.
BUSY: Nor he me with his treble creaking, though he creak like
70 the chariot wheels of Satan. I am zealous for the Cause –
LEATHERHEAD: As a dog for a bone.
BUSY: And I say it is profane, as being the page of pride and the waiting-woman of vanity.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: Yea? What say you to your tire-women then?
LEATHERHEAD: Good.
PUFPET DIONYSIUS: Or feather-makers i’ the Friars, that are o’ your faction of faith? Are not they with their perukes and their puffs, their fans and their huffs, as much pages of pride and
80 waiters upon vanity? What say you? What say you? What say you?
BUSY: I will not answer for them.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: Because you cannot, because you cannot. Is a bugle-maker a lawful calling? or the confect-maker’s? such you have there; or your French fashioner? You’d have all the sin within yourselves, would you not? would you not?
BUSY: No, Dagon.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: What then, Dagonet? Is a puppet worse than these?
90 BUSY: Yes, and my main argument against you is that you are an abomination; for the male among you putteth on the apparel of the female, and the female of the male.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: You lie, you lie, you lie abominably.
COKES: Good, by my troth, he has given him the lie thrice.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: It is your old stale argument against the players, but it will not hold against the puppets; for we have neither male nor female amongst us. And that thou may’st see, if thou wilt, like a malicious purblind zeal as thou art!
THE PUPPET takes up his garment.
100 EDGWORTH: By my faith, there he has answered you, friend, by
plain demonstration.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: Nay, I’ ll prove, against e’ er a rabbin of’ em all, that my standing is as lawful as his; that I speak by inspiration as well as he; that I have as little to do with learning as he; and do scorn her helps as much as he.
BUSY: I am confuted; the Cause hath failed me.
PUPPET DIONYSIUS: Then be converted, be converted.
LEATHERHEAD: Be converted, I pray you, and let the play go on!
110 BUSY: Let it go on. For I am changed, and will become a beholder with you!
COKES: That’s brave i’ faith. Thou hast carried it away, hobbyhorse; on with the play!
THE JUSTICE discovers himself.
OVERDO: Stay, now do I forbid, I, Adam Overdo! Sit still, I charge you.
COKES: What, my brother-i’ -law!
GRACE: My wise guardian!
EDGWORTH: Justice Overdo!
OVERDO: It is time to take enormity by the forehead, and brand it; for I have discovered enough.
v, vi [Enter] to them QUARLOUS (like the madman) [and DAME] PURECRAFT (a while after).
[QUARLOUS:] Nay, come, mistress bride. You must do as I do, now. You must be mad with me in truth. I have here Justice Overdo for it.
OVERDO [to QUARLOUS]: Peace, good Trouble-all; come hither, and you shall trouble none. I will take the charge of you and your friend, too.
TO THE CUTPURSE and MISTRESS LITTLEWIT.
You also, young man, shall be my care; stand there.
EDGWORTH: Now, mercy upon me.
10KNOCKEM: Would we were away, whit; these are dangerous vapours; best fall off with our birds, for fear o’ the cage
The rest are stealing away.
OVERDO: Stay, is not my name your terror?
WHIT: Yesh, faith, man, and it ish for tat we would be gone, man.
[Enter LITTLEWIT.]
LITTLEWIT: O gentlemen, did you not see a wife of mine? I ha’ lost my little wife, as I shall be trusted, my little pretty Win. I left her at the great woman’s house in trust yonder, the pig-woman’s, with Captain Jordan and Captain whit, very good men, and I cannot hear of her. Poor fool, I fear she’s stepped aside. Mother, did you not see Win?
20 OVERDO: If this grave matron be your mother, sir, stand by her, et digito compesce labellum; I may perhaps spring a wife for you anon. Brother Barthol’ mew, I am sadly sorry to see you so lightly given, and such a disciple of enormity, with your grave governor Humphrey; but stand you both there, in the middleplace; I will reprehend you in your course. Mistress Grace, let me rescue you out of the hands of the stranger.
WINWIFE: Pardon me, sir, I am a kinsman of hers.
OVERDO: Are you so? Of what name, sir?
WINWIFE: Winwife, sir.
30 OVERDO: Master Winwife? I hope you have won no wife of her, sir. If you have, I will examine the possibility of it at fit leisure. Now to my enormities: look upon me, O London! and see me, O Smithfield! the example of justice and mirror of magistrates, the true top of formality and scourge of enormity! Hearken unto my labours and but observe my discoveries, and compare Hercules with me, if thou dar’st, of old; or Columbus, Magellan, or our countryman Drake of later times. Stand forth you weeds of enormity, and spread. (To BUSY) First, Rabbi Busy, thou superlunatical hypocrite. (To LANTERN) Next, thou other
40 extremity, thou profane professor of puppetry, little better than poetry. (To THE HORSE-COURSER and CUTPURSE) Then thou strong debaucher and seducer of youth; witness this easy and honest young man. (Then CAPTAIN WHIT and MISTRESS LITTLEWIT) Now thou esquire of dames, madams, and twelve-penny ladies. Now my green madam herself, of the price. Let me unmask your ladyship.
[He removes MISTRESS LITTLEWIT’s mask.]
LITTLEWIT: O my wife, my wife, my wife!
OVERDO: Is she your wife? Redde te Harpocratem!
Enter TROUBLE-ALL [with a dripping-pan, followed by URSULA and NIGHTINGALE].
50 TROUBLE-ALL: By your leave, stand by, my masters; be uncovered.
URSULA: O stay him, stay him! Help to cry, Nightingale; my pan, my pan!
OVERDO: What’s the matter?
NIGHTINGALE: He has stol’ n Gammer Urs’ la’s pan.
TROUBLE-ALL: Yes, and I fear no man but Justice Overdo.
OVERDO: Urs’ la? Where is she? O the sow of enormity, this! (To URSULA and NIGHTINGALE) Welcome, stand you there; you songster, there.
URSULA: An’ please your worship, I am in no fault. A gentleman
60 stripped him in my booth, and borrowed his gown and his hat; and he ran away with my goods, here, for it.
OVERDO (To QUARLOUS): Then this is the true madman, and you are the enormity!
QUARLOUS: You are i’ the right, I am mad but from the gown outward.
OVERDO: Stand you there.
QUARLOUS: Where you please, sir.
MISTRESS OVERDO [wakes up and] is sick, and her husban
d is silenced.
MISTRESS OVERDO: O lend me a basin, I am sick, I am sick. Where’s Master Overdo? Bridget, call hither my Adam.
70 OVERDO: How?
WHIT: Dy very own wife, i’ fait, worshipful Adam.
MISTRESS OVERDO: Will not my Adam come at me? Shall I see him no more then?
QUARLOUS: Sir, why do you not go on with the enormity? Are you oppressed with it? I’ ll help you, sir, i’ your ear: Your ‘innocent young man’, you have ta’ en such care of all this day, is a cutpurse, that hath got all your brother Cokes’s things, and helped you to your beating and the stocks. If you have a mind
80 to hang him now and show him your magistrate’s wit, you may; but I should think it were better recovering the goods, and to save your estimation in him. I thank you, sir, for the gift of your ward, Mistress Grace. Look you, here is your hand and seal, by the way. Master Winwife, give you joy, you are Palemon; you are possessed of the gentlewoman, but she must pay me value, here’s warrant for it. And honest madman, there’s thy gown and cap again; I thank thee for my wife. (To THE WIDOW.) Nay, I can be mad, sweetheart, when I please, still; never fear me. And careful Numps, where’s he? I thank him for my licence.
WASP: How!
QUARLOUS: ’Tis true, Numps. 90
WASP: I’ ll be hanged then.
QUARLOUS: Look i’ your box, Numps.
WASP misseth the licence.
[To OVERDO] Nay, sir, stand not you fixed here, like a stake in Finsbury to be shot at, or the whipping post i’ the Fair, but get your wife out o’ the air; it will make her worse else. And remember you are but Adam, flesh and blood! You have your frailty; forget your other name of Overdo and invite us all to supper. There you and I will compare our discoveries, and drown the memory of all enormity in your bigg’st bowl at
100 home.
COKES: How now, Numps, ha’ you lost it? I warrant ‘twas when thou wert i’ the stocks. Why dost not speak?
WASP: I will never speak while I live, again, for aught I know.
OVERDO: Nay, Humphrey, if I be patient, you must be so, too; this pleasant conceited gentleman hath wrought upon my judgement, and prevailed. I pray you take care of your sick friend, Mistress Alice, and my good friends all –
QUARLOUS: And no enormities.
110 OVERDO: I invite you home with me to my house, to supper. I will have none fear to go along, for my intents are ad correctionem, non ad destmctinem; ad aedificandum, non ad diruendum. So lead on.
COKES: Yes, and bring the actors along, we’ ll ha’ the rest o’ the play at home.
[Exeunt.]
THE EPILOGUE
Your Majesty hath seen the play, and you
Can best allow it from youi ear and view.
You know the scope of writers, and what store
Of leave is given them, if they take not more,
And turn it into licence. You can tell
If we have used that leave you gave us well;
Or whether we to rage or licence break,
Or be profane, or make profane men speak.
This is your power to judge, great sir, and not
The envy of a few. Which if we have got,
We value less what their dislike can bring,
If it so happy be, t’ have pleased the King.
ADDITIONAL NOTES
VOLPONE
THE EPISTLE
The epistle dedicatory is addressed to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, appropriately (and tactfully) hailed as ‘most equal Sisters’. The episde is important in that it states Jonson’s high aims in writing comethes. The stand-point is similar to Sir Philip Sidney’s (see the Introduction, pp. 12–13). The address and date are in the quarto.
57. Sejanus: The production of Sejanus had involved Jonson in charges of Popish sympathies.
89. Sibi, etc.: Horace, Satires, II, i, 23. There is a fixe translation by Jonson of the line in Poetaster, III, v:
In satires, each man (though untouched) complains
As he were hurt; and hates such biting strains.
114. turning back to my promise: not fulfilling my undertaking to bring back to the theatre the practice of the ancients. In the matter of the catastrophe, Jonson is here saying, Volpone is too harsh.
142. Cinnamus the barber: a barber-surgeon is indicated here.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
The principal characters’ names are derived from animals. Volpone is Italian for fox (’an old fox, an old reynard, an old crafty, sly, subtle companion, sneaking lurking wily deceiver’ was John Florio’s gloss on the word in A World of Words in 1598); Mosca is Italian for fly (’flesh-fly’ in the play), Voltore for vulture, Corbaccio for raven, and Corvino for crow (i.e. carrion crow). The name Sir Politic Would-be expresses the character’s aspirations, but the familiar form Sir Pol makes him a parrot; and J. J. Enck suggests that Peregrine, ‘the single sound person in the play’, is the peregrine falcon, the pilgrim hawk. Lady Would-be is once referred to in the play as a kite, and once as a she-wolf. Mosca also talks of a physician Signior Lupo, the wolf.
PROLOGUE
17. coadjutor; novice; journeyman; tutor: tour different kinds of collaborator in the Elizabedian Theatre: a joint-author, sharing responsibility for a play with someone else - for example, Beaumont and Fletcher; an apprentice, learning the craft; a hack-writer or adaptor of old plays; a supervisor of apprentice-work. Jonson had been novice, journeyman, and coadjutor in his time, but here puts forward his claim to be considered a serious dramatic artist.
21. quaking custards: may be an allusion to the huge custard set out at the Lord Mayor’s feasts for the fool to jump into, and, in conjunction with the reference to eggs above, may indicate the sort of slap-stick which Jonson has avoided. A. B. Kernan believes that this is a literary allusion and that it describes such plays as Marston’s Histriomastix.
23. Nor hales he in a gull old ends reciting: the author does not haul in a dupe reciting bits of poetry from old plays.
24. Make Bedlam a faction: turn lunatics into enthusiasts for the play, Bedlam being a madhouse.
31. The laws of time, place, persons: the ‘unities’. See the Introduction, p. 14, and the notes on location and time-scheme, p. 38, p. 176, and p. 321.
ACT ONE
i 5. the celestial Ram: the sun enters Aries, the Ram, on 21 March, the spring equinox, when the ‘teeming earth’ needs sunshine.
10. son of Sol: gold is referred to as the offspring of Sol, the sun, in alchemical writings.
19. Venus: Latin poets frequendy referred to Venus as ‘golden’.
33. I use no trade…: Volpone here lists the various new capitalist and mercantile practices which he himself scorns, including speculative ventures.
i,ii I.The interlude, which is supposed to have been written by Mosca, is in the loose four-stressed verse of the old morality-plays, and is recited by the dwarf and the hermaphrodite. It is a cynical account of the transmigration of souls. The suggestion that the soul of Pythagoras, itself having transmigrated from various mythical and Homeric figures (lines 8–16), could now inhabit the body of the freak, Androgyno, contributes to the general debasing effect of the human into the animal which is a major theme in Volpone. The classical references and thematic relevance of all this are impossible to convey in the modem theatre, and readers who are interested in the background and the significance of this scene to Jonson’s work as a whole are directed to Harry Levin’s article ‘Jonson’s Metempsychosis’, Philological Quarterly, XXII. Mosca’s source is Lucían, a Greek satirist of the 2nd century, whose Dream of the Cobbler and the Cock is referred to in line 24.
6. Pythagoras: Greek philosopher of the sixth century B.C. who believed in transmigration of souls after death from one body to another. In lines 8–16 Nano reels off the names of those whose bothes Pythagoras’s soul had previously inhabited.
26. ‘By quater!’: Pythagoras and his followers believed that number was the basis of harmony in the universe, and they invented a numerical and
geometrical symbolism. The quater is the triangle with four as its base:
27. golden thigh: Pythagoras was reputed to have had a thigh of gold.
33. forbid meats: Pythagoreans were not allowed to eat fish or beans (see line 40).
35. dogmatical silence: Pythagoreans were expected to maintain a five years’ silence.
46. nativity-pie: Puritans avoided the Catholic implications of Christmas by saying ‘the Nativity’ or ‘Christ-tide.’ See The Alchemist, III, ii, 43 (p. 246).
10. bought at St Mark: bought at one of the celebrated goldsmiths’ shops in the square of St Mark.
21. Your love hath taste in this: I can sense from this plate how great your love is.
53. speak to every cause, and things mere contraries: act as advocate in any case, and support opposite positions.
58. take provoking gold on either hand, and put it up: ‘to provoke’ is to ask a court to take up one’s case: Voltore accepts fees from both parties in a case, and pockets it himself.
46. from his brain: Mosca here describes correctly (according to Jacobean medical views) the final symptoms of apoplexy - fluid flowing from the brain and visible in the eyes.
73. aurum palpabile, if not potabile: a play on words by Corbaccio who in Latin calls his ‘bag of bright chequins’ touchable but not drinkable gold - aurum potabile being a medicine containing gold particles.
i, v 125–6.… have all their charge, when he goes out, when he comes in, examined: every time Corvino enters or leaves his house, he interrogates the ten guards who have to watch Celia and to spy on each other.
128. My brother: i.e. Bonario, Corbaccio’s son. The allusion is to Jacob cheating Esau of Isaac’s blessing.
129. Maintain mine own shape still: keep up the pretence of being a dying man.
ACT TWO
II, i [SCBNB ONE]
10. with Ulysses: like Ulysses - the great Homeric traveller and observer whom Sir Politic here lightly dismisses.
17. my lord Ambassador: i.e. the English Ambassador to Venice (Sir Henry Wotton).