by Ben Jonson
30. the spider and the bee: insects who are natural enemies (proverbial).
34. lion’s whelping in the Tower: King James I owned a lioness which twice gave birth to cubs in the Tower of London: in 1604 and 1605. Sir Politic sees this as another omen.
36. the fires at Berwick: in 1604 apparitions were reported fighting on the Scottish border.
37. the new star: in 1604 also Kepler discovered a new star in the constellation Serpentarius.
38. meteors: any disruption in the Elizabethan heavens suggested imminent corresponding social or political disorder.
40. porpoises: a porpoise, and (soon after) a whale were seen in England in January 1606; Jonson’s audience would appreciate these references, but the dramatic point is Sir Politic’s persistent superstitious interest in them.
49. the Stode fteet: Stode - a port at the mouth of the Elbe, where the ships of the English Merchant Adventurers were based.
50. the Archdukes: the joint title given to the Infanta Isabella and her husband Albert when they were granted the Spanish Netherlands by her father, Philip II of Spain.
51. Spinola’s Whale: Ambrosio Spinola commanded the Spanish Army in the Netherlands from 1604. Sir Politic thinks the whale must be one of his secret weapons; rumours show he was not alone in this.
55. Mas’ Stone: Master Stone, a clown, famous for his quips, who was flogged for making fun of the Lord Admiral.
90. Mamuluchi: the Mamelukes, a military class, who seized power ill Egypr c. 1250, and ruled till 1517; they held power until 1811.
101. though I live out, free from the active torrent: though I am not involved in public affairs.
113. vulgor grammar: grammar-book or guide to speaking a language such as The Italian Schoolmaster, containing Rules for the perfect pronouncing of the Italian Tongue (1597). Grammar-books then, as often now, used commonplaces and proverbial sayings as exercises for translation. These are the common ‘rules’ (I: iii, above) which Sir Politic has laboriously memorized.
4. Mountebanks: from the Italian monta in banco, where banco means a platform or bench. A Mountebank was a travelling quack who, by persuasive sales-talk and fairground patter, got the bystanders to buy his medicines, as Sir Politic correctly explains to Peregrine.
22. Scoto of Mantua: a professional actor, leading member of an Italian troupe, and known in London chiefly as a juggler and sleight-of-hand performer in Elizabethan times. In England his name was proverbially linked with skill and deceit.
46. Cardinal Bembo’s - cook: One presumes that cook is here an euphemism for mistress. Cardinal Bembo was a great Italian humanist.
92. malignant humours: throughout his speech Volpone’s medical reference is to the theory of humours, the physiological theory derived from Hippocrates and current throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The four elements in the universe were earth, air, fire, and water. Everything was made out of these, including Man in whom the elements took the form of four fluid ‘humours’ - blood (hot and moist), phlegm (cold and moist), choler or yellow bile (hot and dry), and melancholy or black bile (cold and dry). The balance within any individual of these four humours produced what we would call a well-adjusted personality, but imbalance meant that one humour predominated to produce a particular temperament: hence the adjectives sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. Jonson’s early comethes, Every Man in His Humour and Every Man out of His Humour used these physiological traits as psychological ones: see the General Introduction p. 10.
114. Broughton’s books: the works of Hugh Broughton (1549–1617), a Puritan divine and scholar, whose learned works are also satirized by Jonson in The Alchemist, II, iii, 238, (p. 230).
123. Raymund Lully: a metheval Catalan scholar (1235–1315) believed (erroneously) to have been an alchemist and (equally erroneously) to have discovered the elixir. See note on The Alchemist, II, v, 8.
124. Danish Gonswart: even Herford and the Simpsons could not identify this figure satisfactorily.
125. Paracelsus: the pseudonym of Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (1493–1541), the physician and alchemist, who carried his special drugs in the pommel of his long sword.
133. the signiory of the Sanita: the official board in Venice for licensing medical men.
234. like virginal jacks: Jonson seems to use jacks wrongly as the keys of a virginal (a spinet or harpsichord), but the technical point is unimportant.
II, iii 3. Signior Flaminio: Flaminio Scale was a well-known commedia dell’arte performer.
4. Franciscina: the usual name for the stock character of the amorous maid-servant in the improvised commedia dell’arte.
8. the Pantalone di Besogniosi: Pantalone was the jealous old Venetian always cuckolded in the commedia dell’arte: the role that Corvino obsessively dreads.
II, iv [SCENE TWO]
9. my liver melts: traditionally the liver (now the heart) was the seatof violent or romande feelings, such as jealousy or love.
33. I would escape your epilogue: I would prefer not to end as you did (getting beaten by Corvino); the lines also point, with irony, to Mosca’s later scheme to deceive Volpone, and, with greater irony, to the eventual downfall of them both.
II, v [SCENE THREE]
12. toad-stone: the precious stone popularly thought to be between the eyes of a toad, and imagined to have special qualities as an antidote against poisons.
24. save your dowry: if a wife was unfaithful, her dowry reverted completely to her husband.
24. I am a Dutchman: you must think I am a Dutchman, i.e. complacent and not like an Italian.
55. a conjurer that had heedless left his circle’s safety ere his devil was laid: a magician who wished to conjure up a devil used to draw a magic circle within which he remained protected until the devil was ‘laid’ - i.e. sent back to Hell.
70. make thee an anatomy: ‘anatomize you’ - i.e. ‘analyze your moral qualities in detail’; Corvino seems to extend the metaphor to mean ‘dissect you like an anatomical exhibit’.
II,vi 59.God’s so: here probably God’s soul, but see note on v, iv, 73.
ACT THREE
III, i [SCBNE ONE]
22. lick away a moth: this extends the suggestion of dog-like fawning on the patron.
III, ii [SCENE TWO]
47. the golden mediocrity: Lady Would-be’s malapropism for ‘the golden mean’ of moderation, a principle to which none of the legacy-hunters adhere.
79–81. Petrarch, etc.: Lady Would-be correctly names the major Italian poets, including Giovanni Guarini (whose Pastor Fido or Faithful Shepherd she is carrying with her), but Pietro Aretino, who wrote scurrilous and obscene satires, and Cieco di Hadria - ‘the Blind Man of Hadria’ - do not belong in this great company.
III, vi 60. prints: the same pornographic illustrations to poems by Aretino m, vii that Lady Would-be called ‘a little obscene’ - III, iv, 97.
153. the blue Proteus: the god who looked after Neptune’s sea-flocks and who could change into any ‘Protean shape’ he wished; ‘blue’ suggests the sea, and is the Latin ‘caeruleus’.
153. the hornèd flood: the river Achelous which fought with Hercules in his three assumed shapes - bull; serpent; half-man, half-ox.
161. the entertainment for the great Valois: a masque in Venice in honour of the future Henry III of France (historical date: 1574).
162. young Antinous: the favourite of the Emperor Hadrian and famous for his youthful good looks. Volpone equates his own youth and beauty with sex-appeal.
165. Come, my Celia…: the educated members of the audience would recognize that the opening lines are adapted from Catullus’s ‘Vivamus, mea Lesbia…’ Though the song is beautiful, it is commending sensuality; Volpone’s insidious argument is that time is passing, that youth will not last, and that illicit love is illicit only when it is discovered. Compare the tempting speeches of Comus to the Lady in Milton’s masque.
192. Than that the brave Egyptian queen caroused: Pliny records that Cleopatra once,
as an extravagant gesture, drank priceless pearls dissolved in vinegar. Volpone suggests that Celia does the same with a whole rope of pearls.
193. a carbuncle may put out both the eyes of our St Mark: perhaps a gem exceeding both those set in the statue of St Mark - or, possibly, a gem which would dazzle even our patron saint of Venice
195. Lollia Paulina: mistress of the Emperor Claudius, (eventually murdered by Agrippina); see Tacitus, Annals, Book 12, Chapter I ff. and Suetonius’ Claudius, Chapter 25; the point is that Volpone sees her (as he sees everyone) as someone to be ‘bought’ - a prostitute.
215. panthers’ breath: this reference is not just exotic; panthers were thought to attract their prey by sweet and alluring breath.
221. Ovid’s tales: the Metamorphoses, which deal with transformations - Zeus, disguised as a bull, carried off Europa; Erycinc is another name for Venus.
262. Nestor’s hernia: Nestor, ancient and wise Greek in The Iliad. His hernia (an invention of Juvenal’s) here suggests sexual incapacity.
III, viii 15. since we have lived like Grecians: since we have led dissolute, self-indulgent lives. London, or Troynovant, was, according to tradition, founded by a Trojan, and the English sided with Troy in retelling the stories of antiquity.
17. I do feel the brand: branding on the forehead was a common punishment for certain crimes.
19. Mine ears are boring: I feel (in imagination) my ears being slit (or even cut off).
III, ix 36. stated in a double hope: set in a doubly advantageous position (with Corbaccio murdered, Bonario disinherited, Volpone would get their money and bequeath all to Voltore).
ACT FOUR
IV, i [SCENE ONE]
26. Nick Machiavett and Monsieur Bodin: Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) who wrote The Prince, a realistic analysis of political power; Jean Bodin (1530–96), whose work advocated religious toleration, on the realistic grounds that religious unity could never be achieved within a state.
28. silver fork: forks were a novelty in England.
40. Contarini: Cardinal Contarini (1483–1542), author of a book about Venice.
74. the Great Council… the Forty… the Ten: the Venetian governing bodies in order of importance.
79. such as they are put in their mouths what they should say, sometimes, as well as greater: sometimes commendatori and the like are just as influential in telling administrators what to say as great men are.
iv, ii 35. The Courtier: II Cortegiano by Baldassar Castiglione (published iv, ii 1528) was the great manual on civilized conduct; Lady Would-be’s own behaviour falls short of her reading.
42. is not warranted from being a solecism: may well be an impropriety.
48. Your Sporus: Sporus was a youth much favoured by Nero, who dressed him as a woman, and eventually married him. The link is transvestism. Lady Would-be insisting that Peregrine is the ‘cunning courtesan’ dressed up as a youth.
51. Whitefriars nation: Whitefriarswas a ‘liberty’without the jurisdiction of the City of London, and a noted haunt of prostitutes, criminals, etc.
v, ii [SCENE TWO]
22. the French Hercules: Gallic or Celtic god of eloquence.
v, i 89. Bountijul bones! This sarcastic aside refers to the miserliness of rv, vi Corbaccio’s tip to Mosca.
ACT FIVE
v, i [SCENE ONE]
17. This heat is life; ‘tis blood by this time! Volpone is referring to the warming effect of the liquor as it enters his veins.
v,ii 93. rope and dagger: madmen, especially those in a frenzy of despair carried these (possibly as a means to suicide) in Elizabethan literature and the drama. See Faerie Queene, I, ix, and The Spanish Tragedy, iv, iv, when Hieronimo goes mad.
102. Cestus: marginal note by Jonson elucidating ‘the strange poetical girdle’ – the cestus, or girdle, of Venus.
104. Acrisius: the father of Danaë, who imprisoned her in a tower, where Jove visited her as a shower of gold.
v, ii [SCENE TWO]
73. Godso: nineteenth-century editors took this as a contraction of Cod’s soul, but modern scholars reckon it to be a euphemistic form of catso, a vulgar exclamation (from the Italian cazzo: penis).
v, iv [SCENB FOUR]
12–14. moral emblems: Volpone suggests that Corvino’s name (‘Crow’) is associated with moral fables such as the one in which the Crow, by too much talking, lets the cheese drop from his beak, while the Fox watches all. The irony here is that Volpone me Fox, is watching Corvino’s discomfiture.
II, ix 10.Justinian: the code of Roman law drawn up by the Emperor Justinian.
II, ix [SCENE SEVEN]
25. crooked pins, etc.: Volpone’s description of Voltore’s feigned fit accords with Jacobean accounts of bewitched persons. See notes in Herford-Simpson Benjonson, ix, pp. 731–2.
125. mortifying: humiliating; but also, in cooking, a word for keeping game till it is high, thus linking with the animal imagery throughout.
THE ALCHEMIST
TO THE READER
This appears only in the quarto text of 1612. Two passages are reprinted in Timba, or Discoveries.
THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY
[Pertinax] Surly: Sir Epicure calls him Pertinax (Latin: obstinate) which seems to reinforce the Elizabethan sense of surly as haughty, arrogant, or supercilious, rather than ill-humoured. Gamester: gambler, play-boy. For Surly’s role, see the introduction, p. 22.
ACT ONE
I, i 3–4. tick Jigs: Subtle’s vulgar suggestion alludes to Rabelais. Book IV, chapter 45 – or figs may be Ficus morbus, piles (F. H. Mares).
16. livery-three-pound-thrum: shabby, poorly paid drudge; (livery, uniform; thrum, coarse cloth).
18 vacations: i.e. between the terms at the Inns of Court, which roughly corresponded to ‘the London season’.
25. Pic-corner: near Smithfield; famous for cooks’ shops and for pigs prepared there for Bartholomew Fair. See p. 483.
52–3. chippings, dole-beer: scraps of bread and beer ‘doled out’ at great houses to the poor. Subtle is saying Face sold this free beer to wine-merchants instead.
64. Thou vermin, etc.: E. H. Duncan has shown that Subtle is here using an extended metaphor from alchemy to describe how he raised Face in the social scale. The image is of the systematic refining and preparation of the elixir or Philosopher’s Stone from crude substances. The dung refers to the heat (that ‘equi clibanum/ The heat of horse-dung’ mentioned by Subtle later), for which horse-manure was sometimes used, and which helped to achieve the first stage of the experiment. Subtle claims he has raised vermin (i.e. Face), his crude material ta’en out of dung, through the appropriate alchemical processes {sublimation and exaltation) to the point {projection) at which Face can turn base metals into gold - i.e. get gold from the ‘clients’. See Publications of the Modern Language Associatim of America, LXI (1946). p. 701.
74. quarrtlling dimensions: the limits within which a quarrel can be conducted with safety. See II, vi, 65–9 and iv, ii, 16–33. The reference is to ‘quarrelling by the book’, the rules of which Kastril wishes to learn.
79. projection: successful completion of an experiment; fly out i’ the projection means to fail at the very last moment – when success is in sight.
93. Paul’s: precincts of St Paul’s Cathedral, a meeting-place where bills and notices were posted.
99. Gamaliel Ratsey: a highway-man, executed in 1605.
106. lying too heavy 0’ the basket: eating more than his share of the prisoners’ rations.
112–13. statute, etc.: statute against witchcraft in Henry VIII’s thirty-third year, i.e. 1541.
114. launa’ ring gold: washing off the surface of coins in acid; barbing: clipping coins.
165. sin’ the King came in: i.e. in seven years (James I succeeded to the throne in 1603).
170. Don Provost: the hangman who was entitled to the criminals’ clothes.
175. Claridiana: heroine of a popular prose novel.
I, ii 17–20. Read: Dr Simon Read was co
nvicted in 1608 of magic practices on behalf of a young clerk like Dapper, hence the analogy.
24. court-hand: the official legal style of handwriting; different for different documents as in line 54 below.
46. Clim-o’-the-Cloughs, etc.: heroes of romantic ballads.
56. Greek Xenophon: ‘Testament’ in earlier quarto edition; changed in view of strict Jacobean laws about profanity.
69. assumpsit: legal term for an oral promise involving an initial payment.
109. Holland, Isaac: probably well-known gamblers.
128. born with a caul: the caul is the inner membrane enclosing the foetus before birth, and a portion of it sometimes covers the head of a new-born child. It was a popular fallacy that this was a good omen, especially against death by drowning.
I, iii 5.free of the Grocers: a member of the Grocers’ Company, or guild, i.e. no longer merely an apprentice.
28–31. lily-pots, etc.: tobacconists’ shops in Jacobean times were places where customers could sit and smoke as well as merely purchase tobacco – and, the art being a novelty, thev could also be instructed in smoking. The lily-pot is an ornamental jar; the maple-block was the wooden slab on which the tobacco was shredded; the tongs were for holding an ember or piece of charcoal to light one’s pipe – and the fire of juniper was kept alight in the shop for this purpose. Drugger’s shop, thus equipped, has pretensions to grandeur as a smoking academy.
36. of the clothing of his company: wear the livery of his guild (i.e. the Grocers’ Company), as an office-holder.
37. called to the scarlet: made a Sheriff, a higher officer, gowned in scarlet.
66. Mathlai, etc.: the names of spirits are taken from Elementa Magica by Pietro d’Albano.
ACT TWO
II, i [SCENE ONE]
1. Come on, sir…: the action is continuous from Act One.
2. Novo Orbe: the New World (metaphor for untold riches).