SCENE IV
Enter Sir Francis Acton, Sir Charles Mountford, Cranwell, [Malby,] and Susan
SIR F. Brother, and now my wife, I think these troubles
Fall on my head by justice of the heavens,
For being so strict to you in your extremities;
But we are now atoned.104 I would my sister
Could with like happiness o’ercome her griefs
As we have ours.
SUSAN. You tell us, Master Cranwell, wondrous things
Touching the patience of that gentleman,
With what strange virtue he demeans his grief.
CRAN. I told you what I was witness of;
It was my fortune to lodge there that night.
SIR F. O, that same villain, Wendoll! ’Twas his tongue
That did corrupt her; she was of herself
Chaste, and devoted well.—Is this the house?
CRAN. Yes, sir; I take it, here your sister lies.105
SIR F. My brother Frankford showed too mild a spirit
In the revenge of such a loathèd crime.
Less than he did, no man of spirit could do.
I am so far from blaming his revenge,
That I commend it. Had it been my case,
Their souls at once had from their breasts been freed;
Death to such deeds of shame is the due meed.
Enter Jenkin and Cicely
JEN. O, my mistress, mistress! my poor mistress!
CIC. Alas! that ever I was born; what shall I do for my poor mistress?
SIR C. Why, what of her?
JEN. O, Lord, sir! she no sooner heard that her brother and her friends were come to see how she did, but she, for very shame of her guilty conscience, fell into such a swoon, that we had much ado to get life in her.
SUSAN. Alas, that she should bear so hard a fate!
Pity it is repentance comes too late.
SIR F. IS she so weak in body?
JEN. O, sir! I can assure you there’s no hope of life in her; for she will take no sustenance: she hath plainly starved herself, and now she’s as lean as a lath. She ever looks for the good hour. Many gentlemen and gentlewomen of the country are come to comfort her.
SCENE V
Enter Sir Charles Mountford, Sir Francis Acton, Malby, Cranwell, and Susan
MAL. How fare you, Mistress Frankford?
ANNE. Sick, sick, O, sick! Give me some air. I pray you!
Tell me, O, tell me, where’s Master Frankford?
Will not [he] deign to see me ere I die?
MAL. Yes, Mistress Frankford; divers gentlemen,
Your loving neighbors, with that just request
Have moved, and told him of your weak estate:
Who, though with much ado to get belief,
Examining of the general circumstance,
Seeing your sorrow and your penitence,
And hearing therewithal the great desire
You have to see him, ere you left the world,
He gave to us his faith to follow us,
And sure he will be here immediately.
ANNE. You have half revived me with the pleasing news.
Raise me a little higher in my bed.—
Blush I not, brother Acton? Blush I not, Sir Charles?
Can you not read my fault writ in my cheek?
Is not my crime there? Tell me, gentlemen.
SIR C. Alas, good mistress, sickness hath not left you
Blood in your face enough to make you blush.
ANNE. Then, sickness, like a friend, my fault would hide.—
Is my husband come? My soul but tarries his arrive;
Then I am fit for heaven.
SIR F. I came to chide you, but my words of hate
Are turned to pity and compassionate grief.
I came to rate you, but my brawls,106 you see,
Melt into tears, and I must weep by thee.—
Here’s M[aster] Frankford now.
Enter Frankford
FRANK. Good morrow, brother; morrow, gentlemen!
God, that hath laid this cross upon our heads,
Might (had he pleased) have made our cause of meeting
On a more fair and more contented ground;
But he that made us, made us to this woe.
ANNE. And is he come? Methinks, that voice I know.
FRANK. How do you, woman?
ANNE. Well, Master Frankford, well; but shall be better,
I hope, within this hour. Will you vouchsafe,
Out of your grace and your humanity,
To take a spotted strumpet by the hand?
FRANK. This hand once held my heart in faster bonds
Than now ’tis gripped by me. God pardon them
That made us first break hold!
ANNE. Amen, amen!
Out of my zeal to heaven, whither I’m now bound,
I was so impudent to wish you here;
And once more beg your pardon. O, good man,
And father to my children, pardon me.
Pardon, O, pardon me: my fault so heinous is,
That if you in this world forgive it not,
Heaven will not clear it in the world to come.
Faintness hath so usurped upon my knees,
That kneel I cannot; but on my heart’s knees
My prostrate soul lies thrown down at your feet,
To beg your gracious pardon. Pardon, O, pardon me!
FRANK. AS freely, from the low depth of my soul,
As my Redeemer hath forgiven his death,
I pardon thee. I will shed tears with thee;
Pray with thee; and, in mere pity of thy weak estate,
I’ll wish to die with thee.
ALL. SO do we all.
NICK. SO will not I;
I’ll sigh and sob, but, by my faith, not die.
SIR F. O, Master Frankford, all the near alliance
I lose by her, shall be supplied in thee.
You are my brother by the nearest way;
Her kindred hath fall’n off, but yours doth stay.
FRANK. Even as I hope for pardon, at that day
When the Great Judge of heaven in scarlet sits,
So be thou pardoned! Though thy rash offence
Divorced our bodies, thy repentant tears
Unite our souls.
SIR C. Then comfort, Mistress Frankford!
You see your husband hath forgiven your fall;
Then, rouse your spirits, and cheer your fainting soul!
SUSAN. How is it with you?
SIR F. How d’ye feel yourself?
ANNE. Not of this world.
FRANK. I see you are not, and I weep to see it.
My wife, the mother to my pretty babes!
Both those lost names I do restore thee back,
And with this kiss I wed thee once again.
Though thou art wounded in thy honored name,
And with that grief upon thy death-bed liest,
Honest in heart, upon my soul, thou diest.
ANNE. Pardoned on earth, soul, thou in heaven art free;
Once more: [Kisses him] thy wife dies thus embracing thee.
Dies
FRANK. New-married, and new-widowed.—O! she’s dead,
And a cold grave must be her nuptial bed.
SIR C. Sir, be of good comfort, and your heavy sorrow
Part equally amongst us; storms divided
Abate their force, and with less rage are guided.
CRAN. Do, Master Frankford; he that hath least part,
Will find enough to drown one troubled heart.
SIR F. Peace with thee, Nan!—Brothers and gentlemen,
All we that can plead interest in her grief,
Bestow upon her body funeral tears!
Brother, had you with threats and usage bad
Punished her sin, the grief of her offence
Had not with such true sorrow touched her heart.
FRANK. I see it had not; therefore, on her grave
>
Will I bestow this funeral epitaph,
Which on her marble tomb shall be engraved.
In golden letters shall these words be filled:
Here lies she whom her husband’s kindness killed
EPILOGUE
An honest crew, disposèd to be merry,
Came to a tavern by, and called for wine.
The drawer brought it, smiling like a cherry,
And told them it was pleasant, neat and fine.
“Taste it,” quoth one. He did so. “Fie!” (quoth he).
“This wine was good; now’t runs too near the lee.”
Another sipped, to give the wine his due,
And said unto the rest, it drank too flat;
The third said, it was old; the fourth, too new;
Nay, quoth the fifth, the sharpness likes me not.
Thus, gentlemen, you see how, in one hour,
The wine was new, old, flat, sharp, sweet, and sour.
Unto this wine we do allude our play,
Which some will judge too trivial, some too grave:
You as our guests we entertain this day,
And bid you welcome to the best we have.
Excuse us, then; good wine may be disgraced,
When every several mouth hath sundry taste.
1. In case.
2. Coarse cloth.
3. The points at which the strings are stopped on the lute.
4. Favors.
5. Excited.
6. Gold coins.
7. Frolic.
8. Dance steps.
9. Name of dance tune.
10. A lively dance.
11. Ridiculously.
12. Swoop.
13. Scatter feathers.
14. Call back.
15. Part of the hawk’s harness.
16. Leg-straps.
17. On the same side of the river as the falconer.
18. Renewed the attack.
19. Toes.
20. Talons.
21. Bungler.
22. Curly-tailed.
23. Limit.
24. Excessively
25. Advanced student.
26. Proficient.
27. Taking.
28. Accomplishment.
29. Grieves.
30. Stay
31. Swords.
32. Use.
33. Switch of holly.
34. Feeble.
35. Foolish.
36. Drag.
37. A piece of money
38. Acquire.
39. Tested.
40. Notebook.
41. Man of mettle, spirit.
42. Hew.
43. Secret doings.
44. Snooping.
45. Title.
46. Interest.
47. List.
48. Of the debtors’ prison.
49. Legal transactions.
50. Basket.
51. Tablecloth.
52. Logs.
53. Service.
54. Appetites.
55. Vile.
56. Husbandman.
57. Maker of quarrels.
58. Luke, chapter 16.
59. Careless.
60. Resentment.
61. Nobly wrought.
62. Tablecloths.
63. Avoid.
64. Deck.
65. Noddy, double-ruff, knave out of doors, lodam, saint (cent), new-cut are all games at cards. The double meaning attached to most of these terms is clear.
66. A popular gambling game.
67. Be shut out.
68. A betting game.
69. Cut.
70. Deck.
71. Take all the cards of a suit.
72. You join in confederacy to plot against another player.
73. Robe.
74. Piece of money.
75. Fettered.
76. Models.
77. Too base in their conduct.
78. Lose.
79. Enemy
80. The stranger will do such deeds less often.
81. Liveliness.
82. Armed.
83. Discomfort.
84. Intimacy
85. Bow-shot.
86. Made his move.
87. Called back.
88. Gen. xxii, 10, 11.
89. Act.
90. Allow.
91. Rough Irish soldier.
92. Farthing
93. Penny.
94. Enforced.
95. To sustain the ruff.
96. Variation.
97. Placed.
98. Wendoll remains unseen during most of this scene.
99. Made.
100. Wicked.
101. Food.
102. Ruin.
103. Trouble.
104. Reconciled.
105. Lodges.
106. Reproaches.
VOLPONE,
OR
THE FOX
BEN JONSON
VOLPONE, OR THE FOX
TO THE MOST NOBLE AND MOST EQUAL SISTERS,
THE TWO FAMOUS UNIVERSITIES
FOR THEIR LOVE AND ACCEPTANCE SHEWN TO HIS POEM IN THE PRESENTATION,
BEN JONSON
THE GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGER,
DEDICATES BOTH IT AND HIMSELF.
Never, most equal Sisters, had any man a wit so presently excellent, as that it could raise itself; but there must come both matter, occasion, commenders, and favourers to it. If this be true, and that the fortune of all writers doth daily prove it, it behoves the careful to provide well towards these accidents; and, having acquired them, to preserve that part of reputation most tenderly, wherein the benefit of a friend is also defended. Hence is it, that I now render myself grateful, and am studious to justify the bounty of your act; to which, though your mere authority were satisfying, yet it being an age wherein poetry and the professors of it hear so ill on all sides, there will a reason be looked for in the subject. It is certain, nor can it with any forehead be opposed, that the too much license of poetasters in this time, hath much deformed their mistress; that, every day, their manifold and manifest ignorance doth stick unnatural reproaches upon her: but for their petulancy, it were an act of the greatest injustice, either to let the learned suffer, or so divine a skill (which indeed should not be attempted with unclean hands) to fall under the least contempt. For, if men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the impossibility of any man’s being the good poet, without first being a good man. He that is said to be able to inform young men to all good disciplines, inflame grown men to all great virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover them to their first strength; that comes forth the interpreter and arbiter of nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human, a master in manners; and can alone, or with a few, effect the business of mankind: this, I take him, is no subject for pride and ignorance to exercise their railing rhetoric upon. But it will here be hastily answered, that the writers of these days are other things; that not only their manners, but their natures, are inverted, and nothing remaining with them of the dignity of poet, but the abused name, which every scribe usurps; that now, especially in dramatic, or, as they term it, stagepoetry, nothing but ribaldry, profanation, blasphemy, all license of offence to God and man is practised. I dare not deny a great part of this, and am sorry I dare not, because in some men’s abortive features (and would they had never boasted the light) it is over-true; but that all are embarked in this bold adventure for hell, is a most uncharitable thought, and, uttered, a more malicious slander. For my particular, I can, and from a most clear conscience, affirm, that I have ever trembled to think toward the least profaneness; have loathed the use of such foul and unwashed bawdry, as is now made the food of the scene: and, howsoever I cannot escape from some, the imputation of sharpness, but that they will say, I have taken a pride, or lust, to be bitter, and not my youngest infant but hath come into the
world with all his teeth; I would ask of these supercilious politics, what nation, society, or general order or state, I have provoked? What public person? Whether I have not in all these preserved their dignity, as mine own person, safe? My works are read, allowed, (I speak of those that are intirely mine,) look into them, what broad reproofs have I used? where have I been particular? where personal? except to a mimic, cheater, bawd, or buffoon, creatures, for their insolencies, worthy to be taxed? yet to which of these so pointingly, as he might not either ingenuously have confest, or wisely dissembled his disease? But it is not rumour can make men guilty, much less entitle me to other men’s crimes. I know, that nothing can be so innocently writ or carried, but may be made obnoxious to construction; marry, whilst I bear mine innocence about me, I fear it not. Application is now grown a trade with many; and there are that profess to have a key for the decyphering of every thing: but let wise and noble persons take heed how they be too credulous, or give leave to these invading interpreters to be overfamiliar with their fames, who cunningly, and often, utter their own virulent malice, under other men’s simplest meanings. As for those that will (by faults which charity hath raked up, or common honesty concealed) make themselves a name with the multitude, or, to draw their rude and beastly claps, care not whose living faces they intrench with their petulant styles, may they do it without a rival, for me! I choose rather to live graved in obscurity, than share with them in so preposterous a fame. Nor can I blame the wishes of those severe and wise patriots, who providing the hurts these licentious spirits may do in a state, desire rather to see fools and devils, and those antique relics of barbarism retrieved, with all other ridiculous and exploded follies, than behold the wounds of private men, of princes and nations: for, as Horace makes Trebatius speak among these,
“Sibi quisque timet, quanquam est intactus, et odit.”1
And men may justly impute such rages, if continued, to the writer, as his sports. The increase of which lust in liberty, together with the present trade of the stage, in all their miscelline interludes, what learned or liberal soul doth not already abhor? where nothing but the filth of the time is uttered, and with such impropriety of phrase, such plenty of solecisms, such dearth of sense, so bold prolepses, so racked metaphors, with brothelry, able to violate the ear of a pagan, and blasphemy, to turn the blood of a Christian to water. I cannot but be serious in a cause of this nature, wherein my fame, and the reputation of divers honest and learned are the question; when a name so full of authority, antiquity, and all great mark, is, through their insolence, become the lowest scorn of the age; and those men subject to the petulancy of every vernaculous orator, that were wont to be the care of kings and happiest monarchs. This it is that hath not only rapt me to present indignation, but made me studious heretofore, and by all my actions, to stand off from them; which may most appear in this my latest work, which you, most learned Arbitresses, have seen, judged, and to my crown, approved; wherein I have laboured for their instruction and amendment, to reduce not only the ancient forms, but manners of the scene, the easiness, the propriety, the innocence, and last, the doctrine, which is the principal end of poesie, to inform men in the best reason of living. And though my catastrophe may, in the strict rigour of comic law, meet with censure, as turning back to my promise; I desire the learned and charitable critic, to have so much faith in me, to think it was done of industry: for, with what ease I could have varied it nearer his scale (but that I fear to boast my own faculty) I could here insert. But my special aim being to put the snaffle in their mouths, that cry out, We never punish vice in our interludes, etc., I took the more liberty; though not without some lines of example, drawn even in the ancients themselves, the goings out of whose comedies are not always joyful, but oft times the bawds, the servants, the rivals, yea, and the masters are mulcted; and fitly, it being the office of a comic poet to imitate justice, and instruct to life, as well as purity of language, or stir up gentle affections; to which I shall take the occasion elsewhere to speak.
The Duchess of Malfi Page 10