Act 2 -
SCENE 1
SIR POLITIC Sir, to a wise man, all the world's his soil
It is not Italy, nor France, nor Europe
That must bound me, if my fates call me forth
Yet, I protest, it is no salt desire
Of seeing countries, shifting a religion,
Nor any disaffection to the state
Where I was bred, and unto which I owe
My dearest plots, hath brought me out; much less
That idle, antique, stale, gray-headed-project
Of knowing men's minds and manners, with Ulysses!
But a peculiar humor of my wife's,
Laid for this height of Venice, to observe,
To quote, to learn the language, and so forth —
I hope you travel, sir, with license?
PEREGRINE Yes
SIR POLITIC I dare the safelier converse — How long, sir,
Since you left England?
PEREGRINE Seven weeks
SIR POLITIC So lately!
You have not been with my lord ambassador?
PEREGRINE Not yet, sir.
SIR POLITIC Pray you, what news, sir, vents our climate?
I heard last night a most strange thing reported
By some of my lord's followers, and I long
To hear how 'twill be seconded
PEREGRINE What was't, sir?
SIR POLITIC Marry, sir, of a raven that should build
In a ship royal of the king's
PEREGRINE This fellow,
Does he gull me, trow? or is gulled? — Your name, sir?
SIR POLITIC My name is Politic Would-be.
PEREGRINE O, that speaks him —
A knight, sir?
SIR POLITIC A poor knight, sir.
PEREGRINE Your lady
Lies here in Venice for intelligence
Of tires and fashions and behavior
Among the courtesans? the fine Lady Would-be?
SIR POLITIC Yes, sir; the spider and the bee ofttimes
Suck from one flower.
PEREGRINE Good Sir Politic,
I cry you mercy; I have heard much of you
'Tis true, sir, of your raven
SIR POLITIC On your knowledge?
PEREGRINE Yes, and your lion's whelping in the Tower.
SIR POLITIC Another whelp!
PEREGRINE Another, sir
SIR POLITIC Now, heaven!
What prodigies be these? The fires at Berwick!
And the new star! these things concurring, strange
And full of omen! Saw you those meteors?
PEREGRINE I did, sir
SIR POLITIC Fearful! Pray you, sir, confirm me,
Were there three porpoises seen above the bridge,
As they give out?
PEREGRINE Six, and a sturgeon, sir
SIR POLITIC I am astonished!
PEREGRINE Nay, sir, be not so;
I'll tell you a greater prodigy than these —
SIR POLITIC What should these things portend?
PEREGRINE The very day
(Let me be sure) that I put forth from London,
There was a whale discovered in the river,
As high as Woolwich, that had waited there,
Few know how many months, for the subversion
Of the Stade fleet
SIR POLITIC Is't possible? Believe it,
'Twas either sent from Spain, or the Archduke's:
Spinola's whale, upon my life, my credit!
Will they not leave these projects? Worthy sir,
Some other news
PEREGRINE Faith, Stone the fool is dead,
And they do lack a tavern fool extremely
SIR POLITIC Is Mas' Stone dead?
PEREGRINE He's dead, sir; why, I hope
You thought him not immortal? O, this knight,
Were he well known, would be a precious thing
To fit our English stage. He that should write
But such a fellow, should be thought to feign
Extremely, if not maliciously
SIR POLITIC Stone dead!
PEREGRINE Dead Lord! how deeply, sir, you apprehend it!
He was no kinsman to you?
SIR POLITIC That I know of
Well, that same fellow was an unknown fool
PEREGRINE And yet you knew him, it seems?
SIR POLITIC I did so Sir,
I knew him one of the most dangerous heads
Living within the state, and so I held him
PEREGRINE Indeed, sir?
SIR POLITIC While he lived, in action
He has received weekly intelligence,
Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,
For all parts of the world, in cabbages;
And those dispensed again to ambassadors,
In oranges, musk melons, apricots,
Lemons, pome-citrons, and suchlike, sometimes
In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles
PEREGRINE You make me wonder!
SIR POLITIC Sir, upon my knowledge
Nay, I've observed him, at your public ordinary,
Take his advertisement from a traveler
(A concealed statesman) in a trencher of meat;
And instantly, before the meal was done,
Convey an answer in a toothpick
PEREGRINE Strange!
How could this be, sir?
SIR POLITIC Why, the meat was cut
So like his character, and so laid, as he
Must easily read the cipher
PEREGRINE I have heard
He could not read, sir
SIR POLITIC So 'twas given out,
In policy, by those that did employ him:
But he could read, and had your languages,
And to 't, as sound a noddle —
PEREGRINE I have heard, sir,
That your baboons were spies, and that they were
A kind of subtle nation near to China.
SIR POLITIC Ay, ay, your Mamaluchi. Faith, they had
Their hand in a French plot or two; but they
Were so extremely given to women, as
They made discovery of all; yet I
Had my advices here, on Wednesday last,
From one of their own coat, they were returned,
Made their relations, as the fashion is,
And now stand fair for fresh employment
PEREGRINE 'Heart!
This Sir Politic will be ignorant of nothing.
— It seems, sir, you know all.
SIR POLITIC Not all, sir; but
I have some general notions. I do love
To note and to observe; though I live out,
Free from the active torrent, yet I'd mark
The currents and the passages of things
For mine own private use, and know the ebbs
And flows of state.
PEREGRINE Believe it, sir, I hold
Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes
For casting me thus luckily upon you,
Whose knowledge, if your bounty equal it,
May do me great assistance in instruction
For my behavior and my bearing, which
Is yet so rude and raw
SIR POLITIC Why, came you forth
Empty of rules for travel?
PEREGRINE Faith, I had
Some common ones from out that vulgar grammar
Which he that cried Italian to me taught me
SIR POLITIC Why this it is that spoils all our brave bloods,
Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants,
Fellows of outside and mere bark You seem
To be a gentleman, of ingenuous race:
I not profess it, but my fate hath been
To be where I have been consulted with,
In this high kind, touching some great men's sons,
Persons of blood and honor —
PEREGRINE Who be these, sir?
SCENE 2
MOSCA Under that window, there 't must be The same
SIR POLITIC Fellows to mount a bank Did your instructor
In the dear tongues never discourse to you
Of the Italian mountebanks?
PEREGRINE Yes, sir
SIR POLITIC Why,
Here you shall see one.
PEREGRINE They are quacksalvers,
Fellows that live by venting oils and drugs?
SIR POLITIC Was that the character he gave you of them?
PEREGRINE As I remember
SIR POLITIC Pity his ignorance.
They are the only knowing men of Europe!
Great general scholars, excellent physicians,
Most admired statesmen, professed favorites,
And cabinet counselors to the greatest princes;
The only languaged men of all the world!
PEREGRINE And I have heard they are most lewd impostors;
Made all of terms and shreds; no less beliers
Of great men's favors than their own vile medicines;
Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths,
Selling that drug for twopence, ere they part,
Which they have valued at twelve crowns before.
SIR POLITIC Sir, calumnies are answered best with silence
Yourself shall judge — Who is it mounts, my friends?
MOSCA Scoto of Mantua, sir
SIR POLITIC Is't he? Nay, then
I'll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold
Another man than has been phant'sied to you
I wonder, yet, that he should mount his bank
Here in this nook, that has been wont t'appear
In face of the Piazza! — Here he comes
VOLPONE Mount, zany
MOB Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow!
SIR POLITIC See how the people follow him! He's a man
May write ten thousand crowns in bank here Note,
Mark but his gesture: I do use to observe
The state he keeps in getting up
PEREGRINE 'Tis worth it, sir
VOLPONE Most noble gentlemen, and my worthy patrons! It may seem strange, that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of the Portico to the Procuratia, should now, after eight months' absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza
SIR POLITIC Did not I now object the same?
PEREGRINE Peace, sir
VOLPONE Let me tell you: I am not, as your Lombard proverb saith cold on my feet; or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate than I accustomed: look not for it. Nor that the calumnious reports of that impudent detractor and shame to our profession (Alessandro Buttone, I mean); who gave out in public I was condemned a sforzato to the galleys, for poisoning the Cardinal Bembo's — cook, hath at all attached; much less dejected, me: No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pavement as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely with their moldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale Tabarin, the fabulist: some of them discoursing their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the Turks' galley, when, indeed, were the truth known, they were the Christians' galleys, where very temperately they ate bread and drunk water, as a wholesome penance enjoined them by their confessors for base pilferies .
SIR POLITIC Note but his bearing, and contempt of these
VOLPONE These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's-worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapped up in several scartoccios, are able very well to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet these meager, starved spirits, who have half stopped the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their favorers among your shrivelled salad-eating artisans, who are overjoyed that they may have their ha'p'orth of physic; though it purge them into another world, it makes no matter
SIR POLITIC Excellent! Have you heard better language, sir?
VOLPONE Well, let them go And, gentlemen, honorable gentlemen, know that for this time our bank, being thus removed from the clamors of the canaglia, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell .
SIR POLITIC I told you, sir, his end.
PEREGRINE You did so, sir.
VOLPONE I protest, I and my six servants are not able to make of this precious liquor so fast as it is fetched away from my lodging by gentlemen of your city; strangers of the Terra-firma; worshipful merchants; ay, and senators too: who, ever since my arrival, have detained me to their uses by their splendidous liberalities. And worthily; for what avails your rich man to have his magazines stuffed with moscadelli, or of the purest grape, when his physicians prescribe him, on pain of death, to drink nothing but water cocted with aniseeds? O, health! health! the blessing of the rich! the riches of the poor! who can buy thee at too dear a rate, since there is no enjoying this world without thee? Be not then so sparing of your purses, honorable gentlemen, as to abridge the natural course of life —
PEREGRINE You see his end?
SIR POLITIC Ay, is't not good?
VOLPONE For when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, or any other part, take you a ducat, or your sequin of gold, and apply to the place affected see, what good effect it can work. No, no, tis this blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humors that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes —
PEREGRINE I would he had put in dry too
SIR POLITIC Pray you, observe
VOLPONE To fortify the most indigest and crude stomach, ay, were it of one that, through extreme weakness, vomited blood, applying only a warm napkin to the place, after the unction and fricace; for the vertigine in the head, putting but a drop into your nostrils, likewise behind the ears; a most sovereign and approved remedy: the Mal Caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralyses, epilepsies , Tremor-Cordia, retired nerves, ill vapors of the spleen, stoppings of the liver, the stone, the strangury , Hernia Ventosa, Iliaca Passio; stops a Dysenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts, and cures Melancholia Hypochondriaca, being taken and applied, according to my printed receipt . [pointing to his bill and his vial] For this is the physician, this the medicine; this counsels, this cures; this gives the direction, this works the effect; and, in sum, both together may be termed an abstract of the theoric and practic in the Aesculapian art. 'Twill cost you eight crowns And, Zan Fritada, prithee sing a verse extempore in honor of it .
SIR POLITIC How do you like him, sir?
PEREGRINE Most strangely, I!
SIR POLITIC Is not his language rare?
PEREGRINE But alchemy,
I never heard the like; or Broughton's books.
NANO sings
Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,
That to their books put med'cines all in,
But known this secret, they had never
(Of which they will be guilty ever)
Been murderers of so much paper,
Or wasted many a hurtless taper;
No Indian drug had e'er been famed,
Tobacco, sassafras not named;
Ne yet, of guacum one small stick, sir,
Nor Raymond Lully's great elixir
We had been known the Danish Gonswart,
Or Paracelsus, with his long sword.
PEREGRINE All this, yet, will not do; eight crowns is high.
VOLPONE No more Gentlemen, if I had but time to discourse to you the miraculous effects of this my oil, surnamed oglio del Scoto; with the countless catalogue of those I have cured of the aforesaid, and many more diseases; the patents and privileges of all the princes and commonwealths of Christendom; or but the depositions of those that appeared on my part before the signory of the Sanita and most learned College of Physicians; where I was authorized, upon notice taken of the admirable virtues of my medicaments, and mine own excellency in matter of rare and unknown secrets, not only to disperse them publicly in this famous city, but in all the territories that happily joy under the government of the most pious and magnificent states of Italy. But may some other gallant fellow say, " O, there be divers that make profession to have as good and as experimented receipts as yours. " Indeed, very many have essayed, like apes, in imitation of that which is really and essentially in me, to make of this oil; bestowed great cost in furnaces, stills, alembics, continual fires, and preparation of the ingredients (as indeed there goes to it six hundred several simples, besides some quantity of human fat, for the conglutination, which we buy of the anatomists); but when these practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo: ha, ha, ha! Poor wretches, I rather pity their folly and indiscretion than their loss of time and money; for those may be recovered by industry, but to be a fool born is a disease incurable
For myself, I always from my youth have endeavored to get the rarest secrets, and book them, either in exchange or for money. I spared nor cost nor labor, where anything was worthy to be learned. And, gentlemen, honorable gentlemen, I will undertake, by virtue of chemical art, out of the honorable hat that covers your head to extract the four elements; that is to say, the fire, air, water, and earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. For, whilst others have been at the balloo, I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honor and reputation .
SIR POLITIC I do assure you, sir, that is his aim
VOLPONE But to our price —
PEREGRINE And that withal, Sir Pol.
VOLPONE You all know, honorable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight crowns; but for this time I am content to be deprived of it for six: six crowns is the price, and less in courtesy I know you cannot offer me; take it or leave it, howsoever, both it and I am at your service. I ask you not as the value of the thing; for then I should demand of you a thousand crowns: so the Cardinals Montalto, Farnese, the great Duke of Tuscany, my gossip, with divers other princes, have given me; but I despise money. Only to show my affection to you, honorable gentlemen, and your illustrious state here, I have neglected the messages of these princes, mine own offices, framed my journey hither, only to present you with the fruits of my travels [to NANO and MOSCA ] — Tune your voices once more to the touch of your instruments, and give the honorable assembly some delightful recreation .
PEREGRINE What monstrous and most painful circumstance.
Is here, to get some three or four gazettes ,
Some three pence in the whole — for that 'twill come to.
SONG
You that would last long, list to my song,
Make no more coil, but buy this oil
Would you be ever fair and young?
Stout of teeth and strong of tongue?
Tart of palate? quick of ear?
Sharp of sight? of nostril clear?
Moist of hand and light of foot?
Or, I will come nearer to 't,
Would you live free from all diseases?
Do the act your mistress pleases;
Yet fright all aches from your bones?
Here's a med'cine for the nones.
VOLPONE Well, I am in a humor at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains, to the rich in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. Wherefore, now mark: I asked you six crowns; and six crowns, at other times, you have paid me; you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one; nor half a ducat; no, nor a moccenigo Six pence it will cost you, or six hundred pound — expect no lower price, for, by the banner of my front, I will not bate a bagatine — that I will have, only, a pledge of your loves, to carry something from amongst you to show I am not contemned by you. Therefore, now, toss your handkerchiefs, cheerfully, cheerfully; and be advertised that the first heroic spirit that deigns to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something beside, shall please it better than if I had presented it with a double pistolet.
PEREGRINE Will you be that heroic spark, Sir Pol?
O, see! the window has prevented you.
VOLPONE Lady, I kiss your bounty; and for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto of Mantua, I will return you, over and above my oil, a secret of that high and inestimable nature shall make you forever enamored on that minute wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be despised, an object. Here is a powder concealed in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world were but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse to the purchase of it I will only tell you: it is the powder that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo), that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, colored her hair, from her derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost; till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court, of France (but much sophisticated), wherewith the ladies there now color their hair. The rest, at this present remains with me; extracted to a quintessence, so that wherever it but touches, in youth it perpetually preserves, in age restores the complexion; seats your teeth, did they dance like virginal jacks, firm as a wall; makes them white as ivory, that were black as —
SCENE 3
GORVINO Spite o' the devil, and my shame! Come down here;
Come down! No house but mine to make your scene?
Signor Flaminio, will you down, sir? down?
What, is my wife your Franciscina, sir?
No windows on the whole Piazza here
To make your properties, but mine? but mine?
'Heart! ere tomorrow I shall be new christened,
And called the Pantalone di Bisognosi
About the town
PEREGRINE What should this mean, Sir Pol?
SIR POLITIC Some trick of state, believe it; I will home
PEREGRINE It may be some design on you.
SIR POLITIC I know not
I'll stand upon my guard
PEREGRINE It is your best, sir
SIR POLITIC This three weeks, all my advices, all my letters,
They have been intercepted.
PEREGRINE Indeed, sir!
Best have a care.
SIR POLITIC Nay, so I will
PEREGRINE This knight,
I may not lose him, for my mirth, till night.
SCENE 4 A room in VOLPONE ' s house
VOLPONE O, I am wounded!
MOSCA Where, sir?
VOLPONE Not without;
Those blows were nothing; I could bear them ever
But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes,
Hath shot himself into me like a flame,
Where now he flings about his burning heat,
As in a furnace an ambitious fire
Whose vent is stopped. The fight is all within me:
I cannot live, except thou help me, Mosca;
My liver melts, and I, without the hope
Of some soft air from her refreshing breath,
Am but a heap of cinders.
MOSCA 'Las, good sir,
Would you had never seen her!
VOLPONE Nay, would thou
Hadst never told me of her!
MOSCA Sir, 'tis true;
I do confess I was unfortunate,
And you unhappy: but I'm bound in conscience,
No less than duty, to effect my best
To your release of torment, and I will, sir
VOLPONE Dear Mosca, shall I hope?
MOSCA Sir, more than dear,
I will not bid you to despair of aught
Within a human compass
VOLPONE O, there spoke
My better angel Mosca, take my keys,
Gold, plate, and jewels, all's at thy devotion
Employ them how thou wilt; nay, coin me too,
So thou in this but crown my longings Mosca?
MOSCA Use but your patience
VOLPONE So I have
MOSCA I doubt not
To bring success to your desires;
VOLPONE Nay, then,
I not repent me of my late disguise
MOSCA If you can horn him, sir, you need not
VOLPONE True:
Besides, I never meant him for my heir —
Is not the color of my beard and eyebrows
To make me known?
MOSCA No jot
VOLPONE I did it well
MOSCA So well, would I could follow you in mine,
With half the happiness! — and yet I would
Escape your epilogue
VOLPONE But were they gulled
With a belief that I was Scoto?
MOSCA Sir,
Scoto himself could hardly have distinguished!
I have not time to flatter you now; we'll part:
And as I prosper, so applaud my art.
SCENE 5 A room in CORVINO ' s house
CORVINO Death of mine honor, with the city's fool!
A juggling, tooth-drawing, prating mountebank!
And at a public window! where, whilst he,
With his strained action and his dole of faces,
To his drug-lecture draws your itching ears,
A crew of old, unmarried, noted lechers
Stood leering up like satyrs: and you smile
Most graciously, and fan your favors forth,
To give your hot spectators satisfaction!
What, was your mountebank their call? their whistle?
Or were you enamored on his copper rings,
His saffron jewel with the toad-stone in 't?
Or his embroidered suit with the cope stitch,
Made of a hearse cloth? or his old tilt-feather?
Or his starched beard? Well! you shall have him, yes!
He shall come home and minister unto you
The fricace for the mother Or, let me see,
I think you'd rather mount; would you not mount?
Why, if you'll mount, you may; yes, truly, you may:
And so you may be seen down to the foot
Get you a cittern, Lady Vanity,
And be a dealer with the virtuous man;
Make one: I'll but protest myself a cuckold,
And save your dowry I'm a Dutchman, I!
For if you thought me an Italian,
You would be damned ere you did this, you whore!
Thou'dst tremble to imagine that the murder
Of father, mother, brother, all thy race,
Should follow, as the subject of my justice
CELIA Good sir, have patience
CORVINO What couldst thou propose
Less to thyself, than in this heat of wrath,
And stung with my dishonor, I should strike
This steel into thee, with as many stabs
As thou wert gazed upon with goatish eyes?
CELIA Alas, sir, be appeased! I could not think
My being at the window should more now
Move your impatience than at other times.
CORVINO No? not to seek and entertain a parley
With a known knave, before a multitude?
You were an actor with your handkerchief,
Which he most sweetly kissed in the receipt
And might, no doubt, return it with a letter,
And 'point the place where you might meet — your sister's,
Your mother's, or your aunt's might serve the turn
CELIA Why, dear sir, when do I make these excuses,
Or ever stir abroad, but to the church?
And that so seldom —
CORVINO Well, it shall be less;
And thy restraint before was liberty
To what I now decree: and therefore mark me,
First, I will have this bawdy light dammed up;
And till 't be done, some two or three yards off,
I'll chalk a line, o'er which if thou but chance
To set thy desperate foot, more hell, more horror,
More wild remorseless rage shall seize on thee
Than on a conjuror that had heedless left
His circle's safety ere his devil was laid.
Then, here's a lock which I will hang up upon thee,
And, now I think on 't, I will keep thee backwards;
Thy lodging shall be backwards; thy walks backwards;
Thy prospect — all be backwards; and no pleasure
That thou shalt know but backwards. Nay, since you force
My honest nature, know, it is your own,
Being too open, makes me use you thus
Since you will not contain your subtle nostrils
In a sweet room, but they must snuff the air
Of rank and sweaty passengers — One knocks.
Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life;
Nor look toward the window: if thou dost —
Nay, stay, hear this: let me not prosper, whore,
But I will make thee an anatomy,
Dissect thee mine own self, and read a lecture
Upon thee to the city, and in public
Away! — Who's there?
SERVANT 'Tis Signor Mosca, sir.
SCENE 6
CORVINO Let him come in. His master's dead; there's yet
Some good to help the bad. My Mosca, welcome!
I guess your news.
MOSCA I fear you cannot, sir
CORVINO Is't not his death?
MOSCA Rather the contrary.
CORVINO Not his recovery?
MOSCA Yes, sir
CORVINO I am cursed,
I am bewitched, my crosses meet to vex me.
How? how? how? how?
MOSCA Why, sir, with Scoto's oil!
Corbaccio and Voltore brought of it,
Whilst I was busy in an inner room —
CORVINO Death! that damned mountebank! But for the law
Now I could kill the rascal: it cannot be
His oil should have that virtue. Have not I
Known him a common rogue, come fiddling in
To the osterla , with a tumbling whore,
And, when he has done all his forced tricks, been glad
Of a poor spoonful of dead wine, with flies in 't?
It cannot be All his ingredients
Are a sheep's gall, a roasted bitch's marrow,
Some few sod earwigs, pounded caterpillars,
A little capon's grease, and fasting spittle:
I know them to a dram.
MOSCA I know not, sir;
But some on 't, there, they poured into his ears,
Some in his nostrils, and recovered him,
Applying but the fricace
CORVINO Pox o' that fricace!
MOSCA And since, to seem the more officious
And flattering of his heath, there they have had,
At extreme fees, the college of physicians
Consulting on him, how they might restore him;
Where one would have a cataplasm of spices
Another a flayed ape clapped to his breast,
A third would have it a dog, a fourth an oil
With wild cats' skins; at last, they all resolved
That to preserve him was no other means
But some young woman must be straight sought out,
Lusty, and full of juice, to sleep by him;
And to this service, most unhappily
And most unwillingly, am I now employed,
Which here I thought to pre-acquaint you with,
For your advice, since it concerns you most;
Because I would not do that thing might cross
Your ends, on whom I have my whole dependence, sir.
Yet, if I do it not, they may delate
My slackness to my patron, work me out
Of his opinion; and there all your hopes,
Ventures, or whatsoever, are all frustrate!
I do but tell you, sir. Besides, they are all
Now striving who shall first present him; therefore —
I could entreat you, briefly conclude somewhat;
Prevent them if you can
CORVINO Death to my hopes,
This is my villainous fortune! Best to hire
Some common courtesan.
MOSCA Ay, I thought on that, sir;
But they are all so subtle, full of art,
And age, again, doting and flexible,
So as — I cannot tell — we may perchance
Light on a quean may cheat us all
CORVINO 'Tis true.
MOSCA No, no: it must be one that has no tricks, sir,
Some simple thing, a creature made unto it;
Some wench you may command. Have you no kinswoman?
God's so — Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, sir
One o' the doctors offered there his daughter
CORVINO How!
MOSCA Yes, Signor Lupo, the physician
CORVINO His daughter!
MOSCA And a virgin, sir. Why, alas,
He knows the state of 's body, what it is;
That nought can warm his blood, sir, but a fever;
Nor any incantation raise his spirit:
A long forgetfulness hath seized that part
Besides, sir, who shall know it? Some one or two —
CORVINO I pray thee give me leave. If any man
But I had had this luck — The thing in itself,
I know, is nothing — Wherefore should not I
As well command my blood and my affections
As this dull doctor? In the point of honor,
The cases are all one of wife and daughter
MOSCA I hear him coming
CORVINO She shall do 't: 'tis done
'Slight! if this doctor, who is not engaged,
Unless 't be for his counsel, which is nothing,
Offer his daughter, what should I, that am
So deeply in? I will prevent him Wretch!
Covetous wretch! — Mosca, I have determined
MOSCA How, sir?
CORVINO We'll make all sure. The party you wot of
Shall be mine own wife, Mosca
MOSCA Sir, the thing,
But that I would not seem to counsel you,
I should have motioned to you at the first:
And, make your count, you have cut all their throats
Why, 'tis directly taking a possession!
And in his next fit, we may let him go
'Tis but to pull the pillow from his head,
And he is throttled: it had been done before,
But for your scrupulous doubts
CORVINO Ay, a plague on 't,
My conscience fools my wit! Well, I'll be brief,
And so be thou, lest they should be before us:
Go home, prepare him, tell him with what zeal
And willingness I do it; swear it was
On the first hearing, as thou mayst do truly,
Mine own free motion
MOSCA Sir, I warrant you,
I'll so possess him with it, that the rest
Of his starved clients shall be banished all,
And only you received But come not, sir,
Until I send, for I have something else
To ripen for your good; you must not know it
CORVINO But do not you forget to send now
MOSCA Fear not.
SCENE 7
CORVINO Where are you, wife? my Celia! wife!
What, blubbering?
Come, dry those tears I think thou thought'st me in earnest
Ha! by this light I talked so but to try thee
Methinks the lightness of the occasion
Should have confirmed thee. Come, I am not jealous
CELIA No?
CORVINO Faith I am not, I, nor never was;
It is a poor unprofitable humor.
Do not I know, if women have a will,
They'll do 'gainst all the watches of the world,
And that the fiercest spies are tamed with gold?
Tut, I am confident in thee, thou shalt see 't;
And see, I'll give thee cause too, to believe it
Come, kiss me Go, and make thee ready straight,
In all thy best attire, thy choicest jewels,
Put them all on, and, with them, thy best looks:
We are invited to a solemn feast
At old Volpone's, where it shall appear
How far I am free from jealousy or fear.
SIR POLITIC Sir, to a wise man, all the world's his soil
It is not Italy, nor France, nor Europe
That must bound me, if my fates call me forth
Yet, I protest, it is no salt desire
Of seeing countries, shifting a religion,
Nor any disaffection to the state
Where I was bred, and unto which I owe
My dearest plots, hath brought me out; much less
That idle, antique, stale, gray-headed-project
Of knowing men's minds and manners, with Ulysses!
But a peculiar humor of my wife's,
Laid for this height of Venice, to observe,
To quote, to learn the language, and so forth —
I hope you travel, sir, with license?
PEREGRINE Yes
SIR POLITIC I dare the safelier converse — How long, sir,
Since you left England?
PEREGRINE Seven weeks
SIR POLITIC So lately!
You have not been with my lord ambassador?
PEREGRINE Not yet, sir.
SIR POLITIC Pray you, what news, sir, vents our climate?
I heard last night a most strange thing reported
By some of my lord's followers, and I long
To hear how 'twill be seconded
PEREGRINE What was't, sir?
SIR POLITIC Marry, sir, of a raven that should build
In a ship royal of the king's
PEREGRINE This fellow,
Does he gull me, trow? or is gulled? — Your name, sir?
SIR POLITIC My name is Politic Would-be.
PEREGRINE O, that speaks him —
A knight, sir?
SIR POLITIC A poor knight, sir.
PEREGRINE Your lady
Lies here in Venice for intelligence
Of tires and fashions and behavior
Among the courtesans? the fine Lady Would-be?
SIR POLITIC Yes, sir; the spider and the bee ofttimes
Suck from one flower.
PEREGRINE Good Sir Politic,
I cry you mercy; I have heard much of you
'Tis true, sir, of your raven
SIR POLITIC On your knowledge?
PEREGRINE Yes, and your lion's whelping in the Tower.
SIR POLITIC Another whelp!
PEREGRINE Another, sir
SIR POLITIC Now, heaven!
What prodigies be these? The fires at Berwick!
And the new star! these things concurring, strange
And full of omen! Saw you those meteors?
PEREGRINE I did, sir
SIR POLITIC Fearful! Pray you, sir, confirm me,
Were there three porpoises seen above the bridge,
As they give out?
PEREGRINE Six, and a sturgeon, sir
SIR POLITIC I am astonished!
PEREGRINE Nay, sir, be not so;
I'll tell you a greater prodigy than these —
SIR POLITIC What should these things portend?
PEREGRINE The very day
(Let me be sure) that I put forth from London,
There was a whale discovered in the river,
As high as Woolwich, that had waited there,
Few know how many months, for the subversion
Of the Stade fleet
SIR POLITIC Is't possible? Believe it,
'Twas either sent from Spain, or the Archduke's:
Spinola's whale, upon my life, my credit!
Will they not leave these projects? Worthy sir,
Some other news
PEREGRINE Faith, Stone the fool is dead,
And they do lack a tavern fool extremely
SIR POLITIC Is Mas' Stone dead?
PEREGRINE He's dead, sir; why, I hope
You thought him not immortal? O, this knight,
Were he well known, would be a precious thing
To fit our English stage. He that should write
But such a fellow, should be thought to feign
Extremely, if not maliciously
SIR POLITIC Stone dead!
PEREGRINE Dead Lord! how deeply, sir, you apprehend it!
He was no kinsman to you?
SIR POLITIC That I know of
Well, that same fellow was an unknown fool
PEREGRINE And yet you knew him, it seems?
SIR POLITIC I did so Sir,
I knew him one of the most dangerous heads
Living within the state, and so I held him
PEREGRINE Indeed, sir?
SIR POLITIC While he lived, in action
He has received weekly intelligence,
Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,
For all parts of the world, in cabbages;
And those dispensed again to ambassadors,
In oranges, musk melons, apricots,
Lemons, pome-citrons, and suchlike, sometimes
In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles
PEREGRINE You make me wonder!
SIR POLITIC Sir, upon my knowledge
Nay, I've observed him, at your public ordinary,
Take his advertisement from a traveler
(A concealed statesman) in a trencher of meat;
And instantly, before the meal was done,
Convey an answer in a toothpick
PEREGRINE Strange!
How could this be, sir?
SIR POLITIC Why, the meat was cut
So like his character, and so laid, as he
Must easily read the cipher
PEREGRINE I have heard
He could not read, sir
SIR POLITIC So 'twas given out,
In policy, by those that did employ him:
But he could read, and had your languages,
And to 't, as sound a noddle —
PEREGRINE I have heard, sir,
That your baboons were spies, and that they were
A kind of subtle nation near to China.
SIR POLITIC Ay, ay, your Mamaluchi. Faith, they had
Their hand in a French plot or two; but they
Were so extremely given to women, as
They made discovery of all; yet I
Had my advices here, on Wednesday last,
From one of their own coat, they were returned,
Made their relations, as the fashion is,
And now stand fair for fresh employment
PEREGRINE 'Heart!
This Sir Politic will be ignorant of nothing.
— It seems, sir, you know all.
SIR POLITIC Not all, sir; but
I have some general notions. I do love
To note and to observe; though I live out,
Free from the active torrent, yet I'd mark
The currents and the passages of things
For mine own private use, and know the ebbs
And flows of state.
PEREGRINE Believe it, sir, I hold
Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes
For casting me thus luckily upon you,
Whose knowledge, if your bounty equal it,
May do me great assistance in instruction
For my behavior and my bearing, which
Is yet so rude and raw
SIR POLITIC Why, came you forth
Empty of rules for travel?
PEREGRINE Faith, I had
Some common ones from out that vulgar grammar
Which he that cried Italian to me taught me
SIR POLITIC Why this it is that spoils all our brave bloods,
Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants,
Fellows of outside and mere bark You seem
To be a gentleman, of ingenuous race:
I not profess it, but my fate hath been
To be where I have been consulted with,
In this high kind, touching some great men's sons,
Persons of blood and honor —
PEREGRINE Who be these, sir?
SCENE 2
MOSCA Under that window, there 't must be The same
SIR POLITIC Fellows to mount a bank Did your instructor
In the dear tongues never discourse to you
Of the Italian mountebanks?
PEREGRINE Yes, sir
SIR POLITIC Why,
Here you shall see one.
PEREGRINE They are quacksalvers,
Fellows that live by venting oils and drugs?
SIR POLITIC Was that the character he gave you of them?
PEREGRINE As I remember
SIR POLITIC Pity his ignorance.
They are the only knowing men of Europe!
Great general scholars, excellent physicians,
Most admired statesmen, professed favorites,
And cabinet counselors to the greatest princes;
The only languaged men of all the world!
PEREGRINE And I have heard they are most lewd impostors;
Made all of terms and shreds; no less beliers
Of great men's favors than their own vile medicines;
Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths,
Selling that drug for twopence, ere they part,
Which they have valued at twelve crowns before.
SIR POLITIC Sir, calumnies are answered best with silence
Yourself shall judge — Who is it mounts, my friends?
MOSCA Scoto of Mantua, sir
SIR POLITIC Is't he? Nay, then
I'll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold
Another man than has been phant'sied to you
I wonder, yet, that he should mount his bank
Here in this nook, that has been wont t'appear
In face of the Piazza! — Here he comes
VOLPONE Mount, zany
MOB Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow!
SIR POLITIC See how the people follow him! He's a man
May write ten thousand crowns in bank here Note,
Mark but his gesture: I do use to observe
The state he keeps in getting up
PEREGRINE 'Tis worth it, sir
VOLPONE Most noble gentlemen, and my worthy patrons! It may seem strange, that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of the Portico to the Procuratia, should now, after eight months' absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza
SIR POLITIC Did not I now object the same?
PEREGRINE Peace, sir
VOLPONE Let me tell you: I am not, as your Lombard proverb saith cold on my feet; or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate than I accustomed: look not for it. Nor that the calumnious reports of that impudent detractor and shame to our profession (Alessandro Buttone, I mean); who gave out in public I was condemned a sforzato to the galleys, for poisoning the Cardinal Bembo's — cook, hath at all attached; much less dejected, me: No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pavement as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely with their moldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale Tabarin, the fabulist: some of them discoursing their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the Turks' galley, when, indeed, were the truth known, they were the Christians' galleys, where very temperately they ate bread and drunk water, as a wholesome penance enjoined them by their confessors for base pilferies .
SIR POLITIC Note but his bearing, and contempt of these
VOLPONE These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's-worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapped up in several scartoccios, are able very well to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet these meager, starved spirits, who have half stopped the organs of their minds with earthy oppilations, want not their favorers among your shrivelled salad-eating artisans, who are overjoyed that they may have their ha'p'orth of physic; though it purge them into another world, it makes no matter
SIR POLITIC Excellent! Have you heard better language, sir?
VOLPONE Well, let them go And, gentlemen, honorable gentlemen, know that for this time our bank, being thus removed from the clamors of the canaglia, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell .
SIR POLITIC I told you, sir, his end.
PEREGRINE You did so, sir.
VOLPONE I protest, I and my six servants are not able to make of this precious liquor so fast as it is fetched away from my lodging by gentlemen of your city; strangers of the Terra-firma; worshipful merchants; ay, and senators too: who, ever since my arrival, have detained me to their uses by their splendidous liberalities. And worthily; for what avails your rich man to have his magazines stuffed with moscadelli, or of the purest grape, when his physicians prescribe him, on pain of death, to drink nothing but water cocted with aniseeds? O, health! health! the blessing of the rich! the riches of the poor! who can buy thee at too dear a rate, since there is no enjoying this world without thee? Be not then so sparing of your purses, honorable gentlemen, as to abridge the natural course of life —
PEREGRINE You see his end?
SIR POLITIC Ay, is't not good?
VOLPONE For when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, or any other part, take you a ducat, or your sequin of gold, and apply to the place affected see, what good effect it can work. No, no, tis this blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humors that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes —
PEREGRINE I would he had put in dry too
SIR POLITIC Pray you, observe
VOLPONE To fortify the most indigest and crude stomach, ay, were it of one that, through extreme weakness, vomited blood, applying only a warm napkin to the place, after the unction and fricace; for the vertigine in the head, putting but a drop into your nostrils, likewise behind the ears; a most sovereign and approved remedy: the Mal Caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralyses, epilepsies , Tremor-Cordia, retired nerves, ill vapors of the spleen, stoppings of the liver, the stone, the strangury , Hernia Ventosa, Iliaca Passio; stops a Dysenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts, and cures Melancholia Hypochondriaca, being taken and applied, according to my printed receipt . [pointing to his bill and his vial] For this is the physician, this the medicine; this counsels, this cures; this gives the direction, this works the effect; and, in sum, both together may be termed an abstract of the theoric and practic in the Aesculapian art. 'Twill cost you eight crowns And, Zan Fritada, prithee sing a verse extempore in honor of it .
SIR POLITIC How do you like him, sir?
PEREGRINE Most strangely, I!
SIR POLITIC Is not his language rare?
PEREGRINE But alchemy,
I never heard the like; or Broughton's books.
NANO sings
Had old Hippocrates, or Galen,
That to their books put med'cines all in,
But known this secret, they had never
(Of which they will be guilty ever)
Been murderers of so much paper,
Or wasted many a hurtless taper;
No Indian drug had e'er been famed,
Tobacco, sassafras not named;
Ne yet, of guacum one small stick, sir,
Nor Raymond Lully's great elixir
We had been known the Danish Gonswart,
Or Paracelsus, with his long sword.
PEREGRINE All this, yet, will not do; eight crowns is high.
VOLPONE No more Gentlemen, if I had but time to discourse to you the miraculous effects of this my oil, surnamed oglio del Scoto; with the countless catalogue of those I have cured of the aforesaid, and many more diseases; the patents and privileges of all the princes and commonwealths of Christendom; or but the depositions of those that appeared on my part before the signory of the Sanita and most learned College of Physicians; where I was authorized, upon notice taken of the admirable virtues of my medicaments, and mine own excellency in matter of rare and unknown secrets, not only to disperse them publicly in this famous city, but in all the territories that happily joy under the government of the most pious and magnificent states of Italy. But may some other gallant fellow say, " O, there be divers that make profession to have as good and as experimented receipts as yours. " Indeed, very many have essayed, like apes, in imitation of that which is really and essentially in me, to make of this oil; bestowed great cost in furnaces, stills, alembics, continual fires, and preparation of the ingredients (as indeed there goes to it six hundred several simples, besides some quantity of human fat, for the conglutination, which we buy of the anatomists); but when these practitioners come to the last decoction, blow, blow, puff, puff, and all flies in fumo: ha, ha, ha! Poor wretches, I rather pity their folly and indiscretion than their loss of time and money; for those may be recovered by industry, but to be a fool born is a disease incurable
For myself, I always from my youth have endeavored to get the rarest secrets, and book them, either in exchange or for money. I spared nor cost nor labor, where anything was worthy to be learned. And, gentlemen, honorable gentlemen, I will undertake, by virtue of chemical art, out of the honorable hat that covers your head to extract the four elements; that is to say, the fire, air, water, and earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. For, whilst others have been at the balloo, I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honor and reputation .
SIR POLITIC I do assure you, sir, that is his aim
VOLPONE But to our price —
PEREGRINE And that withal, Sir Pol.
VOLPONE You all know, honorable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight crowns; but for this time I am content to be deprived of it for six: six crowns is the price, and less in courtesy I know you cannot offer me; take it or leave it, howsoever, both it and I am at your service. I ask you not as the value of the thing; for then I should demand of you a thousand crowns: so the Cardinals Montalto, Farnese, the great Duke of Tuscany, my gossip, with divers other princes, have given me; but I despise money. Only to show my affection to you, honorable gentlemen, and your illustrious state here, I have neglected the messages of these princes, mine own offices, framed my journey hither, only to present you with the fruits of my travels [to NANO and MOSCA ] — Tune your voices once more to the touch of your instruments, and give the honorable assembly some delightful recreation .
PEREGRINE What monstrous and most painful circumstance.
Is here, to get some three or four gazettes ,
Some three pence in the whole — for that 'twill come to.
SONG
You that would last long, list to my song,
Make no more coil, but buy this oil
Would you be ever fair and young?
Stout of teeth and strong of tongue?
Tart of palate? quick of ear?
Sharp of sight? of nostril clear?
Moist of hand and light of foot?
Or, I will come nearer to 't,
Would you live free from all diseases?
Do the act your mistress pleases;
Yet fright all aches from your bones?
Here's a med'cine for the nones.
VOLPONE Well, I am in a humor at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains, to the rich in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. Wherefore, now mark: I asked you six crowns; and six crowns, at other times, you have paid me; you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one; nor half a ducat; no, nor a moccenigo Six pence it will cost you, or six hundred pound — expect no lower price, for, by the banner of my front, I will not bate a bagatine — that I will have, only, a pledge of your loves, to carry something from amongst you to show I am not contemned by you. Therefore, now, toss your handkerchiefs, cheerfully, cheerfully; and be advertised that the first heroic spirit that deigns to grace me with a handkerchief, I will give it a little remembrance of something beside, shall please it better than if I had presented it with a double pistolet.
PEREGRINE Will you be that heroic spark, Sir Pol?
O, see! the window has prevented you.
VOLPONE Lady, I kiss your bounty; and for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto of Mantua, I will return you, over and above my oil, a secret of that high and inestimable nature shall make you forever enamored on that minute wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be despised, an object. Here is a powder concealed in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man (which some call life) to the expressing of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world were but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse to the purchase of it I will only tell you: it is the powder that made Venus a goddess (given her by Apollo), that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, colored her hair, from her derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost; till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the court, of France (but much sophisticated), wherewith the ladies there now color their hair. The rest, at this present remains with me; extracted to a quintessence, so that wherever it but touches, in youth it perpetually preserves, in age restores the complexion; seats your teeth, did they dance like virginal jacks, firm as a wall; makes them white as ivory, that were black as —
SCENE 3
GORVINO Spite o' the devil, and my shame! Come down here;
Come down! No house but mine to make your scene?
Signor Flaminio, will you down, sir? down?
What, is my wife your Franciscina, sir?
No windows on the whole Piazza here
To make your properties, but mine? but mine?
'Heart! ere tomorrow I shall be new christened,
And called the Pantalone di Bisognosi
About the town
PEREGRINE What should this mean, Sir Pol?
SIR POLITIC Some trick of state, believe it; I will home
PEREGRINE It may be some design on you.
SIR POLITIC I know not
I'll stand upon my guard
PEREGRINE It is your best, sir
SIR POLITIC This three weeks, all my advices, all my letters,
They have been intercepted.
PEREGRINE Indeed, sir!
Best have a care.
SIR POLITIC Nay, so I will
PEREGRINE This knight,
I may not lose him, for my mirth, till night.
SCENE 4 A room in VOLPONE ' s house
VOLPONE O, I am wounded!
MOSCA Where, sir?
VOLPONE Not without;
Those blows were nothing; I could bear them ever
But angry Cupid, bolting from her eyes,
Hath shot himself into me like a flame,
Where now he flings about his burning heat,
As in a furnace an ambitious fire
Whose vent is stopped. The fight is all within me:
I cannot live, except thou help me, Mosca;
My liver melts, and I, without the hope
Of some soft air from her refreshing breath,
Am but a heap of cinders.
MOSCA 'Las, good sir,
Would you had never seen her!
VOLPONE Nay, would thou
Hadst never told me of her!
MOSCA Sir, 'tis true;
I do confess I was unfortunate,
And you unhappy: but I'm bound in conscience,
No less than duty, to effect my best
To your release of torment, and I will, sir
VOLPONE Dear Mosca, shall I hope?
MOSCA Sir, more than dear,
I will not bid you to despair of aught
Within a human compass
VOLPONE O, there spoke
My better angel Mosca, take my keys,
Gold, plate, and jewels, all's at thy devotion
Employ them how thou wilt; nay, coin me too,
So thou in this but crown my longings Mosca?
MOSCA Use but your patience
VOLPONE So I have
MOSCA I doubt not
To bring success to your desires;
VOLPONE Nay, then,
I not repent me of my late disguise
MOSCA If you can horn him, sir, you need not
VOLPONE True:
Besides, I never meant him for my heir —
Is not the color of my beard and eyebrows
To make me known?
MOSCA No jot
VOLPONE I did it well
MOSCA So well, would I could follow you in mine,
With half the happiness! — and yet I would
Escape your epilogue
VOLPONE But were they gulled
With a belief that I was Scoto?
MOSCA Sir,
Scoto himself could hardly have distinguished!
I have not time to flatter you now; we'll part:
And as I prosper, so applaud my art.
SCENE 5 A room in CORVINO ' s house
CORVINO Death of mine honor, with the city's fool!
A juggling, tooth-drawing, prating mountebank!
And at a public window! where, whilst he,
With his strained action and his dole of faces,
To his drug-lecture draws your itching ears,
A crew of old, unmarried, noted lechers
Stood leering up like satyrs: and you smile
Most graciously, and fan your favors forth,
To give your hot spectators satisfaction!
What, was your mountebank their call? their whistle?
Or were you enamored on his copper rings,
His saffron jewel with the toad-stone in 't?
Or his embroidered suit with the cope stitch,
Made of a hearse cloth? or his old tilt-feather?
Or his starched beard? Well! you shall have him, yes!
He shall come home and minister unto you
The fricace for the mother Or, let me see,
I think you'd rather mount; would you not mount?
Why, if you'll mount, you may; yes, truly, you may:
And so you may be seen down to the foot
Get you a cittern, Lady Vanity,
And be a dealer with the virtuous man;
Make one: I'll but protest myself a cuckold,
And save your dowry I'm a Dutchman, I!
For if you thought me an Italian,
You would be damned ere you did this, you whore!
Thou'dst tremble to imagine that the murder
Of father, mother, brother, all thy race,
Should follow, as the subject of my justice
CELIA Good sir, have patience
CORVINO What couldst thou propose
Less to thyself, than in this heat of wrath,
And stung with my dishonor, I should strike
This steel into thee, with as many stabs
As thou wert gazed upon with goatish eyes?
CELIA Alas, sir, be appeased! I could not think
My being at the window should more now
Move your impatience than at other times.
CORVINO No? not to seek and entertain a parley
With a known knave, before a multitude?
You were an actor with your handkerchief,
Which he most sweetly kissed in the receipt
And might, no doubt, return it with a letter,
And 'point the place where you might meet — your sister's,
Your mother's, or your aunt's might serve the turn
CELIA Why, dear sir, when do I make these excuses,
Or ever stir abroad, but to the church?
And that so seldom —
CORVINO Well, it shall be less;
And thy restraint before was liberty
To what I now decree: and therefore mark me,
First, I will have this bawdy light dammed up;
And till 't be done, some two or three yards off,
I'll chalk a line, o'er which if thou but chance
To set thy desperate foot, more hell, more horror,
More wild remorseless rage shall seize on thee
Than on a conjuror that had heedless left
His circle's safety ere his devil was laid.
Then, here's a lock which I will hang up upon thee,
And, now I think on 't, I will keep thee backwards;
Thy lodging shall be backwards; thy walks backwards;
Thy prospect — all be backwards; and no pleasure
That thou shalt know but backwards. Nay, since you force
My honest nature, know, it is your own,
Being too open, makes me use you thus
Since you will not contain your subtle nostrils
In a sweet room, but they must snuff the air
Of rank and sweaty passengers — One knocks.
Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life;
Nor look toward the window: if thou dost —
Nay, stay, hear this: let me not prosper, whore,
But I will make thee an anatomy,
Dissect thee mine own self, and read a lecture
Upon thee to the city, and in public
Away! — Who's there?
SERVANT 'Tis Signor Mosca, sir.
SCENE 6
CORVINO Let him come in. His master's dead; there's yet
Some good to help the bad. My Mosca, welcome!
I guess your news.
MOSCA I fear you cannot, sir
CORVINO Is't not his death?
MOSCA Rather the contrary.
CORVINO Not his recovery?
MOSCA Yes, sir
CORVINO I am cursed,
I am bewitched, my crosses meet to vex me.
How? how? how? how?
MOSCA Why, sir, with Scoto's oil!
Corbaccio and Voltore brought of it,
Whilst I was busy in an inner room —
CORVINO Death! that damned mountebank! But for the law
Now I could kill the rascal: it cannot be
His oil should have that virtue. Have not I
Known him a common rogue, come fiddling in
To the osterla , with a tumbling whore,
And, when he has done all his forced tricks, been glad
Of a poor spoonful of dead wine, with flies in 't?
It cannot be All his ingredients
Are a sheep's gall, a roasted bitch's marrow,
Some few sod earwigs, pounded caterpillars,
A little capon's grease, and fasting spittle:
I know them to a dram.
MOSCA I know not, sir;
But some on 't, there, they poured into his ears,
Some in his nostrils, and recovered him,
Applying but the fricace
CORVINO Pox o' that fricace!
MOSCA And since, to seem the more officious
And flattering of his heath, there they have had,
At extreme fees, the college of physicians
Consulting on him, how they might restore him;
Where one would have a cataplasm of spices
Another a flayed ape clapped to his breast,
A third would have it a dog, a fourth an oil
With wild cats' skins; at last, they all resolved
That to preserve him was no other means
But some young woman must be straight sought out,
Lusty, and full of juice, to sleep by him;
And to this service, most unhappily
And most unwillingly, am I now employed,
Which here I thought to pre-acquaint you with,
For your advice, since it concerns you most;
Because I would not do that thing might cross
Your ends, on whom I have my whole dependence, sir.
Yet, if I do it not, they may delate
My slackness to my patron, work me out
Of his opinion; and there all your hopes,
Ventures, or whatsoever, are all frustrate!
I do but tell you, sir. Besides, they are all
Now striving who shall first present him; therefore —
I could entreat you, briefly conclude somewhat;
Prevent them if you can
CORVINO Death to my hopes,
This is my villainous fortune! Best to hire
Some common courtesan.
MOSCA Ay, I thought on that, sir;
But they are all so subtle, full of art,
And age, again, doting and flexible,
So as — I cannot tell — we may perchance
Light on a quean may cheat us all
CORVINO 'Tis true.
MOSCA No, no: it must be one that has no tricks, sir,
Some simple thing, a creature made unto it;
Some wench you may command. Have you no kinswoman?
God's so — Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, sir
One o' the doctors offered there his daughter
CORVINO How!
MOSCA Yes, Signor Lupo, the physician
CORVINO His daughter!
MOSCA And a virgin, sir. Why, alas,
He knows the state of 's body, what it is;
That nought can warm his blood, sir, but a fever;
Nor any incantation raise his spirit:
A long forgetfulness hath seized that part
Besides, sir, who shall know it? Some one or two —
CORVINO I pray thee give me leave. If any man
But I had had this luck — The thing in itself,
I know, is nothing — Wherefore should not I
As well command my blood and my affections
As this dull doctor? In the point of honor,
The cases are all one of wife and daughter
MOSCA I hear him coming
CORVINO She shall do 't: 'tis done
'Slight! if this doctor, who is not engaged,
Unless 't be for his counsel, which is nothing,
Offer his daughter, what should I, that am
So deeply in? I will prevent him Wretch!
Covetous wretch! — Mosca, I have determined
MOSCA How, sir?
CORVINO We'll make all sure. The party you wot of
Shall be mine own wife, Mosca
MOSCA Sir, the thing,
But that I would not seem to counsel you,
I should have motioned to you at the first:
And, make your count, you have cut all their throats
Why, 'tis directly taking a possession!
And in his next fit, we may let him go
'Tis but to pull the pillow from his head,
And he is throttled: it had been done before,
But for your scrupulous doubts
CORVINO Ay, a plague on 't,
My conscience fools my wit! Well, I'll be brief,
And so be thou, lest they should be before us:
Go home, prepare him, tell him with what zeal
And willingness I do it; swear it was
On the first hearing, as thou mayst do truly,
Mine own free motion
MOSCA Sir, I warrant you,
I'll so possess him with it, that the rest
Of his starved clients shall be banished all,
And only you received But come not, sir,
Until I send, for I have something else
To ripen for your good; you must not know it
CORVINO But do not you forget to send now
MOSCA Fear not.
SCENE 7
CORVINO Where are you, wife? my Celia! wife!
What, blubbering?
Come, dry those tears I think thou thought'st me in earnest
Ha! by this light I talked so but to try thee
Methinks the lightness of the occasion
Should have confirmed thee. Come, I am not jealous
CELIA No?
CORVINO Faith I am not, I, nor never was;
It is a poor unprofitable humor.
Do not I know, if women have a will,
They'll do 'gainst all the watches of the world,
And that the fiercest spies are tamed with gold?
Tut, I am confident in thee, thou shalt see 't;
And see, I'll give thee cause too, to believe it
Come, kiss me Go, and make thee ready straight,
In all thy best attire, thy choicest jewels,
Put them all on, and, with them, thy best looks:
We are invited to a solemn feast
At old Volpone's, where it shall appear
How far I am free from jealousy or fear.
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