Volpone by Ben Jonson (small books to read .txt) 📕

SIR P: And some essays. What shall I do?

PER: Sir, best Convey yourself into a sugar-chest; Or, if you could lie round, a frail were rare: And I could send you aboard.

SIR P: Sir, I but talk’d so, For discourse sake merely.

[KNOCKING WITHIN.]

PER: Hark! they are there.

SIR P: I am a wretch, a wretch!

PER: What will you do, sir? Have you ne’er a currant-butt to leap into? They’ll put you to the rack, you must be sudden.

SIR P: Sir, I have an ingine—

3 MER [WITHIN.]: Sir Politick Would-be?

2 MER [WITHIN.]: Where is he?

SIR P: That I have thought upon before time.

PER: What is it?

SIR P: I shall ne’er endure the torture. Marry, it is, sir, of a tortoise-shell, Fitted for these extremities: pray you, sir, help me. Here I’ve a place, sir, to put back my legs, Please you to lay it on, sir, [LIES DOWN WHILE PEREGRINE PLACES THE SHELL UPON HIM.] —with this cap, And my black gloves. I’ll lie, sir, like a tortoise, ‘Till they are gone.

PER: And call you this an ingine?

SIR P: Mine own device—Good sir, bid my wife’s women To burn my papers.

[EXIT PEREGRINE.]

[THE THREE MERCHANTS RUSH IN.]

1 MER: Where is he hid?

3 MER: We must, And will sure find him.

2 MER: Which is his study?

[RE-ENTER PEREGRINE.]

1 MER: What Are you, sir?

PER: I am a merchant, that came here To look upon this tortoise.

3 MER: How!

1 MER: St. Mark! What beast is this!

PER: It is a fish.

2 MER: Come out here!

PER: Nay, you may strike him, sir, and tread upon him; He’ll bear a cart.

1 MER: What, to run over him?

PER: Yes, sir.

3 MER: Let’s jump upon him.

2 MER: Can he not go?

PER: He creeps, sir.

1 MER: Let’s see him creep.

PER: No, good sir, you will hurt him.

2 MER: Heart, I will see him creep, or prick his guts.

3 MER: Come out here!

PER: Pray you, sir! [ASIDE TO SIR POLITICK.] —Creep a little.

1 MER: Forth.

2 MER: Yet farther.

PER: Good sir!—Creep.

2 MER: We’ll see his legs. [THEY PULL OFF THE SHELL AND DISCOVER HIM.]

3 MER: Ods so, he has garters!

1 MER: Ay, and gloves!

2 MER: Is this Your fearful tortoise?

PER [DISCOVERING HIMSELF.]: Now, sir Pol, we are even; For your next project I shall be prepared: I am sorry for the funeral of your notes, sir.

1 MER: ‘Twere a rare motion to be seen in Fleet-street.

2 MER: Ay, in the Term.

1 MER: Or Smithfield, in the fair.

3 MER: Methinks ‘tis but a melancholy sight.

PER: Farewell, most politic tortoise!

[EXEUNT PER. AND MERCHANTS.]

[RE-ENTER WAITING-WOMAN.]

SIR P: Where’s my lady? Knows she of this?

WOM: I know not, sir.

SIR P: Enquire.— O, I shall be the fable of all feasts, The freight of the gazetti; ship-boy’s tale; And, which is worst, even talk for ordinaries.

WOM: My lady’s come most melancholy home, And says, sir, she will straight to sea, for physic.

SIR P: And I to shun this place and clime for ever; Creeping with house on back: and think it well, To shrink my poor head in my politic shell.

[EXEUNT.]

SCENE 5.3.

A ROOM IN VOLPONE’S HOUSE.

ENTER MOSCA IN THE HABIT OF A CLARISSIMO; AND VOLPONE IN THAT OF A COMMANDADORE.

VOLP: Am I then like him?

MOS: O, sir, you are he; No man can sever you.

VOLP: Good.

MOS: But what am I?

VOLP: ‘Fore heaven, a brave clarissimo, thou becom’st it! Pity thou wert not born one.

MOS [ASIDE.]: If I hold My made one, ‘twill be well.

VOLP: I’ll go and see What news first at the court.

[EXIT.]

MOS: Do so. My Fox Is out of his hole, and ere he shall re-enter, I’ll make him languish in his borrow’d case, Except he come to composition with me.— Androgyno, Castrone, Nano!

[ENTER ANDROGYNO, CASTRONE AND NANO.]

ALL: Here.

MOS: Go, recreate yourselves abroad; go sport.— [EXEUNT.] So, now I have the keys, and am possest. Since he will needs be dead afore his time, I’ll bury him, or gain by him: I am his heir, And so will keep me, till he share at least. To cozen him of all, were but a cheat Well placed; no man would construe it a sin: Let his sport pay for it, this is call’d the Fox-trap.

[EXIT.]

SCENE 5.4

A STREET.

ENTER CORBACCIO AND CORVINO.

CORB: They say, the court is set.

CORV: We must maintain Our first tale good, for both our reputations.

CORB: Why, mine’s no tale: my son would there have kill’d me.

CORV: That’s true, I had forgot:— [ASIDE.]—mine is, I am sure. But for your Will, sir.

CORB: Ay, I’ll come upon him For that hereafter; now his patron’s dead.

[ENTER VOLPONE.]

VOLP: Signior Corvino! and Corbaccio! sir, Much joy unto you.

CORV: Of what?

VOLP: The sudden good, Dropt down upon you—

CORB: Where?

VOLP: And, none knows how, From old Volpone, sir.

CORB: Out, arrant knave!

VOLP: Let not your too much wealth, sir, make you furious.

CORB: Away, thou varlet!

VOLP: Why, sir?

CORB: Dost thou mock me?

VOLP: You mock the world, sir; did you not change Wills?

CORB: Out, harlot!

VOLP: O! belike you are the man, Signior Corvino? ‘faith, you carry it well; You grow not mad withal: I love your spirit: You are not over-leaven’d with your fortune. You should have some would swell now, like a wine-fat, With such an autumn—Did he give you all, sir?

CORB: Avoid, you rascal!

VOLP: Troth, your wife has shewn Herself a very woman; but you are well, You need not care, you have a good estate, To bear it out sir, better by this chance: Except Corbaccio have a share.

CORV: Hence, varlet.

VOLP: You will not be acknown, sir; why, ‘tis wise. Thus do all gamesters, at all games, dissemble: No man will seem to win. [exeunt corvino and corbaccio.] —Here comes my vulture, Heaving his beak up in the air, and snuffing.

[ENTER VOLTORE.]

VOLT: Outstript thus, by a parasite! a slave, Would run on errands, and make legs for crumbs? Well, what I’ll do—

VOLP: The court stays for your worship. I e’en rejoice, sir, at your worship’s happiness, And that it fell into so learned hands, That understand the fingering—

VOLT: What do you mean?

VOLP: I mean to be a suitor to your worship, For the small tenement, out of reparations, That, to the end of your long row of houses, By the Piscaria: it was, in Volpone’s time, Your predecessor, ere he grew diseased, A handsome, pretty, custom’d bawdy-house, As any was in Venice, none dispraised; But fell with him; his body and that house Decay’d, together.

VOLT: Come sir, leave your prating.

VOLP: Why, if your worship give me but your hand, That I may have the refusal, I have done. ‘Tis a mere toy to you, sir; candle-rents; As your learn’d worship knows—

VOLT: What do I know?

VOLP: Marry, no end of your wealth, sir, God decrease it!

VOLT: Mistaking knave! what, mockst thou my misfortune?

[EXIT.]

VOLP: His blessing on your heart, sir; would ‘twere more!— Now to my first again, at the next corner.

[EXIT.]

SCENE 5.5.

ANOTHER PART OF THE STREET.

ENTER CORBACCIO AND CORVINO;— MOSCA PASSES OVER THE STAGE, BEFORE THEM.

CORB: See, in our habit! see the impudent varlet!

CORV: That I could shoot mine eyes at him like gun-stones.

[ENTER VOLPONE.]

VOLP: But is this true, sir, of the parasite?

CORB: Again, to afflict us! monster!

VOLP: In good faith, sir, I’m heartily grieved, a beard of your grave length Should be so over-reach’d. I never brook’d That parasite’s hair; methought his nose should cozen: There still was somewhat in his look, did promise The bane of a clarissimo.

CORB: Knave—

VOLP: Methinks Yet you, that are so traded in the world, A witty merchant, the fine bird, Corvino, That have such moral emblems on your name, Should not have sung your shame; and dropt your cheese, To let the Fox laugh at your emptiness.

CORV: Sirrah, you think the privilege of the place, And your red saucy cap, that seems to me Nail’d to your jolt-head with those two chequines, Can warrant your abuses; come you hither: You shall perceive, sir, I dare beat you; approach.

VOLP: No haste, sir, I do know your valour well, Since you durst publish what you are, sir.

CORV: Tarry, I’d speak with you.

VOLP: Sir, sir, another time—

CORV: Nay, now.

VOLP: O lord, sir! I were a wise man, Would stand the fury of a distracted cuckold.

[AS HE IS RUNNING OFF, RE-ENTER MOSCA.]

CORB: What, come again!

VOLP: Upon ‘em, Mosca; save me.

CORB: The air’s infected where he breathes.

CORV: Let’s fly him.

[EXEUNT CORV. AND CORB.]

VOLP: Excellent basilisk! turn upon the vulture.

[ENTER VOLTORE.]

VOLT: Well, flesh-fly, it is summer with you now; Your winter will come on.

MOS: Good advocate, Prithee not rail, nor threaten out of place thus; Thou’lt make a solecism, as madam says. Get you a biggin more, your brain breaks loose.

[EXIT.]

VOLT: Well, sir.

VOLP: Would you have me beat the insolent slave, Throw dirt upon his first good clothes?

VOLT: This same Is doubtless some familiar.

VOLP: Sir, the court, In troth, stays for you. I am mad, a mule That never read Justinian, should get up, And ride an advocate. Had you no quirk To avoid gullage, sir, by such a creature? I hope you do but jest; he has not done it: ‘Tis but confederacy, to blind the rest. You are the heir.

VOLT: A strange, officious, Troublesome knave! thou dost torment me.

VOLP: I know— It cannot be, sir, that you should be cozen’d; ‘Tis not within the wit of man to do it; You are so wise, so prudent; and ‘tis fit That wealth and wisdom still should go together.

[EXEUNT.]

SCENE 5.6.

THE SCRUTINEO OR SENATE-HOUSE.

ENTER AVOCATORI, NOTARIO, BONARIO, CELIA, CORBACCIO, CORVINO, COMMANDADORI, SAFFI, ETC.

1 AVOC: Are all the parties here?

NOT: All but the advocate.

2 AVOC: And here he comes.

[ENTER VOLTORE AND VOLPONE.]

1 AVOC: Then bring them forth to sentence.

VOLT: O, my most honour’d fathers, let your mercy Once win upon your justice, to forgive— I am distracted—

VOLP [ASIDE.]: What will he do now?

VOLT: O, I know not which to address myself to first; Whether your fatherhoods, or these innocents—

CORV [ASIDE.]: Will he betray himself?

VOLT: Whom equally I have abused, out of most covetous ends—

CORV: The man is mad!

CORB: What’s that?

CORV: He is possest.

VOLT: For which, now struck in conscience, here, I prostate Myself at your offended feet, for pardon.

1, 2 AVOC: Arise.

CEL: O heaven, how just thou art!

VOLP [ASIDE.]: I am caught In mine own noose—

CORV [TO CORBACCIO.]: Be constant, sir: nought now Can help, but impudence.

1 AVOC: Speak forward.

COM: Silence!

VOLT: It is not passion in me, reverend fathers, But only conscience, conscience, my good sires, That makes me now tell trueth. That parasite, That knave, hath been the instrument of all.

1 AVOC: Where is that knave? fetch him.

VOLP: I go.

[EXIT.]

CORV: Grave fathers, This man’s distracted; he confest it now: For, hoping to be old Volpone’s heir, Who now is dead—

3 AVOC: How?

2 AVOC: Is Volpone dead?

CORV: Dead since, grave fathers—

BON: O sure vengeance!

1 AVOC: Stay, Then he was no deceiver?

VOLT: O no, none: The parasite, grave fathers.

CORV: He does speak Out of mere envy, ‘cause the servant’s made The thing he gaped for: please your fatherhoods, This is the truth, though I’ll not justify The other, but