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

VOLT: Ay, to your hopes, as well as mine, Corvino: But I’ll use modesty. Pleaseth your wisdoms, To view these certain notes, and but confer them; As I hope favour, they shall speak clear truth.

CORV: The devil has enter’d him!

BON: Or bides in you.

4 AVOC: We have done ill, by a public officer, To send for him, if he be heir.

2 AVOC: For whom?

4 AVOC: Him that they call the parasite.

3 AVOC: ‘Tis true, He is a man of great estate, now left.

4 AVOC: Go you, and learn his name, and say, the court Entreats his presence here, but to the clearing Of some few doubts.

[EXIT NOTARY.]

2 AVOC: This same’s a labyrinth!

1 AVOC: Stand you unto your first report?

CORV: My state, My life, my fame—

BON: Where is it?

CORV: Are at the stake

1 AVOC: Is yours so too?

CORB: The advocate’s a knave, And has a forked tongue—

2 AVOC: Speak to the point.

CORB: So is the parasite too.

1 AVOC: This is confusion.

VOLT: I do beseech your fatherhoods, read but those— [GIVING THEM THE PAPERS.]

CORV: And credit nothing the false spirit hath writ: It cannot be, but he’s possest grave fathers.

[THE SCENE CLOSES.]

SCENE 5.7.

A STREET.

ENTER VOLPONE.

VOLP: To make a snare for mine own neck! and run My head into it, wilfully! with laughter! When I had newly ‘scaped, was free, and clear, Out of mere wantonness! O, the dull devil Was in this brain of mine, when I devised it, And Mosca gave it second; he must now Help to sear up this vein, or we bleed dead.— [ENTER NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.] How now! who let you loose? whither go you now? What, to buy gingerbread? or to drown kitlings?

NAN: Sir, master Mosca call’d us out of doors, And bid us all go play, and took the keys.

AND: Yes.

VOLP: Did master Mosca take the keys? why so! I’m farther in. These are my fine conceits! I must be merry, with a mischief to me! What a vile wretch was I, that could not bear My fortune soberly? I must have my crotchets, And my conundrums! Well, go you, and seek him: His meaning may be truer than my fear. Bid him, he straight come to me to the court; Thither will I, and, if’t be possible, Unscrew my advocate, upon new hopes: When I provoked him, then I lost myself.

[EXEUNT.]

SCENE 5.8.

THE SCRUTINEO, OR SENATE-HOUSE.

AVOCATORI, BONARIO, CELIA, CORBACCIO, CORVINO, COMMANDADORI, SAFFI, ETC., AS BEFORE.

1 AVOC: These things can ne’er be reconciled. He, here, [SHEWING THE PAPERS.] Professeth, that the gentleman was wrong’d, And that the gentlewoman was brought thither, Forced by her husband, and there left.

VOLT: Most true.

CEL: How ready is heaven to those that pray!

1 AVOC: But that Volpone would have ravish’d her, he holds Utterly false; knowing his impotence.

CORV: Grave fathers, he’s possest; again, I say, Possest: nay, if there be possession, and Obsession, he has both.

3 AVOC: Here comes our officer.

[ENTER VOLPONE.]

VOLP: The parasite will straight be here, grave fathers.

4 AVOC: You might invent some other name, sir varlet.

3 AVOC: Did not the notary meet him?

VOLP: Not that I know.

4 AVOC: His coming will clear all.

2 AVOC: Yet, it is misty.

VOLT: May’t please your fatherhoods—

VOLP [whispers volt.]: Sir, the parasite Will’d me to tell you, that his master lives; That you are still the man; your hopes the same; And this was only a jest—

VOLT: How?

VOLP: Sir, to try If you were firm, and how you stood affected.

VOLT: Art sure he lives?

VOLP: Do I live, sir?

VOLT: O me! I was too violent.

VOLP: Sir, you may redeem it, They said, you were possest; fall down, and seem so: I’ll help to make it good. [voltore falls.] —God bless the man!— Stop your wind hard, and swell: See, see, see, see! He vomits crooked pins! his eyes are set, Like a dead hare’s hung in a poulter’s shop! His mouth’s running away! Do you see, signior? Now it is in his belly!

CORV: Ay, the devil!

VOLP: Now in his throat.

CORV: Ay, I perceive it plain.

VOLP: ‘Twill out, ‘twill out! stand clear. See, where it flies, In shape of a blue toad, with a bat’s wings! Do you not see it, sir?

CORB: What? I think I do.

CORV: ‘Tis too manifest.

VOLP: Look! he comes to himself!

VOLT: Where am I?

VOLP: Take good heart, the worst is past, sir. You are dispossest.

1 AVOC: What accident is this!

2 AVOC: Sudden, and full of wonder!

3 AVOC: If he were Possest, as it appears, all this is nothing.

CORV: He has been often subject to these fits.

1 AVOC: Shew him that writing:—do you know it, sir?

VOLP [WHISPERS VOLT.]: Deny it, sir, forswear it; know it not.

VOLT: Yes, I do know it well, it is my hand; But all that it contains is false.

BON: O practice!

2 AVOC: What maze is this!

1 AVOC: Is he not guilty then, Whom you there name the parasite?

VOLT: Grave fathers, No more than his good patron, old Volpone.

4 AVOC: Why, he is dead.

VOLT: O no, my honour’d fathers, He lives—

1 AVOC: How! lives?

VOLT: Lives.

2 AVOC: This is subtler yet!

3 AVOC: You said he was dead.

VOLT: Never.

3 AVOC: You said so.

CORV: I heard so.

4 AVOC: Here comes the gentleman; make him way.

[ENTER MOSCA.]

3 AVOC: A stool.

4 AVOC [ASIDE.]: A proper man; and, were Volpone dead, A fit match for my daughter.

3 AVOC: Give him way.

VOLP [ASIDE TO MOSCA.]: Mosca, I was almost lost, the advocate Had betrayed all; but now it is recovered; All’s on the hinge again—Say, I am living.

MOS: What busy knave is this!—Most reverend fathers, I sooner had attended your grave pleasures, But that my order for the funeral Of my dear patron, did require me—

VOLP [ASIDE.]: Mosca!

MOS: Whom I intend to bury like a gentleman.

VOLP [ASIDE.]: Ay, quick, and cozen me of all.

2 AVOC: Still stranger! More intricate!

1 AVOC: And come about again!

4 AVOC [ASIDE.]: It is a match, my daughter is bestow’d.

MOS [ASIDE TO VOLP.]: Will you give me half?

VOLP: First, I’ll be hang’d.

MOS: I know, Your voice is good, cry not so loud.

1 AVOC: Demand The advocate.—Sir, did not you affirm, Volpone was alive?

VOLP: Yes, and he is; This gentleman told me so. [ASIDE TO VOLP.] —Thou shalt have half.—

MOS: Whose drunkard is this same? speak, some that know him: I never saw his face. [ASIDE TO VOLP.] —I cannot now Afford it you so cheap.

VOLP: No!

1 AVOC: What say you?

VOLT: The officer told me.

VOLP: I did, grave fathers, And will maintain he lives, with mine own life. And that this creature [POINTS TO MOSCA.] told me. [ASIDE.] —I was born, With all good stars my enemies.

MOS: Most grave fathers, If such an insolence as this must pass Upon me, I am silent: ‘twas not this For which you sent, I hope.

2 AVOC: Take him away.

VOLP: Mosca!

3 AVOC: Let him be whipt.

VOLP: Wilt thou betray me? Cozen me?

3 AVOC: And taught to bear himself Toward a person of his rank.

4 AVOC: Away.

[THE OFFICERS SEIZE VOLPONE.]

MOS: I humbly thank your fatherhoods.

VOLP [ASIDE.]: Soft, soft: Whipt! And lose all that I have! If I confess, It cannot be much more.

4 AVOC: Sir, are you married?

VOLP: They will be allied anon; I must be resolute: The Fox shall here uncase. [THROWS OFF HIS DISGUISE.]

MOS: Patron!

VOLP: Nay, now, My ruins shall not come alone; your match I’ll hinder sure: my substance shall not glue you, Nor screw you into a family.

MOS: Why, patron!

VOLP: I am Volpone, and this is my knave; [POINTING TO MOSCA.] This [TO VOLT.], his own knave; This [TO CORB.], avarice’s fool; This [TO CORV.], a chimera of wittol, fool, and knave: And, reverend fathers, since we all can hope Nought but a sentence, let’s not now dispair it. You hear me brief.

CORV: May it please your fatherhoods—

COM: Silence.

1 AVOC: The knot is now undone by miracle.

2 AVOC: Nothing can be more clear.

3 AVOC: Or can more prove These innocent.

1 AVOC: Give them their liberty.

BON: Heaven could not long let such gross crimes be hid.

2 AVOC: If this be held the highway to get riches, May I be poor!

3 AVOC: This is not the gain, but torment.

1 AVOC: These possess wealth, as sick men possess fevers, Which trulier may be said to possess them.

2 AVOC: Disrobe that parasite.

CORV, MOS: Most honour’d fathers!—

1 AVOC: Can you plead aught to stay the course of justice? If you can, speak.

CORV, VOLT: We beg favour,

CEL: And mercy.

1 AVOC: You hurt your innocence, suing for the guilty. Stand forth; and first the parasite: You appear T’have been the chiefest minister, if not plotter, In all these lewd impostures; and now, lastly, Have with your impudence abused the court, And habit of a gentleman of Venice, Being a fellow of no birth or blood: For which our sentence is, first, thou be whipt; Then live perpetual prisoner in our gallies.

VOLT: I thank you for him.

MOS: Bane to thy wolvish nature!

1 AVOC: Deliver him to the saffi. [MOSCA IS CARRIED OUT.] —Thou, Volpone, By blood and rank a gentleman, canst not fall Under like censure; but our judgment on thee Is, that thy substance all be straight confiscate To the hospital of the Incurabili: And, since the most was gotten by imposture, By feigning lame, gout, palsy, and such diseases, Thou art to lie in prison, cramp’d with irons, Till thou be’st sick, and lame indeed.—Remove him.

[HE IS TAKEN FROM THE BAR.]

VOLP: This is call’d mortifying of a Fox.

1 AVOC: Thou, Voltore, to take away the scandal Thou hast given all worthy men of thy profession, Art banish’d from their fellowship, and our state. Corbaccio!—bring him near—We here possess Thy son of all thy state, and confine thee To the monastery of San Spirito; Where, since thou knewest not how to live well here, Thou shalt be learn’d to die well.

CORB: Ah! what said he?

AND: You shall know anon, sir.

1 AVOC: Thou, Corvino, shalt Be straight embark’d from thine own house, and row’d Round about Venice, through the grand canale, Wearing a cap, with fair long asses’ ears, Instead of horns; and so to mount, a paper Pinn’d on thy breast, to the Berlina—

CORV: Yes, And have mine eyes beat out with stinking fish, Bruised fruit and rotten eggs—‘Tis well. I am glad I shall not see my shame yet.

1 AVOC: And to expiate Thy wrongs done to thy wife, thou art to send her Home to her father, with her dowry trebled: And these are all your judgments.

ALL: Honour’d fathers.—

1 AVOC: Which may not be revoked. Now you begin, When crimes are done, and past, and to be punish’d, To think what your crimes are: away with them. Let all that see these vices thus rewarded, Take heart and love to study ‘em! Mischiefs feed Like beasts, till they be fat, and then they bleed.

[EXEUNT.]

[VOLPONE COMES FORWARD.]

VOLPONE: The seasoning of a play, is the applause. Now, though the Fox be punish’d by the laws, He yet doth hope, there is no suffering due, For any fact which he hath done ‘gainst you; If there be, censure him; here he doubtful stands: If not, fare jovially, and clap your hands.

[EXIT.]

–––––––

GLOSSARY

ABATE, cast down, subdue.

ABHORRING, repugnant