Volpone; Or, The Fox
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 he may be some-deal faulty.
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.