Volpone/Act III Scene II
SCENE II.
A Room in Volpone's House.
Enter Volpone.
Volp. Mosca stays long, methinks.—Bring forth your sports,
And help to make the wretched time more sweet.
Enter Nano, Androgyno, and Castrone.
Nan. Dwarf, fool, and eunuch, well met here we be.
A question it were now, whether of us three,
Being all the known delicates of a rich man,
In pleasing him, claim the precedency can?
Cas. I claim for myself.
And. And so doth the fool.
Nan. 'Tis foolish indeed: let me set you both to school.
First for your dwarf, he's little and witty,
And every thing, as it is little, is pretty;
Else why do men say to a creature of my shape,
So soon as they see him, It's a pretty little ape?
And why a pretty ape, but for pleasing imitation
Of greater men's actions, in a ridiculous fashion?
Beside, this feat body of mine doth not crave
Half the meat, drink, and cloth, one of your bulks will have.
Admit your fool's face be the mother of laughter,
Yet, for his brain, it must always come after:
And though that do feed him, it's a pitiful case,
His body is beholding to such a bad face.
[Knocking within.
Volp. Who's there? my couch; away! look! Nano, see: [Exe. And. and Cas.
Give me my caps, first——go, enquire. [Exit Nano.]—Now, Cupid
Send it be Mosca, and with fair return!
Nan. [within.] It is the beauteous madam——
Vol. Would-be——is it?
Nan. The same.
Vol. Now torment on me! Squire her in;
For she will enter, or dwell here for ever:
Nay, quickly. [Retires to his couch.]—That my fit were past! I fear
A second hell too, that my lothing this
Will quite expel my appetite to the other:
Would she were taking now her tedious leave.
Lord, how it threats me what I am to suffer!
Re-enter Nano with Lady Politick Would-be.
Lady P. I thank you, good sir. 'Pray you signify
Unto your patron, I am here.—This band
Shews not my neck enough.—I trouble you, sir;
Let me request you, bid one of my women
Come hither to me.—In good faith, I am drest
Most favourably to-day! It is no matter:
'Tis well enough.—
Enter 1. Waiting-woman.
Look, see, these petulant things,
How they have done this!
Volp. I do feel the fever
Entering in at mine ears; O, for a charm,
To fright it hence![Aside.
Lady P. Come nearer: is this curl
In his right place, or this? Why is this higher
Than all the rest? You have not wash'd your eyes, yet!
Or do they not stand even in your head?
Where is your fellow? call her. [Exit 1. Woman.
Nan. Now, St. Mark
Deliver us! anon, she'll beat her women,
Because her nose is red.
Re-enter 1. with 2. Woman.
Lady P. I pray you, view
This tire, forsooth: are all things apt, or no?
1 Woman. One hair a little, here, sticks out, forsooth.
Lady P. Does 't so, forsooth! and where was your dear sight,
When it did so, forsooth! What now! bird-eyed?[1]
And you, too? 'Pray you, both approach and mend it.
Now, by that light, I muse you are not ashamed!
I, that have preach'd these things so oft unto you,
Read you the principles, argued all the grounds,
Disputed every fitness, every grace,
Call'd you to counsel of so frequent dressings—
Nan. More carefully than of your fame or honour. [Aside.
Lady P. Made you acquainted, what an ample dowry
The knowledge of these things would be unto you,
Able, alone, to get you noble husbands
At your return: and you thus to neglect it!
Besides, you seeing what a curious nation
The Italians are, what will they say of me?
The English lady cannot dress herself.
Lady P. Burnt silk, and amber: You have muscadel
Good in the house——
Volp. You will not drink, and part?
Lady P. No, fear not that. I doubt, we shall not get
Some English saffron, half a dram would serve;
Your sixteen cloves, a little musk, dried mints,
Bugloss, and barley-meal——
Volp. She's in again!
Before I feign'd diseases, now I have one. [Aside.
Lady P. And these applied with a right scarlet cloth.[3]
Volp. Another flood of words! A very torrent! [Aside.
Lady P. Shall I, sir, make you a poultice?
Volp. No, no, no,
I'm very well, you need prescribe no more.
Lady P. I have a little studied physic; but now,
I'm all for music, save, in the forenoons,
An hour or two for painting. I would have a lady, indeed to have all, letters and arts,
Be able to discourse, to write, to paint,
But principal, as Plato holds, your music,
And so does wise Pythagoras, I take it,
Is your true rapture: when there is concent[4]
In face, in voice, and clothes: and is, indeed,
Our sex's chiefest ornament.
Volp. The poet
As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,
Says, that your highest female grace is silence.[5]
Lady P. Which of your poets? Petrarch, or Tasso, or Dante?
Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine?
Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.
Volp. Is every thing a cause to my destruction? [Aside.
Lady P. I think I have two or three of them about me.
Volp. The sun, the sea, will sooner both stand still
Than her eternal tongue! nothing can 'scape it. [Aside.
Lady P. Here's Pastor Fido——
Volp. Profess obstinate silence;
That's now my safest.[Aside.
Lady P. All our English writers,
I mean such as are happy in the Italian,
Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly;
Almost as much as from Montagnié:
He has so modern and facile a vein,
Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear!
Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he,
In days of sonnetting, trusted them with much:[6]
Dante is hard, and few can understand him.
But, for a desperate wit, there's Aretine:
Only, his pictures are a little obscene——
You mark me not,
Volp. Alas, my mind's perturb'd.
Lady P. Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves,
Make use of our philosophy——
Volp. Oh me!
Lady P. And as we find our passions do rebel,
Encounter them with reason, or divert them,
By giving scope unto some other humour
Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies,
There's nothing more doth overwhelm the judgment,
And cloud the understanding, than too much
Settling and fixing, and, as 'twere, subsiding
Upon one object. For the incorporating
Of these same outward things, into that part,
Which we call mental, leaves some certain fæces
That stop the organs, and, as Plato says,
Assassinate our knowledge.
Volp. Now, the spirit
Of patience help me![Aside.
Lady P. Come, in faith, I must
Visit you more a days; and make you well:
Laugh and be lusty.
Volp. My good angel save me![Aside.
Lady P. There was but one sole man in all the world,
With whom I e'er could sympathise; and he
Would lie you, often, three, four hours together
To hear me speak; and be sometime so rapt,
As he would answer me quite from the purpose,
Like you, and you are like him, just. I'll discourse,
An't be but only, sir, to bring you asleep,
How we did spend our time and loves together,
For some six years.
Volp. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
Lady P. For we were coætanei, and brought up—
Volp. Some power, some fate, some fortune rescue me!
Enter Mosca.
Mos. God save you, madam!
Lady P. Good sir.
Volp. Mosca! welcome,
Welcome to my redemption.
Mos. Why, sir?
Volp. Oh,
Rid me of this my torture, quickly, there;
My madam, with the everlasting voice:
The bells, in time of pestilence, ne'er made
Like noise, or were in that perpetual motion!
The Cock-pit comes not near it.[7] All my house,
But now, steam'd like a bath with her thick breath,
A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce
Another woman, such a hail of words
She has let fall. For hell's sake, rid her hence.
Mos. Has she presented?
Volp. O, I do not care;
I'll take her absence, upon any price,
With any loss.
Mos. Madam——
Lady P. I have brought your patron
A toy, a cap here, of mine own work.
Mos. 'Tis well,
I had forgot to tell you, I saw your knight,
Where you would little think it.——
Lady P. Where?
Mos. Marry,
Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend him,
Rowing upon the water in a gondole,
With the most cunning courtezan of Venice.[8]
Lady P. Is't true?
Mos. Pursue them, and believe your eyes:
Leave me, to make your gift. [Exit Lady P. hastily.]—I knew 'twould take:
For, lightly, they that use themselves most license,[9]
Are still most jealous.
Volp. Mosca, hearty thanks,
For thy quick fiction, and delivery of me.
Now to my hopes, what say'st thou?
Re-enter Lady P. Would-be.
Lady P. But do you hear, sir?
Volp. Again! I fear a paroxysm.
Lady P. Which way
Row'd they together?
Mos. Toward the Rialto.
Lady P. I pray you lend me your dwarf.
Mos. I pray you take him.— [Exit Lady P.
Your hopes, sir, are like happy blossoms, fair,
And promise timely fruit, if you will stay
But the maturing; keep you at your couch,
Corbaccio will arrive straight, with the Will;
When he is gone, I'll tell you more.[Exit.
Volp. My blood,
My spirits are return'd; I am alive:
And, like your wanton gamester at primero,[10]
Whose thought had whisper'd to him, not go less,
Methinks I lie, and draw——for an encounter.
[The scene closes upon Volpone.
- ↑ What now! bird-eyed?] What particular defect is here meant I know not; unless it be near-sightedness. We had the expression in Cynthia's Revels, (Vol. II. p. 342.) "'Tis the horse-start out of a brown study. Amor. Rather, the bird-eyed stroke." It is also in Bulleyn's Dialogue, republished by Mr. Waldron; where the citizen says to his wife, whose horse had just started, "He is a bird-eyed jade, I warrant you." Perhaps the allusion is to the askaunt or side view, which birds appear to take of every object.
Upton has noticed various imitations of Juvenal's sixth Satire, in lady Would-be's colloquy with her maids: they are all, however, so obvious as scarcely to require pointing out, though Whalley copied most of them. - ↑ Ah me, I have ta'en a grass-hopper by the wing!] "This," says Upton, who merely copies Erasmus (in Adag.) "was a proverb of the poet Archilochus, as Lucian tells us in the beginning of his Pseudologista: Το δε τα Αρχελοχα εκεινο ηδη σοι λεγω, όζι τετζιγα τα τζερα συνειληφας. For the faster you hold them by the wings the louder they scream.—But this is true of grass-hoppers? Cicada and Τεττιξ is not a grass-hopper, for the poets describe it as sitting and singing on trees: however, the common translations must excuse our poet." This certainly not our grass-hopper, which is the locust. It is to be wished that we could adopt some other name for the foreign insect, to prevent confusion: cigale or chicale would serve; though, indeed, tettix is as good as either. Both ray and Chandler witnessed the singing of the cicada, the one in Italy, and the other in Greece: they do not speak of it with much rapture; and, to say the truth, a more tiresome annoying sound cannot well be heard. See the Poetaster, Vol. II. p. 543.
- ↑ And these applied with a right scarlet cloth.] The virtues of a right scarlet cloth were once held so extraordinary, that Dr. John Gaddesden, by wrapping a patient in scarlet, cured him of the small-pox, without leaving so much as one mark in his face: and he commends it for an excellent method of cure: Capiatur scarletum, et involvatur variolosus totaliter, sicut ego feci, et est bona cura. Whal.
- ↑ When there is concent.] i. e. agreement or harmony, a Platonic expression.
- ↑ ————The poet
As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,
Says that your highest female grace is silence.] The poet perhaps is Sophocles,
Γυναιξι κοσμον ή σιγη φερει.
Or Euripides, whom the Oracle pronounced the wiser,
Γυναικι γαρ σιγη τε, και το σωφρονειν
Καλλιςον.
This is Upton's note, though fathered, as usual, by Whalley. Jonson, however, whose reading was far more extensive than Upton suspected, alludes to a passage in Libanius (Declam. vi.) Συ δε, ει μη εμε, αλλα κ'αν τον σοφωτατον ποιητην αισχυνζητι, λεγοντα,Γυναι, γυναιξι κοσμον ή σιγη φερει.κ. τ. α.
As what follows in the rhetorician, sufficiently demonstrates.
- ↑ Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he,
In days of sonnetting, trusted them with much:] Lady Would-be is perfectly correct, both in what she says here of Petrarch, and above of Guarini. The Pastor Fido was plundered without mercy, or judgment: yet the theft was not unhappy; for though much poor conceit, and unnatural passion was thus introduced among us, many graces of expression, and delicacies of feeling accompanied them, which in the gradual improvement of taste, now first become an object of concern, enriched the language with beauties, which have not yet lost their power to charm. To Petrarch we are still more indebted—though the coarse and wholesale manner in which he was at first copied gave occasion to the well-merited reproofs of our early satirists. Thus Hall,
"Or filch whole pages at a clap for need,
"From honest Petrarch, clad in English weed."
Again:
"Or an 'hos ego' from old Petrarch's spright,
Unto a plagiary sonnet-wight," &c. - ↑ The Cock-pit comes not near it.] The Cock-pit! Had Jonson forgot that he was now in Venice?—But, perhaps, he saw no impropriety in giving this name to a theatre there. The Cock-pit was one of our earliest theatres, and from the allusion in the text, as well as from many others which occur in our old dramatists, it may be collected that it was frequented by the lowest and most disorderly of the people. After all, Venice was not much injured:—for Coryat, who was there about this time, says, "I was at one of their play-houses, where I saw a comedie acted. The house is very beggarly and base in comparison of our stately play-houses in England: neither can the actors compare with us for apparel, shewes, and musicke." p. 247. The conclusion of this speech is from Juvenal. Sat. vi.
- ↑ With the most cunning courtezan of Venice.] Venice succeeded, and not unjustly, to all the celebrity of Corinth for rapacious, subtle, and accomplished wantons. Shakspeare notices this circumstance; as, indeed, do all the writers of his age, who have occasion to mention the city. The "leg-stretcher of Odcombe," (as Coryat aptly calls himself,) whose simple love of novelty involved him in the most ridiculous adventures, has a great deal of curious matter on this subject.
- ↑ For, lightly,] i. e. usually, or in common course. Whal. See Vol. II. p. 255.
- ↑ And like your wanton gamester at primero, &c.] Jonson has adopted the terms of this game, as they appear in, what sir John Harrington is pleased to call, an Epigram upon "The story of Marcus' life at Primero."
"Our Marcus never can encounter right,
"Yet drew two aces, and, for further spight,
"Had colour for it with a hopeful draught,
"But not encountered it avail'd him naught."
Not to go less, as I have already observed,—is not to adventure a smaller sum.