Volpone and Other Plays (13 page)

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

10        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.

20    
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.

30        Is not the colour o'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.

[
Exeunt
.]

        [
CORVINO'S
house
.]

        [
Enter
CORVINO
,
dragging in
CELIA
.]

[
CORVINO
:] Death of mine honour, 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 favours forth,

To give your hot spectators satisfaction!

10        What, was your mountebank their call? their whistle?

Or were y'enamoured on his copper rings?

His saffron jewel, with the
^toad-stone
in 't?

Or his embroiderèd 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,

20        And so you may be seen, down to th'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 am 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!

30    
CORVINO
[
waving his sword
]:        What couldst thou propose

Less to thyself than in this heat of wrath,

And stung with my dishonour, 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?

40        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.

50        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 desp'rate foot, more hell, more horror,

More wild, remorseless rage shall seize on thee

Than on
^{a conjurer}
that had heedless left

His circle's safety ere his devil was laid.

Then, here's a
^lock
which I will hang upon thee;

And, now I think on 't, I will keep thee backwards;

Thy lodging shall be backwards, thy walks backwards;

60        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 –

Knock within
.

 One knocks.

Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life;

Not look toward the window; if thou dost –

Nay, stay, hear this – let me not prosper, whore,

70        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!

[
Exit
CELIA
.]

             Who's there?

[
Enter
SERVANT
.]

SERVANT
:                       'Tis Signior Mosca, sir.

II, vi    [
CORVINO
:] Let him come in. His master's dead. There's yet

      Some good to help the bad.

     [
Enter
MOSCA
.]

 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 –

10    
CORVINO
: Death! that damned mountebank! but for the law,

Now, I could kill the rascal; 't cannot be

His oil should have that virtue. Ha'not I

Known him a common rogue, come fiddling in

To th'
osterìa
, 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,

20        A little capon's grease, and
fasting spittle
;

I know 'em to a dram.

MOSCA
:                        I know not, sir;

But some on 't, 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 flatt'ring of his health, 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,

30        Another a flayed ape clapped to his breast,

A third would ha'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,

40        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 'em if you can.

CORVINO
:                        Death to my hopes!

50        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. Ha'you no kinswoman?

God's so
– Think, think, think, think, think, think, sir.

60        One o'the doctors offered there his daughter.

CORVINO
: How!

MOSCA
:                        Yes, Signior 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 –