Volpone and Other Plays (15 page)

A second hell too: that my loathing
this

Will quite expel my appetite to
the other
.

30        Would she were taking, now, her tedious leave.

Lord, how it threats me, what I am to suffer!

III, iv        [
Enter
NANO
with
LADY WOULD-BE
.]

[
LADY WOULD-BE
(
to
NANO
):] I thank you, good sir. Pray you signify

Unto your patron I am here – This band

Shows 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 dressed

Most favourably today! It is no matter;

'Tis well enough.

[
Enter
IST WOMAN
.]

     Look, see these petulant things!

How they have done this!

VOLPONE
[
aside
]:                 I do feel the fever

Ent'ring in at mine ears. O for a charm

To fright it hence!

10    
LADY WOULD-BE
: Come nearer. Is this curl

In his right place? or this? Why is this higher

Than all the rest? You ha'not washed your eyes yet?

Or do they not stand even i'your head?

Where's your fellow? Call her.

[
Exit
IST WOMAN
.]

NANO
[
aside
]:                               Now, St Mark

Deliver us! Anon she'll beat her women

Because her nose is red.

[
Re-enter
IST WOMAN
with
2ND WOMAN
.]

LADY WOULD-BE
:                      I pray you, view

This tire, forsooth: are all things apt, or no?

IST WOMAN
: One hair a little, here, sticks out, forsooth.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Does't so, forsooth? And where was your dear sight

20        When it did so, forsooth? What now!
Bird-eyed
?

And you too? Pray you both approach and mend it.

Now, by that light, I muse you're not ashamed!

I, that have preached these things so oft unto you,

Read you the principles, argued all the grounds,

Disputed every fitness, every grace,

Called you to counsel of so frequent dressings –

NANO
[
aside
]: More carefully than of your fame or honour.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Made you acquainted what an ample dowry

The knowledge of these things would be unto you,

30        Able, alone, to get you noble husbands

At your return; and you, thus, to neglect it!

Besides, you seeing what a curious nation

Th'Italians are, what will they say of me?

‘The English lady cannot dress herself.'

Here's a fine imputation to our country!

Well, go your ways, and stay i'the next room.

This fucus was too coarse, too; it's no matter.

Good sir, you'll give 'em entertainment?

[
Exit
NANO
with
WOMEN
.]

VOLPONE
: The storm comes toward me.

LADY WOULD-BE
:                                            How does my Volp?

40    
VOLPONE
: Troubled with noise, I cannot sleep; I dreamt

That a strange fury entered, now, my house,

And, with the dreadful tempest of her breath,

Did cleave my roof asunder.

LADY WOULD-BE
:                      Believe me, and I

Had the most fearful dream, could I remember 't –

VOLPONE
[
aside
]: Out on my fate! I ha'giv'n her the occasion

How to torment me. She will tell me hers.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Methought the golden mediocrity,

Polite, and delicate –

VOLPONE
:                   Oh, if you do love me,

No more; I sweat, and suffer, at the mention

50        Of any dream; feel how I tremble yet.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Alas, good soul! the passion of the heart.

Seed-pearl were good now, boiled with syrup of apples,

Tincture of gold, and coral, citron-pills,

Your elecampane root, myrobalanes –

VOLPONE
[
aside
]: Ay me, I have ta'en a grasshopper by the wing!

LADY WOULD-BE
: Burnt silk and amber. You have muscadel

Good in the house –

VOLPONE
:                    You will not drink and part?

LADY WOULD-BE
: No, fear not that. I doubt we shall not get

Some English saffron, half a dram would serve,

60        Your sixteen cloves, a little musk, dried mints,

Bugloss, and barley-meal –

VOLPONE
[
aside
]:                    She's in again.

Before I feigned diseases, now I have one.

LADY WOULD-BE
: And these applied with a right scarlet cloth.

VOLPONE
[
aside
]: Another flood of words! a very torrent!

LADY WOULD-BE
: Shall I, sir, make you a poultice?

VOLPONE
:                                                                  No, no, no.

I'm very well, you need prescribe no more.

LADY WOULD-BE
: I have a little studied physic; but now

I'm all for music, save, i'the forenoons,

An hour or two for painting. I would have

70        A lady, indeed, t'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

In face, in voice, and clothes, and is, indeed,

Our sex's chiefest ornament.

VOLPONE
:                                            The poet,

As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,

Says that your highest female grace is silence.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Which o'your poets? Petrarch? or Tasso? or Dante?

80        Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine?

Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.

VOLPONE
[
aside
]: Is everything a cause to my destruction?

LADY WOULD-BE
: I think I ha'two or three of 'em about me.

VOLPONE
[
aside
]: The sun, the sea, will sooner both stand still

Than her eternal tongue! Nothing can 'scape it.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Here's
Pastor Fido
–

VOLVONE
[
aside
]:                       Profess obstinate silence;

That's now my safest.

LADY WOULD-BE
:                       All our English writers,

I mean such as are happy in th'Italian,

Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly;

90        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 sonneting, trusted 'em with much.

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.

VOLPONE
:                       Alas, my mind's perturbed.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Why, in such cases, we must cure ourselves,

100       Make use of our philosophy -

VOLPONE
:                                    O'y me!

LADY WOULD-BE
: And as we find our passions do rebel,

Encounter 'em with reason, or divert 'em

By giving scope unto some other humour

Of lesser danger: as, in politic bodies

There's nothing more doth overwhelm the judgement,

And clouds 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

110      Which we call mental, leaves some certain faeces

That stop the organs, and, as Plato says,

Assassinates our knowledge.

VOLPONE
[
aside
]:                       Now, the spirit

Of patience help me!

LADY WOULD-BE
:         Come, in faith, I must

Visit you more a-days and make you well.

Laugh and be lusty!

VOLPONE
[
aside
]:             My good angel save me!

LADY WOULD-BE
: There was but one sole man in all the world

With whom I e'er could sympathize; and he

Would lie you often, three, four hours together

To hear me speak; and be sometime so rapt,

120      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.

VOLPONE
:                       Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

LADY WOULD-BE
: For we were
coeetanei
, and brought up -

VOLPONE
[
aside
]: Some power, some fate, some fortune rescueme!

III, v          [
Enter
MOSCA
.]

[
MOSCA
:] God save you, madam!

LADY WOULD-BE
:                       Good sir.

VOLPONE
:                                             Mosca, welcome!

Welcome to my redemption.

MOSCA
:                                            Why, sir?

VOLPONE
[
aside to
MOSCA
]:                          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. All my house,

But now, steamed like a bath with her thick breath.

A lawyer could not have been heard; nor scarce

10        Another woman, such a hail of words

She has let fall. For hell's sake, rid her hence.

MOSCA
: Has she presented?

VOLPONE
:                       Oh, I do not care;

I'll take her absence upon any price,

With any loss.

MOSCA
:                       Madam -

LADY WOULD-BE
:              I ha'brought your patron

A toy, a cap here, of mine own work.

MOSCA
:                       'Tis well

I had forgot to tell you I saw your knight

Where you'd little think it.

LADY WOULD-BE
:                                            Where?

MOSCA
:                                                                 Marry,

Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend him,

Rowing upon the water in a gondole,

20        With the most cunning courtesan of Venice.

LADY WOULD-BE
: Is't true?

MOSCA
:                                            Pursue 'em, and believe your eyes.

Leave me to make your gift.

[
Exit
LADY WOULD-BE
.]

                                                               I knew 'twould take.

For lightly, they that use themselves most licence,

Are still most jealous.

VOLPONE
:                                            Mosca, hearty thanks

For thy quick fiction and delivery of me.

Now to my hopes, what sayst thou?

[
Re-enter
LADY WOULD-BE
.]

LADY WOULD-BE
: But do you hear, sir?

VOLPONE
: Again! I fear a paroxysm.

LADY WOULD-BE
:                                            Which way

Rowed they together?

MOSCA
:                       Toward the Rialto.

LADY WOULD-BE
: I pray you lend me your dwarf.

MOSCA
:                                            I pray you, take him.

[
Exit
LADY WOULD-BE
.]