Volpone and Other Plays (11 page)

SIR POLITIC
: Another whelp!

PEREGRINE
:                              Another, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                                                   Now heaven!

What prodigies be these? The fires at Berwick!

And the new star! These things concurring, strange!

And full of omen! Saw you those meteors?

PEREGRINE
: I did, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                    Fearful! Pray you, sir, confirm me,

40        Were there three porpoises seen above the bridge,

As they give out?

PEREGRINE
:                        Six, and a sturgeon, sir.

SIR POLITIC
: I am astonished!

PEREGRINE
:                              Nay, sir, be not so;

I'll tell you a greater prodigy than these –

SIR POLITIC
: What should these things portend?

PEREGRINE
:                                                           The very day

(Let me be sure) that I put forth from London,

There was a whale discovered in the river,

As high as Woolwich, that had waited there,

Few know how many months, for the subversion

Of the Stode fleet.

SIR POLITIC
:                      Is't possible? Believe it,

50       'Twas either sent from Spain, or the Archdukes!

Spinola's whale, upon my life, my credit!

Will they not leave these projects? Worthy sir,

Some other news.

PEREGRINE
:                     Faith, Stone the fool is dead,

And they do lack a tavern fool extremely.

SIR POLITIC
: Is Mas'Stone dead?

PEREGRINE
:                                         He's dead, sir; why, I hope

You thought him not immortal? [
Aside.
] – O, this knight,

Were he well known, would be a precious thing

To fit our English stage. He that should write

But such a fellow, should be thought to feign

Extremely, if not maliciously –

60   
SIR POLITIC
:                                         Stone dead!

PEREGRINE
: Dead. Lord, how deeply, sir, you apprehend it!

He was no kinsman to you?

SIR POLITIC
:                                         That I know of.

Well, that same fellow was an unknown fool.

PEREGRINE
: And yet you know him, it seems?

SIR POLITIC
:                                                            I did so. Sir,

I knew him one of the most dangerous heads

Living within the state, and so I held him.

PEREGRINE
: Indeed, sir?

SIR POLITIC
:                     While he lived, in action.

He has received weekly intelligence,

Upon my knowledge, out of the Low Countries,

70        For all parts of the world, in cabbages;

And those dispensed, again, t'ambassadors,

In oranges, musk-melons, apricots,

Lemons, pome-citrons, and suchlike; sometimes

In Colchester oysters, and your Selsey cockles.

PEREGRINE
: You make me wonder.

SIR POLITIC
:                                         Sir, upon my knowledge.

Nay, I have observed him at your public
ordinary

Take his
advertisement
from a traveller,

A
concealed statesman
, in a trencher of meat;

And, instantly, before the meal was done,

80         Convey an answer in a toothpick.

PEREGRINE
:                                       Strange!

How could this be, sir?

SIR POLITIC
:                       Why, the meat was cut

So like
his character
, and so laid as he

Must easily read the cipher.

PEREGRINE
:                                            I have heard

He could not read, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                  So 'twas given out,

In policy
, by those that did employ him:

But he could read, and
had your languages
,

And to 't, as sound a noddle
–

PEREGRINE
:                                      I have heard, sir,

That your baboons were spies, and that they were

A kind of subtle nation near to China.

90    
SIR POLITIC
: Ay, ay, your Mamuluchi. Faith, they had

Their hand in a French plot, or two; but they

Were so extremely given to women as

They made discovery of all; yet I

Had my
advices
here, on Wednesday last,

From one of their own
coat
, they were returned,

Made their
relations
, as the fashion is,

And now stand fair for fresh employment.

PEREGRINE
[
aside
]:                                            –Heart!

This Sir Pol will be ignorant of nothing –

It seems, sir, you know all.

SIR POLITIC
:                                       Not all, sir. But

100      I have some general notions; I do love

To note and to observe: though I live out,

Free from the active torrent, yet I'd mark

The currents and the passages of things

For mine own private use; and know the ebbs

And flows of state.

PEREGRINE
:                     Believe it, sir,
I hold

Myself in no small tie unto my fortunes

For casting me thus luckily upon you,

Whose knowledge, if your bounty equal it,

May do me great assistance in instruction

110      For my behaviour, and my bearing, which

Is yet so rude and raw.

SIR POLITIC
:                           Why? came you forth

Empty of rules for travel?

PEREGRINE
:                         Faith, I had

Some common ones, from out that
vulgar grammar
,

Which
he that cried Italian to me
, taught me.

SIR POLITIC
: Why, this it is that spoils all our brave bloods,

Trusting our hopeful gentry unto pedants,

Fellows of outside, and mere bark. You seem

To be a gentleman,
of ingenuous race
–

I not profess it, but my fate hath been

120      To be where I have been consulted with

In this high kind, touching some great men's sons,

Persons of blood and honour –

PEREGRINE
:                                   Who be these, sir?

II, ii        [
Enter
MOSCA
and
NANO
,
disguised, with properties for erecting
11, ii
a scaffold stage
.]

[
MOSCA
:] Under that window, there 't must be. The same.

SIR POLITIC
: Fellows to mount a bank! Did your instructor

In
the dear tongues
never discourse to you

Of the Italian
mountebanks
?

PEREGRINE
:                         Yes, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                                      Why,

Here shall you see one.

PEREGRINE
:                            They are
quacksalvers
,

Fellows that live by venting oils and drugs.

SIR POLITIC
: Was that the character he gave you of them?

PEREGRINE
: As I remember.

SIR POLITIC
:                              Pity his ignorance.

They are the only knowing men of Europe!

10         Great general scholars, excellent physicians,

Most admired statesmen, professed favourites

And
cabinet counsellors
to the greatest princes!

The
only languaged men
of all the world!

PEREGRINE
: And I have heard they are most lewd impostors,

Made all of
terms and shreds
; no less beliers

Of great men's favours than their own vile med'cines;

Which they will utter upon monstrous oaths,

Selling that drug for twopence, ere they part,

Which they have valued at twelve crowns before.

20    
SIR POLITIC
: Sir, calumnies are answered best with silence.

Yourself shall judge. Who is it mounts, my friends?

MOSCA
: Scoto of Mantua, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                                 Is't he? Nay, then

I'll proudly promise, sir, you shall behold

Another man than has been
phant'sied
to you.

I wonder, yet, that he should mount his bank

Here, in this nook, that has been wont t'appear

In face of the Piazza! Here he comes.

[
Enter
VOLPONE
,
disguised as a Mountebank, and followed by the
GREGE
,
or crowd
.]

VOLPONE
[
to
NANO
]: Mount, zany.

GREGE
:                                             Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow!

SIR POLITIC
: See how the people follow him! He's a man

May write ten thousand crowns in bank here.

[
VOLPONE
mounts the stage.
]

30                                                                                 Note,

Mark but his gesture. I do use to observe

The state he keeps in getting up!

PEREGRINE
:                       'Tis worth it, sir.

VOLPONE
: Most noble gentlemen, and my worthy patrons, it may seem strange that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of
the Portico to the Procuratia
, should now, after eight months'absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza.

SIR POLITIC
: Did not I now object the same?

PEREGRINE
:                                                    Peace, sir.

40     
VOLPONE
: Let me tell you: I am not, as your lombard proverb saith,
cold on my feet
, or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate than I accustomed. Look not for it. nor that the calumnious reports of that impudent detractor, and shame to our profession (Alessandro
Buttone
, I mean) who gave out, in public, i was condemned a
sforzato
to the galleys, for poisoning the Cardinal Bembo's – cook, hath at all attached, much less dejected me. No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground
ciarlatani
that spread their cloaks on the pavement as if they meant to do
feats

50       of activity, and then come in lamely with their mouldy tales out of Boccaccio, like stale
Tabarine
, the fabulist: some of them discoursing their travels, and of their tedious captivity in the
Turk's galleys, when, indeed, were the truth known, they were the Christian's galleys, where very temperately they eat bread, and drunk water, as a wholesome penance, enjoined them by their confessors, for base pilferies.

SIR POLITIC
: Note but his bearing and contempt of these.

VOLPONE
: These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groatsworth of unprepared antimony, finely

60         wrapped up in several
scartocaos
, are able, very well, to kill their twenty a week, and play; yet these meagre, starved spirits, who have half stopped the organs of their minds with earthly
oppilations
, want not their favourers among your shrivelled salad-eating artisans, who are overjoyed that they may have their half-pe'rth of physic; though it purge 'em into another world, 't makes no matter.

SIR POLITIC
: Excellent! ha'you heard better language, sir?

VOLPONE
: Well, let 'em go. And, gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, know that for this time our bank, being thus removed

70       from the clamours of the
canaglia
, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell.