Volpone and Other Plays (18 page)

And you have promised?

MOSCA
:                                   For your good I did, sir.

Nay, more, I told his son, brought, hid him here,

Where he might hear his father pass the deed;

30        Being persuaded to it by this thought, sir:

That the unnaturalness, first, of the act,

And then his father's oft disclaiming in him

(Which I did mean t' help on) would sure enrage him

To do some violence upon his parent.

On which the law should take sufficient hold,

And you be stated in a double hope.

Truth be my comfort, and my conscience,

My only aim was to dig you a fortune

Out of these two old, rotten sepulchres –

VOLTORE
: I cry thee mercy, Mosca.

40    
MOSCA
:                                            Worth your patience,

And your great merit, sir. And see the change!

VOLTORE
: Why? what success?

MOSCA
:                                        Most hapless! you must help, sir,

Whilst we expected th' old raven, in comes

Corvino's wife, sent hither by her husband –

VOLTORE
: What, with a present?

MOSCA
:                                         No, sir, on visitation;

(I' ll tell you how anon) and staying long,

The youth he grows impatient, rushes forth,

Seizeth the lady, wounds me, makes her swear

(Or he would murder her, that was his vow)

50        T' affirm my patron to have done her rape,

Which how unlike it is, you see! and hence,

With that pretext, he's gone t' accuse his father,

Defame my patron, defeat you –

VOLTORE
:                                             Where's her husband?

Let him be sent for straight.

MOSCA
:                                         Sir, I' ll go fetch him.

VOLTORE
: Bring him to the
Scrutineo
.

MOSCA
:                                                   Sir, I will.

VOLTORE
: This must be stopped.

MOSCA
:                                          O, you do nobly, sir.

Alas, 'twas laboured all, sir, for your good;

Nor was there want of counsel in the plot.

But Fortune can, at any time, o'erthrow

60        The projects of a hundred learnèd clerks, sir.

CORBACCIO
: What's that?

VOLTORE
[
to
CORBACCIO
]: Will't please you, sir, to go along?

[
Exeunt
CORBACCIO
and
VOLTORE
.]

MOSCA
: Patron, go in and pray for our success.

VOLPONE
: Need makes devotion; heaven your labour bless!

[
Exeunt
]

v,i                [
A street in Venice
.]

[
Enter
SIR
POLITIC
and
PEREGRINE
.]

[
SIR
POLITIC
:] I told you, sir, it was a plot; you see

What observation is! You mentioned me

For some instructions: I will tell you, sir,

Since we are met here in this height of Venice,

Some few particulars I have set down

Only for this meridian, fit to be known

Of your crude traveller; and they are these.

I will not touch, sir, at your
phrase
, or clothes,

For they are old.

PEREGRINE
:                Sir, I have better.

SIR POLITIC
:                                           Pardon,

10        I meant as they are
themes
.

PEREGRINE
:                                O, sir, proceed.

I'll slander you no more of wit, good sir.

SIR POLITIC
: First, for your
garb
, it must be grave and serious,

Very reserved and locked; not tell a secret

On any terms, not to your father; scarce

A fable but with caution; make sure choice

Both of your company and discourse; beware

You never speak a truth –

PEREGRINE
:                                How!

SIR POLITIC
:                                         Not to strangers,

For those be they you must converse with most;

Others I would not know, sir, but at distance,

20        
So as I still might be a saver in 'em
.

You shall have tricks, else, passed upon you hourly.

And then, for your religion, profess none,

But wonder at the diversity of all;

And, for your part, protest were there no other

But simply the laws o' th' land, you could content you.

Nick Machiavel and Monsieur Bodin both

Were of this mind. Then must you learn the use

And handling of your silver fork at meals,

The
metal
of your glass (these are main matters

30        With your Italian), and to know the hour

When you must eat your melons and your figs.

PEREGRINE
: Is that a point of state too?

SIR POLITIC
:                        Here it is.

For your Venetian, if he see a man

Preposterous
in the least, he has him straight;

He has, he strips him. I'll acquaint you, sir.

I now have lived here 'tis some fourteen months;

Within the first week of my landing here,

All took me for a citizen of Venice,

I knew the forms so well –

PEREGRINE
[
aside
]:               And nothing else.

40   
SIR POLITIC
: I had read Contarini, took me a house,

Dealt with my Jews to furnish it with movables –
Well, if I could but find one man, one man
To mine own heart, whom I durst trust, I would –

PEREGRINE
: What, what, sir?

SIR POLITIC
:               Make him rich, make him a fortune:

He should not think again. I would command it.

PEREGRINE
: As how?

SIR POLITIC
:             With certain
projects
that I have,

Which I may not discover.

PEREGRINE
[
aside
]:               If I had

But one to wager with, I would lay odds, now,
He tells me instantly.

SIR POLITIC
:           One is (and that

50        I care not greatly who knows) to serve the state

Of Venice with red herrings for three years,

And at a certain rate, from Rotterdam,

Where I have correspondence. There's a letter

Sent me from one o' th' States, and to that purpose;

He cannot write his name, but mat's his mark.

PEREGRINE
: He is a chandler?

SIR POLITIC
:           No, a cheesemonger.

There are some other too with whom I treat

About the same negotiation;

And I will undertake it: for 'tis thus

60        I'll do 't with ease, I've cast it all. Your
hoy

Carries but three men in her, and a boy;

And she shall make me three returns a year.

So, if there come but one of three, I save;

If two, I can
defalk
. But this is now

If my main project fail.

PEREGRINE
:           Then you have others?

SIR POLITIC
: I should be loath to draw the subtle air

Of such a place without my thousand aims.

I'll not dissemble, sir; where'er I come

I love to be considerative, and 'tis true

70        I have at my free hours thought upon

Some certain goods unto the state of Venice,

Which I do call my cautions; and, sir, which

I mean, in hope of
pension
, to propound

To the Great Council, then unto the Forty,

So to the Ten. My means are made already –

PEREGRINE
: By whom?

SIR POLITIC
:       Sir, one that though his place be obscure,

Yet he can sway, and they will hear him. He's

A
commnendatore
.

PEREGRINE
: What, a common sergeant?

SIR POLITIC
: Sir, such as they are put it in their mouths

80        What they should say, sometimes, as well as greater.

I think I have my notes to show you –

PEREGRINE
:                               Good sir.

SIR POLITIC
: But you shall swear unto me, on your gentry,

Not to anticipate –

PEREGRINE
: I, sir?

SIR POLITIC
:                 Nor reveal

A circumstance – My paper is not with me.

PEREGRINE
: O, but you can remember, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                                 My first is

Concerning tinder-boxes. You must know

No family is here without its box.

Now, sir, it being so portable a thing,

Put case
that you or I were ill affected

90        Unto the state; sir, with it in our pockets

Might not I go into the Arsenal?

Or you? Come out again? And none the wiser?

PEREGRINE
: Except yourself, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                 Go to, then. I therefore

Advertise to the state how fit it were

That none but such as were known patriots,

Sound lovers of their country, should be suffered

T' enjoy
them in their houses; and even those

Sealed at some office, and at such a bigness

As might not lurk in pockets.

PEREGRINE
:                 Admirable!

100 
SIR POLITIC
: My next is, how t' inquire, and be resolved

By present demonstration, whether a ship

Newly arrivèd from Syria, or from

Any suspected part of all the Levant,

Be guilty of the plague. And where they use

To He out forty, fifty days, sometimes,

About
the
Lazaretto
for their trial,

I'll save that charge and loss unto the merchant,

And in an hour clear the doubt.

PEREGRINE
:                 Indeed, sir!

SIR POLITIC
: Or – I will lose my labour.

PEREGRINE
:                       My faith, that's much.

110 
SIR POLITIC
: Nay, sir, conceive me. 'Twill cost me, in onions,

Some thirty livres –

PEREGRINE
:                   Which is one pound sterling.

SIR POLITIC
: Beside my waterworks. For this I do, sir:

First, I bring in your ship 'twixt two brick walls –

But those the state shall
venture
. On the one

I strain me a fair tarpaulin, and in that

I stick my onions, cut in halves; the other

Is full of loopholes, out at which I thrust

The noses of my bellows; and those bellows

I keep, with waterworks, in perpetual motion,

120    Which is the easiest matter of a hundred.

Now, sir, your onion, which doth naturally

Attract th' infection, and your bellows blowing

The air upon him, will show instantly

By his changed colour if there be contagion,

Or else remain as fair as at the first.

Now 'tis known, 'tis nothing.

PEREGRINE
:                                     You are right, sir.

SIR POLITIC
: I would I had my note.

PEREGRINE
:                      Faith, so would I.

But you ha' done well for once, sir.

SIR POLITIC
:                           Were I false,

Or would be made so, I could show you reasons

130      How I could sell this state, now, to the Turk –

Spite of their galleys, or their ̵

PEREGRINE
:                   Pray you, Sir Pol.

SIR POLITIC
: I have 'em not about me.

PEREGRINE
:                          That I feared.

They're there, sir?

SIR POLITIC
:         No, this is my diary,

Wherein I note my actions of the day.

PEREGRINE
: Pray you let‘s see, sir. What is here? – '
Notandum
,