Volpone and Other Plays (51 page)

Bartholomew Fair
was not included in the 1616 Folio
Worker
, it was printed (very badly for a Jonsonian text) in folio sheets in 1631, but not published until it was included in the Second Folio, the two–volume
Workes
issued posthumously in 1640. Ben Jonson was paralysed from 1628, and his eyesight was failing. Only three plays were set up for the new Folio in his lifetime, and his exemplary standards of proof-reading were not maintained.

Throughout the Folio text Bartholomew Fair is spelt Bartholmew Fair, and this form is used on the title-page printed in 1631 –
Bartholmew Fayre
. This probably shows Jonson's intention to retain contemporary pronunciation. The Jacobean Londoners appear to have stressed the first syllable (hence St Barde in Nightingale's song – and Bart's as the present-day abbreviation of the famous London teaching hospital), and their pronunciation was probably Banle-mew or Bartle-my in casual, everyday speech. I have followed Eugene Waith in printing the tide
Bartholomew Fair
and using Barthol'mew in the speeches.

Bartholomew Fair
has been reprinted in many collected and selected editions of Jonson's works, and in anthologies of drama. It has been edited and annotated in recent years for the Revels Plays by Professor E. A. Horsman (1960), for the Yale Ben Jonson by Eugene M. Waith (1963), for Nebraska's Regents Renaissance Drama series by Edward B. Partridge (1964), and by Maurice Hussey (1964). I have been able to consult their texts and notes. J. J. Enck and J. A. Barish each devote a chapter to the comedy. Dr Enck regards it as a master-work. Dr Barish concentrates on the technicalities of Jonson's prose. Freda Townsend in
Apologie for Bartholmew Fayre
sees the play as the culmination of Jonson's playwriting career, and argues that his brilliant dramatic practice did not always accord with his neo-classical precepts. Brian Gibbons discusses the play in the light of other satirical comedies of London life
in Jacobean City Comedy
.

Your Majesty is welcome to a Fair;
Such place, such men, such language and such ware,
You must expect; with these the zealous noise
Of your land's
faction
, scandalized at toys,
As
babies
, hobby-horses, puppet-plays,
And such like rage, whereof the petulant ways
Yourself have known, and have been vexed with long.
These for your sport, without
particular wrong
,
Or just complaint of any private man
Who of himself or shall think well or can,
The maker doth present, and hopes tonight
To give you for a
fairing
true delight.

JOHN LITTLBWIT
, a
Proctor

SOLOMON
,
his Man

[
MISTRESS] WIN LITTLEWIT
,
his Wife

DAME PURECRAFT
,
her Mother and a Widow

ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND BUSY
,
her Suitor, a Banbury man

[
NED] WINWIFE
,
his Rival, a Gentleman

[
TOM] OUARLOUS
,
his Companion, a Gamester

BARTHOLOMEW COKES
,
an Esquire of Harrow

HUMPHREY WASP
,
his Man

ADAM OVERDO
,
a Justice of Peace

DAME OVERDO
,
his Wife

GRACE WELLBORN
,
his Ward

LANTERN LEATHERHEAD
,
a Hobby-horse-seller

JOAN TRASH
,
a Gingerbread-woman

EZEKIEL EDGWORTH
,
a Cutpurse

NIGHTINGALE
,
a Ballad-singer

URSULA
,
a Pig-woman

MOONCALF
,
her Tapster

JORDAN KNOCKEM
,
a Horse-courser and Ranger o' Tumball

VAL CUTTING
,
a Roarer

CAPTAIN WHIT
,
a Bawd

PUNK ALICE
,
Mistress o' the Game

TROUBLE-ALL
,
a Madman

TOBY HAGGIES and DAVY BRISTLE		Watchmen, three
POACHER , a Beadle

COSTER-MONGER

PASSENGERS

proctor
: a law agent or attorney.

gamester
: gambler, play-boy ot rake (see also Surly in
The Alchemist)
.

Cokes
: proverbial name for a booby.

horse-courser
: a dealer in horses already ridden.

ranger
: keeper of a park; synonym for ‘gamester'.

ranger
: bully, roisterer.

the game
: prostitution.

coster-monger
: apple-seller.

CORN-CUTTER

TINDERBOX-MAN

NORTHERN
,
a Clothier

PUPPY
,
a Wrestler

PILCHER AND SHAKKWELL
,
Door-keepers

PUPPETS

[
The Persons in the Induction
:

STAGE-KEEPER

BOOK-HOLDER

SCRIVENER
]

            [
Enter
STAGE-KEEPER
.]

        [STAGE-KEEPER:] Gentlemen, have a little patience, they are e' en upon coming, instantly. He that should begin the play, Master Littlewit, the Proctor, has a stitch new fall' n in his black silk stocking; ‘twill be drawn up ere you can tell twenty. He plays one o' the Arches, that dwells about the Hospital, and he has a very pretty part. But for the whole play, will you ha' the truth on't? (I am looking, lest the poet hear me, or his man, Master Brome, behind the
arras
) it is like to be a very conceited scurvy one, in plain English. When't comes to the Fair once, you were e' en as good go to Virginia, for anything there is of Smithfield.

10       He has not hit the
humours
, he does not know 'em; he has not conversed with the Barthol' mew–birds, as they say; he has ne' er a
sword-and-buckler man
in his Fair, nor a little Davy to take toll o' the bawds there, as in my time, nor a Kindheart, if anybody's teeth should chance to ache in his play. Nor a juggler with a well-educated ape to come over the chain for the King of England and back again for the Prince, and sit still on his arse for the Pope and the King of Spain! None o' these fine sights! Nor has he the canvas-cut i' the night for a hobby-horse-man to creep in to his she-neighbour and take his leap there! Nothing!

20      No, an' some writer (that I know) had had but the penning o' this matter, he would ha' made you such a jig-a-jog i' the booths, you should ha' thought an earthquake had been i' the Fair! But these master-poets, they will ha' their own absurd courses; they will be informed of nothing! He has,
sir reverence
, kicked me three or four times about the
tiring-house
, I thank him, for but
offering to put in, with my experience. I' ll be judged by you, gentlemen, now, but for one conceit of mine! Would not a fine pump upon the stage ha' done well for a property now? And a

30       punk set under upon her head, with her stern upward, and ha' been soused by my witty young masters o' the
Inns
o' Court? What think you o' this for a show, now? He will not hear o' this! I am an ass, I? And yet I kept the stage in Master Tarlton's time, I thank my stars. Ho! an' that man had lived to have played in
Barthol' mew Fair
, you should ha' seen him ha' come in, and ha' been cozened i' the
cloth-quarter
, so finely! And Adams, the rogue, ha' leaped and capered upon him, and ha' dealt his
vermin
about as though they had cost him nothing. And then a substantial watch to ha' stol' n in upon 'em, and taken 'em away

40       with mistaking words, as the fashion is in the stage-practice.

[
Enter
]
BOOK-HOLDER
[
and
]
SCRIVENER
to him
.

BOOK-HOLDER
: How now? What rare discourse you are fall' n upon, ha! Ha' you found any familiars here, that you are so free? What's the business?

STAGE-KEEPER
: Nothing, but the
understanding
gentlemen o' the ground here asked my judgement.

BOOK-HOLDER
: Your judgement, rascal? For what? Sweeping the stage? Or gathering up the broken apples for the
bears
with in? Away rogue, it's come to a fine degree in these spectacles when such a youth as you pretend to a judgement.

[
Exit
STAGE-KEEPER
.]

50       And yet he may, i' the most o' this matter i' faith; for the author hath writ it just to his
meridian
, and the scale of the grounded judgements here, his play-fellows in wit. – Gentlemen, not for want of a prologue, but by way of a new one, I am sent out to you here with a scrivener, and certain articles drawn out in haste between our author and you; which if you please to hear,
and as they appear reasonable, to approve of, the play will follow presently. Read, scribe, gi' me the
counterpane
.

SCRIVENER
[
reading
]: ‘Articles of Agreement indented between the spectators or hearers at the Hope on the Bankside, in the county of Surrey, on the one party, and the author of
Barthol' –

60       mew Fair in the said place and county, on the other party, the one and thirtieth day of October 1614, and in the twelfth year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord, James, by the grace of God King of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith; and of Scotland the seven and fortieth.

‘INPRIMIS, It is covenanted and agreed, by and between the parties above-said, and the said spectators and hearers, as well the curious and envious as the favouring and judicious, as also the grounded judgements and under-standings do for themselves severally covenant and agree, to remain in the places their

70       money or friends have put them in, with patience, for the space of two hours and an half and somewhat more. In which time the author promiseth to present them, by us, with a new sufficient play called
Barthol' mew Fair
, merry, and as full of noise as sport, made to delight all, and to offend none; provided they have either the wit or the honesty to think well of themselves.

‘It is further agreed that every person here have his or their free-will of
censure
, to like or dislike at their own charge, the author having now departed with his right: it shall be lawful for any man to judge his
six pen'
orth, his twelve pen' orth, so to

80      his eighteen pence, two shillings, half a crown, to the value of his place; provided always his place get not above his wit. And if he pay for half a dozen, he may censure for all them too, so that he will undertake that they shall be silent. He shall put in for censures here as they do for lots at the
lottery;
marry, if he drop but sixpence at the door, and will censure a crown's worth, it is thought there is no conscience or justice in that.

‘It is also agreed that every man here exercise his own
judgement, and not censure by
contagion
, or upon trust, from

90       another's voice or face that sits by him, be he never so first in the
commission
of wit, as also, that he be fixed and settled in his censure, that what he approves or not approves today, he will do the same tomorrow, and if tomorrow, the next day, and so the next week (if need be), and not to be brought about by any that sits on the bench with him, though they indict and arraign plays daily. He that will swear
Jeronimo
or
Andronicus
are the best plays yet, shall pass unexcepted at here as a man whose judgement shows it is constant, and hath stood still these five and twenty, or thirty years. Though it be an ignorance, it is a