Volpone and Other Plays (56 page)

One knocks
.

URSULA
: Look who's there, sirrah! Five shillings a pig is my price, at least; if it be a sow-pig, sixpence more; if she be a great-bellied wife, and long for't, sixpence more for that.

OVERDO
[
aside
]:
O temporal O mores!
I would not ha' lost my discovery of this one grievance for my place and worship o' the bench. How is the poor subject abused here! Well, I will fall in
no

110      with her, and with her Mooncalf, and win out wonders of enormity. [
To
URSULA
] By thy leave, goodly woman, and the fatness of the fair, oily as the king's constable's lamp, and shining as his shoeing-horn! Hath thy ale virtue, or thy beer strength? that the tongue of man may be tickled? and his palate pleased in the morning? Let thy pretty nephew here go search and see.

URSULA
: What new roarer is this?

MOONCALF
: O Lord! do you not know him, mistress? 'Tis mad

120      Arthur of Bradley, that makes the orations. Brave master, old Arthur of Bradley, how do you? Welcome to the Fair! When shall we hear you again, to handle your matters? With your back again' a booth, ha? I ha' been one o' your little disciples i' my days!

OVERDO
: Let me drink, boy, with my love, thy
aunt
, here, that I may be eloquent; but of thy best, lest it be bitter in my mouth, and my words fall foul on the fair.

URSULA
: Why dost thou not fetch him drink? And offer him to sit?

MOONCALF
: Is't ale or beer, Master Arthur?

130 OVERDO
: Thy best, pretty stripling, thy best; the same thy dove drinketh and thou drawest on holy days.

URSULA
: Bring him a sixpenny bottle of ale; they say a fool's
handsel
is lucky.

OVERDO
: Bring both, child. Ale for Arthur and beer for Bradley. Ale for thy aunt, boy.

[
Exit
MOONCALF.]

[
Aside
.] My disguise takes to the very wish and reach of it. I shall, by the benefit of this, discover enough and more, and yet get off with the reputation of what I would be: a certain

140    middling thing between a fool and a madman.

ii,iii        [
Enter
JORDAN
KNOCKEM
.]

[
KNOCKEM
:] What! my little lean Urs' la! my
she-bear
! art thou alive yet, with thy litter of pigs, to grunt out another Barthol' - mew Fair, ha?

URSULA
: Yes, and to amble afoot, when the Fair is done, to hear you groan out of a cart, up the
heavy hill
.

KNOCKEM
: Of Holborn, Urs' la, meanst thou so? For what? For what, pretty Urs?

UREULA
: For cutting halfpenny purses, or stealing little penny dogs out o' the Fair.

10 KNOCKEM
: O! good words, good words, Urs.

OVERDO
[
aside
]: Another special enormity! A cutpurse of the sword, the boot, and the feather! Those are his marks.

[
Re-enter
MOONCALF
,
with the ale
.]

URSULA
: You are one of those
horse-leeches
that gave out I was dead in Turnbull Street of a surfeit of bottle-ale and tripes?

KNOCKEM
: No, 'twas better meat, Urs: cow's udders, cow's udders!

URSULA
: Well, I shall be meet with your mumbling mouth one day.

20
KNOCKEM
: What? Thou' lt poison me with a newt in a bottle of ale, wilt thou? Or a spider in a tobacco-pipe, Urs? Come, there's no malice in these fat folks. I never fear thee, an' I can 'scape thy lean Mooncalf here. Let's drink it out, good Urs, and no
vapours
!

[
Exit
URSULA.]

OVERDO
: Dost thou hear, boy? (There's for thy ale, and the remnant for thee.) Speak in thy faith of a faucet, now; is this goodly person before us here, this vapours, a knight of the knife?

MOONCALF
: What mean you by that, Master Arthur?

OVERDO
: I mean a child of the
horn-thumb
, a babe of booty, boy, a cutpurse.

30
MOONCALF
: O Lord, sir! far from it. This is Master Dan Knockem –Jordan, the ranger of Turnbull. He is a horse-courser, sir.

OVERDO
: Thy dainty dame, though, called him cutpurse.

MOONCALF
: Like enough, sir. She' ll do forty such things in an hour (an' you listen to her) for her recreation, if the
toy
take her i' the greasy kerchief. It makes her fat, you see. She battens with it.

40
OVERDO
[
aside
]: Here might I ha' been deceived, now, and ha' put a fool's blot upon myself, if I had not played an
after-game
o' discretion.

URSULA
comes in again, dropping
.

KNOCKEM
: Alas, poor Urs, this's an ill season for thee.

URSULA
: Hang yourself, hackney-man.

KNOCKEM
: How, how, Urs? vapours?
motion
breed vapours?

URSULA
: Vapours? Never
tusk
nor twirl your
dibble
, good Jordan. I know what you' ll take to a very drop. Though you be
captain o' the roarers, and fight well at the case of piss-pots, you shall not fright me with your lion-chap, sir, nor your tusks. You angry? You are hungry. Come, a pig's head will stop your mouth and stay your stomach at all times.

50    KNOCKEM
: Thou art such another mad merry Urs still! Troth, I do make conscience of vexing thee now i' the dog-days, this hot weather, for fear of
found' ring
thee i' the body, and melting down a pillar of the Fair. Pray thee take thy chair again, and
keep state
; and let's have a fresh bottle of ale and a pipe of tobacco; and no vapours. I' ll ha' this belly o' thine
taken up
and thy grass scoured, wench. Look! here's Ezekiel Edgworth, a fine boy of his inches as any is i' the Fair! Has still money in his purse, and will pay all with a kind heart; and good vapours.

II, iv           [
Enter
] to them [
EZEKIEL] EDGWORTH, NIGHTINGALE, CORN-CUTTER, TINDERBOX-MAN
,
and
PASSENGERS
.

[
EDGWORTH
:] That I will, indeed, willingly, Master Knockem.

       [
To
MOONCALF
] Fetch some ale and tobacco.

               [
Exit
MOONCALF
.]

LEATHERHEAD
: What do you lack, gentlemen? Maid, see a fine hobby-horse for your young master; cost you but a token a week his provender.

CORN-CUTTER
: Ha' you any corns i' your feet and toes?

TINDERBOX-MAN
: Buy a
mousetrap
, a mousetrap, or a
tormentor
for a flea!

TRASH
: Buy some gingerbread!

NIGHTINGALE
:

10   Ballads, ballads! fine new ballads:

Hear for your love and buy for your money!

A delicate ballad o' ‘The
Ferret and the Coney
'.

' A Preservative again the Punks' Evil.'

Another of ‘
Goose-green
Starch and the Devil'.

‘A dozen of Divine Points' and ‘The Godly Garters'.

‘The Fairing of Good Counsel', of an ell and three quarters.

What is't you buy?

‘The Windmill blown down by the witch's fart!'

Or ‘Saint George, that O! did break the dragon's heart!'

[
Re-enter
MOONCALF
.]

BDGWORTH
: Master Nightingale, come hither, leave your
mart
a little.

[
Exeunt
PASSENGERS, CORN-CUTTER
,
and
TINDERBOX-MAN
.]

NIGHTINGALE
: O My Secretary! What says my secretary?

OVERDO
: Child o' the bottles, what's he? what's he?

MOONCALF
: A civil young gentleman, Master Arthur, that keeps company with the roarers and disburses all, still. He has ever money in his purse. He pays for them, and they roar for him -one does good offices for another. They call him the secretary, but he serves nobody. A great friend of the ballad-man's –they are never asunder.

OVERDO
: What pity 'tis so civil a young man should haunt this

30      debauched company! Here's the bane of the youth of our time apparent. A proper penman, I see't in his countenance; he has a good clerk's look with him, and I warrant him a quick hand.

MOONCALF
: A very quick hand, sir.

[
Exit
.]

URSULA
: AY, near the fullest passages; and shift 'em often.

BDGWORTH
: And i' your singing you must use
your hawk's eye nimbly, and
fly
the purse to a mark still-where 'tis worn and o' which side – that you may gi' me the sign with your beak, or hang your head that way i' the tune.

URSULA
: Enough, talk no more on't. Your friendship, masters, is not now to begin. Drink your draught of indenture, your sup of covenant, and away. The fair fills apace, company begins to

50       come in, and I ha' ne' er a pig ready yet.

KNOCKEM
: Well said! Fill the cups and light the tobacco. Let's give fire i' th' works and noble vapours.

BDGWORTH
: And shall we ha'
smocks
, Urs' la and good whimsies, ha?

URSULA
: Come, you are i' your bawdy vein! The best the Fair will afford, ' Zekiel, if Bawd Whit keep his word.

[
Re-enter
MOONCALF
.]

How do the pigs, Mooncalf?

MOONCALF
: Very
passionate
, mistress; one on ' em has
wept out an eye
. Master Arthur o' Bradley is melancholy, here; nobody

60        talks to him. will you any tobacco, Master Arthur?

OVERDO
: No, boy, let my meditations alone.

MOONCALF
: He's studying for an oration, now.

OVERDO
[
aside
]: If I can, with this day's travail, and all my
policy
, but rescue this youth here out of the hands of the lewd man and the
strange
woman, I will sit down at night and say with my friend Ovid,
Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Jovis ira, nec ignis
, etc.

KNOCKEM
: Here ' Zekiel; here's a health to U rs' la, and a kind vapour. Thou hast money i' thy pune still; and
store
! How dost thou come by it? Pray thee vapour thy friends some in a

70      courteous vapour.

[
exit
URSULA
.]

EDGWORTH
: Half I have, Master Dan Knockem, is always at your service.

OVERDO
[
aside
]: Ha, sweet nature! What goshawk would prey upon such a lamb?

KNOCKEM
: Let's see what 'tis, ' Zekiel! Count it, come, fill him to pledge me.

II,v               [
Enter
WINWIFE
and
QUARLOUS
.]

WINWIFE
: We are here before ' em, methinks.

QUARLOUS
: All the better; we shall see ' em come in now.

LEATHERHEAD
: What do you lack, gentlemen, what is't you lack? A fine horse? A lion? A bull? A bear? A dog, or a cat? An excellent fine Barthol' mew-bird? Or an instrument? What is't you lack?

QUARLOUS
: 'Slid! here's Orpheus among the beasts, with his fiddle and all!

TRASH
: Will you buy any
comfortable
bread, gentlemen?

10  
QUARLOUS
: And Ceres selling her daughter's picture in ginger-work!

WINWIFE
: That these people should be so ignorant to think us
chapmen
for ' em! Do we look as if we would buy gingerbread? Or hobby-horses?

QUARLOUS
: Why, they know no better ware than they have, nor better customers than come. And our very being here makes us fit to be demanded, as well as others. Would Cokes would come! There were a true customer for ' em.

KNOCKEM
[
to
EDGWORTH
]: How much is't? Thirty shillings? Who's yonder? Ned Winwife? and Tom Quarlous, I thinl!

20  Yes. (Gi' me it all, gi' me it all.) Master Winwife! Master Quarlous! Will you take a pipe of tobacco with us? (Do not discredit me now, ' Zekiel.)

WINWIFE
: Do not see him! He is the
roaring
horse-courser. Pray thee let's avoid him; turn down this way.

QUARLOUS
: '
Slud
, I' ll see him, and roar with him too, an' he roared as loud as Neptune; pray thee go with me.

WINWIFE
: You may draw me to as likely an inconvenience, when you please, as this.