Volpone and Other Plays (57 page)

30 QUAHLOUS
: Go to then, come along. We ha' nothing to do, man, but to see sights now.

KNOCKEM
: Welcome, Master Quarlous and Master Winwife! Will you take any froth and smoke with us?

QUARLOUS
: Yes, sir, but you'll pardon us if we knew not of so much familiarity between us afore.

KNOCKEM
: As what, sir?

QUARLOUS
: To be so lightly invited to smoke and froth.

KNOCKEM
: A good vapour! Will you sit down, sir? This is old Urs'la's mansion. How like you her bower? Here you may ha'

40      your punk and your pig in state, sir, both piping hot.

QUARLOUS
: I had rather ha' my punk cold, sir.

OVERDO
[
aside
]: There's for me; punk! and pig!

URSULA
: What, Mooncalf? You rogue.

She calls [from] within
.

MOONCALF
: By and by; the bottle is almost off, mistress. Here, Master Arthur.

URSULA
[
within
]: I'll part you and your play-fellow there i' the
guarded
coat, an' you sunder not the sooner.

KNOCKEM
: Master Winwife, you are proud, methinks; you do not talk nor drink; are you proud?

50    WINWIFE
: Not of the company I am in, sir, nor the place, I assure you.

KNOCKEM
: You do not
except
at the company, do you? Are you in vapours, sir?

MOONCALF
: Nay, good Master Dan Knockem, respect my mistress' bower, as you call it; for the honour of our booth, none o' your vapours here.

She comes out with a firebrand
.

URSULA
: Why, you thin lean polecat you, an' they have a mind to be i' their vapours, must you hinder ha' What did you know, vermin, if they would ha' lost a cloak, or such a trifle?

60       Must you be drawing the air of pacification here, while I am tormented, within, i' the fire, you weasel?

MOONCALF
: Good mistress, 'twas in the behalf of your booth's credit that I spoke.

URSULA
: Why? Would my booth ha'
broke
if they had fall' n out in't, sir? Or would their heat ha' fired it? In, you rogue, and wipe the pigs, and mend the fire, that they fall not, or I' ll both baste and roast you till your eyes drop out like ' em. (Leave the bottle behind you, and be curst awhile.)

[
Exit
MOONCALF
.]

QUARLOUS
: Body o' the Fair! what's this? Mother o' the bawds?

70  
KNOCKEM
: No, she's mother o' the pigs, sir, mother o' the pigs!

WINWIFE
: Mother o' the Furies, I think, by her firebrand.

QUARLOUS
: Nay, she is too fat to be a Fury, sure some walking sow of tallow!

WINWIFE
: An
inspired
vessel of kitchen-stuff!

She drinks this while
.

QUARLOUS
: She'll make excellent
gear
for the coach-makers here in Smithfield to anoint wheels and axle-trees with.

URSULA
: Ay, ay, gamesters, mock a plain plump soft wench o' the
suburbs
, do, because she's juicy and wholesome. You must ha' your thin pinched ware, pent up i' the compass of a dog-collar (or 'twill not do), that looks like a long
laced
conger
, set

80      upright, and a green feather, like fennel, i' the
jowl
on't.

KNOCKEM
: Well said, Urs, my good Urs; to 'em, Urs!

QUARLOUS
: Is she your quagmire Dan Knockem? Is this your bog?

NIGHTINGALE
: We shall have a quarrel presently.

KNOCKEM
: How? Bog? Quagmire? Foul vapours! Hum' h!

QUARLOUS
: Yes, he that would venture for't, I assure him, might sink into her and be drowned a week ere any friend he had could find where he were.

90  
WINWIFE
: And then he would be a fortnight
weighing
up again.

QUARLOUS
: 'Twere like falling into a whole shire of butter. They had need be a team of Dutchmen, should draw him out.

KNOCKEM
: Answer ' em, Urs. Where's thy Barthol'mew-wit, now, Urs? thy Barthol'mew-wit?

URSULA
: Hang ' em, rotten, roguy cheaters, I hope to see ' em plagued one day (
poxed
they are already, I am sure) with lean
playhouse
poultry, that has the bony rump sticking out like the ace of spades or the point of a
partizan
, that every rib of ' em is like the tooth of a saw; and will so grate ' em with their hips and

100  shoulders, as (take ' em altogether) they were as good lie with a hurdle.

QUARLOUS
: Out upon her, how she drips! She's able to give a man the sweating sickness with looking on her.

URSULA
: Marry look off, with a
patch
o' your face and a dozen i' your breech, though they be o' scarlet, sir. I ha' seen as fine out-sides as either o' yours bring lousy linings to the brokens ere now, twice a week!

QUARLOUS
: Do you think there may be a fine new
cucking-stool
i' the Fair to be purchased? One large enough, I mean.

110      I know there is a pond of capacity for her.

URSULA
: For your mother, you rascal! Out, you rogue, you
hedge-bird
, you pimp, you
pannier-man's
bastard, you!

QUARLOUS
: Ha, ha, ha!

URSULA
: Do you sneer, you dog's-head, you
trendle-tail!
You look as you were begotten atop of a cart in harvest-time, when the whelp was hot and eager. Go, snuff after your brother's bitch, Mistress
Commodity
. That's the livery you wear; 'twill be out at the elbows shortly. It's time you went to't, for the tother remnant.

120 KNOCEEM
: Peace, Urs, peace, Urs. [
Aside
] They' ll Kill the poor whale and make oil of her. – Pray thee go in.

URSULA
: I'll see 'em poxed first, and
piled
, and double-piled.

WINWIFE
: Let's away; her language grows greasier than her pigs.

URSULA
: Does't so, snotty nose? Good Lord! are you snivelling? You were engendered on a she-beggar in a barn when the bald thrasher, your sire, was scarce warm.

WINWIFE
: Pray thee, let's go.

QUARLOUS
: No, faith; I' ll stay the end of her, now; I know she cannot last long; I find by her similes she wanes apace.

URSULA
: Does she so? I' ll
set you gone
. Gi' me my pig-pan hither a little.

130    I' ll scald you hence, an' you will not go.

[
Exit
.]

KNOCKEM
: Gentlemen, these are very strange vapours! And very idle vapours, I assure you!

QUARLOUS
: You are a very serious ass, we assure you.

KNOCKEM
: Hum' h! Ass? And serious? Nay, then pardon me my vapour. I have a foolish vapour, gentlemen: any man that does vapour me the ass, Master Quarlous –

QUARLOUS
: What then, Master Jordan?

KNOCKEM
: I do vapour him the lie.

140  
QUARLOUS
: Faith, and to any man that vapours me the lie, I do vapour that.

                      [
Strikes him
.]

KNOCKEM
: Nay, then, vapours upon vapours.

EDGWORTH, NIGHTINGALE
: 'Ware the pan, the pan, the pan; she comes with the pan, gentlemen!

URSULA
comes in with the scalding-pan. They fight. She falls with it
.

God bless the woman.

URSULA
: Oh!

[
Exeunt
QUARLOUS
and
WINWIFE
.]

TRASH
[
running in
]: What's the matter?

OVERDO
: Goodly woman!

MOONCALF
: Mistress!

URSULA
: Curse of hell, that ever I saw these fiends! Oh! I ha'

150     scalded my leg, my leg, my leg, my leg! I ha' lost a limb in the
service! Run for some cream and salad oil, quickly! [
To
MOON CALF
] Are you under-peering, you baboon? Rip off my hose, an' you be men, men, men!

MOONCALF
: Run you for some cream, good Mother Joan. I' ll look to your basket.

[
Exit
JOAN TRASH
.]

LEATHERHEAD
: Best sit up i' your chair, Urs'la. Help, gentlemen.

[
They lift her up
.]

KNOCKEM
: Be of good cheer, Urs; thou hast hindered me the
currying
of a couple of stallions here, that abused the good race-bawd

160    o' Smithfield; 'twas time for ' em to go.

NIGHTINGALE
: I'faith, when the pan came; they had made you run else. [
Aside to
EDGWORTH
] This had been a fine time for purchase, if you had ventured.

EDGWORTH
: Not a whit; these fellows were too fine to carry money.

KNOCKEM
: Nightingale, get some help to carry her leg out o' the air; take off her shoes; body o' me, she has the
mallanders
, the scratches, the crown scab, and the quitter bone i' the tother leg.

URSULA
: Oh! the pox, why do you put me in mind o' my leg

170     thus, to make it prick and shoot? Would you ha' me i' the Hospital afore my time?

KNOCKEM
: Patience, Urs. Take a good heart; 'tis but a blister as big as a
windgall
. I' ll take it away with the white of an egg, a little honey, and hog's grease; ha' thy
pasterns
well rolled, and thou shalt pace again by tomorrow. I' ll tend thy booth and look to thy affairs the while; thou shalt sit i' thy chair and give directions, and shine Ursa major.

[
Exeunt
KNOCKEM, MOONCALF
,
and
LEATHERHEAD
,
carrying
URSULA
in her chair into her booth
.]

II, vi [
OVERDO
:] These are the fruits of bottle-ale and tobacco! the foam of the one and the fumes of the other! Stay, young man, and
despise not the wisdom of these few hairs that are grown grey in care of thee.

[
Enter
COKES, WASP, MISTRESS OVERDO
,
and
GRACE
.]

EDGWORTH
: Nightingale, stay a little. Indeed I' ll hear some o' this!

COKES
: Come, Numps, come, where are you? Welcome into the Fair, Mistress Grace.

EDGWORTH
[to
NIGHTINGALE
]: 'Slight, he will call company, you shall see, and put us into doings presently.

10 
OVERDO
: Thirst not after that frothy liquor, ale; for who knows, when he openeth the stopple, what may be in the bottle? Hath not a snail, a spider, yea, a newt been found there? Thirst not after it, youth; thirst not after it.

COKES
: This is a brave fellow, Numps; let's hear him.

WASP
: 'Sblood, how brave is he? In a guarded coat? You were best
truck
with him; e'en strip and truck presently; it will become you. Why will you hear him? Because he is an ass, and may be akin to the Cokeses?

COKES
: O, good Numps!

20 
OVERDO
: Neither do thou lust after that tawny weed, tobacco.

COKES
: Brave words!

OVERDO
: Whose complexion is like the Indian's that vents it!

COKES
: Are they not brave words, sister?

OVERDO
: And who can tell if, before the gathering and making up thereof, the
alligarta
hath not pissed thereon?

WASP
: 'Heart, let 'em be brave words, as brave as they will! An' they were all the brava words in a country, how then? Will you away yet? Ha' you enough on him? Mistress Grace, come you away, I pray you, be not you accessory. If you do lose your

30        licence, or somewhat else, sir, with list' ning to his fables, say Numps is a witch, with all my heart, do, say so.

COKBS
:
Avoid
, i' your satin doublet, Numps.

OVERDO
: The creeping venom of which subtle serpent, as
some late writers
affirm, neither the cutting of the perilous plant, nor
the drying of it, nor the lighting or burning, can any way
persway
or assuage.

COKES
: Good, i' faith! is't not, sister?

OVERDO
: Hence it is that the lungs of the
tobacconist
are rotted,

40        the liver spotted, the brain smoked like the backside of the pig-woman's booth, here, and the whole body within, black as her pan you saw e' en now without.

COKES
: A fine similitude, that, sir! Did you see the pan?

EDGWORTH
: Yes, sir.

OVERDO
: Nay, the hole in the nose here, of some tobacco-takers, or the third nostril (if I may so call it), which makes that they can vent the tobacco out like the ace of clubs, or rather the flower-de-lys, is caused from the tobacco, the mere tobacco! when the poor innocent pox, having nothing to do there, is