Volpone and Other Plays (58 page)

50       miserably, and most unconscionably slandered.

COKES
: Who would ha' missed this, sister?

MISTRESS OVERDO
: Not anybody but Numps.

COKES
: He does not understand.

EDGWORTH
[
aside
]: Nor you feel.

He picketh his purse
.

COKES
: What would you have, sister, of a fellow that knows nothing but a basket-hilt and an old
fox
in't? The best music i' the Fair will not move a log.

EDGWORTH
giving the purse to
NIGHTINGALE
]: In to Urs'la, Nightingale, and carry her comfort; see it told. This fellow was

60        sent to us by fortune for our first fairing.

[
Exit
NIGHTINGALE
.]

OVERDO
: But what speak I of the diseases of the body, children of the Fair?

COKES
: That's to us, sister. Brave i' faith!

OVERDO
: Hark, O you sons and daughters of Smithfield! and hear what malady it doth the mind: it causeth swearing, it causeth swaggering, it causeth snuffling, and snarling, and now and then a hurt.

MISTRESS OVERDO
: He hath something of Master Overdo, me-thinks, brother.

COKES
: So methought, sister, very much of my brother Overdo;

70      and 'tis when he speaks.

OVERDO
: Look into any angle o' the town – the
straits
, or the Bermudas – where the quarrelling lesson is read, and how do they entertain the time but with bottle-ale and tobacco? The lecturer is o' one side, and his pupils o' the other; but the
seconds
are still bottle-ale and tobacco, for which the lecturer reads and the novices pay. Thirty pound a week in bottle-ale! forty in tobacco! and ten more in ale again. Then for a suit to drink in, so much, and (that being slavered) so much for another suit, and then a third suit, and a fourth suit! And still the bottle-ale

80      slavereth, and the tobacco stinketh!

WASP
: Heart of a madman! are you rooted here? Will you never away? What can any man find out in this bawling fellow to grow here for? He is a full handful higher sin' he heard him. Will you fix here? And set up a booth, sir?

OVERDO
: I will conclude briefly –

WASP
: Hold your peace, you roaring rascal! I' ll run my head i' your chaps else. – You were best build a booth and entertain him; make your will, an' you say the word, and him your heir! Heart, I never knew one taken with a mouth of a
peck
, afore.

90        By this light, I' ll carry you away o' my back, an' you will not come.

He gets him up on pick-pack
.

COKES
: Stay, Numps, stay, set me down! I ha' lost my purse, Numps, O my purse! One o' my fine purses is gone!

MISTRESS OVERDO
: Is't indeed, brother?

COKES
: Ay, as I am an honest man, would I were an arrant rogue, else! A plague of all roguy, damned cutpurses for me.

WASP
: Bless ' em with all my heart, with all my heart, do you see! Now, as I am no infidel, that I know of, I am glad on't. Ay I am; here's my witness! do you see, sir? I did not tell you of his

100    fables, I? No, no, I am a dull
malt-horse
, I, I know nothing. Are you not justly served i' your conscience now? Speak i' your
conscience. Much good do you with all my heart, and his good heart that has it, with all my heart again.

EDGWORTH
[
aside
]: This fellow is very charitable; would he had a purse, too! But I must not be too bold all at a time.

COKES
: Nay, Numps, it is not my best purse.

WASP
: Not your best! Death! why should it be your worst? Why should it be any, indeed, at all? Answer me to that. Gi'

110     me a reason from you, why it should be any?

COKES
: Nor my gold, Numps; I ha' that yet; look here else, sister.

[
Shows his other purse
.]

WASP
: Why so, there's all the feeling he has!

MISTRESS OVERDO
: I pray you, have a better care of that, brother.

COKES
: Nay, so I will, I warrant you; let him catch this, that catch can. I would fain see him get this, look you here.

WASP
: So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so! Very good.

COKES
: I would ha' him come again, and but offer at it. Sister, will you take notice of a good jest? I will put it just where th'

120      other was, and if we ha' good luck, you shall see a delicate fine trap to catch the cutpurse nibbling.

EDGWORTH
[
aside
]: Faith, and he' ll try ere you be out o' the Fair.

COKES
: Come, Mistress Grace, prithee be not melancholy for my mischance; sorrow wi' not keep it, sweetheart.

GRACE
: I do not think on't, sir.

COKES
: 'Twas but a little scurvy
white money
, hang it; It may hang the cutpurse one day. I ha' gold left to gi' thee a fairing, yet, as hard as the world goes. Nothing angers me but that

130      nobody here looked like a cutpurse, unless 'twere Numps.

WASP
: How? I? I look like a cutpurse? Death! your sister's a cutpurse! and your mother and father and all your kin were cutpurses! And here is a rogue is the bawd o' the cutpurses, whom I will beat to begin with.

They speak all together, and
WASP
beats the
JUSTICE
.

[Exeunt.]

III, i        [
The Fair
.]

[
LEATHERHEAD, JOAN TRASH
,
and others sit at their booths and stalls
.]

[
Enter
WHIT, HAGGIS
,
and
BRISTLE
.]

[
WHIT
:] Nay, 'tish all gone, now! Dish 'tish, phen tou vilt not be phitin call, Master Offisher! Phat ish a man te better to lishen out noishes for tee an' tou art in an oder ' orld – being very shuffishient noishes and gallantsh too, one o' their
brabblesh
would have fed ush all dish fortnight; but tou art so bushy about beggersh still, tou hast no leshure to intend shentlemen, an't be.

HAGGIS
: Why, I told you, Davy Bristle.

BRISTLE
: Come, come, you told me a pudding, Toby Haggis; a matter of nothing; I am sure it came to nothing! You said,

10        ‘Let's go to Urs' la's, ' indeed; but then you met the man with the
monsters
, and I could not get you from him. An old fool, not leave seeing yet?

HAGGIS
: Why, who would ha' thought anybody would ha' quarrelled so early? Or that the ale o' the Fair would ha' been up so soon?

WHIT
: Phy, phat o' clock tost tou tink it ish, man?

HAGGIS
: I cannot tell.

WHIT
: Tou art a vishe vatchman, i' te mean-teeme.

HAGGIS
: Why, should the watch go by the clock, or the clock by the watch, I pray?

20 BRISTLE
: One should go by another, if they did well.

WHIT
: Tou art right now! Phen didst tou ever know or hear of a shuffishient vatchman but he did tell the clock, phat bushiness soever he had?

BRISTLE
: Nay, that's most true, a sufficient watchman knows what o' clock it is.

WHIT
: Shleeping or vaking! ash well as te clock himshelf, or te
jack
dat shtrikes him!

BRISTLE
: Let's inquire of Master Leatherhead, or Joan Trash here.

30             Master Leatherhead, do you hear, Master Leatherhead?

WHIT
: If it be a Ledderhead, tish a very tick Ledderhead, tat sho mush noish vill not piersh him.

LEATHERHEAD
: I have a little business now, good friends; do not trouble me.

WHIT
: Phat? Because o'ty wrought neet-cap and ty phelvet sherkin, man? Phy? I have sheen tee in ty ledder sherkin ere now, mashter o' de hobby-horses, as bushy and as stately as tou sheem'st to be.

TRASH
: Why, what an' you have, Captain Whit? He has his choice of jerkins, you may see by that, and his caps too, I assure

40    you, when he pleases to be either sick or employed.

LEATHERHEAD
: God a mercy, Joan, answer for me.

WHIT
: Away, be not sheen i' my company; here be shentlemen, and men of vorship.

[
Exeunt
HAGGIS
and
BRISTLE
.]

III ii              [
Enter
QUARLOUS
and
WINWIFE
.]

QUARLOUS
: We had wonderful ill luck to miss this prologue o' the purse, but the best is we shall have five acts of him ere night. He'll be spectacle enough! I'll answer for't.

WHIT
: O Creesh! Duke Quarlous, how dosht tou? Tou dosht not know me, I fear? I am te vishesht man, but Justish overdo, in all barthol' mew fair, now. Gi' me twelvepence from tee, I vill help tee to a vife vorth forty marks for't, an't be.

QUARLOUS
: Away, rogue, pimp, away.

WHIT
: And she shall show tee as fine
cut' ork
for't in her shmock too as tou cansht vish i' faith. Vilt tou have her, vorshipful

10    vinvife?I vill help tee to her, here, be an't be, in te pig-quarter, gi' me ty twel' pence from tee.

WINWIFE
: Why, there's twel' pence; pray thee, wilt thou be gone?

WHIT
: Tou art a vorthy man, and a vorshipful man still.

QUARLOUS
: Get you gone, rascal.

WHIT
: I do mean it, man, prinsh Quarlous, if tou hasht need on me, tou shalt find me here at Urs' la's. I vill see phat ale and punk ish i' te pigshty for tee, bless ty good vorship.

[
Exit
.]

QUARLOUS
: Look! who comes here! john Littlewit!

20  WINWIFE
: And his wife, and my widow, her mother – the whole family.

[
Enter, at a distance
,
BUSY, DAME PURBCRAFT, LITTLEWIT
,
and
MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
.]

QUARLOUS
: 'Slight, you must gi' em all fairings, now!

WINWIFE
: Not I, I' ll not see 'em.

QUARLOUS
:They are going a-feasting. What school-master's that is with 'em?

WINWIFE
: That's my rival, I believe, the baker!

BUSY
: So, walk on in the middle way,
fore-right;
turn neither to the right hand nor to the left. Let not your eyes be drawn aside with vanity, nor your ear with noises.

30    QUARLOUS
: O, I Know him by that start!

LEATHERHEAD
: What do you lack? What do you buy, pretty mistress? a fine hobby-horse, to make your son a
tilter
? a drum to make a sol a fiddle to makehim a reveller? What is't you lack? Little dogs for your daughters? or babies, male or female?

BUSY
: Look not toward them, hearken not! The place is smith-field, or the field of smiths, the grove of hobby-horses and trinkets. The wares are the wares of devils; and the whole Fair is the shop of satan! They are hooks and baits, very baits, that

40        are hung out on every side to catch you, and to hold you as it were, by the gills and by the nostrils, as the fisher dodi; there-fore, you must not look, nor turn toward them. The
heathen man
could stop his ears with waxagainst the harlot o' the sea; do you the like, with your fingers, against the bells of the Beast.

WINWIFE
: What flashes comes from him!

QUARLOUS
: O, he has diose of his oven! A notable hot baker
'twas, when he plied the
peel
. He is leading his flock into the Fair, now.

WINWIFE
: Rather driving ' em to the pens; for he will let ' em look upon nothing.

50             [
Enter
KNOCKEM
and
Whit,
from
URSULA'S
booth
.]