Volpone and Other Plays (59 page)

60 
WHIT
: A delicate show-pig, hide mistress, with shweet sauce, and crackling like de bay leaf i' de fire, la! tou shalt ha' de clean side o' de table-clot and dy glass vashed with phatersh of dame Annessh Cleare.

LITTLEWIT
: This's fine, verily: ‘Here be the bestpigs, and she does roast 'em as well as ever she did, ' the pig's head says.

KNOCKEM
: Excellent, excellent, mistress, with fire o'
juniper
and rosemary branches! the oracle of the pig's head, that, sir.

DAME PURECRAFT
: Son, were you not warned of the vanity of the eye? have you forgot the wholesome admonition so soon?

70 
LITTLEWIT
: Good mother, how shall we find a pig if we do not look about for't? will it run off o' the spit into our mouths, think you? as in
lubberland
? and cry, ‘we, we'?

BUSY
: No, but your mother, religiously wise, conceiveth it may offer itself by other means to the sense, as by way of steam, which I think it doth here in this place. huh, huh – yes, it doth.

BUSY
scents after it like a hound
.

    And it were a sin of obstinacy, great
obstinacy, high and horrible obstinacy, to decline or resist the good titillation of the
famelic sense
, which is the smell. Therefore be bold – huh, huh, huh – follow the scent. Enter the tents of the unclean for once, and

80       satisfy your wife's frailty. Let your frail wife be satisfied; your zealous mother and my suffering self will also be satisfied.

LITTLEWIT
: Come, win, as good
winny
here as go farther and see nothing.

BUSY
: We 'scape so much of the other vanities by our early ent' – ring.

DAME PURECRAFT
: It is an edifying consideration.

MISTRESS LITTLEWIT
: This is scurvy, that we must come into the fair and not look on't.

LITTLEWIT
: Win, have patience, win, I' ll tell you more anon.

90
KNOCKEM
: Mooncalf, entertain within there; the best pig i' the booth, a pork-like pig. These are banbury-bloods, o' the
sincere stud
, come a pig-hunting. whit, wait, whit, look to your charge.

[
Exeunt
DAME PURECRAFT, MISTRESS LITTLEWIT, LITTLEWIT
,
and
WHIT
into the booth
.]

BUSY
: A pig prepare presently; let a pig be prepared to us.

[
Exit. Enter
MOONCALF
and
URSULA
.]

MOONCALF
: 'slight, who be these?

URSULA
: Is this the good service, jordan, you' d do me?

KNOCKEM
: why, urs? why, urs? thou' lt ha' vapours i' thy leg again presently; pray thee go in; 't may turn to the scratches else.

100
URSULA
: Hang your vapours, they are stale, and stink like youAre these the guests o' the game you promised to fill my pit withal, today?

KNOCKEM
: Ay, what ail they, Urs?

URSULA
: Ail they? They are all sippers, sippers o' the City. They look as they would not drink off two pen' orth of bottle-ale amongst 'em.

MOONCALF
: A body may read that i' their
small printed ruffs
.

KNOCKEM
: Away, thou art a fool, Urs, and thy Mooncalf, too, i' your ignorant vapours, now! hence! Good guests, I say, right

110      
hypocrites, good gluttons. In, and set a couple o' pigs o' the board, and half a dozen of the biggest bottles afore ' em, and call Whit. I do not love to hear innocents abused. Fine ambling hypocrites! and a
stone-puritan
with a
sorrel
head and beard – good mouthed gluttons, two to a pig. Away!

[
Exit
MOONCALF
.]

URSULA
: Are you sure they are such?

KNOCKEM
: O' the right breed; thou shalt try ' em by the teeth, urs. where's this whit?

[
Re-enter
WHIT
.]

WHIT
: Behold, man, and see, what a worthy man am ee! With the fury of my sword, and the shaking of my beard,

120   I will make ten thousand men afeard.

KNOCKEM
: Well said, brave Whit; in, and fear the ale out o' the bottles into the bellies of the Brethren and the Sisters; drink to the cause, and pure vapours.

[
Exeunt
KNOCKEM, WHIT
,
and
URSULA
.]

QUARLOUS
: My roarer is turned tapster, methinks. now were a fine time for thee, winwife, to
lay aboard
thy widow; thou' lt never be master of a betterseason or place; she that will venture herself into the fair and a pig-box will admit any assault, be assured of that.

WINWIFE
: I love not enterprises of that suddenness, though.

130
QUARLOUS
: I'll warrant thee, then, no wife out o'the widows'
hundred
.if I had but as much title to her as to have breathed once on that strait
stomacher
of hers, I would now assure myself to carry her yet, ere she went out of smithfield. Or she should carry me, which were the fitter sight, I confess. But you are a modest
undertaker
, by circumstances and degrees; come, ‘tis disease in thee, not judgement; I should
offer
at all together. look, here's the poor fool again that was stung by the wasp, erewhile.

III iii         [
Enter
JUSTICE OVERDO
.]

[
OVERDO
:] I will make no more orations shall draw on these tragical conclusions. And I begin now to think that, by a spice of
collateral
justice, adam overdo deserved this beating; for I, the said adam, was one cause (a
by-cause
) why the purse was lost; and my wife's brother's purse too, which they know not of yet. But I shall make very good mirth with it at supper (that will be the sport), and put my little friend master humphrey wasp's choler quite out of countenance; when, sitting at the upper end o' my table, as I use, and drinking to my brother cokes and

10         Mistress Alice Overdo, as I will, my wife, for their good affection to old Bradley, I deliver to ' em it was I that was cudgelled, and show ' em the marks. To see what bad events may peep out o' the tail of good purposes! The care I had of that civil young man I took fancy to this morning (and have not left it yet) drew me to that exhortation, which drew the company, indeed, which drew the cutpurse; which drew the money; which drew my brother Cokes's loss; which drew on Wasp's anger; which drew on my beating: a pretty gradation! And they shall ha' it i' their dish, i' faith, at night for fruit; I love to

20       be merry at my table. I had thought once, at one special blow he ga' me, to have revealed myself; but then (I thank thee, fortitude) I remembered that a wise man (and who is ever so great a part o' the Commonwealth in himself) for no particular disaster ought to abandon a public good design. The husbandman ought not, for one unthankful year, to forsake the plough; the shepherd ought not, for one scabbed sheep, to throw by his
tar-box;
the pilot ought not, for one leak i' the poop, to quit the helm; nor the alderman ought not, for one custard more at a meal, to give up his cloak; the constable ought not to

30      break his staff and forswear the watch, for one roaring night;the piper o' the parish (
ut parvis componere magna solebam
) to put up his pipes for one rainy Sunday. These are certain knocking conclusions; out of which I am resolved, comewhat come can – come beating, come imprisonment, come infamy, come banishment,
nay, come the rack, come the hurdle – welcome all – I will not discover who I am till my due time; and yet still all shall be, as I said ever, in Justice' name, and the King's and for the Commonwealth!

40  
WINWIFE
: What does he talk to himself, and act so seriously? Poor fool!

[
Exit
JUSTICE OVERDO
.]

QUARLOUS
: No matter what. Here's fresher argument,
intend
that.

III iv     [
Enter
COKES, MISTRESS OVERDO
,
and
GRACE
,
followed by
WASP
,
loaded with toys
.]

COKES
: Come, Mistress grace, come sister, here's more fine sights yet, i' faith. God's lid, where's Numps?

LEATHERHEAD
: What do you lack, gentlemen? What is't you buy? Fine rattles? drums? babies? little dogs? and birds for ladies? What do you lack?

COKES
: Good honest Numps, keep afore. I am so afraid thou' lt lose somewhat; my heart was at my mouth when I missed thee.

WASP
: You were best buy a whip i' your hand to drive me.

COKES
: Nay, do not mistake. Numps, thou art so apt to mistake; I would but watch the goods. Look you now, the treble fiddle was

10       e' en almost like to be lost.

WASP
: Pray you take heed you lose not yourself. Your best way were e' en get up and ride for more surety. Buy a token's worth of great pins to fasten yourself to my shoulder.

LEATHERHEAD
: What do you lack, gentlemen? Fine purses, pouches, pincases, pipes? What is't you lack? A
pair o'smiths
to wake you i' the morning? or a fine whistling bird?

COKES
: Numps, here be finer things than any we ha' bought, by odds! And more delicate horses, a great deal! Good Numps,

20       stay, and come hither.

WASP
: Will you
scourse
with him? You are in Smithfield; you may fit yourself with a fine easy-going street-nag for your saddle again' Michaelmas term, do. Has he ne' er a little odd cart
for you, to make a
caroche
on, i' the country, with four pied hobby-horses? Why the measles should you stand here with your train,
cheaping of dogs
, birds, and babies? You ha' no children to bestow ' em on, ha' you?

COKES
: No, but
again
' I ha' children, Numps, that's all one.

WASP
: Do, do, do, do. How many shall you have, think you?

30      An' I were as you, I'd buy for all my tenants, too. They are a kind o'
civil
savages that will part with their children for rattles, pipes, and knives. You were best buy a hatchet or two and truck with 'em.

COKES
: Good Numps, hold that little tongue o' thine, and save it a labour. I am resolute Bat, thou know'st.

WASP
: A resolute fool you are, I know, and a very sufficient coxcomb, with all my heart; nay, you have it, sir, an' you be angry, turd i' your teeth, twice (if I said it not once afore); and much good do you.

40 WINWIFE
: Was there ever such a self-affliction? And so impertinent?

QUARLOUS
: Alas! his care will go near to
crack
him; let's in and comfort him.

WASP
: Would I had been set i' the ground, all but the head on me, and had my brains bowled at, or threshed out, when first I underwent this plague of a charge!

QUARLOUS
: How now, numps! almost tired i' your protectorship?
Overparted?
overparted?

WASP
: Why, I cannot tell, sir; it may be I am; does't grieve you?

50 QUARLOUS
: No, I swear does't not, numps, to satisfy you.

WASP
: Numps? ‘sblood, you are fine and familiar! how long ha' we been acquainted, I pray you?

QUARLOUS
: I think it may be remembered, numps, that? ‘twas since morning sure.

WASP
: Why, I hope I know't well enough, sir; I did not ask to be told.

QUARLOUS
: No? Why Then?

WASP
: It's no matter why; you see with your eyes, now, what I said to you today? You' ll believe me another time?

60 QUARLOUS
: Are you removing the Fair, Numps?

WASP
: A pretty question! and a very civil one! Yes faith, I ha' my lading you see, or shall have anon; you may know whose beast I am by my burden. If the
pannier-man's
jack
were ever better known by his loins of mutton, I' ll be flayed, and feed dogs for him, when his time comes.

WINWIFE
: How melancholy Mistress Grace is yonder! pray thee let's go enter ourselves in grace with her.

COKES
: Those six horses, friend, I' ll have

WASP
: How!

COKES
: And the three
Jew's trumps
; and a half dozen o' birds,

70    and that drum (I have one drum already) and your smiths (I like that device o' your smiths very pretty well) and four halberts – and (le' me see) that fine painted great lady, and her three women for
state
, I' ll have.

WASP
: No, the shop; buy the whole shop, it will be best, the shop, the shop!

LEATHERHEAD
: If his worship please.

WASP
: Yes, and keep it during the Fair,
bobchin
.

COKES
: Peace, Numps. – Friend, do not meddle with him, an'

80       you be wise, and would show your head above board. He will sting diorough your wrought nightcap, believe me. A set of these violins I would buy too, for a delicate young
noise
I have t' the country, that are every one a size less than another, just like your fiddles. I would fain have a fine young
masque
at my marriage, now I dunk on't; but I do want such a number of things. And Numps will not help me now, and I dare not speak to him.