Volpone and Other Plays (60 page)

TRASH
: Will your worship buy any gingerbread, very good bread, comfortable bread?

90  COKES
: Gingerbread! Yes, let's see.

He runs to her shop
.

WASP
: There's the tother springe!

LEATHERHEAD
: Is this well,
Goody
Joan? to interrupt my market? in the midst? and call away my customers? Can you answer this at the Pie-powders?

TRASH
: Why, if his mastership have a mind to buy, I hope my ware lies as open as another's. I may show my ware as well as you yours.

COKES
: Hold your peace; I' ll content you both: I' ll buy up his shop and thy basket.

100  WASP
: Will you i' faith?

LEATHERHEAD
: Why should you put him from it, friend?

WASP
: Cry you mercy! You' d be sold too, would you? What's the price on you? Jerkin and all, as you stand? Ha' you any
qualities
?

TRASH
: Yes, Goodman Angry-man, you shall find he has qualities, if you cheapen him.

WASP
:
Godso
, you ha' the selling of him! What are they? Will they be bought for love or money?

TRASH
: No indeed, sir.

110  WASP
: For what then? Victuals?

TRASH
: He scorns victuals, sir; he has bread and butter at home, thanks be to God! And yet he will do more for a good meal, if the toy take him i' the belly. marry then they must not set him at lower end; if they do, he' ll go away, though he fast. But put him
atop
o' the table, where his place is, and he' ll do you forty fine things. He has not been sent for, and sought out, for nothing, at your great City suppers, to put down Coriat and Cokely, and been laughed at for his labour. He' ll play you all the puppets

120        
i' the town over, and the players, every company, and his own company too; he spares nobody!

COKES
: I' faith?

TRASH
: He was the first, sir, that ever
baited
the fellow i' the bear's skin, an't like your worship. No dog ever came near him since. And for fine
motions
!

COKES
: Is he good at those too? Can he set out a masque,
trow
?

TRASH
: O Lord, master! sought to, far and near, for his inventions; and he
engrosses
all, he makes all the puppets i' the Fair.

COKES
: Dost thou, in troth, old velvet jerkin? Give me thy hand.

TRASH
: Nay, sir, you shall see him in his velvet jerkin, and a scarf too, at night, when you hear him interpret Master Littlewit's motion.

130 COKES
: Speak no more, but shut up shop presently, friend. I' II buy both it and thee too, to carry down with me, and her hamper beside. Thy shop shall furnish out the masque, and hers the
banquet
. I cannot go less, to set out anything with credit. What's the price, at a word, o' thy whole shop, case and all as it stands?

LEATHERHEAD
: Sir, it
stands
me in six and twenty shillings seven-pence halfpenny, besides three shillings for my ground.

COKES
: Well, thirty shillings will do all, then! And what comes yours to?

140 TRASH
: Four shillings and elevenpence, sir, ground and all, an't like your worship.

COKES
: Yes, it does like my worship very well, poor woman; that's five shillings more. What a masque shall i furnish out for forty shillings (twenty
pound scotch
)! and a banquet of gingerbread ! There's a stately thing! Numps! Sister! and my wedding gloves too! (That I never thought on afore.) All my wedding gloves gingerbread! O me! what a device will there be to make ' em eat their fingers' ends! And delicate brooches for the

150  bride-men and all! And then I'll ha' this
posy
to put to ' em:

        
‘For the best grace,' meaning Mistress Grace, my wedding posy.

GRACE
: I am beholden to you, sir, and to your Barthol' mew-wit.

WASP
: You do not mean this, do you? Is this your first purchase?

COKES
: Yes, faith, and I do not think, Numps, but thou' lt say, it was the wisest act that ever I did in my wardship.

WASP
: Like enough! I shall say anything, I!

III v            [
Enter
EDGWORTH
and
NIGHTINGALE
,
followed by
JUSTICE OVERDO
.]

[
OVERDO
(
aside
):] I cannot beget a project, with all my
political
brain, yet; my project is how to fetch off this proper young man from his debauched company. I have followed him all the Fair over, and still I find him with this songster; and I begin shrewdly to suspect their familiarity; and the young man of a terrible taint, poetry! with which idle disease if he be infected, there's no hope of him in a
state-course
.
Actum est
of him for a
commonwealth's-man
if he go to't in rhyme once.

10    EDGWORTH
[
to
NIGHTINGALE
]: Yonder he is buying o' ginger-bread. Set in quickly, before he part with too much on his money.

NIGHTINGALE
[
singing
]: My masters and friends and good people, draw near, etc.

COKES
: Ballads! hark, hark! Pray thee, fellow, stay a little! Good Numps, look to the goods. What ballads hast thou? let me see, Let me see myself.

He runs to the ballad-man
.

WASP
: Why so! He's flown to another
lime-bush
; there he will flutter as long more, till he ha' ne' er a feather left. is there a vexation like this, gentlemen? Will you believe me now? Here after shall I have credit with you?

20  QUARLOUS
: Yes faith, shalt thou, Numps, an' thou art worthy on't, for thou sweatest for't. I never saw a young pimp-errant and his squire better matched.

WINWIFE
: Faith, the sister comes after 'em well, too.

GRACE
: Nay, if you saw the Justice her husband, my guardian, you were fitted for the
mess
; he is such a wise one his way –

WINWIFE
: I wonder we see him not here.

GRACE
: O! he is too serious for this place, and yet better sport than the other three, I assure you, gentlemen, where' er he is, though't be o' the bench.

30 COKES
: How dost thou call it? ‘A Caveat Against Cutpurses!' A good jest, i' faith; I would fain see that demon, your cutpurse, you talk of, that delicate-handed devil; they say he walks hereabout. I would see him walk, now. Look you, sister, here, here, let him come, sister, and welcome.

He shows his purse boastingly
.

Ballad-man, does any cutpurses haunt hereabout? Pray thee raise me one or two; begin and show me one.

NIGHTINGALE
: Sir, this is a spell against ' em, spick and span new; and 'tis made as 'twere in mine own person, and I sing it in mine own defence. But 'twill cost a penny alone, if you buy it.

40 COKES
: No matter for the price; thou dost not know me, I see; I am an odd Barthol' mew.

MISTRESS OVERDO
: Has't a fine picture, brother?

COKES
: O sister, do you remember the ballads over the nursery-chimney at home o' my own pasting up? There be brave
pictures
! other manner of pictures than these, friend.

WASP
: Yet these will serve to pick the pictures out o' your pockets, you shall see.

COKES
: So I heard ' em say. Pray thee mind him not, fellow; he' ll have an oar in everything.

50 NIGHTINGALE
: It was intended, sir, as if a purse should chance to be cut in my presence, now, I may be blameless, though; as by the sequel will more plainly appear.

COKES
: We shall find that i' the matter. Pray thee begin.

NIGHTINGALE
: To the tune of
Paggington's Pound
, sir.

COKES
: FA, la la la, la la la, fa la la la. Nay, I' ll put thee in tune, and all! Mine own country dance! Pray thee begin.

NIGHTINGALE
: It is a gentle admonition, you must know, sir, both to the purse-cutter and the purse-bearer.

COKES
: Not a word more, out o' the tune, an' thou lov'st me.

FA, la la la, la la la, fa la la la. Come, when?

60 
NIGHTINGALE
: [
singing
]: My masters and friends and good people draw near,

And look to your purses, for that I do say;

COKES
: Ha, ha, this
chimes
! Good counsel at first dash.

NIGHTINGALE
: And though little money in them you do bear,

It cost more to get than to lose in a day.                            
COKES
: Good!

You oft have been told,

Both the young and the old,

Youth, youth, thou hadst better been starved by thy nurse,

Than live to be hangèd for cutting a purse.

COKES
: Good i' faith, how say you, Numps? Is there any barm i' this?

Alack and for pity, why should it be said?

As if they regarded or places or time.

Examples have been

Of some that were seen

Than live to be hangèd for cutting a purse.

COKES
: That again, good ballad-man, that again. O rare! I would fain rub
mine
elbow now, but I dare not pull out my hand. On, I pray thee; he that made this ballad shall be poet to my masque.

NIGHTINGALE
: At Worcester 'tis known well, and even i' the jail,

A knight of good worship did there show his face,

100         Against the foul sinners, in zeal for to rail,

Of judgement so great

A judge there did lose a fair pouch of velvet].                
COKES
: I'faith?

O Lord for thy mercy, how wicked or worse

Are those that so venture their necks for a purse!

Youth, youth, etc.

COKES
: I' faith?

COKES
[
sings the burden with him again
]: Youth, youth, etc.

Pray thee stay a little, friend. Yet o' thy conscience, Numps,

110      speak, is there any harm i' this?

WASP
: To tell you true, 'tis too good for you, ' less you had grace to follow it.

OVERDO
[
aside
]: It doth discover enormity, I' ll mark it more; I ha' not liked a paltry piece of poetry so well, a good while.

COKES
: Youth, youth, etc.

Where's this youth, now? A man must call upon him, for his own good, and yet he will not appear. Look here, here's for him;
handy
-dandy, which hand will he have?

He shows his purse
.

On, I pray thee, with the rest; I do hear of him, but I cannot see him, this Master Youth, the cutpurse.

120 
NIGHTINGALE
: At plays and at sermons, and at the sessions,

'Tis daily their practice such booty to make:

Yea, under the gallows, at executions,

They stick not the stare-abouts' purses to take.

Alack then for pity, must I bear the curse

130  That only belongs to the cunning cutpurse?

COKES
: But where's their cunning now, when they should use it? They are all chained now, I warrant you.

Youth, youth, etc.

The
rat-catcher's
charms are all fools and asses to this! A pox on ' em, that they will not come! that a man should have such a desire to a thing and want it!

QUARLOUS
: 'Fore God, I' d give half the Fair, an' 'twere mine, for a cutpurse for him, to save his longing.

140 COKES
: Look you, sister, here, here, where is't now? which