Volpone and Other Plays (66 page)

20      smock? I am promised such, and I can spare any gentleman a
moiety
.

QUARLOUS
: Keep it for your companions in beastliness; I am none of ' em, sir. If I had not already forgiven you a greater trespass, or thought you yet worth my beating, I would instruct your manners, to whom you made your offers. But go your ways, talk not to me, the hangman is only fit to discourse with you; the hand of beadle is too merciful a punishment for your trade of life.

[
Exit
EDGWORTH
.]

     I am sorry I employed this fellow; for he thinks me such:

30     
Facinus quos inquinat, aequat
. But it was for sport. And would I

          make it serious, the getting of this licence is nothing to me, without other circumstances concur. I do think how
impertinently
I labour, if the word be not mine that the ragged fellow marked; and what advantage I have given Ned Winwife in this time now, of working her, though it be mine. He' ll go near to
form
to her what a debauched rascal I am, and fright her out of all good
conceit
of me. I should do so by him, I am sure, if I had the opportunity. But my hope is in her temper, yet; and it must needs be next to despair, that is grounded on any part of

40          a woman's discretion. I would give, by my troth, now, all I could spare (to my clothes and my sword) to meet my tattered soothsayer again, who was my judge i' the question, to know certainly whose word he has damned or saved. For till then I live but under a reprieve. I must seek him. Who be these?

[
Enter
BRISTLE
and
POACHER
with
WASP.]

WASP
: Sir, you are a Welsh cuckold, and a prating
runt
, and no constable.

BRISTLE
: You say very well. Come put in his leg in the middle roundel, and let him hole there.

[
They put him in the stocks
.]

WASP
: You stink of leeks,
metheglin
, and cheese, you rogue.

50 
BRISTLE
: Why, what is that to you, if you sit sweetly in the stocks in the meantime? If you have a mind to stink too, your breches sit close enough to your bum. Sit you merry, sir.

QUARLOUS
: How now, Numps?

WASP
: It is no matter how; pray you look off.

QUARLOUS
: Nay, I' ll not offend you, Numps. I thought you had sat there to be seen.

WASP
: And to be sold, did you not? Pray you mind your business, an' you have any.

QUARLOUS
: Cry you mercy, Numps. Does your leg lie high

60        enough?

[
Enter HAGGIS and others of the Watch with
JUSTICEOVERDO
, still disguised, and
BUSY
.]

BRISTLE
: How now, neighbour Haggis, what says Justice Overdo's worship to the other offenders?

HAGGIS
: Why, he says just nothing; what should he say? Or where should he say? He is not to be found, man. He ha' not been seen i' the Fair, here, all this live-long day, never since seven o' clock i' the morning. His clerks know not what to think on't. There is no court of Pie-powders yet. Here they be returned.

BRISTLE
: What shall be done with ' em, then, in your
discretion
?

70  
HAGGIS
: I think we were best put ' em in the stocks, in discretion (there they will be safe in discretion) for the
valour
of an hour or such a thing, till his worship come.

BRISTLE
: It is but a hole matter if we do, neighbour Haggis. [
To
WASP] Come, sir, here is company for you. Heave up the stocks.

WASP
[
aside
]: I shall put a trick upon your Welsh diligence, perhaps.

As they [re-]open the stocks
,
WASP
puts his shoe on his hand and slips it in for his leg
.

BRISTLE
[
To
BUSY
]: Put in your leg, sir.

They bring
BUSY
,
and put him in
.

QUARLOUS
: What, Rabbi Busy! Is he come?

BUSY
: I do obey thee; the lion may roar, but he cannot bite. I am

80     glad to be thus
separated
from the heathen of the land, and put apart in the stocks for the holy cause.

WASP
: What are you, sir?

BUSY
: One that rejoiceth in his affliction and sitteth here to prophesy the destruction of fairs and May-games, wakes and Whitsun-ales, and doth sign and groan, for the reformation of these abuses.

[
They put JUSTICE
OVERDO
in the stocks
.]

WASP
[
to
OVERDO]: And do you sigh and groan, too, or rejoice in your affliction?

OVERDO
: I do not feel it, I do not think of it, it is a thing
without

90        me. Adam, thou art above these batt'ries, these
contumelies
.
In te manca ruit fortuna
, as thy friend Horace says; thou art one,
Quern neque pauperies, neque mors, neque vincula terrent
. And therefore, as another friend of thine says (I think it be thy friend Persius),
Non te quaesiveris extra
.

QUARLOUS
: What's here? A stoic i' the stocks? The fool is turned philosopher.

BUSY
: Friend, I will leave to communicate my spirit with you if I hear any more of those superstitious relics, those
lists
of Latin, the very rags of Rome and patches of Popery.

100 
WASP
: Nay, an' you begin to quarrel, gentlemen, I' ll leave you. I ha' paid for quarrelling too lately. Look you, a device, but shifting in a hand for a foot. God b' w' you.

He gets out
.

BUSY
: Wilt thou then leave thy brethren in tribulation?

WASP
: For this once, sir.

[
Exit
.]

BUSY
: Thou art
a halting neutral
– Stay him there, stop him! – that will not endure the heat of persecution.

BRISTLE
: How, now, what's the matter?

BUSY
: He is fled, he is fled, and dares not sit it out.

BRISTLE
: What, has he made an escape? Which way? Follow,

110     neighbour Haggis!

[
Exeunt
BRISTLE
and
HAGGIS.
Enter
DAUB PURECRAFT
.]

DAME PURECRAFT
: O me! In the stocks! Have the wicked prevailed?

BUSY
: Peace, religious sister; it is my calling, comfort yourself, an extraordinary calling, and done for my better standing, my surer standing hereafter.

The madman enters
.

TROUBLE-ALL
: By whose warrant, by whose warrant, this?

QUARLOUS
: O, here's my man dropped in, I looked for.

OVERDO
: Ha!

DAME PURECRAFT
: O good sir, they have set the faithful here to

120      be wondered at; and provided holes for the holy of the land.

TROUBLE-ALL
: Had they warrant for it? Showed they Justice Overdo's hand? If they had no warrant, they shall answer it.

[
Re-enter
BRISTLE
and
HAGGIS
.]

BRISTLE
: Sure you did not lock the stocks sufficiently, neighbour Toby!

HAGGIS
: No? See if you can lock ' em better.

BRISTLE
[
tries the lock
]: They are very sufficiently locked, and truly, yet something is in the matter.

TROUBLE-ALL
: True, your warrant is the matter that is in question; by what warrant?

130 
BRISTLE
: Madman, hold your peace; I will put you in his room else, in the very same hole, do you see?

QUARLOUS
: How? Is he a madman?

TROUBLE-ALL
: Show me Justice Overdo's warrant, I obey you.

HAGGIS
: You are a mad fool; hold your tongue.

TROUBLE-ALL
: In Justice Overdo's name I drink to you, and here's my warrant.

Shows his can
.

[
Exeunt
BRISTLE
and
HAGGIS
.]

OVERDO
[
aside
]: Alas, poor wretch! How it
earns
my heart for him!

QUARLOUS
[
aside
]: If he be mad, it is in vain to question him. I' ll

140     try, though. [
To him
] Friend, there was a gentlewoman showed you two names, some hour since, Argalus and Palemon, to mark in a book. Which of ' em was it you marked?

TROUBLE-ALL
: I mark no name but Adam Overdo; that is the name of names; he only is the sufficient magistrate; and that name I reverence; show it me.

QUARLOUS
[
aside
]: This fellow's mad indeed. I am further off now than afore.

OVERDO
[
aside
]: I shall not breathe in peace till I have made him some amends.

QUARLOUS
[
aside
]: Well, I will make another use of him, is come     150

in my head: I have a nest of beards in my trunk, one something like his.

[
Exit
.]

The watchmen come back again
.

BRISTLE
: This mad fool has made me that I know not whether I have locked the stocks or no; I think I locked ' em.

[
He tries the lock
.]

TROUBLE-ALL
: Take Adam Overdo in your mind and fear nothing.

BRISTLE
: 'Slid, madness itself, hold thy peace, and take that.

[
Strikes him
.]

TROUBLE-ALL
: Strikes thou without a warrant? Take thou that.

The madman fights with ' em, and they leave open the stocks
.

BUSY
: We are delivered by miracle; fellow in fetters, let us not

160     refuse the means; this madness was of the spirit. The malice of the enemy hath mocked itself.

[
Exeunt
BUSY
and
JUSTICE OVERDO
.]

DAME PURECRAFT
: Mad, do they call him! The world is mad in error, but he is mad in truth. I love him o' the sudden (the cunning-man said all true), and shall love him more and more. How well it becomes a man to be mad in truth! O, that I might be his yoke-fellow and be mad with him! What a many should we draw to madness in truth with us!

[
Exit
.]

The watch, missing them, are affrighted
.

BRISTLE
: How now? All 'scaped? Where's the woman? It is witchcraft! Her velvet hat is a witch, o' my conscience, or my key,
t' one
! The madman was a devil and I am an ass; so bless

170     me, my place, and mine office.

[
Exeunt
.]

v,i                              [
The Fair
.]

[
Enter
LEATHERHEAD
with
FILCHER
and
SHARKWELL
,
doorkeepers. They begin to erect the puppet-theatre
.]

[
LEATHERHEAD
:] Well, luck and Saint Barthol' mew! Out with the
sign
of our
invention
, in the name of wit, and do you beat the drum the while. All the fowl i' the Fair, I mean all the dirt in Smithfield (that's one of Master Littlewit's
carwitchets
now), will be thrown at our banner today if the matter does
not
please the people. O the motions that I, Lantern Leatherhead, have given light to i' my time, since my Master Pod died!
Jerusalem
was a stately thing, and so was
Nineveh
, and
The City of Norwich
, and
Sodom and Gomorrah
, with the rising o' the prentices and pulling down the bawdy-houses there, upon Shrove

10          Tuesday; but
The Gunpowder Plot
, there was a
get-penny
! I have presented that to an eighteen- or twenty-pence audience nine times in an afternoon. Your
home-born
projects prove ever the best, they are so easy and familiar. They put too much learning i' their things nowadays, and that I fear will be the spoil o' this. Littlewit? I say Micklewit! if not too
mickle
! – Look to your gathering there, Goodman Filcher.

FILCHER
: I warrant you, sir.

20  
LEATHERHEAD
: An' there come any gentlefolks, take twopence a piece, Sharkwell.

SHARKEWELL
: I warrant you, sir, three pence an' we can.

V,ii.          
The
JUSTICE
comes in like a porter

[
OVERDO
:] This later disguise, I have borrowed of a porter, shall carry me out to all my great and good ends; which, however

              interrupted, were never destroyed in me. Neither is the hour of my severity yet come, to reveal myself, wherein, cloud-like, I will break out in rain and hail, lightning and thunder, upon the head of enormity. Two main works I have to prosecute: first, one is to invent some satisfaction for the poor kind wretch who is out of his wits for my sake; and yonder I see him coming. I will walk aside and
project
for it.